I love my family!

I haven't read through blogs or even looked at my blog in months, because there is one pressing occurrence in my life that I knew I needed to write about and document and I haven't wanted to let my heart open the wound again.

I was looking at my calender this morning and I realized that tomorrow would have been my baby's due date....so maybe now is a good time.

Back in the end of April, I was 3 months pregnant and I took Dallin and Thatcher with me to the Doctor's appointment so they could hear the baby's heart beat for the first time, but there was no heart beat. The doctor told me that the baby had died a week earlier. I was completely shocked and could hardly get control of myself to drive home. Poor Dallin and Thatcher didn't know what was going on. I simply told them that the baby's heart had stopped and the baby went back to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus. I was thankful that it really didn't affect them at all; later I remember hearing Dallin talking to my friend and just saying matter of factly that our baby died and went back to live with Heavenly Father.

The first few weeks were extremely traumatic for me and I remember thinking how it affected every part of me: spiritually, emotionally and physically. I never really asked "why me?" and got angry, I was more just hurt about it. My ward was amazing! One of our good friends came over before my D &C and assisted Jason in giving me a blessing, before he was leaving he said to remember that I needed to "let" people help me. That really hit me, because I really did want to be strong and I didn't feel like I needed help other than what Jason was already doing and providing for me. But, my amazing friends from church brought dinners in, sent cards and emails, gave flowers and chocolates and I felt so emotionally supported it was amazing.

I remember I was watching reruns of conference a night or two after we found out, while Jason took the boys outside to ride bikes and I was listening to a talk about one of the apostles that lost a newborn baby girl and a 2 year old boy in a matter of weeks of each other. He was talking about how he felt and also about how the Lord blessed and supported him during that time. While he was talking I was completely filled with the spirit. I felt every empty hole inside of me filled to the top and even overflowed! It was amazing. I was so grateful to my Heavenly Father. I felt so loved by Him and that he would comfort me and fill me like that when I was empty.

It was still a rough couple of months healing emotionally and physically, but time has really helped and also I find that the more I talk about it, the more I find others who have been in my same situation and it really has drawn me closer to women in general...

One thing I do remember is the Sunday after I found out the baby died, I went to church and at least half the people there knew what had happened, but at least half DIDN'T know and I remember thinking. They don't know....I have been through a traumatic, life changing experience this week and they don't know... I was talking to a good friend of mine, Holly Hansen, and she was saying that you just never know what people have been through each week. We see our friends and wave and say Hi in the hall, but do we really know what people are struggling with at home? She said, that's why we need to always treat people with the utmost kindness and give them the benefit of the doubt in every way we can, because we just don't know. ... Such a source of wisdom.

Through all the tests after the miscarriage I found that I have a blood clot disorder (MTHFR). My blood clots too easily. That's what happened to the baby, there was a blood clot in the umbilical cord and the baby didn't get nourished. Now every time I am pregnant, from day 1 to the end I have to give myself a shot in the stomach of Lovenox (blood thinner) every morning, it may turn my stomach black and blue and it may be very painful, but do you know what? If it works, it's worth it.

My siblings actually don't know this, but a couple of months ago I miscarried again. I was only 6-7 weeks along and so even though it was sad to have 2 in a row, it wasn't nearly as traumatic as the first miscarriage. After 2 in a row though....you really start to wonder if you are going to be able to carry any more children....but I try to quickly push those thoughts out of my mind, because I am not ready to think about things like that. I have to tell you though that I had 2 AMAZING experiences the week before the 2nd miscarriage. On Thursday night, Jason and I went to stake temple night, during one of the prayers, the man prayed for all the people whose names were on a list and that needed it....I almost started crying because I knew I was just barely pregnant and I was afraid. I knew that after the session my name would be on that list. He prayed that they would have the desires of their hearts, and the minute he said that my heart did a little jump, but then he said "according to Thy will" and I was filled with a peace and acceptance. That Yes! Whatever happened was going to be the Lord's will. I felt joy even though I knew I could possibly loose the child again. I accepted it, because I knew it would be whatever the Lord wanted.

