8 Lessons I've Learned From PCOS

It's been a little over a  year since George and I found out that I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and that we would have difficulties having children.  In the past year there have been multiple ups and downs but as this year comes to a close I realize that I have learned so many things because of what I have.

1. All the people who used to give me a hard time about my weight can just suck it.  You never know what someone is experiencing in their life and how hard it may be for them to be what you think is the ideal weight.  Sometimes, things are out of one's control and you don't know how hard they may be trying to gain control.

2. This is something I may have had for years and possibly comes genetically.  It took the right doctor at the right time to figure out what I had.  Too bad we didn't figure it out years ago but I know now and I will do my best to control it.

3. The Lord gives us all different trials.  My trial in my life is apparently PCOS but I realized this week that He did not give this to me to punish me.  He gave this trial to me so that I could show Him what I can do with it.  I have the opportunity to show Him that I will make the best of my situation, I will be positive, and I will learn to take care of my body in the best ways I know how.

4. The Lord will help us overcome our trials but we have to do our part in order for that to happen.  For me, that means learning all I can about what this is and learning to eat in a way that my body can efficiently process my foods.  It means I can't eat what everyone else around me can.  I have to do what is best for my body and not worry about everyone else.

5.  I am a daughter of my Heavenly Father and I am worth something!  No matter what anyone else thinks (including myself), I am worth something.  PCOS and my weight do not define me.  My heart and who I am inside does.

6.  The Lord is there to help carry us when we are in our darkest hours and when we don't think we can make it anymore.  He helps us to become strong and helps us carry those burdens that we have.  We have to rely on Him to help us when we need it.

7.  Even when I don't think I deserve it, Heavenly Father will answer my prayers and help me learn the lessons I need to learn.  He has taught me quite a few lessons through His spirit recently and I am so thankful for the ability to recognize that it is Him who is enlightening my mind.

and last but not least

8. Trust Him!  The Lord has a plan for us.  Our Father is a loving Father in Heaven who will not leave us alone.  He knows the path we should be following.  He will lead, guide, and direct us but we have to be willing to trust Him and step into the darkness.

I am so thankful for the things I have learned lately and for the eye opening experiences I have had.  I will continue to work hard and do what I can to fix what I can and then leave the rest in my Heavenly Father's hands.  He knows what He is doing and I'm thankful for that because I surely don't!

Merry Christmas

On the way to work this morning I saw a sign that said only one week till X-mas and I turned to George and asked him what the x in x-mas stands for.  It definitely doesn't stand for Christ.  It reminded me once again what this season is all about.  How thankful I am to my Savior who was born and gave His life for me.  Without Him, I am lost.  Without Him this year would have been hell to me (it was bad enough as it was).  Without Him, I would not be able to handle my struggles.  I love Him and hope to remember Him everyday throughout this holiday and throughout my life.

Finals Week

Yay!  It's done.  We are so happy and on top of that George has another interview for a student job.  We are praying he gets it but if he doesn't we will just keep on trucking along.

Saturday was George's Karate Final and he advanced from white belt to yellow belt.

 Practicing before the final.

Big grin.  He's so cute!

 Look at that stance!  He's definitely concentrating.

Yay George!  I was so proud of him.  He worked so hard and he looked great doing all of his karate stuff.  Sorry I don't know what any of it is called.  

Sunday night we finally got some free time to play games.  Geordan and Dan and Cindy and Reed came over to play games.  I was holding Zoey but she was getting fussy with me so I passed her on to George.  Of course, he got her to talk and smile and she had a grand time with Uncle George.  I must say I was just slightly jealous because I haven't been able to get her to smile at me yet.

We are so thankful for our blessings.  We are thankful that finals are finally over.  Hallelujah.  Now we get to spend a couple of weeks together without the stresses of school and we are so happy about that.

We're Almost There

There is only one way to describe how this week has been so far:

This is George fast asleep at my desk at work and yes there was drool.  This week has been tiring with a couple of nights of little to no sleep.  We are down to one ethics and values paper due today, one karate final tomorrow, and one biology final on Tuesday.  We are counting down the days and I know George can't wait to have a day off and not have to worry about any homework!

