I am amazed by the healing that only God can give.
Last Friday I wrote a very sad post and found out that during my absence my DH had registered us to a marriage retreat.
The retreat had not been in my radar and I had been traveling a week already so I longed to be home, so I was less than happy to find out that we had filled the last spot on the retreat.
Then I told him of all my excuses he was adamant and was unwilling to cancel it.
He said WE need it. NOW.
My DH is a sweethart and almost never makes decisions without consensus and so this was an exception and I took it as something that was crucial for him so in the end I agreed to go.
Well it turned out that the one that needed it most was me.
We left Saturday morning early towards a beautiful late 1800´s Hacienda complete with its own church, traditional patios, etc. It was absolutely gorgeous.
We were 16 couples, most with their children, that were there to meditate on their vows and the status of their marriage. Most I knew from Church and the lead of the retreat was one of the priests that had married me.
A nun together with 2 other girls would take care of all the children (I think more than 20 plus!) so we had time as marriages.
There were many important moments in the retreat, but 4 were crucial and complelty changed my outlook.
The first was that we watched (again for most of the people) the movie Fire.proof and then we were given a set of questions to discuss with our husbands. The questions were amazing and have my DH and I a lot to reflect on.
There were 4 pages of questions and excercises, but we only were able to do one and a half since they were so very profund. We have promised ourselves to dedicate time each night to finishing it.
For example:
1)We were asked to list the time that we spend on: Family and Friends, work, hobbies, household tasks, our marriage etc in percentages (I failed miserably!)
2) To describe in a few words how we were feeling in the last days deep in our hearts. (Me: afraid, tired but hopeful, he anguished, but with a deep desire in his heart for his family and work)
3) To remember our wedding day and say what feelings remained and which had changed?
4) Which crazy things had we done since getting married that we were very proud of. (be both said our month long honeymoon in Italy with only guidebooks and a return ticket!)
5)Which were the good influences for our marriage and which were the bad?
6)Which couples inspire us?
My DH opened completly up about many important subjects and although we talk all the time we had not touched for months the crucial questions.
I asked him point blank why he was still afraid about adoption since he had told me so a few weeks before. I sensed it and he confirmed it, but did not elaborate on it.
I had been thinking all the time it had to do with worries about the adoption itself (genetics and all the crazy misconceptions peopel have) and what his family would say or think (a big part would be supportive, but we expect several members to be very much against it).
I had been worrying about this also, mostly about how this possible opposition would affect him.
What he answered took me by surprise: No, this is not the reason he was worried. He said: " I really do not care what they say. Actually my worry is my job. That I can fully support both of you."
I did not know what to say. Here I was worried about something that was not even on his radar and what I thought was his main worry: It was how we would manage with his lack of a good job and me having to work full time.
The second part that was crucial during the retreat is that the priest on Sunday Mass asked each couple to renew their vows.
It was completly unexpected and so very healing and beautiful. I had asked him he night before if he felt I had failed him for not giving him children. Its one of the most important things in life for him and I knew it from the get go At the beginning both of us had IF factors, but now it seems its only me.
He looked at me with such love that he did not have to say anything about this and he only said that he loved me 10 times more than when we got married and he would do it 100 times again. I still have tears in his eyes.
The 3rd gift from God was that we were joined by several couples struggling with IF and one of them has adopted 3 children and is extremely happy.
I had been feeling so left out, but I met with 3 other couples that were childless and had still not adopted, yet were very happy and were being faithful to the Church, one that was facing secondary IF and one that had adopted.
It was so healing to see this amazing adoptive family , carry in my arms their new baby ( they adopted him less than 3 months in the same agency that we are and have been our adoption coaches guiding us in the process) and see how much they were the same as the other families. Exactly the same.
Specially holding their baby to sleep, hearing his breath agains my chest and seeing how perfect in every way he was, gave me profound hope.
I could love an adoptive child exactly the same as one that had been born from me.
I knew it, but had never felt it so clearly and it was so very healing.
I could literally see myself holding my own adopted baby and falling completly in love.
I had been so afraid to feel this after my miscarriage, but all my barriers came tumbling down in sight of this beautiful sleeping baby
And the last part. We were 16 couples at the retreat. Of which 3 had already been my clients in CrMS.
During most breaks different couples started approaching my DH and I to ask about Napro. He was so proud and enthusiastic about it and was such a support, I absolutely could see this as our joint service to the Church and not only mine.
Every break a different couple approached us and we did not even say what we did, the current clients kept referring each new couple to us.
One that was and older, childless woman that had faced breast cancer and wanted to protect her nieces and give them the tools to know their bodies.
Another couple facing secondary IF. They wanted to heal from a very bad first pregnancy and birth 9 years ago and to find out the root cause of why the never conceived again. Her mother had died of breast cancer and she wanted to make sure she was Ok hormonally.
Another that was facing IF and was working with a RE from a public hospital, yet they did not even understand the basics of her body and wanted to learn what the Church allowed.
Another that had had a baby 2 months ago and she had been told by her doctors not to get pregnant again in at least 2 years since she had had 2 back to back cesareans. She had never used NFP and wanted to be loyal to the Church.
and the last one. She had many health issues after being treated by many different doctors for her 13 years of IF. Her health had been destroyed in the process and he was adamant against adoption. She was at her witts end..
All these couples faithful to the Church gave me so much hope. They were so thirsty for the Truth.
They all gave us such a gift.
They gave my DH and I such a clear vision that our mission is to speak to anybody that approaches us about the gifts of the Theology of the body, Napro, adoption and what we had learned so far. That IF is a major cross, but that it has many gifts also.
Such an amazing husbands that have far more insight about what their wives need than the wives themselves.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
What should I say, think or do when facing this?
I just came back from a work trip that took me away from my worries and day to day at least for a few days.
I was able to forget at least in part what has happened in the last months and be a normal working woman worried about events, marketing, etc.
Still an IF woman cannot forget 100% her condition since I ended up bringing tons of my Napro medicines (the compounded ones) and the ones that I cannot buy here. My suitcase looked like a pharmacy and I am not very happy that even when traveling I cannot forget completly.
Still as I return to normal I know my heart is heavy most of the time although most people would not know it. Today it struck me that most of my IF friends have moved on. They all have adopted or are pregnant. And it kind of makes me feel even more alone.
Yet this is not the hard part.
The hard part is this which I have never written about here. Several very close pregnancies to me at my office and the ones that I just found out about in the last days.
I can truly say that I find and each one of them a blessing, a sign that God still belives in the human race, yet.... my heart breaks with them.
The most difficult one so far: At work my counterpart´s wife is expecting a baby for the exact same due date as I would give birth to Miguel.
The exact same date.
April 8th.
I work every single day with him since he does the content and I do the marketing and communications channels of his work. We are in exactly the same position and work day and day out together. His wife goes to the office at least once a week. I try to hide and not see her. Its too hard see this very painful reminder of where I should be had I not lost Miguel.
They have already two boys and had some issues this last time (the previous ones she got pregnant on the very first try) I know there was some help needed and she recommended to me extensively her doctor.
She has even brought me his card several times. I refused even to see him since he does IVF for some of his patients, yet did not tell her the true reason. That I cannot in my heart go to a doctor famous for IVF, even if I would never do it.
I am not sure this was involved with them, but I know there was more than medicines involved. They still tell me to go to him since he is an amazing doctor. And I see the results in her growing belly. Yet I know deep down in me that I cannot even consult with him as I do not trust a man that does what he does.
Yet, its so very hard to see her belly growing and to know that this baby will be born exactly on the weeks Miguel should have been born.
Talk has turned to this baby every single day and I cannot forget that I would have been known my baby by April 8th. I do not know how I will manage when this baby comes to the office. I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it.
The other one is that one of my managers (I have an all woman´s team, very unusual in my industry and 3 women managers, now all mothers) just informed me last week that she is almost 4 months pregnant. 4 months ago I had met with her in Brasil and she had informed me that she and her DH had just started trying. I am very supportive of family and my employees know this so they tell me things they normally do not tell a boss.
