i n • p u r s u i t

[ source ] I love this passage. I especially loved it when it was finally explained to me. Count it all joy when you encounter trials of various kinds. And it's like, What? No, I don't think I will count trials as joy . In fact, they are no fun at all. But if you keep reading, you know that the joy comes because you know what being faithful through the trials brings. Steadfastness, which is defined by Google as "loyalty in the face of trouble and difficulty." Count it all joy. Because you know that God will bring you out on the other side of these trials a stronger person. I could write a novel about what has been happening in the Kuechenmeister household lately, but for the sake of brevity, I'll give you a timeline. June 17: 3rd menstrual cycle of 2012 July 11: blood test shows that Femera actually worked (i.e. I ovulated) July 19: very faint positive pregnancy test July 20: negative pregnancy test July 22: faint positive pregnancy test July 27...

I've just returned from getting my blood drawn. I've never had so much blood drawn as I have in the past few months. And really, getting all that blood drawn really adds up. Especially when they heap on the testing they do to that blood. Yikes. But that's not really what I wanted to write about. We all know how expensive medical care can be. What I wanted to write was just a little update on my heart. Friends with caring hearts have inquired. It's nice to know that people are praying for me. :) My heart is fine. It's rather content, actually. I'm absolutely loving my time with my husband and my dog. I'm focusing on my photography. (If anyone in Greenville needs photography, call me! I need the money. ~_^) I'm having lunch/coffee/drinks with girlfriends and photography friends. I love going to my Ladies' Bible Study (though, they have childcare, so...irrelevant). All that to say, I'm loving my life. I get that this is the lot that I'v...

vs.   I have often wondered what our children, should we ever be so blessed, would look like.  Creamy white skin vs. perpetual tan.  Brown hair vs. almost black hair.  Very tall vs. very short.  Blue eyes vs. brown eyes.  I'd just love it if my kids had Mike's eyes. My dad's got blue eyes as well and that's always been a factor when I tried to work out those Mendel squares in my head.  Well, I (kind of) have the answer to at least on of those questions. In my blog readings the other day, I read on Conventional Bliss about this cool website that will tell you what eye color your children are likely to have.       So, of course, I plugged in all the info and low and behold....  Blue 37.5%  Green 12.5% Brown 50.0% Any offspring of ours have a 37.5% chance of having BLUE EYES! Of course the highest is brown because that's the dominant gene. But I didn't know that blue would be qu...

I just got off the phone with my doctor and I'm positively giddy. I have an answer. I know what is up with my body. (Background info here ) And, honestly, I never thought I would be so excited to hear that something is wrong with me. As it turns out, I have polycystic ovary syndrome or PCOS for short. When my doctor said that, I said, "I KNEW IT!" Okay, so I didn't know it. I had a hunch. A hunch that grew and grew everyday. Especially when every single OPK came back positive. I'd stand in the bathroom, staring at that little stick. Squinting. Turning it in the light. Shaking it. Staring at it again. I'd test in the morning, afternoon, and night. Always positive. I can't possibly be ovulating every single day. Well guess what? If you have PCOS, you have excessive LH which is what the OPK is testing for. So they come back positive. What is PCOS? Well, for starters it's the most common cause of female infertility (according to womenshealth...

Dealing with unmet expectations is basically the story of my adult life. That's a nice way of saying that I've been known to throw temper tantrums when life doesn't go my way. Sad. Pathetic. True. I'm learning to call it what it is. However, these tantrums are getting fewer and further between. I'm getting better at trusting in God's plan for my life. Trusting that He knows what is going on. But then, suddenly, another seemingly simple expectation is unmet and I'm struggling all over again. What am I talking about? See, I had this plan (oh, and doesn't it always start out this way...) that when Mike and I had been married for around 2 years and 9 months, we'd have a baby. My plan changed a little. By that, I mean that my birth control prescription expired and paying $70/month for it was getting rather expensive. We're not anti-baby, so we went with it.  At which time, of course, my brain shifted gears to BABIES!!! One thing it f...