Me

The year of our first garden, a couple months after Natalie was born.  Rob did it all- I did not enjoy my family's garden growing up, especially the weeding, and I don't enjoy gardening now.  I go back and forth trying to decide if that makes me a bad person. 

Natalie about 7 or 8 months old?  I was 3 or 4 months pregnant with Kyler here.  That pregnancy was not planned and when the pregnancy test showed positive, I slowly walked out into our living room and just stared at my 4 month old baby lying there on the floor, not even rolling over yet, and I cried.  Needless to say it all worked out, we love Kyler so much, and it's actually really nice that they are so close together in age.  I wouldn't change it for anything. 

This picture was taken towards the tail-end of my fight with lupus.  After six months of steroids, I was left with 20 extra pounds, and a nice chubby face.  Sigh.  Oh well, I can't complain.  I've been in remission for over 2 years, those steroids got my kidneys working again, and so far, I'm still doing great! 

Getting ready to go make a snowman with my family, and about 3 months pregnant with Kory.  I love every season, although if I had to pick a favorite I would have to say Fall.  I love the leaves changing colors, the cool feel in the air, and Halloween.  I love the beautiful snow in the Winter, the beautiful flowers in the Spring, and swimming and boating in the Summer and the amazing Summer nights.   

Easter 2012.  I look at this picture and I can't believe my kids are getting so big so fast. 

