Infertility Awareness Week - What Our Experience Has Been Like

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. Having secondary infertility has affected my life very deeply, and to spread awareness and understanding I decided to put together this post about what secondary infertility has really been like. It's one of the hardest things I've been faced with. It’s important to note that everybody’s experience with infertility is unique and personal, so while I am sure there are commonalities with my experience, I also don’t speak for everyone who has been here.

What is it like to have secondary infertility and be unable to have more children?

It’s buying so many ovulation tests that never seem to help enough to get pregnant on our own.
It’s buying so many pregnancy tests that always turn up negative.
It’s getting your hopes up every time your period is even a little bit late, only to be crushed when it shows up month after month.
It’s trying to get pregnant for years while watching friends and family continue adding kids to their families.
It’s remembering how much you loved feeling the movements inside the womb, and never getting to feel that again.
It’s anticipating the excitement of pregnancy when you are getting ready to add to your family, only to be more and more heartbroken that that never comes.
It’s waiting to see how your family dynamics will change when you add more children, only for things to never change.
It’s talking about the fun ways you and your spouse might want to announce a pregnancy, and never getting to use any of them.
It’s imagining the bond that your current children will create as they meet and get to know their baby brother(s) or sister(s), and never being able to experience it.
It’s hearing your kids talk about how they want to have more siblings that they can play with, and wishing you could have given that to them years ago.
It’s keeping all of your baby clothes for years for your future children only to have to get rid of them without ever using them again.
It’s giving yourself so many shots and feeling a bigger emotional toll from it than you expected.
It’s having all the fun taken out of sex as it becomes more of a chore for both of you because of the pressure and timing.
It's all the testing and procedures and never determining a cause for your infertility.
It’s the mood swings of hormones from medications.
It’s bruising and puncture marks all over your belly from injections.
It’s getting your hopes up with every IUI cycle, only for it to fail time after time.
It’s getting your hopes even higher when you try IVF, only to be crushed when even that doesn’t work.
It’s crying at the doctor or on the phone because once again you received bad news.
It’s paying thousands of dollars for fertility treatments and coming up with nothing.
It’s imagining for years the complete family you want to have someday, only to ultimately learn that you can’t have any more kids.

(Pictured: all the syringes from my self-injections)

It’s loving your little family with all of your heart, and also feeling like it will never feel complete.
It’s feeling jealous and bitter about friends and family having babies while you can’t, and feeling guilty that you feel that way because you also love them, are genuinely happy for them, and would never blame them for having more kids and would never want them to not be able to.
It’s looking forward to trying again to breastfeed because having twins as your first was too overwhelming to keep it up, only to never get to try again.
It’s hoping that maybe next you will have one baby because you never got to feel the magic of devoting yourself to one tiny infant without worrying about another infant, and never getting to experience that.
It’s people telling you that maybe when you take a break it will happen, and that never being the case.
It’s having random meltdowns because something (big or small) triggered your grief.
It’s picturing your kids in your old baby swings and bouncers as you assemble them to sell and aching to see babies in them again.
It’s not bothering to go through any of your baby clothes as you sell them because when you tried to you ended up cradling them like a baby and crying.
It’s not pursuing more extensive options to grow your family because it’s too much financially and emotionally, but having to navigate the deep emotional impact of being done.
It’s having a list of baby names you and your spouse want to use and never getting to use them.

It's planning on things like walking with a baby to the bus stop to greet their older siblings home from school, only for those plans to never be realized.  
It’s dealing with the normal emotions of having had your last children, without getting to cherish any “lasts” because you never thought you wouldn’t be able to have more.
It’s feeling overwhelming loneliness even though you have a great support system, because infertility has a way of just always feeling lonely and isolating.
It’s not fully relating to those who have primary infertility because at least you had some kids before being infertile, while also not relating to those who haven’t had any infertility problems.
It’s feeling so grateful for the family that you have, while simultaneously being so heartbroken over not being able to have any more.
It’s holding on to the hope that eventually it will work out, and it never does.
It’s never being able to see your kids be helpers for a new baby.
It’s having to unfollow people you love because seeing all the pregnancy and baby announcements and pictures hurts too much.
It’s crying in the shower, crying when you go shopping, crying any time that the grief hits.
It’s trying for years and years to have more children and never having them.
It’s being absolutely certain that there are more children waiting to join your family, and then being just as certain that it’s okay to be done, and not knowing how to reconcile that.

