The Nelson Narrative

I'm very bitter.  There.  I said it.  I'm so very thankful for my precious girls and realize how blessed I am to finally have them, but I'm still bitter and wonder if I might always be.  Infertility (IF) has a way of making people that way.  Once we finally succeed in having a family we think we are "over it", and for the most part we are.  I can finally go to baby showers and birthday parties again.  But then certain things, like NIAW or a pregnancy announcment (they still bug me!  Way less than before but still) can trigger a whole flood of memories and feelings. I'm bitter because I never got to do this the "normal" way.  Before IF I used to look forward to the time when my husband (whoever and wherever he was) and I would start trying to have a baby.  I wondered what it would be like to ditch the pills and watch the calendar and have purposely unprotected sex on a certain day or two and then wonder, "did we just make a b...

Anyone dealing with infertility has received their fair share of ignorant, insensitive, or just plain pointless comments or suggestions.  My boss once told me to "just do it in the back of a Chevy.  Seems to work for all the teenagers..."  Gee, thanks, but first of all my eggs are a LOT older than those of said teenagers, and I really don't think having sex in a car is going to override my endometriosis and egg quantity/quality issues.  Sigh.  I mean, he really was a great guy and I get that he was just trying to be funny but it really was just annoying and hurtful. The following is a list of what not to say (and what's ok to say) to an infertile couple and is taken from www.dreambaby.com/do-not-say.htm Don't ask a childless person when they are going to have a child. They may be going through the process of trying to conceive but have not yet achieved success. Asking them only reminds them of their problem. They need no extra reminders. Do...

Today starts NIAW.  I will be dedicating my blog to this cause for the next 7 days in hopes of raising awareness.  Infertility is a heart- and gut-wrenching, emotionally draining, physical pain-causing (if undergoing certain treatments), horrible, life-sucking condition.  My personal battle was relatively short, but only because I wasn't in a position to "try" any sooner than I did.  If I had started trying years earlier, it would have been a much longer struggle.  In other words, I was infertile but just didn't know it yet (because I wasn't trying), although I did have suspicions because of other medical conditions and my age. The following is an excerpt from the RESOLVE website ( http://www.resolve.org/ ) : Infertility is a major life crisis for 1 in 8 couples. For these women and men fighting the disease of infertility, the infertility experience involves many hidden losses for the individuals, their loved ones and society as a whole, including: Loss ...

I think my girls are geniuses.  At 25 1/2 months, Kayley knows most of her colors, several letters and the numbers 0-9.  Olivia can count to 10 and sing most of the alphabet.  Maybe that's not extraordinary, but I'm going to let myself think it is!

As a mom of twin toddlers I have learned that many things that sound fun at first turn out to be not fun at all.  Taking said toddlers to a tulip field on a rainy windy day and actually try to get decent pictures would be one of them.   They had fun, I guess, running around, looking at the flowers and trying to walk through every. single. mud puddle while we were just trying to get to the field and back in time to make lunch and stay half-way clean and hopefully get some cute pictures.  Ha.  I don't know how other people do it--I see cute pictures of kids the girls' age all the time on Facebook or what-not and they are looking at the camera AND smiling...what the @#$! is their (the parents) secret?  I can't get a decent picture of one, let alone both, of the girls where they are looking at the camera, let alone smiling, let alone both of them together!  Ugh.  Maybe we'll try again next year.  Meanwhile, here's what we ended up with: ...

I truly have the best job ever!  We have had some great spring weather the last few days (and having actual spring-like weather in the spring around here is pretty rare) and we have spent the last three mornings going for walks and playing at different parks.  Today we found a park that I'd heard of but never been to that is more for toddlers.  The girls had a great time playing while I sat back and enjoyed my vanilla latte.  Then during their nap I sat outside and read.  Ah, the life!

I'm really looking forward to this weekend.  On Saturday, we are going to my hometown's annual Tulip Festival.  There's a streetfair which might prove interesting given the girls' adversion to the stroller, but then we'll venture out to the fields to let them walk among the pretty tulips and hopefully get some good pictures.  We'll spend the rest of the day visiting friends and family that I don't get to see very often so that will be fun. Then on Sunday after church Paul is going to take the girls to his parents' and I get the whole day to MYSELF!  I so can't wait!  I need to do some shopping for cute shoes for spring and a gift for a wedding we're going to so it will be great to have a whole day, almost, instead of just a few hours that I normally would have.  I might check out the new Bravern shopping center in Bellevue http://www.bravern.com/ and the cupcake place (Trophy Cupcakes) in Wallingford that I've always wanted to try.  Y...

One of the few things you can truly count on in this world (besides death and taxes) is crappy weather on Easter in Western Washington.  Yep.  Despite having an exceptionally dry and warm winter, Easter weekend, true to form, was cold, windy and rainy, and we even had a little snow Saturday morning right before our neighborhood egg hunt!  Luckily, it stopped and other than it being a little cold, the egg hunt was fun and dry.  The girls picked right up on what to do.  They were so cute gathering eggs and they got quite a few! Unfortunately, the rest of our Easter weekend didn't quite go as planned.  Paul's mom fell and broke her leg Thursday evening, so she was in the hospital until today.  The Easter dinner/family gathering was canceled and we spent the weekend going back and forth from his parents' house to the hospital.  We made the best of it, though.  We dyed eggs and had an egg hunt for the girl...