Life Matters

People who know me well know that I am politically minded, perhaps to excess. I am a news and political commentary junkie, and express my opinions on current issues openly in face-to-face conversations. 

I have dialed back some of the vigor with which I engage in debate, and I hardly ever enter the fray online, since I find the lack of accountability and overall vitriol associated with the "mask" of the internet counterproductive when trying to have a legitimate conversation about the things that really matter. 

But I won't hold back in my opinion on this particular topic. First, because it has been a moral absolute for me since I was a teenager. Second, because it is so closely tied to everything I am dealing with in my own life right now.

Life matters.

I've said this before, in a variety of contexts. In some circles, it is met with nods of agreement and understanding. In others, it leads to a discussion of exceptions and extremes. And sadly, it has also been met with anger, accusation and demeaning attacks.

Life matters.

We are a day away from what I honestly, in the deepest parts of my soul, believe to be the greatest tragedy perpetrated against mankind, by mankind-the day that marks the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision of Roe vs. Wade. 

I am not debating the merits of the case that has redefined personal politics for over 40 years. 

I am stating something that I know now, more than ever to be true.

Life matters.

Since October, I have said goodbye to life. I firmly believe my first lost pregnancy in October was a twin pregnancy. I have no medical proof of that. I do have intuition and spiritual knowledge that has helped me to know that. Those babies came and went in the blink of an eye, but left an indelible mark on my life. And they were, contrary to what many would say, babies. Small as a grain of sand, but they were babies. They were life. 

My more recent loss, a little over two weeks ago, was more tangible. Pictures on the ultrasound tangible. Felt like a miracle tangible. A baby. A life created by people with the help of a talented physician and some powerful medication. Small, only a centimeter. A miniature peanut on the screen. An absolute life. 

The political fracas over abortion makes my head spin. Makes me sick. It always has. Now, more than ever. Because if those babies who are aborted 6, 8, 12, even up to 24 weeks are not life, then what are my little angels? 

Are they not life too? Were the moments I felt my heart connect to them and communicate with them nothing? Does the grief I feel over their in-utero deaths not exist?

We have devalued life to the point that we don't even recognize the miracle that exists when a life is created. It is an absolute, undeniable miracle.

I have watched dear friends lose children at different points. Some, when they were teenagers, and a gaping hole like none other has been left in the wake of their magnificent, sparkling, joyous lives. Others have lost babies after only days, and sometimes, minutes, of their birth. The hole left behind is no less real. Those lives mattered. They were miracles.

After three and a half years of trying to create a life, I am now, more than ever, convinced of its' majesty. It is no accident. It is not something to be made into a political fight. It has nothing to do with privacy. To end it, at any point, is a tragedy and I daresay, a sin that I cannot comprehend. 

I don't say this to ruffle feathers or pick a fight. 

I do say this to plead and implore that we each reexamine the value we place on life. 

There are medical considerations related to this subject that are hard to fit into my moral framework. I have had to work through those. My recent miscarriage came with the option of a D&C. I chose no, with the understanding it may become medically necessary. These things happen. Thank the Lord above for amazing medical advancements and technology.

But ending life out of choice, to stave off inconvenience, to run from responsibility, and sadly, even to avoid painful situations that leave horrible emotional scars, is something I cannot understand and will never support.

Life begins with the miracle of conception. Every life has a purpose. Every life is beautiful. 

Today, and for many days to come, I will weep for my own sweet angels, whose lives DO matter, and will matter forever.

I will also weep, as I have for many years, for the more than 55 million lives of babies that have ended since 1973. Their lives mattered. They DO matter. They will matter in the hereafter. 

I pray for those who have lost children, at any age, including before birth. I pray without judgement and with endless compassion for those who have chosen abortion in their own lives, that they will find peace and healing. 

I pray for us as a collective humanity, that we will see the value in all life - no matter how small. 

I close with the words of the blessed Mother Teresa from her courageous address to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in 1994, for she has said perfectly what I feel in my own heart. 

"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion...

But what does God say to us? He says: “Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand.” We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us."

