A Little Bit of Elbow Grease

After all of that, I got a job that led me to meet some key people in my life that I’m still friends with to this day, however, I quit that job around my 10 month mark to do another round of IVF. We had 3 embryos left and it felt wrong to not use all of them. So we scheduled a transfer for the next best one. This is what I wrote about it:

(Written on 08/22/23)

We had the transfer today. Everything is going by very quickly and I’m grateful. Anticipation is the worst. We have the blood pregnancy test scheduled for the 1st of September. So now we just wait. It’s the worst, but at the same time, I feel fine. It’s weird cause last time it was hard to not be excited, but this time it doesn’t feel like it’s something to be excited about. Like…It just feels like it’s a done deal so there’s nothing to get excited for because it’s already happened. Last time, every time I got excited, there was that thought in the back of my mind that kept reminding me that things might not turn out. I’m not getting that. I’m almost nervous to say it out loud, but it’s going to happen, and I think it’s going to be a boy. It’s just going to be a “take it one day at a time” kind of thing.

(Written on 09/03/25)

Once again, we got a lesson in “things don’t always turn out how you think they’re going to.” I took a pregnancy test the day it should have shown positive if I was pregnant, and it was negative, so I was pretty sure the blood test would be negative and that it didn’t work.

When we got the results back she said it was positive, but my HCG (pregnancy hormone) levels were so low that is was indicating it wasn’t a sustainable pregnancy and that we should come to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be pregnant much longer. They scheduled another test for the 5th to see if things would improve, but it was unlikely. My period started this morning, though, so we know officially that it didn’t work. It’s hard.

Matt gave me a blessing Friday night and he said that “All of this will be for your good” and it rang true. We don’t know why, but there’s a reason we’re going through this. What I do know is that every hard moment has only drawn us closer to God and closer to each other, so if that’s all we get from all of this, it’s enough.

I can’t even comprehend the people who go through stuff like this and blame God and get angry. Yeah, I’m frustrated it’s not working. I hate seeing other people having kids, especially one’s who don’t want them, but never once would I even consider getting mad at God for it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The hardest trials bring about the greatest blessings. We don’t know what God’s plan for us is, but everything He does is motivated by love and understanding. He sees the things we need and knows the ways to bring them about. Sometimes we have to experience hard things to greater appreciate the blessings that come after.

I find myself getting irritated with people trying to comfort me and I finally figured out why. I don’t need comfort. Yes, it sucks. It’s the most difficult experience I’ve gone through, but just like every other experience I’ve had, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’ve been praying, fasting, and going to the temple for this. So has Matt. We are doing things in a way that I know there is a reason for all of this. Who am I to tell God that he’s wrong? I have always had a deep-rooted knowledge that I will have a baby one day. It might not be on my timeline, but that doesn’t matter. I could not care less about my timeline. So yes, I have hard days, but I don’t need to be comforted because I already have comfort that comes from my knowledge of the plan of salvation. My testimony isn’t just some thing that comes and goes depending on my mood. It is who I am at my very core. It is unshakeable. There are times where I am weak and don’t live what I believe to the fullest, but that’s the thing. I’m human. I still believe it and I just occasionally need to be reminded who I am. But I will always know that I have a Savior who came here to rescue me from my times of weakness so that I might have the opportunity to live eternally with my family, full and complete, with blessings that will more than enough make up for any pain we experience here. I am grateful for every painful thing I have experienced because it has blessed me with an unshakeable knowledge of the unconditional love our Father in Heaven has for me. I might be sad, but I am well.

(A summary of events between 09/21/23-11/20/24)

There was a new test that came out for people who have endometriosis and have had multiple early pregnancy losses that determines if you have a certain protein in your uterus (I can’t remember what one). If you have it, the solution is to do a laparoscopy or 3 months of lupron (which I will NEVER do) right before a transfer. Even though I haven’t had early pregnancy loss, and I’ve only lost one baby, my doctor recommended it where we only had two embryos left and they weren’t the best quality, so we were going to transfer them both at the same time.

I wound up having the protein, so I did a laparoscopy on January 2nd, 2024. My doctor said it was some of the worst endometriosis she’s ever seen. We transferred the last two embryos on 03/10/24, and even though I felt at peace, I didn’t feel hopeful. I started bleeding and cramping a lot (which can be a sign that it worked, but can also be a sign that it didn’t), but the morning of my blood pregnancy test, my period had started. I went it for the test regardless, because they like to be 100% sure, and it came back negative.

In the beginning of that whole process, my dad passed away, and my whole family got sick right before, during, and after the funeral. My mom and Matt got strep throat, but it didn’t present as strep throat (they didn’t even get sore throats), and because of it going untreated, Matt wound up getting scarlet fever, which led us to find out he has an allergy to amoxicillin. He had a full body rash that was incredibly itchy and painful, and it turns out the rash you get for scarlet fever looks extremely similar to the rash you get for an allergic reaction. The doctor guesses that the scarlet fever was gone within a day, but it took over a week for us to find out about and treat the allergic reaction. It was the sickest I have ever seen anyone who wasn’t on their deathbed and I was genuinely concerned I would walk into the room and find him dead. So suffice it to say, I am very glad that that’s done and over with.

Over the next 8 months, Matt and focused on moving forward and determining what the rest of our lives were going to look like. We talked to our doctor and asked her opinion on our chances of getting pregnant, even with IVF and she said that, although miracles can happen and she can never say never, in her experience, even with IVF, we had less than a 1% chance. So without IVF, our chances were basically zero. So we slowly came to terms with the fact that we probably wouldn’t have a family in this life and I got a job that I thought I could have as a career.

In November 2024, after a lot of praying and going to the temple, we determined it was time for me to get a hysterectomy and put all of this behind us. We felt at peace with the decision and finally felt like we could move forward with positivity. We scheduled it for December 17th.

