Remembering all the little things...

Last night laying in bed with Faith (she had a rough night), i realized that no amount of pictures or scrapbooks or albums can actually capture all the little things she does every day that make me smile. The adorable way she looked at me laying on the pillow last night, the brightness in her eyes, the way she rubbed my hair and laid on me to "hug" me. So sweet...

Teething...

My poor girl has been trying to get the same teeth for what seems like months now. It's the eye teeth and as much as I thought cutting the molars was bad, i really think this is proving to be worse. It's been really bad for about 3 days now, the last two nights have been terrible for sleep. We are all cranky and tired. Makes for some very unproductive, miserable days. Anyone with good teething remedies feel free to comment.

How i became a mother...

I don't have the typical story on becoming a parent and for those that don't know I thought it might be nice to give you a background. It all started 6 years ago in June of 2001, John and I were engaged and living together (yup we lived in sin LOL).

Let me preface all this with even more background. I have wanted a family from as long back as i can remember. As a child I often played "house" with my little cousins and friends and I was always the mommy with all the kids. A few weeks ago looking at pictures for the church scrapbook someone said to me, "i realized Sarah that in almost every picture of you, you are holding a baby or child." And it was true, all my life i've loved kids and been drawn to them. As soon as I was old enough I started babysitting. And once i was in the relationship that I knew would last a lifetime I didn't want to wait to start to try, somewhere in the back of my mind i knew i would have problems getting pregnant, i dont' know why i just had a feeling. Anyway we took the attitude that we just wouldn't prevent and if it happened it happened, and if it didn't then that was okay too. Well after 2 years of nothing happening on it's own and being married for a while now, we sought the help of a professional in early 2003.

After umpteen tests, I was found to have a disease called PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome) which has several factors that diminish your fertility including hormone imbalance that causes you to have a cyst on your ovary vs. releasing an egg each month. Also i had a luteal phase defect, meaning that even if i did release an egg my cycle was so short that there wasn't an adequate amount of time for conception and implantation to occur. SO......at first we didn't do a lot other than chart my cycle and try to time intercourse. Then we tried 3 cycles of clomid in late spring/summer of 2003 with no success. The doctor I was seeing was really pushing me to see a fertility specialist but i just wasn't ready. So we took a few months as a breather and in fall of 2003 i changed doctors and tried again with Clomid. In October of 2003 we were beyond thrilled to find out that I was pregnant. I remember driving to my SIL's house to ask her if she saw the "2nd line" too, i'd never ever had even a false positive pregnancy test so this was just beyond thrilling. We told anyone and everyone that we were pregnant, so excited. My due date was July 1st, 2004. On November 17th at 9 weeks i lost my pregnancy and was beyond devastated, i slumped into a depression. That December my husbands friend at work was killed in a freak tractor trailer accident, John slid into a depression after that too. That spring after a lot of therapy and healing time we decided to try again. We tried the Clomid several more times with no success. I was finally feeling ready to inlist the help of a reproductive endocrinologist (fertility doctor) and I was lucky to get a cancelation appt and see him in Sept. of 2004. Over the next several months we tried different combinations of drugs, monitoring the cycles closely with bloodwork and ultrasound, triggering the follicles at what was thought to be the "right time" and having inseminations to ensure the little guys were getting closer to their destination. I can't begin to tell you how draining fertility treatments are, especially when cycle after cycle you have that BFN (big fat negative) at the end. We took cycles off to rest. Once we moved to injectible drugs my cycles seemed to get better, more follicles etc, but still no pregnancy. It was wearing on us big time, both emotionally and financially. The injectible medications were 1000's of dollars per cycle, which most of the time i was able to get covered by insurance at about 80% or i did even get some "hand me down" drugs from two friends who also went through fertility treatments. On the 3rd round of injectibles I did get pregnant, but it didin't last, I started bleeding right from the start and my hormone levels went down very quickly, some call this a chemical pregnancy, to me it hurt just as bad as the other miscarriage, but since it was sooner and we hadn't told anyone yet, it was actually a little easier, there was none of that "untelling" people, ya know? After that loss, i begged the doctors to do some more testing to see if there was a reason i miscarried, i just couldn't keep having losses and if there was something we could do i wanted to do it. So even though the usual protocol is 3 losses, i got the bloodwork and found out i did indeed have a mild clotting disorder. It was treatable with extra folic acid, baby aspirin & once pregnant heparin shots.

