Layla

I can not tell you how much joy and laughter this little miss has brought into our home and family. She is sunshine, love, laughter, sweetness, naughtiness, adorable and so much fun! But she almost never came to our family. After Dayson was born, I was sure that we were done having kids. It wasn't until Dayson was about 2 years old that I thought maybe there is one more out there, but not anytime soon! Chet and I were super busy with the business, there was no possible way we had the time, or energy for another baby. When Dayson was about 3, I couldn't stop thinking about having our next baby, and for some reason I knew that she would be a girl and that she would be healthy. But I wasn't ready yet. We had moved to Pomerene and lived in a smaller house and we were wanting to build, so I kept telling Chet, we can get pregnant when I see the walls of our new house up. But then we kept having setbacks on our new house and construction hadn't even began and every month that went by that I wasn't pregnant, the sadder I got about it. So finally, after 3 months of being super sad that I wasn't pregnant, when we were up in Alaska on vacation, we found out that we were pregnant. We were both thrilled and excited and so happy. One of the biggest blessings that Heavenly Father has given me was the peace and knowledge that she would be a girl and that she would be healthy. I was able to just focus on being pregnant, because I was pretty certain that this would be the last time that I would be pregnant. I was able to just enjoy the entire experience, and had so much peace. When we went to the ultra-sound to make sure she didn't have meckel-gruber syndrome and to find out the sex of the baby, again, I was at complete peace. The ultra-sound confirmed that she was healthy and that she was a girl. To others around us, it was happy news and a relief, but to me it was just confirmation of something I already knew. We also chose to not get her tested for Cystic Fibrosis through amniocentesis. We knew that Cystic Fibrosis was now a newborn screen in Arizona, so we felt like that would be sufficient for us. I was due on February 22nd and had a normal doctor visit on February 3rd and at that visit the doctor told me that I had preeclampsia and would have to deliver my baby that day. Scary! I wasn't quite ready for that. I had everything I needed for my baby, I just hadn't packed a bag for me for the hospital. But Chet was able to get everything that I needed and met me at the hospital a couple hours later. Everything went really well and smooth and she was born right before midnight. She was absolutely perfect. She was beautiful. She was sweet. She truly was an angel baby from day one. When she was about 10 days old, we got the call from her doctor that the tests came back and that she did not have Cystic Fibrosis. This call just confirmed something I already knew, but when I told my mom, she started crying and I literally saw a weight being lifted from my moms shoulders. I was shocked to see how relieved she was, because I had been telling her all along that she was fine. It truly was a miracle that she was healthy in every way. I'm so grateful for that miracle every single day. Layla was a really sweet baby and a good baby all the way until about 16 months of age :) Then she started coming into her own little person. Now she is 21 months old and is NOT happy when she does not get her way. But she is still mostly so much fun and a ball of energy and laughter. We have so much fun with her and our lives would be so boring without her. I remember telling everyone that I would talk to how much I love her and I would tell Chet every night after we would watch her sleep for a minute before we went to bed "I'm so in love with her." And he would say, "I know, you tell me every day." I feel like we all got to slow down for the last 21 months and just enjoy being around her. She is independent and not shy. She has no stranger danger. She is determined to do things her way and to do things just like her older siblings. She wants to be a big girl, and I want her to stay my baby forever. I am so grateful for her. I am grateful for her amazing father. I am grateful for her siblings. I am so grateful for the sweet moments that we get everyday from her, like the kisses she gives everyone before she goes to bed. I'm so grateful that I get to be her mother.