Christmas pics

I just posted an update on my other blog if you want to see pics from Christmas.

My monkey

Last week I took my little monkey to a trunk or treat.  As you can see, he had a fabulous time.  He is such a joy to have in my life.  I am thinking of all of you who are still yearning for children.  I know holidays can be so hard when all you want is to be able to share them with a little one.

Merry Christmas: Christmas Spirit Video

I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas.

A great invention

has to be the drive-thru.

Now how to get grocery and retail stores to utilize them?

I had no idea how time consuming and tiring it is to take a baby in and out of a car and in and out of a store.  Without fail, by the time we get out of the house (which is a time consuming and amazing feat in and of itself), and as soon as we get to a store, my little guy is either hungry, dirty, or usually both.  So, we find a comfy spot, take a seat, and I feed and change him.  I wonder why I even bothered to try to leave the house in the first place.  I then have a small window of time to accomplish everything.

Then, like yesterday as I got him back in the car, he had fallen asleep, so I thought to myself, "hmm, should I try to run to the grocery store real quick?"  I had only been trying to get there all week.  I had my list with me, which I usually lose by the time I get to the store, but this time I hadn't.  So I went to the store, had almost finished shopping when he woke up.  I told him, we just had eggs, yogurt, and cheese left to get, so to please hang on, and then we would be on our way.

When we are out and about I always tell him the plan, but sometimes the plan changes.  He is a real trooper, and very patient while we shop, but it seems that if I try to get a few more things off the list or start to get distracted in a store, he starts to get fussy, so I tell him, "ok, you're right, I said we were just going to do these few things, thanks for keeping me focused", and then we finish up and leave.  We have fun together.

Well, while at the grocery store, I decided I wanted some icecream and then I wondered if we had milk, so I texted my hubby and we had a confusing conversation.  I asked him, "Do you need anything at the store?" and "Do we have any milk?"  He said no.  I realized I had asked him 2 questions, and only received one response.  So I asked back: "No, you don't need anything, or no we don't have milk?"  He didn't respond back, and my little guy was ready to go so I didn't get milk, but it ended up that we needed some.  So at some point I will need to make another trip to the grocery.  Just that thought exhausts me.  Maybe I will send the hubs out to get some.  

By the time I was back in the car with the groceries and baby loaded, my baby was crying.  He was ready to be back home.  And little did he know, we had one more errand to run.  While on my way to the store I had asked another sleep deprived friend if she needed me to pick up anything for her at the grocery store.  I had to swing by her house (super close to mine) and give her the eggs.  So we did.  And then we went home.  Thank goodness for pacifiers--that helped him get through those last difficult minutes of running around.

If a grocery store could just have a small drive up window where they sold a few items like gift cards, milk, eggs, bread, a few veggies, chocolate, and ice cream, that would be great.

If retail stores could even just have a drive up window where you could return an item without going into the store until a later time that would save me so much time, and be awesome.

After 3 days of running around town we are staying put the rest of the week.  Or at least until I can go out with my husband on Sat. and we can tag team some of the errands.

Although, there are some things worth getting out of the house for...

Pictures with Santa!

singing a Christmas Carol with Santa

Our fun visit with Santa yesterday was worth all the effort it took to get out of the house.   And I don't know how a drive thru Santa Claus visit would work.

A little sock was hung by the chimney with care

For at least the past three years I have hung this little sock up next to ours in hopes that by the time the next Christmas rolled around we would be celebrating it with our first child.  Every year I looked at it longingly and hoped and prayed that this little sock would not have to remain empty and lonely for too much longer.  At times my emotional and spiritual resilience waned, but in the end, things worked out as they always do.

You cannot imagine the joy I felt as I hung up this little sock this year.   As I was unloading some of the boxes of Christmas decorations and began putting the ornaments on the tree I remembered this little sock.  I immediately set everything else aside and with a smile on my face and happiness in my heart I hung up all of our stockings.  That was a sweet moment.    

this was a picture I took of his sock last year

As I thought about the phrase: "the stockings were hung by the chimney with care", from the poem, "Twas the Night before Christmas", this wrote my own little poem about my baby's Christmas sock 

The Christmas Sock
Twas the Christmas season, when all through the house

only sadness and longing hung like a blouse
a little sock was hung by the chimney with care,

in hopes that a child soon would be there

I thought and I prayed and I pled

that someday soon I could stroke my child’s head.

He would sit in my lap,
and take a few naps.
At times my heart stirred a bit
As I wondered how much longer I could take it.
Then all of a sudden, quick as a flash

My baby was in my arms and I was kissing his nose and eyelash

I now walk around with a glow

and love telling my little baby, “hello”.

We Are Blessed Beyond Measure

This is what it says on a Thanksgiving plate I bought after my first IVF cycle resulted in a negative result.  I was pretty sad and didn't feel all that blessed.   When I came across this plate I remember picking it up, setting it down, thinking about whether or not I was "blessed beyond measure".  I ultimately decided to buy it because I determined that yes, I was blessed beyond measure.  I had many other wonderful blessings in my life and that was what I focused on.  And as I did so, I felt at peace and the pain of the negative IVF cycle lessened.

Clearly, this Thanksgiving, I feel "blessed beyond measure".  To have my amazing son in my home is one of the greatest blessings I have ever received.  He brings so much joy and happiness into my life.

