Friday, January 25, 2013
Ray Lewis
If I am being totally honest while I knew right away that we were supposed to adopt it wasn't until just recently that I have started to feel excited about it. I don't naturally go searching for new experiences, I'd just assume stick to what I know and I know fertility treatments. When Spencer and I got home from church a few weeks ago we were sitting on the couch and I was venting my feelings, "I don't want to adopt! I just want to go back to Dr Marrs! Why can't we just do IVF again?! Why do we have to adopt?! I don't want to!" Well you know those experiences when The Lord humbles you or teaches you. Like a few months ago I when was feeling particularly grumpy about the fact that money was really tight. Spencer quit his job last May and has started his own company which of course means I have to be frugal. I was reading in The Book of Mormon I am not sure where and The Lord is basically telling the Nephites to stop focusing on riches and start focusing on The Gospel. Needless to say I recognized that I needed to change my attitude. I have had many experiences like this and I have come to expect them when reading my scriptures or attending church or relief society. This Sunday however it came from an unusual source. The TV was on and The Raven had just defeated the Colts, the sportscaster was interviewing Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens. I had literally just finished my little rant and Ray Lewis says, "It's all about God's timing it is all about His will."
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Adoption Revisited
When I received the inspiration that we needed to adopt back in 2008 it was probably one of the strongest impressions of the spirit I had ever received but it never resulted in an adoption. I always figured it was just one of those things where its about the journey and not necessarily the destination. Sometimes The Lord puts us on a path because there are lessons we need to learn, it doesn't always lead where we think it might. This is how I always viewed our time spent looking into adoption, it was a detour path we needed to take because there were lessons that we needed to learn. It never occurred to me that the infertility treatments was the actual detour path, though it seams so obvious now. When we were driving back from the doctors, having just learned that we had lost the baby, my mind kept going over the words of a blessing that Spencer had given me just before doing the IVF procedure last August. In that blessing he had said "I bless you that the procedure will work and that it will result in a healthy baby." Really!? I could feel my walls going up I knew I needed to turn to The Lord, to find strength and peace and understanding in him but I did not want to. When we got home Spencer asked me if he could give me a blessing, as he began I could feel my walls begin to tumble. He told me as I kept my heart open I would receive understanding. As he said those words I received that understanding, I knew adoption was what we were suppose to do. Adoption answered the blessing from before, the procedure did take and we will have a baby at the end of it it just not in the way we had thought.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Mathew 11:28-30
Honestly I do not know why I started this blog, my sisters telling me I should, a moment of weakness, I don't know. Having people read what I write kinda freaks me out, it is one of the reasons I have never been a consistent journal keeper. But I figured I had all ready done the part of writing and all I had to do is share it in a few post and really who was going to read it anyway. Then I could move on to posting pictures of Grace and telling about the silly things she does. It never occurred to me I would have more to write on my infertility journey. So here is what I thought would be my last post concerning trying to have a baby.
The first time we did IVF I was really confident that it would work. I didn’t even create room in my mind for the possibility of a miscarriage. Even when my beta levels were low and I got a cautiously optimistic positive on my pregnancy test. I thought it has been 6 years of no pregnancy I am not going to miscarry, that is not Heavenly Father’s plan for me. (how often we think we know what our father's plan is for us, you'd think we'd learn) I was 5 weeks pregnant and Spencer feeling bad for sandwiching a ski trip with his buddy in between two business trips had bought me and Grace tickets to go to Utah for the weekend. I am on my way out the door to go pick up Grace from school and head to the airport when I get a call from my doctors office. My numbers have dropped the pregnancy is not going to stick, I should expect to miscarry within the next several days. The timing could not be worse. I toyed with the idea of not going but I knew Grace would be really disappointed if we didn't, she is always so excited to go to Utah and see her cousins. I somehow made it through the flight. I kicked myself for telling my sister that I would stay with her, I just wanted to go to a hotel but I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it without hurting her feelings. I somehow made it through the evening and finally was able to go to bed. I am lying in bed just bawling, my lips are chapped I am really thirsty and I have no tissues.I am a mess. I am way beyond the ugly cry I am like Medusa turn people to stone ugly cry. I just want to sleep but sleep will not find me. My 16 year old niece is in the room next to me listening to Techno music. Loudly! I really really don’t like techno music. And she is not listening to a variety of songs, no, she is listening to the same song with the same lyrics repeated over and over, “I like the base up high and the beat down low”. These are the only lyrics in that song and she listens to it over and over, for at least 30 minutes probably closer to an hour. And I lay there sobbing thinking “Why, why, why can’t I be in my own bed? Why can't Spencer not be with me? Why do I have to be alone? Why do I have to be alone? And the thought comes to me “You are not alone, you are never alone I am here” and there was the lesson I needed to learn.
