Battling With Infertility

 

Well I'm breaking my 2.5 year silence on this blog so I can share something personal that is way too long for a simple Facebook post. This week is National Infertility Awareness Week and I just felt that I should share our story to help raise awareness that infertility is more common than you think.

Honestly, I continue to be amazed by how clueless some people are about infertility. And I'll admit, I was one of those people until six years ago. I had my life all planned out: we were going to have kids no less than 2 years apart, no more than 3 years apart... we were going to have 5-6 kids, at least 4... etc. I even had family members who struggled with infertility and I still thought this way. In my mind we already had a kid and that would not be a problem.

What I didn't expect was what is called Secondary Infertility. Secondary infertility is when you have problems conceiving after you have already been able to conceive a child without any medical assistance. So even though we already had our wonderful little boy, it didn't mean we weren't going to experience infertility.

I also didn't realize how common it is. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 11% of couples who already have a child experience secondary infertility (that equates to 4 million couples). source

On this blog post (and I love what she says about secondary infertility!) I found this quote from Dr. Alice Domar who wrote the book Conquering Infertility: "Statistically, secondary infertility--the inability to conceive and deliver a second child-- is actually more common than primarily infertility."

Us with our little guy in 2012

Add that to the millions of couples who can't conceive their first child and the CDC has found that 1 in 8 couples experience infertility. source

ONE in EIGHT couples, people! And yet, people still assume that if a couple doesn't have a child (or more than one), there must be some other reason why like to make more money, to avoid the responsibility, because you don't like kids, etc.

The problem with secondary infertility is that once you have a child, you and everyone else think you must not have any problems and should be able to "pop them out" whenever your heart desires. It wrenched at my heart every time someone asked me, "So when are you guys going to have another one?" I would say something like, "Hopefully soon." but after about a year of that, my answer changed to, "Ask Heavenly Father that one and let me know." It's not that I was trying to make them feel bad that they asked such a ridiculously personal question, but I needed a way to let them know that not everyone has control over when they have their next child.

As if it wasn't enough to go through the month-after-month infertility treatments, the cruel cycle of hope and disappointment, and the tear-jerking prayers of my 4-year-old praying for a sibling, I also had to put up with stupid people who said, "You ONLY have one?" or give me every tip under the sun about how to get pregnant (my "favorite"-- sarcasm there: "Just relax. You're too stressed."). It is not easy.

Then there's the people who think, "Oh so if you can't have a baby, you go to the doctor, he puts you on clomid and you get pregnant that way." It doesn't always work that way. Ryan and I went through infertility treatments for years and the doctors could never figure out why we couldn't get pregnant. This is called unexplained infertility. The doctors told us in 2012 after all those infertility tests and treatments (short of in-vitro fertilization) that if we kept trying, eventually we may get pregnant. That wasn't good enough for me. I didn't want a "may get pregnant."

You see, I already had one child and I wanted him to grow up with siblings. I wanted the answer to his prayers and ours to come before he was too old to appreciate it. I also knew what it was like to be pregnant and hold that baby in my arms at birth and I longed to experience it again. This is one aspect unique to those experiencing secondary infertility. In no way am I saying that secondary infertility is harder than primary infertility (or vice versa); I'm just showing that there are things that are tough about it too.

I loved how that Dr. Domar put it: "Women with secondary infertility are the Rodney Dangerfield's of infertility--they get no respect. Other infertile women can't stand them. After all, they've got one child--isn't that enough? Family members don't understand them. They got pregnant once, why can't they do it again?" 

The best way to describe it for me is to say that you don't feel like you fit in either the infertile category or the fertile one. You feel like you're in-between. Those experiencing primary infertility think you shouldn't complain because at least you have one child and those who can plan their pregnancies to a T do not understand what it's like to experience infertility.

I'm not writing this so that anybody feels sorry for me or feels like I'm complaining. Instead, I just want to help you understand what it is like to go through this trial of infertility (especially secondary infertility) so that you can understand how to be more compassionate for those around you who are experiencing it as well.

So after 3 years of trying to get pregnant, we decided in September of 2012 that we would go forward with in-vitro fertilization (IVF). In infertility years, 3 years is not a long time. I've known women who have gone through infertility treatments for many more years than that. But for us personally, we felt that it was the right time to do it. I had already been struggling with anxiety which was related to our infertility and we decided that it was better for my mental health to go ahead and do IVF.