~Mother Teresa, February 5, 1994,
The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Life matters.

Gone

On Tuesday, we said goodbye to another angel.

We had kept this pregnancy quiet. Played the round of treatment close to the vest. I held back from blogging and sharing. I had to make the decision to move forward with treatment after the October miscarriage very quickly. We began during the first week of November. On December 1st, our test was positive. I believed that this was our miracle baby. The rainbow after the storm. The answer to a million desperate prayers.

Everything was normal. Terrifying and stressful, but normal. No cramping or bleeding. I felt so different from the last time. But every moment was laced with fear that this pregnancy too would end in heartbreak. I watched friends around me announce pregnancies with no trepidation. People with the same due dates shared their news joyfully, while we waited in restrained terror and bitter jealousy that we could not share the same news. Early scans and blood tests are a special kind of hell reserved for people who deal with infertility. While other couples think of names and plan nurseries, we wait for the next test result and next ultrasound to give us a flicker of hope that things are ok.

On December 29th, nearly a month after our positive test, we knew there was a problem. We could see our sweet baby in the ultrasound, but there wasn't a heartbeat. Baby was measuring small for 8 weeks. We took a wait and see approach and hoped the next week would give us a miracle. We would know at 6:45 am on Monday.

Sunday night, the pain began. A tearing and ripping feeling that took my breath away all through the night. I clutched my already showing stomach in desperation and sobbed while my husband held me. The spotting started, and I knew. I told baby that if they needed to go home, to go back to Heaven, then they could go and we would be okay. And I knew that our angel was gone. Nine weeks gone in the blink of an eye.

Monday morning's ultrasound confirmed the bleed and the start of a miscarriage. It is almost surely due to genetic and developmental abnormalities. Which feels like the most meaningless reason ever for two people who want a baby more than anything in the world to lose one. Another one. The second in three months. It is too much to bear. Too much to handle.

The worst of it is over physically. The pain was beyond anything I could imagine. I have no words to describe what happened. I only know that if my husband had not been there for every second of that experience, holding me up and keeping me from slipping away with the unimaginable pain, I would not have been able to make it through. Nobody prepares you for what it will be like to lose your baby after it has started developing and you have seen it on an ultrasound. Nothing prepares you for that kind of pain.

I think right now I am too numb to process everything. I am grateful for powerful painkillers helping me to get through these few very painful days. But I know when those wear off I will be angry and confused and utterly broken again.

August 11th should have been the day our dreams came true. Now I'm not sure what it will be. I'm hoping we'll have a new dream in progress by then. But the dream we lost on January 6th will never be forgotten.

"Basic" is Bad?

I rarely use language over a PG rating in any of my posts, but for today, please excuse me, because it is 100% necessary to discuss this topic that has been drilling a hole through my brain for a while now. It is only used to express the concept created by others.

I don't often write about cultural topics. I have a lot of informed opinions about political and social issues, which I share openly in face-to-face conversation. I tend to shy away from writing my opinions in a public forum, simply because it opens up a world of virtual, verbal sparring that lacks accountability and breeds cruelty. But over the past few months, I have seen something floating around social media platforms that at first had me shaking my head in confusion, and now has me seething with frustration.

We live in a time when it is incredibly easy to slap a label on a person, consider that label a full-fledged dossier on their life and cumulative value to the human experience, and ultimately, dehumanize and discard them from our lives. I am guilty of doing it. I have walked through a store and seen the cute girl in her skinny jeans and knee-high boots, perfect top-knot on her head and scarf expertly knotted around her slender neck, and think, "I know her. Snobby, skinny sorority sister who pukes up everything she eats." I have walked away smugly, at the same time suddenly painfully aware of my own vast ocean of shortcomings. Observed. Labeled. Judged. Discarded. Moved on. A little less kind and a lot more insecure. 

The trend now, is to label someone as "basic." Not basic in a good way, like a simple but refined outfit. Or a touch of elegance in a minimalist home. No. Basic is bad. Basic is shallow, without depth, defined by cliches and stereotypes of things that are deemed simply beneath someone who has true value and purpose. "Basic" is used like a verbal slap across the face, and it is used to criticize women. "She's basic." The intent is meant to cut like a knife. 