When I was at education week this year I was trying to decide between two classes and felt like I needed to go to the one on parenting. I didn’t know why because honestly I’m a brilliant parent but I went. The class actually turned out to be kinda a dud. But I written down the name of a book the author suggested, so I thought I better read it. It was “All but my life” by Gerda Weissmann Klein. It was her holocaust survival story. Let me tell you if you are ever feeling sorry for your lot in life nothing will cure it faster then reading an account of a holocaust survivor. As I read her story of her life during World War II from being afraid to leave her home, her father never being able to answer the door because if it was the Germans they would take him away. To the last time she saw her brother when he was forced to leave to go to a work camp, to being forced out of there home into the basement and not being aloud out in their own garden to eventually being moved out the basement to the ghetto and from there to the concentration camps. The last time she saw her mother. The last time she saw her father. Until the end when she was on a 250 mile death march across Czechoslovakia and she had made it to liberation day weighing all of 68lbs. The thought came to me, Christ suffered all of that. I think we say all the time that Christ suffered and died for us but how often do we really think what that means. And then to expanded it out from there, he suffered for her whole family for everyone that was with her in the concentration camps and everyone that was with her on that death march, for all the Jews who suffered so much during that war. For the 6 million that were murdered. And not just the victims but he also suffered for the perpetrators. That is a lot of suffering and that is just a small part of the world during a short time in history. I imagine how he must feel when we do not turn to him, when we do not cast our burdens at his feet and instead we turn to other ways to try to heal what is in us. I think it must break his heart.
Mathew 11:28-30
28 ¶Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
The first time we did IVF I was really confident that it would work. I didn’t even create room in my mind for the possibility of a miscarriage. Even when my beta levels were low and I got a cautiously optimistic positive on my pregnancy test. I thought it has been 6 years of no pregnancy I am not going to miscarry, that is not Heavenly Father’s plan for me. (how often we think we know what our father's plan is for us, you'd think we'd learn) I was 5 weeks pregnant and Spencer feeling bad for sandwiching a ski trip with his buddy in between two business trips had bought me and Grace tickets to go to Utah for the weekend. I am on my way out the door to go pick up Grace from school and head to the airport when I get a call from my doctors office. My numbers have dropped the pregnancy is not going to stick, I should expect to miscarry within the next several days. The timing could not be worse. I toyed with the idea of not going but I knew Grace would be really disappointed if we didn't, she is always so excited to go to Utah and see her cousins. I somehow made it through the flight. I kicked myself for telling my sister that I would stay with her, I just wanted to go to a hotel but I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it without hurting her feelings. I somehow made it through the evening and finally was able to go to bed. I am lying in bed just bawling, my lips are chapped I am really thirsty and I have no tissues.I am a mess. I am way beyond the ugly cry I am like Medusa turn people to stone ugly cry. I just want to sleep but sleep will not find me. My 16 year old niece is in the room next to me listening to Techno music. Loudly! I really really don’t like techno music. And she is not listening to a variety of songs, no, she is listening to the same song with the same lyrics repeated over and over, “I like the base up high and the beat down low”. These are the only lyrics in that song and she listens to it over and over, for at least 30 minutes probably closer to an hour. And I lay there sobbing thinking “Why, why, why can’t I be in my own bed? Why can't Spencer not be with me? Why do I have to be alone? Why do I have to be alone? And the thought comes to me “You are not alone, you are never alone I am here” and there was the lesson I needed to learn.
When I was at education week this year I was trying to decide between two classes and felt like I needed to go to the one on parenting. I didn’t know why because honestly I’m a brilliant parent but I went. The class actually turned out to be kinda a dud. But I written down the name of a book the author suggested, so I thought I better read it. It was “All but my life” by Gerda Weissmann Klein. It was her holocaust survival story. Let me tell you if you are ever feeling sorry for your lot in life nothing will cure it faster then reading an account of a holocaust survivor. As I read her story of her life during World War II from being afraid to leave her home, her father never being able to answer the door because if it was the Germans they would take him away. To the last time she saw her brother when he was forced to leave to go to a work camp, to being forced out of there home into the basement and not being aloud out in their own garden to eventually being moved out the basement to the ghetto and from there to the concentration camps. The last time she saw her mother. The last time she saw her father. Until the end when she was on a 250 mile death march across Czechoslovakia and she had made it to liberation day weighing all of 68lbs. The thought came to me, Christ suffered all of that. I think we say all the time that Christ suffered and died for us but how often do we really think what that means. And then to expanded it out from there, he suffered for her whole family for everyone that was with her in the concentration camps and everyone that was with her on that death march, for all the Jews who suffered so much during that war. For the 6 million that were murdered. And not just the victims but he also suffered for the perpetrators. That is a lot of suffering and that is just a small part of the world during a short time in history. I imagine how he must feel when we do not turn to him, when we do not cast our burdens at his feet and instead we turn to other ways to try to heal what is in us. I think it must break his heart.
Mathew 11:28-30
28 ¶Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
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