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My Story

One month after my 21st birthday, I married the man of my dreams in the Ogden Temple. We both wanted children more than anything and we started trying to have them immediately. In just a few months, we discovered that something was terribly wrong. I had a cycle where I bled non stop for 3 months straight. I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with PCOS and we were told that we would likely never be able to conceive a child on our own. I was put on medication to stop the bleeding and we went home with broken hearts. We prayed and decided that we would continue on our own for a while because miracles do happen and we believed that if we were meant to have children, our Heavenly Father would grant us a miracle.

After a couple of years, we decided that it was time to see a fertility specialist. I went through 4 clomid cycles, increasing the dosage with each, and never even ovulated. I was told then that I only had two options; I could try to lose weight or I could move on to stronger medications that would be much more expensive and then possibly on to IVF if they could find a medication that would work for me. Once again, we decided to go home empty-handed and try on our own.

I tried off and on to lose the weight over the next few years and failed each and every time. With each failed attempt I began to lose all hope. We then decided that it would be in our best interest to adopt instead. We looked into adoption several times and made plans to save the money, but each time we started something else would get in our way. We still wanted children more than anything else, but it seemed like it was always out of our grasp.

On October 31, 2009 my husband was rushed to the hospital and admitted for a severely infected ulcer on the bottom of his foot caused by diabetes. Until that day, we had no idea that he had become diabetic. After three days in the hospital he was sent home. Suddenly the lack of children in our lives was an extreme blessing. All of our time and focus was dedicated toward helping him regain his health. We worked really hard with the specialists to get both the ulcer and his diabetes under control. He managed to lose close to 60 pounds and was well on his way to loosing more by mid February.

On February 17, 2010 he was given the all clear by his doctors. He had lowered his blood sugars so well, that they cut his medications in half. They also gave him the all clear to start walking on his foot again and encouraged him to get out and really start exercising. That 60 pounds he had lost were from diet alone. Imagine how much weight he would be able to lose now that he was mobile again! We left the doctor’s office that day with our heads held high and with excitement in our eyes. We had been given many tools over the previous months and suddenly losing the weight myself seemed quite possible. We started talking about having kids again. We started thinking about how much we could change in the next year to get ourselves to that goal. Anything and everything seemed possible that night.

On the morning of February 23, 2010 my husband passed away and I lost the best friend that I have ever had. All those months that he had been resting his foot and not putting pressure on it had caused a blood clot to form in his leg. The exercise he had started after being given the go ahead caused the blood clot to release and it became logged in one of his lungs where it remained until his heart was unable to fight against it any longer.

I now look back at all the time we had together and I am ever so grateful for each and every moment that we had. I have also come to realize that through all of my trials and my challenges, I have been being refined by my Heavenly Father in preparation for something bigger and better than I have ever dared to imagine. Each morning I awake a slightly different person than I was the day before. I am beginning to look at the world through new eyes. Just like a butterfly who emerges from its cocoon a completely different creature than it was, I will also emerge from all of my trials completely different from when I started. My Heavenly Father is helping turn me into an Eternal Butterfly.