the last time just him and me

Tonight is our last night, just him and me. 

We are having a baby tomorrow.

GET READY FOR SOME SENTIMENTAL CRAP.

After nearly 7 years together, it's time. Yes I know we can still have alone time. Yes I know our babies will one day leave the house. But this will be the last time we are really just a two-some.

I won't say that we aren't more than ready for this. This was supposed to happen a year and a half ago. Although Madelyn is our daughter and officially bumped our family total to 3, she isn't here with us right now. We love her and think about her every day, but it's still just him and me here on Earth. Waiting for a baby to come to us has been a long and painful road. We are ready. We want this so bad.

We had two awesome years of dating, two hard but rewarding years of writing once a week while Nathan served a mission, three months of being engaged, and now two and a half years of marriage. We have had so many incredible experiences together. We literally grew from little teenagers into adults together. We have had so much fun. We have experienced life and loss and heartache and more fun than you can imagine. I will never look back and think I didn't get enough alone time with my sweet husband. Although this wait for babies has been hard, I am really glad I can say that. I have loved our time together. We have built an unshakeable foundation. He is absolutely my best friend in the entire world. I will always be thankful for these 7 years we had just him and me. Sometimes I can't believe I found the love of my life at 18 years old.

Nathan and I have been through a lot together. I know it's one of the reasons we are so strong, but our trials have often been heartbreaking. Sometimes I think about how unfair it seems that just 4 days into our second year of marriage, we were slammed with the death of our child. It was awful, but it never affected our marriage negatively. Even when I sank into depression and became someone very unlike myself, Nathan stood strong and patiently helped me back to where I was supposed to be. He lost a child that day too, but the strength he showed still amazes me. It made me strong. Our moments of "him and me" have been filled with laughter and cute pictures, but they have also been filled with sadness. Saying goodbye for two years at the Las Vegas airport, not knowing what was going to happen to us. Frustration of not being able to talk to the person you love for 2 years, and the strain it puts on your heart. Silently packing up the baby clothes from the dresser we had bought only a couple weeks prior. Endless nights holding each other while I cried myself to sleep. Negative pregnancy test after negative pregnancy test, feeling like it will never happen again. It's not always been easy, but having him makes it easier.

One of the hardest things is having to wait to make Nathan a dad. Nathan loves children. I have wanted so badly to see him with his children. He is already the world's best uncle and master-of-make-believe. He is going to kick this being-a-dad-thing's butt! He has always taken such good care of me. I spent my whole life hiding emotions, always trying to be the funny one, and feeling the need to take care of and "fix" other people. He was the first one to break down those walls and take care of me for once. I know he is going to do the same thing for our little girl. She is going to have him wrapped around her finger, and he wouldn't have it any other way. This pregnancy I have been an emotional roller-coaster. Even now, when the depression and guilt are gone, I am still a very hormonal pregnant lady. I'll cry for no reason, snap at him for no reason, lay in bed for hours.. he just smiles and plays with my hair. I don't even care about bragging, I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Nathan is a light, and one that came at the perfect time in my life. One I can't imagine my life without. One of the things I love most about this man I chose for my husband, is his ability to make me, and everyone around him laugh. He's infectious. I love watching him answer a call from someone at work, and start talking in a lisp. I can hear the person on the other end talk back to him in a lisp, and then laugh hysterically. Everyone loves Nathan. He is so warm. He is so kind. He is Nathan. If you know him, you know what that means. We are always laughing. Sometimes even when we are arguing. Sometimes even when I'm crying. He just has a magical skill. It helped get us through some dark times. Even when our hearts are breaking, we can still laugh.

Nathan is my absolute rock. I cannot even imagine where life would be without him. I don't believe that there is any "one" person out there for us that we are destined for. There aren't soulmates, we get to choose. But I do believe that I chose as close to the perfect person for me as I could get. Our marriage hasn't necessarily been hard, life has been hard. But having Nathan as my partner has made the bumps worth it. I know we aren't out of the woods, I know there are more hard times coming. But these years have strengthened us for what's ahead. And I also know there's a lot more joy and happiness coming our way. It feels good to let go and breathe for the first year time in a year-and-a-half. 

