Lindz Plans, Ryan Prepares

So today marks the 30th week of our triplet pregnancy journey and i believe this may have just become the most difficult time in our marriage and lives in general.

I grew up in a home where my family did their best (a great job) of taking care of us,..but i also grew up in a home that i can never remember anything going perfectly according to plan.  I crashed our family suburban into the inner garage wall, many years later that suburban (after an oil change) had the engine lock up.  My dad went through some 29 knee surgeries, and the last one was a double knee replacement where he ended up with a really bad staph infection.  While recovering from one of those knee surgeries, i accidentally set the yard on fire, and my dad had to come stumbling down the stairs to help me put it out.  My little sister was an unplanned pregancy 9 years after i was born, which definitely changed the family dynamics.  I went through 5 concussions over the years, i basically had each of the 5 levels of concussions.  This just barely touches the surface of all of the craziness that my life has been filled with while growing up.  I can say without a doubt that it has all helped me become a stronger person.

If you read the blog just before this one, you will know how much of a planner lindz is.  Planning is great, but if you dont plan for the bad stuff, then you arent truly planning.  I will give lindz the benefit of doubt that the reason she never plans for the bad stuff is because she never had to deal with too much of it.  Whether her parents sheltered her from it, or maybe she was just the lucky family that crazy things never happened to.  This is why Lindz and i are such a great team.  She plans, i prepare.

The phrase that i began using a while ago is "Prepare for the worst, hope for the best."  This is how my mind deals with pretty much everything.  This is how i remain emotionally detached from many situations.  Not saying it is a good thing, but it is how i cope.  Recently our female dog had puppies, and there were many complications,  4 puppies and only one of them made it.  I love our dogs, but i also know that they are just dogs, and if it became a situation where i had to choose between my wife and kids or the dogs,... i will choose my family first.

This pregnancy has raised all kids of fears and issues in my head.  Just over a year ago i watched our dog go through a similar situation, and knowing what kinds of complications are out there for the mother of multiples, i began preparing my mind.  If you didnt know, during a pregnancy, the doctor's 1st and most important goal is to keep the mother alive.  The babies come second.  I know this may sound harsh right now, but Lindz is the love of my life and if it became a choice between babies that i dont know yet or my wife,.... i would choose my wife every time.  I have also prepared my mind for the fact that all three of our precious bundles of joy may not make it.  It is going to hurt, but i know that i can get through it.  I dont want to loose any of our babies or my wife, but i have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Our financial situation.  Just before the pregnancy began, i moved to a more stable company to help prepare a steady environment financially to afford our lives and children.  Lindz was working for Madonna Learning Center (A private school for kids with special needs), i was working for Memphis Pool Supply during the day and Coaching competitive Trampoline and Tumbling at night at River City Gymnastics.  Three jobs is what it was taking us to get by comfortably.  Lindz' dream job was with Madonna, mine is coaching, the pool work just happens to be something that im really good at and it brings in a large sum of money.

I do want to thank one of my best friends Adam.  Back in 2004 Adam took over feild managing his mother-in-law's pool company, well it could have been before 2004, but in 2004 he knew my work schedule with the gym and offered me hours to work during the day to earn extra income.  It was my play money back then, i was not married and had things i wanted to do back then for fun.  Both Adam and i are very mechanically inclined, and were both new to the pool industry, and we learned many things side by side.  We put our first liner in together, and it goes on and on.  I want to thank him for the opportunity he provided me.
In 2010, although his company had grown significantly, i felt the need to move to a larger "more stable" company.

 I did move, but then management changed twice since i was brought into the new company and things got difficult.  Lindz' pregnancy got complicated when we found out that she was having triplets, and we began to plan which didnt work out, and Lindz was put on bed rest a month before she planned which changed our income significantly 3months sooner than we had planned. Then on July 5th after i was coaching at Camp Woodward for a week, i was told by the pool company management that "It's not working out" and they were letting me go.  But it would be ok because they lined up another job for me with another pool company.  After a week of thinking and praying, i felt like God was telling me that it was time to work for myself and begin my own company to help provide for my family.

I sent out a message to family and friends asking for "prayers and customers" to help me get started.  Once again i was preparing and laying the groundwork to help my family survive.  Now i have been hit with a Non-Compete agreement that is stopping me from working in an industry that has proven since 2004 to be my main source of income.  I prepare for a lot but i definitely didnt see this one coming.  I dont want to take their customers, they offer a great product, i just wasnt fitting in with what they were doing at the time.  All i want to do is to provide for my family.  My unborn triplets and my wife.

So now i am between a rock and a hard place, i still coach, but there isnt enough there for me to be able to provide for my family.  Lindz doesnt have a job, and i lost my main source of income, so what now.  Our savings is quickly drying up, and im not sure what we are going to do next.  I really am worried this time,  i have prepared for a lot of things, but this is like the perfect storm of craziness that could have ever happened to our family. 

