3 Years, Loss, and Infertility

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Donor Diva

On Monday Ant will be 3 years old. It has gone by so fast. Last year around this time I got very depressed about not being pregnant with our second child and knowing we were several years away was a hard pill to swallow. Some how I got passed it and have been enjoying life.

At the end of January my Grandma passed. She was my last living grandparent and I still haven’t dealt with this loss yet. Ant and I flew home to spend time with my family and it was great but my younger sister is pregnant with her third and see her pregnant is very hard for me. I am so jealous of how easy it is for her to conceive.

This trip has reignited my desire and want for a second child coupled with Ant’s birthday has made it even harder. Most the time I am staying positive but the soonest we will be able to start again is next year around this time. It is hard being patient.

Dear God

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Donor Diva

Dear God,

We have become very close the last 6 months and I feel very blessed to have found a new church home. This new church home has taught me many things and has helped me to get to the place of understanding I am at today. I enjoy thanking you for my many blessings and enjoy praying for others but I have found there is one thing I am afraid to ask for. I am afraid to pray for another child. Maybe it is the many years of unanswered prayers? You did eventually answer our prayers with the blessing of our son Ant with the help of an egg donor.

During my trip home I was faced with my failures (or what feels like my failures). While I am excited for my sister’s blessings but I am just green with envy of how easy it is for her to add to her family. Watching Ant play with all his cousins and their siblings rekindled my longing to add to our family.

Lord her is my official prayer, I want to add to our family! I want to lift it up to you and you can guide us down this path. Whether you bless us with a little miracle, 100% genetic sibling to Ant, embryo donation, or adoption: I would feel blessed to have another opportunity to raise another child.

Thank Lord for all of your blessings.

Bitter is not Better

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Donor Diva

Over the years of IF I have met many people and created many new friends. I will fully admit I have bitter moments but they don’t happen very often anymore. About a week ago I had a bitter moment because it seemed everyone on Facebook was pregnant again. While I am ~~100%~~ 98% happy that we are not pregnant or planning to cycle anytime soon but that little bit of jealousy or bitterness sneaks up on me.

While my IF friends some still in the trenches and others have graduated can still be very bitter and judgments of our so-called “fertile friends.” We are surrounded by fertile people or the single people who are surrounded by married people. There are just things we suck at for me it is getting pregnant. I am just done with bitterness because it brings me down to dark places and I love the light. I love my family and the many blessing it has given me. I want to leave the bitterness behind and focus on the future.

Still Here

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Donor Diva

I have been meaning to post for months now but every time I start a post I never finish. Here is a really quick update and hopefully I will be writing more soon.

Gradschool: Finished my first full semester back I got A’s in both of my classes! I also decided to transfer to an online degree because the 5 hrs a week I spent in the car driving was to much. Also, I will be able to finish in less time this way.
Ant: Ant will be 3 next month! It is hard to believe my little baby boy will be 3! He is just an amazing little boy. I have known that he was advanced verbally and in other ways but I didn’t realize how much until talking with the nursery workers at our church. We were discussing when he would be joining the Sunday school class. They asked when his birthday was and then said, “He will be 4 right?” WOW! They were blown away when they discovered he was only 2.
Christmas was AMAZING!!!! Christmas with a almost 3 yr old is wonderful. Ant loved visiting Santa at the Mall and we were lucky enough to get a smile. He proceeded to ask Santa for a fire truck and a vacuum. Of course Santa came through even though it required some extra shopping.
Winter Break: I had a great time with our family and friends. Ant and I had a great time playing and doing crafts. We were blessed with a little snow which was a lot of fun while it lasted.
Life: Over the last 4 months we have become friends with our neighbors. While struggling with IF and healing I found it hard to make friends. This has been a blessing because most of their children are close to Ant’s age, so this equals lots of play dates. Also, lots of mommy play dates

This has truly been an amazing but busy 4 months. Hopefully this is the start to many more posts to come!

When Life Feels Almost Perfect

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Donor Diva

It has been a long time since I have posted. There has been a lot going on but not much to write about. Tonight was the first night in a long time I felt the need to write down feelings. Sorry if this makes no sense but these are just some “Late Night Ramblings.”

Late night ramblings:

For the most part things have been going great. I feel so blessed…but there is still a little part of me that is still a little depressed. In my now very busy everyday life there is very little time to confront this feeling but when I find down time this feeling creeps up on me.

There is no real reason for me to feel this way because today turned out perfectly. The dentist appointment for my crown happened. There were many things that could have prevented this appointment but everything just worked out. Also, when it came time to pay this week just happens to be “crown week” when you get $100 off your crown. How is that possible that everything worked out perfectly today.

