My 28th Birthday Road-trip to BC!!!!

For my 28th birthday, my husband planned a little getaway road-trip to Abbotsford Bc. We both really love road-trips and figured nothing more beautiful then driving threw the mountains for 12ish hours.

Here's are a couple pictures of my birthday trip :) (April 18th)

We left at about 1:50am and had planned to be in Abbotsford by noon if all went well :)

Leaving snowy Innisfail Alberta behind we were so excited and tired!!

Coffee in hand we were ready!!

The first 1.5 hours we drove threw really thick fog.. 

A little map on my iphone to show where about's we were.

Sun was starting to slowly rise at this point. After we had driven for many many hours already

drove threw a pretty crazy slippery snowstorm towards the top of the mountains..

this part was really scary as it was sooo foggy out, it was still dark sun was only starting to peak out a little and the snow was just coming down like crazy and we had so many sharp turns to take.. it was def really really stressful! 

We stopped for breakfast at Denny's at around 6am. We had been on the road already for about 4 hours and awake for about 6. We were really hungry and needed some fuel to keep driving in the really crappy weather!

 We would drive threw rain, fog, then thick snow, then rain, then slush.. the weather was so unpredictable.. it was thick fog for a huuuge portion of the trip.

I believe this was the highest elevation we cought on the gps... 1438m.

Finally a litle bit of sunshine!

then back to snow-slush-rain-fog

We finally made it to our hotel!! Safe and sound. We were soooo happy to be out of the car at this point haha.. we took a nice little/long nap before going out for an early birthday supper!! :) 

Our hotel room :) 

Our hotel room wasn't anything special.. we rather pay less for the hotel since we didn't plan on staying in much and that way we would save alot of money to go out and explore!! 

The Cactus Club literally riiight across from our hotel so we walked over for supper!

This was the view from our hotel parking lot.. I took this pic as we were walking to Cactus Club.

I was sooo tired at this point but happy to be out celebrating with my hubby in BC!

I had the "Nothing but pink" drink :P

Our meals!!!! Man it was sooooo delisious.. I ordered this exact meal last year for my birthday and was excited to experience it again haha. Every single bite was mouth watering.. especially after a long trip in the car! 

My meal was the one on the bottom called "BBQ Duck Clubhouse" AMAZING!!!!

For dessert we ordered these to share. They had a promotion going on that for every dessert you ordered a certain amount of the proceeds went to help make a sick child's wish come true so they came out with candles on every single dessert they sold that weekend for the whole "wish come true". It was very cute and fitting for my birthday haha even if no one had any idea it was my birthday. I made my husband promise he wouldn't embarrass me haha.

This was an amazing latte... peeerfect to finish off a good meal and a long day!

I was a happy girl haha! I only ended up having a couple small bites of this dessert it was waaaay too rich for me.. so eat the cheesecake instead yuum!!

So much more happened and pictures were taken during our trip.. but thought I'd share a glimpse of our road-trip up to Abbotsford and my birthday dinner out :) 

The Infertile Mrs.White

Planning a little getaway trip for my birthday

My husband and I came to the conclusion that we need to get away.. we need to spend some time together as a married couple and experience happy memories and get out of the sad funk.

My husband decided that for my birthday (April 18th) we would drive to Abbotsford Bc, a nice little long road-trip (12 ish hours one way) threw the mountains would be nice to get away, enjoy the beautiful scenery and spend the long weekend together cuddling and loving on each other. Also we plan on eventually moving out there so we wanted to go check out the neighborhoods and get the feel of the place. My husband put out his transfer request April 2nd and it could take weeks or even months before we hear anything back but at least the transfer was put in and requested. So this trip would be two birds one stone :) Celebrate me turning another year older and check out possible places to live and drive around all over Abbotsford and surroundings to see if we can picture ourselves living there :) We honestly can't wait!! We are so overdue for a little getaway trip.. We have been stressing so much about money, work, baby making that we said screw it, we need this to stay sane and get back on track.. Get our minds off our everyday life and just be happy..so we plan on doing just that and I cannot wait!!!

