Here comes the Clomid

Looks like we will be on Clomid this cycle. Apparently the Sugar Busters diet is not a magical “cure” after all seeing as though this is CD1 (Cycle Day 1). :) Even though I of course did not want to see CD1, it is actually a really good day for it to happen. 1) The office will be closed tomorrow through the weekend and I need to talk to the nurse so she can call in the prescription, 2) We still have some flexible spending money left from this year so I will be able to pay for the Clomid out of this years flexible spending. So, even though I didn’t want to be here, the Lord is still orchestrating it all!! I called my nurse first thing this morning and still have not heard back. I called AGAIN a few minutes ago and the receptionist said the nurse has been busy all morning and should be doing call backs soon. Makes me nervous though because the office closes at 11:30 today. How quickly I forget…what did I just type… “The Lord is orchestrating it all”…so I guess I need not be nervous that she won’t call me back today. THE LORD IS IN CONTROL. Man, that’s a heard lesson to learn.

WOW…Hello, Lord. AS I was typing that above sentence my phone rang with my nurse on the line!! How crazy is that?? The Lord amazes me all of the time. Reassuring me that He has not left me and is still behind all of this. The nurse is calling in my Clomid prescription as we speak and I will start it on Saturday with an ultrasound scheduled for the 11th in Dothan to monitor progress. At that point we will be able to decide what should happen next – when we should do the trigger shot, etc.

So, all of you Clomid experts, what should I be expecting? Any weird side effects I should know about?

I also made an appointment for Barry to get another semen analysis this coming Monday in Mobile. We should have those results by the time I have my ultrasound on the 11th so we will know what route to take.

Yea for the next (and hopefully last) phase of this journey!

Thanks and Status Update

Thanks for everyone's comments the other day! I know I say it all the time, but it is such a blessing to have both people who have experienced infertility and those who are close to me to be praying for us and encouraging us! I really enjoyed hearing everyone's thoughts on the infertility treatment matter and Barry and I had some good discussion around them.

I talked to my doctor last week and he is recommending Clomid starting with this next cycle. (I mean hopefully/prayerfully there will not be a next cycle, but you know...as a back up plan :). ) He wants Barry to go ahead and as soon as possible do another semen analysis to check on that status. Their clinic in Mobile does something different when analyzing things...so he wants us to come on down to Mobile again for this. We will probably do that right after the first of the year because Barry used up every single hour of vacation time this year. I guess that's what you get for going to Hawaii, going on a cruise and taking MANY long weekend trips in the same year... :) After we get the results of his semen analysis the doctor will decide whether to recommend just the Clomid or Clomid with injectables and the IUI.

So the plan at this point is to call the office on cycle day 1 to get the Clomid and to get the semen analysis as soon as we can. The doctor was really excited to hear that we had been doing the Sugar Busters diet and taking the Juice Plus+ supplements. Hopefully those things will help so much that like I said, there will be no calling his office on cycle day 1!!

I hope everyone has a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

I want to do the Lord’s will

But it is so hard to know what the Lord’s will is!!!  I talked with the nurse at my RE’s office and she said that every single hormone level came back normal.  Boo on normal hormone levels…I mean, it would be great to have normal hormone levels if that was allowing us to get pregnant, but that obviously has not been working for us, so normal hormone levels are not my friend.  I would much rather something be off a little so we know what to do…now the only thing to do is to try and “fix” stuff when the Dr. doesn’t even know what to “fix”. 

The nurse said that he reviewed my lab results and is recommending we start on Clomid.  We have a phone consultation with him this Thursday (really cool that we can do a phone consultation since he is so far away!) so we can discuss everything with him.  But at least I know what he is thinking before talking to him so we have time to think and pray about it ourselves.

Fertility treatments are something that I have struggled with from the very beginning.  I have such mixed opinions of them.  OBVIOUSLY they can work and give infertile couples the chance to have biological children that they would not be able to have without those treatments.  And I don’t have a moral argument against most of the treatments.  My issue is that if God can make a virgin pregnant than He can make me pregnant without fertility treatments if it is His will for me to be pregnant.  Thinking about it this way it seems like infertility treatments are taking matters into our own hands and not waiting for the Lord to provide.

HOWEVER, if I was diagnosed with cancer I would not just wait around for the Lord to cure me.  I would have radiation, chemotherapy, and whatever else that the Dr. recommended – things that the medical world has discovered to help cancer patients.  I do believe that the Lord has allowed advances in technology so that we do have options when faced with illness.  So in that light, it makes my argument against just waiting for the Lord shaky. He CAN work THROUGH medical treatments to accomplish His will… If He has allowed advances in the medical field of infertility, why not try them as long as they are in line with scripture?

My next thought on infertility treatments is when do you stop.  Hopefully the first month you try a new treatment you will get pregnant, but this is not at all a guarantee.  There are people (many of you out there) that have been doing infertility treatment for YEARS without success.  At what point are we not being good stewards of our money when we spend thousands of dollars on infertility treatments when that money could have gone towards adopting a child that doesn’t have a mommy and a daddy?  Once you get started with some form of infertility treatment, if that doesn’t work you move on to something stronger and then if that doesn’t work you move on again and soon it has been years and you have spent thousands of dollars.  But if you don’t TRY some of these treatments and you don’t get pregnant on your own will you regret not trying?  I definitely think I would…

Please don’t interpret ANY of this as accusatory, I am just trying to get my thoughts out and work through these issues for the Williams family.  I believe that every couple is different and that the Lord has different plans for each one of us.  So the conclusions that we come to are going to be different than the next couple.

But another thing to complicate matters is -- I WANT A BABY!  Right now I feel fine with starting Clomid but is that my flesh speaking or is the Lord giving me a peace about it because it is His will?  Infertility causes us to be so vulnerable and our flesh could easily do a lot of the decision making.  But how do I KNOW the Lord wants me to start Clomid and that’s not my flesh?  What if He wants me to wait just one more month…What is He wants to show His power by getting us pregnant without treatment?  I know that regardless of what infertility treatments one might be on, ONLY ONE CAN CREATE LIFE!  Only the Lord can create life, regardless of IUI, medications, IVF, etc.  So I know that if we start infertility treatments and it is not the Lord’s will for us to get pregnant that way, then we won’t get pregnant that way.  I really would like for the Lord to tell us what to do through some flashing neon signs right about now.  That would be great…

Sorry for the incredibly long post, I just needed to get some things off my chest and help me process everything.  I am sure most of you out there who have been faced with this issue have had some of these same thoughts too.  It is definitely something to work through, pray through and figure out what the Lord’s will is for each individual. 

SOOOO, right now we are praying about what the Lord wants us to do!! 

Boo to no sugar

I looooove sugar. I have always known that I love sweets, but most of the time I would rather have seconds of the meal than dessert. So I just didn’t really think about the implications of the SugarBusters diet when the RE recommended it to us. I figured it would be sad giving up sweets, bread, etc. but didn’t REALLY think about it. Oh my goodness! Everything that tastes good in this world has sugar in it…you have to really read labels because sugar in some form is added to almost everything.

On this diet you can eat 3 servings of starchy carbohydrates a day – either brown rice, 1/2 sweet potato, oatmeal, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, etc. These items have to have 3 grams of sugar or less in them though, so lots of label reading. You can have 3 servings of fruit a day –anything but pineapple, raisins, watermelon and bananas. LOTS of veggies – not no corn or potatoes. No white flour, corn meal, etc. And of course no added sugar. Added sugar is in salad dressings, seasonings, dried fruit, canned soups, yogurt, sandwich meats, condiments, coffee creamer, etc. This is the hardest part of the diet for me.

Those are the basics…you can find more info at the SugarBusters website if you are interested. Here is an article talking about the correlation between high blood sugar and infertility. It is on a Diabetes website but the logic behind it applies across the board. I am sure there are many more articles out there but I haven't gotten the chance to look. It is enough for me to know that the RE and my OBGYN have both explained the correlation between sugar and infertility and recommend the diet.

