Faith vs. Medicine. I’m not hearing you, God!

I think if you took an x-ray of my whole being, I’m pretty sure you’d see forty different wars going on all dealing with our trying to conceive a baby. So many questions and so many uncertainty…but one that sticks out more than most. Medicine vs. Faith. So many people that I’ve talked to have done away with all forms of medicine and fully given God and nature control of their battle…but on the other hand, so many have found their beautiful, healthy babies by utilizing the wonders of medicine.

I battle with this. Sometimes, I feel like God is guiding me to the right doctors, but sometimes I feel guilty for not leaving it up to fate. I’m so very torn. Does using medicine make my faith in God weak? Or am I listening to what He’s saying to guide me to the family we’re meant to have?

To this point, I’ve not felt badly. I’ve learned much more about myself and during all of these challenges, my faith has been rocked to the core. I’ve gone to Him more now than ever, and I feel closer to Him as a result. I’ve become kinder and I’ve found I have more patience.His guidance has lead me to take better care of myself and learn that I have PCOS. I appreciate more and value things that I didn’t as much.

People have said that I just need to listen and hear where He is leading me, but I’m not hearing anything no matter how hard I try!

Others have had things come to them in a dream. Others have had strangers say off-handed comments that have helped them decide on their paths. Some open fortune cookies. Some rub a magic eight ball.

WHAT do I have to DO to get an ANSWER?!? I’m not asking for one way or another, I just want to know where to go or a sign to know I need to stay right where I am..

I don’t know where to go from here
It all used to seem so clear
I’m finding I can’t do this on my own
I don’t know where to go from here
As alone as I know that You are near
I’m done fighting, I’m finally letting go
I will trust in You
You’ve never failed before
I will trust in You

If there’s a road I should walk
Help me find it
If I need to be still
Give me peace for the moment
Whatever Your will
Whatever Your will
Can you help me find it?
Can you help me find it?

 

Why I don’t accept your “Happy Mother’s Day.”

To those women who have little ones, you are mothers. To those who have felt the pain of loss with their tiny babies, you are mothers.

But me? I am not a mother.

Before you come rushing to reassure me, see my reason..

Before J and I had met, we were both engaged to other people. We both lived with our significant others and lived a married life without the papers, or so we both viewed.

When both of those relationships ended and we found each other, it was important to us to keep in perspective that we were not married. We lived together before we were married, but still kept the mindset that we NOT married. We did not refer to each other as husband and wife.

We also didn’t attend the marriage retreat at our church or take part of the classes for married couples.

When we did marry, it was amazing and I was more than proud to refer to him as my husband, and all of those things are open to us.

As of right now, I am not expecting and I am not a mother.

But the moment I am expecting, my husband will shower me with the title of “Mom” just like he did when I became “Wife.”

And I will wait to be “Mom” just like I waited to be “Wife.”

And I will trust God’s timing to move into my new role, just as I did when I moved into this one.

And I will. Eventually.

But not on this Mother’s Day, so I will not accept someone’s “Happy Mother’s Day.” Not because I’m bitter but because I’m not there yet, but I will be someday and I will shout out “THANK YOU!” To your offering if “Happy Mother’s Day.”

Murphy’s Law = my life = confessions on a Tuesday night.

In the last few years, I’ve been a walking example of Murphy’s Law. You know the one: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” Murphy’s Law. The one that says it will rain on the ONE day you actually take the time to straighten your hair AND you leave your umbrella at home. The one that says your landlord will cash your check on the first when he’s never cashed it before the fifth in years…on the ONE month you send a post-dated check but won’t have the money in the bank until the third. The one that says TWO MONTHS after you start trying to conceive, your uterus turns against you and your clockwork periods turn into random spotting throughout the month and [probably] non-ovulating, worthless cycles make it impossible to even try.

As you might have guessed, I’ve not had a “normal” period in months. As soon as I got this awesome [though still doesn’t cover infertility treatments] insurance, I made an appointment to see a new Lady Doctor [for reasons unknown, I hate the terms OB/GYN and “Guy-no.” Shudder]. My appointment was TWO MONTHS AWAY. Fine, I thought. Get used to the new job, get settled into the new place, and hopefully things would just…I don’t know…magically fall into place [LIKE THEY DO FOR EVERY. OTHER. EFFING. PERSON I KNOW]. 🙂

But no. Spotting continues, which leads to less sex [because ew, and like I really feel sexy bleeding from my uterus…], which leads to less chance of conceiving, IF I’m even ovulating. Then my appointment gets moved a whole MONTH since I had to reschedule on last notice. So I’m still waiting. For February 7th, which is next week. After that, who knows. And here’s where the questions and confessions come in.

