Thankful for More Than a Season

I'm told it is the season to be thankful. To be honest, I do feel it more this time of year than any other. A time when family and friends gather. A time when posts on social media are more loving and thoughtful. A time when life is insane and yet slows down enough to give thanks for all that we are fortunate enough to have. I'm fairly certain this is why I absolutely love this time of year. I love the holidays. I love being with my family. I love the company and joy of my friends. I love my dogs curled at my feet and the coming of cooler weather. But I'm one of the lucky ones.

I feel so thankful all of the time. Beyond gratitude for the life that I lead. However, I believe that I feel so much gratitude for my life because of the most difficult of times. I do not believe we can understand joy without understanding hurt. My perspective on life has been drastically altered by specific events in life, the four most prominent: Moving to Salt Lake City with no money, living in low income housing, and working at a grocery store as one of three jobs where I relied greatly on the food the deli would give me at the end of the day (otherwise to be discarded) as I did not have the income to purchase much. The death of my father several years ago made me quickly realize that life was short and that love and family and friends are truly what matter. Getting married and having a true partner in life brought me such joy and fulfillment. Becoming a mother has altered me in ways I do not yet know. 

These four points in my life all came with such love and joy and such heartache and pain that they altered my psyche. How lucky am I? How lucky to have had these experiences so early in life. I now know what matters most. I value my friends and family, adventures, and living above work. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE what I do. I see great value and find such fulfillment in working with such amazing people who are so committed to making the world a better place. The joy I get from my work is immensely rewarding. Yet I realize now that I will not be remembered for the work or for any achievements I may have over my life. 

The above mentioned points in my life have shown me that it is not WHAT you do, but HOW you do it that matters the most. The residents that learned under my dad do not remember him for what he taught them, but how he taught them - how he made them feel, the good and the bad. My clients and past coworkers will not remember me for plans I helped them make or goals we worked together to achieve, but they will remember me for how I made them feel along the way and the journey and ride, not the end goal. 

The same is true for friends and family. We will be remembered for being loved and for loving well. 

I will be remembered by my niece and nephews for the love they felt from me. I will be remembered by my friends and my family for what we all mean to each other in life. I will be remembered through my wife's and son's eyes for all of our conversations, adventures, challenges, and life stories. Again, how lucky am I?

How lucky that I'm able to shape my life to be there for my family and friends. How lucky that I have been given every opportunity along the way. How lucky to share this life with the most amazing people doing incredible work to make a difference. 

So yes, I am grateful today. I am grateful everyday - no, I'm not being cheesy. Truly, I am beyond thankful in this time of year and each day that follows. 

So here is my challenge to you in this season and every season. Do not wait until it is suggested by the holiday to be thankful. Love your life - the good and the bad. Embrace the pain as you know that joy will follow and will be felt more than ever before. Do not run away from the hard as that is not escape, it is just delay of the inevitable. Run toward life and all that it brings. Take that risk - jump at the chance to really live and love. Sure, chances are you will hurt along the way, but in the end, do not look back and wish that you had lived differently. Life is short and powerful. It will pass in a blink of an eye, so don't wait until tomorrow to be grateful and figure it out. Figure it out now. Live and be grateful now. Do not get caught forever in the neutral zone. When you are caught in a rapid, you have to paddle faster or slower than the current to have any control of where you end up. So paddle fast or paddle slow or switch it up, but don't let the rapid take control because you're frozen with fear. 

Thank you for being on this great ride of a life with me. Thank you for providing me with love and friendship and laughter and tears. Thank you for being you and being in my life. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all and many wishes for joy and love in the years ahead. 

A walk through hell for a little slice of heaven

Life is wonderfully, amazingly, beautifully hard. Each moment in our journey is a tick of time that leads us to another tick of time that add up to big and little moments that shape who we are and how we react to what comes next. Every decision, handshake, hello, goodbye, hug, tear, and laugh dictates the great makeup of our life. Sometimes those moments are so suffocatingly joyful and at other times so devastatingly painful, but what is one without the other?

This post is about our journey to motherhood. It has been an amazing adventure with many wonderful moments and many heartbreaking ones, but all ours. Over the past three years, Lisa and I have grown together and formed a strength and love that knows no bounds. For this, I am eternally grateful for each heartbreak. This has been our walk through hell for a little slice of heaven.

I debated for quite a while about putting our story out there. As incredibly private people, this specific journey seems so personal, so private, but in reality, it isn't. This is a journey that so many, too many, have traveled. Each time I speak to someone about it, I find someone new who has had much of the same pain and confusion. And many times, when the person hasn't experienced this journey, what they say is an attempt to relate, but feels like another slap in the face. So this entry will do two things, share with you some very happy news and provide a few tips of what to do and not to do when you find someone you care about is struggling in the same way.

