Amazing Story

As I had stated in an earlier blog, I had the amazing opportunity to meet a fellow blogger who wishes nothing more than to spread positivity to those in relationships. Well I am pleased to say and share with you the link that will take you to his website where you may read my story. It was a hard story to write because it was a hard topic for me to admit to but I am glad that I wrote it. My husband has also read it and he loved every bit of it because it spoke of love, truth, and how I am working on becoming a more verbal person in our relationship. Yes, I am talking about communication and how I struggled and still sometimes struggle today to use words on how to express myself in our relationship together. I still have that issue in other relationships but his and mine is the most important relationship where communication needs to be open and I need to be more willing to express how I am feeling or what is bothering me verbally and not just in writing.

I hope that you will visit his page and read the story that this blogger known as, InspireYourMarriage, has written that includes my story about communication and mine and my husband’s relationship. But I also hope that you will take the time to read the other blogs he has written with other people’s stories about their relationships because I think you will enjoy them. And if you have a positive story that you would love to share with the world, then by all means contact this blogger through his page and tell him that you have a story that you would love to share with him, his blog, and with the community on the Internet.

Here is the link to his blog that includes my story about myself and my amazing husband. I hope you enjoy reading his blog as much as I know he has enjoyed writing it. I too loved reading it and am pleased with how my story has been spun into his blog. If you read this, InspireYourMarriage, thank you again for allowing me to be apart of your blog.

https://www.inspireyourmarriage.com/2018/09/17/laceys-story-opening-up-verbally/

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Don’t Give Up

Hope: a four-letter word that means so much to some and so little to others. To my husband that word meant a lot as we stepped off onto a beaten path in order to begin to grow our little family. To me that word was important but then gradually rang empty promises as we began a march to a different beat because our path to become parents kept veering off course due to who knows what.

We had agreed at the end of 2011 that 2012 we wished to try for our own little bundle of joy but it seemed as if it wasn’t going to be as we struggled and my heart ached each month I began my period. I heard of others getting pregnant right away or after a couple of months and yet here I was unable to conceive. Then something had changed and to our despair, I miscarried. I wasn’t fully sad about the situation because to me it brought back hope since that meant that I could conceive it was just a matter as to why I couldn’t carry a child. I had so many questions as to why and what had gone wrong but I clung to that one word, hope, as did my husband since we saw that I had indeed gotten pregnant even though it had ended as quickly as it had started.

Then closer to the end of the year, we suffered from a second miscarriage and I began to let go of my life preserver- hope. Ryan wouldn’t let go and he clung to me, pulling me back, never giving up on our dream of having a family of our own and us becoming parents. He had seen me with children as I taught Preschool and he told me time and time again that I would make a wonderful mother to his children. But my heart ached and broke as we now had two angel babies.

A year ended in heart ache, an empty womb, and full of questions as to why it happened to us but we kept trudging forward, him working in the medical field in the Navy and myself working at one of the most wonderful preschools, Coast Kids in Carlsbad, CA. And though I kept a smile on my face and a kind word on my tongue, working with kids was also taking its toll on me, not because I was jealous but because I was sad at the thought of never being on the other side of the fence as a parent to a rambunctious ready to learn child or children. The teachers and directors of the preschool continued to pray for my husband and me and did their best to help my husband pull me back towards hope but it was a hard task. My family and friends also continued to fight to keep me afloat in the rocky waters of doubt but again it was a difficult task.

In 2013, we could finally see a military doctor about our problems of conceiving and carrying full term and a glimmer of hope once again poured into my heart. We were both tested and none of the results answered the questions as to why I couldn’t carry so they instantly marked me a mystery infertile woman, baffled themselves. They sent us to Infertility and the new doctor began to make a plan for us to follow to get me pregnant. I would have to take Clomid as well as give myself shots of another fertility drug into my stomach that would help my eggs develop quicker so that they can see if I can get pregnant by doing IUI (Intrauterine insemination) treatments along side the other method, sex. I did it even though the shots hurt and I felt like I was wasting my time as I kept thinking that I would never get pregnant with all of that. But once again Ryan, my rock, stepped up to push me forward and to help me with the shots when I felt like I couldn’t do it myself. He couldn’t always go to my appointments with me so my parents would sometimes go with me or one of my friends would go so that I was never alone when I entered that clinic because if I had gone alone, most likely I would have cancelled the appointments and had given up. Whenever he wasn’t able to go with me, I would always get calls or texts asking me how it went, asking what the doctor said, and just seeing if I was okay. That meant the most to me besides him always being by my side. He always thought of me first even though I knew he was hurting from this experience as well.

