Eek...Long time no talk!

It's been a while! I've really been trying to distance myself from the TTC craziness lately and we've just been so busy with life in general! I've been wanting to blog but couldn't think of something "good enough" to get back into it. However, I was catching up on some of my favorite blogs today and saw that I was tagged by Aly over at Operation:Baby to do a quick tell me about yourself thingy. 

I have a weakness for anything like this (MySpace bulletins back in the day, I'm looking at you) so here it is! Hopefully now that I've written a post it'll help me be here more regularly again :) 

1. Thank the person who awarded you. (Jag, you're the best :))
2. List 7 things people may not know about you.
3. Pass it on to 15 other bloggers and don’t forget to notify them. There's no way that I'll hit 15 but I'll get a few in!

 

Seven Random Facts

1. I'm going back and forth about where I want to go professionally in my life right now, I feel like I'm in a little bit of a limbo position at the moment. Once we have a baby I'm going to stay home and I'm hoping beyond hope that it's not too far down the road for us. At any given point though we know it's at least 9 months away (obviously more than that at this point since we aren't trying right now) and I'm unhappy in my job now. I'm thinking about getting certified as a personal trainer and going into that instead but I don't want to switch and then be pregnant and quitting anyway. I'm really struggling with it.

2. I drink an insane amount of water. Because of that I go to the bathroom SO many times each day that I alternate which bathrooms I go to in our office building so people won't know I'm going about once an hour.

3. I am not proud of this but on Tuesday night I basically threw a fit to talk Josh into staying up to watch the Biggest Loser season finale with me. It was recording and we could've watched it whenever we wanted but I had my heart set on seeing it and even my husband's exhaustion didn't stop me. Oops!

4.I've worn the same general outfit every day this week....not the exact same pieces but the same general idea. Some kind of dress, sweater, tights and boots. Apparently it's my winter uniform.

5. I started a running streak challenge on Monday. Basically I'm trying to get some running in, for a minimum of a mile each time, every day for a month. Today is day 4 and I'm going strong. I really want to get myself back into a solid workout routine again before we start trying next month. 

 

6. I cut gluten out of my diet almost 2 weeks ago and the results have been seriously amazing. I feel SO much better and it hasn't been as challenging as I thought that it would be. I've even been successful in doing some gluten free baking!

7.My favorite Christmas movie that isn't officially a Christmas movie is Love Actually. Every single person in it is fantastic and I could watch the movie a million times over.

Tags:

Mrs. Green Grass over at Baby-Making Merry-go-Round

Amanda over at Leap!...and the Net Will Appear

Clare over at Worries and Wisdom

Next Steps

Well my doctor's appointment is over and done with.

I needed a day to basically collect my thoughts on it before I wrote a post. Right afterward I was feeling extra emotional and I knew that I was being completely irrational.

I'm feeling a little better today so I think I'm ready to recap everything.

First of all, we got my test results back. I had blood drawn on 4,7, and 10 days past ovulation (DPO). The 7DPO blood draw was the really important one because I believe that is the one where we checked my thyroid levels (TSH), progesterone, Vitamin D and Iron. None of those levels came back great.

Thyroid- Came out at 2.97. My doctor told me that for someone who is trying to achieve and maintain a pregnancy they like that level to be under 2, preferably closer to or under 1.5.

Progesterone- At 7DPO my progesterone was 7.6. After ovulation they usually look for a level somewhere over 10. At 10DPO my progesterone was already down to 4.8 which is still much too low. My doctor showed me a graph that showed what normal progesterone levels looked like and mine were below the below average curve.

Vitamin D- Much too low, I'm not sure of the exact number.

Iron- Also too low, my doctor said that my iron levels indicated anemia. Yikes.

So basically we need to get all of those numbers up because every single one is contributing to me losing the pregnancies. I've been doing a lot of thyroid-related research lately and I've come to believe that my thyroid problem is really the thing causing all of the issues. One of the main effects of  high thyroid is low progesterone. Voila, it all fits together! I display a freakish amount of thyroid-related symptoms too that I'd never connected until recently (separate post regarding just that soon to come). Hopefully that is the missing part of the puzzle that, if we fix it, will help maintain the next pregnancy.

I'm going to be taking about 12 pills a day (not an exaggeration AT ALL) and I'll go over those in another post also. Long story short, we're taking this cycle off too. I really really struggled with that at first but after talking to some Josh and some trusted friends along with a fairly epic emotional breakdown I've come to peace with the decision. My doctor said that if I was to get pregnant this cycle we probably would have enough things in place to protect the pregnancy but she'd feel a little more confident if we waited. I trust her more than almost anyone and I also know that if I did get pregnant and something went wrong I'd blame myself for my impatience.

So we have one more little bump in the road but at least we get to see what my new meds do for me this cycle.

And so the adventure continues...

My thoughts going into tomorrow's appointment.

Tomorrow morning is the doctor's appointment that I've been waiting for for a month and a half. I couldn't be more excited. We're finally done with our month off and I'm ready to jump back on the baby crazy train. I love knowing that in a little over a month (because of my longer cycles) we could have good news.

Honestly though, I'm also absolutely terrified. My doctor checked some things that we haven't checked before, things like thyroid. I'm scared that my hormones will be even more imbalanced than we originally thought. I'm scared that my progesterone levels will be so low that there's no way a baby could implant. I'm scared that we're going to need to spend a lot of money (even though it would be so worth it) on expensive meds. I'm scared that my doctor will suggest we take more time off.

During the month off I've focused on things other than babies and it's felt like a breath of fresh air. At the same time it's been painful knowing that we didn't even have a chance of moving forward with growing our little family. We needed this month off but I don't know if I could mentally or emotionally handle another one of the same.

I'm ready for answers.

