The Syndrome

I've hesitated to post about this. Its very personal, slightly depressing for me, and not something I want to necessarily be asked about much... and I'm not entirely sure who all reads this thing. But I've talked it over with Jason and I've decided to go ahead. This blog is about me, what my interests are and what's going on in my life. And this is definitely a 'going on in my life' one might say.

Fair warning, this is a long entry and I'm going to talk about womanly problems. Don't be squeamish now.

Some of you know that Jason and I have been trying to get pregnant since last Dec - with no luck, just a lot of tears. For a few years now I haven't been exactly normal as far as monthly cycles go, I just kinda considered it normal for me.

Last year in the summer (2007, before we started trying) it got ... well, gonna skip the details on that one... and I went to get checked out and ended up having surgery to remove endometrial polyps. That was a first for me - surgery. And it was surgery in rather sensitive area for a woman-maybe more mentally than physically, but ... well, no woman of 27 wants to have surgery on her uterus. It turned out not to be a horrifying experience after all. And I thought 'All right, we've fixed whatever problems have been going on, let's get on with the baby making.'

That was not the case however... and after another year of strangeness- and the previously mentioned tears- I headed back to the doc last month. Turns out the polyps - totally unrelated - where hiding another issue. There was some blood taking and a sonogram involved, and I have been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).

PCOS is not rare, around 5% of all women have it and it's the leading cause of infertility. There is tons of literature out there for it, even support groups. I may have this all my life, but it's treatable with meds.

Basically I'm not ovulating every month - only 3 or 4 time a year. We may have been able to eventually get pregnant on our own. But sometimes the ovaries just hang onto the egg, because they're not being told to let it go. One of the hormones needed to kick off this very important part of the process is missing a few of it's scheduled appointments. Now there is a build up of follicles causing all kinds of nasty symptoms - the follicles increase estrogen levels that the body then turns into testosterone because it doesn't need it. If you check out the Wikipedia page, there is a sonogram picture of an ovary, the black spots are the follicles- mine looks just like it. I don't have all the symptoms yet and may never have gotten some of them (acne is one thing but lets try to avoid the hair loss please). But we're going to get control now and possibly get rid of the problem altogether.

To get me back on course, the doctor has put me on Metformin and Clomid. While I am not diabetic (another symptom of PCOS), Metformin will help with insulin resistance and also help the second med to work better. And Clomid will make the ovulation cycle start on time.

When you read about this stuff online, it sounds a lot scarier than the doctors make it sound. I have a syndrome. While it bothers me on some levels, I think I'm OK for the most part. I feel like I finally have a reason for some things - things that are wrong with me, that I felt uncomfortable and depressed about maybe. Ah, something to blame my issues on.

Sorry if I'm dramatic - I just really wanted everyone to know. What better way than blog about it - let everyone know at once.

If we never have a baby, it will be OK. Maybe God doesn't have that plan for us. But I'm not giving up on it yet, not without a fight.

Welcome to the world, Lucy!

Please send up big prayers for Lucy and her parents, our good friends Tammy and Jake. Earlier this week, Tammy's had some problems with pre-eclampsia. Not good. The only way to fix it is giving birth, so the baby's entrance to the world was moved up a few days. Lucy Jane was born at 6:20 pm on Oct 8th. She's 18inch long and 6.1 lbs. And she has so many people that love her already!

A few weeks ago in an ultrasound they found Lucy has enlarged ventricles in her brain that may be Hydrocephalus. Now that she's born they will be doing tests to determine if she needs brian surgery to relieve the fluid, and she will be having this surgery in the next couple days. I know with a whole lot of prayer and faith that she -and Mommy - are going to come out of this fine and do great and wonderful things in this world.

Congrats Tammy and Jake! I can't wait to meet your little blessing!

Update on me

Oh yeah... that's right... it's now been a month since I blogged... hmmm, guess you're wondering what I've been up to. Let's see...

I'm still working on the house, which is a never ending project for any home owner. I painted the guest room and got it all set up - as in the bed is made and there are things hanging on the walls and books are on the shelf. I'll try to get pics up of that. We have window blinds and curtains on a few windows. I have extricated all teal from the living room, soooo much better.

