Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Hope your weekend is filled with family and love and the spirit of gratitude and Christ. With love, Jeremy*Leslie*Mckayla*Talmage*Kaitlyn

Life is bitter sweet...

and I'm doing my best to enjoy the sweet now.  Not every day is perfect and happy and normal, but the scale is tipping more in positive's favor.  I'm still confused as to why it had to happen at all and why it had to happen now, but it did so I must carry on with life I guess.  This carrying on thing after miscarriage is interesting though.  After a death of a loved one we go through a mourning and grieving process which usually and hopefully ends with some closure.  A viewing and funeral, lots of pictures and memories shared, things to look back on, a grave to visit.  The loss of a tiny baby whom I never saw or knew outside the womb is different.  The closure is different.  I can mourn and grieve, but I have nothing to visit, nor any pictures to look back on.  I hate the feeling of moving on like nothing ever happened, although I know it's ok not to think about the little one and the loss and the dreams gone for that baby all the time.   But it makes me feel bad sometimes the idea of moving on and not thinking about it often at all.  I hate that the last 11 weeks all of the sudden feel like they were a quick flash, yet I'm grateful for that at times too.  Such a strange trying journey of feelings to go through.

I'm generally more happy now though, haven't cried in a few days.  After the initial couple days, what made me cry most often was reading a new email or Facebook notification of a message a caring friend had sent.  Even just a sentence or two.  It made me cry because it reminded me of the loss, and it made me emotional because I have people out there who care enough to acknowledge that little life and the hardship I've gone through working through the loss of it.  That's what it's all about for me and I'd think most mom's who've been through a loss, they/we just want the recognition that it was a life, there was love and hopes there, and that it hurts to lose them.  One of the challenges along with this has been with my husband.  Now don't get me wrong, he's let me talk a lot, he's just listened, and I really appreciate it.  What's hard is when he just doesn't get it, feel the way I do.  I acknowledge that he never saw me grow a big belly, didn't get to feel the baby kick, didn't get to see it.  He didn't think of the baby every day as I who was carrying it did.  I know that.  It's just challenging to have him not completely understand what I'm going through, it's hard that this journey doesn't feel like ours as much as mine.  But I thank him and love him.  Thank you, thank you, thank you family, friends, neighbors, even just acquaintances.  Your service, empathy and unfortunately sympathy (I wish so many didn't have to go through this) has been and is so very much appreciated.  Every little bit of it.  Taking one minute out of your day to text or email or FB or call, it means an awful lot to me.

Physically I'm doing ok.  I'm going to put out details in not super gory form, but maybe enough you men may not want to read it and that's fine if you don't, fine if you do. I'm just warning you the rest of this paragraph does contain some details put out to maybe help someone else.  I have it written in much greater detail privately.  If you're going through something like this and would like to hear more details, just let me know.  So saw the initial blood Sunday night, held out hope for Monday's appointment but a no go, no heartbeat  :(  Bleeding lighter than a period and no cramping through Wednesday.  Thursday was awful.  4 good hours of really hard cramps, and a lot of blood and clots/tissue past (no nothing recognizable).  I wanted a narcotic, the 800mg of Ibuprofen didn't cut it, but I got through it without dying  :)  Traumatic to see and feel what I did those 4 hours, but at least it gave some closure, there was no more doubt in my mind that we were done being pregnant.  Layed down for a 25 minute nap and woke up feeling so strangely 100% normal.  Normal energy, no cramping, not much bleeding.  Very strange and lasted the night.  Woke up Friday feeling like garbage.  Cramping, tired, drained, bleeding more, just generally uncomfortable.  Rested as much as I could.  Saturday I woke up feeling better, took Talmage out shopping close by that late afternoon for 2-3 hours and had totally had it by the end.  Back was on fire, cramping again, bleeding more, time to be home in bed which I did for the rest of the night.  Sunday was a better day, although hard emotionally.  Woke up feeling good today.  Haven't cramped, but the bleeding did pick up and I'm passing stuff again, not as much as Thursday by any means, but enough to make me pay attention.  I do hope this miscarriage completes itself at home, I do not want a D&C.  I feel fine though, so just trying to keep up on the rest when I can and hydration.  Blood pressure probably is a little low. 
Oh and the things I've had to teach about over the last week.  Had to explain the whole baby just didn't grow right and is back in heaven now, that the baby is/was very tiny (I gave them a grape size to think about which I think helped so they didn't think we had a full term baby, I also helped them see that my belly wasn't big, so the baby was very small) and that the baby has to come out and it's uncomfortable for mommy, like it when we had Kaitlyn (they were there by our choice).  Oh yeah, I had to explain pads too....in a public restroom....as my sweet Kaity asked why I was wearing a diaper...awesome  :)

So anyway, that's the update for now for anyone that was curious.  Again, just wanted to emphasize how important all of your little thoughts and prayers for me have been.  It's been a sad and sucky time this past week (sorry, those were the best words), but I'm starting to pull out of it some, and that's good.

