The Fish (baby.,, not pinata this time).

So, like Brett said in our last post - yes, we did just find out that we're having a baby. I'm not very far along yet (only 5 weeks and 2 days... yes I'm that meticulous in counting), but we're very hopeful that we'll make it to full term this go around. The baby will be due around April 24th (which is pretty much perfect since there's only 6 weeks left of the school year after that - thank heavens for maternity leave!).

If that's all you want to know... I'd stop reading at this point, because the rest of this post is going to be somewhat wordy and emotional (but I'm pregnant, I'm allowed to be emotional).

There are a couple reasons why I want to document this (although it may seem strange to do it publicly)... I want other people who may be going through or who may go through a similar experience to know that I'm definitely willing to talk to them about it. I'm also just soooo happy that it's hard to explain it without describing the opposite. And because this is our family journal, and this is a big family moment. 

If you're wondering what that "this go around" phrase was all about, that's probably because you didn't know that I miscarried last January. I was super excited because my two sisters, Anne and Sarah, were due in June (a month before me), and we just knew Ali would be getting pregnant soon too (which she did). And Cambrie was pregnant on Brett's side of the family (although that ended tragically as well, about a week after my miscarriage). A week after my first prenatal appointment, I started bleeding and was diagnosed with a blighted ovum. Basically, I was a mess. I'm not sure how Brett could stand to be so patient with me crying all the time. But he was amazing as usual, and not only put up with me, but was a huge support when I needed it most.

I thought I'd get over it pretty quickly, especially because I thought I'd be able to get pregnant again pretty quickly. Every month that passed was a disappointment, and I'd be a crazy, bawling, psycho wife for my poor husband. My sisters had their babies, and my baby's due date came and went without any celebration. I finally went to the Dr. because things just weren't normal, and he put me on Clomid... and apparently it worked! I'm a little nervous about twins though, since Clomid can increase the chances of multiples, but I'm not going to worry about that until the ultrasound.

It's amazing to me how closely our emotions are tied to our spiritual strength. I was feeling absolutely horrible... I was in the "depths of despair" (to quote a movie, but actually mean it...). I felt like my faith was at an all time low (in my little brain it made sense to me that if I had enough faith, I would have gotten the answer to my prayer - a new pregnancy - a long time ago). I figured, I just didn't have enough, therefore, no miracle. But of course, all of those scriptures about how "faith proceeds the miracle," "ye will have no sign until after the trial of your faith," "this will be but a little moment," etc. all came to my mind this last month. My awesome mother-in-law asked our family to fast and pray together this last month because there are individual things each of her children needed (and she knew what my particular trial was). I'm very grateful for my family's collective and individual faith - it truly helped to strengthen my own.

We teach primary, and yesterday the sharing time was about how Faith and Miracles come together (like peanut butter and jelly). And so, I figure... it's a miracle to me that we're having a baby - so maybe I do have enough faith after all.

There is amazing truth to the "opposition in all things" law - perhaps I needed to go through "despair" so that I could fully appreciate how incredibly happy I am right now. I told Brett I'll try not to complain about fatigue, nausea, or any other type of physical discomfort related to having a baby because that's just it - I'm having a baby!

And so - for those of you who wanted to know - that's the whole story. 

I gots me a new job!

Me, you know, in my vinyl-fence hospital
habitat, ready to totally save some life, yo.

For approaching 3 years, I've been working for Utah Valley Regional Medical Center on the 7th floor (Medical-Oncology Department).  It's a non-stop usually crazy-busy department, but my coworkers were great to work with, and the department forces you to learn a lot -- quick.  My upcoming grad school applications from what I've been reading will want me to have critical care experience, so I'm switching jobs.  Same hospital, different department.  I'll be on the 2nd floor of UVRMC ("IMC" for those of you who know the place).

It should give me some good ol' critical care experience with some good old-fashioned intubated patients, and fancy gizmos and such.  I'm excited for it.  I've been on the floor for school stuff, and they've got a good group of people down there.

I start on Monday with some training and additional certifications, and then I'll ultimately be doing night shift (again) which Katie isn't particularly keen about.  Oh well.  I do what I need to do to support my wife and child. (Oh yeah, and by the way, we just found out she's prego)

Boren Family Fiesta!!!

