20 weeks!

              Well, I am "about" halfway through my pregnancy! I will be 20 weeks tomorrow and surely, a lot has gone on! We have finalized a lot of our house to make way and prep for these two babies. Our last preparation comes today between 10-2...a new couch! :)

               I'll back up to after we purchased our Flex. We have been saving money as if we Dec 21, 2012 was right around the corner (haha). We put about 700-800 dollars in baby savings every month. Yes, we've been blessed by God to have that additional money every month. God truly has taken care of us in the financial field. We continue to tithe to Z Radio and Discovery, we give above and beyond when we feel called to, and God is gracious enough to pour out additional resources back to us in various ways.

            We know that our max out of pocket is around $4000 with insurance. We want to ensure that we have that money in our savings account plus an additional 500-1000 for any baby items we need, that we don't receive at my baby shower.

           Onto preparation, so we host a weekly bible study at our house for Young and Married couples. It's great, a wonderful mix of people. We have some newlyweds, some couples like us that have been married 3-5 years, and couples who have been married longer. We have some children that attend (2 to be exact) and of course, 2 on the way. :) Every week we see the children want to run and play with our entertainment center. Here's a picture of the old entertainment center:


See how open it is? Everything was at the children's reach, and the TV was low too. Brian's main complaint was that the television/satellite box was too low and you had to bend down to turn on the TV.

 Knowing the frustration with this, and the potential problem when we have walking toddlers around the house, we purchased a new entertainment center!  Our new entertainment center looks like this:



Pardon the blurriness of the picture. I snapped it really quickly.  But, either way, you can see now that everything is child-friendly, everything is closed in or tall enough placed. We absolutely love it because it opens up the room more!

Our next adventure in purchasing was a new couch! Our couches, though appreciated, was a hand-me down from my brother. He had the leather couch and chair/ottoman in his garage and he wanted to know if we wanted it. Well, surely, being newlyweds, we would take anything since we did not have the money to pay for a nice one. Being, at the time, 17ish weeks pregnant, getting off that leather couch was a nightmare. It is sloped so it takes double the effort to get up or a husband's hand to lift me. Either way, we knew we wanted a new couch.

So, then we discussed, where are we going to get the money? Well, being a teacher you have the option of taking a certain percentage out of your paycheck every 2 weeks and put it into a "Summer Deferred paycheck." I take out about 12% every 2 weeks. Being the planner that I am, I already looked at my summer finances and paid the bills. Brian's paycheck is a steady amount and then we would just tap into the deferred check when needed. Well, after all is said and done, all bills paid for and Brian's birthday celebrated (July 31st), we will have about 2900 left in my deferred pay. We discussed back and forth many decisions for this additional money. Everything from just splitting it with debt (the Flex loan) and putting it into baby savings, to spending it all on a vacation and putting some into a baby savings.

After many discussions, Brian and I agreed that we would spend 1800 of it on a vacation and 1100 of it would be placed into baby savings. Brian and I were set on this. We were okay with it because we truly have never taken a vacation together, outside of the Florida border. Next dilemma was our decision on where to go. After many troubles, we decided Philadelphia (for family and history) for the week and would stop a day in New York City (because it's the city, I've never been, and to meet his family for lunch/dinner). We started planning things that we would do, Monday - family day, Tuesday - Eagles stadium, Wednesday - historic viewing, Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, etc, Thursday - NYC, Friday leave.

Then, one crazy, hormonal evening, I blurt out, "Let's just buy a living room set and do a small vacation somewhere in Florida." Brian, being the fiscal conservative Jew that he is, said "Sounds like a great idea! I wanted to do that all along but I knew how dead set you were on a vacation and seeing your family." Now our new dilemma was to find the perfect, cream leather, reclining sofa and chair to fit into our living room.

We did some searches online and found minimal results. There was a piece here or there that was decent, but nothing that we were "sold" on. A few items from Ashley's Furniture caught our eye, but their website sucks and does not show the prices. So last Saturday, after running a few errands for Mother's day and our niece's birthday present, we decide to do some furniture window shopping.