So, I thought since my life is so glamorous and exciting, I should do a post about myself.... HA!  So not true.  But, it would be good to document what's going on and been going on in my life lately.  My days are filled with, well, children.  Bathing them, feeding them, changing them, wiping them, listening to them, disciplining them, chasing them, watching them, answering them, hugging them, kissing them, loving them.  Rob and I had a rather serious discussion the other day about our lives, our kids, and about how crazy it has been lately.  We looked back and thought about how we were ready for Natalie, we were a little blindsided, but ready for Kyler, very ready for Kory, and now, Rob can't even fathom having another baby right now.  I'm not sure what I want, but I know I want another one eventually.  Rob asked me, "How can you even think about having another kid right now.  You tell me all the time how crazy your life is."  And I thought for just a second and then I said, "Yes, my life is crazy, and it's really hard, but there are enough wonderful "mommy moments" during my days, that it makes me want to have another one.  I don't know if anyone else feels that way- that despite all the hardness of it all, there are just enough amazing moments that it makes it all worth it, and it makes you want to have more.  Which is crazy. 
During the school year I teach piano lessons.  This has been the perfect little job for me- just enough money to help pay for groceries every month, and it lets me get some of my teaching energy out. (I do love teaching!)  Some piano days are stressful with the kids, but overall I enjoy it and I plan on doing it again next year. 
My battle with losing weight rages on.  Like I said, I gained 20 pounds on those stupid, wonderful steroids, and I haven't quite gotten back to where I was yet.  I've never been a super skinny person anyway- I'm 5'9'' and bigger boned, and I will never be a size 2, but I feel like I could be more comfortable in my own skin.  I felt good when I got married, I felt good after I had Natalie, I felt good after I had Kyler, (even though my stomach did pooch a little more after him) and then the lupus happened.  I guess I'll tell that story now.
So, it all started with a camping trip, end of July, 2009, not with lupus, but with a blood clot.  I totally blame all my health problems on camping and tell Rob that I should never go camping again, but he doesn't take me seriously.  I'm really not a big camping fan.  I like feeling clean, bug-free, and comfortable- all of which do not happen when I'm camping.  Anyway- we had been invited to go camping with Rob's brother Thomas and his wife Roni.  Rob had to work that day, and left me home to pack ALL of the camping stuff and watch two little kids, which made for an extremely stressful day.  I met up with Rob, dropped the kids off at my mother-in-laws, and we headed up camping.  On the drive up, I started to feel nauseus and get a really big headache.  Now, I have NEVER had what I would consider a migraine, except on this day.  Not up to that point, and not since that point.  It's kind of crazy to think about.  My head hurt so bad, I couldn't think, I couldn't move, I felt like throwing up, and by the time we got up there, I told Rob to hurry and set up the tent, and I immediately laid down and eventually fell asleep.  I slept for several hours, and miraculously, when I woke up I felt a million times better.  So I ate dinner, we did a campfire and then went to bed.  When I woke up the next morning, I had a sharp pain in the side of my chest.  It was a pain that I had never felt before and just blamed it on the air mattress that had gone flat in the middle of the night and went about my day.  The pain was bearable, but constant, and I didn't really know what to think about it.  When we got back into Rexburg that night the pain slowly got worse and worse, until I went to lay down for bed and couldn't even lay on the side that was hurting.  I really started to notice that the pain was much worse when I took a deep breath and by about 2 a.m. I couldn't breath at all without intense pain.  I woke up Rob, bawling, and told him that something was wrong.  He gave me a blessing and I immediately had a strong feeling that I should go to the emergency room.  I told him I could drive myself so he could stay home with the kids.  I got there, the nurses and doctors examined me- they did the routine heart attack tests because I was having chest pain and trouble breathing, but they all came back normal.  Finally the doctor asked me if I was on oral birth control.  I said yes, and she told me that I could have a blood clot in my lung.  She told me I needed a CT-scan to find out.  I was a little skeptical, knowing a CT scan would be pretty expensive, so I told her I needed to call my husband and talk to him first.  I told Rob what was going on and that they wanted to give me the scan and he said, "Well, ask the doctor how serious a blood clot in your lung is, and do you need the test right away?"  So I did, and she said, "If you have a blood clot in your lung, which I think you do, you are in danger of dying any second, and you are probably lucky you are alive right now.  You should probably not worry about money and get the test."  So, Rob reluctantly said, ok.  :)  Sure enough, I had multiple blood clots in both my lungs, which the doctors contributed to the birth control.  I was immediately put on blood thinners, which I had to continue taking for 6 months.  Several weeks later, I was telling the whole experience to Rob's aunt, who is a nurse.  I was telling her about my really bad headache that night we were camping and she told me that very likely could have been a blood clot passing through my brain and that it was probably very, very lucky that I didn't have a stroke that night.  I don't know how true or accurate that is, but it was definitely pretty scary and I feel I was very blessed.
The blood clot is how I found the lupus.  I've also wondered if the blood clot might have caused the lupus "flare" I had, but I'm not sure.  My rheumatologist told me that lupus flares are sometimes brought on by a traumatic or stressful experience so I guess it could have been the clot- I guess I'll never know.  So, in October of 2009, just two months after the blood clot, I started having pain in my lower back.  The pain was really random and the thought of another blood clot of course came to my mind.  I waited a day or two and it didn't go away, so I scheduled an appointment with my family doctor to see what it was.  If it wasn't for the scare of another blood clot, I don't know if I would have gone in.  I asked the doctor if that's what it could be, and he said it was pretty unlikely that I would  feel a blood clot in my back, and he wanted to do a urine test because often lower back pain is caused by a kidney stone or a urinary tract infection.  When the doctor walked back in with the results, he had a really concerned look on his face and asked me if I had been having symptoms of a urinary tract infection, because I had very large amounts of blood and protein in my urine.  I said no, and he said I might have a kidney stone, so he sent me up to the hospital to get another CT-scan (or MRI, I don't remember which).  It came back normal and my doctor gave me an antibiotic telling me I probably had a urinary tract infection, but wasn't feeling the symptoms of it.  When I left the doctor's office, that diagnosis did not feel right to me.  