april photo roundup

we are going to kick this blog back into shape.

let's start with april.

[april was full of sunshine and lots of time outside]

 [she can be so cute when it's time to get ready for bed, i think she's trying to distract us]

[loving the grass. and the dirt. and the rocks.]

[i don't know why this happened or how i got a picture of it. but it is awesome.]

[pepper is getting so big!]

[family night at red robbin. kahree made that face special for the picture. so did craig.]

[we love eggs! nom nom nom]

 [carrying all her treasures]

[seriously, all of them. she walks around chanting "stiiiiiiick, stiiiiick!" but she leaves them outside like a champion]

[i had to distract her for a while at the store, so we went to the pet food aisle. she spent a long time kissing every puppy she saw. i'm so smart]

[so this was awesome. she ran away before i could put her shirt on and came back with her crown and scepter. i can be okay with that]

[like she owns the place]

[mauling charlie, the family cat. he has patience for no one but her]

[and then there was a tutu and a turtle face. are you jealous of my life yet?]

[we decided to play with ALL our plush toys. at the same time]

[leave me alone, mom. i'm talking on my elmo phone]

[for some reason she likes getting into my drawers and trying on ALL my clothes. i'm not sure about that one]

[first day ever leaving her hat on. it lasted for four hours!]

[watching pooh bear and taking it easy after a bad night]

[she's such a lady]

[feeling better after getting some medicine for her ear infection. such a relief]

[she's like, perfect]

[hanging out at the park with aunt catie]

[waiting to go out and looking just too good doing it]

time to play catchup. again.

seriously, will i ever learn?

first of all, it's may. the middle of may. whaaaat?

second of all, i have a lot of weekly portraits of kahree to edit and post. i promise i've been taking them ALMOST every week. i'll get them up here soon. cross my heart.

third of all, what have we been up to? well, most recently, a lot of days with just me and kahree trying to survive while craig is gone for 14 hours a day some days for the past 8 weeks. that should explain most things. he's been working a lot and also working at his externship for school. two more weeks of this and that boy will have his degree. YES. and then summer and sunshine and frozen yogurt every day and lots of time together and NO MORE SCHOOL.

i've also been reading a lot and it rocks. lots of genealogy, it's sorta my thing. i've been running a bunch too. i have a half marathon coming up THIS saturday and i am just soooo excited for it to be sunday and to not have to train for this thing anymore. what was i thinking. and then the usual, but up a level because kahree went up a level and thus so did life. so cooking and baking and the constant struggle of trying to find good things that kahree will eat besides strawberries and cheese sticks [we are starting to have to use code words around here, if i just said that out loud she'd be all like "CHEEEEEEEEEESE???" and then i'd have to pop some mozzarella in her mouth to avoid certain death]. also going outside and swimming and visiting little baby friends. kahree has been a doll during the days and at night she turns into a monster that hurts me and doesn't sleep and stays up for two, three, four, five hours at a time. that part sucks. we'll get through it. i dread every night and pray every day that her perfect sleeping habits will one day return.

last of all, i've accepted the fact that craig isn't going to finish his guest post. he just doesn't have time. he also has a difficulty going back to that time, especially the farther away we get from it. we took a long drive on saturday so that kahree would nap and we talked about everything ever and he told me he has a hard time even thinking about it because i was so close to just not coming back. it sounds so dramatic now, but it's true. it was a real thing that really happened and no matter how surreal it feels it's a part of our history now. so let's bring ourselves up to speed so that we can be done and move on, because it's worth remembering to me but not worth revisiting more than just this one more time. i honestly have a hard time remembering it all. just certain things that i feel were important and sorta existence-shaping. like i changed forever with every one.

like when kahree woke up from her nap just before my precautionary appointment and i couldn't even pick her up because suddenly my stomach hurt so bad i couldn't move.

like when the ultrasound technicians were whispering and kahree was fidgeting and i knew, knew, knew.

like when i had to kiss kahree goodbye and watch her drive away with a friend because i needed to go check in for emergency surgery right that moment and i didn't have time to tell her how much she means to me.

like when i was lost, dizzy, and confused and wondered around from floor to floor, in and off elevators, not even remembering why i was there.

like when several nurses were stabbing needles in me and talking all at once and skipping protocols to get me in as fast as they could. i probably shouldn't have gotten lost. there was a tile on the cealing painted to look like a blue sky with fluffy clouds. genius.

