Birthday Relfections

Today is Ethan's birthday! He's one year old. It's amazing to me how a pregnancy can drag on and on, but once the baby comes, time just flies by. Ethan is such a sweet little boy. He's happy 97% of the time, and the 3% that he's not is only when I get his schedule messed up and he loses sleep, or when he's sick. He loves Alyssa. I just moved him into her bedroom and turned the nursery into a play room, and he loves sharing a bedroom with his big sister. I can lay him down after tucking them both in, and he just pays in his crib until he falls asleep. Yesterday I let him crawl on Alyssa and give her hugs before putting him to bed, and he laughed the whole time.

I've been thinking a bit lately about how thankful I am to have Ethan in our family. We had some crazy, and some special times getting him here, and I thought I would share some of them. I didn't know if the Internet would be an appropriate place, but this is my only journal right now and I want it written down so I don't forget.

We had a miscarriage when Brian graduated from BYU, and it took about a year to get pregnant again. It was very difficult losing another baby, and there were other things that it caused (Brian missing classes during summer term that caused a grade to drop low enough to put optometry school off for another year, for example) that made it very hard. When you have a miscarriage you want to get pregnant as soon as possible. I kept thinking, "My baby was supposed to be here around Christmas, so I'm already behind schedule." But as each month passed, I would get sadder and sadder, and soon I was questioning if I would ever have any more children. It turns out that nothing serious was going on, but it was hard not to wonder.

Around Christmas, when the baby was supposed to be born, I was getting more upset and scared. It was hard to pass my due date without being pregnant again. One night as I was saying my evening prayers, I told Heavenly Father how I felt and told him of my fears. When my prayer was over, I heard a voice in my head whisper, "I can hear you." It was so simple. I didn't get an answer as to whether or not I would conceive a child soon or even if I ever would at all, but I knew that my prayer was heard. The voice was so loving. Exactly as a father would speak to his distraught daughter. I know there is a God. I know that we are His children and that he loves us so much. I will never, ever doubt the existence of our Heavenly Father.

I went to the doctor, and she said that most likely I was ovulating and there was no need to worry, and she told me to start charting my cycles to see exactly when I ovulated. I was already 'kind of' charting, but at this point I threw myself into it. It was the coolest science project I've ever done. One of my catholic friends once told me that she knew people who charted for birth control, and she said, "Wouldn't it be amazing to be so in tune with your body?" I can tell you that it is amazing, but the neatest part was having my husband there along side me, learning and working with me, not to prevent the conception of a child, but to get it.

The cycle that I charted and I "just knew" that we would get pregnant, I prayed every night that IF I WAS pregnant, that the baby would be protected. It was one of those nights that when I said the word baby, my mind said "babies" instead. While I would love to have twins, I never said this out loud, because I thought that was asking for too much. But soon I found out that, yes, I was pregnant, and during the sixth week, I started to bleed a little. "Oh, no," I thought. I called the doctor, who sent me to the hospital for an ultra sound. "Yes, " they said, " Baby's all right. See, there's the heartbeat. Go wait downstairs and someone will come talk to you." I waited for a half hour, wondering what could be wrong, when someone came out to tell me I could go home and the doctor would call me. When I walked in the door there was a message waiting, and I immediately called the doctor back. Apparently, it started out as a twin pregnancy, but one of the babies had died. I was shocked. A part of me had already knownthat there were two babies, but I was still shocked. It was a little sad, but at the same time, we still had a healthy pregnancy, so we had a lot to be thankful for.

Soon after getting pregnant, I found myself very sick. I spent all my time in bed or on the couch, and I threw up constantly. We kept calling the doctor, but every time I would go in she would say, "Well, at least you're walking," or "Some people look like holocaust victims. You should be thankful." I would nod my head, and go home to cry, but I really wanted to tell her about throwing up in the parking lot (I carried my "Yucky Bucket" everywhere I went.) and throwing up in the waiting room, and throwing up while waiting for her to come to the examination room. I wanted to tell her about throwing up when I ate, and throwing up when I didn't eat. Didn't she realize I had lost twenty five pounds in just a few weeks? I was sent to the hospital a few times for dehydration, but all they did was pump me full of water and send me home.

