Monday, July 1, 2013

From Valleys To Peaks: The Story Of The Beginning Of Our Family Of Three!!

There is something about blogging that makes me feel overwhelmed. I haven’t quite put my finger on it yet. It might have to do with the fact that I don’t think I ever have anything interesting to say. It might be that I usually wait months between blog posts and then feel like I have too much to say. Or maybe it’s the fact that so many of my friends have such cute blogs and mine is kinda blah. Whatever the reason, I have been trying to talk myself into getting into the habit of blogging lately now that we are having a baby because I know that I am going to want to remember the moments of this sweet baby boy’s life and the journey that we took to get him here. In an attempt to make a start, I finally have decided to blog about one of the most difficult experiences of my life. The reason that I feel like its important is because I feel like its something that not many people talk about, but more people have experienced it than you’d think.

The story starts back in October. Me and Patrick had talked about it and decided it was time for us to start a family. We started trying and I got pregnant on our very first month of trying. It was very surreal. We were ecstatic. We started making plans, talking about names, and told a few family members that we were expecting. I made an appointment with a new doctor because I didn’t have an OBGYN at that point. We had to wait 12 weeks for our first appointment because that was the standard procedure at this particular doctors office. Everything felt like it was going great. I was getting bigger. I was nauseated all the time. I had all the classic pregnancy symptoms that I was told were good signs. We waited anxiously for the day of our appointment to come. I kept telling my husband and the family members that knew I was pregnant that it didn’t feel real. That I had this irrational fear that I was going to go to the doctors office and he was going to tell me I was never pregnant. Everyone laughed and tried to make me feel better.

Finally the day of my appointment came. We anxiously waited for the doctor to come in. She went over the normal “new patient” information and asked about my symptoms. I was given a bag of books and baby freebies. Then she said “Now for the fun part! Lets do the ultrasound!” I nervously got up on the table. She turned the screen on and moved the probe around. Nothing. But a big empty sac. I didn’t know what I was really looking at or what to expect since this was my first baby. She looked concerned and asked if there was any way my dates could be off. I told her we were pretty certain about our dates. All she said at that point was “Well, we don’t really know what’s going on. You might be pregnant and just be earlier. You might not. It might just be an empty sac. We will just have to wait and see. Ill see you back in about another week and a half and we’ll go from there”. I was so confused! I might be pregnant. I might not be pregnant. HUH!? She left me to put my clothes back on and I cried in my husband arms. When I went up front to make my return appointment the receptionist went back and talked to my doctor and then came back up front and said “We will call you if you need to come back in”. I felt like I had been written off.

I went home, broke the news to my family, and started furiously googling to find out for myself what my diagnosis was, since my doctor obviously wasn’t telling me. My cousin found a good possibility called blighted ovum. Its where the eggs gets fertilized but never grows. But your body still thinks that it is pregnant and displays all the same symptoms of a normal pregnancy.  The gestational sac still grows, it is just empty.  I prepared myself for the worst. In my heart, I knew that miscarriage was eminent and I started to wish that if it was going to happen, it would hurry up and get over with. Three days later it did. I wont go into the details, but at one point I was in so much pain I felt like I was literally dying. My husband put his hands on my head and commanded the pain to leave my body using priesthood power and as soon as he said the words, I was flooded with relief. We called the on call doctor and told her our suspicions that it was a blight ovem. She checked my chart and confirmed that my doctor had written that down as my diagnosis. She didn’t bother to tell me that. I was furious. I felt like I had been lied to by my own doctor. I had to google my own diagnosis and prepare for the chances of miscarriage on my own. The next few days were a blur. A lot of tears, heartache, and prayers. Although technically the egg never grew and there never was a baby, it felt real to me now.

