okay... here we go!

the long awaited update... i am finally ready to tell.

okay, so let me tell you a story

about the above necklace.

i bought the vintage creation at a flea market

in elkhorn, wisconsin

on september 26th, 2010.

some of you may remember...

i was there mainly to meet up with two blogger friends.

one, i had met before... at that same flea market.

her name is beth.

many of you know her.

the other, i had not yet met.

but of all the blogger friends i have ever made,

she was the very closest with whom i had yet become,

{except for maybe one other}.

her name is claire.

beth only lives a little over two hours away.

it took some planning,

but meeting up with her was definitely easy and doable.

but claire...

i never thought i would have the chance to meet claire in person.

for you see, when i first met her in blogland,

she lived in south africa.

since then, she had moved to ireland... where she lives now.

still, i did not think we would have the chance.

but claire wrote to me some time in late summer

and told me she would be coming to the states

for a writing conference in texas.

she expressed that she would like to stop along the way

and spend some time in my neck of the woods,

and hopefully meet up with me.

i jumped at the chance.

we had discussed a similar plan a year before,

but it did not work out.

well, this time it did!!

i was so excited to finally meet this extraordinary woman.

someone i had formed an instant bond with,

but then with whom i grew apart,

partly because of busy lives,

partly because of misunderstanding or struggle to communicate,

which is inevitable when becoming very close to someone...

almost to the point of feeling

you have known them your entire life...

but not being able to see them face to face

or hear their voice...

not being able to truly yet know them.

this is why i was filled with delight to meet her...

to put a face and spirit and soul and voice

with the photographs and words that had painted a picture

of this claire-girl that i had come to know.

and meeting her was far beyond what i

had anticipated it would be in that regard.

she is now one of the dearest friends of my life so far.

i could go on about the time we shared while she was here.

but that is not the point of this post...

this story.

the point is the significance her visit had...

the impact it made.

so, before i go on, i'll just say

that when this necklace was purchased at a little booth

in that flea market,

i stood with claire and beth,

debating whether i should buy one of these

vintage charm neck chains

or a beautiful {much more expensive} bracelet

that had a bird charm and a charm with

the word "flight" {or something like that}

and lots of sparkle and vintage charm.

anyone who knows me, knows how much i love birds.

and the bracelet reminded me of

a favorite song by alison krauss.

but i could not bring myself to pay

thirty-something dollars for it

when i had no business buying anything at all without a job.

so, i wandered over to another part of the table...

the section that had about ten remaining

of what was originally about fifty or more of these key chains...

not your traditional key chains.

these were chains to wear around your neck

that held vintage charms, such as the ones you see here...

old keys and tags and other various bits and baubles.

each chain, unique and none exactly like the next.

each with interesting pieces of history...

none that were significant at the time,

but all that contained a key,

and made for a fun adorning accessory many years later.

and they were only about ten dollars!

you may wonder why i write so much about this little necklace.

i'm getting to that.

i promise.

so, i had a hard time choosing,

even though there were only about ten left by the time i arrived.

{by the way, thanks to claire and beth for taking me back

to the booth where this jewelry was...

they both knew how much i love jewelry and vintage things,

so they both thought it would be perfect for me,

and kindly took me back there,

even though they had already been there once before i arrived.}

anyway, i finally chose the simplest one,

mostly based on the word engraved in the vintage tag...

B E L I E V E

{i'm sure this was added recently

and not back when the tag was first made,

but i am guessing the engraved number was original.}

the number on the tag has no significance or meaning for me...

just some random number that meant something

at the time that it was made, i guess.

but the word had great significance for me.

i'll get back to that in a bit.

okay... let's see.

where do i want to take this story now?

i guess i want you to take notice of one

of the other vintage charms.

it is an actual vintage safety pin.

though i loved the vintage key and the tag that says "believe",

the safety pin had no real meaning for me...

at least not when i bought it.

but it came with the chain

that held the key and the "believe",

so i bought it without any thought

or real attention to the safety pin.

in fact, though i love the chain,

i did not wear it immediately upon purchase.

