Nashville Trip and House Hunters

So I wanted to go back and recount our trip that I had talked about...
We had heard about the group bus trip to Nashville for the last regular season Blackhawk hockey game back in early December.  At the time, I was hesitant...would I want to be on a bus with 40 drunks while 6 months pregnant? But after the miscarriage I knew it was something to look forward to in the greyness that had consumed my head post loss - and it was.

So we had 44 people on a bus.  I won't go into all that went a little wrong on the way there except to say our bus driver had a bad GPS and no common sense causing what should have been an 8 hour trip leaving at 6am into a 10 hour trip leaving at 6:45am.  We hit both Chicago rush hour leaving and Nashville rush hour arriving.  But we made it.  And I had a few Bloody Mary's, jello shots, and vodka soaked cherries along the way to make the trip more enjoyable.

The game. OMG the game.  You would not believe how many Hawk fans too over Nashville.  It was a sea of red in that town and everywhere we went people would see us in our gear and yell out "GO Hawks!"  Our friend Skippy came through with awesome seats!  We were just six rows off the ice.  I was six rows away from my Hockey husband Patrick Sharp!!  I may have been *that* obnoxious fan for some of the game.  A Predator fan sitting in front of us made a comment about "Oh, he didn't get the puck, that's SAD."  as a play on words for a guy on our team named Saad.  I loudly stated "It's pronounced SOD you dumbass!" and got our whole section laughing.  Yes, we ended up losing 7 to 5 but it was a good game none the less.  And hell, we had already made it to the play off and they didn't.  And our two best players Kane and Towes were out injured so oh well.

And we bar hopped on Broadway.  You don't fully grasp the idea of "music town" until you've seen 11 band in just six bars in one night.  All amazing singers.  Here are a few shots from our adventure.

Us at the game

Us outside three story bar Honky Tonks Central

Look how close I was to Sharpie!!!

Up close of my hockey husband

And the big news from this week?
WE WERE APPROVED FOR A HOME LOAN!!!!
Yes - our six years of paying off all credit card debt (and it was huge people), Jeff's Law School Student loan, two cars, and over $35,000 in medical bills (over 20K in IF expenses) has finally put us in a financially stable spot.  Sometimes I think back and can't believe all the money we've shelled out these last few years to get us to this point but we did it!  The only debt we currently have is one car.  And we can now start HOUSE HUNTING!!!
Because we've lived here in our townhouse for over six years, and our landlord loves us and is awesome he is letting us make a deal with him since our lease is technically up in two weeks... We are signing a six month lease - but it has a clause that we can get out of it no problem with two months notice.  We figure with closing time and not having to pay the first month you own a house this is enough time.  So the search has begun!  But we're not in a huge rush as we know IVF is just around the corner and we can take our time since there is no crunch to get it done before our lease is up.  We hope to be getting a tour of a few we found on line already by this weekend or early next week.  This should be an interesting adventure.  I'll keep you updated for sure.

NIAW Video for 2014 and other things...

It's that time of year again dear readers!  It's National Infertility Awareness Week!

If you are wondering what the heck I'm talking about, you must be new around my blog or the IF world - check out previous April posts the last three years for great info, videos, etc if you want to see what I've done in the past or "come out" of the IF closet.

As for this year, I made my annual video (second year in a row where I'm honoring my support group).  But what's nice about this year, is as a group we're not just trying to raise awareness but we're also trying to raise money for Resolve.org.  It's taking that additional step!  Link to this years video

First up was Jamberry nail wraps.  A friend of one of my group made up a few designs to choose from with 20% of the proceeds going to our resolve fundraising.  A handful of us I think got them, I can understand not everyone wants to wear their "advocacy" on their nails all out and proud if you will.  But me?  My nails have become like billboards these last few months.  I did four leaf clovers for St. Pats.  And last two weeks for the Blackhawks trip? Please (Man, I should do a whole other blog post on that trip).  So these is what I picked - the "graffiti" design.  My right thumb has "Infertility" "Warrior" stamped on it - LOVE IT!  And I'm sure I'll have people ask about my nails, as they always do when I have something different...so this just gives me an opportunity to talk to even complete strangers during NIAW.

Next the Auction & Donation pages.  If you are on FB look for us as:  75Strong Supporting Resolve.
There are items up for bid (Bidding starts on Friday the 25th of this month)  There is jewelry, cookies, wall art, even a Coach clutch, etc donated to the auction.THIS is a link to that facebook page.  For straight up donations you can find us HERE.  I joked that even if just us in the 75 strong each donated $15 we would exceed our goal!  But we're hoping to get outside donations as well - and we also know some in our group are dealing with financial hardships from IF costs or cancer treatments, divorce, etc what have you.  So even if all you can give is $1 - every dollar helps build toward our goal.

This money will go to Resolve.org and then be matched.  And the money is specifically for setting up support groups throughout the country.  So others can know the love and support like I feel from my girls.  WOOHOO!!

So happy for NIAW!  While it's something that comes from immense pain, it makes me feel so good inside to know that our pain can turn into something good.  The silver lining if you will.

So I've got my video, my nails, my FB and Instagram posts, our group's auction & fundraising, and I shared our story to another loss gal's NIAW blog-swap.  (Will post a link when it's up).

I am feeling EMPOWERED!