A riddle

     Closed, it sleeps

     On its side

     Quietly,

     The silver

     Image

     Of some

     Small fish;

     Opened, it snaps

     Its tail out

     Like a thin

     Shrimp, and looks

     At the sharp

     Point with a 

     Surprised eye.

-Valerie Worth

Who am I?

I will give you a hint. This is something my sister gave me when she found out I was expecting. I love it. It is a little reminder that soon, with a little unbuttoning, we will be a family of three. 

This is where we are. 

This is the part I am not so sure about. 

I don't know about Alex. He is kind of a silent observer through this whole thing. 

Alex brought me back a treat from Seattle yesterday. Actually, it was a gift from Sandy and Dan. 

What better gift than oatmeal?! No, seriously. I love oatmeal. They also gave us some cute baby clothes.

Sandy and Dan at Snoqualmie Falls. 

I guess the Snoqualmie Oatmeal is amazing. I can't wait to try it. 

A few autumn pictures:

Our grasses in the backyard. I have always loved these. 

And Lola. 

...

IVF - the low point

There were two days in the middle of IVF that were soul crushing. I don't know if there is a better way to convey what it felt like other than sharing part of my journal. I feel like I learned a lot from the experience, although I don't know how to put it into words. Mostly the feeling that with trust in God you can have faith that things will work out, even if you don't know how or when.

Peter Lik photography. We encountered his work a gallery in Key West. I love it.

June 9, 2013

We had horrible news yesterday. Everything was going along just fine with IVF. We were expecting to go in on Monday for egg retrieval. I had an ultrasound yesterday morning with Theresa. She was showing me all my follicles as she measured them and they all looked fine. I had blood work done and left. I spent a few hours at the 11 year old boys' camp out. I left my phone with Alex so he could answer the phone when the nurse called because I wasn't sure I would have reception at the camp site. When I got home I asked him what the nurse had said. He looked at me with a straight face and said "it isn't good news." I kept looking for just a trace of a smile on his face to give away that he was joking but it wasn't there. He told me that my estrogen levels had plummeted which indicated the egg quality was not good and Dr. Jarrett was calling the whole thing off.

I am not sure how to react. There are so many things going on in my head right now I can't sort them all out. We haven't talked to Dr. Jarrett yet - he is supposed to call tomorrow - so there are many unanswered questions, the first of which is: does this mean I am never going to be able to have children? I fear right now that is the case, and I am deeply saddened by it.

I am grieving. I feel that something essential to my womanhood and motherhood has been snatched from me. I feel lost and confused. I feel different from every other normal woman out there that is able to do what she was designed to do. I feel alone. I don't know what the next step is. Logically, it is adoption, but to think about that huge unknown and scary world is beyond me at this point. I do not know why this has happened. Why are my eggs poor? Was I born this way? Did I do something wrong? Could I have prevented this somehow?

I cannot sleep. It is 3:40 am right now. I wish I could talk to someone in exactly my position but I cannot. I am scared to go to church today. I am afraid I will not be able to keep it together.

Thinking about my future right now it feels like a vast wasteland.

Always when we were going through infertility testing and treatments there was always the thought "well, there is still IVF." There is no longer that option. I fear that we are at the end of the infertility road and it has ended in nearly the worst possible way.

It is hard for Alex too. I think he feels many of the same things that I do.

I expect that I will grieve for a while. I don't know how long. Then, with God's help, I will be able to make peace with my circumstances and move forward. I don't know how long this will take.



June 10, 2013

Funny thing. Today at work, about 2 pm, Dr. Jarrett's office called me. A nurse told me that the lab tech on Saturday had made a mistake, my estrogen levels were completely where they should be, and I needed to go get my blood drawn and an ultrasound done asap. I was incredulous.

It was such a confusing feeling. I didn't know if I should be ecstatic or furious. I was behind someone going so slow on the road that I almost couldn't stand it. I finally got there, checked in, waited two minutes, then asked them to please get me back there to have my blood drawn because this was an emergency!

I asked the lady who drew my blood what had happened on Saturday and she said that my estrogen levels were actually normal. I said "I know, but what happened?" She said that someone had done an audit and had discovered the error. It was going to take two hours for my bloodwork to be finished.

At 4 pm Dr. Jarrett's office called back and told me we were still on for egg retrieval, to give myself the ovidryl at 6 pm, and to show up at 5 am on Wednesday for the procedure. So I did. I was distracted at work today. I didn't know whether to scream or cry or cheer.

I did pray a lot on the way to the doctor's office and at home that everything could still work out. And to say thanks that my ovaries aren't crappy after all.

