"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long perfectly manicured fingernails. 

I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking the kids to scout camp. I want to be therewith  a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. 

I want The Lord to know that I was really here and I really lived."

- Marjorie Pay Hinkley

DIS GIRL.

My BFF gets home from her mission on FRIDAY!

I'm so excited. I've missed her SOO much. I would've loved to have had her around this last year from hell, but, alas, the Lord had other plans for her... like serving in Korea!

Watch out for lots of duck face selfies comin' your way via Instagram startng FRIDAYYYY!

hello, old friend.

first - we got family pictures taken! if you're on my facebook you've already seen a plethora, and tomorrow i'm posting jack's 7 month update with a couple more, but here's a favorite!

second - one of my high school friends, ethan, got home from his mission last night! i talked to him for 45 minutes on the phone today, and it was wonderful. which leads me to

third - jack and i are going on our first roadtrip to soab since he stopped liking the car seat. i'm nervous. but i have a collection of toys he's never played with, and i bought a fisher price iphone case that i can set up and have him watch a movie on or something.

eek.

July Long

This was the weekend we've been waiting for!

Friday night we drove down to Raymond, Saturday was Aunt Susie's surprise party (success!), Saturday night was our baby shower, Sunday was Jack's baby blessing, and Monday was Canada Day!

I don't really have much to write about any of the above, just a butt ton of pictures.

[PS - Thanks a BILLION to everyone who brought us gifts over the weekend. I'm so excited to get him into all the clothes and use all the toys, etc. And to everyone who came to the blessing/BBQ. It was so good to introduce Jack to everyone.]

{Week 10: Home!}

70 days.
6 lb 4 oz.
5 respiratory options.
4 ultrasounds.
3 ambulance rides.
2 hospitals.
1 Jack. 1 Home. 1 Family.

Yesterday, on June 3, 2013, after 70 days in the NICU, we brought our precious Jack home!

There was so much happiness in our little house. Carter and I were absolutely giddy all morning. He called the NICU at 5am and found out that Jack had passed his car seat test, and we were awake from then (actually, I woke up at 4am because I was so anxious to find out if he had passed). We spent the morning at the hospital waiting for discharge papers, and then we had them! And we had him! (If you're curious, I only cried one tear. Of pure joy. When one of the nurses we didn't like came and said goodbye to him. Yes, goodbye to YOU!)

He is on oxygen still, so we have an oxygen concentrator set up in our living room, along with 6 portable tanks, and 25 feet of tubing. But home oxygen is a small price to pay (literally, thanks to the Government of Alberta) for having him home. It is worth all the stress and scariness of the last 70 days.

In his bed from Jen

Our first night at home was pretty good! I was absolutely drained from being awake all day, so I fed him and went to bed around 10pm, and Carter got him all settled around 1130pm. He was up at 315 to eat, back to sleep at 4.. Up again at 630, back to bed (with me) at 730 until 10! That is the latest I've slept in since he was born, and it was with him at home! Haha. So we survived (thanks to the caffeinated goodness of Diet Coke). 

 We even went for a walk today! It's absolutely glorious to have nothing to do and no where to go (until his appointments start on Thursday).

 Again, I'd like to thank every single person who prayed for our family, and for Jack's success in the car seat test. The Lord is so good. Jack is an amazingly calm little guy, he loves his bed, he loves cuddling, he loves eating, he loves sleeping. I think The Lord gave us an "easy" baby to make up for his difficult start! ;) Thanks to everyone who came and sat with me in the hospital to keep me company, for those of you who have sent gifts and kind words. I can't even express how grateful I am. And how elated I am!

Happy summer indeed!

Experience

Over the last nine weeks, people - the social worker in the hospital, nurses, strangers, my mom, my husband - have told me I'm an amazing mom; that I'm stronger than they could be; that they could never do what I do every day. I just want to clarify: I'm not amazing. I don't possess incredible human strength. I just have an undying love for the tiny human I carried in me for 28 weeks and 4 days. I don't feel like I've done anything out of the ordinary. I just feel like a mom who is doing everything in her power to care for her son. 

Don't get me wrong - I know this path to motherhood has had bumps and turns and detours, and it's the most challenging thing I've ever experienced. But that does not make me extraordinary. It makes me a mother. 

My path has crossed with fellow NICU mothers who have had it much worse than we have - ventilators, resuscitation, seizures, living hours away from their newest love, not being allowed to hold the part of their heart that left their body. For that I am grateful. If it wasn't for the inspiring stories of these women who have seen their child pounced on by respiratory therapists trying to get a breath exhaled, or stayed nights in an armchair at the bedside following a major abdominal surgery I would have fallen apart long ago. But if these women can keep their daily vigil up for months on end with the scariest circumstances, I can definitely handle driving fifteen minutes to hold and feed my very healthy baby for fifteen (or more) hours a day. 

