Backwards

I know they say you should never look back, dwell on the past, or move in reverse.

But I think they're wrong.

It's been a little more than three months since my unplanned exit from the blogging world, and every day since then your kind words and continued prayers have amazed me. You have all been such a blessing, but now I realize that while the silence was much needed, it's time to break free from my over thinking and obsessive over analyzing and get back to the business of using my storms to glorify God the only way I know how.

Documenting my feelings, laying them all out completely exposed and then slowly, methodically working backwards to find the blessings in disguise.

Norbet Platt once said that "The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium".

I need to find my equilibrium, that precious balance once again, so back to blogging I go.

But my new view on life and the good that can be found in looking backwards doesn't have to mean resurfacing the sad parts of the story of my life that's past; I'm just thinking back to times when life was simple. The days when nothing else in life mattered besides having Jesus in my heart, family to love, friends to lean on and plenty of hope for a beautiful future. Those were the days when life was easy, and I'm convinced it's necessary to get back there before I can officially move forward.

I'm pondering life back before three failed IVF attempts, and the realization that my slow growing eggs may very well be failing us despite their perfect-on-paper diagnosis. Times when a prenatal vitamin was enough, caffeine wasn't self diagnosed as a poison, and the future held no fear of a biologically childless family for my husband and I. Those days really aren't buried that far behind me, and I've spend the last few months trying desperately to dig them up and restore them in my mind.

And while completely erasing the past few years of ugliness that comes with trying to conceive isn't an option-or even my desire for that matter-I'm finding myself learning to become transparent to God, acknowledging the fears and emotions that I've tried so hard to sweep under the rug in attempt to pretend to myself-and everyone else-that I'm perfectly fine despite the circumstances, and bring them out into the open by confessing them to the only one who is able to wash them away.

It's a battle every day, but I finally feel myself starting to open up.

We have one more try at IVF before we have to move on, and some days I still fall apart under the pressure of left over scar tissue born from fear of failure, comparisons of other girls cycles, envy of their successful embryos, a lack of faith on my part and questions surrounding everything I've ever believed.

But what's most important is that underneath the debris of it all I'm finding a raw, clean slate full of new possibilities. As someone who used to be completely apposed to adoption as a way to start my family out of pure stubbornness and fear, I'm beginning to allow God to open up my mind to let go of all my past expectations and desiring to fill that void in my heart with whatever He's prepared to give me.

And while I'm still praying that His will is for us to have our own biological children through IVF or any other miracle, at least my heart is beginning to soften towards alternative possibilities, and I know that's a huge step in the right direction for me. Because it means I'm successfully stepping backwards to times when life was easy and I trusted God to take care of me, free of fear, selfish stubbornness and determination to have things my way and in my timing.

I think I'm finally realizing the difference between wanting God's will while hanging on for dear life to what I want for myself, and just wanting God's will, period.

Because there is a huge difference.

And it doesn't mean we have to dismiss the idea of doing everything we possibly can to prepare for our final cycle, either. It just means we know that God is the Creator of life, He alone holds the ability to allow me to become pregnant, and although it may not be in His will to do so, He most certainly can. And because of that possibility, I'll continue to do all I can to bring myself to Him as a clean vessel for this next IVF, mentally, spiritually, and physically.

That means life now consists of a crazy cocktail of yoga, vitamins, acupuncture, random contemplative thoughts on adoption, and a lot of looking backwards to find that lingering peace from better days. Yoga is doing wonders for my hectic mind, acupuncture is supposedly rotating my stagnant blood flow and increasing my Chi, and CoQ10 mixed with Pycnogenol is attempting to strengthening my lady parts and keep free radicals from damaging my slow growing eggs so that when we attempt our final try, we know we did all we could.

I still desperately want to be pregnant; to feel my belly grow with a child that is half mine and half my husbands, interconnected with our very own DNA and blood. But I also have a deep desire to be a mother, however God plans for that to happen, and I'm certain that God wouldn't let that desire burn in my heart unless He had intentions of fulfilling it.

Some days, life is perfect. I don't really mind the struggle that infertility has brought, because I know without a doubt that it's all for the best; especially given the decline in the economy, deaths in my extended family, my husbands recent job loss and countless other setbacks. I don't always feel envy when I see a pregnant belly or attend a baby shower, and it doesn't really bother me that another mothers day has passed me by, once again.

But some days are still hard. Because the secret to my success over infertility is that I've never once doubted that I'd become a mother someday, to my own, biological children-more specifically, four of them-and that doubt is finally starting to creep in as I come to terms with the fact that even the most evasive medical procedure possible hasn't helped us conceive after three attempts, and we are officially marching onward towards our forth and final try.

