4 Down 5 to go

I always thought that I would be one of those women who would post weekly, with pictures of me displaying my belly and a chalk board sign comparing my child to some type of random produce.  But I haven't.  In fact, this is the first time I have written anything since our announcement.   The only photo I have taken is this bathroom selfie at work two weeks ago.  

The reason for my silence is actually two fold.  First of all I have been incredibly ill.  What do I have in common with Kate Middelton?  Hypermesis gravidarum.  Basically my morning sickness is so severe that it is causing some medical complications.  In 16 weeks I have lost 18 pounds (but annoyingly my pants still don't fit), I have needed to get IV fluids twice, and I have basically been miserable.  According to ultrasounds and routine screenings, the baby is growing and developing just fine.  I guess it was a good thing that I was fat before I got pregnant or things would be really bad.  I have still been working as much as I can.  I am so thankful I have such an understanding employer who allows my schedule to be flexible.  My main focus has been keeping my dinner down, and finding ways to make my nightly shots less painful.

The second, and slightly more serious reason these pages haven't been spilling over with cheesy update posts is because I have had a lot of anxiety.  To be frank, I am scared to death.  I'm worried that we may have jumped the gun and started fertility treatments too soon.  I'm worried that our finical situation isn't as solid as it should be, that we don't have a proper home to bring a baby into, that being a working mom will be more emotionally tolling that I can handle.  I am scared that I will have sever postpartum depression and that motherhood in general will be more difficult that I expect.  Then, once I have thoroughly freaked myself out, I feel incredibly guilty.  I wanted this baby more than anything.  I am the one that has always been so good with children and had a "mother's heart".  I was the one who suggested we do fertility treatments.  So shouldn't I be more excited than scared?

After talking with a few of my friends I realized these feeling are completely normal and I am not really going crazy (so they say). Pregnancy isn't always glamorous, in fact for a lot of people it down right sucks!  So, if these freak outs and emotional breakdowns are normal, why doesn't any one talk about them?  I have been so hesitant to share these feelings with people because I didn't want to come across as ungrateful.  I was shocked when our fertility treatments finally worked.  I seriously thought that we would have to go for more invasive procedures and it would take much longer to get pergnant.  So when two lines showed up on that pregnancy test I was happy yes, but I was shocked at the same time.

So that is basically what my first trimester was like.  Between vomiting multiple times a day and regular emotional breakdowns, you can understand why I haven't been quick to document every detail.  I am starting to feel better, both physically and emotionally.  I am so thrilled to become a mother.  I really do believe that it is a role I was born for.  There are so many women who become mothers in much more difficult situations (my mother being one of them) and they turn out fine.  If they can do this, so can I.  I believe this will be the most rewarding challenge of my life.  I can't wait to hold my little blonde love bug in just 5 more months.

What comes next?

I will give more details in a later post but for now ......

..... I just want to let you know that, after a lot of blood sweat and tears, our fertility treatments finally worked!  Our little Gootlet will be here March 2015! 

Updates and a story

Yes, I realize I haven't graced you with my presence since April.  I should be sorry, but I am really too lazy to be.  So, instead of saying "oh, life has been super busy", or "I was in a blogging rut", or my personal favorite "I was busy enjoying life!" I'm just going to say I'm sorry if you missed me.

So with that being said, here are a few things that have happen since April.

1.  We got a second dog.  Her name is Hattie and she is the sweetest thing ever!

2. Dean's family has been having a tough break.  First his uncle was in a freak tree trimming accident and had to be life frighted to the nearest trauma center (same hospital that Tracy Morgan is in by the way).  During this time Dean's grandfather was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and passed away shortly after.  His uncle never had a chance to say goodbye, that was hard to watch.

3.  I became an auntie!  My sister-in-law gave birth to her first child at 12:01 this morning.  A little girl they named Abrienne Jael.

4.  I am still not pregnant after even more aggressive treatments.  I am trying not to lose hope, but to be honest, I am starting to get very depressed.  Life just doesn't seem fair to me at times.  Which brings me to my story:

About a week or so ago, I was at work and decided I needed a coffee break.  So I went to the Dunkin' Donuts that is about a mile from my office building.  I walk in and notice a small child, about 2 or 3 years old at the most sitting on the counter with his (her?  I honestly couldn't tell) mother standing there.  He was filthy, in pj's, and shoe-less.  When his mother asked him what he wanted he said "coffee coolata and sprinkle donut!"  So, mom ordered it for him.  I was appalled.  Here it is 3 o'clock in the afternoon, your child is not dressed, shoe-less, in desperate need of a bath, and you just gave him caffeine AND enough sugar to feed ten ant farms!  What are you thinking?!  And I am the one who can't get pregnant?!  Please explain to me how natural selection works again?  I think Darwin was wrong.