I have no hard feelings toward God, or the doctors, or myself for our current situation. Jack is the best thing that has happened to our life, irregardless of him coming at term or twelve weeks early.

I so look forward to the day I can bring my little man home, and I pray everyday for the mothers and fathers who never got that chance. We are so blessed to have the medical advances that saved my life, and the life of our baby. 

The prophet Joseph Smith once said, "I should never get discouraged, whatever difficulties should surround me, if I was sunk in the lowest pit of Nova Scotia and all the Rocky Mountains piled on top of me, I ought not to be discouraged but hang on, exercise faith and keep up good courage and I should come out on the top of the heap."

That is the attitude I'm trying to have. 

"..All these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good." (D&C 122:7-8)

Meghan the Mormon!

So today an exciting thing happened.

This friend got baptized!

I know, right? So cool.

BASICALLY it went a little something like this>>>

She came to our wedding (in February) at the Cardston Temple and was wondering why she couldn't come in with us. So we explained what we could, and she seemed okay with that. A couple weeks after our wedding, she hitched a ride with us back to SoAB to meet up with a friend, and during that whole 6 (+2 because we had a donut on the car) hour drive she asked us questions about the LDS faith -- what we believe, how we practice our religion, how the different auxiliaries are set up, etc. We answered them, and asked a few of our own about the Catholic religion. We didn't think much of it, but whenever we hung out with her she always seemed to have a couple more questions - and good ones! Ones that made us think about how to respond. Finally, in June (3 months after her initial questions), we offered her a Book of Mormon -- and she accepted! She started reading it, and she even came to church with us a couple of times! And enjoyed it! But she wasn't quite ready for the missionary discussions yet. At the end of July, after coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon, I passed a note to the missionaries in our ward (Elder Basinger and Elder Bowles) and asked them if they had a couple of minutes to talk to us after sacrament meeting. They eagerly agreed, and before Meghan could object we had our first discussion set up for July 31! It's pretty much history from there. She took the discussions, kept reading, coming to church, and within a couple of weeks, Carter and I knew she was ready to be baptized -- but she didn't. Eventually the missionaries had to pass her to the YSA missionaries (Elder Black and Elder Albright), but the discussions continued just as smoothly as before. Finally, she agreed to be baptized! YAY! So! Today, September 29, 2012, she was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!

Meghan and Carter

Elder Albright, Meghan, and Elder Black.

Elder Basinger, Meghan, and Elder Bowles.

Meghan and Kelsey (who came to a couple discussions, and took Meghan to church with her!)

Me and MORMON Meghan! :)

Mormon Meghan and the Edmonton Temple! :)

I'm so proud of her and the choice she made to be baptized, regardless of the support (or non-support) of her family. I know that she is doing the right thing and the Lord is going to help her to fight the challenges of this life and to help her family understand her choice. Her testimony is growing every day, and I know she is going to be a wonderful Mormon! Love you, Meghan! :)




PS -- If you're looking for more information on the religion Meghan has chosen for herself, go to www.mormon.org :)

Sunshine!

My best friend Viktoria left on her mission last week (She reported to the MTC last Wednesday), so I'm sending her a box of sunshine!

Everything is YELLOW! I got her a yellow scarf, yellow flats, yellow deodorant, yellow dry shampoo, yellow nail polish, a yellow luggage tag, a yellow package of floss/picks, a yellow toothbrush, a yellow tube of mascara, yellow sticky notes, yellow package of skittles, yellow package of peanut M&Ms, a yellow Oh Henry, a yellow package of Maynards, a yellow package of Glosette peanuts, and yellow pack of Juicy Fruit gum.. and I think that's it!

Then I put a sticky note on each item telling her why I got it..

..Filled the box up with yellow tissue paper, wrote a quick note (in addition to the ''sunshine'' sign), and taped it all up!

I sure hope she loooooooves it. I think it's so cute. :)

September.

Clearly our lives have been very un-exciting this last couple of months.. I honestly can't think of a single blog-worthy thing that has happened.

That's a lie. I have a few.

My best friend left on her mission last week. She reported to the MTC yesterday!

And this friend has been gone for a year (-8 days).

And this friend is getting baptized in a week (-2 days)!!

And I have some more big news but that has to wait until Thanksgiving when it's no longer a secret to our families (no, I'm not pregnant).

Sooooooooo yep.. That's about it. 

Oh, and my toes are cold.

Okay. That's all.