CD1- might as well get to the point

I need to get out of the habit of only posting once a new cycle starts.  Oh well, at least you can be sure you'll hear from me once a month!  Hahaha ;-)

I actually started bleeding yesterday afternoon but for the sake of CD1-ing, I'm starting today.  Ever since I've gone to acupuncture (although I haven't been since just before Christmas) and doing yoga, I haven't had any cramps with my period, so it's not a physical issue really, it is just still the emotional disappointment.  I couldn't even remember if we had good timing this time, but it is just such a BUMMER when even infertile people sometimes have no problems conceiving #2.  I have tried to have a good day- I took the nanny and M out to lunch, and I have taken alot of gentle, deep breaths when it seems like I'm holding back tears.

By the grace of God, however, we do have M, and I joined a moms class at church several weeks ago (it is not an aimless "group"- we actually have a book and it's more about self-reflection and how that relates to motherhood).  The second week, they asked us to give our reflections on how the first week went.  The only thing I had to say was not really related to the class' content.  I said, "I am just so grateful to be here at all, because there were years when I wasn't even "eligible" to be a part of a group like this and I never thought I would be, and now I can't believe that I'm lucky enough to be my daughter's mom."  The other women in the group thought this was just the most profound, deep thing, but I wasn't sugar coating it or trying to win any philosophical awards.  That is my reality: alot of times, I was sure that I wouldn't be a mom, and now I am.

Which is why I feel really obnoxious for feeling bummed on CD1's.  I have been praying every night for contentment in our family.  Even that prayer feels a little weird, because "be content" is what you squawk at someone who doesn't really have what they want, but what they have is very good.  I read a post by another blogger recently that made me squirm.  It was about how as infertile mothers, we shouldn't focus so much on infertility or our rocky path to motherhood because our children will know if they are not "enough" for us.  Ouch.

It's not that M is not enough.  Her smiles and laughter and generous, friendly spirit has filled the hole in our family, and she is more than enough.  We are so, so lucky and grateful for her.

I just have insecurities over having an only child.  Only children get a bad rap, and my mother is not shy in proclaiming the selfish nature of parents who only have none or one or two children, because clearly they chose to only have a small family so they could afford a fancy house and fancy vacations and have a large bank balance.  And so what happens when you want more kids but you find yourself landed in the small family category when you never wanted to be there?

The chapter in my moms class last week was on self-growth, and admittedly most of the chapters have had some hokey kumbaya moments in them, one of the exercises was to identify an area where you feel most insecure or unstable and commit to doing things to help that area.

Mine was accepting myself.  Accepting that unless, at the not so young reproductive age of 33, I miraculously become super fertile (can I get a big YAH RIGHT?!), I'm going to have a small family.  Accepting that my mom's prejudices and judgements of people with small families were not all true or kind or fair.  Accepting that there are lots of good things about having a small family (fancy vacations!  oh wait... hahahaha)

Two of my "things to do" to work on accepting myself are to (1) make a list of positive aspects of having a small family, and keeping it handy so I can refer to it when I'm feeling overwhelmed or unworthy or not good enough, and (2) seeking out small families (parents, 0-2 kids) who are completely fulfilled and happy and content.

Can you help me?  If your family is small, especially if it's not what you envisioned you'd have, can you give me some encouragement or advice or positives I can add to my list?

A tough day: how did I survive 3+ years of CD1's?

Yah, so apparently I was bloated for NOTHING.  Today was not a good day. 

Not the least of which I can blame on two of my idiot college "friends" who emailed for the first time in TWO YEARS yesterday, and "updated" the rest of us (i.e. me, the only one who isn't on f.acebook, because I guarantee all of the content of their emails has been public knowledge on faceboo.k for quite some time) that one of them had a baby LAST YEAR, and the other of them is 20-something weeks pregnant.  News flash, egomaniacs, if I haven't heard from you in two years, I don't really care anymore.  I have gotten over that we have grown apart, and maybe you should just accept that we aren't friends anymore either.

Because I am just emotionally spent, and I am going go pour myself a glass of wine, here is an email that I sent to my aunt tonight:

Soooooo, the day went totally downhill after you left.  I hate to say it, but I just had a really hard time articulating to Mr. A why I was so bummed, and he was so great about trying to be understanding.  I was just in a funk all afternoon.

