Photos

I have finally found the time to post a few of my favorite Harrison photos to date. To be honest, my wife's blog is much better equipped for posting multiple images, so please visit her site for the full gallery.


Harrison and Mom in the hospital nursery


Who doesn't like photos of a baby bum?


We both got to give him his first bath


Not crying, just yawning


Grayma and Grandaddy (my parents)


I love his face in this one

Doxology!

After many sleepless nights and thousands of prayers, Heidi and I are happy to announce that Harrison Michael Gray is officially ours as of Friday, June 6 at 11:30 am.



Born Sunday, June 1, 2008
St. Mark's Hospital - Salt Lake City, UT
12:32 pm
8 lbs, 3 oz
20.5 inches

Heidi and I would like to thank each of you who took part in praying this baby into our arms. We are blessed at the opportunity to raise this precious child and blessed that we have friends and family who have helped to pray this boy home.

If you know the doxology, please sing it with me now:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Oh, praise Him! Oh, Praise Him!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!

Its Raining in Salt Lake Today

I was sure by now, that You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away, stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen and it's still raining
and as the thunder rolls I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls I raise my hands
and praise the God who gives and takes away.

And I'll praise you in this storm and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried You hold in your hand
You never left my side and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm.

Praise You in This Storm
by Casting Crowns

Lord, we give all glory to you, no matter the outcome.

Salt Lake City, UT

Well, we're still up here in Salt Lake City awaiting the birth of our adopted son. We definitely expected that he would have been born by now (his due date was last Saturday, May 24). For more on the adoption, check out our new family blog written, produced, directed, and edited by soon-to-be hot mom, Heidi.

Even though the waiting is killing me, I'm really enjoying the time with my family and absolutely loving the scenery. Utah is amazing this time of year. I love the weather, I love the green trees, and I love the mountains most of all. Living in Phoenix has caused me forget the enormity and the beauty of the Wasatch Mountains.

Honoring A Hero

This Memorial Day, I want to honor my grandad: Army Air Corps Major Isaac Terrell Spivey of Farmington, NM.

Grandad joined the Army Air Corps (Air Force) in his early 20s and was a B24 Liberator pilot in the South Pacific during World War II. He flew 50 missions, most of them in the pilot seat of a bomber nicknamed Red Headed Woman. Two of these 50 missions earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the highest decorations that can be given to pilots who serve in the military.

The first mission, in July 1945, had his crew flying over Saigon to take aerial photos of Japanese-controlled oil refineries. The intelligence captured on that mission was a key part in America's strategy to destroy the Japanese war machine. The mission caught Japan completely off-guard and the crew returned safely (after a 2,500 mile round trip - one of the longest flight missions of the war) only to have the gunner accidentally drop the film, exposing the entire roll.

The next day his crew was asked to do it all again, only this time the Japanese were ready. The Red Headed Woman and its crew flew a second consecutive 2,500-mile recognizance mission, but had to fight off about 45 Japanese fighter planes this time around. In the midst of intense combat, Grandad's crew was able to recapture the footage and return to base -- despite having a large chunk of the plane shot away.

This is only one of dozens of fascinating stories that my grandad could tell you about his time serving in WWII. Some stories are fascinating and some are sobering; He can tell you stories of funny things he experienced and then stories of friends he lost in combat. I love to hear his stories and he loves to tell them.

My grandad is one of thousands of military men and women to whom we owe thanks for the freedoms we enjoy today. To anyone who has served, thank you for your service to our country.

To Grandad, thank you for being my personal war hero.

Pop Goes the Church

This video comes from Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana. This was how they opened up the weekend service during a series titled "Get in the Game":



I grew up playing the old-school Nintendo and especially loved playing Mario Bros. (who didn't?). I also dream of being a rockin' drummer (who doesn't?). Naturally, I thought this video was awesome.

Even though I love this sort of thing, I must admit that I usually have a twinge of uneasiness when I see popular culture featured so prominently in church. This uneasiness lies in the fact that I feel like pop culture tends to blur the line between the sacred and the unsacred, between what is holy and what is commonplace.

Please understand that I am part of a church that deliberately appeals to the culture, and I love it. I do not sit in service sneering because I am offended at "that song" or "that video". I honestly enjoy most of what churches do to incorporate "cultural relevance" into their services. I also understand that churches like Granger do this primarily as an "in" to reach people for Jesus -- I do not doubt their intentions for a moment.

