Baby Hope Chest & Another Europe Trip

Life and time move on, but my concept of time is a lot different now. In so many ways it feels as though we have been trying to have a baby for so long, but at other times it’s as if we just started trying, or just got pregnant, or just lost our baby.

March marked three years since we started trying and 5 months since we lost our baby, but they feel like the same amount of time sometimes and drastically different at other times.

I was hoping that we would get pregnant miraculously the first cycle we were allowed to try again because then I would have been due one year and two days after delivering our amniotic band baby. Then I was hoping that it would work on the second cycle so that I would at least be pregnant by my original due date. But now I’m just back to the regular monthly hope that it happens sometime before my ovaries give out.

And it’s also back to taking medicine that makes me feel awful, hoping some more, then waiting for what feels like forever during that two week wait just to lose hope when it’s obvious it didn’t work again. With infertility you go through the grief cycle every single month. And it’s exhausting.

So since it’s another year and we still have no baby, but also zero debt and a good chunk of savings for a down payment (if the market would ever chill out), we are headed to Europe again. We'll be heading to the UK and Paris this time, again with Dillon's parents who are such great travelers. We work hard for the life we have and are so very blessed (did I need to hashtag that…?) so we are grateful for the opportunities that we have to travel.

(PS we usually fly Norwegian and right now they have flights from Denver to London in Sept starting at $220, and then $199 in Oct. so you could have a round trip under $500 depending on dates. And they also have flights out of Vegas starting in Oct so you can do the same for around $450. Just head to Norwegian and then go all the way down and click on 'where we fly' to check out dates and places!)

We would definitely give it up in a heartbeat for the chance to be parents, but thankfully we still have hope and we still see the good things in life. We keep making plans and keep enjoying all the opportunities life has to offer. We know that once a certain stage of life is over, it’s over—so we’re trying to live it up the best we can during the time we have!

Another thing we have been taking advantage of is slowly buying baby things over time. It's mostly passive and we definitely bought more a year and a half ago when we first started fertility treatment and totally thought it would work. (ha). Infertility can make you feel so not in control so buying things when we wanted helped to feel less not in control, as well as helping us to feel like we were not missing out on yet another thing due to something out of our control.

I wanted to make some baby dresses back when we knew we were having a girl, but then when we lost her I put it off for a while. I'm not the best seamstress, but have learned some techniques and made a few patterns--nothing fancy--just for fun. Some turned out way better than others ;)

There have been times when I am really into baby things and it gives me hope for when I can use them, but other times when it's just a bit too hard to wonder if/when I'll ever get the opportunity. And I know that "things" aren't all that important when actually raising a baby, but right now is one of those times I'm ready to shut the lid of the hope chest and live life for a while.

I was definitely in a different mood when I took a bunch of pics of all these cute things, so here they are before I close that lid for a while!

Just everything overall 

I was so excited to to try out baby wearing with that wrap on the left. My mom was buying cute girl things, but thought she needed to get something Dillon would like so that cute Jazz bow was for him. And seriously, what is cuter than baby shoes?

More baby shoes (seriously, the cutest) and I have had that swaddle underneath for agesssss, it is my favorite baby thing. Poppies always remind me of Italy. 

 Okay, kill me dead with these cute woodland creatures that Dillon and I made for a mobile back when we first started fertility treatment. It took multiple nights and some of them turned out better than others, but now we understand why etsy shop owners charge a million dollars.

Ah, yes, the Hawaii outfits. We bought both boy and girl outfits and they are so cute. 

 Just a few of the dresses, just don't look too close ;)

One of the new techniques I learned, called a placket.

Another placket and an enclosed bodice.