#firstworldpains

It kind of hit me today.

{ I am NEVER this shocked when my wallet is empty. ;-) }

We don't have the money to replace our dryer that died today.

We had to pay a hefty fee to fix our home A/C this summer.

We don't have the money to replace the sprayer at our kitchen sink that leaks.

We paid for 2 E.R. visits during the summer, one of which included an ambulance ride.

We don't have the money to replace the recessed light above our bathtub.

We just paid $75 for antibiotics for our daughter.

We had to put our car in the shop about a month ago.

We don't have the money to get our lawnmower fixed.

We had to buy the more expensive meds for our dog since his regular brand isn't currently being produced.

We don't have the money to decorate another nursery.

I don't even have the money to get my hair cut!

But you know what? We have a nice house. We have two vehicles that {currently} run. Every month, we are able to pay our bills. My air conditioner is running right now. Our washing machine works, and our dishwasher works. We are able to buy groceries each week. We have a computer, a printer, a TV, and two gaming consoles. Every night, we sleep in a cozy bed and get a good night's sleep. Our home is protected by a burglar alarm system. We have furniture to sit on in every room of our house. Both of our toilets work, and all of our faucets work. We are incredibly blessed to have our adoption fund almost complete. I have a coffee maker that I program to make my coffee at 6:30 each morning. We have clothes to wear. And THIS list goes on & on. The list above pretty much stops where I ended it. But our blessings continue, despite my nagging, whining, & complaining.

God is good. All the time.

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ~Matthew 6:27-29

remembering.

Tomorrow, on September 11th, a lot of people will remember. We will remember where we were when that first plane hit the tower in New York. We will remember the emotions we felt: shock, disbelief, fear, anger, sadness, uncertainty. We will remember the strong sense of patriotism that this country experienced after those horrific events. We will remember, if applicable, our trip to New York and the view from the top of the World Trade Center. We will remember all of the heroes that emerged on that day eight years ago. And hopefully, we will remember our desperate dependence on God to get our country through that time. It is good to remember. Remembering helps us deal with grief, helps us move on, and hopefully makes us stronger.

Tomorrow, on September 11th, I will remember something besides the attack on our country. I will remember the life that began inside of me 9 months ago. I will remember when I first found out I was pregnant after trying for 2½ years. I will remember the emotions I felt: shock, disbelief, and finally, excitement. I will remember telling our family. I will remember the best reaction EVER from Baron’s mom when she all but screamed our ears off. I will remember telling people that my due date was 9/11, and getting the “oh, wow” response. I will remember discussing baby names with my pregnant friends. I will remember rooming with Judy at the ladies’ retreat & getting comments about being in the “pregnant room”. I will remember the strong aversion to chocolate I had, and how I didn’t care because I just wanted a baby. I will joyfully remember the first heartbeats I heard during my early ultrasound. I will remember every detail about my pregnancy, including the sad parts. I will have to remember the day we found out the baby was no longer living, and those horrific days that followed. I cannot forget those dark feelings I felt – loss, discouragement, anger, frustration, confusion, disbelief, sadness. But during all of that, the more significant emotions were those that were showered over us by friends and family – comfort, encouragement, sympathy, understanding, love. God truly does love us. If he did not, why would he bother placing these overwhelming feelings of hope in the midst of such devastation?

Yes, tomorrow we will remember. But let’s not only remember the devastation, loss, hurt, anger, frustration. Let’s remember the wondrous things that God has done for us during those difficult times. Let’s remember the hope He gives us – hope for redemption, hope for salvation, and hope for an eternal life with Him.

Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced. ~1 Chronicles 16:11-12

my own blog helped me

I just went back and re-read this blog post, and the comments from the readers are so encouraging to me right now. I just needed to hear some encouraging words, cause me & Baron are struggling with some of the same emotions I expressed in that former blog post. That's all...I just wanted to share! :-)

struggling

I feel like my blog is bipolar because I go back & forth so much between serious posts & lighthearted posts. :-) But that might give you a little indication of how my emotions are right now, so maybe it's a good thing.

I want to write some more about my miscarriage. For several reasons: 1) writing about it helps me sort through my emotions & serves as good therapy, 2) I want other people who experience a miscarriage to know that they are not alone, and 3) it serves as a journal for me to look back on in the future. So, before I really begin this post, please know that it's gonna be a serious one, and it may even seem a little Debbie Downer at times. I know this isn't the most fun post to read, so it's ok if you decide to skip this one. But I hope you will continue, just to get an idea of what's going on in my head & in my heart {as scary as it may be to know what's in my head}.

