Light the Lights - Downtown Littleton

Mike and I have made a new tradition to kick off the Christmas season. Downtown Littleton does a annual Christmas candle light tradition of Santa coming down main street and as he comes down the lights on the trees light up. While we wait for him to come down the street children sing Christmas carols to get everyone in the mood to celebrate. Then once Santa arrives at the end of the street he calls our a child's name, that child gets to pull the large candy cane and light up the huge tree full of Christmas lights. It's really fun to sing the Christmas carols and see the excitement in all the children's' faces. Kayla didn't last very long and it was cold she was all bundled up in her stroller. But although the wind picked up and it got pretty chilly was stuck around for the tree and it was beautiful. Now we are ready to put up our own Christmas tree at home. :)

Downtown Littleton - Trick or Treat Street

Today we took Kayla out for her first trick or treat street in Downtown Littleton. We would just go into the shops and get free candy. Plus I had to show off my adorable little piglet. Kayla was a pig this year a wonderful costume borrowed from my sister in-law's, sister in-law Courtney who lives in Kentucky. Her daughter Madi was a pig last year and the costume was so cute I asked if I could borrow it. Kayla did great but was shy and wouldn't ever actually take the candy from the bowl. We had a wonderful time with the family as Mike, Mom, Dad and Adam all joined us.

My Halloween Piglet

Decorating Pumpkins

Kayla got to decorate her own pumpkin, but not only was this the first time she painted a pumpkin it's the first time she touched paint. Kayla enjoyed tasting the paint a lot more than painting the actual pumpkin and ended up pretty colorful herself.

Pumpkin Fest @ Chatfield Botanic Gardens

We wanted to get out and about this weekend so Mom, Mike, Kayla and my nephews Aaron and Jason all went to Pumpkin Fest the Botanic Gardens at Chatfield. They had a great kids area where they could enjoy bounce houses, climbing wall, race cars and many more. Then we got to get lost in a corn maze, it was a great day of fun to enjoy with some family.

Kayla's First Hike

It's my birthday and I told Mike that I wanted to get out of the house and we are both off the last week of September. So we decided to head up to the mountains and get away for a while. We went up to Guanella Pass with Kayla, this was her first official trip with mom and dad. It was a wonderful day, we were able to do a hike with Kayla thanks to Morgan and Abby's mom Kayce who let us borrow their kids hiking backpack. Mike had Kayla on his back and just loved it, he was so excited to be hiking with his daughter on his back. We hope we can do many more in the future.

Race for the Cure 2011

Another year to celebrate and remember those who are still fighting cancer and those we have lost to cancer. But also to take joy in those who have survived and get to walk with us today.

Today we walk for all but mostly in memory of my mother in-law Margie Fye, we miss you.

Results

Today is the day we find out if we are pregnant. I went in to do a blood draw at 9am this morning and we will get results around 3 or 4pm. The rest of the day I keep thinking I was feeling something. I was so nervous, Mike got back from golf, it was nap time for the kids and we were anxiously waiting our results. At almost 3:30pm we received the call I could tell right away by the tone of Lisa's voice...the results were negative. So sad, I had some strange feelings that I might not be pregnant because I never hyper-stimulated like I had with Kayla but I still felt it was a possibility. It's just so hard to have to put so much money into this process and have the results be negative. Rough day.

IUI

So we went in at 10:30 this morning for Mike's portion of the IUI I went in as well to save on gas and not have to bring two cars. We went to 7-11 I got a slurpee and some pretzels. Then we walked around the park across from the hospital before we went in at 12:45 for the IUI. It took awhile for them to get the tube in there straight because my uterus was alittle curved. But when looking at an ultrasound while doing the procedure they were able to get the tube up to finish the job. All in God's hands now. :) We will pray for what ever the Lord wants to provide for us.

Day 12 con't

I received a call back today with my blood results. All my levels are high and it's sounds like I am ready for the trigger shot. I will not do a follistim shot tonight but instead I have to set my alarm for 1:15am and give myself the trigger shot to release the hopeful egg inside my mature follicle. I have to do the trigger shot at 1:15am because they like to do IUI 36 hours after the trigger, and the only time they could get us in for the IUI was at 10:30am for Mike and 12:45pm for me. So I will be up at 1:15am for a good shot in the belly. ;)

Thank you Lord for the one mature follicle. Now we pray for a good IUI and implantation!

IUI will be on Monday.

