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Some days you’re strong. Some days you cry. Life after loss.

On By admin

As many know and some perhaps don’t, my husband and I have been through lots of loss ever since we were married in September of 2019. We have dreamt of a life full of children for longer than we both could remember. We had everything the way we needed it to be to begin fulfilling that dream and it just hasn’t been in the cards for us. We have seen many loved ones growing their families. Some easily and some with challenges similar to ours. However, we still don’t have a child. We don’t know if we ever will. That being said, life after loss is unique and never the same as it was before these experiences.

Many days we are strong. Many days we are not. 

If you know me, you know that I am a talker, an over-sharer, and I will tell anyone my life story if they show interest or inquire about me. P.S. I also want to know about your life if you are also willing to share. So feel free to tell me about yourself. I’ll listen. 

I talk about my losses frequently. The first list of reasons for this being a frequent conversation is that these babies matter to me, my losses matter, my grief matters, and awareness matters. When people inquire I run down the, now very long, list of what has happened to us; this includes what we have experienced, what we are doing now, where our medical and fertility journey is going, and how real and specific these experiences have been. I speak of our many losses. I give great detail about the very real, raw, and emotionally and physically altering details of recurrent miscarriage, miscarriage at home, surgery, testing, and our now 5 babies that have died. 

After many of these conversations we get a lot of feedback. The greatest feedback is that we are so strong. We are strong for being able to talk about our experience. We are strong for smiling and caring for others when we have so much on our own plate. Though this is appreciative… we have no choice but to be strong. There is no choice but to cope and move forward. The difference is that we choose to talk about it. We think that there is an importance in sharing this information as we feel that miscarriage is something so heavily shadowed. It is real. It is real to many people that you probably are close to that may have never shared this experience with you. We live in a society that hides the realities of loss. 

These realities are what need to be shared. People need to know what losing a baby is like so that others don’t feel they need to silently grieve. Husbands and wives need to know that they can be as upset and sad as they are because that is normal and completely valid. Losing a baby hurts. It doesn’t matter at what stage that baby was lost. Your baby died. You are allowed to have feelings about this. No matter what the feelings are. These feelings exist because your baby matters and your baby is now gone. 

The topic of sadness. Sadness is a feeling I feel deeply. I feel this every day, every week, every month. This doesn’t mean that I can’t also feel happy about the other aspects of my life. I am so appreciative of the life that God has given me. I am extremely blessed beyond measure. Amazing husband, family, friends, career, and overall life. However, those blessings do not take away from my right and natural grieving process to feel sad. Many people will want to discuss the positive things in life when you are grieving. Their intentions are great but that doesn’t stop the sadness from losing a baby or in our circumstance losing many babies and not knowing if you will ever have that opportunity. We are allowed to feel sad. We don’t have to be optimistic but we can try if it helps us.

I personally am a very optimistic look at the bright side type of person. I tend to be happy far more than I am sad. However, I still get sad randomly throughout my day or throughout my week. These feelings come without warning. We never know when they will hit. We may be confident and happy in one moment and in the next feel great despair about everything.

One example is today. I absolutely love Christmas. This brings me so much joy I can’t even handle it most days but that doesn’t mean that the sadness of our circumstance wont creep in. As I was discussing Christmas plans with my mother today everything was going well until I started talking about what Christmas will look like in my future. I began my next statement with “when we have kids we may want to do…” and then it hit me. I may not have kids. I changed my statement to “well if we have kids we would want to do this…” then I felt instant tears swelling up in my eyes because that is our reality. Of course my mom calmed me down, reminding me that you don’t need biological children to have a family. This did calm me but it doesn’t take the sadness of the dream away. It doesn’t mean it will still happen as the adoption and foster care options are also VERY hard. 

To close, we aren’t ready to throw in the towel on the journey of conception and having a successful pregnancy, though we know we can’t continue this journey for that much longer either. This is a personal and challenging journey. A journey that we do like to share. Though we are strong with our abilities to share and move forward we are constantly facing the grief of our losses. We are constantly reminded through our daily thoughts and routines that we have five babies that have died and we don’t know when or if we will have a living biological child. We appreciate God’s blessings and place our trust in him entirely but that doesn’t mean that we can’t feel the sadness of our circumstance. 

Life after loss is hard. Life after loss is sad. Life after loss changes you. 

Life after loss is never the same. Your life is changed forever.

Early scan of our recently lost twins.

Social media, negative comments, negative people, & the influence it has on everyone.