like when the anesthesiologist hesitated when starting to administer the magical medicine because craig still hadn't gotten there from work to see me before i went under. i told him don't worry about it and that everything was going to be okay, and then he laughed and laughed.

like after the point where they told me i wouldn't remember anything i remember them lifting me onto the table and putting something over my face and wondering if i was going to get to come back or if i was going to get to stay with my other babies.

i got to come back. and i am so, so glad. this is where i want to be, exactly. craig told me once recently that his favorite time of our whole lives were those first few days after i got to come home. i was just so happy and grateful. i was ecstatic. nothing could upset me, not even having to suddenly stop nursing kahree forever or not being able to carry her around on her birthday. my eternal perspective was so clear. i miss it. i know mourning has a very special place in the healing process but nothing has made my sorrow lighter than knowing so surely that everything was going to be all right, that i missed my children but i wouldn't have to miss them forever. i felt like writing a dozen hymns of praise. it's a good thing a didn't try though, i don't know how many good religious songs have been composed on heavy doses of oxycontin. probably only a couple.

that's what i remember. there are other things, some things i only know must be true because i've repeated them over and over. mostly the facts. how they were able to save my tube and ovary even though they really did want to take my tube out. and how from now on all my pregnancies are considered high risk until they can prove, as soon as possible, that they aren't ectopic because now they can happen again at any time in that damaged tube. some more statistics. there isn't much more to it. that just might be the whole story.

it's been months now. that is really hard for me to believe. craig was a wonder through everything. kahree was my light. she eventually stopped saying "baby" and pointing to my tummy. she would be such a great big sister. i want so badly to see that. i have so much fear and worry when it comes to the rest of our lives and the rest of our family. i don't have any solid answers for any that. just a lot of hopes.

now we're all up to speed. now i can blog about happy things again and not feel that nagging feeling like i'm missing something. now we can be all about kahree's chubby thighs in her short shorts, sunshine and scraped knees, achievements and new goals. i'm ready for 2013 to get awesome. are you?

guest post: what happened in february

i haven't been entirely clear on this blog about everything that happened in february. truth be told it is mostly because i have a hard time remembering, so much of it is a blur. there are things that i say to answer quetions that i think are true because i've repeated them over and over, not because i have actual memories of them. the things i do remember about the beginning and end of my latest pregnancy are so saturated with emotion that any attempt to write about them coherently has been in vain. i get so wrapped up in all that i feel about it that i have a hard time getting out the whole story. and i want the whole story. i need a record of it here, for safe keeping. i don't want what happened in february to turn into a big hole in my memory. it was a very important time in the story of our lives, the lives of the will family. so my husband, who is oh so reliable and sensible as well as sweet and tender, wrote out the story with the facts from his perspective. this is part one of his guest posts. he was awake and coherent for much more of the experience than i was so i'm so happy to have his words to keep. he will follow up soon with more about what happened after and the outcome and impact of it all on our lives and our hearts. i hope you enjoy hearing from him. he is just the greatest.

as for all the complicated, emotional upheavel that i can contribute from losing a baby, well we've all been through that together already two years ago, when sable died. and i don't really want to rehash that all out again. it's more or less the same, but better and more peaceful. but also scary and more scarring. i still don't feel like an expert. but i can tell you that losing a baby isn't as hard the second time, especially with a little one year old to snuggle when you're really feeling the blow. i can tell you it's easier now for me to not blame myself and the flaws of my own body but to trust in My Heavenly Father and His plan. i can tell you that i know this wasn't just an "oops," that i have another baby in heaven that i love dearly and this was the plan for him. i can tell you that it's easy to find joy in the family that i'm surrounded with on earth. i can also tell you that along with my new scars and all my stretch marks and damaged parts i walk around with two invisible holes in my chest at all times, one for each of the children i don't get to see for a while, where i would put the love i have for them and keep it still and waiting. and i can especially tell you that throughout these experiences i've learned that there are many, many men and women who walk around with the same invisible holes, that mothers of all kinds are all joined together in a sisterhood, that you shouldn't be afraid to seek comfort from those like you and you shouldn't be afraid to offer it to those who need it too. i think empathy is a beautiful thing. i don't want it to go wasted. i think it was meant to draw us all together with all the trials and joys of life shared alike.

