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?

A few thoughts on infertility

I wish to document some of the thoughts I have had these past couple years as we have struggled with infertility.  Now that we are expecting, it was just a little shocking to read over journal entries of the past year and see how much infertility dominated my thoughts, or at least my journal entries.

Alex and I went to the sweet corn festival tonight. This is me with the sheriff in front of the corn steam mobile, right before he fined me for indecent exposure. (Totally kidding, mom!!!)

A few points I wish to make:

1. To state the obvious: infertility is a challenge. Looking back, as it started to dawn on me that we were going to have more trouble than most people, it felt like a gradual descent into a ravine. At first I thought "oh this isn't that bad, it will get worked out soon." As time went on, though, my hope plummeted more and more. Eventually, instead of being an "easy" challenge, it actually was hard for me! There are a few times that stand out as being especially difficult, usually after we had tried some procedure that did not work. It was a roller coaster. No, I take that back. It was a tire swing. It never really felt like I was moving forward at all and it was down one minute (or day, or week, or month), up the next. Sometimes it felt like an uncontrollable downward spiral. Sometimes I just felt a general emptiness and pointlessness.

2. Infertility is not that bad! Alex and I constantly reminded ourselves that there are so many worse things that can happen to a couple than infertility. Like a bad relationship, or a devastating loss of a child, or countless other things. As far as challenges go, we actually sometimes felt blessed that it was ONLY infertility that we were dealing with! Infertility did not stop us from having a happy and full life.

3. I feel for anyone who has struggled with this challenge. I know it is hard to go for a long time wanting to start a family and seeing everyone around you having children and not being able to. There are the inevitable questions: why me? am I broken? does God not trust me with children? am I doing something wrong? if I just ate this or didn't eat that would I be able to get pregnant? and countless others that you can choose to pay attention to or not but in general are not that helpful. I know that it is easy to feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with you if you and your spouse cannot complete the most basic of life's needs to reproduce. (I just want to point out here that male infertility accounts for 40-50% of infertility problems according to Wikipedia.)

4. Infertility is an opportunity. I can't yet say that I am grateful for what I went through, and I don't know if I ever will be, but I can say that I am grateful for some of the things that happened as a result. To name two, I had to more fully put my trust and faith in God than I have ever had to before. This opened me up to feel peace and healing in spite of still not getting what I wanted for a long time. It also helped Alex and me have the opportunity to grow closer as a couple as we turned toward each other instead of away. This is not something that comes naturally to me, and not something I usually do perfectly, but it gave me many chances to practice :)

What better way to end the night than a BLT? Yum.

What is in my kitchen nowadays

Peaches: we have been battling squirrels as to who gets to the peaches first. I think the squirrels are winning. I walked by the peach tree yesterday and the aroma of peaches was delicious and unmistakable. And I realized that every squirrel within 5.2 miles can smell our peaches. The approximate squirrel population is 10 per yard. We pick about a dozen off the ground every day that have either been pulled from the tree and had a bite taken out of them or that are simply a casualty of the branches shaking. We are trying to salvage them as best we can.

Homemade graham crackers: Today I made some graham crackers even though I should have taken a nap instead I realized later. But at least they were tasty. Even better dipped in milk.

The fridge: Our fridge tends to get crowded with pictures of family, quotes that we like, and other random things so we have to clear it off every now and then. I have decided that the goats are permanent residents.

Recently we have two new additions that make me smile every time I see them. The first one is a cut out from the (large) lunch bag that was given to Alex on his trip home from Boston. The Petersen kids drew him a picture.

We miss you! Feelings: you here...    you left...

This is the other one - my 10 week ultrasound!!! This has been an announcement a long time in the making and I plan to post more about our IVF experience in the future. We are thrilled to finally be expecting and much of the time it still feels a little unreal to me. I have been blessed to not experience any (or at least, very little) nausea and I am grateful for that, along with all the other blessings we have had along the way. 

So far, baby looks like a potato head so we are calling him/her Strax until we find a more appropriate nickname.

Illinois State Fair

I love the state fair. I loved it growing up where I showed goats and entered 4-H projects and wandered around the crafts buildings and animal barns and ate fair food. My favorite fair food as I remember was elephant ears. I have been able to go to the fair here in Illinois three times and most recently it was yesterday. I was lucky enough to be able to go with some friends and we had a great time.

The highlight for me was a hunting dog training demonstration. I was amazed by the skill and level of training of the dogs and it made me want to learn how to hunt just so I can have a hunting dog. 

Here are a few picture highlights:

From top left clockwise: the famous butter cow sculpted from 500 lbs of butter. An Illinois State Fair tradition since 1922. A delicious breakfast item that has been sitting in a display case for a week. Marie and lots of lovely cakes. And finally, what would a state fair be without some Bengal tiger tricks?

All in all a lovely day. My only regret is that we missed llama fun night. 

Homecoming

Alex came home from Boston a week ago. To celebrate, I stayed up until he got home. It was a big sacrifice. He had a great time. I keep bugging him to post more about it. Maybe one of these days.

The next day I showed him around the house. He couldn't believe what I had done with the place. For instance, the garden was still mostly alive. Minus one potted tomato plant that is on its way out.

The tomato plants are about 8 feet tall. That is what a little rabbit dung crack will do to them. 

Mr. finger with a blackberry hat! It has been a while since we saw him. 

Miz peach

The squirrels are enjoying the peaches, too. They are nice enough to eat them and leave the fleshy pits on the top of the fence for us to find. If only I had a squirrel trap...

Working hard in Boston

Early mornings and late nights at the hospital here in Boston, but also some fun too: 

Crane Beach near Ipswich.
Supposedly one of the best beaches in the state. I spent about two hours here  a week ago Saturday.
It's not Florida, but definitely worth the hour drive. 

Crane Beach looking the other direction. There's a mansion on top of the hill, which you can't really see. 

Young quince growing at the great house near Crane Beach. Someday I will have my own quince tree, and Katie will make quince jam.

32 inch striped bass caught in Boston Harbor.
I got lucky enough to get invited to go fishing with Quinn Peterson and his brother Randy yesterday.
An early morning (even moreso than usual), but a great day.  

Fisherman Quinn.

Boston Temple with my hosts, the Petersons. It's been great staying with them.
The temple is 10 minutes from where I've been staying, which makes it much more convenient than the three hours drive to St. Louis.

View of Boston from the Washington Tower at Mount Auburn Cemetery. 

I miss you, Katie. No matter what I'm doing, it's not nearly as much fun when you're not with me.