The decision that made me love him a little more.

When we were just dating Josh had to make a really hard decision. One of the first things that we discussed when we got together were our hopes for the future. Both of us felt very strongly about having a big family. Raising our own children was something that was (and still is) very very important to us. 

 

Josh has a set of very close friends who are now married to each other. He was roommates with the husband and the wife lived across the hall while they were all in college. The wife and I were talking one day early on in my and Josh's relationship and for some reason we started talking about families and kids (I think it's because we'd been discussing her and her husband trying to get pregnant). She told me that a few years prior, before she and her husband were married, their group of friends was sitting around talking and one of them asked the others if they felt ready to have kids and start a family right then. Apparently everyone protested that there was no way they felt even close to ready….except for Josh. He said that he was so excited to get married and have kids and that he felt completely ready. Right then.

I already knew how important it was to him but after I heard that story it really hit me hard. And I loved that because I've felt ready for a long time too. He's very close to all of the kids in both of our families and so great with them. It's easy to see that he loves being around them and that someday he's going to make a fantastic dad.

 

At about 7 months into our relationship we both had a huge scare. I won't share the details but there was a very real possibility that I was in the early stages of developing cervical cancer. Because of family and personal history, etc. when that news came up none of us (myself, Josh and my doctor) doubted that it could very easily be a reality. I was referred to a specialist for more testing but because of a mistake the specialist's office made I had to wait almost 3 months before he was able to see me.

Those 3 months were excruciating. I remember leaving my doctor's office the day that she sat down with me to talk about it for the first time. I immediately called Josh. He was working but he knew that I had an important doctor's appointment so he answered. I completely broke down when I told him. We were facing a huge medical issue, one that could very easily lead to infertility. We already knew that my PCOS may cause issues but this was an even bigger hit. He calmed me down and told me to just wait until we knew for sure to panic.

A few months later, after I'd seen the specialist and my tests showed that I wasn't in the early stages of cancer after all Josh and I were talking about it. He told me that the day that I called to talk to him was a really hard day for him too, much harder than he let on. He said that he just worked in a haze for the rest of the day, thinking about the situation. He thought about how much he wanted to have biological children and wrestled with the thought that it may not be a reality with me. He obviously made the decision that even if we weren't ever able to have children, he would choose me. It was a hard decision to make though and I totally understand how it was.

Over 2 years later that decision still means so much to me. Just writing this post about it makes me teary. I am so grateful to have found a best friend to share my life with, someone who would be willing to sacrifice one of their biggest dreams in order to be my partner in life. 

Pinterest Challenge Update! Days 2 and 3 :)

Tuesday was day 2 of my pinterest-a-day challenge for myself. We want to use some things that we already have in our cupboards and dinner was already planned to be tomato basil soup that we bought from Costco (delicioussss) so I couldn't use a recipe for dinner. I also don't get too creative in my breakfasts or lunches since I'm usually rushing to make them so I decided that it had to be a pinterest workout that completed my challenge for the day.

Josh went running with me and when we got home it was time to ab it up.

 (Source)

Okay...we're not quite there yet but a girl can dream! Josh and I did this ab workout and it was really good!!! It was a lot better than just the ho hum, everyday crunches but it wasn't as horrible as something like P90X Ab Ripper X (hell, I tell you). I definitely felt my abs working and I was sore the next day!

On Wednesday I knew that Josh had a softball game which equals like no time after I get home to dinner and dinner is consequently usually a sandwich for him so I decided to try out a pumpkin oatmeal shake recipe for dinner for me. I wasn't a fan, sadly. I'm not going to link to it because I think it was probably just me being picky and I don't want to ruin the recipe for anyone else. It's odd. I love pumpkin beverages that I buy from places (pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks, pumpkin smoothie from Jamba Juice) but I never like the ones I make from scratch at home. It's probably because those places add things that people trying to create the recipe in a healthy way leave out on purpose....things that make them taste amazing!

Things that have made me happy this week.

I'm feeling down today so in order to lift my spirits I decided to focus on positive things that have made me smile so far this week. Hopefully remembering all of the happy moments helps me come out of this funk that I'm in today!

