Quick Fertility Update: I finished the clomid and while I did experience several side effects, they were mild and happened mostly at night. So aside from being a little sleep deprived, our days were happily unaffected for the most part. I'll be using progesterone for the second half of the month and we're hoping this clomid/progesterone combo will work for us!
So now that the fertility update is out of the way, I need to catch up the blog on all the other things we’ve been doing. Basically, we’ve been trying to have as much fun and create as many good memories as possible. It felt like the best way to combat all the emotions we’ve been experiencing over the last year and it’s been really refreshing to just enjoy our family time and keep busy with lots of fun new activities. So here’s what we've been up to:
1. Sea World! One April afternoon, we just randomly decided to pack up, drive to San Antonio and find a hotel to stay the night so we could go to Sea World. It was Claire’s first visit and we were talking up Shamu all the way down I35. When we got to the hotel, the elevator doors closed to reveal a giant photograph (it covered the entire door area) of Shamu in the water, staring at us. Claire was not a fan. She hid behind us, held my hand, and wimpered. We tried to explain that it was just a picture and she’s a “face your fears” kind of girl, so she made a genuine effort to touch it and wave at Shamu. But she really never made peace with that picture and she was visibly anxious every time she came face to face with him. Once we got to Sea World, though, she had a blast. She loved the animals, the shows, and the Sesame Street Bay of Play. She happily posed for a picture with the poor waterpark employee who was forced to walk around in a Shamu costume all day. By the end of the day, she had made peace with Shamu and was excited to see the Shamu show that evening. She loved it at first. The animals were amazing and Claire was dazzled by all their tricks. Since it was a weekday in April, it wasn’t crowded, so we had the whole row of seat to ourselves. Claire started dancing along to the music in the show and we started watching her and taking video of our little ballerina. Then, out of the corners of our eyes, we saw a wall of water heading toward our tiny, unsuspecting dancer. We gasped, lunged toward her, but it was too late. She was soaked and wailing. We were two feet away from her and only felt a few drops, but she had just endured the preschooler’s equivalent of a tsunami. She cried that she wanted to go home and the show was ending anyway, so we carried our soaked and exhausted girl out of the amphitheater. Within minutes, she was her cheerful self again. I asked her what her favorite part of the day had been and her answer surprised me. “When Shamu SPLASHED me!” She even picked out a Shamu cup to take home as a souvenir. Now every time she hears a Sea World commercial on the radio, she asks me to take her there.
2. Gardening: Grammy, Grandad, & Uncle Jonathan came to visit in April and helped Claire set up her very own garden (Claire calls it her farm). She was so excited to help pick out our plants and she’s been taking great care them. She helps Josh water them and she visits her farm every day to check for food. In the last few weeks, some of our tomato and strawberry plants have started producing and Claire has helped pick the ripe fruit and, of course, she always volunteers to eat it. We’ve been eating "farm fresh" tomatoes almost every day!
3. The Brown House: Grandad came back at the end of April to help put together an early birthday gift for Claire – her very own swingset! Claire calls it her "brown house" because it has a little brown wood fort on one side. She was thrilled and played on it all evening after they got it set up. She even asked to sleep in it that night, but there were lots of mosquitos and we weren't really prepared for "camping". I knew she loved her brown house, but I had no idea how much until around midnight that first night. As I came in to check on Claire before I went to bed, she stirred a little and then started crying. I tried to comfort her but the sobbing just got louder. I held her, rocked her, tried to talk to her, but she was so upset that Josh and Grandad soon joined me in her room. I asked her to use her words to tell me what she needed and then tearfully wailed, "I want my brown house!" I stifled a laugh and explained that we would play again in the morning, but Claire continued to cry, insisting that she needed to see it. It almost seemed like she was worried it had all been a wonderful dream and she would wake up in the morning to find her beloved brown house was gone — just a figment of her imagination. She needed to know it was still there, that it was real. I was not planning to indulge her in this request, but, luckily for her, there was a grandparent on hand. Grandad picked her up and told her they could go look through the back door to see it. After a short visit through the glass door (which seemed to feel like a prison wall to our little girl at that moment), she willingly returned to bed and slept through the night. The following week, we had two more late night attempts to visit her treasured new playset, but they were thwarted by mom and dad and she eventually resigned herself to daytime visitation only.
Whew! That's all the "catching up" I can do right now, but I'll try to post again soon to fill you in on some of our summer adventures and update you on the fertility situation.
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