I wish I had the guts to do this to my stairs.

I’m happy and here’s why:

1.  WE’RE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!  We arrived back in KC Wednesday night and were reunited with our sweet baby girl!!!!!!!!  Words cannot even begin to express how giddy I am over being back with her…even if she is a bit on the ornery side after spending a week with grandparents that are tied around her itty-bitty finger.

2.  Our trip to Denver went well.  I’m still recovering from the egg retrieval, but feel better today than I have since Tuesday morning.  We have several growing embryos safely tucked away in an incubator in Denver just waiting for my body to calm down and come back for their transfer.  Please continue to pray that they grow healthy and strong and that my body quickly prepares for the big transfer.

3.  The ROYAL wedding was today!!!  I love weddings.  This one was fab in my opinion.  I’m a Catholic wedding virgin, so I’m considering this my first.  Is that weird that I’ve never been to a Catholic wedding?  Funny thing is I’m physically attending one tomorrow night.  Now I know what to expect.  Are they always that long?

4.  Kate’s PRINCESS KATHERINE’S {or is it ‘Catherine’s'} dress was GORGEOUS!  Love, love, loved it.  So elegant.

5.  Pippa’s dress…also gets an A+.  Stunning.

6.  Why don’t we get to wear fun, crazy hats in America like they do in Great Britain?  I loved looking at all the head-wear at the wedding.  Some were absolutely ridiculous, I’ll admit, but some were so amazing!  Does anyone wear these other than when attending the Kentucky Derby?  I might just try to start a new trend here in the States.

7.  Because of the wedding, I’ve officially developed a new celebrity crush.  David Beckham is his name.  Heard of him?  I grew up near the home of Friday Night Lights.  American football is the only kind of football recognized in that neck of the woods.  I’ve never ever been into soccer.  Probably never will be.  But, oh my gosh, I have to say that DB was looking pretty stinkin’ handsome at the nuptials this morning.  Can somebody please tell me why Victoria doesn’t look a bit more excited about the fact that he’s her man?

And don’t worry, Trav was upstairs getting ready for work and I actually made him come downstairs just to confess my thoughts.  He didn’t seem too threatened.

8.  The weather is INCREDIBLE today.  I’ve been begging for some good weather and that’s just what we have on our hands.  It’s just too bad that I have loads of laundry and house work to do.  I wish we had a retractable roof on our house.  Or perhaps just a cleaning lady.

9.  Trav’s sister, Lara, is getting married in Mexico next week.  We’ll be heading down for the big day and can’t wait!  Just thinking about attending Lar’s wedding, relaxing on the beach, seeing Arle make her flower girl debut, seeing Arle play on the beach for her very first time, and just getting away to re-charge with my sweet family makes me smile.  The countdown is on.

10.  Did I mention that I’m home?

First of all, if you asked a question in my last post, the answers are in that post’s comments.  Keep ‘em coming, if you have more.  I don’t have much to do out here on this gray Easter day, so answering questions is a form of entertainment for me.

I failed to answer one of the most common questions we get about this whole IVF gig…”Why in the world do you have to be in Denver so long???”  Basically, they want to keep super-duper close tabs on everything my body’s doing and have me come in for daily ultrasounds and blood work.  The ultrasounds show how many follicles my body is producing and their sizes {follicles are what eventually produce eggs}.  The blood work shows what my hormones are doing.  All those factors added together tell the doctor when it’s time to retrieve the eggs.

It’s an egg hunt just in time for Easter!

Sorry.  Just trying to keep this from being too serious.

Honestly, though, it doesn’t even seem like Easter today.  Doesn’t seem like a holiday at all, really.  I started the day early with an always-dreaded internal ultrasound and then followed that up with them sucking more blood from my arm.

Good times.  Typically I prefer to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection with some nice ham, green beans, and perhaps some sort of pie.

Luckily, the ultrasound and blood work showed that I’m ready for retrieval.  I have 17 good looking follicles.  My hormones on the other hand are a bit out of control.  Not a huge deal, but it does change some things.

Want to hear some crazy numbers?  A normal girl’s estrogen should be somewhere between 50-400.  During ovulation, between 400-1500.

Want to know what my estrogen level was this morning?  Are you sitting down?

4, 835!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shouldn’t I be an absolute crazy woman at this point?  Shouldn’t I be crying and bitchy and absolutely psychotic with levels that high????  Isn’t that what Glenn Close’s levels probably were in Fatal Attraction?  Shouldn’t Trav be sleeping with one eye open?

Believe it or not, I’ve been totally fine.

Except for the fact that I just bought my third jumbo box of Hot Tamales and will surely polish them off within a couple of hours.  And I’m sitting here drinking Fanta.  Pretty sure this is the first time that’s ever happened within the borders of the good ol’ US of A.  I usually reserve Fanta drinking for when I’m in another country.  Why is that?  It’s really good stuff!

I was so worried that I would be a weepy, stressed-out, hot mess through all of this, but really I’ve only had one morning of crying and it was just two days into the process and due to me thinking about leaving Arle for so many days.

Praise the Lord for no major side-effects to all these crazy meds!