Also my birthday is on Good Friday and so our trip would be during the Easter long weekend so it was perfect work wise, I only had to book 2 days off.. the 18th (day of my birthday) as we would leave at 1am and took the Tuesday 22nd off as we would be coming back home late on that Monday and I'd wanna sleep in and enjoy a day off at home with my pooches before going back to work :P I am sooo looking forward to this!!!!! Pictures to come! :D

The Infertile Mrs.White

No one ever told me...

No one ever told me how hard this would be.

No one ever warned me of the long hard journey I would have ahead of me. 

I never thought I'd be in these shoes. 

I never thought I'd find the man of my dreams, marry him then not be able to give him children. 

I never thought I'd love my in-laws so much and be terrified I wouldn't be able to give them grandchildren. Especially since my husband is their eldest. 

I never thought I'd have to sit by and watch ALL my friends and family get pregnant the first time around and then keep sitting on the side line and watch their families grow.

I never thought I'd be worried someone would choose the boy and girls name my husband and I picked out forever ago! I worry every time I hear a new pregnancy because it will make my baby name choosing less of a wow factor but be the 2nd to name their kids so as so. 

I never thought I'd cry myself to sleep and wake up crying from pregnancy and baby dreams. 

I never thought I couldn't have it all. Handsome husband, 2 most cutest dogs and 3-4 kids. 

I never thought I'd be counting down the years and months of yet another failed cycle 

I never knew I'd feel so devastated from getting my period and cry for days on after. 

I never thought I'd have to know all the infertility/fertility lingo 

I never thought I'd have to understand every single step that goes into conceiving and have to plan everything perfectly from the minute my period starts, to baseline ultrasounds, to injections at a specific time of day, to trigger shots at a precise time of night, to dr appointments, many many follow up ultrasounds and blood work to iui procedures down to counting down my extremely long 2ww.. to understanding exactly what goes on in my body during the 2ww and be able to track what should be happening at each stage (when fertilized egg should exit my tubes and when it should implant and what symptoms I should be looking for and so on..) 

I always thought I'd be among the first batch of friends to be pregnant 

I never thought that my arguments with my husband would circle around infertility (me always being sad, depressed, crying, mood swings and him trying to keep up and tell me "everything will work out in the end" and me wanting to ring his neck. He tries his best an thinks and tries to always say the right thing but for months now even his words irritate me and make me even more sad). He used to be the only one who would calm me. All he had to do was put his arms around me and let me cry it out. He never had to say a word and did everything I needed at that moment without knowing he was. Months months and years later... He's just getting sick of me being so negative all the time. I try and hide my feelings from him, pretend I'm okay when I'm dying inside. I cry in the shower and bottle everything in. At some point my gloominess is just too much for him. He wants me truly happy, not this facade I'm putting on and hates that he can't do anything to make me happier and feel better. He gets so angry when I mention "oh there we go.. Another pregnancy announcement, or complain about how I don't understand how people can just have sex and get pregnant.. I just don't comprehend that. To me so much has to go into making a baby that I always get blown away when my friends tell me it was an accident or they had no idea they were pregnant and so on. I get sad, mad, irritated, angry, I wanna block them from my life at all cost, I want a punching bag and run away. (I don't actually hate them haha I hate myself and whenever I hear pregnancy announcements or gender reveals or see all these cute pics of baby's birth it comes and gets me deep deep inside and reminds me over and over of all the joy and love I'm missing out on and how much of a failure my body is). My husband sees me go threw all these emotions and anger and it just takes a tole on him. He doesn't know what more to do and doesn't want to be reminded all the time about it. He tells me he is sad too but that at some point he rather just choose to live happy just us two then pine over something we might never be able to have. This breaks my heart every time he says this.. I feel like he has given up even if I know having his own family is a huge thing for him.

