The Accreta Survivor: Two Roads

I can't believe it has been 10 months since I last wrote down my thoughts. I kept putting it off, hoping to be able to write some good news, and it seemed to never come. Shortly after my last post, I was feeling super good and up for a new adventure. After a few weeks of ideas popping into my head and processing with Trever, we began to feel that it was time for a big change in our lives. We decided to move out of state. Just days later, things began to fall into place. Our landlord came and said that he needed to sell the house and gave us a 30 days notice. "Wow, this must really be right!" we thought. We wanted to move to an area where we knew no one, and could get a fresh start on life. A place where I was forced outside of my comfort zone and was able to thrive!" (I later found out that this dream was more of my dream, not really our dream.) We began looking in Texas in areas where we didn't have connections.

After sharing the news with my in-laws and talking with them, they of course didn't want us to go... we found a connection to some work in Kingman, AZ. We had hoped that this job would lead us to Texas eventually, Just a little detour, that would help us fulfill our dreams, was how I saw it. On that trip to visit the steel plant, our landlord called and said he wasn't quite ready to sell so we didn't need to leave as fast. That sounded great because just minutes later, we found out that the plant wasn't hiring quite yet and would be ready hopefully in a few months. Everything was working out. We could see the Lord's hand in it all. Things weren't going to work out as quickly as we hoped, but we could see reason for staying a little longer.

The next few months, we just waited. During that time, I had some big ups and downs emotionally. I had another suicidal night, where I began to doubt our dreams would ever come true. We would have little moments of hope, then those plans would fall through. Over and over, this would happen. I felt like God was enjoying playing with my emotions. I was ready to give up. I put my running shoes on (no, I am not a runner) and I bolted out of the house. I made it about a half block before I was worn out. haha. I have never run that fast in my entire life! I ran to the park around the corner, climbed to the top of the jungle gym and sat, planning my end. As I sat, I cried out to the Lord for help. I knew deep down that things would change, I just didn't want to be patient. Deep down, I knew He was there and not trying to hurt me or play with my emotions. I knew deep down that he loved me and this was all part of the plan. I had a thought come to my mind, just give it one more day, and then you can decide whether or not to end things. I knew that if I walked away, I most likely I would change my mind and decide to keep going. That disappointed me somehow. With the Lord's help, I was able to build the strength and courage to get off that jungle gym and walk home.

The next day wasn't much better, but I had more strength somehow. (Only because of the grace of my Father in Heaven) I again decided that I would give it one more day. Each day I waited, I began to get stronger. Life got a little sweeter and I was glad I waited.

By may, my stress level was higher... I waited and waited. For everything to start falling into place again. Our dreams seemed to get further and further from our reach. ( I now see that things weren't falling apart, they were still falling into place.) The beginning of may, I caught the flu. And all day I felt like I was exploding out of both ends. Sorry TMI? :) I got so sick that by that night, I knew I needed to go to the hospital. Hopefully they had something to calm my stomach. I was dehydrated and weak. My heart rate was high (most likely from dehydration) and they got me right in. My sweet dad sat they with me as they hooked me up to an IV and started giving me some meds. I quickly began to feel my stomach settle and started to get my energy back as I became re-hydrated. They sent me home with some medication to help keep things calm until I could get back on my feet.

A few days later, I was back to normal, but a little more cautious about germs. I never wanted to go through that again! About 30 days later, I got it again! This time, I didn't wait so long to go in. I quickly began to see that I was not getting better without help. This time, I ended up with 2 bags of IV solution! Yes, I had been trying to stay extra hydrated that whole month. I even kept the liquids coming in between bathroom visits that day. It took me a little longer to recover this time. I saw my Dr. and he put me on some heavier antacid to try to calm things down. I also threw out my toothbrush, ( a friend pointed that out, I didn't even think of that being the problem!) I became much more aware of germs! I pride myself on not being over the top about germs. I am all about letting my body and my kids body, work through it and build the immune system instead of killing everything with anti-bacterial stuff so that the slightest bug would be able to attack their bodies, because they hadn't built up resilience to it.

