Thank you, thank you and thank you again!!!

 

I’m not sure how to relate this post to fairy tales, other than to say that being nominated for the Versatile Blogger and I Love This Blog awards are making me feel like royalty.  I feel like I should be wearing a tiara and doing the pageant wave.  Okay…that’s a little overboard.  But I really am so thankful that someone has found something in my words that has touched them.  I started this blog as a means of working out my own conflicted thoughts and feelings about infertility and found that it is an awesome place to give and get support.  You gals rock, especially Endo_Life and One Cycle At a Time for the nominations.   Because I got two awards at the same time, and they have the same rules, I’m combining them.  I hope that is okay.  (It’s not okay with me when my husband combines Valentine’s Day and my birthday- February 12 – but that’s different, right?)

The Rules of accepting the awards are:

1.) Thank and Link back to the blogs that gave you your awards

2.) Share seven things about yourself.

3.)  Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.

4.) Contact the bloggers to let them know you've given them an award.

First:  Thank you so much to Endo_Life at http://myendometriosisandinfertilityjourney.blogspot.com/  for the Versatile Blogger Award and to Once Cycle At a Time over at http://onecycleatatime.blogspot.com/ for the I Love This Blog Award.  I’ve been following both of these posts and I’ve got to tell you, these two sweet women are emotionally strong, awesome writers and great fertility friends to have.  (And I’m not saying that just because they nominated me for awards…I truly love their blogs).  Please check them out.  You won’t be disappointed.

Second:  So as not to cheat, I’ll share 14 things about myself, seven for each award.

1. I am the oldest child of three in my family.

2. I completed my four year forensic psychology degree in three years (always in a hurry)

3. In law school, at 22, I took custody of my teenage half-sister to get her out of a bad situation.  Being a parent to her was the best and hardest thing I ever did.

4. I am the aunt to a niece (4) and nephew (1 ½), via my now 22 years old half-sister, and am about to become an aunt via my sister-in-law around July 4th.

5. I have a 16 year old half-brother who was born with multiple birth defects, including fluid on the brain, mental retardation, facial clefting and autism.  I love him so much but it hurts me to see him deal with his limitations.

6. I am ashamed to say that my experience with my brother makes me terrified of how I would handle having a child with special needs.  Seeing first hand the work and resources required in caring for him makes me scared that I wouldn’t be strong enough if put in that situation.  My husband also feels that way, making me worry about what happens if we finally get pregnant only to find out that our child has special needs.  I feel so guilty sharing this.

7. I am in a constant battle with my husband over whether, if we ever have a son, he can be named “Hamish.”  My husband is Scottish and loves this “good Scottish” name for some reason…not happening (my apologies to anyone reading this blog who is named or related to someone named Hamish…I just can’t stomach the name).  I’m praying for a girl.

8. I was a beauty queen when I was in high school and dabbled in modeling.  I am not proud to say that I have had Vaseline on my teeth on more than one occasion, have worn pantyhose with a swimsuit and heels, and have said that I am striving for world peace.  On the upside, I have great pictures of myself in pink dressed with puffy sleeves and way too many bows.  My husband gets a good laugh from them.

9. I LOVE to watch football (American football) but I always feel badly for the losing team.

10. I try not to live my life in regret, but I can think of lots of things that I said or did in high school that I wish I could go back and redo knowing what I know now.

11. I am friends with most of my ex-boyfriends on Facebook and I torture myself periodically by looking at the pictures of them with their beautiful wives and children.  I don’t know why I do that but I do.

12. When I was in law school, I knew no one and so I rented movies all of the time to keep me company.  By Blockbuster’s records, I rented 462 movies in one year (my first year of law school).  I’m pretty sure I watched them all, too.  Any time I’m playing a quiz-type game, I go with the Entertainment and Music category, for obvious reasons.

13 . I was in Bible Quizzing competitions from age 10 to age 15 and I can kick “you know what” on Jeopardy whenever there is a bible category.  My husband – a devout atheist – is amazed at my ability to name the books of the bible in order or to remember the names of just about every major character in the Bible.

14. I have a genius IQ and frequently get picked on for belonging to MENSA (but they throw great parties…I love geeking out).

Number 3:

Okay, I’m so new to blogging that I haven’t found a lot that I am following yet, but if you have a blog that you want to suggest to me, please send me your blog address and I’ll check it out (and update my list).  So, with that disclaimer, I can’t list 30 (even though I am sure there are way more than 30 awesome blogs out there).  But, here are some of my favorite blogs, some are new and some not so new, but they are all great.  I’m going to do my best with including links, but if I mess it up, I have them listed on my blog under my favorite blogs section:

• Adding Peas To Our Pod
• Adventures In Infertility Land
• Adventures of Endo in the Artic
• Alex's Adventures
• Among the Blossoms
• Are You Doing It Right?
• Beckie's Infertility Journal
• Bottoms Off and On the Table
• Busted Plumbing
• Come On Baby!
• Empty Arms, Broken Heart
• Just Two Lines Away
• Little Bean Dreams
• No, I'm Not Pregnant, Just Fat  
• Two's a Company. Three's a Family

Thank you again so much for this honor and for sharing my journey with me.  The knowledge that I have women supporting me in this endeavor and my quest means more to me than you can possibly know.