Advent Devo

One of the pastors at my church is working on putting together a devotional book for the Advent season this year, made up of entries written by various people in our church. Since somehow my English major-ness is well-known among the pastors of our church, he asked me to be a part of editing it and putting it together. And then he asked me if I could write one of the entries.

The book will have 24 entries (one for each day leading up to Christmas, duh). Each of the entries will be on a verse out of the Bible pertaining to one of the advent themes (hope, peace, joy, love).

I read through the options of verses still needing entries. And I had to choose this one.

Romans 8:24-25 "For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."

I find the concept of hope so completely compelling, and I love that this verse tells us that hope is only hope if it's for something we can't see (or understand, or know, etc).

But here's the slight dilemma. How can I possibly write 200-250 honest words about this verse without mentioning infertility or pregnancy? Especially seeing as these are the two verses that precede the above:

"For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

I mean, it actually explicitly mentions pregnancy. And this is actually part of the problem. I feel like pregnancy, or even infertility, is a bit trite in the context of these verse. Or too obvious. Even if it is true that I am pregnant after infertility, and that one of the most important lessons I learned from my experience with infertility was about the nature of hope and waiting without seeing.

So instead, I'm working on digging up something else to come at this verse from a different angle.

That 250-word limit is also bound to give me some problems. Think I can slip in a few extra words since I'm the editor?

This Is Life.

Thanks to whoever submitted my news to the LFCA! That was so sweet of you, dear mystery blog reader. That's why I love you all so much.

I take my last Provera tonight, to hopefully induce a bleed so that I can get started on a Clomid cycle. If you're stopping by for the first time (or need a refresher), I am ovulating on my own, but very slowly. And I'm hopefully coming to the end of a cycle that's been over two months long, with no ovulation but tons of crazy hormonal symptoms. The Provera definitely hasn't helped with the symptoms. I've taken it a couple of times before and have never noticed many symptoms at all. But of course, both of those times were before my body was cycling on its own. This time, I've basically felt like I'm having a bad period for the past six days or so. Which is all the more frustrating because I'm not seeing any blood yet, so there's none of the sense of release that comes with a period. But that *should* be on its way soon.

In other news, my parents, who currently live in Africa, are also going through a really difficult time right now. For a whole plethora of reasons, the biggest one being the migraine headaches/insomnia that have been plaguing my dad for a while. 30 or so years, in fact, but suddenly much worse. Their struggles are beside the point of this blog. But our phone conversations have been very interesting over the past week, as we're both going through really, really tough stuff. We're facing the same kind of emotional ups and downs, struggling with God, wishing things were different, praying for change, and, yes, feeling at times like we're really doing okay. The same kinds of things that most of you are going through. And if you're not going through this stuff now, you either have before or will be sometime in the future. I work at a church, which means that I hear stories all the time of people in our congregation going through awful, painful experiences. Any time I start to think I'm alone in my suffering, I hear another story that reminds me that this world is filled with suffering.

This is life. I actually believe that most of the real stuff in life happens in these hard places. We are formed, shaped, chiseled, molded. We feel like we did nothing to deserve this. But who are we to determine what we deserve? Who are we to claim that we have a right to an easy life? To be honest, when I look at someone who has had an easy life and compare him or her with someone who has endured real pain gracefully...well, the second person is almost always far more attractive and beautiful--in character, that is. Easy lives breed complacency, self-centeredness, and a false sense of control. I would prefer not to remain blind in my illusions of comfort and security.

This post is not meant to be a downer. To me, this stuff is what helps me get through the dark times. What helps me believe that my "up" days are just as authentic and realistic--if not more so--than my "down" days. Even though the "down" days sometimes feel like the only they're the only truth that exists.

Okay. Time to put my recruiting hat back on and get back to my real job. Speaking of which...any of you feel like moving to California and hanging out with kids every Sunday morning for the summer? No? I can't imagine why not. But I just had to check.

Is It Really ICLW Again?

My months are really starting to run together these days. I can hardly believe it's already time for the May ICLW! This is such an annoying cliche, but I seriously feel like April's just ended.


If you're stopping by my blog for the first time, welcome. This is the third time I've participated in ICLW, and I've loved it every time--and have always been happy at how it seems to garner me a few new followers (hint, hint).


