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October 11, 2003
Rob and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on September 27th. We took some time to ourself and finally had an overnight trip without Adrianna. We drove to Cincinnati and spent the night at the Millenium Hotel downtown. We really had no plans just drove there and found a nice hote. We walked around downtown, across the suspension bridge to Newport KY and along the Ohio River to view the new Cincinnati Red baseball stadium. We had supper at a local "mom and pop" Italian resturant called Campanelli's. It was a very nice evening.
Adrianna spent her first night with Grandma French. As you can tell by my previous entries Adrianna is NOT at all a good sleeper. I was so worried she would keep my parents up all night long. She slept with Grandma in the spare bedroom and only woke one time. I was so happy she did so well. My mom did comment she kept rolling into the wall and hitting her head. She is a very restless sleeper.
Overall our Anniversay was a great weekend!
Rob always picks out such sweet cards with a nice little note that makes me feel like the most loved wife in the whole world. I also got my small box of Esther Price chocolates. Oh, did I love those!
I thought I would do a back-track entry to go along with our anniversary topic and tell the story of how Rob and I met and started our family.
The Burghardt-French "Blind Date"
In November 1995, a co-worker of mine Julie had commented she wanted to find a nice girl to fix her BIL up with. She had set him up previously with her best-friend but it did not work out. I was hopelessly dating all the wrong guys. I was 24 years old and came to the conclusion I was never going to met "Mr Right." Sad huh?!
BING....the light bulb lit up! Julie brought in a pic of her BIL and asked if I would like to meet him. It was a very good pic of Julie's husband, Rob and their younger brother in tux's at her wedding. Hmmm, I thought "what the heck, I will go for it!" I was working two jobs so we were unable to get together a double date until Friday December 1st. The plans were to meet at Julie's apartment, introduce us and then go country line dancing at a local bar. At the time, I was a avid line dancer so I was glad it would be a comfortable surrounding for myself. That Friday evening I drove on over to Julie's directions in hand and circled the block a few times almost "chickening out." I could not stand them or him up though because I worked with Julie everyday and it would be really awkward. So I sucked it up and went through with the date. The evening started off pretty good. Rob was very polite, very cute and seemed like a really nice guy. It got kind of weird when I realized we had to stop at his parents' house to drop Julie's son off with Grandma. What a weird situation to meet your date's mother on the first date. Not only was his mother there but also his sister and her two children. Little did I know that would be the first time I met my future In-laws. The night went very well! Julie and I danced the night away while the guys drank a few beers and watched us. The night ended back at Julie's apartment with a hen peck kiss good night. My general impression: Rob was a gentleman, nice guy, smart guy and a great catch. Now the big question was...would he ask me out for a second date?
Yes, he did! We started seeing each other very frequently. By Christmas we were dating up a storm. We spent Christmas with our own families but did exchange gifts. Rob blew my mind away with a beautiful diamond and sapphire ring and a nice bottle of perfume. After Christmas, I introduced Rob to my family and I spent some time with his family. Our relationship was was awesome! In April of 1996, Rob surprised me with a beautiful diamond engagement ring.
It was a total surprise but by then I did have the feeling Rob was the man I would spend the rest of my life with.
May of 1996
I had lost my roommate and Rob's roommate was not paying his share of the bills. We decided to move into an apartment of our own. It was really great timing because I was starting a new job in June and needed to move a little farther south to be closer to my job. We rented a cute two bedroom double unit apartment building. It was very cozy with a fireplace, a nice big kitchen and a laundry room inside the apartment. Can you see where my priorities are? We lived there for 13 months and decided to quit wasting rent money and bought a house together.
Septmber 1997
After a 22 month courtship, Rob and I were married September 27, 1997 in a small church in front of our family and friends. Our wedding and reception will be etched in my mind for the rest of my life. We celebrated our love for each other by having the time of our lives. Following the wedding, we sat sail on a 7 day Western Carribean Cruise. We sailed on the Majesty of the Sea with Royal Carribean. We had an amazing time visting some very exotic ports of call. I snorkled for the very first time and swam in the ocean for the very first time. We returned home to Ohio to begin our new life greeted by Rob's family who had decorated every inch of our house.
Fast Forward September 1999
This was the month we began TTC. With 3 months under our belt and no + hpt I mentioned it on my yearly exam visit. I had always had very irregular cycles, heavy bleeding and awful cramping. My GYN decided to do a Lap. to check things out. During the lap he did an HSG to reveal both tubes were blocked. He was able to open the right tube after several times of shooting the dye through the tube. We tried 4 more months with no success. MY GYN doc reccommended a exploratory lap to better check things out. I immediately had this done. We next learned I had a unicornate uterus with only one fallopian tube. Now this was why we weren't getting pregnant. Both ovaries seemed to be working but with only one fallopian tube my fertile time would probably one come every other month. There is a slim chance the right tube could grab the egg from the right ovary. We kept the hope and continued TTC and then sought more medical help with drugs. We continued TTC with the help of clomid and the Clear Plan Easy Fertility Monitor. Five months of clomid with no results, I was ready to give up.
The next step was a consult with an RE to discuss our options. At this point we had been TTC for 22 months. June 2001 I had my first and only visit with the RE. After a brief physical exam and a review of both surgeries the RE concluded because of my Unicornate uterus we had a 15% chance of conceiving on our own without medical help. The RE sugguested IVF and wanted to start with the basic clomid challenge test.
We were also going to repeat the SA on Rob.
Before I could have any of this testing done the RE would have to get it approved by our insurance company. I was so frustrated because they forget to get it done in time to catch my first cycle. I was so mad! I actually started calling other RE's on our medical plan hoping to get the ball rolling and in the back of mind hoping one of these RE's could work some magic to avoid IVF.
IVF was very frightening for us. How in the world would we come up with $10,000?
Rob offered to sell his custom Harley Sportster for $6,000 and we would scrape up the remaining $4,000 in few months of saving. Our hopes were very high! We were shot down again when the insurance did not have the approval done yet for my next cycle. July 21, 2001 would bring us up to date. We had basically stopped TTC at the fertile time because of all of the stress it was putting on our marriage. It was a Friday evening and I was beginning my rotation of midnight shift working as a dispatcher at a small police department. On a whim, I bought a pregnancy test while grocery shopping. My sister had called that evening to ask if I would help her throw a baby shower for our cousin in August. I could not believe she would ask me that! I told her I would think about it but I did not know if I could. During the past week I had been feeling very tired but chalked it up to the midnight work shift. I broke down and took the hpt. Keep in mind I had taken at least 22 hpt in the past 2 years and always had the dreaded - sign. July 21st 2001 at 9:30 p.m. I finally saw my first positive pregnancy test! I was freaking out! Rob was even more surprised because he did not even know I bought the test or suspected I would be pregnant. We had conceived our daughter Adrianna around July 4th 2001!
Stop by next week to read more....
Hugs,
Carmajo & Adrianna (19 months)
www.babiesonline.com/babies/a/adrianna
Check out the photo gallery to see Adrianna growing up from 6 weeks to 1 1/2 years old!
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