Needless to say, we walked in, found the set we adored, they had a sale going on, we purchased a new couch. We just transferred money from savings into our checkings and cha-ching, it was ours. The sale was perfect, buy a reclining sofa full price, get the reclining love seat or chair for 1/2 price. The sofa was 700, the chair was 200 (after the 1/2 off) and there was 100 dollar delivery charge (that we could not get out of one way or the other :( ).

Now I am just awaiting the delivery of our furniture. Like I said before, it is coming anytime between 10-2 today. I'd also like to go to see "What to Expect when you Expecting" movie today, so I'm hoping they come sooner rather than later.

I feel as though our savings account is depleted, since our baby fund has been spent on items not necessarily for the baby but for the house. However, I know that I will get what I need through my baby shower and Brian said if we don't pay off the hospital bill right away he's not worried. The $1100 spent on furniture will be replaced in the baby savings account once I get my deferred pay in June. We found a great hotel to stay at in Melbourne Beach, with an ocean front suite, breakfast in bed package for $350. We are budgeting $250 for anything we want to do during our weekend getaway. And, once all is said and done, we will still be able to put an additional $1100 into the baby savings at the end of the summer again.

But I guess you really want an update on the babies huh?? :) :)

Well, since I last wrote, we discovered that Baby A is a Baby girl!!! We have our little Emily! :) Baby B was a very conservative baby at our last appointment and did not reveal itself. The technician took a guess and said girl as well, but not fore sure.

We will find out THIS Wednesday what Baby B is, how well each are growing, take a look at their organs. This is the big targeted 20 week ultrasound! :) We are excited and can't wait to share with everyone what they BOTH are!!

When we checked their heart beats Emily had a heartbeat of around 127, Baby B had a heartbeat of around 153.

I have been feeling them move more and more lately. At first they were little flutters, but now their more frequent and I feel them on both sides. I was hesitant to call my flutters them, but because I feel them more I totally know it's them. Baby B is more peaceful than Emily. Baby B doesn't often move, so when I get the opportunity to feel he/she move, I absolutely LOVE it! I know that Baby B is just more passive than Emily. :) Emily moves all the time. Flutters and rolls, it's fun!

I feel bad because I tell Brian that the babies are moving a lot and by the time he runs with his stethoscope over to me, it's too late. I want him to experience the fun in the baby movement, but he will have to wait a few more weeks I presume.

I am going to schedule our Lamaze class soon and our hospital tour. It is crazy how truly, our twins could come SOON! Of course everyone hopes to make it to 30+ weeks, but that isn't always the case. I'm not saying we WON'T make it til at least 36-38 weeks, but there are always possibilities of having the babies way too early. Either way, we are scheduling our Lamaze class and hospital tour for sometime in June (making me 24-26 weeks). I was also told that hospitals prefer if you're having twins to do all your classes by 28 weeks just for potential risks. With my Lamaze class I get 3 free additional classes. We are looking at a breast feeding class and a few others. :)

My mother in law, best friend, and sister in law are in cahoots about planning my baby shower. It's difficult since my best friend has a crazy summer schedule. I hope something gets worked out! :)

We are also checking into scheduling our 4D sonogram. We would like to schedule something for our 24-26 weeks time, but we shall see how crazy our June schedule gets! At least our vacation is being planned for July. :)

I'll check back in with you all after our appointment on Wednesday and let you know what Baby B is. And of course, tell you how everything is developing with both of them! :) I leave you with this:

The last month....

 Well, a lot has happened since we told our family and close friends that we were pregnant! Everyone we told was so excited for us to be pregnant! I'm so glad we told everyone around my birthday, it was the perfect timing.

Only a few people from work knew (3, 2 close friends and my sister in law), so I kept it quiet for some time longer. I didn't want anything to happen as we were still early in the first trimester.
Then 2/20 (President's Day Holiday), Brian and I had our first sonogram of the baby...

We arrive at Fertility Care, excited and anticipating what would happen. I was quite hesitant, because the night previous to our appointment I felt like I had miscarried. I just had this weird feeling...Well, the weird feeling was not correct. Prayerfully and Thankfully.

Dr. Trolice walked in, mind you the past month we've only been working with his nurse, thinking we were still only checking follicle size. As soon as he put the ultrasound wand into me he went, "Oh, never mind, you have a baby in there. Two babies." We said WHAT?!! And yup, he proved it right there. Two babies. Look at our first sonogram from the joyous occasion!