1. This little guy. This is one of my best friend's 2 week old son and I love him to pieces. She also has an almost 2 year old daughter so when we're together I usually take over caring for one or the other. This gives her a break from having both of them all day and I can't get enough of it.

2. Getting to watch my husband do something he loves. Josh has played baseball all his life but when he graduated from college 2 years ago he was pretty much baseball'd out. Just recently he's wanted to start getting back into playing on a league so when a few of his coworkers started one up this fall he jumped at the chance. It's "just slow pitch softball" which, according to him, isn't as fun as actual baseball but it'll do for now ;)

3. Frozen Yogurt. I am A-D-D-I-C-T-E-D. As someone who is partially lactose intolerant this isn't a great addiction to have so I've been trying to really limit it. Fortunately unfortunately a yogurt place finally opened in our town (I was having to commute for my froyo!) so I just had to try it out. And I approve!

 4. Spending time with my little sister! She and her boyfriend came over last night and we were able to go on a great run together. This girl is always there for me and I couldn't imagine life without her! We're only 22 months apart and have always been close. Even though I may be a teensy bit bitter that I look like a ghost in every single picture that we take together...darn her getting my mom's olive skin tone!

Pinterest-ing It Up: Day One!

I made yesterday the first day of my Pinterest-a-day challenge and it was ohhh so successful! I wanted to start with a recipe because….well, Josh and I have to eat anyway! With everything going on lately I've been falling into an easy food, just heat it up rut and this is just what I needed to jump on out of it.

 

I headed over to my Recipes board for inspiration and the first thing that jumped out at me was this recipe for roasted parmesan potatoes that I practically drooled over when I first pinned them. I made one little tweak…I used sweet potatoes instead. I always talk Josh into buying a crate of sweet potatoes when we go to Costco and I always have grand intentions of using them in bunches of delectable recipes and they always end up growing in our cupboard until they're at the point of no return and I throw them out. We bought a new crate on Sunday and I'm determined to use them all before we get any growth!

This recipe was easy and delicious! Josh and I have recently become obsessed with sweet potato fries and these tasted like perfectly cooked sweet potato fries but in cubed form. They were crispy on the outside and a little soft but fully cooked on the inside. Heaven!

Since I was feeling adventurous I used another Pinterest recipe for the chicken which also came out deliciously. Apparently I cannot follow a recipe without changing something because I switched out the mustard for BBQ sauce. Josh doesn't like mustard and I am not a huge fan either but we are BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Ray's to be precise) addicts. I baked the chicken at the same time as the sweet potatoes and they ended right on time together. The chicken was moist and another hit!

Pinterest-2!

Tonight I'm going to try out an ab workout that I pinned, fingers crossed that I remember to breathe (That's always my problem during abs. Josh has to remind me to breathe…oops!).

Giving Myself a New Focus

Since we're taking the month off so that we can make sure our next baby is a sticky one I decided that I need projects/new things to focus on to make it be a productive and fast-moving month!

I'm running a half-marathon relay with my sister on November 6th. Earlier this year I started training for a full marathon and this marathon in my hometown was set to be it. When I got pregnant in June those training plans rightly flew out the window. Then I miscarried and Josh and I decided that we were going to make starting a family our priority. I knew that I needed to scale back my running but I was determined to continue with it on a smaller scale. Then I ended up in a really long cycle that resulted in a 3 week period of me thinking I could be pregnant. I was paranoid and scared about running so I stopped. When my last cycle started I began running again but my endurance had really declined and, again, I cut back during the two week wait and even more when I found out I was indeed pregnant. Since I was feeling so yucky last week it was the last thing on my mind. So this race is my jump back into the ring. I'm only running a 5.4 mile stretch which is so much less than the original 26.2 miles I was planning on running but it's a step in the right direction and I know that I can do it. I'm hoping to keep my mileage at around 5 mile runs after the race so that when I get pregnant again I feel comfortable doing shorter runs as long as I can.

I've decided to challenge myself to incorporate something I've pinned on Pinterest into my life every day. I'm so addicted to the online inspiration board that I've pinned so many things from recipes to craft projects to workouts and I don't want all of those ideas to just go to waste! So starting today I want to do at least one thing from my Pinterest boards per day for 1 month (at least). I'll be sure to document all of the fun on here!