We went through a wonderful clinic called Reproductive Care Center in Utah. We had already been working with them on other infertility tests and treatments and we loved the doctor we worked with, Dr. Swelstad. My son and I lived at my sister-in-law's house for 2 weeks in Utah while I went through the IVF process.

The IVF medicine (complete with huge needles)

For 10 days I had daily shots that I had to administer myself. I got used to needles, let me tell you. I was terrified of them to begin with and only got to practice inserting them twice into a little sponge thing (I really wanted to practice on Ryan so he could know how it was going to be, but they wouldn't let me at the med class. Haha).

I also had a blood draw and ultrasound every other day until the egg retrieval where they had to put me under anesthesia. I was nervous about it because the last time I had been given anesthesia was when I got my wisdom teeth out and I bawled like a baby when I woke up out of it.

When I woke up from the egg retrieval (not crying this time thankfully), the doctor congratulated us on getting 17 eggs! (You know how weird it is to hear about future life referred to as "eggs" and "embryos". It honestly makes me feel like I'm a chicken or something.) That was a lot of potential embryos right there. The doc was happy, we were happy.

Trying to keep my humor about these needles!

After five days of updates on how many embryos we had (10) and how they were "growing" (how many cells there were), we were back at the doctor's office Saturday morning.

I will never forget the moment when Dr. Swelstad came in and informed us that ALL 10 of our embryos had survived. This is pretty rare. Not only that, but the doctor and the embryologist recommended that we only transfer one embryo. Before that point, we had already decided we were going to transfer 2 so that we could have "better odds." The doctor said the decision was up to us, of course, but that they really thought the embryo would take because it was rated an "excellent grade" embryo. We decided to go with their recommendation and I remember pushing the paperwork at the doctor thinking, "No regrets Kadie, if it doesn't work we can try again in December with two of the other embryos."

Then we signed some papers and got all decked out in the pre-op room (I am not attractive in those hair caps, but we had to record the experience):

The procedure was done in 5 minutes, I laid there for 15 and then we changed and left. You feel like after what you've been through over the last month, that you should get to know if it worked that day. It just seems so anti-climatic to have them give you some instructions for recovery and then just go home to wait 2 weeks to find out if your body decided to want that little "bubble" of cells.

The next day we said goodbye to our amazing hosts who let us move in for half the month and drove back home. The embryologist called and let us know that 2 of our 9 remaining embryos hadn't made it to freezing, but that still meant we had 7 left.

The next week and a half were SO. SLOW. Any of you women who have wanted to be pregnant before can relate to this: I looked for every possible sign that I was pregnant before I could actually find out. I would get nauseous and think, "I'm pregnant!" Then I'd have to remind myself that it didn't start near that early and that my body could mimic any of the pregnancy symptoms at that time because of how jacked up my hormones were from the shots.

Finally on Wednesday, November 7th, I got my blood drawn to see if I was pregnant. In what seemed like FOREVER (really only 3 hours later), my nurse called me. I don't think I even said "hello." All I said was "Please tell me you have good news." She said, "I do! You're pregnant!" I was so relieved and happy. Then I said, "You're ABSOLUTELY sure? There's no maybe?" And she reassured me that there was no way I wasn't pregnant.

Eight months later, on July 3rd, 2013, we welcomed this beautiful girl into our family.

Oh my heavens, isn't she so cute and squishy????

She's now in the terrible twos and I can't believe she was once so small and cute and docile. Haha. I remember we were like first-time parents all over again with her. Our son was almost 5 when she was born and we didn't remember how to take care of a newborn! But life was great and Kaleb absolutely loved having a sibling.

At the end of 2014, we decided that it was time to start thinking about using one of our frozen embryos. After contacting Reproductive Care Center they told us that I first needed to have my local OBGYN do an ultrasound to make sure that everything looked healthy.

Since I wanted to switch clinics this time around I made an appointment with a doctor from the new clinic to do a yearly check-up and then the ultrasound. Unfortunately the doctor I met with had his own ideas about my infertility (having never met me before and also not being there for all my previous infertile years) and tried to convince me to try Clomid or Femara again. I firmly told him that no I was not going through that again. Several times throughout the appointment I had to decline his "help" and finally he said, "Nothing I say is going to change your mind, is it?" and I said, "Nope!"

