Our Family

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

RHONAN'S BIRTH STORY- Part II (His AMAZING BIRTH)

On Friday September 25th, 2015 around 9:30am I got a call from the hospital telling me they had an opening in L&D and to come in and deliver my miracle. I couldn't believe it..... it was TIME!! I hopped in the shower, gathered all my bags, and headed to the hospital with Brett, Mom, & Jamison.

When we arrived, I checked in and got hooked up to the baby monitor. I loved hearing his strong heartbeat. My AMAZING midwife Jody came to visit me and told me the plan. She checked me and I was at a 2, 80% effaced. So I waited, and waited, and waited, and WAITED.

Nothing. 24 hours later and still nothing. Finally 26 hours my midwife broke my water and the contractions started coming. I begged for an immediate epidural and luckily Brett was able to give it to me.

Soon after that he was born.

Some tender moments:

Monday, October 12, 2015

Rhonan's Birth Story- Part 1 (The Week Before)

He is here!!! Rhonan came into the world on September 26, 2015 at 12:50 pm. He weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long.

At my 36 week appointment, it was discovered that I had preeclampsia. Basically that means that I had really high blood pressure and it can be fatal to the baby and I. The only solution would be to be induced 3 weeks early at 37 weeks. 37 weeks is still considered by some to be "full term" but I was struggling with the fact that my baby was going to be evicted from my body early. The next couple of days I was a mess. I thought I had a month left to prepare for his arrival and now I only had a WEEK to have things in order. Because of the preeclampsia, I was super tired, constantly out of breath, and super swollen so I couldn't do much of anything. My emotions were getting the best of me. As I realized this pregnancy.... the pregnancy I had longed for for so long.... was coming to an end I was mourning it being over. I cried a lot. I hugged my belly and stared at it for a long time in the mirror. For some women, they probably can not wait for their pregnancy to be over. But for someone like me, who doesn't know if I will ever have the chance to feel a baby kick inside me again, I grieved. I didn't want to be sad. I was crying over something I couldn't change and knew it. Then a quote by Thomas S. Monson came to me..... "I may not be able to direct the wind, but I can adjust the sails". These were his last few days inside of me and I wanted these days to be awesome. I wanted him to come out knowing his Mommy is a happy Mommy. I wanted him to feel joy and excitement! I wanted to capture all the goodness and cherish it forever. To do that, over the next few days, we took lots of pictures with the bump that we had all grown to love. We have all loved feeling his kicks and hiccups. Brett and I also recorded a few videos for little Rhonan to see when he is bigger. I am a blubbery mess in this video but that's okay.

I am so glad that we took these pictures.

I also recorded this little video update as well :-)

Even though we were sad to have this pregnancy come to an end, we were still SO excited to meet little baby RHONAN. My mother was able to change her flight and come earlier so things were working out awesomely despite the circumstances.

Part II coming soon!

Thursday, August 20, 2015

MATERNITY PHOTOS Part 1

My AMAZINGLY talented BFF Jammie Elkins took the absolutely WONDERFUL pictures for me on my recent visit to Utah. Brett and the boys were out of town at the time so these are just of Momma and Baby Rhonan. Part 2 will have some of Brett, the Kids, and I taken by my very talented friend Katie here in NY :-) Thank you so much Jammie!! I LOVE these treasures so SO MUCH!! MUAH

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

What One Prayer Can Do

WOW! We are so blown away by ALL of the love and support we have received since sharing our news. Thank you all SOOOO much!! We have been asked tons of questions from "Was this an embryo adoption?" to "Was this planned with medical intervention?" to "How did we find out?" We will gladly answer any questions but first we want to share something with you that happened 1 week before we found out we had a baby baking :-)
Every Monday night, we have family night. We start our family night with singing a fun song and having a prayer. Then we'll have some kind of life lesson on kindness, sharing, courage, or something along those lines. Then we do some kind of fun activity like play a game, make a craft, do service, have a dance party, or go do something fun somewhere. We all make dessert and eat it afterwards. We end family night with singing another song and a prayer. This is our routine every Monday night and the kids LOVE it!