Three days later I was sitting in Sunday School and we were talking about the Martin and Willie handcart companies and our amazing teacher was talking about ALL they had to go through and suffer to refine them and because it was the Lord's will. He asked the class if we would still hold strong amidst our trials and sufferings. I thought about what I had suffered and possibly what I may have to suffer in the future that could even be a lot worse than what I had already been through. I thought about the possibility that I might not have any more children and I asked myself...."If this is really what the Lord has in store for me, will I be okay with that? Will I still be strong and valiant in my faith and trust in our Heavenly Father's plan for me?" YES! I knew that I would accept anything the Lord has in store for me, it doesn't mean that I would not be sad about it, but I knew that I would still be as valiant probably even more so that I am today. I was completely filled again and I wasn't afraid anymore about what would happen because I knew I would be okay with whatever did happen. Two days later the nurse called me and told me my blood tests showed the pregnancy wasn't going to make it and that I would probably miscarry within the next week. As I was on the phone with her, I immediately was reminded about these 2 experiences that I had had merely days before and realized that Heavenly Father had helped "prepare" me for what was to come.

I have to say that even though this has been a really trying time for me, that it has been an intensely spiritual time for me as well and I feel like I am a better person for the experiences I have gone through. I have really just wanted to get this post down on paper for posterity reasons. I want my kids and anyone else in my family to know that I know that our Heavenly Father loves each of us and he KNOWS us and what we are going through. And that if we will let him he will support us and lift us and comfort us in whatever we maybe asked to go through in this life.

I can say that there has been a bit of a different dynamic in my family over the past few months. Going through this experience has really awakened me to a sense of how precious Dallin and Thatcher are. I love them so much and I thank Heavenly Father everyday for allowing 2 very precious spirits to bless our home! I love my family!

I'm so sweet!

This morning Thatcher came into my room and climbed up on my bed; as we were laying there playing, I noticed that he had a pretty stuffed up nose. I was teasing him a bit as I held up a piece of paper that had a teddy bear on it and said, "Here Thatcher, smell this." He did and then I asked him what it smelled like, he got a big smile on his face and said, "Chocolate!!!" I laughed so hard. So then I really wanted to test him, I said "Thatcher smell my armpit!" He leaned over and smelled my elbow and said "MMmmmmm, CHOCOLATE!!!"

Wow, really? ;)

Close your eyes Thatcher!

You know how it takes kids awhile to learn how to wink? Well, Thatcher is having trouble just learning how to close his eyes, and the face he makes while doing it is to die for!!



He is adorable and he KNOWS it!

I vehemently dislike spiders

I don't know if any of you will remember my post from last November, but we went to AZ for an Olson Family reunion. For one of the day activities we went rappelling at Coon's Bluff and while we were all sitting around on camp chairs watching other rappel. This little nasty came waltzing out of the bushes and walked right in the midst of all our chairs.

Isn't that just disgusting? Amber just sent us a CD with pictures from that whole week and these were a couple of them on the CD. I just had to share them with you, because how often do you see a spider like this in real life?!?

I am going to end the post now, because I am getting the willies just looking at the pictures. Sweet dreams tonight, eh?

Family date night!

Lately we have been doing a family date night, which entails eating pizza in the TV room (huge treat) while sitting on the family picnic blanket and watching a movie. Sometimes we shake it up a bit and go out to dinner. :) Either way, the night ends up like this, with our 2 little indians snuggled together in their teepee....fast asleep. After trying it the first night, Dallin came into our room in the morning and woke us up with this...."Mom, did you know Thatcher breaths like this?" To which he then flared his nostrils, opened his eyes really wide and inhaled like he was trying to suck and elephant through a straw, with his nose.

Yes, our tiny wee babe snores like bear. :) What a cutie.

Christmas the whole year through!

Yeah, ya, ya, I do happen to know that it's March and I am just now posting about Christmas. But I just took some time and read through all your wonderful blogs and it inspired me to get caught up and so hopefully I will get on top of things.

This is what Christmas morning 2008 looked like at the Olson house. Santa sure was good to the boys this year ;)

This was just after the boys had come downstairs. We had to wake Thatcher up and so it took him a couple minutes to wake up. They sure were excited and it really does make Christmas so much more "magical" when you have little kids that are SO excited about it.

Sleds were the "wished for" items on the kids list this year. And the boys were thrilled because it looks like these sleds will go "super fast!" It was so beautiful when we woke up that morning because it had snowed quite a bit. Everything was shut down and Jason ended up working from home for about 2 weeks. It was the best Christmas ever!!!

This was something that I was really excited about. I got the boys a slide that they could play with indoors. The winters can be a little hard here because the boys can't go out and play. So I was hoping this would be a source of GREAT entertainment and exercise. The boys love it and so do all their friends!

The funny thing is that randomly Thatcher will ask if we can put up our Christmas tree again. As I was decorating for Valentine's Day, he was very distraught because I wouldn't put the tree up. He really wanted to wake up and find more presents. :)

The highlight of my week.

