2011 in Review Part 4 - A Week Apart in California and a Tribute

The above photo has absolutely nothing to do with Adam being in San Francisco for a week in June while I was in Newport Beach, but he didn't take any photos while in San Francisco, not being a photo taking kind of guy so I thought this would be a good substitute. Pretty freaking cute, right? I mean, if he had attended my elementary school instead of somewhere in a suburb of Cincinnati, I never would have lost my heart to Peter F in the fifth grade. Adam would have had me from the start. So what was Adam doing in San Francisco? And why was I in Newport Beach? I'll tell you! Adam was sent there for work to attend WWDC, which is the big Apple conference in San Francisco. You know, the one where Steve Jobs (may he rest) would wear his black turtle neck and unveil new Apple products? That's the one. Anyway, this trip coincided with the beginning of my slow time at work where it really is imperative for me to take time off to preserve my mental stability. I thought about tagging along, but since he was going with another co-worker and would be in workshops all day long, not being the type that really likes to wander around unknown cities alone, I really wasn't sure what I would do with myself. I could go visit my parents, but didn't really want to fly alone and was only looking to be gone for about 4 days. So I called Lis.

Anyone who has spent a reasonable amount of time with me since 1997, knows that one of my best friends in the whole wide world is a girl named Lis (pronounced Liz). I met her the same day I moved into my dorm at BYU on a hot day in August 1997. I had just said a tearful goodbye to my brother and parents, my roommate was no where in site (she wouldn't show up for another week), and I was trying to distract myself by hanging up pictures on my bulletin board, when this cute girl with short blond hair poked her head into my room. Our conversation went something like this:

"Um, hi, I was asked by the RA to let everyone know we're having a floor meeting in a few minutes."
"Oh, okay. Thanks!"
"You're listening to Barenaked Ladies! I love them!"
"Really? Me, too! I've seen them like four times in concert!"
"That's awesome! Well, I'll see you around!"

She left and I remember thinking, "I'm going to be friends with that girl." I need to point out something before I go on. In 1997, few people outside of the Northeast knew about Barenaked Ladies and it was long before they released their lame mainstream albums like Stunt. They were considered cool were I came from. I just want to reiterate that this is before they were cheesy. We became fast friends after that. Lis is the coolest. She's unflappable and confident. She's kind and upbeat. She's smart and cultured. She's introduced me to Jane Austen, countless TV shows, and various fashion trends. She's influenced my political and world views. She's seen me at my best and worst. Here's a photo of us in our junior year with all of our other BFFs at the time. We're both wearing stripes:


Here we are (with our one of our other BFFs, the lovely Kimberly Neves) in 2001 when we graduated.

This was taken in 2004 (ish?) with the rest of our roommates in the huge house in Holladay we lived in. Lis and I were roommates in four different houses in Salt Lake before I got married. Yes, in this house there were nine of us. Yes, it was crazy.

So there's a brief photo time line. I have much better photos for such a topic, but these are the ones I had readily available in my computer. There are other friends I've been fortunate to meet whom I love oh so dearly, but no one else has been as much a part of my life for so long as Lis. Adam was just reading over my shoulder and says I've gotten way off topic, but it's an important thing for this blog to take note of. Some people don't have a "Lis." But I do and will be forever grateful for that.

So to make a long story short, Adam was going to San Francisco and I needed something to do. I called Lis, who teaches and was off for the summer, and we made our plans. We found a good deal on flights to Orange County. There was a vacation package with what looked like a nice hotel just down the road from Newport Beach and off we went. The flights went smoothly, the hotel was nice (aside from the mile walk to the parking lot), the women in Newport reasonably matched their stereotypes on TV, the sister missionaries could be seen walking around, and we got in some nice beach time in perfect weather. Almost too perfect. In spite of putting on SPF 55 sun screen, I got a sun burn of legendary proportions the first day. That kind of put a damper on my visions of sun bathing the entire time and it was a good thing we had buddy passes to Disneyland to pass the time. These are terrible pictures of us, but life's like that sometimes:

Walking down main street.

Sleeping Beauty's Castle. This was my first time in Disneyland. I've been to Disney World about 4 times, but not since I was 9. I think that Cinderella's castle is the prettier of the two, but Sleeping Beauty was always my favorite Disney cartoon so this was a big moment for me.


A nice photo of one of the beaches we stopped at. On our downtime, we watched episodes of Parks and Recreation and I read Bossy Pants by Tina Fey, a perfect vacation read.

So that was our week at opposite ends of California. I did really miss Adam. He had a fun-ish time on his business trip but it was nice to get back. It was also nice to get back to Hero, who decided to catch pneumonia while we were gone. Apparently dogs can get pneumonia and Hero would, of course, be the dog to get it. Something I didn't mention before is that Hero is rather prone to illness and accidents. She's like Beth from Little Women or Tiny Tim. Hopefully she grows out of this...

