That day I took the picture of those meds, was one of the last times I felt okay. The shots, the IVF, the entire thing was pretty rough on my body. And somewhere in the middle (and now I’ll never know quite when) I seem to have gotten genuinely sick on top of it. I didn’t realize though. And then we went through the egg retrieval and I had complications with my recovery. And even as those finally started to resolve, I still felt worse and worse. Until finally I figured it out and went to a doctor. I had a rockin’ upper respiratory infection on top of everything.

So the bottom line is I’m feeling a lot better. The recovery from the retrieval is getting tons better now. And the upper respiratory infection is being treated which is making me feel better every day. I am coming out the other side now. And just in time.

Tomorrow is our embryo transfer. Tomorrow is the day that the job is no longer on my little embryos and comes back to my body. My body needs to finish the job now, and all we can do is pray that I can close the loop.

Now, after all of that, here’s is the breakdown of how IVF has played out for us so far:

• At our egg retrieval, they got 18 eggs.
• Of those eggs, 14 were mature.
• Of those mature eggs, 12 fertilized successfully via ICSI

And, of my 12 champion little embryos:

• 3 are abnormal and have stopped growing
• 4 are doing okay
• 5 are excellent

My little embryos have done a great job. We will get another report in the  morning before our transfer and will make the final call then on how many they transfer back to me based on that report. And then on Monday we will get a report on how many, if any, were frozen.

So that’s the story of my IVF so far. It’s not the best story, but hopefully it’ll have a happy ending!

I was very lucky that our photographer understood how important these details were for me and took extra time to make sure they were captured forever. For me, and for you. So, without further ado, my muchly awaited (even if only by me!) details:

I love a gorgeous hanger shot, but didn’t want my name on mine. So instead, I had this.

One of my favorite details of the entire day was my flowers. Oh how I loved those gorgeous flowers. I never get tired of seeing them.

I had envisioned this sweet background to our ceremony of vellum hearts, hanging at varying lengths behind us as we got married. However, due to the weather forecast that weekend (humidity!) the vellum didn’t hold up as intended. Instead, it looked like a soft romantic cascade of petals behind us.

An important part of our ceremony was our toast and drinking of the wine, and also a wine box and love letters ceremony. The details for each along with our rings were waiting patiently on a table in our ceremony space.

And this is a great shot of our ceremony space. You can see the tissue paper flowers on the ceiling, the tissue paper and small round pomanders, and the flower petals down the aisle.

And because I loved them so much, here is a good close up of the tiny little paper lanterns that were strung up around the pavilion like garland.

On the way into the ceremony, guests were asked to take a stone with them.

And on the way out of the ceremony, the guests wrote something on their stone and left them for us to keep forever.

We also made sure our guests were hydrated during the ceremony by having bottled water available for them.

At cocktail hour, there was our escort card table. Also on the table were our guestbook papers and some of our engagement pictures.

I was especially proud of the last minute escort cards we devised and the set up I threw together for them.

Also at cocktail hour were… well, cocktails. Okay, beer and wine actually, but cocktails was more catchy. At the last minute, I wrote up a sign for the bar so folks would know what their options were.

I loved the way our reception tables turned out. Here you can see our centerpieces and photo sharing cards. We also supplied the napkins.

Here’s a closer view of the centerpieces from the front.

And the centerpieces from the back, with the photo scavenger hunt card.

Our cake table may not have been super elaborate, but I really loved our cake.

And who could ever forget how much I loved that cake topper.

Our fauxtobooth props definitely felt the love throughout the afternoon.

Some of them even might have escaped and romped around outside of our fauxtobooth too…

And finally, our ribbon wands, waiting for their big moment.

All signs designed by Gator Bride Designs. All photographs courtesy of Chad Lippiatt Photo.

What is/was your favorite wedding day detail?

Miss a recap?