This post is all over the place, but so is my mind so I don't really care. I am so, so, so excited for this baby. But more than anything, I am so, so, so excited to raise this baby with Nathan. I don't really look at it as the "end of him and me." More it's just the next step in our adventures together. I am so glad I chose him as my adventure partner 7 years ago, and that we have been laughing and loving ever since. I am so glad he is the father of my children. I cannot imagine being with anyone else. 

I love you Nathan Joshua Merkley.
A stupid, ridiculous amount.

I am so thankful for our 7 years, just you and me.
I am so thankful you chose me, and 

And I cannot wait to see what's in store for you, baby, and me.

Let the adventures begin!

“I didn't fall in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes wide open, choosing to take every step along the way. I do believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we'd choose anyway. And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you.” -Kiersten White

tick.. tick.. tick

Time is going slowly.
REALLY REALLY REALLY SLOW.

We have been trying to make time pass.
We go out to eat a lot, haha.
But mostly I have gone to work almost every day with Nathan.
I work on the stuff he needs me to do, or I play on my computer.
But sitting at home was making me crazy.
We also are spending lots of time with Lady.
It makes me sad to think how much her life is about to change and she doesn't even know it.
Poor cat. Haha.

Here's some random pictures from this week. Because, why not?

Lasy loves to lay behind us on the couch, and she loves to touch us. I'm not kidding. It's hilarious. And weird. And awespome.

We we're being grumpy together.

Nathan and I recently finished rewatching all of Friends. Lady doesn't like when we do it late at night instead of playing with her.

We went on a double date with Jenna and Curits to see Mazerunner and we accidentally matched. So we took an awkward picture together,

We've been crafting for the nursery. Coral paint everywhere!!

It was cool enough on Sunday to wear fall clothes. Then it went away.

Lady being depressed that Nathan didn't share his dinner.

Lady going crazy as I dangle a cord in front of her.

BFF'S

Hot chocolate during the rainy days!

We didn't know what to do on Saturday to keep us distracted, so we drove around for an hour then ended up at a sketchy McDonalds in West Jordan.

Napping buddies.

My ward threw me the cutest dang baby shower. I wish I had taken more pictures. The women in my ward have become like sisters and second mothers to me. I adore them! And they showered us with looovvveeee!

 A little sampling of the love showering. Nathan and I took those cards to Target last night and bought everything else we needed for this girl to get here. And still had some left over. We are so blessed!

a farewell to bumpage

The other weekend, Nathan and I decided to go take some amateur maternity photos since we are to cheap to pay for reals ones, and too lazy to really care. 

Here is my favorite shot:

HAHA. Just kidding. That was me two nights ago when I was really grumpy. But that shot pretty accurately sums up my attitude this past week. Here, I will shower you with some of the pictures we took whilst summing up how I am feeling now that the end is drawing near.

First of all, I think my face looks fat in all these pictures. Hah. I am not super in love with them because I do feel large and I was grumpy while we were taking them so I don't feel like my smile looks super genuine in most of them. Can you tell I'm hormonal? Haha. Poor Nathan. I do, however, love my bump. I hate when people tell me my bump is small. It's the one thing I want to be big! I am glad we captured it in these photos. It feels pretty dang big. It's perfectly round and very tight. No stretch marks, which I think is weird because I have stretch marks on my hips from that time in high school when I injured my knee and stopped playing soccer 5 days a week, but kept eating the same and gained a bunch of weight. But I digress. I love my bump. Although, I am okay with it turning into a baby.

