In case you wondered...

What camping with 3 dogs and a 4 month old looked like, stay tuned. Brett and I bought a used and slightly beat up pop-up camper a few weeks ago, put some TLC in...and then we attempted a one night camping event last weekend. It went wonderful. We kept Teagan's nighttime routine and before you knew it she was snoring away happily (until 2 am when she got up hungry, ate, and then fell back asleep until 6 am!). Although, it was a little chaotic and will take some time to get used to, lol. I bet it really looks chaotic, huh?

Thunderclouds behind our house on Monday night. These supposedly caused a small tornado just north of us...tornadoes in upstate NY, seriously?

One last attempt to put up that video: clearly didn't work, though fb had no problems with it. Ugh. Oh well...

videos and Anne spelled with an "e"

I thought I'd start off with a video of Teagan I took this week. It looks a little ghetto but only because it was taken first thing in the morning. She is still in her little tshirt and diaper (her PJs)and you can actually hear the breastpump in the background so you know what I was doing, lol.

Okay, so video is having some problems...I'll try to get it up later. In the meantime, here are some pics...and a weird rambling book recommendation for kids!

Daddy's little beauty...

My pretty girl:

I don't have the heart to leave these headbands on her for long, I'm too much of a tomboy for that, but I think she looks so cute with the little flower once in a while. The tshirt says "Stop Global Warming, Drive a Stroller"!!!!

I don't seem to have a lot of time for writing lately, which is great b/c its for good reason. I also don't have a lot of time for reading but sometimes get it done when I am breastfeeding and trying not to look at Teagan (if I look at her she stops eating to smile at me and then feeding takes forever, because it makes me laugh, so she laughs, she goes back to feeding and again, smiles at me when I look at her and it starts over). I picked up an old favorite. Way back when I was just 10 or 11 years old, my Great Aunt Dot gave me a book to read that I fell in love with. To this day, it is still one of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite, Anne of Green Gables. I haven't read it in years and going back to it, realize that I took a lot of life's lessons from the book and am so thankful to my aunt for giving me a love of reading, but also the gift of a book that would teach me a lot about life, when I wasn't getting that learning from my parents. It is lighthearted, sweet, idealistic, basically everything my parents weren't. To this day, my mom calls me Pollyana and I never understood how I could have a positive outlook on life when my parents aren't positive at all...and going back to this book, I realized it must have come at a pivotal time when I was just shaping my view of life and this was so helpful. I guess I just wanted to say that if you have a 10 or 11 year old girl in your life, this book might be a great choice for her. Of course, Aunt Dot was so thrilled that I loved reading after this that she then got me to read Rebecca, The Thorn Birds (weird choice, right?), and 84 Charing Cross Road. I am still in debt to her, even though some of these choices were weird...I still remember her sister, my Aunt Lorraine saying, "you gave her the THORN BIRDS??? Do you think she's old enough?" lol...but they definitely helped me grow and broadened my perspective. I miss Aunt Dot.

The plan and an anniversary

Thursday was our anniversary of 4 years. We didn't really have much planned but it all kind of fell apart anyway, which is absolutely fine:-) Brett had to work late so we decided to pretend our anniversary was Saturday instead of Thursday. But we forgot that we had a 1 year birthday party for our neighbor's beautiful little boy....so we changed that to Sunday. It seemed like a good idea. We had a great time at Josh's birthday. On Sunday we woke up early (what else is new with a 4 month old in the house?), I got Teagan out of her room and put her in bed with us to nurse her and then try to nap again...we all napped until about 7:30. Brett realized that he left the anniversary card at work (we said no gifts this year) so I kept mine hidden too...but we had breakfast and got ready for church, then the mall to exchange some baby clothes, then home and then finally we decided to go out to dinner and "celebrate". Well, we went out to the Bonefish Grill (great GF menu!). However, halfway through dinner, Teagan got fussy...and then 3/4 of the way through dinner, I started feeling my belly making bad movements and noises. I know this had nothing to do with the restaurant b/c I had felt iffy all day...but it all came to fruition when we were out to eat (but they are one of the only restaurants that has GF dessert!!!!). We had to leave. I was sick all night Sunday and most of yesterday. So, the anniversary was kind of a bust, but it was also one of the best b/c this year there is finally 3 of us and 3 dogs...how wonerful is that?