Probably what you're most interested is my infertility history, so I won't keep you in suspense any longer. My handsome husband and I only started trying to conceive last July--on our third anniversary, to be specific. Which was a highly unfortunate choice, as it's going to make our fourth anniversary be the day that we officially get labeled "infertile."


At the time, I actually had an inkling I would have a little trouble because of my past history of absent periods (which you can read about here). So I ushered myself--perhaps too quickly but still appropriately--into the world of infertility craziness within a couple of months of going off the (so-ubiquitous-but-now-exceedingly-hated-by-me) Pill.


I quickly learned that I had something called Hypothalamic Amenorrhea. My body stopped cycling because it wanted me to have a little more padding before getting pregnant. I'm very, very fortunate in that this is a condition which seems to be fully reversible in most women, though it takes some time and determination--and weight gain. I quickly gained 10 pounds and, last fall, I was thrilled to be rewarded with my first natural period in over six years! I thought, at the time, that a pregnancy would be just around the corner. But I guess ovulation does not equal pregnancy. Who knew?


Since then, I had two 50-ish-day-long natural cycles and one 40-day-long clomid cycle.  I'm currently on day 59 of my third natural cycle. The One Where Absolutely Nothing Happens.


Because I work for a church, I'm on a cheap-o insurance policy that doesn't even cover an appointment with an infertility specialist. So no REs for me at this point. Instead, I'm faithfully going to an acupuncturist, Katy the Needle Lady, and drinking herbal teas she prescribes. And hoping her promise to get my body back in balance isn't empty.


Oh, and I also just gave up on the One Where Absolutely Nothing Happens. I started a 7-day regimen of Provera on Wednesday night to induce a bleed and then go back to clomid. I'm happy to have an acupuncturist who's willing to work with Western drugs, as much as I hate them.


So that's the True History of My Attempts to Conceive until this point. It's a journey I have dreaded for many years, to be honest. But now that I'm on it, I firmly, wholeheartedly believe that it's happening for a reason--a good reason. One that I will, in fact, look back on thankfully, as unattainable as that gratitude sometimes seems to me now, sitting here stuck in the miry heartache. And I also firmly believe that the best is yet to come. [Cue corny Frank Sinatra song here.]

Unending Graduations

Does anyone else find graduation ceremonies mildly depressing? Not in and of themselves. Every individual element is usually quite uplifting and celebratory. But I always seem to find myself sinking into Nostalgemotional Land when I attend graduations--no matter who they're for.

I was sitting way up high in the bleachers at my brother's college graduation on Saturday, next to my husband and behind a girl who had penciled on eyebrows and a tattoo of two creepy eyeballs on the back of her neck (which were staring at me through the entire ceremony). A band of students performed a song near the beginning of the ceremony, and I found myself tearing up because...well, I don't know. The singer's voice was beautiful. The graduates looked so happy. How much I love my little brother, and how much nicer he is to me now than he used to be. My parents weren't there (they live in Africa and just didn't have the money to pay for the trip) and how sad I knew my mom was to miss her son's graduation.

All the babies and pregnant women all over the place in the gymnasium probably didn't help much, either.

I think graduations always take me back to my high school graduation and all the emotions that were swept up in that. Looking around at my classmates and knowing this would be the last time we would ever be all together in the same building. That I wouldn't see most of them ever again. Feeling that something really big and monumental was over in my life. Anticipating living away from home for the first time. Feeling so proud of my class (proud of what? I don't know. Just for being my class, I guess). Being so happy to be finished with high school, and ready to leave home and fend for myself.

It's the same feeling I had when I was eleven years old and boarding a ship with my family to start our journey from Tagbilaran, Bohol to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Seeing the tears on my parents' faces as they hugged so many people that they had sacrificed so much to love and help.

I had a few twinges of this feeling at my wedding, though I was mostly preoccupied with giddy excitement and joy. But some part of me was aware that from then on, my relationship with my family would be solely in the form of brief visits and phone calls. No more living in their house as their child.

The same feeling I had last summer as I said goodbye to my parents a few weeks before they headed off to the next big thing in their lives (Africa).

It feels reductive to simply call these moments bittersweet goodbyes. Yes, they have been the big transitions in my life. But I think what has filled them with such richness and depth is that they have all taken place in the context of great love. The beauty of that love is what frees me to be able to feel nostalgic for my past without any sense of profound loss or sadness. Knowing that what's coming next is good and right--that it's supposed to be what's coming next. And confident that what was beautiful about the past isn't over--it continues and will continue through eternity. What was painful and hard, however, is over and will not return.

