Our San Diego Mini Vacation

Life has been so crazy lately, and Brian has some time off this week, so we decided we needed to have a little get-away for just the 3 of us. Thanks to IVF racking up our credit cards (insert eye roll here) we had a lot of points to turn in to use for a hotel stay. Silver linings. ;) We decided to go to San Diego, and I had the idea to take Baylee to the San Diego Zoo since both her and Brian had never been, and I used to love going there as a kid.

We checked in to our hotel on Monday afternoon and Baylee immediately made herself comfortable. :)

 

Our hotel was walking distance from Seaport Village, so we walked down there for dinner our first night. I was craving a margarita, so we decided to have Mexican food at the little cantina there. Our food was amazing and the margaritas were 32 ounces! Yes. Please. :)

 

We walked around all the shops and Brian took Baylee for a ride on the carousel that was built in 1895. (So cool!) Once the sun started to set, we took a walk by the ocean for some pictures. A woman walked by and asked if we wanted a picture of the three of us, and we cracked up when we looked later on and realized Baylee had her finger up her nose in every picture. Toddlers! 

 Seaport Village is the cutest little place and I am so glad we went. We ended the night with cupcakes from Frost Me Gourmet, which were some of the most delicious cupcakes I've ever had!

 

 

 

It wouldn't be a true Tibbetts' vacation without some craziness, so of course, we had a little mishap at 1:30am in our hotel. :( Baylee is still sleeping in a crib, so she's not used to sleeping in a big bed at all. I slept in the hotel bed with her, but in the middle of the night she rolled off the other side. It was seriously the scariest sound ever hearing her "thud" out of the bed and start crying. I had put pillows down on the floor for her just in case, but she rolled just right to smack her face on the foot of the desk that was about a foot away from the bed and gave herself a black eye. I felt soooo bad! Brian ran to the ice machine and we put ice on it for a while, but she really just wanted to go back to sleep. When she woke up in the morning, it wasn't a pretty sight. :( She broke my heart! Thank goodness it was a bright, sunny day, because we had her wear sunglasses for most of the pictures at the zoo. My poor little thing!

 

Despite Baylee's little incident, she had an absolute blast at the zoo! She got to see just about every single animal, and told us that the lion and the sheep were her favorites. We had lunch at the full service restaurant there, Albert's, where we used to go when I was a kid, and it was soooo delicious.

 

My favorite animals were definitely the elephants, giraffes, and a sweet polar bear who plunged in the water right where we were standing to eat his honeydew melon. So cute! We got to ride on the skyway and do a tour on the double decker bus, which were both so fun! It was absolutely a trip we will never forget. :) Baylee picked out a stuffed lion as her souvenir, and he didn't leave her side the rest of our time there.

 

The zoo closed at 6:00, so we decided to venture out to find a place we had never been to for dinner. I googled "kid friendly dinner in San Diego" and the Corvette Diner popped up. It was an absolute blast, and soooo kid friendly! If you go to San Diego with your kiddos, I highly recommend checking this place out. It's a 50's themed diner where all the servers are super nice and fun. There's a DJ, dancing, an arcade and a full bar! The food and desserts are incredible. I got a grilled cheese made with two pieces of garlic bread and a chocolate peanut butter banana shake, and I'm still dreaming about them! :) Baylee even got to have her very first Shirley Temple!

 

Night number two was much less eventful, and Baylee slept great, thank God! :) That morning, we went to Old Town San Diego for a few hours before it was time to head home. We had fun looking in all the old shops and mini museums. We ate lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant ever, Fred's, and then got on the road. We were all exhausted from all the fun we had, but I am so glad we did it. Now that Baylee is getting older, it has been more fun than ever to make memories like this with her! I will hold her first little trip with just Mommy and Daddy close to my heart forever. :)

 

Now we need a vacation from our vacation. ;)

 

Until next time! XoXoXo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter 2017!

Hi friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! This year was our most fun yet, because Baylee is finally old enough to really "get" the Easter Bunny and dyeing Easter Eggs side of Easter. (We will definitely start working more on the true reason for Easter next year when she has a better understanding of Jesus :) She's not quite there yet.) We really had such a blast with her!

