Infertility stories

My friend Livia has been posting stories related to infertility this week. Our story is on her blog as well. I have loved reading through all the posts and seeing all the different (but familiar) experiences. Whether you have gone through infertility or not, I think learning more about it and increasing your awareness can only help. So thank you Liv for spreading the love and awareness; I think we can all glean something from it.

So please go check out her blog and read a few of the stories. Here is the link: http://www.livwrites.com/search/label/infertility

♥

Love you Mom!

For those of you following me on other forms of social media, you may already know about this. So I'm sorry for the repeats. On Thursday my mom was rock climbing at a rock gym that she goes to every week. A winding mechanism on a slack line broke, and struck my mom in the face and hands. Let's just say she got kind of jacked up... she had 4 broken bones in her face, broke both of her hands, and had multiple lacerations. Apparently it was her wearing her glasses that saved her eye from sustaining any damages (it was swollen shut, but the eye is fully functioning). On Friday she had back to back surgeries to put plates in her face and pins/screws in her hands. So far she is recovering well and is headed home today. We all really appreciate your prayers and support.

I'm sad to see my mom all banged up on mothers day, but I'm so glad that she wasn't hurt more seriously. Thankfully though, my mom is one tough cookie! I mean hello, she rock climbs in her spare time :) My mom is amazing, and is also a wonderful grandmother. She is always so sweet and patient and fun. I could not have asked for a better mother. I love you so much mom! GET WELL SOON! ♥

Five whole years

These pictures are completely out of order. But they're some of my favorites of us. If I was super organized I would know where all my pictures of everything was located...but that's one of my goals haha.

It's been a great five years. We've done a lot. We've lived in three different places, and owned and sold a home. We graduated from school and we got real jobs that are actually in our field. We paid off all our student loans. We've seen Beyonce and Britney Spears in concert (one of those was clearly better than the other hahaha). After being told we wouldn't be able to have kids without IVF w/ICSI, we had Henry. Then about a year later we were blessed to get pregnant with George. I've just become a SAHM. And most of all, we are happy. Thank goodness, right? ;) haha. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH JUJI!!! Happy anniversary :)

moving on...

Jules, from this lovely blog, posted the above picture on her Instagram the other day. And I loved it so much, I had to steal it. It was another confirmation of what I've been working towards lately...

One of my friends posted this on her Facebook page a few weeks ago and it was what I needed to hear that day. When I read this, the things that resonated with me were title, position, and income. Again, another confirmation of what I needed to do...

I've also found a few good quotes in some books I've read lately (maybe I'll find them and use them for a future post...) that all kind of relate to taking control of your own happiness. And doing what you want to do in your life. And guess what? I'm not happy working at home in my current position. The hours were too long, I was forced to ignore my child all day in order to accomplish my high work load, and I was constantly stressed out. While I'm grateful for this time I've had working at home, because it has helped me sort out my priorities more, I've had enough.

Now that we've paid off all our student loans/medical bills, we are blessed to be in the position where I don't need to work if I don't want to. And I don't want to anymore. I want to stay at home and play with my son. I want to be able to go out to the playground with Henry and be carefree and FUN. I also want to have time (and energy) to pursue my other interests. I haven't even done anything with my sewing machine since we moved. I've barely even read a book. These past few months I have just become more and more stressed, and it has been a complete revelation to realize I don't need to put myself (and my family) through this anymore.

So last week I put in my two weeks notice. It was freeing. It was like a weight lifted from my shoulders. I am more excited for the future and for all the opportunities I will have because of this. And I am happy. Happy with my decision, happy with my life, happy with my family, just plain HAPPY. And it's awesome. I am so grateful that I have made this choice, and for a supporting husband, family, and friends who have helped me so much. Cheers to happiness ♥ It's definitely something worth fighting for.

baby bump update: 19 weeks

I haven't talked too much about my pregnancy yet on my blog. Probably because I've been so busy with work lately, and we had so many people visiting I had to blog about those first :) Yesterday marked 19 weeks pregnant. I got an ultrasound on Friday, and got to see little George--my midwife's office even called me yesterday to say they looked over all the ultrasound pictures and everything looked good. 

19 weeks. Pretty sure my pants are unbuttoned in this pic. I need Josh to find my maternity clothes soon.

