How This Wild and Wonderful Ride Began

Jeff and I got married in September, 2007 and embarked on our journey as Mr. & Mrs. Shiveler.  We knew we wanted to have a family, but we also knew we wanted to enjoy our time together as husband and wife before we brought a child into the world, and ventured into all the responsibility that comes with being parents. 
Before we got married, Jeff and I had agreed that we didn't think Fort Wayne (Leo) would be our home forever.  We both wanted to live in a warmer climate, close to the beach.  We had vacationed in South Carolina together and after much research and long nights of talking about our future, we decided we thought we would like to call Charleston home.
 
I finished grad school in May of 2009, and we decided to put our house on the market shortly thereafter. In the meantime, I began casually looking for work in the Charleston area. I had a few phone interviews, but nothing panned out. Spring and summer rolled on, and in spite of the terrible housing market we had 20 some showings, but no bites.  As winter approached and our second 3-month realtor contract came to an end, we decided we were going to have to tough it out for yet another Indiana winter. We took our house off the market, and life went on as usual.

Although we had previously thought we would wait until we moved to have kids, we decided there was never a "perfect" time to start a family, and we were ready for our journey as parents to begin.  Meanwhile, spring finally showed up in the Midwest, and we decided to give selling the house another go-round with a new realtor.  We had our first showing a few days later, which happened to be Good Friday.  Two days later, on Easter Sunday, we got an offer on our house.  Just when we thought we could not possibly receive any more good news on a day filled with celebration for Jesus' resurrection, it just so happened, there was one more piece of good news God wanted us to celebrate...

I will never forget Jeff's response when I showed him the at-home pregnancy test I had been anxiously waiting several days to take.  "Well, better luck next time," was his response. Turns out they don't teach you to read pregnancy tests in pharmacy school!  As excited as we were that night, we had no way of knowing all of what God had in store for our future, and how much joy the results of that one plastic stick would eventually bring us.