{yes, i ended up getting it,

as you must have guessed from the photos.}

and though i could not wait to wear it some time,

it actually sat in its plastic bag

that the merchant had placed it in...

inside the cup holder of my car

for a couple of weeks.

life got busy

and i forgot it was there.

anyway, after walking around the flea market for a while,

claire, beth and i headed toward our cars,

drove to the other side of town to have

some good wisconsin eats before parting ways,

and then, some time in the early evening,

claire, who had been staying in beth's home for a few days,

loaded her suitcase and other belongings

into my little silver car

and boarded the passenger side to make the trip home

to northern illinois where i live

and stay with me for a few days.

okay, i could go on a very long tangent here

and tell you about the wonderful time we had...

at the chicago symphony center and russian tea room,

sitting and talking in my living room

while listening to good music,

trekking around chicagoland and getting lost

in search of places to eat,

places to take pictures,

places to see sights.

i could go on and on about how delightful she was.

funny.

fun.

so very sweet.

giving and generous.

listening.

encouraging.

interesting.

smart.

wise.

mischievous.

but again.

not the point here...

though i have wanted for a while to write about our adventures.

i'll share another time, perhaps.

{i've still got photos to share from our time, too.}

well, you may wonder why i talk so much about her, then...

if i keep having to say "but that's not the point."

well, i will now tell you why.

her visit, to me, will always have a great significance

far beyond just getting to meet a

really great girl from across the pond.

i believe with my whole heart

that miss claire was sent here by God himself for a purpose.

you may think it is a bit far fetched.

but i do not.

okay.

here we go.

some of what i will now explain may seem too personal.

but i am an open book... always have been.

and we are all adults here.

so, let's get to THE POINT!!

september 26th was a sunday.

up until recently, when i had to temporarily

drop out of my church choir,

sundays were very busy days for me...

especially sunday mornings.

i would get up around seven o' clock

to get ready to go to church

for an eight-thirty quick choir practice

before singing with the choir in the first service

{which is the service b. and i usually attend}.

then, i'd head back to the choir room

after b. leaves to go home

and sit around and wait for the second service to start,

at which point i would head back upstairs

with the choir to sing again.

i'd only stay long enough to sing,

but then i would head home, myself, for the day...

i know i need some church and bible teaching in my life,

but two services in one day is a little much,

so i don't stay through the end of the second service.

still, this whole sequence of events

takes about three hours of every sunday morning.

i'm not complaining.

i love it!

but on september 26th,

i woke up, and i just knew

that it was not going to work that day.

you see, my plans were to get up,

get ready for church,

go to church, sing {twice},

leave straight from church for an hour ride to elkhorn

to meet claire and beth and spend the day with them,

and then return home to entertain

and board my friend and guest, claire.

after the alarm went off,

i looked at b. and said,

"i just can't do it all today.

there is no way i will be ready in time for claire to visit."

{i still had several things to do around the house

to get ready for her stay.}

since i had not slept well the night before,

i absolutely knew i couldn't make it out of bed so quickly,

only to start a non-stop day of running around.

b. said, "well, then stay here. skip church today."

um... what? skip choir?

i felt so bad to have to do that.

but the more i thought about it,

the more realistic the idea became...

i simply would have run myself into the ground

if i had tried to do it all.

it's not every day that one has a guest from ireland

come to stay with them for a while.

so i knew i could not take that out of the equation.

and i knew if she had come so far,

it was only fair to have my home ready for her stay.

i could have gone to the flea market much later,

but that means i would have driven

all that way just to pick her up,

and i would not have been able to spend time with both,

doing one of my favorite things.

{and elkhorn flea markets are only once a month...

this day being the last flea market of the year.}

unfortunately, church was the short straw that was drawn.

i knew the choir would be understanding.

and God, too.

{wink}

well, now that i had an extra three hours to start my day,

b. and i decided to linger in bed a little while longer.

before i got up to do some things around the house,

we made a little romantic retreat out of our extra time...

enough said.

let's just say, fast forward to mid-october,

when i was a week and a half past the point

of what should have been my time of the month...

{good thing most of my readers are female...

sorry guys, i hope you're not blushing or done reading}

let me tell you,

nothing could have been farther from my mind

than what you are thinking

as to why i was late.