I felt like something else was wrong, so I decided to go the next day and get a second opinion with another family doctor in Rexburg we had seen once or twice.  He examined me and got all the information and immediatly told me I should go see a kidney specialist.  This kind of upped my stress level, because that is not what I was expecting him to say.  That seemed serious to me.  They got the appointment scheduled and I went to see Dr. Rahim.  He did an examination, and did a ton of urine and blood tests- I had never had this many blood tests done before, little did I know it would not be the last time, not even close.  I had to wait a couple of weeks to get the results back.  The day of the appointment to find out the results, I was a mess, I cried pretty much that whole morning and as we were driving to Idaho Falls, Rob asked me what was wrong and why I was so worried.  I told him I had a feeling that the doctor would tell me something was really wrong.  Dr. Rahim had mentioned one of the tests he was doing was to see if I had lupus,and I told Rob that I had a feeling he would tell me I had lupus.  Rob told me I was crazy, and that I would be fine, trying to be a good husband I guess.  But unfortunately, Rob was wrong.  Dr. Rahim walked into the room and got very serious.  He told me that I had indeed tested positive for lupus, all of my test results pointed to that, and that I was in fact very, very sick.  My kidneys were not working properly and I was spilling very large amounts of blood and protein into my urine.  He said my overall health could be compared to an 80 year old person.  The whole time he was talking, the only thought running through my brain was, "Would I be able to have more kids, would I be able to have more kids."  He said a whole bunch of things I don't remember, and then towards the end I finally got the chance to ask him that question.  He didn't even pause and immediately said, "No, I don't think you should have more kids, your kidneys are probably never going to be healthy enough to support another pregnancy.  No, if I were you, I would not have more children."  World crashing down.  I couldn't breath, I couldn't speak, I felt the tears welling up in my eyes, and Rob pretty much took over the rest of the conversation with the doctor because I couldn't talk.  I kept it under control until we made it out into the parking lot and then I lost it.  My absolute worst fear about this whole situation had just come true.  It was really hard for the next couple of days to wrap my mind around this information, but I think I was blessed with strength to push that out of my mind and focus on getting my health back.  I saw a rheumatologist down in Salt Lake, he put me on the Prednisone, which is a steroid, and I started the crappiest six months of my life.  As I'm typing this I realize things could have been sooo much worse.  I didn't have cancer, I wasn't doing chemotherapy, overall, I really wasn't in pain, I didn't feel great, but I didn't necessarily feel unhealthy either.  I realize people have gone through much, much worse, but for me, it was the greatest trial of my life so far.  The steroid made me unnaturally hungry.  I had never felt hunger like that before.  I would eat a large meal, and a half hour later I would be so hungry I felt like I hadn't eaten for days.  I craved foods like crazy, way worse than I had ever craved food before.  It was not cool!  So, I gained 20 pounds, my face was swollen and puffy, and I broke out in acne all over my forehead.  I had no energy, by 8:00 at night I was DONE.  It was an interesting experience to have my physical appearance changed so much, by no choice or action of my own.  I really had to dig deep to ever feel good about myself.  I had some very dark and depressing moments in those six months, but, I think those dark moments pushed me to turn to my Heavenly Father, I prayed for help and understanding, and I had more spiritual experiences in those six months than I've ever had in my whole life.  I felt loved, I felt Heavenly Father was watching out for me, I was given strength, I even received assurance that I would get pregnant again, and I would have more children.  My testimony grew so much.  Family and friends were fasting and praying for me throughout that time, and it worked.  After six months, my kidneys were working properly again, the kidney biopsy they did showed very little scarring, which means they caught the problem really early, they tapered me off the Prednisone, and I've been fine ever since.  I go in for blood and urine tests every couple of months just to make sure, but the doctors are hopeful that since I've been in remission for so long, I will stay in remission. 
Soooo, back to the weight loss thing.  I gained 20 pounds, I lost about half of that, and then got pregnant with Kory.  After he was born, my body only lost 15 of the 30 pounds I had gained, so between that 15 pounds, and the extra 10+ I was carrying from steroids, I was not happy.  Rob gave me the idea to ask a neighbor who went running often if she wanted to trade babysitting so we could go running.  She (Jenn) agreed and we've been trading kids and running for almost a year now.  The running helped, I lost 20 pounds, but then I hit a wall and realized I would have to start dieting too.  I HATE dieting.  I love food.  I love all kinds of food- and unfortunately, eating is a stress reliever for me.  I'm still trying to figure out how to overcome that, and I'm still trying to win this war.  My goal is 20 more pounds, which would put me where I was when I got married.  I'm not giving up!
I still love playing volleyball- I get to play every once in awhile at women's stake volleyball, and we set up couples volleyball every couple of months with people from our ward.  I feel like I still have some of my skills, and that is fun for me. :)
 I have a love/hate relationship with cooking.  I feel like I've gotten a lot better at it in the past 7 years, and I really enjoy eating a lot of the stuff I cook, but it is a pain in the rear sometimes.  I hate coming up with things to fix and sometimes it is just more time and mess than it is worth.  But, I realize a good homecooked meal is important for my family, and sitting down and eating together is valuable, so I will keep doing it.  I do like fixing good food for my family, and it makes me feel really good when my kids say, "Yummy, Mommy this is good!" 
I love eating out, especially Italian food, and I love watching movies, both things that Rob really dislikes.  I say all the time that I should have investigated this more before we got married, because this could have been a deal breaker. :)  It's like pulling teeth to get Rob to go to an Italian restaurant, and I could count on one hand the number of times we've been to a movie theater together in our married lives.  I do have to say that he is pretty good about watching movies with me at home.  Oh well, hopefully I'll wear him down as he gets older. 
I love my kids, I love my husband, I have a testimony of Jesus Christ and I'm glad I have the gospel in my life, I'm grateful for all the experiences Heavenly Father has given me and the things they have taught me.  I'm grateful for my family and friends- I grew up with an awesome, loving family, and I married into an awesome, loving family.  And whenever I step back and really look at my life, it always overwhelms me that I have so many blessings.