We dyed our Easter eggs on Friday morning, and Baylee did great. She didn't make the slightest mess at all, and had so much fun picking what color would come next. Blue is her favorite color currently, so of course, her "Baylee" egg had to be blue!

On Saturday, we went to a local, little town known for their orchards of apple trees where we go apple picking in the Fall. In the Spring they host their annual "Apple Blossom Festival". We had never gone before, so we decided to check it out this year. It was so cute and quaint, and we had a great time! Baylee got to ride a pony and meet the Easter Bunny, and we got to do some shopping, sample hard cider, learn how to throw a tomahawk, and eat apple donuts. I wish I had brought a nicer camera than my phone, because the land alone there is just so beautiful!  

On Easter Sunday, we woke up a little earlier than normal because Baylee has a little cold so her nose was bothering her, but it didn't stop her from having a magical morning. She loved going through all the fun stuff that the Easter Bunny brought her in her Easter Basket, and then running all around our living room to find her eggs! I'm pretty sure she ate at least 10 jelly beans when I wasn't looking, and within an hour of opening everything had all of us covered in baby chick and ladybug stickers. For breakfast, we made French toast with Nutella and strawberries. Soooo bad but sooo good! :)

In the evening, we went to my Dad's house for a ribeye roast, roasted carrots, and mashed potatoes. It was a delicious, "homey" meal with the family, and I enjoyed it so much! After dinner we had some wine with angel food cake, cool whip, and strawberries. A perfect way to end a perfect Easter Sunday. :)

I am so very blessed! 

He is risen!

Until next time! XoXoXo

Celebrating Motherhood

 

If there was ever a time that I needed to celebrate being a Mommy, it's now amidst all the turmoil happening in my life. I got together with the always wonderful Janae Marie Photography, and she was able to create this magical and beautiful celebration of motherhood for me. I know I will hold these gorgeous pictures dear to my heart forever!

If you are local to the Inland Empire, and would like to have a similar shoot done with you and your kids, click here to book a session! Hurry, her spots are filling up fast as space is very limited, and believe me, you don't want to miss this opportunity! 

Thank you, Janae, for capturing my beautiful girl and me in such a memorable way. Proof that there is so much beauty in the healing process. :)

Until next time! XoXoXo

Goodbye Before Hello: My Miscarriage Story

 

Maybe it was me just being too hopeful and naive, but I never thought I would be sharing the story of how we were forced to say "goodbye" to our baby before we even got to say "hello". 

I know that the world we live in still holds miscarriage as kind of a taboo, where we are encouraged to keep our pregnancies a secret until we are "out of the woods" of the first trimester so that we don't have to tell anyone any bad news. The truth of the matter though, is that 1 in 4 women of child-bearing age have experienced one or more miscarriages. We are not alone, and it should not be considered taboo by any means. No matter the gestational age, we did not just lose a pregnancy, we lost a child, and we need the love and support of our friends, family, and community in a time like this more than ever. 

This is why I have chosen to share my story. I want anyone who has experienced a miscarriage to know that there is someone out there who understands what it's like to go through this painful and confusing time in life. I want my 1 in 4 sisters to know that there are ways to find joy in sadness. Also, I want to help those who have dear ones who have or are experiencing this type of loss to know how to act or what to say to help.

This baby was conceived through a frozen embryo transfer on March 6th, 2017 (we did IVF in January and froze all of our embryos). I will write a blog post soon about how that whole experience was, but for now I will just say that it was so exciting, and the 11 days of waiting to take the blood test find out if it was successful were the slowest of my life. I actually caved in a couple days before and ended up taking a home pregnancy test which turned out positive. We were absolutely over the moon! On St. Patrick's Day we had our official blood test to confirm pregnancy and a week later we had another blood test that confirmed my levels were rising perfectly. The whole process was absolutely flawless, and I couldn't wait until the following weeks appointment to see our tiny baby on our first ultrasound.

