The holidays are a mix of magic and remembrance for us. 

Magic, now that our miracle baby is here with us. Remembrance of what the holidays were to us for the years leading up to him joining our family. I remember the past holidays full of "when will you grow your family?", seeing the joy of other families with little ones and the added "babies look good on you two. It's time." Each comment crushing my soul a little more. We'd been married four years, and everyone in the world (or so it seemed) wanted to see us with children. 

The thing that most didn't know at the time was that we WERE trying. And we too wanted to see us with children. We had been trying. For three years we tried, both with and without medical intervention, to grow our family. 

​The Christmas season of 2015 brought much joy when we found out we were expecting, however, just three short weeks later we'd learn that the baby was not viable and we experienced a great loss a week before Christmas. In those moments I was grateful to be surrounded with family, holiday obligations and business, but my heart ached for the "almost". 

A year later, almost exactly to the day, we found out we were expecting Grey and I literally fell to my knees in gratefulness and pure joy. We had changed our protocol with our doctors and something worked to bring us our sweet boy. 

Fast forward to this year and we are celebrating our second Christmas with our sweet little guy and we are now looking to the future and what we ultimately want our family to look like. 

We know there is a realistic chance that we could, again, struggle and are open to options that may help us conceive faster in natural, non-invasive ways that don't cost the large pricetag that IVF and other methods bring along. 

Which is why I'm thankful for discreet over the counter options like Stork OTC. Found at Target in the family planning aisle, Stork OTC is a product that aids in helping couples with certain issues conceive faster, naturally. It’s cervical cap insemination technique helps deliver sperm as close to the cervical opening as possible, increasing the chances of fertilization by up to 20%. 

Just $59.99 at most retailers, (I got mine at Target, because I practically live there this time of year), it's a small price to pay for a higher chance of us growing our family. To me, I can't put a price on that. 

You can also find it online at www.StorkOTC.com. 

Labeling this Part One felt wrong, as this journey has been in the works for two years now. 

But I wanted to document more of our fertility/infertility journey, so thus the start with a Part One. I dislike the word infertility. It sounds hopeless, whereas we have so much hope. Hope that God's plan is greater than our struggles, hope that we will be granted wisdom and patience and peace in our circumstance and hope that we will have our baby one day. 

And we have grateful hearts. Grateful for God bringing us together. I am grateful that my husband is strength, that he is hope, that he is love, kindness, beauty and light. 

We found out this morning that our insurance (the plan we pay the equivalent of a house rent payment for every month) won't pick up a nickle of our upcoming costs. No office visits, no testing, nada. And it kind of feels like being punched in the stomach. All I could do, after trying to get it to go another way, was joke with the kind fertility office girl with a "well, what can ya do, we still want a baby." when she asked, without emotion, if we still wanted to move forward with our appointments. 

​Of course. We still need to know what's going on. We still want to know what causes my pain, inflammation, discomfort and ultimately our infertility. We still want to move forward on trying to do all we can on our part to bring a child into this world. Of course. So, as I stated before, what can ya do? We can give it to God. We can pray on this news, we can pray for our future child. We can pray for His peace and that His will be done in His timing. We can pray that we will be able to financially move forward. We can pray. 

We can pray, we can pray, we can pray. We ask that you would pray too. 

From a hopeful future mama, I appreciate you stopping by to read a little piece of our world.