News & Doctors

I figure some of you want to know the latest on our journey to parenthood. I will try to not go all science nerd on you but I'm not making any promises especially because some of these things it's just better to say it that way, so if you have questions about anything just ask and I will try to explain. Also I'll be using some abbreviations so I can get through this post as quickly as I can, and I apologize because this is going to be a long one.
So this summer we FINALLY took the BIG step and saw a fertility doctor, I mean we had been trying for 2 years at that point. I was fortunate enough to have gotten a free consultation with them thanks to it being infertility awareness week when I made our appointment. I heard about them from my dear cousin so I knew that the doctors at Reproductive Care Center (RCC) were going to be a good fit for us. We of course had to fill out PAGES of history both on ourselves and our parents AND our grandparents... fun questions. Anyway we met with our wonderful doctor, Dr Blauer, and discussed a plan. We had previously worked on things on my end so that put us a step further. I had a thyroid test done since my levels were higher the year prior. Jared also had a Semen Analysis (SA) done to see how things were on his end. I was also given 4 prescriptions (a prenatal vitamin, something to start my period because of course I was late, a prescription to aide in ovulation stuff, and a thyroid medication). 2 weeks later we got the results to our SA and learned that are swimmers are not what they should be, specifically that their morphology (shape and whether they have the enzymes so they can penetrate the egg) was not good. Our overall score was 16 out of 100, so not very good. So we started Jared on a supplement called "Fertility Blend" though we had found it earlier and had sort of started taking it already. It's supposed to help with sperm and whatnot, however it also makes Jared sick but he took it anyway. I started taking a prescription called Fremara to help with ovulation on days 3 through 7 of my cycle. We then used Ovulation Predictor Kits (OPKs) to track my ovulation so that we could make sure to have intercourse at the right time. FYI planning when to be intimate with your spouse makes an impact and takes a toll on your physical relationship. 1 week after getting that positive OPK I then went to the clinic here in Mussi, along with lab orders, to get a progesterone test done. As glad as I am that I could just drive down to the clinic less than 5 minutes away, getting my blood drawn there was more painful than at other places but it's better than driving an hour to the next nearest facility. After a week I'd call into my doctors office and find out the results, each month we'd learn that I was having sub-optimal ovulatory responses. Then my dose would change and we'd start the whole process over again, medication days 3-7 followed by OPKs and a blood draw. And of course with it being summer there was 1 cycle where we just had to take a break from it all because life was hectic especially as school started up again. But for several months we did this. We then scheduled a follow up SA for September 18th since we were going back up north for a Brad Paisley concert. 1 week later I looked up the results on RCCs patient portal website. And I was in complete shock and my heart just sank. Everything had dropped, and significantly at that. It was like someone had just punched my in the stomach. We got a hold of Jeanette on Dr Blauer's team (she's the one I talk to the most especially for results and such). They were just as shocked as we were it seemed, definitely not what the expected especially because we had started taking Fertility Blend. Our overall score then was 1 out of 100. 1 out of 100!!! We did a lot of crying (no seriously I was a wreck) and praying and all that of course. Dr Blauer also wanted to speak with us so we scheduled a follow up with him. So we made an appointment for October 23rd, this last Friday, when we would be up for my brother's wedding. We left for our appointment just as the luncheon for the wedding started, so we definitely felt a little over dressed for our appointment. We discussed what has been going on the last several months, test results, and where to go from there. It's not out of the question that we could conceive naturally, but not likely. Our chances are almost as likely as someone getting pregnant while using some form of contraception (birth control, condoms, etc). And the fact is that that does happen just not that often. Plus I'm only 28 so it's not like our time is running out. Anyway we now have a NEW plan, since it seems that we will need serious medical help in order for us to have a child of our own. So moving forward we will be doing more detailed diagnostic testing on my end of things. Checking my entire system to make sure there are no blockages, checking more hormone levels, and so on. We're also going to have Jared see a Urologist up at the University of Utah that Dr Blauer recommends to make sure everything is working right on Jared's end. Our goal is now to make sure we know any obstacles are in our way so that come June 2016 we can start on either IUI (IntraUterine Insemination) or IVF (InVitro Fertilization) depending on what we find out and money and such. We're going to start tightening our budget and such so that we can afford the costs that will be coming our way (anywhere up to $20,000). It's not going to be an easy road for us, especially because the doctors are 6 hours away, but hopefully it means by the end of summer 2016 we'll finally be expecting.
Thanks for reading through all of this. Thanks to all of you who have been super supportive through all of this, we couldn't do it without all the support we have.

