Baby – MayciJBlogs

Baby Girl Nursery Tour

maycijones — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 18:03:28 +0000

I am so excited to finally share my nursery with you all! This nursery definitely took time and hard work haha, but I LOVE how everything turned out. I went for a butterfly-themed nursery which I haven't seen too many people do, so it was definitely a little challenging to find certain items that matched my theme! We also went with a blush, gold, and ivory color scheme. Feel free to DM me on Instagram if you have any questions @maycineeley. Additionally, I will be linking everything for your convenience below!

What’s In My Hospital Bag?

maycijones — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 03:10:06 +0000

This is everything I am packing in my hospital bag for delivery! Additionally, you can see everything I packed on my Instagram Highlight here. Feel free to shop the post below!

For Mama

+ Pajama dress (magnetic buttons)
+ Comfy Pjs
+ Zella maternity leggings
+ Aerie comfy pullover
+ 2 nursing bras
+ Comfy robe
+ No-slip fuzzy socks
+ Adidas for on the way to the hospital & home
+ Slippers for the hospital stay
+ Sandals/flipflops for the shower
+ Toiletry bag & shower essentials

[show_shopthepost_widget id="4368041"]

For Baby

+ 2 white onesies
+ 2 swaddles
+ 1 receiving blanket
+ 2 cotton newborn hats
+ 3 bows

[show_shopthepost_widget id="4368046"]

Miscellaneous Must-Haves

+ Laneige lip sleeping mask (my all-time fav!)
+ Long charging cord or extension cord + Polaroid Camera
+ Makeup remover wipes
+ SD card for the camera
+ Laptop & charger
+ Mints, gum & snacks

[show_shopthepost_widget id="4368076"]

Boho Chic Baby Shower

maycijones — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 19:56:03 +0000

I am so excited to finally share my baby shower with you guys! Since there is a literal world-wide pandemic going on, we decided to do a small shower with family and a few close friends. My mom and sisters threw my baby shower and we did a cute little boho-chic-themed luncheon and I love how everything turned out!

When deciding on the theme for the shower I told my mom I wanted everything super neutral. Blush pink, light beige, and I wanted a lot of pampas grass! Of course, my mom took that idea and went above and beyond with everything at my shower (per-usual). My mom LOVES to plan a good party and she totally nailed my shower!

We first started off with appetizers and snacks and then moved into the dining room for lunch. One of my favorite parts was having all of the mamas go around the table telling their birth stories. I love to hear other people's birth stories while I am pregnant, I seriously can't get enough haha.

After lunch, we played a couple of games. For one of them, we had about 10 different chocolates smushed up in different diapers and everyone had to guess what chocolate was in each diaper. Definitely very entertaining and a lot of fun! We also did a baby food smell test. Everyone passed around different baby foods (we took the labels off of all of them) and they had to guess which baby food it was. I honestly forgot how bad some baby food smells! The winner of each game also got a great prize!

Then after the games, we had some dessert and opened presents. We had sugar cookies, cupcakes, and a gorgeous cake for dessert. My favorite part was the little butterfly decals on the cake, cupcakes, and cookies. I special ordered the butterflies off Etsy and they were 100% edible!

I will be linking everything at the bottom of this blog post, so be sure to check it all out!

20 Week Pregnancy Update!

maycijones — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 18:27:07 +0000

Ok, how is it even possible that I am a little more than halfway done with my pregnancy? So far, my pregnancy has gone by so fast and I can hardly keep track of each day. I think working full time while trying to manage a videography/photography and social media business has to account for the time just flying by!

As well, this pregnancy is very different for me. My first pregnancy was so full of sadness and despair that it seemed to go by at snail speed. This pregnancy so far has been pretty happy for the most part! Granted, working as much as I do definitely puts a toll on my overall mood and happiness at times. But for the most part, things are just great!

20 Week Ultrasound

Last month I had my 20-week ultrasound, which is an exciting yet scary ultrasound because it is an anatomy scan. During this ultrasound, they look at everything in the baby’s body. They look at the chambers of the heart, brain, umbilical cord and they even count all of their precious fingers and toes. It goes a lot more in-depth than that but basically, the ultrasound technician can see if anything is wrong with your baby from this ultrasound.

