Family Vacation 2013

When Eric took me to the Taylor Swift concert, he had to skip his board reviews. YES, they were the same night!! So the next best option was heading over to St. Louis at the end of August so he could get his review at the chiropractic school there. I thought it would be a perfect time to take a family vacation and hit up a few states with Kinsey. 

Our first stop was Nauvoo, Illinois to check out the church history sites. I've wanted to do this ever since we moved here because we're so close (closer than Utah anyway)! We made a pitstop at an Amish store because I have this weird thing about seeing Amish people in real life, and yes, it was so worth it just to see them driving on wagons instead of in cars. And those beards!! LOVE IT. 

We dedicated Tuesday for driving and then arrived at the Nauvoo Visitors' Center on Wednesday morning. 

I love that Kinsey is looking up at Jesus!

We passed up the hour long wagon ride and chose to go on a 5 minute oxen ride. Man, am I glad we made that decision!! It was almost 100 degrees the entire week. 

 Also, Kinsey was really freaked out by the oxen and especially did not like how BUMPY the ride was. I was excited to see my first ox :) I can only imagine how an hour long carriage ride would have faired with this little one. 

Scared baby needed her mama for comfort.

Next up was the Nauvoo Family Living Center to learn how the pioneers survived back in the day. The missionaries LOVED being able to talk to us. Just imagine how dull their days are after the busy summer season ends and few people come to see the sites. 

She was a little scared at first, but much happier since the sheep was fake.

Learning how to make candles. 

 My favorite part of all of Nauvoo (we didn't see everything due to it being extremely hot and us only having one day) was making rope. I just liked being able to do something with my hands.

Twisting the rope.

Daddy's little helper.

Cutting off the finished product for us to take home.

 The missionary told us an analogy of the rope and our family. He mentioned the two ends were the parents and the three loops the rope made were each of our children. I thought it was funny because I was literally carrying our three kids at the time, but then I got home and noticed there were actually FOUR loops. I guess one more is in our future...

We went to the Scovil Bakery next. It's just a tiny little building but my friends told me they give out free cookies. Of course I'm not passing that up!!

 Eric's favorite part of Nauvoo was the Jonathon Browning Home and Gun Shop. No, I think it's safe to say I wasn't aware Browning was a brand of gun, nor did I know THE Browning was LDS. But Eric got a kick out of it!

Look at those guns!

 The Browning guns were engraved with "Holiness to the Lord our Preservation."

 This was a very cool site in the Browning home backyard. They lost and buried their child in the little fenced area to the right and you can also see the Nauvoo temple in the same view. It's awesome because through temples families can be sealed together forever!

Luckily almost all the buildings were air conditioned. Yet, walking in the sun wore us out! Can you tell?

 Kinsey woke up at the Blacksmith Shop (not air conditioned might I add) to us getting our "prairie diamond" rings!

Inside the shop ready to jump in a pool of ice.

At this point we were just too hot to continue on. We plan on taking our kids back one day so we'll eventually see the rest of the sites. We drove off without taking pics of the temple, so we turned around and ventured back into the heat for a few more minutes. 

Nauvoo LDS Temple

After resting up for the evening, we drove to Carthage, Illinois on Thursday morning to see the Carthage Jail. This may have been my very favorite stop of the trip. I loved learning about Joseph Smith and all he went through in the jail. It really puts things into perspective. I'm grateful I was not born in that lifetime!

In front of Carthage Jail.

 That is an original bullet hole from the day of the martyr.

The top window is where Joseph Smith climbed out toward the mob to try to save the rest of the men inside. And of course our cute Kinsey :)

 She was such a trooper!! Having people to smile at didn't hurt either!

After Carthage we headed south to St. Louis for Eric to attend board reviews. On Friday before heading home, we went to the St. Louis Zoo.

Our first stop at the zoo was the sea lion show. Kinsey was pretty impressed for about 5 seconds...

And then she thought, "Let's go walking, Daddy!" This was about the time she perfected her walking (6 days after her birthday).

 I wouldn't recommend paying to see this show if you're at the St. Louis Zoo. It was kind of lame.

With Kinsey she can only see the animals that are close because she doesn't understand if you say, "There is a monkey on a branch way over there." Luckily, this guy was on board.

She loves monkeys...and gorillas...or is it a chimp!?

Baby and Daddy

 Although the bird building was a little stinky, Kinsey was able to see lots of birds!

And did I mention it was about 100 degrees out? Yeah, we didn't do much more than that at the zoo because we were HOOOOOTTTTT!! But we had a good vacation and loved being together as a family every second of every day.

Kinsey AND twins?!!!

Let me start off by saying: I never felt like Eric and I would never have biological children; I just didn't know when it would happen. A year ago when we started our adoption journey we still had 2 frozen embryos just waiting to be used. I was completely done with our doctor, and whether I chose to move forward with more fertility treatments or not, I wanted a fresh start. Last December we underwent a frozen embryo transfer that I knew in my heart wouldn't work; and it didn't. 

