the monday snapshot – Samantha

Sam of The Cass Family is going to open up the week for us with her contribution to the The Monday Snapshot – an evolution of the MMM feature, meant to bring the PAIL blogroll to life by giving its members a chance to feature themselves and make new connections. 

If you would like to be featured on The Monday Snapshot, please sign-up here!

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I love taking pictures, I always have, and I love looking back at the pictures that I took. I know that life goes by so quickly, and although when your home all day with two children under two it feels like the days can be long- the time is gone in a blink of an eye.   I already feel like Jacob was just born and he’s already a year and a half. It’s hard to find the time lately but I try my hardest to take those pictures so I can look back and smile on our family life early on. I always have my cell ready to take pictures, but that’s not the same as using my dsl. These three guys are my life, and right now these are my three favorite pictures. I love the little boy look that Joshua is developing now that he’s maturing from the newborn phase, and Jacob looks like a perfect angel in his picture, pure model pose looking slightly over his shoulder.  And at the bottom is the first picture of all three of my guys together. Being a mom can be tough- especially when they are so young. After having infertility issues sometimes that’s a hard thing to admit. I’m not a perfect mom and my kids aren’t perfect. I lose my temper or cry and they misbehave. Well, Joshua’s off the hook for now but let’s face it, he will be right along Jacob in a year! I think that’s the typical family. But looking at these pictures it’s hard not to think, wow, I got really lucky

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Now, get to know a little more about Sam with her answers to the Monday Snapshot “5 Questions”:

1) How long have you been blogging and how did you get started?

I’ve been blogging since April 2010! I got started shortly after joining an online TTC community, and lots of ladies on that site blogged about their infertility. I figured in the beginning it would be a good way for friends and family to keep track of what we were going through and where we were at in our journey, that were too shy to ask, or didn’t know how to ask about it.

2) Tell us a little about your ALI journey and your family (3-4 sentences):

My husband and I got married in April 2009 after being together for 3.5 years. A year and a half previous to this I had been on the depo provera shot, only ever had two shots, and it wreaked havoc on my system. I chose not to continue it, and in the following twelve months, only had 4 cycles. I knew there was an issue. The month we got married I took one month’s worth of BCP to jumpstart my system, and it did- but to 50-60 day cycles. After visiting my family Dr 5 months later he referred me to my RE and fertility clinic, and we officially began cycle monitoring in January 2010. We started at the same spot as most IF’ers with Clomid and timed sex. My cycles did not shorten in length. After 8 months of this, a sono, an HSG and then a LAP, we m oved on to Femara. This instantly made my cycles ʺnormalʺ but 2 cycles still had no pregnancy. We were supposed to move on to Injections and IUI however the start of that cycle and when I would have needed to come in for monitoring would have been Christmas, and they were closed (how dare they!) we had to opt for either a break cycle or one last shot at Femara. We did, and almost one year to the day of when we started cycle monitoring at the clinic, I finally got pregnant! My son was born September 28th 2011 after 29 hours of labor. We were crazy enough to want a second, so we decided to start pretty soon since it took 2 years to conceive the first time. We tried on our own for two months from March-May, my cycles were still 50 day cycles. We chose to go back to our clinic, and on our second (HUGE shock after it took so long the first time) we were successful, and found out I was expecting #2 due April 15th — one day after our anniversary. We learned in November we will be adding another one to team BLUE! [Editor's Note - Sam signed up in February, and her second son has obviously since been born!]

3) What makes you unique in the blogging world? (e.g. special talent, rare diagnosis, life experience)?

Hmm… can’t really think of anything that sets me apart from the rest of the blogging world. I plan on printing this blog one day and giving it to my boys once they’ve grown as a record of their early lives, and how they got here. Nothing too unique, other than a virtual baby book you could say?

4) One word to describe yourself: 

Emotional

5) What blog or website (IF or not) would you recommend to others? Why?

The 2 Week Wait – She is hilarious! I think we can all relate to Jay! She doesn’t post too often now, but going back to when she started you can’t help but laugh at every post. I followed along right from the beginning and had her blog to keep me company as I was TTC’ing, and so thankful for it!

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As always, we want to see your Monday Snapshot as well, so please comment below with a link to your post– and of course, go visit Sam of The Cass Family.

If you would like to be featured on The Monday Snapshot, please sign-up here!

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