JANUARY
We brought in the new year in style,
by spending the evening in Bryce Canyon at Ruby's Inn. They have a great party
there that is "fun for all ages. We rocked and rolled and thoroughly
enjoyed ourselves. After it was over you also get to enjoy the awesome in and
the beauty of Bryce Canyon.
January brought the announcement of our upcoming pregnancy. It was
also filled with morning sickness, school starting, and many evenings with me
hiding in our bedroom while Weston cooked dinner because I couldn't handle
smells. We also were blessed to first hear our babies heartbeat. We were also starting to adjust to the idea of being parents. Slowly.
Very Slowly.
FEBRUARY
I think February was very similar to January: School, Work, Hiding
from nauseousness. I am pretty sure we celebrated Valentine's with Weston
eating and me hiding out.
MARCH
March is Birthday month in our family. Wes turned 23 and his
brother turned 10 as well as our 2 nieces having birthdays.
APRIL
For Easter we got together with family and enjoyed ourselves. Also
school was finally finishing up. I decided to take another semester off due to
the whole pregnancy thing. I figured this would give me the time I needed to
focus on becoming a mommy...and fat, hot, and swollen. April also consisted of a wonderful Girls Weekend with the Hunt side. We had a blast just 5 of us. Enjoyed warm weather and thoughts of spring.
MAY
May started to get more interesting. I started
showing a bit. At least I thought I was huge at the time. Now I truly do know
different. In May we found out that we were having a BOY! We also went to Lake Powell with the Hunt family and I caught my first, and second and third, fish. We got new carpet as well *Woot Woot*JUNE
Wes & I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. I still cannot believe we have been married for 18 months now and 1 year then. And I even more could not believe that we were pregnant! But such is life, and it is enjoyable through it all. We went to the Aquarium and then got lost trying to find our hotel. It was adventurous at least. We reminisced and enjoyed ourselves. On our way home we stopped at Temple Square. In June one of Wes' Aunt's passed away from cancer and my Dad had knee surgery, then blood clot's in his leg. It was a scary time for my family but we were very blessed.
JULY
The only real thing I remember about July is that it was stinking hot! I was fat. And emotional. I craved Winger's Cookie Zookies. I had an Uncle that passed away unexpectedly. That was a shock for the family. Wes stabbed himself. And I turned 23. And went on lots of trips up the mountain and 4Wheeling since I was a blimp.
AUGUST
This was the best month of the year. August started in a very upsetting manner: I was STILL pregnant. And my little guy held out 5 days past his due date. I hated people asking me "Are you still here?" !@$% BUT on August 14 my water broke. And at 7:30 am on August 15 they did an emergency C-Section. And I had my little miracle. I LOVE BEING A MOM!!! The rest of August, September, and October mostly revolved around him with some additional drama from other things.
SEPTEMBER
Being a Mom. And a trip to the emergency room. Oh and I started classes again.
OCTOBER
The first of October was when they finally verified that I had blood clots. And I will honestly say I think it was one of the scariest things that has happened in my marriage. A day or so after I had my baby I had this pain in my back. We figured it had more to do with the epidural. Then a couple of weeks later I was up at night and got this terrible wrenching pain in the center of my back. It was really weird and very painful. But it went away after about an hour so Wes and I kinda shrugged it off. It happened another time a few weeks later. And again about a week later. This time we were at my parents and it lasted a lot longer. Since it wasn't going away quickly this time my Mom insisted that we go the the ER (hence Sept). They took an x-ray and did blood work but nothing really showed up that couldn't be explained by my recent c-section. So they gave me more pain medication and told me that hopefully it would go away.
Well it didn't. Because I have a high family history of blood clots I asked my family physician about the possibility of blood clots but he told me that it was likely not to be because blood clots don't hurt in the back. And I should be out of breath and not able to be active. I was walking 2-3 miles everyday with a friend and was feeling fine unless I had the pain. The next time it happened my Mom talked to an Aunt about it. Thank goodness. My Aunt actually had a similar thing happen to her with all 3 times she had blood clots. That morning my Aunt called me and insisted on my getting another Dr. appt. and insisted on coming with me. Then told the Dr., in a very matter-of-fact manner, that it was blood clots. He didn't really believe her but conceded to a blood test that would not prove blood clots but would rule them out. It didn't. So my Dr. instead decided that it would be good to get a CT Scan. That showed that I had multiple blood clots on both sides of my lungs. They immediately insisted that I spend some time in the hospital and started me on blood thinners promptly. So we enjoyed another fun-filled stay at the hospital.
That's actually where Ammon first smiled voluntarily at me. He did really good at the hospital, even with the new diet change. They had to put me on a shot on top of the other blood-thinner until they for sure got the levels they wanted, this meant that I had to stop nursing for a week and formula feed Ammon. He was a pretty good sport about it all-in-all.
I don't know if it's the medication or the blood clots but after that I really did feel like I had clots in my lungs and it's taken longer than I anticipated to get back to semi-normal.
The rest of October really was good. I had class often and Weston was always able to come up with me. We also got to go see Les Miserables at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. It was great! Then Halloween came! It was my favorite. We dressed Ammon as a dragon and Wes was a knight with me the princess.
NOVEMBER
Ammon was blessed the first weekend in November. We had so many amazing supportive people. It was wonderful. I'm so grateful for them. I went back to work as well. It was probably the most difficult thing I have ever done. Luckily Weston was able to stay home with him because his job had slowed down. So he played Mr. Mom while I went to work. Even still, it was very hard for me to figure out. It's funny how things change. When I was in high school I could not imagine being a stay-at-home Mom. I was determined to work. In college that changed to where I did NOT want to work. When I got married I figured we'd just see where we were at. I didn't mind thinking I'd have to return to work. But it was a lot more difficult than I imagined for that.
That being said I'm not making a statement saying whether or not women should stay at home. Quite frankly I don't think anybody has the ability to say whether or not that is right or wrong for another person because there are so very many reasons and situations to consider. I have a hard time hearing people say "You should do this. You should do that" etc. And I'm not sad that I went back to work. It was really difficult though.
DECEMBER
December was fun. Christmas was great, although we learned that we will not travel for Christmas again. We didn't even have to hide Ammon's presents and it was difficult. Weston surprised me with a band for my wedding ring. It' s so pretty. Ammon LOVED ripping the paper. And he's really enjoying his toys. December was otherwise pretty basic. Both Wes & I started preparing for school again and I began applying for Practicum sites. Otherwise though things were fairly basic of work, home, repeat.
Here are some pictures depicting 2012. (Not in order)
