I've had lots of private emails/messages and friends ask me for a link regarding what I did to get pregnant after such a long infertility period (nearly 15 years). So I decided to give IT, it's very own entry in my blog. It is a little long (like my journey) so grab a snack before you settle in.
With every great story there is a beginning. Have you seen the sign that says, "Out of every love story, I love ours best"? I would have to say that is my favorite sign. So if you are new to my story or blog it's prob best to go back and read
HERE first. It outlines how we made our family and how we got to this leg of our journey. The second part of the story involves
Shaklee. That islong a story too. I used to read a blogger by the name of Mckmama and if truth be told I had visited a site that was calling her out on some possible untruths. On this site I somehow landed on another blogger that also had adopted children and I commented on her blog. Long story short, we connected online and come to find out she lives a mile from my childhood home, went to the same church, and knew some of my old friends. WHOA!!! Is that not crazy? We became friends on facebook and one day I noticed her talking about Shaklee. She was going on and on about how great it was and how it was green, safe, non toxic, etc. At this time in my own house my poor son Ben had struggled with bad eczema and I had tried everything under the sun to help him. It was so bad that the insides of his elbows and backs of his legs had no skin left from being clawed at. We had done allergy testing. We had done creams, lotions and potions (you get the point). We had tried a pedi & dermatologist suggested diet of no dairy, no eggs, no peanuts. Let me just say that was a miserable diet...for him and for me!!! I had also switched laundry soaps to free and clear with still no relief. He was also taking two allergy medications a day, plus a steroid and a steroid cream. These medications only kept him from itching but his skin was still a hot mess. So one night I saw her post on Facebook again about how great Shaklee was. I pulled up her site and said, "I've tried everything else in the last three years so what's another $100." So I placed an order and eagerly waited for my shipment to arrive. When it arrived I kid you not it was like Christmas. I tore into that package so quickly and I cleaned every single inch of my house with
Basic H and washed everything in his closet and drawers in the
Shaklee laundry soap. My first thought was, "Wow Basic H has NO scent." I couldn't believe how well a 1/4 of a tsp into 16oz of water worked. I started reading about chemicals compounding our bodies and talking to my chemist husband about the ingredients in Shaklee (they use corn and coconut surfactants). It was then that I said it was all or nothing and threw out every single cleaner and laundry soap in the house but Shaklee. I prob threw out $200 worth of cleaners but it felt amazing!! The best part though was in the course of two weeks my son's skin was healing!! WHAT?? I had tried everything under the sun and a $12 bottle of cleaner was helping? This was in July 2012 and by August 2012 for the first time in three years my son was not on daily allergy medications and creams. Fast forward to 2014 and he only takes Zyrtec now when mountain cedar is up and that's just to keep him from sneezing.
Still with me?? I'm getting to the good part......
I was SO impressed with Shaklee that I decided that I needed to tell other people about it and I decided to become a partner with
Project Dream International. If you KNOW me in real life you know that I'm not into gimmicky things and if I put my name on it, then it's the real deal. I've never sold anything other than craft items in my life so I was defiantly stepping out of my comfort zone but I wanted to get Basic H into other homes, because I read about kids having bad eczema every single day on Facebook. Having Shaklee in my life made me realize several things. Our bodies are so compounded with chemicals daily. Our food, our water, our cleaners, our makeup, our lotions, etc. I started doing some research on some other products Shaklee sells and I came across an article explaining about the benefits of Resveratrol (which is the main component of Vivix). In this article it said that it in lab tests it had helped insulin resistant lab mice ovulate. WHOA!! Having Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome and Insulin Resistance that made me take a second look. I didn't even ovulate when I was taking Bravelle and Follistem during infertility treatments. I also took a look at
Shaklee's Vitalizer Vitamins. One thing that impressed me were the YouTube videos I found on absorption/break down of the vitamin. What good did it do to take a vitamin that was not going to breakdown properly in my stomach and I would later just eliminate (fancy word for poop, lol) without getting all the GOOD the vitamin is supposed to provide? This was so eye opening! The other thing that impressed me were all the things the Vitalizer offered in a vitamin there was no way I could eat in one given day if I tried. So what if I remove a major chemical compounds from my daily life (aka toxic cleaners), take a product that is designed to rebuild DNA as well as shown to help ovarian function (aka Vivix) and take a vitamin that is guaranteed to build the gap in my diet as well as break down as it should??? To be honest pregnancy was the furthest thing from my mind. I just wanted to be healthy for my husband and kids. The Vivix did intrique me though and I even posted it on my business facebook wall sometime around September with the link to the article. I started the Vivix and Vitalizer at the beginning of August 2012. I started my period on September 15, 2012 and on October 13, 2012 I was heading out the door to my best friends for our annual Girls Night Sleepover party. I ran to the bathroom before leaving and noticed I was spotting. So I thought great I'm starting and threw a box of Tampax in my bag just in case. Except my period never came but I didn't think two things about it. Then on Oct 27, 2012 my hubby wanted fajitas so I ran up to the Mexican market to get fajita meat. As I was getting out of the car I had this intense pain on my left side that made me stop and pause for a minute. I honestly though maybe I had a small cyst rupture or something because the pain went away when I started walking. I bought stuff for dinner and I kid you not stopped at Red Box and rented The Odd Life of Timothy Green. Not only did I cry like a baby during the beginning of this movie I got up a million times to pee during it. I was clueless as to what was going on and didn't think anything about it. The next day my SIL came over and helped me pack for my boys camping birthday party. I kept having to excuse myself to go pee while she was over. The next day, October 29, 2012, I drove Ben to school and as soon as I dropped him off I cried like a baby dropping my baby off at school. To this day I still do not know what made me buy the pregnancy test but I did and it was the shocker of a life time. My very FIRST positive pregnancy test ever. You can read more about that story
HERE. The next week I found out it was twins!! I carried my babies for 34 weeks and 1 day!! They were born May 22, 2013 and my life will never ever be the same again. My journey to happy had another beautiful story attached to it! I believe with all my heart that God lead me to find my blogger friend Melissa, she led me to Shaklee and Shaklee led me to my Shaklee Twins (lol!! :)
A picture is worth a thousands words...
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Brennen and Barrett March 2014 |
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Barrett & Brennen February 2014 |
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Barrett |
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Brennen |
I know everyone has a story to tell and road to travel but I hope my story gives you HOPE if you have lost it. I hope my story helps you down your very own road and I also hope if you haven't given Shaklee a chance that you will try it! Not only has it changed my son's life for better but it's changed mine in more ways than just my twins. I get to help families every day get healthier!! I would LOVE to help you! So if you have any questions feel free to write me!!!
Here are the links to the products if you would like to look at them!
Vivix
Vitalizer
Basic H
Laundry Soap