No lemonade

I've been waiting for yesterday and today for almost 2 months now.  I was so excited to tell our kids and our family and our friends that we're expecting our 4th child!  I was so excited to get to our first appointment and hear and see that baby I'd waited so long to announce, way longer than any of my other kids.  Turns out though, that the only announcement I have to make is that we saw nothing yesterday, no heartbeat  :(  

I'm so sad.  I'm so sad we won't bring that next child into our family now.  It's petty, but I'm sad I won't get to use all the cute summer maternity clothes I've bought over the last couple months for this last pregnancy.  I'm sad that the day I was going to make the announcement thing for my kids and another for our parents, I started bleeding.  Boy seeing unexpected blood is so traumatic.  I just bawled in Jeremy's arms.  While I still held out some hope to go into our regularly scheduled 10 week appointment the next day (yeah, nice timing eh?), nothing.  We searched and searched with the ultrasound and doppler for maybe 30 minutes and just couldn't find what we were so hopefully looking for.  I'm so sad we won't get to bring a baby home in early July and have 2 months where Mckayla and Talmage could enjoy their new sister or brother before going to school all day.

I'm mad.  I'm mad it happened when it did.  I've had 3 miscarriages before this one.  All three were 5 years and 2 kids ago and much earlier than this one, I thought this was behind us.  I'll just say it, it's a lot harder to have a miscarriage at 10 weeks when you've invested time and thoughts and hopes and plans into a baby for almost two months then it is to have it happen a week or two after a pregnancy test.  Crazy how much really gets invested in a short amount of time.  I can't imagine even later losses.  Don't get me wrong, those early losses were very difficult, but this one just sucks!  I WAS GOING TO TELL EVERYONE YESTERDAY AND TODAY and now?  I have no good news.  I never got to announce this baby.  Sure I'm alive and healthy and strong, and of course I'm grateful for that, but right now, I don't care.  I just want my hopes and plans and my July baby back.

I'm sad, I'm mad, I'm disappointed, I'm angry, I'm hurt, I'm sad, so sad.  For myself, for my family, for my kids, for this baby.  We waited a long time (for us) to have another and I was just so excited at the timing.  It even worked well with my racing.  I was so excited!  I just have no idea where to go from here.  Do we try again?  I don't really suspect we'd have a problem in the future, but then again I never suspected we'd have a problem this time.  Do we just call it good with the 3 beautiful healthy and perfect blessings of children we have now?  I don't know.  I want to feel some direction and I want it now, but I guess it will just take time.  I should add that I am grateful for the kind words and deeds already given by people I've told, thank you.   This is a hard time right now, but knowing people care and acknowledge a short life like this one and our hurt helps.

Why can't a positive pregnancy test (or 2 or 3) just mean you'll give birth to a healthy happy baby in about 9 months??  Why does there have to be adversity and a lack of all knowledge in this world?  I'm grateful for the gospel and know Heavenly Father wouldn't do anything to hurt me or my family.  I'm not doubting his plan or love, but I'm still mad and hurt and disappointed and very sad.  I'm not a hero, I'm not going to tell you I'm just so grateful for everything and I know it all will work out and that I'm grateful for my trials.  I have friends that are hero's to me, that have been so brave and strong with loss.  I'm just not a hero right now.  I'm not in the mood for lemonade right now, but maybe someday.

'The most wonderful time of the year'

I love Christmas time.  We've had Christmas music on the radio since the day after Thanksgiving and I'm definately not tired of it.  I love to hear the kids sing along to traditional songs they know.  I love getting out the tree and even more love seeing the dim light it casts in the living room at night.  We let the kids put all the ornaments on the tree this year.  I haven't had the urge to have a fancy pretty well put together tree yet, and the kids enjoy getting the ornaments out and talking about them, so I think it's great to have our kids decorated mosh posh tree.  I was worried about Kate redecorating it but we've been fine so far.  Playing with the fancy fragile nativity sets has been more up her alley......

