Holidays

I've just returned from a long and very relaxing holiday with my DH. God used this holiday time to challenge me, convict me of my sin of selfishness, and remind me of his awesome love and mercy. It was a marvelous time and I hope to write more about it later on.

Today we have landed back into normal life and have been to the wedding of two beautiful young people who DH and I used to know when we led them in youth group! (I deliberately mentioned that they are young, so to avoid labeling us as old!) Tonight we will have dinner and see a musical with my DH's brother and his fiance. Tomorrow we hope to visit another church and will spend the afternoon cleaning out our study ready for me to do some work on Monday.

On Monday DH returns to work and I hope to start on the many blog posts I hope to write to account for what has been going on over the past four weeks. I also have lots of reading and commenting to catch up on as well. Being without phones, internet and tv was fine, it was missing my sisterhood and all your stories that I struggled with!

The end feels nigh

Well it has been a terrible few months, but now my computer is (finally) up and running again I can begin to process in blogging form what has happened. After our miscarriage in July (wow, time flies!) I developed a thyroiditis, which first made me hyperthyroid. This went undiagnosed for months and I thought I was going crazy or was clinically depressed as I was not sleeping, not eating, agitated, hot all the time, highly stressed and anxious etc etc. Thankfully it was picked up when we went to a doctor who specialises in recurrent pregnancy loss who ran a whole battery of tests. Interestingly, as we were monitoring my thyroid over a couple of weeks, it went normal one week and then hypothyroid the next, where it has stayed. We met with an endocrinologist who put me on thyroid replacement hormone and I have started to feel "normal" in the past few weeks, which is a welcome change! Evidently my thyroid issues won't effect us doing IVF in the new year, we will just need to monitor my levels and adjust medication if it's required.

However, DH and I do find ourselves at the "pointy end" of our TTC journey. The recurrent miscarriage doctor diagnosed me as compound heterozygous for the MTHFR gene, with elevated homocysteine levels. She put me on high dosages of folate and B vitamins, but we recently discovered that this treatment did not lower my homocysteine levels as would be expected. She said she had another patient in this situation who had to import ?Be.taine from the US, which dropped her levels and she is now pregnant and will give birth in the new year. However our doctor does not feel comfortable (for a reason I do not know) to recommend Be.taine for us so she has referred us to (yet) another doctor who we will see next week. Evidently he is quite the specialist in the area so I look forward to meeting with him.

In all the reading I have done high homocysteine levels are associated with implantation failure, recurrent pregnancy loss, pre-eclampsia, early delivery, and issues in children such as neural tube defects, down syndrome, and even autism spectrum disorders. Until such time as we can (hopefully) lower my homocysteine levels I feel unwilling to undertake IVF again because I don't want to put myself or my child at any increased risk. So that's why we're at the make or break stage now. Hopefully this new doctor will be able to reduce my homocysteine levels and we can restart IVF in 2011. If not, we will start to prepare ourselves for the end of TTC and working out what will be next for our lives.

Sometimes I feel hopeful that this will all work out the way I have wanted it to for the past 3 1/2 years - with me birthing and parenting a healthy child. Other days I feel so close to never being a mother that it takes the breath out of me and I feel like I can't move. Sometimes I enjoy not having kids and the quality time I get to spend with my wonderful DH. Other days my heart, and even (it seems) the walls of my home, cry out for the company of children and I miss my children in heaven so much.

God is showing me through all of this that everything I have, even myself, is His. My life, my husband, my home, the lives of our children, our material blessings, all of it belongs to Him. He gives and He takes away. And He does all things for His glory. I am trying to use those things He has given me to bring Him the glory He deserves. Praise be to God!

Control

One of the biggest problems I have is with feeling out of control. When I'm feeling this way I speak without thinking, I cry, I argue....essentially I can't pretend that I'm a nice person. I've always looked at people who appear always friendly, always smiling, always nice and envied them. I don't think I'm a "nice" person. I like to debate and argue, I'm emotional, I think and analyse, I like to say what I think. Generally I balance this with love, compassion and empathy towards others, but when I feel out of control I am a selfish brat who feels and reacts and doesn't always consider the needs of others.

