A Thankful Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Eric's family at the beach. They have a house at the Outer Banks (one of the main reasons I married him) and so we get to go a few times a year. I never get over how beautiful it is there. It's so nice to have a getaway every once in a while, and to be able to spend time with family at the same time is just the best. It was easy to think about how thankful I am for my life, my family, and too many blessings to count.


Here's the chocolate cheesecake I made just before it went in the oven. I wanted to take a picture of it after taking it out of the pan on Thanksgiving, but it got eaten too quickly!



Playing basketball in the driveway with Daddy.


Busy digging a hole. It was in the 70s on Thanksgiving day and we had a great time on the beach. (Those three crazy people you see in the water back there are Patrick, Greg, and their friend Joey. The water was probably about 50˚.)


Sawyer and I walked down to the water's edge and he was so excited to see the waves come up. He kept saying "Comes! Comes!" Here it comes...


...and then the water arrived. Whoa! It was cold!


Sawyer: "This is not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be."


Playing catch with Grandpa and Uncle Greg. Sawyer calls Grandpa "Pa Pa", an endearment that lately has inexplicably morphed into "Poo Poo". You can imagine the fun we had with that.

Lack of Coverage

And no, I'm not talking about my new bikini. (Those of you who know what my body looks like these days probably just threw up a little bit.)

Our insurance company officially will not cover any part of our embryo transfer. I was right that we have coverage for infertility. I was wrong in assuming that included embryo transfers (or anything related to IVF in any way - it's in the fine print section of the exclusions.) So Eric is looking for a new job. I know that sounds extreme, but he's been thinking about it for a long time anyway.

On a related topic, we recently rented Sicko, the latest Michale Moore film. Talk about eye opening. I don't agree with Moore's politics, but you can't argue with his basic premise that the health care system in the US has some serious issues. I loved the segment about France - when he'd ask people how they were going to pay for their medical bills, they'd first say "What?" with a blank look, and then they'd think he was joking. Even IVF is fully covered for everyone. Can you imagine? Maybe we'll have to move there. Vive la France!

Sawyerisms II

At two and a half, Sawyer is learning new words every day, and like most toddlers he has his own version of a lot of them. Here are some of my favorites.

Ug-a-boo (Peek-a-boo)
Teek oo (Thank you)
Peace (Please, usually along with the sign. Today he came up to me and said "Mama, I nice. Snacks peace?" Usually I have to prompt him with "How do you ask nicely?" but this time he decided to be nice on his own!)
Jawwas (Cheerios. It took me two very puzzling days to figure this one out.)
Kee you? (Carry you. He actually means "Carry me")
Fuddants (Elephants)
Doh-a (Dora the Explorer)
Gweek (Drink)
Chunkle Chunkle (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, his current favorite song.)
Gott (I am a Child of God, his second favorite.)
TRRRRUCK! (Truck; always with the same tone and bursting with enthusiasm. He is his father's son.)

This is how he counts to ten:
One, two, wee, four, sick, semmen, eight, nine, ten! He almost always skips five, and sometimes decides to end with a jubilant nine instead of ten.

Trip to the Garden State

This past weekend I took a trip to visit Andrea! It was my first time seeing their place in New Jersey. I had a great time letting her show me around - she gave quite the sales pitch. We now have to add LaFayette, New Jersey to our list of places we could move.

Buttermilk Falls. We hiked up to the top and I had a minor panic attack on the way down. It's difficult to tell the scale from this picture, but it's really tall.


Fall hasn't come to Virginia yet the way it has there. The leaves were gorgeous.


New Jersey is replete with rocks and streams.


Can you see the bear? It ran across the road right in front of us and by the time I got my camera ready it was pretty far away. I am ready to buy a telephoto lens - this one would have been so cool.


Andrea likes moss.


A cool tree growing on the side of a hill.

This Sucks

I got a call from the insurance secretary in our RE's office yesterday. Apparently our insurance company is saying we have no infertility coverage. Which is very strange, because the policy booklet that I'm looking at right now says we're covered at 50% for all infertility diagnostics and procedures (including IVF related ones). Eric's going to talk to his office's HR guy today and see what the issue is. If we find out that the company opted us out of the coverage I will be all kinds of pissed. We chose this company based (among other things) on their insurance coverage for infertility!

We're really back in the game now, it's just one thing after another. If we have to self pay, we can (although not right away, we don't have enough saved up). It just makes me mad that something this basic and common wouldn't be covered. I mean for heaven's sake, getting pregnant is supposed to be free - and for some people, it's even fun!