My comfort level has quickly gone down hill. Not in the way I thought though. I have been lucky not to have swelling and never pain, thank goodness. But I just feel so.. FULL! That's the best way to describe it. There's a 7 pound human inside me. And I am definitely feeling it. It's funny to think back to the earlier trimesters and how I would forget I was pregnant sometimes. Bending over used to be hard, now it's absolutely impossible. Getting out of bed, to pee 7 times a night, takes so much effort that I usually wake Nathan up. I get uncomfortable after just a couple minutes in an position I lay in. I have kept the hip pain away, but only because I stretch them twice a day and have since I got pregnant. I get back pain, but in the weirdest spots! And it doesn't necessarily feel like sore muscles, although I do have those. It feels like someone shoved a knife under my shoulder blade. And no amount of Nathan rubbing it makes it go away. It's such a joy!

My paranoia has shot through the roof this week also. I have mildly high fluid levels, so of course I googled it, and read all the awful things that it could mean or what could happen. My doctor acts like it's fine, but I just couldn't calm down! Nathan gave me a sweet blessing that helped, but I just need this girl here. I need to be able to see her. I feel so helpless when I can't even tell what position she is in, let alone if anything is going wrong. I never thought I would be one of those women who complain so much at the end of the pregnancy, but losing Madelyn and all the weird things popping up this time around have just made it impossible to relax.

Is it weird that I am being so whiny while showing you these special pictures? In all reality, I have really have loved being pregnant. I think I might even miss it a little. Aside from my hormonal complaints, I still feel pretty good. I am healthy, baby is healthy. It's just been a long year and a half, and I am ready for a little happy ending. I need this girl in my arms!

I really can't express how much I love her already. I talk to her all the time. She's already my best friend. I love to just sit and rub my belly and imagine what life will be like with her here. Nathan and I talk so much about how it will be. What will be hard. What will be amazing. What things we want to do. It's so exciting to be making these plans that we worried we wouldn't get a chance to make. 

I had my last doctor appointment today. LAST!!! We haven't really told many people, but only family really reads my blog, so I will just say that we are being induced on Monday. I am so thankful for my doctor and the other nurses and doctors who have worked with my this pregnancy. I have had so much monitoring and they were all on board for me being induced a little early. Thank Heavens. Today I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced. It's not huge, but it's comforting to know I won't be starting from 0 on Monday.  She is also still head down, but not engaged. I haven't felt a single contraction, not even Braxton Hicks, so I am super stoked to be getting induced. Otherwise I think she would never come! 

Basically what I am trying to say in this hormonal post, is that I am SO FREAKING EXCITED to have this baby!!! I can't believe she's almost here. I am also SO READY TO BE UNPREGNANT. These past 9 months have hard and incredible. We are so excited to meet her. I keep imagining it in my mind over and over and I can't stop smiling.
So come on out little lady! 
We are ready for you!

pregnancy after stillbirth pt. 5

BOOM. Just like that, the pregnancy is almost over. I can't believe it's almost time to meet this little girl. I can't believe it's been 9 months. I can't believe how crazy it's all been. I am going to try to get all my thoughts out in a manner that flows and makes sense. But keep in mind, I have pregnancy brain. And a lot of emotions.

It was hard surviving the "scary weeks" but I felt so relieved afterwards. It's like that's when I was finally able to really connect with this baby. I started to get so excited! We finally named her. I felt like she had a distinct personality different from Madelyn's. I let go of a lot of fear. But that also meant letting go of a lot of Madelyn.

I have been paranoid and worried this pregnancy. At times, it kept me from fully enjoying it. It didn't help that weird and random things kept happening.
Really bad pain in my ovaries: Just some little cysts. 

Too much fluid in the brain: After thousands of dollars in testing, it turned out to be nothing.

Strange heart accelerations: After hours of being hooked up to a machine, it turned out to be nothing.

Too much amniotic fluid: After a thorough ultrasound, it turned out to be nothing.

Not to mention or continually flipping from breech to transverse to head down and back again.

Seriously?

As if this pregnancy wasn't stressful enough.

