faith-based IF support resource

In my years of struggling through infertility, I found various support resources, but very few faith based ones. However, one of those has been a great encouragement to me in the past two years. It's called Stepping Stones and is a ministry branch of Bethany.Services (a big adoption agency). They are a pretty simple resource, as in they don't try to do everything, but instead try to do their few things well. And, in my opinion, they do just that. They publish a free newsletter every other month or so that has articles of the support variety. Not cheesy, christiany crap that leaves you emptily saying in your head, nope, they don't get it. But articles written by other IFers that while they won't promise you a baby at the end of the road, they will encourage you that you will get through your journey, supporting you in whatever that journey looks like now and in the future. It's simple, well done and hits on the major stumbling blocks in an IF'ers year--certain holidays, siblings getting pregnant first, long journeys, lost pregnancies, no pregnancies, journey changing decisions. Along with that, they also offer an online forum by topic. I haven't used it very much, but if you like the forum setting, I felt it was well done. Finally, they also offer a list of faith-based IF books as well as back issues by topic of their newsletter.

So, I just wanted to bring what I've found to be a great encouragement to your attention, as they don't seem to be well known and are difficult to stumble upon. If you're looking for simple faith-based support, I encourage you to check them out at www.ssministry.net .

Hope I'm never your patient again

That's what I said to my wonderful RE today after he said he is moving me on to an ob. We've got a heartbeat (no idea rate b/c he machine is likely from the 70's and just really isn't that cool), but it was beating regularly and looked "beautiful" to him. I called my new high risk ob and got an appt 10 days from now with no yelling at the scheduler to make it sooner needed.

Am I jumping for joy? Yes....and no, sort of...we've been here before, we've seen heartbeats, we've graduated to a high risk ob, only to have the first ob appt show no heartbeats (yeah, that makes you memorable to an ob...hey doc, we had three heartbeats...until you scanned me and now we have none...nice to meet you.) Anyways, regardless, I am cautiously excited, as most infertility veterans would be at this point I think.

I'm just ecstatic to be here today with a heartbeat and a situation that thus far is going worlds better than the previous pregnancy ever went. I guess you can say that given our past experience and our present knowledge about all that can still go wrong, we are holding this very tightly and very loosely at the same time and just happy to be along for the ride.

First requested Honor Donation Blanket Completed!

It took a bit because I had to find a good yarn that was soft enough and washable (my mom's yarn stash is not nearly as soft as I would have liked,), but once I found a soft cotton yarn in tons of colors, I got my sticks a-knitting!

As requested by BleedingTulip at pursuingparenthood (I only put this b/c it was requested through my comment section, versus through an email, so I figured it was sort of public knowledge anyways)....here's the very first requested honor blanket for donation to Forever Warm . The note she requested will also be tied to the blanket before I send it off for the organization to then pass along to hurting parents!

I've got a few others done but they weren't done for anyone specific. So....I'd LOVE another request!! (Actually, I'd LOVE to be flooded with them! Knitting with someone in mind with the colors they choose is far more meaningful and fun to me.) See the top of my sidebar for more about this project and my email to send a request to (or leave it in the comments...whatever you're more comfortable with).