Since we lost our son I have been feeling so very out of control. I've been angry, grieved, jealous, devastated, hopeful, questioning, fearful, guilty. I've been afraid that most of my friends and family can't handle me this way, so I've, for the most part, stayed away from them. Usually I think this has been an ok decision, because most of my friends and family truly can't handle me when I'm emotional. Most people I know are even-tempered and would be easily shocked by an outpouring of emotion or a questionning of God, my life and my role.

There are a few people, however, who will take me as I am and push me onto greater things. My DH, my very-fertile-friend, my now-pregnant-fellow-infertile-friend, my single friend, my sister. And in the past few months I have realised that God too accepts me as I am, as he made me, as he knows me to be, and similarly he wants to make me grow and change in him.

I've been playing a big avoidance game; from friends and family, from life, from this blog, and from God. DH and I recently started what we like to call our "spiritual" journey. After having been Christians for years we were challenged by a friend's journey into the spirit-filled life. A long story made short, it has resulted in us reading "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Forster. One of the powerful lessons for me has been that God can use my prickly bits to relate to me. Through meditation and prayer (the first 2 disciplines outlined in the book) I have learned to use my imagination, my visual thinking, my analysis, emotion and honesty as I speak and relate to God. And he has spoken back!

And you know what he has shared with me? That I can wait on him, trust him, let him be in control. God is working on my control issues and helping me be happy with who I am, in him.

I was going to share the practicalities of what has been occurring in the past few months, but the issue of control in my life was like the white elephant in the room and it needed to be exposed. I have treated the blog-o-sphere like my friends who can't handle my raw emotion, I have seen it as something to be controlled, as a space for my friendly thoughts, nice manners and happy face. I don't know necessarily what I want it to be, what it should be, but it's a collection of (some of) my thoughts and feelings and that's ok.

He's no prophet

Last night my DH, in an uncharacteristically pessimistic and doomsday-ish kind of mood, predicted that Wednesday would be one of the worst days of our lives. He predicted that,

a) we would find out that our one egg didn't fertilize, hence cancelling this cycle,
b) my friend would email me back and say she no longer wanted to be friends with me, and
c) we would be notified that he failed his exams, which he studied for 3 months for and needs to pass to proceed with his work training.

He was freaking me out because he's normally the calm, don't count our eggs until they've fertilized kind of guy. And these predictions were definitely the worse case scenario.

Thankfully his predictions started proving false with a couple of hours. My friend emailed me and said she is really keen to make things right and to recommence our friendship at the previous deep level (yay!). I spoke to the nurse an hour ago to hear that our one egg fertilized and we are planning ET on Thursday (double yay!!) Now we wait until tomorrow to see his exam results - can we be heading for a triple yay!!!??? I'll be praying for it to be so.

Is honesty the best policy? Time will tell.

I've done it. I'm absolutely freaking out.

I received another email today from my semi-estranged friend, full of polite niceties and nothingness, asking about how my week has been etc. I don't know why but when responding to her today I was completely honest. (I've mentioned her in previous posts, she is the BFF who went through IF with me, got pregnant, refused to discuss her pg or my infertility any more, moved away and only ever emails me with infuriating and badly-timed casual statements like "whatcha been up to this week?" despite me trying to discuss real things with her like we always used to)

I told her that if she wanted to continue being my friend she needed to be willing to discuss and front up to my infertility and stuff that's gone wrong between her and me over the past year.

Now I just wait for her reply.

Ugh, I feel sick!

The weight of the world

The last week has been overwhelming to say the least. All I can do is summarise.

