prebaby photo shoot

On Saturday, Greg and I spent the morning having our portraits taken by a good friend here in Ohio. We have not had our pictures taken since our engagement photos in 2000. It was a blast! Jackie did an amazing job and we are thrilled beyond belief. Now comes the hard part of choosing! You can view some of them here or on her blog A Journey at the left of this page. Her professional website is http://www.jacquelynnbuck.com/. Check it out!!Hope you all enjoy!

a wish

Today I received a surprise package in the mail from Alisha. Inside was a beautiful card that said, " make a wish". She wrote inside that she had her mom make us this baby blanket in unisex because we don't know what awaits us. Alisha wanted us to have something tangible to know that our long awaited wish will soon be answered! So with tears running down my face, I quickly dialed to thank her. This package today reminds me how far I have come. Two years ago, I packed up all the baby items we had received and haven't been able to look at them again. Today, I am able to hang this blanket over the chair in the office (nursery) and look at it with hope. I absolutely love it, Alisha! Wish I could give you a hug in person! Thank you so much!

Remembrance Day

I feel horrible that I forgot to post yesterday about the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day on October 15th. I want all my friends that share this day with me, to know that I always think about you and your babies. If you know someone else in your life that has lost a child, let them know that you haven't forgotten. It will mean more than you will ever know.

we are fireproof!

I didn't write at all last week, but we did have a few accomplishments. On Thursday we met our social worker. It was a great meeting. We both really like her and feel very comfortable. I am not one bit nervous about her coming to the house and doing our interviews. I think it will be fine. We scheduled that visit for the 19th and then we will have one more meeting with her to sign off and we are done! Of course, we have to wait until Greg gets back in November to finish up, but that is ok. The social worker said we will be definitely finished by Thanksgiving! Our goal was to be all done by the first of the year, so we are ahead of schedule. This weekend we baby proofed the house and made sure all the outlets were covered, cabinets locked and the fire extinguisher handy! The fire inspection was today and we passed with flying colors!

our time

Let me just preface by saying these are my thoughts. I started this blog so I would have an outlet to release my feelings about all this infertility crap. It has been a year since Greg deployed. The years seem to be clicking by and we still do not have a child. The Fall is a very hard time for us even though it is our favorite time of year. October reminds us of loosing our baby and then the holidays just bring another reminder of being just the 2 of us. Lately, I have had the "last man standing" blues. Don't get me wrong, we are both so happy to be on a new journey, but it is still a journey. It still has its ups and downs like IF. It still has its "unfairness" and disappointments. My body might not be examined but now it is our life, our finances, our home etc. I feel like we are smack dab right in the middle of treatments again. It just always feels like we are the only ones without a child. It is still hard for me to be surrounded by children. It's hard for me to walk into Target and see families picking out their Halloween costumes. I think maybe the 7 hours with kids at school is enough for me. We started this 5 years ago , we are 33 years old and still nothing.

I realized this weekend..you know what? This is our time. This is our time to be couple, hang out with other couples, do what we want before a baby comes. Unlike being pregnant, we don't have 9 months to prepare ourselves, enjoy a pregnancy as husband and wife and know exactly when the baby should arrive. Who knows when our baby will come? It could be next month. I can't let myself feel bad for being selfish right now. I have spent the past years living in a fog. Now I am going to enjoy my husband before he leaves again (say your prayers it could be sooner than later) and enjoy this time as Greg and Julie. Hopefully when our child comes, we won't have any regrets for the time we spent before becoming parents.

yippee!

Our fingerprints cleared!!! Now if everything could go that fast! Is this sad that I am excited about background clearances not taking 30 days? The goal this weekend is to have all forms notarized, faxed mailed off and the fire inspection scheduled. It's been a pretty emotional past few days, but I will post my thoughts on that another time! Let's just say this perked me up a little!