Dear Family,
I’m writing this letter in the midst of some controversy, because Luke and I discovered the sex of our baby on Thursday. However, we1 have decided to withhold the information from the world until May 9th so that we can host a little gender reveal party. If you’re in town, we’d love to see you there, or you can wait for the news to travel through the grapevine (or to hit the Willis Family GroupMe). Or wait for Luke’s corresponding LinkedIn post, which will probably exist at some point.
The further I get along in my pregnancy, the more I hear from the people around me that I really don’t look pregnant at all. I don’t exactly agree with this, but I understand what everyone means. I really don’t have a bump, despite being twenty one weeks pregnant. My impression of how my body has changed is that I have inflated across my whole abdomen, so I just look like a slightly larger column of human being than I did twenty one weeks ago, but I’m the only one who seems to be able to tell.
But, as Keith Wonnacott observed, anyone who doesn’t know I’m pregnant and does notice isn’t going to say anything.
This subject has come up several times over the last couple of days because all of my in-laws were in Utah together for nearly a week, including Luke’s two slightly-more-pregnant-than-me sisters-in-law. It’s always fun to get together with them, and this time it’s happening in part because Luke and I walked at BYU’s graduation this last weekend.
Graduation
Luke’s parents flew in, as did mine, and his grandparents drove a few hours to come watch us at our commencement and convocation ceremonies.
I would like to take this moment to express that I. Love. My. Parents. They are some of my very favorite people to spend time with and talk to and simply be around. Most of the time I spend with them is not particularly eventful, but I always feel so at peace and invigorated by talking with them, watching something with them, or eating with them.
The president of BYU, C. Shane Reese, at some point expressed during our commencement that all graduates ought to remember to thank the supporters of their college education, whether those supporters were financial or emotional, preparatory or there in the thick of everything. I feel like my parents provided every kind of support imaginable, as did so many others, my Willis grandparents chief among them.
But I can’t help but feel grateful for every family member I know and have grown up being loved by, even if the vast majority of them never contributed to my 529. With my new and admittedly still limited exposure to young students, I feel like I can appreciate just how blessed I have been to be the recipient of so much love from so many different people.
So, if I don’t get the chance to thank you in-person, I’d like to say thank you to all of you family who have loved and supported me throughout my life. Near and far, I’ve felt the impact of your influence, and I’m grateful for you.
This includes my new family, Luke’s family, who are a never-ending spigot of support and interest in the lives of their children. I love you all.
I know that those paragraphs all read like someone who was a valedictorian or is about to move on to a very competitive career track that requires top-notch grades and really anything more than a college degree. I am neither of those things, and I don’t really wish to be. I’ve never had the highest aspirations, which I have sometimes felt guilty about. But I’m really quite happy with the track of motherhood and education that I’ve chosen.
St. George and Running
Following our graduation, Luke and I drove down to St. George to participate in a mini Wonnacott family reunion, consisting of all of Luke’s siblings, his parents, his two nieces, and the Wonnacott grandparents. We hiked, we dined, we swam, we played ultimate frisbee. It was more physical activity than I’ve engaged in over one weekend in several months, and it honestly felt wonderful to be so active.
I did throw up once during the two-minute break in our ultimate frisbee game, which led to me sitting out of the game. However, my team still won pretty neatly even with the player disadvantage, so that may tell you how much exertion it really takes to put me out of commission these days.
While my cardio is nothing to brag about, Luke has been really pushing himself recently to get into shape. I think this has been a goal of his for a while, but, like with many goals that require consistent effort and daily discipline, he’s had a lot of false starts. (As have I, but we’re talking about him, especially since I haven’t even attempted a false start in a few months.)
Luke recently took up working with a personal trainer, who has been going to the gym with him three times a week, as well as helping him take accountability for his eating habits by having him send a picture of everything he eats throughout the day.
Luke found this trainer through (where else?) LinkedIn when he made a post asking anyone who was a personal trainer or knew of one to reach out with details. This guy had just received his certification and took Luke on as his very first client at a discount. Honestly, I’m not sure “discount” is the right word if the guy has never had a client before, but it at least seems to be a pretty good deal.
In addition to working with his “buddy” (which is how I usually refer to the personal trainer), Luke decided he should also have a fitness related goal to work towards. So he has signed himself up for a half marathon in August.
