The Crazy month of May

May is only supposed to be a crazy month when kids are in school, right?  WRONG!  When you are the Young Women's leader, May is nuts!  And we have certainly felt it this year!  Girls' Camp is coming up way too soon, school is getting out for the girls, and we have had a LOT of family getaways in May.  So May has been both CRAZY and FUN!!

We went to Utah for Chris's conference.  Fortunately, we were given a hotel with TWO rooms, which was awesome.  We left Davis alone for about 5 seconds, and he took all the wipes out of the container.  I let him spread toilet paper all over, because hey, it was a hotel!

 Grandma was in charge of elections, so we went to see her.

This is Davis while Mommy is taking a shower.  He loves books!  His favorites are "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."  We sometimes read both of those at least five times a day.

Davis played with his girlfriend during Stake Conference.  Davis loves to play with other kids.  If they take his stuff, that is fine.  He is very social, and just wants them to be happy.  He is going to make a great big brother!

Mommy got a new iPhone, and Davis loves to explore it!

We went to the cabin.  It is probably the best place on earth.  We enjoyed every minute!

Except for the night that Davis would not sleep in his own room, so he ended up sleeping with Mommy and Daddy.  He was so tired that he fell asleep on the way home.  I wanted to as well!

Davis had tubes put in his ears.  He was so brave!  We had to be at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning, so we woke him up, and went to check in.  Then we went to the waiting room for a few minutes, then the pre-op place.  They told us that we could put Davis in the wagon and ride around for a while before meeting with the nurses.  He was more than happy to ride in the wagon, just checking out the people.  Then we met with the nurses (the nurse in charge of anesthesia was my uncle!  Cool) and changed him into his hospital robes.  Then we walked around for another 45 minutes, waiting for him to go into surgery.  The nurse took the wagon into surgery, and he was given anesthesia, and came out like 15 minutes later.  When we went to see him in Recovery, the nurse said that he needed a parent to lie down with him.  Before I had even processed the information, Chris was laying with Davis on the bed, just cuddling the little guy who was waking up from anesthesia.
I think the only thing that Davis had to recover from was waking up so much earlier than he usually does!

Daddy called and said that there was a bounce house at his work, so we went to play in it.  Davis especially loved throwing the balls.  He is not the best at jumping, but he sure thinks he is!

Baby Rusch

We got some more pictures of our baby today!  Everything is going well for him/her!  Less than an inch, with a good strong heartbeat!  The white cursor is over the head on both pictures.

Our sweet little blueberry

We went to Utah this past weekend.  We partly went because Chris had a conference for librarians in Utah.  We partly went because Davis and I could hang out with family members.  But we mostly went because we got to have an ultrasound of our little blueberry!

 We got a hotel room for the stay, and were lucky enough to receive a "complimentary upgrade" to a one-room suite.  It was super nice to be able to put Davis somewhere to go to sleep and close the door.  And then we turned out backs for 2 seconds and he found out that he could empty the wipe container.

At our house, we no longer use the toilet paper roll.  But at the hotel, the toilet paper holder is a great toy!

Here are the ultrasound pictures--some of them, at least!  They are not TOO exciting, because at almost 8 weeks, he or she is the size of a blueberry.  But we got to see/hear a heartbeat as well, which was very exciting!

The doctor was completely amazed that I am pregnant.  He was very excited for us!  I think he doesn't usually text people to tell them congratulations, but he definitely texted me!  He expressed gratitude for being involved in the miracle.  It has been quite the ride!

We love this baby already!

Easter 2014

We had a great Easter weekend together!  Last year, we were in Virginia for Easter, but this year, it was just us together as a little family!  After our announcement on Friday (See previous post), where we dyed eggs while listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Handel's Messiah, we had Davis "open" his Easter gifts from the Easter bunny and go on an "Easter Egg Hunt" on Saturday.  The Easter Egg Hunt consisted of Chris putting the eggs in plain sight, and scattering them all over the floor.  Davis thought it was super fun to pick up all the "balls" and listen to the sound that they made when he shook them.

Then, he discovered that the balls opened and had smaller balls inside.  He was not sure what to do with these balls:

But his toys were great.

 And Daddy got a Buff, which he thinks is the coolest thing ever.

Then, on Sunday, we all had our new Easter outfits on (OK, Chris didn't have an Easter outfit.  But Mommy and Davis did):

And of course, we ended the festivities with a ton of food served on our fancy china:

We are SO THANKFUL for the life and Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ, and really don't know what we would do in this life without the knowledge of Him.  We are grateful for him and for his everlasting love, and everlasting Atonement, and that we can be better through him.  We love this time of year, and that we can spend Easter weekend to reflect on Him.

Big News

Davis is happy to announce . . .
he is being promoted to the job of big brother!!

Here are the details:

Because of the conversation that we had with the doctor in February (see post here), we decided that we needed to start on IVF quickly.  So, my parents paid for the procedure, and we ordered the medicine and got the ball rolling. 

I called the office, and they said that their embryonic lab was going to be closed for a week and a half.

They were able to start my medicine so that everything would work with the lab.  The original calendar they gave me said that the due date would be the day after my birthday.  That is funny, because before we had the talk with Dr. Blauer, we had decided that we would put off IVF so that we didn't have to have a baby in December.  Oh well.

I did the whole process of getting the shots every night, and taking over-the-counter medicine every morning and night.  We had to go to Utah to be watched for the weekend (left on Sunday), and then go back on Tuesday for the egg retrieval, and then back on Friday for the transfer.  We were exhausted.  It was a long week.  And Davis spent a lot of time with my parents (thanks, Mom and Dad!)

