Pushing it out of my mind.

I know I've been a little absent lately, and for that I do apologize. I haven't even been reading or commenting that much anymore. I'm trying so hard to focus on other things and push the sadness out of my mind. Yeah, I'm still sad. I still think about my infertility everyday. I still hate that we are so far away from any form of testing or treatment. I soothe myself with a daily mantra that "it just isn't our turn yet". I like to think that someone upstairs has things he still wants us to do, to strengthen our marriage, to have fun before the responsibilities hit, and to really be prepared and thankful when we finally have a miracle of our own. I've been peeing on things again, and I personally think that is what always makes me the most sad. I hope and hope and hope for that second line, and it has never appeared. That one lonely line leaves an unmistakable pit in my stomach. I can't hide from it, I can't push it out of my mind and I definitely can forget about it. I always think while I'm waiting for the line to appear "why not me this time? I could be pregnant right?" It just sets me up for misery.
I ovulated two weekends ago (I think). I ran out of ovulation test kits and I received my new shipment after I had already ovulated. I had the breast tenderness and the EWCM on saturday. But my EWCM only lasted about 2 hours and I was at work so that pretty much screwed me from the get go. I also went to my crazy infertile place and listened to one of the nurses at work about this "rinse " that you squirt up your vagina (don't make me write the actual word :). It's a "rinse" made out of baking soda and water and it makes your vagina less acidic. So I frickin tried it. Am I crazy? I also used the instead cup that night to keep the sperm up there. I feel so foolish.
Not to mention the hubby hasn't been interested in sex since our marathon almost 2 weeks ago. So needless to say it's been awhile, and now it's going to be a while longer because he broke his collarbone playing flag football on Monday night and can't even put on a shirt, let alone hit the sheets with me. And I leave for 17 days of navy training in the states on Saturday. Now that is a true dry spell, wouldn't you say?
Speaking of my training, I am heading to Bethesda, MD on Saturday for one week, then 4 days of leave in RI with my sister in law and brother in law and their little girl, and then to Birmingham AL for a bereavement conference. I'm not excited about my patient safety conference in Bethesda but I am excited about the location. I'm heading to the Smithsonian on Sunday, all by myself. I can't wait to check it out for the first time as an adult. The last time I was there I was 6 years old and all I cared about was seeing the ruby slippers :) I also am going to go shopping for Christmas presents and just to look around American stores and see what I've been missing. Don't get me wrong the Italians have plenty of beautiful things to sell, but everything is so expensive and they are a little stuck in the 80's with the fashion, at least here in Sicily :)
I have mixed feelings about seeing my sister in law/BFF. She is 37 weeks pregnant and has a beautiful one year old that I adore. But it just kills me that she got pregnant so easily and mistakenly with her little ones. When she had addy she had only known sam's brother for one and a half months and had only seen him 3 times. It just burns me a little and I feel like I can't talk to her about my infertility. I need to be able to talk about it with my best friend.
My conference in AL is going to be wonderful and sad at the same time. It's dealing with how to comfort families that have lost a baby in utero, like stillbirths, miscarriages, or infants that are incompatible with life. I have cared for a lot of women going through these situations and I am going to learn how to teach other nurses to support and care for these women.
So that is what is going on with me. Pray for a miracle between now and Saturday when I should get my period. I would love to see that second line this week. Thanks ladies.

Busy Busy!

Hello all! I'm not dead just busy and a bit lazy on the blogging front. I have quite a bit going on right now. I've been getting ready to start my new job next month by cross training and making arrangements for the conference I'm attending in November in the states. I also had a test and a project due for my Nursing Theory class, my husbands birthday yesterday and my birthday today. And throw in a week of getting it on last week because the girl who doesn't ovulate, ovulated last week. ON MY OWN! There might be something to the my theory that night shift screwed up my cycles. I am by no means consistent with my cycles but at least they are closer together. I had a little trouble this week telling when I ovulated. I started having breast tenderness and EWCM last week Tuesday, but I had run out of ovulation tests and didn't get my shipment until Thursday. I never got a positive but we still tried and I think we did okay spreading the loving throughout the week. I tried my new Instead Soft Cups. It was weird but hopefully it did the trick.
I'm a kind of stressed out between school, my new job, and my upcoming weigh in this Friday. I've been exercising so much lately and am up to running 3 miles at a time, but I haven't lost any weight and I am about 4# above the limit for my height. Every 6 months we have this weigh in a physical test, and every six months I get all worried about it. I always pass when they tape measure me, but I hate worrying about it.
That's all for now. I've still been reading and thinking about all of you that I follow.

