Wednesday, January 23, 2013

a surprise in the mail

i love getting mail. christmas is my favorite time of year partly because of all the beautiful and fun christmas cards we receive. it makes my day when a package comes or a sweet card. ok, enough rambling about mail, i'll get to the point. wonderful mail came today: my ART (artificial reproductive technology) packet of information. in this legal size gloriously yellow envelope was all of our blood work slips, diet info, meds info and RX slips, and what i was most excited about...the calendar of my daily schedule. despite it being the wrong month, i was still excited. seeing the actual days on paper is making it feel more real. making it a little easier to cope with the fact that we have to do this to have another baby.

this is going to be one of the hardest things i have ever done. probably the hardest thing my body has ever gone through. shots. pills. more shots. more needles. ew. have i mentioned i hate needles? this isn't exactly the type of thing you want to go through if you hate needles. especially since there is going to be a very large, very hollow needle inserted through my abdomen into an ovary. ouch. good thing i will have that lovely thing called anesthesia to help me sleep through it. we're really looking forward to june.
hopefully this is what will come next march. a sweet little miracle.

other than this super awesome mail, this week has been pretty bleh. m and i have both had colds for a week now. not too miserable of a cold but whenever she can't breathe out of her nose...it makes for long nights for this mama who is used to sleeping through the night. you forget what that is like. boss man is now feeling it coming on. we tried to squeeze in bike rides and park time before the rain and also got to go on an amazing date afternoon monday. thanks to lauren and matt, we went to sycamore for an hour long hot tub soak that also came with childcare! m had a super great time playing with lauren and we got to have peace and quiet in the mountains of san luis obispo. whenever we have the chance to spend time in SLO, i always come home wondering why we didn't buy a house there? oh yeah, because we don't have a million bucks. ha. maybe one day. we can keep dreaming until then :)

Friday, January 18, 2013

yesterdays consult

yesterday we began the journey of IVF with our consultation. we really liked the Dr (good thing because if we hadn't we'd be s.o.l.) He made us laugh and feel comfortable and gave us all the information we needed. he said that i am the type of IVF patient that makes him happy. no tubes. very young. have carried and delivered a baby before. he seemed very positive and encouraging.

so i feel relieved. not 100% back to my normal self but better. and i will take better.

we're on the schedule for may. crazy to be able to say if all goes well, i will be pregnant in june. i will know the exact day and on our drive to Redondo beach we can say we're on our way to get knocked up! ha.

i was given a mock schedule, well and exact schedule but for the cycle in april, and whoa, this is going to be crazy on my body. pills. injections. creams. ultrasounds. bloodwork. but it will all be worth it. just have to keep telling myself i am strong and i can do it. and i will.

Monday, January 14, 2013

a revelation

i was just writing in my journal and i realized something. it's not that i question whether i want another baby. it's that i am waiting for this to be a dream. i am waiting to wake up to the reality i knew before december 11th. the reality that i still had one wonderfully amazing and working fallopian tube. a fallopian tube that gave me the best gift i have even received; my daughter. the one working fallopian tube that was supposed to give me another child. the fallopian tube that we never even thought would fail like the left tube.

but that reality is gone. it flew far away on that tuesday morning. i hate that day. i hate that we tried for another baby so hard. i knew my body. i knew that november was not the "right" month to get pregnant. but we tried anyways. we tried really hard. and for some reason, it happened. it happened in a way that it shouldn't have. it happened in a way the OB had told us it may. an egg crossing over. damn that damn egg. i would have been perfectly fine with another negative test. but no, it had to cross over and it grew too big and it freaking got stuck.

and now my reality is IVF. and i hate it. hate hate hate. the consult is only 3 days away now and i don't want to go. i'm not ready to be over the hate and the anger. and i don't know when i will be. boss says we should go to be informed and wait to do the actual ivf part until we are ready. i agree....but it's still not what i want to be doing.

so i do want another baby. badly. just not from a petri dish. from my husband and i together. my heart is broken.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

valentine's craft

while M napped a glorious 3 hours today i did some valentine crafting. after an hour of some serious pinning. i'm slightly obsessed with pinterest for craft/party ideas.

anywho, i took step by step (kind of) photos for this easy and cute craft! and it's free if you have all the supplies which i am sure many of you do.

you will need craft paper, a pencil or pen, scissors, needle and thread, tape. cellophane bag and ribbon for wrapping (optional).

fold the craft paper into thirds and draw half a heart along the fold. when you cut it out and open the fold you will have a whole heart. i could fit 3 hearts on each fold so a total of 6 per piece of paper.


 i used a thick needle and 4 strands of white thread. you can use embroidery floss too (probably better, i only had black). after threading the needle, poke it through the folded-in-half heart. the middle is not the best choice so ignore that photo. it will hang upside down. so, on my second garland, i poked through just below the dip in the top of the heart and it worked! yay!

 i put a small piece of tape over the thread on the backside to keep them from sliding.
 turned out super cute!

 i made little gift tags with a punch out and heart hole punch.
we (i) made one for auntie lauren. i wrapped it up in a cellophane bag, tied it with red ribbon and it's ready to be delivered!