On By admin9 Comments

Social media is full of many different topics and images for our viewing pleasure… and some for our not so great pleasure. These posts go from political, to pictures of babies, to meme’s, pictures of puppies, to the news, and endless other topics. As we scroll through our feeds there are NO topics or posts that warrant fully positive feedback. This is concerning as there are many things that are shared on social media with pure positive intent, yet negative comments and negative people still warrant a response.

Recently I have seen a news video that showed how a business spent lots of money on Christmas lights to give people something to go and see that would spread joy through their community at no cost to anyone but the business owner themselves.

That’s amazing and so very thoughtful and caring of such a company to offer that to their community when covid-19 has effected what we can and can’t do as well as many people’s incomes. Thus, these families may not even be able to take their children to a light show as it is too costly for them with their income changes, challenges, or struggles.

Do you think that this thread would have only had positive responses since it is such a selfless act of kindness?

Guess what! This is 2020 when someone somewhere is going to find a reason that this isn’t a good enough act.

Some of the not so positive responses are as followed:

  • Wow, they should’ve used this money and the money to cover the electric bill to feed locals in the area (yes that would be a nice gesture, but it doesn’t take away that this could also be the highlight of a child’s or families year as this year has taken a lot away from a lot of people).
  • They shouldn’t have done a light show because they should just help the needy (again not saying that isn’t important, but just because there are many more important things in the world, doesn’t take away that this act was still kind and filled with intentions that would bring happiness to their community.)
  • Waste of money. Should use it to lower the prices of their food. (Really. It’s nice to see that while you are worried about your pockets at a fast-food establishment, the establishment is more worried about using their prophets to spread cheer to their community.)

Another article I stumbled upon was about how an embryo was frozen and preserved for 27 years and then used to help a family have a child gave them their healthy and happy little miracle. The mother is 29 and thus the headline of the article stated that the baby is only two years younger than her mother based on the date the embryo was frozen.

That is incredible! Science has never known how long an embryo can stay healthy after being frozen. This family now has a healthy baby that they couldn’t produce on their own. Even better this 27-year-old embryo was the sibling of the family’s other child that was preserved for 24 years. Therefore, this family was able to have two children that are biological siblings. That is an amazing thing. This couple has become a family through an amazing medical miracle. Where should the negative be found in that?

Some of these not so positive responses went as followed:

  • The planet is overpopulated and this is acceptable? Our scientific knowledge and uncommon funding would be better off used elsewhere. (Wow! First off I hope you never have to struggle with infertility and child loss when you want your family someday. However, if you do I guess then you will see how much of a blessing it is that medical sciences can help families have families of their own that may not be possible the natural way.)
  • Stupidity in people these days. (Okay. I guess it’s stupid for people to want to find ways to have children.)
  • No one cares. (Then why are you bothered by it so much that you have to post a negative comment.)
  • Technically the baby isn’t 27 because the age is only to be calculated from the date of birth. (Just because you disagree with the headline, doesn’t change the fact this was miraculous. Bring your weird negativity elsewhere.)

Anyhow… My take away from all of this is that no matter how good-hearted or amazingly positive a post is on your social media; someone somewhere is going to have something not so positive or negative to say about it.

Social media. The blessing and the curse. There are many positives that can be made about how social media shares news updates, new useful products, connections with family and friends, promotes your small businesses and can be an escape from life that we need at times. However, the negative is always going to shine through. There is going to be a negative opinion on nearly every single post that you see if you look close enough. We need to remember that this negativity has the ability to instill so much negativity in our own lives. Such as me writing this blog about how much negativity is on positive intended posts. It triggered me to write this as I was so angry seeing such comments on something that I know was meant with pure and optimistic intent. I have personally felt this anger and hostility that this type of negativity can instill.

Takeaway.

We need to work on being better. Not just me, not just you, all of us.

We need to realize that not everything we see is meant to be an argument, conflict, etc.

We need to remember that we can just scroll past some of the things that we disagree with.

We need to realize that we live in a world where negativity is thrown all around us even if we want to avoid it.

We need to make sure we aren’t consumed with social media as it alone can alter our moods and ruin our day solely because of the words of strangers on a feed.

We need to remember that there is beauty, kindness, and positivity all over the world and that we shouldn’t use the lenses of social media to see it because all we are going to see is the brokenness of negative people trying to ruin positive things.

We need to step away from our phones, computers, etc. and see all of the positive that truly does exist in this world.

We need not to be consumed by the negative in the world.

We need to not let this type of negativity ruin our lives.

We need to not be the negative that ruins the days, weeks, and lives of others.

We need to by all means go back to our roots and remember that in many cases… If we don’t have anything nice to say, then we shouldn’t say anything at all.

Miscarriage Maybes

On By admin

PSA: This is a no holds barred blog. It may be uncomfortable to read, hear, and understand.
But…If you have anything negative to say about it you can keep it to yourself.