That day was so nerve wracking. I knew that rising hormone levels was one thing, but seeing a growing baby with a little heartbeat was reason to finally let out a sigh of relief. Our doctor found our baby almost instantly and we saw the sweetest sight of the little flickering heartbeat. Baby was measuring right on target at around 6 weeks and 1 day, and made all the horrible morning sickness and exhaustion I was feeling so completely worth it. I finally felt like I could relax and try to enjoy the pregnancy as best I could despite feeling so awful. I knew the light at the end of the tunnel of the second trimester was not too far away, and I was so excited dreaming and wondering if it would be a baby brother or a baby sister for Baylee.

I never even fathomed that the following week's ultrasound (IVF babies are monitored just about weekly until you are released to your OB) would end up being one of the worst days of my life. Our doctor came in the room all smiles, and talking about how our due date was the day before Thanksgiving. Something to be thankful for for sure! Then, he began the ultrasound and the smiling stopped. I instantly knew something was wrong. I saw the big black circle of baby's little home...but where was baby? When the doctor finally found our little speck it showed no growth and absolutely no heartbeat. Our miracle was gone.

I was so confused. I had no miscarriage symptoms at all. No bleeding, no spotting, and my pregnancy symptoms were on the rise as I had just spent that morning losing my breakfast. When we consulted with the doctor about what had happened, he said that we had a missed miscarriage, and the reason I probably had shown no symptoms was because of the progesterone and estrogen shots that I was on to help support the pregnancy. Now, all we could do was discuss the options of how to let this pregnancy end completely.

I was so in shock that I couldn't even cry. How was this nightmare possibly happening and when was someone going to wake me up and tell me it wasn't real? But it was real. Very real. Because the next thing I knew, the nurse was giving Brian and I our instructions for home, and I was walking out of the clinic holding pictures of my uterus and the sleeping baby inside of it. 

As the sunshine hit my face outside the clinic doors, I lost it and sobbed and sobbed. This loss was more than just our baby's life, we lost every dime that we had spent getting to this point, and we lost weeks of me having to endure painful nightly shots which I still have bruises and knots from. I dug deep to find every ounce of faith I had to know that God gives and takes away. This was all in His plan, and of course I question why, but I know He will reveal himself in His time. I tried hard to convince myself that I was okay. I had to be okay, because no matter what I have a sweet little girl at home that needs me. I needed to not lose myself over this. 

We originally opted to go home and let the miscarriage happen naturally on its own, but I didn't even make it 24 hours before I couldn't take it anymore. I still had morning sickness and a slew of other pregnancy symptoms that were pure torture knowing that my baby was no longer alive. We had the doctor prescribe some misoprostol which is a drug to help get the miscarriage going. I won't go in to the all the gory details, but by the next morning it began. The next few days were the most difficult days I've ever experienced. Along with some pain (cramps and contractions), I had mood swings where I went from feeling like I was going to be okay to feeling like I was sinking into a deep depression within minutes of each other. I cried so many tears, and said so many prayers for strength and peace. Brian was an absolute saint taking care of both Baylee and me for the entire weekend. He held me when I cried, made me food when food sounded good, and kept our girl happy and entertained so that I would not have extra worries on my shoulders. I never could have gotten through it without him.

I am still not doing great, but minute by minute it is starting to get a little better. I have said my goodbyes, and I know there is a little angel in Heaven watching over all of us now. A sweet, tiny baby angel who will never know pain or sorrow, and who's first sight he or she saw when they opened their eyes was the face of Jesus. I can't think of anything more beautiful. 

Now that the healing has really started, we have decided we want to try to have another transfer as soon as we are medically able to. I want another baby more than I could ever explain, and I know that the best thing for me is to get right back to it instead of sitting around in agony wondering what to do. I just know our rainbow baby is right around the corner. I can feel it.

Thank you so much to everyone for your continued prayers and support. I know that the only reason I have been able to survive this so well is because I have the most amazing team of prayer warriors behind me. I love you all. 

If you know anyone going through or who has been through a miscarriage and you're not quite sure what to say or do, I will tell you that a simple "I'm so sorry for your loss." goes a long way. Promises of support and prayers, and encouraging words of strength have been my saving grace this past week, and while I can't say that I am anywhere near being healed, I know that the love everyone has shown me has put me on the right path.

We will all get through this.

 

Until next time. XoXoXo