Ramblings...

Have you ever felt like someone just climbed up on your desk and took a crap on it? Seriously!!! My former boss just came up and dumped off a bunch of crappy nothingness on me. See, she was our “HR Department” until they created my position as HR Assistant. So I worked under her for about 6 months, and then the management replaced her by an HR Manager with experience/schooling in HR… so needless to say, she has a bit of an attitude problem towards the whole thing now. She still has an excellent job as a Loan Officer, but anyways…I digress. So she has been completely out of HR now since about February, and we’ve been working on getting all the loads of HR files and stuff out of her office, and I thought most of it was gone, but this afternoon she comes up to my desk with her arms full and literally dumps it on my desk. BEAUTIFUL!!! So I’m going through and deciding what needs to be kept and what can be shredded. Lucky me!

Anyhoo. Nothing exciting to report, really, but I felt that I should post, because, well… I guess I just felt compelled. :) I’m on cycle day 28 today, and nothing but cramps (still!!!) to show for it. :p Not exactly what I was hoping for, but at least my temps are still up, so I know for sure that I did O. Yay! That’s more than I had last cycle!
Ummm… Troy started classes on Tuesday. Poor guy, he’s already tired. But he’s been working till 11 this week - it’s his last week for that. Next week he starts on part-time, so that will definitely help with the stress-level/time pressures.
I’m making Chicken Enchiladas tonight, and I’m so excited about it! I know, I know - it really doesn’t take much to get me excited, but it’s one of my absolute favorite meals in the world, and it’s been a long time since I’ve made/had them.
Aww, my mom just came to visit me at work! She NEVER does that, so it was super special! :)
Well, I think that’s about it. Not too much to say today, despite the impulse to post! Oh well. I am SO going for a run tonight – it’s just beautiful out today, and I’m going to take advantage of it while it’s here!

Monday

Today feels like such a… Monday. I’m tired, everybody’s quiet, and it doesn’t help that it’s about 65 degrees and rainy outside.
So Saturday I had a bit of a meltdown. It hit me like a brick wall when I was expecting it least. See, we had a little family get-together because my oldest sister and her family hadn’t seen the baby yet, so the plan was to meet at my Mom and Dad’s place in the afternoon and do dinner. (Oh – I just realized I never announced the arrival of my new nephew! Carson John came on the 14th at 7 lb, 4 oz, and is just beautiful! My brother is such a cute dad:) Well, they had never told us a specific time to be there, so just as Troy and I were leaving to go out there (we live about 10 mins from my parents) my mom calls and our conversation goes something like:

Mom: Where are you guys?
Cherie: We’re on our way, why?
Mom: Well, people are getting hungry and we were just wondering when you were coming.
Cherie: It’s 3:30! I thought it was going to be a supper thing!
Mom: Well maybe it’s going to be an early supper.
Cherie: I didn’t know that… why, is everyone else there already?
Mom: Yes.
Cherie: Well, we’ll be there in about 10 minutes, okay?
Mom: Okay, we’ll see you then.

