Often times we include a verse that goes along with what we are talking about. I want to do a post differently today. I want to lead with a verse. 2 Timothy 4:5 really stuck out to me. Here it is:
But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don't be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.
No doubt God is telling us a lot in this verse. For us, I think He's telling us that we shouldn't be afraid of the struggles with infertility we are facing. This is the ministry that God has given us and we need to use our suffering to share Him with others. I do feel like my faith has really grown throughout all of this. There is no way to really explain why this is happening to us unless God wants us to use it to do something good. Maybe it means we use this blog to minister to others with infertility or any other struggle. Or maybe it means it's for us to adopt a child that needs a home. We have to continue to pray and ask Him for guidance and understanding.
Often my prayers include asking Him to make me pregnant. As I lay with my hips propped up at the doctors office, I am pleading for God to make me pregnant at that moment. We all know God has big plans for all of us and sometimes it isn't what we think we want. I do think I want to be pregnant and carry our own child, but maybe God has something bigger and greater in mind. We don't know yet. I know patience is something I don't have a lot of, but I know God has great things for me. I just need to rely on Him and His timing. He definitely knows better than I do.
As I write this, my heart does still struggle to accept all of this. I know it's wrong for me to have the doubts in my head. But I'm working on it. My talks lately have changed from begging to be pregnant to thanking Him for everything great He's already given me and asking him to reveal His plan to me. It doesn't make me any less sad, but it really helps to know I have the big guy to talk to and help me through this. I can't imagine dealing with this without Him.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
Prayers for a Friend
I want to ask for prayers for a friend of mine. She and I have been going through this fertility struggle together. We're daily texting each other about what drugs we're taking, our PCOS, what our doctors are saying, how expensive everything is, how we're feeling, etc. We even ended up ovulating at the same time a couple months ago and we did our first IUIs within hours of each other. We were both so hopeful that we'd get pregnant together. Hers was more successful than ours, but unfortunately yesterday she had a miscarriage. My heart is breaking for her and I feel like it happened to me too. She has had complications the past few weeks and I have prayed non-stop for her. Now she has to wait 3 more cycles and start infertility again. I really can't imagine how hard that is. I do know that miscarriages are common and it happens to most women, but it still doesn't make it emotionally easier to deal with. Please pray for my friend and her husband. Hopefully in a few months we can be pregnant together and our little ones become BFFs!
Clock's ticking...
I know we need to get better about posting more often. At least once a week. There really isn't any good news to report. Just doing a lot of thinking and praying. We've gotten settled into our house and I need to start another big project. I feel like the past few nights I have just felt down and I guess it's not good to have too much time to think.
I know a lot of people have dealt with infertility longer than our 13 months. I feel bad when I'm down and I know so many other that have had harder struggles than we have. I have been desperate for a baby for many, many years. I really feel that God put a calling in me to be a mom. I remember back in early 2008 going to see Slumdog Millionaire. All I could think about that night and the next couple days was that maybe I should adopt a kid from India. The boys were so cute and I really couldn't stop thinking about them. I even looked up details online. I did hold off on the adoption, but I kept the hope of being a mom.
So when Mike and I decided to get married, I let him know that I would want kids soon. It was mainly because of my age. I did want time to enjoy being married and just the two of us, but I knew my clock was ticking. I felt guilty because Mike was so much younger, but he was just as excited about parenthood as I was. We thought we'd wait about 6 months, but we didn't wait that long. I have friends that had fertility problems, so I thought it would be best to start as soon as we could (How right was I?)
We were going to take a vacation to Paris and Rome 4 months after our wedding, so we decided we start then. But it was about a month before that though when we stopped using birth control. I really wanted to conceive in Paris and give our kid a French name like Pierre or Antoinette. Well, we didn't get pregnant before Paris or during or after.
I really hate that infertility is so much of our lives. I honestly probably don't go an hour of my day without thinking about it. Pathetic, I know. I want to scream sometimes how unfair all of this is. I don't even feel like turning on the TV. I don't want to hear about Snooki's baby or Honey BooBoo's teenage sister getting pregnant. With all we've learned and everything we're working on, I can't comprehend how someone can accidentally get pregnant. I would love to wake up one morning vomiting and it just dawn on me that I missed my period.
I'm really losing hope that it will happen. I already know it won't be easy. This week has been frustrating because I'm waiting for my period to start. We knew we didn't have much of a chance that the last IUI would work, but there was some hope. But three tests throughout the week told us "not pregnant". I really just want one time to see it say "pregnant" even if it's a false positive, just so I know those tests can give anything besides negative news. I hate when my period's late, because it gives us false hope and it just delays our next cycle. I can hear my clock ticking louder than ever now and it's not shutting up...
I know a lot of people have dealt with infertility longer than our 13 months. I feel bad when I'm down and I know so many other that have had harder struggles than we have. I have been desperate for a baby for many, many years. I really feel that God put a calling in me to be a mom. I remember back in early 2008 going to see Slumdog Millionaire. All I could think about that night and the next couple days was that maybe I should adopt a kid from India. The boys were so cute and I really couldn't stop thinking about them. I even looked up details online. I did hold off on the adoption, but I kept the hope of being a mom.