This has led to multiple runs a week in addition to his three gym workouts with his buddy, and I’m honestly quite proud of his dedication. My cardio has never been worse than it is right now, and I’ve been told that halfway through pregnancy isn’t really the best time to start running. And maybe I have accepted somebody else’s excuse against running with her husband far too readily, but after throwing up thirty minutes into a game of ultimate frisbee this week, I’m inclined to stick with my yoga videos.
Luckily, Luke is also trying to increase his running pace. I remind him of this every time he asks me to run with him, and it seems to be my most logical defense against running with him.
I do consider it very sweet that he continues to ask me, though. He likes me.
Usually, Luke’s runs go just about as planned. However, on April 4th, a day he planned to run seven miles in between sessions of General Conference, things did not go exactly as planned. He embarked on his quest as soon as the Saturday morning session concluded, and I promptly resumed the nap that had begun shortly into Elder Eyring’s talk. I actually took a pretty impressive nap (about an hour and a half long) and awoke to a text from him explaining that he was feeling really good and was going to extend his run to eleven miles, which meant he was definitely not going to make it home in time to accompany me to the Eskelsens’ apartment to watch the Saturday afternoon session.
I set off to the Eskelsens alone, sheepishly explaining that Luke would probably be joining us before too long.
About three talks in, I got a phone call from Luke. He said, “I know you’re probably kind of annoyed with me for taking so long to get there, but guess what? I ran thirteen miles!”
After a shower and a drive, he joined us for the final portion of conference, during which he allowed himself to decompose on the Eskelsens’ couch. I made him eat a little and stretch a little. He did not want to do either, but he complied because he likes me.
The run, which was more than twice the distance he had run before, put Luke out of commission for the rest of the day. As my father said on the phone later, “he probably shouldn’t have done that…but he’s young so he’ll be fine.”
Birthdays (and all that comes with them)
Another strength of Luke’s that he’s practicing these days is gift-giving. And this month was not only my birthday, but Emma’s birthday! So, I got to benefit from his desire to give good gifts twice over.
Emma’s present involved planning, booking, and paying for a camping trip in Southern Utah, an idea that Hannah encouraged on account of Emma desiring an excuse to take the puppies somewhere fun to get out for a while.
After minimal searching, we found this beautiful campsite east of Zion and booked it, assuming the April weather would be lovely in southern Utah.
We were not particularly correct in that assumption.
The temperature during the day was pleasant enough, but the nights were far colder than we expected, getting down to about 30 degrees both nights. Hannah, Emma, Luke, and I all had brought extra blankets, but not quite enough that we slept all the way through the cold night. But it wasn’t so miserable that we couldn’t sleep at all, which really makes all the difference.
It didn’t hurt that the four of us plus the two dogs shared a four-man tent, which wasn’t necessarily comfortable, but was probably warmer than the alternative. Though Luke, who was pressed right up against the tent wall, would not agree.
I can’t say I particularly enjoyed the warm weather during the day either, since I, for some reason, felt incredibly vulnerable sitting in the sunlight, and spent most of our full day at the campsite wrapped in a blanket for protection.
No one else seemed bothered for some reason, and so Hannah’s hands were free to document my chosen attire.
Luke was startled when he realized the plan for the trip was to spend the entirety of the camping trip at the campsite. On Saturday morning, he stood up after preparing breakfast, stretched, and said, “So, should we go hike Angel’s Landing?”
He was perplexed when the three women he was camping with all responded by chuckling and shaking their heads, not realizing that his question was earnest. But there were to be no hikes during this trip, as the Willis (and apparently the Porter) way of relaxing is to do precisely nothing for long periods of time.
This is different from the Wonnacotts’ preferred method of relaxing, which is to do productive or active things that one cannot normally do during the work week.
The camping trip’s most memorable moment (for me at least) is probably when I woke up on Saturday morning with my face feeling twice as large as it had been when I fell asleep.
I was mildly concerned by this, though probably not quite as concerned as I would have been had I not been pregnant. But whatever else, I was certainly confused. You see, I had spent the last few days mildly intrigued by what I diagnosed as a swollen lymph node on the left side of my neck. It didn’t concern me much, as I had no sore throat to accompany it, and I assumed (with some reassurance from Hannah) that it was probably handling some perceived problem in my body so that I didn’t have to worry about it.
