Rounding off 25.

This is going to be a long one, so sorry! Last year, before I turned 25, I made a list of 25 goals, so I thought it would be fun to post them on here and see how many of them I can check off. It's hard to think about how much I've done/accomplished/changed in a year. It feels like it has been at least three years since I wrote all these. Anyway...results are in bold italics.

1. Finish my book -check
2. Stop being so hypercritical of my work. -check...ish
3. Be excited for other people. -check
4. Travel more -still traveled lots, but maybe not more than we did that year!
5. Exercise more-and I don't mean like go to the gym every day, but get fit in my own way. Dancing, running, simply getting out and doing things instead of sitting on my butt in front of the couch with some Ben & Jerry's in hand. -HA.
6. Don't be so quick to say no. -I actually feel pretty good about my achievements in this one. Go self.
7. Don't be so quick to write myself off. -given recent circumstances, I'd say I've done a pretty good job
8. Be up for adventures. -sure?
9. Stop stressing about the little things. -see last post for a brief description about how I don't care about anything anymore.
10. Know my strengths. -my strengths and I are well acquainted currently, thank you for asking
11. Take more pictures. -check
12. Ignore the haters. -check
13. Go to more concerts. -check
14. Maintain strong relationships with my family even though we live in different cities now. -very much check
15. Let the positive things people say about/to me affect me more than the negative. -check
16. Allow time/room for myself in my own life. -a few weeks ago I bought a face mask for the first time in my life, so not only am I making time for me, but I'm also becoming a real girl. double achievement.
17. Make decisions when it is important to do so. -another one where I just have to laugh
18. Try new things. But when I say things I mostly mean food. -I got pregnant and ate pizza rolls and fried potatoes. I'll try again this year.
19. Cook more and try new recipes. -how many of these can I use pregnancy as an excuse for?
20. Cook more big meals on the weekends with Brandon. Cooking is one of our favorite things to do together, and we definitely don't do it enough. -one more, why not
21. Laugh more. -did this, need to do it again
22. Stop being defensive before I need to be. -big old fat check
23. Continue learning French. -nope.
24. Read more. -I command all of you to read The Selection series. If there were more books that kept me as entertained as that one, I would never interact with another human ever again.
25. Surround myself with people who allow me to be myself and don't make me feel insecure. And also stop allowing other people to make me feel insecure. -check.

I would make another list of 26 goals, but honestly, at this point, I think that keeping myself happy is just the overall goal. There are a lot of different things that go into that, and some days require different things than others. I'm learning to be very comfortable and confident in myself, and I think that has been very instrumental this past year. I'm going to continue to do me, and I think 26 will be a good year for me. I'm hopeful, anyway, and I think hopeful and happy are the two best things to ask of myself this year. Here's to 26!

The waterproof mascara life.

Part of me wanted to call this post "dat waterproof mascara lyfe," but I decided that sometimes it's okay to not put up a front about things. I've realized over the past couple weeks that more and more I pretend I'm okay when I'm not, and I think that's largely due to the fact that more people are reading everything I write. It's easy for me to write how I'm actually feeling when I don't think about the audience, but I think I worry that no one will care to read if (most) every single post I write is deep and emotional. If you still care to read, then truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

About thirteen months ago, I wrote a post on my old blog called The waterproof mascara days. I wrote it the day before we moved to Salt Lake, and I remember the three weeks prior to that day had been so hard, living by myself while Brandon started his new job, packing up our house alone, and saying goodbye to a house, job, and town that I loved so much. 

Have you ever just wanted to kick yourself when you look back on something that you once thought was such a big deal? I look back at almost 25 year old me and think, you poor, sweet, thing, you have no idea what's coming.

For those three weeks, and a couple weeks after, I wore waterproof mascara nearly every day, just in case of spontaneous crying, which didn't actually end up happening as much as I'd anticipated. After we lost Carter though, I started wearing waterproof mascara yet again. And then I noticed I was wearing it so much that I actually wanted to invest in a better tube than what I had. I spent an actual amount of money on waterproof mascara, and I've been wearing it every single day. And unlike the days leading up to and following our move, the waterproof mascara has served its purpose. On a good day, I will cry for maybe a minute. Or sometimes it's just a few quick tears that never end up running down my face. But on a bad day, it would be easier to tell you how much time I spent not crying. And I really don't tell you these things to make you feel bad for me, I just feel like being transparent.

