As you all know yesterday we received the terrifying news that Taylor was even sicker than before and that the girls' heartbeats had been found using doppler but were not very strong. We waited all day for fetal MRI and fetal echo to be performed. They were done but not correctly so now we wait again. This left me with lots of questions and thoughts.
I'll take you on the journey through my brain. We have tried for two years to adopt in Mississippi. We've had people try to take advantage of us, we've had people change their mind, we've had agencies tell us no due to our LDS faith, we've had foster classes not feel right, we've had agencies tell us yes but to the tune of 60,000 dollars. We had a potential birth mother back in SC that enabled us to get someone here to do a homestudy for us. I was able to call and say we have a potential adoption situation so that got the ball rolling. From there we were listed on the free version of adoption.com that our church pays for. It adoption.com/LDS. However, no one ever contacted us and we had 4 page views over a few months.
We had a couple of "coincidences" align that put us on our current path. Matt was told he would be deploying from April 1st through sometime in October 2017. We knew this news back in the Fall of 2016. It was terrible to know that the clock was ticking down to his departure. The holidays were sad because I was trying to enjoy them but I kept thinking Matt will be gone in x number of months. I finally came to peace with it and had a plan of action for our summer. It was going to be fine. Our church encourages us to fast and pray the first Sunday of every month. Without telling me, Matt fasted that if he was supposed to be deployed that we would all feel peace about it but if he wasn't then he would do whatever his purpose was for him to stay here. He had been feeling some pressure and anxiety over the deployment and his responsibilities with our church as he serves as the Bishop. That exact week he was called in to the office and told that the coordinator for the Air Force called and said that Matt was no longer needed. This shocked us. There had never been any hesitation that he was going. Not only was not he going but someone else was being tasked to go. We felt bad that the coworker was going but we also felt confident that this was no coincidence. We continued living our life and waiting for the purpose of staying here to be revealed. With the news that he wouldn't be deploying and in effort to try and appreciate and celebrate our season of life we also decided to book a Disney cruise. No adoption prospects and no pregnancy on the horizon. In full disclosure, it had been a long time since we had "tried" to get pregnant but we had been trying again and I was taking supplements and we were diligently praying for a pregnancy miracle. Adoption is wonderful but I boldly decided to ask if I could have the miracle of pregnancy. You can't cruise with Disney after 24 weeks pregnant and kids have to be potty trained and age 3 to go into the kids club without paying extra. Nathan had just mastered the toilet so we decided this was it. Let's do it! However, we still were a little nervous by the military just randomly canceling deployment so we got trip insurance. :-)
This trip was amazing for our family of four. We took it and enjoyed it with the knowledge that life will never be the same after we expand it by two more kids and potentially two more kids that are sick.
In February, Mardi Gras is celebrated and the students get an entire week out of school here. We decided to pack up and go to SC. Matt came too and we told everyone our great news of no longer being deployed and our plans to cruise in May. On the way back, I received an email from adoption.com offering 50% off their ultimate package which included being listed on several websites and on their homepage. At that point, it was the very end of February our homestudy was only good through the first of August. We decided to go all in and pay for the membership for the few months we had remaining of our homestudy. You have to have a current complete homestudy to be listed on any of these websites. We did that the last week of February and Taylor contacted us on March 6th. She sent a simple email that explained that her identical twin girls had a good chance of having cystic fibrosis. We read the email together and both were fully aware of the disease but both felt an immediate yes. We responded right away that we would like to talk with her further. I have to stop here and explain that we weren't desperate for a child. We were/are happy with our two boys but we have always felt the push to be on this path. We've always felt that there were more children intended for our family. Just as I wouldn't terminate a pregnancy because there was a medical issue we don't feel that you should turn down an adoption opportunity because it isn't your dream. Every parent wants their children to be perfectly healthy but that isn't the case for many parents. We stepped forward and felt the confidence that it might be scary but that we would be ok. We spent hours and hours talking to Taylor. As you all know, she's extraordinary and she has had an abundance of hard times lately. She has flourished despite her medical condition. She is a physician, she speaks multiple languages, and plays multiple instruments. She is active in her community, works with the youth ministry, and is just an amazing selfless person. She found out she was pregnant very early on because she became very sick. She and her husband were thrilled with the news. Although, she knew she wouldn't live forever with her disease she and her husband would enjoy them for a few years together and then they would have their Dad. Before, even having the first ultrasound her husband went for a run and didn't return. He died from a heart attack on December 23rd. Taylor was adopted herself so the idea wasn't completely foreign to her. As she discussed the options with her family, they decided this was the path to consider. Taylor didn't take the task of finding parents lightly. She was thorough in her questions and assessments. She bonded with me but she was impressed by Matt. Many of his qualities and the ways he interacted with our boys is how she imagined her husband would have been as a Dad. We discussed that she would have found it difficult to place her girls with us if she had been trying to FaceTime or text with Matt serving in Afghanistan. We felt like not being deployed was a necessary part of our adoption journey.
