The big "I" and speech therapy

Since we have been home we have been on a voyage to solve a few mysteries that have been plaguing us for a while. We decided that enough was enough and when we got home from St. George we decided to make a few phone calls to see if we could get any closer to solving these mysterious mysteries that are somewhat concerning. I bet you are eagerly anticipating my great reveal as to what these mysteries just might entail. Well wonder no further my friends.

First things first. I am infertile. There it is. This isn't something that is super secret and it isn't something that I dread talking about. Many people don't know this little fact about me because the topic never comes up and what am I supposed to say "Hey whats up? How are you? Hey did you know Im infertile?! Crazy right?!" Awkward. This also isn't something that is super devastating for me either. I know people who have gone years and years and have a lot of serious problems and have very little hope for a little nugget to call their own. But since I have gotten pregnant before and have a little cutie (who unfortunately is sick right now) I feel that it can happen again. However; Even when I got pregnant with Lucy I had to get a little boost from the OBGYN to help out with the process. But lucky for us one month of Clomid did the trick and bada-bing bada-boom next thing you know I have a little baby in my arms. This time however, this was not the case...

This all started a year ago in May. Lucy was 15 mo. old and that same nagging feeling was creeping up on us again that maybe we should get going on #2. Since I was still traumatized from Lucy's birth, to say the least I was not thrilled nor excited to start the process again. But since I ignored that feeling the first time (with Lucy) for a couple of months and it turned out that we really DID need to get a move on if we were going to have children before we retire. So I sighed and headed to the Dr. Needless to say it has been 14 mo, 7 rounds of Clomid, 7 months of getting blood drawn, one HSG procedure, Tyler's "analysis", about 452 ovulation tests and about that many pregnancy tests and still no baby. Don't get me wrong about the whole "this isn't something that devastates me" business that I talked about earlier. I have had a few days throughout this process that I have been frustrated and bummed out, especially when my Dr said there was nothing more he could do and I would have to see a specialist. At that point I was really nervous. Mostly I was nervous about our bank account, or lack there of, and what it would take finically to get the job done. Insurance doesn't cover squat with infertility, don't EVEN get me started on THAT, and the costs really add up quick, especially when you have no idea how long it will take and what exactly needs to be done. Plus you hear of those horror stories of the people who had to get extremely expensive procedures done and it didn't even work. We were at a cross roads. We even looked into adoption. Really heavily actually. I even talked to a few agencies and at one point we had decided this was the way to go. But a little while later, we just didn't feel right about it and this isn't the route for us right now. I just felt that Im not done having babies and we need to see a specialist. So I made an appt and went to a seminar. That seminar was completely eye opening to me. I found out that infertility was in fact a disease, who knew right?! Also not only was it a disease but it was completely CURABLE! I learned that if you or your partner are not sterile, you can have a baby, point blank. And most of the time, you don't have to have those super expensive and invasive procedures. At that point I was completely confident and super excited.

Currently this is the first month after seeing a specialist (whom i HIGHLY recommend) and we are in the process of getting things done! I found out (it was speculated before) that I do in fact have PCOS, luck for me it isn't severe and my Dr is very confident that she can get us a baby, quickly. I feel really confident too, but realize it still can take a few months.  My current treatment includes a medication called Femara, lots of ultrasounds, HCG injections (that i have to give myself, yikes) and progesterone supplements. So... super exciting right?!

