2011: A Look Back
Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!
Hope you all have great New Year's Eve plans! We're laying low, which is fine. Unless we're traveling, I'm not a huge one for New Year's Eve, pregnant or not.
Like most everyone else, the end of the year is always kind of a reflective time for me. Thought I'd share some of what I've been thinking about:
January
We took a belated three-week honeymoon to Europe the end of 2010/beginning of 2011...spent New Year's in Prague (amazing...would do it again in a heartbeat) and the first few days of the year in Venice:
As soon as we got home, we got word that my husband's dad was very sick...we went straight to Las Vegas to be with him, and he died a week later. So hard, but I'm so glad we got that time together.
And then, straight to Denver for IVF #4.
February
The transfer for IVF #4 happened in February...AND we got a BPF! A good solid one, too...all my previous ones had been iffy and ended up being chemical pregnancies. We were so excited!
Didn't feel too bad for the first few weeks, and did some nice easy walks in the Colorado National Monument, which is super close to our house:
March
I was sick, sick, sick with the pregnancy.
We went to Vegas again to see and help my husband's mom.
Spring started to arrive:
April
We lost our baby, a girl, at 11 weeks 5 days...so close to being out of the first trimester and "safe." It was devastating, but my husband and I were so sweet and loving and supportive of each other. We lay on the couch in the evenings and drank wine and talked and cried. And then when we couldn't cry anymore we watched episodes of "Wipeout" which is the most ridiculous TV show ever...have never watched before or since but somehow the stupidness and silliness was what we needed.
Family and friends were wonderful, too.
And got back to being active, with one quick weekend snowboarding trip with my brother (we took his snowmobiles out into the backcountry...he'd run me up a hill and I'd snowboard down). So fun even though the snow sucked as it was so late in the season.
I also started hiking, including an incredible day trip to Moab with my mom and dad.
One of the places I went a lot in those first few weeks after the miscarriage was Holy Cross trail. When I first moved to the area, I'd stumbled on this cross. Didn't learn until years later that I knew the woman who'd brought it into being, and it was for her lost child:
May
Tried to get my body ready for an FET...the D&C wasn't complete...another trip to Denver and our clinic was needed.
Worked hard to recover physically and emotionally from the miscarriage.
Life went on as normal for the cows across the street from my parents:
June
An absolutely lovely hiking trip with my Dad in Utah. We take a trip together every year...it is just the best:
And more "finishing the miscarriage" shenanigans and another trip to our Denver clinic.
And the start of our summer vacation, driving to the West coast to camp and hang out with tons of friends...so fun and exactly what we needed.
July
Summer vacation continued...from the start: Highway 50 through Nevada on the way out, California, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver, Salt Lake City on the way home. It was lovely. Here's my husband and I at a BBQ with my BFF, Lake Washington, Seattle:
We also went to Santa Barbara for a long weekend to attend a gorgeous wedding, and again got to spend time with lots of freinds...so wonderful.
And...back to Denver for the FET...stayed with my brother which is always great...had my birthday 2 days before the transfer, and on the last day of the month...another BFP! Yay!
August
Did a short camping trip with my brother, but for the most part sick, sick, sick.
Learned we had twins!
My mother's organic garden was going crazy...
September
Camped again, this time with my whole family:
Still sick, but all was going well.
October
A fun trip to Denver to celebrate our anniversary.
Other than that, laying low with the pregnancy.
The first snow up in the mountains was so pretty (this is at my brother's house, where he and I and my brother who died grew up):
November
Went with my husband to Mobile, AL and gulf coast Mississippi to check out a potential job. We celebrated his birthday while we were there...so fun, although traveling wasn't all that easy...
And later in the month, Thanksgiving at our house with lots of people. My husband and his mom did all the cooking! :)
December
Holidays at my brother's up in the Colorado mountains. Here's our boxer Newton playing in the snow:
My pregnancy at 25 weeks is still going strong! :)
So, all in all, a heartbreaking year with the loss of my father-in-law and our unborn baby. A year consumed with doctor visits. Lots and lots of travel (which probably won't happen again for some time). Lots of time with freinds and family. And the most joyous year ever, in that we are so close to bringing home two real, live babies--something I wasn't sure would ever happen for me.