We went in for egg retrieval on a Tuesday.  On my calendar, it said that it would be on Wednesday.  I asked the doctor if that meant everything was pushed forward a day.  He said yes.  So the due date would be my birthday!  During the egg retrieval, they got six eggs, which we were excited for. Two of them fertilized, which was also good.  So we scheduled the transfer for Friday, and expected to have two eggs transferred.  (Even though on our paperwork, we said that we wanted three.  Oh well.)

We went in on Friday, and were told that one of our eggs had died.  So, we only had one to transfer.  And the egg was "fair."  Chris asked the doctor after the procedure what the chances of me being pregnant from the procedure were.  He said 10-15%.  We surely wanted better odds.  Here is (one of) the cutest embroys ever:

After the whole procedure, they just tell you to wait for two weeks, which seems like approximately an eternity.

The Sunday of General Conference, I started bleeding.  I was devastated.  Bleeding is NOT what you want to happen, especially only one week into the two week waiting period.  My mom encouraged me to keep taking my progesterone, which I did.  I called the nurse the next day.  She said that 30% of people who do IVF and bleed like me are still able to hold the pregnancy.  So, with the 10% chance of it working, and the 30% chance of it still working after bleeding, my chances were about 3%.

I decided that I was not pregnant.  I went shopping for a cute Easter outfit for myself.  I enrolled in some online classes.  I was thinking about what to do to console myself.

On Thursday, I went in for a blood test.  This was just going to confirm that I was not pregnant.  Then I was going to be able to take ibuprofen to cure my headache that I had since I started bleeding, and was getting sick of.  I was preparing a lesson for my young women on Sunday, and I decided to call the Reproductive Care Center, because my other doctor's office didn't have a nurse that could talk to me.  I asked the nurse if she had the results yet.

She went to check the fax machine.  She got back on the phone and said, "I have some good news for you.  You are pregnant."  I could not believe my ears.  I was in complete shock.  I called my husband immediately (the people at his work said that he was literally jumping up and down and yelling, "YES!  YES!  YES!").  Then I called my mom.  She was on the way out the door, and came to my house instead of running her errands.

We had a big celebration after hearing the news.  Chris left his work early, and we went out to dinner with my parents.

Here's what we think about all this:

1. Miracles still happen.  Quite often, especially in my life
2. This baby is SUPPOSED to come in December, apparently close to my birthday

Please keep praying for me.  I am at a high risk for miscarriage, and am definitely not out of the woods yet, but things are very hopeful so far!

A celebration of 10 years of life

So, here is one good thing that happened in February!  This year marks ten years since I got in my bad car accident and was in a coma for a month, and in the hospital for 2 1/2 months.

So, yeah, that is what I looked like ten years ago.  The accident was on February 16, 2004.  My family wanted to celebrate February 16, 2014, because it was kind of a big deal that it really has been 10 years.

It is tradition in the Davis family to go up to the cabin for President's Day weekend.  We had things going Friday and Saturday and Sunday, so I asked Chris if he wanted to go to the cabin for just a day after church.  He said that sounded fine, and my mom did too, so that was the plan.

So, this year, for Valentine's Day, Chris said that he was going to take me on a date.  He said that Grandma and Grandpa were going to be our babysitters.  I thought that was EXTREMELY nice of them, and was happy to go on a date.  Chris kept saying that there was going to be a big surprise involved.  Little did I know . . .

I wanted to go see the movie Frozen, and it was playing at 6:30.  Chris said we couldn't go because it was at the wrong time.  I was confused.  So Chris got tickets to the Lego Movie, which was also very cool.  He texted my mom and I and said that we were going to leave at 5:30, then later said that it was changed to 6, because that would work better for my mom.  I wondered why my mom had so much to say about our date, but whatever . . .

So we went out to eat at the Thai Kitchen, which was CRAZY on Valetine's Day, and then we went to the Lego Movie.  On our way to pick up Davis (or so I thought), I told Chris that I needed to ask my mom a question about making my new drapes.  My mom had texted him earlier and said that Davis was asleep (a miracle!), so Chris said that would be fine.

We showed up at my parents' house, and my WHOLE FAMILY except for Casey (obviously) and Colby and Maria (who got snowed into DC) surprised me!  There was a big banner in my parents' living room, which looked like this:

After we dropped off Davis, my parents spent the next few hours scurrying around and getting everything ready for the party, and Taylor and Carter and their families showed up for the surprise as well.

It was a wonderful weekend, where we celebrated the joy of being alive.  We went to the temple on Saturday, which was wonderful, and I was able to spend the weekend with family.

And, no, we did not go to the cabin.  But Mom and Chris made it a very funny joke in all the planning!

A month of food storage

Ah, February.  I am so glad that you are over.  I think I have cried more this month than in any other month of my life.  But I digress . . . one of the things that we accomplished this month was living completely on food storage.  It was a success!  Here are some things that we learned:

• We had WAY more food than we thought we needed.  I guess that is better than having less!  But we definitely made it through the month without starving.  :)
• We like having meals in the freezer to just warm up and serve.  Pizzas are a BAD idea for a freezer meal.  Don't do it!  But we are having chicken enchiladas from the freezer tonight, which is great, because Chris just made twice what we wanted and we froze half of them.
• I think the only thing that we really ran out of was ketchup.  I found this recipe on how to make ketchup.  Chris liked the homemade ketchup.  I didn't.
• We didn't buy enough ice cream before we started.  We are excited to have ice cream again.
• We are excited to have ice cream and fresh produce again!  I seriously cannot wait!
• Something I learned about myself: I have never been a huge fan of vegetables.  Ask my family.  But I am much more likely to eat FRESH vegetables than frozen vegetables.  Chris ate the frozen ones, basically every day, and was fine.  But I am not that good at having frozen ones, unless I make myself do it!
• Leftovers are our friends!  Seriously, we rarely had sandwiches for lunch because we had so many leftovers.