Joe and I spent most of the summer just doing the same old same old (life is really boring without children to keep you busy). One thing that we did look forward to was camping and we didn't even get in enough of that... however, we did get in one awesome trip with our dear friends Brandon and Kristen (Brookie got to have a Mimi and Grandpa weekend). What was really fun was we all met up with my parents and my sister and my brother-in-law for the annual Grainger's Black powder Shoot! This is a past time that I always enjoyed with my parents and now my husband is starting to enjoy it! He's never been into guns before, and that is one thing that my Dad has a real passion for, so it took a while to get him used to the idea that shooting was fun. In fact, it took 10 long years to get him really into it. But now that he's done it, he's hooked... unfortunately this is going to be an expensive hobby (but what hobby isn't). Brandon and Kristen are thoroughly hooked as well. So we have a nice little group of us who need a local black powder club!!
Anyways, back to camping... we had our own little compound, the eight of us! This has always been a weekend long camping trip combined with the black powder shoot outside of Victor, CO. Saturday was the shoot and my Dad had worked tirelessly to outfit at least 8 guns for 8 people! Usually he's only had to worry about 3 at the most, so this was a big feat for him that was greatly appreciated by all of us! We went down to go shooting at gong targets (metal targets that are varying sizes and at varying distances). Kristen was battling a cold but was a trooper and shot as much as she could. My dear sweet hubby is extremely talented athletically so struggles when he can't just pick something up and be good... so his struggles have been with a left eye dominance, right handed thing. Thankfully he switched to shooting left handed and started getting more shots on target (come to find out later, the gun wasn't sighted in completely, it must have gotten misaligned at some point). Me, well, I had a fantastic day!!! We had a total of 32 shots and I had 24 on target! Came in second overall in the women's division!!! I was awfully proud and sure made my Daddy proud (p.s. out shot him by 8)!!!! Brandon also had 24 hits, however I won the tie breaker!!! So I win :)!! Heather and Adam were unable to come up for the competition but showed up later in the day and did get a little shooting in. All in all, it was a really fun weekend with lots of people that are close to us! Just what was needed for the soul!! But who doesn't like shooting at things??? Great stress relief!!! Oh, and of course I can't forget, Joe won the hawk throwing contest! He was so excited he got to win a hawk and now he just needs a block of wood in the back yard for him to throw at!!
Joe's shot
The happy dance commenced... it was a very good day!!
And now he's happy that he was good at something too!
The rest of the summer went by pretty uneventfully. We did take an anniversary trip to Telluride, which was fantastic!!! We've been married for 5 years and together for 10 years, so it was a pretty big deal! We just enjoyed our surroundings, enjoyed some frisbee golf, had some great food and drinks, and really just relaxed in a very beautiful area!! If you have never been to Telluride, I have to recommend it as a must do in the summer!!! We also said our goodbyes to Heather and Adam who are off to South Korea for Adam's job!! It's been tough getting used to her not being around but I'm so happy and thankful for her to get the opportunity to experience all of this!!! She has also started a blog detailing their excitement that you can check out here.
Anniversary dinner on top of the mountain
What did consume our summer was our attempts to get pregnant. In my last post I was talking about increasing my Clomid dose once again. Unfortunately that did not work for us and the meds were really hard on my body. I can't even explain all the side effects, but they were just miserable! That drug is just harsh!!! I'm sure it's nothing compared to some of the injectables, but considering I had just about tripled the max dose for this medication, let's just say I was so done with it!!! After a lot of tears and heartache we had a conversation with my wonderful doctor, Dr. Bachus, and decided to move forward with another oral medication called Letrozole (Femara is the brand name). This drug was created for certain types of breast cancer treatment, but has had the side effect of increasing fertility in women who do not respond to clomid. This drug also stays in your system for 48 hours after your last dose, opposed to Clomid which lasts for 4-6 weeks! The biggest difference in the two drugs simply put is this: Clomid is an estrogen receptor blocker, Letrozole is an estrogen producing stopper. So instead of playing the blocking game, we're basically playing the "bench the first string" game.
We started out at the middle dose for Letrozole which is 5mg. Since this drug is not FDA approved for infertility this course of treatment goes along with many many many ultrasounds to track follicle development. We watched one follicle grow finally to 23x23mm (which is really good) then I had an HCG injection to ensure release of the egg!! We were so elated that I had successfully ovulated that we didn't even worry about not being pregnant that round. We moved on gladly to round two at the end of August, went in for a 14 day ultrasound and didn't see the growth we should have. Dr. Bachus put me on another 4 day dose of 7.5mg of Letrozole and scheduled me to come back in 4 days. Later that week I showed up, threatened him that he was only allowed to give me good news, and accidentally kicked him and low and behold I had great growth!! He scheduled me to come back and check in another 4 days and prepare for another HCG injection. We skipped in on Sunday and were disappointed to not see the kind of growth we wanted. "Sometimes you just stall" is all that we could get from the doctor. But he's still optimistic that this round can still work, so we'll just have to wait and see. I'm scheduled for another ultrasound tomorrow to check the progress. So please, pray and hope and cross fingers and toes that we have some good results in the next few days!! *update after our ultrasound today, pretty sure I successfully ovulated yesterday! Now we just hurry up and wait, lots of prayers please!!*
This is not my ultrasound, just a sample picture of what we usually see. The black spots are the growing follicles, swiss cheese lookin' ovaries are a good thing!
Infertility battles are a long and lonely road! There are so many things to be happy and sad about and those of us who travel this road together must stick together! One of my dear friends is doing a special project for their struggles, please check them out here and pray for us all!!
As always I hope that this blog finds it's place in your heart and that you're all happy and healthy!
Much love!
xoxo
Alexis
I will be praying hard for this round my love!!! I hope for nothing but the best for you and Joe and I hope this round is THE ROUND!! Keep me posted! Oh and you are SOOOO Sweet to give a shout out to us! LOVE YOU MUCH!
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