Jaime

Today is a hard day. I go to say goodbye to my friend Jaime Shannon Hill and offer my support to her family. I pray for strength. And I pray for the family to also have strength and find comfort.

She was loved by many and will remain in our memories for who she was. She was a christian, silly, a giver, caring, and always there when you needed her. She was strong willed and determined. She loved her nieces and nephews to pieces and they filled her with joy, along with every other child that she came in contact with. Her selflessness was reflected through acts of kindness. She would have taken the shirt off her back if someone needed it more. No matter how much she struggled, she was always willing to do for someone else.

Jaime was a huge part of my life. There are few people in life that you can call a true friend. Jaime was, indeed, a true friend.  I remember sleep overs at her house when we were small. The crazy things she did in high school made everyone laugh. After school, she made sure she always stayed in touch through email. When I went through my divorce, she was there for me, always, anytime I needed someone. And when I became pregnant with my second child, she was one of the few people who stood by my side and helped me through. When I remarried she was there, helping straighten my dress before I walked down the isle and helping with my reception. We laughed together, we cried together, and we called each other to complain about anything and everything.
  

This was Jaime. She made a point to get together with friends and family. You could go months without speaking to her, and when you finally did see her or talk to her on the phone, it was like no time had ever passed. It was rare you would hear her complain about her own physical ailments, of which she had many.  I was blessed beyond measure by this woman for so many years of my life and feel special for every moment I was able to share with her and Sonny, her husband of 12 years.

The loss of Jaime is a hard pill to swallow. She just turned 32 years old. A mother has lost a daughter, two sisters have lost their sister, and a husband has his best friend, lover, and wife. An entire community is at a loss. Friend to so many, she affected many in so many ways. And now we are left with the memory of her.

It will be hard not picking up the phone to call her. I will miss the random text messages asking if I will bail her out of jail if.... Trips to Springville will be much harder. Even so, as I sit here thinking about Jaime, I can't help but know exactly what she would say if she could talk to me now. "Shut up!" Which would be followed by why I should be happy for her right now. 

Jaime went through so much pain in life. Wanting children of her own and not being able to have them. Being sick and the doctors not knowing what to do about it or what was causing her ailments was a regular battle. She was in and out of the ER regularly. But today, Jaime's body is sleeping, her soul has been released and gone to be with the Lord. And she has been reunited with her daddy Ricky, who she has missed because he too was taken too early. She has been given her heavenly body and here will be NO more pain.

Knowing this, I am trying to find a balance between my sorrow for my loss and my joy for her gain. Ecclesiastes 7:1 says that the day of death is better than ones birth. We have hope in Christ, those of us who believe and are saved. There will come a day when I know that I will be reunited with everyone I have lost on earth and be with them for eternity. That will include my friend.

We have no way of understanding God's Will. And in times like this, it is hard to accept. So I will leave you all with a passage from the bible that is giving me hope, and I hope that it helps anyone else dealing with loss.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

The Hope of the Resurrection
¹³ And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.
¹⁵ We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. ¹⁷ Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever.

A Princess in the Pod

Pregnancy: a period of 40 weeks in which an alien body takes over your body and changes everything you know about yourself; never the same; includes a long list of challenges; the time in which you either enjoy or suffer the side effects that occur as a result of being pregnant.

Now doesn't that sound more like what the definition of pregnancy should read? I mean rather than, the condition or period of being pregnant. After carrying my two boys, I thought pregnancy was an incredible experience that everyone should love and enjoy and never understood why some people don't enjoy pregnancy. Then came the Princess in the Pod!

Even though carrying the boys faced it's challenges, I loved being pregnant with them. The morning sickness was tolerable and into the third trimester I was fairly comfortable for being pregnant aside from fatigue, indigestion, being extremely hot, and dealing with having to prevent preterm labor. I cherished every moment!


This time, I have found it much more difficult to enjoy pregnancy and have only recently begun cherishing any part of carrying a princess.  I cherish that I only have 10 weeks left, that my beloved husband is able to see and feel her move, that my kids get a kick out of watching mommy's tummy wiggle and......well that's about it. If not for the joy that the kids have playing with their baking sister, there wouldn't be much enjoyment at all.

