A Message to Remember! :)

Looking on Facebook today I saw this little article about "The Invisible Mother." I certainly do not feel like I am invisible yet but I am sure that when I have more children and they are grown that I will have days that I do feel invisible.  I wanted to share this beautiful message to all my wonderful friends who are and will be mothers and also to put it here to that I remember it! 

Here it is:

"It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’

"Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I’m invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?? 

"Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30, please.’

"Some days I’m a crystal ball; ‘Where’s my other sock? Where’s my phone?, What’s for dinner?’

"I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going, she’s going, and she’s gone!

"One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription: ‘With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

"In the days ahead I would read – no, devour – the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: 1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have no record of their names. 2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. 3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. 4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. 

"A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’ 

"I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was Almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does.
No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.

"I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. 

"When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he’d say, ‘You’re gonna love it there…’ 

"As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers."

—Anonymous

Reference: http://whatcomfamilies.com/2013/05/11/the-invisible-mother

Being a mother is one of the greatest gifts I could ever ask for and reading this reminded me that no matter how hard it may seem some days it is totally worth it! I am building a 'great cathedral' and one day each of my children will grow up to be something great! 

Devin Craig Merrill

As all of you know we have had a wonderful blessing enter our lives...the story began in September of 2012.    On the evening of September 16th, 2012 I decided to randomly take a pregnancy test guessing that it would still be negative like so many of the other tests I had taken over the months.  Little did I know that this test would be different! I showered while I waited for the results and once out I saw one very dark line and one very faint line...I yelled for Craig to come and look at the test to make sure I wasn't seeing anything and sure enough I wasn't!  I didn't want to get my hopes up to much so I actually took another test, a digital one that actually says "Pregnant"the next morning.  This test confirmed what we had seen on the test the night before...we were really expecting a little one!
After finding out that we were pregnant the fun really began...morning sickness that lasted all day! I couldn't even cook because the smell of meat made me so sick to my stomach! Somehow we managed to keep it all a secret until Halloween when we were able to tell both of our families we were pregnant. I wore a shirt that said: "Mummy to be" and everyone loved it!! :)
Our little babies first vacation came when we went to Mexico for Christmas, he will not remember it but I will because of the wonderful sea sickness/morning sickness I had everyday and of course the awesome prenatal massage I got!
On January 7th we found out that our little baby was a BOY! Craig and I could not have been happier and as soon as we told everyone and left the doctors office we went and bought some cute little outfits and picked out the nursery theme for the room!
I seriously loved being pregnant, yes I may have been miserable when it comes to not sleeping very well, having the bladder the size of a peanut, having heartburn every night and having my ribs kicked during all hours of a day, but I still loved it! I loved being able to talk to my little boy all the time, I sang to him.  I loved that he was with me 24 hours a day and had no choice :).  I loved that I could feel him moving around inside of me! I loved the way Craig looked at my tummy, knowing that we had created a little human and knowing that it was truly a wonderful gift and a miracle!
The Saturday before Mothers day, May 11th I started having some pretty good contractions at work that I could time to be between 7 to 10 minutes apart but as soon as I got home and relaxed the contractions went away for a little while but what stayed was a nagging back pain.  That night I had contractions that were once again between 7 to 10 minutes apart but not painful or uncomfortable so I didn't think anything of it and went to work on Sunday...all day at work I had contractions again.  Monday I took it really easy while Craig was at work but that night we went for a walk and the contractions that included my whole stomach started again.  When I would rest the contractions would go away but I would continue to have a nagging lower back pain...it never went away.  Monday night I had to take two warm baths, and had Craig rub my back and tried several different positions to sleep in and nothing helped!  Tuesday morning, May 14th I called my doctor who told me to got to Labor and Delivery to be monitored just in case I was just having back labor.  I figured I wasn't going to be kept and so Craig and I took our time getting ready to go to the hospital, we went for a walk and packed all of our stuff up into the car just in case I really was in labor.
 Just a little after 1PM on May 14th we checked into triage at McKay-Dee Hospital on the Labor and Delivery floor.  Once I was hooked up to the monitor to watch the babies heart rate and contractions I answered all of the nurses question for admission.  The nurse then told me I was only dilated to 3cm and that they would watch me for a little while and then call the doctor.  At the sound of only being dilated to 3cm I couldn't believe that I had even decided to come to the hospital! I told Craig that they were for sure going to send me home, no doubt about it!  Not even 10 minutes after the nurse had left she came back into the room with news that scared both Craig and I. I had just recently had a contraction and it had cause our babies heart rate to drop into the 90's, it then had trouble recovering and when it finally did his heart rate jumped up to between 190 to 200!  The doctor had looked at the monitor from her office and did not like what she saw so she told the nurse to admit me and to tell us that we would be having a baby that day!
Now going to my thoughts on how my delivery would go...I had planned on doing hypnobirthing and never thought anything else of it, the thought of a c-section was as far out of my mind as it possibly could be. I wasn't even thinking about an epidural!  The doctor told the nurse that it our babies heart rate continued to not cooperate then I would have to have a c-section.  With a c-section being a possibility I would have to get an epidural...I did not like the sound of it but I was willing to get it in order to get our baby boy here safely.  Long story short I was admitted to the hospital around 2PM, my water was broke around 4PM, they started pitocin around 5PM and shortly after I had the epidural.