I still cried all the way home because here is another misconception about infertility: even after you go through IVF or other infertility treatments and conceive a baby, infertility still affects you. All those feelings came back of what it was like to go through all those treatments and the heartbreak and disappointment of getting my period every month. When that doctor tried to convince me to let him work his magic (never mind that we'd already been to an infertility specialist), I already knew I couldn't go through it again. We did IVF so that I would never have to go through it again.

It's bad enough that every year, we get a bill in the mail for our embryo storage and it's like a smack-in-the-face reminder: Hi, you have infertility! Or every time we get together with our close friends who have a son that my son's age and a daughter that my daughter's age but have one son in between, it's like a reminder: hey you could have had another kid in the time it took you to get through your infertility treatments!

It never leaves you, but it also creates who you are today. I can say I am stronger. I am wiser. I am more compassionate. I know I am loved. I know I am supported. I am closer to my husband. I appreciate my kids more. I know what a miracle it is that anyone gets pregnant! I know I can do hard things. I know my Savior can truly give me comfort. I know that Heavenly Father hears my prayers. I know that I can be guided by the Holy Ghost.

And that guidance led me to decline that doctor's offer (he's retired now thank heavens so I never had to see him after he did the ultrasound) and go ahead with the embryo transfer. It was a lot easier than the IVF process, let me tell you! And we were blessed to get pregnant with another girl who joined our family on November 12th, 2015.

So during this week, National Infertility Awareness Week, I want you to know that Ryan and I are 1 in 8. The person sitting next to you in psychology class could be that 1 in 8. That person in your church who plays the organ could be that 1 in 8. So please, please, think before you ask him/her when they're going to have a baby or another baby. Think before you complain about how you've tried to get pregnant for three whole months and it's not working. Think before you ask them, "Do you only have the one child?" That "only" digs deep. Think before you tell them how you read this article where Vitamin B helps you get pregnant. Or sleeping upside down or jumping on the tramp or whatever.

Because what a person dealing with infertility needs most is sensitivity and support. They need the world to be more accepting of them saying out loud, "Hey we're having a hard time getting pregnant" or "we can't ever get pregnant." Infertility is not taboo. Once they tell you that they are dealing with infertility, don't be afraid to ask them how they're doing with all the treatments and what you can do to help ease their emotional heartbreak. Most likely, all they need is a listening ear and a good hug.

And chocolate. Lots of chocolate. :)

If you're someone that's dealing with infertility, please know that you are not alone. Even that family with 8 kids on your street could have dealt with infertility. You never know until you open up. You'll be surprised to find how many have dealt with the same trials you are going through right now. I know not everyone can be so open about their experiences as I am, but I strongly believe that the more we talk about infertility, the more the "fertile" world will understand how to react and be sensitive and supportive.

And most of all, hang in there. Your family will come (all of them). In the meantime, don't forget to enjoy the good parts of life. One of my favorite quotes (and reminders) while I was going through infertility was this one:

For more information on infertility, go to www.resolve.org.

Front Porch Re-do

I have been so excited to share this with you guys! It has been months in the making and of course I tackle this project right before and after having a baby, but it seems to be when I most motivated. :)

So when we were first looking at buying a house back in 2009, I remember pulling up in front of what is our house now and thinking, "I don't know about this one." The outside was DRAB. Everything was brown and there was very little color in the landscaping. It did not fit my personality at all. But, when we walked through the house, we fell in love with the inside. It was by far, the best fit we had seen for our needs and wants and so we bought it!

For the first few years, we started planting flowers and bushes and trees in the front of our house to lighten it up. I really didn't do much to the front porch other than put a wreath on the front door and add a big pot next to the door. I think I was overwhelmed by the space and I was spending my decorating budget on the inside of the house instead.

At the beginning of this year, I just couldn't stand my bare porch any longer! So I did what I always do when I want to decorate: I went to Pinterest for inspiration. The biggest goal for me was to lighten up my front porch with bright colors, but do it ON A BUDGET. We were about to have another baby after all!

So without further ado, here's a before and after!

The first thing I wanted to do right away was paint my front door. I really wanted to paint it a bright blue (have I mentioned how much I love all shades of blue?!?), but my hubby wouldn't go for it. So I convinced him a dark red would look nice. I went to Ace Hardware and bought a quart of their Clark&Kensington Semi-gloss Exterior Paint and got to it!

It is SO easy to paint your front door people. I'm serious. You don't even have to take it off the hinges. Just do a really good job taping around the hinges and hardware. Start with a paint brush for the indentations and around the hardware, followed up by a small roller brush for the flat surfaces. I did 2 coats of paint and wa-lah!

