The Results are In...

After all those viles of blood drawn, the verdict from two weeks worth of testing is in and the result??? Yup, all negative. I literally got this info 2 minutes ago so forgive me if I ramble as I work through it in my head.



I should be quite happy about this, and I am. In fact the nurse from the RE's office said "congratulations!" but I have mixed emotions about it. I wasn't exactly looking forward to daily Lovenox injections in my tummy but it would have been nice to have an explanation as to maybe why I keep losing pregnancies and I would have had a plan of action to help me keep one. So, does that mean it's total crappy luck? Perhaps. However, it could still be that genetic component issue and we just need to get the "right" egg with the "right" sperm in order to have another healthy pregnancy because clearly we are able to have healthy, normal, tooth-losing, tantrum-throwing kids. There is much relief that, luckily, this isn't something that could have easily been prevented. So, that's good. I also feel much better about my decision to go ahead and continue to "try" even though we were still waiting for test results. I would have been kicking myself had I ignored our window of opportunity only to find out that everything was normal. The Peri. is sending the report to my OB/GYN and I guess we'll go from there.



I'm still feeling slightly numb. No diagnosis. No reasons. No way to help this not happen again. On the up-side, I'm not at an increased risk for stroke, heart attack and blood clots but I still fall into that category of having multiple, unexplained miscarriages. So, I fall back on what I've been doing all along and pray. Pray that when, and if, I get the opportunity again I don't have to try to figure out how to deal with loss number six.

Chocolate Cup Cake...

What do you do when you have a craving for chocolate cake but no desire to actually spend an hour baking one or the motivation to drive to town to buy one? Make your own Chocolate Cup Cake!

I ran across the receipe online and was a bit skeptical but I figured what the heck? And if it didn't turn out, I was only out a few minutes and a couple of cheap ingredients! The end result isn't exactly pretty but it is pretty yummy. And, seriously, it only takes about 5 minutes from craving to satisfaction!

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE CUP CAKE

4 tablespoons cake flour (plain flour, not self-rising.)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla essence
1 coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well.
Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla essence and mix again.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

EAT!

It is a heavier more spongy cake so you might even want to share --- or maybe not!

Mountains...

So, I've been giving a little re-cap of our mini-vacation last week and mentioned visiting Mount St.Helens on the way home so I figured I'd better get on it and share those photos! I think I already mentioned that I wished that it had been a bit more clear but the lack of rain this time of year, means that the hazy look is to be expected.

Yay for remembering to take the family pic!

Twenty-eight years later, it still looks like a foreign landscape. These are remains of trees that were in the blast zone and just ripped apart when the mountain blew. I just thought this sign was kind of funny...

And this little guy is making sure that he's following the instructions.

The kids wanted to hike off the main trail, so we did. However, Jim and I both ended up hiking back with a kid on each of our shoulders. Not the easiest of tasks at 4300 ft elevation but we survived to tell about it and burn off some of that fast food that we grabbed before getting off the freeway!
We all loved the visit to the mountain. It hasn't changed a lot since Jim and I were there 8 years ago except for now they charge you - $8 for adults, the kids were free - to step foot on the grounds at Johnston Ridge Observatory and they've closed the Coldwater Ridge Observatory. Anyway, we made sure to get our moneys worth and spent a few hours there. The kids could have listened to the story of the eruption for hours, watching the little lights flow across the model of the mountain and surrounding areas. Karleigh was very much into learning about the volcano and asked a lot of questions. It was fun to watch her take it all in. She and I also watched the 16 minute movie about the event just before we left. She did ask, as we were leaving, "What about all the animals? The deer and the bears and the chipmunks..." So I had to explain that sad part of it but no less than 5 minutes out of the parking lot, a little coyote pup ran across the road in front of us so I was able to explain that even the animals were able to move back in. Phew!

When we returned home, I had a few of my own mountains to face but I have managed to scale those too. Like I said earlier, there was LOTS of baby news waiting for us when we returned home and continued to come for the next few days.

