Anniversaries

This week, Mike and I celebrate four beautiful years of marriage! It seems unreal, and I feel so blessed to be able to be married to him. Last year was such a hard anniversary. A day before our anniversary, we got a call to head immediately up to the hospital. When we got up there, Ryker was puking and pooping massive amounts of blood. It was one of the hardest days of his short life. They had to manipulate Ryker's NJ tube and somehow ended up tearing his weakened stomach in three places. They had taken him in for emergency surgery and what was supposed to last only one hour took four. It was so hard and draining on our families. We spent the night up at Primarys (Mike on the floor on mats and me in the slanted bed. We got up every few hours to check on Ryker. He was amazing and ended up healing remarkably well.
This picture is of Ryker about a week after infant gastric bypass (because that was what they ended up having to do, cutting off half of his stomach).

I feel so fortunate to have Mike. He has been my support through everything. We are each others best friend. So many do not even know what it is like to me as close as we are. I am fortunate to be married to my him!

*By the way, because we were able to switch every thing to a more anonymous blog-site, we will not have to make this website private! Whoo-hoo! So no need to worry. It feels good to not have to worry about jeopardizing our family's safety, while being able to keep our blog open and continuing sharing our life with all our friends, family, and soon-to-be-friends.

I am a Senisitve Soul.

I am a sensitive soul. I love new babies, I love new Moms and Dads.
I love my nieces and nephews, and love tending their cute little tushies!
I love to spend the evening with my husband,
just cuddled on the couch,
enjoying each other's company.

I have LOVED being a Mom, and have loved having
the precious time with both Lilly and Ryker.

I cry whenever I see or hear the Hypoplastic
Left Heart Syndrome commercial that the local
hospital system (Intermountain Healthcare) plays
as an advertisement.
I love successful adoption and infertility stories.
They bring me such hope.

I cry very easily. I cry when I am mad, frustrated, happy,
sad, and when I am missing the heck out of my babies.

I am a sensitive soul. I know that we as women are a bit
more sensitive than our male counter-parts. But I know
I am that much more sensitive than most women.

It is that much harder for me to not take offense when
people make stupid comments. I wish that I had skin that was
really thick, so that hurtful comments could just bounce off.
But remember, I am sensitive. I know people should not have to
walk around on eggshells around everyone, including me. I just
think people have no idea when they are saying comments that are hurtful.
My sweet sister can not have kids biologically.
I have felt such guilt getting pregnant twice, but at the same
she was such a wonderful aunt to Lilly and Ryker.
Another friend and family member are also dealing with not being
able to get pregnant with ease. It sucks.
So I would like to make a few suggestions about what to NOT say,
when you are with a group of women.

1.) Please refrain from complaining about how miserable you are pregnant.
This is a given. Pregnancy is not easy,but I can guarantee
you are NOT the first woman to carry a child.
This complaining is also VERY hurtful to those of us longing for children.

2.) Please do not put so much worry into the sex of your unborn child.
I was guilty of this with my first. I wanted a girl.
Little did I know that three years later,
I would be PRAYING to just have a healthy baby;
one devoid of brain abnormalities, that are not compatible with life,
and heart conditions that take away a seven week old baby's life.
Be grateful to have healthy, beautiful children.
That is what REALLY matters.

3.) Think before your speak. LOOK AROUND THE ROOM!
If there is another who is suffering because their arms are empty,
maybe talk with them instead of continuing the commiserating about having kids.

4.)Be grateful for your sleepless nights.
I wish I could have had just one sleepless night home with Ryker.
And I wish for just one more night with Lilly.
I remember going to bed after Lilly passed away,
and I kept waking thinking I could hear Lilly crying.
It was really hard.
Go home today. Look around you.
If you have been blessed to have the
pitter-patter of little feet in your home,
or have been able to feel the wonder of your unborn child moving inside of you,
just be grateful and realize that you are blessed.

I will get off my soap box now.
I am sorry if this injures or insults anyone, I just think there
are many of us that just do not know.
I am going to work on not being SO sensitive,
but I think many need to work on being MORE sensitive.
We are women, aren't we?

What to do?

