Sams Club Winner

Thank you to all who entered this giveaway. To pick the winner I used www.random.org.

Here were the results!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

12

Timestamp: 2011-09-30 20:39:31 UTC

Congrats to Julie C.! Please email me at: mlyount12{at}yahoo{dot}com with your address and phone # and your prize pack will be on its way!

thanks again everyone.

Slightly Overwhelmed

 

This will be happening soon....

and I'm really not that excited about it.

 Now doesn't that look like a good time?

I had what you call an "IVF class" last week. This is where the Nurse Practitioner went over how to give myself injections. On the table she had literally had 3 different shots laid out for me to see. I then practiced on a fake piece of skin. Basically it was like a poke party.

As she was showing me all these different shots and making it very clear to me to me how I did not need to mess these things up I became slightly overwhelmed. I thought I was going to lose it right there in that office. Instead I waited till I got to the car. I started immediately feeling some anger creeping in.

I was mad the I have to do this and most people don't. I was mad about how unfair it was and how it seems everyone around me doesn't have a clue that it's this hard to get pregnant. I was just plain upset. So many emotions happen to you during this time. And they happen in waves. They come and go, and then come and go again. It's a vicious pattern really.

Marc asked me later that day, "What happened to your attitude of thankfulness about getting to do this?" I said that went out the door when I saw all those needles. Ha!

It took me a couple of days to get over it and then I was fine again. It was the first moment I had where I thought that I really can't do this. It is just too much to handle and everything has to work perfectly.

.

1Chronicles 16:34 
Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.

{Thank goodness for His Mercy and forgiveness. I would be a mess without it.}

Colossians 2:6 (NIV)
  ⁶ So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ⁷ rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

{The main reason I need to have an attitude of Thankfulness}

I would not be able to go through this hard time without God's grace, love and faithfulness. I'm definitely thankful for that!

Fall Blog Hop Tour

I love Fall! My house was made for fall because of all the orange in it and it makes me so happy.
I'm also thrilled because I had my mom do a little re-decorating when she came into town the other weekend! Another little happy is that I hit up the I.O. metro warehouse sale and I found a little treasure, which is just so exciting to have a new piece in my house!

So here is what I have so far...

these sconces are new and I'm still waiting to get some large candles. I know these look dinky.

new fall arrangement

this is my new piece! I've been looking for something tall to put my tv on and I finally found the perfect thing!

If you love Fall as much as I do, link up below to show a tour of your home decorated for fall or what your favorite thing about fall is! I thought it might be a fun way to get in a Fallish Spirit. I'm also absoutely loving the weather right now.

A Giveaway!

How about a giveaway? I haven't done one of those in a long time! Who doesn't love Yoplait Yogurt and Sam's Club?{I'm really sorry if you don't have one in your area}  

Yoplait now has Light Yogurt with granola at all Sam's clubs. This is what I eat for breakfast everyday, but I  always would have to buy my granola separately, but this makes it way easier now. Plus I'm an on-the-go type of breakfast person, and this is quick, healthy and yummy.

So the giveaway includes a $40 gift card to Sam's Club!

All you have to do is leave me a comment letting me know what flavor of Yoplait yogurt you will want to buy! Oh and be a follower of my blog. I will announce the winner in 1 week, so you have til then to enter.

That's it, pretty simple to win $40 buckaroos to Sam's club.

  

*The Sam’s Club gift card has been provided by Sam’s Club and Yoplait through MyBlogSpark.

Fun times

We had a great weekend this past weekend. Our schedule was packed full of of hanging out and spending time with friends and family.

Friday night we had a fun "Hog Party" over the Baileys. She had it catered with some yummy food and she even had the margarita man there! Pretty much our whole community group was there, so that was way fun.

plus my buddy Sawyer was there....i'm still very obsessed with him

i may or may not have give him some cake...this may or may not be the result...i'll never tell.