without further ado, craig will:

One of the scariest things, to me, is the uncertainty that accompanies meaningful events, especially when the outcome is dependent on somebody else. I wasn't nervous when Shilah and I were getting married because it was such a certain thing in my mind. But if it depended on a third party to also be certain about it I think it would have made me nervous. I felt that nervousness on the Wednesday before Valentine's day (and Kahree's birthday) when Shilah called me while I was work and told me that she was being taken to the hospital for emergency surgery. Now, I know doctors are good at what they do and I trust them, just like I trust a mechanic to diagnose and repair my car. There is always that chance though that the mechanic is going to miss something or misdiagnose an issue or even mess something up. Where the mechanic can then replace whatever is broken a doctor really only gets one shot if the operation is botched and while it may be rare, somebody has to be that one in the 1:1000000 statistic. In fact, that's how this whole thing really starts.

For the last part of January we were pretty sure that we were pregnant again, how exciting! We took our time getting to confirming it with a pregnancy test. At the beginning of February it was confirmed that we were pregnant again, which meant that it was time to start looking for insurance for Shilah since mine only covers me and Kahree. We weren't in any huge rush for it since it usually takes a while for a baby to fully cook inside the womb.

The Saturday after the pregnancy test was positive Shilah started bleeding, almost like it was a normal cycle (not just spotting) which, since we were pregnant, was totally unexpected. A little panicked and a lot confused Shilah called the doctor's office to get advice on what to do and they directed her to the hospital. We drove out to the hospital and told them that we didn't have insurance and asked if we would be better off going to an Urgent Care facility. The hospital staff were so helpful and nice and they called up the nearest UC and asked what they would do for an uninsured patient in our situation. The response was that they would refer us to the ER.

After getting Shilah all checked in and on the path to figuring out what was going on they gave us all sorts of literature on what our options were in regards to financial help offered through the hospital.

Finally we got through Triage and were admitted into a room where blood was drawn, private parts were inspected, and tests were run. Then we headed off to the ultrasound room where they saw nothing. Literally there was no sign of any sort of pregnancy inside Shilah. We went back to our original room and the doctor talked to us about what the different possibilities were:
1) We weren't as pregnant for as long as we thought we were (3-4 weeks instead of ~6)
2) We had another miscarriage and the bleeding was Shilah's discharging the matter
3) It was an ectopic pregnancy

The doctor tried to reassure us by telling us that ectopic pregnancies aren't very common and that his main priority was making sure that we didn't have one but that we shouldn't be worried right now. We set up some follow up appointments at the Women's Healthcare Association for blood work and ultrasounds, though we had resigned ourselves to being sure that we had had another miscarriage.

When a women is pregnant her hCG (that's the pregnancy hormone and prego testers look for this) doubles every couple days. Because we knew what her levels were on Saturday we made an appointment for Shilah to get more blood work on Monday. She was supposed to also get an ultrasound but we were so sure it was just a miscarriage while also being concerned about the cost of all this without insurance that she decided not to get one. In fact there was a moment where we both entertained the thought of not going in at all...

The tests came back and her levels had risen but they hadn't doubled. If this was a viable pregnancy they would have doubled and if it was a miscarriage they would have dropped. We were dealing with the uncommon ectopic pregnancy, although at the time we still weren't positive about this.

I've done a little research and the numbers come out to say that 2% of pregnancies in the U.S. are ectopic. This means 2 out of every 100 pregnancies. Those are pretty good odds, right? If I had 100 apples and two were poisoned, I'd bet you would feel pretty good about your odds of picking an unpoisoned apple. Turns out we picked a poison apple.

Shilah went back in to the WHA on Wednesday to do more blood work and this time get an ultrasound. We didn't think much was going to come of it but then less than an hour before her appointment she started having a lot of pain for the first time. When she was done with the ultrasound they told her that she needed to get over to the hospital for emergency surgery right away. There was a lot of blood in her abdomen and they needed to go in and see what happened and try to fix it. This is the point in the story where I got the phone call from a very calm Shilah explaining to me what needed to be done before I came to see her.

I was a whirlwind as I told my boss what was going on, sent out an email letting everybody know that I was leaving early, called my sister to come watch the baby for the night (who was in the hands of Shilah's friend Alys who took her to the ultrasound appointment), and packed bags for both us in case we had to stay overnight at the hospital.

