Time off.

Do you ever do something and as you're doing it, or after maybe, you realize just how badly you needed it?

That's how I feel right now.

We've officially been in Minnesota for 1 week, and it has been 1 week of pure bliss.  Lots of family time, lots of games, and lots of traditional Christmas things.  S and I have been hitting up the Mall of America, baking and decorating cookies, and building gingerbread houses.  We still have some Christmas shopping to get done, but we haven't been concerned about the time crunch we're under, clearly ;)

Something this week hasn't included though has been all things infertility related.

No appointments.  No medications.  No schedule.

You don't realize how daunting all of it can be until you suddenly aren't doing it anymore.  Not feeling bound by those things is so freeing.  I said it in my last post and I'll say it again, I know that in the world of infertility, heck, even under completely normal conditions, 2 months of "trying" is nothing.  That's just the beginning in most cases.  But sometimes it's hard to remember that.  It's hard to think that it's really only been 2 months since my miscarriage was 14 months ago.  It's hard to remember that God's plan is greater than my own.  It's just really hard.

But.

This week has been free of all of it!  And it's good.  So, so good.

Yesterday I did have myself a nice little pity party though.  My parents, S, and I went down to my grandparents house to see some family that we hadn't seen in a long time, too long!  As everyone sat around talking about their kids and babies and jobs, I just got to thinking how pathetic my life really is.  Most of the time I'm ok with not having a teaching job.  Most of the time I'm ok with not having kids that are toddlers already.  Most of the time I'm ok with not having a baby or being pregnant, but yesterday?  I just felt... pathetic.  Like what am I doing with my life??  It's been something I've struggled with for a little while now really.  I realize now that it's fine though.  Life doesn't always turn out the way we want it to or think it will.  Sometimes life takes us to unexpected places.  

On the other hand,

I do have my photography.
I do have a husband that comes home to me every, some, most nights.
I do have a house I can tend to and a sweet pup to love on.  
I do have a baby to {hopefully} prepare my body and house for in the coming... year(s)?

I don't know what this coming year will bring, but I do know that right now, right here, I needed this time away.  I didn't realized it until it was already underway, but this month off is truly the perfect way to end 2014.  So I'm thanking God for these moments.  The moments I didn't expect, the moments I didn't know I needed, but so desperately truly needed.        

What's next?

It's now been one week since I found out our second Letrozole cycle had failed.  I've had a lot of questions swirling around in my head since then, but I really haven't focused on them too much.  I've been home in MN, so I've really just been soaking up all the family time I can and trying not to dwell on unhappy thoughts for now.

But, for the moment, the house is quiet, S is at the gym, and it's given me some time to really think and process.  Which brings me to this...

What's next?

I realize that in the world of infertility, two failed cycles is nothing.  Really, really nothing.  It's not necessarily the two failed cycles that's getting to me, it's that I got pregnant so easily last time.  Right after S came home from deployment actually.  Just a few weeks after his homecoming I found out, so it's hitting me a little hard that there seems to be such a struggle in this.  It's not that I didn't expect it, it's just I had hoped it wouldn't happen.

But, that hasn't been the case, at least thus far.  So what is next?  For now, nothing.  December is just an infertility, medication, shot, dr appt free month.  So far, I'm loving it!  It's been so great not to feel bound by taking medications or shots or dr's appts.  It's been nice to have to think about it at all.  I'm able to enjoy, truly enjoy, every second that I'm home with my family without the side effects or schedule of the medications.  It's just really good.    

For the longest time I had said that if this last cycle failed, December would be a break, since we were traveling, and in January we would do an iui.  S will be away doing training, so we'd freeze his sperm prior to his leaving and I'd go through the process without him.

Now I'm rethinking that.

For the last several months my gym time has been lacking.  When I go to the gym, I like to get a good, quality workout in, but thanks to surgeries and medications and side effects of said medications, that just hasn't happened.  This week though, I've been taking full advantage of not being on any meds and spending a lot of time in the gym.  I won't blame my meds 100% for any weight gain I've had, but they've certainly played a role in it.  The other day S and I talked about not doing an iui in January and really focusing on getting healthy again.  No meds, no foreign things in my body, more time in the gym, and healthy eating.  Last October when I found out I was pregnant, it was a time in my life that I was the most healthy I've been in a long while.  What does a wife do for months on end waiting for her husband to get back from Afghanistan after all?  Workout.  Lots of working out.  I don't think it's a coincidence that I got pregnant then and haven't since.  So, maybe two months of health are what the dr {hasn't} called for.  At the very least it can't hurt, right?

