BELATED EASTER WEEKEND

I'm hopping back in time to document my Easter weekend (hopping- GET IT?!). Moving on. 

Saturday of Easter weekend I hosted a bridal shower for Leah. Due to the number of RSVP's we moved it to Cooper at the West End and it was such a great decision. The food was amazing, the room was perfect, and ZOMG it was so nice to not have to do ANY cleaning and just go home and crawl into bed for a nap. 

 

 

The bride with her mom and grandma. :) 

I think a fun time was had by all, and Leah scored some sweet wedding gifts, so that's always a bonus. 

I was sad to have missed the bachelorette that was this past weekend but I was in NYC for a wedding (more on that later this week!) but the wedding will be here in just a few weeks! 

Easter was the following day and we had M's dad and his girlfriend staying with us, and his sister, her boyfriend, and my brother all came over for brunch. It was my first time cooking ham, and I tried to replicate my grandma's strata and I have to say- my brother proclaimed it better than grandma's. Success! 

  

I had a much better day than I had the night before. I guess that's just how grief works. 

Selfie we sent my dad who was in NYC visiting my cousin. M wasn't supposed to be in it but that, my friends, is what we call perfect timing: 

Overall it was a busy but really good weekend.
As I mentioned, this past weekend we were in NYC which was fun, and also exhausting, and I'll post more about that later. This coming weekend we have M's dad AND sister from Michigan in town so the hours are being filled rapidly, OH and Sunday is the MS Walk in which we've raised over $3,500 and I'm coordinating a team of 50+ (I won't mention the anxiety that I have that not everyone has registered online so I have no REAL idea how many people are going to show up. hmpf)... It'll be fun, and I do enjoy hosting and planning things, but the fun stops when I try to have to anticipate every contingency, question, thing-that-will-go-wrong when dealing with humans. This is a built in part of my job as an attorney I suppose and it carries over in my day-to-day life.. which makes me sleepy.

I'm going to need a weekend to recover from my weekend's soon.. although the next few weekends through May are filling up and then summer craziness starts. Is it nap time yet?

NIAW: GUEST POST FROM MARLA AT LUCK FUPUS

I'll be honest, before I met Lo, I "knew" about infertility.. but I didn't truly KNOW about it until recently. I'm not claiming to be the most educated but suddenly I find myself reading things, and looking at things pregnancy and baby-related, with a new lens. For that, I'm eternally grateful to her.

Speaking of infertility, did you know 1 in 8 women struggle with it? And that this week is National Infertility Awareness Week? Lo has matched up a bunch of fabulous infertility bloggers with non-infertility bloggers (although really I have no idea if I can call myself that at this point because I've never tried to make a baby, time will tell!) to share their stories and spread the word.

I've been paired up with the wonderfully sarcastic, and awesome, MarlaJan from Luck Fupus. This woman is inspiring. Despite everything that is thrown at her, she manages to maintain a positive outlook- and even when it's not 100% positive, she manages to be honest, funny at times, but always always real. Here's her story:

When I think of infertility, I think of a woman enduring multiple miscarriages, taking hundreds of home pregnancy tests, IUI, Clomid, IVF, a man getting his rocks off in a cup so he can have his swimmers tested, countless rolls in the sack with your significant other only to be greeted with your dreaded period month after month.

I got married in February 2008, and if you asked me that day where my husband and I would be today, I would have no doubt given you that cookie cutter answer; we'd be living in a house we had built, have great jobs, and most importantly, have kids to fill up the bedrooms of said house. Fast forward to today, and Steve and I are living in the house we had built, we have great jobs, yet, 3 of the bedrooms in our beautiful home remain empty.

My story of infertility is far from typical.  There's been no Clomid, IUI, tested sperm, miscarriages or IVF. Well then why, you ask, if I haven't had to go through any of that, do I not have a beautiful family?

Whenever I go to a new doctor, lupus, cancer, and a congenital heart defect are just 3 of the things I fill out on the health history form. There's so much more, but since this isn't my blog, I won't bore you with all of that. I've been through 4 heart surgeries (3 open-heart), chemotherapy, steroid treatment, lots of painful procedures, and most days, I walk around in pain. This gal drew the short straw in the family family gene pool. 

When it came time to start asking my different specialists about baby making, I usually got the run around. They'd tell me it was very risky to both myself and the fetus, throw a few numbers and statistics my way, say ultimately it was my decision and they would do what they could to monitor me every step of the way. There's no true way to know if my leaky heart valves wouldn't be able to take the extra blood flow, if my lupus would flare, it I would throw blood clots, or if all the chemotherapy and other medications would make the baby be born with half a brain. 

I finally met a doctor who looked me in the eye and said, "Marla, don't do it." Even though those words caused me an immense of pain, it was also quite comforting. It's what I needed to hear to be at peace with my decision.

In November 2013, I underwent a tubal ligation; I voluntarily went under the knife to make myself permanently infertile. I still struggle with it, but I know this was the right decision for me. I've always felt I have so many cards against me, that it would be in my best interest not to play the hand. While I know that pregnancy is a crapshoot, and anyone can experience complications, I would have been starting with a ton of risks. The thought of God forbid something happening to me, or our baby, or both, was too much. My health is also not at a place where I could safely care for a child, and I felt bringing one into the world when I couldn't be at my best was selfish. 

So, I'll never have to go through rounds of Clomid or IVF. But, I also know I will NEVER get to feel my baby's first kick, hear its heartbeat, let Steve read a story to our baby growing in my tummy, have a pregnancy photo shoot, or prop up a book on my huge belly. 

The decision we came to was not easy, and there were so many sleepless nights, tears, and way too much time on Google. I know a lot of women who wouldn't look at the risks because they would do anything to be pregnant. I'm not that woman. This is what was best for me. 