Yesterday, the plan was to either hit the coast or the gorge but the weather was yucky and we didn't really get moving very soon so we decided that, as Karleigh had suggested, the park was it. Then we went out to eat at Red Robin and took the kids to Build A Bear. Interestingly enough, we still haven't built a bear. We have a cat, a monkey, an elephant, a bunny and a puppy now - but no bears. After that, I decided that I needed to buy something for one of the new babies. This in and of itself was a pretty big thing being that yesterday was 7 months since I delivered Eli. It was actually a big hurdle and the gift is for the baby boy whose shower I just couldn't make myself go to. I'd show you a pic but I know his mommy reads - so ha ha! - She'll have to wait until she moves back to town in 9 days - WOOHOO! Anyway, it was very therapeutic to get that purchase made and do it with joy in my heart. We'll see how holding him goes...

And yah, this really does make everything easier...

I Thessalonians 5:16-18
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances,
for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

Zoo and Aquarium visit...

More pictures from our mini-vacation! These are from Pt.Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. My mom and I were just there last year with the kids but my how things can change in a year - for us and for the zoo. Karleigh loves this zoo even though we have a great one (with more animal variety in my opinion) just 45 minutes from our house. However, the view here just cannot be beat and the weather was perfect. The breeze blowing off the water kept it from getting the slightest bit too hot.

The kids were both pretty good this day too, Rylan was acting a bit more 2 1/2 than I would have liked but it ended up being just fine.

We had a great opportunity to see Java, the tiger, this time. He's a cranky old boy, in fact in the words of his handler - who was giving him a snack - "he's a jerk!" So, you'll never see him with the female tiger. He's just never learned how to play well with others. He sure is pretty to look at though! At any rate, here are some more pictures from our zoo visit.

The seahorse is kind of blurry but that's because I didn't want to use my flash and kill the poor guy... really, there's no flash photography in this exhibit.

Tomorrow, we've just promised the kids that we'll do something fun - we need it and it'll be good to help keep my mind off the heavy stuff that I'm sympathetically going through with some people close to me. We have no idea what we're going to do yet. Just as soon as the kids fall asleep we're going to come up with a game plan. Karleigh thinks we just need to go to the park and that today was lots of fun as it was. One of my girlfriends who "lives in my computer" was out here (meaning the west coast) visiting so she came by the house today. It was such a treat to get to visit with her in person since we've 'known' each other for three years now. She is one of the gals who took part in the wonderful gifts for Eli's garden so it was really therapeutic to get to share it with her and have her see it in person. Of course it wasn't in tip-top shape since this year has been a tough one on the plants and it's getting to be fall. We still have some color in the garden but the biggest and brightest stuff has bloomed over and been trimmed down in preparation for next spring!

I do have 2 people who need your prayers. J and M are both looking at big, HUGE changes in their lives... each of them is going through one of the top five most stressful, life changing things. Please pray that they are able to make it through this phase with ease and little stress.

Did the Puyallup!

This is Belle! She was a favorite of the kids at the Puyallup Fair. We visited the fair on Saturday and the kids had a blast! We walked through the animal barns, rode rides, played games, ate fair food and had an overall great time! The kids were both great troopers. We arrived around 11 am and stayed until 5:30 pm. Rylan managed to nap for an hour or so in the stroller so that's when Karleigh got to play some games. Good fun!

The train ride was a huge hit with Rylan. He's still talking about it.

He and daddy even got to visit with a Storm Trooper...

It was fun to watch both kids enjoy the rides together (plus it made picture taking easier!)

The pink carousel was Karleigh's "must ride" ride.

Rylan was totally in his element here. Banging on all sorts of miscellaneous pieces of metal - it was great!

This was the first ride - race cars - I didn't get any good pictures of Rylan on this one since he was totally into honking the horn and driving like a crazy boy!