It really is difficult but we are eating SO healthily because of it! I was talking to my friend Emily about it and she was saying to think about how healthy I will be WHEN we do get pregnant! There couldn’t be a better way to bring a baby into the world, you know? So it is totally worth it and I AM NOT complaining! At least it is giving me SOMETHING to do that MAY help improve our chances at conceiving. It is sure worth a shot! AND a bonus - I have lost a good 5-7 pounds since we have started just a little over a week ago! Yea!

The Bahamas

I am finally getting around to blogging about our Thanksgiving!  For the past 3 years Barry and I have not gone to Birmingham to visit with family on Thanksgiving, we have done our own thing.  One year we went to the beach, the next we went to Disney World and this year…a cruise to the Bahamas!  Well, the Bahamas was not our original destination, but that is where we went!  Don’t get me wrong, at all, we LOVE our family, and we see them other times in the year.  But Thanksgiving has become our little tradition of vacationing somewhere.

The cruise was SUPPOSED to take us to Jamaica and the Grand Cayman Islands, but about 12 hours before the cruise left we got a recorded message saying that the propulsion system was messed up on our boat and they were changing our ports of call!!  WHAT!?!  I understand that boats have problems…but changing destinations on us and compensating us with $50?!?!  Not exactly the compensation I am looking for.  And Carnival has been less than helpful at compensating us with anything additional to that $50.  So, even though the cruise itself was amazing, we had friendly staff and no other problems, I would not recommend Carnival!  We were less than thrilled about this little change here, but we tried to keep telling ourselves, it is still vacation, it is still vacation.  We ended up going to Half Moon Cay (a private island owned by Carnival) and Nassau. 

We left out of Miami and got to spend some time with some good friends of ours!  Here we are at a yummy Cuban restaurant.

 

On the boat in Miami, ready to sail!

On Half Moon Cay we went parasailing and snorkeling.  The parasailing was fun – very relaxing, not the adrenaline rush that one might think it is.  I had done it before, but never in the Bahamas!  The snorkeling was awful…I thought I was going to die.  Long story that I won’t bore you with, but I will N-E-V-E-R go snorkeling in the middle of the ocean again.

 

In Nassau we went to Atlantis!  That was fun!  We see the commercials all of the time and have talked about going on a future vacation, we just didn’t realize it would be THIS vacation.  :)  It is awesome though.  A great resort with a water park (there is one water slide that you are in an enclosed clear tube and you go through a shark pool!) , a million swimming pools, aquariums with sharks, dolphins, sting rays, etc all over the park…we will definitely go back one day for an entire Atlantis vacation. 

My favorite part of the cruise, OK maybe not my favorite but one of them, was the towel animals on our bed each night.  This was the best part for me on our honeymoon too!  OK, not the best part…after all it was my honeymoon. :)

He was my favorite…Roll Tide…we even took a “How to make towel animals class” AND bought the book.  So if any of you ever come stay at our house you will be greeted by this little guy!  :)

There are a million more pics I could post, but that is all you will get.  :)  It was a great vacation though, very relaxing.  So nice to turn off our phones, not mess with email, facebook or work.  Just to spend stress free time together!  It was a breath of fresh air and a great change of pace from the stressors of TTC!  Ahhhh…

This is sad us after we got back to Miami and the cruise was over…

More poking and prodding

Alrighty, so we had our RE appointment yesterday. We liked the doctor and are so glad we went!  He did a very thorough job reviewing all of our files and medical records with us, gave us a short reproductive 201 tutorial (201 because it was definitely not what you learned in Sex Ed), talked to us about general "how to live healthier and improve your fertility odds", did some blood work and an ultrasound.  We were there, with the doctor almost the whole time, for over 2 hours. Pretty impressive to me that they spent that kind of time with us.

The Dr talked to us about environmental substances called hormonal disruptors, such as BPA, that can negatively affect fertility.  Some of the hormonal disruptors are found in plastic bottles, canned foods, cosmetics, pesticides, etc.  They are everywhere around us!  He said the best thing to do to combat these harmful substances is to 1) try to avoid them and 2)to get your daily recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables. For this he gave us a print out AND wrote us a doctors note for Fruit Plus+. It is this vitamin type of thing that is basically all of your fruits and veggies in pill form.  Check out the link.  I still plan on doing my own research before we buy it (I think he said it ends up being $40 per person per month), but it sounds pretty cool.  It wouldn’t hurt anything to take them (except maybe the pocketbook) and could only make us healthier!

He also recommended that I try to lose about 5-9 pounds. He said that any extra weight somehow can have a negative effect on fertility. AND he suggested that I try to cut down on all refined sugars because refined sugar also can negatively  effect fertility. Again, here I want to do some more research, but everything that he said makes sense.  He explained the effect on fertility, but he was throwing a lot of info at us, so it was not all absorbed.  :)  Boo...I love pasta and bread and rice and flour and sweet tea and....but if he really thinks it could help...

Then he did the vaginal ultrasound and the uterine lining looked good, no cysts, but he found 14 follicles on one ovary and 17 follicles on the other ovary. Normal is between 5-10. I don't exactly understand why more is bad...seems like the more the better but apparently not. He said that this could be an indication of polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Sooo, we did blood work looking at LH, FSH, testosterone, prolactin, and a couple other things.  I also went this morning to get a fasting glucose and insulin test along with a prenatal panel.

I am really glad that we are doing all this blood work and hopefully going to figure out what is going on!

A pretty cool thing...I started my period day before yesterday, which is obviously not cool, but I figured what awful time to have this appointment. But apparently it was perfect!  He said he likes to get that vaginal ultrasound and the blood work done on day 2-4 of the cycle. And it was day 2!  Which, being almost 4 hours away from the doctor, it was amazing that we came on the perfect day. God totally orchestrated that!  He's pretty cool that way. :)

“Trust His Heart” by Babbie Mason

All things work for our good
Though sometimes we don't see how they could
Struggles that break our hearts in two
Sometimes blind us to the truth
Our Father knows what’s best for us
His ways are not our own
So when your pathway grows dim
And you just don't see Him
Remember you're never alone

God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don't understand
When you don't see His plan
When you can't trace His hand
Trust His heart
Trust His heart

He sees the master plan
And He holds our future in His hand
So don't live as those who have no hope
All our hope is found in Him
We see the present clearly
But He sees the first and the last
And like a tapestry
He's weaving you and me
To someday be just like Him

God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don't understand
When you don't see His plan
When you can't trace His hand
Trust His heart, Trust His heart

He alone is faithful and true
He alone knows what is best for you

God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don't understand
When you don't see His plan
When you can't trace His hand
Trust His heart
Trust His heart

When you don't understand
When you don't see His plan
When you can't trace His hand
Trust His heart
Trust His heart

Waiting

I ran across this article today as I was catching up on my 90+ emails that had piled up since being out of the office for over a week (will blog about our vacation as soon as I get a chance).  I thought I would share…it is an article about what adoptive moms would have done differently in the waiting period between deciding to adopt and the rush of filling out paperwork and the placement of their children.  I know several of you are in the filling out paperwork stage so maybe this will help…I also think several of the things in the article apply to the “waiting” stage of infertility too.

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=1246

One of the best tips I think is to “focus on living for the day, not for the future.”  So often our thoughts are consumed with the future, with the “what if’s” but we just need to focus on the here and now.  "Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." MATTHEW 6:34  Only God knows what our future holds so why try to figure it out on our own?  We need to focus on enjoying life and finding the joy in it, even while living in the unknown.

National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month! In honor of National Adoption Month I thought I would post a poem that has meant a lot to many of the families that I work with. I have a ton of them, but this is one of my favorites.

Legacy of an Adopted Child

Once there were two women, who never knew each other.

One you do not remember, the other you call Mother.

Two different lives shaped to make you one.

One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.

The first one gave you life. The second one taught you to live it.