It always makes me laugh because I have very easy pregnancies physically. I am still in very little to no pain at almost 38 weeks. I sleep fine. (when I don't get insomnia) We still go on several mile long walks. I don't get heartburn. I don't throw up- not even in the first trimester. My bump grows right on schedule. My weight gain is always right on schedule. I don't get swollen. I have felt only 3 Braxton hicks contractions ever. Never had any nerve pain. I don't get the classic pregnancy symptoms. But all the weird, random things happen to me! Come on babies! Give me a break.

But after we had a good ultrasound and we got our induction date, all the ups-and-downs of this pregnancy faded and I just felt excited. All the fear during the beginning of this pregnancy kept my mind on Madelyn. I was too scared to get too attached to this new baby. But now, I am more attached than I could ever imagine. And I've been missing Maddie less and less.

When I realized this, my heart broke. It should be a good thing! Moving forward; letting go of fear. But it terrified me to forget her or lose her in any way. I felt her slipping away from me and I hated it, but I didn't want to go back to the sad and paranoid Kaitlin. It's a double-edged sword. And it sucks.

But a few experiences this week have taught me that while it is time to move on and let go, I don't have to lose Madelyn. And I never will! I am going to get a little personal in sharing this experience, but I feel like I should. So here it is!

We have temples in my religion, and every time a new one is opened, we have a special church meeting where it is dedicated and some of our church leaders speak to us. This past weekend, the temple in Ogden was dedicated. I am so glad we went to the 1 PM session, because I heard exactly what I needed to hear. Dear, sweet President Eyring spoke about the blessings of temples and eternal families. This is obviously a doctrine very near and dear to my heart, and I was already feeling the spirit and feeling closer to Madelyn. Then I watched as he got very choked up; more emotional than I have ever really seen an apostle. I started to wonder what he was going to say that had him so emotional. He then shared that in the Ogden graveyard, is the grave for a sweet granddaughter he has that he never got to hold in this lifetime. The tears immediately spilled from my eyes and I felt as if Maddie was right there with me. It's the closest I have felt her in months. He shared how happy he was to know that he would one day get to hold her and know her and love her. I knew right then that Madelyn is my daughter, and nothing is going to change that. No matter how much time passes or how many kids I have or even if I go a little while without thinking about her. She is mine and I am hers and we will be together forever. I got the sense that she was very busy with work of her own, and that she was happy that I was moving on and bringing her little sister in the world. I am so thankful for eternal families!

I looked at my pictures of Madelyn that night for the first time in a while and just smiled. She looks a lot like the 3D ultrasound pictures we have of this second one. I realized I loved baby #2 just as much as I love Madelyn, and that's okay.

I'm still that annoying person who reminds people that this is my second child. I still discuss my pregnancy and labor of Madelyn like it was normal and didn't end horribly and I can tell some people think it's weird. (Hey, I already pushed one human out of my vagina. That's a big accomplishment. I'm not gonna act like it didn't happen!) We have pictures of her in our house. I thank Heavenly Father for her in my prayers. I may be overjoyed for the impending birth of #2, but #1 still has a huge place in my heart. I think that's what I needed these 9 months for- figuring out how to fit them both in there. How to honor one, while welcoming the other. How to love them both equally without feeling guilt. I am sure it will be an up-and-down battle through the years, but I think I am getting it figured out pretty well right now.

I am just so thankful for both these little girls.

I'm a lucky mama. My heart is full of love.

Madelyn at 6 months. New baby at 9 months.

Both at 34 weeks. Madelyn on left.

Both at 15 weeks. Madelyn on left.

what's going on around here..

I am trying to keep the blog up-to-date in these weeks before the little lady decides to come. I have a feeling blogging might be hard for a while after, haha. So here are random things that have been going on...

My little sister and brother-in-law FINAAALLLYYY announced their pregnancy! (I've been keeping this secret since mid-July). They are having a little boy in March! I am so excited for our baby to have a little cousin BFF so close to her!! It will be so much fun!