It’s feeling not okay and not knowing how to be okay.

Infertility sucks.  



Love,
Ashley

Our Infertility Journey: A Different Path

Our infertility journey has turned out to be a really complicated one. Many of you know some of our recent updates either from GoFundMe or from me posting on Facebook, but to bring it all together this is what we had shared at that time:

"Our first round of IVF didn’t go like we hoped. I went through the daily injections for almost the whole round of meds, leading up to the egg retrieval, only for my body to decide to ovulate on its own (despite the medication that was supposed to prevent that). Without being able to fully prep for and time ovulation for egg retrieval, we were not able to do the retrieval at all and instead tried to salvage it with another IUI. You never know, right? Unfortunately that still didn’t work, so we ended up back at square one, just with a bunch less money spent on the medications I had been taking.

Saying that it was devastating is an understatement.

We’ve had some appointments between then and now, and are starting another attempt at IVF. This has not been an easy road but we continue to have faith. We ask for continued prayers and well-wishes as we move forward with this again. We appreciate everyone so much for their love and support, and are beyond grateful for the incredible generosity we have felt!!"

That brings us to our follow-up attempt at IVF. One of the things we discovered through the various testing we had done between cycles was that I have extremely low AMH. Like, absurdly low. Especially for someone my age. What this indicates is basically that I have very low ovarian reserves, a.k.a. not a lot of eggs left to work with. Based on this and my body's response to the last round of meds, my doctor put me on an almost entirely different round of medications for my new IVF cycle (what is referred to as a "min stim" cycle), that tends to have better results than the typical meds I was on for the previous IVF cycle. All of this information was very scary to me and what it might mean moving forward, but we were also hopeful that now that we knew about an issue we could work with it better.

So I started with my new IVF cycle, and as I took my daily meds (which included way less shots than previously, so that was a bright spot) and as I had my regular appointments of ultrasounds and blood tests to track my progress, we still ran into problems. Ultimately we discovered that my ovaries weren't very responsive to the medications, similar to the previous cycle. With the various meds and dosages that we had tried up to this point and based on what we continued to see at my appointments, my body just wasn't responsive to the meds and IVF was no longer a viable option for us.

This was heartbreaking news. We felt so hopeful about this path, and knowing it was another dead end was so hard to learn. At this point we were told that if we wanted to continue, our best options now were using an egg donor or doing embryo adoption. They both have their own high expenses and complicated paths, but they could be viable options for us.

However, after lots of discussion, pondering, prayer, etc., we agreed that we were both ready to be done. The toll that the highs and lows from fertility treatments has been heavy, financially and especially emotionally, and we can only keep it up for so long. We both feel at peace with this decision, though there is still *a lot* of heartbreak that comes with it.

This decision and our new journey brings a new mountain of grief that we will learn to navigate together. There is a lot to grieve when we hoped for so many years to bring more children into our family, and we will probably carry that grief with us for a long time.

But there is also gratitude wrapped up in this journey. We are so thankful to everyone in our lives who has been so loving and supportive to us in every way. None of it has gone unnoticed or unappreciated. And I thank God every day that he sent us the twins, because I couldn't imagine coming to this point and them not having each other. We will grieve, yes, but we are also so grateful for the little family that we have now. ♥



Love,
Ashley

Infertility Journey Update: Hope and Loss

So we were able to start fertility treatments up again this summer, and got started with the IUI process. I will spare you all the details of how each cycle works, but I just have to say that giving myself shots is 100% terrifying. I've been able to do it, but only out of sheer force of love for our future kid(s).