So do we move? And find a larger gymnastics facility for me to work at, and then i can start my own pool company on the side there?  But summer is almost over, so what are we going to do over this first winter?  Can you imagine moving just a few weeks or month after having triplets?  Can we even sell our house?

If you can imagine, this is the most trying time for my wife and my relationship.  Im trying to do everything i can to figure out a job situation, but flipping burgers still wont pay the bills.  Im not above picking up trash, i just need to find something that can pay the bills.  I am doing everything i can to be a steady rock for my wife, but im beginning to fall apart.  She has lost everything and every ounce of control or ability to help by being on hospital bed rest.  It is like a jail cell.  She just wants to come home.  And i want her here, but right now it is most important that she keep cooking our babies.

I am praying, and i believe that God has something great in store for us, i just dont see it yet.  And this is like walking through the fire and trusting him completely.  How can i give lindz confidence that things are going to be ok?  Cause i really need them to be.  This is something that neither Lindz' plans nor my Preparing could have seen or expected.

Thanks for all your prayers and support.

Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht - Translation: Man plans, God laughs.

Man plans, God laughs.. Yiddish proverb that I happened upon today, and it is so true as to our life the past year.  I have always had my life planned out, and it actually has gone as planned in the big scheme of things.  Finish high school, go to college for 4 years, get my dream job, marry the man of my dreams, and buy a house together.  This all happened just as planned.  I graduated from high school May 2004, college May 2008, signed my contract for my dream job June 2008, married the man of my dreams June 28, 2008, and bought our home October 2008. 
One of my friends told me around the time that Ryan and I started trying to get pregnant, that she learned the lesson that you can't plan it.  She was right, but I sure did try to plan everything anyways... I guess God was in need of lots of laughs.  It took exactly 1 year to get pregnant.  I sure didn't plan for it to take that long to get pregnant.  I thought how hard could it be... Then once we did get pregnant, I had it all planned out as soon as we we got a positive at home pregnancy test... We would have a fabulous easy pregnancy, our sweet baby at the end of September, and I would be able to return to work in January.  Then we went to our first prenatal doctor appointment.  God needed another laugh that day.  He surprised us with TRIPLETS! There went my plan out the window.  There wouldn't be an easy pregnancy and there wouldn't be a delivery at the end of September... There would be a delivery much sooner than that... So me being me, I started on another plan.  Knowing that some women with multiples have more severe pregnancy symptoms, I still thought I would be able to handle it no problem! I wasn't going to have morning sickness that bad, etc etc... HAHA I can just hear Him laughing.  I had horrible morning sickness. I was throwing up every morning, barely making it to work in one piece.  Some days were worse than others.  Ryan took great care of me though.   He would pick me up off the bathroom floor after I threw up everything in me and carried me back to bed where I would stay for the rest of the day - not being able to eat and running back and forth to the bathroom.  Knowing I would most likely be on bed rest at home during the pregnancy and worst case scenario I would be on bed rest in the hospital, I started my plan... I would finish out the school year.  Stop working the first week in June.  Then go on bed rest at home for the rest of the summer and we would have our scheduled C-section in mid August.  Well God needed another laugh again.  April 20th I went to see my maternal fetal specialist, where they found that my cervix was shortening and funneling (not good).  He told me that afternoon that I would not be going back to work.  I was done.  I was to go home and be a "woman of leisure."  I was to get up in the morning, take a shower, and then lay on the couch and just.. well be a "woman of leisure."  What is that!?  That's not me I don't sit around and do nothing, but I knew I had to and that's what I did.  This wasn't part of my plan, but at least I was home and again I started planning.  I would stay at home on moderate bed rest and everything was going to be okay... God really needed some good laughs I guess... Not 2 weeks later, I was directly admitted into the hospital.  I had surgery 4 days later to have my cervix sewn together to keep the babies in, and I was told I would not leave the hospital pregnant.  Now completely devastated, I tried to make the best of it...
Now let's back it up again to a year ago, Ryan and I decided that it was in our best interest as a family for him to make the move to a bigger company where he had the potential to grow and move up in the company.  So at the end of August last year, that is what we did.  Ryan moved to a bigger company.  We thought this was great.  He had so much potential to grow and support our family that we were trying to start.  He worked for this company for 10 months.  Well God needed a big laugh this time, I guess.  July 5th he went into work and was told that he was being let go - that his position was being eliminated. 
Now I sit here... trying not to completely lose it because it's not good for me and the babies, but it sure is hard not to when everything I plan seems to fall apart.  Maybe it's time for me to learn this lesson that God has been trying to teach me.  STOP PLANNING!  Have FAITH and FOLLOW... Now I sit here and pray that everything will work out.  It has to right?  God wouldn't give us something we couldn't handle... RIGHT?  We can handle this... I PRAY!