Darrell Ammon Stacey - our Angel above

Well it sure didn't end how we imagined it would. On January 29, Eliza's birthday, my water broke and on January 31 just after midnight, This little guy couldn't stay in any longer and he was delivered.   At only 18 1/2 weeks pregnant, we lost this little baby. He is now our little angel in heaven that shares his wings so we can continue to fly high. He was 9 inches long and perfect. 

We named him Darrell Ammon Stacey after our fathers. To quote Dad Stacey, "now he can take his heritage back with him." My time with him was short but I had felt his vibrant spirit at 12 weeks when he started moving around. I feel it was a tender mercy that I got to feel his movements so early in the pregnancy. We are also very grateful the hospital staff continued to gently encourage us to see him and hold him. We both had come into the hospital saying we didn't want any details or to see the baby. I will forever be grateful I got to hold his little body in my hands.

Through this and many other journeys, Matt and I know and have witnessed that blessings are poured out in abundance a midst these hard trials. It does not take away the pain.......it merely gives way to new paths. It still stings when we see a pregnant woman or a sweet little baby but I know my Heavenly Father will continue to bless me in whatever endeavors I am to pursue. I'm grateful to know I have a Savior that lived perfectly and sacrificed his life so that even in the midst of great suffering, I can still feel so much peace and joy. He is my greatest source of strength.

 Everyday, I wonder why me? and why couldn't this little one have been able to join our family on earth? And why am I having to wait so long to have this great, righteous desire of my heart be fulfilled? I don't know the reasons. ALL I know is I have been blessed and taught and have total faith in God's plan for me. That does not mean that I don't constantly live with an anxiety of the unknown or the what-if's. Because I do! But even in that growing uncertainty, I know that I also can make everyday count. Corrie Ten Boom who suffered the unimaginable during World War II said it well, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” 

I can't control the future. I can't control how many kids I have. But there are many things that are in my control, including finding happiness during the trials and living everyday serving and trying to be a little bit better..... more like my Savior would have me be. I constantly think that I don't want to look back 10 years from now and wish I had not worried so much but rather that I had moved forward in faith. I know I can because I KNOW, in the end, the path that I look back on will be just what I needed to become who I needed to be and will have lead my family where we needed to be. It's HARD for me and it's something I am constantly working on.

Anyway, this has been a hard loss, and it has reaffirmed my convictions about how strong the human spirit is in times of true hardship. And how much the Lord's arms are extended in great love in my tears and sadness. I love this quote by President Monson,"Our Heavenly Father, who gives us so much to delight in, also knows that we learn and grow and become stronger as we face and survive the trials through which we must pass. We know that there are times when we will experience heartbreaking sorrow, when we will grieve, and when we may be tested to our limits. However, such difficulties allow us to change for the better, to rebuild our lives in the way our Heavenly Father teaches us, and to become something different from what we were—better than we were, more understanding than we were, more empathetic than we were, with stronger testimonies than we had before."

Sooo maybe in a couple of months, we will have some more great news to announce.....another baby on the way. Or maybe the doctor's will give us news that nobody wants to hear. Either way, I don't know how or when or in what capacity, but I know our family on earth will grow. It may not even be in our home, but family is found in many places. And I will always be grateful to have my Eliza who lights up the world around her with hope and joy and adventure. She, along with her daddy, are my greatest treasures on Earth.

There is a group of women who make these little wraps for these situations. It was so nice to have such a beautiful keepsake that he was wrapped in for awhile. 

The hospital even gave him his own little name tags. We are thankful for the memories and momentos we were given in such a hard circumstance. 

And finally, a sweet lady made little molds of his hands and feet. 

One of my all-time favorite quotes and quite applicable: 

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain."

