Watching the Ball Drop

In less than an hour 2011 will be gone and 2012 will be here whether we like it or not.  My year is ending on a negative note. Well, a negative pregnancy test note that is.  Why does that seem important tonight of all nights?  Because tomorrow being 2012, brings for me a new sense of hope.

As my husband and I prepared for our quiet New Years Eve evening at home I checked the calendar and for the first time in 3 months my cycle was late.  Could I possibly be pregnant this month?  Well, for the first time in awhile I didn't bother to "try" to get pregnant this month.  Too many things were going on so we didn't bother to try to monitor as closely all the temperatures, fluids, etc.  So, could it be?  Yes, it could have been.  However, now being two days late, the pregnancy tests was a definite negative.  Why not wait and test tomorrow though?  Because I wanted to leave the negative in 2011 and bring positive hope into 2012.

I am grateful for the great things that happened in 2011 and wish the bad things would have never happened.  I will never forget the emotional July 4th this year and barely being able to function because I had just spent the entire weekend with my husband's family where we were once again one of the only couples without children.  I will never forget the horrible joke that was supposed to be support for breast cancer but only alienated and caused pain for many of those like myself who deal with infertility.  But even the bad things, like those I just spoke about, have brought about positive occurrences.

Call in our own local "Occupy Infertility."   I sat amidst the pain of infertility, fighting it tooth and nail.  I fought it in my life but finally came to my own conclusion that I was better than the infertility.  It was no longer going to control me.  Rather, I would take control over my infertility. 

I am blessed today because of the great people I have met along this journey and I am happy to be able to share this journey with all of you who read this.

To all of you followers out there, Happy New Year.  May 2012 be kind to you and may all your dreams (the good ones...not the nightmares) come true.  2012 will be my year.  2012 will be your year.  Believe in Miracles.

Ending 2011....Bring it on 2012!

At the end of 2010, my hopes and resolution was to make 2011 a better year.  I realized that I had to be alot more specific as while it was as not as bad of a year as 2010, it was a decent year.  What I wanted the most was to have a child of my own.  That didn't happen.  As we prepared to bring 2011 to a close, some of our hopes of naturally conceiving are also coming to a close.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were very challenging. We heard news on Christmas Eve that only brought the joy that Christmas should be filled with to a sadness that no one would ever have to experience.  And worse of all was spending time with all the families on Christmas Eve and Day. Families that now we were beginning to think would never happen or us anymore.  On Christmas Eve we found out from a reliable source that the new infertility specialist that we were hoping would have some answers is in the position only for the money.  Evidently she orders tests after test after test regardless of the fact that the tests have been done multiple times before.  She states that if a person can't afford the workups, they have no reason to be trying to conceive.  Doesn't she realize that most infertiles, by the time they get to her, have already gone through test after test after test and many have gone into debt before getting to her?  It was a bit disheartening.  And worse of all, its through a Catholic based health system she works through.

Then, a couple days after Christmas we finally got a call back from the local Catholic Charities adoption program.  We were informed that if we were interested, it would be $150 for the intake, $1000 for a home study, and then anywhere from $8000 to $16,000 for placement and adoption.  This is money we don't have.  By the time we saved up enough money to do this on our own we would be too old to be considered for adoption.  We've just spent the last 5 1/2 years paying off a loan for the last infertility treatments.  The end of the loan we are currently under is at the end of May. 

So...what hope do we have for 2012?  We don't know.  Right now we are taking everything day by day.  We know that there are no miracle funds out there to help us become a family.  It's something we want badly and feel incomplete without.  But we won't give up trying to achieve.  I know it's expensive to have a child, but to add the extra costs just in order to adopt a child also seems unfair as well.  And the harder part is that it's Catholic organizations who are doing this....it appears as if its just a money making religion.  And here I am Catholic.  I work for free as the Director of Religious Education and the confirmation teacher.  I volunteer at my local Church in the Choir.  I am involved in a local Catholic retreat program.  And while I don't expect reimbursement for all I do from the Catholic Church, it appears they want money more and more for every single thing they do.  They were right...nothing in life is free.  Jesus was also right...give to Caesar what is Caesar's.  Unfortunately, the Catholic Church must be the new Caesar.

So, we look now at the local Department of Family and Children Services.  Likely we will have to accept a child with disabilities in order to complete our family.  Pray for us.  Can we handle that?  Pray for what we can handle.  Pray that our family is complete by this time next year.  Soon we will begin taking classes in hopes to be considered for adoption.  Pray that all goes well.  And more so, pray we get a miracle.

I won't stop believing in Miracles.

Twas the Week Before Christmas

Twas the week before Christmas and all through my house
the only noise I heard was the snoring from my spouse.
Our stockings were hung in the living room with care
Knowing that no baby would still be there.

The fur babies were nestled, one on each side
but it didn't matter as the sadness of infertility I could not hide.
While hugging a pillow and sleeping I'd try,
The empty nursery just led me to cry.

With remote in hand I switched from tv station to station
awaiting some sign of natural ovulation
To my dismay, none this month would happen here.
Disappointed to know no two blue lines would appear.

It's an occurrence that happens to often it true
awaiting to dream about babies in pink an blue.
Eight years of trying every pill and every med,
and putting up your legs each hop into bed.

While to you it may seem silly or routine
but for us its a step towards a dream.
A baby to hold and to love and watch grow
Oh what we'd do...too the extents that we'd go...

Maybe someday things will more complete us
and we'll have us a bigger family for Christmas.
Until then I know that on Christmas Eve,
I'll look at the stars and whisper, "In Miracles I Believe."

For if God can give a virgin a baby boy Savior,
God can grant me this little favour.
God listen to my prayers and hear them please;
I'd like a little face to wipe when they sneeze.
A hand to hold, a face to kiss,
A part of me that right now I so miss.

And as you hear my prayer know that I am grateful so,
for all that you have given me, but this you already know.
Please help me to make my life more complete
and give me the pitter patter of little feet.



I wrote this today as I was thinking about the holidays so quickly approaching.  Holidays can be one of the most difficult days to deal with infertility.  While I have been doing well and handling the holidays without much difficulty, I know that quickly this can turn at the drop of a hat.  It can take one thing to occur to cause the tears and the sadness to turn on like the Niagara Falls.  This Christmas I am much more blessed though...I have a group of friends also going through infertility and knowing what I feel.  For that I am most grateful.

I know that I will make it through this year...maybe not completely without a few tears, but I will make it through.  Christmas is a time of miracles.  A miracle can be simple or as amazing as the birth of a child.  Either way, Christmas brings us hope.  Hope that a miracle can happen to me...or to any one of my friends dealing with this as well.

Christmas is also the time to pay it forward.  I know that this year will not be as hard as in the past.  My new friends have paid forward their positivity and optimism.  2012 will be the year for us.  Whether through adoption or us conceiving, we will not allow 2012 to pass without knowing the possibility of us having a child in our arms is possible. 

To all of you readers, I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Feast of the Solstice, and Happy Holidays.  May your dreams and ours come true.




**If you'd like to help me in anyway this Christmas season, I am asking that you pass this blog on to others and ask them to pass it on to others.  The goal of this blog is to raise awareness of infertility and make real the struggle that so many of us endure. Through this type of education we can help others understand and help society be a little easier to live in as someone who is childless.  Thanks so much..

Hope Floats

It's been a couple of weeks since I last blogged...it seems as though time has just slipped away with the hustle and bustle of the preparations for Christmas. I had nearly forgotten that I was trying to blog at least once a week on her about our journey.  Due to my lack of blogging, instead of dreams of sugarplums dancing in my head it was words and thoughts that I knew I needed to get down on paper that occupied that space instead.  (I guess it was a local "Occupy my Brain" protest by the words...)  I haven't given up trying or even this journey and sharing it with you.  Rather, I for a few weeks there, hope floated.  In my head I believed that anything was still possible.  That is...until today.

This weekend we sent out our yearly Christmas newsletter to a few family and friends (only a few because the cost of postage, envelopes, ink, and paper costs can break the bank in the end when the count gets into the hundred plus amount!).  In this newsletter we made the announcement that we planned on pursuing the possibility of adoption and we asked for people to pray for us.    Today we met the first negative comment about this decision and surprisingly it came from a relative.  The words from this relative resounded in such a way that they came off as sounding like we were foolish for even considering adoption.  This was from someone who supposedly loved us.  Instead of standing up for ourselves and challenging their opinion we cowered down instead and took it and began to feel like we couldn't be parents because someone didn't think we could.  Why weren't we standing up for ourselves?  Why were we allowing someone else to control our confidence in ourselves and our future? 

Adoption doesn't just happen overnight.  I don't go sign papers today and proceed to the next like and get a baby and free fries and a drink!  The process of adoption is much like the season of Advent (in the Christian Church.).  Advent time, in the church, is a time of waiting and preparing. It's about anticipating the good, (the coming of the Saviour) and dealing with the bad (if you've shopped on Black Friday in crowds of people you know what I am talking about!).  It's about seeking forgiveness and preparing our hearts anew.  It's about getting everything set up for the big day...Christmas Day.  And above all else, its about family and a husband and wife becoming a family with the birth of their son who just so happens to be the Saviour of the world.  The process of adoption is much the same.  It's about preparing your home, your life and knowing that in the end your life is changed as you welcome a new family member into your home.  It's about the good (someone entering into the family) and the bad (the challenges associated with each person becoming adjusted to a new family dynamic).  In the end, it is all worth it.

From the time I was a young girl I always knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted to be a mom.  This struggle to have a child goes beyond what I was ever prepared for.  Hope gets dashed when each month comes and the pregnancy test remains negative.  But then there are the little steps that occur that reinstall some hope.  How do you pick yourself up after someone dashes the little bits of hope you had left?  Like Nike said, you "just do it."

My faith in God and belief that God exists has to remain my stronghold.  I need to listen to God (or for some of you its whatever higher being you believe in.)  When I was younger and in the convent I believed that my vocation in life was to be a Sister/Nun.  When I realized that my true vocation was to be married and have a family, I knew that I needed to leave religious life.  I have never felt God so strongly as I do in my belief that my vocation is to be a wife and mother.  While some say you can't "will" yourself pregnant, you can believe.  Willing something to happening is believing that something can occur out of the fact you belief it can and you trust in that higher power to make it happen. 

Today hope floats because I believe in my heart of hearts that my vocation is to being a wife and mother.  I am not giving up hope.  Neither should any of you out there reading this who deal with the same kid of situation like I deal with today.  Find the positive support around you.  If there is no one, always remember I am here for you all.  And above all, remember to Believe in Miracles...we all are one.

Thanksgiving and thankfullness

I can't believe I am actually up earlier than 7 a.m. and typing away at my blog on Thanksgiving Day.  We can blame it on my dear (although that's not what I called him this morning) husband who awoke at 4:50 a.m. and couldn't fall back to sleep so thought neither should I. Today of all days I need sleep the most as tonight I tackle the big task of Black Friday shopping.  I hate the crowds of people that start tonight and don't end until a week after Christmas when everyone has finally finished returning the gifts that didn't fit or that they didn't like.  If I can get all the shopping done in one 24 hour time frame I know that I will be fine the rest of the holiday season.  But it means braving many times rude, pushy, deal crazed people.  (Ok....I am deal crazed but not pushy and rude.)  Since we have no children of our own, why are we so crazed about getting a good deal? Because we had no children.  To have to shop only one day of the entire season and most of the time there are no children out on these overnight adventures makes the season geared towards family and little kids still believing in Santa a little more bearable.

Thanksgiving is about being thankful for those things that the other 364 we often take for granted. While I can't be thankful for the infertility that we struggle with, I am thankful for the opportunities that talking about the infertility has helped us to have.  I began this blog, I have begun researching and writing a book, I have had the opportunity to meet hundreds of others going through this same struggle, and I have even become a stronger person overall.  It still hurts to see someone else getting pregnant when we struggle still but I know that this year I am in a better place mentally than I was even last year.

Today I am thankful for all those supporters and all of you who read this blog. It's not necessarily my typically long blog post, but I think I can sum it all up in this one statement.  I am thankful for all the miracles in my life .

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Christmas vs. Infertility

About a week ago a local radio station started playing their round of Christmas songs...songs that will grace the radio from now until the day after Christmas.  As I rolled my eyes (I mean, really..it's not even Thanksgiving yet for another 5days!!!), I began to feel the pang of anxiety in my stomach, dizziness in my head, and a "cha-ching cha-ching cha-ching" coming from my purse.  That "cha-ching" was the sound our hard earned money preparing to leave our possession and join the ranks of all other tens and twenties in the registers of big box super stores this Black Friday.  While we have no children of our own for "Santa" to make his yearly voyage to, we still have to buy for every niece and nephew under the age of 18 in our family as well as our godchildren.  What does infertility have to do with all this and Christmas?

For those of us with infertility, it can be very difficult to celebrate the holidays.  Expectations are that we will attend, happily of course, every Christmas party and family celebration where each of the little kids will either be dressed in their Christmas bests or will have to sing or play on their "recorders"  (a flute like noisy instrument) their rendition of Silent Night or We wish you a Merry Christmas.  Silently we will sit at these parties, trying to avoid the consistent, "do you have any children," "when are you having children," or "how's it going trying to conceive" questions.  We attempt to sit at the back of the room, attempting to avoid having to have anyone see how writhing with jealousy we are over the parents of those kids playing the noisy and out of tune songs...jealous because we wish they were our children.  I even shop on Black Friday in order to avoid the hustle and bustle at Christmas time through the malls and stores, thus avoiding each parents who is still looking for that toy that their child so desperately wants.  To see them, knowing it isn't me who will see a child open a gift excitedly on Christmas morning.  Knowing it won't be us who share the "Night before Christmas" story or putting out the cookies and milk for Santa. (I've tried the cookies and milk thing and trust me when I say that Santa couldn't take the time to come down our chimney for these gluten free delights and almond milk we had set out for him. )

It's not just the gift giving and party going, even though every Christmas we walk home after these parties with a couple of Christmas gifts we receive even though we came with two laundry baskets and a large trash bag full of gifts to give. (I know its not about receiving, but the gift of giving thats part of the season.).  I would give up every materialistic gift in order to have the gift of a child instead.  As a Catholic, Christmas is about preparing the way for Jesus (symbolically) to be born.  While the original event happened thousands of years ago, we celebrate this occurrence on a yearly basis.  Today as I drove, I thought about what Christmas meant.  It was about this preparation.  Again the jealousy hit.

As I drove I began to think about Mary and Joseph, Jesus's parents.  I thought about the bible reading where the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, who was about to flee and leave Mary because she was pregnant with someone else,  other than his, child.  Basically, Joseph was a nervous dad.  Mary trusted God enough to say, "Ok...I will carry your son."  I was feeling jealous and yet a bit like Mary.  And my husband, ironically, has been feeling alot like Joseph.  While we aren't pregnant/expecting, my husband was nervous about the kind of father he would be and I was the one sitting back and telling God to "bring it on."  It is important to remember that these feelings are ok.  I truly believe that is why we hear these stories in the bible.  However, it doesn't help me feel any better about still being childless.

I think that I began thinking about all this because the stress of marking natural ovulation for once in my life (that in itself is a miracle of its own...)fell into the roll of trying to conceive and stress took over.  What if it worked?  How would we afford a child?  What kind of parent would I be?  I was reminded today in a Christmas song heard on the local Christian radio station that even Joseph was nervous.  This brought comfort.

So, maybe the timing wasn't right this time and maybe I will never ovulate or even conceive naturally on my own.  This month at least I had hope. Christmas is about hope. While I will sit at these parties and feel sadness in my heart, I also know that it will happen every year.  Maybe next year I will be there with my own son or daughter.  Maybe not.  Isn't that what Christmas is all about though?  A Miracle?  Christ was a miracle regardless if he would have been born the natural child of Joseph and Mary or the creation of God ,as his son, placed into Mary.  Either way, he was a miracle.

For all my friends out there wishing for a Christmas miracle, I will be praying for all of you.  For all those a little happier because they know their Christmas miracle is on its way and they will have him or her in their arms by this time next year, I pray for the miracle in your womb.  For all my friends and family who have their miracle I ask you to hug your miracle a little tighter this season and be grateful to the Creator for being given this precious gift.

As we head into the Christmas season, I am thankful for each of you reading this and traveling this journey with us.  Don't forget, Believe in Miracles.

A Family Affair

Many of you who are Facebook friends of mine recently saw my endless post about my great Aunt Alice who passed away.  In our lives we are often only ever given a handful of people who impact our life so tremendously that to live our life without them in it is almost unimaginable. My Aunt Alice was one of those people.

By society's standards she didn't do anything outrageous and amazing.  In my standards she did extremely amazing things.  She taught me about life and what's the most important thing about it.  Aunt Alice was raised in the great depression.  She once said that she always thought that the only place that you got bread and milk was the local fire station.  It wasn't until she was about 9 years old that she found out there were stores that you got those same items at.  While she was frugal, she wasn't a miser.  She gave to charities as well as family and loved to travel.  I believe that she has been to almost 50 countries in her lifetime.  She was a devout Catholic who volunteered her services to her church, museums, and charities.  While those are all great accomplishments, her greatest accomplishment has been her family.  How Aunt Alice lived was how she raised her children.  Now grown adults with children and grandchildren of their own, it is evident that her surviving children are also spitting images of her generosity and caring.

So, what does this have to do with infertility and my journey with it?  As I stood at that back of the living room at my Aunt's house after the funeral and I watched my cousins, new acquaintances and my family sharing with each other I heard the West Virginia accented voice of my Aunt Alice speak into my ear, "It's all about family...focus on family."  What did this mean?

In dealing with infertility it isn't uncommon to feel frustrated when you are around others with children and babies.  I didn't feel that at this funeral.  I was overwhelmed with the sadness of the loss of my Aunt Alice.  As I grieved her loss, I feared that I wouldn't have this wonderful similar situation when I was older and had passed on.  Who would bury me?  What if my husband died before I did, who would I have left?  And I even found myself praying and talking to my Aunt Alice asking her and invoking her to take my desire to have a child to God.  She has been an amazing role model as a mother.  While at first I thought maybe it was just the hospitality of West Virginians, I realized that my Aunt wouldn't have raised her children any other way then to be generous, hospitable people....especially to family.

Infertility is really a family affair.  If you struggle with infertility and feel alone, know that you don't have to.  My cousins have been the stronghold of my not giving up hope.  While I grieved at the casket, the funeral, and the cemetery, my cousins reminded me as did the priest saying the funeral mass that we would one day see her again.  Hope.  Hope that we will see each other again.  Hope that all will be well.  My family, while sometimes say or do insensitive things, still have hope for me.  All in all I know that they hold out hope for my husband and I that we will still have a family of our own someday.  I must still hold out hope.

My Aunt Alice was my stronghold of hope.  During one of my visits to her she and I sat on her back patio and watched the hummingbirds and the morning traffic across the river.  As we sat and enjoyed the morning air and each other's company and talked about how it is that we can determine what God's plan is for us, she told me one of the pieces of advice that I will never forget and that I now pass on to you all.  It was simple.

"You just have to believe."