• Loxed and Loaded: We did it!
• Loxed and Loaded: The Fauxtobooth
• Loxed and Loaded: How Sweet It Is
• Loxed and Loaded: Just get dancey
• Loxed and Loaded: Come What May
• Loxed and Loaded: It’s a Beautiful Day!
• Loxed and Loaded: After the Ceremony
• Loxed and Loaded: Surprise!
• Loxed and Loaded: The Ceremony
• Loxed and Loaded: Journey of a Lifetime
• Loxed and Loaded: And we wait…
• Loxed and Loaded: Safely to Shore
• Loxed and Loaded: It’s the Little Things
• Loxed and Loaded: Don’t Mess with the Dress
• Loxed and Loaded: Our First Look
• Loxed and Loaded: Dressed At Last
• Loxed and Loaded: Guys Get Gussied Up
• Loxed and Loaded: Hair and Makeup
• Loxed and Loaded: First There Was Chaos
• Loxed and Loaded: Setting the Mood

Admit it, now you’re terrified. At least, I know I am. Injections start Saturday!

However, all good things must come to an end, and eventually our party was drawing to a close. To echo my walk down the aisle, our final song was Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ as performed by the cast of Glee. I grabbed Mr. Lox and we tried to figure out how to dance to it.

As we danced, our guests started trickling out of the pavilion and past our coordinator and her assistant who were holding the ribbon wands I’d made for just this moment. Each person who’d made it this far grabbed a wand and lined up outside the gazebo in the late Sunday afternoon sunshine. And eventually, the song was over, and we followed the path out to where they were all waiting for us.

And as we rounded the corner and stepped into the gazebo, there they were. Our friends and loved ones, still every bit as excited as we were and sending us off with love.

And so we walked. We walked down the aisle for the very last time on our wedding day, still surrounded by joy and love.

And as we made it nearly to the end of the aisle, we shared one last kiss full of the joy we were feeling that day.

And that was it. It was the end of our day, but just the beginning of our love story. We did it!

*All pictures courtesy of Chad Lippiatt Photo

This may be how our day ended, but it isn’t the end of what I want to tell you, dear hive. I still want to show you the details of our day, and our gorgeous video. So our ending isn’t quite yet.

How did or will your wedding day end?

Miss a recap?

• Loxed and Loaded: The Fauxtobooth
• Loxed and Loaded: How Sweet It Is
• Loxed and Loaded: Just get dancey
• Loxed and Loaded: Come What May
• Loxed and Loaded: It’s a Beautiful Day!
• Loxed and Loaded: After the Ceremony
• Loxed and Loaded: Surprise!
• Loxed and Loaded: The Ceremony
• Loxed and Loaded: Journey of a Lifetime
• Loxed and Loaded: And we wait…
• Loxed and Loaded: Safely to Shore
• Loxed and Loaded: It’s the Little Things
• Loxed and Loaded: Don’t Mess with the Dress
• Loxed and Loaded: Our First Look
• Loxed and Loaded: Dressed At Last
• Loxed and Loaded: Guys Get Gussied Up
• Loxed and Loaded: Hair and Makeup
• Loxed and Loaded: First There Was Chaos
• Loxed and Loaded: Setting the Mood

