Infertility Update

I try to be a bit quieter about our family struggles on Facebook. It's probably not the right forum, but at the same time, because I've been willing to share a little of what our family is going through, I've had some amazing conversations about people I might not have normally had. So I'll post on my blog, and call it a happy medium.

After a failed IUI in June, I needed a break. I wanted to be off medication, and we needed to look at how much things cost us financially. As many of you are aware, insurance covers NOTHING. It cost about $4,000 for one month of Clomid, many sonograms and blood tests, one IUI, and one round of the meds for our IUI (this was spread out over 6 months, but the bulk of the cost came from the IUI we did in May).

My travels out of state would have made it too difficult to stick to an IUI schedule, and so it seemed like a natural time to take a breather. At the time, I thought I was handling the medication pretty well, but as the effects of the medicine started to wear off, I felt like a HUGE fog was lifting. I felt happier, more peaceful, less stressed, more energetic. I can empathize a little bit with those who have taken anti-depressants or ADHD meds--you did feel like a different version of yourself, a little foggy, a little unclear. It just felt SO good to be off of medication. Looking back, I now HATE that I felt that way...but it's one of the risks you take when you begin the process to battle infertility.

We decided to go back to the doctor in November, to make sure we were on the right track. I had a lot of questions about endometriosis and laproscopy, and needed to know if that was something we needed to do. Many doctors initially recommend it to diagnose infertility. Our doctor assured us that whether I had endometriosis or not, it wouldn't make any difference at this point. He told us that ultimately it was our decision, but we may find it a better use of our money to continue with IUI.

We also had a really great conversation about IVF. He told us that we didn't need to worry about IVF for now, but he explained the process, the costs, and a bit of the science behind it. It was fascinating! That was the best part (plus whenever I go to the doctor, I cry when I have to talk, so I was ready to get the doc talking at this point). Human bodies really are amazing, and the advances we've made in science have changed so many lives. Just a small thing like being able to analyze a tiny piece of genetic material can make the difference between a failed vs. a successful IVF.

Another comforting thought that came out of that appointment was the fact that there. is. no. rush.

I have struuuugled with that.

I'm getting older, I need to get on this, what if I run out of time, I need to do SOMETHING each month, etc. etc. etc.

I've struggled with feelings of guilt throughout this process, one of the reasons being that my life truly is simpler when I am not worrying about growing our family. I've had to tell myself repeatedly that does not weigh on me as a person--I can still be a good person while not wanting to move mountains just to have children. I can only do what I can do--what we, as a family, can handle--and I think Heavenly Father is okay with that. I sometimes think, "Well, someone may look at us, and think that we are not doing ENOUGH. Go into more debt, flood yourself with MEDS, sacrifice your work and your marriage..if you're not doing EVERYTHING, you're not doing enough! You can't TRULY be happy if you aren't constantly trying to have children. Or maybe you should foster or adopt, just do SOMETHING!" The thing is, the only person who has said that to me is ME. I've learned we are our own worst critics, and many of the reasons we feel guilty are created by our own thoughts!

These are all thoughts that have run through my head. Honestly, the pressure on myself makes the process so much more difficult. However, the doctor reassured me that I don't need to feel like I need to push things or take meds every month. There have been months I've been totally heartbroken because large cysts in my ovaries meant I couldn't try an IUI that month. He assured me this was normal, and that it is okay to take months off, and to breathe in between cycles. I needed to hear that, and I've resolved to not be so hard on myself each month. In fact, we will probably only attempt every other month AT THE MOST at this point. It's just too much to try any more than that.

So, with that doctor's appointment in mind, I've just been enjoying not worrying about it. It's amazing how much better I feel when I don't have to think about driving to the clinic, or ordering medicine, or using my plan time to call the doctor, or remembering to take medicine, or asking Todd to give me the injections.

What's even more amazing, is I'm starting to get to the point where I'm content. I KNOW I can be happy whether we have children or not. Obviously, I want children, but if it is Heavenly Father's will that we wait for a time here on Earth, I think I can do it. I also believe that Heavenly Father won't hold back any promised blessing, including that of children, even if it means we won't have them until the next life. That thought used to make me so bitter. Now, I can swallow it. I can now think to myself, "You are STRONG and you can DO THIS!"

We have been hugely blessed while we wait for children. Not in the monetary sense, haha, this process is expensive, but our marriage has been strengthened, my faith has grown, my trust in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ has grown, and I've been in a position to listen to others going through similar things. In turn, others have strengthened me and listened to me when I needed it!

