Coming to Our Family March 4, 2012

After 2 1/2 years of trying we are finally pregnant!!!! It was a LONG hard process! Zach and I were tested in every way possible. I had surgery in January so that we could figure out what was wrong. The doctor found nothing to be wrong. That to me was even more frustrating! How could nothing be wrong?! I heard from a few people that sometimes gluten can cause infertility, so I went off of gluten to give it a try. I was at a point where I would try anything! 2 months later BOOM, we were pregnant! I am so so so happy!

When we had been in Utah for 2 days I was really sick and I couldn't figure out why. I thought that maybe I had accidently gotten some gluten somehow. I was late for my period, but I've been late before so I didn't want to get my hopes up.....again. Zach and I went to the only store in Duchesne that's not a grocery store and I found a cheap pregnancy test. I talked Zach into buying it because when I saw the negative I would stop getting my hopes up.Yep, I really did think it would be negative. I took it early the next morning and yep, you guessed it....POSITIVE!! My family probably thought I was having tummy issues cause I sat in the bathroom for a good while checking. I read the instructions from start to finish about 10 times and kept staring the the pregnancy test. We hadn't had a positive pregnancy test in over 4 years. It threw me for a loop! Finally when it all started sinking in I ran in and jumped on Zach, who was still sleeping, with tears in my eyes. I didn't say anything but shoved it in his face. He thought it was negative and again we went over the instructions a few times to check and make sure it was positive. We've been doing this pregnancy test thing for a long time and everytime ended up in complete heart break, before I took the test I was sure it would be another heartbreak! I dropped to my knees immediately and thanked my Heavenly Father for this precious gift! I am so very thankful! My heart goes out to all of those women who are struggling with infertility. It is so unbelieveably HARD!!! I pray for them everyday.

Well, the happiness soon turned into worry because I started spotting and feeling the most intense pain ever! I was only 7 weeks when this happened so we rushed to the emergency room. We were there for a long time, but we saw our tiny little baby and our tiny little baby's heartbeat. I was so relieved! A few days later it hadn't gone away so I tried to get a doctors appointment. Only 1 doctor agreed to help me, but he only oredered another ultrasound and told me he didn't know what was going on. Zach and I both poured our hearts out in prayer, asking that this precious baby would be ok. Everything turned out to be ok and all went away when we got home to Virginia. On Friday, the same thing happened again and it lasted until Sunday, only the spotting was worse. I was panicked! I was an emotional wreck! I had to switch doctors (which is a long story in itself) and finally today I was able to meet with a doctor for the first time this pregnancy. He was awesome! He did an ultrasound and said that baby was perfectly healthy and fine. He said the everything looked fine. He said I have a tipped uterus, but that the baby would straighten it out. That could be where the pain is coming from. He said that I am doing great! I was so relieved and now I feel like I am ready to make it public. I'm not as worried about miscarriage anymore since I'm 11 weeks, but if you could spare a prayer or two for me and baby I would very much appreciate it! I am so happy and excited to do the baby thing all over again! I must admit that the thought of having 2 kids makes me a tiny bit nervous, but I'm so ready! I can't wait until March!!! Now you know our little secret! :)

The little (HUGE) baby bump! This was taken at 10 weeks. Man, I am gaining weight so much faster with this kid than I did with Skyli! Maybe it's a boy! :)

Yeeeehaaaawwww!!!

While we were in Utah my awesome Aunt Judy helped me sew a cute new dress for Sky. She lives in a beautiful log cabin where I spent many, many nights and days when I was a kid. She lives in a really small town and her neighbors are not close at all. She has a pasture behind her house where she has horses. Sky asked if she could ride a horse and my aunt went out a got a horse for her to ride named Peanuts. Skyli was so happy to be able to ride Peanuts! Later she asked if she could paint Peanuts purple and then ride it. Now everytime she hears anything about peanuts she says, "That's the horseys name!" She's just too cute and I love her so  so so much!

My Aunt Judy is leading the horse, Skyli and her cousin Norm is on the horse and my mom is making sure they don't fall off.

Isn't she just such a cowgirl?! She's too cute!

Thank you so much Aunt Judy for the patterns, helping me sew, and letting Skyli ride Peanuts! We really enjoyed spending time there!

Sparklers!!!

My brother brought down these huge, awesome sparklers! So after camping (and a shower) we let Skyli play around with them. She LOVED it!

