Spring Break 2014

Once again Kevin and I lucked out and had spring break the same week. My mom also had part of the same week off so her and my dad headed out to Oregon to spend their break here. I think they wanted to come and make sure we were alive as well. We were very excited to have them come.

A couple weeks before spring break our apartment complex had moved us out of our apartment and into a new apartment since they had to fix the stairs and landing. We got free rent for the time we were out and they provided us with a fully furnished apartment so we can't complain to much. But since the sleeping arrangements weren't ideal in the new apartment we decided to escape Portland and head to the beach with my parents.

Before we left Portland however we did spend a little time shopping at the adidas employee store and we did make it up to Pittock Mansion to see the great view of Portland. Too bad it was a bit chilly and cloudy.

So after Kevin and I went to the Ultra Sound to find out the gender of our little man we headed up north with my parents where we started our beach adventure out in Washington at the Mt. St. Helens visitors center. It was crazy to see all the damage St. Helen did when it exploded and to learn more about the area. From there we headed to a very windy Astoria. Here we drove around the town and went to the column. We were all slightly afraid of blowing away at the top of the tower.  It was a beautiful view though. 

Following Astoria we headed south towards Seaside and made a quick stop at the Lewis and Clark Fort. Once again it was fun to learn a little bit more about the history of the area. 

We ended the day at Seaside where my parents had got us a condo. We spent the night relaxing, watching movies, watching Louisville play, and enjoying a beautiful sunset. 

The next morning we had a nice wake up call when the fire alarm went off. Everyone at the resort was evacuated. It was raining and cold but luckily they let us at least hang out in the parking garage so we could stay out of the rain. 

After our evacuation escapade we headed back up north to Long beach in Washington. You have to cross the longest bridge in Oregon to get to the longest beach which is in Washington. Here we enjoyed some light houses, a windy beach, and on our way home a beautiful waterfall. The best news was I really only got sick on the way home from our trip which meant me and the waterfall area bonded. That could have possibly been from car sickness though as well since the road to the waterfall was a bit curvy. 

Once again Thanks Mom and Dad (or should I say Grandma and Grandpa?), For a great trip to the coast. We loved it and loved spending time with you. 

Prince or Princess?

Since the only time Kevin was able to make it to a ultra sound was when he was out of school my doctor was very understanding when I asked if we could do the anatomy scan earlier then normal during spring break, so Kevin could be there for the gender reveal. It was also great timing because my parents had also came into town to spend spring break with us. So bright and early Kevin and I headed to the hospital to get the anatomy scan.

Although the ultra sound tech didn't seem to happy to be at work that early in the morning, or to be performing the ultra sound that early in my pregnancy (18 weeks) she did her job and found the gender for us right away. Needless to say HE was not shy about his private parts. It took a lot not to cry when we found out that we were going to have a lil rambunctious man in our home soon. I had been hoping for a boy (I couldn't think of anything cuter than a mini Kevin especially if he has his calm temperament). Kevin said he was not sure what he wanted or what we were having. He thought it was a boy but since everyone was guessing boy he thought for sure it would turn out to be a girl. Well the ultra sound tech was able to see all she needed to on the ultra sound for the anatomy scan and verify that we had a healthy baby boy.

Since my parents were back at home we decided we would go and get some donuts to tell them the big news. Krispy Cream was so good to us. They happily went and made some blue frosting for us and they didn't even charge us for the colored donuts. We got two blue donuts, one to give to my dad and one to give to my mom. They however just thought it meant we were having twins ha ha.

Here is some of the other guesses from our family 

Grandma Jan- Girl

Grandpa Verl- Boy (he needs more grandsons)

Grandma Rhodes- Girl

Annalee- Boy

Rebecca- Girl

Charm- Boy

Brinley- Girl

Kenzie- Boy

Cannon- Boy

Cash- Boy

I also had all my students vote on the gender, here is their responses- Boy was the number one pick from them as well. 