Another uneventful week

I'm still alive. I just have been lazy and haven't had much to report. I'm still waiting to see if I ovulate on my own. Today is day 16 and no signs yet. I have a feeling this is going to be a long month. I've been heavily procrastinating for school lately. I just can't seem to find my motivation. I don't know how to get myself going these days. I haven't seen my therapist this week and I don't think I'll make anymore appts. The last couple of times I felt like we were just rehashing things we had already talked about and it wasn't feeling very helpful anymore. I haven't fully decided yet so we shall see.
Things at home are good. Sam and I have been spending good amounts of time together just having fun. I'm feeling pretty good overall and it's helping with all of the relationships in my life. When I'm frustrated and depressed I shut down and shut everyone out. It just isn't healthy for me to be like that. Awww.....I'm growing!
Don't get me wrong, I still have my sad moments. I saw a friend's maternity pictures on Fac.ebook last night and felt a little teary afterward. They looked so perfect in their pictures with their beautiful little girl and her handsome husband and her beautiful bump. But I know that their marriage is in trouble and that her husband has said he doesn't want to be a dad anymore. No one is perfect and having a baby doesn't make everything better, it usually makes everything harder. When I remind myself of this, I tend to think that it's God's way of giving Sam and I the time we need together until we are truly ready to be parents. I would never want to ruin the good thing I have with Sam. But I also would never want to go through my whole life without experiencing the joy (and probably pain) of parenting.
I am still trying not to have any expectations for the next few cycles. I was talking with an OB at work the other day (occupational hazard I guess) and she was telling me about a new drug, letrosol, for ovulation induction. Supposedly it has less side effects (no hot flashes, thinned lining, or hostile cervical mucus) and she suggested that I try it. Has anyone taken this and been successful? I figure it's worth a try and I may use it in the new year. But for now I'm going to continue to try on my own. It's strange how much I hate thinking about cycling and treatments now. I get so caught up in how unfair it is that it has to be this much work and money to have a child. Uggghhh!

Q&A

Not much going on at our house these days. I'm gonna do this Q&A passed on to me by "Such a good Egg". Thanks Egg!

(1) What is your dream occupation?

I honestly love being a nurse but I always wanted to be an event planner. Weddings, birthdays, 50th anniversaries, and even baby showers (well not these days though). I am very organized and creative with invitations and favors. I loved planning our wedding and I love helping others with theirs. Ahhhh....to dream!

(2) What is the best dish that you can cook?

I pretty much am the worst cook ever. I tend to burn things easily. I can make really good spicy chili that my dad taught me how to make. I also like to bake. I love making cookies and cheesecakes.

(3) Have you ever been mentioned in the newspaper? What for?

I was mentioned in my high school news paper and the channel 4 news in Wisconsin for starting rescue breathing on a girl who had a seizure in my 8th period math class. All that lifeguard training came in handy when her airway occluded during her seizure. I was awfully nervous when it happened, I look back now and I didn't really do much, just opened her airway and put her in the recovery position. Everyone thought I was a hero!

(4) what’s the worst and/or most memorable job you’ve ever had?

I worked for my husband's ex stepdad one summer selling food at Jazz in the Park and other local events. I worked every Thursday thru Sunday from 8am-12pm. I rolled all the sushi, loaded the truck, set up our tent, sold food, tore down the tent, and reloaded the truck. The kicker....I had to wash all the dishes we used at the end of the night after working all day. And all for a shitty $8/hr. Thank god I got my degree!

(5) When you were a teenager, at what age did you envision yourself getting married? How old were you in reality when you got married?

I thought I'd be married by the time I was 25, and have at least one kid by the time I was 30. Sam was 23 and I was 25 when we married. I still think I'm one of the luckiest girls in the world. No kids yet, but I'm always working to change that.

(6) What’s your most hated household chore? What’s your favorite?

I hate taking out the trash. In Sicily they have community dumpsters every few blocks. You have to put that stinky trash in your car and then drive it to the dumpster. I swear to god I've seen rats over there before too! I also hate vacuuming for some strange reason.

I love organizing my closet. Getting rid of stuff, coordinating things by color, collecting all the empty hangers. I LOVE IT!

(7) What’s your earliest memory?

I remember camping with my dad and my aunts and uncles at Turtle lake. I think I was 4 or 5. I got to stay in a tent with my Aunt Ann and she was young at the time so I thought she was so cool. She died when I was 8 so I like to remember that weekend.

