Bringing HOPE to our family...

"But those who HOPE in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

~Isaiah 40:31

The healing process in any loss can be interesting. Many people can recall learning or hearing about the five stages of grief.  Thanks to miss Elsabeth Kubler-Ross for introducing us to what seemed to be information in a textbook, but now has turned into valuable information to process and understand when dealing first hand with grief. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance...I can say that I have successfully dealt with all of these emotions. 

My heart in sharing where we have been and where we are now is to personally continue to heal, but also to allow those who have miscarried as well to understand your not alone. 

So here is our story of HOPE:

TODAY February 27, 2013 was our due date for our sweet child. The picture above was our first ultrasound of the little one measuring at 6 weeks and one day, although I was 8 weeks along. 

Yes, its a little dot, but one of the most important dots in our life that will forever change our family. We were given the news that more than likely we will be miscarrying our baby. Denial showed its face immediately. Not me. Not now. The baby will make it if I have anything to do with this! After many blood tests it was confirmed, we would then have to wait for my body to reject what was to be good. But I wasn't mentally going to reject what I had always hoped for. Three weeks later because nothing was happening, we made the decision to have a D&C. I'm sure I was angry and boy did I bargain at this point. But it was time to accept that our child wouldn't physically be part of this life. And to think that our baby's life is actually MUCH greater than what this earth offers, gives me joy.

After months and months of processing, praying, and crying...I want to share with you how precious our God is to bring love, joy and hope to our lives. Its pretty easy to see situations with "worldly" or human eyes. The way you view the situation, is just the way it is (if that makes sense). For example, the day we told the Dr. we would do the D&C, I was seeing it as the Dr. going in and sucking out a baby and cleaning me out.

God however showed me his view, a spiritual view. I wish I was a much more eloquent writer and could paint a beautiful picture of what happened that day. I don't think I will ever be able to fully describe what I saw, but boy do I wish you were there with me to see it! Adam was holding my hand on the left and Jesus was on my right side. As devastating as the news was in that moment, something so beautiful happened. The Lord came around in front of me and delivered our sweet baby BEFORE we even went into surgery. God has been so good to me to show me with "spiritual eyes" what was REALLY happening. And there we were in the room seeing Jesus holding our baby, safe in his arms, ready to go home. This picture has healed my soul. Brought peace to our lives. And given us hope for the future.

One of the biggest things I have been praying for these past 6 months is for a name for our baby. Although we never knew the sex, its been very important for me to honor our baby and give a name. Just last month I spent a weekend with some beautiful moms on a retreat. The last night we spent time praying for each other. No one there knew I was praying for the Lord to give us a name. My sweet friend Kate at the end told me God showed her a picture of me painting on a wall. And I was painting the word HOPE. The Lord said YES. This is your name. Your baby will be called HOPE. 

Hope has been a word since the beginning of this journey. We have always said we are hopeful for our family to grow. We have continued to rest in the hope the Lord has given us. Hope has developed our faith. "Faith is being sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see." Hope has brought healing from the past and strength for our future. Hope is our joy. Hope is our first child's name. 

Happy due date Baby Hope! We long to see your face and eagerly await that day when we are reunited in heaven. We promise to never forget you and to always honor you. Thank you for teaching us so much already about being a strong family. 

"We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And HOPE does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." ~Romans 5:2-5

Pinterest Inspired Project

Well, we are finally getting back to some normalcy here. Adam's health is good and he's back to running, swimming and biking. We have been enjoying the Fall and using our CU Buffs season tickets with our friends Ashlyn and Craig.  Now of course they (the Buffs) aren't doing too well, but the atmosphere and great weather has made it worth it.  

As for me, I have been working on all sorts of random projects around the house. I keep trying to do projects that I wouldn't be able to do if I was pregnant. So my post for today will be my painting project. I actually did this before Adams surgery, I just hadn't downloaded the pictures. This was Pinterest inspired, which most of my latest ideas have been.  I would LOVE to "Post-a-Pin" once a week because seriously the best things come from Pinterest. Maybe someday I will make something that can be pinned, inspired by myself!

Pinerest Project #1: Our Dining Room

Since we are renting there isn't a whole lot that we can do with our place, but our ghost white walls have been killing me. Granted, I could put up more pictures or something to at least to hide the white a little bit, but one day it just got to me. I called our cutest-ever 87 year old landlord lady (Marge) and asked if I could paint "neutral, not so crazy colors" on the walls. She was hesitant, but kindly agreed to my plea. 

