She  was our first kid.

We’d been married two years and were only 24 when she was born—basically children raising a child. I am 5’4”, and this baby was nine pounds. I have a photo from my due date that still confuses medical science. I look like my spine was freelancing.

The pregnancy itself was awful. I was sick most of the time and had such a severe meat aversion that if my husband even ate meat in front of me, I would gag. Cooking it in the house was a felony.

My sister—two years older and my best friend in the world—was pregnant at the same time. I was due November 14th, she was due November 16th. Carrying our first babies together was honestly dreamy… until she went into labor five weeks early, had her baby boy, and I just kept getting… bigger. I was five days overdue, wildly uncomfortable, and starting to take it personally.

My job finally told me to stop coming in after my due date because I needed to “focus on delivering the baby,” which felt optimistic—like being home would convince her to exit. My mom, a hairdresser of 25 years, said, “She’s just waiting for her hair to be right.”
She was born with hair like a troll doll, so apparently it was a very high standard.

On the fifth day overdue, my husband decided it was a great day to go goose hunting—two hours away. I remember saying, “Are you sure?” since I was supposed to have had this baby last week. But it was his day off, it was goose season, and logic was not invited to the conversation. He left at 5 a.m., confident he’d be home by noon.

At 5:30 a.m., I started having contractions.

To this day, he’s still mad I didn’t call him immediately. But I got up, took a shower, cleaned the house, packed my hospital bag, and made sure the diaper bag had the perfect coming-home outfit. Nesting is just anxiety in a productive outfit.

He called around 9 to check in, and I casually said, “Oh yeah, I started having contractions at 5:30. You’re going to be a dad today!”

“What?! WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL ME?!”

“They’re not that bad,” I said. “You’ll be fine to come home at noon.”

“SCREW THAT, MEG. I AM COMING HOME NOW.”

He drove so fast he basically teleported. I was still puttering around the house when he arrived in full panic mode, unable to understand why I was so calm. I explained that it was our first baby and labor takes forever. I suggested we grab food and maybe rent a movie from Hollywood Video to pass the time.

He agreed—but insisted we call the midwife. She said it sounded like a long day and told us to meet her at 8 p.m. if things didn’t intensify.

At 8 p.m., my contractions were getting rough. She checked me.
Three centimeters.

Cool. Great. Love this for me.

Internally, I was thinking, I will absolutely need drugs soon. Outwardly, I nodded bravely and agreed to see her in the morning because I am nothing if not stubborn.

We went home. Things escalated quickly.

My parents—who lived four hours away—showed up, and my dad started timing contractions with a stopwatch. He’d announce, “Another one should start… now,” and somehow he was always right, which felt rude.

My mom told my husband to call the doctor. He did, the midwife said, “She’s just panicking. Draw her a bath.”

So he did. I got into the tub. One contraction hit so hard I lifted my entire body out of the water using only my arms and screamed through what felt like my skeleton being split in half.

“I’M DONE. I NEED DRUGS. I’M GOING TO THE HOSPITAL.”

My mom helped me get dressed and told my husband to call the doctor and say we were coming with or without permission. I collapsed onto the living room floor, crying that I felt like I needed to poop.

The midwife yelled over the phone,
“DON’T LET HER POOP. BRING HER TO THE HOSPITAL NOW.”

We lived close, so we were in the delivery room within minutes. The nurse checked me.

Nine centimeters.

I had gone from three to nine in under three hours. Turns out, baths don’t slow my labor—they launch it.

They made me wait to push because I needed antibiotics and an IV, which I immediately pulled out mid-push. The delivery was absolute chaos. She had shoulder dystocia, was stuck head-out for about three minutes, and had the cord wrapped around her neck multiple times. The nurse saved her life by dislocating my hips, and she shot out in an explosion of fluids that sent my husband fleeing the room to avoid losing his lunch.

The relief I felt when she finally left my body is still the greatest physical feeling I’ve ever had.

For a moment, though, things were very serious. She was born with no signs of life other than a faint heartbeat and had to be fully resuscitated. We worried for a long time about possible delays due to lack of oxygen.

She bounced back quickly.

