The Everyday and the Day after Tomorrow

I haven't posted anything is quite sometime and I really don't know why. There has been so much on my mind and heart lately that posting would have been good for me, but instead I have just kept it all inside, trying to sort out all the feelings and thoughts. I haven't been feeling too creative lately either. I have felt so off these past couple months and though it would seem that anyone who has dealt with what I have in the last 6 months would be a bit off their game, it's just not ME. I normally bounce back pretty quickly but not this time. This time things have been happening so fast that I can't seem to keep up even with the everyday. I have been trying to do a little each day but then a day comes and I just don't have the energy so I do nothing but what is absolutely necessary and then somehow that one day turns into 3 and there is just so much that needs to be done. So then, of course, I have to spend hours doing all the work that I didn't do and I'm so drained once I'm done that I don't want to do anything else for the next couple days. And so the cycle continues. The every day cleaning and taking care of the kids seems more than I can take.

Please don't think that I'm sitting here having a pity party for myself, I'm not, I really want to be able to handle it ALL but I just can't. Ben left so quickly after the miscarriage in December I haven't had the time that I really needed to process my feelings. I know that God has a HUGE plan in store for me, a ministry that I could never imagine having. I know this in my heart, in the deepest part of me, yet it's been shadowed by all these feelings of self doubt and fear and anger and jealousy. 

So, How do I get out of this place?  I want feel normal, I want to stop obsessing over this.  I want to be able to hear that someone is pregnant and not break down.  I just found out today that someone close to me is pregnant and I can't even bring myself to call her, or even send her an email, because even though I'm happy for them and I am so glad that God is blessing them yet again, I can't stop thinking that I just wish that she could know what I'm feeling- and even though I would never want anything to happen to her baby, there's just part of me that wishes that she had also gone through a miscarriage, just so she could know the sting of it.  She couldn't even tell me, she had my mom call and tell me, and she didn't even know if she should tell me know or wait till my mom came out here to visit.She just didn't want to hurt me, she knows how much I want my babies back.  I am glad she told me, I would have hated to have found out later through some random Facebook post.

On to other not so introspective things---

So now even though I haven't been really in a creating mood, I have been thinking about different things that I would LOVE to make.  For starters I want to make some silk and satin slip/nightgowns.  I am so in love with the one that I have but it doesn't fit my bust as nicely as I would like (since it was made for one).  I also have a whole bunch of embroidery floss that I will never use to do another needle point (those things just get on my nerves) so I am going to use them to crochet some things. I haven't decided exactly what yet but I'm thinking about a little change purse and maybe a cosmetic bag for my purse.  There are a bunch of baby things that I want to make but I know that starting on any of them  right now would just make me feel worse- but when I start feeling more ready I have a lot of things I want to work on-I will share more when I'm ready to start on them, though some may stay secret for a while since I have some gifts in mind.  And, oh the things I want to build-- I want to build a sewing table, the kind where I can fold down the sewing machine. I have a desk that could probably be turned into a sewing table but as of right now I don't have the place or the time to work on it. Well and I might have to get a new sewing machine- yep that's right, my almost 8 year old cheap walmart machine is finally thinking about giving out on me.  It's making a really horrible sound and I'm not sure where it's coming from but I do know that if my car was making the same noise I would be taking it straight to the mechanic.  So with that, I have to wait to make the table when I have another machine since the hole and the drop down mounting thing comes in different sizes.   I also have a little side table that I got from freecycle that I adore, but I only have one and I want two. But once again no place or time to work on it.  I have to refinsh this one and it also needs to be fixed up a bit so as I take it apart I will get all the measurements and stuff so that just as soon as I get the time and space to build another I will have the hard part done. 

So with that I will go to bed and get some much needed rest.  Sorry for the randomness and my crazy obsession with trying to figure things out.  I don't even know if anyone reads my blog but for who ever is reading , thanks and I am planning to have some more upbeat and enlightened posts soon. 
God Bless you all
Jenn

Even Harder to Say....

