Our version of a Christmas Card!

Merry Christmas!

It has been a crazy year and I really just have no excuse for not writing anything besides that. I graduated a year ago from Weber State with my degree in Early Childhood. I have been working as a teacher at Head Start here in Ogden and I love it! My coworkers are amazing and many of the kids are very sweet and loving.

Abe got an amazing opportunity for a paid internship at Ben Lomond High School here in Ogden instead of doing regular student teaching. He is loving it and will graduate from Weber State with his degree in Spanish Teaching in April. He will get to keep his job at Ben Lomond when he graduates, as long as they continue to like him that is ;-). Many parents of his students have come to him and told him that he is their child's favorite teacher. I am so proud of him! His instructional coach said that he has great classroom management already! He still wants to continue his education and get his Master's and Doctorate degrees, but he feels less rushed now. I just want him to be happy with wherever he is and will be proud of him no matter what he decided to do with his career in teaching. He is an excellent teacher and will do very well anywhere he goes. He is extremely excited about summer vacation. It will be his first summer not having to work since before his mission. I will also not be working so we are going to have to find something to entertain ourselves. We are going to be moving apartments! That will help keep us busy for at least a couple of weeks.

Six weeks ago I went to my doctor about pain I was having and to get my thyroid levels checked. I walked out of the office after finding that I had a cyst taking over my whole left ovary that was almost 7 cm and possibly a smaller cyst in my right ovary. It is also a possibility that I have Endometriosis (Google it), because of the type of pain I have been having. I have been on a super strong dose of birth control to try and get the cyst to shrink. It is continual dosage so I have to skip the sugar pill week. My body has not been pleased with this and I have been grumpy and tired. If the cyst had not shrunk in 6 weeks I was going to have to get surgery to get it removed and check for Endometriosis.

I went to the follow up appointment this week and my cyst has completely dissolved! Thank goodness! My doctor told me to stop the birth control today and get onto prenatal vitamins because it is possible that I have been drained of folic acid. Endometriosis is still a possibility but she is going to hold off on diagnosing that because the only way to really diagnose it is to have surgery I guess. If I still can't get pregnant after trying IUI then we will look more into that. So for now we are not trying aggressively to get pregnant but we are not preventing it. Once Abe finds out if we have to pay his full tuition then we are going to start being more aggressive with trying to get pregnant again. We will try fertility meds again and IUI.

This year for Christmas we have been doing the Light the World Calendar. It has been awesome. I love the focus on charity and it really does help get us in the Christmas spirit. I would suggest looking at it and trying it out. Even if you are not active in the church or LDS! It is a wonderful way to celebrate the birth and atonement of our Savior. He made a huge (that is an understatement) sacrifice for us and it is a wonderful feeling to try and give something back.

In Relief Society this past Sunday we also had a lesson on trying to be more like the Savior and obtaining his attributes. We were challenged to select two or more attributes that Christ has and studying about the attributes for ten days. Every day you will pick one attribute and find a scripture on that attribute that really touches you. Study it and pray about it (pray like you are speaking to a friend or parent) and ask for help on becoming more like Christ and obtaining that attribute.

I loved this challenge because the past year I have had a very hard time being patient and submissive. When first starting trying to get pregnant I was excited and hopeful. As almost three years of trying to get pregnant have passed by, and I have pretty much failed at being female, I realized that I was in the mindset that I want it now so I am going to get it now. That has just made me extremely unhappy and bitter (I pretty much have to stop myself from sobbing every time I see a pregnant woman and pregnancy announcements are like a stab in the heart. And do not get me started on all of the hurtful things that people say to you or just ignore about you when you've been trying for almost 3 years).

But I have had to come to an understanding that it is not my will, but God's will and I am just going to have to be submissive, patient and faithful. It is extremely difficult trying to switch my brain over and become submissive and patient. I am neither of those things really. This challenge is really helping me and it has been a wonderful opportunity to try and make myself more like our Savior. I would also suggest trying this challenge  if you are feeling like your faith may not be as strong as you would like it to be or if you are working on a specific attribute.