 It took me like an hour total (granted I didn't paint the inside of my door, just the outside and inside hinges that would show when the door was open). Isn't that wreath so cute? Would you believe me when I said that it's made out of paper and cost me $4??? When I saw the tutorial for it here, I knew I had to make it. She has had it for years and it's held up just fine so I thought I'd give it shot too. The rug came from Wal-Mart and perfectly matched the colors I'd already chosen (I love it when that happens).

Next, I wanted some kind of fun chair or rocker for the right corner. And I adore the old milk cans. So I hit the local yard sales and found a rocker for $15 and this milk can for $15. Add some paint (and polyurethane to protect from the elements) and they were transformed! Do you see the vinyl on the milk can? The numbers on our house are hard to see because of our dark brown siding, so I did the vinyl so people would stop knocking on our neighbors asking where 780 was. :)

 The blue pot came from the dollar store (I spray painted it of course), the watering can came from a yard sale for $1, and I made the pillow from a pillow form and outdoor fabric from JoAnns ($8 total).

Next I loved the idea of doing something fun on the right wall, but I didn't want to drill holes in the siding or anything. Then I found out they make awesome hooks that you just hook under your siding. You can find them on Amazon. I bought 2 heavy duty ones for the basket and then one small one for the star (that I already had, I just spray painted it). I found the hanging basket at a yard sale for $5 and the basket liner at Lowes for $6.

The hardest part was knowing what to do with the large empty space under my windows on my porch. I immediately thought a bench would be nice, but every bench I liked was well over $150! Then I found this tutorial on Pinterest for a bench and two tables and knew we had to make it! I heart people who post tutorials online for free.

I have to say I am so proud of me and my hubby for making them. The tutorial is pretty straightforward, but we'd never built furniture before. They turned out wonderfully simple and clean looking. I was very happy. With wood and paint, it cost about $55 to make the bench AND the tables.

A bench is not cute without pillows though, am I right? Well lucky for me my indoor couch came with a bunch of excess pillows (I'd like to have room to sit on it...) so I used three of them as the pillow forms for the 3 pillows you see above. Then I used the same bright fun fabric from JoAnns as my other pillow and some white burlap for the small pillow. I personalized it by painting an A on it (with just plain old craft paint)! Total cost for pillows: $10

Now I had two tables to decorate. Groupings of three is best for decorating, so I had to find 3 things I could use that would incorporate the turquoise and bright yellow that I had chosen for the front porch. This cute turquoise vase came from Ross for $11 and I found the old tool box from a garage sale for $2. All I did was paint it and then I used this cool tutorial to add the "Welcome" with wax paper and my own printer. The little house thing came from Deseret Industries for 50 cents!

On the other table, I really wanted a bird cage. I love bird cages for outdoor spaces. Well lucky for me I found a nice big one at a garage sale for $8. Add some turquoise spray paint and hello beautiful. I also love lanterns for outdoors and this one I already had from Ross. I just spray painted it that bright yellow (can you tell I love spray paint?). Then add an IKEA plant and pot that I already had and this table was good to go.

Last, but not least, I needed something above the bench. This flower arrangement was inspired by this post I found. I went to Hobby Lobby for the container and flowers, but I painted the container to match my front door. Got to tie in that red somewhere! Then I got the burlap ribbon from Wal-Mart. I spent about $20 on this arrangement.

And there you have it! All in all, I spent under $175 on all of this. I was very happy with how it turned out! I've also had a few different people refer to our house as "the one with a cute front porch" so that's been very rewarding after all the hard work! :)

Baby Girl's Nursery Reveal!

I'm done! Well... for now. I have a Phase Two (My hubby says, "Of course you're not done...") that I will do in the future, but I'm done with what I wanted to finish before this baby girl comes.

I think there's virtually nothing in the room that hasn't been left in it's original state. Except for maybe the crib sheet and bumpers. That's it. And that is why it took so long. I like to create a lot of work for myself. Although thank heavens I didn't do it all alone! Thank you to my amazing and ultra-supportive family. It took me, my hubby, my mom, both of my sisters, and one of my brother-in-laws to get this room finished.

The first thing we did was put up crown molding at the top of the walls and add two chair rails. I loved how different this look was. I saw it in a picture on Pinterest and knew it was what I wanted to do. What I underestimated was how long it would take! If I ever do a chair rail again, it will only be ONE with no moulding!