Still, I cannot seem to shake that nagging feeling that pairing the message of Jesus with pop culture only tends to cheapen Jesus. Do we honestly think that He needs our technology and music and graphic design in order to change lives? If the answer is "no", then we need to look really hard at whether or not our persistence toward cultural appeal is worthy of so much energy.

What do you think about this issue? Tell me why you feel the way you do about the church and pop culture.

Sidenote: The title of this post is taken from the title of a book written by Tim Stevens , the Executive Pastor at Granger. I have not read it yet, but I know from reading reviews that his book is really making people think about this issue.

A Tragic Story

I just read today that Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman and his family lost their youngest child, adopted daughter Maria, due to injuries sustained in an accident at their family home in Tennessee. The accident looks to have been caused when an older sibling unknowingly ran the child over in their driveway with the family SUV. Read the full article here.

My heart and prayers go up for this family as they are in the midst of this inconceivably horrible tragedy.

Dear Friends,

Please keep Heidi and me in your prayers over the next few weeks. Heidi will be flying next Thursday to Salt Lake City, Utah to stay with my parents and await the birth of our soon-to-be adopted son. His official due date is Friday, May 24. Heidi will be leaving right after the end of her last day of school so that she can be there when the birth mom goes into labor. Once the labor begins, Heidi will call me and I will catch the first flight I can get to Salt Lake. Hopefully, I can make it in time for the birth.

This news may come as a surprise to many of you. To be honest, this whole process began only six weeks ago, and we are even surprised by the speed with which this whole thing has happened. If you are only finding out for the first time, please know that we intentionally kept this under wraps until the decision to make us the parents had been made. Adoptions can be very uncertain and emotional ventures and, in an effort to guard our hearts, we decided not to go public until we had the final confirmation.

We know that many of you have been diligent in praying for us as we journey through our battle with infertility. Your prayers and ours are now being answered in the life of this precious gift, and we look forward to embracing him with open arms. Thank you to every one of you who have been praying for us. We cannot express enough how grateful we are to know that you have been lifting your hearts to God on our behalf.

The whirlwind story of our last six weeks is too long for me to explain right now. Just know that God has shown us tremendous power and unending grace through this, and that we are truly humbled by the experience. I will be sure to give you more details in the next week or so.

In the meantime, please keep the last leg of this process in your prayers. Specifically, please pray for the birth mom, Nichoal. She is 17 years old and has an opportunity to set a rather rough life on the right path after this adoption. She is a new Christian and has been working hard to follow God’s leading. Pray that she can have people come into her life (us included) who will encourage her to continue to fight against her crummy home life and change her future for good.

Thanks again for your prayers and your friendship. We are blessed beyond measure to know each of you.

Love,

Michael & Heidi

Why I Don't Watch the News

Modern television news media has become useless on so many levels. Sometimes I wonder how hard assignment editors have to work just to find stories to fill up their air time. The following video is a prime example of why I don't spend much of my time watching the local news.

Click on the picture below to view the news story; this is reporting at its crappiest:



Aside from the fact that this completely inane story made it to a live broadcast, I find it particularly bothersome that it aired within the first ten minutes of their 8:00 news (see the timestamp above). Where exactly is the newsworthiness of this story?

To make things worse, the City of Gilbert had to add their personal touch of absurdity by having Greg Svelund, the official city spokesperson, comment on the issue by saying, "I think this is something that can be solved with education." What?!

Here, allow me:

Dog Park Etiquette 101:

Lesson 1: Dog poop is stinky
Lesson 2: A lot of dog poop fermenting in one area is even stinkier
Lesson 3: To minimize the stink, pick up Precious' poop
Lesson 4: Should have told you before Lesson 3 to use the plastic bags and not your bare hand, you flippin' idiot
Lesson 5: Don't ever leave the house if you are dumber than your dog

I'm pretty sure that I just saved the taxpayers of Gilbert a lot of wasted education dollars.

In Memory

David G. Clingensmith, Sr.
March 31, 1931 - April 21, 2008

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty." Psalm 91:1

We will miss you, Grandpa.

This Has Been My Life:

Saturday, April 26 will mark the end of 44 days straight of this:



In my never-ending struggle to produce even the most minute amount of live, straight-swimming sperm, I have tried many unusual things. Some things have helped, some have hindered, but none have done the job they were ultimately supposed to do.