NOTHING!

oh, let me explain...

especially for my newer readers

who may not have been reading here

long enough to know that i have been grieving for years

about my difficulty/inability to conceive.

so many of you know this.

you've seen me openly write about the pain and heartache

of not having children yet...

worse, not having any hope or indication that we might some day.

in fact, i had quite given up on the idea.

i don't mean that negatively.

i just mean that with some counseling,

some prayer,

some practice in accepting and embracing

what God has given me,

i came to a point where i was at peace with,

where i had come to terms with,

where i accepted

that this just was not something that was meant to be.

oh, how i had tried to come to that point so many times before.

but i failed miserably.

maybe not failed.

maybe i had to grieve the loss of something i never had.

but i never completely surrendered the idea

of being childless to my heavenly father.

i never fully trusted that he knew best,

had a plan,

was in control.

i believe all those things inwardly.

but i could not live them out.

i had intended many times to share with you all

how b. and i decided to start seeing fertility specialists

after many years of trying to conceive on our own.

but when we started

{in the spring of 2010}

i could not bring myself to write about it.

perhaps because it felt too private just then.

perhaps because it was still too painful,

especially when the specialists did not find

a single thing that would be a road block

to our ability to get pregnant.

it was good news.

but only at first.

then it became a source of confusion.

"well, if there is nothing biologically stopping us,

why isn't this happening for us?"

we bought the pricey ovulation test kits,

and meticulously and methodically timed out our attempts.

we did everything they told us to.

we even had a diagnostic test done

that would not only show the doctors

what was going on from an ability standpoint,

but was also known to be a therapeutic test...

in that two or three months after this particular test,

the pregnancy rate shoots way up for couples trying,

because it sort of "clears things up".

i was so very hopeful after that test.

i thought, "surely, it is going happen now!"

but it did not.

i questioned.

i grieved.

i cried.

i got angry.

hurt.

sad.

disappointed.

but, i began to talk it out.

mostly with my counselor.

a lot with God...

even when i did not realize i was talking with him.

some with b.

some with friends.

but one day, i came to a point of acceptance...

for the most part.

sure, i would still get a little misty-eyed

when i would walk into a cafe

and see a mom with a sweet little curly-haired blond girl.

or when i would be sitting at the train waiting for a friend

and would see a dad with his young,

brilliant red-headed and full-of-life

son and daughter.

but nothing like where i used to be...

hardly able to go out in public anymore

without getting very down.

unable to visit blogs and web sites that spoke of moms

and their experiences/photographs of life as a mom

or the lives of their children.

and so, though i continued to go to counseling

{as i have so much else to talk through,

which i discovered after several visits...

though my initial reason for going was for the purpose

of talking through my fertility heartache},

i no longer needed to work through that part of my life.

okay... let's go back.

remember i said "fast forward to mid-october"?

let's just stop there.

my ten-year wedding anniversary was october 15th...

as mid as it gets in october.

it was a friday.

{you may remember my post about it.

i have not posted much since, actually.}

anyway, my counseling appointments are on thursday nights.

yes, i know i said i was at peace with

and accepting the whole idea

of never having children by this point.

and for the most part i was.

but that thursday night at counseling,

i told my mentor/friend how i was excited about

and looking forward to the next day... our anniversary.

she asked me something.

i can't remember exactly what.

but whatever it was, it prompted me

to open up about my true feelings about the day.

i was going to just share what we would be doing to celebrate,

and other surfacy, small talk kind of sentences.

but her question made me dig much deeper.

i said something to the effect of,

"i'm so happy we have made it this far.

but deep in my heart,

i am heart-broken that we have nothing to show for it."

and then i broke down weeping uncontrollably.

she just let me cry.

then very quietly,

she said back to me, "like what?"

somehow, i uttered back through my sobs,

"like... children."

she was again quiet... giving me space and time and room.

then she went on to explain how

i have so much to show for ten years...

how we have stayed together through a great deal.

through trials in faithfulness,

through infertility.

through financial struggles beyond what we ever imagined.

through job losses.

through illness and car accidents.

through mere time taking it's toll on a relationship.

through so very much.

and what we had to show for it was a deep love

we would never have known without those things.

