Filling the Need

Well, 4 fish, and one lizard later, I'm still feeling that desire for new life. I really want a new kitten or puppy for Christmas but we just can't afford it and frankly I don't want to clean up all the mess. But I still have that desire for new life. I've thought lately that once I turn 30 I'm just going to go on birth control or maybe use other forms to prevent me from ever getting pregnant because I think 30 is just too old (at least for myself) to have a baby, the baby would be at the minimum 7 years younger than Abbie, it would be like 2 families! I'm thinking maybe in the Spring we'll get a new puppy. I don't know. I just hate that feeling of emptiness and craving. Lizards and Fish DEFINITELY don't fill it. And either does chocolate. Darn it.

Where the Miracle Lies

I forgot to share a really cool story. I have been on this process of "finding my why" and I received a personal revelation that totally changed my paradigm. I've known for almost a year now that the real reason I'm not able to have more children is that the Lord has a different plan for me right now, I have some sort of task or "assignment" I need to complete right now that the Lord knows I couldn't if I was pregnant or had little ones. So in understanding that, and embracing that, the other night as I was saying a prayer, I had the thought... "Maybe the miracle I'm waiting for won't be in getting pregnant, maybe the miracle is that I haven't gotten pregnant in five years." And I know this is too personal, but I actually laughed out loud when I had this thought, coming from the Lord's point of view "And you haven't made it easy with the amount that you two make love." So my paradigm totally shifted when I realized that it is the Lord and his hand in what is happening in my life, and its a matter of trusting him, knowing that I really should be grateful that he's helping me become that person that he knows I need to become to have that ultimate happiness I'm looking for, and that I shouldn't see Brad or I as "broken", but that the Lord is working a miracle every month to prevent us from messing up the plan that he has for us. Pretty cool!

Gratitude

Yesterday was a great day. Not to say there weren't many tears and much sorrow, but it was a great day. I spoke with a great friend of mine, Shirley Morgan, who shared with me a thought from one of my favorite books, "Remembering Wholeness" by Carol Tuttle. Its a great one. The thing I was struggling with most is what's the point in hoping and desiring and having faith in something if it's the Lord's will for it to NOT happen, it won't, so what's the point of even trying? In Chapter 37, it talks about how before this life we chose the trials necessary that we'd need to go through in order to become the people we need to become to be more like God. And my friend said to me, "Did you ever think that maybe you chose this trial for yourself because you knew you needed it?" It was almost like she pulled the rug out from under me and left me on my butt. I never once thought of it, it was always what God was doing to me, not what I had planned for myself. It gave me ownership in my trials that as sucky as they are sometimes, I knew I'd go through this and for a great reason.

I thought back to my "plan" for my life. It basically consisted of getting married to my dream man, having five kids, always having dinner ready at 6:00, living in a decent house, getting the kids raised, married in the temple, and moving onto retirement. There was no dreams, no success, no personal enrichment, no self discovery. Maybe if my life happened the way I had planned it to happen when I was younger, I wouldn't be able to have true happiness, find my great sense of self, and all the things I can accomplish, and especially I wouldn't have the opportunity as much to help other people in this life because I would have been so focused on just my family. I am feeling an incredible sense of gratitude for this trial and who it has made me become.

Yesterday I came to the decison that it will no longer be a "what if", it is a "when".... and more importantly right now, "until then..." What I mean by that is I've been so worried about "what if I don't get pregnant", "if I don't then I'll be so sad... etc"... but I decided that I need to look at it as "until the time comes that I get pregnant again, I'm going to live every day to its fullest. I'm going to learn everything I can, and when I get pregnant, I will be so grateful that I had the chance to take that time to learn and grow and be a better person and a better mother, ready to raise another child whom I will be so much more grateful for.

So, the lesson of the day, is gratitude. Maybe I'm smarter than I thought :)

Finding My Why

My cousin's wife whom I dearly love, Katie Jensen has her own personal blog about her journey through infertility and I felt like today I needed to start my own so as not to blab my drama to all my family and friends and possible ex-boyfriends :), so I decided to start this. Thanks for reading. Started cramping again yesterday after I lost a $1000 sale with my J Hilburn business. I thought to myself "there's no way I could be taking this so hard that it would be effected so physically by this", but then I realized, oh yeah, "Its that time of the month, crap." So then I had to do my quick psycho inventory to figure out if I was going to be okay this month or have a break-down. I decided I'd be fine because if I got pregnant this month I may not be able to go to Mayakoba Mexico next May with J Hilburn, and that would suck to work so hard and then not be able to go, you know? So I thought I could get through this month without a problem. Well, this morning I threw that out the window and started feeling down. These are the thoughts that came to my mind:

"If its not god's will that I get pregnant, its still my fault."