• The clinic told me I was too fat to have babies. After many tears and an emergency diet was started, it turned out they misrecorded my weight by over 40 pounds. I will just let you imagine the havoc that reeked. Chances are, you’re not imagining enough… go bigger. We got it corrected in the end.
• Our insurance denied our IVF authorization. I didn’t know why at first, but chances are there’s a bullet about that just a bit further down the list.
• We rushed out and had another test done on Craig to try to convince the insurance to change their minds. The results came back normal. We were both shocked AND awed.
• The doctor told us to do a stimulated IUI, but the clinic informed us our meds wouldn’t be covered by insurance. We decided to do it anyway.
• The pharmacy then proceeded to entirely botch up my prescription. The fertility pharmacy. It was so bad that they said they couldn’t get the meds to me in time and were going to ruin my cycle. I fought and fought and then fought some more until they figured it out. Sometimes, you just have to fight.
• When the insurance authorization for the stimulated IUI finally arrived at my house, it looked as if my meds might, in fact, have been covered. A few quick calls to my prescription plan verified that they were. I fought some more with the fertility pharmacy, and won again. Money returned.
• In the meantime, I ordered a refill of one med. I told them three times to run it through my insurance. I expected a $25 copay and gave them my credit card. They decided not to follow my instrictions after all and I got a $278 charge instead. You know what happened….. I fought. Have you noticed how many times I’ve had to fight now? Very tiring.
• In the middle of this, I got the denial letter for the IVF cycle. The letter claimed it was denied because we didn’t two sets of test results. But we did. Dirty liars. You know what came next right? After I stopped spitting in rage? You got it. I fought.
• In the middle of all of that, we had the IUI. On the day of the procedure, Craig’s sample was worse than ever. All hope the one normal result created were dashed. But we hoped for the IUI to take anyway.
• During the TWW, I got a letter about my appeal to the IVF denial in the mail. The insurance company reversed their decision… we’re approved for IVF! Another point for me.
• We had a pregnancy test. The IUI did not take. We started planning the IVF cycle immediately. It’s starts at the end of next week.

Whew! Are you as tired as I am? I mean, probably not. Seeing as I was the one doing all of the fighting. But no one can ever say I didn’t take charge of my own health care. I may have needed to become a walking encyclopedia of my benefits to do it, but I did. And now we’re cruising towards IVF. Which honestly, I’ve been trying very hard not to think about.

But that’s a tale for another day. I also promise to talk more about what we’ve been doing to the house and other things we’ve been getting into. That is, if you’ve forgiven me yet. I so hope you have. I missed you. Can we be friends again?

For my first project, I really tested the boundaries of the no prep claims. We went to Goodwill, where I picked up this debacle of a nightstand for $5.

So, take a good look at this “lovely” piece. I would especially like you to note the contact paper. There is one layer of it on the shelf at the bottom. And there are two layers of it on the top.

Yeah. So apparently the finish was so damaged that the previous owner felt covering it with wood grain contact paper was an improvement. And then that got too damaged….. so they did it again. I think Craig thought I was vaguely daft when I picked this one. But it was only $5 and I was pretty sure the contact paper would come off.

For the record? I was right. The first thing I did when we got this thing home was rid it of contact paper. Then I was left with this.

So right… that’s pretty bad. But it doesn’t really matter because I’m just painting over it anyway. I did sand just the tiniest bit to make sure all the sticky goo was off. And I puttied a particularly nasty gouge on one side and a hole at the bottom of one of the legs.

Then I painted. I did a two color technique on these with Primer Red as the bottom color and Arles as the top. Two coats of each made this nightstand perfect for our guest room. (Did I not mention that? I bought this $5 monstrosity for our guest room. I figured it was either going to go horribly right or horribly wrong. I was right… it was one of those, I think.)

Oh… so you want to see it? Yeah, I suppose we could do that. After I was all done painting, distressing, and waxing, my little $5 nightstand looked like this.

I kind of love it now. So just to summarize, here is the before and after on my Goodwill $5 nightstand, all prettied up with chalk paint.

Please note, I did not realize until I was editing that image that I’d put the drawer pull back on upside down. I have decided that perhaps it looks evil (horns!) in the before picture and like a softer, gentler drawer pull in the after. Just go with me on this one.

Now, our guest room has a long way to go, but the nightstand is in there now sitting happily next to the bed and taking it one baby step forward towards being a finished room.

So what have you been up to in your house lately? And have any of you tried chalk paint? I’d love to hear your stories too.

The tests are all in and the fertility clinic has spoken. Craig and I are incredibly (profoundly even) unlikely to ever have children without medical help. We need IVF. But not just any IVF… IVF+ ICSI. What does that mean? It means the clinic is not only going to do all the normal IVF stuff, but they’re going to do it along with one additional step. They are going to select the best and brightest little sperm and inseminate the egg with it using a needle.

