Hey, hi! My name is Shelby, and I'm 31 years old. I live in the upper Midwest with my husband Justin, our morkie-poo Mila, and our son Knox. This blog is going to document the journey of my life. If you're still reading, then congratulations on that accomplishment. (I'm kidding, of course.) I use corporate speak a lot because of my job as a program manager, and I have ADHD which often means I can't get my point across without adding information in parentheses. You may or may not come to find this normal and/or annoying as hell.

• 30th July, 1991 was an important day - it was when I was born into my loving family with Corina and Dave as parents and Doug as an older brother who showed them the ropes of parenting.

• The day that would mark the end of my "normal" life arrived like a silent storm - 29th April, 1993. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes Mellitus, leaving my body to rely on me (at just shy of 2 years old, my parents) to regulate the intricate balance of carbohydrates and insulin from this point onwards. A sudden loss of autonomy that as a parent now myself, had to have felt unexpected yet inevitable all at once.

• (Date unknown) for a stretch of time between the ages of 8 and 11, I was sexually abused. This is the first time I am publicly sharing this. It's trauma that has shaped the way I process emotions, relationships, conflict/resolution, and mediation in my life. I don't know the dates because my bodies trauma response was to completely block this time period out of my life. It wasn't until I was in therapy when I turned 30 where I was able to talk about it and understand that it really did happen, it wasn't a sick, twisted, nightmare that continued to flash through my mind.

• 2000 was the year when my parents split up and finally got a divorce. I was too young to comprehend why this was the solution to their disagreements. The only plus side to this situation was that I had my remarkable older brother who, from day one, has been my source of support. We are connected by means that most people don’t understand.

• In May 2009, I finally completed high school. The journey had been exhausting, and I'd faced many struggles during my years in elementary and high school. Not only did I have to manage my diabetes as the only person with a chronic disease in my school, but I had to grapple with its consequences when not handled correctly. I went through phases of denial and would not take care of myself as I should have. In addition to all of that, I battled the typical teenage adventure of trying to understand myself, who I wanted to be, and why obstacles were seemingly always in front of me.

• April 2013 I met Jon, who would later become my (first) husband, and the father to my two boys. The growth that Jon and I experienced in our 8 years together were full of happiness, trauma, resiliency, and a bond that will forever be held together by Jax and Knox.

• In June 2016, our lives took an unexpected turn when we discovered that we were expecting a baby. We were both ecstatic and petrified all at once. Of course, the little one we were going to have was our son Jax. We quickly began preparing for his arrival in March of 2017.

• December 2016. Once again, we were struck with the news that our precious baby boy was special in his own way. At a routine fetal echocardiogram due to my pre-existing diabetes, we were given the heartbreaking news that our son's heart had not developed as it should have. at 19 weeks gestation, Jax was diagnosed with Pulmonary Atresia with a Ventricular Septal Defect. When a normal heart squeezes, the right ventricle contracts, pushing the blood out to the lungs. The pulmonary valve is an opening on the right side of the heart that helps prevent blood from leaking back into the heart between beats. This meant that Jax's pulmonary valve had not formed correctly: it was sealed and could not open. The Ventricular Septal Defect means there was a hole in the tissue between the lower chambers of the heart causing the right ventricle to be significantly smaller than the left. Due to this diagnosis, we would need to deliver Jax 6 hours away at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

• January 29, 2017. At my regular obstetrics appointment, my blood pressure had skyrocketed. My OB determined that I had developed pre-eclampsia and that it was not safe for me to remain in North Dakota for the remainder of my pregnancy (2 more months). The day after this appointment, Jon and I were packed up and on our way to Rochester.

• February 6, 2017. The day we welcomed Jax. He was beautiful, with a full head of dark hair and dark brown eyes (like mom). Jax was delivered via cesarean and was immediately taken to another operating room so that they could intubate him, and create an environment for him that would stabilize his heart condition until he weighed enough to go in for his first open heart surgery. The neonatal intensive care unit at Mayo Clinic is in the Mary Brigh building which is about two miles away from the labor and delivery unit at the main clinic. Due to my blood pressure, I was not allowed to go see Jax until February 8th. I was able to go visit him as often as I wanted but until I was officially discharged (February 11th) I had to return back to the clinic to continue monitoring and stabilizing my hypertension symptoms. I was devastated that I wasn't able to be in the NICU as much as I had hoped.