My mother would call it stubborn

In the past year or so, I have to come to the realization that I'm a strong person. I don't mean physically strong-I need Dean to open my salad dressing. I mean emotionally strong.  Various people have told me this throughout my life. Employers always told me I was committed, energetic and ambitious. To me that translated to "cool maybe I can ask for a raise" or "my mother always said I was stubborn." The real meaning never really struck me until recently. 

In the midst of a huge emotional breakdown earlier this evening, my husband said these words to me: "you're the most capable person that I know. If you really want something I've never seen you fail to attain it because you don't give up."  Now most levelheaded women would melt at such a compliment. But, at the moment I wasn't a levelheaded woman. I blame the infertility drugs, lack of sleep, and general stress for my bad mood.  But, he ment it sincerely.  I am so thankful for his clarity when I am too emotional to think correctly. 

This perfectly represents what Dean is to me. 

My ambition is something that I sometimes really dislike about myself.  Failure hurts no matter who you are. My try try again attitude often means more opportunities to fail. Sure, I'll pick myself up,  bandage my wounds and go right back at it, but that process is so exhausting.  There are days when I feel like I'm never going to succeed and I can't tell you how many times I've been longing to throw in the towel. Those are the days that I do nothing but lounge around in yoga pants eating cheese and binging on Netflix. Then, once I have fulfilled a successful pity party, I start over again.  So, here's to new beginnings. 

we won't accept NO

First of all, I want to say thank you for a the well wishes, and prayers. From your comments, to emails, and text messages I felt so loved.  I was really apprehensive to publish such a personal struggle. But I am so glad that I did, because I realized that a lot of my friends have gone through the same thing and now have multiple children.  It gives my dying hope a little bit to feed off of, and this past week that was greatly needed.  

I have received a lot of emails asking me what I have tried and if I ever heard of such and such all natural method, and all sorts of other recommendations.  Without going into a lot of detail I will say that I tried a few natural methods before going to the doctor, they all failed.  Yes, I have had my thyroid checked.  Yes, they tested me (twice) for PCOS and a whole slew of other things.  Supposedly, everything is "within normal limits".  I am on my second cycle of a second kind of medication and it seems to be failing.  I will say that I have a lot of confidence in my doctor, and he has a lot of confidence that I will become pregnant.

I understand that there are a lot of families out there that have struggled for much longer than we have.  And I get that it's not over yet.  Often times my emotional understanding (or lack there of), gets in the way of my logical thinking. But, I'm human, that is bound to happen.  I have good days and bad.  Yesterday was a bad day.  Yesterday I had to take a sick day and stay home.  It was a pretty emotional weekend for me, and I woke up with a killer migraine that wouldn't let up.  I stayed in bed most of the day. The last time I was in bed most of the day was when I had just gotten out of the hospital.  The fact that it was my birth control that caused me to get so sick a year and a half ago, is kinda like rubbing salt in my wound now.  BUT, today was good.  I was super productive at work, I got girl scout cookies from a co-worker, and had a rather uplifting conversation with my boss.  Doctors told my boss and his wife point blank that they would never have kids of their own.  Well, his wife is pregnant with their second child.  He would not take no for an answer and neither will we.

Waiting and Wanting

I have been thinking about this post all day, but I still can't seem to piece it all together.  Actually, I have been thinking about this for months.  I've been a little indecisive about how much of my personal life I share here. Usually I am pretty open, and if you asked I would pretty much tell you anything about my life.  But for some reason, this felt like something I should keep to myself.  Until today.  Today was a super emotional day for me, and I realized that I need support.  So, here I am pouring me heart out on the interwebs.

It's no secret that Dean and I want to be parents.  It is also no secret that my health has a history of being less that stellar.  After everything that happened with my lungs, Dean and I decided that we wanted to become parents.  Things seemed to fall into place just perfectly.  I got a new job with a more flexible schedule, Dean works an opposite shift than me so we wouldn't need a full time sitter, I was off of my "dangerous to babies" medication, and we are looking into get a house within the next year or so.  we decided to go for it, we had no reason not to.

Fast forward 7 months (December) - we are still not pregnant.  So, I decided to bring it up with my doctor when I went in for my least favorite appointment of the year.  He asked me to come in with Dean for a second appointment after doing some blood work and an ultrasound.  So, we did.  And that's where he dropped "the I bomb".  Infertility.  And what's worse - there is no explainable reason why.

Since then, I have gone to numerous doctor appointments, taken multiple drugs, peed on countless sticks, and faced disappointment month after month.

So, here I am.  That's all of this post I was able to logically write.  The rest, the part about how I am feeling, what to do next, how you can help - yeah that stuff I can't seem put into words.  I know I am sad.  I know I am frustrated.  I know that telling me "Your young, you have plenty of time!", or "don't lose faith, God has a plan" actually hurts me more than I would expect it to.

