However, by January 2nd, I was definitely ready for a do-over of this New Year already. Jared's truck was stolen from the parking lot at his work. Great. As if we didn't just have two weeks full of unexpected expenses (new washing machine, plumber, broken water filter, etc), now we are going to have to buy a new car. Plus, Jared loved that truck and I loved that truck. It was paid off and since it's was a diesel, we were planning on at least getting another 100,000 miles out of it before getting him another car. So now we have yet another thing to add to our plate, dealing with a rental car while we wait for insurance money on top of researching and purchasing a new vehicle.
I woke up on January 3rd with a positive attitude, knowing that it couldn't possibly be as bad as the day before. Wrong. Jared's mom was over at our house painting the nursery for us and I was getting things done around the house. I let the dogs outside in our fenced in backyard to run around for a little bit and went back to what I was doing. About 10 minutes later, I went to let the dogs back inside. Here comes Lola, but Sadie was no where to be found. I then noticed that the gate to our fence was open and literally almost had a stroke right there in the yard. I then remembered that the bug spray guy had been there a few hours earlier and he must have not closed the gate back all the way when he left (let's just say that bug spray company got an angry phone call after this). I was in a state of panic...not just a normal state of panic, but a pregnant lady state of panic which is much more dramatic and emotional. Sadie is not the kind of dog that just wanders around leisurely or doesn't go far away from you. Like Lola for example...the gate was open, with every opportunity for freedom, and Lola was still sitting by the screen door waiting for me to let her in the house. If given the opportunity, Sadie takes off full speed and doesn't stop. It had been about 10 minutes since I had last seen her, but in that amount of time with her speed, she could be miles away by now. Plus, our house backs up to about 10 yards worth of natural preserve and then there is a state road behind that. I was terrified that she had run out into that busy road and been hit by a car. I just kept thinking, oh my god, first Jared's truck and now his dog is gone. He is going to lose it. I knew there was very little I could do to bring her back, so I just prayed that God would lead us back to each other. I grabbed my mother-in-law and we both took off looking for her. She ran across my neighborhood street towards the lake (Sadie loves to go swimming) and I ran behind our house to the big road. Mind you, since I have an IVF-made pregnancy, running is definitely on the no-no list for me. However, in that moment I completely forgot that I was pregnant and was sprinting as fast as a could. It had recently rained too, so all the yards I was running through were super muddy and it was about 30 degrees outside. I knew that Sadie might not hear or respond to my voice, but there is one thing she never fails to respond to, her hunting whistle. In the field, Jared uses this whistle to call her back to him and I knew that if anything would get her attention, it was that sound. So here I am pregnant and muddy running through my neighbors' yards blowing this hunting whistle, which is insanely loud, when my mother-in-law hears Sadie's bark. She runs toward the bark and yells for me to come in her direction. Some of my neighbors back up to a tree line which divides our neighborhood from other private properties. Her bark was coming from the private acreage behind our neighborhood. So I had to run through some yards, jump over a barbed-wire fence, jump across a ditch full of water and across some random person's property before I came to this redneck-looking guy with all the doors of his truck open and Sadie inside. Not to mention, she was soaking wet. He said that he was outside loading some stuff up in his truck when Sadie came running into his yard. He tried to catch her but she wouldn't come to him because his pit-bull was out there with him, so he went to put his dog inside his house and when he came back out, she was in his truck. Never fails, if the door to a truck is open, Sadie automatically runs towards it and "loads up". Based on her wetness, she obviously took a swim in the lake before wandering over onto his property. However, I was so thankful that she was alright. So we took her back to my house and had to give her a bath in the 30 degree weather since she was already wet from the lake. I was pretty mad at her, but still so happy that she was home safely. Losing the truck the day before was upsetting. Annoying. Inconvenient. But that truck is a material thing that can be replaced. Losing Sadie would have been devastating. She is wild and crazy and pisses me off so bad sometimes, but Jared and I raised her from a puppy for the past 7 years and she is irreplaceable to our family.
Alas, I am getting a little bit of a late start on my New Year's Resolutions. But better late than never, so here they are...
Exercise
I have been such a bad pregnant lady. I have barely been exercising at all thus far in my pregnancy. Due to IVF, I am so limited on what I can do as far as exercise. Walking is pretty much all I can do, but I haven't even been doing that. When you feel as horrible as I did for the entire first trimester of pregnancy, it is really challenging to get motivated to do anything beside lie on the couch in pain. Now, I am almost halfway through the pregnancy, so this is when exercise is going to become crucial. I want to maintain a healthy pregnancy weight and I need to be in better shape if I want my delivery to not be so difficult. Therefore, I must start a routine of walking regularly. I am going to try my hardest to go for a power walk everyday for the remainder of my pregnancy. Then, after delivery I want to get back into walking and running regularly to lose my baby weight. My goal is to run the Gate River Run in March 2015.
Let Go, And Let God
I used to be the kind of person who got really frustrated if I could not be in control of a situation. And then the last two years of my life happened and I realized that there is a whole lot that I have very little control over. I tried to fight it at first, but after two entire years of trying desperately to control things that are completely out of my control, I decided to just let go. There are so many things that only God has control over, so why should I frustrate myself trying to do His job? He will provide, He will take care of me and only He can do His job, so there's no reason for me to make myself miserable in the process. Things will happen according to God's plan and there is nothing you, nor I, can do to change that. During my IVF, I realized that I was finally beginning to live this truth. Never before had I been totally ok with not having control over a situation and not knowing what the outcome was going to be. I was actually surprised by how well I had learned to let go, and let God take over. One of my resolutions this year is to remind myself of this truth during 2014. There are a lot of things coming up this year that I am going to have very little control over...my labor and delivery, the health of my baby, my ability to breastfeed/care for my baby, and so many other unexpected things that I am sure will come up. While I will do as much research as I can ahead of time to prepare myself as much as possible, there is only so much I can do on my own. The rest is up to God. There is a lot of new and unfamiliar territory ahead of me this year, so I want to remind myself that when I am frustrated, overwhelmed or stressed, I simply need to let go and let God take care of me.
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