God's Sovereignty Through Anna

If you've been following my blog long enough, you've heard about the tragedy that we went through in 2011 when we miscarried our son, Brooks.  If you missed it, here's the link to the original post: Whate'er My God Ordains Is Right.  That was a really hard, sad time.

When we found out that I was pregnant with Anna, we were overjoyed!  We couldn't believe that out of all days, it was exactly one year after I found out I was pregnant with Brooks.  Here's that link: Coming in February 2013.

Then, we had a very emotional 4 month appointment for Anna exactly one year from the date of the same appointment for Brooks, where we learned that we lost him.  We couldn't help but give praise to God when Anna's heartbeat was going strong.  For extended details, see Rejoicing in the Lord.

And now, I am happy to share with all my readers that Anna was providentially born on Brooks' due date! Again, one year later.

We serve an awesome God that is sovereign over all.  It is no coincidence that all of these dates lined up!  Although Anna doesn't take the place of Brooks, we can't help but think of this as a special gift from the Lord.  God has certainly been redeeming all our sad dates with happy ones.

We tried to put a lot of thought into Anna's name.  Anna means "a woman graced with God's favor."  We also named her "Hope," which means "one who has high expectations through faith."  I recently heard in a sermon that hope is the "grand finale of suffering."

And yes, that is exactly what Anna is -
A baby that we had high expectations that God would give us because of his amazing grace and mercy to us.
A baby graced with God's favor and the answer to our prayers after all the suffering from losing Brooks.

We pray, as one of our friends recently said, that the Lord would give her grace both to know Him and to live up to both of her names all her days.

Introducing Anna Hope

We are excited to introduce our baby daughter, Anna!  We love her so much!  

I will post more information about Anna soon, but here's her baby announcement that we sent out electronically for those that missed it:

A Baby Flood

I thought I'd be lucky to get one baby shower, but God has truly blessed us by giving us a grand total of 4!  I think I can officially say that all these showers created a flood.  Here are snippets from all 3 of my Savannah showers:

Anne can't wait for Baby McD to come!

My church family at Grace Church of the Islands threw me a huge one.  It was so encouraging to see how so many ladies in our church took care of our expanding family by giving us so many baby items that we will need to welcome our baby girl into this world.

This shower was a brunch and this was some of the spread.  I loved the diaper bouquet as the centerpiece!

I had several younger girls assisting me with the opening of gifts.  They were a big help!

***

Next up, I had a shower at my work, Mathnasium.  My co-worker, Rachel, was the one who did most of the work for it.  Look at her yummy baby carriage cake!  It was made of funfetti cake, one of my favorites.

My boss says that our baby will be the first "Mathnasium Baby."  As you can see, they decorated it accordingly.  I'm wearing a little sash that says "Mommy-to-be."  It was a smaller shower, but I had so much fun!  They focused on giving me very practical gifts, which I definitely will need once she makes her appearance.

***

Lastly, I had a Paris-themed shower for friends that I've gotten to know in Savannah that aren't a part of my church family or work.  The invitations were super cute and said "Ooh La La," and Laura did a great job of including that into her decorations.  Look at this spread!  It was beautiful!

Once again, I had some helpers - these twin girls helped me determine which gifts to open.  :)

I got a pretty good bump shot at this shower - they gave me a boa to go along with the parisian theme.  I was about 34.5 weeks pregnant in this.

All my showers were so much fun!  I have just been blown away by all of the love and support that I've received from all these sweet ladies that have touched my life over the past 3.5 years in Savannah.  I've now begun the task (with a lot of help from my mom) of putting the nursery together.  It is coming along and I think I am in the middle of nesting! 

Ministry Update: Curtis' Additional Duties

I've done a really poor job of updating on Curtis' ministry at Grace Church of the Islands lately.  As I have previously mentioned on our blog, Curtis has been ministering in Savannah as an Associate Pastor since he graduated from seminary for the past three and a half years.  Most of his ministry has been focused on middle school and high school students, but he has enjoyed many other responsibilities that a small church can bring.  This includes developing and implementing a small group ministry, preaching and teaching, as well as other pastoral duties.  These duties have increased over the last year and a half due to our Senior Pastor's deployment for 4 months as a chaplain (2011) and more recently, because he has stepped down from his position at our church as of August 2012.  Curtis is now the only ordained pastor on staff at our church.  As we await a new Senior Pastor at Grace, Curtis has been gaining valuable experience preaching 75% of the time, overseeing the small group ministry and the youth ministry.  (Thankfully, our church hired an intern to help with the youth ministry since Curtis' responsibilities have changed.)  It has been quite the transition for Curtis to handle all this as we prepare to have a baby in February.  