“Well, if you don’t know if you’re ovulating, did you try an ovulation kit?”

No. Because we are tightening our budget and recovering from a move and job change, and having sex while spotting is, well, not happening.

“Perhaps now isn’t the time to have a baby then.”

With as much tact as I can muster up, I would kindly reply, “Fuck off.”

No, it’s not the perfect time to have a baby, but is there ever? With Husband being 31, should we really put it off for a year? Two? Three? Five? Ten?

Confession: We don’t have the budget for fertility treatments, if they end up being necessary, but we will find a way to make them happen.

Confession: I’ve let this breakthrough bleeding go on wayyy too long, but I’m doing the best I can with the schedules I’m given.

Confession: We don’t have sex nearly as often thanks to said spotting, which makes us cranky and stressed out on top of already being cranky and stressed.

Confession: I’m jealous when someone gets pregnant. Still.

Confession: I’m bitter when people are complaining about TTC their THIRD child. You have two. Go focus on being the mother of two that God let you be.

Confession: I’m jealous when people talk about their positive pregnancy tests turning into negative ones. Of course I am sad for them-I’m not awful, I promise-but I’ve never seen two lines on any test I’ve taken, no matter how hard I’ve squinted. At least there’s a chance for that person, and I’m scared I’ll never even get to that point.

Confession: I need to get into WAY better shape than I am in now. Being overweight is often the first go-to for people’s AWESOME advice, but I don’t want to hear it. I own a mirror and a computer. I can put two and two together, and people MUCH, MUCH, MUCH larger than me get pregnant every day [& I know they do-it’s all over my Facebook newsfeed].

Confession: I still hope that this blog will take off, and then-BOOM-irony will consume me and I will get pregnant once my INFERTILITY blog gets big [still Murphy’s Law, really, right?].

Confession: I needed to vent so badly, I don’t even care that this post has grammatical errors, inconsistency, or lack of photos to make it more interesting.

Confession: I’m angry, and I don’t know who to be angry at, which makes me even angrier…which makes me want to eat chocolate and envy happy, pregnant people from afar.

Later, gators.

Babies! Babies as far as the eye can see!

My husband’s cousin and his girlfriend (they’re 20ish, not together anymore, and do not have their shit together) welcomed a baby boy into the world this week.

I just can’t get over it. I know we had nine months to get over it, but DAMN IT.

I do admit that I asked my husband if we could just take the baby-and I also admit that it’s not the first time I asked him if we could just ask to take someone’s child because they clearly weren’t prepared…and I want to clarify before people go crazy: I don’t think you have to be rich to be a parent. Sometimes my husband and I struggle with bills if they get too high, and though we would love to have thousands left over every month, we don’t. Sometimes we have very little, and that’s okay. By saying they “don’t have their shit together” I mean that they are emotionally not there yet. And emotionally stable (minus all things reproductive), my husband and I have in spades. We WANT a child. We know that s/he will not be a handbag that you show off in public and toss aside once you get home.

So back to the baby. He’s super cute, of course, and I can’t wait to meet him…sort of. I don’t know how I feel yet.

On top of that, our good friends who struggled with getting pregnant announced that they are expecting a few months ago. Today, they announced that it’s a boy! Of this situation, I am full of happiness and hope with just a small scoop of envy on top (because no matter who it is, I still want one for myself).

 

How many times have you wanted to take a baby from someone who didn’t have their shit together?? How do you react when someone who has struggled with conceiving gets pregnant?

 Later, gators.

Guys!!! My mom is SO excited to be a grandma!!!

Just like the title says, my mom is super excited to have a new grand-baby! Oh, no, not me. I’m the broken one, remember? My brother and his wife, however, welcomed a perfect, bright-eyed baby girl into the world yesterday to add to the four they already have combined (three together, one each from a previous relationship). I got the texts, pictures, and updates on my sister-in-law through the labor and delivery. Weight, height, disposition, everything. My family members all said how they wish they could be there (they live out of state), and how beautiful of a day this was to welcome her into the family, and I just couldn’t.

