At the edge...

Dear birthmom, 

I imagine when you're faced with making the choice to either place or parent...I imagine it's not a light one. The weight it must be on your shoulders...we wish we could  help in ANY way carry it for you! 

I know when I've been on the edge of a huge decision, and it's hard to see where it will take me...faith has helped bring peace to my heart, and helped me move forward, leading me to some amazing places.

Just know...we have faith in you...you're going to do amazing things. 

Love you! 

Jamie

The In-Between Moms

I LOVED this post. There are SO many emotions that come with facing infertility...and this sweet some-day momma's thoughts have honestly and bravely summed up so well what it feels like in the day-to-day thick of this trial...

"We are the in-between moms. Our hearts feel like moms, but our homes don’t have much to show for it. We’re actively attempting to grow our families. We’re starting the adoption process or fostering another mama’s babe or trying to conceive naturally or starting fertility treatments.

We sometimes feel like outsiders in groups of other women. We aren’t trying to get that big promotion. Or sometimes we are, but we’re considering what stay-at-home motherhood would be like, too. We aren’t exhausted from being up at night with our baby or chasing our toddler through Target. But we wish we were. We chime in with the potty training and breastfeeding and kindergarten stories of our friends and sisters, but we wish we had our own.

We pay attention to the latest products and trends. We know about babywearing, but we’ve never had one to wear. We know all about the benefits of that yucky nose sucker thing, but it’s sitting on our registry, not in our home.

We have a room for our future children in different states of preparedness. A toddler bed bought during a can’t-be-passed-up sale, a stack of perfectly-new never-read books, a diaper pail bought at our neighbor’s garage sale, or a piece of art thoughtfully gifted to us by a mom who has been here, done this.

Or maybe our in-betweeness is less obvious. We’ve had quiet conversations with our husbands about what route we should take if we aren’t pregnant by our anniversary. We have a box in the basement with that little purple dress we just couldn’t stand to pass up at the mall. We bring our box of Christmas decorations up and find those extra two stockings we bought last year, but we quietly tuck them back in the box to go back into storage.

We make plans, but we always keep in mind the potential for changes to our plans. Let’s just go to Chicago for vacation this year, but if their adoption is finalized, it wouldn’t be too hard to travel across country borders to Toronto instead. Let’s buy tickets for that upcoming concert, but let’s sell them on Craigslist if we get the call that we’ve been matched. Let’s start looking for a new job, but let’s stay open to staying at this job so we can keep the health benefits and time off.

We have emotions and outlooks that might resemble roller coasters from day-to-day. We have days of bitterness and despair. And we have days of total contentment and understanding. He has a plan for our lives. He has a plan for growing our families. He will meet our every need. (But what about our wants?)

We feel a little sorry for our complicated feelings and family status. But should we be? We wish you had first-hand experience with these feelings. We wish we had first-hand experience with what it feels like to have a child who is legally, permanently in your family.

We long for that. We long for an easy answer to the are-you-a-mother question."

The Best Gift Ever

Dear Birthmom, 
I hope that you know someday when you are here...that there is always hope, and there is always grace. I hope that you know that YOU ARE SO LOVED!
I am so grateful for such amazing and courageous women, who do amazing and courageous things to bless the lives of others with so much love!  Love you! Jamie

Picking up the pieces

Dear Birthmom, 

The choice you make to place may tip you over, but know that we'll be there to help pick up the pieces and help make you whole. Your happiness is our happiness. I hope you know just how much of a miracle you are...you'll pick up our broken pieces and make our family whole. 

Love you!

Jamie

True Love

True love...seeing your sweet husband so graciously let go of something he wants more than anything in the world, and in spite of his broken heart, he reaches out in love. He has the biggest of hearts and kindest of souls...oh how I love that boy! 

Why

Dear Birthmom, 

Do you ever wonder...why me? Why is this happening to ME? This wasn't the plan...at all...

If it were up to me and my "plan",  I would have had bunches of babies by now. But instead I'm 29, with no babies. But there's a reason why we are here. There's a reason why this is our plan instead. There's a reason, and someday all the "WHY'S!?" of life will add up. 

We all have different why's...and I love the perspective this young dad and husband has on his...

