Growing

I kind of use this blog as a journal for my bigger events in life (I have the hope of someday printing it off into book format whenever I find the time and money haha).  Anyways so I figure I can't leave my latest experience out.

The trials we have are definitely there to help us grow.

I know a lot of people have gone through this and have gone through a lot worse, but it is still real and emotions are there.  Steve and I were excited to go into our 8 week ultrasound appointment one week ago and hear the heartbeat and come home to tell our kids the exciting news of mommy having a baby in her tummy. But when the ultrasound showed the baby as only having developed to 5 weeks and 3 days it hit me that something was way off. At first I thought "dang, that means I'm going to be due 3 weeks later." and I was bummed it would be a longer feeling pregnancy. Then it really hit me that it very likely meant something else, that the baby had stopped developing and was going to be a miscarriage.  We talked to the doctor and he didn't say that it was for sure, but he pretty much gave us all the details on what happens when you miscarry and the process of that.  Very sad to come home with opposite news that you were hoping for.

We scheduled another ultrasound for 10 days down the road in case I hadn't miscarried yet, and tried to move on each day with life.  Nothing happened for a week and I started even getting my hopes back up that the dates were just way off and the pregnancy would be okay.  Steve had fall break over this past weekend and we had a fun little trip planned to Moab and to go to some national parks. (A blog post will come when I put my pics on the computer about that fun trip). And that was my luck, was that I would start miscarrying while we were on our vacation.  Thursday morning I woke up with a little cramping and spotting and so I knew the pregnancy was over. Luckily it wasn't anything major so we were still able to go hiking and enjoy Canyonlands National Park. And yesterday (Friday) I woke up to the major pains that come with miscarriage. It was over with pretty fast though and we were still able to continue on our scenic drive home and stop at Capitol Reef Nation Park without too much delay.  At first I thought it was such bad timing that it would wait until our vacation to happen. Seriously, the baby stopped growing at 5 1/2 weeks and I would've been 9 weeks along this past week if it had all happened normally. It waited a whole month to decide to wrap things up and it happened the 2 days we happened to be on vacation.  But as I have thought more about it I realized if I would have been at home alone with just our kids when it all happened I think I would have been more of an emotional wreck.  It was so nice that Steve was with me as a wonderful emotional support the whole time. And it was actually really nice to have other things to be doing to help keep my mind off being sad. And I just really enjoyed spending time with my wonderful husband and two fun adorable little boys. We really all just had a fun time together.

It was kind of hard that my mom randomly happened to be out of the country when it happened. (She and my dad are picking up my sister Emily from her mission in Peru!)  She is one of the ones I lean on a lot, especially for things like this.  So that was hard to not be able to talk or even text her about anything. But I am grateful for my other friends and family that have been there to lean on.  It has been an emotional and learning experience. I have always feared miscarriage, especially because it is a common thing.  But I think I am supposed to learn from this experience that Heavenly Father know best. I think that I know that things are the right timing (I mean, my due date was supposed to be May 23rd, the last day of school, how perfect would that have been?) but really He knows how things are supposed to go in my life.  Times like these are what makes me especially grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love that I know that Heavenly Father is mindful of me and my family, and that He has a plan for me and my life. I am grateful that I am sealed for eternity to my husband and our two precious boys are sealed to us too. I am grateful that we have the gospel truths in our life and that we can still have hope during these times of trials. It really helps to be able to place it in the Lord's hands and have Him help me move on and feel comfort.

Anyways, if you happen to read this and did not know I was pregnant don't be offended, I had only told some family and some friends. I was waiting until my good news 8 week ultrasound to start telling more people and when that didn't happen it was hard to obviously want to say anything until we knew either way.  Life is good even with trials that come our way!