"I feel like I don't have control over the whole situation but that its still my fault and that I'm letting him down. I don't know what else to do."

"Its my fault for some reason I don't know. But I feel like its my fault. "

Last thought: If I do get pregnant, I feel like there is some sort of lesson I'm supposed to learn from this whole experience and until I do, it won't happen... so what's the lesson? Why do I have such an incredible desire to have more kids when I'm not getting pregnant? God doesn't want me to be sad, so if its not his will right now, why do I have this overwhelming desire? If I wasn't supposed to have more kids, I'd be fine with that, and I'd accept that, but deep down inside I know that's not true, I'm almost 100% sure I'm supposed to have more.

March Post

March 27, 2009. Well that lasted a good 2 months. I’m not sure why I’m feeling the way I am, I guess that’s kind of a normal thing with me lately. I get all these feelings and they confuse me. I’ve been doing really well with work, getting really good at my job, and feeling like I want it to be more permanent. Brad had a lunch thing with the other consultants at work and I wasn’t even invited and I felt really left out and like they didn’t feel like I was important to the partners. I don’t know if they just assumed I couldn’t come or what, but a part of me wants to establish myself at this company as somebody important. But then another part of me says that I really should be at home, pregnant, finishing up our family. That my place isn’t in the workplace, and I shouldn’t invest myself into something that is just going to go away as soon as I get pregnant. And then I won’t be able to be important in this company because I’ll be too busy with a baby. I’ve got this inner battle of work vs. home, and the stupidest thing is that I’m not pregnant and don’t know if I’ll ever be again. But I want to be, but part of me says why even hope or try, just concentrate on work. I don’t know. I’m struggling as you can tell. Sometimes I hate responsibility. Sometimes I wish I could be a teenager again, where my biggest concern was if people liked me or if I had a boyfriend or if I could keep my boyfriend without actually kissing him. Those were the days. And they were so drama back then too. I was so worried about finding my true love. I guess my life is kinda boring comparatively, or maybe its just different. Now I’ve got little mini-Angels, replicas of my drama. I’m getting close to the age where being a mother of a baby is almost not an option anymore. Most of my friends are finishing up their families of 4, some have already called it good at 2. I wish I could just say we’re good and move on, but I know that we have at least one more, if not two. And it is almost haunting to me. I feel like I’m in such limbo. Like I can’t take the next step, but I can’t stay where I’m at. I don’t know. Its such a guessing game. I wonder if its me, or if its Brad, or if its Gods timing. And no matter what I try, nothing changes, its always the same. Over 4 years, I think we going on 50 months of disappointment now. Wow. So let me ask myself this, “What do I need to learn?” The only thing that comes to my mind is “Trust in the Lord’s Timing”, but say that’s what I’m supposed to learn, I’m having a hard time with figuring out how I’m supposed to feel or act or respond. I need something to focus on besides disappointment. I don’t know what I can focus on. Hmmm.

January 22nd Journal Entry

January 22nd, 2009. Tomorrow is my 28th birthday. Getting up there, huh. Well, I’ve been struggling since last week over this whole not pregnant thing and I think I figured it out this morning. At least I’ve found some peace and understanding, which I guess you could define as figuring it out, at least the reason I’m not. Okay so here we go. Here’s what I feel like the Lord is saying to me:

“So here’s the deal. If you want a baby THAT bad, so bad that you can’t wait for my timing, then by all means, I’ll give you one, but you won’t be happy about it, you’ll feel guilt and anxiety and you won’t be able to enjoy it like you want. At the end of the year you’re going to need to be out of debt and buying this new house, how do you expect to do that with a brand new baby? You’ll have to work full-time if not overtime in order to make your goals happen, goals that are not unrighteous, but are right for your family, and if you had a baby right then you’d be unable to reach those goals, or at least you’d have to sacrifice other things in order to reach them. If you want to be able to stay at home with this baby, give it a few more months. You’ve made it this far, you can make it a little longer. If you can wait a little longer, and work on that patience you have such a hard time with ;), then you’ll be able to be out of debt, own your home, and be able to stay at home and not have to work as much, you’ll be in a much happier state and situation that will ultimately bring you much peace and happiness.”

