Colors of the Wind

Over the last couple of years I have been finding hope and inspiration to continue on this journey through listening to songs and actually thinking through what the song is saying. Over the last week I have needed a lot of inspiration to keep going on this journey. Over the last year this journey has been pushing my emotional strength. I thank God every day for the strength he has given to me to get through every day. My relationship grows with him everyday that I am on this amazing journey with him however some days I need some extra encouragement to continue on this journey and I believe that God is leading me to what I need because sometimes just listening to one song can change a very hard emotional day into one of the most amazing days because I realize all of God amazing power and get to see all the miracles he's created. Lately I have been having a hard time seeing all the pregnant women. I know that it is an amazing thing that God has been able to create all of this wonderful miracles for all of these people. I usually have a hard time because I wish beyond word, hopes and dreams that it would be my turn. Sometimes I just don't understand. Lately, I swear that everyone I see and know is pregnant which is wonderful and exciting but some have only been trying for a couple of months and here I have been trying for years. At those moments I think that I am a very horrible person for even thinking thoughts like that. Then God gives me a hit upside the head and makes me understand.
God has a perfect timing for everything and he has a plan. God's plan for me might not involve being a tummy and heart mommy for the same child. He's plan for me might be me being a amazing heart mommy for wonderful children out there who need my love. God has lead us down the road to foster care and hopefully to adoption. I have been trying to figure out weather or not to carry on down this road of infertility treatments. Stopping the treatments doesn't mean that my journey is anywhere near over. In fact it is going to lead me down another lane on the road with new emotion, struggles and pains. I have been praying and asking for guidance of what to do and where to go from here and I kinda feel stranded. I'm not sure because I feel like he is showing me to go in both directions and if that is his plan then he will give me the strength I need to cont down both road but I just feel so unsure of what his plan is.
This month is a month off of meds not by choice but because of another huge cyst. The cyst is not getting any smaller in fact its getting bigger. I can move the cyst by pushing on my stomach and you can visually see it. The pain is back to where it was only 7 months ago. I had a cyst before we started this new treatments of meds. I still have been doing the normal test at home without the meds and it just wasn't meant to be this month. I still have 10 to 15 days to go until the next ultrasound to find out what the cyst is up to. I some what feel that this Gods way of saying that this is the end of this journey but at the same time things have gotten held up on our adoption and foster care stuff so I am so lost beyond words.
Two months ago I would have been ready and was ready to start on the new road of this journey and to move forward but after last month giving me the first hope that something is possible because of God in the last 2 1/2 years makes me now feel that I'm not ready to get off. I tell myself you can't give up now. I'm just going to cont to pray and to ask God for the strength I need to get through each day and for guidance on this journey. It could all just be that right now is not God's time........His timing of things could never be more then beyond perfect.
So here is the song that I found that gave me hope earlier this week after a 10 hour day at work and a week and a half of neg OPKs.



Not a normal infertility song but this song has always been one of my favorites and over the last couple of days I cont to hear this song and it continually comes to my head so I took at a closer look at to what God was trying to show me.

I had to look deep into the words to find what I was looking for but there I found it. It talks about the fact that everything has a life a spirit and a name. To those of us going through this journey we learn to understand how amazing something is even after 1 day of meeting together at which point it becomes a living thing and we long to meet the little one here on earth or in heaven. It talks about people that think that are people are the ones who look and think like you. But the truth is all of those women that I look at and see might have a long journey behind them that I don't know about and that's why God is so amazing.  It talks about hearing animals crying to the blue moon and to me is like asking if you listening to a women going through infertility crying out to God. Can those who have not walked the journey hear our deepest heart crying for the strength we need to carry on. It talks about coming and running the hidden pine trailing and finding amazing things along the way and not thinking about how much there worth. Its just like walking the journey of infertility. The trails are hidden to others who have not walked the journey and there are things that we find along the way that mean more to you than what they are worth to others. It talks about how the rivers, rainstorms and animals are family and it is so true even in the journey I am on. The rivers of tears that flow out of my eyes are my friends and my cat and dog are always here. In fact my cat will come and curl up on my lap when I'm crying and comforts me when there is no one else around.

