To test, or not to test; that is the question.

We had such a fun, long weekend celebrating the 4th of July with our close friends at their parents cabin in Pie Town, NM.  At one time, there were 15 of us at the cabin together; and by Sunday, 6 of us were left to say goodbye to the Leonard's.

We all arrived late Wednesday night, nearly midnight, with a magnificent thunder and lightening storm greeting us, followed by a refreshing rain.  Coming from record heat 115 degrees in Gilbert, AZ, the rain was a nice welcome.

I knew what the weekend would consist of: riding ATV's, hiking, mountain biking, roasting marshmallows, playing board games, putting together puzzles, and eating...endless eating.  With our group of friends I knew that there would also be some drinking going on and I was anxious prior to our departure to know if I was pregnant or not.  So, the big question loomed at the beginning of the week...to test, or not to test.

There is an OBGYN office near our home that advertises free pregnancy tests with no appointment needed.  I decided since I wouldn't be wasting money buying my own EPT (early pregnancy test), and really wanted to know prior to our trip, that I would go ahead and take the pregnancy test.

Driving to their office, my heart raced.  I told myself over and over again, "expect a negative, that way if it does come out negative you won't be disappointed."  I walked into their office and a nurse almost immediately lead me back to their restroom and handed me the clear little cup to fill, instructing me to return to the waiting room and they'd have the results in a few minutes.  Btw, I drank nearly a GALLON of water throughout the morning to prep, so I nearly yanked that cup out of her hand!

I anxiously waited for the nurse, trying to busy myself with my iPhone...Facebook/Instagram/Candy crush (don't EVEN think about starting to play that game, it's terribly addictive!)  And no more then two minutes later, the nurse came through those doors with a smile on her face and asked me back to treatment room.  Telling myself, "she's just being polite and smiling, don't look into it any more then that!"  I entered the room, and as I sat on the table she asked if I had missed my period yet.  "No," I confessed.  "It's supposed to come this weekend, but I thought I'd try and see if anything showed up."  With a half smile, she reported that the test was negative, and if I did miss my period to come back and they'd test me again.

I raced out of that office as fast as I possibly could without making eye contact with anyone.  Embarrassed I had even thought anything would come up early.  I got into my car, shed a few tears of disappointment, and thought to myself, there are always false negatives, and there could still be a possibility.

So, we packed for our trip.  Bringing beers for my husband, and bottles of water for me.  I drank a few drinks while I was there, but still unsure I kept the drinking to a minimum.

Of course I have two ovulation tracker apps on my iPhone, one saying that I was supposed to get my period the 6th, one saying I was supposed to get it the 8th.  Well, the 6th came and went, then the 7th, and this morning my husband asked me if he wanted me to have him go buy a test.  I replied that if I didn't get it today, we'd buy one tomorrow.

The absolute worst is the waiting.  I feel like today has been the longest day of my life.  And at 6:30 this evening, it finally came.  No tears this time though.  Just a better understanding of what I want next month to be like.

I am a very open person, and as soon as we started trying to conceive, I basically let everyone know: his family, my family, our close friends.  It just wasn't something I wanted to hide.  This is a very exciting time for us, and a very big deal, and I just couldn't imagine keeping that from people close to us.  I talked with a close friend of mine this past week and told her about going to take the pregnancy test prior to missing my period, and she completely advised me against doing it again.  Explaining that even her sister took nearly a year to conceive, and that I was just putting more pressure on myself.

That's the thing though, I don't feel pressure.  I would feel more pressure to keep this a secret then the other way around.  But I will admit, next month I will not even think of testing unless I miss my period.  The waiting game after ovulating and awaiting my period is absolutely excruciating though!  The thing I would like to work on this next month though, is my emotions.  I would like to keep them a little more under control.  Letting my mind wander a little less and keeping my self more busy to not think about it.

I also would like to try some diet changes and look a little more into a fertility diet.  So the next few posts will consist of incorporating the diet into our lifestyle, as well as some projects I have tackled the past few weeks to keep myself busy.  Here's a little teaser of what's to come:

Celebrating One Fabulous Year!

Jeremy and I had the extreme pleasure of having our wonderful friend Heather Ratliff take some pictures for us for our one year anniversary.  We took a short ride, right around the corner from our home, to the old Potato Barn and the corn field just adjacent to it.  The weather was amazing, not quite 100 degrees yet in this extreme heat summer of Arizona, with a slight wind; making the balloon pictures a little more difficult then expected.  But with a little patience, Heather got some amazing shots.  

We have had quite an amazing year, and I can't believe we're already celebrating this anniversary.  We attended some amazing weddings, celebrated our first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's Day as Husband and Wife, and traveled to Australia for our belated Honeymoon.  

We will be returning to our wedding location during the 4th of July weekend to officially celebrate our anniversary at Hidden Meadow Ranch.  If you haven't heard of this amazing place, please take a second to check them out, and maybe even plan a vacation there Hidden Meadow Ranch!

For our anniversary gift, we have finally purchased our wedding album from Shutterfly as our "paper" gift.  It was far less expensive then ordering it from our photographer, who did an AMAZING job on not only our wedding photos, but our engagement pictures as well.  You can view our wedding album here. 