After getting married 3 years after me, living with her boyfriend for 2 years and using contraception during all this time, she was actually pregnant when we met back then and did not know it. She told me she did not even try, just stopped using the BCP and got pregnant a few days before we met. Trying would have put to much pressure on her so she just decided to go on with life as normal and wait. (exact words).
So now I am working with her to find a replacement during her maternity leave and I am giving her day´s off to go to the doctor and do all she needs. Since Brasil is 5 months of maternity leave I neeed to start proceedings very soon and fill out tons of papers that make it painfully clear that I might never fill them for myself.
Then in Dallas during a dinner a pregnant girl sat next to me the whole time. Her due date: First week of April . Her belly looked as mine should have been looking. I had to turn my eyes away from her amazingly beautiful belly.
And today a dear friend called me out of the blue after not hearing from her for several years. She married a few month before me. We lost contact when she just had found out about a second baby. Today she asks me if finally I have children, I say no and that I had a miscarriage in September followed by medical complications. She is very sorry.
I ask her how she is doing. She tells me she has just found about her 4th pregnancy.
They were not trying and actually she was instructed by her doctors not to get pregnant and was using Billings. She is a very Catholic woman and told me all life was very welcome and that she was amazingly blessed by her 3 children, yet I could hear the weariness in her voice about this 4th pregnancy. 4 pregnancies in 4 years with a very unstable work situation by her husband. Actually a terrible one.
She does not complain, but its clear its a cross for her right now.
So what do I say to all this people? What should my face say when I see or talk to at least some of them day and and day out?
That I am happy for them (which I am actually are, specially for my employee and for my dear friend), but that their bellies (or their wifes bellies ) remind me of so much that I have lost in the last years? Of the pain of this horrible IF cross?
I do not want to hide from them, not to be happy, yet... its so very hard.
I was able to forget at least in part what has happened in the last months and be a normal working woman worried about events, marketing, etc.
Still an IF woman cannot forget 100% her condition since I ended up bringing tons of my Napro medicines (the compounded ones) and the ones that I cannot buy here. My suitcase looked like a pharmacy and I am not very happy that even when traveling I cannot forget completly.
Still as I return to normal I know my heart is heavy most of the time although most people would not know it. Today it struck me that most of my IF friends have moved on. They all have adopted or are pregnant. And it kind of makes me feel even more alone.
Yet this is not the hard part.
The hard part is this which I have never written about here. Several very close pregnancies to me at my office and the ones that I just found out about in the last days.
I can truly say that I find and each one of them a blessing, a sign that God still belives in the human race, yet.... my heart breaks with them.
The most difficult one so far: At work my counterpart´s wife is expecting a baby for the exact same due date as I would give birth to Miguel.
The exact same date.
April 8th.
I work every single day with him since he does the content and I do the marketing and communications channels of his work. We are in exactly the same position and work day and day out together. His wife goes to the office at least once a week. I try to hide and not see her. Its too hard see this very painful reminder of where I should be had I not lost Miguel.
They have already two boys and had some issues this last time (the previous ones she got pregnant on the very first try) I know there was some help needed and she recommended to me extensively her doctor.
She has even brought me his card several times. I refused even to see him since he does IVF for some of his patients, yet did not tell her the true reason. That I cannot in my heart go to a doctor famous for IVF, even if I would never do it.
I am not sure this was involved with them, but I know there was more than medicines involved. They still tell me to go to him since he is an amazing doctor. And I see the results in her growing belly. Yet I know deep down in me that I cannot even consult with him as I do not trust a man that does what he does.
Yet, its so very hard to see her belly growing and to know that this baby will be born exactly on the weeks Miguel should have been born.
Talk has turned to this baby every single day and I cannot forget that I would have been known my baby by April 8th. I do not know how I will manage when this baby comes to the office. I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it.
The other one is that one of my managers (I have an all woman´s team, very unusual in my industry and 3 women managers, now all mothers) just informed me last week that she is almost 4 months pregnant. 4 months ago I had met with her in Brasil and she had informed me that she and her DH had just started trying. I am very supportive of family and my employees know this so they tell me things they normally do not tell a boss.
After getting married 3 years after me, living with her boyfriend for 2 years and using contraception during all this time, she was actually pregnant when we met back then and did not know it. She told me she did not even try, just stopped using the BCP and got pregnant a few days before we met. Trying would have put to much pressure on her so she just decided to go on with life as normal and wait. (exact words).
So now I am working with her to find a replacement during her maternity leave and I am giving her day´s off to go to the doctor and do all she needs. Since Brasil is 5 months of maternity leave I neeed to start proceedings very soon and fill out tons of papers that make it painfully clear that I might never fill them for myself.
Then in Dallas during a dinner a pregnant girl sat next to me the whole time. Her due date: First week of April . Her belly looked as mine should have been looking. I had to turn my eyes away from her amazingly beautiful belly.
And today a dear friend called me out of the blue after not hearing from her for several years. She married a few month before me. We lost contact when she just had found out about a second baby. Today she asks me if finally I have children, I say no and that I had a miscarriage in September followed by medical complications. She is very sorry.
I ask her how she is doing. She tells me she has just found about her 4th pregnancy.
They were not trying and actually she was instructed by her doctors not to get pregnant and was using Billings. She is a very Catholic woman and told me all life was very welcome and that she was amazingly blessed by her 3 children, yet I could hear the weariness in her voice about this 4th pregnancy. 4 pregnancies in 4 years with a very unstable work situation by her husband. Actually a terrible one.
She does not complain, but its clear its a cross for her right now.
So what do I say to all this people? What should my face say when I see or talk to at least some of them day and and day out?
That I am happy for them (which I am actually are, specially for my employee and for my dear friend), but that their bellies (or their wifes bellies ) remind me of so much that I have lost in the last years? Of the pain of this horrible IF cross?
I do not want to hide from them, not to be happy, yet... its so very hard.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Call with Dr. H
I just finished a call with Dr. H. The man is amazing.
So we have a game plan for treating my inflammation, my tiredness and to help things along in terms of hormones. He is still very positive that we can get pregnant again and also that we can have a healthy pregnancy.
Yet with all that has been happening I do not want to get my hopes to much up.
I want to be as healthy as possible and to have the peace of mind that we will be very happy either way. Biological or adoptive children or both.
In spiritual direction I told my priest that I was very torn. In part doctors were telling us that we could get pregnant again and yet my cycles were a mess and I had a miscarriage and this was happening in the middle of adoption proceedings.
He told me that I should strive for health and to be open for life as any Catholic is called to and to be also open to adoption. That we are acting in good faith and not being greedy by being open to both. My DH agrees so we need to be open to life as always and also take any medicines to make us healthier. If a pregnancy happens we will be ecstatic of course and if not we feel completly called to adoption.
Since Napro seeks to heal I am OK with all of this.
Dr. H said that with my endo, D&C´s and some signs of my chart he wants to treat me for inflammation as the main issue and possible infection.
He said that I do not have any signs of danger of repeat miscarriages and does not know what caused my miscarriage. He suspects that I have had the polyp much longer than thought and that my first D&C probably did not take it out which is normal when they are very small and doctors are not looking for them. He cannot assure it did not cause the miscarriage.
I am posting my medicines and his advice in case it helps anybody.
So:
For inflammation: Hydrocort 20 mgs (also to help with adrenal fatigue), the endo diet very, very strictly (can be also the Dr. Weil diet), Omega 3.
To help my follicle be mature and the best possible: Clomid in very small doses on CD 3,4 and 5. My follicles have not had issues in the past but he wants to make sure they are A+.
For my luteal phase: to continue with HCG
Thyroid: to continue with T3 and Syn.throid. I asked if it can be auto-inmmune and he said it would not hurt to test for thyroid antibodies in case of Hashimotos. I think I have tested in the past and it came out negative, but he said it would not hurt.
