FREE Christmas Cards!

Ok - so being a designer, I automatically decided I would design my own Christmas card this year. That is, until someone sent me a link to receive 50 FREE CARDS FROM SHUTTERFLY (thank you, Melissa)! No joke, no strings attached - just a little shout out for the company that shows such love. I was hesitant at first thinking the designs would be the 1990s clip art specials from other stores since I've only ever looked at Shutterfly's photo books - but was pleasently surprised to find wonderful unique and whimsical designs. So of course, I couldn't resist and am about as proud as if I HAD designed the card on my own. What with their beautiful designs and high-quality, my next step is to order a photo book! Can't wait!

Check out the wonderful Photo Christmas Card designs available at :

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photos-cards

Holiday Invitations:

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

And even Wall Calendars:

http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars

Shutterfly has something for everyone! The only hard part is choosing which one to use!

Check out my new business for a chance to win a free portrait session!

So I know I've only posted about one post a month lately, but it's not because I'm a slacker . . . it's because I've been spending all my spare time setting up my new Photography & Design business! Check it out at http://www.fotosynthesis-photography.com/ and enter to win a free portrait session!!! Hurry! Christmas Card season is coming up soon!

What a month . . .

It's 3:14 in the morning right now and I have yet to go to bed. Perhaps it's from my relapse of diet coke which I have unsucessfully been trying to quell, or perhaps it's because when I stay up past a certain hour my mind begins to run through the whys and I don't have the strength to fight them off. 2010 has been a particularily hard year for the McFarland Family. For a number of reasons I don't care to relive in this blog - yet even so, I think the month of August tops them all.

The month started out wonderfully, actually. I was about to start a round of particularily potent antibiotics in order to fight a nasty rash I had joyfully earned out of my round with IVF and needed to take a pregnancy test "just in case" so I wouldn't harm a potential fetus with the medication. Imagine my complete and utter surprise when it turned out positive. Not believing what I was seeing, I took another. Definitely a positive.

In June, we had ended our round of IVF with a defeated resolution to stop trying. We figured if a $12,000 procedure could not result in offspring, then it was definitely out of our hands. It was sad to realize that we were not in control, but also a little bit liberating to think that I could finally be rid of the horrible effects of trying to get pregnant artificially. We figured for some reason, God did not want us have children at this time. We even started seriously considering adoption. After the initial shock of the IVF not working, I was actually ok with stopping everything for awhile. I definitely needed a break physically as well as emotionally. So I let it go. I had a little bit of trouble in July when everyone I knew who wasn't yet pregnant informed me that they were but I got over it. Then I myself was apparently pregnant.

Had lots of doctors appointments to make sure I was pregnant (still had a hard time believing it), and was carefully monitored because of my previous miscarriage and the fact that I have a hard time conceiving. It actually turned out to be a horrible thing because I got to watch the miscarriage slowly unfold in about three weeks. I hung on to some glimmers of hope until about the seventh week when I knew it was finally over. When I finally finished the "process" I would have been about nine weeks.

As if that wasn't bad enough, it all happened while my step-father was dying of cancer. Because of it, I missed his passing while my husband stood by while he took his last breaths. I missed his viewing, but luckily (that's probably no the right word here) I pulled myself through his funeral. It's hard to be supportive to another when you yourself are experiencing such agony. I know poor Eric was feeling pulled in two different directions while all this was going on . . . wanting to be there for his mom but knowing I needed him too and probably being very vunerable himself. All I could think while this was happening was, "Seriously? Right now? At the same time?" I can't help but look back at it as a sick and twisted joke. And once again, ask myself, "why? What purpose did that serve?" And I can't come up with an answer.

I wanted a break. I needed a break. Don't get me wrong, I was happy about the pregnancy but I feel as though this blow is more than I can take right now. I guess it will just take time but I'm so worn out. I feel like yelling, "OK! I'm taking a break now and I'm really serious about it this time!" The next time I get pregnant (if I do), I will be petrified. It's sad to think that something that is supposed to bring such joy can bring such utter terror to someone.

I know a lot of my posts have been doom and gloom lately but it's not my fault. I'm a generally happy person. But circumstances are out of my control. I only hope that the future will bring my understanding of this month.

4th of July

Alex had fun with his sparkler until he burned his finger!

