Not a Croc

So I wanted to share with y'all my most recent purchase.  I bought a Croc, which is a fancy hair straightener and I CANNOT even begin to tell you how much I love it.  It has seriously changed my life!  Little backstory on my hair....

I have super thick coarse hair.  It is naturally very curly....except the very top layer is straight.  Weird...I know.  I really do like my hair and I get compliments on it a lot because it is so thick.  But, it is very hard to manage.  I  mean it was taking me forever to wash, dry, straighten, and style my hair.  If it was a work day then you can just forget it. 

I often wear it curly which is quick and easy.  I usually wear it like this to work because it takes no time at all.  The problem with this is if I wear it curly multiple days in a row then it gets VERY tangled and I am almost unable to brush it without: a) my arm falling off  b) tears  c) making an appointment to chop it all off only to change my mind at said appointment and just get a "trim".  So....I can't wear it curly everyday.  

I used to have a Chi but it passed away (sad day) about 8-9 months ago.  Since that was an emergency I just ran to Walmart and got a cheapie straightener.  I have been using that one ever since.  I kept forgetting to buy a good one!  

Looking back this was a bad idea for me.  I would have to straighten the same chunk of hair at least three times to get it straight....and it still wasn't all that straight.  I am certain that is not good for hair!  Recently, I started noticing that my hair had an awesome burned smell.  Great!  Then I also noticed all these little broken hairs!  Time for a new straightener!!!

So I did some research and found this great website that will tell you what kind of straightener you need for the type of hair you have.  How cool is that??  You can check it out here

After much consideration and comparing I decided on the Croc.

And life has been different since the day it arrived in the mail!

You can adjust the temperature up to 450 degrees depending on your needs.  This is perfect for me because the super curly part of my hair I can use the high heat and the straight parts I can use a lower setting.  

I also only have to go over each chunk of hair ONCE and it is totally straight!  My Chi didn't even do this!

Since this is so fantastic I thought I would share with you some before and after pics!!!

This is just after I dried my hair.....huge I know....

This is the underneath of my hair after drying....obviously a totally nasty frizzball :)

This is after using the Croc...which took about 20 minutes...AMAZING

Please ignore the no makeup and wrinkled white T-shirt!

This is under the one straight layer of hair....can you believe that?  In just 20 minutes!

I actually wear my hair straight now since it doesn't take me 2 hours.  Anyhoo, just thought I would share my great find with you girlies!  Hope everyone had a great Monday!


Disclaimer:  I was not compensated in any way to blog about this product.  I purchased it and liked it so much that I wanted to share my opinions on my blog.  Thanks!

MARCH!

I am so frickin' happy that it is March!

There are many reasons but I'd say that the number one reason is that it means spring is coming!  The grass is thinking about turning green and the daffodils are blooming.  My Bradford Pear trees in my yard also have little buds on them.  The lake is starting to come back up.  (I live on a lake and every winter for 3 months they take it down either 3, 5, or 9 feet.  They do this so repairs can be made to the dam and so you can have work done on your dock or your seawall, if needed).  


So, since the lake is about to be up that means it is time to get the boat out of storage!  Hells yeah!   We love taking boat rides in the evening as the sun is going down.  Hubs actually proposed to me on the boat at sunset....he's so sweet!   I seriously heart spring.....I start to get really depressed in January when it is so gloomy.  But once March rolls around I begin to feel MUCH better....I swear it gives me a renewed zest for life....does that sound weird?


March means that it will be warm enough to start eating dinner on the deck.  We do this a lot during the spring.  It is just so peaceful to be outside.  No TV...no distractions....just us....


March is also awesome because my birthday is in March!  I love my birthday....always have.  I think it is because we have always made a big deal out of birthdays in my family.  It is on March 17 which is St. Patrick's Day.  It has always been a fun birthday...something always going on.  Oh, and people never forget it!  There is a parade downtown every year on my birthday and it is way fun....super cheesy...but so fun!  Here I am in my parade get-up the past two years.  

My "crown" says Irish Princess (and yes...I am actually Irish!)  But it would be better if it said Southern Irish Princess ;)

I will be pregnant on my birthday this year which just makes all that I said above even better...can't lie about that.  I have hoped to be pregnant on my birthday for the past few years and now it is happening.  I will be 29 and I am just so so so thankful to be where I am right this very minute.  There were plenty of times that I was scared that this might not happen for us.  There are plenty of times even now that I am scared it will all be taken away suddenly.  You would think I would want take a little peek at the baby when I'm at work but I am scared to death to look now!  Scared of bad news....scared of it all crashing down on me.  I don't go back to work until next Wednesday so I don't have to think about it.  I am just going to enjoy the fact that it is March and evil winter is on its way out!