We had a Santa filled day yesterday starting with a ward breakfast.  Amazing how nice regular old breakfast food can be when it's warm and not made by you  :)  The kids had a good time running around the gym with friends (another thing that baffles me, give a kid an open area and instant fun, you'd think we keep them locked in a closet), and were all good about Santa except our Kate who much prefers to keep her distance and wave.

That afternoon we went down to Trolley Square for story time with Santa.  A cute female elf read them 4 or 5 good Christmas stories while they sat and ate cookies and milk they were giving out.  After that we walked a good half mile down to the Trax station and hopped off at Temple Square just in time to see the lights come on.  Made our way through fairly quickly, caught the train again and ended back up at Trolley Square where are a 45 or so minute wait (thankfully inside with free hot chocolate, cider, and ice cream sandwhiches), we got to go on a free (notice a pattern here?) carriage ride!!  Jer nor I have never been on these horse drawn carriages you see downtown so that was really fun to be able to go with the kids and see the lights around that area.  Just a short 10-15 or so minute ride, but enough.  It was so fun to see the kids across from us looking so entertained, calm, and grown up.  Where have my babies gone?!

 

Hope your families are all enjoying the season as well!

Other November happenings

Mckayla had her first Science Fair! She tested which would melt faster, water, milk, or juice (her idea).  She did really great and it was fun and surreal to help create a real science fair project I feel like I just did a couple years ago (more than that, I assure you). We were so thrilled to see all of our parents come out, thanks guys! She felt really special having all her grandparents, a couple uncles, and an aunt come out. She's doing great in the Magnet (Gifted) program she's in. I don't love that we just lost our car pool, but at least the school is only 1.5 miles away. We went to our first SEP (parent teacher conference) and found out she's at the top of her class, not that I really care, I really really don't, I'm not trying to raise a prodigy, I was just curious how she fits into these new kids. We really weren't sure whether to send her to the new school and program or not. But I think she's challenged at a pace most suited to her and she learns such neat things like art and music that I think we made the right decision.

 Aside from Mckayla's birthday we also had Jer's on the 11th, the big 3-0 Gasp I know!! He's so funny, he really took 30 hard and I totally don't get that. He's fine now, but it was funny to watch him worry about it. The kids and I did something casual that day then two days later I told him I was taking him out on a date so we had to drop the kids off at his mom's house. Little did he know his wonderful wifey had a surprise party waiting! Not as many people as I had hoped would come, but THANK YOU so much to the super great friends that did come, we really appreciate it and it was great to see you!

My dad had a bad infection in his leg, bad enough to be admitted to the hopstial for a few days for IV antibiotics, then spent about a week in a rehab center.  It was hard to see him there, but the kids and I dropped by several times and I'm glad to say the infection is much better.  He got to do some rehab while he was in there too that I happened to be there for.  He suffers from Chrons Disease which means he can't have any kind of gluten (most carbohydrate foods have gluten, bread, crackers, flour, a lot of stuff) and it's been hard for him, but he and my mom have been working hard to find him the right substitue foods to keep him healthy.  The problem is his body doesn't aborb nutrients well so he has suffered massive swelling in his legs which requires either laying in bed all day or these industrial medical wraps to help keep the swelling down.  It's hard to for him to walk and be motivated with life and that's hard.  I try to encourage him and bring the kids over a lot as he is a great grandpa and I think they brighten him up.  He's moving around better and feeling better lately I think and that makes me happy. 
Love you Dad!

 We also got to have my twin sister Stephanie and her husband Ryan out here for Thanksgiving!  It's so much fun to have them here.  I look forward to the day someday when maybe we can be neighbors  :)  We hung out at my parents house, they slept over at our house which we always love.  Ryan is a perfect playmate for Talmage, it was fun to watch them, especially with the 3 new play swords my sister brought Talm to play with.  We also got to run the Orem Earn Your Turkey 4 mile race Thanksgiving day - my sister's FIRST RACE!  She just started running this summer (I don't suspect watching my 12 hour Ironman had anything to do with it...) and I got to join her in her first race!  She did so well, I'm so proud of her.  As we'd never run together before I really didn't know what the pace would be like but she really surprised me.  She was never out of breath which is good since I talked her ear off the whole time and she could talk back, and never needed to walk.  My goal for us was 45 minutes, but I'm not sure she thought we could make it that fast.  Well, we ended up running 42 minutes - wahoo!!!  It was so fun and something I'll look forward to doing again when she's here in May.

