Sometimes life just isn't fair…...

This may be one of those blog posts you may want to skip, if you’re not comfortable with some of the not so fun details of life.  I feel like I need to make this post not only for others out there that may have or will have the same experience that we have had but also for myself.  The things that have happened over the last 19 weeks of our lives, have been something I’ll never forget, but also I feel like has changed me forever. 

September 17, 2014, is the day Josh and I officially took a pregnancy test and knew we were going to be parents!  This was by far, the most exciting day in both of our lives.  All the planning, preparing, and talking about having a baby, became real on this day!

On Monday, October 27, 2014, Josh and I were finally going to experience what many of our family members and friends, have talked about.  We knew that I was approximately 10 weeks pregnant!  We hadn’t told a single soul we were even thinking about having a baby.  We wanted to keep this life changing decision between us for awhile.  We were going to our first doctor’s appointment.  We could hardly wait for the minute we would be able to see our baby on the ultrasound and hear the heartbeat for the very first time.  We were beyond excited.  We had been planning and anticipating this moment for quite awhile.  We arrived at the doctors office and checked in at the desk.  We were told that the doctor was running behind because of an emergency.  Not the best thing we wanted to hear since we were so ready for this appointment.  Two hours later it was finally our turn to see the doctor.  We started out by talking with the doctor.  Then it was finally time to go into the ultrasound room and see our little tiny baby.  As soon as the doctor found the baby, I knew immediately that something was wrong.  He pointed to the screen where the baby was and said, “that’s where the heartbeat should be”.  Should be?!?!  What exactly did that mean.  In my heart I knew what he meant, but I wasn’t ready to accept it at that point.  Then he told us he wanted us to have a more extensive ultrasound just to confirm what he was seeing.  I had two more ultrasounds done right after that.  Then came the most devastating news.  There was no heartbeat.  Josh and I were devastated.  We had been waiting forever for this moment, and those words shattered our world.  So many questions began running through my as tears ran down my face.  Why us? What did I do wrong?  How could this happen when I felt like I did everything right to prepare my body for pregnancy?  We had planned so long for this, how could this be happening?  The doctor was very compassionate about the situation.  He then told us what our options were.  After a few minutes of discussing all of the options, Josh and I left the doctors office feeling completely lost. 

We both decided we didn’t need to go back to work, we just needed to be with each other and try and accept this unexpected news.  We went home and cried until we couldn’t cry anymore.  There is no way to even make sense of what we were now faced with.  We went from being so beyond happy and excited, to now feeling like our whole world was shattered.  An emotional high to an emotional low, all in one day.  I didn’t know that was possible until this day.  Every thought over the last 10 weeks had been about our future with this baby we had not even met yet.  Everything we talked about and planned for had included this sweet baby.  That was now just taken from us.  It wasn’t fair.  After discussion, we decided that the best solution for us was to have a D&C.  I called the doctor and we scheduled it for two days later.

On October 29, I was admitted to the hospital and the doctor did the D&C.  This whole process was so difficult because it made it final and real.  The surgery went smoothly.  At this point is when I realized, there really was no more baby.  I’ll never forget this day for the rest of my life.  Our future that we were planning for wasn’t going to happen. 

Over the next 8 weeks, we did everything we could to talk about our feelings and deal with the emotional part of what had happened to us.  In my opinion, Josh and I have great communication in our relationship.  We talked numerous times about what we were going through and how each of us was feeling.  That helped me so much to deal with what was happening. 

All of our healing and trying to move on, came to a sudden reverse on Tuesday, December 23.  The day had started out like any normal day.  Josh went to work.  I went to work.  It was around 12:30pm that day, and I was sitting at my desk.  All of the sudden I had the feeling that something wasn’t right.  I grabbed my cell phone and ran to the restroom at work.  Without going into too much detail, I was hemorrhaging at work.  I called Josh and he didn’t answer his cell phone.  At this point I really began to panic.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to get myself to the hospital without his help.  I then text him and let him know I was bleeding really bad and to please call me back.  He immediately called me after that.  I let him know what was happening, and he left work to come and get me.  I was really panicking at this point and felt like I might pass out.  I decided it was probably best if I unlocked the restroom door, and let someone know I was in there just in case.  Luckily, the sweetest lady at work heard me, and came to help me before Josh got there.  Josh got to me within a matter of minutes, and got me loaded up in the car.  The hospital is only a few minutes from my work, which I was very grateful for.  All that kept running through my head was, I don’t want to bleed to death. I kept telling Josh how much I loved him, I was starting to really think I was going to bleed to death. It was bleeding pretty bad.

