Where have I been – Part 2

1270590_10201484100456591_1836849396_oOk, lunch is over and the laptop is plugged in charging.  I said I’d explain why Alex and I stayed home from the CA trip right?  We’ve been trying for awhile to get pregnant, we really didn’t want Alex to be an only child.  Since we had so many issues getting pregnant with him, and after a few months of trying ourselves and doing IUI’s, we started the IVF process again.  With a failed cycle in December and another failed attempt in the spring, we were finally lucky enough for it to work in July.  The IVF transfer was the day before the hubby left for his trip and we didn’t want me to attempt flying after all of that.  So Alex and I stayed home, I had to do all of my shots myself instead of hubby helping me.  Let me tell you, progesterone shots in the thigh are not pleasant, but it’s better than not doing it at all and losing the baby.  I have a genetic clotting disorder called MTHFR that requires me to take extra folic acid pills in addition to my prenatal vitamin.  I also take a low dose baby aspirin and do twice daily heparin shots to prevent my blood from clotting.

So needless to say it’s been a rough couple of months with morning sickness, not in the morning as you’d expect but at night right before bed.  And not once in awhile like it was with Alex, but every night! Lots of doctor appointments with the specialists and various OBs (due to my age and clotting disorder I’m considered high risk so I have to see a specialist because of that!).  We’ve had lots of ultrasounds which gives me lots of chances to see that everything is ok.  I’m a paranoid person when it comes to this since we’ve had LOTS of problems in the past.  We have a doppler that allows us to hear the baby’s heartbeat and I ask the hubby if we can hear it every couple of nights or so.

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Due to my high risk issues, we had a blood test done called NISP that checks for Downs syndrome and other chromosomal issues.  Not that we’d terminate if the results were bad, but if we knew we could do research to find out what special things we’d need to get.  The other benefit to the test is that since they are testing fetal DNA in my blood, they can tell the gender.  So the doctors office called one Friday afternoon close to 5 o’clock.  The nurse tells me that the test was negative so we didn’t have to worry about any disorders.  Then she asks if we know the gender and if we want to know.  Of course I say yes, but that I’m afraid to know the answer!  She says “They found no Y chromosomes”, and I’m sitting there for about 30 seconds trying to remember what that means!  She must have realized I couldn’t think so she says “It’s a girl” after which I immediately start crying because that’s what I wanted!  As soon as I got off the phone with her I called the hubby and told him.  He was just as excited!  Hubby posted this picture on his Facebook page with no comments and we don’t think many people got it.

So come March 2014 we’ll have a new face in our house and a daughter in our hearts.  I am hoping to start sewing again soon, now that things are calming down and I’m getting my energy back.  I have a few scrap projects in mind and can’t wait to work on.  Also hoping to work on cross stitch again at night while we watch tv, it’ll keep me from going to sleep too soon!  If I can start working on projects, you’ll be seeing posts!

Where have I been???

Wow, it’s been a LONG time since I posted anything!  I was trying hard this summer to get my hexie diamonds quilt finished for our quilt show, until they posted that quilts had to be completed by the end of September.  AHHHHH!  I’d never make it since I had 3 rows to finish, plus the black fill in spots at the top and bottom, PLUS quilting it?  Yeah, I decided to just put it aside and work on it slow and just have it ready for the next show.  Then I realized I needed to start working on a cross stitch piece for a wedding gift.  Now of course it’s still not done and the wedding is next weekend!  The bride works with the hubby and asked Alex to be the ring bearer!  He’s going to look so cute in a tux, I just don’t know if he’s going to do what he’s asked or not!

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In July the hubby went to California to see his dad for his 70th birthday.  Alex and I stayed home since I don’t really want to take him on an airplane yet! (There’s another reason why we didn’t go that I’ll explain in another post.)  Turns out it was a good thing we didn’t go as Alex got sick that weekend and had a 100 degree fever – only for about 24 hours though!  Anyway, I found out there was a new quilt shop (The Quilt Loft) that opened within walking distance of his dad’s house.  We’ve always had this deal that if one of us went out of town, the other would bring back a “prize”.  So I told him where he could get my prize!  So he went and picked out a jelly roll of Icicle Kisses by Kansas Troubles Quilters.  I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet, but I will come up with something!

2013-08-23 16.22.51I was playing around with one of my Accuquilt Go dies and made this little table runner.  I’ve had it pinned for awhile, just haven’t gotten around to sitting down at the machine to quilt it!  This was a charm pack that I ran through on the triangle die (don’t remember which one off hand since we are camping while I write this post!) and just put them together into 2 rows.  Haven’t decided if I will square it off once quilted or bind it with the angled corners.  Once we get home from camping I will look at which die I used and also get the information for which line this was from.

Spent some time working on blocks for our Guild block exchange using the 2013 Hoffman Challenge fabric.  All blocks have been exchanged and now it’s time to put it all together into a quilt.  We want to have all the quilt tops completed by the December meeting so we can hopefully get more people to participate next year!  I’ll do another post with those once we get home, I haven’t taken pictures of all the blocks yet!

I received an email yesterday from Accuquilt that the Studio cutter is on sale again for $399, the lowest price I’ve seen all year.  I’ve been debating it for a long time, mainly because there are a few dies I’d love to have that are only made for the Studio. Plus I’ve been thinking about adding die cuts to my business, since at some point I need to get that going again.  I currently only have 2 customers for embroidery work and I need to start making things I can put on etsy.  Die cuts might be a good thing, quick and I could even cut customer fabrics! Plus right now is triple reward points and that will be nice, since it will give me a good way to buy more dies at limited cost to me! 🙂

Time to charge the laptop and make some lunch, I’ll be back later with more of where I’ve been!