Roth Family Christmas Letter 2021

♦ Happy New Year ♦

I meant to get this done as a Christmas letter but I didn't have the mental energy until now, so let's just call it a New Year letter! 2021 was one heck of a year. It was another particularly rough year for our family, but there was definitely good in there too. Here is the big stuff.

As most of you know, we were going through fertility treatments including IUI and IVF that ultimately led to a dead end, and we eventually decided this year to close that part of our journey. It was a heartbreaking decision, but one we feel comfortable with. We remain grateful beyond words for having the twins before facing infertility as well as for the incredible love and support that we experienced.

We have also had a number of big medical events this year. The biggest was Josh having a seizure. It was of course a big ordeal and I'm so grateful that we were around family at the time. He is back on seizure meds now and things seem to be going fine, so hopefully that remains the case! He also had a particularly bad kidney stone that resulted in multiple emergency room visits as well as surgery.

In our more daily lives our trials range from mental health struggles to financial strain to parenting and general life stuff. Now let's move on to the good stuff!

Josh got a new job this year doing Amazon delivery. It's very physical and sometimes that really manifests (knees for sure), but it's been a good job so far. it's straightforward and he gets to do his thing as long as the work gets done. He also built a new computer from scratch for the first time. Ashley got a new at-home job as a web rater. It's more intensive than her other at-home work, but it's been a great addition. She also stepped down from being a moderator for the Utah Chapter of Mormon Women for Ethical Government for now.

Lauren and Jacob started Kindergarten this year, and they are crushing it. They are thriving academically and socially, they have made lots of friends, and their favorite part of school is the bus ride. I put them in the same class for now, because I can't imagine them being apart, but maybe that will change over the years.

Lauren loves unicorns, pink, purple, turquoise, and anything sparkly. She is a friend to everyone and is a natural leader in that she is not afraid to direct people when playing games and things - sometimes that translates to bossy when she's coming on especially strong, but I hope she never loses that spark.

Jacob loves red, orange, and yellow because those are "lava colors", and also rainbow. He is also obsessed with penguins as well as anything cute - I don't think I've met someone who loves cute things more than he does. He is so sweet and always tries to cheer people up, and is as curious about the world as ever.

We've felt so much love and support in our lives this year. We are especially grateful for the love and comfort we find in Christ. We love you all dearly, and wish you the best year available to you. ♥

Life Updates

Wow. It's been 1.5+ years since my last blog post. I guess that's what happens when you share stuff mostly on social media, right?

One of the big things going on right now is that Josh applied for a promotion at work. This position feels like it would be such a good fit for Josh, better for his mental health (arguably the most important feature, especially for us), and of course, better pay. ;) It's been a slow process and we've heard that the positions may have been filled at this point, though we haven't confirmed that. So, even if he doesn't get it this time around, he'll apply again when it becomes available again, because they apparently regularly have openings as the company takes on more clients. So though we'd obviously love for him to get the position now, we're still optimistic about him getting it sometime in the future.

The other big thing going on right now is that I recently officially started fertility treatments due to secondary infertility. We'd been trying for over 2 years, and finally visited Utah Fertility Clinic in Pleasant Grove. We love it there already! We started with a bunch of testing - blood tests, semen analysis, etc - and everything was good with all that stuff, so I got started on treatments that would lead up to IUI. So far this has included prescriptions, a vaginal ultrasound, a water ultrasound, and an HSG. P.S. the water ultrasound and HSG are NOT pleasant. But they're manageable. P.P.S. the twins are learning a lot by going to appointments with me, haha. ;)

When they did the water ultrasound and followed up with the HSG, they found some tissue in my uterus that shouldn't be there, probably scar tissue. It's not necessarily the cause of my secondary infertility, but taking care of it does improve our chances of getting pregnant and keeping that pregnancy as we continue with treatment. So we stopped me where I was in my current round of treatment, and I went in yesterday for a hysteroscopy (no, not a hysterectomy!). Basically they knock you out, go in with a camera, and then surgically remove anything that shouldn't be there. Now I just have to wait for my next period again to start treatments over again. Thankfully Josh's work allows him a certain amount of days paid leave for emergency-type medical whatever, and apparently this falls under that, so he was able to take yesterday and today off to get me to and from the procedure and then help at home while I recover. I'm super thankful for that. <3

That's all the big stuff right now! The twins are crazy, cuddly, opinionated, spirited 4-year-olds, and that keeps us plenty busy beyond our other obligations. And we love it.

