Stress

When we lived in Provo, right after we were married, I worked as a Birth Mother caseworker at an adoption agency in Orem, UT in order to graduate. I was taking a full load of credits at BYU, I was the only one working to pay our rent and bills at a local elementary school about 25 hours a week, and I was also doing this full-time, unpaid internship at an adoption agency where they needed me to be available 24/7. I'd wake up and rush to work, eat a late lunch while driving in the car the 25 minute commute to Orem, spend all afternoon running birth mothers to doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, Medicaid appointments, filling out paperwork, selecting/meeting with their adoptive families, answering phone calls at the agency, and basically never stopping. I'd come home around 6 or 6:30 p.m., make a quick dinner for Jonathan and then run to my evening classes that ended at 9 p.m. Then I'd start studying and working on assignments and papers until midnight. It was awesome. I dreaded my cell phone ringing because like I said, I had to be available 24/7 if the BM (Birth Mother) went into labor, needed emotional support, or just craved ice cream with pickles. Seriously. When I completed my internship I think I turned off my cell phone for a month. On principle. Just so I didn't have to answer it when I was right in the middle of something. If I had to do a delivery during the middle of the day when I was supposed to be at work, I was being paid hourly so we lost all of those wages from the day. Thus, our little grocery budget was literally cut in half with one lost day, and unfortunately there were lots. That was stressful.

After I completed the 460 hours required in the internship, I started having all of these doctor appointments because my blood pressure was so crazy high. The doctors were flabbergasted because I was young and otherwise healthy, and I was thinking, "Duh!" But after doing all kinds of lab work they were 99% positive I had a tumor on my adrenal gland, so they told me under no circumstances could I get pregnant, but they immediately took me off my birth control pill and assured me it was highly unlikely I'd get pregnant right away because the hormones would last in my bloodstream for months until they could figure something else out. Welcome Baby Lucy!! I got pregnant, and the real fun started. I went to various doctor's appointments probably 2 or 3 times a WEEK my ENTIRE pregnancy to figure out what was wrong. First in Provo before we graduated from BYU, then in Boise, ID while Jonathan was away for 8 weeks at Officer's Training for the Air Force (COT- the picture is of him coming home), and then at 7 months pregnant when I switched doctor's yet again and moved to Philadelphia. I showed up to my first appointment a total mess-- we'd been there 3 days and I'd gotten lost in Cheltenham (pretty much the ghetto) for 45 minutes driving aimlessly GPS-less until I found the right freeway and finally made it an hour late. At 36 weeks I was checked into the hospital because my blood pressure was getting higher (pre-eclampsia) and I had Lucy! That was stressful.

So, now we've survived almost 4 stressful years of dental school, having two kids away from family and without any help, worked in various callings in the Church here (Young Men's president, Sunday School president, Ward Clerk to name a few of Jon's), and I won't even mention the second year because that was stress that goes without saying, and now in 2 1/2 months we're finally ready to move on!! We set our move date for the day after Jon's graduation-- May 14th, because we pay rent from the 15th to the 15th, and who wants to pay for an extra month of rent if they don't have to, plus Jon's parents were going to be here to help with the move. We assumed we could move whenever we wanted and would just have to let the Air Force moving company know. We've spent hours planning and dreaming and figuring out how to get our family of 4 from A to B, and what we want to do first. Well, welcome to the military. Apparently you have to move 1-2 weeks before you start date (which is according to your orders and called your "Proceed Date"), which for us isn't until August 5th. Yea. So does that mean we have to wait here until August?!? I think we're both done mentally and physically here, and had our hearts set on moving into our first house as soon as graduation was over. So know we're trying to figure out how to salvage our summer plans (Disneyland, Sea World, Southern Utah, Island Park, etc.) and plane tickets, whether or not we pay to just move ourselves, how to get from A to B again, and basically how to get unstuck from Philly!! Now this is stressful....