But "basic" isn't enough of an insult by itself. It has to be coupled with a word that drips with venom when directed at other women. Now, someone who we see as beneath us is a "basic bitch." Bitch. That word rips at me like a jagged blade tearing through soft flesh. I have used it many times. Generally in reference to others. Sometimes myself. I have never, ever used it as a compliment. It connotes something disgusting, hateful, vindictive. I'm not proud that I have used it, and it is honestly a very rare occurrence since my college days. But the memory of that word passing through and soiling my lips and my spirit is something that makes me cringe. 

By all accounts, I am "basic." I am actually a "basic bitch." I hate even typing this. I hate it even more knowing that the insult is consistently perpetuated by women, who perpetrate the offense against other women. Because we do such good when we tear each other down, and we really better ourselves when we label and discard people as worthless.  A million articles and other social media posts confirm that I am nothing more than this lovely label.

I hesitate to link to articles, YouTube videos, BuzzFeed posts, and other expressions of this cultural pastime. They are out there. It will only take a moment and a Google search to stumble across them. The New York Times has even weighed in on this latest achievement of the trend-setting masses. This section of an article really stuck with me-it details how you know you are dating a "Basic Bitch." There are apparently, more than 50 indicators, such as :

-She goes to the MAC store for her makeup.

-Zooey Deschanel's character on New Girl resonates strongly with her.

-She wears lip gloss

-You'll also find lots of words in her apartment: framed photos that say "family" or "sisters" on it, throw pillows that say "peace" or "love," a piece of jewelry that says "dream" or "hope." 

-Her sense of humor is almost nonexistent. Jokes about suicide, rape, bullying -- "It's never funny, you guys."

-She owns a cowboy hat, cowboy hats, or at the very least listens to Taylor Swift.-She's all about yoga. She wear the pants. She talks about the classes. She just never goes.

(http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/jackalope/2014/04/basic_bitch_dating_signs.php)

Well, I use MAC makeup, enjoy New Girl, wear lip gloss, have framed photos with the words "family" on them, don't find jokes about rape, bullying or suicide remotely funny, own a cowboy hat, listen to Taylor Swift on occasion, and wear yoga pants without regularly going to yoga class. There it is. The sum total of my existence-I'm nothing more than a "basic bitch."

Another article explains this cultural construction as 

"she likes yogurt and fears carbs (there is an exception for brunch), and loves her friends, unless and until she secretly hates them. She finds peplum flattering and long (or at least shoulder-grazing) hair reliably attractive. She exercises in various non-bulk-building ways, some of which have inspired her to purchase special socks for the experience. She bought the Us Weekly with Lauren Conrad’s wedding on the cover. She Pins. She runs her gel-manicured hands up and down the spine of female-centric popular culture of the last 15 years, and is satisfied with what she feels. She doesn’t, apparently, long for more." (http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/10/what-do-you-really-mean-by-basic-bitch.html)

I am sure some will just think I should brush this aside as something silly and meaningless. I really don't think it is. It is a larger indicator of cultural rot and decay. This. is. everywhere. Women judging women. Women judging themselves. Men being told it's totally chill to label women as a "basic bitch" and to define their girlfriend, sister, wife, friend, or the random girl in line for her Pumpkin Spice Latte in her MAC makeup and cowboy hat as nothing more than this truly disgusting and demeaning label.

But it's a heck of a lot deeper than that. It goes back to what I opened my post with-I do this to some extent too. I won't use these words, but I have used the sentiment to judge other women. And we all do it to people we don't truly know. We all do it to ourselves. 

In the moment, it feels like power to cut someone down with words. I am convinced that cutting someone down comes from jealousy. I have experienced that often enough to know that my lashing out is always rooted in my own insecurities. But this is more than individual people wanting to feel better about themselves, in classic bullying fashion. This is widespread. It has become part of the cultural lexicon. 

