Our journey

So I realized the other day that I started this blog and have been posting but haven't really talked about who we are.....which is the name of our blog. So I thought that it might be a good idea to do that. First of all We both grew up here in Washington and love the outdoors. Our favorite is to go camping and both of us have even camped in the winter with snow and all. I would not say that is my favorite thing to do in the winter but I can say I have experienced it, more than once actually.

Both Lindsay and I grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and have been blessed tremendously by our faith. We were sealed together in the Spokane Temple 4 years ago and know that we will be able to enjoy our marriage through the rest of Eternity. We started trying to expand our family a year after we had been married and weren't sure how things were going to work out but had high hopes. After 9 months of no pregnancy and many dollars spent on home tests we decided to see a doctor concerning the issue. He did routine blood work and started the beginning steps of fertility treatments. I was on Clomid for a year with increasing doses every few months. HORRIBLE! I hated it, and although my cycle became regular I never seemed to feel like myself. At the time I was in my first job out of College working in a residential center for at risk youth (runaways, homeless, foster kids), needless to say I had a lot on my mind. Soon after working for the Center I had started filling in at the administration building for the Agency I worked for and they offered me a part time job as the receptionist for Admin, and their drug and alcohol treatment center. So I decided that less stress would probably be best for my body and my spirit. So I quickly switched positions. I have stayed as the receptionist and moved into it full time. I enjoy working with the population of people that I would work with if I was using my degree but enjoy the fact that It's not as high maintenance.

So after a year of Clomid and a golf ball size ovarian cyst I asked to be taken off of it. They thought that was a good idea (those knuckleheads, throughout my medical journey I have felt like I have been the guiding hand with out the expertise). At that point Lindsay had been tested and found he had some of his own infertility issues. Seemed like our bodies weren't made to create babies. From there I asked for a referral to a higher level fertility specialist and again bloodwork was done and they found (or so they said) a brain tumor....YIKES! I completely and utterly felt like my body had failed me, like my divine purpose had been taken away from me, rock bottom is where I was. So I once again went on another medication until this fall. I thought Clomid was bad but let me tell you this one was worse. For two months I took it at night because it would make me dizzy after I took it. There is a whole list of other things it did as well but that is beside the point. I ended up taking a medication to go with that one to help with side effects. So after that we pretty much decided to give the whole fertility try a rest. Emotionally we were shot, we would have days where one or the other would sit and cry and explain our frustration.

We comforted each other with the fact that our love for each other stayed the same regardless of how messed up our bodies were. That we would still be there for the other. You see up until this point we hadn't even told our families that we were trying to start a family.....we were still dodging questions. It was not fun, I wanted to yell out at the roof tops how much I hurt, I wanted to call my mom or anyone else to gain strength, but at the same time I didn't want them to worry, I didn't want more questions about things I wasn't ready to talk about. Finally we told our Dads and had them come to our house and give us Father's Blessings, wow what a release. It was like a huge cloud had been lifted. It was at this time we didn't really know where we were going to go from there and didn't really want to think about it for a while.

In March of 2007 we decided to start looking into adoption, we had our doubts, our questions, and our hope and motivation. We met with our first social worker who put some of our doubts to rest and inspired more motivation. Lindsay and I went home and decided to pray and think more about it. Adoption we felt was the answer to our prayers. So we started the process, but we still had issues and grieving to get through. We needed time to understand the process better, for me I needed to be able to solely focus on adoption and not on my getting pregnant. With the brain tumor I needed to make sure all was well even though they said the tumor was benign. It has been a year of much growth.

I now understand the atonement of Jesus Christ and his great blessing for us on a much deeper scale. It affects everyone in so many ways, I have learned it doesn't just help us when we have made poor choices and want to repent but it helps us and everyone else with everything, it is the reason for everything. I love my Savior with my whole heart and know that I would not be at peace with our decision without his influence.

So here we are a year later with our paperwork filled out, turned in, and our home study complete and brain tumor as well as medication gone! I still struggle with not knowing whether I can or will get pregnant but I am ready to continue on this path that has been set before us. I can't wait to see Linds with our children. He is so amazing! This last week his Sister was in town with her two girls and he was holding Azura (14 months) with so much ease, it was like he had been doing it forever. So welcome to our lives and our story I hope that you enjoy it and that it may help someone at some point.

