•thoughts from my heart•

Repeat collage from 2014. LOVE YOU, MOM!

A Happy (belated) Mother’s Day to all the Mothers in my life, especially my own. I will refrain from writing a novel, but THANK GOD for you my dearest Mommy! I hope one day I can just somewhat emulate you in my motherhood journey. Undecided, but next post I may write about Mother’s Day from the perspective of those going through infertility who remain childless.

I shared this Bobbie Thomas piece on my Facebook page last week, but wanted to share here as well. About 75% of my daily newsfeed contains videos, articles, stories of the stresses and struggles in motherhood, but this story / video shows the pain endured simply trying to become a mom. Thanks to one of my longest and dearest friends for sending this to me. I really REALLY needed to feel the message Bobbie conveys. If any of you reading this are suffering from the pain and struggle with infertility / IVF, or are close with someone who is, this will likely bring on the ugly cry. I assure you, your three minutes will NOT be wasted.

*I have a love / hate relationship with Facebook. If you would like to be notified via email when updates are made to the blog, I kindly ask you to subscribe, in the event I need to take a step away from the crazed FB world.*

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I started writing and just let it happen, so here my feelings at this moment…

Life isn’t fair. I am well aware. But holy hell, this horrific nightmare of ours continues.

How can conceiving and becoming a mom be so incredibly easy for some?

I swear, some people make eye contact or snap their fingers, and BAM…pregnant. You know who you are, and I love you 😉

For those that have it easy, I am jealous. I admit, I am jealous. It feels good to say this. I AM jealous.

Not to sound entitled, but what did I do so wrong to deserve this difficult a path?

I am sure by now, many of you are probably sick of me and the negative news I continue to divulge, but thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for continuing to support me and shower me with love and prayers when putting one foot in front of the next seems impossible.

I hope none of you believe I am making a big deal of something that is nothing.

This is everything to me.

I am completely and fully aware of the many positives in life and am beyond thankful for the life we DO have. However, it continues to be immensely difficult when I can’t stop focusing on what we DON’T have.

Chris and I are healthy, minus the incurable disease known as infertility.

We have a nice life and do fun things, or at least we think we do 😉

Our dog is awesome, in our opinion!

We live in the most beautiful city in the U.S., also in our opinion.

We have a crazy amount of love and support around us.

We have experienced minimal loss in life compared to others.

We have not had to deal with some of life’s worst or most tragic events.

We are fortunate, and we know that.

We just want to catch a break at some point.

We want things to be even just a tad bit easier.

We keep getting knocked down time and time and time again. Getting up after each crushing blow seems to get harder and harder.

Life has felt OVER at times, but then I realize…I am OK. Things are OK. Life will be OK. Don’t let this suffocate you…Breathe. Live and continue living the best you know how.

Time is crawling, yet flying.

I never thought I would be 33 and childless. In fact, back when I thought I would have 3 or 4 children by 33.

I cannot believe IVF has been an over used acronym in our life for over a year and a half.

I don’t want to wait a couple more months to even think about becoming pregnant. I want it now. I have wanted a baby in my arms since I was a baby myself.

I try to remain positive.

I try to look at every rainbow as a sign.

I try and believe every prayer, quote, mantra will bring us joy.

Hell, I will even take a fortune cookie to heart.

I have my days when I know everything will be OK.

But, more common lately, I have my days when I don’t know if everything will be OK.

I have so many asking…What can I do? How can I help?

I don’t know…A cooperative uterus? Alcohol? The lottery?

Kidding aside…continued prayers, love, support, kind thoughts, notes, gentleness, sensitivity, small gestures are what helps.

I will be honest…trying to understand our journey is nearly impossible. Heck, I don’t even know what is going on half the time. Unless you are in our shoes, you will never fully understand. However, it feels really good when people try their best to comprehend what we are going through, what the issues are, how we may be feeling, what our next steps are, and so on.

I HATE, yes HATE the fact that IVF/infertility rules our life.

I am not asking anyone to feel sorry for us.

I don’t want to feel consumed by it, but I often do.

I am trying my best. I promise you, I am really trying my best.

The End.

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I took this at SDFC on 05.03.16 just moments before the appointment.

Now for the sh*tty news I promised to deliver in my last post, I will spare you many of the details…

Simply put, my uterine lining wasn’t growing. Uterine lining has to be nice and thick for an embryo to implant. From April 19^th until May 3^rd, it didn’t grow a single millimeter. Even with the oral estrogen and the injection boost, there was no growth. (Estrogen helps thicken the lining of the uterus.)

My ovaries were finally cooperating and remained quiet. My lining was beautiful with a triple pattern. BUT, it wouldn’t get past 6mm, and 8mm is a minimum requirement for transfer.

Therefore, our FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) cycle was canceled. Yep, canceled. Delayed yet again.

We will never know why. Everyone responds differently to different medications and protocols.

I guess I am somewhat thankful there was the flukey progesterone level confusion I talked about here, because from that point on I was never fully optimistic.

I suppose we were naive to think this wouldn’t happen to us. You hear of canceled IVF cycles all the time, but I wasn’t familiar with canceled FET cycles.

To say it politely. I’m angry. I’m pissed. I’m confused. I’m sad. I feel broken. My heart hurts. I just want to be a mom. Again, life isn’t fair, but this is absolute torture.

So I bought a cute new blanket, some fun pillows, a vacuum cleaner, spent too much money on facial crap from Nordstrom. I had some tequila, some vodka, some wine. I had some laughs. I ate McDonalds and Chinese. I laid in the sun. I took gentle care of myself. I loved on my puppy and let my husband love on me. I will be ok.Next steps: I stopped Estrogen and started Provera to induce a period. Once a period comes, typically around 10 days, but for me I am sure it will be like 15+, I will go in for an ultrasound / blood work and begin Estrogen patches. I will wear four on my stomach, and will change them every three days. Fun. They aren’t cheap either. I am forever grateful to a fellow San Diego IVF-er for contributing a handful of boxes!

Thankfully we are skipping the birth control (used to keep ovaries quiet) this time. But as I write that, it actually makes me nervous to not be on that dreaded med.

Fingers crossed the patches work. If not, there are other options, but that means time and money and more time and money. UGH.

The ONE positive in this present nightmare is I am for sure (99%) able to travel home for Meggie’s bridal shower weekend! I haven’t been home since Thanksgiving. Needless to say, this is MUCH needed for a VERY special weekend! See ya soon STL!

In the mean time, LET’S GO BLUES!!!!!

Thank you for reading. Xo

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Sometimes the best thing you can do is not think, not wonder, not imagine, not obsess. Just breathe, and have faith that everything will work out for the best. – Robert Tew