Letter from TeriLyn – August 2023

Hey friends! August was a very hard and weird month. Honestly, I’m glad to put August behind me and move onto September and hopefully a bit more a routine and some fall weather. Just a heads up that the last section is about pregnancy in case that’s a sensitive topic for you. <3

FAMILY

On August 1, our dear friend Andy Jump passed away suddenly while on a run. He was 38 years old. Andy meant so much to both Tommy and me. He was our Community Group leader, along with his awesome wife Kathryn. I don’t have an easy time sharing my faith or sharing some hard things I’ve been through in life, but I always felt safe sharing anything under their leadership.

I was on a work call when I saw I had a missed call from my friend Margy, who is also in our community group. Margy doesn’t call me often so I called her back as soon as I could, since I was worried something may have happened with Tommy. (Margy’s husband and Tommy get lunch together somewhat often.) When I called her, she told me that Andy had collapsed while running and the paramedics were there and that we needed to pray. My first thought was, “It’s going to be okay. Things like this always are.”

But the more people I talked to in our community group and the more updates we got, the more I realized that it wasn’t going to be okay. I was at the tire shop picking up my car when I got the call that Andy hadn’t made it. It’s been a month and I still feel the gut punch I felt when I first got the news and I’m crying while writing this. It’s hard for me to believe that someone so vibrant and just so full of life that I looked up to so much was suddenly gone. It feels so unfair, for so many reasons.

I know everyone says, “He was one of the best people I ever knew” after losing someone close to them, but it’s the honest truth with Andy and I know everyone who met him would say the same thing. I have never met anyone who so fully integrated his faith and love of the gospel into everything he did and made me want to do the same. I want the kind of faith he had – so bold, so confident and so SURE.

The impact he had on me and Tommy in such a short period is profound. While we were the same age, I looked up to him in so many ways. The way he stood up for and shared what he believed, no matter the impact, even in a work setting. I admired the way his brain worked – he was brilliant, yes, but also incredibly thoughtful. He was so passionate, joyful and truly excited about the things he loved – the Lord, his family, his hobbies.

I will miss his questions. I will miss him yelling “ADAMS!!!” every time he saw our little family. I will miss him asking me about being an influencer and the type of data I provide to brands. I will miss our shared love of spreadsheets. I will miss his lattes and that he’d help me practice making my own every time I was at this house, even if I was terrified I’d break his machine. I will miss the way he led Bold Prayer nights, even if they made me so uncomfortable at first. I will miss his reaction to any good news — whether small or significant: “LET’S GO!!”

Andy is missed so so much. Our pastor Kyle said it best at our first group meeting the day after he passed: “I pray I can be the person Andy thought I was.”

I think the one blessing I felt from his passing is that it made it crystal clear to both Tommy and me that we need to stay in Winston. We’re not looking at moving to Boone anymore because we want to be with our church family. We are so incredibly blessed to be part of a group that’s so close and leaving them was one of our biggest hesitations leaving Winston and now we know for sure that we need to be here.

(I’m so thankful for SO many of you who donated to his GoFundMe page to help with his boy’s education. I recognized a lot of your names… thank you so much. It means a lot to me and I know his wife Kathryn has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from complete strangers.)

At the end of August, I got a text from my mom that my brother, Tony, had been in an accident while volunteering at a Bulls Only rodeo event. He was working the gate and a bull got away from where he was being corralled at the other end of the arena and charged at Tony. He tried to get up the gate and out of the way, but wasn’t fast enough and the bull smashed into him and then threw him in the air. It’s an absolutely miracle that he seems to only have damage done in his knee, which should heal just fine.

Needless to say, it’s been a month full of prayers.

WORK

August was a bit of a blur with work, honestly. I was supposed to be in Charlotte Wednesday through Sunday for a Beautycounter leadership conference, but I obviously cancelled so I could be with my church family, help with some funeral luncheon things and attend the funeral on Friday, but cancelling that trip had its own logistics to work through. I ended up driving down and back on Saturday since I wanted to see so many women on my Beautycounter team who had flown in for the conference and because I was being recognized for a couple awards. It was good for my heart to see friends but I just wasn’t in the mindset for work mode.

Then, the second week of August, our nanny was in Brazil for a mission trip so we went up to Boone, but we ended up driving back to Winston for a couple days so we could be with our Community Group. And then we all got sick.

Then next week, I started to play catch-up with work, but our nanny started back with school so her work scheduled changed. So I’ve been adjusting to that new routine and then next week Thomas starts preschool, which will be another adjustment. I’ve been trying to soak up extra time with him before that starts too!

I’ll have some work travel in September and October. I got invited to the Amazon Creator Summit, which I was honestly shocked by! And I got invited to LTK Con again and I got nominated for an award again, which I was also shocked by!!!! Both of these invitations are because YOU shop through my links so thank you thank you thank you! These conferences will be so helpful for my business so I’m really thankful for your support that gives me these opportunities.

I also earned a trip to Banff with Beautycounter, but I won’t be able to attend that given the timing of the Amazon Summit and LTK Con. All three trips are work related and all three are amazing opportunities, but the Beautycounter trip is more play (which is amazing) and the other two feel more important from a strategic perspective. I’m SO BUMMED I can’t go to Banff!! Just an excuse to have my travel agent plan a trip for me another time.

PREGNANCY

I’m almost 18 weeks along at the time of drafting this! The nausea has pretty much subsided, thankfully. And I’m able to eat a little more variety (except still NO CHICKEN). And I definitely have a little bump showing which is cute! I was getting nervous I wasn’t showing yet since everyone said I’d start to show sooner with a second but I didn’t. And I swear my core is just so much stronger this go around since I started Pilates that my core held things tighter for a while.

I switched OBs for this pregnancy and have been SO happy with a smaller practice. I loved my primary OB at my last clinic, but I didn’t like rotating through so many doctors, which they have you do during pregnancy. This new practice feels so personal and every doctor and nurse I’ve met with has been fantastic and thorough. Given my history with infertility, they’ve been monitoring my hormones closely and decided to put me back on PIO injections (progesterone in oil). I was doing 1/2 mL everyday when I was under the care of my reproductive endocrinologist and now I’m doing 2 mL twice a week.

The good news is that the shots are less often, but the bad news is that I’m ABSOLUTELY exhausted since going back on PIO. I was really looking forward to a burst of energy in the second trimester but that hasn’t happened. Probably because I have a toddler. Probably because I’m almost 39 and pregnant. Probably because of the PIO. Probably all of it. But that’s okay… it’ll all be worth it!

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Alright, I’ll wrap it up!! This letter felt a little bit of a downer, but I’m feeling hopeful about the future and grateful for the many blessings in my life because there truly is so much to be grateful for – an awesome family, an amazing church, close friends and an incredible career and team.