The OTHER mystery that is currently under investigation is with my little darling. We have been concerned about Lucy's speech since about 18 mo. Finally I bit the bullet and called an Early Intervention clinic. We had a few people come to our house and ask lots and lot of questions and evaluate her. Well it turns out that she has to be below 16 %ile to qualify to get help. Everything was GREAT, except her speech, she was exactly at 16th %ile! So she doesn't qualify... Which is great, however kind of frustrating that she is RIGHT on the line but we can't do anything about it. But something cool has come out of this. They asked us if she has a normal diet and she eats well or if we have any concerns about her diet. DING DING DING! Uh, how many posts or Facebook status's have I written about Lucy's eating habits! This has been my #1 concern about Lucy since the day she was born! They even told us that sometimes a babies speech and their eating habits correlate with each other. Again, who knew! So today they sent a feeding consultant over and again asked a ton of questions about her eating and diet. Well she said there were a couple of red flags that makes her think that Lucy isn't stubborn and difficult and it just might be a GI health concern and she highly suggests that we send lucy to a GI specialist. When Lucy was born she had TERRIBLE reflux and she said that most of the time kids grow out of it, but sometimes they don't. Even though she doesn't throw up constantly anymore and we aren't giving her medicine for reflux and there aren't "obvious" signs of it, she may still have it, or have something that is making her scared to eat, because she doesn't trust food that she isn't familiar with because it might hurt her stomach. But it makes total since. The ONLY foods she eats are the ones that are super basic (opposite of acidic) like bread, and cereal, and pb sandwiches. This TOTALLY makes sense to me. However now I feel really bad about those nights that I got so fed up and frustrated with her and screaming and tears for hours and hours, all because I thought she was just insanely stubborn. She was probably trying to tell me that she is scared to eat the food because it will make her feel yucky. SORRY LUCE!! So yet again, another specialist is in our forecast but they can't get her in til SEPT 11!!! Holy smokes! Hopefully they will quickly and accurately diagnose her problem and it WONT be severe. However I feel like we will still have a long road ahead of us because even if we do get the problem solved, how are we supposed to convince her that its ok to eat now, and get to her try new foods... I guess I just eat the elephant one bite at a time right!?

Half way through Summer

    As I wrote the title for this post I realized it probably wasn't the best title to choose because for some reason my wife gets really freaked out by the passage of time, especially summer. I've tried to figure it out and the best answer I get is that the faster the summer goes the closer school is. But Jody hasn't been in school for over four years so I'm not sure why she has so much anxiety about this subject!  But anyway it is pretty crazy to think that the summer is half way over, its weird to think that 2012 is half way over.
    Its been about a month since our last post so I thought it was time to catch everyone up on what we are doing. So for the past month I have been apply for jobs, mostly on campus because they have the most variety and they understand students needs better than your average employer. I applied to everything, research assistant, secretary, janitor, you name it I applied to it. One of the most painful things about looking for a job besides not earning any money is how long it takes for a job to open, interview, close and for the powers at be to decide. I always tell Jody if some day I am in charge of the interview process I'm going to let them know the second they out or the running or give them a firm date when they will know. The waiting is the hardest part of and I had to call some of the jobs to ask if they were still considering me and they had hired the job over a week earlier! Towards the end of the month I was getting desperate so I decided to go apply to the Marriott Center. I've had quite a few friends work there and the best things about them is that higher anyone, so I felt pretty good about my chances. But whats funny is the day i decided to go apply for the Marriott Center a new job popped up on the BYU board. The job was BYU Visual Communications to be the Social Media Coordinator for the BYU Center. I quickly applied because between my previous job experience I felt I had a pretty good chance. Finally after a week of waiting and two interviews I got the job. So now I am in charge of the Social Media Advertising campaigns for the BYU Salt Lake Center and I helped a little bit with EFY's Social Media. It's a lot of fun and everyone I work with is great, the main challenge is helping some of the older generation realize that social media isn't a fad and BYU needs to do a better job of creating an online social media community. I started this past Monday and now I've created  Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, Instagram, and Google + accounts. I think I have all of my bases covered if anyone knows any more let me know! I will work here through the summer and when school starts and do this along with my Research Assistant job. Its going to be a busy fall but the best part is I only have two classes!!  I'll probably have to write two 30 page papers but that really isn't too bad anymore.
    We have a crazy July and August so we will do our best to take pictures and blog about it as we go. This week we have a bunch of different 4th of July acitivities and I'm really bummed we didn't get Stadium of Fire tickets because were both huge Beach Boy fans!  Our ward is having a "Street of Fire" on the 3rd. We will try to not start any new forest fires but your lawns may not be safe. The following week were headed up to Logan to visit my family and to ride in the first annual Grand Fondo, a 50 mile bike race that goes around Cache Valley. When I say we I mean me and my mom and dad. Jody and Lucy will be the cheerleaders at the finish line. I've been biking about a hundred miles a week to get ready but never 50 all at once. I need to get my biked fixed though, after i got home from my ride my front tire went completely flat!  After the Grand Fondo we are off to Dillon Montana, random I know but my parents know a guy who is a massive cabin that we are going to stay at, Jody is already on bear watch. Then the week after we get back we are off to Bear Lake for my dad's side of the family's reunion. In August we are headed back to St. George to see Aladdin and then school starts!