"I Want Your Family"

    A few years ago I became friends with a man at church who had had a rough life. He had lived a life addicted to drugs and alcohol and he grew up in a family where everyone fought and hated each other. Now they rarely even saw or spoke to each other. I admired him because of his fight to rise above how he was raised and what had happened to him and for his strong desire to help other people. He wanted to be there for people who had traveled the same road he had. He spent hours trying to help people with drug and alcohol addictions and to find God and come back to church. He was amazing to watch and listen to. Some miracles had brought him back to God and he felt like he owed God something. I will never forget the day he approached me in the hallway at church and said, "I want your family". I was surprised by this and I asked him why. He told me that he had watched us laugh, play and have fun together and he wished he could have had a family like that growing up. He told me he would have traded all he owned for it. I encouraged him to build that kind of life with his wife and children since there was nothing he could do to change his past. While we were talking my two daughters came around the corner with their arms linked together and they were laughing and singing. He pointed to them down the hall and said, "See what I mean. I want your family."

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    I have thought a lot about this since, about how much I take for granted and what makes me happy. I grew up in a family of eleven children. We are and always have been a very close family. I wanted that for my children. I have been around families that yell and scream at each other and I did not want that for my children. I think I was born without an anger gene. Anger has never made sense to me. I think there is a calm peaceful way to handle everything. After Dallin was born I had six children to watch over and raise. I had a few people at different times tell me that my children would walk all over me because I never yelled at them, that they would not know who was the boss. It was just not who I was. I couldn't be like that. I remember worrying about whether these friends were right, if I was too soft and mellow. Once I was very frustrated with my children and one of them said, "I think Mom is upset and she might actually yell at us." I didn't and I never could. I was more likely to cry than to yell when I got feeling overwhelmed. I was outnumbered 6 to 1 while my husband Winn was at work. I worried a lot over whether I was tough enough. But I started watching my children and how much they loved each other and how peacefully they resolved conflicts and I came to a point where I was glad they never learned yelling and anger from me. They were peaceful, got along great and loved each other. I am now happy I am missing the anger gene. Maybe it is something we learn from our parents. My parents never yelled at me. I didn't yell at my children and I seldom see my children lose their tempers.

Most days I was out-numbered 6 to 1

    So here came my sixth child and I got to watch these children of mine learn to love him and each other. There were a lot of times I was touched watching them help, love and look out for each other. Dallin was blessed to be at the end. All of his older brothers and sisters loved to show him things, teach him things and make him laugh. I had gotten my wish to have a family that loved each other. I feel thankful to be living happily ever after and to have the kind of family that other people want.

Here are some pictures of my children learning with Dallin how to love.

Adam always jumped him softly to sleep when he was tired and crabby

These two brothers shared every birthday together

Getting a ride in a doll stroller

Dallin sometimes got into things or ruined his brother
and sister's things.  He was quickly forgiven.

He drew all over himself

A family sandwich 

This is one of my favorites. Dallin was sick and his brothers and sisters
 were playing him songs and telling him stories to cheer him up

I wanted to teach my children to love each other

A Rough Beginning

    Several doctors were upset with me for having a fifth child when I already had four healthy children because my pregnancies were considered risky. My fifth pregnancy had been a rough one with ruptured blood vessels and trouble walking and standing. After Haley was born I got a lot of pressure from doctors and family not to have any more children. Five was more than enough. My doctor set up an appointment with me for a long term birth control method she was using with her patients. I kept praying over what to do. I didn't feel peaceful at all about not having any more children, in fact I felt a great conflict in my heart and soul. I went to my doctor's appointment and when she started talking to me about the procedure they wanted to do I could not stop crying. She looked at me and said she advised this procedure but she would not be able to do anything with the frame of mind I was in. She sent me home to talk it over my husband.

I had five beautiful and healthy children. That should have been enough.

     It was an interesting coincidence that we had some friends at the time who had had three children when the husband decided three was enough and he had a vasectomy. Their three children were teenagers when his wife had a dream where a little boy came and talked to her. It happened almost every night and she told her husband she really felt like this child was visiting her because he was supposed to be in their family. Her husband said, "NO!". She kept getting these dreams so she got down on her knees and prayed. She told her Heavenly Father that she was willing to have more children but her husband wasn't, so he was the one who needed these dreams. That very night he had a dream where a little boy came and talked to him. The next morning he told his wife that he felt like they were supposed to have more children. He had his surgery reversed and they had two more little boys, children they could not imagine life without.

     I didn't have any dreams like that. I just kept praying and I felt like there was someone else who was supposed to be a part of our family. I became pregnant and then I felt absolute peace. My pregnancy was long and miserable and I had to be off my feet a lot of the time. My mother had to come and help me out towards the end when things got worse. Then came the big day. Our baby boy arrived in July on his brother Cory's birthday. Cory thought it was pretty neat to get a baby brother for a birthday present. Dallin decided to come fast at the last minute and he was delivered by a nurse just like his brother Cory. They have had a lot in common. It was like having twins born 5 years apart. My baby was here and I knew he was meant to be a part of our family. He was a beautiful baby and we named him Dallin.