Now, I’m not trying to disrespect my mother, I truly do love her to death, but was I unreasonable for being a little upset that they were pressuring us about what time we were getting there when they had never given us a time to be there in the first place? Maybe I’m the crazy one, but I thought “supper” is normally a little later than 3:30 in the afternoon! So that set me off to begin with, and then when I got there and saw the baby, it was like something snapped, and I had to go into one of the bedrooms and shut the door because I was BAWLING. Seriously it was like the sobbing, can’t catch your breath kind of crying that you do when you’re 5 and your brother just punched in the stomach you and called you a butt-munch or something. Only this hurt even more – on the inside. So my sweet sister was there for me and gave me a super long hug and let me talk and get everything out, and then Troy hugged me and of course I started crying again, but after that I was a little better. Still hard, though, like I was totally NOT expecting. I started tearing up almost every time I held the baby. And here I am at my desk tearing up again thinking about it. Man, the things you never expect seem to hit you hardest. And then I found out yesterday that another girl in our church is expecting again – her 5th. Yes, that’s right, I said 5th. And they weren’t even going to start trying for another month. And their youngest is not even 1. Five kids and she’s 30. Wow. That’s all I have to say about that one.
But my weekend wasn’t all bad – it really was great being able to hold that little nephew of mine – he’s such a sweetie, and also to see my other nieces and family again. And then at church yesterday they held a special service for Troy and 2 other guys who are going to school to become pastors to give them a “License” to preach. I guess it’s just a formality that isn’t done much anymore, but basically it’s just the church saying that they recognize God’s call on their lives to preach, and they support them in it. It was a really neat service, and then they had a little dessert reception afterwards. So that was special.
Okay, on to ttc news… now it seems that I did ovulate. My temps have been consistently high since Saturday, but they first spiked earlier last week, but went down a couple days between high temps. So I don’t really know when I o’d if I did, and now I’ve been having cramps for the last 5 days, like not just little ones either. So once I again I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m still expecting AF any day, since I’m already on day 26 of my cycle. My boobs aren’t really sore anymore (btw, my sister said hers were sore on clomid, too, and would get less sore right before her period), so that adds to my skepticism. But at least if I DID o, then I won’t have to up the mg’s of clomid. That means saving money, less crazy hormones going on, etc, etc, so that would be good news. We’ll see what the Dr. says!

So that’s about all I’ve got for today. We’re supposed to have a meeting tonight after work, and then it’s home to make supper, do dishes, and work on some laundry. I can hardly contain my excitement!

I'm going to put a couple pics of Carson in my gallery for your viewing pleasure. I don't have the ones from Saturday yet, but these are from the day he was born.

My husband makes me giggle :)

I just had to share this e-mail that Troy sent me. It totally cracked me up, and I thought that everyone could probably relate…
I sent him a quick e-mail first, and mine went something like:
“I miss you! I want you! I need you! I love you! I’m thinking about you! (if you couldn’t tell:)
I can’t wait to see you tonight!”

His reply was:“I miss you too! I want you too! I need you too! I’m thinking about you too! (in case you couldn’t tell)

I can’t wait to do it tonight!”


Tee-hee. Such a man. :)

My body must think it's funny to play tricks on me!

Wow - it feels like I haven't posted in forever! Our vacation was wonderful - just what we needed. I just love going on trips - I think I could seriously just buy an RV and become a professional road-tripper! Ha! And my sweet hubby surprised me by sending flowers ahead to our hotel room the first night. :)
Now, about the title. I'm at cycle day 19, and according to my temps I don't think I've even ovulated, let alone gotten pregnant. Grr... frustrating, but if that isn't bad enough, now for the past 3 days my boobs have been tender - so what does this mean? Just a reaction to the clomid? I don't know. I've never heard of anyone having that side effect from clomid - but I guess it's possible. I think my body just doesn't know what to do with itself right now, so it has just decided to play all kinds of tricks on me!!! I never had a positive OPK, either, and although I've had all kinds of little twinges down by my ovaries, I have no idea what any of them mean. So it's been a bit frustrating, and of course, disappointing, but I'm willing to be patient and try again next month. I know I've got nothing to complain about, considering we haven't been at this very long. Some people have been trying for so much longer and have been through so much more than we have... I have no right to complain.
So bring on AF! She can't come soon enough! Ahh, the waiting...

cd8 and other misc

Well, the anniversary was… not too exciting, but it was super nice to have some time just to be together. We did have a not-so-fancy dinner at Culver’s (fast food – they make the best Ultimate Grilled Cheese in the world!!! :) – and talked about some of the stuff that we’ve been through in the past 3 years, and laughed a lot. It was nice. I’m SOOO looking forward to spending all of next week together, like I seriously can’t even tell you how excited I am about it! It will be the first time since our honeymoon that we’ve had a whole week off together! So I think it’s pretty well-deserved. Oooh – and I forgot I was going to post a link to some of our wedding pics yesterday. It’s http://www.amdimaging.com/troy-cherie/menu.htm. We had one guy do our formal shots, and a friend of ours, who was just getting into the business at the time, did some of the behind the scenes type shots, which are the ones that I’m linking to. I really liked how they turned out, and I’m so glad we have those, too, and not just the formals.

