I'm officially a slacker when it comes to blogging. Oops!
I meant to blog on Saturday, but I spent most of the day working on the photo book for our Adoption. We are about 95% done with it. All we have left (besides the daunting "Dear Birthmother" letters) is the "What DH says about me" and "What I say about DH" pages. I'm not sure if we need to include those, but I've seen adoptive parents do this and if I were the birthmom, I would want to know. After my hubby cooked me supper (score!), I vegged out for a few hours in front of the TV (my reward for working on the book) and then crashed. I really enjoyed this last weekend, as it was the only weekend in quite a while that I've been home to enjoy it! I have to work every 3rd weekend and we go to see our parents/siblings once a month (sometimes two if necessary), so it doesn't leave lots of free time. And as a result ..... I take advantage of being a slacker on the weekends I have nothing to do. :) My hubby says that I deserve it ... and I believe him! haha
I meant to blog on Sunday when I was catching up on things (emails, bills, budget and laundry ... oh my!), but I didn't make it. I did talk to my parents and managed to decipher a plan for the exciting trips that are coming up this weekend. These trips include a K-State football game (with the in-laws) and a wedding in Colorado (with the family). For the football game, we're taking my DH, me, my little brother, my brother-in-law B, my pregnant BIL & SIL and my in-laws. How's that for a mix?
As for the Colorado wedding, my cousin is getting married. It will be interesting. Without being to gossipy, it won't be in a church or have a specific religious affiliation. Those are always the interesting ones. I am not looking forward to the drive out there. I loathe car trips ever since we drove home from Chicago once. Twelve hours in a car. Never again! The only good part about that (kinda) was that the hubby drove there himself (for work) and I flew out there. I would SO rather fly than drive. Even though it means waiting in an airport for a short flight. :-)
I meant to blog last night, but my brother-in-law, B, was over. He is in the National Guard who is having training for a month in our city. How ironic ... of all the places, its where WE live! I'm so glad he is able to be somewhere where he knows someone. He's been over at our house two evenings last week and last night as well. B did go home over the weekend to see his wife, my sister. Its nice to have him over, but its also nice to do your own thing, too.
Prayer buddy, I need to ask you a favor. Its been floating around in my head all week .... can you pray for me on Saturday? I'll be at the K-State game. Don't pray for the Wildcats to win (Really! I'm a Husker at heart), but please pray that I can be at peace and not be jealous/envious of my pregnant sister-in-law. Its been awhile since we've seen them (since the shocking announcement) and I'm sure she's showing and I'm sure my mother-in-law (who's also coming) wants to baby-talk alot. I'm really dreading this weekend.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Adoption Visit #1
I know its been awhile since my last post. Its too bad I can't write them in my head and then they'll magically appear on the screen. That would be cool!
In the last 10 days, we've been rather busy ... housecleaning! We had our first home visit with Sue, our adoption caseworker, on Monday the 15th. I wasn't sure what all she was going to look at, so we cleaned the whole house ... toilets, the office, the basement ... you name it. Unfortunately, when she came for the home visit, our hard work wasn't fully recognized, as she glanced in from the hallway at the bedrooms (if only I would have known! ahhh!). She'll never know about our mad-dash dusting to get the stray cat hair off the dark bedroom end tables. Or how well I cleaned up our gross-really-needed-to-be-cleaned-a-month-ago Master Bathroom. Oh well. It's nice to have a totally clean house for awhile.
We sat in the Living Room and answered questions, some of which Sue had asked us before on our initial appointment. There were a few head-scratcher questions that were really ambiguous, but for the most part, we didn't have to think too much ... we just responded. My favorite was the "how many animals do you have?" question. When I said that we had 4 cats ... all she said was "oh my!" We did have the youngest (and friendliest) cat, Biker, come out to sniff around her feet during her visit. I hoped he wouldn't get up on the counter or lay on the table like he usually does ... and he didn't! Biker was well-behaved. Thank you, God!
I did ask Sue if she thought our selection chances by the birthparents were slimmer since I will have to go back to work after the adoption. She thought it wasn't an issue, which made me relax a little bit ... but I'm still nervous about that. I know there are many women able to stay at home, but unfortunately, I'm not going to be one of them. It pulls at my heart that I can't be at home, but I know alot of kids that go to daycare/babysitters have turned out just fine. That is my hope, anyway.
We are in-progress with our picture book, which I am making on MixB.ook, an online website. It is actually really cool (you should check it out) ... they have templates available that you can select from, but you can also add shapes/designs/colors onto your pages (as well as text). I will be working on that this weekend and hopefully get that done. Then ... its the daunting Dear Birthmother letters. I'm saving the hardest for last.
In the last 10 days, we've been rather busy ... housecleaning! We had our first home visit with Sue, our adoption caseworker, on Monday the 15th. I wasn't sure what all she was going to look at, so we cleaned the whole house ... toilets, the office, the basement ... you name it. Unfortunately, when she came for the home visit, our hard work wasn't fully recognized, as she glanced in from the hallway at the bedrooms (if only I would have known! ahhh!). She'll never know about our mad-dash dusting to get the stray cat hair off the dark bedroom end tables. Or how well I cleaned up our gross-really-needed-to-be-cleaned-a-month-ago Master Bathroom. Oh well. It's nice to have a totally clean house for awhile.
We sat in the Living Room and answered questions, some of which Sue had asked us before on our initial appointment. There were a few head-scratcher questions that were really ambiguous, but for the most part, we didn't have to think too much ... we just responded. My favorite was the "how many animals do you have?" question. When I said that we had 4 cats ... all she said was "oh my!" We did have the youngest (and friendliest) cat, Biker, come out to sniff around her feet during her visit. I hoped he wouldn't get up on the counter or lay on the table like he usually does ... and he didn't! Biker was well-behaved. Thank you, God!
I did ask Sue if she thought our selection chances by the birthparents were slimmer since I will have to go back to work after the adoption. She thought it wasn't an issue, which made me relax a little bit ... but I'm still nervous about that. I know there are many women able to stay at home, but unfortunately, I'm not going to be one of them. It pulls at my heart that I can't be at home, but I know alot of kids that go to daycare/babysitters have turned out just fine. That is my hope, anyway.
We are in-progress with our picture book, which I am making on MixB.ook, an online website. It is actually really cool (you should check it out) ... they have templates available that you can select from, but you can also add shapes/designs/colors onto your pages (as well as text). I will be working on that this weekend and hopefully get that done. Then ... its the daunting Dear Birthmother letters. I'm saving the hardest for last.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Happy 5th Anniversary & LUFS
We celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary on Friday, August 5th. I can't believe its been FIVE YEARS already! Where does the time go? In putting our adoption photo book together last night, we were looking at our honeymoon pictures in Hawaii. Back then, we were just happy-go-lucky people who hadn't the slightest idea of what life would throw our way.
Josh & I celebrated with a dinner out at Applebees. He gave me flowers, chocolate and the cutest card (with cats on it, of course) with a handwritten note inside ... the perfect gifts! Josh is the most wonderful, thoughful, perfect man that I am SO very blessed to be married to. I think about how impatient I was to get married or I would be an old maid (I was only 24 when I met him and 25 when we married). But I do see how it truly was planned by God. Josh will be a wonderful father someday.
Last year at this time, I was having a Laparoscopy on our 4th Anniversary at PPVI. It was quite the celebration, let me tell you, especially with the bowel prep the night before! ("Happy Anniversary, honey, now give me an enema!")
Ironically, a nurse from PPVI called me the day before our anniversary this year and said that with both this cycle and the cycle before, I had a Lutenized Unruptured Follicle (LUF) ... which means I didn't ovulate. Great. I wonder how long THAT has been happening. I've been on Femara the last few months, so I'm not sure if that's a reason for the LUF. Argh!!! Just one more kink.
When I had my ultrasound series at PPVI a year ago, they did say that I did ovulate. I wonder if that was a freak cycle or if these last ones were. I am taking IM Progesterone (100 mg) on P+4,7,10 to "shrink" the follicle (hoping that works, but I doubt it). I have an ultrasound on Day 3 of my next cycle to check out what's going on inside.
Are there questions I should be asking my doctor? Are there medicines I should bring up? I know Dr. Keefe at PPVI knows what she's talking about, but it feels like my wheels are spinning sometimes and I'm not getting anywhere.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Jealousy & a Lightbulb Moment
I just heard from our adoption case worker, Sue, that she is back from her vacation and is working on getting our file opened and filled out! Hooray!!! Before she left, she sent out reference request letters and commented yesterday that she was surprised to have them all back. Of course! My references know how important this is to me (and ... you gave them a two week timeframe).
