Day 1- The Story of My Life

The Story of My Life--In (about) 250 Words

I was born and raised in Bountiful, Utah. I came into the world on August 22nd, 1987. I loved playing soccer, pretending I was a pioneer crossing the plains (by using my little red wagon full of blankets, water and cheerios) and spent lots of time reading.

By the time I got into high school I was very involved in soccer and loved my acting classes. I’d always had trouble keeping friends but had some great ones in high school who had a good influence on my life. I learned about death in 2006 when a good friend of mine died suddenly from a stroke, I also learned a lot about the Plan of Salvation that God has given us; those 2 things (God & the Gospel) gave me the strength to get through that unexpected tragedy.

When I turned 21 I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to Leeds, England where I learned so much and changed for the better. In my life I had fallen in love and gotten my heart broken a few times; but then a 5’8” ginger swept me off my feet and into his adventurous way of life. We got married on February 18th, 2012 and have had many adventures since then.

One of those adventures includes being a mom to my little angel of a daughter, Reyna, who was born on September 9th, 2013. She is now 9 ½ months old and keeps me on my toes, she is trying to walk, she loves to eat, is a big-time thumb sucker, likes to dance and is very giggly.

Overall I can’t complain. I’m 26 and I have a pretty good life. It hasn’t always been easy, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much if it was easy. I appreciate the challenges that come and the ways in which they make me stronger.

27 is just around the corner!

Why Running is the WORST

That's right I said it. Running is the worst. I HATE RUNNING. It makes my whole body scream at me, it makes me nauseous and want to throw up, it makes me breathe too hard, it makes my lungs scream in protest, it makes me cough afterwards, it makes me feel horribly out of shape, it makes me want to collapse on the side of the road and lay their for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours, it makes me thirsty, it makes me sore, it makes me wish I never had to breathe again and most of all it makes me want to NEVER run again. And yet, I find myself doing it again and again. I came home from a run the other night and asked my husband where all the endorphines were that were supposed to make me feel better after running? Wasn't exercise supposed to make me feel good? Instead of making me feel like hacking up a lung and wanting to just collapse on the floor and give up the ghost. He told me to wait an hour... after an hour... I was still tired from running.

I used to go running with a good friend of mine a few years ago, we'd run on treadmills and I'd say we ran about the same pace/distance; but EVERY TIME we got off those treadmills and stretched she would talk about how good she felt after running and how good running made her feel etc. etc. etc.. I on the other hand, sat there in silence wondering how she felt so good when I felt like crap. Stretching was my favorite part of running. Haha.

Oh well. Maybe one day it will make me feel good... MAYBE. Of course that would mean I would have to keep running. And I suppose I will. The Teton Dam Marathon is this summer and the guys that Kevin works with at the Fire Station want to run the 1/2 marathon. NEVER IN MY LIFE have I wanted to run a marathon, let a lone a half marathon; but Kevin says it's something I should do at least once just to say I have. Well I don't want to say: I ran a half marathon, but it's getting me to run. It's a goal to work towards and that's the only reason I get up and run, the only reason I have a teeny tiny bit of desire to run, and that feels good. It feels good to have a goal. Even though I hate it, and it makes me feel like crap. I will do it. Normally the only thing that gets me to run is a nice green soccer field, and a round soccer ball to chase around (now that's a good time running.) Or on occasion when I'm really angry, it's a nice way to blow off steam because it makes me too tired to be angry. Eh. Here's to doing things I don't want to do just because it's good for me and I like to be able to walk up stairs or jog to the car without breathing heavily. I like it when my cardiovascular system is a champion. Here's to the strength and determination to do things I don't have hardly any desire to do.