I hate that we are at a point where we feel like giving up... like we feel we're spending way too much money on failures and living life in the "what if's". We are constantly trying to save money for IVF but something always seems to come up and dip into the IVF saving  fund for example.. new tires for his truck are sooo needed, I need all seasons tires because I had to throw mine out last year they were too old to use and now I'm driving on my winters... my dog needs to be fixed and we've been putting it off for years now.. we still haven't had a honeymoon 2 years later, we've never been on a trip down south together ever... we never go out and just have fun because we never feel like we can justify spending that money.. we were supposed to save up a bit and get me a nicer wedding ring set since mine didn't come as a set and when we got married we agreed to pay alot less for a "for now" ring and I cannot wait to get a new set that I love because I love being married to my husband and I want a big shiny beautiful ring to reflect our love and I wanna wear it proudly for life! Also we had to dish out alot of unexpected money when we flew back home to visit friends and family in November.. it had been 18 months since we had seen anyone. We have been out here in Alberta for over 2 years and have only flew back home once because we just don't want to spend all that money and then some. Every time our IVF fund seems to finally be looking up some big random important expense comes up.. like my car or his truck breaks down and we need to dish out lotsa big bills to get it fixed.. we both need our cars for work and to get around.. so then the fund goes back down. Viscous circle!!

We live life on hold and money always holds us back.

I hate the huge void I feel inside daily. I'm so terribly scared that it will never happen for us that it haunts my dreams, it's on my mind everyday no matter what I do. I usually start off every morning convincing myself that "today is going to be a good day, no tears, no baby talk.. just a good normal happy day" then something always comes up and I get right back into my funk.

I hate how I feel. I hate being so scared of the unknown. I hate being on hold. I hate watching the world move forward and being stuck.. standing still.. I always fee like a part of me is dying. I'm loosing myself in this whole infertility world and I'm sinking. A couple months ago for a while I was doing good.. my happiness for others trumped how sorry I felt for myself because I really am happy for everyone around me, they deserve happiness as much as anyone else and because I care so much about others I think that's what hurts the most. I feel like I can't be there for anyone anymore. The way I feel and the way infertility has impacted all aspects of my life I now know and feel that everyone around me (family and friends) see this sadness and ache and want to stay away.. either they don't know how to be around someone dealing with that kind of issue, they don't know what to say or scared to say something wrong.. or they just don't understand what I'm going threw and my actions and behaviors could upset them and make them not want to be around someone like me. (someone who speaks openly about infertility and who isn't scared anymore to show when I'm not doing okay). It's alot easier for people to stay away then to try and deal with a situation they know nothing or not much about. That's where I am now. I feel like I'm standing alone in this big mess called my life. Yeah sure maybe I'm over exaggerating things a bit here.. but honestly after YEARS of infertility, heartaches, disappointments, pain from treatments, all the tests poking and prodding.. I'm just not who I used to be and in all honesty my life does revolve around infertility and the "what's next". This is the bit that is now driving my husband crazy. He wants to break free of all the sadness and aches we have gone threw and move on to better things.. sad thing is.. we're on this roller-coaster till I get pregnant and deliver a healthy baby. You don't just wake up one morning and suddenly feel amazing. Every single day there is some kinda reminder over and over threw out the day that pops up and there's just no hiding from it.

The only time I'm actually truly happy is when we are actively trying to create a baby.. when I'm injecting myself daily full of hormones and when I'm in serious pain from my ovaries expanding so quick that I truly feel happy because I'm actually working towards a goal. But then it fails.. and I sink ever deeper.. because that means it's another step closer to "this will never happen". I know it's ridiculous thinking this way but a woman can only do so many clomid cycles, IUI's and IVF's before she runs out of eggs or before it takes a serious tole on your body, emotions, physical aspect and the whole nine yards that comes with injecting a serious amount of hormones in your body month after month. You become a monster, angry, emotional, sad.. A huuuge mess that you can't control because you feel foreign to your own body. I think many women would agree with me. Also I need very high dosages of hormones in order to actually grow my follicles to size so this might not apply to all but most.

I found this picture on pinterest a long time ago and saved it because when I read it, it had really affected me... I thought the statement was over-exaggerated and that there's always something new to try and to look forward to so how could someone loose hope and feel this sad all the time.. When I was on clomid I was happy because I knew I still had many options, then IUI came around 3 times and failed witch was weird because the process for all 3 IUI's went perfect yet never lead to a pregnancy.. So many unanswered questions and yes we still have IVF but I'm scared shitless because that's always the LAST option.. and to think we are there now suuuucks and it's scary!. But ya.. the following pic is where I am at now and I can truly say I relate to every word of it and feel those exact emotions daily.

The Infertile Mrs.White