Mixing things up a bit!!

For any of you that are like me, change is fun!! I'm one of these people that NEED change! I get bored very easily. So, to "shake things up" around the house, I conned Jay into helping me change our living room around this past weekend. We have a pretty good size room, but it's long, not so wide. From the day we moved into our house, exactly 19 months ago, we've always had our TV at the far end of the room. Well, I've had my furniture just about every way imaginable in this room!!! So I finally got smart and said, "hey, lets move the TV!" DUH!! So we moved it to the other end and now I can finally have my couch and love seat in the traditional L shape. OMG, we LOVE it!!! It's soooo much cozier now and the room just flows, if you know what I mean!! Last night I lit some candles, dimmed the lights and it made for a very romantic setting.

....This being said, it was, afterall, our 2nd anniversary of our first date!!!! Wow, looking back, we've come a long way in 2 short years. So many great memories and yet a whole lifetime to go!!! She surprised me last night by taking me to our absolute favorite mexican place for dinner! Liam stayed with his Nana, so it was nice having some quiet time for a little bit. He doesn't eat mexican anyway.

For those of you following our TTC journey, things are looking up and I think we may be back on the road to baby toes next month!!! I called today to see if our donor is still available, and he is, so I'm going to at least order tomorrow. I should be ov'ing in the next few days, so I'll chart this month and start on Clomid again when AF arrives in a couple weeks. So hopefully this time next month, I'll be in my LAST 2ww!!!!! :) PLEASE send lots of baby dust our way!! This has to be our lucky #7 cycle again (Liam was concieved on lucky #7!!)

Back to school

Well Liam started back to school last week! We got our first week under our belts and here it is, only the second week and he's home SICK!! Yep! Caught a cold Friday and was stuffy and runny nose all weekend, then got a fever last night and this morning! Great way to start off the school year. Oh well, what do ya do?? Here's a couple pics of my big 1st grader!! What a handsome boy he is! :) (Not that I'm prejudice or anything!!) I sure did miss him last week. It's actually nice having him home today. *Shh, don't tell the school I said that!! ;) It's been a bit of a rough start....for both of us! He's going through separation anxiety, and frankly, so am I! It's hard to take your "baby" to school and leave them crying for you!! Breaks my heart. I'm sure in time he'll be fine.

Other than school, not much new in our neck of the woods. I did put in my resume at several places last week, so hopefully someone will be impressed and call me this week!? As soon as I get a job, can save up some money, the sooner we can TTC again!!!! This is on my heart everyday. I try not to lose focus of what I already have and enjoying every day with Liam, but yea, it's a constant emptiness in my heart. Anyway, I wanted to share these pics of Liam. :)

Do I have to wake up??

Do you ever just have one of those dreams that are soooo good that you wake up, realize you were dreaming, and try your hardest to drift back off so you can dream the dream again?? Yea, that was me this morning? I had one of the BEST dreams I've had in a long, long time! And usually I don't remember much about my dreams, but this morning I remembered every detail!!

...The beginning of the dream was vague, but from where I remember, I being released from the hospital...with my brand new baby boy!!! :) Jay had come to pick me up and we were both freaking out because apparently he was born 6 weeks early and we were NOT prepared, to say the least! We hadn't gotten the crib, bedding, clothes, even a stroller or carseat!!! That's hilarious because when I DO get that BFP, I'm gonna start shopping ASAP!! lol At any rate, they let Jay and I leave the hospital without even checking to see if we had a carseat...so I held my new baby boy in my arms in the backseat and told Jay to take us to Sears! Funny thing that it was Sears because Jay has an interview there tonight for a p/t position!! lol (Maybe that's a sign of what's coming soon!) Anyway, Liam was with Jay's mom and so we called my mom and told her we were shopping at Sears trying to find everything we needed. Well, I couldn't find the right size diapers (hello...Sears doesn't carry them!!), nor could I find a carseat I liked...so I told Jay we needed to go to JC Penny! I guess Babies R Us didn't exist in my dream! So off to Penny's we went. We got there and I was walking through the store breastfeeding my baby! He was perfect...but so tiny! Well, they didn't have much of a variety there, and in the meantime my mom met us there. So I told Jay to find a catalog because they have some beautiful stuff in there. So she went and got one and we were sitting in the furniture dept, me breastfeeding, and looking through the catalog. Suddenly I spotted it...our baby's bedding set....it was ELVIS!!! lol My mom was in Heaven because she loves Elvis and thought it was an excellent idea!! NOT that this will ever happen in real life!!! ELVIS baby bedding??? I'm cracking myself up as I write this! Anyway, so we did end up going to Target and I found the most adorable carseat and stroller. We still hadn't picked out a name because he was so early, so I don't even know what we named him. But as much as I thought I wanted a little girl, since I have Liam, I don't care anymore...I think Liam needs a brother!! It was a great dream, and up until the Elvis bedding, it was so real. I can still see his beautiful little face, peeking out of the blanket and I remember so clearly breastfeeding him.

I hope, I hope, I hope this dream is significant in some way for what our future holds.

