At Disney, Dreams Really Do Come True

I love Disney World. As a kid, I used to daydream that I lived in Disney World. I would ride all the rides during the day and by night I'd sleep in Cinderella's Castle. Occasionally, I would camp out in the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse or on Tom Sawyer's Island.

So, it was a no-brainer to want to take Sophie to Disney World. I hadn't been myself since 1994. To make it even more fun, I thought the Grandparentals could come with us and we could combine the trip with a Thanksgiving visit to my mom's sister, my favorite aunt, who is now disabled and unable to travel.

Disney Highlights:

First sighting of Cinderella's castle, or as Sophie calls it "My Castle."

Pluto!

The castle looked gorgeous in lights!

We spent lots of time taking buses from our resort, Shades of Green, to the parks.
Sophie loved the bus rides as much as anything else! Here she is with the Grandparentals.

 

My favorite part of the Animal Kingdom was the safari!

 

Sophie loves Chip and Dale, so we were glad to see them!

The main man, Mickey!

I loved riding in Spaceship Earth at Epcot!
Sophie loved the bubbles the Disney folks were blowing for fun!

A Francophile like me was very excited to visit the Paris section of Epcot,

but we were especially excited to encounter Marie
from one of our favorite movies, The AristoCats!

 

Everything we did was leading up to this...

Sophie in her Cinderella costume going to meet Cinderella

and eat dinner in the castle at Cinderella's Round Table!

 

Cinderella with her lord and lady in waiting.

 

Cinderella and her favorite subjects, Papa and Nana.

 

As we waited to be seated, Sophie really hit it off
with this little girl Grace who was dressed as Ariel!

 

Sophie and Grace were fast friends...they were so adorable
and this was one of my favorite moments of the trip!

 

Princesses have to twirl!

Sophie was totally starstruck when she met Cinderella!

 

The blue crew...Cinderella commented that we were all wearing her favorite color!

 

Still stunned when meeting Snow White back at our table.

 

Still in disbelief meeting Belle. Not sure why Belle isn't wearing her yellow princess dress.

 

By the time Aurora, Sleeping Beauty, came by, Sophie was warmed up and ready to chat!

Excited to meet Ariel!

 

It was such a magical night and Sophie is still talking about all of it months later!

 

Oops...Sophie turned into a pumpkin on our way back to the resort!

 

She was so tired she didn't even wake up as we changed her into her PJs and put her to bed!

 



Eating dinner at Cinderella's Castle was the fulfillment of the dreams I had of living in the castle as a little girl, but the experience was made even more amazing by how much Sophie loved it. It was worth every penny we spent...everyone there was so nice to us, the princesses were so sweet to my shy, starstruck little princess, the food was amazing, the pictures turned out wonderful...I just can't say enough good things about it. And Sophie still talks about it, so I hope that it's a memory she treasures forever. I know I will.

Overall, I think the trip was fantastic...we had some moments where we all had different ideas about what we wanted to do and everyone got on each other's nerves a little in the interminable waiting in line for rides, but despite that, our party of five had a really great time!

After we finished up at Disney, J and I took a side trip over to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was super fun and deserves its own post, and then we all headed to my aunt's house to spend a few days with her and celebrate Thanksgiving, which was wonderful.

I'm so glad we did this trip when Sophie was this age. It was the perfect combination of Disney magic and family together time!

What are your favorite things to do at Disney World?

How Do You Know When You’re Done?

This is a question I’m asking myself a lot lately in relation to having children, because I am pondering taking steps toward permanent birth control.

I love being an only child. I don’t feel I missed out by not having siblings. I have a very close, very loving relationship with my parents. Growing up, I got to take dance classes, piano lessons, and fun summer programs, and go to a great university. Our family was firmly lower middle class, so if I’d had additional siblings, these things probably wouldn’t have been possible.

Given my background, I really only ever wanted to have one child. And J was good with having just one as well. Other than moments of desperation during our infertility battle when we would’ve happily taken quintuplets if that’s what we were blessed with, and my one bout of serious babyfever when Sophie was 18 months old, we’ve both been completely grateful to have Sophie and, at the same time, completely in agreement that we were one and done.

Sophie is an amazing kid. She has traveled with us to several states and two other countries in her short life. I’ve already got her in ballet, tap, and soccer, and life is SO GOOD. We are so blessed.

I really, deep down in my heart, know with 100 percent certainty that I don’t want to have another child. I don’t.

Our life is busy, our house is always messy, and I had to go part-time just to feel like I had a handle on things after Sophie was born. And I’ve adjusted to it and I love it (other than the messiness of my house) because of all the wonderful moments in those crazy days with my little girl, when she’s talking to me about her day or playing princesses or dancing alongside me to Just Dance 3 on the Wii. I just can’t see adding another child and more craziness and more stress to my life.

And I’m certainly done with fertility drugs and infertility treatments. NEVER AGAIN. I’m pretty sure seven months of fertility drugs did a number on my body that continues to this day and I have no desire to put myself at further risk physically or emotionally.

So, considering that I AM infertile, why am I even considering permanent birth control? Do I really have to worry about that?

Yes, because it would be my luck to have a fluke cycle where I randomly got pregnant despite my infertility. It has happened to people I know. And while if it happened, I’d consider that God’s will and proceed forth in life as a mother of two, I don’t really want to leave things to chance.

TMI ALERT!

The bigger reason I am considering permanent birth control is simple. I’m tired of having a period.