So, on to ttc stuff – cycle day 8, and so far… nothing. Yet. No change in temps, no change in cm, moodiness, soreness, or anything. I guess I’m getting impatient because I was half expecting to have ovulated already because my cycles are normally so short. But for my first cycle on clomid, I guess I shouldn’t really be expecting anything. So, I’ll be patient and wait, since that’s the only choice I have, and hope and pray for the best. We’ll have plenty of time next week for baby dancing! :)

Tomorrow we’re going to take our Youth Group kids on a canoe trip – yikes! Pray for us! It should be fun, though. So tonight we’re going grocery shopping (Troy’s getting off early again) for lunches. And that’s about all I have for today. I probably won’t be around much for the next week or so since I won’t be at work. We’ll see how busy we stay at home – I might log on a few times, just because I’m addicted! :)

Where did I leave off??

Oh, that's right. August 9, 2003! I woke up to a bright, sunny morning after sleeping really well all night long. I was SO EXCITED!!! And I actually wasn’t a bit nervous, like I thought I would be. I had to get a couple more things moved over to our new apartment, so I took them over right away in the morning. The guys had slept there the night before, but were gone early to go golfing. So I got things situated and went back home to start getting ready. I showered and threw on a white shirt and jean skirt, loaded up my makeup and all the extra things that weren’t over there yet, and headed to the church. I had a friend doing my and the bridesmaids hair there, and so she got started on my hair right away. After hair and makeup was done, it was time to put on the dress! When it was on, and I was ready, I felt like such a princess. I loved it! So the girls had to get pictures, and then while we waited for the guys to get done, I had a quick bite to eat (still not too nervous!)… and before I knew it, it was almost 1:30. Time to go! One by one the bridesmaids that were waiting with me walked down the aisle, and soon enough it was just my dad and I. The music changed… and off we went! I can’t even begin to explain how thrilled I remember feeling at that moment – I was walking with my dad to meet the man of my dreams, surrounded by the people who we loved and loved us most. I didn’t cry at all, but I was smiling ear to ear the whole time! So we got to the front of the church and I remember my uncle (our pastor) praying what seemed to be the longest prayer ever prayed, after which my dad gave me away, and we finally got to be together! We hadn’t seen each other at all before the wedding, so the feelings were almost overwhelming as we stood there holding hands in front of the church. The ceremony was perfect, with a personal touch because of my uncle being the one who married us, and after the kiss and he declared us Mr. & Mrs. Troy Budreau, in that moment I think I was the happiest wife in the world! So we greeted guests, had more pics taken, and then were off to the reception. After we ate, cut the cake, kissed a lot!, and did some more mingling, we released doves, which actually was Troy’s idea and ended up being a very cool thing. I tossed the bouquet, and before long, we were off to the hotel! (we opted to not have a dance, per my parents’ and the church’s wishes.) The wedding night… well, let’s just leave that one alone… :) …So Sunday was gift-opening at Troy’s parents house, which was fun and yet tedious towards the end! But we were just overwhelmed with people’s generosity. It was amazing! And then after lunch, and going home to pack, we were off for a week to Michigan and Mackinac Island. Our honeymoon was just what we needed – lots of relaxing, swimming, sightseeing, and just loving every second of being together. We felt like kids in puppy love again! It was so much fun. I laughed so much that week! We came back the following Sunday afternoon and started getting settled into our new home and life. I didn’t work for a month and a half after the wedding, and those days were so precious. Troy would work until 2 or 3 and then come home and we would take walks, or play tennis, or go shopping and out to dinner… it was wonderful. That’s why I can’t wait until Troy’s done with school! I miss those evenings so much. It was such a wonderful time of our lives that I will never forget! Ahhh… it’s so much fun to think about all those memories.
So today is the anniversary, and yay! Troy gets done with work at 5:30 tonight! So we’re probably going to have dinner at home, and other than that we don’t have anything exciting planned. I have to teach my Pee-Wees tonight, so he’ll probably come to church with me. We’re planning on celebrating our anniversary next week, because we both have off work all week (BIG YAY!) and we will be going to Michigan again to get away for a few days. No second honeymoon, but it should still be really nice. :) I found a great card for him at Hallmark last night, so I wrote a nice sappy note in there for him. I love being all mushy-gushy like that on occasion! So that’s about it. We’re not exchanging gifts because for one, his school down payment is due next week and we’re trying to save $$$, and two, we aren’t going to have a whole lot of time tonight. But that’s okay – it’ll be nice just to be able to be together.

