March 17th

Today is a day I've been thinking about for a long time. Today was my due date with Austin and Daniel.

We picked out all the flowers ourselves. Roses and daisies and two sunflowers. Even though I think they're pretty, somehow it just doesn't seem like enough.

March 17. It meant so much to me.

I'm not even sure what I want to say except for I really needed to make sure that I acknowledged this day. In some ways, the time has just flown by since that day in early October when I first held them. In some ways, I can't believe it's been so long. To me, it doesn't highlight so much the fact of how little they were when they came--how early it was. It more highlights the fact of how real they were so quickly. I hope that makes sense.

I have felt so broken-hearted today. Sometimes the enormity of this burden seems a little too hard to bear. Sometimes the enormity of what I have lost almost terrifies me.

But I don't think in those terms very often, because Austin and Daniel were always meant to come to our family in a specific way. I was never meant to raise them here, and that's okay. So in reality, I have lost nothing. I have gained everything. I am the mother of children who are walking now with God. What else could I possibly ask for?

Today Greg and I knelt in the Provo Cemetery and talked. We talked about how grateful we are that we have a friend who visits our sons sometimes and leaves gifts for them--just because she realizes how special they are. We talked about how it felt to be with them when they were born. We talked about their lovely baby smell.We talked about how we will raise them one day, how Greg will get to play catch with them, and I will get to watch all of my boys together.

I think sometimes I will even have the opportunity to finish carrying them.

In some ways I have nothing else to say and in some ways I have one thousand things I'd like to say. I wonder if tomorrow will be even harder than today because it will be after they were supposed to be born, after they were supposed to be safe with us, after I was supposed to be keeping them. I wonder if I will keep feeling silly that in November and December, I asked Heavenly Father over and over to help me get pregnant again quickly, so I wouldn't have to go through this day feeling so empty.

A lot of these things don't really matter. What matters is that Greg and I are okay, because we know that our children will always be ours. They are so real to us. When I am old and I finally wake to a brighter sun, I know who it will be that I see first, and I already love them.

I don't know if this is inappropriate, but whoever happens to read this, I have a favor to ask. Please say a small prayer for my extended family. There is someone I know who is struggling with extremely difficult things when it comes to stillbirth. I wish so badly that I could fix it for her, but I can't. Please pray that she and her husband will have the strength and comfort that they need. Asking this of you is the best I can do for them.

I know that Heavenly Father takes care of us, and I know our families really can always be together. I know that we are truly capable of doing whatever it is that God asks us to do, even when we don't think we are. I know that His plan for us is good.

My little family has taught me more than I ever could have learned otherwise. When you think of my sons, I hope you don't think of how things can sometimes be difficult. I hope you think of how things are sometimes much more beautiful than we ever could have imagined.

Love, Heather, Greg, Austin, and Danny

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Today Greg and I accomplished one of the goals we made in January by running in the Rex Lee Run at BYU.  Woot woot!

Heather's 5k Time: 31:46 

Heather's Place in her Age Group: 45th

I was pretty happy with this. This is a PR for me! Also, it's BUSY trying to work full time and do a Master's Degree, so I was kinda worried because I didn't feel like I really prepared. Even though this isn't like a stellar time, I was pretty proud of myself just for doing it! And hey, it's a good time for me, so whatev. It feels freakin' awesome to accomplish hard goals. This is how I feel: GO ME. 

Next time, I can focus on getting a better time :)

Greg's 10k Time: 50:36

Greg's Place is his Age Group: 6th 

Greg's goal was to get in the low 50 minutes, so he crushed that! And he was SUPER close to getting a medal! Greg has liked this running thing so much that he's signed up for his first half-marathon in April. I'm so proud of him and also I think he's attractive when he runs. 

One of my favorite things about the race was watching little kids run with their parents. Seriously, I was beaten by a couple of five-year-olds who were BOOKIN' it. It just was really fun to watch parents keep their kids motivated while they were running and to see families pull together for a cause. 

