Adopt-a-Blogger!

This month, January 2016, we pray for

S @ Mystery Blogger!!

Something a little different coming your way this month, everyone! Sometimes people don't have the flexibility to be open about their infertility and they need to maintain their anonymity. As you can imagine - Conceiving Hope knows a thing or two about that. So what do you do when someone is voted to be our next Adopt-a-Blogger, but isn't ready to share their infertility struggle with the world, their work place, and their family (especially at the holidays!)? You pray doubly hard for them!

This prayer campaign is about praying for those who suffer in silence, and I cannot think of anyone more worthy of prayer than our blogger this month. The upcoming season of Lent reminds us of longing to be through the desert, something the infertile couple knows the feeling of in their vocation to grow their family with no end in sight. It can be heartbreaking, and I pray for  God to lessen your pain.

S describes herself and her intentions below, so please be kind and generous and take a moment and make time to read through this and pray for our mystery blogger this month!

As always, I pray for the intentions of everyone joining me in prayer in this Adopt-a-Blogger campaign, that God's will be done in your life. Happy New Year and here is S in her own words here: 

Thank you for praying for me this January as the Adopt-a-Blogger this month. I feel bad that we aren't able to share our identity since you are so graciously praying for us, but our family and careers are connected to our blogging presence and this isn't a topic we've broached with either of those worlds yet. We've been married for 3 years. We have male factor and female factors involved in our infertility. Both of us have surgeries scheduled in the upcoming month, and we could really use your prayers for healing for that, if nothing else! As we continue to seek God's will to grow our family, we appreciate your support and understanding. Please pray for God to make His will clear in our lives so that we know can answer the call He placed on the sacrament of our marriage. 

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How it works:


ALL bloggers, readers, commenters, lurkers, lurchers, creepers, crazies (clomid meltdown, aisle 3!), borings, snorings, dazed, confused, and willing - i.e., ALL OF US - will be uniting our prayers for the entire month for the blogger mentioned above. At the same time, across the country, across the Americas, heck, even across the world, our prayers will all be directed in the same place, at the same time. FOR A WHOLE MONTH! Get ready for some SERIOUS fruits, people!

Click on the blog link above to visit the Blogger of the Month's post in which they will give you a brief history of their journey with infertility/adoption/childlessness. Then, continue to follow up and check in on that blogger throughout the month, to become more familiar with them and better align your prayers with their intentions.


Why?:


The idea is to pray a Childless Blogger, one of our own, to a Childless-No-More status. To bridge that final gap, to knock down that final wall, to make them MOMMIES against all odds!! Above all else, our prayers will be for peace and joy in their hearts as only God holds the answer to these prayers.


When?:


All month long! A new Blogger will be announced at the beginning of each new month. This post will be updated on the 1st of every month, so be sure to check back!


So,... How, again??


Pray whatever prayers you'd like. Do a Novena. Say a rosary. Meditate. Say a litany. The Memorare. Whatever your heart desires, whenever it desires it. You may also choose (and this is HIGHLY ENCOURAGED!) to offer up your suffering, any suffering at all, for the Adopted Blogger. Your offering can be as small as your patience with an overtired, sugar-high toddler, or it can be as large as offering your cycle (if you are going through infertility) in the hopes that your cycle will be instead the cycle in which their child is conceived. Singles? You, too have an excellent opportunity to offer your daily wait for a spouse. Not trying to conceive? That's okay- hey, trust me, I'm sure we ALLLLLLL can find some form of suffering in our daily lives to offer up!


So, join in, one and all, and please feel free to STEAL one of these lovely Bloggy Button Thingies for your your blog, facebook, pinterest, twitter, instagram, or wherever:

                                 

                              

The button should link back to this post on your page (steal the current URL from above), so that all blog readers can learn how to join in, and WHO to pray for!

(Remember, the post will be updated on the 1st of each month, so the link changes each time)

Thank you for participating in the Adopt-A-Blogger Prayer Campaign here @ Conceiving Hope!!! Your prayers are powerful, and so very much appreciated! 

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Hosting News! {Adopt-a-Blogger}

So....it's been a giant 1st week of Lent already, but the news just keeps coming. I'm happy  to announce that there will be 

a virtual baton-passing happening on MARCH 1, 2015.

For the past two years, This Cross I Embrace has been hosting an internet-wide prayer campaign called Adopt-a-Blogger. The whole goal of Adopt-a-Blogger is to focus all our prayers on ONE blogger each month to pray him/her out of childlessness. Prayer is a powerful witness of our faith and it's a powerful gift we can freely give each other. If you haven't joined in on Adopt-a-Blogger before, MARCH 1, 2015 is your opportunity to join us for the first time. Anyone can pray along with us! 

