Things have been a little crazy this spring between all our personal and business happenings… so I haven’t been the best at keeping up with our behind the scenes posts. Between that, and feeling like most people don’t love these posts as much as I do – I debated stopping them all together. But honestly, I love looking back on our year in this way – and still go back to posts like this from years ago to reminisce about life and see how far we’ve come, memories we’ve made, and what we’ve learned along the way … and so I just can’t call it quits on these posts.
So here I am – playing catch up from March & April so someday I can look back and remember all the beautiful (& sometimes difficult) moments we’ve been through together.
Here’s a look back starting with March…
1. We got our gorgeous wedding album in (almost 6 years later! haha) and I still can’t stop looking at it!!
2. Nutso. That is all. haha!
3. We spent a weekend with our favorite kiddos in Madison!! Nothing better to kick it off than Michael’s Frozen Custard! Mmmm.
4. The weather showed some hope in early March and we took advantage and hit the road for our first long walk of the season!! We were both happy about that! 🙂
5. Bachelor Finale night with my girls! Make your own pizza & some tasty cocktails! Yes, please!
6. Tax Time!!! Ack! Sending out what felt like all our money, but thankfully wasn’t as bad as it could have been thanks to lots of preparation & number crunching throughout the year!
1. Cuddling up to dad’s foot seems like a logical place to sleep… haha.
2. What self-timer photos look like with your dog. haha. Clearly I wasn’t ready – and the ground wasn’t exactly even for balancing my phone! 😉 LOL
3. A look at The Workshop!!! Oh my gosh. So much love for the gorgeous styled shoot we did! Many more pics to share as soon as it is published!
4. Post-workshop and really wanted to be productive – but oh.my.word was I exhausted!!! Taking a much needed rest with the pup!
5. Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with these crazy ladies and their selfie-stick! haha
6. James working on practicing detail shots with some pretty leftovers from our workshop!!!
1. That thing where you realize you forgot your keys inside the moment your door locks behind you. HAHA. We took a loooooong meandering walk to kill some time (since J was at the gym!) and then hung out on the back porch until we finally found our maintenance man outside to let us in a couple hours later!! haha. Thankfully it was a pretty warm day!
2. March Madness!!! Enough said. 🙂
3. Date night and this guy wasn’t excited about the selfie. haha
4. What it looks like when I attempt to cut jalapeños!!! Haha!!! I thought I did so well but somehow got some on my face and oh did it burn!!! So…. sour cream mask to the rescue! 😉 LOL! What a dork!
5. We had a huge snowstorm on March 23rd!!! So nuts!! Especially after we had the best couple of 70 degree days just before that! Needless to say – Chloe was pretty excited!
6. I started acupuncture for our first IVF cycle and quickly became totally obsessed with it. These magic little needles!
1. Morning cuddles with my bubs before we got ready to fly out to Maryland for our first wedding of the year!!!
2. I always crack up when people flip James’ name around. The Four Seasons thought he was Tyler James. 🙂 hehe.
3. LOVED seeing these two (Morgan’s parents) at our Baltimore wedding and are SO THANKFUL for parents of past clients who love us so much that they send their friends to us! Thanks to these two awesome folks’ recommendation Sarah & Rob booked us for their wedding!
4. Felt like we could hardly function after a long first wedding of the year (clearly we weren’t in wedding shape anymore!) – so after lounging all day we dragged our butts out of bed and to the hotel gym! Looking crazy in our neon gym clothes!
5. Worked up an appetite – so off we went to enjoy some local seafood!!! OH MY WORD – SOOOO GOOD!!! Nothing like a little dive spot with paper table covers and plastic cups!! Totally our kind of place! (LP Steamers in Baltimore, for the curious! Absolutely go if you’re in town!)
6. Home again home again and cuddling with Chloe! Awww.
And now on to a look at the emotional roller coaster that was our April…. because every journey teaches us how to be better, stronger, and more empathetic versions of ourselves… so we should always remember where we’ve come from.
1. These adorable little kiddos came to visit us on this spring break with their mom, while their dad and brother were in Ethiopia!
2. Our first shipment of meds came in for our IVF cycle and this wasn’t even close to all of it!!! AH! Almost $7,000 worth of meds that cost us $1,600 (thanks to insurance)!
