Goodbye 2015!

It has been fun, it has been real, but it hasn't been real fun this year. I am glad that it is coming to a close and to see what 2016 has in store for us. As a family, we have overcome some major hurdles this year but we are happy to say that we have survived and have conquered. 

We have had some major highlights, some of them small but very meaningful to us. 

1. We moved to a new house. In a sense, this was one of the major changes in our lives. We like the little house we are renting, it is in a good neighborhood, and most importantly, the kids have their friends near. 
2. A full-time job for mom, meaning me. This was probably the biggest adjustment. The kids are in school til 3:30pm, so I went back to work, not part-time, but full-time. Unlike some family members want to believe, it was not because "I don't like to be home" or because "I give my kids all they want" but rather because financially, we needed it. My income helps support us. It is very hurtful when family members tell you to your face that "really, you shouldn't work because you should be able to live within your husband's income". Thankfully, I don't need to be near "these" family members. The best part is that I do love my job. I love being an Academic Advisor. I love being around the students. Most importantly, I am blessed to be surrounded by a wonderful team--each one of them is appreciative, kind, and smart. 
3. Bryant competed at Nationals in Olympic Weightlifting. What?! Yep, my 13-year old boy, not only competed but he placed 2nd in the nation in his age and weight bracket. He got to this point not because it was given to him, but because of all the hard work he has put in at the gym. It is a result of his dedication and work ethic.
4. Our good friends moved back to town from Colorado. We have missed them and we are so glad that they are back in town so that we can see them more often. 
5. I found a morning group to run with! This is very important as I had to find a group that went early enough so I could get to work on time. I love these gals! They have become a great support to me over the past few months.  We laugh, we chat, we solve the world problems, all while hitting the pavement. 
6. I got my passport! Yes! I am super poor and probably won't be able to travel outside of the country in a very long time, but I have a passport! How cool is that!
7. We took an improptu trip to San Francisco! It was only a 1 day trip but it was so much fun to be near the ocean. My first 5 years of life were by the ocean, it is in my blood. I love it. I love the smell, the breeze, and of course, the food!
8. Taking three mini trips across the country with these awesome sidekicks! California, Reno, and Minnesota!
9. We tried for a baby (blog-story of hopes and dreams)and we were able to get pregnant, but unfortunately it didn't work out in our favor. It is a sad part of the list, but I know in my heart that my little family is not four anymore but five. One day, not on this earth, I will get to hold my child. 
   
10. Spent Thanksgiving with my uncle Pablito, celebrating the holiday and also bonding with them and allowing the children to spent time with them and learn about our Mexican culture. 
    
    
    
    We are together. We laugh. We cry. We have each other's backs. I know I can depend on my hubby for anything that I can dream up, and that the two little ones will follow us. Thank you 2015 for all the wonderful memories, for the lessons that we learned, and for allowing us to relay on each other.  Wishing all of you a wonderful New Year's Eve and a Prosperous New Year, 2016!

A Club No One Wants to Belong To

The following post is a bit raw. I needed an outlet for my thoughts and what was going on inside me at the time. It is probably one of the most personal posts this blog has had in a very long while. I wrote it a couple of weeks ago and it has sat, unfinished, because I couldn't bear the thought of reading through it or going through the emotions again. I still cannot read through it without having tears roll down my face. Perhaps the loss will always be there...

For a little while, we were a family of 5. We have been wanting to make our little family bigger for a long time. On November 7th, we found out that our dream was finally becoming a reality. I was so excited to become a mommy for the third time. Full of joy, I stepped outside of the bathroom to show my hubby my test results. He was so busy with some car issues that we were having that his first words were "all-wheel-drive" as he was finishing his previous thought out loud. I laughed and I jokingly punched him on his arm. He got up and hugged and held me for a little while. We were both so very excited. I was full of dreams already, full of happy thoughts in my head of what the following years will bring. 

