And dreams that had never come true

I have written close to a thousand posts since I started this blog almost 7 years ago. 

This will be, by far, the hardest one to write. 

2016 has been probably the most difficult, challenging, life changing year I have ever lived. 

Between car accidents, emergency surgery, changing jobs, looking at life differently, just everything.

It has been a tough year but I am convinced God is trying to teach me something. 

So, after my near death experience in February, I kind of woke up to the realization that I wasn't living my life really.

I was just surviving. 

Not happy, not growing, not joyful, not challenged, not inspired. 

Nothing had changed in my life in too many years. 

So, I did some things that I had never done. 

Some...impulsive things.

 (which I genuinely regret)

And...in the 2nd week of April, I found out I was pregnant. 

Yeah. 

Being unmarried, LDS, and pregnant was not how I saw my life at 36. 

I was both insanely excited and insanely scared. 

I went to the OB on Thursday, the 26th of May.

And they told me she was gone. 

(I have always felt like this baby was a girl...I have been calling her "Lily Jane"..who knows though?) 

She said I had what is called a 'chemical pregnancy', where the embryo forms but doesn't attach to the uterine wall. 

They gave me some pills to take (to dispose of the 'products of conception') and I went home alone. 

I stayed up all night. 

I broke out in hives and chewed my nails down to the stub. 

I couldn't think clearly. 

I couldn't stop crying. 

I was reading Harry Potter because that was what I had started reading to the baby as soon as I found out. 

I didn't want anyone there. 

There wasn't anything my mom could do. 

And I felt like I had to be HER mom in that moment and be strong. 

I've kind of been on autopilot the last week. 

But I felt like there should be some record, somewhere (besides my ob's files) that she existed. 

That she was loved.

So, this blog will return to being the crazy Spinster Chronicles. 

But, just like a tiny part of my heart will always be in Chicago with the people I served on my mission, another tiny part of my heart will be with her. 

I hope she is the first thing I see when I get to the other side. 

Lori Ann 

(Lily Jane's mom )