Tag: grateful

22 Months

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Where has time gone, I’m completely blown away that Zayden is 22 months old.  In 2 months, he will be 2! AH!  The past few days, he’s really starting to grow into a little boy instead of a baby.

The talking has not slowed down at all….and has almost gotten a little more demanding (especially with the dogs and when he wants a snack).

When we prayed for a healthy, intelligent child, I never thought God would smirk and create a child more intelligent than Jason and I but that has happened.  This little boy knows all his ABCD (he likes to add the D on it, instead of the ABC’s). And he can count to 20. What. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do that til I was like 4, but anyways he’s been working on it the past month and has it mastered.  He knows all his colors and shapes (even trapezoid which Jason didn’t know til I had to tell him what it was called lol)

We LOVE the lake and love to swim when we’re having fun, but he’s really hating swim lessons at the moment.  I think it’s because someone’s making him do it but if it was on his own terms we can’t seem to get him out of the water.

He is strong willed and knows what he wants.  However, he doesn’t always want to tell us what he wants, he would much rather make us guess…which clearly is his ornery side shining through in those moments.

He still loves his dogs, playing outside, his mama (especially this month) and his dadda (most of the time), sleeping in bed with us, his popsicles & fruit snacks and to be scared.  If we can scare him and get him to jump & scream, we consider it a win and he loves it every single time.  Speaking of scaring, something he started doing recently is “hiding from people” when there’s no one around, or at night.  Terror took over my face as I look around the room and ask him exactly how many people we are hiding from.  Then the other day, he took a fruit snack out of his bag and handed it to something in mid air…like he was waiting on “people” to take it.  I’m pretty sure he’s just playing the long game on me and trying to scare me….and not going to lie, it’s a little bit creepy.   So, you win Zayden.

He has started to not be as interested in Curious George and moved onto his new favorite movie, Finding Nemo.  If I have to watch that movie one more time…well, I will and I won’t complain but I may have every line memorized by now (and trust me, I still laugh at some moments). Here’s a video of him watching his favorite part of Finding Nemo!

We have a new nanny that brings her nephew over to play with him regularly and that gives Zayden more interaction with other little ones which we love.  I have always wanted him to have more interaction, and it would happen here and there, but gosh they’re ornery together…so so ornery.  Bless our nanny’s heart!

He says basically whatever he wants to say, but some of our favorite words are:

Snack or fruit snack
Seven (still one of my favorites) – sessen
Snow
Basically anything that starts with the letter S, because he acts as if the S is the sniffing noise.  It’s something you’ll have to experience in person, and trust me it’s worth it lol

So many changes over the past month, but mostly just him looking us in the eye and really speaking to us instead of just saying what he wants/needs.  Its as if he’s trying to hold conversations with us.  My heart isn’t prepared for him to grow up yet, but he definitely is every single day.

On another note, he continues to tell me I’m having a baby boy and he seems more excited about having a baby boy than possibility of a baby girl.  They say kids have a sixth sense about those types of things…so maybe he knows something we don’t just yet.  Either way, we are so thankful for the two littles we have and can’t wait to see what the next month brings!

Little prayer

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I can’t sleep, maybe from some nerves or may be from not having Bubs by our side. Either way, I’ve been laying in this big King size bed and not getting any sleep (while Jason is in sweet Dream land of course) 😂

So I decided to do something different and write out my prayer.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for this beautiful quiet morning and the opportunity you’ve given us to be here. We know so many don’t get the opportunity to do IVF once let alone twice and we are so grateful for this. Thank you for my family taking care of our awesome little man, and all the support we get from family, friends and strangers that just have heard or read about our story.

Please give me peace dear Lord. Please help me to feel calm and confident that you have this in control. And please help me understand that no matter the outcome, you’ve got this covered. I also ask for wisdom for the Dr, anesthesia and nurses to do their best and make the best decisions for us. And my body to do well with the procedure and come off anaesthesia easily. And please give Jason strength to put up with me 😊

I pray for tons of healthy eggs Lord. Healthy everything in fact. And that they find their home this weekend. Please keep those embryos strong and growing as they should in preparation for next week!