It wasn't until the wonderful nurses on the night shift were listening to our story and told us about a great doctor, who just happened to be on call that night. Dr. Andrews looked at the information from my blood test and determined that my body had been in starvation mode for some weeks, and I needed a complete overhaul. He pumped various things through my veins and soon I was eating and feeling better. I still threw up a lot, and I felt sick all the way up until delivery, but at least I could function as a real person and be able to take care of Alyssa.

A few weeks after finding out I was pregnant (I think it was before I got sick.), I was cleaning the house and thinking about the new baby and hoping that everything was going to be okay, when again I heard a voice whisper to me. It said, "It's a boy and his name is Ethan Daniel." How strange that I was lucky enough to be privileged with this information. Sometimes I doubted myself. Did I really hear it, or did I just make it up? No, I really did hear it. I knew he would be declared a boy when we went in for our ultra sound, but part of me thought, "Well, if it's a girl, then I'll know that I'm crazy." It was hard for Brian, because I wanted his approval of the name, but my certainty left no room for discussion of other options. Brian also doesn't like to talk about names until the baby comes, anyway, because that's when he meets them.

Brian is a good sport, though, and when the baby was born via cesarean section, Brian agreed to name him Ethan Daniel, and it seemed to fit him very well. Daniel is Brian's father's name. He is a great man. I love having Ethan named after him.

So now a whole year has passed since he was born, and it feels like all these things happened forever ago. I'm thankful for the wonderful experiences that being a mother has given me. I'm so thankful for both Alyssa and Ethan; I'm so glad to have them in our family. I feel very blessed to have such a great man as my husband and two beautiful children. They bring such happiness to my life.

Nobody's Perfect

Confession: I love "Die Hard." Rated R for extreme violence, probably extreme language, and extreme flash of a topless lady during the Christmas party scene. But I love the fact that a barefoot and bleeding Bruce Willis takes out a group of terrorists to save his wife, and I love the limo driver rockin' out in the parking garage who saves the day at the last moment, and frankly, I love all the machine guns.

Confession: I have watched Barbie's "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" more times than I have read the Book of Mormon. I guess this isn't such a bad thing, because I've watched the movie at least fifty times, which is a lot. Today, we even watched it in Spanish.

Confession: I went through the self-checkout line at Fred Meyer when I bought some clothes so I could keep the hangers. Does this count as stealing? They were nice hangers--the nice plastic ones with the turny metal curvy part. We don't have any hangers like that, and they come in handy when we use Brian's garment bag when we're traveling.

Confession: I've lost more weight since Ethan's been born due to breastfeeding and getting the flu over Christmas than exercising. Before I got pregnant with Ethan I was running five miles every morning, but ever since he came around I've been to the gym probably ten or fifteen times. And he's almost a year old! I do enjoy exercising, though, and now that he's on a more regular sleeping schedule, I've started to go more regularly. And I've decided that since he's gotten himself into the habit of waking up at 5:00 every morning, I'm going to stop complaining about it and start doing something about it. I'll try to get my Book of Mormon reading caught up to "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" by reading my scriptures while Ethan plays in the toy room during the wee hours of the morning. Then I'll hand him over to Brian at 5:45 and head to the gym.

I guess taking care of two out of four vices isn't bad. It's fifty percent. Then again, I don't watch "Die Hard" more than once every six months or so, and we don't have much money for me to do more shopping at Fred Meyer, so I won't be stealing any hangers in the near future. Okay, that's one hundred percent. Maybe I am perfect.

The Afterbath

I told Brian today that I wanted to write a new post for my blog, but I couldn't think of anything to write about. Nothing incredibly exciting has happened lately, and I haven't made any life altering discoveries about myself, either. I've just been whining about Disneyland, and we've all had horrible colds this past week. I've decided to stop whining about Disneyland, and my cold has diminished from a constant, painful headache, to a simple stuffy nose.

