Cheesecake, Children, Crystal Balls...

Last night I had my final dress fitting. And thank you, Jesus, it zipped up! Lots of back and arm fat spillage, but it zipped up and I absolutely love it. I'm so focused on other things this "time around." Of course I want to look beautiful on our big day, but it's really different this time. I know I found the love of my life, and everything else regarding the wedding seems so small in comparison. I'm not obsessing about my weight, or the perfect this or that. I'm just simply content, happy and in love. For example, my mom and I have been looking for a necklace to go with my gown. I already bought earrings and a bracelet, but we were still searching for the perfect necklace. Then my mom came across a necklace of my Aunt Roselyn's (Aunt "Rhodie" we called her) and I immediately knew that was what I wanted to wear. No, it doesn't match the earrings and bracelet perfectly, but I was so close to my Aunt Rhodie and to have her there with me when I get married, just even in a necklace, means more to me than I can describe.

My Aunt Janie and Nana are up visiting my parents and my aunt came with us to the dress fitting. It was a nice evening and we went to the Cheesecake Factory after the fitting. I've being trying not to focus on the "lack-of-baby" situation, but yesterday it kind of poked me letting me know that "Hey. It still is what it is, girl." Earlier in the day at work, I overheard one of the parents next door announcing that she was pregnant with twins. Her little boy is in the class next door, and I just felt so jealous that she already had this cute little boy and now they we're expecting twins! And then our waitress at the restaurant was pregnant and rubbing her belly while she read off the specials. I always feel this sad/jealous feeling when I hear of baby announcements or see pregnant people , but then I'm quick to stop myself because there is NO WAY I would wish infertility on anyone! So my sad/jealous feelings, are usually washed away and replaced with happiness for the person. So many of my fellow IF blogger friends just received great news and/or had their babies!!!! :) Congrats to you all and it's giving me HOPE!!!! :) Sometimes I feel left behind, like a "When is it my turn?" kind of feeling...but I know our time will come...again...

I just want to have a child. For us to have children. I want to be a mom. I look at people with children, and wonder if they know how lucky they are. I guess I'm just feeling a bit sad, to think we may never have them or be able to afford IVF or adoption for that matter. I just wish I knew that everything was going to be ok. A crystal ball, a genie in a bottle, a "Back to the Future" moment would be great right now...

There's so much that is still unwritten.

Now that my pity party is over, WEDDING IN 8 DAYS! :)

Feelin' the Love

In less than two weeks I will be marrying the love of my life! And we are getting SO excited! I think the next couple weeks are going to be pretty emotional. Matt and I have both said that we're probably going to cry at the wedding. I know for sure, I will. I've been crying at the drop of a hat this past year. So I know that on our wedding day, there will quite possibly be tears. HAPPY TEARS:)

On Friday, one of Matt's best friends got married. Matt was a groomsman and looked so handsome in his tux. I've seen him in a suit before, but never a tux. I was kind of bummed because we couldn't sit together at the wedding, but I had a blast anyways. They sat me with other friends of ours (awesome friends) so I was happy. It was a really fun night and the wedding was beautiful. At the cocktail hour they gave everyone a long stemmed red rose, which I thought was a nice touch. It was really nice to see Matt with his friends in such a momentous occassion as his friend getting married. You could just FEEL the love between them, it was really cute. And I'm glad to know that my honey has such good friends. They may be manly, sports-lovin, handsome dudes, but at the end of the day they're just humans..with big ole hearts...

Got a BFN on Thursday morning. AF showed Thursday afternoon. Yup. What a wonderful wedding gift that would have been, but I guess it just wasn't in the cards. Or something. I guess the silver lining on that dark cloud, is that I'll be able to drink at my wedding! And I guess it would have spared that "pre wedding made baby" the fun of doing the math when its older and finding out that he/she was already-a-cookin' before mom and dad were married. Not that I would have cared, situations like that don't bother me. If that were that case, I would have just told that child , " We wanted you so badly, that we didn't want to wait." It's always good to tell the truth :)

Six days of work left! And then I can really focus on our big day! I have my final gown fitting on Wednesday. I just hope it zips up. I need a BFP on the zipping up of the dress, people :)

This month must have wings...

Because it's seriously flying by! Maybe because we are so busy getting things ready for the wedding, but it's kind of sad to think Summer is almost ready to "peace out."

