Another surgery…sigh…

So yup, it’s been a whole 10 months…I guess it’s about time for another surgery.  Well, I guess it’s not exactly surgery, it’s a hysteroscopic “procedure” which involves the removal of a polyp.  But since it involves a hospital, anesthesia, and medical instruments going where they were never meant to be, I pretty much consider that surgery. 

Anyway…so this is a result of the anomaly they found in my uterine lining during my last medicated cycle (here).  It had still not gone away during my most recent monitored natural cycle so they said that if I didn’t get pregnant that time (long shot I know) that I had to come in and have another saline ultrasound. 

Well, the ultrasound showed that the polyp was still there.  It’s not huge, but it’s there, sticking out from the wall of my uterus.  My RE said that due to its size, I don’t necessarily HAVE to have it removed since we are not going to be doing any more ART cycles.  If we were, he said he would definitely recommend it since it involves a lot of money and in that circumstance, you want your “best chance” at conceiving…ummm…ok.

Well, I realize that in his eyes, it looks like we are giving up so what the heck, just leave the thing in there.  But hello, I still want our “best chance” at conceiving, even if we are doing it the old fashioned way…right? 

So, I decided to just go ahead and have the polyp removed.  What’s another minor surgery after I’ve already had two in a little over a year.  So it looks like they’ll get it scheduled in October sometime. 

In other news, I ended up having a pretty good time this past weekend.  We went on a mini trip to Cleveland with some friends and had a good time.  Since we were going to be driving right through Sandusky, Ohio on the way home, M and I decided to go to  Cedar Point on Sunday and it was awesome.  I am a huge roller coaster junkie and the only thing I don’t like about Cedar Point is long lines.  Well, apparently we picked the best day ever to go because the park was practically empty!  We only had to really wait for 2 rides (the two newest ones).  All the rest of the coasters we basically just walked right on!  On top of that, it was just gorgeous weather!  You couldn’t ask for a better day!  It was so fun!  It was a nice way to get my mind off of things.  

So thanks everyone for all your sweet comments last week.  It is so nice to know that I’m not alone in feeling this way.  I guess hormones really did have a lot to do with how I was feeling because I’m already feeling so much better about everything again.  Even with the news about having to have another surgery, I’m doing ok.  So thanks for making me feel like I’m not a completely horrible person.  

Now I just have to get back to praying and trusting God again.  I admit I took a hiatus after last weekend.  I was just so fed up with everything I was like “what’s the point of praying, it doesn’t help”  But I know that is not the right attitude to have at all.  God is the only reason I have made it as far as I have and He has never left my side.  I can’t even begin to try to understand why He picked me to go through this, so I wont even try.  I just gotta keep on keeping on…ya know!  Just get through one more day, one more week, one more month, one more pregnancy announcement, one more pregnant “Deal or No Deal” episode (LOL)…baby steps…well, that along with a big dose of faith!

By the way, I just have to say how encouraging it is to go back and read some of my own older posts.  Sometimes reading about an especially good day I had reminds me that it is possible to feel that way again.  I think that’s one of many cool things about blogging, the ability to go back and read the things you’ve learned through the process. 

Anyway, until next time…

Is it just me or is this wrong…?

So I am sitting here at my RE’s office waiting for a saline ultrasound (a somewhat painful procedure IMO) and on the TV in the waiting room is the pegnancy edition of “Deal or No Deal.”  The one where all the women are pregnant.

that is just lovely…

Shaken Up

So remember when I said how great I was doing and how much peace I had in my heart…

uh yeah…

So last weekend our close friend mentioned in passing that him and his wife were trying again and that they tried last month for the first time.  For their first two kids they got pregnant the first try.  So after he mentioned they had tried, I made a joke about how terrible it must have been for them to not have it work on the first try this time….awkward silence…

ohhh…I get it, that was your way of accidentally telling us you are pregnant.  My bad, I’m a bit slow.  Oh yeah, and don’t worry, we wont tell your wife that you told us since you were supposed to keep it under wraps until 12 weeks. 

… 

As much as I love them and as happy as I am for them…I fully admit this news was hard to hear.  Mainly due to the fact that they wavered for years over whether to even have another baby.  But once they decided, that was all it took.  It’s not that I wish they had a hard time getting pregnant, I just wish it was that easy for us.  You know, to just decide that you want to get pregnant, have sex and presto-chango…pregnant.  They decided and now their baby is already created, it still has to grow, but all the genetic information is already there.  They didn’t have to wait for it to happen, they don’t have to wonder when they will hold their baby in their arms, they didn’t have to pay for it, they don’t have to prove to anyone else that they will be good enough parents to raise it…it is their biological child.  And they created it…just like that.

