I've Never Been Pregnant: Guest post by Cat Holt

Guest Blogger: Cat Holt

Four years. 

Four years of waiting for this moment, the one where I can finally shout to the rooftops that I’m having a baby!! But for some reason, the moment doesn’t feel the way that I thought it would. It’s probably because of everything that has happened leading up to it.

My life has been amazing. I have family that cares to the moon and back about my husband and me. I have friends that I count as family because they have been by my side through those fun growing-up moments. I have a husband who only wants to take care of me and provide for my happiness. I have it all! Even a dog whose soft ears could be an entire post by themselves because I am that obsessed with him. But even with all of this, I still wanted more. I wanted a baby of my own.

Desiree, me, and Amy

So our journey began. My husband and I had already been married about a year and a half, and we thought that the time was right to expand the family. However, after a few months and still no baby, we decided to go to the doctors to see what we should do. Thus began the next 4 years. Those years started with, “Oh it’s common for it to take up to a year to get pregnant. We will run some blood tests, but there is no need to panic yet.” Then came the, “Well, we have run lots of blood work and everything looks great. Let’s make sure that your husband is okay.” When all was well with him, the confusion started to kick in. “Hmmm, maybe an ink test will reveal any blockages.” Nope, all clear. “Well, maybe your hormones just aren’t quite right. Let’s try birth control for a little while to see if that resets you. By the way, next few months after this are your best shot of getting pregnant.” Months came and went, no results. “The next step is a fertility drug, let’s give it a shot…OOPS, we overdosed you. Your next few days are about to be really painful.”

Me and my husband with some of our child-rearing friends

And on it went. Never anything new, just more confirmation that nothing was wrong. Nothing was ever wrong. But my life had turned into a guessing game. It got to the point where I almost wanted them to find something wrong so that we could have an answer. Do this and you will get pregnant! At one point, I even (almost) wanted to hear that it just wasn’t possible, and that I should adopt. At least that was an answer. It’s a hard answer and a scary one, but it’s something solid to hold on to. Plus, my husband and I were considering adoption anyway, even if we had our own children. There’s always room for another in a good home. Basically, I needed the monthly emotional roller coaster to end. Some months were unbearable, where I wasn’t sure I could handle this again. Others I just went numb. Why even try to feel? It doesn’t change the answer.

At around the 3.5 year mark of trying, my husband and I moved away to Florida so that he could go to Chiropractic school. We left all of our family and friends behind, and went to a new city that we had never even heard of before. We were hopeful that this was the fresh start that we needed. Maybe if we shed the stress of before, then we could have some positive results. Well, life set in and became crazy. Between my new job and his new schooling, we decided it was best to put the baby plans on the back burner. I didn’t even find a new doctor because I didn’t have time. Now, people say that when you just stop trying, that’s when the miracles happen. I want to clarify something. Yes, we put it on the back burner instead of center stage, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a single day that went by that I didn’t think about having a child. When something like that enters your mind and you have spent so long hoping, you don’t just forget about it.

Our pregnancy announcement

But it worked. After 6 months of living in Florida, I became pregnant. For a split second I thought that all my worries were now over! But then my over-analyzing brain kicked in. Why now? Is it the change in atmosphere? Stress change? Eating different? What was it, so that in case we ever want another child, I can know what to do!

Just starting to show

Then I went to the doctor. For the first time in 4 years, I was one of the girls that got to sit in the waiting room with my bottle of water beside me and a baby pamphlet in hand. But when I looked around the room, I realized that I didn’t relate to all of the other pregnant women around me. I related to that one girl in the corner, the one with her eyes downcast trying not to look at anyone. The one that can’t even bear the sight of the newborn beside her but hears every sound they make. Even though I had now joined the throng of soon-to-be mothers, I didn’t feel like one of them. I had spent so long as that girl in the corner, and only a few months as one in this new group.

But I didn’t know what to do...I still don’t. I know the pain of having someone come up to you and say that they understand what you’re going through, and it will all get better. How do they know?! They are pregnant! They have kids! They don’t know this feeling, right here, right now. Although I understand now how naïve I was, I still know that going up to a hopeful mother is difficult for everyone. We all react differently, and sometimes those reactions vary for a single person depending on where they are in their trial. I know that sometimes all I wanted to hear were success stories from strangers. But other times I just wanted to be left alone in my misery.

