The Surprise of my Life {Spring 2014}

Last spring, the spring of 2014, brought such beauty in the world around us. Shaye was preparing for a special Piano Guys video, and so we spent a lot of time driving around the area looking for perfect locations for "The Story of my Life," a music video that I consider a total piece of art that makes me super proud of Shaye. (You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yET4p-r2TI8). These photos were taken at the Santa Clara orchards just before sunset. It was stunning. I remember looking at my little family in awe of the beauty of the earth around me but especially the beauty of being with them within this beauty. I didn't know it then, but our family was about to change for the better.

A few days after these pictures were taken, I remember waking up and just feeling crappy. The feeling persisted throughout the day, and sometime in the late afternoon, I had a nagging feeling that this nausea I was feeling was identical to how I felt when I was pregnant with Emme. Excitement definitely sparked through me as I considered the possibility of being pregnant. Even so, I knew it had to be the tiniest chance. I had stopped nursing Emme not two months earlier and had never even had a cycle. On top of this, I had been totally infertile for 5 years and had done everything within my power to conceive naturally to no avail. How could I possibly be knocked up?

I happened to have an old pregnancy test, and so I took it, mostly because I just didn't want to get myself excited. With my long history of waiting to take pregnancy tests and then feeling terribly heartbroken when they were negative, I just wanted to get it out of the way. I peed on the stick and stared at it while sitting on the John in the 90s green, sponge painted bathroom of the condo we were renting.

Two bright pink lines!  Two bright pink lines gradually appeared on the test.

I was shocked and thrilled. I started crying and laughing at the same time. I must have said, "Are you kidding me?" fifty times in the next 5 minutes. It just felt like every Christmas morning of my life rolled into one. I absolutely could not process that I was pregnant. Soon I realized that little Emme was playing in her room unsupervised, and I knew she had to be the first to know. It was a joy sharing the news with her, as I knew that she could share in my excitement without having any clue of what was going on.

Shaye got home from work about an hour later, and I had Emme take him the pregnancy test. He was as thrilled and shocked as I was. How could this be? We needed proof. I called the doctor the next day and they scheduled an ultrasound. I knew this wasn't typical, but I think they wanted to put me at ease after my history of infertility.

I had my mom watch Emme so that we could "go to lunch" and we went to the ultrasound. When we saw the little bean on the ultrasound screen, I just couldn't believe it. Intense joy surged through me as I looked at the little miracle growing inside me.

I'm a terrible secret keeper when it comes to exciting news, but somehow we managed to not tell anyone for a few weeks. I started to feel terrible soon, though--another thing I'm bad at hiding, and so it became important for us to tell family.

This was the cute idea I came up with. Both of our moms cried and were totally shocked. My mom opened the card in her great room and cheerfully read it aloud, not realizing what she was saying until she was well through it. The shock and immense gratitude on her face mirrored my own feelings. Shaye's mom read it at her birthday party. She glanced at it, pretending to read it, and told us thanks. Someone reading it over her shoulder cried out, and then she read it again and started bawling. At that same gathering, my sister-in-law Mandy came and whispered to me that she was pregnant. We realized that we were due the same day, Thanksgiving! What were the odds?? Mandy had recently had several miscarriages, and I was worried for her. I wondered how likely it would be that we both carry to term, much less have the babies close together.

Sharing the news with our loved ones was just too much fun. This is the picture we sent my brother Brad on his mission. He was so excited for us! He felt peace that we'd received this amazing blessing as he was serving the Lord. He had prayed and pleaded with the Lord that we could be parents and to see this happen a second time while he was away was a sweet thing for him and us.

This was the photo we used to announce my pregnancy once I was 12 weeks. I was totally starting to show by then, and so I was anxious for it to be out in the open. I was so touched at the outpouring of love we received. I felt a little bit guilty about having such an easy time getting pregnant because there were still so many I knew having trouble. I knew that I had a tremendous gift, and so the fact that others were so happy for us in this wonderful surprise filled my heart.