"Exercise is not a cure-all; it will not eliminate stress or solve all of our problems. However, exercise will assist us in facing challenges with greater confidence and stamina. Because exercise so effectively releases tension built up in the body by stress, physical activity is something that should not be pushed aside in day-to-day life. Each of us has a right and a responsibility to take care of the body that the Lord has given us. When it comes to managing stress, maintaining health, and improving quality of life, exercise is well worth the effort." -Larry A. Tucker "Move More, Stress Less"

Reyna Paige at 6 Months Old

Well baby girl is 6 months old and I can't believe that time is going by so fast! I just know she'll be a year old before I blink! I can't believe how many of my friends already have toddlers or are on their second kid!And March is already passing by too quickly, Kevin is almost done with this semester of school. It's hard to imagine what my life was like before Reyna came. Our adventures haven't stopped, we just take Reyna everywhere we go! (Except snowboarding, that was the only exception.) She has been fishing, hiking, hunting, off-roading in our new jeep... babies don't stop you from having fun they just add an extra element of fun! Anyway here's what baby girl is up to these days:

1- Has started crawling, does this sort of worm thing but she's getting there!
2- Likes boxes and pretty much anything but her toys
3- Likes to play with other babies
4- Likes to drink apple juice
5- Likes to eat food, just not green beans, she hates those
6- Loves to be snuggled to sleep during naptime
7- Smiles at just about everyone, but still has no teeth
8- Wants to stand up and tries to pull herself up already
9- Likes to pull my hair and grab my face
10- Weighs 15lbs 10oz and is 27 inches long. Growing like a weed.

Well I just love my baby girl, even when I only get five hours of sleep some nights, and it drives me crazy. I do love that little girl though and I am grateful to be her mom and her friend. Who wouldn't like getting to play with a baby?

A New Year And No Resolutions

A new year generally means setting goals or resolutions. I am sick of setting these goals and resolutions though... aren't you? I mean every year since I can remember I sit down at the beginning of January and write some goals for the new year so that I can reach said goals; but then the following January I sit down and look at the goals I made last year and I am perpetually disappointed. I seem to be back in the same position I was in before.

I rarely meet the goals that I set unless it was a goal like "get married this year" (that was in 2012 when I was obviously getting married in February) or "go on a mission" which I already knew I was going to do or this past year "have a baby" when I wrote that I knew Kevin and I had been trying to have a baby so that goal was easy to meet. It's the goals like "read my scriptures every day even if it's only a verse" or "attend the temple every week" or "exercise for 30-60 minutes 4-5 times a week" or "eat healthier" blah blah blah... you all know the kinds of goals I'm talking about. The ones we all set but can never quite achieve. The ones that when we miss a day of reading our scriptures or eat a fat piece of chocolate cake (for the third time that week) that make us frustrated and think that we are never going to meet our goals.

Well this year I say heck to goals! Send em all down the toilet with the goldfish you couldn't manage to keep alive for more than a week either. Right? I mean what is the point in setting stupid goals so I am putting a kibosh on the whole thing this year and possibly all of the rest of the years of my life. I don't want to make stupid goals that will just frustrate me, and anyway life is not about meeting those kinds of goals but a progression to perfection. It's not about making a yearly goal, but an eternal goal to become the best version of myself.

Thus I am setting no goals for myself this year, and no resolutions. I am just going to "keep on swimming" and keep on trying to do what I have been trying to do my entire life. Be a better person. I am always going to try and be more spiritual, try to be in better shape, try and eat healthier, and overall improve my life; but I don't need some stupid "new year's resolutions" to do that. I just need my own determination, the support of my husband, and the love of my Heavenly Father. So here's to the new year and here's to trying to always be a better person, not just at the beginning of the year, but every day of every week of every month of every year! For the rest of my life. :) Thus I propose to quit being perpetually disappointed by missed goals and instead be perpetually perfecting and progressing myself.

"...we must learn to take satisfaction in performing at the limits of our ability (for that is where real power is gained) and let God worry about the rest." -Stephen E. Robinson Believing Christ

Reyna Paige- 2 Months Old

Kevin was able to bless little Reyna this week at church. He gave her a beautiful blessing and I hope she truly does have a beautiful life. It brought tears to my eyes just watching my husband hold that little girl in his arms and blessing her, to see the love that Heavenly Father has for her through my husband's eyes as he looks at her and through his voice as he blessed her. It is truly amazing to feel the love of God in such a way. I am so grateful for both of them!

