We are having a baby!

I can't explain how it felt to see our little baby moving its arms around at our 12 week ultra sound yesterday. To be honest, it was something I didn't think I would ever get to see. Sam and I couldn't stop smiling, and I just wanted the Dr. to keep that ultra sound going for hours.

As a lot of you know, after working with the infertility specialist the first time around, I ended up with no pregnancy and a lot of cysts, due to all the injections. They told me that they cysts would take months to go away, and due to my body's reaction, it wouldn't be safe to try again. I went in a couple weeks later, and amazingly, the cysts were gone. They gave us the option of trying one more time before our move, and we went for it. The day Sam left for Hawaii (he came our 3 weeks before me), I took at at home test and it came out positive. The next week I went in to confirm the pregnancy with blood work, and they called later that night saying I had had an early miscarriage.

A couple days later, I took another home pregnancy test and it was still positive. I called in, to see why this might be, at they told me it most likely meant an ectopic/tubal pregnancy, that would require emergency surgery, and to come in immediately. I went back to the doctors for more blood work, and they called later that night and said that the blood work had come back showing not a tubal pregnancy, but a very healthy pregnancy. They re-ran the first blood work test, and found that the lab technician had made a typo and typed in “8” rather than “608” (100 and below indicates a miscarriage). I called Sam right away, and we both just sat there on the phone, in awe.

Sam and I are more grateful than we can say for this little miracle, coming September 16th.

Happy Monday Morning

6 am at Chun's Reef beats sleep anyday. The drive over was full of yawns, and the drive home was full of smiles.

Home

We made it! Our stuff finally arrived, and now it is starting to feel like home. Boy is it nice to sleep on a bed again! I can't get enough of this perfect weather. It still feels crazy to be able to go on walks at night when Sam gets through with his studying, and have it be breezy and 75 degrees at 11 pm. Sam has been busier than ever studying for his financial adviser exams, putting in about 14 hours every day, but we still find time to make it to the beach here and there. It is a weird feeling living here in Mililani where we are 20 minutes from the ocean, as before we literally lived right on the beach. We both hope to move closer to north shore in a few years, but for now it is all work and a little play, which is an adjustment after it having been having all play with a little work last time we lived here. However, it is still HAWAII, and we are so thankful to be living in such a beautiful place.

3 weeks = 3 weeks too long

We were being completely logical when planning our move. Sam would move over to Hawaii two weeks early to find us a place to live and cars, while I would work here in Utah to earn a little extra money for the move. Well, two weeks turned into three weeks when plane tickets were cheaper on certain days, and a week and a half into it and we are dying! I miss my husband, bad. What were we thinking? Being logical is not the smartest, I am finding. Especially when it involves me staying in 20 degree weather while my husband is forced into 80 degree, sunny days. I am counting the days!

P.S. Hawaii posts may not come for a while, as I packed my camera cord and who knows when our stuff will arrive.

2010 in a nutshell!

Bates' family reunion in Park City

Skiing at The Canyons

Moved to Provo

Sam started working at National Processing

I worked as a sub teacher, Jenny Craig, then Utah County

Ran Ogden half marathon

Sam got his dream motorcycle

Sam got laid off from National Processing

Months of job searching

Lots of infertility treatment

Sam got hired with Edward Jones

Decided to move to HAWAII!

Thanksgiving with my family in AZ

Christmas with Sam's family in Rawlins

Shipped everything to Hawaii, lived without anything for a bit

It has been a crazy, good year. So excited for what 2011 will bring!

Há quatro anos

Four years ago today, Sam completed his 2 year mission in Manaus, Brazil. He describes it as two of the hardest, yet best, years of his life. He loved the people he met there, and they loved him right back. Someday we will make it back, but for now these pictures will have to do!

What do you do when....

nothing seems to be going your way?

Move back to Hawaii, of course! As of January, Sam and I will say aloha to Utah and ALOHA to Hawaii.