We reunited with Bree!!! Bree has been one of my best friends since I was a freshman in college. We worked together at Haagen Dazs, she was probably even there when I met Nathan! She was my roomie twice, introduced me to cake bites and One Tree Hill, and basically saved my life while Nathan was on his mission. We just love her guts and are so glad she made a trip out to Utah!!

I've let Lady get her nap time in while she can. I might need to hire someone to snuggle her after the baby comes.

Had lunch with some of my favorite ladies!! Love them so much. And check out that outfit Michelle MADE me! She's so talented!!

 Lady turned 2 and we celebrated! Because we are weirdos like that.

 Trying to take pictures after she has seen and smelled the tuna was a really bad idea.

One of the biggest things happening in our life right now is that this guy is now my boss..

Right?? 

I looked around a lot for some work from home opportunities. I have found that I feel pretty dang useless when I am not bringing in any income. I knew I wanted to stay at home, but really wanted to help with expenses. One day I made a joke that I could work for Nathan. He was quiet for a minute and then said, "Well actually.." And then we were making some plans. Nathan is manager of a department in his company. I won't bore you with details of what he does, mostly because it's still a little confusing to me, but he manages several people, and quite a few of them travel around the mid-west to extract medical records for insurance companies. They recently got a ton more work and booking the travel (between flights, rental cars, hotels, per-diem, making sure the timing is perfect etc.), had become quite the task. Nathan doesn't have time to do it with his busy schedule, so the company accountant was doing it. With the extra traveling coming in, it was just too much. So Nathan went to his boss and said, "How bout' I hire my wife to do all this from home." And his boss was like, "Totes!" and then just a few days after I made my joke about working for him, I was his part-time travel coordinator. It's awesome. I will usually be doing it all from home, but since there is no baby yet, I have been going to work with him and booking the travel and organizing things from his office with him. I like to hang out with him during the day. He's a pretty hot boss. It's such a great opportunity because I can essentially make my own hours, and it will really help out with our expenses! I am kind of a hyper-organized person, so it's actually been a lot of fun to work with Nathan and set up a system of how he will send me the travel requests, how I will complete them all, how I will organize all confirmations and keep track of who is where and for how long, and other boring things of that nature that are actually really fun for me. I am talking a lot about this. I am just excited that we found a work from home job that works out so perfectly!

Other than that, we are basically just hanging out.. counting down the days... :)

just him and me pt. 6

Part 6! This might be the last one. Weeeiiirdddd.

Nathan's been really into trying on the baby's hair bows. And looking beautiful. 

We made pumpkin cookies for the Bachelor in Paradise finale. Could we be cooler?

We've been spending lots of time with Lady, who has become especially clingy.

We found our new favorite movie theatre. The tickets are 3 bucks and the candy is either 1 or 2 dollars! We are obsessed.

I promise he offered to do this. I just can't reach them AT ALL anymore, and they really needed to be painted. He's cute. 

We try to spends our nights outside while it's still warm. We love our walks around down town. They usually have to involve ice cream because duh.

Lady loves the Ergo.

Found another new park! Strangely enough, it has a frisbee golf course set up throughout it. And tons of people play at it. So, there's that.

The internet informed all us Northern Utahans that Aurora Borealis would be visible to us on Friday night. We stayed up nice and late and headed up the mountain at midnight with lots of chocolate and diet coke. We laid on the hood of our car and bundled up and saw nothing. Well, we saw a lot fo stars and they were pretty, but no Northern Lights! Ah well. It was a lot of fun though. And we laughed until we were crying while trying to take pictures using the flash in the pitch black. There were no lights besides the moon and we kept trying to keep our eyes open and we literally could not. It was pretty funny. Guess you had to be there.

 Swigs!!!! It was wrong without Jessica and Marshall, but still no less delicious.

It's the beginning of Fall drive season!!! Our favorite season to go on drives!!! We took the Alpine Loop the other day. It was still a little early, but we did find lots of beautiful leaves.