Cautiously Optimistic

It is crazy how soon I will be doing IVF. It is also very scary at the same time. I am still waiting for the clinic to send me my calendar, but that should come in soon. I also should be getting the meds tomorrow. The 16^th of November I will go in for the little training meeting, where they will teach me how to give myself the shots. The 18^th is when I will start injections. I still have a couple weeks before I get to the injections, but things are starting to happen fast.

It is very odd when Mike and I talk about next year. We are hesitant to make plans because who knows where we will be next year. I could be pregnant, or we could be doing a frozen embryo transfer… or some other treatment. I am trying to be optimistic, but I also don't want to get my hopes up… which would leave me further to fall if the IVF doesn't work. It is hard to know how optimistic to let myself be. Yesterday we talked about Mike running the Wasatch 100 Miler (Yes, he is very crazy and is very aware of that) in September. If this IVF works, then I will be like 8 months pregnant. I have no idea what it will be like to be that far along, so I don't know if I would be able to handle being in the support vehicle the whole time he is out. I would like to, but who knows what will happen. I also have no idea if I might end up on bed rest for some reason. There are so many different factors to consider. So it is hard not being able to make concrete plans, but at the same time we don't want to cancel plans because there is always the chance I will still not be pregnant at that time.

So where is a happy medium? I know there is power in positive thinking so I need to keep positive that it will happen…. But at the same time I am scared to let myself really believe it will happen because then it will hurt more if it doesn't happen. So I am very torn in this regard. I find myself wondering how it will be to have a child. I also find myself wondering if I will be any good at taking care of a newborn. The last few nights I have been up very often with the dog (whom is sick). I am exhausted today and rather on the grumpy side. In fact, I am so grumpy that I purposely left the Halloween Candy at home even though they will be doing trick or treating around the office today. I just didn't want to deal with it! So if I am like this only have 3 or 4 days with no sleep… then how am I going to be after weeks of no sleep? How am I going to handle this? How is this going to affect my marriage seeing as I am sure I am not very pleasant for Mike to be around today? There are just so many uncertainties.

All in all I really hope this works. It would be incredible to bring home a baby that Mike and I together created. I am trying to let myself get use to the idea and trying to let myself believe it will happen. I will be really happy once I get past the IVF and the dreaded two week wait. I want to be to the point where I know if it happened and where I have a plan for the future and some sort of idea as to what to expect. If I wasn't a fan of Thanksgiving and Christmas… then I would love to skip ahead to that point, but I will just have to take it one day at a time!

All Boarded Up

When Mike and I were in Yellowstone, I was really looking forward to going to Old Faithful. My parents and I worked there during the summer when I was 16 years old. I have a lot of memories in that area with them. Mike and I have made it a tradition to eat at the grill in the store my parents worked in. I use to eat lunch there every day. I also remember chatting with my mom while eating as she scooped ice cream for customers. So every time we go to Yellowstone we always stop for lunch there.

We arranged with Mike's family to meet up with them later and headed over to my parents old store. This is what we came across when we got there….

You can't tell so much in the picture but the entire store is boarded up. It had already closed for the season. It was heart wrenching for me to see it. In a sense it almost felt right for it to be boarded up since my mom is gone. It made me realize that all I have are the memories now. It was just hard to see.

We then headed back towards Mike's family to go have lunch. While walking Mike pointed at my old store (which was still open) and asked if I still wanted to go walk through it. I had been begging to ever since we had pulled into the Old Faithful area. The minute he asked me and I looked at my old store…. I started bawling. I am sure it confused Mike, and I know it confused his sister whom was walking behind us. I didn't mean to start bawling but I couldn't face it. Suddenly I just wanted and NEEDED to get out of the the Old Faithful area. We ended up heading back to West Yellowstone. Once we got out of the area, I felt much better. I honestly did not expect myself to have that kind of reaction to everything. It hurt though. It almost felt like a stab through the heart seeing everything boarded up.

So a friend put this on facebook and I totally love it!

I guess because I am the world's biggest cry baby, this just makes me feel better. Actually though… it seems to fit how things are going in the whole grieving process. I do not have break downs over my mom nearly as much as I did the first year after her death. They are fewer and further between. When I do have them though, they are worse.

I honestly feel like I go along being brave and being strong, but then one day I can't handle it anymore and I burst. I usually have a huge meltdown with a ton of tears and then slowly I start to feel better. Then I usually can go a few more months before it all happens again. Lucky for me I have the most supportive husband in the world that understands that even though the rest of the world thinks I should be over my mom's death by now… seeing as it has almost been two years… that he understands that everybody grieves differently. He understands that all I need him to do is hold me when I cry and he is very good at that. Heck, even the dog has learned to cuddle up to me when I cry. I honestly don't know what I would do without those two!

Anyways I guess now is a good time to post that little saying seeing as I will be taking psychotic hormonal IVF meds soon, and we are coming upon the two year anniversary of my mom's death. So I am sure there will be some fun emotional posts over the next little while, as well as some angry ones. The emotional roller coaster is just starting, so beware! 

Had the Best Dream Last Night!

It was one of those dreams where I didn't want to wake up.  I dreamt we had all of Mikes family and some of my family all sitting around in a circle. They were passing around and admiring our 2-3 day old baby. It was like we had just gotten home from the hospital and everyone came to see the baby. In the dream it never really leaned towards it being a boy or girl, but it cutest little baby ever. The baby was so small and had such dark hair. At one point the blanket came unwrapped and Mike and I were trying to figure out how to re wrap it. Everyone told us we would learn in time. We were obviously nervous about it and very new parents.

