Hello everyone! Welcome to 2018. A couple of weeks ago, I’d planned to do a countdown, a review of 2017, my #Infertility9 and all kinds of good stuff. Then, my mother in love passed and I kind of didn’t care about doing those things any more. Funny how the importance of stuff changes from moment to moment.
Today, I’m feeling better about sharing and figured I’d touch on a bit of everything. So let’s begin.
2017 Review What a year 2017 was. We’d only JUST received our Beta on Christmas Eve in 2016, and here we were in January being discharged from our fertility clinic. What an amazing and scary time that was. Stepping away and debating about whom we would tell and how soon we would tell. We finally decided that, as we’d done in the past, we would allow God to direct our paths and He did in a major way. We had a successful pregnancy, delivered a healthy baby girl (a shock to our #teamgreen guesses), and went through the fun of naming her. In addition to the joys and highs of 2017, we faced sadness when my mother in love was called Home the day after Christmas. The day before she’d been full of smiles. Then, she was gone. But we are still celebrating because we know exactly where she is and know we will see her again someday.
#Infertility/Fertility9
Instagram gave this really cool tool that allowed you to show your top nine pictures of the year. Because I maintain a couple of Insta pages, it was interesting to see the ranking. I thought about the posts for 2017, the frustrations and the successes. It seemed only fair to share the pictures with you, our family.
This collage represents so much in this year. Our first visit to confirm that our little passenger was still riding. Then, the picture taken on the day of discharge to the new facility. The fact that we announced our pregnancy to our parents and then the social media announcement with no words, just the pins (which was so fun). Another sonogram to make sure all was well in the anatomy scan and then coasting until contractions woke me early on a Friday morning and let to the birth of a perfect baby girl on a Friday afternoon. What an amazing year, even with all the craziness that came in the end.
New Year Resolutions Adjustments
So, I haven’t done resolutions for the past five years when I realized that I didn’t have to wait until the new year to make changes in my life. If something needed to be adjusted, I could do it then…if I put forth the effort. Recognizing that, I still like to take stock at the end of the year and make adjustments where necessary. This year, I’m really excited about creating a #VisionBoard not because it’s the in thing, but because I do recognize that our subconscious can hold things in our brain that help motivate us to achieve greatness. Example, as an assignment in high school, I was to write where I wanted to be in ten years, what I wanted to be doing, and important things in my life. I wrote the list, received my grade, and tucked the list away not thinking about it again until I happened to be cleaning out some old boxes twelve years later. I stumbled across the list and was surprised to see that everything I’d placed on the last had come to pass and the things I’d omitted remained undone. I’m sure it could have been coincidence, but the same thing happened when I wrote a new list after discovery of what I wanted in a potential spouse. When my husband found me and eventually asked for my hand in marriage, it was amazing to see that he matched that list…and it was not a short one.
So, I say all of that to say, there are a few adjustments that I want to make this year and I plan to address them in detail with my Vision Board. They will include my (1) Relationship with God (2) Relationship with my Family (3) Relationship with Others [i.e. Work, Community, etc.], and (4) my Relationship with Myself. I can’t wait to list some accountable goals.
Favorites of 2017
I absolutely plan on doing a separate post on my favorite things of 2017. This will include favorite prenatal products, favorite baby products, favorite movies, favorite TV shows, and favorite books. I hope you will join me for that one.
So, I wish you the happiest of New Year’s. May 2018 bring more blessings than you can hold and more joy than you can stand. Happy New Year, family.