26 weeks

So now that I have a foot in both worlds, I want to help anyone I can. I’ve never been great at knowing the right words to say, but know this: I am happy that I went through those 4 years. They changed me in ways that I’m not sure anything else could have. My perspective on life is different now: I’m more patient and less judgmental. I listen to others’ stories instead of just trying to say my bit.

31 weeks

Although I have reached one milestone, I know that this is just the beginning of my story. I have no idea what the future holds, but I’m sure it is full of ups and downs. All I know is to just take life one day at a time, and always look for the good. 

I've never had part of my brain removed

Me excited for surgery - more
about this later

Yes, you did read the title correctly. It's not actually as serious as it sounds, but I'll explain more about what it is later. I kept this pretty much on the DL, so very few people outside my family knew what was going on. Also, while I'm thinking about it, let me give a disclaimer that I may or may not mention some gross details later, though I'll try to keep it within an appropriate spectrum. Amy always tells me I share too much…

The story begins last November. And I could go into detail about this awful week I had, but let's just skip to the point and say I got a severely abscessed tooth (a first). Nobody could figure out how or why this tooth got infected, but it did. I went to the dentist about 5 times in the space of a week, and my face swelled up horribly so I looked like Quasimodo (not an exaggeration). I do actually have a picture of it (I documented the whole experience, naturally), but it's not something the whole world needs to see. Sometimes when I want a good laugh, I pull up the picture just to look at it - I crack up every time (Apparently, my sister uses it for the same thing so I'm glad I could bring her joy as well).

Not my Quasimodo picture but this
 is when the swelling first started.

But, back to the story. Because my face had swollen up so badly, my dentist was a little concerned, so he sent me to an oral surgeon. The oral surgeon takes a pretty intense x-ray of my mouth and says that my dentist did everything right and the crazy strong antibiotics should eventually make the swelling go down. But then he starts asking me if I have trouble breathing out the right side of my nose and proceeds to tell me that it appears I have a large mass filling up my entire right nasal cavity. He was guessing it was just maybe a really large nasal polyp but told me I should probably get it checked out. 

So, then a couple of weeks later (once my face was back to a normal size), I went to see an ENT. He stuck a camera up my nose and showed me what it looked like. My first reaction was that this mass looked like what I thought part of your brain would look like. It looked kind of squishy and slimy and purplish and okay, I'll stop with the description. However, even after looking at it, he wasn't sure what it was, so he sent me down the hallway to get a CAT scan (those things are crazy expensive by the way). When my doctor came back from looking at the scan, he told me he wasn't sure it was a nasal polyp and it actually kind of looked like it might be connected to my brain just because of how high it extended. Unfortunately, the CAT scan wasn't detailed enough, so he sent me to get a brain MRI.

Me in my stylish hospital gown

At this point in life (about mid-December now), I start being all dramatic and since I hadn't told anyone else around here, poor Amy had to listen to me constantly talk about it. She kept trying to be reassuring by saying it's probably nothing - just a nasal polyp or enflamed tissue or something else inconsequential while I'm over here being like it's probably cancer and I'm going to die. Amy, I do apologize for being overly dramatic, but at this point, it was actually a possibility. It seems that the more research I did, the more convinced I became that it was a tumor, so maybe it's not always a good idea to research your own medical conditions…

In the meantime while I'm still having my freak out, I ended up having the MRI (my first!) which in and of itself was uneventful. I got to wear a super cool hospital gown and I was glad they only put me halfway into the machine since sometimes I am prone to being claustrophobic. The machine kind of sounded like I was being abducted by aliens and it took forever and a day (really, it was just an hour), but it was fine. They ran a bunch of rounds of images and then injected me with some contrast solution and then ran a bunch more.

My very official pre-op board

The eventful part of the MRI was actually getting to the appointment. It was at 8 am and of course, the one day I actually have to be somewhere very early and on time is when my garage door decided to break (another first). So I'm in the garage at 7:30 in the morning, trying to manually open it, which was an impossible task. Amy hears me downstairs grunting and comes to help, but to no avail. I'm on the verge of a breakdown right now because I'm already a little frazzled by the whole situation and now I'm stranded in my garage at 7:30 in the morning. But Amy is excellent under stress and she thinks of our amazing and beautiful friend Wallis who I promptly called and the timing ended up working out perfectly. Wallis was just about to leave so she just picked me up on the way out and dropped me off at the hospital. I was still frazzled and still not sure what to tell people, so I don't think I even told her why she was taking me to the hospital…