Day 12

Good news! Yesterday I received a call from Dr. Becker she told me all my blood results came back just where they needed to be. That included thyroid which I was low on with Kayla's infertility. But all is well even when told that most women in Colorado have low vitamin D mine came back at a good level so very exciting.

But today was my next ultrasound and I was so nervous going in just praying the one follicle on the left side would have grown but the other smaller ones had not caught up. My appointment was at 9am I got in right away nurse went to the left side first and there it was!! Just one good mature follicle measuring 19mm the next closest was almost 10mm which isn't considered mature, so very exciting news. So now I wait for the phone call to tell us when I should take my trigger shot to release the egg and when our IUI would be, either Monday or Tuesday next week.

Keeping our prayers up. :)

Day 10 con't

Just received a call from CCRM, I had blood drawn today to check my levels. Progesterone, Estrogen, all the hormones that need to be high and plentiful to achieve a pregnancy. My levels were good but not high, so they increased my injection dosage to 150 IU's instead of my regular 75 IU's, didn't expect that. So next appointment is Saturday at 9am, I will have another ultrasound and another blood draw as well now. Pray. :)

Day 10

So today I had an ultrasound to check the growth of possible follicles, follicles grow a lot quicker when on injections. I was alittle nervous about the ultrasound today, I ultimately decided to go forward with injections since Dr. Minjarez was nervous about multiples. But so far so good, with ultrasound results today I had three follicles on the left but one taking charge. The biggest was 12mm, the other two were 8mm and 6mm. On the right side I had four one was 8mm the biggest the other three 6mm, 6mm and 5mm. What this means is we have one very good mature follicle that we hope it the one that will release an egg. The others do have a chance of catching up but may not as well. So I am happy with the one, I will continue injections tonight and tomorrow night then go in for another ultrasound on Saturday to see if the follicles are continuing to grow and see if the others are catching up or not. So if they grow as most usual follicles do we could be scheduling the IUI on Monday this next week 8/15.
We are still praying that the other smaller follicles don't catch up because if I have more then three mature follicles in my next ultrasound Dr. Minjarez will not go forward with the IUI. So we just pray that the biggest one on the left will continue to do it's thing and the others will not catch up quick enough to effect my over all numbers. So I will let you know who Saturday goes. :)

Day 7

Crazy day today. On Friday I had called Lisa at CCRM to ask why the injections were not a part of my fertility plan. Lisa wasn't in so the other lady told me maybe it was a mistake and that Lisa would call me on Monday. So this morning Lisa called and told me that the plan was not to include injections with this cycle. I was confused, Letrozole is basically the equivalent to clomid. Mike and I tried Clomid for a full year and we had no luck. So I really didn't understand why Letrozole was our only option, I talked to Mike about it and he said to write down some questions and call Lisa back. So that is what I did, I asked her why just letrozole and what's the difference in it compared to Clomid. There wasn't a big difference in the two but Clomid thickens the cervical mucus and letrozole does not, so not much. She said Dr. Minjarez was nervous about having me do the injections because there is a higher chance of multiples. But the 10% chance of multiples with injections are the same as Clomid so I asked if we could still do the injections. Dr. Minjarez is not just nervous about multiples and a difficult pregnancy but I have an incompetent cervix and twins or more could cause miscarriage, bedrest or a higher chance of premature labor again. So we are taking the risk, we could have risked taking just letrozole and having one possible follicle to maybe implant or we are chancing having too many follicles in which Dr. Minjarez will not let us go through with an IUI. If we have more than three mature follicles we will have to end this cycle and try again another time. This is difficult because this process cost us close to $1000 and we don't have that kind of money just lying around. So we pray that it works, we pray that will not have more then three follicles, and we pray that if this works we will have a successful full term delivery.
I then later went to see Dr. Becker my Ob for my annual and she always makes me feel so much better. We talked about cerclages, she said in my situation if I become pregnant she would plan to put in a cerclage at 12 weeks. I think this is great because it's right before the second trimester and we should not have the risk of an early baby. I would be closely monitored and make sure the cerclage kept it's hold until it would be taken out at 36 weeks. I talked about Dr. Minjarez and she being worried about twins, Becker said if you get pregnant with more it will be a blessing we will put in a better cerclage and put it in even earlier if needed. She just said that if twins happen for me I should prepare myself for many many doctors appointments. She just put me at ease that if the scary happens we can still make things alright.
So after a long day a confusion and trying to figure out God's plan all on our own. (which doesn't work) I did my first injection. So I will just pray for the best, I know God will provide what we need so I will just leave it at that.

