Remember

Today, October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant loss day. 8 years ago this past Monday, October 11, 2001 we said goodbye to our first angel. Instead of Thankful Thursday today I wanted to tell you a little about our life these past 8 years.

For about 5 of those years I was terribly ashamed. I felt somehow responsible, and so deeply saddened by our losses I couldn't even bring myself to talk about it. Now, 8 years later, it has changed who I am. I have mentioned so many things that I am thankful for already in my Thankful Thursday posts that relate to this. I am a woman with an amazing husband, an adorable son, and a life.

I have struggled with infertility, I still do, it's not something that goes away, it's not something that is "cured" by adoption. In our adoption education classes one of the case workers said "Adoption doesn't cure infertility, it corrects childlessness. You need to find your own closure to infertility." I still have times that I am angry, sad, and just don't understand; things are not always easy.

Because of these struggles I have become friend with two groups of friends who have helped me more then I can ever express. I talked about them a few weeks ago. Unfortunately the first group is spending tonight thinking of their little ones that left too soon also.

I am a woman who is very thankful for the angels that we have, and I am thankful for the one I have to snuggle here tonight. We have been blessed through our trials. Everyone has trials, and we don't get to chose what they are. I will be thinking of all our angels tonight. And all the angel babies that left too soon.

An entertaining discovery

While cleaning up the computer I just came across another, very entertaining discovery, but it requires a story. I fun story. The story of our engagement. I don't think I have told this story here before, and if I have, it was long ago.

Spencer came home from a mission for the LDS Church July 30, 2000. We hadn't seen each other in just over 2 years. We had written, oh man had we written! We have 2 crates full of letters to one another down in our basement. We just can't bring ourselves to get rid of them.

The first month home, we spent a whirlwind month where we spent just about every day together. We spent a few days on vacation with my family. Came home early to fly to California. Spent a week with Spencer's family then drove back to Utah for Spencer's homecoming with his parents only to turn around and drive back to California with them for the last 2 days of our time in California then we turned around and flew back home.

Spencer had everything set up to go back to school, he found a job, and he was getting back to normal life.

August 25, we planned to go hiking to Ensign Peak, but I had an emergency at work and ended up working late.

August 26, we went to the symphony under the stars, complete with 21 gun salute and a cannon accompaniment on the chorus, but it was rained out. Pouring rain. So, Spencer suggested we go out to dinner. Only problem, we were soaking wet! So we stopped by Wendy's and went through the drive-thru to get some dinner.

August 27, we were supposed to go to a missionary homecoming at Spencer's ward. Spencer didn't have a car yet so I got to his house about 10 minutes before we were supposed to be there to pick him up and he wasn't ready! How frustrating! I waited for him for about 5 minutes, his whole family left for church. I told them we would meet them there. Five more minutes and we were going to be late so I yelled down to Spencer to see if he was just about ready. He mumbled something about almost ready, just a few more minutes, something to that effect. Finally getting frustrated I went down to the front door and yelled to him that we needed to go! He finally came out and took my hand and said "Just a minute, we need to talk." So we went back upstairs and he had me sit down and he started talking.

He was telling me how we had been spending so much time since he got home, and he had really enjoyed it, but he wasn't able to focus on his schoolwork, and he was starting a job the next day. My heart started racing. He was breaking up with me! I could not believe it! I thought things had been going so well, where had I gone wrong? I was having a hard time focusing on what he was saying because I was just in shock. The shock increased when I realized that he was now down on one knee in front of the chair I was sitting on. Now my heart was really racing, I was so confused. What's going on?? Then he said the four words any woman in love wants to hear "Will you marry me?" I don't think it even took me a minute to answer. I think I said yes more than once. I remember hugging, and kissing.

Once we finally got out the door Spencer had just one request. He asked that I not tell anyone until after he spoke in my ward that day. He didn't want my dad glaring at him while he spoke. So the entire time he was speaking, I sat at the end of the row doodling on a piece of paper. As he finished I finally passed the paper down the row to my mom then told her after she saw it she could show it to the others.

The outside...

The inside.

(edited to removed my maiden name and my married name that I had in parenthesis on the bottom)

Directly following Spencer's talk (I couldn't tell you a single word that he said) there was a bagpiper playing. One of my parents neighbors said we were so loud that she could hear us over the bagpipers.