The first one gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name.

One gave you a talent, the other gave you aim.

One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears.

One saw your first sweet smile, the other dried your tears.

One sought for you a home she could not provide.

The other prayed for a child and her hope was not denied.

And now you ask me through your tears,

The age old question unanswered through the years.

Heredity or environment, which are you a product of?

Neither my darling, neither,

Just two different kinds of love.

~Author unknown

I hope you adoptive parents out there enjoy it!

Part of my job is recruiting adoptive parents for the waiting children in Alabama. Nationally, there are 510,000 children currently in foster care, 129,000 of whom are waiting for permanent families. Just in Alabama (Sorry, I don’t know other states statistics) there are almost 300 children waiting to be adopted! These are children who have had termination of parental rights and for whatever reason their foster parents are not willing or able to adopt. 300 children living in foster care or a group home waiting for their forever family!! These are primarily older children – African American children ages 2 and older, children of all other races 8 and older, also sibling groups that are going to be placed together and any child who has special needs. The slogan for National Adoption Month is “Answering the Call: You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Be A Perfect Parent.” If you are interested in finding out more about foster care adoption check out the following websites…

www.adoptuskids.org

www.davethomasfoundation.org

HAPPY NATIONAL ADOPTION MONTH!!

The Journey

I just wanted to share something from a blog I read today.  Beth, from Walking the Journey, wrote a beautiful letter to all waiting mothers and I wanted to share a couple of things that really spoke to me.

“Your joy is just around the corner, and that the wait- well the wait is worth it and the journey- the journey is what makes the joy that much sweeter!”

“There will come a point where you look back over your journey and you will be at peace with every step, every tear, and every loss. You will still grieve, it will still hurt, and the scar will remain but the joy you will have will heal in a way that is beyond comprehension. I just want you to know that the journey will be worth it, I can promise you that your joy will come in the morning and although there seems to be no end to the darkness in sight, it will end.”

I like what she said a lot…as hard as this journey is, think about how much we will appreciate the joy that comes at the end!  The journey is part of what will make finally having a child in our arms that much better/sweeter/special/amazing!  We will really be able to understand that this blessing is from the Lord and from the Lord only.  He knew what He was doing all along! :)

Explanation of RE...

I have had several people ask me what an RE is from my previous post...sorry, I forget that that is not a common term in most people's vocabulary! Sad that it has become such a familiar term in mine that I didn't even think to define it. Anyway...RE = Reproductive Endocrinologist = AKA Infertility Doctor.

Hope that helps! :)

Bible verse for the day

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  

-- Matthew 11:28-30

RE here we come!

I have mentioned in previous posts that my OBGYN is the only Dr. that has been “treating” our infertility…well him and the Urologist.  Last time I had an appointment with him I had asked if there were any other tests we could run and he told us to just wait…wait…wait.  Well I waited 2 more cycles and decided to get a second opinion.  The thing with the second opinion is that the nearest RE is in Mobile, which is between 3-4 hours away.  So not very convenient.  But for our own peace of mind we decided to go ahead and make an appointment.

So, December 3rd we are road tripping to Mobile.  The doctor we will be seeing works with my OBGYN clinic, and makes visits to Dothan every 6 weeks.  Any monitoring would be done in Dothan, any procedures would be done in Mobile.  So, not ideal, but the best we can get.  (How oh how am I living somewhere too small to even have an RE??  I do love Dothan, but I DEFINITELY miss bigger cities when it comes to things like this!!)  Thanks Becky for the recommendation of the clinic! 

I am excited about it and yet bummed about it at the same time.  Glad to be getting a second opinion, bummed that we have to be getting a second opinion. It just makes me wonder how long this next leg of the journey will take. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord.  “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

God always knew we would be making this trip.  He always knew that we would be seeing an RE on December 3rd - it is all part of His plan.  He has gone ahead of us and knows exactly what we will hear and exactly what will come out of the appointment.  I am SOOO glad that the Lord has a much bigger plan for our lives than I can see right now!

You have blessed my life

I really appreciate everyone’s comments yesterday!  I love knowing that I am not the only one that gets upset over seemingly little things, avoids Facebook sometimes and often wants to be alone.  This blog and the friends I have made through it are priceless!  Thanks girls!

In light of that and all of my in person friends and family (well in person and on the phone) that I love dearly, I heard this song the other day and thought of many of you.  You know who you are…

 

“More Than You’ll Ever Know” by Watermark

Something brought you to my mind today
I thought about the funny ways you make me laugh
And yet I feel like it's okay to cry with you
Something about just being with you
When I leave I feel like I've been near God
And that's the way it ought to be...

CHORUS:
'Cause you've been more than a friend to me
You fight off my enemies
'Cause you've spoken the Truth over my life
And you'll never know what it means to me
Just to know you've been on your knees for me
Oh, you have blessed my life
More than you'll ever know, yeah, yeah, yeah
More than you'll ever know, yeah, yeah, yeah

You had faith, when I had none
You prayed God would bring me a brand new song
When I didn't think I could find the strength to sing
And all the while I'm hoping that I'll
Do the kind of praying for you that you've done for me
And that's the way it ought to be...

You have carried me
You have taken upon a burden that wasn't your own
And may the blessing return to you
A hundredfold, oh yeah...
A hundredfold, oh yeah...

 

I am so blessed to have all of the friends and family that I have.  The Lord has really provided me with a great support network of both friends who are walking their own walk of infertility and many that are walking with me through mine.  You will never know how much the prayers and support from each of you means to me.  It is such an awesome feeling to know that there are people praying for me and Barry and our future little one(s)!  The Lord is using each of you in my life in a special way.  Thank you!!

Life in a bubble would be good

I have decided that I would like to live in a bubble secluded from the rest of the world. OK, not really…but a part of me does. Let me explain…

If I was walking this journey without people’s ignorant comments, without watching others who are pregnant around me, without hearing friends announce that they are pregnant, I could do it. I would still be extremely upset at the end of each cycle, don’t get me wrong, but it would be much easier. I am happy with our lives – I like being able to travel, I like being able to sleep in, I like spending quality time with my husband. But I would give those things up in a millisecond to become a mother. However, I can trust the Lord that His timing is perfect much better when I don’t see other people who God is allowing to be on a different timeline. Am I making any sense?

I can handle this infertility stuff until these things are shoved in my face…and I know they aren’t REALLY shoved in my face, but they sure feel that way. Yesterday it was a friend’s Facebook status. It was so not a huge deal, but her status comment about her pregnancy really irked me. It was not meant that way but it upset me. She knows that we are struggling with infertility and still updates her status with pregnancy stuff a lot. To me it would be like knowing your friend was having major financial difficulties, had lost their job, was about to foreclose on their house and my status being “I still can’t believe I won the lottery! Man, I am having fun spending all this money!” Wouldn’t that hurt your friend? Wouldn’t you think twice before rubbing that in their face? I know the world doesn’t revolve around me and I don’t want all of my friends having to think before they speak or before they status update…but being honest, it did bother me.

I decided I wanted to go run…I get this urge sometimes. And I am sadly not a runner. But sometimes I just want to run. So I tried. However my asthmatic lungs were really not very happy with me. I ran my little heart out for maybe 2 minutes and then thought I might die and had to walk the rest of the time. This only made me more upset because the one thing I wanted to do right then– run – my body was failing me with. Just like infertility, I feel like my body is failing me. So this awesome revelation brought me to tears. Here I was now walking/running through my neighborhood (which is well lit by the way and I was running around 5pm so there were people around) with tears streaming down my face, sniffling like crazy and gasping for air. I am sure it was a lovely lovely sight.

I know the Lord is helping me get through experiencing infertility under the influence of the rest of the world. I couldn’t do it without Him. But He is doing more that just getting me through it, He is USING it to witness to others, He is USING it to form me into His image. If I was in a bubble I would be missing out on using infertility for His purposes. I would be missing out on His blessings.

