The rest of the story

Over 3 years have passed, and I finally feel ready to write the full story of our last month in southern California.  When I mentioned in this blog that Clint and I felt pushed to our limits when he received his teaching job offer, I truly meant it.  Things just didn't work out the way we'd envisioned when we packed up our trailer, locked the door to our home in Nibley, and stepped into a new life.  Through no one's fault, the job wasn't working out the way we'd hoped, the house didn't sell as quickly as we'd thought, and 700 square feet for our homeschooling family of 7 was...700 square feet.  It was all wearing on us.

Our sanity-saver during the summer months in my parent's guest house: a family membership to the YMCA.  Here are Asher and Gabe, playing in a locker post-swim.

Then something wonderful happened.  Before the house sold and the new job surfaced.  I got pregnant.  For the sixth time.  For a while, I'd been feeling those tuggings on my heart...the same ones I'd felt five times before.  Our family felt incomplete; it was time for more children.  In our circumstances, I didn't dare utter a word of this to Clint.  I just kept it in my heart, wondering what to do with the knowledge.  When the kids and I extended our vacation to Utah in July and Clint flew back early for work, he had a lot of time for quiet reflection.  When we returned, he shared that he felt our family wasn't finished yet.  We pretty much looked at each other, and I was pregnant.  We were surprised it happened so quickly, and were also so very excited for another little redhead.

A couple weeks later, I arrived at my first OB visit.  The nurse walked me to the examination room.  I smiled as I noticed a stenciled sign sitting at the edge of her desk: "God Keeps His Promises".  

As I waited, our new realtor phoned and delivered the good news that a family had made a strong offer on our home.  After 9 months on the market, the end was finally in sight and this would allow us to purchase a home for our family once we found a job for Clint.

Minutes later, the midwife began the regular first-visit ultrasound.  It was taking a lot longer for things to appear on the screen.  She couldn't even find my uterus, for starters.  She finally found a small sac, was quiet about it, then stepped out to bring an OB in for a second opinion.  After more prodding, she saw the same thing.  A small gestational sac, no baby.  Maybe, they said, I was off on my dates.  If I was only 5 or even 6 weeks along (I was pretty sure I was 8 weeks at least by this time), this would be normal.  They scheduled some blood tests and a follow-up visit.  I was shocked, stunned and in near complete denial.  I figured my dates probably were off, after all it was way too easy to get pregnant this time.  And I walked out, new pregnant mommy packet in hand.  I almost gave it back to the nurse on my way out.  And my eye caught the sign again.  God keeps His promises.  I know it's true now, I was grateful for the reminder then, I had obviously been blessed with a reminder in the form of the perfectly-timed offer on our house, but it was all I could do to hold back the tears before I pushed past those doors.

On my way home, Clint called to let me know that he had been offered a job in central California.  When Clint had driven north to interview days earlier, we had both felt he would be offered the job.  After jointly filing more than 200 job applications, Clint interviewed 10 times.  We only felt that way about this one application; about this one interview.  To say we were confused and disheartened when the appointed day passed without a phone call would be an understatement.  To mention God's grace, his promise kept, just moments after my appointment; well, it's necessary.

In the coming days, two blood tests confirmed that my pregnancy hormone levels were dropping.  The midwife also told me that, high as they were, what we saw on the ultrasound indicated that this was "not a viable pregnancy."  I began bleeding days before being sent in for a formal ultrasound, on a better machine.  That ultrasound showed a fetus, without a heartbeat.  But because the baby was measuring six weeks, they still weren't sure I was miscarrying.  More blood tests confirmed that my hormone levels were still dropping.  And then the inevitable; I began the two weeks-plus-long process of miscarrying (smack dab in the middle of our move).  Sparing the details, it was horrible.  I felt broken, unfeminine, and sick at the thought that I was carrying what-would-have-been our sixth baby, still and lifeless inside of me.  Finally, beginning inside our packed SUV and ending inside the restroom of Nifty's Restaurant (while my children waited in the parking lot with Clint), the miscarriage finished.

At the time, we were living in a hotel.  All of our belongings were in a storage unit.  I literally didn't know one person in the entire Central Valley.  We had no church family, no friends, no family members.  Clint's job started immediately and I was left to mourn this loss with my 5 children in a cramped hotel room.  I didn't have much time to sulk, as I was trying to find more permanent housing for us. 

Within the week, grace came in the form of a comfortable cabin in the lovely mountain village of Twain Harte.  The six weeks we spent there were healing, and I will always remember them with fondness.  They were filled with trips to the town's small library, lunch "recesses" outside with my children digging rivers they filled with the garden hose, walks through our neighborhood of cabins to the town park, simple meals cooked in the small kitchen, frequent deer sitings in the backyard, and rare evenings spent around the TV. 

Gathering around the dinner table to share birthday cake on our first day at the cabin, Gabe's 4th birthday.

A deer-siting

Recess rivers

Even still, I mourned this loss deeply and I realize now that I was teetering on the edge of depression.  (to be continued)

On nesting

A woman's life is full of opportunities to nest.  They are as varied as our lives.  Throughout my married life, I have had 11 homes to nest.  I have also welcomed 6 new babies into these homes, and nested each of those times as well.  Now that my baby days are through and our three crazy years of (FIVE) moves are over, I hope that this will be our last nest, for a very very long while.  I love the layout of our home (all 6 kids upstairs/Clint and I downstairs...I would kiss the architect if I had the chance) and yard (a little bit of grass to play on, plenty of driveway for skating/scooting/biking/balling, and a large fenced-in pasture for farm animals out back).  One of the first rooms I wanted to situate was the bonus room upstairs, as we were in the middle of the school year and would be using it as our school room. 

Here is an idea of what it looked like when we saw it for the first time:

And now:

Looking at the other side of the room, then:

 And now (just from a few steps over):

Here's a view from the other side of the room:

 

 Again, now:

 

This is the back wall, which isn't exactly glorious with my cardboard box holding up the printer:

 

 A favorite new tip I learned this year is to hang kids' art with black masking tape, making it look like it's matted.  I used the tape around my children's yearly self-portraits.  We currently have a few visitors in our school room, including six painted lady butterflies that are hanging out in their habitat in front of our alphabet cards.  It's actually still unfinished; I am planning to put in a long desk area and hanging bookshelves where these computers now sit.  Maybe those pictures will be up in a year or two (big maybe!). 

We all pitched in to nest this room, starting with Clint and our big boys who removed twenty year-old carpet to make way for some new (discounted) shag.  Like the rest of our home, it is a mix of secondhand furnishings, hand-me-down heirlooms, stuff that has been with us through several moves and homes, a new piece or two.  Yes, it's just material stuff.  It's not coming with me when I die.  But it's where I spend most of my days with the most important people on the planet, and creating a warm, colorful environment for us all is really enjoyable to me.  

Happy nesting!!  :)