Nervous.

So, I did some research tonight, and now I'm sorry that I did. I decided to actually read up on Clomid, and now I'm worried that it isn't going to work. I've already done 4 rounds of it, and in my research I found that you're not supposed to take more than 6 rounds in your entire life. And even if you up the dose, the longer you take it, the less likely it is to work. I had no idea. So now I'm really worried that I've really gotten my hopes up. I'm seriously crushed. I also read that if you've been taking it for several months in a row, to take a month break to allow the lining to build back up and get the Clomid out of your system. HA! I did that by accident. So, if it doesn't work this month, I think I may take a couple of months break and then try one more time before giving up hope completely. But seriously, I'm really freaking out right now. If I had read this a couple of months ago, I could have done something about it. But it never crossed my mind to actually read up on it. And I have no idea why. I guess I've just been living with seeing so many different doctors telling me to take certain medications all my life without ever questioning it, that it never crossed my mind to actually do a little research. Which was dumb on my part when I decided not to go back to the fertility doctor. Dumb, dumb, dumb. My heart hurts. I was optimistic about this month and now, not so much. Again, I'm crushed. Ugh.

Here...We...GO...

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. I've been so tired this week, and I don't really have anything to update you on so it seemed a little pointless. The only thing that happened this week was that I finally started my period so we can finally start on a new round of Clomid tonight. I'm nervous and excited all at the same time. Nervous, because I'm afraid that it won't work again; Excited, because, well, for obvious reasons. I'm not really sure what to think about this month. I want to be hopeful, but at the same time, I don't want to get my hopes up again. My hopes have been crushed time after time for so long now, it's hard to get them up. I'm more optimistic about this month though. I have a much better chance this month, with the high dose of Clomid and all the prayers, that it's a little brighter than other months. But I've been let down so many times now that it's hard to be hopeful about this stuff anymore.

On a brighter note, I got an iPod. So now my sister can finally send me pictures and videos of the boys. And I can facetime with them. I've already gotten a few pictures and videos and we've facetimed twice. I think she may be more excited about this iPod than I am.

I'm getting my hair cut in the morning, but I can't decide how much I want to get it cut. I don't know if I just want a trim, or if I should get a little more than that off. I'm not talking super short...no, no, no. It's taken me way too long to grow it out this much, I'm not about to go and chop it all off. But I can't decide if I like the length of it now and if I want to try and get it longer, or if I prefer it to be a little below my shoulders. I know it's cute that length, it's just a matter of if I change my mind, it'll take another year to grow it out 2". Yes, you read that correctly. That's how slowly my hair grows. It's pitiful. Stupid thyroid. The prenatal vitamins have definitely helped the hair-growing process, but not enough that I'm comfortable just chopping off 3" of hair. I tried to find some pictures of hairstyles the length I'm thinking about, but of course I can't find any good ones. So I guess I'll just sleep on it and decide tomorrow.

That's all I've got this week. Hopefully next week something more exciting will have happened, and hopefully I don't have any horrible side-effects with the Clomid. I'm not sure I can take any hot flashes right now, and I don't think Derek can handle me hating him right now. Fingers crossed for super sore boobs only!!

One step forward, three steps back.

So...the last few posts have been pretty happy. I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And then I get a text from my mom. Somebody else I know is pregnant. I'm crushed. I'm hurt. I'm waiting for my husband to say the wrong thing so that I can let all these tears out. I think if I hadn't been at work when I got the text I would have burst into tears. But I was in the middle of a crisis and didn't have time to think about it. Now that I'm home, it may happen at any moment. 

I decided that I'm done hearing about other people getting pregnant. Even ones that have had a hard time getting pregnant. I don't want to hear about, I don't want to read about it, I don't want to think about it. The physical pain that it causes when I hear of other people getting pregnant (again) before me is hard to describe. If you haven't gone through it personally, I'm not sure there's any way for you to comprehend it. Because I know it sounds mean and selfish to say "I really don't want to hear about this joyous time in your life" but I honestly cannot handle it anymore. I could a few months ago. But we're coming up on 3 years of trying, 6 years of marriage, and my 28th birthday and I am still not pregnant and I have no children. It is just simply too much to handle anymore. 