Let's see. Reyna is now 2 months old!
-She likes to blow spit bubbles
-She likes to sit up with us supporting her
-She also likes to stand up with us supporting her
-She likes to sit in her chair and "play" with her toys
-She likes to fall asleep while cuddled on my shoulder
-She smiles at me when I say "boo" or say "hi Reyna"
-She smiles when Kevin squeezes her cheeks

I never realized how much I would love having a daughter, I love dressing her up in cute little outfits and even putting bows on her head! I didn't know that I would put bows on her head, and like it! But I do, I love dressing her up and cuddling her. I love to watch her when she is sleeping, and see her smile. God knew what He was doing when He allowed us to be parents and raise children, because it truly changes us, it makes us better. Even if it is hard.

A Change In My Life- Part 2 "Being A Mother"

I knew that being a mom would be hard, but I didn't realize it wouldn't be hard in ways I never imagined. The first night we had Reyna at home I ended up at some time in the early hours of the morning watching "Safe Haven" on Netflix and sobbing uncontrollably. I hadn't gotten hardly any sleep and I was sitting up in the bed with Reyna laying on top of a boppy in my lap because it was the only place she would stay asleep, every time we had tried to put her in her crib she woke right back up, crying. I figured it was better to let her sleep on my lap even if that meant I couldn't fall asleep. I was so tired... I didn't know how I was going to do this if every night was like that one. Kevin took her for a walk at 4 in the morning up to the temple just to get her to fall asleep because she was crying and he wanted me to get some sleep (what a sweetheart).

Every day is a new adventure with my little baby girl, I never know what to expect, so even though I am 5 weeks into this with Reyna things are different every day. I can't predict how my day is going to go, ever. I have to take things an hour at a time. You know what being a mom is really hard, and it's hard in a way I can't describe. This beautiful little angel makes me smile and laugh and I love her so much but sometimes when she is crying and crying and crying and I don't know how to help her I feel like such a horrible mom. It doesn't help that my emotions are just out of control (especially if I haven't had much sleep) and I have ended up crying in Kevin's arms because I just don't know how to help Reyna or what she needs. The past few days she has been sick, stuffy nose, and I feel so bad when she wakes up coughing and choking in the night because she can't breathe...

Through this all I have come to realize and been reminded that this little girl is new to this world, just as I am new to being a mother, and Reyna is new to all these things, she is experiencing them for the first time. She doesn't know what's going on or what's wrong anymore than I do, and when she is sick or crying I just cuddle her and think that she just needs to feel loved. It would be easy to lose my patience with this poor angel girl of mine at 3 in the morning when I haven't had a lot of sleep and she is crying but instead I just remind myself that she needs to be loved and cuddled.

Being a mom is really hard. It is also really amazing. I love this girl so much, and it's weird to love something so much (even when she poops all over the place and I spend a lot of time cleaning up after her and doing laundry.) There is just something spectacular and unique about looking at this little baby sleeping in my arms and realizing she is half me and half Kevin, she is my responsibility. I love this little girl so much, I love to watch her when her sleep, I love when she nuzzles her head into my neck, I love being able to comfort her. Being a mom is hard, but it's also really really really great.

A Change In My Life- PART 1 "REYNA'S BIRTH"

Reyna Paige Tolman was born on September 9th, 2013 at 4:52pm. She was 7lbs, 7oz and 21 inches long. And this is the story of her birth:

We were told that Reyna was due on September 7th, so when that day came and went I was getting a little frustrated that my baby wasn't here yet. I was definitely done being pregnant, I'd been kicked in the ribs enough times. :) I even told Kevin that they should give you a span of a week or month that your baby is due in, and also that people shouldn't tell you all these stories about how their baby was weeks early because then you think your baby might come early and you just wait and wait and wait... and wait.

