a brutiful day.

Will woke up this morning, took the dogs outside, and came back upstairs with an excited "It's a beautiful day to knock someone up!" And boy, oh boy, was today beautiful.

My favorite writer, Glennon Melton, writes that the most beautiful things are the ones that are also so brutally hard. She calls these things "brutiful." So maybe that's a better description of today. It wouldn't have been so beautiful, if at the same time, it wasn't brutally difficult.

Blake and Katy got in last night from Dallas, and we got her ready to invite our little totsicles into her body with some Cyclone Anaya's, (since it's only inevitable that our kids will do anything for Tex-Mex). As we sat there laughing about the funny things her kids say, I was struck with how much I genuinely liked them. Yet, I wouldn't know them at all without this insane journey.  A "brutiful" realization, if you will.

Today at Houston IVF, the nurse came to tell Will and I that the embryos thawed successfully. (It's always a risk that they won't make it through the thawing process.) As Will put his arm around me, I knew he was the only person in the world thinking the same thought I was. "This is so hard. This is so great." Looking at him in that waiting room as we prayed together was a moment I'll never forget. It was so freaking brutiful.

As we walked into the transfer room with Katy already prepped and ready to go, I just cried and cried. Cried tears of sadness and grief that I could not be the one to do this. Cried tears of hope that maybe this could be our chance. Cried tears of gratitude that Katy and Blake are in our lives. All just big ol' brutiful tears.

And as we walked out and hugged them goodbye, it was the first time I realized that my little embryos don't go home with me. They stay with Katy, and I have to trust that she'll love them and keep them safe. It's a brutiful thing to have to give up that control, yet also have a sense of peace knowing that I trust her so completely. 

Will was right. Today was a brutally beautiful, brutiful day.

xo,
Kendall and Will

ps. We find out in 10 days if it's worked! So prayers for the next 10 days... and hopefully the next 9 months. (Or why you're at it, the next 18 years.)

 

In attempt to get me to stop crying, we took selfies in the back room. We like to call this one, "waiting to impregnate another person" face.

 

Our adorable baby-carrier and her sweet husband!