Update in Pictures

Ok this blog has been neglected since like April. I apologize. So instead of my racking my brain on what has happened in like 6 months, I'm going to rely on pictures to tell what's been happening with us.

April

Ok in April we had Easter. Our complex had an Easter Egg hunt and we decorated. But unfortunately my pictures from Easter Events wouldn't load.

In April things started warming up so we started taking the boys down to the San Juan River to play. They LOVE playing at the river.

May

May was mostly trying to survive the end of the school year. I was SO ready for summer. 1 thing we did in May was we built a fort in our living room over Mother's Day weekend. And yes we slept in it.  

June

In June we ran in The Dirty Dash with friends from Mussi. Called ourselves the Mussi Mudders. It was a lot of fun, though if I decide to do it again I'd like to be in better shape.

Also in June my brother Ethan came and stayed with us for a week and a half. It was nice to have him here. We played at the river and he and I actually floated it. I hope he decides to come stay with us again soon. Unfortunately my phone wigged out and I lost the pictures I took when he was here.

We went to So Jo and had a little family reunion with my side since my sister and her husband came to visit. We went to Lagoon and had a ton of fun. And again sorry no pictures :( 

Overall June was busy.

July

In July Jared's family came to visit us after a family reunion in St George.We went camping in Mesa Verde and saw everything there. We also went to Monument Valley. We did some playing here and mussi too. It was nice to have the family here. I hate that they live 10 hours away from us.

The rest of July was us just trying to enjoy Jared's time off. Nothing too exciting.

August

August was spent getting ready for school to start up again and some last minute fun. August was a lot of trying to get back into a routine too. I teach Seminary during the last class of the day, which was different. We must have been busy because I took NO pictures.

September

September we were finally into a good routine. Jared spent Labor Day weekend in the Grand Canyon with the NACAP students. I was GOING to go, but it costs extra to have dogs and it just wasn't worth it. They had a great time, but I don't have pictures to prove it.

We also went to the Brad Paisley concert up in SLC. Brad is our favorite artist (partly because our song is "Then") and we hadn't seen him in concert in 5 years. Our "seats" were AMAZING, and that's because we didn't actually sit. We were right up at the stage. Seriously we were 5 feet away from Brad at times. We went with my sister and her husband and had A BLAST! Though my ears were still ringing the next day. Definitely a night I won't forget.

And that bring us up to date. I will try and be better going forward. Hope this post finds you well.

Spring Break Adventures

Ok so life has been INSANELY busy since we got back from Spring Break back at the beginning of March, so I am only just now posting about it. Such is life right. This post will include LOTS of pictures.

So we had a longer Spring Break this year thanks to the snow we got at the end of February. The snow didn't last long, but it left the dirt roads impassible. So instead of a 1 week break we ended up with 2! We decided to leave a day earlier than we originally planned since I still had to work and we couldn't get away sooner than that. We packed up our car and were on our way. Our first stop on our trip was Mesa Arizona to visit my little sister Kaitlin and her husband Nate.

The thing about car rides is our Sam gets a little car sick. He ended up throwing up all over the jacket that was by him. The poor puppy! So Jared had the brilliant idea to just shake it out the window while I was still driving. Yep it just ended up all over the side of our car.

Anyway we saw lots of beautiful country on our first day of driving.

After a 6 hour drive we made it to Mesa. We had a lot of fun with Kaitlin, Nate and their dog Pepsi. Sam loved having someone to play with. We went bowling while we were there and had a BLAST!

We had a lot of fun in Mesa! Our next stop was Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua Tree is on the way to Ridgecrest from Mesa, well sort of anyway. We mostly drove around the park but did do 2 short hikes one of which we were able to take the boys on. We were able to get a lot of great pictures. and our first family picture with Sam was taken there.

