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. 

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?

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?

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.

christmas 2012

 A visit to Santa Claus

 Another year of 5 generations:

Great Great Grandpa Ken, Great Grandma TC, GiGi, Mama and Mila

 Santa was good to us! He brought M a trike, daddy a golf bag and mama a bike!

And then it was nap time. Zzzzzz.

we had a perfect Christmas this 2012. lots of family visits, three yummy dinners and memories to last a lifetime. m didn't want a thing to do with gifts. it was way more interesting to stand on the boxes and make happy faces as people oooed and ahhhhed at their gifts. we are much looking forward to a fabulous 2013!

our new journey

 two years ago I had a tubal pregnancy that ruptured my fallopian tube and resulted in emergency surgery and removal of my tube. as i'm sure you can imagine, i was completely devastated. our first pregnancy...our first baby...gone forever. our OB is a wonderful man that i trust 100% and he assured me another baby would be on it's way in no time. and sure enough, 3 months later, i saw two pink lines on the pee stick and almost had a heart attack! i was pregnant!!!! YEEHAW! we had an early ultrasound and to my very surprise, there was our precious little dot right where it was supposed to be; snuggled in my uterus. 9 months later i gave birth to an amazing sweet baby girl.

and we experienced this loss again last week. i immediately knew something was not right on Tuesday morning. boss rushed me to the ER and i told them i was sure i had internal bleeding. and of course, they looked at me like i was nutty. i said 'no, you have to believe me. i've been down this road before and i KNOW something is wrong.' an agonizing ultrasound, blood test and hour later the diagnosis was confirmed. i was experiencing another tubal pregnancy. tears. sobs. our dr arrived within minutes and after visiting pathology, told me i would once again be rushed in for surgery. more tears and more sobs. as he began to ask me about the possibility of saving my tube i cut him off with a firm 'hello no! take it.' i never wanted to risk this happening to me again. there are no words to describe how it feels to know you will never be able to conceive naturally again. it is a sad hollow feeling. and at that same moment i felt such an immense love for my baby girl playing at home. what a miracle she is.

our new journey of IVF  is going to be difficult and long. emotionally draining. i have officially joined millions of other women in the world of infertility. but we will prevail. there will be more babies for our family. i am strong and i know we will be successful. as a way to cope, i will continue to blog about our family and journey.

My Baby is One

oh happy day! our sweet baby girl has turned one. it seems like just yesterday i was laying in bed, enjoying my last hours of absolute silence and my last full night of sleep (for at least 6 months). we woke up the next morning so ready to meet her yet still terrified of the major life change. it was the best life change we have ever experienced.

M is the happiest, sweetest, most energetic and independent little girl. at one year old, her loves inculde: daddy, Roo, all animals, most anything that is edible, especially berries and spaghetti, being outdoors, swinging at the park and hanging with Mr. Ben. she pats you on the back when you give her a pat, she says "hi dad!" when he walks in the door or when she comes into a room. i fall under the 'dad' category too. i cannot say enough positive and happy things about this miracle of ours. we are head-over-heels in love with her and feel so lucky we get to have her as ours!

she loved every morsel of her vanilla cake! i think we let her eat a little too much....she didn't go to bed until 9:00 that night! wowsers were we ever tired.