We plan to keep trying for now.  I know that eventually, some day, I will be holding a sweet blonde baby in my arms.  I will look back on this time with much more clarity than I have now.  But tonight I am just sad.

I hope the "church" dies with him.

Of course the first post I publish in weeks will be slightly controversial.  In case you haven't heard, Fred Phillips, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, in on his death bed.  It's not a big surprise that there are people saying his funeral should be protested.  But let me ask you something, What does that prove?  That the world is full of as much hate and anger that this man taught? Personally, I hope it is a quiet, empty funeral, and I hope that none sink to the level that this man and his followers have done, in some vain attempt to achieve some sick, twisted form of justice. I hope his "church" dies with him.

Truthfully, I feel a little sorry for him. He choose to live a life of hate, to the point of pushing some of his family members away, he has led his followers to believe a perverse and twisted form of the "gospel", and has led countless others to hate Christianity, because all Christians must act like him....right? So, I feel sorry for him. I do not wish what I believe he will encounter when he passes over on my worst enemy.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."

I cannot and will not celebrate his death, I believe these will be the last words he will hear before descending into hell, damned forever for rejecting the redeeming grace and love of our blessed Savior...... "Depart from me for I never knew you"

I'll admit, there is a part of me that wants to go dance on his grave, that wants his followers to know the hate they showed to so many. But there is another part of me that realizes, and grieves, at a soul that has willfully and knowingly chosen to reject the grace of salvation offered, to pervert a message of love into one of hate, his torment will be beyond anything we can imagine.

This is not something to celebrate, merely something to note, let him die, and let it be, lest we become the very monsters we detest.

I know the Magic Words

I know everyone posted their "Valentine's Recaps" on Monday, but I am not one of the cool kids so I am just mentioning it now.  My Valentine's day started with a quick newborn photo shoot before I headed to work (I work half days on Fridays - yes you can be jealous).

Post Valentine's photo

It's a tradition that Dean sends me flowers to work on Valentine's day.  He always orders the same bouquet from the same company and they are usually always beautiful. Except, this year they were not.  The delivery was late, the roses were half dead, and I was missing a bloom.  Eventually we did get the refund, but we had to sweet talk the customer service agent, who was set on just sending replacements.

I could have gotten nicer flowers from Wegmans!

 
Since I have worked in one form of customer service or another since I was 17, I have learned exactly what to say to get what I want.  And since I am a nice person, I will share some of that knowledge with you.

ONE Make sure you have a legitimate complaint.  
If you are calling your internet provider because you don't have enough bandwidth to stream Netflix, you have a good case.  If you are mad that you have to pay extra for HBO when there are hundreds of other channels you don't watch, well, you are tough outta luck.

TWO  Have a solution in mind that is actually attainable.
Expecting free flower delivery for a year is a little bit over board.  However, it is perfectly reasonable to get a refund for the dead flowers I did receive.

THREE  BE NICE!
This is probably the most important piece of advice I could give you.  Let's be honest, no one ever calls an 800 number when things are peachy.  So, unless you are the first call of the customer service rep's day, they have been verbally abused by a few other people before talking to you.   If you become your CSR's friend, they are more likely to help you out.

FOUR  Only ask for a supervisor if your new friend really can't help you.
What I mean by that is, don't jump the gun and ask for a supervisor as "punishment".  Often times, CSR's say no off the bat because that is what they are told to do.  If you explain the situation calmly, and ask again, they may be able to give you what you want after all.  If they can't, then it's time to ask for the supervisor.  But remember, the CSR controls what supervisor you get transferred to.  So it is in your best interest to be nice, because they will send you to the person that will fix the problem.

99% of the time those simple steps work.  Hopefully you won't need to use that info, but if you ever do, it's good to have a guide.

The L Word

You guys, I think it's just time I come out and say it.  I am lazy. Remember when I said I was going to be more productive and write 2 blog posts a week?  Well in case you haven't been counting, that was 2 weeks ago and this is the 3rd post since then.  Why?  Because I am lazy.

The thing is, if you asked people that knew me, they wouldn't say I am lazy.  My employers have always complimented me on my hard work (by the way I was promoted last week, but that is a whole different blog post), my mother-in-law has asked me how I do so much, and my home is usually in order (as long as you don't look in the bedroom).  And while those things are great, and I am thankful for those things, I feel like just getting them done does not make me not lazy.  It just makes me responsible - which at 27 should just be expected.

I tend to ignore the solution to a lot of things if I don't think it would be easy.  For example, I was complaining about my lack of a social life.  That weekend this conversation happen:
Me: "Mary invited me to go have drinks with her to celebrate her new job"
Dean: "Oh, that sounds like fun! What time are you leaving?"
Me: "Never. I would have to put a bra on and that sucks the fun out of everything"
Dean: "so you are not going out because you don't want to wear undergarments?"
Me: "You know me so well."