The past few weeks I have been angry and moody and sad and okay, and I don't know how to control it anymore. I don't know how to control my reactions or how to not get upset at people for stupid things. I think the bigger part of me gets upset at myself for getting upset in the first place, over petty, stupid things that don't actually matter. And then I get upset because, if we had Carter at home, maybe I wouldn't get upset about those things in the first place.

I told Brandon yesterday that, if people asked me to rate my days on a scale of 1-10, my entire scale would be the equivalent of what a 1-3 would have been before our loss. The highest I can go on any given day is a 3, and on a day I'd consider a 1, I'm hardly keeping my head above water.

At this point, nothing seems important except for Carter and Brandon, and I feel like sometimes maybe that's not an acceptable thing to feel. Especially since we got the autopsy results back. No one had said or even hinted at feeling this way, but I feel like now that we have the final autopsy results, people will expect me to be okay and move on. Kind of like when you wait days and days for a test result, then you find out your grade and move on. But just because we got the autopsy report doesn't mean this is over. It's not something I can think about and say "okay well I got an F, but I'll just try again next time." I legitimately lost my baby a week before he was supposed to come home with me and I can't have him back. It's not something I will ever get over, but I'm afraid people will want me to. I'm afraid people will forget about Carter because there aren't pictures of him plastering my Instagram feed like a living baby. I scour the internet daily to try and find airplane things to put in my house and on my body so that when people see them, they are reminded of our boy and how much he is still a part of our lives. He might not physically be in our house, but I can still feel him there all the same, and I want others to feel him too. What if people forget and don't count him in the number of children we have when we have other kids at home? What if someone tells me it's dumb to celebrate his birthday every year, or to buy him something for Christmas, or to make him a Shutterfly book every year like I had planned to anyway? I'm so legitimately terrified that people expect me to be over losing him and I can't be. I can't be "on" every day, I can't even be okay every day. I'm afraid of letting people down because I still cry every day.

A friend shared a picture with me of a biplane sticker she saw on someone's back windshield today, and I can't even begin to explain to you how much it meant to me. To know that at least one person, even four months since our loss, remembers Carter when she sees an airplane. To that friend, thank you. You honestly have no idea how much your post this morning meant to me.

I won't ever be as good as I once was. There is always a part of me that will be broken, and I hope that's okay. I miss Carter every single day, but I'm terrified I will forget just how much I miss him, and I'm terrified that other people will just forget him altogether. Life is moving forward for other people, and even for me and Brandon, but I can't decide if I'm okay with that or not. I know good things wait for us in the future, but most days, I'd rather be stuck and lost without my boy than not thinking about him at all.

Four months.

It has been four months today.

This is just going to be a quick little catch up. Things have been so busy at work lately that by the time we get home and go to the gym and have dinner, we're wiped out and basically just sit and do nothing haha. I need to get better! I want to either continue working on one of these two novels I've started, or get going on a new one, but some days, between everything going on emotionally and physically, I just don't have it in me.

We kicked off birthday week by going to have cupcakes with Carter at the cemetery. It was freezing, and snowing decently too, but the one thing I knew I wanted to do for my birthday was to go up and have a cupcake with my little man, so we did! We cleaned up the flowers that were there from a couple weeks ago, but had to dig them out from under the snow. Logan has been pounded with snow this year. I feel like every time we go up there is fresh snow on the ground; it's crazy.

After hanging out with Carter for a bit, we went and visited with my friend Jennika, then had lunch with Brandon's siblings and wives. We didn't have anything else going on that afternoon, so we just hung out for a bit. I met Chelsea and her husband at the cemetery a little later, and I meant to take a picture of the things they bought for him but I forgot!! Chels bought him a cute blue little bunny, and Sam bought him a tiny tractor and said "every boy's gotta have a tractor." How cute is that? I love that my friends love Carter so much.