I try not to get my hopes up every month, but every month, it never fails, my hopes go up and then come crashing down every 30 days. Even though we didn't do Clomid this month we still tried just like we normally would have had we been on Clomid. I did ovulation tests and got a positive for a few days in a row just like if I had taken the Clomid. I don't know why I keep thinking that maybe this was the month. I haven't gotten pregnant before not on Clomid, didn't get pregnant on Clomid, so why I keep thinking that maybe we did it is beyond me.

Comments.

So, I thought I had it open for anyone to post comments, but apparently I didn't. So, I finally fixed that. Not that you have to leave comments, but now you have the ability to without having an account. Sorry if you've been wanting to comment and couldn't!

A general update on everything this week and a huge [new] prayer request.

I haven't shared this blog with but a handful of people, mainly because I don't want everyone in my life to know exactly what's going on, but I shared it with a few people that God laid on my heart to share it with. I felt very comfortable sharing it with these people, and now I'm really glad I did.
Now that a few people know what to specifically pray for, I'm really starting to notice it...


...I post about not being able to get Clomid from one doctor, and a different doctor prescribes it to me, no questions asked, no extra money owed and someone I have to see every 3 months anyway.

...I post about being unhappy/sad/depressed, and overnight everything seems to be fine again and I don't mind smiling and joking around at work anymore. I still feel like maybe one good cry would really solve everything but it usually takes a lot for me to cry like I need to right now and I've been trying not to bottle everything up anymore. Running my face into the freezer the other day almost caused it, but I didn't have time for a break down (the black eye I had the next day was pretty epic though). 


Now, I have another prayer request. Derek and I have been married for almost 6 years now and still have no church home. In the first few years of marriage we were moving around a lot and didn't want to have to join several different churches, so we just went to whatever church best suited us for that Sunday. When we lived in Plano we started going to Prestonwood, and really enjoyed it, but we started going on Saturday nights and Derek fell in love with Saturday night services. Since we moved back to Denton almost 3 years ago we haven't been regularly attending a church. It's strange, but no church in Denton has a Saturday night service. At first this was nice. Growing up being in the church every time the doors were open, and a lot when they weren't, it was nice to take a break from not having to be in church every Sunday, sitting in the same spot, surrounded by the same people. We're only about 15 minutes away from my Dad's church in Sanger so on special Sundays, we're there (i.e., Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day). Also any time all of my sisters are in town at the same time. I was in the Sanger Christmas Celebration as part of the adult choir this past Christmas and that was a ton of fun, but I would rather have my own church family, where I go. There was one church in Denton that had a Saturday night service for a little while, but they were a fairly new church and didn't have a permanent location. They moved to a larger location and got rid of the Saturday night service. I've been looking into this church a lot. It's called Grace Pointe Church, so at first I was a little nervous about it. I don't like non-denominational churches. They make me nervous. You can go to their website and see what they believe and preach, but that doesn't mean that somewhere along the lines there won't be a minister on the staff that has their own ideals of things that aren't quite right. 


As you drive out of our neighborhood you pretty much run straight into McKinney Street Baptist Church. It's a fairly large church, but there were never many cars there on Sunday mornings, and it's awkward trying to visit an old, established church so we tried going there. On my way home a few weeks ago (sometime around the middle of February) they were taking the sign down for the church and there two church vans parked around the sign with Grace Pointe's logo on it. So I went online to see what was going on. Apparently, back in December, Grace Pointe bought McKinney Street Baptist Church and they were joining congregations. This was great, but I still couldn't find what I was looking for on their website. After quite awhile poking around I finally found it; their affiliation. And it's with the Southern Baptist Convention. Phew. Finally, I know that what they're preaching/teaching is truly what I believe. 


