Friday, December 30, 2011

This is Taking too Long

I realize I will catch a lot of flack for this, but I'll say it anyway.  Pregnancy takes too long!! I am 19 weeks now and I think I could be ready for baby in another couple months not another 4 and a half.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

2011 Miracles in Review

Shortly after I graduated from college, I decided I should start acting like a full-fledged adult, complete with an adult job, adult furniture, and adult Christmas cards complete with a newsletter.  Friends would marvel how a young single girl could have enough goings on to merit two pages worth of info, but I at least thought they were mildly entertaining. 
For some reason, however, once I got married this very adult tradition ended.  Who knows when I'll rejoin the land of adult Christmas cards, but this year, maybe I'll at least get out a newsletter post. . . .

Merry Christmas one and all.  This year Matthew and I are coming to you from the great state of Pennsylvania, via Hawaii (for the holidays), to wish you holiday greetings and good cheer.  At the beginning of the year, while Matthew was trying to nail down a summer internship, we adopted the motto "We Believe in Miracles."  We pasted it on our bathroom mirror, I chanted it quietly to myself whenever life got a little too tense, and we tried our hardest to remember that miracles happen every day and they can surely happen for us.  While this year has included much stress and heartache, it has nonetheless proven a year of miracles.

Miracle 1.  Even though Matthew had seemingly endless amounts of first interviews (which I liked to think of as first dates), no one wanted to call him back for a second or third.  It was incredibly frustrating, both for him to muster up the motivation to search for another opportunity that could likely end up in another rejection, and for me to watch him go through that while trying to stop myself from calling each company and bawling them out for not realizing my husband was the greatest thing they had going for them.  It was a long school year, but after final exams had been graded, he got an offer from a company in Hawaii that would allow us to spend the summer with his family while he gained valuable experience.  This was definitely a miracle.  Especially considering the fact that all of the 5 Marler children would be in one place together for an entire summer, something that hadn't taken place since Matthew graduated from high school 12 years previous and will most likely never happen again.  Both of us worked like crazy, me from his parent's basement, and Matthew from the First Hawaiian Bank Tower.  While neither of us are crazy about the idea of living in either of our parent's basements ever again, it was a lovely summer, one that we will cherish forever.

Miracle 2. Ever since the spring of 2010, I have praying that if something needed to change in my body to prepare it for children, that those changes would become apparent. Shortly thereafter, I was diagnosed with extreme hypothyroidism.  I had stats that still mystify doctors and definitely seemed a strong deterrent from getting pregnant.  Around the same time I found out I have cysts on my ovaries.  My doctor at the time didn't know how serious these cysts were since all women have them and they can't really assess the true nature of the problem without surgery.  At the time, we a kept watch on them and hoped none of other ones decided to rupture.  At the beginning of the next year, another one did leading me to more ultrasounds.  Again, I prayed that if something needed to change in my body that it would be apparent to the doctors.  At these ultrasounds I found that not only did I have ovarian cysts but I also had a fibroid in my uterus, definitely something that would need to come out if I wanted children.  I opted for surgery on the fibroid and on an additional surgery that would investigate my ovaries. The initial surgery on my uterus was a complete success, the additional surgery, however, found that I have stage three (out of four) endometriosis on either ovary with nothing to be done to help them function properly.  But . . . I still had hope for getting pregnant if I wanted to try IVF (invitro fertilization).  This was a miracle in the sense that one, I finally, after 4 years, had concrete information as to why my womb did not want to open, two, that Matthew and I were finally willing to accept IVF as a means to starting our family, and three, that even as students we still had just enough money to pay for the treatment.

Miracle 3. IVF worked and on the first try!  Given my internal issues, and the fact that IVF only works 50% of the time, we were so excited, relieved, and otherwise extremely grateful that it only took one cycle to get pregnant.  What a miracle.

Miracle 4.  Matthew got a wonderful offer for a great company in Pennsylvania that we were very excited to accept.  My prayer for Matthew throughout law school and now through business school was for him to find a job he is excited about, can feel successful at, and pays enough to pay off student loans and maybe even buy a house someday.  This job meets any and all requirements, and while it's not in a glamorous location, I'm sure we will fall in love with the area anyway.  If we can fall in love with Wenatchee and State College, I'm sure Allentown will be a cinch.  What a miracle that it is seemingly the perfect job with a stable as a table company, and it fell into place without all the heartache of last year. 

We feel entirely blessed at this point in our lives and are excited to see what new challenges and adventure 2012 holds! 

Thank you for indulging me this very long post.  Here's to next year and adult Christmas cards!!

Friday, December 9, 2011

16 weeks

So it appears that I have successfully made it to 16 weeks.  Who knew.  Anyway, life is still happy, and I am starting to show, which is actually pretty fun.  Four weeks and we find out the sex of Wee Babe!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Official Pennsylvanians

Wahoo for School!!! Matthew has been offered and has accepted a job with a chemical manufacturing company in Allentown, PA.  Allentown is an hour north of Philadelphia and an hour and a half west of New York City. We are crazy excited on all sorts of levels!!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Pirates

Here is the quilt I made for my sister-in-law for Christmas.  Thankfully, I'm pretty sure she doesn't follow my blog.  We didn't find out we had her for Christmas until Thanksgiving and we're leaving shortly for Christmas in Hawaii, so I didn't have tons of time.  She is into pirates, so we ordered her some cool fabric and . . . I am pretty proud of how well it turned out in so short a time!