I am 7 weeks today.  Sweet!  My symptoms are pretty much the same as they were in this post.  I have had some nausea the past few nights though...right about this time actually.  I thought I was going to get sick last night but it passed.  Hopefully I will get to miss out on the terrible nausea and vomiting....a girl can hope can't she??


Happy March everyone!  I hope that it is a great month for all of us!!!

Graduated!

My appointment today went really well.  

Although getting there was a totally different story!  My mom texted me at 6 am to tell me she saw on the news that the interstate was shut down.  Apparently a semi wrecked and spilled loads of gasoline everywhere and they were trying to clean it up.  So I had to get up and get ready earlier than I normally would and figure out a way around the interstate, which I did.  It didn't take that much longer than my normal route, it was just a curvy 2 lane road.  Can you imagine the stress this would have caused if it had been an egg retrieval day???  Anyhoo...

My appointment was at 9:30 and I didn't get my ultrasound until about 11:20.  We (my mother-in-law was with me) waited in the waiting room for about 20 minutes and then the rest of the time was spent in the ultrasound room....in other words I waited with no pants on.  Really cool....actually not cool at all but sticky....you girls know what I mean....booty sticking to the super thin paper on the table....I hate that!

I always know that I am going to have to wait when I go there.  There have been very few times that I was in and out on time.  I never complain to them about it....ever.  I know they are doing their best and going as fast as they can.  I always come prepared to wait.  I was there for 4 hours one day.  I can't say I was happy about that....but I sure didn't let them know...

Do you girls ever have a super long wait?

I was hoping that it would be Dr. B that would be scanning me.  He is not actually my doctor but I have seen him more than anyone.  This IVF I saw him at every appointment and none of the other doctors.  He did my retrieval and transfer as well.  

Well it wasn't.....it was Dr. M, who I like but have only seen twice in two years.  

He came in and quickly asked how I was feeling.  I immediately told him that I "cheated" and me and my husband already looked and it was one baby and he/she had a heartbeat.  Then I realized that sounded kinda crazy so I reminded him that I do ultrasound.  He laughed. He scanned for a minute and said there is a heartbeat.  Then he showed it to us and took a few pictures. 

He told me that they would draw a progesterone today and if it looked good then I could stop the PIO injections.  He could tell by the look on my face that I was a little worried about that.  I'm just scared to stop them too soon.  He told me all the statistics and studies....blah blah blah.  I trust them completely (I mean look what they have done for me) but I am just a worrier.....Since I already have a bunch of Endometrin he said I could take those for 3 more weeks if it made me more comfortable.  It does...of course...although ask me later how much I hate them...

He printed me out some stuff to take to my OB doctor and told me to make an appointment and I was released into his care!!!  That is pretty crazy!  I mean I get to go to a real OB and not just for a damn pap smear?!@#!??  This girl is excited!

When he was done I went out into the hall to wait for the girl to draw my blood.  I saw Dr. B coming down the hall and I swear I wanted to kiss him on the mouth!!!  He hugged me and asked me if I "cheated" and looked before today and said that he knew I would.  He was so happy for me and then hugged me again and told me to let them know in the fall about the baby.  I was trying so hard not to just burst into tears.  It is just amazing what they do for people and I am so so so thankful!

Here is a picture of the baby that is growing inside of me!  Measuring 6w3d with a due date of 10-18

   

I called my OB doctor the instant I got home.  It was pretty weird making that appointment.  I have been waiting to make that call for almost 3 years.  I was tearing up before they even answered.  

Nurse:  How can I help you?

Me: I need to make an appointment with Dr. C

Nurse:  Ok, for your yearly exam?

Me:  NOOOOO!!  I'M PREGNANT!!! (yes...I did scream...didn't mean to...it just came out...)

Anyway, finding a day was a scheduling nightmare.  It is easy for me but my husband...ehhh not so much.  So after a ton of maneuvering.....we will be going on March 16.  I will be 9 weeks.  

This is the day before my birthday.  Pretty ironic....Two years ago on my birthday was our first appointment with Dr. C because we hadn't gotten pregnant.  What a difference.... 

A girl I work with, the one who went through IVF 5 years ago and now has twins, bought me a pregnancy journal.  What a sweetheart!  

(image courtesy of Google Images)

I really like this one A LOT.  It has a ton of space and places for pictures.  It also has stickers and frames you can put around each picture if you like.  It even has some scrapbook paper in the back that you can use if you want to make the picture pages scrapbook-like.  This thing is so me!  

So I am going to head into my living room and spend my entire Friday night getting started on it.  I am old and I love it :)

So Special

My husband and I shared something soooo wonderful today!  

Something that I think is pretty rare.  