But that doesn't stop me from getting teary-eyed at graduations. I've got another one coming up in a couple of weeks--my own. Pete has convinced me to walk in my graduation, even though I completed my MA last December and feel very little connection to the university from which I received it. But he insists that I need closure of some sort, and that I'll regret not doing it if I don't. Which is probably true. If I cry at that one, though, it will probably be from boredom as they call every single one of the 4,000ish graduates in attendance. I'll definitely be bringing a book (hidden under my gown, of course) to help me make it through that one....

The Scaredy-Cat's Meow

What if my biggest infertility fear is not that I will never be a mother but that I will never be seen as a mother? By others?

What if the fears that keep me up at night in this gut-wrenching process are ultimately fears of what others will think in the coming months and years as we still haven't had children? Fears that as all our friends become parents, they will think themselves superior to us? In the same way that those who are...well, less innocent look upon the virgins in the world. As those without the privilege of a certain special knowledge. To be pitied.

I am afraid that I will always be a pregnancy virgin. Unwillingly excluded from that special knowledge.

Ever since I can remember, one of my biggest fears in life has been that I will be excluded. Excluded from the athletes because I am not athletic. Excluded from the popular crowd because I am not outgoing or witty enough. Excluded from the married group because I am still single. And now excluded from parenthood because my eggs don't know how to come out of their follicles in less than a month.

And so I've always been good at fitting in. At observing enough details of the group around me to seem like I belong. I honed my skills at fitting in when I was eleven years old and my family moved from a small town in the Philippines, where I was homeschooled and belonged to a safe, inclusive community of homeschooled expat kids, to a suburb of Philadelphia, where I began attending a large public school. I didn't know how to dress. I hadn't seen any of the movies that my fellow sixth-grade classmates had seen. I had no clue what music and bands were popular. I feared I was the ultimate girl-who-should-be-excluded.

But because I wanted to make friends and fit in so badly, I learned how to pretend. It's a survival skill for kids who live cross-culturally. I would nod my head and say, "Yeah, I've heard of that movie." Laugh along with the jokes that involved quoting a line from last night's episode of Friends. I was always aware, always attuned to the details of conversations around me, always putting puzzle pieces together to try to figure out the culture of American preteens. I learned to pretend I had the insider knowledge. And never, ever, to be the clueless one to whom other kids would pose the incredulous question, "How could you possibly never have seen an episode of ER?"

I nearly had a panic attack in seventh grade when my English teacher asked us to write down our favorite band. Was I supposed to have a favorite band? I wrote down the name of the only band I could think of at the time. Smashing Pumpkins or something like that. I had no clue what songs they sang, but I knew they were on the radio sometimes. And at least semi-cool. And I knew I did not want to be that girl who admitted that really, her favorite musician was Rachmaninoff.

Without realizing it, I had begun to live to be liked and included. I thought everyone lived that way. It was an anxiety-ridden way of living, but really, what else mattered if no one liked you? If the only kids who let you hang out with them were the kids who had been snubbed from every other coterie? If you were always labeled as the cluelessly nerdy, formerly homeschooled missionary kid?

Around my sophomore year of high school, I distinctly remember having a conversation with my mother that left my little fear-based world shaking on its foundations. She told me in no uncertain terms that it actually was not okay to live to please other people. That the approval of others was too small and restrictive of a purpose, and that it would leave me empty, even if I became the most popular person on earth. At some point, I needed to be willing to live the way God wanted me to live without worrying about what others would think, or whether they would include me in their groups. Exclusion--or perceived exclusion--was not the worst tragedy that could befall me.

I cried when she explained all this to me. I couldn't conceive of a world in which acceptance and inclusion weren't the end goal. I couldn't conceive of myself as someone who didn't live for others' approval.

I like to think I have grown since then. I like to think that I am more secure in who God made me to be. That I am better at loving and including people without caring as much if they really love or include me back.

But I find myself here, struggling with one of the biggest IFs of my life. Infertility. Feeling like the twelve-year-old girl who wasn't cool enough to sit in the back of the school bus. Excluded against my will. Clueless about what it would feel like to be pregnant, give birth, be a mother. These are not things I can simply pretend to understand, the way I pretended to know that JTT was Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

I'm unable to turn off the constant question in my head: what if I never get pregnant? The pain of living childlessly sounds unbearable to me right now. I long for a baby, a child, to be a mother. But as I delve more deeply into what I really fear, I realize that beneath the fear of childlessness is a deeper, darker fear that I will be forever excluded from the pregnant club.

And what if that's really my greatest infertility fear? Exclusion? Does that mean I long to belong to the pregnant club more than I long for children? That I long for others to admire and respect me more than I long to be a parent?

I believe that fear is a choice. That even though I can't turn off the scaredy-cat voice in my head, I can choose whether to dwell in the fear or to move forward in courage. I believe this in my head. I really do.

But so far, I have felt powerless to tell that voice to shut up. I vacillate between fear and courage not based on my decisions but based on the latest bloodwork, cycle, news, pregnancy announcement, physical symptom. What if I could believe in my heart that fear is a choice?

And what if I could really live for something greater than my fear of exclusion?

For more information on infertility, please visit Resolve. If you're curious about National Infertility Awareness Week, travel here. And, finally, to learn more about my inspiration for this post, visit Stirrup Queens.

My Life as Story

Chris Brogan has started a conversation on his blog prompted by a new book put out by Donald Miller entitled A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life (whew, that was a lot of links in one sentence!). I have yet to read this latest of Miller's books, but it has been on my list since shortly after it came out. I do, however, know the premise of the book based on an interview with Miller that I happened to read a few weeks ago. This book is essentially about what it was like for him to write one of his earlier books, Blue Like Jazz (which I have read and enjoyed). About the strange tensions that arise when one is trying to put one's life into story form. And what happened in his life after that book sold over a million copies.

I feel compelled to participate in Brogan's conversation about what story means to me because the concept of story is one that I've thought about a great deal, and one that has played a crucial role in my life in several ways. It's also a concept that I've realized plays a large role in the way I think about the difficulties I encounter in life. Difficulty number one (at this time) being my thus-far inability to get pregnant.

I could edit my thoughts on this subject into a nice, coherent post with an introduction and satisfying conclusion. I'm pretty good at that after six years of writing literary analysis essays that require such things. But I've decided instead to use the fact that my subject matter is story as an excuse not to write this in a nice, linear, story form. Because the truth is that when I'm asked what the importance of story is in my life, my mind goes in several directions. And I want to explore those without having to tie them up with a nice storybook bow.

Not because I don't believe such a thing as a perfect story exists. I do, in fact, believe that we're all living in a Story far grander and more perfect and linear than we can imagine: the grand and beautiful story of each of our lives and also of the whole history of the universe. But that's just it: we can't imagine what the story is like, how it's going to end, and even how it's developing right now. It's too big. We get glimpses of different pieces and elements of it--in our lives, in literature, in art. But not the whole. So, for now, I'm trying to be content in that cloud of unknowing while appreciating the glimpses of the Story that I see all around me.

So a few ways that story is important in my life, and then, because this is an infertility blog, how it affects the way I experience infertility.

Story as Fiction
I was raised on story. And I don't mean TV shows, but actual stories. Fiction, primarily. As a family, we didn't own a TV that actually received any channels until we moved from the Philippines to Philadelphia when I was 11. Instead, we read. I know that sounds terribly cliche and cutesy, but it's true. I almost always had some book I was reading through with my dad. For many years, I would lay in his bed and read to him as he fell asleep for his afternoon siesta. Something that took quite a bit of patience on his part, I'm sure, since I was still learning to read at that point. Once we moved back to the States, our tradition became that he would read to me each evening as I washed the dishes (we didn't own a dishwasher). I was so in love with reading that my parents actually had to limit how much time I spent laying on the couch with a book--to force me to do something--anything--else.

I don't want to go into the philosophical meaning of the story, and how reading a good story (or any story, really) affects our lives as humans. Fiction is profoundly meaningful, uplifting, and beautiful, and a good story helps us to discover what it means to be human. I'll leave the rest to CS Lewis, a fellow English major who has probably written more articulately than almost anyone about the implications of story. But I truly believe that being raised on a steady diet of beautiful stories is, in the deepest sense, a huge part of what made me who I am today. And nothing else can really compare to the feeling I get after finishing a really great work of fiction. Great literature feeds my soul more than any other form of art.

Story as Life
Though I have yet to read Miller's book, I think I can relate to at least some of the issues he explores in it--the tensions that arise in editing one's own life. In the Christian world, we have this tradition of getting people to give their "testimonies." Giving one's testimony involves standing up in front of a group of people and essentially telling your life story--particularly focusing on the Christian elements of it (ie, how you became a Christian, how God has worked in your life, etc).