So we've been doing IUI cycles, and each time we do I think, maybe this is finally it. With this help, maybe this month won't be yet another in the long line of disappointing months of the years. And we've had negative results, which are always heartbreaking in their own right. Because *infertility sucks*.

Last week, however, we found out that our most recent IUI cycle ended with a positive pregnancy test - we were shocked, and thrilled! And the timing couldn't have been better - my mom and dad were visiting the day after I got the news, plus the day I found out was her birthday (September 1st), and all of it lined up in a very fun and exciting way. The catch was that the hCG level, while definitely in the positive range, was lower than the clinic would like it to be, so they were going to test again in two days. If it doubled after two days, that was indicative of a growing pregnancy; if it stayed the same or lowered, it could be a sign of a miscarriage.

With that knowledge, I knew that we weren't technically in the clear yet, but I also didn't think that there would end up being a problem. With my last two pregnancies, I wasn't able to detect them with home pregnancy tests until later than most people are able to, which is especially surprising with twins. So as far as I can tell, I have a history of starting my pregnancies with lower hCG without it meaning anything is wrong. So, I reasoned, that's what was likely to be the case here.

I made "big brother" and "big sister" T-shirts for the twins to wear to surprise my parents, I downloaded a pregnancy app, I calculated about when I'd be due - in May, the same month Matthew was due. I realized I'd be able to wear the "due in May" shirt I bought when I was pregnant with him, and that brought comfort to me after keeping it for all those years since losing him.

We didn't tell many other people in the meantime, just in case, and would wait until after my next appointment when we would test my hCG again. But it was fun talking with my parents about how we might set up a new baby logistically in our apartment and fun ways we might announce the pregnancy.

You can guess where this is going.

I had my follow-up blood test, and the result was that my hCG hadn't changed. It wasn't a growing pregnancy. It was a biochemical pregnancy - basically, a very early miscarriage. The egg was fertilized, but either didn't quite implant or didn't grow properly, and didn't stick around.

To say we were heartbroken is an understatement. The tears came quicker and and fell harder than they have in a while. Josh held me while I cried (sobbed) into him, but I know it cut him just as deeply as it cut me.

I wished I had never gotten a positive in the first place, even though that would've been a hard result in its own right. But now I had let myself get excited, I had begun to imagine and talk about a future for our family with this new baby. And just as quickly, it was gone. The hole in my heart felt bigger and emptier than it has in a long time.

If I felt broken from my secondary infertility in the first place - and I did - I now felt like all those cracks just fell apart.

(Illustration by Conrad Roset for Marie Claire magazine)

We will find healing as we grieve. We know that from experience. And we will move forward with our fertility treatments. We will have hope, and we will not give up.

But man...


Infertility is a b****.

Miscarriage is a b****.


Love,
Ashley

Feel What You Feel

Coronavirus news is everywhere. We all know that's the big thing right now, worldwide. It's scary, overwhelming, and who truly knows what all the effects of this pandemic will be, short- and long-term?

I think it's important to find gratitude in our lives, no matter how big or small, and I believe that a lot of good can come from that. But I also am a big believer in allowing yourself to feel what you feel. If you're mad, be mad. If you're grieving, let yourself grieve. Whatever the circumstance is, giving ourselves space to feel what we need to is important.

So here I am.

Don't get me wrong, we're doing fine, we're able to provide for our needs, and the twins don't really know any better. Life as we know it is okay.

But.

Here is some of the not-so-fun stuff that I've been feeling.

I'm anxious. Just this underlying anxiety that never really seems to go away. We have some stability in our home and our lives, but who knows if that could change? Or what about our families? Our friends? Who knows who will be affected, or by how much? How many people might I know who will get sick, or maybe even die, by the end of all this? Or if any of us get sick, what could be the impact on our family? What will the financial future of our families look like? What about that of our country? And what will it mean for all of us moving forward?

