Reflections

Although it's terribly cliche, I wanted to take some time to reflect on 2009. I haven't been blogging a whole year yet, so I can't go back and read how I was doing last year (but that is something I'm looking forward to doing this coming year!), but hopefully I will be able to read this next year (in between feedings) and realize the value of each step in our journey to have kids, no matter how big or small, forward or backward, the step might have felt at the time.

Other than our family still comprising only the two of us, 2009 was actually a great year. We made lots of progress with increasing our savings and decreasing our mortgage, we played alot with our pup (who is now spoiled!!), we became involved with the crisis pregnancy center, and we generally had a blast hanging out together. I feel very fortunate that the only struggle we have is the empty nursery, when I know so many others have so many more weights on their shoulders.

And I might add that I think we have been blessed with dealing with the empty nursery a little easier than others might have it. I think I've said before that I feel a little guilty about how we have been able to handle this cross, when I read that so many of you are feeling so crushed underneath. By the grace of God, neither of us are all-consumed with this hole in our lives...sure it is there, but we both feel compelled to fight against letting our lives crumble around the missing piece(s) of our family. I think we're both feeling like we want to use this time before kids to really make our home the happiest place on earth, because that is where we want our kids to be welcomed into.

The hardest part of the infertility struggle for me this year is that my college friends are (most of them) either already have kids or have them on the way. Not even that they're already moms, but that they don't seem to realize what gift they have been given. I don't think it would bother me (so much) if it appeared like they were truly thankful for their kids. I don't think it would bother me (so much) if they were still interested in what is going on with those of us who aren't moms (by choice or not). One of the biggest reasons I cringe at the thought of who is going to be pregnant next is that their attitude will be the prevailing "here is my kid, check that off the list".

We have been excited this year to see the RE, and even though we had the recent setback of low progesterone on follistim, and even though we're not pregnant (yet), I feel like we are going to get there in 2010. I feel like we have tried to follow what God would have us do, to the best of our ability, and that has led us (especially recently) to the idea that progesterone supplements (supposit's) during the LP might be the puzzle piece we've been missing. I hope and pray we'll welcome our first baby in 2010- that God will bless our faithfulness and persistence with precious life.

I have been humbled with the gift of faith this year. Trust that I have no idea where it comes from (hello, Holy Spirit) has been the foundation for our path. Courage to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Compassion that causes me to say that if God is using my response to infertility to encourage someone else, then this has all been worth it.

I think the posts that consider a previous year that was filled with anguish, compared to now which is filled with joy, are so powerful, and in some ways, I wish that reflecting on my 2009 was a little more dramatic so that next year (when, God willing, we will be a family of three (or four, haha)), there would be a deep contrast in how that precious life has changed our lives. And no doubt, I am positive that a child will be such a happy blessing to us. But on most days, I find most of my happiness in thanking God that this is the day that He has made, and rejoicing that God has a great purpose for me! On somber days, I try to remind myself that my happiness should stem from doing what God would have me do, and not whether I received everything on my Christmas list. (What is my Christmas list compared to God's plan?!)

"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."
Ps 118:24

Today, the last day of 2009, I rejoice that God has blessed me with His grace, that I have the opportunity to serve Mr. A as his wife, that Mr. A is a loving husband to me, that we have the cutest pup in the world, that our house is sound, that we are not struggling financially, that our home is warm and comforting, that our families and friends are well, that we have good jobs, and that we have hope that we'll be blessed with a baby in 2010!

Old Fashioned

It's been a great break-from-injectable-IUI month so far. It's been fun to do things the old fashioned way, you know, not have to do the shot before dinner, not have to have an ultrasound every other day and bloodwork sprinkled in there, too, and not have to anticipate the day of the IUI. You know, get some fun, spontaneous use out of that lawn-jer-ay that may or may not have been in circulation in the last few months. Not that we haven't been taking care of business, but it's just been a little less light hearted. I'm pretty sure we have the light hearted covered this time!! (or uncovered.... hahahahaha....!!!)

