Baby update

If you want to follow what's going on with Gabe, go here.

Well, this is interesting...

So I feel like it's more than time for an update. It's been almost a year, so I think I ought to explain what's been going on. And why I haven't really taken the time to write.

Things were going really smoothly for Emma and I as the first three months of our marriage sailed on by (by the way, marriage rocks, even at this current trial in our lives, which I'll explain in just a little bit). In October, and after many many visits to the temple, we decided that it was time to start trying to expand our family. I know, a crazy thought after only three months of marriage, but we decided it was right nonetheless.

Two months went by, and still no progress. But at that time, we were focused on our plans on going to San Diego for Christmas to spend with my family. We did that for two reasons: 1. San Diego's closer to Rexburg, and 2. we had the wedding in Minnesota. It seemed only fair. My sister came up from Provo with a friend who was going to BYU and going home to California with us. After dropping the friend off, my family whisked us to Disneyland since Emma had never been there. It wasn't much of an experience since it was raining almost the entire time. It was still fun, but she wasn't able to get the full experience. I think it was because of walking around in wet socks and shoes the whole day, but I somehow got an infection in my toe, and it hurt to walk. Because of that, I went to the doctor's and they gave me some antibiotics and Vicodin for the pain. Now, I had never taken Vicodin before then, so I had no idea how it would affect me, but I knew of stories of how it affected other people. That and I also saw it firsthand when my dad had a hernia surgery right before I got home from Washington.

The day after I get the prescription (which was the 23rd), we go Christmas shopping. I couldn't drive because I had taken my drugs and was very loopy. Now here's how the Vicodin affected me: I could still understand what was going on, in fact, I remember a lot of what happened that day. I just couldn't control my reactions or what I said, all while thinking, "did I just say/do that?!"

Anyway, after we get all the shopping done, Emma takes me to the room we were staying in at my parents' house and shoves a soft, wrapped present in my hands. I open it, and find, wrapped in a lot of plastic shopping bags a pregnancy test. It was one of those easy to read ones. It read "pregnant". Now remember, I'm still high on Vicodin, and in my mind I'm screaming for joy. On the outside I just kind of stared at it with this blank look on my face and said, "That's cool". I personally think she did that on purpose just so I wouldn't tell anyone until Christmas morning.

Here's where things start getting interesting. On Christmas morning, we announced to both sides of our family that Emma was pregnant. The contrast of both sides was really amazing to witness, and kind of disturbing at the time.

I'll start with my side. Everyone had their suspicions that Emma was pregnant, but didn't know for sure until we told them. They were just as excited as we were, but no screaming of excitement (which I half expected my mom and my little sister to do). It was more of a "I thought so," moment. It was kind of disappointing, but at the same time, it was nice.

Emma's side though, seemed on the opposite side of the spectrum. This was the second bomb that we had dropped on them in nine months time (the first being that we were engaged after only six weeks of dating back at the end of April last year). There were a lot of mixed messages coming from her family like "Oh, you're pregnant? That's...um, great..." Emma took it pretty hard. She was excited and it seemed like her family didn't support her. Or maybe, they just didn't like me, and the fact that we now have a kid on the way means that they were stuck with me. At least, those were the thoughts that were going through my head.

Don't get me wrong, Emma's family is awesome. It was a rocky start at first, and I don't think I've won everyone over quite yet, but only time can tell for now. Not only that, but after they had some time to sit down and think about it, most of her side has gotten baby fever, getting onesies, knitting stuffed animals and other things. So things are a lot better now.

Anyway, on with the story. On New Year's Day, my parents had redeemed the Greyhound Bus tickets that we were originally going to use to get to Minnesota for the wedding to get from San Diego to Rexburg. Which seemed OK, other than the fact that it would make a 16 hour car ride into almost double the time to get there.

I will say this about Greyhound. YOU SUCK! Seriously. Especially the part from Las Vegas to Salt Lake. See, I can understand stopping every once in a while to pick up and drop off passengers. But to stop every two hours just to smoke?! You have got to be kidding me! What made it worse was that Emma was really starting to feel the effects of the first trimester on that ride. It wasn't pleasant. By the time we got to Salt Lake, we missed our connector by more than an hour. Fortunately, the people at the station in Salt Lake called another connector to take us to Rexburg. That did mean that we didn't get back until around 2 AM.

We got back to our apartment to get ready to start the Winter Semester. Emma's morning sickness was getting worse as time went on, and she had to drop two of her classes just to stay sane. The one class we were taking together we almost failed, but didn't, thankfully. Eventually, the morning sickness went away and Emma glided into her second trimester.

As the weeks went on, Emma kept getting bigger and bigger, which was a good sign that the baby was doing well. As 20 weeks rolled around, we were excited to figure out the sex of the baby. We went in and sat down for the ultrasound. It's a boy! And then the whammy hit.