I know all of this but it is still so difficult some days. I want to just delete my Facebook account, not answer my phone and never leave home. But I know this is not the Lord’s plan for my life. So I trudge on…praying, trusting, praying and trusting. Thanking God that I don’t live in that secluded bubble after all.

Trick-or-treat

Our neighborhood was overrun with trick-or-treaters yesterday!!  The houses in our neighborhood and fairly close together, there are sidewalks on both sides of the streets, it is well lit – the conditions are perfect for trick-or-treating!  :)  Because of this, people in our neighborhood just sit out on our porches and hand out candy all night.  There was even a police barricade this year that stopped every car coming into the neighborhood.  All guests had to park in a parking lot right outside of the neighborhood and walk in.  It was absolutely crazy but so much fun!  Here are a couple of pictures…

Us with our very last minute costumes…Barry was a doctor and I was the patient.  We got asked a million times “Are you really a doctor?” “Do you have a boo-boo?”  “Are you hurt?”  “Are you playing doctor?”  So apparently it was not clear that they were COSTUMES.  Oh well, we had fun.  :)

A view of our driveway and the million trick-or-treaters overtaking it! 

Done for another year!  Now on to thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas!!  How crazy is that!?!

Infertility Sensitivity

I was talking to someone I work with periodically yesterday who knows a friend of mine who is pregnant.  He knows that we know each other and so he was asking me how she was doing.  Then he says, and I quote “When are you going to have a Lisa Jr.? (insert my friends name here) is getting ahead of you!  You better hurry up!”

My first reaction was to jump through the phone and slug him, but I refrained.  Jesus would not want me to punch people.  Plus I don't think I could actually jump through the phone.  :)  It just really bothered me because I already feel like my friends are all “getting ahead of me” without the outside world pointing it out to me.  I realize that it is obviously not a competition, but it is really difficult when almost all of your friends are either pregnant or have small children.  You do feel left out and left behind.

I wish there was a way to educate the world about how it is not OK to say things like this.  How to do it, how to do it…I always debate how much to tell people when they ask personal questions regarding TTC.  I don’t mind telling them we are TTC and explaining to them how whatever comment they just made bothered me.  But I don’t want to make them uncomfortable.  Well most of the time I don’t want to make them uncomfortable….

I was at a work event a few weeks ago and there was a lady there who had just told me all about her boyfriend getting her pregnant and how it wasn’t planned and by her attitude you could tell she was not at all happy about the situation.  Well, she proceeded to ask me when we were going to have kids.  I politely told her in the Lord’s timing.  And then she keeps pushing, asking if we had thought about it and what our plan was.  Well, at that point I didn’t mind making her uncomfortable.  So I tell her “My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for the past year and a half and are going through infertility testing/treatments.”  There was a very awkward silence and she dropped the issue.  Oops.  :)

So what is the best way to educate people about infertility sensitivity?  Is it just being a role model in the questions that we ask others?  Is it being open with people about TTC?  Is it sharing infertility blogs with others so they can get an insiders view?  Is it posting your struggle on Facebook to widely spread the word?  I know it is different for each person depending on what they feel comfortable with….What do you guys think? 

Busy busy busy

I have been gone from my blog a long time!  Man life is busy.  Which is good and bad…good because it takes my mind off TTC as much as possible (which is relative) but bad because with busy comes stress and stress is bad for TTC.  There is not much to do though except embrace the stresses of life and hand them over to God.  Which is what I have been trying to do. 

Things at work are crazy because November is National Adoption Month.  Seeing as though I work for an agency that supports adoptive parents, November and the weeks leading up to November are JAM PACKED!  I have been busy putting out press releases and PSA’s, planning several special events for our adoptive families and a conference for adoptive professionals, organizing display’s to promote APAC services, setting up interviews for radio/TV/Newspapers, writing an article for a newspaper, etc.  In addition to the social worky part of my job I also do a ton of marketing, writing and event planning.  It is a very diverse job.  :)

Then in my personal life we have been out of town every single weekend for the past month and a half.  All fun stuff, but it makes the weeks much more jammed packed as we have laundry, cleaning, errands, bill paying, etc.  We have gone to a football game in Tuscaloosa (University of Alabama), to Atlanta, to visit family in Auburn and Birmingham, to the beach with friends…we are in town this weekend (YEA!) and then head to Starkville (Mississippi State) to visit my brother then we are gone for a cruise for 2 weeks!  Man, I am exhausted just talking about it. 

Here is a picture from the Bama game!  Roll Tide!

And here was my view from our 3 day staff meeting at the beach.  Beautiful!

We are extremely blessed to be able to travel so much, I LOVE LOVE LOVE to travel.  And luckily we have friends and family spread all over so we have free places to stay a lot of the time!

I don’t remember what my point was except to say that busy is good.

Contentment

I have a Bible verse to share for the day…

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it it to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  [I have learned to be content whether pregnant or not pregnant, whether I will become a mother soon or will have to wait several more years…that is my ad lib :) ]  I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:11-13

I can be content with whatever is going on in my life ONLY through HIM who gives me the strength to get through it.  And listen to this quote from my Girlfriends in God devotional…

“When we look at the difficulties, inconveniences and problems of life as potential assignments from God, it changes our perspective.  We can decide to focus on what God can do through a difficult circumstance rather than the details of the circumstance itself.”

I like that a lot…I want to look at infertility as a potential assignment from God.  This is where He wants me right now, and I want to see what God can do through this! 

 

Thanks to everyone who responded to the previous post.  You guys had some great advice.  I love all of my new infertility blogging friends!  And the rest of my friends and family!  I love you too!  I am headed out of town for the next 3 days on a work retreat…but I can’t complain…it’s at the beach!  Woo-hoo!  Although, sadly it is right around ovulation time, but I am trying not to think about that and we are just doing what we can if you know what I mean.  :)

Sigh...

So I am trying to trust but I am really struggling.

The doctors say we are fine, we are good to go, "fixed"...

But I just keep doubting.

Back in March when I went to my OBGYN to begin my infertility workup and Barry went to the Urologist for his, problems were found on both ends. My blood tests came back normal, the ovulation predictors said I was ovulating, the ultrasounds showed no cysts, but the symptoms I was describing indicated possible endometriosis, so my doctor recommended a laparoscopy. I was excited about it to be honest, because I want to be thorough, check out everything that could possibly be wrong so we can move on. Barry was found to have a varicocele causing low sperm count and low sperm motility. So the Urologist recommended a varicocelectomy. Without hesitation Barry agreed to have the surgery as soon as possible. So our surgeries were scheduled for within 2 weeks of each other. Go health insurance is all I can say about that. :)

My surgery went perfect...it lasted for about as long as the Dr. said it would, I was in and out of there pretty quickly. Of course I was asleep and very relaxed for most of it, so I am not sure if it was really quick, but that is how I remember it. :) The Dr. found some endometriosis and soldered what he found. They also did the dye procedure to check for tubal blockage and there wasn't any blockage - yea!

Barry's surgery was a nightmare. We got there at 5:30am and they took him back to the surgical holding area at 7:15, then I was alone. I thought I would be perfectly fine being there alone, but not so much. Never will I do that again! Hopefully I will never have to be in the waiting room with my husband in surgery again, but if for some reason I am, please someone come sit with me. :) I didn't hear ANYTHING until 10:45 when they took him to the OR. (He had to lay in the holding area by himself, in the dark, with the relaxing medicine wearing off for over 3 hours! And I was in the waiting area thinking for sure that they had forgotten to page me and the surgery should be over soon. Not so much.) Then I get another page at 11:50 that the surgery had started. (What did they do with him in surgery for over an hour before starting surgery?!?) Then a call at 2:30 that the surgery was finally over. It lasted over twice as long as they had expected because they had found 4 varicose veins, an accessory vein that they had to dissect and a benign tumor (that apparently is normal). So that is what took so long, but my goodness talk about an anxious wife. I kept going up to the receptionist asking the status and all they would say was that "surgery was in progress". I held it together until I had gotten that page that he was out of surgery and they let me go back into a private room to wait for Barry to come back. I broke down in tears at that point, I was just so glad to hear that he was out of surgery. It gave me a new respect for anyone who has loved ones having surgery!