At that point I was 100% invested in adoption and really excited for it. I was ready to take a break from fertility treatments for years (or at least until we found our first baby through adoption). But the funny thing about life is things never go the way you expect. Around that same time a friend of mine told me about how much she loved her fertility doctor and how she would change medications or dosages to customize the treatment to each individual (rather than the same old thing that I was getting from my previous doctor). I'm a firm believer that people are sent into our lives for a reason and when my friend gave me the name of her doctor, I couldn't ignore what I was feeling. I didn't feel ready to undergo more treatments nor did I want to, but a few weeks later I decided to have a consult with the new doctor and see what she said.

I believe my consult took place late January or early February. The doctor told me that I was one of the most difficult cases she had ever seen. Because I was 24 years old and completely healthy, there should have been no reason for me to not get pregnant (or in this case, stay pregnant). Apparently my estrogen levels were so high that I could have been written about in a medical journal. I was comforted by the thought that, "Hey, if I'm not going to have kids then at least I'm over-achieving and am a difficult case." On the other hand, it sucks being known as a tough case because then there are no guarantees IVF will EVER work. The doctor wanted to meet with a board of other physicians, so I came back a few weeks later to hear what was discussed. At that appointment my doctor believed I was so hyper-stimulated during my first egg retrieval that all of my eggs were of poor quality (we retrieved 43 eggs, 15 of which were converted to embryos and frozen, all of which resulted in unsuccessful pregnancies after 5 frozen embryo transfers). She thought the next important factor was getting me a fresh embryo transfer because the odds of pregnancy are better than frozen embryo transfers (during my first egg retrieval I was so hyper-stimulated that I had to go to the hospital for a few days and was therefore unable to have a fresh embryo transfer). This still left us at the same old crossroad: Do we spend $10,000+ at the chance of getting pregnant or do we wait for a baby through adoption? 

As mentioned in Our Adoption Story - Part 1, I was pretty frustrated after hearing from 2 birth moms in February. Eric kept mentioning trying IVF again but I wasn't sure I wanted to invest in it, both financially and emotionally, so soon. Oh how the tables had turned. Normally I was the one pushing for every treatment trying to knock them out as fast as possible. Eric didn't feel like he had the right to choose because it wasn't his body. This was hard on me because I felt like all the weight of every decision was on my shoulders. I decided that I needed to respect his feeling to try again, and I called up the doctor's office in March to schedule an IVF cycle. We planned for a June egg retrieval because we needed some time to secure our funds. I was scared to death of having my second egg retrieval because I didn't want to end up in the hospital again, but even more, my doctor said if I got really sick again then this would be the last time I could have an egg retrieval. Talk about a lot of pressure. It felt like this would be my last chance at trying to get pregnant. 

I was already on birth control for weeks to prep my eggs for a retrieval, and I received my IVF schedule on May 13th (which told me all the important dates and when to take medication). That next day is when we heard about Kinsey for the first time. I was freaking out trying to decide if we should do IVF still or if we should pursue the adoption opportunity. I wasn't getting anywhere with my decision. After talking to Eric the evening of the 14th it just sort of hit us--why do we have to decide one path? As we'd experienced 5 times already, there are no guarantees with IVF. There are also no guarantees with adoption because each party can change their mind at any time. Plus, I had tried figuring out God's plan for us countless times and I just had no idea what was meant for us. By choosing both, this put the outcome completely in God's hands, and I knew whatever happened in the end would be the best for us.

I had my egg retrieval in June as planned and definitely did not get as sick as the first time. I did get an IV once just to be proactive (there was no way Eric was going to chance me almost dying from dehydration again). I was still pretty miserable for an entire week. Eric told me that this was the last time he wanted me doing egg retrievals, and I agree. I don't want to risk anything happening to me, especially now that we would be adopting a child. Anyway, I started feeling pretty good about a day or two before the scheduled embryo transfer so we were able to move forward with a fresh transfer, which was our goal. 

I'm pretty entertaining on pain meds. Very giggly.

On June 26th, at 3 weeks and 6 days, I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive!! I admit, I kind of expected it to be positive because in my experience it happens more often than not. Also, we kind of laughed about how we would get pregnant if we adopted Kinsey but probably wouldn't get pregnant if we chose not to adopt her. On July 1st I went in for my first blood test to confirm that I was pregnant and test my HCG levels. HCG levels are supposed to double every 48 hours to indicate a good pregnancy and that's exactly what mine did. A good indication for multiples (though not scientifically backed) is when HCG levels triple or quadruple in this time period. Mine only doubled, so I was 100% confident that there was just one baby in there. Still, at this point we didn't know if I would still be pregnant a few weeks down the road because I had always miscarried around 5 to 6 weeks. 

Second test I took a couple days later.