As we tried to pick up the pieces, we knew we wanted to try again for a baby right away. But the fear set in. I felt like having a normal healthy pregnancy wasn’t in my future. Even though multiple people reassured me that it was common to have a miscarriage with your first baby and that thousands of other woman had experienced what I was going through, I felt very alone. I think the reason I felt alone was because its something that most people that have experienced it just don’t talk about. For me, I felt slight embarrassment as well. I felt like my body had failed me and that I was broken in some way. I remember reading two friends posts on their blogs about miscarriages they had had. It helped a lot! I didn’t felt so alone. So although its difficult to talk about and think about, I hope that this post can help someone else that is going through what me and Patrick went through. You are not alone. The pain will go away. Happiness will be achievable again.

Now on to the happy part of this story! We were able to conceive again right away. My miscarriage happened at the beginning of January and by the middle of February I was pregnant again. I was so happy! I remember taking the test while Patrick was at work and when those words popped up announcing “pregnant” I squealed and jumped around the room. Although we were so happy to have a second chance, we were also scared to hope that it would turn out any different than last time. We didn’t want to get our hopes too high. I made an appointment with a new doctor (yeah, I wasn’t going back to the doctor who didn’t even tell me what to expect) to be seen around 8 weeks. I didn’t want to wait until 12 weeks to be told it was another empty sac.

Then around 5 weeks, the fear we had been holding at bay became a reality. I was getting ready for work when I felt a rush of blood. Patrick was already gone for work. I couldn’t believe it was happening again. I called the on call doctor at my new office and they had me come in for a blood test. They called me the next day to tell me my levels were high enough that they could do an ultrasound. When we went to the ultrasound, everything looked right and was measuring fine, but they couldn’t find a heartbeat. They assured me that everything looked fine and that it was normal to not see the heartbeat yet. They sent me home and said to call if the bleeding got worse. I didn’t have any more problems after that, but in my back of my mind, I tried to prepare myself to go to my 8 week appointment and have them tell me my dreams of becoming a mom were put on hold again.

I don’t think I slept at all the night before the appointment. I was excited and nervous. When the time finally came and the ultrasound popped up on the screen, there was my baby. It didn’t look like a baby, but he was there. His little heartbeat looked like a blinking light. It was strong and fast. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and I remember exchanging glances with Patrick. He squeezed my hand tight. Our baby was there. He measured great. The doctor said everything looked perfect. Even though I heard her say those words, each time I visited the doctor after that, I felt a little pang of worry as im sure every mom does, hoping everything is still going great.

Just 2 weeks ago, we had our appointment to find out the sex of the baby and to make sure everything was developing properly. We were both convinced that it was going to be a little girl. All the old wives tales seemed to point in that direction and we both just felt it was a girl. To our surprise, it’s a healthy little BOY. He’s our little fighter. Atleast that’s the way I see it. He was strong enough to make it past the initial scare of a miscarriage and or course handled all the stress im sure I put him through because of all my stressing like a champ! We couldn’t be happier.

And so, this is the beginning of our little family of three. Looking forward to camping trips, mud fights, and football games with our little man. I know that my husband will be an amazing father and I must give him props for how he dealt with the trials we went through to get where we are today. While I was falling apart at the seams, he held our family together and was exactly what I needed. I don’t know that this is the end of our trials and of course there is still a chance that there will be complications further on down the road. But for now, I am done stressing and worrying and am going to spend more time picking out cute newsies hats and baby boy suspenders. 

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

VACATION!!!

WARNING: THIS BLOG IS OVERLOADED WITH PICTURES

So this past week, we went on our California trip. It was soo much fun and such a good time! I loved being able to spend all day every day with Patrick. Our days were really packed but all full of fun stuff!

DAY 1: We went to Universal Studios. We couldnt decide if we really wanted to go here or not and we went back and forth trying to decide. In the end, we were sooo glad that we ended up going! The Transformers Ride is probably the coolest ride I have ever been on. I was skeptical because it was a 3D ride and I kinda hate 3D but it was so awesome!!





Funny story: So we were eating lunch and Patrick was like "What's that?" And pointed behind me. I turned around and THIS guy was standing right behind me. He scared the crap out of me! haha It was pretty funny!