As a teenager, I had horrible periods (probably caused in part by an undiagnosed thyroid condition) where I bled for a month straight or every other week. All the time. It was traumatizing, until I was 17 and my mother took me to an OB/Gyn, Dr. F, who put me on the pill. Suddenly, I had simple, three-day periods, once a month like clockwork. I stayed on that pill for 16 years, until J and I decided to start trying for a baby when I was 33.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that pill-free, my period only lasted an extra day and was still pretty regular. Then, six months later, I was UNpleasantly surprised to find out I wasn’t even ovulating and couldn’t get pregnant, so what was I doing with a period every month anyway?!

Then, we finally had Sophie (who was delivered by Dr. F-I find someone I like, I stay with them!). When my periods returned post-pregnancy, they were much heavier, crampier, and longer. The pill no longer worked for me and I had lots of breakthrough bleeding, so I stopped taking it. This last year, my periods started coming closer and closer together, so I was basically bleeding every third week.

I really feel like my quality of life is suffering. I’m exhausted, probably a little anemic, and uncomfortable, more than I’m not at this point.

Researching my options, I discovered something called ablation, where they laser off the uterine lining and you no longer have a period. You usually have to do something else along with ablation, such as your husband having a vasectomy (not likely) or having your tubes tied (more likely for me), because if you did get pregnant after having ablation, the egg wouldn’t have anywhere to implant and it would be a bad, guilt-inducing situation.

So, I visited Dr. F, explained the situation, and waited to see what he recommended. I didn’t mention anything about ablation-I wanted to see if he brought it up as an option. I did tell him that my ever-closer periods, plus a laundry list of other symptoms meant I was going into early menopause. Ha!

He told me I was NOT going into early menopause (not sure I believe him), didn’t mention ablation as an option, but thought the reason my periods are coming closer together is because my eggs, which were so awesome and viable just three years ago (it’s the only fertility test I passed with flying colors-I had good eggs, they just didn’t GO anywhere to make me pregnant!), are now aging and unable to last a full cycle. Thus, closer-together periods.

He actually said, “Well, if you were trying to get pregnant now, you’d need a lot of help.” Um, hello, I needed a lot of help the first time when my eggs were GREAT!

He recommended I go back on a very low-dose version of the pill that would sort of smooth things out hormonally and help the eggs hang on longer, thus spacing my periods back out some. Great! A solution that’s not so drastic, I thought.

I started the new pill at the end of my period on a Sunday. Six days later, OUR FIRST DAY AT DISNEY WORLD, I began bleeding again. Heavily. And I bled for the rest of the trip, until I finally stopped taking the pill. Two periods in three weeks. ARGH. No more pill for me.

Then, last month, pill-free, I had a few days where my cycle ran long and I hadn’t started bleeding, and I was like, “What if I am pregnant?!” and I was in a complete panic. I really didn’t want to be pregnant and I was so relieved when my period finally came and I knew I wasn’t.

So, now I’m back to considering talking to Dr. F about more drastic measures like ablation and tube-tying, but I’m having a hard time with it. Because even though I know I truly don’t want to have another baby, it is so hard for me to take a step that will make it COMPLETELY impossible. To close that door forever.

As an infertile person, I spent a lot of time praying to God because I wanted a baby more than anything in the world. I’m so lucky to have a beautiful, healthy child and I’m completely happy, grateful, and fulfilled as a mother of one. Even though I really don’t want another baby, it still feels too hard to personally take an action to end my childbearing ability forever. Even if it is probably already gone on its own anyway (see: AGING EGGS).

So, I’m just waiting and thinking. And giving it more time. And hoping that I can be at peace with whatever decision I ultimately make. If anyone else has thought about this or done this, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Say My Name, Say My Name

Ever since I started this blog almost two years ago, I've referred to myself as Glam-O-Mommy, my daughter as S, and my husband as J.

I did this because I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into and being anonymous seemed like a safe choice. My husband preferred that I keep things anonymous...he's a very private person and doesn't even like knowing that I share our life so openly on Facebook. Also, I really wanted this to be a place where I could write privately from my "in-real-life friends" and just write whatever I think without having to filter my thoughts.

All this time later though, I find I really want to come out of the anonymous closet. I want to use my first name and my daughter's first name. Through this blog and Twitter, I've made some terrific internet friends and I know their names and their kids' names and it seems weird to keep carrying on anonymously.

I will say that everything I've written on my blog to this point is absolutely true and my real life with just names changed, but now I'm going to just say my name, say my name (sorry-Beyonce on the brain).

Hi, I'm Sonya aka Glam-O-Mommy.

Hi. I'm Sonya, aka Glam-O-Mommy. I am indeed 38 and a working mother of one who went through seven months of hellish fertility drugs and two rounds of IUI to get pregnant with my miracle baby.

This is Sophie.

The miracle baby's name is Sophie and she is the smartest, funniest, prettiest, tallest three-year-old who isn't completely potty-trained (still!) I know.

J and Sophie, ringing in the New Year.

I'm going to continue to refer to my Canadian, IT-guy husband by his first initial J, just for him.

Sonya and Sophie...pretty cute names for a mother-daughter duo, right? :) Both of our names are derived from the Greek "Sophia" and mean "wisdom." Sonya is the Russian derivation and Sophie is the French derivation. When we found out we were having a girl, J wanted both of us to have "S" names. He is part French-Canadian, and I love all things French, so Sophie was an easy choice.

So, there you have it, internet. Feel free to say my name anytime, and I hope you come back soon. I'm going to try and blog more regularly in 2012!