Their staff looks fairly young from the online photos, and from watching people go into the church last week on our way to Sanger, it looks to be a fairly young congregation as well. They run a Mother's Day Out and a preschool, so their children's building is huge. I really feel led to visit this church, but I cannot get Derek talked into starting to go to church again on Sunday mornings. Being a teacher, he says, he's up early 5 days out of the week and he enjoys his two days with nothing to do. I keep trying to calmly tell him that he wakes up early on the weekends anyway and it's only a couple of hours out of his morning. I need friends. He needs friends. And church is the only place that we're going to find these friends. I keep finding opportunities to reiterate the fact that if we went to church, we would have friends. Like a couple of weeks ago when we had to go to Huntsville to see Rachel in her first ever leading roll in a play at Sam Houston. We were going to be gone all day and we needed the dogs let out. But everyone who knows us and knows the dogs were going to be in Huntsville that Saturday. Thankfully, I have one friend who could do it, and he had just happened to move back from California 5 days before and was going to be in Denton that Saturday. If he hadn't been here, I'm not sure what we would have done. We were gone for 12 hours; that's too long for dogs not to get to potty. But I kept telling Derek, "If we went to church, we would have friends in Denton that I wouldn't mind asking to come over and do this." He gets bored on the weekends and wants to do something with other people, but there's no people to do stuff with. Again I tell him, "If we went to church, we would have friends to do things with." He gets annoyed with me being around him all the time (and soooooo vise-versa) and I, again, tell him, "If we went to church, I would have friends to go do things with and I wouldn't have the need to talk to you all the time."


So I ask that you pray for God to lay it on Derek's heart to take the step to ask me to go to church, instead of me having to drag him church, or making him feel guilty and like he needs to go to church. I want him to take the spiritual leadership role in our family that I've been craving our whole marriage and that he just doesn't seem like he wants to do (mainly because he's lazy). I'm part of a family who has always prayed together, and I've never once prayed with Derek. I pray for him all the time however. Usually at night when I can't get to sleep because he's snoring. But I feel that this is something that is vitally important in our infertility journey. He's been so far removed from the church for so long that he has actually said in the last couple of years, "Why would we just pray for that? God can't fix this. Only we can fix this." It blew my mind. This is a man who, at one point in his life, was ready to be a youth minister. I asked him about that during that other conversation and his response was, "Sure, when I was young and stupid." I know that there's a good, God fearing, spiritual leading man in there somewhere, it's just gotten lost over the years. This is a huge prayer request, but one that has been laid on my heart to share. Not for selfish reasons, but because I don't feel right bringing a baby into a home where we don't faithfully attend church. It's not fair to my children. He was raised only going to church because his Grandmother made them be in church with her every Sunday. When she died when he was about 10, they stopped going and his parents haven't been actively apart of a congregation since. It's the polar-opposite of the way I was raised and the way my family is. Sometimes I can't quite understand it. 


I apologize for this being so long. It took me about an hour to write, wow. Once it all started coming out, I couldn't stop the flow.

I don't really have a title, but I feel the need to put one anyway.

So, whenever I dream about having kids, I usually already have them; they're either babies or toddlers, and once I dreamt about an older child. Two nights ago in my dream, I was actually pregnant. It was kind of an "I didn't know I was pregnant" type of situation. Somebody asked if I was pregnant and I looked down, and lo and behold, I was.

You know how, sometimes, in dreams when you can feel like you're actually having the emotions in real life? Like fear, sadness, or happiness? Say you're having a really bad dream and, even though you're asleep, you can physically feel the fear, even in your sleep. I could physically feel this baby inside me in this dream. It was unreal. I've been carrying this dream around with me the last two days (like I did with the dream about my husband hugging me while holding our newborn) and it's made me sad more than anything. I want that feeling so badly, and I'm truly afraid that I will never have it. So much has medically gone wrong with me in my 27 1/2 years that it wouldn't surprise me if I never had children. It's the one thing I want more anything, and it's the one thing I can't have.

If you told me right now that I could either for sure get pregnant or have a cure for diabetes, but I had to choose one and only one, I would choose the baby, hands down. And that's saying a lot. Because my diabetes is driving me up the wall right now. I want it to die in a fire, soon. But I would live with it for the rest of my life if I meant I could have a child of my own.

Dogs. They're so great.

So, I don't have very many pictures of both of my dogs together. I always see these cute little frames for your dogs photo and I always want to buy them, but then I remember that I don't have any with both of them, so I don't bother.

It was a beautiful day last week and my bridal wreath and some other flowers in my front flowerbed were in full bloom, so I decided to take the opportunity to try and take their photos. It went a little something like this....;

Here's the pretty flowers without the dogs.

This was the first attempt. You see how well that went.

Pippin will usually stand long enough, but he wasn't wanting to at first.

