Sharing our hearts

I have struggled over this past year whether to write this post or not. I kept saying 'no, that's too personal, I will share once its over', but really it was just my fear of being completely honest and letting people in to the deepest part of my heart, and I need to trust God that that is what He calls us to sometimes. 

The reason I knew this is b/c a good friend of mine, Taylor, told me about her friends blog that shares a story like ours. (you can read it here) I was directed to this blog back in the summer and I remember how comforting it was to read someone else's story and all the emotions they had (that were much like ours) and the encouragement that came from reading how God truly worked in their lives. 

Well, if you haven't figured it out by now, Jordan and I have been trying

 to start a family. I always thought when I graduated HS

 (and knew I was marrying my HS sweetheart:) that I would 

have children young (and many of them!) 

b/c we both always wanted a large family. Then when 

God revealed to Jordan that he should be a doctor, 

we knew that path would have to be put on hold,

 so we made a 'plan' that in his 2nd year we would start 'trying'. 

Up until this past year I just thought :"ok cool, so I'll have kids

 when I'm 25, that will be great!".

Well, apparently God doesn't work that way.

We started trying in January of 2011, and we thought 

we could potentially have our baby by at least Christmas of this year, 

and obviously that was not in God's plan. 

If I was to go month by month and tell you all the things we

 struggled with and learned from God each month, 

it might as well be a book, 

so I will give the shortened version to catch everyone up to speed.

From January-June we tried naturally, and after nothing happened, 

b/c of our age, we prayed about it, and decided to see a fertility

 specialist, and realized that for now, we will need some help
with fertility treatments.
 And with that came many questions:
(why would God do this? 

What does this mean long term?

 Is it going to be hard every time we want a child?

  and the list goes on.)

In August, the Doctor recommended we try our first round of

medications, and with that came excitement, and a few side
effects, nothing major, and if all goes well,
we try and pray and wait.

I would have said then that was the 'hardest' month of trying

 b/c we were so hopeful with the new meds, but trust me, 

it was not. When mother nature showed up I went back to the

 Doctor and we learned the medication had helped but there
were some side effects that caused the lining to be too thin.

So, in September we decided to take a break for many reasons. 

1-we were emotionally just needing a break

2- Jordan and I had a vacation planned and a lot of family

 stuff going on, it would have been very difficult to 

make the appts and take medications, etc.

So, we still tried and prayed and waited, but again, nothing happened.

In October when I went back in to the Doctor, she said she wanted to

 try a different medicine and she thinks we would have
 better results on a different

 medicine that works exactly like the first one did,

except it doesn't affect your lining negatively. 

So I took that for 5 days. This time, she wanted to add 

on some different shots to help with some other things, and
then again we tried, we prayed and we waited and
..... praise God it worked!

We got pregnant! I cannot tell you the rush of 

emotions I had when I saw the positive test.

I was in the bathroom, and I was frustrated about how I was probably 

going to get another negative, but I just wanted to get it 'over with' so

 I took a test a few days early....and there it was.

I immediately fell to the ground on my knees and cried and

 prayed to God thanking Him for this wonderful gift. I went straight

 back to Jordans office and handed him the stick and said 'we did it!' 

and we both cried together and had such a special moment of joy. 

Over the next week I was for sure pregnant: I was exhausted 

and sleeping ALL the time, I was nauseous and starving all at the 

same time while having to pee every 5 seconds! =) 

I went in to the doctor and she had my bloodwork done.

That's when fear set in.

She said I was pregnant, but that my HCG level was 

very low and my progesterone was not 

what it should be at either. So they started me immediately

 on progesterone supplements. I took them twice a day and prayed to

 God that He would save this pregnancy and allow this baby to stay.

Jordan and I both were just pleading with God for it to work out.

But a few days later I went back in for blood work (to see if it was rising)

 and my HCG had dropped. I stopped the progesterone and then

 proceeded to wait for it to 'pass'. Since it was an early miscarriage,

 no d & c was needed.