And who is this adorable baby girl in the pink sweatsuit who came sprinting around the track about 10 minutes after me and finished the race all by herself?

Who knows, but it was just one of the things that made this race today so fun. 

I think I will definitely do this again! 

Hard Isn't Bad

So I have some questions for ya.
Get ready to think and also to type.

First, a little background:

Around Christmastime this past year I went home to Mesa. I was still a pretty broken-hearted person. To be perfectly honest, it took me three months to start feeling fairly normal again—not the same, but more normal. While in Arizona I spent an hour or two with Greg in the home of Jenny, my Denton mom and also a very good friend. Something she said struck a chord with me, and I’ve thought about it often since then.

“Hard isn’t bad.  It’s just hard.” 

I believe this with all of my heart. Difficult things are not inherently terrible things. In fact, I would think it’s totally accurate to say that our greatest difficulties have the potential to encompass and engender our greatest blessings, our greatest triumphs, and even our greatest happinesses (and yes, I just made happiness a plural).
This is what Neal A. Maxwell said about challenges: “If, indeed, the things allotted to each of us have been divinely customized according to our ability and capacity, then for us to seek to wrench ourselves free of our schooling circumstances could be to tear ourselves away from carefully matched opportunities. To rant and to rail could be to go against divine wisdom, wisdom in which we may have once concurred before we came here. God knew beforehand each of our coefficients for coping and contributing and has so ordered our lives.”

I hope I’m not the only one who had to read this like seventeen times before I understood it. Thanks to the lovely Christine for sharing this quote with me, I love it.

I like what he says about concurring—agreeing with God. Can you picture yourself in the time before you came here, sitting down with a Father and saying “Yes, I will try to do that. Yes, if that’s what you need me to do, I will do it.” I’ve felt strongly before that this has happened to me, but I’ve never heard anybody else actually endorse this mindset.

Let’s be honest about all of this, though. Even though Hard isn’t Bad…it is Hard. All of us will probably wish that we didn’t have to go through our Hard things.

But we do have to go through them. So where does that leave us? I’m not exactly sure, but all of these musings on Hard have left me with some questions. Questions I’m really interested to see your answers to, even very tentative answers. One of the reasons I’m interested in people’s perspectives on this is because I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately about infertility and miscarriage, and I’m trying to clarify what some of my themes are.

Get your thinking cap on, people.
Here are some things I’ve been wondering:

• If hard isn’t bad, do you ever associate Hard with being inherently good?

• Just because hard isn’t bad, does that make it “better” than something that’s easy?

• If you have a situation where you can pick to do the easy thing or pick to do the hard thing, which do you pick? Why is that your inclination to pick that?

• What do you think God expects us to pick? Do you think He ever allows us to choose? Why or why not?

• Is it noble or at least note-worthy to pick to do the hard thing, or is it more noble or note-worthy to try to understand how the thing that you are doing is not as hard as you originally thought?

• Christ said “Take my yoke upon you…For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I always thought this meant that if we strengthened our faith, even our most challenging trials could become easier, and even “easy” to bear. Does God give us hard things so that we can learn to handle those things like they are easy? Or are some things always going to be hard? What exactly is the definition of “easy” in this scripture?

• Can love be hard? Is it supposed to be hard?  Is it supposed to be easy?

• Is hope hard? Is it supposed to be hard? Is it supposed to be easy?

• If our trials are “divinely customized” and “carefully matched” to us, do you think sometimes God gives us trials, on purpose, that are the hardest for us to bear? Or the easiest for us to bear?

The more I think about these things, the more I wonder if there are ever any solid answers. That being said, I do believe that our lives are going to be measured in large part by the deliberate choices we make when we are confronted with “Hard.”

So now, let me know your thoughts. I’ve never written this blog in order to generate a lot of comments. Sure, comments are nice. Some things people have related to me on this little blog have changed my perspective, or made me feel loved, or helped me to cope. And I really like that, and I appreciate it. But I’ve never been really super concerned with comments, if that makes sense.