I think I would have been more ok with it had it not been the day before my period showed.  As luck would have it, I woke up that next morning with cramps.  Sorta like God wanted to give me an extra little kick while I was down.  Those damn hormones always make so much more sensitive. 

I really am ashamed to even be writing this with all my big talk about how well I was doing.  I was feeling so good and strong and all it took was one 2 minute conversation the day before my period to launch me from my pedestal.  I should have known it wouldn’t last.  I thought I had turned the corner but I guess I was only peeking around it.

………………………….

I did want to thank a fellow blogger though.  All You Who Hope had an awesome post yesterday that was just what I needed to read today and I thank her for posting something with such honesty and insight!  I think I need to print out her post so I can keep reading it over and over when those myths pop into my head!

I Remember

It’s hard thinking back on September 11.  It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago.  But I think that’s because the emotions of that day were so powerful which makes the memories so vivid.

I remember when I heard about the first plane that hit the WTC.  I was on the phone on hold with Comcast.  I was waiting to complain to someone about something on my bill.  My cubemate at work just happened to be checking out a news website, like CNN or something.  He mentioned to me that a plane had hit the WTC.  I remember thinking how the heck could someone accidentally hit the WTC?  I figured it was a small plane involved in a freak accident. 

When I was finally taken off hold, I was chatting with the Comcast guy.  I even mentioned the plane hitting the WTC to him.  I wasn’t on the phone with him long and after hanging up, I decided to go out into the hallway where there were several TVs.   Usually the TVsjust broadcasted company news, but someone had changed the channel to a news station.  As I was walking up to the group of people huddled below it, everyone gasped!

I asked someone what happened, and they told me that another plane had just hit the other tower and that it was a passenger plane.  I was stunned.  I knew immediately that this was no accident.  As I watched them replay the second plane hitting again and again, I felt sick.  I knew I was witnessing the instantaneous death of hundreds of innocent people.  In just a few seconds, lives were being shattered.

After watching for a few minutes I went back to my desk but I could not work.  Coworkers were talking to each other, trying to process what was happening.   One of them had a small radio and turned on the news to get updates.  As more and more stuff was being reported, fires at the pentagon, missing planes, car fires, etc.  I just felt like the whole country was falling apart.  Who could be doing something like this and when would it end?  What more was going to happen?  I was really afraid, not for myself but for what it all meant.  I knew this was big.

I started feeling overwhelmed and just wanted to get home and watch the news.  M, my boyfriend at the time, had just left that morning on a road trip to a race and I couldn’t get a hold of him.  I called my good friend who also worked at my company who lived only 5 minutes away.  I called him and he said he was going home to watch the news.  I asked him if I could join him.  I thought at least it was close by so maybe I’d go back to work in the afternoon.

Just as I was packing up to leave, I heard on my co-workers’s radio that one of the towers was collapsing.  If I thought I felt bad before, I just felt 1000 times worse.  I quickly ran out to my car and just cried.  Again, all I could think about was how many people had been in that building that had just died in such a horrific way. 

I sat on my friend’s couch for several hours just watching and watching and crying and watching.  I saw the second tower collapse.  I heard reports that people had been jumping from the WTC buildings.  I remember thinking ”How bad must it be up there when the better option is to jump from the 100th floor????”  I heard about the plane crashing into the Pentagon.  I heard about the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.  It was just draining. 

After several hours I went home.  I didn’t even consider going back to work.  I had to stop watching the TV because I couldn’t take it anymore.  The rest of that afternoon is really a blur.  Amazing how I can remember certain parts in such vivid detail and yet others not at all. 

I do remember finally being able to talk to M on his cell phone.  We talked about what had happened and I cried.  He told me that our good friends had had their baby that morning.  M was going to be his godfather.  I felt sad knowing that the tradgedyof the day took away some of the excitement of his birth.  

I remember watching TV that night and seeing video of an actual person who had jumped from the WTC as he was falling.  It made me mad that the news network would show that.  What poor taste.  That was someone’s husband, brother, uncle, cousin, and friend.  How dare they broadcast the darkest moments of that man’s life for all the world to see.  For his family to see… It still makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it.

One good thing I remember is how much our country came together during that time.  I remember seeing flags EVERYWHERE!  It made me so proud of our country.  I wish we could be that patriotic all the time. 

But how quickly do we turn away from that as soon as our country does something that we don’t 100% agree with.  We bash our president at every possible opportunity.  We tell people we’re ashamed of what our country is doing.  Basically, we only look at the negative.  I’m not saying our country always does the right thing…but why do we always have to focus on the negative.  It gets frustrating after awhile.

So on the anniversary of the day that despite being so horrific, brought some unity to our country for the first time in the long time, I just want to put it out there that I’m proud of my country.  I’m proud to be an American.  I’m proud of everything our country has done to keep our soil safe from terrorists even if it hasn’t always seemed like the right decision.  At least we have a country and people in it that are willing to fight for us which is a lot more than people in other countries can say.

