"Love can hurt sometimes...but it is the only thing that makes us feel alive."

There is a fairly new song by Ed Sheeran called Photograph, it talks about love. The things it can be and the things it can do for us in our lives. I connect with this song on so many levels. Love is so much more than the fleeting, butterflies in your stomach when you first fall in love.

True love endures through hard times and good times. Love takes work and nurture. When I met and fell in love with Don, I never pictured spending the first ten years of our marriage apart for years at a time because of deployments and trainings with the Army. But the unexpected sadness of separation helped us to appreciate each other, to cherish those wonderful times when we could be together. I also never imagined how it would strengthen us individually and show us all the things we were capable of. It took experiencing pain to bring us to the place we were suppose to be and hard times to become the people we needed to be.

"Loving can hurt sometimes, but it's the only thing that I know. When it gets hard, you know it can get hard sometimes. It is the only thing that makes us feel alive."

I also have always wanted to be a mother. I never pictured having my first baby without my husband, or having to endure the immense pain and struggle that I went with through to bring these little ones into the world.

With my first baby Joshua, I labored for 26 hours having contractions every 3 minutes. I ended up doing it naturally when the epidural didn't take. I pushed for 3 1/2 hours. He was posterior and this made labor and delivery more difficult, but I didn't give up. He was born a healthy 8 lbs. 7 oz. and was 21 inches long. I still cry when I watch that labor and delivery video all these years later. I think if I had realized how hard it would be, or how much longer I had to go, every time they told me "he's almost here..." I might have given up. I was exhausted and in more pain than I had ever imagined, but love was my motivation to keep going.

"Loving can heal, loving can mend your soul and it's the only thing that I know. I swear that it will get easier remember that with every piece of you. It is the only thing we take with us when we die."

I was determined to the best mother I could be when I had Joshua. I begun reading to him at 3 months because I had hated reading when I was growing up. I wanted him to love it. I did flash cards with him, sang songs, played playdoh, took him on daily walks, played instrumental music that was suppose to increase brain activity and ability. He was such a good easy baby it made me love every stage. He was so smart and seemed to be advanced in his ability to speak, talking in sentences, counting to 10, able to say all of his animal sounds before he was even 2 years old. As I put effort into teaching him, it seemed to make such a positive difference.

2 years and 1 week after Josh was born we welcomed our little Samuel into the world. It was a much easier labor. 6 hours and only 1 1/2 hour of pushing. The epidural didn't take again, which was hard, but Sam was not posterior, so everything progressed much better. Don was able to be there for the delivery, due to the unfortunate reason that he had been blown up in the Mosul Iraq Chow Hall Bombing in Dec. 2004. But non the less, he was there by my side and I felt so grateful. Sam was a healthy 9 lbs. and was 20 inches long.

 A couple weeks after Samuel's birth, Don returned to finish his tour in Iraq. He had healed enough from his burns and shrapnel wounds that he volunteered to return. I didn't understand it at the time, but now looking back, I know it was very important to him. A suicide bomber had tried to stop his mission and he went back to finish what he started. He came out triumphant.

 My little Sam ended up having horrible colic and screamed for the first 3 months of his life. I struggled being a "single" mom to two very young children especially with one of them screaming constantly. It didn't matter if I held him, laid him down, fed him, took him for a ride in the car. He just screamed and I couldn't fix it. So I learned to have selective hearing and loved him through the hard times and then celebrated the day he stopped crying and I could enjoy my baby again. Don returned from Deployment when Sam was 5 months and was gone again before Sam turned 2.

I put the same practices into play with Sam as I had done with Joshua. Striving to be the best mother I could be. He became a very happy and sweet baby. But there was one difference, by the age of 2, he wasn't speaking at all, not even a single word. I started him into speech therapy and within 6 months he was speaking in sentences.

By the time Joshua turned 4, I began to have some concerns that he was regressing and that he might have some delays. He was tested for Early Intervention Preschool and qualified in 4 different areas of learning delay. That was the beginning of his IEP or individual education plan. With each parent teacher conference that followed over the next few years, I dreaded going, because it was so hard to hear that Joshua was struggling so much when I was working so hard and had worked so hard with him to help him be successful. When he was in 1st grade I remember sitting there listening to all the areas he was behind in and thinking what in the world are we doing having another baby as I sat there very pregnant with our 3 son. What if this baby has the same struggles? 

