A few weeks ago a coworker commented to me on my “perfect life,” especially giving me grief on my mushy anniversary post on social media. Not that I owe this to anyone, but man, I feel like I’m a fairly open book, and I often admit that my life is not perfect. That being said, I LOVE my life, my family and those in my circle. I do believe that I have the best husband out there, and I feel spoiled and lucky every day. And some days, I feel like it’s wrong of me to admit that. Like it’s bad to admit how happy I am. How lucky I am. How BLESSED I am. I am not sure if I ever have been this happy. But you better believe, our life is far from perfect. In fact, we have been fighting some big monsters once again.

We have definitely been quiet about our fertility struggles this past year. I can’t explain why, it just seems harder to share this time around. I guess I feel a little guilty, whenever I am sad, because I don’t want to miss out on the joy we are also experiencing with Brigham. Our first journey was long and grueling, but my blogging helped a ton! We started feeling better once we were out there and open. Even on our rough days. We had an army of support and could feel the prayers from miles away. When I look back to those dark days, it’s the people that kept us going. Well, and obviously our love and support for each other. That was the biggest part. But having you all on our side; that was fantastic. I always wanted to inspire people, and I truly felt like I was making a difference in the world by sharing our pain. So here we go. Again.

When it comes to trying for baby #2, it’s been rough and we have been faced with more challenges than we expected. I really thought our fertility days were behind us. When we were matched with Amy, we all agreed, as long as things go well, we four would do a sibling project for baby #2. So, when Amy was pregnant with Brigham, I continued to do more rounds of IVF, and we stopped once we had three frozen, chromosomally normal babies. We had one girl, and two boys, and we just knew at least one would become our child on Earth. We were wrong. One by one we transferred to sweet Angel Amy, and one by one we failed. Those sweet babies weren’t meant to make it here, but we know they are safe in Heaven, and we are keeping Grandpa Gary’s lap very full. One day we will meet those sweet babes, along with the other ones we have lost, but not on this side of life. They were just too perfect for this world.

Our last fail was in December, and we got the news on Dave’s birthday, the day before Christmas. This year on Christmas Eve my tears were filled with great emotion, both happy and sad. On one hand, I was devastated that we didn’t have success. On the greater hand, I had the most beautiful child, MY child, on my lap, seeing Christmas and all of his firsts. It’s just what we always wanted, to share the beauty of Christmas with our child, and that’s exactly what we were doing. He took all of it in, as he does every day. The candles sparkling during silent night, and the bright look in his eyes, reminded me that it really is well with my soul. I wiped the sad tears away, and let the happy ones continue to flow. It IS well with my soul. We’ve done this before, and we I’ll do it again. And back into God is where we will put our trust.

So, while I will admit, I feel like the second struggle doesn’t “hurt” as deeply, it still hurts. I did promise myself at the beginning of this, that I would not let this affect our happiness or steal any joy from our hearts or away from Brigham. That was our main goal. And, while we have stuck to that goal pretty well, the challenges are still painful. And I sure have had my rough days. We want our fertility days to be over, but we also want to add to our family, so we will continue.

We could not be happier with watching Brigham grow, and we love being a family of three! But our hearts long for one more to add to this family. We want Brigham to have a sibling, and we feel like our family would be complete. It is really hard for me to write this, on THIS side (as a Mom to a two year old) of things. I worry that people will think, “how can she not feel complete, she got everything she wanted.” “Can’t she just be happy and move on.”  I wont lie, the guilt of wanting more is immense. BUT the joy is so good, we want to add even more. And if you don’t understand where I’m coming from, that is okay, too.

I just wrapped up my second IVF cycle of 2019, and will start another one in a few weeks. We do have embryos frozen, but would like to create more. We recently found out that sweet Amy has a medical diagnoses of Adenomyosis, something none of us were familiar with until last week. Adenomyosis can cause issues with implantation in the uterus. This may or may not be the reason for the three fails, so we have all agreed that we would take the advice from three Reproductive Endocrinologists and find another gestational carrier. If you know us at all, you know how tough this decision is for us. It’s like breaking up with someone you’re madly in love with. Someone that’s done you no wrong; your hero. But, as parents, don’t we all want to do all that we can to keep our children safe? That’s our responsibility. That’s why we are using a surrogate in the first place. To help our children arrive here safely. So, here we go!

We are back to the drawing board to find our next carrier. We are still signed up with our amazing agency, but we are also open to finding someone on our own, if that happens first! I had several people tell me that they knew someone, that knew someone that was a surrogate before, while we were expecting Brigham. If you know someone that has this on their heart, please have them contact me at theborrowedbump@gmail.com

Amy is also open to chatting with anyone that may be considering this. I think it’s safe to speak for her and say, her side of the journey was just as amazing as ours. ❤️ Our relationship with Amy will never change. She will always be our hero and the one that helped us become parents. But now we are praying for another hero as well to help us complete our family, and help Brigham’s sibling arrive here safely. I cant reiterate how blessed we feel, and how happy we are, but we would absolutely love to fill this house with even more joy.

Thanks for supporting us on our journey. And thanks for helping to bring us joy.