My Life in a Nutshell

I grew up in a small little town in central Wisconsin. You know, the kind of town where everybody knows everybody and nothing much happens. It was the typical, uneventful upbringing and I was ready for some adventure when graduation rolled around.

I moved to the Twin Cities where I spent the next decade of my life. I got my undergrad degree in cross cultural studies. During this time I had the chance to go to many different countries in many different capacities. I  did everything from teaching women about hygiene and caring for their infants in remote villages in Bangladesh, to teaching English in Turkey. I preached in churches in Bulgaria and helped run day camps in Russia. My life was all about finding a need and filling it and through it I got a great sense of purpose and adventure.

The very last semester in college I met my husband. We had a whirlwind romance. It was magical. It was bliss. We started dating, got engaged, and married all in less than a year. I couldn’t have been happier.

Aaron and I had very similar dreams, so after being married only a year, we packed up our small apartment, bought tickets to India, Bangladesh and Nepal for an adventure and accepted positions teaching in Saipan. That is when we encountered our first hiccup. I was pregnant and the doctor was not okay with our adventure and the job was supposed to start when the baby was due. After many tears I came to terms with staying stateside for a year.

That is when we had my first daughter Serena. She was beautiful. I fell head over heels and entered a bliss I never could have imagined. Life was wonderful. I was married to the man of my dreams, I had an amazing, beautiful, perfect daughter, and we were hammering out the details to take positions in China that would allow us to teach and would pay for our further education.

That is when our lives derrailed. Serena was not hitting her milestones as she should so our doctor sent us to a neurologist. She assured us that she didn’t think it would prove to be anything major. She was wrong.

It took the neurologist all of three minutes to look at my baby girl and to say the words that would change my life forever. Serena had SMA which was bad, really, really bad, though she would tell me nothing more until the DNA tests came back. Our lives were sent into a tailspin that would last a decade.

Over the next few months we lived a nightmare. We watched Serena get weaker and weaker until we ended up living in the hospital for a month at which point they sent us home because there was nothing more they could do. We lived in terror, unable to sleep fearing that Serena’s alarms would go off to tell us she had stopped breathing and that we wouldn’t hear them. My husband had to perfrom CPR on her several times, bringing her back from the brink of death. We became nurses as well as parents. And one day she stopped breathing and Aaron couldn’t bring her back.

There are no words for the pain and heart ache of such a loss. It was simply horrific.

Our marriage began to teeter. I desperately wanted to be a mother again despite the 1 out of 4 chance that any child would die of the same thing. My husband was not willing to take that chance. The chance was made for us when I got pregnant with our son Gavin. The stress and fear of wondering if he would be sick as well was almost crippling. I was in my masters program studying Counseling Psychology and I just threw myself into it, functioning on fumes. Luckily, we got the news that Gavin would be fine. We were simply numb with shock and relief.

We threw ourselves into going through the motions, though oftentimes that is all it was. I continued working on my masters and Aaron kept food on the table. Less than a year after Gavin was born, we found out we were pregnant again and the whole cycle of fear and worry started again. I lowered my head and kept focusing on my masters degree. I was in my intership when I got the news that Arabelle would be okay. I couldn’t believe I was fortunate enough to have two healthy children with the risks involved. I was content. Our family was complete. I finished my masters thesis, graduated and we moved to Texas.

My husband and I got jobs teaching at a little Christian school. I found that I loved teaching and I started making a plan to become a school counselor. That’s when I found out that I was pregnant yet again despite our double efforts to prevent it. I was petrified. Surely this child would be sick. The odds were against us and I knew first hand that all the prayers in the world did not mean that God was going to prevent us from suffering.

It was with complete shock that I received the news that my little Lily would be okay. There are no words for the gratitude that I felt upon hearing the good news. I would not have to walk through that hell again.

I threw myself into being the mom of three children under the age of four. I thought I was going insane. We had one car which meant I was stranded at home most days with three little ones while my husband worked two jobs to help us get by.

It was out of this experience that I developed the idea for my book “God I was Supposed to Change the World, Now all I’m Changing is this Stinky Diaper.” The idea has morphed from a fiction story that I began and plan to finish someday soon under a different title, into a nonfiction book that I am co-authoring with my husband (check out his blog). It is nearing completion and I hope that within a couple of months I can say it is officially done and ready to start sending out.

I am currently pouring myself into motherhood, my book, and completing the process to get certified to teach special ed. here in Dallas. My passion is for stay at home moms who have lost themselves in Motherhood and for those who have suffered. I hope that my insight into both of these areas might prove helpful to some who feel as lost and deluded as I have often felt.