My two out-of-town sisters came home for about a week a little while ago, and we decided to have a family fiesta! We usually have a BBQ with hamburgers, hot dogs, cheese bread, chips, etc. But I thought it would be fun to do something a little different - and amazingly enough, Mom said, "Yeah, that would be fun." And so instead of the normal BBQ food, we had Cafe Rio burritos like we had at Brett sister, Christa's house a few weeks ago. We made sweet shredded pork, had some black beans, cheese, lettuce, etc. and had the cilantro lime rice (recipe by Brett's other sister, Cambrie), on the side, along with classic chips and salsa.

We made coffee filter flowers with the kids that we put up on the deck, and saved a few for our hair.

Boren ladies with flowers in their hair.

But my favorite part was the pinata. You've got to understand... when I take on a project like a pinata, I go all out. I had a blast making it and then watching it be destroyed. I was pretty proud of how well it held up to the beating. All the grandkids got a few swings at it (all besides the babies, of course). My nephew, Spencer, ended up being the one to completely bust it in the end.

El alma de la fiesta - the life and soul of the party...yup, that's us!!!

I really did love that fish...

Ben was hilarious - he did a lot of serious overhand swipes at the poor fish, but didn't do much damage.

Part of the line-up... hoping it doesn't break before their turn.

Spencer, with the killing stroke.

The aftermath...

I think this is Jordan - I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want a pinata on my head - sounds dangerous to me.

Moab Canyoneering Trip

The advice we've been getting as a non-childrened married couple is:  Play.  More.

So that's what we did earlier this week.  We went with the biggest advocates of the "Play, more" ideology, my sister and brother-in-law, Christa and Brigham, and spent Monday-Wednesday playing.

We took the inaugural trip of their newly purchased car to Moab, and into Arches.

Monday:  We hiked.  Pictures do a better job of it, so I won't try to explain it.  We hit the movies for "Salt" Monday night.

Here's Christa's online photo album of the trip.

Tuesday:  We woke up, left, and showed up to our tour company place to go "Canyoneering" where we discovered that we were very un-prepared for the trip.  To our credit, we did show up the day before to verify that we had all we needed.  We thought we were ready -- she told us we'd be fine.  We weren't.  Luckily, our tour guide was awesome, and went home to get us rain jackets, and the company owner brought in a rain jacket for us.  Secondly, we found out from our tour guide that all of his previous groups he had taken were experienced climbers, and, well, we essentially had no experience at all in the group.  He assured us he could get us through it safely, and we were pretty excited to do it, so... we did.  We got fitted in thermals (yes, thermals in August in Moab -- and yes, we were glad to have them), wet-suits, helmets, gloves, and our borrowed rain jackets.

We drove up a mountain, parked the van, and started on a trail.  When we got to the river, we sort of just found a tree to hide behind as we got rid of the normal clothes and put on a wet-suit and gear.  As we were hiking the trail toward the river, our guide said "wow... you can hear the water already..."  It had been raining previous to our coming, and, well, he said he's never seen the water that high.  Or that cold.  And as if that wasn't enough, again, he was with a group of 4 completely inexperienced climbers on a tour where he had only been guiding experienced climbers. 
The beginnings were a touch rough for a minute as he had to teach us all how to rappel and we clumsily made our way down.  The rest of the way was spectacular.  We were practically inside of a water-carved cave going down the side of, and sometimes, the middle of waterfalls.  We descended 7 rappels in all.  The water was very cold, and sometimes our feet would slip out from under us and we'd end up right in the waterfall as we quickly tried to let the rappel loose to drop as fast as we could.  It was too loud in this near-water-cave place to talk to the guide, so it was, well, exciting to go over an edge, not knowing what we were about to do.  There was a lot of "Figure it out as you go" and I'm sure a lot of "What in the world am I doing bringing these people here..." from the tour guide.  Our guide was great, and very nice to work with.  While the pictures of course can't capture it all as we were trying to protect the camera from the water, it'll give you some idea of what it was like.


Afterward, we did another 5-mile round trip hike on the negro bill canyon trail.  We then ate unhealthy food and hit the movies again for Inception.  We were pressed for time, so Katie didn't have time to finish her frosty.  Feeling sympathy for her, I successfully smuggled the frosty into the theater in my pocket, where she got to finish enjoying it.

Wednesday, we slept in, and hit a few more spots in arches before we left for home again.

Lots of fun trip.  Glad we went!  Thanks for inviting us Christa and Brigham!