If you are just joining me now for the first time…welcome! Before you continue on, refer to my first blog post The Beginning Pt.1and start my story from “The Beginning”. Jacob left for Japan, and for what it’s worth, I missed him from the moment he left. From the day he left we were texting and Facetiming non-stop. Literally non-stop. I would be in a big lecture and he wanted me to stay on Facetime with him. He would also FaceTime me at night too and wanted to stay on the phone until I fell asleep.

It was if we were already a couple without being officially together. But there was still someone else I was thinking about. Someone that I regretted not giving a full chance… and that was Liam. To be honest, when I was pregnant, I thought a lot about Liam. I often thought of how different my life would have been if I would have decided to go for him instead of staying with Arik. When I was pregnant I lived my life a lot in the past which wasn’t good. Like I said before, I just wanted to go back to easier times when I was a child and didn’t have anything to worry about. I constantly thought about “what-ifs”. When I had Hudson I didn’t think like that as much anymore. So when it came to Liam I felt like I definitely had to give that another shot so that I knew if he was or wasn’t “meant to be”. Although I worried, “what would he think about me now that I have a child”. Would he want nothing to do with me? My insecurities set in a little bit but I knew that I had to at least see him again to decide how I felt. It was the first week of Fall semester 2016, I remember I was walking from the athlete building to our workouts when I saw Liam. I felt shy all of a sudden, so I almost dodged him… but then we made eye contact. I remember saying, “heyyy you remember me? It’s been a while!” He responded with, “of course I remember, how are you doing?” Our conversation flowed super naturally and somehow at the end of our three-minute conversation, I gave him my number. I was really giddy. He looked really good, and I was just as attracted to him as I was the year before. He texted me his number right away and then I went into my workout. Later that night he was already texting me to hang out, so it was obvious the attraction was there for him too. I was kind of nervous but decided to go over to his place to hang out. We ended up chatting for like 3 or so hours. I never mentioned that I had a son… I would get so much anxiety even thinking about bringing it up. I was worried about him thinking differently or poorly of me. On top of it, I wanted to see if there was even still a connection between us. I wanted him to get to know and like me for my personality and who I am before he found out I had a son while he was out of the picture. We continued to talk and hang out. All the while I was still talking to Jacob 24/7. I finally got the courage to tell Liam I had a son. And he said, “I know, one of my teammates on the football team told me and I was like, oh really? Cool!” Liam did not care at all that I had Hudson. I told him how I blew him off because I actually had a boyfriend the whole time we were seeing each other in 2014. He said that he figured that is what happened since I kind of just stopped talking to him for no reason. We ended up kissing that night. I was not planning on kissing him yet, but it just kind of happened. To be honest I felt a little guilty since I was really really into Jacob… but then the other part of me knew that I needed to explore my options to know what I truly wanted!

Also, keep in mind that Jacob was planning on going on an LDS Mormon mission. A mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. When a faithful man in our church turns 18 or older, he has the opportunity to go on a mission. Men go on these missions for 2 years and they serve the Lord and other people around them. It is a great act of selfless service. Since Jacob was planning on going on a mission I knew that I couldn’t date him exclusively even if I wanted to. So even more so, I knew I needed to date other guys besides him. So I didn’t even date just Liam when Jacob was gone in Japan, I dated a couple of other guys as well. In the Fall BYU is known for its “Fall socials” and heavy dating scene. If you want to meet a guy or girl, Fall semester is the time to do it. I started dating another guy pretty frequently during this time. He is pretty irrelevant so I won’t even mention his name but we ended up dating sporadically all through Fall term. During this time Taylah and I were hanging out 24/7. I told her about the whole Jacob thing over the summer and how we were still talking, and she was totally okay with it. Now that we were dating guys at the same time it made our friendship even more fun. I was so excited for Jacob to come. There wasn’t a day we didn’t talk while he was in Japan. But, I definitely wasn’t going to tell him that I was dating a lot when he was gone.

