Hello there!
If you were following our previous family blog (click here to read about the first 5 years) you probably thought we went to Italy and never came back! For some reason I can't access that blog anymore to update and post about all our new adventures so instead, I have created a new blog!
I blew my own mind just a second ago typing the phrase "read about the first 5 years" because it is crazy to think that it has been almost 5 more years since that last post! So, as my first post on our new family blog, I will attempt to highlight the "big" things and events that have happened over the last five years.
To pick up where the other blog left off, the trip to Europe was amazing! We enjoyed several days exploring and touring Italy before boarding a train to Germany to spend time with Dwayne's family. Both his parents met us in Munich and we spent a little over a week visiting and touring Germany before coming back home to the states.
The following spring, after long weeks of fertility treatments, we were blessed with the news we would be expecting a baby. In June, at our anatomy scan, we found out we would be bringing home a baby boy and gave him the name Noah Edward Macie. In July, at our routine 24 week check up appointment, our lives changed forever. The appointment was happening as routine as all the others had been until the doctor checked Noah's heart beat with the fetal Doppler and we were unable to hear it. I was taken to a room where an ultrasound was performed to check on Noah. He wasn't moving and his heart wasn't beating. A second doctor was brought in to verify what we already knew. The next hours were a blurred time warp. Dwayne was contacted as he was in Mississippi for extended Navy training, and booked the first flight he could to come back home. We checked into the hospital where I was induced. On July 14, 2011 we held our son for the first time. We buried him on July 23 and spent the next few months leaning on each other and those in our lives who loved us. Losing Noah has been the hardest thing we have ever endured.
We made it through his due date, and then through the holidays. I finished the BSN program I had been working on and in December, I walked across the stage at UNR to receive my Bachelor's degree and a small personal victory. I didn't give up even though we had been through so much and achieved one of my goals.
February of 2012, while preparing to begin a second round of fertility treatments we received the biggest surprise of all: we were expecting again! I was immediately started on treatments to support my pregnancy. Noah's loss shed light on some medical issues I have that make being able to become pregnant extremely difficult and carrying a pregnancy to term almost impossible. Now that we knew what we were facing we were prepared. With an amazing team of doctors, a group of family and friends constantly praying for us, and a special angel above watching over us, we welcomed a beautiful baby girl on October 21, 2012.
That same year Dwayne left the police department he's been at for years to join a different department. After just under a year with the new department, it didn't work out and Dwayne became a stay at home dad while we talked about what was next for us. I took a different position at my job, still working with kids and still at the same hospital.
The first year with our daughter flew by, and the second year went even faster! Dwayne continued to do trainings, drills and exercises for the Navy including two trips to Korea. Before long we made the decision to put our house on the market to prepare to move to Reno. I was growing tired of the commute and Dwayne had started working at a tire company as a tire tech in Sparks. Just 5 days after placing our house on the market we had sold it in November of 2014.
Just after Christmas, Dwayne was offered a position as a broadcast meteorologist for a news station in Texas. We had no house to worry about being tied to and the timing was right. This was a dream he had since he was a teenager and it seemed as though this was meant to be. He accepted the offer, gave notice at his job and moved to Texas to start his dream job. Meanwhile, we stayed behind and began the process of preparing to relocate as a family to Texas.
Those are just some of the biggest highlights of the last 5 years. Of course there have been many littler adventures throughout those years, and we have so many memories to cherish.
And that brings us to now! In the next post I will go into a little more detail all the new things on the horizon!
With love,
The Macies
