Ben's Triathlon

On July 14th Ben and his mom Jane did the Echo sprint Triathlon in Coalville, Utah. Ben trained for nearly seven months, waking up at 5am to swim, bike, and run. On a side note, for those of you who know me well and just read that, it's a miracle we ever ended up together isn't it? :) Anyway, they both did great. Nayeli and I cheered loud as we watched them...

swim about 1/2 mile (Ben got kicked and punched a few times)...

run from the swim...

finish the 12 mile bike ride...

and transition to the 5k (3.2 mile) run.

 Jane (left) and Ben (right)) both finished super strong! We were cheering so loud!

Except Nayeli. She couldn't miss her morning nap.

Ben did great! He finished 66th out of 280! I was so proud!

With our friend Parker Woody who also did the triathlon

This is the second time Jane has raced one of her sons in a triathlon. It's almost like a tradition now. And to Liesl my sister-in-law, the tradition of breastfeeding in the dirt lives on.

Final Times:      Ben       01:27:27.8    

                       Jane      01:41:14.4

Our family at the finish line

I am so in love with Ben. Sorry for the mushy picture.

The Adventure Continues...

Well, the adventure of miscarrying continued this weekend and I hope it will now finally begin to wrap up. I thought I'd write a summarized version just to let you all know we're doing well and the worst is now over. Last Tuesday I had passed lots of tissue, thinking I had fully miscarried, and by Saturday (our anniversary) the bleeding had almost totally stopped. However Sunday after church I began to hemorrhage and bleed like a faucet, so Ben drove me to the hospital.

Because of insurance reasons I didn't get to go to the ER where I work (bummer), but the ER where I went took great care of me. It was hard to be the patient and not the nurse, but everything went really smoothly. When my lab work came back, my hematocrit was only 27, which means I had lost a lot of blood. The ultrasound showed large amounts of retained products and placenta (which was facilitating the bleeding), so the doctor called the OB and I was prepped for surgery. I had to have a D&C (not the gospel D&C of course, but dilation and curettage) of my uterus. Basically they were going to go in and clean me out so that the bleeding would stop.

In the ER with two IV's due to my heavy bleeding.

The tender mercies of the Lord were everywhere. The nurse who originally oriented me as an ER nurse, Ron, was working and when he saw me he immediately triaged me and put me in a room. That may have also been because I was already starting to bleed through my pants, but we'll give him points for hospitality :) There were other nurses who I used to work with who came and said hi, and the nurse who took care of me was phenomenal. Even the ultrasound tech did a great job and told me, "If you tried to pass all this at home, you'd probably bleed to death". Good thing I'm not afraid of hospitals :)

Another tender mercy was that the on-call doctor for my office was also the doctor on-call for the ER. When I spoke with him I was already at the hospital, but he told me I'd made the right decision and he'd be ready to come in if I needed surgery. After the ER doctor called him, he was there within 15 minutes, even with it being Easter. Surgery went well, although I lost about a liter of blood and they had to transfuse me 2 units mid-procedure. Even after he finished, the doctor put a balloon in to decrease the bleeding. I was under anesthesia so I don't remember anything, although I guess I said some pretty memorable things after that Ben wrote down and is planning on putting in a future blog post. Stay tuned...

After they moved me to my room for the night, my mom and dad stopped by. It was my Dad's 70th birthday and we had missed his party. We were bummed, but of course he understood. Ben was so exhausted but he stayed the whole night by my side on a cot they brought in. It was so comforting to have him there. He's such a wonderful husband.

Ben on his cot

Both Ben and I barely slept that night. Even after surgery and the transfusion my hematocrit was still only 28 and all night my blood pressures were between 80-90/50. In the morning they redrew my blood and the hematocrit had dropped to 27, plus I had a low grade fever. I thought they were going to make me stay another day. However when the doctor came for his morning rounds, he told me I could go home if:
1. My vital signs were good
2. I could walk around the nurses' station without getting dizzy
3. I could go to the bathroom without the catheter

I was so excited! After breakfast I made Ben walk around the nurses' station with me three times, I proudly peed, and by noon my vital signs looked great.

Here we are right before discharge. This picture makes me laugh out loud. Don't we look like two people who've just had the worst night of their life? Not to mention the 10 pounds I gained from all the fluid. But on the bright side, Ben brought me the beautiful flowers in the back. Did I mention what a stellar husband I have?

So now we're home. I'm weak and sometimes dizzy, but feeling much better. Better than I have for months actually. My skin is slowly getting back it's color and I've lost six pounds in the past 2 days. Of course that's because I go to the bathroom every 30 minutes :) For those of you who knew about all this, thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Our testimony from this experience is that Heavenly Father stands by his children when we are going through a difficult time and he will never, ever, make us go through anything alone. If we don't abandon him, he will never abandon us.

