For Hubby's birthday my parents divided and conquered the babysitting by keeping the two dogs at their house with my dad and the four children at our house with my mom. Hubby and I headed to Denver and failed to complete our Cuban Crisis mission at Escapology before eating at the 5280 Burger Bar. There is no one else I would rather fail or succeed in life with! We stayed overnight at The Brown Palace, which opened in 1892 and has hosted celebrities like the Beatles, Molly Brown, Charles Lindbergh, and Helen Keller, royals from Russia and Romania and Sweden in the 1920s, and politicians like Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin. And not to leave sports out, the Brown Palace also claims to be the birthplace of the Denver Broncos since the first meetings to discuss a Denver team were held in the very fancy lobby. During Hubby's fancy birthday breakfast the next morning we got a phone call saying that our son had been at his very first Young Men's activity for less than 15 minutes and was going to be taken to urgent care because he needed stitches. Luckily Grandpa could meet the poor YM's leader and Danny at urgent care and take care of him while he got five stitches in his left pointer finger. What a story for his first YM's activity! I'm sure he won't forget it and his leaders won't forget him! Hubby and I got home shortly after my dad and Danny did and that night we had Costco cake to celebrate. It disappeared fast! And I must mention a few days before all this Kate was made a chocolate cake to celebrate her half birthday. So much to celebrate this month. We have put our Jellyfish lighting to use for MLK Day, Inauguration Day, and Hubby's birthday now. Can I just say I have never been so glued to a screen on Inauguration Day before? When President Biden spoke I felt like I was listening to a General Conference talk. When Kamala Harris was sworn in I was so happy my daughters were alive to see it. When Amanda Gorman shared her poem we were inspired and had the words, "There is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it" were truly inspiring. (And there was plenty of entertainment the next day when all the Bernie memes began.)
Also in January we all got hair cuts. Michelle's was the most drastic so I was sure to take before and after photos of her. It took a couple days for all of us to recognize her when she walked into the room!
A woman in my ward asked me to contribute to a website her cousin set up to help women going through infertility and adoption to know they are not alone. This is what I spit out quickly in response. I must add, I am so grateful for my four children. They are a dream come true and I love them so much.
"My parents tried for 14 years to have children. You would not believe the comments I received at BYU for being an only child. I was their only pregnancy in between failed attempts to adopt. When I got engaged I warned my husband of two things: I might never be able to make him babies and someday we would be the ones to have to take care of my parents as they got older. I'm glad to say he married me anyway! We were so excited when I got pregnant without even trying. I thought infertility would not be a trial I would have to go through. Four miscarriages later, we adopted a little girl. My grandmother paid the adoption fees for us and was truly looking forward to becoming a great grandmother but died two weeks before our oldest was born. It was hard. Really hard. After our 5th miscarriage, we were blessed to adopt our son. We called him a good luck charm because after we brought him home three of us who had wanted to have babies were all able to get and stay pregnant. I gave birth to a little girl when my son was only 9.5 months old. I hemorrhaged and had to have blood transfusions before I could stand up again. Recovery was not easy. I was learning how to nurse and all the other things you learn the first time you give birth while also struggling to take care of a crawling baby and a two-year-old. I seriously doubted God's timing more than once while having three children in diapers at the same time! Of course, my name was Sarah like in the Bible, so I always thought I would be surprised with a biological child at some point and ended up with not one but two biological daughters. I did experience two more lost pregnancies after my biological children were born and that last miscarriage took six months to recover from both physically and emotionally. My journey to have children was over, which in itself was bittersweet.
I have had so much help with issues related to adoption and little ones close together in age and now as we enter the teenage years. My parents, friends, and ward family provided so much to us when we needed it most. A therapist taught me to have compassion for myself and helped me grieve. A life coach taught me how to deal with the everyday and the special days. Did you know that birthdays are torture on your feelings when you are adopted and can literally be the worst day of the year? But they don't have to be. Did you know that you can suffer trauma in the womb and have trouble bonding with others even if you were adopted at just four days old? There are an onion's worth of layers added on to parenting someone you didn't give birth to, whether you love them just as much as a biological child or not. I would highly recommend seeking help from someone who understands what it is like to be adopted and what it is like to adopt children of your own. For me, my life coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, was an answer to prayers and opened me up to a whole 'nother world of understanding in my parenting. (See https://www.lifecoachmmb.com/
I think the biggest lesson I learned was that bedience is not currency in a deity vending machine. You don't enter keeping commandments in and get blessings out. Obedience to commandments helps you be more like the Savior. Trials do too. So the next time a mother-in-law says you had a miscarriage due to a lack of faith, don't cry for years about it or become resentful. Realize she is on a different path of learning and that in the long run, none of the numbers matter. It doesn't matter how many years you waited, how many losses you suffered, or how many children you ended up with raising. Your worth never changed through any of your trials. You were always 100% worthy to be a parent. But God knows exactly what is best to prepare you for what comes next. Always. And He has your back. There is nothing you cannot handle with His help on your side."
I found it interesting that so soon after I was asked to contribute my story, something close to a miracle happened to add to our adoption story. Hubby and I never met our oldest daughter’s biological father. He died when she was eight years old but we didn’t tell her until she was asking about him last year. In an effort to reach out to her biological paternal family, I did a lot of searching online and was able to contact someone who is also raising the biological child of Kate’s birth father. I don’t want to add much detail in a public forum but let me just say I felt so blessed to be able to converse with this mother for about an hour one afternoon (when all my children were in school). There is something so special about feeling understood and connected through your children. I hope that someday in the future, years from now, these two children will be able to have a sibling like relationship and comfort one another in their mutual loss of never knowing their biological father on this earth. I feel like this was an answer to prayers years in the making and am grateful for the hope it provides.
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