Beautiful Heartbreak

I love this song from Hilary Weeks.  It puts into words so many of my thoughts and feelings over the years.  I have been thinking about infertility a lot lately as I have two friends struggling with secondary infertility.  They are both at that moment when the doctor looks at you and says he doesn't know what else to do.  That maybe they should look at other options.  It has been almost five years since my last IVF when our doctor said those words to us.  A door was closing on our hopes and dreams and at the same time another door, called adoption, was opening.   It was new, different and very scary, but soon we started seeing a new light shine through.  We grabbed hold of that light and started learning everything we could about adoption.  Hope came back in our lives then.

During those infertility years I struggled at church and other activities listening to women talk about their pregnancies, complain about pregnancies, or complain about children.  I just wasn't in a place emotionally that I could handle it.  I felt like God must love these women more than me because they could get pregnant or that there was something wrong with me.  I felt God must not think I was good enough to be a mom.  

It was at these lowest points that I would see miracles happen. These came in the form of a church talk that said exactly what I needed to hear, something that a friend said, or a peaceful feeling in my heart that brought the comfort and a surety that God heard my prayers and would answer them in His way and His time.  This was also the time when I started to understand the atonement of Jesus Christ better and build a relationship with him.  

I was asked today while a women was talking about a surprise pregnancy if it was hard to hear things like that, someone who can get pregnant so easily.  I'm so glad that I could say that it doesn't bother me anymore.  Infertility never goes away and there are times when I still get sad, but I'm sad for different reasons.  The hard days come when we are trying to find our next baby and I'm frustrated with the process.  Those days all I can think about is how much easier, and lets face it, more fun, it would be if I could just get pregnant.  Now I know that pregnancy really isn't easy.  I have watched members of my family go through sickness the entire pregnancy to extremely hard recoveries, but on days when I'm really frustrated with the adoption process, I forget about those things and just think how hard I have it.  Those days are far and few between though.  Instead I try not to think about the long journey ahead of us, and instead think about the end result.

Infertility took an emotional battering to my heart, but with each hug and kiss from my boys, my heart starts to heal.  Zane and I don't have this wishful thinking deep down hoping to get pregnant one day.  We closed that door and are thrilled with the path we are on.  We are thrilled because that path gave us two beautiful boys.  I wouldn't change anything about my boys including their birth stories.  Their birth families are part of who they are, and my boys and their birth families are amazing.

Every fear, every doubt, All the pain I went through

Was the price that I paid to see this view

And now that I’m here I would never trade

The grace that I feel and the faith that I find

Through the bittersweet tears and the sleepless nights

I used to pray that He’d take it all away,

But instead it became

A Beautiful Heartbreak.
 (Chorus from "Beautiful Heartbreak" by Hilary Weeks)

So to my friends going through infertility, don't give up.  There is a plan and one day when you have little arms wrapping around your neck giving you hugs and kisses you will look back at the journey and say it was worth it. 

Enduring Well

My grandma should have passed away four years ago.  We all rushed out to one last family reunion to be with her.  Instead, she surprised everyone and kept living life.  I think she knew how much my grandpa, who is suffering from dementia, needed her and so she chose to stay with him that much longer.  I'm so glad we got those few extra years with her.  My grandma was an inspiring lady and I really enjoyed the life sketch my cousin did of her and the tributes made by each of her kids.  I have been thinking more about family history lately and realizing that I don't want my grandparents to be forgotten.  There is so much my kids can learn from their lives.

This is my grandpa saying goodbye with my parents behind him.  My grandpa kissed her goodbye and told her she had been a good wife.  At another time, he kissed her then announced she kissed him back! 

As a child I remember grandma's house as a place where we played games and where there was always candy, ice cream, or something yummy.  She liked to make sure we were all well fed and loved family gatherings.  One of the funnest memories is playing card games with numbers crossed out and a new ones written in.  I think this carried over from the depression years.  She didn't throw away a card deck when it was missing cards.  Instead, she combined multiple decks by crossing out numbers and making a new deck.

As I got older, I appreciated my grandma more as someone who really cared about me.  When we went to the temple with Dallin for the ceremony to make him a part of our forever family (when he was 6 months old), my grandma flew out to join us.  She was very sick on the trip, but I'm so glad my grandparents were there.  That trip ended up being her last trip to visit us.  I was glad she was able to join us on that special celebration because she was part of our journey to get Dallin in terms of the support she gave us.  During my infertility years, she was always praying for me and asking how things were going.  She would call up temples and put my name on the temple prayer roll for extra prayers!  During our last family reunion she asked all my relatives to help find us a baby and pray for us.  Dallin joined our family six months later.

I hope I can follow my grandma's example and live my life as well as she did.

My grandpa with his kids and their spouses

The pallbearers- all the grandsons except for my brother Jared who lives out of the country

My family who attended the funeral.  This was my first time away from my boys and I got a little emotional at times.  I'm really glad I wasn't chasing after them either though and got to enjoy time catching up with family!

It was great spending time with my little sister Lindsey and having my mom's attention all to ourselves (meaning the grandkids weren't stealing her away.)  It is nice to have grown-up conversations.

My beautiful sisters

Family was very important to my grandma.  She loved having everyone around.  She would have loved the funeral with all of us gathering from across the country to celebrate her life and after the funeral, to talk and play games.

I had to add this poorly taken picture to show how fun and crazy my family is.  I happen to chuck one snowball at my dad as we were walking to the car, (I couldn't resist because although I'm glad I live in a place where it doesn't snow, it sure is fun to play in!) and two of my aunts inside immediately come running out to get in on the action.  They attacked my dad and anyone else in the way yelling something about getting even from all the snowballs with rocks in them that apparently my dad threw at them when he was little. My dad says he is innocent...