Josh got me to the ER and found someone to help get me into a wheelchair.  A nurse wheeled me into a room to take my blood pressure and check in to the hospital.  I felt like time was moving so slow, and that I was really going to bleed to death.  Finally they got me into a hospital room and began asking me questions.  I explained to them that I had a D&C 8 weeks before due to a miscarriage.  I let them know the doctor I had been seeing.  Luckily my doctor was already there in the hospital.  I was then moved into another room.  Once in this room, they told me they need to get me hooked up to IV’s, and prepare me for a possible blood transfusion.  I let the nurses know that my veins are really hard to get an IV in, and that my wrists and hands are the best places to get a vein.  They attempted 7 times in both arms to get a vein.  On one try, they even blew through a vein and blood was squirting everywhere.  The ER doctor then came in and realized that they weren’t having any luck.  He then decided it was time to put a picc line in my neck.  Now just so everyone knows, I already have major anxiety issues.  This was pushing me to my limit.  In order to put the picc line in, he had to put a paper drape over my face.  He numbed my neck three times before actually putting the picc line in.  As he was doing this, he said “this is going to tickle your throat a bit as I push the line down into your heart”.  I could feel myself getting more and more anxious as the seconds went by.  I kept telling myself that freaking out was not going to help anything, and that I needed to calm down.  As soon as he was done, my anxiety level went way down.  They then had to do an X-Ray of my heart to make sure the line was in the right spot.  I couldn’t really move my neck because of what he had done.  My doctor then came into the room and began doing an ultrasound.  As they were doing this, they kept pushing on my already full to capacity bladder.  I thought for sure I was going to embarrass myself even more than I already had, by peeing my pants right there on the bed.  After four people looked at my ultrasound, my doctor then informed me that they would need to do another D&C surgery to stop the bleeding.  He said that my blood work was also showing that I was still pregnant.  I have no idea how this is even possible.  I later found out, that if they don’t get all of the tissue out on a D&C, that tissue can still live and let your body still think that you’re pregnant.  Because of the traumatic last few hours, I just wanted to have the surgery and stop bleeding.   Throughout this whole process, I was extremely worried that Josh was going to pass out from everything he had to see.  I’m sure he wants to erase the 3 hours we spent in the ER from his memory.  I was then taken back to surgery.  In the last 15 years since I have graduated high school, I have had 9 surgeries including this one.  This is the first surgery that I have had that the anesthesiologist hasn’t told me he’s going to give me the sleepy medicine and then told me to count to 10.  I went from laying on the table just wanting the bleeding to stop, to waking up to the voices of nurses talking.  Just like that it was over!  I was so thankful to wake up with Josh by my side.  While I was in surgery, Josh posted this on his facebook page:  ( I just had to share since I have such an amazing husband! After he posted this, we heard from so many friends that had experience similar things, and made us feel not so alone.) 

I guess you could say I'm pretty private about the real personal things in my life but today has been a horrible day. 9 weeks ago my wife and I were so excited to finally be parents, we came in for our first doctors appointment so happy to be able to see our little baby and hoped to see a heartbeat. After 3 different ultrasounds they couldn't find a heartbeat and we were both left absolutely devastated and still haven't gotten over the fact that we lost a baby that we had so much planned for. A couple days later they performed a D&C and our excitement had turned to hurt and an emptiness I could never explain. Today my wife began bleeding very heavy at work and called me crying and scared, I felt helpless as I rushed to get to her at work. She was so afraid and thought she was going to bleed out and I will never forget the fear in her eyes as I tried to rush to the hospital. They nurses poked her several times trying to get an IV in and finally ended up putting one in her neck, I cried for her wanting to be in her place. They found clots and tissue that resisted the first D&C and she is in surgery now getting the procedure done again. I'm glad they were able to stop the bleeding and find out what was going on but nothing will erase the fear and hurt we have to relive today. I am so grateful that I have such a strong and amazing wife. Who knows if we will have our dreams come true of having a baby but I pray every night that God watches over our child until we are reunited one day.

