February 9th, 2014

I have been thinking about this blog post for a little while.  Whether or not I should write it; and if I write it, should I share it?  Please forgive me if my thoughts seem everywhere, because they are.

This is the story of how Sunday, February 9th became one of the craziest days of our lives.

Basketball.
It begins a few months ago when David started getting in contact with a couple agents to get ideas about his professional career.  It started out incredibly slow.  Agents responded but they weren't ready to get into full contact until David felt more physically fit.  Then the day came that he felt fit enough to start sending out feelers.  They didn't come back very positive.  Coaches/owners have a hard time hiring someone without recent professional experience who has a prior injury.  That is easy to understand but we need someone to take a chance on David so he can get the professional experience and show that his past injury is nothing to worry about.
We start setting our sights on something maybe a little less competitive than where he could eventually be when given the chance.  We get a little more feedback but still very slow and loaded with hesitation. Its now almost January and we're starting to wonder if it will really happen.  We have graciously been allowed to rent a house at dirt cheap; what a huge blessing for us and a huge service from the owners. We told them we shouldn't need the house past January and now here it comes with no offers in sight. Then around the middle of January we get word that a team in New Zealand is interested in David but there are 2 other options and he is not at the top of the list.  The agent said Daniel and I would not be joining him because they're budget does not have room for our own apartment.  We were told that the coach would be calling us the next week with the results.  2 weeks later we have heard nothing.
Around this time Chris, a current coach at the U who has so graciously been preparing David both physically and logistically for overseas, gave one of his former oversea coaches his recommendation for David.  That coach almost immediately got in contact with David to get his paperwork up and running. He told David to contact the agent that he always works through.  This part became so frustrating.  Between the language barrier, negotiation for David's contract and the agent's fee, and timeline of getting out there we were almost ready to give it all up and wait until the NBA summer league in July. We gave it a lot of thought and just decided to let the agent do his thing.  Its only for a few months and we just need to get this chance rolling.  Once we told the agent this it was about 2 days later (Friday the 7th) that David was given the heads up to be ready to fly out in the next 3-5 days. Sunday comes and he is told that they want him out there ASAP.  After some discussion back and forth about flights the team books his flight for Monday morning at 11:30am.  He's gone!
We finally got our chance! I'm in shock.  I'm so incredibly excited but at the same time I'm a big ball of emotions.  This is our chance!  I can't wait to see what happens from here.  David is one of the smartest, hardest workers I have ever known.  Man that guy knows how to make sure he is ready while keeping his family afloat at the same time.  He deserves all the success in the world.
While he has been in Qatar it has not been easy for him.  It is hard for an American to do business there because we expect things to be done quickly when they are very slow and lax about how they handle their business.  He's trying his best to be polite to their customs while still fighting for what he is worth and showing that he deserves it.  We still don't know if/when we will be joining him since that is also in the mix of questions that have not been answered by the "sit back, relax" attitude they have.  He initially thought that he would have us stay here in the US until he's done in May but after more days passed he realized he doesn't want to go through this without us.  I guess when things appear like they're rolling its not going to be smooth sailing, there will still be hurdles to cross.

Britta.
I wish I could say that I was able to just support David through this journey but I have needed a lot of support myself. Around November it became pretty clear I was having a colitis flare up.  It was pretty uncomfortable as usual but I knew the process of getting it taken care of.  I got the things completed that I needed and started the meds.  It solved the problem like I knew it would.  The only issue we found happened after all the medications were finished.  January 1st I got a positive pregnancy test. I was on birth control.  Oh yeah, my medication was known to decrease the effectiveness of birth control.
My initial reaction was total shock.  We are NOT ready for this! This is about 6 months too soon! Where will we be when we have the baby?  Will David even be able to be with me when I have the baby? I'm not ready for it my individual time with Daniel to end! I don't even have insurance this month!
The next day I asked David to contact a friend in the ward to come over and give me a blessing.  I needed some reassurance and comfort.  The blessing was great.  I received confidence and comfort from it.  Exactly what I needed.  We can do this... somehow.
Then starts the next stage of the emotional roller coaster. Friday (2 days after the positive test) I start bleeding.  Very lightly and not every time I go to the bathroom.  Okay, this is nothing to worry about yet, could just be normal. Saturday night comes around I start cramping a little and but the blood hasn't increased.  Sunday comes around and the pain has gotten a little worse but I'm starting to write it off to a sore leg because I came down in it wrong in one of my workouts. But the pain just escalated throughout the day.  I finally called the on-call doctor and he said to come in first thing on Monday for a blood test. Great, tests while uninsured, this should be a fun bill.  The blood test confirmed I was still pregnant but the level was on the low end of where it should be for my status.  Nothing to worry about yet, we can't make any conclusions from this.
I called my brother Bjorn about it who has a lot of knowledge and who also has a very gentle approach to explaining hard things.  He was so wonderful.  He said it could just be some odd bleeding and everything will be okay or I am in fact miscarrying and everything will still be okay.  My body is doing what it is designed to do to remove an unhealthy pregnancy.  At this point I was (mostly) resolved to whatever would happen.
Wednesday comes for my follow up blood test.  Once I'm home I allow a couple hours for processing then it seemed about every 5 minutes that I'm refreshing my patient portal to see the results.  Finally the results are in and they are clear: I am miscarrying. I shouldn't even have a positive pregnancy test by the next day. My doc calls later to talk it over with me, we talk birth control options, and come to a bit of an impasse because I'm still nursing and I don't have insurance. He tells me to just start the mini pills again when my period returns.  Sounds good to me.
Friday I start bleeding really heavily. Alright, finally the beginning of the end of this emotional roller coaster.  The heavy bleeding lasts for about 3 days.  Then the lingering blood.  Finally that Saturday everything is done.  I can move on, what happiness that brought me!
Life moved on.
We started focusing on basketball and figuring out logistics.  Life is normal again. Trying to prevent without birth control.  We skipped a wide window of when I thought I was ovulating, just to be sure since doc told me to start birth control after my next period.

