Infertility Revisited

It has been many years since I have been in the "2 week wait". But here I am! We are now officially TTC and along with that comes many hurdles for us. We have male factor infertility and our son was conceived by IVF in 2008. For those unfamiliar with all of this, I will put a list of commonly used abbreviations on the side to refer to, and as well here are some links to previous posts I have made:

Our infertility story...

IVF embryo picture

Preparing for #2

Nick has been on his vitamin regimen for 3 1/2 months now, and I purchased a bunch of OPK to pinpoint the day we need to dance. Yesterday my OPK was positive, so now we wait! Then funny thing is that I'm due to start the day before our appointment at the RE so I should know by then. Maybe we'll magically be those people who get pregnant when they go to see a doctor! HA yeah right.

Anywho, I'm anxious and excited to be on this journey again. I just hope we have as much success with an RE as we did before. I am really praying we do NOT have do IVF. I plan on trying many other things before that. If nothing else works by next summer then we might move on to that. But I have a few things up my sleeve!

Nick is excited and really wants a girl this time. I don't mind either way, except that we have no idea what we would name another boy!

For those who are interested in following this journey, please check back and read how our progress goes in this crazy ride called life!

My Preschooler!

 My little man has his first week of school under his belt and he has done great! No tears, no fits, and no phone calls from the school! We have a good routine down and found a quick route to bypass all of the other parked parents waiting in line to pickup/dropoff their kids. When it is not so hot we will be walking him to school. He loves his class and his teacher, and they have a snack every day after recess. He has already had a couple "homework" assignments, and next Friday he is the snack helper!

I won't claim full creative credit for these, but I replicated some cute ideas for back-to-school pics from Pinterest! I loved how they turned out, and now I just have to keep it up every year :)

For this one the idea is to wear the same shirt in the pic every year and you can watch as they get bigger and grow into it until the year they graduate!

His backpack fits him perfectly and he loves the responsibility of wearing it and putting his papers in it. In this pic it was his first day and he was literally running to the school to go in!

Full Steam Ahead

I blinked my eyes and 2 weeks passed since I last blogged! My little one starts PreK TOMORROW! Aggghh! I'm excited yet nervous, but I know he will love it. He is a such a social butterfly and just loves to be around other kids.

On Monday evening I worked an early shift so that I could get home in time for us all to meet his teacher! We got there around 5:30 and found his classroom. His teacher's name is Ms. Cottingham and she is very sweet and cheerful. Her assistant was also there and it sounds like about 20 kids will be in his afternoon class.

We brought all of his school supplies and put them in his locker, and he got to run around and check everything out. We get to walk him to his classroom as long as he needs us to. The school is only a couple of years old and the playground is very impressive!

We have just a couple more things to bring in tomorrow for his first day and then our routine can begin. We are going to walk him there together (I took off work!) and pick him up together for his first day! Class starts at 12:10 and ends at 2:50. He will come home for a snack, then it's nap time! Hehehehe.....quiet time for momma and daddy!

Today we took a roadtrip down to Foster to see my inlaws' new pet...a donkey! They named it Pedro, but we call it Trotro. That is the name of one of Brad's new favorite cartoons about a donkey named Trotro. He was very friendly and loved eating carrots from Brad and Nick. They are also getting a horse soon.

 

 

I got together a couple of "props" for Brad's back-to-school pics. I am going to take them tomorrow for his first day! I also wrote up an interview kind of questionairre that I am going to ask him every year he starts a new grade. I am going to make a school album for him with his first day pic of each grade and the interview for each year until he graduates!

 

Moving Right Along

Life in general is moving quite quickly! Here we are a week into August and my son starts school for the FIRST time in 2 weeks!!!! I am so happy I got his backpack done, and he loves it to pieces! He is very excited about going to school and making friends.

As of August 4 our house is officially off of the market and no longer for sale. We gave it 6 months to see if this was the time we were meant to move out of state. Evidently it was not! We had tons of lookers but no serious offers. Many other houses in our neighborhood are for sale also and priced much higher. I bet they are all wondering if we sold it since the sign is gone....

The Friday before the listing was up I went to a few banks to shop around for a good mortgage refi rate. I find a pretty good deal with Republic bank and the lady helping me put a lot of effort into getting exact numbers and different scenarios to show me. We are meeting with them today at 3pm to sign the papers! Our monthly payment will drop dramatically and our rate is dropping by 2 full points! We would have done this several years ago but we were always planning on moving so we didn't want to spend the money and not be able to make it worth it.

The plan now is to stay here for a few more years and make the house more the way we want it, go on some big trips, look for a vintage camper trailer to take on family camping trips, and my favorite--work on baby #2 (YAY!). That brings me to the next fact.....

Brad and I officially have health insurance! I signed us up for BCBS. Now that he is starting school I don't want to risk him breaking an arm or something on the playground and not having insurance. For a new Reproductive Endocrinologist I decided on Dr. Hansen. He is a colleague of our previous doc who retired, and his wife delivered Brad! He has great credentials and I made an appointment with him September 10. We are very excited to hit the ground running with this second journey of TTC.

As for our house, we have already started making some changes and getting "new" things to make it more homey: new washer/dryer, new bed, recliner in bedroom, breakfast table by kitchen, new rose bushes in front, decorations for walls, and curtains in bedrooms. Our BIG project will be updated the kitchen--we are planning on starting that next month! 

Check back soon!