EB

David and I had the pleasure of meeting little Miss Emerson Belle last night. Seriously, the cutest thing I've seen in a long time. Just the most peaceful soul.



Congratulations to Allie and Matt!

little baby Emerson's welcome home gift

1st visit

My head is still spinning from today's appointment at the fertility center. We came home with a LOT of information. Which is great but it's a lot to take in. So much so that I left the folder with all our info in the car during the day so I could concentrate on work. It's still in the car. I'm working up the nerve to go get it and start all the little processes that are involved in this next step.

The good news is that we heard the doctor say that he believes that with their help, we should get pregnant. I had to hold back tears because those words were exactly what I needed to hear. Of course I'm still hesitant to believe that but from what it sounds like, even if there is a problem from here on out, it should be one that can be worked around. yay!

branded

I made the dreaded call today. Apparently, our insurance company requires that you call their infertility hotline before going to your first fertility appointment (which we have next Tuesday). So, I am now on record as a woman who can't seem to make babies on her own. Yep, I just registered myself as infertile.

Tough day, but I'm trying to make the best of it. At least we are moving in the right direction. Picking myself up and moving on.

love

Today has been a rough day. But I just want to thank all my friends out there for their outpouring of support. It means the world to me that I have so many people willing to lend me their ears or shoulders.

I also want to thank my husband because after hearing how emotionally drained I was this morning, he decided to leave work early and work the rest of the day at home with me so I wouldn't be alone.

I'm surrounded by love and I'm not taking that for granted.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

the unknown

I have an appointment tomorrow. This is sort of the "let's get the ball rolling" appointment. I have a new doctor (thanks to Allie!) and this will be my first time meeting with her. I'm not looking forward to going through all my history and talking about the ailments and diseases my family members have had. But, once we get past all of that not so fun stuff I'm sure I'll feel better. I guess it's just the unknown that I'm afraid of. There are too many possibilities running through my head right now about what could be wrong with me. I'm hoping that after tomorrow's appointment some of that will be narrowed down. It's just scary. The level of anxiety I have had over the past few days on a scale of 1-10 has been about a constant 9.

I'm struggling with what to share and what not to share here. Now that I've opened the floodgates I'm trying to harness some of that in a bit. Sharing is not my strong suit. It's a good thing you guys can't see the awkward mess on the other side of the computer screen as I'm typing this. I just don't know what's ok to talk about and what's not ok.

I guess I can start by talking about what really pushed me to get everything checked out. Again, this feels entirely awkward and I can feel myself pulling back on the keyboard but I'll try to keep going. First things first, David went and got himself checked out to rule out that it wasn't a problem on his end. I mean, let's face it, it's much less invasive for him to find out if something is wrong with him than me. We figured we would do whatever was easiest first. We got the results and it turns out all is well on his end which is fantastic but when I heard that news I literally broke down. I was so incredibly happy for about 10 seconds until the thought hit me "It's you...something is wrong with you." Since I found this out while I was at work (David feels terrible that he told me at the time he did) I had to kind of run to the bathroom to compose myself. You never really know when the emotions are going to get you. It comes and goes in waves.

It wasn't long after that when I started to feel lower abdominal pain. A kind of constant pain that I had never experienced before. It woke me up out of a dead sleep at 3am. After 24 hours of this I decided to call my doctor because I knew something wasn't right. Fast forward, she sent me to a radiologist to get ultrasounds to find out what the cause of my pain was. Turns out, I have a few ovarian cysts and a polyp that suggests Endometriosis. Just typing that is hard.

Anyway, I guess it was my body that finally pushed me to get the show on the road with finding out why it's been so hard for us to conceive a child. It's like when you keep avoiding the dentist and then you are finally forced to go because you chip a tooth or a crown falls out.

So, here I am. Waiting for 10am tomorrow to roll around. I have all my new patient forms filled out and in tow will also be the images from my ultrasound and the report of what's wrong with me so far. I'm prepared. Well, on the outside anyway.

Here I go...finally taking that leap into the unknown. It's terrifying but at least we are moving in the right direction, maybe we can finally get some answers. And I hope, with all my might that this is something that can be fixed. I don't want to be broken.

bumpy ride

Blog looks a little different, right? I think I'm scrapping the weight loss theme because there's so much more to talk about on here.

I see this blog as my journal, where I can go to talk about whatever I want. It's an outlet for me. And I've been holding back. There's been this giant pink elephant that I've just been ignoring here and I think I'm finally ready to talk about it.

I'm a severely private person and talking about myself seems so out of the norm for me. Especially if it's a problem I'm going through. I don't want it to seem that I'm out for sympathy. I get that it's a ridiculous way to feel but here's where I try to change that.

David and I have been going through something that has been life changing. We've kept it quiet mostly because we just don't want the attention or the sympathy that will inevitably come rushing at us but I can't do it anymore. This blog has always been my personal journal (so much so that I took the google search off of it so people can't find the blog that way). It's where I can go to vent frustrations or to just document the happy times with photos.

This is why I took all the weight loss stuff away. I don't want it to be just about weight loss anymore. And to tell you the truth, there hasn't been any weight loss on my part in a while. I haven't been myself lately and to tell you the truth, I'm starting to forget who the real me is. I've been depressed for a while now, hence the no weight loss. In fact I've gained...it's embarassing.

Whew...this is harder than I thought it would be. This blog post is days in the making and I've re-written it about 3 times. This time around I feel like someone who's trying to read this cold, vacant speech and has just ripped it up and thrown it in the air. No speech from me. No trying to use fancy words to get my point across. I'm typing as the words form in my brain. It's the only way this will actually get out and get published.

The truth is, David and I have been trying to get pregnant for two years. Two. years. Hmm, writing that out makes it real. Two years is such a long time! We wanted to be sure that we were financially stable before bringing a little one into the world. Well, we are more than ready now. Funny how these things work out. And the one thing that keeps running though my head is a conversation we had with a family member.

She asked us years ago when we were going to have a baby. We told her that when we are ready we will. Her response was something to the effect of "I hope you don't miss your chance because you waited too long". I couldn't believe that was what she said and it took everything in me not to respond harshly.

I play that conversation in my head about once a week now. I hate that she planted that seed. Especially now that we are having problems. But I digress.

Anyway...the reason why I picked now to talk about it is a) I'm just exhausted from keeping this from people and b) we have started the process of getting some help and I'm sure I'm going to need to talk about it. Up until now we have been trying to do this on our own. We are finally admitting that we do need some help. We really want a family and we are looking to do that as quickly as possible moving forward.

I'm sure I'm going to need some shoulders to lean on through this process and that's the main reason I'm putting this out there. Plus, the extra good vibes and prayers can't hurt either.