So Close I Can Taste It!

Court in on Wednesday, WEDNESDAY!

I start crying every time I think about it. Her sealing is in 2 weeks! She will be blessed the next day at my parents church.

It's been such a long, crazy, emotional past 6 1/2 years and I just have to write it all down. (Sorry if you've heard our story a million times...) I'll never forget 5 days after we got married, sitting in the San Diego Temple feeling like we needed to have a baby right away. I was scared and a little excited. When I told Brad how I felt one of the first things he said was, "Well, I guess we better stay in our 2 bedroom apartment." (we were thinking about down sizing) That night in the hotel room I told Brad we were not going to go to sleep until we decided what we were going to do. We talked about it, then prayed about it. I got the same, very strong feeling that we were supposed to have a baby right away. Brad felt that we were too so the trying began.... At any little thing I'd take a pregnancy test, all of which were negative. One day I was at the $1 store and I saw a book on infertility and bought it. Yes, we had been trying for like maybe 1 month, but I KNEW, I just knew that it wasn't going to be easy. We moved a few hours away from my home town. We had been married 4 months when my nephew was born. A few weeks later another nephew was born.

We had been married for 9 months when I started seeing my first doctor and started my first medication. At 15 months I started fertility.... I hated it. I really, honestly, HATE doing fertility drugs. They screw with your emotions more then anyone who has never taken them can understand! For no reason at all, I'd cry. I'd get my hopes up about getting pregnant when bawl for days when I wasn't. Then I'd have to go through it all over again the next month! We bought Maggie, bought a house and kept trying... We had been married for about 28 months when I knew it was time to pursue Foster Care. 6 months later we got Ben. Then he left and we got Isaac and Madison. Then they left and I was back on fertility.

When I started seeing Dr. G everyone told me that he was SO good and I'd be pregnant in no time. 5 months later (after I & M left) I was, kind of, pregnant... It was a weird feeling. We had been trying for 4 years at this point. I was excited, but I knew I would never meet this baby. It was all over a few days later and it was back to trying. A few months later I was worn out of trying, time to adopt. We met with LDS Family Services, we started to get stuff together, but it just never fell into place.

Then that one crazy day in January, my friend and I decided that we wanted to do foster care again. Brad was reluctant, but eventually caved and agreed to give it another try. I didn't like that most of the responses we got when we announced we were doing foster care again was, "Are you sure that's a good idea?" You can't explain to someone who hasn't been there or what it feels like to A) struggle to get pregnant B) do foster care and C) feel that foster care was the path you were meant to take to get your children.

The second time around I was surprisingly patient and I am NOT a patient person. I was anxious for our first placement, but at the same time I was just letting it all happen as it was meant to. 15 months after deciding do foster care again, it was a crazy day. I had a house full of kids I was baby-sitting. Was weeks away from moving, so I was packing. Maggie has never in her life run away, but as I was on the phone with our caseworker trying to hear all the details about this little 4 month old baby, who's name no one knew how to pronounce, Maggie was "running away".

45 minutes after that crazy phone call, I was running around the house un-packing boxes, running up and down from the basement bringing up the boxes of blankets and other baby items, little baby Jay arrived. I wish I had taken a picture of her the first time I saw her, she was asleep in her car seat. Our CPS worker later told me that as they were putting J in the car neither he or the other Child Protective Services worker knew how to put in a car seat. So the police officer that was there had to put it in for them!

The rest is history....

I remember... standing in our kitchen on June 7, our caseworker had been over for a visit that day, she called for about the third time that day. Walking to Lori's room after I hung up the phone, I was shaking as I told her Jay's birth mom was thinking about relinquishing. The next day as our caseworker and I were walking to her office and I asked her if S was going to relinquish and I started hyperventilating when she said yes. We had to take a minute for me to breath and calm down before we went into her office and talked to S. How shockingly calm and composed I was as I talked to S, I was so composed that I felt rude for not being emotional! I seriously didn't shed a single tear, I was so composed!!! (Which if you've met me, is unbelievable!)

I can't believe it's here. I get to be a mom....forever. Not just that, but I get to be a mom to the most beautiful, smart, funny, craziest child I have ever met! It's hard to explain, you can't fully comprehend what the past 6 1/2 years have been like unless you've been there. You feel your heart break a little each month when you're not pregnant. Even though you don't want to, you get your hopes up each time you try fertility, then cry even harder each time it fails. You cry when you find out some random stranger is pregnant because it's not you. Even if you're happy for them hearing the words "I'm pregnant" makes you want to scream and is usually followed by tears. Holding a baby is hard, seeing a baby is hard, seeing someone pregnant is hard. Getting "advise" that not meant to be hurtful, is. Getting un-sympathetic comments, which I could probably write an entire book on things that have been said to me in the past 6 years, I'll leave it at that. Hearing woman complain about pregnancy makes you want to physically punch them. Mother's Day is the world's worst holiday, you don't even want to acknowledge it or your own mother! If you think you love your kids, struggle with infertility, you love them more and appreciate them more. You don't take little things your kids do for granted.

Now it's changing, forever. Not just changing because I currently have a foster kid in my home. Not just changing because I'm baby-sitting and everyone in Wal-Mart thinks the kid is mine. Although it is weird when I tell people we're "having" another one in April and they look at my stomach, I guess some things never change!

I may never be pregnant. I may never feel my baby move and kick inside me. I may never know what it feels like to give birth. But that's okay. I get to be a mom, forever. In 3 days I will be the legal mom of Emma. In 2 weeks I get to become the eternal mom of Emma S.