If you have experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, or loss of an infant, you may know a little about what Baron & I have been going through during the past 2 weeks. I have felt the most sadness that I have ever felt in my life. Disappointment, confusion, emptiness...and just overall sadness. I was pregnant, and now I am not.

I miss being pregnant. I miss our baby inside of me, growing. I miss worrying about how much caffeine I'd consumed. I miss the weird taste changes. I miss talking with my friends who are currently pregnant about what I could have expected over the next few weeks & months. I miss being indecisive about baby names. I miss being aggravated by the ever-frequent "how are you feeling?" from every person I know. I miss seeing my mom glow every time she told someone I was pregnant. I miss daydreaming about my first child having so many friends whose mommies are my friends. I miss my dad referring to our baby as "Little Zippy". I sorely miss being pregnant.

Don't misunderstand; I am not completely downtrodden all the time. I am fully capable of laughing & smiling & going about my "normal" day. But there are times when it gets hard. Shopping for a baby gift for a friend. Attending baby showers (which I haven't brought myself to do just yet). Getting an e-mail from someone who hasn't yet heard about the miscarriage & they ask how the pregnancy is going. Or worse, seeing someone in public who doesn't yet know, and fighting back the tears as I explain that I was pregnant but I'm not any more. The toughest times are when I am alone, left with my thoughts. But I have come to the realization that it's ok to think about it. It's ok to be sad. In fact, I need to feel those emotions. Part of the healing process involves getting through the pain; confronting the emotions. It's better for me to feel the emotions than to push them aside in an attempt to "move on". {That's part of the reason I am writing this post.}

There is a book I am reading right now that a friend of mine ordered for me. It's called Grieving the Child I Never Knew by Kathe Wunnenberg. It is an excellent book for comfort after the loss of an unborn or newly born child. The author uses scripture and introspective questions to help the reader walk through the grieving process. This book, coupled with the scripture it references, has been an amazing help for me. One of the passages that stood out to me the most is from Psalm 139 ~ "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb...your eyes saw my unformed body." God created my baby. God knit her together in my womb. God's eyes saw her unformed body. And now, God has her with Him in heaven. How incredible is that? I never saw this baby. I never got to hold her in my arms. I never got to rock her to sleep, or sing her a lullaby, or give her a bath, or nurse her, or take her for a walk, or watch her sleep, or watch her play with her daddy. But she is living a life now with her Father that is better than all the days she would have spent here on earth. And that, friends, is the only thing that gives me comfort right now. Because that is what really matters anyway - time spent with our Father. Little Zippy Goins is spending her days praising God the Father. And so, I will try my hardest to do the same.

"The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."

{P.S. If you or someone you know has experienced a miscarriage & you want to talk about it, or if you're just curious & have specific questions, feel free to e-mail me: lerra73@charter.net. Obviously I can't cover all the topics I would like in one blog post. I could go on & on about it...but I'm probably already losing readers as it is!}

romans 8:28

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

When Baron & I got engaged, he used this verse to describe his journey in life before he met me, and how God brought the two of us together. Since then, we have used it as encouragement for life's little bumps, and also for a bigger "bump" - our struggle with infertility. Now I am relying on it even more to get us through this time. There is no way either of us could make it through something like this without God's presence, and we have totally felt his hand in our lives these past couple of days. That is mostly due to all of the prayers of our family & friends, and we cannot thank all of you enough! We are so blessed to have such awesome prayer warriors in our life. We thank God for all of you. I know this experience isn't over, but it is so much better with wonderful people surrounding us, and most importantly, an awesome God to hold us.

if at first you don't succeed...take a break!

Several of you have asked me how our "baby making" efforts have been going. Well, obviously, they aren't working. :-) But, to keep you up to date on what we've been doing, here's a recap of what we've been through up to this point. {If you aren't interested, feel free to skip over this post. I won't be offended. Much. ;-)} This is partly for you to know what's going on with us, partly to help anyone out there who might be going through the same thing, and partly for my own benefit so I can have a journal of what we've been through. Ok, back on track...

In September 2006, Baron & I (ok really it was mostly me, and I talked Baron into it) decided we were ready to start trying to have a baby. I stopped taking my birth control, and at first my attitude was "we won't try, but we won't not try". That didn't last long. I was counting days & reading online articles about how to get pregnant after the first month.