Are you Alive?

After all my hospital stays and sickness Pat and Stacey decided to come up for a weekend and make sure Kevin and I were both still alive. We spent the day shopping at the Columbia store and doing some maternity shopping. We ended the day with a raining stop at Salt and Straw where they got to try out some crazy ice cream flavors. (Due to the nausea I stuck with plain ole carmel).

Needless to say our adventures wore us out by the time we got home :)

Hospital stay #2

So I made it home from the hospital just in time for Valentines day. As much as I wanted to have a romantic night with Kevin it turned into pizza (that I threw up) and my falling asleep at 7. I did receive some very beautiful flowers from Kevin on Valentines.

 I had gone back to work on Thursday and was exhausted. I also lied to my students and told them I had a bad case of the flu. So I worked Thursday and Friday and spent the weekend super sick again. Monday I had school off so I went to the doctor for a follow up. They started me on an IV again and then before I knew it they were willing me into the hospital and admitting me again. This time I spent Monday through Wednesday there and left with new medication and feeling somewhat better. Kevin wasn't able to stay with me due to school but he made sure he came right after school and left late at night. Nicole picked me up again from the hospital on Wednesday, and I made sure and let the doctors know that the next time they would be seeing me I would be delivering a baby.

I went back to work on Thursday and was happy to find this poster from my students.

 I however soon realized I was not going to be able to use the same I have the flu excuse. So I spilled the beans to my students. They were beyond excited for me, an also became much more understanding about my frequent absences.

The Storm...

February brought a couple big storms in our life. The first storm was a storm of morning sickness. After everything we went through to get pregnant I swore I would never complain about being pregnant. So I will do my best to not make this sound like complaining and more just informational.

At 8 weeks I started throwing up a lot. In January I had started my masters program and had agreed to teach health class on top of the 10th and 11th grade English classes I was teaching. On top of that my classroom was out in a portable and no where near a bathroom. Needless to say I left the classroom unexplained a lot and decided I should probably explain to the Vice Principal why she was seeing me so often in the building during class time. Needless to say, I just cried to her (it didn't help that I went to tell her at 10:00 in the morning after I had thrown up for the 3rd time since being at school at 7). She was very supportive and understood my leaving the classroom quite often.  I also learned where all the outside garbage cans were and where the closest bushes were to my classroom (to much information I know).

At this point we took our first trip to Urgent care to get an IV per advice from the OBGYN nurse. And the next week ended up at the OBGYN office strapped to IV's again because I was becoming so dehydrated from all the throwing up. At least there was still times I kept food down. There was not really a particular food that stayed down, it just seemed to be more of a timing thing. I did find that there was certain foods that were better to throw up and I stalked up on them (gummy worms, sour patch kids, Jamba juice, cream of wheat, fruit in general... Just in case you were wondering ha ha).

During week 11 everything took a turn for the worse and the second storm set in... The Snow storm. Portland had a huge snow storm. Although the storm didn't seem completely crazy to an Idaho girl, to portlanders it was huge. It didn't help that they don't have snow plows to plow the roads and therefore everything got shut down. Although it was kind of annoying, the snow storm was also kind of a blessing because that meant school for both Kevin and I was cancelled. Due to being sick I took Thursday off of school, however the high school was released at noon, and Kevin was released soon after. Friday both schools were cancelled as well. I would like to say we took full advantage of the snow storm, like others and went sledding and cuddled up with hot chocolate but in reality I laid on the couch all weekend throwing everything up. By Sunday I had not kept anything down for 48 hours. I couldn't even keep sips of water down or ice chips which meant I was throwing up close to 15-20 times a day. So Sunday morning Kevin and I braved the storm and headed to the urgent care to get some IV's since I was very dehydrated. If you look closely at the picture you can tell I look a little dead.