"This year has been a year of shakeups. It was rough.  This past spring I was entrusted with being the mid-distance coach at SUU.  It was the moment I was finally able to put the previous 7 years of education to use as a coach.  It's really the moment every aspiring NCAA coach dreams of.  But then, despite having the recruiting and coaching years of my life, I was suddenly cast out of the University just because I was the nephew of the head coach. We were then thrust into a whirlwind of contingency scenarios and endless job applications.  Eventually, my brother-in-law came to the rescue and got me an interview at his company in SLC.  I luckily got it but that meant moving, and even more daunting, learning a profession I had ZERO background in.  The whole idea of a 90 minute commute was foreign to me.  The whole idea of not using any of my formal education was sickening.  The whole idea of going from a job that I was actually pretty good at to one that I was incompetent at, wasn't real fun.  And, more than anything, the idea of not doing what I was passionate about and what I dedicated my life to for the past decade, due to another person's whim, was hard to stomach.  Of course we both figured we just move forward from here and start a new life.  We both accepted it.  But 2014 wasn't done with us yet.  My uncle suddenly died, which left a lot of us thinking, "what could I have done better?"  Then, just a week later....

"There's no easy way to put this but....you have cancer."      

I stared at the doctor and I was emotionless.  I'm not a very emotional guy in the first place so I thought that  maybe this summer's career merry-go-round used it all up.  But this is the point where I want to change the tune of this blog entry.  I know so far it has been a giant sob story but it was meant only to be context for what I want to write about now.

As most people know, I'm a "believer," if you will.  I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I'm a Mormon.  I believe in God and everything that goes along with that.  As this story has unfolded I can honestly say that instead of throwing a temper tantrum and shaking my fists toward heaven I could only help but wait and see what He had in store for us.  I, of course, was wondering "why?" after losing my job.  NOTHING made sense about it to me.  I was sitting on my bed early last month writing in my journal and I had to stop and write something to the effect of "I am certain there is something bigger to this job mess, I just don't know what it is yet."  I could genuinely already feel God's hand at work.  I was sure there was some purpose to this, just like there is to everything in our lives and all around us. 

As we were sitting in the doctor's office and received word that the pathology report came back saying the object in my sinus tested positive for cancer, it was like the blinders were torn off.  What made absolutely no sense one minute made complete sense the very next.  We had to be up here.  There's no way they would have figured out I had cancer down in Cedar.  I would have continued trying to treat a sinus infection until it was too late.  I didn't have time for doctor appointments, I was on the road 2-4 days/week.  I also had to be in Salt Lake to have access to the high-level doctors at the Hunstman Cancer Institute.  It all made sense.  But then I had to ask myself....why cancer?

Just last week we were sitting in the office of Elder Nash of the Seventy, one of the leaders of our church.  He was one of the most genuine and kind people I have ever met.  As we spoke with him, he jumped up and grabbed his scriptures.  He narrated a story from the Book of Mormon that Kacee and I were both familiar with but he emphasized a verse that he felt impressed to share with us.  It read: "And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs...and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions."

I am absolutely certain that God is a personal God.  He knows each and every one of us, by name.  He is the great orchestrator of this entire Universe and yet somehow, miraculously, also that of each breath of every single one of our individual lives.  Since the minute I found out I had cancer I have literally never feared for my life.  I don't know what the plan is from here on out, as usual, but I wrote in my journal just a couple days before meeting with Elder Nash that "I'm not sure why death isn't a possibility but there is something more to this.  He has a plan in mind for giving me this one, I guess we'll have to wait to find out what it is..."  

Original blogpost found here

I love that perspective...there is divine orchestration in our lives...we will always be lead to where we need to be.

Love you!

Jamie

Cold

I thought I'd start writing about little snapshots of our life. I feel like our everyday-here-and-now life story IS a story worth telling to you too. This is us! I get so caught up in looking so far ahead, waiting to see that day when our little babe is here in our home...that I forget that the here-and-now of our life is pretty beautiful too. 

Today, it snowed...and the coldness seeped it's icy fingers into our little home. Frosty lace raced up the window panes, while the furnace furiously whooshed warm air in response to it's threatening advances.  We fought off the sting of the harsh seasonal slap by spending the day hunkered down in hibernation mode. Piling on layers of sweats, drinking steaming mint hot cocco, crafting away (me), writting away (him), and snuggling up together under a mountain of blankets. All in all, it's been a pretty dang good day...coldness and all.