(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

It seems when I give you puppy pictures they are almost always of Garnett, so today you get a Sadie picture!! She was super cuddly on the couch last night - even if she did take my spot! lol

I am happy to report that I have my wheels back!! The truck has been repaired...I am pretty embarassed about why it would not start. No oil. I've been leaking oil for a while now and it's been on the "to do" list but never made it to the top. I was told that I had been leaking quite a bit of oil. So glad it's been repaired and it wasn't even horribly expensive!

Hope Y'all have a Wonderful Wednesday!!

Liebster Award

Many, many thanks to A Place Where I Can Be Me for nominating me!

 Here are my questions to answer:

1. What is one (or more) item on your bucket list? To visit Ireland and Scotland one day

2. If your life had a soundtrack, what songs would be on it? For the last year or so, I would say Dave Matthews "You and Me"...at least one a week J will say to me "Remember You and Me together, we can do anything."

3. What is something you've done in life that you are truly proud of? I think it's the way I've dealt with my IF, losses, and all we've gone through. We started our marriage off trying to start a family, so IF has always been a part of us. I am truly proud of how we've handled it and continued to grow despite all we've been through.

4. What is your favorite sound? Waves crashing on the sand

5. Favorite word? Why? Indubitably, I just really like the sound of it. :)

6. If you could sit down with one person (living or dead, someone from history or a family member) for a nice long chat, who would it be and what would you talk about? My Nana, she's been gone for 25 years...I would love to talk to her about anything and everything.

7. If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? One where I don't feel like it's work and I am truly happy at.

8.What is the coolest thing about you? Me? cool? those words don't usually go together in the same sentence.

9. What is your favorite color--be precise, don't just say blue, but what kind of blue? Blue - the blue of the ocean in Belize in the shallow areas by the reef. :)

10. Favorite quote or saying? Maya Angelou quotes are my favorites, but this is another good one: "Forget all the reasons why it won't work and believe the one reason why it will." Unknown

11. If you hit the lottery tomorrow, what is the first thing you'd buy? After becomine debt-free, I'd buy a house or condo in Ambergris Caye.

And a bonus question for my fellow fertility-challenged ladies, stealing it from my nominator:

12. Have you yet found any silver lining(s) in the journey of infertility? If so, what?
I really think it's the way J and I have grown stronger and closer during this journey. Sometimes it amazes me how we are as a couple and I am truly grateful for it.

I am not going to nominate anyone this time around but I do have a few questions if you'd like to answer them. :)

If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose?

If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?

If you could throw any kind of party, what would it be like and what would it be for?

Scenes from Our Weekend

Oh what a weekend it was...it started off on such a high note! We had our great appointment on Friday and then we turned Friday night into date night. :) I had a gift card so we only paid $2 for dinner. Love it when we can have fun and it doesn't cost a lot!!

Saturday had it's ups and downs, but, all in all, a good day.

Sunday started off really well...J made us breakfast and then went to the gym. I relaxed and worked on my knitting while he was gone. Once J was all cleaned up from the gym we decided to tackle the project of replacing our garbage disposal. The actual replacing of the disposal was not all that bad. I was great at holding the flash light and fetching the right tools. We got everything put back in place - including the mesh wire that surrounds that outlet, preventing critters from coming in under the sink. J figured it was safe to do so because everything went so well. Then we tested the garbage disposal. NOTHING. So the process began of figuring out was not connected correctly. It didn't take too long for us to figure out it was the plug.

Garnett checking out what was going on:

 This looks a like a good spot to rest:

That meant a trip to Home Depot...out to the truck we go. J turns the key and "clunk" was what we heard. J mentioned the truck did that earlier too when he moved it to go to the gym. He tried again - NOTHING. The truck died. :(  We left it and headed to Home Depot and lunch in J's convertible. That was a FUN ride home. :)

This morning the truck was towed away to the dealership and hopefully we'll know what's going on with it this afternoon. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it's not too bad. Really do not want to have to think about buying a new vehicle right now.

Hope Y'all had a great weekend!

