All About Jacob...

This part will be the easiest to write.  Tom and I could talk about Jacob for hours. 

When we got married we thought we'd wait and get our education before we started our family.  Well, this thought lasted about 6 months before we decided that we didn't want to wait any longer, we just wanted a family.  Little did we know that 7 1/2 years would pass before we would finally meet our child.  The first year of trying wasn't bad because we were told it could take that long for things to work out.  After that year we started to get worried.  I craved as only a woman can the feel of a precious baby in my arms.  After our first two years of college we moved to Albuquerque, NM to continue our education and this is where I met a wonderful infertility specialist.  He found that I had endometriosis and a huge septum in my uterus.  This took two surgeries to fix and ultimately led to me finally being pain free, endometriosis is painful, and then a few years later we had Jacob. 

The issues of becoming pregnant didn't stop after the surgery though.  We tried everything anybody suggested.  From gaining weight to losing weight, acupuncture, an herbalist, two chiropractors/ message therapists who specialized in infertility and medication and procedures that the doctors could provide.  Throughout all of this Tom and I prayed constantly about what path we should take to allow us to have children.  When we prayed about adoption at that time our answer was clear that it wasn't the answer for us yet.  So we continued trying everything we could until I finally decided that it was time to try invitro in fertilization.  This procedure is extremely intense with a ton of medication that takes over the body and hormones and caused me to drive to Albuquerque, we now lived in Farmington, for many appointments. I won't go into more details about what we went through for this because that would take all day but what I will say is that it was all worth it when we found out that we were going to have a baby.  At the moment the test came back positive all of the pain, heartache and money and time spent disappeared.

And our precious little boy was born 9 months later. 

 

 

Jacob Neeley Swenk has taught me how much I was meant to be a mom.  The love I have for this sweet boy is incomparable.  He's happy, sweet, sassy, ornery, playful, sneaky and good.  He loves to play and be around people.  He prays to have a brother or sister every night.  He loves all babies and will make some sweet child a very wonderful big brother.

 6 months old.



One year old.  What a big boy!

2 years old.

3 years old

 

About this time, when Jacob was 3, Tom and I decided that it was time to try IVF again.  We tried 3 different times throughout the next year without any good results.  About half way through the year and two of the three IVF cycles had passed we started to feel really strong and good about adoption.  We had already paid for the last cycle so decided to finish it out.  We were not surprised about the negative results and felt a huge sense of relief that we could finally put that part of lives to rest and move on to our new adventure of adoption.  We know that this is the path for us to complete our family and are very excited for the future.

 

4 years old.  Where does the time go?

 

I want to share a quick story about this sweet boy.

August of 2014, right around Jacob's 4th birthday we were heading home from church.  Jacob started asking questions about mine and Tom's brothers and sisters.  After we answered quite a few questions there was a long pause where I know Jacob was thinking deeply.  Then he asked, "Mom, why don't I have any brothers and sisters?"  Since this was right in the middle of our failed IVF cycles this wasn't a very easy question to answer so I just said the first thing that came to my mind, I said, "Well, Heavenly Father hasn't blessed us with brothers and sisters yet.  Maybe if we pray for them He will hear us and give us some brothers and sisters for you." 

Jacob took this to heart and immediately folded his arms in his car seat and said the sweetest prayer asking Heavenly Father for brothers and sisters.  And every prayer he's said since, for seven months, has included a plea for brothers and sisters.  This story shows the faith, determination and desire of our Jacob.  I know he will make the best big brother.

Here are just some fun pictures that show off his fun personality.