My favorite story about her is from when she was four. She showed her dad a paper with her name written perfectly and a rainbow drawn in the correct color order. He said, “Look how smart you are! And to think I was so scared you were going to be stupid.”

She looked at him and said, completely deadpan,
“Huh. You thought I was going to be a boy?”

She’s 18 now, a senior at a medical charter school, graduating with both a Medical Assistant and Pharmacy Technician certification. She wants to work in the NICU or Labor & Delivery as a Nurse Practitioner. Her passion is supporting women who’ve had traumatic births—helping them feel seen and understood and addressing the high risk of postpartum depression. Her senior project is focused on researching and educating medical professionals about this incredibly vulnerable group of new mothers.

Turns out, she really did wait to get everything just right before making her entrance.

Meg's Health Journey

 

I want to share part of my story of reclaiming my body and life. I am currently 40 years old, but my story starts late into my 36^th year of life. It was a Saturday morning, I was tired, out of breath and frustrated, my own body was in my way, and was making a simple task such as cleaning my bathtub much harder than it needed to be. I don’t know why it was particularly upsetting this specific day, but it was. Something inside of me broke that morning. Weeping on the bathroom floor trying to catch my breath I decided enough was enough. I went from sad to mad in a heartbeat and stormed into my youngest daughters room where I knew there would be a pen and a piece of paper, I sat in the middle of my bed with this ratty spiral notebook and tried to think back to a time where I was happy with my body. I decided when I was 20 I was pretty pleased with how my body served me. So, I split the paper down the middle with a sharp line and wrote at the top 20 and 36. At this moment I just started writing down, to the best of my memory, what all my daily habits were at the age of 20 and in the 36 column I wrote down what I was doing that was different or the same. I knew that I had gotten to this point in my life by a slow change in how I was living day to day. I knew that it had happened so gradually that I never really noticed that it was happening at all, but I also knew I that I said a little prayer for the button on my work slacks every day that I put them on as he was being stretched to his limit too (I am just glad I hit my breaking point first).

There were some stark differences in my daily habits from age 20 to age 36, When I was 20 I lived a very healthy lifestyle pretty effortlessly because I was single and really just living for myself, I filled my time with working out at the gym after work and coming home to eat salad out of the bag on my sofa while watching trashy reality TV with my roommate, I journaled daily and wrote emails and letters to friends and family often. 36 was a different story, at 36 I was rushing home after work every day, to go home and make dinner that usually consisted of something very palatable so that my children would eat it without complaint, my only friends were my husband and my beer, and hadn’t kept a journal in years. Looking at the list I realized I had lost who I was as I entered adulthood. I don’t think I am alone in that; I think that when many women get married, they lose their way a bit, we sacrifice a small bit of our identity to become a wife and then we do it again when we become mothers.

I learned several things on my journey to health, one of them being that life doesn’t often change in drastic ways it is a slow-moving system, but, if you aren’t intentional about life, it will get away from you in a hurry. I gained weight at a much slower rate than I lost it, even though losing 60 lbs. felt like the longest most frustrating journey of my life. Losing weight was an intentional thing gaining it was a carless event that I had denied for so many years, it is weird how the mirror tells us lies.  Losing weight slowed down time because for the first time in my life I was living with intention, I was weighing myself everyday instead of a quick glance at the Dr. Office scale once a year. I was watching the clock and eating when I was hungry instead of eating when it was time, or because I was feeling gross feelings, I was known to be happy and carefree and losing weight brought out a dark side of me because I was forcing myself to walk through my feelings every day instead of shove them down with another supersized drive thru meal and a soda. I learned how to be honest with myself and with those around me about my true feelings. Those feelings weren’t always well received, but I learned that was ok. I wasn’t in charge of other people’s feelings, but was taking responsibility for mine for the first time in my life.

I used many tools for weightloss the main tool being intermitent fasting. Fasting was esential for me in my weight loss journey. Fasting healed my obsessive eating. It played a vital roll in teaching me how to deal with my emotions without food. Do I still emotionally eat.. yes sometimes I do, but I also have the tools to avoid it most of the time. I don't really fast anymore and have been maintaining my weight very well on a high protein diet. I keep an eye on my macros and make sure I am eating at least 130 grams of protein daily. I do functional strength training and care mostly about keeping my body strong and flexable enough to stay out of a nursing home when I enter my senior years. 