I know that complaining about being lazy while sitting on the couch wishing I had a snuggie is not productive at all.  I am not sure what motivation I need to change.  But the fact is I don't like it.  I know the simple answer is "just go do it", but I feel like there has to be more to it.

To go with the theme of "lazy", there will be no photos in the post.

Why I Hate Scary Movies. OR The Time I Peed My Pants While Driving.

Most of my friends know that I do not like to watch very scary movies.  I never used to be that way.  In fact, I remember begging my mom to let me watch The Sixth Sense in theaters even though I wasn't old enough.   I loved suspense up until my friends decided to play a grand prank on me.

My and my Zoe girl circa 2005

It was the summer that I worked as a camp counselor, and kept most of my wardrobe in my car.  We had the weekends off, so I decided to go to my friends house and have a movie night.  All 9 of us piled into my friend's living room and started watching Signs.  This was not the first time I have seen this movie.  I also didn't really consider it to be scary.

When the movie was finally over it was late and dark out side.  I took my usual hour and a half to say good bye to everyone and didn't even notice that Bob (not his real name) was missing.  I should have been suspicious since Bob has a deer antler that looks very similar to the creepy alien hand from the movie. But, of course I thought nothing of it.

The antler looked a little something like this

I finally made it out to may car, blasted the radio and took off.  I was at least 4 miles away (passing a corn field) when all of the sudden I noticed a creepy alien hand touching my arm.  I screamed bloody murder, slammed on the breaks, pulled over, and peed myself before I jumped out of the car and screamed.  When I looked behind me I saw Bob doubled over in laughter.  He had hidden in my giant pile of clothes and waited until we were passing the corn field to pull the best prank in history. I didn't notice him because I had my music up so loud.  I was so mad at him I made him walk home alone in the dark.

And that is why I no longer watch scary movies.

I am WAY late to the party on this one.

So, it is almost February and I am just now getting around to the whole "Happy New Year" thing.  See, here is the issue - I haven't had a computer at home since November.  The power adapter on my lap top was knocked lose and I wasn't able to charge my battery.  I've been mostly using my iPhone and reading blogs at work.  But, lesbehonest, the blogger app is almost useless, and I didn't want to take the time at work to blog.  Hence, my month long absence.

I know practically everyone in  Blogland has done a post like this about 3 weeks ago, so I will do my best to keep this short winded. Rather than go through and recap all my "highlights" of 2013, I will share this little gem from Facebook.

2013 was a very monumental year in my life, but also one I am glad I can say is done and over with.  It started off rather rough, but ended with me being a stronger, wiser individual.  I know that is incredibly cliche, but it is really true.  

When I was 7, my New Year's resolution was to be able to jump off the swings without being scared.  I guess that was a hard enough challenge for 20 years, because I haven't had one since.  I decided to change that this year. There is no reason to not want to better myself.   After careful consideration, I have come up with 4 things that I would like to work on in 2014.

ONE - Be more productive.

This dose not mean that I can't watch Netflix or be lazy once in a while.  I can however, use my time more wisely.  All those things I pinned on Pinterest?  Why not try that on a Saturday afternoon instead of sitting on my but and watching half a season of Call the Midwife?

TWO - Become a better photographer.  

I know every other person in Blogland is a "photographer".  I am not trying to just be trendy.  This has been a legitimate interest of mine for at least 10 years.  I FINALLY got my fancy DSLR last year.  I have no more excuses to let it sit there.

THREE -  Become a better blogger.

One of the biggest lessons I think I learned in 2013 was that my thoughts and opinions really do matter and it is okay for me to express them.  I may not post something 5 days a week, but I can post at least twice a week.  I am not blogging to become "internet famous", or to make money, or to gain hundreds of followers.  I blog because it makes me happy, and frankly, that's all that matters.

FOUR - Become more active.

I tried this once before last year, and realized that I bit off more than I could chew.  However, I can honestly say that after I admitted my defeat in October, I just gave up completely.  The truth is that I need to be active.  I can no longer blame it on my health.  I am as healed as I'll ever be.  I am not going to go out a join a gym or hire a personal trainer.  Mostly because that crap is expensive, but also because I would be way to overwhelmed.  What I can do (and have started doing) is yoga in the living room, or walking Faust around a few extra blocks (he could really burn off the extra energy, really).

Goals 2-4 are all a part of goal #1.  Truthfully, goal #1 will probably always be a goal of mine. Breaking it down into 3 more specific goals makes it a lot less overwhelming and actually achievable.  So there you have it.  Please forgive me for handing in my homework a month late.