Calling a woman a "basic bitch" is reducing them to being worthless. Silly. Contributing nothing. Aspiring to nothing. Nurturing nothing. Useless. Expendable. Stupid. It never takes into account their humanity or potential. It doesn't require you to. It only requires you to label and discard someone. Women attacking women over the most trivial things. It is meaningless, and yet incredibly meaningful. 

I wonder how we can marvel at what is going on around us in popular culture. How we can lament things like suicide, depression, isolation, divorce, violence in schools, violence at work, addiction, crime, and not see the connection to the popularization of things like this? 

In a wealthiest country in the world, with an under 40-population fed exclusively on a diet of meaningless media and entertainment laced with cruelty, it is the most low-level, amoebic expression of the decay of humanity.

We have walked a long road as people of regarding others as beneath us. Labeling others has been the tipping point for some of humanity's greatest tragedies. I don't pretend that calling someone a "basic bitch" is the moral equivalent of murder, genocide or war. I do, however, believe it reveals something about the core of who we have become-people who see others only in terms of the standards set by society. Which is crazy, because I have absolutely no clue what those standards are supposed to be. 

If liking Starbucks and eating pumpkin treats and wearing cute scarves and treasuring pictures of my family and believing strongly in my faith makes me "basic" and makes me a "bitch," then I don't even know what would make me "complex" and "desirable." What would make me deep and of worth to someone? I don't think there is any way to pass that test, because it is designed to make every woman tested, fail. It is meant to make you feel like absolute swine. It is purposeful. It is ruthless. And it is something that every woman can choose not to participate in. 

I don't know that I even understand why I chose to write this. I think I am reacting so vehemently to this because I feel incredibly insulted by the concept that someone would slap this label on me as the ultimate insult without taking a second to get to know me. Maybe I am bothered because I know, deep down, that I am guilty of doing this to others too, descriptive language aside. 

I do know, though, that I am as far from "basic" and hopefully, as far from "bitch" as you can get. I am complex. I am valuable. I have made contributions to my family. To the students I teach. To my friends. I am educated. I am smart. I am witty. I have deep thoughts. I aspire to be more. I want to lift others and elevate myself. I want to serve and give back. And if I still drank coffee, I would do it all while drinking my danged Pumpkin Spice Latte. While wearing a pair of Uggs. And listening to Taylor Swift. I hope you will reject this label too, and think about how this type of dehumanizing garbage makes our world a much sadder place. 

What the heck will we come up with next to make people feel bad about themselves? I shudder to think. But in the meantime, I know that I can choose not to label someone as "basic" anymore. I don't think I have ever met a "basic" human in my life-humans are the antithesis of "basic." They are infinitely complex, and eternally meaningful. 

I am left with this thought as I read back over my ramblings-if you change your words and thoughts, you change your life, and the lives of those around you. And that, is something that is basic. The good kind of basic. The kind that matters. 

Loss

For eleven days, we lived a dream. 

For eleven days, we were parents.

Fourteen days after our third IUI, there were two pink lines. Something I had waited years to see. 

There were kisses and tears and excitement flowed between us. We tempered our excitement with realism, knowing we needed to have a blood test for confirmation. The blood test came back positive. But my HCG levels were low. Only a 24. Low, but ripe with promise and potential. 36 hours later, they were at 60 and on track for a steady rise. We scheduled a 6 week ultrasound. 

We let close family and a few friends know. We held each other close. I prayed every day, saying "strong baby, healthy baby," over and over. I named our little angel "nugget" and hoped that he or she would hold on and be ours forever. 

I bought pants that would stretch with me for a few months. I started thinking about paint colors for the guest room. I read everything I could about having a healthy first trimester.

My body changed. I was exhausted. Sore. In desperate need to upgrade my bra size. Moody. Hungry, Bloated. Slightly crampy. Nauseated. 

Then, nine days after the test, five a half weeks into my pregnancy, the pain started. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were awful. I didn't sleep. I couldn't go to work. I clutched my tummy and just prayed it was progesterone side effects. The pain stopped. I went to work on Thursday morning. I started bleeding lightly. I threw up in the bathroom and left work immediately.