The doctor let Josh know they had found several blood clots while doing another D&C.  The surgery had went well.  Three hours later, I was finally released from the hospital. 

Going through this latest experience, and letting other people know of what we were going through, I have learned that many others have experienced similar things.  I have felt like this never happens to anyone else, so why are we being picked on, this entire time.  Miscarriage and experiences like what we have been through, are really things that not very many people talk about.   Over the past 9 weeks, I have really blamed myself and wondered what I did wrong for this to happen to us.  I want more than anything to have answers.  Each doctors visit when my doctor asks if I have any questions, I just ask him why is this happening.  I felt like we had planned and prepared for this baby as much as we possibly could, and we didn’t deserve this to happen.  My doctor never has an answer for me which is the hardest part.  I feel like if I just had an answer, I could be more accepting of what has happened.  Not knowing why and blaming myself, is something I have dealt with everyday for the last 9 weeks.  I’m hoping that as more time passes, our hearts are able to heal more and more each day.

Josh has been my rock through all of this.  I really don’t know what I would do without him.  He has been there to just hold me when I want to cry.  He talks with me about all of this more than he probably wants to, but he does it because it’s what helps me deal with the pain.  I will never forget how excited he was when I told him I thought I was pregnant, and how he hurried home from work as fast as he could when I told him I was going to take a pregnancy test.  Hopefully the tears are less and less, but the pain we feel will never go away.  This whole experience we are going through, has definitely brought us even closer together and made our love even stronger, even though I didn’t think that was possible.  Hopefully as time passes, we are able to see the silver lining in this life experience.

Thanksgiving, Softball, and Anniversary!

A few things have happened since I last blogged.  As boring as we are, we do a few things here and there.  
For Thanksgiving we went to Salt Lake for the weekend.  Bright and early Thanksgiving morning, I ran a 10K race.  This race was to benefit the Utah Food Bank.  It was a fun run with tons of people!  The weather would of been perfect if it weren't for the wind.  The temperature was unusually warm for it being the end of November.  It was fun to run a race with my brother Shane, and his father-in-law and brother-in-law.  As much as I kept questioning myself about doing it, I'm glad we did it!

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we went to St. George for a softball tournament.  Josh was invited to play on a team to raise money for Toys 4 Tots.  They played a total of four games.  It was fun to go to a new place, for the weekend.  The weather was so nice there, we didn't want to come home.  Josh had lots of fun playing!

Our wedding anniversary was on December 12.  We have been married for two years now!  It feels like so much longer.  It is awesome being married to my best friend!  Below is a collage that Josh put together.

Jazz game and date weekend!

