Dorothy Camille Spangler

Exactly one month ago today, on July 19th, our sweet angel Dorothy Camille Spangler was born still.  When I was 16 weeks pregnant we found out that our baby had Turner's Syndrome.  This is not something that is fatal, but our baby girl got the worst of it.  The doctor told us she had excessive fluid in her heart, abdomen, and lungs. We were told that she had no chance at surviving the pregnancy. That is the worst news I have ever received.  For the next 7 weeks we were on our toes wondering if our baby was still alive or not.  It was heartbreaking, and the hardest thing I've ever done.  Dorothy Camille was our miracle.  I remember the day I took the pregnancy test and I screamed and cried I was so happy!  I remember the look on Bryan's face when I told him I was pregnant.  I have never seen someone so proud.  Even though she is not with us today, I am so thankful for her.  She brought so much joy into our life.  It hurts so bad not to have her here with us.  Not to be able to hold her, or smell her, or take care of her. My heart aches to take care of her.  I know that we will have the chance to raise her one day.  She was too perfect for this awful world.

Every week we would go to the doctor for and ultrasound to see if she was still alive.  Every week for 7 weeks we saw her heart beating.  Then one day, it wasn't anymore.  Even though I had all that time to prepare for that moment, it was still so hard. I had always secretly hoped the doctor's were wrong and that a miracle would happen and she would be born alive. We soon went to the hospital, and  after 17 1/2 hours of labor, I delivered our perfect baby. She was so beautiful.  We spend the next several hours holding her and talking to her.  Something I am so grateful we did.  When the time came to say goodbye, I couldn't do it.  I remember breaking down in the hospital when we had to wheel her down to the nursery for the mortuary to come pick her up.  How could I leave my baby girl?? It was the worst feeling I've ever experienced.  I have never felt more sad or lonely in my life.

The following Monday we held a graveside service for our immediate family and a few friends.  It was the "closure" that we needed in order to be able to heal and move forward.  It was very beautiful and peaceful.  I am so glad to have her grave site to go visit.  It heals me.  I love talking to her and bringing her flowers.  I love her so much.

I am writing this blog post because writing helps. Getting my feelings out and talking about my perfect daughter helps. I want the whole world to know that I have a daughter!!  Unfortunately talking about stillbirth is still a hard subject for people to talk about or handle. Most people find it awkward or don't know what to say.  That's fine!!  It's still sometimes hard for me to talk about, only because it still hurts.  I look forward to the day when I can just remember her in joy and happiness and not as much sadness.  If you read this, thank you.  Thank you for giving me the chance to express my feelings.  I do not want you to feel bad for us.  You can share in our joy for a perfect life that never had to live on earth.  I'm not gonna lie.  It hurts.  bad.  every day. every minute.  But I still am happy that I am her mom, and that I had the chance to help her grow for 6 months. 

Barbados!!

 On December 19, 2010 Bryan surprised me with an anniversary trip to Barbados! He made me a cute video displaying all the trips we've been on over the last 3 years, and then at the end he showed that we were going to Barbados.  I was so surprised! He's not usually the one to surprise me or do cute things, so I was way shocked.  Anyway, we went on our trip on January 7th, 2011.  We had such a great time! We went to an All-Inclusive resort in Speighstown, Barbados.  We were right on the beach. We ate sooo much good food! Lots of seafood and ice cream.  3 course meal for every meal! It was so great!!  Below are a few pictures from our trip.

This is Bathsheba.  Way beautiful! Above is the car we drove for 2 days around the Island.  We drove on the right side of the car, and on the left side of the road! Very confusing!! Bry sure caught on real fast though.  Except for those round-abouts!

The view from our resort! 

We would drive around and find pretty sites to see, this was one!

This is where people would get married at our resort.  There would also be pretty romantic dinners at night. 

We took this hobie cat sailing one day. Way cool!

Bryan relaxing in the sun!!

Coolest car ever. 

 We played pool every night! So fun! Even though we sucked at it.

Speighstown

The Reef Restaurant.  Awesome food. 

Beach outside of our window at our resort.  