I went home, called the doctor frantically. I went in for a scan, and the ultrasound didn't show anything. No yolk sac. No heartbeat. It was still early, and possible that nothing would show up. I was sent to get blood work done. We held out hope that things were okay. 

Friday morning, there was a gush of red, and we knew. Our angel was gone. Tears and sobs and desperate aching. My blood levels showed a miscarriage. "Spontaneous abortion" was the official diagnosis.

So now I wait. Wait for the bleeding and pain to stop. Wait for the nightmare to end and dawn to break. Wait to be able to choke out a sentence without feeling like I am going to vomit. 

Three years. Three IUIs. Countless shots. Thousands of dollars. A million wishes and prayers and hopes. Gone in a moment and in a rush of blood.

I am exhausted and weak and broken. I do not understand. 

I awoke this morning with a horrible thought. The thought that I flushed my baby down the toilet yesterday morning. 

There are those that will try to placate me and say, "it was so early." Or, "it wasn't a baby yet."

They don't understand. In that magical moment when divinely appointed conception occurs, it is a baby. It is a life. It is full of hope and promise and that baby, small as a poppy seed, contains all of the promise of life. 

I know that early miscarriages happen because things aren't right. Genetically. Developmentally. They are Heavenly Father's way of mercifully taking care of things as gently and naturally as possible. 

Mercy hurts like hell. 

So we wait. And we pray. And I bleed. And I yell and cry and hit the wall. And I love my little angel that I miss desperately already.

We're not ready to talk about things in depth, but as we have opened our life and struggle to so many, we share the new of this tragedy and our deep sorrow as well. 

We'll try again. And again. And again. We will have a family.

And someday, we will meet our angel baby and my tears of sadness will turn to tears of joy and understanding. 

Living With An Open Wound

I remember getting hurt as a child. Scraping my knees. Slicing my thumb on a saw in the backyard while trying to cut enough branches to make a fort. Road rash on my side when I fell out of a wagon, towed behind a bike while flying down a hill. Skin breaks. Blood seeps out. Tears flow. Eventually, with the aid of pressure, a band-aid, or the simple miracle of human physiology, the blood would clot. A scab formed. Skin healed. Scars remained, but faded in time. Maybe someday, this will be my experience with the emotional and psychological scars of infertility. I'm not sure. Right now, I live each day with an open, hemorrhaging wound.

Everyone in my life is incredibly compassionate about this struggle. There are even a handful of people I know that have walked this same road. I wish I could articulate the deep, never-ceasing, excruciating pain that I feel each day. I desperately want someone to know exactly what I experience. All I can compare it to is suffering a wound so deep and so serious that it drains every ounce of your strength, all of your reserves, and saps you of any hope that you can move forward. I cannot compare this to the struggle of a mortally wounded soldier, but it is my emotional equivalent of warfare. And in the midst of this horrific, tragic, gut-wrenching pain, I am expected by everyone (even those who are compassionate and loving and caring and the most incredible people I know) to continue living life and moving forward and having hope. There are days where I lose the battle when I have to do something as simple as brush my teeth, never mind having to walk out the door, interact with other people, go to work, smile and nod that yes, I am doing well. Behind the facade I am face down in the dirt, drowning in a pool of my own blood. Those who have walked this road will know the complete sincerity of this statement. Those who have not, I appreciate your compassion and your acceptance that you simply cannot know how this feels until you have lived it for nearly one thousand sunrises and sunsets. 

Simply leaving the house hurts. I go to the store and am surrounded by reminders of pregnancy, babies, toddlers, teenagers, grandparents-the ceaseless ebb and flow of divinely ordained life that I may never play a part in. I experience all of the emotional depth of that statement when I stand in the store behind someone buying a package of diapers. I clutch my nieces and nephews to me and breathe in their sweet smells and my heart bursts and I wonder if there is any way I can be saved. I seek to escape the pain of the day through sleep and am haunted by dreams of caressing my pregnant belly, of giving birth, of holding my daughter who already has a name and is fiercely loved, and wake up feeling like I was hurled out of a moving vehicle into oncoming traffic. And it never, ever ends. 