So on the 4th round of injectibles in October of 2005 the doctor had me start the heparin right after the insemination. And we got another BFP and my numbers were good. At 6 weeks I had my first u/s and there on the screen was this little sac w/ a tiny little line in it, that was my baby girl Faith. For the following 34 weeks we had tons and tons of tests, lots of ultrasounds and thankfully on July 16, 2006 after 3 days of labor I gave birth to my beautiful little miracle girl Faith Elizabeth. Her name is a testament to everything we went through to have her in our life.

There is a saying that I keep close to my heart always "Without faith nothing is possible, with it nothing is impossible." And i do really feel it's true. I hope and pray that someday we might be blessed again, but i honestly feel in my heart that if it never happens i can be okay with it, because i was blessed with my Faith!

Well there, i got quite a bit done...Thanksgiving #2 is tomorrow

Sure not as much as i'd like but i do set incredibly high goals.
I'm having a last minute Thanksgiving #2 here tomorrow. I don't know how you all are but i just don't think it's the same when it's not "your" Thanksgiving, know what i mean? Like i have a certain recipe for stuffing that I just love and it's just not the same without it. So Friday it was decided that we'd have our "own" Thanksgiving sometime over the weekend. And due to the illness factor around here it ended up being decided tomorrow was the day. SO.....tomorrow i'll be making a turkey w/ all the trimmings, yum i can't wait.
I do have to get the table cleaned off though in order to eat at it, so that'll be another thing checked off my to do list :-)

So much to do...

I have so much to do and feel very compelled to get at it, so it's short and sweet today. I think the "illness" has passed, although it honestly won't make much of a difference to me one way or the other, i'll still have my short little "helper" today anyway. Hopefully she'll be more agreeable today and not so cranky. I know she's teething again and having a hard time getting this set to come through, she's been cranky, very drooly, chewing everything and a bit feverish for a few days now, poor girl. I'm just hoping to accomplish some things today since this is the last of John's vacation and so far we havn't gotten much checked off the big ole list of things to do. Isn't that always the way, you have this big "plan" of stuff to accomplish and then as the days go by, one thing or another comes up to knock you off course and eventually most of the time is gone and hardly anything gets done.....
Oh well sitting here typing in my blog isn't helping really.

Men and illnesses ....

Why is it that when a man has an "illness" it's the end of the world and when the wife/mommy is sick it's no big deal.
Prime example this morning....after a big meal yesterday, capped off by a questionable piece of pie (and by questionable i don't mean spoiled, just that he had already had a piece before and new it wasn't really very good). Anyway after all that he woke up with a tummy ache today and has been in/out of the bathroom several times, i honestly think he's just hanging out in there, i dont' think there's much "going on" LOL However, one of the first things he said was "Faith had her flu shot right?"...so i'm like "Oh for goodness sake you don't have the flu" ...sometimes i just wanna scream "YOU ARE SUCH A HYPOCHONDRIAC!!!!"
And this is just one example....i could go on and on and on....i mean when i was pregnant he had more "symptoms" than i did, you'd think he was carrying a 100 lb water buffalo the way he carried on.....too bad he didn't have 3 days of labor!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

I could sit here and type all day all the wonderful fabulous things i have to be thankful for. But i'm gonna just mention a couple. My parents are amazing, i'm especially thankful that even though my dad isn't able to be at home this year for the holiday, he is at least close by and making progress with his physical therapy and there's hope he'll be home soon. My husband who is not only a good provider, good husband and good dad, but he manages to put up with me too LOL. And of course I am most thankful for my miracle girl, Faith. For those reading that don't know my story, i will someday soon share my journey to motherhood, but to make it short and sweet, it was a struggle and I am thankful every second of every day that I get to be a mom.
Off to enjoy our turkey day with family. We are going out of town for the day, hopefully the weather doesn't get too bad.

State workers...

The other day John and I were going somewhere and we passed a state truck stopped at an intersection, there were 4, yes 4 state workers standing behind the truck changing a stop sign. Ever hear that expression "how many _____ does it take to change a light bulb" LMAO !!
There's our money hard at work!!!

Wow look at that, i have a BLOG

Well look i did it, i made a blog. I love to talk, anyone that knows me, knows that for sure LOL . So i'm sure that I will love blogging too. Off to get some stuff done around the house, i'm sure i'll be back to post more later.