I have to give a shout out to Zane who took on the boys by himself for the weekend.  I left very early Friday morning (we were up at 3:30 a.m.!) and I came home late Sunday night.  The boys had a blast with dad doing all kinds of fun activities.  When I got home Zane made the best comment by saying he doesn't know how I get anything done during the day.  I love being appreciated!  The boys kept him busy!  They were well cared for and the house looked great.  Thanks Zane!

In Disguise

Has anyone seen Gavin and Dallin?

Saving Our Sleep

 My blogging has been a little sparse lately.  I have been busy with this...

 Preschool takes a lot of my time but we have a lot of fun and the boys are learning so much!

Zane has been busy because he was building this....

 Dallin's new hideaway.  When Gavin started sleeping through the night, Dallin started waking up.  He discovered how much he enjoyed sleeping in our bed.  At first we (or I should say I did as Zane ended up on the edge of the bed and never liked him sleeping with us) allowed it, then we tried to put a stop to it.  Breaking that habit started a new habit of putting him back to bed by sleeping in his bed.  Breaking that habit meant sleeping outside his door.  The list could continue on and on.  At 2 a.m. we just kept coming up with more and more bad ideas.  During one sleepless night of multiple wake ups (Dallin got in the habit of waking up every 2 hours), we joked about making a high bed like our brother-in-law made for his son.  We figured he would be too scared to climb down or break his neck doing it.  Zane mentioned it to Dallin joking around and that started both of them dreaming of the new bed and the car toddler bed not being cool anymore.  While Zane had two days off of work, he built the bed with his two little helpers.

The bed is a hit.  Dallin can climb down during the night without breaking his neck, but he is choosing not to because he loves his bed!  His habit of waking up every two hours has ended and we are all getting sleep!!!  Can I say again how much we love this bed!  Thanks Jake for the inspiration and for giving Zane pointers.

So Much to be Grateful For

 These boys teach me to appreciate the simple things in life.  They remind me to stop worrying about what needs to be done and to get outside and enjoy nature (on this particular day that reminder consisted of two boys trying to sneak outside.)

 I think these are the biggest acorns ever.

 And we are lucky enough to have both pockets full of them!

I'm grateful to Gavin who teaches me to not give up.  He walked around the block pushing Lightning McQueen.  When he fell, he got up again, put a smile on his face and kept going.  Gavin is a pro with pushing a toy.  He is also a pro at climbing ladders, climbing on chairs, and really getting anywhere he wants to go.  He is just too stubborn to walk independently.

 

He took a break and enjoyed riding McQueen.  He will walk around McQueen and figure out how to climb on him by himself.  Gavin is very independent.

 I'm thankful for Dallin because he can always make me laugh.  There is never a dull moment in our family!

I think Gavin thought the fire hydrant was the most amazing thing ever.

We are so grateful for our little family and we are especially grateful for our boys' birthmoms.  Not a day goes by where we don't think of these wonderful women and express our thanks to God for His hand in bringing our family together.  Because of them, Zane and I get to be called the best names ever...daddy and mommy.

Moments

When we visited my new niece a couple of weeks ago, my super talented sister-in-law had her camera out taking random pictures.  I'm not sure if it is her camera or just her, but she catches moments with my boys that I never seem to capture.  I love how close by boys are and how much they love playing together.  They have their moments when they fight (or in other words, Dallin is playing too rough), but for the most part, they just crack us up with their silliness together.

 

I dressed the boys in matching outfits for the day for when they weren't wearing costumes.  I love dressing the boys alike for a couple of reasons.  One is that Dallin likes being twinsies.  He will ask to wear the same thing as Gavin and if he doesn't have the same shirt, finds something similar between the two so that he can say they are twinsies.  Another reason is so people looking at our family know that the boys are brothers.  We have had our moments like at the beach when some nice, well meaning girls asked if we knew where (pointing to Gavin) his parents were.  Another time I was walking out to my car after grocery shopping when a lady asked if I had a day care in my neighborhood assuming that I was babysitting Gavin.  It really doesn't matter if they are wearing the same thing or not though because if you spend any time with the boys, you just know they are brothers and have always been brothers.

Visiting Baby Ellery

Remember that post about the sweeter side of Dallin?  We got to see Dallin's sweet side this weekend as he met his new cousin, Ellery (my little brother Clayton's first child.)  He loved holding her.  So much so that we used holding Ellery as a privilege e.g. when you finish your dinner you can hold Ellery.  Watching him brought back flashbacks to when Gavin was born.  If Gavin was crying, he would come over to him and say, "It's ok.  I'm here."  He did the same thing with Ellery if she started fussing.  He enjoyed singing to her except that he was a little rough during the "cradle will rock" part of "Rock-A-Bye-Baby".  When I use to sing that song to Dallin as he got older, I would really rock/shake him during that part making him laugh.  Ellery didn't laugh though.  He constantly had to check on her and kept trying to show her stuff like acorns.  By the end of the visit, he announced that Ellery was his favorite cousin.

The proud mommy, my sister-in-law Kara, Dallin, and Ellery

 We went to a festival at the arboretum for a few hours and Ellery was an angel!

Gavin didn't get his picture with Ellery.  He was interested in her because she has eyes to poke or a paci to steal.  He isn't quite ready to be a big brother yet.

BTW: The arboretum was awesome.  The kids got to trick or treat at Cinderella's castle made out of pumpkins, the step sisters' house, and tons of other Disney princesses.  Pumpkins were everywhere and it was a lot of fun!