"Fort Fun"

Or...kinda...not quite. So Chase and I had a wonderful idea to build a fort in our front room and then watch Monsters Inc. inside with Jayda. Yeah...it didn't work out too well. Jayda didn't understand the concept of a fort and kept trying to pull the blankets down. She played underneath for just a short while and then started the de-forting process. Well when Chase left the room all of a sudden I hear a huge bang and a splatter. Chase had used his mom's snow globe thing to weight down a blanket and when Jayda pulled on it she pulled the globe down and it broke everywhere. I'm so glad she didn't end up getting hurt. When Chase saw what happened he started to panic since he thought it was a very sentimentally valued globe that her old boss had given her before he died (turned out it wasn't). But seeing him just fall to pieces in front of this broken globe made me just think of this little boy who was scared to death to tell him mommy about the globe he accidently broke. It was funny but sweet.

I think we'll wait a couple more years before making another fort building attempt.

Yeah we seriously need to improve our fort building skills. On the right is where the snowblobe used to be.

Halloween Trunk-or-Treat

Kinda late on this but heres some pics of Jayda at our ward trunk-or-treat. She LOVED the 5 cars that were there to get candy from. She has no idea whats in store for her on Monday. She's gonna flip! Can't wait to see it.

Dressed as her little tinkerbell

Jayda and her little friend Courtney (Ciara's friend)

Jayda at the "fishing" booth

This is Jayda every time I pull out my camera now. She just says a big "chhhheese". So cute. Oh yeah and she got her face painted with a pumpkin on it.

She was so excited with the concept of getting candy for no apparant reason. She looked so amazed.

Just kidding....

So yeah totally wrong about the whole doctor situation. I messaged him today asking him what the heck I'm supposed to do since I was so confused on where to go (by the way I love how I can just message him online instead of going through the whole hoopla of calling the office and going through a million people and waiting for the dr to call you back yadda yadda yadda). When I talked to his medical assistant she made it seem like I wasn't high risk so I wanted to make sure that she was right in that I don't go to him because obviously I am very high risk and he specializes in high risk. Well turns out I will be able to go to my dr but I will just be going to a high risk clinic in conjunction with some other doctors. I'm totally stoked that I'll still be able to see him but bummed that its because I am so high risk. I wish I could just be boring.

Of course thats a mute point until I get pregnant. Hopefully I'll be going to his high risk clinic instead of his fertility clinic. The lesser of two evils. Ei yie yie! (How in the heck do you write that out anyways? You get the point.....)

Seriously depressed....

Ok not really but I'm super sad! I found out today that the doctor I go to now can't be my doctor when I get pregnant. Starting November 9th (??) he is going to be accepting a position over at Dixie Regional as the OB hospitalist and heading up the Fertility Clinic here in St. George. I knew before that he was but I misunderstood and thought he was still accepting high risk just not normal OB patients. Wrong. :(

I think its awesome that they are creating the clinic since there are so many people that need it here in St. George but dang he is the best doctor ever and his staff is the best ever so I'm seriously depressed now! UGH what am I going to do? The other doctor that is still in his practice will still be there but I don't know him at all. Dr. Chalmers will still be at MFM so I might see him there when I get referred but geez this sucks the big one!

P.S. I ovulated on time even though we went to Disneyland. Chata-ching baby!

Giuliana Rancic, breast cancer, and IVF

Well if you haven't heard from the multiple news reports....Giuliana Rancic has breast cancer and she is only 36. What a shocker! If you don't keep up with Giuliana Rancic she is a host on the E! channel and has her own reality show with her husband Bill called "Giuliana and Bill". I've never seen the show but have heard from others that if you are struggling with infertility its a good show to watch since she struggles with infertility. She has gone in for a couple IVF's and has had one miscarriage at 8 weeks. She was going to do another IVF but then her doctor said he will never do an IVF on a woman (of any age) until they get a mammogram because of the smallest chance they have cancer doing IVF with all the hormones could speed it up. She wasn't expecting to have negative results but it came back that she had the early stages of breast cancer. She went in for surgery today and will go in for radiation soon (I think). She plans to do IVF in the future but obviously that is on hold for now.

Stories like this not only bring me back to reality that my situation is not as severe and I have a ton to be grateful for, but also that everything happens for a reason. It's amazing that in a way having infertility most likely saved her life. Had she not needed the IVF and gotten the mammogram she wouldn't have known. Even if she had gone to another doctor that didn't require that then she wouldn't have known. It's just amazing how life works out. Most of the time its not according to plan but 9 times out of 10 you can look back and say "Ok.. now I kinda get it". I don't think we'll ever understand fully "why" in this life but I think you can see how certain trials in your life form the paths you will walk in life. One day the whole journey will make sense. I just know it.

