8 Days Until Disney World!

We are heading  to Walt Disney World in eight days! I have been dreaming of this, taking  our baby there, since I was struggling to get pregnant. I know Hazel is  way too young to remember anything but WE will. <3

Disney is very special to us. Mike actually proposed to me at Disneyland in 2003. So, yeah...we are very excited to take our baby girl, our dream come true. We will be going with my sister's family from Ohio (they have 3 Princesses) and my brother and SIL will be flying down from Seattle with the twins. We will be there a week and will celebrate my 29h birthday and my brother's 40th. We will be staying at Art of Animation and doing lots of character meals. I'm so excited!

I have been busy sewing!

Mickey outfit for Arthur

Little Mermaid dress

That's a lot of polka dots.

Baby Quilt is Finished!!!

I was so worried I wouldn't finish in time but I surprised myself and finished with 33 days to spare. :) I'm actually very pleased with how it turn out. Sure, it's not perfect but that's okay since it's meant to be used. Not hung on a wall or packed away in some box. I hand pieced and hand quilted the entire thing. I used my embroidery machine to make the quilt label but I sewed that on by hand (and got a little teary eyed in the process!) It's hard to believe it went from this:

to this:

and ended up as

Now that my project is finally done I am at a loss as to how to keep myself busy. The house is pretty much clean--I don't want to (and would have difficulty at this point!) do any serious deep cleaning since we'll be moving in about two months and will have to deep clean then anyway. The car seat is installed, the hospital bags are packed, with a few revisions to my earlier post. The sheets are on the co-sleeper, her room is ready, the cloth diapers are prepped. WHAT am I going to do with myself these next 4.5 weeks? I know everyone is going to say, "Sleep!" but it's not as if my body can store up hours of sleep.

Baby Quilt Progress

I finished my quilt top! I've made a few different quilts before but this is my first hand pieced quilt. I really enjoyed making the top so I've decided to hand quilt it too. Hopefully I can handle it and finish it in time. T-minus 85 days to complete it! <3

More Nusery Crafting

I made a framed fabric collage for the wall in the nursery using scrap fabric and thrift store frames. I love the way it came out! I'm not really doing a themed nursery but I am using a few accents from my favorite fairy tale, Peter Pan. Not just the Disney version but the actual story by J.M. Barrie--it's always had a special place in my heart and I've always wanted to use this story for inspiration in my nursery, whether we had a boy or a girl. 

Thrift Store Finds!

Painting and Priming...

I glued safety pins on the back so I had a way to hang them on the wall.

Print from Etsy

Hmmm...need more frames.

The pink sign is also from Etsy and it says, "You that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you Peter Pan, that's where I'll be waiting." -Tinker Bell

Fabric Collage Complete <3 The H is for our last name, not her first, since we won't name her until we meet her.

Quilted Pinwheel Pillow I made last week

While Mike was in the field I decided to start a baby quilt. The only problem was that I didn't want to be chained to my sewing machine for the next several weeks so I decided to attempt a hand pieced quilt. I wasn't sure I'd have the patience for it (I've only ever machine quilted)  but I've found that I really enjoy it! Again, I went through my fabric scraps and cut out enough 3x3 inch squares to make into twenty 9 Patch Blocks. It was a slow start and my first block took me nearly an hour to complete!

 

About two weeks later I finally finished all twenty blocks!

I've started to piece the top together but it will take awhile. I'm sewing multiple larger pieces together, making sashing, lining up points, etc. I will be sure to post a picture of the quilt top when it's finished! I think I may take the hand sewing all the way and am seriously considering quilting it by hand too! It's so nice to sit in the sunshine and work on something for my baby girl. <3

Just Make My Damn Latte

As of today I have done 22 injections and had my blood drawn four times. This morning's blood draw was particularly brutal. I swear the nurse was about 12 and was more interested in my tattoos than paying attention to what she was doing. I felt her jab the needle in but I wasn't expecting the bleeding and swelling afterward. It still effing hurts. =(

 Once again, I went to Panera for breakfast afterward. Hey--I definitely deserved it today! I keep confusing the baristas by requesting a decaf Chai Latte--every single day they come and ask me, "Do you want it with decaf shots or do you want us to make it decaf?"  What part of Decaf Chai Latte is so hard to understand?  Just make my damn latte. Oh, but these hormones aren't having any effect on me whatsoever. Ha.

 I'm definitely feeling less like myself. Today I went to Joann's to buy some supplies and I told the lady at the cutting counter that I didn't need anything else, even though there was clearly another bolt of fabric in my cart to be cut. THEN, I walked away from the cutting counter and left behind all my cut fabric. I'm losing it and I had to double my PM dosage of Menopur beginning tonight, so I can only imagine how it's going to be from here on out. Today I teared up listening to a Christmas greeting on the radio from a soldier stationed in Afghanistan.  I feel like I have no control over my emotions right now and I find myself going from one extreme to the other.  Lucky Mike is coming home just in time!

Tonight I came home and made stockings for three special little girls, my nieces Annabelle, Madeline and Charlotte. Didn't they turn out cute? <3 Tomorrow is Day 6 of stims and I have to get more blood work and an ultrasound, but my treat tomorrow will be the best of all--my H is finally coming home from training! <3

Saturday Night

Warning: This post may or may not be one, long, seemingly endless ramble. This is what happens when I'm in a house for days on end with no human interaction. You know you've been alone too long when you talk to your pets and you expect them to answer you. Consider yourself warned.

What do you do when you're a "bachelorette" on a Saturday night? Re-vamp the blog and watch Beauty and the Beast--duh!  Aladdin is on now and I can hardly concentrate while I type this post because my brain keeps telling me to sing along with the movie.  I was seven when Beauty and the Beast came out and eight when Aladdin came out. Holy shite. Talk about feeling old! What do you think of the new look on the blog? I thought the screaming lady would set the tone for the blog nicely since I'm pretty sure that's what I look like most days, only crazier.

Rory's Stocking

Earlier today I made a surprise for my thirteen year old niece, Gabrielle. She has been wanting a dog for years and she finally gets to bring home her pup Thanksgiving weekend! My sister mentioned to me that Gabrielle has been concerned that "Rory" doesn't have a Christmas stocking yet. Aunt Megan to the rescue! It turned out so cute that I think I'm going to have to make my zoo new stockings too! 

Oh, oh! Guess what's been shipped from Great Britain and is on its way to me? My Menopur! It should be here no later than the 10th, which will work out perfectly timing-wise.  Apparently it comes in a powder form and has to be re-constituted with saline. Thanks to a couple generous Bumpies, I will have plenty.  It's amazing how the common thread of infertility can bring a group of women together, isn't it?   The support and advice that I have received from this board has been such a comfort.  No matter how much I read, I still don't think I'll ever be 100% prepared for IVF. I think that I'm just going to have jump in with both feet. I'm trying to push the injections out of my mind and trying to focus on one thing at a time. First thing--sonohysterogram. It seems like experiences vary from person to person, just like with the HSG. I have a pretty high pain tolerance and my HSG hurt.like.hell. I always had high expectations to have a natural child birth until that moment. Even my IUIs were uncomfortable so I want to hear from my readers, what was your experience like? Did you take any pain medication before hand? Did you have someone go with you to the appointment? Mike will still be gone when I have mine so I've asked a friend to go with me. Lay it all out for me!