 I have to keep my "Aunt Chelle" status as long as possible... just sayin

who knows what was going on here

Saturday my parents came up. It was dads day at the Pi Phi house. And my dad being the sweetest dad ever (even with a bummed knee) came and had lunch with Meg. We had some great food there and then later after the rain stopped, My mom, Marc and I headed to the Razorback game. It unfortunately ended up being a close game, so we stayed most of the time. It was fun, even in the nosebleed section.



On Sunday we went back over the Baileys house and had a luncheon for Katie (Sawyers mom). She is due in about a month with Brooklyn. I'm really hoping B will like me as much as S!

she is of course the cutest prego person ever...even with #2

repeat picture from friday

Starting

Well this week marks the week of starting the ivf process. I officially started once again. I was still holding out a glimmer of hope, but that quickly dissolved when Af (Aunt Flow) showed up. I just kept thinking if we aren't supposed to move on, I will be pregnant, so it just confirms to me that I'm doing the right thing.

I've had a few thoughts as I'm about to enter this new phase or as I like to call it "chapter 3" of the journey:

* I'm absolutely terrified. I know we are supposed to do this, but it does not make it any less intimidating,
* I have to take it one day at a time
* I have to stay positive. I feel like I've read several blogs recently that have already gone through this and did not have positive outcomes. So I'm trying to prepare myself.
* I'm nervous.
* I don't want to get fatter and more moody...yuck.
* I'm excited to move on and have a plan
* I don't know how to not get my hopes up
* I don't know how I'll get through the Holidays if it is not successful
* God is teaching me how to be vulnerable through this. It's humbling. It's life-changing.
* I'm grateful for a supportive husband and family as we go through this.
* I'm grateful for a God that is bigger than me and way more powerful than any doctor.
* I'm going to attempt to have an attitude of thankfulness through this whole process because I am indeed thankful to even have the opportunity to do it and that is has been made available to us.

Thank you to all that are on this journey with us. Your prayers and sweet comments mean so much to us both.



1 Thess 5:16-18 (NIV)


¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 

From Introvert to Extrovert back to Introvert

Sorry for the lengthy title. Let me explain.

in·tro·vert:

1.a shy person.

2. Psychology . a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings ( opposed to extrovert). 

 

 ex·tro·vert:

 

1.an outgoing, gregarious person.

2.Psychology . a person characterized by extroversion;  a person concerned primarily with the physical and social environment ( opposed to introvert). 

taken from www.dictionary.com

 

When I was in college and when I first got married I took a personality test. It said 100% introvert which was complete opposite of Marc. After a few years of marriage I became extremely more extroverted. I loved hanging out with our friends, I could hardly stand sitting at home not doing anything. While I started becoming more social and finding my energy through people, Marc was going the other way. It was like role reversal and strange.

Fast forward to today and we have done another switcharoo. I definitely think life plays a huge part in how you feel and where you get your energy from.

While I was feeling great, settling into married life I felt on top of the world. We were making so many friends and had a ton of already established couple friends. I wanted to constantly hang out with them as Marc was wanting to just be at home a lot.

Now I can hardly go anywhere without Marc. It’s as if he is my security blanket. Since I don’t have a child I just cling to him if we go anywhere. Conversations are hard for me when they revolve only around other peoples kids and so when that happens I just turn to him and talk to him about something that is familiar and then I suddenly feel better.

I rarely want to go anywhere when there are a lot of kids around. Most of the time I love the kids a ton, but it just becomes a constant reminder.

I know I have to get over these insecurities. I sometimes feel trapped and confused. I hate missing out on things, but I also hate being alone (in 2 ways). Hopefully the anxiety will subside one of these days and maybe one day I can get back to being a fun, spontaneous extrovert. 

For now I will just be introverted at home and extroverted here on the blog!

Why IVF

Why we chose IVf...

There are several reasons we have decided to do this. A big reason is that we have been blessed with great insurance. We know that does not make it free, but we started saving for a child long before we started trying. Remember I'm a planner...(I'm still learning how to not be one) We started saving to cover hospital expenses and furniture for a nursery... we will just have enough to cover our total expenses.