And what if the effects are far-reaching enough that food and essential supplies become scarce? More-so than what is happening with panic-buying and stocking up. What if it becomes legitimately hard to find what we need to survive? Is that even a possibility? Because thinking about that scares me.

I miss my family. I live far away from most of them anyway, and there are lots of ways that we stay connected thanks to technology, but knowing that you have to be isolated while there is so much going on in the world, it feels like it just brings out how much I miss them even more. I wish I could be with them.

I'm also worried about Josh's mental health. We've mostly adjusted to him working from home, but I know it wears on him to never go out. And I know a lot of this is hard on him in other ways. What if everything compounds and his depression and anxiety take a turn for the worse? His mental illnesses have taken us down some very dark roads, and I'm terrified of that happening here and now.

And I wish I had a little baby. It feels like I'm grieving a baby I don't have yet (which feels both similar and different compared to the grief I have about Matthew). I never thought when we started trying to get pregnant again back at the end of 2017 that we'd still be waiting. I know it's not an easy time to be pregnant or be giving birth, but it still hurts. And having fertility treatments cancelled doesn't help. I just wish I had a baby to be holed up with, to snuggle, to spend my energy taking care of, to shower with love. I'm emotionally tired and I hate that aching in my arms and my heart.

I believe that things will be okay, one way or another. But there is a lot of hard in the meantime.

Whatever you are feeling is valid. Hang in there, you're not alone. ♥



Love,
Ashley

One Year - Matthew's Story

One year ago today marks what I can safely say was the worst day of my life up to this point. The day we found out our first baby had no heartbeat.

The day our lives changed forever.

I have been meaning to write this post for some time, but have been reluctant because it’s so painful to relive it. But it just seems fitting to share such a post today, one year later. I have written a little about it since it happened and I know Josh has shared a lot of his experience, but I wanted to share my whole story. I am going to be as open and honest about the experience as possible, so bear with me. I just think Matthew’s story is important to share. If not for anyone else, it is important for me.

Let me start with the weeks before.

The week before Thanksgiving week, I finally announced outside of family that I was pregnant. We took pictures with my friend Jessica, and I was so excited to put them on Facebook and finally share that we were so excited to be expecting.

The next week we went to Idaho to visit my grandparents for Thanksgiving and got to spend time with lots of family there. My belly wasn’t really showing yet, but it was getting there. I was also looking forward to feeling my baby’s movements any day. While at my grandparents’ house, I was given a surprise baby shower. It was so fun to celebrate my baby with everyone! And the gifts that I received made me even more excited for the baby’s arrival! I even received a car seat and stroller; I could just picture taking my new baby for walks in the springtime. I got really emotional over all of it because of how happy and excited I was. Everything was right in that moment.

The following week, on December 1^st, I had a routine doctor’s appointment. I had been looking forward to this appointment as I did every appointment so that I could hear the baby’s heartbeat and know that it was healthy and growing.

As usual, the doctor went to check the heartbeat with his fetal Doppler. It was taking a while, but this wasn’t that unusual. The baby wasn’t always the most cooperative and sometimes took a minute to find. It always made me a little nervous, but was never a cause for great concern because it was always fine.

When he had tried for a while, he scheduled us for an “emergency ultrasound” to see the baby since he was having trouble finding the heartbeat with his Doppler. I was a little nervous but didn’t think much of it because the doctor seemed so calm about it and didn’t give any indication that there was a problem. So we went back out into the waiting room to wait our turn for an ultrasound. As we sat there, I excitedly talked to Josh about “what if we can find out the gender today??” We weren’t expecting to have that ultrasound for a couple weeks, so the thought of finding out a little early made me really excited. Everything still seemed right for a moment.