On Friday, October 24, we went to a Jazz basketball game.  For those of you that don't know, Josh is a HUGE Jazz fan!  And by huge, I mean if I gave him the okay, we'd have season tickets, even though we live 2.5 hours away from Salt Lake!  Earlier that week Josh talked about going to a Jazz game that weekend.  We knew Josh finally had a weekend off, so instead of sitting around this boring town, we decided we'd go to a Jazz game and spend a couple of days in Salt Lake.  So Josh went online and found us some pretty sweet 10th row tickets.  We both love going to Jazz games.  The atmosphere at the game, is so much fun!  I had to work on the day of the game, so we decided we'd leave as soon as I got off work around 3pm.
As soon as I got home from work, Josh was busy packing our bag and getting things ready to go.  I of course being the girl that I am, debated on if I had packed everything I needed.  I hurried and changed my clothes, and then grabbed a bottle of water, and headed out the door to head to Salt Lake.  We stopped and ate in Salt Lake, and then headed to the game.  As soon as we parked the car, I asked Josh to pop the truck so that I could put my purse inside.  I hate carrying my purse around at Jazz games.  As I went to put my purse in the truck, I noticed our bag was not in the trunk.  I then checked the back seat of the car.  No bag.  So then I asked Josh where our bag was.  His immediate response was, "I thought you grabbed it."  We had both assumed the other person had grabbed it.  I was determined that this was not going to ruin our date weekend.  After the game, we made a stop at WalMart and got all of the necessities.  $80 later we were ready to head to the hotel.
While we were waiting for the games to start, I turned around and noticed that Jerry Sloan was sitting in the row behind us.  I didn't want to be that annoying fan and ask for a picture with him, so Josh tried to take a non-obvious picture of me with him in the background.  I think he did a pretty good job!

I LOVE spending time with my husband!  I just wish that we could do it more often!  

Another fun race...

On Saturday, August 16, Shanon and I, along with a  few of my running friends, ran another 5K!  This one was difficult for me.  I've been having back and hip issues for a month now.  I debated on if I should even do this one, but then I decided I would "just walk it".  If you're a runner, you know how difficult it is when an injury happens that prevents you from running.  I've been going to the chiropractor and been trying to take it easy, but it's so hard.  According to the chiropractor, this injury has happened because of me running on the uneven roads.  I love running outside!  I feel so free and unstoppable when I run outside.  The chiropractor telling me that's what is causing my pain, made me so sad.  I've been trying to get better, but it's taking forever.  

On the day of the race, I decided I was going to give it everything I could, even if it was just a walk.  This race was a girls only race. I started out the race walking, but not to far into it, I decided I had to at least try to jog.  I finished the race in 33:07.  That's the slowest I've done a 5K, but at least I did the best I could!  Shanon did fantastic and placed 1st in our age group!!

After Shanon, my friends, and I completed our race, it was time for the Princess Run.  Tori was so excited about this!  She did awesome!!

Tim McGraw Concert

At the end of July, we went to a Tim McGraw concert.  This is the second year in a row we've gone.  The concert was at USANA amphitheater, which is a really fun atmosphere.  The concert is held on a stage that is outdoors.  There are seats, but then there is also lots of grass areas to sit on.  We do the grass section because it's cheaper.  My favorite part about going to this concert, is just being able to spend time with the hubby.  Between having totally opposite work schedules, sleeping schedules, and days off, it feels like we never get to spend good quality time together.  Any chance we can escape from Roosevelt and spend time together, is my favorite.  I just love him so much!  Below is a picture the we took while waiting for the concert to start.  Don't mind my blue lips and teeth.  I had just eaten a snow cone.

Sister Race!

My sister Shanon, finally ran a race with me!  That's two siblings that I've had the fun of running a race with.  Shanon started telling me that she wanted to run a race with me, early in the beginning of summer.  While I was so excited about this, I was also nervous.  I had to find the perfect race for her "first race".  I started doing searches trying to find the most perfect race.  When I finally found a good one that I had done in the past, I was afraid of what her answer might be.  Most people start out with a 5K for their first race.  This "perfect race" was a 10K.  To my surprise she said yes!  It was an awesome race, and I'm so glad we got to do this race together!  Shanon's friend Janie also ran the race with us.  It was nice to have Janie there with us on race day.  I only wish that I lived closer so that we could do this more often!  (This race actually happened June 14.  I'm just a little slow at posting.)

Myself, Shanon, and Janie at the beginning of the race.

Shanon got her "PR" so she got to ring the bell at the end of the race!

My running buddy Angela and I.

Myself, Shanon, and Janie at the end of the race!

California.

Josh's biological father passed away.  He lived in Sacramento, California.  So we booked our plane tickets, rental car, and hotel, and made the trip.  We tried to do a little exploring while we were there.  

