Blocked Tube News & Vaca Coming Up

Wow, I haven't written in awhile. I'm not quite sure why.

Work has definitely had an uptick in hecticness! But I'm also wondering if I have as much a need for this blog. It may also be because I'm in limbo right now...

BUT the big news from last week was that as part of pre-IVF testing that I'm doing (in case we move to that as a next step), we found one of my tubes is blocked. This was news to me - I had an HSG done 2 years ago and I was all clear. I'm having a follow up consult with my doc this coming week to discuss.

I was actually really upset, crying on the table when they were showing me that it was blocked. What a blow! But I had also told myself going into all this testing to keep the long-term view on this. I didn't want to go back to getting knee-deep into every day details that would constantly alter my mood.

So, I allowed myself one afternoon of being upset and then I went back to big picture. A little easier said than done, but I think I did it (probably helps that work is so busy right now!).

I also decided to talk to my mom about it, knowing I was risking upsetting myself even more since she typically hasn't been able to support me the way that I need for her to. But - she came through and that made a TON of difference! So, maybe getting the emotional support means so much more to me than the physical challenges...

And I'm trying to keep my mind on our upcoming vacation - next Friday we leave for Spain!!! :)

Over a Hurdle and Onto Happiness :)

Last week I was just emotionally spent after having anxiety confronting my in-laws on a visit that entailed my BIL and SIL's baby shower as well as Mother's Day.

By the end of last week, I think I was finally able to sigh with relief and feel like a HUGE weight had been taken off of me.

So, now what?

I really want to take a long-term view on what's next. If I look back at the last 3 1/2 years, I just see how my happiness was either severly diminished or completely extinguished during that period of time. I refuse to allow that to continue to happen. At least I want to work really hard on refusing that to happen. This could take another 3+ years, we don't know.

Which leads me to being ready to start trying again. I say this with a lot of trepidation. I DO NOT want to be all consumed with a 2 week wait every month so I'm trying to take this in stride.

I know I had been talking a lot about living without children but having our 3 year old nephew with us in church on Easter stirred something in me that I had buried.

So, we'll see where this leads us. I'm not going to make plans around anything anymore. We have a trip to Spain planned at the end of June, I just signed up for a pottery class for the summer and also bought a bik.ram yoga summer pass as well. I will not let life be put on hold anymore but my heart is also open for what may be next.

In the meantime, I just finished The Happi.ness Pro.ject and just loved it! I thought it may be too trite and stuff I would already know but it's inspired me to 1) make small changes to make my life better (going to bed earlier, exercise more, etc) and 2) to be an active participant in life and do things (sign up for a class, stretch yourself, make new friends, etc).

I highly recommend this book! All I've wanted is to feel happiness again and this is a great guide and positive reinforcer for me.

What I Learned From Counseling & Support Group This Week

It was quite an emotionally-cleansing week for me - my bi-weekly counseling was this week and so was my monthly support group.

Here's what I learned:

• I'm still grieving my last miscarriage
• I'm grieving the immensity of having had 3 miscarriages in 1 year
• I need to let my mother-in-law know that I'm actually grieving
• I need to stop minimizing the fact that my prengancies didn't make it to week 6/a heartbeat
• I understand that my dog dying a few weeks ago is another loss in this difficult recent loss journey and that it felt like 'piling on' to my already going through a grief cycle
• I need to stop saying that life could be worse and grieve the bad stuff that has happened to me since this is my reality
• The grief cycle takes approximately a year and I'm only 5 months from my last loss
• I need to understand that this journey is a slice of my entire life and try to take it in a larger context
• Despite that I think it feels better to be authentic and talk about how infertility is affecting me, it can be sometimes helpful to not talk about it and realize how much I have going on in my life that is not infertility-related
• My true passion is adventurous, international travel and I can't keep putting this on hold

Here's what I'm going to do:

• Allow myself to grieve, fully
• Talk to my mother-in-law about my grief (I've never named it as such with her) so she can understand the immensity of it
• Focus on a lot of the wonderful things going on in my life:
• My amazing marriage/husband
• My career that I love and a potential upcoming promotion
• Our beautiful house
• Our health
• Springtime and what newness of exericse energy it brings
• Be more spontaneous
• Last weekend we went to a movie in another part of town and decided to stay at a nearby hotel that had a special going on - just being out of the house was fun (we had planned a night away at a hotel in our city a few years ago and really had fun!)
• Plan some travel trips that really fuel my passion
• I'm going to Chicago next week for work and will stay to see a good friend
• I'm visiting my cousin in FL over Memorial Weekend
• We booked tickets to northern Spain in June, a place we've been wanting to go to for awhile in conjunction with a wedding in southern Spain
• We have 2 more wedding trips this summer
• We have been talking about Vietnam over next winter which has been high on my list for years!