Exhausted

George's semester has just been so exhausting.  We are counting down the hours until this week is over.  Right now this is about how we are feeling.

George was up till after 5 a.m. this morning working on a paper that he thought was due.  Turns out it wasn't.  So now he has five papers due Thursday instead of four.  The one good thing about the paper not being due today is that he has time to make it right.  He was missing sources and the information wasn't all cohesive.  Now he has time to fix it and that is really a blessing.  We are thankful that Heavenly Father chose to bless us in that way.  Hopefully he can give us strength to make it through the next couple of days.

Thankful

I didn't ever do any Thanksgiving posts so I thought I'd get one in since today is the start of December.  Makes sense right?  I am so thankful for the challenges that we have had this year.  They have been hard but we have learned so much.  I'm thankful for my family!  They are wonderful.  They all have helped us in so many ways this year and I love them.  I'm thankful this rotten semester is almost over, we just have to make it through two more weeks.  Most of all, I'm thankful for my wonderful husband who is so supportive and caring.  I don't know how I would ever make it through the challenges we have faced with anyone besides him.  He lifts me up and carries me through all of the hard times and I am so thankful that he is mine forever.

Bless the Chicken Breasts

George and I have a nasty habit of not kneeling when we say our evening prayers.  As such, I am normally half asleep by the time we pray because as soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm out.  Saturday night, George asked me to pray.  I had already been asleep and so tried to wake up to say the prayer.  During the middle of my prayer I started to fall back asleep and thus asked Heavenly Father to please bless the chicken breasts.  That sure woke me up as I heard what I was saying.  We had a rather hearty laugh and it is now our new inside joke, that you can be a part of.  Now you know that the chicken breasts have been blessed and are safe to eat.  Enjoy!

Sick

DO YOU EVER HAVE DAYS WHERE YOU FEEL LIKE THIS?

 George and I are definitely there.  He got it first and decided to be kind and share with me.  Oh thank you love!  I'm glad that we are so good at sharing with each other.  We were lazy all weekend, except for what really needed to be done.  Now we are still sick but back to the daily grind.  We hope it's gone soon and that we don't pass it on to any of you!

Halloween Birthday Bash

Every month the Smith family gets together to celebrate the birthdays that month.  This month they decided to do it on Halloween so we had a Halloween themed dinner. We made bone breadsticks and deviled egg eyeballs.

  Bridger, Hunter, and Rinald came dressed up in their Halloween costumes so we could see them since they didn't come trick or treating at our houses.

 Alyssa said she doesn't believe in taking normal pictures.  It kind of reminds me of my dad.  He never takes any normal ones either.

 Aiden, one of the birthday boys.  

 My hot stud muffin.  Not one of the birthday boys but he's hot so I had to stick this picture in.

Mike, the other birthday boy.  He'll be leaving for Iraq at the beginning of next year and he'll be gone for six months.

Random shot of Kim and Taeya.  Ah, aren't they cute!

It was a fun party and it was good to see family again since we haven't spent any time with them in a couple of months.  We love our families and are thankful for the blessings they all are in our lives.

Crafty

I've been crafty lately.  I don't know why.  I guess it's the homemaker in me that envies all my friends who are so crafty and cute and I figured well, I'll try my hand at it.  My good friend Kam and I saw these wreaths in a magazine at the grocery store and decided to try our hand at it without the magazine.  All we saw was a picture.  I think we did a pretty good job.

The week we got done with the wreaths we had a super Saturday for Relief Society.  I was excited cause this is the first one I have been able to participate in.  I think I did a pretty good job on my crafts and I'm excited to make more of the magnets.  They make great birthday/visiting teaching/Christmas gifts.  The hair barrette was a little tougher and I'm not sure I will ever wear it but if anyone likes them and wants me to teach you how to do it, I totally will.

