The Overlooked Member

I have been meaning to introduce the overlooked member of our family for some time, but other posts continually took precedence. I would like to introduce you now to Bagera the newt.



Yes, yes, I've heard it all before, "She turned me into a newt...! Well, I got betta..." In fact, my first ever newt was named King Arthur. I think I got him when I was around 12 or 13. I have had aquatic creatures in my life continually since I was 7 years old when I got my first gold fish.



Bagera is so named because he loves to spend his days up in the branches of his plant. I got this little fella when I was a sophomore in college, so we have been together for a long time, just under a decade. He is by far the longest living newt I've ever had. My dad looked up the life span of a newt and found out it can be as long as 65 years! I can honestly tell you, it will be a sad day when this little guy kicks the bucket. We've got a lot of history.



In fact, my senior year of college, my landlady made a surprise visit. She then tried to change my contract to say that absolutely no pets were allowed... including aquatic creatures. One of my roommates had a fish tank that contained a fish she had also had for years. We both told her to stuff it, and that the caveat was not in our original contract, so our pets stayed. Like she was going to kick us out, she needed the rent money and we lived a few miles off campus in the boonies.

Now you have "met" all of the pet members of my little family. We love you Baggy!

Changing My Stars

Tonight I had the reading by my dad's friend whom I believe really has psychic abilities. Now, I want to say right out of the gate that I do believe some people really do have the gift of foresight. I have encountered a few of them who have said things to me that no one else in this world would know. I meet these people through my dad; they are good friends of his. My dad always taught me to be open minded and to realize that anything is possible. I realize that there are skeptics in this world, my husband is one of them, and that is fine. To each their own. For me, I have to go with what I feel.

That being said, I don't believe that just because something is told in a reading it means it is gospel truth. I believe that the readings can be wrong, or that one can "change their stars", to quote one of my favotire movies, A Knight's Tale. The readings provide hope where there might otherwise be none or little.

Just a little back story (I mentioned some of this in my previous post), my dad met his friend years and years ago, so this man has been in my life often throughout the years. He has a gentleness about him, a deep goodness. He is very kind and insightful, and I believe the latter is because he posses a true gift.

If you want more back story, you can see item #3 in my post below.

My dad had been in contact with R over the weekend and setup a reading for me tonight. As soon as he was available, R called. It was so good to hear his voice and chat for a bit. Then the reading began. I asked him if I would have any more children. I didn't tell him anything about our struggles or our current situation. Just asked if there were more. After a moment of silence he sighed and said, "You're not healthy enough right now. Your body is still healing. But I do see that you will have at least one more child. It will be a little boy." I almost cried. I have had a strong feeling lately that we would have one more, and that it will be a boy. He is right, I'm not healthy enough right now. My body is still healing from the birth of my daughter. We can't even think about trying for another baby until February.

I asked when said boy would come into our lives. He told me we would conceive next spring, specifically May-June, and the baby would be born in Jan-Feb.

I asked if there were any more beyond that. Silence, and then, "It will come down to a matter of what is more important to you: your health and your life, or a baby." Ouch. Seriously ouch. I know it is all true, my doctors have told me that. No one told R that, so hearing him say it cut me to the core. It wasn't what I wanted to hear.

We talked about other things too, but those are not for this post.

We're going to do another reading in a week to see if anything has changed, but it is mostly regarding our financial situation. He did give me some good news there, and we will find out if he was right later this week. DH has a job interview on Tuesday, which is round 4 with this company. We are hoping and praying he gets this job, but being an infertile, I am no stranger to not getting my hopes up higher than the knees of ants. All I know is that something has got to change and soon.

Blog Awards Abound!

I have been nominated for two blog awards by the very beautiful Hannah at Life Happens. Thank you so much! I have to say, one of the reasons I love Hannah is that she is an incredibly strong woman in the face of infertility. She has been though soooo much, including a recent miscarriage via IVF, yet she is determine to pick herself up and move on to the next round. She took her setback very well, which is incredibly admirable. Not only that, but she is a very thoughtful blogger. I enjoy her friendship very much.

The first award is this little ditty:



All we need is a little LOVE! This blog is about sisters uniting together and giving others some love because life is hard and who couldn't use a little love? The rules for this award is simple.I LOVE YOU=8 letters which gives you 8 rules :)

Here are the rules:

1-Thank the person who nominated you for this award and write a little bit about why you love them.
2-Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3-Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4-Nominate no more than 17 people (why 17?) who you love or you think could use some love.
5. Write one word (you can only use a word once) about what you love about their blog.
6. You cannot nominate someone who has already been nominated-the love has to spread to all.
7-Post links to the 17 blogs you nominate.
8-Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they’ve been nominated.

I don't follow 17 blogs, but I'll pass this on the best I can.

~Ifer - Endearing
Sarah - Real

That's all. I'm lame, I know. If you want this award and come across my blog, consider yourself awarded.

The second award from the same beautiful Hannah is this little ditty.