Sorry for such a long post....I hope it was inspiring to those of you who are walking the same journey I am on. Praying and thinking about all of you. Thanks so much for all of your support, thoughts and prays.
Holly

"While I'm Waiting"

I'm been working on this post for a couple of days not quit sure what to write. My positivity is getting harder to stick to. In the last 2 days I have received $998 bill from the clinic and $287 bill from the company that reads the ultrasounds. Still waiting on my bill from the labs. That is only for 1 month of treatments. So I have figured out that one treatment of just Famara with no other meds is going to cost about $1500+. I have a feeling that in a couple of months we will be taking out another loan for medical bills.

Part of it is that this month without any treatments seems to be going on forever and I'm not even half way through. This month seems to be a test of my strength. I know the last few months have been testing my strength but this one just seems so much harder. I think that I am just getting impatient with waiting. I have been praying and praying for Gods strength to get me through and to give me the strength I need. The amount of pain I have been is so intense which is the same level that I was in last October when I ended up having surgery to remove the cyst. I keep telling myself I can do it...I can do it...but having to miss a day of work because of the pain doesn't make it any easier.

Things I have miss....
Actually kind of miss all the people at the doctors office. They have been so supportive. I go to just the regular doctors office for my ultrasounds and blood work since Seattle is about 5 hours from here. When I call or walk into the clinic they all know who I am and even the people I don't work with know who I am. I kinda miss all the test too...I feel like I have so much time its kinda wired.

Sorry for the randomness but I've been trying to put my thoughts together for a couple of day and its just not working. It has just been so hard to stay positive this month. Like tonight sitting at home by my self on a Friday night does not help. I would love to have kids running around screaming or crying. Its just getting hard because I know I am facing the facts of having to have everything removed this time. I have been ok with it in the past but after last month and actually ovulating for the first time in 2 1/2 years it made it so much harder to accept the fact. Before have I always told them its ok but that was because nothing had happened in 2 years but now that something has happened I'm kinda lost.

I have been listening to lots of songs to try to keep me going positive...so here is one of them...




Sorry for the lack of positivity in this post but I am working on a better one for tomorrow. Some time ago I started posting stories from the bible of women who went through infertility issue and then I stopped and never finished so my goal for the next 2 weeks is go finish that project.

Off the topic  I am working on a marathon for 3 months (March, April, and May) I have a feeling that God planned the timing. It is an ultra marathon and for the next 3 months I have to walk a total of 150 miles minimum and I'm out to pass the minimum, my goal is 200 miles.  My goal for tomorrow is 6 miles. Walking has always been away of coping for me and I feel that god has led me here for a reason. I use to walk 7 miles a day and I'm really hoping to get back to that. I have also been so frustrated because I worked so hard for 3 months to shed off the 15 pounds I needed to to start treatments and after lots of ups and downs, extreme pain and surgery. I finally got to where I needed to be and now after one months of treatments I have gained 12 pounds of that back. So I am fighting full force to get the 12 pounds back off in the month I have off.

Don't get me wrong because I would give everything in this world up for just the chance of getting pregnant just 1 more time. I have such a huge longing for just one more chance of having one child of my own to hold in my arms that I have and would given up so many of my favorite foods and drink. I have given up my life style I was living and moved far away from my family to make the money I would need make just the minimum payments that the hospital will take and still provide the services I need to continue the treatments.

Thank you to all of you out there who support me and pray for us. You have made a huge difference in my life and just by reading your blogs can turn a horrible day back to a wonderful day just by guiding me back to God faith and word. I can't say thank you enough....
With Love and Hope for all of you out there who are on this special journey down this road that we get to travel on with God. I pray for each and everyone of you that if you are still waiting for your miracle, like me, that god will bless us when the timing is right. Every morning I look at the sunrise and thank god for all the miracles that he is making for the day. And for those of you who are currently expecting a wonderful miracle from God I just pray that everything goes well and that you get to meet your wonderful miracle when its time. And for the ones who have a wonderful miracle or two..I just pray and thank God for giving you the strength to get to where he has guided you so far on your journey and pray that he cont to guide you on your journey with him.....Holly

Sailing Through The Storm

Sailing Through The Storm

By Matthew Chadwick

Lord, I am worn from the weather, the raging waves
That beat against the life I awaken to each day.
I know You are good, and You will never forsake
But it is hard to see You working, in the waves great wake.
So to the Lord I will lift my voice, calling out in my time of need.
I cannot navigate this ship alone, so to You, O Lord, I give the lead.
Lord, hear my prayer, I cry out in distress,
The waves of the storm seem never to rest.
Yet I know You are the Master of the waves
And into Your hands I commit my life this day.
Amen.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought
them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves
of the sea were hushed.