Florida Baby Shower

My lovely mother and a few church family friends threw me my first baby shower in Orange Park.  They did a wonderful job!

A nice welcome sign for me and our little girl.  I am about 27.5 weeks here.

The decorations were super cute!  Note: the daisy flower pots were actually part of the decorations for my wedding reception!

These were chocolate cakes with cream cheese icing.  Super yummy! The flags on the top of the cakes say "baby girl."

My mom (and dad) put together a diaper cake with little flower barrettes all over them.  I can't wait to put little barrettes and bows in her hair!

Our little girl is going to be all set!

My sweet cousin, Elle, was my helper and told me which gifts to open first.

I thought this was a sweet candid shot with us talking together.

One of my favorites - my parents gave me her first Florida Gator outfit with matching bows.  You can tell that I'm just delighted. :)  So was Curtis.

This was a huge box of clothes that my parents got me.  All sorts of outfits in varying sizes!

As you can see, I spent most of my time opening gifts.

Here's the audience.  I had a vast assortment of sweet family and friends that I've known throughout my life there with me to celebrate.

My cousin Jane was able to meet our newest cousin, Alan, for the first time.

Jane did so many things behind the scenes for the shower.  She took most of the pictures and helped me organize all my gifts to travel back to Savannah. :)

Here are two of my childhood friends, Carrie and Kimberly.  We used to hang out all the time when we were in elementary/middle/some high school!

Two of my closest friends from high school/community college, Jennifer and Pam, were also able to make it.

I even had three of my closest friends from UF there - Kelly, Catherine & Jenna!  (Jenna's not pictured because she had already left the shower by the time we took this one.)

Here's some of my wedding party - Catherine (bridesmaid), Lacey (flower girl), Mrs. Warren (matron of honor).

This was a fun one - I had 4 other pregnant ladies at my shower.  Robyn, seminary friend; Carrie, neighborhood friend; Lauren, church friend; and Ashlee, high school friend (not pictured).  Lauren actually delivered her baby girl, Violet Rose, on 12/12/12!

I had a great time and I couldn't believe how quickly the shower flew by!  I have been blessed with lots of dear family and friends at this shower - some came very long ways to be there!  Thank you to everyone who was able to come and celebrate this blessing from the Lord with me.  We can't wait for her to arrive!

First Thanksgiving with Curtis' Fam

This was the year we planned to visit Curtis' side of the family for Christmas; however, I will be too far along in my pregnancy to travel at that time so we compromised and spent Thanksgiving with them instead.  It was my first time that I got to experience a McDaniel-style Thanksgiving!  It had been 5 years since Curtis last celebrated with them.

The whole McDaniel family

As a tradition, each adult child brings a dish to the table for the Thanksgiving meal.  I brought green bean casserole and Curtis brought a sea-foam jello salad.  Everyone went around the table and shared something that they were thankful for from the current year.  They write their answer on a paper leaf that is displayed on the table each year.  It was neat to see all the things that his family was thankful for over the years - some big, some small (like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, haha).  

We also got to spend some time with his grandmother ("Nana") while were were there.  It was really nice to see her since we hadn't seen her in almost two years.  She was very excited about her great-granddaughter on the way!

The weather was amazing for a Thanksgiving in the Pittsburgh area.  We even played bocce ball and corn hole outside!  

Curtis was able to bond with Belle, their sweet dog.   She was so desperate for attention!

Thanksgiving night, we headed to the Grove City Outlet Mall to see what kind of deals we could find for Christmas gifts.  This is another one of the annual traditions in the McDaniel family.  I did feel bad for Megan (his sister) who had to work early the next morning.  I'm sure she was exhausted, but I'm glad she was able to join in the fun.

I thought this was such a cool picture of Curtis, his dad, his mom and Heather as they were putting up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.

One more thing...in anticipation of my upcoming baby shower (post coming soon), Heather made us this motorcycle diaper display for our baby girl on the way.  She was so creative!  It's hard to see all that went into this, but she used bibs, receiving blankets, washcloths, socks and so much more.  She also made little booties and a cap for her.  Thanks Aunt Heather!

Our time flew by in Pennsylvania.  We had a great time celebrating with them.  It's hard to believe that the next time we see them all we will have a new little addition to the family!

It's a Girl!

We found out on October 8th that we will be having a little girl!  We were happy to hear that she is doing just fine and is healthy.  Praise the Lord!

I love that she looks like a little chicken wing!  I've started to feel her move and kick now, so I'm sure it's because of these awkward positions that she likes to lay in.  It took 30 minutes for the ultrasound tech to figure out if it was a girl or a boy because she was curled up in a little ball sitting Indian-style.  Haha!