On Sunday night, the 8th, I sat down to write in my journal about 10:30pm and wrote a little about how the baby wasn't here yet, and that I felt like she was never coming! I laid down to sleep at 11:00pm, I was all by myself because Kevin was on a 24 hour shift at the fire department and wouldn't be home until the next morning. At 12:06am (just after midnight) I woke up with the worst pain in my abdomen, it hurt so bad, but then went away. I'd had false contractions a few days before so I was sure that's what these were, but I decided to time them (harder than it sounds!) They were coming about every 4-6 minutes and lasted about a minute, sometimes longer. I decided to wait until 1:00am before I called Kevin because I still wasn't sure if this was it.

I finally called Kevin just after 1:00am and to my surprise he was awake, they had just gotten a call and he was out with the ambulance. A drunk guy had run into a power line, they were waiting for the power company to get there to check the line. I told Kevin that I thought I was in labor and he told me that I'd have to wait about 45 minutes for him to have the scene cleared and make it back to the station. I got off the phone and ate a bowl of fruit loops, in case I was in labor so I could have something in my stomach. To my surprise Kevin called back about 5 minutes later. He told me he'd be home in 10 minutes to take me to the hospital. Apparently after I'd gotten off the phone with him, he informed his captain that I thought I was going into labor. His captain quickly got on the radio and told the station to send out an ambulance to pick Kevin up because his wife was having a baby. Thus 10 minutes later Kevin shows up to our apartment in an ambulance, we got into our own car and headed to the hospital.

The nurse came in to check me, this was about 2:00am, and said I was dilated to a 4 and asked if I wanted an epidural. I thought about holding off for a while, until I had another contraction and the nurse said, "If you're going to get one later, you might as well get it now." I agreed, but it wasn't until 3:30am that the guy came and gave me my epidural, the pain relief was amazing! Although it is quite weird to be numb from your waist down and have very little control over your legs. Everything that happened after that is kind of a blur on the timeline scale. The epidural had slowed down my contractions so they put me on pitocin. By about 6:00am I was dilated to a 6 and they told me the baby would probably be there by 10:00 that morning... oh were they off.

Around 10:00 the doctor came in and broke my water, so I thought for sure the baby would be here soon. However when the doctor broke my water he said that there was some poop in it, that meant that Reyna had pooped in the womb, so he was worried that she could have inhaled some fluid. He warned me that he would have the NICU nurses in the room when I gave birth so that they could be there to check her out and make sure that she didn't have fluid in her lungs, but if she did than they could get it out and take care of her.

The doctor came back in to see me around 1:00pm to see if we couldn't get Reyna to come out, so he had me push a few times. Later on he told me that he almost took me in for a c section at that time, but since the baby was doing good and I was doing good he wanted to see if I could give birth vaginally even if it took a few more hours. He wanted the uterus to work a little harder to push Reyna down into the birth canal more, I had carried her so high my whole pregnancy and she had never really dropped down. Well we waited a little longer, and at 2:45pm the nurse had me push... I pushed for 2 hours, it was tiring and exhausting and I was NOT prepared for how hard it was going to be. I thought that dealing with contractions was going to be the hard part! Pushing out a baby is not easy. At around 4:40ish Dr. Evans showed up and he got all suited up. I couldn't quite get Reyna to come out so Dr. Evans asked if it was ok if he helped me get her out with the vacuum and I said that was fine. Well one vacuum suck and an episiotomy snip did the trick and I felt her head and shoulders pop out.

Kevin was able to cut the cord but then, unfortunately, they handed her off the the NICU nurses because she did indeed have fluid in her lungs. It made me sad not to be able to hold Reyna right away, and as it was I only got to hold her for a minute or two before they wheeled her off into the NICU and Kevin went with her. She ended up being just fine, they just wanted to monitor her for two hours to make sure that she was getting oxygen and breathing well.

I was so grateful when I got to finally see my baby girl and really hold her. I was nervous and scared of this little life that was put into my hands but I am so glad everything went well with her delivery and she was alive and well. I am so glad Heavenly Father has given me the opportunity to be a mom and raise this little baby, not to mention the opportunity to see Kevin as a dad. She is a beautiful little angel and I am glad to have her in my life.