About eight and a half years ago...

Ryan and I met at a revival service in Martin, TN. We were both attending the University of TN at Martin and were both involved with the BSU (now called BCM) ministry there on campus. After our first encounter with one another, I started to see him around campus more and more. Soon, we began dating and about 2 years later we were married on August 10, 2002. Ryan had already graduated from UTM with a Bachelor's degree in History by that time and I was finishing my last year of college at Austin Peay State University to become a mathematics teacher. After our first year of marriage we moved to Louiville, KY where I would start my teaching career and Ryan would start attending Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Soon after arriving to KY we found a great church home, Ninth & O Baptist Church, where we are still active members. We love our church family and are so very blessed to be a part of a God-fearing body of believers. After four years of school, work, and many more life activities, Ryan and I wanted to start adding on to our family. Much to our dismay we were not able to 'get pregnant' right away. I was having some medical concerns and soon was diagnosed with ITP (Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura). In short, it's an immune problem. Shortly after my diagnosis I was put on medication that would drastically change my looks, attitude, emotions, and let's just say, every part of me. After this particular medication did not work, I was given two types of treatments to try and help cure my immune problem. One treatment came in August of 2007 and the other in December of that same year. Needless to say, neither of those treatments worked so the next option was for me to have a splenectomy. So in April of 2008 I had my spleen removed. The recovery went well and my looks and emotions were beginning to return to normal (if there is such a thing as normal!). My health continued to improve with each day that passed and then in August of this year Ryan and I found out that we were expecting our first child. We could not believe it at first, especially me, having been through so much physically over the past year. On December 1 we found out that we are having a boy! God is so faithful to hear and answer our prayers and we are so glad that He is giving us this wonderful responsibility (and challenge!) of being able to raise a child. Our son is very healthy and is kicking a lot these days (Ryan says that it's for football and not soccer which isn't a real sport). We look forward to his arrival sometime in the month of April of 2009. We will keep you posted on what our son's name will be. Please keep us in your prayers as we embark on this wonderful journey of parenting.