One step closer to being a Doula

Well, I'm on my way!! :) One of the first things I have to complete before even starting my doula training is having 3 books read. I might point out that I HATE to read! Don't know why, but I just don't enjoy it. Not books anyway. Give me the internet, I'm good. ?? I'm a speed reader, then I totally get lost and forget what I read. But that's not what I wanted to write about!! Jay ordered the 3 books for me last week and they've all arrived this week!! OMG, they're awesome! I'm so excited. Just looking through them, I know this is what I really want to do! The first one I've started reading is Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn. Hey, not that this won't come in handy someday when I get my own BFP! I just LOVE this stuff!!! I'm so addicted to all those baby shows on TV - you know the ones, Ladies...A Baby Story and Bringing Home Baby on TLC, Birth Day, Special Delivery, House of Babies, and Runway Moms on Discovery Health. That takes up most of my day!! lol I am a total ADDICT to that stuff!!! AND I could watch the same repeats over and over! I wish I had Liam's birth on tape...I'd be watching it over and over. We just have all those "fresh out of the oven" pics!! He HATES seeing those pics of himself. lol He wants to know why he's all bloody...I told him the stork dropped him in the Red Sea and had to fish him out!! :)

Anyway, so I'm taking the next month or so to get these 3 books read...it'll take me at least that long! Then I need to check into the childbirth classes through my Ob/Gyn and a hospital tour. Maybe I'll be able to do the October workshop, if not, we'll shoot for November.

Right now I'm looking for a part time job. I officially started yesterday! I applied online at our local hospital because I heard through the grapevine that there's a p/t position in Registration. I might check with all the local banks and maybe even the vet. I not only LOVE babies, but I love animals too! Friday was my last day babysitting my cousin's baby. As much as I love the little booger, child care in my home is NOT for me!! It's so different when it's someone else's kid and not yours. Maybe with a p/t job I can start to save up money for our TTC also. I have NO idea at this point in time when we'll able to start again. It's so depressing and frustrating! Jay's student loans are now coming due and with an extra $375-400 payment per month, there's no way we can TTC til she 1) gets a better paying job in her field or 2) I go to work p/t.

Things have been sort of rough lately. Financial woes mostly, but that leads to stress, which leads to lots of confrontation!! I know we'll get through it, but hopefully something gives soon and it's sooner than later!! We have such an amazing and strong relationship, but it's scary how things can come between you before you wake up and say "wait a minute here...this isn't happening!" We're at that point. Time for some changes. We need to put everything and everyone (mostly family) on the backburner and start focusing on US again...Jay, Liam & myself. That's where OUR family begins.

Guess that's about it for tonight. Jay is either getting sick with the flu or a cold, OR she's sick from stress. She's laying here beside me on a Saturday night at 10:00 sound asleep!! What an exciting life we lead!! lol G'night all...

I think I've decided what I want to be when I grow up!!

Ok, so I've aimlessly been walking around the past 19 years wondering what I want to be when I grow up. Basically all I ever wanted to be was a mom! I've achieved that and it's been wonderful...more rewarding than I ever expected! BUT, as much as I've truly enjoyed the past 3 years of being a SAHM, I'm getting bored to death sitting at home day in and day out. My life has resulted to endless days spent in p.j.'s and no make-up, doing laundry, running my vacuum daily and turning into a talk show junkie!! It's got to stop! Not only that, but Liam started kindergarten last year and is now ready to start 1st grade in one week, and it's very lonely!! VERY lonely!! So for weeks now I've been trying desperately to think of a reason to go back to school...to find that one thing that I will be passionate about!

...I've found it!

After lots of research on the internet, emails to various people getting information, and phone calls, I have found something that I believe will bring me years of joy and fulfillment! :) And the best part of all is that I won't have to look at the next 2-6 years of schooling.

So what is it, you ask?? I've decided I want to become a certified Doula. For those of you that may not know what that is (although I hope that most of you reading this will already know!), a doula is labor coach that basically offers physical and emotional support during her entire labor and even postpartum. There is definitely some training involved, some workshops to attend, childbirth classes to attend, a tour of a maternity ward (been there, done that!) and then you get certified. A good friend that I graduated with in Florida is now a certified Doula and just within a couple years, she has 3 Doulas working under her now! She loves it! She said it's so satisfying and rewarding to her. I just really love the whole birthing process, and as much as I think it would be awesome to be a labor and delivery nurse, I don't know if I could get through all the schooling. Even being a midwife is probably more than I'm ready for. But who knows, maybe I'll get into the whole Doula thing and discover I DO want to be an RN or midwife. ?? I just know I'm super excited about this, and for now it's something to get my mind off TTC until we can afford to go forward again. I have 3 books I need to read first and foremost. That will take a while, considering I hate to read. The next step would be to attend 12+ hours of childbirth classes and do a hospital tour, then I can register for my first workshop. I'm shooting for November or January for that. I think they skip December because of the whole holiday thing. I made a couple calls today (and just left messages) to some Doulas in our area to see what the demand is for that here. We live in a pretty small area and when I called my personal Ob/Gyn's office, they didn't know of ANY Doula's here!!!! So is that a good thing or a bad thing??? Hmmmm....