When we arrived at Urgent Care they took my vitals and along with that my weight. They put me in a room and when the doctor arrived he simply said since your last doctor appointment on Monday you have lost 9 pounds. We want you to go straight to the ER. We have notified them you are on your way. So Kevin and I quickly headed home and packed up a few things. Kevin gave me a blessing and then off we went to the ER. By some miracle my OBGYN was the one on call that weekend and met me in the room as soon as they placed me. They quickly got an IV started and did some ultra sounds to make sure baby was okay and then they did some lab work. After all of this they decided I needed to be admitted so I was then moved into the hospital. Kevin spent the day studying (he had midterms) and I spent the day trying to sleep. They would only let me have clear liquids. So I was pumped full of anti nausea medicine and fluids and ate lots of Jello (That I eventually kept down by the end of the day). We also took this time off to call our families and tell them the exciting news of the pregnancy. It was the silver lining to a very bad day. Kevin spent the night that night which it was really nice to have him around. School was cancelled on Monday for both of us as well so that worked out nicely. 

Wednesday afternoon they finally released me. Kevin was at school so I called my friend Nicole and asked her for a ride. Needless to say she was a little confused when I called and asked for a ride home from the hospital. She caught on really fast though when she came in to get me from my room and they were performing an ultra sound. So I got home and immediately ran into the bathroom and threw up... so maybe I wasn't completely better yet. 

Our First Glimpse

Like I expected at 6 weeks I started getting nauseous and throwing up. I was lucky enough to be able to see a doctor right away and get started on nausea medicine. However it didn't seem to do much and due to that and lots of back pain the doctor sent me to get an ultra sound at about 7 weeks.  I had to go right after work so Kevin was not able to join, but it was so fun to bring him home this picture of the little one.

The picture also came in handy when we headed down to Grants Pass for the long weekend due to MLK Jr. Day. We wrapped up this picture and gave it to Pat and Stacey as a late Christmas present since we weren't able to make it to Grants Pass for Christmas. We also told Jeff and Shelby because I was so sick we figured we wouldn't be able to keep it a secret for too long. Which was true since the morning sickness became increasingly bad that weekend and I spent most the weekend in bed or in the bathroom. 

The Best Christmas Present

Let's start with a little honesty here, this blog has been severely neglected for the past 6 months. Partly due to a crazy life, but mostly due to my fear of writing this post. Every time I have logged in to my blog to update it, I am reminded that I have to write this post and it scares me to death. Which then leads me to logging out and not updating the blog. So ready or not here it goes.

First of all I have to start out with saying that I am blessed.  Since it becomes so easy to focus on the struggles in life, I often forget how blessed I am. Therefore I have to continually remind myself that I have so much to be grateful for in this life. With this in mind I am however going to bring up a very personal matter. I am really really good at keeping personal struggles very personal, so bringing up a personal matter for me is very scary. In reality I think I would rather go skydiving than bring up personal struggles in public. However, I keep this blog so that I can turn it into a book so that I can go back and look at the past years. Kind of like a journal (the lazy man kind). And since this was and is a huge part of our lives, it would be crazy to leave it out.

In January 2012 Kevin and I decided we were ready to start our family. Being diabetic there were a few extra hoops I had to jump through to make sure it was okay to start trying. So we talked to the Obgyn and the Endocrinologist, and with both their approval we decided we were ready. We had been married almost two years, I was currently working at Madison Jr. High, and Kevin was preparing for dental school and the timing just felt right.

 By June we were not pregnant and I was starting to get a little frustrated, but was reassured by the doctors that it can easily take 6 months plus to get pregnant. At this point we moved to Portland and Kevin started dental school. I talked to a Obgyn doctor here in Portland and brought up the point that I rarely had a menstrual cycle and because of this the doctor said they were willing to start me on medication earlier then a year. So I started on a variety of medications and was reassured by the doctor that it usually takes 3-6 months on the medications. After 6 months they usually stop the medication since it obviously didn't work. So fast forward 6 months and there was still nothing. At this point the doctor stopped all the medications which was really frustrating and started having us do other testing. We passed the tests with flying colors. So they told us that we had unexplained infertility and our next options were really expensive. 