 We also got to celebrate our 27th birthday while out here. I don't think I have the picture of it, and forgive my pics lately, we don't have a working real camera so they're all taken with my phone. Something is better than nothing right? Anyway, we had a great day at my parents and then they had to go home the next day. Always fun to have them here, can't wait to see them in the spring!

Happy Birthday Mckayla!

Our big girl is 7 now!  That's crazy, but believeable if you know Mckayla.  We love her so much and are so glad she's in our family.  She's so smart and kind and quick to make friends.  She loves to craft with anything and everything, and she loves to read.  It's not uncommon for us to find her an hour or two after we put her to bed, still devouring a book.  She's great as a big sister and a fun companion to Mom and Dad when we get the chance to take just her out.  I can't wait to see what the future holds for Mckayla, and I can't wait to watch her learn even more about the world around her.  Happy 7th Birthday Kayla-Pie!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great time this year and of course I packed in as much as possible!  Talmage also wore as many costumes as possible, see if you can count them  :)  We started the season off with several little Halloween parties at the library and fitness center.

The only pics I have of Kait in her Elmo costume, worth it though, isn't she cute!

We enjoyed a great Halloween care package from Aunt Stephy

Went to the Zoo a couple times (including once, this time, where Mom got the Boo at the Zoo date wrong, doh!)

Went and watched Mckayla in her Halloween Parade at school

And well, just plum wore them out  :)

Then Halloween actually came!  :)  A corn maze in Lehi called Cornbelly's (which is SO much fun, TONS of activities for the kids) had a little Pumpkin Princess Pageant that the girls got to participate in.  My mom found Mckayla her dress at the DI and helped her make the leaves that we put all along her waistband (wish you could see them better) and on her headband.  Mckayla did all the beading.
Kaitlyn's wasn't anything exciting, more last minute so she didn't feel left out, just tacked some orange ribbon the bottom of her green velvet dress (thank  you DI again).  They got to go up on stage and have a little paragraph we wrote written about them, it was very cute.  If I can figure out how to get the audio up I will.  A BIG thank you to Grandma Marla for taking them down there until we could be there and keeping the kids overnight so Jer and I could have our own Halloween fun.....

Not that kind, yeesh!  ;)  Jer and I got to run the Halloween Half Marathon together Saturday morning!  So fun!  We would normally race 20 minutes apart -meaning I would have 20 minutes to get ready to cheer for him  :)  but today I wanted to run with him.  I think it was kind of mandatory seeing as our rockin costumes go together well!  We ran a 1:46 which is about 3 minutes better than Jer's time earlier this year at Hobblecreek.  Way to go babe!

Fun race and fun seeing 70% of the 2000+ runners in their costumes!

After our race that morning, then the pageant, we trick or treated at Grammy Allan's work, then went to the house to see Grandpa and Tyler.  It was really cute to see my Dad playing with the kids.

Then we got to rest at home for a couple hours before heading out to trick or treat the neighborhood.  Sorry this is the only pic we got.  The kids were really cute and had a great time till the end where hands were getting pretty cold and bags pretty heavy.  Kate retired to the stroller after about 15 minutes, but that's ok.

When I say their bags/buckets were full, I mean it!  We didn't go crazy and drive around to other neighborhoods (hate that by the way, we saw a few adults hauling little kids around with a car in tow, it's JUST candy people!), just to most of our own, but they filled those buckets to the top!  We enjoyed a movie and popcorn together (where mom and dad fell asleep), and a good nights sleep.  

Let the parental candy tax begin!

Happy Halloween everyone!!

"Oh what do you do in the Summer time...'

So this post is WAY overdue and late, but I couldn't let summer get away from us without summarizing a little bit of it.

We were fortunate enough to get to have Aunt Jamie and Cousin Morgan come out from New York for a few days back in July.  Mckayla just adores Morgan!  She was around her constantly mothering and playing with her.  Talm thought she was pretty cool too, and Kait, she hovered cautiously  :)

We had the opportunity to have my great friend Heidi come and take some impromptu cousin pics for us.  When I say impromptu I mean it.  We took about 15 mintues to do these (and there are more of just Jamie and Morgan too) and she made em work and look great just right up on Jer's mom's porch.