I watched Mike take the baby and stare into its eyes for a minute before passing it on to his parents to admire. I remember the entire time the baby was being passed around, I was really just anxious to have it back in my arms. All I wanted to do was hold it. I could tell Mike felt the same way. His eyes never left the baby as it was being passed around.

It was like in this dream I was just in such awe. Like it had not fully set in that Mike and I had created this beautiful child. It was like I could tell Mike was feeling the same was as me. We we both just stare at this little creature in wonder and awe and almost disbelief that it was really ours and we had really succeeded in having a child.

Anyways my alarm clock went off to remind me to take my birth control (kind of ironic, isn't it?) so I was sad to wake up. I didn't want that dream to end. It gives me hope that Mike and I might someday be in that position. We might some day be holding our little baby staring into its eyes in awe and admiration.

I am nervous about the IVF stuff. I am realizing that financially we my not get a second try. If the first round doesn't work, then we need to have hopefully had extra embryos from it to freeze because we wont be able to afford to go through the whole egg retrieval procedure again. It will be tough enough to scrounge up money for the Frozen Embryo Transfer.  So it will be exciting to do the IVF, but very scary knowing I may not get a 2nd attempt. So there really isn't much to do other than go with the flow and hope that my dream was a glimpse of the future.

Yellowstone...and other things.

We did a Yellowstone trip with Mikes family this year. It was a lot of fun. We ended up driving up during a snow storm, but the weather cleared up the next day. Yellowstone is gorgeous with a dusting of snow.

I did have one major break down while in Yellowstone. We went to Old Faithful and the store my parents worked at was closed down. It almost seemed right for it to be that way since my mom is no longer here. I ended up having a major breakdown and ended up going back to West Yellowstone early. I just could not handle being in that area. I have so many memories with my parents there. It really made me miss my mom and realize all I have left of her are the memories.

We are officially approved for our IVF loan. I am excited but scared. It will be exciting when things start happening. I really hope that IVF works for us. It is scary taking a $15,000 loan, but it will be so worth it to finally have a child of our own.   I will be ordering my meds in about a week and a half. That will be crazy. That will be when it officially begins. I am excited for things to start happening.

I think I am going to need a lot of positive people around me. I know that I need to try to keep myself from stressing out during the IVF. I also think that if I can keep positive and keep believing it will work... then it will up my chances of it working. So I am hoping I will have a lot of people around me who can help keep me positive.  It will be amazing to finally get to experience a pregnancy. I have been dreaming for it for a long time. Its honestly gotten to the point where I have a hard time believing it will really happen. Hence where the positive people will really come in handy.

Anyways, not much else going on besides that. Mike just ran the South Jordan Marathon yesterday and got first place in his age group. It was awesome! I was sick so I didn't go with him in the morning but was feeling better later on so Linda drove me to the finish line. We couldn't find the finish line and were about to give up when I spotted runners off the side of the road... then low and behold I realized that Mike was in that crowd. So we managed to drive over and I got some video footage of him running. I did not get to see him cross the finish line but that's ok. The look of surprise on his face when I tracked him down in the crowd was awesome. He was not expecting me to be there. It topped it all off when he found out he got 1st in his age group. It was a good day!

St George 2011

We headed to St George again for the Marathon. Mike did awesome. He finished in 3:01:56. He shaved 4 minutes off of his best Marathon time. He was finished like 149 out of 5700 runners. He also got first in his age group in the Grand Slam (which is a competition they do where they tally up the times for 4 marathons and give awards based off of that).  It was a very successful weekend. I posted the video of him  running across the finish line.

Other than that I went determined to find more pictures of my mustang. Unfortunately after looking through lots of pictures I was unable to find any of the mustang, but that's ok. I found a lot more than I expected to. I was able to find some of my moms journals. I loved sitting and reading through them. It was fun reading about when she was pregnant with me and got to see an ultrasound and see my heart beating inside of her. also I loved reading about the day I was born. It was fun! I am so glad I got to go through that. I also found the hospital tags from when I was born and lots of cute things I made growing up. One of the cutest things was a letter I wrote to the tooth fairy asking for $5 because my mom was going for surgery in the morning and I wanted to be able to buy her flowers and balloons. So cute! Proof I was an angel! j/k

I also got to go out to dinner with some of my cousins and even stopped and saw my friend Kristin from high school on my way home. We had made a tape recording of ourselves in high school and she was able to burn it on a CD. It is so funny listening to it. It cracks me up. I was such a dork... and I didn't realize how much I talked in the third person... like "Melissa has short legs and cant keep up with you guys."  or "Melissa fall's too much and you guys leave me."  That was all from our ghost hunting trip we did in Silver Reef and Leeds. It was a blast. Sadly I am the worlds biggest chicken which is evident by the fact that I was too big of a chicken to get out of the car much. It just cracks me up.

Anyways I was worried that I would have a hard time this weekend, but I actually did good. The only time I really ever cried or got close to it was reading some of the journal entries from my mom. So I am proud of myself for making it through.

As for my mustang... There is still some hope. We found some old video reels from 1967 that we bought back. Mike's parents have something to play them on so hopefully we can watch them and see if maybe by some miracle my mustang is somewhere in the footage. I guess we will see! Either way it was an awesome trip!