Our ultrasound took about an hour, which surprised me because I thought it would only be 30 minutes. Sadly, we weren’t able to take any video because apparently, it is against HIPAA guidelines or something. After our ultrasound, we met with our doctor who gave us our results. He told us that everything they checked looked great! So we are super grateful that baby Neeley is 100% healthy!

26 Week Update

Today I am 26 weeks which is insane to me because next week I will be in the third trimester! I am feeling baby girl kick a lot more now and her kicks are getting stronger every day. We are currently in the process of getting the nursery ready and so far we have painted, got the crib, bedding, and a cute little mirror. The next things on my list to get are curtains, a light fixture, a rug, and a dresser!

Throughout my pregnancy, I have felt pretty good! Life, in general, is crazy right now with COVID and the election so I try not to let it play too much on my emotions because it does make life a little more stressful. But overall life is great and we couldn’t be more excited to meet baby girl in 3.5 months!

We are Pregnant!

maycijones — Sun, 02 Aug 2020 18:02:15 +0000

First of all SURPRISE! We are pregnant! I also want to say sorry. Sorry for lying over the last few months, but this was just one thing I wanted to keep between family for a little while. We are over the moon excited and Hudson seriously cannot wait to be a big brother!

So where do I start? Let’s go back to April. I was in California when I got the call from my fertility center that we could re-start the preparation process for an embryo transfer. So in mid-April, I started on birth control. I had to be on birth control for about two weeks. Once I stopped birth control I got started on oral hormones called Estradiol.

I was set to transfer our embryo on May 29th. I had about 4 appointments at my fertility clinic prior to my transfer date to do ultrasounds. Basically to make sure my uterine lining and everything looked ok to transfer the embryo. All of my ultrasounds looked good so the date of May 29th was confirmed!

Five days before the transfer I had to start PIO injections which are the worst shots of them all. These needles are super long and thick! I was honestly scared out of my mind. The shot is an oil base so it is a super thick liquid that needs to be heated before it is injected. My first shot was rough. The actual injection hurt, but the aftermath was almost worse. The bruising, swelling and aching was crazy.

Transfer Day

Then May 29th came and I was so nervous. Thankfully Jacob was able to come into the transfer with me despite COVID. I was so nervous but they give you a valium 30 minutes prior to the transfer to relax your uterus. So once the procedure started I felt more relaxed. The actual procedure took like 5 minutes or so. Then I had to lay there for another 10-15 minutes or so after the transfer. Then the next 3 days or so I was on bed rest. No lifting, exercise, or anything active. Just rest.

My next appointment was set for June 8, to get my blood drawn to see if I was pregnant. June 8th is also our wedding anniversary, so it was either going to be a great day or a bad day. However, I was not able to wait! I tested earlier because I just had to know if I was pregnant or not. Technically you’re not supposed to do this because you could get a negative test and actually be pregnant. So it can be discouraging, but I really could not wait any longer.

I am Pregnant!

I took one test which was just an HCG strip. I took it but I didn’t follow the instructions properly and I thought the test was broken. I left it on my bathroom counter and started putting some makeup on. As I was doing that, I looked over about 10 minutes later and saw two lines. I couldn’t believe it. So I took out my Clear Blue pregnancy test (the digital one) and tried it. A few minutes later the word “pregnant” showed up.

Honestly, I couldn’t even believe it. So I called Jacob upstairs to show him. I was crying because after all the shots, blood, and tears it was happening! Keep in mind I had to stay on oral hormones, vaginal hormones, and continue my PIO injections for 10 weeks.

The crazy thing is when my doctor transferred the embryo I instantly became 2 weeks and 5 days pregnant. IVF basically skips the first little bit of the baby-making process. Even though I knew I was pregnant, I was still nervous about my pregnancy blood test. Sometimes you can get a positive test but your HCG blood test numbers can be low indicating that it could be a chemical pregnancy.

Luckily, I got the call on June 8 that my numbers were high and I was for sure pregnant! That night was an amazing night. It was Jacob and my anniversary, so we got ready and headed to dinner and a place called Tuscany in Salt Lake. Right before we walked into dinner we decided to call our families to tell them the news. As you can imagine, everyone was so happy for us!

