Pincocks

For Christmas this year I helped organize this gift for my parents. I saw it on someone's blog last year and knew immediately I wanted to do this! It's such a cute idea! Every year I put together "grandkids" calenders for my parents and Rob's parents - they love them but it's no surprise anymore. So! I saw this and realized we have 7 kids that would perfectly spell out PINCOCK and knew we had to do it!

They were SO surprised and loved it!

So we asked everyone to dress in dark colors and take the pictures outside so they'd look similar. Then we made them all b&w to add even more uniformity. For the letters we used large white posterboard - taking up as much of it to make each letter as we could. It helped that Ness happened to be in UT for the weekend and I had her help me make all our letters! :)

Here's where I got the idea from.

Thanks for caring

I feel so loved from all of you who've commented, texted, facebooked.... thank you. I'm sorry I made you guys all wait in suspense with me to just once again be let down. :( Luckily not every cycle is like this one... most I can get through without too much wondering about it. Otherwise these last almost three years would've KILLED me.

I don't know how you ladies who are TTC and have long, irregular cycles do it! I've taken for granted my super regular cycles and even the fact they are so short (26 days usually) means it's over and we try again right away... So I can't imagine every cycle going through this long uncertain phase... so emotionally draining...

I just had really really wanted this to be it - the idea of not having to go through doing more fertility stuff was so exciting! I don't want to do invitro, I don't want to figure it out, I don't want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on it.... ahhhh! But I do want to have another baby. Just one more! Or if we did IVF and got 2 or 3 ok! I just want one more baby and then I won't even ask for another one! Just one sibling for Robby. One more kid. And I don't know why but adoption doesn't feel like the answer for us - at least not right now.

Anyways! Thank you guys for being so supportive and for caring!

One day I'll have good news! I promise!

Sad day - but not what you think

Today was a sad day! No, I didn't get my period still but the test I took this morning was totally negative so the fact that I'm 2 days late for me still makes me feel like it'll show up any minute since I feel like it would've had at least a faint positive! So I'm going to try to take my temp tomorrow which should give me a heads up and take another test... I'll keep you posted...

BUT! It was a sad day because today Robby said coyote. Not, coyoNe. He said it this morning and Rob and I just looked at each other like, "oh no!" It's one of Rob's favorite little Robby voice things he says... so I took a little video of him saying his new big boy version of coyote.

Seriously, can he stop growing up??? And then this is just him telling me about his dream...

Robby is hilarious... we were watching Baby Lily today and Robby was dancing around in front of her and trying to tell her jokes ("Knock knock... mom, she's not laughing... what kind of jokes do babies like??") and I suggested he tell her a story so he told her The Three Little Pigs. His first version was short and adorable... something about how then the pig put a pot of milk and syrup and the wolf came down and he ate him up.... but later today I told him I'd write his story while he told it to me.... so for his records:

"Once upon a time there lived three little pigs. And a big bad wolf came up to their houses and one minute ago the big bad wolf thought they were hens, i mean grass, so the big bad wolf though he could eat them. And so they went the pigs went out for a little walk. And they saw the big bad wolf on the way to their mommy and daddy's house. And maybe I think they just lived alone in their own houses. And so they went out for a long long walk through the woods and they lost their maps on the way to the woods. So they couldn't find anything they wanted to find. The map said everything they wanted to find and they only wanted to find like keys and old stuff so oh yeah. And on the way on the next walk they believed that they were going the wrong way soon on the way to their woods. And so they met that anything they could hope for could go and the maps came finally and they thanked Heavenly Father for helping them find their maps and also they, the big bad wolf, and Heavenly Father helped the three little pigs kill the big bad wolf because Heavenly Father wasn't interested for the wolf to stay up cause it was not good."
--by Robby

So grateful for this awesome little guy....

Me oversharing - what's new?

Again, I don't blog very often because what I feel like blogging/talking about I feel like not everyone wants to hear about all the time... but you know what? Sometimes writing about this on my blog gives me a little bit of release - like sending these thoughts and feelings out there into the world for all you people to see just takes some of the pressure... the heaviness... out of my heart.

So, if you're not interested in the oversharing-ness that is me SKIP THIS POST.

I'm late. I'm just one day "late." As in, I usually start on day 26 and today's day 27 and still nothing. Obviously a normal cycle is an average of 28 days, great, sure, but for the last year I get my period on day 26. Ok. Normally I would not even give this a second thought, I don't let myself even *think* about maybe being pregnant because guess what, I never am! The combination of patience and my handy dandy basal thermometer = not having to waste money on pointless HPTs (home pregnancy tests) because my period without fail always shows up.

Every couple of months.... every now and then... like today... I let myself start wondering if I *could* be pregnant. Sure, the dr recommends in-vitro w/icsi and we haven't done any fertility meds or anything since last year but I have gotten pregnant twice on my own so it IS possible. I told a friend of mine I wanted to go buy some pregnancy tests because I was actually letting myself wonder if I could be pregnant to which she said something like, "there's no harm in that" or whatever...

But, oh, there is. When I don't even let myself think about it, don't consider it an option, when I just expect and then get my period it isn't hard. Well, it is, but I'm used to that feeling. What I'm not used to is this little sensation of hope or wonderment and then when those hopes get smashed it's awful.

But you have to go with your feelings and so I'll waste money on pregnancy tests and probably get my period an hour later and it'll go on...

Or I could be pregnant! *ha, there it is again! I almost just want to say to that thought, "GO AWAY. You are NOT HELPING."

And let me clarify - I do believe that one day I'll be pregnant again. And I know it *could* happen on it's own so that is a real option. We pray every day to have a baby (or Quattro who prays for 3 babies now) and I have faith that one day we'll have a baby. I don't know how to explain this... in the long term I'm hopeful.... Overall I'm happy and have a wonderful life but sometimes these moments are just painful and HARD.

I think it'd be easier to not think about it each month and one day be a happy surprise! All of us TTC'ers out there have heard, "if you just stopping thinking about it it will happen." After I punch those people in the face I'd like to ask them how do they suggest not thinking about something like that? Because even when I do my best to surround myself with other things, distract myself... you never don't have this in the back of your head....

Thank you for letting me take a little of the load off of my shoulders - even if no one reads this I feel better. Sorry this is one of the "darker" posts on this topic in my life - I promise I know Heavenly Father has a plan for me and all of that so please don't feel like you need to tell me that. I'm just sharing my thoughts and frustrations while I'm on this journey!

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And something to cheer me up and a happier topic! My distraction for the last month has been getting more healthy/losing some weight and while I didn't really seem to see much of a difference when I looked in the mirror here are some kind of modest before and after pics that made me happy...

Do you like how the before is your classic, I look so blah and just kind of gross - not that the after I'm glammed up or anything but what is with that expression on my face? Ha. And apparently Rob did not think I would've lost weight in my calves and therefore they did not need to be photographed... ;)

Yes this is kind of a lot of oversharing today, huh? Sorry folks! Don't say I didn't warn you! ;)