Cinco's weekly status report - Updated

I am just in awe of how everything is going this time for us. For the last two appointments J and I have seen development in Cinco that we've never seen before. It truly has been amazing.

I am happy to say that it was another great appointment - everything measuring right on time. Cinco is still measuring about a day ahead of me. Heartbeat was great - 178. We saw so much development this week - we saw the brain, the arm and leg buds, and the umbilical cord. Cinco was waving to us! The little arm buds were moving almost the whole time!!

Dr. A tried to record some images and the heartbeat for us so we could put the files on a USB drive. That took quite awhile to figure out! We never did figure out how to get the files on the drive, so Dr. A is going to have his IT guy figure it out. We ended up taking almost 45 minutes with Dr. A this morning - both J and I started to feel guilty that there so  many patients waiting because of the extra time he took with us. I really appreciated it though! We have really developed a great relationship with him.

Hope Y'all have a Fantastic Friday!

Update: I cannot believe I forgot to give you the funny story from this morning!! So J and I got shown to our room, given the instructions (which we recited with the tech) and got ready to go. Well, I usually hand J my bag as I head to the restroom; this time, I decided to put it down first and then go. When I was in the bathroom I noticed my shirt was wet and could not figure out for the life of me what happened. I get back to the room and J said "Have some problems in there?" I thought he was referring to it taking me longer than normal, so I told him I had to get a new roll of toilet paper. He laughed and said "Did you see your shirt?" I looked down and my right boob was covered in "water" - um, yeah, NOT water - it was the LUBE from the wand!! I  hit it with my boob on the way out the door to the restroom! Oh my goodness, was there a lot of giggling once we realized what I had done. I don't think giggling it typically heard in those parts of the office!!

One more sleep

If you are here from ICLW - Welcome!! A quick intro to me and my little corner of the blogging world: I started my blog last May as we were getting ready to embark on our first round of IVF. (We moved to IVF after suffering 3 natural miscarriages without any intervention.) Unfortunately, I did not respond well to the meds and we turned it to an IUI that resulted in a BFN. Round #2 started in July after I had a hysteroscopy. I only had 4 eggs retrieved, but all 4 fertilized! Only 2 made it to day 5 and then cells were shipped off for PGD testing. Unfortunately, one came back as extremely abnormal and the other one came back as inconclusive. After much thought and discussion we moved forward; it resulted in a BFP!! In October we suffered miscarriage #4...we sent the embryo off for testing and again it came back inconclusive.

Dr. A had once mentioned he thought I might have some endometriosis; well, with the year coming to an end and my deductibles being met I decided to go ahead and schedule a lap to see what might be going on inside. Turns out it was very beneficial - Dr. A found a fibroid that he was surprised by and was pretty happy to get it out. There was also some Stage 1 endo in there that he cleaned up. All in all, it was a success. After this, we decided we'd take a few cycles off in order to recover emotionally and financially. During our break we received quite the surprise - a BFP!! Somehow this girl and her old eggs beat the odds and got pregnant the old fashioned way!

So here I am at 9 weeks and it's only "one more sleep" before my next u/s. I am jittery and anxious. Typically my rough day is Tuesday. After last week's appointment going so well, I stayed positive for a much longer period of time. J and I were both in awe with what we saw and how well everything seems to be progressing. J is feeling positive going into to tomorrow, so I am trying really hard to feed off of him and how positive he is feeling.

I had my follow-up with Dr. H yesterday for my thyroid and she was very happy with my levels. My TSH is down where it's supposed to be - my T4 (I think) is close to where it should be, but she'd like it just a little higher so I am back to 100mcg of Syn.throid. Also, Dr. H was very happy with my weight loss...at first she was concerned because she thought I had been sick. When I told her that all I did was listen to her and cut out my carbs and start eating better she felt much better! She asked me if I could imagine delivering at 25 pounds less than what I weight now - she said that is possible. I told her I can't even picture delivering let alone delivering weighing that much less!!

