Stuff I meant to blog about but never did...

I cut my hair.

I went to my cousin Stacy for a haircut and since Gwen had recently chopped her hair off for Locks of Love I felt inspired to do the same. I figured my hair might not ever be this long again so I wouldn't ever have 10 inches to cut off and still leave it as long as it would be which is the shortest you'll probably ever see my hair.

I like it. I might even consider keeping it a little short for a while before going straight back to growing it out as long as possible like I usually do.

 

I had really long hair. And this picture is from a Ward Rollerskating party that was great! Have I mentioned Rob and I first met at a rollerskating rink when we were 12? So fun.

Will & Amanda came out for Amanda's graduation. It was so great to see them. We miss them and are excited to visit them in New York in a few weeks! We love you guys!

 Sunday naps in the closet....

We had a great Easter. The Easter bunny came to see Robby.... I put a little trail of candy from his room leading out to this basket.

 He was pretty excited! Then we dyed eggs with cousins and did a hunt at A&B's.

We had Gwen's baptism in March...

Then Robby the kid's in April...

Pincock  side

Pincock fam

Parsons side (yes we are in both)

That reminds me - Robby said to me the other day, "I heard that when you were a kid you were a Pincock, mom!" I said "yes I was before I married daddy I was a Pincock." He said, "Oh, were Andrew and Becca and Annie and Tyler and them there?" Ha ha. I told him, "Nooo... just Andrew. But did you know that when Becca was little she was a Parsons?" *blank face* One day he'll get it.

We got swept up in JIMMER MANIA! How could you not? Although if you asked Robby he'd waver between Jimmer and Jackson Emery as his favorite...

We played "Golf Ball" at Trafalga... we could finish a round in like 10 minutes sometimes because Robby would just run ahead so fast and do all the holes himself... he'd whack at the ball over and over again until it got in the hole and then he'd be ecstactic! We sure got our money's worth out of those Pass of All Passes. We did Go Karts too at Trafalga and went to the one in Lehi also.

Saw some of my awesome Russia friends... (now we're all the way back to February, was it really that long ago??? Crazy!) Emily came into town and we got together at Nancy's place. Made me miss our good times in Voronezh! And speaking Russian. :(

Emily's Edward, Nancy's girls Miram & Rachel, Robby

Emily, Me, Nancy (Robby was our photographer)

 Bringing Valentine's doughnuts to dad at work...

Snuggling on the couch...

  

And an important one! The birth of 2 new little nieces and a special trip to MD in April to see them. Sarah's #5 Quincy and Vanessa's first little one Ruby who was born on Robby's bday! How fun! It felt like a fast trip but it was filled with baby love :)

Quincy and Ruby

Getting to see Grandma Hazel

Ness, Me holding Ruby (in the quilt Taba made!)

Taba, Sarah w/Quincy, me, Rach, Mom, Dad - see how I'm the shortest one in the fam?

And that's all.... for now....

Ready for tomorrow

Tonight when we were saying our family prayer Robby kept telling me things to add to the prayer...

I don't remember what I was saying exactly but was praying that tomorrow (the egg transfer) would go well and that my body would be strong and healthy for a baby and he interjected:

"Bless that we will HAVE a baby!"

Then I was saying something about the eggs and he added:

"Bless the eggs will turn into babies!!!"

Guess I wasn't being specific enough!!

And we were talking about having faith and how he believes he's going to have a brother or a sister one day even though he can't see them right now and he said, "Yeah, but we don't know HOW MANY babies we're gonna have because I mixed it up! One baby, two babies, three babies..." He was so serious about it too. As if all his prayers for different numbers of babies has just mixed up our order... as I've always said, we will not be picky - we'll take however many Heavenly Father sends us!

Also talking to Robby and explaining to him that Heavenly Father knows just what's best for us and when the best time to send us a brother or a sister would be so we have to trust him helped strengthen my testimony of that.

We're excited to be doing the egg transfer tomorrow - it makes this all feel so much more real! Once they're put back inside me then we just have to wait to find out if it worked! It's made me pretty emotional the last couple of days the closer we get to this point. Definitely going to have to stay busy the next 10 days! Well, the first few will be spent on bed rest so I can't be that busy but at least I'll need to stay distracted! :)

Late Happy Father's Day!

I love my handsome husband!

I love that he's been around so much more often lately! And that he's been so helpful lately! I love that he and Quattro can hang out, like buddies. They go on scooter rides, wrestle, watch sports, read books... he is strong and a takes such good care of both of us.

I love a lot of things about him... and while neither of us is perfect I think we are perfect for each other.

Thanks Rob for being the best dad and husband!

We love you!

And thanks Quattro for taking these pictures of dad.... ;)

Hurray for summer!

So when we're not at dr's or acupuncture apts you can usually find us at the POOL! :)

When a friend asked me, "have you come every day this week?" My response was, "yeah, but most days was only like 3 hours." I've only had a couple all day pool days - which are my absolute favorite thing - but it's ok! I'm working from home again this summer and trying to fit that in with all the IVF stuff and trying to get Robby out of the house has been a little crazy. Sometimes I feel like I'm operating with only half a brain - I think it's just taking up a lot of my mental capacity (IVF is).

