Change

Life is never what you expect.

"I've wanted to be a mother ever since I was 3 and played house with my dolls."
I've seen that written on quite a few blogs I've been reading lately.

I'll tell you, that I don't really remember what I wanted to be when I was 3. When I played house, I was never the Mom. I always wanted to be the teenager! The 16 year old teenager with a boyfriend named J.T.T.

I do remember imagining what my life would be like when I was about 7 or 8. I wanted to be a Rock Star! On stage, bright lights, Oh yeah! The tiny little shy girl from Panorama was going to have the world as a stage! I would sing for hours on the end of my bed or while jumping on the trampoline with a hairbrush in my hand. I was sure that I was the next Mariah Carey!

Well, as I grew up and ended up in the mediocre mixed choir my senior year of high school while all my friends were in the "elite" Bonnevaires tour choir, I started thinking harder about what I really wanted to do with my life.

My best friend and I would drive around in her truck for hours and talk about the future. "So, what do you want to do when you are done with high school?"

I didn't really know. "Oh, I guess go to college or something, then get married, then I just want to be a stay-at-home Mom or something."

When I said it, it became real. I realized that was what I truly wanted. The wish that I had for myself.

When I went to college, I chose a major that would blend perfectly into motherhood. Early Childhood/Special Education. I actually never expected to use it for work--just motherhood. I got married my 2nd year of college and 9 months before we graduated, we stopped using birth control. It was going to work out perfect! We would both graduate together in December, my husband would get a great job right out of college. I would waddle down the graduation aisle with my fully pregnant belly, then begin my dream as a stay-at-home mom, now fully equipped with all of the modern knowledge and skills needed to educate and raise my children successfully!

...9 months later, no job, a (somewhat) flat tummy, and 2 diplomas in hand, we found ourselves still overlooking Brigham Young University-Idaho, and we had no plans at all.

We've had many experiences, where things didn't work out how we'd planned. --I'm sure that we all have.

Infertility is the most dominant that I've experienced.

I am a planner. When something is planned and things don't work out according to that plan, I kind of go crazy. I get grumpy or stressed or depressed, or maybe even all three. It's really hard for me to have a good attitude when it comes to unfulfilled plans.

What I have to remember is the ultimate plan. The Plan of Happiness. We can still be happy through our trials. Can't we? Elder Richard G. Scott said this in the LDS General Conference last week and it really stuck out to me:

"When we live righteously and have received the ordinances of the temple, everything else is in the hands of the Lord. We can do the best we can, but the final outcome is up to Him. We should never complain, when we are living worthily, about what happens in our lives."

In fact, it was kind of a wake up call for me. Hard things happen, but I can still be a happy person. Life changes, but when I realize that my life is in the hands of the Lord, I know I can trust in Him. Ultimately, I will probably become better for it.