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.1 and start my story from “The Beginning”. February 3rd, 2017 was my second home tennis match at BYU that season. I started out playing super well. I felt like I was finally playing how I wanted to play. Playing the #1 singles spot is always difficult, you’ll almost never have an easy match. But despite the obvious challenge that spot carries, I was playing well, I was winning my match and I was about to win the next game when my worst nightmare happened.

My trainers didn’t even know I was hurt because I wasn’t crying or yelling like I probably should have been considering the severity of the injury. They finally rushed over after seeing I was laying on the court with no intention of getting up. They helped me up, escorted me to my chair and evaluated my knee. My trainer told me that I shouldn’t continue playing, but he never told me why… I think it was because he didn’t want to prematurely scare me. My sister/coach asked if I could try to walk it off and so I walked to the fence and back and thought, “okay, that wasn’t too bad”. The trainers saw this and asked me to jog to the fence and back. Once again I didn’t think it was too bad. Then they told me to move my knee around, pivoting it side to side. I did it and my knee/ leg collapsed. I did it again… collapse. What was going on?! At that point, my trainer said, “Nope she can’t play, you need to pull her.” That’s when I started to cry. My trainer was the type of guy to feed us “tough love” and never pulled us for injuries, so I knew it had to be bad. They got me on crutches and had me scheduled for an MRI within the next hour or so. My trainer then told me, “my fear and suspicion is that you tore your ACL”. I have definitely heard about an ACL injury but I only knew about it as the “big bad knee injury you never want to get”. I did my MRI and by the time I went to sleep and woke up, I knew this wasn’t a normal injury. So much pain. Later that day my trainer called me and said, “I am sorry, but my suspicions were correct. You completely tore your ACL.” A season-ending injury. I burst into tears in front of all my teammates. By the reaction on my face, they knew it was bad. We were all crying together. Even now writing about it makes me emotional because it was so hard knowing my season was over, and that everything I worked so hard for was now gone again. What scared me the most about this injury is that I now had to get surgery. Once torn, an ACL needs to be completely replaced. You can either use a cadaver, patellar tendon, or hamstring. I chose to do the hamstring graph since it is supposed to be the most effective surgery without as many complications.

I went into the operating room and it was freezing. I remember looking around and seeing all of these scary power tools and sharp objects. Were they using those on me? Either way, the drugs were pretty strong and I did not care one bit. They put the heavier drugs in my IV and I asked them if I needed to count down. They said, “nope” and that’s all I remember. Before I knew it, I woke up and was in a lot of pain.

Recovery was rough. I couldn’t walk for three weeks, I had to crutch everywhere. I also had to sleep in a brace for six whole weeks. The rehab on my knee was also very difficult. Not only physically but mentally. This ACL surgery took a toll on me and it started to take a toll on my relationship with Jacob. When I first tore my ACL my brother-in-law had said to my family that “this would be a good test to see the strength of our relationship”.