she was absolutely right.

and my sobs turned to tears upon peace

and realization that ten years was

an AWESOME milestone for us.

okay, let me backtrack on this thursday, october 14th...

but only about twenty or thirty minutes back.

when i entered her office for my appointment,

i plopped down on the couch

and immediately warned her,

"just so you know, i'm probably going to be

super-emotional during this visit.

i'm either going through early menopause

{i am 39, you know},

or i'm pregnant!"

i was so kidding, as the latter was so far removed from my radar,

that it could be nothing more than a joke.

i said what i did, because aside from

some weird physical symptoms going on,

i was EXTREMELY irritable,

and had been for a few weeks by that point.

to the point where i was thinking,

"what is going on with me?"

but then i would think "i'm just in for a wallop

of a menstrual cycle this month... that's all."

we have a very relaxed and humor-filled sort of

therapist/patient relationship,

so we joked a little bit about it all and had a good laugh.

i remember she looked at me and said,

"yeah, you're pregnant, all right."

but she said it with a smile,

and i took it at as a joke as much as

i meant my own statement as such.

well, friday came and went.

b. had to work, and so did i {at my temp job}.

then that night, we had plans to have dinner at my mom's.

so celebrating ten years of marriage

would have to wait until saturday...

we had the nicest day together,

spending the morning walking for hours around

the most beautiful nature preserve in our area,

with coffee and gourmet cookies in hand.

a perfect brisk fall day, much like the day we got married.

then that evening, we ate at our favorite sushi restaurant...

a real treat, as we have stopped going there

on the count of being down to one income.

okay... you heard me, right?

coffee.

sushi.

both in one day!

this proves that even the slightest inkling that i was pregnant

was so far removed from my thinking.

otherwise, i would not have had coffee or raw fish that day.

and CERTAINLY not the amaretto sour i enjoyed with dinner.

okay, fast forward again.

this time, about a week down the line.

it was sunday.

i was cranky...

'cause i still had not gotten my "you know what".

i felt extremely bloated and crampy,

and had for several weeks.

but, again, thought absolutely nothing of it,

because i had accepted that i could not get pregnant, right?

well, i was out with my friend, sandy,

who was treating me to lunch at a mexican restaurant,

and i was complaining of my uncomfortableness.

we joked about pregnancy.

yes, joked.

to me, that's what it was.

well, not that pregnancy is a joke.

but the idea of me being pregnant was far-fetched,

so we just laughed at the idea.

but... i think she had a little more faith than i.

as we sat and ate, she said to me,

"GOOO get a pregnancy test!

what can it hurt?"

hmmmm... i thought,

"well, for starters, my pocket book."

{i had some preconceived notion that those tests

are much more expensive than they actually are...

well, i've never used one before, remember.}

anyway, secondly, i thought it would hurt my psyche.

i did not want to get one,

because as soon as i touched that box in the store,

hope would enter every fiber of my being,

and i did not want to have my hopes dashed.

so, she dropped me off at home, and that was that...

or so i thought.

for the rest of the evening,

it gnawed at me until i could not ignore my urge any longer.

around nine-thirty that evening,

when i was winding down and getting ready to go to bed,

i went into the room where b. was and said,

"i'm going to the store to get a test."

not much of a reaction came from him...

probably for the same reasons not much of one came from me

when my friend pushed me to "just do it."

but off to the store i went.

they come in two-pack boxes or single packs.

i got the two-pack.

whatever the answer was to be,

i wanted to be doubly sure.

i had never taken one of these in my life.

i almost did in '08 when i had all the same

exact sequence of symptoms

and was suspicious of pregnancy.

but just as i was a week and a half late,

i decided that i would go get the test the next day.

unfortunately, that evening, i hemorrhaged,

believing that i was not pregnant after all... just late.

but i still had my suspicions, because it was not a normal cycle.

i had no way of ever knowing scientifically,

but i was sure in my heart that i had miscarried

a life that had begun in me.

and now i know without doubt {in retrospect} that i had,

because everything that led up to it

was exactly the same this time around.

in fact, this is the very thing that made me

go get that test this last october.

i did not want that to happen again without me knowing.

even if i was to miscarry again,

i did not want to wonder if my body was capable of conceiving

and holding on to life for this long.

so at only one week late,

i did the test.

test one:

instant big, bold, clear-as-day vertical line that formed

a big ol' +

i cried.

as i sat on the edge of the bath tub,

b. looked at me from his kneeling position

in the hallway just outside the bathroom.

he said one word.

