A Whole Lotta Stuff Going On

   Yesterday was awesome. To start out with, Mark and I got to get up extra early, before the sun was even up, to go to West Bountiful to volunteer for a half marathon a friend of ours, Josh, hosted to support cancer research. Mark and I, along with Addison and Ryan Copeland, were the relief station at the halfway mark. To read more about the half marathon or my friend Josh's weight loss and running journey's, read his awesome blog at http://www.phatjosh.com/.
   While at the marathon, I think Mark and I decided that we might want to move to the Centerville/Bountiful area. We are not that happy here in Ogden. We don't feel safe and the whole town seems very run down and unsavory. We have 2 bars a block from our house and a porn shop about 2 miles from us (right by a softball park for kids). There are topless bars here and bunches and bunches of questionable people. I don't feel safe running outside by myself and worry about Mark when he goes. I guess the culture shock of moving from Orem to Ogden hasn't worn off at all.
   Also, I have been thinking a lot about Isabel lately. I recently learned of another couple that is carrying to term a baby with a fatal birth defect and it brought up a lot of stuff for me. July 29 is the anniversary of when we found out Isabel had Anencephaly, so that is coming up fast for me. It not only marks the day we found out she was sick, but it also marks the end of the days I would like to call my "innocent pregnancy" days. You know, you go into a pregnancy saying you hope the baby is healthy, but secretly you know nothing will ever go wrong for you because that happens to other people. So, instead you worry about what sex the baby is and what it will look like. But July 29, 2009 marked the end of that forever for me. Instead, now I have to worry about things like Anencephaly, Hydrocephaly, Exocephaly, all the Trisomys, but especially 13 and 18 (since we don't know if Isabel's condition was really Anencephaly or a Trisomy that presented that way), and miscarriage ( I had one of those with Addison's twin). And that is just the stuff I know I am likely to have!
   But I also think a lot about Isabel's life. She was willing to accept a body that was so imperfect (blind and deaf and a brain that was mostly unformed) and live such a hard life with seizures and pain. And even though she was still born, she held on until the very end and had what had to have been a painful death, passing while I was pushing. How strong of a spirit must she have had to accept such a fate? And how strong must Heavenly Father think I am to accept that for her? I know with every fiber of my being that we did what we could for her and that we were guided in our decision making to do what she needed, but sometimes knowing how horrible her physical pain and limitations had to have been makes me mad and sad and questioning how this could happen. I can still remember the "knowing" time of my pregnancy, like it was yesterday. How I couldn't bring myself to do more when I got home than to sit on the sofa, watching tv and playing on Facebook. Seriously, that is about all I did when I wasn't at school or work. I never cleaned my house (Hoarders almost could have had a great show here!), I ate only stuff that I didn't have to cook, which meant a whole lot of fruit cups and sunflower seeds. Mark was taking 16 credits and working 45+ hours, 6 days a week. We saw each other when he got home after midnight and before he went to school at 8am. Our family and most of our friends lived 8+ hours away. My whole time was spent, just Isabel and I.

   I sometimes get so mad that she wasn't born alive because I truly feel like I was the only one that knew her. I was the only one that knew she liked it when you rubbed on her wayward knee or elbow. I was the only one that knew her love of Butterfingers and Root Beer (two things I didn't like until I was 6 months pregnant). No one but me got to really know her. And that is really hard to deal with. That is why I run. I run because I never what this to happen again. I run because I think she always thought I am a better person than I think I am. I run because I know she knows I can do it, even I don't think I can. To read more about my pregnancy with Isabel, visit my other blog, http://gabicafamily.blogspot.com/.