I hurt everywhere. All the time. I understand how infertility leads to destructive behavior, ends marriages, wrecks families. I know why people choose to be numb.

People never know what to say. Those closest to me know that things like, "It will happen," or "Just be positive" or "your babies will come when it's time," will likely earn them a punch in the face and a sincere apology for breaking their nose. I think I have an advantage in that I am incredibly open (likely to a fault) about everything I am dealing with, so I do not hesitate to talk about feeling this way and people generally know when I am so low that not even a Harry Potter marathon can pull me out of the depths of despair. I think the best thing I have had someone say to me is simply, "I love you." That does more than anything when you are so emotionally obliterated that you can't seem to take another breath. 

Living with infertility is a hell through which few will pass, when you consider the population of the world through all time. Yet it touches most of us in tangential ways. Six months of trying to shrink ovarian cysts and get my cycles under control was absolutely terrible, but it only required me to feel disappointment. Now, as we gear up for a cycle of treatment, I have to feel the worst thing I can imagine-hope. I believe in a mind-body connection. I need to have hope and faith that this will work. But taking drugs, injecting drugs, doing an insemination, taking more drugs, and then having your heart ripped out by a negative test is more than a heart can handle. And if you do back to back cycles, you begin the whole process over three days after your negative result. It is the highest and most hellish form of torture I have experienced. Hope and promise shatter and you get to stand in the broken glass, bleeding all over while people look at you and tell you to be hopeful all over again. 

I am  hopeful right now. I am responding well to my Femara treatment, started my Gonal-F injections today for the next three days, will be re-scanned on Friday, and will finish up with a few more shots this weekend before I trigger ovulation. The tentative IUI date is Sunday. But hope is most definitely tempered by experience and disappointment. My hope feels like the last gasp for air while I am drowning before I sink away into oblivion. But it is there, and it is mine. 

I read two things last night that stuck with me. The first was a re-reading of  a series of short essays by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a man who I believe lived his entire life in emotional pain and agony. In "The Crack-Up," he penned, "and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day." And so it is three o'clock in the morning for me, day after day. 

The other was from the scriptures, more specifically, the Book of Mormon. If you do not believe this to be the revealed word of God, then perhaps accept this as a story that illustrates a larger point about resilience. The leader of a small group of people was named Jared, and as his people fled wickedness and crossed a great body of water in small ships, their small quarters were illuminated by stones that had been given light by the Lord. The wind blew furiously during their year-long journey, and though they were tossed about relentlessly and frightened and cried unto the Lord for stillness and peace, they were blown continually in the direction of their destination, and they had light. And the wind never stopped moving them in the right direction, and the people never stopped praising and thanking the Lord. And they had light continually, even in trial and tempest and through fear and anguish. And when they arrived on land again, they humbled themselves before the Lord, shed tears of joy, and recognized His tender mercies over them.

I am in a dark night of the soul. It is a night full of pain and fear. But I have a small light. And I have the love of my husband, and my family, and my friends, and my Father in Heaven. It doesn't change the fact that I hurt like hell and on good days, the best I can do is drag myself an inch closer to safety while I live with this open wound, but it does give the struggle a sense of meaning. This wound will never go away. It may change form and become an old wound, a scar, but it will mark my experiences forever. No pregnancy or adoption or perhaps a life without children will nullify what I have experienced. But I can own the pain and the experience and set myself up willingly for the punch in the gut that I might have to take in two and a half weeks, as long as I know that the pain and experience are mine to own and learn from. 

Please, if you are inclined, say a prayer for us and those others that live each day with an open wound in the deepest dark of the night, that we might see the pinprick of light that will lead us on, and someday, lead us home.