Baby A measured at 9mm and Baby B measured at 10mm. Both heart beats were beautiful at 144 bpm.

Immediately after our ultrasound and talk with the nurse, we called family. We were so excited to tell everyone that not only is there a grandbaby but there are GRANDBABIES! Everyone was so excited for us. We were still in shock up until about 8pm that evening. Then we were like, okay, ya, there's two. We told all of our friends who we told in person again that there were now two. We didn't want them finding out through the grapevine.

Then about a few days later we told facebook, with this picture:

We were also excited to tell my coworkers. Boy did that rumor-mill go around fast . I'm pretty sure 98% of the school knows, luckily I don't think the students do yet. I mean, I walk around with a barf bag, but haven't thrown up in front a student yet. LOL.

So these past few weeks have been an adjustment. I talked to an old coworker who had twins around my 7 weeks. Got some great advice and tips from her. Well, her story, she had uncontrollable morning sickness and had to take time off from work for it...Well up until that point I just had been nausea just never thrown up. The next morning, the start of my throwing up morning sickness. :(

I was fine with it, I knew the twins were growing then.

My symptoms from week 8 til now, morning sickness, tired, hungry every hour!! It's uncontrollable hunger!

Well, now I'm almost 10 weeks and since the Fertility doctor said we had graduated to our OB, we scheduled an appointment.

We had my appointment today at 1:40. :) We went into the ultrasound room and the ultrasound tech asked when my last missed period was. I told her I didn't know. She kind of hesitated and said how did I know an expected delivery date. I told her we did a medicated cycle. She was very confused because she was like well then you didn't do IUI or IVF so you wouldn't know. And I said, yes, we had a medicated cycle with timed intercourse. The Fertility clinic told us they expect conception to be the Saturday or Sunday in January, after our Ovidrel shot. She kept quiet and didn't question our EDD of October 7th.

Then she did our ultrasound. She confirmed there are still two growing babies in there :) Yay. She said we were about right on track with our due date, a little earlier. My app says I would be around 9 weeks 5 days, the babies measured between 9 weeks 3-4 days (one baby 3 days, another baby 4 days).

Then, the most adorable thing happened while were just watching the babies in my belly. Baby B started flipping around his hands and legs. It was like "it" was waving and putting a show on for us. It made my heart melt. I was like, what, it's alive, it's moving! LOL. Baby A had been quite still.  Then one last time, she went to Baby A for a few seconds...And Baby A joined it's sibling and started doing a little wave. My heart just fell deeper into love with these two beings. I think I LOVED that so much more than hearing the heartbeat. Just to see that they are not a blob being formed, or too small to do anything. They were moving for us!! Ahh, I wish we had it on tape!

 Brian and I agreed that we are SO glad we bought a 4-D sonogram that is taped and played to music. Because that little moment when they danced for us was just perfect. So to have an opportunity to see them when they're bigger dancing like that. Ahh, can't wait for it!!

Here's a picture of our sonogram today:

Baby A measures around 2.5cm and its heartbeat is 180 bpm. Baby B measures around 2.83cm and its heartbeat is 186 bpm. Still going great!!

Onto our next part of the OB appointment:
          The nurse, Gaye, then saw us after our ultrasound. She said "well..." and both of us were just happy. Not like jumping for joy we just found out we were pregnant or anything, just yay everything's going well. So I told her, "Yup, we're pregnant." She congratulated us and then I said, "It's twins." She gave us a big hug and was like "Obviously you guys knew because you aren't shocked or anything." We said nope, we knew from a few weeks ago and we're just glad that the babies are doing great.
  She gave us a few do's and don't's of pregnancy. She said my schedule may be a little different than a normal pregnancy, but primarily the same. She took my blood pressure (I presume normal, she didn't say anything). I got on the scale. It was actually about 16 pounds less than when I weighed myself at school in January. It's not a bad thing, because this will be my initial weigh and from now on they want to see weight gain. We got our welcome bag and a few more tips about what the next 8 months will look like (since I'm into my 2nd month now).
  Then we met with Dr. Merritt. I just love her. She's so easy to talk to and straight forward. She asked if I wanted Zofran for my morning sickness. I declined it. I'm not to the point where I need it. I throw up once or twice in the morning and then I'm fine besides nausea. She did give me a prenatal-like pill that has more B vitamins in it and some ginger in it. She said it should help and to take that for 2 weeks (and stop my prenatals until I'm finished with it). Also, if it wasn't working, she said, I should stop taking it. I can do that. :)