This time... I knew if I got sick, before I was able to get strong again... I would be in big trouble. I ended up having a huge aversion to almost all meet and many other foods. I slowly got stronger and felt like things were good. I would randomly get stomach aches and I passed them off as just side effects of the migraines that I always get when I am outside too much. I squint with the sun and end up getting tension headaches quite often.

The summer came and went. No phone calls, no landlord progress with selling the house... things seemed to be non-existent when it came to our big plans. Texas began to feel less desirable. It seemed that everything on the news was happening in Texas. haha. We started researching other states. Making sure to stay away from Utah and Idaho. I did not want to do the snow!!! ( And yes, I am aware that there are other states with snow) The ironic thing is, that I actually really love the snow. It is so beautiful to me. I love white!!! I love the cold. I love to freeze myself out and snuggle up to a warm blanket and drink hot cocoa. That is heaven to me!

School came closer to starting and I began to be thankful that I kept my kids registered for school. I was so frustrated and stressed out that things weren't working out! I knew that it was going to happen and I knew if was God's will.... but I just didn't know "when". I am super impatient and I was almost offended at the thought that He was teaching me patience. lol. I also knew that I would get to the other side of the trial and say that it was all worth it. During the trial... nothing was worth it! I admit now, that yes, I would do it all over again. It was worth it!!! I also admit that I did not handle that trial very gracefully. It was really hard to get through. It consumed me. I wanted so badly to know the entire plan down to the tiniest of details so that I could prepare for it. Had the Lord have told me that I would have to wait for this "big change" for over 6 months before finding out what and where and when...I would have gone even more crazy waiting for it! Sometimes, He withholds information from us, to protect us from ourselves. I also realized that all of those little potential job offers and connections that were there one day, and the next... gone... were not ways to prey on my emotions. They were actually Him telling me... "I've got this. This is what is out there.... but there is something better for you. Just wanted to let you know, that yes... I am still here working out the details."

I came across this little video/ talk that saved me, literally from going crazy. God was just showing me all of the wrong roads so that when we got to the right road, we would know with out a doubt that this, was where we needed to be! Check out the video Here!

After checking out a few states and many different job opportunities, we started to talk about Idaho and Utah. I resisted, but quickly felt better and better about it. We began looking for the same company that we wanted to work for in those states. They weren't in Idaho, but Northern Utah. Utah just didn't feel right and Idaho began to feel better and better. (So did other states though... so I was very reserved about getting too excited about it. The idea of finally living near my best friend was so exciting. If that fell through... I knew I would be crushed. So I tried to not get my hopes up. We applied to quite a few companies and never heard back. Trever was even starting to get discouraged. But I also saw an excitement about Idaho that he never showed about the other states.

He found one company that he really liked and felt good about. There were odd ways of applying and we ran into a few snags getting his resume to them. He kept saying that he thinks this is where he needed to be. So I slowly started to let my guard down. Very slowly!! For about a week or two he heard nothing back. So again I began to doubt. See, I told you I was impatient! He began to be more sure that this was going to happen. Every time the phone rang, every time there was a new email...our hearts would jump!