No plans are set in stone, and as anyone in the infertility world knows, plans can go just as fast as they came, but for now at least, I think this is the direction we'll go in.  It terrifies me a little bit with the possibility of a deployment looming, but I can't stress about it.  I know that God is bigger than any plans I have or S has or anyone has really, so the best I can do is just continue to pray and know that everything will work out the way it's supposed to.    

Cycle 2 results.

The life of the infertile is not easy.  Not easy at all.

Just when I think I've got this, I've got my feelings, my emotions, my life, under control, something comes and knocks me off my feet.

Is life ever easy though?  I doubt it.  If it is, I have yet to experience that.  And if it isn't, just isn't ever easy at any point, well, then that kinda stinks.  But I suppose we'll all just keep trucking along.  Yes?

Anyways.

I got the dreaded call today.

Still?
Again?

I don't know anymore.

My heart hurts.  My mind hurts.  Everything just kind of hurts.  Not like a physical hurt, but more of an ache I guess.  An ache for something I want so badly but keep not getting.  Month after month after month.

The thing is, as much as my heart hurts, I still just have so much faith.  Faith that something, anything, is going to work.  That eventually, eventually, I will get to hold a sweet baby, my own baby, in my arms.  That the pain will go away.  That the hurt will go away.  That the ache will go away.

Will it?  Will it go away?  God, please.  I hope so.  I pray so.

Even in the midst of this hurt, this ache, I just so badly want my story, this whole journey, to bring glory to God.  I am constantly reminded of God's faithfulness, and that faithfulness hasn't gone away just because I didn't get the news I wanted.  I know that despite the tears that fall, God is right there saying, "I understand.  I understand your hurt.  I'm going to make it better."

Some of you might call me crazy.  Why, after all of this, after all the pain and hurt, why would I keep trusting in a God that hasn't given me what I wanted?  It's so simple though.  It's not about what I want.  It's about what God wants for me.  I know I'm going to have a baby.  I just know it.  Someday, someway, I'm going to.  And until then, I'm just going to keep trusting that God has my best future in store.  That the best days are yet to come.

And that maybe, just maybe, life might {easy} one day.

   

The new and improved: Infertile Faith

I've been asked a few times now if I deleted my blog or where it went.  Honestly the question kind of stuns me.  I'm just so surprised that 1. people actually read my blog, and 2. like it enough to ask what happened to it.  It's so sweet, and makes me realize over and over again how it's not just S and me that are going through this journey.  It's everyone that has read any blog post I've written over the last year.  It makes it feel less lonely.

Anyways, that leads me to this post.

No, I did not delete my blog.  It just got a little facelift, including a name change.

When I very first started my blog, the name My Heart to His Boots was fitting.  It was all about our life with the Army, mostly deployment at the time.  But then I had the miscarriage and things shifted for army life to infertility life.  Along the way, I've dealt with a lot of questioning, a lot of tears, a lot of hurt, and eventually, hope and joy and a stronger faith.  Hence the name, Infertile Faith.

The definition of infertile is not able to reproduce; not fertile or productive.  That is so the opposite of what I want for my faith, especially in this journey.  Some days, the best I can do is let the tears fall and say, "Please help me, Jesus.  Please get me through this."  But the longer this journey has gone, the more I've realized my complete dependance on God.  The need to breathe Him in every second of every day.  To have a faith that is opposite of not being able to reproduce or be productive.  Even in the hard times, I want a faith that reproduces, that is productive, even if in the smallest of ways.

But can I just be honest?  That doesn't always happen.  I don't always have a faith that reproduces or is productive.  Sometimes, my faith is infertile.  Sometimes, it has nothing to give.  Sometimes it just can't.

I'm working on it though.  Every day, every hour, every minute, I'm working on it.  I'm working on having a faith that is fertile rather than infertile, just like I'm working to have a body that is fertile rather than infertile.  But my faith comes first.  Because without a fertile faith, there's no point to having a fertile body.

Why... why... why.

Do you ever just ask yourself why?

Why can't I get a job?
Why can't I get the job I want?
Why don't I have a husband?
Why do I have to go through this?
Why...  Why...

Why.

I try not to question why I go through things in my life.  But sometimes it's hard.  Really hard.  Can I get an amen?  Or a head nod or something at least?

I've said one too many times to Sean, my mom, heck, almost anyone that I've ever talked to, "This isn't fair.  Why do I have to go through this?"

But wouldn't you know it, I was watching another sermon by Steven Furtick and something really hit home for me.

"God allows us to be afflicted with the very thing we are called to heal, otherwise we'd be arrogant."

