Crazy Birth Control!

I recently stopped my birth control. We are really excited about starting a family soon (we plan on starting to try in May), but the main reason I took it out so soon was because of the side effects I was having! I have been on Nuvaring for around 5 years or so. I can't remember exactly when I started, but it has been a long time. In April of this year my lower back started to hurt. It wasn't horrible, but it was enough to make me uncomfortable. I had thought it was my workout class, Body Pump. I kept going to the class and thought it would just heal itself, but it never did. Finally I stopped going to the class and went to the doctor who told me that I had just strained my back really bad. He gave me vicodin and sent me on my way. After another couple months of now intense pain I went back and was ordered to get x-rays done. Nothing showed up and I was ordered to try Physical Therapy. At this point I am in so much pain I was in tears at work from sitting. Oh, I also tried a chiropracter before the second visit back to the doctor - and nothing. I went to physical therapy for two weeks (a total of 6 times) and it did nothing. She had told me that I should start feeling better after two weeks, but it felt the same. I was starting to feel like nothing was going to work. She had told me that she thought it might be a disk problem and the only way to find out was with a cat scan. My insurance here isn't that great and it would have cost me $2500 min. out of pocket! AH! Who has that kind of money laying around? I knew if things didn't change I would have to suck it up. Since we want to try to get pregnant soon, having lower back problems would make things horrible.

One day I decided to do some research on how long it took some girls getting off of the Nuvaring to get pregnant. I came across a forum of women talking about their experience with the Nuvaring and how many of them had back problems! I about fell out of my chair. I couldn't believe it. Some of the women's experience were almost identical to mine. So, I talked to Alex that night and told him what I had thought. I printed out tons of stuff in case he didn't believe me - haha! I was thinking he would think it was a ploy to get pregnant sooner. Of course he told me to take it out because my health comes first. I waited till that Sunday when I was supposed to take it out anyways, and guess what!? Two weeks later I have no back pain. It started to feel better after only 5 days with it out which was insane. Today I feel great. There is some occasional pain, but NOTHING like it was. I went back to Body Pump (the best class ever!) and besides not being able to walk from my muscles being so damn sore...I am fine! I can't tell you how exciting this is!

So ready for the weekend!!

I am SO happy it is Friday! It was a really fast week though. We were really busy! I am ready to sleep in tomorrow!

Wedding planning is getting better. I am taking a new approach at everything and am not stressing, and it seems to be working out pretty well. I realize that everything will work out and come together. We booked our flights! That was reallllly exciting. I am working on the invites, which is turning out to be a little more difficult that usual. We hope to have the order placed by Monday though.

We got our new couch! This isn't the best picture, but you get the idea. We are going this weekend to find curtains to put up on all the windows, which should really help the room out a lot.

I hate the wall color, but we are just going to deal with it. I think with window treatments it will look a lot better.

Alex and I are off to have our "date night," more later....