Sunday we did some shopping and tried to just chill. I wanted some quality time with Brandon before I leave for a girls trip on my birthday! 

I don't know what the weather is like everywhere else, but it has been snowing here literally all day and I'm so ready to put my sweats on and watch the bachelor! Happy Monday!

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Final autopsy results.

Our hearts have been a little more tender this past week, and even though I know you will be, I'm asking that you be soft with us in response to this post. 

After we lost Carter, we made the decision to have an autopsy performed. At that point, we were clinging to anything and everything we could to figure out why we had lost him. About a week later, our doctor called us with the preliminary findings. Carter has some skeletal abnormalities-bell shaped ribs and a cervical rib-and multiple spleens. Realistically, babies survive with all those abnormalities. Some may live with a disability, others may be totally fine. They also noted that my placenta was small, but the doctor showed no concern about that. It would explain why he was small, but wouldn't have explained why we lost him. The doctor was also confident that these abnormalities weren't indicative of any syndrome. The anomalies do present themselves in a syndrome, but these three together did not mean he had any syndrome.

About a month or so later, Brandon and I got some blood drawn to do a karyotype. A karyotype just tests the number and visual appearance of chromosomes, so nothing in depth, but that came back normal. 

On Monday last week, the doctor finally called with the final pathology report. Even he had began to wonder why it was taking so long to hear back on it, but when he called, he said it is one of the more detailed pathology reports he had seen, meaning the pathologists did a really good job and checked everything they could.

He said the abnormalities they had found were simply third trimester findings. Not indicative of anything, it was just the same as observing that he has ten fingers and ten toes. My placenta was small, which did explain why he was so small, but it wasn't the cause. The cause was a blockage in the umbilical cord. Now whether the blockage just happened, or if he was pressed against it for too long or what, we don't know. And we never will. There were no knots, just blockage. 

Everything else, besides the ribs, were normally developed. I reread the autopsy report and still just felt so proud to read that everything was normal and looked good. Especially about his brain. I'm confident that he's a smart little guy, and his knowledge is worlds beyond what we'll ever know. We have felt some comfort in the fact that the future with his skeletal abnormalities may have been difficult. He might have lived a completely normal life, or he may not have. The school I worked at before we lost him was a school devoted completely to students with disabilities, and I was there long enough to know that that is a hard life to live, and I wouldn't have wanted that for him. 

It was also nice to know that it wasn't a genetic issue, and that my thyroid wasn't the cause of it. I was the most concerned about these two things, because having to try to adopt or do IVF is just a whole different ball game. We're pleased to know that we are lucky enough to produce healthy babies. 

It has honestly just been such a confusing week. We feel so sad that one stupid block in the cord is what caused us to lose him, but we know we can't go back and change anything, so we're trying to just be at peace with what it is. It won't always be this hard, but we know it won't ever be easy. Thank you guys for all the love and support you've shown us over the past year, through the pregnancy and now through our loss. We really appreciate everything you've done and I know will continue to do for us.

A year in Sojo.

Time is a weird thing. Days can drag on and on and on, but suddenly, the week, month, or even year is over. 

Brandon hit his year mark at work about a month ago. This is the longest he has been at a job since Campsaver, and I think it's safe to say that he'll be with this company for a while! He loves his job, and I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see him feel so accomplished at the end of each day. My year mark (with a small interruption) with the school district I work for was on February 1st, and I'm glad I was able to find a job with this district again. They are good people.

A year ago from Sunday we moved into our house! A year ago from Monday, we had the help of some friends of an uncle moving our fridge, dresser, and washer and dryer all the way upstairs, and I was trying to figure out how to organize our kitchen (why is it always the hardest thing??) I remember just trying to hurry and get things done so we could hang out before Brandon went to California for two weeks, and him hurrying to get all the blinds put up before he left. We took way too many trips to Lowe's in that short time.

