What If I Could Write A Letter To Myself?

What if I could write a letter to myself? My younger self, that is. With all that I know now that could help erase some of the pain of back then? Or what if my future, older self could write me a letter that I could get today that would tell me yes, everything really will be okay? Would it help me now to get through all our trials? And what seems so huge today… will it seem that huge in 5, 10, 25 years?

Today a couple in my ward blessed their baby. They had been trying for a long time to get pregnant. It got to the point where they were just about to give up and were looking into adoption, when she got pregnant. And stayed pregnant. It wasn’t the easiest pregnancy (really, are there actually easy pregnancies? I don’t believe there are, no matter what some women say!), and several weeks before the baby was due, the mother and her father were in a car wreck. It was bad enough that the mother was in the hospital and they were trying to prevent an early labor. It was too early to have a healthy baby. Thankfully, everything turned out just fine the worst that happened was her baby shower had to be rescheduled. The couple has a healthy baby boy a few months ago.

When the mother got up to bear her testimony during Sacrament Meeting today, she said, “If someone had told me a year ago I would be here today, blessing my baby boy, I would have laughed in their face. No, I would have cried in their face and thought it a cruel joke.”

I remember those feelings all too well. I remember how long it felt we tried (unsuccessfully) to have a baby. I remember feeling the desperation as I watched friends and family members seemingly have an easy time of it. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get pregnant. And when I finally did get pregnant, it resulted in a miscarriage. It was such a tough time. I sometimes wonder how it was the Ches and I made it through that because there was so much strain. So many tears. And then… Aiden. I couldn’t believe we actually got this little miracle who was so perfect and so lovely. I didn’t know how I could ever be so happy again. I never forgot the pain of the years before Aiden came to us, but the pain was lessened so much by that little being we were blessed with.

And now look at us… three boys. Three wonderful, active, smart, funny boys. After a long break where we thought our family was complete, we found ourselves blessed again. In the next 15 weeks we will have our fourth child. FOURTH!

Has it been easy? Not by a long shot. Am I a good parent? I try. I don’t think I am (not what this post is about, however), but I try. Is everything perfect since we got our long-awaited for children? Not by a long shot. We still have so many trials and tribulations. Sometimes it feels like we are bogged down so far into the muck there is no way of pulling ourselves out. But I don’t know what it will be like a year from now. Will I be able to look back at this year and say, “I am so blessed. We kept working and trying, and things are better. We are happy.”

That’s all I really want. To be able to acknowledge that life isn’t always great, but we’re still happy. I have Ches. I have my kids. We’re still working and we’re still trying to pull out of this muck. Little by little, we’ll get there. Maybe I don’t need a letter after all. And maybe I need the pain to make the reward that much sweeter.