• A good friend told me I needed to ask God for the gift of speaking in tongues so I could be healed from my infertility. I do not agree. Hence a long conversation, filled with tears on both sides, ensued. We finished the conversation well, it was never really heated or angry, it was just difficult to discuss our different viewpoints. (FYI, she is also my very fertile friend).
• My mother-in-law asked me, "How long do you plan to continue treatments for?", inferring that it had been going on long enough. We've done 1 IVF treatment and are only just starting!!
• My mother-in-law is driving me crazy generally. She rings me almost every day, saying how much she misses me - even if I only saw her a week ago!! I've never really minded the attention before now, I know she's a little lonely and likes to "mother", but she is someone who can't handle much emotion and given I'm always emotional (even at the best of times) I have been avoiding her a little since ART began.
  
• My sister-in-law has been very unwell and stayed with us for 3 days over the weekend so we could care for her. I was so glad to serve her in this way, but it has left me tired.
• Another friend, who I met and bonded with over shared IVF experiences, finally became pregnant with her 2nd child after multiple IVF attempts. At 7 1/2 weeks she was told the baby would be unlikely to survive. A week later the baby was holding on to life. Another doctor's appointment today should provide more information.
  
• My Mum's twin brother has recently been diagnosed with a type of thyroid cancer.
  
• DH's uncle has an aggressive form of cancer and is undergoing a stem-cell transplant and is very unwell. I'm close to one of his daughters and would like to support her better but they live interstate so it's difficult to help much.
  
• A FS appointment regarding our FET cycle revealed low odds of our eggs thawing. This means we have decided to do ICSI to ensure that any thawed eggs will be fertilised. We continue to hope and pray and wait.
  
• DH gets his exam results back in a week. He is slowly becoming agitated. Again we hope, pray and wait.
• I hurt my back during an aerobics lesson. Silly me pushed myself too far, thinking I was younger and fitter than I am. Now am walking like a much older version of myself - hunch-backed!
  

My house is a mess. I know that this reflects my state of mind. The weather has changed, almost as soon as Autumn arrived, and it is grey and gloomy outside.

I am feeling the weight of the world. But I know to who I can turn to relieve my burden. Praise be to God.

The year of the baby

Technically it's the Chinese year of the Tiger, but my DH keeps calling 2010 "the year of the baby". Of course I'm happy to go along with this. I wonder how many babies born this year would have been christened "Tiger" if the Tiger Woods scandal hadn't have broken?

Four days (and counting) to CD1 and start of FET cycle!

LOL

Stands for Lady of Leisure.

I met with my manager yesterday and she approved my leave without pay from work ... for the entire year! I wasn't really expecting it to be that long, but I think it worked better for her because she can offer someone a longer, albeit temporary, contract.

It's freaking me out that I don't need to return to work until 2011. I've been kind of bored and restless the last few days so I'm hoping I can find enough to occupy me for the next 10 months. What am I thinking?!? I have IVF to do and a baby to make (God willing, of course) - I'll have lots to do!

On another note, I also spoke yesterday with a baking teacher at a local adult education centre about my love of making bread, especially sourdough. He said he would try to find me a place in a course being offered to apprentice bakers in artisan bread making that is starting soon! I'm so excited.

So in at least one way this year
I will be putting a "bun in the oven"
(*cue laughter and eyerolls*)

LOL

DH has left the building...

Exams are over! Yippee! And today DH returned to work. Oh well, that's life and it is some consolation to me that he was looking forward to going back. I woke up early with him this morning and it was nice to see him putting on a shirt and tie, rather than the usual comfortable but daggy study clothes. He looked so handsome!

Another good thing about him returning to work is that his study is tidy and clean! Another yippee! I like tidy, it helps me to relax.

A further good thing is that because I got up early today I have already completed the grocery shopping and put it away. Unfortunately I wasn't early enough to the supermarket to avoid the mothers with their young children (which still tug at my heart strings), but it's good that I have the day stretching out ahead of me.