Oliver thought he might be in trouble, so he was army crawling across the yard to get to me. I snapped this one real fast before he ran off again.

They really wanted me to leave them alone.

See how well this is going? Oliver army crawling towards me, Pippin simply not caring that I've got a camera pointed at him.

Oliver would just like to know why he's in so much trouble.

Look how pitiful he is.

I finally look them out front to take their photos by the bush and they were so terrified to be out there off leash that they cooperated for these.

Something was down the street that I never did see, but they wouldn't stop staring at it.

I really love them a lot.

That whole photo "shoot" only took about 15 minutes, but it was exhausting. Mainly because I had to squat down the whole time. So hopefully, these will sate the need to take more pictures of the two of them together for awhile. Because I don't want to do that again for a very long time.

One answer to prayer! FINALLY!

Being the good little diabetic that I am, I go to my Endocrinologist every 3 months. Mostly this is to do blood work, but if I'm having a problem, it gives me the opportunity to talk with an Educator and the Doctor. Since I go so often, they know me pretty well. As far as the diabetes is concerned, I like to self-manage a lot. This is from years and years of having to self-manage and being really good at it. I've educated myself enough, and I know my body well enough that I'm extremely comfortable doing this. If I could get prescriptions without having to see a doctor, I would never go. The way I see it; the Doctor isn't with me all day, every day. She has no idea what's going on in my day-to-day life and even though she has the last 2 weeks of my numbers on paper, that doesn't paint a good enough picture of what the rest of the 3 months I wasn't coming in was like. It took a couple of years for her to finally understand that she can recommend that I do certain things, and watch me change the settings on my pump, but if that's not what I want to do, it's not what I'm going to do. I often change the settings back to how I want them the second I get in the car to leave.

In trying to get pregnant, I've been running my numbers very low. This is because in the first few weeks of pregnancy, when you don't even know that you're pregnant, all the organs are forming. If your blood sugar is too high during those first few critical weeks, it can cause birth defects and even miscarriage. They have known at the doctors office that I've been trying to get pregnant since before I went off birth control. I had to get the "all clear" from them before I was able to start trying. The first year of trying, my doctor kept forgetting that this is what was going on. The second year, she started to become concerned and recommended that I see a doctor. I wasn't ready at that time, so I didn't go. I went to them the day after I made the appointment to see the Fertility doctor so they were aware of that. At my appointment in December she asked how things were going, got the scoop on the Polycystic Ovaries, and sent me on my way.

I went today and got yelled at by the educator, not only for losing 3lbs (which I expressed my anger about because I've been trying to lose a few pound lately because I'm uncomfortable), but also for 3 days worth of low blood sugars (which I couldn't figure out and did everything I could all day to bring them up, they just wouldn't come up). They don't like me running so low, but honestly, I don't like being high. It's what causes complications further down the line, and after 19 years of being diabetic I have had ZERO complications, so I don't see what their problem is. So she was wanting me to run higher in the afternoons. I flat out told her NO. It's uncomfortable for me to be over 140 for any length of time. No, I don't like being under 75, and I correct those lose lows, but when I'm running around 90-100, if I start going low, sometimes I can't catch them fast enough. Since I've never NOT felt a low, she dismissed me to go wait for the doctor to see me. So I wasn't looking forward to seeing the doctor. But once I got in there, finally, she asked what was going on. I told her I was extremely stressed and things were finally getting under control. She completely understood. Since there was absolutely no pattern to when my blood sugar was going low, there really wasn't anything she wanted to change. Especially since it seemed more like it had to do with when I was working than on my days off. She told me to play with my Insulin:Carb ratios and make a note somewhere to turn my basal down on days I'm working.

Then she asked me what was going on with getting pregnant. And I told her all about how they wouldn't prescribe me a high dosage of Clomid without being seen and that I couldn't afford to spend that kind of money right now. Her response? "Nobody can right now. They just want your money. Want me to send in a 'script for Clomid? I will." I'm still kind of in shock. I told her YES. She wasn't really sure about the dosages, but trusted what I told her, so she faxed the prescription over to Target. Her reasoning for doing this, and I agree, is that they didn't do ultrasounds 20 years ago when they were prescribing this, so it's not going to hurt me to take it without the ultrasound now. She asked if I've ever had any cysts burst and I said no (and that's the truth), so she felt very comfortable with prescribing me the Clomid.