So here is what I started out with, a white wall with frames:  

(See, they are just too white and I tried to cover them.)

I decided to go with a neutral/tan color that I had from a previous paint job in my old apartment. Who knew paint can last up to five years! 

So this wasn't any normal paint job, I decided to go with STRIPES!! The kind men at Lowes suggested I use the Frog Green tape and to take it off while still wet. Good to know.

I started with painting the whole wall and side walls a light tan color. Kind of hard to see here, but its definitely not white anymore:

My biggest dilemma was deciding how thick to make the stripes. After much debating I went with 7 inch stripes, boy was that fun to create! I started to measure and make small pencil marks and then basically connected the dots with the green frog tape.

Then I just painted in between each line:

And its totally fine to paint on the tape, so no need to be a perfectionist at this point!

Then just like that, I took the tape off (when the paint was still wet) and voila:

I LOVE the stripes! 

I put my frames back up, but they still need pictures in them. That is on the never ending "to-do" list.  I also want to add some art and play around with the layout of frames, BUT lets just say I finally finished something I started! And because of that I am proud of myself (and Adam is too for that matter)

Although its a small space, it definitely changed the feel and I love eating in there or just staring at it as I cook. We had some guests over recently and my friend commented on how cozy and warm she felt sitting in there. So although its not much, our rental house slowly is becoming a home!

More "Post-a-Pin" coming soon. Next will probably be the best salsa ever!!

He's Out...

He is out of surgery!!!

The Dr came out and let us know that they DIDN'T have to ablate anything. We are waiting to talk more to Dr. Ngo to understand the specifics, but they ended up trying to get his heart into the "WPW mode" and they said his signal was so weak they couldn't really find it. He said that this was the best case scenario and it was the weakest he's ever seen. 

We had many of you praying specifically that Adam would be healed. We believe he was, even before the surgeons went in. They couldn't find what they were looking for because it WASN'T THERE! We are so blessed and thankful. God continues to amaze us at his love for his children and especially the power of prayer and healing. 

After we talk more with Dr. Ngo about specifics I can post the more medical side of things and what they say they found. For now we are thankful this chapter in our story is over and we can continue to move on together. 

Love,

Adam and Brooke

He's In...

Thanks for all your calls and texts already...Adam has officially gone back into surgery. After spending some time in the pre-op room(with a crazy nurse that did NOT calm Adams nerves) Dr. Ngo came in and explained everything again. And just like that, after a month of waiting, my husband was off to surgery. 

I am doing ok. Actually very calm and I do have a peace that he will be fine. I am with Adams parents and currently we are eating breakfast and letting the Dr. do what he does best, care for his patients. Adam is in great hands and especially in the Lord. 

We will have 4-6 hours before he hear anything more. So I will be crocheting as we wait!

Brooke

Surgery on Tuesday

Just a quick update that Adams surgery WILL be tomorrow morning at 10:30am. I will keep updating throughout the day as we hear from the Dr on how everything is going. Please email or text me if you have questions. Visitors are welcome just probably won't get to see Adam until later that afternoon or evening. 

Thanks again for your love and support!

Adam and Brooke 

In every season turn, turn, turn...

Well it looks like we have so many things to update our friends in family on, that I am not sure where to start. After my blogpost in April we finished up the school year and looked forward to our summer ahead. I have some fun things to post sometime soon about vacations, new crafts I have been working on, recipes I have been using, and decorating projects in the house. However, those will have to come at a later time...

Like the leaves turning colors here in Colorado, our life has taken an interesting turn since June. On June 12th we celebrated our one year anniversary up in Breckenridge. It was a beautiful time celebrating what the Lord has done and coming together with goals for this next year in our marriage. Not too long after this trip, we were delighted to find out that we were going to expand our family and have a child! We decided to wait and tell anyone until our first Dr.'s appointment at 8 weeks along. At this appt. we were unable to hear the heartbeat or see much growth of a child. This clearly came as a devestation to us both, but the Dr. said that we should come back next week and see if maybe we were just off on our dates. The following week we were given the news that I had a blited ovum and would not bear this child, but miscarry. I could go on and on with my thoughts and feeling during this time, but it would be a longer post. I was very aware that this could happen since 1 in 4 pregnancies result in a miscarriage, but I never thought it would be ME. After waiting three more weeks to miscarry, my body wasn't naturally doing it, so I ended up having a D&C on August 10th. I will say this whole process has been LONG and at many points very hard and sad. I am constantly telling myself the positives of this situation, like what a blessing it was that I COULD even get pregnant. I definitely go through waves of emotions even to this day, but I know that is very normal. We are believing God to bring us another child and resting in His promises that He desires to give good gifts to his children.