I’ve gotten to show off my home a lot lately too. We had a two-year old birthday party (cutie-pie Korbin) and a couple of baby showers (Krista and Tammy). LOTS of fun, food and kids. All were great and everything survived, haha. I have to say, the kids did less to my house than drunken adults have done to it in past parties… what does that say??

Also, as of this month, Jason and I have our own Connection Group (a small group from our church) in our home every week. It’s really part of the group we’ve been in for the past 3 years that has been growing like crazy and got to the point it needed to split. So about half the group meets every Wed night at our place and it’s been great so far. We’ve met such fabulous people through our group, made such wonder friends, we’re so blessed. We’ve been here for 5 years now and Kyle has gradually felt more and more like our hometown. The friends were have surrounding us now have made that feeling more real.

And I must say, I think my husband is pretty good at leading the discussion – it’s probably those great teaching stills he has J

So now I’m off to visit my sister for the weekend and go to the State Fair of Texas. I’ve lived in TX my whole life and never been – apparently the food is the best part.

"Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overwhelmed with what comes back." - Morrie Schwartz

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!

Today is my fabulous sister's birthday! She's smart, pretty, sweet and fun - one couldn't ask for a better sister :) Happy 26th Em, hope it's a great one.

....er... i still haven't shipped your present... so you might be celebrating again Sept haha

U-S-A!!

So I didn't really do anything around the house this weekend like I had planned. But I did cheer on my country's men and women a-plenty. I'm all wrapped up in the Olympics again this year - starting from the opening ceremonies... well... 30 minutes in to them when I remembered they had started already :) It was awesome, what a beautiful show. Jason and I even hit rewind a couple of times and rewatched some of the best parts. And I Love the Bird's Nest -so unique.

My favs of the summer Olympics are probably gymnastics, swimming, diving and my recent addition is beach volleyball. I also like to watch weightlifting, rowing, basketball, softball, and tennis... and if I'm really honest with myself I like synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics(even if I think they're kinda cheesy). You may notice, soccer is not one of these, I'm sorry, I don't like soccer, I can't get into it, it's boring. Sorry, babe.

This time difference thing has got me going crazy. Everything is happening in the middle of the night- because, you know, China is on the other side of the world and what-not. I fell asleep during the men's swimming relay last night and missed the big finish argh. It's a good thing they've disabled videos on my work computer or I'm pretty sure I've have watched every one of them on NBC's website today.

I'm seeing my evenings this week taken up by more TV watching. We've got 6 different channels showing difference sports at different times. This is not good for my home improvement schedule. Hope everyone out there is tuning in and rooting for our peoples. :) Go USA!!

WIP

I'm finally getting around to sharing what we've been working on. This last weekend we continued in making our new house 'ours'. For a while now I've been feeling like we've been living in some one else's house that just happened to have some of our furniture in it. There are boxes and junk stacked in places, the walls in the living room are this crazy sea foam/teal color, the window blinds match and the garage seemed to catch all the random things in towering piles but goodness knows where things have been stuck if you need them. Even the plants in the flower bed don't seem like 'mine'.

We started the multi-weekend conversion by doing some planting, cleaning the garage and painting the living room. The planting was really to replace what had died while we were in WI - the former owner put potted plants throughout the flower bed and almost everything in the pots died in the 100 degree heat and no water for a week. Jason mowed the yard - it didn't look like there was a lot of grass but it really made a difference. Then he started to organize the garage while I painted the living room - with the fabulous help of Ellen. I've got some before and after pictures below - though it's far from finished and the color came out littler in the pic. Some friends from church came over Wed night and helped me decide were the living room furniture should go. Us women made the guys rearrange the room about 5 times, it was fun :)

This weekend is more of the same. I really want to get some things hung on the walls, it's looking so bare still to me. But I'm definitely starting to see 'My' house coming through. One of the biggest differences will be when we finally get rid of the teal window blinds - I keep them open as much as possible so I don't have to see all that blue/green.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however." - Richard Bach

Love Story

Love is so uniquely amazing, and a real life story like this makes me excited for people in love all over the world and our ability to connect with each other.

I just found out about these two last week. What a beautiful story. Rosie and Aaron met on Flickr and fell in love through photography. He's from North Carolina and she lives in England. I've been checking in every day for the latest post. These two are amazingly talented.

Love and the Internet are powerful things. Some may not know that Jason and I met over the Internet. Not nearly as exciting or colorful as their story, but it's our own.