Terrible Twos

My baby is officially two! It happened on June 24th, 2010. I immediately saw a transition from when he was one to the day he turned two. Suddenly my little angel is not so much of a little angel. Tantrums, refusing to go to sleep for naps and at night, endless energy . . . On the other hand, he's never been so stinkin' cute. I guess it's on purpose so we don't hurt him.

So a little update . . .

Alex knows almost the entire alphebet. I don't know how the heck he acquired these skills since it was never in my agenda to teach an 18month old how to read but somehow he's learning it. He can count to ten in English and Chinese (with a little help). He can sing songs and do the actions to a few of my childhood favorites including Twinkle, twinkle little star, The itsy-bitsy spider, and the Three little monkeys. His favorite song to sing along to, however, is "I Got a Feeling" by the Black-Eyed Peas. A close second is "Hey Soul Sister" by Train. No, I'm not letting my two-year old listen to inappropriate music - who do you think I am? He folds his arms when we have a meal and reminds us to pray. He can identify Jesus wherever he sees his image. Still loves cars and the new train set he got for his birthday. Also loves pushing around anything, including the stroller he's supposed to be sitting in. He also loves getting into EVERYTHING and undoing anything Mommy has just done. He says some full sentences such as, "Bye, bye. See you later!" but is mostly still in the one or two-word stage. He seems to pretty fully understand chinese and is starting to say some Chinese words too. He is still Mommy & Daddy's number one pride and joy. We can't wait to see what the next two years will bring!

Beginning the day with a trip to the zoo

Yummmm . . . cake!

Loved his new tricycle

And the potty was apparently VERY exciting for everyone

Good times with good friends

Let's learn some more ABC's!

But the new train set really stole the show!

"A child is the greatest joy, the ultimate blessing." - Emily Laughton

Is it any wonder I yearn for more?

So after a month I have decided that everythings ok and that my life doesn't suck. Don't get me wrong, I was DEVASTATED when the IVF didn't work, and it's ok to feel sad when things don't go our way but all things considering, I have a pretty sweet life. I was REALLY dreading my 30th birthday - especially because I'm not where I envisioned myself being at that age. And it sucked not being "young" anymore although I feel like I'm still a reckless, immature 18 year-old who still has a ton of learning to do. Luckily, the summer has kept me almost too busy to think about it what with Father's Day, Girl's Camp, Alex's birthday, Eric's birthday, and the 4th of July. Let's just say I'm glad it's past :)

I still yearn to increase our family - it's something I've tried to ignore but I can't help feeling that our family is incomplete. We're looking into the option of adoption after letting my body and my spirits rest a little. Maybe at the beginning of next year we'll try unfreezing our last egg and if that doesn't work, move forward with adoption. I'm trying to focus on the positives in my life like being married to my absolute and perfect soul mate; having the most handsome, sweet, beautiful little boy in the world who apparently was a miracle; living in a large, comfortable, stylish home in a fantastic neighborhood; having everyone in my family in good health, being raised in the Gospel and having it continuely bless my life and the life of my family, and living in a wonderful country at a wonderful time where I can live as I wish in a democratic society.

And something else had helped me realize how blessed I am . . . I just received news that one of my old highschool friends is dying of cancer. If that's not enough, she's the mother of five. They think she only has a few weeks to live. Here's her blog: http://www.maelynnsjourney.blogspot.com/. So yeah, things could be worse. Much worse.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been such a support to Eric and I during this time. We were surprised at the generosity of some of our friends - some were more supportive than even our families! We received beautiful bouquets of flowers, consolidating letters, books and bubble bath, offers to watch our child overnight for a couples getaway, and a free dinner and pedicure for me :) I do still get sad sometimes - I can't help it - especially when I see a newborn or a friend announces their pregnancy, but I'm trying to remember that my life is in God's hands and he knows whats best for me. Maybe it just isn't the right time although I feel like I'm getting too old by the minute :) Or maybe we're supposed to adopt - I have always felt like I would like to adopt some day, even before I knew I had problems. At any rate, I'm determined to bring more children into our family by whatever means.

Thank you, friends, for all your support!

IVF Results . . . .

It didn't work.

