Our Story

We met in Costa Rica in 2004 on a Geology Field Trip.  Grant had just gotten back from his mission to the Philippines and Laura had just completed her first year of college.  We dated for a year and then got engaged and were married August 12, 2005.

Since we have gotten married we have both completed our bachelors degrees.  Laura’s is Elementary Education and Grant’s in Technology Management- this is a business and mechanics degree.  Laura has taught 5^th grade for three years and is now currently in her third year of teaching 4^th grade. 

About two years after we were married we were pregnant with our first baby.  At our 20 week ultrasound we found out that our baby boy had some major developmental problems and probably would not make it full term.  Laura carried him for 8 more weeks before he passed away.  A year later Laura became pregnant with our second baby, we found out our first daughter had passed away at her 20 week ultrasound.  This baffled the doctors and was incredibly heartbreaking.  They soon found out that the cause was a genetic disorder.   In 2011 we decided to try IVF with genetic testing so they could rule out the genetic disorder that occurs 50 % of the time naturally.  It took about a year to get accepted for a grant that would help pay most of the costly expenses of IVF ($15,000) Laura’s body didn’t respond well to the IVF medication.  Her ovaries almost exploded twice.  The fourth cycle of IVF worked and Laura became pregnant, but at 18 weeks her cervix unexpectedly dilated and two weeks later we lost our second baby girl. 

Needless to say this has been a long journey for us.  Many people ask,  “Why do you keep going through this pain.  I would have given up years ago.”  Our reply is that we know how special families are.  This has been a huge trial in our lives, but trials make you stronger if you don’t give up.   We hope that some day we will be able to raise a family of our own and all of this will be worth it.  

Our family putting the cement in for our daughter Olivia's headstone.  We had all of the cousins put their handprints in the cement around the headstone. 

Laura cooling off with a popsicle. It was a hot day! 

Our oldest niece putting her handprints in the cement. 

Grant and Laura putting their handprints in the cement. 

All of us together.