PLOT TWIST!

I’M PREGNANT!

A few days after we scheduled the hysterectomy, I was eating potato chips and got super nauseous out of nowhere. My mom and brother had been sick so I was worried I was getting what they had, but then my blood pressure started randomly dropping, bad enough that I would almost pass out. That, combined with some abdominal pain (the type of which I’ve only ever gotten while pregnant), made the thought pop into my head that I should take a pregnancy test. I instantly fought against that, thinking, “I literally can’t get pregnant. I’m not pregnant, and it’s just going to be disappointing”. But I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. Eventually I gave in. I had a huge bag of pregnancy tests from doing IVF, so I snuck into the bathroom while Matt was busy (because there was no way on this planet I was going to make him stress out with me), and took a test.

It was positive. Seeing those two lines on that test was one of the most surreal moments in my life. I couldn’t believe it, and I instantly started reminding myself that false positives happen and to not get too excited yet. I walked out of the bathroom and when Matt saw me, I started getting emotional. TMI alert, but I had been having GI bleeds, so usually when I walked out of the bathroom being emotional it’s because I was having problems with that and it was stressing me out, so Matt’s response was to sigh and say, “Do we need to go to the hospital?” Eventually I choked out that I thought I was pregnant. He sat up, instantly serious and said, “Do not play with me Cannon.” I had him come and look at the test to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. There were two lines.

I took another test the next morning to make sure, and sure enough, it was positive as well! I immediately called my doctor and went in for a blood test. She called me before I even got home to tell me that, not only was it positive, but my levels were phenomenal!

(Current- Written on 07/13/25)

Everything since then has just been a whirlwind. It has been the complete opposite of everything we’ve experienced so far. It’s a baby boy and he has been doing unbelievably well! I have hyperemesis again, but not nearly as bad. I’m on steroids and zofran, as well as IV’s to keep things under control and, although water can be difficult a lot of the time, I can basically eat whatever I want with no problem. So I gained back my initial weight loss, and am now gaining the perfect amount that I should be. He’s growing like crazy. My due date is July 26th, but at my 2nd to last appointment I was dilated to 1 1/2, and my last appointment I was at a 3. My doctor says when people get to a 5 they send them to labor and delivery, so if things are still progressing like they have been, we should pack our hospital bag for our next appointment just in case. We’re ready for him to come now. Like today would be good. Haha. We are so unbelievably excited to meet him.

He is a literal miracle and not one that we ever expected to happen in this life. We have been incredibly blessed beyond anything we could ever imagine and I cannot wait to begin the next leg of our little adventure, together, as a family.

(Written on 9/14/22)

The temple was good. We did sealings and sat in the Celestial room for a while afterwords. I was so tired but it felt so right to be there. I felt so much peace. I just kept thinking about how, even though she’s not with us in this life, we are now a family of three and nothing will ever change that. She will always be ours and we will never be the same.

(Written on 9/15/22)

We went to the mortuary to place Ellen in her casket today at 2pm. Our funeral director took us to a room where she was laid on a table and let us have a moment alone. She was wrapped up in the blankets from the hospital, including the fuzzy purple one. She had the headband on still, but it had slid down, so we fixed it and held her until the funeral director came back in and we told him we were ready to place her in the casket. We took some more pictures just so we’d have them, but I don’t like them very much. She just looks very dead, which is understandable, but I think we’ll be glad we took them later. Matt placed her in her casket and then we sat and discussed the headstone and paid for everything. It was hard seeing her again, but I’m glad we were able to and that we were given some time alone with her. It’s incredibly hard to think that was the last time I’ll see her physical body again while in mortality.

Today has been very hard for me. Tomorrow will probably be worse. I’m so grateful I have Matt. I couldn’t do this without him. He is the sole reason I’m able to even function. I’m exhausted physically, which doesn’t help mentally, but every day is different, so hopefully I’ll sleep tonight and be able to handle tomorrow a little better. Even though every day has been hard, I feel like, for the most part, I’ve been handling it fairly well, but today I’ve just wanted to crawl into a corner with a blanket, shut out the world, and cry. I probably should have. It would more than likely make me feel better. I’ll try it tomorrow if I still feel the same way. Haha.

It’s just so hard to know how to feel. On one hand, I know everything is okay. Painful, maybe, but okay. On the other hand, I feel like a piece of me has been torn away, and even though I know it will be returned to me one day, I don’t know how to function without what seems to be such a vital part of me. I know I’ll never be the same and learning to go back to my life, while being a completely different person then who I was before is difficult and hard to want to. Matt makes it easier though. I love him so incredibly much and I’m grateful for every second that we get to spend together. He would have made an amazing dad. She would have loved him so much. I 100% believe that seeing them interact would have become some of my most precious memories. I hope we’ll have the opportunity to have another baby, but I will always look forward to the day that we’ll be reunited with Ellen and our family will be whole again. A lifetime seems way to long to wait, but having Matt by my side will make it easier to get through together.

(Written on 9/16/22)

Today was a good day. With how yesterday was going I was worried today was going to be too hard, but it turned out well. I thought I would have a really difficult time with her graveside service, but I feel better about everything.

We got an email on the way up from our funeral director saying the hearse had a flat tire so they were running late but would still be there by 10:45. We got up there about 10:15, I think. Our funeral director wasn’t able to be there, so they sent someone else and he was awesome. He kind of felt like part of the family. Matt’s dad conducted, my older brother said an opening prayer, and my Grandpa dedicated the grave. It was such a beautiful day. It had been rainy, but the sun came out for the service. Everything was green and so pretty. After the dedicatory prayer we asked if anyone wanted to say anything. Matt’s dad, both of our grandmothers, and both of our older brothers spoke. It was really beautiful.