Miscarriage Scare

So it wasn’t all butterflies and rainbows. On June 22, we had a miscarriage scare. I actually felt completely ok the whole day and towards the evening I started feeling sick. I was working the late shift, but luckily I was on work from home. During my shift my husband made dinner and when I was eating, I started getting sharp cramps in my stomach. They were sharp to the point where I started feeling nauseous. I turned the air on and sat on our air vent.

After dinner, I laid on the couch and kept working since I wasn’t feeling well. Jacob decided to take Hudson to the park for a little while it was still light outside. I only had 20 minutes left in my shift when I had to go pee. I went pee and then went back to lay on the couch when I felt something. I went back to the bathroom and blood started coming out. I instantly started panicking.

My first thought was to call Jacob. Jacob rushed home from the park and then I called my mom. I was crying on the phone and I was pretty sure that I was miscarrying. I ended up calling my 24-hour nurse line and they said that it could be a number of things but I should not panic. They said that I could either wait it out until the next day or go to the ER. After talking to my mom I decided the ER was the best option. If I was miscarrying, I didn’t want to risk having complications or bleeding out.

We got to the ER and they started blood tests on me. I already felt sick, and the guy who took my blood was super aggressive haha. So it was not a great experience, I was SO nauseous and my arm was completely bruised.

We were overjoyed! The baby looked completely fine and I was discharged from the hospital not long after. A couple of days later, I had to go into my fertility clinic for another appointment to get my blood drawn to make sure my HCG numbers were still going up. Thankfully, my numbers went up and everything was fine!

Pregnancy

Pregnancy so far has been pretty good. I haven’t been sick thankfully, but I have been getting nauseous from time to time. My cravings are kind of non-existent, the only thing I crave is a salad with vinegar which is kind of random. I mostly have food aversions and get grossed out by everything.

IVF Egg Retrieval + Results

accadmin — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 22:16:07 +0000

As you most likely saw from my Instagram stories, this whole IVF process has been a lot. Through it all, I felt pretty positive… but then came the egg retrieval and after that, I felt crushed.

Egg Retrieval

Leading up to the egg retrieval I got very stressed out, only because three days before my surgery Jacob started throwing up. Having been around him, I figured I was next which would mean my egg retrieval would have to be canceled. Having a stomach virus would be high risk because you have to get put under anesthesia for the retrieval and they don’t want to risk you throwing up. So for three straight days, I had extreme anxiety. I sanitized my entire house… literally every doorknob, chair, appliance, etc. you name, it was cleaned.

I found myself pacing around the house because Jacob was upstairs throwing up and I didn’t even know what to do with myself. Keep in mind I have a phobia of throwup so anytime someone does throw up I get extremely anxious right off the bat. So basically I was having mini panic attacks every time I heard Jacob throw up upstairs. My main concern was staying healthy so that I could do my egg retrieval successfully.

Egg Retrieval Surgery

Luckily, I managed to evade the stomach virus that Jacob had and was able to go through with my surgery. My surgery was at 1:00 pm but I had to be in the office by 12:30 pm to get prepped. I made Jacob wear a mask and keep his distance just in case.

I got in the surgery room and put my gown on. I made sure I had some nice fuzzy socks on so that I didn’t wake up cold from surgery. The anesthesiologist came in and he legit reminded me of Dirty John. If you have heard the podcast or watched the TV series on Netflix then you will know what I am talking about. He was kind of cocky like Dirty John, but he was nice as well.

My anesthesiologist told me that he was going to give me an IV and then we would start surgery soon after. I gave him the warning that I was super squeamish and had bad luck with IVs in the past, but he proceeded to tell me that he was, “good with needles” and I didn’t have to worry. Honestly, he was right! He gave me a lidocaine shot in my vein which numbed the area and then he gave me the IV. Super simple and easy and I didn’t even get nauseous. A few minutes after I got the IV I felt really good. All my anxiety was gone immediately. He gave me something in my IV to relax me before the surgery started and it was so nice haha.

After about 5 minutes of relaxing, he told Jacob to leave the room and then the doctor came in. Then we were ready to start. I put my legs in those lovely holsters and then my anesthesiologist put the sleepy meds in my IV. I remember asking if I was going to need to count down, and then nothing. Completely blacked out. It was awesome haha, I don’t know about you… but I kind of love getting anesthesia!

