Sunday, April 25, 2010

Random Thoughts

I've just barely started my blog and I'm already slacking...seriously. Three times in one week - OH so bad!

I'm a seriously bad Catholic. Very very bad Catholic. My husband and I visit my parents almost every weekend (because we're pathetic and have found no new friends in Jacksonville). Mass in the town my parents live is at 8:00am! I am no morning person (i'm going to blame it on hypothyroidism...HA!) and I just can't drag myself out of the bed to go. Let's be honest, it's just an excuse. I don't feel the pull I used to. Obviously, I feel guilty about it, or I wouldn't be blogging about it. Being raised Mormon, we were told when we pray to THANK God for the good things in your life, and not just to ask for things. I know it's a good idea to have, we do need to thank God, but I feel like I only go to Mass or Church to ask or BEG for things. Whether it's for me, or someone else, I only ASK for things. I try to through in the things I'm thankful for, but only because I feel like I have to, in order to get my prayers answered. Like God won't answer my prayers, unless I thank him first. God doesn't answer my prayers because it's not his will, not because I'm not kneeling right, or saying the right things, or holding my mouth right.

I hope that made sense, because I'm not re-reading it. Sorry!

I do love my husband, and am grateful for everything and everyone in my life. My husband is loving and understanding. Sometimes I wonder if marrying a man 10 years older than me was wise, and then I realize he keeps me a little bit more grounded than anyone else would. He's wise enough to help me put things in prospective and for that I am grateful. I get my panties in a wad about the craziest things. I am a control freak and freak out when I can't control situations. As you all know, infertility does not go well with control. DANG IT!

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In cycle news, I'm on CD12. No sign of good CF yet. Hopefully ovulation will be soon, and the egg(s) I ovulate will be worth a damn!

Question, my husband is going to have a sperm analysis done. He is not at all excited about it. He is very worried about getting his sample in a licit way. I've read we can buy a non-lubricated condom and poke holes in it? Is that correct? Any other ideas? We've never used condoms together and it was a very LONG time ago that we used them with anyone else. I can see this turning into a disaster. I need help!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Pulling Teeth

Why does it feel like I have to pull teeth to get blood test results?!?! I just want my last labs of thyroid tests and anything else they ran and I cannot get any cooperation!!! AHHH! I should just learn how to write my own blood draw orders. My husband does calls me Dr. Beth, I received my degree from Dr. Google Online. HAHAHA!

Oh if only it were so easy. That's all I have to rant about today. I hope everyone is having a great day!

Monday, April 19, 2010

Moving on

Thanks girls for all the welcomes. Now that I got all the background stuff out of the way, we can move on to happier, better things. Too bad there's nothing exciting going on in my life right now! HA HA!

The weekend was good. I spent all last week in D.C. on business so it was soo good to be home. I'm such a baby, I'm not used to being by myself for that long without my Bubba. I had fun though and saw a lot sites. I had never been to D.C. before, so it was all new. I went to Arlington National Cemetary. That is such a somber humbling place. I felt so small. It's amazing and so incredible sad all at the same time.

I also went to the Basillica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It was beautiful. I've never been in such a huge church. I went on Tuesday and prayed for This Cross I Embrace. TCIE has been having a really hard go of TTC and adoption lately and I felt compelled to pray for her. I hope my prayers did some good or will do some good. I of course prayed for all the other bloggers out there, but TCIE was heavy on my heart that day. I lit a candle and felt such peace. I loved it.

In fact I loved it so much, I almost got locked in...WHOOPS! I even had to jump the curb in the parking lot, because they had already locked it up. It was quite an adventure.

I went to the White House, The National Mall, Monuments and all the other touristy stuff I could get in after all day meetings. We went to Clydes in China Town and Grevey's in Falls Church. Also some new swanky restaurant in Falls Church called 2941 Restaurant. Over all a great trip. I would love to visit D.C. when I had more time to goof off and also take my husband...I hated being by myself...BOO!

God Bless.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Worst Part...

This will be the story of the infidelity part of my blog title. This was the worst and darkest time in my short little life. My husband had an affair...there I said it.

Throughout my whole life I always swore up and down that I would never stay married to someone who cheated on me. Well I've been cheated on and I'm still married. The thing I worry about with this post is demonizing my husband. He's not a bad man, just made bad choices. Bad choices happen to the best of us.

Last year he started reconnecting with people on Face.book, just like everyone else in the world. He reconnected with a girl he went to high school with and had treated very badly at one point. He felt bad for what he had done to her for the longest time. When they reconnected on Face.book he thought it would be a great time to apologize for mistreating her. Well the apology led to forgiveness and stupidity.

To start with (at this time) our marriage wasn't in a great place to begin with. I'm not sure what went wrong or when it went wrong, but we had stopped talking and I was miserable. I was living out in Utah (away from my family) and hated my job. His kids and ex-wife were giving us grief and it was just a bad time all around. Yes, if you do the math we were trying to get pregnant at the time. I know, I know it all sounds so horrible.