Wedding Album

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly allows you to customize your photo book just the way you want.

Statistics

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word 'Statistics?'  Most would say, "that awful class I had to take in college that NO one understood."  Some would refer to sports: ERA's,  free throw percentages, saves (sorry for those of you that have no idea what any of these sports things are). Some statistics you want higher, others are definitely better lower.

The statistic in my case: women over 30 only have a 20% chance of getting pregnant each month. Did you read that correctly?! YES! Only 20%. (Don't tell all those teenage girls rolling around in the back seats of their boyfriends cars!)

I was pretty disappointed this evening finding out that we are not in the positive range of that statistic. Emotions are definitely still raw at this point.  Trying hard to ignore those feelings of failure. It is difficult though. What's the outcome of trying something and not succeeding? Failure. Alright, let's get the thesaurus out and look up some different phrases for that, failure sounds WAY too harsh. To be defeated? No way, I definitely don't want to feel that way. Go down swinging? Would tie nicely into the baseball reference above. Miss the boat?  Yes, we have missed the boat this month; but that doesn't mean there won't be another boat next month. 

Alright, well I feel a little better now. I knew the chance was slim, and I wasn't feeling any of the symptoms that would lead to a positive test: extreme fatigue, very sore chest, bloating.  But I did go out to happy hour tonight and, without a doubt, i am disappointed that I didn't share that bottle of wine with the girls. 

On a positive note, ... ... I know I had something to write here... ... I can have a drink at the pool with the girls this weekend?  Ugh, how utterly depressing the only positive outcome I can think of involves alcohol.  "Completely appropriate," Jeremy would say. Who, by the way, has been very supportive these last few days, understanding something was a little off with me, and reassuring me that we have plenty of time, "what's the rush, it's only been one month, remember?"

Next weekend we celebrate our one year anniversary. I shared Mother's Day with my birthday, and now we're sharing Father's Day with our anniversary. Funny how that worked out, huh?  We'll be driving down to Sierra Vista next Fri to visit my parents, and then returning Sunday to see Jeremy's parents. We will officially celebrate our anniversary a little later this month in Greer, I'm excited to get out of this heat! Record temps today for this time of year, with extreme heat warnings.  I'm in the process of defrosting the top of our wedding cake to traditionally eat on our anniversary, not quite sure if that will work out or not.  I have also completed our wedding album for our "paper" anniversary gift (I'm still working on our honeymoon album) and can't wait to get those!  

Trying to keep my head up.

 

The Beginning

5.31.13

No time like the present!  Just finished watching Eat. Pray. Love. and watched a YouTube video of Elizabeth Gilbert talking about how to continue to be creative after writing such a successful book.

And got me thinking...how much I miss actual writing.

In high school my friends and I had notebooks that we would exchange with eachother, you know those black and white composition books, and we would endlessly decorate each page.  Carrying around a pencil box full of markers, all sizes and colors, waiting in complete anticipation of getting the notebook back and writing the latest "YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED IN 5TH HOUR!" moment.

I filled out four birthday cards today...May will forever be the best and worst month for birthdays.
Best:  Duh, my birthday is in May
Worst: I have to share that month of birthday's with EVERYONE else in the world it seems

Anyhow, I loved actually writing with an actual pen on actual paper.  So...conundrum...do I want to write a blog, or just journal so that I can FEEL that pen and paper in my hands.  Solution: write down ideas in the journal...then blog.  GENIUS!

So, here I sit, where to start...

Well, it's all in the name I guess "Raising Rials"

Emotional just thinking about the possibility of a little someone possibly growing inside me.  And TOTALLY weird-ed out by the fact that I might actually have a tiny human growing inside me. AHHHHHH! (feel as though I'm overusing the italics...no?  Okay, don't have to tell me twice ;))

A little history:

Jeremy and I will celebrate our one year anniversary in...countdown...16 DAYS!  Wow (which does not adequately describe my complete dumbfoundedness-new word) where did that year go?  Celebrating more weddings, parties, honeymooning, and milestone birthdays I guess.

So, what better time then the present to start expanding our little family?

This is officially our first month of trying, my second month off of birth control (which I have been on all of my adult life, nearly totaling 13 years).  First thing I have noticed...where the hell did all these emotions come from?!?!  I thought I was experiencing PMS before, but let me tell you...I have to keep a box of tissue around me at all times because at any given moment my lids may start to fill with those salty little drops.  AND/OR I might just bite Jeremy's head off for touching me.  Poor guy

I am having difficulty with my "live in the moment" mantra.  You're whole adult life you try and prevent such a thing from happening.  Then, once you finally decide {This is the right time} you have to wait two weeks to find out if the little swimmers have reached their goal...DYING IN ANTICIPATION (like how I worked in that saying here from earlier in the blog...I know what I'm doing blog world!)

So, the waiting game continues.  Not to mention that my cycle isn't regular since coming off birth control, so I may have to wait up to 3 weeks.  Do you know how many glasses of wine that is?!

I'm trying desperately hard not to be anxious, take my prenatal vitamins and omega-3's, exercise and eat a cleaner diet.  Keep you posted on the progress...