Jacob:I wanted to talk about our relationship after realizing how much I missed her when I was in Japan. It wasn’t long after I got back that I knew I wanted her to be mine. I wasn’t nervous to talk about our relationship but being honest I was expecting her to say, “yes” to being exclusive. When she didn’t I just had to accept that it wasn’t the right time for her yet. Meanwhile, things with Liam were kind of fizzling out. I told him I had a guy coming home from Japan who I was dating and he told me he had a girl coming off a mission that he was dating. So mutually we decided to stop seeing each other. Part of me knew Liam wasn’t the one not long after we were seeing each other. When we were alone together we had a great connection, and everything seemed good. But when he was with my guy and girlfriends he was super anti-social and honestly super strange. My guy friends kind of thought he was a weirdo haha. We came from completely different worlds as well. He grew up on a farm with ten siblings and, well, I definitely did not. Long term I knew that it wasn’t for me. The biggest thing that we had was the physical attraction and I think that’s the only thing that kept us going all September. So I kept dating other guys, going out to social events and meanwhile, I would still see Jacob every week. Jacob and I were still dating without the title… but every time we were together we seemed like an exclusive couple. During this whole time, Jacob was the guy that was ALWAYS there for me.

So I was kind of mean to Jacob. He would ask to hang out and I would make up a lame excuse and then go out with other guys and put it on my Instagram story. I wanted him to give up because frankly, I did not know how long I could keep rejecting him before giving in. Jacob: I knew her well and her intentions. I knew she cared about me, but I also knew the reasons why she pushed me away. I really cared about her and frankly I knew that I was the best for Mayci. For some reason every time she said no to me I thought that she wasn’t being truthful to herself and so I kept trying. Thanksgiving break came and Jacob and I hung out at least three times when we were both in California. We went to San Diego and spent the whole day together. I remember we were sitting on these huge cliffs watching the sunset and I could see it in his eyes. He loved me. I knew it. The reason why I can say this and be confident in it is because I saw that same look when we got married. Jacob has a way of looking into your eyes that makes it seem like he is looking through your soul and into your heart. I remember I kept thinking, “please don’t say you love me, please don’t”. I think it is because I could feel in my heart that I was falling in love with him too.

We had a month until Christmas break and I started blowing Jacob off again. Looking back I was so dumb. I think it’s because I could clearly see what I wanted but was too scared to give it a shot. But like the great guy Jacob is, he kept trying for me. One weekend I left for a tennis trip and Jacob knew I had to leave early in the morning… so he woke up super early and came to my house and left breakfast on my porch. French toast, a fruit cup, and orange juice all from my favorite breakfast place. Once again, looking back I am seriously amazed… Jacob never quit when it came to pursuing me, which is such an attractive quality in a guy. Jacob:She told me how much she loved Kneaders french toast. I wanted to do nice things for her because at the end of the day even though we weren’t officially together, I really cared about her. I also knew that the other types of guys she was dating and had dated in the past weren’t like that. So I wanted her to know that I was different.

Jacob:The night we decided to be official we talked for about 3 hours until 1:00 a.m. A couple of days later when Mayci started talking about her fears in being exclusive I was pretty confident. I was trying to calm her down and get her to think clearly. I remember on New Year’s Eve I started getting the same thoughts that she did. I was feeling a little depressed about it because I felt like we were only going to last to the end of Christmas break. I started to realize what a tough decision it was for her to be with me but we talked that night and decided not to make any rash decisions. We decided to wait until we got back to Utah to see how things went. I was definitely nervous and worried because I did not want to lose her. We went back to school in January for the winter semester of school. Our relationship was honestly amazing. Jacob told me he loved me on January 28th, 2017. I knew I was in love with him too so I said it back. However, it was weird at first for me. Opening up and being vulnerable about love. I am not someone who likes to be all mushy and say, “I love you” a lot and Jacob is. Jacob:We were driving down the freeway and I started getting nervous because I knew I was about to tell her that I loved her. I just knew I loved her because every time I was with her I just felt so happy. I cared about her on a deeper level and I wanted to do anything I could to make her happy. I remember feeling so happy when I told her because I could now finally relax. I was really happy when she said it back as well. It was also weird for me because it was the first time I had loved since Arik. I really never knew that I could love again and so it was all a new thing for me. It was the first time in almost two years where I stopped thinking about Arik as much. It felt good to not think about the past anymore. I finally felt like I was moving on with my life.