Wow, it's so easy to neglect ones blog, especially when you use your free computer time for Facebook. I am so far behind, it's not even funny. I'll just give a quick recap of 2009, it's pretty easy, I'll just list all our loses. We lost our favorite tree, the huge tree that shaded our yard. We had come home from church one Sunday and it was a nice clear sunny Summer day in August, when we heard this strange cracking noise and then a thud. I knew exactly what had happened and said, "oh, I hope that wasn't our tree", sure enough, it was. It had three huge branches that came off the trunk and one of those branches had broken, followed by another branch five minutes later. Luckily we parked our vehicles inside the garage because the majority of it landed on our driveway and garage roof.
The kids were freaked out and didn't want us going outside, they literally thought their world was falling apart.
Then, after we had emptied our bank account into our van, Ryan was rear-ended on the freeway by a semi. Luckily he wasn't hurt but there went all of our money we had put into a new transmission. So, not only our tree, but we lost our van. It all worked out though, we were thinking of getting a new vehicle since child number five was due at the end of the year. And, our insurance company gave us about three times what they should have for it, we weren't going to complain. We then went out and found a nice little Chevy Suburban in the Bay Area. We love it and will sometimes fight over who gets to drive it, I always lose.
Then in Oct. we moved out of our little three bedroom house. We were supposed to only have two weeks in between our leaving and moving into the next place we would stay. My mom graciously let our family of six move into her upstairs rooms. Then, the two weeks turned into a month, then another. It was fine though, my mom's house is spacious and we knew it wasn't going to be forever. The problem being, the house we were going to rent had a family living in it. They had purchased a home three years prior and basically gutted the thing and remodeled it. It's a huge 4000 square foot home so it took a while. As their move in date was pushed back, so was ours. But, it all worked out. I was put on bed rest in the beginning of November because I was dialated to a 2 and was only 30 wks along. I could no longer work and needed help with the kids. So, having two extra adults around was a blessing, one that would be even greater as I go on. On Dec. 1st, after finding out a few weeks earlier that I was now 3 cms. I started early labor. I had no idea what was going on with my body since it was the first time I had actually been in labor. All of my other kids were induced. The contractions were not painful at all, just annoying and they were happening all day long. After we had gone to bed, I decided to time them. They were two mins apart! So, that's when I decided to let Ryan know that I thought I might be in labor. Haha, so, anyway, we drove over to the Kaiser hospital and they put me in a room. I was only 34 1/2 weeks so no one was moving very quickly, I think they may have thought I was having Braxton Hicks. The doc came in, examined me and said I was at an 8! All without any pain. Well, you should have seen that nurse run out of there. They quickly got me into a delivery room and put in the IV and then they left. I'd forgotten what was next so asked what I was to do, they said, wait till you feel you have to push then get us. So, I laid there for a minute, and told Ryan to get the doc and have him break my water, I knew that once I hit 8 I was good to go. So, they came in and ten minutes later I had her. She was born 5 1/2 weeks early but still weighed 6lbs 14oz. We named her Morgan Ruth. She had some issues with her lungs and almost was transferred to Santa Clara. We had our prayers answered when the doctor told us they cancelled the ambulance and will attempt to treat here there. I later learned that the nurses begged the doc to let her stay, they are all part time nurses there and work full time in another hospital where they have a level 3 NICU. I couldn't imagine healing at one hospital while my baby was two hours away in another. Another blessing was answered when she only had to stay in the NICU for four days. We were so excited to have her home, the girls couldn't get enough of her. I was so excited to have her here and healthy and in time to enjoy Christmas.
So, life was good, we had a newborn, Christmas was approaching and we were anticipating moving into a 6 bedroom home that had enough space for all of us. About a week after I had Morgan I had these weird chest pains. I ignored them, thinking they'd go away which they did, and I kept going on with my daily things. Then a few days later the pain came back and this time it didn't go away. I tried to ignore it but it kept persisting. The spirit told me this was something I shouldn't ignore so I told Ryan what was going on and thought I should go visit the ER. Him and my dad gave me a blessing and off we went for yet another trip to the ER. I thought I had a blood clot in my lungs even though I wasn't short of breath. So, to make a long story short, after every type of test they could have done and didn't find anything, they did a angiogram and found that I had a tear down my left anterior coronary artery. It was all due the hormones from pregnancy. Crazy! I was 33 with five kids and had a heart attack! I was hospitalized for a week, told to take it easy and given medication. My condition was so rare that my cardiologist had to treat me hypothetically. The cases where people actually survived what I had were so small that he didn't have much to go on. But, Heavenly Father is awesome and I did heal and I am so grateful for that. It was a weird year but I wouldn't have it any other way. I am more grateful for life and know how lucky I am to still be here to raise my children. And yes, Morgan was worth it, I loves her. :D
