The "Miscarriage"

Most people know about this, but I want to journalize the experience so here it is:

Ammon and I wanted get pregnant in the Summer of 2013. Unfortunately, the IV antibiotics they gave me during my MRSA hospital stay could do a number on my insides, so they recommended delaying a pregnancy until August.  Well when August came, things weren't exactly 'normal' with me.  I had alternating periods every 6  weeks then 2 weeks, so I visited with my doc.  I had been off birth control since January technically, but my body could take up to a year to regulate the hormones, so she recommended an ultrasound.  I still had a bunch of bills from my hospital stay, so I decided to put off my ultrasound until December 1st, when our insurance and flex spending account would renew.  Well, at the end of October, I had a positive pregnancy test, so Ammon and I were excited that we would be having another baby without much fuss.  However, it felt very different from my other pregnancies.  I couldn't really explain it, but I knew something was weird.  That and the occasional spotting kept me pretty worried, but everybody with whom I discussed it always assured me everything would be fine.

 My OB doesn't like to see pregnancy patients before they are 8 weeks along (since the heartbeat doesn't start beating till around 7), so I scheduled the ultrasound accordingly on November 20ish.  Due to all my weird feelings, I convinced Ammon to take time off work to meet me at the doc's office for the appointment.  He told her how I had crazy paranoia and they had a good laugh until, sure enough, the ultrasound showed that it was nothing but dud:  the technical term is a blighted ovum, but basically I was having a false pregnancy.  It happened to most women at some point in their life, but often they don't even realize it because the body gets rid of it before a test is even taken.  The doc suggested I do a D&C, but because of the financial situation, I couldn't agree to it until December.  In the mean time, I was asked to go in for weekly blood tests and biweekly ultrasounds to ensure that the fetus was in fact not viable and that nothing abnormal was happening.  The doc said that as long as my hormones go down and it didn't get any bigger, we could just allow my body to miscarry the sac the old-fashioned way. 

Of course I believe it was the spirit preparing me for the shock of the situation.  I had a good cry that day, but when I started bleeding the next evening, I felt comforted with the sequence of events.  If I had started bleeding before my appointment, I could have worked myself into a real panic and always questioned if I had done something to hurt a possible baby.  However, since this wasn't ever a baby, and I knew that, the loss was small....

Fast-forward two-weeks later.  My hormones had gone up and in spite of bleeding, the sac was still there.  I was even getting frequently nauseated like a normal pregnancy. The doc was now strongly suggesting a D&C, but I was still nervous and didn't want to go through another surgery.  She said we could wait another two weeks, but with how much my hormones were climbing, she was worried waiting too long might do further harm than good. The Sunday after that appointment, a woman in relief society shared an experience she had the year before involving her two-year old daughter.  Basically, the daughter's skull had been crushed and in spite of otherwise recovering miraculously quick, her skull did not fuse together like it was supposed to.  Months went by with frequent visits to her doctor, but the skull still didn't fuse.  The mom kept putting off the surgery until, at one appointment, the doctor told her they could only wait one more month. Any longer and they would be running the risk of permanent damage to the daughter's brain.  As she struggled through that month, she said she was finally put it in God's hands and agree to the surgery.  At the next doctor's appointment, she told the doctor to move forward with the procedure.  The miracle, of course, was that the skull had finally fused. 

I couldn't help feeling that her story was very much for me.  I just needed to let go and let God, as they say.  My sis-in-law had gone through the D&C procedure a few years ago (with the same doc), so that Sunday evening I went to her house to discuss her experience.  She made me feel confident that I could go through it, so at the next doc's appointment, I asked for them to do the insurance precert and inform me of the price.  The next week, they informed me that it would cost less than $100, so I decided to schedule the procedure.  Unfortunately, with the holidays and the doctor's busy schedule, they couldn't fit me in until the 2nd Tuesday in January.  As Murphy's law would have it, the week before my surgery, the pregnancy hormones began to drop significantly.  This meant that because my body was getting rid of it naturally, it was no longer medically reasonable to perform the surgery. 

So... I kept getting blood tests and ultrasounds.  I received a blessing that told me I should listen to the counsel of the docs, so I decided to stop worrying and do what they said.  On February 11th, I finally started having the miscarriage.  It was a bloody mess of course, but I am so fortunate that it wasn't very painful.  I almost passed out the first morning, but luckily Ammon just happened to have called in sick that day.  Ironically, I was very excited to finally have this problem resolving... After two weeks of alternating normal-flow and chunk-filled-gushing, I figured I was out of the woods... but nope.  I still had that stupid HCG hormone in my body.  At the highest it was in the 6000's and at this point it went from 15 one week to 14 the next week.  My doc once again suggested a D&C since my body was not ridding itself of it fast enough.  Sure enough, in the middle of March I had another week of gushing which finally did the trick.  My hormones finally got below 5, and I was now longer considered pregnant.  When all was said and done, it had been around 22 weeks that I had been running around with useless pregnancy hormones coursing through my veins. 

Of course, Ammon and I are hoping we will be able to get pregnant sooner rather than later, but over the last year, I have been able to accept that everything needs to be in the Lord's timing. 

Front Yard

October 2013 saw the beginning of the great change of our yard.  Ammon and I decided on a plan, and we made it happen!!  We really wanted a big patch of grass, and in theory it shouldn't have been all that hard. 

 

HERE is before:

Unfortunately the gravel in the front yard was much deeper than we had originally thought... this made the preparations take much longer. 

