Miracles

OK, this is a post for everyone--so just read through and I promise you will all get something beneficial from it.

So I have been looking back on our marriage and looking at the struggles that have become true miracles and I must share—I especially share these stories for the benefit of those who are trying to have children and have not yet been blessed with children or who have had children and take it for granted what a miracle it truly is.

When we were first married we decided to wait at least a year before having a baby—you know the perfect family planning we all think will happen for us. Well, for some reason after only three months we felt strongly that we should start trying to get pregnant. This made me nervous and I think we both were excited but scared because just as I had been taught by all the examples in my family you "try" and 9 months later you have a baby!

Well, I know now that Heavenly Father had another plan—we must have needed some preparation for what was to enter our lives and he needed to know we had faith. So we "tried" to have a child for almost three years—it was one of the longest three year journeys of my life. When you so desire to have children, three years is a long wait. Finally after many awful and uncomfortable tests and studies we finally miraculously got pregnant with 9! What a welcome miracle he was too, especially when you think it will never happen. Oh, what a joy he was! And we made a decision that because of how much time it took to get pregnant with him that we should waste NO time and get started trying to have a baby right away. I was completely OK with having kids 9 months apart if that is what it took... well, two and a half years later we got two kids!!!

But, they we 12 and 10 when they came—yes, our neice and nephew! So now we had 3 children. But, still no pregnancy. After four and half years of waiting for another pregnancy I had given up, I got rid of all the baby stuff and became settled with the fact that I would never get pregnant again. Then we had a fourth child join us, he was 8 at the time, still no pregnancy. We felt that we would have these four kids and that is what the Heavenly Father had blessed us with. Then, miraculously six months later (a total of five years after having 9) we found out we were pregnant again!!!!! We were so happy and excited. Many negative pregnancy test later and TA DA finally a positive one! Well, you all know the next part... we later found out that the two children I gave birth to have Fragile X Syndrome.

Our dreams of having another were soon dashed into millions of pieces. How could we possibly bring another child into the world knowing we may have another with FXS (I was having a hard time knowing how to raise three children who were not my own and two children with disabilities—we felt very inadequate). We were scared and felt that because of the total of five children that we had been blessed with, we were done. So, we moved on with life. All along yearning for another child. We looked into the possibility of adoption, seriously. All in the meantime we got the constant question, "Are you having any more kids?" and my reply was always, "No. But, I have learned Heavenly Father has a great sense of humor and would love to see what I could do with three kids with FXS." So three and half years of yearning and wondering if we had made the right decision Heavenly Father's sense of humor comes out in full! I am eight weeks 2 days pregnant right now as I am typing this!!!!! It is truly a miracle, trust me, it is a miracle. We weren't trying to get pregnant— so there you go: three years of trying, then 5 years of trying and then, SURPRISE!!!! We are so ecstaticly happy we can hardly contain it. So, yes, I am not very far along, but I am already showing and we can't wait to tell everyone, so there it is. See, I told you it would be worth the read. So, the next question we get asked now is one of two: "Are you going to have an amnio done to test for FXS?" or "Are you scared that it will have FXS?" Here is the answer, "No I will not get an amnio done, it is most likely for me that it will have FXS, so I will just plan on that and if it has FXS... OK, and if it doesn't... OK and then, am I scared? Aren't we all, we always hope that our children will be perfect. But, I guess we all receive 'perfect' in different forms—we just don't realize it until we are holding them in our arms. All my kids are 'perfect.' As are yours..."