Basically, it means that no part of our TTC journey will be left to chance. Every single step will be run by and determined by a human being. Our children will be brought into this world by someone’s distinct choices.

This is the part where I have trouble articulating what I’m feeling. When we are younger and dreaming of starting a family some day, we dream of having children as being this natural and magical process. Not because we don’t understand the details, we’ve all had health class after all. But because the way nature works is pretty magical.

And what Craig and I are doing is magical too, but not in a natural way. No one in health class mentioned egg retrievals and petri dishes. And I’m positive no one ever told me that some day, a scientist could be engineering my child. And yet, here we are.

If we were trying to have children 20 or 30 years ago, we would not be able to. Our journey would be over. We would be told to adopt or be someone’s crazy auntie and uncle. Or get more dogs. But technology advances and so we have more choices. We have a chance to have our own baby. Whether it’s right or wrong by your beliefs, we have this chance. And yet, this chance we’re being given is completely bereft of anything natural.

I’ve thought about it a lot now. And what I struggle with is this: Are we bucking a higher power, or is this part of the plan since the technology exists and is being offered to us? Is there a way to reconcile what we’re about to do with our spirituality?

I don’t know the answer. I think about it every day now… almost every moment. So far, I still feel compelled to move forward on this path of making a baby the only way we have left to do so. Soon my choice will be irrevocable. It is something I may always struggle with, but there it is.

Have you ever faced this kind of internal struggle? Any words of wisdom for me as I try to make peace with our new path?

Right, so doesn’t it look lonely there now? All by itself, with no furniture to keep it company? I thought so. So today, Craig and I went on an expedition for something funky and hand painted to go under that. After much digging around, including one walk through an un-airconditioned attic in 106 degree weather (yeah, I was determined), I found something.

Craig was less convinced, but I had my mind made up, so the table came home with us. But now that it’s home, he’s not sold and I’m getting worried. So I figured, what better way to settle this in our minds than to get some third party opinions? None, clearly.

Before

After

Before you make a final judgment call, let me show you a few more pictures of the table from different angles.

Hello kitty!

If you look closely, you might notice that the table is actually the tiniest smudge longer than the wall. It’s actually such a small difference that it really doesn’t matter. Craig isn’t worried so much about that, but he thinks the table is just too big. And I’m too overwhelmed by the new piece to figure out if he’s right or not.

So, after considering this from all angles, what do you think? Is it too much or just right?

Before I share these pictures (which I wholeheartedly love), let me say just a few words. Yes, we should have figured out how we were affixing the background to the frame beforehand. And yes, we probably should have had someone check up on this thing once in a while to ensure it was zoomed in properly (which it only was for like, 2 seconds) and to help people take their pictures or figure out the remote. But even still, it added a ton of fun to our day and left us with these memories that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

Awwww, no props? I’m just glad my Godmother made it over there at all.

These folks were especially peeved to have the only blurry photo of the night. In case you can’t read it, their sign says “Cut the cake!”

The bill for the wedding?

See? Sad about the camera angle and the hinky background fabric. But who could ever be sad about having this awesome picture?

Proof our wedding was fun!

Now, let me tell you why that last photo is so very special to me. It is a recreation of the photo we took before our senior prom. Every one of these girls was in that pre-prom photo, and two of the guys were too! These people have been in my life for that long, and we’re still going strong. Knowing that they are still with me and seeing us together on my wedding day is priceless.

Are you having a photo booth of some kind? Are there any priceless shots you hope to get in there?

*All photos in this post are personal.

Miss a recap?