Something that I will treasure for the rest of my life. 

We were able to see our baby's heartbeat together, for the first time, and only share it with each other.  There was no one else in the room.  

I don't think that I have talked about what my husband does but he is a physician....an interventional radiologist to be specific.  (if you don't know what that is...because most people don't...you can read a brief description here. So he is very familiar and comfortable doing ultrasound.  He scanned me this afternoon and we were able to see our little beeb's beating heart for the very first time.

I, of course, cried.  He just looked shocked.  It was a fantastic moment.

I have my official ultrasound tomorrow but he is not going to be able to be there so we wanted to see it together before then.  I am so glad we did.  It is a little weird because we both see these tiny flickering hearts on a daily basis so you would think that we would be used to it.  But I cannot even explain how much different it was to see that in MY uterus.  So special.....

I will post a picture from my ultrasound tomorrow.




By the way....my dinner with the girls went great.  I kept thinking I was so stupid for having stressed about it so much.  None of them said anything about me not drinking...


UNTIL....


The waiter brought us complimentary after dinner drinks!  What the hell?  I mean it was really nice but they had to know I had been ordering water all night....


I was pretty ticked because this made it obvious that I wasn't drinking whereas before it wasn't that noticeable.  


We all toasted and I slipped mine over to M and thankfully she took it quickly.  Only one girl noticed and she gave M a look and M just said something like "oh it's her reflux".  


I think the waiter was out to get me...


Happy Thursday everyone!

To lie or not....that is the question!

I am not sure what to do.  I DO NOT want to tell people about my pregnancy yet.  I mean it is still SUPER early and we haven't even seen a heartbeat yet.  There are so many more hurdles to jump over.  I deal with early pregnancies at work and I know what can go wrong.  

But I feel bad about just flat out lying. 

In a normal situation (which would mean us having conceived on our own and only the two of us knowing about it) this would not be a problem.  

But our situation is totally different.

This was our 3rd IVF.  When we had our first IVF in August we told some people.  A few of my friends, some of our family, and the people that I work with and the people that my husband works with.  A total of about 20 people.  When we didn't end up with any embryos it was torture having to tell people about it.  I made my husband do it actually.  I was devastated.  

Our 2nd IVf was in September/October.  Only a couple of people knew about that (my mom, my boss, and 2 of my friends).  I learned my lesson from the first experience.  So when that didn't work, I was devastated but I didn't have to put on a happy face and talk about it with people.  That was so much better.

During this IVF more people had to know than during IVF #2 and we had no control over that.  A few more girls that I work with figured it out because I had to take off of work.  More of Lonnie's partners had to know because he had to get someone to work for him on egg retrieval day.  

This is my problem!

These people keep asking about it.  I know they mean well and are just being nice but I just don't know what to say! 

It is hard to keep from the girls I work with (there are 5 of them) because of what we do (ultrasound).  I am like the 4th one that has gotten pregnant over the past two years and we all scan each other very early in pregnancy.  We have all kept each others secret until the person is ready to let the public know about their pregnancy.  I trust them to not tell anyone because I have seen them keep this same secret before.

My husband had to tell a few of his partners because they kept asking and knew that we had been trying and knew we would have results soon.  We told one of them and his wife (we will call her M) the other night at dinner.  This was perfect because I asked them to keep it to themselves and I feel confidant that they will.  They suffered a miscarriage before having their two kids and understand not wanting to spread the news too early.  


I have a girls dinner tonight with M and 3 of the other wives.  I just had a complete breakdown because I don't want to tell them and I have a feeling they will ask because I will not be drinking wine (this is rare for me to not have a glass on a girls night!).  


My freaking family doesn't even know!!!!


I don't feel like I am obligated to tell them but my husband says that I shouldn't lie to them if they ask.  


WELL WHY THE HELL NOT???  


I just reread this post and can not stop laughing.  I mean seriously???  WTF???  This is MY body and MY pregnancy.  If I want to lie to people about it I will.  I'm pretty sure most women out there would understand!  


I considered just deleting all of this and not posting it but I want to remember this.  I spent an hour 20 minutes crying, worrying, and basically throwing a fit about dinner tonight and what I was going to say and how unfair it was that I had to deal with this.  


Then I just spent the last 20 minutes laughing at myself for being so stupid.  UGH!  I guess it's the hormones...I'm going to take a nap....

I've been tagged!!!!

I've been tagged by Crossing My Fingers!!!!
And this is my second post today...GO ME!!


Rule #1: the tagged person must write their answers on their blog and replace any question they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

Rule #2: tag 4 people to do this quiz; they cannot refuse (ok, so nothing bad will happen if you don’t participate but I would love to see your answers). The tag-ee must state who tagged them.