That being said, I don't have a lot to do. I mean, there's always chores, but I don't always feel like doing them. I took time off work to focus on IVF treatment, as I wasn't coping with the child-centred and emotional nature of my work, but I haven't done any treatment for the past 2 months. Ironically I'm due to start back at work in early April, a month after we recommence IVF. I don't think I'm ready to go back to work yet. I have a meeting with my manager on Friday morning to discuss me coming back, but I'm going to ask her for another 5 months. I figure by then I'll have more of an idea of what is happening in my life and what I am capable of.

But for today I have a craft project that has been waiting for me, a cake decorating class to prepare for, and a curry to cook for dinner. That should be plenty to keep me entertained until DH comes home.

The blessing of family

I really have the most wonderful family. Sure sometimes I feel like the black sheep: misunderstood and isolated, and subsequently my family can get on my nerves.

But my family love me and they show it. And for that I am so grateful.

Take my husband for example. Amidst his study stress he has been thoughtful, attentive and loving. He's always willing to listen and talk to me and he asks for very little in return. He's interstate for his final exam this morning and he still thinks to send me a message telling me he loves me and asking if I slept okay without him. Since we've been married he has tried so hard to show me love in the way I need to be loved (i.e. kind words, conversation and quality time). I am truly blessed to have him.

Last night my mum and sister took me to the outdoor cinema in our town to see Sherlock Holmes. We packed a picnic and they made sure that the food they had planned fit in with my new diet. They paid for my ticket. They picked me up and dropped me home. We had a lovely night together and I felt so loved by them.

When speaking to my mother-in-law the other day I tried to invite myself over to dinner at her house for tonight, as they live close to the airport where I will pick up DH and they always want me to come over, even if DH is out of town. They had plans to go out, but this morning I get a message from my 22 yr old brother-in-law asking me over for dinner because he will be home alone. He even offered to cook! (But I think I'll pick up takeout on the way!) What a wonderful boy!

In the past few years I expected (hoped) that my family would grow with the addition of children to our marriage. This has not yet happened and I hope that it still will. What has happened instead is that my family has grown in other ways. Four years ago I married and inherited two brothers, one sister, and two parents-in-law. In the past year the two elder siblings of my DH have started relationships and these people are starting to become friends. Three years ago my sister got married to a wonderful man. Last week when she was OS for work he came over for dinner and we had a fantastic night of conversation and laughs. He is becoming a truly wonderful brother. DH's cousins are becoming my cousins and friends. My cousin's wives are slowly becoming friends. Dear friends of mine are starting to describe me as their sister.

My family is expanding. Not in the way I expected. But in a truly beautiful and amazing way all the same. I praise God for how he has blessed me in this way.

Recap

It's laughable that my last post was entitled "slowly coming back", and then I disappear off the radar for what seems like an age. Partly that's because very little has been happening in our TTC conceive world as we are on a break. It's also because my DH has been madly studying for exams and has virtually lived in the study where we keep our computer. By the time I am allowed access it's just before bedtime, when I'm trying to stop my reflective mind from whirring so I can sleep. So slowly meant slowly. But I'm back now. DH has his first, of four, exams this morning so I've reclaimed the computer. Sure, I had to clear a path to it, stack piles of paper that threatened to fall, and find a clear space to sit, but I'm here now, with my back to the disarray, enjoying my time back typing and reflecting.

A summary of the past weeks may help (me, maybe not you, you may not be interested, if you are still reading anyway!). This is what I've been up to:

• Started a endo-based diet. Strictly it involves no dairy, caffeine, sugar, soy, red meat, or wheat. On advice I'm slightly less strict.
• Visited a naturopath for advice. Altered diet slightly, was recommended a high-antioxidant diet. Now eat: whole grains, lots of fruit/veges, reduced wheat, green tea, natural yoghurt, reduced milk, no sugar, organic meat in decreased amounts, no soy. I'm loving the whole grains thing. Who would have thought that barley and buckwheat could be so tasty?! Even DH is happy. Naturopath also made up a foul tasting herbal mixture for me to drink 2x day. The things we do...
  
