Excited!

We're only a couple days away from our vacation and I'm getting so excited! It will be so great to see Susie again! And then a few days for just the 2 of us in Denver after that! Awesome!
So sometime between now and when we leave at 4 AM on Thursday I need to:
- get my hair cut
- go tanning one more time (trying to get rid of these horrid tan lines!)
- go shopping for a wedding gift
- wrap said gift
- put the finishing touches on the game for the shower (thanks Mrs M!)
- wrap shower gift
- call my brother to see if he can pick us up from the airport next Wednesday
- book our hotel and rental car for Denver (I KNOW! Talk about last minute!)
- do laundry
- pack!
- make up some good notes to leave at work for payroll to be run while I'm gone
- get a lesson ready and teach my kids on Weds night
- make some appointments on Rent.com to look at apartments when we're in MI
Aaaggh! I just might go crazy before we leave! And to top it off, we'll be getting home late next Wednesday night, and I have to work on Thursday morning, followed by our "What's Next" appointment with the RE, then I'll work Friday morning, and Friday afternoon we'll be leaving for Michigan to try to find an apartment, and not returning home until late Sunday night! What a whirlwind! So needless to say I won't be on here much in the next week and a half or so. We'll see if maybe I can update when we're in Denver, but I'm not counting on it. And hopefully next Friday I can fill you all in on the follow up app't with the RE...

Yay, I'm so excited!

Life... as I see it right now

I'm finding that it's really hard to think about anything but our infertility lately. I don't like that. Yes, it is a huge part of who we are - right now - but... I just don't want it to dominate everything. I don't know if I'm in denial, or just that I want to be MORE than my reproductive organs at any given moment... but it's just so... consuming. There's just so many things to think about. The money... the timing/planning... the what if's... the hopes/possibilities... the tests/procedures... the ethical issues... the medications... it never ends. How could it not be consuming? But there are so many other good things that I could be focusing my energies on right now. I mean geez, I haven't even started packing for the move yet. I still have to figure out what I'm giving my best friend for her wedding next weekend. I need to find a few more things for her shower before we go. I've got a group of young girls that are in need of some positive mentoring, a class full of energetic 3-6 year olds that I get to teach once a week, just wanting love and attention, and all I can think about is my inability to conceive.

I need to find the balance in this. I need to figure out where to draw the line between being overly consumed by it, and pushing it under the rug and hoping it goes away. Well, I don't think the latter will be a problem - but I really feel like I need to figure out how much it's healthy to think about this stuff and how much I just need to let go of. There's so much more to my life - so much more that I could be doing to bring God glory right now than just focusing on myself and my lack of children. I need to find the balance. Or at least I need to stop stressing about it - I've got some nasty cold sores to show for it.

Contrary to what it may seem, I HAVE been doing a little bit more than just sitting around thinking about all this. Last night my sister and I went shopping because I'm helping throw my friend a shower when we're in Phoenix next weekend... so I'm in charge of decorations. Since my friend is Vietnamese and she's marrying a Chinese guy, we decided to go with an Asian theme. I saw this idea online and loved it:

but they were $10 apiece and I didn't have enough time to order them anyway (oh, and also keep in mind that we're flying there, and then going on vacation after that)... so we went to Michaels and I found these:only in "frost" - so they're transparent - for 79 cents apiece! So I'm going to do some groupings of a big one and a few little ones with candles and colored glass marbles in them - they look really cute! - and scatter them around on the tables and stuff. I hope it will come together okay - I also found these paper lanterns at a party store:

so I hope those bring a little more "Asian" flavor. We're going to get some Vietnamese snacks while we're out there, too... and now all that I'm missing is a game. I've been looking like crazy and nothing is jumping out at me... although I do like the idea of the bubble gum/marshmallow game that Mrs. M used. That's the one I'm leaning towards unless something else comes to me. Any other suggestions?

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend. I'm so glad it's Friday... less than a week till vacation! Woo hoo!

Crap. Crap, crap, crap.