3. Someone didn’t care that I was trying to make the guest bed – she made herself at home elsewhere. haha!
4. Lots of cookies and desserts were consumed in April. I’m not normally a big sweets person – but I was that month!
5. Back when I was excited our teams were both in the Final Four! ACK!
6. The Badgers win and are heading to the National Championship game!!! Needless to say – my mom and I were a *little* excited! So fun to be home over Easter & get to watch the game together!
1. Easter morning lovin’ on my girl! (My hair stuck on her ear makes it look like she’s got a pigtail! haha!)
2. Squirrel chasing … errrr… jumping!
3. His team won. I took this photo of him trying to take a selfie because I was mad and I thought it looked like he was pooping. haha. Yes. I just said that out loud. It is true.
4. Post egg-retrieval! Whew. It was a crazy emotional ride, and super painful thanks to me not knowing what the pre-surgery protocol was – but we made it – and we got 12 eggs!!
5. Required bed rest after the surgery and I had the best nurse around… 🙂 She wouldn’t leave my side!
6. Finally made it up and out of the house for the slowest walk in the history of walks.
1. I kept improving and feeling better day by day and made it out to shoot an engagement in our gorgeous city a few days after retrieval with James. Love this city so!
2. I never want to see Gatorade again. haha. Seriously. I had to drink SO MUCH of it after the retrieval to avoid OHSS, and never want to see it again if possible!
3. Spring started to appear and it made me sooo happy. Love love love all the blooms that time of year!
4. Did I mention that I ate a lot of sweets that month? I rekindled my love for frozen yogurt, like, whoa.
5. Embryo transfer day – we were excited, nervous, and I really had to pee – so we distracted ourselves before the procedure with inappropriate photos of me chillin’ on the stirrups. haha.
6. The beautiful embryo we transferred! What an amazing moment.
1. The two week wait to find out if it worked began – with lots of good food…
2. … and a reminder (thanks to this sidewalk art I stumbled upon) to stay positive!!!
3. James and I kept busy with work (this pic was from after a proposal we shot at North Avenue Beach) and enjoyed all the little moments together while we waited.
4. Chloe would not leave my side after the transfer… even more so than normal! We’d catch her sleeping with her head on my stomach – which she has never done – and just generally ALWAYS wanting to be near me.
5. Oh hi. Watching me again? Creepster. 🙂
6. Chloe and I passed the days on long walks, enjoying the warm spring weather and taking in all the flowers around us!
1. The first of many bouquets to come. We recently were reminded how blessed we are and how many people love us.
2. I was FREEZING during the last week of the two week wait. Like… I could NOT get warm to save my life!! I slept in 4 layers some nights and was still cold!!! Some girls in my fertility group said that was a symptom they had early in pregnancy – so I hoped they were right!
3. Turns out they were right!!! This is one of MANY pregnancy tests we took (this was from the morning on day 10 after the embryo transfer) – before we had to head out to shoot a wedding. Oh my gosh – were we over the moon happy. So many happy tears.
4. I was editing through Lisette & Steve’s wedding and stumbled across this picture that James took and couldn’t help but keep it. I had the best secret in the world in this photo – James and I had just found out we were pregnant and we were walking on air that day!
5. Five days later and all our excitement went out the window when we got the call from the doctor saying my HCG levels had dropped and we were going to lose the baby. Heartbreaking doesn’t even come close to explaining how we felt that day and how we have been feeling/dealing with it since. But we are strong, we are hopeful, and we are looking forward to moving forward together.
6. Thankfully we have this pup around to keep us laughing. Mid belly scratch and she decided it’d be easier for me to rub her belly if she put her paw on my face. 🙂
Whew. What a whirlwind of a couple months. I still really can’t believe that all that happened in basically a month’s time. So many highs and lows and moments in between. We are thankful we’ve gotten a few weeks under our belt into May since then and are hopeful for our frozen embryo transfer in July. In the meantime we are sincerely enjoying our time together and time with our loved ones. We are so very blessed. xoxo
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*To read our whole infertility journey more in details – check out our Fertility Struggles category on the blog and follow me on Instagram (#ctpfertilityjourney).
