My Life is a Fairy Tale…Or Should I Say Soap Opera?

Oh I have missed you, my dear blog! Hard to believe that I let two whole months go by without writing! September was the first month since starting Meal Train that I didn’t post, and now here we are fast-forwarded into November. As more and more time has passed it has felt overwhelming to even try to get caught up on everything, and despite starting multiple posts nothing ever got finished.

That leaves me with the dilemma of do I try to cram everything in to the longest entry of my life (who wants to wade through that?) that no one will want to actually read all the way through (well, except for maybe Jaime or my dad…or me, ha!), oooooor…do I just do a series of shorter posts over the next bit about some of our recent momentous events (with pictures, pictures, pictures!) and get back in to the rhythm of writing regularly? That second option seems more palatable, although my prediction is this entry will still end up being super long. But I am determined to finish and post this, so here goes!

Just knowing that I got married almost four weeks ago, you can guess that things have been crazy the last bit. And then, of course, we’re talking about me here so inevitably there’s been some extra drama and practically unbelievable absurdness (hoo boy). When one of my close friends learned that the last night of our honeymoon involved paramedics, an ambulance, a fire truck, and a thwarted trip to the ER, oh, and that I was also (very) surprisingly now (very evidently) pregnant, she couldn’t help laughing and looking over to Jaime to say, “Well, you did marry Suzanne!” Indeed.

So yeah, about that whole “I’m pregnant” bomb I casually dropped there. You heard that right, I got pregnant on my honeymoon. My body does pregnancy weird, always has. I am sick from conception (and I do mean sick, throughout the whole pregnancy – constant throwing up, IV’s, sometimes bed rest), and I show immediately. Think, like my clothes don’t fit and people are asking me if I’m pregnant even before I can officially prove I am with a positive test (even though I can tell right away when I am pregnant, doctors won’t take me seriously until I’ve had that “official confirmation”). And then there’s the issue that my body struggles with staying pregnant. Before this marriage I had had six miscarriages, two of them farther along and life threatening. Plus, I am 43 and Jaime is 50, and we already have six beautiful children as well as grand plans for the future, so we had no intentions of expanding our family with a new baby (or babies? twins anyone?). Yes, we were responsibly preventing that and had been to a doctor before the wedding to “take care of things,” but apparently they didn’t account for this Fertile Myrtle here (it took years for me to get pregnant with A, but since then I have gotten pregnant twice with an IUD, and even while on the pill and using condoms – !!!).

Not exactly the blissful start to our marriage we would have chosen! But in truth, being married has been wonderful, like a dream, and I have never had any regrets. I love being Mrs. Jaime Espinoza, and (so far!) the transition at home with kids has been much smoother than we could have anticipated. He is so good to and for us. But poor Jaime! While he assures me that it’s pretty great being married to me too (I am amazing after all, right?), I’m not sure he could have completely understood what he was signing up for by marrying in to the crazy circus that has become my life. (I told him he should have read all of my blog before we got married!) These first few weeks of marriage have looked as follows:

October 10th: We get married! It was insanity pulling everything together beforehand and pushed me right up to the edge of what I could handle, but I thankfully had an absolute army of angels helping me, and the actual day was simply magical. Exactly what we had hoped for. I plan to dedicate a full post to the wedding and reception, and hopefully get caught up with all of the things that happened in those six weeks leading up to it (the most memorable being that Jaime’s son, daughter, and nephew were all able to fly here from Chile, their first times in the United States), but just know that the wedding itself was beautiful, and the reception was a PARTY! We’re still not certain how many hundreds of people there were throughout the evening, plus we had so much great food (Chilean and American), so much dancing (including authentic Chilean dancers who performed the cueca), and people, people, people! We had that Provo library ballroom packed. (Many many more pictures and descriptions to follow, but here’s a sneak peak of a few.)

Head to Midway for a five and a half day honeymoon (this should get its own post too). We plan to go to Chile next year for a longer trip, but for now Midway was just right. Close enough to the kids if something had happened (always a possibility with A especially), but enough removed from regular life. Not to mention it was gorgeous there. Our first full day there I remarked that I had not been that unstressed and relaxed in more than three years. It was wonderful.

Day 3 of being married: My grandfather passes away. Other than his age (93) it was unexpected. Opa had just spoken at our marriage, and then quietly passed away at home. Introduce griefy wife (because, as anyone who has experienced loss knows, any new grief brings up all the grief).

Day 4 of being married: Suzanne starts vomiting and “not feeling well.” And is she putting on a few pounds?

Last night of honeymoon: Looks like we may have carbon monoxide poisoning. Cannot go back in room for nearly whole night, issues with getting a new one, extensive checking out from paramedics, a whole lot of fun and excitement. (At that point we were attributing my vomiting to possible carbon monoxide poisoning.)

Day 6 of being married: So tired!!!! Head home and first thing need to tell the kids that their beloved great-grandfather has passed away (I wanted to be able to tell them in person). Cue mega grief. Start to adjust to being a blended family.

Day 7 of being married: Suzanne is still not feeling well. Why are my pants feeling so tight? And what in the world, how have I gained five pounds in a week!?!

Day 8 of being married: Cannot stop vomiting. So, so, so sick. Have to miss work. So dehydrated and cannot stand unassisted.

Day 10 of being married, my stomach looks like this!!!!

Now, I shouldn’t really have to say this, but at that point there was absolutely no possibility of my being more than 10 days pregnant (since I have it on good authority that immaculate conception was really a one-time-in-the-history-of-the-world thing), and our best guess was I was only six days along. What the what?! (For comparison I’ll include a picture of me in my wedding dress – my stomach was certainly much flatter for my wedding!) We schedule my (first) appointment with the doctor, who cannot believe the symptoms I’m having (this was the same doctor who had just seen me two weeks prior so she knew how much my body had changed). At least am able to get nausea medication so able to reduce frequency of vomiting, although still constantly nauseous (and still throwing up every day). Unable to hide the belly so am relegated to constantly wearing a coat when out in public.

Day 12 of marriage: Attend my grandfather’s funeral. Tender day for everyone. It’s a trick trying to hide how sick and HUGE I am, especially since I need to get up in front of everyone and give the opening prayer.

So much in less than two weeks! Don’t worry, I won’t continue to give a play by play account of nearly every day of our fledgling marriage. But it has been intense. The day we were finally able to confirm that I was pregnant, I started losing the baby that evening. For how early I was in the pregnancy, this has been an especially nasty miscarriage. My iron counts dropped 150 points, and I’ve been pretty weak. Ended up in the ER (I feel like I should have some sort of frequent visitor punch card by now – 10th visit free!) monitoring some of those symptoms but also because I had the most severe asthma attack I’ve ever had. Scary.

So yes, life continues to be interesting! (Did you expect anything less from me?) My dad used the word complicated to describe my life when he was talking with Jaime, but I think I’ll stick with interesting. Ha. Hopefully you’ll start seeing more regular posts from me soon (otherwise who knows what new catastrophe or complication people might be imagining is happening for the Sawyer-Espinoza family!). And never fear, I am recovering and trying to take it easy, even though that isn’t easy for me. Jaime is taking good care of me, and the kids are being great, too. I continue to choose happy and I truly am loving this fairy tale life of mine. (Although no longer being constantly nauseous is certainly making that easier!)