Say Yes to Hoboken

Our Secondary Infertility Journey: Part 1

Last week I announced our happy news after years of dealing with secondary infertility, and I promised I would talk more about our struggle in the next couple of weeks. Our journey isn’t over, of course. We have to make it through this pregnancy and then even after that face the reality of what this could mean moving forward in growing our family. I was floored by how many of you shared that you were dealing with or have dealt with the same issue. It’s always comforting to know that you aren’t alone in a particular struggle, especially one like secondary infertility that can be a bit misunderstood and feels really isolating.

I know many, many people have had or are having an even more difficult and even longer journey than ours to conceive even their first. My heart goes out to any of you in this situation. Clearly primary infertility is a much larger beast in and of itself. However, I see secondary infertility as a very unique situation that is widely unspoken about, poorly researched and not well supported both medically and mentally in my experience. And yet, so many people deal with it silently and painfully behind closed doors. It comes with it its own set of very unique challenges that I’d like to share with you all.

But first, I wanted to talk a bit today about the specifics of our journey and how we got to this point. Next week I’ll talk about the emotional component of secondary infertility and the struggles I face in that respect.

Keep reading to hear more about our process…

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A Bedroom Peek

In a couple weeks I’ll be sharing a full house tour, but we recently upgraded our bedroom and wanted to show you some pictures of it. Almost 9 (!) years ago on our honeymoon, Jared and I bought a seafoam color quilt set from a quaint quilt store in the Berkshires of Western Mass. that we were just starting to get tired of. Especially since our good news, I’ve been itching to re-decorate and start fresh. Plus, for a temperate climate like California, it just didn’t make sense in combination with our down comforter. I wanted something darker for this room to feel a bit more masculine so I went with a gorgeous new navy set Serena and Lily sent me. I love the feel of our nice new bedding especially the pickstitch navy quilt which is the perfect weight in my opinion for the temperature here.

Keep reading for a couple more shots of the room and the sources!

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Pregnant Behind the Scenes Stories

So on Friday I promised to share you some funny behind the scenes stories from a couple of the recent sponsored posts on how we were trying to cover up the pregnancy. Let’s start with the Redwood Hyundai video shoot. Because I was pretty early on, 6 weeks pregnant, I was really nervous about miscarrying and wasn’t comfortable climbing much at all on the tree and zip lining. It was kind of a bummer because I really have been wanting to do this forever! This was a shoot we had been planning for months and the Redwood tree climbing was our idea to begin with! Yikes, I was a little stressed about what to do up until the day of the shoot. Especially since I knew we’d be sharing this video here before I was comfortable announcing my pregnancy.

So, when we went up to Aracata for the shoot I had to pull the film crew aside and explain to them that I was a ‘tiny bit pregnant’ and if they were willing to do a little creative editing to make it seem like I was doing more than I actually was. HA! Luckily they were totally down (David Crowther and Casey Peterson you are the best!). I did end up climbing the tree a bit as you can see below, but then came straight down and they ended up doing a really incredible job editing it especially the zip lining parts which I didn’t do at all.

You’ll have to check it out again below to see what they did, and when I did climb it looked like I was a lot further up than I actually was. Yeah for fantastic video editing and perspective!
 

Hyundai Redwood Tree Climbing – Epic Playdate from Liz Stanley on Vimeo.
Keeping on reading to see how we tried to hide the baby bump and my massive weight fluctuation from the Old Navy shoots…

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Weekend Roundup

(maternity shopping yesterday, 15 weeks)

First of all, I’m completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and excitement you all shared yesterday here on the blog, on twitter, on instagram, etc. Thank you so much for joining me in this exciting step for our family. I’ll still be nervous until I get this babe in our arms safely, pregnancy is the scariest! Yesterday was such a fun day and I teared up reading so many of your loving comments, and especially those that shared a snippet of your own journeys in infertility. Apologies if I didn’t get around to responding to each and every one of your kind words, but know I loved every one.

Next week I’ll talk a bit more about what we’ve been through and the emotional journey for me. On Monday I also have a fun post prepared about the behind the scenes of a few recent sponsored posts (like the Hyundai tree climbing video?)–and the extent to which we were trying to hide the pregnancy! HA! I’ve been wanting to share with you these funny details and now I finally can!

Anyway! It’s the weekend, hooray! Henry is having a sleepover tonight for all the kids graduating to kindergarten. After a graduation BBQ they’ll be playing flashlight tag, having dance parties, flashlight bug hunting, and story telling. Then all the kids will crash in sleeping bags with plenty of adults sleeping over as well. Henry ran in this morning and woke us up yelling, “Today’s the day of the sleepover!!!”. He’s a bit excited. I think we’ll be checking out the Maker Faire tomorrow as well with some friends from Palo Alto (she and I have the same due date- I love when things work out like that!).

Hope you’re up to something fun, Have a great one!

Babble links:

How NOT to dress like a tourist in NYC (love this post of Becca’s–made me laugh out loud! The fedora thing is so true…)

15 of the BEST picks from Ikea right now

All about white denim for summer

10 pretty wallets under $20!

10 clever spring cleaning tips

The most adorable baby shoes

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