I once heard a friend bear her testimony and say she was thankful for her trials. I thought, now THERE is a crazy person. I will never be grateful for this trial. But it's been a few years since she said that, and now I am starting to see.

Today in church, someone said, "If the Lord leads you to it, the Lord will lead you through it." I have faith that is what the Lord is doing with our family. There is something we are meant to learn, and we are meant to have this growing experience so we can become the people He wants us to be. I can't say I always agree with Heavenly Father's methods, and of course this refining process is difficult and sad sometimes, but I see what He is trying to do, and I'm willing to be led.

Please let me know if you ever need to talk. I'm here!

Garth!

A few months ago, we heard Garth Brooks was coming to town. I'd heard he was an amazing performer, and Todd talked about how fun it would be to go, but we decided it just wasn't in the budget. Plus, I figured I'd be working when tickets went on sale, and we heard they go FAST!

Well, it turned out that I had the day off the day tix went on sale, so I hopped on, and there WERE tickets! So we ended up with floor seats, and Todd came home the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to news about his early Christmas present :)

We bundled up, hopped on the shuttle last Thursday night, and headed into Intrust. This is a pic of Todd in our special line for our floor seats :) There was really no bad seat in the house!

Selfies must be taken :)

Garth did a great job of personalizing the tour for Wichita. It was cool to hear how many of his crew are from Kansas (like, 6 or 7!)

I didn't grow up on country like Todd did, but I was impressed by Garth. He gets around the stage like a much younger person! He and Trisha sounded great, the band was great!

 He moved around so much all we could get are these blurry shots of the Jumbotron :)

First camping trip

First off, the last time I posted was OCTOBER??? EEK! Rather than try to do a catch up post, I'm just going to start here...with our first camping trip we took this weekend!

There are many reasons why this is the first time we've gone camping. One, we never owned equipment. Two, summers are really busy for Todd with work, so even though I have them off, it's tricky. Three, I don't camp. I like air conditioning and soft beds and perfect darkness and quiet (I could probably camp in a cool cave and be fine, haha). Four, now that we live in Kansas, camping is tricky with bugs and humidity and crazy weather!

But, we decided to just go for it. Sometimes I feel like we are working on a pre-children bucket list...and we've gotten some extra time to work on it, so we are taking advantage!

We decided to head out to Kanopolis State Park, which is in Ellsworth County. When I googled "best places to camp in Kansas," it popped up. It's only about 1.5 hours away, so off we went!

We stopped in Lindsborg, and I had a "Swedish burger," which was basically a super delicious burger with some lingonberry sauce. Then, we headed off to the campground. We saw a few deer on the way, and the fireflies were out in full force. It was beautiful.

After driving for a while, we found a campsite and checked in with the camp host. We were lucky to find a site really close to the water. We had lots of neighbors, but they were really quiet, so that was nice!

We set up our tent (which was super fast...didn't that part used to take a long time?), and Todd built a fire (with a little bit of help from me). Side note: we got free firewood and a good story out of it. I saw someone post online for some free firewood, so we went to that address. Well, no one was there, no wood, but a random Mexican guy was out there, and he told Todd that he had some firewood he could have. He gave us his address, and told us to just head into his backyard. So being the adventurous people that we are (and hoping this wasn't some sort of setup for axe murder), we went over there. Todd had to go down a long driveway, unlock the gate, retie it so the PONIES WOULDN'T GET OUT (hahaha), and then go back to the get the wood. The ponies were following him around, but they didn't try to run out, so that was good. It took a few trips, but it's a good story, and we had some free firewood!

Anyway, we had a beautiful night camping. It was amazing to see the stars, and I even saw a shooting star! With the breeze, the s'mores, the good company, the fireflies, and the gentle sound of lapping waves on the shore of the lake, it was wonderful!

We won't talk about the sleeping part, except to say that Todd slept great, and I stayed up worrying about bugs and bears and coyotes. 

The next morning we broke camp and bravely headed off to hike.

 We headed up to a trail that supposedly went by some caves. It was pretty hot, and we were wearing shorts. At first this was a good idea, and the hike was pretty (okay, not Utah/Idaho pretty, but still Kansas pretty!) Well, the trail started to get pretty overgrown, and then Todd saw a snake. I was done, I was like, WE ARE GOING BACK! So all, in all, we probably hiked a mile before I wimped out, but if I can't see where my feet are stepping that is no bueno!

We hit the nature trail after that, which was a little less creepy, but not a lot because all of these frogs and lizards kept randomly running out in front of us, or jumping across the path. I was already jumpy from the first experience, but we made it around the entire loop. Todd just laughed and laughed at me for my wimpiness, but I will OWN IT!