So that's a big difference with my last pregnancy: this time I'm seeing a midwife. I went and saw an obgyn here in Cedar (w/decent google reviews), but didn't really get awesome vibes from him. Not knowing who else to go to in a new city, I decided to do a google search for midwives. I found an amazing one whose office is in the hospital, and she also delivers in the hospital. Once I found out she delivered in the hospital (I don't want to do any home birthing, that frightens me!), I was sold. On my first visit with her she chewed me out about my eating habits. I was feeling so sick that it was hard for me to eat, and I was popping Zofran twice a day. She talked to me about improving my diet and increasing my food intake, and explained how that could actually help my nausea. While she was very blunt/direct, it's what I needed to get my butt in gear. And since then, while I'm still somewhat nauseous, I've only had to take a Zofran once or twice in the past 2 weeks, and only threw up once. Gigantic improvement! While my morning sickness hasn't been as bad as with Henry (thank goodness!), I still was throwing up usually once a day.

"hello, mommy and daddy!"

sorry if 3d freaks you out, but here he is all smushed in there :)

Oh, I'm also planning on delivering without medication...... Ahh! While it makes me super anxious, I think it will be a better experience than my epidural experience with Henry. I'm going to take a hypnobirthing class starting in June. So wish me luck and send good thoughts my way when that time comes ;)

All in all, so far so good. While I've gone through specific food-obsessed phases, I haven't had any bizarre cravings. At my last appointment I had only gained 4 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, but I'm sure it's increased since I've been forcing myself to eat more/better. I've already started having to get up in the middle of the night to pee, and have to pee a lot more often than when I was pregnant with Henry. It's funny/weird how even pregnancy can be different. We'll have to wait and see how different the actual children are from each other! We are so looking forward to getting to meet this sweet baby in person, and we're just about half way there. Thanks again for everyone's kindness :)

Uncle BJ came to visit!

Uncle BJ came to visit us this weekend, and we had a lot of fun. Henry and BJ became BFF almost instantly, and played with eachother the entire weekend. Here are some cute pictures from the visit (there will be a full photo dump on Henry's blog shortly).

they each had their own controller

BJ took Henry to check the mail

there was lots of playing with blocks

Thank you so much for coming over BJ, we loved having you! And thanks for being so sweet to Henry :)

Easter

This Easter was brought to you by Mok and Pok. We got Henry a new outfit, and a cute little Easter basket. His outfit was a little big on him...we got 18 month sizes, but then the shirt is untucked it's a little large. The pants seemed humongous, and then later I noticed the tag said 24 months. Oops!

No candy for this dude! We did get him some cookie treats though :) And a toy train and some Elmo "eggs"

He was so happy with his basket. It was adorable.

It was cute to see him carrying it around, and holding it up to his face to "give it love"

Even Jay-Z got to have some fun with Easter

We had a wonderful Easter. I posted a lot more pictures of Henry over on his blog. It was just too cute to see him all decked out in his new clothes and enjoying all the little parts of his basket. My favorite of it all though was seeing him carry it around and hold it to his face while saying "Awww". So precious. Thank you so much Mok and Pok! And I hope everyone was able to enjoy the day with their families :)

grandparents visits!

Whoa, it's been busy up in here!!! Last Saturday was my birthday (I turned 26), and my parents came up to visit from Arizona. They haven't seen Henry since Thanksgiving, so it was about time we got together again! I stole some pictures from their camera, but I don't think I got them all :( boo!

"What you lookin at?"

my mom and me :)

Henry loves climbing the stairs and peeking through the rails

having fun with Grammy

Josh decorated our townhouse for my birthday. Isn't he so cute??

My parents left Monday, and then Josh's parents came on Tuesday. Henry was spoiled!!

birthday cookie! i love it when my birthday continues past the real day haha

Mimi got to come to swim class with us (see Henry's blog for more pics from that!)

Henry snuggled with Mimi

there were walks outside

and trips to the park!

slide!

swinging with eachother

chillin with Bear

Mimi and Bear got him a cowboy hat!

i love this picture :)

swinging with Mimi

Mimi put together Henry's wagon. He was really excited.

Cruisin!

he loved it

we found a horse that my parents had visited w/Henry before

and fed him carrots!

It was so fun to spend time with both sets of Henry's grandparents! We had an aboslute blast, and we were definitely sad to see them go. Thank you for visiting Grandpa and Grammy and Mimi and Bear!! We love you ♥