And here is where our life turned even more....

Four days after my D&C Adam went to a Dr. for a follow up appointment regarding an EKG and found out that he would be having to have a catheter ablation on his heart. HEART SURGERY, what?! That is what went through our heads. WOW, seriously thought that we had already been through enough when losing our child. I will say that the past month has been for sure one of the hardest times in the Life of a Strah. Below is an explanation from Adam of what is going on with him:

I originally went in to the doctor for a routine visit about some chest tightening I had been experiencing for the last couple of years that had been diagnosed as muscle related from stress and not cardiac related.  In that visit they did an EKG and my doctor found an abnormality that he thought looked like WPW (Wolff Parkinson White) but sent it on to a cardiologist for further review.  They sent me in for a stress test on the treadmill with a cardiologist.  They found my heart to be in good condition but also found the electrical problem of WPW as I worked out on the treadmill.  It has concerned the doctors because apparently the WPW showed up more frequently as I worked out and not the other way around which is usually the case apparently.   I saw an electrophysiologist and he has classified me as low risk for a life threatening episode seeing as how I have never had any symptoms throughout my life but with the way my heart responded to the stress test they have suggested having the catheter ablation surgery done to cure the problem. 

After finding this all out and talking to MANY Dr.'s, as well as people who have had the surgery, we decided to go ahead with the surgery. The surgery will be THIS Tuesday Sept. 25th starting at 8:30 am   and will be a 4-6 hour procedure. Adam will then have to be on his back for another 6 hours while the catheter site in his leg heals.  He will spend that night in the hospital and then hopefully be able to go home in the morning. The surgery is happening at St. Josephs hospital in Denver.

*** WE HAVE A TENTATIVE DATE FOR TUESDAY OCTOBER 2***

(The Dr. had a family emergency and we are hoping will be back next week, but they are unsure)

Although this has been so much for us to handle in such a short time, we have grown closer as a couple in our marriage and in our faith. The verse in the Bible that I am constantly praying over and over is:

 "Do not be anxious about ANYTHING, but in everything by prayer and petition, WITH thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the PEACE which passes ALL understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:7

Our prayer is we live with this peace that we don't even understand how we have it, but we just do. We know that we will only be stronger through all of this and pray that God is glorified. We are so grateful for his love and comfort during this time through friends and family and even through His Word. 

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stone and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace,

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

As our seasons continue to turn, we are so thankful for your thoughts and prayers.  All the support we have been given already has been amazing and we are so blessed to have all of you in our lives.

Love,

Adam and Brooke

Take Me Out To the Ballgame...

 

Well baseball season for the Niwot Cougars has come and already gone. After taking a year off of coaching Adam has been back at it again, but as an assistant coach this time. (He's the first base coach out there in the top picture if you can see that far away)

This game was their first home game which they won against Centaurus. Now I would like to say the rest of the season went as well, but it ended up a little rough. There is always next year, right?!

The team did get to play at Coors Field which was very cool (I can't seem to get those pictures posted right now, but hopefully sometime soon)

So Adam has found another man friend, adding to his fav Craig Montgomery, coach Mike Moat. These guys have a blast coaching and occasionally hitting golf balls off home plate to the outfield!

We also found a new ball boy and soon-to-be Cougars lefty pitcher, ok we all can dream, but check out Maddox, Mike and his wife Laurie's pride and joy! (I could take pictures of him all day!)

Although Adam misses being a head coach, I know that this year was great for him to sit back a bit and enjoy getting to know the kids and imparting his knowledge. What an amazing coaching staff he has, and what fun its has been to be a part of such a great program.

Three weeks off and we will be heading into Summer Ball! I'm definitely learning how to adjust as a coaches wife, but also enjoying seeing Adam happy doing what he loves. The extra time with him gone has allowed a few creative ideas to come out. Much more cooking, sewing, and photography. Can't wait to share whats happening at the Strah house.  Post soon to come!