Tis The Season

Happy Holidays!
It has sadly taken me this long to get into the Holiday spirit this year. We had so many downfalls one right after the other over the last month or so and Christmas was just one thing I did not want to deal with. But like my good friend Jami always tells me when I'm down "everything will work itself out, don't worry." and she always seems to be right!
I've let myself get so down and out over the course of the last month that I just didn't want to do anything that involved happiness for anyone else - including myself. I was being a horrible grinch and totally selfish! Once I realized how terrible I was being I decided to make some changes. They weren't big changes, really just changes in my attitude and outlook on things - and so far it's made a difference.
Last night I was watching a Special on NBC - the Today Show looked back over the events of 2008. While watching the stories on the earthquake in China, the tornadoes that ripped through part of our country, the flooding, the deaths of so many important and prominent people, the missing children that are still missing, little Caylee Anthony whose body was found just a little over a week ago, the two girls and their families who had to deal with a case of mistaken identity and death after a horrible car accident involving their school mates and friends, so many terrible things happened in our country and in others in 2008 and also things that happened close to home that rocked our own little community. The death of Dave Sheedy, the aftermath of Nick Oller's death in December of 2007, Desiree's car accident and having to be scared to death that we might lose her, those things were so hard on so many people. I had to force myself to look back over the year and find the good things that happened as well. We welcomed our new neice into the world in June, my good friend Misty got married in June, My very good friend and cousin Blake was married in July, my good friend Josh got married in August, I had a wonderful Bridal Shower and bachelorette party thrown for me in September by my wonderful friends and then I was lucky enough to marry the love of my life in October. Those things among other things were happy times of 2008! Those are the things I want to remember about this year. I don't want to focus on the bad things, I don't want to think about the 1 year anniversary of losing our baby that just passed 2 days ago, I don't want to think about the fact that we have gone yet another year without the joy of a pregnancy - sure we've had many announced pregnancies in our family this year - but NONE from US. I want to think about the future - the thought that next year will be our year to get pregnant and have a baby - not everyone else's. I need to think about how fortunate I have been in other areas, how thankful I should be about the things I do have in my life. I have a wonderful husband, an amazing son, an adorable step-son, a great family, a new an wonderful family through my marriage, an abundance of AMAZING and beautiful friends. I have my health (although riddled with infertility, I have it), I have a healthy husband and son, I still have my parents, I still have most of my grandparents, I have 5 awesome sisters and 3 sweet sisters in law. I have family. I have the joy of watching all 8 of my neices and nephews grow and learn - and still have 2 more on the way! These are all things to be thankful for and I should think about that more often! I also need to be thankful that this time around in my fertility battle I have a wonderful doctor that is being aggressive in my treatment an doing all he can to ensure that Steve and I have that baby we have been wanting so badly, and thankful enough that I am still young enough to have babies. Thankful that the words In Vitro Fertilization have not yet been mentioned in my case - or adoption. Thankful that I have my amazing little daycare family that I get to watch every weekday, get to teach new things to, get to watch grow up and start school, learn to write their names, learn to walk and talk....I have much to be thankful for and I realize that.
We may not be the perfect family or the perfect husband and wife - or the perfect parents to our sons for that matter - but we are happy and we are healthy - there's not much more we can ask for I suppose. Only that God decided to bless us soon with more children of our own.

On that front - the fertility front - we're still in the same place. Last cycle I took 14 days worth of hormones to start AF and then started a fertility drug called Clomid to hopefully make me ovulate. I had bloodwork done on Cycle day 22 - which unfortunately confirmed that I was not ovulating on my own, even with the help of the meds. So I was once again given hormones to induce a period and I'm currently taking those now. I will finish my last pill on Christmas Day. Which sucks really because these pills make me feel like shit and make me very very hormonal and kinda crazy! LOL But I'll finish them up and start my period probably Christmas night or the next day and then I will once again take Clomid again - but this time at a higher dosage than last cycle. I will go again for bloodwork on day 22 of my cycle and hopefully this time ovulation will be confirmed is my hope. If it's not then I imagine that we will again do Provera do induce a period and do another higher dosage of Clomid - then I will have to take a break I think. Usually they don't like you to do more than 3 months at a time on Clomid - but some docs will do 6 months at a time - I guess it just all depends on the doctor and we'll have to wait and see. But that is where I stand for now. I hope and pray that the next time I blog about my battle with getting pregnant it's to let you all know that I did in fact ovulate and that we are expecting a baby! So send up your prayers for us if you can and don't forget to be thankful for all the things that YOU have in your life as well. Tis the Season!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!