Today, I’m asking for comments.  I really want to hear what everyone thinks.

Seriously. I’m talking to you.

Thanks. Peace and Word.

The Fam is Famous

Greg and I had a really great President's Day weekend. We spent a good portion of it at a cabin in Island Park, Idaho, with his parents and sisters, watching the Olympics and generally being lazy. This is Island Park in the winter, in case you are curious:

Then on Tuesday we found ourselves in Rexburg listening to BYU-I devotional.

Not just any devotional, mind you. Greg's dad Steve had been asked to give the devotional. He is the Career Service Coordinator and also in a Stake Presidency in a singles ward on campus. He spoke about the need for organized religion and the blessing it is to have order when it comes to spiritual things. His lecture was really thought-provoking, and also beautifully delivered. If you want to listen to it, you can go here to get the MP3 version. Also it is being broadcast on BYU TV on Sunday, March 2, at 2 I believe.

I thought that we would just be sitting in the crowd listening, but they actually had our family sit on the stand. Those lights are BRIGHT, people.

Most of the time, though, I was sitting in the darkness listening to Steve's thoughts. And I'm glad it was dark. I had a neat experience that I feel like I should share.

Lately I've been feeling out of whack. I'm busy enough that I'm reasonably happy. At the end of January, we found out that I don't have to be tested for cancer and my ovaries are no longer dangerously enlarged--so, you know, that's good. I guess I can't quite articulate how I've been feeling. I think I am a little unsure of myself and what comes next. It's been hard because I don't know how to blog or talk to people about it. I got a book in the mail that describes it best. The book is called Tear Soup and I have no idea who sent it to me, but thank you. The book says that most people around you will be able to tolerate your grief for about one month, and then they will expect you to be "over" it. While Greg and I have had so many incredible people supporting us, I have felt a little bit like maybe I should stop talking about it. I've blogged about it a few times, but I've always taken the posts down because I'm afraid no one wants to hear about it anymore. But it definitely isn't over for us. And sometimes I think that even though time has healed us so much, there are things that are just compounded now. We've been told that I'm healthy enough to try and get pregnant again, but I can't shake the feeling that it's all just incredibly pointless. And also--I'm so frightened of being pregnant again. Every day will be scary. And then I wonder if wanting another child is somehow not fair to those two little children I already have.

So I guess I'm just a tiny bit lost.

But I was sitting there on the stand, and I was thinking of my sons. I was remembering how it felt to be with them. Thinking that they will never be counted and not often remembered by anyone else, but they will always mean to much to me.

And as I sat there, I felt a tiny bit of peace. Not a big feeling, just a little one. But it was enough. I thought, Heather, you are in the right spot. You're doing the right things. Aren't you glad that any distress in your life is caused by this incredible blessing? Aren't you glad that the things that cause you worry don't have anything to do with things you are doing wrong? You're doing okay.

So I sat there in the dark on the stage and held Greg's hand and just kind of cried a little and felt a tiny bit better.

I always wanted this blog to be a place people could turn to so that they know they're not alone. I always wanted do document the things Greg and I have been through, not because our experience is inherently note-worthy, but rather so that maybe someone somewhere can have a better idea of what it's like. I guess what I'm trying to say now is that even in the difficult moments, God is aware of us. There might be days when you think "This would be a really good day for God to fix all my problems." And He may not do it, but you can still survive, and even be happy.

The biggest events in our lives don't happen, and then are over. They become a part of us. I think it is up to us to decide what parts of us they will become, and when everything is said and done, who we want to be.

Dinner FAIL

So, to preface this, I'll begin by saying that I really like to cook.  I don't know if I'm a great cook, but hey, I LIKE it, and that's got to count for something, right?

No matter how much you like to cook, sometimes things just take a turn for the worse.  Or, in this case, maybe like seven turns for the worse.

Greg and I were dinking around this afternoon after we were done with homework, trying to decide what to have for dinner.