The opportunity to "share my testimony" is a (ahem) privilege I've been given multiple times. And it seems like it gets more complicated each time I do it. Because I feel the need to somehow find a theme--some common thread that has run through my life thus far. Something I used to struggle with and how God has helped me to change. But any theme or thread I choose ends up feeling reductive. That's not all there is to the story.

I also always feel like I'm missing something--like there's something to my story that I can't yet see, even after a major episode or chapter comes to completion. For example, a few years ago I went through a few months of major insomnia that then led to major depression. I can definitely understand what happened and why it happened better now than I did while I was in the midst of it. I can even list a few good things that came out of it, like the fact that I don't stress about insomnia now nearly as much as I did before because I've seen that I can survive and come out the other side. But really, I don't understand why the insomnia led to depression. Why I suddenly felt like there was no hope in the world, like my apartment was a prison, and my bedroom a torture chamber. Why I suddenly had major doubts about God. And I can't really list that many good things that came out of such an awful experience. It was too miserable. I know good came of it, but I'm unable to fully articulate what that good was. But if I were sharing my testimony, I would need to at least find a lens through which to tell that story that left my audience with a sense of hope and meaning. And all the while, I would know that the lens was faulty and imcomplete.

Infertility as Story
As I'm going through the struggles and ups and downs of trying to conceive, I often think about how I will tell this story as part of my testimony in the future, when I'm through it. Every time I ovulate, I spend two weeks thinking about how perfect the story would be if this were the one. How I had just finally reached a place of peace or surrender about the whole thing, and that's when God finally intervened. Or how the timing of this due date would clearly be the best timing, and we will thank God for making us wait.

I want to jump ahead to the next chapter in my story. To skip through this one, because it's hard, and I'm not enjoying it. And while I'm sure I have more I could learn from it, I think I've learned a lot. I'm ready to start the learning that will come through pregnancy, childbirth, and being a parent.

Or I think about how my story would read as a novel. Some major editing would have to take place, I can tell you that. Because so far, I'm missing most of what makes a good novel. I've got the nuance and complexity and character development, but, let's be honest, a good novel does need a few themes, even if they're hard to perceive on the surface. And trying to make a biography read like a novel usually ends up sounding forced and reductive.

This is why I stick to reading fiction.

In Light of Easter

Even though I haven't been very good in recent years at taking time to really contemplate and appreciate the significance of Easter when it comes around, I decided I should at least do some sort of Easter-related blog post. It is, after all, the most important holiday in the Christian calendar. The day when we celebrate the fact that the sufferings of this life are not all there is; that Christ died to defeat evil and suffering in the world. We're simply waiting for the final end to come. These are truths that have been particularly meaningful to me as I struggle with the pain of infertility. We are infertile because our bodies are broken and imperfect, but our broken bodies are not the end of the story.

I know I'm getting my holidays a little mixed up here, but I thought I would take the opportunity presented by Easter to focus on things for which I am thankful. Because when I think about my future hope, I also think about the many tastes of that hope I get to have now--ways that beauty, life, and wholeness show up all around me in the midst of the suffering, brokenness, and pain. I'm fairly certain this is a common blog post genre--the thankfulness list--but its commonness doesn't undercut its value, in my opinion. So here's mine, in no particular order.

1. Pete. I hope this is fairly obvious from anything I've said about him on this blog, but it must be said. I could spend pages listing the specifics here, but I'll try to be brief. He's fun to be around. He takes time to understand and enter into my emotional ups and downs, and he challenges me to pull out of it when I'm stuck in woe-is-me land. He's incredibly fun to hang out with. He likes theater. And finally, he has awesome sperm.
2. My parents. I firmly believe that I have the best parents on the planet, hands-down. They weren't (and still aren't) perfect, but they're actually willing to admit and talk about ways they messed up. After my brother and I were both out of the house, they picked up and moved to Africa to do non-profit work. I love that they have their own thing going, so I don't feel like they're living just to visit me (and waiting for grandkids). I'm also able to talk to them about our infertility issues more easily than anyone else, because they're sympathetic, caring, but also hopeful. They encourage me to trust God without minimizing the pain I'm going through.
3. Children. I know it's ironic, but I actually really enjoy hanging out with kids, which I get to do as part of my job. Sure, it's hard to hang out with them when I'm feeling particularly depressed about our own situation. But most children over the age of about 2 are simply fun to be around (I'm not a big baby person). They're surprising, hilarious, sweet, and they seem to have no limits on the love and affection they give away.
4. Food. I adore food. I absolutely love to cook, bake, think about food, serve food, learn about food...pretty much everything but clean up after the food has been consumed. And Pete does that part.
5. My teeny garden. Not because I enjoy gardening. In fact, I really dread it and have to make myself do it. But at least now I can say I have tried with some success. I even managed to grow cauliflower last year, which I learned soon after planting it was supposedly one of the hardest plants for home gardeners to grow. But by some miracle, it grew nicely in my dirt. The carrots...well, we don't need to talk about them.
6. Books. I love them. I spent six years of my life studying them, and I still find my appetite for reading is not satiated, nor is the pleasure I find in losing myself in a good book at all diminished. 