• Loxed and Loaded: How Sweet It Is
• Loxed and Loaded: Just get dancey
• Loxed and Loaded: Come What May
• Loxed and Loaded: It’s a Beautiful Day!
• Loxed and Loaded: After the Ceremony
• Loxed and Loaded: Surprise!
• Loxed and Loaded: The Ceremony
• Loxed and Loaded: Journey of a Lifetime
• Loxed and Loaded: And we wait…
• Loxed and Loaded: Safely to Shore
• Loxed and Loaded: It’s the Little Things
• Loxed and Loaded: Don’t Mess with the Dress
• Loxed and Loaded: Our First Look
• Loxed and Loaded: Dressed At Last
• Loxed and Loaded: Guys Get Gussied Up
• Loxed and Loaded: Hair and Makeup
• Loxed and Loaded: First There Was Chaos
• Loxed and Loaded: Setting the Mood

Pinterest to the rescue! A while back, I had pinned this tutorial for flower wall art. After looking it over again, I figured with different colors and materials I mostly had on hand, I could make my own version.

Now, in truth, what happened next was that I sort of did everything differently from the gal who wrote the tutorial. But that has more to do with me being lazy and stubborn than anything else, I promise. I think either way works just great… or maybe you have a totally new way to make this craft your own.

So I started with a 22″ x 28″ Artist Loft canvas from Michaels. Not because I like making giant pictures, but really because that was the size needed to cover the holes that started this whole mess. After consulting with Craig, we decided the background should be yellow so I got yellow acrylic paint too. And I knew I could use paper and adhesive I already had. I did end up buying more Mod Podge, but that’s only because my current bottle was getting low. So to sum up, here’s what I had:

• 22″ x 28″ canvas
• assorted paper (I used 7 sheets and had some left over)
• Mod Podge (glossy for me)
• tape runner
• acrylic paint (mine was yellow)
• large paint brush (I had this already as well)

Then I started doing kind of whatever I wanted. I painted the canvas with one coat of yellow paint. I kind of dug the character that the slightly uneven color gave it so I opted not to do a second coat. Important point – I let the canvas dry overnight. Let me repeat…. I let the canvas dry overnight. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

The canvas was so large I had to do this on the floor.

The next day, I picked out my 7 sheets of coordinating paper and pulled out my trusty Cricut. I found a nice leaf shape and decided it could be a petal too, and used that instead of cutting petals by hand. To give a little variety, I cut petals in two sizes: 2″ and 3″. I was able to get 9 or 10 of each size from each 12×12 sheet of paper. That was more than enough as I had some petals leftover. But not too too many. I also cut the center of the flower from some plain brown paper with a circle punch I had laying around.

Next I pulled out my canvas and started to arrange everything. I did like the off center look to the original flower, so I honored the original there. Basically, I tried to keep from clumping the same kind of paper up too much in any one spot, and mixed the sizes up so it wasn’t too regular. Once I felt it was too a good size, I showed Craig a picture before sticking anything down.

For the record, I realized it needed to be filled out in the bottom right after looking at this. Another good reason for taking a picture.

With the design approved, I adhered it to the canvas using a regular old tape runner. In my case, I didn’t care about edges popping up because I knew I’d be sealing it with Mod Podge which would get everything nice and smooth. Even though it was tedious, this really didn’t take as long as I thought it would.

Then I sealed the canvas with 2 coats of Mod Podge. Clearly this step is optional. Clearly you need to let it dry between coats but that won’t take long. But let’s talk about the comments on the original tutorial. If the Mod Podge messes up your paint, it’s because you didn’t let it dry all the way. I’ve been there done that, so I knew better. Hence the drying overnight. But I still tested it on the back side of the canvas to make sure I really knew what I was talking about. I did. Also, sometimes Mod Podge can make your paper bleed. I’ve seen it happen. If you really want to seal it, you can always touch up with your background paint if this happens. Although in my case no touchups were necessary. It worked just fine.

I started this project on Saturday evening and hung it, all nice and dry, in our entrance way on Sunday evening. And that is how, a little over 24 hours after I suddenly could not stand those holes any longer, they were covered up by bright cheery artwork.

I like the way the flower wraps around the side here.

And this is the entry to our house. Baby gates are due to a dog who isn’t housebroken yet… not actual babies.

What do you think… did I nail it?