What we have been up to

Football Season!!
Devin loves football season and so does Dylan especially when it is BYU playing.

I know I have said it before and will probably will say it again but I LOVE Halloween, something about dressing up just makes me happy! Dylan and I were grocery shopping and he loved looking at the masks and thought it was so cool to have it on.

Witches Night Out
Last year we decided to go to Gardeners Village for Witches Night Out it was fun but really the best part was just dressing up and being together as the girls. So this year we just decided to just dress up as Witches and head to Sparks in Provo to get some fun drinks.

Each year Devin's mom puts on a Halloween Party but we never dress up, and really a party is always much more fun when you dress up. So Britney helped me in convincing them to have the Halloween party as a dress up party. It really was so much fun!

Temple Square

I always love how the temples look but I just love them with the lights are on!

Devin's first Marathon
Holy cow, their were so so many people there it was crazy!! This was me trying to get a picture of the starting line. I was lucky I was not by myself I got to spend the night with my sister- in-law Jocelyn and friend Jessica. We tried to watch as our husbands started the race but we could not see them because there was so many people there.

13.1 down and 13.1 to go, they were just headed down the strip at this point.

Boys sleep over party!!
This is what happens when you get Devin and the nephews together. Wrestling Time
Devin vs all the other boys

Happy Birthday Babe!!
Lets be honest I am really proud of my cake that I made with the help of my sister Britney. Don't worry the top was made with white chocolate and Karo syrup (who knew!?!?). I always try to make a cake that goes with what is going on in Devin's life at the time. I never thought I could make one that went along with his job but thanks to the Internet and goodies on main in Spanish Fork I did it.

Because of Devin and my schedules the only time I was going to see him on his Birthday was lunch time. I brought him ZUBS cheese sticks and sandwich and surprised him with a cake (He did not think he was going to get one this year) at his work. We made him let us sing to him and blow out candles at work with his fellow employees and a couple patients.

Well in January I started hair school at Paul Mitchell. This is something I have really always wanted to do but never felt like I was good enough to do. I finally got my courage and started! I really have enjoyed it! It has been a bit hard because I am still working full time and going to school at nights so I am not home much. I am really excited because in April I am starting school full time from 1:30-10:00pm so instead of having it take me 2 years it will only be 1!

Here are just a couple random pictures. We had to get a picture with Mater who was on Center Street in Orem during Christmas time.

Dylan started preschool in January and he loves it!! I get to take him on Mondays when I watch him. I let him get out of his car seat and watch for his teachers to come out. He gets so excited when he finally sees them!

Things that make me HAPPY

• Peanut butter M&M's
• Family
• DEVIN
• General Conference
• ZUMBA!!! Really it makes me so happy.
• Snuggling
• Pumpkins chocolate chip bread
• Bellagio Water show, I could stand there all day and watch.
• Missionaries, I smile every time I see them.
• Dates with Devin
• A really good hamburger, fries, fry sauce, and shake!
• New born baby just out of the tub, lathered in baby lotion.
• Good Sushi, just thinking about it makes me salivate.
• Being able to sleep in on a cold winter morning
• The Office, makes me laugh every time.
• Pintrest, my new addiction.
• Summer nights
• Halloween, love everything about it, decorating, candy, dressing up.
• Sarah's blog, so freaking funny I want her to write every day!
• Cooking, love it!! Just wish someone would clean up after me.
• Tangled, I could watch it everyday I think and still not be sick of it.
  

Life

Well life has been hard, every day it is a struggle but I try to make the best of it. My heart is just so full of love for the gospel! I can't even express through words how much it means to me. The warmth that I feel from the spirit is such a wonderful blessing. I know God lives and loves all of us and that he does answer our prayers. As I watched Conference this weekend the sentence that was said more then once that stood out to me was that you have to have faith. This is a sentence you hear a lot but it never stood out to me like it did this weekend. I have always thought that I have always had faith but really have I? Do I have faith when everything seems to be falling apart? Do I have faith that I will be a mom someday? Do I have faith in myself? I definitely need to work on having more faith!! I am so grateful for living prophets on the earth who can be the mouth piece of our Savior Jesus Christ. I just love conference and I can't say that enough. I would be just fine having conference every week, seriously!