We went to the Sacramento Zoo.  We were hoping this would be a bigger and more exiting zoo than the Hogle Zoo, but were wrong.  It was also field trip day for the local school, so there were tons of kids.

We only were in Sacramento for 2 days.  One day to go exploring and spend time with Josh's aunt and uncle, and the next day was the funeral. Josh and I both had mixed emotions about the whole thing, but overall it was a good experience and we're glad we went.

This is Uncle Eddie and Aunt Phyllis.  They are the ones that took time out of there busy schedule and spent most of a day with us!  They were so much fun!

 Josh and his brother Dontrae

 Josh and his Aunt Ana

 Josh and Grandma GG

 Grandma GG and I

This is Josh and all of his siblings on his dads side, with Grandma GG.

I did it!!!

Ever since we have moved to Roosevelt, I've had a struggle running.  I have been really into running, for almost 4 years now.  Each summer, every Saturday is usually marked with a race of some sort.  Now that we live 2.5 hours away from Salt Lake, running has been a struggle for me.  It's more difficult for me to do races since we're so far away.  My running girls live in the Layton area, so Salt Lake was always our main places to run races.  In our neighborhood in Magna, there was so many good places to run.  I always looked forward to my daily runs outside.
So far this year, I have done 3 races.  One 10K (6.2 miles), one 10 mile race, and this past Saturday, I did a half marathon.  I have been training for about 3 months.  All of my training has been done on my treadmill.  Since now we live out in the country, I'm terrified to run outside.  I have two fears of running outside.  My first fear is to be hit by a car.  My second fear is to be attacked by a dog.  No one chains up there dogs or has fences.  So dogs are free to roam around.  Since I have these two fears, I still haven't been able to convince myself to run outside.  So I've been stuck on the treadmill watching Netflix while I run.  Not the most enjoyable thing, but I guess it could be worse.
I signed up for the Vigor Utah Half Marathon, months ago.  I usually sign up for months in advance, so I don't talk myself out of doing them.  And they're usually cheaper, the earlier you sign up.  Since I hadn't done any outside training, I was really worried about how my body would handle the actual race.  I drove up to Salt Lake on Friday when I got off of work.  I stayed in a hotel that night.  I barely slept.  I was already nervous about the race, and not being in my own bed didn't help.  I think I probably slept for 3 hours.  My alarm went off bring and early at 3am.  My first thought was, "why in the world am I doing this".  Then I made myself get up and get going.  My excitement and adrenaline started going!  I left the hotel about 3:45am and headed for the bus pick up.  Once I got there, I met all of my fantastic running friends.  We took a bus up to the start line of the race.  Luckily for this race, we got to wait in a heated lodge before the race started.

We stood around and chit chatted for about an hour before they told us it was time to go to the start line.  We began walking down the hill.  When we finally got to the start line, there were 4 port-a-potties for the 403 half marathon runners.  What in the world?!?!  One rule of thumb when running a race, is always use the bathroom before you start.  So my friends and I got in line.  Then it was time for the race to start, and we were still in line for the potties.  I couldn't run without using the bathroom first.  I ended up starting the race 7 minutes after everyone else.  I was the second to last person to start the race.
The race was AMAZING!!  I loved every minute of it!  My body was totally fine until about mile 10.  Then my calves started cramping up really bad.  I kept pushing myself, and just kept hoping I could push to the finish line.  Then I saw the finish line.  I really pushed hard to run as fast as I could, even though at this point my legs were really hurting.  Seeing the finish line and knowing that I was almost there, is such an amazing feeling.  I crossed the finish line 1 hour 57 minutes 34 seconds after I had started the race!  That was a fantastic time for me, and my personal record!  I was so excited!!!  The only thing that would of made it better, was if Josh would of been there waiting for me.  All of the stressing, anxiety, lack of sleep, doubting myself, was all worth it at that very minute!  That feeling is why I do the races I do.  Accomplishing something, that I always try to tell myself I can't do, feels pretty fantastic!  As much as I have tried to talk myself out of doing races, I think I'll find a few more to do this summer.  The feeling is addicting!

A little getaway…….