Matt was able to carry her casket from the hearse to the graveside and then from the graveside to the grave. He had to hop down to place her casket in it and then we were able to fill it in. (And by we, I mean mostly Matt). My uncle, younger brother, grandpa, and the funeral director helped. I loved being somewhere so small that we were able to do everything ourselves. It made it much more special. They told us the headstone could take 8-10 weeks, so grandpa found a good rock that we were able to write her name and birth/death date on. It seemed a little silly, but it actually looked good and I’m glad it’s there to mark where she is.

(Written on 9/17/22

My older brother said some stuff at the graveside that I appreciated. I can’t really remember what he said, but it was about how he believes that when we lose someone here, we only gain more support on the other side. She’s still supporting us and is our literal angel to help lift us up. We have so much family on the other side and I believe they are aware of us and rooting for us. I may be wrong, but I believe they’re allowed to help us on occasion. We are definitely not alone, and our reunion will be that much greater for having to wait so long. I’m incredibly excited to be able to see her again and get to know her. I love her so incredibly much. Our bishop stopped by today and gave us a willow figurine that was a mom and dad holding a baby as well as a card. It was beautiful and very kind of him. He also printed off two talks and some quotes. There’s one by Joseph Smith that I love.

“The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth; therefore, if rightly considered, instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil, and we shall soon have them again.”

(Continuation of journal entry from September 21st, that was originally written on September 10th)

The next morning the mortuary called Matt and we made an appointment to go in at 3:30pm, I believe. I was holding it together until we walked up to the front door and the thought hit me that we shouldn’t have to be doing this. After that thought, I struggled to keep it together.

Our funeral director was super young (younger than us). He took us down to a room where we discussed options. We didn’t know what to expect or what decisions we’d have to make so he gave us a lot of time to decide. We chose some flowers (purple and white) and discussed options for the funeral. We decided to just have a graveside service with immediate family. We wanted to keep it simple and close. We chose her headstone and that’s all I really remember.

We’re going back on Thursday (the 15th) to take her from where they have her to place her in her coffin. We’re planning on wrapping her up in her purple blanket and there will be a teddy bear in there as well. I think we decided to have programs printed off just so we can have something with her picture on it, but we’re only having an opening prayer and the dedicatory prayer and that’s probably it. It doesn’t seem like enough, but we don’t know what else to do. We also want to put something on her headstone, but haven’t decided what. So far it’ll just have her name, and birth/death date. So we’ll figure that out.

While we were at the hospital I was thinking of where we’d want her buried and the only place I could think of that didn’t seem extremely wrong was Avon. It’s always been one of my favorite places on Earth (specifically the cemetery) and I don’t know why. It’s always felt so calm and peaceful. I wasn’t sure how Matt would feel about it, but he actually wound up bringing it up before I did and said it felt right. I honestly wasn’t even sure if it was an option, so I texted my mom to see who I should contact to find out if we could purchase a plot and she told me there were some available and she thought they were $1000. She mentioned, however, that Grandma and Grandpa had some plots they purchased for family and wanted us to have one. So she’ll be buried up in the Avon Cemetery on Friday, September 16th at 11:00 am.

The plan is to have Matt be the one to carry her from the car to the grave site and my uncle Brad will be the one in charge of digging the hole, so he’ll let us be the ones to fill it in. I’m grateful we’re able to have her buried somewhere small and quite where family is close. We’re planning on purchasing plots if we can so we can be buried with her when the time comes. Any time we have left here seems like to long to have to wait.

We talked to the Bishop on Sunday to see if there is anything we need to do in regards to the church, and he said he’d let us know. We talked for a minute and he reminded us that we’ll get to have the opportunity to raise her still, but for now she has another work to do. That helped. She’s meant to be ours, but it’s clear there is a plan for her and that she’s still with us even though she isn’t here physically.

We weren’t planning on going to church, but felt like we should, and I’m glad we did. Oddly enough, the hymns helped. The first song we sang was “I believe in Christ” and it was good to just be able to sit and listen. We’re planning on going to the temple tomorrow, and I’ll be crying the whole time, but it will be good I think. I just want to feel that peace, which, oddly enough, I felt in the hospital room. It was after the mortuary had come and my nurse was leaving us alone to get some rest. Matt had fallen asleep on the couch and the room was bright and clean and I just had such a feeling of peace. I remember looking at Matt and thinking that even though we’d never be the same, we would be okay, and even though I wish he didn’t have to go through this, I was so glad we were going through it together because I will never love someone as much as I love him and Ellen. There is no one more important to me. I want to live my life in a way that I will be able to return to my family in Heaven, because I can’t imagine even a day without them, let alone eternity. Everything I cared about before seems so ridiculous now. My perspective has definitely changed.

Anyways, I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting a lot of stuff, but I think that’s basically caught up to now (September 21, 2022). I’ll write more about the Temple and stuff after I go. Physically I’ve been doing better than I expected. I’m almost not even bleeding anymore, but my milk came in. That hurt more than I expected it to, both physically and emotionally, but I think it’s already getting better…hopefully. We’ll see how things go over the next few days.

Things got a little hazy and jumbled after we got to the hospital, so everything from here on out might not be super accurate, but it’s how I remember it.

When we got to the hospital, they hooked me up to antibiotics and magnesium. Magnesium is used to both stop contractions and to help with blood flow to the baby’s brain if it does get delivered. Before that though, they gave me a shot of steroids to help with the baby’s lungs. If they know when a baby is coming they try to do 2 doses 48 hours before it’s born so it’s most effective. I got one dose in. When they told me about the magnesium, they said it was going to make me feel awful and extremely sick (hot flashes, nausea, etc). I could tell the second it kicked in. I started feeling like I was getting a severe chest cold with a fever and any time I tried to breathe during a contraction I’d cough because I was trying to breathe deeper to help manage pain.