Let’s begin with my stance. I don’t fall at the feet of celebrities. I don’t care about the royal family and I deeply don’t like Chrissy T. However, because I feel this way does not make me cold, negative, or have a lack of compassion towards their miscarriage and still born birth.

Why am I saying this?

Social media. Both of these celebrity figures have shared their loss stories publicly. Both of these celebrities have been attacked by many internet trolls that have a complete lack of understanding and compassion. What type of horrible world do we live in that people can’t understand grief when it comes to child loss.

The comments. Comments I have seen thus far goes as follows: she’s is doing it for attention, she’s lying, these things should be private, at least she has one baby, why are you mourning six months later it’s time to get over it, that’s what you get for your pro choice stance, it happens move on, it’s only a bunch of cells, and the list goes on.

Are you fricken kidding me?!

Why do these people feel this way?

Let’s dig into that shall we.

My guess is they have never felt the severe heartbreak of a miscarriage or still birth. The feeling of a wanted and loved baby being ripped away from you in what is some of the most traumatic scenarios you’ve ever endured.

Maybe they haven’t been the 1 in 4 or seen a woman and her husband crying because the plans they made for their bundle of joy are never going to be possible. The names they picked are now irrelevant and they may not see a family in their sights.

Maybe they can’t comprehend that a miscarriage or a still birth is a loss of a child.

Maybe they don’t know what it’s like to have infertility or recurrent miscarriages that play an agonizing toll on your physical and mental well being.

Maybe they aren’t in the 1%.

Maybe they haven’t experienced finding out that their baby stopped growing weeks ago and your body still hasn’t caught on; meaning you’re baby has been dead inside of you for weeks.

Maybe they haven’t experienced the feeling of miscarrying at home and losing so much blood that you pass out only to still need an invasive surgery to take out the remaining tissue.

Maybe they didn’t have to collect the “tissue” from their miscarriage at home to be tested to determine why they are having recurrent miscarriages. (The so called eight week ball of cells by the way have identifiable eyes when you’re collecting your so called “tissue”. Wondering how I know that?)

Maybe they didn’t have to go through labor and delivery for a baby that is no longer breathing.

Maybe this didn’t have to make funeral arrangements for the child they got to hold but don’t get to bring home in a car seat with a welcome to the world onesie.

Maybe they didn’t realize how insensitive and absolutely horrible they are for expecting families that suffer from miscarriages and stillbirths to suffer privately or get over their grief quickly.

Maybe they don’t realize that they are the reason that there is such a negative stigma that women are scared to face by sharing their stories publicly.

Maybe they don’t realize that we have the right to grieve however we damn well please and that we aren’t going to stop the process in which we grieve because they are uncomfortable with child loss.

Maybe they don’t realize that they can keep their negativity to themselves.

My prayer.

As a sufferer of recurrent miscarriages and a support for many other momma’s going through this trialing and hard road. I pray that we all get our rainbow babies. I pray we don’t have to suffer the wrath of negative comments as we choose to share and express ourselves through the grief of our losses. I pray the stigma of miscarriages and still births being kept entirely private be lessened. I pray that people have a better understanding that this grieving process is necessary and that our feelings we have towards our losses are valid.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes unexpected heartache.

On By admin5 Comments

Lets set the story. Things are going amazing and in the best direction that both me and my husband could have ever wanted. We became engaged and everything for our wedding fell into place in a short seven months. My husband and I were able to have the wedding of our dreams followed by the honeymoon of a lifetime (Maui was amazing and I’d suggest that if you can go there someday you should!). We knew that we wanted to start a family as soon as the vows were made. I began my prenatal vitamins that summer because we wanted to plan for the future. Then it happened!! A short couple of weeks after our honeymoon we received the best news.We were pregnant! (Whoah in the first month of trying! How did we get so blessed?!)
We went to our first ultrasound at 8 weeks. We see a nice strong heartbeat and we decided to share the news with the world. Why not? Everything’s going amazing and I’m feeling great.


Then comes the 10-week appointment. Still feeling great and we went in knowing we could finally hear the heartbeat and discuss the future tests and procedures that we would have to do with my doctor. However, nothing showed on the doplar. Neither the doctor or I were concerned as it was early and the doplar doesn’t always work that early. To ease our worries we advocated getting a sonogram just to see the heartbeat before our appointment that would be a few weeks later. There we are. Getting the ultrasound and I ask the tech if I can see the heartbeat (why wouldn’t I be able to? I saw it at 8 weeks). The tech responds that with this scan she isn’t allowed to show me anything and that I will return to my doctor’s office after it’s finished.


