I LOVE reading birth stories. I love reading about how a new life came into the world, and all that the mom experienced to get her baby here. I’ve also dreamed of having my own birth story and being able to tell how MY baby came into the world. I wasn’t sure I would ever get to do that, but here we are. I am so excited to share about how Cohen Jac came to be earth side. Before we dive into it, I need to sing the praises of Known Photo, also known as my friend, Britney Looney. Every photo you see in this post (except for the ones that don’t look like they were taken by a professional, lol) wer ..read more

After seeing our baby for the first time! I have been waiting a long time to write this post! As many of you know, I’ve wanted a baby for several years now. Jason and I started trying to conceive in September 2019, only to be diagnosed with infertility a month later. We knew I wasn’t ovulating, but didn’t know why. We were started on Clomid and after three months of increased doses not working, we were told to go ahead and make an appointment with a fertility specialist. I had heard that Dr. Phy was the best in Lubbock, so I made an appointment with her in January 2019-only to be told it was a ..read more

Photo Credit: Known by Looney Digital As I sit here writing this, my 11 month old foster baby is taking her nap. I’m watching her sleep peacefully on the baby monitor, hoping she takes an extra long nap after our New Year’s Eve fun last night. We’ve only had baby “I” for 3 weeks, and yet I have learned so much about foster care and myself. I feel like I’m a different woman. These past 3 weeks have been full of a lot of joy. I’ve wanted to be a mom ever since I could remember. I asked for baby dolls every Christmas and birthday. Anytime someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I sai ..read more

The Tube is Out! 5 years ago in 2015, just two days after getting engaged to Jason, I received a feeding tube. I was weighing in at just 95 pounds and couldn’t keep a shred of fat on my body to save my life (literally). I was devastated that I had worked so hard to gain weight and that it just wasn’t happening. I felt like a complete failure. But when I finally made the decision to say “yes” to the tube, the Lord filled me with peace. Slowly but surely, I began to gain weight. The most I had weighed prior to the tube was about 105 pounds, but now I was weighing 110 pounds. I looked better, fel ..read more

I often feel like a race horse with blinders on-I can only see what’s in front of me and nothing else. I can’t see the crowd, who is coming up behind me, or even my rider. The only thing I can focus on is the finish line. Sometimes wearing the blinders feels like a wonderful opportunity – there is nothing to distract me from the task at hand and nothing to scare me away from crossing the finish line. But other times, the blinders inhibit me; I forget that there are other things going on around me-things I can’t see when I wear the blinders. Jason and I have been licensed foster parents for al ..read more

Sometimes I feel like people forget that Jason and I have infertility. No one really asks about it anymore, or asks how I’m doing or how I’m feeling about it. Which is fine-I totally get it! I’ve done the same thing with others. But now that I’m living it, it’s hard. We haven’t “moved on”, even if it seems like it because we are pursuing foster care. It’s still something we grieve every day. September of this year will officially mark one year since we started trying. 11 months ago, I had no idea this journey would be so hard. After I stopped taking Clomid in January to help me ovulate, we to ..read more

It’s hard to believe I haven’t written in over 5 months! With COVID-19, it seems like 2020 has already flown by (and thank goodness!). Jason and I have been very busy with paperwork, trainings and inspections as we prepare to be licensed foster parents! We are excited to say that we have completed everything, and are just waiting on our home study to be scheduled! We started this process in December 2019, so it has been a long six months to get here! As far as Coronavirus goes, I had the privilege of starting to work from home the day after the first cases were confirmed in Lubbock. Since I a ..read more

I’ve been wanting to write this blog post for a few months now… but I wasn’t ready. My heart was not ready. But with the start of a new year, I’ve felt the Holy Spirit’s prompting to share. In August 2018, Jason and I decided that we would prayerfully consider starting a family the next year, in August 2019. We prayed and talked with our families and close friends about our exciting decision. We prepared by talking to all of my doctors and getting the “okay” from everyone, which we did. We tested Jason for the CF gene to make sure we wouldn’t pass CF on to our child. Jason is negative for the ..read more

It’s been a few days since my most recent clinic visit on June 5th. Life has been really busy, even with school being out! But, I’m finally taking time to write about life in the past few months and my clinic visit. I’ll start with the part of the title of this post that may be most concerning to some of you-the 3 surgeons. You may or, may not, remember that I had to have my feeding tube replaced several times last year. I actually lost count, but I’m pretty sure it was 4 times. For some reason, the balloon that is inflated inside of my stomach to keep my feeding tube in my body kept bursting ..read more