*since this is such a long post.....I will post the pic of Us, our nieces, and Chelsea-Lindsay's amazing Sister!

Less Than A Month to go!

*side note* the above picture is from the gift that Lindsay's mom made for me for Christmas. I took a couple of other pictures but they didn't turn out clear. We have a nice camera but as you can see.....I am not so great on it and don't have the patience to learn.

All right so I have much to blog about so I think that I may do a few different posts otherwise this would be humungous and not everything relates. So as far as normal events in the Moon Household...........our home study for adoption was on friday afternoon. I have no idea why (or maybe I do, the fact that someone is coming to djudge your home and lifestyle) but I was really nervous leading up to the visit. Lindsay was too although I don't know if he would admit to it. I spent last weekend with Haley and she helped me to organize our upstairs so that we could move our room up there and a baby into our current bedroom once placement happens. Plus it just felt so good to get everything put into a spot and have room to do scrapbooking without having to have it all over the dining room table. I wish I had before pics but here are a couple of after shots. I love the way my skinny bookcase is filled to the max, I love to read and my goal one day is to have a small library in my house where my family can go to relax.

Throughout the week Linds and I did chores and got the house all nice, we filed our taxes and are waiting for our return. We decided to buy some emergency preparedness stuff with our return money which feels really good, we are pretty close to the goal that we have for ourselves.

So the social worker came and went, after talking with him I thought that we would be able to be approved by the end of January but he says it will more likely be into February. I am not sure why we turned in the rest of our paperwork and so all he has to do is type up our homestudy, I hope that he is not going to procrastinate it. But at least we know that by the end of next month we will officially be able to welcome a placement into our home. We hope the air force keeps us here at Fairchild AFB long enough to get placement.

So onto this weekend, it has been snowing like crazy. I don't think that it has stopped since the wee hours of friday night. Just at my parents house 15 minutes north of us they got about 4 inches just while we were there for a couple of hours last night. Linds has shoveled a few times today. Here are pics of him shoveling and one to try to show you the depth of it from the sidewalk. Church was canceled everywhere today except our ward had a short sacrament. I am glad that we were able to participate but everyone else got to stay home while we forged through it all. You see Spokane is horrible at taking care of their roads. There are a million and a half potholes everywhere all the time. They are actually trying to make studded snow tires illegal since they contribute to pot holes. In the summer they do all the construction and block almost every road. And you would think that they would do it strategically so that it would still be easy to manuever through the city but no they dont care if they block every northbound street. It is truly ridiculous. This morning at 10 am when church started there was still no plowed roads or sand put out. Are they trying to kill people?

This winter has actually been like the winters Lindsay and I had when we were kids here. We used to get about 6 feet of snow and you shoveled tunnels to your car and home. I remember building a snow city in our backyard with half a dozen igloos with my brothers and we actually fit in them and had a jail for if you threw snow balls at other people's igloos and such it was great. Lindsay one time sledded off the roof of his house into the street because the snow was so high that there was hardly a drop. Pretty crazy huh? So for us this winter has been nastalgic, it's been wonderful. The past 7-8 years though the winters have had hardly any snow compared to now and just been blah. It's always pretty dark and depressing here in the winters since they are long and the sun doesn't make an appearance too much but I think that the snow makes it all better. It is beautiful to watch fall and is fun to play in. It's not fun to play outside when it's freezing and all you have is ice. I love to curl up in sweats and read on days like today.

Anyhow I need to get going to a dinner date with my family but I will come back later to post my other things, I need to get some of it off my chest and I also want to let you all know a little bit more about us. Talk to you soon!

I know I am bad...

Hello, it feels like it has been about a million years since I have posted. I feel bad and the longer it has taken me the harder it has been to get back on it.