I also had my appointment with my therapist, Dr. S, um, yeah, that was just weird. Bottom line is, we are going to an "as needed" basis. I explained how my weeks are like roller coasters after the Friday morning appointments. She told me it was very understandable. She said it was going to take a lot of deep breathes for me to get through the next couple of weeks. After I had told her something that happened the night before on the phone with J's mom she asked if there was anything else I wanted to talk about. I replied no, not really. So we closed things up. I was shocked when I looked at the time when I left...my 45 minute appointment was only 25 minutes! J said she was making up for the time he went with me and we went over our time. :)

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Sending sunny thoughts to all of you today! 

(This was taken on Sunday - it's cloudy and "chilly" in San Antonio today.)

(Please excuse the rope lighting that is falling down - the squirrels knocked it down when they were chasing one another on the tree this winter.)

We have flowers blooming

Our Mountain Laurel has started to bloom and I thought I'd share some pictures with you. I really should have used the real camera instead of my phone. The tree in the front yard is so full of blooms...it's really pretty. The flowers are really interesting because they almost smell like grape kool-aid! The trees are buzzing with bees and butterflies. I love coming home after a long day and taking time to smell the flowers!

Cinco's Status Report

We are still in the game!!!! I have to say I was about as anxious as I could be before this morning's appointment. Once Dr. A got the wand in place it did not take long until he was able to find the heartbeat, and wow was it beating!! :) 176 bpm  I am 8w2d and Cinco measured 8w3d/4d - Dr. A said everything was right on track and was looking good! We go back again next week. I should hear back from the nurse today about starting to wean off of some of my meds. Maybe this is real this time around?!? I sure hope so!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to you! Thank you for your love, friendship and support over the last year - I don't know how I would have done it without you guys!

Cinco's Status Report

I am happy to report we had another good appointment today - aside from the office being down a doctor and running way behind schedule.

Dr. A was very happy with what he saw...Cinco was measuring 7w2d/3d and I am 7w2d...it's the first time I've had an embryo measure 7 weeks! Heartbeat was nice and strong. When that little flicker showed up on the screen this morning and I saw the measurement my grin went from ear to ear!

On the ride home I commented to J about how different the mood was in the car compared to our ride to the office. We were both pretty anxious and J had bad dreams about it all night.  I am so hoping that this next week is uneventful and all goes well.

Day by Day

I am trying so hard to stay positive and take everything in stride. I think I am doing okay, except when I'm not. Tuesday was a rough day. It seems I do well for 3-4 days after the u/s and then I have my day of panic and anxiety. This time around, I started wondering if this is my last week of being pregnant. It's not a fun thought, but as Wednesday marked 7 weeks for me, I realized there is a good chance things could end next week.

Last night I started to get the hive-like "things" on my back. I tried SO hard to not think about it because thinking about them only stresses me out and makes them worse. Just before going to sleep J and I listed all the positives of this pregnancy and I was able to fall asleep without thinking about my back. It really seemed to help, because WOW was I happy when I woke up this morning and the
"things" were pretty much gone. That almost never happens. J was pretty shocked when he checked my back for me... he said they looked like they were smaller than they were last night. I really need to see a dermatologist about them and see if I can get one biopsied.

I've cut out quite a bit of my carbs over the past 2 weeks - orders from both Dr. A and Dr. H and it's really helped the scale. I am not aiming to lose weight in any shape or form, but I have dropped a few pounds. I definitely feel like I've been eating healthier and that is a positive!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

 

Calgon take me away!

Hormones and anxiety are with me in full force - so I am going to stare at pictures of Belize today and hopefully it will help me relax!

Update on Cinco

We went in for our weekly u/s to check on Cinco's progress...I am super happy to report that all went well! Of course, I was anxious beforehand and it did not help that we were placed in the same room where we found out that Fred was no longer with us. On top of that, we sat in the room waiting for almost 30 minutes. J was ready to do the u/s himself!

Dr. A said everything looked great...I am 6w2d and Cinco measured 6w3d/4d...we heard the heartbeat. :) Dr. A said it sounded strong and he was very happy with what he saw.

So same bat channel, same bat time next week. TGIF!!!