I thought this nightgown was pretty funny, but for reals..Betty Boop is kinda a hoe haha

I love me some Optimus Prime! This guys costume was SOO cool!

Getting ready for the studio tour

 


DAY 2: We spent the next day at Disneyland. It was perfect weather! The lines weren't bad at all and the most we waited was about 20 minutes. My favorite part was when we went on The Tower of Terror. I have never seen my husband so scared ever! He literally screamed haha A manly scream..but still..a scream! The Haunted Mansion was all decked out in Nightmare Before Christmas stuff and they also changed Space Mountain for Halloween. We saw the World of Color show at night. It was so cool! 




It got a little rainy, but we didnt mind! It was actually perfect weather for us cuz it wasnt way hot or way cold and a lot of people left when he sprinkled for only about 5 minutes. 

Waiting for the World of Color show to start in California Adventure Land. 


DAY 3: We went to Six Flags. I have been waiting to go here so YEARS! and I must say. I was really let down. 1st of all, everything was way expensive. More expensive than Disneyland! The parking was $17. It was $13 for a hamburger. They wouldnt let you take your bags on the rides, but didnt have a place of you to put them off to the side. So you had to either pay for a locker at the bottom of each ride or pay $12 for an all day locker. A lot of the rides were broken. This park was the least crowded but had the WORST lines! We waited 1 hour for a ride and then it broke down while we were in line. Yeah...we only stayed like 4 hours. We decided to try to salvage the day, but I guess it didnt want to be salvaged. It took us 3 hours to get home in the LA traffic. We went to dinner and our dinner made both of us sick. The only good part was chillin in the hot tub when we got back to our hotel. Live and learn...dont think we will be going back here. These two pictures sum up the whole day. We were sad about all the lines and that the rides kept breaking. We were mad that everything was so dang expensive!



DAY 4: We headed back to Disneyland/California Adventure. It was a lot more crowded today because it was a Saturday but we spent the whole day at the park..from 8:30am-12 am. It was so fun! We rode everything we wanted to ride again. We saw a few shows and went on the new ride in cars land. We got our fast passes first time and our return time wasnt until 10:40. But this ride was SOOOOOO cool! Totally worth it! We loved it.


Patrick was so scared to go on Tower of Terror again...hahahaha! It was hilarious

Okay...I was a little scared too

Getting in line for the Aladdin show. So much fun! They did such a good job and the Genie was so funny!


Just a few of the cute Halloween decorations they had up

Patrick had no idea what a Churro was! He saw a sign for them and was like "What the heck is a churro!?" I was shocked and quickly changed that. This is his face trying a churro for the first time :) He loved it! 

The line for Space Mountain was ridiculous! We were trying to decide what to do when they opened the doors for some attraction called "Captain EO". We thought "Eh why not?" This is us waiting for it to start. No clue what we were in for!

Oh my gosh...if you have never seen this before..you need to! It was this WAY funny video with Michael Jackson! So funny! I didnt even know this existed! 

I made Patrick go on the tea cups with me...I may be 25 but I still love this ride!




Okay enough pictures. Sunday was just mostly a travel day so I didnt take any pictures. We had such a good vacation and were sad to get back to the read world. Strangely, I felt like this vacation brought us closer as a couple. We have gotten so busy lately that we dont have a lot of time to spend together. It was soooo nice to be able to spend so much time just being us! :)

