My Life-- filled with Sweetness x 3: 07/01/2011

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Sleeping under the owl tree....

In my last post, I shared with you that we had ordered this awesome tree decal for the nursery wall. Well it came so quick- and I could not resist putting it up!!! So here it is, it was pretty easy actually. Here is our box waiting for us on our porch.

So basically you had to take it in individual sections and piece it all together. This is a pic of the bottom 2 parts of the trunk.

Then we had to get the ladder because it was so high to the ceiling. Sweetness did a grat job smoothing out those small little branch ends at the top.

Then we added on the extraneous branches on each side.... and voila!!! A whole tree, with a sweet owl looking on.

Now it was time to make this tree come to life.... We added on lots of leaves and still ended up with many left!!!

Then we added the 3 little birds that came with it. When I ordered this I chose white birds because I knew our walls were a light pink but YOU CANT SEE THEM AT ALL!!! So I have written the company to ask them if I could pay for the 3 birdies in another color. I just heard back from them, and they said for an extra $12 they would send me another set of birdies in a dark pink, which should look really nice!!! ..... I ll post a pic when can get them changed.

Here is another look at the birdies..... all 3 of them

And here it is all finished.... I really love it and I think it really brough so much life to the room. I just love it!! I hope you guys do too!!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

A new addition to the nursery

My friend has got me hooked on the website "Etsy." I have spent hours looking at all the amazing creativity of people in handmade crafts and other adorable unique stuff on there.

Well Sweetness and I have been trying to think of a way to spruce up her nursery, it just seemed TOO pink and white- it needed a pop. Well I think we found the perfect answer.

There are several shoppes on Etsy that sell vinyl wall art, it actually just sticks to the wall and comes right off with out damaging the wall. These are really cool. SO I looked a million of them over it seems and this is the one we ultimately decided on.

You can alter the colors on any of these murals. So because we have light pink walls I decided to change the birds to white instead of pink, but other than that I left the tree/owl and the leaves the colors you see in the picture.

I can not wait until it comes in and we can put it up!! I will definitely share here what it looks like.

Also tonight Sweetness and I rearranged the nursery furniture. We needed to move the crib to the largest wall to be able to put the tree mural there and the crib under it. I am happy with the new arrangement and feel like it is all going to come together nicely.

That's about it for now. It has been a nice stress free week at work this week. I gave my last final today and I am all too happy to be done with some of these students I had this term. They were so full of gossip and manipulative. Things got so bad that I had to deactivate my face.book account. I know some of my friends have asked why I unfriended them, that's not it at all, I just was tired of feeling like all my personal stuff was just out there for students to judge and gossip about. So I may get back on FB one day, but I have actually enjoyed not being so tied to that dumb website everyday, it's freed up a lot of time :)

But I will update moire soon. We are still on to go pick up birth mom L on Sunday. Hopefully she will stick to it and we will have her and baby Chloe here safe this weekend.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Chloe's Room

So we have been hard at work setting up the nursery for our special girl. We painted the walls the lightest palest pink. I love how it turned out. We finally got the white dresser in the mail and spent an entire night putting that together. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Then we finally got the crib in after over 3 weeks on order. And surprisingly it went up in about 30 minutes!!! Here is a picture of it all done with her precious "Posy" bedding on it!!

And here is a picture of the view inside the crib of her little snuggle bears, and of course those of you who know my Sweetness in real life, knows he HAD to put a Snoopy in there!! :)

And then here is the largest shot of the whole room I could get all in one shot. I think it looks really cute. Just like I envisioned it to. The cover on the changing pad on the changing table matches the sheets too, its all coordinated!!

The only things left to do are to decorate the walls. Birth Mom L said she wants to help with that, and I am so happy to have her to help. We ordered wooden letters hung on ribbons that say "Chloe" that we will hang over her crib, and the picture sitting on the back of the changing table needs to be hung over the changing table. The beige bassinet will be beside our bed when she is brand new.

One other little find we purchased was her TOTALLY awesome Chic.co KeyFit 30 Stroller travel system shown below. This stroller and car seat has the highest safety ratings in every category and highest consumer ratings also. We really wanted this system but it is VERY pricey. I happened upon it on Cra.igslist for a fraction of what it costs new, and it was in PERFECT condition. It also came with 2 car bases!!! What a blessing!! I love the bright neutral colors and can not wait to use it!!! I have dreams of loading her up and taking her to the zoo and having people ooooing and awwwing over her like I do to all the new babies we see there. Dreams I have .....

So we are really almost there. We buy formula and Pampers every week, we are stocking up so to speak. We also bought the Tommee Tippee bottle system and can not wait to use that either.

As hard as last week was with the surrogacy cancellation, I am feeling renewed hope again and am praying this will all end as happy as we feel right now.