One day after picking Trever up from work, he got a phone call. They loved his resume and they apologized for taking so long to get back to him. They were lots of changes going on at the office. The secretary told him that she really liked him from the beginning and kept telling the boss that they needed to get a call to him asap. She set up a phone interview for a couple days later. They were going to call on his lunch break and if something came up, they would call him later that day. His lunch break came and went. I began having flashbacks of all of the other jobs that would call, set up and interview and never call. Resulting in days of trying to get a hold of them and no luck. I started putting up my wall again, bracing for impact. Yet still hanging on to that hope that Trever had. It strengthened me. They finally called that evening. He talked to the manager, Todd. Todd was super impressed with his skills. (Trever had applied for the fitter/welder position) Todd said that he wanted Mark, the owner, to chat with him and he would call in a few days. Right at the end of the "end of the few days" Mark calls. He chats with Trever talking about goals, dreams, etc. Through out "waiting period" Trever had decided that he wanted to be a mechanical engineer. He wanted to go back to school and finish his degree. (another blessing of the wrong roads leading to the right roads for him.) He asked Trever about interest in management (rhetorically), Trever said that he would rather weld and fit. That is where he enjoys being. After the conversation, Trever was worried that he said the wrong thing, Maybe they wanted to give him a bigger and better position and he just blew his chances. Again we waited for the call back. This phone call was a Thursday. I had hoped and prayed that we would receive a job offer with that phone call. That next day was the kids last day before fall break. I wanted them to be able to say goodbye to everyone. Since we weren't sure if they would offer the job, I didn't want the kids to say goodbye (like they did at spring break) and then come back to school. We of course didn't get an offer. They were going to call us back.

I sent the kids to school telling them that it might be their last day but we weren't sure. They had been updating their teachers and friends that we most likely would be moving. Oh how I wished that they could say goodbye to everyone. They came home from school with some beautiful stories! Each child (except Kaylee because her teacher was out of town, but we get to be Facebook pals) had an amazing day of goodbyes. Their teachers must have been prompted that this really was going to be their last day. They made cards and bought treats. Friends did the same. Each child was able to have exactly what they needed to feel loved and have closure. I'm talking total inspiration. Each child's day was catered to their specific personality and love language. Emma's teacher lined the kids up and had them all give Emma a hug or high five on their way out. Perfect for my physical touch girl. Kenzie's friends showered here with gifts and words of affirmation. Malia's did the same thing, while also spending quality time with her. They gave comfort to my kids in a way that could not have been planned. Still to this day, it brings tears to my eyes how miraculous it all was. They were of course worried about the change and worried about saying goodbye and getting to see everyone before we left. The Lord made that happen, even though we still weren't sure if it was actually going to happen. It was so comforting to me to know that they could have that day still, even though we weren't sure.

That weekend was conference. It was a good distraction. We slowly packed (again... I was still hesitant. These guys seemed flaky and I wasn't convinced that this was going to happen. I had also started packing back in march when we thought we had thirty days to be out. So I wasn't going to pack too crazy until it was a for sure deal.) We waited. We watched conference, played with each others hair and waited.

On Tuesday, they finally called! They offered him a starting pay of only .50 cents more than he was making already. We had hoped for more than that, but understood that they wanted to make sure he was all he was on paper before they gave him anything big. They also said they wanted to hire him with the intent to make him the foreman asap. We were thinking a big pay raise when that happened.

We prayed about it and felt good about it. We accepted the offer. They wanted him to start asap. He had already talked to his current manager and told him that he needed to find something that was able to provide for his family better. He understood and was rooting for Trever. He also said that we didn't need to give two weeks notice. Just to keep him posted. SO.... We told TRC (the new company) that we would start that next Tuesday. OH!!!! And to top things off, our landlord came to us a few weeks prior and said he was probably going to foreclose. So we knew that we needed to start thinking about packing and such. We also didn't need to put any more money into fixing back up the house or cleaning it when we left. That was a huge blessing for us. We certainly didn't have the money to repaint and fix up everything our little crazy's had broken. We also only had just over 48 hours to pack and get out of there. It was so nice not to have all of that on our plate.

Thursday, we had a little goodbye party at the park, since we wouldn't be able to see everyone one last time at church. Trever's dad flew down to help us drive the truck, Blessings started pouring out of Heaven. Somehow we were able to get a truck, pack it, pay for two vehicles gas for the trip as well as all other expenses. We were only able to pull it off from the help of so many angels here on earth and in heaven. Storage unit, gas, hotel, room and board, food etc. All of it was taken care of in miraculous ways! We loaded the truck Friday and took off Saturday. We took two days to get up to Utah, so that we could rest and stop as needed without the stress. We drove up to Utah and put our stuff in a storage unit. (We still had no idea where we were going to live or anything!) Trever stayed with us that night and drove up to Idaho that next day. (Monday) He then started work on Tuesday.