But the pool has been a blast and it's great to have had lots of cousins to come play with us!

It's basically impossible to get a picture of all the cousins looking - forget about smiling! Oh well! They are a fun bunch.

I was talking to Robby in the hot tub at the pool the other day about what to name a baby if I got pregnant. He was shooting down all my ideas...

Me: "What about Jordan?"
Robby: "That's a movie name."
Me: "What about Chase?"
Robby: "No, that's a movie name."
Me: "What the heck is a movie name?"
Robby: "A name from a movie."
Me: "Is that a bad thing?"
Robby: "Yeah, I don't like movie names."

Ah ha.... then today...

Robby: "If we have a baby boy can we name him Yoda? Or Darth Vader? Or Chewbacca?"

I thought he didn't like movie names! And pretty sure he is fired from any name choosing. Chewbacca? Seriously?

Anyways! It's fun to think about what to name a baby... hopefully we get to name one again someday! Soon!

Baby stuff blog...

I decided I wanted to share all the details about my IVF journey but wanted to keep this blog more about family stuff and start a separate baby blog! That way I don't feel like I have to keep apologizing for sharing my thoughts on all this! If you are interested in more detailed updates you're welcome to read the new baby blog, if not, no problem, I'll still put the major things - like whether it works or not! - on this blog! So! There you go!

http://parsonsbabysteps.blogspot.com/

Patience

I can't remember the start of the conversation but something about it taking so long to get pregnant...

Me: "You know how mommy is always telling you to be patient?"

Robby: "Yeah..."

Me: "Well, mommy having to wait to get pregnant and have a baby helps teach mommy to be patient. And you and daddy."

Robby: "Oh!" And he got this big smile on his face like, ha, you have to be patient too!

baby steps...

Tonight Robby is off with his daddy on his FIRST fathers & sons camp out! He was so excited! I can't wait to hear all about it tomorrow! Hopefully they'll take some pictures!

So you guys have all been so wonderful and supportive and I wanted to give you an update...

READ: SKIP IF NOT INTERESTED IN MORE TTC (trying to conceive) UPDATES!

Well, it's been almost a year exactly since our last step in this process... and since then I've been "trying not to think about it." You know, "relax" as the "experts" say. ;) I'm so grateful we've been happy and able to really enjoy life and the one amazing child we have even while we've continued to hope and pray every single day for another baby.

Now we're taking another step...

We are starting our first try of IVF w/ICSI. We've thought a lot about it over the last year and have decided now's the time to try it and we're able to borrow some money to pay for it and get help from family. We've started the process and the actual invitro will happen the end of June, and then we'll find out if it worked 10 days later so July 5-10 ish.

The timing will all depend on how my body reacts to the medications they'll have me on and then how fast the embryos are ready to be put back in... the doctor recommends we transfer 1-2 embryos - he said he wouldn't put 3 in unless I was much older and the egg quality was poor and he'd put just 1 if we were really opposed to twins but I think if we could get 2 babies for the price of 1 in this case it'd be great. Robby's been praying for 2 babies for the last year so maybe I'll get pregnant with twins and he'll get his wish!

It's a pretty intense process, lots of injections and medications for me and some for Rob and lots of doctor's apts and time it'll take but we feel like this is the right thing for us to do right now. I would be due middle-end of March so just before Robby turns 5! I don't feel any kind of guarantee going into this but according to the doctor we talked to we have about an 80% chance of it working.

If it doesn't work - we will probably have embryos left over that we will be able to freeze and a frozen cycle will be about $3000 as opposed to a fresh cycle like we're doing that's $11,000. So a much more affordable option and we'd try that again probably pretty soon after if we can.

We are also doing acupuncture in conjunction with IVF. There are studies that show doing acupuncture with IVF has higher success rates. Trying to increase our chances as best as we can!

I'm kind of torn between wanting to write down every little detail and wanting to just wait and see what happens and then tell you all... maybe it's time for me to start an actual journal so the whole wide world doesn't have to read my personal stuff! But for some reason it helps... sharing it with people... putting it out there for someone to find if they're in the same situation or wondering how this all works! We'll see.

It's a weird thing - wanting to be excited, trying to be hopeful, and trying to stay realistic. It's a weird mix of emotions. But I'm definitely happy to be doing something more to try to have another baby! And definitely just saying lots of prayers...

Funny Robby story - today as I was giving myself my morning shot of Lupron (here come some details) Robby asked me, "well, maybe we will get THREE babies since you are getting so many shots!" I kind of laughed and said, "no, honey, we won't get three babies, we might get one baby, maybe two, but not three!" He quickly said, "I'm gonna say a prayer!" He ran to his room, knelt by his bed and prayed, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the day, please bless that mommy will have three babies. Please bless mommy will be stronger than all the other mommies. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen." He's hilarious...

