Projects

We (well Michael) has done several projects around the house over the last few months and he has been begging me to post pics for the longest time. We painted our door and mantle. Put in a few new light fixtures in the hallway, outside and the bathroom (he didn't even electrocute himself) and laid down pretty green sod!! Barley and I are so excited to have a nice yard to play in this summer!!

What Faith Can Do

I haven't blogged about anything in a long time. Not because we haven't been busy I just haven't made myself take the time to sit down and write. Here is what we have been up to these last few months.

March:
we celebrated lots of birthdays-my mom's, sister's, jaxon's first, and michael's. i lost my father to lung cancer. i am still filled with a lot of mixed emotions about all of that. michael and i also celebrated our 1st anniversary. made me wish i was laying on the beach or swinging through the trees in costa rica again. it has been a wonderful year for us but also extremely difficult. we found out our 4th round of clomid was unsuccessful. we started our 5th and final round of clomid. another month of not getting pregnant. lots of tears were shed this month.

April:
we finally got our grass for the house. we were so tired of the dirt. it took everyone else on the block who got sod a day to put it in but it took my perfectionist husband a week. i love him for how he is and i have to say our yard looks the best on the block. barley loves being able to fertilize it for us. still need to finish the flower beds. painted our front door and mantle red. we love it. we are both scared of color so this is all we have done so far. will post pics soon. came up with excuses not to attend a baby shower this month. just couldn't make myself go. found out our 5th and final round of clomid was unsuccessful. another month of not getting pregnant. lots and lots of tears were shed this month. we were referred to a fertility specialist by my gyno.

May:
skipped out on going to church on mother's day. couldn't take not being able to stand up when they recognize all the mothers. they also had a big baby dedication and didn't think i would be able to handle that. michael and i were supposed to be standing up there with our baby by now. we went and had a nice breakfast with my family instead. had our 1st appointment with dr. b. i think we are going to really like her. she is thorough and very honest. i was diagnosed with pcos and michael has a minor issue going on too. explains a lot. the odds are stacked against us but the doc seemed positive she could help. we will do iui during this next cycle. that means giving myself injections in my stomach (not sure how michael and i are going to handle that one-we both hate needles), taking drugs and going to the doctor a whole lot. not looking forward to it but i hope it pays off. please pray for us during this time. we know God has a plan for us. it may not be our plan but we put all our trust and faith in him.

I've been reading a lot of blogs these last few months. I can't believe how many couples out there are dealing with the struggles of infertility. It is nice to be able to read their stories and have my thoughts and feelings about everything validated in some sort of way. It's reassuring to know that we are not alone on this difficult journey. Even if they are strangers and we will never cross paths we are connected-even if it is in a way that no one wants to be connected.


My mom heard this great song (on the day we actually went to the doctor) and i listen to it all the time now. The words give me peace, comfort, hope and faith.

What Faith Can Do
by Kutless

chorus
i've seen dreams that move the mountains
hope that doesn't ever end
even when the sky is falling
i've seen miracles just happen
silent prayers get answered
broken hearts become brand new
that's what faith can do

Solid Rock!

Michael and I make a trip to Lowe's every weekend. Michael always jokes that he needs to buy stock in it because we spend so much money there. I guess that is part of building a new house. There is always something that we need.

For the past few weeks we have been working on the yard-well Michael has been working I have just been supervising! :) We have had some really nice weather and Lowe's finally put all their trees out so we decided to buy two-one for the front and one for the back. Once Michael started digging it didn't take him long to realize that our house was built on solid rock! There are a few inches of dirt and the rest is nothing but rock-and I'm not talking small pieces of rock, I mean huge chunks of rock!! Poor Michael had to work so hard to break through the rock but he finally managed to get both holes dug and both trees planted. We planted an Autum Maple Blaze in the front-it will have beautiful fall foliage and we planted an Oklahoma Redbud in the back-it will have pretty pink flowers in the spring!

We did plant some winter rye grass before we left for Connecticut at Christmas. We didn't think it would grow but we wanted to at least try and get some grass down for the dog. To our surprise a lot of it started to come up when we got back and it is still growing!! We can't wait until we can put in our sprinkler system and plant some grass. I want to have a beautiful yard for the summer. We will also start working on some flower beds. I know that eventually we will have the yard we have always dreamed of. Here are a few pics of what it looks like right now. We will post more when we get more done!

Third time wasn't a charm!!

Michael and I were really hoping and praying that the third month of taking Clomid was going to be a charm. Sadly it wasn't. To be honest I was hoping that we would only have to take it for one month but now we are about to take it for the 4th time. I hate even taking tylenol for a headache so it is killing me to take all these drugs every month. My doc has even added another drug to the mix that I take everyday not just for 5 days like with the Clomid. We weren't even sure if this was a treatment we wanted to start but knew we had to with everything that is going on with me. We know that God has a plan for us and we are both tyring to stay strong and be positive but it gets harder and harder every month we don't get pregnant. All of this has only made our relationship stronger and I know that God will lead us through this difficult time. Maybe the 4th time will be the charm-we will see!!

CT/MA

Michael and I went to Conn. and Mass. for the holidays. It was a fun filled 12 days. We got to meet our niece Julia for the first time, went tubing, spent some fun times with Michael's family and friends, attended Julia's Christening and spent New Year's Eve in Boston with Jeff and Lisa!! We were exhausted by the time we got home and have spent the last week trying to recover. We can't wait to go back for our next visit.

What to talk about!

I orginally started this blog to document the process of building our first house. We wanted everyone to be able to follow along with us. Well the house is finished and we have been there for almost a month. We have a lot to do to get it the exact way we want it but we love it. Barley has a had a difficult time adjusting but is starting to warm up to it. I think my mom spoiled him way too much while we lived with her. Now that the house is done I wondered what I would blog about...of course there is one thing that consumes my thoughts-our journey to trying to have a baby.

We actually started this journey way before we started building our house-over a year ago to be exact. It has not been an easy journey for me or Michael. It has been filled with a lot of really low lows but we are hoping and praying for the best. We know that God has a plan for us and is in control of the situation. We both have had several tests done to see what the deal is and everything always seems to come back normal-which is great but it is also frustrating because we always end up exactly were we started-with no real answer on why we can't get pregnant. I have had every test you can imagine done and have had so much blood taken I don't know how I have any left. I have not been myself these last several months but Michael has been so suppportive. I would not have been able to handle all of this without him. He will make an amazing father and I can't wait to see him finally be a daddy. We both can't wait to be parents. So I guess this is where this blog will go from here-our road to trying to conceive a little Vaughn.

SNOW

A few weeks ago we actually got snow. That doesn't happen here very often-especially enough for it to stick. They cancelled school so I got the day off. Of course by the time I woke up at noon it was all gone but Michael got up early and took a few pics!