one week old

She is perfect. I am in love. No, I am more than in love. There are no words that I can use to adequately express how she has changed me, the love she has brought into my heart. Not only do I love her more than I thought I could love anything, but she has also made me fall in love with her dad even more.

baby and daddy                                                          four generations of Fry

Rooney has brought lots of lovely visitors our way! Grandma said it was a good thing we had so many stairs otherwise so she can't make an easy get away with baby girl.

 after nap stretches!                                              those big eyes get me every time.

I take pictures constantly and I think every single one of them needs to be shared - but I try my best not to overwhelm social media.

 baby's first bath. she loved it.                           i love her yawns. cutest face.

Cousins!

millie loves being a big cousin. it's the sweetest.

Baby girl eats constantly and sleeps most of the time in between. Though, she does enjoy being wide awake from 2:00am to 5:00am every night. She is always being snuggled by someone and she loves to smile. She has active little chicken legs (I am hoping they chunk up soon here) and the longest little feet. I love dressing her up. She hates diaper changes.

 i have had one afternoon alone with my two babies. it was a bit chaotic, but this is one of my favorite pictures ever.

she is here

And everything about it is a miracle.

First, I didn't think I could carry a baby full term after two miscarriages. That made me a pretty paranoid pregnant lady for the entire course of my pregnancy.  

I wasn't feeling her move as much late last week. Monday morning I was a mess. I had felt movement the night before, but they weren't her normal kicks and jabs. We said prayers and by the time I got to work, I was feeling her kick up again. But, Wednesday was different and I felt that something was wrong. I had felt her rolling around Tuesday night but come 10:30 Wednesday morning, I hadn't felt anything from her. I decided I needed to see my doctor right then, even though I had an appointment with her at 3:45. When I told my para I needed to call my doctor, I started crying and that was when I knew something was wrong.

{Sidenote: on Monday Ashton started picking our car up from my school on the way to work so that he could come and get me at school if I started going into labor. We couldn't have added that new routine to our schedule at a better time.}

Ashton picked me up from work and we got to the hospital by 11:15 ish. Mom met us there. They got me in for some non stress testing and an ultrasound. We could see her heart beating but when I had a contraction (one so small, I couldn't feel it), her heartrate dropped. The nurses kept talking over the sound of her slowing heartbeat like it was fine but when I asked them what it meant, their faces got serious. The nurses told me that it dipping like that wasn't a good sign and if it happened again, today was going to be baby day. Within five minutes, it happened again and this time her heartrate went way low - to the point that I cried out to Ashton and my mom that I felt like I was watching my baby die. It was absolutely terrifying to know my baby was struggling. Mom ran out of the room so fast to grab a nurse. 

They put me in a room where they were going to try and induce me by popping my bag of waters. That was the most painful ten minutes of my life and they weren't even successful. Rooney was so far back and even though I was slightly dialated, they couldn't get the position quite right. 

I can't remember what they were discussIng at that point or if they had decided that we were doing a c section no matter what (because I must have missed that). I was given a catheter - another painful minute and an anesthesiologist gave me a run down on what he might use in whichever situation I might find myself and baby in. 

Her heartbeat slowed and everything seemed still for a split second. The nurses went silent, but were moving fast. Things were needing to happen right now. There wasn't even time for dad and Ashton to give us a blessing. The more that I think back on this moment, the more I think that they weren't saying much for my benefit. Something serious was happening and baby needed out. 

 I remember being in a panic. I hadn't even been able to do more than look at mom with pleading eyes as they rolled me away and  into the OR as tears rolled down my face. Ashton held on to me as we were surrounded by at least ten people.  I was given a spinal block, went numb, and not even ten minutes later the doctor told Ashton to look up and I heard the most beautiful cry in the world. Rooney was here. All 6 pounds and 18 inches of her. She scored a 9 on the Apgar and everyone kept telling me she was perfect.

Ashton was able to hold her and we got a couple of pictures of our new family of three. She knows how to make some seriously adorable faces and came into the world with the cutest furrowed brow scowl there ever was.

After the surgery, I went into recovery as they took Ashton and Rooney into the nursery so all of our family (who gathered in super speed time) could see her. 

Sitting in the recovery room, waiting to see her was the hardest. But I could hear my family in the hallway oohing and ahhing over her which made me jealous and calmed my heart at the same time. After a half hour or so, without my baby, sitting in recovery, they brought her to me and it was perfect. She is SGA (small for gestational age) and that means a few extra tests. She needed me to feed her  and then they had to take a blood sugar test. Anything above 45 is good. She scored a 48 after the first feeding and a 60! after the second.

Update: the blood sugar saga lasted almost our entire stay at the hospital. We got to the final test and her numbers went below 45 and we had to start again. Luckily, we were able to keep them up after that. 