 As you've read in Our Adoption Story - Part 2, we adopted Kinsey on July 5th (only 5 weeks 1 day pregnant) still not knowing if I would miscarry in a week or two. Every time I went to the bathroom I would fearfully look in the toilet hoping there wouldn't be blood. Any sort of cramping made me nervous for hours. As the weeks went on and I didn't bleed, I became hopeful that maybe it would all work out. We had our first sonogram on July 17th (6 weeks 6 days pregnant) and I was still so scared there wouldn't be a heartbeat. To our surprise, we got more than we bargained for. Here's the video we sent our families at 8 weeks:

So there you have it!! Soon enough we'll be a family of 5 (all in 8 months!!). I haven't had any bleeding so far, but I've still been a little nervous about losing a baby. Hearing the heartbeats again this week helped me feel more at peace. Also, if you're doing the math, my official due date is March 6th but my OB thinks I'll give birth early February so that's why we announced it for that month. I pray that my body holds out that long so these little babies can grow!! After getting over the shock of a successful twin pregnancy that lasted WEEKS, we are so so so excited to be adding to our family. Kinsey is going to be a great big sister and we're grateful that she'll have siblings close in age to play with. And hey, I'm not too worried about the newborn stage with twins because I have nothing to compare it to. Either way it's going to be hard, but so worth it. We couldn't be happier about how this all turned out because we found our baby girl who we love more than anything in the world!!

Kinsey's 1st Birthday Party

I can't believe my baby girl is 1 year old! I like to joke that this past year has really flown by ;) We had so many family members in town on August 24th that we decided to throw Kinsey a family birthday party. As I've mentioned before, we went the pool party route since she's been so obsessed with swimming lately. Kinsey LOVED her party!! The only time she got fussy was halfway through opening presents because she was tired of it. But hey, I think too many presents is a good problem to have. 

Oh yeah, she also wasn't happy about us setting her on a chair while we set up the tables. She loves being held!

Kinsey with cousin Savannah

We got all of our ideas from Pinterest! Not too shabby for a girl like me who doesn't plan parties EVER. I guess I will have to keep up my Pinteresting for the years to come.

Homemade net from Eric

The beautiful Octopus dip. I think it's adorable. 

Crabwiches aka chicken salad sandwiches to the left and the fish cupcakes!

I don't know about you, but I think the labels really add. Yup, I'm tooting my own horn. 

Family pic since we hardly have any!

Did I ever mention Kinsey gets a big kick out of balloons?

Swimming with the birthday girl!

She really likes balls too.

We each held an arm so she didn't touch the flame. I've taught her how to blow feathers but she couldn't quite get the candle.

She needed a little assistance at first...

but once she tasted that frosting, the cupcake was gone in seconds (maybe minutes but she seriously downed the whole thing and reached for a second).

Our little "joker" girl. 

And, of course, the party wouldn't have been the same without the wonderful family who drove and flew out to be with us on Kinsey's big day.

Wendy and Savannah

Audrey and Zach

Paparazzi grandparents

And proud grandparent showing off pics (probably of Kinsey) to Julie

Stephanie, Curtis, Arielle, and the very top of Tanner's head

And then Holly and Phil

Eric and I got Kinsey this bike that makes motorcycle noises and plays music when she pushes it. She was a little afraid of it at first but pushes it on her own now.

The paper is the best part to a one year old.

She's pretty good at opening presents which makes us excited for Christmas. 

Some toys were accepted better than others... 

Excited girl

but all of them will go to great use.  Thank you for everyone who sacrificed your time to share this special day with our baby!!

Kinsey at 12 Months

Eric and I didn't even realize how much Kinsey has grown until one day we looked at her walking under our kitchen table and noticed, "Her head reaches the table!" Now looking back at pictures she looked like a baby, but now she is a little girl. She hasn't gained any weight since her 9 month check-up  aka Kinsey has lost some of her thunder thighs and is slimming out all around. 

She is still VERY happy (when she's not teething) and has not lost her clinginess to Mommy. But each day we notice her bond with Daddy growing stronger. Here are some things to note about our baby girl now that she's 1 YEAR OLD!

 She likes playing at the park. You can't keep her still. 

Playing the fake drums. 

 She loves loves LOVES the pool!

 Kinsey will even occasionally hold her bottle now -- SHOCKER. We're working on weaning her off and are down from 4 to 2 bottles of formula a day. 

 This little toddler likes to sneak up the stairs when we're not looking so it was time to put up the baby gate. 

 Kinsey loves to eat paper of any size and color. Daddy taught her how to hand it to him after she bites off a piece so she doesn't swallow it. 

 Kinsey's getting more used to adjustments so Eric will be able to adjust her in the clinic next trimester. 

 Over the past month she started doing this constantly. I think it means a combination of her pointing something out and wanting to grab it. 

Kinsey loves her books, especially the ones where she can open up flaps.

Like most babies, Kinsey loves smiling at herself in the mirror. It's a daily routine around here.

She's very helpful--even helping me play the guitar.

Kinsey is slowly getting accustomed to being around other kids. Here she met her cousin Savannah for the first time!! We're working on the whole "sharing toys" thing...

And a few more cute faces of Kinsey:

At the doctor's office.

 

 And by the way, her walking is slowly improving every day. As of her birthday she would still crawl quite a bit, but she made it across an entire room a few times while walking. Within a week of her birthday Kinsey learned how to stand up without touching anything and has since been walking nonstop. Oh and after she discovered her belly button she now enjoys pulling up Mommy and Daddy's shirts to see our tummies.