Well, we couldn't avoid it any longer. It was time for the tube test. We both knew it had to be done before we were going to move forward. I was definitely a little nervous. I didn't think Mike was until he followed me into the bathroom without thinking at the doctor's office.
The test was definitely painful and I was embarrassed that I had to scream out a bit. We were both very worried that we would find that the tubes were closed and we'd have to make a decision. If they are closed, it could mean that surgery is needed or we just skip on to IVF. But then sometimes the tubes can spasm during the test and close up, giving a false positive. So do we still go with those options or do IUI in case they are really normally open? Well, we don't have to worry about it, because both tubes showed to be open! We were both very relieved to see this. I know it might not seem like that big of a deal, but for a couple that only gets bad news, this is HUGE for us.
Mike took me home after the test to recover. The doctor gave me a pain killer to take, but I had to wait an hour to make sure I didn't get sick. It left me pretty wiped for the day, so I decided to just work from home. I had no meetings that day and I just wanted to be in my jammies.
One of my favorite things to do on a weekday when I'm home is to watch The Price is Right. If there's ever a chance, I'm off work, I try to plan my day around the 11:00 hour. Well, guess what? Ironically, on this day they were doing a special for pregnant women on the show! Are you freaking kidding me?! The audience was all preggos! I was very annoyed. I immediately sent a text to the husband, who made me laugh by saying, "You would think a show that is always trying to prevent pet pregnancies wouldn't openly promote them amongst humans!" Oh, well, such is my luck.
Life is just ironic sometimes...like I went to a baby shower on Sunday. It was for a very good friend that is pregnant with a miracle baby. I couldn't be happier for her and her husband. It's been awhile since I've had to go to a baby shower and I got through it great. However, after I got home my period started. I think just to remind me that I shouldn't get excited about baby stuff yet.
I just have to keep remember that God has a plan for us. It's hard to accept, that we have to continue waiting like Mike talked about in his last post. But we're trying to exercise patience and complete surrender to God.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Hope
I can't lie, infertility is rough and for the most part, the way I have reacted to it and handled it has made things even rougher. It is one of those things that you cannot be prepared for, nothing in life leading up to it can make it easier or have you better prepped to deal with it. You have to decide on your own how to react and adapt to it. The first decision we made was that we wanted to glorify God through this struggle, and that is one of the best decisions we have ever made. However, our initial goal was to show others struggling with infertility how much easier it is when you go through it with God, yet I read back on this blog and realize that I have stuggled through this process and have doubted God. I've lost faith and I have begun to hate the hope that is still in my heart.
Hope has been a buzzword for me, I can't decide how I feel about it. Every time we go to the doctor and get some good news or we do an IUI, my hope spikes for a few days or a few weeks, only to be dashed by another negative pregnancy test. I was really starting to hate hope so much that I tried to stifle it when I would feel it coming on. After I was able to resist my own hope, I began to hate my wife's hope. Doubts overwhelmed me along with frustration and exhaustion. I just didn't want to do this anymore. My heart grew cold towards everything about our infertility, I was fine with just stopping everything. My wife wasn't anywhere near that point and I could not figure out why she didn't see things the way I did. Why was I so sure about something while she was so far on the opposite end? Being a big movie fan, I am going to utilize one of my favorites in order to make my point:
I was siding with Red (Morgan Freeman for the 3 people left who haven't seen this movie). I found hope to be dangerous, misleading, disappointing, and depressing. All hope was doing was setting me up for failure, making me want something (that I thought) I could never have. I was choosing failure over hope, I was ready to setttle for a life of just the two of us because hope was wearing me down so much.
I've been a Christian my whole life, so I knew this wasn't right. But I also knew that so far, right wasn't working. I was presenting such a shallow and empty faith, two years of a struggle and I'm ready to abandon all hope, destroy my desires, and settle for less than I believe God has planned for me. The reason I have been so absent from this blog lately is because I did not want to reflect that to other people. I can't help how I am reacting to all of this, but I can control who sees it in hopes that no one else does. I could go on and on about this stage of my "hope-hating" for several more paragraphs but I am assuming you get the idea. It wasn't fun and it wasn't good for our marriage. Then we came to church last week and the sermon series was each preacher teaching on their "Life Verse". This week was Phillip Holland teaching, I posted the entire sermon below and it is definitely worth a watch; but I think you will see just how much we felt like we were being spoken to by the opening video in the message:
Life Verse - Psalm 27:14 - Philip Holland from Northeast Christian Church on Vimeo.
Hold on, I am supposed to be patient and wait?!?! Of course I already knew that, I just have never liked it. I hate waiting for things, I am all about instant gratification. I am always settling for something less now instead of waiting for something better later. If I really want the 160 GB iPod but only have enough money for the 80 GB iPod, then there is no chance I am waiting 2 extra weeks to have enough money for the one I want, I am settling for the 80 GB. I hate that about myself, I don't think it makes me a bad person, but I would love to have more patience. It really hit me when Phillip talked about settling, because I had never really thought about it but I settle all of the time.