This photo represents my last medical effort. Time alone will tell if this final path of modern medicine can help lead Heidi and me to the final destination that has eluded us for so long now.

Just so you know, I hate needles. I can't tell you what a hurdle it was to stick this into my body for the first time. In case you were wondering, this shot is given intra-muscularly (meaning that I have to bury the needle to the hilt so that the fluid can be injected into the muscle). Learning to inject myself was definitely one of the biggest fear-overcoming situations in my life.

I love trying to overcome my fears, but I certainly won't miss these needles when they're gone.

I Miss Blogging

See above.

Toasted

Public speaking is not easy.

The fear of speaking in front of a group is one of the top fears in American society. Beyond simply overcoming the realization that all eyes and ears in the room are fixed on him or her (a realization that intensifies self-consciousness), a good public speaker must be interactive and engaging in order to be effective in delivering a message. Having to communicate under these circumstances can be daunting for anyone.

While I am generally comfortable around large groups of people, I am incredibly unconfident speaking in front of them. I don't mind the publicness of speaking, I mind the fact that I am oftentimes unable to communicate the message I want at the quality I want to deliver it.

In order to learn to overcome this life-long struggle, I went today to my first-ever Toastmasters International meeting. The goal of Toastmasters is to help you "become the speaker and leader you want to be," and these people aren't playing around.

Without going into too much detail about the meetings, the goal is to make attendees comfortable with public speaking by making them speak publicly. Then the rest of the group goes about dissecting the speech's content and delivery. Ultimately, the speaker gets almost immediate feedback on the shortcomings of his or her speaking ability. It can be nerve-wracking to have people pick you apart like that, but as long as you don't take things personally and you use the critiques to better yourself for the next speech, this group really seems to help.

Even though I was a first-time guest, the group gave me the opportunity to participate in what they call table topics. During this part of the meeting, members are all given a word of the day (ours today was goad). One person is then picked to stand up at the podium. On the spot, they are given a random topic to talk about for two to three minutes and they have to find a way to incorporate the word of the day appropriately in their presentation.

I was asked to talk about my first car, and I had to find a good place to use the verb goad. I started off fairly well and was enjoying myself until I said "ummmm" for the first time. Allow me to let you in on a little Toastmasters secret: they have a person at each meeting whose only task is to listen for "filler sounds" and then hit a desk bell each time the forbidden sounds are used.

The sound of that ringing in the middle of my speech was unnerving. In three minutes, I got dinged seven times. I could tell that the poor lady ringing the bell felt bad at having to keep picking on the new guy, but she was just doing her job. I was so frazzled at the bell that I kept losing my train of thought and I even forgot to use the word of the day. They were kind enough to let me know that everyone gets dinged a lot on their first try, and that I was nowhere near the group record of 17 dings.

Either way, I have a long way to go, and I'm sure I'll have more stories to come.

Pray for me.

Happy Easter!

I hope your Easter celebrations are a blast. Enjoy the time with family, the time to rest, and most importantly, the time you spend celebrating the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in order to make it possible for us to spend eternity with him.

He is risen indeed!

I'm Not the Only One

This blog is subtitled "Uncensored, but Spell-checked" for a very good reason: I am very conscious of spelling mistakes. Certain events from my past have made me this way.

I remember in first grade making a poster-sized drawing of the Statue of Liberty (complete with picture-taking stick figure tourists) for the annual school-wide art show called Reflections. On the base of my rendition of the historic American landmark, I used a permanent marker and skillfully etched the words "Stachew of Liberty". When I showed my parents, my dad mentioned that I spelled "statue" incorrectly (for a first grader, I think I displayed great phonemic awareness with stachew). Despite my excellent sound-it-out skills, I was embarrassed to have the now unchangeable misspelling on my artwork, so I ended up cutting off the lower half of my drawing and submitted my rendition of the historic landmark from the knees up.

That's the first time I really became aware that spelling mistakes can be embarrassing, but it didn't make me permanently immune to the occasional misspelling. In fact, after graduating from college, I had a particularly funny Freudian-slip spelling error on the resume that I sent to various PR firms here in Phoenix. Rather than tell you the whole story, let me show you a picture I found recently that more than adequately explains the embarrassment I felt with my post-graduation spelling mistake:



Who knew that you could earn $145K - $204K per year with a BA in Pubic Relations? Talk about getting paid well for something that you love to do. If the VP makes that much, I wonder what the President makes...