We hope that everyone is doing well and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

-Abe and Amanda

P.S. If anyone is or knows anyone who is going through fertility issues like we have, they are more than welcome to send me a message on Facebook. It is a poopy situation and the holidays are especially difficult. We are hoping to be more open about infertility and welcome any insights and would love to have some friends who understand and are going through this now!

Oh and my little sister Alexandria took some family photos for us. These are just a couple of them!

Fall Updates

Happy Fall Everyone!

School has been extremely busy. I am in my last semester of school and I am student teaching at Weber State's Children's School and I am also student teaching at a Head Start in Ogden. I am busy teaching until 4 pm and then I come home and do lots of hours of homework. Haha but it is good! I am so close to being done. I am very nervous because I have to pass two huge tests and I have one coming up in two weeks and one is in December. I am freaking out a little bit. I feel like I do not know enough. I have been loving student teaching though! The children at Head Start are amazing and I am so excited to graduate and hopefully I get a job at Head Start. Abe is also super busy. He is taking a few of his Spanish classes and he is also taking French. He had to take a long 4 hour test and go to an interview to get accepted into the education program here at Weber. Once he is accepted he will graduate in two semesters. So next December he will be done with his Bachelors! Then he wants to go on and get his Masters Degree and Doctorates. We think it would be fun to try and go to Spain or somewhere for him to get his Masters or Doctorates, but we will see what happens! I am very proud of him and all he does. He works so hard and he never complains. He is the best.

I did not get pregnant. So I am once again on birth control. I just want to relax and not stress about it anymore. I always felt miserable and down on myself and it sucked. So we are done. We will try again probably, but right now we just quit. And I am 100% sure I am not lucky enough to get pregnant on birth control so I just will focus on school, graduating, and getting a job.

Well that is all we have been up to!

~Amanda

Thyroid Tests and Clomid Cycle 2

Hello!
This is just a quick update on my thyroid and Clomid. I just got my TSH results and it is all normal! So I do not need to change my thyroid medication. That's a relief! I will be on thyroid medication for the rest of my life though. Which is fine and I was expecting that haha. I am just glad that the medicine worked and that my levels are now in the normal range. The nurse said that if I get pregnant they will up my dose of thyroid medicine, but I have to actually get pregnant first. But really I am very glad that, from what we can see, I have no real huge issues anymore and I am ovulating, so really, I can get pregnant and hopefully I do.

My second cycle of Clomid also went well! The second day I had a pretty bad headache for about an hour until Abe made me take medicine for it. Then it went away and I felt great. I did not get grumpy or gain weight. Which is awesome. I did ovulate again which is good. I am glad that my body responds to it so well and we are hoping that we are close to getting pregnant.

We have decided that if after my third cycle of Clomid we are not pregnant, we will stop trying. Just to relax and chill for awhile. I want to lose the weight I have gained since we got married and I am sure Abe just wants a normal wife back haha poor guy. He has been so amazing through all of this and he has not once blamed me or gotten upset with me. He really is the best husband ever. I do not think anyone else would deal with me like he does haha. I am very thankful that he is my husband. I love him very much. If we manage to get pregnant I will definitely let everyone know on here and keep updates. If we do not and we reach the point where we take a break from trying, then I will let everyone know that too and do little updates on what we are up to with school and our lives. Thanks for all of the love and support everyone has given us! It means a lot! Have a good week!

~Amanda

The Day I Decided to be Cheap

Hello All!

I have decided to write about my wonderful experience of trying to save our little family money. Our apartment complex here in Ogden is fairly old. There are not many new apartments in this area and the new ones are way more expensive than a young married college couple can afford. So our plumbing and drains are not the best quality and every three months the sinks get clogged and we have to go to the store and waste money on something that unclogs the sink. Well this time I was sick of spending $5-$10 on Drain-O or some other brand. I looked up a few ways on Pinterest of how to unclog sinks in a cheaper way and finding good reviews, I bought baking soda and vinegar instead Drain-O. 