After reflection and prayer, I decided that I just can't do this to myself at this point.  It is not fair to Mr. A or M, and I have ZERO idea how I hoped with all my heart every month for over 3 years before M got here.  I realized that all the other months since August I have just not even been hoping that we will conceive, and it has made the arrival of a new cycle just another day.  For whatever reason, I felt so different this time, but it totally killed me today.  Especially after my obnoxious friends' emails yesterday.  As much as I would love for M to have a sibling, it is not worth having a ruined day every 28 days, and it appears that I am all or nothing as far as trying for a baby- either I let myself hope every time and deal with enormous heartbreak when it doesn't work, or I just assume that I need to keep a regular stock of pads on hand... I can't really do the hope and not let it bother me if it doesn't work.

I am 100% happy with our family of three, and for my own (and Mr. A's) sanity, I am just going to go with that from here on out.  I do have some insecurities with M being an only child, not because we don't want another baby, but because it just doesn't seem like it happens easily for us.  I hate that she will probably be lumped into "only child" stereotypes of not being a good sharer, being high maintenance, bratty, and unwilling to compromise and help out, but we will obviously do our best to make sure she is surrounded by lots of friends (and cousins) so that she will learn all those things.  I hate that in the back of my mind, my mom's comments about people who only had one child will always haunt me ("their son was killed in a car wreck and now they have no children- they shouldn't have just had one", "poor child will be the only one to take care of their parents when they are old", "the best gift you can give your child is a sibling"), but it is not fair to M if every month of the next few years, her mom goes a little nuts trying to make sure that things happen at the right time and then 2 weeks later there is nothing to show for it, and she spends the day moping around.

So we decided to take down the bunk beds this evening after dinner, and make that into a proper guest room and reorganize Mr. A's office (eventually).  His parents' new house has a room with no beds, so I'm sure they can put them in there, and if by some craziness we actually end up needing bunk beds, well I will be more than glad to spend the money to get a set at that point.  But seriously not holding my breath on that one.  We will still have enough space for two rooms of guests when people visit, but after my issues today, the bunk beds were mocking me.  No really, they were laughing in my face!  hahahahahaha ;-)

Anyway, my sister said to hang in there, but I'm not going to play that game.  I'm done, I told her ;-)  She said she will keep hoping for me, and you can, too if you want, but I am not sure how much hope I'm going to hang onto at this point.  I mean, it would be awesome, but I just don't have the energy to deal with the disappointment, on top of being the best wife and mom I can be.

Thanks so much for your support!  I can't even express how much it means to me :)
Love ya,
A

Thanks for praying, and Revisiting ttc stuff

I've been meaning to update since last Friday, when we held the neighborhood potluck and raised over $1000 for the family who lost their home!!!  There are a few neighbors who I know personally who didn't come for extremely lame reasons, and so while I'm disappointed in them, we had an overall perfect turnout (not too big, not too small), the family felt surrounded by supportive friends, and we even met some young families in the neighborhood that we can now hang out with!!  Win, win, win, for sure :)  Thank you for praying for the event and for the family :)

A few days ago, I was talking to one of our neighbors, and he said that someone remarked to him that I was just glowing during the dinner.  And I think I probably was, because throwing parties is totally in my element, but the word "glowing" has really tough connotations for an infertile/infertility survivor.  I mean, other than maybe a bonfire, I don't know any other common use of the word except to describe a pregnant person.  And it just brought me back to when my acupuncturist described me as glowing before I ever knew I was pregnant with M.  And since the potluck was a couple days before I think I ovulated, I'm now in the early 2ww, and that comment, along with the most pronounced "symptoms" I've had since my cycle returned in August, it totally playing tricks with me.  Did you know there is a thing called Early Pregnancy Factor?  As if infertiles need any more encouragement that they can feel symptoms before implantation, hahaahahahahaha.

But you know, we are so in love with Maryanne, that if our family is the three of us, we are totally and completely happy.  I've been praying lately for the wisdom to know when enough is enough, as far as asking the Lord to expand our family again. 

But holy bloating, there better be a good reason for it ;-)

Prayer Request

Would you please pray for me?  One of our neighbors' house burned completely to the ground this week, and I'm feeling compelled to organize a neighborhood-wide potluck to benefit them.  I love planning parties, but I have never done anything this large.  Would you please pray that everything comes together, and that we have a great turnout, and that the family who lost everything but their lives would feel the support that we have for them? 