But, because my hormone levels are so high, they will not implant any embryos at this time.

We will go home after retrieval, let my body calm down and recover from all the meds I’ve been on, and then we’ll come back for the embryo transfer when my body is ready.

Got all that?  TMI??  Yes, I know.

So that’s that.

Other than being poked and prodded, blogging, eating Hot Tamales, and drinking Fanta, I’m spending the rest of this chilly day laying on the sofa reading a FABULOUS book…Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist.  Such a perfect read for this period of my life.  Amazing perspective on dealing with the ups and downs that life brings. A great read for any and all women in your life.

Toodles!

Well.

We’re officially in Denver.

We’re officially doing this thing.

We’re officially broke.

Which means we’re officially on a strict diet of Ramen Noodles, Mac & Cheese, and cereal.  Seriously.  We really did just get back from the grocery store where we really did buy Ramen Noodles.  It just seemed like the right thing to do after we had to drop another huge chunk of change on medications earlier today.

It’s only been 36 hours and we’re already missing Arle like CRAZY.  Poor thing had to be taken to the doctor just hours after we left town because she was complaining about her ear.  Sure enough, she had an ear infection.  Luckily, she’s in good hands.  And she’s a homebody, so it’s good that she’s been able to stay right there in her own bed while we’re off living in a hotel.  It was a hard decision to be away from her for so long, but hopefully it will be worth it in the end.

I get question after question after question about this whole insane process called IVF.  I thought I would try to think of some of the FAQs we get, just to fill you in a bit.

Why did you come to Denver when there are doctors in Kansas City?   Two years ago, I had 4 or 5 different people (none of whom knew each other) tell me about a Dr. Schoolcraft in Denver.  Each of these conversations happened within a two week period.  It seemed like we were suddenly being pointed in this direction.  We prayed about it and finally decided to look into it.  He is regarded as the best of the best when it comes to treating infertility.  We knew we would only be able to afford IVF once, so we decided we wanted our one shot to be the best shot and made an appointment. 

Do you feel like you’re taking control away from God?  No, we don’t.  We wrestled with this question ourselves for a loooooong time.  After much prayer about whether or not we were taking control from God, we finally felt the Lord was reminding us that He and He alone was in control.  Always.  Even when doctors are involved.  He reminded us that he uses doctors all the time to heal people.  A doctor trying to help someone create life is no different from a doctor trying to help someone prevent death.  In the end, we trust that the Lord is in control no matter what.  He is the creator of life, not our doctor. 
Are you excited????  Sometimes.  It all depends on what part of the process I think about.  If I think about the fact that all of this could end with babies then, yes, I’m SUPER excited.  If I think about the fact that it might not work, I get a sick feeling in my stomach.  If I think about all the shots I’m taking, daily blood-draws, and the possible side-effects that come with it all, I get nervous.  If I think about being away from my baby girl for 1-2 weeks, I cry.  So, yes excitement is in there, but it’s jumbled in with every other emotion you can imagine. 

Are you going to be the next Octomom? NO, I’M NOT.  I’m 99.9% sure the Octomom did intra-uterine insemination, NOT in-vitro fertilization.  And my doctor is ultra-conservative.  He doesn’t want to put my body in danger.  We will only implant two embryos.  If there are any extras, they will be frozen and we’ll implant them later.

Any other questions you want me to answer?  Ask me in the comments below and I’ll answer later. 

Ta ta for now. 

Finally…good news to share!!!!!!!!

My ultrasound was 100% clear on Thursday!  Not one single cyst!  I cannot even remember the last time I had a report like that.  Quite the miracle!

AND my hormone levels were great, too!

All of this means that we are FINALLY going to Denver.

And we leave tomorrow.  Needless to say, the last few days have been an absolute whirlwind.

I can’t hardly believe that we’ve been given the green light after all this time.  A big, huge, gigantic thank you for all the prayers you’ve said for us.  Please don’t stop now.

Pray for my body to continue to cooperate.

Pray for wisdom for my doctor and nurses.

Pray for Trav to be able to handle a weepy wife.

Pray for Arle to be OK without Trav and I during this time.  She’s staying here with the grandparents and will surely be spoiled rotten by the time we return.

Pray that the result of all this craziness is a baby or babies!!!

I’ll do my best to keep the updates coming.

Toodles!

Arle has grown approximately 842 inches since the last time I posted pics of her.  She definitely has lost that toddler look and now looks like a real-life big kid these days.

My heart can’t take it.

We were out and about with my friend, Bethany, and her little sweet-pea, Campbell, a few weeks ago.  Bethany took some great pics of the my sweet baby girl.  

P.S. Raise your hand if you saw the title of this post and thought I had an announcement to make.

Not yet.

I have an appointment on Thursday to see if my body has cooperated this month.  Prayers are greatly appreciated!

After much surgery, my laptop is back on my lap right where it belongs.  Poor Momdiggity has been neglected for so long that I don’t even know where to begin.  Not that things have been particularly exciting around here or anything.