She just upped it to 100mg and told me if I wasn't pregnant soon, she would up it to 150mg.

I'm so excited. Seriously. I'm freaking out. I wish I had had this appointment two weeks ago when I started my period so I could take the Clomid now, but oh well. I'm getting positive ovulation tests this week, so *fingers crossed* hopefully I'll get pregnant all on my own, but if not, next month is looking brighter already.

Depression.

I'm a little worried that I may actually be depressed. I'm not happy. I have little bouts of happiness, and then I'm back to being sad. Having never been depressed before, I'm not sure if it's actually depression, or if I'm just really really sad. Either way, it's a horrible feeling to have all. the. time. 

I'm working now, which is good. It gives me purpose; a reason to get out of bed. And I love my job. It's hard enough work that some days I don't have time to think about why I'm unhappy. So for 6 hours, 3 days a week, I can forget about what's going on outside the shop. It's my little oasis. And my bosses love me. I was having a hard day last week with my diabetes and was just really mad at it and when I came back from lunch apparently I didn't look too happy because one of my bosses asked if I was unhappy. I told her yes, but it had nothing to do with work, just everything else in my life, and she let it go. I talk about a lot of things with them, so since I didn't offer it up, she didn't push it. I truly appreciate that. And it wasn't effecting my work, so there was no reason for her to make me talk about it.

I've tried talking about being unhappy with a few people, but it's just so strange to talk about that I don't do it much. I mean, what else is there to say except, I'm unhappy because I can't have children and I have no money? Anyone in my situation would be unhappy. I don't know. I'm in a funk and I can't get out of it.

And it's, unfortunately, affecting my marriage. I hate everything everyone does, and that goes for Derek, too. Poor guy. I mean, he could at least try to be less annoying, but that's not in Derek's nature. I finally told him I was really unhappy the other night but, like always, he didn't seem to care much. I think maybe that's what's getting me down the most. I feel very alone in all this. I have no support system in my home. He couldn't care less whether we have a kid or not so it makes no difference to him. In fact, the longer it takes, the happier he seems to get. It's very discouraging. He's one of those guys that will never be ready for fatherhood. I'm going to have to make him help if we ever have kids. Seriously.

Okay, my venting is over.

Adoption.

Sometimes when I'm alone with my thoughts, I remember things that I haven't put on the blog yet. The possibility of adoption is one of those things.

Yes, I have seriously looked into local adoption on several occasions. After figuring up the cost of fertility treatments, or even if I get pregnant on my own for that matter, it turns out to be a little bit cheaper to do a local adoption. And at this point, I would much rather go with an adoption, where I know 100% that I will have a child, versus going through with a fertility treatment that may or may not work.

So why local adoption and not international adoption? Local adoption is much cheaper, and is usually done in your own county. I know that there are a lot of children that need to be adopted internationally, but there are a lot of children in Texas that need good, loving, Godly homes as well.

Why aren't we running out and adopting a kid right now? Again, money. It may be cheaper to adopt, but it can still be upwards of $10,000 to locally adopt in Texas. And that's money that I just don't have right now. But we are praying about this a lot and starting to save. But in the meantime, we are still trying to have our own baby.

Dreams.

I often, literally, dream about having babies. It's usually that I have just given birth, or I just found out that I'm pregnant, or there's a toddler running around that happens to be mine. They don't usually last for very long, but I always vividly remember them the next day.

I had one last week that was the sweetest dream I've ever had. It was a couple of days after I started this blog, so a couple of days after I decided to hand everything over to God and give up on Clomid. I was holding my new born child (not sure if it was a boy or a girl) and my husband came up and wrapped his arms around the both of us and we just cried. I kept repeating over and over, "I can't believe it finally happened." It broke my heart when I woke up, but it was so sweet that it's stuck with me all week.

I had another one last night. This one was more comical. I had just had a baby girl and was on the way home from the hospital and I said, "Wow, somebody tell Facebook that I just had a baby. I don't think I've mentioned it at all on there." And then I came up with a really awesome way to tell everyone on Facebook of our news.

It sounds sad, but I enjoy these dreams. I generally wake up sad, but it gives me hope, too. And it's a nice change from the other weird dreams I normally have.