I cannot describe all the emotions that were literally going

 on with me and then just for both of us for this to have happened.

 We knew it happens a lot, and that it was a possibility, but just had

never really thought about it before. It was such a devastation, 

and emotions from anger, to grief, to depression had all set in at 

one time or another. Then after about a week I heard the song

 by Gungor, 'Beautiful Things' (which if you haven't heard you

 need to go click the link after you're done reading and listen!) 

and realized that it was a beautiful thing that had happened. 

We DID get pregnant, and that in and of itself was a blessing

 and left us with so much hope for the future. It also brought us

 closer, and strengthened our walk with Him and gave us a new

 toolset to help others we may run into that may be hurting or have

 hurt in the past with the same things. And although I would never 

wish this on someone else, let alone myself, I know that one day I

 will look back and know that God did that b/c 

He makes all things work together for my good. 

(which you can hear the truth in that in this song by Jesus Culture here )

After reading a lot online about early miscarriages I found that

 most people got pregnant soon after, so we  decided to go ahead

 with another round of medications for 

November. We did the same process this time as directed, and

I will say, we were MORE than hopeful that this time would be the
 'one'. And I think in retrospect, it was me grasping at straws
 trying to get my baby back from last time. I know that sounds silly
 when I write it out, but that's what my thought was.
 I just need to be pregnant again I can't take the pain of it being
 taken from me. So my hopes were, 

I would say, a little too high. I was praying and crying to God, 

begging Him to let this be the one, but like many things 

we don't understand, God said no.

I think for me, this was by far the hardest one yet, b/c I hadn't

 really 'let go' of what happened last month. I thought I would 

get pregnant this month and the pain would go away, 

but when God said no, I realized I had to truly let go and trust that 

He will bring our needs in His timing.

We both have shed many tears and agonized over understanding
 His will for our life.During the past week I have loved the words in this
 song Just Cry and how it says :

 "It doesn't mean you don't trust Him, it doesn't mean you don't believe,

 it just means you don't know He's redeeming everything."

I love those words. Jordan and I have been praying and we

 know that God has a perfect plan, and while we fully understand 

now that we have no control, and no medicine, no doctor, and no 

ultrasound can tell us when the right time is, or when it will be, 

we know that God is in control, He is the creator and He 

will answer our prayer in His timing.

*I left out a lot of the names of  medications and specifics to the
 process and details about the fertility treatments.
However, if you are reading this and you would like to know more,
or get advice or just talk to me about the process, I would be more than happy to
share the details with you of what I have had done. You can email me at:
rachel.carl@yahoo.com

Here are some questions we wanted to answer:

Q: Have we considered adoption?

 Yes, of course. We would love to adopt. But for right now we are on this path, 

and He is teaching us to trust Him whole heartedly

 and we are continuing to follow His will.

Q: Will you continue to have fertility treatment? 

Yes and no. Right now for December, we are going to the Doctor to

see what is going on, and to talk about it, and we will go from there. 

We may take a break, we may try the meds again, but we will 

continue praying and seeking the Lords will as to what

 He would have us do as far as fertility treatments in the New Year.

Q: Will you continue updating us every month as to what's going on?

I will do my best. I like the thought of updating it regularly,

 but I think I may just wait and keep it ambiguous. 

Mainly b/c I don't like the idea of everyone knowing whats

 going on at every second, and plus I don't always have time to blog. 

So please don't think that b/c I don't update that means 

I'm pregnant or something. =) I will update about this when the Lord puts

 it on my heart to. I wrote this one b/c I really feel like there are some

 people that need to read this and find comfort in Him to

 know that He does work through these situations

 (even if it doesn't end how you might want) and I wrote it for that purpose

 and to update our family on what's going on, and

 b/c I know that God wanted me to be vulnerable about this and share

 it even though I may not be 'comfortable' in doing so.

Q: How can we pray for you both?

Please pray for patience, contentment and strength for Jordan and 

I as we seek the Lord's will and learn what it means to

 abandon our wants and trust in Him. 

