It's a ...!!!

We had our birthday/sex of baby revealing party tonight. It was a big night. 

Here are eight of the nine cakes we ended up making. Thank you David Lebovitz for providing the vast majority of the recipes. 

This is before everyone got there. After everyone got there it was more an exercise to see how many people we could fit in our house...

So the birthday part was fun, but the real fun was finding out what we are having. 

Cherry was awesome and volunteered to make our baby cake. I gave her the sealed envelope from the ultrasound tech and she made the cake yesterday and today. It was an awesome cake. 

Once everyone was more or less there we cut the cake to find out what was inside. 

And...

There you go. The secret is out. 

We were both happy. It was what we were expecting, so at least there were no shocks to the system.

I apologize in advance to Lisa for posting this picture. It is just the only one we have of that moment. 

Yay for baby girls!! Anyone have any name suggestions?

(Surprise) Party

Apparently I have been in a piñata mood lately. 

I made them in secret for a couple of weeks until Alex, without knowing what I was working on, thought it would be a good idea to take a piñata to St. Louis when we visited the nieces and nephews. I thought it was a good idea too except I had already had that idea, he just didn't know it yet. So I brought one of my piñatas and it was a surprise anyway and the kids pulverized it.

Then Alex had a birthday. I had to work until 8 pm that night so we didn't do anything exciting that day. I think I gave him some chocolate. Wait, I take that back. We went to a little Vietnamese sandwich shop and got Alex's favorite wings.

A few days later, I invited a couple people over, filled up two piñatas (one for kids, one for Alex), and made some donuts and hot chocolate. And I didn't tell Alex about any of it. I guess that officially means I hosted a surprise party. That is a first for me.

It was fun. I didn't get a lot of great pictures. Alex's piñata had some Ghirardelli chocolate and some new ties. The ties are for interview season which is fast approaching. I even tried to hunt down some Polish ties because everyone knows that Polish ties can't be beat but unfortunately was unsuccessful in that regard.

Here's one of the ties.

Thanks for coming over to help me decorate Cara and Ben!

Just a sidenote: I made eight cakes today. I don't think I need to do that again. Ever. Too many dishes. 

New stuff on the fridge

I couldn't agree more. Thanks mom for saving me cool stuff from the newspaper. 

This is my new motto. 

And... my baby! You can even see its little heart in there. Isn't it amazing that two cells know how to make a baby? Including a little four chambered heart? Sometimes it is almost overwhelming to me to contemplate how amazing it is.

No, we don't know sex yet. Stay tuned. 

The post you have all been waiting for...

We got back from our two week vacation yesterday at 5 pm. I had to be at work the next day at 7 am. My coworkers were betting as to whether I would remember I was supposed to work that day. There were two reasons I would never forget: 1) I work most Saturdays and 2) It had been hanging over my head for the previous 5 days.

Nevertheless, I went and it was fine, in a worky sort of way.

Enough about that.

We had an awesome vacation. We found out that in the rainforest it RAINS! (12 feet per year to be more or less exact.) We learned to never plan on camping when you are in the rainforest and to be flexible about hiking plans. Other than missing out on a day in the rainforest and not being able to camp because of all the rain, we had a great time.

Our first priority was to catch up with family.

We had a great time with Ben and Jamae and we got to meet our new niece Maya and see the rest of our cute nieces and nephews. We also met another niece Ellie for the first time but I wasn't smart enough to take a picture :(

My mom went to the Grand Tetons with us and it was so fun! Thanks mom!

Becky counts as family. 

I was able to meet Alex's cousin Sandra and her husband Dan. They were wonderful hosts. This is at Snoqualmie Falls. 

Not shown: my dad, my sister's family, and my grandparents. I have a picture with my grandparents but grandma made me sign a blood oath not to post it. 

Second priority: eat good food. 

 Our favorite candy/chocolate shop in Jackson (or actually in the world). Their chocolate covered caramels are to die for!!

Who knew bacon covered caramel donuts would be so delicious? Pike's Place market in Seattle.

What would a trip to the coast be without fish and chips? These were the best I have had (out of two?)

Another chocolate covered caramel, this time in Leavenworth. 

Not to mention all the delicious food we were fed by family and friends.

Third priority: enjoy beautiful scenery. 

Anyone want to move to Jackson with me?

 It would help if you are a millionaire. I hear that real estate is not cheap there.

Comet falls in Mt. Rainier National Park. This was the most intense hike we did. It was drizzly and gorgeous and I was sore for days. 

 There were so many cool fungi in the rainforest (Olympic National Park). This is my favorite one, the Red Belted Polypore (I think?) I like it because it looks like melted chocolate and marshmallows and makes me salivate a little bit. All you need is a graham cracker.

This was the highlight of the scenery tour. The rainforest in the Olympic Peninsula is awesome in its beauty. It almost didn't feel real to me. I have never seen anything like it. 

Sol Duc falls in Olympic National Park. This was beautiful but I am still deciding if it was worth 2 hours in pouring rain. 

This is about how I felt during the hike. 

The largest (supposedly) Sitka Spruce tree in the world.

Ahhh... the beach. Unfortunately we were mostly rained out. 

