Oh Crap...

I just realized I'm coming to the end of the 2WW.

It's been awhile since I've had one of these.

We technically aren't officially trying, but we're not officially not trying either.

In other words, we did have unprotected intercourse this cycle.

My face is broken out, I'm bitchy, and my stomach has felt weird.

All signs of a possible pregnancy... and of PMS.

Oh crap!

'tis the season...

Ok, Ok, I know Christmas is over. Can you believe it?? It just went by so quickly.

All, in all, we had a nice visit(s). We managed to dodge a nasty stomach flu that was airborne in 2 households that we visited (so far anyway).

Last Saturday, Santa came to our house. It was AWESOME! Matthew was totally into it... he kept shouting "thank you Santa!" into the air, followed by, "I'm going to be even better next year so I can get even more presents!"

I made out pretty good, too. Santa surprised me with one of those journey diamond pendants. It is perfect... especially since I thought Santa was only bringing me a wooden cell phone charger organizer thing. Santa put the little box the pendant was in into the box with the organizer. Tricky, tricky Santa! Now granted, I had also shouted into the air begging Santa for it after I saw it was on sale and reasonably priced at M@cy's. So see, it does work! My son is onto something!

The only problem is that now Santa and I are fighting. Nice, huh?!? He gets me a diamond and I'm still pissy. Unfortunately, our desktop completely crashed right before we were leaving for our trip. Luckily, my brother is my own personal IT support, so we packed it along. My primary concern was that all of our pictures were on the hard drive, and hadn't been backed up in probably a year. Smart... real smart! PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT... BACK-UP YOU PICTURES!!!!

Fortunately, my brother seems to have been able to salvage them. He his now trying to determine if the computer is officially toast (it's going on 4 years old), or if he can fix it.

My dear, wonderful husband has decided he would like to forgo any possibility of a repair and just get a new computer. A $1300 computer. Right after Christmas. Right when we're finally trying to get our finances in order.

Now, if my brother comes back and says it's a goner, then I say fine, get the new computer. But if we can use it for maybe another 6 months or a year or so... then why not? Well, because my husband is acting like an immature 13 year old little boy, that's why. And yes, I called him that.

To which he hung up on me mid-sentence (he was at the store computer shopping). Then we went to bed and didn't speak a word to each other. And when I finally broke the silence this morning and said, "I don't appreciate being treated like this," he replied, "you're acting as if your bipolar," yeah, that didn't sit well.

Needless to say, it hasn't been fun in these parts. We very rarely fight. But when we do, we're both rather passive-aggressive about things. See, passive-aggressive-- YES, but bipolar-- NO!

Anyway, on a completely different note, my mother did something really cool. She has made these felt stockings for all in our family. Felt stockings with a bunch of hand-sewn sequins and beads and stuff. I've had the same stocking for the past 30 years. She's made a new one for each new member that's either married or been born into our family.

Growing up, my siblings and I would play little games with them. My mom always had them hung on the mantle from oldest to youngest. For whatever reason, we thought it was cool to put our stocking in the first position. So we'd constantly be moving them, and my mom would be putting them back to "her way." So, upon arriving to her house this year, that was one of the first things I did as soon as she turned her back. The "Jennifer" stocking was properly placed in position #1... in your face siblings!

There was something different about my stocking. She had added these snow-flake things to my stocking only, and hand sewn them on with some beading. There was three of these snowflakes. I think they represent my 3 angel babies. I didn't make it a point to bring it up. Maybe I'm wrong. But, God bless my Mom.

Funny thing is, my Mom also had a miscarriage. She has opened up to me about it a few times after my experiences. I don't think she really thought about it much until all of my drama. I'd like to think that maybe by me being open in regards to my feelings and grief, perhaps I've helped her process her loss as well.

Well, that's it for now. I'm off to bed, and hopefully to mend some fences.

A Very Crafty Christmas

Greetings to all.

It's 12:30 am. I've just wrapped up all my crafts that I'm giving out as gifts.

Check me out!

Here is a cook book made out of one of those dollar cheap "brag book" type photo albums. Perfect for putting your 4 x 6 recipe cards in!


I gave a cook book and a tin of fabulous cookies to Matthew's teachers:


Just so you think I'm not totally cheap, I also got them a Panera gift card!

Matthew helped me make these ornaments for his Grandma & Nana:

You can't tell by the photo, but Matthew made sure there was a whole lot of glue and glitter on those bad boys!

My niece loves June from "Little Einsteins." So, I got her a shirt and made a matching hair bow:



And another for my youngest niece (you know her... the one that was born a few days after my latest miscarriage).



Also for this same niece, her nursery is Winnie the Pooh theme, so I made an attempt at painting and decoupaging:



So that's what I've been up to lately.

To be honest, I don't know why I take so much on. I'm now left very tired and with one huge mess on my hands!