And dear Lord, please take care of bub while we are traveling and keep him safe and let him feel all the love that we know he’s getting! We pray for safe travels and good healthy outcome today. Thank you for being there, always. Thank you for being our rock.

Oh and, please please help B & C to also have an amazing outcome. B’s retrieval is tomorrow and I know she’s traveling with a small one and that has to be hectic. Please keep her calm and give her an incredible outcome. And give C patience and not to overthink results but have an incredible outcome next week as well. Give their Dr wisdom and help their bodies to produce the best and healthiest eggs possible. You know they deserve this and I pray they will be so successful this time! ❤️ So please healthy bodies, eggs and good levels! And if things are not in the cards for any of us, please give us peace and help us to understand you have a plan.

Thank you for everything. I love you, in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

In the back of my head I hear Zayden quietly saying, “I luv you dog” and pointing to the sky as he does after most prayers. Translation: “I love you God.” Hoping He appreciates being called a dog in this instance. ❤️

Procedure at 8:45 am 🙌

Here we go again…

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This blog began a few years ago as my infertility journey and has slowly changed to Zayden’s journey. At first I felt a little guilty that my depressing, sad blog turned into an over abundance of cute little things Z does. But then I realized he’s such an incredible gift…he IS the journey and I’ll continue to document his life.

Today, I have a little deja vu as I tell you we are attempting IVF again. We still are actively pursuing adoption and it’ll happen when it’s supposed to. We thought we wanted to try IVF once more and if it doesn’t happen, then we understand that’s God’s will.

I’ve been on a few pills and one injection for the past few weeks. Everything was looking good until last week, I wasn’t “suppressed” like they would like me to be so they decided to push our entire plan back a week. If this Wednesday my levels are still high, we will stop and reevaluate (whatever that means). In the meantime, they doubled my meds. It’s a little frustrating but I know God has perfect timing. Actually, the delay my Dr has made has put me on a similar schedule as two of my lifefriends going through IVF. Talk about having a good support system! ❤️

Today was the first day I’ve struggled with the medication. Two different times today I’ve felt dizzy, serious headaches, nauseous, hot and overall just crummy. It’s all normal and apart of the journey but it is just a gentle reminder that infertility is not for the faint of heart. I question if I’m strong enough to do it again, but we’re going to try so I need to be. Luckily, today is also the day Zayden has been overly sweet (he is almost every day, but today he just knew I needed some extra sweetness).

I’ve so thankful for the opportunity to be able to do IVF and thankful God thinks I’m strong enough to handle this.

17 & 18 months

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Wow, what a past couple of months it has been! Our little boy is becoming the sweetest little man I could have ever asked for. Of course, he’s ornery as can be but that’s what keeps me on my toes! ❤️

We didn’t add any new travel to Zayden’s list this month, but within the last month was the first time I left Zayden with someone else for over 24 hours, let alone traveled across the US for 4 nights. It was so sad (for me) but he seemed to be content with my family keeping him busy!

I can’t even keep track of all the new words he says because every day it’s something different. Like today I told him to “Get Down” (off the table because safety kid) but he looks at me and said get down. 😂 He hasn’t been putting multiple words together until the past couple of days and it’s really throwing me off guard!

Zayden, you know a few colors: purple, blue, white, black and nana (which is translation for yellow)

Also, a few letters (and there is no rhyme or reason to these letters but for some reason you know them: B, Z, Y, O, D, S, and sometimes you’ll actually get A right, but still working on the rest of the alphabet.

You know a ton of numbers but you think they are all 2. 😂😂 So we have a little work to do in that department.