That's not to say that we're not keenly aware that, especially right now, it's getting to be the time where it is mucho important that we are spontaneous on a regular basis. (Oh, the irony.) I expect to ovulate either Sunday or Monday, so maybe it'll be like the movies and three weeks after New Year's Eve, I'll cluelessly realize my period is late and take a HPT and it'll be blaringly positive!!

Here's hoping that some old-fashioned lovin' brings an old-fashioned adorable cooing baby in 2010.

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.

Merry Christmas!

I wish everyone a blessed Christmas!! I finally got our snow pictures uploaded from last weekend! Here are a few of my favorites :)

(I guess we aren't going out the back door!!)

(Mr. A shoveled a great path to the front door instead!)

(Banana goes face first into the snow! HA!)

(Staying in the groove has never been more important..)

(Yes, the snow on our deck drifted so it almost covered the chair!)

(Banana can't wait until she can see over the snow!)

Favorite Things!

(I promise I'm trying to get around to commenting to you girls!!) I can't give away refrigerators and $300 face cream like a certain daytime talk show host does, but I thought it'd be fun to tell you 10 of my favorite things! I wanted really badly to embed that scene from the Sound of Music, but I can't find it anywhere!

**Soft cozy blankets (especially ones that your sister makes for you!)
**Homemade Cinnamon rolls with Hazlenut coffee
**Swiffers
**My "Blue Willow Inn Bible of Southern Cooking" cookbook (especially the biscuit recipe!!)
**Sour Patch Kids
**My Calphalon pots and pans
**My Lodge cast iron dutch ovens, skillets, etc.
**Chicken Pot Pie
**Always Infinity pads (seriously, I know they cost more than the normal ones, but if you're trying pads because you are worried tampons aren't good for ttc'ing, the Infinity's are worth the extra $$) (I have heard tampons can cause an internal pH change, which can be detrimental to swimmers, and also my friend K (who does accpuncture) asked her practitioner and he told her that they can cause blood stagnation in the uterine area which carries over to the time when you want lots of vitality/blood flow around there!)
**Our Lazyboy recliner (hello, I fall asleep there every night!!)

What are your favorite things? :) Get that song in your head! Time to really belt out the lyrics!!! Chin up, girls! Chin up!

Tonight, please pray for Mr. A's coworker who just found out today that their IVF cycle is BFN. And please continue to pray for my nurse at the RE whose dad is not doing well. And finally, please pray for good friends of ours (neighbors at our first place) who the wife just buried her dad December 9- she is really missing him this Christmas (obviously).

I'm still here, don't worry!!

Hi all :) Sorry for falling off the face of the earth. My sister graciously said she'd post this for me! We got, oh, 28" of snow between Friday night and Sunday morning! It is by far the most snow I have EVER seen :) It was very cool to finish wrapping presents while watching the big flakes fall outside the window. Banana hates it, especially since the snow is taller than her!, but since they plowed our street (finally!) last night, this morning's walk was a little more bearable for her. Mr. A and I have been busy shoveling a tunnel, I mean, a path out of our driveway and just staring out the window in awe of all this snow!!

The other reason I haven't posted is because Mr. A has been taking his laptop to work with him, so I haven't been able to read up on any of you- I'm hoping I'll get a chance to tonight! You have been in my prayers nontheless :) I'll also post pictures from this snowfall once I get them all uploaded...

As for me and my cycle news, today is CD1. Of course we are bummed, but this means I can have as many cups of coffee as I want while opening gifts this year!!!

It also means that injectables/monitoring this cycle will be virtually impossible because of the days the clinic is closed in the next two weeks. (An aside, please pray for my nurse and her family- her father is very close to passing away.) So, I called my RE to see what he suggests and to hear his thoughts on the low progesterone at 9dpiui.

Basically he reiterated that he is flabbergasted that the level was so low. Of course the peak is supposedly at 7dpiui, but he thinks that it would have also been on the lower side since it was SO low at 9dpiui. I told him I'd read about people whose progesterone level falls too quickly, and he said yes, that is a version of a luteal phase defect, and so we will be monitoring progesterone very closely in any upcoming cycles. I am growing more and more convinced this is what has ALWAYS been the problem, since I get headaches at about 9dpo every cycle, and if my progesterone is only up for 9 days, that generally does not give the embie enough time to safely implant.