Since we are being honest on here I will admit that this was one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through. Not only do the medications take a toll physically on your body (Hot flashes anyone?) but the emotional toll this process plays on you is even worse. Needless to say there were many many many nights of tears (Thanks Kevin for holding me for hours at a time while I cried) and lots and lots of prayers. This was a very trying time for both of us, but as I look back I am amazed at how much our relationship grew not only with each other but with our Heavenly Father as well. A little after a year of trying we finally opened up to our families about our struggles. And although we were very grateful for their love and support we still had a really hard time opening up to anyone else. So if I lied to you about when we were going to have kids that is why. Because honestly it felt like we were failing, and it is not easy to admit to the world that you are failing at something. As I look back now I know and understand that in no way were we failing. But when your body is not able to do what everyone else's body is able to do, you become very self consious. So we continued to lie to everyone and say that we were just taking our time and wanted to get through more of dental school before we started our family. 

Even now it is hard to find the words to express how hard the whole situation was. It is hard to explain how you can give up hope on something and yet at the same time only live off of the little hope you are still holding onto. Its hard to explain how you can be so happy for someone you love who just announced they are pregnant yet be so hurt by the news. Every pregnant lady or new baby you see is a constant reminder that pierces at your heart. Those that did know were very kind and comforting and offered us lots of love and support. Their kind words were always welcomed but never seemed to really curb any of the hurt. The only words that brought some kind of comfort to us was a scripture that we picked as our family scripture for the year. (At new years every year we pick a family scripture for the year that we print off and post in our room). This scripture had stood out to both Kevin and I and became our go to comfort during the year. It is found in D&C 98 1-2

  1 Verily I say unto you my friends, fear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks;

 2 Waiting patiently on the Lord, for your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and are recorded with this seal and testament—the Lord hath sworn and decreed that they shall be granted.

This scripture was a reminder to us that the Lord new of our concerns, had heard our plea over the past two years for children and that we would grant us the blessing of children whether it was through adoption or on our own.  We just needed to be patient and rely on the Lords time line and not our own.  

And although this scripture brought us lots of comfort there were still many days when the pain seemed unbearable and "waiting patiently" seemed near impossible. 

So come September I received a job teaching and had to choose an insurance plan. I started looking at the different plans that were offered to us and noticed that Kaiser Permanente said they covered 50% of infertility treatments. So after lots of research and telephone calls we decided that this insurance was probably going to be our best option since one of our main medical expenses was infertility medications and treatments. The doctors at Kaiser immediately started me on the same medication again with a few changes to the amount and form of medicines and started getting me information on other options. One of the options that they would pay 50% was an IUI. You can click on the link to get even more information. But in a simplified version Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is a procedure that involves placing sperm inside a woman’s uterus to facilitate fertilization.  The average success rate for IUI ranges from 10-20% in one cycle.  

Even though the success rate was not super high we decided we wanted to try a couple cycles of this before we jumped into in-vitro which was much more expensive. So once again I started on medication and started monitoring ovulation very carefully. After a few frustrating months of the medications not working correctly I finally got the green light that I was ovulating and we could go through with the IUI. So Kevin managed to sneak out of school during finals week and join me at the doctors for an afternoon. They performed the IUI and told me to take a pregnant test on December 24 if I had not started my period and sent me on my way. 

So fast forward two weeks to December 24th. We were in Idaho and I was cramping really bad. I told Kevin not to get his hopes up since I figured my menstrual cycle was going to start. But it didn't. Then it was Christmas day and although Kevin kept encouraging me to take a test, I could not bare to face another negative test especially on Christmas day. I told him I was not ruining Christmas for us and was going to wait and see. Well the 26th came along and as I laid in bed bright and early unable to sleep I decided I needed to face the test. So I snuck out of bed and went to take the test. When the positive line appeared almost immediately, I almost did not believe it. I sat there crying/hyperventilating not really sure what to do. All of a sudden all the pain all the tears all the medication all the time waiting was worth it.  After I pulled myself together I quickly ran into our room and tossed the test to Kevin who was asleep. He sat up and noticed it was a pregnancy test that had just hit him in the head. He however didn't even look at it. All he said was "I already know what it says from the look on your face". It was a very special moment to share with him especially because the tears were finally tears of happiness instead of sadness. 