But then I spent a night sleeping on the ground in the freezing cold with my head slight below the rest of my body. When I woke, the little bump in my neck had become a pillow that covered a portion of my upper neck and all of my left cheek. Hannah was no longer unconcerned.
On the way home on Sunday, I stopped by an urgent care and got prescribed an antibiotic to fight the infection in my salivary gland, and a few days later I no longer looked lopsided.
No harm done in the end, but it was all just a little random and weird. I guess it’s just one of those things that’s more likely to happen when your immune system is down during pregnancy. All the throwing up in the world doesn’t protect my poor salivary gland.
Another significant development from the camping trip is that Luke’s phone fell into our beautiful little pond while he was canoeing. This was because it was in Luke’s pocket when Luke fell into the pond.
This might not have been a fatal mistake for the phone, but Luke, in all his can-do-it-ness, replaced the battery in his Samsung about a week before falling in the lake, which completely removed whatever waterproofing it acquired during it’s professional manufacturing.
The canoe he chose, evidently, was not made to be used by one person alone.
Fortunately, he survived. And, after confirming that the phone was unsalvageable, we felt confident that we had the funds necessary to buy him a nicer, newer phone, which will hopefully last at least as long as this one did.
He disappointed both his family and mine by not making the long-desired (of him, not by him) switch to an iPhone. I have chosen to love him anyway.
Luke’s other successful gift of the month was his birthday gift to me, which ended up being the entirety of April 11th, six days after my actual birthday.
Since April 5th coincided with both Easter and General Conference this year, we didn’t do much to celebrate me on my actual birthday. But Luke made me a yummy breakfast and Brittany (his sister-in-law) made a delicious carrot cake and Easter dinner. Those last two weren’t really for my birthday, but the overall effect is the same when I’m allowed to blow out candles on the Easter cake.
But the 11th was a jam-packed day.
The day started with an all-you-can-eat breakfast at a special rebranding event for a local kolache place.2 This ended being pretty great, since the “all-you-can-eat” model was actually more of a “here’s a to-go box and please don’t take more than twelve kolaches on your first round” model. Which means that Luke and I each filled our boxes with twelve kolaches and went on to our next stop for the day.
This was the ideal arrangement, since I was feeling pretty nauseous. I managed to eat one kolache before we got home, where I promptly threw it up. After that, I happily ate the rest of my kolaches throughout the morning and early afternoon.
After breakfast, we went to the mall, where Luke led me to various clothing stores and watched me try on dresses with the intent of finding one to buy.
Luke did a wonderful job of assessing each dress and giving me genuine feedback on how each dress looked on me, which made the whole thing so much more enjoyable and helped me feel confident in our eventual choice.
Following the mall, we went and got my nails, makeup, and hair done at various locations and by various women who Luke had recommended to him by a coworker and a few sisters in our ward.
Then, we drove two hours north to the salt flats and had a photo shoot together.
All in all, it was one of the most thought out and thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received. Not only is it fun to have pictures of us together to enjoy, but the whole process of spending a whole day getting pretty was something I’ve just never really had before and would never feel comfortable spending money on myself.
Luke has seen me admire dresses on hangers at stores, or has heard me admire girls’ nails. And I think he appreciates that I am not inclined to spend money on cosmetic desires. But he also wanted me to have the chance to feel pretty, and I love him for that.
This month has been a happy one, and I’m so incredibly grateful for all of it. I’m increasingly grateful for my job, my body, and the many comforts I have. I’m excited to keep sharing everything to come with all of you, especially as my future child becomes more concrete in my mind and imagination.
I look forward to sharing more exciting news with you soon.
Love,
Sophie et al.
- It takes a lot of effort for me to say “we” instead of “Luke.” Because he doesn’t force me to do anything. It was just his idea. I just wish that we’d come up with the idea before we’d told the entire family that we’d know the gender on Thursday. I spent all of Friday in fear. My deepest apologies to Grandma Christine. ↩︎
- Funnily enough, rebranded from Hruska’s Kolaches to The Kolache Place. ↩︎
Senior Contributor to The Famlet Monthly