My New Adventure

I am on my way on a new adventure - last Monday I started my new job at Northern Quest Resort & Casino.  They recently created a brand new position - Interactive Communications Strategist - that had my name written all over it.  The position is housed in the Hotel Sales & Marketing department on the resort side, but I will be working on website content and search engine optimization as well as social media strategies and execution for several entities including:

• Kalispel Tribe
• the Resort
• the Casino
• The Q Sports Bar
• Impluse nightclub
• Legends of Fire cigar bar
• Current Spa & Salon
• Masselow's (the fine dining restaurant at the resort)

Our temporary offices are located behind the new parking garage and the hotel in what's known as the "PR trailer."  There are 10 of us in the trailer, which is about the size of the portable classrooms we had a Colbert Elementary back in the '80s and early '90s.  In a few weeks, our offices will be moved into the hotel.  I haven't even seen the hotel yet!

It has been really hard to leave my family at the Spokane Regional CVB.  I wouldn't be the woman/mother/friend/marketer/social media fiend that I am if it weren't for the love and support I received from the bosses and co-workers there.

I am very excited about the opportunity my new job holds.  But I really have my work cut out for me. I am 100% ready to hit the ground running!

I Will Not Forget

It's hard not to think back to where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about the attacks on our country on September 11, 2001.  I've heard it said many times that this event was my generation's JFK assassination.

I had just pulled in to the parking lot of Gold's Gym on the northside of Spokane where I was going to meet my best friend Tera for an early morning workout. I vividly remember us both sobbing on the elliptical machines as we watched the towers fall one after the other. (I will spare you all a recapping of the details, as I'm sure that you remember as well as I do what happened that day.)  From the gym, I headed downtown to work at Northwest Hair Co. where I was a receptionist.  We had the TV on all day and I continued my nearly uncontrollable crying.  I don't think I've ever cried more in a 24-hour period than I did that day. 

I lived alone in an area of town that is not-so-fondly referred to as Felony Flats so I never really associated with any of my neighbors.  But in the days that followed, I actually found myself spending time with some of them. One night that week there was a national moment of silence.  I remember sitting on the front porch of my apartment complex with my best friend and a couple of my neighbors eating pizza and reflecting on the events of the week and how it had impacted us.  We were all different ages and from different backgrounds and parts of the country.  We had four lit candles sitting in the center of our little circle - one for each of the targets in the attack; one for each of us.

I was only 21 years old and still in college on September 11, 2001.  I didn't know anyone who died in the attacks that day.  I didn't even know anyone who knew anyone who died.  But I was directly affected by the wars that came after the attacks.  Donnie, my best friend from high school, was a mechanic in the Air Force at the time and he was in one of the first deployments to Afghanistan.  He was gone for a year, leaving behind his wife and two-year-old daughter.  Barry, a man who is a close friend of mine and practically a brother to my husband, was sent to Iraq for a year instead of being able to retire after 20 years in the Army.  The stories of his experience there were horrible.

While my stepdaughters vaguely remember 9-11 (they were only 5 and 7 years old at the time), they remember their Uncle Barry spending time in Iraq.  I wonder how and when we will tell the twins about 9-11.  They really won't have anything to associate with it like the girls do.  But I want to make sure they have an appreciation for our country and the men and women who fight to protect us as soon as possible.

As I sit here writing this, I'm crying again. (I know. I can't help it!) My two-year-old son just walked up to me and touched my teary face and said, "It's OK, Mommy. It's OK." Then he gave me a big hug.  While I hope that someday the twins have some kind of an understanding of how we all felt that day and the same appreciate for our country and our troops that I feel, I pray to God that they never have an experience like 9-11 in their lifetimes.

The last thing I want to say is THANK YOU to all of the men and women of the armed services and their family and friends who support them.  My life and the lives of my children would not be the same without you.

Do You have the Twin Gene? Um... no.

Have you ever asked a mother of multiples: "Do twins run in your family?"  Sure. I have too, before I actually had twins. When you really think about it, you're actually asking: "Did you use fertility treatments to get pregnant with twins?"

I don't get offended by that question - it takes a helluva lot more than that to offend me.  My mom, on the other hand, hates it when people ask her. She gets uncomfortable because she feels like it isn't anyone's business how we ended up with twins.  But I'm really pretty much an open book.  So in an effort to help others understand and maybe even help another woman feel like she's not alone in her plight to get pregnant, here's the kinda-short version of the story (I will spare you the gory details):

When I was in high school, I would have such horrible cramps and pain - it was completely debilitating. I would actually leave school and go to the office of my uncle, who was our family doctor for most of my life (blog to come about him later), to get a shot in my hip so the pain would subside enough so I could function normally.

