Prayers for Tucaloosa, Alabama

I'm currently in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (my hometown), and the devastation is horrific.  My dogs and I were in a safe place when the tornado hit yesterday afternoon.  DH is out of town for business.

Please keep family and friends in your thoughts and prayers. Many have been affected. 36 people have been confirmed dead in our town so far.

Here's a video of the tornado.

Today I felt the Joy for my unborn niece ... mi sobrina preciosa

A few days ago we found out that my little sister is going to have a little girl.

I will admit that when I heard the news that she was expecting (early this year), my first reaction was sadness.  It was not fair.  She's three years younger than me, had only been married for seven months, and wasn't planning on conceiving.

I had endured multiple - I mean a plethora - of intrusive exams for the past year.  The day before I found out about her baby, my DH and I had our first RE visit.  I was feeling optimistic about our next steps and feeling hopeful that we were close to finding answers. That excitement ended with that phone call.

It was a call I sort of dreaded.  I didn't think it would happen this soon. I didn't think it would be this way.  It felt like a huge punch in the stomach.

After the sadness subsided, I thought about my baby sister. I remember when she was born.  I remember holding her as an infant.  I was only just over three years old, but I remember feeling this strong love for her.  I remember thinking (in my three year old mind): "I am going to teach her everything I know.  I am going to protect her.  She is my sister and I will be a good friend and big sister to her."  Now there is a tiny baby growing inside of her.  And I am happy.

It took me a while to get to that point.  I cried and I cried. Then I cried because I felt guilty about crying. But the joy did come.  I still feel sadness, but not for her.  I feel sadness for us.  I've helped guide her through many things in life - her 1st day of kindergarten, fixed her ponytails for picture day, taught her how to ride a bike, held her hand on our walk to school, gave her advice when she experienced a broken heart ... and stood by her side as she married her incredible husband.

This time around, she will be a mother before I will.  Motherhood is not something that I know. I will not be able to guide her through her pregnancy or give her advice on what to do when the baby is born.  It hurts me that I can't do that.  This time she will have to teach me.  She will have to guide me.  I've taken a backseat and I feel a little defeated.

But today was different. Today, I felt the joy.  As I walked by the baby section of a department store, I saw a tiny little outfit with the imprint "My Auntie Loves Me".  I felt it right there - I felt joy for my niece.

My niece will be the first baby in our family (1st grandchild for my parents) and already she is loved more than she will ever know.  I look forward to holding her in my arms and telling her that she is loved by her Auntie.

To my sweet little niece: You have already changed my life, and I thank you for that.

Welcome to ICLW!

If you are stopping by for the first time via ICLW, welcome!  I'm trying my best to be better about posting on here, but don't seem to have much time in the past few weeks.

You can check out our TTC Timeline in the 2nd tab above.

Here are our current stats:
Married 4 years, 4 months. Trying to have a baby for almost two years (20 cycles to be exact).  I have fairly regular cycles and DH has okay swimmers.  I would say he got an 'A' on his recent SA.  Morphology is not the greatest, but also not of much concern to our RE.

We visited a fertility clinic in the South (of the USofA), where we are from, last year.  I wasn't very impressed with the care I received and therefore didn't want to pursue treatments with this particular clinic.  We moved to New England (MA) late last year (woohoo, we love it!), and we were very excited about more options for IF care.  In January 2011 we met with an amazing RE.  He scheduled a Saline Infused Sonography, and found scar tissue on the right side of my uterus.  I was very excited to finally have a possible explanation for our unexplained infertility.  Scar tissue could be the cause of our problems in trying to make a baby, as it prevents implantation.

So here we are, playing the waiting game once again.  I'm scheduled for my Hysteroscopy in a few weeks, and hopefully we'll be one step closer to creating life.

Happy ICLW my fellow IF bleeps!  I'm so glad to have you all as cheerleaders and race-to-baby buddies.

It's CD1, and the only thing that could make me laugh is this video...

So, it's CD 1.  That means we've been TTC for 19 months unsuccessfully.  We've been doing the BDing for quite some time, and still haven't received the prize.

I'm not feeling chipper today, and the only thing that makes me crack a smile is this video.  I've seen it many times, but thought it needed to have a space on my blog.  So, here it is.

Pregnant Women are Smug

Enjoy!

I love my animals... but I hate PETA

PETA made a really bad choice recently to offer a free vasectomy for any man willing to neuter/spay their pet.  That wasn't what pissed me off.  It pissed me off that they are doing this 'in honor' of Infertility Awareness Week.  How is offering free vasectomies honoring infertility? After receiving tons of emails demanding that they remove the infertility reference, PETA has only made things worse.  A representative supposedly apologized (here's a link to that). Then PETA sent out responses to complaints - in one of the responses they said things like 'maybe you should just adopt'.  Just goes to show how clueless PETA representatives really are. I love my animals, but don't think that PETA is a reputable organization.  I will forever boycott them.

If PETA's actions have also bothered you, please sign this petition - Tell PETA: Infertility is not a joke

Here's a link to a great post one of my IF Tweeps posted. Also, I'd like to add it to my blog.

