Sex, Drugs, and...Not Rock & Roll

I've struggled over the past year keeping up with writing here.  As the projects that are left on our list quickly became the most expensive ones (save the best for last, right?), there just wasn't as much to write about as often.  There was plenty going on in life, just not necessarily on the house.

But surely I can't write about just life, this is a home DIY blog! Reality check.  This hobby/project/way-to-avoid-doing-the-dishes thing can be whatever I want it to be.  And at this point in time, I need it to be a place where I can just write, about whatever is going through my head and heart. 

So, with that being said...are you ready? Because sh*ts about to get real.

When I was younger I knew I wanted to get married, buy a house, get a dog, and have kids.    Nothing crazy. I never had dreams of owning a Fortune500 company, curing diseases, or living in the White House.  I just wanted to be in love and be happy.  The things many little girls' dreams are made of.  Here we are 20 some years later.  I'm now 27 years old, I got married, got a dog, bought a house, I'm in love, happy, but I have not had kids.

There is this odd phenomenon that happens when you're in a relationship.  All of a sudden everyone becomes really curious as to when you'll tie the knot. "So, when are you gonna pop the question?" or "What's taking so long?!".  Why do we pressure others into making one of the biggest decisions of their life?  I'm ridiculously guilty of this, too, trust me, I won't be throwing the first stone.  But don't you think that when a person finds who they want to spend the rest of their tomorrows with, it is entirely up to them when they choose to do it?  My husband and I dated for almost 8 years before we got married, trust me, we've heard em all.   

So you've endured the months of "when's the wedding" questions.  You've gotten married and now the questions will stop, right?  Wrong.  There's another really funny thing that happens immediately after you get married. (And by immediately, I mean like, at our wedding reception...yeah.) Everyone becomes oddly interested in your sex life.  Think I'm crazy?  How many times have you heard someone ask or you've maybe asked "So, when are you two going to have kids?". I know people mean well and are trying to show interest in your life and relationship, but what happens behind a couple's bedroom door is none of your business.  We've only been married a short time and we're still young so why the pressure?

That popular baby question has been a difficult one for my husband and me to field repeatedly over the past few years.  There are only a very few people who know the real reason as to why.  You are about to become one of them.

Over the nine years Joe and I have been together there were plenty of talks as to when we wanted to start having children.  We had always planned to have at least one solid year after getting married for just the two of us.  At the same time we weren't doing anything to prevent pregnancy so if it happened, it happened.  As we approached our one-year anniversary the topic of children seemed to be coming up more often than not and with a good 45% of the female staff at our school pregnant, baby fever was putting on the full-court press. Most couples would simply increase the frequency of when they...ahem...try.  We knew this would not be the case for us.

I have known for many years that I have a condition called PCOS- Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I'll spare you the super-attractive details but in short, it's the leading cause of infertility amongst women.  Doctors have told me it will be extremely hard for me to get pregnant without medication and medical help. They were right.  We've had two years of "no-goalie-marital-bliss" and as I mentioned earlier, we haven't had any kids.

Since we wanted to start adding to our family, I knew this would mean adding some visits to the doctor.  Numerous visits, many hours in the car traveling the hour to the doctor, blood draws, pee tests, drinking that nasty orange drink for blood sugar tests, ultrasounds, biopsies, more ultrasounds and more blood draws have finally lead to a plan of attack. 

Fertility drugs.  100mg of Chlomid 5x and a self-administered shot of Ovidrel for anyone wondering.

I never imagined way back when that this would be our reality.  That in order to have the children we so desperately want it would involve pills, and shots, and charting, and temping, and praying SO hard for positives, and scheduling sex.  Let's be real...there is nothing 'unsexier' than scheduling sex.  Seriously.

But, we are now apart of the 12% of couples whose struggle with infertility is real, and it's in our face, and it's hard.  As I'm typing this I took my first official dose of fertility meds so here's to hoping that the dream of that little girl many years ago to be a mommy, comes true.

I feel like this would be an appropriate time to 'cheers' you with a glass of wine but then I remember that medication, baby-making and alcohol should not go hand-in-hand...in this situation the struggle truly is real, folks.

He Blows My Mind!

Joe and I have been married a little over two years, but we've been together just over 9 years.  When you spend that many years with someone you kind of think you know everything about them; what foods they love, how they take their coffee, the noises they make when they sleep, the weird habit they have developed where they need to smell everything (everything...it's odd), their laugh, the excited way they yell when their fantasy football player scores a ton of points...you know, EVERYTHING.

And then, one day, out of blue, your husband and best friend from the past 9 years calls you to the garage to show you something.  And BAM, he completely and totally blows your mind.

You guys...Joe MADE THIS!  Yeah, my jaw is still on the desk, too.

This all started because we had been in search of a coffee table for our living room.  We looked at every possible store and what we found either wasn't quite right or it was about $900...that's more than we paid for our couch - so ixnay the offeecay abletay (that's "HECK NO we're not paying that kind of money for a coffee table!!" for those of you who don't speak pig latin).

Joe got all excited that maybe he would just build one so we could pick the design we liked and it would be a lot cheaper.  I agreed but in the back of my mind I was a little worried.  It's not like Joe or I are master carpenters, that stuff is H-A-R-D!  But I went along with it.

Joe scoured Pinterest the internet for some ideas and found one he liked.  He holed himself up in the garage one weekend and THIS is what emerged!

I'm in love with my coffee table and am so completely blown away by how talented my husband is!

For the step-by-step on how to construct this table, check out Ana White's guide here.  We tweaked it a little bit as you can see we didn't do x's on the sides.  That actually came about because we didn't have a saw that could cut the correct angle so Joe came up with the current design...crafty, I told you!

The bottom is painted the same white as our trim and the top is stained with a dark walnut stain and sealer in one.

I'm off to read a magazine and put my feet up...since I can do that now cuz I have a coffee table :)