Egg Retrieval Results

It only felt like 5 minutes passed, and I was awake again. The second my eyes opened, my anesthesiologist got me off the bed and started walking me down the hall to the recovery room. I remember waking up in pain. Lower stomach pain like someone was pushing hard on my stomach. It wasn’t too bad, but I could definitely feel it. I was still so out of it though! When I was walking down the hall to recovery, I felt like I was in the twilight zone.

When I got into the recovery room, they immediately put a hot pad on my stomach. Then Jacob walked in and hung out with me. I had the hardest time getting my eyes to open, I wasn’t really loopy, just extremely tired.

After about 10-15 minutes the doctor walked in and sat across from us. He didn’t look super happy, he kind of looked disappointed. He then said, “We got 9 eggs.” I responded, “what?” and he repeated himself again. I had to ask him again because I thought I must have not heard him right. Nine eggs? That can’t be right. I had to hold back the tears because I was so confused, frustrated and disappointed.

He told us that he wasn’t quite sure why the number was so low because we were expecting at least 20 eggs. He said it could have been a few things, not enough medication to stimulate the follicle/ egg growth or unexplained infertility. Unexplained mainly because all of my labs and everything looked normal and healthy and that is why there isn’t an explanation. However, I think it might have been that I needed a higher dosage of medication. I felt yucky during IVF but not to the point where I felt like I was dying or in so much pain like many other women explain it to be like.

From all of the IVF groups I am a part of, most women say that they feel sick and extremely bloated and just ready for it to be over. When I went through it I definitely didn’t feel great, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I was bloated but it wasn’t extreme like I was told it would be. Which makes me think that I didn’t get enough medication for stimulation.

The doctor then left the recovery room and I got dressed again. We got to the car and I started crying my eyes out. I just felt so defeated. Like everything I went through was for nothing. All the shots, blood draws, and time spent – for nothing. At least that was my mindset for the next few days after the retrieval.

You may think 9 eggs is a high number, but keep in mind that number usually drops by half every day. Naturally, that is just what happens and since we were going to do genetic testing, I knew that we would be very lucky just to get one healthy embryo. So that is why I was so upset after my egg retrieval.

Post Retrieval

Like you saw on Instagram, I was a mess. I recorded my thoughts the day after surgery and I could not hold it together. I experienced the physical pain of IVF, but after the surgery, I was experiencing the mental pain.

The day after my surgery they called me with an update from the lab. Out of the nine eggs we had, two of them died. Then out of the seven that were now left, five got fertilized by Jacob’s sperm. Now we had to wait to see if the five eggs would make it to the embryo stage. This is usually a five-day wait. The next five days waiting for results was brutal. So much anxiety and worry.

Day five I got the call from the lab. The doctor said that one embryo made it to day five, My heart completely sunk. But then he said there were two more that could potentially make it, they were just growing a little bit slower. So he said he would call me tomorrow to let me know if they were still growing.

The next day, they called and said that another embryo had made it, and one more was still growing so they were going to wait and see if it made it. Luckily, the next day I got the call that the third embryo had made it. So we had three potential babies! However, now the embryos were being sent off to genetic testing. In this testing, they would look for many different genetic disorders and see if any of the embryos were healthy for a transfer. I was told it would be about two weeks before I would get my results.

Embryo Results

This was the hardest part. Waiting for the genetic testing results. Not knowing whether we even had a baby to transfer for pregnancy based on what these results would tell us. After a week I called the lab and the receptionist said they would have my results the following week. I was seriously counting down the days because I just needed to know!

I called the next week since my results should have been ready, but the receptionist said my results were not here yet. She said that they have had a high volume of testing to do and that my results would take another week. I was so frustrated because now I had another week of anxiety.

Then, I called one week later… which was Wednesday of this week 3/18 and the lady on the phone said my results were now ready. I was so nervous! Then she told me the doctor at the lab was in a meeting and he could call me after to give me the results. At this point, my anxiety was through the roof! Keep in mind this was earlier this week. I was at home, working on my laptop because of the corona quarantine. We also had an earthquake earlier in the day, so this was a major day of anxiety and stress haha.

