He flew to Utah a couple weeks after that. We were just hitting it off so well. One night as we were talking he opened up. I knew that he had had cancer and had been through so much a few years earlier. We had talked about that, but this night he went into much more depth--especially the side effects of all the treatments that he had undergone. He told me how he would probably never be able to have biological children and he asked how I felt about adoption. This kind of shocked me, but I cared about Ryan and wanted to pursue this relationship. I wasn't going to end things because of this news. And adoption had always appealed to me.
We continued our long distance relationship. In June, after about 6 weeks of going back and forth, I made the decision to move to Washington to be closer to him. Timing of the blind date was perfect so that I could make this decision. I had recently graduated from BYU and was working at two part time jobs that I could easily leave. In July I moved to Washington. I found a job and in August Ryan proposed.
We were married in October. From the first date to our wedding was not quite 6 months. I swore I would never do that, oh well, he was the right one, at the right time, in the right place.
We went on a cruise for our honeymoon. It was awesome! 
After being married for about 6 months, we both individually decided that it was time to add to our family of two. We knew that we would need to see the fertility specialist and do in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in order to have a baby. As we went through the IVF treatments, we had all the faith in the world that it was going to happen. The doctor told us that there was not a very good chance, but we had faith. Unfortunately it didn’t work. We were completely heartbroken.
Ryan and I filled out all the paperwork and did all the necessary things to get approved for adoption. After we were approved we told everyone that we knew that we were trying to adopt and asked them to help spread the news. A little over a year after we had been approved we got an email from my aunt who lives in another state. She told me that she knew someone that was pregnant and not married and was considering placing her son for adoption. My aunt had shared with her our blog and information. Our sweet Julie read it and felt like we were to be the parents of her little boy. She emailed a couple of days and we read the sweetest words: “I've read your blog and it really touched me. Ever since I found out I was pregnant I never felt much like it was supposed to be mine. Please let me know if you can consider adopting my son. I know you will be a great choice.” We immediately felt so peaceful. We started emailing back and forth and building a relationship with her. We visited her a few weeks later and she immediately felt like family. About 3 months after she contacted us for the first time, she called us to let us know that the baby was going to be born that day. We jumped on the next flight and made it to the hospital a few hours after our sweet baby Lucas was born.
Infertility and adoption have been an extreme roller coaster to say the least. We have been on this ride for almost 3 years.
Excuse me while I go throw up now.
The most recent roller coaster ride just ended.
Without going into details we are facing a loss right now from what looked like a very promising situation. We were planning and looking forward to it. We were hoping and praying.
But it fell through.
And the nursery that we thought was going to be occupied is now closed indefinitely.
We are now struggling to make sense of everything. It has been a very emotional few days. And I am sure that it will continue to be emotional as we grieve.
As we spoke with our caseworker, he emphasized that we will need to grieve and he likened it to a miscarriage or death. We attended the temple yesterday and felt peace and comfort with the decision that we made. And although we know that it is the right decision for our family there is still a lot of pain. We need to adjust the visions that we had for our family in the next few weeks, months, and years.
Ryan and I have cried together. But then we have looked at each other and said that we were going to be okay. We have been promised that we would be parents and we will be. We just don't know when that will happen. We need to trust Heavenly Father and that he has a plan for us. We have a great relationship. We have only grown closer through our infertility and adoption struggles. As I sobbed the other day I told Ryan that I didn't know why Heavenly Father thought I was strong enough for all of this. But now I know that I am. We will make it through okay. We may still be hurt and sad, but there is a baby and babies that are meant to come to our family and it will happen.
We will do everything, we will go through anything, and we will endure everything that we need to so that our children will come to our family.
Two tickets for the next ride please.
