Wordless Wednesday

Monkey See

Monkey Do

My Friday Tirade

This simply disgusts me to the core of my very being:

http://www.usmagazine.com/angelina-jolie-twins-conceived-through-in-vitro

To have such a cavalier attitude, manner, and REASON for resorting to the process is simply repulsive. In addition, it glamorizes the process and is not at all representative of those who struggle with infertility and turn to IVF as the only way to achieve pregnancy. They make it sound like IVF is a sure fire way to get pregnant and that it's quick and easy.

Oprah (yes, I watch Oprah while eating Bon Bons and vegging on the couch - HA!) recently featured a young woman who was struggling with infertility. I didn’t realize that I still felt so emotional about it all.

The woman and her story really struck a tender spot with me. I literally cried while watching it because everything she said brought back all of the memories of IVF and how stressful and emotional it was. Everyday I look at my babies and feel so blessed and lucky to finally have my greatest dream, to be a Mom.

For so many, that dream is unrealized and it makes me so sad for those women.

Honestly, I just dont think that the majority of people out there - and many of them I know for a fact read this very blog - have even an inkling of the true degree of stress and pain involved in the process of IVF.

Going through IVF and infertility was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, both physically and emotionally.

I endured so many blood draws that I now have scars on both of my arms. I endured both a hysteropingogram (inserting dye into the fallopian tubes - OUCH), and a hysterosonogram (filling the uterus with sterile saline during ultrasound - OUCH again). I endured daily injections (at one point up to 8 per day) of hormones that made me nuts. I endured the egg retrieval in which I was put to sleep and had a HUGE needle injected into my ovaries numerous times in an effort to retrieve as many eggs as they could find (OUCH).

But let's not forget that Mike had a few tests as well - though none of them involved needles of any sort!

Many comments have been made to me (typically when Mike is just out of hearing distance) since Ella and Aidan were born regarding celebrities and their twins and how theirs are "natural"...and these comments are typically made in a condescending tone, as if to somehow ridicule me for our "un-natural" twins.

Those comments are hurtful and totally unnecessary. But they were made by people who didn't struggle for their children - I cannot expect them to understand what it feels like to have a doctor look you in the eye and tell you that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with you or your husband and that since all other methods have failed (Clomid, IUI) it looks like IVF is now the only choice to help create your family.

Only those of us that have been there will ever understand.

I apologize for my little rant (and part pity party), but when I come across an article such as that one, it upsets me beyond belief.

Wordless Wednesday

Summer Heatwave

What do you do with twin toddlers when it is ridiculously hot outside?

First - you let them play with containers of water and ice cubes

Second- you put them in the pool....AND you give them their first ever taste of chocolate - in the form of an organic ice cream sandwich!

Aidan dives right in without hesitation. Ella looks completely unsure:

She checks to see what Aidan is doing:

And decides to give it a try!

Then, she decides that it would be better dunked in the water...

...yep - the soggier the better! Meanwhile, Aidan is on his second helping!