That's what this is. Had my HSG today - and my last blood draw for the clomid challenge test - and Troy's first SA. For one, my nightmare of a glucose-test was not for nothing - I DO have insulin problems, so I'll be starting on Metformin (for PCOS) sometime late this week or next week. Ugh. I've heard horror stories about that stuff.
The HSG went fine... after they finally let my husband come back with me. I first asked the ladies at the reception area if he could come with me, and they said no, so I was a little surprised - and preturbed. So then I asked the nurse, and she said she'd check with the Dr but it should be fine. And of course it was fine with the Dr, so the sweet little old ladies at the front desk in the radiology department just didn't know what they were talking about. So he came back when I was already on the table and held my hand the entire time - such a sweetie - and it really wasn't all that bad. It hurt, but compared to last week's nightmare, it was comparatively better. The RE even said I was tough and handled it better than most. :)
Then this afternoon the nurse called to give Troy his results from the SA.
And it's bad. Really bad. I'm just numb. This is totally NOT what we were expecting. And it sucks. He called me right after he got off the phone with the nurse, and I just cried. Because this is crap and we're going to have to do that much MORE before being able to have a baby... crying for my husband because he feels like a failure... ugh.
This is complete crap.
So now we're trying to sort through everything - feelings, plans. He's going to get tested again right away to see if it's any better - but if not he's going to have to go to the urologist - and from there, maybe even surgery. Which affects everything. The move, specifically.
I just don't know what to do. And I can't stop crying. And I feel SO bad for Troy. Ugh. Guess I'm not so tough after all.

A whole lot of infertility crap to follow

Testing yesterday really wasn't bad at all - but wasn't all that good, either. I had 4 blood draws to begin with, which was fine - I don't mind being stuck - after which I had to drink the nasty orange stuff. It went down fine - I drank it fast to get it over with, and it really wasn't all that bad.

So I had my ulrasound, and the RE said everything looked really good and healthy - ovaries, check - no cysts. Uterus, check - the only thing she asked was if I was still bleeding, and how heavy, so I told her I WAS still bleeding, and yes it was pretty heavy, but I didn't really think anything of it at the time. Then I had to wait an hour till the first post-yucky-orange-drink blood draw, which went fine, and then in the second hour wait, I started to get REALLY. BAD. CRAMPS. So after they did the second post-yucky-orange-drink blood draw, I asked for some ibuprofen or something, which they were more than happy to hook me up with. Well, as I was on my way out I stopped to ask the receptionist a question, and I started to feel SOOOO dizzy, so I kind of squatted down, just hoping not to pass out, and started to feel a little better - but they called the nurse out and she had me go lay down for a bit. She said that sometimes people "crash" after taking the sugar drink because I guess your body sometimes overcompensates for the sugar overdose with insulin. And lucky lucky me got to be one of those people. So the nurse laid me down, brought me some Sprite and graham crackers and told me to try and eat them to get some sugar back in my system. So I laid down fully expecting to start feeling better, only to start feeling worse. I ended up tossing my cookies - and laid there for another 45 minutes or so because I was feeling so crappy - the cramps were just horrible, and I was afraid to take the ibuprophen because I didn't want to put something like that in my already-upset stomach. So finally I just got tired of laying there and figured if I could just make the almost-hour drive home, I could do this laying around stuff much more comfortably there. So I got myself together and as I was leaving the RE and the nurse were there - so when I mentioned the REALLY bad cramps - they thought it was weird, and didn't know how it was related - but the RE did mention that my lining was still really thick on my uterus, which I'm sure is why she had asked about my period when she was doing the u/s. So I still have no idea what the cramps had to do with anything, but for some reason that stuff aggrevated something in me enough to make me a pretty miserable person until I finally got some sleep when I got home.

So that was it. What should have been a simple blood-draw appointment ended up being a rather unpleasant experience, to say the least. Ugh, my body just does not handle stuff well. I mean, anesthesia makes me sicker than a dog, now I know this stuff makes me sick, and if I'm in a lot of pain I'm bound to pass out or throw up. Yeah, I don't make a very good not-healthy person. Ugh. Kind of scared to see what would happen if I actually DO get pregnant some day, lol! I'll miss the whole birth because I'll be up-chucking the whole time. Fun.