And most of you know by know that the financial strain we were under was MAJOR. WE have earnestly been praying the Lord would make A WAY. Well as of today He did. We got a call from the clinic, and we will be getting a sizable refund back from all the money I paid and did not use. That money will cover the attorney's fees for the adoption as well as the agency who did our home study that we still owe a lot of money too. HE REALLY CAME THROUGH FOR US- HE REALLY MADE A WAY!!!!

One last thing- If any of you out there are planning any future fresh IVF cycles and need some of the meds I have TONS of unopened meds that cost a fortune that I will sell at a fraction of the original cost. Send me an email or post a comment with your email in it and I can tell you what I have.

Feeling extremely blessed today......

Monday, July 18, 2011

A really great weekend.

Well this past weekend was pretty good. We traveled a long way on Friday and that evening, Hubby's best friend was married to his girl... It was so beautiful. Below is the moment they were pronounced, husband and wife!!!

And these two precious kids are 3 yr old twins, and they stole the show as they tentatively pranced down the aisle. Too cute!!

And this is a view of the church pulpit. This church was in Harper's Ferry, WV and it was actually built into the side of the mountain. It is a historic landmark that was closed to the public for the service. Such a romantic choice.

So after all the fun, we had the wedding reception at the 'House of Kobe' and they did the kaboob cooking in front of us, it was very nice.

Then Saturday morning we drove further north and finally met our birth mom L. It was so nice to finally meet her and hug her, and see her precious little baby bump. She is very short, petite and shy. She did hug me though, twice, and I think she feels quite attached to me. She is a bit needy, but my heart breaks for the conditions she is living in. Her parents are constantly yelling and berating her for being pregnant, this is why she is coming to live with us starting this Sunday.

Her friend is going to bring her half way to us, and we will then have her stay with us to find some peace and solace before the baby arrives. Which by the way we only have 99 more days to go!!!! Wooooo Hooooo!!!

And next Monday we have her first visit with my OB to get an ultrasound. I CAN NOT WAIT to see baby Chloe on the U/S live in front of me. I simply can not wait to experience all this knowing this is my baby!!

So all in all it went well. We did not get to spend very long with her, she had to go to work and we had to drive 8 hrs home. But I am anxiously awaiting Sunday and just start loving on her and making her feel like she matters to someone.

We have almost finished the baby's room, I will do a post about that next. Thanks for all the prayers. WE/she needs them !!!

Friday, July 15, 2011

What if your healing comes through tears????

Hi. Its been a HARD week. Probably one of the hardest yet in this infertility journey.

As I type we are on our way out of town to Harpers Ferry, WV to go to Sweetness' best friend's wedding tonight. He and I have needed a get away of sorts, away from our everyday surroundings and just enjoy life again.

I have been constantly hearing this song on K-Love, and the line gets me every time I hear it- "What if our healing comes through our tears?" It just sticks with me, but after all the tears I have shed over this, you would think I was healed at this point. But the song's overall message is that all these trials in life could really be Mercies in Disguise. I hope you enjoy the song as much as I do.

One last thing- please pray for us as we meet birthmom L tomorrow in Pennsylvania for the first time. She is not coming back with us this weekend. She promised she would come on July 24th, but I will believe it when shes actually there. She just has a million excuses so we are trying to be patient and let her come in her own time- as long as she gives birth in Virginia!

I will update on the visit as soon as I can. Love you guys!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The most gut-wrenching day yet......

Ladies I have some very tough news to share with you. Last night Sweetness and I had to make a very VERY tough decision that may shock some of you. But we cancelled the surrogacy last night. WHY? is probably going through your head right now.

Well let me explain. We were depending on my Mom to take out a loan to help us pay the surrogate. Well things have happened to her job and she is now unable to help us in this way and she wants to so badly. So this makes the financial situation we were in even worse. There just is no way this was going to happen financially. The last thing I wanted to do was to get the surrogate pregnant and then can't pay her. We agonized over this for several days. I lost so much sleep and I wasn't eating at all and was getting physically ill from all the stress, not to mention I was stimulating my ovaries and was feeling so ill from all that medicine. So we finally made the most difficult decision yet to date in our infertility journey.

I knew when I made this call that I was determining that I would never have a biological child of my own. This was our last ditch effort and now its over. To say this was difficult would be an understatement. I started crying as soon as my surrogate answered the phone. She was as kind as she could be. I know I caught her off guard as she was not expecting this at all- AT ALL. She was gracious and said she didn't hate me and that was all I could ask for. We are going to send her a monetary sum to thank her for her time and energy put into this effort with us. I hope one day she and I can still be friends, and I think that will happen but she just needs a little time.

