Life

Here's another pregnancy picture. I took this a few days ago when I was around 28 weeks. This picture isn't very flattering, but what can you do.

Also, I wanted to give a little background/update on things happening with my dad. I'm just going to start a couple months back because I want to give an idea of the whole picture and the miracles we've seen.

My dad was told he had cancer back in February but we thought it was contained and easily treated(well, as easy as cancer can be I guess). He started having treatments and his health started getting worse and worse. Finally, it was soo bad that his doctor told him to go to Dr. Dickson, who's a cancer specialist. He was admitted into the hospital because his calcium levels were crazy high and they needed to get things under control. They did a ton of tests and told us the bladder had had another type of cancer in it as well that is faster acting and more aggressive and that it had spread to his bones and liver. Despite the bad news, the doctor was optimistic that they could get it under control. After that, we just kept get

ting bad news. They realized the cancer is in stage 4, which is uncureable, and by Wednesday night the doctor told us the cancer had spread to his blood and that we had to decide whether we wanted him revived once the blood carried the cancer to his heart-which could happen at any time. He pretty much gave us no hope and we were left to prepare for the worst. Jon and I stayed with my dad that night because we knew it would be a hard night to be alone. And, the thought of leaving my dad was extremely painful because I didn't know how much longer he would be here. I won't go into detail about that night, but I just have to say my dad is a tender, loving man. I can only strive to be as loving and caring

to my kids and spouse, as my mom and dad are to each other and to us kids.

After we had received the news on Wednesday, we immediately started to fast and, of course, pray. We received a ton of support from family and friends and I think his name was put in every temple in the mid-west. On Thursday, the doctor came in again and he was so excited. He said the kidneys had started to stabilize(my dad has a kidney disease and they had been failing up to this point), calcium levels were down(meaning the cancer had been slowed down in the bones), his liver had shrunk from the chemo fighting the cancer, and there was no cancer in his blood. This was honestly a miracle straight from heaven. My mom started crying and gave the doctor a big hug, the doctor started crying and told my dad th

at there was no way he was giving up on him yet. He said he couldn't be more excited how things had started to turn around.

Since then, we have heard of soo many people fasting and praying for my dad. They even held a ward fast this last Sunday. As of this morning, his calcium levels are even lower, the liver is looking better and his kidneys are in better shape than th

ey were before he had cancer. He's not out of the woods yet and there are still a lot of chemo treatments left, which will be a hard road, but we are soo much more optimistic and hopeful now than we were a few days ago.

Through all of this, it's made me really think about what's important in life and why we're here. It makes me sick to think I was obsessing over something as pointless as gaining 5 pounds while pregnant. Who cares? It's normal. Does it really matter if the baby room is a little brighter than I wanted? No. We're not on our own timetable and it's important to make the most of the time we have here. Power from above is stronger than anything we have

on earth and I truly believe in miracles. I don't believe miracles will happen without a huge trial of our faith and without us doing everything we can on earth and I know our wishes are not always Heavenly Father's plan, but I do believe anything can be accomplished with His help. With that said, I am ecstatic that there's hope that my dad will get to see his first grandchild.

This is just a picture of the whole family in the hospital. Karolyn drove all the way from San Diego to be with us.