The hope was the magnesium would slow contractions down enough that I could make it at least a few days longer. It only worked well enough to slow it down from 3 or 4 minutes intervals to 4 or 5. So…not well. The contractions got so painful that I couldn’t even focus on anything. All I remember is the nurse telling me to take it slow and easy and breathe. She was Irish and I don’t know why, but I just wanted to tell her to keep talking to me because her accent was helping me through things. It was silly, but if it helps, it helps, right? The second I’d slow my breathing down she’d say, “Good girl” or “You’re doing great”. Either her or Matt (or both) would push on my knees to help me get through it. Matt kept asking if it even helped, and I honestly don’t know if it helped with pain, but it kept me grounded, which I think was even more important. Having that physical touch helped me not panic and kept me sane.

They thought I’d be in labor for a while so they gave me fentanyl instead of an epidural at first and said when it was time for more they’d reevaluate and see if they should do an epidural instead. They just wanted to make sure the baby wouldn’t be born with fentanyl in my system cause then it’d be in the baby’s too, and that can make it harder for it’s lungs to work.

They kept checking how dilated I was and when I first got there, my cervix was just barely opening, which is why they didn’t think I would be delivering it until the next afternoon, so my doctor actually went home. This is where the timeline gets really hazy for me, but at some point it was just me and Matt in the room and I remember waking up feeling so sick that I was just trying to breathe without throwing up. I couldn’t move or talk because it was so bad, but I wound up throwing up all over myself and the bed anyways. I just remember lying on my back when it happened and being in so much pain that it didn’t occur to me to roll to my side, so instead I was just choking and couldn’t breathe. Matt either rolled me over or told me to roll over, because at some point I was on my side. He called the nurse in and they somehow managed to change my gown and the sheets without having to get me out of the bed.

Matt says the fentanyl wore off around 3am and by 3:30 I was 1 cm dilated so they decided to do an epidural. It felt like it took forever for the anesthesiologist to get there. The time between the fentanyl wearing off and the epidural kicking in was the most painful experience of my life. I knew I’d forget just how bad it was, so I remember telling Matt that I can’t ever go through this again. Getting the epidural sucked, but I think a big part of it was that it felt like it took a while, so I had to sit up while having things shoved in my back, all while having contractions. Matt would push on my knees while the nurse put pressure on my hips. The hips actually hurt and didn’t help, but I was in so much pain I couldn’t speak to tell her.

After that, everything happened so fast it was shocking. So at 3:30 am I was 1 cm dilated, at 4:30 am I was at 4 cm. They called my doctor to let her know she needed to prepare to come in, but by 4:45 I was at 8 cm. They called the attending laborist just in case my doctor wouldn’t make it. At 5 am I was at 10 cm. They called my doctor again (later she said she never received a call when I was at 8 cm. Only at 4 cm and at 10 cm, which is why she didn’t make it in time), and called down to the attending laborist to tell him to hurry. At 5:07 am our baby was born. I remember them telling me to push and me asking, “How?” because I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down and it didn’t seem like anything I could do would make a difference. I don’t know how long it actually took, but from the time they told me to push to the time I was done felt like 30 seconds max, if that. I was able to sit up for a minute to see them pull the baby away (I got to see little legs and arms kicking) and have Matt cut the umbilical cord, but then they immediately took the baby to the NICU. I can’t remember who said it, but someone mentioned Matt was a paramedic (so he understands the situation and wouldn’t cause problems) and that they should let him go to the NICU, so he did.

My doctor got there right after Matt and the baby left. While they were gone, she started to get the placenta out. It wouldn’t come out on its own and kept breaking into pieces. I could tell she was worried about it. She wound up having to do what’s called a D&C (Dilation and Curettage). She used a long, metal rod with a hollow “O” on the end to try and pull pieces out while the nurse pushed extremely hard on my abdomen to try and break it off from where it was attached to the uterus. They wound up using an ultrasound machine to see where things were. Eventually she felt like she got it all and I was cleaned up. It was after this that she asked if it was boy or a girl and we all realized that we still didn’t know because it happened so fast no one looked. My doctor said she’d go check while the nursed finished cleaning up. I was super in and out of it so I only remember her coming back in and saying it was a girl but things didn’t look good. I didn’t even register the last part because all I could think was, “I knew it” and it just felt so right that we had a daughter.

At some point everyone left and there was some time between then and when they came back in because it was just me and a nurse in the room for a minute. She was kind and offered to find my phone for me so I could text Matt while he was in the NICU. I didn’t text him because I didn’t want to disturb him and knew it was unlikely he’d even look at his phone, but it was nice to have it. At some point I remembered that my doctor mentioned it didn’t look good, but I still felt oddly grounded. There was no fear in me, only anticipation, which, looking back, was really weird given the situation.

The next thing I remember is the door opening. The air felt different before anyone even came in. I heard the squeaking wheels of the cart and had the thought that if she were alive they wouldn’t be bringing her back here cause she would have needed intensive care, so I knew before I even saw Matt that she hadn’t made it. All those thoughts happened in less than a second before I saw Matt’s face as he walked in next to the cart that held our baby girl.

Everything felt like it was going in slow motion, yet so fast at the same time. They came and placed her in my arms and I just remember looking at her thinking this is to soon and it shouldn’t have happened yet. She was supposed to survive. It didn’t seem real. When they gave her to me she moved a little and opened her mouth, which was just leftover involuntary movement from the adrenaline, but it made it seem even more surreal. The NICU doctor came in and declared the time of death at 6:13 after listening for a heartbeat one last time. He then talked to us about what they did and what had happened and expressed his condolences. He said what we knew by then to be the case. Her lungs were just under-developed from the low amniotic fluid, so even once they got the tube in, there just wasn’t enough tissue for it to work and for her to survive. It was one of those cases that even if everything had been done perfectly, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.