Let the celebrating begin...

We had a sweet couple from our small group bring over this chocolate chip cookie cake, balloon and sparkling cider to celebrate!  Thanks for sharing in our joy with us, Laura and Miguel.

Curtis and I went to our new Kohl's store to get our baby girl's very first outfit.  Here's the outfit we decided on:

It says "Daddy's Princess" and it has a little cat on it with little leopard pants to go with it. :)

A Quick Getaway to St. Simons

Last week, Curtis and I traveled to St. Simons Island to visit our friends, Jenna & Dan.  It was nice to get away and be refreshed, even if our trip was less than 24 hours in length!

Jenna and Dan have the beach literally in their backyard.  Here's a good shot of Curtis and I in front of the dunes.  It was really really sunny!

You can see my baby bump starting to show -- I was 19 weeks in these pictures. :)

Jenna and I have been good friends since college when we met in RUF.  She and Dan recently moved to St. Simons Island and we are happy to have friends not that far away.

They took us downtown and showed us the pier, the lighthouse, and we even saw a little bit of an antique show.  We had some fabulous sweets from a little shop downtown while we played Rummikub (a really fun game!)  Jenna was an amazing cook and she even taught me how to make some homemade guacamole.  We also got to walk around Christ Church, its cemetery and the Wesley monument.  St. Simons is a beautiful area and we look forward to visiting again in the future!

Rejoicing in the Lord

Last Wednesday (9/12) was a very emotional day in the life of our family.  We were mourning Brooks because it was the one year anniversary since my 4 month appointment where we found out that I had a miscarriage and lost him.  Providentially, my 4 month appointment for our new baby fell on the same day one year later.  Talk about facing your fears!  We were trying not to get too anxious that this appointment could go the same way.  We prayed that we would trust in the Lord and that we would be able to glorify God, regardless of the outcome of that appointment.

With lots and lots of tears of joy, I am happy to announce that this appointment went much differently than the last one!  We rejoice and praise the Lord that He is redeeming our sad memories with happy ones.  Our  baby's heartbeat was found quickly and he/she had a strong heartbeat of 153 beats per minute.  It was so emotional as we went through the same motions that we did last year that I just couldn't help but cry.  Cry as I thought of Brooks, cry as I thought of our new little baby that is squirming around and alive!  The doctor even asked me "What's wrong? Everything looks good!"  

One of the verses that I have been loving is Psalm 100:5 - "For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations."  As we prepare for the next generation of McDaniels, we can't help but worship our Creator, knowing that His plans are always good, even if we don't understand them at the time.

We planned a visit with my parents that weekend in the hopes to celebrate with them after a good report.  I didn't realize how much I was waiting to get through that appointment before beginning to get excited about this little one!  It was fun to start planning things with my mom.  We watched the new movie "What To Expect When You're Expecting," we threw out ideas for our nursery, and we looked at baby stuff at Target & Once Upon A Child.  My mom plans to throw a baby shower for me in Jacksonville and we were able to start making a list of people to invite. 

Here we are looking at baby shower invitations.  We can't make a final decision on them until we know if our baby is a boy or a girl.  We will be finding this out on October 8!

We finished the day with eating at one of our favorite places in Savannah, Sweet Potatoes.  We had a great time and I think all four of us were able to relax and enjoy the weekend! :)

Coming in February 2013

Yes, it is true!  God has answered our prayers and we are excited to announce that we will be having a baby next year.  We praise the Lord for his faithfulness to us.  What a blessing!

Ironically, I found out that I was pregnant exactly one year later to the day that I found out that I was pregnant with Brooks.  My due date is February 27; Brooks' due date was February 23.  The challenging part is not to fear that we will lose this one also.  I am going through each month just as far along as I was with Brooks, which makes me worried about the month of September since that is when we lost him.  When I begin to fear, I am trying to spend time in prayer knowing that the Lord is in control.  Curtis and I believe that God is redeeming all the sad dates from our loss with happy ones from this new baby.  Please pray with us that our baby would be healthy.  We look forward to finally having an earthly child!

 12 Week Appointment

Final Update on My (Margaret's) Health

I believe this post will be the final update, so I guess you could say this was a trilogy.  If you missed the previous posts, you can find it at the following links: Part 1, Part 2.