The wonderful ease of conceiving the second time was the biggest surprise of my life so far. I felt immediately of the Lord's merciful presence in my life and knew there was nothing I could have done to deserve this incredible gift. I am still in awe now.

On Learning to Fail {Looking back on the Dissertation Disaster of 2014}

There are a few major things I'll remember about the Spring of 2014. All the sweet moments with Emme, of course. But I'll also remember the crazy stress (and excitement) of building a house--more on that later--and finally, the even crazier stress of having Murphy's Law apply to my Ph.D. It felt like everything that could possibly go wrong, did.


Truth be told, I had really struggled with finding my way writing a dissertation. My chair, Dr. Mays had been a very inspiring teacher. She was enthusiastic, her classes were always organic and stimulating, and she always super critical of my ideas in a way that helped me to improve...or so I thought. Because I always wanted to go into Victorian Literature and she is a well-published scholar in this area,  she was the super obvious choice for my dissertation chair.

But as I struggled over a year and produced several mediocre and meandering proposals for my dissertation topic, she began to really give up on me. She wouldn't tell me what she to write on, but she wanted me to find my own way. Finally, she asked to have lunch with me after what seemed to be some encouraging reception of my latest idea. We met at this Mediterranean restaurant right by UNLV's campus. I was so excited to see this professor that I had been trying desperately to impress and please. She was kind to me but candid in a way that crushed me. In the midst of our 2 hour long lunch, she said something to me like this: "I don't think you really want to do this. I mean, you have a beautiful family, you already have a job. Do you really NEED to finish your Ph.D.??"

Need to finish?? I insisted that I always finished what I started.

"It's not that I don't think you can do this. I just don't think you want to. Your work ethic won't get you through this. Finishing your Ph.D. is really more of a calling."

She never said the words, but I couldn't help but think, "She thinks I'm a stupid, uninteresting, and incapable Mormon housewife." I remember moving my food around on my plate and barely eating it because I was afraid it would come back up.

I bawled to my mom and Shaye the whole way home from Vegas. It's funny because I feel like people think that being a student in pursuit of an advanced degree means you're super smart. I've always insisted that I just had time (because I couldn't get pregnant) and liked school. The truth is, the more schooling I've had, the dumber I feel. The more I know, the more I realize that I don't know. I'm pretty positive that this moment when my dissertation chair tried to convince me to throw in the towel and stop pursuing my doctorate was the most stupid that I have felt since Kindergarten.

Over the next few months, I poured over a new research area in my field, Neo-Victorian Studies, and came up with an idea that felt brilliant to me. The picture above is one that I took with all of the novels I was reading. I was hopeful that I had found the perfect topic and carefully crafted a proposal. I sent Dr. Mays my new proposal, and she proceeded to ignore me for a full month. After multiple follow-up emails and screened calls, I realized that I had been dumped. Suddenly I realized that this professor I had idolized really just made me feel small and weak. Her exploiting and harping on every weakness didn't push me to be better--it crippled me with fear. Something about working with her made me want to apologize for who I am. She had even been subversively combative toward my LDS faith in requiring one class of mine to read an anti-Mormon novel, "A Study in Scarlet" by Arthur Conan Doyle, and then having a student present on Joseph Smith being a con-man.

Suddenly...and not with the flair of sour grapes that you might imagine...I realized that even though this professor had given up on me and didn't want to work with me, I didn't want to work with her either. Despite her considerable academic renown as a scholar and her great intellectual mind, she was not a good mentor for me. I began to search for a few chair, but Dr. Mays began to block me. A few professors who initially showed interest in working with me ended up talking with her and then refusing to work with me.

Thus a new sort of crisis ensued for me. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. I had never thought of myself as difficult to work with. I work hard, am punctual, and take criticism in stride. I have always felt likable and relatable in a field of many introverted literature-lovers, but all of the sudden I felt like a total social pariah. I started to despair and seriously wondered if I would be able to continue. Was all of my hard work--all of the years of classes and the difficult comprehensive exams I had taken--for naught?

