For my Dad on his Birthday.

To My Dad - THANKS for Everything
[[These words aren't mine, but they are from a book I found. They explain exactly how I feel as if I wrote it myself.]]

You're the type of dad who's not a type at all.

You re not just a sports fan or a disciplinarian or a goofball; you're so many things on any given day. And I realize now that your complexity has given me permission to be the same - to be as many different versions of me as I need to be.

You supported me. You challenged me.

Whenever I have a choice to make, I know you'll back me up. But I also know you'll help me think it through. You're not afraid to ask the tough questions. To make me dig deeper. To make me think... And whether I stand fast or change my mind, I'm always more certain of myself in the end. You're a tough crowd, Dad. If I can convince you, I can convince anybody!

You pushed me. You praised me.

You've always wanted the best for your family, and that meant being the best you can be. I learned this from you, Dad. Sometimes it meant I had to practice a little harder, study a little more, get up a little earlier... or stay up a little late. Sometimes it meant you didn't let me quit. But even when I felt defeated, you cheered me on. You always made me feel like my best was good enough. And to this day, it is the reason I strive to make my best even better.

You made me cautious, and you made me courageous.

The world outside isn't always polite or well-meaning; you knew that. You gave me rules for a reason, and now I understand they weren't to keep me bored. They were to keep me safe. When the time came for me to face some things on my own, I wasn't afraid. You taught me to trust my gut, honor my own opinion, and to stand up for myself. Once in a while, that meant standing up to you. What can I say? You're a better teacher than you know.

You made me self-sufficient, and you made me humble.

From the first time I insisted "I can do it" you let me try things on my own. It couldn't have been easy, watching me figure things out - sometimes with no training wheels, no instructions, no compass. But you knew Id find my way. You trusted me, and that helped me trust myself. There were times when i couldn't do it alone, and you taught me that sometimes the best thing I can do for myself is to ask someone for help.

You showed me how to earn my keep.

You made sure I understood that life doesn't owe me anything, and whatever I want I have to work for. But you also made me see that there can be joy in the work itself. And it feels better to earn something than to have it given to me. I know how to give my all to the task at hand. You're the reason I take so much pride in my work - no matter how big or small a job may be.

You showed me how to laugh it off.

Take life seriously. But don't take yourself too seriously. That's a message you live loud and clear. I learned alot about balance from watching you. You showed me that work and home are both important, and while it cant always be exactly 50/50, I don't have to sacrifice one for the other. When there was work to do, you gave every challenge you best - you were accountable. Sometimes you were stressed, but you tried not to bring it home with you. I guess that's what it means to "leave it on the field." When you came home, we cracked jokes and played games. We relaxed a little, laughed a lot, and everybody felt better - no matter what happened during the day. That's why I know how important it is to have fun.

You taught me about family.

Sometimes we fight with each other; sometimes we fight for each other. And we're about as quick to publicly brag as we are to privately criticize. We laugh and cry, play and work, and make a million memories in between. That's what families do. Family amplifies the good stuff and helps drown out the bad. We share it all - sometimes too much. And even when the medium is messy, the message is clear: "I do this because I love you."

You taught me about love.

If all we needed was love, then life would be alot easier. But love wont get very far without respect, understanding, humility, and a good sense of humor. For us, love is honest opinions and the occasional "I told you so." Its doing without expecting anything in return. Love is sometimes giving in but never giving up. Love is doing most of the work and not taking any of the credit. Love is letting me figure it out on my own. The way we love is not for the faint of heart, and its made me a stronger person. I know how to show love for others, and I know how to love myself. I have you to thank for that. So maybe you didn't give me everything I ever wanted, but you gave me more than you know. I don't know who Id be without you, Dad, but I probably wouldn't be as funny or focused, as humble or hardworking, as careful or confident. And I don't know what life will bring next, but I'm pretty sure I can handle it, thanks to lessons I learned when I didn't even know I was listening. Thanks to you.

Better safe than sorry...

With Ryan's job, he is gone overnight sometimes. I am a huge chicken being home alone at night - I hate it. It's so bad that I can't sleep soundly & to feel any kind of safeness I sometimes barricade the bedroom door shut with one of our dining room chairs. (I know, its ridiculous. I'm working on it =P) The only other thing that makes me feel secure being alone is our gun. Ryan taught me how to use it safely and responsibly when we got it and he takes me out to practice frequently. (Probably because he's scared if I ever have to use it, I'll shoot myself in the foot) Well when he is gone over night, he knows when I hear noises I don't check them out empty handed.