I am currently at work so I won't be able to post any pictures and we will see how much I get to write but I figured I should get something down now and stop procrastinating. So Lindsay did make it home for Christmas!!!! Thanks for all prayers that went out for us, I truly appreciate it. We had a lovely Christmas that we spent with our families. My younger Brother was in from Hawaii and this time we actually got to spend time with him which was way nice. A few of my favorite gifts were a cool portable cabinet that is teal colored to help with some of my out of control clutter that I have going on in my oh so tiny house! Lindsay's mom made me an incredible wall hanging that has quotes on it from an excerpt that I wrote back in September for one of her Relief Society lessons. I had written a piece on what brings happiness into our marriage. I will take a picture of it and post it soon but it was awesome! I have it hanging proudly. Lindsay claims this was the best Christmas ever. He got some things that he really wanted but had never made a priority to get for himself, plus he was able to come home.

I cannnot wait for the weather to get better, we got some amazing hiking stuff and I got new pedals and shoes for my bike so I cant wait to try them out. The weather here has been like what I remember when I was a kid. It was great we got over a foot of snow one week and it was beautiful, not so much fun to drive in but gorgeous none the less. Today it is supposed to be about 20 degrees and we are dropping into the single digits at night, this is the cold I can't stand, when it hurts to breath outside. But hopefully not much longer before the sun comes out and thaws everything out and we can get outside to have fun. Lindsay since re-enlisting with the Air Force was able to receive a small bonus that was able to help us pay off a majority of our debt......I am so stoked about that. That is also why we were able to get some gear for ourselves.

I cannot explain the amazing feeling I get when it's just us and Boomer (although this year Lola gets to come along too) walking with packs on and having nothing but what is absolutely needed to survive. We get to talk with no distractions, we get to use our imaginations to entertain ourselves and be totally self sufficient, plus I always feel stronger spiritually while out with this beautiful earth that has been given to us. Boomer is adorable and stands as our guard, usually walking ahead of us and coming back closer when brush gets thick or he can't see us. He even packs in his own food and water, what amazing creatures dogs are. I can't wait to fit Lola for a pack once she has grown more.

Our new year was totally low key as usual, we went to a pilot's house with Alex and Haley ( Lindsay's brother and his wife) for a bit but they were getting a little wild and so we left and watched Smallville at our house until the new year rang in. Then we all crashed. I think this was the first year that we actually made it to midnight, I know we are like old farts.....but that is what happens when life is crazy and you get the chance to hang out.

Lindsay was able to complete his individual interview with our social worker and set up our home study for next week!!!! Can you believe it, we should be approved by the next week or so! It has taken us extra long for our approval. I thought when we first started that we would just whip it all out and get approved so that we could meet our little one. But it was just not that easy for us. We needed to deal with some of our feelings and learn more about adoption, we needed more confirmation that it was right for us, I needed to find out what was wrong with my body physically ( I still don't know, but at least I don't have a brain tumor anymore!), and I think we just needed to settle into doing this with the help of others. I have a hard time asking for help from others, I love to serve my fellowmen and don't even mind when others serve me, but it is when I need that help and nobody knows it that I struggle. I don't want to inconvenience others with my burdens. I guess I didn't truly realize that until just now that I am writing this but it's true. I know it's silly and I shouldn't feel that way, but I seem to think that I should be able to find a way to help myself or deal with it on my own.

But we are here and hopefully soon we will be in contact with the amazing woman that will forever have a warm impression left on our hearts. A woman who will bear for us physically what we can not, a woman so selfless and mature that she truly understands our Heavenly Father's plan for us. Man, if words could only express. I can't wait! I have enjoyed this journey as a whole, not necessarily all parts of it, but all of it none the less. I know that there have been times when there have only been one set of footprints in the sand with Heavenly Father carrying both Lidnsay and myself, I feel so blessed.

I feel so much closer to people around me, I feel like I relate more to those with lots of different trials, and I feel a love for my husband that has been there all along but now it just blows my mind. I wish I knew how to express what infertility and the adoption process thus far has done for our marriage.......I have no doubts that we can weather the storms of this life together, we can talk about anything and talk with each other instead of at each other, we understand each other and have better learned how to read the needs of one another. Wow, it's amazing!

Well I should get back to doing what I am paid to do here, that was a great break. And I will be trying to take more pictures soon and post some from the holidays. Talk to you all soon,

Sommer