I would be so grateful!  :)

New verse

Long before M was conceived, I chose Isaiah 66:14 to pray for our child.  It was scrawled on a post-it on my computer monitor, where I saw it while I worked each day.  It is what I prayed as I sat on the tub holding our first positive test, two years ago.

Last night, in reflecting on my current position in my journey to/through motherhood, I decided I needed a new verse to "claim", as some would say, to allow me to focus on the right things, and not get bogged down in my own ideas. 

One of my favorite hymns is "Eye Has Not Seen", and we sang it in church a few weeks ago, and it has become one of my favorite songs to sing to M as she drifts to sleep.  It occurred to me that this is the perfect verse for me right now, and so it's going up on a post-it this afternoon:

"But as it is written, 'What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined- the things God has prepared for those who love Him."

CD1

OBVIOUSLY.  It would have been too easy, too perfect, to get another BFP almost exactly 2 years later.  Stuff like that only happens in the movies.  Or to fertile people. 

All morning I have been arguing with myself.  There is the one half of me who is bummed, sarcastic, and insecure.  Then there is the other half of me who sees no reason to complain: there is a perfect little 15-month old peacefully sleeping upstairs after making pie dough and playing with her babydoll and running errands with me this morning.

Over the weekend, I caught myself several times thinking, wow I have finally hit my mom stride.  I work out every day, eat well, work full time, practice yoga, make all 98% of our meals from scratch (aside from the maybe one or two times we go out to eat every month), and be the best mom I can be to M.  I recently got this cookbook, and I have been way reinspired to make nearly everything homemade, from scratch.  Over the weekend, among normal meals, I made granola, 2 loaves of bread, pasta dough into ravioli (enough for 2 meals), breadcrumbs, lots of vegetable purees for secretly nutritional things (although M loves her veggies- she eats peas and green beans before anything else on her plate!), and this morning I made pie dough for my own toaster pastries, i.e. pop tarts.  It feels awesome!! 

I knew I was towards the end of my cycle, and this weekend I found myself thinking back to the first few months with M when I was a cooking mess- nothing was ready on time, much less at the same time as any other part of the meal, and I just could not get it together.  (I know, I've retroactively cut myself some slack, but I felt like such a huge failure at the time.)  But as I've been preparing all of these awesome things from my own kitchen, I was thinking, what if I'm pregnant?  Will I be able to keep this up when the new baby comes?

Which is just hilarious, as the CVS clerk can attest to the 2 huge boxes of pads I bought this morning.  Hahahahaha!

And then last night I started spotting, and I just thought to myself, well duh.  Why were you even hoping?

This morning I have been going back and forth all over the place.  One minute I am just so disappointed (although to be honest, our timing stunk last cycle, so it was a crazy long shot), and the other minute, I am so grateful that I can give M my undivided attention and love.  One minute, I am so jealous of people who get pregnant easily, and the other minute, I am beating myself up because how dare I complain- I have been blessed with M (and also because technically, we got pregnant with her "easily", in that we were on no meds and doing nothing except normal babymaking)!!!

It's a weird thing.  I apologize if this is hurtful for those of you with empty arms; if it seems insensitive that I'm complaining about CD1 even though we have M. We are so, so grateful for her, and she is 100% filled the hole in our family.  When it comes down to it, we are completely happy if God's plan for our family is the three of us.

But how long do I let myself wonder if our family will ever be any bigger?

Who me? An award!

Did you know I still have (at least) one reader?  AND, I didn't even know she was a reader!  How fun was it for me to check my email, and see that I've been nominated for an award by Erica at Home of the Hansens.  I have just gone over and gotten to know her blog, and she has a beautiful daughter and seems of a very similar spirit as me.  I'm so so glad she nominated me, so I can add her to my blogroll and keep up with her!!  Thank you, Erica!

So anyway, she has given me the Liebster Award, and here are the details:

1. List 11 facts about yourself
2. Answer the 11 questions the blogger who nominated you left
3. Ask 11 new questions for those you nominate
4. Choose 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers to nominate
5. Go to each bloggers page and let them know about the award
6. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog

Here are 11 facts about me!