I just think this is it. This is what I've been looking for. Something to do with my life...and something I'm really interested in!!

...So what do you all think?? Go for it?? Crazy?? In the meantime, I want to start applying locally for a part time job after Liam starts school. We could use the extra money to start saving for TTC and Doula training. Maybe I'll check with all the banks in town. Oh and now would be a good time to send in that resume to the school system. We have 3 brand news schools opening soon. Hopefully that might mean more positions. Even the cafeteria would be ok for me!!! :)

Hope everyone's having a great week! Happy Hump Day! It's almost over....

I'm finally back!!!

Hey Everyone! I'm so sorry I haven't posted on here in AGES. I just seen today that I had some new comments from my last post, which was so long ago! Thank you so much for all the great comments on the pics from Lake Erie! We actually took another trip back at the end of July to Lake Michigan and Crystal Lake. OMG, words cannot even describe how beautiful it was there. Jay had grown up there over many summers when she was young, and finally wanted to share this special place with someone...me and Liam! :) We only stayed 4 days, but the weather was perfect and we had the BEST time ever!!!! Liam LOVED it there and cried when we had to leave! We took him on 2 different sand dune buggy rides, which was pretty cool, and he rode his first jet ski! Each night we watched the sunset over Lake Michigan and it's something I'll never forget. My whole life, I've always dreamed of watching the sunset over water with that "someone special" sitting with me...well, my dream came true up in Michigan. It couldn't have been more perfect. I have no doubts that Jay is my soul mate, but with everyday life as busy as it is, sometimes I think we take each other for granted and forget about those special feelings in the beginning of our relationship...well, Jay & I got all those feelings back, sitting on the beach at sunset in each other's arms. And watching her & Liam play in the sand together, it just made my heart melt. It also put into perspective how very lucky I am. So many of my TTC friends are still longing to be a mother, and even though I have Liam, wanting another child so badly has made me forget about the wonderful gift I already have right here with me. I know if it's His plan, God will bless us with another child when the time is right. It's just waiting that's so hard.

As for the TTC front, we are still on a break. Taking this vacation was a decision we made together...put TTC on the backburner once again or forget the vacation and do another cycle. We both agreed that we needed to get away. Glad we did! I'm not sure yet when we'll get to do our next cycle. We were shooting for Aug or Sept, which would be in roughly a week or 5 weeks! I'm hoping September. Just glancing at the calender, IF we did get to do a cycle in September, we would be testing right around my birthday!!!! Whoa, wouldn't that be the BEST birthday ever??? :) Could I get that lucky???

That's about all that's been going on for us lately. Liam is getting all geared up to start first grade in about 2 weeks. He's excited, but nervous too. He has done so great over the summer reading. He reads signs everywhere we go, labels, anything!! It's so exciting!! He just lost his second tooth Tuesday. :) So the Tooth Fairy made a pit stop by our house that night. ;)

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and having fun with family & friends. Like most of the country, we've had some very excessive heat and I'm not liking it AT ALL! I'm a winter girl myself, and am soooooo looking forward to Fall and Winter. You won't hear me complain when it's 10* with 8" of snow!! I'm adding just a few of our pictures from our trip to Michigan and also a link to our new myspace page for everyone to check out. Thanks for reading and for being patient on the update. I love hearing from all of you and appreciate your friendship more than you can imagine!!!

www.myspace.com/chicagirl70

How many days til snow???

Ok, so I've never been a big "fan" of summer anyway, but especially so this year!! We've had some pretty hot days already and it's not even August yet!!! With no central air, life sucks for us at the moment!!! I will just be so happy when the snow is flying again!! I'm definitely a winter girl!!

I haven't posted much lately because there's really been nothing to post! Hope everyone had a nice 4th. Ours was ok. Nothing exciting. I actually was a bit under the weather last week. I started out running a fever of 103*, neck pain, migraine, and chills. I ended up in the E.R. and was diagnosed with a severe sinus infection. Go figure!! I'm all better now though! :)

We did go on a couple of fun day trips lately. Last Thursday since Jay was off, we headed to a place called Malabar Farm. Took some pics with the animals, walked around and just had a fun day. Saturday we took Liam to this place up by Lake Erie called Mystery Hill and Prehistoric Forest. He LOVED it!! Then we stopped off at Marblehead Lighthouse and spent a couple hours there. I'll post some pics! It was breathtaking! The pics don't do it justice! Now if only we could LIVE on the water!! That would be our dream. Jay and I both are big time water buffs! Now if she would just get off her toosh and get a great paying job so we could move!!! (**kidding, my love!!) ;)

On the TTC front, we're basically just hanging low for the moment. Honestly, if I hear of one more person pregnant I think I will have to GAG myself!!! No idea yet when we'll start trying again, but we're HOPING (being the magical word!) to try by September! That would give us a beautiful little bundle by this time next year! :) We'll see...if only God would grant me patience!