In A Nutshell

I know, I know. It's been a few months since I last blogged. So here is an update on our lives...

Sydney: She is doing great. We celebrated her 12th birthday last month. She got a cell phone (I was out voted, but I'm secretly glad she has one now) I am seriously struggling with her growing up. I hate that I missed out on the first 7 years of her life, and feel like she's in fast forward. I remind myself that I'm just learning this lesson now so I'm prepared for when we have a child. Her sense of humor cracks me up. We went to my grandparents pool a few weeks ago. I felt bad because we didn't have one of her friends come along, and I figured she'd be bored within 10 minutes. I should have known better. She entertained all of us and herself for hours. I LOVE her creative, imaginary, story telling, dramatic personality. She had all of us rolling! I have never met anyone with an imagination like hers. It's exciting to watch the kind of woman she is going to grow up to be. She loves fashion design. She spends hours sketching, designing, creating outfits. Last weekend she had a friend over and they had to make a music video for a class project. She told me they had to take information they learned about Canada and write lyrics to a song. So I figured they would do a song to the tune of twinkle, twinkle little star or something. Umm, I was wrong. They did American Idiot by Greenday...one of those friendly reminders she's not a little girl anymore. Here's some pics from before taping their video. I think they were going for an 80's punk look?!

Grady and Riley: my babies are also doing wonderful. Randy and I invested in an underground fence for them and they're lovin' it. We found a collar that vibrates for Grady as his warning if he gets close to the fence. He is the biggest baby, and still uncertain where he can go in the yard. Riley is starting to lose weight! He plays outside from the time we get home from work and until we go to bed. They have killed all of my new plants in the front from peeing on them. Not sure what to do about that yet. Riley is a creature of habit, Grady not so much. Rileys schedule is the same day in and day out. My favorite is when I tell him its bedtime. He grabs his blankie (yes both of them have their own blankie) and jumps in bed with it. We love our sleep :D. Grady is another story...I don't think there is one thing he does on a daily basis. Grady recently had some growths removed. We decided to send them in for cytology. They did come back cancerous, but apparently a very non-aggressive type. We are supposed to look out for any more growths (I found another one :( ) I of course am freaked out and cry just thinking about it. Just keep him and Randy in your prayers.

Randy and I: I received a couple emails from some readers wanting to know the outcome from the last post. Opps, sorry to leave ya hangin'! I'm not pregnant. Quick recap for my pcos followers: bfn after that ovulation. I did the provera/clomid 100mg again but didn't ovulate. We increased to 150mg clomid and I had a mature follicle on day 15 and hadn't released yet. I went on day 17 for a HCG injection, but that didn't work either. We will be going to a fertility clinic in Ft. Wayne in August to figure out our next step. I am obviously starting to get slightly desperate and decided that while I wait for my appt. in ft. Wayne, I'm going to try acupuncture. Its supposed to help pcos patients (still don't know if I believe it) I go once a week and I'm trying another round of drugs just to see if it works this time. (being a perfectionist doesn't help my situation :D ) Acupuncture has been eventful. I always thought it would be relaxing and I love needles, don't judge me. You can't feel the needles, but the sites ache so bad. I guess we'll just wait and see in a few weeks if it's been worth it! I promise Randy and I have a life outside of this infertility issue. We have been going to Indianapolis Indian games recently. We love the city, the tickets are cheap, and its a full day we can spend together.

Okay, I think that's everything! Love you!

SoulCyster

I realized that it has been months since I last blogged. I feel like the world has been revolving around me so much lately that I didn't have anything to even blog about. I have been debating whether or not to blog about what's been going on in mine and Randys life and I have come to the conclusion that 1. Everyone that reads my blog already knows and 2. If they don't, maybe someone will stumble across this entry when they are at their wits end and my words will be an encouragement.

Randy and I have been trying to get pregnant for a year now. I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS about six months ago. It is a reproductive endocrine disorder that means my ovaries are stupid. Instead of one egg maturing during ovulation, I have many immature eggs that never reach their full potential and end up at cysts and cause me pain. It's the leading cause of infertility and as many as 1 out 10 women have it. Even though I have PCOS, I am blessed in the fact that I do not have near the symptoms as other women with it have to face. I am still at high risk for insulin resistance, ovarian/uterine cancer, metabolic syndrome, and miscarriages.

When I went to the Dr.'s after not having a period for six months, I figured he would give me some meds to kick start my period, and I'd go on with life. Instead, it turned into a discussion about infertility. It's a punch in the gut. There's no other way to describe it. I remember thinking about what I was going to tell Randy, that I may never give him children, or telling Sydney that I may not be able to give her another sibling, or telling my parents that I may not be able to make them grandparents.