We were pretty hot and tired at that point, and we thought we'd hit the lake beach for a few minutes just to cool off our feet. Well, we grabbed our swim suits, beach chairs, and a floatie and ended up there for 2 hours! The crowd was family-friendly, the water was the perfect temperature, and so we just ended up relaxing for a few hours.

On our way out, we stopped by Lindsborg again for some shaved ice (where a crazy lady used her kid as an excuse to cut in front of us after she specifically told us "I'm not cutting in front of you, we just need to stand in the shade." Weird). We got some yummy sandwiches, and a really good watermelon coconut limeade, and then we headed home!

It was a great trip: smooth ride, great camping spot, good hiking/swimming, and awesome company. I think we may do it again sometime!

Favorite Time of the Year

Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year in Kansas, and this October has been no exception. The past couple week, our weather has been absolutely beautiful. Summer and winter in Kansas make me appreciate fall and spring so much more!

Wichita is growing on me. I didn't want to be one of "those" people who hate the new place they're in because all they can do is compare it to the places they've lived before. So, it was hard, but I think I've given Wichita enough time to get used to me and vice versa, and I'm liking it. We've gotten to do some really fun stuff that we didn't have the opportunities to do in Manhattan, like

go to the Kansas State Fair and watch people jumping into water from really high heights (fun to watch, I would NEVER do something like that)

 (side note: Todd decided it would be a good idea to ask a bunch of convicts cleaning up trash if they could take our picture. Apparently, they are not allowed to do that. So their supervisor/parole officer took this instead. I was dying laughing inside. And a little freaked out. Of ALL people to ask? Todd's reply: It just seemed like they would've liked something else to do for a few minutes!)

 Guy about to jump. It was entertaining.

We went to the salt mines and learned about all of the things underground. It was a hot day, so nice to be underground. We also saw the missionaries and some people from our ward, so we weren't the only Wichitans touring Kansas. This is in Hutchinson, about an hour away from where we live now.

 We felt pretty awesome in our hard hats, next to a giant slab of salt.

 Riding the train around the mine. It's still a working mine that supplies salt to neighboring states.

 The miners just left their trash down there. All of this trash is from the 60's or so. It was very interesting to look at their trash. Also, is it really that much more expensive to haul the trash to an actual dumpster?

We also hit the drive-in theater to see Maze Runner. We brought some caramel popcorn (Paula Deen's recipe, TO DIE FOR!!!) and some hot chocolate from QT  (I LOVE having QT's around), and some other treats. 

 We ended up moving into the car because it got really cold and some random guy was smoking, but that was fun too.

I love fall...and tractor rides...and corn mazes. So we headed out about 20 minutes southwest to Bergmann's corn maze. It was just a regular corn maze, but you can bring flashlights and answer trivia questions along the way. It was a lot of fun and the weather was PERFECT!

We've also done some other things that we haven't recorded through photos. Todd and I went to a lecture a few weeks ago at the Hyatt downtown. It was very fancy, people were offering us wine and there was a lot of cheering and applauding and political things being said. It was a fun experience :)

I also headed up to Manhattan in September to do the Color Run with my teacher friends, and then a few of them met me in Hesston, KS so we could go to the (totally crazy busy) Kansas Barn Sale. It's been nice to still be close enough to see my friends from Manhattan!

New School Year!

To hear about my school year, head on over to my rarely-used teaching blog to check it out.

Pennsylvania in Pictures

My mom and I drove down to Ocean Pines, MD to stay with my Granny for a night for her 94th birthday! She looks great!

 Most of my time was spent with my two little cuties. We made oobleck, paper airplanes, did leaf rubbings, Ari schooled me on a few video games, and Deky attacked me. I also gave a few horsey rides and piggyback rides and dragging-a-kid-on-my-leg rides. I think I got my workout! We rode bikes and took walks, and made rivers out of aluminum foil in the backyard. It was good times!

 They smelled cows and started yelling "ew!" and holding their noses.

 Hiking with Grammy and Auntie Megan.

Idaho in Pictures

At the 4th of July parade

Seeing Beauty and the Beast at the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone

 Our niece McKenzie

 A little fun in Jackson :)

 Our nephew Easton

 At Big Springs

Ian is a pretty awesome rock skipper :) 

Back to the Playmill 

Bar J Chuckwagon and Cowboy Show in Jackson 

Playmill again :) 

 Family Pictures

Out on the patio at the Thomasons 

We had a super fun trip and are already ready to go back :)