By the time I was in my early 20s, my OB/GYN (Dr. Pam Silverstein at WomanHealth - she's AWESOME!) was convinced that I had endometriosis.  Other women in my family have had fertility issues, including endometriosis, so I wasn't too surprised that that was the prognosis.

By the time Chad and I were ready to start trying to have a baby, I had already had two surgeries to remove endometriosis and scar tissue. Thankfully, when we weren't having any immediate success, my doctor got very aggressive. She put me on Clomid, which is a fertility drug. After several months of increasing doses, we finally got pregnant.  It was really hard for me to believe because I never felt pregnant.  But we were so excited! After two blood tests confirmed it, we told everyone - family, friends, work.

Then after about two weeks, I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain. I knew what was happening, but I tried to pretend like I was fine because I didn't want to face the fact that I was losing our baby.  When I walked into work the next morning, one of my co-workers and close friends, who had been through a similar experience, took one look at me and said, "Go to your doctor NOW."  Apparently, not only was I extremely pale, but the pain was written all over my face.

My doctor was out of town, but her partner Dr. Lewis Meline was wonderful.  By the end of the day, I was back home after surgery removing both our teeny tiny undeveloped baby and one of my fallopian tubes which had been severely damaged by the ectopic pregnancy.  It was the end of August 2006, and after all that, I felt like our chance to conceive had come and gone.  A month later we decided to give it one Clomid one more try with the dose they will prescribe.

I knew the moment I got pregnant, which was interesting to me since I really never felt anything the first time.  I kept it to myself till I had the home pregnancy test to show Chad.  We didn't tell anyone this time.  We had our first ultrasound at 5 weeks.  There was a strong possibility of another ectopic, so they wanted to rule that out right away.  Oddly, I wasn't worried.  I knew everything was fine.

The night before the ultrasound, I said to Chad: "What if it's twins?"  He laughed and told me I was crazy.  I had a strong feeling I wasn't that crazy.  Sure enough - I laughed out loud the next day when the ultrasound tech said, "Here's Baby A. And here's Baby B."  Chad almost fell over.

Apparently the Clomid had caused two eggs to be released either simultaneously or one shortly after the other.  It's entirely possible that the twins did not have the same conception date, but we'll never know for sure.  Twins with Clomid isn't all that uncommon, but the thought of having twins had never crossed our minds before.

Anyhoo... so to answer the question I set out to answer at the beginning of this rambling:

No, twins do not run in my family.  We had help in the form of prayers, God and Clomid.

Life and Death

Chad and I attended the memorial for a friend today. He passed away just before Christmas, but his family wanted to wait till spring for the memorial.

Andrew Gumprecht was a wonderful man. Only 33 years old, but he managed to touch the lives of many in his role as a bartender. He told amazing stories and charmed everyone who met him. He had a big smile and an infectious laugh. The memorial today made me wish I had known him better. His family and closest friends shed a bright light onto the person he was and, to be honest, I feel a bit cheated that he was taken from us before I got the chance to know him better.

His death has also made me consider my own mortality. Why do I waste time with things that make me unhappy? Why do so many of us do that every day? Why don't we tell the people we love that we love them every chance we get? Why do we hesitate to open ourselves up to the people we want to be close to? What the hell are we afraid of? Getting hurt, I suppose. But I contend that it would hurt more to lose the chance to get close to someone you care about than it would if you were to open up and have it not reciprocated. At least then you'd know you made the effort to open up your heart and you wouldn't regret the fact that your didn't take the risk.

I would imagine most people have read/heard The Dash. It's a poem that basically states that it's not about the day of your birth or the day of your death. It's about the dash that's in between. I want to make the most of my dash. I don't want to waste time with petty bullshit. I want to forgive and forget and move on. While I want to recognize and address my anger and sadness, I don't want to dwell on those emotions. I want to focus on my happiness. I want to surround myself with people I love who love me in return - people who love me for ME, not the person they want me to be or think I should be.

Of course, we're all painfully aware that we have no idea how much time we have on this earth. No big surprise there. But I hope to make the most of every day I have here. I want to make "Carpe Diem" my mantra again, as it once was. Nothing ventured, nothing gained... and all those other painful cliches that prove to be true time and time again. I refuse to let the opportunity to express my love and admiration for those around me pass me by.

So, if you already know I love you, you'd better get ready for lots of hugs and kisses and "I love yous." And if you don't already know I love you, you're going to find out very soon. : )

"Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the ones you did." ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"May you live all the days of your life." ~Jonathan Swift

"All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!" ~Bob Newhart