December 2015

Snow, ice, hysteroscopy – oh my!

December 18, 2015

We drove into Denver last weekend. I told Adam on the way that I was just as excited to get here as I was as if we were going on a beach vacation. I couldn’t wait to see everyone! We have been bouncing around, having dinners, catching up on the gossip we have missed out on. It has snowed a ton but still been so much fun bopping around to all of our favorite places. I went into CCRM yesterday to regroup and get poked & prodded. In typical ‘Emily form’ things did not go quite as planned. Meaning, that this ‘well planned’ trip that I purposely planned around my cycle dates and CCRM’s availability all went out the window because I was FIVE days late. So the hysteroscopy that has to be done between days 5-12 got bumped so we are actually just staying out here longer to knock it out. Kind of annoying but not the worst thing in the world.

Being in there yesterday definitely made me do a reality check. It’s true what they say- that you kind of forget about the process once you have a baby. To be honest, I think I was so delirious from grief last round that the details are very vague to me. All of the testing that I was able to do went totally fine but I walked out feeling sorry for myself. Getting like 8-10 vials of blood taken, a reality check discussion with the doctor where we talked about chances of success (which are pretty decent- but if it doesn’t work then the chances drop dramatically after that). We are just going to transfer 1 again. I honestly don’t think I could mentally handle a twin pregnancy. And then the punch to the gut as I handed over my credit card to pay $1200 for the diagnostics for the day 😉 Ugh. IVF is just miserable. With that being said, everything looked great and if the hysteroscopy comes back normal that we are all set to move forward whenever we wish. Definitely NOT immediately. I decided that while I was in the waiting room. I got an overwhelming feeling of “oh crap I’m not ready yet”.

I’m so excited to celebrate Christmas this year with Berkley. If I don’t blog before then, have a Merry Christmas!

KC vs. Denver

December 2, 2015

We are coming up on 3 months of life in Kansas City. Life is going well as far as living here but I have been so homesick for Colorado. I didn’t realize it until we lived here, but I actually do feel like Denver is “home”. I literally could cry about it while typing this post (and I have had multiple cry-seshes about it). Here are some differences that I notice in day to day life (other than not seeing mountains daily) 😉

Recycling. Denver makes it so easy. They take glass, there are recycle & trash cans everywhere. I was rarely in a place where I had to throw a water bottle in the trash. I loved this. In our Kansas City home we recycle and we recycle glass. The glass recycling is through a different company and we manually drop it every 2 weeks which works for us, but sadly I would assume not many KC peeps actually take the time to do this.

Daycare. We have a nanny for Berkley that has been excellent! But while I was looking for options I toured several day cares. All were a lot less per month than Denver, but had crazy waiting lists!! So win/lose I guess. The daycare we had chose in Denver was hella expensive but offered organic food. I will absolutely pay more for an organic menu. Adam and I care a lot about the food that we eat and the food we put into Berkley’s body. I haven’t found that here (yet). Hoping there is some childcare center out there that offers this.

The “buzz”. This one is hard to describe but something Adam and I have talked about a few times. The buzz was real and alive when the Royals were in the World Series. The city was alive and it was so fun to be here! But now it has kind of died. People are back to their day to day. Denver…. “the buzz” is real. People LOVE living there. They are active and out and about all the time. Any week night we could walk to a local brewery and it would be packed with not only adults but babies, strollers and dogs. We SO miss this. Maybe I just haven’t found it yet.

Church. Good churches galore in Kansas City. Denver had great churches as well. The main difference is so many of my friends here go to church! Its more of a thing you do on Sundays here and I really like that. Lots of grounded families here.

Crime. I can only talk about this pulling from my experiences so far. We lived in a city neighborhood in Denver. Your garage would get “tagged”, our scooter got stollen. Packages would get picked up off your porch if you didn’t pull them in, etc. In our current neighborhood, there has been 2 armed robberies & a homicide all less than a mile away since we have lived here. Holy sh*t. That is a whole other level of crime. Thank goodness we have an awesome alarm system. And we live in a pretty nice area so this has just been surprising!

As you can probably tell. I really miss Denver. I am still adjusting to life here. Ideally, we would like to live in both places which I think we could swing (maybe by a condo in Denver)? It’s just so challenging when you think about the childcare situation… And from reading this post, maybe I am a hippie and didn’t realize it until now 🙂 One thing we LOVE is our actual house. I will be posting pics soon!!

CCRM Consult

December 1, 2015

Say what? Yes I know. I set up this appointment in early October. Lots of questions now that I would be out of state. After setting up the appointment (which wasn’t happening until late November) I had a lot of weird feelings. The all-too-familiar stress that settled in my gut. The thought of shots, the heart wrenching waiting for results feelings, excitement, etc.

Then November was here and my appointment came and went so quick. You know how you build things up in your head? Well I was pretty much on the phone with them for 10-15 mins max. I asked a lot of questions like how does it work being out of state? How many times will I go to CO? Do I need an RE or OB/GYN or both in KC? Etc. etc. Full disclosure here. I LOVED Dr. Brown. She was with me through getting pregnant with Cade and right after Cade died until I got pregnant with Berkley. She cried with me (a lot) and was just on my team. She went to bat for me to get by their “6 month rule”. Anyways, she moved to Vermont and I so I had my consult with Dr. Minjarez which I have always heard great things about. I have met with her a few times in Dr. Brown’s place and just felt like we never ‘clicked’. But you don’t need to click when it comes to spending tons of money. I know she is a great doctor. Anyways, this is a long-winded way of saying that she is also leaving CCRM!! She has been there forever but is moving to Cali. So as of this afternoon I now am under a third CCRM doctor. The good news is my nurse is still my nurse. She probably doesn’t remember me but I remember her and she is great and on top of it. And I trust her. And at CCRM you talk with your nurse tons more times than your doctor. You need to be with a good nurse. Did you hear me CCRM ladies? Make sure you like and trust your nurse.

So what’s my plan? My plan is to go out in December get my diagnostics done. CCRM makes you re-do a lot. Hysteroscopy, 3-D ultrasound, blood work. Pretty much the whole thing for just a transfer. Assuming they go well then I will play it by ear as far as scheduling something in 2016. Am I ready? I think so. What is holding me back? Well…. my pregnancies are VERY nerve wracking. They are high-risk. I know too much and its tough mentally. I also know so many other people that I feel pretty connected to that are still stuck trying for #1. I want them to do this before me. I want them to experience this before I (God willing) experience pregnancy for a third time.