Pray for comfort as this is such a personal issue that really 

strikes a cord deep in our hearts.

Please pray for physical healing, and when and if I am on medications, that my body

 will accept and respond well to those. 

And lastly, pray that He will show us what His will is for us

 in this time of 'waiting' and how we can truly worship and

 honor Him while we wait.

I love this sentence I read on my friends blog 

(with the exception of their last name written in)

that she wrote over a year ago that was going through this similar situation 

(and who just had her 1st baby last week):

Future Carl Baby, we love you.

5x7 Folded Card

Our Family Name Christmas Card

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View the entire collection of cards.

Year 2 Med School & 5 Year Anniversary

I'm playing catch up from August/Sept..so here it goes:

When the 2nd year of Medical school started, there was a fair at UTMB for all the

newbies coming in for their 1st year. Jordan is on leadership for Hands and Feet Medical

Missions group, and they had a booth at the Welcome Weekend. As you can see from the

pictures, the guys on leadership are.....what's the word? oh yea. weird. haha! I'm 

just kidding, they are a lot of fun=)

 Jordan and Jason hiding behind the booth b/c they're tired of talking to people.

Notice instead of candy, they decided to give out 'Turkey Bacon'....there were only

2 pieces left! It was a hit! =)

 Jordan and I TRYING to take a picture.

From left we have Jordan's friends: T.J., Brazos, Me & Jordan of course, then Josh.

finally got them to leave the photog!

me and Ansley-Ms. P.A. fabulous!!

(I'm going to skip Kelsey's rehearsal dinner and wedding and do that in a separate post)

The day AFTER the wedding on Sept 3rd, we left for our vacay in MEXICO!!! =)

We got to go with our good friends, Taylor and Josh. We had such a blast-it 

was a MUCH needed vacation that went by all too fast, but it was awesome.

First day in the pools!

finally getting to read something other than medical books.

view from our balcony!

Our room had an amazing bathroom, this is the view from the jacuzzi out 

to the balcony. SO NICE=) we loved it! thanks bookit.com!

dinner was so fun every night. all inclusive is the best!

We got to go to this amazingly fun XTREME park!

It had miles of trails that were all zip lining WAYYY up in the air!

It was scary at first, but once you took the first jump, the rest was so fun!

we had to climb all these towers, to then zip line off!

WAY scarier than a roller coaster!

on one they let us go together. I love jordan's face here. lol.

We got to wear helmets. so funny.

some of the zip lines went down and into a fresh water cave! 

good things my camera's waterproof b/c I did not see that one coming!

and some of them had water slides in between!!! =)

At this park you could also take rides on dune buggy's! Jordan got a little

out of control on one of the turns and we had to hitch hike after that. LOL. don't worry, it 

isn't as bad as it sounds, its a closed park. ha. the people behind us were also in dune buggy's.

And the last 2 things we did I didn't take pictures of b/c it was completely in the water and I 

didn't want to test my camera....But what we did was a wooden kayak through underwater

freshwater caves, it was so fun!

And the last one was swimming through the same kind of caves.=)

It was a BLAST! but, man, were we exhausted!! haha.

dinner that night.

we stayed on the beach the next day... 

nice hat josh.

dinner the last night. we didn't want to leave!=)

the SOMS (Spouses of Medical Students) group is BACK in session!

We have some new additions this year=)

We meet once a month at the Sunflower Cafe, I love meeting with these girls

and getting to know them better=)

From left:

Whitney, Amanda, Cayla,

this is what happened...

As some of you might know, I sprained my ankle, (YET AGAIN!) a few weeks ago....yes, that's right, I had an incident. It is very frustrating b/c at the time it was exactly 6 weeks until Kelsey's wedding and our vacation to Riviera Maya!!! Thankfully, that was all the time I needed according to the doctor.

So this is what happened...

First, this is the saboteur. A ratchet from one of Jordan's moving straps that resides in the 

bed of his truck. 

