16: The Facts of Life

1. I am 24 years old.

2.  I am not overweight.  I am not underweight.

3.  I don’t drink caffeine or alcohol.

4.  I eat generally healthy foods.

5.  I got married and I finished college.

6.  I love my husband very much.

7.  I take a prenatal vitamin every night.

8. I go to fertility acupuncture once a week.

9.  I have unexplained infertility.

10.  I feel like a failure.

11.  We’re getting ready to start our second round of clomid.

12.  I will be 25 before we have a baby.  I said the same thing last year about being 24.

13.  I have no idea what we’re doing wrong.

Ps.  Happy National Infertility Awareness Week.  Or something.

My Love Will Be There Still

This whole year we’ve been trying to have a baby, I’ve been beating myself up and assuming it was my fault.  I’ve felt so defective and so useless as a woman.  I blamed my cycles, my stress, my poor immune system, and a medication I took when I was 18.  There were times of desperation, of hopelessness, of guilt, of despair, of depression, of worry, of disappointment, and everything in between.

We didn’t know that our whole baby making world was going to get tipped on it’s side and then rolled around a bit when my last cycle ended.

The week of Thanksgiving, Jeremy went to the infertility clinic to get a quick test done.   Our year of trying to get pregnant will be up after this next cycle, and we wanted to rule out any problems with him before we started scheduling doctor’s appointments.
His results came back this past Monday and knocked us both over in shock.  It’s not me.  It’s him.  Our likelihood of conceiving naturally over the course of 2 years is only 1%.

96% are all the way to the right.

When we found out, my heart broke a little bit.  Not because our baby making journey just got that much more challenging, but because I had a good idea as to how he must have been feeling.  He held up like a trooper though.  He’s been the strong one all along, and he seemed to get that much stronger when he found out.
After being in shock for 5 minutes, we got to work doing research and emailing our doctors.  He’ll go see a urologist in January and I’ll go see my doctor the following week.  He’s started taking multivitamins and a host of other supplements.  We could still get pregnant naturally with his number of normal sperm, but his number of straight swimming, mobile sperm is only 2%.  That is the major problem at this point.  We’re going to start going to the gym and eating better as well.  Each of these things has been proven to improve male fertility.

While this news was hard to hear, it could have been something so much worse.  No one is dying, no one is sick.   We’ve come to terms with never having a baby.  We’re still going to try our hardest to figure things out and to have a child of our own, but we’re determined to be happy and thankful for each other.

In other news, we put our Christmas tree up last night.  I’ll be 24 in a few weeks.  Yikes!

Farms and Weddings.

My weekend went surprisingly fast.  I’m not going to lie, I was pretty apprehensive, but it’s amazing what a glass of wine does to make everything seem a little better 😉

On Saturday, I went to Kuiper’s Farm with my mom, sister, and niece to check out their fall/Halloween festivities.  We had a nice time…

Spooky or posed? You decide. 😉

And made some friends…

Besties

And of course, we got some delicious apple cider donuts. Yum. 🙂

Saturday evening, we went to my aunt and uncle’s house to visit with my grandparents and my other aunt and uncle.   They were all in town from Michigan for the weekend to be at my dad’s wedding on Sunday.

While it was nice for everyone to be together, it was weird watching my dad get married for a third time.  We like Colleen and I’m glad that my dad is happy.  It’s just a really weird feeling.  Confused?  Me too.

We’re hoping she mellows him out a little bit. 😉

It was nice for all 7 of us to be in the same vicinity.  It will probably be a while before it happens again.

High School Musical would be so ashamed...

We gained 3 new step-siblings..

The fluffy ones are my brothers...;)

My grand total of siblings and step siblings? 10.  And then you can get into in-laws and spouses and it gets really out of control (think upwards of 16+).  Out. of. control.

All in all, it was more pleasant than I had assumed.

❤

 

October 2: 7 Years

Although this weekend started out pretty rough, it seemed to end on a better note.  There were a lot of tears this time.  I wonder if it’s going to keep getting harder.  I had assumed it would get easier, and it was for a while.  I think the worst part is that there isn’t anything that can be done right now.  No one can make this easier, no one can make this hurt less.  I’m developing this deep anger at body that, for once, doesn’t stem from a physical trait.  I feel incompetent, useless, broken.  I feel like there’s something wrong with me.  Like anything else that isn’t performing the way it should, the way it was made to, things feel very wrong.

I’ve wondered a lot lately about never having kids.  A lot of people don’t.  We originally weren’t having any.  We’ve been talking about greyhounds.  And an iguana.  But then what?  I suppose we have endless possibilities.  Fostering, adopting, dying all alone… to name a few.  No positive enough?  Too bad.

We saw a couple movies this weekend.   Abduction with Taylor Lautner (No, there are no werewolves.  Dissapointed?  Me too. 😉 ) and 50/50 with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogan.  50/50 is the big winner.  Jeremy and I both agreed that it was a GOOD movie.  We don’t often agree on things like that.  I laughed, I cried (real shocker, right?), and then I laughed some more.

I did some sewing.  I slept a lot.  Laundry.  I cuddled with Bella.  And Alice.  I know, crazy weekend.

I suppose on one happy note, Jeremy and I started dating 7 years ago today.  Here’s a picture from a few days later.  It was our Junior Homecoming, we were 16-years-old:

Aww, look how clueless we were... 😉

We really liked each other.  Cute and smart?  –>Winning.  We fought a lot.  We went through a lot.  But 7 years later, he’s still my very best friend, the best husband I could ever hope for, and the best man that I know.  Despite everything we’re dealing with right now, I’m still a very lucky girl.

Re: Fingers Crossed and Other Pet-Peeves

A gal I went to elementary school and junior high with wrote a blog recently about how it irks her when couples don’t  get married thinking that it’s forever.  At first, I agreed with her.  Mainly because most young couples don’t realize how difficult marriage is and how much work it really takes and they should think they love each other enough to beat the odds.  Be prepared to put a million times more into your marriage than you ever put into your dating relationship.
But then, I started wondering if it’s the smart ones that go into their marriage with the realization that half of all marriages don’t succeed.  I suppose there are two types of those people.  People who are just keeping it real and people who are using the thought as an excuse for divorce.

I suppose I can’t say what’s right for everyone or which mindset works better at keeping your marriage and your sanity afloat.  I just know that being married is the most difficult and the most wonderful thing I have ever undertaken.  While I may not put as much into my marriage as I should sometimes, I know it definitely deserves the most attention in my life as it is the one thing I have that will outlast school, jobs, and friendships.

I can’t tell you if I got married thinking I was getting married forever.  I sure hope so, but the reality is there was no way I could make a completely informed decision on the topic as I had no idea what marriage really was.  In fact, I’m still figuring it out.  I can tell you now, however, that I’m married forever.  From the good days to the bad months to the good years through the fights and any marriage counseling it takes.  My husband is my soul mate not because he’s fated to be so, but because I’ve decided he is. 🙂

❤

Love Vandals

I have a guilty pleasure to admit to.  As much as I love reading people.com, I think I might enjoy reading the Frisky even more…
While absentmindedly skimming it yesterday, I came across a page called “Love Vandal” and it brought out the sappy, hopeless romantic in me for a few minutes… 😉

Here are a few of my favorites for your viewing pleasure…

"I want to know what sets your heart on fire so I can be all that and more. I love you."

Love Banksy's work. There's some in Chicago as well... We'll save that for another post though as its not quite romantic enough 😉

=)

❤

I think I take that last one a little too much to heart sometimes…  😉

Night!