Good News Mama!

After years of reading and watching videos and going back and forth about this, I've decided that I'm going to take Metformin for my PCOS. The hope is that Metformin will make it easier for me to lose weight because of my insulin resistance. Eventually this will lead to me ovulating at a predictable pattern, and then Kevin and I can hopefully conceive and give birth to a healthy full-term baby! My doctor said it's a good thing and she's prescribed it for her other PCOS patients. In three months I'll be coming back for a follow-up and they're going to run blood tests to see how it's helping my hormone levels. Metformin is a medication that is usually given to diabetic patients because of insulin resistance. A lot of PCOS women eventually get pregnant while on Metformin because of the weight loss and hormone stablizing benefits. It is NOT an ovulation-inducing drug (like Clomid!) but the weight loss eventually can lead to ovulation. I'm going to start Me...

Tonight at Downtown Disney, Evangeline watched fireworks for the first time. Granted, she was fussing and getting bored for most of it, but I still loved knowing this was a first for her. Before being all into Disney became a hipster thing to do, I was a huge fan of Disney...why? Because I'm Anaheim-born, baby! I grew up in Anaheim and have very vivid memories of climbing a ladder onto my roof with my dad and little brother Billy, and watching fireworks together. The car alarm was still pretty new back then, so all the fireworks would set off all the cars in our neighborhood. And at the time, we had a rough collie named Estee who was always so scared of the fireworks. If I wasn't on the roof watching fireworks, I was behind the trash bin holding Estee to comfort him. I was looking down at Evangeline, pointing at the fireworks and trying to explain them to her. I don't know how much she understands, but I do know a lot goes on in that little mind of hers. Her occupation...

“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” Proverbs 14:1 Prior to being a mother, I was usually always out of the house and being at home was a rare occurrence. Weekday mornings were spent rushing to get out to go to work, and once I came home, I was too tired to do anything. Weekends were spent going out and using up our free time. Nowadays, most of my time is spent within the home. It was a huge change for me the moment we brought home our baby. After 88 days spent in the NICU, I got used to the noise, as I was surrounded by babies crying and endless beeping and alarms going off. What a drastic change it was, to come home to a quiet house and to just be alone, baby and me, for most of the day when her daddy was at work (from 6 am to 6 pm usually!) It was all the more extreme since we were technically in quarantine for the flu/RSV season. I was a little in over my head. Thankfully that season passed and now we are free ...

I've got a confession: Homemaking is unnatural to me! It is REALLY hard for me to staying at home! I mean, I am really happy to be spending time with my baby at home. Playing with her, holding her, feeding her, doing her therapy exercises... I can do all that. But the truth of the matter is I'm not used to taking care of the home. The kitchen. The bathrooms. The bedrooms. The empty walls! I am so used to going to school and getting good grades. I was bred to do that. I was taught at young age that getting good grades led to making lots of money and that was the definition of the "good life." There was very little emphasis on taking care of the home. How was I supposed to know about the importance of cooking wholesome, nutritious and thoughtful meals? Cleaning until there's not a spec of dust in the house? Artfully decorating a home and accepting visitors, making them feel welcomed? If someone could grade me on those things, I would definitely get a bad grade...

So it's been a little less than 2 months since Dipper's passing. I think of him often. I still get really excited when I see other people walking around their shibas. If I really immerse myself into memories of Dipper, it REALLY hurts. It's like a void that can't be filled again because I know I won't see him anytime soon. Or anytime in this lifetime, anyway. As a way to help me grieve, and with some advice from other dog owners who have dealt with loss, we adopted a 1.5 year-old doggy. While this new dog will never replace Dipper, he is really helping me through my grieving process. It's also a good distraction! He's a Newfoundland (the only dog who's a popular Newfie is Na-Na from Peter Pan!) We found him online and the family who lived with him said they couldn't keep him anymore. We didn't want to introduce a newborn puppy into our house (That is too much work! I already have a baby I take care of all day!) so we thought that right under 2 ...

This past year has been exciting because we just went to 3 weddings, back to back! It's hard not to reminisce on the days leading up to our own wedding day. As we approached March 3, we would often hear marriage advice...mostly focusing on the negative aspects of being married. There were statements made such as, "After the newlywed season, it will get harder. Trust me." or "Don't forget, you're going to married to a sinner!"  Kevin and I were warned so often that we really thought marriage would be a tough thing to deal with. I thought there would be a lot of fights, screaming at each other and tears streaming down our faces. I thought there would be days where we would question if getting married was right in the first place. I thought that I would look with longing back at the days before I got married...and 3.5 years later, we look at each other baffled and both agree... Marriage really isn't THAT hard. When we tell other couples that, they u...

Every pregnant woman has dreams of what her baby's arrival will be like: What needs to be packed? Will it be painful? What will the little boy/girl look like? I used to ask myself those questions too. But things happened differently than what I expected. You see, my baby's due date was October 28. Her actual arrival date? July 23. Yep, she was early... very, very early. I said goodbye to my dreams of my water breaking and waddling to the car with a huge belly. At 26 weeks pregnant, I woke up bleeding and cramping, and later found myself being wheeled away in the hospital to quickly deliver my baby because she was in danger of coming out early and possibly suffocating. Needless to say, I was a mess. A crying, hot mess. Nobody warned me extensively about the dangers of premature delivery. It never even crossed my mind. Miscarriage was a lot more of a looming possibility and I actually knew friends and family who miscarried. But preemies? The earliest my friends ever deli...