A due date....growing, learning, and becoming

In January, this week in July marked the addition of a new member to our family. But at 12 weeks pregnant, I had a miscarriage. Other than my fear of hospitals, surgeries, and being put under anesthesia, the hardest part for me was to realize that the next addition to our family was not yet ready to come and our plan was not going to come to pass in the fashion we had hoped for. We wanted to have these kids 18-24 months apart and get in 3 or 4 before I was 37ish. Heavenly Father has a different plan for us and that IS OK. At the time, it felt so urgent. Now I look back and realize that time is truly relative and I can't control the timing on all things in my life, and that is something I STILL need to learn.....obviously. :) I should be willing to open my heart more fully to the will of the Lord and His desires for my life because they are greater than anything I could possibly dream up. Though I must say, I have yet to truly learn this lesson. I am anxious and ready and waiting for that next baby to come along. I still want it right now.....But I know that will happen when the time is right and until then all I can do is focus on the here and now and what I good I can bring about. 

I know that in these little things great things are brought to pass. I quickly began to realize what this had given me was a new-found hope for a brighter tomorrow; A chance to get into better shape (I have changed my eating habits and lost 10 pounds), a chance to spend more time with Eliza without the added morning (all day) sickness and exhaustion…And looking back now, it was a beautiful chance to strengthen our marriage, have a fabulous vacation, begin to make and accomplish goals as a family, and it gives me ability to work more this fall and spring to help pay for Matt’s tuition. All of which would not have happened if the pregnancy had continued. Not to mention, Eliza was not walking until 6 weeks ago so that would have been interesting. Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us and He knows what we need almost always before we do.

I have been thinking alot lately about my Savior and what my true path is in life. I feel it a great blessing to have the opportunity to be reminded often of the Savior’s love and Atonement and the sacrifice made on my behalf. He suffered so I could live…..literally. I am grateful for stumbling blocks in my plan of life that allow me to grow spiritually and emotionally. Heavenly Father has a greater plan for each of us that will probably not be fully realized by any one of us in this life. I think we often feel out of reach of our divine potential if for no other reason than we don’t know how amazing we are and what we truly are capable of. Many times I find myself too tired or too shy or too impatient or too anxious or too this or that to truly even step on one of the pedestals closer to my Heavenly Father and why do I do this?? That is the trivial question for all of us, right? How can we know where we came from and where we are going and not live each moment at a greater capacity? The natural man truly is an “enemy to God.” I often find myself wondering why can’t I do more? Why can’t I be even better? and so on. This is why we ALL need our Savior. We must come unto him and allow the Atonement that our Savior has given us to share in and lighten our burdens, suffering, sorrows, sin, and even imperfections. 

BUT we can do more and be even better. The Atonement also allows for growing pains. We change over time, we learn, we fall and get up again and we hope the next time we are a bit higher so the fall will be more of a tumble and our firm foundation will have been built with many pedestals toward our Heavenly Father’s divine potential for each of us. That is what this life is all about. We are not here to be perfect, we are here to learn and grow and become the best we can be. Each day is filled with possibility and ups and downs and when I look back on my day, I want to be a little closer (higher on the pedestal) to my Heavenly Father’s divine potential for me.  

Life is hard and I have had my fair share of hard things that have truly rocked my world and turned it upside down (many of those things out of my control completely) but with this knowledge of my Savior’s sacrifice and love and my Heavenly Father’s love and DIVINE plan for me, I always have a light to look up to and the dark tunnels don’t seem so long because even if I can’t see the light, I KNOW if I endure to the end light is there at the end of the tunnel. And I KNOW that I will travel through many dark tunnels in my life. I consider it a kind of sacred blessing to be given adversity to help me grow and become more like my Savior and what my Heavenly Father sees I can become. I love the quote in Mulan, "the flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of them all." We ALL have the opportunity to be that blossoming flower in our adversity. It is not easy and hard times can last for years and years with seemingly no end in sight but if we are always spiritually watering our souls, even in the most agonizing adversity, we can flourish and grow. Through his Atonement, our Savior has given us this priceless gift.

We can be assured that our future is always bright. Hearts full of Faith and hope are beautiful opportunities to show our Heavenly Father and ourselves that we can do it. Faith and hope truly are 2 of my favorite words in the English language. They give me knowledge that even if we feel defeated, we truly are only on a journey that will ALWAYS have a happy ending. I look forward to the day when the end of my life has come and I, like Paul in 2 Timothy, am able to say, "I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith." 

Well that is not entirely where I saw this post going but I do hope to have more blog/ journal like entries like this where I can leave a message behind for my children to read and remember that their mom has a testimony of the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and lived by it.