It didn't hit right away, but it was just as powerful. After the ultrasound, we went to another room and sat there for about half an hour. This was unusual, since before (and after) the doctor was there within about 10 minutes. When he came in, he said that there was a complication. The baby had something called "gastroschisis". Long story short, his intestines were poking out of his belly out of a hole to the right of the umbilical cord. He reassured us (and further research and doctors' appointments had confirmed this) that it had nothing to do with genetics. And that it was easily fixable once he was born. Unfortunately, Emma needed to be watched closely to make sure that everything was going to turn out OK.

Again, the weeks went by, and Emma got bigger, but then the doctors and the specialists we had been seeing in Idaho Falls were noticing a problem. The amniotic fluid was dangerously low for how far along she was. We later found out that her AFI (Amniotic Fluid Index) was at a 3.6 when it was supposed to be at a minimum of a 9. The specialist put her on bedrest until it was time for her to deliver.

This was a hard time for Emma. It was good that she was off-track at this time, so she didn't have to drop any classes, but it meant that all she could do was lay around all day. The Ward we're in helped out a lot, bringing dinners since I was at work during that time of the day and in taking 14 credits that current semester.

At the beginning of July, we got permission to go to Salt Lake to meet with some of the doctors down there. Emma wrote a more detailed account of what happened then here, but I'll give a summary. She got admitted to the hospital because her fluid was so low. Obviously, she was released, but it was stressful night for the both of us. Before she was released she was taken off bedrest and was told that she needed to come back down and stay there until she gave birth. And she needed to be back down a week before my finals.

What that meant was that I would stay up in Rexburg, work and get my finals taken care of before I go down myself. I also had to get the apartment packed since we were moving into a small house about three blocks away. We still had no idea of when she was going to need to give birth. Eventually, we got everything taken care of, I passed all my classes and got everything moved. I went down and found out that she is expected to be induced on the 9th. In three days from the time I post this blog.

In the meantime, I had come back up to Rexburg to try to get some extra money. Hopefully, things will turn out alright and I'll post pictures of my son as time goes on. As it is right now, more then likely the next post I make will happen after I become a dad.

Wish me luck.

Soo.... It's been a while

I see that I've left a lot of people in the dark as to what I've been up to since my last post (other than the obvious). So, here's an update:

After I wrote my last post, I took a break from the dating scene, which is extremely hard to do in the climate created by BYU-Idaho. Honestly, I think I let myself become too invested in Annie and forgot to let things happen as they should. That doesn't mean that my opinion of having a relationship before a mission has changed. It's what the prophets have counseled, and from personal experience that it has formed.

Anyway, in early March I met the girl who would become my wife. That's right, folks, I'm married! The story of how we met is kind of long and drawn out (at least on my end) and it's a lot better told in person. If you want to know, ask me when you see me.

I also finished the trilogy I've been working on since I was 14. There is one production company that wants to produce it, but they've been dragging their feet as far as getting it going. So, I'm cutting my losses (so to speak) and seeking out others. When I started looking, I had another idea.

You take the quote from President Benson about pre-mis in relationships and make a story about it! I figured this would be easier to produce since it doesn't require anything other than actors and a crew, and sell that. Either that, or produce it on my own and have someone like Halestorm of Excel distribute it. I'll post the first part of it on my other blog "StoryTime".

As far as anything else goes, that's really all I can think of. Married life is great. You all should look into it. Just saying.

Bless your face.

Some people are idiots.

Be warned: I may name names here. One of the few times that I do, but we'll see.

Anyway, so there's a little more to the story that involves me from that night we went ballroom dancing. A cute blonde came up to me out of nowhere and asked me to dance with her. To be honest, I wasn't about to turn her down. Everyone who knows me knows that I never turn down a cute girl!

Anyway, I add her on Facebook and she gives me her number. We start texting almost immediately and start hanging out/dating/being together, whatever you want to call it. Anyway, the first day it's just us, I walk her back to her place and she grabs my hand, holding it for about a block and then pulls it away saying, "I shouldn't do this." She has a boyfriend back in Montana. What else, he got his mission call and is leaving in May. Another thing, it was long distance to begin with.

That didn't really stop us, though. I'll admit, the thought crossed my mind that I would be the RM that stole her away from her douche-bag pre-mi boyfriend, so I didn't let up. We watched a movie at my apartment, cuddled, and she kissed me. Again, I didn't push her away, but for the record, she kissed me first. Little did I know what would happen next.

She went home for Super Bowl weekend and ended up meeting up with him. When she told him what happened, he said that he wasn't mad and would give her a second chance (I think there may be something else behind it, like maybe he did something too, but then that's just a theory. I know I wouldn't have been so forgiving. At least I wasn't when it happened to me). That broke me. But after she got back, we talked and she said she would break up with him.