So...***Warning, possbile TMI to follow!***
...when she said that about my lining still being really thick, it made me wonder if that's how it always is. Because normally my periods are super light and I don't really have any red blood, it's all just brown spotting - so even though it sucks because it lasts SO long, I really don't get rid of that much blood. Then every once in awhile - like maybe a couple times a year (which happens to be this month) I'll have a REALLY heavy period - like my body is getting rid of 6 months' worth of lining rather than just one month's. So now I'm wondering if that's another part of the problem. How do you fix that? I spoze if I'm ovulating like I should be then other things will be more likely to do what they're supposed to... like it does when I'm on clomid. It'll be interesting to see what the results show. Troy's going to be doing his testing next week, too, when I get the HSG done, so hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll have some clear-cut answers. And I'm so looking forward to that. Oh, and I'm going on clomid this month too for the "clomid challenge test" - which she told me I'd be doing, although I couldn't even tell you off hand what it's supposed to tell them. But hey, I'm not going to pass up the chance to get knocked up this month if I ovulate! ;)
***End of TMI :)***

And then when I was there for my two hour marathon glucose-testing, I saw a few other couples and ladies come in and out, and I started to think. About them. About us. About all the girls/couples I know that have been affected by infertility. And how it just sucks. It sucks that I know the hurt that they're dealing with, it sucks that they or I have to hurt at all. It sucks that we all have SO much hope, and that, unlike the cute couple that came in who had just found out they were pg with twins, some of us will never get to experience that. True, with treatment, a lot of couples finally DO get their dream, but some never do. Some go on to realize and experience the awesomeness of adoption, but some... some will always have empty arms. Some will be the aunt and uncle who spoil all of the nieces and nephews because they never had a child to call theirs. Some will always have that hole. I don't know. I know that it's all for a reason, to a certain extent. That there's sin and crap in the world that happens not because God makes it that way but because we have made it that way by all the bad stuff we've done - like the domino affect. I guess I just wish there were more I could do. To either understand why it happens so that I could comfort people, or just make it go away. Sometimes I just wish I could tug on God's ear a little bit and ask Him to make it so that not so many couples had to deal with it, like the ones that REALLY, REALLY want it. *big sigh* I don't know. I just know that I still hope that someday I'll be able to have my husband's baby - a little product of us. I know that adoption is awesome, and special, and that I will be able to love an adopted baby just as much as one that I gave birth to, and it really wouldn't be my second choice. I'm beyond that... we DO plan on adopting someday... but you know, sometimes I just can't help but desire that little boy or girl with my husband's big brown eyes.

****EDIT****
After reading this post over again, I just want to say that I didn't mean for it to be a "oh poor me" or "my life sucks" type of post. We do have SO many good things going on right now, and I'm thankful for SO much that God has blessed us with. I'm GLAD to have gotten started with the testing and although I'm not going to say it was pleasant, it wasn't horrid, so I really don't have much to complain about. Just throwing that out there for the record, because, you know, God is good - ALL the time. :)