So, there you go. There is my answer. I feel much better about it to be honest, it makes sense. One thing that’s been bugging me is that I’ve felt like the Lord has punished me for being in debt with not having a baby. And with this understanding, this isn’t a punishment, he’s actually helping me to be happier and be in a better situation so that when the blessing comes it’ll actually be a great blessing I can enjoy rather than a stress and hard trial to endure. And I know I’d feel a lot of guilt if I had a baby before I could financially stop working, and its not a bad thing that I’m working, its quite a huge blessing, and the Lord isn’t punishing us, he’s giving us a hand out of this huge hole we’ve dug ourselves into. How is that a punishment? We’ve punished ourselves, yes, we’ve made choices that we shouldn’t have made, and been through many trying experiences that have resulted in much debt, but the Lord is helping us out of something that we have created ourselves, we must take responsibility for our choices, and be grateful that the Lord is there to assist us when we need it the most, how is that a punishment? He wants to bless us with this baby, but we must be in a situation where we can truly ENJOY that blessing, because otherwise it’ll become another big trial, and the last thing I want is the thing I’ve been wishing for for FOUR YEARS to become a trial, I want to enjoy every second. SO, there it is. Hooray, and Thank YOU for this understanding.

Another January Post

This was an entry from my journal in January 2009, not sure how much it is a duplicate from the other entry...

The reason I feel like I needed to write down my thoughts this morning is because once again (like almost every month) I thought I might be pregnant. I was two days late, which I haven’t been in forever it seems, and I thought that maybe this could be the lucky month. Its been 48 months of trying, of excitement, of hoping, of having faith, and then being incredibly disappointed. 48 months. That’s a long time. That’s a lot of disappointments. I wish I could throw in the towel and just give up and say I’m done. Do you know how nice that would be to be done, no more diapers, no more potty training, no more terrible twos… but I’m not. I can’t. I won’t. I know that we have at least one, probably two more children waiting much more patiently than I am to come to this family, and I wish we could just get to that point. Its pretty tough to see everyone around me get pregnant with the blink of an eye and have 3 kids since the time we started trying after Abigail was born. 3 kids! I’m so grateful for Victoria and Abigail, they are amazing, and I know many people out there don’t even have children at all, but I just can’t get over this yearning for more, and its really tough to yearn and not be able to stop, yet not be able to fill the cup. I hate it. I thought last night as I was praying that I finally got to the point that I wouldn’t be sad anymore if I wasn’t pregnant, I was fairly confident in fact. I told the Lord it was up to him, and I know that it is, and that he has a plan for us, and his plan is always way better than mine. I know these things to be true. But when it comes down to the final truth, it 100% sucks. I can’t get this lump out of my throat and that yearning seems to just get stronger and I just can’t let it go. I want to. I want to give up and quit. It wouldn’t hurt as bad. It would take away the pain and failure and disappointment. Everything I hate. Yep, tears are flowing now. I’m not supposed to feel this way. I’m supposed to just accept it and move on. You’d think after 48 failures that I’d be used to this, and that I wouldn’t feel the emotion and the pain and the failure, but I do. Oh how I do. It seems to get worse. I wish I knew how I was supposed to feel and that I could just do that. I mean, what is it that the Lord wants me to do? I know he doesn’t want me to give up, because he keeps giving me these glimpses of hope, and frankly, they get rather annoying after all the failure. Why do I have to feel like I’m pregnant when I’m not? Why do I have to be 2 days late? Why is it that everyone around me is pregnant or has new babies? And almost no one knows of this struggle because we already have two kids, so how could we have this problem, and why is it an issue when we already have two? Well, I don’t know the answer to all of these questions. I don’t. So, I move onto failure number 49. See you next month.

January Post

I wrote this on January 14th, 2009...

I remember like it was yesterday when I got married to Brad, I was young, innocent, naive, and completely... clueless. We went to go buy a house one day, the guy told us we couldn't because we had no credit. Like I knew what that meant. I just thought that you get married, you buy a house, you have a baby, he works, I stay home, raise babies, and some day we'll grow old and look back and say "Remember When." Marriage to me was the 'all solution' to every problem I had. It was the goal, not the beginning. It took me about a year and a half of complete cluelessness and bliss to realize that life had just begun... along with all our trials. I thought that since I had found the love of my life, everything else was "in the bag"... HA!

Some may look upon my life and think I've got it easy. But just like you, I have problems, I have trials, I have emotional breakdowns, and I have horrible life experiences I wish to never EVER experience again. We all have our fair share, some may have more than others, but its what we can handle, and I respect those with more than me as I know they are stronger than I.