Shots, shots and more shots

Well I started my shots last Thursday! I went to the doctors and they showed me how to do them and did my first shot that morning. That night I was still a little nervous so I had Devin give it to me but starting Friday morning I have given all of my tummy shots to myself. I am to the point were shots blood draws, and speculum's don't even bother me. Just bring it on!! On Saturday I started another shot but this one has to be done in the butt. Devin had a half marathon Saturday morning so he was gone and out of the house by 430am. I did not want to give this shot to myself for the first time especially because it was on my behind where I needed to put the needle. I kind of made my mother-in-law do it for me and she was way more nervous about doing it then I was about her doing it. She did a great job! I am at the point were I am giving myself 4 shots a day and I will start my ultrasounds on Thursday, things are happening faster then I expected!

Well here are some pictures of my "baby in a box".

Those white boxes towards the back of the picture are all grouped into 5's so really all together there are 75!

Cont. Fertility

So I know I did not complete the last post but most of you that are reading this already know what is going on anyways, but here is the rest of my journey!
....I finally decided to make an appointment with Dr Foulk our infertility specialist again, in May. I had it scheduled two and a half weeks before the actual appointment and lets just say it was the longest two weeks ever! I could not wait for this appointment I just had a good feeling about it and wanted to get things moving. When the day finally came Devin and I went together and had a consult with the Doctor. By the end of the visit we all decided that In-Virto was what we were going to do, I could not believe it was real! I was finally doing something that was going to give me a 70% chance of getting pregnant instead of the usual 20%.
So I HATE lots of attention on me and still have a little fear of telling people of big exciting decisions I am making in my life in fear they will bring me down and not lift me up. So after we found out I knew I would be going to work and I would have to tell all of them what was going on, because they would ask. So since I already had to talk to everyone at work I made Devin call his family and mine and tell them the good news.
I am a summer girl for sure I LOVE the heat, being outside, and getting a good tan. This is the first summer in my life that I have wanted it to fly by because hopefully by the end of the summer I will have a baby in my tummy:) That is all I have wanted, it has been a goal I have had in my life since I was a kid. I never had a career in mind when people would ask what I wanted to do when I grew up but I knew that I wanted to be a Mom.
After we decided we were going to do it we knew we would have to get a huge loan and do something to earn some extra cash. I have a really really hard time accepting/asking people for help!!! My mother-in-law came up with the idea to do a garage sale. We thought it was a great idea to earn a couple hundred dollars from selling items that we don't use or could live without. As we made this decision people just started finding out and donating items because let me honest I would rather pay for the procedure the rest of my life instead of asking people to help me. We are both so blessed to work with amazing people who really did help us out a lot with donating items and also many of them came out and bought stuff. We held a garage sale in Orem and also Spanish Fork. Our wonderful families let us have the garage sales at their homes, made treats, bread, or blankets for the sale. We made more between our two garage sales then we ever thought possible by doing a garage sale. Things are working out better then we could ever imagine.
So many things have happened that have made us both know for a fact that this is the direction we are suppose to go in our life at this time. We are both understanding the blessing my Dad gave me before my last insemination. So whether we get pregnant or not we are suppose to go through this process for a purpose. I have gained a much stronger love for many of the people around me, not that I did not already have a love for them, it has just become stronger. I also have more of a desire to serve those around me. I feel so blessed for the things people have done for me during this hard time, it just makes me want to serve and help others in their trials. I also feel like I have learned and relearned patients through these 4 years. One last thing I felt that I am being taught is to accept help from others!! I still have a really hard time with this and I don't know if I could ever feel ok about it but at least I am learning to accept it.