So when Mike and I decided to get married, I let him know that I would want kids soon. It was mainly because of my age. I did want time to enjoy being married and just the two of us, but I knew my clock was ticking. I felt guilty because Mike was so much younger, but he was just as excited about parenthood as I was. We thought we'd wait about 6 months, but we didn't wait that long. I have friends that had fertility problems, so I thought it would be best to start as soon as we could (How right was I?)
We were going to take a vacation to Paris and Rome 4 months after our wedding, so we decided we start then. But it was about a month before that though when we stopped using birth control. I really wanted to conceive in Paris and give our kid a French name like Pierre or Antoinette. Well, we didn't get pregnant before Paris or during or after.
I really hate that infertility is so much of our lives. I honestly probably don't go an hour of my day without thinking about it. Pathetic, I know. I want to scream sometimes how unfair all of this is. I don't even feel like turning on the TV. I don't want to hear about Snooki's baby or Honey BooBoo's teenage sister getting pregnant. With all we've learned and everything we're working on, I can't comprehend how someone can accidentally get pregnant. I would love to wake up one morning vomiting and it just dawn on me that I missed my period.
I'm really losing hope that it will happen. I already know it won't be easy. This week has been frustrating because I'm waiting for my period to start. We knew we didn't have much of a chance that the last IUI would work, but there was some hope. But three tests throughout the week told us "not pregnant". I really just want one time to see it say "pregnant" even if it's a false positive, just so I know those tests can give anything besides negative news. I hate when my period's late, because it gives us false hope and it just delays our next cycle. I can hear my clock ticking louder than ever now and it's not shutting up...
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Conflicted
Life sure has been keeping us busy lately. We love our new house; perhaps we'll post some pictures here soon. The new house has been awesome. Veronica loves tackling projects in different rooms while I love being able to do yardwork. Sorry these projects have left us quite absent from the blog.
The news has not been getting any better. Now that they finally got Veronica all fixed up they found out there are still all sorts of problems with me - possibly worse than we thought. I'm on some new drugs, because that is the answer to every infertility problem, and I've been trying to stay active in an attempt to drop some weight. I dropped some back over the summer but hit a wall and gained most of it back. I need to get on it again and stick with it. They really aren't sure how much good that will do though. We are starting to discuss things such as adoption and IVF seriously for the first time, knowing we may have some decisions to make in a few months. I was really hoping we'd never have to think about those two things, it's been a rough few weeks for us.
There is a lot of good going for us right now. We got a new house, we welcomed a new niece to the world a few weeks back, two of our siblings are getting married shortly, Veronica gets to go to Cancun soon, and so on......
With that, it's fair to say say that my life is very conflicted right now. I'm having a hard time mixing the joy and sadness, and honestly I've let the sadness win out more often than not. It seems like every piece of good news comes with some bad news on the side. I'm struggling to figure out how to deal with each as I know that is just how life goes.
One day we're going to have kids, I am very confident of that and I accepted a long time ago that it is not going to be the normal route. But the future has been getting more and more blurry and that worries me. I wish there was some finality to all of this. I have tried to trust God and accept that he has a plan for us, but with each appointment it feels like we are getting further and further away from an answer, specificially the answer we want. Trying the IUI felt like one step forward but then hearing how bad my numbers were felt like 2 steps back.
I don't really know what to say to wrap all of this up, just felt like I needed to post something and get some of those feelings out there. I ask that you continue to pray for us, specifically that we remain strong throughout this. I hope everyone reading this and prays for us knows how much we appreciate your support and your prayers. I don't know where we would be without the support and encouragement.
The news has not been getting any better. Now that they finally got Veronica all fixed up they found out there are still all sorts of problems with me - possibly worse than we thought. I'm on some new drugs, because that is the answer to every infertility problem, and I've been trying to stay active in an attempt to drop some weight. I dropped some back over the summer but hit a wall and gained most of it back. I need to get on it again and stick with it. They really aren't sure how much good that will do though. We are starting to discuss things such as adoption and IVF seriously for the first time, knowing we may have some decisions to make in a few months. I was really hoping we'd never have to think about those two things, it's been a rough few weeks for us.
There is a lot of good going for us right now. We got a new house, we welcomed a new niece to the world a few weeks back, two of our siblings are getting married shortly, Veronica gets to go to Cancun soon, and so on......
With that, it's fair to say say that my life is very conflicted right now. I'm having a hard time mixing the joy and sadness, and honestly I've let the sadness win out more often than not. It seems like every piece of good news comes with some bad news on the side. I'm struggling to figure out how to deal with each as I know that is just how life goes.
One day we're going to have kids, I am very confident of that and I accepted a long time ago that it is not going to be the normal route. But the future has been getting more and more blurry and that worries me. I wish there was some finality to all of this. I have tried to trust God and accept that he has a plan for us, but with each appointment it feels like we are getting further and further away from an answer, specificially the answer we want. Trying the IUI felt like one step forward but then hearing how bad my numbers were felt like 2 steps back.
I don't really know what to say to wrap all of this up, just felt like I needed to post something and get some of those feelings out there. I ask that you continue to pray for us, specifically that we remain strong throughout this. I hope everyone reading this and prays for us knows how much we appreciate your support and your prayers. I don't know where we would be without the support and encouragement.
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