Sunday, February 9th.
It was about time for my period to return and I had been getting some interesting symptoms the last week or so and I had 1 pregnancy test left from the month before.  David would be leaving, why not just do it?  So first thing that morning I did it.
It was very quickly and very clearly a positive test.  Apparently a lot of women get super fertile right after a miscarriage.

I showed David at 8am.  We just looked at each other with confidence and thought- we've got this.  Our January experience taught us a lot. We came to know that Daniel will be a great older brother, David and I are more ready than we thought, whatever happens we will be taken care of, and a pregnancy takes 9 months so we have some time to figure things out.
Curious about my symptoms? Breast tingling throughout the day/night, smell and food aversions, and smaller bladder control. And within the last couple days: nausea!
Woohoo!
Now we head to church, I have a huge smile on my face.  I sat next to a friend and she asked me what was going on and all I could say was that David was getting very close to finally getting a deal.  That was also true!
We get home and David checks his email to find out that the team in Qatar wants David out there ASAP because they want him to play in Saturday's game.  David calls his boss to see if he can use the Delta stand-by ticket he had offered earlier. David tells his coach about this and the coach ends up booking the flight through the team because stand-by is too much of a gamble. His flight is at 11:30a the next day.  Holy cow he's leaving in less than 12 hours.  This was about 2pm that we find out they have booked the flight and he's leaving immediately.
Bring on the tears! Shock, excitement, sadness, hormones, it all came out at once. He would be gone.  On a flight to the middle east. Without me and Daniel. He got a deal! I'm going to have to pack up the house! Amidst all my blubbering David is running around the house packing.  He needs enough stuff for 3 months.  I try to get a few of his basketball buddies to come and say goodbye. I start crying even more because I realize that his last meal that I'm making him will be breaded tilapia with a salad.  Whoopdee do. This is basically our Valentine's day dinner! Pregnancy hormones seem to make everything a little more dramatic.
Daniel is running around the house wondering what is going on.  He's screaming for me to hold him, nurse him, get all the snacks out for him, throw every ball to him, etc. I get flustered because I'm trying to enjoy these last moments together and the screaming and crying really doesn't help.  Finally I take the time to give Daniel a comfort nurse and he changes to his loving, kind version and we're finally able to enjoy our evening together.
I'm taking as many pictures of the two boys together as I can for David's iPad mini. We get Daniel into bed and I am exhausted.
We cuddle up to watch the Olympics and I almost fall asleep before our friends come over to give us both a blessing before David leaves.
My what a day.  That was exhausting just writing about it.

So now David is gone, the house is packed up and empty again, our stuff is in storage in Mesquite, NV, and I'm staying with my parents in Fallbrook until we get more information from David about whether we will be joining him or not.

This last week was full of tears, exhausting, and a lot more screaming from Daniel that is normal. I'm hoping to get him on his "schedule" so he can have a bit of normalcy and be my happy loving boy.  He was so confused.  It is quite special to see Daniel talk to David on FaceTime.  He is ready to kiss him right there on the screen and will talk about all his balls and stickers then very cutely give a "bye-bye" and "I-you-you".  He misses his daddy.  You can tell when he has a father figure around him, he just gravitates toward them.

There you have it.  The day our lives changed a lot, but all for the better.