Fertility Journey

Wow!! So much is happening right now I just don't know where to begin with it all. I thought to blog would be a good way to journal this adventure that Devin and I are going on.
It all starts with October 2007 when Devin and I decided that we were ready to start a family. Devin was ready right when we got married but I needed a year before I was ready! In the beginning we decided not to tell anyone because we had gotten so much crap from people when we got married because we were to young and needed to live out life, blah blah blah. I just really did not need to hear what anyone thought about us having a baby and frankly I did not care.
Each month I would hope that I was pregnant but knew it could be a year because that is how long it had taken one of my sisters. A few months into to it I found out another one of my sister and sister-in-law was pregnant. I was so excited for both of then but it also crushed me! Why was I not able to get pregnant and they could just look at their spouses and get pregnant. Once it was almost a year I started talking to the doctor and getting tests done to find out what the problem was. Each time I was put on a new medicine or had a procedure done I would think for sure I would get pregnant the next month because the problem was fixed. I was put on Clomed, Fermara and had a sonohysterogram, and hysterosalpingogram done and Devin also got checked. Still no problems were found and nothing was working!!
You never think you will be the one going through certain trials in life. You hear about people who can't get pregnant but we never thought it would be us, we wanted a family so bad! We will be good parents so why is the druggie sixteen year old getting pregnant and we are not? Isn't multiplying and replenishing the earth one of the big reasons why we are here? These were some things I would think and would feel like I was being punished for some reason. Yeah I am not a very good visiting teacher and me and Devin should do family home evening more often. Were these the reasons why I was not getting pregnant? I know it may sound ridiculous but really that is what I thought some times. Many people would tell us its just not the right time which I hated, I believed them but did not understand why it was not the right time.
We finally decided to go to a infertility doctor where we found out the problem I had called Pre-Ovarian Failure, which means I don't have as many eggs left in my body as I should, which means I will probably go through menopause sooner then most people my age. The only things that helped to get pregnant with this problem was to do insemination's a few times then In-Vitro was the next step. We did an insemination, again thinking for sure I was going to be pregnant because they are putting the sperm right there where it needed to go. Again we were very disappointed. Two months later we did it for a second time but again it failed. Each time it cost around $1000 dollars, we could not afford to do this anymore and for sure could not afford In-Vitro. Devin's job was not going well we did not need to get in anymore debt. So we decided to take a break around October 2009 and oh how I hated it until January 2010 hit. Devin's brother Bret, who is also my sisters husband passed away. Britney & Bret were our next door neighbors and we did a lot with each other. They had a one year old boy Dylan who now did not have a dad here on this earth. At this point in our journey we KNEW there was a reason why we had not had a child at this time in our life. We needed to be there for Britney and Dylan during this tragic time in their life. For about a year we were both content with not having a child and I knew the Lord was helping us both feel that way for a reason.
Once 2011 hit we were ready again! It was time for us to start seeing the doctor again. My doctor Dr Young said he could do another insemination for us which was done in April. We were so excited and I was trying to stay so positive through it all. I had a blessing which my dad gave me the night before it was done. It was so comforting, in it he said a lot about how wonderful medical technology is and how it will help me. I don't remember exactly what he said I just know he talked a lot about medical technology. After the blood test came back negative again I was confused. I felt so peaceful during the blessing and it was such a wonderful blessing, why was I not pregnant? What should we do next? Do we keep paying to do an insemination? What if it keeps failing, is it worth it? These were the things going through our mind. I had, had it! I was done I wanted this emotional rollercoaster to be over. It was such a big let down with the last insemination that we did and maybe it was because a lot of people knew we were doing it and now I had to tell them all that it did not work and try to hold back the tears (lets just say thank goodness for texting, it makes things like this so much easier so you don't have to talk to people). June hit and everything has seemed to come together!

Yesterday my family and I were talking about life and beyond the veil and I have not been able to stop thinking about it which I guess is a really good thing. It is really hard for me to understand why people just don't get whats most important in life! I guess I was raised learning how important family and the gospel is and now that I am adult I know for myself that these are the most important things in life. I honestly do not know what I would do without these two most important things. I read a book after my brother-in-law passed away called "The Message". It is a about a man who is sick in the hospital who crosses the veil (dies) and then is revived again and able to come back to earth and share his story about being beyond the veil. It has brought me more perspective of life and what we are here for. We are here to progress, to have a family, and to be tested and tried but our goal should be to pass the test. Someday we will cross the veil again and have to report on our life here on earth. These are not things I am learning for the first time but this time hearing them and thinking about them has hit me harder. It makes me want to cry for those that don't understand or have the knowledge of this. I don't know what I would do without the warmth the gospel brings in my life. I know this is a really "churchy" post but I LOVE it because this is me, this is who I am, and this is what is so so important to me in my life.