But it was totally worth it for this room. Top it off with off-white paint for the borders and grey in between and I had a great neutral background for the room so that it can be a girl nursery, boy nursery, guest room, whatever it needs to be in the future.

Next we painted all the furniture. My sister Natalie brought down her paint sprayer and we set up a little painting booth in our unfinished basement. Oh my heavens it was a lot of work for her and I will owe her eternally for it. :) We chose off-white for the crib and glider to keep both very clean looking.

And yes my sister might just kill me for posting this pic, but I just love her in paint mode.

Then to spice things up, we did green for the dresser with a distressed look and a stained top. The stain is the same custom mix I did for my dining table and chairs and it worked perfectly! I still have some more for anyone who wants to use it!

 

Amazing transformation, huh? I got the dresser from Craigslist for $60. Between using paint and stain that we already had, as well as the same knobs for the top two drawers, the total cost for this awesome dresser with character is around $85 (I'm including the cost of the new knobs and polyurethane to the original price). You just can't beat that.

The next thing we did while my mom and Natalie were here was to make a roman shade for the window. This window is the only one in our house that gets direct sunlight (hence why our indoor plants always die...) and I knew I would need a good black-out curtain if this baby ever wanted to sleep during the day.

Sorry lighting is bad here!

 We followed this tutorial and made this black-out roman shade from a mini blind. These roman shades sell for $200 on Pottery Barn. Crazy. We made it for less than $35. I love this fabric. It was perfect for my color theme and I loved how it was polka dotted but didn't make you want to zone out while looking at it.

Oh so much more to share! Yay. Years ago we bought a very cheap bookcase (as $4. Seriously) and I wanted to use it in the baby's room, but it definitely needed some TLC. First of all, it was laminate so I had to prime it before painting it. Then for the color, I used a darker version of my grey wall color. Add a coat of polyurethane and it was ready to be moved into the room. But it really needed something to spice it up. Following a Pinterest find, I went to the dollar store and bought 2 foam boards to cut and fit in the back of the shelves. I then hot glued some great fabric I already had on hand to the foam boards and slid them in the back.

Why did I do it that way? Because now I flexibility of switching them out in the future if I move the bookcase to a different room. I love how it dresses up the plain bookcase. And since you've probably noticed, I didn't do it on the bottom shelf because in Phase Two, I will be putting some cute bins on the bottom shelf for baby toys. The rest of Phase Two involves hanging some more things on empty walls (like above the crib).

Above the bookcase I hung the awesome bow holder my friend Janell gave me at my baby shower. I hung it a little high so that I can add hooks sometime to the bottom for the baby headbands I have. That little box on top of the bookcase holds her little hats. The flower pot is one of my favorite little touches in the room. I got the bottom vase at Deseret Industries for $1 and the flower bunch for $1. All I did was spray paint the vase white and add the two together.

Back to the glider: After painting, I recovered the ugly blue cushions on the glider. Oh man that top cushion was a bit of a nightmare because of the inset sewing in the middle. I had to hand sew some of it (and I HATE hand sewing). But it was worth it. I got this fabric from Hobby Lobby and it's duck cloth, which is great for upholstery. This glider also has a footstool that I recovered just using a staple gun.

 

Another thing I made was this ruffled crib skirt. You can't see the ruffles very well because the crib is on the highest setting for a newborn but once we move it down a setting it will be perfect.

My sister Jennifer helped me with this and was kind enough to do all the math and most of the hemming. Love her for it. :) I got the idea for this crib skirt from Pottery Barn (they have SUCH cute stuff, just way too overpriced!). They were selling it for $70 and I made it for less than $10. Have I sold you on DIY yet???

Thank you to my friend Jess who made the green and white pompoms for my baby shower since I was planning on making some for the nursery anyways! And thank you to her for responding to my SOS when my first attempt at making the pink one failed miserably. :) I also love the bedding I have for the crib. It's all ready for a cute little baby!

I also added another flower accent to the room. I just love hydrangeas and there are some very pretty fake ones. I found this bunch at a Down East Outlet for $5. I bought just a clear vase from DI For $1.50, spray painted it the same white as the other vase and I love how clean and pretty it is on the dresser.

Another DI find: This lamp base for $6 and a plain ugly shade for $1. I spray painted the gold base the Oil Rubbed Bronze and then added ruffles to the shade to cover it and tie it in with the cribskirt. The inspiration for this came from here.