During this super stressful time, I remember Shaye sweetly reassuring me: "Babe, just do all that you can do. If nothing works out, we will be okay." Despite the great investment we've made in my education, he has remained comforting and non-pressuring through it all, which has been amazing.

By the grace of God, it all has worked out. I am still not totally out of the woods yet, but I have a new dissertation chair, Dr. Erwin. This professor respects me and my point of view. He has guided me as a kind friend would, and in his enabling and encouraging mentorship, my dissertation--on the first topic that I chose some 2.5 years ago--has flourished. I am still chipping away at this huge project and will have many mountains to climb in this challenge, but I am progressing. I believe I will have those 3 little initials behind my name this fall.

It's been amazing to see Heavenly Father's hand in this academic work. I'm not sure why it has been His plan for me to get my Doctorate--I mean, does he really care about classic British literature as I do?--but I have seen His help so much since this day of failure. My failure and the rejection I faced was a pretty serious intellectual crisis for me, but I felt the Lord's loving guidance in reassuring me that He has always had a plan for me and that if I relied on Him that He would guide my path and help me.

Now, as I squeeze in whatever writing time I can, I feel His love and help. I'm so grateful for this. I'm grateful for His grace and help, and the knowledge that it is okay to fail and it is okay to feel stupid. To not feel this way is to not be human. Now, I continue on my path humbled and anxiously engaged in literary analysis that no one but my committee will ever read!

Looking back on Spring 2014

As I am catching up on this blog, I am thinking back on just a year ago with considerable nostalgia. One thing that I think is funny about life is how when things change, it's so easy to look back on little difference, even a short time ago, and remember life as simple. I most definitely was just as stressed out a year ago as I am now, but when I remember that time, I mostly remember the beautiful moments. I'm sure when I look back on this time now a year into the future, I'll remember things differently than they really were too.

Here are some highlights from Spring 2014:

It seems like right around the time that I weaned Emme, her little personality took off majorly. One thing she started doing, to my intense delight, was that she began calling books, "happy" because of a "You are my Sunshine" book my mom had. I could often catch her singing to herself with a book in her hands. Made me so happy.

In December of 2013 we moved from our Tonaquint Home into a rental in Bloomington. We were grateful to Shaye's sister for allowing us to stay in their rental when we weren't entirely sure when we would be moving out, as we didn't know exactly when our home would be completed. This place, however, had a lot that needed repair. Regardless of these frustrations, however, I ADORED the room Emme slept in because it had an entire wall of complete glass. Once I realized that Emme wasn't going to fall out of the room, I found that the room had perfect light for taking pictures. I took these photos in my very favorite outfit of hers. You can see the crazy sweetness that she dished out for me.

 Rock hunting at Nana's. This became a serious obsession for a few months.

Emme's obsession with shoes also began during this time. I ordered these gold jelly shoes online and when I opened the package, Emme gasped with excitement. She danced around the house in them before bedtime and wore these shoes a ton for the next few months until she grew out of them.

Playing dress up with Auntie Steph. I loved seeing Emme start to make believe during this time. She also started to realize her own sense of humor and ability to entertain others.

Too often I felt cooped up in the rental during this time, but this day we took a walk to the golf course near the condo and fed the duckies. Emme was more interested in eating it herself! :)

 16 months old.

Just the apple of her mama's eye. This is when I really started to get camera happy and I haven't slowed down since. I'm not sure how many moms like me are out there (probably a lot!) but I just love how a photo can capture a moment and my baby's expression. In this photo, she had just learned to say "apple." Emme has always loved healthy foods, especially tomatoes, apples, and carrots. I lucked out there.

I'm Baaaaaack!

Hello Blog Readers,

I know that I have been absent from blogging for a very long time. Other social media like Instagram makes it so easy to catalogue important moments quickly but I feel like you lose the back story a lot of times, so I've made a new goal to post at least once a month here. I'm glad to be back! :)

How Breastfeeding Healed Me

Truth be told, I have never had the best body image. Growing up, I took dance lessons for years, but I was never very good at it. I had a hard time moving past the debilitating fear that someone might not like what they see. I was always so caught up in my aesthetic value that it was hard to focus on all the wonderful things my body could do.

