here are the facts friends...this gorgeous gal needs just about zero introduction. 

why? trust me...you'll catch on as soon as you start reading. but here is a bit of karli bell input...in case you were wondering - 

this gal you see below? i've never met her in person, but i wish i could. i'm nearly positive she's as beautiful on the inside as she is in her photos. (she also has a bikini shot of her and her man on vay-cay at the very bottom of this post and i my jaw hit the floor in envy of her ridiculous bod.)

hey elena - no more bikini pictures. not in my wildest dreams will i ever be able to attain that.

okay...enough about my jealous streak. read on to meet your new most favorite blogger. 
Hello September FARM readers, and happy hump day!  My name is Elena and I blog over at Baby Ridley Bump.  You may or may not have seen my blog floating around in the blogosphere, either way, hello! and welcome to my September FARM takeover!  I want to take a minute to thank my gracious host Karli.  Isn’t she like THE CUTEST pregnant person ever!  Her bump is just to die for! 

 So, speaking of pregnancy, you may have noticed, and might assume because of the title of my blog that I blog about babies.  Well, that’s true, but the baby that I blog about is the baby that I’m now trying to conceive via IVF.  The original intent of my blog was to document our journey to get pregnant.  A journey we started right after we were married on 9/24/11.  I started the blog in May 2012 when I was laid up from a motorcycle accident.  I had found Little Baby Garvin while perusing Pinterest & she was my inspiration.  I thought it would be great to document my pregnancy and eventually our lives with a baby.
Well, here we are and more than 2 years have passed since I started the blog, and we are just shy of 3 years of TTC.  What the intent of my blog has now evolved into is advocacy, education, and sharing my story.  Did you know that 1 in 8 couples are infertile?  That is an astonishing number. The even more astounding thing is that infertility is rarely talked about.  It’s a serious disease suffered by both women and men. Because of this, the goal of my blog is to share every painful and personal detail about the battle that we are fighting so that we can raise awareness about infertility, the seriousness of the disease, and the highly successful treatments that are available.  
via Instagram
Unfortunately, a week ago today we found out that our first cycle of IVF failed.  We waited over 90 days to start the cycle.  We were told on April 11th that our IUI (artificial insemination) would have to be cancelled because I had developed too many eggs.  This was the 2nd IUI that was cancelled because of my response to the medication I was on to make these eggs.  We made the tough decision to move forward with IVF. I've only experienced pregnancy one time in my life and unfortunately, that ended in miscarriage.  You can read about that here in my most popular post to date.  The next step for us is called a Frozen Embryo Transfer or FET scheduled for September 4th.  We were lucky enough to have 34 eggs retrieved, 21 fertilized, and 7 that made it to a 5-day cellular stage called blastocyst.  One of those seven has already been used and was not successful, but we still have 6 frosties left & are planning to keep fighting the fight.

Although this is the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my life, I try to stay positive and optimistic. Not all of my blog is about the trials and tribulations of TTC.  You'll also see a Friday Favorites post each and every week, lots of updates on our dream home that we are currently building, pictures of my adorable pug Frank, and glimpses into the life of a young couple who love life, love each other, and are trying hard to build a family.

I love camping, our Harley, tattoos, cooking, gardening, traveling, shopping, & so many other things that you will see throughout my blog!

Hope you all enjoyed this post, and if nothing else, maybe learned a little bit about the world of infertility.  I have to urge those who might be infertile and feel as though they are alone to reach out because there is a beautiful community of  us who are trying to conceive that can big a huge support system for those in need.  Thank you again for taking the time to read this!
engagement photos taken at our lot in 2011
and our lot today, finally started building our dream home
trash the dress session
camping trip on the bike
2013 Cruise to Bermuda
my family

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so can we talk about our gal elena for a hot second? 

1 | she's gorgeous
2 | she's a wonderful blogger with a great writing voice.
3 | is it just me...or do we all want to be friends with her? i mean...i literally felt like i could invite myself over to her home and chat it up for hours.

if you feel the same, there are plenty of avenues to get yourself some more baby ridley bump. get busy...

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