And So the Adventure Begins


I remember the day my entire world changed - it was 5:30 AM on a Tuesday in December. Justin and I had spent the previous weekend packing up last minute belongings, loading them onto a moving truck, and were up to our elbows in cleanser scrubbing walls, tubs, and floors as we moved out of our home in Charlottesville, VA.

There were a lot of changes coming our way. Justin had graduated with his master's degree from the University of Virginia and had been hired at Ashley Regional Medical Center in Vernal, UT. I, in turn, quit my job at WorldStrides as an Account Manager and prepared to dedicate my time to working for Book Review 22 and publishing my own novel. We made a road trip of our travels back West, which included stops in Memphis, Dallas, Albuquerque, Moab, and Price. Price is where we picked up our beautiful new Golden Retriever puppy - Lucy.

Monday night before our move, we purchased our last meal from Monsoon Siam (my personal favorite restaurant!), and ate it in a bare apartment save for an air mattress, suitcase, and cleaning supplies. We went to bed early that night when I had a fleeting thought that it had been awhile since I'd seen my, although unwelcome, monthly friend. With the craziness of transitioning all of my programs at work, packing, and moving I hadn't given much thought to the fact that my crimson friend was late... again.

Tuesday morning we loaded up our car with our few belongings and, just before we joined them, I took a pregnancy test. I watched with familiarity as the screen on the test showed one pink line and tried not to get my hopes up for the second to appear as it all too often never did. This time the second line slowly appeared on the screen like a curtain drawing back. I had to do a double take as the two lines stared back at me.

We were pregnant! We were moving across the country. We were getting a puppy. We were starting a new job in a totally new place. Our lives were already going to be completely different so why not add a baby??

I've been blessed with a very easy pregnancy so far. I had morning sickness once just after Christmas, and besides being hungry and sleepy ALL THE TIME, I felt surprisingly normal. It actually took me a few months to agree with the doctors that I was actually pregnant despite hearing the baby's heartbeat.

Our first trimester struggles came in the form of our cross-country move, which may have helped me not notice more of the common symptoms of those first few months. To make our lives “easier”, Justin and I hired movers to pack up our belongings, drive them across country and deliver them at our home in Vernal a week later while we took a road trip back. Everything was great until we arrived in Vernal where we suddenly were faced with countless trials like…
  • ·        We arrived on a frigid day only to find that the gas wasn’t turned on and couldn’t be turned on until the next day. Not only were we freezing, but our belongings hadn’t arrived, but we had along with a brand new puppy who (surprise!) gets car sick so all of our blankets were covered in puppy throw up which we had no way of cleaning up easily.
  • ·        Our belongings (which were supposed to arrive a week after we moved) ended up not arriving until about a month & a half later. We spent that entire time sleeping on a small camping air mattress and eating Top Ramen and taquitos on the one step stool we thankfully had brought along in the car.
  • ·        When our movers finally made it out west at the end of January, they decided they couldn’t make it into Vernal because it was too remote. This resulted in us renting our own moving truck anyway to meet the movers in Salt Lake so they could move our belongings from their truck to our truck which Justin had to drive back to Vernal that day.

When we finally got our belongings – it was the happiest day and I was overcome with gratitude for the simplest of things like our table and chairs so we could eat without fighting our puppy for our food, that we had silverware and glasses, that we had our scriptures and photo albums, that I had a vacuum, that we finally had clothes! 

I am now 24 weeks pregnant and well into my second trimester and the troubles of the first trimester feel like so long ago. My role in life has changed from wife and provider in my family to wife and mother - a promotion I've been waiting for my entire life. My life will never be the same, and I don't want it to be. 

After all the monumental changes Justin and I jumped into at the end of 2016, finding out we were pregnant was the sprinkle on top of this new life we're leading. I hope to document my new life as a mother in Zion and maybe help or entertain some others along the way. 

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