My husband and I have been blessed with two little loves of our lives, Cole (4 yo) and Caden (21 mos). I have decided to write about my most cherished accomplishment and that is being a Mommy to these two boys. I will provide the backstory to how I became a Mommy, juggled being a recent college graduate, finding out at almost the exact-time I was pregnant with Cole, moving away from family and friends, starting a new career and working full-time with a newborn, and then doing a full-360 to becoming a stay-at-home parent almost 2 years ago.
It was the summer of 2012, almost 2 months after my college graduation from St. Louis University, where I received my Master’s in Occupational Therapy, that I found out I was pregnant. A total surprise at the time, and Chris, my now husband, proposed to me just the night before. Chris had just recently accepted a job in Fredericksburg, VA and we were scheduled to move from St. Louis to VA mid-August. At the time, I was studying for my boards to take the National Board Certification of Occupational Therapy so I could begin the job search and start my career. Finding out I was pregnant was a complete shock and automatically I was filled with emotions from excitement to the fear of the unknown. I was already an emotional mess because, even though I lived an hour from my family when going to school, it was not quite like leaving and traveling 15 hours across the country where I had friends or family, and had to rely strictly on my fiancé. I once heard a saying that the most stressful times a person has in their lives are: getting married, moving, starting a new career, buying a home, selling a home, and having children. Well you add all these together within 1 year, you could imagine the stress level under our roofs at night. My husband and I were proud to welcome Cole Benjamin Wyatt on March 25, 2013 in Fredericksburg, VA, and I could not imagine life without him any other way. I was beyond blessed to have my Momma come into town for the delivery and my sister to be in our room with me that day to welcome him into the world. He has brought such an indescribable energy, spark, joy, and overwhelming love to our lives and our extended family. Cole was the first grandchild to my parents and Chris’s parents. Needless to say he is beyond spoiled. He has seen, traveled, and done more than my husband and I in his first four years of life than we ever did as a kid (but that is mostly because we have lived out of state/town since he was born).
My husband and I were ready to try for a second precious baby, so Cole would have a sibling close in age to play with and we both felt we were ready to welcome a 2nd child to our family! I had a miscarriage the end of Feb 2015 and knew in God’s own perfect timing it would happen for us. We found out we were pregnant again, a couple months later with a healthy baby boy that would be due in January 2016. I started to see a pattern after finding out I was pregnant. My husband decided he was ready for a career change, began the process filling out job applications, performing phone/skype interviews, and eventually landed some face-to-face interviews all across the country that year. I was continuing to work full-time and loving my current job working as an Independent Contractor for multiple home health agencies in the Fredericksburg/Washington, D.C. suburbs. We did not know where my husband’s new job would take us, but I have always known his goals/dreams for his career path in life and that we would never be in one place for very long (4-5 years max). He landed a position in North Dakota as a hospital administrator of a rural hospital and would start Jan. 1 2016. That being said, our little boy was due the end of January 2016. My husband and I had it all planned out, well at least we thought, until a couple months prior. My mom was going to fly out to DC a couple weeks before the due date, just in case the baby would come early and I would continue to work and Cole would continue to go to daycare. However, my parents and in-laws thought more about it and decided it would be best for me to deliver the baby back home in St. Louis, just in case there would be any complications and Chris would not be there. We agreed, listed our house, hired movers to pack, and my mom flew out NYE 2015 and we drove my car back from VA to STL with Cole and me being 36 weeks pregnant. I was able to get in with my previous OBGYN- whom I love so much, Dr. Muckermann at Mercy Hospital. We scheduled my induction for Jan 25, 2016, so Chris could be present for delivery and we proudly welcomed Caden Bryce Wyatt to the family. (My parents/in-laws sense knew what they were talking about, because, no kidding, Fredericksburg and D.C. area had the snow apocalypse the day before Caden was born. VA acts pretty much like STL when they get 1-2 in of snow, but this was 20+ inches. I most likely would have had Caden at home if I would have stayed, and Chris wouldn’t have made a flight).