Well, I’m off to finish payroll. I hope everyone else has a splendid Wednesday!

Cycle Day 6...

… and day 4 of clomid, and so far so good. Nothing too different, yet, actually. I’m supposed to start OPKs in a couple of days, and I’ve been charting, too. So far my temps are already a lot more regular than they normally are. Usually I’m all over the place, but so far they’ve all been between 96.8 and 97.1. I haven’t noticed any moodiness/other side effects yet, either, so that’s good. In fact, that’s really good, because tomorrow is…. drum roll, please…

******OUR ANNIVERSARY!!!!******

Really! Three years! How long is one considered a newlywed? One year? Two? Am I getting too “old-lywed” to be on the Nest? Oh no! Oh well, until they kick me off, I’m going to consider us newlyweds! Ha! I still feel like a newlywed, so doesn’t that count for something? In fact, last time we went to a hotel, the lady asked if we were on our honeymoon! :)
Yes, three years. They’ve gone fast, and yet it also seems like so much has happened in these 3 years. Troy has completed the majority of his college education, worked at 3 different jobs, lost 2 of his cousins to accidents, we’ve moved twice, bought 2 new cars, I got my current job, and went through a position change at work, seen my brother fall in love, get married, and now expect their first baby, seen my sister and her husband move closer to us and make some major life changes, seen lots of our friends get engaged and married, sang at a lot of their weddings, seen my nieces growing up before our eyes, get 2 new kitties, start trying to conceive, without success… which just about brings us to where we are now.
And yet, sometimes August 9th, 2003 doesn’t seem like so long ago. Troy and I were sooo excited to be getting married. We had been in love since we were kids, and ever since I was probably 10, I imagined myself being married to him. Mrs. Troy Budreau. I was SO excited to be married to my best friend in the whole world. We could never be together enough. Dating was great and all, and we spent every minute that we could together, but we just couldn’t wait to be Mr. & Mrs. I remember the first time that we talked about actually getting married. We had known for awhile that we were going to get married, but hadn’t really thought about when. We originally wanted to wait until Troy was done with most of his schooling. Ha! So, it was late fall of ’02, and we had been sitting in his car – he was dropping me off at home. It was a Sunday night, and we had been together most of the weekend, and I was just so tired of saying goodbye. It was tearing me up, and I started to cry. He looked at me and said, “what would you think of a wedding next summer?” It totally took me by surprise. I could hardly think, let alone respond. I started crying even more, and said, “Really?” He said yeah, that he couldn’t do this to me anymore. We were both miserable, because all we wanted was to be together, so let’s get married next summer! I said “I would LOVE that!” Fast forward a couple of months to Dec. 4th, 2002. It was a Wednesday like any other Wednesday, except that it was our 4th anniversary of officially dating. And I had completely forgotten. So I was at work, slaving away at pressing some shirts at the drycleaners that I worked at. In walks Troy, holding a rose, and me, totally not having any idea what was going on, says hi, and asks him what he’s doing here. He asked me if I wanted to go out for dinner for our anniversary. At first I didn’t think he should be taking me from work like that, but he reassured me that he had cleared it with my bosses. So he takes me home, I change quick, and he picks me up again, and takes me to the place that we had gone for dinner on our first date. After a wonderfully romantic dinner, he took my hand and said “I love you.” I had no idea what was coming, so I just said, “I love you too!” right away. Well then he got down on a knee and said, “I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of you. Will you marry me?” He opened a box with beautiful diamond that he had picked out all by himself. I said “Yes!” and he put the ring on my shaking finger (I was so flustered I gave him the wrong hand at first!)… so we kissed, and he sat down again for a few more minutes, and then we left the restaurant and called everyone we knew on the way home! I floated that night, and pretty much through the next 8 months until August 9th, despite having to finish my last semester of college, graduate, find a new job, and plan a wedding. But I managed, somehow!
So, since this is really long already, please tune in again tomorrow for the “fast forward 8 more months” – to the wedding recap! :)

