Not yet.

New iPhone 5s for Dh and I.

Just got my car back from being in the shop over two weeks and it looks like new. (We were rear-ended)

It's a beautiful day outside.

Made homemade salsa with Dh and enjoying a relaxing Saturday watching football and just being with him.
(I love lazy Saturdays like this)

..

But we are still not parents. Not yet anyway.

Today is CD3. I went to the drug store to refill my clomid for next month.
Still grateful for this new plan, but feeling a bit deflated as well.

It's not that I really expected all the pieces to come together this time, but it's just that I really thought that they did.
I had several moments where I knew I felt different and I just knew (or thought I did) that this was really it. Maybe it was just the HCG. Maybe I just wished/hoped/talked myself into feeling different. Can't be sure. But my answer for this month is not yet. I'm just on the down swing of this IF roller coaster right now but I am quite sure in a few days I will start feeling my spirits rise once again. I'll certainly try not to dwell on this past month for too much longer...I know I'll soon feel the promise of a new month and a new opportunity to open myself up to God's will and His timing.

Just going to enjoy this day we have been given, because this day is a gift.
Every day is.





"Waiting is just a gift of time in disguise--a time to pray wrapped up in a ribbon of patience--because is The Lord ever late?"
(A friend posted this a while back, but didn't say who's quote it is)



Thankful for crack salsa (yes, it's that good) to distract me and an ever positive Dh.

Something for you.

First of all, I must say I am just THRILLED that Fall seems to have come at last! Now I don't want to jinx it or anything, but if this lovely weather will continue, I will be one happy girl indeed :)

With Fall though, seems to have come all the crazy that life can seem to throw at me. I went to bed Saturday night completely physically and emotionally exhausted and slept for about 12 hours! I never do that! I was definitely looking forward to Sunday as a day of relaxing after church.

Mass turned out to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Our priest spoke of difficulties and that no matter what you are going through, you will get through it and you will be okay. That when all you can see is your struggle, try to step back and see the bigger picture. My initial reaction was a bit cocky I guess you could say...I was all.. Yep, IF sure sucks the life out of you, but one day it will end and we will have our family and we'll all be okay. I know that. Because that's what I've been telling myself for a long time.

Then came the songs. Oh, goodness knows I read WAY too much into songs. The first was the Prayer of St. Francis. Beautiful. I love this song. O Master grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all my soul.
But Sunday what I actually heard was...get over yourself! Everyone has struggles and you need to focus on being the understander not the understood and doing what you can for others and loving those around you with all you have and using the gifts you have now! Of course my mind was going a mile a minute and then the second song....
Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart. And then this starts...this is it, isn't it?? Is it I, Lord? We're not supposed to ever have kids and I'm just going to have to get over it and carry this cross and love with all my soul and hold His people in my heart but it will never be the same as holding my children and oh my goodness, I'm being so selfish right now!!...
Good grief, someone stop me now!!

Well, a little big dose of humility is good sometimes, right? The big picture and what I've taken from my moments of madness is that if God doesn't bless us with children, we will be okay. I know this deep down because He loves us. Of course I am hoping and praying with all my heart that this is not the case. I just needed to think those thoughts and say them out loud...thinking through that worse case scenario and realizing that if that does indeed happen, life will go on and God will still love us. I asked/begged God again that if He does not wish us to be parents that He will please take that desire away.

I told my Dh all of this after Mass of course and I told him that the biggest thing right now is not that I am not hopeful. The problem is that I have SO much hope that I feel like if it doesn't happen soon, I have an even longer way to fall. (I just finished my fourth and final HCG shot yesterday and now we are just waiting.) I said that I have this over abundance of hope that I have tried to shove down a few pegs or hide but it just won't seem to budge. And that scares me.
He told me not to be scared of the hope but to hold on to it! I am definitely trying.