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Epic Failure

Well as Im sure you know, my new years resolution to blog more often has been an epic failure. BUT...Im back again. With an update on the whats happenin with the Ross'. We survived finals week. I dont know how we did it. This semester was so rough and why we chose to move during the same week as finals week, ill never know! But we did it. And I couldnt be happier that its over. Speaking of moving, we are currently living with my parents while we are trying to find a new place. Its frustrating that we have to move twice, but we are thankful for cute parents who were willing to take in some homeless children haha. We are trying to find an apartment close to the U that we could stay in until Patrick is done with school. It's been hard because everything up there is either really old and gross or really expensive. But we keep hoping we will finds just the right place for us. It was kinda sad to leave our old apartments. So many memories there of our first year married. Can you believe it? We are coming up on our 1-year anniversary! This year has flown. We have had a lot of really high highs and really low lows but I wouldnt change a second of it. It has been so fun getting to know my husband better and in turn, getting to know myself better. I started a new job at Prestige Financial as a Funder. I love it there! It is such a good company and I feel like I am so valued! I also love working with my sister-in-law. I have to admit, I have really had to fight feelings of total failure this past year because I havent been able to find a teaching job. I applied for about 80 teaching positions, follwed up with principals, went to a teachers fair, and networked my heart out! But nothing fell into place for me. I felt like it was a waste of time to get my college degree. I was also frustrated because I know I would be a fantastic teaching and would love my class, but no one will ever get the chance to know that. I just keep telling myself that the Lord knows my desires and he knows me better than I know myself and if this is where he wants me to be right now, there is a reason. Perhaps ill get to be a teaching once my cute kiddos are all grown up and going to school. Who knows? But I am trusting the Lord and loving my new job. I guess that's really the biggest updates from here. Because blog spots without pictures are boring, im gonna post some pictures of some of the fun stuff we did this summer. Here's hoping I can do better on this whole blogging thing. Guess I shouldnt be surprised. Every journal iv ever owned has about 3 entries in it haha.


My sister was in a TON of parades! I went to a few of them. 

We went bowling for my brothers birthday

Im kinda a profession photographer..in case you didnt know haha

We went to Neil Diamond!! It was amazing. And we were NOT the oldest ones there :)

Another shot at Neil Diamond


We took a family camping trip to Manti and went out on the paddle boats. It was our first camping trip as a married couple. SOO fun!

Well there ya have it, folks. Next week Ill blog about our adventures on our Anniversary. 



Saturday, March 17, 2012

Aw man..it's been a month!?

Well it was 6 months ago today that I last posted. EPIC FAIL! Things have been so crazy and up and down with us lately that I just havent had a chance to post much about what's going on with us. But when I really sit down and try to think about things to blog about, nothing special comes to mind. This past month has been filled with struggles and I am the first to admit that I haven't dealt with all of them the best. But I dont feel like they are worthy of being re-hashed on this blog for the whole public to see. Let's just say, we have been majorly crapped on lately by multiple sources! As for now, we are just trying to look to the future and try to keep our heads up. We have each other and that's all we really need. Today we have been married for 7 months. Not that we are counting or anything....

Wow..that's really all I can think to say right now. But the good news is that Patrick gets off work in a hour and hopefully we will do something picture worthy tonight that I can blog about tomorrow! haha
So you didnt miss much, blogging world. We are just doing our thing. Peace :)

Friday, February 17, 2012

6 months ago...


We got married!! and what a crazy ride it's been! We have had ups and downs since getting married, but overall I have LOVED being married to my best friend. We have so much fun together and he makes me laugh so much! Here are some of my favorite things about being married:
1. Never having to go to bed alone (especially after watching scary movies!!)
2. Always having someone to hang out with
3. Our funny inside jokes that no one else would think are funny
4. The cute surprises that my husband does for my sometimes; my favorite was when I got home from work and he had made a candlelight dinner and was my french waiter for the night.
5. Sending each other text message throughout the day about how much we miss each other even though we havent been apart more than a few hours.
6. Making plans for our future together and getting really excited while talking about it
7. Patrick's tight, long hugs after I've had a really long, bad day
8. Learning how to do grown up things together, like making a budget and buying a car
9. Spending our weekends doing not much of anything and still having it be fun just because we are together!
10. Going to work smelling like my husbands cologne because of the hug he gave me before I left.

I can't wait to see what the future holds! Marrying Patrick was the best decision I ever made. He is so good for me. I love you, baby!

