My Birthday/Christmas Wish List!

Some of these are very wishful thinking! But it's always nice to dream, right?



THe number one thing on my wish list! LoL How cute is this?! I want them! Seriously the cutest picture ever!



I want new dishes!

Look at this super cute coat!

This sweater dress would go so great with my new brown boots!

I love these black boots from Aldo!

Who doesn't love shiny things?! But I think I might actually be getting one of these for my birthday!

I would love some new lenses for my camera too!

And who can forget the giftcards?!

I'm sure there will be more to add to it!

I bought more books!

Since we are seriously considering the adoption option, I figured I need to get as educated as possible! Especially since we have almost 6 more months until we get to our new duty station, when we can finally begin the process. I bought four books tonight, plus shipping, all for just over $25! I love you, Amazon.com! These should keep me occupied for awhile! Though I know that these will barely even begin to scratch the surface of all of the information on adoption! But hey, you have to start somewhere, right? Anyways, here are the books that I purchased!

I think I've had my fill of pregnancy announcements for awhile. Recently, I have heard nearly 10! And that's only the last couple of months! Seriously. That is just ridiculous. And that doesn't count the ten(at least!) other pregnant women that I know, or the handful that have recently given birth. I have been doing really well with most of it. Really, I have. A lot better than I would have been a year ago. But then they just kept coming and coming. And three of the recent ones have come from close friends of mine, not just acquaintances. Which makes it a little tougher. I'm happy for them, I really am. But like I said before, it is possible for me to be happy for you, and sad for me at the same time. It's just so much to handle though. And only one of the girls that is pregnant really truly struggled to get there. She went through so much. But other than her, none of the others know what I'm feeling. Several of them tried for less than a year, and then the rest got pregnant on accident. That one hurts the most. And I know that it's hard for them to understand why I'm not jumping with joy for them. And I hope that they know that it's nothing personal.

Ugh! I hate feeling like this! I hate sitting here being all sad and weepy. I do not like being this girl. I just wish that we could move, and get the adoption process started. Kyle and I are coming to terms with the fact that a biological child is probably not in the cards for us. And we're working on being okay with that. But it's hard. If we could just get something started, it would help to be able to be actually doing something. Right now, we're stuck in limbo, with our hands tied. Waiting. Story of our life. I try to keep my mind off of it all, but it's hard when I'm surrounded by babies and bellies.

I feel like the last man standing. Most of my friends in my circle(locally and internet), all have children and/or are pregnant. And many of them are working on their second and third babies. And most of them that are, I have seen them go through at least one prior pregnancy. Almost all of the friends that I have that don't have kids either a.)aren't quite to the point of being ready yet or b.) don't want kids. I have one other friend who desperately wants to be a momma too. She is going through the adoption process right now. And I know that she will be a great support system once we start! But until, I will sit by and watch the rest of the world procreate. One belly at a time.

Facelift!

So what do you think of the new facelift? And the new title? I think this one finally fits!!

Tell me what you think!

I don't want to be the crazy monkey lady!!

As you may have noticed, I have changed the title of my blog again...the other one didn't seem to fit. This one doesn't either, so don't be surprised if it changes again.

My blog has been having a very negative tone lately. On one hand, it's because this is my outlet for all of those feelings. But on the other hand, I don't want to be perceived as being this way all the time. I'm not. Mostly due to the fact that I am able to come here, type it out, and walk away. Usually. Anyways, I figured it wouldn't hurt to lighten things up a bit! At least for today!

The other night, Kyle and I happened to come across the TLC show, My Monkey Baby. These people adopt monkeys and treat them just like babies! Now let me preface this story with another story, so that this makes more sense. A few months ago, I was joking around with some of my friends. And I was telling them that since Kyle and I were never going to be able to have children, we were just going to adopt a monkey instead. We're going to name her Jasmine and treat her just like a baby, and expect everyone around to treat her that way as well! Then I would do my impersonation of myself once we got her. "Jasmine! Jasmine get down! Say hi, Jasmine! Jasmine, say hi! Jasmine get down!!" And it was very funny to joke about! Well then, I came across this show. A show about people who really do that! When I was joking around about it, I didn't realize that there were people actually like that out there! One women was never able to have children of her own, "so she fills her life with monkeys." When I told one of my friends that this will totally be me one day, she said that if I start buying monkeys, she is having me committed! Haha! Though I never see myself resorting to this, instead of actual children, I can kind of see how someone might would get there. Hopefully though, I will stick to human babies!

What if?