It is just that this is so very near my heart. With my whole being I desire to be a mother. To rock my littles in my arms, to kiss those tiny feet. I have wanted to be a mommy since I was a little girl. In my sister's yearbook where the kids say what they want to be when they grow up, a little boy wrote he wanted to be a mommy. I just love that! He doesn't know yet that he cannot be a mommy, but he knows enough to know they are very special. I have loved on and stolen kisses from the babies I nanny for even if they are not mine. Having children is not something I want just because everyone around me is having them, although this certainly makes it more painful. I have never really been one to want to do what everyone else is doing anyway. I do want to be part of "the crowd" of course, but it goes so much deeper than that. I've never just wanted "to get pregnant." What I want more than anything is to meet my babies.  They are specific. They are wonderful. And they are ours. My Dh and I have had a few names for a few years now and I feel like they are already ours. I sometimes look around our house during the day and wonder what it will be like to call those names and actually hear pitter patters of little feet in our halls. To hear them laugh with their daddy.
I sometimes feel that if I allow myself to feel the full weight of this most precious desire of my heart, that I will just crumble beneath it. So, I leave most of those gushy feelings in a back room that holds that empty, folded up crib, a jogging stroller, and a baby blanket my mom got us with our last name on it. I usually am able to push these feelings down with, "This too shall pass, God's timing is perfect, I'm sure it will happen soon" and all the other phrases I use to distract myself. But what I've realized is that I can feel both sides. I can feel the weight of this desire and at the same time embrace the hope and know that I am buoyed by God's unfailing love.

One thing I know with absolute certainty...our babies will always know how loved they are. They will know that they were hoped for, prayed for and wanted. We will tell them what an incredible gift they are and how long we thought of, and prayed for the day we would meet. I truly feel like I will meet them. Because in my head they are just too wonderful not to ever exist. I sometimes feel they are already here...somewhere...and just because God has not let us meet yet doesn't mean it will never happen.

Okay. Yes, that feels good. I'm sure this seems like a whole lot of crazy at once but I have been holding these things in for so long and I knew they had to come out eventually.

On Saturday my Dh's Gm re-taught me how to crochet. She showed me months ago but I put it down and then couldn't remember. I have now found that it is somewhat addicting. It is a kind of therapy to see those strands weave together and create something new. Once I felt fairly confident with my "practice" piece, I dug through my craft supplies and found some yarn I had bought months ago for some home project. I have made things for other people's children but this?...
This I am going to keep. This will be for my baby. It is green and soft and perfect.
Maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but I don't care. I am going to make this blanket and allow myself to feel both. I will feel this huge elephant of hope I have and I will also feel this desire of my heart. I worked on it this morning as I prayed my rosary and the two didn't clash today. Today they were perfectly woven together. Pray. Hope. Crochet. Hello sweet therapy.



I will not lose hope in you, sweet little one. I am making you something because I know I will see you soon and I want you to have something from your mama. I am not yet sure if you will be conceived or adopted but nevertheless you are now and will always be in my heart. I miss you dearly, but I know God is holding you, and you are in the best possible place you can be right now. I will keep fighting for you until God tells me to stop. I love you.


I will not shove hope down anymore. Hope and I are friends now.
I am thankful for this hope.
And for Fall :)


Ps. Anyone needing extra therapy should totally try making something with yarn! I think I really am mesmerized or something..lol. I am going to try to crochet instead of spending time on fb this week, because everyone knows fb is a really dark place anyway, right?! Who's with me?!

Growing

Two nights ago, I was able to talk to my little sister for the first time in a month.

She is going through training for NET (National Evangelization Team) right now in Minnesota.
This is a program where older youth (mostly college age) will go through training and then be put on a team to either stay at one parish or travel the country for a school year all the while ministering to middle school and high school age youth. This is her first time away from home for an extended period of time and it has been an adjustment for her, my parents and youngest sister, and even for me. We have always been pretty good friends in that finish-sentences-laugh-together-silly-sister kind of way and though through college we didn't talk a ton, I always knew I could call her and catch up when needed.

She has been there just right about a month and since their days are packed and are even without their phones for periods of time, we have not been able to talk since she left. I was very glad she was able to call during their laundry time the other day.