People had told us that year-marks would be hard after losing Carter, and there are a lot of year marks coming up with him that I'm not looking forward, but kind of am at the same time. The date of his conception (TMI but it's sentimental to me), my birthday weekend when I was pregnant but didn't know it, the day we found out I was pregnant, and the days we told our families.

Honestly if I can just get through March, things will be a little easier, but it's still just so weird how quickly the past year has gone. Like I said, this is the longest Brandon has been at a job in three years, and we have been in this house four months longer than we were in our last house. We lived in our second apartment the longest, 19 months, so I'm not sure how we'll feel once we surpass that time frame! We've never been ones to feel settled, or like we're in the right place, but South Jordan is treating us well. It's surprising to say, but it feels like home.

So much love.

I know, I know, Valentine's Day is kind of overrated. But I'm a girl, and more specifically, a girl that likes flower and chocolate, so we choose to participate. Brandon surprised me last night with roses, bubble bath, bath bombs, and a box of milk duds. All my favorite things! Tonight we are going to see Lego Batman and will likely eat the entire bucket of popcorn. The only thing that would make this holiday even better would be Costa Vida, but I think we'll save that for this weekend. Spread out the love celebration.

We're celebrating this year with a new valentine in our lives. It's hard to not have Carter here, but we're making the most of each holiday with him the best we can. On the first Saturday of the month, we drove up to Logan to make freezer meals with our brother and sister-in-law (I can do a post of those recipes, if anyone is interested!). Before heading to their house, we went to see our boy, and decorated his grave with some Valentine's things. There is a little decoration hanging out of the little bucket, and we have one just like it at our house! I love having duplicates of things, one for him and one for us. It gives us just one more connection to him. We wish he was here, but it's crazy how much love you can have for someone you had too little time with.

Hope you all have a good Valentine's Day, and remember to squeeze your loved ones a little tighter. 

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Godfather's for my father.

Honestly I'm just really sorry about the title. Sometimes I think I'm way funnier than I actually am.

My family came down to visit this past weekend! My parents, brothers, and their respective ladies all made the drive down just to spend time with us! It was so nice to have everyone here, especially since half of them hadn't been down before. It's also just really nice that we have the room for everyone. But anyway.

Friday was my dad's birthday, so we took him to the new Godfather's in South Jordan. He used to work at Godfather's in Idaho Falls, and it is his favorite pizza place, so we was stoked to hear one was opening down here. The pizza was sooo good. Brandon and I can't stop talking about the Chicken Bacon Ranch, and I have a feeling we'll be going back pretty soon. The best part was that the staff came and sang Happy Birthday, even though they don't technically do anything for birthdays. My brother asked, and they just agreed because they are so great. We all stuffed ourselves so full that we couldn't even do cake and ice cream when we got home.

On Saturday we went to the aquarium! The oldest of my two brothers loves all things that live in the water (or at least the ones he can buy and keep in a tank, which is a lot of things, turns out) and it was fun to hear him rattle off all his water creature knowledge. Honestly, going with my two grown brothers was like going with children; they were so excited. After the aquarium we went to Ikea because why not. We started our journey off with some snacks (pizza, froyo, and hot dogs), and made our way through the store. This was the third time I had been to Ikea in about two months, and I found some pretty good things this time! My mom kept complimenting my decorating game all weekend, so I felt like freaking Joanna Gaines walking through that store. Maybe sometime I'll post pictures of some of the things we've done with our house. I don't feel like it's all that impressive, but my mom likes it, and moms never tell you they like something just because that is their job. That night we finally did cake and ice cream and played a couple rounds of Sushi Go before crawling off to bed.

Sunday morning went by way too quickly. We had breakfast, and then everyone packed up to leave. The siblings all left and headed straight home, but my parents wanted to go see Carter, so we drove up to Logan with them and hung out with our boy for about half an hour. We took him a bunch of flowers for Valentine's Day, and replaced the stake on one of his solar lights. It was nice to take my parents, and this was their first time being back after his funeral service, so they were able to see his headstone!

All in all, it was a really good weekend. My brother and his wife brought their dog, and it was so fun to watch her with the cats. She is a bigger dog than the cats have ever been around, but is super calm, so the cats weren't quite sure what to think of her. Every time the cats would get brave enough to go close to Maebe we all got so excited. Sometimes I don't really know what we would do for entertainment if we didn't have the cats haha.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

15 weeks.