I ended up going through two IUI sessions and to our joy, the second session with the doctor and of course with us together ended in a pregnancy but before we could rejoice, it ended tragically in yet a third miscarriage. I cried then and I cried a lot because once again my womb had had a little baby in there but for some reason it refused to carry that baby. The doctor told us that we would have to wait for at least three months before we could begin with the shots, Clomid, and IUIs again. And once again, my heart dropped, and hope began to slip through my fingers like sand as my dreams of a family began to fade. I did start to talk about adopting but it still hurt because as every woman wishes to be able to do, I might not have been able to enjoy the strange wonders of carrying a baby full term and giving birth.

Ryan talked to me about adoption I believe to humor me but he still was holding on to hope that we would get pregnant and I would carry full term. And him keeping that hope alive even though I was losing mine had paid off in the end because two months after our last miscarriage, in April, we found out that I was again pregnant. Of course, I didn’t hold my breath since the last three had ended before they even had a chance to really live inside of me so I didn’t have much faith that this one would survive either. I waited week after week for the shoe to drop as they say and I miscarried for a fourth time but then a month went by and I went to the Infertility doctor who confirmed that I was indeed pregnant. I was then transferred over to OBGYN and had another ultrasound done to see that this baby was a fighter; we could even hear a strong heartbeat.

I finally allowed myself to feel hope in my heart again as the months began to slip by and my stomach began to grow larger as the baby inside grew. We did a 2D/3D ultrasound at A Baby Visit in Mira Mesa and found out that our little fighter was going to be a girl. I held Ryan’s hand as we saw our daughter’s face come up on the screen and my heart swelled with joy and happiness. Ryan had a grin on his face and I think went into shock because afterwards we went out to celebrate with my parents, godparents, and a friend that I worked with at Coast Kids and had became good friends with, he barely talked at first. But I knew that if it hadn’t been for my husband, I would have given up after the first two miscarriages and then we wouldn’t have been sitting there in the dark room, staring up at a huge screen that showed a small human wiggling around inside of me. We had our rainbow baby early as well. She decided to grace us with her presence on December 28, 2013 when her due date had been January 2, 2014. We were ecstatic when she decided to join our family and made us a family of three earlier than she was intended to come.

Then two and a half years after our first daughter, we decided that we were ready to try again for another child and so we began to try again, hoping that this time we wouldn’t have to deal with a lot of issues and heartaches. We found out in 2016 that I was pregnant again and we were super excited, not wanting to wait to tell everyone. But we should have waited because it wasn’t meant to be. I went to the ER for bleeding and was told that I was miscarrying another child. I hadn’t gone to the ER the first three times because it had happened so fast and so early on in the pregnancy where as this one I was at least a month or so. So once again we had another angel baby.

We were directed to an Infertility doctor who set up a plan for me to do the IUIs and Clomid but had decided against the shots this time around. I wasn’t looking forward to taking Clomid or giving myself shots in the stomach, and was a bit pleased when he told me that we wouldn’t be doing the shots, but I was willing to do anything to have another baby and this time I clung to hope right alongside Ryan. But we had found out too late because it was time for Ryan to pick out new orders, our three years out in Virginia having come to an end, so we decided that we would wait until we were settled at our new duty station before we once again talked to the infertility doctors and come up with a plan of action.

Our daughter is now 4 1/2 years old, we are settled back in California for Ryan’s new duty station, and we have been blessed in getting pregnant only a few months after getting back to California. We have welcomed another beautiful little girl into our family and she decided to out due her older sister by coming even earlier. She was due August 4, 2018 but decided that was too far away and joined us on July 23, 2018. And we didn’t have to talk to an infertility doctor nor did I have to take Clomid or give myself shots this time around and we couldn’t be any happier than we are now.

It had been Ryan who had kept me going forward in our long difficult journey to becoming parents to two beautiful rainbow babies and I am very grateful. If we had both given up, then we would not be parents today. I just have to remember that even though a situation seems hopeless, I cannot give up and I have to do my best to hold onto even the tiniest bit of hope and keep moving forward.

Now I am a mother to two rainbow babies and four angel babies and though my heart still hurts for the four babies I will never hold in my arms here on Earth, I am still grateful for having gone on this journey with my husband in order to see just how strong we can be together. I may not have been completely strong and Ryan may have had to be the one to pick me up to keep me going but it has opened my eyes to see that we can weather any obstacles this life throws at us. I dealt with being alone whenever Ryan had to be deployed, then I had dealt with the heartache of miscarriages and the birth of two amazing daughters, and now I have to face the challenges of raising these two girls to be independent, loving, caring, thoughtful and to make the right choices in their lives but thankfully I have such an amazing man by my side to help me raise these two as well as amazing family and friends since as the saying goes it takes a village to raise children.

