What now?

It's been a relatively quiet week, and at the same time not so quiet.  Quiet in the sense that it is slowly sinking in that we really sold the house, and not so quiet in the sense that Mr. A's aunt passed away and we are preparing ourselves to fly cross country for her funeral.  Tips for flying (2+ hour flights and 2 hour layovers) with a 2 year old appreciated :)

With all the hubub of closing last week and buying crazy expensive airline tickets this week, and just the rigors of every day working and home life, I haven't dwelled (dwelt?) so much on secondary infertility recently.  I'm sure that will come back closer to home this weekend when I start a new cycle ;-)

Life is good these days, and I'm so thankful for it.  Thank God for His mercy :)

Sold (Recap)

We did it- closed on the house today!!  It is all at the same time anti-climatic and monumentally relieving.  We sat at home this afternoon and joked, "What do we worry about now?  What we will we do on the weekends now instead of going up to check on the place?"  Hahaha

This whole house selling process has been very interesting faith-wise.  When we first listed it, I was doing a Bible study of David with a good friend of mine, and I was feeling rather in the dark compared to David's direct question and answer sessions with God.  I remember writing at some point in our study that I wanted this selling process and my faith that God would bless us with a sale to redeem my rocky trying to conceive journey.

We received a couple really lowball offers pretty quickly after we listed it, but we had a bottom line and both offers were below it.  I prayed for God to send us an offer that we could accept, and a little before Christmas, we got such an offer.  I felt such at peace- yes, this offer was from God.  Throughout everything, all the little concerns and issues, I felt totally at peace.  This offer was from God- He would see us through.  That carried me all the way to two weeks ago, when we had the fairly major issue come up.  I tried so hard to weather it with the same peace, but the doubt crept in, and I ended up feeling betrayed.  A big, bold, unfaithful word, but I felt it.  I said, again Lord?  Really?  We can't wait 4 years for this house to sell like we could wait for M.  I feel like at that point I was begging God for mercy every other hour.  At one point I was driving, and I prayed, Look God, this is all You.  You need to fix this, and I can't wait to see your redemption.  I had never really prayed that way before, and it was definitely a vulnerable prayer.  The situation was out of my control, and the only thing I could do was wait and see what God was going to do about it.

The funny thing is that just earlier in that week, I had been talking with a friend of mine who miscarried last April and who hasn't conceived again (they are hoping to, for sure).  I was telling her that after all we went through, after all we scheduled and medicined and timed, at the end of it all, we just said, okay it's in God's hands.  Let's just see what He does with it.  And along came M.  {I know it doesn't happen that way for everyone, and I think babies conceived after scheduling and medicining and timing are just as much miracles as anyone!}  Anyway, the point is that she is feeling like it is so out of her control, and I was saying that maybe when it's so out of our control, that's when God can shine.

So when the big issue came up, I caught myself chuckling at my earlier comments because I needed to say them to myself at that point.  As I had written recently, the issue resolved, and here we are tonight, owners of just our (one) house.   {All this snow also threatened to put a wrench in the closing, but I had returned to my peace-prevails outlook, and I knew that it would all work out.}

As it has ended up, I think I felt more peace and confidence during this house selling process than I ever had trying to conceive.  It is very cool, and I am so grateful for the chance to experience this contentment amidst what felt like constant attacks from Satan to lure us into believing God didn't care.  I am humbled that even after my foray with doubt a couple weeks ago, God remained by our sides in blessing of the sale.

Now that this big situation is behind us, it'll be back to regularly-scheduled programming.  Until we decide that we are too fed up with our HOA here and want to get the bleep out of dodge to a real country place with cows for neighbors ;-)  You can't wait for another house sale, can you?

Almost there

This Friday, girls...closing day on our house.  Lord, have mercy and bless this sale.

We had almost-a-catastrophe happen in reference to an H-O-A situation, and thanks to our contractor, it has been resolved.  In all seriousness, we probably owe the sale to him and his willingness to go to bat for us, magnified because we don't live in the area anymore.  If anyone needs an awesome, stand-up contractor in Virginia, please email me for their contact info.

12 More Days

Lord, have mercy.  Please guard our townhouse from all harm in the next 12 days!!!

Had an awesome day!!  Making it to 8:30am church kicks our butts every.single.weekend, but going that early makes the rest of the day so great (the other service is not until 11:30- not sure why we can't have a nice normal 10!)!  We folded and put away ALL the laundry, played outside for a long while, went to Panera for lunch and saw our favorite cashier (we might go there a little too often...), trimmed the berry bushes, and made waffles and bacon for dinner (because one of the sad, sad casualties of 8:30am church is no big breakfast- major sad situation because we LOVE our big weekend breakfasts). 

Also awesome is that M is starting to say "awesome".  Hahahaha ;-)

But more awesome is that we love our church's Glory to God rendition, and so I end up singing/humming it all week, and now M does the same thing.  It is to the point where if I start singing it, she will interrupt me and say, "No, I sing Glory to God!"  And then she sings it to the dogs or her babies or to the backup Nativity Set, whose members are shacking up with her dollhouse family right now ;-) 

I've added a sibling for M to my Petition list in my prayer journal.  But the biggest, boldest prayer right now is for the sale of our townhouse- after that we can move onto other requests!!

Secondary Infertility

I have been doing some thinking lately about what the point of blogging is at this point.  I still want to write in this space, but I find that I don't identify well with alot of regular mommy blogs (even many former-IF mommy blogs)- too perfect, too organized, having more kids easily (even many of my IF friends!).  I'm also not a regular infertile/waiting for a baby blogger either- because I did miraculously conceive M.

