What Should Have Been

Today is an especially difficult day.  Since the last time I wrote, things have been slowly getting better, and there have been a few bright spots throughout our daily routine.  While we still think about Drake every day, we have moved further in the healing process.  We have also settled back into our regular routine of our busy work schedules, which may or not be for the better.  As we see so many of our friends celebrating their pregnancies and the births of their children, we want to celebrate with them but at the same time it is a reminder of what we have endured.

Today was Drake's due date.  Every day we remember and love him, but are still heartbroken that he cannot be in our arms today.

Hello, Goodbye

Our baby was born on March 27, 2012 at 3:46PM.  He weighed 1 lb/11 oz and measured 12 inches long.  He was only 24 weeks along, originally due July 13.  We named him Drake, because he was born in the year of the dragon.

It's been exactly 1 month since we said hello and goodbye far too soon.  We have started to get a little closure on what happened, but it is still painful as we look back on what happened.

Through this entire experience, the one positive thing is that it has brought our family closer together.  We always knew that we had a great support system in our families, but it wasn't until this happened that we realized how blessed we are to have such loving and caring people in our lives.  We've been so pleasantly surprised at the generosity and kindness that we've received from our friends and family.

Every day is slowly getting a little bit easier, although there are unexpected rough patches.  We are trying to get back to "normal", but it's still unclear what normal really should be at this point.  We mostly are working towards getting to a place where we can look back on what happened with hope instead of sadness.  Through it all, we will always remember our baby boy and remember how much we have loved and continue to love him.

Try, Try Again

At the start of 2010, Jeff and I decided that we were ready to start a family. We had been married for a year and a half, and we had been talking about starting a family for a while. Jeff joked that he wanted a large family of 9 kids, and I was more on the side of having 2 or 3. However, we agreed that we were ready to start, one by one.

Based on everything we've been taught in school and seen in movies, we thought that once we started trying, we'd be pregnant immediately. After a few months, we realized that this was very wrong. However, according to doctors, it can take up to 1 year for healthy couples, so we told not to be concerned. By the end of the year we still were not successful, so we knew it was time to start seeking additional help.

2011 was the year of tests. We started seeing more doctors and specialists, all of whom wanted to do tests to try to see why we weren't getting pregnant. It felt like I was getting a blood test every other week. [Un]Fortunately, all the tests came back normal, and no one could figure out why we weren't getting pregnant. In September, we tried IUI, which didn't work. We were getting extremely discouraged when we went on our vacation to Beijing in October. On the day we got back, we were scheduled to visit our fertility specialist, but after traveling for 13+ hours, we decided to skip and go again next month. A few weeks later, we were delighted to find out that we were pregnant! It seemed that we had beaten the odds and gotten pregnant naturally.

Over the next few months, we went through the different phases that all expecting parents go through. First was sharing the news with family and friends, then decorating the nursery and picking baby names. We also felt like this was meant to be, since it seemed like everyone we knew was due around the same time as us. It was like we were all joining the same club together, which added additional excitement to this special time. For the first 23 weeks, it was the best time of our lives. We finally were getting this amazing gift that we had been striving for. We had so many hopes and dreams for our bundle of joy, as well as for our future as a family.

Life Gets in the Way

It's been a really long time since I've updated this blog. I know each time I write an entry, I think that I'll start to make it a habit to keep posting regularly, but life always seems to get in the way. Over the past couple of years, Jeff and I have been pretty busy just being newlyweds and settling into our home together. Since the last post, we have successfully painted our condo, installed lighting, redid both the master and the guest room closets, and also recently refinanced our home. While in retrospect, each project seems to be pretty mundane, we spent a fair amount of time with each one. Whether it was picking and testing paint colors, measuring and designing closet layouts, or going through the mountain of paperwork for the refi, while we were in the thick of it, it seemed like that particular project would be endless. But, the constant theme was that we were always in it together, and so we enjoyed keeping ourselves busy.

We've also had lots of great times with our faithful pup, Friday. She has been our constant companion for summer trips to the cottage, weekend walks around Hoboken, and she's always a friendly face ready to jump and lick us as soon as we walk through the front door. All in all, we've definitely been blessed with a happy life together as a little family.

