Baby #3

 FEBRUARY 2021

At the end of February Emily found out she was pregnant. This was an exciting time, and Emily was especially excited because it worked out perfectly with how our kids would be spaced apart. She figured out the due date would be set for Nov 11th, the same time Rissa was due with her baby (Who we now have come to know as Luca). So having a baby due at the exact same time as one of our siblings added even more to the excitement.

MARCH 2021

Early on in the pregnancy, Emily was feeling the typical nausea and discomfort, but noted it wasn't quite to the extent that she had felt it with the girls. When we went down to Arizona for spring training in March, she was worried it would be about the time she would start throwing up, and didn't want people to get suspicious.

Emily never threw up, and because the nausea wasn't terrible, she started making the comment that maybe something was wrong. She typically would've thrown up by now. It was still very early, and since some have said that a pregnancy with boys is easier, maybe that was a factor. Either way, our excitement started to get clouded with a little bit of concern.

APRIL 2021

Cambri's birthday fell on the Monday after General Conference and Easter, and Gma Rae and Gpa Dale came to celebrate with us. Leading up to the weekend, Emily started feeling more concerned, so much so she went in for some blood tests to see where her hcg levels were at. One of the tell-tale signs that really concerned Emily, aside from never throwing up, was that while laying on her right side she stopped feeling nauseous. While pregnant, she has always felt nauseous when laying on her right side. Welp, Monday night, before the test results could come back, Emily came out of the bathroom certain she had just miscarried. This was confirmed when the test results came in showing her hcg levels had been dropping significantly.

This was obviously difficult. Tons of different thoughts and feelings flooded in. We pondered very interesting questions that we had never really been faced with before, or at least, hadn't been forced to stop and think about for too long. The obvious being, when does the spirit enter the body? Or when does life begin? The miscarriage occured just short of 8 weeks. So, even though still extremely early, at 8 weeks that fetus has a heart beat and brain function. But when does the spirit connect to the body? If it happens that early, what then happens to the spirit assigned to that body? What helped, despite not having the answers to all these types of questions, and being left to speculate based on what we did know, was our knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. Because of that, we were okay with each conclusion we eventually came to.

Overall, there was obviously a massive feeling of loss, and that really sucked. Emily kept saying something to the extent of, "how can I miss something so much that I didn't even get to have?"

Through all of it, as hard as it was to lose the pregnancy, Emily's main concern was what now happens to that spirit child and how will they know they won't be forgotten?

SUMMER 2021

We had read that right after a miscarriage a woman is at her most fertile, so we were hoping and optimistic that we could get pregnant again real quick.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The summer charged on and our efforts were unsuccessful. Which, obviously adds on a lot of anxiety and stress.

FALL 2021

Earlier in the year we made the decision to stay home for Thanksgiving and Christmas because we were expecting to have a newborn, and wouldn't want to travel. Since that was no longer the case, we still felt like staying home. Which, turned out to be quite a nice change from the usual traveling.

We did, however, decide to take a trip to the Oregon Coast on the weekend of November 11th, the weekend the baby would've been due. This was our little way of hoping to keep our minds off of it all. One night on this trip, after the girls had gone to bed, while Emily and I were talking, we were overcome with a massive wave of emotion. Now, during the past few months, Emily would get mad at me for not showing enough emotion. Well, I think she got more of it all at once than she expected. Anyway, we had an overwhelming feeling of comfort and were encouraged for our future, however it played out.

28 NOVEMBER 2021

It was time to take a pregnancy test again, and to Emily's dismay, it came back negative. So, once again another discouraging day. A little bit later she came up to me with the test, adament that there was a line, even if super faint. The only way I could see it was to hold a flashlight up to it. We had a leftover digital test, so she used it to try to confirm, but it came back with a faulty error message, of course. So, I went to the store real quick to pick up another one. Sure enough, it came back with the word "pregnant" on it.

Feelings of gratitude and happiness were obvious. It was the lifting of a lot of anxiety. However, as excited as we were, we knew we'd always have the thought in the back of our heads now that we weren't out of the woods yet. So there was some cautious optimism mixed in. Either way, we were extremely excited.

8 DECEMBER 2021 - 5 WEEKS

As is tradition, Emily will be taking progress pictures every five weeks. 

As also is tradition, and maybe the most important one, we went to Taste of India for our celebratory dinner. It is well worth the hour drive for this Tikka Masala. The girls weren't brave enough to try any, so they they settled for rice and naan. I think they did dabble a little in Emily's Saag, though.

12 JANUARY 2022 - 10 WEEKS

Emily had her first appointment, and they confirmed she was indeed pregnant. They did an ultrasound to prove it, too. At this appointment they also did a genetic blood test, which would also tell us the gender. Results came back a few days later, letting us know we would be having another girl.

16 FEBRUARY - 15 WEEKS

Emily is progressing right along where she needs to be. As usual, she's throwing up nearly every day. There was one day in particular where she just couldn't keep anything down. It got to the point where we took her to instacare so they could give her an IV. She's done much better since then.

Pregnancies have always been rough for Emily, and this one has not been an exception.

9 MARCH 2022

One thing we've done with the prior pregnancy announcements, is take a picture in front of a well-known landmark of some sort. With Hadley it was Buckingham Palace and with Cambri it was Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach. We had actually taken the photo we intended to use for the pregnancy that resulted in a miscarriage, that one would've been the Grand Canyon. Well, for this one we decided to do the Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. This was one of the reasons we chose to take a trip to Utah a couple of weeks ago.

Emily didn't like that I was getting all the attention while carrying the girls. "You know, technically I'm carrying one of our kids, too."

23 MARCH 2022 - 20 WEEKS

Today, Emily had another ultrasound appointment. It's always awesome to see our little baby girl and hear that heart beat of hers. She's weighing about 13oz, which is an ounce or two more than what the app says she would be at 20 weeks. This week she's supposedly the size of an ear of corn (10")

We' re extremely excited and obviously feel very blessed. It was a longer road to get to this point, but we are very grateful nonetheless.