Angela and Cody's Wedding

Last weekend, Drew and I made the trek up to Green Lake, Wisconsin for Angela and Cody's wedding. I had never been a bridesmaid, so I was so excited for this first. Drew and I left late Friday morning so that we would have some time to relax before the rehearsal. My period decided to show up Friday afternoon, even though my chart said that I would start on Sunday. I knew that it was coming though from my temps. I spent the whole weekend so sick. I have no idea how I got through it. I was nauseous, and in pain, and just miserable. I put on such a brave face and I don't think that anybody really knew how crappy I felt.

The rehearsal and dinner went very well. Saturday dawned and was a gorgeous day! All of us girls started our day out at the salon to get our hair done.
The back of my hair. I loved the way it turned out!

After I got my hair done, and while Angela was getting hers done, I played with the macro settings on my camera.

Not only was I a bridesmaid, but I was a makeup artist too. Multi-tasker!Angela's flower girl and her mom. Isn't she adorable!

The bride and her father.

Me, Cody's mom, Cody's grandma, and Cody's sister-in-law

The groom! I think he looks a little nervous. What do you think?

Mr. and Mrs!!!

Minus the fact that I was so sick all weekend, I had such a great time! I loved being a part of all the wedding festivities. I wish nothing but happiness to the newlyweds and a long life filled with many blessings.

Uncovered Treasure

Drew has been trying to clean and organize the garage for a couple of months now. Yeah, he's productive. The only reason I haven't complained about having to park my beauty outside is because it's summer. But, it's his space and he can do what he wants with it. Plus, he's been working some crazy hours.

This evening, he decided to do a little bit more work out there. He was pulling out some old dressers and clearing them out so we can sell them. I was inside cooking dinner when he walked in for about the 38567730th time to show me something. I hear him brushing something off as he asks me if I have any interest in it. In my head I'm thinking, "Hmmm, probably not based on the amount of brushing off you had to do to it". But, I turned around and he showed me the cutest picture ever.
Yes, I was very interested in that! Isn't that great? I can't wait to find the perfect spot to hang it.

Make Lemonade

Drew is back to working nights and I HATE IT! I just get extremely frustrated that we don't get to see each other or spend a whole lot of time together. I am truly grateful that he has a job and I try really, really hard not to complain about it. But every so often, I just have a day where I miss him like crazy and have a breakdown.

Last night was one of those nights. I'm stressed out about all this baby stuff and I'm bummed that Drew and I haven't had a lot of alone time lately.

Drew knew that I was upset. Usually he puts some extra effort into us spending some time together. He'll set aside some time where it's just us. But today, at work, the door opened up and a lady walked in with some flowers.
Aren't they pretty? I took the picture at night, in our dimly lit dining room, with my point and shoot, so it's not that great of a picture. But trust me, they're gorgeous! The arrangement is called "Make Lemonade" and I thought that was so cute. Ya know, when life hands you lemons.

I love my husband more that words can possibly describe. He always knows how to cheer me up exactly when I need it.


Just as a side note, I'm a little behind on blogging. Stay tuned for some back dated posts coming soon!

Angela's Bachelorette Party

This weekend was Angela's bachelorette party. A total of 8 of us girls went up to her family's lake house on Lake Poygen in Wisconsin. I have never been to a lake house before and I left there wanting to buy one ASAP! It was amazing!

We went through a town called Pardeeville on the way there. Just awesome!!
After we got to the lake house and unloaded all of our stuff, (Based on the number of bags and food we had, you'd think we were staying for a week instead of just one night. Girls!!) we all piled back into my car and went to The Bridge for lunch.

This picture took 4 takes! But sweet success!!! (And I really love the way my eyes look.)

We had a great lunch right on the river. We took loads of pictures. Here's Angela and all her bridesmaids.

Here are all of us girls that went doing a shot. Of course there were celebratory shots.

Bride and bridesmaid. It wasn't too long ago that these roles were reversed!

Some of the girls in the lake.

I really loved this lake because it was shallow for so long. It made it really nice for swimming and goofing around.

After we got back from lunch, we went swimming, played games, ate, drank, danced, had some serious girl time.

Angela's wedding night lingerie. Ha!!

I think we all had a great time. There was a lot of drama that happened much later in the evening. Let's just say that I didn't go to bed until 5 AM and woke up at 9 AM. Then, my sister and I had a 3 hour drive home. Exhausted doesn't even begin to describe it. It'll take me months to catch up on sleep. Ha!

Forming A Game Plan

Today, Drew and I went to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist. The man who's, hopefully, going to help me get pregnant. Well, along with my husband, right? Haha!

Anyway, we had our first consultation with him. We sat and talked with him for an hour and a half and formed a plan on how we're going to attack this infertility issue. Obviously, our goal is for me to get pregnant, stay pregnant, and deliver a healthy baby.

We all know how a baby gets made right? Well, the ovary releases an egg. Then, the fallopian acts like a sort of vaccuum to suck up the egg. The egg then gets fertilized by the sperm in the tube. It travels through the tube and implants in the uterus. Life has started.

Well, for me, when the tube acts like a vaccuum sucking up the egg, it also sucks up a whole bunch of other gunk (like endo), which acts like "battery acid" to the sperm. Once the sperm hits it, it kills it, giving it no chance to fertilize the egg.

There are 5 levels of aggression when it comes to trying to make a baby.

• Level 0 is no contraception. That could take a couple up to 2 years to conceive.
• Level 1 is Well Timed Sexual Intercourse. This is using charting and/or ovulation predictor kits to time sex around fertile periods. This will take a couple up to 1 year to conceive.
• Level 2 is using fertility meds to increase the number of eggs that are released and using WTSI. This will take anywhere from 6-8 months.
• Level 3 is allowing the body to release one egg, but doing an IUI. An IUI is an Interuterine Insemination. This is injecting the sperm into the uterus so that the sperm has less that they have to swim. This will take about 5-6 months to conceive.
• Level 4 is using fertility meds to increase the number of eggs that are released and an IUI. This will take 3-4 months to conceive.
• Level 5 is In-Vitro Fertilization. IVF is taking my eggs and Drew's sperm and fertilizing the egg outside of the body. Then, transferring embryos to my uterus and praying feverishly that at least one sticks. This will typically take a couple 1-2 months to conceive.

I told the doctor that my choice was Level 5. No questions asked. Let's get this done, Doc! Ahhhh, but life can't be so easy. You see, the insurance company has to approve such a procedure. And obviously, IVF is quite a costly procedure. So, insurance companies like to see at least a couple tries with IUIs.

Are you asking the same question I did? "But Doc, if my tubes are like battery acid to the sperm, what's the point? Won't that just be a waste of time and money?" Apparently they don't look at it that way.

So, our game plan. Drew will be doing a semen analysis (S/A). I have to do Day 2 bloodwork. Then, when those results come back, he will decide if he wants to do an SIS or an HSG on me. Basically, those are just looking inside my uterus to see if there are any abnormalities. If there are, I will be scheduled to have a hysterescopy to remove them. After all of that, we will then strategize whether we doing Level 4 or Level 5.