Most womens first ultrasound is of there baby, mine was of my ovaries. Randy couldn't be there because of work so mom showed up to be there for me. My ovaries looked like honeycomb because of all the small cysts. I just told myself to stay strong because if I let go I would be admitting that there was something wrong and I would be failing so many people.

I got a call a few days later confirming that I have PCOS and they were going to start me on Provera and Clomid to make me ovulate. I went through ten days of hell on the Provera. It made me lose chunks of my hair, my acne was at its worse, my hormones were all over the place, I was so dizzy I had to stop drawing blood. Then came the Clomid. Let me just say this women...menopause really is as awful as they say. The hot flashes are so miserable you can't even function. It's embarassing when your 22 years old and sweating through your clothes, they drain you of all your energy, they make you panic because you feel like your blood is boiling, you can't even think about sleeping, I swear, it even fries your memory...need I continue?! It's a love/hate relationship.

Every month I get a progesterone level drawn to tell me if I ovulated or not. (I can't use ovulation kits or basal temp charting because they give PCOS-ers false readings) I think that's been the worse part; the going through everything with the medication, the hoping and trying, and then you just wait...Dr's like to see the progesterone level be around 12-15 for medicated ovulation. The first few months mine were 0.5-0.7, that's a slap in the face. It's awful. It feels like FAILURE is stamped on your forehead.

If anyone reads this who is going through infertility, I pray that you know God. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult this experience would be if I didn't have God and Randy for a husband. Whether you know why or don't know why you can't have children, I'm so sorry you have to go through it. I know how I feel, but I don't know how you feel and I never will. I think infertility is handled differently by every person and all I can do is sympathize. I know when I'm at church and I see a mom holding her infant and swaying to the worship music that my entire body aches, and my arms get heavy, or when I'm at a store and a mother is being ruthless to her child, I feel anger like I have never felt before, or every time I pay a dr.'s bill out of pocket that won't go towards our deductible that I think how cruel our society is to allow insurances to pay for abortions, but not infertility treatments, I know that the love I have for Randy now cannot even compare to the day I married him, he was a stranger compared to now. He has not one time made me feel guilty, or gotten upset with me when my emotions are off the chart, or made me feel like I have failed as a wife...that I just bring on myself ;)

Randy and I decided last month that we would try one more time before taking a break. A couple days ago I got a call with my progesterone level and I wasn't even going to answer the phone because I just mentally could not take one more failure. I said a quick prayer and I felt Hope. I answered it, and the nurse said that not only did I ovulate, I ovulated a few eggs! I have never been so proud of myself! This means that we found the right dosage and regimine of medications and will try the same thing again. I ask for continued prayers because I have a high risk of miscarrying and a high risk for a multiple pregnancy. I'm still struggling with knowing whether or not I'm doing the right thing in risking a life or lives. I pray that someone will come across this entry one day when they simply need to know they are not the only one. I love everyone who has turned this into a group effort, and we can't imagine doing it without you!

This was my day...No Lie.

