National Infertility Awareness Week {Join the Movement}

I never thought I'd be writing about this. I had a baby. I had an unplanned, uneventful, wonderful first child pregnancy. I was 19. I assumed because it had happened once, it would happen again.

Fast forward four years. We are happily married, starting exciting careers, finally getting on top of our finances. We decided to start trying. I was surprised at how long it took to get pregnant. (but in all honesty it wasn't long at all) We tried for five months before we got pregnant. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas. We were so excited. We couldn't wait to tell everyone, but we knew we had to wait. Just for the off chance we had a miscarriage. We waited, week after week after week. Second trimester was right around the corner. We starting planning how we would tell everyone. And then one day, 10 weeks in, we weren't pregnant anymore. We had a miscarriage.

In that moment, everything, everything changed. An entire lifetime planned out, and it was gone. I didn't know how badly it would hurt. I felt the biggest void. How do you move past it?

Time. Time is how you heal.

We knew we weren't ready to try again. It was too soon, too raw. But, we got pregnant again. It happened, against all odds, we were to have our baby afterall. Everything I had read said not to worry about miscarriages again. Having one didn't increase the chances of having another. We were still cautious, still very scared. And then one day, 5 weeks in, we weren't pregnant anymore. We had another one. The second time around we weren't as emotional invested. It never seemed real.

When I was little, around the same age as my daughter is now, I used to beg my parents for a brother or sister. I wanted one so badly. All of my cousins and friends all had siblings. I just couldn't understand why I didn't get to have one too. Every birthday, every coin thrown into a fountain, every Christmas, I would ask for the same thing. My parents, they would avoid the topic.

Story asks all the time when the new baby will come. We never told her about any of them, but its just something she's set on. She wants twins, and boy baby and a girl baby. She will then show me how she will hold them and feed them and where they can sleep in her room (it's normally in the closet) She doesn't understand the immense pain each question brings. In her mind, its not a big deal and she's a little mad it hasn't happened yet.

I don't think we are infertile. I don't think it's hopeless. I know it's only twice and that our struggle is miniscule compared to so many others. But it's also not nothing. There is a problem. Something that will have to be fixed if we ever want to have another baby. I know it's me. I know that I am going to have to be the one to make the biggest change. I am the one with the disease. While we were trying to get pregnant the first time I researched Celiac's Disease and found that it does cause infertility. I didn't take in to account the effects it has on carrying a baby full term.  This is our fertility struggle. We don't seem to have a problem getting pregnant, we have a problem staying pregnant.

So this is my sadness. Not that we can't get pregnant. But that we did, twice. It's so hard not to think about the babies that would have been. To imagine what would be happening at this moment. How different every day would be.

Memorial necklace -Distinctly Ivy

http://www.resolve.org/infertility-overview/what-is-infertility/
http://www.resolve.org/national-infertility-awareness-week/about.html

Operation Rainbow Room {Striped Wall}

Story has been wanting a rainbow room for as long as I can remember. I've been wanting her to have a clean room for as long as I can remember. So, over the weekend I decided to completely re-do her entire room. I thought it would take a couple of days. Though it was taken longer than that, it's been going pretty quickly.

The first thing we did was paint stripes on her main wall. I've wanted stripes in her room since we moved in. I'm glad I waited. I had originally planned on painting blue stripes, because blue is her favorite color. Then came the rainbow fascination. She wanted an entire rainbow room, and while I'm a fan of color, I just couldn't do that. We compromised on painting one wall.

I'm terrible at math. I mean, like really bad. So mapping out the stripes was completely out of my limits. Luckily for me, my husband is a genius and could do it no problem. We decided on 7 colors in 6 inch stripes.

He also taped the whole thing out for me. (have I mentioned how amazing her is?!?) ;) All I had to do was paint. I didn't think it would be that difficult. I had my small brush and the sample paint cans.