In the long run, I think it's all worth it. I really do enjoy doing these things. If only I had a maid to come clean up behind me!

Well everyone, I think this will be the last post from me until after Christmas. Like I said yesterday, Santa is coming to our home on Saturday... and we're leaving to go visit the family in Chicago on Sunday. We're planning on coming home either next Wednesday or Thursday. It's going to be a very busy week.

Through all of this, I've really tried to keep the meaning of Christmas alive in our home. That's a hard thing to do with an almost-five-year-old. It's also a hard thing to do when your own spirituality has gone through the wringer.

This time of year, I do try to focus on the simplicity of the Christmas story. How beautiful it is. That God would humble Himself, and come to earth to dwell among us. That he loved us, and me as an individual that much.

I heard a song on the radio in the car the other day. Literally had me in tears. It went something like "He lived and died so that we may all live together with Him forever."

He came to earth so that we may ALL live together... as in my family, as in my 3 babies in Heaven. I will see them someday in Heaven.

Anyway, sorry to get all "churchy," but it struck a cord.

So, to end this post, I wish everyone the joy and peace of Christmas. May this find you well. And good tidings in 2008!

And I'll leave you with a final bit of commercialism:


Merry Christmas!

Stating the Obvious

I've been avoiding blogging about this topic. Partially because I've been very busy here... Santa comes on Saturday the 22nd to our household. So nice of him to accommodate Holiday travelers, don't you think? So, I've had to bump up getting things ready, because our Christmas is a mere 2 days away.

I haven't been on the Internet much over the past few days, nor have I been watching much TV. But that didn't let me escape the latest breaking news. Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant.

My initial reaction was that the media must have gotten it wrong... Britney's knocked up again, yes I could see that... but her 16 year old sister? They had to have gotten it wrong. But, apparently not.

Of course, I went "there." She's 16/not married/she's got her whole life ahead of her/she's in high-school! While myself, I'm almost 31/married/have a Bachelor's degree and am contemplaing going to grad school/am a mother and desperately want more children.

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

I did a quick Google search. Every year 750,000 "women" ages 15-19 get pregnant. The fact of the matter is, this happens all the time. It's just that she's a celebrity, and now is the poster child of teenage pregnancy.

After the initial shock wore off, I've been doing some thinking. While I don't think the circumstances are ideal, I must commend her. She could have made this all go away very quietly, without anyone knowing.

Instead of casting stones, I am trying to not be so harsh of my thoughts of her, and to anyone else I usually deem less than worthy of motherhood.

See, I'm getting wiser with my age... I'll be 31 in less than a month.

2008 has gotta be great!!

Weekend Update

Another weekend has come and gone. And I have to say, thank God!

Let me start with some REALLY good news... my friend got a BFP!! Yipee! Now she is going through the "I'm so happy/excited, but don't want to get too happy/excited" phase. Obviously, it's so early, and she's got along way to go... but it's hard not to get excited for her. This is odd... I'm excited about someones pregnancy announcement! Maybe there is hope for me!

It was my weekend to work. It started off with me getting up on Friday. I was sick. Again. Like feverish, chills, and dizziness sick. I called into work to see if there was anyway I could take a sick day. Apparently, 4 other people woke up with the same symptoms, and beat me to the punch. They begged me to come in. Great, I'll come in and spread my nastiness. I drugged myself with Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and anything else I could get my hands on. I wore a mask and gloves all day long. It actually worked out fine. But boy was I glad when the end of my shift was done. I'll I could envision was my bed, and my pillow, and a pile of blankets. That's what got me through.

So, imagine my dismay when on the way home from work, I saw what looked like a white plastic grocery bag floating towards me. Only it wasn't a bag.

It was a white dog.

The car in front of me hit it first, and then it kind of "floated" in the air towards me. I nixed the whole bag theory when it hit my vehicle with a "bang." Definitely not a bag.

The guy who hit it first stopped, turned around to see what he hit, and drove off. Nice. All I could think of is, 'What if this was my dog?' I pulled over, put my hazards on. I then ran to a couple of homes where the incident occur ed. The dog belonged to no one, nor did they knew who's it was. Great... now what do I do. Seriously, does anyone know what to do in this situation?

God must have shown some mercy on me, as a car pulled behind me about 25 minutes later. It was a neighbor of the owner of the dog. We loaded her up in some of my nursing supplies (thank god I carry around disable blue pad thingys!) and they brought her home.

I just kept thinking great... some little kid's dog got killed at Christmas time. Great memories. Yeah, that sucked.

In better news, I have a bit a of personal news. It might be too much information, so please stop reading if you have no desire to hear of my sex life.

But, my DH and I actually had good sex! I know this sounds odd, as we have been TTC for almost 4 years. But in that 4 years, I can honestly count the times where the sex was great. This is making my husband sound inadequate! But that's not it at all. I think anyone who's been TTC for a long time can relate. It's always about baby-making... never about fun and enjoyment.

