Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Nashville, Grand Ole Opry, Carrie Underwood and Renewed Friendship!

Nashville was a success!  A quick trip with an old friend but packed with relaxation and new sites and of course, Carrie Underwood.  

Jen and Luke Fredrickson were kind enough to host me for the weekend and what wonderful hosts they were!  They fed me, drove me around and showed me the fun of Nashville.  And of course, we got to hang by their pool a few hours each day as well.  Can't get much better than that!  I've included a few pictures of the wonderful trip.  It was much needed and so enjoyable, I'm excited to go back and visit again soon.  Hopefully with my husband.  Maybe I can finally convince him to buy me some amazing cowboy boots. What better place than Nashville?!

If you aren't familiar with the Opry (I wasn't) you see about 8 different acts in the night, each only performing for 15min, 3 songs each, except for Carrie who was last and got a half hour.  We did get to see 1 comedian in the mix, he was actually quite funny.  Here's his website

If anyone is familiar with the show Nashville, the girls who play sisters are actually sisters in real life.  And they're amazingly talented.  They are Lennon and Maisy and are only 14 and 9 years old!  I've included a youtube video of one of my favorite songs they do.


The Band Perry also performed, I know most of you know who they are already so no need for a video, they did well though!

Here's Jen and a me in front of the Opry!


The adorable/beautiful Lennon and Maisy


The Beautiful Carrie Underwood!

Downtown Nashville Strip - they actually have a live band karaoke bar called The Wannabe's bar LOL



Famous bar Tootsies



And the 3 Amigos for the weekend
Again, a huge thank you to Jen and Luke for being amazing hosts and letting me come experience Nashville for the first with you guys!

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Urgent Care and Carrie Underwood

So I didn't think I'd be writing this blog quite this often but things just keep happening!  

I found myself in urgent care yesterday, how I got there I can't quite remember considering the amount of pain I was in had me hyperventilating. My mom kept me on the phone (bluetooth handsfree in the car, don't worry) the whole drive there just in case. Turns out I have multiple cysts on my left ovary.  Who knew these little guys could cause so much pain!  So after spending all day at the urgent care, multiple blood draws, a shot in the butt, a CT scan and 2 different types of ultra sounds, I was sent home with a prescription for vicodin at 5:30.  Needless to say, they don't do much for cysts other that manage the pain for you because they typically resolve on their own.  

Now I have a phone call into the fertility clinic to find out if the drugs I was on last month can trigger something like this to happen.  Seems like if it's not one thing its another lately.  

Something exciting and happy to tell you about!?  I get to go to Nashville on Friday for the weekend to see an old and good friend of mine who just moved there!  I'm so excited!  I've never been there before (shocking I know, considering my musical background) and to make things better, we get to see Carrie Underwood at the Grand Ol' Opry!  Many of you know this about me already but in case you didn't I LOVE CARRIE UNDERWOOD!  So I look forward to my fun exciting weekend with my friend Jen and exploring Nashville with her.  I will hopefully have some great pics to post on my next blog and I will tell you all about it!  

I hope everyone has a great weekend as well!  Here's my favorite performance by Carrie.  Grab a tissue, it's beyond moving.



Monday, July 21, 2014

Information Overload

We went to an informational meeting this past Saturday all about adoption and international adoption thru Lutheran Social Services and Children's Home Society (they are partners in adoption services).  A thanks to both our moms for joining us in order to have extra ears there! Talk about a ton of info!  We're more interested in international adoption and of course they didn't get to that until the last hour of the 4hr meeting =) Interestingly, we ended up most drawn to adoption from the Marshall Islands.  Here's a link to their tourism page. 

http://www.visitmarshallislands.com

The Marshall Islands ask that to adopt from their country that you keep the adoption somewhat open.  I haven't been open to that in a domestic adoption but am ok in this instance.  The idea that the birth parents can't show up at my door but we can plan a trip to go visit on our terms and that child can know their heritage if they want seems great to both of us.  

Now the catch is this; they expect adopting parents to stop fertility treatments when going thru the adoption process.  Also, if we were to get pregnant, we would need to stop the adoption process.  Seeing as how it would take 1-3 years to actually be placed with an adopted child, I don't want to just stop trying to get pregnant but if we wait to start the adoption process and don't get pregnant in a couple years again, we're that much more behind on the adoption process.  It's totally a catch 22.  

We definitely need some guidance and direction on what to do.  We won't be doing any fertility treatments in the next couple months anyway but if we wait to register to start adoption, we'll be that much more behind.  

Please pray for some guidance for us in which steps to take next.  


Thursday, July 17, 2014

When the World Knocks You Down

So with so many things going on in life and a million things running thru my mind every second of every day, I've decided to start a blog.  Getting things out of my head, whether it's stress, frustrations, recipes or pictures of my cats or niece & nephew, helps me to feel like I'm not alone.  

Many of you know my husband and I have been trying to have a baby for over 2 years now.  There's nothing "wrong" with either one of us so therefore, we're an unexplained infertility case.  I've gone thru several rounds of a couple different fertility drugs and been monitored by a great fertility clinic. Still to no avail. What you may or may not know is this stuff costs quite a bit of money.  So, we won't be doing anything for the next couple of months in order to feel more financially stable. 

That being said, I've decided to sign us up for an adoption informational seminar.  Sounds super fun, right?  I've actually always wanted to adopt (though I want my own children as well).  Since getting pregnant doesn't seem to be working or in God's plan for whatever reason, I want to move forward with some other way for me to have in my life the baby I've desired since I can remember.  

Everyone keeps telling me that God has a plan and even though we don't understand it, He knows best. While my brain agrees with this, my heart is still broken and doesn't understand why God would be ok with breaking my heart over and over. I just pray that whatever His plan is, whenever I get to see it fulfilled, it will be so much better than I could have hoped for myself. 

Until next time, thanks for reading :-)