Just watching some tv before the surgery

Anyway, a week later, I meet with the doctor again (it's the end of December at this point - maybe a week before Christmas just to give you some time frame) and turns out it isn't cancer. It's a nasal meningocele - yes, that's an actual thing. Extremely rare though I was unable to find any real statistics about it. And I'll try to explain it here briefly, but just know that I still don't fully understand it. Basically, this mass in my nose was actual brain tissue that had leaked through a small hole (probably a birth defect) in the membrane that is supposed to surround and keep my brain in place. He said the mass was about an inch in diameter and was probably full of spinal fluid, which is not really something you want leaking.

Me in my really cute gown and shorts

He then informed me that I needed to get surgery and basically scared me into it by saying he would be hesitant to do any kind of physical activity for the rest of his life if I didn't fix this. There's a chance that nothing would have happened with it and I could have gone on my merry way and been fine. But, there was no way of knowing how quickly this mass was filling up with spinal fluid and growing so eventually it could have gotten dangerous for that reason. And also, if the mass was somehow ever punctured or torn open or I got hit in the face or anything like that, it could very realistically lead to meningitis, which is often fatal. So, surgery it is.

All ready to go

I got the surgery done in mid-January (my first surgery!) and I think I probably should have been more nervous than I was. I was honestly more excited to say I'd had surgery than anything because I'm weird and I was extremely happy it wasn't anything more serious than it was. My wonderful mother came out for the surgery and she was an angel. I don't know what I would have done without her because the recovery was rough. I could barely walk from my bed to the couch without feeling like I was going to fall over. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The morning of the surgery, we went over and they gave me a really cute gown and shorts to wear and they stuck an IV in me and then we just waited. Every time someone would come in they would have to ask me my name and birthdate to verify who I was, which gets old real quick. And they kept asking me to verify what surgery I was getting. The name of my surgery was something like "endoscopic removal of meningocele right side and repair of defect" so trying to spit that out every time was a beast.

Sleeping right after the surgery

Eventually they rolled me into a room where I met the anesthesiologist and he explained to me what was going to happen - how he would give me a little bit right now to relax me and then when I went into the operating room, he would knock me out completely. After I was asleep, they would stick an oxygen tube down my throat (gross) but they would remove it again before I woke up a few hours later. After that conversation, I honestly remember very little. Whatever he gave me at that time didn't knock me out, but it kind of felt like laughing gas and I kept almost forgetting that I was conscious. They gave me a magazine to look at while I waited and I think I just stared at the same page the whole time. Eventually, some guy rolled me into the operating room, and I remember them telling me to move myself over to the operating table, which I did and everything after that is gone. I must have been out so fast.

Next thing I remember, I'm waking up and I had an oxygen mask over my face, but for some reason, when I started coming to, I thought I was suffocating. I kept trying to pull the oxygen mask off my face because in my loopy mind, that would help me get oxygen. Someone ended up coming over and asking me some questions which I don't remember, but when I tried to respond, I became very aware that my throat was super swollen and it felt like it was on fire. I literally couldn't get words out because it hurt so badly - I kept trying to talk and all that would come out was some weird grunt sound like I was a caveman. That must have been from the oxygen tube being down my throat I'm guessing. Eventually I somehow got the single word 'water' out in at least a semi-understandable fashion and someone came over and starting spoon-feeding me ice chips.

Probably an hour or so after the surgery

I think the original plan was to send me home in a couple of hours, but I think I was not coming out of the anesthesia as well as they had hoped and I was bleeding more than expected so I was there for a lot longer than that. I had this thing that basically held gauze underneath my nose like a mustache and I was soaking it completely through with blood every 20 minutes. Eventually they did release me and they gave me lots of drugs - the antibiotic was the biggest pill I've ever seen (my mom cut it half for me because I'm a baby). And as a pleasant surprise, Cosmo the Cougar happened to be leaving the hospital right as they were wheeling me out. He held the door open for us and then as I got in the car, he gave me a silent cheer in the usual Cosmo fashion. I used to have a weird crush on Cosmo when I was a freshman (in my defense, he is a very attractive mascot), and when I told Amy this happened, she thought I had hallucinated the whole thing. Luckily my mother was able to back me up. He really was there!