My brother, Zach, Sky and my niece Christina

My Sis-in-law Karen sitting and watching, Christina, and Sky. They were writing their names and drawing things.

We love fireworks and stuff! :)

Rock Hunting

That's right, I'm still updating on our vacation to Utah even though we've been home for almost a month. Don't worry though, I will be done with vacation blogging soon.

Our first weekend in Utah we went camping with my family. While we were there my brother took us to a place where there were a ton of fossils and crystals. It was a bit of a steep hike, but it was fun! We found a bunch of cool rocks and crystals. Zach found a cave where he got three huge crystals. They were cool!

My nephew Don. He was excited!

My nieces Christina (in the green) and Becca.

There's a little tiny white spec up on the right side of the snow, that's Zach. He climbed a long way up!

Camping just wouldn't be camping without "hobo" (or tinfoil) dinners. YUM!

We had a blast camping! I can't wait to do it again next year.

Camping

Our first weekend in Utah we went camping with my brother and his family to celebrate my nephew's 5th birthday. We went up near the trailhead of the Hight Uintah mountains. It is so beautiful up there! There is a lake with a huge dam. Since the upper country in Utah is flooding the spillway on the dam was overflowing. It was beautiful to watch! It was super loud though. We camped somewhat close to it and we could hear it roaring all the time. It over flows every couple of years depending on the spring runoff waters, but I've never seen it overflowing like this! It was crazy!

Starting from the left, there's Zach, my mom, my nephew Don, Skyli, and my niece Leah. The other 3 I don't know. 

My grandma Merkley and my mom.

To the side of the dam there's a trail that leads you up into the High Uintahs. The little people up there are my dad, brother Dwayne, sis-in-law Mele, and niece Becca. You can barely see them. Here's a cool fact, my dad helped build this dam years ago.

The kids decided to throw rocks in the river, of course.

The biggest kid of all throwing rocks in the water. :) My nephew loved it! He laughed and cried, "Again, again" everytime.

My nephew Don.

It's beautiful all around up there!

Getting ready to head back to camp. Sky said she was hungry so she nestled her self up in my moms car until she got some applesauce.

Thank you to my brother, brothers family and my dad for taking us camping. We had a blast! Sky still talks about camping with her Don Don. We love you guys and enjoyed spending time with you all!

Our Utah Vacation!

Bright and early on July 5 (at 3:30 AM) we were up after 2 very short hours of sleep and on our way to the airport. We were headed to Utah to visit our family! We were all so excited! It was a very very long day of traveling though and by the time we got there we were exhausted! We got to visit with both sets of grandparents while we went to lunch, afterwhich we headed over to the Andersons for a short visit before continuing on to Duchesne to see the Rasmussens. The day after our arrival we headed up to visit with my cute grandpa! He lives in the middle of nowhere, really. It's so peaceful and beautiful! My aunt and uncle live right next to him and have a cute little farm going on so Skyli got to see a bunch of animal and feed them. She had a blast! To my surprise she wasn't scared at all!

We started out at the lambs. Sky loved them!

She loved feeding them and playing with them. One kept eating the zipper on the side pocket of my shorts. Sky laughed and laughed!

This is my beautiful most awesome mother!

Beside the lambs was a pasture full of cows. Sky decided that she wanted to ride a cow so she tried to lure them to her with crackers. They didn't get too close to her. She decided that the mother cows were too mad to ride and soon the thoughts of riding a cow were forgotten.

Don't look too closely at her hair. I had fixed it a million times that day and finally gave up.

Next we were off to see the goats.

She thought the brown goat was mean because he kept head butting the other goats away and eating all the crackers. She didn't like him much.

After feeding the goats she decided that she wanted to ride one of them. I wouldn't let her in the pen with them ofcourse so she didn't end up riding one. I know, mean mother! ;)

Next was my moms favorite, chickens! haha! My mom is terrified of birds. She stayed as far away from the chickens as possible.

She liked talking to the chickens.

Surprisingly she is not afraid of animals at all. She had a blast looking at these animals. Thank you to my aunt, uncle and grandpa for letting us wander around and look at all of our new friends!

On the walk back to my grandpa's house I saw this flowery bush and decided that it was too pretty to not take a picture in front of. My beautiful mom and my beautiful Skyli!

Here is my cute grandpa! Skyli has red hair and blue eyes like my grandma had, which is who Skyli got her middle name of Leah from. I'm so thankful for my great family!