I confronted him, I had my suspicion, he denied it. I called the girl. She told me the truth. Bubba and I had the worst fight in the history of fights. We yelled and screamed and threatened...ok, well I yelled and screamed and threatened. I was hurt and pissed and crying. I felt like my world was falling apart. I stayed away from Bubba and from Church. I went to work and went home. The hate was consuming me. I had to go to confession. Dammit! So I went and I have never been more mad at everyone and at God for letting this happen. For watching my marriage crumble and not stopping it. I know it was not His fault, but I was mad and I didn't know what to do. After confession, I felt better, but not good enough. I wanted it to be my end all cure all and it wasn't. I went to the doctor and for the first time in my life I was put on anti-depressants.

Two months later, I told my father. I was ready to leave Bubba and I needed a place to stay. I. Was. Coming. Home. He said OK. I quit my job and I went home (our home). I told my Bubba it was over, I was done, I couldn't do it anymore. He was shocked and scared. He knew I was serious and he knew he was losing me. I told him everything. And for the first time we finally talked.

Longer story short, he moved to Florida with me. My dad had a "chat" with Bubba and we started our road to recovery. I am happy and he is happy. I know I'm not the only person on God's earth to go through this, but sometimes it feels like it.

Please don't run away screaming from my blog. I know I've thrown a lot of info out there for the first two posts. God Bless.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Our TTC Story

We were married March 2004. Lovely ceremony, beautiful day, no regrets. However, consummating our marriage did not come easy. For months/years were in doctors' office after doctors' office trying to figure out what was wrong. My new husband had no sex drive and non-working equipment. I realize this may be TMI, but I need to get the whole story out. We went to 5 different doctors. They all said, you're just FAT. East less, work out and you'll be fine. WHAT.EVER. Now to the doctors' defense, Bubba had gained about 100 pounds in just over a year or so. From about 230 - 330 (he is 6'1"). A big dude. Well he couldn't lose weight no matter what he did and was too scared to take Viagra (this is soo embarassing).

We finally found a doctor that actually listened to me. I KNEW there was something wrong with my husband. He ran a battery of blood tests and realized he had very low testerone levels and hypothyroidism. Normal for a 30 something year old male is like 600-1100, Bubba's was 106. NO WONDER! HELLO! Stupid stupid doctors. They put him on injectable testosterone and life has been lovely and normal ever since. I talked to his endocrinologist about HCG in combination with the testosterone, but she wouldn't do it. I knew injecting testosterone would make problems for when we really wanted to get pregnant. They call it "male birthcontrol" for a reason. But we always hoped, we could/would get a miracle baby regardless.

During this time my periods are getting farther and farther apart. I finally go the gynocologist and given a drug to start my period. Lucky for me, I didn't have to take it (I started a few days later). I asked her to run thyroid tests (can I say LOVE DOCTOR GOOGLE!). She did and said I was normal. Well thank goodness we had an endocrinologist already, so I went to her. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Synthroid straightens out my cycles to perfection 28 - 31 days.

Well fast forward a few years. No pregnancy, nothing, nada. We move to Florida and starting looking for doctors. My cycles are getting longer and longer. My doctor diagnosed me, last week, with PCOS. She told me she ran a C-Peptide test. Normal range is .4 to 2.4, mine was 6.2. I would say there is definitely something wrong. I was immediately given Metformin (500 XR). I don't have a cycle any longer than about 40 days (i know its very good for PCOS), but it's so confusing.

I have great fertile mucus, everymonth. We use fertile days. Can PCOS make you ovulate bad eggs? Or does it just make it seem like you're going to ovulate but then you actually never release an egg? I hope someone is actually reading this blog and can tell me.

This trying to have a baby thing is going to be an adventure.

Introduction

Well I finally did it. I. Finally. Started. A. Blog. Holy cow!

My inspiration for starting this blog are all the wonderful Catholic Infertility Blogs I've come across. I need an outlet for my frustrations and rejoicing and for maybe just some plain ol' good fashion ranting. The blogs I have come across, like Sew Infertile, This Cross I Embrace, All You Who Hope, Grace In My Heart, etc are wonderful! Of course like so many other of us "new" bloggers, All You Who Hope was my gateway blog. Since that first "hit" I've been addicted to reading all the great blogs I mentioned below and many many others. I am so thankful for the blogs (people) I have found, even though NONE know I exist! HAHA! It's ok, I pray for them anyway and they have no idea who I am. I can always hope my little prayers did some good for at least one of them.

Ok, on to ME!! My name is Beth (I'm 30). I am married to C (who we will call Bubba, who is 40) he loves that name by the way. HA! You can tell from the name of my blog, we've had some interesting, difficult and rewarding times together (I promise I will fill in all the gaps in later posts). I have two stepsons (ages T is 17 and Z is 16). We live in Jacksonville, FL now, however we spent most of our married life out in Salt Lake City, Utah. We are fairly new to the Catholic faith, we were received into the Church 3 years ago. We were both raised LDS/Mormon.

Bubba and I have been married for a little over 6 years. We have been open to pregnancy for the whole time, never contracepting, but have really just started TTC over the last year/year and a half. I will post our TTC journey later.

I decided More Than Anything to be the title of my post for lots of reasons. I want More Than Anything to be a mother, to have unwavering faith, to be a good wife and daughter, and to enjoy and live life to the fullest. Not necessarily in that order. There are many many things I want More Than Anything! I only hope to choose the right things to want.

Let the fun begin!