Not cute but I needed a
good bleeding picture

The first night was…rough. I think my poor mother slept even less than I did and I'm not sure I slept more than an hour if that. She was constantly changing my gauze because I was still bleeding through it at rapid pace and refilling my water because I was guzzling it down (my throat still hurt so badly). Also, I should note that when I had left the hospital, my stomach hurt a lot and it was crazy bloated. I had just assumed it was because I had put so much liquid into my body between how much I had drank and the fluids they were pumping me with. But I found out this first night that wasn't what it was. Turns out it was completely full of blood and my body decided to throw it all up this first night. Apparently I had swallowed a bunch during or after the procedure and it had all just been sitting in my stomach this whole time, and I guess your stomach doesn't digest blood very well (I warned you it might get gross). But yes, I threw up straight blood and there was so much of it - no wonder my stomach hurt so badly. And my darling mother would just send me straight back to bed every time while she cleaned it up from everywhere. Luckily, that was only an occurrence throughout the first night and something I'd rather not experience again.

My mess of drugs and other medical supplies

The next few days were uneventful. Still didn't sleep much as I couldn't breathe and my face felt like I had gotten kicked by a horse but other than that, I was pretty much fine. And then Saturday comes (the surgery had been on Tuesday). By this point, the bleeding had finally stopped and I spent my first night without gauze strapped under my nose. But almost the second after I woke up on Saturday, I somehow triggered something and all of a sudden, my nose was gushing blood again. Most of it was running down the back of my throat and I was trying desperately to spit it out because I didn't want another instance of throwing up blood later) but there was so much of it. I was practically choking on it at times. I basically sat over the toilet and just let the blood spill out. My bathroom was starting to look like a murder scene. And so here I was like this for literally 2 hours (and that's the correct use of literally by the way). And then on top of this bleeding, I started to feel extremely light headed and dizzy. I could hardly stand up and that's when I decided to go to the ER. 

Just got to the ER

We drive down there, but then right as we pull up, I can tell the bleeding is starting to die down. Figures. After 2 1/2 hours, it stops when we get to the ER. But at that point we were there, so I went inside. The guy took some basic heart rate and blood pressure tests and asked me if I was nervous because apparently my heart rate was crazy high. And he also asked me if I was normally this pale (granted I am a pale person but I think 3 people asked me that while I was there). They took me to a room and hooked me up to an IV and by now the bleeding had basically stopped. The nurse pulled out a huge blood clot from my nose though it definitely broke off and the other half was still way back in there. They took some blood samples, and then they wanted to check my heart rate and blood pressure while laying down, sitting up, and standing up. The standing up one was difficult because by this point, I was so beyond dizzy. The guy doing the tests basically had to hold me up.

More ER - I'm not super loving life at this moment.

An ENT who was on call came and looked at me. It was a very unusual surgery and since this doctor hadn't been involved, he was hesitant to really do anything too crazy. There was a ton of packing and gauze up my nose to help control bleeding and he didn't want to mess with that at all. So he looked up my nose and cleaned out the blood. He stuck this suctioning thing in my throat and after several attempts and me gagging like crazy, he finally pulled out this humongous blood clot - I practically starting gagging again at the sight of it. The nurse standing there goes 'how could you even breathe with that thing?'. So if nothing else, going to the ER was worth getting that out because yeah, I couldn't really breathe.

Then my head nurse came back in and told me that the reason I was on the verge of passing out and was so pale and my heart rate was at 170, was because I was on the verge of being dangerously anemic. She said that prior to the surgery, my red blood cell count had been 14 and now it was at a 9, so it had dropped by over a third in 5 days. And from what I understand (I could be making this up), they'll typically do blood transfusions for levels below a 9. The way the nurse was talking, they probably would have done one if I was still currently bleeding but since I had stopped, they figured I was now stable. She told me to start taking iron supplements to replenish all the blood I had lost and eventually they sent me home.

Flowers from friends

And since then I've been good. It took about 2 weeks before I could walk up the stairs in my apartment without having to then lie down in bed for 5 minutes just to catch my breath. It was pretty embarrassing but also not really my fault. Doing pretty much anything would leave me panting like a dog. Even now, almost 5 weeks later, small things still make me crazy exhausted. My doctor did finally give me the go ahead to start exercising a little bit and after 4 weeks, he cleared out the packing in my nose so I can breathe normally again! Also, I had been told prior to surgery that I would lose the sense of smell in the right side of my nose but I didn't! My nose still feels like it's broken when I touch it and I'm still apparently really swollen up near my brain, but he says I'm healing well. Still not done with doctor's appointments, but I'm hoping the next one will be my last.