• Continued my growing obsession with making sourdough bread, which has seen me do LOTS of baking, even in the crazy heat which characterizes an Australian summer! Discovered that my naturopath is also an enthusiast and she suggested that the fermentation process may be good for my gut - yay! That being said, I try to keep the consumption to a minimum.
• Started a cake decorating course. This is in no way conducive with my diet, but it's more of a craft exercise so I can justify it. Also hoping to do a course in sweet artisan bread soon too.
• Had internal 3D scans and blood doppler tests and was told again that everything looks normal - oh how I'm learning to hate that word. Surely if I was truly normal I would be pregnant by now?
• Keep hearing good news stories of friends who have been TTC for a long time with ART finally becoming pregnant. Yay for KK for her and TFO's wonderful surprise! Yay also for S and J who have both become pregnant via IVF after many cycles. I'm excited for you all. This also makes me look forward to resuming treatment ourselves, come on AF, I know you've just left but I'm looking forward to your return! (for the first time ever!)

I think that brings me up to date to the current moment. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow, reading, writing and commenting. I've missed this so much. With DH studying (and seemingly only capable of discussing what he's learning), being a long-term TTC so that friends/family don't tend to ask anymore, and not having access to this blog, I've been kinda lonely and pent up. Beware blog world, flood gates may open...!

Slowly coming back

I've been sad. I've been angry. I've been lonely and bored. I've lacked direction.

Grieving the loss of "Squirmy" and then taking a break from TTC (as DH prepares for professional exams) has been one of the most difficult times of my life.

Oh, and it coincided with Christmas. The time when people say, "Christmas is all about the children" and gather around the two newborns in my family. Even the sermon at church on Christmas Eve was entitled "Christmas is for the children". Sure the point was that the birth of Jesus is for all people, at all times, and in all places, but never have I heard the words baby, birth and pregnancy so many times during a church service. Ouch! I prefer Easter, which our pastor described as the "adult themed holiday" - with violence, torture, lies, tears and jeers, and murder, rather than tinsel, toys and Christmas trees.

As I re-read what I've written I realise I sound hard and cynical. I'm really not. I prefer Easter because of the great sacrifice Jesus made for me. I prefer it because it is not as over-commercialised as Christmas so I enjoy it for the beautiful simplicity of its message. Salvation. Just beautiful.

Now I realise I'm just rambling. There is no TTC to talk about. By mid-February DH will have finished his exams and we'll start our second IVF, hoping that our eggs will defrost ok. I've ordered books about endometriosis so I can learn all I can about our only diagnosis. One of them is a therapeutic diet that I'm interested in trying.

I'm slowly coming back. I've missed my TTC friends.

God provides

I was just looking through an old bag of stuff and found a card a friend had designed and given to me a long time ago. It is a very timely encouragement for me. It reads:

"For all the negative things we have to say to ourselves, God has a positive answer for it:

You say: it's impossible
God says: all things are possible (Luke 18:28)
You say: I'm too tired
God says: I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28)
You say: Nobody really loves me
God says: I love you (John 3:16, John 13:34)
You say: I can't go on
God says: My grace is sufficient (2 Cor 12:9, Ps 91:15)
You say: I can't figure things out
God says: I will direct your steps (Pr 3:5-6)
You say: I can't do it
God says: You can do all things (Phil 4:13)
You say: I'm not able
God says: I am able (2 Cor 9:8)
You say: I can't forgive myself
God says: I forgive you (1 John 1:9, Romans 8:1)
You say: It's not worth it
God says: It will be worth it (Romans 8:28)
You say: I can't manage
God says: I will supply all your needs (Phil 4:19)
You say: I'm afraid
God says: I have not given you a spirit of fear (2 Tim 1:7)
You say: I'm always worried and frustrated
God says: Cast all your cares on me (1 Peter 5:7)
You say: I don't have enough faith
God says: I have give everyone a measure of faith (Romans 12:3)
You say: I'm not smart enough
God says: I give you wisdom (1 Cor 1:30)
You say: I feel all alone
God says: I will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5) "