For CM: to continue with Fertile CM, Mucinex and also to add B6 100mgs twice a day (I had a horrible reaction to 500mgs which he said is highly unusual. He said I was one in a million and laughed!) I told him I was on Optivite which has B6 and he said he was Ok with it.
For possible infection: Biaxin 21 days both DH and I. This last cycle I had for the very first time in my whole life premenstrual bleeding very, very brown (i now know what women call brown bleeding!) and he wants to outrule an infection.
For my moods: to continue with Naltrexone.
My suggestions to which he said he was OK:
To include baby aspirin. he said it would not hurt so he was OK. I told him I had read extensively that people used to prevent miscarriages and he said it was OK.
I asked about Wobenzyme and he said he did not know it as well as Adren-all. He said they probably would not hurt and to take them.
Woebenzyme is digestive enzymes from Germany and they are helpful with inflammation according to Randi.ne lewis so I will go back to that. I used them for 3 months prior to conceiving. My mom took them for inflammation of the joints and her pain disappeared completly.
Adren-all are herbs to help with adrenal fatigue. I am thinking it over as I am already on so many things.
I asked him about Pain and brain and he said he had not been seeing any results. I had been prior to becoming pregnant as part of my anti inflammatory diet on : UltraInflamaX which has curcumin, rosemary extract and other things to help with inflammation.I was given this by a nutritionist specializing on adrenal fatigue who also said I had tons of inflammation and this helps tremendously. I will go on this again. http://www.metagenics.com/products/a-z-products-list/UltraInflamX
So here we go again. I just hope I can lose those more than 12 pounds, lose the inflammation and be as healthy as possible to be a mother any way God chooses.
So we have a game plan for treating my inflammation, my tiredness and to help things along in terms of hormones. He is still very positive that we can get pregnant again and also that we can have a healthy pregnancy.
Yet with all that has been happening I do not want to get my hopes to much up.
I want to be as healthy as possible and to have the peace of mind that we will be very happy either way. Biological or adoptive children or both.
In spiritual direction I told my priest that I was very torn. In part doctors were telling us that we could get pregnant again and yet my cycles were a mess and I had a miscarriage and this was happening in the middle of adoption proceedings.
He told me that I should strive for health and to be open for life as any Catholic is called to and to be also open to adoption. That we are acting in good faith and not being greedy by being open to both. My DH agrees so we need to be open to life as always and also take any medicines to make us healthier. If a pregnancy happens we will be ecstatic of course and if not we feel completly called to adoption.
Since Napro seeks to heal I am OK with all of this.
Dr. H said that with my endo, D&C´s and some signs of my chart he wants to treat me for inflammation as the main issue and possible infection.
He said that I do not have any signs of danger of repeat miscarriages and does not know what caused my miscarriage. He suspects that I have had the polyp much longer than thought and that my first D&C probably did not take it out which is normal when they are very small and doctors are not looking for them. He cannot assure it did not cause the miscarriage.
I am posting my medicines and his advice in case it helps anybody.
So:
For inflammation: Hydrocort 20 mgs (also to help with adrenal fatigue), the endo diet very, very strictly (can be also the Dr. Weil diet), Omega 3.
To help my follicle be mature and the best possible: Clomid in very small doses on CD 3,4 and 5. My follicles have not had issues in the past but he wants to make sure they are A+.
For my luteal phase: to continue with HCG
Thyroid: to continue with T3 and Syn.throid. I asked if it can be auto-inmmune and he said it would not hurt to test for thyroid antibodies in case of Hashimotos. I think I have tested in the past and it came out negative, but he said it would not hurt.
For CM: to continue with Fertile CM, Mucinex and also to add B6 100mgs twice a day (I had a horrible reaction to 500mgs which he said is highly unusual. He said I was one in a million and laughed!) I told him I was on Optivite which has B6 and he said he was Ok with it.
For possible infection: Biaxin 21 days both DH and I. This last cycle I had for the very first time in my whole life premenstrual bleeding very, very brown (i now know what women call brown bleeding!) and he wants to outrule an infection.
For my moods: to continue with Naltrexone.
My suggestions to which he said he was OK:
To include baby aspirin. he said it would not hurt so he was OK. I told him I had read extensively that people used to prevent miscarriages and he said it was OK.
I asked about Wobenzyme and he said he did not know it as well as Adren-all. He said they probably would not hurt and to take them.
Woebenzyme is digestive enzymes from Germany and they are helpful with inflammation according to Randi.ne lewis so I will go back to that. I used them for 3 months prior to conceiving. My mom took them for inflammation of the joints and her pain disappeared completly.
Adren-all are herbs to help with adrenal fatigue. I am thinking it over as I am already on so many things.
I asked him about Pain and brain and he said he had not been seeing any results. I had been prior to becoming pregnant as part of my anti inflammatory diet on : UltraInflamaX which has curcumin, rosemary extract and other things to help with inflammation.I was given this by a nutritionist specializing on adrenal fatigue who also said I had tons of inflammation and this helps tremendously. I will go on this again. http://www.metagenics.com/products/a-z-products-list/UltraInflamX
So here we go again. I just hope I can lose those more than 12 pounds, lose the inflammation and be as healthy as possible to be a mother any way God chooses.
Gifts of blogging and many other things
So many things have been happening in my life that I am having a hard time putting everything in here. So I will do quick (or not so quick) takes, not sure how many!
1) Met my very first blogger in real life!!!!! I am so happy. I was blessed to meet with Matchingmoonheads here in Mexico City. We met last Thursday for the very first time at my church. She attended an intro session in Spanish for the CrMS and then stayed for Mass and Adoration. Then on Saturday my DH and I met with her and her DH for lunch and then a visit to a painter. She is such an amazing woman and the story for her coming to the Church is also a wonderful one! Meeting her and her DH gave my DH and I a lot of hope, that we are not the only ones struggling with maintaining ourselves faithful to the Church. I feel very blessed to have met her, something that being here so far away from most bloggers I thought would never happen.
2) Received yesterday the most amazing gift from my prayer buddy. Completely unexpected! I received from Jeremiah a beautiful willow tree Christmas ornament of the holy family, a hearfelt letter and a Christmas Card. I was so excited and had a smile all day! Thank you from the botton of my heart!
3) The adoption course continues and has been amazing. So much to reflect and learn. We have discussed in the last 2 weeks how to manage all aspects of communicating our adoption plans to our families, friends etc and then to the child. Another session was about the biological mothers and all aspects about them. Both have sessions have opened our hearts even more towards adoption. Yet I still have fears if I will be able to be a good mother. Something to work a lot on in the next months.
I have started to tell my family more about the adoption process. My parents were incredibly supportive and very relieved that all is very professional and that we are not in risk of getting our heart broken (there is always the risk, but here you only find out about the baby when all legalities have been sorted through as most adoptions are closed). My mother offered the crib from my nice and nephew and told me that she will teach me how to knit. =)
We still have to start telling a lot of people and it will be a process, but with such a reception from my parents I feel hopeful that the rest will at least be positive.
4) I have received 2 gifts from friends for our future babies. Completly unexpected and so very thoughtful. They both know that we are in the adoption process and have given us both gifts to make more real our wait.
Both are adoptive mothers: The very first one is a blank book so I can write all things related to the coming of our baby in our lives and our friends and family can write letters to the baby about our longing for him/ her. This was by : http://life-love-joy-hope.blogspot.com/ It was such an amazing gift!
The other one is by a dear friend that just adopted a few months ago: a baby carrier called baby k´tan. It so we can hold the baby close to us and help with attachment.
I was so very moved by the gifts that I have still tears in my eyes when I think of them.
5) I will be traveling to Dallas for work this week and next and I have made the decision to start to buy certain things for the baby. Something inside of me tells me this will make more real that most likely a baby will be in our lives in a year or less.
I did not want to do it before at all and hid everything that I had been given with my pregnancy after my miscarriage, but I think the time has come. We need it to give us hope. Its a huge risk in case something happens that our hearts will be broken, but I need to trust in God.
