Let's Make A Baby!

We have truly enjoyed every single second of our miracle baby, Charlie. He has been everything we could hope for, and more. And as he is growing, crawling, standing, tumbling, giggling, eating, making messes, and being everything little boys should be, we are starting to look to the future and imagining all the great things that he will experience in his life.
Upon doing In Vitro for Charlie, we thought we would either get pregnant with twins or at least have some extra embryos to freeze so that if we felt so inclined, that we would be able to give Charlie a little friend. Neither twins, nor extra embryos were in the cards last time around and so we thought we were done having children. That was until he was born. Since then, we've been praying and pondering, and we feel that we should try one more time. Charlie needs a friend to grow up with. When he's 8, Tori and Abbie will be out of the house and we'd love to have one more for Charlie to grow up with.
In Vitro is an expensive and hard process ($16,000-$18,000), but after going through it, we feel it is worth every penny and more. Charlie has brought us so much amazing joy, more than we could have ever imagined. The joy we have felt has far exceeded the pain and sorrow we felt in the 8 years of infertility that we struggled through. We are so grateful for our three amazing children, and as we ponder the idea of doing In Vitro one more time, we know we are so blessed already.
We'd like to invite you, if you feel so inclined, to help donate to our "Let's Make a Baby" fund to help us be able to afford doing In Vitro one last time. We are saving every penny that we can and hope that if you have a little to spare, to help us in our journey, we would truly appreciate it. We are hoping to be able to do In Vitro in July, but it will depend on how quickly we can save and raise the money.
One thing we'd like to do for our future baby is create a book that includes everyone who has donated who wishes to be included, it would include a picture and a story or note to our future little one. So that our baby can keep this as a keepsake to see who it was that loved them even before they were born.
We appreciate your love and support. If you cannot donate, we understand. We've been there. But we do appreciate your prayers and happy thoughts. Thank you! -From the Brockbank Family

If only every baby was an In Vitro Baby...

It's been almost 6 months now. Every smile, giggle, cry, spit up, poopy diaper, cat nap, late night, breastfeeding, drool, crawl, peeing on the wall, peeing on me, splatter of butternut squash... EVERY single moment I absolutely cherish. I feel like I'm living a fantasy life, like it's almost not real. Because I have my Charlie. And it makes me think, I wish I would have enjoyed my girls this much while they were little. I wish I would have had this intense gratitude for their existence as I do for Charlie. That sounds kind of harsh. And don't get me wrong, I am absolutely amazingly grateful for my girls. Especially now. My life would not be the same without them, it would be just as empty as my life without Charlie, but at the time that they were babies, I didn't find it profound or amazing that they were alive. I didn't enjoy every single moment, as if it almost didn't happen, it is such a different paradigm. This is why God gives us trials. To say that the joy outweighs the pain is an understatement. The joy is so magnified it's almost unreal! My heart is so full of love and gratitude. Thank you Heavenly Father for the trial of infertility, to bless me with such love and gratitude for my children, and for every single day, and every single moment that I am blessed to be their Mommy. I wish that every baby could be an In Vitro baby, so that their Mommies and Daddies could love them as much as I love Charlie.

Charlie Bradan Brockbank

It's amazing how fast 6 months can go by. Charlie is now 5 1/2 months and as cute as ever. Here are some pictures from when he was just about 2 weeks old...

