Sunday, October 26, 2014

We Love our Fire Pit!

Can I just say that we LOVE our fire pit. We have had several fires the last couple of months and are a little sad that the season for them is coming to an end. It has been fun to have people over and not have to clean my house. :)




I bet you wish you lived closer so that you could come hang out at our house on a summer evening and roast hotdogs and marshmallows. I wish you lived closer too.

Little Amerrika

Philip and I took Orion and William to an amusement park called Little Amerrika. Lots of fun was had.










Winstons 1st hair cut

Before:

After:


My baby isn't so baby-ish anymore. :(

Cutting down the tree

We had a large 60 foot pine tree in our back yard.

I hated it. Really truly despised the thing. Half of it was dead. It was hard to get underneath it to get all the weeds and random trees growing under it. And it was super pokey. Also, it made too much shade, so I had no good place to put in a garden. So my super sweet husband bought a bow saw, and started taking it down.

Orion helped some too.


Cutting down trees is messy!





Philip spent just about every evening up in that tree for about a week.


When most of it was down, we had the young men come over and help cut it into pieces for a young mens activity. We had about 5 chain saws going in the back yard.






We spent a lot of afternoons piling up the wood, and pulling the branches to the front yard for the city wide brush pick up.


It was a lot of work to do it our selves, but I am glad that it is done, and the things we learned in taking it down. Next summer when we take down the two smaller ones, it should be easier.












Thursday, October 9, 2014

Not the news I wanted to share

The title of this post was supposed to be

BABY #5 is coming in APRIL

Instead, I am going to share with you my experience of having a miscarriage. It isn't something that people talk a lot about, and so I didn't really know what to expect. And while I know that every person and every miscarriage is different, maybe this will bring someone somewhere a little bit of comfort.

On Monday July 28th, I found out that I was pregnant. I was super excited! Just 8 days later, I started throwing up. I was only 5 weeks along! I thought morning sickness was supposed to hold off until weeks 7 or 8! I spent 4 weeks crazy nauseous, and throwing up often. My jeans got uncomfortably tight, really early. I figured all these things were good signs.
At about 10 weeks, I stopped throwing up.
At 11 weeks, the nausea went away.
I was a little concerned. I was only 11 weeks. Shouldn't I still be in the throes of morning sickness?
At 12 weeks (Monday September 22) I went in for my fist trimester screen. As soon as I saw the baby on the screen, I knew something was wrong.  Why was the baby holding so still? Why was it so little? Where was the little flicker of a heart beat? The ultra-sound tech asked me how far along I was. Asked if I had had any cramping or bleeding. She then told me that the baby was measuring just a little small, so they wanted to do a introvaginal ultra-sound. I went to the bathroom to go change.
Again, as soon as I saw the baby, I just knew. There wasn't a heartbeat. Even when they turned the sound on to listen, it was just silent. Nothing.
My heart broke.
The tech left to go get a doctor. The doctor came back, and looked some more with the ultra-sound. Finally I was told that I had lost the baby. He was only measuring 9 weeks, and no heart beat could be detected.
I was sent to a room to wait for my OB to call, to decide what the next step should be. After about 20 minutes, a nurse came in and told me that my dr would just call my cell phone and that I could go home. I somehow made it out of the building without falling to pieces.
I broke down in the car when I called Phil.
I cried half the way home. (I was an hour away)
For about a minute and a half I was even angry. Why did I have to lose this baby? Why did I have to be so sick if I was just going to lose it? It wasn't fair!!
But then I prayed for comfort, and strength to get through this.
I picked up my boys from Wanda's, and cried on her shoulder.
 I went home and just laid on the floor, waiting for the giant hole in my chest to close. It didn't.
Philip came home early from work. About that time my doctor called and asked if we could come in that afternoon. (Again, my dr is almost an hour away.) So, Philip went and pulled Orion and William from school and we took the kids back to Wanda's and went to the appointment. The doctor said that most of the time when you loose the baby between 8 & 10 weeks it is due to a chromosomal mistake in either the sperm or the egg that doesn't allow the baby to continue to develop. She assured me that it wasn't anything I did or didn't do that caused this.
We talked about options. I had two. I could either wait for my body to miscarry the baby, or I could have a D&C.  I just wanted this done. Over with. I didn't want to have to think about it anymore. I opted for a D&C.  We were told that someone would be in contact with us to schedule the surgery. When we got home, there was a message on the machine saying that I had an appointment for the next day at 4.
I cried myself to sleep that night.
Tuesday morning was ok. I felt a little better. The only time I cried was when my friend Rachel gave me a hug and told me she was sorry. The big gaping hole in my chest was still there. And I was so tired. So so tired. My friend Becci took Oliver and Winston for the morning, and I got some school work done. That afternoon, I picked Orion and William up early from school, again and took all the kids over to Wanda's. Again. I then picked Phil up from work and we went to my appointment. Where we met with a different Dr, who told us that he agreed with the assessment made that the baby was not alive and that I had two options. I again said that I would like to have a D&C.I know this sounds weird, but knowing that something was dead inside of me was starting to creep me out. I no longer felt like there was a baby there, just some alien. I wanted it out. Right then. Instead we scheduled the D&C for Friday afternoon.
Wednesday, was a good day. My friend Jen brought me flowers. I went out to lunch with Wanda. Philip skipped out on Young Mens to come home. I was feeling pretty good. That big gaping hole wasn't as big as it had been. And, I didn't cry once.
Thursday, again was a pretty good day. I only cried when I talked to my sister Rachel on the phone.
Friday afternoon I had my D&C. I kept feeling like I should have felt worse than I did. I really truly felt ok. I was still a little sad about loosing my baby, but I felt like even that was ok. I was feeling at peace.
Now, almost 3 weeks later, the hole in my chest is filled. It is filled with the love of my friends, my family, my children, my husband, and mostly, my Heavenly Father. I am sure that there was a reason I needed to go through this experience. I have no clue what that reason might be, but I know that Heavenly Father loves me and has plan for me that will bring me more joy and happiness than I can imagine. I just have to keep hanging in there and endure to the end.