Our Quest, Part II

More bad news today. I couldn't possible just have a normal miscarriage. Oh no. No best case scenario for me. That's not how things go. 

First, many months of trying and failing to get pregnant.

Then, finally, a pregnancy.

A week later, bad news: failed pregnancy, miscarriage.

Days and days of blood tests, ultrasounds and doctor's visits. 

But no answers.

Then today:

Not just a failed pregnancy. A failed conception. An ectopic, meaning it took place somewhere other than the uterus. Maybe the ovary, maybe the fallopian tube, maybe somewhere else. They saw something on my left ovary today that may have been something, but what really lead to this diagnosis was my ever increasing hcg levels. When women are pregnant, their hcg levels start to rapidly increase. Mine were nowhere near that, but with a miscarriage, they should have been going down. And they weren't.

Something took hold somewhere, just not in the right place. Not anywhere it can become a baby.

Today was awful. I kicked it off with a blood draw in the morning, then a long and uncomfortable ultrasound. Then over to the doctor's office to get the bad news. Then back to the lab for more blood work. I've had so many blood draws in the last two weeks that this time they had to poke right into a giant bruise left over from a draw earlier this week. 

Then I had to go to the cancer center, of all places. The shots I got to dissolve the pregnancy are the same they use in some cancer treatments - it stops rapid cell growth. We were taken back to the room where they do chemo and other treatments, the place too many people spend too many hours of their lives. Which offered some perspective.

After 90 minutes of waiting, while my labs were cleared by the doctor and the injections were ordered, the nurse finally told me it was time. I was anticipating one shot in the arm, but she broke the news that it was two shots. In the ass.

And because she didn't want to do it in the wide open room, we went into the restroom. Yeah. I pulled down the right side of my pants and she jabbed the needle in.

Then I almost passed out. I'm not sure what happened. I think I had been holding myself together all day through a lot of crap, and that was the breaking point. I got light headed and nauseous, so she walked me to a bed and laid me down. After I had recovered, she jabbed me in the left cheek and left me to rest again.

Finally, finally I could go home.

Thank god Mike was able to take the day off and be with me the whole time. He went to every single thing with me - holding my hand, rubbing my back, telling me it was ok. I don't think I could have gotten through this day without him.

I'm so angry about this. Sad, mad, frustrated and confused. That's all I know right now.

Our Quest, Part I

Where have I been? Well, crazy things have been happening around here.

First there was this:

And then a week later there was a phone call from my doctor saying it was over. Not a viable pregnancy.

But actually, before any of that, there was a lot of this:

Which is a story I probably should have told a long time ago. But instead, here we are.

Some of you may have picked up on the fact that our idea of and struggle to "become parents" had expanded beyond adoption (though we are still pursuing that, as well). But to some, this may be surprising news. There is a lot to tell, so much to unpack here.

I want to write about it all, and I will.

This is not the post I wanted to be writing first though. I thought I'd be revealing the exciting news of a pregnancy, of impending motherhood. But this happened instead, a miscarriage, and I can't not write about it. 

Right now I'm trying to process everything. How we came to the decision to pursue conception alongside adoption, how I spent nearly a year failing to get pregnant, the shock of a positive pregnancy test, the week I spent celebrating that victory, and then dealing with the loss of the pregnancy and everything that was attached to it. It's a lot.

More soon...

Designing women

My sister, niece and nephew were visiting the other day, and my 10-year old niece introduced us to this website where you create fashionable avatars. I have no idea how we got there or what the site was, but she said something about "My Life My Makeover" so who knows.

Anyway, we ended up creating avatars for all of my sisters and my two older nieces. We had very little control over the features of these people -- we couldn't change height, weight, etc. So we mostly focused on wardrobe and accessories. 

First up, me.

That tank top reminded me of one I actually own. And then we gave me boot cut jeans, colorful shoes, a fun purse and a pretty necklace. Compare:

Next was my sister Andrea.

This is so her, it's scary. She rarely wears anything but black, brown, grey or white. And she's always in heels - I don't think she even owns any flats. I couldn't find any of her standing alone, but here she is on the right:

Replace the skates with black heels, give her a black bag, and it's practically identical. 

Next up, my sister Emily.

Here's the thing about Em. She wears things that nobody else in our family would wear. Nothing wacky or bizarre, but she has a very unique style that includes turtle necks, overwhelming sweaters, corduroys, etc. She rocks it like none of us could. So we put her in this matronly shirt that nobody but her could pull off, pants that mimic corduroys, mule-looking shoes, and a plaid purse.

The best I could do to represent Em in real life is to show you how I dressed up like her once for Halloween, and how closely her actual outfit that day was to my costume.

And now for my sister Kelli.