Prayers for Giuliana today. I think she is just stunning and I know she'll hold a baby one day...one way or another.

Happily Ever After....

If only.....thats the way life worked.

So emotionally this facebook break has been wonderful for me. I've spent more time with Chase and Jayda, focused on school a lot better, and excercised more. It's been really good for my stress levels since it was really hard to see pregnancy everywhere. As a result, this cycle has been awesome...I guess Disneyland really helped with that too especially since I was ovulating this weekend so it really kept my mind off of it. Except I was pretty sore and bloated and walked 8 or 9 miles at the least a day really hurts. But this 3rd round of clomid really has been a breeze. I'm thinking my body is like "ok I getcha.... I know what this is" and my side effects haven't been that bad at all. I wasn't even rude when I was taking it. Chase actually said I was acting giddy and strange. haha But if we do concieve this cycle it will have happened in the happiest place on earth. Aww precious. So I'm definaltly hoping for my "happily ever after" but of course the negative nelly in me isn't holding her breath. I bought a braclet in Disneyland that said "Have Faith. Expect Miracles". I'm not sure if it was an omen but it broke within 30 minutes. But... I fixed it and have been wearing it ever since. I tied that puppy right back on and its not going anywhere. 

Downtown Disney with my preemie mamas

On saturday after doing Disneyland for the first 2 days we decided to go down to Downtown Disney and met up with some of my preemie mom friends. We went to ESPN Zone (for Chase of course) for lunch and met up with Aimee (she had twin 28 weekers Kaleb and Kennidee who are almost 4 after years of infertility, IUIs and IVFs) and Dawne (has Zach who is a 25 weeker who was due within a few days of Jayda...pretty much NICU twinners). It was a lot of fun and definatly refreshing since I miss my preemie mamas while I've been on my Facebook break...which has been great by the way.

After lunch the kids played outside for a little bit and it was cute to see all these little miracles interacting together. It was pretty cool to watch actually. Thanks for driving all the way from San Diego Dawne (I probably spelled your name wrong but I am saying it right in my head this time I promise! haha). Aimee you are so cute and it was so GOOD to meet you finally!

Later on that night we met up with my Uncle Carey and my Aunt Annette for dinner. They live in Yorba Linda which is about 15min away from Disney. Lucky dogs. It was nice to see them!

Zach and Jayda together at lunch. Zach kept eating Jayda's food which was hilarious. She kept trying to feed him fries too. haha

All the kiddos and mamas. It was difficult getting the littles all to stay still!

You have no idea how hard that was to get them all to stay that way for 2.5 seconds.

Awww Zach was so sweet to Jayda.

Kaleb and Kennedie (prob spelled their names wrong sorry) playing in the plants. They were so cute! Jayda was just enthralled by her!

Disneyland!!

So. Much. Fun. Never seen a little girl happier which of course made us so happy. It was so great to get away for a bit and just be a little family just the three of us. And for being a rambuncious little 2 year old she did extremely well in the car. We took my inlaws van that has a dvd player and I think that made all the difference.

We went for two days and the first day she was kinda like what the heck is this and would cry the entire time in line and until the rides started, but by the second day she got the hang of it and was so happy to wait in line. She loved the teacup ride and kept calling it "CUPS! CUPS!". She met Minney Mouse, Mickey Mouse (and let me just say I find it a little ridiculous that you have to wait in line for 30min to meet a stupid mouse....ever hear of doubles disneyland? I think if I pay $300+ you could pay a few more doubles to roam around DISNEYland! Geesh. The things we do to see our kids smiles for 2.5 seconds. Then she met Handy Manny (who she hated and did NOT want to kiss), Max (Goofy's son....whoever the hell cares about him? :D ), and Jessie and Woody. We saw the princesses from afar but I drew the line at waiting 45 min in line to see a stupid princess. Sorry Jayda. We're such evil parents.

We didn't ride any of the bigger rides since we had Jayda but it was such a blast to see her enjoying herself. We did a lot of walking since we had out hotel about .8 of a mile away so we def worked off a lot of calories. We watched the parade twice and she loved it! Mainly it was about meeting characters and riding the little rides. We went to the Disney Junior Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show for little kids and it was pretty cool. It was pretty much a puppet show of all the Disney Junior shows like MickeyMouse Club House, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins. It was a really cute show. We took like 300+ pictures so here are just a small few.

This was as we were walking in the park. She was so excited!

She LOVED Minnie and she better since we seriously waited like 45 min to see her. We were in line before and she "left to go make Mickey Mouse breakfast". Bunch of bullcrap if you ask me. haha

Waiting in A Bugs Life ride line

She loved the "monsies" ride. It was such a cute ride.