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Please stop over to her blog and say hi. I promise you won't regret it. and thank you to Lo for organizing this wonderful blog hop linkup and PLEASE stop by her blog to read more stories of more great bloggers battling this terrible disease.

WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT

M and I had a great weekend overall.. and I'll be back tomorrow to write about that (hopefully).
I had an unexpected (but really, looking back on it-- not that surprising) moment Saturday night. It was related to my mom.


We were driving to McDonald's to get milk shakes after dinner and I don't even know if something was said or if it was just the realization that I was surrounded by M's family, it was the day before Easter (which, with the exception of the last 2 years-- we ALWAYS spent with my mom's family), our first holiday without her, my dad was in New York, and my mom was dead but I had this moment where I heard her laugh and voice just saying "oh yeah?" (something I swear she said all the time) and I started to lose it in the car. I really haven't cried like that in weeks. I held it together to order and get back to the house because I HATTEEEE crying in front of people and would just rather not. I even put on makeup and eye drops to conceal the aftermath and joined the conversation for all of 10 minutes before giving up, putting my PJ's on, and writing in my grief journal and letting some more tears fall.


Like I wrote about before.. M came in and saw me upset and panicked and asked what was wrong and.. ugh, it just seemed so obvious to me and I know I shouldn't have been rude about it but all I could muster was "what do you think." and he still of course didn't know because there's no obvious link to anyone else. I think I finally choked out some form of "tomorrow is Easter and my mom is dead." He crawled into bed and just hugged me until I pulled it together a bit more.


It surprised me. Mostly because I have felt SO totally fine the last few weeks. Like, SO fine that I feel guilty I'm not MORE sad about it, and find myself wondering if that means something that I'm not. I'm starting to wonder if I hadn't been a bit shell shocked the last 2 months (god..has it nearly been that long..?). I KNEW this would be "the first holiday without" but for whatever reason, I underestimated how hard it'd be. It's not Christmas or Thanksgiving.. the 2 holidays that really seem to carry more emotional weight than most.. so I figured it'd be an easier "first" to experience.


Turns out you can't really plan grief.

WOOPS

It happened again. was my last post already 8 days ago? Jeez time is flying.
Mostly my absence can be explained by M and I binging on The Wire (we're on Season 1 Episode 12 presently). Buuuuttt this weekend we have visitors and it's easter and I'm hosting a bridal shower so there will be THINGS TO DISCUSS Monday. Get excited.


OH and next week I have a guest post lined up from a wonderful lady in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week. No, M and I are not trying to make wee-ones yet and no there's nothing I haven't shared about that, but this topic is very near and dear to one of the kindest and most compassionate women I've met through blogging- Lo.  Check out Lo's blog for more info, and stay tuned next week when a bunch of bloggers will be hosting infertility bloggers to help spread the word and raise awareness about infertility.


Gracias, until Monday.


oh and Happy Easter Weekend to all those who celebrate. :)

LIFE LATELY

Hi, I'm here. 

It seems like every weekend that passes, by the time I realize I haven't posted it's Monday or Tuesday, and then next thing I know it's Wednesday so I pretty much give up on that week and vow to try again next week. And on, and on, and on. 

Here's a little bit of what I've been up to lately: 

Lots of snuggling with my buddy:

       

     

Embarrassing my buddy by putting scarves on him and making him pose for pictures: 

Last Friday, due to the fact that a large contingent of my co-workers live over an hour away from the office in Wisconsin, my boss let us work from home. It was a rare moment for me, who has never really been a "work from home-r".. but TJ really enjoyed having me around, and I enjoyed working from bed. M also worked from home.. so it was a nice start to the weekend.

That night I went and saw "Once" with M's mom, his step-sister, and his sister. I'm really not a musical person and find myself antsy for it to get over by about halfway through the second act, but I actually really enjoyed this one. It was more modern, with modern sounding music- and I liked it a lot. There's a movie "Once" - which I googled in the car on the way home- and while I'm intrigued, the actors in the movie look NOTHING like the play and I think I'll have a hard time with that so I may wait a bit until it's not so fresh in my memory. 

We went to Crave beforehand in downtown Minneapolis, too. #nom:

Saturday I judged moot court at my law school with my #LSBFF (law school bestest friend forever-- long story, but I couldn't resist) and then we went antiquing at Hunt & Gather in Edina. I took a brief nap, and then M and I went to check out Yard House, a new restaurant near our place. It was SO. GOOD. The menu was huge, I had these orgasmic parmesean truffle fries, egg rolls, and M got a giant deconstructed spicy tuna roll (M and I shared the appetizers but the heaping mounds of avocado on the sushi prevented me from partaking..what with the allergy and the vomiting that takes place):

M had a client dinner Monday and I was the laziest sack of $hi* on the planet. Being too lazy to cook for one devolved into ordering delivery, which devolved into being too cheap to hit the delivery minimum and going to pick up Pizza Hut and then becausewhynot ..stopped for booze at the liquor store across the street from Pizza Hut. Total 100% #fattynight:

We've also been enjoying the warm weather (FINALLY) and cracking the windows. TJ has been able to expel some winter cabin fever by sniffing all the live long day. Meow: 

 

So that's that. I swear I'm going to bring out my nice camera this weekend... I say that every weekend. So far we have a surprise birthday thing tomorrow, brunch with M's mom, dinner with my dad Saturday, lunch with a friend Sunday, and watching the Masters on Sunday with  M's sister and her bf. I need to squeeze in some time to pick up decor for the bridal shower I'm throwing next weekend. All good stuff, and I'm looking forward to the weekend!