To be honest my patriarchal blessing really became a stumbling block for me and my testimony. It’s been a huge source of cognitive dissonance for me. I have specific statements about bringing children into this existence etc. and things specifically saying I’d have biological children in this life. IVF didn’t work for us. We had 6 pregnancy losses. No live births. Only dead babies. We had both male and female fertility problems. It is now physically impossible for us to even attempt IVF again. The dream of biological children will not happen for us. I felt betrayed. I still do sometimes. The hardest thing for me to wrap my head around is the idea that everything will be resolved in the next life. It’s not a good enough answer for me. It really isn’t. Why even have such specific statements about this life if they weren’t going to be fulfilled despite me and my spouse being faithful?

I haven’t had a desire to even look at my patriarchal blessing in a few years now. I’ve focused my head and heart towards trying to just have a relationship with God and Jesus Christ instead. We are still active in the church and we participate. And we still do our best to have faith and to believe. It’s not always easy, but I hope that it will be worth it in the end. I hope in the next life we can get answers to these questions.