Tender Mercies!!

Well I guess that since I havent written in a little while, I should start off with the most exciting news that we have gotten. But in order to tell you that, I have to start with a back story. For the past little while, I have been worried about Patrick's car. I just had a feeling that the transmission was going to go in it. It had started shifting hard and occasionally the check engine light would come on and then go off again. Because of this, we decided that we needed to start looking for a new car. We decided to get an SUV so that when we have kids, we wont have to upgrade to a larger car. We wanted something that would last us a long time. We went to Carmax and picked out a Jeep that we LOVED! It was red, fairly new (2010), very low miles, and had only ever been used as a rental car. It was perfect! We told the salesman that we wanted to think about it overnight but that we were pretty sure that we wanted to get it. The next day was Saturday and I had to work. Patrick came and had lunch with me at work and we discussed the car. We worked out a budget and decided we did in fact have enough money to get it. When I got home from work, Patrick said he had some bad news. He told me that when he had run his credit report, some student loans that we thought were being paid on and were close to being paid off, were actually still at $3100! Our hearts sank as we realized that there was no way we could get the car anymore. I was so sad. I also felt like it was going to put our Disneyland trip on hold as well that we had planned. I felt like all the fun things we were looking forward to were coming crashing down. All our money would go to paying off these debts. After several meltdowns, I finally became okay with it and made a plan. We made an even tighter budget and made a budget that would allow us to pay off our debts (his loans, my student loans, and our discover card) in about 5 months. THEN we would get our car and start saving for our Disneyland trip again. Just when I thought we had everything worked out, BOOM..Patrick's car bit the dust. I drove it out to Jordan Landing and then when I tried to put it into drive again to leave, it wouldnt go into drive. The transmission was totally shot! Well, we decided we would rework the budget once again. I agreed to work 2 extra shifts a month so we could make a car payment and still pay off our debts as quick as we had hoped and we decided to get the Jeep after all. We called the car guy and told him to hold it for us and that we would be in the next day. Sorry if this is getting long, but I dont want to forget any part of this story cuz I feel like it was all a miracle! So we went back to get the car. We were signing the papers when the guy told us "I had another couple that came and looked at the Jeep about 2 months ago come back in today to get it. They were $2000 short of qualifying last time and so they got their tax return and came back to get it. We had just pulled it for you guys. This Jeep has been on our lot for 80 days and the price has come down twice. You guys are really lucky". Now i know salesmen are known to not be truthful, but I believed him. I really do think we were meant to get that car. Well next came the serious challenge..getting our car to Carmax so that we could trade it in. We dont know many people with trucks and it was looking like we were going to have to pay to have it towed when my mom came up with an idea. The car would go in 1st and 2nd gear, just not drive. We could get it to go about 15 miles an hour. SOOOO at 11:00 at night, we drove the backstreets, Patrick in his car and he following him in mine. When we got to a huge hill, I had to rev the car while Patrick pushed from the back and the car smoked. It was kinda funny..but kinda not. I was impressed with us. In reality, I feel like it brought us closer together. I was so proud of my husband!! He told me to throw the car into second and he would push. So i did..and he pushed super hard and got it up the hill. When he was done I realized I had been in 1st all along. And he wasnt even that mad at me about it hahah
NOW FOR THE SERIOUS TENDER MERCY........
So we had our car, we had our plan. Then we went to get our taxes done. We didnt think we would get anything and thought we would probably end up owing. While my uncle ran the numbers we sat nervously. When he told us how much we were getting back, we almost fell out of our seats! $3700!! With that money, Patrick's bonus he is getting from work, and the money we had saved this money from living on a tight budget, we have enough to pay EVERYTHING off!! My loans, Patrick's loans, and the Discover card. I was in shock like all day! I think this is the biggest miracle that has happened to me. It reminded me of something our mission president used to say "Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven". I'm telling you people, I really believe that because we decided this wasnt going to beat us, we had worked out a plan, and we were still paying our tithing, the Lord opened up the windows of heaven and there was not enough room to receive the blessings that he poured upon me and Patrick. We are so blessed and I felt like I had to share this story. I told Patrick "This is the kind of story you read in the Ensign!" I just feel very lucky and like the Lord is looking out for me. I love tender mercies. Sorry this post was so long, I just dont want to ever forget this blessing for as long as I live.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Catch up!