Love their faces in these, Kait's particularly.  In the first one she's just keeping her eye on everyone and questioning why Morgan is getting her siblings attention, and in the second, well, Talm and Kait just remind me of the farmer picture with the husband and wife and pitchfork.  Don't know why, just does  :)

We also got to take Jamie and Morgan to the Zoo!  My mom bought us a membership last year and it was great.  It was a grandparent plus membership that allowed me or her to take the kids, as well as 3 other guests for free.  We just went for probably our last time this past week and it was so quiet and slow, just like we like it.  But I digress.  It was fun with Morgan in July too, we especially loved the train ride.

We went to see Toy Story 3 with Grammy Allan/Grammy Jolene/Grammy with the puppies.  We haven't nailed down a solid name just yet  :)  I know, it's been 6 years, but Grammy Allan always makes me think of my Grandma Allan, and Grandma Jolene just hasn't rung a bell with me either.  We're working on it

I took the kids to a couple small parades this year which was fun.  They've discovered how to run after candy, and don't get too bothered by the loud noises anymore.  The one up in Cottonwood Heights we went to was fun because it had a lot of free kids activities of course including our favorites, bounce houses, face painting, and balloons.

I took the kids up to the Copper Mine for the first time.  Talm thought it was awesome, Mckayla wasn't as amused.  The girl has high expectations, it could have been the heat though.  Talm's big disappointment was that we weren't taken on a personal tour down in the pit to try out the larger-than-a-house dump trucks  :)  It was fun though.  I haven't been there since I was about 12 with my mom, siblings, and Grandpa Joe.  We took a picture in front of this tire then that I hope to find soon. 

Our summer of course had it's fair share of road trips.  I'm not a huge fan, but the kids are getting old enough now that it's fairly doable, and I do love getting out with them.  They're such good sleepers camping too, well except Kait, she still hasn't nailed down the whole falling asleep by herself in the tent thing, so we all end up going down pretty early.

Yes, most of these trips are for races, but I try really hard to make it a family trip with a race as well.  These last couple pictures are from my race at Scofield.  Mckayla wanted to stay home with her Grandma, I was shocked and we missed her, but I guess it's a good thing she has her opinions and choices.....I guess  ;)

This particular race I was shuttled almost 2 miles out into the lake on a boat to start and left a water bottle on board they assured me would get returned.  This wouldn't be so important except for the fact that my wedding ring was inside!  Yeah I forgot to take it off and that's all I could think to do with it, lame I know.  But they assured me they'd return it to me.  So I go to find them after the race and can't...anywhere.   Long story short it did get returned while Talmage was with me.....with something else inside.
Yup, this little guy got put back in the water before we went home while we were playing (above)

The summer also consisted of lots of swimming both open water at the handy little Herriman Pond out by Jer's mom's, as well as the great pool I work at in Kearns.

We even got to go to Classic Waterslides, somewhere I also haven't been since I was a kid.  Talmage our most sqeimish one sometimes, was ironically the daredevil on the slides going down them all in tow with one of us.  Mckayla wanted nothing to do with them (still traumatized from the Snake River tubing we did in July (still gotta post about that) probably), but played in the kiddie area with Kaitlyn.  It was fun anyway though.  I've really had to learn to find the fine balance between letting them do their own thing what they'll have fun with, yet still put our foot down sometimes.  My biggest challenge right now is getting them (Mckayla mostly) to be willing to try experiences or food we deem safe and not poisonous.

Another membership we enjoyed over the last year was our Living Planet Aquarium pass.  It's a good deal if you go more than once in a year as the membership price is the same as if you went twice.  It's small and doesn't have a ton of activities or anything, but I think we probably went 5 or 6 times, and now of course that it's expired Talmage keeps asking to go back.  Not sure whether we'll buy another membership or not to here or the zoo, they all cost money, although I think this money is well spent, better than toys at least.

Sorry for the blotchy pics, they were from my camera phone and it's dark inside, so not the best lighting.

Now that summer is 'dead and gone' (sorry, had to use it) I miss it for sure.  I love spending time with the kids.  I love having picnics in the park, going swimming several times a week, riding bikes around, library story time, camping, trying to find as many super cheap or free activities as possible.  I love that they have school that they enjoy now, but I love the laid back feeling of 'what adventure should we have this week?' type of feeling.  Jer doesn't really get it, my wanting to always be busy with them, but that's ok, maybe it's a dad thing.  That's why God gave them a mommy   :)