Now after a “perfect” day I feel a little sad. My heart aches. Maybe a few to many references to infertility today. Maybe I am nervous for my mid-term tomorrow.

Infertility has been a part of my life for at least 5 years now. Since we started TTC in 2006 I am finally out of the fog of infertility but there are still a few times when infertility sneaks up on me. After a perfect day, she rears her ugly head to remind me that no everything goes perfectly. Obviously in my late 20′s we needed an egg donor to conceive our amazing son. Infertility keeps me grounded but I don’t always want to be grounded because I want to have faith again. I am not going to let infertility hold me back anymore. Infertility has stolen enough from me (us).

Infertility you may make my heart ache still but you will not be stealing anything else from me. You get this hour but no more. You are not bringing me down again!

Positive Outlook

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Donor Diva

As you know my new motto for life is, “Not if, but when.” Infertility has shaken my faith to the core and in the last six month or so I have been rebuilding it. Just a few simple changes in my daily life like making a prayer time every day have changed my outlook on EVERYTHING!

Over the first 8+ years of our marriage we have made many mistakes. We haves learned from these many mistakes but today I found one thing that I did right. Granted I have done many other things right but this one thing lifted my spirits even more. I want to shout it from the roof tops, that is how proud I am.

Life is moving in a positive direction and I love it.

I miss blogging

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Donor Diva

Grad school has taken over my free time. The evening time that I used to spend blogging is now taken up with grad school homework. For the first time every I find myself trying to get my homework done as soon as possible. As a working, grad student, mom I have to utilize every spare moment possible.

There is so much going on.

#1 I seem to have found a place of peace and I don’t think it is temporary. My cycles has come and gone with no worry about possible pregnancy. Life is just going on. About 2 months ago I heard an amazing sermon titled “No if, but when.” After I started changing how I thought about building our family it became easier to deal with now. Now instead of saying “if we have a second,” I say, “when we have our second child.” With everything happening in our lives we know that now is not the time to be adding to our family.

#2 Faith: It is absolutely amazing how my faith has changed in the last 6 months. While we were TTC my faith in God was tested. At times I thought how the H*LL could he do this to us. Granted this journey was hard but the bigger picture is setting in.

#3 Work and Grad School: Work has been keeping me very busy. Last year I was spoiled with an AMAZING work schedule. I am wishing I had started back to grad school last year now. This year my work schedule is very hard. Not only am I teaching my max number of classes but they rearranged where they are placed making the ends of my days very long. Then adding being out of the house 2 nights a week and homework…BUSY!!!!

Well, I want to say more but my play time is up. I am here just busy!

Life Update

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Donor Diva

I have been struggling to write, so I am just going to bullet point what has been going on.

My younger sister is pregnant AGAIN with #3 (if you know me IRL please don’t go posting on her FB pages she hasn’t gone public yet). I am so glad my sister doesn’t have to go through this journey but I am so jealous at times. I long for another child and know the hoops will have to jump through to conceive again (ex. DE, embryo adoption). It is just absolutely amazing to me some times how we can be genetically related. She is super fertile and I am super infertile.
AF (TMI alert) My currently cycle has been weird. I started spotting 4 days before my actually cycle started (abnormal for me). Then AF was lighter then normal. The worst part is I have been bleeding or spotting for almost 2 weeks now (Thursday will be 2 weeks). I am just ready to be done wearing pads.
Found out my friends who have been married for 11 years are pregnant with twins!!! I am so excited for them because their IF journey was much longer then ours. They tried many options and are now expecting. M if you are reading this: I miss you guys already, it was so nice visiting with you and T. Can’t wait till you guys live closer again.
Found out grad school credits have a 7 year window! FUCK! I started my masters 7 years ago this past summer. Those credit now don’t count towards my masters. To top off the bad news I failed my placement exam and was told I wasn’t going to be able to take the class I needed this semester.
Good News: Pleaded my case to my professor and she let me into the theory class I need. Also, I figured out I can finish my masters in a year and half if they approve my 8 year window extension. This means I will be starting work on my masters project ASAP (eck!)
I have a new motto that I am going to share with you in a later post!

I want to drink the water

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Donor Diva

People often talk about how if you drink water for a specific place you will end up pregnant. One of my favorite bargain sites just put up a post about drinking from their water cooler if you wanted to get pregnant. Right now is one of those moments when I want to drink the water and I WANT to be pregnant!

The realist in me knows now isn’t the time. We are getting so close to getting our family in a better place, so we can be ready for another child. Since we have Ant the idea of adding to our family is more complicated. We aren’t just thinking about the 2 of us but Ant too. We need to be responsible about this. I guess we learned something from the first time around, kids are expensive (especially for us).

I want to drink the water!!!

Just having an emotional moment, thank yo for listening.