Taylor and I spent hours everyday texting with each other. Taylor crashed immediately off of all of her pain medications the minute she found out that she was pregnant. She wanted them to have their best chance and didn't want them to suffer at all with withdrawals. She suffered herself instead. She had many nights where she couldn't sleep and many times where she was in complete physical agony. I tried my best to visit with her during those times. She would tell me all of the funny and happy stories that everyone else already knew. I loved hearing about her wonderful marriage with Sean and her happy memories with her siblings especially her twin, Carrie. We dreamed about life with our girls. She and I talked about what open adoption would look like and we joked that in issues that really matter she and I are identical but when it comes to extracurriculars not so much. She is a tomboy that loves adventure. She snowboards, skateboards, etc. I simply don't....lol.
Taylor told me she was getting sicker and would need another lung transplant as her body was rejecting her lungs. There are medications to take that would slow the process down but she didn't want to put the babies at risk. She sacrificed herself again. Then her kidneys showed signs of failure making her no longer a candidate for a lung transplant. We adjusted our thinking and talked about how we would still have through the Fall or Christmas. We talked about holding the girls and taking lots and lots of pictures together. We wanted them to always know they were carefully planned for and that both of us were on the same page.
Two weeks before she was scheduled to come see us in Mississippi, she got very sick. She was unresponsive and she had to be taken to a hospital that was not her own. I have text messages from her right before she went downhill. We were just laughing and visiting. The following day she was supposed to go finish up things with the attorney and go to a regular ob appointment. She never made it to any of those appointments. I kept waiting all day to hear updates but didn't bother her because I knew she was busy. When I received an unknown number that evening, I had dread in the pit of my stomach. I answered it and was greeted by her twin sister, Carrie's crying voice. We then spoke for three hours as Carrie drove to the hospital that Taylor was located. I have never gotten my friend back. Its like Taylor knew that something might happen though as she took care of lots of details days before. She and Sean had both written letters to their unborn child. She said that right after she found out she was having a moment of panic at the realization that she wouldn't be around forever. Sean told her to write a letter and she said she didn't want to do it by herself. So they boyth wrote letters. He then passed away shortly after that. She sent me those letters. She talked to her family again about her wishes. She planned for us all to have a facetime visit but we didn't get to do it. Taylor has been sedated, intubated, and medicated. She has had moments where she seemed to be improving and has had moments of being lucid but not enough to be able to visit with me. She finally made it back to her home hospital. They have been monitoring her and on May 19th the doctors did a fetal echo and a fetal MRI. It was determined at that point that the girls were seriously underweight. They were less than a pound each. The doctor pushed back the due date to August 21st. Taylor's TPN was doubled so we all have been fasting and praying that they are rapidly gaining weight.
Taylor took another turn Monday, June 5 and is not doing well at all. Her entire family has gathered and we are all just waiting. The doctors need to determine the size and condition of the girls. We are on day 2 of waiting. They performed another fetal echo and a fetal MRI but apparently there was a glitch and the testing didn't work!
So, now I sit here and I try to squint my eyes and look through my crystal ball. What is the ending of this story filled with sacrifice and grief? Surely, Taylor's sacrifices will result in the birth of two viable babies? Was the plan just to be apart of this miracle but not actually get daughters? With or without my daughters, I have been changed forever. Don't misunderstand me, I so want the story to include my daughters making it. However, I have prayed for good things before and been told No.
I can feel the prayers of our friends and our family because I have cried during this experience but I have also smiled. I have had moments of fear but mostly I have felt faith and peace. I know that Heavenly Father loves all of his children. I know that He loves me and He loves Taylor. I know that his ending is the perfect one. I'm grateful to be apart of the journey. I hope that I can continue to be strong enough to endure this story however it ends.
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