Probably the most exciting thing is that we had our first official spring break in our house since Trav was in law school back in ’04.  Now that Arle is in pre-school and there was an actual spring break on the calendar, I just couldn’t bear the thought of not taking advantage.  She and I packed up the car and drove eight hours to visit my BF, Virginia, and her two boys in Texas.  Her husband was out of the country for the week and we decided she could use some company.

The visit was nice and laid-back, although there was a brief moment of craziness when we were playing in the front yard with the kids and suddenly heard a strange noise.  It took us a second to realize that the noise was Virginia’s dog being hit by a car.

Can we just pause for a moment to talk about how I’m probably not the best person in the world to offer up support in a moment like this?  For those of you who are new here…I’m NOT a dog person.  At all.

So, we run over to check on the dog.  Virginia immediately started praying over her.  I was standing there like a bumbling idiot trying to come up with something appropriate to say.  All I could come up with was to ask if she wanted to take her to the vet.  As soon as I got the words out of my mouth, it became pretty clear that the dog was paralyzed and wasn’t going to make it. She died within a minute.

Poor Josh, V’s 3-year-old son, and Arle came running up to see what all the commotion was about.  Believe it or not, I actually got a few tears in my eyes at this point.  I was afraid Josh was going to be upset, but he really didn’t get what was going on.  He just thought the dog was hurt.  Arle on the other hand has developed quite the curiosity about death recently and totally recognized what was happening.

Josh kept saying, “Awww, Maggie’s hurt.  Maggie’s hurt.”

Arle was kind enough to get right up in his face and loudly enunciate, “Josh. You. Don’t. Have. A. Dog. Anymore.”

I pulled her aside and told her that probably wasn’t the best thing to say at a time like this.  Or any time.  Ever.

After a little bit of brainstorming about how in the heck we were going to get the dog off the street and what to do with her after she was off the street, we came up with an idea to pull her onto a make-shift sled and V dragged it to the back yard and some guys later came and buried her.

After it was all said and done, V declared that I was the perfect person to have been there because anybody else would have been a basket-case and that would have upset everyone.

I just knew my anti-dog ways would come in handy someday.

1.  We were all ready to leave for Denver on Saturday for our IVF cycle.  My cyst isn’t completely gone, but it was much smaller…small enough to proceed {perhaps my hippie tactics worked, eh????}.  We thought we were good to go and in the clear. 

Until late Wednesday afternoon, that is. 

That’s when they called and cancelled the cycle because my blood test showed that my estrogen levels were high when they were supposed to be low. 

I  handled the news pretty well this month, though.  No crying.  No profanity.  No pity parties.

So we’re staying on this roller coaster for a while longer. 

Yippee. 

We’ve been on it for over six years now.  What’s a few more months, right?

2.  I don’t want this blog to turn it to some dark, depressing dungeon where all I ever talk about is how my reproductive system likes to malfunction. 

3.  I’m going to blame my lack of blogging lately on the fact that Arle accidently knocked my laptop off the table and it no longer turns on.  Trav was kind enough to loan me his work lap top tonight so I could get my surfing fix.

Anybody here in KC know of an awesome computer geek that can fix my computer and not rob me blind in the process??

4.  This time of year in Kansas City absolutely KILLS me.  It’s been a brutally cold winter with WAY too much snow.  I’m over it.  I’m dying to put my winter clothes away and put on a pair of these:

5. Speaking of fun things to wear for spring, how stinkin’ cute is this maxi dress????

6. Or this one…

7.  The end.

I’ve officially turned into a hippie.

Except that I still wear deodorant.

And I don’t smoke weed.

And I take showers. Every now and then.

Really, I guess the only thing that makes me a hippie is that I’m spending most evenings of late doing some weirdo homeopathic stuff to try to get rid of this damn cyst.

After a very thorough and professional Google search for natural remedies for ovarian cysts {because we all know that the ol’ Intranet is chock full of accurate medical advice}, I kept coming across something called a Castor Oil Pack.

Everybody’s doin’ it.  Or at least people that have ovarian cysts.  Or maybe just hippies that have ovarian cysts.

Basically I soaked a piece of un-dyed, un-bleached wool flannel in castor oil.

Then I put it on my tummy.

Then Trav puts a big piece of Saran Wrap on top of it (sounds kinky, I know.  I promise there’s nothing sexy about it.  Nothing.  At all.).

Then I put a heating pad on top of the Saran Wrap.

Then I lay there for an hour while this strange concoction “pulls the toxins from my body.”

Don’t judge me.  I’m desperate.

Anybody ever heard of this craziness before???  Does it really work???

I think you’re all well aware of the fact that adoption is super-duper dear to my heart.  It’s blessed us in such an extraordinary way and I LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear about others who are beginning the sweet journey towards adoption.

Enter the Porters.

The Porters have begun the process of adopting a baby into their fab family and you have the opportunity to help them do just that.

Rachel has a blog over at http://loveisrising.blogspot.com/.

She and her awesomely creative sisters have also started an Etsy Shop to raise money for the adoption.  ALL proceeds go towards helping them bring home their sweet baby.  Click here to check out all their fab goodies.

She’s doing a fun giveaway of some of the items from her shop today and you should absolutely check it out! Click below for all the details.