Marriage, Miscarriages, & Making it Through Tragedies

Monumental Mishaps 

Y'all, we are about to get real DEEP with all about marriage, miscarriages, & making it through tragedies. I've been MIA as I continue to experience the rollercoaster of life, but I'm finally laying it all out there. 

Where to begin..

Life is so unexpected, filled with so many unknown moments. Those seem to always be blessings or complete tragedies. For me, the bad seems to be tipping the scale. 

Let's back track even though y'all have heard some of this story on my Long Distance Relationships post. June 2016, my sweet husband (boyfriend at the time) and I took off on this great adventure. I moved away from my small town in Southern California to experience the unknown. Our journey started in a small ranch town of Northern Nevada. There we experienced what we thought would be the most challenging part of our relationship. From July to October we experienced being homeless, working endless hours to scrape by, pure exhaustion, and loss of passion. We were growing apart not because of our relationship, but our situation. Dylan knew we needed change, long before I even considered taking another route. That's when he got down on one knee and asked me to hang on for the ride. He and I decided that it would be in our best interest for him to work towards his dream of serving our country. This had been a previous conversation, but nothing that was ever in realities grasp. We took the plunge. It didn't go as planned though. 

March 2017, I was going to pick up my Marine. Over his "Boot Leave" we vowed to continue this journey with one heart, and one name. I finally became Mrs. Lisa Monique McDowell. Within days of this amazing pivot in life, I had to see my husband off once more. At the time, I was under the impression that after combat training we would live together. Well the wasn't the case. Instead, I was blessed the opportunity with weekend visits as he traveled during his MOS training. I'm thankful to have a media-based career that travels with me. The months seem to speed past us and by August 2017, we were planning our adventure to going home! 

But its the military, was our move really going to go smoothly? You guessed it, we quickly changed course. I got the call, you know, the deployment call. Next thing I knew my husband wasn't coming home after 10 months apart, he was getting sent thousands of miles away...for another 6+ months. Luckily, his superiors felt for us and we received an 8 day leave for him to come home before he traveled overseas. Our leave was amazing, filled with family, and flashed by all too quick. Before I knew it I was sending him off, not to see him again until Spring 2018. I didn't know where he was going, or how long he would really be gone. All I knew is I vowed to support him, even if that meant we would be living apart for 17 months in the end.

Next thing I knew we were well into the deployment and I was seeing my husband over a tiny camera screen. After twenty minutes of trying to get his crappy barracks wifi to connect, I was telling him that I was pregnant! He always seemed to have a knack for timing it perfectly over leaves. We were in disbelief ( I was on bc and we did not plan for this at all), but so happy. I believed it was a god-sent sign to help me get through the deployment & give me purpose. At 8 weeks I traveled to visit my in-laws & announce the growth of our family. Unfortunately, hours after the good news was spread...we received some bad news as I laid in a hospital bed in California. I was enduring our fourth miscarriage, in an unknown place, unsure if I should request my husband home. I was having a mini-stroke once again, losing blood, and there was nothing they could do. So my FIL and I sat there as they told me how to resolve everything, but I'd been through before -I will be sharing our journey with TTC in another post-. I decided it would be harder on my husband to come home for the weekend and see me in that state. I knew he would have to go back and it would've been too difficult for him to do his duty properly had he known the reality of what happening at home in his absence.

As months passed I began to fall back into deep depression. I wasn't even half-way through the deployment and I was losing hope. My husband decided it might be better for me to move into my in-laws to have a sisters company and be near a USMC base incase I needed to handle anything in his absence. The holidays were hard, the anniversary of our daughter Aimeés miscarriage was harder. I tried to distract myself, but living in a small town with constant illness made in unbearable. I had many scares with masses being found, high blood pressure issues, and learning to live with Nexplanon (bc device).  Luckily, this wasn't going to be forever. Valentine's Day, my birthday, and our first wedding anniversary all passed as I eagerly planned our move and his arrival. Finally, he was home on March 24th, 2018. My heart was full, my sorrows dissolved, I was home again in his arms.

It's been CRAZY since then. So much has happened and I will tell you all about it in Moving with the McDowells (stay tuned).

Xo,
Lisa Monique
email: lisamoniquehealthandfitness@gmail.com
instagram / twitter: lisa__monique