I know I've said it before, but it is so strange to be counting up, when I was counting down for so long. I remember when we had 15 weeks left until our due date. We had just gotten home from our vacation to DC and New York, and were in the thick of setting up the nursery and preparing for our little guy to arrive. I don't even remember what it was like to be 15 weeks pregnant. I didn't feel pregnant yet, but I know we were so excited. And now, we're fifteen weeks out, and it's just so weird.

When people ask how I'm doing, my usual answer is "fine. some days are harder than others." And I realized about two minutes ago that that's a total lie. Not that I'm not fine, because I am. Not good, not bad, just fine. I worked with someone once who told me that "fine" is the worst F word you can say, because it's vague and always a lie. And though me saying I'm fine is sometimes a lie, the real lie I tell is that some days are harder than others. Because really, some minutes are harder than others. One second you can be mopping the floor, and then you remember that the last time you prepared for your family to stay with you, you were also prepping to go to the hospital to deliver your son. You can be plugging away at work, getting shiz done, and remember how it felt to have him placed on your chest. It's the strangest thing. When I think about it from a metaphorical standpoint, I just picture myself getting hit in the face with a fish. It comes out of nowhere, it's messy and unwanted. I'd rather go fishing and bring on the grief by myself.

Grief is just weird in general. When Brandon went back to work, if he was even five minutes late getting home I freaked out, worrying that he was in a car accident or something. Even today, my family is driving down to see us, in three different cars, and I know I will be full of anxiety until they all get there. Fear isn't going to stop me from doing things and living my life, but I don't want to deal with more than one loss in my whole life. Every person I know has to outlive me, got it? That means you!

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine that lost a baby over the summer. We were talking about how, for me, it is hard to have all of Carter's things, because I feel like I just prepped for a baby in case we ever got pregnant. But at the same time, it's so nice to have all those things, because I can just go into the nursery, sit in the chair, and just kind of be with him. She had a dream that her son was still at the hospital, and that no one told her she could go visit him, and I wanted to say, well luckily that's not real, and you have his ashes at home with you. How stupid is that? Luckily. Saying luckily in any situation right now is just plain ridiculous. But she said "there's no right or wrong way to lose a baby" and basically nailed it on the head. There's no right or wrong way to navigate through the muddy waters of loss and grief and anger and sadness. You can use your hands or a boat or snowshoes or whatever, but it's still going to be hard and you're still going to feel stuck sometimes. But as long as you're trying, you're moving forward.

There are new pieces of brightness in my life that I never would have thought I'd have to deal with. Get to deal with? I don't know. No right or wrong answer with this one. But it's strange to get excited about something and share it with someone, only to have their look of sadness as a response. I know it's sad, trust me, but it's also okay for people to be excited about the things I'm excited about! I found the coolest thing on Etsy yesterday! There are companies that make necklaces with engravings of a sound wave. So you can send a voice recording to them, and the sound waves for that recording onto the necklace. Go one step further...they can engrave sound waves for a heartbeat. I'm trying to get a better picture of Carter's heartbeat sound waves (thank goodness for the fetal echo that we did? I guess?), but I'm going to get that necklace soon! I shared that with a lady I work with, and I felt bad because she was sad, but also happy? I feel like life is a giant question mark at the end of every sentence haha.

These are some strange things to be excited about, but if we can't have our boy at home, then we should find some sunshine in the little things we get. All the necklaces I have that are pieces of him, the headstone we were able to purchase with the help of friends and family that has Brandon's drawing on it, the drawing from a sweet stranger, pictures, molds, and support from the kind lady who was there to share in our grief, airplanes galore, and the knowledge that there are so many people who love him even though they never got the chance to meet him. I don't know if you would call these silver linings, I don't know that there are ever silver linings with loss, but there are beautiful coincidences and tender mercies that make the hard times just a little bit easier. 

**cover photo is me at 15 weeks pregnant.

If anything, it's that.

