The best place to start a story is at the beginning so that's where I'll start!
My name is Sarah and my husband Brad and I grew up in the midwest before marrying young and moving to the east coast. After twelve years of marriage we've had good times and bad times and everything in between and I can't even tell you how much I love that man. We've taken our turns giving 50/50 and sometimes giving 100/0 or 0/100 and just about every number combination in there. I know that I'd be a giant mess without him.
In 2005 we decided it was time to have a baby and we tried the way most people do. Soon I was taking my temperature and after a year I was diagnosed with hashimoto's thyroiditis (a form of hypothyroid) and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). After two very unsuccessful attempts at IVF (around the time this blog was created) our doctor informed us that we'd never get pregnant with our own eggs and we decided that we'd pursue adoption.
I am greatly amazed at how much my life has changed in an instant. There have been several instants in my life when one moment my life was chugging along as usual and the next moment something completely unexpected knocked me upside the head and my whole life changed. This started a series of those sorts of moments during the next few years. A short time later our lives were turned upside down. After waiting only a short time and on a day when I was feeling particularly down about never having a child we got the call. Not only were we matched but she was HERE in this world and we needed to come right away. In an instant we became parents and the best gift in the world was bestowed on us. I'm still blown away by that night. The results are sitting in front of me right now playing Hi Ho Cherry-O and I can't believe how blessed we are that her birthmom trusted us.
Life became about parenting. I quit my job as a teacher and we bought a house. When miss L was around 15 months old we decided that maybe it was time to grow our family once again. We felt a calling to try IVF just one more time and we switched clinics and gave it a shot. The results were wonderful. I got pregnant! The pregnancy didn't last, but it was a step in the right direction for sure. We had lots of embryos left from the procedure and in the end we decided that we'd give the frozen transfer a shot. It worked and we became pregnant with twin boys.
In late September of 2009 at our 19 week ultrasound we learned some devastating news. Baby "A" (who would become baby Ben) had Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). This is part of a family of defects that has ravaged my family. My sister suffered from coarctation of the aorta, a related defect, and my cousin Logan has received a heart transplant as a result from his battle with HLHS.
In early February of 2010 after months of bedrest the world greeted two wriggly boys. As sweet baby W and I recovered, poor baby Ben was just getting started. After enduring two surgeries, countless procedures and even more interventions our sweet boy lost his battle with HLHS and went to live with our Creator. Once again, in a flash, everything changed.
Miss L settled in to being the best big sister there is and we adjusted to life not only with another baby in the house, but with the loss of yet another. Miss L started her first year of preschool. We discovered that miss L has Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) a neurological condition that causes miss L to process input from her senses differently than most of us. Sweet baby W turned one and learned to walk and then two and learned to run. Life has continued with ups and downs as it always does and we constantly feel extremely blessed to have our family.
...and in another instant our lives changed again. In February of 2011 we discovered something grand and unexpected. We discovered that I was pregnant again and that we'd be having our fourth child in October 2011 and sweet little man came with a full head of hair while the nurses said, "Look at those cheeks!" He's full of nothing but surprises and was diagnosed with Bicuspid Aortic Valve, a related defect to Ben's though much MUCH less severe.
That's the story of our little family and will hopefully provide a little context to my stories here.