Catching Up

Hello all! I received a great comment from someone this week and I wanted to say thanks. Has anyone else tried the instead cups? I just wonder how successful they are. I couldn't find much information about them. We are still on a modified "break". If I ovulate we will try. Who knows when I'll ovulate? So I'm not trying to get too excited about anything. I can't pursue any new treatments. There isn't anywhere reliable here to get an IUI or even talk about IVF. So I am stuck and I'm working on being okay with this limbo. The therapy has been helping. I feel more aware of my irrational tendencies. I see my recovery time, from the grief I experience after a BFN, has decreased. I still feel sad, but I'm dealing with it better. I'm trying so hard not to let my sadness overtake my life.
I'm taking time now to focus on getting healthy. I've been spinning a couple of times a week and running the other days. I read The Infertility Cure while I was away on vacation. I've cut out coffee (which sucks) and alcohol (which sucks more) and most sugar (which is just awful). I figure if I'm ever going to give up having kids I want to say I tried everything. Since I am not able to pursue treatments I thought traditional chinese medicine might be a good option. I'm still trying to find an acupuncturist here in Sicily, but I know there are at least a few here, so that is good news! I'm not being too strict about all the dietary restrictions, I'm just cleaning up my diet little by little. I feel pretty good so far.
I also wanted to share a little about Barcelona. We had such a fantastic time. We took a private walking tour in the gothic quarter which was amazing. Our guide took us all over and explained little things we never would have found on our own. We enjoyed Guell Parc on one of our days there and we also did a wine tour in the country side. The tapas were delicious and the sangria was fantastic! I'll definitely go back again someday. I'll leave you with a few pictures from our trip. Have a great weekend everyone!

I hate Spotting!

I'm Rose. I never spot before my period, and if I do it's for like 4 hours. This is how it is. This is how it should be. This week my body through me for a loop. Since we timed intercourse and tried to have a no big deal approach to trying from now on, I somehow thought (in my crazy head) that THIS would be our month. Even though I told everyone we weren't trying anymore and even told Sam that we wouldn't be trying aggressively anymore...I was still trying. I still peed on my OPK, jumped my husbands bones when I needed to, and have been obsessively buying and peeing on home pregnancy tests. I'm sick, I need addiction help. I started spotting on Wed, just barely there brownish discharge for 2 days, then nothing, then reappears, then goes away again. Now mind you, this is all starting on 9 days post ovulation. This timing and light spotting that I never get leads me to think...IMPLANTATION BLEEDING. But alas no! I got my period this morning. Full on normal Rose period. This sucks!
I cried and cried the other night when I got my negative. I told Sam how it literally hurts me. How when I think about never having children I get this hard pit in my chest that literally aches and causes me so much pain. It felt good to cry. But I still can't let go of the grief I feel over not having a family of my own and over never being able to achieve a pregnancy.
I don't know where to go from here. I want to give up for awhile, think about other things, be happy with the life I have. But in the back of my mind, I keep thinking that will be all I need to get pregnant. My hope wains but it won't die. I want a family. I want to experience the joy of having a newborn baby cuddle up on my chest. I want to teach someone to read, ride a bike, and carve pumpkins. I don't want to miss out on all of those things, I will probably never give up my dream.

+ OPK!!!!!

So I got my positive late on Saturday night/Sunday morning. On the upside of things I really am starting to know my body and I am super impressed by that. I noticed my specific symptoms and I am so happy that I was right about it. I also ovulated earlier than all my cycles on clomid (it was day 18) and I did it all on my own!!! No meds!!! This is exciting to me because my cycles have never been consistent and have NEVER been less than 35 days, ever. They've even been as long as 6 months and anywhere in between. I really think it has something to do with the fact that I have been purposefully focusing on anything and everything but having a baby. Yes, I've had my weak moments (aka using OPK's). But I'm still consciously trying to think about other stuff and not let getting pregnant stress me out. On the downside of things, in order to contribute to my effort of "being on a break", the hubs and I only had sex once during my fertile time. I didn't want to force it and I'm sick of TTC ruining our sex life. Everything is so mechanical so not spontaneous or even sexy. Sex has become strictly babymaking and I don't want that and I'm quite sure he doesn't either. The one time we did have was good, like us pre TTC good, and that is all that matters.
I had another therapy appt today and it went really well. We talked a lot about infertility again, the sense of loss, the effect on the marriage. But we also got into my childhood and she asked if next time we could talk about how I became who I am. I lost my dad when I was 19 and he was an alcoholic. I think a lot of who I am, the caretaker and the strong one, is due to the way I grew up. I think I'm ready to delve into why I get so depressed when things get tough. Hopefully there is a light at the end of this tunnel.
Well....I'm off to pack. Barcelona here I come! Have a great week everyone!