I knew NET would do amazing things for her faith and life in general but I have to say I was completely blown away by the change in her even after only a few weeks.

It was so wonderful to hear the joy and excitement in her voice as she recapped her time there. She has always been a good Catholic, involved with church activities, pro-life, outgoing...etc...but she has her faults like everyone else (duh!) and the past months after graduating college have been times of uncertainty for her. Living with my parents. Trying to figure out what to do with life. What to do about her boyfriend. You get the idea.

What I heard on the phone was a girl who has grown tremendously in a short period of time. I started thinking about how we were raised and we are certainly different, but there are certain shortcomings that we both share. It was so amazing to hear her talk about how she has realized there are things she needs to/wants to work on and change about herself. Some of these things, lack of self-discipline, issues with timeliness (my family was always late to everything! Ugh!) are both things we have in common and also things that she has never before seen as a real problem.

I started thinking about God and how He of course knows us, knows our hearts, and puts us in situations where we can grow into the people he wants us to be. For me, it has been my dear husband, and for her, NET. I have struggled with those things forever and God in his wisdom put me with an amazing man who succeeds in places I fall short. He has encouraged me to keep trying and in the process, I have taught him patience :) as well as tact in expressing himself. I say these things not to speak ill of my sister, my Dh, or even put myself down, but to say that we are all children of God that struggle with different things, and I think it is just beautiful that He puts people and experiences in our lives that help us improve. As a priest said on one retreat I went to "Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet!" So true! We are forever a work in progress. She is too, of course. But I thought it was such a neat moment to hear her say that she is ready to work on those things that I have been working on since Dh and I have been married.

Another thing that struck me..

She knows that God has called her to this ministry for a reason and she wants to focus on serving him with her whole heart. She misses home, her boyfriend, our family, but she is trying to keep her heart in the right place. She was talking about how much she desires to be a wife and a mother and that it is easy to jump ahead to thinking about what will happen after this is over. (She is head over heels for this nice, Catholic boy and would totally marry him anytime, I think ;) She said she has prayed that God will take away those desires for a time so she can concentrate on her mission at this time, and if these things are not what He desires for her, that He will take them completely. This made me think of the times I have thought of my own desires to be a mother and prayed that God will help me to desire the things that He wants for me. I have talked to my sister about our struggle with IF, and I know she tries to understand, but while I was getting married and thinking about these things, she was in college and going out with friends and such. We were just in such different places in our life.
This was one of the first times in quite a while I felt like I could really relate to her and she to me. We finally have something that unites us in our lives that is a little deeper than liking the same music and movies.

After I got off the phone, I really felt that I had been on a mini retreat myself! Listening to her growing faith and excitement was inspiring to me and made me so thankful that God puts us right where we need to be.

Every heartache, every uncertainty, disappointment and pain God can and will use to unite us to him in our suffering, and help us to grow in holiness. If there is one thing IF has taught me, it's that every single person has a cross to bear. Something they are working through or dealing with. IF is such a silent struggle that you just never know who may be going through the same thing. Perhaps the person at the store who seems either uninterested in helping you or even unkind has just received another BFN or is on their Nth treatment. There are times you just want so badly for someone to understand. This community has been a blessing in that way. For a moment in our phone conversation, I got a glimpse of something more. A common goal. A shared struggle.  Even if it's not IF related, I at least hope that dealing with IF has made me a more compassionate person.

The waiting, the disappointments, the jealousy, crying, and uncertainty that go hand in hand with IF can all suck it. But the things I hope I bring with me after leaving this Island are compassion for others struggles, and a fierce live-for-the-moment-grateful-for-blessings attitude towards life.
I am praying that whatever God wishes us to have that he will place the proper desires in our hearts.
No matter how long it takes, or what he has in store, His plan will be the best one, but sometimes
it is nice to know you are not in a struggle alone.

I've been doing so much keep-you-up-at-night thinking about everything lately. It is nice to have a place to attempt to untangle those thoughts.



I am thankful for the people that God gives us
to help us grow.
I am thankful for my sister. For what God is
doing in her life. And I am quite proud of her.