Give Peace a Chance

Philippians 4: 4-9
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

I have to admit, I have rarely, nevermind ALWAYS, been rejoicing in the Lord for the last several days. I don't know why but all of a sudden I lost the 'peace that passes understanding' that I have managed until now. Lately I've been 'stabbed' repeatedly by IN-MY-FACE examples of what I don't have, and so I've been consumed with the desire to grieve what I'm trying to let go of, but yet I don't know how to balance that with "Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength" Nehemiah 8:10 and "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.

Am I not allowed to feel loss and sadness? Am I not allowed to grieve the death of a lifetime worth of dreams? I don't know where to draw the line between being selfish and responding in a way that will glorify God. I'm not so much asking 'why me?', or questioning God's purpose for me, but the envy is creeping in for experiences I won't get to have and it makes me want to throw myself a pity party.

Trouble is, that is not what my mind should be dwelling on if I want the peace I had only 2 short weeks ago. I don't want to feel petty, or pathetic, or like I'm trying to get pity from others, but is that all my sadness comes down to? Isn't there anyway to have one without the other icky baggage? I want to 'just get over it' but somehow I feel like that's not all that healthy either.

ABC Meme

Sometimes I find myself looking for an excuse to just vent about all I, and my body, have been through the last few years....here's a meme I created to do just that, in a not so depressing way :)
Artificial: artificially regulated ovulation, for a short while
Basal Body Temperature: could never keep track of it
Cycle Day: stopped keeping track of it
Diagnosis: technically unexplained infertility, was told to lose weight due to elevated estrogen, had to SELF diagnose tipped uterus from family history and Dr.'s comments
Emotion Today: less-lonely
Fertility Treatment (s): drugs, weight loss
Genetics: mom and both sisters have tipped uterus, mom and 1 sister took 4-5 yrs to get pregnant, 2 aunts with fertility issues
Hormones: elevated estrogen that I successfully, and naturally, lowered by losing weight
Insemination: au natural
Jealous of: women with husbands who want a baby just as much as they do
Kids: 2 neices and 2 nephews
Length TTC (Trying To Conceive): 4 years 5 months
Miscarriages: possibly 2, unconfirmed
Not Trying: surgery, surrogates, adoption, drugs (anymore)
Ovulation: now 28-30 days, was 30-42 before weight loss
Plan B: child-free life, supernatural motherhood (any situation God, and God alone, might bring me to 'mother' in)
Quitting: obviously, alcohol....every other 2 weeks anyway, obesity....just another 15 lbs and I'm in the acceptable weight range for my height
Rx(s): was on Chlomid, Metformin
Semen Analysis: count, motility, etc. all good
Tests: hormone tests, demonstration of ovulation, skipped HSG after 4 unsuccessful attempts to schedule, and of course many pregnancy and ovulation tests :)
Unsuccessful Treatment (s): all of them, although I quit drugs after a few weeks because wouldn't be able to tell if body had corrected estrogen due to weight loss or because of drugs
Vice for Coping: faith most times, but on days when I don't have enough of that, food (especially ice cream) and Arbor Mist
Willing to Try: possibly fostering, it's the only situation we've discussed and didn't feel the need to rule out
Xpecting: one day to find joy in being child-free
Years Old: 33 next month
Zero: times it's worked when someone says "usually if you do _____ that's when you get pregnant".

If you feel so inclined to partake in my meme, feel free to post my graphic and leave a comment linking to your own ABC meme. Thanks for reading!

Fertile Friendships

In my wrestling with the labels I'm trying to get comfortable with (i.e. infertile, child-free) I decided to seek out some support and have started searching the interweb for people like me. Not that 99% of my real-life relationships haven't been supportive and encouraging and a blessing, but there's just this small barrier of 'not understanding'. I seem to need a LOT of understanding right now.

It's knowing as much what to say as what not to say, and when, and most importantly, why. It's needing to know I'm not alone. Even sharing this common thread with just one person in real life would be so nice right now, but since I don't wish 'involuntary child-free living' on anyone, I have to look somewhere, and so I turned to the blogging community. And there they are, in abundance. My side bar is now home to places I can go when I'm ridiculous, and irate, and hopeless, and hopeful.

That being said, I've realized opening myself up on this topic on the interweb doesn't come without a price. In my searching today I found some posts about the negative reaction society can have towards the child-free, even so-called friends. Thank goodness I have not come across such heartless inconsideration for my experience, but who knows if things will stay that way now that I'm more visibly joining this particular World-Wide Web community. Considering my sensitivity has it's cycles, pray that I can have a thick skin should I encounter any such feedback. Overall, I feel being part of this community will be much more fertile ground for healing than not.

Joy to Me

My ridiculousness continues.

There have been so many men I have seen or heard about lately whole-heartedly loving on their children. Their deep, deep, love for kids also makes me cry.

Not. with. joy.

Lori really needs to get her joy back.

Irate and Irrational Infertilness

I know I'm being ridiculous. Which is why I won't say this aloud to anyone. But I'm internally in turmoil. Over something SO petty.

First, a little background info. When we first started trying, a friend of ours ,who also happens to be a doctor, recommended I stay away from cat litter (not the actual litter, but it's other contents) due to Toxoplasmosis even if we're just at the 'potentially pregnant' stage known as trying. He knew we had a cat and suggested my husband be the one to change the litter. Easy enough to avoid. It's been almost 5 years I've been free of this task (not that I really minded it since I'd owned cats for almost 9 years before that) but I've taken for granted this job exists by nature of having a cat.

Now, to the current situation. I have a friend who is fairly new to our city, she doesn't have a lot of local friends and she's on a work trip for 3 weeks and needs someone to feed her cat and change it's litter during that time. She does have 2 room-mates, however one is also gone those 3 weeks, and here's the kicker, her other room-mate just found out she is pregnant (with a guy she left her husband for less than a year ago - not that that should matter) and she can't touch the cat litter. My friend's few other friends are not really cat people, one is even allergic, so originally I thought nothing of helping her out. Then I realized taking care of the kitty means a litter change. I'm not supposed to touch litter. Then I realized I'm not going to get pregnant. I can touch litter.

Why do I have to change the litter and Ms.Room-mate can't!!!! **tears flowing** It's not fair!!!

How ridiculous am I? I thought I was SO past this "jealous of other pregnancies" thing.

Don't Stop Believing

My sister's newborn son, a son they thought they'd never have naturally, a son a doctor thought might not make it past 6 weeks in-utero.

This is reason enough to believe in miracles, another reason to trust God.