Shortly after I had Abigail I couldn't shake the feeling that another child was waiting to come to our family. I always felt like our family was incomplete. We decided to start trying again pretty quickly since I knew it was to be. Four years later, I sit, in front of my computer, writing to you, hoping that I may touch someone, teach someone, or maybe just talk my feelings out. Who knows. 48 times we've tried. 48. 48 months of dissapointment, of failure, of hoping and being crushed.

If you haven't experienced this, maybe this will shed some light, if you have, you can understand: The first week starts with this incredible dissapointment, this feeling of failure, and complete loss of hope. Followed up by emotional roller coasters, physical pain (cramps, etc), and feeling like your broken. The next week and a half comes with hope and faith and a new desire to try again if you're lucky, sometimes its just a chore. I've only felt like its a chore about 3 months of the 48, so I'm good there. Then comes the week and a half of waiting and feeling those false pregnancy symptoms that get your hopes up and your faith built that for some reason or another, this month will be different than all the other months. And if your lucky, those pregnancy signs aren't there, your just late a few days to get your excitement really high. And then the vicious cycle starts all over again. And again... and again.

After about a year I started bargaining with the Lord. Saying, if I do this, then you'll give me a baby. Things like reading my scriptures every day, saying my prayers every day, etc etc, things I should be doing without any promises from the Lord. But you start with that, at least I did. Then you try the "I'm not trying" because everyone says when you stop trying is when you'll get pregnant. But that never works because when you want a baby, you never stop trying deep inside, your mind is always on it.

So after that doesn't work, you rotate between the anger, the yearning, the sadness, the denial, the hope, the failure.

After 3 years I looked back and said, well, I'm glad it didn't happen when I wanted it to because that would've been hard to have a baby then, but now is a great time to get pregnant, good things are ahead and we're READY, finally, we're READY. AND... the cycle starts (literally I guess :) ) And a year later from that I thought I finally came to grips with it all. Last night I prayed since I was 2 days late and said, "I hope that I am, but if I'm not, that's okay. I know you have a plan." I thought I really felt that way. Then this morning the disappointment came in all its glory around 9:00 and I just broke down! I thought I would be fine. Guess not.

So I called a good friend of mine who has experienced infertility for ten years before being blessed with her fourth. (3 kids born, then 10 years of infertility, now she's pregnant with her 5th). She reminded me of some things I've learned about other aspects of our life, but never thought to apply to this situation in particular.

Sometimes we are like a two year old. We want something so bad, we think it should be ours, we ask for it and don't get it. We ask nicely, we don't get it. We try to take it, but no luck. We beg for it, promise anything for it, and no luck. So we throw a tantrum, we kick and scream, and cry, and all we're doing is hurting ourselves. As the patient Lord watches us with a pitiful smile and knows what is best for us, he waits for us to calm down and submit, and say with a sigh, "Okay, you know whats best for me, I don't have to have it." Whether its just a matter of timing, or whether it is something that we shouldn't have that we think we should, our knowledge is that of a two year old compared to him. And we just need to submit.

The other thing she said, was that faith is sometimes misunderstood. Faith isn't just believing and hoping and thinking good thoughts about something until it comes to pass. Faith is believing and hoping but most of all, having our will coincide with the Lords. We can think and hope and believe all we want, but if the Lord has a different plan, his will overrides any thoughts we have. So if we want something to work, our will has to be inline with the Lords. And THAT'S when we can be happy and never fail, when what we want is what the Lord wants for us.

So, it could be another year, or maybe five, or maybe ten years before we have another baby. It could be that we only end up with two children. Only the Lord knows. It certainly is not a trial I wish on anyone to experience. Its hard to see friends and family get pregnant with the blink of an eye, or long time friends who've experienced just this finally get their moment. Its hard because I'm so happy for them. I truly and genuinely am happy for them. But its hard because I want to share in that joy, and experience it right along side of them. I wish so bad I could have that in common with them, that womanly bonding of calling on the phone and sharing symptoms and pregnancy pains and woes and stories. But I suppose its not meant to be, at least for now. And that's okay. Because the Lord has a plan, and I know the Lord doesn't find joy in my suffering. He's suffering right along side with me. He wants me to be happy, and somehow, in some way, unbeknownst to me, I'll have greater joy.

Finding my Why

I tend to like to ask questions, for example, my favorite question, is WHY. This blog will be dedicated to my journey through infertility, and finding myself throughout this journey, feelings I have, thoughts I have, and things like that. So I hope you enjoy, by reading this, you are considered one that I trust, and I hope you will find some peace or at least feel understood by reading this. Thanks :)