2011 in Review Part 3 - House Guests

So - another big event for the Zundel Ard's was visiting of my mom, sister and two of her boys, and my brother and his family in March. I can only hope that it was as nice for them to visit as it was for us to have them there. It was a varied lot with many different agendas and opinions of how time would be best spent (particularly when catering to two three-year old little boys and one 15-month old), but we managed to get the important things done: 1) Lots of good natured ribbing around the dinner table; 2) Wende's birthday lunch; 3) An eventful shopping trip to Ikea and the Sundance Outlet - Tianna is very good at helping out when someone has a seizure in the store; 4) Surviving toddler melt downs at Cafe Paesan; 5) Family Meeting up at Grandma's house; 6) Saving Hero from Connor and Connor from Hero (when he was eating Goldfish crackers).

Of course I took few pictures. In fact, there were only two worth showing:

Connor and Liam aka the Puppet Master and the Future Rescue/Construction Worker

I really think Connor needs his own reality TV show. I would watch it. This kid has charisma as evidenced by the below musical number. Sorry for my loud cheering at the end. It's what aunts do. I really liked how he would lay back on the couch at different points during the song as though he was actually looking at the stars. Nice.

2011 in Review Part 2 - Hero

Oh, my. Two days in a row? Yeah, that's right - I am committed to my review of 2011. Today I get to blog about one of my favorite things or rather creatures....animals....canines....dogs I own:

Hero!

Boy do we love this dog of ours. One of my first posts of this year rather sheepishly announced that we bought a yellow lab puppy in November 2010. Two weeks into that decision, I was wishing we hadn't. More than a year later, I miss her when we go on vacations, smile whenever I see her, and spoil her to an absurd degree. Replacement child? Possibly, but I don't care. Adam did ask me the other day how old she would need to get before I stopped calling her "Baby Girl." (I don't think he's a fan of that nickname) I told him probably never. I can't help it. We are possibly the worst dog owners ever - at least I'm pretty sure that's what my parents think. We do everything you're not supposed to do. We let her lead the way on walks, sleep on our bed, and we feed her people food. Not all the time, mind you, and only healthy stuff like fruits and vegetables, but yeah. Please set your judgment aside. She's happy and we're happy. That's what matters right?

When we went to NY to celebrate Christmas with my family last year, we boarded her at this place where they socialize the dogs and let them play together during the day. Hero loved it. She loves other dogs. When we take her on walks and she sees other dogs, she wags her tail and cries because she wants to play with them so badly. Because of our full-time work schedules, we decided it was only fair to start taking her to a dog day care place. Yes, we're those people. It's embarrassing, but I'm mostly over it. Maybe I already mentioned this? Anyway, since February, 3-4 days during the week, Adam drops her off before work and I pick her up after work from this place in South Salt Lake. It's great - she plays all day and then Adam and I don't feel so guilty and don't have to spend hours playing with her when we get home because she's been couped up inside all day. It's not a permanent solution, but while we both work 40 plus hours a week, it relieves a lot of stress and she loves that place. As soon as Adam gets ready to go in the morning, she's bouncing around and jumping on him to make sure he doesn't leave her behind. She has been known to whimper if we're not fast enough getting her out of the car to go inside. Here are some other things about Hero:

1) She's a great source of exercise. This dog will play keep away with you as long as you have the stamina. She's relatively good at hide and seek. She loves her walks around the neighborhood and going over to Adam's parents' house to play in their huge backyard.

2) She's obsessed with socks - she knows exactly where to get them. In a laundry basketful of whites, she can separate the socks from the rest of the clothes and unmentionables with surprising ease. She mainly uses them as a way to get attention and play keep away.

3) She loves peanut butter and will do pretty much anything for a treat - not so unusual, really.

4) She's a cuddler. Her preferred relaxing position is anything where she can be touching me or Adam. This is not so great at 5 in the morning when suddenly I feel dead weight on my legs or her head dropping on my stomach, but at least she's courteous enough to wait until 5.

5) She's afraid of anything with a motor sound. The vacuum cleaner and the lawn mower in particular.

6) She needs more training. I really do intend to work on that. But she doesn't have an aggressive bone in her body, according to a trainer we were using for awhile. Adam and I just have problems being consistent - it's good we've realized this now.

7) She loathes baths and getting her nails clipped. Adam has to sit in the tub with her while I pour water on her and he lathers her up. This is all done with a pathetically beaten look on her face.

So that's that. Some people will not understand all of this affection for a rather troublesome collection of fur. And that's okay. You can skip the below visual chronology of her life so far below. Forgive my grainy iPhone pics!

This is from February 2011. The halo in the picture is inadvertent yet miraculous

This is one exhausted puppy after one of her first days at day care

Vanity is unfortunately one of her failings

She joined me once for my evening prayers. This is legit - I really was praying and she jumped up beside me resulting in Adam taking the picture. If only my pajamas were more stylish!

Payback on Adam. I told you - she really will sleep anywhere as long as she can be touching someone

This was taken last Saturday. She is also afraid of the Christmas tree and needed some reassurance when we were putting it up.