Weekend Plans, misc post

It’s Friday!!! And although I have to work until 6:00 tonight, I’m excited because Troy gets off early again, and I will get to spend some quality time with my sweet husband! I’m getting spoiled by all these early shifts he’s been working this summer. And only a few more weeks until he’s working part-time, and he’ll be done at 8:00 every night. Of course, his time won’t really be spent with me, because he’ll be a slave to his books at that point, but it will still be nice that he’s just HOME! So tonight we don’t really have too much planned, but we have a busy day tomorrow, so we’ll probably just relax a bit tonight. Maybe do some grocery shopping and fun stuff like that. Sunday afternoon his dad’s cousin is having a going away party for their daughter, who is going to college in Arkansas or Missouri or something…so we’ll probably end up going to that. His family is so different from mine in that way. I don’t think I could tell you any names of my parents’ cousins, or second cousins, or any of that, but because his family is smaller, they tend to stay in touch with the farther-out relatives. But then again, it doesn’t say much that his family is smaller than mine. Ha! (*see my 100 things list :)

Last night I had an LMF Officers meeting – I’m the treasurer for our ladies’ group at church, so the pastor’s wife, 2 other ladies and I all sat down and talked about all things important, like what color napkins to use for the upcoming Harvest Banquet. Seriously!! It’s so funny, because, yes, it is stuff that does need to be decided, but my aunt, who is the pastor’s wife (yes, my uncle is my pastor), is so proper about everything, so we have to have special meetings for these things! So we sat around our little teacups and discussed decorating themes, upcoming ladies meetings, and who we would ask to come do the program for our ladies Christmas Tea that we do for outreach every year. Troy always laughs at me when I get home from these things and tell him what we talk about – he says we just like “playing church,” because we have a President, Secretary, Treasurer, etc, and have to vote on things, so he thinks it’s just the biggest joke. Granted, sometimes it is a little silly (like the napkin color thing) – but for the most part, it really has been a great learning experience for me to see “behind the scenes” in some of the ministries that we are involved in. It really does take a lot of work and organization, and I’m really enjoying it, and am thankful to be a part of it.

I went and picked up my prescription yesterday for the clomid. I’m supposed to take it on days 3-7 of my cycle, and start testing on day 10 for ovulation. So yesterday was kind of technically day 1 of my cycle, but AF was so light that I’m not sure if I should count it as that or not. My sister said I should call my Dr, because when she was on it, they told her to start it on the first day of “regular” flow. The thing is, “regular” flow for me usually is pretty light, so I’m not really sure what that means. I’m definitely going to call my Dr, and then depending on what they say, I’ll probably start either tomorrow or Sunday. Wish me luck! Or, should I say, wish Troy patience?! :o)