Dallin only had preschool the first semester of the school year (2008) and so when it was over at the end of January, I wanted to find some activity for him to do that he could look forward to in place of preschool. So I started him in swimming lessons. This was his very first day, and he and his good buddy Preston were the only ones in the class!

The great thing about both of them being in the class together was the competition. They were learning so fast, just because they kept trying to 1-up each other.
Dallin finished his last P1 class last Tuesday and just because he is having so much fun (and so am I) I signed him up for the P2 class on Saturdays. Already he can float on his back unassisted for 15 seconds!!! Way to go Dallin!

Kids say the darn-dest things...and husbands do too!

Just in the last week I have heard all 3 of my boys say really cute or funny things. I kept thinking to myself that I needed to write it down so I didn't forget this fun time in our lives.
A couple of nights ago, I was intently working on a sewing project (making the boys bedspreads) and Jason, Dallin and Thatcher were running through the rooms playing some sort of wrestle, tag, shoot each other with Nerf guns game as they jumped off the stairs and the couch. They were having a blast! Suddenly Jason turned to me and said "Do you realize if we had 2 girls instead of 2 boys I would be playing BARBIES instead of this?!?!" We both just burst out laughing. I had to remind him though that quite possibly some time in his life he would need to be able to play barbies too.


During that same game, Jason tried to tone it down a little and started a shooting game at the front door to see who could be more accurate. "Ok Dallin, see that little hole? We are going to shoot the peep hole," Jason said. To which, Dallin became all distressed and cried "Nooooooo! Mommy said I can't shoot people!"


And last but not least, a couple days ago, we had some friends over. The kids where having a grand time playing while me and my friend worked on sewing projects at the kitchen table. Thatcher was starting to become very tired and so I took him upstairs to lay him down for a nap. We sat in the rocking chair for awhile and tried to read some books together, but Thatcher did NOT want to lay down. He was squirming all over and crying to go downstairs. He tried every tactic from physically trying to maneuver and get off my lap, to begging, to asking kindly with all sorts of "please and thank you's" and finally he just looked up at me and in his little, almost 2 year old voice, demanded "BE FAIR, MOMMY! BE FAIR! I didn't even know he knew those words, it was really funny. And just because it was so cute and so smart of him.....I let him go back down stairs. :)

This and that and a Thanksgiving update

Today is a monumental day for me. It was the first day that I woke up (in about a month) when I didn't have a sore throat. I went to the doctor yesterday thinking, "Surely I had strep" I mean, come on....how does the average cold/sore throat last over a month? But, actually the doctor told me that I have a sinus infection and it was dripping down my throat (yummy) and making my throat raw. Anyway, after 1 day on meds....waking up was a whole different experience for me. :) Kind of nice, actually.

One more thing before I move on to something actually worth reading....you know how the doctors are always telling you to finish the prescription even though you start feeling better? Well, the last winter, when I was taking meds to get over bronchitis I decided that this time I was going to finish off the prescription. About a week later my tongue started hurting so bad. It was really weird. Not just when I was eating, but talking and just moving my tongue in general hurt really bad. After a couple days, my tongue started getting white stuff on it. I kept putting off calling the doctor because ...how do you call the doctor and make an appointment because you have pain....in your tongue. Just sounds a little strange you know, but finally I did and it turns out that taking all the medication killed off all the good bacteria too....and so I developed thrush. Hmmm, interesting huh? I don't think I will finish a prescription again...ever.

OK now onto the good stuff with pictures. Well, Happy New Year Everyone!!!! I guess I need to start back and blog about Thanksgiving.... :)
For Thanksgiving we flew to AZ to visit Jason's family and had a blast. We stayed at his brother's house and they have 4 kids and so it really was on long party week. We had a week long family reunion but didn't go anywhere. We ate all our meals together with all of Jason's immediate family, which included his parents, 4 other married siblings and their kids and 2 other siblings still at home (29 total), had day and night activities all week long. It was so much fun!!! Here were some of the highlights:

Picnics in the park, rappelling at Coon's bluff, having a nasty, hairy tarantula about as big as my hand crawl out from the bushes and right between 2 of our camp chairs while we were sitting there chatting, tie dying T-shirts, everyone wearing them to Castles and Coasters, group date night, and of course the favorite family talent show. It really was so much fun and the week went by really fast!

Unfortunately the only picture that I have is the one above. :) I will have to email Amber and ask her to send me some of hers.

That's all for now folks!