When we started trying to conceive, however, what my body could and could not do became an obsession. There was seemingly endless medical testing, all sorts of poking and prodding, daily temperature taking, not to mention all sorts of negative self-talk about why I feared I wasn't good enough to become a mother. After 5 years of trying, I felt hopelessly lost in this struggle in which my body wouldn't align with my spirit. While my spirit longed for motherhood with everything in me, my body denied me this. Infertility took my body image issues to soaring heights. I couldn't understand why Heavenly Father would make me dysfunctional in this way, if he had commanded me to be fruitful and multiply. I felt that my infertility was a contradiction to everything my heart wanted to be.

Shaye took this right after our embryo transfer for IVF. I'm sure I was praying "please work!!" while I listened to relaxing music after the stressful ordeal...and to my eternal gratitude, it did!!

When I became pregnant with Emme, at first I was so terrified that something uncontrollable within me would take my precious baby from me. The fertility treatments that brought her to us were in no way serene or peaceful, and we had felt so much disappointment throughout our journey. But as she began to grow within me, these fears slowly died away and I became more and more aware of the sacredness and beauty of my body. These feelings in no way came from any extrinsic praise. I knew, in fact, that I was slipping further from society's ideals as I gained weight, but it didn't matter. Being a vessel of life changed my body image forever.

Once Emme was born,  another chapter of healing began for me. Breastfeeding, it turns out, has been the most therapeutic thing for my body image ever. Don't get me wrong, for the first month or so, breastfeeding was agonizing. Honestly, I think I was in pain around the clock. I pushed through the pain knowing that breastfeeding would be a wonderful gift for Emme and would also be better than any medicine for my endometriosis, and I am so glad that I did push through.

Breastfeeding Emme has probably been the most calming and peaceful thing I've experienced in my whole life. I think it's taken me so long to wean her just because I have come to cherish that time with her so much.

I hope I never forget the sheer pleasure of holding her close to me, skin to skin. Her beautiful hazel eyes in a relaxed, grateful gaze. Her sweet little hands caressing my neck as I nurse her. Her slight smile as I  coo at her as she drinks. The way that she reaches for me again and again, trusting that I can provide all that she needs. In these moments, I have been so grateful for all the wonderful things my body can do and how it can serve others.

If I never have this experience again, I want to remember the intense joy that this experience has brought me. If the Lord should bless me so much as to have one more child or many more, I will be so grateful to have been able to serve and nurture them all.

This is the lesson that I want to keep on learning my whole life: I am not only my body. What others see is just the shell of me and is only a part of who I am. It is important for me to care for myself and make my health a priority because my body is a tool to serve and nurture others, not because I am an object to be looked upon or praised.

I am infinitely grateful for the opportunity I have had to do this as a mother--both in the unfathomable gift of giving Emme life and in the hundreds of tasks that I perform in her behalf daily. What a wonderful gift it is to be a woman! We have the challenge of putting our families before ourselves and nurturing and loving them above all else in this world, but with that comes immense joy!

By the way, as much as I love a pretty, edited picture. This is what motherhood really looks like around here--oh, about 95% of the time.

Farewell to Our Tonaquint House...and Excitement for Our New Home!

Well, it's official! We closed on the sale of our home on Tuesday! It was such a quick deal that we have barely had time to catch our breath. We got a cash offer on the home December 1 and the people wanted to be in by Dec 17. It was such an amazing blessing to sell our home and to receive what we feel like was an excellent offer. We are now thrilled to move forward in building our new home in The Knolls in the Little Valley area, but I have definitely been very nostalgic thinking about all the people in our ward that we will miss! We have made so many wonderful friends in our neighborhood! (Southgate 2nd friends, we will still be going to our ward for 5 or 6 more months, though.)

I was also very nostalgic about leaving our home itself.  Here are some things that I will always remember. (I apologize for the low image quality. I've been begging our realtor to send us higher quality photos.)