About an hour later, Jacob was out getting gas and he called me. The doctor was on the other line and Jacob was going to conference me in, and my heart was pounding. Then the doctor said, “you have one embryo that is 100% healthy and good for a transfer.” I was overjoyed! I honestly thought we may not get an embryo to transfer, so this was amazing news. As soon as we hung up with the doctor I cried. I have never been so happy and thankful for this one little embryo.

Today

So now you are all caught up! This is exactly where I am at with this IVF process today. We have one beautiful little baby in the freezer ready to go! However, with all of this COVID-19 virus stuff going around, we don’t know when we will get pregnant. For now, it is kind of a waiting game, waiting to see how long it takes for this stuff to blow over. Also, keep in mind just because we have an embryo doesn’t mean it will result in pregnancy. That is the hope but we can never be certain.

Regardless, I am so excited and happy that we have one little embryo. We are also deciding to wait to find out the gender of the embryo. Doing genetic testing allows the lab to determine the gender, but I decided that we didn’t want to know. So my clinic will keep the gender a secret until I tell them otherwise!

Since my first pregnancy was so difficult and out of wed-lock, I never really got to celebrate it or honestly be too happy about it in the beginning. So this time I am going to celebrate every day and every single part of it. So we will be doing all the things, including a gender reveal!

Anyways, thanks for reading and supporting me through all of this! The support has made this process so much easier! I am SO thankful! I love you all, and stay safe!

If you want to see videos of my IVF journey, click HERE and check out my Instagram highlight “IVF”

Much Love,

Mayci J

IVF Journey Update

accadmin — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:09:43 +0000

Every morning Jacob and I had to wake up at 6 am to do shots. We had to do them at the same time every day because everything is perfectly timed to my body’s cycle. We also had to do them so early because I start work at 7 am and I have a 35-minute commute. So it’s pretty exhausting. I feel like I constantly have black circles under my eyes because I am so tired.

There are also a ton of doctor appointments I have had to go through during this process. I had to go to the Fertility Clinic pretty much every other day to get an ultrasound and blood work done. The ultrasound is to see how big my follicles are for the eggs to go in. They measure them every time and see how many there are. Once they get to a certain size, I’ll be done with the daily shots and ready for the surgery. I will say I have gotten used to the blood draws now because I do them so frequently.

After about five days of shots, I had to start a third injection called Cetrotide. This injection stopped my body from ovulating naturally. This injection is important because if I ovulated the process would be ruined, so this injection was very time-sensitive. The needle was also bigger for Cetrotide than the other injections which scared me all over again. Luckily this one wasn’t too bad, however, it did make me feel a little nauseous afterward.

IVF Insurance

Through my work, I have amazing insurance, especially for fertility. Which is very fortunate because a lot of places don’t offer fertility benefits. I get $15,000 for medication and $15,000 for all other IVF treatments. So a total of $30,000.

The only downfall of this is the pharmacies that you need to get IVF medication from. Typically IVF medication costs $5,000- $7,000 out of pocket. However since I have insurance for medication, the pharmacy we got medication from charged my insurance 3x the amount. For example, a medication that costs $900 out of pocket, they charged my insurance $3,500 for. Since the pharmacies overcharged my insurance for the medication, my fertility $15k medication budget got completely maxed out.

It is so frustrating and I do not know how the fertility pharmacies get away with doing this. Even though we had $15,000 of coverage, we still had to pay $1,400 out of pocket just for the medication. This is so not ethical and frankly, it’s just wrong. I also want to say that we are only able to move forward with IVF because we have insurance to cover it, Jacob and I do not have money to do IVF on our own because it is SO expensive. So even just paying $1,400 is very difficult for us.

IVF Feelings

So IVF is definitely hard, it’s mentally and physically tolling for sure. Physically I get nauseous from time to time with all the hormones. As well as headaches and PMS symptoms. I definitely get stressed out more easily and react a little more quickly than I usually do.

I think the most stressful part is working during IVF. As well as dealing with outside factors in general, especially sicknesses. Hudson started throwing up the night before I started the injections and it made everything so much more stressful. Not only because he’s sick, but also because I didn’t want to get sick while my body is getting beat down by hormones.