Settling destroys my hope, hope requires patience. There would be no hope if we got everything we wanted immediately. Hope is not what gets you what you want, it is what keeps you going until you get what you want. I used to think I was wrong for thinking about having a baby, that would just get my hopes up. But then I realized why my attitude had shifted so drastically over the past few months and was now polar opposite of how Veronica felt. I had abandoned hope. And that is how a person without hope lives, they become cold and negative. They become pessimistic, doubtful, and their life gets mundane. I can relate because I was there, but I am happy to say my hope has been renewed and I think for the first time I am getting hope right. I am not going to let bad doctor appointments or failed pregnancy tests ruin my hope. They will still be very awful, and I am pretty sure we will still have more of them. But I will continue to hope for what I want. The only person who should take away your hope is God, and he is the one who provides us with hope, and I still want to be hopeful. I always have been, I chose on my own to bury my hope so I could avoid the anguish of the letdown. A negative pregnancy test is a lot easier to handle when you are expecting it all along. But I don't want a negative pregnancy test to be easy, I want it to crush me. Then, I will be that much more hopeful for the next one.
As I think about my life verse I can't help but think about hope, and my life is full of hope right now. I hope my grandpa gets positive results back tomorrow from his operation last week for skin cancer. I hope my mother in law and father in law can adapt as best as possible to dealing with my father in law living in the advanced stages of alzheimers. I hope the void Veronica and I feel is fulfilled soon. Hope is a great thing because all of these things seem possible. I went through a lot of verses that I love, but if I had to settle on a life verse at least for right now, it would be Romans 12:12 "Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble and keep on praying."
In closing, I have to play another Shawshank clip to show how Red realizes he was wrong about hope. They found their hope in that movie, and I cannot wait to find mine!
Hope has been a buzzword for me, I can't decide how I feel about it. Every time we go to the doctor and get some good news or we do an IUI, my hope spikes for a few days or a few weeks, only to be dashed by another negative pregnancy test. I was really starting to hate hope so much that I tried to stifle it when I would feel it coming on. After I was able to resist my own hope, I began to hate my wife's hope. Doubts overwhelmed me along with frustration and exhaustion. I just didn't want to do this anymore. My heart grew cold towards everything about our infertility, I was fine with just stopping everything. My wife wasn't anywhere near that point and I could not figure out why she didn't see things the way I did. Why was I so sure about something while she was so far on the opposite end? Being a big movie fan, I am going to utilize one of my favorites in order to make my point:
I've been a Christian my whole life, so I knew this wasn't right. But I also knew that so far, right wasn't working. I was presenting such a shallow and empty faith, two years of a struggle and I'm ready to abandon all hope, destroy my desires, and settle for less than I believe God has planned for me. The reason I have been so absent from this blog lately is because I did not want to reflect that to other people. I can't help how I am reacting to all of this, but I can control who sees it in hopes that no one else does. I could go on and on about this stage of my "hope-hating" for several more paragraphs but I am assuming you get the idea. It wasn't fun and it wasn't good for our marriage. Then we came to church last week and the sermon series was each preacher teaching on their "Life Verse". This week was Phillip Holland teaching, I posted the entire sermon below and it is definitely worth a watch; but I think you will see just how much we felt like we were being spoken to by the opening video in the message:
Life Verse - Psalm 27:14 - Philip Holland from Northeast Christian Church on Vimeo.
Hold on, I am supposed to be patient and wait?!?! Of course I already knew that, I just have never liked it. I hate waiting for things, I am all about instant gratification. I am always settling for something less now instead of waiting for something better later. If I really want the 160 GB iPod but only have enough money for the 80 GB iPod, then there is no chance I am waiting 2 extra weeks to have enough money for the one I want, I am settling for the 80 GB. I hate that about myself, I don't think it makes me a bad person, but I would love to have more patience. It really hit me when Phillip talked about settling, because I had never really thought about it but I settle all of the time.
Settling destroys my hope, hope requires patience. There would be no hope if we got everything we wanted immediately. Hope is not what gets you what you want, it is what keeps you going until you get what you want. I used to think I was wrong for thinking about having a baby, that would just get my hopes up. But then I realized why my attitude had shifted so drastically over the past few months and was now polar opposite of how Veronica felt. I had abandoned hope. And that is how a person without hope lives, they become cold and negative. They become pessimistic, doubtful, and their life gets mundane. I can relate because I was there, but I am happy to say my hope has been renewed and I think for the first time I am getting hope right. I am not going to let bad doctor appointments or failed pregnancy tests ruin my hope. They will still be very awful, and I am pretty sure we will still have more of them. But I will continue to hope for what I want. The only person who should take away your hope is God, and he is the one who provides us with hope, and I still want to be hopeful. I always have been, I chose on my own to bury my hope so I could avoid the anguish of the letdown. A negative pregnancy test is a lot easier to handle when you are expecting it all along. But I don't want a negative pregnancy test to be easy, I want it to crush me. Then, I will be that much more hopeful for the next one.
As I think about my life verse I can't help but think about hope, and my life is full of hope right now. I hope my grandpa gets positive results back tomorrow from his operation last week for skin cancer. I hope my mother in law and father in law can adapt as best as possible to dealing with my father in law living in the advanced stages of alzheimers. I hope the void Veronica and I feel is fulfilled soon. Hope is a great thing because all of these things seem possible. I went through a lot of verses that I love, but if I had to settle on a life verse at least for right now, it would be Romans 12:12 "Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble and keep on praying."
In closing, I have to play another Shawshank clip to show how Red realizes he was wrong about hope. They found their hope in that movie, and I cannot wait to find mine!
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