the best 4 years ever… by Jessica

four years ago today, my sweet, funny, handsome friend Jon became my sweet, funny, handsome boyfriend.  life has been more wonderful and more precious since that day.

today i am stopping to reflect on what a blessing Jon has been to me.  i am thankful for the six months we spent getting to know each other as friends before we started dating.  i am thankful that jon took his time to make sure that pursuing me was the right step for both of us.  wednesday, may 16, 2007 was probably one of the longest days of my life.  i think he had asked me to “meet up and talk” the monday before that so i had two long days to wait for our “meet up”, which we had schedule for like 9:15 on wednesday after choir practice.  and of course Chris Gaynor had choir practice go long that night.  from that moment on we were nearly inseparable.

in that moment i think it was pretty easy for Jon to love me.  i looked cute, because i had put extra thought into my outfit and spent extra time on my hair and make up.  i was funny, because i had rehearsed what i would or would not say.  i was basically the best version of myself that i could possibly be.  when i realize that, i am extra amazed that he still loves me.  i am not always cute.  sometimes i have morning breath.  sometimes i burn dinner.  sometimes i am too lazy to make dinner.  i have thrown up, peed and pooped in front of him (that is what pregnancy and kidney stones will do to you!).  my body is completely different.  sometimes i yell at him for no reason.  one time i threw my shoes at him.  and yet somehow, he still loves me!  i am so thankful for him.  he is a tangible example of God’s love for me.  he is an awesome boyfriend, husband and father, and i am so happy that he asked me to go out to Starbucks with him four years ago.

Crazy couponers?… by Jessica

I don’t enjoy couponing and I’m not good at it.  I’ve read the websites and talked to people about it and I just don’t enjoy it.

But today at Food Lion I was blessed by one of those crazy couponers.  We usually grocery shop at Wal-Mart, but went to Food Lion today because I had a $5.00 my entire purchase coupon and I knew I could save some money.  However, I also needed new shampoo and the shampoo I like is $1.50 cheaper at Wal-Mart.  However, when I got to my shampoo at Food Lion I saw that someone had left a $1.00 off coupon with it.  And you could tell that it had been clipped from a newspaper insert with scissors and that someone had just put it there for someone else to use.  Who does that?!  I don’t know, but I was blessed.

So, thank you, Mystery Couponer!  I appreciate you!

Mother’s Day 2011… by Jessica

Levi has been sleeping through the night for about the last week and a half.  It’s been so awesome to get a full night’s rest!  So, I was surprised when he woke at 4:00 on Sunday morning wanting to eat!  I actually like our middle-of-the-night feedings.  He started waking up just once at 5 weeks old and only eats for about 30 minutes then goes right back to sleep so I’ve definitely had it super easy.  After feeding him I stopped by the bathroom and went back to bed.  Sadly I was pretty wide awake, and at about 5:00 I realized my hip was hurting.  My left hip has hurt a bit off and on since Levi was born, but it’s really only if I bend the wrong way, so I thought maybe I strained it.  By 5:45 I realized it wasn’t my hip, but it was inside my hip.  My first thought was kidney stones.  Not because I’ve experienced them, but because I always think every little pain in my abdominal area is kidney stones.  And I’m usually wrong!

At 6:00 I woke Jon to tell him I had a problem.  By this time the pain was very intense and I was in tears.  A few minutes later I was vomiting.  I got in the bath to try and soothe the pain, but by 6:30 we knew it was time to get ready to go to the ER.  It was as painful as labor!  Jon called his parents to let them know what was going on and called Amy to see if she could come with us to help us with Levi.  This was very scary for me, because Levi has been refusing a bottle (even with the freshest possible breast milk) for the last month, yet I knew that I would not be able to nurse him.

So at about 7:00 we loaded up the baby and my sister and rushed to Duke.  I was in so much pain by that time I couldn’t walk myself into the ER and I could barely sit up in the wheelchair.  I remember telling the admissions nurses that I have a baby and that he needed to nurse.  I was quickly brought in to triage and was in a room by around 7:45 (super fast in my opinion)!  While they took my vitals and got me ready for the docs I vomited again and was shaking from pain.  Finally a doctor stopped by to see me (he was an interesting character… he was trying to make jokes and I told him straight up that he was NOT funny and to get me some pain medicine and after he left I told Amy that I was going to kill him) and then they pumped me full of pain meds in my IV.  Oh glorious relief!  Within minutes I felt amazing.

After testing my urine they saw that there was a lot of blood in it, so they sent me out for a renal CT scan which proved that low and behold I have kidney stones!!  Several in fact that have moved down and are responsible for the pain and unfortunately several in each of my kidneys.  Bad news bears!  So I rested for a few hours while they pushed IV fluids and then got discharged around 2:00.

Thankfully, Levi was a champ through the whole thing.  Amy and Jon took turns taking care of him and Jon’s parents came by for awhile and brought formula which he actually drank!  I was so relieved.  I am just so thankful that we have family here to help in emergencies.  I was thankful that it turned out to be kidney stones!  Initially the doctors all thought it was an ovary cyst or something similar and I’m glad I don’t have that to worry about!  And I am really thankful that Levi decided to wake up at 4:00 to eat otherwise I would have been in some serious pain at 8:00 from having not fed him in 10 hours.  All in all it is NOT how I wanted to spend my first Mother’s Day, but God worked it all out!