So you can say that life has been less than kind to me.  As a person, I just love to laugh and make lots of sarcastic comments and jokes.  On the surface, my troubles seem to be rather shallow.  But there are only very few people who really know the truth behind my eyes.  It is more than just money problems, it's more than having a job that I hate ( and who doesn't hate their jobs?  I know I'm not alone in this.)

For the past couple of years I have kept it mostly to myself.  With the exception of a very few close to me, no one really knows the troubles on my mind.  So here it is... I will not be able to have a baby without medical help.  I don't share this information with just anyone, but I think in order for me to get over the issue and deal with it, I MUST talk about it.  And since there are already tears streaming down my face as I type this, I think it is the best thing that I just let it all out here. 

It has been a very emotional subject for me.  I have tried for so long to not let anyone see how painful it is when people ask me when my boyfriend and I would have children.  I know that they have no idea about my situation, but it doesn't make it hurt any less.

I see my nephews and think how privileged I am to have them in my life and because of them my whole view on family has changed.  I started wanting all of that for myself, a husband, a house, babies, the whole picket fenced dream.  So a couple of years ago I realized just how hard it would be to have babies if I hadn't had my period since I was in my early twenties and here I was 27 (at the time).  I never thought about it till that moment when I decided that I wanted to have a family of my own.  How could you have kids if you don't have a period?  The emotions started running over time, the whole subject made me so petrified.  To think after all these years of being so painfully shy because I was so worried that I was anything less than normal that it was true.  I had never felt less of a woman than that time.  It was just not a good time in my life.  I cried, often - behind closed doors.

My long time boyfriend has been so good to me.  He's so supportive, and am so lucky to have such a good person in my life.  He has encouraged me to get checked out and see what hurdles we have to jump in order to make this family begin.  I couldn't thank him enough for holding my hand through all this because I don't know how I could manage to do this with anyone else.  I had no idea how he would react in the situation.  It took all I had not to completely break down when I finally told him what was going on.

Two years ago I went to see this wonderful doctor that told me that I likely have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which means without medical intervention, the likleyhood of us conceving a child would be slim to none.  For some insane reason I never got checked out then.  But this time around I spoke with my doctor and within a matter of 30 minutes I have myself an appointment next month with someone who can help us make this dream come true.  It is a healthy first few steps for me because I've been so guarded for so long.  I can't wait to see what my half Laotian, white-hispanic babies will look like.

This passing weekend was Lao New Year weekend.  There is an annual celebration at our local temple in Royse City. TX.  I helped my sister and my brother's girlfriend with their booth.  They sold snacks and novelty fun items like water guns, shaving cream, sparklers, and other glow in the dark type items.  I mostly just drove stuff there and packed stuff for them and tried really hard to stay out of the way.  Here's the two days in pictures.

Saturday, the 18th was really humid because it had rained most of the day on Friday and up until noon the next day.


Danny after playing in the annual touch football tournament.


My cousin's shoes.


My brother's crusty legs.


Some guys pushing a truck out of the mud.














There's a pageant every year also.


Sunday was about 10 degrees cooler & not humid at all.



 








  
 There was a parade.




Complete with Motorcyclists.

And this party animal.


All in all, it was a good time.

We just returned from a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico today and running on adrenaline fumes.  We've been up since 3:15am MST.  We had to get up extra early because the nearest airport was in Albuquerque, which was about an hour away, & our flight was at 6am.  We got to the airport, thinking that we had made pretty good timing, but there was a really long line for security checks before getting to the actual gate.  The lines didn't actually take that long, just seemed long by the volume of people that were there. 

We must go back to Santa Fe again, I loved it there.  We discovered an art gallery that we could have probably spent all day in.  If only we had $$$$.  This is the link to them:  http://popsantafe.com/

It was very artsy down there, which was totally unexpected.  It's just strange when you come from a place like Dallas-Ft. Worth where money is everything.  Anyhow, the trip altogether was a good one, it went by too quickly in my opinion.  There was so much that we did not get to do.  We discovered all this great stuff we could have done, but it was a little too late, we had plans.



This was our crap-tastic rental car, the H3.  It had really fantastic features like XM radio & I forget what else.  But the car itself had problems.  I don't know what happened to it before we got it as a rental, but the thing had trouble accelerating, reversing, going past 60 at times, & making turns.  At one point, I realized that I was no longer accelerating even though my foot was firmly on the gas (we were on the highway).  Later on that day, we got beat by a KIA going up an incline.  We traded this POS in the next morning for a really dirty (they didn't have time to clean it because we had caught them off guard) Chevy Trailblazer that knew how to be a car.



The bell at San Miguel Mission.



This is the San Miguel Mission - the oldest church in the United States or the world - can't remember which one today.  Anyhow, all the buildings in Santa Fe look very similar to this.  Same color, same basic shape - even the stores and restuarants.  So looking for a particular store, like say, ALBERTSON'S was a little taxing.  In other words, I had to use my reading skills.  Blaggh.






Usually, I don't get to see cool rock formations like this around Dallas, so it was a treat.  In the area where we are from, there is concrete, highways and flat lands as far as the eyes can see.  The mountains, plateaus, etc were a really beautiful sight.