Just so you know...

Well friends, I have some good news and bad news all wrapped into one. For those of you who didn't know, in February Ben and I found out that we were expecting. We were super excited and looking forward to having a baby in October.

Here we are after taking the pregnancy test. I love this picture.

Then at about 6 weeks, morning sickness started. Full blown. Throwing up about every other day, no energy or motivation; if you've been there you know what I'm talking about. But we got through it. At week 13 I started to feel a little better, just in time to come back to Utah.

I never saw a doctor in DC due to insurance reasons and because nothing ever felt wrong. I made myself my own doctor :) I set an appointment for as soon as we got back to Utah. So this week we had my first appointment. My uterus measured the right size at 14 weeks, but when Dr. R used the doppler (the sound magnification machine) he couldn't find a heartbeart. Being a nurse, I wasn't concerned because I do the same thing at work and sometimes I can't find a heartbeat. So they wheeled in the ultrasound machine and began looking around. As soon as the ultrasound tech told us the baby only measured 8 weeks I knew it was dead. I looked on the screen and saw no beating heart, no arms or legs, just a lifeless blob. The doctor then came back in and explained that I would eventually miscarry the baby naturally or I could take medicine to do it quicker. I opted for the medicine.

When we left the office we were obviously both very sad. A few hours earlier we thought I was 14 weeks pregnant. We thought we had gotten through the beast of morning sickness for the first time. And we thought we were going to have a new baby in October. But the beautiful thing about the gospel of Jesus Christ is that he sends his comforter, the Holy Ghost, when we need him. We felt that comforter from the moment they told us the baby had died. As if Heavenly Father was saying, "It's okay. Just trust me. I know what's best".

As a nurse I've seen many women miscarry in the ER. I've often thought, "Don't they know that their body knows when it's right or wrong? Don't they realize that this miscarriage is saving them from raising a baby that isn't formed right?" Now being on the receiving end, I understand each of those women so much better. Is it possible to be so sad about something, but so thankful at the same time? Over the past few days, Ben and I both have been able to sort out those feelings. And today I just feel grateful. I'm over the excitement of pregnancy and being parents and I feel, more than ever, God's plan unfolding for us and our family.

I'm sorry if this is a bit dramatic. I just want to express that I know this is what needed to happen to us, even if it has been hard and even though it means I'll go through morning sickness twice for one pregnancy. Blah :( (I'm trying not to think about that too much for now). My mom jokes that when my first child misbehaves I can say, "You had better behave. I went through morning sickness twice for you!" ha ha. But out of trials come countless blessings, including the miracle that I held onto the baby for 6 weeks after it had died, just so I wouldn't have to miscarry in DC without my family and friends nearby. That has meant the world to me and I can't thank Heavenly Father enough for that.

Another blessing is that I have 4 sisters, all of whom have had miscarriages. And they've all gone on to raise beautiful families. I feel no fear about not having children; we've only been married a year and still have time to start a family. The bottom line is, it's comforting to know that the Lord has a wonderful and perfect plan for our family. We are just lucky enough to be a part of it.

Speaking of being sick...

Last week when Ben and I were sick we couldn't help but feel like the Mad Madam Mim. We got a good laugh out of this clip.



What a great movie.

My 26th Birthday

My birthday was Monday, but all weekend I had a terrible cough and fever. Finally I thought I was getting better to celebrate my birthday until Monday came and... Ben woke up with a fever of 101.5. So we slept and rested almost all day, although I was able to persuade Ben to take me out for lunch at a Thai restaurant here in the city. The payoff was this Saturday. Ben got up early and made me crepes for breakfast.

Ben Gets Lasik!

Yesterday morning Ben and I woke up early (9am is early when you work the night before) so I could drive him to have eye surgery. There was no injury or problem- Ben was going to have Lasik. We'd been talking about Ben getting Lasik for months; I had the surgery done in 2007 and can't say enough good about it. Besides that, Ben's eyes haven't tolerated contacts for years so it seemed like the logical and convenient thing to do.
We arrived to a crowded waiting room where a television monitor showed a large and glazed blue eye. Soon we realized we were watching the current surgery as we saw the cornea pulled back, the lazer zapping, then the cornea folded back over and smoothed. Ben watched in astonishment and slight horror. At first I thought he might back out, but as the nurse came over to offer him a Valium he calmly refused it. What a man's man :)
We watched four more surgeries then Ben was called in. It was done quickly and Ben walked out a new man... or at least a new man without glasses. After a rough first day (hourly eye drops, plastic eye guards, pain, redness and blurred vision) Ben had had enough. Lucky for me, Ben awoke with much better vision and much less pain. I'm started to think it was worth it.