Pushing Through

A view of the waterfall in Bells Canyon

Two weeks ago, my husband and I went on a truly amazing hike. Well, it was amazing when we got to the top and were rewarded with the view of a hundred foot waterfall crashing into a mountain river, white spray misting through the air and sound thundering across the canyon. The whole way up to this waterfall, I was thinking, "why the crap did we do this?" I cursed in my mind (and OK, let's admit it, out loud) too many times to be proud of as I crawled up giant rocks, banging and scraping my knees and arms as I hoisted up and over the chunks of granite that peppered the forest floor. We climbed at a steep incline for the last mile and a half, and I felt my heart thudding in my chest in a steady rhythm as we kept ascending, stopping only briefly for to rest our aching knees and ankles. We hit several false summits, and I was almost in tears by the last one. 

When we finally reached the top of the trail and scrambled down to the waterfall, the sight was absolutely breathtaking. The way down was equally as difficult in terms of impact, but we reached the bottom with a sense of exuberance and accomplishment. I couldn't help but be struck by the symbolism of what we did. The hike was an exercise in pushing through the pain. Not pushing through by numbing out and shutting down, but by acutely feeling the pain and difficulty in every step, and still moving forward. I can't say I enjoyed the actual process of pushing through, but I do value what is on the other side of that-the knowledge and assurance that I can do really hard things and those things can make me mentally, emotionally and physically stronger. 

I think my life right now is defined by this idea of pushing through the pain. I shut down completely from January to June this year-work necessitated a level of focus, commitment, and composure that demanded I not turn into an emotional wreck that curled up on the classroom floor to join first-graders in their temper tantrums. When work ended, I slammed into a brick wall of all of the feelings that I hadn't been feeling. It was like being punched in the gut. But I am learning that walking through each day in emotional pain is preferable to walking through each day feeling nothing at all. I hate the way I feel sometimes. It is torture to be around children for me. I want to burst into tears at the sight of them. I can't handle being in the same room as a pregnant woman. I can't even watch the adorable videos the people I am closest to in my life post of their beautiful babies on Facebook because I know that they will send me into complete meltdowns. I am overcome so many days with absolute despair. It is really the most horrible, difficult thing I have ever experienced. But for the first time in months, I am actually experiencing it, and I am grateful for the companionship of my sweet, supportive husband and my Savior as He walks hand in hand beside me. Even when I am furious at Him for making me endure this hell. But I will take angry over indifferent, and I know He will too. 

We are only a tiny step closer to an end to project baby (whatever that end may be). After two months of very, very unpleasant hormone supplements to suppress a persistent cyst on my right ovary, I have the go-ahead to go off them. These pills made me feel like garbage-emotionally and physically. At the end of taking them, the cyst on my right ovary is resolved, but there is a small one on the left ovary now. Dr. Peterson has now seen enough of a pattern to classify them as alternating functional cysts (hormone producing) rather than endometriosis, which I guess is good news. I need three weeks to clear my system and return to a normal cycle, and then we start all of the fertility drugs again. We have waited 6 months for this, so we are anxious to try again. I am hopeful that the perfect storm will hit-I'll be pumped up on the drugs, husband will be in the last two months of his zinc/folic acid supplement trial, and I will be in a place where I am not only mentally but physically healthy, and the magic will happen. We get three chances at the magic. Then, the conversation will have to change.

Due to my low AMH levels (eggs in reserve), our doctor wants us to start talking about IVF if our current plan of action doesn't work. I have never wanted to pursue IVF, however, as our church has moved away from facilitating very affordable adoptions, a $15,000 IVF package has suddenly become the more affordable option. I don't know how I feel about it yet. I think that's a mountain that I will wait until the last possible minute to even consider climbing. 

The rest of the summer will provide plenty of chances for growth and fun and pushing through the pain. We have some great (hard!) hikes planned. I am working out like a crazy woman each day and it is definitely giving me an Elle Woods-esque rush of endorphines (because happy people just don't shoot their husbands). I am spending lots of time with my husband who I adore more and more each day. Isn't it amazing how you only fall deeper in love with someone as you struggle through the hard stuff together? We have a great vacation to Florida (yay for Disney and Harry Potter world!) planned for the end of July/beginning of August. I know I am going to keep hurting through all of this, and I don't think that will change. But I can see a way to appreciate the good things while I am hurting. 