   And with that, we left. It was good. We were happy with everything. We go on Tuesday to discuss genetics of our family (which there is no problems). Then my next appointment is April 3rd. I'll be just about over my 1st trimester hump and in week 13.

The one decision we have to make is if we want to do a genetics screening. Now, that is different than an amnio. They don't see it necessary for that, but it was up to us for a genetics screening. We are still deciding, but of course, no matter what, we'd never terminate the pregnancy. SO, if you're pregnant and reading this:did you do a first trimester genetic screening? Let me know!

I should be 37 weeks around September 15th. I'm hoping to go that long, since a bulk of my pregnancy will be in the summer. Hence, I will be able to just relax and lay in bed from like week 20-week 32 or something like that! :)

Hopefully, I'll be posting more. I promise I'll try!

<3 -The Family of Four

P.S. The babies are the size of green olives! :)

Body Cleanse

With the start of a New Year and help from "polycystic-ovary-syndrome-guide.com" I will be doing a body cleanse for 2 weeks!

I'm excited to start the new year off right and fresh. This will help with my pre-diabetic/blood sugar levels. The doctor said a skinny woman with PCOS is JUST AS likely to develop diabetes as a 30 pound overweight woman...So, me being slightly overweight AND having PCOS...Imagine the likelihood of diabetes. 

So, time for a body cleanse.

This is how it goes:

-For 2 weeks, the only thing I will eat is leafy green vegetables, fruits, non-starchy vegetables, eggs and nuts (for proteins).

-With every meal (so 3 x a day), I will take a quarter cup of water and 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. Apple Cider vinegar has many health benefits and will help with appetite control.

At the end of those 2 weeks, all of the toxins will be out of my system, weight loss will start, my body will be in balance, and I will feel more energized.

We are going out with a Shebang for the New Years! We are having a fondue extravaganza, with cheese, broth, and chocolate!! :)

But, after that, I'm going on the strict body cleanse!!

And after the 2 week body cleanse, the website suggests that you stick to a heavy fruit/vegetable diet and add fish and chicken to your meals. Of course, I don't like fish, so I'll add chicken to my meals. :) 

Hopefully when you see me next time I'll be a little bit lighter and on my way to being less pre-diabetic! :)

Results of our blood work...And more!

Well, we got our results back on Tuesday. The nurse called me around 3:00 and said, "Your glucose sugars rose after the 2 hour test. Dr. Trolice would like to see you for a consultation appointment." :( :( :(

So, we made an appointment for Thursday at 11:30.

Thursday comes and we get ready for our appointment. We meet with Dr. Trolice..My blood sugar was 92 before the sugary substance (which is normal)...and after drinking it and waiting 2 hours it was 175. Now diabetic individuals would have been 200+, normal is about 140. So I was 35 levels away. Unfortunately, he deemed me pre-diabetic. With the right diet, exercise then I should be fine. However, he put me on metformin. Metformin is a pill to help your blood sugar levels equal out. They put me on this pill for 6 months and then I'll retest. If everything checks out then they'll take me off the pill and test me again. Basically until either a) my body can equalize my blood sugar levels b) my body can't equalize it on its own and I have to take the pill until further notice. :(

Obviously we're crossing our fingers for option A.

Then we discussed Clomid. This time he was a little hesitant putting me on right then, but he thought about it and said okay. The worry was there was 1 more round of blood work that needed to be done. He said I could start taking the clomid, but if I get negative blood work coming back, then I'll have to stop the clomid....

