2016

If I could describe it one sentence, I’d borrow a line from Dickens & say, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

It is the year I lost my best friend in the entire world & everything feels so empty.
It is the year when, after a hellacious battle with infertility & losses, a healthy pregnancy came around & everything feels so full. 
It is a year filled with so much heartache that it is easy to overlook the good.
It was the year our dreams were dashed in the failure of IVF 2 & we were told that our chances of ever having children were slim to none but it was also the year we traveled to a city I’d never been to & knocked a few things off my Bucket List. New York, you are forever my favorite.
It was the year I unexpectedly had to say goodbye to my best friend & biggest supporter, my sweet mamaw. But it was also the year I managed to graduate with my MSW & go on to get my CSW. I know how proud she was of me for that. 
It was the year we thought we were finally done with infertility when we shockingly got a positive pregnancy test THE DAY we were going to see a new RE…only to miscarry a week later. But it was also the year that we, shortly after, got pregnant again with our rainbow baby that is growing away now. 
If anything, this year has taught me that, when things are really bad, it is so easy to overlook the good. 

& maybe, just maybe, things really do come to us when we need them the most. “Miracles happen…in God’s time.”

Places To See And Eat In New York

Saying New York is an amazing place to visit would be a complete & total understatement…so I’m not gonna say that. 😉 Instead, I’ll fill you in on a few tips & tricks for tackling the Big Apple.

We’ll start with a few obvious things:

• Explore Time Square
• See the statue of liberty & Ellis Island
• Go to the top of The Empire State Building
• See a Broadway show
• Ride the subway & make a pit stop at Grand Central Station
• Roam Central Park

Some notes about the above: block off a few hours over the course of two days to see Central Park. We allotted about an hour in two separate days to this & still didn’t see C.P. in its entirety. Another thing to know about C.P. is that you have to see the Alice In Wonderland statue if you drop by!!!! A friend told me about this &, being an avid Disney fan, of course we had to go! I was stunned at both the size & beauty of the statue.

Other photos from the beautiful Central Park:

  
  
  
  
  

As for the Statue of Liberty, if you’re going to go (& if you’re visiting N.Y. for the first time, let’s face it, you probably will), go early! I repeat, go early. This was told to us by the concierge at our hotel & boy was she right. We went around 11 & the boat was still packed. Also, if you want to go to the top of the statue, get your tickets for this MONTHS in advance!!!!! We were unable to do this as they were sold out while we were there. A friend of mine’s mother is there currently & got her tickets for this 6 months ahead of time. Another word of advice here: if you’re going to this attraction, you may as well drop by Ellis Island afterwards. As far as I know, there is no extra cost. Unfortunately for us, it started POURING as left the state of liberty so we had to skip out on this. 

   
    
   
The Empire State Building was a bit easier in the sense that you won’t have to worry about not getting tickets. It’s also worth the 2 elevator rides up! 

   
   
Another potentially obvious touristy thing to do while in New York is to ride the subway, at least once, & make a stop at Grand Central Station. 

   
    
    
   
On exploring Time Square, do his AS EARLY AS YOU CAN!!! Do I need to repeat myself?? The first time we walked this was in the evening & it was a mad house!!!! The walk time was dramatically increased & it felt overwhelming. When we walked around earlier in the day, however, this wasn’t an issue at all! 

    
    
    
    

  
 

Next up-the Broadway show! We saw Wicked, which I had dreamt of seeing since I read it in 8th, or 9th grade. Tickets can be a little pricey but totally worth the experience. Words of advice here: check with the concierge about tickets before paying full price for them!!!! We did this & got 2 tickets for the price of 1 when compared to the advertised price. Sure, we didn’t have the greatest seats but it was still worth it. 

  
Now for some potentially not so obvious hot spots:

-The Chelsea area! It’s more of an artsy less crowded part of NY. We walked the Chelsea Market & Highline, both of which I recommend.

   
    
    
    
    
    
 
-The Flatiron Building, my favorite Buikding in NYC!! 😍

   
 
-Frozen Smores!!! Mmmmmmm

   
    
    
 
Absolute delicious & also very neat to watch!