The NICU team left and at some point our nurse (who was now from the day shift) came in and measured and weighed her. We named her Ellen Virginia Bateman and she was 13 inches long and weighed 2 lbs 6 oz.

They took stamps of her feet and hands for us to have. I know my doctor came back in once or twice to speak with us as well. She was having a hard time and had to not speak often. She expressed her sorrow that she couldn’t have done more and that she wished this didn’t have to happen to us. We told her we couldn’t have had a better doctor and we were so grateful for everything. After (or before, or during…I have no idea when anything happened at this point), we just held our baby daughter. She was so beautiful. Her hands were incredibly perfect and tiny and sweet, and she had arms that looked like they could win an arm wrestle. She was so soft. Her skin felt like velvet and her face was perfect. Her head was bruised so it looked like she had dark hair, but if you looked closer you could see that it was blonde. Her bottom lip was bruised as well from them trying to place the tube, but her lips were perfectly formed. She had my nose.

We took turns holding her, but I remember thinking almost every time that I held her that I just wanted Matt to hold her because when I saw him holding her, I could feel the love that we had for her so strong. When I did hold her, her weight felt so good and right in my arms that I wanted to just stay there forever. She was wrapped up in a blanket and felt warm and alive, but looking at her you knew she wasn’t. Regardless, I loved looking at her. We had a nurse and our doctor both tell us that we should take a lot of pictures because, even though we might not want them now, at some point we would. I’m so glad they told us that because it was so true. I felt like we took a lot of pictures at the time, but now I wish we could take even more.

There is a group called “Share” that’s made up of moms who have lost babies and they provide keepsake boxes. Our nurse gave us one and let us know that a member would be stopping by to talk to us and to take casts of her hands and feet if we wanted them. I don’t remember the name of the lady who came, but she was so kind. She took Ellen to get the casts done and when she brought her back in she had wrapped her up in a fuzzy purple blanket with a headband that had a purple flower on it. She also had a bracelet, a ring (that was just set there cause it was to big), and a little teddy bear. I thought it would bother me to have her dressed up, but I’m so grateful they did. We got some of the best pictures after that and I will forever view purple and white as her colors. It just fit.

We were able to hold her (minus the time she was weighed and getting casts done) from 6:10 am to about 10:30 am, which was when we had the mortuary come and take her. I feel like I could have held her forever, but at some point she started getting cold and stiff and it no longer felt right to keep her. Her spirit was no longer there and it felt like it was time. We went through Lindquist Mortuary in Ogden just because it’s the only one we really knew of and it’s only a few blocks from our house. They came, expressed their condolences, said some other stuff I don’t remember, and took her away.

The hospital gave us the option to stay basically as long as we felt like we needed to, but I was given the go-ahead to leave once my legs worked enough to go to the bathroom by myself. we stayed until 5 or 5:30, but then left so we would be able to pick up my pain meds from the pharmacy before they closed.

I’m grateful for the room we had at the hospital because when we opened the curtains it was bright and warm and felt peaceful. We didn’t really want to leave. Being home was a lot harder because there were so many things that, only the day before, I was thinking I needed to get done before we brought a baby into the house that no longer mattered. Now they were just a reminder of what we didn’t have. We had some baby stuff that my mom came and picked up just so we wouldn’t have to see it. I don’t remember exactly what we did when we got home, but we went to bed fairly early. I asked Matt if he wanted to turn on a movie so we had some noise, but I didn’t want to watch anything that was stupid or crude. I wanted something good. We wound up turning on Beauty and the Beast (the original, not the remake) and just watched through that twice. I don’t know how I slept, but I did.

It felt like time had stopped for us. It was the weirdest feeling to know that your world had ended but everyone else’s was still going. Our home became different. It felt different that night in particular, for me. It felt like Matt and I were the only people left on the planet. Ii didn’t recognize it for what it was at the time, but even with the sorrow and intense grief, there was an underlying feeling of unity and peace in our home. We would get through this together and come out all the better for it, despite it not seeming so at the time.

(Written on September 10th, 2022)

I was supposed to be checking into the hospital today around 4 pm to start my planned 10 week stay. Everything was looking so good (minus the leaking amniotic fluid). The baby was moving and kicking, and on Monday, September 5th, it was actually measuring a day ahead. So we weren’t having problems with growth. We still didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl. Because of the lack of fluid, the ultrasounds were getting more and more difficult to see. The baby was always curled up so there was no way to tell.

This whole experience, from start to finish, we’ve always felt like things would work out how they were supposed to, so even though so many things were going wrong, it all felt okay. Starting about a month ago though, one thought kept popping into my head that I thought was just my usual way of “hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst” but now I think it was God’s way of preparing me for what was to come. That thought was, “Things will turn out how they’re supposed to, but your version and God’s version of what’s supposed to happen might be two completely different things, and it doesn’t mean things will turn out well.” I still felt like everything would turn out positive though.

I had made a list of all the things I wanted to take to the hospital with me, and had gotten some craft stuff together to do when I would be bored out of my mind (knitting, embroidery stuff, clay, etc), but hadn’t officially packed anything. For some reason, I kept feeling like it wasn’t really a big deal to prepare for it. I was planning on deep cleaning the house on Thursday when Matt was at work and then packing everything on Friday. He works at a Fire Station now (he literally just started and this would have been his 2nd shift), and he does 48 hour shifts. So he would be gone from 8am Thursday to 8am Saturday. I kept thinking I should go stay at my moms just in case something happened, but I didn’t want to spend my last 2 days out of the hospital there. I wanted to be home, but I kept getting a weird feeling that something was going to happen.