When Joshua was 6 and Sam was 4 we welcomed our third son Daniel into our home. He was another hard labor. 12 hours of labor and 2 1/2 hours of pushing. He was my second posterior baby and because the epidural had not worked with my first two babies, I opted for a completely natural delivery. After having him, I remember saying, "I would rather die than ever go through that kind of pain again." He was my smallest at the time weighing 7 lbs 15 oz. He was also born with a complete knot in his cord, which shocked the doctors and nurses. They said he should have not gotten enough oxygen and nourishment to survive. But there he was in my arms. My little miracle baby.

Don was actually home for the whole pregnancy and birth with Daniel up until Daniel was 7 months old and then he left on another deployment.

Daniel was a good baby in a lot of ways. He was also hard. He didn't sleep through the night once until he was 15 months old. But for the most part, he was happy and he loved his older brothers and his mommy. And we loved him.

When Daniel turned 4, he was diagnosed with Autism. My heart broke. I have written more about this specifically in a post on this blog, a couple of years back. Now Daniel is 6. He is repeating Kindergarten this year because he was the youngest in his grade having just turned 6, June 25th and also because of his Autism he is very socially and emotionally behind, still throwing tantrums, still unable to adapt to change. It was a hard decision, but we are hoping it will help him in the long run.

All three of my oldest boys have some form of ADD or ADHD. All three of my older boys have IEP's for one thing or another. All three of my older boys struggle in school in different areas. When I pictured the kind of mother I would be to my children and the effect that my mothering would have on them, I never imagined them struggling like they do. It is hard to hear other people talk about how smart their children are. How easily they pick up on things. How they are "gifted" or in advanced classes. Yet mine are not. If love had anything to do with success, I feel like my children should be some of the most successful people in the world.

Lance B. Wickman said: "Grief is the natural by product of love. One cannot selflessly love another person and not grieve at at his suffering. The only way to avoid the grief would be to not experience the love that gives life it's richness and meaning."

Last week, I attended an IEP meeting for Joshua who just entered Jr. High. I expressed my concerns about how Joshua doesn't manage himself well, forgets to bring home homework assignments, and forgets to turn things in. I can't be there to make sure he does that, and when he gets home there is nothing I can do if he doesn't have it. I expressed how hard I work with my boys on homework, and helping them read, and trying to explain concepts to them. I also explained how I have 5 children to care for and 3 of those have high needs. Later, about half way through the meeting one of the facilitators starting talking about state testing. Saying that if Joshua couldn't pass the state tests this year he would not be able to progress to the next grade. I shut down. Lip shaking, tears welling up in my eyes. I felt hopeless. Thinking...Maybe Josh will never get into High School with the problems he has. Maybe he will never get into college, or find a job. What about my other boys? How successful will they be?

I felt alone. Like nobody understood me or knew just how hard it was. A few days later, I was led to look in the Ensign: Feb 2013 issue. In it there is an article called Refining Fire of Grief by Ashley Isaacson Woolley. It is about a woman who never expected her child to have the struggles he did, but how it taught her to have compassion and empathy for others who also have children who struggle. Towards the end of the article she talks about one night when her and her husband were putting their son to bed and he was crying. She quotes her husband who said: "You know he probably feels abandoned. It's dark in there, and he probably thinks we have forgotten him. He doesn't know that we can see and hear him, because he can't see or hear us. He doesn't know that we are always nearby. As our son was to us, so we are to our Heavenly Father."

Today I found a quote by Jeffery R. Holland that says: "He is there. Our prayers are heard and when we weep He and the angels in Heaven weep with us."

As alone as I have felt, I know Heavenly Father and our Savior are there. I know that not only did the Savior atone for sin, but he also atoned for EVERY grief, sorrow, or sadness we would EVER feel. HE understands completely. I also know from life experience that as hard as it is to watch my boys struggle, these struggles are shaping them into the people God wants them to become. And as their mother, I can still do all in my power to support them, but I also need to trust that Heavenly Father knows my boys, He knows their needs, He has got this.

In these times where I get bogged down with sadness for the things that could have been, I am grateful for the memories we have made with our boys over the years. Those happy moments captured on film and in our minds that no one and no circumstance can take from us.

"We keep this love in a photograph. We made  these memories for ourselves. When our eyes are never closing, our hearts are never broken, time is forever frozen still."

In every way, Love is worth it.