I think (for the time being) I'm out from under the TTC cloud... and also out of the post miscarriage psyche. I've always had a hard time after a miscarriage getting back into sex. Is this normal? It's like... here we go again... maybe I'll get pregnant... but I should be pregnant...

So, yea for me! I mean us!

And on goes my baby obsessed brain... hey, maybe I'm knocked up now!

WILL IT EVER END?!?!

And on a side note....

If anyone is reading this, could you please toss up a quick prayer for my friend, Kate. She's been through a hell of a time, and she get's her beta results from her 4th IVF attempt tomorrow.

We all need some good news 'round these parts, don't we?

Please God, let this one work.

One Sick Momma

I've been sick. I've left a permanent imprint on the couch. I was begging God for mercy. I caught my son's stomach flu. I have to say, kids can deal with being sick much better than adults.

We're both better now (thank God). On with life we go. So in today's news...

I'm a bad mom. Why? Well part of me took such pleasure in this:

My son had a friend over. They were quietly playing in his room. Suddenly, I heard the scream of all screams. I seriously thought someone had sustained a compound fracture. Anyway, I enter his room to find the poor figurine decapitated. My son was is hysterics. I'm not sure if he was all that upset that his porcelain figurine had broke, or if it's because now there was evidence, clear evidence, that he and his friend had been jumping on the bed. That's the only way the figurine could have fallen off the shelf.

We completed our Christmas picture taking:

I considered using this picture, but my dog's mouth was cut off, and me and my anal-ness couldn't get over it.

Doesn't this say "Christmas Joy" to you?

Yes... he was actually sleeping.

We got ourselves a winner!

What Matthew wanted on the Christmas card, if he had it his way.

Bring It

In case anyone is wondering why I'm blogging at 5:45 am EST, well it's because I've been up all night cleaning up vomit and catching up on Project Runway via Tivo.

DS is sick. The throwing-up, stomach virus type of sick. I'm not feeling that great either. I wonder if my turn is next.

My point of this post at this hour is that I love this. I love being a mom. Mind you, I know I have been so lucky with my little guy. He'll be 5 in January (OMG!), and he's had all of one ear infection in the span of his lifetime. He was never colicky as a baby. He slept through the night at 8 weeks.

He's always been one happy, easy-going, healthy boy. I'm so blessed.

So, on nights like these, I feel like I'm earning my badge of motherhood. I was actually kind of smiling as I was cleaning up puke, and tucking him back in bed. He begged me to cuddle with him... something he has been getting away from. Lately, I have to steal kisses.

I've been getting a little tired of people complaining about their babies. About how they're so sleep deprived. That the baby is so fussy, and this and that. Now trust me, if this keeps going on night after night, I sincerely doubt I will remain so perky. It was very considerate of my son to have chosen tonight to get sick, since I don't have to go to work this morning.

All this being said, I love being a mom. Even when scrubbing the bathroom floor for the second time in the middle of the night. Even when doing two loads of laundry at 4 am. Even when tucking my child in, giving him cuddles, and telling him everything is going to be OK.

So, if having another child will require harsher working conditions, crappier hours, and dealing with a disgruntled baby all day and night, I say bring it.

Much Ado About Nothing

Please don't judge me.

My most recent miscarriage occured at home on 9/12/2007. Since I'd been through this a couple of times before, I was prepared. I knew what to do. With miscarriage #1, I had no clue. And it happened... in the bathroom... in the toilet... it was awful.

Miscarriage #2 was a missed miscarriage. Everything happened in the hospital. I was unconscious.

Miscarriage #3, I was prepared. I knew it was coming. I headed to the bathroom. I made a nice little nest of towels in my bathtub. It happened. But at least I was better prepared.

Now this was in September. I hadn't done a "deep" clean in that bathroom since that time. And what I mean by that is that there were still remnants of the miscarriage up until today. Nothing gross (give me credit people... I had cleaned the tub, toilet, sinks, etc.), but there were other subtle reminders. Certain things were seemingly frozen in time.

For instance, a pad of paper. I had scribbled down the number of my doctor's answering service. For some reason, it was still on the bathroom vanity.

My Crinone (vaginal progesterone) boxes were still out... along with my pill box with a baby aspirin, folic acid, metformin, and prenatal vitamin. All of that, and still nothing.

I also stumbled upon one of the positive pregnancy tests I had taken.

For now, I threw everything in a box in the linen closet. At least it's kind of cleaned up.

I'll have to further deal with it in the future. But for now, good enough.

Busy, busy!

Ah, the holidays are upon us.
The decorating...
The baking...
The shopping...
The working extra hours to afford the shopping...
It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Here is a video of my son for your viewing pleasure.
I have no idea where he learned of this song.