Movie Clip

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Peru

As a graduation gift to ourselves we used our Tax Return money to go to Peru.  We booked the tickets in January or something like that and Bryan talked about it every day for like a month.  I finally had to tell him to stop talking about it because we still had a semester of school and work left.  However, graduation finally came and so did our trip to Peru. It was amazing. We had so much fun and had such great experiences.  We were able to stay with a family that Bryan lived with as a missionary, we went to one of the 7 wonders of the world Macchu Picchu, and got to Sand Board, and then do some awesome shopping in Lima. Peruvians are very nice and we enjoyed getting to know some of them and learn about the culture.  Here's some pictures that we took.  We took over 400 so I'll only put a few here. 

Our favorite part of the trip was Ica, hands down.  This was where Bryan spent a lot of his  mission, and it was his favorite. I quickly learned why. The family that he lived with down there are amazing!  They are so selfless and are willing to give everything they have.  We had so much fun eating popcorn, drinking coca cola and playing phase ten.  We hung out with the missionaries, and Bry even got to go out tracting with them.  It was hard at some points because I don't speak much Spanish.  I do understand it, but as soon as they got their tongue's rollin' I couldn't follow anything they said.  And of course they couldn't understand me.  It made for some fun times.  I made Chili for them, and it was hard to try to translate the English words into Spanish, especially when Bry was gone and it was just me and the family who only speaks Spanish.  I was sitting in the kitchen with the mom, Florabel and I was trying to describe "Onion" in English, and then in Spanish.  We were drawing, pointing, and using sign language.  I finally figured it out when I found it--it's a word I'll never forget. Cebolla.  ha.  we also got to go sand boarding and dune buggying (is that a word?).  that was so fun, but kinda scary.  the driver was only 19 and would race up and down the dunes.  I swear we were gonna die.  but it was so fun.


I guess I should mention how cool Macchu Picchu is.  No matter how many times I look at our pictures, I still find it so amazing.  I loved hearing the stories, and learning their culture.  We went before the sunrise when hardly anyone was up there.  It was so awesome to see the sun rise above the mountain and see the light shine on Macchu Picchu.  I recommend everyone to go there!!

Photo Shoot

Well we're back in Utah.  It's been a while since I've written on here so I figured I'd give it a shot.  I wanted to put up our pics from our Photo shoot with Natalie Norton.  She did an amazing job, and I really love our pictures.  So enjoy!

Skydiving and Hawaii Fun

Of course like crazy people we decided to go skydiving. Bryan's friend Steven was visiting us for the weekend so we decided to all do it together.  It was the most amazing thing ever! So fun! They fly you up 14,000 feet then hook us up to the tandem (the experienced jumper) then next thing you know you're jumping out of a plane and free-falling. The best part was the free-falling before they pull the shoot. You jump off over the ocean. You can see everything. Hawaii is definitely the best place to go skydiving. We recommend it to everyone! try it!

Here's a few pictures to document our fun trip.  Afterwards we went to Waimea Bay and hung out at the beach. It's our favorite because it's so beautiful and there's a rock to jump off of into the bay. Plus, it's a rockin' beach in the Winter, where the Eddie Aikau surfing competition is. Basically it's cool. Oh, Also my brother Josh came out that same weekend for work, so we got to hang out with him a couple times. He was too chicken to go skydiving though ;)

 Us pumpin up for the jump!

The boys fell asleep watching the NBA playoffs. It was funny cuz every time I'd try to change the channel they'd figure it out and wake up. Bums!!

Stairway to Heaven

Ok, So us being daredevil young, childless college students decided to go attempt the well-known, illegal Stairway to Heaven hike.(yeah, we're hardcore)  It was the hardest thing I've ever done, but also the most amazing thing I've ever done.  It was so worth it!! Just when you though the stairs couldn't get higher, another mountain would pop up and you'd keep climbing higher and higher.  It was insane. In some parts on both sides all that was around us was the cliff drop offs.  Luckily there were a few landings to rest on. We had to do the hike at 4:30am so that we wouldn't get caught by the security guards. We were successful, and it was an amazing time.  We were pretty slow though.  I'm sure our friends Dan and Dawn will never want to hike with us again! haha, but it was great.  Guess we couldn't leave Hawaii and not be able to say that we did the hike.  Here's some pics to document that we we were there! Oh, by the way, the hike is 3,922 stairs! Now that's a workout, we could barely move the next day.