A roller coaster year.
Praying that everything--two healthy babies, graduation for my husband and hopefully a good job offer, a possible move to we're not sure where--will go our way in 2012, which should be a year filled with happiness, but will also probably contain a number of huge transitions.
Happy New Year to you all! Blogging has brought me such joy this year--and your presence has been central to that. Thank you for being here, and looking forward to sharing all that will be 2012.
XOXO
Kristen
E 1/2 Road Farmer's Market
My mom lives just a little ways away from me (which is sooooo awesome), and she has the most AMAZING organic garden every summer. She's really generous about sharing her flowers and produce; we jokingly call it the "E 1/2 Road Farmer's Market." (The way roads are named around here is crazy...have you ever seen letters with fractions?)
A couple pictures from the garden tour my mom took me on this morning...squash blossoms and ladybug love...
XO
Chickens and Eggs
Happy Monday, Everyone!
My mom gave me eggs over the weekend, something she does on a regular basis. The eggs come from a friend of hers who has chickens. My dad and I were in the friend's neighborhood last summer, and we stopped by. Happy chickens running around a big grassy yard (with some big friendly dogs keeping them company). The eggs are so yummy, and they've got to be so good for you, and I love that the chickens have a good life (I'm a total softie for animals. I really should be a vegetarian.)
I grew up on a farm with chickens...they got shipped overnight as day-old chicks in a big cardboard box, and the post office would call my mom and say, "Can you please come pick up your package? The peeping is driving us CRAZY!" The babies would live in the kitchen, fenced in by walls of cardboard, with orange-red glowing heat lamps to keep them warm, until they were big enough to go to the chicken coop. Nothing's cuter than a fluffy pale yellow chick.
Anyway, I'm really cranky today/woke up on the wrong side of the bed (not sure why...probably has something to do with working a lot over the weekend), and trying to focus on the good things in my life. Eggs from these chickens--and remembering baby chicks--make me happy.
XO
You Know You Live in a Small Town When...
One of the gophers we saw on Sunday. This little guy let us get up close for a picture...my husband joked this gopher must be on the "Gopher/Human Relations" Committee. "They know that if we think they're cute, we won't kill 'em," he said.
You guys are going to think I'm kidding when I tell you this, but I'm not. Often my husband and I will go out for lunch or dinner and then have the following conversation:
Me (or him): "What do you want to do now?"
Him (or me): "I don't know...go visit the gophers?"
There's some undeveloped land a couple miles from our house that's got a gopher colony...they're actually prairie dogs, but we call them gophers because the first time we saw them they were hanging out in a vacant lot next to a convenience store called "Go-pher Foods."
Anyway, an endless source of amusement for us is to drive by and check out what the prairie dogs are doing. We miss the big city, but have certainly found ways to entertain ourselves...
Small towns. Gotta love 'em...
XO
An Afternoon in the Desert
One of the teepees in the teepee camp I stumbled across.
Took the new (used) Jeep out into the desert yesterday...just dirt roads...nothing 4WD...don't want to hurt the baby. Note to self: do not take your new car, top off, out somewhere dusty, especially with the wind blowing. I got the car clean again, but wow, what a process.
Came across this little teepee camp (this is off 16 Road*, out of Fruita). Not sure who built/uses it, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! :)
*The names of the roads in this area are cool. North/South roads are numbered based on miles from the Utah border. (16 road is 16 miles in from Utah). Then you get 16 1/2 Road, 16 3/4 Road, etc. East/West roads are letters. But these also get fractions, so you end up with E 1/2 Road, R 7/8 Road, etc. Quirky. Unique. Love it.
A Sign of Spring
The water's falling freely behind this sheet of ice today...love that sound...
So I've been feeling a little cooped up and bored...so much of my time in the winter is normally spent on the mountain snowboarding...not complaining, but it takes some getting used to, the restrictions I'm on because I'm pregnant. One thing I can do, however, is hike (as long as it's not too strenuous), and so this morning I went out to the Colorado National Monument, which is not far from where I live.