So I needed something to write about, and Brian decided to be the inspiration for this post. "I need something to write about," I said, "and I can't think of a single thing." With that, Brian grabbed Alyssa and headed for the bathroom. I soon heard the bath water running and Alyssa talking excitedly about their "secret." Although I do enjoy taking hot baths, this wasn't great timing, because I wasn't allowed into the bathroom, and I really had to go. (Yes, I am aware that this is my second bathroom post.) With the low water pressure in the tub, it takes about twenty minutes to fill it up. Luckily, they let me in before it was too late, and Alyssa was really cute searching for the cd player. Brian put in "Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical," and though I don't hate classical music, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the cd.

There you have it: husbands can be romantic and thoughtful when they know it will be posted on the internet. I have to admit, though, that Brian has been romantic and thoughtful more often than I give him credit for. He made crepes for lunch when he came home early from school on Friday. And they were really good crepes. He also watched the kids so I could take a nap when my cold was at it's peak. I took some Nyquil and was out for three hours! I woke up at 4:45 and thought, "I should be making dinner," and the next thing I knew, it was 6:30.

He really is sweet, and I'm glad I've got him.

Obsession

I think I have a serious disorder. I want to go to Disneyland. I want to go to Disneyland so bad that all common sense that I might possibly have just flies out the window whenever I even hear the word mentioned. I feel a sense of melancholy when I hear the tea party music from "Alice in Wonderland"or when the Redhead slaps Captain Jacks Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean." I had a dream over Christmas break that Brian and I worked at Disneyland pulling the boats in the "swamp ride" (we were literally in the water, ropes over our shoulders, pulling row boats through alligator infested swamps), and I kept telling our bosses that I didn't want to pull the swamp ride, what I really wanted to be was Cinderella. When I got up the next morning I told Brian that he either needed to pay for years of counseling and group therapy to get rid of my Disneyland obsession, or he could just take me to Disneyland. He didn't buy it.

It's so bad that when I get on MSN Messenger and say to Brian, "When are you coming home today? I have something really important to talk with you about," his very first response, with no hesitation is, "Disneyland?" Actually, yesterday he asked a few things first, but then admitted that he knew it was Disneyland, but he was hoping to avoid the conversation. I call my mother two or three times a month and say, "This and this and this and this, so we might be able to go to Disneyland this year!" Then, call her the next day, and in a very sad voice say, "We're not going to Disneyland."

When will it all end? Will taking a trip to California solve my obsession? I don't really know. It sure would be fun ,though.

The organist in our ward died a couple of nights ago. He was probably in his forties, with six kids. He had tumors that were related to chromosomal problems that he had been fighting all his life. He was very musical. He frequently played special musical numbers on the piano that he arranged himself, and he was often "spicing up" the last verse of the hymns during sacrament meeting.

Brian and I found out pretty quickly, because the bishop called to have me plan some special hymns for sacrament meeting on Sunday. I was at the zoo when he called, so Brian told him that with the boundary changes last week, we aren't in the ward anymore, but we'll do whatever is needed.

It's at times like these, when you know someone who has died, that you start thinking, "I just saw him last week. I never would have guessed." But instead, I keep thinking of his wife. I passed her on Sunday at the meeting at the Stake center, and we said hi to each other and talked a bit about the changes. I keep thinking, "I just saw her a few days ago, and she looked so happy. Now she's lost her husband." I'm sure that since he's been fighting this since he was a child, that she's had time to at least partially prepare herself emotionally, but even then, it must be so hard.

I keep wondering how I would feel if I lost Brian. I would have Alyssa and Ethan with me, but life would be so empty without him. I loved him when we got married, but of course, I've grown to love him even more throughout the years. It's interesting that we're born into families, and that family has a comforting, permanent feeling. And then when we marry we start a new family and that, somehow becomes permanent also. Even though I've only known Brian for seven years, it feels as though he's always been there. I can't imagine life without him.