Ugh

My period came today, which means that I will finally be able to get on with testing. Good, right? But it also means that I’m NOT pregnant… which I was so sure I wasn’t… but somehow I had allowed a little glimmer of hope sneak in. I’m almost sure I ovulated, so somewhere in there I let myself think that maybe finally God was telling us it was the right time. But no. Not yet. So now I’m feeling pretty crappy, to say the least. Trying not to cry here at my desk. I mean, I’m glad we’re going to get to test now, but seriously. How can I get excited about THAT when the alternative would have been to be pregnant? Ugh.
And I heard that a cousin of mine who’s 20 and totally not taking life seriously right now got knocked up by her boyfriend. And I know that my BIL who just got married last weekend has plans to try right away, and of course they’ll have no problems. And I wanted to give Troy the first grandbaby. That sounds totally selfish, but his brother was the first grandchild on both sides, so he has always been the favorite. And I’m not just saying that. He really is. So if Troy could have had the first great-grandchild… sigh. All these little hopes and dreams.
It just doesn’t make sense at all. I really wish I could understand the reason behind who has to suffer with infertility and who doesn’t. Because sometimes I can’t help but think that someone else could learn a whole lot more from it than I am learning. Yes, I’m learning a lot, but someone else might be able to learn that a baby is something to not take for granted – to cherish and adore and love and spend time with and cuddle and play with and sing to – not an inconvenience to be disposed of. It hurts me to even think that. And yet it happens. Sigh. Infertility sucks.
So I called the clinic and they said they’d get back to me after they looked up my file. Well I called over an hour ago – how long does it take to look up a file?? Sheesh.
So other than my day today, our weekend was good. Spent a lot of time with both sides of the family – which we’re trying squeeze in a lot of before we go. And that was about it. Troy helped his dad roof their garage on Saturday and could hardly walk on Sunday – so that was entertaining. :) Terrible, I know – really, I felt bad for him, but it was a little funny watching him hobble around like an old man. Oh, such a bad little wife I am.
Did I mention here that we booked our airline tickets for August? We opted against the road trip, although it would have been fun, and decided instead to do a 3-way flight – so from Thursday to Saturday we’ll be in Phoenix for the wedding, and then Sunday to Wednesday we’ll be in Denver. Anyone have any good suggestions as to what to do/where to go while we’re there? We’re going to rent a car I think. I know for sure we want to go to Garden of the Gods, but other than that I think we’re pretty directionless. But we’re excited. It’ll be our first time seeing the Rockies.
And by the way thanks for the suggestions on bedding – I didn’t even think to try TJ Maxx – I think I’m going to do that this week!
That's all I've got for now. I'm feeling better now that I got that out of my system and moved on to other things... it just doesn't get easier month-to-month like you think it would. Oh well, someday we'll have our family...

Stinking AF

Dang! The one stinking time I want my stinking period to come, it just stinking won't! Grr! It's stinking cycle day 28 which for me would normally, any other cycle, mean that stinking AF would be here by now. But no. It's like my stinking body knows that I'm just waiting for it to stinking come and is purposely NOT stinking cooperating. I've had stinking cramps all week, so I know it's on its way but GRR... I'm so stinking tired of waiting. I don't know if I O'd or not for sure, but I tested yesterday to make stinking sure I wasn't pregnant, and no, of course I'm stinking not. :P I'm so stinking sick of this! I just want to stinking get on with the stinking testing, already!
We were planning on going to Virginia this coming weekend to check out the seminary there with another couple-friend, but opted against it since we might need to be here for testing... which doesn't look like it's going to happen now. But we figured it was probably better that we didn't go anyway since we were doing it more out of obligation than anything else since we're obviously not going to be moving to VA to go to seminary in light of recent happenings. So - since I'm going to have a little extra vacation time, we decided to go ahead and make a trip out of the Arizona wedding in August. We're going to fly, not do the roadtrip like we were considering, but we're going to fly to Denver after the wedding and spend a few days there. Fun! I'm pretty excited about that. :) Something to look forward to for sure.
They announced my leaving/job opening at work on Monday. :( I'm really not looking forward to training someone for my job. Wish I could just pick it up and take it with me. But alas. Better things are to come! It's kind of nice to hear people say that they'll miss you too, you know? It's like people's true sentiments for you become so much more obvious when you leave someplace. Isn't that wierd? I mean, good or bad, you really have no doubt how people feel about you by their reaction to the news that you're leaving for good. It's kind of interesting. It's been good where I work - I really will miss this place. The president himself came and congratulated Troy and I personally and wanted to let me know that if I need a reference for a job over there, to not hesitate to use the bank because they'd give me a good word. Aw. How sweet. OK, I'm borderline tooting my own horn here, and I'm not trying to do that, but I guess it's just kind of nice to know that you're appreciated, you know? Anyway. Enough of that.
What else? I guess my life is pretty predictable at this point.
We've been going through closets and stuff trying to decide what to get rid of and what to keep. That's always fun.
We can't get our 1-year old cat Isi to stop peeing in the hallway. :P Thank God it's not our house. Does anyone have any tricks to get it to stop? We think she smelled a spot where a previous tenant's cat did it, and then it was like fair game. We've tried just about everything, and it's just getting worse. We may have to get rid of her. :( She has been not-so-affectionately dubbed "Whizzy."
I'm going to get together with my sister and SIL tonight! I want to do this as much as possible in the next month and a half!
We have decided on August 24th as my last day of work. Troy will probably work one more week, and we'll most likely be moving September 1st. Whew! Coming fast!
Anybody know where I can get a good deal on a new bed set? I want a new comforter and shams and bed skirt before we move but I don't want to pay an arm and a leg. I've been looking at Kohls and Bed Bath and Beyond and Linens N Things' websites. Any other suggestions?
Ooo! Ooo! I got a breadmaker yesterday at a thrift store for $3!!! And it works! So I'm going to clean it up really good tonight and start making some bread! Yes!
Hmm. Guess that's about it. :) Time to run! Chicken for supper tonight!

