My first blog--it might be long!

So I have always been a person who hasn't taken the time to read too many people's blogs, let alone create one for myself. The past two weeks have greatly altered my life, and my "schedule" (or lack thereof), and has created a lot of extra time on my hands.

I have decided to create a blog. I'm not really sure how it works, or if people will even look at it, but I figure, why not? It gives me another thing to do as I am on bed rest. So what do I post on my first blog? I guess I'll just start typing and see what happens:

I have been married to my best friend, and better half for almost three years. It is amazing what we have gone through in 3 short years. Buying a house in Boise, both quitting our jobs in Boise to move to Pullman, remodeling a 100 year old house that we currently live in, starting new jobs, and trying to start our family. These I guess are the "biggies."

We are pregnant with our second child. We lost our first due to a miscarriage in April of 2009. Loosing our first child was the hardest thing we have ever had to go through, but we know God has a plan, and that he is taking care of that sweet child. I can honestly say I know I serve a big God and am thankful that he is in control.

We were ecstatic (and scared) to find out we were pregnant again at the beginning on January this year. It is hard to describe what you feel when you know you want to be pregnant, but you know even more, that you don't want to loose this child. Yet, again, there is nothing you can or can't do, you just have to trust, once again, that the Lord was in control. I felt pretty sick for the first 14 weeks, and then was staring to feel GREAT! Even through the sickness, I LOVED being pregnant. To know that the Lord had entrusted me with this human being to grow was beyond my comprehension. Why would he choose us for this sacred and wonderful experience? I was determined to celebrate this life as long as we were given it.

We decided we wanted to know if it was a boy or girl-again, part of the celebration of life that we wanted to have with this baby. We knew the Lord would give us what He wanted us to have, and after staring at an envelope that contained the baby's sex for a week, we opened our envelope to find out we were having a girl! The excitement continued to build as we told our families a few days later.

Again, I was feeling so blessed, each day that I was given the gift to give life to this baby girl "cupcake."

On April 29th, I went into the Pullman ER because I was having horrible pain on my right side. It's hard to describe the intensity of the pain-as I was getting no relief from any pain medication. I was transported to Spokane later that day, as that is where I am doctoring. I will say, I was hoping for sirens and fast driving since I was in an ambulance, but I guess they save that for the very critical patients. :)

I was monitored for another day at Sacred Heart, but on Saturday, May 1st, I knew something was terribly wrong. I woke up to continued pain, and not being able to even get out of bed or lift my right leg. After an ultrasound and exam, the Dr. on call determined that something "very big" was behind my uterus, and they couldn't identify exactly what it was--just that it was growing, and needed to be looked at. After calling my Dr, I was being prepped for surgery.

This now became the scariest moment of my life as I was told they didn't know what they would find in there, and they couldn't promise anything with the baby. Surgery isn't usually done on pregnant women, and since I was only 21 weeks pregnant, baby couldn't survive outside the womb yet. Again, another reason to trust in the Almighty-as there was NOTHING I could do.

Laying there on that hospital bed, contemplating all that could happen in the next two hours was almost more than I could bare. Ben was my rock-praying over me and the baby and all that was to come. Why did the Lord bless me with such a wonderful man? I couldn't have gone through any of this without him.

I came out of surgery without my right ovary or tube, but with my baby's heartbeat just as strong as it was going into surgery. She didn't even know what happened! The best explanation we have is that I had a cyst on my ovary (that every pregnant woman gets), that continued to grow. Usually, your body gets ride of it at about 12 weeks, but for some reason, mine didn't, and it continued to grow until it got so big that it twisted my ovary and tube, and cut off the blood supply to the ovary. This caused it to grow to about the size of a grapefruit/softball until it died and started rupturing.

I have a new respect and gratitude for Doctors, medicine and surgery, because without all that, both me and baby cupcake would just be a statistic by now. Thank you Sacred Heart, Dr. Fern, Dr. Zwisler, and all my nurses for taking such a great care of us.

What is crazy about the entire thing is that it is VERY VERY uncommon for any pregnant woman to develop "ovarian torsion," which is the official name for what I developed. In fact, my doctor, who has been practicing for a long time, and is one of the most respected Doctors in the northwest, says I am the only person he has ever seen this happen to. We also talked to another Dr. that specializes in high-risk pregnancies, and he said he has only seen this twice in 42 years.

I am so special!! Haha! I hope because I have gone through this, that I have used up the very rare statistic for every woman I know! Anyway, right after surgery, my epidural wasn't working, and my body was having contractions about every 7 minutes. This was very scary, and they were trying to get them stopped. So between getting ANOTHER epidural (which worked this time), and giving me lots of magnesium (yuck!), the contractions started slowing down.

I was in the hospital for another 5 days while they monitored contractions and everything else. It was so nice to finally be able to go home and rest the following Thursday.

All I can say is, now, more than ever, I believe in the power of prayer. As crazy as this has been, so many things have gone right that shouldn't have, and I know it's because of all of you lifting us up in prayer. It is a very humbling thing to know there is nothing you can do, but accept people's prayers and just wait on the Lord. That is what we continue to do. Take this one day at a time, and trust that there is a plan.

So now I am almost 23 weeks pregnant, and baby cupcake is doing great. They just want me to stay down so that I don't go into labor, as I am still having some contractions. I am also still recovering from surgery, which just takes time too! In the meantime, I just might get into blogging, reading, movies, crosswords, and anything else that can occupy my time while I am down. For those of you that have made it to the end of this one-I promise they won't ever be this long again!

Again, I'm not sure who will read this, but I am so thankful to my hubby who has been my rock this past two weeks. I love him more and more each day and am so thankful for him. Along with my family-especially my mom and sister who have been beyond helpful as well. And to Jenny who came up and stayed with me for three days to help pass the time and serve us. And to all of you-for your prayers, cards, flowers, food and support. We are so overwhelmed with the support and love that has and continues to come our way.

We serve a risen Savior who has promised us that he DOES have a plan for us, and for that I am so grateful. I pray for strength for today-for that is all He asks of us!