Inspiring

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world your best anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

My brother introduced me to this lovely little saying. These are words I really want to live by.

More liver please

You really can't have too many pictures can you?

Love you little man

P.S. The title of this post is not a typo... Jon nicknamed our son Liver and I'm afraid it's sticking... as though Liver is so much shorter than Oliver. Oh well.

Also... Merry Christmas :)

Happy Family

Hello everyone!

Baby Oliver is now 2 weeks old. It's been such a crazy couple of weeks that we would not trade for anything! We can't believe how much we love our little guy... he's perfect.

My two favorite boys. These pictures melt my little heart...

My cousin came over today and took a few family pictures for us and he got some really good shots! Here are a few...
seriously isn't he so so so dang cute??

Such a happy family :)

Grab A Tissue! (or two)

These last few days with little Oliver have been so wonderful! (a little tiring because he has his days and nights mixed up, but definitely wonderful) We both feel so very blessed and so very grateful to have him for our son! There have been so many of you that have been fasting and praying that this would all work out and we can't thank you enough. We have definitely seen the Lords hand in orchestrating all of this because there have been so many little miracles happening along the way. Many of you have played a part in those so thank you. Our greatest thanks however, goes to the selfless, amazing people, who brought this little miracle into the world, and have entrusted us with his care. These people are among the strongest in the world. The selflessness they showed us in doing what was by far the hardest thing for themselves but the best thing for this child, is a lesson we will carry with us forever. We love you. We thank you.

The last couple of weeks the birth mom has been having contractions and has been in and out of the hospital several times. When they got really close together, Tracy and I were glued to our phones, bags packed, ready to go at a moments notice. we put 2400 miles on our car driving back and forth so many times. Finally, last week we got notice that the doctor would be inducing her on Tuesday (yesterday) so it felt really good to finally have a date, But once again he didn't last that long. We came down on Friday night and it was a good thing because it was a short delivery Saturday morning. The birth mom was so awesome and wanted Tracy and I to be in the delivery room when Oliver was born. We had to pull some strings in order to get all of us in there with the H1N1 scare they had restricted the number of visitors to two. Another little miracle.

It seemed like everything happened in seconds. But the delivery went well and our precious baby boy was born without any complications and the birth mother did amazing. Once again... a miracle. What a blessing it was to be in that room and feel his little spirit enter this world. There are just no words to describe a moment like that. Perhaps this little video will do a better job at expressing the joy.

(its better full screen with the volume up)



Oliver Ayden Layne from Jon Layne on Vimeo.


How thankful we are... We could not possibly love him any more.

Welcome to our family little Oliver

Mom & Dad

Introducing...

Oliver Ayden Layne

born 11/21/2009
10:37am
5lbs 14oz
18 inches long
perfect
handsome
love

We're in love.

Family pictures

Jon and I had some new family pictures taken last week and here they are! My good friend Mikki did them, her blog is linked to mine so check out her work, she is AMAZING. It was a windy, rainy, cold day and my hair was all over the place but it made for some good laughs and fun shots. Thank you Mikki!!!

I may or may not have gotten a bit teary when I was looking at these...
Sometimes I just feel so lucky. :)

LOVE

Went to St. George last weekend. Love these kids. Love.

Love this view...

Love watching Sharla race the girls around the yard... haha

Allie in the lead... come on Sharla, this is humiliating...

Peaches waving bye bye

Arden being Arden

I'm sure Daddy didn't MEAN to shove your face in your ice cream Allie.

George showing off his fabulous physique. Look at those legs...

Haha Allie is such a good big cousin. She carted the girls around the court for like an hour.

I love family.

Moooooovin' on

I was getting tired of looking at that last post... how depressing. So Moving right along! See that picture above? Don't we look happy? It's because we are! We are in love, we are excited for the future, we are happy. What a change from 1 week ago. I am gonna go ahead and credit all of you wonderful people that prayed for us and wished us well through a really difficult time. You made a difference. A big one. I don't really have any other explanation for why we are doing so well. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

The weekend of our little dilema also happened to be my birthday and so Jon and I decided to take a little trip up to Midway for some fresh air. It was so so beautiful up there so I had to snap a few pics.

I am more of a summer kind of girl but I must admit fall is awfully beautiful around here.

Thanks for reading. Have a good day. :)

I wish I had something better to say

Some of you know that Jon and I have been in process of another round of IVF. Last time we miscarried almost right away. I'm very sad to say that this time is not much different.

We were going in for our embryo transfer today and just as we were getting ready to leave, we got a call from the Doctor that we didn't have a single, healthy embryo to transfer. So it was cancelled.

So here is a little background if you don't know much about our story. Our problems is a genetic defect that causes even more genetic defects in an embryo. We thought that our odds of getting a healthy embryo were about 30%, which is not good, but workable. Last time we did IVF we had 3 out of 10 embrios pass genetic testing, which matched the 30%. So when we were going in for this round, we knew they had tested 16 of our embryos for genetic defects and that 12 had survived as of yesterday, and so we were expecting at least 3-4 embryos today. Instead, all 16 had severe genetic defects. Big shock to us and the Doctors. They think our 30% estimate was not quite right and we may have worse problems that we thought. They do not think we should do IVF again until the technology is better and there is more they can do to help us. They said maybe 5-10 years.

This is hard. We are so sad. It's painful to want something so desperately, and to have it taken away. I have found myself forgetting to breathe today. BUT, just as last time, we are humbled and grateful at the outpouring of love and support from family and friends. There people much more deserving of all your thoughts and prayers, but we are still so grateful for it. We know we will have our family some day, some way. It's just not our time now unfortunately.

We will not being doing IVF again until the technology advances but we will hope for other options. Adpotion is where we would like to go now.

Thank you all again for all of your well-wishes, prayers and support. It helps so much more than you know.

Again...

"It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. … If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers."

Gordon B. Hinckley

I know, I posted this same quote on my blog last year. I just think it's a reminder that never gets old... so pass on over if you are tired of hearing it. Take another read through if you need a "pick me up". I miss President Hinckley. He was such a good man. Such a happy disposition and a positive outlook on life. Reading this reminds me of him and the example he is. I feel happier now :)

Happy Birthday Momma!!!

Happy Happy birthday to my beautiful Mom! I hope you have a wonderful day today celebrating YOU! Because that is really something to celebrate. What would I do without you? What kind of person would I have become without a mother like you? You have been the greatest influence on my life. You have taught me how to be a happy person, how to be a good friend, how to make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, how to be a loving wife and how to be a wonderful mother (hopefully I can put those lessons into action soon). I am so grateful for your example. I love and wouldn't even trade you for a pengwon! :)

Who else is grateful for Momma Barb??

Leave a comment if you love barb and why!!!

Baby KC

Congratulations Ty and Elise!

This was the most cooperative newborn on the planet! Baby KC is 4 days old. He was awake and happy the entire time. Plus he is stinkin' adorable so that makes my job easy.

The whole fam

Glowing parents

Baby's destiny...

Beautiful new Mamma

Congratulations happy family! You make cute babies :)