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

bath time happiness

this kid loves bath time. 

 especially splashing and giving mama a bath too.
 practicing filling her cup. i love how proud she is of herself when she sees that it fills with water. and it makes me so proud of little smarty pants. 

Monday, January 7, 2013

today

today i am feeling angry. sad. alone. i know i am not alone but it feels like in the sea of life, all its craziness and stress, i am alone and lost. floating along. being a mother. being a wife. exercising. cooking. errands. friendships. reading. sleeping. going through the motions.

i feel like i have yet to grieve the loss. it has been a month tomorrow. every time i see a baby i want to cry. every time i see a belly i want to fall on the floor and sob. can you imagine how people would look at me if i did that? but i don't care about that either. i can never naturally get pregnant again. i can never say, "hey babe, I'm ready to make a baby. lets get naked." i have to pay to have another child. i just want to scream. and cry. and scream a little more. maybe cry some more too.

i jumped on the bandwagon of friends and family so soon after, hours after to be exact, that i forgot i had to mourn. my friend was crying for me and when i mentioned ivf while still laying in the hospital bed she was completely shocked. maybe it was too soon. i know everyone was telling us there'd be more babies and to keep positive because they were trying to brighten our spirits. but maybe that wasn't the right thing to do. maybe a hug and a 'everything will be all right' was all we needed then. i went to my friends house this morning and cried. for two hours. and she just listened. it was so nice. i love her.

i know people probably think i am selfish. i have a beautiful daughter and there are so many women who don't have what i have. and are going through the suffering too. i watched a Ricki Lake show recently, horrible, i know, where the focus was secondary infertility and Rosy Pope was on. she had an ectopic pregnancy after her first child and was doing IVF for another. people didn't understand. i didn't understand. at that moment i was thinking the same thing, "you have a child." never in a million years would i have thought i'd be suffering from secondary infertility too. i had a baby after my first ectopic, it couldn't happen again could it? it did.

our IVF consultation is in 10 days and i am not as excited as i was before....i want to be informed but do we want another baby? do we want to wait longer? do we want to start asap? its such a different decision now. are we messing with fate? did God deal us this hand for a reason and we are going to screw with it?



Thursday, January 3, 2013

resolutions

i saw this on The Pioneer Woman's blog and it looked fun. i need to figure out how to 'tag' a website and make it clickable. is that a word? weird. maybe that can be part of my resolutions...hmmm. anywho, everyone should follow her. she is amazing. like i have said before, her food is to die for, i have her cookbooks, record her show and follow her blog religiously. i feel like i know her.

Remember how important the small things in life are.
Exercise more.
Spend more time outdoors.
Offer kindness to others.
Learn to do something new; tennis, crocheting/knitting...
Use what is in my fridge to  make dinner before running to the store.
Teach my daughter something new everyday.
Insist on having breakfast for dinner one a night a week. it is yummy.
Open mindedness is a key to happiness.
Never neglect myself; my family deserves a happy me.

what are your resolutions this year?

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

happy 2013

happy new year! we had a blast ringing in the new year with friends old and new. lauren and matt are both to us; they were just married last summer-we gained matt as a new friend and lauren has been my bff for over 10 years. every time we spend time together, especially this new years eve, we are reminded of why we are such great friends. we were meant to be.


2012 was a year full of amazing things and a few scary too. we welcomed rachel into our family as my brothers wife. she is so much fun and brings out a lively and new side of my brother. we celebrated six friends getting married and enjoyed seeing all of our friends and dancing the night away! tahoe is our annual summer trip in july-M loved swimming, hiking and went on her first boat ride. celebrating the holidays with M being 1 was both exciting and exhausting. she didn't want to open any presents but standing on the boxes was sure fun. she was teething a bit which brought on a fever...poor baby girl.

we are so looking forward to this coming year. trevor has become quite the golfer and his love for the game keeps growing. M is finding new ways to keep busy daily: climbing the couch, sliding and playing on her kangaroo climber, enjoying the outdoors and so many other things. she is definitely keeping this mama tired!! as for me, this new year is going to hopefully bring another babe into our family and i am really excited to learn more about the IVF process. we have our first consultation in two weeks and the days can't go by fast enough. i am trying to decide on a new hobby...possibly tennis? i have been contemplating tennis for over a year now and have to attempt. maybe this is the year.

bring it on 2013!!!!


ooooohhhh....and  got this little goody today!
i have been saving for a year and thank to birthday presents and christmas gifts i was finally able to make the purchase! LOVE.