Me: Greg, just pick something! I'll make whatever you want.

Greg: I don't care.  Make whatever YOU want.

Me: Okay, we're having baked potatoes.

Greg: (Silence).  I don't WANT that.

After about 45 minutes of this, I started flipping through a cookbook.  Because some people get inspiration from cookbooks, you know? And maybe I could be one of those people.

And then I saw it.  The perfect recipe.  Fettuccine alla Carbonara. Basically white sauce with bacon in it. Hey, that's my favorite pasta at Pizza Pie Cafe!  And I even have all the ingredients!  Let's do it!

On weekends, Greg so obligingly helps with dinner (sometimes).  His chore today: cook the bacon.  Usually he's very good at cooking bacon.  Because he really likes bacon.

That was the first FAIL.

Me:  So...how did this happen?

Greg: I have no idea.  One second, it was fine.  The next second...dead.

Well, you can't blame Greg.  Because I didn't do much better.

The recipe said you had to time cooking the noodles with finishing the sauce, so that you could just pour the sauce immediately over noodles.  I didn't have fettuccine on hand, but I can use garden spirals, right? Yeah, all pasta tastes the same. So I was doing great...had my pasta almost cooked, got the sauce on the stove. The recipe said DO NOT BOIL the sauce, which was made of milk and eggs.  I've made a few cream pies before--enough to know there was a danger of cooking the eggs too fast and getting little cooked egg pieces and stuff like that.  So, hey, I've cooked cream pie.  How hard can this be? So I very obediently sat there gently stirring my sauce over medium heat.  It was supposed to take six minutes until the sauce coated the spoon.

But after like three minutes, the sauce started boiling. What the heck?  Stop that!  What do you do if you don't go the full six minutes?? Is this sauce "coating a metal spoon"? What does that even mean, anyway?!? And my pasta isn't done yet!!

The sauce ended up looking like this.  I'm not sure the picture does it justice:

Yucky and curdled. Basically chunky milk with a bad egg smell.

I have no idea how it tasted, because neither Greg or I had the courage to eat it.

Good thing I have some of this on hand:

I threw in the torched bacon for good measure.  Because bacon is bacon, you know?

Bad idea.

This picture doesn't do it justice either, but it was weird.  Charcoal bacon in red sauce is weird.

Greg's running commentary at dinner: Are we going to end up at Chick-fil-A?  What are these squirelly chunks in here?  Is that the bacon?  Did you put in the bacon? It looks like it's covered in...blood. That's what it is, covered in blood.  Can we please go to Wendy's?  I'm still going to be hungry after this.  No offense, babe, but this is probably the worst meal you've ever cooked the whole time I've been married to you.

Yeah.  He said that. I'm going to take that to mean that most of the meals I cook are DE-LISH.

Good thing I've learned to laugh at myself because that's what I was doing.  Laughing, and NOT EATING.

Greg: Hey.  You know what?  The corn is good.

Yes, I CAN warm up corn from a can, people.

Thank you, thank you.  No applause, please.

Happy Runnings (Like Cool Runnings, Only Not Jamaican)

So it's been a long time since I've written anything.  Truth is...I just don't really have that much to say.  

Even though January is half over, I've decided I can at least publish some goals Greg and I have this year.  I like the concept of New Year's Resolutions.  I think it's great that society at large accepts a whole time of year dedicated to making ourselves better (and I think it's kind of too bad that most of our discussion about resolutions revolves around how we all plan on breaking them).  

That being said, I have not been super good at keeping--or even making--resolutions in the past.  But I have two this year that I'm excited to work on.  

Run

Yeah, yeah, stereotypical one, I know.  But it's gonna be good. I have a concrete goal I'm working toward, and I think specificity is key in accomplishing stuff like this.  My specific goal: to run the Rex Lee 5k in March, and work towards an additional 5k in Florida next summer.  I know a 5k is really not that long, but hey, it's kind of a big deal for me.  I don't have a goal time yet...maybe like 27 minutes?  Who knows.  

