Our PB&J Adventure Book

2017, our year of *Hope & Hearts*

2017 has been quite a year for our PB&J family. We've experienced love, laughter, happy and sad tears and found the meaning of what means the most to us: *Hope & Hearts*

A Painful Start to our 2017

The new year always signals a brand new chapter in our lives. The start of 2017 marked a turning point for our family that we'd never forget: the loss of our angel son. It was within the first week of 2017 that we went through our darkest of days when we learned that our son's heart had stopped at 21 weeks pregnant. He was diagnosed with a rare congenital heart defect and it proved to be too great for our angel. The beginning of 2017 marked so much sadness. Losing a child is something no one should ever have to face. We were broken, but through the love and support of our family and loved ones, we remained hopeful for a bright future ahead. In our lowest points, we constantly reminded ourselves that there was a bigger plan for our little family and to forever keep *Hope & Hearts* alive that we'd find our smiles, happiness and hopefully a little miracle baby on the horizon. 

Read about our angel son HERE

Live, Laugh, Learn to be Happy Again

After the devastating loss of our angel son, we picked up the broken pieces of our hearts and tried the best we could to heal and move forward with our lives. One piece of advice that our doctor gave us was to "live, laugh, travel the world, find reasons to be happy again". So that's exactly what we did, find all the ways to be happy again.

What was supposed to be our "babymoon" ended up becoming our "healing trip" to Japan. Japan is forever one of our happy places and it proved to be the perfect remedy to heal our hearts. We found solace in the beauty of Kyoto and magic at our favorite Tokyo Disney Resort!

We decided to fill our lives with as much happiness as we could and continued to fill our year with magical trips to Disney, spending time with our loved ones and even a trip to Spain with my family!

Read about our Tokyo travels HERE

Love and Light from the Most Unexpected of Places 

Social media is one of those things that people either love or hate. I fall into the first group of people. It was through social media and the amazing online community of Instagram that I found so much love, light and support during our healing journey after the loss of our son. What started out as a place for me to share my Disney geekery eventually turned into a place of so much love and support. It was through the amazing online community that I was able to hear stories from other incredible fellow angel moms, stories of hope, stories of love, stories of strength. It was overwhelming to receive so much light from strangers who quickly turned into good friends and sources of support. I'm forever thankful for the Instagram community for helping us through our most painful of days.

Finding Rainbows

By the most incredible twist of fate, during some of our hardest days mourning our angel son's due date in May, we found a miracle. We found out we were pregnant again with our rainbow. Not only were we blessed with this little bundle of joy, but we also found out that it was another little boy and he'd be due around the same time that we ended up losing his angel brother in January. It floored us to realize that we were coming full circle, that our angel son above was looking out for our family and helped bless us with our rainbow baby! Our family happily ever after was finally coming together!

Read about our rainbow journey HERE

Weathering Storms

Most recently, we ran into a few bumps in the road to our family happily ever after. Through a crazy series of events medically, a routine eye check up turned into an emergency brain MRI on my part. What happened next became the most stressful times for us in 2017, right next to losing our angel son. We found it ironic that we came into 2017 dealing with something so serious, that it was only natural to end 2017 the same way we came into the year. Thankfully, after finally consulting with our team of doctor's and a neurosurgeon, we were given hope in regards to the future. Whatever they initially found via my brain MRI may not be as serious as initially diagnosed. We aren't in the clear yet and I'll have to do a few follow up tests in the months after the baby is born, but thankfully we're pointed in a positive direction for the future!

Read about our recent medical hiccups HERE

Good-Bye 2017, Hello 2018

You can definitely say that our 2017 has been one for our PB&J adventure book! Our year has been filled with highs, lows and everything and anything in between. Despite the challenges and pain that 2017 has brought us, the one thing that we're always thankful for is the *Hope & Hearts* we hold at he end of each day. We knew that no matter how hard the days may be, as long as we kept hope alive, there will always be brighter days ahead. Now here we are at the end of 2017, ready for the newest chapter of our lives with the birth of our rainbow baby, our little miracle, and for all the adventures, love and hearts that await us in 2018! 💜