A year later...

Here I am, a year later. When I said my previous post would be my last, at least for a while, I guess I wasn't kidding.

I am working at a barbershop, rehearsing for two plays, and working out like a fiend. My husband is off of work, and has been for almost 2 months, because he got injured on the job and they're still trying to figure out all the details with getting him healthy and back to work. This has put an unimaginable amount of financial stress on our family and we have begun to look at the prospect of moving. We are considering a move to Dallas, Texas, where I will have a TON of work opportunity, and my husband will be able to get into the field of work he wants to be in- custom auto body work. There's really no business/economy for it here... which is slightly ironic, since Michigan was once known as the auto capital of the country. Interesting.
The past couple weeks I have spent a lot of my "free time" (of which I have very little) on the website Trulia.com checking out homes for rent and for sale. We don't have a very good credit situation between the two of us, so we'll struggle either way, it's just a matter of deciding how committed we want to be to an area. We're looking at heading down to Texas this winter, probably after the first of the year, to check out some neighborhoods and possibly meet with a realtor or something to see what we can expect for approval. Everyone I've slipped this information to is worried that I will leave right away, but whether I leave right away or wait a whole year... I will be leaving.

The thought of leaving is really tricky. There are a lot of people and a lot of things I will miss, but... I'm tired of suffering. It's time to do what's best for me and my family... even though that's a husband, a cat and a dog. I will miss my biological family, my theatre family, and the family I've built out of long-term friendships... but anyone who truly wants what is best for me will understand and support me. There's too much disappointment and pain here...


On the Infertility front, I've come to a conclusion: The stork is handing out babies to a shit load of people that shouldn't be having them, and maybe I should take it as a sign. A sign to move on with my life and do what makes me happy. I just turned 29, and I've pretty much lost my last ounce of hope. It's not going to happen naturally, I know that, and we will never be in a position to adopt, so... dogs and cats it is. Maybe I'll get a fish too, I don't know. I know at least three people having "oops" babies and it's like no big deal to them. I actually had a couple friends come INTO MY HOUSE and tell me they're having an oops baby... and they both know what we've been through. So now I have that memory in this house. I can't wait to move away from all this. I can't wait to leave this house... I love my house so much but there's so many bad memories here now. So many bad memories.

On the brighter side of my infertility story, my good friend TJ over at Army Wife Post is about to have her little miracle baby. It's taken them so long to get to this point... so much heartache and hurt... and now so much happiness and joy and pure pure love. Congratulations, Jones family, on the impending arrival of Baby J. I can't wait :)

I have recently made peace with not having kids, though. Really, I have. There are so many things I want to do, and am already doing, and having kids would drastically change that. I guess maybe I'm not done being selfish just yet... I'm not ready to have someone rely on me like that. Funny how things change. If I had gotten pregnant the first time we started trying, I'd have a 3 year old by now... and I think of all the things I would have missed in the last three years. I wouldn't have gone to beauty school, I wouldn't have kept up with theatre, I wouldn't have started my sewing business. What an odd thought.

So if anyone was wondering where I'd run off to, that's about it. Perhaps in another year I will be back here posting about packing up my house to be Texas bound :)

The End

Sad to say, this will probably be my last Infertility Closet blog post.  At least for a while.

I have resigned my position as forum co-guide at TMP.  I will be stepping back from there more once this round of Secret Sender is over.

Basically, I just have lost all interest in fighting this battle.  Maybe I'm "giving up", maybe I'm "quitting", but maybe I've just realized all this stress and heartache just isn't worth it right now.  I run a somewhat successful ghetto-kitchen-salon out of my house, I'm selling Thirty One products and I'm starting to create more art for Tiny Giraffe Studio.  I'm slowly getting pieces started to put on my Etsy and I'm hoping to ACTUALLY sell stuff at some point.  Also, the theatre is taking up more and more of my interest and time, and I'm not quite ready to give that up.

We're about to get insured again, and I don't want to blow my entire yearly limit on a few months of getting prodded by an RE that I'm not convinced I want to deal with right now.  It's just.... hard. 

What's made it easier is...
Okay, so I just had my 28th birthday.  *enter miniature premature midlife crisis* I was talking to a very good friend of mine, who enlightened me a little.  She and her husband didn't even get engaged till she was 28.  She didn't have their first child till she was 32, and their second at 35.  Now one's entering his 3rd year of college and her daughter is a senior in high school.  And they're cool parents!  They're totally awesome!  I thought to myself, "I can do that.  I can do it like that.  I can wait."  I figured that if I'm going to emulate anyone, they are the right people to take after.  They're amazing friends to me and my husband and now knowing their situation, they'll be a very good source of support and information as we move along.

I want to thank those of you that actually follow this blog.  I don't have a billion followers, but I know the ones that are following actually read.  It has meant so much to me that you supported me enough to join up.  What would mean even more to me is if you could find it in you to support my career path and follow my other blog tinygiraffestudio.blogspot.com and my Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/tinygiraffestudio

Thank you in advance for your continued support

A little update.

So after my birth control pack was done, I had a new and different kind of period from hell.  I thought I was going to DIE.  There were a couple days that it was so bad I didn't even move.  I wore pads because I was going through tampons too quickly, and pads were more cost effective.  It was insane.  I don't know if the sudden drop in hormones had anything to do with it, or the Evening Primrose Oil supplement but YEESH.  It wasn't super painful, but it was very uncomfortable overall.  I even had a couple instances where I bled through a little, and I haven't done that in YEARS.  It was crazy.  I felt better about it though because I felt like my body was really getting all the junk out and getting ready to do something amazing...