So, I'm on a schedule:
I take the Clomid from yesterday (11/29) until 1/2/2012.
Then on 1/4/2012 I start taking the ovulation predictor kit (opk). The nurse said I shouldn't see ovulation, but the tests are just to be sure I didn't.
On 1/6/2012, I come back into the lab to check the growth of my follicles* More about this in a few
After that appointment, they will call me and tell me when I have to give myself the trigger shot (Ovidrel shot).
Once I've done the trigger shot, the egg should be released and then 16 days later I have a BFP! :)

So, follicle growths...Well at this ultrasound (on Thursday), the nurse looked at my follicles. Follicles are little bubbles on your ovaries that houses the egg. Normal women have 1 dominant that shows up at CD 16 (which is where I am). However, all my follicles are tiny and none are dominant. The Clomid will help make a dominant follicle. Actually, it'll help all of them grow (and there could be more than one dominant....yes....meaning a chance of multiples).

 Because my follicles were not growing, I am placed on Clomid to further this along.

My ultrasound on 1/6/2012 will then check my follicle growth. They need to be at 20-22 mm long. If they are, then I'll give myself the trigger shot. The trigger shot makes the dominant follicle(s) release the egg. Meaning within a day or two of the trigger shot, I should have a little egg traveling down my fallopian tube and meeting up with Sperm....thousands of them. :)

If the egg meets with the sperm, and implants, then we are onto a baby in my belly.

Now of course, there are lots of things that can happen between Clomid and implanting a baby... Like the sperm not meeting up with the egg, multiple eggs released (hey...I think I do want twins!! :)), miscarriage once it's inside my uterus (my lining was at a 6mm and they wanted it to be at 7mm..). Probably a lot more, but all in all...God's will is good for me. If he wants this to happen, it will.

Our next step is to baby dance til we are blue in the face..Haha. But seriously. We discussed every other day until the trigger shot, then every day from the ultrasound to after the trigger shot...LOL.

So, I'm on Clomid (and if my blood results come back negative - well I would have already finished Clomid so, either way works for me...:)), and just anticipating my next appointment!

I had my blood work and urine sample done today. Blood work went fine. I actually told the man who gave my blood, "Good job." LOL. It was just reactionary. It didn't hurt except a pinch. Much better than the other girl last week who took her time and tried to become my best friend before sticking me.

The pee test on the hand. UGH. I drank a whole cup of water on my way to the appointment. I'm thinking I'm good, right. Yeah right! I had to go into the bathroom at least 6-7 times. I couldn't pee from the start so I asked for a cup. I had to drink about 2 more cups (they were tiny little cups, so I had about 4 of them equaling 2 cups) and sit with the water running. AND I still didn't even make a stream! I would just drizzle, drizzle. Ugh. Frustrating. So after 40 minutes of trying I finally got enough to fill the cup to the line. :(

My appointment was at 8:45. I got there at 8:05 (I was thinking i-4 traffic, but obviously there was none). They took me in at 8:10. My blood work was done by 8:20, and then I had my pee test. Ugh. From 8:20-9:15 I tried my darnest to pee! Like I said, I finally got enough in the cup.

Then what happens - I pee as soon as I get home! And then pee 1 more time after that!! Are you kidding me!!! AHHH!

But hopefully those results come back fine and Clomid works and by February 1st I have a little egg inside of me developing into a baby....Prayerfully!

Keep us in your prayers! <3

To be continued....Continued!

Alright. Sorry about the break in update, but we had to go do all of our tests! Which, I'll get to a little later..

So, we were in November. I called my OB on the first day of Thanksgiving break. Of course the nurse didn't want me to come in, rather she suggest that I go to a fertility doctor. She recommended the Center for Reproductive Medicine. But, when I realized that that office was a fertility clinic, I remembered that OCPS partnered with Fertility Care and gave a discount (because of course, fertility issues are not covered by my insurance).

So, I call Fertility Care AND the Center for Reproductive Medicine (just to verify they are one in the same and to see which had the first appointment). Well the Center for Rep. Med. (such a long name) was very rude to me, saying "Uhh, ya, why would you not...." or "Well sorry, we can't help you" in a very sarcastic tone. I told them, "Let me figure out my schedule and I'll call you back for an appointment." Yeah, right. Then I called Fertility Care, they were VERY helpful. And actually willing to compare their practice to the Center for Rep. Med. (ie: do they do the same thing, costs, etc). They actually had nothing available that week (neither did Center for Rep. Med), but their first appointment was about a month earlier than Center for Rep. Med.