Baby-Making 101 (Part 3 of 3)

Part 3. Please read Part 1 & Part 2 before reading this section.

If by any chance you are dealing with issues of infertility, this concluding part is sincerely dedicated to you and your spouse as you walk this road together. While I am really enjoying the chance to tell the humorous (and sometimes explicit) parts of our story, my ultimate goal is to provide encouragement to anyone going through the same feelings of disappointment, discouragement, heartache, and uncertainty that we have grown to know so well.

Special congratulations go out to Eddie & Jeanne James, who just yesterday (March 1), had their prayers answered with the birth of their daughter Nadia. We love you guys!

And....go:

After the “Beaches of Normandy” speech, he asked us questions about the things we were doing to get pregnant, and we explained which methods we tried (at least the ones we were comfortable admitting to trying). After hearing about all of our efforts, he gave us a piece of advice that is far more powerful than anything we got from any other source.

He said, “You know, so many people I see are so concerned with getting pregnant that they consume their lives with finding the magic bullet. Instead of focusing on each other, they try different methods and buy books and devices that claim to hold the secret. I always tell people that they are better off taking the money they would spend on ovulation kits, and spend every dime of it at Victoria’s Secret. Just focus on arousing each other and enjoying the intimacy, and pregnancy will come in time.”

Now, I would be lying if I said that the male side of me didn’t jump for joy at the idea of a Victoria’s Secret shopping spree, but the thing I appreciated most was that he refocused us what was most important in a marriage -- intimacy. Cultivating a strong bond with your spouse is more important to a healthy marriage than getting pregnant, and we realized that we had begun to seek pregnancy at the expense of remembering to enjoy each other sexually. We made a commitment that day to remember that sex is more than a means for producing children; it also provides a special connection that runs deeper than any other bond that any two people could have.

At the end of our appointment, Heidi’s doctor asked if he could pray for us. He knew from another conversation that we were both Christians, and we gladly accepted his offer. You don’t have to be religious to know that having another person pray for you can be a very moving experience.

I can’t recall his exact words, but I remember him praying for God to prepare us for and bless us with a child. At the end of his prayer, he looked up with tears in his eyes and thanked us for helping him remember why he does what he does day after day. What an amazing experience to go into an infertility appointment with nervous insecurity, and leave with peace in our hearts and a fresh perspective on God’s provision for our lives.

I know that some of you reading this may not have the experience of having someone pray for you to have peace in this time of uncertainty, so please allow me to offer up a prayer on your behalf. My hope is that this prayer can be as meaningful to you now as Heidi’s doctor’s prayer was to us that day in his office:

God, you know the pain and the uncertainty happening in this person’s life now. I pray that you send your peace to them now and that you keep their eyes on the fact that You have a plan for their life, and for the life of any child You choose to bless them with. Bring them encouragement through people in their lives, and help them to be an encouragement to others they know who may be struggling with difficulties in getting pregnant. God, more than anything, let them know that you love them. I pray this in the name of Jesus, who showed us love that is greater than any we could ever find. Amen.

Baby-Making 101 (Part 2 of 3)

Alas, you are now reading Part 2. If you have not read Part 1, please do so before continuing, otherwise none of this is going to make much sense.

For those of you like Anthony who are a bit squeamish around language referring to the female anatomy or detailing graphic descriptions of war, I'm going to go ahead and warn you that this post is rated:

While it was fun to try out new ideas, we grew increasingly frustrated that month after month we were having no success. It seemed that so many people around us were getting pregnant with hardly any effort at all, and here we were spitting on microscopes and standing on our heads in the nude. After more than a year of failed experimental baby-making, we decided that our difficulty with conceiving should be discussed with Heidi’s OB/GYN.

Needless to say, we were both worried that something major was wrong with us. We began to think that we might be told that we should get used to the idea that we would only be known to children as “Uncle Michael” and “Aunt Heidi”. Our first infertility appointment at Heidi’s OB/GYN was far more encouraging than we could have predicted.

Heidi’s doctor was a man that came very highly recommended by some friends of ours. As we sat in his office and explained our struggle with getting pregnant and our worries that we may never have kids, he listened intently. He reassured us that one year of trying was not as uncommon as we had thought. In fact, 60% of couples are unsuccessful in getting pregnant after one year of trying. Knowing that we were in the same boat as 60% of couples in America definitely helped in easing our nerves.