2011 in Review Part 1

So begins my epic summary of 2011. Epic primarily because I haven’t done a blog post since February. I could just give up on this whole blog thing. I mean, obviously I’m bad at it, but I really do like keeping some sort of a record since my journal writing tendencies are also completely abysmal. So here we go!

Instead of going chronologically, I’m going to summarize the year based upon events. Sadly, the dominant theme for the Adam Ards’ this year is failed attempts to hear the pitter patter of little feet. Or is it? Yes and no. I personally think the dominant theme for 2011 is better reflected in resilience, scrappiness, hope springing eternal, etc. In a nutshell though, Adam and I tried two rounds of IVF this year. Once in January/February and again in July/August. The first round resulted in a miscarriage. The second round resulted in two ectopic pregnancies and two surgeries within a week of each other. No risk that they’ll forget who we are at the fertility clinic! I have started dozens of posts, some only in my mind, about what has happened. I know that I’m under no obligation to touch on the subject at all, but it wouldn’t feel like this blog is about our family, currently consisting of Adam and I, if I didn’t. These experiences have been heartbreaking and significant. They have changed us permanently and therefore deserve to be acknowledged.

The IVF process is a draining one, particularly when you do a second round within a few months of doing the first round. You start with birth control pills to essentially shut down your body from doing its own thing. Next come the injections. The first time we did the standard thing: one injection in the abdomen for about a week or so, then add two more also in the abdomen for at least another week. Then come the daily ultrasounds to check your progress. Once, you’re ready, there’s the egg retrieval and the beginning of the daily progesterone shots in the back side. Don’t be fooled, those progesterone shots are by far the worst part. You recover from the egg retrieval after a few days and in the meantime get a phone call from the lab telling how many eggs they were able to fertilize and when they want you to come into to transfer then back into your hopefully hospitable womb. Oh yeah, and your husband has to provide a sample and take some antibiotics, too – they really like to make sure everyone feels involved. That’s a very general overview of the process.

The first time around, I reacted very strongly to the drugs and they had to retrieve on the earliest day possible to avoid hyper-stimulation in my ovaries. They were able to retrieve about 28 and of those about 19 were mature enough to be fertilized. Out of the 19 or so fertilized, there were about 6-7 that survived and of those only 3 were really considered good enough to transfer. They transferred two and we opted not to freeze the other one that survived since there was only one. The miscarriage occurred on March 31st. We were told that there was no specific reason it happened and therefore there was no reason to not try again when we were ready.

The second time around, in light of my first response, they elected to change up the injections and triggers typically used to get me to the egg retrieval. It seemed to work fairly well because they didn’t have to retrieve quite as early and we were hoping the quality of embryos would be better. Bizarrely, only two embryos survived this time, but they didn’t just survive – they were considered stellar qualify embryos so we transferred them with high hopes on my birthday at the end of August and well, you already know the rest. We found out about the first ectopic on September 16th and I was finally able to get back to work, resuming my normal life without the prospect of children on October 3rd.

So, as you can see, this took up a large chunk of the year. So much so that I can hardly believe it’s December. But it is. It’s funny because even now I experience such a multitude of different reactions when I think about everything that has happened. There’s the hand-wringing, teary eyed Jen who wants to sink to her knees with her face to the sky screaming “why did this happen!?” Seriously, why? That’s the weak Jen that now is only acknowledged during moments of extreme fatigue when the other Jens are off their game. There’s the Jen who shrugs her shoulders and says, “it is what it is and I can’t change it so I must accept it.” This Jen almost feels like laughing when she thinks about it because seriously, have you even heard of such bad luck? Then she secretly worries if there’s something wrong with her for wanting to laugh. There’s also the Jen who somehow knows that this is going to be okay. She has no idea how things will work out, but she knows that God is aware of her and her struggles and will be with her. I was told that in a priesthood blessing during the pain-filled night before the first surgery. For the most part, I’ve never doubted that and have had countless other experiences since then to reaffirm this simple, but precious fact. That’s where the peace comes in and where hope springs eternal.

So there you have it – this has been a big part of our year. I really do feel like we haven’t been beaten. We don’t know why this has happened, but we have grown closer together as a result of it and we know that we’re meant to raise children. We’ve just got to figure out what to do next. We’ve had very positive visits with our doctor. The thing we’ve learned through all of this is that I can get pregnant. A lot of people with fertility issues can’t, even after multiple IVF cycles. Although we’ve been very unfortunate in the outcome, it’s a promising thing that I’ve had two positive pregnancies as a result. Based on what they know about me and Adam’s tests, our doctor is very optimistic. We’re also considering adoption so……we’ll see.

We’re so grateful for family members and friends and neighbors who have reached out and shown us so much love and support. My co-workers have been positively angelic. One friend gave me a list of over 200 hundred names of people who fasted for me one Sunday. Adam and I got spoiled by our neighbors and by my mom when she came to help out. You have all been the major blessings in our lives this year.

Stay tuned for some other moments in 2011 that will, I promise, be a little less heavy than this fun guy. Fungi?