Last night he was on a train back home and told me he didn't think he would be in until around 8am. I couldn't sleep all night due to noises and my own mind playing tricks on me. So to try and ease my mind, I barricaded the door with the dining room chair. I finally fell asleep around 4am only to get woken up by the sound of Ryan's car coming up the driveway a little after 5. I figured I better get out of bed and move the chair so he can get in. As I'm moving the chair I hear him open the front door but I don't hear his footsteps, him taking off his boots or anything. I open the bedroom door and look out and all I see is Ryan's head half sticking in the front doorway. As soon as he sees me he says "Babe...it's me. Please don't shoot me."

Usually I sleep right through him coming home that early. He heard me messing around the door and he thought since he had told me he didn't think he would get home until 8 that I thought he was an intruder. I couldn't stop laughing, I said "Babe, I'm not going to shoot you, come inside! I knew it was you."

I don't know if this was a 'had to be there' moment, but at 5 in the morning and that being the last thing I expected my husband to think of or even say... it was pretty funny to me!

God talks to you; just listen.

Have you ever known someone who was trying to have a baby and it just wasn’t happening for them?

My husband and I are an example of people trying for a child with no success. We started trying in March of 2010. After spending all of our relationship preventing pregnancy, we thought actually getting pregnant would be a piece of cake. After the first month of it not happening, I won’t lie - we were a little relieved. Although we knew we were ready for a baby, we wanted a couple of ‘practice runs’ before it actually happened, a little time to get mentally prepared if you will. Then three months went by and I’m thinking “Okay, what are we not doing right?” So I went out and bought books about getting pregnant and the best positions, food to eat and vitamins to take. Still nothing. One thing we didn’t do was ovulation tests, even though we were ‘trying’ we still wanted it to happen ‘on its own’. We didn’t want to schedule the pregnancy. Seven months goes by and Ryan was offered a new job. He had to go away for training for six weeks. If we had gotten pregnant when we first started trying, by the time he left for training I would have had a newborn to take care of by myself. “Okay…”, I thought “God knows what he’s doing.” At one of my normal gyno appointments (this was month 3 of trying) I told my doctor about us trying for a baby, she said they didn’t worry until we had been trying a year with no success.

Fast forward, the dreaded year mark comes. At this time I am convinced something was wrong with me. After days of calling and then hanging up when they answered, I actually made the appointment. While on the phone, they were telling me all the possible reasons why it may not be happening and at that point I was just overwhelmed. I had read all my books, I knew what to expect but hearing it was different for some reason. They transferred me to the billing department, when the lady answered I told her I wasn’t sure why they had transferred me to her and she said it was to make sure my insurance covered infertility. Infertility? No one had said anything about me being infertile. That never even entered my mind until that moment. My stomach dropped and I started choking back tears while trying to give her my information. I went and did all the tests they make you do, peed in about five different cups, had three people meet my lady downstairs and after all that we find out I’m fine. Nothings wrong with me. I should have been happy, right? I thought I would be, but I had more questions in the end than I did in the beginning.

It came time to test Ryan. If I wasn’t the problem he is half the equation, what if he had something wrong with him? The night before he went to do the test he asked me if I would still love him if he were the problem. I cried. I told him there was no way I could ever stop loving him nor would I resent him if there were something wrong with him. We would get it fixed, easy as that, the same if it were me. We got his results back and he was fine too. So…now what? I always told myself I would be okay with it not happening as long as I knew there wasn’t a problem. Well here we were, no problems, and I still couldn’t make myself be okay with it not happening.