When I showed this to her, she said, "I love it. I want those sunglasses." This might be a little extreme, but actually, no it's not. Those capris are supposed to be skinny jeans that tuck into her zebra-print boots. She loves red, she's always in HUGE sunglasses, and she's a great accessorizer. Her wedding dress was black, red and zebra-print for god's sake!

She may kill me for this picture because it's a terrible angle, but it's one of the best to demonstrate her style. And for the record, she is seriously like 120 pounds, so that second chin is all skin!

Now here is my sister-in-law Brandy. 

We tease Brady all the time about her "ghetto" get-ups. They're not really, but we like to tease. So we put her in the clubbiest ensemble we could create, booty shorts and all. I'm ashamed to say I don't have many photos of her where she isn't buried in kids or surrounded by other people, but here she is on our Montana vacation this summer.

The next three girls are 11, 10 and 9, so these avatars are a little too womanly to represent them. But we worked with what we had. Here is my half sister Delaney.  

I don't know if I'd call her a tomboy, but she has a very casual, comfortable style, which I love about her. For some reason, hers was one of the hardest styles to capture in this program.

And now my niece Taylor.

She was the niece that helped design these, and she created hers all on her own. She was sure to point out that her t-shirt should say Aeropostale instead of Lifetime. How perfect that I found this photo of her from just last month with her Aero shirt on and her high ponytail.

And finally my niece Caleigh.

She's only nine, but she has such a fun sense of style, wearing lots of sparkles and hair bows, big necklaces and bold colors. One of my favorite photos of her is from last christmas. She is the gigglest girl I know, but ask her to smile for the camera and this is often what you get.

That's it! If I could find that program again I might go back and create my mom and stepmom. We ran out of time before the cranky toddler demanded everyone's attention! 

Athens of America, or so says Wikipedia

At the last minute, I got signed up to go to Massachusetts for work next weekend. I have to do work stuff on Monday the 16th, but I'm going early to make a stop in Boston to do a little siteseeing since I've never been.

Any Bostonites reading?

I have a friend that lives there and has agreed to entertain me for most of my visit, but I'm going to have to kill several hours by myself in the late morning and afternoon one day. I have no idea what to do. Google offered a lot of ideas, of course, but how do you prioritize? I need some ideas. Museums? Historical sites? If you had 6 hours in Boston, what would you do?

Or better yet, if you live in or near Boston... wanna hang out with me?

Last year in photos

I shared our holiday card over at Shan & Mike recently, and it was one we created to celebreate the awesome year that 2011 was for us. We were very lucky, but we were also very intentional about it. We wanted to have a great year and so we made it happen, doing some pretty amazing things. In 2012 we're refocusing. We still want to do amazing things, but we won't be traveling to Europe or Montana this year. We won't be skydiving or whitewater rafting. Hopefully we'll be saving a lot of money, hopefully we'll somehow find a way to make more money, and most importantly, hopefully we'll find a way to become parents. If all things align!

But before we dive head first into 2012, here's a recap of 2011. One photo for each month.

JANUARY

Rollerskating with Gram: I love that we got Gram on skates at my niece's birthday party. I cherish this photo.

FEBRUARY

Weekend at Boyne with part of the fam. Some of us went skiing, and the rest, including myself and Mike, went snow tubing. I hate winter and snow, but if I had a snow tubing track in my backyard, I'd be out there every day.

MARCH

We bought a minivan! Which, by the way, Mike still loves.

APRIL

Cuddling with my babes. Looks like we didn't do much photo-worthy in April, but there are A LOT of pictures of my baby niece and nephew, who you must know I'm obsessed with. This is one of my favorite places to be: sitting with either Brady or Scarlet cuddling on my chest.

MAY

Europe. Of course.

JUNE

New Orleans. I went there with some colleagues for a conference. Mike and I also celebrated our first anniversary.

JULY

At the lake. My favorite place to be during the summer. We also went camping with the whole fam.

AUGUST

Montana trip with the fam. Such a crazy idea - road trip to Montana with 14 people including 5 kids. But it was also awesome. 

Skydiving. I had to cheat and do two images for August because we also jumped from a plane in that month and I can't just skip over that! I also tried standup paddleboarding with my sister.

SEPTEMBER

I got a tattoo! Finally got my long-desired Z permanently inked on my wrist.

OCTOBER

Detroit Marathon. For the second year, my family put together a team (actually two teams!) to run the Detroit Marathon Relay. We also played paintball, and I hated it.

NOVEMBER

I re-opened my Etsy shop. Finally.

DECEMBER

I turned 31. This is me on my very chill birthday - I never even put makeup on! Can you tell?

I'm looking forward to this upcoming year, I feel like good things are in store for us. We wanted an exciting 2011, and we made it happen. Now we want great things in 2012, and I'm confident we can make those happen, too. We may need a little help from some higher power(s) though...

Happy New Year!