Saying goodbye

My Gilbert Temple

We were going to stay in Utah with my in-laws while Trever stayed with my sister and her husband. We kept busy all day Tuesday. By Wednesday, we were so homesick for Trever. I was about to say, yes I know I am pathetic... but no... I just love him that much that my heart literally aches to be near him when he was away. We decided at the last minute on Wednesday to drive up and surprise him. We would stay a day or two and then come back to Utah all together for the weekend. Being up here in Idaho felt so peaceful. It felt like home. Having Trever near me felt like home. Staying in Utah for a few more weeks or months (who knew when we would be able to save up enough to do deposits and such to get into a house) felt almost painful. Not because of anything except... the idea of leaving this feeling felt painful. (Trever's parents were wonderful and helped so much with the kids and everything. They were the only reason going back to Utah felt do-able)

We stayed a few days with my best friend Mackenzie. They had land that the kids could run and play on, and children to keep mine occupied. It was fabulous! As the weekend approached, we felt better and better about staying in Idaho for the weekend. (still planning on going back to the original plan of staying with Trever's parents until we found a house). Little did we know that we would end up staying with them almost 3 weeks! Now that is friendship.... letting a family of 8 hang out with you at your house that long!!! Kenzie taught me so much while we were there. I really feel like staying there gave me the solid base of things that I needed to do, be, etc in our grand adventure that was about to enfold.

We did take a weekend and go back to Utah for a family party. It was so good to see everyone! We haven't been up this way for about 7 years. We also got to stop off in McCammon to say hello to Trever's little brother Tanner and some special ancestors.

My mom also got us a hotel room for a few nights to have some family alone time. It was just what the doctor ordered. She took us out to eat for FHE. They set all of the fries right in front of Trever. I had to take a picture. I wish they set them all in front of me!!!! I love their fries! We also went to Cabella's. Later that week we were blessed to meet up with a missionary from home, who is serving here. Our buddie Elder Keaton McPeak.

We found a home and got really excited about it. We didn't hear back from the landlord so I texted her. Come to find out, we weren't the only ones who put an application in. I thought it was a sure thing for us to get in it. She just needed to work out details and wait for the tenants to leave. I was iffy about this landlord too. She seemed very...well... lets just say, a family of 8 in that house would get very stressful. She seemed a little OCD about fix-ups, cleanliness etc. With 6 littles.... That is just not possible. So Mackenzie jumped on Craigslist and immediately. It would be available in 2 days!!! Down to the day, the housing situation worked out. The Swenson's were leaving to go out of town and I really did not want to overwhelm my sister with all of us in her home. She was so gracious to offer, but I really stressed out with Caleb destroying everything in the middle of the night while he was in the other room. I have to have him contained in a crib or something right next to me, and even then, he still gets into mischief in the middle of the night. And he loved to get into things at her house more that others for some reason. lol.

We moved in on Thursday. With the help of an amazing couple who helped us come up with the needed funds. Then things miraculously fell into place for us to be able to go the next day and get our stuff out of storage. We drove straight down to Utah, loaded up and drove straight back. It was a fun adventure!

My moving helpers

Becca's Birthday party with Nick and Hayley

Haloween

We have been here a month and a half. I feel like the last 6 months were just a bad dream. Daily, I see more and more miracles that got us to where we are today. I was really worried about switching schools. We were in a school that I loved. I didn't think I could love a school more. We live a block away from a school that has taken my amazing kids and helped them see even bigger and better things. The neighborhood is filled with children who also help my kids be bigger and better versions of themselves. They have friendships that I never thought were possible. They of course miss their old school and friends but love it here as well. I feel like we live in our own little paradise here! The things that I wanted in other states that we considered... This area has it. The climate, the location... everything is a miracle. I thought I wanted to live where I didn't know anyone, so that I could just be me with out years of history in the equation. I have that here! My own little ward of new faces, new friendships etc. Yet, I have my bestie Mackenzie and my Sister Hayley just miles away to lean on and to hang out with, when I just need a little bit of familiar in my life. I have the best of everything that we dreamed of, right here in our little piece of heaven!