Halloween Party

 My good friend Kam held a Halloween Party at her house on Saturday.  It was fun.  George and I had a lot of fun deciding what we were going to go as and we had a great time putting it together.  This is the first Halloween that we have actually been able to dress up together so we figured we would go all out.

We thought it would be funny to try to turn the mullet into emo hair.  What do you think?  The happy (miserable?) vampire and wife duo. 

 

 Scary isn't he?

 Ow ow!

 The mullet makes it all I think.

The rest of the party!  Don't you love the mii?  It really looks like we stuck a cardboard cut out in the picture.

I Love This Face

Isn't he just adorable?

Proud Aunt and Uncle

 George and I have enjoyed being able to hold our new little nieces over the last few months.  It is the most precious thing to hold a new baby from our Heavenly Father.  I love those kids.    

This is Olive!  She was born on July 7.  She is just adorable and we miss having her and her mom (Vanessa) and dad (Kevin) around.  I just want to pinch those cute little cheeks.  (Yes, I'm one of those aunts.  :)  I can't wait to see them at Christmas time.

This is Zoey.  She was born on October 7.  She is precious and I've been able to hold her a couple of times but I'm looking forward to when the newness wears off and I'm the closest aunt to her.  Then I can go visit and maybe even babysit.  We're glad that she finally got to go home and I think Geordan and Dan are even happier. 

Gratitude

I've been thinking today (dangerous habit, I know).  I am so very thankful for so many things in my life but here are the big ones today:

1.  I'm so grateful for the ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends George and I had.  Without them we would not have each other.  With out our broken hearts we could be stuck with someone who wouldn't treat us quite as well.  How thankful I am to the boys who broke my heart.  Because of them, I am married to the most amazing man in the whole entire world!

2.  I'm grateful to be an aunt.  It was awesome getting to hold Zoey last night.  She's adorable.  I love her and Olive tons.  I also love all my other nieces and nephews that I got because I married the most amazing man.  But there is nothing like holding a baby fresh from Heavenly Father to make you remember the things you are thankful for.  Yes, my heart hurts and my arms ache to hold my own baby but I know that will happen in time.  In the mean time, I will just be the best aunt in the whole entire world.  (Olive I wish you were closer so I could spoil you too.  :)

Thank you Heavenly Father for reminding me of the things that I have and am grateful for.

Miscarriage #3

Well, we were excited that we were pregnant again and we were sure this one was going to stick.  Not true.  Oh well.  It has definitely been different than other times but our HCG levels went from 90 to 25 so it's gone again.  At this point we'll go see a specialist in Provo (who actually helped a friend of mine stay pregnant).  And we'll start looking into adoption options.  We will have a family!  We're determined.  We just don't know what way it is going to come in.

Wish me luck, I'm going to try to lose a bunch of weight that will hopefully decrease the affects of my PCOS so it's time to kick my butt.

When Life Gives You Broken Cars, Buy a New One

Wow, we thought selling my car was a great decision and would save us lots of money.  On the contrary!!!  After we sold my car, we took George's to the shop to fix the little things we thought needed to be fixed.  The shop gave us a quote of $1800 to fix the car!  AGH!!  Then we took the car to our friend Reed who looked it over and informed us that the engine is not going to last us a lot longer and we should get rid of the car as soon as possible!  SHOOT!

Needless to say, Saturday was not a happy day for me (on top of finding out that George's insurance is not covering my root canal as they should be).

So, this week we will be car shopping.  I will try to hold down my panic since we had been working so hard to save money and get out of debt.  Guess it will take us longer.  Hopefully we can find something that will get us through Undergrad and Grad school.

Changes

Last Sunday as George and I were driving home from Idaho we got a phone call from our ward executive secretary asking us to come in to see the bishop.  We had seen the bishop just the week before to chat so we knew it was not a chatting visit.  His counselor lives next door to us and when we got home he told me that he needed to talk to us.  haha.  Communication lines got a little mixed up.  I couldn't wait for Wednesday when the bishop was planning on seeing us so Brother Brewer kindly extended the call so I didn't have to be anxiety ridden all week.