"negative?"

which he assumed was the result

when he saw tears stream down my face.

i said two words back.

"no, positive."

the tears were out of disbelief and joy

and fear and gratitude of an unknown nature

all mixed up into one grand emotion i have never known.

"i'm doing the second test."

i had to be sure.

test two:

instant big, bold, clear-as-day vertical line that formed

a big ol' +

hugs.

tears.

words.

facial expressions

that contained

fear,

excitement,

joy,

disbelief,

shock.

an incredible night to say the least.

it took so long to sink in,

yet it became real as if i had been told the day i was born

that i would some day conceive.

believe.

so many people i wanted to call and tell.

so many who had been praying,

even long after i had stopped

because i had made peace with not having children.

not that we had ever stopped trying.

well, actually, we did stop "trying".

and instead just began to accept whatever would be.

we did, however, stop going to the fertility clinic.

we could have continued on

and given artificial insemination

or in vitro fertilization a try.

well, that is to say, we would have.

but we did not have the funds...

even with the good insurance we have.

we still could not afford our co-pays for visits,

and certainly could not pay the out-of-pocket expenses

that we would incur due to our high deductible.

so, we stopped trying.

and we stopped hoping.

i don't mean that negatively.

we did not let hope die.

i only mean we stopped timing our intimate interactions

and hoping for a positive result.

it left our radar.

it had to.

i have ALWAYS heard that that is how it goes

for so very many couples...

as soon as they stop trying

and desperately hoping for a conception,

and the stress and emotions of it all subsides,

within time, it happens naturally and very unexpectedly.

that is EXACTLY how it happened for us.

all those months after ceasing "trying"

and giving in and surrendering our hopes and desires to God,

who has a plan for our lives...

a plan we could not see.

a plan that he longed for us to trust in.

i just have a couple more things to say.

we had so many to tell,

and holding it in, wondering who to tell and when,

was just so difficult.

but we managed to breathe and decided to just take some time

to savor it all just to ourselves for a bit.

but there was one soul i had to share with.

my very best friend in the entire world... jessi.

she is like a sister to me,

and so she is the only person i called that evening.

though i did not get a chance to talk to her

because it was already so late,

i did speak to her first thing the next day.

i only share this, because she told me something so wonderful,

i could cry just thinking about it today.

very shortly before {maybe even overlapping into our time

of pregnancy testing and discovery},

she had been on the road, coming home in her new car

from minnesota where her in-laws live.

she and her new husband

had driven out there for the weekend

to purchase and pick up a second car,

so she had to drive back alone,

which meant she had a lot of time to herself.

she shared with me how on a large stretch of open road

with nothing around to distract her for miles,

she felt an urge and need to pray for us...

to cry out to God and say,

"God, won't you please grant them a child?

they have wanted this for so long."

she prayed for as long as she felt led to,

and wept for us

and felt our pain

and came along side us in our longing to be parents

through prayer and interceding on our behalf...

and she did so within hours of us finding out the news.

i had no idea she prayed.

i had not asked her to.

she obviously had no idea i was pregnant when she did pray.

she did not even have an idea

that i thought i might be pregnant.

i barely did, remember?

when i heard this,

it meant so very much to me,

and this is why...

God knew already that i was pregnant when she prayed.

but her obedience to his leading to pray

was such a faith-builder to me.

she did not know.

and so she prayed...

and just about the moment that i was finding out i was pregnant,

when we were states away from each other

and could not yet communicate.

it made me realize that God wants us to have faith

and believe

and ask

because he knows, even long before we were born,

the plans that he has for us.

but he wants us to pray, anyway.

he wants to know that we know we can look to him

for all that we need and want and desire...

that everything can be found in him...

that our prayer is a form of worship to him,

because we trust and believe that he can do

much more than we ever think possible.

and it is for us, to build our faith.