Nothing of my delivery went the way I had planned (imagined my whole life) it to go. They have checked out my placenta thinking that is why she was so small, but everything looked normal. There is no explanation for why Rooney had to come into the world this way.  

I am sitting here with her lying on my chest and Ashton asleep on the super uncomfortable hospital bed, feeling so blessed. If I hadn't come to the hospital this morning, things could have turned out very differently and with many more sad tears. The timing was perfect and everyone kept telling me my mother's extinct was spot on. I think it was so much more - the Holy Ghost was with me, sending me promptings to get things checked out.

It was the most whirlwind of a day. 

We got to the hospital at 11:15 and at 12:56, she was born. Ashton and I are parents to the most beautiful girl and I am so thrilled that she is here and healthy. 

38 weeks.

baby girl is due in two weeks! march 31st finally, sort of, feels close.

that means things like:

- a few days ago, I squatted to clean Thor's face and tore one of my two pairs of maternity pants. super cool.

- my feet are so swollen. my ankles have disappeared.

- nesting. as much as i can anyway. (i am always tired and have to put my feet up as much as possible in an attempt to keep them from turning into sausages)

- i am running out of time to make sure i have everything ready for maternity leave at work! 6 weeks of sub planning is quite the chore - especially when you teach 5 different classes everyday.

- i had three baby showers in one week and we were spoiled rotten. she will be the best dressed bundle of love ever.

- our nursery is finally beginning to look like a nursery and it is adorable!

- i had a cough for at least 10 days. coughing + pregnancy did not mean good things for my poor bladder.

- songs like "my girl" and "baby mine" make me cry.

- getting dressed every morning is the biggest chore. lifting my legs to put on pants is a joke. trying to put shoes on is impossible. 

- pregnancy brain is for real. and it is bad.

- even if i think i got a good nights sleep - my body says otherwise. i can hardly keep my eyes open.

- the waddle.

One of my students lovingly asked what I have been calling baby girl while she is in my belly. When I told him I normally just call her baby girl, he said, "You should call her meatball." It has stuck in my classroom and I regularly get asked how Meatball is doing. I love it. I also love how excited they are for her to get here. They started counting down the days until her due date.

So, little prayers that the next 14 days go by fast or that she decides she wants to meet us before that.

baby bump pictures

A few weeks back, Kelsey took me out for a little maternity photo shoot. I don't think I am the most photogenic, but pictures centered around this baby are my new favorite thing. And Kelsey has a fantastic eye for this type of thing!

So, in honor of having only 5 weeks left and feeling like I have to pee every time I move...

He is absolutely the best.

Everyday, I try to bend over to put on my shoes and everyday he runs to my side and does it for me.

Sadly, the last roll of film was eaten in the machine, but they salvaged them and these are pictures of those pictures so the quality isn't all that amazing...

HOPE

Yesterday, Ashton and I had the opportunity to speak in church. Not surprisingly, I sobbed pretty much as soon as I was at the pulpit. But, it was something I spent a lot of time thinking about and decided to share here.

As members of the church, we are so blessed.

Moroni 7:41 reads: And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

We know that life is not easy, but we have a hope of what is to come. We have the plan of happiness! We know of our Savior and his atoning sacrifice. That knowledge gives us HOPE and that is what I would like to talk to you about today.

Hope is easily misunderstood. It is defined by the world as: “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” To the world, hope is uncertain, but within the gospel hope is “sure, unwavering, and active.” Hope, though, is not knowledge, but trust, trust that the Lord will keep His promises to us.

In the October 2008 session of General Conference, President Uchtdorf gave a beautiful talk about hope and most of what I would like to share with you comes from his words.

He opens with a story of his mother and her hope. He tells of how he, his siblings, and his mother were fleeing to Germany as World War II came closer and closer to their home in Czechoslovakia. They got on a train and at one stop, his mother quickly got off to find food. When she came back, the train was gone. What I love most is how he says that her “faith overcame her fear, and her hope overcame her despair...She put her faith and hope into action,” and after much searching, she found her children.

Once again, he said "Faith overcame her fear, and her hope overcame her despair. She put her faith and hope into action." I want to dive into these concepts a bit.

Hope overcomes despair. Over the last few weeks, Trials and afflictions have been discussed often in our meetings and conferences. We all have them. They are a huge, unavoidable, and very real part of life and, unlike what I thought as a young girl, growing up doesn’t make them go away. Not even marriage to the most perfect man can take away trials - although, you get to go through the trials with someone by your side, which does bring comfort! When we come upon a trial, we can either allow it to swallow us up in despair or turn to our Heavenly Father, rely on the testimonies we have, and proceed with hope. President Uchtdorf says that “hope has the power to fill our lives with happiness.” Unlike the seemingly endless downward spiral of despair, “hope is like a beam of sunlight” that pierces the darkness. Hope inspires us to put our faith in “the loving care of our eternal Heavenly Father.”