So let me tell you how awful my day was today. It started at 2:00am after waking up from a dream about a worm crawling into my bellybutton. The next thing I know I wake up as I am putting tape over my bellybutton in order to keep this thing in(?). Thank you out of control hormones. That was a lifetime experience. So after freaking myself out, I of course was wide awake the rest of the night.
Fast forward...
Today I worked for a Dr. that I find extremely intimidating. He comes up to me this morning and asks where the patient records are that he used for his dictation. So at this point, I'm freaking out because I have NO idea what he's talking about, I'm going to look like an idiot, I don't have an answer from him, etc. So I told him all three. Long story short, yesterday a colleague gave me stack of papers and instructed me which ones to scan and which ones to shred. So I did. Oh yeah. Opps! Sorry Dr., but you see, silly me accidentally shredded them...He sucked my soul out as I suspected, and probably the worm creature too. He "apologized" later after finding out I was just doing what I was told. I still felt responsible for it because technically I was the one who pulled the trigger. Not a good way to start the day.
Shortly after that, I got chucked under the bus again by another Dr. It's too long of a story, but needless to say, I had my feelings hurt. Did I do everything I possibly should have? No. Looking back, I should have handled the situation differently. This Dr. didn't know it was me handling the situation, and I wish he would have talked to me first before gossiping to none other than the Dr. I worked for today. Here I am learning from it, and here I am moving on from it.
Fast forward...
After work, I had to run to Walmart for groceries. At this point, I'm tired, I don't feel good, I lost track of how many screw ups I've had, and now I am at Walmart 2 days before Christmas at 5:30pm. I am just as pissed off as every other person in the building. I fight my to the back and I am waiting in line to grab milk. Which by the way, drives me insane when 80 yr. old people take 10 min. to pick out which milk they should purchase. YOU HAVE BEEN DRINKING IT FOR 80 YEARS! It has a blue cap, red cap, or pink cap. Not that hard...anyways, I was waiting for an elderly woman in a motorized cart to pick her milk. She proceeds to swivel around and tell me I can buy a gallon of milk for $1.66 at Aldi's. Great. Let me fight my way back up to the front, find my car somewhere in the BFE parking lot, in the ice/snow/sleet, and drive to Aldi's for a gallon of flippin' milk. I smiled and said "oh really?" She proceeds to go to the sour cream/butter section. I think to myself, she's going to be "that person" the one when you're grocery shopping and no matter what isle you're in, they are too, and at first you smile and chuckle to each other, and by the end you are so tired of running into them you skip half the items on your list just so you don't have to fake being happy to see them again.
Okay now take that scenario and multiply it by 100. That was this lady. I maneuvered myself around her, only to realize that every time I took something off the shelf she would quote Aldi's price. I thanked her and moved on. I'm walking down the chip isle and I hear her recommending some chips, I stop to listen to be polite, and she then brings them to me and sets them in my cart. Nothing in life can ever prepare you for this moment. I'm thinking 100 different ways to get rid of her, but there was just no escape. Every time I stopped to look at something, she would give me a price, a recommendation, or just simply put it in my cart. No lie. I would turn around to grab something off the shelf and POOF! There would a can of hominy, chick peas, tomato paste, anything within her reach would be in my cart!
This behavior continued all the way up to the frozen vegetables. I then did the most un-Christian thing imaginable. I pawned her off onto a mother with her 2 boys. This mother was just looking for frozen spinach. I stopped, I looked at the mother, I looked at my tag-along, I looked back at the mother and said with a smile, "Oh, I'm sure my new friend here will be able to help you!" Of course tag-along sucked it up like a fish sucks up a luggie, and began asking why she wanted frozen, not fresh, why not iceburg? or romaine lettuce? because Aldi's has those on sale, but not frozen spinach...and I ran. No lie. I ran with my cart full of who knows what.
I have to admit, it was kind of fun unloading groceries. I now have enough cream of broccoli, cream of celery, cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, cream of .. anything, to last me a year. I have enough cans of fried onion straws to feed an army. Oh, and my personal favorite...Blow Pop suckers. I don't know when the last time I had a sucker was. I'm having one right now. Strawberry even!
It is now my bedtime. I have been looking forward for this moment for too many hours now.

Ode to the Twilight Saga

Ode to myself for being a wife, a step mom, and a Twilighter

Ode to those who skipped their basic needs of survival in order to finish reading the saga in record time.

Ode to moms out there that requested for Mothers day, to have their hubby take the children away for the day so she could lock herself in her room and read Midnight Sun online...(Okay maybe thats just Stacy!)

Ode to all who secretly believe they are more in love with Edward and Jacob than any other reader on this planet, and get defensive when others try to imply otherwise

Ode to Team Jacob fans...I know the breakup with Edward was hard and devastating and took weeks of deliberation, but a wise decision. Edward just wants you to be happy

Ode to all the husbands out there who have to put up with their wives being obsessed with a fictional character. It must suck

Ode to all the husbands who try desperately to understand what Edward/Jacob have that you don't. Give up. They're perfect.

Ode to those who have read the books so many times that they know the answers to questions like: What does the biology class study under the microscopes, what are Emmett and Edwards favorite animal to eat, list the Cullens family, in chronological order, when they became vampires, etc.

Ode to Twilighters who didn't order their Team Jacob shirt until the last minute and giving themselves and ulcer worrying if it would make it in time for the release of New Moon

Ode to all who showed up at 7:00pm for the midnight release of New Moon and not getting home until 4:00am and having to work the next day

Ode to me for running down my immune system due to sleep deprivation, and thinking to myself every time I threw up and every time my fever would spike, "Its okay Edward and Jacob, it was worth it"

Ode the couple we sat next to at the theater who were celebrating the husbands B-day by ballroom dancing followed by Twilight and New Moon. He may be the closest thing to perfect.

Ode to the readers who think of people in their lives that remind them of Twilight characters because its the closest thing to reality as we can get.

Ode to my husband for being offended when I told him he's my Edward, even though I'm Team Jacob.

Ode to step-moms who won't let their step-daughter read the Saga until she can truly appreciate the love we share for Edward and Jacob

Ode to all the friends, laughs, cries, fights and memories I have had because of the Twilight Saga

A Breath of Fresh Air

Randy and I took our first vacation since our honeymoon! We rented a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, right outside of Gatlinburg. My brother-in-law and his girl friend (Dan & Carolyn), and our best friends (Pat & Stacey) went with us also. The more the merrier!