When we asked about the best frequency of sex (I was shamelessly hoping to resurrect the rock star sex), he gave us a very vivid analogy on how conception works. He started by saying, “You need to think of the vagina as the beaches of Normandy.”

Let me tell you, a doctor that explains medical details with World War II battle analogies is going to pique any man’s attention. I sat on the edge of my chair as he continued.

“Your goal is to take the beachhead, and you are going to need to deploy a lot of soldiers to accomplish your mission. Keep in mind that many of your soldiers will be lying dead on the beach, but all you need is one to get past the enemy lines and you have the battle won.

“Now, you don’t want to send your soldiers in a few at a time – that’s what happens when you try to have sex every day. You won’t have enough sperm to make much of an impact.”

Goodbye rock star sex.

“You need to make sure you have a good amount of sperm built up. I would say that trying every other day during ovulation is a good rule of thumb.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. My wife’s OB/GYN essentially wrote us a prescription for sex every other day during ovulation, and did it while deepening my American patriotism. This guy was good.

to be continued...

Baby-Making 101 (Part 1 of 3)

This post is a snippet from a chapter of a book I'm writing (current working title: Swimming in Circles: A Sperm Story). As you have probably already figured out, its a look into the lives of Heidi and me as we continue our long-running battle with infertility. I hope one day that it will be published. I thought I would post it here for your reading enjoyment.

Baby-Making 101

Throughout our first year of trying to conceive, we were willing to try just about any “secrets of the trade” in the hopes that it would improve our chances of getting pregnant. If you know of a manufactured or homemade method that worked for you or someone you know, I can guarantee that we tried it. Anyone who came to us with advice impacted our sex life in one way or another.

Some methods were scientific:

• Heidi would wake up each morning and, even before turning the alarm off, she would put a thermometer in her mouth and take her temperature. She even had a nice bedside calendar where she kept record of her early morning temperature-taking. Once she reached the appointed temperature, we would commence with the baby-making. It’s not as sexy to hear your wife say she’s hot for you when she means it literally.

• We tried a device which the writers of the book The Conception Chronicles affectionately dubbed “Spitnik”. Basically, each morning Heidi rubbed a small amount of her saliva on the glass lens of a compact personal fertility microscope and set it aside for a few minutes to dry. If she saw what looks like a fern pattern through the eyepiece, it meant that we got to hop back into bed and get busy. If she saw what looks like a close-up of dried saliva, it meant that I needed to take a cold shower and get ready for work.

Other methods were word-of-mouth cures:

• Heidi was told that she needed to elevate her legs over her head after sex. The naked headstands didn’t work for us.

• Someone else swore by the “Be Sure and Pee Immediately After Sex” method. I personally recommend the “Take a Ten Minute Nap After Sex” method instead.

• A friend of mine came up to me one day and loaned me what he said was a sure-fire cure: his old workout socks. He handed me a pair of bright blue, breathable cotton/poly blends with pictures of cartoon sperm on them. The socks had the caption, “Survival of the Fittest” sewn into them. Those beauties were what he wore while training for a marathon during the same time of year that he and his wife were trying for kids (please take special note of the italics). So far, the sperm socks have done nothing but give me athlete’s foot.

• My favorite approach was one I like to call the “Rock Star Sex” method, which required that we have sex every day during her ovulation period. While I knew this advice was surely the brainchild of some guy with no medical credentials whatsoever, I made sure that I supported it as a viable option each time we discussed getting pregnant. One month, my wife finally caved in. The Rock Star Sex method didn’t work one bit, but I personally found it to be the best way to fail at getting pregnant that I have ever tried.

to be continued...

Read Part 2

The Oprah Cult

Today is President's Day and -- I can't believe I am actually admitting to this -- I spent part of my day off from work watching Oprah. Before you judge me, just know that she had the voice-over cast from Horton Hears a Who (Jim Carrey, Steve Carrel, and Carol Burnett) on the show. It wasn't an Oprah's Book Club episode or anything.

I realized something disturbing today as I watched the show -- Oprah's fans are crazy (not fun-crazy like your best friend from college, but crazy-crazy like Robin Williams all jacked up on Ecstasy). Anyone else out there think that the people in Oprah's audience are bizarre?

People say that religious organizations are cultish, but I have never seen anything that can compare to the following that Oprah has. These people are out of control.

What do you think?

I Heart Starbucks

We've all been here before: