24 Hours to Live

Imagine that today you were told that you had a terminal illness and that you only had a short time to live.  How would you live?  What would you do?  Would you spend your days depressed and regretting the past or would you live each day with gusto and full of life?  Recently I was sitting back and thinking about a young friend of ours who is fighting a battle with cancer that certainly will take his life.  Even though he has fought infections and bee knocking at deaths door recently, he continues to fight and willing each day so that he can enjoy the day.  A request for a sip of beer with his meds one recent evening showed that he still had his sense of humor and his gusto for life.  When the time comes and he passes and he meets St. Peter at the Pearlie gates and is asked how he lived his life, I am sure that he will look at St. Peter in the eyes and say, "I lived my life till the end with gusto!"

While infertility isn't exactly a terminal illness many of us go about our lives living each day depressed and thinking that our life is over.  What is instead of living this way we lived each day as if it was our last.  Would we stand by and sulk about not having a child?  Or would we go out and look at life as if each thing we saw was the potential of happiness for us?  A year ago I would have said that everything that I saw each day triggered a memory to me that I was infertile.  Simple commercials for baby shampoo or diapers brought me to tears, reminding me that I would never have one of my own.

Knowing that I most likely won't ever be able to have a child of my own will always sit in my heart and there will always be mourning over that loss, much like a person with an illness will always mourn the future that they will never see.  But unlike with a terminal illness, I can always maintain hope.  I have hope that I will be a mom someday, whether adopted or naturally. Today I think about my friend, who in such a young life of 26, will not live to have children of his own. Unless diagnosed with a terminal illness tomorrow, I know that I will still have that opportunity to be a mom.

Before you give up in life, regardless of the issue, take a step back.  Look at the big picture. It's ok to grieve and mourn for the loss you experience, but don't dwell in that sadness else you lose out on seeing the possibilities of the future.  Don't ever give up.  Fight till the end.  Believe in miracles.  A miracle isn't a single dream and wish you desire coming true.  Rather, a miracle is ANY amazing or wonderful event.  Start seeing all events in your life as a miracle.

It was a miracle when my husband said "yes" to adoption.  It was a miracle when I ovulated on my own for the first time in a long time.  It is a miracle that I am not curled up in a ball anymore, crying and every commercial.  To live, I mean really live, is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people just exist, that is all.  I plan to live.  I plan on applying all my efforts till I am the highest mountain and then straining my potential until it cries for mercy.  I am not giving up. 

Believe in Miracles.

Believing in Me

Every time I go to a doctor they glance at my weight and as if they are a well oiled machine, they spout out the fact that I am obese.  After hearing it time after time again and knowing how "hard" I had been trying to lose weight in the past, I found every excuse to explain why I couldn't lose weight.  I made excuses and I just explained my life away.  But now I am 38 and in May I will be 39.  Now is the time of regrets.

I regret having become the hard head that I have become.  The new fertility doctor I saw a couple weeks ago explained how my weight affects my fertility.  While it isn't the answer completely to my fertility issues, my weight loss could help impact it more positively.  But it wasn't even her words, but rather the words of my family doctor last Friday who said something more amazing.  He told me that he was proud of me losing weight...he noticed. It took positivity to motivate me.  There is truth in the comment that you don't fight fire with fire.

What does this have anything to do with our journey of infertility?

My goal is to be a mom someday.  While listening to Courtney Crozier today , (season 11 Contestant of the show the Biggest Loser,), she spoke about the importance of taking life as one choice at a time as opposed to one day at a time and to make those goals and shoot for them.  She reminded us that life is full of many steps forward followed by taking steps back.  The important thing to remember is to keep taking the steps.  We must take our goals and keep them ahead of us.

My goal of being a mom reminds me that I can do everything I can in my power to try and make that goal possible. However, if I choose not to try and not lose weight then its only me to blame.  I have the keys to my destiny.  Infertility may be what keeps me from becoming a mother to my own natural child, but nothing can keep me from being a mother. The only way to fail at reaching my goal is to give up.  When you give up you no longer take steps forward or backward...you only become stagnant and you don't move.  You fail to live.  I believe in miracles.  I believe in me.  I will not give up.  I will not make excuses any longer. Everyday I will only take a step forward.

This doesn't only pertain to me and to my infertility.  This life lesson is one that all too often we fail to remember in our lives in other areas.  Don't stop believing that you can accomplish something.  Believe that anything is possible.  It may not happen today or tomorrow, but after several tomorrow's that goal and dream may actually come true. Never give up.   Believe in Miracles.

Somewhere Out There

Somewhere out there is my new son or daughter. 

January has started out with quite a bang.  After a visit to a new Infertility Specialist lastweek we ran into a friend who, with her husband, recently adopted a toddler through the foster to adopt system with the state.  For those of you new to reading my blog, my husband and I decided in the fall last year that we would consider adoption after all in order to help make our family whole.  Our friend gave us the name of her case worker and the next day we emailed her to seek information about the whole process.  Within a half hour we had an email and another half hour later a call.  The case worker who will be following us as we journey into licensing to become foster parents (God willing of course) was very positive and excited to talk to us.  This was a sign we had been looking for.  And then the dream came rushing at us. Reality.  In less then 9 months we may have a child in our home.  A child which...if all works out...could eventually become our son or daughter.  My son.  My daughter.  Wow...those words...they make me smile.

This journey of infertility isn't over when we adopt.  It's something we will live with for our entire life.  It's something that will still always be in my mind and make me feel like less of a woman. There will now at least be joy.  Joy that we will have the opportunity to make a difference in the life of a child.  Joy that we will be a more complete family.  And joy that we will be able to hear the words Mommy and Daddy and know that it means us.

2012 is our year.  This is the year of great things happening.  I believe in miracles.