2008

So this was the first year that I didn't send out Christmas cards. It's not like I didn't have the time, I just didn't feel like doing it for some reason. Instead I'll just catch you up on some of the highlights of this year. Most of it is old news, sorry!

January- My sister Juliann was married January 5th bringing another Michael into the family! It was also the same day as one of the worst snow storms of the year. We just barely ended up with a reception! 

February- I had surgery the day after Valentine's day.

March- We went to Cancun, Mexico (one of our favorite places to visit) with our friends Jamin and Taneil, Andy, Janet and Michael's brother Chris.

April- We found out I was pregnant on April 30th.

May- It's twins! We also went to visit Michael's sister Nicole and her husband and kids in Utah. We had a lot of fun.

June- My brother Skyler graduates high school. 

July- I turned 23!

August- We found out we were having 2 girls on August 5th. Michael and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on August 7th with a week long trip to Vegas. We went and saw Blue Man Group again and had a very romantic dinner! Even if you aren't very far along in a pregnancy, Vegas is miserable in the summer!!

October- I was hospitalized on the 3rd. Bailey and Reagan were born on the 16th.

November-Reagan and Bailey both have heart surgery the first week of the month making it the most stressful week of our lives! Michael turned 27.

December-Bailey and Reagan make it home just in time for us to spend their first Christmas with them!

The girls first Christmas

The girls both came home on December 23rd, making this the best Christmas ever. We thought that Reagan would come home first and we would be visiting Bailey in the hospital today. I guess she decided she didn't want to be alone at the hospital and started eating like she was supposed to. They are both still on oxygen though and apnea monitors, which we are greatful for as they have alerted us to several apnea/bradycardias. So anyways, Nana and Uncle Chris came over to open presents with us. Poor Papa was sick so he stayed next door and watched us on ichat. The girls are wearing the Christmas dresses that Grandma made them. We couldn't find any small enough to buy so she used a dolls dress pattern for them. Aren't they cute? Grandma and Grandpa came over later with Uncle Skyler and we opened presents from them. The girls got some fun books and toys and lots of cute clothes of course. Mommy and Daddy got a lot of fun presents too but all we really wanted for Christmas was to have our sweet little angels with us, and we got that. Santa was good to us this year!

Bailey is on the left and Reagan is on the right. We kept pushing Reagan's arms down and she would raise them right back up.
The two best presents under the tree
Mommy and Daddy are a little tired. It was a long night!

Quick Update

I'm really tired, but I thought I should update quickly. First off we were told last Saturday that Reagan would be coming home this past Tuesday so we would need to stay the night Monday. Well Monday came and they told us that she wasn't doing as well as they wanted her to and so they were going to keep her longer still. We were devastated but my sweet sister brought up the fact that the Lord does things for a reason. And he truly does.  You see, I had been having some abdominal pain and nausea for almost a week. On Tuesday Michael noticed that my eyes were yellow, and by Wednesday my skin had turned yellow and I was exhausted all the time. I went to the ER for the second time this year and they ran a bunch of  blood tests, an MRI and an ultrasound on my gallbladder. My Liver enzymes were really high and my bile duct had dilated from 3mm to 11mm in 2 months which was quite a jump. This morning they had me go in for an ERCP where they put me to sleep and put a scope down my throat, through my stomach and into my gall bladder. There they found a large gallstone wedged in my bile duct, and it was not going to move. So they cut a slit in the duct and pushed the stone out. I woke up while the scope was still in and gagged a whole bunch. Yuck. And I will have to have my gallbladder removed eventually. So while all of this was very unfortunate and I'm kind of sore now, it's actually a blessing that Reagan didn't come home because we would not have been able to keep her at the hospital with us because of the risk of infection. And once babies leave the NICU they're not allowed back in so they don't contaminate other babies. So it all worked out. And now I'm even more tired after typing it.

Blessings and Thanks

If you can't tell after reading this post, I'm emotional tonight. This year for Thanksgiving I really started thinking about all of the blessings that we have received and all that we have to be grateful for. I realized that through some of the biggest trials we have had, came the greatest blessings. We dealt with infertility for two and a half years and the bitterness and heartache that came with it, went through surgery because of infertility, spent tons of money on treatments, went into pre-term labor, had two heart surgeries for the babies, and have to leave our babies in the NICU but... we have the two most perfect angels we could ever have asked for. I know it sounds kind of cheesy to say that they were worth the wait, but they really were. I would go through all of that and more for them again without hesitating. Michael and I are more grateful for them than they will ever know. They truly light up our lives and have brought so much love to us. Our hearts have literally doubled in size. It has also brought Michael and I closer together and reconfirmed how much we mean to each other. I now realize that I spent way too much time focusing on all of the negative and putting too much energy into being bitter, that I forgot about all that Heavenly Father had already blessed me with. We have a very rich and blessed life. This was taken on Thanksgiving. It is the first time the girls had been together since they were still inside me. Bailey is on the left and Reagan on the right

*Update: The babies are now in an open air crib together and are taking every other feeding from a bottle. Yesterday, Bailey took her whole bottle without any oxygen!