And it just doesn't make sense.

In my lacking faith, I want answers. I want to know why I manage to produce a bounty of beautiful follicles, yet they never yield a high number of mature eggs. Why the mature eggs we do have fertilize perfectly, yet are slow to develop and change into blasts. Why I'm not pregnant after all these years and all this medical intervention. Why God chose to make a girl who's wanted babies since she was a baby herself completely barren in the first place.

But I know that I may never have those answers. And honestly, it's probably for the best. Maybe God's wanting us to get our money's worth, and He's simply holding out for our last try to give us our miracle. Maybe He's preparing my heart for something larger that will come to play in the future, strengthening my faith and testing my patience. Maybe I've done something wrong and this is my punishment, or maybe I've done something right and this is a blessing.

Or maybe, just maybe, the world doesn't revolve around me.

So for now I'll just look back, and remember when life was simple, perfect, and easy. A time when I didn't have so many questions that I demanded answers for, because I had too much faith in God, too much trust in Him to worry so much about the details. Back when what I had was more than enough, and the mystery of the future was the most exciting part.

I appreciate your prayers, encouragement, and patience with me now more than ever. And with your continued support and a little more faith on my part, I'm hoping to find that perfect balance once again.

The one somewhere between looking back, and pushing forward.

"One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything."

-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Finding The Silver Lining

It's not always easy to do.

The day before our beta, I knew I would be working and didn't want to receive a call while in the office, so I hastily left my cell phone number in an email to my nurse and asked her to leave a message for me when the beta results came in. I spent the entire day dancing around the office, with my spirits high and my heart prepared for the best, but still hadn't received a message come early evening.

After I had left work and attempted to occupied my time with grocery shopping, my theory that no news is good news started to dwindle and I began to worry that something was wrong. I finally gave in and made the call to the office, where I got the receptionist because my nurse was in a meeting with another patient, but she did pass along the information that a message was indeed left earlier at the number that I had emailed her.

I thanked the receptionist and tried to calm my nerves as I hurriedly checked back at my email to see what number I had sent to the nurse.

Sure enough, it was off by one digit.

Unable to wait any longer, I frantically dialed the incorrect number I had given the nurse, and was answered by a sweet older gentleman. After I explained myself as quickly and sanely as possible, he assured me that he had indeed received a strange voicemail earlier in the afternoon, and put me on hold to find the details for what felt like an eternity.

Upon returning to the line, he repeated bits and pieces of the message that he'd heard, but didn't understand.

Your number was less than 1. I'm sorry, you can stop your suppositories...

And that's how my cycle ended, from the mouth of a complete stranger who had no idea how devastating his mysterious message could be on my fragile, broken heart.

It was a hard day, although the tears I shed were few and far between. I suppose I was in a state of denial, and still am to an extent. My husband pulled into the driveway just as I received the news, and he could tell the outcome of our cycle by the look on my face through the dirty, rain streaked windows.

We didn't talk much about it, but it was heavy in the air for the rest of the night. We picked at our dot cake, but neither of us had the heart to eat it all. We tried to make a pizza for dinner, but somehow managed to break the door lock which disabled the oven, so we headed over to my parents house to finish cooking it and attempt to break the silence that was clouding our heads and slowly suffocating us from the inside.

Being around family eased the pain, and we returned home late that night feeling almost normal again. As I crawled into bed I thanked the Lord for making the pain bearable, and asked him to give all of my babies a kiss goodnight for me.

I woke up in the middle of the night to my husbands shallow, uneven breathing, and a few sniffs that confirmed he wasn't taking the news as well as he had earlier. I felt somewhat emotionless as I held him and comforted him, wondering why I wasn't crying with him.

Why I couldn't let myself feel the pain just yet.

Since then, I've made my way slowly through to acceptance, as well as the usual roller coaster of emotions and questions. By nature I'm a planner, so I immediately did all that I could to help "fix" the situation. I threw away old drugs, hid the schedules, heating pads, and pictures of our precious embryos, started looking up acupuncturists and purchased DHEA vitamins. Bought some new workout shoes, rid the house of all sugars and white flour, and prepared a list of questions for the follow up appointment that will be scheduled soon.

But there was one burning question that I knew the Dr. couldn't answer.

If God really has no intentions of giving my husband and I our own biological children, then why in the world would He not have instilled in either of us the desire to adopt?

I don't believe for one second that God intends for us to be childless; the Bible is full of verses and bits of wisdom about family and the importance of children and what a blessing they are. But I've struggled for a while with the fact that so many couples-fertile and infertile alike-hold the desire by either one or both parties to adopt children. Yet for us, although we believe that adoption is an amazing and wonderful act of selflessness, it just isn't something that speaks to our hearts.