First, our journey:

I've known only one certain in my life since childhood: I want to be a mother. This one thing has never wavered nor changed. I also had a gut feeling in my adulthood that this would not be an easy feat. I was correct. When we started the fertility journey, I soon discovered that for medical reasons, IVF would be our only option. And so we began. My body responded to the insane amount of hormones injected into it fairly well minus the fact that it caused me to gain far more weight than I could have imagined. My diet did not change, my routine changed slightly due to the danger of exercise when doing IVF, but my body did. 20 pounds, 19 eggs, a lot of shots later, and we ended up with 5 day 5 embryos. Great, I thought. This is it! How could this not work? It did, but not for long.

After two full rounds of IVF and four transfers, we got pregnant each time. And each time we miscarried - 4 miscarriages back to back. This was our walk through hell. There are a lot of details in this time, blood clots in my lungs, doctors in Charleston, New York, and Atlanta, a lot of praying, many tears, and eventually the feeling that my body simply hated me. We then decided to take six months off. We laughed and cried. We traveled and loved. We ate and drank and didn't think about IVF or children or what we didn't have. We were simply grateful for what we did have.

And then we gave it one last shot. 

And here we are. Our happy news. Our sweet little boy is due around Christmas. The best miracle we could ever receive. I hesitate to share simply because I am scared each day that we will lose him, but today, I am only grateful and happy and in love with this perfect little man.

So for those of you who have struggled, are struggling, or are entering this journey, our hearts are with you. We are here if you have questions or want to talk. Know that you are not alone, that it is a difficult path, but that you will learn so much about yourself and others along the way.

Now for a few suggestions. If you know someone going through infertility and loss, these are things you should perhaps not say. Feel free to stop reading here if you always know what to say in these situations. 😉

1) You're life can be really happy without children. (Sure it can be. But we want children, badly, so badly that we would put our body and savings through hell fire to have one. So please, don't say this. Ever.)

2) Just relax, it will happen. (Yeah, this sometimes is true, but telling a woman on fertility drugs who feels like a failure because she can't get pregnant and who has a team of medical professionals trying to help her is not helpful. Also, relaxing does not always produce babies, no matter how much we mediate.)

3) If God wants it to happen, it will happen. Have faith. (Faith is a beautiful and wonderful thing, but God also gave us brains and ability to perform modern medical miracles. You telling me that I can't get pregnant because God doesn't want it to happen is not ok. Not ok at all.)

4) But you're an aunt - being an aunt is even better than being a mom. (I LOVE being an aunt. It makes me so crazy happy. But being an aunt is not the same as being a mother. It just isn't).

5) Why don't you just adopt. (Yes, because that is super easy and cheap. Not everyone can go with adoption. Not everyone wants to. That is a personal choice and a financial one. Try not to make assumptions unless you have the background facts.)

6) Here, I'll lend you my kids for a day or two, that should cure your desire to have kids. (Ok, so I am going to hope you can see how this type of comment isn't helpful. I realize kids are hard and that you, as a parent, are tired and see our life as a great adult only adventure, but please be sensitive. I love your kids, but watching your kids does not equate to not wanting my own. Would you ever choose to not have your children any longer? No, probably not, and neither would I.)

7) Miscarriages happen, they are so common. (This basically dismisses the pain that someone is going through after a miscarriage. While this may be true, miscarriages do not always happen to YOU. It is painful and sad and physically hard. Also, some of us have had way more than the "usual" one miscarriage, but even if you have had one, that is more than anyone should ever have to experience.)

There are many more, but you get the picture. 😊 I know that these comments are made to simply try and be helpful or break a tension you feel because you don't know what to say or how to react, but here are some ways to be helpful and sensitive:

1) I can't imagine everything you are going through, but I'm here to listen if you ever just need to talk about it.

2) You would be an amazing mother/father, and I am going to hope (and pray if they are religious) for your miracle. I'm thinking of you and am here if you ever need anything or want to talk.

3) If you have gone through it, tell your story. Tell them you still remember what those days felt like and how lonely it can be. Then let them know you are here and willing to listen.

4) Don't ask where people are on their journey. I know you are interested and want them to know you are thinking of them. They will know this too, but I promise people will share if and when a pregnancy works or doesn't work. Asking makes for an awkward conversation and sometimes emotional when those experiencing infertility aren't ready to share. Also, we are super nervous something bad will happen and we will lose the baby. Therefore, many of us do not want to share until we feel better about things. Instead, you can simply ask, "How are you?" That is a great starter for people to share if they feel ready or to not if they don't.

I don't know if you sense a theme or not, but mainly, it is to listen and not offer solutions, advice, or anecdote. We all know that if you say some of the don't says, that more than likely you are simply trying to be helpful. We all get that and know it is coming from the right place. However, sometimes, we should all stick to empathy or sympathy for the best outcomes. 😁

So that's it. We are so excited to welcome baby boy Lambeth in December. We have waited a long time for him and can't wait to become parents.