Seems I skipped a couple of months...

This post is so overdue.

I know it seemed as though I would never blog again. I do have a handful of excuses: I started a new job, which brought new challenges and more than a little bit of stress. In October we flew home to Alabama to attend Alissa and Tyler’s wedding reception. And we moved to a new rental house the beginning of November.

Oh, and there’s this:


No, that is not a beer gut. If you are skeptical, here is a picture at 9 weeks along to compare:



It is a little ironic that I haven’t felt the urgency to write about my pregnancy until now. Because if you got ahold of my journal, you would see that wanting to start a family has been a central theme for the last 3 years. (That, along with suffering, I mean struggling, through PT school.) I think the reason I haven’t sat down to write my thoughts and feelings about having this fetus set up shop in my uterus is because I still can’t believe that THERE IS A HUMAN IN MY UTERUS. I mean, really. How weird is that? Now I know that pregnancy and birth is the most natural thing in the world, hundreds of millions of women have done it. But when it happens to you it is the most crazy thing. If any woman out there denies this, they are either lying or have some major funky things going on in their body when they’re not pregnant. For instance, as we speak, I feel an alien doing somersaults inside my abdomen. And no, it’s not just the spicy chili I ate for dinner.

It’s no secret that we having been trying for a baby for awhile. Every single time one of my friends announced their pregnancy, my heart broke a little bit, because it just didn’t seem like it was ever going to happen for us. I had really started thinking about adoption, which I still want to consider later. I knew deep in my soul that God’s timing is perfect, and that He meant for me to be a mother. But my patience was really starting to wear. I knew that even adoption could take months or years, and this lady wasn’t getting any younger. So I decided if I didn’t conceive by the end of the year, I would make an appointment with a fertility specialist.

Then, the most glorious and terrifying thing happened. I will remember that day forever, because it seemed to begin as such a random day, the eve of our 7th wedding anniversary. I got a text first thing in the morning from my friend Megan, about a rental house that was becoming available. After going to look at the house, falling in love with it because 1.) there was no jank fish aquarium in the living room and 2.) the kitchen was bigger than a walk-in closet, I went to the drug store to pick up a prescription for Chris. I was on cloud nine because I had just that week been offered a job at the hospital, and now we had a place to live that was the same amount of rent but 100% nicer. So I picked up a pregnancy test, with the feeling that if it was negative, which I expected it to be since I had zero pregnancy symptoms, I would be okay. It wouldn’t be the heart-dropping disappointment that it had been for the last several months.

So imagine my shock when I peed on that stick and it was immediately a big fat plus sign? To say that I was elated….well I was too in shock to feel any other emotion. I was whatever you can call pacing around the house saying “Holy shit” over and over to no one but a very confused white German shepherd. Poor Virginia.

So, long story short, good things can come in threes, too. And of course now that I’m over the shock I could not be more excited about this new stage of our lives. It was so amazing to get to tell my husband that we were expecting, right before we celebrated 7 years of marriage. Now, looking back, I am so thankful we’ve had this long to build our relationship into something that I’m confident will survive the stresses of parenthood.

I’m one happy mama-to-be. And a very thankful one.

-Katy

Change

Why is it that when you break up with someone, move, or change jobs, you always remember the good times instead of the bad? Or maybe it’s just me? It could be the uncertainty of what I’m moving to that is the cause for this phenomenon. I have spent the last nine months caring for the elderly at a skilled nursing facility, my first job out of PT school. Tomorrow I begin work at the local hospital, in an outpatient orthopedic setting. While there are parts of the job I definitely will not miss, I am feeling a little conflicted about leaving behind the relationships I formed with my amazing co-workers and my patients at the Care Center.

Perhaps the thing that is hardest to say goodbye to is the incredible resource of wisdom I found in my patients. I had the honor of conversing with people who have lived for over a hundred years, and still maintain fulfilling lives. Some of my patients have lived in this area for 50 years or more, and started a ranch from scratch after honeymooning with their sweetheart in the back country of Yosemite. I’ve worked with authentic cowboys, one in particular that never wore anything other than boots on his feet and he was well in his 90’s. It was always interesting to me to hear how my patients got here to this remote valley, between the Eastern Sierras and the White Mountains. One told me “I grew up in Long Beach, but my mother moved my sisters and I here to keep us away from the boys.” She lived the rest of her teenage years on a ranch, and then never left.

I witnessed marriages that are over 60 years old, yet still have the spark of a new courtship. I saw pain of grown children when their parents could no longer take care of themselves and hard decisions had to be made. I heard about living through the Great Depression, stories from a prison and WW2 nurse, and how one of my patients left the convent to pursue a career as a blues singer in Vegas.

