Sweet Child O' Mine

I'm grateful for the blessings in my life.  I'm especially grateful for this special girl who I love so much.  She is like a daughter to me.

Shortly after Sadie came into this world, I had the opportunity to spend lots of time with her as I lived with her and her mom.  I had endless love for that little girl and I felt a desire to help take care of her.

My sister tried to make it on her own for a while, but Sadie was eventually put into my mom's care and custody, which I'm grateful for.  I am also grateful that I still got to see her a lot.  I wanted to continue to be there for Sadie after I moved far away, but even though there was lots of time away, we are finally at a place in our lives where we can see each other as much we want.  I will always will be there for her; a constant and pure unconditional and unwavering love that is here to stay.

When Sadie was eight years old, I had to say goodbye to her indefinitely - seven years.  I moved to Utah so Chad and I could get married and so he could finish university.  It was difficult to leave.  I prayed about it and knew in my heart that Sadie would understand, and that I would live near her again one day.  I also felt that we would still see her a lot.  It turns out that we were able to see her at least twice a year, even with all those miles in between us.  She came to stay with Chad and I every summer for a month, and we got to see her almost every Christmas for at least a few weeks... still not enough time though.  I'll never forget that vision the day I moved and had to say goodbye.  On our way to the airport, my mom and I dropped Sadie off at school.  She gave me a big hug and said, "I will really miss you, aunty".  It broke my heart!  I watched her as she ran to the doors of the school with her adorable bouncing pigtails and her cute little Disney Princess jacket on.  I didn't know when I'd live near her again.

I'm so grateful for the love that Chad has come to have for Sadie.  He adores her... just like a dad who adores his daughter.  I love how wonderful he is with her.  He frequently talks to her on the phone, and asks details about how her life is going when she stays with us on weekends.  They love hanging out and getting frozen yogurt and DQ treats.  I love seeing them together and how much they enjoy their time together.

Sadie just turned seventeen, and with each year I'm proud of how beautiful and amazing she has turned out to be.  I feel more than blessed that God has directed my life where it is today and for blessing me with her.  I seriously couldn't have been blessed with a more wonderful "daughter" in my life.  She is beautiful, intelligent, creative, fun-loving, polite, caring and such a good and virtuous girl!  She has a way of making everyone she's around laugh, and she always brightens my day with her beautiful energy.  She's the best.  I love you, Sadie.

Sadie edited this picture and emailed it to me when we lived apart.  I thought it was the sweetest thing!

Failed IVF - Overcoming Our Loss

Chad and I did a cycle of  IVF (invitro fertilization) last May/June in Las Vegas.  Unfortunately, it failed.  It has been several months, but we are still going through a great deal of depression.  Words can't describe how taxing it is in every way.  It has changed who we are and has taken every passion from us.  It is all we can do to eat, pray, and merely function.  We have seen some deep, dark valleys.  Some days we are able to see some light, but there are still "those" days.  If we can make it through this, we can make it through anything.  We are building a foundation that nothing can shake.  Our spirituality is strong because we believe in enduring to the end.  Our testimonies have been stronger, but it is through times like these that the strength of our testimonies in the past are carrying us now.  We have tried and done everything the Lord has asked.  Now we get to take a much deserved break and just enjoy each other.  We are becoming stronger in our marriage.  We love each other so much.


~God
When pondering if we should do IVF we asked Heavenly Father and felt very good and very confident about our answer.  This made it so much more difficult to understand why it didn't work.  We have used up almost everything we had to make this dream possible. What we had left in our emotional and spiritual reserves have been the most difficult to restore.  Each day I struggle to figure out what the meaning of this trial is, but I have learned a great deal about faith and patience during our whole fertility journey.


~The Science
Our fertility doctor was able to retrieve eight eggs.  We received a call from him three days after the retrieval and he said that four fertilized eggs had grown to embryos, but they were growing slowly.  This is not a good sign.  He finally called again a few days later and said that we are still on for the transfer.  At this point everything looked good.  On the day of transfer he said that two of the embryos were growing and were of good quality.  We were finally told to come to the clinic for the transfer.  Words can't describe how excited we were.  We were able to watch on a monitor as the doctor transferred the embryos.  I'll never forget his words when we arrived at the clinic that day.  He said the two embryos they were transferring had become a miracle because the cells were dividing and growing at a normal pace.  This means that we would be pregnant very soon.  Chad and I looked at each other and smiled, his hand holding mine, and we knew that we were parents.  The nurse said there was no turning back, we are parents.  We smiled again.  Two weeks later we found out our beautiful twins did not make it.  We had every reason to believe that they were going to grow to be our babies.  Why didn't they live?  They were healthy, and they were miracles.  They were growing cells, they were life.  They now had the potential to grow and have heartbeats.  But our babies didn't grow, they died.  The months since then have been a blur.


We talked with our doctor after we got the results of our BIG FAT NEGATIVE.  He said that every female has good cycles and bad cycles any given month.  Our IVF failed because it happened to fall on a bad month.  How are you supposed to know?  There's no way of knowing.  It's a gamble, an extremely expensive one.  He said that I was a great responder to the injection protocol and that he would do the same protocol in the future.


It is known in the fertility world that IVF is the last and most promising step to being able to have a baby when all else fails.  Our only hope has faded from the dream we've been chasing for more than five years.


In the past there was no diagnosis after all the mountains of fertility testing we had done.  Our current fertility doctor diagnosed me as having mild endometriosis which is "mild", but is apparently enough to cause me fertility complications.  When trying to conceive on our own the fertilized eggs aren't able to pass through to the uterus from the tubes because of the toxins that endo causes - it blocks the pathway.  We also discussed my symptoms with past cycles and doctor said I was having symptoms of pregnancy, but because of the toxins the endo causes it was terminating my pregnancies.  This wasn't surprising to me.  Deep down I knew that I had been pregnant countless times.  I realized that these symptoms are occurring for about eight months out of every twelve.  


Above is a picture of our twins.  They would have been born next month.  I still think to this day that one was a boy and the other a girl.  Just a feeling I always had.  Simply said, they were too beautiful for earth.


The song "My Immortal" was playing during the transfer.  I still shed tears whenever I hear it.  It will always take me back to that day I thought would make me happy for the rest of my life.