As I wrote in my journal of the ultrasound experience:

“Our turn came and I got situated for the ultrasound. Just moments later, the ultrasound tech softly said, ‘Oh, no…’ My heart dropped but I held on to a desperate hope that everything would turn out to be fine. As she continued her checking, I watched her type on the screen that there was no heartbeat. And I tried with my last effort to stay composed, but my resolve quickly broke. And I cried. And cried. Josh came over to me to quietly comfort me as I felt myself crumbling in disbelief. I had sometimes imagined if something should go wrong, but never expected it to happen. Everything had been going so well. How could this be real?”

The ultrasound tech softly told us “I’m so sorry” over and over as she finished her scan. The doctor came in to get the news, and as we finished up we went back to a room to discuss our options with the doctor. He informed us that I could either be induced and deliver, or I could have a D&C where I am put out and they pull and scrape everything out themselves. The second option was riskier for me, but I was in such foggy disbelief I didn’t really know what to think. So he said we could go home and talk about it and call him back to schedule whatever we chose to do.

Going home, the rest of the day was a blur. I called in to work and they took care of things so I wouldn’t have to worry about finding people to cover my shifts. Then I called my mom. When she picked up I could barely choke out the words through my tears, “Mom, I went to the doctor this morning… and I lost the baby.” We let our Bishop and Relief Society President know what was going on. The rest of the day passed in a haze. We sat on the couch and watched TV for most of the day because for me it was a distraction of the nightmare I was now living in. Just taking a moment to get up and go to the bathroom was unbearable because the reality of what was happening would set in again, and I would break down and sob.

People started reaching out to me right away. I received flowers, food, and words of love and comfort from friends and family. People started sharing with me their experiences with loss, and I found myself leaning on those who could relate to what I was going through. Yet most of my time was spent either crying or trying to numb the pain.

We went back to the doctor the next day to let him know we wanted me to be induced, and to talk about details and schedule the induction. I would go in on Wednesday night, December 3^rd. I wanted to know what to refer to this loss as, so I asked him if it was considered a second trimester miscarriage. He said no, and that the death of the baby was called “fetal demise”. And that the birth would be a stillbirth. (This was confirmed by the nurses at the hospital. I found out later that in Utah, it is considered a stillbirth when a baby is born dead any time after 16 weeks, rather than what most everywhere else considers a stillbirth – 20 or more weeks.) It became important for me to know what this loss was called for reasons I can’t explain, not to compare my loss with anyone else’s.

I called my mom to let her know when it was so she could fly out to Utah to be with me for it. I also received a Priesthood blessing, in which I was told that this baby I was carrying was a little boy. We didn’t know the gender before then and I was thinking all along that it was a girl, so this was surprising to hear. We decided we wanted to name our baby before going to the hospital, so we looked up some baby names. We had one or two boy’s names in mind, but I didn’t feel like using them here. I wanted to find something with special meaning. So Josh found the name Matthew, meaning “Gift of God.” And with that we used Lawrence for the middle name, which is Josh’s middle name and his dad’s middle name. So Matthew Lawrence it was. We also made a trip to Target to find a blanket, a stuffed animal, a box for his keepsakes, and a special ornament because it was Christmas time. In that trip, elephants became Matthew’s animal – we first found a blue elephant ornament that I fell in love with, then Josh found a blanket with a blue elephant on it, to match the ornament.

On Wednesday night, we went to the hospital. I got checked in and they took me to a room apart from the regular labor and delivery area so that I wouldn’t have to hear baby cries. Then we got started with the induction. The pain started out very mild, and through the night gradually built up more and more. It wasn’t like typical labor though; instead of having painful contractions that would come and go, it was a constant, gradual buildup of pain, without contractions. I received some pain medicine, but in the morning when it was getting really bad, my water broke just before I was going to get an epidural. The doctor came, and I thought I was going to have to push. But Matthew was so tiny that the doctor just reached in and pulled him out very easily and delicately.

And there I saw him. Our boy. Born on December 4^th, 2014 at 8:30 am. He weighed a tiny 1.6 ounces and measured just 5.5 inches long.