I don't even know where to begin. I went to the doctor today and the U/S showed no baby. Just an empty sac. Looking at the screen was really like looking into my heart right now. Just a big black hole.

Well maybe not a black hole, but that is how it felt right then. I just don't understand. I still believe that God has a purpose and a plan and will use this heartache for good. I mean he promised that "All things work together for good for those who love Him" and all God's promises are Yes in Christ and they are mine to claim. In my heart I know this but in my head I just keep asking "Why?, How?, What?, When?" and I'm just not getting any answers.

I don't know what the future holds, I only know that I have to trust that God is not going to leave me here. I don't know how long I'm going to have to stick around these parts but I know that God will bring me out.

FYI-- The rest of this post is going to be a lot of random thoughts and ramblings so if you get lost I'm very sorry, I just have to get all of this out of my head so I can start to think more clearly and rationally again.

After loosing Gilbert we prayed about it and I asked God to give me a child when the time was right. And then in less than 3 months there is was- the answer- or so I thought. I thought that I would only get pregnant when it was time for us to add a new baby but then this. -- I guess really if we look at this scientifically, I was never Really pregnant. A baby never developed, just the sac, so I'm not really loosing a baby right now because there was never a baby to lose. -- But I feel like I'm loosing Hope. I know that I'm not the only person in the world to go through this and I know that so many others have gone through worse. I know that I should just be grateful for the three beautiful children that we have been blessed with, and I am, I truely am. I know that there are so many who haven't been able to have a child of their own and my heart aches for them all. Here's the reason that it's so hard for me to see the hope right now- other than the obvious. Ben leaves in three weeks. That means that there is no chance that we will be able to conceive again till after July. Not too bad, but then we are scheduled to move in November so life will be terribly stressful for a month or so while we get the kids settled in school and settled into a new town. I know that if it's God's will then we will have another baby, I just can't see it. I can't see when a new baby would fit. I don't normally think about things in this way but right now I am. Normally I think that you can't plan things like kids- There's never really a right time, God is the only one that knows the proper time for everything. But of course I'm still human and am only able to see what is in front of me and what I see is a lot of crazy stuff ahead. And lets face it I'm over 30 and pregnancies are not going to be as easy as they used to be, and the way it looks now, the soonest I'll be prego again will be 33 and if things get as crazy as I'm sure they are going to be it could be another year.

Right now I just want it to be done. I don't want this thing inside me anymore. I hate having all these hormones surging through my body without having a baby to be the cause. Why did it have to happen at all? It would have been hard not to get pregnant but at least I wouldn't have gone through weeks of hoping and worrying and wondering. I started the meds this afternoon and have had a little bit of cramping but nothing that says- "this will be all over soon". I could have had a D&C but I didn't want to be put under again and since a D&C scrapes the uterus it can cause damage and it can take a long time to get a cycle back. So I decided as soon as she said that it was a Blighted ovum that I would use the cytotec. It's what we used with Gilbert and it was 11 hours from start to finish and she said that with true miscarriages it can take longer for the meds to work, so since this is not a true miscarriage it shouldn't take as long. It's been just over 5 hours and I've used half the meds, but I just now took a full dose (I used two half doses earlier because Ben was at work and I didn't want it to kick in too fast and then not be able to go get Lincoln from school at 3).

Okay so the rambling is done for now. I need to eat some dinner so I don't pass out from hunger. I will keep you all informed as to how it's going. Thank you for your prayers, it is greatly appreciated and even though our prayers for a healthy baby were not answered the way we wanted they were heard and God has answered- Not Yet.

God Bless you all

Jenn

Update: At 10:30ish tonight I passed the sac after only a few hours of light cramping and some bleeding. The cramping was never worse than a normal period of which I am extremely grateful as I did not want to have to take any pain meds. I will now have to call the doc tomorrow to find out when to start blood work for my levels. I might even have another US this week to make sure that everthing has passed (though I'm quite confident of what I saw and examined rather closely- the details of which I will spare you from) Thank you for all who have been praying. I do know that God will work this too for His glory as long as I let Him- and even though it's hard to see beyond this day I am determined to let Him shine. All Hope is not lost, just the hope of this baby, but there is hope for another baby, someday, when God says it's time.

Grief Stinks

Every time I think I'm fine and can move on and be a productive member of society, it hits me like a ton of brinks. There are so many people around me that are pregnant and as much as I want to be excited for them (and most of the time I really am) I just can't seem to muster up the well wishes. I see pregnant women in the store and just want to cry. When will this end? I'm so tired of being sad. I want to start Doulaing (not an actual word) at the hospital here but if I can't even walk through the hospital without tears streaming down my face How can I be with a mama as she welcomes her healthy baby.

I know that God has a great plan for all of this I just don't want to be sad anymore. I want to feel like myself again. I'm not sleeping, I'm gaining weight instead of loosing it (4lbs since the miscarriage) I'm irritable, my hormones are all out of whack, and I'm yelling at my kids all the time. This is not the kind of life I want. So when will it all end? When will the pain of this all go away? I know that it's only been 41days since we found out the Gilbert was gone, and I know that it takes time, but I don't have that kind of time. My husband works all the time, I have 3 kids that I have to be around for, and no money to go do anything even if I did have the extra time to take. I want to keep talking about Gilbert but I feel like no one is listening. Ben wont talk about it and he keeps asking me if I'm ovulating yet (I'm not on the pill and I haven't had a period so I'm tracking my LH to figure out if I'm cycling again) but I don't think he's asking because he wants to start trying again but rather because he doesn't. He keeps saying things about not being able to handle the 3 we have, or they're enough right now. I don't know how to ask him about it without it starting a fight. How can he say that 3 is too much with out me thinking that he didn't want Gilbert at all, and that he wasn't affected by his death.

Then there's the whole side of getting pregnant again. How do I move beyond the desire to have Gilbert back, to the desire to have another child. I don't want to get pregnant in order to replace Gilbert, yet so often that's what I think I'm doing subconsciously. I also feel like I'm wanting to be pregnant just to BE pregnant- to prove to myself that I can do it and that there's nothing wrong with me. But there is something wrong with me, I'm depressed, I don't want to admit it because of all the stigma that goes with it but it's true. There's no two ways about it. I have highs and lows, I get so annoyed so quickly, and I don't feel like doing anything most of the time.

Didn't want to write this post but I just had to. Since I haven't been able to talk about it, I had to blog about it. Maybe through this I can heal faster, and get over this hump, without having to go on any meds. Meds are good for some things but for this I really think that meds will just mask the issue and then if I go off the meds then I'll end up deeper in depression. Thank you all for listening to me. If you feel lead, please pray. I can't stay like this much longer.

God Bless you all

Jenn

Has it been too Long?

It has been a long time since I have posted anything. Not that things haven't been happening and I haven't been doing things but I just haven't been feeling up to posting. I've been reading so many other blogs and spending so much time on Facebook that I just haven't wanted to post and quite frankly didn't think there was much that anyone would want to read.

I so often feel like I'm a nobody doing nothing worthwhile. And even though I still kind of feel that way I figure that maybe someone will read my blog and be inspired, who knows?. But even if no one ever reads it I will have a jornaling of a that I have done and thought and wanted to do.

So for what has been going since my last post last November. . . .

Well, I made a king size quilt for our

neighbors who moved in December.

I fought with the mortgage company for almost a month because they dropped the ball on our short sale and the buyer had to finally walk and so we didn't sell the house.