And so I was thinking that maybe I could seek out a secondary infertility bunch of people, but it has been kind of difficult to find such a group.  I've searched all manner of permutations of blog and/or wordpress and secondary infertility, and I just get a handful of results- some blogs that are not actively posted on anymore- but mostly just articles.  I want the guts of the struggle in honest bring-you-to-your-knees blog style, not some over-edited and rosy-looking conclusion paragraph!

Secondary infertility doesn't occupy my life as primary infertility did, but it is still there.  I don't want to dwell on it, but I can't deny that I wish we could another baby to our family.  I am beyond grateful to have M in our family, and she is over and above "enough" for us.  I just get a little tug at the heartstrings when I think of her growing up without a sibling, and that is a big reason why my heart longs for another baby. 

I know we can do our best to fill her life with good friends and fun activities and us, the doting-est parents ever, but what am I going to say when she asks for a brother or sister.  "Um, we've been trying ever since you were born." 

I just had a long conversation tonight with a friend of mine who's been trying to conceive since a miscarriage in April.  She had no problems conceiving her first two kids, and her miscarriage sadly opened her eyes to the world of reproductive heartbreak.  She is longing for another baby, and with several friends having conceived between then and now, she is experiencing alot of what you feel when everyone is having babies except you.  But she struggles with not wanting to appear like she's replacing the baby she lost or that her first two children aren't enough.

I think there's alot of guilt that comes with secondary infertility because you don't want to appear ungrateful for your previous child(ren), like they're not enough.  I feel like another way to look at it would actually be to say how much your first child(ren) increased the love in your family, and how much more would another baby do the same?  (Or maybe that's just me rationalizing it!)

I have been praying much lately that God will increase in me a spirit of contentment and appreciation and acceptance for how He has made our family- our family of three is just as "worthy" as someone's family of four or eight.  I definitely need that reminder from time to time.

Benign!

Lord, thank you for Your mercy :)

I'm on CD3 today, but what with the benign thyroid biopsy and closing on our townhouse in a couple weeks looking very likely, I'll let not getting a BFP slide this time ;-)  Can't have too much excitement- gotta save something for later!  Haha :)

Thank you all for your prayers!

Biopsy Done

So this morning got even more complicated before it got better. 

When I left off last night, M's school was delayed.  My friend let me know that if M's school ended up closing, I could just drop M at her house and she could play with her daughter.  Well turns out that by 5:30am this morning- when the same friend texted me that she was in labor and heading to the hospital- M's school had closed.  So I texted our babysitter (different from our nanny)- because she was out of school, too- to see if she could watch M during my appointment.

I got back in bed and just prayed some crazy stream of consciousness because I couldn't sleep with all this stuff running through my head.

Wasn't it kind of a sick joke that the day I had to go to the hospital to get a needle stuck into my neck, my friend got to go to the hospital to welcome another baby into her family?   AND, now that M's school was closed, I couldn't just drop M off at her house, and who was going to watch M while I went to have my biopsy?  And please Lord, continue to bless the sale of our townhouse.  And please Lord, heal anything amiss in my thyroid.  I need to be healthy for my family- I love them so much.  And might I add again, what on earth am I going to do with M while I go to the hospital?  And please Lord, bless my friend with a smooth delivery of a healthy baby girl.  And what if the roads are too slippery to get to the hospital for my appointment.

At some point in my desperate pleading for all manner of things, I fell back asleep until 7am.

Soon, our babysitter texted back that both her parents were at work today, and she had to look after her brother and that would be handful enough without watching M, too.

Well shoot... of course.

So I started to think of everyone and anyone I knew who could possibly hang out with M during my appointment.  Mr. A could have stayed home as an absolute, absolute last resort, but he had one of his software demo's today, so it was pretty much the worst day for that.

I texted my neighbor, but she was staying an hour away with her husband's sister in the ICU.
I texted my other neighbor, but he also had a medical appointment at 10am.

Then I texted my friend who did the Bible study with me last fall.  By the grace of God, her hubby is a teacher (so he was home since school was cancelled), and he offered that I could bring M to their house to play with their kids while I went to my appointment.

{This all happened before 8:15am, and given what was on schedule for 10am, it was a little too much to handle.  I will not deny that there were tears at various points during all this.  Though Mr. A did not really understand why I was crying, he made way up for it by getting M dressed and ready to head out the door.}

I'm not really sure how we are going to repay them- their one act of generosity totally saved the day, no exaggeration.  I knew M would have a blast playing with their kids, and so after I dropped her off, I was able to relax and prepare myself for the impending discomfort with relative peace.

The biopsy itself wasn't too awful bad- truly the worst part was the injection of numbing stuff.  From my very uneducated hearing of comments, most of the nodule was fluid (so, from what I've read this is cystic?).  The doc and nurses were all very friendly and talkative- asking me all kinds of questions, which also struck me as kind of weird/funny because, um, if I'm talking, isn't that going to mess you up when you jam that needle into my neck?  Hahaha.

I left with a bandaid and went upstairs to see my friend and her new baby girl, born only an hour after she texted me (30 min after arriving at the hospital).  She is precious, and I thank God for this new little baby.

My neck feels a little swollen inside (not too noticeable from the outside) and a little sore.  Swallowing is not really what I want to be doing alot of (just feels strange), so maybe I will lose some of the last pesky pounds, ha!  Yawning has proven to be the most uncomfortable action yet- it totally does not feel good.

Praying for benign results.  Lord, have mercy!

PS.  What do you think of my new template?  I felt like I deserved a treat after today, and I am currently addicted to Etsy, and I found some great ones here!  It was a BREEZE to install, and I'm loving it!