Sam and I couldn't have enjoyed our time in Ogden more. However, since graduation and moving to Provo, it seems like our life has been misplaced. I have never believed in bad luck, until this last year. HOWEVER, the bad luck was not all bad. It brought added strength to my faith, my marriage, and my respect for Job :)

Sam's job not working out meant that he began exploring all options, one of them being Edward Jones. After a few months of interviews and paperwork, he has been hired on as a financial adviser. His office will be in Mililani, Hawaii. It's been hard to stop smiling since we heard the news:)

Things have slowly been falling into place. Like Sam's thousand dollar mountain bike was stolen, so we didn't have to worry about shipping it! And our car was rear ended by someone without insurance, who we threatened into buying it rather than taking them to court! We don't know where we will live or where I will work or any of the details, but we feel happy and peaceful and just plain blessed to be able to move back to Hawaii.

Scraping ice of the car windshield isn't nearly so bad when permanent 80 degrees, sunshine, and ocean are right around the corner!

Tubular!

Jill threw Matt the most killer 30th birthday party ever! That girl knows how to plan a party. We had a blast!

Matt was "Mr. T". Jill surprised him with the costume and he was a very good sport :)

Aaron ended up looking like an 80's child molester. You can never have too many blackmail pictures :) Sam's fanny pack was filled with a slinky. Somebody please bring back the fanny pack!

I sure wish this picture showed Sam's legs, because they were quite bare. Those were some short shorts!

The Bates Boys! I love finally having brothers. They don't get more entertaining than these 3. Sam got a little shy and changed his shorts, while Aaron was loving being able to show a little leg...

I really, really love this man.

Update

With so many friends and family praying for us during my fertility treatment, I figure I had better give an update... I am sorry to say that things did not go as we hoped. Normally it takes about 10 days of shots to get the eggs nice and ready (that sounds really weird). Well, it took me almost 30 days, which was very unusual (most doctors won't continue the shots for longer than 2 weeks). This meant a whole lot of injections and ultra sounds, which wasn't the best for my body or my wallet :) After a month I was finally ready, so they went ahead and did the insemination. After a couple of weeks of waiting, I could have sworn I was pregnant. I was feeling queasy in the mornings and was very bloated. When I went in for my ultrasound, it turned out I was not pregnant but had plenty of giant cysts - a reaction from having so many shots. We were ready to try again, but my doctor said it would not be safe to continue the treatment, seeing how my body reacted, so that's the story in a nutshell. We don't really know where to go from here, as there are no more fertility treatment options. We are, of course, disappointed but still feel like somehow something will work out for us when it is right. Thank you for everyone who sent prayers our way, we honestly could feel your support and really appreciate them!

So Thankful

We had ourselves a wonderful time in Arizona for Thanksgiving! Our week flew by. It was filled with baseball games with the boys, bike rides, shopping trips, huge breakfasts, my mom spoiling us, Flake family cousins and aunts and uncles, the best Thanksgiving meal I have ever had, Oregano's and Namebrands girl's day, Car show for the boys, late night games at Brooke's, and best of all - just sitting around talking and laughing with my family. It was extremely hard to say good bye to such an amazing family!

We went through Vegas on our trip home. Britt had never been so we stopped and went through the Bellagio and Caesar's Palace. After driving ALL DAY we came home to some snowy weather.

We split into teams and played Minute to Win It Games on Friday night. We caught Dad leaving them games when he saw we would be wasting toilet paper ! I told him we would save it for him to use later on but he called it quits :) The bottom left picture is my favorite, Brooke looks like she is in a diaper with a crazy hair-do, he he.

I got to run Brooke's first 5k with her! She always said that the running gene skipped her, but I have proof that it definitely did not. She did awesome. It was so fun running with her. Cody and Sam were thrilled to have their picture taken.

Ethan is quite the entertainer. He loves anything to do with sports, so we played a lot of baseball this trip. It is always fun to play with him, because he provides quite a show. He is really talented, but extremely competitive and almost every game ends in a funny tantrum. Here he is in timeout after throwing a tantrum :)

I literally can't say no to Kade. He is too cute. He LOVES gum, and has no problem asking around for a piece. He was hitting up all the realtives for gum at Thanksgiving, and when someone would tell him no, he would ask if he could check their pockets. Took em' by surprise every time :)

I need to take more pictures with Rhett. He is the sweetest kid I know. Whenever we visit, he spends every minute he can with us. I loved playing catch, jumping on the trampoline, and drawing monsters with him.

The actual feast... I don't think there is anything better than being surrounded by family (although we missed our Ashley who was forced to be surfing North Shore instead)