The doctors originally said that I would have to wait 6 months before Curtis and I would be able to try to conceive again after the partial molar miscarriage.  Thankfully, the doctor changed it to only 5 months!  I have had 2 final blood drawings since my post in February and I have continued to be "negative" (under 5): 

Date - Count
02/22/12 - less than 0.1

03/19/12 - less than 0.1

Because my pregnancy hormone (HCG) levels remained under the count of 5 for 5 months, the doctor has now  given me the green light to begin trying to conceive.  Praise the Lord!  It seemed like this wait would never end back when we first found out in September.  We appreciate all the prayers as we have had loyal friends and family praying for us during this time period.  Although I am still fearful of having my blood taken, I have definitely found the strength through the Lord.  I clung to Psalm 56 each month - "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.  In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust.  I shall not be afraid.  What can flesh do to me?" (v. 3-4)

Curtis and I now request your prayers that God would provide us with a healthy baby very soon.  Even though one wait is now over, another wait begins.  We know that God has placed this desire within us to have children.  If you would have asked me even a year ago if I wanted to have children, I would have been cynical about the idea, mainly because of my fears.  Although God does not promise us children anywhere in His word, we have hope that He will give us the desire of our hearts.  "Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4) 

Pretty Flowers On A Sad Day

As most of you may know from following my blog, February 23rd was the day that Curtis and I planned to have a baby.  It was a difficult and sad day knowing that our lives were not going to be changing. I read a great sermon by George Robertson about miscarriages and that really made me cry, but at the same time, it encouraged me.  We received sweet emails, text messages, and cards from our sweet family and dear friends.  My parents sent beautiful flowers:

 It was nice to have something nice to look at and smell!

Even though the day was hard, we are filled with hope as we know that the Lord has great plans for us.  We pray that those plans include children!

Update on My (Margaret's) Health Part 2

If you've been following my blog, you may remember my post in December about my health since the partial molar miscarriage.  If you didn't, here's a link so you can catch up now.  Things have been progressing just fine as my pregnancy hormone (HCG) count has continued to decrease.  A good sign!

I have had 2 more blood drawings since that post and I have continued to be "negative" (under 5):
Date - Count
12/28/11 - 0.4
01/23/12 - less than 0.1

I am now more than halfway there and I think that this break from trying to conceive has been good for me, especially for my walk with the Lord and for my marriage.  It has been incredibly emotional, but we have continued to cling to God's promises for encouragement during this waiting period.  Curtis and I ask for your prayers as we approach Brooks' original due date on February 23.  We are sure that it will be a day of sadness for us, but also one of hope.

Update on My (Margaret's) Health

As you probably have read through our previous posts, I had a miscarriage back in September.  We had a pathology done on the baby's tissue to find out why our baby died.  Our doctor informed us not only that our baby was a boy, but that I had a partial molar pregnancy, something that occurs in 1 out of 1,000 pregnancies.  The genetic makeup of our baby boy was so abnormal that this type of baby never survives.  It was encouraging to us to find that it wasn't something that I did wrong or that could have been prevented.  We also found out that this isn't a genetic condition so the chances of it occurring a second time are very rare.

There is a slight chance that if the baby's tissue wasn't completely removed during the D and C procedure that I had on 9/16, the tissue could invade my body, similar to a cancer.  It is my understanding that I would then have to have chemotherapy to fix the problem.  In order to monitor this, our doctor has told us that we have to wait 6 months from the time that my pregnancy hormone levels reaches a negative count of 5 or less.  This also means that we are unable to try to conceive another baby until this testwork is completed.  As you could imagine, it was very difficult to swallow all the information that we heard.  Six months seemed like an eternity to wait.  Not to mention, I would have to continually go back to the doctor to have my blood drawn.  And if anyone knows me well, I have a serious fear of needles/blood/medical stuff.

This is probably more information than most would like to know, but I'm going to include this for anyone who comes across my blog that may be going through the same thing and would like the details.

Found out I had a miscarriage on 9/14
D and C performed on 9/16
Here are my blood results:
Date - Count
10/10 - 17.8
10/24 - 5.9 (so close!!)
10/31 - 4.1 Praise The Lord - 6 months from now

Now that I have reached "negative," I have to wait 6 months before we can try to have another baby again.  I had my first monthly appointment on 11/28 (count of 1.2).  My next appointment will not be until after Christmas - probably around December 28 or 29.

During this time, we are praying that God would knit together a healthy baby once we do start trying again.  We are finding ourselves encouraged by the Bible - 2 Samuel 12:23, Psalm 56, Psalm 139:15-16, Psalm 147:3-5, Lamentations 3 (especially verses 31 - 33), Isaiah 40-41, Isaiah 43, Isaiah 51, Romans 8:28, 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, to name a few.  Please continue to pray with us as we wait on God's timing.