So she did. Or at least that's what she told me. She left to go visit her grandfather this last weekend and she sends me a text this morning, "I love Taylor". WTF?!!! Did she even break up with that dude?! So we have a long conversation about the entire thing. Over text because I would have just ended up yelling at her for "kind of, sort of, not really" lying to me. Her side was that she tried to break it off but that both of them didn't want to accept it. I don't believe it myself, but whatever.

So I look around and stumble across something that President Ezra Taft Benson said. "You can have a positive influence in motivating young men to serve full-time missions. Let the young men of your acquaintance know that you expect them to assume their missionary responsibilities, that you personally want them to serve in the mission field, because you know that’s where the Lord wants them.

“Avoid steady dating with a young man prior to the time of his mission call. If your relationship with him is more casual, then he can make that decision to serve more easily and also can concentrate his full energies on his missionary work instead of the girlfriend back home.”

I found that an others with almost no effort. And really, who's to argue with a prophet of God?

So I look on his page, just because I'm curious, and I see this as his status: "so i've been thinking....long distance relationships are pretty dang sweet. not very dumb. and as long as your doing the right things...then its all good:)"

Really?! Idiot! Honestly, I just want to punch this kid. For more reasons than one, but that was just the icing on the cake! This kid really has no idea what he's in for! Especially when it comes down to when he leaves on his mission. And both of them think that it's a good thing. Geez...poor naive little pricks.

In any case, as of right now, I told her to write me out of her life. I can't be in the friend zone with her. Not possible. If something happens down the road, cool. I'm not going to stop it. Honestly, though, I'm not gonna hold my breath any more.

2 to 1 We'll Pull It Off

This was an interesting day. I'm back in my element. Because of that, I'm actually able to help others find what they're looking for. I just hope I don't screw anything up for me in the process.

Anyway, what happened today was one of my roommates wanted to build a snowman for a sister missionary he knew on his mission. She had never experienced snow at all and wanted a picture of him with the snowman. He enlisted my help. I figure, why not? It'll be fun. Then I thought about adding another element to the mix. Girls. You see, he hadn't had much to do with that since he's been out here. Don't know why, really, but whatever. So I text one of my second cousin's roommates to see if she and her roommates wanted to go do that. She seemed pretty skeptical at first, but we won her and one other roommate over.

We go to Porter Park and attempt to make a snowman from scratch but that failed since the snow was nothing but powder. We end up building it from remnants of other snowmen that were destroyed by some teenage punks in town. Meanwhile, he and she were hitting it off beautifully. It reminded me of when I was trying to set up Spencer back in 2005. Difference is, that ended up backfiring a tad. Different story for a different time, though.

We take the two girls back to their apartment and part ways. I get a text from the girl asking if we were going to an 80s dance. As it turns out, that's not for another few weeks, so we went ballroom dancing at the Kirkham Building. That was fun. And that was when things started to heat up between my roommate and my cousin's.

You see, being raised by an interpersonal professor who loves to put an emphasis on body language, you tend to pick up a thing or two. Looking at both of them tonight, I saw that they were REALLY into each other, but while trying to not let the other know. So much for that, right? We dropped them off and came back to our apartment. Needless to say, my roommate was giddy the rest of the way home. It was actually really funny.

Anyway, we get back and immediately, the girl texts me and asks for his number. She actually beat us to the punch. Originally, I was going to text her to see if she wanted his number. That would tell just how interested she really was. But she answered that already by texting me for his number.

Now my dilemma. There are honestly too many girls for me to choose from up here. However, some are making it easier for me to choose them than others. And the weird thing is, they seem to just pop out of the woodwork. Kind of weird, but really cool at the same time. I am just wondering how this is all going to pan out. Granted, there are some things I need to take care of first. A job being priority number one. As much as I don't want to admit it, but girls are going to have to take a backseat to that for the time being.

Still, a little fun never hurt anybody.

I know you feel it, too. These words get over used

So I've been up in Rexburg for almost a month now. It's pretty nice being back, but at the same time I still miss San Diego. It kind of makes me wonder what kind of impact I made while I was there.

Also, I've decided that I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to the whole "unrequited love" thing. Granted, with this girl, I haven't even known her for 4 months yet, but I still can't stop thinking about her. And while there were a lot of girls who I was interested in and would have loved to see progress further than they were, there was still her. Unfortunately, there was and still is nothing that can be done. We both have principles that will not be broken considering the situation.

You see, the problem isn't that I can't stop thinking about her. It's that I see her almost everywhere. And this is never a good thing. I think I'm losing my mind. And the thing is, she probably never even felt the same way.

Sometimes I want to be the car crash

So, I think that people are trying to distance themselves from me since I'm leaving in three weeks. Either that, or the other way around. Whatever. It seems that for some strange odd reason, I'm alone most of the time now. What is really grinding me at the moment is how right now in the dating game, it seems that I'm losing to a pre-mi! What the crap?! What is wrong with this picture?! I mean, not to be conceited or anything, but I'm not a bad looking guy. So why am I losing to a dork like him? I dunno. I don't really have much to write after ranting about that anyway.