1. If you have pets, do you see them as merely animals or are they members of your family? They are members of the family.  We will not be getting any more pets after they are gone though because I don't want to deal with losing a pet...

2. If you could have a dream come true, what would it be?  That this baby growing inside of me will continue to be healthy and come home with us in October.

3. What would you do with a billion dollars? Oh so many things....move to the beach would be the first thing!

4. What helps to pull you out of a bad mood? Hobby Lobby

5. What is your bedtime routine, with your kids? Well I don't have any kids but my routine is to read for about 30 minutes and then turn the light out.

6. If you are currently in a relationship, how did you meet your significant other? We were set up on a date by a mutual friend.

7. What kind of books do you read? All kinds really....mostly girly romantic books though...

8. How do you see yourself in 10 years? It is hard to say...I have learned through infertility that I don't always get to plan my life the way I want it.  But I hope to be happy and healthy.....

9. What’s your fear? Oh I have a few of them....Mostly that I won't get to bring home a baby in October

10. Would you give up all junk food for the rest of your life for the opportunity to see outer space? Yeah right!  I have zero desire to see space...BRING ON THE JUNK FOOD!

11. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? pee....

12. If you could change one thing about your significant other, what would it be? I wish he LOVED to do the dishes...because I really hate it!

13. If you could pick a new name for yourself, what would it be? I like my name.  I think it fits me very well..although people always want to spell it wrong (Kelli, Kelley, Kellie).  

14. If you had to choose between six months of sun or six months of rain, what would you choose? Really? This is a question? Who in their right mind would pick rain unless they were a vampire? <-----I like that answer!

15. If you could only eat one thing for the next 6 months, what would it be? at this very moment I say macaroni and cheese...but that could change any minute!

16. What is the thing you enjoy about blogging the most? meeting people that have been on the IF roller coaster just like I have.  

17. Do you prefer salty or sweet foods? hmmm....salty.....popcorn sounds really good right now...

18. What items are in your purse right now? anything I can shove in there....

19. If you had to choose between vacationing at the beach or in the mountains where would you go? to the beach for sure!

20. What do you watch on television that you know you shouldn’t? Oh my...all kinds of reality shows.  I'd say Jersey Shore is my guiltiest pleasure!  


These are the people I am going to tag..
still a guest room
No I'm not fat, just pregnant
Viva la Vida
The Chronicles of Violetta Margarita

Hope everyone has had a great Monday!

ABC's of me

I've seen a few other bloggers post this so I thought that I would do it.  Read on if you want to learn a little bit more about me....


(A) Age: 28....will be 29 in less than a month

(B) Bed Size: King....my husband and I are both very tall and sleep with lots of pillows!  He even has nicknames for each of his pillows.....

(C) Chore You Hate:  folding the laundry

(D) Dogs? Yes.  Two...Dusty who you can read about here and Darwin who you can read about here

(E) Essential Start Your Day Item: Well right now it is Orange Juice but before pregnancy it was Diet Dr. Pepper

(F) Favorite Color: blue

(G) Gold or Silver? silver

(H) Height: 5 feet 9 1/2 inches....the 1/2 is very important ;)

(I) Instruments You Play: ummm none....that would be comical

(J) Job Title: Sonographer

(K) Kids: one little muffin....I'm 5 weeks 6 days today.  Honestly that is still so weird to say....

(L) Live: Arkansas

(M) Mom's Name: Dianne

(N) Nicknames: My friends call me Kels or K Dub...my husband calls me Boo, Booble, or Blueberry

(O) Overnight Hospital Stays? Never

(P) Pet Peeves: Not rinsing off your dishes before putting them in the sink

(Q) Quote from a Movie: I can't really think of any quotes from movies so I'll just tell you some of my favorite movies!  Pretty Woman, 16 Candles, Crazy/Beautiful, Titanic, Avatar, The Contender (that one is for you honey), and anything with Clint Eastwood

(R) Right or Left Handed? right

(S) Siblings: One younger brother

(T) Time You Wake Up? 9:00 if I am off work, 5:45 if it is a workday

(U) Underwear: I am actually in the middle of a panty crisis right now.....I need to go shopping!

(V) Vegetable You Dislike: I really like all veggies...I can't think of one that I dislike....

(W) What Makes You Run Late: pretty much anything...hubby can't stand it...

(X) X-Rays You've Had Done:  ankle and wrist...Oh and an HSG (that counts because it was hella painful!)
 
(Y) Yummy Food You Make: Chicken Spaghetti, Bean Soup, Ranch Chicken, Butter Pecan Gooey Bars, Just the Best Cookies...that is all I can think of right now...

(Z) Zoo, Favorite Animal: I like Polar Bears!