Wednesday night (September 7th), around 10 pm, I started feeling like I was having gas or constipation really bad but nothing was happening. I just kept going into the bathroom because I felt like if I could use it, it would make me feel better. I started noticing that my pain would come and go rather than stick around, which happens sometimes when I would get my really bad stomach aches, so I didn’t really consider that they could be contractions. Especially because I started timing them and sometimes I would go 3 minutes without pain, and other times 15 minutes. I was under the impression that contractions would happen at regular intervals and get closer and closer together. Matt kept asking if we needed to go to the hospital and I kept coming up with excuses because I didn’t think they were contractions. Now I know I was just in denial and scared that they could be.

Around 10:30 the pain had gotten so much worse that I started getting worried. Even though I knew exactly what they would tell me (which is that they couldn’t really tell me anything), I called labor and delivery and said that I felt like it was just gas, but I wasn’t sure, but didn’t want to come in if they would just send me home. They said what I thought they’d say and told me it was up to me if I felt like I needed to go in. I remember really not wanting to, so I said a prayer and just asked that if I needed to go to the hospital to please let me bleed, because for some reason, in my brain, that was what would indicate that it was really labor and not something else. The next time I went into the bathroom, there was blood. I walked straight out, told Matt, “We need to go. I’m bleeding. I think I’m really in labor.” So we got dressed, he grabbed a phone charger, and we headed in. I felt numb and disconnected. It didn’t seem like it was actually happening to me. I tracked my contractions the whole way to the hospital just to keep my mind busy. The pain was getting really bad but I think I was still in partial denial about all of it. It wasn’t supposed to be happening yet.

Around week sixteen we started noticing that my amniotic fluid levels were low and they proceeded to get lower after every appointment. My doctor had me go see a perinatologist (high-risk pregnancy doctor) and he informed us that if you ruled everything else out, I had to be leaking fluid. We hadn’t been able to prove this yet because it was still to early for the fluid to show up on a test, but it was really the only explanation. He let us know that this could cause physical deformities like club feet, but that all of that could be fixed with physical therapy. The real concern was that the lack of fluid could cause the baby’s lungs to not develop properly, which isn’t detectable on an ultrasound, so there was no way to know if it was an issue until the baby was born. He recommended that I discuss it with my doctor, but felt that I should be checking into the hospital for monitoring. The next time we had an appointment with my doctor we went over what the perinatologist said. It was decided that I would check into the hospital at my 26 week mark, which would have been Saturday, September 10th. She told me if anything happened sooner I was supposed to go straight to labor and delivery, but otherwise they’d monitor me once I was there. They planned on having me deliver at 36 weeks (November 19th) unless it came on it’s own before then. This post catches us up to when I started this blog as a way to stay entertained during the 10 week hospital stay. The next post will be what happened from there.

The pregnancy test came back positive, so IVF worked. I continued going to the fertility center about once a week for ultrasounds and blood work until I transferred over to my O.B. at week 9. We found out that the embryo split and we actually had twins up until week 5, when one of them stopped developing and eventually got reabsorbed. Around week 7 or 8 I got a hemorrhage that we had to keep an eye on. Luckily it was small and went away without causing any issues.

Normally when you transfer over to your O.B. you only have appointments once every four weeks until you’re further along, but because I was high risk she wanted to see me every two, which I appreciated. Everything was going so well with the baby, but I got hit with hyperemesis gravidarium so I was insanely sick 24/7.

The day I realized it was a bigger problem than I could handle, I was at work with a massive headache and I started getting dizzy. I hadn’t been able to eat breakfast that morning and I decided that I needed to at least make sure I was staying hydrated. I went to get a drink of water and the second I took a swallow, I immediately threw it up and somehow knew I had crossed over into new territory.

Up until that point I was managing to eat at least one thing a day and I could drink anything I wanted. But from that point on, my stomach rebelled at literally anything that I ate or drank. “Helpful” people always told me, “just eat toast or saltines”. I love you, but oh, my goodness, I have never had such a hard time not snapping at people. My whole world had turned into finding food I could eat. If I could have stomached something as simple and easy as that, I would have. It became a living nightmare for me. Food is my love language but I was now in a situation where I was spending every waking second thinking about it. It was exhausting.

From the moment I woke up, I would start thinking about any and all foods. Most of the time, just the thought of something would make me sick, so I knew I couldn’t eat it. Rare times I found something that didn’t instantly make me want to throw up, I would rush to cook or prepare it as fast as possible, but usually by the time I was done (whether it was two minutes or 2 hours), I couldn’t eat it anymore because the smell of the food while it was being prepared ruined it. Despite not really having the budget for it, eating out became one of the few ways I could get food down. We could go through the drive-through and either park somewhere and eat it in the car, or keep the bag closed and roll the windows down so I could make it home without smelling it. Either way, I could usually only get about three or four bites into something before I couldn’t eat it anymore, but that was more than normal. It was a really good day if I managed to get more than 200 calories for the whole day. It was depressing and I have never cried so much over something as seemingly silly as food in my life.

Because of all of this, I wound up losing 15 pounds in a two week period, at which point my doctor decided we had crossed into dangerous territory and something needed to be done. Her solution was a PICC line (peripherally inserted central catheter). It’s a catheter that’s placed into a vein in your upper arm that goes almost all the way to your heart. It stays in your arm until you don’t need it anymore and made it so I didn’t have to get poked with needles for IVs every single day. Because of the PICC line I was able to do two IV bags of fluid every day with some anti-nausea medication. That way, at the very least, I could stay hydrated. It did help me be able to eat a little more (though not much), but that’s where any good from it stopped.