I went up No Thoroughfare Canyon, which I guess I've never been to in the winter, because I was so surprised to see this waterfall. Love how it's just this solid sheet of ice, and then behind the water's flowing freely...it sounds so cool...a small aural sign of spring on this drab winter day...
Pregnancy Test Drama That Ended Well
So I waited ALL DAY by the phone yesterday to hear the results of my second pregnancy test. I was really anxious to hear, because last year, every positive pregnancy test I got was followed by news that the baby wasn't going to stick. I needed that good second test to feel like I was really and truly pregnant.
6 PM and still no call, so I called the after-hours line at my out-of-town clinic, and they said they never received the results from my local blood draw. And they had left the office for the evening. Nothing to be done. Ugh.
So I called the hospital in my small town where I had my blood drawn, and they said they HAD faxed the results, but they couldn't give the results to me because it was against their policy to give results directly to patients. Ugh. I started crying because A) I'm crazy-hormonal right now, and B) I didn't know how I was going to make it 'til Monday to find out.
Long story short, the tech on the phone hinted that if I came to the hospital they might be able to do something. They all know me...I've come in for what seems like a thousand blood draws over all my IVF cycles last and this year.
When I got there, the tech had a printout with my VERY GOOD test number on it, even thought it wasn't something she was supposed to do, and she all but hugged me, she was so happy for me...she and everyone else in the blood draw center knows how long I've beeen trying to get pregnant. God bless her.
How nice to have experienced the kindness of that tech, and to get the news from someone who is really pulling for me. In the end it worked out perfect.
An Artsy Weekend...I'm a Happy Girl
So if I still lived in Seattle or San Francisco, or were in Boston, a weekend like this would be easy to put together. But not that much happens in Grand Junction, so having all this stuff in one weekend was such a treat.
I love the arts and don't usually get enough. One of the hardest things about living in a small town. Grateful for weekends like this.
Just Because You’ve Been Damaged by Tragedy Doesn’t Mean You Have Nothing Left to Offer the World
Here's where we got married, Glade Park, Colorado.
A sweet story, told to me yesterday about the little log cabin chapel where my husband and I got married:
“When we were building the chapel,” Alice, who owns it, told me, “we were getting wood from an area of Glade Park that had been ravaged by fire. The supporting pillars for the structure that you see in the front, we decided not to strip them of evidence of the burn. We did that to remind us--I could picture those poor trees saying ‘I’m so damaged by the fire, I’m burned and disfigured, I’m no good for anything anymore.’
"And look where they ended up--the most important part of a chapel that’s meant so much to so many, many people.”
A Lovely Hike Last Night
Newton at full run up on the Mesa last summer.
I used to surf pretty much every day, and one of the things I miss now that I don't do that anymore is being outside and leisurely watching the sunrises and sunsets. I love the light that time of day, the colors in the clouds, how peaceful it is to be out in it.
I went hiking at dusk last night, and although it of course wasn't the same as being in the surf, there was so much loveliness about the evening.
It was cold but not too cold.
My two boxers were with me, and chased each other the whole time, the older one, Dexter, getting down into a crouch and stalking the little one, Newton. Around trees and bushes, over rocks they didn't stop the whole time. It was good to see their unbridled joy.
And then going up, there were three young guys mountain biking, college students, perhaps. There's a place where the trail veers off and one part is hiking and the other is mountain bike only one way pretty gnarly from what I hear. It's called "Free Lunch." We were where the trail veered at the same time, and I could hear but couldn't see them make it to the bottom, hooting and hollering the whole time, no question the fun they were having.
And then watching the sun leave the valley, and the Book Cliffs and the Mesa turn the purple they turn sometimes, pink clouds in the sky. Lovely. A great end to an insanely busy day. Happy.
Mt. Garfield, Grand Junction, Colorado
Climbed Mt. Garfield this week. A really good day, complete with my first wild horse sighting ever (white and brown pinto, possibly my favorite kind of horse) and a hawk at the summit that lingered at eye level. Happy.
My parents on the summit.
Hawk.
Newton with his pack.