-Must eats: New York cheesecake & N.Y. pizza!!!! 🍰🍕

Also, Shake Shack is a very yummy burger place with several locations. I know what you’re thinking, what’s so special about burgers? Well, you’ll see 😍🍔🍟

  
-St. Patrick’s Cathedral

   
    
 
Absolutely breathtaking.

-This one may be a tad personal, but I very much enjoyed visiting the court house that’s featured on SVU…& keeping an eye out for filming crews simultaneously!

   
 
-The 9/11 memorial. 

    
 hThere are no words.

-The Museums are also best places to hit up! They also happen to be near Central Park so you can walk in over once you finish up there. We spent a little over an hour at the history museum and enjoyed that.  

    
    
 
Additional words of advice:

-If you’re going to take a bus tour, pay for 1 day only. My husband & I paid for 2 and got one free but, honestly, we both feel like we’d have been better off taking the tours one day & using the Subway the rest of the time. For one, the subway is A LOTTTT faster than the buses due to traffic. Two, the subway also ends up being a lot cheaper. 

-Don’t pay the hefty price for hotel breakfast!! At the hotel we were staying at, breakfast was going to be $20 a person. The concierge recommended a place nets by called Galaxy that was much cheaper & probably a lot more for our money than the hotel would’ve been. 

I hope you find our Nee York tips & tricks useful! 🙂 

   
 

IVF 2 For The Win!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, while I’m not stressing out as much preparation wise, I am feeling even more anxious going into this IVF as opposed to last time.

Here’s Why:

1. After my egg retrieval last time, I was in excruciating pain. The nurse had me take my pain meds before I got anesthesia, had apparently (unbeknownst to drugged me) given me a second hit after surgery, & then, when Scott came back to recovery, I asked for more. Once I got home, I slept until 7 or 8 that night & only woke up for more pain pills once they’d worn off. Also, TMI, I thought I’d never be able to go to the bathroom again….it was the oddest pain every time I attempted it & the constipation from all the hormones definitely didn’t help here..it was hell. A 2 day extended hell of terror every time I sat on the toilet. lol
2. Transfer….it was not the easiest of times for me. Thanks, to my uncooperative retroverted uterus, getting the catheter in took some time…some time consisting of our RE poking around down there in an effort to get where he needed to be. It hurt so much I was cringing & tried deep breathing.
3. Financial pressure: we’ve already spent around 19, 000 on our infertility journey so far. With that being said, we really need this to work.
4. There’s also the added pressures of hope & faith in becoming parents. IVF itself is already a much higher stake in the land of infertility. After a failed cycle, the pressure is even greater for the next time to work.

I’m trying not to focus on the latter two & calm myself with first two, “whys.” By that I mean, I will probably try not to think about it until the day before each.

In other news, I’ve been reading another infertility (& fashion) blog I stumbled upon on Instagram. It’s called A Slice Of Style & you can find it at http://www.asliceofstyle.com

On it, I read that the Jenica had tried some interesting interventions for her FET. For one, she gave herself human growth hormone shots 5 days before egg retrieval to strengthen eggs & also had her RE give her a neupogen wash inside her uterus 5 days before implantation. In addition, she had also tried an experimental drug Neupogen. She explained that this was a drug that got embryos to stick better. She listed in her blog on the subject that it was $400.00.

Even though it is experimental & not FDA approved, I would soooo be willing to try it! Her Dr. put it in 5 days before transfer & I would jump on that if ours would be willing to do the same. What’s another $400.00 & another procedure to us now? lol If it improved our odds, it could only save us money in the long run. Things turned around for this lady after all of that.

Since I always try to end on a positive note, I am comforted in the fact that Scott was able to take off for all the ultrasounds this time, as well as egg retrieval & transfer. We also just booked our 1st wedding anniversary trip to New York!!!!!!!! So we have something to look forward to after all these shots, pain, & procedures (hopefully, on top of a pregnancy!).

So excited. After the year long hell of infertility treatments, we deserve it!