Category Archives: Chronic Illness

The End of Pregnancy, Birth & Baby!

Ya’ll, life has been a whirlwind. My last update here was when I was 32 weeks pregnant. I felt pretty good, but that changed pretty quickly.

To follow along with my life in real time (or closer to it), be sure you’re following me on Instagram @findinglifessilversun.

We went on our babymoon summer 2021. Both of us were fully vaccinated, and covid cases were extremely low, so we chose a not-super-popular destination. We went to the Black Hills in South Dakota, but not to Mount Rushmore. I was 35 weeks pregnant.

We live close enough that we made it a road trip, and we stopped at my mother-in-law’s house in Wyoming for a couple days on the way north. Packing up the day before and loading the car before we left, I wasn’t feeling great. I assumed it was just because I was massively pregnant and overdoing it. But I didn’t start feeling better at any point on the almost 5 hour drive to my MIL’s house. Actually, after about 4 hours, I started feeling pretty rotten.

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32 Week Appointment and Growth Scan

I didn’t write a second trimester update, as I actually felt fantastic. My energy took a while to come back after the first trimester, and it never hit “pre pregnancy baseline,” but all the other symptoms of the first trimester faded away. I got to experience life as a “normal” person, with a normal body, having a normal pregnancy. Honestly, I haven’t felt that healthy in years!

At 23 weeks, we got to have our anatomy scan, which is an hour long ultrasound where they check out every part of baby to make sure everything is growing and forming as it should. Bee is totally perfect! During the anatomy scan, we noticed the umbilical cord was inserting in the side of the placenta instead of in the middle, so I was scheduled to come back at 32 weeks for a growth scan. Sometimes, when the cord inserts in the side, it can get kinked or compressed and inhibit baby’s growth, so we wanted to make sure Bee stayed on track.

Profile picture from the anatomy scan!
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Chronic Illness Pregnancy: First Trimester

After three years, three months, and eight days of waiting, hoping, and praying… WE GOT OUR FIRST POSITIVE PREGNANCY TEST! Somehow, in all that time, we’d never gotten a positive. To learn more about what it took us to get to this point, check out the “Infertility” category on my blog, and read my previous post about our InvoCell/IUI cycle. While we were obviously quite happy, infertility robs you of the blissful ignorance many first time parents get to enjoy at the beginning of their pregnancy. Even if you haven’t ever personally experienced loss, you become acutely aware of when and how everything can go horribly wrong. Infertility is also extremely traumatic, and that trauma can cause you to subconsciously protect yourself by disconnecting you from the experience.

This post has taken me quite a while to write, because I was extremely dissociated from my pregnancy until very recently (I am 22 weeks pregnant while writing this). It felt like I was watching a very detailed vlog of someone else’s pregnancy, not that everything was happening to me. It’s a very weird thing to explain, but the people who have had the misfortune of dealing with infertility all have seemed to understand exactly what I’m talking about. It’s like a constant “when is this all going to go wrong” sensation, mixed with a lucid dream.

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The Surreal Reality of Everyone Living Like You

The world is weird right now. Rightly so. There’s never been anything like this. The world has shut down.

Everyone seems to be getting serious cabin fever due to the lockdowns, the shelter-in-place orders, the social distancing. Initially, I was confused by this. Then it hit me: everyone lives a dramatically different life than I do.

October 11, 2017: Lizz in a blue Vogmask
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Safe, DIY Hand Sanitizer

I’ve been seeing a lot of DIY hand sanitizer recipes lately, thanks to the novel coronavirus (covid-19). Unfortunately, a lot of the DIY recipes leave you with a product that is less than the CDC recommended 60% alcohol. I want to share why and how that happens, and give you a basic recipe to make your own hand sanitizer that follows the CDC guidelines.

First, it’s important to understand what your bottle of rubbing alcohol is: a bottle of 100% isopropyl alcohol and water. “Wait, my bottle says 70% rubbing alcohol!” I assure you, it’s still 100% alcohol mixed with water. Imagine an empty bottle, now put pure (100%) alcohol into the bottle, but only fill it halfway. Now fill the bottle the rest of the way with distilled water. You now have 50% rubbing alcohol because the solution (two or more things mixed together is a solution) is made up of 50% isopropyl alcohol and 50% water.

Red is 100% isopropyl alchol, blue is water, purple is 50% rubbing alcohol.
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Let’s Catch Up: 2019 Review, part two

My first 2019 review got longer than anticipated, so I divided the year in half. Be sure to check out the first half of 2019 in this post.

Both summaries include links to my Instagram posts (where I’ve remained active) for further details, when they’re available. A few items, especially in part one, also include links to blog posts. All links below are to my own material.

Now, without further ado, let’s get to the summary! This post starts with July 2019:

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Let’s Catch Up: 2019 Review, part one

April 2019 was the last time I was consistent on my blog, and a lot has happened since then. I got burned out and overwhelmed, so I needed to take a break from blogging. My life has continued to burn me out and overwhelm me, but from a blogging perspective I’m feeling more like myself again!

To help catch everyone up on life’s happenings, I wanted to do a summary of 2019. No matter how “quick” I try to make these, they always end up long. This post will be January through June, and part two will be up next week. These summaries will include links to my Instagram posts (where I’ve remained active) for further details, when they’re available. A few items, especially earlier in 2019, will also include links to blog posts. All links in this article are to my own material.

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Impending Hip Surgery

Thank you all for your patience while I took a break. I was burned out and having a rough time with my mental health. Unfortunately, infertility is still a major part of our lives, but that has needed to be put on hold for a few months because I need to have surgery on my right hip.

On August 13th, just one week from now, I will be having surgery on my hip. The surgeon we met with originally had been practicing in Denver, but then she moved up to Vail (which is two to two and a half hours from Denver). She is an amazing surgeon and was willing to work with all of the complications of my life and health conditions. We live in one of Denver’s suburbs, but we will be driving up to Vail for my surgery. Since it’s such a long drive, and surgery check-in is usually very early in the morning, we will be spending the night up there before the surgery.

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When Life Hands You Lemons, It’s Okay to be Angry About It

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” A common phrase almost all of us have heard at least once in our life. (At least I know it’s common here in the western USA, let me know in the comments if it’s common in your neck of the woods!) Even though it’s common, it’s a phrase I do not like. At all.

The phrase is supposed to mean “make the most out of a less-than-ideal situation.” Yes, it’s a good idea to take whatever circumstances life has handed you and try to make the best of it. However, I’ve found it gets used a lot to minimize or dismiss uncomfortable feelings. Using this phrase, or other phrases, to dismiss the negative feelings that come up when life gives us negative situations does far more harm than good.

When life hands you lemons, it never hands you the sugar needed to make the lemonade. It’s alright to be frustrated, or even angry, that now you have to go track down some sugar and take the time to make the lemonade. If life had handed you the oranges you had ordered, you would already be enjoying your citrus-y snack!

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