I guess the moral to this story is to not give up hope and if you feel yourself letting go of that hope, make sure you lean on your significant other, your family, and your friends. Even sometimes a complete stranger can help instill that hope in your heart once again. So don’t give up on your dreams of becoming parents and I truly hope that one-day whether you decide to carry or to foster, or to adopt or to foster then adopt or even if you decide to have a surrogate mother, that you too can enjoy the wonderful mysteries of becoming a parent and raising your child/children. And don’t give up hope on any aspect in your life. Go for it! Make your dreams come true whatever they are and I hope you make your life worth living and are truly happy in the end.

Strength Not Included

Walking down the aisle can change the life of any woman who decides to marry the love of her life. But what if that also meant moving to a new state in order to live, marry, and be a part of the military life? I was still in love with my high school sweetheart, even after we went our separate ways once we had graduated from HS back in 2001. And it seemed that fate had plans for us to be together even while I lived in California working and going to college to get my BA in Liberal Studies and Ryan was stationed out in Florida since he was a part of the Navy. We dated long distance, only communicating on the phone or through e-mails and on messenger. We had our ups and downs in our relationship but we wouldn’t let a thing like distance stop us from being together. We knew in our hearts that we belonged together. Before I graduated college, Ryan flew out to surprise me, my parents having been in on the plan the entire time and having tricked me into believing that we had to pick up my godparents at the airport. Apparently on one of his prior visits, he had asked my parents if he could ask for my hand in marriage, which I believe to be a romantic gesture. When I aw that we were picking up Ryan from the airport and not my godparents, I was truly excited to see him and a bit annoyed at my parents for having keeping this a secret from me. But the next day, he took me to his favorite spot in La Jolla on the beach, sat me down on a rock not too close to the crashing waves but close enough to make it beautiful, got down on one knee as he spoke of always wanting me in his life and always loving me, pulled out the box, and popped the question. I told him yes, kissed him deeply after he had placed the ring on my finger, and couldn’t be happier.

Ryan Gordon is a smart, loving man and I couldn’t wait to become Mrs. Gordon. What I didn’t know and was a bit nervous about was would I be strong enough to not only be his wife but a part of the military life? All I had ever known was my life in Poway, California and living with my parents while working at a Preschool and attending to college. I had never lived on my own, never dealt with bills or having to buy my own furniture or anything like that. Now here I was graduating from college and not only stepping out into the real world but also moving the day before my birthday in July of 2007 to be with him.

I wasn’t just moving out of my parents’ house either, I was moving across the ocean to live on the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawai’i. Nervous was the understatement of the year of how I was feeling when I said my last good bye to my crying parents and stepped through the metal detectors at the airport. I took in a deep breath, wiped away my own tears, and made my way to my gate with my shoulders back and my head held high. I had made my choice and I was going to go through with it no matter how scared I was or how uncomfortable flying made me because waiting for me was a very special guy. I remember watching planes landing or taking off and growing more and more scared mixed with excitement until it was time to board. My heart began to hammer inside my chest but I walked onto the plane, took my seat, and clung to the armrest.

I was finally on my way to not only my new life but my new world, the world of moving from state to state with a smile on my face and support and love in my heart for my busy military husband. Ryan picked me up at the bustling airport and once I laid eyes on him, I couldn’t help myself. Buckets of tears spilled from my eyes and all he did was hold me close, kiss the top of my head, and told me that no matter what happens in our life together, he will always be by my side. We made our way through the unfamiliar streets of Oahu, though I had been there once before with my parents but that had been back in 2001 after I had graduated high school, and then a second time in order to visit Ryan before he popped the question, and went to our first apartment together. Ryan had already made plans to rent a house in another part of Oahu so that we would have more room but it was a nice apartment at the time. I moved my things in, unpacked since we would live there until we married in September, and I plopped down on the couch, staring around at me quite flustered since I still wasn’t sure I was ready for such a huge step at the age of 23, the next day turning 24. The biggest decision I had ever made was going to college in order to become a teacher and now I was in a new state with my future husband, jobless, and scared.

I began to send out my resume right away because not even two weeks after I moved and settled into my new life, Ryan had to go out on the ship that he was attached to for training. When he told me this, my heart felt as if it were going to stop completely and kill me right then and there. But I took in a deep breath and told myself, ‘I can do this. He will only be gone for a little over a month, more like a month and a half but you can still do this. Just concentrate on your writing and finding a job.’