Third priority: not die

Wyoming has no oxygen.

Fourth priority: make new friends

I found me a bunny friend. 

moose friend

Bear friend.

I made a husky hairy friend in the hat store. 

Fifth priority: drive A LOT.

Sixth priority: vacation from vacation.

La caja china

Alex got the whole week off last week to prepare his application for residency which is due today!!! So, instead of in addition to finishing his application, he made a "caja china" which is a humongous box to cook a lot of meat. Where did he get this cockamamie idea, you might ask? I have no idea. But, when he sets his mind to something he does it so on Friday morning the box was ready for a trial run in our driveway. He had assembled the caja from a wooden shipping box he found in a dumpster on campus and then cut off to a couple feet tall which he lined with aluminum. The top of the box is made of two sheets of steel welded together (by our bishop - thank you!) with a handle added. That is basically it.

Trial run: little chicken in a big box.

It essentially cooks like an oven with the heat provided by charcoal on top of the box. 

I wonder what our neighbors thought.

Success? It cooked alright, and it was delicious. The top was a wee bit overdone.

The impetus behind the box was to provide many pounds of meat for dinner for our church camp out on Friday night. We had three pig shoulders and four chickens to cook. 

Just started.

 Unfortunately, we got started a little later than we hoped so dinner was delayed somewhat. The chickens cooked first and they were awesome.

The pork took a little while longer so we ended up having it for dessert. Which, as far as I could tell with everyone there, was not a big problem. It is amazing how much food a few hungry campers can eat. It looked like piranhas had been through camp by the time we were done. 

 Alex, how much meat did you have?

It was a fun time besides the little fact of us forgetting our pillows and also that I had to be at work at 7 am the next day. 

Nothing left to say about that, right Ricardo?

A couple other pictures of the summer:

Many pounds of grape. Can you guess how many pints of juice it made? Exactly five. And it took a lot of work. I think I will not make grape juice again unless I get a juicer. 

Alex finally picked up on the hints I was dropping that I wanted popsicle molds and got me a set (thanks, Alex!) I made fudgesicles. Final analysis: ridiculously easy and so good. 

IVF

Eventually, after months of trying this or that, we began to realize that IVF was our best option. I think for a while I knew deep down that it was inevitable. Our second doctor (of two), when we met with him for the first time, was in the middle of being baffled by the fact that there was no obvious cause of our infertility and he asked me a penetrating question that took me off guard. It was something along the lines of "what is your gut feeling?" which I took to mean "what is your instinct telling you we should do next?" I said something at the time like I don't know because up until now my gut has been wrong on every count. Looking back, though, I think that I pretty much could have pegged everything that would happen: another round of failed IUI, deciding whether or not to do a certain somewhat invasive diagnostic procedure (we decided not to), and eventually IVF and hopefully success there.

The morning of implantation before going into the doctor's office. We are both a little tired. I think we had to leave at 3:30 am that morning.

The earliest hurdle for me was the cost. In Illinois, infertility is covered by insurance unless you work for a small business (I do). I tried for a time to find a new job but nothing panned out. After a few months, I realized there was no way out of the cost.

The other, more minor, hurdle I had was that it felt so unnatural. I mean, giving a women supraphysiologic levels of hormones so that she will superovulate and then forcibly plucking her eggs out of her ovaries to stick in a petri dish and then injecting a sperm into each one and then sticking some of them back in her uterus? How is that normal? Well, the answer is, it isn't. And it is wonderful that we have this technology so that couples like me and Alex have the chance to have children. When I saw it this way, it wasn't that bad.

So, we started the whole process which involved lots of self-inflicted (or Alex-inflicted) shots (the worst part!), ultrasounds and blood work every couple of days to make sure things were progressing, then two trips to Indianapolis - the first for egg retrieval and the second for implantation. There was one very, very low point in the midst of it all as we were getting close to retrieval - I will probably share that in the future. Other than that, I don't remember being too preoccupied or worried during the days leading up to retrieval and transfer. Our family knew what we were going through and it comforted me to know they were praying for us. However, the wait for the first pregnancy test was like Chinese water torture. It was so hard. I just didn't want to think about what we would do if it didn't work (and we both tried not to). In the midst of all this I received a couple of beautiful priesthood blessings that I cherish and was able to really focus on trusting in God and whatever His plan for me might be. Hearing the phone call that my test was positive I had the hugest sigh of relief of my life. A couple days after that, Alex left for Boston for a month. It was funny - I thought after the positive test that I wouldn't have to worry about anything else, but of course I still did. Any pregnancy that early is not a sure thing, and so I worried. I had a lot of practice at this point, though, with just letting go of worry and trusting that everything is going to be ok no matter the outcome so that is what I tried to spend my energy on.

What would you call the opposite of a delivery room? Where they put the baby in you instead of taking it out of you? That is where we are here. 

IVF stands for in vitro fertilization meaning fertilization taking place outside of the natural organism. It dawned on me the other day that the opposite of this is in vivo fertilization which could also be acronym-ized with IVF. So maybe we need to find a new acronym for in vitro fertilization. Maybe SF - supernatural fertilization?