Clomid, Here I Come

That’s right. I called the Dr’s office yesterday, and they called in the prescription for me. 50mg from day 3-7 of my cycle. So, I’m actually anxious for AF to start this month. And wouldn’t you know it, the time that I want it to come it won’t. My cycles have been running about 20 days for the past few months – and here it is day 23 and nothing. C’mon!!! Let’s go, already! I really want to get this thing started. I’m anxious - guardedly excited about what the outcome could be – but mostly I think I’m nervous. I know clomid is really nothing to get nervous about, but I think more than anything I’m just nervous about the side effects/moodiness. :p I hope – for Troy’s sake – that it’s not too bad.
Troy and I had the BEST talk we’ve had yet about this whole infertility thing last weekend – Friday? Or was it Saturday night? I can’t remember. Anyways – up until this point it seems like we’ve had a bit of conflict about how far we want to go with everything – and every time we tried to talk about it, it seemed like we just didn’t really get anywhere. Well, we were both just totally open about what we were feeling, and it helped SO MUCH. I was open with him about how I’ve felt a little alone through this, because I didn’t really think he was on board with everything. It felt to me like he didn’t really want a baby as much as I did. Well, he told me that he’s been keeping a lot of things inside, because he feels like he needs to be the strong one. So we talked things all out, and basically came to some conclusions about what we’re going to do… so, our plan right now will go something like this: like I said, we are going to go ahead and do clomid now – try it for a couple of months, and if there’s still no baby, we’re going to put things on hold until he’s done with school. He’s going to be switching to part-time at work starting in September, so there just won’t be any extra money to be able to pursue things until he’s done in May. Then, when he’s done with school, we may try the clomid again if I do ovulate with it but don’t get pg this time around, and then possibly look into some other options – maybe IUI… but most likely that will be as far as we will go. We really don’t want to pour too much money into IF treatments when we could be using the money to save for an adoption – which we know FOR SURE we want to do anyway. It ultimately comes down to, as so many other couples have said before, having a family, not just a pregnancy (as much as I would love that!).
I just have to say that Troy is SO PERFECT for me – he just gives me a different perspective on things that eventually I may have seen on my own, but he just helps me get there faster! He was telling me that part of the reason he’s having a hard time with this is because he feels like we’re not trusting God to give us the BEST thing for us right now. And as much as I’ve always said that I believe that God only gives us what is best, it was just totally eye opening for me to think about it in this situation. It was a hard realization to make, but it was SO GOOD to make. It is so amazing to remember that God really DOES do what is best for me – in every situation, and He knows that there IS a reason we’re not pg yet. If we had gotten pregnant last summer right away, it would not have been best for us. I don’t see the big picture, but I do know for sure that Troy would not be finishing school this year if we had a baby. He wouldn’t be able to work part-time this year, and we would most likely be looking at 2 more years of school for him, among other things. So there are definitely things that I CAN see good about it. It’s hard to admit, when I’ve got my mind made up that we should have been able to have a baby right away when we wanted to, but God knows that we weren’t ready yet. As WONDERFUL as a baby would be, there are ways that a baby will limit what you can do. The last 3 years have been awesome ones, with just my husband and I getting to know each other better than we did before, and I am thankful for that.
I don’t want to sound like one of those blissfully naive “just-started-trying-to-conceive, the-whole-world-is-rainbows-and-babydust” girls, because I realize that although we’ve already been “trying” for a year, really, we’ve just begun this journey, and there may still be a long, hard road ahead of us, and the outcome may not be exactly what I want it to be. But I’m trying to be thankful for the situation just as it is – because I KNOW that God is doing what is best for me – and I truly believe that. I just hope and pray that I can keep a good attitude through everything. I know that it is okay to grieve, to get down, to have bad days, but ultimately I need to remember that He’s not going to let anything into our lives that we can’t handle.

“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.” –Psalm 139:17-18