I do not know what to do. We will be switching to our new blog next Friday, and I think I will wait a week after to switch this blog to private. I will not be posting anything new on this blog. I do not know if any of you want access still to this old blog. The only reason I am keeping it up is to read and continue the record of our life. But if someone wants access still, we will grant your wish. So two requests; our friends, that have us linked on their sites, could you please switch our name to something more anonymous? You can call us the "G" family, parents to two angels, just anything besides using our first and last names. For family, you can use my brother and family, my sister and family,etc. I know it sucks to have to worry, but there are a LOT of weirdos out there. Also, could you please change our link?! I appreciate everyone's consideration!

Oprah's Great Give!!!

I have been pretty sick, so in light of being pretty sick, I have been spending a lot of time on the internet and up at nights sick. So last night, while watching the re-showing Of Oprah's "Get-Organized", I discovered a wonderful give-away to help you get organized. The idea was to take pictures of your kids art-work and make a book of the art-work. The 8"x11" 20 page book is valued at $29.99, but if you start it by Friday and finish it by Sunday, you pay only $6.99 for the shipping. It is cute and I already ordered my book!!! Click here to go to the site!!! Remember, start it by Friday!!

New blog.

In light of the scary stupid people that ruin it for everyone (did anyone else see the KSL report on staying safe on Blogs?), we are going to be transitioning to a new blog. The address is here. I didn't want to go private, so this is definitely the better choice. Like I said, it will be a slow transition. I am not worried about being safe right now, I just worry about protecting our future family. The big change is not using our last name and maybe even first names. Anyways, I am sad to leave this blog. I will keep it alive, it will just be private in about a month, with the new blog being the one we will use openly.

Understanding.

I realized that I have not fed my soul lately. My sister was reading a talk from one of the sessions of our church's LDS General Conference last month, and reminded me of some words that I needed to read. You can read the talk here. It is food for the soul. I have been pretty down (as I have previously shared) and seriously needed a little lift. I also just wanted to say thank-you for all the comments. They buoy us up through these hard times and help us get out of bed every morning. We have so many wonderful friends and family that we care for and love and also care and love us. It was great to come home last night after a long day of work and my sister and brother-in-law were there. It meant a lot, and they even took us to go get some ice cream. It seems like I have been uplifted by so many. A wise woman put it perfectly:

"there is much to be learned about the Lord and the Atonement here.

"Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows."Isaiah 53:4

The Lord suffers with us. He is in the trenches of our despair and tears with us. He's not telling us to be patient, He wraps us in His arms and whispers, "I know. I know."
I love this and feel it. Thank-you to all those who buoy us.

Lonliness and emptiness.

You ask how I (or better we) could possibly feel empty and lonely. We have so many people around us and we are constantly doing school and work and family. But yet, there is the continual feelings of loneliness and emptiness. October was a rough month. Lilly's and Ryker's birthdays just drained us, and yet school and work still went on and continues still. I am not trying to not be sad, depressed or lonely (so if you do not wish to hear something depressing or sad, please stop reading now). Life is very difficult right now. There are very few people who face the loss of one child, let alone two. It is one if the most difficult things we will ever have to do in this life. Thankfully, very few face this. The even harder part is the infertility we are facing. I know, you all are thinking that I should be grateful for the two angels I have had and be thankful I did not have to try very long for either. But I am heading into one year of trying to get pregnant again. I have tried to not get down. Tried not to put too much stress on getting pregnant. We put in our adoption papers, hoping that The Lord would bless us quickly. I am not sure what I am supposed to learn from this. I already appreciate the gift of children more then most (do not take offense). When you cannot have something that you want so bad, you are more appreciative when you get what your heart longs and aches for. We did a couple months of taking Femara, visits and calls to the doctor, and all the blood work. My doctor thinks I have an adrenal gland disorder. This makes it so I do not ovulate regularly and can go up to 50 some days in between those fabulous times-of the-month. It is very difficult. Mike is such a wonderful husband and it hurts to not be able to give him the gift of a child. My heart aches as all those around me get pregnant with ease. I go to the store and there are so many with kids and babies. It hurts to have arms that are empty. There is nothing we can do, just be patient and wait. It pretty much sucks.