Now I could argue that this could be because we haven't opened our hearts to it, but I just don't think that's the case, especially after praying profusely about the matter. Both of us so badly want our own biological children, that there is a very real possibility that we could be pushing away the idea of adoption, looking at it as a sort of settlement for the failure of what our true desires are.

Or it could just be that settling for adoption would mean giving up, and I can't do that yet.

We still have one more try. I still have hope that God has something amazing in store for our lives. And while at times the possibility of the future can be so terrifying that I have to fight off a panic attack, the fear still isn't strong enough to stop me from moving on.

From finding that silver lining.

More often than not, this entire situation seems insane. Although our first cycle was canceled and in reality doesn't count as a full try, we've attempted IVF a total of three times so far with nothing to show for it besides some grainy black and white photos of some precious embryos that were too beautiful for this earth. It's still hard for me to believe that we've come this far, and even the most evasive medical procedures available to us in this day and age aren't able to produce a valid pregnancy for us.

A normal, healthy, young couple.

It just doesn't make sense.

But my silver lining in this dark, menacing cloud is that where medical miracles may fail, God never does. And although we have no idea what the future holds, we know who holds our hands. And although it may be strikingly painful right now, I know He is in control and He has a plan for us, one that we want to follow, no matter where it takes us, because we both trust fully in Him and we want what He wants.

I've found that it's near impossible to stay frustrated and depressed about this unwelcome situation when I believe this to be so true. It's almost as if focusing on God's promises, and knowing that with Him, anything is possible brings alive a part of me that is just too excited to be overcome with fear of the unknown.

It's like I'm caught in the midst of a horrible storm, but floating safely on a life raft. And even with no idea where I'll land or how long it will take me to get there, being on this raft is far better than drowning in a raging sea.

That, mixed with the countless prayers, support, love and encouragement from the few family members that know about this cycle and the community of women that I've never met but have grown to love, is what keeps my hope alive.

And that's my silver lining.

“Clouds may come, but clouds must go, and they all have a silver lining.

For behind each cloud you know, the sun, or moon, is shining.”

-Author Unknown

Waiting For Our Shot

Monday, 2-1-10 (Day 34) 4dp6dt

Dexamethasone (.75mg, oral pill): Still taking them, still on the diet, albeit at a standstill in weight loss.

PIO (1ml, IM injection): Easy.

Progesterone (50mg suppositories): Just the usual; small amount of pinkish red discharge when I wake up, and a tiny bit throughout the day.

4dp6dt-At four days past my six day transfer, the implantation process should continue as my morulas bury deeper into my lining.

I'm experiencing some very dull cramping, and I just can't decide if that's something to be excited about or something to loathe. I know every pregnancy is so different, I just wish someone could respond-when I tell them that my back is aching and that's not normal for me-that I'm for sure pregnant for that reason alone.

But we all know it doesn't work that way, so I'll just try to ignore the twinges, cramps, and dull aches, and not look too far into them.

Because they could be growing babies.

But they could also be from my body preparing to start my period.

Tuesday, 2-2-10 (Day 35) 5dp6dt

Dexamethasone (.75mg, oral pill): Check.

PIO (1ml, IM injection): Because of earlier events, tonight's injection was hard to take.

Progesterone (50mg suppositories): Remember how I said that despite my morning and mid day spotting that was most likely related to these nasty suppositories, I would remain calm?

That all went out the window-or flushed down the toilet-today.

Amidst a busy day at work, I rushed to the bathroom late afternoon for a quick potty break and found that my pantyliner had completely soaked through with a pinkish red discharge. Not quite blood, but not quite not, either.

Just enough to assume that despite the insane amount of PIO I'm consuming, my body was still attempting to start my period. And even after contacting the nurse just to ease my mind, all I was left with was a nurse that was just as apprehensive and confused as I was. Oh, and instructions to continue all meds and keep her updated.

Fast forward to several neurotic trips to the bathroom later, and it's still there, along with a very light, dull cramping that I may not have noticed had I not been leaking pinkish red fluid like a stuck pig.

5dp6dt-At five days past my six day transfer, my morulas should be completely implanted into my lining, and have developed their placentas and fetal cells.

God, I trust you.

Wednesday, 2-3-10 (Day 36) 6dp6dt

Dexamethasone (.75mg, oral pill): It's day eleven of a twelve day diet, and after holding steady at an unideal weight for the past few days and feeling discouraged, this morning brought the loss of two more pounds.

PIO (1ml, IM injection): Check.

Progesterone (50mg suppositories): After the unwanted blood tinged discharge made it's major debut yesterday afternoon, I spend the rest of last night drinking water like a fish and praying for a miracle.