After a few hours in Joshua Tree we made our way towards Ridgecrest. We decided to stop at Jared's sister Melissa's home on the way for dinner and to have some one on one time. Again they were on the way, sort of anyway. We spent the evening visiting with Milly and her husband Lowell and playing with their ADORABLE kids. We met our nephew James that night, and what a cute boy he is. I loved playing with our niece Kayley, she is such a smarty and a cutie. I am SO glad we stopped. It was nice to catch up with them and get some one on one with the kids too. We eventually made it the rest of the way to Ridgecrest and were met by our loving family. It felt nice to be home (yes even though I didn't grow up there and have only been there like a dozen times Ridgecrest feels like home to me).
We spent the next few days in Ridgecrest. Unfortunately, Dad was gone on business all week so it was just us and the kids at home. We took mom out to lunch and enjoyed our one on one with her. We sent a Pi Day package to our sister Jenny who is on a mission in West Virginia. The younger kids loved having our dogs there, especially when they were able to go play at the park for FHE and when the dogs greeted them after school.
On Wednesday morning of that week Jared and I woke up early and headed to... DISNEYLAND! We were SO excited! We gave our boys a hug and told them to be good for their Grandma and left.  We listened to Disney tunes the whole way there and were surprised that we didn't get stuck in too much traffic. We finally got to the park and hit up California Adventure. We saw the line for the fast passes to Radiator Springs, and decided to just go straight to the ride instead of waiting in that line. It actually wasn't too bad of a line. We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon in California Adventure. SO much fun! After we did what we wanted there we headed over to Disneyland where we stayed until the park closed. What a fun day! We headed to our hotel for the night. Our hotel was... interesting. First off there was no pool or hot tub, huge bummer after being on your feet all day. Second we were told the city was shutting off the water at midnight (so an hour after we checked in). Third we were in our own building. Fourth there was almost nowhere to park, I had to crawl through a bush to get out of the car. lol. But then we saw our room...

Alright let's talk about the OBVIOUS... that mirror. It's HUGE and behind the bed... hmmm. Then there's the studio type lights above the bed (which turn off after being on for 30 minutes). There also wasn't a place to hang up clothes but that dresser is SUPER deep. Needless to say it was a strange room. But I got it for like $70 so who really cares.

The next day was our 4th anniversary and we spent the majority of our time in Disneyland. We really did have so much fun. We got some pins/buttons to celebrate our anniversary and wore them all day that day. We got lots of congrats. I sure felt special. 4 years and I am even more in love with Jared.

Here are a bunch of pictures from our 2 days in Disney. We took more selfies but haven't gotten them all to the computer yet.

What a fun time! I hope we can make it back soon, like again this next year since it's the 60th anniversary for Disneyland. I just love Disneyland and I love it even more when I get to go with best friend.

Anyway we drove home late Thursday and then spent the rest of our trip in Ridgecrest. While we were away our little sister Whitney got head lice so when we got home we had to treat our hair. Not so fun. Saturday was Pi Day, but this Pi Day was the ULTIMATE Pi Day (3.1415). We had a huge get together at the park that morning and had lots of fun. Lots of pie and fun stuff. I spent a good chunk of the morning hogging James from the younger kids and I didn't care. lol. That afternoon we decided to head home instead of just hanging around Ridgecrest. We were sad to leave but not at the same time. 11 hours later we made it home, and barely. We forgot that on the res gas stations don't have pay at the pump stations and we almost ran out of gas. The next morning we came out to find a flat tire as well. We really were lucky to have made it home.

Anyway that was our Spring Break Adventures. Hoping we can have more adventures similar to these this summer.

Sam

We recently went to California to visit family over our Spring Break (post on that to come). Jared's family was surprised how big Sam had gotten in the last 2 months (they first met him the beginning of January). So I decided to look through the pictures I have of Sam. Here is a little photo collage of him since he was 3 weeks.

As I was looking through photos I found 2 different photos of me holding Sam. Here is where you can really see the size difference.

Here he is at 3 weeks old

And here he is at 3 months old 

(don't mind my sweaty self I had just gotten home from Jazzercise)

Our little boy is growing up so fast. Love him to pieces.

February

I can't believe how fast February went. I am making a goal this year to document our life with photos since I got a great new camera for Christmas. Let's start off with photos of my 3 boys. They really are my whole world.

Bo and Sam. The look of "What are we gonna do now mom?"