 

Additionally, there was the random array of inefficient sprinkler piping.  At one point, Ammon even broke a pipe that led to our main water line... that was annoying.  On the upside, we have a new faucet in the front yard.  Our next-door neighbor (the retired cop with the picture-perfect manicured lawn) told us the previous owner of our house he had once called "Make-it-work Charlie" because he liked to get things done but he never did things the right way.  Kind of ironic since that's exactly the opposite of Ammon's motto. 

 

And then there was the horribly constructed brick path that had to be removed because well,

we hated it. 

 

Oh, and we can't forget the Oleanders!!

 

With the combined efforts of two of our neighbors (using their chain and dually truck), we were able to remove the shrubs with little effort.

 

A ward member who heard that we were re-landscaping insisted we use his John Deere to do a rough leveling job.  It's a good thing he did, too, because we discovered large cement blocks that were randomly placed at the front of the yard.  Something that would take several strong men to lift.

 

Then with a little help from my dad (and Ammon's years of concrete employment), we were able to put in a lovely sidewalk to replace the brick path.   

 

So lovely!!

 

Then Ammon leveled the rest of the yard to make sure water would flow away from the house. 

We used some of the old brick to create a nice liner for our patch of grass.

 

Then a couple of bags of winter rye and conveniently placed cow manure....

 

VIOLA!!!  SOOOOO  LOVELY!!

 

Of course, now we are just waiting for our Bermuda summer grass to come in, but even the patch of dirt looks better than what we had before. 

Halloween 2013

Ever since I was pregnant with Sasha and we were watching Monsters, Inc. (and hoping our little girl would look like "BOO"), I knew we needed to dress up one Halloween as a family with the theme of that fun little movie.  This year we thought would be perfect since Sasha was just the right size, and the newly released Monsters University didn't hurt!!  It turns out we were all the right sizes to play our characters, too. 

 

Sasha was Boo, Kaleb was Mike Wazowski (Mouse-kee-owski, according to him), Ammon was Sully and I was Roz.  We bought the Mike costume, and my mo-in-law started helping me with the Boo costume... then when I mentioned ideas for how to do Sully and Roz, she got super excited and just ran with it, fortunately for me since I don't sew.  We ended up being a big hit at all the places we visited, including three Trunk-or-Treats and the local mall (had to make the costumes pay for themselves).  It's not often we really get into Halloween, but this was super-fun!!  My favorite part was how my massive tail dragged behind me like a real tail... it was AWESOME!!  Koodos to Gramma Teller!!

 

 

Mike

 

Boo

 

Sully

Roz... Yes, it's in the bathroom cuz I wanted to make sure I got a picture

before the costume was ruined.

Sasha at 2 years

Well, If she looks a bit confused, it's because she turned 2 a few months ago...

 

 

So, at her birthday, she was 28 lbs, 8 oz (75th) and 35.5 inches LONG (90th), which meant she was actually about 34 inches tall, but who's counting. 

 

This girl continued to grow cuter and sillier and smarter.  When people asked her how old she was, she would say "Two," even though we never taught her to say that.  She also realized what the word "Cute" meant.  One day we watched the movie Despareaux (about a little mouse), and as we were all watching it, out of the blue she quietly giggled and said, "chute"  

She has gotten more obsessed with babies, climbing into our laps with a cup of milk and ask us to hold her like a baby.  Even resorting to treating Kaleb's Iron Man action figure like one. 

 

Here she is putting him down for a nap:

 

And here she is helping him walk:

 

If babies are around she constantly fights an inner battle of whether she wants to be with the baby or be like a baby.  Anytime her cousin Tehya is around, she gets crazy jealous and wants to be wherever she is, even when it's not with Mommy or Daddy.  Thankfully, she is usually very gentle with the babies she does encounter.

 

In spite of this, she continues to progress, and she finally found the patience to finish a puzzle... and of course, did it within a few seconds like she had always known how (but didn't want to be bothered).

 

She has also said a few family prayers (with help).  Since her vocabulary is still limited, she usually only says about half the words we give her, but it's good practice. 

 

With Sasha's birthday, came the end of monsoon season, which, if she had understood, would have brought an onslaught of tears.  Nothing brought this little girl more joy than to play in the rain.  One afternoon, we were surprised to hear rain pouring outside, so Daddy opened the front door to get a closer look.  Sasha didn't even pause; she just bolted out the door, bare feet and all. 

Some of the weird things that came up this month is how much she loved having her hands in her mouth.  She would walk around with four fingers dangling from her jaws and then reach out to hug us with a stream of slobber to match.  Ick.  She also got a bit shy of strangers this month.  One of my favorite quirks of the month was when we would listen to a recording of the Primary song Nephi's courage and she would sing it in a low, manly voice.  It would crack all of us up!!

 

Daddy brought home giant boxes he got from Grandpa Reed!  Best toys EVER!!

 

Kaleb and Sasha's relationship continues to blossom.  I am so grateful that Kaleb has never been jealous of Sasha... envious of her toys yes, but never jealous.  He appreciates her silliness as much as we do, and is always the first to help when she seems to need it... and even when she really doesn't.

 

 

 Sasha's 2nd birthday party was also a lot of fun!  We had SOOOOO many kids over to play (mostly cousins), it was a bit of a rodeo!

She got so many AWESOME presents like a 'laptop' and smartphone...

 

and a Belle doll that looks just like her. 

 

Our big gift to her this year was a kitchen (thank you, craigslist) and some play food. 

which was an instant hit at the party... I love that Kaleb is in the background on the phone (the one that came with the kitchen).

 

My favorite part about the party was her birthday cake... mostly cuz I didn't have to make it and it was SOOOOOOOOOOOO STINKIN CUTE!!!  Sasha's Gramma Teller, Aunt Tashina and Uncle Landon all chipped in to make it awesome.  The antennae were the two candles!