Hello Again :)

Do I really have to work today?

I would much rather be cleaning this house. Did I just write that I'd rather be cleaning? That is right- since we are taking down the tree early in preparation for our wood stove installation next Monday, I have been inspired to do some decluttering around here. Don't tell anyone that last year's Christmas cards were still in the basket on our island until yesterday afternoon....

We had a nice Christmas with Mr. A's family! It was very low key, and we didn't get to the family movie that his mom wanted to go to, but we all played Tri.vial Pursuit together which was way more fun/interactive and way less expensive!!!! (Mr. A and I would have chosen to play the game over going to the movie any day...) Banana did well at their place, but she is glad to be home. I feel like everyone was so generous and thoughtful with their gift choices this year! It was alot of fun to see everyone open the gifts we'd chosen for them.

I am really trying to take a mental break from trying this cycle. So I am happy to say that I didn't really find myself getting teary-eyed because we didn't have a newborn this year at Christmas. Although I would have loved to tell everyone we were pregnant, it didn't ruin my Christmas to have no news to share on that front. I'm just trying to take this cycle one day at a time instead of scheduling and calculating and projecting and extrapolating and all those ttc mind games. It gets old after a while.

All of that being said, I brought two library books with me to read (which are now, um, overdue...). One was clearly about having hope (from the back cover blurb), and it was pretty predictable and somewhat cheesy with how everything comes together in the end. But uplifting nonetheless. The other was just a random book that caught my eye. How does that random book end up dealing with a character who gets dumped by her husband, she moves to another country, then you find out she was infertile (but her ex had gotten someone else pregnant), and then the romantic foreign guy that helps her find an apartment and then they start dating and doing you-know-what-else (like twice), and then she ends up pregnant....

How many other books were on that shelf when I went looking for something to read? How many other explanations could the author have come up with to try to explain in the least the background for the character's broken marriage?

As I've said before, I have alot of trouble with discerning what God might be saying. I have alot of faith and trust and I really love to pray for others, but if you ask me how much cereal God thinks I should have for breakfast, I would still be standing in the kitchen 4 hours later going back and forth and wondering if I'm thinking 1.5 cups or if that is really God's will for my cereal or.... And as much as I doubt alot of what others might take as a die hard communique from the heavens, I would like to think that God places things in our lives to give us encouragement or a nudge in one direction or another.

SO. I've found myself praying "What am I supposed to be gleaning from this?". I mean, if you believe that God has a plan for your life and that He uses each thing in your life for something (which I do), these fictional books are not inconsequential. They are on my desk for some reason. I have found myself not wanting to ask "Why" because to me that seems a little like a dead end question. I feel like if I am praying to seek what I'm supposed to be learning/hearing, that is a little more fruitful prayer for action in my life.

And on that note, I have sort of decided that I should not doubt what God might be saying to me. I do not doubt that I'll see His hand in the creation of our family or that He loves me, but when I see a cute little bird that makes me smile, I doubt whether God really used that bird to lighten my heart or whether the bird just happened to be outside my window and I just happened to see it. Isn't that crazy that I have no problem believing the big miracle kind of stuff, but the little, every day participation of God in my life seems a bit far fetched. As if our big God is too big for small things, too. (Not!)

So when Mr. A proclaims that even though we are taking a break from follistim and just using clomid, he wants to really knock this cycle up out of the park because he really thinks the progesterone fluctuation in the 2ww is the problem which the supplements will fix and then we'll be pregnant, I will reflect on that. The head of our family has strong feelings about this cycle. This cannot be insignificant! I am careful not to be sure that it for sure means we'll be pregnant this cycle, but I think that it's a good indication that maintaining good progesterone levels might very well be the culprit (Hey, maybe I am discerning something!) and this cycle will definitely show improvement from the supplements.

Do you have trouble believing in the little things that "randomly" come into your life? I do because I have tried to believe in them before, perhaps too literally, and so I have been burned and I tend to doubt any relevance in them at all. But maybe I shouldn't totally discount them but instead really pray about what they might mean in my life- maybe a broader message or encouragement. I think if I can keep this mindset, I will be able to accept the small messages instead of rejecting them for fear of (another) broken heart.