I should’ve known that was a bad sign…


I return to the doctor to receive the news that I was having a missed miscarriage. No symptoms. The baby stopped growing a few days before and no longer had a heartbeat. We were crushed! I was given my options and went in for a d&c a few days later. Losing that baby had to be one of the hardest things I had ever gone through. I asked the doctor if I needed to do tests but 1 in 4 women have a miscarriage. Many women never have a second one.

Therefore, no tests would be deemed necessary as they are so commonly a one-time occurrence.

Fast forward three cycles. There we were. The nice pink lines that said its finally happening! We are going to be parents in November. More pregnancy symptoms and feeling great.

The day of the first ultrasound is here. I feel so uneasy that I don’t even want to go. My husband had to stay in the car because of COVID-19. In I go. We begin the ultrasound and guess what… silence. The tech says I can’t show you anything you have to wait for your doctor. (Are you kidding me?).

Turns out there is only an empty gestational sack. Come back in a week to measure for growth in another ultrasound. (That’s not relieving at all when you know when you ovulated or when you had your positive test). Anyhow, I tried to cope that the news was going to be bad but also had some hope that somehow it would all be okay.

Next ultrasound they think they see growth but they schedule me again another week later to confirm that it really is another missed miscarriage with, yet again, another ultrasound (Week to week of heartbreak happening here). Once confirmed I chose to miscarry at home.

Miscarrying at home wasn’t a horrible experience as far as pain, except for the bodies natural reaction to pass out and in turn, scare this shit out of my husband (Excuse the language, it’s really a screwed up experience), oh and the fact that you have excessive bleeding and can’t leave the bathroom unless your amazing husband is willing to go get you women’s briefs (Hey honey, thanks for buying your new wife some women’s diapers. There isn’t anyone I would rather go through this garbage situation with. I love you).

Anyhow, a week later another ultrasound. Followed by the news of, hey that wasn’t enough to pass the miscarriage, do the pills again. Just great. Those were so much fun last week. Buy more diapers and get the prescription. We know what we are in for now. Follow up ultrasound and appointment with my doctor in a week.

What an experience. This is not at all what we expected in our life plans. Why is this happening to us again?

I never thought I’d be the 1 in 4. Then again to be even more unlucky to be the one with two consecutive miscarriages.

What’s next?

We are doing lots is tests and blood work. That’s a huge plus. However, we have to face the fact that it could come back that nothing is wrong and we don’t have any cause for why this has repeatedly happened to us.

Will it happen again? How many times can we go through this? For my husband and me, it is so very mentally wearing. For me, it is also physically wearing. My body doesn’t feel good through any of this.

What can we do? We have to rely on our faith.
Only God knows if and when this will happen for us and we will continue to pray and put our faith in him.

Believe me it’s not always easy to trust the process and sometimes I have to convince myself daily, but it’s the only thing we can do. We have a strong enough relationship with God that we can always get our mindset back to trusting in him. I’m so thankful for that.

As for me. I am strong but I am still heartbroken. I believe that all women should feel free to talk about their loss. To grieve their loss like any other loss of a loved one. You lost a baby, you lost YOUR baby, you lost a piece of yourself. Don’t ever feel that your pain isn’t valid.

Lastly, I’m not going to say it is easy to see baby announcements, pregnant women, newborn photos, and anything that specifically reminds me of the due date I no longer get to anticipate. However, I am so happy for all of them. I’m so grateful that they’re having healthy happy pregnancies, happy that they may be getting their rainbow right now, and happy that they will hopefully never endure what we have already. I can’t be resentful because I would never want someone else to go through this as we have. I’m happy for them even if deep down I hurt from our losses. That doesn’t take away from the happy blessings that are occurring around us.

I pray to trust God’s plan for us. I pray God will give us answers. I pray we won’t have another loss in our future. I pray that we will get our rainbow. I pray for all the women that are going through the same heartbreak.

I am thankful for my God, my marriage, my husband, my family, and my friends as they are the reason I stay strong. They are my support system.

 

Surround yourself with support

On By admin

Surround yourself with support.

We live in a world where people preach that we need to support one another yet we are surrounded by people that are still trying to put us down and stunt our growth and belittle our success. A lot of times we don’t even realize that we are being influenced by such people as we still think that because of their closeness to us that they must still want the best for me and that their thoughts and comments are continuing to be made in our best interests.

That notion is far from true.