I miss all of my Az friends and would love to see them. That will never change. I am thankful that as my AZ family fell apart, that I had them.there with me. And when I felt like I would never make it home after delivering Caleb... they were there to pray for me, comfort me and care for my family for me. Arizona will always hold a special place in my heart. Well, the people... not the heat!

When we registered the kids for school, the secretary was from AZ. (Chandler) She said that we were moving from the oven to the freezer. haha. I agree with that one. It is cold here! I love it!!! There is flurries flying around outside me window as we speak, It bring such happiness and joy to my soul.

My anxiety and depression are so much better up here. I am so much stronger because of this trying year. I am hoping that after the winter hibernation is over, that I will be able to start to wean myself off of my medication. I know that the summer hibernation months were big depression months for me. So I am going to be realistic and wait until those months are behind me.

Being in a new state has brought a new set of germs to get used to... I got the flu for the 3rd time this year and ended up back at the hospital. I am VERY aware of germs now and doing everything possible not to catch it again. My poor kids keep passing it around. I think I may have an ulcer. That stomach pain I was feeling and thought was migraine side effects... may have been ulcer pain. I wish I would have tried to get on that sooner. No insurance for a few more weeks has got me nervous.... But, the huge blessing has been the knowledge that I gained through getting a priesthood blessing, that I will be made whole. My body will heal. I am working on eating better, building my immune system and getting healthy. I have learned a lot from that trial as well.

Trever is doing awesome at work. He was promoted in 4 days and is really loving management so much more than he thought he would. He is learning so much and had opportunities to talk with and learn more about the Mechanical Engineers. We both know without a doubt that this is where we are supposed to be. It was a long rough rode to get here, but it would have been so much longer if we hadn't chosen the wrong road first!

Life will always have challenges and roadblocks, but right now, in this moment... I am happy. Life is beautiful and I feel safe. (emotionally, spiritually and physically. ) I am in a good place right now. I feel strong, I feel confident and I feel whole. For those out there struggling... keep fighting... keep believing! God really does love you and is working out all of the crazy little details.

One last thing.... Those crazy little details are so perfect and so precise. If we had moved to that first place we applied for in this same community... we would have been in a different ward. We would have different neighbors. All of which have been such a blessing to us. I most especially wouldn't have had my neighbor Amy, whom I found out also had accreta!!! Because we are next door neighbors, we were introduced in a way that sparked a conversation I never could have even imagined happening. While starting to tell why I can't have more kids, she jumped in... "did you have Accreta?" That was a special moment for me! Special because as much as I would like to let that part of my life go... I just can't. It is who I am now. It is a part of me. And Heavenly father knew that I needed someone here who just "got me" Who has been through it herself. Who knows what a scary roller coaster ride it can be. Especially post delivery. She gets me. And I get her. Our stories may be so different, but one is not better than the other. Both are Hell to go through. Yes, I just swore. I know I know, I shouldn't speak like that. But that is exactly what it is.

Thanks ya'll for being a part of this journey with me. In the words of my favorite fish Dori- "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!"

NOW: Who is ready for a picture overload?!!!!

Our start wars nights... mommy catching up on star wars (cause I was not a fan!) so that we can watch the new one together.

Princess Leia buns

For Veteran's day, Emma's class did an amazing concert/tribute for the Veteran's. Then we made cinnamon rolls for the Vet's/active duty in our ward. And topped it off with a party for our favorite soldier, Nick!