Blessings

I was thinking the last couple weeks about what I want to do with my blog. I don't get the chance to blog as often as I'd like, so I want to change that this year. 2010 is the first year I haven't really made a New Year's Resolution for, so maybe my resolution will be to look for more blessings in my life...things that are everyday and ordinary, but mean a lot.

That being said, today I want to share about the blanket you see in the picture to the left. The weather has gotten pretty cold here lately, not common for Florida, but I LOVE it. We went through our closet and pulled out a couple of warmer blankets to add to the kids' beds, just to make sure they're warm enough at night while they sleep.

This blanket once hung in the window of a gift shop at a hospital in Jacksonville. Steve and I had gone through two fertility treatments that failed, and I was scheduled for an exploratory surgery to find out if there was a reason for the treatments to fail that had not been previously diagnosed. Steve had to work and couldn't take me to the hospital the day of the surgery, but my mom offered to drive me there and bring me home afterward, since it was an outpatient procedure.

The gift shop is located on the hospital's first floor, and you pass by it as you walk from the parking garage to the elevator bank. I remember (vaguely) passing by the window and seeing the blanket, and telling my mom that I really hoped we could figure out where to go from here with treatments so I would have a reason to need a baby blanket. At that point we'd been trying for almost 18 months, and I was caught somewhere between frustration and sadness. I went into the surgery and came through with flying colors, even though I was groggy and nauseated from the medicine they give you beforehand. Mom brought me home and I crawled into bed, where I basically spent two days recovering per the doctor's orders.

Fast forward a couple of months...we went through our first IVF procedure and found out that we were carrying not one but TWO babies. We were excited, nervous and just plain happy. God answers prayers. My mom brought me a bag and told me that she had planned on waiting until later in the pregnancy, but just couldn't wait anymore. Inside was this blanket...she had waited until my surgery began, and then she had gone back downstairs to the gift shop and bought the blanket that was hanging in the window. She knew that somehow, someway, we would be welcoming a baby into our family, and she wanted me to have that blanket since I had noticed it on my way into the surgery that day. It's been 4 1/2 years since she gave it to me, and I remember those days and weeks so vividly.

This blanket is a constant reminder of just how blessed we are, and how we should count those blessings all the time!