Sam loves to go out and play, and knows if he goes to the door I'll let him out so he can go potty. I love this pic of him. Shows how much he is growing.

Sam always wants to play. Bo not so much.

I love this pic of the 3 of them. Bo's look of "This kid is driving me nuts" and Sam's look of "Can we play some more?"

The first Saturday in February I took the 2 boys down to the river because it was a GORGEOUS day. They had so much fun playing in the water and running around.

This was Sam's first time with this kind of water. At first he wasn't sure what to think.

Running along the bank.

I love this pic I took. 

Valentines Day was a lot of fun and full of surprises. Jared bought me flowers the weekend before and then surprised me with a home cooked meal. He made Cajun Chicken Pasta and it was FANTASTIC. We had dinner and enjoyed a night at home together.

Dinner. YUM!

I tried to look nice for my Valentine...

Can I just say how much I love this goof ball. He is so good to me. He pulls me up when I am down. He works very hard for our family. I am so glad he is mine.

We really are so good together. Wouldn't trade our life together for anything.

This month Sam got an abscess and had to go to the vet to get it drained out and get some medication. He came home with a cone, a tube and medication. He healed SUPER fast and all that yucky stuff got out just fine. Here he is the day of...

Towards the end of the month we got hit hard with snow. SO much snow that we had a "Snow Day" and when it melted off we had a "Mud Day" because the buses couldn't make it through the roads here. So 2 less days of school, but we're making up for it by not getting an Easter Break.

 The boys LOVE the snow. They love playing in it and eating it. Silly boys. Sam would get TONS of snow stuck in his "cone of shame."

This may not look like a lot of snow, but they never get THIS much snow here in Mussi.

March is tomorrow. We have lots of things planned for March. Spring Break in California. DisneyLand. 4th Anniversary. It should be a lot of fun.

And then there were 4...

It's about time that this little guy makes his official blog debut. We decided in December that we would add another 4 legged member to our family. Remember those cute puppies??? Well we (ok more like I) fell in love with them especially this one. Meet Sam...

This picture was taken about a month ago. He's much bigger now and his cute sweater wont even go over his head. He's growing really fast.

We were worried about how Bo would handle having a new brother, but he has done well for the most part in adjusting. Bo does get annoyed with his little brother and he's gotten into fights with Sam when he's had enough of this energy full pup. But Bo will play with Sam and he is usually nice to him.
We are planning on taking him into the vet in the next week or so to get the rest of his shots and get checked out by a real veterinarian. We are also going to be starting on doing some formal training thanks to a book I bought on Amazon (thank goodness for Amazon or I'd be lost here in Mussi).
Sam will get these spurts of energy and then runs all over the place as fast as he can. He loves to chew (he destroyed my favorite pair of flip flops) and likes to get into the bathroom garbages (not too thrilled about that one). He's still learning how to let me know when he needs to go potty, but his accidents are minimum. Overall he is a really good puppy.

Christmas 2014

I can't believe how fast Christmas came and went this year. And now it's already in February! We had an interesting Christmas this year. We had 7 little puppies with us this year, and it is an experience we won't every forget (or do again for that matter). Anyway we stayed at home in Mussi this year and enjoyed our time together as a small family.  Onto a photo explosion...

Here are some photos of our home decorated for Christmas...

 We got a new Nativity this year. I absolutely love it!

 We got a new Christmas Tree this year. (It was time to retire the really cheap one that wasn't much taller than Jared.) We love this tree.

We don't have a fireplace/mantle so our bookshelf held our stockings.

Christmas Eve we had our Traditional Christmas Eve Dinner. We had ham, funeral potatoes, salad, rolls, cider, and egg nog. We always pull out the nice tablecloth and the nicer plates, and we added place-mats, REAL napkins with napkin holders and we got some holiday plates. We also had some fancy centerpieces.

I REALLY like these plates (we got the plates with the holly on it at Dollar Tree).

 Jared was very thrilled with our dinner. He says I am the best cook.

We never forget about the dog(s) at Christmas. This year they got special cookies to have on Christmas Eve. Bo also had some tasty wet food (a special treat).

Now onto Christmas Day...

We were very spoiled this year. We got movies, books, and games. The big presents this year were a new tablet (it's mostly Jared's) and a new camera (it's mostly mine). 

We hope you all had a great holiday...