All the Sun For You

A mom, two boys, a husband, and a whole lot of adventure!

Category Archives: Infertility


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Resolution Coming in 2 Weeks

I took a big step today and made an appointment with our RE for March 13th to discuss when to start the process on Baby #2.  I meant to call back in January to set this appointment up for March, but I kept putting it off for some reason.  I don’t really know the reason – I just know that I wasn’t ready to commit to a discussion on the topic.

My dilemma is this – I’m still nursing M.  I only planned to nurse him for 6 months, but it’s gone so well (not to mention that I truly enjoy it!) that I just kept doing it.  I’ve been pumping all along because I figured I’d need to stop prior to his first birthday to do all the pre-testing for an FET if we wanted to space the kids two years apart.  So I have a deep freezer full of breast milk for when I stop nursing M.  The problem is that I don’t want to stop nursing him.  I enjoy it.  I love that I’m the only one who can provide this for him and that it affords me 4-6 long snuggles a day with my favorite little guy.  I will stop when he’s a year old because I want him to have the independence to be able to go on play dates and drink from sippy cups (and keep on playing while doing so) versus cozying up to dear old Mom when he’s thirsty or hungry.  I am emotionally ready to stop at one year.  I’m not emotionally ready to stop prior to one year.

I wasn’t too concerned about this because I figured our RE would want me to stop nursing for, say, one month before testing and then moving onto a cycle.  Stopping at one year would then put a cycle in August and that would be that – if it worked, the kids would be 22-23 months apart which would be great.  However, I saw on someone’s blog last night that their RE won’t do the testing until she’s been done nursing for 1-3 months.  That is what gave me pause.  That is what has me upset because if that’s the case, if I quit nursing at the end of June when M is 12 months old, I wouldn’t be able to test until he’s 13-15 months old and then cycle probably a month later (so between him being 14 and 16 months old).

All of this has then led me to think about child spacing and the fact that IF-ers don’t really have the opportunity to plan such things.  When you require IVF (or an FET), you only get 3, maybe 4, chances at conceiving in a given year.  If we cycled in August (which is my current plan) and it worked, then the kids would be 23 months apart.   Now, I’m no newbie to IVF so I don’t expect it to work the first time.  Then, you get pushed out to late November, which would put the kids 26 months apart (which would be good).  If that didn’t work, then we’d push out to March which would put them 29/30 months apart, and so on, and so on.  Very quickly, your child spacing plans could go to crap and you could easily end up with kids spaced way further apart than you had hoped.  Or – maybe it would work the first time and the rest would be history.

I just don’t know what to do.  This is why we’re meeting with our wonderful RE on the 13th.  I’m actually excited to see him – I like him a lot!

Until then, I’m just going to keep on nursing M and enjoying every minute of it (even the minutes that occur in the middle of the night because he’s not the best sleeper!).


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Welcome Back, My Friend!

I registered for a half marathon in Duluth (the much-loved “Grandma’s Marathon”) and found out today that I didn’t get in.  They run it as a random lottery and there were 8,200 registrants for 6,300 spots.  I’m disappointed.  I ran this half two years ago in 2010 when we were between cycles.  It was my sanity during such a crazy time – running was the one thing in my life that I had control over.  I didn’t run while we were cycling because – well – I don’t really know.  I know there was my unfounded concern about my ovaries getting all twisted up because they were the size of grapefruits (because I was quite the little hen) and quite honestly – I think I was just plain depressed.  No – I know I was just plain depressed.  But the bottom line is that when I did run, those runs were the happiest moments of my days, weeks, and months.  Running the half at Grandma’s gave me something to focus on (besides getting pregnant) – something to train for – SOMETHING TO CONTROL – and it made me HAPPY.

This year, I clearly do not have control over getting into the best half marathon in the Midwest.  This pains me just a little  😉

This all reminds me of the most important thing I learned from our IF struggle.  I am a control freak (no – I did not learn that while dealing with IF.  I already knew that!).  I.must.control.EVERYTHING.  I very vividly remember our wonderful RE talking to us from behind his desk, saying, “Courtney, I get the feeling that you need to be in control.  You’re not in control here.”  Whoa!  I knew he was right, but I was a little thrown off by this.  No one had ever said that to me before about something so important, or at least that I could remember.  And honestly, when he said that, I thought to myself, “well, I’m going to control what I can.”