On February 2 we started family night just like any other family night. Brett was in charge of the lesson this time and he chose to share a true story with the boys about another boy named Nephi that lived a long time ago. One day he was hunting with a steel bow and arrow in the wilderness and suddenly his bow broke. His family was starving and this bow was the only tool they had left that could help them hunt for food. His brothers were so upset with him because they were dependent on him with his sharp hunting skills to save them and the rest of the family from starvation. They were in desperate need of a miracle and some help. Being stranded in the wilderness, alone, didn't give them anywhere to turn. This boy had a choice to make. He could either be sorrowful and murmur against God as his family was or do something about it. He did not murmur as his family did. He didn't just sit there and wait for a new bow to appear out of nowhere. Instead he faithfully went to work on and search for something he could use that would be strong enough to make a new bow. He was patient and listened for guidance. Finally he succeeded and found a rare nabwood that was strong enough to make a new bow. From there he was prayerfully led to a top of a mountain where he was able to hunt a large animal to feed his entire family. I'm sure it took a lot of energy from this boy to climb this mountain in his fatigued state, but he persevered and did it anyway. Afterwords everyone in his family humbled themselves and gave thanks to God for what had just happened.
So why did we share this story with them??? There are a few lessons to be learned here.

1) When times get rough... keep the faith.
2) Be patient and listen.
3) Have a willing heart.
4) Be grateful for the good and the bad.

A few days from then, we were going to be meeting with our adoption attorney. We had been feeling like our new baby was "SO CLOSE" but we just didn't know how to find "him/her". We had lots of hope that meeting with our attorney would give us more leads and guidance on our journey to grow our family. So this night we did as this boy in the story did and checked in to see if we were doing all that we could do on our end. It had been a very long and rough road this time on our journey to grow our family and we were feeling tired. Had we given it our all? Were we starting to murmur or were we hanging on to the faith? So as a family we decided we were going to work on our faith side. Just like the boy in the story, we wanted to show God that we were willing to do the work. We decided to set some family goals. The boys were going to work on sharing more and being more kind to each other. I (Candace) was going to work on having more patience and Brett was going to work on managing his time more wisely. In addition we were going to be more faithful in saying our prayers and showing gratitude for the things we have been given. We finished family night and it was time for bed.

That night after we tucked the boys in bed, little did we know that Sawyer had his own question for God. We weren't there, and we didn't hear it, but he decided to crawl out of bed and say a very humble little prayer.

A week later it was family night again and earlier that day, I found out I was pregnant. We sat down with the boys and told them that Mommy had a baby in her tummy. Sawyer very sweetly looked at me and said "Mommy, I already know." Puzzled I looked at him and said "Really? How did you know?" He replied, "Mommy, I said a prayer that your tummy wouldn't be broken anymore. That's how I know." I just started watering in the eyes. What faith that little 5 year old must have had to get out of bed on that cold night and say such a sweet prayer for his Momma.

I later asked him why he prayed for my tummy to be fixed instead of praying for another baby to adopt. He said he didn't know... he just wanted to. I was very surprised when he said that. We gave up the idea of ever having biological children a long time ago and praying for a pregnancy was not something that we have prayed for in YEARS. Once we adopted our boys, we knew that it was never about biology for us. It wasn't DNA that I craved, it was pregnancy. That may sound strange to crave stretch marks and vomiting but it was something that I ached for. After our boys came, that ache faded and was replaced with so much gratitude than I ever thought possible. I became grateful for the infertility because without it, I wouldn't have ever had my boys. Getting there didn't happen over night... I just had to get to a place where I had to "let go" of what I thought I wanted and trust that God knew better. That came with a lot of peace and relief.

Over the months we have felt SO much love and felt so many prayers from others. We have had many people fast and pray for us on our behalf and we are so thankful for each and every one of you. There is no doubt in our minds that God listened to every petition on our behalf from you. Thank you so so so so incredibly much. From the bottom of our hearts.... We love you!
Love,
Brett, Candace, Sawyer, Jamison, and Baby