 Add a cute little flower made out of the roman shade material on it and it's perfectly girly.

Okay almost done. I needed a mirror above the dresser and when I saw my sister's friend's tutorial on making a sunburst mirror on their blog here, I knew it was perfect. To top it off, it was cheap to make!

Between the mirror (from Michael's, used a 40% off coupon), glue, paint sticks (free from Sherwin Williams -- thanks to the awesome guy who helped me!), and spray paint, this cost me $10 to make.

I love how this mirror makes a statement. It's very large, but I love that because it holds the entire wall's attention and really looks impressive above the dresser.

And that's it! Thank you to my sister-in-law for letting me use her camera so I could properly show you the nursery. Never to be left out of a photo session, here's the big-brother-to-be:

I think he's as relieved as I am happy to have the nursery done. I've spent a lot of time this last month working on it and he's noticed that I haven't been able to entertain him all day long. He better get used to it since that won't change once the baby comes along!

Updating Hardware

For all four of you who anxiously waiting Baby Girl's nursery reveal, I promise it is coming. I'm so incredibly close to be finished.

Until then, I thought I'd share a little side, easy project I did a couple of weeks ago. Since we moved into our house, I've always wanted a corner hutch for my dining room. I was talking about this with my mom a couple of months ago and she said that she knew exactly where I could find one: my grandpa's house. Turns out that my grandma (who has since passed away) bought an antique hutch once upon a time, but it's basically just been sitting in their bedroom. I was pretty close to this grandma and loved the idea of having a piece of furniture that was hers. So after seeing it and judging that it would work, I asked my grandpa if I could buy it from him and he was more than happy to oblige.

My brother-in-law and sister were SO sweet and stopped to pick it up for me on their way to come visit a couple of weeks ago. It needed a little TLC. After vacuuming it out and brushing off the cobwebs, I used the wood conditioner that I absolutely love on it to give it a little more life again.

The next thing I did was update the hardware simply by spray painting it. The hardware blended in with the furniture and I knew if I painted it, the piece of furniture would fit right in with my table and chairs that I just redid. If you haven't looked lately, hardware for cabinets, dressers, hutches, etc. can add up to a pretty penny. Unless you REALLY want a certain kind of hardware, I would suggest first painting your hardware to see if you like it better. This is such an easy fix most of the time and saves you a lot of money. I'm a huge fan of spray paint, if you haven't noticed. :)

So I took off all the hardware and laid it out to spray paint (the six knobs on the right were actually from another dresser). The color I chose to use was the Oil Rubbed Bronze. This is great for updating metal especially. If you haven't noticed though, each of those butterfly hinges had 6 screws a piece. I had no clue how to paint 48 screws (there's one butterfly hinge not shown above) without making a huge mess and having to paint the entire screw. My sister Natalie always comes to the rescue and shared a great tip with me:

 Find a thin cardboard box and just stick the screws in it. This was perfect as I could just spray paint the tops of the screws in two easy coats without having to change angles or rotate them.

So how does it compare when all is said and done? Look for yourself:

BEFORE

AFTER

 I wish I had a better camera so you could really see the difference. Just know that now it looks like it has always belonged in my dining room and isn't a boring thing sitting in the corner. And it cost me less than $3! So next time you want to get new hardware, try some spray paint first. It might surprise you how much it updates your furniture!

Pinmimic: Owl Taggie Toy

For an explanation of my Pinterest series, click here.

So last year I pinned this adorable owl taggie one day, thinking it would be so much fun to make. Little did I know, it was a picture from Life in the Sass Lane, an Etsy Shop, and it cost $24 to buy! Uhhh... I don't know about you, but I don't have money to throw around like that. I wanted to make one for my new niece and I thought, "I can make my own pattern and figure it out."

**Note here: If you copy someone's idea to sell when they're already selling it, then you are breaking the law. If you're copying their idea to just make for someone you know, that's okay. Just so you're clear on that.

So I did. And I learned a few things:

1) Minky fabric hates my guts.
2) It's hard to make ribbons stay in place.
3) I forgot to put on the feet. Oops.

It doesn't look exactly the same, but pretty darn close. And really, in the end, I was just proud of myself for figuring it out without a pattern!