After surgery our follow-up appointments went well, Barry's sperm count and motility have gone up exponentially and my OBGYN says that everything looks good on my end now. We were released saying to try for another 4-6 months and if we aren't pregnant by then to come back and they will investigate further.

Well, try telling my brain that...

At my last appointment when I asked my Dr. if there were any other tests to run or if I should go ahead and see an RE (there is not one ANYWHERE close to Dothan, so my OBGYN has been the one working with me all along) he said that he doesn't think it is necessary. He says that they found the "problems", "fixed them" and now we should be ready to conceive. He said that to investigate further doesn't make sense because they found problems and solved those problems.

I understand that, but I just can't relax with that knowledge. I keep fearing that there is still something else going on that we haven't found. I don't know if that is just me being pessimistic, or if the Lord is preparing me for not getting pregnant any time soon. I just don't know. But it is a daily struggle as my brain wrestles with the knowledge that we should be able to get pregnant soon and then the other part of my brain is arguing with it and doubting that it will happen anytime soon.

I debate getting a second opinion or calling an RE and trying to get an appointment...but then I tell myself that I really trust my current Dr. and don't think he would be leading me astray. But there is still doubt...

If only my brain could get into agreement and just relax knowing that we have done everything that the Dr. recommends and we should be seeing 2 pink lines soon!

Stupid words

Words that I have become way too familiar with:

Infertility, laparoscopy, varicocele, sperm morphology, motility and concentration, clomid, IUI, IVF, 2ww, varicocelectomy, ovulation predictor kits, endometriosis, ultrasound, blood test, hysteroscopy, testosterone, luteinizing hormone, basal body temperature,  uterine cysts, progesterone, reproductive endocrinologist…

 

Instead I want to be familiar with these words:

Pregnant, home pregnancy test, BFP, nausea, headaches, first, second and third trimester, labor and delivery, childbirth classes, due date, embryo, epidural, full term, gestational age, glucose screening, hCG, implantation, maternity, stretch marks…

Just playing around…

Since blogger and I did not get along well when I tried uploading pictures the other day, Melody suggested that I use Windows Live Writer.  I love it already!  Thanks Melody!  It makes uploading pictures and just formatting regular text much easier!  Yea!  I recommend it to everybody!

Since I was just messing around I thought I would upload my favorite picture from our trip to Hawaii this past May.  Hawaii is absolutely beautiful, and the pictures don’t do it justice at all!

Here’s a Bible verse for the day…

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Chosen??

I heard a Bible verse on the radio yesterday morning and had never heard the specific translation of the verse that they used. Here is the verse in the New International Version that I had heard before..."See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction." Isaiah 48:10. Now listen to the verse in the King James Version... "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Did ya catch the key word there? Chosen???

It got me thinking about Job. In the book of Job, Job is described by God as "blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil" (Job 1:8). Job had done nothing wrong and yet very bad things were about to come upon him. Satan had just gotten back from roaming around the earth trying to stir up some trouble. He approached the Lord and the Lord CHOSE Job and gave the Devil permission to bring bad things upon him because the Lord knew that Job would be faithful to the Lord. The Lord had to give Satan permission to lay his hands on Job (Job 1:12, 2:6). Satan couldn't touch Job without that permission from our Heavenly Father. Yet the Lord also gave Satan stipulations on what he could do to Job. The Lord didn't just let Satan go crazy and do whatever he wanted. Then we see that Satan brought the affliction on Job (Job 2:7).

The Lord chose Job for Satan to bring affliction on...this brings me back to the original verse "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." I know that nothing happens to me that hasn't passed through the Lord's hands first, nothing can happen to me that He hasn't allowed. But hearing this Bible verse just really got me thinking about Satan's role in all of it. And frankly, it just confused me. Here are the questions that it brought to my mind...

• Are all bad things caused by Satan or did sin enter the world through Satan and now bad things just happen on their own?
• We, as humans, have a sinful nature so I can see how murder, adultery, lying, etc. are rooted in our sinful nature...but what about natural disasters, sickness, infertility, etc. that our sinful nature doesn't directly bring on? Are these things results of Satan asking the Lord "Can I do this? Can I make this happen?" Or do all these things happen just because sin is a part of our world?

I don't know if these are questions that will be answered this side of Heaven, but in the grand scheme of things how I respond should be the same way. Regardless of if God chose me to go through infertility or if because of sin, it just happened (with His permission)...I should trust Him and have faith that His plan is good. However that plan came about...but man is it hard.

Ups and downs

Barry and I went to Atlanta, GA this past weekend and had so much fun...until the last day, more on that to come. I love big cities so I always get excited to go somewhere larger than Dothan, AL. And I always like Atlanta, although I wouldn't want to live in that big city. We stayed in Columbus, GA for a night on the way up in an old corn mill that has been converted into a nice hotel. It is located in the historic district on the river with cobblestone streets...very fun little place. Then we headed up to ATL and went to the Georgia Aquarium, Centennial Park, CNN Center, Underground Atlanta (which I do not recommend), watched lots of college football, got lots of sleep, ate tons of great food and spent some good quality time together. Our hotel in ATL was in walking distance of everything so we never even moved our car the whole weekend. I really really enjoy being able to walk everywhere in a city and love looking out my hotel room window at night and seeing all the city lights...ahhhh. Here is a small sampling of some of the fun we had...


Here we are with our street! I am a dork when it comes to taking pictures and enjoy this sort of thing. We asked one lady to take our picture and she said no! I have never had anyone tell me no before...that was not southern hospitality! :)

The two of us in Centennial Park...we are kind of small...sorry...

Barry with a huge crab at the Georgia Aquarium! It is the largest aquarium, I think in the world. Makes me hungry for some crab legs...



Me looking very serious playing "Deal or No Deal" at Dave and Busters! No deal Howey! It was a lot of fun...and Roll Tide by the way.

A little side note...in case anyone was wondering, I have decided that blogger and I are not friends when it comes to uploading pictures...

On one of our walks we ran into a homeless woman (well we ran into a LOT of homeless women, but this one in particular sticks out in my mind.) She was pregnant and asked us for food and money saying that she gets all of her food from going through trash cans. She was pretty abrasive and not the friendliest person I have ever met. My thought process went like this...avoid her (after already passing 50 homeless people who had been asking for money...it's so hard though because the Bible says, "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40, and yet you can't give everyone money or we would have been broke. That is a whole different topic...) Anyway back to my thought process, as soon as I saw her belly I think...crap she's pregnant, that poor baby, that poor woman, how in the world is she able to get pregnant and we can't? I can't get her out of my mind. I have no idea how she got to be in the place that she is and it is not my place to judge...but I can't help feeling angry at her that she would be sleeping around when she has nothing to provide for this child!! But that thought right there is judging her because she might not have been sleeping around, it could have been out of her control, I have no idea. I also feel sad for her because I don't think any birth mother would WANT to be in that situation. That poor baby is not getting the nutrients that it needs, plus it is living under constant stress and what kind of future does that child have in store for it? What is going to happen once she has the baby? How will she feed the child? How will the child have a place to lay their head? How will she provide safety for the child? The child will probably end of being another person living on the streets. Maybe the state will find out and place the child in foster care...now another child is in the system. I have been praying for that lady and her baby every time I think about them.

I hear about this type of thing every day in my job (I work for a non-profit that provides support to adoptive and foster families) but seeing it firsthand was heartbreaking for me, in more ways than one. I am heartbroken for that woman and her unborn child...heartbroken for myself and all of my other friends who are struggling to have a child, and this lady can?!? Here we all are able to provide a loving, stable home for a child and yet we can't. And here is another child being born into a world that is not able to provide those things for it. I just can't wrap my mind around it. I know the Lord is in control, but...this one is hard for me.

Then the last day of our trip my period came...early...so at first I thought maybe implantation bleeding...but not so much. What a great way to end the weekend. And the awful cramps are just a constant reminder that another month has passed by. I just want to crawl in bed and stay there, but life must go on. Work must be accomplished. Laundry must be done. Meals must be cooked. I try so hard to be optimistic and to trust God with His timing, but days like this I just want it to be all over with. I am thankful that I have learned everything that I have through infertility, but I want to be done with it. I want to leave this place in my life and move on. But apparently that is not the Lord's will yet. I just feel very bummy and blah and cry-y. It is just a "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" to quote the children's book by Judith Viorst.

"Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning." Psalm 30:5b

Pet peeves

So I have several pet peeves, not that I am easily annoyed...but we all have things that annoy us, right? Well here are a few of mine...

• People referring to getting pregnant as getting "knocked up". It a) makes getting pregnant seem easy, b) it takes away the miracle of conceiving.
• People referring to pregnant women as "preggers". Again, I think it takes away from the miracle God has intended this to be.
• Pregnant women complaining of pregnancy symptoms. I would absolutely love to be sick 24 hours a day with morning sickness. Pregnancy puking, headaches, and everything else that goes along with it is much better than not puking and not pregnant. It is really hard for me to have any sympathy for them. I guess I need the Lord to help me work on that.
• Media and the rest of the world making comments implying that getting pregnant is always easy.
  

Now some that aren't infertility/pregnancy related...

• People adding a plural to store names that aren't plural...Ex: "Wal-Marts" It makes me laugh.
• Drivers not using cruise control! It is made for a reason...use it! I don't want to have to use my brakes!
• People who don't make up their minds, or won't share their minds, regarding plans..."where do you want to go for dinner?" "I don't care, where do you want to go?" "I don't care." Come on, everyone has some opinions, share them!
• I have more, but we are headed out of town for the weekend and my husband is literally pushing me out the door!!!

What about you? What are your pet peeves?

Many are the plans of my heart

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21

The Lord reminded me of this Bible verse as I was leaving a comment on someones blog a second ago. I can make all the plans I want for having a child, and yet the Lord is in control. His purpose will prevail. And I have to remind myself that His plan and His purpose is so much better than any plan I can conjure up in my head. I think the best plan is to have gotten pregnant a year and a half ago, but since that didn't happen, that was not His will. And His will for me is much better than my will for me.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 The Lord has a plan for my life but the Lord also has a plan for our future children's lives! Whether those children are by birth or by adoption, He has a plan for them! A friend told me once that maybe my child needs to be in the 8th grade in the year 20__ to lead someone to Christ. My mother-in-law mentioned that maybe our child's spouse has not been born yet. Who knows what the Lord's plans are for our future children, but HE HAS A PLAN FOR THEM! And that plan did not begin a year ago, or 10 years ago...it didn't begin in my timing.

His perfect plan for our children includes a purpose for them. "For by Him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him." Colossians 1:16 God not only is going to create my future child in His timing but He will have a reason for creating that child at that exact time. A reason for Him! Everything He creates has a purpose and a meaning!

I wonder what kind of awesome plans He must have in store for each of us and our future children...

To exercise or not to exercise...that is the question

I feel very silly thinking these thoughts, but they are there, so I will share. During that 2ww (2 week wait between ovulation and finding out if you are pregnant this cycle - for all of you not in the infertility blogging world) I always debate exercising. I know they say that it is perfectly safe, but in my opinion, which is highly scientific, it's not safe. How is all of that jumping and jiggling around good for a little egg that is hopefully trying to implant itself? Doesn't it seem like running around would make a hostile environment for the poor little thing? I wouldn't want to stay in there... :) But seriously, it seems like all of that activity would shake it out. Maybe the debate is also slightly fueled by an excuse to be lazy for 2 weeks, I don't know. Now I know God is bigger than exercise and if this is the month for us to get pregnant than it is going to happen, exercise or not, but still... So this afternoon, to exercise or not to exercise?

"God does not waste a hurt"

I was reading a post on Remember All the Way's blog this morning and it got me thinking. She said that "I honestly don't think I'd be where I am, spiritually, had it not been for this chapter of my life!!" I have had that same exact thought many times. God will use these trials in our lives for His glory. I heard a quote somewhere that said "God will not waste a hurt." Normally it is in those hurts that we learn to trust Him and we grow the most. Who knows the many many ways that the Lord will use this hurt, and our growing relationship with Him is just one of those ways. I believe that my relationship with Him would not be what it is today without my infertility struggles.

It made me think of the song "God Speaking" by Mandisa. You can listen to the whole song here . The part that it made me think about is...


"Who knows how He’ll get ahold of us?
Get our attention to prove he is enough.
He’ll do and He’ll use whatever He wants to.
To tell us, I love you.

His ways are higher
His ways are better
Though sometimes strange
What could be stranger than God in a manger?"


He does work in some strange ways, but the Lord's seemingly strange ways are MUCH better than my ways. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) His plans often don't make sense to us because we have such a limited world view. We can't see the whole picture, but God can. Dr. James Dobson, in his book When God Doesn't Make Sense says, "trying to analyze His (God's) omnipotence is like an amoeba attempting to comprehend the behavior of man." We simply cannot do it. But we do know that "all the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful." (Psalm 25:10) I have mentioned this before, but it might not be until we are in heaven that we know all the "whys" of life. We might not know until then why the Lord allowed this particular hurt in our lives. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12.) But I love it when the Lord does answer some of those "whys" to the hurts we are experiencing! And seeing my relationship grow with Him is definitely one of the many reasons He is allowing us to go through this. The method might seem strange to me...But strange to Him? Not so much.

I am just excited to see how else He will use this hurt!

Why I am thankful for my infertility

15. I have never spent as much time with the Lord as I do now - reading my Bible, devotionals, praying and worshipping.
14. I am learning to be more open with personal matters. Why not share? Something that I have learned might benefit someone else.
13. I am learning more about myself - I am learning that I can handle much more than I once thought I could! And that is solely because of the Holy Spirit living in me giving me the strength to get through each day.
12. I am becoming a more compassionate, sensitive person...more in tune to others needs and emotions.
11. It has created in me an awareness of potential struggles that others might be going through. Some that I might know about, others that I might not ever find out about.
10. I am able to relate and understand the feelings and emotions of others experiencing infertility. I pray that for the rest of my life I will be able to minister to and encourage this population.
9. I am becoming closer with my current friends as they go through this with me.
8. I am making new friends in the infertility world.
7. I am learning to let the little things go. I used to get upset when things didn't go my way. Ex: Getting aggravated when dinner was ready and my husband was running late from work resulting in dinner getting cold, or planning on going out of town for the weekend and then plans changing. I am not a fan of plans changing, but this has put everything into perspective...
6. It has helped me put things into perspective. While infertility is my battle right now, there are people who are going through much more difficult times than I am.
5. I am learning to see God working in areas of my life and others lives that I was previously too busy to see
4. My husband and I are growing closer together and learning more about each other.
3. I am learning patience. I've always heard it said not to pray for patience...and I don't remember ever praying for it...But apparently I needed to learn it. :)
2. I think I am becoming a better, stronger woman.
1. My relationship with the Lord is so much stronger than it ever has been! He is teaching me that He is in control, to trust Him, that He will provide me with everything I need...I could go on and on!

What is everyone else learning through their struggles/trials - infertility or otherwise??

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." James 1:2-5

Infertility Calendar

So here is how I (and I am sure the rest of the infertile world) spend their months...

Week 1: Period starts and the world crumbles. Another month has gone by without a baby. Taking us farther away from our goal of getting pregnant and feeling like the longer it takes, the greater the chance that we will never get pregnant. The week is mostly spent feeling depressed and crummy. Have to restart the fertility monitor to day 1. The worst time to find out someone is pregnant. Beware pregnant women out there who might just receive glares. Sorry...

Week 2: Time is spent drinking caffeine and taking Aleve or other medications that aren't baby friendly. This is the hardest time for me because there is nothing to do during this time except wait...at least I get to drink a lot of coffee and coke and chocolate.

Week 3: Time to start trying again! So now to concern oneself with timing and other stuff that I won't go into detail about...my mother is reading this after all. :) Time to limit the caffeine, worry about if exercise is helpful or harmful, and begin to calculate when my next period should start (or hopefully not start). Oh and the acne! It is AWFUL around this time, much worse than when I was a teenager! Hopefully work schedules don't get in the way of this time...although I do a lot of traveling with my job, so sometimes it does. The world doesn't revolve around my infertility calendar? How dare they! Boo on work.

Week 4-5: Wait, wait wait...this is a time of being hopeful. Every month there is always a hope that this is the month. Now, however, there are new concerns. Everything out of the normal could be pregnancy symptoms - headaches, cramps, food cravings, increased sense of smell, heartburn - all of those mean I am pregnant, right? Unfortunately those are also all symptoms of PMS. Grrr...the confusion of it all. Living in anticipation and fear all at the same time - every single day. Hoping and praying that I won't start my period today, and each day that I don't start feeling like maybe it really is the month. This is the time that thoughts of getting pregnant, infertility, etc. are really all consuming. My prayer here is that "the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" Philippians 4:7.

Hopefully the cycle ends there and the world doesn't come crashing down around me again.

So, for now...Go week 3!! Is that too much information?? :)

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1

Short term memory

So, I can't expect people who have not gone through infertility to always be aware of the things they do and say that might be hurtful to someone going through infertility.  They can't possibly know the power of their words and how one comment can ruin my day.  But those who have experienced infertility...one would think they would be more sensitive.  However this is not always the case...

Yesterday at a work meeting a lady who has gone through infertility told me she liked my dress and that  "you could even be 3-4 months pregnant and the dress would hide it!"  And she kept going on and on about it and looking at me suspiciously.

Facebook status updates that are updated 20 times a day that continually talk about their new baby.  From people who have experienced  infertility?  Don't they remember how hard it is to look through all of their friends status updates constantly talking about their babies??  Don't you remember that it feels like it is being rubbed in your face?

And of course the ever dreaded "When are you guys going to have one?" "When will it be your turn?" "Don't you want a baby?"  All from people who have walked this road...what in the world??!

Grrrr...people, people, people.  I pray that when I get to the other side of this I will not have short term memory loss!!  :)  And I pray that God will give me patience with those who have...

Worry

"Worry is trying to fix tomorrow's problems with today's resources. God gives grace in daily doses." - Mary Southerland, Girlfriends in God

Isaiah 43:2 "When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you" (NLT).

Think on these things

I have amazing friends - I really really do!  One of these friends told me yesterday that she would "pray specifically for His peace that surpasses all understanding, and that you won't feel so consumed by thoughts of your circumstances and the "what ifs"."  Minutes after I read her message I opened my Bible and low and behold I felt smacked in the face with what I found. 

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received from me, or seen in me - put it into practice.  And the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8-9

I have read that passage a million times and never has it popped out at me like it did last night.  My thoughts have been consumed with infertility, not with things that are lovely, excellent and praiseworthy!  My thoughts I don't believe have been a sin, I think they have been a normal human emotion due to these circumstances.  The Lord created us with feelings and emotions.  But when my thoughts continually dwell on my circumstances, I am not living the kind of life the Lord wants for me.  He wants to be MY God of Peace, but to do that I have to give Him my thought life.  I have to make a conscious decision that I don't want to dwell on my circumstances - I want Him to have control of my thoughts, I want to dwell on His teachings, on His purpose.

Now I don't exactly know how to go about this in my human strength...but the great thing is that I don't have to!  I have a feeling I will be doing a lot of praying to the Holy Spirit in these coming days to take control of my thought life and to help me focus on praiseworthy, excellent things!

The power of prayer is amazing!

"Sometimes He Calms the Storm" by Scott Krippayne

All who sail the sea of faith

Find out before too long

How quickly blue skies can grow dark

And gentle winds grow strong

Suddenly fear is like white water

Pounding on the soul

Still we sail on knowing

That our Lord is in control

Sometimes He calms the storm

With a whispered peace be still

He can settle any sea

But it doesn't mean He will

Sometimes He holds us close

And lets the wind and waves go wild

Sometimes He calms the storm

And other times He calms His child

He has a reason for each trial

That we pass through in life

And though we're shaken

We cannot be pulled apart from Christ

No matter how the driving rain beats down

On those who hold to faith

A heart of trust will always be a quiet peaceful place

Sometimes He calms the storm

With a whispered peace be still

He can settle any sea

But it doesn't mean He will

Sometimes He holds us close

And lets the wind and waves go wild

Sometimes He calms the storm

And other times He calms His child

God Designed Detours

I have spent the past couple of hours looking around on other blogs in this new infertility blogging world that I find myself in. It is an amazing community with so much support and encouragement from others who are going through the same experiences. It is a blessing that these women who do not know each other and probably never will can come together and encourage each other. The Lord has designed us for fellowship and this is a great example of how the Lord can use technology to bring about this fellowship! :) "But encourage one another daily" Hebrews 3:13



The sermon in church today was titled "Why the Detour?" (I think you will be able to find the whole sermon here eventually....it will be titled "Are you Ready for This? Part 10) Immediately when I opened my bulletin and saw the title of the sermon I started to tear up. I tried biting my lip, closing my eyes and blinking to keep the tears back, so that I wouldn't make a scene, but that sermon spoke directly to my heart. I knew it would be hard to hear but I knew it was just for me. One of my friends has questioned me several times about how God can actually speak to you, and before we started going down this inferitlty journey I don't honestly think that I had ever slowed down enough to really hear Him speak. But now I constantly feel like the sermons, daily Bible verses and devotionals are written just for me. And that is God speaking to me! So amidst tears here is what the Lord was speaking to me today...



With God there are no detours. To us they might seem like detours, but everything that we experience has been filtered through our Father. Nothing takes Him by surprise, our detours can be God designed. This is a little hard for me to stomach because I would rather think of our inferitility as being an attack from Satan or something that just happens because we live in a fallen world. It is hard for me to think of it as a God designed detour. Why would God design infertility when it is causing so much heart ache for so many of us!?!



In Acts 28:1-10, Paul faced some pretty big detours. There were storms and ship wrecks and yet Paul faced the detours with peace and purpose. The Lord promised to bring Paul safely through to the other side (Acts 27:24), yet He promised that there would be detours on the way. When the Isrealites were escaping Egypt, the Red Sea was a pretty big detour and the Lord saw them through. He parted the Red Sea! Their faith didn't take them around it, it took them straight through it (Hebrews 11:29)! Our perceptions of the detours in life are often self-centered, we see them as interfering with our lives, as obstacles, when we need to see them as opportunities.



Paul's detour was an opportunity for missions, to promote God's message, to witness miracles and to provide for his needs. When he was shipwrecked on Malta, the Lord used him to witness and to display God's miracles to those on the island. Our detours should cause us to look to God, listen to God and live for God. Don't sail past Malta by trying to chase our own agenda! Look at the detour as a place of ministry. Stop looking beyond the detour and instead look AT the detour. This is difficult because I want to just sail on past...I want to be finished with infertility and move on in life with a baby in my hands. But if i try to sail on past Malta I am missing out on God's reasons for allowing me to be on this detour in the first place.



Another point that pastor Ray brought up was that sometimes the detour in my life has nothing to do with me, it has to do with somebody else. Sometimes He's trying to get His message out of me and into someone else.