Spencer had tried to propose at sunset on Ensign Peak, at the orchestra under the stars and he just couldn't wait another week. I love our engagement story. I love all the failed attempts. I love my husband!

Revisiting Emotions

Every once in a while things will jump up and just out of no where remind me of the struggles that we have gone through. For the most part until I started this blog I was very private about everything. It has been very empowering to be able to open up about everything but I still have these occasional shocking reminders that are just hard to handle at times.

This week I have been working on moving everything from our computer to my external hard drive. This means that I have to look at old files to see if they are worth keeping. I came across an old file labeled "Journal Entry." From March 11, 2004, a few weeks after my second miscarriage. I relived the pain of that time reading the struggles that we were having. INFERTILITY SUCKS! Seriously. My heart is so heavy remembering all the hurt that I felt. I still feel it at times. I am so very thankful for the Miracle of Adoption. It has healed some of the pain.

Here were my thoughts in March, 2004.

March 11, 2004


There are so many things in my mind, I can’t sleep, so I wanted to try to get them out of my head. Recently we have had to make some very thought provoking decisions. Three weeks ago we had our second miscarriage. Until you have gone through that experience, you have no idea what a great loss it is. I used to hear people talk of Miscarriage, and I didn’t think much of it. Well, we want to have a child so badly, but the Dr is saying that we should wait at least 9 months before we try again. The last time that I had a miscarriage, I had such a hard time emotionally. This time has been better, I have been able to think things through, and I think maybe she is right. Maybe it would be better for us emotionally and physically for us to wait.

I talked to Spencer about this tonight and we have different takes on this. He doesn’t want to do anything to prevent it from happening, but I think it would be nice to have a summer without the stress of worrying if I was pregnant or not every time we go out on the boat or 4 wheelers. It’s just not something that I can express to him. But at the same time, I can understand where he is coming from, because just 2 days ago, I felt the same way. I wanted so badly to be pregnant, that I didn’t want to take her advice. Now that I’ve had a few days to think things through, I think the summer would be so good for us. Have a little us time. We can’t even commit to things a month away right now for fear that I might be pregnant, and it would change our plans.

I want to be able to plan at least for a few weeks, without the fear that something will change, and I will have to cancel, because then every time, I am just left disappointed. I hate feeling that every month. Wondering every month if I am pregnant, and almost crying every month that I am not. I wish there were some way that I could give Spencer a normal life.

I just wish there were some medical miracle that they would find that would solve all the problems that I am currently faced with, and make it so that we can have the family that we so desperately desire.

I truly believe that things happen for a reason, and that we are not tested beyond what we can take, but sometimes I wonder if the reason is that I am not a fit mother, or if it is that I am not able to withstand all that is being thrown at me right now. I know that I need to start doing more. There are a lot of things that I think, if I just improve on this, then we will be able to have children. The thing that keeps me from doing it is that I know that even if I start doing all these things that I am falling short on, it won’t change that I have poly-cystic ovary syndrome. It won’t change that I have had 2 miscarriage, and feel so lost about both of them, and it won’t change that I feel like there is a wedge being driven between me and Spencer, called Infertility. I haven’t even told pretty much anyone about this miscarriage because they didn’t know I was pregnant, and I am afraid to hear what they have to say.

I am still young, I know that, I am only 25 years old, but in Utah, that’s old to not have any kids yet. Everyone looks at you and wonders why you don’t already have 2 or 3 by 25. At least that’s the way I feel. I feel like I am justifying myself to everyone. “Oh, I have a career” “Once Spencer is out of school we’ll have kids” But really what I am saying is “Who knows if we will ever have kids, but this gives me a few more years before they ask again.” I heard a story recently of a family who couldn’t have children, and they had been married for 5 years or so, and bought a new car, and were told by people how selfish they were to spend their money on a new car instead of starting a family. I wonder if people think the same thing of us. How selfish of them, to go out and buy a new car, do all these expensive things, yet they don’t start a family.

I know most of this is just things that I can’t stop fretting about, but it helps to get them out of my head, and into word form so that I can see how silly my fears and how petty my worries are. I just want these things so much, but I also know that I need to recover emotionally so that I can get my head back on my shoulders to move on. I need to deal with things without ignoring it.