My sister has promised to send her books on child and baby rearing also.
6) Healthwise doing better, not yet at 100% but much better. A lot of inflammation still, some signs of depression and I need to lose some 12 pounds or more and have not been able for the longest time. PPVI has started me on Syn.throid since all my T4 Thyroid measurements continue to be low, I hope this helps with my weight loss. My cycles after the last D&C have normalized and for the very first time in 3 months my ovulation was very clear and had great CM. This is such a relief after months of the most horrible cycles ever.
7) After all the drama from the last 3 months I have made an appointment for a phone consult with Dr. H. It will be today at 4:20 p.m- I am very nervous and I have a long list of questions for him. So very, very long! how can I help heal my thyroid and tiredness? will I be on thyroid medication my whole life? how can I help prevent polyps in the future? any ways to prevent miscarriages in the remote case we get pregnant? etc etc
8) I continue with therapy. Had my second session yesterday. It is so very clear that I need it. I continue to go back to the horrible things that have happened in the last years and specially the last months and I need to break this cycle of negativity that does not help anybody. My excercise for this week is to question all my thoughts: are they real or just a negative take on things?
9) I read "Happy" on vacation., Its a book o positive psychology by a Harvard professor. Its great and gave me tons of ideas on how to get out of this negative cycle. I an doing a lot of the excercies right now.
10) I have been given the date for my exam so I can become a certified CrMS practitioner. It will be Feb 19th! I am very nervous and excited at the sametime. Will need to study very, very hard in the next weeks since I have lost a lot of the practice with my health crisis. If I pass I can open the very first Fert.ility.Care center here! Please pray!
I am swamped with calls from all over Mexico right now and I have a waiting list which is an incredible sign from God yet I need to focus also on my marriage and own health process so I am asking for those that can wait until mid Feb
11)Meetings with donors and bishop. Also in Feb we will have the meetings with the donors and bishop. At the very same time my job has gotten consistently more complex- We are starting to prepare everything for a 3 day sales meeting with 200 participants from 10 countries in Rio de Janeiro Brasil. I head the efforts together with a small team. So I am very nervous since all seems to be happening at the very same time!
Still a lot more going on, but I already wrote far more than expected. For the brave ones that read through all of this thanks!! And please pray that I can survive all that is going on at the same time!
1) Met my very first blogger in real life!!!!! I am so happy. I was blessed to meet with Matchingmoonheads here in Mexico City. We met last Thursday for the very first time at my church. She attended an intro session in Spanish for the CrMS and then stayed for Mass and Adoration. Then on Saturday my DH and I met with her and her DH for lunch and then a visit to a painter. She is such an amazing woman and the story for her coming to the Church is also a wonderful one! Meeting her and her DH gave my DH and I a lot of hope, that we are not the only ones struggling with maintaining ourselves faithful to the Church. I feel very blessed to have met her, something that being here so far away from most bloggers I thought would never happen.
2) Received yesterday the most amazing gift from my prayer buddy. Completely unexpected! I received from Jeremiah a beautiful willow tree Christmas ornament of the holy family, a hearfelt letter and a Christmas Card. I was so excited and had a smile all day! Thank you from the botton of my heart!
3) The adoption course continues and has been amazing. So much to reflect and learn. We have discussed in the last 2 weeks how to manage all aspects of communicating our adoption plans to our families, friends etc and then to the child. Another session was about the biological mothers and all aspects about them. Both have sessions have opened our hearts even more towards adoption. Yet I still have fears if I will be able to be a good mother. Something to work a lot on in the next months.
I have started to tell my family more about the adoption process. My parents were incredibly supportive and very relieved that all is very professional and that we are not in risk of getting our heart broken (there is always the risk, but here you only find out about the baby when all legalities have been sorted through as most adoptions are closed). My mother offered the crib from my nice and nephew and told me that she will teach me how to knit. =)
We still have to start telling a lot of people and it will be a process, but with such a reception from my parents I feel hopeful that the rest will at least be positive.
4) I have received 2 gifts from friends for our future babies. Completly unexpected and so very thoughtful. They both know that we are in the adoption process and have given us both gifts to make more real our wait.
Both are adoptive mothers: The very first one is a blank book so I can write all things related to the coming of our baby in our lives and our friends and family can write letters to the baby about our longing for him/ her. This was by : http://life-love-joy-hope.blogspot.com/ It was such an amazing gift!
The other one is by a dear friend that just adopted a few months ago: a baby carrier called baby k´tan. It so we can hold the baby close to us and help with attachment.
I was so very moved by the gifts that I have still tears in my eyes when I think of them.
5) I will be traveling to Dallas for work this week and next and I have made the decision to start to buy certain things for the baby. Something inside of me tells me this will make more real that most likely a baby will be in our lives in a year or less.
I did not want to do it before at all and hid everything that I had been given with my pregnancy after my miscarriage, but I think the time has come. We need it to give us hope. Its a huge risk in case something happens that our hearts will be broken, but I need to trust in God.
My sister has promised to send her books on child and baby rearing also.
6) Healthwise doing better, not yet at 100% but much better. A lot of inflammation still, some signs of depression and I need to lose some 12 pounds or more and have not been able for the longest time. PPVI has started me on Syn.throid since all my T4 Thyroid measurements continue to be low, I hope this helps with my weight loss. My cycles after the last D&C have normalized and for the very first time in 3 months my ovulation was very clear and had great CM. This is such a relief after months of the most horrible cycles ever.
7) After all the drama from the last 3 months I have made an appointment for a phone consult with Dr. H. It will be today at 4:20 p.m- I am very nervous and I have a long list of questions for him. So very, very long! how can I help heal my thyroid and tiredness? will I be on thyroid medication my whole life? how can I help prevent polyps in the future? any ways to prevent miscarriages in the remote case we get pregnant? etc etc
8) I continue with therapy. Had my second session yesterday. It is so very clear that I need it. I continue to go back to the horrible things that have happened in the last years and specially the last months and I need to break this cycle of negativity that does not help anybody. My excercise for this week is to question all my thoughts: are they real or just a negative take on things?
9) I read "Happy" on vacation., Its a book o positive psychology by a Harvard professor. Its great and gave me tons of ideas on how to get out of this negative cycle. I an doing a lot of the excercies right now.
10) I have been given the date for my exam so I can become a certified CrMS practitioner. It will be Feb 19th! I am very nervous and excited at the sametime. Will need to study very, very hard in the next weeks since I have lost a lot of the practice with my health crisis. If I pass I can open the very first Fert.ility.Care center here! Please pray!
I am swamped with calls from all over Mexico right now and I have a waiting list which is an incredible sign from God yet I need to focus also on my marriage and own health process so I am asking for those that can wait until mid Feb
11)Meetings with donors and bishop. Also in Feb we will have the meetings with the donors and bishop. At the very same time my job has gotten consistently more complex- We are starting to prepare everything for a 3 day sales meeting with 200 participants from 10 countries in Rio de Janeiro Brasil. I head the efforts together with a small team. So I am very nervous since all seems to be happening at the very same time!
Still a lot more going on, but I already wrote far more than expected. For the brave ones that read through all of this thanks!! And please pray that I can survive all that is going on at the same time!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Do not know what to think or feel
I do not even know where to start. I have no words really to explain how I feel.
For the last 3 weeks I have thought and belived 100% that I had miscarried again. Even named the baby.
Yesterday my amazing Catholic doctor told me what the pathologist report said.
It was not a miscarriage.
It was a polyp.
A polyp that had caused my horrible bleeding and that had caused for the endometrium to look like a pregnancy had been there.
What God has intented that I learn from this I do not know.
It seems like a joke. A bad one.
But I must believe there is a purpose.
In the last 3 months so many lessons:
A miscarriage that broke me in a millon pieces both physically and spiritually.
Four days later a 4 day stay in the hospital with the most horrible pain, contractions and bleeding I could have ever imagined.