We are in crunch mode with Wedding stuff. Right now, we are working on table seating, which is pretty much the crappiest puzzle everrrr.:) We're trying not to stress about it, but me not stress? Impossible :) I found out this week my good friend, Lauren, can't come up for the wedding :( She was a bridesmaid and was pretty much my rock in Hawaii. Even though Ill miss her, I totally understand. She's very preggo right now and they just moved to Maryland. Her husband whos a marine,just started a new assignment and he can't get the day of the wedding off, which means they would have to drive up that day, with their two year old little girl. Just wouldn't work out. But I joked with her that I might photoshop her into the wedding pictures :)

This post was originally going to be a "copy and paste" of a friend's email. She sent it a few weeks ago, venting about comments she received at a bbq regarding her struggles with pregnancy, etc. I asked her if I could put it on my blog, because it was funny (well not funny) because a lot of the comments were hurtful, annoying and downright rude. Comments a lot of us IF girls hear quite often. But me with wedding brain and due date blues, accidently erased the email...

It's amazing though how insensitive people can be. And sometimes it's not fair for us to just assume they are complete asses. Before I struggled with IF, I'm pretty sure I probably made a comment or two to a friend or a random person I'd meet, like " When are you guys having kids?!" Or something to that effect. And now I feel like a jerk because those people could have been dealing with infertility...and I could have been that person they wanted to punch in the mouth. I love the quote I have on my FB page. I heard/read it somewhere and it really hit me. "Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

So true.

I met a friend for dinner this week, up at a bar & grill near my work. We had a fun time laughing and chatting about this and that. She's dealing with similar issues as I, so it was nice to vent about the good things going on but the obvious sucky things too. While we were eating dinner, music was blasting from a jukebox that a drunk woman was unfortunately in control of. We saw two guys sitting at the bar, one was congratulating the other and they clinked their beers. One of the men had a hospital bracelet on and a really nice camera sitting on the bar near them. The place we were eating at was right across from the hospital. My friend overheard them talking and the one guy's wife just had a baby. He was celebrating the birth of his child. And we were jealous and sad. Happy and "awww-ing" for his situation. But sad for us. We wanted that. We want a hospital bracelet and a camera full of newborn pictures. We want our guys, happy, proud, excited with first-time-father feeling. A few minutes later, my "theme" song came out of no where. Michael Buble's "Haven't Met You Yet." My friend got excited and said, " It's your song!" :) Thank you drunk lady for lifting our spirits just by pressing "play." I love moments like that. Where something happens at just the right time. Our next thought, for the new dad at the bar was " Get your ass back to the hospital to be with your wife and baby!" :)

Note to soon to be hubby: If you are in a bar anytime during childbirth or shortly after, they may have to come up with a new definition for the phrase "pissed off." But I know my man, and I know he wouldn't leave our side :)

I've been trying not to think about "cycle" stuff this month. I wanted to be able to just focus on the wedding and be happy. And I think it's working! I think we are going to start treatments again in September. If need be, that is. Then Ill be on Matt's insurance, which is better than mine. Although, I'm concerned because that cycle probably won't start until late September and go into October..and we'll be on our honeymoon! So, Im not sure how that will work out with monitoring and all that. Plus, we wanted to try an IUI, so that complicates things a bit. I guess I'll just try to think positive and hope that it all works out somehow. I definitely do not want to wait until October to try again. That's for sure.

It's Friday the 13th. Found out today that the twin IVF girls in my class, were born on Friday the 13th. I'm a sign girl, and this makes me want to pee on a stick tonight. Because maybe Friday the 13th isn't all about "bad things." There's obviously good happenings too, like the twins. But you know what, I'm not going to poas, because if it's negative, I'll blame this "superstitious" day. And I don't want to be pissed off at another day on the calendar...


Have a good weekend everyone :)

August 7th

Today, I should've had a baby in my arms. Today was our due date. I've been bracing for this day, ever since we lost our baby. I've pictured it to be messy, angry, sad, confused, empty. But I'm actually feeling just a numb kind of pain in my heart that's preventing me from just breaking. I also had some nice distractions today too. And that helped a lot. For awhile now, I was planning on releasing a pink and blue balloon to symbolize the baby we lost. To get some closure. Or something. But I backed out on that idea. This morning, Matt and I talked about it and I shed a few tears. But that's all I was going to allow myself. It was a beautiful day outside and I wasn't go to let heartbreak rule my Saturday. I ended up doing some wedding stuff at my mom's and then laying in the pool. At one point, I think I started to doze off on the float, and when I opened my eyes I was looking straight up into the bluest sky. It made think that Heaven has to be up there, because that sky was so beautiful and it gave me peace to think that our baby is up there. In the beautiful blue.

Even though I'm not holding a baby, I am holding onto hope. I would give anything for a crystal ball or a genie to grant me a wish. I know there is a plan for us, but the not knowing "if" or "when" part kills me. I think my biggest fear through all of this is another miscarriage. I'm not sure how much more I can beg and bargain with God.

In the meantime, we have a WEDDING coming up :) Lots of good things to come.

And I'm so ready for all of those good things...

*Bought a wall hanging today that says "Keep Calm and Carry On." How fitting :)

The Commercial.