• February 12th, 2017 I got to hold Jax for the very first time. His vitals were absolutely perfect while we had skin to skin contact. Our heartbeats were synchronized. We were both perfectly content.

• February 15th, 2017. The nurse called us at 8am to let us know that the doctors had approved Jax to be extubated, we were going to get to see him without tubes all over his face. We were ecstatic and so very proud of our strong boy. When we arrived at the NICU, the lights were flashing which means there is a code happening with one of the tiny fighters. As we walked into Jax's room our hearts sank as we realized the doctors were working on Jax, he had gone into cardiac arrest. The code was for our baby boy. They operated on Jax in the NICU because he would not have lived long enough to make it to an OR. Jax was put on ECMO, Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a form of life support used for patients with life-threatening heart and / or lung problems. ECMO provides time for the body to rest and recover by doing the work of the heart and lungs. The wait was unbearable.

• February 16th 2017. Jax was tired, he was fighting so hard but he could not recover. We had to make the decision to remove him from ECMO. Jax passed away having just 10 days with us, asleep in my arms at 3:59pm. Our lives would never be the same.

• July 2017, Jon and I got married. We had been through the inevitable. We felt that the bond that we had created through our experience with Jax connected us in a way that could never be replicated. Our love was too strong and our trauma was the only thing we had left.

• In December 2017, Jon and I took the plunge and relocated to the west coast. My job at Amazon laid down roots in Seattle, and we were eager to experience all that the Pacific Northwest had to offer. This move was a huge step forward for us both personally and as a couple.

• In March of 2018 it had been just short of two months since we started trying for a second baby before we found out that I was pregnant again. We were so excited to learn that our newest arrival, another precious baby boy, was due to join us in January of 2019.

• In September of 2018 we made the tough decision to move back to the midwest. Our families were there and we wanted to share this precious gift with them.

• December 21st, 2018. Knox Jonathan Raywalt was born. A healthy, chunky, blue eyed baby boy with his brother's sweet face. While our hearts would never be whole again with Jax in heaven, Knox's arrival shows us gifts every day that seem to have been sent from heaven, and the sun shines a little brighter because of this. Our first year with Knox was one of the most challenging, humbling, and emotional (good and bittersweet) years.

• December 2019, I was walking down the steps in our split-level home carrying Knox, when my foot slipped out from under me, and Knox landed on my ankle while it was twisted back on the step. I had broken both sides of my ankle, a fight that my body would continue embracing for years to come, unbeknownst to me.

• July 2021, I turned 30, the birthday of my dreams, my golden birthday. I'd been planning this birthday since I was 12. I went to Las Vegas with my mom, auntie Annette, gBev, auntie Mary (jugs) and my closest friends. We stayed at the Golden Nugget and had my birthday dinner at Gordon Ramsay's Hells Kitchen. It was fantastic. This was also the turning point in my marriage. We had been separated for almost 3 months but still living together. I knew it was over, I knew that Jon and I had grown apart, and it was devastating.

• It was December 2021 when Justin and I met. We exchanged text messages for weeks, until I told him that I wasn't looking to pursue a romantic relationship with him. The very next day, I admitted to him that my head was full of doubts and that my heart was telling me that walking away from something special wasn’t the right thing to do. I sit here now next to him, my husband, I'm grateful every day for choosing my heart over my head.

• 2022 - Our first full year together was full of experiences; learning what love can be, what a soulmate is, and how to navigate a healthy relationship between all of us including Knox, Jon, and Jon's girlfriend Ashlee.

• In November of 2022, I started having issues with my left ankle. I doctored for 5 months with no prevail and on May 23rd, 2023, I was officially diagnosed with Osteomyelitis, infection of the bone, that had eroded 50% of the 4 bones that makeup the Chopart’s joint. The upper central part of my foot. within 24 hours I found out that not only were the bones in my foot deteriorating at an aggressive rate, but that the only treatment for this would be amputation.

• June 13th 2023 I had surgery to amputate my left foot, below the knee (LBKA). This blog is serving as a therapeutic resource for me to document the challenges and successes of being a young adult, with a 4 year old, navigating a new normal impacted by limb loss.

  one foot in front of the other. :)