Halloween gave me the chills!

What is it with Halloween?  I swear, at least 98% of the Halloween's in my life have either been either A-Freezing B-Raining and/or snowing or C-All of the above.  This one was a big ole C!  By the time we got home from work it was super cold and had gone from flurries to pouring rain.  We ordered a pizza to it would be a quick dinner and watched out the window for a break in the rain. We decided that since AJ really didn't know what was going on and also did not like to wear his costume, he would stay home with Daddy handing out candy while Tyler and I ventured out into the elements and hoped for the best.

Check out my little Mikey!

I love how his winter coat made him look all muscle-y

Waving in front of his face. Check out our no-carve pumpkins!

Trick or Treat!

Suckering Daddy out of more candy

In hindsight, we probably went the wrong direction for a good stretch of houses with their porch lights on (seriously, why are so many people Halloween scrooges?), but in the end, we probably stayed out an hour at most and only hit about a dozen or so houses.  One lady took pity on Tyler and gave him SEVERAL handfuls of candy so we "wouldn't have to stay out so long".  In the end, he decided he was done (and needed to go potty), so we doubled back and went inside.  Poor guy was wet up to his knees, but he had fun and got a good amount of loot!

I put AJ's costume (Tyler's recycled one from ages 2 and 3) on to try to get some pictures and he was SO not into it.  These were the best I could get

Choo Choo!

Hat coming off

Getting ready to rip this thing off

Sans hat--Where'd it go?

So all in all, we'll call it a win!  I can't believe how big they are getting.  I'll get to updates or content soon, but for now, here are two more pictures from the weekend.  Love my boys!

Sleeping Bug-a-Boo. You can't see it, but he had the most amazing wild hair here.

I can haz cheez ball? Yes I can!

Spring must be cancelled...

Because we've got 8 inches of snow outside.  It's a real testament to Indiana weather and it's unpredictability.  This time last year we had 80 degree temperatures, and this year, snow and freezing temperatures.  Go figure.

We were able to squeeze in a half-way decent day on Saturday, so we took Tyler (and a sleeping AJ) to a quick Easter Egg hunt at a local park.  He had a good time, hunting for eggs with his cousins and then running around for a few minutes, but he had a bit of an issue because he wanted to go to the playground, which was PACKED.  Ah, four-year-olds! 

After errand-running with my older sister and Adam and the kids, I had lunch with one of my best friends.  We had lunch and cheesecake (Kahlua--YUM!) and talked and then she did my nails and my eyebrows!  Kelly is AWESOME!  It was so great to see her.  We joked that somehow we became
"those people" that couldn't find time in our schedules to get together!  We'd been trying for months, but kept having to reschedule!  It was definitely worth the wait!

Finally and most importantly, THANK YOU to all my new commenters and hopefully new readers!  I have added a ton of new blogs to my reading list and I am loving ICLW!  I wish I had something more interesting to write about right now!  Please know how much your comments mean to me and how much I enjoy reading your blogs!!!  If you stick around I'll try for some more interesting content soon! 

I guess I'm still trying to find my post-IF niche...Am I just another Mommy Blog?  Random updates?  I'm not really sure.  Eventually there may be more talk about my book, but it's in such an early stage right now, and I'm slightly wary of putting too much out there on the internet just now.  I don't know anything about copyrights and all of that.  Hopefully I'll write things worth reading most of the time, and please forgive me when I don't!

I leave you with a pic of my loves!

Once and infertile, always an infertile

 First of all, welcome to any readers that might venture here from IComLeavWe!  Thank you for reading and commenting!  I'm Melissa, also know as Mel (especially in the online IF community).  I've been writing here for (holy crap, I just checked and I missed my blogversary!) seven years. This started out as just a place for random thoughts, very lighthearted and probably pretty boring!  Over the years, I've documented my life as a young (ish) married average woman in the Midwest, to a new mom, and more recently I wrote of my struggles to conceive my second child.  After over a year and a half of unexplained infertility that included an early miscarriage, I gave birth to my second son.  Now I continue to write about the joys of parenting my two amazing boys, Tyler and AJ and other random things, including current project--working on a book of infertility stories.

Now on to today's post!

The other day, I was reading a blog that I was linked to from another blog I read faithfully.  The post can be found here and it really struck a chord with me.  She is in the early stages of pregnancy after having struggled with infertility for several years. She talks about an encounter with her boss, who has just told her that another of their coworkers had just announced that she was pregnant after a struggle with infertility. She commented that it seemed as if starting work there triggered fertility trouble. Her boss pointed out that she was now pregnant, as if the fact that she had achieved pregnancy erased what she had been through trying to get there.  Read the full post for the whole story. 

I left this comment:
Once an infertile, always an infertile.  Even when you reach that goal and get that take home baby, you can never forget what you've been through, how it felt.  And that dark time isn't diminished, even by the joy of the birth of the baby you longed for.  There are so many different "degrees" of infertility, everyone has a story, but even with all the happy endings, we all still know a pain that can never be understood by anyone else but another infertile. No one can take the journey away from you. It's made you who you are.


I really feel that way. A few weeks ago, while jotting down an intro for my chapter in my book, I wrote that I had some reservations about including my own journey. After all, I had a child before I came up against infertility. I "only" struggled with infertility for 19 months. I "only" had one early miscarriage. And now I have my second healthy baby.

But you know what I realized? There is no such thing as a little bit infertile or a small loss. I will never forget that part of my life and I am a different person for having experienced it.  Even if I never try for another child I still remember what that felt like.  I realize that I am "lucky" in terms of infertility.  It can be so much worse.  That's why I want to write the book.  But what has driven me to want to write it all goes back to my own struggle. I never would have heard and read so many stories and met so many incredibly strong women if I hadn't gone though it.  I love my kids in a different way.  It has made me appreciate my time with them even more.

We all have the same goal.  Some of us reach the finish line and some don't.  I wish it wasn't that way.  But the lucky ones weren't always lucky and we've all felt the pain associated with IF.  It's not something that we could leave behind.  And, though it seems strange, I don't think I would want to.