This girl knows God is in control...

Last August, I attended the Women of Faith conference. I bought the t-shirt that said "This Girl Knows God is in Control".

In January of 2007, Eric & I decided to try fertility treatment one last time - literally. My insurance would cover one round of IVF. So either it worked or it didn't. As soon as we started, I began to pray. I was very specific in my prayer. I asked that God impart the wisdom & knowledge to Dr. Pinto in order to successfully transfer a fertilized embryo, resulting in the delivery of one healthy child. A week before Easter, Dr. Pinto was able to harvest 22 eggs. Of those, 14 were successfully fertilized. The day before Easter, we went for our embryo transfer. We were told that only 4 embryos had survived. Two would be transferred, & the other 2 would be frozen. It snowed that day. I took that as a sign from God. I went home for 4 days of bedrest, & then had to wait 2 weeks to take a pregnancy test. Dr. Pinto called me at home that evening to tell me that my blood test was positive! I kept praying. I tried to remain positive & optimistic, but I was still worried. When we finally got to have our first sono & saw the little heartbeat, I cried. God had answered my prayers. Still, we chose not to make the news public. We had told a few close friends, Pastor Ryan & Devin. We waited until I hit the 12 week mark to tell everyone else. Let me just say this: no way would any of this had been possible without Dr. Pinto. He was absolutely fabulous. We consider him a part of our family now. :)

Due to my "advanced maternal age" (37 is advanced? are you kidding?), I was considered high risk & was sent for genetic testing. I kept praying. My initial tests came back negative. Now I was having to have monthly sonograms. We found out that our baby was going to be a boy! My second round of test results came back showing positive (5%) for Trisomy 18. I was so upset. I prayed harder. I had some close friends praying for us. I had Pastor Ryan praying with me. I had the amniocentesis test, & then had to wait 10 long days for the results. I prayed even harder. The morning the counselor called with the results was one of the happiest days of my life. Deren was a healthy little boy! God is good.

Deren was born in December. Perfectly healthy. Beautiful. A real gift from God.

At the end of December, my company closed the facility where I worked. For the first time ever, I was unemployed. I began to pray. I decided that I really wanted to work at Cook Children's Medical Center. I completed the on-line application. I was contacted by the tech supervisor for an interview on a Wednesday. During the interview, he asked how many resumes I had put out. My response: "One. This is where I want to work. If you don't offer me a job, I'll start sending out others - I have 200 of them." Then I started to look at daycares (just in case). I checked out the Kids' Place (run by Cook's/Harris). It was perfect. Unfortunately, they only had a 2 day slot open. What was I supposed to do with Deren the other 3 days? I looked at other daycares. One of them was awful. No way would I leave my infant there! I checked out the Campfire center. It passed. Very clean. Lots of love & interaction with the infants. Okay, it was doable until a full-time opening became available. On Friday of that week, the tech supervisor contacted me by email to let me know that he was waiting for the position to be posted. He had forwarded my paperwork to HR, & had instructed them to offer me the job once it was posted. YEA!!!! I called Campfire to let them know I would be in the next week to enroll Deren. A few hours later, I recieved a call from the Kids' Place telling me that they had had a family withdraw, & now had a full-time slot available for Deren if I wanted it. You know, last year, I prayed so much for so many things, that I was scared to ask for more. But God knew what was in my heart, even though I didn't ask. And he showed up bigEvery night, before I go to bed, I thank God for the gifts He's given me. (ccf)