With opening day of Cardinal baseball and the NCAA basketball championship game tonight, my husband is beyond excited. Duke has been his favorite team since he was in high school and he was pumped all day knowing he would get to come home and watch the game tonight. I sat down on the couch next to him, donning my Duke jersey, ate my cherry pie and ice cream, and felt like.......talking.
Sensing his immediate frustration, I asked if he cared if I blogged while he watched the game. "It'll keep me from talking through the whole thing," I said. "Blog away!" he replied!
So I'm blogging. I'm not sure what this post is going to be about-we'll just see where it goes.
Hope
What could have been a pregnancy announcement on Easter Sunday turned into period pains on Holy Thursday. I had A LOT of hope for this cycle. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I can usually feel my period coming days ahead of schedule. Not this time. Twelve days post peak and NOTHING. I was almost sure I was pregnant for this fact alone. Then it hit. Thursday around 2:00 just as I was sitting down to do therapy with one of my four year olds. I started within 10 minutes. This is the first time this has EVER happened. My hope faded quickly this month. Vanished instantly is more accurate.
This song got me through the let-down this month. Listen for the word "hope". It appears three times. The first time "hope" takes flight. The second, "hope" had flown. And the third and final time, "hope" fills the soul. Is that the story of my cycle or what? Hope begins to take flight with that first little cramp. By the time I start my period, hope has completely flown. But just two or three weeks later, hope is filling my soul once again. Another cycle. Another chance. Another opportunity for hope to be realized.
Hope-never let go.
Easter
Our Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday) and Easter were beautiful. It was our first time celebrating Jesus' Death and Resurrection at our new parish in Mississippi and we were blown away. The awe and reverence in the celebrations were evident. The end of the Good Friday service was especially powerful for me. The service was held in the evening (not sure why) and at the end they turned out all the lights and left us in total darkness. I closed my eyes in prayer and thought, "I wish they had a light shining on just the crucifix" (which is brand new and beautiful!). When I opened my eyes I saw exactly that, only the light was red-even better. It gave me such a sense of the sacrifice Christ made for me. I tried to pour my heart out to Him. I'm never that good at it-but I tried. I told Him that I wanted His will. Or at least that I wanted to want His will. I asked him to strengthen me for whatever He had in store.
By Easter I was truly ready to celebrate! I had done a better job this year reserving my celebration for the actual day of Easter and tried to keep a "Lenten" attitude up until Sunday morning. On Sunday, Ted and I went to Mass and I sang Alleluia with my whole heart! There were tears, yes. There have been a lot of tears this week. But I was still joyful. If Easter teaches us anything, it's that suffering has a redemptive purpose. And despite my tears, that's a reason for rejoicing.
Cardinals Update
I just asked my husband what I should blog about (it's halftime). His immediate response: "Blog about Albert Pujols' two home runs on opening day! What good is your blog if you don't give a Cardinal's update!" Ha! And although I have no desire to make my blog about giving Cardinal's updates, I will give a shout out to the world's greatest baseball team.
So here's to St. Louis-home to Archbishop Raymond Burke for four wonderful years, one of the best seminaries in the US, the Arch, our wedding night getaway, many of our wonderful friends and family back home, beautiful trees and gorgeous road side cliffs, and of course....Albert Pujols.
Showing posts with label cycle day 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cycle day 1. Show all posts
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
A Slowly Diminishing Hope
I hate days like this. Work was crazy. I had way too much to do and not enough time to do it all. Today was just an all around bad day. It was bad even without considering the fact that we got a definite NO this month and are definitely NOT pregnant. The silver lining I suppose is that my cramps weren't bad enough to keep me away from work (which actually would have been a lucky break now that I think about it...)
I managed to hold back tears all day until Ted came home. Even when I was wrestling with insurance companies on the phone. But seeing him after I find out there won't be a baby this month is always hard. It just opens the floodgates. But it's not like I didn't already know that we weren't pregnant. My PMS symptoms started over a week ago. It's pretty hard to hold out hope that you might be pregnant when your back hurts, your face breaks out, your boobs hurt, and you have cramps for an entire week before you start your period. And what are the odds that my pregnancy symptoms would be exactly the same as my PMS symptoms have been for the last 12 years of my life? Pretty unlikely.
In a way, it's nice that I can see it coming. I don't ever have to deal with going to the bathroom and being surprised to find out I'm not pregnant. I find out the sad news slowly, spread out over a week. With each new pain or cramp I hold out hope that it's from something different this month. My boobs start to hurt and I think, "that could also be from pregnancy". My face breaks out and I think, "maybe it's all that chocolate I just ate." Monday night I walked into the kitchen and started looking around to see if we had any cupcakes. I knew we didn't-I haven't made cupcakes in years. But those dang carb cravings are so strong that I actually expect to see a dozen cupcakes sitting in my cabinet. I told Ted I was looking for cupcakes and he said, "guess we're not pregnant this month, huh?" "It was the cupcakes that did us in," I replied. Even knowing all of that I still took a pregnancy test last night before my follow up meeting with my Creighton NFP teacher. I knew it would be negative, but I did it anyway. A moment of weakness. Or of hopefulness. I'm not sure which.
Maybe God designed my body like this to keep me from experiencing one giant sucker punch on cycle day 1. Maybe he knew that would be too much for me. He lets me draw my sorrow out gradually, over the course of a week or more. He lets the hope fade slowly so I can used to it little by little. But I do hold out hope, however irrational, until I get the final confirmation.