Overall IVF is so hard on your body. The biggest symptom I notice is bloating. I am pretty much bloated throughout the day but mostly at night. I have to wear loose clothing when I go to work because I can’t button my pants all the way up or else it hurts my stomach too much. The other physical symptom I notice is that I bruise and bleed more easily. I got a paper cut the other day and it started dripping blood which normally doesn’t happen. For this reason, the fertility clinic doesn’t let you take any kind of blood thinners like Advil.

Mentally, It can be so frustrating, scary and hard! But at the end of the day, it will be worth it to make a healthy baby!

IVF Next Step

The next step for us is the egg retrieval. In which I will be put under anesthesia for surgery. During this time they will go into my uterus and get all of the eggs out that have grown through the IVF cycle. We are hoping to get 40 eggs because the more eggs we have the better chance we have of only doing IVF once. Mainly because more eggs mean more embryos which means more potential babies to transfer. Based on my blood work and previous ultrasounds, my doctor said we should get a good amount of eggs. I really hope we can get a lot, and honestly, if we don’t I’ll be pretty disappointed. I am nervous but I am also ready to just get it over with and be done with the shots (for now).

Thanks so much for supporting me, I am so thankful to have such a supportive community to lean on during this difficult time. Follow me @maycineeley on Instagram for more updates! I will be sharing most of our IVF journey through my Instagram stories.

Much Love,

Mayci J

Our IVF Journey

accadmin — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 18:03:22 +0000

The truth is, I’m scared. I have been navigating uncharted waters for some time but I’m ready to share my truth. So here it is: Jacob and I want another child, and the best way for us to do this is through in vitro fertilization also known as IVF.

On January 7th, Jacob and I had our first consultation for IVF. We talked to the doctor and he explained how IVF works and what I could expect throughout the process. I am only 24 years old (25 next week), so talking about IVF at my age is intimidating. I will not get into the “why” behind our decision for moving forward with IVF because it is very personal. All you need to know is that we are doing IVF because it is the best way for us to have a healthy baby.

After the doctor met with us in his office we went into the normal exam room where I had to do an ultrasound of my uterus. The doctor checked how many follicles I had for future eggs to go in. He also checked some other things to make sure there were no major concerns.

Then came the blood work and man… I was not prepared. The nurse came into the room with a little basket full of vials so I knew that this was about to get very uncomfortable. If you’re new to my blog, just know that I am extremely squeamish around needles and getting blood drawn almost always makes me pass out.

I had six large vials of blood taken from me to test my hormones and for other things including infectious diseases. I felt so sick from the blood draw that I laid down in the exam room for an additional twenty minutes. I finally got up to check out at the front desk with Jacob but started to pass out. The doctors had to bring out a wheelchair and wheel me back into the exam room to lay down. They had ice packs on me and I had to get my vitals checked to make sure my oxygen levels and blood pressure were okay. It was equally embarrassing as it was scary.

IVF Process

The first step in the IVF process is a consultation. For me, after that, it was the saline ultrasound. I did this ultrasound a few weeks ago and it wasn’t too bad. Basically they put a catheter inside of me and shot saline down it to look at my cervix to see if there was anything that would prevent a baby from being held in there. During this ultrasound, I found out that I had polyps in my uterus that I will need to get surgically removed before getting pregnant via IVF.

Jacob and I will start IVF meds soon, which are better known as “stims”. Jacob will be administering all the injections to me and the injections will go in my stomach. We will do 2-3 injections a day for at least ten days to create multiple eggs. Naturally, your body releases one egg a month when you ovulate but these meds I will receive will make numerous eggs for my doctor to surgically remove and then combine with Jacob’s sperm in a lab.

From there we will have all of our embryos that make it past five days tested in a lab to make sure they are genetically healthy. Typically, about half of the embryos don’t make it past five days even if you’re the most fertile person in the world. The remaining embryos that we have (the ones that make it past day five) will be sent to the lab for genetic testing. The embryo testing that we are doing will take about six weeks. Once they test all of them we will hopefully have enough embryos to start transferring for a pregnancy.

So, right now we don’t really know when we’ll get pregnant. It could be three months from now or even six months. A lot of it will depend on how I feel physically and mentally. I want to make sure I am feeling 100% before we decide to transfer the embryo, considering I will have to do injections again for over nine weeks once we decide to transfer. These injections will be a lot more strenuous. The needles for these injections are very long so they can go into the muscle and they tend to make you feel sick. So I may wait a bit after we get results before planning a transfer to get pregnant.