As I have thought of those of you who might be struggling during this holiday season and who are not feeling very blessed my mind reflected on a church talk I have read recently.  The talk is titled The Divine Gift of Gratitude and was given by my church leader, President Monson.  The following is the part I wanted to share with all of you.  I especially like the story he shared about Gordon Green's family and the experience they had one Thanksgiving when they didn't feel they had much to be grateful for.   

"A grateful heart, then, comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives. This requires conscious effort—at least until we have truly learned and cultivated an attitude of gratitude. Often we feel grateful and intend to express our thanks but forget to do so or just don’t get around to it. Someone has said that “feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”¹²

When we encounter challenges and problems in our lives, it is often difficult for us to focus on our blessings. However, if we reach deep enough and look hard enough, we will be able to feel and recognize just how much we have been given.

I share with you an account of one family which was able to find blessings in the midst of serious challenges. This is an account I read many years ago and have kept because of the message it conveys. It was written by Gordon Green and appeared in an American magazine over 50 years ago.

Gordon tells how he grew up on a farm in Canada, where he and his siblings had to hurry home from school while the other children played ball and went swimming. Their father, however, had the capacity to help them understand that their work amounted to something. This was especially true after harvesttime when the family celebrated Thanksgiving, for on that day their father gave them a great gift. He took an inventory of everything they had.

On Thanksgiving morning he would take them to the cellar with its barrels of apples, bins of beets, carrots packed in sand, and mountains of sacked potatoes as well as peas, corn, string beans, jellies, strawberries, and other preserves which filled their shelves. He had the children count everything carefully. Then they went out to the barn and figured how many tons of hay there were and how many bushels of grain in the granary. They counted the cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and geese. Their father said he wanted to see how they stood, but they knew he really wanted them to realize on that feast day how richly God had blessed them and had smiled upon all their hours of work. Finally, when they sat down to the feast their mother had prepared, the blessings were something they felt.

Gordon indicated, however, that the Thanksgiving he remembered most thankfully was the year they seemed to have nothing for which to be grateful.

The year started off well: they had leftover hay, lots of seed, four litters of pigs, and their father had a little money set aside so that someday he could afford to buy a hay loader—a wonderful machine most farmers just dreamed of owning. It was also the year that electricity came to their town—although not to them because they couldn’t afford it.

One night when Gordon’s mother was doing her big wash, his father stepped in and took his turn over the washboard and asked his wife to rest and do her knitting. He said, “You spend more time doing the wash than sleeping. Do you think we should break down and get electricity?” Although elated at the prospect, she shed a tear or two as she thought of the hay loader that wouldn’t be bought.

So the electrical line went up their lane that year. Although it was nothing fancy, they acquired a washing machine that worked all day by itself and brilliant lightbulbs that dangled from each ceiling. There were no more lamps to fill with oil, no more wicks to cut, no more sooty chimneys to wash. The lamps went quietly off to the attic.

The coming of electricity to their farm was almost the last good thing that happened to them that year. Just as their crops were starting to come through the ground, the rains started. When the water finally receded, there wasn’t a plant left anywhere. They planted again, but more rains beat the crops into the earth. Their potatoes rotted in the mud. They sold a couple of cows and all the pigs and other livestock they had intended to keep, getting very low prices for them because everybody else had to do the same thing. All they harvested that year was a patch of turnips which had somehow weathered the storms.

Then it was Thanksgiving again. Their mother said, “Maybe we’d better forget it this year. We haven’t even got a goose left.”

On Thanksgiving morning, however, Gordon’s father showed up with a jackrabbit and asked his wife to cook it. Grudgingly she started the job, indicating it would take a long time to cook that tough old thing. When it was finally on the table with some of the turnips that had survived, the children refused to eat. Gordon’s mother cried, and then his father did a strange thing. He went up to the attic, got an oil lamp, took it back to the table, and lighted it. He told the children to turn out the electric lights. When there was only the lamp again, they could hardly believe that it had been that dark before. They wondered how they had ever seen anything without the bright lights made possible by electricity.

The food was blessed, and everyone ate. When dinner was over, they all sat quietly. Wrote Gordon:

“In the humble dimness of the old lamp we were beginning to see clearly again. . . . 

“It [was] a lovely meal. The jack rabbit tasted like turkey and the turnips were the mildest we could recall. . . . 

“ . . . [Our] home . . . , for all its want, was so rich [to] us.”¹³

My brothers and sisters, to express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven."

It is hard to recognize our blessings when times are tough and life is challenging.  That is why I liked the story about Gordon and his family.  They had quite a challenging year, and didn't feel very grateful, but in the end they realized they had been blessed, and what a difference it made not only in their day, but their life.  I am grateful to have joined this blogging community and am grateful we are able to help one another through the highs and lows we face as we try to grow our families one baby at a time.   

Happy Thanksgiving 

Happy Lupercalia Day

Time to get your toga on and get out there.

Feb 15th is an Ancient Greek holiday called Lupercalia.  I learned about this holiday from this blogger. You never know when some men will show up to whip that infertility out of you.  Wikipedia says (so it must be true), "Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth."  You never know when some men will show up to whip that infertility out of you.  

Between Valentine's Day and Lupercalia Day all of us infertiles should be in good shape.

Maybe I will sing: 

Lupercalifragilisticexpialidocious 
Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious, 
If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious, 
Lupercalifragilisticexpialidocious!


Thank goodness my neighbors don't know about this option for me or else they just might show up at my house with a whip in hand.  


Uh oh, I think the doorbell just rang.