The PLAN

My doctor appointment yesterday went wonderfully and I’m so glad that I was able to see her so soon! Here's a quick recap…

 
1. Obviously back to back miscarriages reflects a greater issue so she wants to test all of my hormones throughout a normal, non-pregnant cycle to get a baseline so we know what I need. She'll be testing progesterone, estrogen, vitamin D, thyroid, etc. Basically anything that could be having any effect on my fertility. 

 
3. My doctor thinks that what is happening is that my body produces enough progesterone for the egg to implant but the progesterone isn't rising quickly enough so I don't have a strong enough implantation for the pregnancy to "hold."

 
4. She's starting me on a medicine to help the auto-immune aspect of my PCOS. It should help decrease inflammation.

 
5. The mucinex that I was taking twice a day last month really helped so I'm just going to continue with that and my B6 regimen.

She's very confident that after this month of testing she'll have the information that she needs to get us a sticky baby. This plan means that we will be trying NOT to conceive this cycle and I'm actually really okay with that and so is Josh. It kind of feels like a month of relief from the constant stress and wondering.

We're going to refocus on our relationship and getting as healthy as we can so that we can have a fabulous environment to try to get pregnant on my next cycle.

The way that the timing works out my next cycle should begin mid-late November and it looks like if everything works as planned we could be testing for another pregnancy right before Christmas. Finally getting a take home baby would be the best present ever I think.

How I'm feeling

    I really don’t want to sound like I’m always sad but I wanted to write this post while everything is still fresh so that I can look back and remember how exactly the whole thing made me feel. I have an appointment with my amazing doctor tomorrow to look at my charts, order some labs and talk about additional medications that can be helpful so hopefully I’ll be feeling a lot more optimistic then. So here goes….

DISAPPOINTED- I’m disappointed that we won’t be able to meet  our little Junebug. I’m disappointed that I let myself get excited when my doctor didn’t sound  very optimistic. This sounds shallow but I’m really disappointed that I no longer have an end in sight of working at my current job. I’m so looking forward to being a stay at home mom and the fact that the “start date” for that is back to indefinite is really depressing to me.

SCARED- This is probably the biggest thing that I’ve been feeling for the past few days. After my first miscarriage I talked myself into thinking that it was a fluke and we’d “paid our dues” and that we wouldn’t have problems again. I know that it wasn’t logical because of my known issues but it helped me feel positive for the future. When I started spotting I felt absolutely terrified mostly for the overall picture. Since this will be my second consecutive miscarriage does that mean that no pregnancy that we ever achieve will be a success? I was/still am scared that my husband will never get to hold a little baby boy who looks like him, that we’ll never get to hear the heartbeat of a baby that’s biologically ours, that we’ll never be able to feel our baby kicking and growing through a pregnancy, that we’ll never know the feeling of meeting and raising a life that we’ve created. For someone whose biggest dream has always been motherhood those fears were/are absolutely paralyzing.

HEARTBROKEN- I’m heartbroken that we now have 2 angel babies. I’m so sad that my body caused this to happen. Sitting here now with cramps and abdominal pain, knowing that my body is pushing out the lining that’s supposed to be supporting our baby and knowing that I can’t do anything about it to keep our baby with us is overwhelming.

TIRED- For the past few days everything has been completely hitting me at night. Josh and I have spent what should be our bedtime hours talking this out while I have emotional breakdowns that seem to never end. I’m exhausted, physically and emotionally.

GUILTY- I know that there’s nothing that I could’ve done to stop this from happening but I feel guilty that it was my body’s fault. It’s not a rational guilt but it’s there. I also feel really guilty for being so angry. I’m feeling really bitter about all of this and I feel horrible about it!

That about sums it up! There are some things that I’ve been trying to focus on to make myself feel more positive…I’ve signed up for a half marathon relay with my sister on November 6^th and I can’t wait to have a plan tomorrow! I’m letting myself be sad but I’m also trying to focus on forward motion and I think that’s really helping.

Of course, having the support of this guy always helps too...

Sad.

