Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The Crazy Holidays

The past month has been very eventful for our family. As we anticipated and prepared for Christmas we also were prepping ourselves for a surgery. For months I have had problems with my gall bladder. Foreseeing that this could cause further complications in my pregnancy, my doctor strongly encouraged me to remove it before the baby grew any further.
Under the doctor’s advice, we scheduled surgery for the 21st of December.
This seemed like a convenient time for us because it would give me a nice long holiday to relax and heal. However the night before the surgery we got into a car crash. A man was pulling out from a parking lot, turning left into traffic and did not see our car in the inside lane. He broadsided the passenger side of our car, giving us a jolt.
Initially we thought everyone was fine, but after a few hours we discovered that I was bleeding. We went to the ER and learned that I had some internal hemorrhaging around my uterus. I was told that we had a 50% chance of a miscarriage and they could do nothing for me but wait to see if it stopped bleeding. I was then on ordered bed rest until I could see my OB the next week. Thankfully, Kevin’s family lives nearby and we were able to spend Christmas with family. We were very grateful for all the help and support we received during this time.
The day after Christmas we went to my OB. My doctor had a hard time finding the heartbeat because the baby was moving around so much. It was then a great feeling of relief came when we learned the baby would be just fine. We were told that there is a good chance that I could deliver early, but other than that things looked good.
After receiving the okay from my doctor, we went ahead and scheduled the surgery for January 11th.Things then became complicated further because we planned to move to Salt Lake City that weekend. We had a couple moving into our apartment that Monday, however, we had not found an apartment in Salt Lake. So when the time came, Kevin bounced back and forth from helping me recover from my surgery and moving our entire apartment into my Grandmother’s garage in Springville. Kevin’s family came to the rescue again by helping me recover and by helping Kevin move. We could not have done it without them.
In the midst of all of this, Kevin began a new semester of school. He really struggled to get a schedule that worked with our family’s schedule and fulfilled the requirements for graduating in August. On top of this, he learned that the money we expected to come in to help pay for tuition and books we no longer qualified for. This put us in a very difficult situation where all we could do is pray and put it in the Lord’s hands. Somehow, he found a schedule that worked and we figured out a way to pay for tuition and books on our own. This was a very simple yet profound miracle and we count it as one of the many blessing we have received amid all the chaos.
Its funny how things work out, but they always do. We are now settling into my 95 year-old grandmother’s home in Springville. She fell ill during this time and we decided that it would be best if we stayed with her until Kevin graduates in August. She has a large mother-in-law apartment set up in the basement of her home, which fits us comfortably. Kevin is close to school and I am commuting once again, but at this point, that is really a small price to pay. We really feel blessed and relieved to have this series of trials behind us.