Now, on to the plan. I had my phone consult with my RE on Friday. I am going to breastfeed until the end of July. In the meantime, I am pumping extra and freezing it daily, hoping to extend her time on breastmilk to 6 months. I would LOVE to keep breastfeeding to a year but we all know my eggs were crap at 34 so I'm not anticipating them being much better at 36. (as a side note, the idea of stopping breastfeeding is KILLING me and I am trying to work through this process in advance so that it isn't so hard later. I can't really explain why it is so hard...and maybe it would be hard to stop ever, but it is so stressful! I think I just like being the source of her food....weird. Plus, it is funny when she stares at my boobs and opens her mouth, sticking her little tongue out like a hungry baby bird!). Okay....when I stop breastfeeding, I will hopefully get my period back within a month (this year sans AF has been nice). As soon as I get that period, I can call my nurse to send me the bloodwork kit from their clinic so that when AF #2 comes around I can go for my CD3 bloodwork locally. Then I pack it up for a day and travel to Colorado for my one day workup again...a hysteroscopy, resting follicle count, maybe doppler and some bloodwork again. I'm hoping to be able to do that in one day and travel home ASAP b/c I'll be leaving Brett alone with Teagan and hoping he can get off work. As soon as that is done, I will be good to go for an ER cycle with my third AF. That puts us around late October or November. We'll do an ER, same meds and protocol since it worked. Then I can rest. Supposedly we will do MA this time because the results are coming back faster than CGH...but we aren't rushing the transfer, its the ER that I was rushing. We'll likely transfer sometime in late Feb or March the earliest, if we are lucky enough to get some good embryos. If not, we are just done. And broke. Even worse, in debt. But, we have to give it one more shot.

So, that is it. Nothing too exciting. I don't want to go on for hours about my neurosis regarding stopping breastfeeding because that's annoying. I'm also not going to go on for hours on how much I like BFing. I also will probably talk in future about how doing all of this again makes me a little nervous, but for now, I'm just going with it. We aren't lucky enough to just get accidentally pregnant and no amount of waiting around for a miracle is going to help...so just get up and get back on the horse. There is that old story that a man is up on top of a house during a very bad flood and he is waiting for God to help him. A man comes by in a rowboat and offers to take him away and he says "no thanks, God will save me". Later, a rescue helicopter comes by and he says again "no thanks, God will save me" and he dies on the roof in the flood b/c God tried to save him twice by sending help but he was too stupid to realize it. So, CCRM is the rescue helicopter for us...we better hop on and get going, right?

Not much to say lately

I don't have much to say lately. Life has gotten very busy. My family is still crazy. Brett and I and Teagan are all very happy (but the little one sure had a bad cold this past weekend!!! I think she is just starting to feel better today). I have thought about closing up my blog. I'm not sure. But, I warned one day months ago that my blog was going to go from a fertility blog to a mommie blog and likely back to a fertility blog...and so it will. I am meeting with my RE on Friday to discuss a future cycle for siblings. We aren't sure it will work. We still have months to go but I need to plan it so that I keep the momentum moving forward. We feel incredibly blessed to have our little girl and will be forever grateful for that...but Brett and I both have siblings and, if possible, we'd like for Teagan to have a sibling as well. If it is not possible, then we tried (and went bankrupt in the process probably), but at least we tried. So, the plan so far is that I will breastfeed for another month and a half...stopping sometime in July. I'm pumping and freezing now so that I can try to continue to give her breast milk for as long as possible. I know that stopping will be very hard for me...but that is the plan. I have to wait 3 months from stopping breastfeeding to start a cycle. So, we think we'll have a retrieval cycle sometime in late October or November, hopefully. It is so hard to plan really. I mean, if I thought travelling to cycle by myself was hard, now imagine it with a 9 month old. But, I am also almost 36 and, to be honest, my eggs clearly weren't wonderful at 34, so the sooner we do this the better.

As you can tell, I am a little 'all-over-the-place' with this. I will definitely know more on Friday. I am actually even nervous just about the idea of a phone consult. OMG, are we starting this all again? There is a part of me that would love to just not do it. Just say this is it. But that part is definitely getting buried under the other part of me that would have a big family if it were possible, you know? I would seriously look forward to more children but I am still scared. Even though we are going to do the same thing we did last time, I could still get a BFN, or I could get no normals or have no eggs make it to day 5...I don't think that will happen, but it might. I just have to be positive and throw myself into this craziness again. One thing I know...it will never have the same significance to me as all of those prior cycles. I mean, yes, I feel very sorry for those suffering from secondary infertility - I am sure it is terribly painful to want more children and be denied them. It is probably confusing as well. But, it will never compare to never being able to get pregnant in the first place. Even going into this now, I know that I will want another child terribly but my entire world won't crash if it isn't possible. I have a beautiful, loving, funny little baby girl at home that is all mine. My heart still breaks for everyone who I journeyed with through IF who is still chugging along or seeking out other avenues to parenthood. The amount of pain they have had to go through and the amount of times they've had to dust off and get back up...it just isn't fair. So, I know I am finally lucky...and maybe I am trying to push that luck? I guess we'll see.