I've been a little scarce on here for the past week because Josh and I have been on quite an emotional roller coaster. I think I've come to terms with it though so I can finally write this post without spurring an emotional breakdown (I think).

Last Wednesday, 12 days past my ovulation day (12 DPO), we got a teeny tiny barely there line on a home pregnancy test. At first I thought that my mind was playing tricks on me but Josh could see the line too!

I immediately texted my doctor. I'm SO lucky that I'm able to do this since my doctor is a family friend and someone who has been working with me charting-wise and with my PCOS for years. She had me go in for a blood test.

The next day the results came in and, lo and behold, it was positive. My HCG was still pretty low. It was 15 and anything over 5 is considered positive but doctors don't usually acknowledge it as confirmed pregnancy until you hit 25 or 50.

Josh and I gave ourselves permission to be cautiously excited. We talked about baby names again, I slowed down on the exercise and we were happy. I was having cramps but everything pointed towards that being perfectly normal.

I was feeling very scared but also positive. Until I went to the bathroom late Saturday night and realized that I was spotting. I completely fell apart. I was reminded of the morning in July when I experienced the same thing and the panic once again set in. Still, it was barely there and again my google searches reassured me that it could be completely normal….blood left over from implantation, etc. When it was still barely there on Sunday night I allowed myself to start hoping for the best.

 I took a First Response test on Saturday and it very quickly came up positive. I took another one on Sunday night when I'd already been spotting for 24 hours and it came up even faster and the line was already much darker than it was on Saturday.

 But last night, Monday, ths spotting turned red and turned into a lot more than "barely there." I had to come to terms with the fact that in all probability we are probably losing our baby….again.

I know that this isn't exactly an eloquent post but it was something that I had to share because it's what we're dealing with right now as another road bump. I'm sad, disappointed and not very hopeful for the future. I'll post more about what this means medically for our journey to baby and why exactly I'm feeling the way I am right now. But that post will come later. For now, the important thing is that it's out. The past few days have been really hard for Josh and I but I'm sure that it'll eventually get better. We've gotten through it before and we will again.

Sacrifices

 Anyone who has done any research about TTC or who has been trying for a while usually comes to the conclusion that there are some sacrifices that you choose to make during the process.

 

A lot of people don't think about that in advance I think....you automatically think of the sacrifices that you'll make for your children throughout their lives. Sacrifices like saving for their college education instead of buying that pair of designer boots that you like, sacrifices like surviving off of very little sleep when your child is an infant, sacrifices like spending your weekend driving children to various activities. You prepare yourself to make those sacrifices and a lot of times you (or at least I do) look forward to making them because of the love that you know that you'll have for the munchkins.

 

You don't usually think about giving up your brain for 2 weeks while you're trying to decipher every little thing trying to decide if you had good timing this month. You don't think about forcing down vitamins and pills galore so that your body is a hospitable environment for a potentially growing little one. You don't think about setting an alarm at 5:30am, even on weekends, to make sure that your temperatures are consistent. You don't think about keeping a red cup and stockpile of OPKs in your bathroom and rushing home to empty your bursting bladder to see if you've ovulated yet. At least I didn't! But we still make those unplanned-for sacrifices.

 

Josh is a beer salesman. He doesn't drink a lot but he likes to have a beer with dinner, sometimes a few days a week. About a week into this cycle I asked him if he wanted one as dinner was almost ready and he said no. He'd had a rough day so I was kind of surprised until he added "I'm not going to drink until after you ovulate this month...just in case." Cue my heart melting.

 

I tend to welcome these small sacrifices. No, I didn't think that we'd be making sacrifices for our babies before we even know that they're on their way but I consider it good practice for the sacrifices I'm sure we'll be making throughout their lives.

Broke on HPTs

Hide the tests!!!!

I have no self control when it comes to taking pregnancy test. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

For the past few months when "that time" is coming up I find any excuse to head over to Target on my lunch hour. Even though I tell myself I'm going there for other things (a quick sweater, some trail mix, honey for Josh's daily peanut butter/honey sandwiches) I always ended up somehow wandering into the "Family Planning" aisle. Hmmmm I have no idea how that happened :)

Pregnancy tests are expensive…and they add up. Quick.

