Dumbfounded

I am so dumbfounded by the love and mercy of the Lord. His blessings never cease to amaze me.

I still can't believe I'm actually having a baby. Me, I'm having a baby! There were many days, over the past few years, where the thought would cross my mind "I might never have children." I never actually believed that, those were just the days that my flesh was winning. I have always said that I don't believe that the Lord would allow me to have such a strong desire to be a mother if he was not planning on blessing me in that way. Jon and I have both prayed, fervently, that if it was not the Lord's will for us to have children that he would take away the desire and give us peace about it. He never took away the desire and now we're having a baby. I'm going to say it again because I almost don't believe it.. We're having a baby!

We were so excited to see our little bean at 6.5 weeks and see its little fluttering heartbeat but we knew we weren't out of the woods yet. With our second pregnancy, we saw the heartbeat at 7 weeks and then at the second appointment the ultrasound showed that the baby had stopped growing at 9 weeks. So we prayerfully continued (as we do every day because we are supposed to do EVERYTHING in prayer and supplication:)) along after the first ultrasound. This time, our second appointment was at 10 weeks, and were so excited and thankful to see that our "bean" was starting to look more like a alien baby! Again, the love and mercy of the Lord amaze me.  I deserve nothing more than the pits of Hell, yet by the grace of the Lord I have been greatly blessed beyond measure!

This Saturday I will be 12 weeks and I'm really hoping to start feeling better really soon! You hear that little one? Give your mommy a break! Ok? Any way, modern technology is amazing. Did you know that you can hear the heartbeat of your little one in the comfort of your home any time you want? Yep.. It's pretty amazing.

That's all for now. Just a bit of rambling.

Much love
 Kitta :)

Huge sigh of relief!

I/we approached today very nervously! In the past our second appointments have not gone very well and we  would receive bad news. Today was a polar opposite and we are so extremely thankful to the Lord for protecting our little one thus far! We know and believe that all things work together for the good of those who love God, so no matter the outcome of today, we knew it would be for our good. I think it's safe to say we're over the moon with excitement and thankfulness to the Lord!

I'm currently about 10 1/2 weeks. So I'm still fighting the tiredness and nauseousness every day. I'm sort of ready for that to be over.. haha. Hopefully I will start feeling better in a couple of weeks!

Any way, thank you so much for your prayers for our little one! We're pretty excited about the journey of pregnancy and can't wait to share the ups and downs with our favorite people -- you all!

This is our first ultrasound at 6 weeks 4 days

And here is our little one at 10 weeks 3 days :) 

  Much love

   ~Kitta~

Checking on the jelly bean, again!

Hello all,

It's been a while since I've updated.. I'm sincerely sorry! We had an appointment a couple of weeks ago and we got to see our little bean and its fluttering heartbeat! It was such a relieving thing to see! I'm now a little over ten weeks and we have another appointment tomorrow at 12! I am so excited, hopeful, nervous, and anxious all wrapped into one! I would greatly appreciate your prayers for me, Jon and our little bean tomorrow. I'm praying for peace over myself! I tend to worry to much, its a sin and doesn't do me any good anyhow, so I really otta stop worrying!

Any who, I'll update tomorrow evening and let you all know how our appointment goes. Thank you so much for your love an prayers. I'm eternally grateful for you all.

Much love,
 ~Kitta~

Checking on the Jelly Bean(s)

I have my first OB appointment in the morning. I feel like I've been pregnant forever and I've been waiting three months for this appointment. By the way, I'm only 6.5 weeks so I've only been waiting for this appointment for three weeks, not months. I'm a bit dramatic.

So, tomorrow we will have an ultrasound and get to see the little bean, or beans, and the little flutter of the heart beat. I'm secretly, well I guess it's not actually secret, hoping for twins. I would greatly appreciate your prayers for me and the little bean(s). I am fervently praying that we are growing as we should and everything is going wonderful.

I'm so thankful for prayer warriors as friends and family :)

~ Nakitta ~

We're having a baby.. My baby and me!

We have some exciting news to share!



We're having a baby.. My baby and me! We are excited beyond belief! We are so thankful that the Lord has heard our prayers and decided to bless us in this way. We know that if the Lord had chosen to shut this door, we would be just as blessed. We do not deserve anything more than the pits of hell even on our best days.. However, we are elated that the Lord has chosen to bless us with a precious child!