And it wasn't really that big of a deal. Quite time consuming but not back breaking work. I started with pink on top. Now, I know pink isn't in the rainbow but Story wanted pink. The pink went on great, no trouble at all. I washed out my brush and dried it well. Then I started on the purple. And it was horrible. Real watery (guess I didn't dry out the brush as well as I thought) and it was going to take two coats. At this point I was freaking out. I don't know about you but I've had really bad experiences with painters tape in the past. I was afraid that the paint would dry between the coats and then I would have an awful mess. I'm really glad that wasn't the case. And it all turned out just fine.

 

It ended up taking me two days to complete. I had to wait in between colors for the paint brush to dry out a bit. 

I think it turned out pretty good!

I can't wait to show you the rest of the room! I just need to hang one more curtain rod and sort through her clothes.

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another loss

We had another miscarriage. It was at 5 weeks. I know it's not the same as last time, but it's not nothing either. We had known about this pregnancy for 4 days. We weren't trying for another baby. We weren't ready. But it happened, and then this happened again.

I'm not okay. But I will be. I just need time I guess.

The Deck : Before

So yesterday was amazing. We had the most gorgeous weather. It reminded me of our North Carolina winters. There was also only a slight breeze instead of the strong gusts of wind that seem to happen every single time we go outside. This great weather made me super excited to get out and enjoy our deck space.

As you can tell, it's in an extremely rough state. I think I've been on the deck maybe 4 times all winter. The towels were used to help catch some spray paint. I'm always really nervous when I spray paint out here. I'm not worried about the paint getting on anything so much as the smell bothering others that may have their windows open. No one has complained, so I guess I'll continue doing it.

 

This is the other end of the deck. And yes, those are rotten pumpkins we never got around to carving, in October.... (they have since been removed) You can see the small dividing fence between our deck and our neighbor. I hate it. I mean, they can stand halfway on their side and see in to our living room/ kitchen/ dining room. 

 

This is the only wall we have to really work with.

As you can see, a lot of the deck can be seen from the largest portion of the house. Why there are two full sliding glass door, I'll never know. It's dumb, just plain dumb. We only use one, and it's the one in the dining room/ kitchen. The one in the living room we have blocked off and looking from the living room out, you cant really tell it's not just a big window. From the deck looking in it looks pretty silly. So I would like to put something in front of it to sort of block the couch and curtains. 

Here is a rough plan of what we would like from the space. The first, and most important, is blocking off our deck from the other one.

 

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Yes. We would like to put up a lattice wall. After we block off the neighbors (have I mentioned how much I hate living in an apartment) We would like to set up a few different areas. Right now we have a table and two chairs. They will not be staying. 

 

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Since we will be creating a new wall, because who am I kidding, if I'm going to put up something I want it to to be a wall. But why stop there. Let's add some seating.

 

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I like how there is a small table next to it. This would then block off the window, which I really want to do.

 

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Okay, so I really want a cute little round table to go there. I'm still kicking myself two years later for not buying the cutest patio set from Target...

We would really like to add some sort of garden. We tried last year with two tomato plants. I know that Jordan would like to give it another shot. Maybe something like this.

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And we can't forget the cat. We would love to make it a space for her as well. We're considering adding chicken wire to enclose the space. We are on the third story and I doubt she would jump, but you never know.

 

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So, just a few ideas for the outdoor space. I have a feeling it's going to be a hot, hot summer. But the spring, the spring is going to be nice. Here's hoping we can get it done in time to actually enjoy it!

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HELLO

This project is a long time coming. I thought it would be simple enough, but like most of my projects it wasn't. I had originally wanted to do string art. Similar to this:

 

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While this is an awesome concept I wanted something a little bit more three dimensional. I saw this idea and I thought it could work, just on a bigger scale.

 

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So, with both those images in mind I went to my local Jo Ann's. There wasn't a local one when we lived in North Carolina so I would find myself going to Michael's a lot. Let me just say, our local Indy Jo Ann's was amazing. It's huge and has everything you could imagine. Needless to say, I spent longer than I should have looking around at everything. I did eventually find what I was looking for: Really big letters.

Just look at the size of those letters! They are 23". I love how much of an impact they make on this unused part of the wall.

 

I'm really happy with how this project finally turned out. I know the spacing is off between the letters. And I will eventually fix it :)  But for now I'm just enjoying it.

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Seven Thirty Three
Ginger Snap Crafts
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