Passing time with pictures

I've been trying to occupy myself to make the time pass more quickly. I sorted through 6 memory cards Monday night. Here some of my most recent.

Birthday Girl

Luke and Seth having fun in the water

Chillin'

And playing ball with Pop

from our last trip to Lake Jordan (I love seeing these pictures side by side!)

I finally got a picture of FL's redheaded woodpecker

Shots from the garden...

Mama is a HOOT with her cucumber bat!
Madison with her cabbage she's growing as a summer project for school

When your hut's on fire

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, "God! How could you do this to me?" Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

The Moral of This Story:
It's easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.

I'm hanging in there just counting down the days. I had a great time on my minivacation this past weekend. Spent some time at Becky's for Ally Claire's 1st birthday. And of course to just get away from it all. I'll have pics up soon of the pretty girl at her party and all the other wild children in the pools.

IUI day

Yesterday was the big day. We went to the hospital for Brad's part of the procedure and then took the...um, stuff...over to my doc's office for the IUI. I made the mistake of looking in the envelope to check out the...um, stuff. The insertion needle was in there. Y'all is 6 inches long -- no joke. Measured it from the tip of my bird finger and it went past my wrist!!

Brad informs me that when they call me back he is going to sit in the lobby. OH NO SIR!! First of all I will not be by myself when our child is conceived and second of all...well isn't that enough?!? There are few things in this world that scare me but this scared me. Not the pain of it but just knowing what's being done. It sucks to know that you and your husband can't make a baby on your own and have to have a doctor do it. Modern medicine is wonderful but I just wished we didn't have to find out from this end. Anyway, he did go back with me and finally told me why he didn't want to be back there...he said he didn't want to be in the room with another man seeing my hoodywho. Sweet, but not good enough for this case.

I was spotting when I woke up yesterday morning but Dr. Ashurst said that the meds seemed to be agreeing with me nicely for this month and lots of times the LH surge will cause spotting. Or it could have just been nerves too. And he said that Brad's "stuff" was better this time than last so he is very optimistic about it working on the first shot. The IUI itself was kinda painful and I was told that it probably would be because my uterus isn't tilted just a little like I was told...it's severely tilted. So after the IUI was completed doc told me he was going to place a sponge under my uterus to keep it tilted correctly for a while. The sponge was on a stick - I felt like a lollipop!

I was told that I should expect some cramping for the rest of the day - yep - and cramping the next day too - yep. Now is the not so fun part, waiting. It will be a couple of weeks before we know if it worked. Pray for my nerves, emotions, and that God says this is the time.

i will have the iui in about 12 hours...please pray all goes well

Ok, here we go...

My ultrasound showed no cysts and doc wants to take a little different approach. I won't be taking Clomid at all but I will start directly on Follistim. Supposed to take 50iu every night thru Sunday night and go for blood work and a a follow-up ultrasound Monday morning. How long I'll have to take the Follistim will depend on what my follicles look like Monday. Then I will probably have to take the Ovidrel trigger shot to make me ovulate, but that will be determined later. Sorry for the quickie but it's time to go to the house and these days, that's the best part of my workday.

Old McDonald had a farm, E I E IUI

IUI? -- WAIT! That's not how that song goes. But that is what out next step will be. I spoke with Brenda yesterday and without going into too much detail, Brad's fast swimmers just aren't all that fast. (I can just picture them trying to doggie paddle) So Dr. Ashurst has recommended an IUI. He said that with my inability to ovulate on my own and Brad's boys needing swimmies it would be our best option at the moment. So as soon as I start my period, which should be any day now, the clock will start. I'll go in around day 3 for an ultrasound to make sure my cysts are gone and if they are -- Clomid, Follistim and Ovadrel here I come. If you don't know much about IUIs you can go here: IUI FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
So my question to you is this: how much detail do y'all want from all this? Most of you know I'm not really shamed about giving out info so I want y'all to draw the line on the dept of detail.
Sorry that it's been so long since my last post. My emotions and attitude have been in the crapper. Completely awful and some of you can vouch for that. I didn't even want to be around myself. I don't know what the problem has been but I'm glad that it's starting to go away. Y'all have to just excuse me when I get like that.
So y'all keep the prayers lifted and I'll keep you updated.