You’re going through a picky eating stage, but a few things stay consistent like yogurt (your fave), oranges, blueberries,PBJ, beans, sushi, shrimp, sweet potatoes, cheese sticks mac-n-cheese, cheese quesdillas, cheese enchilada, grilled cheese…see a trend? Recently mama has gotten smart and started making “cheese” home made hot pockets but hiding veggies in them which surprisingly works.

We are done breastfeeding. Whaaaat. I’ve kept a little more quiet about breastfeeding up until 17.5 months because honestly I was tired of people’s comments. “You haven’t cut him off yet?” Etc etc etc. Y’all should be applauding any mama for feeding their child let alone nursing for this long! But that part of our journey is over and you did great with it bub!

You still love to read and paint and color everything! Thankfully, we got smart and got you those magic markers that only color on certain things!

Every day I am blown away by what new thing you’ve learned or can say or do. I’m also blown away how high you can climb in seconds. 🤦 You’re going to give me a heart attack before I’m 34, but this is what I’m told boy life is like! And we love every single minute of it.

So proud and thankful to be your mama.

“Maybe that someone else is looking for us.” | Adoption things

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Let’s talk adoption. It’s literally been on my mind every day for the past 4+ years. I’ve gone back and forth sharing this but I just keep going through things in my head and if you know me, it’s a complete mess up there so sometimes it’s best for me to write out my thoughts. So let’s do this…

Adoption has always been a constant tug at our hearts. For me, this leads back all the way to my highschool days when I decided adoption was going to be apart of my path. Thankfully, I met this awesome guy and one of our first date questions was… How do you feel about adoption? His response was he hadn’t thought about it but he definitely would. So to say adoption has been on our hearts for awhile is an understatement.

We’ve been through adoption process once with a lousy agency that we ended up having to drop and started over with a new one. This was beyond frustrating and exhausting. You feel like you’re trying to change the world one life at a time and the odds are against you every step of the way. Paperwork upon paperwork, FBI fingerprint cards (that can only be done on Tuesday mornings from 8-10 am at a location 20 min away and every time you schedule to go something comes up) more paperwork, some dinero you’ve been saving, more paperwork, physicals, drug tests, home studies, collecting references, making emergency plans, and more paperwork is what the process consists of basically, and alot of patience and prayers.

We decided it was best to move forward with another agency and start over. This agency we felt much more confident in, but of courss there was a little hesitation in trusting the process again. About a year go, we started wondering if we were going down the right path, we knew adoption was apart of our path but was this agency right for us? Maybe we were supposed to look into another? Maybe? What was God telling us? So we decided to take a break from the process and decided to just listen and see what He laid out for us. We explored different agencies and fell in love with a smaller one, but then hit a wall. We were actually turned down for the time being, because we had a child under the age of one. Besides this being completely baffling to me, this was God telling us to keep looking elsewhere. We listened some more. All we could hear was adoption? adoption? fostering? adoption? And after each one, we heard question marks, which left us a little confused, so we continued to take the time we needed to discern. We explored the world of fostering and we both feel that’s likely apart of our journey in the future but not just yet. Adoption just keeps powerfully being told to us. We always knew it was apart of the journey, but through who, why was this fantastic agency we’ve worked with not standing out to us?

I continue to feel a little one wants us. I feel it everyday, I literally have that gut feeling in this exact moment. Is there someone feeling something similar? Is there a young mom or dad looking for a family like us to let us adopt their child? Maybe? Maybe we adopt through this agency but maybe not. God knows and I just can’t seem to understand. God also knows I don’t always listen real well and sometimes I can be a bit stubborn, so He probably is telling me I just don’t seem to follow. We’ll keep listening though, patiently.