She hated Handy Mandy. But we have been giving her a hard time the whole weekend saying "You made Handy Mandy sad" and she just keep smiling and said "Handy Mandy sad". She thought it was pretty funny that he was so sad. haha She's evil.

She LOVED meeting Woody and Jessie in Frontier Land. It was nice to get a one shot deal too and we got there right in time so we didnt have to wait very long. She loved it though and gave them lots of kisses.

She gave Maz a big kiss and hug. I think she thought he was goofy.

She loved Mickey Mouse! He was right about to go to his show so he was all dressed up.

This was her facial expression a lot of the time. Not sure but just enthralled at the same time. This was at the parade.

NICU reunion 2011

Dr. Ridout with both Jayda and her roommate Brynlon. They are so big it's crazy!

Today was the annual NICU reunion at Staley Farm. It was fun to go and see some of the nurses, our roomies, and Dr. Ridout. When we first got there we didn't recognize very many people and a lot of the nurses weren't there. :( But we did see some of them so that was good. We left around 11:30am or so because Jayda was really tired and Chase had to go to work. But then one of my roommates from the NICU who also had a 26weeker called me and was like "Where the heck are ya". Luckily we lived down the street so we went back. It was so good to see them and Brynlon has gotten SO big! Here are some pics of our day!

Roomies. So adorable.

My favorite person ever. KerryAnn the lactation specialist.



One of many of my favorite primary nurses, Angie. Oh, I remember those days when she would lay this little 1lb-2lb baby on my bare chest with all these wires attached. Now look at her!



This is Stacey and her son Corbin. He was a 23 weeker who has spent most of his life in a hospital setting. He was in the NICU for a year and then in the PICU after that. He's quite an amazing little guy. Very inspiring.

I love this picture of Jayda. Little bunnies.

Jayda trying to get away from Emily, one of our other favorite primary nurses. She was the nurse that was on when my sister did that big photo shoot when Jayda was just a few weeks old.


I <3 our NICU. Great people. Sometimes I miss those days which is totally bizarre. But the 90 days we were there they were my angels and became like my family. I will be forever grateful to them for helping me by being my "unofficial" therapists on those very dark days and for helping my Little Jader Bug get through the first hellish 3 months of her life.  <3 them.

My Bucket List

So in my counseling class we have been talking about Existentialism and according to this theory people want to bring meaning into their life. Everyone has a different meaning in life but as long as it fulfills your meaning then life is purposeful. The theorist is Viktor Frankl and he wrote the book "Man's search for Meaning". It's a good short read...you could probably read it in half a day. Frankl was a holocaust survivor and from his experiences he learned that without meaning a person has no reason to live and will commit suicide. He watched it first hand in the concentration camps. I love his theory and trust me I don't do it justice. Thinking about it drove me to write out My Bucket List. Every person's list is different but what's really important is that you accomplish everything that you can. So I'm gonna get started now!

1. Go to Germany and visit as many Holocaust museums and concentration camps as I possibly can (I'm a big WWII nut).
2. Backpack Europe and visit Italy, Paris, London, etc.
3. Run a full marathon.
4. Run a half marathon
5. Be on a T.V. show
6. Get onto Price is Right
7. Get on the show Survivor
8. Go parasailing
9. Get my Bachelors in Psychology
10. Get in and graduate from Grad school in Social Work
11. Get my PhD.
11. Become a social worker and work with children and women with emotional trauma
12. Open my own practice and become a therapist
13. Trace all of my family history on both sides as far as humanly possible.
14. Become a mom
15. Be someone my children look up to and respect
16. Adopt an unadoptable child or a toddler aged child.
17. Visit Washington, D.C. to see all the sites
18. Go to New York and see the 9/11 memorial
19. Meet someone famous (I sat on Aaron Carter's lap at the Billboard Music Award to get a picture and met a bunch of other people).
20. Have all 70 of my preemie moms and their kids together in one room
21. Go on a church history tour
22. Go full term or at least 36 weeks
23. Pay for someone's meal without them knowing.
24. Write a book
25. Fit into size 3 pants
26. Save someone's life
27. Serve a mission with Chase
28. Be the coolest, fittest old lady ever
29. Give up drinking diet soda for an entire year
30. Go to a live taping of Ellen
31. Never take anything for granted
32. Go to the Grand Canyon
to be continued....

Orem Trip

This last weekend we took a quick trip up to Orem to visit my sister and to meet up with a good preemie mom from my preemie group. My sister just had a baby a couple of months ago (on my b-day!!) and she was such a good baby. I hardly ever heard her cry! Jayda loved hanging out with her cuz's. Beck took family pics of us too which I'm sure are soon to come!

Here are some pics of Jayda and her cousins.