I thought I would be a really nice wife and go to get his truck washed on a Thursday afternoon. I get up to the car wash and they ask me to take the straps out of the back. I step on the wheel and hop on in the back to grab these out real quick (there are like 3 or 4). I throw them over the side and check to make sure for other stuff and then decide I'm going to jump out the same way I got in (he has rail bars you can grab on to). So I grabbed on and jumped over the side...well, mid air, I realized... I'm probably jumping right in the spot where the straps are...and sure enough I look down and see that huge ratchet. It was too late. I landed right on it with my outside (left) ankle, and snap! Tore a ligament. Fun times, let me tell you. It hurt soo bad....but I am very thankful that it was my left ankle and not my right one (so I could drive home)!

It immediately swells up:

Isn't that lovely? And continued to do so the rest of the evening, and of course I iced it and elevated it all night. I decided to get an appointment the very next day (thank you zocdoc.com!) at an orthopedic office b/c I needed to know if it was broken, or torn, or whatever, I just needed help walking! And, to my dismay, I did tear the ligaments on my ankle in some choice spots. Awesome. But, thankfully, he doesn't make you wear those clunky 'boots' that you usually have to wear (that I have had a few times in the past), now he only uses the nice, and ever so stylish, black braces:

I got my ace bandage and brace and was ready to go! He said this brace does the exact same thing as the big boot, but just adds more support, and less discomfort. Plus you can wear tennis shoes with this and keep your hips aligned better (b/c those boots make you off balanced) so I was thankful!

I didn't take any more pictures of my ankle b/c once the bruising started to show it was pretty nasty. I am now coming on my 4th week with the brace, and its still swollen, but feeling better. I think I will be ok for the wedding/vacation, or at least I like to hope so!=)

Anyway, I was in Dallas the weekend before that, and it was a lot of fun! I went by myself (jordan had to study) so it was nice to be with just my family. We are here at the harbor for Jennifer's Birthday! My mom took the picture on the right...and the one on the left is just something funny we did to see what I would look like with brown hair...ha! 

you decide!!! Although, I think the blonde looks better, but I may be biased...

This is Jordan and I on our 5 year anniversary (July 8th), I don't think I posted this earlier. We went to eat together and then went out for some fro yo! (no that is not a hat, its a sign on the window...)

and last but not least-this is us at Murdochs. If you ever come to Galveston, this is a neat little place to visit! They have an outdoor patio bar/snack place where you can sit and eat/drink while you enjoy the ocean! Plus they have a huge souvenir shop that had some pretty interesting stuff inside.

 It's worth a look-through=)

thanks for reading.

as summer comes to a close

the end of July always makes me feel like summer is going to end so quickly..

so here are some more things that happened.

I think I told you all about the 8 week Research Program Jordan was in this May/June.

It was a great learning experience for him, and look what he won (and was published on the front page of UTMB's newsletter for) on the final day when 

all the medical students that do research present their 'Poster' of what they did/learned:

(PS I love reading the last sentence of the caption under his picture that says what his poster is about, b/c I still have YET to understand what in the world it means...I told him to stop trying to explain it.)

<>

Sorry, I HAVE to brag on my husband, bc he never does it for himself. Here is a better

picture of him and his poster that he made and designed himself (in case you wanted a closer look-b/c I know deep down you really do.....)

and on a lighter note, here is Bella helping me make it through a drive to Dallas-she

makes me smile=)

our friends Amanda and Phil were SO awesome to let us go with them to the Astros Game-

I love this 'air conditioned' stadium! And we were 13 rows back from home plate...THANK YOU GUYS!

on Pier 21 for 4th of July!

About to watch 4th of July fireworks with our friends Josh and Taylor

and my parents:

In Dallas for Kelsey's shower last weekend:

isn't she beautiful??!!

decorations!

with the mother of the bride //and little sister Emma

all the hostesses from the shower, it was fun to see family!

The wedding is in less than 6 weeks, I can't believe it!