Birthday

My birthday was a wonderful day. Other than the week-long hot weather we'd had that turned into a cold and drizzly morning, it was perfect. I really am a sunny-weather girl. I was spoiled all day and had my family and friends say the nicest things about me. It was nice to get such a boost and remember how lucky I am to have such wonderful people, who love me, in my life. DH and I went out and had a wonderful 3 1/2 hour dinner together; chatting, laughing, eating and drinking all night to our heart's content. It really was the best night we'd had together in years. The vibe of the night has continued into the week, with us both feeling lighter and happier than we have in years. Tonight we continue the celebrations with the rest of my family, tomorrow night it's dinner with friends, and Sunday it's lunch with DH's family - it's a week long celebration and I'm enjoying all the champagne!

Spring Joy

Thanks for your comments of support. Although I wish we didn't live in a world so plagued by uncertainty and heartache, I am comforted by people's kindness and care. I am amazed by the capacity people have to love, comfort, to persist and bounce back from difficulties. Each day is a new day, with hope and possibilities. Each day has enough worries of its own to worry too much about tomorrow.

In the past few days, actually weeks, I have spoken so much about infertility, our plans and my feelings. I am feeling partly exhausted by it and partly purged from all that pent up worry and grief. Today my heart feels a little heavy. But I also feel at peace. Maybe it's something to do with Spring and all this wonderful sunshine. I think it's a lot to do with God upholding me during this time and giving me the strength and renewal I've been praying for. It's difficult to feel contentment during infertility. But today I feel it.

Reaching out with both hands

Today I pulled myself out of hibernation at the invitation of a new friend to visit her for a cuppa and maybe a walk. I've known her for a couple of years through family connections, have occasionally given her lifts home after family events, and know of her family through church. I never thought we had much in common, and I often found her difficult to talk to, she was shy, 7 years younger than me, and not very talkative. Two weeks ago I gave her another lift home and we chatted all the way, I even stopped my car on the side of the road to chat further. I was delighted when she texted me to invite me over. We didn't go for a walk, it was raining, but we talked and laughed for 2 hours! I discovered that we have similar interests in books and movies, a similar sense of humour, and a hate of exercise - thinking about it now I wonder if we would have gone for that walk if it wasn't raining? I enjoyed our time together so much. We are going to meet again in a fortnight so I can take her for a driving lesson. When I asked her if she has anyone else to teach her (her family are overseas and she's only just returned to Australia), she said,

"No. Everyone seems so busy".

"I'm not," I said, and offered to take her out driving regularly until she got her license. I'm not busy. I actually have the time to help out others.

Two weeks ago, at a boys' golfing day, my DH heard his friend tell the group that he and his wife have been trying to conceive for 18 months without success. This woman, like myself, has a great heart for children and has worked tirelessly in her life with children. It is heartbreaking to think that she is having difficulty conceiving. She would be a great mother and her husband a great father. We have known the couple for years, but after they moved away we don't see them often. Two days after hearing this, my DH rang his friend to confide in him of our story and offering him his friendship during this time. A week later I sent a card to my friend offering her my friendship and prayers. Yesterday I received a card back from her. In part it read,

"Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement and empathy. There were truly like sunshine to my soul!... I can appreciate how lonely and private this journey is - so thank you for allowing me to know of something so personal to you..."

Today I am struck by how important it is to reach out to people. I have started to make friends via this blog and others, over email, and on forums. I'm so glad I reached out. The friendships I'm forming are so valuable to me and I'm feeling less alone during this "journey towards fertile ground". I'm so glad too that I reached out to other friends recently. It's nice to be able to reduce loneliness, give courage, laugh and walk with friends.