Day 3

Today is the first day on letrozole, I got a little confused when the prescription was for letrozole instead of femara which is what I was on with Kayla. But I looked it up and realized it's the same thing but the generic version. So this medication will help my body create some mature follicles out the the resting follicles chilling out in my ovaries. Hope it works well. :)

Started Period

Alright well we have officially started, after being on provera for ten days I started my period today which was three days later instead of two which is what day I started on the last two times I was on provera. So I got a little nervous at first thinking I might not start my period at all for some odd reason, I wasn't cramping, breaking out or any of my normal symptoms. But thankfully I started, I called Lisa, Dr. Minjarez assistant and have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow to check my ovaries and make sure I have no cysts on my ovary's that would prevent us from going on with the next step.

Trying for baby # two.

Kayla is 13 months old now and almost walking. It's true what all the parents say, "they grow up to fast." After trying on our own for the last 9 months Mike and I will be going through another fertility round to try for baby # two. I hope it works on the first try like it did for Kayla. This is an expensive process and we have to pay it all out of pocket. So back to the beginning, I haven't had a period since May 9th that was started with Provera thanks to the lovely PCOS. So I will start Metformin again as well as Provera to get this period going. Preparing my self for more hormones, shots and discomfort....yeah....:)

Point

Kayla started pointing at things today. Because she has the cutest hands and littlest fingers you know it's just the cutest thing you've ever seen.

Snowmass for our 6 year anniversary.

Well Mike and I finally made it out for our anniversary. Last year was our 5th year anniversary and the plan was a Yellowstone Trip, since Mike had never gone. But Kayla had other plans coming early and we shared our anniversary with her in the NICU instead. So this year we wanted to do something special. We went up to Snowmass and stayed in a hotel (half price, because they were off season) that was only a bus trip away from Aspen. We had never been to Aspen before and Mike wanted to see the Maroon Bells. This was the first time we had left Kayla over night, Grammy stayed with her at our house. I knew she was in great hands but it's always hard to leave for the first time. So we headed up on Friday afternoon had some good lunch at a small deli place in Glenwood Springs and got to Snowmass at about 5pm. Took a bus trip to Aspen where I realized I was probably the only one wearing clothes I bought from Target. But we had dinner at the little place called Litte Annies, excited to get some nice Aspen food but it wasn't all that good. :(
But we loved walking around Aspen window shopping and listening to the symphony music younger teens were playing on the streets. We had to indulge and get some Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory before heading back to the hotel.
Saturday was Maroon Bells day, Mike was so excited he was up and ready by 7:30 - 8am while I stayed in bed until 8:30am. I don't get the opportunity to stay in bed much any more so I had to enjoy it while I could. Mom was home with Kayla who woke up at 6:30am so I am glad I got to sleep in. Loving the bus transportation we took a bus into Aspen where we picked up some lunch at a grocery store then booked the bus to Maroon Bells. Had a nice little bus tour up to the bells and then God's creation. It's beautiful the Maroon Bells really look like they are just painted in between two green mountains. There were a couple different trails we could take around the area we took that one where we could see water falls. It was so nice have that time with Mike as he just soaked in the view. He has been itching to get out to the mountains for a long time now. We of course took many pictures had some lunch by the rushing river and just enjoyed our time together. It was a nice end to our short anniversary trip. We headed back to Snowmass got our car and headed back home. Needed to stop in somewhere for dinner so we stopped in Glenwood Springs again and ate at an amazing Italian dinner at Italian downstairs. It was by far our best meal of the trip. Everything was home made and just super delicious, it was diffidently worth the hour wait it took to get our dinner.
By the time we got back home Kayla was already in bed but we so tired from our trip and hike. That we just went to bed right when we got home. Wonderful anniversary with my wonderful husband.

Daddy's girl

Mommy got a little jealous this morning. Kayla has been getting up at 6 to 6:30am these last couple of morning. We are so tired. I brought her into bed and the first thing she did was go over to Mike and kiss him right on the lips. I was so jealous she never gives me kisses when she wakes up. Mike just loved it of course and had to brag about it all day. It was too sweet.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's day from Kayla. We got this wonderful dress Kayla is wearing from Grammy. Doesn't she look so cute. We just love it, Kayla is almost getting into the 3 to 6 month clothes. It's been so nice to be able to wear the clothes we got for Kayla for while. But when you have a girl you have to get excited when a new wardrobe comes in. :)

We also got to have a wonderful lunch with Ryan and Kelly today. It has been to long since we have last seen Ryan. We had to catch up.