Some of my patients couldn’t tell me their stories. They were long forgotten, locked too tight in part of their brain they could no longer access. Those patients could make my day with just a glimmer of recognition in their eyes.

I thrived on the determination of our short-term rehab patients, who were anxious to get back up and running after their total joint replacement; some still live alone despite being in their 80’s and 90’s. Lots of lessons were learned from my patients, but perhaps the most important was that the will of the spirit makes the difference between can and cannot.

I recently asked one 100 year old how he managed to live so long. “You got to keep it interesting,” he replied.

Now, that’s something to live by.

-Katy

By My Side

I don’t want to ignore that I left a teaser in my last post. But the thing is, the “very important post” turned into an important realization for me, but probably not very interesting material to anyone else. So I promise, promise I’ll address it later. For now, I have an anniversary post to write.

Tomorrow Chris and I celebrate seven years of marriage. I think it took us this long to get really good at this marriage thing, but I definitely have treasured the process. The seventh year of our union was definitely the most stressed….it began one year ago with me in Alabama starting my last clinical rotation, and Chris in California working. We were apart three more months and it was so difficult, but living without each other did make us appreciate each other more. Then in December I took a leap of faith and followed my husband across the country to a town of 3500 people that not many people have ever heard of. I shouldn’t have doubted him at all; this place is our paradise.

I look back at our wedding day and I know I was a naïve young girl in love. As much as I didn’t want to admit it then, I did have a lot of romanticized ideas about what marriage was supposed to be. What I didn’t realize then was that it would be the hard times, the ones that weren’t all roses and rainbows, that would end up making our relationship so precious.

Chris, you truly are the man I am meant to love. I could not imagine a better partner. Thank you for choosing me for this journey; I will follow you anywhere, anytime.

“Don’t you get ahead of me;
And I won’t leave you behind”
-Ben Harper, By My Side

Things to come

I have always been a procrastinator. So therefore I still haven’t completely unpacked from our move, I let my trash overflow before I take it out, and I borrowed the book “The War of Art” (a book about procrastination) for about 6 months from a friend and never read it. Just didn’t get around to it.

In other words, I have a very important post to write, but more pressing matters have gotten in the way. (Like the finale of the Bachelorette, surfing the internet, and enjoying the great outdoors.) So stay tuned!

Also, wishing Alissa and Tyler a safe trip home!

Chicago

Chris and I are no strangers to traveling. We packed up and moved across the country for goodness sake, twice. We learned some valuable lessons on this last trip to Chicago for my cousin Matt’s wedding. I thought these lessons might be helpful to share, in case you find yourself planning a trip.

1. If you are like me and have become accustomed to driving in a town where traffic laws are mostly abided by, and the speed limit is below 45 for the majority of the city limits, you may not want to rent a car and drive in the city. If you do, chances are you will utilize your horn more than ever before and get completely flustered by unorthodox (and dangerous!) traffic maneuvers that city folk are completely used to, therefore calling yourself out as a tourist.
2. Try all forms of public transportation, at least once. Our last day in the city we rode the train into downtown, took a water taxi to Navy Pier, a cab to the sushi restaurant, and a trolley back to Union Station. It’s much easier to sightsee when you are not focused on navigating through unfamiliar territory.
3. Just because you exercise semi-regularly, do not fool yourself that you are in good enough shape to throw down on the dance floor at your cousin’s reception without some repercussions.
4. Wear sensible shoes. Our plan on Sunday was to drive into the city, park, and spend the day at the Art Institute. Which was a great plan until we walked 10 blocks in the opposite direction, retraced our steps, found the Art Institute, realized we needed a smoothie from Jamba Juice, walked back 4 blocks or so to find one, then traipsed all over the museum for 4 hours. I thought that flip-flops were sensible shoes, but was sorely mistaken.
5. Purchase a map. (see number 4)
6. Bring an umbrella. Just because you live in the desert and never see rain doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen anywhere else.
7. Do not assume you will be able to sleep on the plane, and therefore plan ridiculous times to travel. You may be seated next to a very nice woman that decides to slam Coronas at 7 am and yell “Hey, Toots!” every five minutes at her niece seated in the next row.
8. Take a good camera, even if you have to borrow it. We wished we had something other than our cell phones to take pictures with the whole trip. I’ll post some pictures here so you can wish we did, too.
9. Be nice to your spouse, even if you’ve been up for 20 hours, are lost in the suburbs of Chicago at 2 am, and don’t have any change for the toll road. Eventually you will find your way to the hotel.

Overall our trip was great. We spend quality time with family we don’t get to see too often, and the wedding was perfect. I’ve never seen my cousin so happy, and that was definitely worth all the travel woes in the world.


Michigan Avenue



Navy Pier



-Katy