All I know is I like to run.  It feels healthy.  I like expending energy and seeing myself progress.  Right now I run 1.5-1.8 miles at a time at a rate of about 8:40 per mile.  There's definitely room for improvement, but isn't improving kind of the point? 

Greg's goal:  Run a 10k.  He runs better than me.  I asked him what his goal is for a 10k specifically, and he said "Do it."

A wise goal in so many ways, my friends.  Wise goal. 

Be Happy Now 

This isn't a new concept for me.  Choosing to be happy is something I learned I could do as a teenager.  After awhile of trying to get pregnant for the first time, I realized that I could not rely on a baby to just magically make me happy--that I needed to be joyful right now, and that having that kind of attitude would actually improve any future good experiences I was going to have, children included.  

Well, I haven't been perfect at this, but I have tried. One of the ways I've failed at this in the past is when I have the attitude known as "I'll Be Happy When." I remember reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time years ago, and Jane Austen has some pretty witty commentary on Elizabeth's practice of making plans for future happiness that depend solely on the occurrence of future events.  We all do this, people.  At least, I do.  "I'll be happy when Greg graduates." "I'll be happy when we move to Florida and I can drink the sunshine in like orange juice." "I'll be happy when the BLASTED snow melts." "I'll be happy at the end of the workweek when I can go home and hang out with Greg for a few days." "I'll be happy when we know for sure what is going on and we can start trying to have a family again." 

"I'll be happy when we get to keep a baby." 

We just can't live this way.  It sets us up to miss the moment...and it sets us up to be disappointed.  Once you realize that you can't live this way, you have two choices:  I will never be happy, OR, I will be happy right now. 

I think finding happiness now is a delicate balance, and I'm still trying to figure it out.  On the one hand, it is okay to have future goals that make you happy, or future things to look forward to.  One the other hand... sometimes you just have to quit thinking so much about what is to come.  You have to allow yourself to just give in, and give up just a little.  

Yeah.  Give up.  I said it.  

Lately I have given up on just a few things.  And I feel a lot of peace about it.  Now, I want to be very careful about what I mean when I say "give up." I don't mean abandon yourself to failure.  I don't mean quit trying, necessarily.  What I mean is allow yourself to live your life without everything you want, and learn that that's okay.  I mean, allow yourself to take a constructive break.  I mean, submit to Heavenly Father's will, and be happy about it.  

Really, the phrase "give up" is not exactly what I mean, I just don’t know how else to say it.  Basically, I think it is possible to give up and still have hope.  I think you can find peace while realizing things might not go your way. 

Hope is a word that’s been on my mind, as well.  I’ve started reading Les Miserables for the first time.  I love it.  It is beautiful, so packed with truths I haven’t had the words to express before.  Hugo says that Hope is the word that the finger of God has written on the brow of everyone.  I suppose what I want for myself this year is to reach my hand up, find where God has written Hope on my very own brow, and trace it with my very own finger.  I will do that every single day, and every single day, this can help me to be happy.  Be happy now, even if there are a few things I have allowed myself to let go. You can have hope without playing the game of "I'll Be Happy When."  And you can know that there are good things in your future even if you have let some things go.  I want to learn how to do this.  

So, Run and Be Happy.  New Year’s Resolution:  Do it.  

Realization(s)

So we've been busy around here. I just finished up everything for my ASU master's class on Thursday.  We had Thanksgiving in Idaho Falls with Greg's family the week before that. I wish I had pictures, but I am fantastically bad at taking pictures.  So just imagine Greg eating as many roll sandwiches with leftover turkey as humanly possible, and me sneaking back to the refrigerator at weird times of the day to eat pieces of the delicious chocolate cheesecake that my mother-in-law made for dinner and you'll have a pretty good idea of what we did on our time off. 