Support begins with someone looking at you for who you are and supporting you in making decisions that, though they may be hard and not what we want to hear, are in our own best interests. As humans we are in a constant state of growth. We face changes, we struggle, and we should always be attempting to do our best. People that we surround ourselves with should be understanding of this and should take the time to be a part of that influence in a positive way. However, we are always going to be faced with people that though they think they are good friends and positive influences in our life they will allow us to fail by not supporting the actual goals we make for ourselves. As a friend you can’t tell someone that the choices they are making are always in their best interests just because those choices that are being made in that momement are making them happy. Especially when we know that those aren’t the right choices for them and are going to fill them with regret and remorse later on.

Don’t get me wrong there is no changing someone’s free will.

However, if you spend time talking with your close friend about how they need to quit shopping, start eating healthy, increase their exercise, or cut back on partying and then at their weakest moment enforce, promote, or justify their reasoning for why they suddenly need to buy that purse or go balls to the wall binge drinking then you are not supporting their growth. Say something like “Everyone has a momement of weakness, you’ll get back on track” or “try not to let your stress triggers mess up your goals”. You should not reinforce something that you know is a struggle for that person. We DON’T promote things that will bring the people we love harm.

This doesn’t mean we should condone them for their weaknesses either.

We are human. We make mistakes. We struggle. No one said life was easy.

As we are going through life working on reaching our goals and life aspirations we are always going to have setbacks, moments of weakness, and times where we go back on everything that we said we would never do. We make decisions that will hurt us, and the ones we love around us because we are human. We are always battling the changes and goals we make for ourselves when we are tying to break habits and become better people. The people around us should support us. We should have the influences of people that care about us that will try to keep us on the right path even when we stray from what we really want. We should always be trying to be better. We should be better for God first and foremost, better for ourselves, better for our husbands and wives, and better for our family and friends.

In the pursuit of bettering ourselves, the people that surround us should be supportive in our undertakings and goals and help guides us to our destination. They should not promote our setbacks but should show excitement and support for what we have or are working on achieving.  

The take away:

 

  • Get support and be supportive.
  • Everyone has his or her own battles and goals.
  • Success is found in your desire for change and in the support system you’ve built around yourself.
  • Encourage and celebrate the people that you love!

 

 

 

 

Keeping God in my Marriage.

On By admin

Disclaimer: This is a heavy one and it is based solely on my Christian beliefs.

As some know I am planning my soon to be wedding to what I would hope will be a life long marriage with the man of my dreams. That being said all marriages and relationships will face many different trials and tribulations. However, there are many aspects that make up a marriage that are important in maintaining the sanctity of what marriage is supposed to be in the eyes of God.

1 John 4:12: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

My outlook of marriage is a union blessed under God. To have a healthy marriage and relationship under God we should be a union of three in our relationship. The three that make up this union are God, my soon to be husband, and myself. Through all things God should be placed number one in our hearts and our marriage. For us a marriage without God is irrelevant as we are Christian believers and we believe that God put us together as a part of his plan. God needs to be a main focus in our marriage.

Ecclesiastes 4:12: “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

The next premise is that we should be putting the needs of our partners next in line. I am not saying that we should forget our own needs, but we are to become a union, a partnership, and one entity. Taking part in vows make us go from being two individuals to one single union. In this union we need to focus on putting our partners needs before our own. Focusing on God should be the first priority in the relationship and then we should place our partner needs before our own. The sanctity of marriage is based on this premise; which in today’s world, it is sometimes more challenging for couples to put each other’s needs before their own.

Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Taking a relationship through to the next steps means becoming one. We have to take the steps to remove our selfish ways and focus on the needs and desires of our partners. If we view a marriage for what it is, the becoming of one flesh, then we need to prioritize and be fully aware of our partners needs and hold them at a level of being just as important as our own. We need to prioritize our needs as a couple to recognize how our decisions, actions, and ways of life are influences our marriage. Once vows are taken and a marriage has taken place couples need to continue to work at their marriage to make changes that benefit their union. It is always going to take work. Every couple is going to face trials and a tribulation along the way but it is pertinent that we are putting each other first. As a soon to be wife I should put my husbands needs before my own and as a husband he should put my needs before his own. As a couple married under God we should put each other’s needs in a unification to work on meeting our needs together as one.

Romans 12:10: “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”

Marriage is devotion, a vow, and a journey with God that will take us throughout the rest of our lives. As we work to lose our selfish ways and to view each other as God views us by putting our partners needs first we will be constantly moving forward into a better and stronger marriage. That being said, in marriage we are always going to have our struggles. There are going to be times where we are mad at one another, we will be selfish, we will witness, and live through trials and tribulations. Knowing that marriage is the union between God and us, we should know that we still have to have compassion for one another in knowing that both he and I will make mistakes. We will act out in selfish ways and do things that will hurt one another, but so long as we make the effort to work on the areas that are causing our conflict we can get through with God on our side and in our relationship.

Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

Marriages will be tested. Marriages will be hard. Husbands and wives make mistakes. The important thing to take from this is that to make a marriage last the rest of your life we need to understand the sanctity that comes along with building a strong and happy marriage from the eyes of God. In our marriage we will most definitely face trials and tribulations. By facing these together as one union and working to right our wrongs and stray from our selfish ways we will strengthen our union in marriage. We will make mistakes, we will make changes for each other, and we will love and forgive.

Ephesians 4:2-3: “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Worship God, Take Vows, Put Each Other First, Face Life’s Obstacles, & Enjoy Life’s Blessing As Husband & Wife.

The guilt of being grateful

On By admin

To begin this blog I would like to start with the way that I was brought up. I was taught at a very young age to pray, be sympathetic, empathetic, kind, thoughtful, and understanding. I was taught by my parents to care. Care about God, care about the elderly, care about babies, care about my family, care about nature, care about my friends, and to care about myself. This is a great trait to be given as it has made me a better person for it. However, caring can be hard on an individual. When you care too much about others and the things going on around you, it can then wear and tear on your own heart strings. Emotions are a strong area of life and when you feed off of others and have compassion for others emotions and emotional states then these feelings can ultimately revert back on to your own emotions.

As some know I have recently started a large, great, wonderful chapter in my life. I have newly become engaged to a wonderful man, one that shares the same values, ethics, and moral code that I follow. We are planning our very soon to be wedding, and thinking about all of the future adventures that await us. Be it adding on to the house and starting a family, these are things that we know we will be tackling in our upcoming future as newlyweds. Things are going very well for me even though I am very busy, stressed, and working hard to stay up to date on all the areas of my life that are fully in place and moving at a fast pace. I always try to allow time for relaxing, self-care, fun, and adventure; alongside all the tasks that I am completing that are associated with wedding planning, teacher work, doctoral work, and the everyday housework. What I am getting at is that life is busy but I am blessed beyond what I could have ever imagined. That being said, there is still a guilt; a guilt that comes along with this feeling of being so eternally grateful for what God has given me.

Guilt. Everyone hears the word guilt and assumes guilt comes from feeling guilty that you’ve done something wrong or against your typical code of ethics. Guilt doesn’t have to be a negative thing. There is a guilt that comes from being grateful. I am grateful for the positives in my life, even with as overwhelming as life can be sometimes, but I am guilty for how much joy God has blessed me with when I know others are struggling and facing more challenging life events. It is possible to feel guilt from the over pouring generosity of the people that love and care about you knowing that they have so many of their own important things going on in their own lives. A question of how am I worthy of such great family, friends, and large life milestones to have blessed my life begins to overflow my mind. A feeling of guilt knowing that others have more important life challenges and adventures going on in their individuals lives, but they continue to want to take the time to be a part of my adventure. There is a guilt that comes along with happiness when you know there are others that are still continuing to struggle with how the cards of their lives have been dealt thus far. What makes me so deserving? Why was I blessed to be as happy as I am? Only God knows how things are meant to be. I for one am beyond thankful for what he has done for me. It took me a while to find my happiness, as it is Gods timeline and not my own. I believe everyone is where they are meant to be under the eyes and love of God. I am grateful of how my cards have been dealt, though it is hard not to feel the guilt that comes along with being grateful.

THE DOG GETS UP AT SEVEN

On By admin

THE DOG GETS UP AT SEVEN

For those of you that know me, you know that I have two rather big dogs. One being Gus, a one year old Aussiedor whom we adopted and the second being a 7 month old Great Dane puppy named Samson. They are both weighing in at 90+ lbs with Samson obviously still growing. This has been an experience all in its own with raising these two frisky fur balls. However throughout the house training and obedient training that we have been working on they have learned so much. 

Another disclaimer….

I am a borderline bossy, obsessive compulsive, control freak. Not that that is much of a surprise to some of you.

How has that helped train our dogs?

The dogs are on strict schedules; which is great until it is not.

As I mentioned before I am a bit of a control freak. As we were beginning to crate train the dogs I put them on a strict schedule where they went to bed at 8pm and got up at 6:30am, when I would be getting ready for work. They are so accustomed to this schedule now that around 7:45pm the Aussiedor is asking to go out and trying to get us to put him in his cage to go to bed. The Great Dane is usually snoozing on the couch because he realizes its bed time and will sleep everywhere and anywhere. Once in bed the dogs are in for the night (Other than some random times when they may really have to go; which they bark or whimper to let us know). Now that they are trained there are nights we attempt to keep them up later. They aren’t puppies that are chewing the house and having accidents so we would rather them stay up with us. Gus will ask to go out every five minutes until he is put to bed in his cage because he too enjoys routine just as much as I do. This isn’t something to specifically complain about but it would be nice on a cozy winter night to snuggle up with a puppy or two before bed but they still want those cages at specific times of night. However, I have noticed one challenge when it comes to the morning in which each of them went through.