A couple of years ago, as most married couples do, we started to get the itch to start a family. It wasn't that we felt like everyone else was doing it, because only a couple of our friends had started having kids. Jeff and I always wanted to start having kids after a year or two of marriage because we wanted to have a large family. We naively thought that it would be as simple as deciding to have kids, and then it would be so! Clearly, we were way off.

We soon found that having kids isn't as easy as it sounds. And, that even when you feel like you might just have it all together, sometimes the world has other plans for you.

Ok, I know we've been slacking...

So, I am aware that we haven't updated this blog in far too long a time. But, as the holidays are starting to approach, I think it's a perfect time to get back into it.

This summer was a fun one, and we really packed in the activities. From trips to outdoor time to just getting stuff done around the house, we kept ourselves really busy! Now that fall is upon us, we are saddened by the shorter days and the colder weather. (Well, actually Jeff loves the cold weather, so it's a plus for him.)

The biggest news of the season is our parents' (Kohls) purchase of a lake house on Lake Wallenpaupack. They will be closing in a couple of weeks, and are planning to have Thanksgiving dinner at the lake this year. We can't wait to help out around the lake house to get it ready for the spring/summer. We know that Friday will love it there as well- we've already bought her a doggie life jacket so she can go swimming in the lake!

Next up on our list is to get some lighting installed in our home, and to get all of the walls painted. We're still looking into ideas for paint colors and we hope to get this done by the end of the year. Wish us luck!!

Vegas, baby!

So it has been a while since our last post, but in our defense we've been extremely busy! We've been spending all of the recent sunny days outside at the park with the pup, who's been maturing rapidly.

We also spent the previous weekend going to Las Vegas to surprise Jay's cousin, Jared, for his birthday! This was a last minute trip, which was great because it was a nice partial vacation before our full-length vacation later this month. While we like to maintain the What Happens in Vegas slogan, we'll let you know that we relaxed by the pool, had fun times visiting all of the casinos, and enjoyed some delicious meals on the strip. We also were lucky in that we didn't lose any money gambling! In fact, we made a few dollars off of video poker... although those were quickly spent on some celebratory birthday drinks! :)

On our journey back home, we drove with Jared and his girlfriend to the LA airport. When we boarded our flight, Jay started thinking that since we were in LA, we might have some famous people on our plane. Not thinking that he would actually recognize anyone, he began looking around the First Class cabin, where he spotted a familiar face.... it was Neil Patrick Harris! Doogie Howser, MD was sitting just a row in front of us for the flight! As soon as we landed in Newark, Jen jumped out of her seat and asked NPH for a picture. He smiled and agreed, but then looked around and saw that everyone had filled the aisle. He then said "Why don't we take it when we get out of the plane?" The two of us waited for everyone to exit, and as he entered the jetway, Jen yelled "Neil! Can we take the picture here? Our luggage is in the back of the plane." So we handed our camera to one of the flight attendants, who snapped the photo. Then, we said goodbye and he went on his way. After this friendly encounter, we were so thrilled to have met Barney Stinson, our favorite character on How I Met Your Mother! He was such a nice guy (and taller than we imagined), and we are now even bigger fans than before.

After our trip to Vegas, Jay has been missing Vegas so much, so we went to go see the Hangover. Surprisingly, the movie was extremely hilarious! It definitely was nothing like our trip to Vegas, but it certainly was one of the more entertaining films we have seen in a while.

Now that we're back to reality, we're anxious for our next trip. On June 20, we'll be cruising out to the Eastern Caribbean! We'll be leaving out of Brooklyn, NY to visit San Juan, Turks & Caicos, St. Thomas, and Bermuda. We can't wait!

Is it spring yet?

So it's been a while since our last post... this is due to the fact that we've been hibernating this winter. It's been so cold here in NY/NJ, we're even postponing Friday's first haircut until it warms up a bit. Lately, we've been having some great times with the pup! She's enjoyed several snow falls this season, and has also made many doggy friends in our condo complex! Check out our newly uploaded pictures and videos at http://picasaweb.google.com/jen.j.kohl/Friday.

We are also trying to decide where we should go for our next vacation. We'd like to get away over the summer, but we haven't been able to settle on a location yet. Let us know if you have any suggestions!