Well I didnt get a chance to blog last week. So this week will be my catch up week. On the 22nd, I celebrated my 25th birthday. I never though it would, but 25 feels old to me. Patrick surprised me on the Saturday before my birthday with tickets to see a show at Desert Star with my parents. My dad's birthday was the day after mine. We've always seemed to celebrate together. When I was younger, we would even share a cake. That was something I really missed while I was on my mission..getting to celebrate my birthday with my dad. It was so fun hanging out with my parents and seeing the show. We had the best seats ever in our own little private box in the back. It was nice to not be crowded with a lot of other people. After the show, we all went to Noodles and Company. On Sunday, Patrick gave me my present, which was a Kindle Fire! It was exactly what I wanted and I have loved playing with my new tool. We went up to my sister's place for an AMAZING dinner! I have to say, i am going to miss them so much when they move to Arizona. I dont have many friends since I graduated from high school. I feel like a lot of friends have come into and out of my life quickly since then. Because of this, I am very close with my siblings. I consider all of them to be my best friends. Having my older sister move away has been really hard on me but I know that it's what will be best for her and her family. I guess it gives us an excuse to take a few weekend trips to Arizona to visit. When we feel like we just need to get away, it wont be so hard to pick a destination anymore. haha Anyways..back to my birthday weekend. It continued on Monday when the whole family when to dinner for Olive Garden to celebrate the two birthdays. It was delicious food and good company. I didnt take any pictures this time. i need to be better remembering to take my camera places..and to charge it.

This past week has been kinda tough on me. Sometimes it's just hard to be an adult. Today was especially hard for a lot of little reasons! Today, I got a little irritated because I spent the whole day cleaning the house. I mopped the kitchen floor and burned delicious smelling candles. Well, when I ran our dishwasher, I noticed that it was leaking. So i called the maintenance guy to come fix it. When he showed up, he reeked of cigarette smoke. By the time he finished with the dishwasher, the whole apartment smelled like smoke and my beautifully mopped floor was totally dirty again from pulling out the dishwasher. I had a delicious dinner planned, but that didnt work out either. I ruined the first thing I tried to make so I opted to just make some quick spaghetti. I didnt realized before it was cooked that we have next to no sauce. Epic fail! But overall, i guess we have a lot of things to be thankful for. I feel like this last week, I have only been focusing on the negative and it's really dragging me down. So in an attempt to pull myself out this funk and end the pity party, I'm going to list some things that I am thankful for. I am so thankful for my amazing family and for the support that I get from them. I am thankful for a husband that puts up with me, even when I am being a little bit over dramatic and perhaps overreacting a tiny bit (and when I say a tiny bit, I actually meant a lot). He has been a trooper lately with me and all my crazy moods and I love him even more for that. I am thankful that he works hard in school because he wants to make me proud. I am thankful that we both have good jobs and that we aren't living on the streets. I'm thankful that in general, we are both pretty healthy. I'm thankful that we have food in our cupboards. I'm thankful that I have the gospel and that I got to serve an amazing mission. When I really stop and think about it, I am very blessed. It's so easy to feel picked on and to feel like you are the only one with struggles. But really, we are all struggling. Some of us are just better with dealing at it than others. When compared to others, my trials are very minor and insignificant. Things could be so much worse! I am blessed and I know it! I just forget sometimes. But the plain truth is, I am a dang lucky girl! Okay..end of rant :) Well there you have it. All caught up. See, you didnt miss much. Promising pictures for my next blog!