God Is Enough

The moment I saw this ad, something changed in me:

It was not the message it was trying to get across, but rather the family behind it. The mom who lost her only little boy. I read this sign three times before I began to see why this hit me so hard. 

When I was ten years old, my cousin Keith died at the age of eighteen. He left behind a mom and a dad. I ended up growing close to my Aunt Kathy, his mom, and she confided in me how great of a loss losing a child was. I remember back then, I felt sorry she didn't have any other children. Not that the joy of one child replaces the loss of another, because I am not deluded enough to believe that, but when you lose a child, your only child, you lose the name Mom as well. You'll always be a mom, but you don't get to hear that sweet name. 

Then it hit me. 

Something unconscious, but ever so present. 

I know why it's so important to me to have more children. 

My entire life, it seems I have been very aware that bad things happen, and they can happen to me. It caused me to make very conservative choices. I wanted to make sure I made all the right decisions, so little bad would happen. The thing is, bad things still happened. 

By the time I was twenty, I knew choices only stop certain things from happening, but ultimately God is in control. God allows certain things to happen, and with each bad thing, I would see a hundred blessings as a result. It was only then I began to trust in God. There is a big difference between believing in God and trusting Him.

The thing is, I'm human. I haven't fully trusted in God. The reason my infertility still bothers me, even after I had adopted my daughter, is because I don't want to be alone. 

So unconsciously, I had decided I needed to protect myself by having a big family. I essentially am telling God, He's not enough. The thing is - He is. He is enough whether our only child has passed away, whether our spouse who we were supposed to grow old with dies before us, whether our twenty-five year marriage ends in a bitter divorce, whether our house is engulfed in flames. He is enough.

Let me step back, I should probably explain what God is enough means to me. It means, even when we are heartbroken, we can find contentment by resting in  Him.

 I need to come to terms with the fact that even if my daughter dies before me, and I do not have other children, He is enough.

So I guess I am saying, I need to stop trying to protect myself. I need to accept my life and consciously decide that God is enough. I need to trust Him. Time and time again, He has shown me the blessings in all the hard things sent my way, so even when I'm on the bad side of good, I know good is coming.

Ironically, this is stuff I know, I just need to remind myself of this daily, heck I need to remind myself this hourly. It's a hard fact to face.

I still want a big family, I still will pray for it, but God is enough. Man, I need help with this.

The Things I Miss Most While My Husband Is Gone

So last week, my husband went hunting, which left me a hunting widow. I was a single mom for one week, which with a single child was not too difficult. Although it surprised me what I missed most about my husband. Here is just a small list:

• I had to carry the bag of pellets to the pellet stove. This is difficult, because I am weak and the pellet stove is downstairs. Carrying forty pounds of weight out of the garage, up the porch, across the kitchen, down the stairs, across the family room is hard work.
• I had to pull something gross hanging from the dog's bottom. This is a duty (pun intended) that usually lies with my husband. I clean up vomit, he takes care of the dingleberries, it's an

  

  Yes, this is a dog, and the one I had to
  rescue from a dingle berry. UGH!

  unspoken agreement that has served us well.  
• I couldn't call his name every time I saw a dead mouse that needed disposed of. Tweeg, our indoor outdoor cat, brings us a love offering at least once a day. Not only am I creeped out by the vast number he has caught, but that there seems to be no end in sight. On top of that, I am petrified of these nasty little critters. I handle them dead just slightly better than when they are alive. I would just ignore these blasted things and let nature take its course until my husband got home, except we have dogs who think these love offerings are intended for their consumption, which to me is actually worse than the love offering itself! Fortunately, I did find a way around this and traded one of my daughter's daily chores for the disposing of these. She loved the easy task, and I was spared the nastiness. Win/win. Yes, she's less of a wimp than I am. 
• I had to bring in the 36 lb box of litter into the house by myself, I postponed the changing of the litter, so I did not have to carry in the 36 lb box of litter out of my car, through the garage, up the porch, through the kitchen, down the stairs, through the family room, and into the bathroom.
• Oh, yeah, and you know... the hugs and kisses, they were missed too... of course.

Yes, so I am glad to have my loving, devoted, strong, non-wimpy man around the house again. 

Couch to 5K to So Much More

Yes, that's me after my run during my first 5K.
My time was horrible, not even going to share, but I did get a trophy.
Everyone who ran with a dog did, so it wasn't due to my great effort.

Running to me is a metaphor for the impossible. I have wanted to be a runner for years. Not because I enjoy running. I hate running. You have no destination in mind, sweating buckets, breathing hard, thinking of anything to help pass the time while enduring this torturous self-inflicted act. Yet this was a desire of mine because I couldn't do it.

In college, I tried to run, but with my ulcerative colitis and constant flares, I was never able to have the energy to really run. Plus my knees always hurt even from the simple task of walking up and down stairs. This is a side effect of my illness.