I later wrote in my journal:

“I started crying instantly. It’s hard to describe the emotions I felt. Sorrow at losing my baby. At seeing his tiny, lifeless body that would never grow into an energetic little boy. At never getting to be his mother. At holding him, and yet it wasn’t him. I would be left empty. And yet, I felt joy at knowing he would be mine forever. Wonder at seeing how every little part of his tiny body was already so formed. At seeing how perfect he already was, and knowing that’s all he needed. All I could do was cry for both grief and joy, and marvel over my little boy…

As the day went on I found myself feeling very surprisingly peaceful. I expected to be completely beside myself. I don’t know if it was the prayers of others, or Matthew being there for me, or what, but I’m certain there was divine help. For the moment, even in the midst of this tragedy, everything seemed okay. I was amazed by that.”

A bereavement specialist in the hospital came and took pictures, did hand prints and footprints, and made tiny molds of Matthew’s hands and feet. She also wrapped Matthew in a tiny blanket and gave us a couple of other keepsakes. I will forever and ever be grateful to her. She gave us treasures that are worth more to me than any other possession.

I also received other gifts and trinkets in honor of Matthew. Stuffed elephants. Jewelry. Pictures. I was so touched every time someone gave me something in honor of him. It was a recognition that he existed, and that he mattered. That he is my little boy.

We decided not to have a funeral, but to let the hospital take care of his body. I don’t know exactly what they did with it, and I don’t want to. I only want to be left with the memories of him that I have. We do want to get a memorial stone at a cemetery some time, but we don’t know when that will happen because of the cost. For now, we just have his pictures and mementos to hold on to.

The days and weeks that followed are marked by a progression of confusing emotions as I lived with my new reality. In the early days, I felt numb. Numb to my emotions and to my experience. Then came the stronger emotions. Anger. Feeling so frustrated with people who said that they understood exactly how I felt because of this or that experience that they had, when it was so different than what I was going through. Despair. I remember getting on Facebook and seeing all my friends who were pregnant and having babies, posting about feeling their baby’s movement or sharing some new picture or milestone. And I was filled was grief and bitterness. I was looking forward to feeling my baby moving any day. That should be me. I should be looking forward to finding out the gender. I should be experiencing these wonderful, joy-filled moments. But my baby… my baby was dead. It was all taken away. It just wasn’t fair. And it was tearing my heart apart. Loneliness. Feeling like so many people were avoiding talking to me because they didn’t know what to say. Or that they didn’t care. I know people cared, but I honestly felt so abandoned at times. I felt such a range of emotions that navigating my grief was a very confusing experience, even for me.

We have come a long way in the year since Matthew has passed. I have gone to counseling and attended a support group, especially in the early months. It has gotten better, but the grief never really goes away. Most days I am doing okay. Even great. Some days are intensely difficult and painful. These days come both expected – like anniversaries and milestones – and unexpected – cropping up from nowhere, but the grief just hits you.

We miss Matthew terribly. It’s so hard wondering what he would be like. Thinking of how things “should have been”. Picturing raising that little boy. All the “what ifs”. It’s a unique type of grief, grieving the loss of something that would never be.

But I do want to end on a positive note. I am so grateful to know that Matthew is mine forever. That I will see him again. And I am so grateful for my new twin babies. As overwhelming and exhausting as they can be, I love them so much. I have always wanted to be a mom, and Matthew was the first to give me that. And I am especially grateful for my husband Josh. I could never navigate life’s trials without him. He is my comfort when I am falling apart, my encouragement when I need a little boost, and my best friend.

My family is my everything, and I am so grateful they are mine.

10 Month Birthday and Things to Look Forward To

Today marks 10 months since I delivered my sleeping angel. Matthew would be a precious 10-month-old infant, about to gain a new baby brother and sister. Now I know that if he were here today, I probably wouldn't be pregnant again yet, but this is the reality of how it is for me now.

