Ohio Trip

It has been a few weeks since I last blogged. I have had a few of my fellow bloggers reach out and email me to make sure I am okay. I found this to be so incredibly thoughtful of them. Thank you!

For the past 9 months, I have blogged at least 3 times a week, sometimes more. If I wasn’t blogging, I was at minimum reading and commenting. But the truth is, I haven’t really been in the mood lately for any of it.  As one of my blogger friends told me, “it happens to the best of us.”  

Anyways, during this blogging break, a few things have happened that I will catch you up on. For one, we finished all of our Christmas decorating, both inside & out. I plan to post all about that sometime this weekend.  

Second, we took a trip to chilly Ohio over the Thanksgiving holiday.  Our trip was great; a perfect balance of R & R and being on the go.  After a long day of working, driving, and flying, we kicked off this trip with 25 of our closest friends and family members at one of our favorite restaurant’s late on Thanksgiving Eve.  We ended up at another local hang out after and Uber drove us home pretty late (guess I am out of the loop with this Uber stuff, first time I heard of it!).  

  
Thanksgiving was spent with our families just relaxing, watching football and movies, drinking wine, eating, and playing games like chess. The weather was perfect, a crisp 40 degrees, ideal for a hoodie and sweatpants to be lazy in! A much needed break from the 90 degree weather we are used to.  

   
 
On Black Friday, I was lucky enough to spend some time with one of my very best friends. We did lunch and shopping, getting completely soaked in the process. The weather was quite miserable, about 35 and raining all day. I love the cold, but not the cold rain. If it’s cold and wet, it better be snowing.  Regardless, it was a good time (as always when we are together) and she helped me solidify my outfit for my hubby and I’s photo shoot.  

Saturday was spent watching the BIG game, a.k.a. The OSU v. Michigan. We hadn’t been home for this since 2002, so my hubby was pretty pumped. Anyone from the midwest knows this game is a major rilvary. Everyone watches it. Period.  Thankfully, OSU won and our day wasn’t ruined! LOL. Saturday night we attended a surprise 30th Birthday party for my first cousin and saw people we hadn’t in probably 10 years. Good times for sure!

  
The remaining parts of our trip were spent going places we miss, love, and cant go to when we are home in FL. We made sure we went to the apple orchard, and got homemade cider and donuts. Delicious to say the least! We also went to the zoo for a Christmas light show which was absolutely beautiful. My hubby surprised me after the zoo and took me to the spot we had our first date over 15 years ago…Subway (we were only in high school). We went in and sat in the same booth we did that night and got chocolate chip cookies. So sweet of him! I am blessed. 

   
   
   
   
On our way to the airport yesterday, we had some very special pictures taken professionally. I will share these pictures soon in another post. I must say the ones the photographer has shared with us so far have left us speechless and I cant wait to share them with my fellow IF/RPL community.  

On our way out, we also picked up a special onesie that we could not resist. It’s the first purchase we have ever made together for our future baby when we are not pregnant. We both know one day our baby will get to wear it! 

  
As for now, vacation is officially over and it is back to reality tomorrow. Today was spent washing clothes, unpacking, grocery shopping, and loving on our dogs who we missed so much.  I had originally planned to get my first of 3 Lupron injections today, but did not. I’ll save the details of that for for another post too! 

I hope everyone had a great holiday, and I will try to catch up soon with where all of you are in your TTC journeys. Until then, baby dust to all !!!

Post Birthday Reflection

I am officially 33 now. In actuality, the day wasnt that bad after all. I totally worked myself up for nothing. 

In fact, the day was pretty nice. I was woken by my husband with 2 sweet cards and a giftbox.  One of the cards was a birthday card, the other a just because card. I must share with you the just because card.  

A little background to the card first. Many of you know that our Chihuahua fur baby, Nacho, passed away over a year ago.  I miss him everyday.  When my hubby was at Walgreens looking for my b-day card, he came across this. 

  
Unreal! What are the chances of finding a card that has your dog’s name and breed, and looks almost identical (see the real Nacho below)?!? Such a sweet reminder that he is looking over me each day. 

 

My hubby purchased a lovely Northface jacket that I can take on our trip up north in a just few weeks. I love it! Then I went on to work as usual after our morning together. There I was showered with love from my amazing team of teachers. They even ordered a yummy lunch for me! This is a big deal in teacherland because we cant leave for lunch. They made it happen though.  I took my class out for recess, even though it wasn’t our regular day to go out, and the kids were like, “but it’s Wednesday!” My reply was “but it’s my Birthday!” Haha. They took it. One of my students even gave me a pretty candle. 