FrontSight

We were lucky enough to get a certificate to take a class at Frontsight from a friend at church. We used 1 certificate for the both of us and did a 2 day defensive handgun course.

I will admit - I was pretty nervous but decided to just go with this and tried to act like it was normal. Rob and I have gone shooting lots of times but I'm no expert. I knew it'd be good to get more educated and have some real training with shooting a handgun to make me more comfortable.

Guys, it was so great. It was an exhausting, long, but very enjoyable 2 days. I left feeling a million times more confident - kind of on a high... I don't know how to describe it really!

Don't worry - that's my name on my hat. They put your name on duct tape on the front and back of your hat. Helpful...

It was pretty awesome. We both learned a ton - I feel much more confident with my shooting ability and am excited to keep practicing and working on it. At the end of the 2nd day we had to do a Simulation where we were in a small room (pretending it's your house) and they had bad guys (photographs) pop up. One bad guy had a little boy in his arms as a hostage that looked just like Robby and I took a deep breath and put a good shot right between that bad guys eyes! It was intense and emotional but a good experience. Heaven forbid we ever actually have to use our guns to protect ourselves but I'm grateful to be learning this.

We spent most of the time outside at this range - and then had a few lectures in this big classroom. This gives you an idea how big it is! We were surprised how many people were there! And it's not like drill sargents or feel like the military - the instructors were all super nice and very helpful and just seemed to really care about helping all of us learn as much as possible.

People going up and checking their targets...

One thing the instructor talked to me about for a bit was the importance of making a plan for your family if something bad were to happen. If there's a fire do you know where to meet? If Robby hears a noise in the middle of the night what should he do? And having some keywords to say to each other and some kind of action plan... anyway it's something we're going to work on and think about. Again, hopefully we NEVER have to use it but if we do it'd be great to be prepared.

They have a ton of land with this huge ropes course and lots of other ranges and targets for different kinds of classes.

We were outside most of the day the last two days in the ridiculous heat so at night we've been going to bed super early - after watching these funny cooking shows! Kitchen Nightmares and Restaurant Impossible. We love the food network. Sunday we checked into our hotel in Vegas where we plan on doing as little as possible and just relaxing! :)

We sure miss Quattro and we're lucky he's having a great time with A&B & fam. Both times I've called Andrew has a funny Quattro story to relay to us!

First - Robby the kid and Quattro were playing basketball and Robby the kid told Quattro, "Ok I'm BYU and you be Utah." I think at first Quattro refused to be Utah but then Andrew overheard him later say, "Ok, I will be Utah, but don't tell my dad." Ahhhhhh!

Saturday A&B took the kids to Macey's grocery store for Pirate Day where they had all these cute Pirate activities for the kids and towards the end they had their Pirate Mascot come out which was like a Pirate Moose I think he said. Of course Quattro freaked out at first but the moose was handing out ice cream and they asked him if he wanted to be very brave and ask him for some ice cream and HE DID - Andrew said he said, "May I have some ice cream?" And Quattro told me, "he was nice! He talked funny, he said, 'Of course!'" I guess after he got the ice cream he said, "i should call my mom and tell her!" (about talking to the mascot) So cute.

Robby is turning 4!

I can't believe that 4 years ago today I was in labor with my little baby boy! What an amazing experience that was and what an amazing 4 years we've had with him as part of our family!

Since his birthday is tomorrow and it's conference we had his party tonight. After changing his mind about what kind of party he wanted like 5 times - back and forth between Pirate and Spiderman.... "I promise I won't change my mind, mom! I want a spiderman party!" The next day someone would ask him what kind of party he was having and he'd tell them, "Pirate." BAH! After I had bought some pirate stuff and he was trying to change his mind again he said, "Ok fine, since you already bought something for it..."

Anyways! Our "parties" are usually just food and friends! So I tried to step it up a little in the decorations to fulfill the "Pirate" theme he wanted. He had a great time and loved having everyone over to celebrate him and of course loved getting some really fun new things to play with!

Tomorrow Rob and I are going to take him on a little date to continue celebrating so there may be a Part 2 post later...















The girls... love these ladies...


When we were getting ready for bed he got all sad and said, "but nobody got me new Pirate or Spiderman pajamas...." I wanted to be like oh brother! And I was... and then I was like, er, hold on, I actually did buy you some! We didn't give him our presents we were saving them for tomorrow but I pulled these out and he was SO EXCITED.



And good night! :)

Holiday

So it's no secret I like to drink diet coke... I might be a little ashamed at the amount I drink and the fact it's such a part of my routine.... BUT! It's the truth and you guys know I like to keep things real! So when Liv blogged about the joys of Maverik I thought I would take a chance to also spotlight another beverage location that I love. :)

HOLIDAY. The one on 1600 North & 1200 West in Orem.

SOOOO many drink options! Cubed or pebble ice....

And one of my favorite things... look at all the straw choices! My favorite is the tall skinny straw! Also they have fresh sliced lemons and limes to add to your drinks...

So great. And this location is also complete with a redbox (Maverik is too).

Refills up to 44 oz are .$89... great price...

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!

*********

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! ;)