There are a lot of not so enjoyable things that happen in pregnancy. Things that don't get told in public and that aren't expected even if you've carried children before.Our little Princess has come with her own share of surprises. A lot of things you think you expect, you didn't expect even when it has happened to you before. READERS BEWARE! The following will not be pretty.....

Stretch marks. Everyone gets them. Well....most everyone. But with every pregnancy they can actually get worse!  I was thinking since I had a few from the boys, I wouldn't get anymore. I mean there were enough there and the skin has already been stretched to the point it barely has any elasticity left.  Wrong. I am beginning to look like a cat has used my belly as a scratching post.

Frequent Urination. We all know that with pregnancy comes the urge to "go" more often. But did you know that the more children you have the less control you have over it?  I find that I can change underwear several times a day with this pregnancy. Especially if I forget to put on a panty liner. I feel like incontinence is now a part of my daily routine!

Gas. Pregnancy causes gas. You will belch and fart like a man. And you WON'T be able to control it. Sexy huh?

Vaginal discharge. It's no surprise to most people that along with pregnancy there is an increase in vaginal discharge.....but what your doctor doesn't tell you is that sometimes it can be so much that it can soak your underwear and even your pants and your not always sure if you have just peed yourself. But don't worry....this is "normal".

Hair growth. With the boys, my hair grew fast everywhere. But with the princess, I have been plucking hairs from places where hair shouldn't grow and the hair that grew fast with the boys has slowed down in growth. Warning to all those who have had children or are going to have children.....pregnancy can cause NIPPLE HAIR!!

 Hemorrhoids. Everyone knows that these are a possibility when pregnant, that they can itch and that they can be painful.  But no one mentions that the more kids you have the worse they get! There are times when I feel like I have just sat on one of the kids toy cars and it's lodged it's way into my bum.  These things are giant grape sized and protrude and there is not a thing you can do about it.  Nothing makes them feel better and the itching always occurs when you are where you can do absolutely nothing about it. Example, your at Walmart and while walking around, your hemorrhoids become irritated and you feel like there is a giant bug bite between your butt crack so you begin to walk strangely when no one is looking hoping that if you squeeze your buttocks together hard enough it will help. But it doesn't......it only makes it worse. So when the lady at the check out tries to have a conversation with you which causes the process to take twice as long, all you can do is grin and bear it and hope that it goes away. Do NOT try to make it to the car to scratch because first of all it will probably just hurt to try and scratch and second of all....chances are....where you do....there will be a man sitting in the car in front of you staring at you like you have lost you mind. And at this point....you probably have.

Mask of Pregnancy. This is fairly known about. It's darkening of skin that you can get it on your face, nipples or your belly right? WRONG!  This can also happen down there in the nether region too! Your love button might be pretty in pink today.....but pregnancy can change that. The increase in blood flow might just cause you to be constantly swollen and the pressure from inside pushing down doesn't help. You add that light browning to the skin and your walking around with a camel toe in your pants! I'm just sayin'.

Having experienced all these wonderful new symptoms, or just a FAR worse case of them, with this pregnancy, and finding myself laying on the couch or in bed more than I do anything else to prevent preterm labor, I have resigned myself to the fact that this IS my last child. The princess in the Pod has done me in!

To all of those women out there that I thought were crazy for not enjoying pregnancy, I am sorry. I am being payed back for not believing you when you said how horrible it could be and for not understanding what you were going through. Even if I sounded sympathetic toward you, deep down I was thinking you were a wimp and didn't understand how you couldn't enjoy this beautiful thing. Wow. Was I a SUCKER!!

How our story begins

I met my husband, of all places, online. After an almost seven year failed marriage with one child, my big man, months of depression, several months alone with friends, and a bad dating experience, I was talked into joining a Christian Dating website by a friend. I, the divorced mother of a 3 year old boy, was a member of this site for several months and actually found myself making friends with a very nice young man through the website. I agreed to go on a date with that young man and we dated for a little over a month as just friends.  Even though a relationship did not blossom with this individual, I realized that not every man on earth was as horrible as I had come to believe in the past several years of my life and I was opened up to the possibility of dating and trusting men.

