Happy Love Day!!

Thanks to some friends who planned a fun date and invited us along, our love day was awesome! We started with dinner at Qdoba. Not the most romantical place for a love day dinner, but they were having a "kiss your special someone in front of the cashier and get a free burrito" day. Yes please! (Husband was especially excited about the kissing part.)

Then we went dancing. Yes, DANCING. . . for the first time in our married lives (because dancing around the apartment doesn't count). This place was AMAZING, and conveniently located just down the icy street. (Let me interject that I think it was 4 degrees that night. And I was in a skirt. Bless me.) It was big band style ballroom/swing dancing and the band was LIVE (and amazing. A big black lady sang "At Last" - we were in heaven.) There were lots of cute old people there all dressed up and dancing like they were 20 again. It was seriously so cool and definitely something we'll be doing again.

Everyone knows I'm no dancer . . . but I did spend many a night going country swing dancing with the roommates in college, and eventually I was half decent. Too bad that was eons ago and I lost any moves that I had. Lucky for us, Dan spent lots of time in ballroom dance classes at BYU. He made us look like we actually knew what we were doing.  Even the old people were impressed with us - who knew!?

Yay for love day!

My *Seemingly* Forever Battle

Having a family of my own has been something I've been battling for over 10 years. Recently a friend was complimenting me that I wasn't the "cookie-cutter" Mormon woman - I have a master's degree and a career instead of 5 kids, and she appreciated that we could talk about things besides potty training. She said it was refreshing. I had to correct her - I WANTED the cookie-cutter life style. My life plan was to get married, graduate from BYU, and start having babies before I ever had to start a career. Apparently I was way, way off. This life of mine - which is a great life - has been my "ok I don't have a family so now what do I do" plan. But all along I was always wanting and hoping and praying for the family that I knew I would one day have.

Meeting and marrying Dan was the best thing that could have happened to me. It made every awkward date and every heartbreak seem worth it. Finally my family had begun, now we just had to add a quiver of children and all those years of battling for a family would be forgotten. I've never fought harder for anything in my life than I fought for Lydia's life. Losing her only increased my desire to have more children (if that was even possible), so when we got clearance to start trying for more kids, I armed myself with everything I could to get pregnant again. OPK's and BBT's were part of my normal routine (and if you don't know what those are, consider yourself lucky). I wanted to make sure I was doing everything in my part to get these babies here!

After a year of (impatiently) trying, we had our Christmas miracle. On this last Christmas Eve I finally had a positive pregnancy test - we were finally having a baby!!! I've never wept more tears of gratitude, and I've never had a better Christmas. I've been floating around on cloud 9 ever since. Life couldn't get any better.

Until this week when we discovered this little miracle was not to be.

We are still in shock. We are heartbroken. But we are not defeated. Where there is sorrow, the comforter always leaves at least a little room for hope of a brighter day. My brighter day includes raising lots of children. I know one day it will be happen. This battle of mine is not over, and one day, I just know I will be victorious. So until then, I pray lots and have a heart full of gratitude for my wonderful husband, who is the best support anyone could ever ask for.

Favorite thought of the day, "There is something at work in suffering that is exalting." - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland