Refreshing Weekend

Whew, last weekend was just what I needed!  I had a lot of fun!  I ended up meeting Soapchick for coffee on Saturday morning!  I just love her!  She is such a wonderful person and so easy to talk to!  She has such good advice and I feel like I could talk to her forever!    ((Thanks Kelly!!!))   I would add a link to her blog but she is private for the time being!

After meeting with Soapchick, I headed to meet another friend to have a healthy lunch, do some bridesmaid dress shopping (she is getting married in October) and then we decided to try a yoga class in order to get so physical exercise in!  (this is one of my new goals…to incorporate fitness or movement into get-togethers!) 

This was my first time doing yoga in a studio.  Previously I had only tried it using a few DVD’s I bought a few years ago.  I really liked one of the DVD’s I have, but I quickly got bored of doing the same thing over and over and I stopped doing it awhile ago.  The yoga class we went to was a combination of Slow Flow and Vinyasa (for fellow yoga-ites).  It is done in a hot room and when I say hot, I mean HOT!  I think they set the temp at 90 degrees. 

I admit, when I first walked into the class, I was like “woah…it’s hot in here.  I feel like I’m on the verge of sweating and I’m not even MOVING yet!”  I thought I would get really uncomfortable but actually, I ended up really liking the heat!   I think it must be because usually I am always FREEZING all the time.  It is nice to actually overly warm for a change!  I sweat a ton in the class which isn’t the most lady-like thing to do, but I felt so good afterwards…I was calm and peaceful and yet I could tell I really worked my body! 

The yoga studio we went to gives you a whole week of unlimited yoga for free to try out different classes so I went again on Sunday and again on Monday!   I took today off…but only because I wanted to go to my step aerobics class and felt like doing both might be a tad overkill…!  But seriously…I think I really like doing this.  I am 99% sure that I am going to sign up for a few months. 

It was amazing how sore I was yesterday during the day from doing it Saturday and Sunday, but once I got to the class, got into the heat and started moving, I didn’t even feel the soreness anymore.    But afterwards, I could still tell my muscles got an amazing workout!  Yay!  Something that’s good for me that I actually ENJOY doing! 

I wont be giving up my cardio and other gym workouts (step, spinning and resistance training) but I think this will be a great addition…especially to help me deal with some of the stress in my life.  Yay!

Sunday, I met another friend for coffee in the morning and then another friend for lunch!  It was quite the social weekend and I loved it!  I forgot how truly important it is to have close women friends.   M is just not able to completely fill that womanly need to talk and share and relate!  I think I wear him out sometimes…LOL!

Anyway, I just felt really recharged and it came at the perfect time!  I think I can officially say that survival week is over for now!  Yay!

Onto cycle news….amazingly I am on P+12 and I’m still not spotting yet.  This is my first cycle with no medications and I’m happy that things haven’t gone wacky yet.  Not that I think I’m healed or anything…but it’s nice to not have the spotting at least!

I wanted to post a picture of my charts for the past few months, but I can’t figure out how to do that.  I have my chart in excel but I don’t know how to make a .jpg of the chart itself when it’s in excel. 

I have more to share about various other things that are going on…but I figure I should save something for future posts since I tend to go through very uninspired/lack of posting phases!

By the way – I have come up with some new survival week self-imposed rules that I will share soon, including things like “No Facebook allowed until is it clear that survival week is over!”

I also want to talk about the new book that Sew started passing around.  Including how even after only being around M for a short time today, I have already screwed up!  This is going to be harder than I thought!

Oh yeah, and I want to talk about the Theology of the Body CD’s I’m listening to right now!

(I just wanted to list them out so I don’t forget!)

He wont let me drown

I was feeling so down today I decided to go to noon mass at my church.  What a blessing it was even though I ended up bawling my eyes out to our priest….sigh.  Embarrassing to say the least, but he was so kind and encouraging!

I need to remember to stop focusing on other people around me so much.  When I focus on them and what they have, instead of looking up, and focusing on Christ, my emotions get the best of me.

Just like when Jesus walked on the water and asked Peter to step out of the boat.  When Peter took his eyes off Jesus he began to sink.  No matter how many times I sink, I know Jesus offers me His hand and wont let me drown.  So I will try and keep my eyes on Him and allow His grace to help me overcome my sorrow.

It’s that time again

I feel like I need to pick a name for this time of the month for me.  It usually occurs just about a week before AF is due and usually involves me having a temper tantrum or two followed by a few days of utter hopelessness and loneliness….hmmm….what to call it?

Either way, here I am again.  Yesterday morning I couldn’t find something I needed as I was leaving for work.  I did the whole fist pound again.  Pathetic, I know.  But I was pissed off!  I get so frustrated when I lose something I knew was important from the very beginning.  You know, when you tell yourself, “this is important, put it in a place where you will remember where it is”…and then when you need it you can’t find it…sigh.

Well, I did eventually find it, thank goodness.  But the feelings of hopelessness and loneliness have continued and it hit me that it’s “that time” again. 

As much as I realize that hormones have so much to do with how I’m feeling, I can’t seem to turn my heart back around.  It doesn’t help that I’ve had a really rough week dealing with ”more than I can even count” pregnancy announcements.  It just sends me deeper and deeper into that pit of sadness.  It’s like the more I hear, the more I am forced to withdraw from everyone around me in order to protect my heart.

It’s hard when you overhear things like:

“Wow, you’re pregnant too?  Everyone around here is pregnant right now!”

“Geez, I need a calendar to keep track of everyones’ due dates I have so many friends who are pregnant!”

“I just need to remember that all the heartburn is so worth it.” (someone’s Facebook status – the popular way of announcing pregnancy as of late)

“Oh yeah, they’re pregnant.  I guess now that her brother has a baby they decided to jump on the bandwagon”

During “this time” I see I have a natural tendency to withdraw from everyone.  I feel like it would just be better to stay in bed all day and not talk to or hear from anyone.  It’s hard when you have this perception that everyone who knows your situation thinks that you should be over this by now.  Like all I need to do is look to God and accept His plan and be content with it.  So if I’m feeling down, then it’s just my fault for not trusting God more. 

Yes, I know that there are many many reasons for me to be happy.  A lot of things ARE going my way right now.  And yes, I am truly aware of and grateful for all those blessings God has bestowed on my life lately! 

But how is it possible to hear of pregnancy after pregnancy and see everyone moving on with their lives around you, knowing that you have been trying for 3 long years and not feel sad…  That’s just not possible.  You’d have to be a saint to be able to be truly content about it all the time.  Especially when you have those umpteen pregnancy annoucements combined with these lovely hormone* surges that manage to make you feel completely and utterly crazy inside. 

(*hormones, by the way, that aren’t really even needed since my body seems incapable of getting pregnant anyway…)

The one good thing is that I have been working out like crazy the past few weeks and amazingly, I have found it to be a huge stress relief.  I feel like the experience of working out just puts me in a zone.  I’ve been doing it pretty much every day.  The added bonus is that I am also happy with the changes I can see in my body.  This is the only thing keeping me afloat at the moment.  I know it’s really just about the sense of being in control of something, but I’ll take what I can get. 

In the meantime, I just continue to put on a happy face even if it’s the farthest thing from what I’m feeling inside.  Fake it until you make it.  I guess you could call it “survival.”

I guess that’s what I’ll call it then…”survival week.”

My Interview

So I had my interview for the PCT (Patient Care Technician) job today!  It went really well!   I was only a little nervous because I was told that if I took this training I would be practically guaranteed the job in the end.  However, with that word “practically” in there, I knew it still wasn’t a sure thing!  I figured as long as I was myself and didn’t allow my nerves to get the best of me, I’d be fine!

So by keeping that thought in mind, it really did take the pressure off and the interview went off without a hitch!  I will find out in a week or two if they will give me an offer!  The nice thing about this job is that it is 100% flexible.  You only work when you want to work and there is no minimum hours per week or anything required!  So once I start nursing school I can basically just call them up if I have a slow weekend study-wise and I want to work a shift and they will see if something is available!   

Talk about convenient!  To top it off, it pays pretty well too since there are no benefits that come with the job.  (I will get my health care through my husband’s job)  It will be nice to earn a little extra money every now and then plus it will get me some extra experience in the hospital setting!  Yay!

By the way, I just read This Cross I Embrace’s latest post and I’m excited to read the book that’s being passed around!  I am next on the list!  This is something that Sew Infertile started a few months back!  It sounded like TCIE got a lot out of it and like she said in her post, I think it’s coming at a really good time for me! 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  As for me, I have very few plans and I’m looking forward to vegging a bit!

Working on It

So M and I have gone to counseling a few times and things have definitely improved. I think I have identified some key things that tend to happen which brings us to this low place time after time and as much as I’d like to blame M for it all, I know I can’t. I truly think a lot of it could be prevented with my own actions in many cases.

So because I can’t change or control what M does (as much as I’d love to…ha ha), maybe I can minimize these occurrences/down cycles in the future by changing what I do instead of focusing on him all the time.

As we’ve been digging into it more, I am realizing that it is really my own feelings of insecurity that have been driving me to being so sensitive to some of the things M says or does. As much as I’d love it if M could be the one person who always builds me up and makes me feel amazing about myself, I am realizing that that is a lot to ask of one person. If I put that all on him, he’s bound to fail at some point since he is human after all!

So I am really going to work on getting my self-esteem out of the gutter it is currently in. I realize that many many things have affected my self-esteem, as they do most women, such as…media expectations (airbrushed bodies), societal expectations (children are the norm), etc… But the more I let those things affect me and bring me down, the more depressed I get and the less I care about myself enough to make good choices for my life. So in order to get back to a good place, I am going to start making choices that reflect that I do care about myself.

My first goal of things to change is my eating habits! This week I started eating much healthier. I am not doing this for anyone else, I am doing this for me! The last few months when I started feeling worse and worse about myself, I had been eating pretty much anything and everything that I wanted. Unfortunately, my body was really starting to reflect my poor choices. This in turn made me feel even worse about myself which made me want to eat even more to make myself feel better…not a good cycle to be in!

So now, looking back, I am trying to recognize that when eating to feel better about myself, I only felt better WHILE I was eating it. Many times when I would look back at what I ate that day I would be disappointed in myself and would often feel even worse! The disappointment was that I was letting the desire for food control me, instead of me controlling the desire!

I know this is not rocket science to anyone else because this is a very common problem in our society! But for me, I just needed to identify it in my own life before things got out of hand.

So I’m going to try and get my body back to where I like it to be. Just being in the process of getting there is making me feel better about myself! I’m trying to remind myself each day that by NOT choosing to eat something I know is totally unhealthy (or unhealthy portions of something healthy) I can try and get those same feelings of satisfaction! There’s something about making a choice and sticking to it that gives you the feeling of control back that is so satisfying.

And I wont measure my progress with the scale…it’s more about being healthy and making good choices! I think that will do far more to help my self-esteem than any compliment from my husband ever could!

In the meantime, M and I are still going to continue with counseling to keep working on our relationship. M is even going to go see a male counselor for a few sessions to get some advice from a male perspective. I am hopeful that this will be a good experience for him and will help him with the things he struggles with.

But for me, for now, I can only focus on myself and what I can do to make my life the best it can be despite my circumstances with regards to having children! I really am looking forward to everything new that is coming my way and am hopeful that this is just the beginning of a new, happier path in my life!

Answered Prayers

So it’s pretty much official now…I’m going to be laid off sometime in April!

Hoo-ray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, obviously this is not the normal reaction to being laid off but for me, it is the.best.news.ever!  Thank you God!

 (ok, maybe not the best EVER…that would be a BFP!  But this is probably as good as it’s going to get for awhile, LOL)! 

See, since I’m starting nursing school on May 4, I was going to have to quit my job at some point anyway.  So when I heard that my company was expected to have lay-offs in the near future, I knew this was my chance to somehow convince my management to consider me! 

You know the drill, “Pick me…Choose me…Love, I mean Lay-off me!  (for you Grey’s Anatomy watchers)

So when I sat down with my boss for my annual review a few months ago, I knew I needed to bring it up.  I didn’t want to spill my whole plan because why in the world would they lay me off if they knew I was going to quit anyway.  So I told him the truth, that M and I had decided that we wanted to diversify our income. 

You see, M and I both work for the same company, and we know that having a diversified household income can be a really good thing in times like these.  Since our company is in such a precarious position right now, it is very scary to think that if our company goes under, we will go from making a good chunk of money…to making ZERO…overnight!

So I told my boss that because I was considering pursuing a different career, that I was interested in any incentive based separation packages that may be offered in the near future.  Basically, I was looking for a buy-out.  Some sort of package where they would essentially pay me to leave. 

So my boss, as usual, seemed like he didn’t take my request that seriously!  The more I thought about it, I realized that my boss probably doesn’t want to lose me.  I have a lot of experience that goes out the window when I leave and he still has to make sure his employees get the job done no matter if I’m there or not!  So I wasn’t sure if he would truly have MY best interests at heart.   So being that I do not like leaving my fate in other people’s hands, I also went to my director (my boss’s boss). 

Thankfully, my director was really really open to this option.  I explained even more to him than I did to my boss.  Mostly how I was really wanting to go in a new direction with my career and I told him how being laid-off would help me immensely in that endeavor.  See, if I’m laid off, I would get a nice severance from my company (5 months salary) plus I would be able to file for unemployment once that ran out.  I think he appreciated my “volunteering” because I do think he is going to have to cut some people soon.  So knowing that he can cut me and have me actually be happy about it (instead of devastated) is a slight burden off him as well!   Whew!

So as of now, everything is all set for me being laid off in April.  I just don’t know exactly when it will all happen.  He said it would happen no earlier than April 1 but no later than April 30.  Obviously that works very very well with my May4 start date for school!

I just can’t believe how perfectlyGod has work this whole thing out for me.   First he opened up a spot for me to start nursing school in May, which now works out to be the most perfect time for me to get this lay-off opportunity.  Financially speaking, this is a HUGE help to M and I! 

Living off one income for a year plus paying huge tuition bills was going to be very very tough for us!  On top of the severance and unemployment benefits I will get, being unemployed makes me much more likely to get some scholarships from my state to help me pay for school!    It’s just such a huge blessing all around!  I can’t believe that something is finally going my way!

With all the uncertainty I’ve felt regarding infertility and adoption the past few months, it is so nice to finally be so certain about something!   I am certain that this nursing career is the path that God wants me to take right now!  He has opened up so many opportunities and has miraculously allowed everything to fall right into place!  This is just another powerful reminder that I need to always be grateful for all that He has provided (that He certainly didn’t have to) instead of just focusing on what he hasn’t provided (yet).

So on those days when I feel like God isn’t answering my prayers, would you all please remind me to come back and read this post!

Hope has returned…a little bit anyway

So, I had my appointment with my NaPro Doc yesterday and it went pretty well.  I actually have a teeny tiny bit of hope back! 

Obviously I’m not expecting any miracles…but I think the plan we came up with sounds perfect for me considering my current life situation with school starting in May.

Basically we decided that we’d just start with the initial Medical NaPro protocol (as opposed to Surgical NaPro).  So starting this cycle, I will stop all meds so that my body can get back to doing what it normally does. 

Then the following cycle, I will have a cycle-long blood work series completed.  This includes 5-6 blood draws in the follicular phase and then another 4 blood draws in the luteal phase.   The blood will be sent directly to the PPVI Institute and my doctor will have some possible treatment options based on the results.   Mainly treatment usually consists of things to correct any hormone imbalances that may be present. (like HCG injections during the luteal phase)

So once that’s done, we’ll work on getting my hormone levels all straightened out.  He is pretty sure something is out of wack given my normal pre-menstrual spotting.  However, it is possible that there are other hormones out of wack as well that just never got picked up on with all my prior testing (low estrogen could also be a problem during the luteal phase).

Since I am starting nursing school in May, and will be crazy busy for an entire year, it’s not the most ideal time for me to be getting pregnant.   Obviously, we are open to life at anytime, and we know that if/when God chooses to bless us with a pregnancy we will be ecstatic and we will work my school around it.  But let’s just say we’re not at the point where we’re going to go all out right at this very moment in order to get pregnant.  So I feel really good about just getting my hormones normalized over the course of the next year. 

If I make it through nursing school without getting pregnant, then I will start to consider pursuing Surgical NaPro.  My doctor doesn’t actually do the surgical side of NaPro himself, so if I did it, I would probably go directly through the PPVI Institute.  The doctor suggested that even though I had my endo supposedly removed by my RE, that Dr. Hilgers has a much better method of removing the endo.  

By that point in time, it is quite possible that some of my endo will have grown back.  We will also have a better idea if I really do have PCOS since that diagnosis is still debatable to both my doctor and I.  So by then, I think it would actually be a good time to have another surgeryto remove any new endo and also to possibly have an ovarian wedge resection if it is confirmed that I do have PCOS.  However this time, the surgery would be performed by Dr. Hilgers himself!  Wow, it’s cool to think that I could have “THE” Dr. Hilgers operating on me!  Amazing!

So overall, I left the appointment feeling very at peace with the situation.  I’m not ready to go all out and have any more surgeries anytime soon and I like the idea of getting my hormone levels fixed because obviously that is good for my health anyway!    Also, the idea that there still could be an even more beneficial surgery available to me down the road, gives me just enough hope to keep going! 

Thanks for all your kind words the other day!  It always helps to be reminded that it’s ok to have a bad day every now and then as long as you keep it in perspective in the grand scheme of life!

Feeling Hopeless

Well, my NaPro appointment is on Wednesday.  I have been working on gathering my medical records together these past few weeks.  As I collect them it is seriously depressing to see how extensive they are.  The stack of papers sitting there are just an awful reminder of how much we’ve tried and how much we’ve failed these past few  years.

I seriously don’t have any hope that this doctor is going to be able to help me.  Considering my cycles are so ridiculously normal, and every treatment I’ve had was supposed to just improve my chances, and yet still nothing…what the heck is this guy going to do to fix me?

I seriously think my eggs are ruined…all of them.  I think they’re old and wrinkly and no good.  I think it is 100% impossible for me to get pregnant.  Ok, maybe that’s not the way I should state it…I think it’s possible for me to get pregnant because with God “all things are possible,”  But I truly think that God has 100% decided that He has another way for me to become a mother, through adoption.

Unfortunately, this is not bringing me a lot of peace at the moment.  It’s making me feel heartbroken that I will never experience the wonder and miracle of pregnancy.

I have to remind myself that I’m pms-ing right now and that everything feels so much worse during this time.   I wish I could go crawl into a hole until next week when it will all be over.