Sunday, July 13, 2014

Turning a Negative into a Positive: Our Unknown Path to Parenthood






Many of you already know all about our love story. {If not CLICK HERE}
What most of you don't know is the ongoing story of our struggles. Trials are always a little harder to share than the lighthearted fairytales, which is why we haven't shared this story with many. 

This September marks our 5th wedding anniversary. Our desire to grow our eternal family soon followed our sealing in the St. George temple that beautiful September day of 2009. Neither of us could have expected what was in store with the battle of infertility.

Those who haven't experienced this battle, can't fully understand the sorrow it can bring. You begin to wonder why God doesn't trust you with one of his children or why so many children are born into broken homes when you could provide a loving, Christ-centered home. Your faith can definitely be tested and your testimony strengthened. 

Our journey has come to a crossroads of waiting vs. action. We've been waiting and taking actions only to be steered in a new direction. Doctors visits, tests, medications, counting days on a calendar over and over until before you know it ... four full years have passed with few answers. Luckily after the first two years people kind of recognize this sensitive subject and no longer ask when we're having a baby. 

For the past few months we've been praying and researching the path of adoption. We saw what a difference we made in our amazing dog's life by providing him a home. Why not provide that same type of love and care to a child? Days after our intake interview with LDS Family Services, it was made known that they would be discontinuing their adoption services. This really put us in shock because we felt we had finally made a decision just so see that happen days after. Although there are still options available for adoption, it has complicated this route for us.

We have been really blessed to have this trial strengthen our marriage in ways we did not think possible. On the day we were married I didn't think I could love someone so much ... but now I wonder what the heck I was thinking love even was! 

So here we are now at two unknown roads.
Road #1: Do we continue to visit the fertility specialist, paying for test after test that may or may not provide the answers we desperately seek?
Road #2: Do we continue our search for the baby we felt so strongly was out there waiting for us to adopt?

Although we still have a long road ahead of us no matter the path we take, we know that the spirit is leading us and eventually we will have the overwhelming joy of parenthood. As for now, we will continue moving forward with faith, focusing on bettering ourselves through serving others.

We felt strongly about sharing our story at this time. Perhaps it is meant for someone specific who is going through a struggle of their own to help them know they are not alone or perhaps by some chance someone reading this post knows someone who knows someone that is looking for the right couple for their baby.

This is our journey.
-Jeff & Bobbie


Friday, July 4, 2014

Happy 4th of July {2014}


Happy 4th of July!
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We are super duper bad at updating the blog! For those of you disappointed readers, so sorry.
We want to try to be better because we love looking back at back posts and photos.
Can you believe it will be 5 YEARS this September?
We have had a lot of adventures together so far and are excited that life is finally calming down a little bit for us. 
Right now we are living in Northern Utah. I can't tell you HOW AWESOME it is to not live a summer in the desert. This is now our fourth season up here and we are satisfied 4 of 4! I really told Jeff this week that if I ever had to leave Utah the only place I would ever willingly go would be somewhere cold with lots of nature. So pretty much, we love it here and hope to never leave!
Jeff's job is going great for now! He has been there for six months already and loves the people he works with. He has so much fun some days that I wonder if those guys just play around all day. But he's always a top performer so, he must be doing something right.
My job is going great too! It's also like Jeff's job, where you really don't even feel like you're working because you enjoy it so much. So we are definitely blessed!
Even Jake is doing good right now ...
We just celebrated his 3rd birthday! He got shots, a hair cut and a whole lot of love & treats. People think we are crazy because of how much we love our "dog", but seriously sometimes we can't even believe he isn't a little boy. (I know that sounds weird, but we just love him SO MUCH!)
He was clearly off his game a little bit today for our family picture, he's usually super photogenic.
We have really been working on some big changes like buying a house and trying to find out how to get our family a little bigger. Both stressful and time consuming but we are really happy with where we're at for now. Definitely on our own page in life, but we are learning so much together. 
I guess that's it for now!