Two months of crazy, crazy cycles that even with my practitioner experience I had difficulties managining.
Then bleeding so heavy that I was scared to death. I even soaked a restaurant chair.
Then the news by two great doctors that I had miscarried again.
And now three weeks later. It was not a baby, but a polyp.
There must be a plan for all of this. I know it. I need to believe it.
Maybe that I become an expert at all things woman. That I become more compassionate of my clients and understand basically most of the things that a woman can go through.
That I finally understand that I am not in control. But He is.
To put myself 100% in His loving hands.
But its so very hard.
For the last 3 weeks I have thought and belived 100% that I had miscarried again. Even named the baby.
Yesterday my amazing Catholic doctor told me what the pathologist report said.
It was not a miscarriage.
It was a polyp.
A polyp that had caused my horrible bleeding and that had caused for the endometrium to look like a pregnancy had been there.
What God has intented that I learn from this I do not know.
It seems like a joke. A bad one.
But I must believe there is a purpose.
In the last 3 months so many lessons:
A miscarriage that broke me in a millon pieces both physically and spiritually.
Four days later a 4 day stay in the hospital with the most horrible pain, contractions and bleeding I could have ever imagined.
Two months of crazy, crazy cycles that even with my practitioner experience I had difficulties managining.
Then bleeding so heavy that I was scared to death. I even soaked a restaurant chair.
Then the news by two great doctors that I had miscarried again.
And now three weeks later. It was not a baby, but a polyp.
There must be a plan for all of this. I know it. I need to believe it.
Maybe that I become an expert at all things woman. That I become more compassionate of my clients and understand basically most of the things that a woman can go through.
That I finally understand that I am not in control. But He is.
To put myself 100% in His loving hands.
But its so very hard.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
UPDATED *** When I most needed it... Godincidences again
I just returned from vacations with my DH. Amazing ones not only on the purely vacation side (rest, great food, amazing contact with nature, culture), but also ones filled with messages from God.
UPDATE:
In all my excitement I forgot to mention 2 things:
One: the very very first of the Godincidences. Coincidences where the hand of God is so very very clear.
Without me knowing the town where the hotel is is called San Rafael in the state of Veracruz.
Named in honor of St Raphael. This is how the decided to name our last baby, in honor of the Archangel. So we ended up spending a week in a place named after our baby 3 weeks after losing him. Raphael means God has healed and indeed He has started the process.
Two: this area of Mexico has a tradition of traditional healers for many, many hundred years steming from the indians before the Spanish arrived that have a lot of knowledge of plants. They use plants and animals to cure everything, not magic or anything. People go to them for the basics or even cancer. They go back to the very basics of nature to heal, plants, water, teas, etc.
When the hotel personnel knew that we were there after a hospital stay (did not say why) they told us to visit two local people. I did not have anything to lose so we visited two who were recommended by the locals who said the exact same thing. Exactly.
One recieves people from all over the country, busses full of people go to see him. He helps most people without asking for anything. In most cases he does not even accept money other than for the cost of plants and when people are poor not even this. He is a botanist.
Without knowing anything about me or my problem (i did not tell them anything) one told me that I was suffering from my head, too many thoughts and plans (how did he know???) and that I also was suffering from my uterus and proceeded to tell me exactly where. I was and I am still bleeding as it heals from the second D&C. What???????
He proceeded to give me some plants and concoctions and told me that I would be well and that we would have a baby. I had of course many doubts, but on the way out we asked all the people around and all had miraculous stories to tell. Even the hotel manager later told us an incredible story. I asked the botanist if it would hurt my western medicines.
He said no. That he will heal and strenghten my uterus and the rest is up to my western doctor. So I have started to take a horrible concoction and guess what: My bleeding after 20 days has subsided and almost stoped. I have nothing more to lose so I will try this while I decide my Western next steps.
All of your prayers and my prayer buddy have worked miracles.
Calls and chance encounters that have given me peace and hope....
When I most needed it.
With a heart broken in a million pieces and a body that continues to bleed 20 days after my D&C.
When I was about to give up on everything, including my work as a practitioner and my promotion of Napro here, and when I was very mad at God.
Mad because of all that had happened in 2010. Four hospital stays for me, 2 for my DH, many, many many challenges with the start of Napro here, issues with both of our jobs and above all about our 2 miscarriages. It was a year I would love to forget.
So we took the monks advice, the advice I was given by my spiritual advisor to go on a romantic trip. The best advice ever. So we chose a part of Mexico that we had never visited and decided to go to a very small hotel, among mango trees and in a banana plantation near the sea that promised to be the most relaxing place ever. I still have no idea how I found it.
It is a 9 bedroom hotel that looks like it was built in the French Provence only that instead of lavender fields it has mango and banana plantations around it.
Our room and the main house are original and fully restored from the 1880´s.
Online it explained a little about it and it just clicked that we needed to go there. My DH had studied in France his master and loves anything French so it sounded like we could mix the best of Europe and Mexico in one place, and indeed it was.
We left very early on Monday after the distaster of Christmas completly worn out.
We arrived at this magic place. Amazingly beautiful. A true gift and I have no idea how we found it online since is basically unknown.
the place and the food were perfect and we started our adventure by taking a 2 person bike among the banana plantations. Beautiful.
But then something happened that looked like if would ruin our perfect getaway.
The hotel supposedly only caters to adults and to our surprise Monday late afternoon after a wonderful silent lunch we see a very large family composed of granparents, three marriages and 5 children and a baby, something that suposedly is prohibited. They had taken over more than half of the hotel!!!
The children then started to play right ball screaming in front of our window and I was woken up from an afternoon nap. Babies crying, children screaming and mothers runing around. Wow. Where was the peace and tranquility? then they took over the small pool and the dinning room. A hotel for 18 persons with at least 12 running around does not make for a very relaxing place.
So I decided to speak to the manager but she had left for 3 days to another city. The hotel staff was doing its best to try to fix this, but did not have the permission to make decisions without the manager.
I was very mad for a moment. We had traveled over 5 hours to get to this place so we could have quiet and this happens!!!
what next God???????
But then something happened. For some reason I decided to relax and try to make the best of it. Something in my heart said life gives you lemons and you need to make lemonade. So for the first time in weeks even among the chaos I relaxed.
I would have the surprise of my life days latter with this same family and I now understand why they needed to be there.
The next days to try to find some quiet we decided to spend the day in another hotel by the beach (by the same owner) and had the most amazing time there ,on other days we visited local small towns, took a swamp tour and saw wildlife untouched by man and were welcomed everywhere by the most amazing people. The food was absolutely delicious and even the weather was amazing. Sunny with breeze.
During this time I received 2 of the most amazing calls of my life. Calls I had been praying for a long time.
This in a place with very, very bad mobile coverage so it miracolous that I even got them.
The first one was from one of my very first clients. A couple that had been fighting with If for 5 years. They had gone to the very best doctors in Mexico and had even traveled to the USA 2 years ago for a third opinion. There they had told them their only option was IVF with a male donor.
They had sat in this doctors office in Houston with the means to do it and she had said no and came back to Mexico with no options. I truly admired her since his family had been puting a lot of pressure on them.
So they began charting and it became clear that what they had been told in the USA was not correct. It was very obvious. So they decided to trust me (without me even having a baby) and went to PPVI for a full evaluation and had just begun treatment.
She is now pregnant 2 months afterwards. I have no words.
During these days I was the very first person she called when she was late. Such a privilege.
Then she called me when the blood test was positive. Tears.
and then she texted me when the doctor made the confirmation.
All has been worth it just for this little baby.
Then the next call....one day later. A friend that was in the process of IVF, she had been shopping around for clinics for months. My DH and I had invited them many times for dinner to discuss adoption and Napro. Prayed that they would not do it.
After many months she had finally accepted to to my local catholic doctor and fell in love with him. Decided to give him time and start the adoption process.
On Thursday she sends me a message. Urgent
They have been accepted for adoption by her local adoption agency (
All went so fast that in less than a month all has been sorted out and they can become parents any minute.