I've Never Donated Blood

I realize this is something that I probably should have done by now.  I don't love needles (but I mean, does anybody love needles?), but I'm not terrified of them either.  I've had my blood taken before and I get the flu shot every year like a responsible citizen.  But despite the millions of blood drives that have gone on around me, I've never signed up. 

I'm so excited!...Also, I'm pretty sure Amy
made fun of me for this picture.

So Amy, being the lovely friend that she is, went with me to give blood for my first time.  I filled out their questionnaire (which has all kinds of weird questions), and I passed with flying colors. They also did the finger prick which daaang that hurts, and long story short, I was cleared to give blood.

And here's where it turned into an unpleasant experience. 

The nurse couldn't get the needle inside of my vein.  She could see the vein but every time she tried to push the needle inside, instead of going in, it would just push the vein out of the way.  So then this other nurse noticed what was happening and he came over to try and had the same problem. He told me I had 'wiggly' veins.  They never actually took the needle out of my arm; they just sat there for what seemed like forever twisting it around inside of my arm.  I couldn't watch because it was making me queasy, not that I needed to though since I could feel everything they were doing. It didn't necessary hurt but definitely wasn't pleasant either. I was really close to just telling them to take it out and let me leave because it was starting to make me anxious. But then they finally figured it out and whoolah! blood started flowing.

Finally got the needle
in and now life is good.

Everything went just peachy for probably the first 3 quarters of the actual donation part.  But then, very suddenly, I looked up and the entire world around me seemed to be spinning. And then I could feel my consciousness waning and I panicked because I really did not want to pass out. I glanced around but neither of my nurses were anywhere in sight so I called out to the girl across the room and said, surprisingly calm, "I think I'm about to pass out". I think I told her just in time because by the time she came over, I was basically hyperventilating. 

The nurse laid me all the way back and put wet rags on my head and chest because I was burning up like crazy.  Then she made me alternate putting each of my legs in the air and had me repeatedly cough -- apparently that helps with the whole breathing thing?  She obviously didn't realize that I did not have enough mind power left to accomplish both of those things at the same time and she kept getting onto me for stopping one of them.  It seemed to take every ounce of willpower just to maintain consciousness -- how was I supposed to focus on two other tasks as well?

Look how happy I am
that I almost passed out.

One thing that I did think was a little weird since I've never really heard other people talk about having this experience, but practically my entire body went kind of numb.  It started in my fingers and toes but then it spread through my entire arms and legs.  Everything was that horrible tingly sensation but a million times worse than I had ever had it before. Maybe most people who get to that point have passed out by then? 

I don't think I had entirely rational thoughts during the last few minutes. I mean, mostly I was telling myself over and over not to pass out, but I do also recall at one point thinking "So this is what death by vampire feels like." Yep. A little weird and dramatic but probably accurate. 

You should all be happy to know that I finished without passing out, though (go me!).  And, overall, I am very happy that I donated. My blood was sent to Camden, New Jersey where I probably saved some lives.  However, given the circumstances, it will most likely be a while before I attempt that again.   

I've Never Ridden in a Hot Air Balloon

A couple of weekends ago, I went to visit my friend, Kristina, in Ohio.  Kristina and I were besties way back in high school, but haven't lived in the same state since then.  It's really quite a remarkable feat that we are still friends, but I suppose there's a certain level of bonding that happens when you live together during your most awkward of years (aka high school). 

So, Kristina was very devoted to making sure we did things that I could add to this blog, which led to 4 jam-packed days.  Not everything we did was new – like the escape room (though in this one, we were literally handcuffed together and dressed in orange jumpsuits) and the whole belting the entire Wicked soundtrack as off-key as we could manage (sorry to everyone else in that car). 

And while I will someday (hopefully) get around to blogging about our other adventures, the first epic experience we did in Cleveland was hot air ballooning!  This has been on my bucket list for a long time, and while it was very expensive, I think we got a relatively good deal on it. 

We ended up meeting the people running the show at a high school and then hopped in their car to go find an open field to take off in.  When we got to the open field, they then started to put it together with the aid of a couple of the guys there with us for the ride.  They had the balloon bundled up inside the back of a truck and so they started pulling it out and it just kept going and going and going.  I knew the balloon had to be big but daaang.  It was twice as long as I had expected it to be. 