(Just a little sampling of what we went through last cycle....except mentally add about...5 more expensive sticks and 20 more internet cheapies ;))

Last month I solved our problem. Josh was thrilled when I came home and told him I'd been doing some research and I'd found somewhere online where I could buy pregnancy tests in bulk (50 at a time!!) for a little under $10. He could not have been more thrilled. I'm pretty sure he thought that we were going to go broke from buying tests (of course, only the most accurate early response tests were acceptable to me at that point and they get very expensive).

So now I have him hide them from me so that I don't get tempted. I search and search and search (isn't that part of the fun???) but he's so good at hiding them that I never find them. It's like looking for your presents at Christmas-time and we both have a lot of fun with it. It also saves us both from the emotional distress I go through when just one line pops up.

We always have a set day when he can release a test (or 2 ;)) to me and right now that day is 3 days away. I'm waiting patiently on the edge of my seat!

P.S. Even though Josh was excited about the price of the bulk HPTs....not so much after he found out I overnighted them which cost like twice the amount of the actual tests. Oops!

Hit With a Bombshell

I was lucky in that my PCOS diagnosis came early. I was 16 when my doctor first broached the subject. I was confused at the time but as she listed off the symptoms it definitely made a lot of sense. I had very irregular periods which were the reason for the appointment in the first place, I was experiencing pretty severe depression, I had gained a lot of weight, I had a lot of unwelcome hairs popping up on my face and right before my period came I was used to having some pretty severe pain.

Even though I was only 16 and years away from thinking about marriage and children I was really emotionally affected when the doctor said those daunting words…possible infertility.

When I was growing up my opinions about what I wanted to be changed pretty often. One day it was an author, another it was a model (ha), and yet another it was a marine biologist. The only thing that never ever waivered was that I wanted with all of my heart to raise a family. I wanted to experience the birth of my children, know what it felt like to carry them for 9 months and then hold them in my arms, wipe their sniffly noses, cheer at their soccer games, chaperone their proms (maybe not), attend their marriages and watch them raise families of their own. I've always felt a yearning to be a mother.

For that reason, I was really scared about my diagnosis. I knew that my doctor was amazing and had done a lot of research on PCOS but there was still just an overwhelming fear that I would never have my deepest desire. Over the next few days I thought about it a lot. I distinctly remember having an AP Biology class the next afternoon where we discussed the female reproductive system and I remember being so jealous already of all of the girls sitting in my class who would be able to just take their fertility for granted. I was already preparing myself for the struggle.

I worried that any man I fell in love with would be put off by my fertility issues. I worried that I'd end up alone because of it. Obviously my paranoid and overly anxious personality had already taken hold!

Luckily I dug in, did some research and today my PCOS is a lot more regulated. It's far from under control and some of those fears are very much still here but I have found things that help me. Through those things, I've been able to grab and hang onto a smidgen of hope for that pot at the end of the rainbow.

(Source)

My Silly Monster

I talk too much. I find something to fixate on, I research it, obsess over it...and talk about it to anyone who will listen.

When we were planning our wedding I talked Josh's ear off about things that he cared almost nothing about. These things included but were not limited to: whether we should or should not have chair covers for the ceremony, whether our cocktail hour should include bruschetta or just cheese or crackers, black with yellow overlays or yellow with black overlays?? He was always very patient and most of the time thought my neurotic behavior was hilarious.

....I'm doing it again. I gab on and on about my temperatures, the crosshairs that FF will not make solid and how it's killing me, how my cold could really be an early pregnancy symptom, and the dreaded cervical mucus (CM).

The other day we were on a frozen yogurt date with a couple who we are very close friends with who got pregnant 4 months ago for the first time after a year and a half of trying. The wife and I were chatting about the medications she was put on and all of a sudden Josh breaks into the conversation with "Well, were you even ovulating???" Face to palm.

Later in the car he admitted to me that he'd come *this close* to asking if she had egg-white CM but he thought it may be awkward. Heaven help us. I've created a monster.

At least he's a cute monster. ;)

Jumping In

After we got the positive pregnancy test everything changed! We obviously knew it was a possibility (we thought it was a pretty slim one) so we knew that we'd be "comfortable" with it happening, even though it wasn't necessarily in our plans.