She called to tell me and to say thanks.
They will not be doing IVF any more.
but this is not all.
So we were ultra happy about the news. But I felt a certain sadness. Where were our children? When could I hold my own?
I did not have the strenght to even think about our adoption.
GOD KEPT LISTENING TO OTHERS PRAYERS AND US?
On Thursday we decide to stay at the hotel even with all the children. We try to relax by the pool, but it was almost impossible.
And then a voice calls the name of my DH.
He goes and talks to a woman I had not seen before. They talk for a very, very long time.
Later I was in the kitchen speaking to the cooks about a certain amazing chile sauce they had just made when this lady comes up to me and says hi. She is the one my DH knows.
They had just been in a course together with my DH boss. My DH knew her from months before.
She has just arrived to meet the rest of her family (4 of the children are hers) since she had to work until Wednesday.
We begin speaking and she is so nice.
I ask her where she works. She tells me and I almost faint.
She is the director of our adoption agency.
We had had the interview with the President, but she is the director. She has just taken this position some weeks ago.
This is why my DH did not know that she worked there.
NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS WOULD I HAVE THOUGHT MY DH WAS FRIENDS WITH HER BUT ALSO THAT WE WOULD MEET IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWWHERE!!!!!!
This is the person together with the President who will make the decision if we are accepted as adoptive parents and also choose the baby that is for us among the ones that they have in their nursery (just now they have 25 babies waiting for adoption).
Such a clear signal that God is with us. Such a Godincidence.
But it does not stop here.
She has been told about me.... weeks ago...
That there is this crazy girl that can give talks to some adoptive parents to be on alternatives to IVF. She asks if we can meet. ME???????
My God.
but there is more.
We talk and we know tons of people in commmon. She also knows my DH cousin, a gynecologist that lives in a city 4 hours away from Mexico City. She speaks very very highly of him.
And we find out a complete surprise for us. My DH cousin is a gynecologist, a very renowed one in this city and Catholic. That we knew.
But we find out that he is completly pro-life and does not gives contraception. My DH did not know. Knew that he was a practicing Catholic, but this no. She tells us that he would be a great candidate for Napro. He gives time to this agency saving lives and giving talks.
Right under our noses and we came all the way here to find out?
AND.... we learn that his wife is one of the most important members of the national board of our adoption agency. What???
Sometimes God where you least expect it give you hope and strenght to continue, even in the middle of nowhere among banana and mango trees.
Love Godincidences.
UPDATE:
In all my excitement I forgot to mention 2 things:
One: the very very first of the Godincidences. Coincidences where the hand of God is so very very clear.
Without me knowing the town where the hotel is is called San Rafael in the state of Veracruz.
Named in honor of St Raphael. This is how the decided to name our last baby, in honor of the Archangel. So we ended up spending a week in a place named after our baby 3 weeks after losing him. Raphael means God has healed and indeed He has started the process.
Two: this area of Mexico has a tradition of traditional healers for many, many hundred years steming from the indians before the Spanish arrived that have a lot of knowledge of plants. They use plants and animals to cure everything, not magic or anything. People go to them for the basics or even cancer. They go back to the very basics of nature to heal, plants, water, teas, etc.
When the hotel personnel knew that we were there after a hospital stay (did not say why) they told us to visit two local people. I did not have anything to lose so we visited two who were recommended by the locals who said the exact same thing. Exactly.
One recieves people from all over the country, busses full of people go to see him. He helps most people without asking for anything. In most cases he does not even accept money other than for the cost of plants and when people are poor not even this. He is a botanist.
Without knowing anything about me or my problem (i did not tell them anything) one told me that I was suffering from my head, too many thoughts and plans (how did he know???) and that I also was suffering from my uterus and proceeded to tell me exactly where. I was and I am still bleeding as it heals from the second D&C. What???????
He proceeded to give me some plants and concoctions and told me that I would be well and that we would have a baby. I had of course many doubts, but on the way out we asked all the people around and all had miraculous stories to tell. Even the hotel manager later told us an incredible story. I asked the botanist if it would hurt my western medicines.
He said no. That he will heal and strenghten my uterus and the rest is up to my western doctor. So I have started to take a horrible concoction and guess what: My bleeding after 20 days has subsided and almost stoped. I have nothing more to lose so I will try this while I decide my Western next steps.
All of your prayers and my prayer buddy have worked miracles.
Calls and chance encounters that have given me peace and hope....
When I most needed it.
With a heart broken in a million pieces and a body that continues to bleed 20 days after my D&C.
When I was about to give up on everything, including my work as a practitioner and my promotion of Napro here, and when I was very mad at God.
Mad because of all that had happened in 2010. Four hospital stays for me, 2 for my DH, many, many many challenges with the start of Napro here, issues with both of our jobs and above all about our 2 miscarriages. It was a year I would love to forget.
So we took the monks advice, the advice I was given by my spiritual advisor to go on a romantic trip. The best advice ever. So we chose a part of Mexico that we had never visited and decided to go to a very small hotel, among mango trees and in a banana plantation near the sea that promised to be the most relaxing place ever. I still have no idea how I found it.
It is a 9 bedroom hotel that looks like it was built in the French Provence only that instead of lavender fields it has mango and banana plantations around it.
Our room and the main house are original and fully restored from the 1880´s.
Online it explained a little about it and it just clicked that we needed to go there. My DH had studied in France his master and loves anything French so it sounded like we could mix the best of Europe and Mexico in one place, and indeed it was.
We left very early on Monday after the distaster of Christmas completly worn out.
We arrived at this magic place. Amazingly beautiful. A true gift and I have no idea how we found it online since is basically unknown.
the place and the food were perfect and we started our adventure by taking a 2 person bike among the banana plantations. Beautiful.
But then something happened that looked like if would ruin our perfect getaway.
The hotel supposedly only caters to adults and to our surprise Monday late afternoon after a wonderful silent lunch we see a very large family composed of granparents, three marriages and 5 children and a baby, something that suposedly is prohibited. They had taken over more than half of the hotel!!!
The children then started to play right ball screaming in front of our window and I was woken up from an afternoon nap. Babies crying, children screaming and mothers runing around. Wow. Where was the peace and tranquility? then they took over the small pool and the dinning room. A hotel for 18 persons with at least 12 running around does not make for a very relaxing place.
So I decided to speak to the manager but she had left for 3 days to another city. The hotel staff was doing its best to try to fix this, but did not have the permission to make decisions without the manager.
I was very mad for a moment. We had traveled over 5 hours to get to this place so we could have quiet and this happens!!!
what next God???????
But then something happened. For some reason I decided to relax and try to make the best of it. Something in my heart said life gives you lemons and you need to make lemonade. So for the first time in weeks even among the chaos I relaxed.
I would have the surprise of my life days latter with this same family and I now understand why they needed to be there.
The next days to try to find some quiet we decided to spend the day in another hotel by the beach (by the same owner) and had the most amazing time there ,on other days we visited local small towns, took a swamp tour and saw wildlife untouched by man and were welcomed everywhere by the most amazing people. The food was absolutely delicious and even the weather was amazing. Sunny with breeze.
During this time I received 2 of the most amazing calls of my life. Calls I had been praying for a long time.
This in a place with very, very bad mobile coverage so it miracolous that I even got them.
The first one was from one of my very first clients. A couple that had been fighting with If for 5 years. They had gone to the very best doctors in Mexico and had even traveled to the USA 2 years ago for a third opinion. There they had told them their only option was IVF with a male donor.
They had sat in this doctors office in Houston with the means to do it and she had said no and came back to Mexico with no options. I truly admired her since his family had been puting a lot of pressure on them.
So they began charting and it became clear that what they had been told in the USA was not correct. It was very obvious. So they decided to trust me (without me even having a baby) and went to PPVI for a full evaluation and had just begun treatment.
She is now pregnant 2 months afterwards. I have no words.