Here are the rules for this award:
1.Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2.Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3.Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4.Name 7 things about yourself that people may not know.
5.Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6.Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7.Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they've been nominated.

Seven new things huh? Well, here goes:

1. I am staying up really late to write this post. Its almost midnight, and I have to work tomorrow.
2. I am afraid to start TTC #2. I was excited until I realized how close we are to being able to try again and realized what we are really up against, and now I'm scared.
3. My dad has a friend who is a psychic. This friend said that I would have a baby girl, but that the road to her birth would be long and hard. I did, and it was. No one told him we were struggling to get pg. He recently said I ovulate late in my cycles, which is part of our problem TTC. I do. He had never been told that. He told my mother during a reading that I was not yet healthy enough to conceive, that my body was still healing from my last pregnancy. This is true and correct. We are not allowed to start TTC again until Feb to give my body time to heal. He said we would have two more children. He also said that I would not get pregnant in the next year. I hope he is wrong about the latter, but he has been spot on with everything else.
4. I am not a judgemental person. I don't care who you are, what you look like, or anything else as long as you are a good person. It is rare I come across someone I don't like, and if I don't like them, there is a very good reason.
5. I love to get people who don't smile at anyone to smile at me in passing. I work with four people who for the longest time would not smile at anyone in passing in the halls. They seemed jaded by life and not polite or pleasant people at all. They smile at me and say hello now. I broke them down. :D
6. I love to give. I am a very giving person. I love Christmas and any opportunity I have to give gifts. Giving is more fun to me than receiving. It is truly all the gift I ever want.
7. I married a true blue native Texan, and just gave birth to one a few months ago.

Welcome ICLW!

Here's a big WELCOME to ICLW participants!

My name is Saige, and the purpose behind my blog is to help me make my way back from PPD and PTSD brought on by the battle of infertility. For a complete back story, visit this post.

While I use this blog as an outlet for feelings that aren't always rosy, I try to mingle it with the bits of life that are truly wonderful. No one likes a downer all of the time, and no one likes to be a downer all of the time.

While I am not currently battling infertility, I fought the war and won round 1. In a few months, I will be back in the saddle fighting round 2 with new complications that weren't there in round 1. It is a fight I am nervous to fight, even more so than I was the first time. We have so much more on the line this time than we did before. For now, I am enjoying my break from TTC and filling my time with my beautiful daughter who was worth absolutely everything I had to go through to get her here.

Feel free to follow along on my journey to recovery as I arm myself for the war that lies ahead.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hope (Less)?

As an infertile, I am no stranger to hopelessness. I have definitely been there and back, and I seem to remember burning the t-shirt. It has been a long time since I have been where I am now. That Beatles song keeps coming to mind, "Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to speak with you again..."

Let me start off by saying the antidepressants are fabulous. Fantastic. More than I could ever hope for. But sometimes, all of the antidepressants and Valium in the world can't make life's problems go away. It can't make them better, and it can't make them change.

I have come to a point where I feel like I have talked everyone's ears off, and that if I keep talking through my problems with life, people are going to start turning away from me. They are just as tired of it as I am. But lately, it seems like no matter what I do, I can't get ahead. It is always one step forward, three steps back. The person whom I should be able to talk to just plain doesn't care right now. He feels that his plate is overflowing, and so can't be burdened with my problems. His plate is overflowing. So is mine. But I can't not support him. I can't shut him out. So I do what any good wife would do, and I try to take on his issues along with my own.

The truth is, I'm just not strong enough by myself to handle everything life is throwing at us. It seems that in my attempts to do so or to try to make things better, I only make them worse. My hope has been hanging on by a thread for almost a full year now, and we are worse off now than we were then. A year ago we had hope. We felt that the pieces of our lives would fall into place. We had faith. Everything had to work out. It didn't, and it hasn't.

I feel that I am at rock bottom right now. I feel very alone. Most of all, I see that glimmer of hope I had fading away. The last time I remember feeling this way was when we were undergoing infertility. I always wished that I could see the future to know what it was I needed to be doing to get where I needed to go. I find myself feeling that way again now. Do I even feel anymore, or am I so numb I just don't care?

I just wish I knew what to do. I wish I knew what the outcome would be. I hate feeling like all I can do is plug along the best I can, all the while knowing that I just have to remember I did the best I could with the resources I had. How is this all going to work out?

This post is more a rambling from my brain than a blog post. I don't expect that anyone will read it. I just need to get my thoughts out to where I can see them. I need to be able to wrap my brain around them, dissect them, look for answers. Maybe try to find that little glimmer of hope that is so very near to being snuffed out.

Please God, help us. You have blessed us with an incredible baby, after years of heartache and pain. Now help us to take care of her.

I HEART Fall

I should be upstairs taking a nap right now, since this would be my only chance of the day, but instead, I am here with you, writing about something I love, fall, and sharing some of my all-time favorite memories.