The bark or whimper in the morning at 6:25. We fell for this… and we fell for it twice.

When Gus was about 6 months he woke me up five minutes before the alarm went off. I got up and let him out since he never barked in the morning assuming that it was close to the morning routine and must really have had to go to the bathroom. Turns out he caught on to the barking gets me out routine in the morning and within a month he was barking at 4:30 in the morning thinking that’s the trick, I want out. Once this had happened I realized that he was conditioning himself and me to fall for these antics. What was I going to do? Well for starter, I googled… doesn’t everyone? After some googling I realized that I needed him to come to terms with the fact that we don’t get up until WE hear the alarm clock go off. The next day it was 5:20 and the little guy was barking. I set an alarm for 5:25 and let him bark for five minutes and once the alarm sounded I let him out. The next day it was 6:05 and I proceeded to let him bark until the alarm went off a few minutes later. After a week he understood that we don’t get up till the alarm goes off. Great! We did it! Woohoo!

Then here comes Samson…

Gus is so well behaved that we decided he needed a buddy. Someone to play with, love, and enjoy spend time with; especially when we are at work.  This is great!

Samson is crate trained… Samson is now 7 months old… here comes the whimper.

Since Samson has had no problems with accidents in his cage any more he has been able to sleep in his cage until it is time to get up just like his brother. Then one morning he whimpers. This isn’t a usually a sound he makes so oh my goodness we should let him out, he’s been doing so good holding it I don’t want him to backtrack… and guess what happened… the whimpering escape the cage idea is now in his head.  After about a week of his whimpering and us letting him out and re-caging him until morning, we realized that this action was going to continue if we don’t do something. Back to the alarm clock strategy it is. It’s been three days and today he didn’t make a peep. It was a 7 o’clock wake up since we were on a two hour delay and my boyfriend and I are both teachers so we wanted those extra minutes.

We did it! Victory has finally won!

What I found throughout these situations is that our dogs right now will continue to get up at 6:30 during the week and 7 on the weekends for the time being. They may take a while before we are able to let them sleep in or stay up late since they are so adapted to their routines. (We tried letting them sleep with us and with their routines being so regimented that didn’t work.) However this is okay. We are able to keep them in their routine as best we can until eventually they may be more accepting of change.

What does this mean about routines?

Routines can be wonderful things that keep order, organization, and all things running smoothly. However, changes in routine can be hard. Not just for dogs but for us to. We get in these routines and once they are mixed up we can feel like our world is upside down. We get so caught up in the routines of our lives that once it is altered we can feel lost and confused. We can begin to feel overwhelmed because it isn’t planned out or going as our typical schedules normally would. It is good to keep routines but at the same time we need to be open to embrace a change in routine because our whole lives can’t always be a constant routine of actions. We encounter surprises and changes that we can’t control and we have to learn to be able to go with the flow when our routines break. We don’t need to feel like we are falling in a downhill spiral when things don’t go as planned.  Bottom line is, routines can be amazing but we all need to accept the fact that we have to learn to better embrace when our routines are altered and deviated from. Everything is still going to be alright even when we face changes that we don’t anticipate.

Gus & Samson!

A Doe. A Deer. A Venison Dinner.

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Hunting. Confrontation. My Disclaimer.

There are a lot of different confrontational aspects in regards to hunting that arise every year come hunting season. One is hunting for sport and not for food. I am not okay with this aspect of hunting and I don’t think you should hunt things that you don’t plan to eat. I was always taught if you aren’t going to eat it then why would you hunt it. I also believe that we shouldn’t hunt things that are endangered and I don’t condone animals being hunted primarily for they reason that they are exotic. Hunters are taught to hunt in a certain manner that is not to put such a negative connotation on themselves or other hunters because they face enough confrontation on their own just for the sake of participating in this outdoor sportsmanship activity. Other hunters that don’t follow the code of ethics that most hunters carry tend to ruin the way all hunters are perceived. I was raised by a family of hunters and we have survived winters on venison alone. If you do hunt and harvest a deer you can feed your family for a very long time. There are many perks and benefits from hunting deer that go unnoticed by some that may seem more relevant than previously conceived when you take into account some aspects of this outdoor sportsmanship activity.

Hunting and Better Quality Meat.