Watching my father spend 28 years of his life giving up, and growing weaker taught me some seriously valuable lessons, the most important being the quality of life I want to live is 100% my resonsibility. My dad refused to take responsibility for his health and instead decided to place the blame on his ancestry. His motto being "I can't change, I was born this way," Making an ample amout of threats in his last few months (post amputation) that my sister and I were going to end up exactly like him, that there was no way to out run this destiny that was waiting for us. My father was a smart man so I think many wouldn't understand his stance in this, as it is just not true, but my father was also very narcissitic and couldn't see fault in his own actions. 

Marching forward I will live my life as an example to my children on how to take accountablity for our life, how to cultivate a life of health and happiness. I want to teach them lessons out of a place of learning and love. I do not want to give them the what not to do guide that I recieved that came out of a place of anger and loathing. Life is hard, and there isn't enough time on this planet to get it all right, every year passing is faster than the last, start living for everyday instead of waiting for life to give you a break. 

Dad

 September 9, 2023 my Dad passed away, but long before the day he took his final breath, he quit living. Dad died from something that was compleatly preventable. Somthing that I refuse to let touch my life any more than it already has, Type 2 Diabetes. This is what I wrote and read at his celebration of life, it is all true but it isn't the whole truth.

My Dad was a hard worker, there wasn't a moment in my childhood where it wasn't evident that he was driven. Dad worked his way up in his career from unloading rail cars to eventually finishing his degree so he could run the show, being the oldest of 5 kids he was born to lead.

My sister and I were sent specifically to my father to help teach him some lessons that only parenting can provide. These lessons included patients, a softened heart, and that not every situation was within his control. (But to be honest he was still working on that last one) Dad always wanted sons but the lord knew better and sent him daughters. Mandi and I brought out a softness in him the world would have never known if he was the father of sons.

Dad's love was:
- vending machine candy hidden in his coat pocket
- a ride on his shoulders when our legs became too tired
- sharing his spicy sunflower seeds and pepperoni sticks our our way to or favorite camping spot
-putting the worm on our hooks so we could catch the biggest fish of the day.
-taking that fish off of the hook because it scared us a little
Dad's love was:
- 4 wheeler rides and finding the best Huckleberry patches
Dad's love was
- curfews, and hating every boy we brought home to meet him, also learning to tolerate the two men that provided him grandbabies.

As my sister and I grew into motherhood so did Dad's heart. As a PawPaw his love was sitting in bleachers, a sneaky 5 dollar hand off for a dollar store shopping spree. It was big hugs soft kisses and lots of laughter.

My Dad walked through the world with a guarded heart, you were lucky if he gave you any part of it. In his memory I urge each one of you to walk through yours with a heart wide open, because love is rare and life is short.

Toothpaste and Hairspray.

I feel like I read way to many articles on "what it is to be a mother" these articles are always from the mothers view, because we are so trapped in being in the here and now. Instead of that I would like to say what my mother was to me. My only disclosure to this is that I probably had the best Mother of all time. To get this into perspective I have NEVER heard my mother say an ill word about anyone, except maybe that telemarketer that called right during family diner time. She is seriously an angel, and anyone that knows her would not argue.

Motherhood to me is simply being there. My Mom was always there for me, and not just in the sense that she was in the same room, she was absolutely present in my whole life.  She knew what I needed to thrive and that I needed to come home from school and let out all of my frustrations or concerns about the day, and for me she was there to listen, always. She never diminished my feelings. If I thought something was big she let it be big, even if it was just that my best friend was too busy to talk to me at lunch time, as upsetting as that was for teenage me, as an adult I know how insignificant that was in her world.

I love to think about who my mom was when I was my girls' age, all I remember is Love, that indescribable word, it is too much to be just a word. It is rough hands to the cheek from a well worked day of shampooing hair. The smell of toothpaste and hairspray as she kissed me goodbye for the day. Not to mention the fact I could always count on her to help me out when I forgot my school project or lunch at home for the third day in a row.

She never let me down, she was undeniably 100% mine.