In my adoration hour this morning (think 2 am!), I poured my heart out to Jesus to have mercy on me in this infertility journey. I spent most of the hour in tears. I'm just upset, discouraged, jealous ... all nasty, mean feelings. My BIL & SIL (the ones who just announced their pregnancy) have been posting wonderful vacation photos on FB. The first thing I do is look to see if she's "showing." Of course, she is ... a little bit. I don't know why I can't keep the jealousy feelings at bay. This last week has been rough. I don't know why I'm so fixated on this. I am a big enough person to say "it is wrong to feel jealous," but then I feel that way anyway. Ugh. I hope I'm not the only one that has problems with subduing negative emotions this way. I lifted this up to God last night and asked for His help to stay positive about that situation and be truly happy. Its hard.
One thing that clicked a few months ago when I was praying before mass is that perhaps I "invited" my suffering on myself. Let me (try to) explain. My dad has always been for sick as long as I can remember. It was either not-feeling-good-stay-in-bed kind of sick or it was I-really-don't-feel-good-lets-go-to-the-hospital kind of sink. He's had several operations as well. Our lives revolved around his sickness. My dad pushed himself hard regardless of being sick to be a good provider, but I know he never felt good. One time when I was in college, when he was in the hospital, we almost lost him. It was horrible. I remember asking God then if I could take on some of my dad's pain to help him feel better. I would do it. I love my dad to death. He is my hero. Eventually, my dad recovered, life happened and I forgot about my request.
Then came the "Lightbulb Moment" in church. Is this infertility I'm experiencing in a way "helping" to relieve my dad's suffering? When I think of it like that, I can push through this. I can "do" infertility. My dad pushes through each day, so why can't I?
I do have to tell you that my dad has been doing really well these last 6-8 years. He found a doctor at the Mayo.Clinic in Minnesota who has been wonderful in treatment. He hasn't been in the hospital or very sick in about that long (although he still has his bad-stay-in-bed kind of days).
I guess I do need to say that I know my prayer to God didn't "cause" me to be infertile, but I do wonder sometimes if my infertility struggle has anything to do with my dad's health and my request to God so long ago. Because for my dad, I would give up having a baby the "natural" way so he could feel better every day.
In my adoration hour this morning (think 2 am!), I poured my heart out to Jesus to have mercy on me in this infertility journey. I spent most of the hour in tears. I'm just upset, discouraged, jealous ... all nasty, mean feelings. My BIL & SIL (the ones who just announced their pregnancy) have been posting wonderful vacation photos on FB. The first thing I do is look to see if she's "showing." Of course, she is ... a little bit. I don't know why I can't keep the jealousy feelings at bay. This last week has been rough. I don't know why I'm so fixated on this. I am a big enough person to say "it is wrong to feel jealous," but then I feel that way anyway. Ugh. I hope I'm not the only one that has problems with subduing negative emotions this way. I lifted this up to God last night and asked for His help to stay positive about that situation and be truly happy. Its hard.
One thing that clicked a few months ago when I was praying before mass is that perhaps I "invited" my suffering on myself. Let me (try to) explain. My dad has always been for sick as long as I can remember. It was either not-feeling-good-stay-in-bed kind of sick or it was I-really-don't-feel-good-lets-go-to-the-hospital kind of sink. He's had several operations as well. Our lives revolved around his sickness. My dad pushed himself hard regardless of being sick to be a good provider, but I know he never felt good. One time when I was in college, when he was in the hospital, we almost lost him. It was horrible. I remember asking God then if I could take on some of my dad's pain to help him feel better. I would do it. I love my dad to death. He is my hero. Eventually, my dad recovered, life happened and I forgot about my request.
Then came the "Lightbulb Moment" in church. Is this infertility I'm experiencing in a way "helping" to relieve my dad's suffering? When I think of it like that, I can push through this. I can "do" infertility. My dad pushes through each day, so why can't I?
I do have to tell you that my dad has been doing really well these last 6-8 years. He found a doctor at the Mayo.Clinic in Minnesota who has been wonderful in treatment. He hasn't been in the hospital or very sick in about that long (although he still has his bad-stay-in-bed kind of days).
I guess I do need to say that I know my prayer to God didn't "cause" me to be infertile, but I do wonder sometimes if my infertility struggle has anything to do with my dad's health and my request to God so long ago. Because for my dad, I would give up having a baby the "natural" way so he could feel better every day.
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