The kitchen where I learned to really cook.

The office where I taught piano lessons and Shaye edited videos and composed music.

Our spare bedroom turned craft room where I  really learned how to sew.

Our bedroom, in which lots of late-night discussions took place. Lots of thoughtful prayer and lots of decision-making happened in this room.

Our great room where we watched (way too much) TV and I sat and graded seemingly endless papers on that couch. I went into labor with Emme in this room on Election Night. :)

These hallways where I stumbled around like a zombie to go get Emme in the night.

Emme's room...this has to be the most special room in the house for me. One Mother's Day during our 5 year battle with infertility, my mom challenged me to set up a nursery. She bought the furniture for me for my next few years of birthday and Christmas, and I went to decorating it. It became a symbol of hope for me, even though it remained empty for 3 years after I set it up.  I would often go and just sit in there to remind myself that there would be a happy ending to our struggle. Later, during my pregnancy with Emme, I found great joy in finishing every detail. It has truly been miraculous for me to here her laughter fill this room. I hope to recreate the joyfulness and peace of this room in our new home.

Now we have moved into a rental in Bloomington for awhile. (Not gonna lie, the move itself was a pretty rough for me! Thank goodness to our family and friends who stepped in to help after my brain was fried!) We haven't even broken ground for our house yet, so we'll definitely be here for awhile.  Here is a sneak peak of the elevation drawing for our home. We are so excited we can hardly stand it!

We are hoping that the final look is a lot like this:

So much to be thankful for! In the last year or so since the birth of Emme, we honestly haven't had enough room to receive the blessings the Lord has bestowed on us. We are hoping that our home will be completed in May or June.Wish us luck during this crazy process!! I'll definitely be keeping you posted!

Emme is ONE!

This first year with Emme has really been more magical and sweet than I could have ever hoped. She has truly changed so much, I sometimes can’t believe it. She is talking a little and often understands what I’m saying to her. She says “Dada,” “Mama,” “doggie,” “bye bye,” “pretty,” “honey,” “baby,” “hi,” “what’s that?” “yeah,” and “Nana”.

This kid has got spunk, man! Church has started to become totally hilarious. We don’t get a thing out of it! She runs around and screams and bulldozes other kids over. She’s also taken to throwing tantrums lately when she doesn’t get her way. I’m not sure how to respond to that yet. It’s been a different phase. Even though she is still so darn cute, she does do kind of bratty toddler things sometimes. Just part of the deal, I guess.

Emme has this big cheesy grin that she gives to strangers. It’s easy to see that it’s not the most sincere of expressions, but people really get a kick out of her. In fact, when she cheeses at someone and they don’t notice, she looks at them like they’re ridiculous.

Emmeline is adorable when she entertains herself. Sometimes she walks around the house, playing with random stuff. She can also be terrifyingly destructive! She makes so many messes. She throws her sippy cup, feeds the dogs, pulls all kind of stuff out of cabinets and drawers. You name it!

Emme also does adorable things like sing along to songs and give kisses. When she sees her dad or my parents in a public place, she gets so excited. It’s like she is thrilled that we can all get together outside of our houses.

Sleeping has gotten marginally better lately. Emme seems to be sleeping through the night-ish. She basically wakes up once or twice most nights. She is still going strong with nursing. I probably nurse her 3 times a day. I am just dreading weaning her. We’ve got a system down. I also know that we need to transition, though...especially now that she tries to rip my shirt off when she's hungry. Not exactly socially acceptable in a public place!

Nursing has been a tremendous blessing as it has kept my endometriosis at bay and has been a good natural birth control. Obviously we want to have baby #2 at some point, though, so weaning will need to commence here in the next few months.

Emme’s birthday party was such a crack up. We had just a few family members over and had dinner and cake (Homemade Vanilla Cake with Pomegranate Frosting and Blackberry Cream Filling). Emme loved it and then she stayed up late playing with her presents.

Life is really just too magical and wonderful to put into words. Couldn’t be more grateful!