     My absolute peace didn't last because Dallin was quickly in distress after being born. He had been delivered so fast he got a lot of fluid in his lungs and he was breathing too fast. He turned gray in color in a hurry and needed more oxygen. His lungs were not working like they should so Dallin was placed in an oxygen tent and we didn't get to hold him. He also developed a fever. He was hooked up to an IV and to monitors. It was hard to see someone so small hooked up to so much. After a day he was taken out of the oxygen tent and a cannula was put in his nose to help him breath. I spent most of my time in the intensive care nursery holding, rocking and feeding him. I said quite a few prayers for him to get better. The hospital wanted to send me home the next day and keep Dallin, who still wasn't doing very well. I was heartbroken. I didn't think I could stand to leave him in the hospital by himself. That night I could not stop shaking and the nurse touched me and told me I was burning up. She took my temperature and it was 104.2 degrees and I could hardly stand up or walk. I had an IV started so I could get intravenous antibiotics in case I had an infection. I had to stay in the hospital. I have never been more thankful to have a fever. I got wheeled down in a wheelchair and I continued to hang out for hours in the intensive care nursery. I didn't want Dallin to be alone. The family would come to visit every day. While spending all this time in the intensive care nursery I became acquainted with some of the other mothers with sick babies or birth defects and we became friends. One morning when I went down to the nursery, one of the babies and his mother were gone. I found out from the nurse that her baby had died during the night. That day as I rocked Dallin and touched his sweet soft little face I just kept crying. I felt so sad for this mother who didn't get to take her baby home. I felt very thankful I didn't have to be torn apart by something like that.
    Finally after five days it was time for me to go home. I was given a choice to either leave Dallin in the hospital or take him home with oxygen. I had worked several years in the hospital and worked with sick babies. I knew I could do this and I chose to take him home.

They took this picture at the hospital without the oxygen but he scared the nurse because he turned gray so fast

His Dad visited him in the hospital intensive care

     We were given two oxygen tanks and plenty of tubing and we were sent home. As we drove up to the house it touched me to see the tree in our front yard covered in yellow ribbons welcoming Dallin and I home. The kids had also made a cute sign they hung up in the house. They were all excited to have their mom and new baby brother back home. I was also thankful that my mother was able to stay and help me. Dallin got a lot of attention and the kids would fight over who got to hold him.

I didn't sleep very well at night. I had an obsession with checking the dial on his oxygen and making sure it was on the right number. It didn't help that I had known a boy growing up who had become blind because he was given too much oxygen when he was a baby. I just kept checking on him over and over in the night. I had to keep my little baby well and I would just have to try to sleep later.

A tree covered in yellow ribbons welcoming us home

Happy to have their baby brother home

The oxygen tank was bigger and heavier than he was

     I took him to a doctors appointment a couple of days after bringing him home and his bilirubin numbers were off and he was turning yellow. A nurse came over to our house that day and brought what looked like a big metal suitcase, which had lights inside of it. Dallin had to be under the lights most of the time with eye pads over his eyes and hooked to oxygen all the time. It was a lot of work and we felt bad for Dallin. Winn thought it looked like he was in a tanning bed. When Dallin got older he told his friends he slept in a suitcase when he was a baby. His friends probably worried about what kind of parents he had.

     Dallin's brothers and sisters loved him from the start and wanted to hold him all the time. They were very sweet with him. They couldn't hold him much when he was sleeping in his suitcase. We were happy when the numbers were better and we got rid of the suitcase. But his need for oxygen continued. Once a week a man would come out to our house and measure the level of oxygen Dallin was getting on his own. Every week we hoped he would tell us he was well enough to breath on his own. But every week he would tell us he wasn't doing well at all, give us more tanks and cannulas and leave. His numbers went way down when he was eating and he would hold his breath. We were told that Dallin would choose breathing over eating and he wouldn't grow very well. Which is funny now because he is 6'4” and still growing. Dallin would quickly turn a horrible gray color when taken off the oxygen.  I was getting discouraged . Dallin's face was very sensitive and his skin was raw from the tape and bandages used to hold the cannula. We were all discouraged and I needed more sleep.

Dallin was loved deeply by his siblings

Haley holding him while I changed his clogged tube. His face was just starting to get sore from the tape

We tried band-aids because the tape was so hard on his skin. The kids wanted him to have fun ones.

    The days stretched to weeks with no end in sight. One week as I was praying for Dallin I got a strong feeling that he needed to get his name and blessing in church. We took Dallin and his tank to church and he was given a blessing by his father. One of the things Dallin was blessed with was health. All of our friends wished us well. That week when the man came out to test Dallin's oxygen, the numbers had so drastically improved that he thought his machine was broken. He told me that the numbers never changed that much in a week. He told me to keep Dallin on oxygen and he would be out the next day to test him again with a different machine. He came out the next day and Dallin's reading was normal again. This man was in awe at how fast things changed for Dallin. He called our doctor who gave us the OK to take him off the oxygen. I was thankful for answered prayers, for miracles and to finally have a healthy baby boy to raise. I have been thankful thousands of times I had Dallin and didn't listen to all the people who told me not to have him. He has blessed my life in countless ways.

Breathing on his own

Dallin was a fun and happy baby

My family is now complete. These children have made my life so much happier.