As most of you know, I have had two miscarriages. I was recently diagnosed with two clotting disorders that  require me to take blood thinners via injections. I started taking my blood thinners immediately and I'm hopeful that this will produce a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby! We would greatly appreciate your prayers whenever we come to your mind! I would appreciate prayers for our baby and for me. I am trying not to be "nervous nancy" but I am having a hard time not worrying. Trust me, I know the truth, I know that worrying gets me no where and God is in control! Please pray for me to have peace!  I have lab test this week, an appointment with my obgyn on August 30th, and then an appointment with my hematologist on September 11th! I am in for a long road of lots of doctor appointments, but I promise you wont hear me complain! Thank you again for everyone praying, and everyone who has prayed! We are extremely thankful and blessed to have so many people beseech the throne of heaven on our behalf!

~Nakitta~

Answered Prayers

WARNING: This is a long post and contains a lot of information. Probably more than you will ever want to know about me. Feel free to stop reading now, I promise it wont hurt my feelings :).

Most of you know that I have a bit of a "difficult" time getting pregnant and have yet to carry a baby to term. I've had two miscarriages, early in the first trimester of both pregnancies. A lot of doctors won't suggest testing until you have had 3, or more, consecutive miscarriages. While I do not always *like* my doctor, I pretty much always appreciate him. He agreed that 2 miscarriages was two too many and sent me to a  clinical pathologist who specializes in complications of pregnancy. Every since April ( ok really since October 2008, when we got married, but I've had insurance since April hehe)I have wanted to have test ran, get results, and get pregnant as soon as possible! So, when I called the specialist to set up an appointment my heart sunk, and I immediately wanted to cry, when they told me they schedule 9 weeks out. NINE weeks folks.. That's a long time. It didn't help any that she said "well there is an appointment today but it's to late for you to get here in time" Oh really.. You just had to tell me that if I had left the doctor 5 minutes sooner the day before I could have called during office hours and seen the specialist today. Thank you so much for adding to my depression! I'm pretty certain that God is trying to teach me patience and trust in his perfect timing. I generally consider myself to be a pretty patient person. But God says to me "Nakitta, I need you to have patience in MY timing. Trust that MY timing is perfect, worth the weight and MY plan is best." Okay, Lord. I will wait. So I called once or twice a week the first two weeks to check for cancellations  calmly waited the 9 weeks. I awoke the day of my appointment, June 19th, with much excitement! I made it! Today, I am one step closer to answers! I met with the doctor, he ordered tons of blood test and he told me my test would be back in three weeks. What?! ANOTHER three weeks. Are you kidding me? Nope. I get to the checkout desk and there I find out that the good doc is out of town on the third week. Okay, so next.. Oh wait, I'm out of town on the fourth week (he only does the RE clinic on Tuesdays), so I have to wait 5 weeks (July 24th) to get my results. Oh brother. I'm  never going to make it! The world is surely going to end before July 24th arrives! Ahhhh! This is getting a bit lengthy, but I think you must know that after I got my results I called my OBGYN for a follow up appointment I have to wait yet another 4 weeks (August 22nd). Apparently I am super hard headed. Please pray for my stubbornness! lol but seriously.

Leading up to the 24th Jon and I prayed fervently that if the Lord desired to give us some answers then we would praise Him. If everything came back normal, then we would praise Him. If we got devastating news we would thank God and still praise Him! After all, we are told to give thanks in everything and we trust what Romans 8 says that God works all things together for our good. I prayed that I would have peace with what ever the results were! And I do, I have peace! This week I found out three new things about my body. I knew going into all of this that I am quite the challenging patient and my doctors both agree and have verbally said so themselves :). 

I have two blood clotting (thrombophilia) disorders. What is this? The thrombophilias are a group of disorders that promote blood clotting. Individuals with a thrombophilia tend to form blood clots to easily because their bodies make too much of a certain protein, called blood clotting factors, or too little of anti-clotting proteins that limit clot formation. Thrombophilas can pose special risks in pregnancy. They can be inherited or acquired later in life. About 15% of people in the US have an inherited thrombophilia. I am of the 15% of the US folks. I have Factor V Leiden (pronounced factor 5 ly-den) and Prothromin Gene Mutation. Both of those are thrombophilic disorders. The third thing I was diagnosed with is Poly-cystic ovary syndrome. PCOS is a condition in which a woman has an imbalance of female sex hormones. This may lead to menstrual cycle changes, cyst in the ovaries, trouble getting pregnant, and other health changes.

All of these things are manageable with medications. For the clotting disorders I will take blood thinners, via injection, during pregnancy and 6-8 weeks post postpartum. For the PCOS I will begin taking metformin, this regulates some women with the PCOS and makes the symptoms much less noticeable (only sometimes though, mostly this is better handled with diet alterations). To get pregnant, I still use Clomid for ovulation. Once I go to the doctor in August we can work on getting pregnant. YAY.

