Three years ago today, if you would have asked me where I'd be today, I'd tell you that I'd have a 2 1/2 year old child, and most likely, another on the way. I would have said it with such certainty. Certainty that only comes from a first pregnancy, of a child conceived so easily. Surely, it was going to happen. This was OUR life, and we were IN control of it all. Afterall, we were good people, we were financially ready for a little one, and it was planned...and it happened...I got pregnant..and we were going to be parents! Yes, Nick would be a dad, and I would be a mom!
I was pregnant with our first. I told everyone. Early...Like, wayyyyy early..at 7 weeks. Celebrating that we were not one of those couples who take years to get pregnant. Leading up to this pregnancy, I had this gnawing voice in my head that perhaps my years of low bodyfat would hinder our success in getting pregnant..but it turned out that it had no effect on our luck. Holy Hallelujah, we were expecting..and soooo easily, to boot.
And then came my first appointment...and it went well...and I started looking at babies-r-us and figuring out what our nursery would look like. We painted the nursery....because, you know...9 months was going to go sooooo fast, I HAD to get it ready. I picked green for the walls, since we wouldn't know the sex of our little one for 4 more months.
And then came THE morning. THE morning that I woke up and told NZ I didn't feel pregnant anymore. THE morning that I felt I was probably just overreacting to my lack of symptoms...THE morning that NZ encouraged me to call the Doc just so I'd stop stressing about it. We had just seen the Doc, and had 3 more weeks till my next appointment. So I called. I went in. And that's where my naievety ended.
I was one of those women. One of those who find themselves on the wrong side of the statistics. We were one of those couples who would have to pull up our boots and move forward despite the rug being pulled from under our feet at a time of such elation. And we did it. I mean, we're still here, wearing the same boots, and trying to take a look at the map to decide which road is going to get us to parenthood.
We've been on the same damn road a few times, and once we even got down to the 6 1/2 month mark before having to make a U-turn back to start. I feel like our life has been like a game of Candyland over the past 3 years...I get all excited to get close to the Candy castle, and then WHAM! we're hit with the Plumpy card and have to go almost all the way to start again. (I just want to throw away that Plumpy card!)
So here I sit, 3 years after announcing my first pregnancy, a bit sad and wishing things would have turned out differently...yet still hoping that some day soon, I'll become one of those women, with an uneventful pregnancy which results in a baby(or two) on my hip..so that the Plumpy card in my game of real-life Candyland can be convienently lost for good. I don't think he'd be missed at all!
And then there are these neighbors. I don't know much about them, other than I want their oranges. Don't you think they should share? Afterall, it is technically on our side of the fence, and it's only like a dozen oranges...Do you think I'd get busted for picking them?
This year, I went all out on our birthday tradition of making cakes for one another. Nick loves funfetti cake ( who doesn't?) and after 8 years of making funfetti cakes, I wanted to switch it up a little. I kept his old reliable, and made a 9 inch round of funfetti cake, but also used the 9 inch round cake pan to make a layer of ice cream.
Place leveled cake on top of ice cream round. Trim any overhangs. (I didn't take a photo of this step, it's hard to hold a knife and camera simutaneously), I used semi-softened vanilla bean icecream to "frost" the top of the cake, instead of frosting because I had another wild hair to try something else new on this cake. One of my BFF's, Liz, over at
So, I salvaged some bubble wrap from a Christmas gift. Cut it to the height of the two layer cake. Melted semi-sweet chocolate ( I used the microwave but suggest a double broiler instead) , sprayed the wrap with PAM spray, then spread an even layer of chocolate over the bubble wrap. I let it set up for a minute before transferring.
I wrapped each half of the cake with a strip of chocolate covered bubble wrap. It was a bit tricky manipulating the flexible wrap without smearing chocolate all over, but I somehow managed to get the placement right.
{The ladies}