Here's a realization I had over the Thanksgiving holidays:  Chocolate cheesecake is a way better dessert than pie. Any kind of pie.  The only reason the pilgrims didn't make cheesecake instead of pie is because they were too cold to make their own cream cheese, and they probably thought the Native Americans would be weirded out by it anyway. 

Although we have been busy around here, I'm not sure our busy-ness is the real reason I haven't written in a while.  Don't get me wrong, I like being busy.  I honestly have really really liked being busy. I consider it to be an incredible blessing in our lives right now.  I sincerely believe that my cousin Tania was totally inspired to come over and talk to us and tell me to apply for a job where she works. I turned her down flat at first, but I'm glad I felt directed to take her up on it.  I feel so happy that I have a Master's program to do at nights and that I have a TOTALLY HOT and fantastic husband who kept telling me I could do it, and that I should apply at ASU.  

Realization numero dos: We have lots of blessings, and lots of things that have been made up to us.  

But like I said, I'm not sure our busy-ness has been the reason I haven't been writing.  I guess there's only been one thing that really is on my mind to write about.  And you know what?  

Realization three:  Sometimes you have said everything you need to say. 

I guess there is other stuff I could write.  Like: 

1. While I had a wonderful Thanksgiving in so many ways, I also had way too much time on my hands to sit and think about how unhappy I was.  I have been thinking about my babies for so long.  I miss them. And now that time has gone by, I have also been confronted with what our future will be like.  And it is frightening. And I crashed and burned and felt like I was drowning. 

2. We've actually had a great week this past week, even though Thanksgiving was hard.  Like I've said, we keep busy, and that's so good. I have finally gotten comfortable enough to joke around and be my normal sarcastic snarky self with my co-workers.  Yeah, I know, took me long enough. I will never be the same person I was three years ago, or even three months ago, but I am settling into a new version of myself that I am happy with.  

3. Also, it's been a great week because we went to Christmas Around the World at BYU last night, which the folk dancing ensembles put on. I told Greg months ago that I wanted to go this year.  I talk about it every Christmas we've been at BYU, but we always have just missed it.  I haven't mentioned it in awhile and Greg bought tickets three weeks ago and didn't tell me until Thursday.  Yeah.  This is why my husband is THE BESSSTTT. 

4.  I had a follow-up appointment at the radiology center at the hospital that went kinda bad.  I have to go back again because things are not looking like they should.  Depending on how everything turns out next time--and it might be totally fine--this could lead to other procedures being done in the Spring.  I'm not super worried about it, but it's just kind of freaking annoying. 

Realization:  Greg and I may never have any more children.

Realization: If that was the case, it would be okay. 

Dedication to Heavenly Father's plan doesn't entail any kind of boundaries we might want to draw, like "I will be faithful in this thing, but if you ask me to do this, I will go berserk.  And I won't do it." There are people who don't have their own biological children.  Why not us?  My desire--and my capability--to be obedient is not dependent in any way on the thing that Heavenly Father has asked me to do.  I guess I always thought things like "There's no way Heavenly Father wouldn't let me have my own children who I can carry safely and raise.  There's no way He would ask me to do that." But He might ask me to do that.  And that would be okay.  

I remember toward the end of High School I had some experiences where I really learned a lot.  I had this phrase running through my head over and over right about the time that I graduated: I will do whatever you ask me.  I will do whatever you ask me.  And I really meant it at the time.  But now that my life is in such a different place--a harder place--I have been given the opportunity to internalize what I said, and to prove if I mean it now.

Realization:  I still mean it.  

Greg and I have found so many ways to be happy.  We are happy.  Things are working out.  We have so much hope.  Although so much is so uncertain, I feel something in the deepest part of me that tells me that we will have more children one day. I sincerely believe that more blessings are coming, and when they happen, they will be miraculous, and that all the promises that have been made to me will absolutely be fulfilled in the best and most meaningful ways possible. We have already been given so much, why couldn't good things keep happening? We already have children, and they were beautiful. And they are an incredible part of my life, and they are mine. 

And I think they have younger siblings.  And I think everything is good.