We are so excited for the twins to arrive, and I am so grateful to be expecting them, but as I near delivery I can't help but think of sweet Matthew. When I'm holding my new babies for the first time, I feel that it will be bittersweet as I think back to the first and only time I held Matthew. How it should have been a bonding time for mother and newborn, it should have been nothing but joyful, he should have been mine to snuggle and to keep. The experience I'll have holding my new babies should have been the experience I had with Matthew. Instead all I have to hold on to is the memory of his tiny - yet perfect - body that was no longer full of life.

Don't get me wrong though. I will be so happy to be holding my two new babies. To feel their warm little bodies on my skin. To hear their newborn cries. To know that they are mine to keep and protect. There is nothing I want more. I have been so in love with them since our first ultrasound when I saw that there were two of them and when I saw their tiny heartbeats.

On a related note, something I've been interested in doing since we lost Matthew is becoming certified as a birth and bereavement doula. For those who are unfamiliar with what a doula does, it is someone who is trained to assist women primarily during childbirth and sometimes after. Someone whose only job is to be there to support the new mother. Sort of like a professional mom. :) A birth and bereavement doula provides support to mothers in any outcome and in any trimester, putting a special emphasis on bereavement training and dealing with loss or time in the NICU. Things of that nature.

There is a certification program through "Stillbirthday University" at stillbirthday.com provides that training and certification that I have been interested in, and starting this week I have the opportunity to start that training. It is an 8-week online course that we are given 12 weeks to finish, so I'll do as much as I can before the twins arrive and pace myself accordingly once they are here.

I still want to eventually become a certified lactation consultant, but this is one more thing that I've hoped to be able to do. I am very excited for this opportunity and hope that in the future I will be able to use my experience along with this training and certification to help other women.

Hard Days and Gratitude

Today has been a really hard day for me. My grief over losing Matthew has been getting harder before is gets better, and it's been one of those days where everything that life demands from you just feels completely overwhelming. The thought of doing any little thing today has caused me so much stress and anxiety that I end up feeling like everything is just too much to face. And when I try to face it anyway, my body's response is to panic. To freak out or just start crying. Honestly, sometimes it feels like I'm going to go crazy. Not every day is like this, but today was one of those days.

At times like these, in particular, I just want to scream at the world to stop for a moment. Give me a day, two days, any kind of break. I just want to hit the pause button and try again tomorrow. But life demands that things keep moving at a constant, unstoppable pace.

I was talking about this today to one of my friends, who lost her baby boy just a few hours after he was born, and she sent me this picture in her texts:

It is such a great description of how it feels at times. Sometimes all I can think about is the aching in my heart and the longing to hold my baby, yet the world demands that I work to keep up with rent and that I complete homework and tests that seem like they will never end. The world keeps moving and life goes on, whether I want it to or not.

Today I did not accomplish nearly as much as I initially envisioned. Everything felt impossible to even consider getting done. But tonight, in a moment of motivation (probably from Heavenly Father, which I'm thankful for), I went for a run. I ran from our apartment to the Provo City Center Temple and back. (Okay, it was a walk/run combination. I'm not THAT good.) When I got to the temple, I just stood there for a minute and looked at it. And I was filled with gratitude.

As I looked at the temple, I was reminded of the incredible blessing in my life that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because Josh and I have been sealed in the temple, Matthew is sealed to us. Because of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, we will be with our precious little boy again. I can't begin to say how grateful I am to know that. As painful as it is to not have him with me and to go through my life without knowing my baby, I know that will not be the case forever.

Recently I found this quote, and it resonated deeply with me:

It makes me want to both smile and cry. It is both painful and very precious. I want to be the one looking into my baby's eyes. But if it wasn't me he saw when he opened his eyes, I am glad to know that it was the face of Jesus.

I know that I will continue to have hard days and days in which keeping up with life feels impossible. But I also know that my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, know me and hurt when I'm hurting. I know that because of Christ's sacrifice I can find comfort in my darkest days, and that all will be made right when someday I am reunited with my Matthew. And I know that there is still so much joy to come in my life, even if it doesn't always feel like it now.

And I am grateful.

~ Ashley