I was called to be the 1st counselor (Education counselor) in our Relief Society.  Oh my.  Again!  Apparently I needed more practice at that calling.  I'm excited to work with our new president and the other counselor and secretary; however, I'm a little nervous to be in the presidency in a home ward.  We've also got a little bit of pressure since the bishopric pointed out that all three of us have been RS Presidents and are returned missionaries.  He is expecting a lot.  Talk about pressure.

The YM presidency in our ward also changed but George is still the secretary so there are definitely some things that he has to adjust to as well.  The Lord is keeping us busy.

My Baby is Gone

Sad but true.  My car is gone!  It has been with me through thick and thin, single life and married life, dating and heartbreaks and now...it's gone.  :(  We sold my car yesterday.  Two cute little teenage girls will be driving it and reveling in all of it's many oddities.  I wish them luck.  And us too since we are now a one car family.  It will be an interesting adventure for sure but one I believe we will handle just fine.

For Mindy

Mindy this post is just for you.  Look I posted! 

Changes are in the air.  I'll let you all know what they are after Sunday.  But I have to say, I'm a little sad.

He Needs a Haircut, He Really Needs a Haircut

George has been talking about buzzing his hair for a little while but he hadn't decided whether or not he was going to do it.  We were babysitting at my parent's house while they were in Florida and my dad has the clippers so we decided to go for it.  He was brave and gave me the clippers and I went at it.

He definitely may be a bit too trusting.

The final product!  Wow, it's short.  Afterwards, George said, that might not have been the best decision.  Don't worry, it's growing back beautifully.  But I think he looks great with it short.

Hebrews 11

The chapter is all about faith and one verse in particular stands out to me and gives me hope.

Hebrews 11:11 - Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.

The Hand of the Lord

This week I have been thinking about the last year of events that have happened for George and I and realizing that Heavenly Father's hand has been in every event that has happened.  I was talking to my mission companion Heather and she helped me recognize even the ones that I hadn't been able to figure out yet.  I feel like I need to write them down so that I don't forget them.  Before I go into our story, I had a couple of experiences yesterday at Education Week that also proved that Heavenly Father has His hand in our lives.

On Tuesday a sister approached me asking for information about a participant which I could not give out.  She then proceeded to tell me that she had a package for a sister from her daughter who was serving a mission in her ward.  I had no idea how we were going to find this sister but I called the phone number and left her a message to come see us in the Garden Court. 

The next day I had a sister walk up to me who was visibly upset because she had lost her name badge and wondered if she should just go home.  I got up to help her look and she talked to me about things that had been going on and it appeared she was just having a bad day and Satan was trying to do everything he could to keep her from coming to Ed Week.  We walked back into the Garden Court and before she walked away, I asked her if she wanted me to take her name and number so I could call her if we got her badge.  We walked back to the table and were handed her namebadge that someone had turned in during the time we walked away from the table.  It was an amazing miracle.  Obviously, she was meant to be here.

As she walked away I noticed the namebadge of the lady my co-worker was helping and low and behold it was the sister missionary's mom.  Wow!  The number I had called on Tuesday was her home number so there was no way she would have gotten the message before she went home but there she was standing in front of me.  We got her the sister's phone number who had the package and got them in touch.  The Lord's hand really is in people's lives.

Now, for our lives.  Three months after George and I got married, we felt that we needed to start trying to get pregnant.  That was not thrilling for us since we had originally decided that we would wait a year before starting to try but okay, we'll follow and do as the Lord commands.  Well 5 months later we weren't pregnant and we were frustrated with why we would be told to try if nothing was going to happen.  That's when I saw the doctor for a rash and found out I have PCOS.  Well obviously the Lord knew what He was doing because not getting pregnant was one of the indicators of my PCOS.  So we started working on that problem.  Not curable but we are able to deal with the symptoms. 