Ready for this baby to get here!

After being in Labor for 10 hours our little boy Devin Craig Merrill entered the world at 1141PM.  He weighed 6lbs 7oz.  It was truly amazing as they placed him on my chest how much love I felt for him.  They did not let me hold him for very long but I had not idea why until later.  Come to find out later our little boy was born with the cord wrapped around his neck and he had decided to stop breathing for a short little while and the NICU nurses had to help jump start his breathing.  I have decided it was a good thing that I did not know about his breathing issues until it was resolved or I would have been a huge wreck! Devin was born with a temperature that was over 101 degrees and so they had to keep him in the TLC nursery which meant we could only see him for an hour every 4 hours during the day.  He had to have antibiotics through an IV in his head for the two days that we were there but he was able to come home with us on time!

He is here!!

Proud dad

We are so blessed to have such a beautiful baby boy that has blessed our lives! I can't imagine our lives now without him!

Miracle

This past summer my family went through a trial that I hope we will never have to repeat again.  A little background about my dad is he has worked hard to loose his weight, he looks great! One thing that helped him loose all of his weight was him picking up bicycling for exercise.  By June 2012 he was riding over 26 miles a day.  At the end of June he was fighting a pretty nasty cold but still insisted that he go out riding.  On the fateful day of June 29th all of our lives flipped upside down.  Craig and I were in California for a family trip with his family, my mom was taking our dog to the groomer and going to the gym and Bryson and Kate were both not home.  My dad decided to go for his bike ride that morning so that he could do other things in the afternoon; what he didn't know was that he would not be making it home to do any of that.  On the last stretch of his bike ride he was dehydrated and fatigued and he ended up collapsing on the road.  This is were the miracles began.  My dad was found by our neighbors who had left late for work and had decided to take a different road to work (the road my dad was on).  When they found my dad he was breathing but struggling to do so.  One went to go call 911 in an area that had cell phone service and the other stayed with my dad to make sure he kept breathing and in the end had to start CPR.  CPR was done on my dad for a little over 30 minutes before an ambulance arrived to get my dad to a hospital.  My dad had to be shocked twice before his heart started beating on its own.
Getting the phone call from my mom saying that dad had been in a bad accident and had possible brain damage was more than I could handle....being a nurse I think of everything that could go wrong which did not help the situation out! Phone calls kept me updated until we left California for home the next day and Craig's family was amazing and kept me afloat until we left for home.
My dad's heart sounded health and strong in the ER when he arrived but he was not responsive; they decided to admit him to the ICU and 'Freeze' him to help prevent any brain or heart damage that could still possibly take place.  He was hooked up to so many tubes and so full of fluid that he hardly looked like himself. He had a machine breathing for him and he was kept sedated.  Dad was there but not at the same time.

