Tag: baby

Steps to making a baby…

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For educational purposes only 😉

Step 1: Wake up bright and early and get ready while your significant other sleeps. Don’t forget breakfast! You’ll need lots of energy.

Step 2: Start the long drive to the fertility clinic. Time may vary.

Step 3: Once you arrive to your clinic of choice, empty your bladder (not pictured).

Step 4: Start hitting the water. Hydration is key.

Step 5: If you can’t bring your significant other, bring some friends instead.

Step 6: Try to relax while being jabbed with tiny needles by your new acupuncturist friend while your bladder slowly fills.

Step 7: Dress up in your new outfit that the nurse picked out just for you. Cute!

Step 8: Try not to pee while the medical staff who are ohhing and ahhhing over this beautiful embryo that’s hatching 😍

Step 9: Empty bladder again.

Step 10: Facetime your husband to find he’s become a jungle gym 🙃

Step 11: Find a McDonald’s and order and eat French fries. You’re not only hungry, but it’s apparently the new good luck thing for fertility challenged folks like me. McDonald’s is probably behind it. They better seal the deal!

NIAW 2020-Day 5

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Today is the last photo challenge day of National Infertility Awareness Week. The theme, Show Your Resolve, kind of threw me off for a minute. I didn’t feel like I had resolved anything related to infertility.

Our childlessness was resolved through adoption. We did become parents. To be able to adopt in a healthy way, we needed to mourn that we would never have a genetic child. And, we did. I also had to mourn that I would never carry a child. I feel like I mourned that connection with a child, but maybe didn’t fully mourn the missed experiences. I would never be able to relate to pregnancy complaints, cravings, nesting, labor, birthing, breastfeeding, etc.

My feelings are often discounted. “You didn’t miss anything.” “Pregnancy is horrible.” “You got a child the easy way.”

Nothing about our journey has been easy!

Emotionally. Physically. Financially. It’s been different. But, not “easy.”

In many ways, I’d be ok not experiencing pregnancy. To miss out on those shared experiences, but I have not resolved myself to being the mother to only one child. I want to be the mother to at least 2 children (more, if possible). That’s the pain I carry around.

As we continue to pursue embryo adoption, we hope to have a shorter wait time and less expense to achieving the family we’ve always imagined. Pregnancy is just the cherry on top to growing our family. COVID-19 will more than likely delay our dreams, but they won’t be canceling them.

NIAW 2020-Day 2

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Over the years, one thing I’ve noticed about most of the fertility challenged men and woman I’ve met is that most are animal lovers, especially dogs. We are no exception!

For us, we currently have 4 pets. 2 dogs. 2 cats. We rescued Ellie (top right) during our first year of trying to conceive when it was becoming clear that becoming parents wasn’t going to be easy.

All our fur babies bring us so much comfort. From snuggles on the couch. To laughs from their crazy antics.

The moment has come…

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Wow! I’ve been unintentionally quiet. The medicine I’m taking makes me so tired, and motivation is hard to come by. We transferred our last donor embryo, Pumbaa, two weeks ago. Today, Continue reading “The moment has come…” →

Scheduling…

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The time has come! Tomorrow, I have an appointment to schedule our next embryo transfer. We have a few things to work around, but we’re thinking we’ll transfer in October or November. But, honestly I’m just hoping it’s the RIGHT timing. Whatever it ends up being 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’ll try to update y’all tomorrow on when we’ll be starting and any changes in the protocol. I don’t expect any, but you never know. We’re excited to see if Pumbaa, our last frozen embryo, will be the one to make us parents again. But, we’re definitely having a lot of “what if” conversations lately. Those can be really hard, but we’re hoping and praying that they’ll all be for nothing, and we’ll be having Baby #2 in Summer 2020 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

If We Build It, Baby Will Come…

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We wanted to do an official post on our Continue reading “If We Build It, Baby Will Come…” →

Day 48: Favorite Pet

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Favorite Pet. I say we can’t pick one, but Chris totally picked Oreo as his favorite. We love all 5 of our furry family members. They all have their own personality, and they get along (most days). I won’t say Ellie is my favorite, but she’s my pal hands down. Oreo is definitely attached to Chris. The cats used to want for a lot of attention, but as they’ve gotten older, they are much more interested in being loners. Digit is still playful. We’re not sure she will ever outgrow it. She typically only wants to play at 2AM. Baby is the hunter, but when she comes inside, she likes to sit on Chris’s chest while he pets her. Joe is such a sweet thing. He’s huge and muscular but wouldn’t hurt a fly. He loves to sun himself, roll in the dirt, and butt heads with people he likes. Inside, you can usually find him curled up in the corner of a room. Pets provide so much love, and we have a lot of them! ~Jess 
  

The Whisker Interviews {Baby}

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Meow…I’m Baby. Not to be confused with a baby. I’m a cat, not a human. Mama named me Baby since Continue reading “The Whisker Interviews {Baby}” →

The Whisker Interviews {Joseph}

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Meow! My name is Joseph. My human family usually calls me Joe, but they sometimes refer to me by my nicknames: Dog and Mr. Tuna. I come running when I hear my name, and what cat doesn’t love tuna? In fact, I had some today. Yum! Continue reading “The Whisker Interviews {Joseph}” →