Feelings about IVF

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared out of my mind about this entire process. Not even for the shots and frequent blood draws but more so for how it’s going to make me feel mentally and physically.

It’s now time for me to get my head in the game. I will have shots in the morning and then eight straight hours of work after. It would be fine to work after getting a shot normally if you weren’t pumping yourself with hormones and other things that are bound to make you freaking crazy. So I am nervous that I won’t feel well and I will still have to grind through that full workday.

I really debated whether or not I was going to share my IVF journey on my blog and social media because it is such a personal thing for me and my little family. But I realized I have never shared a struggle of mine in real-time. It almost felt wrong to not share. As always I hope that sharing my stories may help other women going through something similar. I want to ALWAYS keep it real for you.

At the end of the day, this is real life, it’s not some fairytale you see in the movies. For a lot of women having a baby is a long tiring process. I want to be able to share the ups and downs of this IVF journey that we are embarking on because it wouldn’t feel natural for me to hide it. I feel like I share everything with you and I want to be able to share this too even though it scares me.

That being said, I am excited to start this journey because Jacob and I want a baby so bad and Hudson wants a sibling even more so.

I will continue to do Q&A’s every week and answer your questions but please be sensitive to the fact that this is a super personal process. As a reminder, I will not talk about “how long we have been trying to conceive” or “why we have to do IVF” or “If we tried other things before IVF.” All of those things are pretty personal to me and Jacob and so we would like to keep that between us.

It will be hard for me to be super vulnerable on social media and through my blog while I am going through IVF, but I want to because I want you to come on this journey with me. Although this IVF journey will be hard, I know it will strengthen me and my relationship with Jacob.

If you have any advice or tips for me, please send them my way. I love you all and I am so thankful for every single one of you! I feel so lucky to have such an amazing community I can lean on for support and share my life and struggles with. Now… LET’S MAKE A FREAKING BABY!!!

Much Love,

Mayci J

Hudson’s Adoption + ModWhite Temple Dresses

maycijones — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 18:01:19 +0000

When Jacob and I got married in the temple we did a special service where we kneeled across the altar in our temple clothes and made a promise to each other that we would commit to each other forever. We were sealed as a family for time and all eternity. In this life and in the next Jacob and I will be together, which is such an amazing thing.

Since Hudson wasn’t officially adopted by Jacob before we got married, he couldn’t be sealed to us on our wedding day. So it has been a big goal for us to make this happen as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize how expensive it was to go through the adoption process so we have been delayed for over a year now.

We are hoping that we can go through the adoption process in the next few months so that we can get sealed as a family for time and all eternity. It seriously gives me so much comfort that I can be with Hudson and Jacob forever! If everything goes to plan we are going to try to get Hud’s adoption finished and get sealed as a family by the end of December.

Temple Dresses

I was approached by ModWhite to try out their white temple dresses. I saw them on social media previously and fell in love with all of their dresses so I was super excited when they reached out to me.

If you are a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints you’ll know just how important temple dresses are. When I got married I bought just a basic temple dress because I thought it was my only option. Luckily now when I get sealed to Hudson I will have so many options thanks to ModWhite.

ModWhite’s dresses are super comfortable and not to mention so much cuter than your basic temple dress. I have the White Poppy Dress and the White Bluebell Dress in a medium and I am obsessed. For all of my non-Mormon friends, you don’t have to be a member to get their cute dresses and they don’t need to only be worn in the temple.

Thoughts

I just want to clarify something and let you guys know that I truly LOVE all of ModWhite’s dresses and other products. I feel like I am a very transparent person and I will be very honest with you… I deny working with a lot of brands. If a brand approaches me and wants me to promote something but I don’t like their products, I will not promote them. I will always be real and promote only products that I use and love.

If you’re getting married, baptized, or wanting a white dress for any occasion ModWhite is the best option. They are the most modern temple dress company out there and I promise you will love all of their dresses. If you want to purchase from them use the code MAYCI15 for $15 off your purchases of $50 or more.

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Hudson’s Adoption + ModWhite Temple Dresses

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