Letter to Charlie

Dear Charlie, I wanted to write you a letter before you are officially are born into our family here in a few weeks. I've been wanting to write to you for a few months now, but haven't really known how to put into words the feelings I've had these last nine months. First of all, I want you to know how much I love you. I've loved you since before this Earth I'm sure of it, but from the night that you showed up in my dream, I have loved you more each and every day. Not one day has gone by since I saw you in my dream that I haven't missed you and yearned for you to be a part of our family. Not one day has gone by that you haven't been on my mind. I have not given up after so many failed tries, and it feels so good to finally be at the point of success. I've shed a lot of tears and thought about you for hundreds of hours and am so grateful that we are finally getting to the point where you are just about here.
We've been preparing these last few months for your arrival. Decorating a beautiful nursery for you, buying, washing, and folding all of your clothes. I think you have more clothes than any member in our family. I'll be lucky to get you in every one of them before you grow out of them. You definitely have more shoes than I do, but I'm okay with that. I walk into your room every day numerous times, just to smell the baby smell that comes from the cute diapers we bought, and to remind myself that its real. You are really coming into our family, and we're ready for you. I have your first outfit picked out for you, and your baby blessing outfit too.
Every morning that I wake up, for the last 9 months at least, I always have to remind myself that I'm pregnant, and that it wasn't just a dream, that it's real. And lately I always rub my belly to see if you'll move so that I can make sure that you really are in there, and that it's not just my imagination. It's hard after waiting for so many years for you to come, to actually accept the reality that you are real and that you are almost here. I think once I'm holding you in my arms, that 8 years of emotion will flood out and I will not be able to contain the emotion and joy that I feel. I've imagined that moment over and over again so many times I can't count. Whenever I felt doubt and lost almost all hope, I would think about the image of me holding you for the first time in the hospital and knowing that it was worth all the tears and so many years of waiting. And I will probably cry for months and months if not years and years, because of the amazing miracle you are to me. And every time I look at you, I'll feel so grateful to Heavenly Father that you were an answer to my prayers.
Almost 8 years of trying to get you here puts a lot of emotion into one's heart. So many nights of prayers and pleading with the Lord to bless me with you. Promise after promise, trying to figure out what it is that I could do to make myself worthy of such a blessing such as you. All the while, the Lord has taught me many lessons. I have grown to be the woman and mother than I am now, and I'm sure that as I raise you, I'll be refined even more, but I'm up to the task. I am honored to be blessed with the responsibility of being your Mom, to be responsible for teaching you all that I know, and all that I will learn.
Thank you for trusting me to care for you. Thank you for giving me the hope and knowledge that I needed 7 years ago when you appeared in my dream so that I wouldn't give up on you. You and I are going to be buddies, and I will love you with all the love I can possibly give. I will devote my life to making you into a better person than I am. And helping you to become an amazing son of God, missionary, husband, and father. You have a great mission on this Earth, I am sure of it, and I will be your partner in helping you reach your potential and fulfilling your mission. I love you Charlie. - Love, your Mom

It's a Boy!!!

I'm so happy! I'm going to have a son! Our little Buckaroo! My little monkey. My mini Bradley. I can't wait to see his handsome face and make him a Momma's Boy. I'm so grateful to Heavenly Father for blessing me with this amazing opportunity, to raise a son and fulfill my dreams. I never gave up, and I'm so glad I didn't succumb to discouragement. Now if I can just convince Brad to call him Charlie...

I can feel him move!

I know it's been forever since I wrote. I'm sorry. Life goes by so fast. I wish at times I could just freeze time so I can enjoy it a little longer. I'm about 23 weeks along now. Can you believe that? I am over halfway to holding our little baby boy. I don't think I even wrote on here before that we're having a Boy! I'm pretty sure I've talked Brad into the name Charlie. We're going to see what he looks like when he comes. I can't think of any good middle names to go with Charlie right now. Hopefully something will come to us in the next 4 months. Anyway, I feel him move every day now and I absolutely love it. I can't wait to hold him but I'll enjoy every move I feel until then. I'm so blessed, and so grateful it's finally my turn :)

What a Morning

I was planning on waking up this morning and making a yummy breakfast and enjoying a relaxing day. Instead I woke up to blood.

Yep. I went in to the bathroom for my morning ritual and to my shock and horror, I was bleeding.

I woke up Brad, 5:30am, and we contemplated what to do? The more I thought about it, the more I panicked. I had spotted just a brown color twice in the last two weeks, but this was RED.

So I called the hotline. She said I didn't need to do anything till I was soaking a pad an hour... So what you're saying is just wait to do anything until you know for sure you're miscarrying? I don't think so. Stupid nurse. She obviously doesn't care about my baby.

I told her I'd like to go to Urgent Care, so she gave us an address, they opened at 7am.

So we woke up my kind parents, dropped the kids off, and drove to Portland...

Took quite some time but they did an uncomfortable exam, took blood, and then my favorite part of the day... Ultrasound!!!

Baby is alive, he even waved Hi to us and sucked his thumb :) (see picture) His heart was beating at the normal range. I was so relieved. I told Brad, at least we got a $50 ultrasound!

Thanks to prayers and a Priesthood Blessing, baby is alive and well. I'm still spotting, turns out I'm anemic, but they couldn't find anything else wrong. I'm going to call my Doctor on Monday and get some more blood tests done. It's so unnerving, I'm 12 weeks now, I shouldn't be bleeding. So your prayers are greatly appreciated. What a day.