One year. 

That’s the difference in these pictures.
One year ago from right now we were at one of our lowest lows. We found out the first two embryos didn’t take and our IVF had failed. So much hope, faith, and prayers weighed on us when we were waiting for the blood tests results. I still remember that feeling of anxiousness. Hoping that our lives were going to change with that one phone call and those two words: “you’re pregnant.” But it didn’t happen one year ago. I still remember not wanting to take a picture of the mantle on this day because it just hurt and I didn’t want to remember the pain. I didn’t want to remember everything we had gone through to get to this point and I didn’t want to remember how it failed. I didn’t want to remember how I felt like I failed us because for some reason those embryos lived until they got into me. It’s still a difficult thing to think about today. It’s still hard to know that we lost those embryos for reasons we’ll never understand. I have a feeling it always will be hard and hurt our hearts a little bit, and that’s ok.

But this: 

This miracle named Howie makes me understand a little more. When I showed Laryen the picture of the empty mantle picture and told him that was exactly one year ago he said, “Wow. And now we have Howie.” We sure do. We get to be this boy’s parents; how did we get so lucky. 

Hard to believe what can change in a year.