Finally...an update....the last couple months

My great grandma Zina turned 89 in November. We went to the Gun Barrell for dinner to celebrate



I love her so much! She has always been there for me!



4 generations. I was hoping to make it 5 soon. This was the night I told my family I was pregnant. Unfortunately I miscarried a week and a half later



Brandon is home! He flew in from Missouri on December 17. Yahoo!



His cute girlfriend Whitney. They met 2 months before he left and wrote the whole time. We love her!



So happy to have him back!



The whole fam (my mom's side anyway)



Every year on Christmas Eve day we go bowling with my mom's side of the family in Cedar

Learning how to play our new favorite card game...Bang!

Eating our delicious prime rib dinner that grandma works so hard on

Our Christmas Tree. We cut down like a 30 foot tree on Cedar Mountain in order to try and find the perfect tree :)

We went down to St. George for a Christmas party with our friends at Jake and Wendy Bulkley's house

Tora got a new toy for Christmas. A bird on the end of a stick with a string. She loves it! Drags it around the house so we will play with her. Hopefully this will help keep her from bringing real ones in the house anymore!

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at my mom's this year and then headed up to Enterprise. Shelby and Shep (Bryce's puppy) playing tug tug with their new toy. They are such cute cousins. haha.

Sadie and Chance. This will probably be Chance's last Christmas. She is just getting so old and miserable it is time to put her down, but none of us are brave enough to do it :(

Luke playing with his remote control helicopter in enterprise. Who says I don't have any children?

November

Just because I haven't posted in a while doesn't mean nothing has been going on. It has been a pretty eventful month. November 1st we were on our way back to L.A. again for another attempt at getting pregnant. November 2 we got a call early that morning from our embryologist letting us know that 6 of our embryos weren't good enough to transfer. So at the last minute our last frozen embryo was thawed and it made it! We were so greatful we didn't drive all the way down there for nothing! So they transferred our last embryo in that day. I also had my first experience with accupuncture. Studies have shown that it can help with success rates with in vitro. I must admit I felt very relaxed and would do it again.

8 days later I had a blood HCG test. It wasn't supposed to be that early, but I felt like I had PMS and just wanted to know! My OB here let me order it early. To my surprise it came back at 107! Which meant I was pregnant! 2 days later my OB checked it again and it went up to 198 which is good. It is supposed to double every 48 hours.

My next HCG test was scheduled a week after my first one. This was when the disappointment started. It was only 257. It wasn't doubling at this point. So 2 days later we checked it again and I had an ultrasound. It didn't go up much and my Dr. couldn't really see anything on the ultrasound. He suspected an ectopic pregnancy. My dr. in L.A. called friday morning and told me to stop my estrogen and progesterone that I was on to help maintain the pregnancy. I started bleeding pretty heavy on Tuesday and started cramping really bad around noon. I passed a clot and my Dr. figured that I had passed it on my own. About 4 hours after that we checked my HCG level and it had finally started going down. I guess this was a good thing because I was supposed to get a shot of methotrexate that same day in case it was an ectopic pregnancy. So at least I didn't have to go through that as well.

It has been hard, but I guess your trials do make you stronger because I have dealt with this a lot better than I thought I would.

We went to Enterprise for thanksgiving this year. Although it has been hard for me to be greatful right now, I have realized what I am greatful for. I have the greatest family and friends anyone could ever ask for that have been there for me through all of this. Especially my husband.

Carvin Punkins and Snow!

Monday night we had some friends over (Nate and Carly Merrill, Jeff and Gina Perkins, and Wes and Ashlee Dotson) to carve pumpkins and eat cookies! Good times.


Parker and Kye had fun too (Ashlee and Gina's babies). Kye was mad because we were trying to get them to hold still for a pic.



The finished product :)



It started snowing Tuesday around noon and stopped Wednesday during the night sometime. Most of it has melted. I'm just glad we made it to the last week in October this year instead of the first week of October! Kinda fun the first time and during the holidays, but gets old by February. This is in front of our house.



Our backyard



We babysat Kye on Tuesday night. So cute!



He had fun with Shelby. She was a good sport :)

I Would Die For That

A great video for any woman really.

Touching Videos

Sorry I'm not sure how to post the actual videos! if anyone knows how do tell! Just copy and paste :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqfGqOx2iDQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8EEYQdfRZ8

A trip to the vet :(

Last week Shelby was acting funny. Shaking her head and scratching at her ear. So Luke looked inside and thought there was a stick in there. So we got the flashlight and the tweezers and played Dr. Turned out to be a Tick. Very nasty little things. She stopped acting funny other than she acted like she couldn't hear very good and Luke kinda lost her a couple of times. So I decided I better take her into the vet to see if there were more ticks in there. Sure enough. 1 in each ear. So deep he had to sedate her to get them out. At first he thought 1 was just a wax plug and that was why she couldn't hear. Come to find out it was a huge tick! Blocking her whole ear canal. Poor thing. I didn't think she would ever forgive me for taking her in and making her get poked and proded, but she did. She kinda scared me after I took her home. She was still so sleepy and could not walk very well. This is a picture of her sleeping it off on her bed. She was back to normal the next day though. Although we spent about 200 dollars for everything, it was worth it. She is such a good Dog!

Update

Last Friday, September 11, we got the news. . . . that we weren't pregnant :( It was hard and a really crappy day. Things are getting easier though and I am trying to stay positive that it will work next time when we try with our frozen embryos. It feels more like a loss this time. It didn't just feel like I didn't get pregnant. It felt more like a miscarriage or a death because they were alive for 3 days. They were only 8 cells, but still alive. So I guess that has made it a little harder than just not getting pregnant.

I have felt very comforted the past few days and know that is the only reason I am doing as well as I am. Sometimes it is hard, and you want to give up, and you start to lose hope. But, sometimes that is just how life goes and we don't know why we have to go through the trials we have, but we make it through them anyways and hopefully they make us stronger. I guess we will see.

Thanks to everyone for all of your love and concern. We are doing pretty good. The best that we can anyways, and are trying to stay positive for the future.