I got home and was all pumped to finally have a bathroom sink that drains and I saved money doing it and I had enough supplies to last me a year of unclogging the sink. I looked up the exact way of how to use the ingredients together and how to put them in my sink to get the optimum results. I followed the instructions step by step. I let it sit, then I poured hot water into the sink to get everything down like the directions said. It wasn't draining at all now. Not one bit. So I left it alone for 30 minutes to see if maybe it was but just super slow. I came back and it was still full of hot water. So I thought I did something wrong. I immediately called my parents house to ask my mom what her secret was, because she told me how great it worked. I called and my dad informed me that she got home from work at about 9 a.m, and so I asked him, and he told me to plunge it. I was thinking huh weird. Sounds odd, but I figured I would give it a try. 

I go back into the bathroom, determined to have a sink that drains. I grab our plunger and stick it in the sink and push down as hard as I can..... Now if your sink is clogged, apparently water goes up into the draining holes. 

I pushed down and the most disgusting black goopy water came shooting out of those draining holes. It literally got all over me, our sink, our mirror and the floor. I wanted to die. It was so gross and smelled terrible... and I was covered in it. I was so shocked I literally sat there for a good 30 seconds wondering what the heck to do.I am so glad my mouth was closed then I pushed down on that plunger. Thankfully I had moved our toothbrushes and my hair brush into another room. I grabbed everything off of the sink, gagging as I was going, and threw it into the shower, turned on scalding hot water, and washed everything off. Then I got to work on myself. Then I finally cleaned the bathroom up. 

My sink is still clogged and I am waiting for Abraham to get home so that we can go to the store together because I have already been there once today. I learned my lesson. I am never going the cheap route again. I love those chemicals that unclog my sink. They are worth the money. And I love showers and soap.

Amanda

Summer Updates!

Hello!
Still no luck with getting pregnant. All of my blood tests have come back. It is all looking good. My thyroid is the only problem still but it is a stable problem, if that makes sense. My levels are a stable high. I have a blood test for that in two weeks to check to see if my thyroid levels have gone down. Hopefully they have! The blood test I had to check if I ovulated came back and I did. I ovulated a good egg, but it just didn't take. I start my second cycle of Clomid on Friday. Hopefully it goes as well as it did last time. I had no symptoms last time and I ovulated so hopefully the same goes for this time. Thankfully it worked wonders on spotting in between periods. That was so awesome! It was great to not have to wonder if I was going to start two weeks early. So now it is just more waiting and hoping and praying. I was so hoping that the Clomid would be the key to getting pregnant, and I tried not getting my hopes up too high, but it was hard and I was still crushed when I started having PMS and my period started. Every month I tell myself not to get my hopes up, but I fail every time. Anyways! On to other more fun topics.

Abe and I have had a fun summer! We went to my family reunion. We ate yummy food and went swimming. That is always great! My sweet cousin Isabelle cried when it was over because she just wanted it to last forever haha. She is adorable. We went to Idaho and visited our families on the Fourth of July. We had fireworks with Abe's family on the third. My dad joined us for that and it was like the funniest thing ever. My dad got so excited about the fireworks and he had s much fun. I loved seeing that. He talked about it for days after. On the Fourth we had lunch with Abe's family. Then we drove to Idaho Falls and hung out with my family and watched the firework show there. We had a great time with both families. We went to an Ogden Raptors MILB game. I loved it! We had so much fun.

The Raptors also won! That was awesome haha. We are hoping to go to another game soon. School also starts in a little over a month. We are not exactly excited for that. I have a lot of preparation I need to do still for student teaching and another class I am in. It should be exciting! I hopefully pass all of my classes and graduate in December. Well we hope everyone is having an awesome summer!