Maybe the detour is for many reasons. I have really grown in my faith, in my walk with the Lord since we have begun walking this path. I pray that the conversations I have with my friends and family and now this blog will change someone else's life too. I pray that I can be an encouragement to others and show them the love and comfort that I have received from the Lord. Who knows what else the Lord has in store through this detour in my life. But in a weird way I am excited to find out. Because He's got big plans for each and every one of us!!

All consuming rambling thoughts

The past few days my thoughts have been so consumed with this stuff. I have never really understood before when people talked about their thoughts just being consumed with something. But oh how I do now...all day, that's all I can think about...at night I dream about it. I think about us not being able to get pregnant, about others getting pregnant, about what else I can do - should I see a new doctor and get a second opinion, are my medications affecting our odds, am I drinking too much caffeine, am I working out too much, not enough, am I eating the right foods. I analyze everything in my life to see how it might effect getting pregnant. My days revolve around what time of the month it is. I have to live like I am pregnant - not taking certain medications (Ex: Tylenol, no Aleve or Advil), limiting my caffeine intake, taking my prenatal vitamins - and then each month comes to an end and I am not. The heartbreak each month is something that I can't even put into words. Getting pregnant for those with infertility problems takes soooo much planning and analyzing everything, that it loses so much of the spontaneity and enjoyment. And it becomes a task, a chore, an all consuming way of life.

But something else that I have really been thinking about as I have myself a little pity party, is that those with infertility problems are not the only ones going through tough times. Everyone has battles that they will face, whether that they are fighting them right now, in the past, or in the future. While the issues that we all face may be different, the comfort and peace that we all need is exactly the same. While I cannot expect others to understand what I am going through, I simply can't understand what they are going through. Financial struggles, having a child in the hospital, losing a parent, battling cancer, having significant health problems...I see all of these things going on around me and it helps me keep things in perspective. There are always problems bigger than mine.

Something that I have learned through all of this (and I have learned A LOT) is to have more compassion for others. I don't think I have ever been incompassionate, but this has taught me to be more sensitive to issues that others are facing that I might not even know about. While my battle is with not having a baby while others around me seem to be very fertile, others might be struggling with the fact that they are single and haven't found the right one while everyone else around them is getting married. They might be struggling with how to even pay the bills while others seem to be getting along just fine. Whatever our battle we all need compassion - from our friends and from our family.

"Compassion is a human emotion prompted by the pain of others. More vigorous than empathy, the feeling commonly gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another's suffering." (Wikipedia)

I thank the Lord that through this tough time, He is teaching me the art of compassion.

"If You Want Me To" by Ginny Owens

The pathway is broken

And The signs are unclear

And I don't know the reasons why You brought me here

But just because You love me the way that You do

I'm gonna walk through the valley

If You want me to

Cause I'm not who I was

When I took my first step

And I'm clinging to the promise

You're not through with me yet

So if all of these trials bring me closer to you

Then I will walk through the fire

If You want me to

It may not be the way I would have chosen

When you lead me through a world that's not my home

But You never said it would be easy

You only said I'd never go alone

When the whole world turns against me

And I'm all by myself

And I can't hear You answer my cries for help

I'll remember the suffering

Your love put You through

And I will go through the valley

If You want me to

"What If?"

"I've heard it said that when you're anxious, you're being arrogant. You're acting like it's your job to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders." Very thought provoking words from one of my devotionals (Journey magazine). When we are anxious about anything we are living in a "what if" world. Most of the things in this life that we are worried about, are all of the possibilities that could happen in the future. What if we can't ever get pregnant? What if I have to go through another baby shower without having one of my own? What if it takes another year or two or three to get my own "baby bump"? The possibilities of the future can rob us of the present if we let them. God gives us enough strength to get through TODAY, not all of the "what ifs" we can conjure up in our heads. When the Israelites were wandering in the desert, God gave them just enough manna for the day. Just like He gives us the strength to get through TODAY. If one of the "what ifs" comes true, then God will give us the strength to get through it - when that time comes.





When we stress out and are anxious about things, we are a) sinning and b) trying to do God's job (which is actually sinning). Listen to these verses from the Bible...


"Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything with prayer and petition, with Thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God which transcends ALL understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-8

"Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself." Matthew 6:34



We could find many other verses about anxiety in the Bible, but those are some of my favorites. It is so easy to stress about about the "what ifs" when you are trying to get pregnant. There are so many unknowns and constant reminders around us - pregnant women, babies, children, TV shows, media, etc. But I sure don't want those unknowns to consume my thoughts. I want to enjoy this whole process, and I can't do that if I am so anxious about what the future holds.



God's timing really is amazing. I read this devotional the day before we went to go see the urologist to get my husband's test results from the semen analysis the first time. We had to wait several hours before we actually got to see the doctor and I don't think I have ever been that anxious up until that point in my life. All of the "what ifs"... his sperm count be zero, we could be about to find out we could never have biological children...our lives were about to change. The whole time during that wait we were able to keep reminding ourselves that all we were anxious about were the "what ifs". Things that might not happen! We were able to surrender the unknown, all of those "what ifs", to our Lord. We had to pray that he would take all of the unknowns from our minds and give us peace pretty much constantly during that wait, but man...the Lord really can give you an incomprehensible peace!! Look back at Philippians 4:8 "And the peace of God which transcends ALL understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus". The peace only He can give is so far from anything we can comprehend on earth. It is a peace that we would not be able to achieve if we tried for a million years. I know that I would not have been able to make it through that day, or this whole process without that peace from the Lord! Thank you Lord for your peace that transcends my understanding!

I wish I didn't have to be writing this

So, I have played around with the idea of starting a blog for awhile, but needed an outlet today and here I am. My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for about a year and a half now and it just simply does not get easier as the days go by. You think you are handling it well and then something comes up and you fall apart. That was me today. I found out a friend is pregnant after missing one birth control pill and here we are TRYING desperately for a year and a half and nothing. Life just doesn't seem fair sometimes, and yet the Lord doesn't promise us life will be easy. He tells us we will have trials, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds." James 1:2 But it is very hard to consider it joy when we are going through tough times.

Our story...I have always wanted children. Ever since I was little and all of my friends were playing "wedding", I played daycare and mommy. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was "a mommy". I carried a baby doll around until, embarrassingly, about 8th grade. After we got married I left it up to my husband to decide when it was time to start trying to get pregnant. I was ready at any point. After about a year and a half of marriage he said that he thought it was time. Yea! In the back of my mind I always wondered if we would have infertility problems, but you never REALLY think it would happen to you.

At the 6 month mark I started really having doubts and concerns. I had seen my OBGYN and he had told me to not worry and at a year we would pursue other testing. Well that year came and my husband and I both started going through test after test. Blood work and semen analysis, ultrasounds and more blood work, exams, etc. My husband was found to have a varicocele, decreasing his sperm count and requiring surgery. My doctor recommended I have exploratory surgery to check for endometriosis and tubal blockage. The varicocele was taken care of after several hours of nervewracking (on my part) surgery and they found endometriosis for me and cleaned that out. So now it is basically more and more and more waiting. We are both "good to go" now and my doctor recommends we just keep trying. That is the HARDEST part. I feel much better doing SOMETHING to help our odds, but this waiting is awful.

That is it in an extremely small nutshell...more details to come I am sure. The Lord has taught me so much through all of this and I expect to learn more to come. My prayer through all of this is that if the Lord is allowing us to go through these tough times it has to be for some reason. I may or may not know that reason this side of heaven, but I want to learn whatever the Lord is teaching and I want to be used by the Lord for His purpose. That is part of the reason I decided to start this blog. I have received so much comfort from the Lord that I want to be able to help someone else who is going through their own struggles. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 My prayer is that the Lord will be able to speak through me to help you through your trials too.

So, stick with me, I have never blogged before but really feel the Lord calling me to do this. Hopefully we will learn more about this whole waiting thing together (whether you are waiting for a baby or for something else in life) and come out on the other side with perseverance, character and hope. "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:3-5