By the end of January we were pregnant.  Yay!  At least we thought.  That's when we had the whole ectopic pregnancy experience.  I hadn't been able to recognize the Lord's hand in that one but Heather pointed out to me the other day that the Lord's hand was there because He showed us that we would be able to at least get pregnant. 

The second time we got pregnant was in May.  Woo hoo.  Not!  We lost it again.  This time my doctor said, what part of do not get pregnant don't people understand and that was it for us.  We switched doctors.  However, the way we found him was a miracle.  I started bleeding on Tuesday and called what I thought was Cindy's doctor's office.  It wasn't but I explained the situation and the nurse was very friendly and told me they had a doctor I could see and I could get in that morning.  I told her I would call back and called Cindy's doctor's office.  They weren't as kind and told me they would call me back later that day (they never did).  So I made an appointment with Dr. Cherrington.  He was great!  By the end of the week I had miscarried and he called me himself to make sure I was okay and to give me options for the next time we got pregnant.  The Lord's hand was definitely in that one.  He led us to a family practice doctor that will not only work hard to help us keep a baby but also has experience with depression and can help George.

I'm thankful for small miracles in every day life.  Sometimes, it takes time to recognize them but when you do man do they stand out! 

Budgets

Sometimes, that's a swear word.  Sometimes, you feel like swearing when you put one together.  All in all, they are a good thing.

George and I have been trying to get ours re-done for awhile and we just haven't been able to find time.  We needed to revise our family goals as well.  Well, last night we finally found time to do it.  Yay for date night.  Oh yes, date night last night consisted of the things we really needed to do.  We have new savings goals, Christmas money goals, and new computer goals (George's laptop died). 

We are thinking that we will have a yard sale so if anyone wants to combine and do one together, we'd love that.  If anyone is looking for a large desk or maybe a love sack, let us know.  I'm sad to let it go but it may be something we have to do.

I'm happy with our goals and our new budget.  We even budgeted in date night money which we should have done a long time ago.  Having that money actually budgeted in I think will help us to stay better within our budget.  I'm glad that we found that time to go over our goals and we feel a lot better about where our life is going. 

It was funny looking back on last year's goals.  We were able to accomplish quite a few but then there are some that we really need to do better at.  It opens your eyes.  We just have to get better at following through with all of them and looking at them occasionally to remind ourselves what we did plan.

110 In the Shade

My little brother is an amazing actor.  He got the opportunity to play File in 110 in the Shade at the Hale Center Theater.  The best part about it was that for the first two weeks of the show he got to play opposite Audra McDonald (Tony Award Winner) and Will Swenson (Tony Nominee).  He did an excellent job.  His voice is absolutely amazing and singing along with Audra he was even more amazing.  He is amazing and one of my heroes.  My little brother is my claim to fame.  Here are a couple pictures of George and I with Kevin, Will, and Audra.

Disneyland Pictures

So in May after my second miscarriage George and I decided to escape for the weekend.  We went to Sandy for two nights.  We went to the movies and to the Living Planet Aquarium.  We had fun doing those things.  Then we got crazy and decided to really get away.  At 7 a.m. on Sunday morning we caught a plane to California.  We spent all of our savings and we were exhausted but we sure had a great time.  We went to Disneyland and the beach and we had so much fun.  Here are the pics.

We had a blast on the Toy Story Ride.  We hadn't gone on this ride before when we had visited Disneyland.  It was so much fun.  George won.

The two times we have been to Disneyland we have tried on hats and bought some.  We have fun with this and I think George takes the best pictures when he tries on hats.

We are just plain adorable and we know it!

The teacups were fun.  We definitely made ourselves dizzy.  We always love the Indian Jones ride as well.  It is a must go on every time we go.

The beach was a blast but it was freezing.  We went there in our shorts but brought our hoodies just in case.  We definitely needed them.  The last time we went to the beach the building above had plenty of beach in front of it.  This time there was water clear up by it.  The waves were crashing and the water was cold.  George thought he would get in there anyway.

We had a blast on our trip and we may have to find more opportunities to take trips like this.