During these days I was the very first person she called when she was late. Such a privilege.
Then she called me when the blood test was positive. Tears.
and then she texted me when the doctor made the confirmation.
All has been worth it just for this little baby.
Then the next call....one day later. A friend that was in the process of IVF, she had been shopping around for clinics for months. My DH and I had invited them many times for dinner to discuss adoption and Napro. Prayed that they would not do it.
After many months she had finally accepted to to my local catholic doctor and fell in love with him. Decided to give him time and start the adoption process.
On Thursday she sends me a message. Urgent
They have been accepted for adoption by her local adoption agency (
All went so fast that in less than a month all has been sorted out and they can become parents any minute.
She called to tell me and to say thanks.
They will not be doing IVF any more.
but this is not all.
So we were ultra happy about the news. But I felt a certain sadness. Where were our children? When could I hold my own?
I did not have the strenght to even think about our adoption.
GOD KEPT LISTENING TO OTHERS PRAYERS AND US?
On Thursday we decide to stay at the hotel even with all the children. We try to relax by the pool, but it was almost impossible.
And then a voice calls the name of my DH.
He goes and talks to a woman I had not seen before. They talk for a very, very long time.
Later I was in the kitchen speaking to the cooks about a certain amazing chile sauce they had just made when this lady comes up to me and says hi. She is the one my DH knows.
They had just been in a course together with my DH boss. My DH knew her from months before.
She has just arrived to meet the rest of her family (4 of the children are hers) since she had to work until Wednesday.
We begin speaking and she is so nice.
I ask her where she works. She tells me and I almost faint.
She is the director of our adoption agency.
We had had the interview with the President, but she is the director. She has just taken this position some weeks ago.
This is why my DH did not know that she worked there.
NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS WOULD I HAVE THOUGHT MY DH WAS FRIENDS WITH HER BUT ALSO THAT WE WOULD MEET IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWWHERE!!!!!!
This is the person together with the President who will make the decision if we are accepted as adoptive parents and also choose the baby that is for us among the ones that they have in their nursery (just now they have 25 babies waiting for adoption).
Such a clear signal that God is with us. Such a Godincidence.
But it does not stop here.
She has been told about me.... weeks ago...
That there is this crazy girl that can give talks to some adoptive parents to be on alternatives to IVF. She asks if we can meet. ME???????
My God.
but there is more.
We talk and we know tons of people in commmon. She also knows my DH cousin, a gynecologist that lives in a city 4 hours away from Mexico City. She speaks very very highly of him.
And we find out a complete surprise for us. My DH cousin is a gynecologist, a very renowed one in this city and Catholic. That we knew.
But we find out that he is completly pro-life and does not gives contraception. My DH did not know. Knew that he was a practicing Catholic, but this no. She tells us that he would be a great candidate for Napro. He gives time to this agency saving lives and giving talks.
Right under our noses and we came all the way here to find out?
AND.... we learn that his wife is one of the most important members of the national board of our adoption agency. What???
Sometimes God where you least expect it give you hope and strenght to continue, even in the middle of nowhere among banana and mango trees.
Love Godincidences.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Family.....
I have been absent from blogging for over a week since I spent the last days at my parents while my DH had to work.
He only came back on the 31st after several hard days with my family.
It was an incredibly hard week and they have no clue other than me breaking in tears in the middle of Mass today very publicly and eyes that denoted tears that I was able to hide from them.
It was supposed to be a week of healing with my parents and siblings. It has been almost 2.5 weeks since my miscarriage and I needed this time with family so very, very much.
Yet they do not know what to say or the extent of our pain that they ended up doing or saying all the wrong things. This from a family that I know loves us very, very much.
They do not know what you say about my health, our miscarriages, our finances and adoption plans. They truly do not and a lot of what they said made it much worse without even realizing it.
First is my father. He does not know how to relate to someone in pain. Never has.
He is an amazing dad, yet whenever we were hurting he did not have clue what to do.
He is very worried about me and it hurts me to know this. Worried about my health, my DH lack of job direction and our finances.
Very and his way to deal with it its to give my DH advice so he can find a better job (so he can better support me) which embarasses me no end, give me advice that we should invest in their neighborhood so we can have a great investment and live near them when we have children or talk to my mother who then relays the messages.
For example he has been pushing for years for us to buy a plot of land in their neighborhood, a very nice area near the woods that has increased prices substantially in the last years as an investment and also so we can build a house near them in the future so they can take care of their grandchildren.
My brother has just built there a beautiful house and my father does not understand why we cannot. He knows that I would love to. Would adore living there, it would be a dream come true. So he is always showing me plots of land and telling me what a good investment it would be. I know it would, really know.
But all the money spent on IF has made this impossible.
Just last year between Omaha, alternative treatments, my hospital stay and 2 D&C have streched our finances to the limit. We saved next to nothing and had to go into emergency funds the last 3 months due to the miscarriages even with great insurance. And we are still childless.
So there I was, staying in this amazing neighborhood in their house and the discussion all the time was my brothers house (my BIL is the architect and my father is supervising the work). Every breakfast, lunch and dinner the discussion was this since all involved where there.
How can I explain to him that we have invested every last dime on this dream of building a family and yet we have nothing to show for it?
That even with all the offers of help by my BIL doing the project for free and my father supervising its impossible for us?
I have tried, but he does not understand the amount of money we have needed to use to fix our broken bodies in the last 3 years. And I cannot tell him. It would break his heart.
That some months my medicines are over 600 USD worth and some months even more plus doctors and blood work and very little is covered by insurance.
So I had to sit in silence listening to my family discuss day in and day out the amazing investment my brother had done and have my father look sadly at me wishing for me to have this opportunity. And it broke my heart.
Then my mother... Where to start?
I will just say that she has urged me many times during these days to go back again to PPVI and have an in depth revision by DR. H. Have as many tests as needed so they can sort out what is going on with me. Fly to Omaha and stay there as long as needed.
How can I tell her that I do not have the strenght to again go to another country to find answers? That I can barely move in the mornings from grief? That I cannot face another blood draw or another U/S? That I have lost hope?
And today she told me she understood exactly what I was going through.
I told her I did not think anybody in my family could understand and she begins by telling me that she had suffered a lot while my grandmother was three months in the ICU. I just looked at her and burst out crying.
All our family had suffered a lot during this horrible time where my beloved grandmother was dying, but going back to this time does not make our pain less.
How can my mom who got pregnant every time she wanted truly understand?
She who has never ever been in the hospital other than for the births of her 3 children, how can she understand how I felt when I needed to be in the hospital 4 times just during 2010?
And 3 were from miscarriages or its complications in 3 months?
How you are on a roller coaster of feelings each and every month and that now not only I am afraid of never being able to get pregnant again, but also that I am afraid of being pregnant again?
That I am afraid of both possibilities at the very same time.
Then she told me I should stop charting since she thought I was getting very anxious about what I was seeing in my charts which are a complete mess. Throw my charting away for a few months.
How can I explain to her that not only where they used to detect problems in my cycles, but that I also need them so I prevent another pregnancy since both PPVI and my local doctor have strickly prohibited me getting pregnant in the next months? She never used NFP so she does not understand why we need to continue charting.
And then my sister.
The one that is a psychologist with 2 beautiful children telling me that this is life and I need to get over it. She had 2 miscarriages between her 2 children so she tells me she understands all that I am going through.
But.... she already had a child when she had those 2 miscarriages and she was much younger, in her 20´s with plenty of time to sort things out and I am pretty sure she would have gone the IVF route. Here I am almost 40 childless choosing a route she will never ever understand.
I know miscarriages are never easy, but how can she understand the path my DH and I have taken when she supports her friends using IVF and uses contraception?
She does not understand why my DH and I have taken this route. A far more complicated one involving long distance care and not being insured when there are great RE´s here, 15 minutes from my house used successfully by her friends.
And this crazy route chosen by her sister is also a route that has not worked in preventing her miscarriages.