The weekend in pictures (and a few extras thrown in)

Well, the wedding turned out really nice. I honestly wasn't too sure to begin with because when we went to help decorate the hall on Friday morning, the other bridesmaids that were there to help were... I don't know, a little less than nice (I didn't know any of them except the bride's sister). So I wasn't really expecting it to be a whole lot of fun, but eventually they warmed up a little bit, and the bridesmaid that I stood next to ended up to be really fun, so it was good. And Troy did great! Did I mention that he did the ceremony? Well, originally he thought he was just going to be doing the challenge to the couple, but on Friday night when we got to the wedding chapel, they basically turned the whole thing over to him! So he did everything but the vows and rings, and it went really well. I was so proud of him. :) He was so nervous because for one it was his first wedding, but also because it was his brother, and if he messed anything up there was a lot more pressure, you know? But he did great.

Other than Saturday, we spent a lot of time with the family that had come for the wedding, oh, and we tried not to DIE from the heat. It was so hot! But we kept telling ourselves that at least it wasn't raining.
We didn't get a whole lot of pictures because the camera batteries died pretty early on, and I forgot to grab our extras, but we did get a few nice ones. And I plan to order some from Tim and Louisa (BIL and SIL). So here are some of the ones we did get. We went to a park after the wedding to get pictures - it's actually a kind of wildlife reserve - like acres and acres of marsh land. Anyway - here we go:

My hubs and I:

The Bride and Groom (I kind of caught them off-guard!):

The brothers (l to r: Troy, Tim [oldest], and Keith [youngest]):

Tim and Louisa with the B parents and grandparents:

The wedding party (that's me on the far left):

The girls and the groom:

Self portrait! (can you tell how hot we were? Sheesh!):

...and, that's right about where the camera died. :(

But that's about all I've got time for right now anyway - I'll leave you with a few other pictures that have been riding around in my camera for the last couple of months. :)

Troy and I on our last boat outing - fun!:

Golfing last week:

Happy Monday ladies!

Odds and Ends

Sounds like everyone had a fabulous 4th of July! We had a nice day - we did a cookout with his parents and then spent a little time with mine, and then hit the local fireworks show, which was actually really good! It was a nice relaxing day. Tuesday night we had planned to meet a friend of mine and her fiance for dinner about an hour from home, so we decided on an impulse to spend the night there since it would be late by the time we got home, and well, we just like doing impulsive one-night getaways sometimes. And since (*tears*) it's looking like we probably won't be going on the cruise in light of the move to Michigan. We're okay with it, I mean it's definitley a sacrifice we're willing to make. But it's still a bummer. So we were thinking that a few weekend getaways over the summer would have to suffice. Then today we were talking about my best friend Susie's upcoming wedding in August, and trying to decide if we wanted to bite the bullet and pay for airfare for both of us to go... and then we came up with the fabulous idea to make a road trip out of it! Ahhh! I don't know yet if it's going to happen, but I just think it would be so much fun! Crazy, but fun! So I did a whole lot of mapquesting today (yes, I've been VERY productive at work :) and came up with a possible itinerary that we're going to discuss tonight! It's like 2,000 miles one way guys! Crazy! But I really hope it works. In the grand scheme of things it will be more expensive than it would be to fly, but at least this way it would be a TRIP, not just a quick weekend. So we'll see what happens... I'll keep ya posted.