So without further ado, I'd like to announce that there will be 

a NEW HOST of Adopt-a-Blogger and it's going to be: 

Conceiving Hope! 

We welcome anyone and everyone to join us. The prayer effort will work identically, but please note: 

1) If you have a link to Adopt-a-Blogger on your website, you'll want to take a moment to update it with the new name, host, link, and location. All the information you need is below.

2) The permalink for Adopt-a-Blogger will now live here: http://conceivinghope.blogspot.com/2015/03/adopt-a-blogger.html

3) There are two new buttons you can use to promote Adopt-a-Blogger on the web. A circle (because really guys, they are pretty!!) and a square. If you have any questions about how to plug them into your blog, just send me a message on the contact form and I can help you navigate it. It's super simple to use either one too! Here are the buttons:

                                                                               
                 

4) TCIE is still going to be praying along with Adopt-a-Blogger each month. We'd love for you to be posting about your prayers for the Adopt-a-Blogger too, so post your links on the permanent post in it's NEW HOME HERE so we can all read them! Be creative!

5) If you need to contact the new host for any reason, please use Conceiving Hope's contact form. 

6) New bloggers will still be chosen each month (we'll be announcing the newest Adopt-a-Blogger on MARCH 1, 2015 @ Conceiving Hope), published on the 1st of the month. If you would like to be considered for an upcoming month - contact Conceiving Hope HERE.

7) That's about it! Hope you'll join in this weekend for Adopt-a-Blogger in its new home on Conceiving Hope!

Mrs. September

 

Hi, and welcome to my humble little corner of the internet. I'm glad you've stopped by. If you linked here from This Cross I Embrace, then you are probably looking to learn a little more about me (us), our story, and what we're praying for these days. I hope to provide what you're looking for - but if you have any questions or are looking for something you can't find - leave me a message in the comments and I'll be happy to help however I can.

First, I'd like to humbly thank Amy for making me September's Adopt-a-blogger. It is interesting timing, to say the least. If you haven't followed my blog, you can catch up on our Infertility Timeline here. If you *have* been following along, you know that the severe pain and dysfunction I've struggled with for YEARS has recently been vanquished, in no small part to the care and puzzle solving skills of my brilliant NaPro doctor over the past 20 months. I've had two cycles without PMS for the first time in my menstruating life. I've had two textbook cycles for the first time since I began medical treatment and charting. All signs point to hope for amazing things this month with the courage to TTC. If you want to read about why this is such an exciting time in my life, you can read about what things used to be here.

We need so many prayers. Our hearts are broken and so afraid to hope. We fear conception as much as we fear infertility. And as much as we pray so fervently for others - we are wimps here at Conceiving Hope. We are on our knees this month, trying so hard to trust God's will in our life.

A bit about us: DH is a librarian and was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. He's a kind, gentle soul and his eyes are on God and me. He's amazing. I'm a bit of everything else that DH isn't, and I really have to work for my relationship with God (hard), That said, I'm passionate about my marriage and laser focused on trying to build a family with my husband, just in case sheer effort and focus can ever sway God one-way-or-the-other. Be honest, you know what I'm talking about UBER CHARTERS. I was born in the States (Jersey farm girl here!), but have called Virginia my home for almost 10 years now. We're in the middle of navigating the sale of my house in the US and coordinating immigration for permanent residence in Ireland. We originally made this decision before our heartbreaking losses.... because we wanted to be close to family when starting our own. Infertility doesn't care about your plans though, just fyi, so the choice is altogether for different reasons now. I need to be near a family that will surround us with love even is there are no children ahead for us, as much as that pains my fingers to type. In every way, they have been supportive and loving and understanding of our heartaches this past year and a half. I want to be close to them in spirit and in proximity...so to Ireland I will go.

We're just waiting on my house to sell now. It's the last teeny step before I expatriate. So a giant move and cultural shift are happening this year - on top of grieving the deaths and murders of several loved ones as well. 2014 has been brutal. If anything, we have been reminded how much we need prayers this year, like no other before it. We are incapable of anything without God in our lives. That is the clear message.