So in her eyes we have been crazy for following it. And I can feel it in her words and worry for me and by her mentioning the successes of her friends with IVF.
And then on top of it all....
My brother and his wife...
We live in the same 3 appartment building (which I found 4 years ago and conviced them to buy an appartment in as well as my brother´s best friend) and they will be moving out soon.
So they have started saying how they cannot wait to move out of our very cold appartments (very true) into their amazing new house. How their quality of life will improve 10 times by moving out of the city and how they cannot wait to leave their appartment behind.
And yet we will still live here for the next years for sure.
What does this mean? That we live in a horrible place? I know they do not mean this, yet.... their comments hurt. A lot.
I always loved our appartment and thought it was a great investment, but hearing day in and day out this makes my heart so very sad.
Appart from them discussing all the time their new house and the ample room they will have for children my SIL just quit her job to become a full time house wife and so she could focus on having children.
They have been trying for a few months and she thought the stress was preventing her from getting pregnant so she quit.
Something I wish I could do. So very, very much. But cannot.
That I did not thave to combine this search for family and my work worries. A high stress job which I do not like anymore.
And then the cherry on the cake.
My brother told me he did not understand how I could not put a brave face over Christmas? Get over everything that had happened since all of them had worries.
Looked at me with stern eyes when had tears in my eyes that I kept hiding? Moving his head in disapproval.
Asked me how I could worry my parents so much?
This from the same brother who told me ayear ago when I told him I was considering adoption that he could never ever do it and to consider all the dangers of it.
In the place where I am most loved I could not find any consolation or true understanding during the hardest weeks of my life and it breaks my heart.
He only came back on the 31st after several hard days with my family.
It was an incredibly hard week and they have no clue other than me breaking in tears in the middle of Mass today very publicly and eyes that denoted tears that I was able to hide from them.
It was supposed to be a week of healing with my parents and siblings. It has been almost 2.5 weeks since my miscarriage and I needed this time with family so very, very much.
Yet they do not know what to say or the extent of our pain that they ended up doing or saying all the wrong things. This from a family that I know loves us very, very much.
They do not know what you say about my health, our miscarriages, our finances and adoption plans. They truly do not and a lot of what they said made it much worse without even realizing it.
First is my father. He does not know how to relate to someone in pain. Never has.
He is an amazing dad, yet whenever we were hurting he did not have clue what to do.
He is very worried about me and it hurts me to know this. Worried about my health, my DH lack of job direction and our finances.
Very and his way to deal with it its to give my DH advice so he can find a better job (so he can better support me) which embarasses me no end, give me advice that we should invest in their neighborhood so we can have a great investment and live near them when we have children or talk to my mother who then relays the messages.
For example he has been pushing for years for us to buy a plot of land in their neighborhood, a very nice area near the woods that has increased prices substantially in the last years as an investment and also so we can build a house near them in the future so they can take care of their grandchildren.
My brother has just built there a beautiful house and my father does not understand why we cannot. He knows that I would love to. Would adore living there, it would be a dream come true. So he is always showing me plots of land and telling me what a good investment it would be. I know it would, really know.
But all the money spent on IF has made this impossible.
Just last year between Omaha, alternative treatments, my hospital stay and 2 D&C have streched our finances to the limit. We saved next to nothing and had to go into emergency funds the last 3 months due to the miscarriages even with great insurance. And we are still childless.
So there I was, staying in this amazing neighborhood in their house and the discussion all the time was my brothers house (my BIL is the architect and my father is supervising the work). Every breakfast, lunch and dinner the discussion was this since all involved where there.
How can I explain to him that we have invested every last dime on this dream of building a family and yet we have nothing to show for it?
That even with all the offers of help by my BIL doing the project for free and my father supervising its impossible for us?
I have tried, but he does not understand the amount of money we have needed to use to fix our broken bodies in the last 3 years. And I cannot tell him. It would break his heart.
That some months my medicines are over 600 USD worth and some months even more plus doctors and blood work and very little is covered by insurance.
So I had to sit in silence listening to my family discuss day in and day out the amazing investment my brother had done and have my father look sadly at me wishing for me to have this opportunity. And it broke my heart.
Then my mother... Where to start?
I will just say that she has urged me many times during these days to go back again to PPVI and have an in depth revision by DR. H. Have as many tests as needed so they can sort out what is going on with me. Fly to Omaha and stay there as long as needed.
How can I tell her that I do not have the strenght to again go to another country to find answers? That I can barely move in the mornings from grief? That I cannot face another blood draw or another U/S? That I have lost hope?
And today she told me she understood exactly what I was going through.
I told her I did not think anybody in my family could understand and she begins by telling me that she had suffered a lot while my grandmother was three months in the ICU. I just looked at her and burst out crying.
All our family had suffered a lot during this horrible time where my beloved grandmother was dying, but going back to this time does not make our pain less.
How can my mom who got pregnant every time she wanted truly understand?
She who has never ever been in the hospital other than for the births of her 3 children, how can she understand how I felt when I needed to be in the hospital 4 times just during 2010?
And 3 were from miscarriages or its complications in 3 months?
How you are on a roller coaster of feelings each and every month and that now not only I am afraid of never being able to get pregnant again, but also that I am afraid of being pregnant again?
That I am afraid of both possibilities at the very same time.
Then she told me I should stop charting since she thought I was getting very anxious about what I was seeing in my charts which are a complete mess. Throw my charting away for a few months.
How can I explain to her that not only where they used to detect problems in my cycles, but that I also need them so I prevent another pregnancy since both PPVI and my local doctor have strickly prohibited me getting pregnant in the next months? She never used NFP so she does not understand why we need to continue charting.
And then my sister.
The one that is a psychologist with 2 beautiful children telling me that this is life and I need to get over it. She had 2 miscarriages between her 2 children so she tells me she understands all that I am going through.
But.... she already had a child when she had those 2 miscarriages and she was much younger, in her 20´s with plenty of time to sort things out and I am pretty sure she would have gone the IVF route. Here I am almost 40 childless choosing a route she will never ever understand.
I know miscarriages are never easy, but how can she understand the path my DH and I have taken when she supports her friends using IVF and uses contraception?
She does not understand why my DH and I have taken this route. A far more complicated one involving long distance care and not being insured when there are great RE´s here, 15 minutes from my house used successfully by her friends.
And this crazy route chosen by her sister is also a route that has not worked in preventing her miscarriages.
So in her eyes we have been crazy for following it. And I can feel it in her words and worry for me and by her mentioning the successes of her friends with IVF.
And then on top of it all....
My brother and his wife...
We live in the same 3 appartment building (which I found 4 years ago and conviced them to buy an appartment in as well as my brother´s best friend) and they will be moving out soon.
So they have started saying how they cannot wait to move out of our very cold appartments (very true) into their amazing new house. How their quality of life will improve 10 times by moving out of the city and how they cannot wait to leave their appartment behind.
And yet we will still live here for the next years for sure.
What does this mean? That we live in a horrible place? I know they do not mean this, yet.... their comments hurt. A lot.
I always loved our appartment and thought it was a great investment, but hearing day in and day out this makes my heart so very sad.
Appart from them discussing all the time their new house and the ample room they will have for children my SIL just quit her job to become a full time house wife and so she could focus on having children.
They have been trying for a few months and she thought the stress was preventing her from getting pregnant so she quit.
Something I wish I could do. So very, very much. But cannot.
That I did not thave to combine this search for family and my work worries. A high stress job which I do not like anymore.
And then the cherry on the cake.
My brother told me he did not understand how I could not put a brave face over Christmas? Get over everything that had happened since all of them had worries.
Looked at me with stern eyes when had tears in my eyes that I kept hiding? Moving his head in disapproval.
Asked me how I could worry my parents so much?
This from the same brother who told me ayear ago when I told him I was considering adoption that he could never ever do it and to consider all the dangers of it.
In the place where I am most loved I could not find any consolation or true understanding during the hardest weeks of my life and it breaks my heart.
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