Building a Bethards

Y'all, we've been parents for 6 weeks now. We've been parents of two for 3 weeks. Life has changed drastically in the last 6 weeks, and we love it. We just experienced our first Christmas with babies who were having their first Christmases. So much fun. We got to go see Santa at the Bass Pro Shops with our older baby and she did great; we got an incredible picture with Santa that I'm sad we can't share. She was so happy in his lap, she had a huge smile on her face!! We now have a plethora of items that say "Baby's First Christmas" and I love it. Seven weeks ago I couldn't tell you what day of the week it was without first thinking about what day of the cycle I was in, today I can't tell you what day of the week it is at all without remembering what day it was yesterday or looking at the calendar on my phone; I have no idea what cycle day it is without looking at an app on my phone, and that feels amazing. The last 6 weeks have been crazy,...

We are now one week into being a family of 5 (4 humans and a dog). What a crazy weeks it's been. Thankful for my mom who has been able to stay with the newest itty bitty so I can work part time. We are so in love with these girls and thankful that God has called us to parent them, no matter how temporary it may be. Since accepting our second placement we have had several of you ask how you can help us, so here are some ideas! The number one thing we covet is your prayers. Prayers for functioning on little sleep; prayers that we parent these little well; prayers for biological families and their ability to do the court required things to get their babies back if that is God's plan. Just pray for us. A week into being parents of two we are beginning to see more tangible things that we could always use more of, the biggest of those being diapers. Boy to babies go through a lot of diapers each day!! While the girls are at home we are using hybrid cloth/flushable diapers ...

This still counts as later this week, right? Finally getting a chance to sit down and get out my thoughts about the last few weeks. We've had our precious little for 3 weeks now and we are all adjusting fairly well. We got our newest itty bitty just last night, straight from the hospital! Wow. Almost 2 years of infertility and now within 3 weeks we have two babies!! And I didn't have to go through the discomfort of pregnancy or pain of labor! Yes, it also means that there is a good possibility that I'll have to give both of them back to their biological families and once again be left with an empty crib, but for now I will enjoy these babies. Our little is still struggling to get in a rhythm with her naps, but is doing so much better eating than when we first got her. She takes food from the spoon like a champ and is now working on straw drinking! This girl requires a dark room with music or silence to sleep, so we are starting to understand why she won't sleep a...

I wrote the post below after our first few days with our little one and forgot to post! Mommy brain is a real thing, y'all. And just over 2 weeks in now its even worse! I'll post more about how things are going sometime this week :) 11/25/2015 Well, we've got our first weekend and our first two week days in the books. And I'm happy to report that we're all still alive! Our sweet girl had a pretty good first night with us, only waking once for a bottle then going right back to sleep. The first full day we had her, Friday, I was off so I spent the day with her so we could start working on getting her on some sort of a nap schedule and so that we could get to know each other and start the bonding process. I also got her enrolled at a new daycare. She pretty easily went down for a morning nap the first day, the afternoon nap was rougher, but it eventually happened. That second night she slept through the night and woke up in a good mood just babbling away in ...

We got the call today. The crib is no longer empty. There is a sweet baby sleeping in the next room. A precious baby who has been entrusted to our care. We don't know how long we will have her, but we will love her while we do! Jack was incredibly excited when she arrived. Wonder when he'll realize that she's staying for a while. Thankfully, she didn't mind all his licking, in fact after just over an hour she started reaching for him! So adorable. As you may know I will not be able to post any pictures or details of her or her case here, so please don't ask. I will be posting our adventures in parenting this sweet baby, though! And of course I'll continue to post about our fertility journey. Pray for us as we love this little one. Pray for this little one as she learns who we are. Pray for her family and the issues that removed her from their care. Pray for all the foster families who are loving all these children. Continue to pray for our fertil...

We are once again an open foster home! We were officially approved last Friday and opened for kids a couple of days ago. We are incredibly excited and so ready for that call that there is a baby who needs us. As excited and ready to help as we are we also know that for us to get a baby like this it means that a family is being taken apart, and that is heart wrenching. The jobs that I have had over the years have placed struggling families in my life in a variety of ways. Through working at daycares I was able to see so many working moms and dads striving to make the lives of their children good and fun. At Early Head Start I worked with some incredibly vulnerable families and children; the struggle these parents went through to make a good life for their children was evident. Some did a better job than others, some struggled constantly. These children lacked rules and boundaries and didn't know how to get love and attention without behaving badly. My work at the variou...

Calm is not a word I would say has been in my vocabulary lately. Calm is also not something that has been in my life lately. However, this past cycle I have been given an overwhelming sense of calm. Now, that's not to say life has slowed down at all or we've had changes in what is happening to give me this calm. This feeling is definitely a blessing from God. Last cycle ended up being one without medication to assist ovulation. This happened for several reasons, the main one being that I was unable to get into my doctors office for an ultrasound at the beginning of the cycle to get a new prescription; another reason we went med-free this cycle was to see if I would ovulate on my own. Well, I can say I ovulated, but it ended up being a painfully long 40 day cycle because I didn't ovulate until sometime between CD 25-28. So when most girls finish their cycle on day 28 I was just ovulating. Fantastic. Not. Late ovulation can be an indicator of poor egg quality, but my RE ...