They connected it to the basket which was turned on its side and then started filling the balloon up with air.  This took a little while and finally they had it inflated and facing the right direction, at which point we basically just jumped in the basket.  The hot air is what then makes the balloon actually rise, so our pilot (I'm not sure what else to call him) started lighting the flame above us and we took off very smoothly.  I was surprised how quickly we rose and traveled away from where we had started. In a matter of seconds, the rest of the balloon crew were tiny little ants. 

Overall, the balloon ride was very peaceful and relaxing.  However, the flame did get rather annoying by the end of it. It's not really that far above your head and so when the flame is lit, it's REALLY hot. A couple of times I happened to be looking up when it was lit and my eyes would be in instant pain! But even if you're looking down, your scalp starts to feel like it's on fire if the flame is on long enough.  It's never really lit for more than a few seconds at a time so it's bearable but still…I can't say a burning sensation is ever a pleasant feeling.  Additionally, the flame is pretty loud. The combination of the sporadic heat and noise was giving me a headache by the end of the ride.

Being up in the balloon was definitely a unique experience. For me at least, it didn't invoke any kind of fear.  You know how sometimes when you're looking over the edge of a cliff, you get this weird tingly feeling shooting through your body that's like "Alert! Alert! You can die!"  (or maybe that's just me), but in any case, I never got that.  There was absolutely nothing scary about being in the sky inside a basket. Occasionally when I would stare down at the ground for a long time, I would start to feel a little dizzy from the viewpoint of looking straight down but that was really it.  The weather was absolutely perfect though, and we saw some really beautiful views.  It was cool seeing our reflection in lakes and our shadow across trees. We also saw some wildlife and being up so high, we could hear things below really well.  There were a few times where we heard dogs barking or children yelling but I couldn't see them.

We ended up landing in a muddy field with a TON of bugs which was super gross.  The landing was kind of cool though. We touched down and then bounced up a few feet and came down again and repeated a couple of times until we finally came to a complete stop. 

After everything was packed up (bugs included), we then had drinks where we toasted to life (don't worry mom, I just had sparkling cider). Apparently this is a tradition that everyone does after hot air balloon rides.  Long story short, the first ever guys to try out a hot air balloon ride were mistaken for aliens when they crash landed in some farmer's field.  So for the second time, they took up bottles of champagne with them so that when they came down, they could prove they were from this world.  I love how alcohol is apparently the symbol of Earth.

I've Never Gone to a Las Vegas Bachelorette Party

A good friend, and former roommate, of mine is getting married.

And girl. Loves. Vegas.

When I lived with her, she would go to Las Vegas frequently and as much as she and her sister tried to convince me to come along, I never did. Although they acted disappointed at the time, I’m going to venture a guess that after the weekend I finally spent with them they are retroactively grateful for my multiple declined invitations.

Her bachelorette party was a weekend in Vegas and this was one invite I couldn’t turn down. I had RSVP’d in the affirmative months before the set date but as it loomed nearer I started to have second thoughts. It was the weekend after we returned from our month long excursion in Europe, the only other girl I knew had backed out, and I was really tired. But because offending people is one of my biggest fears, I sucked it up and made the solo drive right after work on a Friday afternoon.

A giant mansion (80s themed… or maybe just really behind on interior updates) was rented and 20 girls slowly filled its rooms. I spent most of Friday afternoon and evening lounging at the private pool and thinking to myself, “this is awesome.” Why, I wondered to myself, had I even questioned this? A pool? Palm trees? A grumpy old man neighbor who hated us? It was perfect.

That night we did some fun, bachelorette-centered games that were adorable and very well executed. We got to know the bride and the groom a little bit, made some inappropriate jokes, and “oohed” and “awed” at all things wedding. Then we ate food and gabbed (because one doesn’t talk at a bachelorette party, one gabs) until we all agreed that it was late and we went to bed.

So far, this is wonderful.

Saturday happened, though, and kicked me so far out of my comfort zone that I needed to drive 4.5 hours back to Provo to find it again. The day started as lovely as the last had ended. I woke up before most, got myself situated at the pool with a good book, and immediately burned to a crisp: my regular summer routine. Girls trickled out of their rooms, some went shopping, others ate, napped, swam, etc. It was a beautiful, low-key morning. Then our first appointment came around:

POLE DANCING

To be fair, I had originally decided not to participate in the group pole dancing class. I had knee surgery last year and I wasn’t sure it would be good for me. At least that’s the excuse I gave when not signing up for it. The real reason, of course, being that I’m horribly awkward and uncomfortable with overt displays of sexuality.