Here comes the bitterness. I cried every time I got my period, every time some one I knew got pregnant, every time I saw a diaper commercial. I was a mess. I couldn’t bring myself to congratulate people and if I did it wasn’t sincere. I knew it was mean and I knew I was bitter but for some reason being angry about it helped me process some of those emotions. I had to let myself get angry. Talking to people about it had the same effect, sometimes people had gone through the same thing or people would try to offer kind words or words of encouragement. But a lot of people said the two things that I did not want to hear…

- “Just stop trying; it’ll happen”
- “It must not be meant to be right now”

One, don’t tell me to stop trying when its all I can think about. You can’t just tell a smoker or a gambler to quit their habit. They have to decide on their own to quit and then figure out how they are going to do so. Everyone deals with things in their own way and in their own time. In my mind if we stopped trying we were giving up. I did not want to give up. I had to come to terms with it before I could make the decision to stop trying and really be okay with it.

And two, the worse thing to say to me was “It must not be meant to be right now.” Meant to be? When I was being told this I wasn’t hearing it in the nice way in which I’m sure it was intended, I was hearing “Your not meant to have a baby.” I was already fighting thoughts of my own like, “Maybe God doesn’t think I’ll be a good mother…Maybe I’ll mess my child up…Maybe I’m not really meant to have a baby - ever.” All I could think about were these people getting pregnant without even trying or from one night stands. Some of which don’t have jobs or their own place to live or even a car to take them places. People who can barely support themselves let alone another human being. They can have babies and I cant? I have my life together; we make good money, have a nice roof over our heads and cars to drive. Why not me??

Are you thinking.. “What makes her think she’s better than anyone else, where does she get off sitting on her high horse?” Yeah, me too. This attitude was one that I had up until about 2 months ago. One thing that I didn’t mention was that the entire year and a half total that we’ve been trying, I prayed to God about it all of the time. The reason I didn’t mention this was because if I had said that while telling my story, you wouldn’t have believed me. It didn’t show in my actions, thoughts or feelings. Yes, I was praying but I was so focused on what I wanted I failed to realize that its not just about me.

I was sitting in church one Sunday morning. I always listen to our preacher and take notes on things that hit home. What he touched on that morning really touched on my heart. It hit the nail on the head and all of a sudden things were put into perspective, just from a little bible verse.

James 4:4-5
You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your own pleasures.

God spoke to me that day. I was asking with wrong intentions. I was putting my own ‘pleasures’ ahead of everything else in my life. I wasn‘t praying for patience or guidance or even giving him the opportunity to speak to me sooner. That day, I decided I was leaving it in the Lords hands and when it does happen, whether it be next month or three years from now, that baby will be a true gift from God. One that is appreciated and the most loved and cherished child in the world.

He's the Conductor of my heart.

God is so good!


Ryan finally got the kind of career he's been working four years towards! It's actually better than we could have imagined. Four years ago when we first started dating, Ryan was in college doing a certificate program called Power Plant Technology, which should have gotten his foot in the door for any of his choice of plants to work at in the area. By the time he graduated the program, poof went the economy. Good secure jobs were getting harder to come by, especially in our area. He worked for an oil industry based company, and it wasn't a bad place to work - it paid the bills. But they had no benefits, did away with their 401K, and a few other downfalls. So in the years he worked there, he was also applying for every plant job in every town around. His test scores and qualifications always landed him the interviews, and his outgoing personality always landed him the second interviews. But when it came down to it, they said they want people with 'experience' and who have worked hands on in fields such as the jobs he was interviewing for. OK - understandable. But, how do such companies expect these hard working young men to gain the type of experience they are looking for if they don't take one on and give them that experience?


Ryan kept trying. Now, in the mean time I'm trying to keep from losing hope and thinking - he's working in a place he doesn't like, and he's such a hard worker, when is it his turn??" and praying that the Lord put something in front of us for Ryan to apply for. SO - three years later, he decides to apply for the railroad. Something he didn't go to school for, and actually something that was just an afterthought. And then what happened? You guessed it! They interviewed him once, then twice - and then he made it into the hiring pool. Six months later they were offering him the position and two months after that we were booking flights and hotels because they were sending him to Georgia - all expense paid trip - for training for his new job as a CSX Railroad Freight Conductor!!! He had to spend six weeks down in Georgia and it was hard for me to be without him for that long, but it was very much worth it. CSX is hands down one of the best careers someone can get in this area.

I can only say that God put this job in front of us, and he is who helped us through those four long years, and he is who blesses us every day. There's not a day that goes by that I don't thank the lord for everything he has done and continues to do for us. It just goes to show that he has a plan for all of us and that patience is a virtue!