After giving the website a fair chance with no further progress, I closed my billing account in November 2008 and went to the free version because I didn't really feel that it was right for me to be dating at that time. In January 2009, I noticed a series of emails from the website in which they tell you who they think you "match". They were always about the same person being a great match for me. The young man in the pictures was very handsome and reading about him on his profile I thought what an incredible person this guy has to be. But I did not rejoin to contact him and figured if God meant for me to be with someone, he would place them in my life at the right time and place. To explain why, we will have to go back to when I closed my billing account.

During the stage in my life, when I have opened back up to dating and trying to trust in men again, I have become very good friends with a young man I knew as a police officer during my first marriage. We became re-acquainted several months after my divorce through a then popular friend space on the internet. We had lunch several times and would talk about our divorces and call each other when we just needed to speak to someone who was going through the same thing. On the evening of November 5th, I was on my way to church and received a phone call from this young man who was upset. He asked if I would come hang out with him and talk. Of course I told him ok and headed to his home, where I had never been.

After finding his home, I went inside and accepted a glass of tea. We sat down and started to talk and I quickly realized that this guy who sounded upset on the phone seemed to be just fine now that I was there in person. I asked what was going on with him and he said everything was ok and he just wanted company. The next hour was a very uncomfortable, life altering time where no was not an option or accepted and after which I quickly recollected myself and sped home.

Middle of December, 2008, I am sick and very tired and go to the doctor. Here I am told I am pregnant. I have spent the last month of my life avoiding this young man at all cost and now I am sitting here in shock facing the reality that I will never in my life be able to sweep what has happened to me under the rug and just forget about it. After several days of not knowing what to do, I call him. From here I am told to go have an abortion because he doesn't want nor can he afford another child (he already had two children). For the next several weeks I receive regular calls from him telling me to have an abortion. Finally, I tell him that whether or not to bring a child into the world is not his choice. He made his choice when he took advantage of me and now the decision is mine and I would NOT be murdering an innocent child. From there, I contacted an attorney for advice and moved on.

So here we are in January, 2009, I am receiving these emails about this man who is seemingly the perfect man for me. But in my condition, I in way, shape, nor form, have the right to enter into anyone's life. So, I move forward with my life, my work, and with my family. But then one day, while on a friends space online, I see this profile of a young man who looks eerily familiar. I am staring at a profile picture of a man that I have been receiving emails about from the dating site.

As I sit and gather my thoughts and try to make sense of why I have come across this profile, I begin to pray. "God, you are in control, and I trust you." From here, I send an email introducing myself and send him a friend request so he can view my private profile. He accepted and we quickly became friends. I told him I was with child right off the bat and every other detail of my life to explain why I am not dating. And his life was as much an open book to me.

We later discuss our inability to find normal people to date to which I responded, " Maybe, it is that our definitions of normal just aren't "normal" by worldly standards and thus finding someone normal is next to impossible. Therefor, turning over all control to God and trusting Him to His own timing, we simply wait for the un-normal to arrive which will be found perfectly normal on our own scale of standards." We accepted each other for who we were at face value. And oddly enough, he understood me.

I soon found myself on a date with this awesome man. It was a lunch date, in my office at work, where we were in public and I was "safe", but a date non the less which for me was a huge step forward at that point. A week later he came to church with me. After this, I found it much easier to begin trusting him and it wasn't long before we had fallen in love and were engaged to be married. He was eager to share parenthood with me and a new baby, he loved my son, he accepted me in spite of myself and loved me unconditionally, and I had no doubt that God had planned everything out for us to be together in this very moment and had placed this very "normal" man in my life.

Fast forward through time; Wild man is born, Matt and I are married, I go back to and complete school and find my first job in a Salon, and we conceive a child. Today, big man is in Kindergarten and the wild child is staying home with me while I am on bed rest, impatiently awaiting the birth of our first girl! Every fairy tale needs a princess, and our story is for sure a fairy tale still in the making.