Cam*Bails*Soup

We are officially a two dog family now! We picked up Bailey June 13th from a lovely breeder in Pomona California. 

So far she's been very different from Camden. 

Camden is a people pleaser by nature. She was fairly easy to train because she wanted to do anything and everything I said. Bailey is the exact opposite. 

She couldn't care less what you want. She's going to do her own thing when and where she wants.

They're hard to get in a picture together, one of them is always moving. But she is smart and with plenty of time and patience I think we'll be able to train her well. She's still young though and needs time to grow up a bit. But she's already getting the hang of sit, lay down, and come. 

3 weeks - 6/12/15

3 Weeks, according to the conventional method anyway, I'd probably call it 10 days, that's when we found out. I hadn't even missed my period yet. I can't wait until somebody asks, "Well when did you find out and how did you know?"

My response will be, what do you mean? I knew pretty much when it happened. Let me back up a bit. After one of my ovaries was removed because of a giant cyst, (I know it was giant because any medical professional who saw the size immediately had shock written all over his or her face) I became a little bit obsessed with my own fertility. There was more than one hurried rush to the doctor's office with pains that were almost assuredly another cyst growing in my other ovary. After a couple years, I discovered how to chart my cycles. I LOVED it. I love knowing what my body is doing and seeing the amazing progression each cycle. Our bodies are amazing. That being said, I kind of know what my body is up to. I know what being fertile looks like for me. At least I was pretty sure I did. After all, my husband pointed out that maybe our method of birth control (using protection on fertile days) wasn't working because one or both of us couldn't have kids, but I was pretty sure we were doing it right. A year and a half is pretty good, much better than lots of statistics.

I know which time it was, I distinctly recall saying, "Hey by the way if we have sex tonight we should probably use protection because I'm going to ovulate soon."

A few days later I watched the temperature shift. It was fascinating. Part of me was expecting this cycle to be off because it was the stretch of moving to Georgia. The stress of packing up your life, driving across the country, getting your stuff stolen and starting out in a brand new place. I've never dealt with stress well, but apparently being married to your best friend has its benefits, like creating peace in a very chaotic, anxiety ridden environment, so much so that your body operates as normal, like nothing else is going on. I have experienced stress putting off my ovulation. In fact it happened about a year ago, the month we were married. It was a whopping 39 days, much longer than my average cycle and any other cycle since I started charting. This month though? Pretty normal. Stress was not going to put me off.

After my temperature shifted, I said to my husband, "Hey, by the way, we weren't very careful this month. There's a chance that I'm pregnant." His response was "Okay, I kinda figured it was bound to happen sooner or later" We aren't all that sentimental, nor are we really the overly excited about kids type of people. At least not yet.

A week after the date I was pretty sure I ovulated, I thought that I should buy some HCG test strips. I wasn't positive about anything but it's the first time since I began charting that I really felt like I should take a test. I ordered them on Amazon, Prime two day shipping is awesome by the way, and they arrived in the mail yesterday. I knew the best time to take an early test was in the morning when urine is apparently most concentrated. So that's what I did. Before Travis left for work he wanted to know the result.

I didn't adjust the first picture at all, and the line is very faint, but smack dab in between the control line and a bend in the test strip is the test line. It's slightly more noticeable in the second picture. That's what 10 days looks like. I haven't even missed my period yet. 

There's a weird thing about 3 weeks though. 3 weeks generally wont show up positive on many pregnancy tests. I could take a picture, but my stomach will most likely be the size it is now for a few more weeks if not a couple months. It feels silly to even start buying pregnancy related books or reading blogs. You can't even really tell anybody, afterall I haven't even missed my period. 

Three weeks. 

So when did we find out? Well we pretty much knew from the day it happened, confirmed it just under a week before my next missed period, how did we know? Sometimes you just have that intuition, it helps to chart your cycles too. Looks like we'll be having another new adventure in the future. 

Song of the South

Hello!

After 4 years of not blogging at all, I've decided to update, mostly because I wont be working this summer and will be over 1000 miles away from a good chunk of my family. Since leaving London I had that nasty cyst removed, met the man of my dreams, got a dog, graduated college, got married and moved to Georgia! Talk about adventure.

First things first: I met Travis about 4 months after leaving London, although the first time I met him at a movie theater with a group of friends, neither of us had any idea where we'd be 3 1/2 years later.

Shortly after meeting Travis, and still not even dating him I got a puppy and named her Camden after one of my favorite areas of London

This little punk will be 4 years old this summer, and she seems to have no intention of ever changing. her favorite things in the world, after her mom, are peanut butter and frisbee.

Both Camden and Travis helped with my last few years of school and I finished my bachelors of science in Biology in the spring of 2014 and got a part time job doing grunt work in a lab, not entirely sure where I was headed next career wise.

After dating for a year, Travis proposed at the Continental Divide outside of Winter Park, CO. Our engagement lasted for just under a year and we were married in Ken Caryl, CO June 8, 2014.

We honeymooned in Napa Valley, drinking lots of wine and checking out San Francisco for a couple days. Then both Travis and I found jobs just outside of Denver, but still a good 30 minutes away from both our parents. It was a good distance. We still saw them very often and it wasn't too hard to drop in for Dinner, but far enough away that no one was likely to drop in on the newlyweds unannounced. Travis graduated with his mechanical engineering degree December 2014 and after working for about a year for a biomedical company was awarded for all his hard work and diligence a job for a very prestigious company that does a lot of government contract work. It's pretty secretive but I think he's going to love it. The job requires him to be always learning and working on new and different projects, which is good because he loves variety. I don't think I've ever seen him order the same thing at a restaurant twice. 

The caveat to this perfect job? It was just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, just over 1000 miles from our home in Denver. Which was actually really great! We both love to travel and couldn't wait to experience life more than an hour away from being able to call our parents if something went wrong, the ultimate test of our marriage. We were excited and a little bit anxious. Two weeks ago we packed up our new SUV and a uhaul trailer and began our drive across the country. On the first day of June we found ourselves at a hotel in Atlanta waiting to be able to get into our rental house... oh and talking to some police officers because our car had been broken into. Several thousand dollars worth of our stuff had been stolen and two windows of the car had been smashed to bits. It was quite the "Welcome to Atlanta! And eff you too" but with lots of love and support from our family 1000 miles away we were able to replace some of our possessions and get excited about moving into our new place. Which, if I'm being honest, sucks when you have nothing to put in your living room. Literally nothing. We had sold our living room furniture before we left and the thieves took most of our electronics. An empty brand new living room looks really depressing and is hard to accept as home. Now we both realize that these were just earthly possessions and there was only one irreplaceable piece stolen, but it was  hard to start a new life in a new place with something like that hanging over our heads, especially when you can't just plop down to watch TV or play computer games to relax. Luckily we bought a new couch and TV and it's starting to feel more like home.  

This weekend we will embark on a long journey to pick up our dogs. Yes, dogs, Camden is getting a sister! 

It'll be a pretty exciting summer. And what am I doing when the summer is over? Starting graduate school of course! 

I was accepted to CU's Master's Public Health program before Travis was offered the job in Georgia. Although it's going to be hard I'm planning on heading back to Denver in the fall to start classes for my master's degree. That is, if I don't get into a school in Georgia. We'll see though! Life is an adventure, and I think I've got just the pants for that.