Help Comes From Unexpected Places Sometimes

We have a few more donors to announce.

Sweet Temptations located in Lutherville-Timonium, MD on Deereco Road is giving us a cake for the silent auction. This is the bakery where we got our wedding cake, and every year except this one, we've ordered the top layer for our anniversary. Thanks to Donna. This cake will have to be refrigerated unless we can figure out a way to keep it cool the morning of the auction, and those who would like to see it before bidding will be welcome to do so.

Oakdale Pharmacy is located on Edmondson Road in Catonsville and sells alcohol in part of the store as well as having a seperate pharmacy area. They provided two bottles of wine for the auction. Thanks Matt!

And now for where the title of my post comes from. Every night when I put Jack down for the night, we say prayers (ok, I say them, Jack listens and says Amen when I am finished) and one of the things I've been praying for is a sibling for Jack. When we did our IVF cycle earlier this year we prayed that God would help us to have another child. Our prayer wasn't answered that cycle obviously, or we wouldn't be embarking on the journey of adoption. But my urologist didn't have to talk to me about his family and their experiences which closely related to ours (except that we haven't done 6 cycles of IVF). That was a real turning point for me especially. I had been so depressed, teary all the time trying to come to grips with the fact that we wouldn't have another child. Don't get me wrong, Jack is the best blessing and we are so grateful for him. But as much as I wanted to be happy with having just one child and as much as I tried to convince myself that I would get over it, I just couldn't move past it. It's just a feeling of loss, I don't know how else to describe it. Sure, I didn't lose my child or have something happen that would describe the normal sense of loss, but it was a loss of a dream of a larger family. The child I was already picking names for. The nights I dreamt of having where I had both kids in the rocking chair with me while I read them bedtime stories. Anyone who has faced infertility knows exactly what I am talking about. And it still strikes me as odd that we talked about adoption before going through our first IVF cycle, and yet, it hadn't even occured to us as another option until our urologist mentioned it in a completely unrelated conversation.

I honestly believe that perhaps I ended up with the urologist I did because God had something to do with it. I didn't choose the urologist. I went to St. Agnes with really bad back pain that wouldn't go away no matter what I did. No trips to the chiropractor helped despite changes in my regimen, a MRI didn't show any herniated discs, and my usual go to comfort of the heating pad wasn't touching me. I was miserable. They told me I had two large kidney stones on my left side that were too big to pass and I would have to call such and such urologist at St. Agnes on that Monday morning and make an appointment. I prefer to go to my own hospital and their physicians, so I happened to call that Monday morning to our private urology offices and explained that I was an employee who had been to St. Agnes over the weekend and needed to see someone about stones that were too big to pass. I was just lucky enough to get Dr. Alexander who has been nothing but great. Cystinuria is not something that any physicians really specialize in because of the fact that it's not well understood and so rare that there isn't a big need for a specialist every 2 miles. But Dr. Alexander has contacts who work at the Litholink place which specializes in kidney stone and urinary issues. I am now on medication where I really should not get pregnant because of the risks to the baby because my cystinuria is not well controlled yet and treatment has had to escalate to try to correct it. Lucky for us, there is a such thing as adoption.

One more way I've been helped unexpectedly was small, but nonetheless, so helpful and I was just grateful. My mom's neighbor came over to ask if she drank Coke because one of her tenants was moving and didn't want to move 2 cases of Coke with her. What perfect timing. We had planned on going to Sam's Club and picking up a few cases of soda to sell and for the people helping us the day of our fundraiser to drink. Now we've got two cases of Coke for that purpose, and we never asked for it, it was just a coincidence or perhaps the prayers I say at night asking God to please help us make the fundraiser successful are being answered in ways not expected. I know it seems like something small, 2 cases of soda, but we're just grateful because every little bit helps.

That's all for tonight. :)