Alma 34:41 reads:  “But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions.” - with hope, we know that we will not always be in despair, one day we will rise from it! Hope is the light.

We must put hope into action! Hope is a gift of the spirit. Like any gift of the spirit, we must use it to make it stronger. President Uchtdorf said, “ we have the responsibility to make it an active part of our lives and overcome the temptation to lose hope.” How can we grow our hope? One step at a time. We must study our scriptures, pray and talk with our Heavenly Father, and commit to keep the commandments. We increase in hope as we pray and seek God's forgiveness. We increase in hope as we apply the Savior’s atonement to our lives. As we strive to live the gospel, we grow in our ability to “abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost”

When we talk of hope, we also think of two other attributes. Moroni 10:20-21 reads:

20 Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity.

21 And except ye have charity ye can in nowise be saved in the kingdom of God; neither can ye be saved in the kingdom of God if ye have not faith; neither can ye if ye have no hope.

Hope is part of a three-legged stool, along with faith and charity. Those three legs support us on whatever rough ground we are walking, but we need all three of them to be stable. As we strengthen one of those legs, the others grow as well. Hope comes of faith. Without faith, there is no hope, just the same as without hope, there is no faith.

President Uchtdorf described how necessary it is to have hope. He said, “Hope is critical to both faith and charity. When disobedience, disappointment, and procrastination erode faith, hope is there to uphold our faith. When frustration and impatience challenge charity, hope braces our resolve and urges us to care for our fellowmen even without expectation of reward. The brighter our hope, the greater our faith. The stronger our hope, the purer our charity.”

We can hope for thing and hope in things. When we hope for things, it is often for things in the future. We are blessed for we know what lies in our future. We have a knowledge of our Savior and His atonement. That gives us hope as the mistakes that we all have and will make here in this mortal life, do not have to keep us from the future our Heavenly Father has prepared for each of us - as long as we use the atonement. We hope for eternal salvation surrounded by those we love. The things we hope for lead us to faith.

The principle of hope extends into the eternities, but it also can sustain us through the everyday challenges of life - those things that sustain us are the things we hope in.We hope in the principles of the gospel to carry us when despair seems to overwhelm. We hope in our daily prayers - that they are heard and will be answered. We hope in the scriptures - that through them we will come to know our Savior and develop our testimonies in the doctrine of the gospel. We hope in Jesus Christ, in the love of our Heavenly Father, and in the Holy Ghost. The things we hope in, lead us to charity.

Each time hope is fulfilled, our confidence grows and that, in turn, leads to greater hope.

Hope became very real for me in 2012. You all know Porter. He is the man. And to find out my only brother (admittedly, the most loved of the Thorkelson kids) had cancer - there really are no words, but the little blessings began almost instantly. We were able to turn to hope as we knew that no matter the outcome, the Lord knew what He was doing. My whole being filled with hope as I knew so many were praying for my brother, including the prophet! I was able to think of my Savior - I knew that He was able to comfort me and my family, but more importantly, I knew that He knew the pain, fear, and worry that Porter was experiencing. I love hope! And we all know the outcome of Porter’s cancer battle  - he went rock climbing just yesterday. He is a wonderful example of hope.

Hope has been a big part of our marriage. A week after we got married, we moved to Minnesota. All I knew about Minnesota then was that it was cold. It required hope (and faith), that we were making the right decision. After Ashton had put so much time into air traffic control, the FAA changed everything about the hiring process. We had to rely on hope that the decision to finish school was the right decision and we had then and continue now to have hope that future career decisions will lead our family to the places we need to be. Hope sustained us as we struggled to grow our family and felt real heartbreak and deep sorrow.

Our hope is also strengthened by those around us. As a special education teacher, I get to work with wonderful, amazing examples regularly. My very first year teaching, I had a student that I instantly bonded with. It was like we already knew each other. One day he showed me one primary books. He pointed to a picture of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and said, “Miss Thorkelson, that is my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Someday I will live with them again. Will you be there too?” At 2nd grade, Alex had already perfected the principle of hope and soon after was baptized.

I am so grateful for hope. The idea of hope itself is beautiful. Throughout his talk, President Uchtdorf used words like happiness, peace, mercy, rejoicing, and gladness to describe hope. Hope manifests itself through confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance. Hope teaches that there is reason to rejoice even when all seems dark around us. Do we not want more of all of this? Hope brings so much of the best into our lives.

Alma 7:11 to 13 is the foundation of my testimony. It reads:

11. And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

These words fill my heart with hope. I love how much our savior loves us. I can feel his love as I am overcome with the fullness of what he has done for us. Hope is a sure part of our gospel and I pray that each of us will continue to grow in our hope.

I will close with 2 Nephi 31:20 - Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.