Three months today since we lost him.

I feel like Brandon and I have been fairly optimistic since we lost Carter, as optimistic as anyone who loses a child can be anyway. I tell myself it happened for a reason, even though sometimes I don't want to believe it. I don't think there was a reason for it on our side, but that maybe Carter was just needed somewhere else, and we won't know the reason why until a long time from now. But I have learned a lot of things since we lost him. I'd rather have Carter, but if I can't have him back, I guess now is a prime time to learn some things. 

I was rereading some of my posts from the last three months, and noticed that I have said "if Carter has taught me anything, it's that..." so many times. So I started thinking about the things I have learned/discovered/implemented more since that beautiful awful day.

• Always tell the people I love that I love them. My family and I have never been ones to drop the L bomb, but I do it frequently now. My friends and I always say we love each other. I tell Brandon and the cats I love them like sixteen times a day. I actually am finding that I have to consciously tell myself not to tell someone I love them.

• Married people fights are generally stupid and we don't actually have to have them. One time, Brandon and I started arguing about a plant we have in our living room. It, like the other two arguments we've had since October, ended with me in tears because maybe if we had Carter, we wouldn't have fought about the stupid plant. So I've learned to avoid arguments, even though sometimes all I want to do is yell and be angry. And I promise it's not avoidance in a bad way, I just think we both have a tight hold on our emotions, and know what we need to do to keep them in check.

• I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. After my depression, I always told myself that if a situation made me severely unhappy, I could leave. My happiness was more important than making other people happy. And now, I believe that even more. Some situations are hard for us right now, and it's okay for us to say no to certain things to be able to maintain our okay-ness.

• Having an opinion is not a bad thing. When people ask what I want, I usually say I don't care, because honestly, I don't. But I have learned that when I do have an opinion, it's okay to share it. I don't have to be rude or anything, but if something is important to me, I should say it. This does not apply to politics, where we eat, what movie we watch, and those things. When we were looking for an outfit to bury Carter in, I knew exactly what I wanted. The people I was with knew how important it was to me, and it was so nice to not feel like I was being a burden by stating what I wanted.

• How I feel is not dumb. How anyone feels is not dumb. A lot of times I start out saying "this is dumb, but..." and I've learned that when I want to say that, I shouldn't. I shouldn't discount the way I'm feeling. Even if it isn't necessarily important to others, it's important to me, which means it will matter to other people. No one should ever be ashamed of their feelings!!

• We are not alone. Not only are we (and I mean you, too) surrounded by at least one person that loves us, but we probably aren't alone in our situations. When I was depressed, and then again when we were in the hospital, I was sure that I was the only person who had ever hurt so deeply. Come to find out, stillborns are far more common than we would like them to be. But it has given me a strong network of angel moms to lean on and support in return.

• Sometimes, things happen for a reason. We might not know it until much later.

• And other times, life just sucks and hard things happen.

What I've learned most is that it's important to be kind and loving and caring. After the comment on my Instagram post of Carter and me yesterday, I realized how cruel some people can be. People that don't even know you. This person didn't follow me on Instagram, I have no idea how they found my feed other than the fact that it's public. But they scrolled through all my pictures, back two months, and left a nasty comment on a very special picture of my son and me. What kind of jerk thinks it's okay to throw more pain on top of what we are already going through? Like, it's fine for you to think what you think, but that doesn't mean you need to add more hurt to our situation. Keep it to yourself. Even if any of the people that know and love me felt the way this person did, I know they respect me enough to keep it to themselves. But I don't think any of you do, because you love me, which means you love Carter too. Probably more than me actually, which is totally fine. He's a cute kid, I don't blame you.

Moral of this novel post: have respect for others, and have respect for yourself. You and others are entitled to their opinions, and there is a way to share opinions without hating one another. Care for those closest to you, and care for those you barely even know. And don't be so quick to judge a person and their situation; you never know what kind of fragile state they're in. Obviously I'm not telling you what to do, but I just think the world would be a great place if everyone was kind to one another. Love is powerful. If Carter has taught me anything, it's that.