I rushed to the hospital but by the time I got there they had already rolled Shilah into the prep room and I wasn't going to get to see her before she went into surgery.

Normally I'm not a pessimistic person. I don't think about all the things that could go wrong nearly as much as I focus on what the positive outcomes of something will be. I was having a very hard time doing that while I sat in the waiting area to find out if my wife was going to get to come back to me. I kept thinking about how only a small percentage of people die on the operating table but it wasn't very comforting because I had spent the past week thinking about how small a percentage of pregnancies are ectopic.

To ease my mind I bought Shilah a stuffed bear from the gift shop, ate at the hospital cafeteria, and paced. A lot. They had a monitor on the wall that listed the ID numbers of all the people in surgery and what step in the surgery they were at. The doctor had given me Shilah's ID number when she came out to talk to me about what they had found (the pregnancy had ruptured out of the end of Shilah's right tube which was then bleeding into her abdomen). I must have checked the monitor every three to five minutes, which of course made the time go by even slower but I had to make sure the step didn't change to "notify next of kin" or "transport to the morgue" or something.

Eventually they moved Shilah into recovery and I was able to go see her. They wrote up a couple prescriptions for her and I ran to the store to fill them before the pharmacies closed. I also picked up a few Redbox movies and found Birthday Cake Oreos (Shilah's favorite) and bought four packs of them.

The hardest part was over. Shilah was okay and I got to bring her home that night. The next day was Valentine's Day and we just took it easy and after that was Kahree's birthday which I'm sure there's a blog post on here about...

stay tuned for part two. eventually. he's a busy man, you know.

march photo roundup

pictures from my phone during the month of march.

[her favorite food ever is my chicken and corn chowder]

 [it was the only way she wanted to sleep that day]

 [craig and kahree won a candy bracelet for me with a crane game]

 [we wanted some late night native foods. she's the best to take on adventures]

 [grocery shopping with my little buddy and her little buddy]

 [$9 boots]

 [the saddest and CUTEST thing when she thought she heard "dad dee" coming home and she waited by the door until i told her it wasn't him]

 [running all month. i made it up to 9 miles]

 [cutie oranges, all day]

 [craig said her hair made her look like a pygmy native to a jungle country]

 [when i get her out of her crib she usually insists on bringing everything with her. leave no man behind]

 [a rare diaper moment. i told you, i usually make sure she's fully clothed, but lately...]

 [i'm not sure. she's just awesome]

 [she liked the couch but she had to remind us it was a little out of our price range]

[reading all about the wild things to our wild thing before bed]

 

 [it was a "spend all morning watching wreck it ralph AGAIN" kind of day]

 [this is what i live for]

 [she was CRANKY and PICKY all week. so we went to the temple just to get out of the house]

 [her first easter egg hunt. she knew immediately that those brightly colored belonged in her bag]

 [having a giant for a dad has comes with many advantages]

 [our quiet family shopping trips are no more. now she spends the whole time trying to escape]

 [an undying love]

 [craig is the sweetest gift giver]

 [just like mommy]

 [i got all three of us in a picture! kinda]

 [the coolest kid i've ever seen]

 [she's always very invested in making sure pepper eats all her food]

 [she needed her blanket in order to eat lunch]

 [we had the snuggliest morning. she just wanted me to carry her all day. it was so lovely]

 [we hit up lobsterfest and saw oz for around $12. thrifty daters]

 [her car seat was in the house so she sat in it. and wanted me to buckle it. and wanted her peeko and blanket. and she sat in there and ate snacks for around twenty minutes]

 [she wants to do it all by herself, no matter how long it takes]

 [they continue to be the awesomest]

 [i wore this hat for days]

 [i survived a vicious bear attack]

 [at the park]

 [sometimes she initiates diaper time. by running away when i try putting jammies on her and then just chilling with her sippy]

 [every time she goes outside she wants to find a stick]

[went on a movie date with my sister in law and saw the host. we were smitten from start to finish. guess who my favorite character was]

 [she think she can play ball with the big kids]

 [she's so baller]

 [easter weekend was all sunshine and bubbles]

 [she's so cute when she wakes up]

[looking for wate]

 [march brought us so much sunshine and things to smile about]

[i want to live outside for the rest of the year]