A few days in to being in the hospital

Dad developed compartment syndrome because of all of the fluid that was in his body with his kidneys not working so he ended up having to have a surgery on his leg to release pressure on the muscle so that he would not loose his whole leg.  This complication prevented us from being able to wake dad up sooner.  Each day I went to see him I told him about each line that he had going into him; it was funny when I would tell him about the vent that was helping him breathe; he would bite down on the tube and start grinding it with his teeth and then I would tell him that he could not do that and needed to stop...he would indeed stop.  Seeing how he responded let us all know that he could hear us even though he could not open his eyes.  

During his stay he lost his mustache....he looked so young, and a whole lot different!! We couldn't really tell what he looked like until July 4th when they were able to get him off of the vent and fully off of sedation.

I had to work the day they woke dad up but I was able to spend my lunch break with him right after he got off the vent.   I was seriously the best fourth of July ever!!  Once dad was awake the rest of the hospital stay was an adventure of healing for dad.  The pain medication made dad very silly which kept us all smiling.  Dad had to take a day to learn how to walk again because of the nasty long incision in his leg but he got an A+ with that in no time!  After the doctors knew he was okay the next step was to take a look at his heart.  In the end they placed a defibrillator in his chest (it is his own personal life saver!).  

Looking back at this whole experience we were all very very lucky!! It is rare for someone to survive after having CPR done for over 30 minutes; it is even rarer for someone to survive with no brain damage!! There was truly some divine intervention from our Father in Heaven that saved dad.  I as well as the rest of our family will always be eternally grateful that we still have dad here with us! Our testimonies have all grown and will never be the same from this experience.  I want to thank everyone, family, friends and hospital staff that supported us and helped us through this hard time! Love you all!! 

An Amazing Journey

Weight....it is a dreaded word that I absolutely hate!! I have always had a fear for the scale and I usually always found a way out of actually ever having to stand on a scale...except for at the doctors!
Diet....it is another word that I actually do not like but lets face it, most of us try multiple diets throughout our lives to get into shape and to become for thin and more healthy.  Diets are no fun, you don't get to taste all of the yummy stuff that you love.
Looking at these two words now I am grateful Craig and I made the decision we did this past January.  In January 2012 Craig and I realized that it was time to become more healthy; we also decided that if we want to have a family in the future it was a must for me to loose weight because I have PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome), having this makes weight a difficult thing, that is why I hate the scale so much, because I have always had weight problems.  So anyways back to the story...Craig and I started a diet called Ideal Protein back in mid January so that we could drop some weight and get healthier.

Before picture:

I liked to hide behind Craig in pictures because I has ashamed of what I looked like.

The diet in the beginning sucked! I was so used to having food whenever I wanted and it was whatever food I wanted! Now I was restricted to only specific foods including veggies which I am not a huge fan of.  I can't remember how much weight we lost each week but with each weigh in it made Craig and I more confident and gave us the will power to continue on with the diet.  The diet got easier each week, especially since we didn't have any foods that would tempt us! Craig stopped the diet at the beginning of April with a total weight lose of 45 pounds! I was and still am so proud of him...he looks great!! It took me until about mid June to end the diet for just a little bit but I plan on starting it back up in July so that I can reach my weight loss goal. I have lost a total of 43 pounds!!

After:

This journey has been difficult but I am so grateful that I have had my husband by my side to do this diet with me! My mom also is amazing...she is just finishing up the diet and looks great!
I am so happy and grateful that Craig and I made the decision to make this change in our lives now; I still hate the scale but knowing that I have lost as much as I have I now have no desire to gain it back! :)

Our Home

Craig and I have been homeowners now since October of 2011 and yet I have failed to post any pictures of our place.  The reason I have not posted pictures is because I have a little bit of what is called OCD; I cannot show people pictures of a messy house!! It took us so long to unpack things because of both of us being in school full time! So the long awaited pictures are now here! :) (I also figured I better post some pictures now before we start our painting project at some point in time this summer!)

Our cute kitchen (We are going to refinish the cupboards eventually to blend in better with the floor)

Our dinning room, the door on the right is our half bath

Our back door/backyard (Thor wants to go outside)

Our cute laundry room/storage area

Our living/family room area

We have a "Harry Potter" closet! And a coat closet; and there is our TV!