Good thing I just tore the ligaments in my ankle jumping out of the truck and landing on a 

wonderful truck strap ratchet.

pictures and info to come about this later....

for now, I must get some sleep.

lately..

//I have been debating whether to go back and re-blog everything that has happened...I think I decided just to sort of 'move forward' and if I have time to go back and re-blog things that have happened I might like to put on here, but just don't hold your breath//

Summer is going by way too fast! I cannot believe it is almost August. I am very much enjoying having my husband here this summer, as opposed to last summer when he was gone at Officer Training for the AF. (I wish I would have had my business back then so I wasn't so bored!)Ha. However, Medical Students do not get a summer break=( So after Jordan's 8 week research rotation he went straight into his 1st day of Year 2 that following Monday..boo! 

Speaking of Medical School, Year 2 is the HARDEST and WORST year of medical school, or so, everyone will tell you. But it's nice knowing that going in b/c you can prepare for it. Why is it so horrible? 

Well, just the fact that they are still 'studying' books (and not really seeing patients yet) makes it difficult, and obviously the classes are getting harder...but the main reason is the dreaded STEP 1 USMLE exam that happens in June. That is the 1st and hardest Board Examination Test they will take on their road to becoming an MD. Their are 3 STEP tests, the 2nd and 3rd ones are 'not as hard' so they say. The stress for this test starts in, well, lets just say day 1 of year 2, however, it doesn't really get bad until about January....so bring it on 2012!!!! After that its smooth sailing. Years 3 and 4 of medical school are the more 'fun' years where you do rations and no more lectures...I think.=) 

I am looking forward to meeting all the 'newbie' medical student wives. I have not forgotten what it feels like to be living in a strange place and not knowing anybody! I am also hoping that this year, since I will be setting my own schedule, I will have more time to devote to hanging out with these ladies, and hopefully doing some 'mentoring'...or just having fun is nice too!=) We are going to be starting a Bible study for the wives of medical students for us to discuss and share our perils, joys and laughter with older wives, younger wives and us in between. I am very pumped to meet the new ladies and hopefully connect on a deeper level with the ones I already know.

I cut my hair at the beginning of summer...that's right-the day AFTER school got out I went and chopped it all off! I was ready for a fresh start. It's been an exciting/rough/different kind of year for me so I wanted a fresh start for my new journey...i guess you could say.

Speaking of new journey, Jordan and I have decided that next year I will not be returning to the school I was teaching at. To most of you this is no new news, but I just felt like I should blog about it for some of you who may not have known. I have decided to stay home and do my business full time (and by business I mean my calligraphy/shirt stuff) and I am also going to be teaching piano lessons part time at a private school on the island. I am also going to be teaching some free lance after school music programs/clubs for students that are interested, so I am excited about that. I am glad to be home and setting my own schedule, its been really great for Jordan and I as well. I think it has been a really great change and I am looking forward to the future. here's my new do:

We have had some visitors this summer, which of course, we always LOVE LOVE LOVE! So keep 'em coming=) It is so nice to be in this place in our lives where we live in a 'vaca destination' that people like to come visit. We have been so blessed having people here at our home, (and we hope we have blessed them...?hehe) and we are always excited about who God might bring into our home next..

here are a few snapshots of what's been going on this summer:

Kemah with the Carls

feeding the sting rays!

grillin on the beach with my family 4th of July weekend!

he loves meat.

First camping trip with our NEW TENT=) awesome. we love it=)

floatin' the river..both good and relaxing..oh my..these glasses are NOT cute with this short hair...

guess I need

to make another Target trip soon=) hehe.

We went 'tubing' in New Baunfels-so fun! It was our 'early' anniversary celebration.

and we got to eat at the Gristmill after our tubing experience...and then we returned back

to our tent. HA! we were really roughin it....

and these are a couple pics from 5 years ago (July 8th, 2006)...wow, i just typed that. craziness. 

it has been such a good 5 years though. God has and still is taking us on an amazing journey together, and I am so glad to get to share it with my husband. 

that's all for now....have a good night!