So I sobbed and sobbed as Sweetness held me, he cried a tear or two himself and we realized we had come to the end of our infertility journey. This is not at all how I thought this would end but it is what has happened and I am trying to embrace it as best I can. So I stopped all medicine and will just let my follicles do whatever they want to do.

The adoption with my nephew's baby is still a possibility, and this weekend we are going to meet birth mom L, and hope she comes back to live with us, but right now she is torn. So we will see how it goes. But in my heart I know she can change her mind too and then we must accept our fate of being childless. We are truly DONE with the infertility road. We can not do it anymore. It has high jacked our life, our marriage, our finances and our emotions. Its time to reclaim all those things and try to be content in where we are.

We covet your prayers as we begin to transition from a life of medicines, cycles and a roller coaster of emotions constantly to something more normal and calm. I will update after this weekend and let you know how it all goes and what the outcome is with L. Please pray for our safe travels and I thank you all again for your friendship!!!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Focusing on the surrogacy......

Hey ya'll!!! Sorry it has been so long since an update- as you can imagine we have been SUPER busy.

I will start with the surrogacy. Tomorrow is finally Baseline Day!! I thought the day would never come! I go got the clinic at 8:30 am and get my US and blood work and we begin the stimulation to get my eggies that hopefully will settle into my surrogate for 40 weeks!!! My surrogate called last night and she said the Lupron is making her crazy hormonal too. I am SOOO happy this morning was my last day on that evil stuff!!! So I will update as we continue to move forward with this process..... its finally here!!!

Now onto the Adoption. I don't even know where to begin.... L our birth mom is so young and sweet, she really is, but her immaturity level is shocking to me. She only wants to text, never talk on the phone like normal people. She wants to text for like 3+ hours a night and I just cant do it anymore. Well Saturday night, she had for the past 4 nights set a time to call me, and of course she didnt call with no reason why. So I texted her and told her that she needs to remember that I have feelings in all this too. She starts her drama with "I'm a horrible person" "I'm crying my eyes out" etc. So after all that settled down, I thought I had made it clear to her that I WANT to talk to her but I have a life too and I can not just sit on the phone all night texting!!!

So then the next 2 nights she does the same thing- no call when she says she was going to, and last night I had reached my limit- I actually called her- and of course she would not answer. I "TEXTED" and ask her what was wrong, why were we doing this? She never responds, then I start crying thinking its all happening all over again, she's changed her mind etc. I pretty much begged her to call me last night and let's settle this- I was an emotional wreck and needed to know what was going on. Well she never called. Thankfully last night was my monthly meeting with my infertility support group. these ladies are awesome and reminded me of what I was dealing with and that she can't possibly understand what I AM FEELING.

I felt much better when I left there- they encouraged me to just focus on the surrogacy and getting good eggs. So I came home and snuggled with Sweetness and prayed and cried as I finally fell asleep. Then this morning she texts me with "I almost died last night okay? I got hit." I frankly don't believe her because its always so much drama. So I texted her back and asked her point blank "Are we still doing this adoption? Has something changed for you? Just tell me now please." She wrote back that we are still doing the adoption and she doesn't know why I am thinking that....... So I finished by saying that I am done with the texting. If we are going to do this adoption- and it be an open adoption like she wants- then we need to stop the drama and act like adults. Comically she responded with "What drama?"

REALLY???? I have not responded to that text and I'm not. I am going to try to focus on the surrogacy and pray that the Lord's will be done in this adoptive situation. We have pretty much gotten the nursery all done. We are waiting for the crib we ordered to arrive this week and then put on all the pretty bedding we bought. Below is a picture of her bedding, it's called "Posy" by FAO Schwarz. You can see the newly painted walls behind it, the mobile still in the box and some wall art. her crib and new dresser are all white wood to match the frame and changing table. Its going to be super duper cute!!! Hope you guys like it!!

We also have done some shopping for the baby- we have really been so excited- I have heeded all my friend's advice and bought almost no newborn clothes, except this one- I could not help myself.... just had to have it!!! :)))))

I was given a HUGE lot of girl clothes from newborn to 12 months!!! Such a blessing. Also the bio mother of the 4 embryos we adopted- just mailed me a HUGE box of her baby girl's clothes that was just born last October- so the clothes will all be in season. What a blessing!!!!! AAAANNNNDDDDD my precious friend Robin has offered to throw me a baby shower in early October- birth mom L said she wants to come and I would be honored to honor her at the shower!! Stay tuned!

I will put up more pictures as we take them and get her room all finished.

We are still headed to meet L on July 16th- and due to some bad circumstances in which she finds herself, she MAY be coming back with us to live until the baby is born! I will DEFINITELY keep you updated on this.

Again please pray for guidance, for healthy eggs and for peace in our hearts as we wait!!!

Love to you all!!!