I expected that Alex would have some notion of what was going on because he had my phone all day. We thought it would be better for him to have it once I went to work so that he could talk to Dr. Jarrett when he called. I could tell first thing when I got home that he had no idea what was going on. I asked him how he was and in a sad, resigned sort of way, he said "Good. I mean fine. Dr. Jarrett never called." I asked him what time his test was on Wednesday, he said 8:30 am, and I said he better reschedule it because we were going to Indianapolis for egg retrieval. He couldn't take it all in. He looked more confused than happy, the exact same way I had felt at first.

It is such a weird feeling. It feels like someone close to me died, then the doctor called back two days later and said "just kidding. Different patient." It is like my life and my future completely changed with one phone call two days ago and then just as quickly, just after I had started getting used to the fact that my life was going to be very different than I thought it was, it changed back. It feels like a miracle. It is a miracle. What if no one had caught it?!? I would have been done with IVF with absolutely no hope of ever having children.

This has been such an incredible roller coaster. I feel God's hand is in this.


***
The only other thing I have to say is that I know there are many women out there who want to have kids but aren't able to do IVF or for whom IVF doesn't work. My heart goes out to those women because I experienced that for two days. It wasn't an easy thing to face that maybe my body wouldn't be able to carry a child. But I still knew that I was a daughter of God and that He loved me and that was what I knew I had when everything else I felt was so confusing.

While I am gone...

...eating fancy meals and interviewing at places far away, my wife is stuck at home taking care of the cat. This is not fair, but unfortunately finances more or less require it to be so. I am writing this simply to say that Katie is awesome and that I miss her. I hope this makes her smile when she sees it, because she deserves to have lots of smiles in her life.

10 points to anyone who knows when/where this was.

Letter to my daughter

I wrote this letter over a year ago, just as we were about to begin fertility treatments. I had no idea what the future would hold and when (or if) I could expect a baby girl. But for some reason, I felt very close to her at that particular moment and was inspired to write this letter. I wanted to post it as a reminder to myself of what I hope to be as a mother.

A letter to my unborn daughter, Aug. 12, 2012 Tonight I was being silly with Lucy, resting on her chest and asking her silly questions like "what are you most afraid of? Starving to death? A house fire? That Alex and I will die and you will have to live somewhere else?" She finally groaned (telling me to get off of her) and at that point I had an thought that maybe you were in heaven, looking down at us and thinking that we would be a fun family to have, and maybe even asking if you would be allowed to come down a little bit earlier. I hope you can and I hope you do. I was listening to a talk by Truman G. Madsen this morning and he shared the thought that children might have a little bit of a say in where and when they come. I think you have picked us out. Or maybe you have been assigned. Either way, I am grateful for you and I want to get to know you. I know for sure I can't promise to be a perfect mother, and sometimes I probably won't even be a good mother. But I will love you even when you make mistakes. I will encourage you to love life for the joy of living and discovering and creating. I will encourage you to do things you want to do, and to work hard at them. Not because you need to achieve anything, but because God will give you and has given us His children so many gifts and a beautiful world and precious time to enjoy it and make it a better place. I will set a few firm limits that I will expect you to live by. This won't just be so that our home will run better but so that you will have the steadiness and peace of an ordered life and knowing that someone cares about who you are and who you become and so that you will learn consequences to your choices. I will do my best to let you be who you are and to love you for exactly who you are. There will be no "other daughter" that I wish you were. I want you to be you. I will provide you with and teach you to make nutritious meals and teach you the wonderful gift that your body is and how to take care of it. I will teach you to appreciate beautiful things - music, art, and nature. I will teach you to love the word of God and to follow God's plan for you, His daughter. I will teach you to find joy and comfort in the Plan of Redemption and the Atonement. I know that I will make mistakes. We want you in our family to have a part in nurturing your soul and to provide a temporary home for you on this earth, but it also for us to progress on our journey to become more like God. Just as you are expected to make wrong choices on your journey, we are too. I hope you can forgive us for the many mistakes that we will make. I already feel love for you and I don't know you and I don't know when you will be coming. Love, mom

What I learned in my 20's

Today is my last day in my 20's. I was thinking about what I have learned in the past decade.

1. Life is better with cheese.
2. Life is better with Alex.
3. How to speak Polish.
4. How to be a veterinarian.
5. How to hold down a real job.
6. Kind of how to knit.
7. Kind of how to sew.
8. How to pay someone to make a baby for me.
9. How to buy and own a house.
10. How to make and can jam.
11. How to bake good stuff.

I was going to do 20 things I learned in my 20's but I think I only learned 11 things. Oh well.

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.