In the meantime, I will continue to share the journey God has given us. And maybe, just maybe you’re hearing a voice telling you to share our story with someone else. Maybe that someone else is looking for us. ❤️

16ish months

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The days are moving faster and I feel like less time is being spent with Zayden. Probably not, but it seems like he just doesn’t need as much attention from us as he did when he was a wee little baby. He’s climbing up into the chair by himself, eating by himself (when he chooses to eat and not throw it on the floor), picks books up and reads them to himself…or really just points out the animals he likes best. He throws trash away, and sometimes the remote, my cell phone, basically anything that can go in the trash can does. 😂

Zayden says more and more words every single day and it blows me away the amount of information he takes in. He truly is our little miracle and he shows us that every single day!

Some new things we have done the past month is:

Travel to Hawaii, it took me 34 years to make it to HI and you got to in your first 2 years!

First haircut – which was super terrible, so you also got your second haircut the following day 😂

Mastering the stairs like the little climber you are!

First dentist appointment which went surprisingly well and you received an great report from them!

Sleeping has gone from not bad to beyond pitiful but we are patient and will continue to love on you on bad nights. It will pass and we know it.

This has been a good month bub, as every month is with you. ❤️ Now let’s reminisce on this haircut transformation! Where did my little boy go?

Never give up that glimpse of hope.

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“Happy Implantation Day!” a sweet friend text me this week. I thought to myself, wait is that my implantation day in 2017, did I forget about it, was I blocking that day and it’s chaos? Her question encouraged me to look back on that day and remind myself what I was feeling. So I did. I didn’t read it all the way through because I had errands to run and it was sad and my emotions were coming back to me and I just couldn’t right then.

The day continues and our sick little guy ended up not sleeping basically from 1:30-4 this morning. He can’t sleep unless I’m holding him, I can’t sleep unless I’m not holding him. So there we are, me holding him and wishing I was just getting some sleep. I found myself a little irritated and finally I just said, “Hey God.. I am thankful for a crying baby. I am grateful for my lack of sleep because it means we have him. So thank you.”

I was the reminded about the implantation day text so early this morning, I went back through my blog and found 2 posts from 02/15/17. Implantation Day. Countless shots, medications, and lots of tears and we finally reached this day. It was nerve-wracking to say the least. I’ve posted the 2 blogs from that day below for you to read if interested but my emotions were all over the place and my summary is below:

02/15/17 – Before the Call

02/15/17 – After the Call

  • Nervous as all get out. We had 13 embryo.
  • Receive a call first thing on implantation day and all embryos are poor quality and they weren’t sure any of them would make it. My faith, patience, emotions were shattered.
  • Wait. Wait. Wait a few hours to see if we can even implant any.
  • Receive another call to come in and we will transfer the best 2 if we wanted to but basically don’t give your hopes up because they have such a poor rating they can’t rate them.
  • My faith still shattered, but I prayed.
  • Go in to the Dr. and we put in the best 2. It was so difficult to not cry but I sucked it up and held it in. Made it through the appointment and literally did nothing for the rest of the day. I was upset and defeated but I knew I needed to trust God.

It was a rollercoaster of emotions, my faith was shattered more than a couple of times, my frustration had overcome me more times than I can count, but on the other side we have one sweet, amazing, strong, a little crazy, cuddliest, orneriest toddler that you can imagine. So I will continue to love those sleepless nights and I will watch all the episodes of Curious George for the 18th time (literally what we are watching right now, I guess it’s better than Baby Shark -I even whispered Baby Shark in my head, just in case he has telepathy, in fear he will want to watch and dance to it again) 😂 🤞

Our chances of a successful pregnancy per history was a big fat 0. Maybe the Dr. chances were slightly higher but I knew in my heart that after losing 5 babies and ending up with losing both of my tubes, that our chances were next to nothing but God knew something I didn’t. He had a bigger plan. And I’m so thankful we didn’t give up hope and we trusted Him. To anyone going through infertility, I pray for you and I hope your faith isn’t shattered and I hope you never give up. Sending love to all of you today on our Implantation Day! ❤️