Planning Baby Girl's Room

I am currently sitting in our office-soon-to-become-baby's-room at a desk that's in the middle of the room, away from the walls which are half-taped and begging to be painted. And I'm itching to get there. But this 7-month-pregnancy bump and bad back are slowing me down so alas, here I am wondering why I didn't tackle the baby's room any sooner.

Not that I haven't been doing my research. And by research I mean spending hours on Pinterest, finding my inspiration for this room and pretty much mapping out every detail. In so doing, I created a billion projects for myself. Thankfully I have a totally-rad sister who loves doing room makeovers because she's coming to my rescue in a week to spend "as long as it takes" to get this nursery almost done. It also helps that she's bringing me all her baby girl clothes and accessories that her 10-month-old has outgrown.

So I'm planning that 4 weeks from now I will be totally ready for this baby and then just sit in the sun and rest until this baby makes her arrival. Okay so I'm being optimistic.

But that's totally besides the point of this post. When my sister offered to come, she asked me to make a montage that would show what I was thinking for Baby Girl's room so she could get a feel for it too. And thanks to Pinterest, it seemed like I could find a tutorial or at least a picture for everything I pictured in my mind. So here's what I came up with:

I wanted to keep the dominant colors in my room neutral so that next time around, if we're having a boy, I won't have to re-paint or take out furniture. Grey and off-white was the way to go for me. Then I loved the idea of adding pink and green. The green I could use in permanent pieces and I could switch out the pink accents for blue ones if again, we have another boy in the future. I found a good color scheme (that you can see above, although my off-white and grey are not the same colors as shown there).

Picking paint was a one-day nightmare for me. Why did I have to do it in one day? Because Ace Hardware was having an awesome deal on their paint and I found out about it one day before the sale ended. My first sample of grey turned out blue on my walls. Totally not what I was looking for. That's when I realized that I needed a grey with a warm undertone (and with 0 blue in it at all). My carpet is brown and so with a warm undertone, the grey wouldn't look so out of place.

My 2nd sample came out too brown, but I scored with my 3rd and 4th (some of these I got free at Lowe's with a coupon so I wasn't buying a ton of samples really). Either one would have worked, but I ended up going with Bleached Shadow. I bought one can of it in a darker shade and then asked them to mix me another can of the color, but mixed at only 60%. This is the way to do it if you want the same color but lighter. They can mix it at any percentage, you just have to ask!

The dark grey is for some of the furniture, the lighter grey is for the middle part of the wall (the green part in the picture above) and the off-white (I went with Bone White, but ended up mixing a little bit of brown with it because it was too white) will be for furniture and for the borders on top and bottom. The only paint I have left to get now is green for the dresser.

A word about chevron: I love it in small doses. The chevron fabric above is for the baby glider and I will mimic it on the love sign, but that's pretty much it. Which means I also still have another kind of fabric to find for my valance curtain and teething pads on the crib sides (neither of which are pictured above). Decisions, decisions.

In the end, the main theme of this room is: DIY cheap but cute. I'm using furniture I already have (with the exception of the dresser that I got from craigslist for $60) and my sister & I are doing/making everything ourselves. The paint is the most expensive part really and thanks to coupons and sales, I've bought that cheaper than usual (and I'm going to have leftover for sure! Anyone interested?). Keeping it frugal is how I balance my crazy-project-redo-everything side with my rational-we-should-not-be-spending-money side. And my husband basically tolerates it all (but I know he'll think it looks good when it's all done).

So in a few weeks I'll hopefully be posting a nursery reveal and praying that it looks just as good as everything pictured above or I totally blew previewing it all. :) I'm so excited to see it all done but tired at the thought of completing it all!

Table Makeover... Biggest Project of My Life.

First of all, so you can really appreciate how I badly I needed a table upgrade, here is exhibit A:

This is the table we got for free from Ryan's brother and sister-in-law when we got married. We were so grateful to have a table and chairs and it was nice that this table had 2 leaves with it. But... it squeaked. It didn't really bother me until Kaleb and all his friends/cousins/etc. were old enough to shake it and laugh at how much it squeaked. That just made it worse to the point where I couldn't cut my meat with a knife without hearing, "Squeak, squeak, squeak." Ahhh!

You really couldn't blame the table. It was my sister-in-law's parents' first table so it was easily 40 years old. And I think I was pretty good to be patient with the squeakiness for almost 7 years. I should deserve a tolerance award or something. :)

So I wanted a new table. But this table held up pretty well with kids and Ryan was concerned that if I bought a new one that our kids would just destroy it anyways. This concern was totally founded since my niece Rylee etched her name in their table... click here to see my sister's table redo (but not before you look at mine because hers will blow mine out of the water haha).