Needless to say, I scheduled an appointment the next week (November 30th) with Fertility  Care.

The funny side note: When I called my OB back and talked with the nurse, I had to explain to send the papers to Fertility Care instead of the Center for Rep. Med...She was like, "why, I suggested CFRP, why aren't you going there?" I explained the discount we get with Fertility Care and they do the same thing. The nurse just didn't understand why I would not want to go to the office she suggested (how about because she NEVER wants the OB to see me, and rather fix problems at home- ugh to her!).

After that phone call, I called my dad crying because I was very upset that we were unsuccessful. He suggested I talk with my aunt who had her own issues trying to conceive and it took them 7 years and thousands of dollars. Which, nothing worked until after they spent all that money and just gave up. 

Now for my appointment with Fertility Care:

I was nervous all day long. I was leaving early from work so that I could go, as the appointment was at 2:30.  No one really knew about the appointment except for family. Which was hard because explaining to my principal that I had to leave for a doctor's appointment and end of story was worrying her! 

We arrive at Fertility Care. We talk with the doctor (Mark Trolice, totally would suggest him - we've had nothing but great interactions with him!). We got to know each other, he's from Jersey woot woot! We discussed my early period flows - before going on birth control, etc.

As soon as we finished talking, he's like, "I know what you have, but let's do an ultrasound to be sure of it." In my mind, I kind of knew what I had, but didn't want to admit it...and honestly I can't diagnose myself... LOL

We go into the ultrasound room. It wasn't bad at all, just like a normal yearly check up. But he discovered that I have PCOS. 

PCOS stands for Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. Meaning, I have a whole bunch of cysts on my ovaries. The cysts prevent eggs from dropping, which prevents ovulation, which in turn prevents a regular, normal period.

Now that we've discovered that we went back and talked to Dr. Trolice again. He explain that there are a few things we could do if a) we didn't want to conceive or b) if we wanted to conceive. Of course, we chose option B. Like pronto :)

He explained that the first thing we need to do is get normal blood work back from him (showing not pregnant, normal thyroid, and something else I forgot). After that, I'll be put on provera to start a period. Once my period starts I'll go in for an HSG test and then be put on clomid! Then I also had to get other blood work done because with PCOS I'm pre-diabetic. Another step was a semen analysis test for Brian, just to make sure all hurdles are down before we begin with medications.

I'm glad we were able to figure some things out and had a plan of action. We met with the nurse and she explained in depth each of the next steps. She told me she would call me once I was able to take provera to start it.

The next day, the nurse called me. Everything was normal with my thyroid and the other thing, and obviously not pregnant, so I started provera.

I had a normal AF with provera and once I was on my AF, I was told to call to schedule my HSG test. I scheduled my HSG for Tuesday of break and while I was at it I scheduled Brian's semen analysis. 

Which leads onto: Now I'm on break, and Tuesday was the day of my tests. I had to take antibiotic pills prior to testing in case of infection that could occur. 

The Semen analysis appointment was at 11:30. Brian got his thing done and then at 12:30 was my HSG appointment. An HSG test is where they inject radioactive dye into the cervix and watch the dye flow through the tubes to make sure everything is open and not blocked.

So, I go back for my HSG test. Brian could not come with me. He injected the dye - not too bad. I could actually feel the dye travel up through my cervix ... weird huh. But then he wanted me to roll around to make sure it's flowing out. Oh boy, that was crampy, crampy, crampy!!!! From what I could tell (and my limited expertise) it looked like one tube was blocked and the other was opened. 

After the procedure we got to sit down and talk with Dr. Trolice (I love that about him, he sits with you in every aspect of the procedure and explains everything!). He shared that he thought one tube was having issues, but after seeing the pictures... EVERYTHING WAS FINE AND OPEN!!! Woo hoo! What a hurdle to jump over!

THEN, we got Brian's semen analysis back... And EVERYTHING WAS ABOVE NORMAL!!!! Seriously, like the average is 50 on something, and Brian was 92! The average was 4 for something, Brian was 8. He said he had great results!