In the years before DH and I met, I had a best friend named Nate. Every single Friday, Nate and I would go out and do something fun together. It was our day. Usually we went to dinner and a movie, hung out downtown, went on a quest for some new music, or went hiking. The latter was our favorite. At the time, I had a little dog named Ruby. She was my first ever Border Collie, and on top of that, she was red. Nate and I loved my dog, and we loved taking her hiking in the mountains near our homes. We have so many wonderful memories of going up into the mountains with Ruby, some that still make us laugh to this day.

Not only did we love hiking, we loved doing it in the fall, and we went as often as we possibly could. Here are a few pictures from some of my favorite hikes. I usually took my camera, and I am so glad I did because I will always have these moments to cherish forever.


Here Nate and Ruby pose for a fantastic picture moment in front of some golden quakies. According to the date on this picture, Nate and I had been friends for about three years at this point. Man we used to have fun. Sometimes I really miss those days.


This is one of my absolute favorite pictures of Ruby and me. It caught in one picture the heart of our relationship. We were both supposed to be looking at the camera, but Ruby reached up to give me a kiss just as the shutter opened. She did this a lot, and the paw always came up when she did. I always loved her kisses, and was always happy to take them. She was my pup.


The scenery was always breath taking. We could have spent hours upon hours in the mountains. We didn't care how cold it was. Light was our only enemy on these gorgeous fall days.


I was occasionally afforded the opportunity to let Ruby off leash. She loved these moments, as it gave her a chance to run through the brush and explore.


Seriously, does it get any more beautiful? In real life the golden trees look as though they are glowing. It is incredible, and there is nothing like it. I really, really miss my mountains, especially at this time of year.
I guess Ruby needed a break. Nate loved taking his turn walking her on our hikes. We took this dog everywhere we possibly could.

I just can't resist sharing these gorgeous pictures. I hope you can't get enough, because I sure can't. I had a hard time eliminating pictures from this post. I wanted to share them all.

Finally, I wanted to share a slightly quirky picture of me in what Nate and I liked to call the swamps. This area reminded us of the movie, LOTR. You can see on my face how happy I was in those days. I was so young and carefree. I valued and looked forward to my time with Nate every weekend. We were never romantic, but we were certainly the best of best friends.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me. I know I will enjoy looking at these pictures all next week at work. :)

Falling for Fall with a Knee-placement

The past couple of weeks I have been meaning to get around to pulling out my fall wreath for the front door. I LOVE fall! Last weekend, the Munchkin and I went out to the shed to see if it was located where I last remembered seeing it. Much to my pleasure, it was right where I remembered. Even more to my pleasure, I found a matching garland when I opened the bag to show the wreath the light of day for the first time in two years. I didn't remember purchasing the garland, so it was like Christmas to find it. Sadly, my wreath hanger was not in the bag. So for the next few days, the wreath sat next to the front door until I could locate a hanger.

On Saturday morning, I went out into our fancy and super organized garage to find a Christmas box I was sure had a hanger in it.


Enter idiocy.

You see that ladder haphazardly propped up against the boxes? My Christmas box was on a shelf just above it. I thought to myself, "I wonder if that ladder is sturdy enough that I could just climb up it just like that and get the box down." I did. Only two steps from the bottom of the ladder, I knew I had made a HUGE mistake. Max was waiting patiently at the bottom of the ladder and barely got out of the way in time. I remember falling forward, looking at all of the crap all over the floor and thinking, "Oh sh*t, this is gonna hurt!" Oh boy did it ever! I landed smack dab on my knee. Within nanoseconds I was seriously nauseous and dizzy. DH came running to make sure I was okay. I was totally not okay. I couldn't breathe the pain was so intense. Tears were streaming down my face. I wasn't crying, it was a reflex from the pain shooting through my knee. I sat back on the ladder, trying not to vomit and trying not to pass out. I know, I was stupid. STUPID.

In my defense, our garage is not supposed to look like that. I have been trying for some time now to clean it out and put most of it where it belongs. In this currently empty shed:


Okay, that's not much of a defense, but I like to think it is. *sigh* DH felt so bad that he went out and started cleaning out the garage a few hours later. What a sweetie. I love him.

I did, however, find the wreath hanger. I hung up my wreath and garland, while my knee throbbed. It still hurts like a beast. I'm still waiting for the bruise to come to the surface. Lesson totally learned.


I wanted to show you that Max was completely unharmed by my stupidity. She was so happy to pose for this picture, especially since it was her all by herself with no Red. Welcome to my newly decorated fall doorway.


The garland turned out fantastic, if I do say so myself. I love it. I love fall.


This table is just below the stairs and right next to the front door. The plug-in puts off the most wonderful fall aromas. I love those dual air fresheners, especially in seasonal fall scents!

Yes, I seem to love everything. Its true. I guess the anti-depressants I'm on are really working huh? I love them too. :)

P.S. If you missed it, the directions for cheese soup are in the post below. :)