When the time came, enough other girls had bailed on the whole weekend that there was an open spot and I was the only one not going. So, yes, I was peer-pressured into it. And I thought it would be a memorable blog post.

There’s not really too much I can say about it except that I was terrible. And that I was right to fake worry about my knee. In fact, I should have real-life worried about my knee because the poor little thing took a beating. Who knew there was so much crawling involved in sexual objectification? (Probably literally every other person in the world).

It was a sexy dance class with poles. We learned a routine and took turns performing it for the other half of the group. The varying degrees of ability were hilarious, ranging from me as a floundering beached whale to “break this $20 into singles, please!”-level talent. I’m not entirely convinced that every girl there was a novice.

We were also taught how to give a lap dance but I just spent most of that 20 minutes in the fetal position on the floor laughing. Let’s just quickly move onto the next item on the agenda:

FANCY CLOTHES AND DINNER

Self-explanatory.

The next activity was one I did not participate in:

THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER

I drove a large portion of the party there but then I opted to return to the house instead of pay a ton of money for a strip show. Call me crazy, but I much preferred sitting alone at the side of the pool, listening to sad, emotional music, staring at the three stars that were brighter than the nearby light pollution, and planning overly cheesy romantic encounters with celebrities in my head. Admittedly, this was probably my favorite part about the weekend. I think I’m a closet introvert.

LIMO RIDE

An hour later, I joined the rest of the party for a limo ride up and down the strip. I was very much looking forward to this since I’ve never been in a limo. Unfortunately, I have still never been in a limo. Somehow the hot pink limo that was ordered was changed to a party bus. I do not think mine was the only disappointed face. We all rallied, though, and made the most of it. And by “the most of it” I mean I was car sick the entire time, they played club-like music that didn’t help the pounding headache and, oh my, alcohol smells like what I imagine Voldemort to smell like, which is to say terrible. There was also a lot of dancing (which has already been established as definitely NOT one of my talents) with strangers (who I hate). I think everyone else enjoyed it so that’s good.

DANCING

The final item on the schedule was to go clubbing. Now, mind you, it’s past 1am at this point. I’m old and tired and grumpy and sick and there’s no way I’m going dancing. Turns out I was not the only one who felt this way. I loaded up a few girls in my car (whose intoxication level is still undetermined) and we slowly made our way back to the house (slowed down by shiny slot machines, cat-calling men, and insane traffic). We got there and I made sure to park as close to the front gate as possible, already planning for my escape the next morning.

And my escape was swift. In the bright light of morning, however, my discomfort from the night before seemed laughable and I was actually sad to see the weekend end. I said my goodbyes to the lovely bride, her amazing sister, and the few girls who were starting to stir that early on a Sunday. I grabbed my adorable gift basket (with more phallic-shaped items then I knew existed) and headed home.

Although I sound like a huge grump, this was actually one of the most extravagant, well-planned, and fun weekends of my life. I’m not a Vegas person. I don’t think anyone who has met me would pretend to think so. But for one fun weekend I got to see how other people relax, blow off steam, have fun and build confidence.

It was a chance to learn, again, how unique and wonderful people can be. And how much I hate Vegas. J

I've Never Backpacked Through Europe

As most of you probably know (since Amy and I basically talked about the trip nonstop before we left), we went on a month-long extravaganza through western Europe.  We didn’t do the whole hostel thing, so maybe it wasn’t the true backpacking experience, but we did literally only take a single backpack of luggage. 

There were definitely good and bad things about the whole backpacking trip setup.

Amy and I all ready to start our trip.

First off, we learned fairly quickly that even with the limited space, we still took way too much stuff and I think we each threw out some of our luggage before the end of the trip.  Having to carry that backpack to and from where we were staying was THE worst part for me (just ask Amy).  Also, the first cities were unbearably hot and then London and Dublin were rainy and cold, which makes the whole clothing thing difficult.  Also, laundry.  We tried to do laundry in Florence and thought we were clever buying laundry soap at a grocery store so it’d be cheaper. Turns out it was fabric softener but we didn’t know when we bought it since it was all in Italian! 

