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.

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....

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.

Coping

DH is officially gone as of yesterday morning. I cried a little after dropping off (after our early morning quickie) but was generally feeling pretty good yesterday. I woke up with really sore boobs, which has been my surest sign of ovulation each time so far (as in, twice). My OPK was really close to being positive, just not quite there. The only thing not lining up was my morning temperature of 97.4, but when I took it only 10 minutes later (10 minutes of laying in bed), it was 96.6, so I figured there was just something weird going on. I was 90% sure I would ovulate today, which would be perfect timing with our BMS yesterday and the day before.

Then I woke up this morning. My boobs were fine. And my temp? 97.4. Again! How could this be? I lay in bed for almost an hour trying to muster the energy to get up. And I spent most of my morning feeling like there was no way in hell I would make it through the next few weeks. All my hopes totally dashed. Why would God do this to me--give me so many great signs yesterday only to dash them all today? And you should know something about me. I don't do well alone. I don't know if it's just me or if it's everyone, but I find it nearly impossible to focus on anyone but myself when there isn't anyone else around on whom to focus. No source of distraction.

So most of this morning was spent somewhere between prayers and tears. Since I've cried just about 10 times this week, I'm guessing the increased estrogen is somewhat to blame.

And praise God for my parents, who have been my only human conversation all day today. I got to talk to them online from North Africa, where they currently live. My mother is one of the most wonderful human beings on this planet. So is my father. She is good enough to ask me almost every time I talk to them how things are going with my body, and my dad is good enough to be interested in the girly details. They both pray for me like mad. I'm getting teary eyed just sitting here thinking about them. I've heard enough horror stories from other infertiles about their relationship with their parents to know how incredibly blessed I am to have parents who have never pressured me and have always gently encouraged me--in a non-condemning way--to focus on God instead of myself. They were just what I needed this morning.

I've made it through the afternoon with much less drama and am headed off to actually interact with more people for a few hours tonight. I will say, though, that nights are pretty much the hardest part of being home alone. I have enough trouble with sleeping as it is, with my bedmate around to help me calm down if needed. Alone, it's pretty much a miracle if I can get to sleep without any sleep medicines. So maybe it's better that I don't get pregnant this time around, since then I'd have to come off all those meds.