I will tell you what I don't remember. I don't remember her ever being frustrated or yelling at my sister and I. Although she assures me that she did get frustrated, and she let us know those frustrations. I just can't remember them. It gives me solace knowing that I don't have to be perfect all the time to give my children the things they need, a little bit of discipline and a whole lot of LOVE.

A Glass of Sun-flu-ay

This last week was ridiculous, by the time I got to Friday, I was DONE! I was such a grouch on Friday night that at 9:00 I told the girls it was time for bed. I was met with resistance as I do most Friday nights. They like to stay up later because it is the weekend and they think they have the leverage of getting to sleep in on Saturdays. Most Friday nights they win, I don't really care if they stay up, but this night I was Grumpy and dog tired as I had been up since 4:30am. I had no patience left in me. So I barked, literally I sounded like an animal..."FINE IF YOU WON'T LET  ME TUCK YOU IN RIGHT NOW, YOU CAN DO IT YOUR SELF!" I softened just slightly "give me a kiss so I can go to bed!" I hear Matt rush in as I shut the door to my room. I hear him tell the girls that it would be ok to stay up and read for a bit but to absolutely not bother Mom -bless his heart he knows how to settle us all down when Mom gets crazy.

I woke up in a good mood Saturday. To precious little kisses all down my arm, it was the littlest little, Piper. She informed me I was not allowed to leave my bed, Paige was making me breakfast and it was a surprise.  I agreed to stay if she snuggled with me. I smelled toast. I was only slightly nervous of what my precious 8 year old might be making, but mostly excited to see her creativity come out in the kitchen. I would love nothing more than to raise two girls to be amazing in the kitchen, and to not be  too scared to veer from a recipe, and make something their own. Matt on the other hand was mostly just nervous she was going to make him Pickles with raspberry jam on it and a side of  Sun-flu-ay (which is what the girls have named pickle juice when you drink it out of a glass). Honestly his nervousness could have been justified, as she has a weird sense of taste. I told him what ever she makes eat it - even if it is gross.  It was a delicious breakfast of blueberry oatmeal, toast with raspberry jam, a glass of milk and a granola bar "if we were still hungry". I was stuffed and let her eat my granola bar. I see a chef in the making, as long as she keeps Sun-flu-ay off the menu.

Back after a LONG time

I have recently decided that I should start blogging again. The kids are growing fast and I need to document all of their crazy antics so that I can have some awesome ammunition when they are teenagers. Right now life is hectic. Paige is 8 Piper is 5. I no longer have babies but I do have some AWESOME kids. They amaze me in so many ways every day. They are truly the light in my life - the bright spots in  my day that can melt away all of the pain and all of the stress.  Last year was probably the most trying year of my life - it felt like one thing after another was going wrong.

It started in January, My father in law had gotten very ill and was hospitalized with pneumonia, this was terrifying and Matt traveled down to Boise spending a week with his family as it had become so serious. While he was down there I found out we were going to be expecting our third child, it was a shock, as we were really not anticipating such news as we thought we were done having babies. We adjusted quickly knowing that a third baby would be a fun adventure, as we feel like we are doing a pretty good job at this Mom and Dad job that God has blessed us with. As blessed as this would make us we were still a little nervous of the extra everything this might mean.

March was the most trying month do date. March 21st I found out that the little life that was growing inside of me stopped. Just stopped. I was 11 weeks along, It was devastating and there are really no words to make it better. To be perfectly honest I felt like I already knew when I went into the Dr. that day, I had told Matt that we were probably going to get bad news that day. I had for a couple weeks felt very distant from my pregnancy.  It was a weird feeling that I had never experienced with either of the girls pregnancies. I have no other words for this other than, thank God for Matthew, Paige and Piper as they really helped me cope with this loss.

The next little bit is all a Blur. All of the sudden we were thrown into Donut season and spending so much time preparing every week for the next Saturday at the Farmers market.  -I love our little business but it is the most exhausting thing we do for sure!- In the midst of preparing for another season of Mini Donuts, my Mother called with the news that they were going to be putting Grandpa into an assisted living facility to witch bothered me a bit, but when it came down to it Grandma needed the help.