There's a lot more I could say here, of course. I could get uber-spiritual and list all the ways infertility has helped me to grow closer to God and be a deeper person. Or I could name the friends and church community that really mean a lot to us. And I could definitely mention how thankful I am for the wonderful support system I've found on this thing called the world wide web--all you guys. Finally, I could say how thankful I am for the fact that Christ died and rose again to give me hope and the ability to be thankful. I really am thankful for all those things, but I don't want to lead any of the less sentimentally-inclined of you to start gagging on the saccharine. I'm approaching that point myself. So I'll stop at the even number of six for now. And hope that each of you can find a minute this Easter, whether you celebrate it or not, to reflect on your hope and gratitude.

Blows Which Never Fall

Thanks to all the ICLWers who have stopped by and commented! It's been fun to find some new friends.

Someone earlier today asked me for an inspirational quote. Let me digress for a moment on the subject of that word--"inspirational." I am not a big fan. I'm trying to think of some context in which it is regularly used which would not cause me to gag a little, and I can't think of a good one, though I'm sure it exists. In general, though, that word translates in my head to "syrupy sweet but lacking in real meaning." As in inspirational music (ie, Michael Card or Steve Green). Or inspirational greeting cards. Am I really supposed to feel inspired to do anything of substance if I get a card that reads, "May your day be filled with cheer and hope lasting you through the next year." Wow, all my problems have just been erased by that inspiration! I'm sure I now sound like an incredibly pessimistic and cynical person, and I'm really not. I just can't be inspired by something that markets itself specifically to inspire me.

Anyway. Back to the inspirational quote I was asked for. I actually do keep a file of great quotations that I come across in different places. So I went hunting for that file and read through. I came across one that actually, well, inspired me.

"Such strange creatures are we that we probably smart more under blows which never fall upon us than we do under those which do actually come." (Charles Spurgeon)

Wow. Is this ever true of me. On Sunday, after the BFN and a long morning at church (surrounded by children, or course), I was in a pretty foul mood that dissolved into a crying session with the P in the car on the way home. And what it was about was not so much the BFN, or the children, or the mothers, but just the thought of how many more months or years of this I could endure. I had been feeling quite upbeat and happy on Saturday, only to collapse emotionally on Sunday. But any peace and acceptance I reach is always so fragile. Which I think is a good thing in the long-run, as the emotional crashes remind me that I really can't do this on my own--without other people and especially without God.

In that moment in the car, as I bemoaned my fear of the coming months of so many ups and downs, P gently reminded me that I don't need to get through the next months. I don't even need to get through tomorrow. I just need the grace to make it through today--through right now. I was smarting under blows which hadn't yet fallen upon me, so to speak. And they're always bigger and scarier in my imagination than the blows that actually come. In fact, the blows that come are usually difficult as much for what they imply for the future as for what they imply in the present.

Go and be inspired.

Finding God in Infertility

What an amazing article. Sent to me by my mother, of course.

Lost Cycle

I'm still feeling really sad about my low progesterone. My OB emailed me about it last night and said I could "not be effectively ovulating," and this would be the cause of the LPD and low progesterone. She did say it could also just be the long follicular phase. But ineffective ovulation? What the heck does that mean? I just feel sad. And I don't have another person in my house to help me pull out of my crazies and talk sense into me.