Amanda and Abraham

Blood Test Results!

Hello!
Happy late 4th of July! Just a few updates today. Abe and I are now both 23! I finished my first Clomid cycle a week ago. I had no side effects with it. I did not even get grumpy! So that was great! Some more good news! I have lost 5 pounds! Which is awesome! I finally got my blood results! I thought they were gonna call me, they had not called, but I got sick of waiting and I called them. There is nothing wrong with my ovaries. Actually, the Ovarian Assessment Report was good. I am in the top 80th percentile. Which means I have more eggs than 80% of women my age. And my eggs are healthy. My score was 16 which means my egg supply is excellent. Because of this news, that means the PCOS is not bad at all. They said I do have a tiny bit of ovulation dysfunction. The Clomid should help with that.
The kicker is that my thyroid levels were really high, which is not good or a surprise. My mom had thyroid problems and cancer and my grandma has had thyroid problems. My levels were like 5. something and for maximum fertility they should be around 2. something. So I am going to go onto medication to stabilize and lower those levels. I have more blood tests next week and then again in three weeks to retest my thyroid levels. We are so glad that the PCOS is not bad and that thyroid problems are a bit easier to fix than ovary problems. Hopefully we will get pregnant here in a few months! Thanks for all of the support and help I have received from everyone! I received a few Facebook messages and texts from friends and I want you guys to know that you helped me a lot. Thank you so much for that! Have a good week!

-Amanda

Doctor's Appointment- Ultrasound and Blood Drawn

Hello!

First I just want to say that I was using this blog mostly as like a marriage/ life journal. Now that we have been having fertility issues, I want people who are going through what we are going through to know that there is someone out there who knows a little bit how they feel... If that made sense. Everyone's fertility issues are different, but anyone who is having fertility problems probably all hurt in one way or another. I have gotten several compliments from friends about this blog and I want to thank them for that. What I write is personal, and I am afraid people will think I am weird for being so personal...but I want to help people and give and get support. Yes! I also want someone to talk to about this haha. And I know it is not the best written blog out there haha I am sorry about that. 

Well my doctor's appointment was today. I got my blood drawn and had an ultrasound of my uterus and ovaries. My doctor found that I have PCOS :-( He saw 12 little cysts in both of my ovaries and my periods are not regular. So the blood test that I had today will tell us how severe it is. We are praying it is not too bad. There were no  growths or sores in my uterus and everything else looked normal. My blood test will come back in a week and will tell us more. Hopefully it is good news and hopefully Clomid will stop my dang spotting between my periods and hopefully I will get pregnant. I have to get my blood drawn again 8 days after I ovulate to test a certain hormone. So more waiting! Yay! :-S Ugh! 

I was expecting to be diagnosed with PCOS, but I was hoping I would be wrong. Especially because I am not having outward signs of PCOS. I would like to blame my weight gain on it, but really I think that is because I got lazy after we got married and stopped exercising. The only symptom I seemed to be having was slightly irregular periods. I always have a period every month. Never have I missed one, but they start between days 25 and 31. They do not always start on day 28 of my cycle. So I was hoping it was just hormones. But nope! The cysts popped up on the ultrasound and I have PCOS. Now that it is official I have been feeling hopeless about getting pregnant. I have heard that a lot of people with PCOS do not get pregnant with fertility pills, so I am afraid I will be one of those people. I just need to suck it up and have faith in the Lord's timing. Easier said than done haha.

I started Clomid today. I have read terrible things about Clomid. So I am expecting to gain 10 pounds, which is awful since I have been trying to lose the 20 pounds I gained when we got married, and be a very grumpy wife/person who eats chocolate all day long. Hopefully I am not like that and we are praying that it works and I get pregnant. Here are my lovely pictures of my pills. Thanks for reading! I will update as results come in. Have an awesome week!

~Amanda