I may be scraped up, bruised, prone to crying in the presence of small-children, and soon to be pumped full of more hormones, but I am still climbing, and anticipating whatever view awaits me at the top. 

Changes

I can't begin to grasp the amount of change that has occurred in my life over the past four years. The end of what I thought was a forever relationship. The beginning of what is my true forever marriage. Moving. Leaving my dream job. Experiencing my husband becoming my best friend. Financial hardship. Not being able to have a baby. A new job. And now, more changes are headed in our direction.

Last week, after waiting one month for a cyst on my ovary to clear up on its own, and spending another month taking a Progestin to shrink that stubborn cyst, I went in to see what was going on in the incubator. My cyst shrunk. A lot. Down by 60%, and the overall volume down even more. But I also found out it's probably not a cyst. It's probably an endometrioma. And for the first time, there is a fibroid camping out on my uterine wall. Which scares the living crap out of me. I have never had these before. I have had cysts that have come and gone. My uterus has been pretty normal. All of a sudden, my sloughed-off endometrial cells are making themselves at home in parts of my body where they shouldn't be. Scary. I didn't know much about Endometriosis until last week. I wish I had never even heard of this, because it adds another lovely wrench to this already hellish struggle. What I do know is that Endo is thought to be influenced greatly by stress, inflammation and weight gain. Well, I just hit the danged triple jackpot. 

I.am.so.tired.of.my.stupid.body.not.doing.what.it.is.designed.to.do. But this is likely of my own doing.

I looked back over 9 months of uterine scans and procedures. I have never had this happen before. The only thing that has changed in my life is, well, everything. I went back to work and I stopped eating well. I stopped sleeping well. I worked almost every weekend until 1 AM. I developed a persistent twitch in my left eye. I worked most weeknights nights until 9 or 10. I didn't exercise. I replaced water intake with Cherry Coke. I frequented more drive-thru lines than I could ever care to admit. Hell, I even ate more than one gas-station hot dog wrapped in a croissant drenched in nacho cheese. I ate roller food. From a gas station. The shame is more than I can bear. Those of you that know me and the extreme love for the gastronomic arts, this is a level to which I never imagined I could descend. For the past six months, ,my life became 100% about the 27 sweet, amazing, wonderful, squirrely, energetic and challenging kids that I teach. Doing what is best for them, every moment of each day. And I sacrificed doing anything for me. I wasn't the picture of health or fitness before going back to work full-time, but I certainly was not in the ultimate pits of having let everything that is important just fall to the side. 

I had to choose. The sweet, smiling faces. The moment that a kid truly grasps a concept. The sticky-finger hugs. The crazy ebb and flow of the day. I love it. But I love my future family more. 

The seed of change was planted in my mind about six weeks ago, but at 6:20 AM on Thursday, when my doctor looked at me and told me that next month, after another four weeks of Progestin, regardless of the size of the endometrioma, we would restart my fertility drugs and push through for an IUI, I knew what I had to do. His exact words were, "I need you to do whatever you can to get as healthy as possible in the next four weeks." It hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt like the wind was knocked out of me. I am doing ZERO healthy things in my life. I am dumping money and time and emotion into a pursuit of having a baby, and I am doing ZERO healthy things to support that effort. Reality is a bitter slap in the face. 

I won't be returning to full-time teaching in the fall. I may do some part-time specialized instruction that would be less stressful and demanding. I am not yet sure what the right choice is. I need to work in some capacity because it is good and healthy to have a focus and to be productive. I just can't do 75 hour weeks and extra classes for certification and little sleep and no room in my heart for anything but these wonderful 27 kids. My husband needs my heart. I need my heart. My future children need my heart. I thought about just scaling back. I am a person that puts excess into everything I do. My work process is frenetic. I can't give any less than everything. I need to give my everything to becoming a mom, in whatever way that comes to me.

I really don't know what the road ahead holds for me, but I do know that for the first time in months, I feel a measure of peace. Changes. Time to embrace the change that is coming, and commit to the changes that I need to make in my own life. Freaking gas station hot dogs...