Everything was going great, I was feeling cranky, just like with my two previous pregnancies and I was having some of the other common pregnancy signs-nausea and some cravings, however, along with this, I was also feeling dizzy, a lot. Each time I exerted myself, even minimally, like on a regular slow run, I would feel dizzy. If I picked up anything heavy, I felt dizzy. Driving to work, I would feel dizzy. I figured that it was because I was older and my body was not my 20-year-old body as with my fist two pregnancies. 

On November 28th, I started spotting. It was a drop or two so I wasn't very concerned. I went to bed thinking that maybe it was normal. Having never had spotting during my first two pregnancies, I didn't know what was happening. Next morning, I woke up and there was more spotting, heavy, deep red spotting. Right away I was panicking. I knew something was wrong. In my heart, I knew that I was losing my baby. My world came crashing down around me. The question in my mind was, why? I consider myself to be quite healthy, exercise regularly, eat clean foods, never drink or smoke, yet, here I was faced with losing my baby for some unknown reason. As we traveled from visiting my uncle, I was contemplating the issue at hand. What was ahead of me? Could it really be possible to bleed as much as I was bleeding and still be able to keep my baby?

Monday morning, I called the hospital to get with my doctor. The only available appointment was at 4 pm. I spent the next 3 hours at their offices. First, the doctor gave me a routine check-up, asked me questions about my previous pregnancies (how many, how many children). He reassured me that some pregnancies do experience some bleeding during the first trimester, not to worry. I was taken to the ultrasound room next. The regular ultrasound didn't work as it was still too early to detect on an external ultrasound. He was finally able to locate the baby with an internal ultrasound. My little peanut was there, I could see it, however, although I was at 8 weeks, he didn't have a heartbeat. The doctor measured it and said he measured at 6.5 weeks, and that sometimes at that "age" the heartbeat was undetectable. I was told to go home and come back in 2 weeks and he would check for a heartbeat. Doctor said that there was still a chance that my little one was okay. Sometimes conception dates are off and maybe my baby was too small. I requested to have blood samples taken to measure my HCG levels. The doctor agreed, he said that if that would make me feel more at ease that I could do that. Samples needed to be taken within 48 hours of each other to be accurate and the HCG levels should go up. 

As I sat in the parking lot, I cried. I knew what was happening. I knew it with all my being and there was nothing I could do about it to stop it. I knew that if I was having a miscarriage that it was going to happen no matter if I stood on my head for the next 7 months. I drove home and I tried to compose myself before walking in and spreading my "joy" around the entire household. I think the hardest part of my experience has been holding my shit together in front of the world. As you go through this, life doesn't stop. There is still work, kids must go to school, the world keeps going around and around and with it, you must keep going. 

I had my second HCG sample taken on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I didn't find out the results from both samples until Friday. My numbers had gone down, it went from the 1300s to 800s. As I heard the assistant tell me this over the phone, a feeling of numbness took over me. I was talking to her, but I was not "there". I couldn't believe it. I was preparing myself for this for the past week and I knew it was coming, however facing the reality was a completely different. She told me something about some medicine and that I should come in next week, Wednesday. I hung up the phone, and, with it, all hopes of my baby. The agony and emotional pain that I was feeling were like nothing I have ever felt before. I felt dead inside. My body was not "good enough" to hold on to my baby.  That entire day, I cried on and off continuously. I cried for the loss of my baby. I cried for the missed dreams. I cried for something that I had imagined in my future. I mourned what I lost, what it seemed that it was only real to me. I felt so alone (although I was not), I felt that I was alone in this world.  I remember feeling that I was inside the deepest, darkest hole on earth. No light was coming in and no sound, only my crying and deep sorrow was around me. 

As one of my close friends shared with me yesterday, I had become part of a club that no one else wants to join. 1 in ever 5 women go through a miscarriage, yet, it is a story that not many of us want to share. How can we? How can we share a story that brings so much sorrow, a story of hopes that never came to pass. 

I love you baby Eowyn. You will always be in my heart. 

I know that as time passes, I will heal, and as an LDS person, I know all about the after-life, however, none of that makes sense nor makes me feel better right now.