Love,
Ashley

Walking By Faith

Our day-to-day lives over the last several months have been relatively the same. Not a lot of excitement, other than the daily antics of toddler twins. ;)

However, our lives overall recently have been... interesting.

After another difficult school semester (last Fall) for Josh mental-health-wise, lots of prayer, counseling with our parents, and discussion with each other, we decided to pull Josh out of school indefinitely. It just hasn't been good for him and is not the direction we feel he needs to be headed. So after Christmas break, he withdrew from school and started focusing more on building his production company, Southampton Productions. He's been working on it ever since, doing podcasts, photo shoots, etc. He can tell you more about it than I can. ;)

I also decided at that time that I would focus on my goal of becoming a certified lactation consultant. I started reaching out to all the connections I could find, applying for jobs, and doing everything I could to make it happen. But it can be a complicated process, and I was met with dead end after dead end. After a lot of tears and frustration, I determined maybe now just isn't the time, even if it seems like it ought to be. I am hoping to be able to pursue it further in a few years.

After determining that, I decided I should go back into the work force anyway in the meantime, as it would mean a lot better of a financial position for us. I have been working part-time as a virtual assistant for a friend of mine who is a professional blogger, which is a great thing for me because it provides some income and allows me to work from home on my own schedule. But getting a job outside of the home would be that much better. Again, I applied for several jobs that I was rejected from. Finally, though, I got a job offer. Finally, after months of trying to find the employment that I needed, there it was. At least, I thought it was what I needed, and what our family needed.

When that job offer came, however, I got this overwhelmingly terrible feeling. At first, I wasn't sure if it was for feeling guilty that I would leave Josh at home with twin toddlers full-time while he was trying to build his production company, or that I would be away from my twins so much. Because, really, I don't do very well with big changes. But I had been looking forward to starting a new job for months. Shouldn't I feel a little excited about it, even if I was conflicted? But I just had this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. So I was stressed about the situation and confused about what I was supposed to be doing.

The job would be starting in just a few days, so any decision we were going to make about it ideally should be made before then. We prayed, we talked about it, we pondered, I cried, I got Priesthood blessings, I cried about it some more, we talked about it some more, etc... you get the picture. It was a very intense couple of days, emotionally and spiritually. But by the end of it, I felt strongly that my place right now is at home. Rationally, it allows for me to be available to be there for Josh and take care of the twins when he's having a particularly bad day of depression or anxiety (we're focusing on getting his mental health under better control right now, which is a whole different story). It also allows Josh more time and freedom to work on building up his company. But more importantly, it felt right for me to be there. Right for me, and for our family.

The blessing is that we have relative freedom to make that decision right now. We have some flexibility because of assistance we receive financially. We don't normally broadcast it but we're not ashamed of it either. We absolutely want to be financially independent eventually, and I hope that the choices we make right now are setting us up for a more secure future. This means that for now our financial situation is tight, but I am so grateful that we do have the help and resources we need right now. It also may not be seen by many as the right decision, as it means that we will continue to receive assistance for now when we could be otherwise earning more ourselves in the workforce instead, but it is the right decision for us, regardless of how that decision appears to society.



With everything that has been going on lately, our future is very clouded and uncertain. I have no idea what the next year will bring, let alone the next five or ten years. I really wish it wasn't that way, because I would love to know a little more of what the future holds and feel like we have some security. But I believe with all my heart that if we are trying to do our best for ourselves and for our family, Heavenly Father will help us get there. It may be a rocky path, but I have faith that if we are trying to do the right thing the best way that we know how... things will work out. One way or another, things will work out.

Love,
Ashley