Anyway, Mr. A and I were thinking of taking this cycle off (since injectables are out), but my doc suggested that I give clomid another try with progesterone supplementation starting a day after ovulation. Why not? I'll still use my monitor (have to dust it off!) to know when to start the supplements, but we are looking forward to a month of less scheduling and more spontaneity. (Cue romantic music.) If we're relaxed, it will happen, isn't that right? Haha! I will get a progesterone check at 7dpo. And then on 14dpo, I'll get a BFP.....

Thank you for all your prayers! Not sure how much I'll be posting this week (I'll have to figure out how you can email the post to your blog?), but I hope that all your Christmas'es are truly blessed :) Here's to a wiggly 3-month old in Christmas 2010!

Thank you!

Thank you all for your comments on yesterday's post!! I will write more about that in a minute, first I have to tell you about the worst morning ever....

I had to be at my office for an 8:30am meeting today, so I drove up last night and stayed with my sister. She rents a townhouse in one of those nice communities that have 800 townhouses and 13 parking spots designated for visitors. Know the ones? And WOE TO YOU if you are a visitor and park in a non-visitor spot. Even if you park in a visitor spot, their HOA has now mandated that you must ALSO have a visitor tag on your mirror. Then you have to do a jig and walk backwards 20 yards and then skip forward 15 feet, but not before asking "Mother may I?"... Well, not really that last bit of stuff... haha!

Anyway, as it happened, the visitor tag I had put on my beads that hang from my mirror fell off the beads sometime after 9:15pm when I left it ON the beads. So when I went out to get in my car this morning, the parking spot was empty. PANIC! When we finally find the towing lot, in the most sketchiest of warehouse districts (thank God for her principal who allowed her to be a tad late for school so she could help me get my car!!), I tell the attendant "see, if you look through the window, you can see the permit tag on the floorboard." Unfortunately for my case, it had landed face down (probability is a bitc.....), but I thought for sure once I showed him the other side, it would be fine for me to not have to pay.

Not so.

He called his manager who devilishly said that since it wasn't hanging on the mirror, they still had to charge me but they'd give me $50 off. WELL THANKS, that still leaves me paying $75 for a freak event of nature!! (I give the attendant lot some credit, as he only charged me $50, but he was not the super-nicest guy either...) Who am I to know when the molecules in the plastic parking pass will adjust and send the pass fluttering to the floorboard?!?!? Next time should I sleep in my car to make sure the pass stays put?

Cue the hysterical tears. I promise it was not for show- I honestly couldn't stop the emotions, and I was so upset. Upset that I had to pay $50, upset that my sister would be late to work, upset that I was late for my meeting, upset that these apparently-heartless fools couldn't have some compassion and decency to give me a break. It's Christmas, for pete's sake!!!! Haha.

I called Mr. A during my hysterical crying and left one of my signature indecipherable messages, to which he called back shortly, worried that I had been hit by a bus. Haha! I love that man!! I was still crying when I walked into my meeting (after, of course, going into the complete wrong building and getting all the way up to the 8th floor before I realized it). I don't make this stuff up!! When I sat down at the conference table, the facilitator looked at my big teary eyes and said gently "We're not going to start for 5 minutes, if you need to go to the bathroom."

Ha!! In other words, "You look like a mess, go pull yourself together!!"

Hahahaha!

Then on the way home, I was still steaming about all of this, and Mr. A encouraged me to settle down because the stress probably isn't good for the baby. Touche. Fine, I'll settle down for the baby's sake.

Speaking of the baby, I am so glad I got the progesterone supposit's. Ever imagine you'd read that sentence? (I was able to get them at CVS, thank God!) I feel very good about having them (Bless you, Ann, for saying "Mama knows best!!"), and so far I have had no leaking. None! Is that odd? Somewhere I read that your body absorbs all the progesterone it needs and the rest is what leaks, and of course I'm hoping that I'm absorbing it all because the baby needs it. Is there any other reason why my body would be soaking it all up? (I'm sure there is... maybe it's so excited to have some progesterone it is just taking all it can get.) I dare someone to tell me that they always had some leaking until they got pregnant and then it was all absorbed because it was needed for the baby...