Jacob and Elise

So I know I am terrible at blogging, but I thought this deserved a quick post. Today I am in California lying flat on my back (yes, typing on the laptop is extremely awkward...) hoping and praying that the 2 blastocysts that were transferred into me this morning decide to implant themselves :) It's the tail end of an InVitro session we just did with Dr. Richard Marrs. He comes into Utah every other month to do a bunch of sessions with Dr. Richards, but he is based here in Los Angeles. Because they are working on a fancy new lab in Utah, they don't yet have the ability to do the ICSI procedure that Jacob and I need. They told us they would by January, but they didn't... so due to the fact I'll only have good maternity insurance through April 2012, we decided to not chance waiting any longer and just come to California. So, my mother, Jacob's mother, and I drove down here last Tuesday and have been staying with Jacob's wonderful grandmother, Barbara, in San Dimas for the last 9 days. Jacob flew in and spent the weekend here, but needed to get back for classes (that Accounting Jr. Core is pretty intense... I went to an accounting social function with Jacob a couple months ago and one girl told me her husband was studying in the hospital while she was in labor... so, yeah. pretty intense :). It was great to have him here, and even when he's not, I couldn't have asked for better company than Rhonda, Betsy, Leanne, and Barbara. I'm blessed to have so many wonderful women in my life!
It's been a long process, filled with shots, hormones, and so many blood tests that by the end no one could find a vein through all the bruising. I also found out I should have brought some bigger pants with me because egg-retrieval makes me extremely bloated... like looking like I'm 4 months along bloated. All this, and I haven't even mentioned the emotional toll it's taken (and still will take) on both of us, which just may be the worst part... that or the shots. i really hated those. In short, my hat is off to anyone else who has gone through this, because it is not a walk in the park.
We have some more fertilized eggs that we're waiting to see if turn into blastocysts by tomorrow so we can freeze them. I sure hope so, cause I produced 24 of those little buggers, and if only 2 take, that will be pretty depressing... and expensive. This has just under a 50% chance of working, and we should know in several weeks. So in the mean time, we'll be praying that these little blastocysts hang on, and also that we'll be able to handle the let down if they don't this time. I am fairly optimistic however, and very excited. Thanks for everyone's prayers and good vibes they've been sending our way! And also thank you to my dad and Jacob's dad who have graciously lived without their wives for 2 weeks so that I could have their support, and also for feeding and entertaining Jacob. Lastly, thank you to everyone else who's taken care of my husband while I've been gone... Papa Murphy's included :)

Posted in: on Friday, February 18, 2011 at at 7:13 PM 5 comments  

Maybe someday I'll be better at blogging... My track record is not so hot at the moment. I do think of things and take pictures with every intention of blogging, but my blogging time is quickly eaten up with other things. *sigh* Well, I've been debating on whether or not to back up and talk about all the things that have happened in the last 9 months, or to just start fresh from where we're at. I've decided a happy medium is a quick picture post that sums up our lives since September. So, here are the highlights:

Christmas happened, and it was wonderful! I love Christmas, and Jacob loves candy, so it was a good deal for the both of us :)

Ethan Called!

He talked to mom, and the rest of us to, but mom's the most important. (and coincidentally had the cutest picture while on the phone with him :)

Ethan on speakerphone!

Erynn on Christmas. She is so pretty and grown up I can't even handle it. and I made her that hat.

I taught myself how to knit. sort of.

Kim came to visit from Taiwan!! Jacob will tell you he loves her more than I do, but he doesn't.

Why is Taiwan so far away from me?

Jacob and Kim battled on the Wii. oh, and we got a Wii.

Jacob got me these gorgeous things for Valentines Day... he's the best.

I had to take a bazillion pictures of trees for my Arboriculture class...

Sometimes Jacob would come to campus with me and throw snowballs at lamposts while I studied the trees... And sometimes he would show off and show me how far back he could stand and still hit the pole with the snowball. But sometimes he couldn't hit the pole so he would have to keep moving closer and closer... only sometimes though :)

And sometimes we ran into the resident campus deer!

I gave dad his first buzz cut... he was apprehensive

But shouldn't have been, cause it clearly looked amazing.

Jessie and Andrew came to stay with us twice! Once right before Christmas, and then again in March! We had fun, and wish them well in Louisiana where there are many more trees for Andrew to climb! :)

Jacob had a birthday!

He's getting old.

It was a big fat party after the mission reunion! Congrats to Jon and Jamie who are getting married next week!

My little sister went to prom. My little sister who is still supposed to be 7 years old (don't remind me that she graduated last month...). I'd like to say I made her beautiful, but my parents did that... I did do her hair and makeup though! She and her boyfriend put gold leaf in their hair so they were super glitzy and matchy matchy :)

I made bread. Bread from the wonderful book The Bread Bakers Apprentice that my mom got me for my birthday! (oh yeah, I had a birthday too... but I'm the one who takes pictures around these parts, and I didn't take any of myself celebrating getting older. sorry.)


And guess what I used to make that bread? Flour I ground myself in my brand new Wheat Grinder Jacob bought me for my birthday! I didn't have a picture of it (if you look closely, you can see the Wonder Mill box in the background...) but this is Jacob "helping" me with the wheat. Apparently its a lot harder than it looks to touch the bottom of a 5o lb pail of wheat. But my husband can do it. Can yours?

