Drawing with a 3 year old

 Last night we went to dinner with one of my best friends and his family. His 3 year old son definitely hit that “i need to go to sleep meltdown” moment while we were waiting for food. So i pulled out some paper and markers because i’m a crafter and of course i have paper and markers in my bag lol. He calmed down and drew pictures and colored for a while. I just sat there watching him and occasionally added little doodles to the page (he drew a spiral that i turned into a snail).  I couldn’t help getting a little teary.  Like this is what i want. I want figure out ways to calm my child and watch how they see the world through their drawings and i want to draw pictures of things at their request.  

Honestly, I almost burst out crying when my friend picked him up and tickled him. Seeing my friend as a father is still crazy 3 years later, but its good. I’m glad that he gets to have these experiences... i just hope and pray that we get to experience parenthood too.

 Damn this blog is depressing AF.

I started this blog to help me process through the feelings that im having with infertility aaaaannnnndddd its not helping. I tried to stay all hopeful and whatever but month after month of negative pregnancy tests and ever present periods is wearing me all the way down. I feel like I have no one to talk to about this. I hate this and it feels utterly hopeless. 

A Year Later

 This blog is a whole year old... That is kind of amazing. I was hoping that our story would have more happy news by now. Another year of trying. 12 months of annoyingly present periods and at least 3 months of late periods that gave that "maybe this is it" type hope.  But the only consistent thing has been the emptiness of my uterus. Oh and the new babies being born around me *shrug*. This particular aspect of my life continues to be soooooo grossly disappointing. I have to work very hard not to heap feelings of inadequacy and brokenness on myself. It is hard.

It's hard not to think that something is wrong with me. 

No Good News

Today was the day that I was suppose to be doing a pregnancy test...
But instead, i'm changing frigging tampons.

My period came yesterday. It was a hard day. Today is a little better... still very disappointed about the whole thing. It sucks the MOST when I allow myself to feel hopeful. I knew, even when writing that blog post a week ago and saying how I was feeling "cautiously hopeful," that that little bit of hope could come back to bite me. 

And it did... that vicious little bit of hope. Anyway, I've started setting up my calendar for this next cycle of trying.  I'd say wish us luck and send us prayers, but let's be honest, no one reads this. This is literally my voice floating out to the ether. 

Dreams

 It’s 7:30 on Saturday morning and I’m awake.

Yesterday, I smelled the smell of my period starting. It’s a particular smell that only comes right before my cycle. I smelled it while i was out shopping and it freaked me out so much that I checked in the car... but there was no blood, so i felt a little better.

Then last night, we got together with some of our friends to have Friday night worship at church and i smelled it again. This time it made me really nervous because not only was i wearing my mask, i was also wearing jeans (earlier i was wearing leggings) so smelling myself really worried me. So when we got home i immediately checked... still no blood. 

I decided to just go lay down and try to relax. Lamar came in and rubbed my belly in that way that feels like prayer and i fell asleep.

I was talking to my mom and telling her about the smell. She was reminding me that she’s been praying for us to get pregnant and it would be ok. I felt comforted. Then i got up and there was blood dripping down my legs. And i cried those angry hot tears. And i cried that ugly cant breathe cry. And i was disappointed and angry and sad and fed up and so many other emotions.  They were all wrapped up in my tears. I went to the bathroom and just sat on the toilet and prayed for comfort getting through yet another unsuccessful ttc month. And then i woke up.

I woke up so relived because i realized it was a dream. My mom lives in Delaware. So that couldn’t have been real. I rolled over and got out of bed to go to the bathroom only to see more blood. The biggest clot i’ve ever seen was in the toilet. And i quietly got up, locked the bathroom door, and sat down on the floor to look at it and cry. My dream was true. I cried and cried and said goodbye to the could’ve been baby. Then i went and sat in the living room.  But the room was wrong and there were other people I didn’t know there. I looked around and then I woke up.

I was in my bed and the lights were on. I put my glasses on and looked at the clock. It said 7:16. I didn’t know what day it was, but i remembered having the bloody dream. So i slowly rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom. I sat down holding my breath but there was no blood. I pinched myself and accepted I must be awake. 