We have such a Peace about it. This wasn't something we just couldn't wait to do. Honestly who wants to go through something like this that is really not so easy? It will by no means be a piece of cake or a walk in the park. Who wants to give themselves shots everyday. Talk about getting poked, probed, and looked at are never fun.
We have been praying about this for awhile. We have also had family and friends praying for us for quite sometime now. I have talked to several different people that have been through it already. Some are successful stories and some are not. I have to be okay with whatever the outcome is, positive or negative. That is not an easy place to get to. To put myself through this mentally and physically, failure does not seem appealing. I do know whatever the outcome will be, will be Gods choice and not mine. We do not put our faith in the doctors whatsoever. We know He has chosen to test our Faith greatly through this process and it is only strengthening both Marc and I.

If we were to not try this, I'm not sure I could properly grieve about NEVER having a child. I think it would be hard to move on past it, whether that would someday be towards adoption or being foster parents. I just think I would always wonder... "What If?" or I would continue to ask myself why was I being so stubborn in not giving it a chance when great insurance is present?

We are fully aware that it is risky and there are a lot of moral convictions that we have about it. We will definitely be taking the more conservative approach. We will most likely not have all of the eggs fertilized to keep the number of embryos down. Remember, I have major back issues, so we will also only be putting 1 in at a time. We will be praying for God to choose that number of embryos we get. We are sure He will not give us more than we can handle.

All of this to say we are excited to be moving on. I know I'm trying to just take 1 thing at a time because all the information is so daunting, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to do this and I'm thankful to be moving on to our next chapter.

I will most likely be blogging my way through this whole process with hopefully some fun in between. I do someday want to print the blog into a book form, so I want to keep an account of what happens. I also think it is good therapy for me to write about it all. :)

Thank you for joining us on this long, crazy, hard journey.

1 Peter 1:6-7 

⁶ So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. ⁷ These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

New Living Translation (NLT)

Remembering

On 9-1-01....

I was sitting in my first period math class my senior year. Someone came in and told our teacher what was happening and then we found a TV to watch. I was so confused as to what was going on. I remember thinking I had no clue what the world trade center was but it sounded important. I really kept thinking it was all an accident. I think I just kept asking questions all day that no one could answer. Then when I was on my way home from school that day, and it was chaos. People thought there was going to be no more gas available. The lines to get gas were crazy backed up and I was thinking, "this is way more serious than I'm aware of." I went home and watched the Tv the rest of the afternoon and night.

Today as I watch all the images I learn way more about what happened on that day. I watched dateline friday night and was sitting there in tears hearing families tragic stories. I get chills when I hear the names of the people that were rescued or went back in to pull someone out of the crashing building. I also think about the brave people on the plane who re-directed it to not hit the whitehouse. They had to have been so brave to take on those terroists.
I really can't imagine how horrific that day was to actually be living there in NYC and walking down the street or working in one of the buildings next to it. I'm sure it felt like a horror movie.

I love how America has United through this awful attack and come together. I went to visit ground zero in the summer of 2003, just 2 years later. It was still such a devastating site. The wall of peoples pictures and names were up, with flowers and momentos. I still had so many questions when I was there. It was a difficult site to see and to process. It made what happened very real to me.

I attended the razorback game yesterday with my mom and somehow they managed to get everyone in the stadium to wear red and white and had the student section wear blue. (they didn't think anyone else would wear blue to a razorback game.) It looked amazing!! They also had a beautiful red, white and blue razorback.

student t-shirt logo

 Proud to be an American and a Razorback!

I love the new memorial they built. I heard someone say instead of saying "A day of remembering" we should say "A day to Unite." I can't wait to go visit these someday! 

My heart goes out to all those families who lost loved ones that day. My prayers are with them.

Even Barbie...

Even Barbie can get pregnant.... WOW.

I mean seriously. How messed up is this world?
Someone actually pinned this on Pinterest the other day and I just had to laugh about it. I couldn't believe EVEN Barbie can have a baby and I can't.

This really does make me laugh. You have to find the laughter in an unfortunate situations... right? !?