This morning, I didn't wake up to the usual pink and red tinted gunk that's haunted me the past few days, I simply found a dark yellow mess instead.

6dp6dt-At six days past my six day transfer, the placentas cells should begin to secret HCG into my blood.

Technically, I could have tested this morning like most girls would. But after yesterdays bleeding scare I much more prefer the blissful state of ignorance that I'm floating in as of late, and I can't bare to spend the money on a home pregnancy test anyway.

I'm slightly crampy, accompanied by a very dull back ache, and the constant flutter of nerves paired with a heartbeat that suggests I'm about to die.

Other than that, I'm good.

Thursday, 2-4-10 (Day 37) 7dp6dt

Dexamethasone (.75mg, oral pill): And I'm down one more pound on the last day of my diet, bringing the grand total of weight loss to seven pounds, which I'm very happy with. Tonight, I will make myself a dot cake with dot frosting and refrain from licking the spoon and the bowl, and come this time tomorrow I'll be eating that entire cake out of either sorrow, or pure bliss.

PIO (1ml, IM injection): It makes me sick to my stomach to think that this could be my last PIO shot. I'd much prefer to continue them for months to come, despite the pain, the bruising, and the hard lumps that have formed all over my behind.

Progesterone (50mg suppositories): I should have known yesterday was too good to be true.

I remember waking up sometime in the middle of the night to an extreme burning sensation where I knew my suppository was setting inside of me. I took it as a good sign, assuming that meant that my cervix was indeed being irritated and drifted off back to sleep.

I woke up again around four am and drug myself into the restroom, praying I wouldn't see red, so when I looked down and saw the pinkish discharge in such a small quantity in my underwear I was actually grateful.

Until I looked in the toilet and saw pink water.

And then at the toilet paper that was soaked with the color red.

I sat there for a few minutes longer, until I decided that it was best to go back to bed. I crawled in, curled into the fetal position and fell asleep as I fought back the tears and prayed over and over again that the morning would bring better news and less blood.

When I woke up this morning to get ready for work, I found a clean pantie liner but still experienced blood in the toilet and on the toilet paper. As the day had progressed, I've seen less and less on the toilet paper every time I use the restroom, but it's still there.

I'm not entirely convinced this is my period, because it just doesn't feel the same, so I'm praying that it's irritation, although my mind is telling me that just doesn't fit either. I know that spotting is normal after IVF, and even throughout the first trimester of a pregnancy.

But this isn't spotting. It's bleeding.

7dpt6dt-At seven days past my six day transfer, more HCG should be produced as my fetus(s) continue to develop.

And so begins the end to my oblivious state of purposed pregnancy. Come tomorrow, I will know the final outcome of this cycle, and the present state of my uterus.

For those of you who are curious as to how I'm holding up, I'd say I'm simply holding on right now. Following this weeks numerous bleeding scares, I'm just so torn. I know I serve a God that can make anything happen, so I'm wishing, hoping and praying continually that He will choose to bless us with a pregnancy despite the strange and disturbing pink and red discharge issues. I know I have a sensitive cervix, so the simple explanation of irritation causing the bleeding would make sense if it was a small amount, but it just seems like too much to be justified as irritation.

Meanwhile, my heart and mind are kicking themselves into survival mode. All I've ever known is negative results from any kind of infertility treatment you can possibly think of, so while I have faith, it's still so hard for me to wrap my head around seeing blood and picturing a positive result after tomorrows beta blood draw all in the same brain wave frequency.

I want to believe so badly that this is our time. I want to imagine myself receiving a phone call tomorrow that includes a super high beta number, a congratulations, squeals and happy tears. I want to know what it feels like-for the first time in my life-to truly be pregnant and know that inside of me is growing a child that is half mine, and half my husbands.

I want to look for baby cribs, diaper bags, walk into my own baby shower and decorate my own nursery. I want to see an ultra sound screen that holds a heart beat or two, instead of multiple follicles and a rock star lining.

I want so badly to be pregnant.

But I know that all the positive thinking in the world won't will that to happen, it has to be God's will, not my own. I want God to want me to be pregnant, I want Him to will me to be pregnant, I want Him to let me be pregnant.

All of the above, please.

I could just leave work, purchase a home pregnancy test, and bring all of this mindless waiting and billowing anticipation to an end here and now, but I just can't do it. Because if I take the test and it's positive, I'll be ecstatic, but still won't be able to believe it until the beta numbers come back nice and high. And if the test would come up stark white and negative, I'd still hold on to the hope that it's defective, because I'd fall into denial.

All signs point to wait until beta.

God, I trust you.

“If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine.”

-Morris West