You know the feeling when you finally get to sit down with a close friend and so much has happened in your life, you can hardly contain yourself but don't know where to begin to fill them in?

Well, God wrote a BIG story for our family in the past couple years and I can not wait to finally share.

In the beginning of 2016, I started this new blog with hopes of sharing myself & inspiring others. The first post was a quick mention of the "one little word" concept - a single word to focus on throughout the year. The word I chose for 2016 was FAITH. Sounds simple enough. Not too much commitment if it doesn't last through the entire year, right?! No big deal. I thought it was more of an internal challenge to keep my faith in God at the center of my life.

But God...had a plan.

A plan that terrified me. And a plan that was going to require more faith in Him than I had ever committed before.

You see, we had walked a dark road of infertility after our second child. I was unable to get pregnant again. And when I finally did, I miscarried several times. Then, I was told many times that pregnancy was no longer possible or sustainable because of my health complications.

This was all happening after we began to follow our desire to adopt a child. Adoption was our plan. It wasn't a backup plan or a second choice. We felt called to grow our family through domestic adoption.

The pain and grief of pregnancy loss was nearly unbearable and it was hard to understand why we had to walk this path when we were content with adoption. Not "why was this happening?" but "why now?"

In those first weeks of 2016, we continued to go through our adoption home study checklist- medical check ups, interviews, and preparing our kids to endure this journey with us. I had planned to return to Choose Joy with a friend in April, looking forward to the weekend of fellowship and openness.

But God...that weekend, I had this underlying feeling that I was PREGNANT. Again.