A lot of people hunt deer because they intend to eat the venison. However, there are a lot of people that their argument for not believing we should be allowed to hunt is that we shouldn’t hunt because we can buy our meat from the grocery store (Unless you are vegan or vegetarian for your reasoning not to hunt being that all meat alone is bad for you, then this statement doesn’t apply to you at all and you should do whatever you feel is best for you, your body, and your chosen causes.). Yes there are other meats available from the grocery store that wouldn’t mean that we have to go out and shoot to kill an animal. However, all of the meats that we can buy in the grocery stores are still animals that are raised to be slaughtered. Not to mention they are typically being raised inhumanely. Even those that are being humanely raised they aren’t living a so called “free roaming” life. They are still living until they get to size and then being slaughtered to be sold in the grocery store. Most of these animals aren’t even being fed good food. They are being pumped with antibiotics and other medicines to make them grow bigger and faster; thus leading the meat to not be nearly as healthy and nutritious. When hunters are filling their freezer with venison they are receiving one of the leanest meats that are free roaming to the fullest extent of the word. They aren’t all killed every hunting season and the hunting seasons are based on their specific population patterns. These animals are eating as organic as it comes and aren’t all going to be subjected to a slaughter house. The take away being that this meat is typically a higher quality meat coming from animals that aren’t raised specifically for slaughter purposes.

Hunting and Population Control.

Once you get past the meat quality aspect of hunting there is another very important factor that chimes into the allowance and importance of hunting. That aspect is about the topic of population control.  Even the hunting seasons are based around many aspects of the deer population. One aspect from this is to base the season around keeping the deer population populated. Another aspect being that the deer population needs to be controlled so that it doesn’t become over populated and dangerous. When deer are over populated they move into more congested areas and are more inclined to become a danger to drivers on the road. This isn’t just a risk to people that are driving in highly wooded areas. This is all people. The higher the deer population the more likely it is that deer are going to get hit on roads in towns, on highways, and in other dangerous scenarios. This is a danger to the drivers, the cars, and the deer. Deer that are taken out on roads in accidents aren’t able to be utilized in any form. They only do harm to the people that hit them and their vehicle. If the deer population is controlled they pose less of a danger on all of society.  The deer that are harvested legally are used to their best possible benefit and there would be less of a chance of people hitting deer with their vehicles as the population control would continue.

Simple and New Family Favorite Recipe.

There are many popular and delicious venison recipes that come to mind. However, this is just a recipe suggestion that I have found to be very popular in my home. It is super simple, it can be Keto friendly, it can be gluten free, and it fits a healthier lifestyle while contributing to the popularity of the new up and coming kitchen gadget the instant pot ALL while including fresh venison sausage.

Here it goes… It is super simple.

Ingredients:

1 bag of riced cauliflower

2 cups of homemade Alfredo sauce (Or one can of preferred premade Alfredo sauce)

1 package of fresh venison sausage

Directions:

  • Combine all three ingredients into your Instant pot.
  • Pressure cook for 25 minutes on high.
  • Release pressure (Please do this safely. It can be a little scary!)
  • Enjoy!

It’s as easy as that.

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Dwelling on the negative

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Has anyone ever noticed that as people we make judgments so quickly? As we go throughout our day we should pay attention to what we notice about people. From what I have observed we see the negative first. We always see what someone doesn’t do. Be it at home, the workplace, your relationships, and with your coworkers; we acknowledge the things that they aren’t doing far before we acknowledge what they do do (<–Chandler Bing moment ha!). I know from what I have seen people tend to over react when they think that they are doing more than someone who shares the same responsibilities as them or when they assume that a person isn’t doing enough because again they share the same responsibilities. In the home it could be a partner thinking that they do everything and their partner does nothing. In the workplace it could be a coworker that thinks they are picking up all the slack of another coworker that isn’t doing enough. However, we don’t take into consideration what the partner or coworker is actually doing. Maybe they are picking up your slack in an area that you aren’t realizing. Maybe that person is doing more than you think that they are, but not broadcasting it for recognition. Perhaps that person is going through something and isn’t realizing that you feel a burden on what they may be lacking in. That person could be assuming that they are doing enough because of the things that they are doing in the areas that you aren’t recognizing. We notice the negative before we notice the positive. My suggestion is that we start looking into what people are doing before we make a big stink and over react about things that they may not be doing. By all means if there are relationships in your life where we feel that we are taking the brunt of the responsibilities it should be acknowledged and discussed. However, we should take the time to look at what someone does do before allowing ourselves to be so bothered by what we think they aren’t doing. Try to look into the positive along with the negative. It will lower the stress and anxiety we feel, as well as assist in bettering our relationships.

*I don’t own the rights to this video*