So I'm on day 29.  I never really go longer than day 25.  We haven't had sex, so I know I'm not pregnant.  Last time I was on BC, when I got off of it, I ovulated the day I was *supposed* to get my period, and ended up having a 44 day cycle!  I have a sneaking suspicion that will happen again...

However I have lost so much hope that I'm not even OPKing every day like I should be.  I don't temp, I don't root around in there for different sensations and secretions.  I've pretty much called a stalemate and am just living my life.  Furthermore, I may just be in the IF Closet forever.  People are starting to bring up kids again since we've been married for two years and I just say "Sometimes that's a little more difficult than you might think" and leave it at that.  It could mean any number of things.

Let them wonder.

I am terrible at thinking of titles

The period from hell returned, so I kicked it to the curb with a pack of birth control I had.  These last two weeks without a period have been soooo nice.  It's gonna be sad when they're gone, lol.  I mean, TTC is kind of pointless if I'm on the pill, but if I just constantly bleed when I'm not on it, then that's counterproductive too.

One more week of pills to go.  I wish this pill countdown was to prepare my body for IVF or something.  I'm just tired of not being a parent.  Pregnant, adopting, doesn't matter.  Just tired of being only little old me with my little old pets and my little old husband I don't see often enough.

We're less than a month away from our big yearly Chicago vacation, though!  And Steve is taking me to the Bristol Renaissance Faire (over by the Wisconsin/Illinois border) because it's going to be PIRATE WEEKEND!!!!!  Man... Chicago, the Aquarium, Floyd's, Ikea, Legoland, AND Pirate Weekend?!  Squee overload.  So much to cram into 3 days and I am SO very excited!

Whoa! Been gone a while

Wow.  Looks like I've been gone for a while, huh?  Couple good reasons for that.  I was blogging from my phone, which died, so I got another, and it's difficult to do a lot of posting from my new one.  I mean, I bet it's easy cuz it's Android powered, but it's my first fully touch screen and that's a little frustrating for typing sometimes.

Also, I haven't had much to say.  Still rampantly infertile, lol.  I had a period from hell that lasted nearly three months, which was SUPER annoying, but now it's gone and I'm looking forward to resuming life as I know it.

Steve is driving truck again for a very good company.  Lots of loads, lots of time out AND lots of time home, too.  I get to see him a couple days out of a week... which I've been known to complain about, but really I'm lucky, because a lot of trucker wives only get to see their husbands like once or twice a month.  That is totally sucky.

Also I can't stand my job.  Steve told me to get a job doing something else and just do hair out of the house for a while... I might do that.  I just hate working in a place that punishes you if you're not "good enough" but doesn't really do anything to reward you when you meet/soar above their standards.  That's corporate life, and that's not for me.  Hairdressing shouldn't have so many rules.

I will also be turning the Tiny Giraffe blog into a craft blog, and it will be linked to my etsy shop (which only has two pieces of art in it, LAME).

So that's me! :)  I will try and keep up with the blogging a little more.  The next installment will be all adoption information and how mindblowingly frustrating it is getting for me...

Another Suitcase in Another Hall

So, here I am. On the eve of the one-year mark of one of the most horrible times of my life... The day I had to get the law to intervene to protect me from my dad & my younger sister. The story is actually petty & stupid, which should illustrate just how unforgivably STUPID their behavior is, so I'll spare you the details. Anyway, my personal protection order expires May 11... And oh shits, that's today, now. I'm home alone & my address is available to people it probably shouldn't be available to. My dad I'm not too worried about since he's recovering from a very omplex foot surgery, but my sister runs with all kinds of shady sketchy people (great role models for my niece & nephew, right?). I don't think anythin will happen, but... Still scary.

Next month will be my official one-year TTC mark, even though we tried on & off for the year previous.

that first TTC month I wasn't surprised when I did not get a pregnant result... I was coming off the pill & was going through a time of extreeeeme stress... Of all the myths & wives tales, the stress thing is legit!

so now it's May 2011. I had such hope that I'd be
bringing a little nugget into the world in a few weeks from now.

this is Really. Freakin. Hard.

I sort of feel like the purpose is missing from my life & that's a sucky-ass feeling.

I thought I'd have a baby by now.

my friend TJ asked me last night if I was in the 2WW. I said "yeah I guess" cuz technically I am. Steve was home at a very opportune ewcm moment but I didn't waste $ on OPKs to confirm cuz I am waving the white flag. I'm surrendering. It's all I can do, now... I'm in insurance limbo, and I'm down on my 50/50 chances by half.

this is the time I'm supposed to be huge & uncomfortable & excited to squeeze a tiny human out of my lady-bits. I'm not.

the wait list for chinese adoption has extended to 8-10 YEARS. YEARS. So much for my precious asian baby.

I thought I'd be pregnant and I'm not.

A Day We Don't Do...

Here at The Infertility Closet, we don't do Mothers' Day.

I know some of you subscribers/readers are mothers, and I mean no offense, but a Mothers' Day post is not in the works here.

My husband is out of town, I woke up to a dog hairball, and my own family is so jacked up that the only moms-day communication I had with my mom was I sent her a text & she wrote back.

Yesterday I found out a friend from beauty school is pregnant again... After having a baby in November. It's a "surprise". Yeah. Kick me when I'm down.

so, Happy Sunday Like Any Other, everyone!!!