 We told my mom later that day (I couldn't hold it back). I was still having cramps and was not feeling great so we decided to go to the doctors just to see what was going on. Turns out I also had a UTI. At the doctors they did a pregnancy test to confirm my pregnancy. It was positive as well. After this confirmation we finally had the chance to tell my dad (We had to find a time he wasn't surrounded by grandchildren or at work).  

I wish I had the answer or even great words of comfort to all those who are suffering with infertility.  Going through all of this was hard, the hardest thing I have ever had to go through. And because of this I am not sure any human is able to truly offer the comfort that those families need. However there is comfort.  That comfort can only be found in prayers and scriptures and trusting the lord and his plan (which is much easier said then done). He had a plan for us, a plan that took time and patience and tears, and growth both spiritually, emotionally, and within our relationship.  Even though we may not understand why we needed this time, He knew we needed this time and I trust that He knows best. 

A White Christmas

I know students always think that no one could possibly be as excited as they are about Christmas break, however I am not sure they fully understand how excited their teachers are for break. Needless to say when Christmas break rolled around I was thrilled to escape and Kevin was thrilled to have a break from studying. So as soon as we got out of school, we headed to Idaho to enjoy a white Christmas.

It was a pretty relaxed Christmas. Lots of lounging around, watching movies, eating yummy food, taking naps, and staying up late playing games. It also of course included some good ole' puzzle time. We completed two puzzles while we were there.

For Christmas we brought all my nieces and nephews donuts from VooDoo. Don't worry they were kid friendly. The kids were amazed by the fruit loops and bubble gum and coco puffs that covered all the donuts. Needless to say they enjoyed them and I enjoyed watching little Livia's eyes light up when we opened the box. She was amazed. 

We also spent one day out enjoying the snow. Lets just say when you put a sled and four wheeler together it equals pure happiness.

Since Devin and Charm were staying at my parents house too Christmas day was actually pretty exciting with all the kids.  Kevin and I had done our Christmas early so we didn't have to bring them with us, but watching the kids open their presents is always the most exciting part. It then turned into a day of games, and relaxing (seemed to be a trend).

On the 28th we celebrated Loryn's birthday and went to the movie Frozen. Well actually Kevin and I went to the temple and then he dropped me off and let me celebrate with the family, since he didn't really care to go to see it (Surprisingly he still hasn't seen it).

While in Idaho there were a few nights my parents let Kevin and I be their dates and they took us to a couple movies at the theatre. We saw the Saratov Approach, as well as the Book Thief. Both were great movies.

In the end we were sad to leave and head back to the real world but at least we had a great view and good roads on the way home. And we made it home with lots of meat and applesauce, thanks to my Mom and Dad. 

Hawks and Bears

For Kevin's birthday I bought him tickets to the Portland Winterhawks. They are a professional junior ice hockey team based here in Portland.  As we were walking into the game we started noticed everyone was caring teddy bears and other stuffed animals. We joked about how we didn't fit in, since we didn't have a bag of stuffed animals. It wasn't until the Hawks scored their first goal that we finally came to understand what all the bears were about. They were collecting them for a Christmas charity. And when they scored there first goal, everyone began throwing the stuffed animals onto the ice. It was really fun to watch. And in the end they collected over 10,000 stuffed animals.

But don't worry, this hockey game wasn't all soft and cuddly, there was plenty of fights and some really good knock outs and ejections to keep us entertained. In the end Winterhawks won and we were really impressed with the fun atmosphere of the game.