We are still not sure our miscarriages were caused by the disorders or just a regular miscarriage. Miscarriages are the most common complication in early pregnancy and happen in about 1 out of every 5 pregnancies. While I was diagnosed with these clotting disorders it is controversial rather or not they cause early miscarriages. They are more known for causing complications and pregnancy loss later in pregnancy in the second and third trimesters. I don't believe that I will ever know, this side of Heaven, why I lost two precious children but I do trust that it is in my best interest and God meant it for good. I can't help but be thankful that I have not lost a baby 20+ weeks along. Maybe the early miscarriages were so that we could find out about the clotting disorders and not have to risk losing a baby that far along. I can only imagine that the further along in pregnancy you get, the harder it is to lose your precious blessing. Maybe they were so that I can help other ladies in my position, dealing with infertility and pregnancy loss. Maybe it was just so that I could realize and know that in everything -- to God be the glory!

I'll never know but I will continue trusting God and his will for my life. It isn't easy and there are days that I struggle. Some days I think I can take control and do it my way on my time. Each time I think that I am gently reminded to wait and trust. So if you're looking for me.. I'm over here, waiting, and trusting in my precious Saviors perfect plan and perfect timing.

If there is anyone still reading, and you have any questions about my miscarriages, infertility, or diagnosis, please feel free to ask. I'm an open book and feel like these things are not openly discussed enough. If you don't have any questions, then I/we would greatly appreciate you prayers when Jon and I come to mind.

Loves ya!
~Nakitta~

DIY tree skirt

This is our 4th Christmas as married peeps, and for the last three years we have not had a Christmas tree skirt.. If I found one I "liked" it was more than I wanted to pay and and I didn't love anything I was willing to pay for. So we just didn't have one. One day, on the way home from work, I was feeling crafty and decided I wanted to make a tree skirt. My original intentions when pulling into the craft store were to make a bigger version of the burlap ruffled wreaths I had seen floating around Pinterest. I had not done any research, math, or preparations for this skirt I just spontaneously decided I wanted to stop about 1/2 mile before I arrived to the store. I actually thought, "you know, I've not seen any of these around and I might actually have an original idea!" hahah.. yeah right! There are no original ideas these days! I went in to JoAnn's and bought 4 yards of red and green burlap, and then went home to attempt to make my skirt! Upon arriving home I decided to do a little search on Pinterest for ruffled Christmas tree skirts. Come to find out there was no shortage of people doing this! It was during this search that I stumbled upon the inspiration for a few days of insanity! Once stumbling upon this skirt I quickly made another trip to the fabric store and picked up some more fabric.  Here is the link to the blog where there are detailed instructions on how to make your own ruffled tree skirt!

This is the original bloggers skirt! I think I like that all of her layers are different

Let me first say that this was my very first sewing experience and the first time using my sewing machine... I did not even have the manual to the machine and was seriously lost from step 1! But I persevered because my inspiration blogger said "It's fairly simple just time consuming." So surely I could do it if she said it was simple right!?! Ha! My first mistake was not using felt for the baking as the blogger had instructed me to do. Like usual I don't follow instructions very well and assume when I shouldn't. I assumed it would be fine if I used an old bed sheet for the backing since it was just backing and non-important. The felt would have been a lot more sturdy and easier to work with. I also did a 60" skirt rather than her 44". This was not a mistake just meant that I, I mean we ( as in my awesomely amazing husband and myself) had some math to do. I did 3 different fabrics and had seven layers (she did 5 fabrics, 5 layers).  So it was a little tricky. Once starting this project, and learning how to use the machine, I was very anxious to see this project finished! So, I stayed up for 24 hours straight trying to get this sucker finished! When I start a project I don't like them to linger unfinished for long, so I struggled through a very messy house with fabric scraps, burlap trash, needles, stick pins and thread for three days and finished very tired strong! Here are some of my pictures along the way. I didn't take many because I was pretty much flustered for the first 24 hours of this 26ish hour project... :) 

my bed sheet that undoubtedly should have been felt!

about half of my yet-to-be-ruffled polka dots

this is where I just set them up there to see if I was even going to like the finished product

tada! I do like it very much but will probably be making another in a few years as I don't see it holding up thanks to my awesome skills, or lack there of.. :)

Our tree all perti-ed up! :) 

Anyone else have some *fun* brushes with insanity involved with your first sewing project?