Our full bathroom

Master bedroom

Our bed; I had to show because it is a new headboard :)

Spare bedroom that is still a mess; I am working on de-junking

Our office and my new craft desk! :)

School

I have been going to school since I was 5 years old and I am now 23.  I remember when I was little wishing to be old enough to be done with school and yet after I graduated from high school I have been willing to pay money to continue going to school.  I have accomplished a lot actually, I have obtained two associate degrees with one being in health science and one being in nursing.  I am now working on my bachelor's in nursing and I just realized it will shortly be coming to an end.
Today my friend Lori and I just registered for our last semester of college classes.  We will both be taking 3 credit hours this summer and then taking 16 credit hours in the fall.  It will be tough and rough but it will be sooooooo very much worth it to be done finally!!
After hitting the submit button I had to call both my hubby and my mom and tell them the good news even though I am super nervous for the 16 credit hours I will be taking.  As I was talking to both of them it hit me....what on earth will I do now that I will be done with school next fall?! I have gone to school for so long that I may just feel a little lost without having to worry about it.
I am excited though, after next fall I will have BSN behind my name at work and everyone will know that I have worked hard to get those three letters behind my name.  I am excited to know that I will have accomplished so much being only 23 years old.  I am also excited to see what life will bring to my husband and I once school finally comes to an end for me.  It will be nice to know that my hubby will have classes and I can focus on helping him as much as possible when school is finally over for me.
So there you have it, all about my life with school. I have a love-hate relationship with it.  I am so excited to know that I will soon be done with it for a good while!! :)

Update.

I just realized that it has been a long time since I last blogged. A lot has actually been going on since graduation in December and I have felt like there really has not been much time to do anything!
Craig and I are still working on getting all settled into our house that we bought last fall, by the end of this summer things will all be put together.  I know I promised pictures of our new home, and they will come....this summer :). 
Christmas was wonderful, I had to work 6 hours in the morning but after that I got to spend time with my wonderful husband and family!
My birthday was in January and I was surprised with a Kindle that I have wanted for a very long time! I love it and since I got it I think I have actually read 10 new books because it is so easy to take the book with me!
So I decided to be crazy and continue on with my schooling instead of taking a very much needed break.  I am currently in the bachelor's program for nursing at Weber State...it is just a bunch of bull crap busy work in my opinion but hey I'm getting my BSN and that is something to be proud of!!  When I am not at work I am sitting at the computer getting my blasted homework done, I have never written so many little and big papers in one semester.  Craig is also going to school working on getting his bachelor's in business; he has been such a big support this semester. 
My job...I love being a registered nurse, I don't love the before the sun rises shift at 5AM.  Since I passed boards I have been able to work full time on the Joint and Spine unit where I started as a CNA :).  The hospital provides a residency program and I was able to work on different units for a little while, learning how each unit works and get more hands on experience of working as an RN.  The floor I loved the most was Labor and Delivery; after just being on that unit for 2 days I think I have finally found my future home for my job...one day I will get up to the Labor and Delivery floor but until then I have to be patient I guess. 
In January after my birthday Craig and I decided it was time to become healthier people and to follow through with our new years resolutions of loosing weight and getting back into shape.  We have been on a diet every since with Craig loosing 44 pounds and passed his goal and I have lost 26 pounds and am still going until I reach my goal! Craig looks absolutely amazing and I am so proud of him!
My Grandpa Baggs passed away in Feb., it was very difficult and still is a little bit when I think that both my dad's parents have passed on to the other side.  I am grateful to know that my grandpa was proud of me and my accomplishments.  Having him pass away has been a great blessing in reminding me that thanks to the blessings of the temple we will all be together again as one big family.
My little nephew, Harper, turned one in March and we had a fun time celebrating his birthday, I can't believe he is already 1! Time sure does fly!  And good news, found out Craig and I get to be an Aunt and Uncle to a new little one on the way...we are so excited!! :)
So there you have it in a nut shell of what has been going on over the past few months!