We planted our garden, and it's growing! This is quite exciting because it was the coldest May in something like 57 years... it SNOWED after Mother's day! Jacob is also slowly re-mulching the whole area, and it just keeps looking better and better! Jacob is really good about yard work and garden things... I think I would be better about it, but I just hate mosquitos so so much. I seriously went outside last week for 2 minutes and got 3 mosquito bites. AT NOON. My blood must be the tastiest blood ever.

The first fruits of our garden!

My mock-orange is blooming! It's my favorite thing in the back yard. ...or the front yard really.
You can come smell it and then you'll understand why.

We bought a peach tree and guess what! It ALREADY has teeny peaches on it! We were expecting to have to wait a few years, but our tree loved us so much it decided to give us peaches this year anyway :)

A bunch of other stuff happened, we had an amazing anniversary trip to Salt Lake, we did lots of school work, lots of regular work, and we had lots of good times with friends and family.

I hope you enjoyed our catch-up picture post. Maybe I'll post again soon. :)

Posted in: on Sunday, June 6, 2010 at at 11:40 AM 4 comments  

I have a bunch of pictures so I'll get right down to business. We went to California last month. We were planning on going to visit Jacob's grandparents right before school started again since early this spring, but sadly his grandfather passed away the weekend before we were going to leave. So we ended up leaving a few days early to make it down there in time for the funeral. It was a wonderful service, and it was good to spend time with family. I'll explain a little more as we go. So, without further ado, here are some pictures:


Jacob was happy to be out of the car and in our hotel room. (if you look in the mirror in the bottom left, you can kind of tell he was dancing...)



These were some beautiful flowers we kept in our room for the funeral the next morning.



After the funeral, most of the cousins went to the park down the street.

We didn't see any mountain lions, but there was a miniature zoo in the park that we did go explore.

Jacob and Adrian were cute.

Jacob, Brian, and Adam played frisbee and then...

Everyone played duck-duck-goose!

Adrian's shoes were not cooperating when it was time to leave, so Jacob helped.

This was at Herschel's burial. We almost didn't get to go to the grave site because it was considered a 'construction zone', but they eventually arranged things so we could go. Jacob also had the opportunity to dedicate the grave, which was really great.

My frozen yogurt

vs.

Jacob's frozen yogurt.

Hooray! I love Penzeys. I also love my husband for taking me clear out there and not complaining no matter how long we spent there :)

My monkey in an awesome tree just outside Penzeys.



We went to the beach with Brian and Katie

Who were very cute.



We found this flower on the way to the beach from our car that we had to park 3 miles away. I couldn't believe it wasn't plastic.

Jacob built a sand castle.

...and threw Finding Nemo fruit snacks at the seagulls.

...and took pictures of me.

Jacob picked me this flower, and since it was too huge to put in my hair, we ended up using it as an "air freshener" in the car.

Hollywood Walk of Fame.

It couldn't keep our interest for too terribly long, but it was cool.

I mostly took this picture for Ethan.

I mostly took this picture because... um, what the heck?
If you can't read it, I highly recommend enlarging it so you can.

We went to the farmers market and The Grove outdoor shopping center across the street. Both were right up my alley.

This was right outside a toy store at the farmers market.

While we waited for it to be dinner time, we had a guy on the pier draw our caricature which was funny. We played skee-ball at the arcade, watched a swimsuit model get a bunch of shots taken in the freezing water (funnier than you'd expect), dodged seagulls, and had a great time.

A big seagull swooped down and snatched the churro right out of this lady's hand about a minute after we took this picture. She was pretty freaked out, and it was hilarious :)

Jacob had the camera on the day we went to the zoo. This is me in line.

This is me being happy because I have a huge bag of kettle corn :)

Pretty.

The giraffes were hungry.

...and a little desperate.
This one was the baby, and was very cute.

The gorillas were cool too. Jacob took some good pictures, no? yes.

I've always loved flamingos. Just not in my lawn.


Our last day in California, we didn't feel like doing much.

We went to the park down the street again and jacob hiked around a bit while I read in the shade for a while. It was very nice.

These lizards were all over the place!

Tangelos waiting to ripen.

There are no words to describe how happy this tree made me.

Her backyard. We swam a couple of times, which was fun. We laughed a lot. I think swimming makes us giggly.

Jacob picked some of the harder to reach Tangelos.

Walking back from the tree along the wall.

Mission accomplished.



On our way back to Utah, we stopped in Vegas for a couple of days. We decided to do this because Green Day (Jacob's favorite) was playing there. Actually, they were playing in Salt Lake the day we left, and in California while we were there, but it would have been a long drive and we'd have gotten back at like, 3 in the morning, so we decided Vegas was our best bet. Besides, neither of us had actually stayed there before. So, turns out I'm not the biggest fan ever of Las Vegas... at least the Strip part. Maybe it was sensory overload, and maybe I was just really homesick, but I couldn't really see the appeal... Don't get me wrong, there's some really cool stuff there. For example, we did go visit the Coca-Cola store and M&M World, both of which were fascinating. We had some cheap all you can eat pizza which was delicious, and spent a good hour and a half driving down 6 blocks of the strip admiring the lights (and the traffic). I can say that the Green Day concert was the most awesome concert I've ever been to though. We both enjoyed it immensly :) We had a great time in Vegas, even though we cut it a little shorter than planned, and we didn't get to visit with family there like we wanted. Another nice part was that driving home from Vegas seemed like nothing compared to driving straight from Utah to California :)

Hope your summer was as awesome as ours was!

Posted in: on Saturday, September 12, 2009 at at 2:10 PM 1 comments