Sermon After Miscarriage

Some of you have asked about wanting to hear the sermon that Curtis preached only 4 days after we found out that our baby boy (John "Brooks" McDaniel) had died.  I just uploaded it to his site on Sermon Cloud - it is approximately 28 minutes long and is entitled "Reflections on the God of Comfort" from 2 Corinthians 1:3-11.

There are two ways that you can get to it -
1. You can click the link on this page entitled "Curtis' Sermons" or
2. You can click here.

Once you get to the site, you can either click the headphones icon to stream his sermon or you can click the arrow icon to download.

It was a difficult sermon for me to hear, but I think it helped Curtis to work through some of his grief.

Whate'er My God Ordains Is Right

Last Wednesday, Curtis and I went to our third OB appointment to check on Baby McD.  Thinking that I had now surpassed the first trimester, I found myself more calm about this appointment than I had been at the previous two.  When they searched for the baby's heartbeat with the doppler device, I was told that she was not able to find a consistent heartbeat and she would have another woman come to check.  I tried to think positively during the 30-minute waiting period, but we couldn't help but start to think that perhaps something was wrong.  One of the RUF hymns that Curtis and I sang often in college - "Whate'er My God Ordains Is Right" came to mind during this time:

1. Whate’er my God ordains is right,
Holy His will abideth.
I will be still whate’er He does,
And follow where He guideth.
He is my God,
Though dark my road.
He holds me that I shall not fall
Wherefore to Him I leave it all

2. Whate’er my God ordains is right,
He never will deceive me
He leads me by the proper path,
I know He will not leave me
I take, content,
What He hath sent
His hand can turn my griefs away
And patiently I wait His day

3. Whate’er my God ordains is right,
Though now this cup in drinking
May bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it all unshrinking
My God is true,
Each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart
And pain and sorrow shall depart

4. Whate’er my God ordains is right,
Here shall my stand be taken
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken
My Father’s care
Is round me there
He holds me that I shall not fall
And so to Him I leave it all

If you wanted to hear a portion of this song (verses 1 & 4), you can find here.  I knew that whatever happened, God was still in control.  If there was a problem, we would walk through this trial knowing that the Lord would carry us through it.  The Lord has always been faithful in various trials that Curtis and I have both gone through individually and as a couple, so we had that confidence.

Unfortunately, we found that the baby had passed away when they performed an impromptu-ultrasound.  I had to have surgery (D&C) to remove the baby's remains on Friday.

It has been a very hard week as we have had to come to grips with the reality that we will not be having a baby in February.  We didn't realize that we could love someone that we've never met as much as we loved this baby!  We prayed often that this baby would never know a day without the Lord, so we hope that one day we will get to meet him or her when we arrive in heaven.  At this time, we are in need of prayer as we mourn the loss of our little one.  

Updates

 1. Sweet Pea - We had 4 sweet weeks with her before we had to send her back to her foster home on August 1st.  Unfortunately, she was too young to run around the house when we were away (she'd chew everything up) and we had no way of containing her.  We don't have a fenced-in backyard and she was smart enough to figure out how to break out of two different crates!  We hated to send her back, but we realized that she needed a home where she would have more people around and she wouldn't have to be cooped up in a crate as much.  We felt like we were torturing her!  Curtis and I keep remembering fun memories with her, but we realized that she probably wasn't the best dog for us with the "bun" coming. (See #3)

2. My Job - On August 5, I worked my last day at work.  It was a hard decision to make, but I am confident that Curtis and I made the best choice for our family.  The main reason for leaving was because of a conviction that Curtis and I had about the company itself.  We prayed about it for almost a year before we got to a point where we realized I needed to leave.  (Note: If you are interested in knowing more about this, I am happy to share, but I'd rather share one-on-one than to type in a blog post.)  A secondary reason for leaving was because of Curtis' need for me to help him around the house while he takes on more responsibility at work.  The senior pastor of our church is deployed as a Chaplain in the military, so Curtis is the only pastor at our church until November.  Even though I knew about #3, it wasn't the reason why I left.  It just further confirmed that I needed to go.  I am now beginning week 3 of not working and I am really enjoying it!  I think I was really burned out!  The only downside is that I miss the people that I worked with.

3. Our "Bun" - Yes, in case you didn't understand the post below, Curtis and I are expecting our first baby on February 23, 2012.  We are excited and nervous!  I am about 13.5 weeks pregnant today and Baby McD is doing well.  I am looking forward to getting out of the first trimester in the hopes that I will have more energy and I won't be getting as nauseated when I smell certain things!  We plan on finding out the sex of our baby on October 5th.