I was very proud of myself, I only cried for half an hour when I left Grady and Riley. My parents graciously stayed at our house while we were gone because I refused to take them to a kennel. I only left them 2 pages of instructions. Hey, it made me feel better! They haven't left my side since I've been home, which is perfectly okay with me!

I could write a book on all the memories we made, but I will just share my favorites for now. I hope you laugh as hard as we did...Lets begin with our terrible morning departure. It began at 5:00am in the pouring down rain and we were trying to load the vehicle with all our luggage. (and by "we" I mean the guys) Of course, I was blamed for having too much luggage, and things had to be taken out and left behind. We were trying to fit everything in a carrying case to fit on top of the vehicle. Pat literally had to sit on it while 2 others tried zipping it shut. Tempers were rising to say the least. We finally get everything set, we all pile in the car, buckle up, and are getting excited...and the car won't start! Dead battery. We all pile out, have to jump the car, wait, and pray it won't die again for the entire weekend! Eventually we hit the road an hour behind schedule. Of course the carrying case on top sounds like a jet is landing and the straps are continuously slapping against the roof. Not what you want to listen to for 5 hours.

So now that we are behind, we are trying to make up time because we had to pick Carolyn up at the airport by a certain time. For anyone who has traveled with my husband, you know he has the bladder the size of an eighty year old women. After stopping almost every flippin' hour for potty breaks, we finally make it to Knoxville where we're pickin up Carolyn. Pats GPS decides to stop working so Randy is like no problem, we'll use ours! Randy starts giving directions and we're in the middle of no where. We start crossing a bridge and Stacey declares that she thinks its starting to look like there's an airport near by...? We're surrounded by water, and she thinks its airport material?! Maybe if it was the Hudson river...anyways, we keep driving and pretty soon we're out in the country and its obvious somethings not right...come to find out, Randy has the wrong airport! (Carolyn has now been waiting for us for over an hour) Everyone is ticked off, so Pat gets his GPS working and we head back for the "right" one. The GPS ends up having us circle a different airport..twice..and its still the wrong airport! We finally get directions from a human instead of a computer, and eventually find the right one two hours later...not a relaxing vacation so far! Of course, the GPS continued to get us lost throughout the entire weekend and turned into a joke for poor Randy!

The rest of the trip was amazing. We hiked a couple trails, but some of us were pretty out of shape so the first half mile was a lot of fun, but the next 3 were torture. Danny and Carolyn did laps around us, literally. Our first trail they were so far ahead of us they came back after looking at the waterfall to make sure we were all okay. I didn't know I had to physically prepare for vacation! We made some great memories, some of which will have to stay in Gatlinburg, but we can't wait to go back!

Our New Purchase

For those of you that were wondering what Randy and I do on drizzly Saturday mornings... We buy things. And when I say "buy things" I don't mean groceries, dog food, or even clothes for that matter. We buy couches and televisions and vehicles and sweepers. So today we bought a new kitchen table...

Like most newlyweds, our house was full of something borrowed, something old, and something cheap. I love the stories we have about each one we replace though. We had a recliner that was seriously the color of cat poop, a vehicle with a leaky back window that we had to convince Sydney her seat wasn't wet, it just felt cold, and one of my favorites, our kitchen table. My parents graciously bought me this table when I moved into my apartment in Ft. Wayne. Keep in mind, I lived by myself, but my mother was convinced I had to have one..I guess to sit by myself and eat mac & cheese?

When Randy bought the house, the table moved in too. I'm pretty sure I could have built a table more stable than what this thing was. Let's begin with the chairs. Two of the chairs, everytime you sat in them, afterwards you would have to flip it on its back and straighten the metal legs back out because they would all fold in. The legs were pretty much at a permanent 60 degree angle. The table itself, I'm convinced was made by Satan. It was IMPOSSIBLE to balance. It didn't matter how many layers of cardboard I would stick under the base. It was still rock. The tabletop would shake like crazy. We literally had to take turns cutting our food, while the others tried to hold it steady. I couldn't fill our glasses too full because if Grady would bump the table, it would spill over the top.


Sydney had a slumber party once, and we ordered pizza. Her friends started to sit down at the table, and Sydney proceded to tell them "Oh, we don't sit at the table, it's not safe. We just eat in front of the TV"....Here's your sign!

So we finally bought a new sturdy table today! They had it on display at the store and you should have seen us checking it out! We pulled the chair down from the display and we wiggled and jumped and scooted and, you get the idea. We each took a side of the table and shook and pushed and pulled, and they didn't budge! SOLD! I even helped put it together. Randy would argue with the word "helped" He only had to redue both my chairs...We put it in place and I of course tested each chair. 1st chair-check, 2nd chair-check, 3rd-check, 4th-....wobbly!! I don't know wether to laugh or cry. So if we ever invite you over to dinner, I appologize if you grab the wrong seat.