Here's the post from http://alittlemore2life.blogspot.com

I'm Interrupting the Love fest to hate on Peta

Shame on Peta for targeting RESOLVE's Infertility Awareness Week. I consider myself to more aware of animal rights than most. I don't eat much meat, and have spent about half of my life as a vegetarian. I am currently taking the steps to go almost vegan, have eliminated dairy from my diet, have cut the amount of meat I eat by over 75%, and have decided to only eat eggs derived from cruelty free farms. I adopted both my dogs from shelters, promote spay and neuter programs and try to educate family, friends and acquaintances about adoption, sterilization, and backyard breeders and puppy mills. I am slowly eliminating all products that do animal testing from my house, including Cascade, Neutrogena and Dial. I may not be doing everything I can, but I am doing more than most.

This being said, I do NOT appreciate being the target of Peta's sick joke about infertility by running a promotion IN HONOR OF RESOLVE'sInfertility Awareness Week. I've had enough of Peta's one sided, self-promotion. I have had enough of Peta's hypocrisy. I have had enough of Peta's smug attacks on a group of people that is already fighting so much misinformation. I will never click on another Peta link or refer back to the Peta website again.

Are you as pissed off as I am? Here's what you can do:

   1. Email Ingrid Newkirk, PETA President, directly at ingridn@peta.orgto express your outrage.
   2. Make a donation to RESOLVE in Ingrid Newkirk's name.
   3. Bust a myth for National Infertility Awareness Week.
   4. Write your own blog post expressing your outrage, tweet about it or Facebook it. Just don't link directly to the page to rob PETA of pageviews. Here's a handy screenshot instead.

What IF: A Portrait of Infertility

I came across this video today from The Infertility Handbook website.  Very touching and encouraging.

A toast to ... blessings

A few weeks ago I attended a friend's birthday dinner.  I was preparing myself for a semi-awkward night because I was the only one there that is not yet a mother.  DH was out of town, so I had to face the evening alone surrounded by four other couples.  As expected, the evening was taken over by stories about children. The only time I was able to contribute to the conversation was during a small interval in which in-laws were discussed.  Other than that, I just listened.  My heart ached that I couldn't join them in the baby talk. I drowned myself in my only companion - a glass of wine... or maybe two... or three.

Two things hurt me during that dinner.

1) My only IF friend was present.  She was the first person I told about my IF struggle.  I felt safe sharing with her because we were going through it together.  In 2009, after about a year struggling with infertility, and some treatments later, she became pregnant.  In the Spring of 2010, she gave birth to twins.  There weren't very many people that knew about her struggle.  When others would ask if twins ran in her family, she would lie and say that they did.  Now, I don't know why anyone would ask that.  That's pretty intrusive.  I might have said the same, especially if I wasn't very close to the person that asked.  I think it's none of their business if it runs in her family or not.  However, as time progressed, I noticed a complete change in her.  I don't blame her too much, after all, we didn't have IF in common anymore. However, it still hurt.  Since she wasn't admitting her struggle to conceive or at least toning down some of her comments/actions, I felt like she was trying to do whatever possible to fit into the 'fertile' group, leaving IF behind, and with it our friendship.  She never talks about it anymore; sort of like pretending it never happened to her. I lost my friend to the smugness.  I know she doesn't mean to hurt me through some of the things she does.  I know it's not intentional.  This friend was at the dinner that night, and she didn't do much to make me feel a part of the group.  I was an outcast, and that was pretty disappointing. I'm going to try really hard to not follow in her footsteps when we do get pregnant and have children.  I'm going to try really hard to be sensitive to other IFers out there and never try to deny what we've been through.

2)  The part that really hit me during that dinner was the birthday girl's toast.  She had given birth to her second child about two months before, and her birthday dinner was her first night out.  She tapped her fork against her wine glass, and proceeded to give a toast.  First she thanked us for attending.  Then she said that four years ago she prayed to God for a wonderful husband.  God answered.  Then she prayed for two children before she turned 30 years old. God answered.  She said that she is in disbelief that God had so far answered her prayers exactly how she wanted them answered. I was pretty floored by her toast to say the least. I thought, wow, she must be God's favorite child! I know that's not true, but it sounded like it.  I've prayed for many things in my life.  I believe that God always answers prayers.  I don't think that they are answered in the exact way that I would want, but they are answered.

I realized at that moment that I am extremely blessed for the answers I've gotten.  I also prayed for a wonderful husband, and a family before a certain age.  I do have a pretty fantastic husband.  My children didn't arrive at the age I desired, and that is probably all in God's plan for my life. I know that eventually I will become a mother, whether it's through giving birth or via adoption.  I know that I've been blessed with the many things that I do have.  I have my health, aside from infertility.  I've had the opportunity to travel the world.  I've been able to live in three different countries.  I've learned new languages.  I've met some incredible people along the way. My life is full of great experiences.  All of which I never imagined. My dreams have been tiny compared to God's dream for my life.  That fact alone gives me more comfort than anything.

One thing is for sure, I've had the opportunity to meet some pretty amazing people on this IF journey. Most of them I've never met, but I've instantly felt a strong bond.  A strong connection like none other. I wouldn't change that for anything.

I am blessed beyond what I ever envisioned, and I'm glad that God didn't answer my prayers in the way I wanted them answered. All of the blessings I have I could not have even daydreamed. I am grateful. I am grateful for God's faithfulness and love.  I am confident that He knows the desires of my heart and that no matter what, my prayers are always answered.

Ima Slacker

Yes, that's me.  I've been slacking lately on updating my blog.  Mostly because I've been busy reading others... and because I discovered Twitter... uh-oh! :)  There's so much to this underground IF community.  It's all very interesting and encouraging.  Follow me on twitter - @oneineight

I'm going to at least try to write one post per week.  I promise.