Turns out, I’m allergic to adhesive. Ya know…the stuff band-aids and band-aid-like things have on them? Yep. At first I just thought my skin was itchy under the dressing because I wasn’t used to having something covering my skin 24/7, that only got removed once a week, for about 2-4 minutes, when the home health nurse would come and change the bandage. They always said the worst part was changing the bandage cause it hurt like the dickens, but I started looking forward to it because the pain was so much better than the incessant itching.

I felt like there had to be something wrong but the nurse said it was probably for the reason I originally thought. My skin just wasn’t used to having a bandage on it for such a long time. This went on for over a month, with the itching (and eventually pain) getting worse on a daily basis. Thankfully, we wound up switching home health companies for other reasons, and when I practically begged the new nurse to tell me ANYTHING that could help, her response was something along the lines of, “that’s not normal”, and when she took the bandage off, she told me it looked like I had an allergy. She was blown away that the previous home health nurse kept putting a bandage on the same way every time with how bad my skin had gotten. It looked like a had a bad burn. It was red and blistered, with open sores. It was disgusting and it hurt. Every time they’d take the bandage off, it would rip off a layer of skin and open the blisters and sores, but because of the PICC line, they couldn’t leave the site uncovered for very long, so a bandage was always immediately placed on top of the open wounds because there was no where else to place it. AKA, they never healed. We weren’t sure at first what was causing the allergy, so I had to go through a few weeks of testing. The first week we didn’t use the typical stuff they used to clean the site, only alcohol (which, shockingly enough, actually hurt less than the other stuff they used). It helped a little bit, but not enough, so the next week we did something else (I don’t remember what), but by the third week we decided it had to be the actual bandage.

Keep in mind, at this point, I was more close the crazy than I had ever been in my life. I had gotten to the point that the itching and the pain was all-consuming. I had to be very careful to keep the bandage sealed to my arm so air didn’t get into the site (with it being a literal direct line to my heart, they take that stuff seriously), but it got so bad that I would scratch it in my sleep. I sound like a crazy person, but I started pinching my arm hard enough to cause bruises because that would cause a temporary relief (like…5 seconds), but it wouldn’t pull the bandage off like scratching would. Those 5 seconds were heaven.

We switched the type of bandage and slowly my arm started to improve. It never fully healed, but it got the point where I could function like a normal human being again, which was a relief. With one very big future exception, I can easily say the whole PICC line and hyperemesis gravidarum experience was by far the worst part of my pregnancy. But the crazy part?

I would do it again.

We started IVF stuff in November (I think) of 2021. I had to take 3 shots a day, plus a crap ton of vitamins. It’s basically as awful as everyone says it is, but I feel like most people say that because of the shots. For me, the hormone fluctuations were by far the worst part of everything.

We went in for the egg retrieval and they were able to get 9 eggs, which were then taken to the lab to be fertilized. I wound up getting really sick (Fever, chills, etc), so we were worried I had an infection. It lasted about a week, at which point they called me to let me know that out of the 9 eggs, 3 were where they needed to be developmental-wise after being fertilized, with a 4th one almost there. They said they’d give the 4th one another day to catch up, and it did, so we wound up with four embryos! They froze them and I had about a month to relax before starting the transfer cycle.

The transfer cycle was going to involve more shots/meds, but they wouldn’t start until about 5 days before the transfer. I went in a lot for ultrasounds and blood work to check my hormone levels. My body decided not to cooperate and nothing they did helped. My lining was too thin and my hormone levels were too bad to go ahead with the transfer, so it got cancelled. My doctor said that occasionally (but rarely) some people’s bodies don’t respond well to a medicated cycle, so this next go around she wanted to try a natural cycle with hormone support. It meant I didn’t have to take shots, which was a blessing because these ones were ones that would HURT, but it also meant there would be a ton of guesswork because we had to monitor everything and wait for my body to be ready rather than telling it when to be ready.

It wound up working out and we had the transfer on Tuesday (March 29th, 2022)! Now we just have to wait. We go in on April 8th to do a blood pregnancy test to see if it stuck and the wait is killing me. I’m supposed to take it easy until then to give myself the best chance of it implanting, but it’s so hard! I hate not being able to be physically active to take my mind off things, yet at the same time, I’m paranoid that if I do anything besides sit around I’ll make it not work. I wasn’t going to let myself get excited until I was far enough along the baby would make it, but on the way to the transfer neither of us could help it and I decided that if we lost it, it would be horrible either way, so we might as well enjoy it while we can. Now I’m not sure. I just hate not knowing! It’s been stressful the whole time, but this is by far the most stressful part to-date. I keep wanting to do things like make a baby blanket or paint the “nursery” but then I remember that if we have a miscarriage I’m not going to want that reminder, so I don’t. With how everything worked out, I firmly believe that whatever is supposed to happen will, but it doesn’t make it less hard.

I’ve been cramping since the transfer, which could be a good sign, or it could just be because I’m taking progesterone, but I’ve decided that anytime I get sick to my stomach or have cramps, or really anything else, if it means I’m pregnant, I’m more than happy to deal with it. I will gladly be sick for 9 months if the outcome is a baby. Even if it doesn’t work out, I’m grateful for the experience. It’s helped me appreciate all Matt does for me and the amazing person he is. I’m glad that I have him and I’m so grateful that out of all the people on this planet, we were put in each others way. He is the most amazing person and whether we wind up having kids of our own or not, I’m lucky for everyday that I get to spend with him.

Turns out I’m a very private person, and the idea of writing down my private thoughts where anyone can read them was more daunting than I realized, so I just never asked Matt if he was okay with it. I then promptly forgot all about it, but lately I’ve been feeling the need to officially start it up again. So here goes nothing. I have the tendency to write things down and then forgot about them, so most of the following will just be copied from my journal. Also, just a warning, I’m realizing I don’t care about proper paragraphs or run-on sentences…so my apologies in advance. Haha.