Had a very small Christmas for the kids since Ben was still gone. I found a surrogate company on New Years day that I started communicating with, and in turn got connected with a woman who was wanting a surrogate to carry a child for her. Ben finally came home in the middle of January. We went home in February and also met the Intended mom in Indiana. We also spent the morning with our old neighbors who moved in December and delivered the quilt. We had family pictures taken while in Illinois and then while in Tennessee we lost our prints somewhere. In March we started on the fast track towards surrogacy. I regestared for a Doula class at the end of March here in Fresno and scheduled my first appointment with the Fertility doctor. Went to the Doctor on the 27th and had my IUD removed. Went to my doula training that night and all weekend. Met some amazing girls at the training. Our instructors were Christian women who have been in the birth world for 30+ years. Also all the girls at the training were Christians, and not just the "sure I'm a christian" kind of christians but real honest to goodness sold out God fearing believers. That basically leads us to around today.

So more about the surrogacy. Well after the appointment on the 27th I started getting this really weird feeling about it all. So I talked to Ben about it and he had not had a settled feeling about the whole thing for a while but didn't know how to tell me because he knew how much I want to be a surrogate. Well then I decided to talk to the ladies at the training on Saturday about it all and asked them to pray with me. They did and we all talked and our trainers gave me their wisdom on the subject. So when I got home on Suday night I emailed the surrogate agent and told her that we really needed some time to pray and talk about it. The next day I got an email from the mom and so I had to email the agent again because she was suppose to talk to her for me. Then the next day I got an email from the agent asking me what I wanted to do about the contracts and stuff. I didn't respond right away and so she emailed me again and the tone of the email sounded really pushy. I told her that she needed to put the contracts on hold and that we wanted to be left alone for a few days to pray and seek God's heart on this. A couple of days later I found out that the IM (intended mom) removed me from her friends list on Myspace and her status report seemed to imply that I had hurt her in someway and that she was ready to walk away. So with that and our strong feelings that this was not the right person for us to surrogate for I emailed them and told them that we couldn't continue on. (A big part of the uneasiness was that I would be using my eggs and she is 45 and single and did not have any intentions of getting married- and I did not feel like I could in all good conscience give away my child- also they were really not listening to me when I kept telling them that if I didn't get pregnant by the middle of April then I couldn't not get pregnant till September or later because of Ben's deployment schedule) So by April 5th we had completely put the surrogacy thing behind us and moved on. Well about 10 days later I starting thinking that something was up with my cycle because I had been using ovulation test to avoid getting pregnant but I didn't get a positive one till day 21 of my cycle which was very unusual. Not only that but I got a positive one 3 days in a row- again strange because you only have one hormone surge no more than 36 hours before you ovulate- however the hormone that releases the egg is almost identical to the hormone released when an egg is fertilized and an ovulation test will pick it up too. Well, so, on the 15th (day 22) I took a preg test but it basically came back neg- basically because there was no line until after the 10 minute window and even then the line was very very faint. So I waited, I even ordered more ovulation test on Thursday. I received my test on Saturday along with 5 pregnancy test. Sunday morning I bit the bullet (after taking an ovulation test everyday all with very positive results) and although still faint it was definantly positive. I had no clue how I was going to tell Ben, he did not want any more kids. On Tuesday I took Lincoln to his 4 yr physical and since we were at the hospital I went to the OB clinic and they put an order for me take a blood test. I walked over gave them a vial then took Lincoln back to the peds clinic. He had a great physical and then we walked back down to the OB clinic and got the results of the test. And yes I was indeed prego again. That night while laying in bed I just blurted out "I'm Pregnant". Ben was in stunned silence for about 5 minutes. We talked about it for a little while and then finally we said goodnight with out really making anything positive happen. We didn't really talk about it again for a few days then finally he asked me what we were going to name her. SO it is starting to sink in and he's coming to terms with it all.

Now I know that this hasn't been a very inspirational post and it probably didn't send anyone out to buy fabric and start creating something great but at least now I am up to date and I can just start posting all the stuff that I'm doing.

So till tomorrow (or maybe Sunday night since I will be very busy tomorrow with a birthday party and dinner with Ben's new boss I will be pretty ready for bed by the time we walk in the door) But I have been working on a lot of stuff that I can't wait to share.

Have a great night everyone and to all the moms that may read this have a very wonderful Mother's day. God Bless.