he could just be a God that is up there controlling everything

without regard to our cries

like we are puppets.

but he gives us emotions

and voices

with which to cry out to him

and ask him for things.

he is an interactive God.

this, i believe.

and so learning that she had prayed that day in that manner

{though i know she had prayed so many times before for us},

i was so encouraged and moved.

i cried when she told me...

just at the thought of the timing of it all.

she was moved, too.

there were to be several more moving moments

when telling others of our good news.

but this was the first,

and it gave me an extra special knowledge

that God was in the midst of this all.

kind of a "no way!" type of moment...

sort of like realizing in retrospect that when claire

left my home for the last time

before returning to the airport to go to texas,

she had left me a parting/thank-you-for-your-hospitality

gift under my pillow...

a children's book about God's timing...

without having an inkling that i was pregnant

{beside the fact that her visit from half-way around the world

was the very reason we conceived

during such a small window of opportunity}.

sort of like how only a few days before i conceived,

i called my friend mary who sells shaklee vitamins

and asked her to set me up with some prenatal vitamins

since i had not taken any in so long...

perfectly timed, if you ask me,

as it ensured that the baby was being taken care of

from day one of its life

without even my knowledge of its existence.

sort of like how i wept to my therapist

{not knowing i was over two weeks pregnant},

that i had no children to show for a ten-year marriage

and then felt a peace that i actually did have much to show.

sort of like how i bought a necklace the day i conceived

that held little symbols or almost signs...

"believe"

and a safety pin

that looked much like the kind used to pin baby diapers

when that was how it was done.

and lot's of other "no way!" moments

that i look back on with chills.

needless to say, this is an anniversary present,

christmas present,

life present

like i never expected to receive this year!

this is an already very long post.

so though i have so much more to share,

i must wrap it up.

i need to go take a shower,

so that i can go meet with my friend dierdre and the girls

for her birthday celebration.

i only mention this, because even just a week ago,

i could not have done this.

you see, i was nauseous beyond words,

and the last thing i would have felt like doing

is eating pizza at a local pub

to celebrate with the girls.

i rejoice that i am for the first time in months,

able to eat "real food"

and actually enjoy it while doing so.

well, i told you i had a really big update.

i just didn't say it would be so long.

i could have just said,

"hey, guess what, everyone!

i'm pregnant!"

but you know me.

i could never be that brief.

more details to come...

but i know many of you may be wondering two things.

when am i due?

and what are we having?

june 19th is the first answer.

don't know and don't want to find out until baby-b is born

is the second answer.

with one week until christmas,

i felt i needed to stop in

and share a bit of why i have been so absent.

sitting at a computer is very hard to do

when you are in a constant state of nausea.

but i'm sure you understand.

especially if you are one of the unlucky ones

to experience severe nausea.

i hope to be back at least once or twice before the holidays...

or at least during.

but for now,

i'm signing out.

lots to do.

so much planning,

and so much making up for lost time...

time lost during the first trimester.

feeling so blessed to just now be past the sick stage

so that i am able to enjoy christmas.

one last little thing.

many of you...

even those of you i have never met...

were praying for us,

and you told me so.

i can only say thank you

and that i am happy to share this answer to prayer with you.

thank you for believing with me,

or even for me when i could not.

with love to my bloggy {very genuine} friends,

~georgia

{p.s. most of these photos... the above shots... were taken by me, but the ones of my belly, below, were taken by my friend mary and enhanced by me. she was kind enough to stop by with some pregnancy-friendly meals {{as did several of my other thoughtful friends}} for me, as well as hearty meals for b. who was lacking good home-cooked food due to my inability to tolerate most smells. but mary is also a photography buff, and so while she was here, i asked her to please take some photos to document my growth and the growth of the little one inside me. i will share more of her photos in another post, too.}

both of these shots were part of my christmas card this year.

but unfortunately, the quality of the printing

was a bit sub par, and so it was difficult to read the word "believe"

in the photo below.

i was bummed, because that was

one of the things i wanted to stand out.

the few people i've talked to since receiving the card

said they did not notice the "believe",

but they still noticed the heart shape that my hands formed.

i'm glad at least that was obvious.

i hope you saw it too.