So here i am, sitting on the bathroom floor writing and feeling hyper aware of my body.  Ive felt a couple small cramps happening around my stomach and every time I pray God please let me keep this could be baby. please.  

There are 3 full days between me and the end of the two week wait. My last cycle started on day 44. Today is day 41. I’m nervous. I’m freaking out. I’m praying for peace ahead of whatever my body does in the next 3 days.

I’ve never (to my knowledge) had layered dreams like that.

The shower is running, but i’m kind of scared to move. Scared to get in and potentially see blood washing down the drain. I still smell the beginning of my period. That specific scent. And its really worrying me.

One Week In

Aaannnnddd another 2 months have passed...

🌻

A couple posts back I wrote about my friend telling me about the "soft cup" method. She also introduced me to the SMEP (Sperm Meets Egg Plan) method. Soft cup uses a menstrual cup to keep the sperm near the cervix and SMEP calls for daily ovulation tests and every other day sex and lots of tracking. As you can see, my friend is really into methods. 

🌻

This past cycle, we tried them both. First of all, that is a lot of work, lol, and with Lamar getting home late and tired (thank you volleyball) it was an especially draining lot of work. We joked a lot about the "utility sex" and just joking like that made it feel less stressful.

The daily testing for SMEP was interesting. I stopped doing ovulation tests a while ago because even when we would try when they came up positive, we still weren't successful. It got to be really discouraging.  This time, I used a kit from amazon that had an accompanying app (Premom).  The app would automatically judge and chart the ovulation test results so I could see the daily changes in my hormone levels. That was fascinating for me. I had a few realizations over the span of this past cycle. The most poignant being, I have so many expectations about how my body SHOULD work and what it SHOULD BE doing at a particular time in my cycle. The tracking apps and their predictions just worked to highlight those expectations, and when my body doesn't move in the way the apps predict it should, I get upset or sad or discouraged.  The Premom app highlighted 3 days as the predicted LH peak which is basically the harbinger of ovulation. BUT my hormone levels were decidedly not going up with any amount of quickness. After the predicted peak days passed with barely any elevation in my levels to speak of, I started feeling that familiar discouragement, but I decided to keep testing until my period came. Definitely out of curiosity. Not hope. I wanted to see what WAS happening and I wanted to track it.  Plus, I had just started with a new PCP, had my thyroid levels checked after going off my medication for almost a year (they weren't too bad yay), and restarted the meds. So in my mind, my hormones were probably out of whack.  I'm so glad that I kept testing because my LH levels peaked a week after the apps predicted.  Why? I have no idea at all. It felt sooooo good to know that my body was creating the hormones I needed and I was actually ovulating. That was one less thing to quietly freak out about. Anyway, we kept with the SMEP/Soft Cup method through ovulation day and now we wait.

🌻

We are currently one week in on the two week wait.  I am cautiously hopeful because my last period showed up 10 days late. So, if I'm honest, there are still 3 more days where it can show up and ruin the party.  But we won't think about that. So yeah. Here we are... fingers and toes crossed.

🌻

Another Downer. Sorry.

 So my period is currently 6 days late. That should be cause for celebration, BUT according to the test i took this morning, I’m not pregnant. 

No pregnant and no period. That is the ultimate level of frustration in my opinion. Like, not only is my body having its cake and eating it too, but I cant even judge what my next cycle month could be like. *sigh* 

I’m proud of myself for being able to focus pretty well on work today. It helped that it was a really busy day and i started it off with a benadryl thanks to a super swollen eye.  Anyway, i made it through the whole work day with no tears until i talked to my mom. And then I cried a little more when Lamar came home and i talked to him. But the thing is, I dont know how to really express what it feels like to keep hoping for this baby month after month and being consistently unsuccessful. Lamar keeps telling me things like we weren’t active at the “right time” so he wasn’t hopeful. 

I keep praying for God to make me no hopeful.

At least if i dont hope, i wont be so devastated every single freaking month.

I’m thisclose to giving up the hope for natural conception.

Maybe we just cant do it. 

Maybe I just cant do it.