First Event

Right now I'm sitting on a cooler at our first Icebox event. Business has been pretty good considering it's not super warm. Tomorrow it's supposed to be near 90 so we think that will help. This is definitely not a cool weather business. We need our blocks of ice to melt some before they will shave correctly.

We haven't got barstools yet so that's why I'm sitting on a cooler. We've got to get chairs tomorrow...that's a huge priority!!

Open For Business....

Or at least it will be if it quits raining!!!

Last night we got a in a big shipment of flavors.  We had started out with 11 different ones and then last week I made a big order - 24 flavors at once.  Last night I mixed up about 20 of them.  We ran out of the bottle toppers so I had to quit (which didn't upset me too much).  I mixed flavors for almost 4 hours.  I really hope we learn how to streamline this because it takes forever and I manage to completely destroy my kitchen in the process.  In the world of ants our house would be considered party headquarters with all the sugar and syrupey goodness floating around on the countertops and floors.  I'm also going to use a lot of bleach because this stuff is like pouring Kool-Aid on your countertops.  I did learn one thing last night - a blender could be my new best friend.  Alven had mixed his directly in the bottle and I just can't seem to get that to work.  The sugar doesn't dissolve very well and I don't know what ratios to use because once you add the water and then start adding the sugar and flavoring it pours out the top of the bottle.  Then when you put in the topper more pours out and then when you shake it, it has a soda like effect when you take your fingers off of the holes in the stopper.  One night I sprayed myself and the cabinets several times.  That's just an additional sticky mess to clean up.  Then I started using clear glass bowls to mix it in.  I'd add the sugar to warm water and then stir briskly with a wisk...but that took several stirs and I would have to let it set inbetween stirring sessions to see how well the sugar was dissolving.  That took a lot of time and a lot of bowls.  Last night when I tried the blender method I think I finally found the thing that works for me.  I'm pretty sure I'm a lot closer to figuring out the streamlining of this operation....as long as my blender doesn't crap out on me.         

Here they are lined up in all their colorful beauty.

Here is The Icebox with one of it's signs. Jay took it to school Tuesday for the last day. We're planning on adding some more once the business gets up and running.  I'm also thinking about getting some Hawaiian decorations for it and I'd like to string some Christmas lights from it somehow.  Jay said we need to wait until at least day two for him to figure out the lights.

Our Official Grand Opening will be in Miller on Monday, May 24.

We are supppsed to be at a rodeo this weekend, and the weather looks great.  Last weeks rodeo was cancelled.  We are ready to get started with our new venture!!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame....

But only if it's warmer than it was last night!!!

Last night started our 3rd and final year in Coaches Pitch Baseball.  We've had so much fun since Cade started playing baseball.  Even though we all like to win games, our coaches have been great about realizing it's about fun and gaining experience at this age.  Last nights game took place in Walnut Grove, Mo.  I had never been to Walnut Grove in my life.  I had to mapquest it yesterday to find out exactly where it was at.  We get to go back to Walnut Grove Thursday night.  We are going twice in one week to a town we had never been in before.  That's baseball for you!

Our game was supposed to start at 8pm.  We walked up to the field and were informed our game wouldn't start for at least another hour.  The 6pm game wasn't done so the 7pm game hadn't even started.  Did I mention it was freezing last night?  So not getting our game started until 8:45 meant it went until almost 10 pm...out in the cold.  I saw someone with a video camera and asked Jay why we didn't think about bringing ours.  It wouldn't have mattered...I was shivering so hard the film would've looked terrible.  I'll save it for one of those nights in a couple of weeks where it's so hot the sweat causes your shirt to stick to your back. 

Cade is 8 and too "cool" for mom to take a picture of...but snapping one on my iPhone was acceptable.  Oh the thought processes of an 8 year old boy.  Here is our Cardinal this year.  He looks so grown up.  Notice the red cleats.  Those were a priority for him this year.  We found a pair in his size and didn't cost $1M (you parents know what I mean, sometime they might as well say that will be $1M when they ring your stuff up at the register).  Last night I had him wear his regular shoes and change into the cleats so he wouldn't be scrapping them all along the backs of my car seats.  For some reason he got it in his head he didn't want to wear them last night.  I asked him why and that started a whole fussing fit at the gas station where we stopped to get a Gatorade.  When we got in the car I asked him again why he didn't want to wear them and he said "It's in the past, lets just move on and forget about it."  "That's what Mrs. H tells us to do".  What man doesn't cling to that advice as the gospel??  Again...the thought processes of an 8 year old.  I'm still really curious about why he didn't want to wear them, but I was outnumbered on letting it go vs. making him tell me why...so thanks for the advice Mrs. H.  I had to let it go.


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Embryo Adoption Questions…

I've had a few questions about Embryo Adoption, which is great!! I love answering questions about it, but there are a few things I feel like I need to make more clear about it. If anyone has any questions about it or the process please feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment. I'm really not to shy about answering anything related to our infertility because the more people know and understand about it, the better it is for those going through it.

Embryo Adoption is exactly what it sounds like – we are adopting an embryo(s) that are from another couple. These, babies who are in storage right now, are more than likely left over from an In-Vitro (IVF) cycle(s). These couples are willing to do something that I don't know that I could do – they are donating them so these babies can have a chance at life and couples can have the chance to grow their families.

One thing I've been asked a lot is if these babies will be half Jay. Not sure why people assume I'm the one with the problem! Ha Ha, but the answer is NO. The embryos that will be implanted will not be genetically related to either one of us. It's just like what would happen in an adoption, except we would get the baby sooner. No genetic ties whatsoever.

I think some of this misconception comes from not knowing or incorrectly using the reproductive terms. You have an Egg and a Sperm and when they meet it becomes the Embryo. I've had to correct Jay a few times because I've heard him use these terms incorrectly in relation to cattle. And he's not the only one I've heard. So when you flush a cow, you are getting embryos – not eggs (or at least that's what the cattleman is hoping for). The eggs are already fertilized and what's being flushed out should be the embryos (like Buttons). So those of you who flush cattle if I hear you using the wrong term I'll correct you!!! Only because the best way for us to explain this process is to make sure everyone is one the same page with using the terms correctly. And if one of these embryos sticks and becomes a baby it will be vitally important to them for all of us to understand how they came to be in our family.

And I have to include this conversation between Cade and I last Friday. The first time I saw him after we got back was Friday morning on his field trip. I took him home with me after we were done so the first thing he asked when he got in the car was why we had gone to Tennessee. We hadn't discussed anything with him earlier, he hadn't asked so we never volunteered why. I didn't quite know what to say when he asked because Jay and I hadn't talked about what we were going to tell him. I didn't want to just say it was a doctors appointment because I was afraid that would worry him. I ended up trying to approach it in Buttons terms.

Me: Well we are going to try to get a baby like Sally had Buttons.

Cade: A baby for who?

Me: Us

Cade: Why?

Me: Well, because we still want a baby so we are going to try this

Cade: How are the babies made

Me: (at this point I didn't know what to say, we haven't explained reproduction to him and we aren't too interested in doing it yet) Uh..the babies are made in test tubes…

Cade: But I thought God made babies.

Me: Uh, yeah, well, uhm…So did you have a great time on your field trip?

I got the conversation diverted for the time being. I'm sure it will whirl around in his brain and come out again at another inopportune time.

 

 

More on Knoxville

Now that I have some time and I'm not incredibly exhausted, I'll post some more details about our trip.  I think my body went into shut down mode all weekend because my arms felt like there were 50lb weights attached to them for both days.  I'm sure driving 24 hours in two days, going to an appointment that we've waited on for almost a year (it was also kind of a physically rough appointment)going on a field trip with about 40 eight year olds, going to Jay's FFA banquet, picking out lights for our chuch project, and grocery shopping might've had a *little* bit to do with that exhausted feeling.

We got to Knoxville about 6:30 pm Wednesday night.  We really didn't know what we wanted to do so we went in search of the University of Tennessee.  I'm not sure, but Jay may be changing his goals from visiting all 50 states to visiting all the football stadiums in the SEC?  You know me and football - I asked if they were also in the SEC.  Jay looked shocked and told me not to say that too loud while we were in Tennesse.  I thought I should get some points for at least using the term SEC correctly, but I guess not.




