Home in Seattle?

Yesterday was a long travel day, and last night it felt so good to fall asleep in my own bed again. It was so special to have been home and to introduced Jeremy to so many of my friends and family who had never met him.

We had some sweet times with my dear friend Abby, her husband Gareth and their sweet baby girl Sophie. This was a big introduction too because Sophie is my goddaughter and this was our first meeting! She is adorable (not that I am biased)- See below!



Leaving England was harder this time than it's been in a while. I think it just felt like I had missed so much life in the almost 2 years I had been gone. In that time friends have got married, divorced(sadly), had babies, graduated from school and others from college. My friends don't look that different, but as I saw how grown up their children had got I knew I had been away too long.

I am seeing how torn I really am between life in Seattle and life in England. When I am in Seattle it can be easy to put it out of my mind but once I am back and immersed in England life, I am hooked again. That makes it really hard to leave. In England there are just some things everyone knows; you know who killed Archie Mitchel, and you think it's weird that Katie Price married a guys that looks exactly like Peter Andre. We remember when Ant and Dec were on Biker Grove and feel a little bit of pride about how successful they are now. We watch the Eurovision song contest and we appreciate the silliness of Comic relief. When someone offer me tea, the only variants are milk and sugar. We eat our beans on toast. We get excited about the Christmas number one, and we call those little pouches that old men wear bum bags NOT fanny packs.

It felt good to be in the same page as the rest of the country. I didn't realise how much I missed that feeling of belonging. The longer I am here in Seattle, the more comfortable I begin to feel but as soon as I am in England again I am reminded that I have a long way to go. Now, I am not saying the US is a total mystery to me; I laugh when people talk about living in a "van down by the river" (although most SNL skits go right over my British-sense-of-humoured head).

The USA didn't raise me, I am a product of good ol' blighty. And I miss her.

Now we are back in Seattle, driving on the wrong side of the road again. I think it will take a little while to get rid of my culture shock!! But in other news, it's good to be home.

Yes, I am a complicated woman.

ps, Just wanted to add one pic from our wedding blessing service.

Wedding Blessing

On February 20th Jeremy and I were able to have a wedding blessing at my home church in England. It was a really special time to connect with family and friends who were not able to attend our ceremony last summer. It was almost 6 months to the day that we were originally saying, "I do" - where has the time gone?

As Jeremy and I have journeyed as husband and wife these past 6 months we have walked through some incredible days as well as some challenging ones. We have let down the walls around our hearts, we have loved and been loved deeper than ever before. We have faced house re-modelling head-on and survived, we have sailed through 2 weddings! We continue to navigate around making time for one another and making time for ourselves but we are finding our groove. We have celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, birthdays, Valentines Day and for the most part our expectations have been recognised, voiced, discussed and met in a way that made these times really special.

We continue to walk through the emotions of losing the pregnancy but I believe it has made us stronger. Sharing something like this has taken our bond to a deeper level somehow. When it is something so big that just the two of you share it connects you.

It felt really special to be reminded of the vows we have made and commit to them again. Now we are six months into our marriage we have a much greater understanding of what we are really committing to! When we hear again that we vowed to love when we are proud and disappointed in the other I am sure specific events are coming to mind for both of us when that vow has been a choice we have had to make to keep. Or when we vowed to support each others goals and dreams we think of the sacrifice that we may have to make to keep that promise.

Yesterday, I felt more confident than ever in my decision to commit to being Jeremy's wife. As we made our promises again I was more and more excited to discover what God has in store for our lives. It was such an honour to share this event with so many family and friends who could not make it to Seattle. We feel truly blessed to have had this opportunity.

miscarriage

This post may come as a surprise to many of you, we hadn't really told anyone we were pregnant yet. Your're supposed to wait aren't you, until its safe. Until the magic week 8 when everything is supposed to be safe. When we found out we were just so shocked, and I was so sick it felt like something we couldn't totally keep to ourselves but we were cautious. Even so, we were getting used to the idea, rather than waiting for anything to go wrong. We told our families, and started having some fun dreams together for the year ahead and the baby we would be meeting.

Sadly when I woke up this morning I knew that wasn't going to be. A familiar sensation of cramping and then bleeding told me this was over.

It's a strange thing to process when you lose something you weren't certain you wanted in the first place. It should make it easier right? I should be ok with not having a baby right now, because in the past week since the test was positive I have gone back and forth about how I feel about the whole thing. Trying to be excited but also feeling sad that jeremy and I didn't have the time together that we had wanted before adding to our family. And yet now suddenly our lives seem to be missing something.

I was certain we were having a boy. How crazy is that? At 5 1/2 weeks I don't even think the peanut itself knew what it was but I was sure. And now I am grieving a little baby I will never know, who was only a part of me for a week that I knew about. And maybe its silly, but it was already loved. I can't imagine losing a baby further along in pregnancy.

And here's a kicker. I have always had fear about not being able to have a baby, and when we got pregnant so easily, and without even meaning to I felt like I felt a sense of peace that I could rest knowing I was able to have kids. And now I am left with another fear, what if I can't keep a pregnancy? What if I lose another baby? What if that is where my infertility hides? Do I have it in me to actually try for a baby, wait to find out if we are pregnant and then wait, day to day for nine months to see if it holds? I am not sure, but I know with time we heal. It's too raw and new to think about now.

Jeremy and I leave for London tomorrow morning and I see a blessing in the timing of this trip. Time to be together, just us. A time to celebrate our marriage with friends and family. To remember what is important. We are still here. Strong together even as we stand broken-hearted at the loss of somthing we never really even knew.

It's a rainy day in Seattle today, and there is a small comfort in seeing the grey outside. Somehow I feel less alone in my sadness.