in good times and bad

You steal a glance at your husband.  Your wedding day has finally arrived after months of planning the perfect wedding.  You’ve planned every last detail, changed your mind many times and planned those details again.  Because to you, your wedding day is the ultimate symbol of the love that you and your husband share- a symbol that will be witnessed by the most important people in your lives.  And you want that day to be perfect.

At some point during wedding planning, you realize that planning every detail is exhausting and that those wedding details are not what getting married is all about.   You have searched and found the one you will travel the world with, the one you picture growing old with, the one you will raise children with.   You stand before this person and recite an ultimate promise, vowing to love them in good times and bad, in sickness in health, for better or for worse.  As you state this promise to each other, you pray that you know more health, than sickness.  You hope for more of a rich life than poor.  You pray that you know more good times than bad.  The priest prays over you that you shall be fruitful and you promise to accept these children as blessings, because children are the ultimate symbol of the love that you and your husband share.

April 13, 2013 was our epic wedding day.  We were blessed to be surrounded by our closest friends and family who flew from all over the country to witness our love.  Yet the details, so carefully planned began to unravel in the weeks leading up to our day.  I even had to get a new wedding dress one week before our wedding due to a tailoring mistake.  One day I remember being so incredibly overwhelmed that I realized there was nothing else I felt that I could take on.   I was getting married in one week and there was no longer time to fix or change anything else.  That week was one of the happiest weeks of my life.  I kept my eye on the prize:  I found the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, and I was going to finally be able to call him my husband.  Nothing else mattered.  Nothing else was that important.  It was an epic day because I truly was able to be present in every moment of the day.  I lived and breathed those moments where I stopped to look around and realize how incredibly blessed we were.

When Tony and I exchanged vows, I choked back tears of joy.   Looking into his eyes, I had no doubt that God had brought us together.  As I said those words, “in good times, and bad,” I hoped for more good times than bad.   I hoped that we would be blessed with a long life together.  I hoped that we would be blessed with children.  I hoped that we would be happy for a lifetime.   When I recited those words, I had no idea that in the third year of our marriage we would lose not one, but two little lives formed in God’s image by our love.   This space was created to honor those two little lives and commemorate our painful, beautiful journey to a destination called parenthood.   These posts contain the most honest moments of my life, told in detail after much prayer and deliberation.  They are private moments made public to aid others struggling with infertility and to raise awareness and understanding for the people who love and support them.  We pray that the hope we have for a child someday meets with the joy we will feel when our prayers are answered.  This is our journey.