I was excited, she’s my niece after all. I can’t wait to meet her, hold her, get to know her, etc., but after the “congrats! she’s beautiful!” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Logically, I know what I could have said, but I can’t promise that I would have sincerely meant any of them. Yes, that sounds harsh and cold, and I seem like a horrible person, but I can’t help but feel sad for myself and my husband. We are good people. We love children, and we’ve helped raise so many in our lines of work, so why does God think that we are incapable of taking care of our own?

If I was the only one I knew that struggled with getting pregnant, I don’t know if I could keep going. I know a few people from a distance, but one up close and personal.

A very good friend of ours has had her own struggles with infertility, and with a preschool aged daughter, is having them again for #2. She’s one of the only people outside of my husband that I can talk to about this struggle and for that, I am grateful, but I don’t know if it’s because I know her story or if those of us who have struggled have a sense for others struggling, but I can see it in her eyes when a baby passes by. I recognize the look on her face because I’ve seen it in the mirror month after month for so long now.

When she first let me in on her journey, she told me that the worst part was being alone and having no one to talk to. I confessed that I had this gut-wrenching feeling that I, too, would struggle with getting pregnant when the time came, and she told me that if I needed to talk to anyone, please come to her. (Lo & behold, here we are! A woman’s intuition is a powerful thing, friends!)

Yesterday, at work, I had my finger hovering over her name in my phone. I almost called when I got the picture of my brand new, perfect, 10 fingered, 10 toed, bright eyed baby niece, and I just couldn’t bring myself to call her to vent. What if she was okay today? What if she was having a rare day at work and hadn’t thought about it all day? Was I going to be the dark cloud and bring back thoughts of her struggles by talking about my own-or even worse, another birth that wasn’t either of ours?

I have days that I don’t think about my struggles with conceiving this child (and I say “this child,” because when/if we do have this child, he/she will be so special that I couldn’t have imagined having any others before him/her first. God knows what He’s doing-I don’t have any doubt of that. I just don’t understand why He can’t let me in on the plan and why it hurts so damn much in the meantime). I have days when it’s not too bad. I even have days (like last week when I was ridiculously sick), that I was glad to be able to come home and sleep it off.

But those days are rare, and the next day, I feel twice as sad. So yesterday, it was one of my good days until I got that text that said my SIL was in labor, and maybe she was having a good day too, and I couldn’t bring myself to ruin that day for her.

That’s all for now. Later, gators.

“At least you don’t have to (insert parent sacrifice here).”

I’ve read a bunch of these “What not to say to a woman struggling with infertility” articles…and they’re SO. TRUE. But with that being said, I’m not sure if anyone but those of us struggling are reading them.

If there’s one thing that makes me sad more than anything else, it’s when parents complain about the sacrifices they make because they have children. Sleeping comes up quite a lot, along with going out, having time to themselves, and spending money and time on their child. I know in the deepest depths of my soul that any of us who have struggled with having a child would swap places with whoever is complaining in a heart beat, am I right?

I DO believe that when anyone hears that you are struggling with infertility, they honestly feel badly. No one (that I know, anyway) just says, “Oh, sucks for you,” and keeps going. People who hear about it may not understand, but they do feel badly and a lot of them don’t know what to say…so they look at the positive, or what they think the positive is. You still have all the things they gave up, and you should enjoy those activities while you can, in their mind. Of course this just makes us angrier, but I’m sure they don’t do it on purpose (& it’s better than getting all of their great advice).

I this somewhere long before I was even married, and I can’t remember where, but it’s how I feel when women talk to me about their irritations with motherhood: “For every woman who complains about being up at 3:00am with her infant, there is one who is up at 3:00am because she’s not.”

It’s powerful, and it’s how I want to explain how people make me feel when they say, “Well, at least you can (sleep in, leave the house in under five minutes, go to the bathroom alone, etc.),” or my absolute favorite, “Well you can come babysit my eight children anytime. That will change your mind!”

Are you effing kidding me? Go fall into a canyon. And then let me have your children.

Makes me want to punch people, but I forgive them before my fist is raised. Sigh. What do we do? Wear a tee-shirt of appropriate things to say? I think not.

Later, gators.