 

We started looking at houses in our hometown, Josh informed his boss that we were planning on moving. Luckily his company is based out of the town we were moving to so he has a guaranteed position after the move. We started very aggressively saving. We made a budget based on just Josh's income. We figured that it'd be good practice since we still planned on me staying home and it enabled us to save my whole paycheck. It was a tight arrangement but definitely doable.

 

Sometimes the unexpected happening can jolt you into action and that's definitely how it worked for us!

 

Even though our short pregnancy ended in miscarriage fairly early on (another post on that at some later date) we decided to push up our TTC plans. We started trying right away after the miscarriage and we've continued with the changes that we made during those beautiful 2 weeks in July.

 

We're still moving (in less than 3 months!!!), Josh is still changing jobs (we don't know what he'll be doing yet!) and we're still saving my paychecks. Whenever we get those 2 lines again we'll be prepared!

A Change of Course

Before Josh and I got married we talked about babies (how many we'd like, how excited we were to have them, what their names would be, whose version of blue eyes they'd have- mine are blue with rays, his are blue with "snowflakes") and we were always extremely excited about it! There was never a question as to whether we wanted to have children or not, there were only a million questions about when.

 

After we got engaged we started talking about it more seriously. There are a lot of pros and cons to weigh when you decided when to start your family. A few of the big ones are finances, living arrangements, jobs and future plans. I, being the jump-right-in/make every decision based on your emotions kind of person that I am, skipped over all of those considerations and only considered the raging baby rabies that I've had basically since puberty. My husband, being the practical/objective person that he is, brought my feet back solidly to the ground.

 

Finances: Other than our house we have no debt. No credit cards, no car payments, no student loans (we finished paying his off last summer and I didn't have any). We have a solid emergency fund.

 

Living Arrangements: We own our home. The only catch is that this house is "temporary." It's in a town that we don't love and don't really feel safe in. We have plans to move to the town where all of our parents live and we really wanted to be able to move into a raise the babies in this house kind of house. That means more than 2 bedrooms, a good school district and an area where mommy (someday me) will be comfortable being home with babies while daddy (someday Josh) is at work and not able to protect us. Josh felt strongly about saving a good amount for a down payment on this house before we started trying for kiddos so we decided to start working on that.

 

Jobs: We both have steady, well-paying jobs. Once we have kids we both are determined for me to be a stay at home mom though. Josh's job is good and the pay is good but it would be pretty tight if I wasn't working and we had another mouth to feed. We decided to start saving little by little so that we could have a cushion for when I'm not working after the baby. When we discussed these plans we decided to take this a little at a time put our more aggressive saving efforts toward saving for the down payment on a new house.

 

We also took into consideration the fact that I was diagnosed with PCOS at the age of 16 and I probably wouldn't be able to get pregnant right away.

 

After considering all of this we decided to wait for about 2 years after the wedding before we started trying for babies. If something big changed in our lives during that time, no biggie, we'd just re-evaluate.

 

We planned on practicing Natural Family Planning to prevent a pregnancy until we'd accomplished some of the changes we wanted to make pre-children.

 

Then we realized that our honeymoon fell during my "magic" time....And we did nothing about it.

 

3 weeks later we got a positive pregnancy test and all of our plans changed.

How we got here

Once upon a time there was a little blonde girl who played house every day. She played wedding while forcing her little sister to always play the groom. She taught her sister how to put diapers on their babydolls. She held her younger cousins and carried watermelons to the car for her mommy while pretending she was carrying a baby.

At the same time there was a similar little baseball-playing boy who wrestled with all 4 of his brothers. He read them books and sat on laundry baskets with them underneath to make sure they didn't crawl away. He was always happy to be the bottom of their pyramids or to lift them to the ceiling so that they could fly.

Once they were grown up, the boy and the girl met and became friends. Over some time they realized that they were falling in love. After a little more time they decided that they couldn't imagine life without each other.

They got married.

And decided to start a family…

This is our story…the story of 2 people who want nothing more than to raise a family together. Stay tuned for progress on our happy ending!