I know I said I would be posting on Saturday (the woulda- been- shoulda- been- baby day) but every time I see that new iphone commercial, my heart literally stops for the duration of the commercial.

Have you seen it? Where the wife calls her husband and tells him he is going to be a daddy? Yeah, that one. It just gets me. In a good way, but in a very sad way too.

It's just like that commercial from the superbowl. The Google one. Where the guy is typing in different things into the google search box. Showing him traveling, going to school, meeting the love of his life, getting married, and then the last thing he types in is " How to assemble a crib." Or something like that. Loved that commercial...

Reflection.

Hi everyone. I'm still here. Haven't posted in awhile, but just taking some time to enjoy life and reflect upon things. Since the last BFN, I've been feeling a little happier and getting out more. Feeling better physically, too. So I'm headed in the right direction. Lots of (good) stuff to talk about, but I'm going to press the "pause" button until this weekend.

Saturday August 7th would have been our due date. We should've been having a baby this week...

I'm doing ok though. Not sure how Saturday will go, but I'll deal with that when it arrives.

One month 'till our wedding! We are very excited!!! :)

Sorry for the lame post. I promise Saturday's will be juicier...

:)

Today.

Unfortunately, I don't have any good news to share with you today. My blood test this morning confirmed that there isn't a baby in my belly. I took a home test Saturday morning, which came back negative, but I guess I was holding out for that miracle. I think I knew in my heart all along that this cycle wasn't going to work. I tried hard to think positively the past few weeks, but my heart just kept telling me that is wasn't going to happen. Not right now anyways. I know being sick with this parasite probably played a major role in this BFN, but sadly I think the result would have been the same even if I were healthy. I know that sounds so negative, but I just know deep down that this isn't going to be easy for us. I'm a little surprised with myself that I'm not a giant puddle of tears. Maybe I'm numb. Or maybe I'm just tired of being sad and let down. Overall, I think I'm taking the news relatively well. I think Matt was bracing for the worst, but I'm okay. I was thinking about it today and I thought of the perfect description of this past cycle. This past cycle was like--smiling for the camera even though you know the picture is going to turn out bad. I did everything I was supposed to, I followed directions, I prayed, I begged, I tried to be positive and smile. And today, our picture came out bad...

I slept horrible last night. I couldn't fall asleep (even though I was exhausted) and I had to get up extra early to go in for the bloodwork. When my alarm went off, it woke me up from a bad dream. The kind of dream where you wake up and have to take a minute to think about if it's real or not. My dream was about adoption. It was actually centered at my work. A co-worker of mine had heard of this group of kids abandoned by their parents. Beautiful kids ranging in age from infants to five years old. For some reason the kids were brought to our center to be cleaned up and taken care of, and they were now up for adoption. I heard down the hall that there was one baby boy left. I ran down to the classroom he was in and scooped him up out of his bouncy seat. He was perfect, chubby and had the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen. The baby boy was smiling at me and I was smiling back. Just then one of my co-workers said, " Ohh Im sorry you are too late. He's already been adopted." I remember my heart sinking in the dream and me saying to the co-worker, " Beyond heartbroken." I put the beautiful baby back in his bouncy seat. And just then, my alarm went off...

That is how I started my day. And it has ended with a BFN and get this...my period. Ironic right? I'm also completed exhausted. I'm still not feeling 100% and work kicked my ass today. I think I'm doing okay though, no tears so far. I am going to try to just keep trucking along. We've decided to take this next cycle off. My body and mind needs a break and with the wedding coming up, I want to be able to put all my energy and happiness into that. Plus, once we are married and I'm on his insurance instead, it will help us out a lot with IF expenses. Next time I think we are going to do Clomid instead and our first IUI.

So, thank you to all our family and friends who cheer us on every month! :) We love you and your support and kind words mean the world to us.

Infertility, on the other hand, we hate you...

Rachel, over at the blog "Rachel's Randomness," wrote this about her loss. A therapist-friend of her's suggested she do this as a healing excerise. And I thought she said it perfectly. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing it...

Dear Infertility,

I've never known such hatred, sadness, guilt, and despair since you came into my life. You've ruined everything that I thought I would be. You've taken a toll on my heart, body, and mind. You have broken me. You've put strain on my relationships, and you've pushed resentment and jealousy into my heart. You have turned me into a woman obsessed with wanting what she can't have. You have placed doubt and uncertainty in every aspect of my being. You've hurt so many of us, in turn adding more hurt in my life for the others surrounding me that have to know you. You've shattered so many dreams, and literally made my life a living hell. You've made it difficult for me to find happiness in things that should bring me joy. You've robbed me from sharing motherhood with my sisters and my friends. You've robbed me of myself. Worst of all, once I felt like I had beaten you, you killed my baby. My womb is empty, my arms are empty, and my heart is empty. There is nothing or anyone else to blame, but you. I hate you, infertility. I hate you.