Because it is "that time of the month", that time where I turn into a big ole baby and just cry about everything, my thoughts about our infertility issues are in overdrive. For awhile, I've been all about going straight to adoption. It makes sense, it is the logical thing to do. But now, I'm not so sure. I've always had this feeling that I need to do IVF. Maybe it's just my eternal optimism, maybe it's just blind hope, or maybe it's my intuition. I don't know. But I just have a feeling that if we do in vitro, it will work. And we will have our family. Kyle isn't so sold on that idea. He would much rather have the greater odds of adoption working for us. I've gone back and forth. And I still really really want to try IVF first. But here's my main dilemma. Today, as I was thinking about it, I realized something. What if I convince him that we do IVF, and then it fails. I think I could accept it, realize that at least now I know, and move on. But I'm so scared that Kyle would blame me for us not having a baby, at that point. And I'm terrified that it could cause issues in our marriage. That thought alone makes me want to not even consider it! If we were to do IVF and it failed, we wouldn't be able to move on to adoption for several years. We would have to pay off the loan from our IVF cycle. Kyle and I have something wonderful together. And I would never do anything to jeopardize our marriage. Even if it means doing something that I feel like I need to do...

How do you do it?

How do normal, hard working, underpaid people come up with the money for IVF and/or adoption? Were you just really good savers? Take out loans? Ask family for help? I know you can get loans, but we already have two car loans, one personal loan, and credit card debt. No bank is going to give us a $20,000 loan when we already have that much out. If anyone who is reading this has gone through either adoption or IVF, how did you come up with the money? Now would be a great time to "delurk" as they say and come out of the shadows. Help a sister out!

I guess on one hand, a lot of IFers are older. More established. More time to build credit and savings. We're only (almost) 25. We started young. That's what your'e supposed to do right? Clearly that didn't matter in our case! Which is why I hate hearing that we're still so young and have so much time!

But I still need to know how other people come up with the money. Here I've been kind of counting on this bonus to be able to help us start our family...now I'm not sure. I had a PayPal donation button up for a long time. Everyone told me that would be a great way to get money. They all said they would be willing to help out a little. I took it down because after several several people said they would give, only two people every donated. And I don't feel right asking our families for money. Mostly because they probably don't have it anyways. But also because we have prided ourselves on coming this far and we have NEVER had to ask for help from anyone. But it's not even a pride thing. More so, an embarrassing thing. They all know what we're going through, and I think that if anyone had any extra to give, they would have already offered it. Neither Kyle or I come from wealthy families. And that's okay. Because what they can't offer in financial means, they offer in emotional support. I'm starting to get off on a tangent again. I blog the exact same way that my train of thought goes! Haha! Loops, hoops, jumps, and full steam ahead!

Anyways, so if there is anyone reading this right now who has been through this and/or has any insight, now would be a great time to speak up! Please?

Now, there is a funny smell coming from my kitchen, so I guess I should probably go take care of that. Eww!

It's October?!

That is the phrase on everyone's lips today! Where has this year gone? My my my, how time does fly!
Fall has finally arrived in the beautiful Pacific Northwest! We had a fantastic summer, but I love fall! Boots, sweaters, cute coats! Plus, pumpkin scented and flavored everything! What's not to love?

Head's up, this may be a lot of rambling. I haven't really processed this all yet, and I'm just thinking out loud here. Yesterday, I got a bit of potentially unsettling news. Though the more I think about it, the more it isn't a bad thing. Kyle heard that they are not giving orders off of the ship until you have done a complete sea tour, which is 4 years. This month is our 3 year point here. Leaving in March, it would have been 3.5 years. But now, they might be changing the rules. Which means we wouldn't get to leave until at least next October. The next deployment is scheduled for around that time! That is the worst part. I DO NOT want to do another deployment! But hopefully, if this is the case we would be able to leave right before. On the upside of things, I would get to stay here with my bests! As much as I loved living in Charleston, everyone that I knew from there before has moved on. My two best friends from there are now here. Why would I want to leave them? They are both pregnant, and I want to be there for everything! Brina is due next month and Erin is due in May. Staying means getting to see lots of their little ones! Plus, if we do stay, we are moving out of this townhouse, and going to find an actual house to rent. No more CCL!!! But then again, on the downside, and this is a huge one, if we stay, he won't be re-enlisting anytime soon, if at all. No re-enlistment means no bonus. No bonus means no baby. I don't know how people do it. How do people come up with the money on their own? But that is a whole other post on it's own that I'll do after this one.

The point of this post is that we, yet again, are in limbo! It's the story of our lives, really. When Kyle called yesterday to tell me this, I told him that we should have known better than to think we would get out of here in March. Nothing has ever gone our way. In the 5.5 years that we've been married, nothing has gone our way, or how we expected it to. Well other than our actual marriage, which is terrific! Everything from the whole STA-21 debacle, which involved buying and selling our first house in the same year, to infertility, and everything in between! But at least this time, I'm not completely upset with the possible outcome. There are pros and cons to staying. I just hope we can get a definite yes or no answer soon. I hate not knowing!