For my birthday, we had gone to the humane society and we adopted our first kitten together, a sweet tortoiseshell named Sasha. She would keep me company while he was deployed and I couldn’t be any happier. I adopted another kitten later in our marriage that I named Shadow before he came home form deployment in July/August 2008 after I had emailed him and asked of course. I didn’t want to do anything without Ryan’s consent first because I wanted him to be happy and in the know as well even if he was so far away.

September 22, 2007 was such a beautiful day! Not many clouds in the stunning blue sky and the beach that we were on was so peaceful that I couldn’t believe that we were on Oahu. My parents, brother, his friend Brandon, and my godparents flew out to help us celebrate our day. Then once the festivities had finished and they had left, a few months later, right after thanksgiving actually, he was deployed again though this time it was for 7 long months. I remember him asking if I would want to go back to California but I said no, that I wanted to stay there. I had just accepted a teaching job and I wasn’t going to let my loneliness or the fear of being by myself with just Sasha, and later Shadow, get the best of me. The day I had to say good-bye to my brand new husband I could feel myself change inside more. My heart pounded in my chest again, tears welled up in my eyes, but I felt different, stronger and I knew then that I was ready to face this challenge head on.

First, I had to leave my parents and friends behind, and then I had to stay behind to work and live on an island with no friends and a few family members that I had never met before and barely knew but I was going to take on this life head on with flames in my eyes and confidence in my heart. The 7 months rolled by, not as fast as I would have liked, but he came home and we could live together happily. We moved after that, back to California and were stationed more up north since he was working in Long Beach. We lived first in Anaheim then moved down to Oceanside since he would be taking orders down in San Diego after Long Beach. Originally we were going to have to move to Illinois but those orders fell through so in California we stayed.

It’s not easy moving and finding work but I did it with the help of my wonderful husband. Then while living in California, heartache and sadness came into our lives as we decided to try to start our family. We wanted our happy two to become an even happier three. But it was very hard, and I mean heart crushing hard, as I battled to carry a baby full term. Before the military doctors stepped in to help we had to try for a year and we did, suffering with two miscarriages. I felt my strength that I had been collecting over the years slowly slipping away along with my hope of ever becoming a mother. We talked to the infertility doctor finally and I was put on shots that I had to give myself at home as well as taking Clomid in order to help me but it wasn’t working the way I had hoped. I was considered a mystery infertile as the doctors had branded it since they had no answers as to why I couldn’t carry full term. After the third attempt on the medication and IUI, I did become pregnant but it ended in another miscarriage. THREE miscarriages that I couldn’t control nor could my heart or his heart take but even through it all Ryan kept up hope.

Everyone was distraught for me and I just wanted to give up; my strength was deflating fast. But Ryan wouldn’t allow it and a couple of months after my third miscarriage; we found out that I was pregnant again. I feared for the worse since I had already lost three other babies but on December 28, 2013 we gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Kierra.

After picking new orders, we sold the condo we had bought a few years before in Oceanside, and made our trek across country to Ryan’s new duty station in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And when I said we made our trek cross country, I meant it. We drove from California to Virginia, only stopping to eat, use the restroom, sleep, and to sometimes comfort our not even 1-year-old daughter when she became upset. We rented a house in Virginia, that didn’t turn out so well so we rented a different house with a new better manager, and truthfully even with the cold weather and snow, all three of us loved it out there. Kierra was able to grow into a social butterfly thanks to her going to MyGym as well as staying in childcare whenever Ryan and I attended Military events or functions. We lived there for three years and enjoyed every minute of it, doing new things, hiking more, and having a great time as a family. We made a few friends with those who worked with Ryan and we still chat on Facebook but I definitely miss being able to see them in person. And truthfully I miss taking our daughter to Ryan’s work where she can run around and chatted with the other people working, making them smile and have a better day. Before we left for new orders, we had tried again for another baby but that ended in a fourth miscarriage, more talk with infertility, and a plan to just wait since we didn’t want to go through the treatments right before we had to move for new orders.

But then the time came for new orders to be picked and we are back in California, back close to our family and friends, and we even welcomed our second miracle rainbow baby, another daughter we named Cara. We may be sleep deprived but we are making it work and we love that our little three is now a family of four. Even Kierra is excited to have a little sister and has been such a big helper for us.