The last ride of the day for them was an airplane ride. We figured that it would either bit hit or miss, no in between, because this one went faster and higher. Note to self: next year, go ahead and let them ride the bigger, faster rides! They love love loved it - both screaming with joy - which made is a wonderful way to end the day!

Wasn't Ready for THIS...

Karleigh lost her first tooth tonight. She's still 3 and a half months away from turning 5 but it's out. So, she's sleeping right now with her tooth in a little satin pouch under her pillow. She had me write a letter to the tooth fairy - who she assumes looks like Tinkerbell with brown eyes, unlock the screen on her window so that the tooth fairy can get in and turn off her lamp so that she can get to sleeping. The good news is that the next one is already visible and she doesn't seem terribly traumatized by it. I wish I could say the same for me!

We had a great little mini-vacation over the last few days. We headed up to my parents house and took the kids to the Puyallup Fair, Pt. Defiance Zoo and Aquarium and then swung up to Mount St. Helens on our way home on Monday. The kids loved all of it and I have some fun snapshots that I'll share in the next couple of days. I wish that the mountain pics would have turned out better but it looked very hazy and there was just nothing that I could do about that. We haven't had any rain at all in September so that's a big part of the reason. We could also tell that it was really windy up on the summit and some of that haze was just dust and ash blowing around. Anyway, I'll complain about that in a few days down the road.

I did a fairly good job at keeping my mind off of all the "baby issues" while we were gone. Of course within 24 hours of getting home, no fewer than 7 friends and family members either announced their pregnancies or the arrivals of their new little ones. *sigh* I wish that I wasn't picking and choosing, in my head, which ones I'm happy for and which ones illicit a knee-jerk reaction from me of "oh, that's nice...". Dang it. I want to be happy for everyone but I'm still having a hard time with that on occasion. Let me repeat - occasion. Not always. Not every instance. It's still part of this process that I need to work through. I wonder when and if the day will come when I don't feel a pang of jealousy at these announcements. I'm not sure if it will though because it's not just the frustration that I feel at the announcements, it's the frustration that it's seems so easy for some people. That all they have to do is think "hey, let's have a baby" and they do. It doesn't matter if they're financially ready or not. It doesn't matter if they take care of themselves or not and in the end, they walk away with a healthy baby when I was wheeled out with a box.

Eh, it's not a pity party tonight. It's just one of those things. I had a great break from the awareness that is ever present when you're trying to have a baby and it's just like reality was leaving messages on my machine, waiting for me to return home and find them all... metaphorically speaking of course.

Just FYI...

No, I'm not dropping off the face of the earth. We're actually heading to my parents house for the weekend so I won't be able to check in. They have insanely slow dial-up and I'd probably drive myself crazy trying to accomplish anything online so I've decided that I'm just going to take a computer break over the next several days. There are rumors that DSL is making its way closer and closer to their house on the island, so hopefully someday soon! I do hope to be back with some great little pics of what we manage to do while we are there. We have a couple things planned but no promises because I hate not being able to deliver on a promise. Case in point... we were thinking that this little trip might not even happen since Rylan "decided" to wake up at 2:15 am last night? this morning? whatever... and start puking. Poor guy. He managed to catch his breath enough to say "I don't like that at all!" but he was a big boy and managed to make it to the toilet for his next couple. We've been puke free since 2:15 this afternoon, so fingers crossed, prayers said, and knocking on wood, we're good to go!

Yesterday Karleigh and I left the boys at home and I took her across the river to Oregon and finally got the girl a "real" haircut. We did some girl shopping first, then we went and got her hair cut and topped it off with a gelato - 'cause we're fancy like that - while relaxing in the shade of an umbrella next to the fountain. It was actually quite fun and not busy at all since it was mid-day on a Wednesday. Fun! Fun! Anyway, she got her hair cut and she loves it. I only took one photo of her in the "chair" and I still haven't snapped a good "after" shot but I'm sure I'll have lots of snapshots to go through after this weekend and you'll get to see the final result then!