For those of you that don't know, Josh and I's birthdays are two days apart.  Since we have been together for four of our birthdays now, and we always try to do something special.  Instead of just birth"days", we turn it into a birthday week.  This year we decided to go to Vegas for our birthdays.  Due to my work schedule, we had to take this little vacation before the actual week of our birthdays.  We decided to make it easier on ourselves, and fly out of Vernal instead of Salt Lake.  This would save us 4 hours of driving time, and paying for parking.  We flew from Vernal to Salt Lake, and then had a layover before flying to Vegas.  Once we got to Vegas, we took a shuttle to our hotel.  
We didn't really have too much of a plan once we got to Vegas.  We figured we would just play each day by ear, and do whatever we wanted.  On our first day there, we decided to stop at one of the half price show ticket booths.  The only show we were really interested in seeing was Boyz II Men.  Yes, we're that old!  

We were actually excited to go see them!  And guess what?!  It was even better than we expected it to be!  We sang along to every song we knew.  Definitely worth going to.
The next couple of days we walked up and down the strip.  We went into the different malls and saw different things as we walked around.  It was nice to be in the nice warm sunshine, instead of the cold wind of Roosevelt.  
On our third night there, we were eating at a little restaurant in the hotel we were staying at.  A couple of ladies came up to us and asked if we had plans for that night.  We said no.  They then asked us if we wanted their tickets to the hypnotist that was in about an hour.  They were too tired to go.  We said sure and took the tickets.  It was a comedy hypnotist show, and it was pretty funny.
We had a great time in Vegas.  I didn't want to come home.  Most of all, I was happy to finally have some one on one time with my honey!  We are both always so busy, and always seem to be on opposite working schedules.  I don't know what I would do without Josh by my side.  He is my rock, and is always there for me no matter what.  I love him more than anything in this entire world, and would do anything for him to make him happy.  This was a much needed vacation and I'm so glad we were able to go!

Finally…….Feeling Complete in Roosevelt!

Finally after 4 months of being in Roosevelt, I am starting to feel more complete!  We had been living with some friends of ours, for the last 4 months.  Finding housing in Roosevelt, is next to impossible.  We knew it was going to be difficult before we moved here, but we had no idea it would be as bad as it is.  Most people living in Roosevelt, have built their homes.  There is hardly anything available to rent.  The homes that are for rent, are super expensive.  There's also very few apartment complexes and things like that around here.  We began our search and came with up absolutely nothing.  I was really beginning to doubt our decision to move out here, when we couldn't find anything.
When we had first made our decision to move to Roosevelt, I had talked with my younger brother Tyson.  He had let me know that he had a friend that lived in Roosevelt.  So when our search of finding a place to live turned up nothing, I talked with Tyson.  I asked him if he would ask his friend if he knew of anything to rent in Roosevelt.  Tyson was our good luck charm!  Tyson's friend, just happened to be building duplex's that he was planning on renting out.  We were beyond excited at this point.  We talked with Tyson's friend, and set up an appointment to come and look at the duplex that was being built.  It was still in the early stages of being built, but we knew we had to have it.  A few weeks went by and I had contacted the landlord several times.  We were willing to do anything to make sure that the duplex was ours once it was done.  Finally, after a few weeks, and paying the deposit, it was guaranteed to be ours!  Then the waiting began.  At first we were told it would be completed by the second week of December.  The second week of December came and went.  Then we were told January 1.  January 1 came and went.  Finally on January 6, we paid the rent and were given the keys to our new place to call home.  We couldn't wait to begin moving in.  Josh moved all of the boxes and smaller stuff, in his Durango while I was working.  Then on that Friday, our moving crew (family and friend) thankfully came from Salt Lake to help us move. It was such a happy day!  First thing I did when we had everything in the house, was make the bed so that we could sleep here that night.  All of our belongings have been in a storage unit the entire time we have been here.  It is so nice to finally have all of our things under one roof.  I have never been so grateful to sit on my own couch and sleep in my own bed.  Every day since moving in, has been great! We love our new place to call home!