In memory of all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

And for those who have fought to protect us ever since, Thank you!

Bad Blogger

Hello There Blog World! 

Sorry it’s been so long.  I know, I know…I’ve become a bad blogger but not too much has been going on.  I’d hate to get on here and just bore you with mindless details of nothing in particular.

But now I do have actual stuff to share and hopefully you wont find it mindlessly boring! 

So the best news of all is… (and no, I’m not pregnant…duh)

I got accepted into nursing school!  I got the official word a week or so ago!  Unfortunately I wont be starting until September 2009, basically 1 whole long year away.  That is the only downer.  But hey, at least now I have a plan…an actual plan.  Now when people say, when are you starting nursing school, I can say “September ‘09″ instead of “well, I’m thinking it will probably be next fall, but I’m not sure, it will depend on how many applicants…blah blah blah”…you get my drift.  So now I just have to make it through 1 more year of a job I’m not too fond of. 

This fall I am taking my last prerequisit class, Pharmacology.  It is interesting so far.  Once I’m done with this I have no more classes to take until Sept. ‘09.  That means I get 8 months completely off…if only I could get pregnant soon the timing would work out perfectly for school but who am I kidding.  I’ve said that phrase more times than I can even count!  Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath.

As for my monitored cycle, it actually ended up being quite strange.  Everything was going smoothly the last time I posted, I had a nice big follicle so I knew my peak day was close.  Well, my LH surge finally came and I went in that morning for an ultrasound. 

Now it was my understanding that once you have an LH surge (a positive OPK or a “Peak” reading on a fertility monitor) you will ovulate within the next 12-48 hours…generally.  Well, I went in to have my ultrasound about 30 minutes after my peak reading only to find out that I had already ovulated.  The suckiest part of this was that M and I did not do “our part” the night before, seeing as how I did not get my peak yet and I did not want to wear him out before getting it.  Dumb….I know.

The thing was….I had a feeling that I was ovulating that day.  I had some pain on one side (the side where I knew the follicle was) and I had lots of other “personal observations” that indicated it was a fertile day.  But I ignored my gut feeling and trusted my damn fertility monitor.  So basically our chances this cycle are slim and when I say slim…I mean damn near impossible considering our current record of ZERO BFP’s…ever…even when timing it completely right!

The other odd thing about this cycle was that my temperature stayed low for about 3 days after I ovulated.  It did not go up until I started the Prochieve/Progesterone.  You can check out my chart HERE if you’re interested and let me know what you think.  I will probably ask my doctor about it.  Maybe something is up with the whole timing of my hormones hence why we we have never been able to get pregnant.  But this cycle seemed odd even compared to previous cycles.  Usually my fertility monitor and temperature rise correspond to each other.  This cycle, nothing corresponded to anything!  Sigh…

But to be honest, this latest cycle confusion is not even really bothering me.  I’ve already decided to dump the fertility monitor and the thermometer.  I know my body…and after last month I am going to trust my instinct more.  I can tell when I’m most fertile and that’s all I need to know from here on out.  I’m not going to be “trying” anymore.  If I happen to notice the signs and we happen to be in the mood, we’ll go for it…otherwise, we wont.

Overall I’ve still been doing really well emotionally.  There have been a few recent pregnancy announcements that have stung a bit and I’ve found those bitter thoughts lurking at the edge of my heart.  But I’ve been really trying to remind myself to let it go and think about everything that is great in my life that all those people with kids don’t have.  

I think of the special bond that M and I have and the unlimited amount of uninterupted time we get to spend together every day.  We don’t have to share each other with a child yet.  And as much as I look forward to that day, I do know there will be a part of me that will miss that.

So the past month or so, I’ve been focusing on being more active and filling my life with fun stuff.  I’ve been doing more stuff like golfing, biking, playing Wii Fit, etc!  I even purchased a scrapbook and some fun paper with the intentions of starting a scrapbook to be shown to a prospective birthmom.  I figured that even though Mike is not ready to move forward, I figure I can still get started on the scrapbook!   It will at least give me something to work towards adoption-wise.   

So overall, things are going well.  If I could just find a little more motivation when it comes to my job, I would be perfect.  That is the one area I am struggling with.  I just can’t stand being there and I know it’s due to my own attitude problem.  I need to just get that turned around and start giving more of myself each day I’m here. 

And I guess, if for some reason a miracle occurs and we do get pregnant in the next year, nursing school will be pushed off another 4-8 months and I will have to continue working here even longer.  So I need to start acting like I want to be here a little more…ha ha!

Ok, that’s all that’s new for me!  I will try not to be a stranger but I’m not making any promises.  Trust me, if I’m not on here life is probably going well for me!  Thanks for all your thoughts and well wishes!