 

When I arrived home from work, my mom had left some things on our kitchen table for me to open. A gift card for a mani/pedi, a fondue set, and an adult coloring book. I cried when I opened the coloring book because I have been wanting a bible verse one for quite awhile now! I have several other types but the bible ones are not as easy to find.  I mentioned it one day to my mom and she remembered, which really made me feel special. Here is a picture of all the spoiling that took place from friends, co-workers, my spouse, and my mom & stepdad…
  
My dad and stepmom also sent me much love from out of state with this adorable Coach clutch, just my style!

  
That evening, my love and I went to dinner. We ordered way too much food! Two appetizers, salads, bread, and our main courses. There was NO way I could do dessert. 

At the end of the night, we booked a getaway to the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando. I am thrilled!! We only live a hop, skip, & a jump away from this area, yet we have never been to this resort. I have driven by it millions of times on our way to Disney, but that’s the extent of it. At Christmas time, they go all out. The hotel is an atrium with a massive tree in the center, 22 million lights, and a program they put on called ICE! Its only 9 degrees inside of ICE. Brrrr! I will be sure to post pics of this experience after. 

I seriously havent felt so spoiled in such a long time. I know I have said it before, but I will say it again, I am so blessed to have such an amazing support system in my life!! I think 33 might be my year!!

The Verdict is In

We will start the Lupron depot intramuscular injections December 1, immediately following our Thanksgiving vacation. The 2nd injection will be a month later, around December 30th, and the 3rd, another month later, around January 27th. 

Our H/S and SIS combo will take place towards the end of February after the Lupron has had a full 3 months to work its magic. 

If all goes *well* and the mass is gone, our FET will be right in the beginning of April 2016. And of course if all goes *well* then, we will finally be bringing home our Christmas miracle.  Can you even imagine that?!?

Thanks for the feedback on my prior post about when we should start the injections. You all had some amazing points and ideas, and I dont know what I would do without you all. 

Time Line

We are currently trying to make a few decisions about when I should begin the Lupron. After getting all the insurance approvals, the pharmacy finally called this week and it should be delivered to me sometime next week.  

Basically, we have to decide if we should-

1. Start the Lupron mid-November. This would mean I would finish it mid-February, and transfer in mid-March.
2. Start the Lupron in early December, finish it in early March, and transfer in early April. 
3. Wait until the new year to start it, finish it in early April, and transfer early May.

Now keep in mind all of these scenarios would mean the mass was proven to be shrunk via Hysteroscopy and conditions were right for transfer. 

Here is the dilemma, or dilemmas should I say with each option above-

1. If we start the Lupron mid-November it will mean a few things. One, I will be on it when we go on vacation for Thanksgiving, which means I will very likely be experiencing the brunt of the side effects then. I was really hoping to just relax on our trip. Also, with this start date comes a mid-March transfer. The positive to that is that it would be around my spring break since I am a teacher.  But here comes the negative…our state testing is in early April this year. So, if we became pregnant mid-March, I would be only about 7 weeks along come state testing. During testing, we have to walk around our rooms non stop for 90 minutes a day and the stress levels are high. I encountered our first miscarriage during state testing back in April 2014. It would be almost exactly 2 years ago this happened, can we say Deja Vu? 
2. With option 2, not starting the Lupron until December, I could enjoy our Thanksgiving trip unmedicated. The problem with this would be that transfer will likely fall early April and in that case, it could land right upon our testing days. There is no way to tell now if it would exactly but by my calculations, there is a high probability. This being said, I would have to miss administering the tests.
3. Option 3, waiting until the new year to start to begin the meds. I really dont want to wait that long to start, because logically speaking it is giving the mass more time to grow. This is a big deal to us. But on the other hand, a May transfer is nice as a teacher. God forbid something go wrong, summer is almost here. And this year we actually get out of school in May. 

I guess it boils down to whether or not I want to be medicated on our trip, and whether or not I am going to let my job control my decision. 

Ideally, work aside, I would like to go with the middle choice I think (start meds after the trip in early December, transfer early April).  Anyone have some thoughts on this? Thanks!