Tri Man

Chris has recently been interested in doing triathlons. His mother is a great inspiration to everyone she comes in contact with and she was able to inspire Chris to work hard at more than just running. Chris has been getting up early to swim and staying out late to ride his bike and after all his training he was finally able to participate in his first Olympic triathlon. He had done a couple of sprints earlier this year, but the Olympic was his real goal. He had been planning to do the Pumpkin Man Triathlon down at Lake Mead and had been working towards that goal for a long time and that goal was put into the jeopardy when the government decided to shut down and close all the national parks. They sent out an email to everyone who had signed up saying that if the parks were still closed that they could still come down and do the run portion of the tri, but that would have been a waste of time. We didn’t want to drive 6 or 7 hours both ways so that Chris could run a 10k. Luckily, the government ended their childishness a couple of days before the race and we were able to drive down so that Chris could do the whole race. He did pretty well, his transitions could use a little work, but he looked strong throughout the whole race and his run portion was amazingly fast. Good Job Babe!

Hoping to Adopt

There has never been a doubt in my mind that Chris and I would eventually have kids. Whenever I would talk about the future, it would be “when we have kids…” not “if we have kids…”. I knew when I married Chris that it would be a little while before we started, he wanted to finish law school before trying and I agreed with him for the most part. I’ve always felt that I’m a bit immature for my age and I’m never quite ready to move on to the next step in my life at the same time as my peers. I wanted to get used to being married to Chris before starting our family, I think that I needed a strong marriage and a strong relationship with my husband before involving children. In addition to that, I wanted the decision to have kids to be a mutual thing, I didn’t want to force or cajole or bully Chris into starting a family when he wasn’t ready any more than I wanted him to do the same to me. So we decided to wait. When Chris finished law school and we moved back to Salt Lake I felt like it was finally time to start our family and I began to talk about it with Chris more and more. Chris is the kind of person who needs to think things through and get used to an idea over time, so I was okay with the delay at first, but my patience did wear thin. After a while, he finally agreed that it was time to start trying. I just knew that we would be able to have kids right away, I come from a huge family and his is rather large, so clearly fertility wouldn’t be a problem for us. However, after the first couple of months, I began to wonder. I started reading articles and books about infertility and began to get worried. I tend to overanalyze things and it was something that was constantly on my mind. I was starting to drive myself crazy when Mary handed me a training schedule for a half marathon. I had been doing a little running, but never more than a 5k and the idea of running a longer race was intriguing. I decided to give it a shot and if I should get pregnant, than I would just stop the training and be happy. I started thinking about the amount of running I was doing, what type of shoes I was running in, going for a run with Mary, who is a much better runner and I didn’t want to slow her down, etc. I honestly believe that if I hadn’t started running, I would have been a miserable person. I needed something to take my mind off the fact that I wasn’t getting pregnant and running was exactly what I needed. After my first half marathon, I kept going and I made Chris go with me. We did several half marathons together, Ragnar, and we started our first marathon together (Chris couldn’t finish due to a knee problem, but we had trained for the whole thing and made it about 17 miles in together). After that first marathon, I developed shin splints and then a knee problem and couldn’t run for about 6 months. I did not handle it well, I’m afraid. I had been so concentrated on running that I didn’t have much time to think about infertility, but when I couldn’t run, our infertility came crashing down around my head compounded by the fact that my distraction was just another problem to deal with. I felt pretty useless and shed many more tears than I’d like to admit. I had to face my problem head on and it was one of the toughest times of my life. Looking back now, I know that my injuries were the catalyst that finally sent us to the infertility doctor. If I had been able to run, I would have been able to push that particular problem to the back of my mind indefinitely and we still might be biding our time. However, in facing my problem, I made an appointment with an infertility specialist and we discovered what our problem is. We tried a few different treatments, all to no avail and eventually our choices were narrowed down to adoption or invetrofertiliztion. We fasted and prayed and made lists of pros and cons and talked to family who also fasted for us and did research on both options and after a while decided that adoption was the option for us. Through all the research I had done, I thought that LDS Family Services would be the best option for us and Chris agreed, so several months ago, we met with a counselor, went through orientations, interviews, home-studies, questionnaires and eventually made it to where we are now, with a profile up on It’s About Love, hoping that someone will pick us as the right family for their child. I continue to run to keep my mind off waiting and Chris continues to be his usual calm and serene self as we play the waiting game, but I realize that we’ve been married for 8 wonderful years, and a few more months is do able. I do hope that we are chosen soon, I’m eager to have an addition to our family, to share the amazing life I’ve been able to have with one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. I know we’d do a great job.