Sophie's Choice . . . or hopefully the closest I ever have to come to it

What a blastocyst embryo looks like

We finally did the egg transfer!!! It went very well - we had four blastocyst embryos available at the time of transfer with one being good quality, two being fair quality and one being poor quality. We're keeping it a secret on how many we transfered and if we had any left to freeze because a lot of people seemed to have opinions on the matter and we don't want anyone saying to us down the road, "See? I told you you should have put in this many!" or "I can't believe you put in that many!" We feel it was a hard personal decision only we could make (but don't worry - I'm definitely NOT going to be an octomom!). Now we just have to wait to see what the results are. We could have found out as early as June 3rd, but I don't want negative news effecting Eric before his CFA test on the 5th if it comes down to that so we're waiting until June 7th. I may be a little neurotic til then.

The night before the egg retreival, Alex came down with the flu - and boy did he come down with it! We were up half the night as he threw up every five minutes for three hours!! Eric slept in his room the rest of the night and let me get sleep in preparation for the operation. I wnent to the procedure alone while Eric watched Alex the next day. Since then, Alex has improved but has still been racked by vomitting and diarrhea - it's going on eight days now! Needless to say, mom and dad have cleaned up a lot of messes, done a lot of wash, and haven't gotten a lot of sleep. We started to worry when on Sunday he was very lathargic and he's had pretty dry diapers since the beginning. We took him to a playground to see if that would make him feel better and he just climbed on it with our help and layed down :( Luckily, on Monday he seemed to improve but then kind of stopped again. I kept thinking he would get better the next day and then he'd throw up and/or have diarrhea again. We called the pediatrician twice and they said there's not really anything they can do and we'd have to go to the emergency room to get an IV for fluids if we thought he was in danger. We wanted to avoid the $100 copay of going to the ER as much as possible so we tried to hydrate him ourselves. Last night we when we went to check on Alex he was sleeping in his own throw-up. It was all over the walls, the floor his crib and him. We made the decision that our poor little boy had had enough and we decided to take him into urgent care today - which just happened to be the same day as my transfer. Talk about hard decision!!! I was so worried about my little boy but we had to transfer today or lose the cycle - followed by 24 hours of strict bedrest. It meant I couldn't come with Eric when he took him in.

It killed me to think that my little sweetheart might have to have an IV without his mother to hold him. But what could I do? Loose out on the possibility of future children? I definitely felt like it was Sophie's choice with leaning toward the needs of my current, only living little baby. However, if I didn't do the transfer I would have lost thousands of dollars, two months of pain and worrying, and the chance for the success of this cycle altogether. It gave me comfort to know that Daddy would be with him and I knew there was a possibility he wouldn't need an IV afterall. So Daddy took him after my procedure and luckily, he didn't have to get an IV! They said he just had the flu and we had to wait it out. Although he was probably low on fluids, he wasn't in the danger zone yet and we could keep trying to hydrate him at home! I'm sooooo grateful my little one is going to be ok and I guess in a way, his illness has kept me from obsessing over the eggs and embryos so maybe it was a blessing. Hopefully he'll be able to overcome this soon because it's hard to know we can't do much to help him and watch him suffer!

Going through this process I've really learned to appreciate what I have. I have the most wonderful husband in the entire world who still seems to love me even when I'm grouchy, bloated, anxious, tired, and definitely not looking my best. I also am soooooo blessed to have my sweet Alex - he truly was a miracle. I don't know what I would do without them - they are the source of my greatest happiness. Even if this doesn't work out, I know that I still have much more than a lot of people throughout the world and I'm am truly blessed. I grateful to be able to go through this process dispite what the outcome is. Of course, I hope that it will end up in a viable pregnancy and birth but we'll just have to wait and see!

Quick Update . . .

So we finally did the egg retrieval. Things had looked great at the beginning . . . we had about 23 follicles - which usually contain an egg if you can get them to mature. Before the retreival, only six of them had matured. When we did the transfer, all of them contained an egg - but only five were mature enough. Out of the five that were mature, four actually fertilized. So that's the update - four eggs that will hopefully survive until transfer. As you can see, when you're further along in the process, more and more eggs drop off. Hopefully we will have SOMETHING to put into me when we transfer which will either be tomorrow or Tuesday. We don't have a high chance of success so prayers are welcomed and appreciated more than ever before and please forgive me if I'm totally emotionally sensitive in the next little while.