A bit about our month ahead - and why your prayers are so needed:

Somewhere in the midst of all the change ahead of us (where we're positive my cycle will descend into stupid and ugly territory) - we closed our eyes tight and prayed to God for direction this month. Do we leave this cycle on the table and just hope for better days ahead? Silence. Do we hold on tight and trust in your will? Silence. Do we make a concerted effort to TTC and let God work a miracle, if that's His plan? We both felt like that's what we were being called to (despite me having every excuse in the book for why that's an awful idea on paper right now). But God's will trumps my logic and so scrunched up face and all, I downed the double dose of clomid this month and found myself wondering if there was a possibility for anything but heartache ahead. It's true that my cycles has been more hope-filled and healthy looking this month (and last) than they have been in years. It's true that I would do anything for a baby (twins). It's true that I want to start a family and no silly practicality like money, stable housing, residency in a country, or any other ridiculous frivolity (eeeekkk) should have any bearing on God's will for my family.

All of this is to say that I am hanging on by a thread over here. A mighty, mighty, silk thread. And your prayers are so, so needed. And wanted. And appreciated.

The courage to hope is no small feat. Every post I've made on this blog has centered around the topic of Hope and where it freely pours from the springs above us. With your help and God's grace, I hope to not lose my mind these next few weeks in daring to believe in the impossible once again.

And just in case you wanted to know what I'm praying for and what I will be so bold as to ask you to join me in asking God to dole out.................well...............that would be............................. twins :)

 
Scared out of my mind to even try - and bold enough to beg for twins. That's about as appropriate of an introduction to me as anyone ever wrote :P

Thank you for reading my ramblings. Thank you for joining us in prayer for the impossible. Thank you for keeping us in mind this month. You truly have the capacity to take part in a miracle this month, if God wills it. We are one week into the 2ww right now and I'm congested, fevery, and exhausted.

Only time will tell what that means. Until then, yes, those are my brains oozing onto the sidewalk over there. Just step around them. Nothing to see here.

Enchanté

P.S. If this is your first time stopping by the blog, click on the 'humor' tab if you enjoy awful artwork. I illustrate the moments in life that Hall.mar.k. just doesn't seem to have any cards for... 

P.P.S If you have any prayers left - yes I know I'm being a hog now - please pray for my luggage from a recent trip to be returned to me. I have no clean clothing or underwear until that suitcase is returned, since I'm mid-move.

Adopt-a-Blogger

I began reading blogs about fertility well before I started putting my thoughts into a blog of my own. One of the things that stood out to me in the sea of blogs that I came across was the 'Adopt-a-Blogger' prayer that is published on This Cross I Embrace. The reason it struck me was because it was one of the first really positive infertility thoughts I came across in the sea of despair being expressed on the topic.

It makes sense that no one LOVES being infertile. Not one of us would have signed up for it at a silent auction if it was up for bid. Am I right? Of course I am. What I think is so unique about adopting someone to pray for every month is that it's something I can *do* about infertility. So much of this walk is focused on myself, what I eat, how I exercise, what medicines I take, how they make me feel, what they do, what works and doesn't.... and all of that brings my focus right back to me.

Praying for someone else is something I have routinely seen God's grace in very clearly. While I sit here and struggle with my own prayers for myself and how to wrestle with my faith and my resolve and my struggles....I never struggle in praying for other people. I stand up and wrestle God with fearlessness for other people. Out loud. With gusto. Why is that?! Why does it occur to us to be such prayer warriors for others? I think it is a reminder that we're not supposed to be hyper-focused on ourselves all the time. We're here to help other people and to be supported by them much more than we're here to just focus on ourselves all the time.

That said, I've learned a lot about myself and how to pray because of the prayers I have prayed for others' intentions. My discussions with God have evolved over time because of the effort. And it's more of a dialogue now than me just barking and whining about my problems. Don't get me wrong - God's tough enough to manage that too. I just think I've gotten beyond that most days. Even saying that, I don't want you to think I'm sitting here glowing from all my praying virtue over here. I still think God listens especially attentively to the prayers I can't manage to pray out loud. You know - the ones said in between tears and breathless weeping. And there's lot of that going on in any given month over here.

Praying for people to receive the gifts I most want for myself seems to be the thing God routinely listens to me about. There's something to learn there, isn't there? Hi God, it's me - bonehead....


So, with all of that said - I so very much want a set of twins. You all know this by now don't you? (In my head it reads 'For God so loved world, He gave me twins...'). Anyway, I pray those prayers two-by-two, hoping God listens and just decides He needs to send some extra babies down to Earth and I'm offering free room and board in my womb for as many as He feels like handing me. So given that is the prayer I most often pray, I've decided to pray it for someone else this month. So look out Chateau D'IF - you've got some twin prayers coming your way.

I'll be praying for you every day, all month long. And I hope everyone reading here will join me.