JACOB:There was a point during the conversation where I felt that what we had was over. Mayci was quiet when I was talking and I just assumed she was agreeing with me that we should end things. But then she opened up to me about things she was struggling with and it had nothing to do with me. I was extremely relieved because I loved her and I was willing to help her in any way I could. As soon as I felt our relationship may be in trouble I kind of snapped out of it. I finally opened up to Jacob and told him that I was experiencing depression again. He comforted me and by the time our talk ended, things were good again. It was then I realized that I needed to be more open with my emotions and express the way I felt to him more often. > Like I said in my previous post, I was scared to commit to my relationship with Jacob in fear that I would get my heart broken when he went on a mission. I also worried that he wouldn’t go on his mission because of me, and I didn’t want to carry that guilt with me. Only a month after officially dating Jacob told me that he prayed about his mission and he now felt like he didn’t need to go on his mission. He said that his mission in life would be different than an LDS mission where you leave for 2 years. Insinuating this his mission in life would/could be raising a child instead. JACOB:There were a lot of things that occurred to come to this decision and I felt like this was the best thing for me. Mayci and I were perfect together from the beginning and when I felt that our future together was serious I decided to pray and find answers. This made me very nervous. I was scared that he thought that we were going to get married because he wasn’t going to go on his mission anymore. I didn’t like that pressure that came with all of it. I didn’t like that I was the reason why he wasn’t going to go, I started to feel a little bit guilty about it. Although, selfishly, I was happy. Maybe my heart wouldn’t get broken after all. Maybe I would get my “happy ending”. During this time, my parents told me that we were going to be going to Europe during the summer and I was allowed to bring someone with me. Now that Jacob said he wasn’t going on a mission, I wanted him to come to Europe as my +1. My parents said they rather that I bring Jacob because they rather invest their money in a relationship and potential future marriage than paying for one of my friends to go with me. So I invited Jacob to come to Europe with my family. I was so excited but at the same time, I was a little nervous! We were going to be spending every day together for the next 20 days! So at this point, I was hoping I made the right decision to bring him because I didn’t want my parents to be paying all this money for a guy that I wasn’t going to stay with long term. The very beginning of June we left for Europe! I was so excited for this new adventure but it was also hard to leave Hudson at home. Hudson stayed with Jacob’s sister-in-law who was also a nanny. We arrived in Paris and everything was so amazing. I had already been to Paris but it was so different going to Paris with my boyfriend. It was SO romantic! Just the vibes and overall feeling made us giddy, especially kissing under the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower. I was so obsessed and it was obvious that the feeling was mutual. Click Here if you want to see a little video I made of our time in Paris! JACOB: Traveling in Europe with Mayci was the most amazing thing and it propelled our relationship. It was extremely romantic, but I knew that our first time traveling together would be another test for our relationship. The trip brought out so many great qualities in each other and I recommend everyone to travel with their significant other, whether it is small or big it will show you new sides of them. We went from Paris to the south of France and then Italy. If you have ever been to Italy you would know that it is absolutely amazing! We got an Airbnb in Cinque Terre and we woke up to the smell of fresh bread.

Honestly, the longer Jacob and I were together on this trip the more in love we fell. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other! For those wondering, we ALWAYS slept in separate rooms throughout the entire trip. After Cinque Terra, we went to Rome where we jumped on a cruise. On this cruise, we went to Malta, Santorini, Mykonos, Athens, Rhodes, and a couple other places. It was absolutely amazing. I have dreamed of seeing Santorini since I was a little girl.

As our trip was winding down our relationship was heating up. I felt more attached and in love than ever before. I remember Jacob and I were in the pool on the last day on our cruise when I was feeling SO giddy. I had butterflies and honestly the most comforting feeling in my gut. I could feel it deep inside of me… Jacob is THE ONE. JACOB: I like pulling minor pranks on Mayci and one night at dinner when I was talking to the waiter about people who propose on cruise ships, I pretended to get down on one knee. I ended up re-tying my shoe. I swear her heart dropped to the floor and she was so nervous haha. I fell deeper in love with her each day on that trip and I was closer to seeing myself being with her. I couldn’t shake the feeling. Throughout our Europe trip, we would casually talk about marriage. But the funny thing is, this wasn’t the first time we talked about marriage. Jacob and I started talking about marriage casually from the moment we started dating. I think it’s because we both saw the qualities in each other for an everlasting commitment. I remember I told Taylah that I could see myself marrying him even before we became official. Mainly because I could see every quality in him that I wanted in a future partner. JACOB: Our relationship was natural and it was so easy to fall madly in love her. I knew the next step was making the commitment to propose to her and I was excited thinking of our future together. I began praying to confirm my feelings toward her and moving into the position of being down on one knee. Our trip came to an end but our relationship was as good as ever. Jacob was working in San Diego doing door to door sales and I was living in Orange County with my parents. We saw each other usually at least 3-4 times a week and even then it didn’t seem like enough. About a month after our Europe trip, I went to Utah to visit some family. I still remember the moment. I was in my sister’s house and I had just woken up from a nap. I looked at my phone and I had 3 missed calls from Jacob and a text that said, “call me now.” For some reason, I got the worst feeling inside. I felt sick to my stomach before I even called him back. I called Jacob back and the sick feeling I had inside proved to be true… NEXT WEEK: THE *almost* BREAK UP