Anyways, so I was determined to find a used table for cheap that would go with chairs so that I could justify getting a wood table and risking my kids ruining it. And I found one that went PERFECTLY with my chairs for only $50 off craigslist. A wood table for $50 that was pretty well-taken care of. I was thrilled.

So here is Exhibit B, the new table with my chairs:

Oh it made me so happy to have a non-squeaky table that looked more up-to-date. :) But... now my table and chairs matched my floor and I needed 2 more chairs. So I decided to buy two more chairs from Walmart and then redo it all in a darker finish so it would stand out from my floor.

Now that it's all over with, I will fully admit that I was crazy. Delusional. Overly ambitious. Take any of the above. This project sounded way easier in my head, despite the fact that my sister had warned me that redoing chairs took forever.

It didn't just take forever, it was a beast. I seriously loathed those chairs at one point. It was completely unmotivating to get done sanding one chair and then look at the other FIVE I still had to do. We were able to sand some of each chair with our vibrator sander, but all those spindles and nooks and crannies had to be done by hand.

And to make matters worse, I totally messed up staining the first chair and had to re-sand it completely. I'm even including the picture so you can understand my horror at this first attempt:

 

Yes, I may have shed a few tears at this point. In case you're wondering why in the heavens this happened, it's because I sanded the darker parts more than the rest of the chair so it took the stain more. So I was back to 2.5 more hours of sanding. My hubby could see I was clearly in over my head and helped me sand the rest of everything. Bless that man for having faith in me that it would turn out okay in the end after my blunder.

So after the sanding was done, the next step was to stain again. In order to get the color I wanted, I had to mix 3 different colors of stain together. I wanted a darker color, but I also wanted a little red in it so that it would look warm, like my cabinets. The color didn't turn out to exactly match my cabinets, but it's similar and gives the same feel (and the dining set isn't right next to the cabinets anyways).

I put on to coats of stain, wiping off the first coat and then letting the second coat just dry. The reason I did this was because I felt like the color wasn't deep enough when I wiped off the stain. It's okay to not wipe off the stain like the stain can says, it just takes longer to dry and you have to make sure you evenly apply it before you let it dry.

After applying 2 coats of stain, I put 2 coats of semi-gloss polyurethane on. This was extra tricky with the spindles because if you didn't put it on well-enough, it would drip down. Have I mentioned yet how much I detested doing those chairs? Note of advice to anyone thinking of doing this: redo your table but buy new chairs. The table was easy-breezy compared to the chairs.

The table top is the exact same stain procedure, but I put 3 coats of polyurethane on it as it gets more of the hard use. Then my favorite part: spray-painting the bottom of the table black. Oh I'm so much better at spray-painting than staining. And I LOVE the contrast it gives my table, while totally going with my decor at the same time. I simply taped a dollar store table cloth to the top and sides of the table top to prevent from getting spray paint on it, then I went to town.

The trick that I have learned with spray paint is you can't try to cover it all in one coat. If you do that, you will end up getting it on too thick in some areas and you will have paint runs that look horrible. It takes patience. In this case, it took 3 coats of spray paint (which only took 2 cans by the way) to do it the right way. No runs and it still had good coverage. AND, spray paint takes a shorter amount of time to dry in between coats than stain or polyurethane. Another reason this was my favorite part.

Then I put 2 coats of polyurethane over the spray paint and I WAS DONE! Can't even describe how good that felt after working on this for almost 3 weeks (partially because there were days that were too cold here to do anything)! And, may I add, I did this while I was 6 months pregnant... I promise I wore a mask or it was well-ventilated.

So without further ado, here is the before (again) and the after:

Would I say it was worth it? Totally. Would I ever do it again? Heavens no. I will refinish a table again, but I will NEVER do chairs again. :)

Love this contrast!

The main reason I did this was to get what I wanted, but at a lower price than going and buying it in the store. So how much money did I spend in this upgrade, you ask? Well between buying the table, two more chairs, and all the materials (minus what I sold the old table for), I spent $150.

What would this table cost me if I bought it brand new (now remember this is all wood, not the cheap veneer tables you can get that look the same)? About $650 or maybe even more.

So my grand total savings for doing this myself: $500.  I'll take it!