Things not to do when you have an extremely active imagination…

1. Read books that are a little terrifying at night--> Here's looking at you Devil In the White City. Darn you, I can't put you down even after dark! (Book review coming as soon as I finish it!)

2. Go on a walk in the fog with your husband after reading said terrifying book for a few hours.

3. Use the 40 minutes of your walk to explain your terror and the plot of your book to your husband.

4. Include in this description a good 15 minutes spent educating your husband on who Jack the Ripper was, what exactly he did and how he used fog to capture his victims.

I definitely did all of those things last night. I also screamed when a dog growled at us as we were walking by because Josh and I spent all day Sunday having a "Game of Thrones" marathon and an image of a huge direwolf ripping out someone's throat was flashing through my mind. The dog that growled at us was a little terrier. Josh is right, I'm definitely ridiculous.

Bright side- We got to wear our cute, warm hats :)

P.S. Can you tell Josh loves my incessant picture taking? I think that his feelings are pretty obvious.

So those Reese's stuffed Orea things....

...Were the biggest hit of Thanksgiving!!! Sure, the dipping into chocolate was a complete pain (I ended up just doing it with my fingers because apparently I'm not coordinated enough to use salad tongs) but it was SO worth it. Every single one was eaten.

They were great fuel for Black Friday shopping! Ever since we moved in together Josh and I have made it a transition to do the crazy Black Friday thing. This was our third year and I am really a fan of the stores opening up late Thursday night instead of waiting until 4 or 5am on Friday. We were home by 2:30 and actually able to get some good sleep.

Josh and I left his dad's house at 10pm to see what Wal Mart was like. Well, it was terrifying. I'm not a huge fan of Wal Mart under even everyday circumstances and we very rarely shop there (Target, for the win!) but Josh won a $300 gift card through work and there was a killer deal on laptops. My laptop suffered an untimely death a few months ago so the laptop situation was our priority #1. However, when we realized that Wal Mart was an absolute madhouse we left and decided to go stand in line to get into the Mothership (Target of course) when they opened at 12. We waited in line for almost 45 minutes, got in almost immediately and nabbed a kindle (YAY) and a cute little faux leather bomber jacket for my sister.

After that we made a quick stop at Macy's to pre-order a Fossil watch for 25% off. I saw said watch on Pinterest (aka crack) about 3 weeks ago and have been a woman possessed since. I'll be able to pick it up on Wednesday and I'm counting down the days.

Since it was 1am when we left Macy's we decided to give Wal Mart one more shot. Luckily there was no longer a line wrapping around outside just to get in so we walked in and stood in line inside instead. I don't deal with stupid crowds well but we ended up getting the laptop and getting out alive so that's really all that matters. 

Today has been a day of relaxation, setting up the new electronics and cleaning my father in law's kitchen. I commandeered it yesterday to make the Oreo Delights (my brother in law's name for the Reese's Stuffed Oreos) and it looked like a chocolate war zone.

Did you brave the crowds last night/this morning?? If you did, what great deals were you able to pick up?

Thankful Thursday (Literally)

Sometimes, especially during the whole TTC process, it's easy to feel like you have nothing to be thankful for. There are some really hard days where you can't exactly be a ray of sunshine. Today I'm feeling especially grateful and I'm trying to savor this feeling and keep it because I really do have a wonderful life that I'm absolutely loving.

I'm thankful for the strength of Josh and my relationship. Our first 6 months of marriage haven't exactly been all rainbows and kittens. We found out I was pregnant right away, I miscarried, we dealt with that, we went through testing, I got pregnant again and miscarried right away and now we're in the middle of a miserably long month off. But I can honestly say that the past 6 months have been the best of my life. Every emotional breakdown, every test result, every doctor's appointment have made Josh and I stronger as a couple. I'm happier than ever that I can call him my husband and I have more faith than ever before that this is definitely the real deal for us.

I'm thankful for my family. My parents, Josh's parents, our siblings and grandparents. Every single one of them has supported us in some way during this past year. Whether it was through spending every weekend from January to June making cupcakes so the ones for our wedding were guaranteed to be perfect or waiting in the waiting room for me to get out of a doctor's appointment so I didn't have to be there alone or driving an hour and a half to eat puppy chow and watch a Pretty Little Liars marathon with me or even something like a hug every single one of their supportive gestures have meant so much to me. I'm so blessed to have all of them.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I thought that it may be harder this year, just because of the circumstances we've been dealing with  but I'm loving it more than ever. Sometimes all that I need is the opportunity and reason to step back and be happy with the life that I'm living right now.

The Dessert Lady

I'm not sure how it happened but I've been unofficially deemed the dessert lady when it comes down to bringing things to holidays/family functions.

Well, that's a lie. I may know how it happened. You see, I have a bit of a sweet tooth and I love experimenting so one of these may have done it...

 

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

 

Homemade Crumb Donuts...to die for!

 

Chocolate Souffle

I've also dabbled in cakeballs, all kinds of cookies, vegan baking, pumpkin breads, banana breads, zucchini breads....

I guess it's pretty obvious why I have to bring dessert to Thanksgivings (all 3 of them!) this year. But I'm having a hard time deciding what to make. The all-time favorite was for sure cake balls. Last Thanksgiving I made them in 3 flavors- strawberry, spice and yellow cake. They're going to be hard to live up to this year. 

I had high hopes of making the cake that I mentioned in this post but I'm having second thoughts. Now I'm trying to decide between....

A) Salted Caramel Pie - Recipe and picture below from Big Apple Nosh

 

B) Reese's Stuffed Oreos-  Recipe and picture below from Little Bit Funky

C) Caramel Apple Pie Cupcakes -Recipe and picture below from The Craving Chronicles

Which one do you think I should attempt??