The title of this post refers not just to a physical place, Joey’s home, but also to a heartbreaking reality – that our sweet Joey Bear is now home in heaven. This past weekend we said our final goodbyes, remembering and celebrating him together with Sam and Sara, friends and family. The pain and the loss blur so many of our thoughts these days, but the fierce and bright light his little life brought – along with so much love and healing and hope – keeps shining. The koala picture hanging in their living room above, a gift to them by our dear friend Melody, is symbolic of Joey (baby koalas are known as joeys, hence his Joey Bear nickname), and a beautiful representation of his sweet and continued presence in their home. Once again I’m fighting the temptation to keep these thoughts to myself, knowing every grief journey is…

How do you communicate something when words seem so inept and inappropriate? This is today’s conundrum, just added to the long list of how’s and why’s that have accumulated over the past few weeks. I want to talk about this – or feel like I NEED to talk about this – but it’s so impossible to express. 3-year-old Joey, a sweet little friend who we love so very much, is living out his last days. He’s been sick for a long time, and we’ve known these final days would come eventually, but knowing doesn’t prepare you for it. His parents, Sam and Sara, are dear friends of ours. They’re living a nightmare I can’t comprehend, and their story belongs to them. All I can do is share what belongs to me, how Joey’s journey is changing me and devastating me and healing me at every turn. When I wrote about…

I’m not quite sure how to introduce a post like this. It’s tough to try to summarize our infertility struggle in a nice neat package you’ll want to read, so bear with me. I’ve imagined writing about this for years, and always thought it would be amazing and beautiful to tell the story of how we became parents, looking back at a long journey of waiting and hoping and praying, with our prayers finally answered. I’ve been excited to write that story, knowing it would all be worth it by then. But this isn’t that story – that story isn’t our story, at least not yet. We are looking back on a long journey of waiting and hoping and praying, but that journey stretches out ahead of us, too. Our prayers haven’t been answered yet.  I hate that infertility is such a meaningful word to us. I hate that we’re…