Written sometime between March 30th and April 7th 2022:

I’m bad at numbers, but Matt and I tried to get pregnant for a combined total of around 2 years, maybe longer. I have endometriosis, so I always knew I’d probably have a hard time. The last time we tried, I had surgery for the endo just to clear everything out and give us a better chance. My doctor said that normally after surgery she recommends trying for 6 months before going to a fertility specialist, but with us she said don’t wait longer than 3. Because of how many surgeries I’ve had, my ovaries are about 1/3 the size they should be and I have massive amounts of scar tissue. She was worried that if my endometriosis grew back and I needed more surgery that it could ruin my ovaries to the point I could never have kids. So after 3 months with no luck we went to the Utah Fertility Center to look into IUI (Intrauterine insemination) or IVF (In-vitro Fertilization). I knew it would be expensive, but I kept getting the feeling it was what we were supposed to do.

We met with Doctor Gurtcheff and she said she typically recommends IUI first and trying that for 2 to 3 months and then if that doesn’t work, going to IVF. IUI would cost about $3,000 a try and IVF would be about $10,000-12,000. IUI puts your chances of getting pregnant around 25%, which is the normal rate for non-fertility impaired people. IVF, I think, put it up to somewhere in the 60% range. Even though we had no way to pay for it, we both kept getting the feeling we should just go straight into IVF. We prayed about it and went to the temple and I just kept getting the feeling that it would work out. Anytime I prayed to ask how we would afford it, I essentially got “Don’t worry about it” as an answer. So we didn’t. We just moved forward hoping that we would somehow come up with $12,000.

Everyone I worked with at 2 Chicks and a Toolbelt knew what was going on and my bosses (Michelle and Mina) did what they could to get me as many hours as possible. I use to work as a handyman and have some limited experience laying tile, so Michelle hired me to re-tile her bathroom. I was extremely grateful for her and her willingness to let someone not very experienced come and do something like that in her own house. The last day I was supposed to be going to her house, she asked if I could come around 5pm and if I could make sure Matt was there too. I asked her why and she said, “don’t worry about it”. I pestered her for a bit but she wouldn’t tell me, so finally I told her that Matt would be working and if he didn’t know why he need to be there he couldn’t just leave work. She told me that there were some people who wanted to thank him for his service and that it was very important to them that Matt was there. Naturally this was all very sketchy and I said there was no way Matt would be comfortable with it. Long story short(er), I convinced Matt to show up. I knew Michelle wouldn’t ask him to come to something that would put him in danger, but even I couldn’t figure out what on Earth was going on. As we were waiting for Matt to show up, my coworker Megan and her husband McCade arrived, then Kevin (their business consultant), then Mina. So by now I knew there was something else going on. Matt finally arrived and I went outside to get him. He was not happy about not knowing what it was all for and almost turned around and left, but I convinced him to stay just to find out what was going on

When we walked into the house, everyone was sitting in Michelle’s living room being super quiet. It felt weird. You could tell everyone was waiting for something and Matt and I were the only ones who didn’t know what it was. A few seconds later, two more people showed up and Michelle introduced them as Brandi and Brandon Wood. Mina then explained they wanted to meet us, then decided it would be easier to let them explain why. They told us that they had struggled with infertility and that they had gone through multiple round of IVF and knew how stressful and expensive it was. Because of this, they started a foundation to help people pay for IVF or adoption. Each couple would be given up to $20,000 just based on what was needed. They only work through word of mouth and try to help people who are “deserving”. When they find a couple, they essentially interview people who know them to find out if they’re decent. They found out about us because Mina and Michelle were talking to Kevin about ways they could help us financially and Kevin told them they should talk to Brandi, who happened to work out at the same gym as Mina. When they asked about us and found out that Matt worked for the county, they went to Matt’s old Sergeant because they had bought his old house, which we had helped him move out of. Such a small world. Because we had helped him move, it had given him the opportunity to get to know a little about me and I guess he told them nothing but amazing things about both of us. All the people they talked to had nothing bad to say (bless all of you for that), so they decided to help. It was one of those moments where you know that nothing is an accident. If we hadn’t moved into our house, I would have never driven past 2 Chicks on my way to my other job that I needed to quit. I would have never gotten the very strong thought that I needed to work there, and I would have never met Mina, who met Brandi. None of this would have happened.

When they say IVF would cost $10,000-$12,000 they don’t tell you medication and the transfer cycle fee isn’t included in that price. Between us and the foundation (who couldn’t cover medications), we paid well over $20,000 (My guess based on bills is about $26,000, $14,000 of which was covered by the foundation) for 1 try. It’s been insane and we would have never been able to do it without the Woods. They are incredible people with such good hearts. Regardless of how things turn out, I will be forever grateful to them for giving us the opportunity to at least try.

Little did I know when writing that first post how true the words “What you have planned for your life might not be what’s actually in store for you” were. And, oh boy, how the title of my blog and meaning behind it are more fitting than I could ever imagine. This blog, which was intended to be a way to write about my miracle baby and all we went through to start a family, has now changed into a way to talk about the miracle of grief (sounds a bit ridiculous, I know, but bear with me) and how I have been irrevocably changed for the better by experiencing the worst thing life could throw at me.

I don’t know why, but I feel like it’s important to share my experience even if it doesn’t reach anyone. I’ll start posting little by little once Matt gives me the go-ahead. Unfortunately I’m not the only one affected (it’s not something I would wish on anyone), and I won’t share anything until he’s comfortable with it.

This whole experience from start to finish has been one miracle after another and we’ve been taught some very valuable and VERY hard lessons. I never thought that one nightmarish instance could so completely change me as a person, let alone for the better, but I will be grateful every day of my life for the lessons learned, both the hard and the incredibly beautiful.