Then five years later, I was "cured" of my disease, but every stinking time I would try to run my ankles would swell. Then I learned I had asthma, then my knees started swelling. Everything pointed to me not becoming a runner.

My husband often jokes, "You are not well equipped for physical activity." So when I told Kevin, "I want to start running." His response was, I don't think that's a good idea. He thought I'd injure myself... again.

But I was determined.

So I went to the doctor, told them my plans, got stretches to help with my knees, orthopedics for my ankles, and a suggestion on how to decrease my chances of irritating my asthma.

My goal: to run a 5K.

And well, I did it!

Okay, the race was a flop, but on the road, I can run a 5K.

I never thought I would be able to run. After discussing extensively with my doctor, and a multitude of other stuff, I could do it. It told me, if I can run, I can do anything. To you, my goal may have seemed trivial, but to me, it was much harder. This was the one thing in my life, I thought was beyond my capabilities.

No, I will probably never enjoy running, but I'm doing it for my health, for my own self-satisfaction, and to remind myself that I can do anything.

So I will continue to work on being a better runner, but I have other plans. Bigger ones. Things that I feel too shy to share because I'm not sure how long they will take, or where to start. But there they are in my brain, with a file in my computer storing data on how to achieve these dreams. Do you have those dreams, the ones you're not ready to share, but you are working towards? Yeah, I have tons of those.

Getting Tested for IVF: Changes, Pain, and a Sonohystogram

I have to admit, I am not as big of fan of the new place I am going to for IVF, as I was Dr. Daly's. This makes me sad, since he has left his practice, and I do not have the choice to go back. It's not exactly that they are bad or I dislike them, it's just their office is run much like a big business.

When I call with questions, I am unable to just talk to one person and get my answers. They transfer me from person to person until all my questions are answered. When I walk in, I meet several different faces each time I enter, so no one, not even the nurses recognize me. Plus there are three doctors, not just one.

They do have high success and I have heard lots of good things about them so I should be happy.

It's not that I'm unhappy, I just wish I could have stayed with Dr. Daly's office where they knew my name, my history, and I was comfortable.

----

That brings me to today. They are making me redo some of the tests I had done previously, because different office, different rules, different procedures. I was a little unhappy that the procedure was scheduled with a different doctor than I had my consult with. Plus it was a female. Call me sexist, but I have always been more comfortable with men when it comes to gynecology. Probably because of my early bad experience with a female gynecologist.

She was super nice, compassionate, but she didn't sit down and talk with me. She didn't let me ask questions. She was in a hurry, and she did what she had to do then moved on to her next patient.  I didn't really have any questions, nor did I need her undivided attention, I just felt it was a little impersonal.

The procedure I had done was a mock embryo transfer and a sonohystogram. Both went well from an ivf standpoint, horrible from a patient standpoint. I was told I would experience mild cramping, but instead I screamed, "ow, ow, ow," and further embarrassed myself by crying.

She did say because of my excessive scar tissue, it may have caused more pain than the average person. I have to admit, it was not as painful as when they did the hysterosalpingogram several years ago, which was so painful that I literally was having hot flashes as the pain coursed through my body. That was because they were forcing fluid through blocked falloppian tubes - not pleasant.

I understand that labor is more painful than either one of these, and I probably have no right to whine and complain, but I have to admit, it was not what I was planning to go through when I woke this morning.

San Diego Trip: Part Four: La Brea Tar Pits (Our time in LA)

If you know me well, you know I am a little on the odd side. One of my oddities is my absolute fascination with all things fossils. Which is why the La Brea tar pits is so incredibly fun for me. They have so many awesome full animal fossils that they have found in their tar pits. They also have a station where you can see people working on cleaning fossils. Then you can see where people are working to retrieve fossils from the tar pits. Yeah, totally my thing! I totally took a bazillion photos, but I will share just a few, since to someone else the excessive photos of extinct animals would become boring. 

Here is a saber tooth cat. Also known as a saber tooth tiger, but they are actually more closely related to the lion, hence the proper name being saber tooth cat. Actually the proper name is Smilodon.

This was a recreation of what they believe the wooly mammoth looked like. 

And this is their amazing bones.

  

This is the famous recreation showing how an animal got sucked into the tar pit. You will see this on all their brochures. Notice how there is a layer of water above the tar, which is why animals would go to it. They would go to get a drink and get stuck, and not be able to escape. You will see the water have little bubbles. 

Here is an example of what the tar looks like. This was just a random spot that had seeped up in the middle of the area. 

So while we were in LA, this guy grabbed me and made me get pictures of myself with him, and then forced us to give him money. He doesn't seem like a guy you say no to.