-Steven Furtick-

I've toyed with this idea in my own life for a little while.  Maybe the reason I have to go through this is to be an encouragement, a help, to someone else.  Maybe, just maybe, I'm not going through this only for me but possibly for someone else as well.

The number of people that I've had reach out to me since I started this journey is sometimes overwhelming.  People telling me that they're going through the same thing, that they get it.  People telling me they've suffered a miscarriage and wondering how I got through it.  People telling me they're just beginning their journey with infertility and wanting to thank me for sharing my story.

Wow.

People all over the place, people I haven't talked to in awhile, sometimes even years, reaching out to me.  Me!  So maybe I'm going through this for them.

Can I be honest for a second?  Like really, really honest?  I never really knew much about miscarriages, infertility, or the struggle so many people face to have a child of their own.  I never knew.  I never knew the burdens, the fears, the pains, the tears, the worries.  I never knew.  I never thought about it.  I never prayed for those people.  I never prayed them through the burdens, the fears, the pains, the tears, or the worries.  I wasn't empathetic to their losses.  I was empathetic to their situations.  I just wasn't.

But now?  Now I get it.  I really, really get it.  Now when someone comes to me and says,

"I'm starting my journey."
"I'm going through this as well."
"I just lost a baby."

I completely get it.

I can think about them.  I can pray for them.  I can pray them through their burdens, fears, pains, tears, and worries.  I can not only get it, but understand it.  I know where they've been.  I know all those feelings.  I know.

Maybe that's the reason I'm going through this.  Or at least part of the reason.  Maybe it's not for myself but for others.  

Expecting bad news

Totally random, completely out of the blue side note: sometimes I wish I was from the south.  They get to say y'all without sounding stupid.  It's so much easier to say y'all than you guys, which is of course what I say.  I'm Minnesotan to the core.

Anyways.

Ever since my failed 1st cycle, I've had a hard time being excited or hopeful about this 2nd cycle.  I was so hopeful the 1st one.  Overly hopeful maybe.  I was excited, I was ready, I was in a really good place.  Since then I've felt all of that slipping away slowly.  When I started my medications, I wasn't excited.  When I did my trigger shot, I didn't feel anything.  I had pretty much given up before I even started.

I've just been in a really weird place.

Today I sat down and was listening to the 3rd sermon in the series How to be Brave by Steven Furtick.  If you haven't caught on yet, I kinda love his sermons.  Every.Single.One.  They always seem to speak straight to my heart, to hit the nail right on the head of what it is I'm going through.

Today was, of course, no different.

I needed today.  I needed the message.  I needed the encouragement, the reminder to not give up, no matter what.

This was what really got my attention.

"They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them." 

-Psalm 112:7-

It was at this moment that I knew this sermon was meant for me.

The whole point, or at least the point I got, was that sometimes we get bad news.  Sometimes we get news we don't want.  Sometimes, life just kinda sucks.  But it's how we respond to that news that matters.  Do we let it drown us or do we keep our heads above the water despite our circumstances?  Do we experience reality or do we experience our perspective of reality?  Do we let our fear overwhelm us or do we find hope in our situations?

I went into the cycle expecting bad news.  I've lived every day as if in a few weeks, I will get bad news.  I quit before I even started.  And yet, since the beginning of this blog, I've talked over and over again about my faith.  How God has a plan.  How it's a good plan.  How I'll be ok no matter what.  When did that change?  When did I stop seeing the good instead of the bad?  When did I choose to give up?

What really blows my mind is that I waited for so long to get to this point.  To the point that we're even able to try for a baby.  But after just 1 failed cycle, I gave up.  WHAT!  Why?!  Did I really lose faith that easily?  Did I really count us out after 1 cycle.  1 cycle!

In the sermon, he talked about a reporter they had doing a story on their church.  He was asked to answer some questions from the reporter, but after talking with a friend, the friend said not to waste his time, that the story was already written.

Isn't that the same with life?

My story has already been written.  Whether I stress, worry, fear, cry, give up, lose hope, whatever, over this cycle, or any other cycle, my story is already written.

"My story is already written based on what I believe about the nature of God and His disposition towards me."

-Steven Furtick-

What I believe about the nature of God?  He's a good God.  He's an all powerful, loving, gracious God.  He's a giving God.  He's the ultimate physician, the ultimate healer.
What I believe about the disposition of God towards me?  He loves me.  He wants good things for me.  He wants me to find joy and happiness in all things.

I don't know what the future holds.  I don't know what this cycle will bring.  But I'm good with that.  Again.  I'm re-believing that no matter what news may come, good or bad, God will care for me.  He will see me through this.  My story is already written, and I plan to live it out the best way possible.