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

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.