Not sure what's going on in my body the past couple of days (what else is new?). It's cd21 and I've had sore-ish boobs and some pain that could possibly (??) be ovulation, but then, I just don't really know. I haven't been temping (what's the point when it's constantly hovering around 97?) and I don't have any OPKs at the moment so I'm really in the dark - but I know for a fact that it's doing something that isn't typical, so I can hope for the best, can't I? So we've been doing it like horny little teenagers just in case, lol. :) I think I'll temp tomorrow morning to see if it's higher than usual.

I won't be around for the remainder of the week/weekend because of my BIL's wedding. Should be fun - lots of family coming, and it's supposed to be a beautiful weekend weather-wise. I'll hopefully post some pictures on Monday!

THE ANSWER IS IN!

And it looks like we’re going to Michigan! We are SO excited! They called last night to let us know that the deacons voted to bring us in… and extended the call to us. Wow. This is REALLY going to happen!

A couple of things that that we learned after talking to Pastor M last night:

-> They apparently do not want me to work. They feel that it is just as important that I be preparing for this as much as Troy is, so I won’t need to worry about looking for a job over there. They want me to work on getting as involved as I possibly can, improving my piano skills specifically so that I can use that when the new church is started.
-> Because of aforementioned lack of working, they took that into consideration when they made up the budget. It’ll still be substantially less than what we’ve gotten used to bringing in since Troy’s been done with school, but we’ll be taken care of. I don’t think they’ll let us starve. :)
-> They were again more than understanding about our infertility situation. They want us to do as much as we can to get a family started as soon as we can, and are willing to wait for us to do what we need to here before moving over there. That put our minds at ease SO much, and gave us even more peace about the entire situation. God is so good.
-> They wanted us to know that they are eager to have us come, but are also aware that we have things going on here that we need to wrap up before moving. So Troy’s going to call him back tonight with our answer (YES!) and get a time-frame worked out. It looks like it’ll probably be mid-late August. I’m thinking more on the late side of things, since we’ve got our big youth camping activity planned for mid-August, and we want to be here for that. You know, kind of the last big hurrah with the youth group.
-> I can’t believe this is actually happening! We prayed together about it last night and both felt so much peace. God is DEFINITELY the One doing this, and that gives us such assurance that it is the right thing for us. It’s such a faith-growing experience to see Him working in all the little details of our lives! We are in awe.
-> PRAY that we can find an apartment without a problem… they informed us that if worst comes to worst, we can put our things in storage and stay with them for a little while. And although that wouldn’t be HORRIBLE, well, you know. Living in another person’s house just wouldn’t exactly be ideal. Oy!
-> They’re going to pay for all of our moving expenses! One less thing to worry about!

God pointed something out to me yesterday, and I have to share it because it’s been something that I’ve been struggling with, well, for a LONG time. Basically since I knew I was going to marry Troy, which if you know our story, was quite a long time ago. Troy has felt called to be a pastor since he was a little boy. And I was thinking about this whole being a pastor’s wife thing again, and wondering why God couldn’t have called Troy to be just a deacon or regular ole’ layperson who loves to serve God while holding down a regular full-time job…you know, like most people out there. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I love to be comfortable in my Christian life. Yes, I love God, and I want to serve Him, I really really do. But I would be more than happy with the thought of just staying minimally involved at church and just being luke-warm in my relationship with God. And He has told us that He is not okay with that. He wants red-hot Christians. He wants me to be learning more about Him all the time, excited about serving Him and jumping at every chance to do something for Him. And being in full-time ministry is going to keep me accountable that way. Sure, I can be a Pastor’s wife and not be totally sold out for Him, but it would be WAY easier as a regular old church attend-er to be that way. And as a pastor’s wife, I will basically be getting paid to get to know God and His Word better. Of course, there’s more to the job than that, but seriously there’s so much more accountability there in the position that I will be in. It was truly a revelation for me. He knows that I need that higher accountability, because otherwise it would be WAY too easy to let my relationship with Him get stagnant. He is SO wise. Since my eyes were opened to that fact, it has been transforming for me. Before I was looking at this with great fear and trepidation, but now I am truly excited at the thought of getting to have a close walk with God and it being expected of me. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but I am so thankful that He pointed it out to me. He has been teaching us so much already just in the one month since this whole adventure started, and I am truly so excited to see what He has yet to teach us.

Michigan, here we come!