Psalm 107:28-29 NIV

Femara Treatment #2

When I was thinking earlier about what I was going to right it was going to be nothing like I'm going to write now. I was going to say how hard it is especially on Thursday when I went in for my ultrasound every women besides 2 in their 60's were pregnant. Then I went in for my ultrasound and I was crying because I was in so much pain and the ultrasound for 45 minutes did not help at all. Then the horrible phone call today which said that the treatment is OFF due to the cyst enlargement. Go in again on the next cycle for baseline and if the cyst has not gotten smaller or stopped growing its surgery again to remove it. The pain is so bad that just sitting here is unbearable.
While I guess I kinda did write about it now but nothing like I was going to but instead I'm going to be (I should say try) positive about this which is so hard considering the amount of pain I am in right now however it is all in God's timing. I went to a seminar today called the connected child and I loved it. I have fallen out of love with my job and have lost my passion which I think is from everything not going well and I'm just wearing down. In the seminar they talked about how you choice the path of which something is going to be positive or negative. This adventure and journey I am on is something only selected people get to go through. Even tho this is one of the hardest journey's I have ever been on there are things that I have gained out of them that I never would of got to of done and won't be where I am at now in my life.
I have gain a relationship with God. I would have to say before all of this started my relationship was not the greatest and I did not give him the time he deserved. However I have changed lots of things in my life and now spend more time with him in a week then I did in a whole entire year. He has led me through all of this and keeps giving me hope that things can and will happen its just when the time is right in his book. I was looking at seeing all of those pregnant women as a horrible thing and why was he doing that to me after just finding out the night before that I wasn't pregnant. Now I realize that it is gods way a reminding me that miracles do happen and my baby just isn't ready yet. I have also gained blogging friendships with all of these wonderful and inspiring women and if it wasn't for this journey I would have never of met them. There are so many other things. I am because of the seminar God led me to today looking at the positives otherwise I would be sitting here crying my eyes out but instead I am sitting here thinking how lucky I am that God choice me to walk this journey with him.

I'm going to leave you with this.................

Femara Treatment #1 and More

Update...Sorry it took me so long but I have been sick and very busy. My progesterone level from last week Wednesday was 10.4 which means that I did ovulate (The first time in 2 1/2 years) but we must of missed it. So next month we are going to do everything earlier than normal. So now I'm just waiting. I thought I would be nice and schedule the ultrasound ahead of time so we did Day 3 so if it was the next day it would be ok but I guess since I was trying to be organized it decide not to work. They don't think I'll need meds to get it started since I did ovulate :) So the next treatment is going to be the same. Baseline ultrasound day 2 or 3 and Femara days 3-7. We praying that it works this next time.

For those of you who don't know we have been working on paperwork since Nov to become Foster/Adoptive parents and we are signing our paperwork tomorrow at 3 and then we just wait for the phone call from there. However for all those people out there who say just adopt it is not that easy. We are facing some very hard things. A lot of the agency's will not let you start the process or adopt a child well in the process of receiving fertility treatment. So are you not only faced with the fact that you are struggling will all of the things that go along with infertility you also have to stop treatments for the 2 years it takes to totally finalize most adoptions. Sadly that is not the worst part...Some or Most agencies require that if you become pregnant while in the process of adoption...the process is stopped and the child is removed from your home (what a horrible thing not just for the family but the child).  For those of us who have been waiting so long to have a child and then to sit here and wonder what if I were to finally get pregnant due to God's amazing grace that if I were in the process of adoption that they would take the child away. So we are now facing the idea of weather or not we want to cont the treatments and hope for a miracle or to stop treatments and just wait for a child to be placed with us.

To break all those theory's out there that once you adopt you will end up pregnant. That's not true. If you do end up pregnant it is because of God and his wonderful miracle that you would end up pregnant and that is not why we are perusing adoption. We are headed that way because we feel that is the way that God is leading us and we are just praying that he cont to guide us in the right direction. Thankfully going through the state of Idaho they do not remove the children from our home or stop the adoption process because you end up pregnant. Going through the state has its ups and downs but we believe that god will lead us in the right direction. For more info on our journey through foster care and adoption. Contact me and I will add you to the blog due to it being blocked.