I need a plan for everything.  I need a road-map.  I kept asking our RE, “but what if this cycle doesn’t work – what then?  I need to know what the plan is.”  He was very obliging to my craziness and did work out a very, very detailed plan for us and made promises I held him to after our FET cycle didn’t work (and thank goodness I did because that plan then led to our baby boy!).  Nothing we hoped would work worked – and this is hard for a controlling person to accept.  If I put my mind to something, and I KNOW I can do it, then I succeed.  It’s that simple.  I don’t put my mind to things I know I can’t be successful at because I think that’s a waste of my time.  Well – I thought I would be successful at getting pregnant – so I put my mind to it.  And I failed.  Time and time again – I failed.

All of those failures made me a better person – a less controlling person.  I learned very quickly to accept the fact that I can’t control everything in my life, no matter how hard I try.  I apply this to my everyday life, and this is a huge development (improvement) for me.  I went from pretty much controlling everything I possibly could, to not even having a desire to control the types of things I used to crave control of.

So today when I got rejected by Grandma’s, I let it roll off my back.  I mean – I did know there was a chance I wouldn’t get in and that it would have nothing to do with how hard I tried.  I didn’t even pre-book a hotel room like I did back in 2010 because I figured I probably wouldn’t get in since I’d been successful (lucky) already once before.  The odds, like IVF, were in my favor, but not strongly in my favor.  I accepted that and just hoped and waited.  I even found another half marathon in MSP to run just in case I didn’t get into Grandma’s.  I had a backup plan because I knew I had no control over my primary plan.  This type of behavior would not have occurred prior to my IF struggle.

Today, I registered for the MSP half marathon and I’m really excited about it!  It won’t be Grandma’s, but it will be fun and who knows, it may be better!  The one problem is that it’s two weeks before Grandma’s, so I’m already behind on my training.  I have some work to do – and it starts tomorrow.

Ahhhhh…. good old control…. welcome back, my friend!  Please keep your distance unless it has to do with my running schedule!


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The Most Positive Time of the Year

It’s pre-spring – not quite spring, but definitely moving out of winter.  Living in Iowa, you usually brace yourself for an awful winter full of cold, wind, and snow.  This year has been different – it’s been warm, it’s been sunny, and it’s not been snowy.  I usually find my mind wandering to happy spring planning around early March, but given our mild (and I dare say, pleasant!) winter, I couldn’t help but start my spring planning in early February when I was out walking with my son in 65 degree temps.

This is the most hopeful time of the year for me.  I am a gal who laments the winter months because I don’t like darkness.  I crave sunshine and I need bright lights on wherever I go.  We burn through a lot of light bulbs at our house during the winter months.  It can be 0 degrees outside, but if it’s sunny, I’m a happy gal!  When the winter months show signs of fading away, I start planning – and I plan big!  I think of all the things I’m going to do during the spring, summer, and fall months.  I plan my race schedule, I plan our weekend trips, I plan a big vacation, and I plan outdoor activities for my family.  I’m a planner – and pre-spring is my busiest and most hopeful time of year!

My family used to consist of just my husband and me.  We were two peas in a pod who were extremely physically active.  We ran countless races together, did adventure races together as a co-ed team (and won one!), hiked, traveled, etc.  All of it, we did together.  Then we decided to have a baby.  For a couple who persevered at everything we tried, the family building process was hard on us.  It didn’t work.  We fought through a couple of years of infertility and after 2 IUI’s (both BFN’s), an IVF cycle (BFN), a FET cycle (very early miscarriage), and another fresh IVF cycle, we were finally pregnant.  Whew!  Two years and 3 months of hard, emotional work paid off and we were on our way – and we were blessed with an easy pregnancy and an even easier baby boy.  So now?  Now I plan activities for three!

I love this time of year, and I love it even more now that we have a baby.  My son, M, is 8 months old and is the happiest baby I’ve ever known.  Wherever he goes, he’s happy and engaging everyone around him.  He does not fuss and his attention is easily diverted if he gets a little squirmy.  He goes easily to strangers and loves to interact with everyone.  He’s EASY – and he’s FUN!  And now I’m planning our life and activities around him, and I LOVE it!  I get to plan activities for our family that involve other kids, the outdoors, and laughter!

Let the planning begin!