1.  I am addicted to Lands End clothes.  Especially since I've lost 30 lbs since September, and I literally needed some new clothes that fit.  Someone take their website down!  Hahaha
2. I took classical ballet for 8 years when I was younger (gradeschool/middleschool), and I was in our production of The Nutcracker each year, so I was everything from a soldier (my first year) to a snowflake and Arabian (solo) (my last year)!
3. Roasted Chicken is one of my favorite things to make for dinner.  Not only is it pretty easy to make (just stuff some herb butter under the skin and on the outside and throw it in the oven for a couple hours), but it is so versatile- you can make stock from the bones, and unless you have a family of 5 or something, you can get at least 2 meals from the meat!
4. One of my goals for 2013 is a whole-house purge.  Every closet is (hypothetically) going to get emptied, and stuff we dont use is either going to the trash or the early summer neighborhood yard sale.
5. I've been at my job for ten and a half years.  WHOA.  Where on earth did the time go?  
6. I have been practicing yoga for 2 years now, and I absolutely love it.  I love the meditative side for quiet moments, and the power/flow side for weight loss and cardio!  I am by no means an expert (I tried to do a headstand against the wall, and all I have to say is YAH RIGHT!  hahahhahaha), but I guess I will get more adventurous as the years go by :)
7.  I love to be outside.  I take M outside to play at every opportunity, and I hope she grows up liking being outside with me!
8. I've run 2 full marathons (4:02 and 4:19), 2 half marathons (1:56 and 2:04), and lots of 10-milers.  That was in my previous running life, but I absolutely loved running!  Maybe someday I will be the super-fit 50-something who goes cruising by the 20-something in the last mile ;-)
9. I'm the oldest of 4 kids...and now that we are all grown up, we are really good friends :)
10. I really want to keep up better with my blog.  I am thinking about making a commitment to myself to post once a week.  That shouldn't be too hard, should it?
11. I've never been to New York City- the traffic and chaos kind of scares me!!

Here are my answers to her questions!

1. If you could switch places with anyone for a day, who would you choose?  One of my younger siblings.  I think it would be so neat to have an older sibling.

 

2. Favorite season and why  It used to be summer, but since we moved to our rural mountain/valley location 5 years ago, my favorite season is fall I think.  It so beautiful, and the temperatures are refreshing after the hot summer

3. Who is your greatest role model? (And don't say Jesus.)  I think I would choose my Aunt.  She is an awesome wife and mom, and also she is incredibly faithful/spiritual, and amidst all the hurry of managing her large family, she still makes time for herself and hobbies that make her happy. 

4. What is one thing you hope the next generation will change?  I hope they will get back to more traditional values and expectations of hard work and success.

 

5. If you had to live every day in the same pair of shoes, what shoes would you pick?  My driving mocs from Lands End.  (see #1 of facts about me, hahahaha)

 

6. How many children do you hope to have? (And do you have names picked out?)  I would love to have 3, but after how long it took to conceive M, I am not holding my breath.  I dream of being one of the infertile-turned-fertile people, but also not holding my breath...   We like the name Felix if we ever have a boy..?

 

7. What are three words you would hope someone would use to describe you?  Optimistic, Generous, Friendly

8. What is your worst habit?  Not washing my face at night

 

9. What is your favorite scent?  Homemade rolls baking.  Or anything cooking that fills the house with a homey scent :)

 

10. In one sentence, what do you believe is the purpose of life?  I believe that one should live their lives in a way which inspires others to be the best people they can be and not settle for mediocre or what everyone else is doing or what is cool at the time.

 

11. If you could excel in any special skill or talent, what would you choose?  I would choose being patient all the time.  Haha :) 

 

 

Here are my nominees!

 

Lady Grey

Waiting for Something Beautiful

Sillyness Abounds

Day by Day

A child to call me mama

Inconceivable!

Kooking in Kate's Kitchen

Fertile Ramblings

While I'm Waiting

just being

MAC and PC

And now some questions for my nominees!

1.  How did your life change in 2012?
2.  What is one of your goals for 2013?
3.  Real books or e-books?
4.  What is your favorite dessert?
5.  What do you like most about your personality?
6.  Where do you volunteer (or where would you like to, if you had the time)?
7.  What is your favorite book and/or author?
8.  What do you do to relax after a long day?
9.  What is your favorite holiday?
10.  Who are your pets?
11.  How would you rate your cooking skills?

Hopefully we can all find new things to connect about!  Thanks again Erica for nominating me for this award :)