Here is a picture of the stadium that holds 30,000 more than the Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.  That's just a little bit more than the size of my bladder (more on that later).



Here is a picture of one of the buildings.  It was a pretty campus, but I was amazed at this building.  I don't know..it looks kind of yucky to me.  And I thought my freshmen dorm wasn't that great...

After our tour we ate BBQ for Jay's birthday.  It was supposed to be a local favorite, which we weren't too impressed with.  EVERY time Jay and I go outside our normal chain restaurants we are disappointed.  I always dream of finding that local "spot" and it never works.  At least we know where not to go next time.

The next morning was our appointment.  I was supposed to drink 40-60 oz of water before so my bladder would be nice and full.  I know my body and I knew that much water would more than do the job, but I was afraid not to drink it.  I didn't want to mess up any tests they needed to run.  By the time we got to the testing part my bladder was more than full.  It was ready to pop.  I couldn't even lay down on the table.  It was so full I had to empty some of it.  I think we were the only patients in the clinic, but I couldn't swear to it.  I do know there was some tech guy running around so I don't know what he heard or saw that day, but he my be scarred.  I didn't have a bathroom in the exam room so I had to wrap one of those thin paper blanket things around me and run to the bathroom.  I'm sure if the tech guy was around he might have saw more than he bargained for that day, but I didn't care.  Making it to the bathroom was all I could think about.  Once I emptied some of it and got back to the room we had to wait a little longer on the doctor so my bladder filled up again.  When the doctor started again on the mock transfer he saw that my bladder was again too full.  Back to the bathroom I went, covered only in the drop cloth.  Finally we were able to do the mock transfer.  As soon as he was done I got to go to the bathroom and completely empty my bladder.  It was great.  By the time we started on the next ultrasound they could tell my bladder was already filling up again.  I lost count of how many times I ran to the bathroom with my paper wrap.  Finally I said "I don't think I'll need to drink that much next time".  Both the doctor and nurse agreed that half that much would be more than sufficient.

Besides the overly full bladder everything else went well with the tests.  It wasn't the most comfortable thing I've ever been through but it wasn't awful.  The doctor did tell me that the transfer wouldn't be as bad as the appointment so that's at least something to look forward to.  The doctor said that he saw nothing that would keep us from having as good of a chance of anyone else of this working.  Weirdly enough they had a cancellation in July so we are down for then.  If this one doesn't take we will have another shot in September before our homestudy and blood tests have to be updated. 

For those of you wondering...here are some % we got that day... I think these are pretty accurate, but I did have to pee really bad while the doctor was telling us this so...

Chance of this being successful - 45%, which means in 3 tries we should have 135% chance of this working.  We aren't getting too excitied about this because with our IUI's we had 99% total chance.  You see how those turned out.

Chance of Twins - 25%
Chance of Triplets - 10%
Again those statistics don't concern us.  We've not had the best luck with one sticking so again we don't see any reason to get to ourselves in a bunch.  We'll just have to see what happens.

I don't know if we are excited about this or not.  I want to be, it's just hard with all of the disappointments we've had.  It's so hard to get past the point of thinking this is just another thing that won't work so don't get too excited.  I don't know...if I just had a crystal ball and could see in the future it would make things so much easier.

Knoxville and the NEDC

I had said I would post about some of the decisions we need to make, but I ran out of time last week. Jay is in the middle of revamping our church and we had a long fee days at work so I didn't get around to it. I will touch on it though in the next few days.

My appointment was today. We are very pleased with the doctor and the staff. I checked out - which I wasn't surprised. I truly believe we have unexplained IF. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong that anyone can find. They had a cancellation on their July schedule so I'm down for then. It will be somewhere around 20-22. I'll post more about the appointment once I'm to a computer.

Right now we are about 5 hours from home so we hope to be there around ten. I'll leave you with a picture we took on the road. Jay made me take it with my phone and then he slowed down so he could take one with his phone. I wasn't too happy with him. The poor girl, she was loaded down. I would've liked to have seen them loading it. If it were Jay and I there wouldve been a lot of yelling!!!





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