I guess a big part of my disappointment is that now I'm fairly certain that this cycle is out. I knew we didn't have great chances, but ovulating just in time and then finding out that the due date would be my birthday both seemed like such good signs. But the low progesterone is not a good sign, and I'm having basically the exact same kinds of cramps on the same days as last cycle. My temperature even spiked this morning, and it spiked around the same time last cycle.

So I just need to get used to the idea that this is another cycle gone, and it's a good thing that I went in for that blood test and realized that I do still have a problem. I guess the good thing is that my problems will likely be helped significantly with clomid, so I'm thinking I'll probably take that next cycle. And that would likely mean an earlier ovulation, so maybe I won't have quite as long of a waiting period.

The waiting is just killer. I can't put enough emphasis behind each of those words, and there's no other good way of saying it. I think sometimes my desire to know that I will be able to get pregnant and when is greater than my desire to actually have a child. If I knew that we would successfully conceive, say, next November, I think that would be easier than the ongoing ups and downs and frustrations and hope we have to wade through now. But that's not the way God likes to do things. I guess we have way more to learn from the uncertainty than the simple act of waiting. And the thing is, our certainty should be in the fact that he loves us and has an astoundingly wonderful plan for us, not in the specific whens and hows.

Ups and Downs

It continually amazes me how filled with ups and downs this whole infertility journey is. And not just little hills, we're talking the Andes. Of course, that's partially the nature of who I am--I am not one of those emotionally steady people, like my mom or my husband. No sir. No steadiness here. Fortunately, I have lived long enough to know this about myself and realize, whether I'm on the peak or in the valley, that, for better or worse, my current emotional state will not last long. This self-knowledge helps. A little bit.

After feeling pretty great all week, I suddenly crashed yesterday. Admittedly, only a small part of my crash had to do with IF. More of it was related to how frustrated I was about my seemingly chronic sneezy/stuffiness, the boredom I'm feeling with my current job, and the fact that my husband is leaving tomorrow for 12 days, leaving me alone with my emotional instability.

My sudden high temperature this morning did not help at all. Here's the latest irony of infertility for me: during the follicular phase, my moods are the inverse of my temperatures. During the luteal phase (especially at the end), my moods echo my temperatures. I was feeling pretty good about my 96.9 yesterday morning. But 97.8 this morning? What the heck? If I had had a positive OPK yesterday, all would be well. But no positive. And I think it's highly unlikely that I totally missed my surge. So I'm starting to think the big O may still be a ways a way, and probably too late for DH's swimmers to make it.

To top that off, there have now been two girls who joined our hypothalamic amenorrhea forum after me who have now gotten their BFPs. I'm so, so elated for both of them. But now I'm officially one of the more veteran members on the board. It's kind of a weird transition, and it makes me even more ready to make the transition to the vets board with them. I just have to keep reminding myself that I joined the board and made the necessary changes much earlier than most of them, so all of them have still been TTC longer than I have. I am in no race!

Yet again, I am losing all my earthly sources of stability--promising signs of O, health, busyness, my husband. All I've got left to make it through the next few weeks is God. Thank you, God, for being far bigger than all these.

Countdown to Loneliness

The sense of peace I've had over the past week has really been amazing. I prayed for it for so long that I had essentially given up and figured I would be anxious until our situation was resolved. But there I was on Saturday, madly preparing food for DH's tapas birthday party that evening, and rejoicing! Praise God, it's a miracle!

Saturday night's huge affair was followed by another evening of entertaining, since we had three college kids over to our house on Sunday night. So all in all, a fun but completely exhausting weekend. I paid for it yesterday as I woke up with a stuffy nose and feeling completely wasted. I came home from work after a couple of hours and just laid on the couch the rest of the day. I'm pretty sure I had a fever and still did this morning, but I dragged myself to work, not wanting to take up more sick days (and pretty sure I'm not contagious). I'm actually a little concerned, because I've been having recurring episodes of really stuffy/sneezy nose that have been getting worse each time, and now are accompanied by the fever. I just had an episode last week, and here I was with another one this week. I hope my body can kick out of it.

In other news, my egg-white CM has returned! I was kind of amazed by how much I had today--and how clear and stretchy it was! Of course, I had about 7 days of ewcm leading up to ovulation last time, so no guarantees that anything's coming soon. But a girl can hope.

The Place Where You Hurt the Most

I was just reading Scott Grant's sermon from last week and came across this line: "The place where you hurt the most, then, may be the place where you have the most to offer." Lord, I can only pray that one day you will use the pain I'm going through now for the benefit of someone else.