Life at the moment–IVF & house updates

Oh my goodness friends! Sorry for the radio silence these last few weeks. Between preschool wrapping up, the home tour, my mom and IVF last week I’ve been distracted. And frankly I’ve been waiting not-so-patiently for the house to be done. And its draginggggg. We had hoped for June 1st but it’s looking more like June 15th now that the wood floors are being refinished. Such is life with remodels. You can see the current status of our kitchen and family room below. It’s not pretty and having furniture stacked upon itself again frankly makes me want to cry.

This week they finished painting the kitchen walls and trim and it looks beautiful and fresh. So that’s a step in the right direction. We went with Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace in eggshell for the walls, satin for the trim. The painters sprayed everything so the trim has a very uniform, beautiful gloss that doesn’t have brush strokes. The painters still have the staircase shiplap and the entire master suite and laundry. In the meantime I’ve been working on Cade’s big boy bedroom updates which are starting soon. My hubby and I will be tackling it over the summer with lots of DIYs, new wallpaper, trim detail and some awesome accessories.

Yes yes yes we did indeed do IVF last week if you follow along on Instagram you may have seen those posts and YES, friends I am sharing this journey all the way from the get go. Crazy I know. I did ponder it a bit if that makes you feel any better. This is way outside my comfort zone and clearly the preferred stance is to wait until you’re out of the 1st trimester (not a mere days into it) and then announce a pregnancy in a cute way. Well. This would be baby #3 and I’m out of cute and I think sharing the journey might help someone struggling with infertility. It stinks to battle infertility. It’s often a topic women avoid because it is so personal and painful and makes you feel like there is something wrong with you. I’ve had years to prayerfully come to terms with it, a surprise baby in between our first round of IVF and this one and two sweet embryos remaining. Well one now because the other is inside of me, we’re just not sure it’s taken yet.

We go to Dr. Rachel Ashby out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and she is fantastic. Amazing really. And kind. You need kind when battling infertility. We have most of our appointments out of Newton Wellesley Hospital which is super convenient (5 minutes from our house!) and initially met her 6 years ago when we started the fertility journey eventually culminating in our first round of IVF in 2013 to have Cade who was born in March of 2014. She gave us the go ahead to do a “natural” cycle of IVF since it was a frozen embryo transfer which means they waited until I naturally ovulated, confirmed my daily testing with a blood test and implanted the embryo six days after ovulation, when our 5 day old blastocyst would likely be implanting. No hormone injections but I am doing a daily progesterone suppository. Because we had two high quality embryos we were encouraged to implant only one at a time. So we listened. Embryo one was implanted on Tuesday May 22.

Now the surreal bit of it all is that this embryo is technically as old as our first son, Cade but has been literally frozen in time. We will know today with a blood test if we are indeed pregnant. If it is positive and the level of HCG looks good, they retest your blood HCG level every 48 hrs and want to see an increase in levels of >60% each time. We’re hopeful but fully aware that we don’t have much say in whether this little life joins us. We’re thankful that this is something completely out of our hands and known only by the Lord. I will say, having two little boys as a distraction has made me feel very peaceful. That was not the case the first time around 5 years ago as I was so desperate to be a momma.

So my friend, if you are struggling and aching a bit. I see you. I know that ache. And although our stories are different, the desire to hold a babe, your babe, is a commonality. If you have questions, I’m an open book. Email me. I cannot promise you mommahood but I can promise you a transformative journey and ultimately peace knowing your story is much bigger than you. Dig deep and find the lovely in it. And I’m so sorry you’re struggling with conceiving.

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17