It's a good thing you don't have kids..

This is what I was told today. I didn't correct him.
Bless his heart, it was one of our custodians at school (again, I'm a high school teacher, and if you haven't been around schools in a few years than you might not know how much information is centered around janitors and how much you need them to be on your side! Seriously, they control the school, not the principal).
So he comes in to take out the trash in my classroom and we talk about the current economic crises. Our district will have layoffs (as will every district in all of CA) and I have been teaching for 8 years, but this is my first year in this district, so I may as well have been given a high draft number (high is bad, right? For the draft I mean). Any who, I'm likely going to be hit.
So the janitor is sharing about the plight of the custodians and how they're going to be hit too. I tell him this is my first year and he says, well, "do you have kids"? I say "not yet". He says, "that's a good thing".
While yes, there is a blessing in here somewhere of, I may lose my job and the financial burden of children is not weighing on my heart, there is a myriad of other burdens. The most significant being that if my husband and I both do not have jobs in the fall (a possibility) that we will not be going through IVF in June.
We will have to use that money we've worked hard on saving to pay our mortgage and other big bills.
So yes, it's good that I don't have kids, but geez, at least that burden I can share. I can't tell a relative stranger (who will gossip to everyone) that I actually do have a financial burden when it comes to children, please don't remind me of that.

Once again, things are not in my hands, and when this baby comes, I know it will only have come from God. There is just no other way I'm getting pregnant here. God alone*.

*disclaimer, I believe God works through IUI, IVF, Wise Counsel, and plain ol' 'doing it like rabbits'.

As Sperminated As Ever

Hello Ladies!

This weekend I'm going it based on feeling. I call it my 'spider senses'. My Spider senses told me I ovulated on Saturday night. Well there was Bding on Sat. PM and then again on Monday AM. So I feel like the window was as successfully hit as ever.
Now, I didn't use an OPK, I'm going it alone. Mostly because I had already urinated before I remembered to use the OPK, and, well, that's how it's going to be this month.
But my spider senses feel good. Now, what I don't know is whether or not there will be a baby at the end of this 2ww, but I think we'll do IUI next month so at least there is that to look forward to.
It's tough, because if my job situation were most stable (stupid, stupid california!! Grrrr!) we would be planning on IVF in June. Right now we're just standing by to stand by. And remembering that Worrying gives us nothing.
NOTHING!
So no worry, but I enjoyed a nice cocktail with my DH on V-day. It was lovely.

Thanks and No Update

Thank you for the kind words about Sunny. She was great.
It's been weird to reconnect with so many college friends via facebook because of her death. It's neat to see some names and faces I haven't heard from in so many years (okay, 10). People keep adding pictures of her and it's wonderful. What a trip.

Well, for baby making, I really don't have much of an update. I would like to have a baby. Sooner preferably rather than later, but right now things aren't looking so hot.
My origonal plan was to not do any IUI's and then in June go straight to the IVF big guns (mostly because all of this IF treatment is 100% out of pocket). We obviously changed our minds and did and IUI in January (BFN). Now this month, the dates that I would be ovulating and checked were this coming weekend, but with Valentines day and some extra stuff at work, I just knew I wouldn't be able to get away, so we've decided to skip this month. Now next month, it will be back to the DR for an IUI again.
Whether or not we do IVF in June will really depend on whether or not my husband and I get our jobs back for next year. We're both teachers and in California, that is not a good place to be. So things aren't looking great, but I'm holding out hope. God gave us these jobs, so I really believe this is where we're supposed to be. But if we don't have jobs for the fall than I really don't see how we can spend 16,000 dollars out of our savings if we may have to be paying the mortgage out of that. I certainly don't plan on putting off IVF forever, but I do think it will be the IUI trails for us again. So as soon as I get AF this month (assuming of course there is another BFN) we'll be heading towards IUI in March.
Bring on the Zygote! (the new 'knocked up '09' slogan).

For Sunny

My friend Sunny died this week. She's in the picture above with my friend Phill. We were both film majors together in college, and like most college friendships, we didn't stay close, but about once a year we'd see each other through mutual friends, and I was reminded of how kind she always was.

Sunny was at work on Saturday night (she was an editor on various TV Shows, the last thing she was working on was the Animal Planet Reality Show 'Jockey's'. It aired last night and they showed a picture of her in memorium after it was over last night) and her coworkers found her unresponsive and not breathing. They got her to the hospital where she was in a coma but having brian seizures. During some testing yesterday she stopped breathing and passed away.

She was 30.

She was married, no kids.

Her journey is over.

Now even at times like this, I cling to my faith and I think that never was I given a guarentee about how long I would live. Sunny had 30 years on this plant. I don't know how long I'll have. Hopefully a lot, but that is certainly not a guarantee or something that God or this country promised me. This week I've had some real grief over this situation and really done some good evaluating about what I want out of life. I know that I want children, but what else. I want my life to count. I want people to say that I loved, I lived, and I served my God.

But what kills me is that like all perspective changing events, my memories of this week are likely to fade. Not of Sunny, but the eternal perpsective we get when good or bad things happen. I really want all of us to get pregnant and have huge, happy families. But more than that, I want all of us to be fulfilled and live each day and try new things and have new adventures.

The last 2 + years have been difficult for me because we've been unsuccessful in getting pregnant and having kids. But I don't want to wait for that to happen and miss some of the best years of my life in the meantime. I'm not saying that's what any of us are doing, but sometimes I get the urge to whole up and say, "woe is me, I'm not pregnant, I don't have everything I want". But really, I do. I have a husband I couldn't have even dreamed up as a kid he's so wonderful. I have a family who has flaws but gives me lots of good stories to tell my friends.

And I have a God who never leaves me, even when I leave Him.

Sunny, I will miss you, and I hope you know you have inspired me to lead a more fulfilling life. Thank you.

I made to 12DPO

And it was negative.
And then today I have the AF cramps and spotage.

I'm running the race. I'm running as if to win. I am not going to let this one beat me.
I am going to press on to win the goal. And when I'm tired, I'm looking to God for rejuvination.

I'm gonna pick myself up, put my big girl panties on, and deal with this, one infertile step at a time.

I think that's enough aphorisms for now.