A wild 5 years

I joked with my counselor recently that I have been through and experienced more by the age of 26 than most people do by 40.  The last 5ish years have been especially wild.  This is the internet-appropriate version of these 5 years.  There are so many things that happened that were so painful, but really should not be shared on a public site. 
A quick synopsis of the last five years could be: Got married, bought a house, got pregnant, graduated from college, had a baby, dealt with the stress of unemployment in our family, dealt with baby's health issues, got pregnant again, had a miscarriage, dealt with a lot of majorly hard stuff, and started the process of getting divorced.  It has been a crazy 5 years, and I am eager for a season of calm and rest.  Maybe some crazy good stuff, but enough of the bad :)

At 21 

I said goodbye to my great-grandma. (no pictures on this computer of her).

I got married.  I had been with Evan for almost 7 years at that point, so for me getting married at a young age felt natural.  I was not scared of marriage and was happy to enter that stage of adulthood.  I had no idea that at 26 I would be divorced, but who really gets married thinking they will later be divorced?

I visited Mexico for a honeymoon.

At 22

I ran 2 marathons, including the Boston marathon which was a big dream of mine.

I visited Honduras and got sick as can be while there.

I commuted back and forth between 2 cities for school.  Evan and I only saw each other on weekends in the beginning of our marriage.

Evan and I bought a house. (Which I somehow cannot find any pictures of on this computer and am way too lazy to go downstairs to the other computer.)

At 23 

I started student teaching and worked nights at a local gym.

I got pregnant with Graesen.

I graduated from college with a degree in Elementary Education.

I felt for the first time what it was like to truly worry about your child when a cyst was found on Graesen's heart during his 22 week ultrasound.

I went through almost 21 hours of intense labor.  I was told that labor usually starts pretty easy and you can sleep through contractions.  Not for me!  From the very first contraction it was the kind of pain you can barely breathe through and makes you double over.  It was the most painful 21 hours of my life, but also the most beautiful and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
I managed to survive labor and gave birth to the sweetest little boy I have ever laid my eyes on.

When Graesen was only 2 weeks old something happened (not the kind of thing to write about on here) and I dealt with a pretty big crisis while learning to be a mom.

For the first (but not last) time I had to help a doctor pin my child down for a procedure.  Graesen had his tongue clipped for tongue tie.

At 24

I said goodbye to my grandpa.

I dealt with months of hard relationship stuff.

I learned to use my breaks at work to pump breast milk in bathrooms, because the schools "don't give keys to subs."

I took Graesen to the hospital for surgery and watched him struggle a lot coming out of anesthesia.  Watching your child in pain and upset in awful.

I fought with everything I had to keep Graesen a breast-fed child even though we had many obstacles which meant many trips to the lactation specialists.

I flew across the country by myself twice with Graesen.

 I did 2 more marathons with my sisters.

I visited Hawaii with Graesen and Evan.

We experienced the stress of unemployment as a family.

I was told by a doctor that I was going to have fertility problems in the future.

At 25

Graesen started to have lots of stomach issues.  I was up with him almost every hour all night long for months, while still having to get up and go to work a few days a week.  I watched him suffer through many tests and procedures at the hospital.  It was horrible!

 I traveled across the country by myself with Graesen again.

I got pregnant.

I had a miscarriage.

My marriage had a major crisis.  It was awful, yet I made the decision to try counseling.

Evan crashed his car and I dealt with the panic that comes from news like a bad crash.  

At 26

After a couple years of frequent stomach aches I visited a GI doctor.  I found out I have pre-cancerous polyps and have to have colonoscopies done every 3 years for the rest of my life.  Keep in mind that most people do not have a colonoscopy until they are 50.

I dealt with another major marriage crisis.

I celebrated Christmas while grieving the loss of a baby that was supposed to by due on Christmas Eve and the loss of my marriage.

The process of getting a divorce was started.


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Here are the daily Graesen pictures.  We went to my parent's house for dinner, and Graesen had a great time playing with Phoebe and my sister's boyfriend's son.

And Shawna and I decided to give Milo a new wardrobe :)

(Don't worry it was just a boa from the dress up clothes wrapped around him we're not so mean as to put actual clothes on him).