Written by Chasnie & Zayden 😊

Living with a 1-Year Old

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Life has been crazy keeping up with a 1-year old! I still can’t believe he has grown so much and developed are sweet and ORNERY personality! Everyone that hangs out with Z talks about how sweet he is, what they don’t always get to witness is the crazy side of him. I mean, as I am typing this he has accidentally given me a black eye from “fake falling” on my face. lol

It’s been a little exhausting keeping up lately. Teething has taken over our nights and early mornings which has led to minimal sleep again, but that will pass soon (or so I hope)😴

Some new things little man has been doing this month is running around nonstop, being more interactive most of the time vs not, picking up his messes but making them more than not, and being extra affectionate which I will take a sloppy kiss from that sweet boy any day! ♥️. He has also said a few more words so we wanted to write them down to remember them! Of course the norm, like mom and dad and bubba (whoever that is):

Bubbles

Butt bomb (haha, is that a bad word?)

Della

Water

Baseball

Bath

Della (apparently she’s his favorite)

Backpack

Jesus – thank you to some kids songs the says this with conviction!

Yes

Baby

Woah

And a few others I can’t seem to think of…

Keeping up with a 1-year old brings a whole different level of love, happiness, patience, joy…all of which we just are reminded daily that he is worth every second. Thank you God for giving us such a sweet, ornery boy in our lives.

1 Year Old | Zayden Gray | My Superman

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Over a year ago, we sat in a hospital room talking to our doctor about how we only had 2 embryos that have survived and they were so poor they couldn’t even rate them. They asked us if we wanted to proceed forward and try anyways… With no real hope, we prayed over those 2 embryos every day and today we have a healthy 1-year old. Cue the tears 😭.

What a superhero, little miracle, blessing from God you are Zayden Gray. We have spent 365 days with you in our arms or chasing you around. You have kept us on our toes each and every day as we figure out this whole parenting thing!

We have gone through so many firsts with you, firsts that I normally wouldn’t think twice about but we have cherished every single one. I can’t wait to see how the rest of our future goes together! ♥️

A few things you’ve learned this month:

Learned how to climb a ladder

Being more affectionate, especially with the puppies. They love Z’s hugs & kisses

Say a few new random words (backpack, phone, baseball)

Going up & down stairs 😬 which happens to be your new fave game.

Causing destruction

More teeth – molars this time!

Being a little daredevil 😬😬

Using utensils

And the best part …starting to look like your mama! ♥️

Your first year in pictures:

10 Months – What? How!

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Oh my word you are growing and growing you are not so little man! 10 months?! Let me say that again so it sinks in…10 months have flown by and I can’t believe in 2 months we will be holding a one-year old!

Some changes have happened over the past month, but you became boss man to me, which means mama won’t be home as late as she normally is! Other changes you’ve been going through are:

  • A couple of steps here and there, but not full on walking yet. I assume that’ll happen when we forget you can actually walk! 😂
  • Peek-a-boo & chasing mom/dad are still your jam.
  • Ollie has become your favorite pup.
  • 1 1/2 new teeth have been added to your collection.
  • Your athletic ability is really coming out – stacking things, throwing balls (or throwing anything for that matter), and crawling through tunnels.
  • We are officially on watch for an attempted escapist. Once, you pushed the kitchen chair all the way to the door just to attempt to unlock the door. Not thrilled about this new trick, but pretty cute!
  • Your booty dance is on point. 😂
  • We took your 12th flight and traveled all the way to San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Muir Woods, Big Sur, first zoo and aquarium and subway ride. And I can’t forget to mention meeting with friends you’ve never had a chance to meet til this month! We actually got to celebrate your 10 month with ice cream and hanging out with the Joneses!
  • You’re starting to become more cuddly and wanting to lay down with us without us trying to force a nap. This is a moment we don’t want to forget. All these are moments we don’t want to forget!

Zayden, you are such a blessing to everyone you meet and I cannot imagine life without you! I can’t wait to see what the next month brings us!