July, my father spent most of this month in the hospital with Pneumonia, this was one of the scariest parts of my year I was on edge for nearly three weeks praying he would come out of it and hoping I wouldn't have to make an emergency trip to the hospital.

October rolled around and the morning of the 19th I had just sat down to my desk at work and my cell phone rang. I thought how strange it was to be ringing at such an early hour since I start my work day at 6:30 am. When I dug through my bag to find my phone the screen lit up with my mothers face and I knew then that whatever the news was... it wasn't good news. I answered the phone "Hey mom, what's wrong?" she answered "We lost Grandpa last night" my heart instantly fell to my stomach. I still can't imagine never getting to hear another one of his stories. I wrote my memories of him and read them at his funeral. I think this must be how I cope with loss... is remembering who he was for me.

November Grammy, my Dad's Mother, had to have surgery to have her foot amputated. This was a smaller but still tragic loss,  I know that her foot was causing an awful amount of pain - but I still can't imagine having to live without a body part you have had for nearly 82 years. 

December was a wonderful month. we had a quiet yet wonderful Christmas here in Idaho Falls. I love being able to just be with the kids all day, and as selfish as it sounds, not having to share them on this day of the year. The girls get to play lazily all day with no hectic moments, while Matt and I get to Look upon them and truly feel and see how blessed we really are.

We celebrated our Christmas with our parents over the New year weekend. New years eve we got to see some old friends that we haven't got to sit and visit with in way to long, while my Mom and Dad had a pig out night with the girls. New years day we did Christmas with Matt's Folks and it was a wonderful night with good food and GREAT company, I love getting to spend time with my nieces and nephew. The 3rd we got to spend with My Mom and Dad, we did our Christmas different this year and in lieu of gifts for the adults this year we decided to have a fun day out, we choose bowling and the arcade with some amazing pizza to top the night off... it was a pretty wonderful trip to Boise. It really looked like 2016 was going to be a much better year then rotten old 2015.

I had not even been back three days when I was in one of the worst meetings of my career, I missed a phone call from my mother,  I was again worried, as she works later hours than me, and I am not accustomed to talking to her before 7 pm most weekdays. I shot her a text that I was in a meeting and would have to call her when it was over. I called her as soon as I got out, she said "are you home yet?" I replied, "No, not yet, I still need to pick up Piper and head to the bank, they pulled Daycare out of my check twice this pay-period so I need to deposit my reimbursement check, why what's up?" she replies, "call me when you are home and sitting down."  Well CRAP I thought, either they won the lotto or it is really bad news.

I called her when I got home, Grammy had Passed away that day, Pneumonia (I kind of HATE Pneumonia right now). I knew I probably wouldn't be able to make it down for her funeral, and that kind of killed me a little inside, but it was what it was, and the money for the plane ticket was more then I could put out,  So I wrote my Memories in an email and sent them to my parents, in hopes that they would enjoy it, and maybe share it with my close family back there. Mom did me one better and read it aloud at her funereal.

So, no more trials this year, the rest of this year is going to be amazing!!! I am going to keep this blog much more current so I don't have to write a long terribly boring story once a year.

Grammy

Looking back at what this wonderful woman gave me is a hard task to do, as she gave me some of the most valuable things in life.  She taught me what was real in life, to always live my life as honestly as I possibly can, and that me just the way I am, is the me I should be.  She taught me that I will be far more loved and respected for NOT putting on a show, but just putting my true self out there - flaws and all - for everyone to see.  She taught all of us to be our most authentic selves always, as she was the perfect example if that.  She was nothing if she wasn't genuine.

She also taught me that every penny is worth saving, I remember saving my pennies all year so that when she would come visit we could sit at the dining room table and roll them all into some hefty spending money.  Most of my memories of Grammy revolved around the dining room table.  Word searches and Rummikub with a bowl of Cheetos and a diet Pepsi. She had the softest cheeks and I loved to kiss them, her skin always smelled warm and slightly sweet, I will miss that.

So to say her absence will be noticed is a harsh understatement.  She was a pillar in this family, she held us all up, and led by a real example of how people should be.  To my Father, Sister, Aunts, Uncle and Cousins, fret not - as she lives on in each one of us, running through our veins we keep he immortal.  So do her right and live your life as authentically and as exuberant as you can.