Dr. Trolice wanted to start Clomid right there...but I unfortunately did not have my other tests done (glucose tolerance, etc). I told him I was getting it done yesterday (Wednesday). So he said, if the results come back Thursday, then we can get you in Friday for an ultrasound and start you on clomid. If they don't come back until Friday, then we'll do the ultrasound on Tuesday and start then.

Which is VERY uplifting! I was actually thinking that we'd have to wait ANOTHER cycle and Provera 10 days before starting clomid, putting me at clomid around January 23rd. Well, he said there is no problem to start now because I don't ovulate anyway, and I don't really have a period on my own.

Woo hoo!! The funny thing - Brian and I were teetering between what to do for New Years. We had 2 options really - 1) Go to his best friend's house party 2) have a party of our own...Well the night before the Tuesday exam I told Brian I just wanted to do a me and him party. And he said okay. Which...this works perfectly! If I start clomid next week, we will want to be bding as much as we can...and you can't do that with having a party (or going to a party).

Woo hoo!! I'm just so excited for the possibilities and I know God is guiding us right along! 

I also found out my cousin got pregnant on her first round of clomid! She also has cysts and was messaging me back and forth prior to the procedure. 

Friends, the future looks great! I may be pregnant in January, maybe in February. But all I know is God is holding our hand through it all!!!!!

There is my long update! Hopefully I won't go as long without updating you all! :)

<3 Kim

P.S. My best friend also got engaged in September!! Woo hoo, now onto planning her Bridal shower! :)

Preparations

Good morning (late evening?)

   Well, Brian and I are up late, listening to 90s/early 2000's ballads, R&B songs, and raps. We're crazy, haha. Bring back the Boy 2 Men, All 4 One, Will Smith, TLC, you know!

  Any way, Brian and I are super excited for our future ahead of us. As of last week, I have no more birth control pills. Woo hoo! I am excited that chemicals will be out of my body and I can see how my body adjusts. We were told to wait a few months before conceiving, so that everything can get back to natural. Also, my friend said that it's safer for your baby if you are off bc for awhile. Now, I know this could be a myth because people can get pregnant on the pill. But we are taking precautions. Prior to getting on BC, my cycles were very scattered and abnormal. So hopefully after 4 years of growing up it will be regular! 

  This week I will be visiting the doctor. I can set out a plan, start taking some pre-natal  vitamins and go from there. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we want to try for a June/July/August baby because that will work out for "our" time line. I want to just jump ahead, but I can't get ahead of myself.

  Of course, in all of this I say "our" plan and "our" time line, but this is all in God's hands! Proverbs 16:9, "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." Brian and I have had a rejuvenating relationship with God! We went on a staff retreat with Brian's work (Discovery church). The retreat was all about solitude and silence. It was so refreshing to sit with God by a waterfall and listen to what He wanted to tell me. We often have our own solitude time in our house. From the retreat, we've started a night time fixed hour pray. This has helped me get to sleep, since I suffer from achluophobia (fear of the darkness/night time).

  

  But I digress. Brian and I have been improving ourselves to help prepare for our future. Whether it be with driving more carefully (and being a patient driver - ahem BQ), working out daily and eating healthier or even getting out of debt. We've just purchased our last big thing for ourselves, a new bedroom set, new mattress, and decor. We love it! Another bit of advice we were given was to buy the things you need before having a baby, unless you'll never get around to buying it. :) 

  Our last preparation has been picking out the right doctor. I've been asking many previously pregnant women (sister in laws, coworkers, etc) about their doctors, their opinions, etc. One thing I learned: everyone is always willing to give you advice on their way of having a baby! :) Not that I don't appreciate it. Whenever I went for my check ups, I just went to a family doctor. However, now I have to switch to a specific gyno. Thankfully, I had to go to one for a few things back in November. My doctor is part of the same practice that my co-worker had. She had a rough pregnancy (she had twins!). I know if they could take care of her and she love them, then I'll be fine! Also, now that I remember it, my sister in law also went to her practice.

  Thanks for continuing to stay on this journey with us. I can't wait until we get further along in it. I know these months will fly by (don't they always?), so we will be on a whirlwind. <3