Then I met up with Brook and her cute little family. She's one mom that I have really grown close to. Her first took 4 1/2 years to concieve. She went through 5 miscarriages, 3 failed IUIs and just a lot of heartache. Then she finally got Libby but she came at 33 weeks. Then after she had Libby figured it would be a long while before they would be able to blessed with another so they just didn't bother trying. Well she was suprised to find out she was pregnant just a short while after Libby got home from the NICU. I talked to her quite a bit during her pregnancy and I know she was really scared but she helped me through all of my stuff too. She ended up having real gems as doctors who totally screwed her situation up. She went into L&D at 27weeks in labor and 3cm dialated. They stopped her labor and then because her FFN test was negative they sent her home! No steriod shots. No 24 hour observation at the very least. Nothing. SMH! She delievered 2 weeks later and the real catch is that she was in Guam stationed there since her husband is in the air force. Because she went through a military hospital she couldn't switch drs because she had no choice really. So they evaced them to Japan shortly after Presley was born. So she did the NICU twice in one year. She really deserves a medal or something. It was just a jacked up situation. But she has her beautiful girls now but still has raw emotions from what happened obviously especially since she is done having kids. I just love her to pieces! Here are some pics of our meet up!

Me and Brook with the Kiddos

Yes that is my daughter biting Libby's finger. Libby gladly gave it to her too.

This is Libby after she bit her finger and Jayda trying to say sorry. She was having none of that but sure enough just a few minutes later gave her her finger again. haha

Jayda checking in on cute little Presley.

And of course had to put one of the husbands up. Jayda just be crazy! Poor Libby! haha

On to round three

Well the dr messaged me today and told me that we should continue with "the plan" and keep doing the clomid. I had mentioned that I was getting discouraged and he just said not to get discouraged because even if you do everything right you only have a 1/5 shot every month. Well then why can crack whores get pregnant on a drunken night? Lucky bastages.

No but in all seriousness. I do get it. I mean it did take us 3 months to get pregnant the first time so really its only been 2 months of ovulating. So although I've been trying now for about 13-14 months it's really like 2 months. I'm just getting impatient.

Today has already gotten so much better. I took a tylenol PM and slept like a rock. Then I woke up and ran 3 1/2 miles. I haven't done that in so long and it felt so good especially because outside it smelled like fresh rain. Mmmmmm I love that smell. I am also going to get into shape again. My eating and exercise habits have kind of gone downhill so I need to get back on the bandwagon. If I'm not going to be pregnant I sure as heck am going to be skinny!

Another change I am doing is I'm taking a facebook break for awhile and deactivated my account. It's just really hard to log in everyday to ultrasound pictures or "It's a BOY" announcements. It just breaks my heart a little more each time and I hate it. And it seems like its everyday that I find out that someone else is pregnant and it just reminds me how much I just want to be pregnant so bad. So I think a good facebook cleanse is what I need right now.

Also next week we are going to disneyland!! Jayda is going to freaking love it! I can't wait to take her.
This weekend we went up to Orem to see my sister and I met up with a very good preemie mom of mine. I'll post that later today or tomorrow. Shhhh I really should be doing homework right now. Blogging sounds like more fun. :)

Definatly not the update I imagined...

Definatly not pregnant. I just feel so sad, like this is never going to happen for me or if it does it will take a lot to get there. After having a miscarriage, a micropreemie, and now infertility I'm just beginning to think my body isn't cut out for making babies. I know theres a purpose to all of this and that this will make me stronger in the end, but dang...not gonna lie this sucks the big one.

Living it Utah doesn't make things better either. Everywhere I turn there are people pregnant. In fact there are several people that have had 2 kids since I've had Jayda. I know poor me right? Geesh I must sound like a broken record. Oh here we go again....Ashley's little sob stories. I feel like all I do is complain here but honestly this place is my outlet for bad days like these. So I guess as long as I'm going through this I'm gonna sob. Sorry.

Having children is such a personal thing for a woman and when that doesn't work out it just crashes your world. It just makes you question your entire future and what will be in it. I love Jayda with all of my heart but it absolutely breaks mine when I see her holding other babies and loving on them. It absolutely tears my soul out to think that she'll never have a sibling or that she'll be so old before she gets one.

I know there are others out there that have had it way worse and for that I feel a little guilty. But after all I've been through with my uterus I just have hit my breaking point. You win uterus. I'm 0 for 3.

All I know is that I WILL have more kids and that someday this will all make sense.That it worked out truely how it was supposed to. I know that Jayda will be a big sister and that I will feel life in my stomach again. But right now its like there is a cloud hanging over that image and I can't see it very well. I imagine that's how God intended life to be. Something that doesn't always make sense but as you continue your life path the image gets clearer and clearer. Or at least I hope it's like that. Gosh I hope so.