I promised myself I wasn't going to let myself get too upset this month. It's only our first time trying since the surgery AND with the medicine. I kept telling myself, "It's like we're starting all over. We've technically only been trying for ONE month, not 19. Not getting pregnant after only ONE month is totally normal!" Did it work? Not at all. That thought was no comfort when the time actually came. The tears came just like it had been 19.
Usually I "celebrate" cycle day 1 with a bud light or a margarita. After avoiding alcohol all month, I always say, "well, on the bright side-I'm gonna have a beer!" However, I gave up all drinks other than water for Lent. I thought about letting it slide today, but Ted helped me stick it out. Instead we went out to eat. He never expects me to cook for him on days like this. We've been saving a coupon to Ruby Tuesday's and he decided we should use it. I was secretly hoping to save it for a celebration dinner when we saw our first positive pregnancy test. (I know what you're thinking. "You find out you're pregnant after all this time and you're worried about using a COUPON for your celebration dinner?!?!" Yes, we really are that cheap most of the time. Blame it on the bills for the services that get us to the point of actually having a celebration dinner.) I guess a drown-your-sorrows dinner is another good reason though. At least it was a night out with my sweet husband. And it did help take my mind off things. I didn't order a margarita, but my steak was sill mooing and the broccoli was covered in butter and it was wonderful!
So, I'm ready to put this day behind me. I saw on someone's facebook wall today the following quote: Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it's the quiet voice inside saying "I will try again tomorrow." That person is currently in the grad program I graduated from last year. I know exactly how she feels. We'll both try again tomorrow.
And no, I will NOT be watching The Office tonight like the rest of the world. Somehow seeing Jim and Pam give birth to their baby conceived on "accident" and out of wedlock just doesn't seem all that appealing...
I managed to hold back tears all day until Ted came home. Even when I was wrestling with insurance companies on the phone. But seeing him after I find out there won't be a baby this month is always hard. It just opens the floodgates. But it's not like I didn't already know that we weren't pregnant. My PMS symptoms started over a week ago. It's pretty hard to hold out hope that you might be pregnant when your back hurts, your face breaks out, your boobs hurt, and you have cramps for an entire week before you start your period. And what are the odds that my pregnancy symptoms would be exactly the same as my PMS symptoms have been for the last 12 years of my life? Pretty unlikely.
In a way, it's nice that I can see it coming. I don't ever have to deal with going to the bathroom and being surprised to find out I'm not pregnant. I find out the sad news slowly, spread out over a week. With each new pain or cramp I hold out hope that it's from something different this month. My boobs start to hurt and I think, "that could also be from pregnancy". My face breaks out and I think, "maybe it's all that chocolate I just ate." Monday night I walked into the kitchen and started looking around to see if we had any cupcakes. I knew we didn't-I haven't made cupcakes in years. But those dang carb cravings are so strong that I actually expect to see a dozen cupcakes sitting in my cabinet. I told Ted I was looking for cupcakes and he said, "guess we're not pregnant this month, huh?" "It was the cupcakes that did us in," I replied. Even knowing all of that I still took a pregnancy test last night before my follow up meeting with my Creighton NFP teacher. I knew it would be negative, but I did it anyway. A moment of weakness. Or of hopefulness. I'm not sure which.
Maybe God designed my body like this to keep me from experiencing one giant sucker punch on cycle day 1. Maybe he knew that would be too much for me. He lets me draw my sorrow out gradually, over the course of a week or more. He lets the hope fade slowly so I can used to it little by little. But I do hold out hope, however irrational, until I get the final confirmation.
I promised myself I wasn't going to let myself get too upset this month. It's only our first time trying since the surgery AND with the medicine. I kept telling myself, "It's like we're starting all over. We've technically only been trying for ONE month, not 19. Not getting pregnant after only ONE month is totally normal!" Did it work? Not at all. That thought was no comfort when the time actually came. The tears came just like it had been 19.
Usually I "celebrate" cycle day 1 with a bud light or a margarita. After avoiding alcohol all month, I always say, "well, on the bright side-I'm gonna have a beer!" However, I gave up all drinks other than water for Lent. I thought about letting it slide today, but Ted helped me stick it out. Instead we went out to eat. He never expects me to cook for him on days like this. We've been saving a coupon to Ruby Tuesday's and he decided we should use it. I was secretly hoping to save it for a celebration dinner when we saw our first positive pregnancy test. (I know what you're thinking. "You find out you're pregnant after all this time and you're worried about using a COUPON for your celebration dinner?!?!" Yes, we really are that cheap most of the time. Blame it on the bills for the services that get us to the point of actually having a celebration dinner.) I guess a drown-your-sorrows dinner is another good reason though. At least it was a night out with my sweet husband. And it did help take my mind off things. I didn't order a margarita, but my steak was sill mooing and the broccoli was covered in butter and it was wonderful!
So, I'm ready to put this day behind me. I saw on someone's facebook wall today the following quote: Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it's the quiet voice inside saying "I will try again tomorrow." That person is currently in the grad program I graduated from last year. I know exactly how she feels. We'll both try again tomorrow.
And no, I will NOT be watching The Office tonight like the rest of the world. Somehow seeing Jim and Pam give birth to their baby conceived on "accident" and out of wedlock just doesn't seem all that appealing...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)