For several months, I was discouraged that I wasn't pregnant yet, but I also realized that it takes most couples up to a year to get pregnant. So I was ok. Until the one-year mark started getting close. I started charting, taking my basal temperature, and doing the at-home ovulation predictor tests. Everything appeared normal, and I still wasn't pregnant. Then I decided to pursue this thing a little more. I talked to my doctor about what to do next {this is my new doctor; I had switched because my other gyno doesn't deliver babies anymore & I thought I would need an OB soon...little did I know}. That's when I started having blood work done once a month to check my progesterone level. {Your progesterone is at a certain level when you get to day 21 of your cycle, if you ovulated successfully.} Every month, my progesterone level was normal. My doctor suggested I try Clomid, because sometimes you can be ovulating "regularly" but not necessarily "effectively", and Clomid can sometimes help. Well, I took the lowest dose that Clomid is administered in {50 mg}, and when I went in for my 21-day progesterone blood work, my levels were WAY too high. Just looking at my test results, my nurse actually thought I might be pregnant...with twins. Yikes. So the Clomid had overstimulated my ovaries, which can cause ovarian cysts, so I didn't take Clomid anymore. Also during this time, Baron was tested {guys only have one test they have to take...while us girls have like a million...BOOOO...} and his test results were normal.

The next step was to have a hysterosalpingogram {HSG}, which is a procedure to determine if your Fallopian tubes are blocked. At that time, it was November {2007} and nearing the holiday season, and the nurse said it could be hard to schedule the procedure with the doctors going on vacation, and the procedure has to be done at a certain time of the month, yadda yadda yadda, so I opted not to do it at that time. Well, in January 2008, while I was at Last Hour chaperoning a bunch of teenagers, I had what I can only describe as a knock on the noggin. {Click here to read my previous post about it.} This was a major spiritual experience for me, because I had finally felt at peace with waiting on God's plan in my life. I was ok with waiting.

The only problem with me at that point in time is that I was only thinking of myself. I was ok with waiting, but I hadn't even considered Baron's feelings. When a couple struggles with infertility, that's just it: the couple struggles. I was so focused on how well I was doing that I hadn't even thought of how Baron was doing. And I found out in March that he wasn't as keen on waiting as I was. I just didn't even realize how badly he wanted a baby. So, I called up my doctor and scheduled the HSG. I was very nervous because I didn't quite know what to expect. My appointment was in April, and when I got to the hospital, I got myself so worked up & nervous over the procedure that I passed out after it was over. Yep, I'm a wimp. The procedure wasn't even that bad. I'm just a wimp. :-) But the good news is that the test was normal. My tubes aren't blocked.

So now what? I got a call from Dr. Dupre later that week, and he told me I had two options. (1) Go back on Clomid, but cut the pills in half to get a lower dosage, or (2) have laparoscopic surgery to give the doctor a chance to "look around" inside me. Dr. Dupre said I am at a very low risk for finding anything in a laparoscopy, so of course I opted to try Clomid again.

I was on Clomid from May through July, when I decided to stop taking it. For a couple of reasons: first of all, Clomid has a few possible side effects, one of which is hot flashes, and let me tell you - those about drove me crazy. I do NOT look forward to menopause after experiencing those.

The other reason I decided to come off Clomid: I need a break. It's been almost 2 years since we started trying, and it's tiring. It's emotionally and mentally stressful, and I am ready to quit. Honestly, part of me wants to just give up altogether. I know that will change, so instead of calling this "quitting" I'm calling it a "break". And to be honest, it is a huge relief to know that for at least a few months, I won't be taking Clomid, or getting blood work, or watching the calendar, or paying attention to my cervical fluid {sorry, TMI}, or scheduling sex {sorry, TMI again}, or having a procedure done. Whew.

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More info:

Overview of Infertility
RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association
Home Remedies for Infertility
Estrogen Dominance
Natural Horomone Balancing

good readin'

I'm reading a book right now that I really want to recommend to all of the ladies reading this. It's about the lies that we, as women, are fed by Satan every day - and the Truth that sets us free from those lies. It may sound like it doesn't apply to you, and that's what I thought when I was first introduced to it. But the further I get into the book, the more I realize how applicable the subject matter is to me. I highly recommend this book!!