Adventures in Infertility

Special Delivery

(those are many, many NEEDLES by the way)

Perhaps many of you (the entire three people that read this blog) know that Eric and I have issues with having a family. Not issues that we choose, but ones that are out of our control. My entire life, I've dreamt about my six kids, their spouses and grandchildren surrounding us at the dinner table while my husband (currently Eric but I didn't know that when I was little) carved a huge turkey for Thanksgiving. I've always wanted a large family (well, within reason - I'm not talking like my parents) ever since I can remember. I didn't want to start too early - I thought it was important for me to finish my education and spend time with my husband before rocking the boat with kids - but I didn't think we'd have too many problems once we did start either.

Everything seemed to be going as planned as Eric and I graduated college and he found a good job before we started trying. It only took us four months the first time to get pregnant - beginners luck I suppose. Or not beginner's luck since that pregnancy tragically ended at 10 weeks. I was pretty devestated by the news and started to feel like this wouldn't be the easiest thing for us. I was right as it took us about ten more months to get pregnant - only after complaining to my ObGyn and having him put me on clomid. It worked! We got pregnant the first month I was on it and nine months later I delivered our beautiful, precious little boy, Alex. Since then, our luck has ran out. We have been actively trying since Alex was seven months old and I have been on clomid for ten months and clomid and metformin for five months. Nothing. Well, unless you count a crazy rollercoaster of side effects and mood swings. But no baby at any rate. As our last resort, we've turned to an infertility clinic.

Enter the wonderful world of testing to try and figure out exactly what is "wrong" with us. After completing several tests by both of us . . . . drum roll . . . . nothing. No explanation of why we can't get pregnant - except for the fact that I don't ovulate regularily. I mean, we're talking I don't ovulate for months on end. That's a little bit of an important factor in getting pregnant as you can't get pregnant if you don't release an egg (ovulation). Why I don't ovluate? They have no clue. Yea for me. With the metformin and clomid regimen they were finally able to get me ovulating . . . still no baby. We could have continued down that road since at least now I had a chance, but being on clomid for an extended amount of time is not ideal as it thins the uterin lining and there is an increased chance of cysts developing - I'm quickly approaching the one-year mark of when they don't want you on it anymore. The next option - try a similar drug to clomid, try Artificial Insemination (IUI) or go strait to In-vitro Fertilization (IVF). Once again, feeling very fed-up with the demon clomid, we decided to skip that option. We were seriously considering IUI at one point but our chances only increased to about 20% with that option and considering the emotional investment and the cost, we decided to skip that too.

That's right - we headed strait for IVF. A major part of this decision was based on the fact that Eric has fantastic insurance that pays for it 100% - which is huge because IVF can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 and is not usually covered by insurance. Another part of the decision was due to the fact that we hopefully will be able to harvest some extra eggs for storage in case my supply starts to deplete in the near future. This way, the next time we want to have a baby it will cost much less. The last big reason is that our chances go up to about 60-70% of getting pregnant instead of the 6% on our own and 12% on clomid.

So that brings us to the future. We are in the middle of doing IVF which basically throws us into a world of confusing acronyms such as HCG, HSG, IVF, FSH, IUI, ICSI, and others. Mostly it just means I get to be injected with a syringe in the stomach every night and my ovaries will swell to the point it will look like I'm already pregnant. Once again, yea for me. If I ever become a druggie, I'll be a pro. Although I can't take all the credit - Eric has the wonderful opportunity to experience my enlightening mood swings and temper tantrums (which I had before but are now MUCH, MUCH worse). However, I think I will gladly take a month of this if it replaces our timing intercourse, charting temperatures, peeing on a stick every morning to check ovulation, all the costly pregnancy tests that now lie at the bottom of a landfill, and a myriad of drugs and different side effects. All I can say is I can't wait for this to be over - bring on pregnancy!

So most people don't get to have this much fun making a baby. I mean, all THEY have to do is have sex! The scary part is knowing how many eggs to put in. One? Two? THREE? What is one doesn't work? What if three DO work? Can I really handle twins? Well, I guess we'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks! Wish us luck - say a prayer - and stay away for awhile! Trust me! You don't want to be around me!