I Got to Keep My Head Held High:

One of my favorite songs is actually sang by Miley Cyrus. It was one of her early songs, "The Climb." It really resonates with me. "The Climb" was the song that branched away from Hannah Montana, but was not yet the Miley Cyrus we all know today.

It voices everything I feel. From the first words to the last, it tells my story.

 I can almost see it. That dream I'm dreaming, but There's a voice inside my head saying, You'll never reach it."

I've always dreamed of a large family, but at some point you need to face the fact that your family might only consist of three people and that is okay. I start wondering if all of our efforts, all of our hopes, all of our disappointments, are for naught.


The song proceeds to,

Every step I'm takin', Every move I make, Feels lost with no direction, My faith is shakin'."

The truth is I keep having faith, but it has been shaken. Each time it's shaken though, I feel like it grows stronger, but there are moments where my faith is utterly shaken to its core. But as the song says,

"But I, I gotta keep tryin', Gotta keep my head held high..

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waitin' on the other side
It's the climb

That last part about, "It's the climb..." is what resonates with me the most, because as hard as this battle has been, the climb has been wonderful.

Yes, through all the heartache, shed tears, frustrations, irritations, shaken faith, we've been blessed. I've learned so much through our ventures with foster care, about my daughter, about my husband, about myself. I've met some amazing people, I have built hopefully life long relationships with one of the children and her mother. I've discovered my purpose in life. For everyday I have felt joy as a result of foster care, I have experienced less than an hour of that sorrow, but when you are feeling discouraged it is the sorrow you remember, not all the tremendously wonderful things.

Even my infertility has been a blessing. We met my favorite doctor in the world, who no longer practices. He cured me of my chronic pain I felt from 2001 to 2009. For eight years I experienced chronic pain, sometimes debilitating pain, and it wasn't until I went to get treated for my inferitily that they finally discovered what the problem was.

It was ultimately his cure that has made me forever infertile, but I'm not resentful for that. It could have been avoided, but since he was the fourth doctor to try to figure things out, I don't think it was a lack of knowledge or foresight. He did the best he could, and that I will be forever greatful.

The struggles I'm facing; The chances I'm taking; Sometimes might knock me down, but; No I'm not breaking

The thing is, each time I get knocked down, just as the song says, I don't break. I prove to myself that I am stronger than I appear. I will probably never be able to lift my weight, but I can carry a heavy load with a smile and hearty laugh. I will fall down in tears, but I am still able to impact this world for the better. I just need to keep moving, keep climbing, keep my faith, and enjoy the good times, and call my mommy during the bad.

I may not know it, but
These are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most, yeah
Just gotta keep goin',
And I, I gotta be strong
Just keep pushing on, 'cause...

Keep on movin'
Keep climbin'
Keep the faith baby
It's all about, it's all about the climb
Keep the faith, keep your faith, whoa, whoa, oh.

Oh the irony, a person whose choices I do not respect, is the same person who sings the song that is meaning the most to me now. I need to remind myself that everytime I fall down, I'm only down for a few moments compared to the many wonderful times I am up in this journey. Today is hard, but tomorrow might just be amazing. Why is it so hard to remember that on those bad days?

I gotta keep my head held high!

My Love Story: Fifteen Years and Counting!

Fifteen years ago this month, I first held hands with the man I was going to marry. I was seventeen and decided my senior year was not a good year to start dating anyone. Because after all, I would be going off to college, and I of course would meet my future husband there.

Oh, yes, let me remind you I was an odd teenager. I had prayed for the longest time that I would only date one person, because, well, I did not want my heart to ever be broken!

Me and that poor guy who waited patiently for that first kiss.

So when I was set up on a blind date in early October or late September with this same man, I had decided well, it was not really a date, because after all I was going to make this prayer happen, not God... and there was no way I was going to marry a guy I met in High School, so in order for me to be able to marry the first guy I dated, I would have to not count that one as a date. We were just acquaintances. An acquaintance that I soon admired and adored.

Two months past, we talked on the phone, went out on dates friendship meetings, because after all my first date was going to be with my future husband, and no one meets their future husband in high school.

After many friendship meetings went by, many late night talks, sometime in November fifteen years ago, he leaned over during Waterboy (romantic movie huh?) and asked, "May I hold your hand?" I thought it was the cheesiest sweetest thing in the world, and I said yes.

That night, I decided holding hands had made it a date, but if I didn't kiss him, I would never really be heartbroken; therefore, I could still have my prayer... for I had my faith in my own ability to control my future, than any ability God had in my life.

Four long months past after I held his hand, before I was willing to kiss that man.

Somehow, despite all my ideas of controlling my future, things worked out just as I prayed. It was not in my power, but by God's. I look back at how innocent and sweet we were. I'm really glad how slowly things progressed, I am glad how innocent we were, I am glad for so much about our friendship and marriage.

The funniest thought of it all is in 2 more years,  I will have been with my husband half my life.