goodbye 2011, hello 2012!

when i think about this past year it literally seemed like the longest year of my life, probably because so much happened to me.  there are events that i will never forget; both amazing and horrible.  as the new year approaches i decided to look back at some of those times and share a little bit about why they have made such a lasting impact on my life.
 the first major event of 2011 would probably be in january when i found out that i had broken my foot.  i had actually hurt my foot back in october (2010) when i ran to the homecoming dance from my friend's dorm barefoot (real smart i know).  ever since then my foot hurt me especially during lacrosse and my workouts. what i didn't know is that i stress fractured a bone in my foot and by still playing lacrosse and exercising that i was just making things worse. finally, one morning i got out of bed and i couldn't walk on that foot at all it was just too painful. so i went to foot doctor guy that the school athletic trainer sent me to and he took an xray and told me that i had fractured my sesamoid bone (its this tiny little bone that doesn't seem like it'd cause much pain but trust me it killed!). so hearing this new was a definite bummer because it happened right before our lacrosse season! i thought that my foot would heal in time for me to play at least the last leg of the season but unfortunately it didn't heal in time and i had to sit out the whole season of my first year of college lacrosse :(  p.s. my foot is all healed now! yay!

another time that i will never forget about this year was the trip to florida i took with my college lacrosse team in march.  it was such a blast! we went down for a tournament but we were also allowed some down time so we just overall had an amazing time.  even though i was in a boot for my foot and had crutches i still enjoyed the time with my team and i loved cheering for them as the kicked butt in the tournament (we didn't win the whole thing but we beat Franklin & Marshall which was a huge deal!). one of my favorite parts of the trip besides the tournament was our catamaran ride.  it was so awesome being out on a boat, just relaxing and having fun with my teammates.

me and my teammates kayla and sam on our catamaran ride :)

at the end of march was when i found out that i was pregnant. i wasn't smart at all when it came to birth control; i didn't want to get pregnant, yet i didn't do anything to prevent it.  i think i took a total of 5 pregnancy tests (two at a clinic because they told me i wasn't pregnant the first time) because i just couldn't believe i was pregnant.  the second time i went back to the clinic and had them take another test the nurse came back and said "congratulations you're pregnant". turns out it was too early to tell the first time i had them test me.  but i remember hearing the nurse say those words and feeling like time froze. i had so many different emotions running through me that i just felt like i was frozen.  my boyfriend at the time and i decided (actually mostly i decided) that we would keep the baby.  after this day, everything in my life changed.

with a little baby bump in september

big belly bump taken the night before i gave birth

something very exciting that i got to experience was being in the NCAA lacrosse tournament with my team in may.  i didn't get to play because of my foot (and because i was pregnant, but no one except my family and my boyfriend's family knew that) but i got to cheer on the sidelines and be a part of all the excitement.  we didn't win the championship or anything, but we got farther than any previous team in our school's history did! we lost to Franklin & Marshall (even more of a bummer that we had beaten them in florida), but i was a really good game.

soon after i came home from college in may my boyfriend of 8 months, ryan, and i broke up.  we had always had problems, even in the very beginning of our relationship. i kept trying to make things work because i thought that i truly loved him (and then after i got pregnant i felt that i had to keep a family together). ryan did not know how to put others before himself, he always thought that i should put him as the center of my life (even if that meant that i had no relationship with my family or friends). when i went home we were so far away from each other and i took the pregnancy very seriously but ryan didn't. he thought i was being selfish by thinking of the baby first - putting the baby before him. so he ended up dumping me and then blaming me for it. at first i wanted to keep things civil with him, after all this was his child, but i knew in my heart that it would never work. even though he was thousands of miles away from me ryan would say the most horrible things to me via text or when he would call. ryan had anger problems and abused me throughout our whole relationship and i knew that things would never be civil and i feared for how he would treat the baby. so after one of his mean phone calls i finally stood up for myself and for my baby; i told him that he was an abusive person and that i wanted nothing to do with him. i told him that i would get a restraining order against him if he tried to contact me again and i never heard from since.

after 9 months of pregnancy i finally welcomed my son mackinley jack into the world on december 10th (here is my full post about giving birth to mackinley).  i had to go through 15 hours of labor and a traumatic birth (mackinley had the cord around his neck and they had to resuscitate him because he wasn't breathing) but everything turn out fine and i have a perfectly healthy, happy baby boy. 

mackinley jack :)

first time i got to hold him<3

and this year was mackinley's first christmas and my first christmas as a mommy! :) i got mac some adorable baby flannel shirts and my family got him "baby's first christmas" ornaments.  it was such a special christmas.  mackinley jack was by far my favorite christmas present this year :)

christmas with my baby<3

so as this year comes to an end i can honestly say that this, by far, has been the most eventful year for me.  theres been good times and some really sucky times; and even though  there are times that i would love to say "can i just have a do-over please?" or that i would like to erase from my memory completely, i wouldn't change it because i truly believe that this year has really made me grow and learn a lot. i look forward to continuing my journey, my metamorphosis in 2012; i look forward all the trials and triumphs that the new year holds for me. so goodbye 2011, hello 2012!