Amy at the Trinity College library

We used public transportation to get everywhere.  So many planes and trains and buses.  I think we were a little public transportationed out by the end of the trip.  If you ever want to get us riled up, just mention the bus we took in Venice. I have never been on anything so crowded before. We weren’t sure if we were even going to fit on the bus when we first got on, and then a couple of stops after we got on, another 20 people (at least) got on the bus. They just kept coming and coming and all of a sudden I discovered that I do apparently suffer from claustrophobia.   Also, people who use public transportation really need to work on the whole deodorant thing.  Yeah, it was gross.

We also used Airbnb for the first time on this trip.  Our place in London was amazing! The place had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and everything we could possibly need, including guidebooks and maps. We were so grateful to not have to share a room for those few nights (we were a little sick of each other by that point).  Our host was so cute and he made us homemade bread and he also bought us fruit and other breakfast food.  He was so helpful with directions and even printed our plane tickets to Ireland for us. 

Amy and I eating Gelato

The place in Dublin was a different story though. We had reserved the place a month or so before our trip with this guy and a few days before we were supposed to arrive in Dublin, we tried emailing him about getting the keys.  But he never responded after multiple attempts.  We landed in Ireland in the late evening and still hadn’t heard anything from him.  So we found a pay phone, and after getting very frustrated and having to ask someone how to work it (how were we supposed to know to dial a 0 first?), we finally called him and…he didn’t answer.  We ended up just taking our chances since we didn’t really have much choice at that point (it was pretty late), and caught a bus to the apartment. When we got there, Amy ended up finding the keys underneath a rock, so we helped ourselves in and ended up staying the 3 nights, the whole time feeling a little bit like we had broken in...We were half expecting him to show up unexpectedly one day because he forgot we were there.  We never did hear from the guy – Amy thinks maybe he died which is a little morbid. It was very strange, though, and for a couple of hours there, we really thought we might be sleeping on the street that first night.

Me at Notre Dame

Overall, though, the trip was so amazing! We stayed in 7 cities: Barcelona, Rome, Venice, Florence, Paris, London, and Dublin.  And we got to see so many things.  5 different countries in the course of a few weeks definitely keeps you busy.  We saw La Sagrada Familia, the Colosseum, the city of Pompeii, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Harry Potter studio (so awesome!), a play at the Globe theater, Stonehenge, and got to kiss the Blarney stone (in the pouring rain I might add) just to name a few of my favorites.  My least favorite? Definitely Buckingham palace. I still get angry thinking about how long we stood waiting to see the changing of the guard when turns out you can't see anything anyway! And if you want to get Amy angry, just ask her about the Trevi fountain being closed for construction. :) 

Amy and I in London

We also got to meet a ton of people.  We met a crazy lady in Barcelona who repeatedly told us how cold some pastries were (“Frío frío frío!”), a waiter in Florence who was totally in love with us, a store owner who gave us free keychains in Paris, a driver in Ireland who repeatedly told us the rain was "RELENTLESS!" (now one of our favorite phrases), and some crazy drunk Australians who we had dinner with.  We also ran into some LDS missionaries in Ireland who gave us directions, which was fun.

London and Dublin were definitely our favorites.  Maybe it was just the cool accents and the fact that we could actually communicate with the people there but I loved them.  I guess the beautiful, green rolling hills scattered with sheep didn’t hurt either.  Ugh. I already want to go back.

I've Never Eaten Snails

While we were in France, we ate a lot of super delicious food and we ate some things that most would not consider food. One of those things was escargot. Dictionary.com defines it as “an edible snail.” UrbanDictionary.com defines it as “the snail body that comes out of a snail shell- looks like snot (a nose booger).” And Desiree defines it as, “oh, gross.”

My Escargot from Paris

I, however, am a better person than UrbanDictionary.com and Desiree so I ordered it and ate it.

All of it.

Every single last, slimy, booger-like snail body that I had to rip out of its shell with my bare hands (I was given special torture-like tools meant to assist me but I couldn’t keep the shells from flying off the table to I resorted to my hands, like a savage).

Conclusion? It was actually pretty good. Maybe not my new favorite food, that spot still belongs to Nutella and peanut butter, but definitely something I will order in the future.

Oh, and here’s a video of me eating them. It’s a pretty anticlimactic video but so was my experience eating them.