Green Beans

Kayla is on her second to last veggie before we start fruits! Green beans went well, her first face was pretty funny. But she seemed to enjoy it. :)

Mom's birthday

My mom's birthday was January 26th, we celebrated today with lunch at Red Lobster mom's favorite. Many of us Moot's aren't fans of seafood so we don't go there very often. So Red Lobster is often a once or twice occurrence in the year, mom's birthday and Mother's Day. Jeremy and Liz haven't seen Kayla since Christmas so they got to see her and try and hold her. But Kayla doesn't seem to like anyone other then mommy and daddy right now, so she cried a bit with Jeremy, Liz and Adam too. Feel bad but she should get over it soon...hopefully. Happy Birthday Mom, Grammy love you.

Play Date

Kayla and I had our first play date tonight. I got to see my kids, when I had hospital bed rest my child care families understandably had to find new care providers. I have been able to keep up with the families and tonight I got to see Weston, Michael, Aaron and Keira. I just loved it see Michael and Keira who were one when they left and are now two. So you know how fast children grow, they are talking now real words now and just so big. Kayla got to meet the mom's too but again stranger danger kept her in my arms. Keira is the only girl in that group of four and she just loved Kayla. It was so sweet, so I loved being able to catch up with them and really appreciate the parents letting me stay a part of their lives as the kids grow. Miss them all so much.

Squash

Kayla tried Squash this evening, we think it's her least favorite so far. She didn't want to eat to much and got pretty fussy with it. But we still managed to get a good picture of her.

Professional Pictures

Mike and I took Kayla in to get some professional pictures done. We're pretending these are her 6 month pictures since we weren't able to make it in, in December. But Kayla has developed a bit of stranger danger and was not a fan of the photographer. So it was a very interesting session. But we were able to get a couple good pics. I unfortunately don't have the rights to the photos so I can't post them on here but I might try to take a picture of the picture and post it. We'll see.

Peas

Kayla tried peas tonight, neither mommy or daddy are fans of peas. So we were interested in seeing if she liked them or not. Well she did, she like them quite a bit actually and ate a little more than half the jar. Way to go Kayla.

Back Follow-up

So after a month of waiting because I was sick for our last appointment. We were able to see the MRI pictures of Kayla and get the final words of what the future holds. As many know Kayla has what is called Hemi-vertebrae meaning she has a cluster of vertebrae right below her neck that are triangular shape instead of a normal rectangular shape. But the best news of that all is the Kayla's nerves and spine are completely fine and her spine is very straight. So we only have to monitor it as she grows, which is just wonderful news. We will go in for x-rays now, no more MRI's yeah every six months. Or if we notice and curvature of her spine as she grows.
We were also able to fine out that the bump on Kayla's head is a dermoid cyst. We were concerned that it might be bone which would mean Cat-scan and then Kayla would have to have surgery to get it removed. But thankfully it is a cyst and Kayla can get it removed at any time if she would like. Mike and I have decided to not remove it now because Kayla is so little and they would have to put her under for the procedure. But we think her hair will hopefully cover it up as she grow and when it does bother her and she is older she can get it removed. To get it removed when she is older means they would just have to give her a numbing shot and cut it out. A much easier procedure compared to if we chose to remove it now. So good news all around we just have just a strong amazing girl, who amazes us everyday with how well she is doing.

The appointment ended sooner than Mike and I thought so we then walked over to Quiznos and had a nice lunch together with Kayla.

RSV Shot/Weight Check

Kayla went in for her monthly RSV shot today where we get to catch up on her weight. We are excited to share that Kayla has finally beat her daddy's birth weight of 10lbs 9oz. Kayla is now 10lbs 13oz, GO KAYLA!!!!

Carrots

Kayla tried her first real veggie today. We started with one of the messiest and went with Carrots. Not knowing how she would take it we got the video camera ready as well as the regular camera. Put the first spoon in her mouth...no face at all. She liked it. She ate almost half the jar and didn't really fuss at all, we were pretty impressed. :) So Kayla is a fan of carrots.

Kayla 7 months old

Wow, when parents tell you "enjoy every minute, they grow so fast." It is so true, can you all believe Kayla is 7 months old today so amazing. What a wonderful daughter we have she has filled everyday with joy. I will now say the repeated expression that most all parents say yet again, but we couldn't imagine life without our Kayla. Love her soooooo much. ;)

We also decided to start Oatmeal today, Kayla did very well and seemed to enjoy it a bit more than her rice.