My life has been quite a roller coaster, still is with me getting back into writing my stories and pushing forward with getting published, but I wouldn’t have my life any other way because I have at my side the kindest, gentlest, most wonderfully loving man as my husband and father to my children. I may want to change a few things and had done some things differently but the one thing I would never change is getting back together with Ryan and marrying him. He is my love, my friend, and my strength and I hope that I can return that favor in being his strength whenever he needs it. Life isn’t easy and never will be easy but that challenge I face head on with my own strength that I had never known I had before I married Ryan and the strength from my husband and my family and friends.

When we are born as babies, strength for hardship isn’t included; we only come equipped with the strength to live. We have to grow up and gather that strength for the hardships to come and let it mix with the strength to live in order to make life worth living. My life is worth living because of my family and friends but even more so because of my best friend, my husband, Ryan. I love him with my whole entire being and soul and wouldn’t be where I am without him. I will continue my trek in the world of writing and getting published even though I am afraid but knowing that I have Ryan beside me, readily giving me strength, I won’t give up until I can see my published books on shelves in bookstores and for sale on Amazon. And I can’t wait to see where else life takes us as we walk hand in hand together with not just each other now but also with our two beautiful daughters.

Driving Cross Country Series- #2

Well now that you have everything from your lists taken care of, what do you do now? What my husband and I did was sit down and Google all of the places that we wished to see along the way on our drive from Virginia to California. And yes we even made a list of the places we wished to see so that we could pick and choose which ones to do on this trip and what places to save for another time. We finalized our list of places to drive to along the way for a nice family trip, allowed our daughter put in her two cents since it made her feel like she was apart of the planning experience, and we were ready for the day to come when we would hit the dusty trails. We had a blow up mattress and a blow up couch from Wal-Mart that we used until we had to pack the car and leave. We said our good byes to where my husband used to work and to the friends we had made, piled into our van, and headed out of Virginia Beach with a car full of bags and other materials that we had to keep for cleaning the house we were renting. Our daughter had her own bags up front by her car seat where she could grab them and play with her iPad, read some books, play with the mess free coloring books, and her stuffed toy friends that she had picked to take with her as her entertainment. We had a cooler and bags of snacks behind the passenger seat so that we can easily have access to drinks and food along the way. My husband and I would make sure to take turns driving and napping so that we didn’t wear ourselves out with just one of us driving all day long. Always make sure that you share the responsibility in the driving. It will make the trip a lot more fun and enjoyable. Also as the passenger, make sure that you have the camera ready at hand and take pictures. The pictures might not seem like much or might be boring to some but to you and your family, they will mean something because you took them while in the car and outside of the car when stopped at one of your destinations that will remind you of the great adventure that you all went on together as a family. Capturing memories as they say.

Another important factor to make this road trip a good one besides having fun destinations and a camera is to make pit stops. Even if you don’t feel that you need one, other people in the car may need it and whether you think you do or not, you definitely need a stop and stretch your legs. It may make the trip seem longer but it will help you especially if you have kids who have to sit trapped in a car seat for hours on end. Their little legs are just dangling there, they may need to go potty, and yes they will get bored so a bit of distraction like getting out of the car will help them readjust to being back in the car for a bit longer. And of course make sure you always stop for gas and/or snacks and drinks when needed. Have an envelope in your car where you can store your receipts if you are military because it makes it so much easier on you or your SO, whichever is in the military, to turn everything in so that you can be reimbursed at the end of your trip.

To entertain yourself as the driver as well as your passenger, pick out some good long audiobooks in genres that you both like. An audiobook can definitely help the time go by if someone is napping in the car or if you two just wish to listen to something other than music from the radio or from Pandora or whatever else you listen to for music. Make sure you’re listening to something child appropriate or have your little one wear headphones and play on their iPad. Our daughter loved playing ABCMouse.com or PBS kids on her iPad, both great learning tools, while my husband and I would listen to our audiobooks or music or just chat. It was so much easier that she had so much to do in order to keep her entertained. Though there were times when she would complain about being bored or wanting to get out of the car and it’s those moments you find a rest stop or another place to stop, pull off the road, and let her out so she can stretch and get some fresh air. Then she was ready to jump back into the car and go, go, go.

Do what you can to make the trip as pleasant as you can for yourself as well as for the others you are traveling with so then the trip can go smoothly and without too many things going wrong or hopefully with nothing going wrong at all.

Remember- have a camera, take lots of pictures even if they might not seem remarkable to anyone but you and your family, have music and audiobooks to listen to, have plenty of games and other items for your child or children to play with so that they can stay entertained, have food and drinks close at hand in the car, make pit stops even if you don’t feel like you need them since someone else might need them especially your kid(s), and have an envelope in order to store all of your receipts that you collect while on the trip.