peace.

In March I took a pregnancy test. To my surprise, the test was positive. I hadn't taken a pregnancy test in months because I always knew that it would be negative and soon after taking the test my period would start. So I just stopped taking them. Until March. 

It was such a weird feeling looking at the test and seeing two lines. It was so faint that I thought maybe I was tricking myself. I woke Dallin up to make sure I wasn't seeing things. After he put his contacts in, he told me that he was pretty sure he saw a second line as well. 

I had been waiting for that moment for so long. I had so many different emotions trying to fight through. I called the doctor as soon as I could and went in for a blood test. Sure enough, the blood test came back positive. I was excited, nervous, and a little bit of a wreck.

Unfortunately, a week after taking the test I started to have some heavy bleeding. I had gone into the doctor's office that morning and they had done some more blood work. But the call I got from the doctor was not reassuring. She told me that I was most likely having a miscarriage. 

We were absolutely devastated.

I went in to the doctor's office a week later for a check-up and they confirmed the miscarriage. 

However, in the midst of the sadness I found an overwhelming peace. I knew that I was going to be okay. I knew that everything was going to work out. I did not know how or when everything would work out, but I did recognize the peace that I had asked my Father in Heaven for when he gave it to me. He blessed me with the comfort that I so needed. 

And, to my surprise, a month later He showed me just how everything would work out. For some reason I felt like I should take another pregnancy test. It had not even been a full month since my miscarriage. But I took the test anyway. 

The test was positive. Again. 

At first I feared that I might have another miscarriage. But I pushed the fear out and listened to what I was really feeling:

Peace. 

I had a sense of peace and comfort that I did not have with the previous pregnancy. And I have had that peace with me every day of this pregnancy. We still take things day by day. But I know my Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ take on each day with me. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of their love for me. 

After trying for over a year and a half and after two miscarriages we are incredibly happy and grateful to be where we are now. Dallin and I are so excited to meet our precious little miracle this December! 

it's okay.

Normally when I write a blog post it is because something has been weighing on my mind and I feel like I just need to get it out. Even before I start writing I pretty much know what I am going to say. This time is a little different though. Instead of having one topic weighing on my mind and writing about it, I have had a million things on my mind and no clue what I want to say. When I mentioned it to my husband he told me just to start writing and it will come to me. I'm not one of those people though. I have to have a plan and I have to have an outline. So I mulled it over for a few days and I think I finally know what I want to say.

The past few weeks have been hard. I am normally sad when, once again, we have another negative pregnancy test. However, this time around it has been harder than it has been in a long time. I am not exactly sure why. Dallin says maybe because I had really high hopes this past month. That could be it. But I do not know for sure. I just know that it has been hard. And I have felt really bad because it has been hard. I feel like I shouldn't be struggling this much. I feel like I don't really have a right to be this sad because I have only been trying to conceive for a year and half where other people have been trying for 5-10 years. I feel like I shouldn't be sad anymore and I should just be happy.

I have been struggling with these feelings for about two weeks now. The only person I have confided in about them is my wonderful husband. And he has been an absolute rock star. He has held me too many times to count while I have just cried. He has been the one person to always validate my feelings and let me know that I am okay.

The other day in one of my classes we were talking about positive psychology and happiness. My professor, who is a psychologist, said how people are always saying "choose to be happy," but that this isn't really true. He went on to say that you cannot choose to be happy, you can choose to control your thoughts which can influence your emotions, but your emotions are your emotions and it is hard to change that.

Little does my professor know that that is exactly what I needed to hear. I had been trying so hard to be happy all of the time, and it wasn't working. What he said brought me a lot of peace and validation. Just like Dallin had told me that I was okay and it was okay to feel what I was feeling, I felt like my professor had just done the same thing. 

This isn't to say that I am going to be sad all of the time. I am not going to just wallow in my feelings and think the thoughts that can trigger the sad emotions. But it is to say that I am okay. And not being happy all of the time is okay.

As I have reached the end of what I really want to say, I have realized that it is not at all what I had planned to say. But I think it is exactly what I needed to say. I had planned to talk about how we celebrate our own little victories on our infertility journey. But maybe I will save that for another time. I guess once again my husband was right, I just needed to start writing. I should probably know by now my plans don't really work out the way I want them to anyway.