"Celebrating this little girl today. One year ago today she was born and within the hour we had to say goodbye, such a short and beautiful life. She has affected me deeply, changed me in so many big and little ways.
I woke up this morning with a heavy heart and have been teary most of the morning, but the love and support of so many friends and family reaching out to us through messages, visits, and phone calls has lifted my spirits. There have been many sad moments this last year, so many times that I just ached for her to be with us. But even though I’m sad today, and so very wish I was celebrating this day differently, today I am choosing to celebrate her life. So I’m going to go get her a little cake and some balloons and have a little celebration for her this evening with our family.
So happy birthday to my baby girl, wish you were here with us. I’ll be eternally grateful for the time I had with you and for the knowledge that I will be able to see you again. Love you always. 🧡"
I also thought I would share the 2nd part of a talk that I gave this last December. I was asked to speak on the miracles of Christ and just felt I should talk about our little girl and our experience with her. It was scary to share something so sacred as publicly as speaking in church, it has been scary to share so much here on the internet, but I have felt prompted to do it. I feel our story of London's life is to be shared, that it was part of her purpose in coming to our family, so her story could be shared, and that hopefully through it others are able to feel the peace, hope, and light that Christ can bring into the darkest of trials. The following is the talk I shared.
"I love miracles and am so grateful for them. Miracles testify that there is a loving
Heavenly Father that cares for us.
Miracles show us that there are miraculous things in the works that we
can’t explain any other way.
Difficult questions.
Why do miracles sometime not happen?
It may seem a paradox to fiercely believe in miracles and
also firmly accept the will of God in our lives, but through the Atonement of
Christ and an understanding of Heavenly Father’s plan for us, it is possible to
resolve this paradox. We live in a
broken world, a world where bad things can and do happen, and we know we chose
to come here to be tried and tested.
As
many of you know in February of this year we welcomed and said goodbye to our 5th
baby, our sweet little girl that we named London Ann. My pregnancy with London was normal
and problem free until we found out at our 20 week ultrasound that our
daughter’s little body had not formed correctly and that if her broken body
survived delivery, she would not live for very long after birth. In addition,
because of the way her body had formed with the placenta there were dangers in
continuing the pregnancy. Our doctors
counseled us to deliver her as soon as possible to avoid complications. We took time to pray and ponder and after
seeking the Lord’s will we decided to continue with the pregnancy and deliver
our baby girl via C-section. London was born at 34 weeks
and was delivered without complication.
She lived for an hour after birth and then surrounded by our little
family she peacefully passed from this life
So many could ask where the miracle was in this situation
for our family? Our daughter was not healed and she only lived a short while
after birth. Did we lack faith or were
we not righteous enough to receive a miracle?
Did we not have enough priesthood blessings or say enough prayers? No, brothers and sisters, I can’t believe
that. I’ve seen too many righteous individuals
go through extremely difficult things to believe that we were not given a
miracle for one of these reasons. I know
that our desires were good in wanting another baby. We prayed for her, we were thrilled to know
she was coming, and we were completely devastated to learn we were going to
lose her. One thing I learn from
carrying this daughter of ours, feeling her move inside me, knowing that when I
would finally meet her I would have to say goodbye, is that Heavenly Father honors
our righteous desires. How could a
loving father not? He honors our desire
to be mothers, he honors our loss and our sacrifice. Those of us who have gone through hard things
know that if we let them they can change us, and if we try to focus on God’s
goodness throughout our trials, they can refine us and teach us things we could
learn no other way.
President Oak’s stated, “I have been speaking of miracles
that happen. What about miracles that don’t happen? Most of us have offered prayers that were not
answered with the miracle we requested at the time we desired. The will of the Lord is always
paramount. The priesthood of the Lord
cannot be used to work a miracle contrary to the will of the Lord. We must also remember that even when a
miracle is to occur, it will not occur on our desired schedule.” He concludes, “The revelations teach that
miraculous experiences occur ‘in his own
time, and in his own way.’”
And though the miracle of healing our daughter did not
happen for us, there were so many other miracles that did.
The miracle of peace.
It started in the ultrasound room, as panic began to consume me, a sense
of peace enveloped me and calmed me. This
feeling of peace and comfort came to me time and again throughout my pregnancy,
something I would have never thought possible beforehand.
The miracle of acceptance. I believe in miracles, I always have, but in
this situation with our little girl, Steve and I both felt early on and accepted
that the blessing of healing was not going to come to our daughter in this
life, that her time on this earth would be short, and that there was purpose in
it.
The miracle of her birth, that she survived inside of me for 34 weeks, that
she survived birth, and lived for an hour.
The miracle of a smooth c-section with no complications for me during her
birth. The miracle of being able to
celebrate her life and the happiness we have felt knowing she is ours.
Brothers and sisters, my heart aches to hold her and there
is an emptiness, a place in our family where she should be, and I have had plenty
of hard days and dark moments of heartache and pain. But I will be forever grateful we were all able to meet her
and hold her, and feel so blessed to know she is a very real part of our
family. We know that we will see her and
be with her again and that brings us so much peace. I wish all of you could have met her. It was a sacred experience to be in the room
with her for her short life, to feel of her sweetness, her goodness. We feel so
blessed to be able to call her our little girl.
So
when we speak of miracles we must always consider God’s will, his plan for us,
and the trials and heartache of this broken world that we live in. And if we are going through our own personal
Gethsemane, look for miracles, they may not be what you expect to find, but
they are there.
Finally, the atonement of Christ is the greatest miracle of
all. President James E. Faust spoke of
the greatest event in all of history. He
states, “That singular event was the incomparable Atonement of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus the Christ. This was the
most transcendent act that has ever taken place.” He continues, “The nature of the Atonement
and its effects is so infinite, so unfathomable, and so profound that it lies
beyond the knowledge and comprehension of mortal man.”
Because of the atonement of Christ all that is lost will be
restored, all that is broken will be made whole, all that is wrong, unfair, and
unbearable will be made right. He gives
us peace in this life as we endure our trials and a promise of miracles to
come.
I’m grateful for a Heavenly Father who provides a plan of
happiness for each of us. For
commandments, service, scriptures, family, temples, and all the many gifts we
have been given in this life to move forward and progress. I believe in miracles and am grateful for
them. I’m grateful for a Savior. I know He lives. I love this time of year to celebrate his
birth, to marvel in the miraculous miracles that surrounded his arrival into a
broken world. A virgin mother, a new
star, angels appearing to shepherds, all to welcome a babe born in a manger and
prophesied to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And the greatest miracle of all, that through
His miraculous atonement I have felt the peace and reassurance time and again
that one day all will be as it should."
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