Unanswered Prayers

Have you ever wanted something with all your heart and soul? Something you would make a major sacrifice for? Prayed and prayed and prayed for it only to find your prayer remains umanswered?

The past six years I have been in that situation. It won't take a genius to figure out what I prayed for daily. For roughly 72 months I would pray daily for a baby. When it would get close to the time for my cycle to start I would get really anxious. My prayer would become an obsession. I never wanted to "find" evidence that my prayer was once again unanswered.

For the first time in 73/74 months I have not been praying for my cycle to stay away. I have been doing just the opposite for the past few days. My nerves were starting to kick in because I wasn't feeling amy of my typical PMS symptoms. The details from my doctor appointment two weeks ago were swirling around in my head.

I desperately wanted to get my cycle. Not because it is such a pleasant experience, but because it would mean something. If I got my cycle it meant that I may or may not be ovulating. While I don't know if ovulation took place this month, I know that my body is at least trying to do what it is supposed to. Imagine my excitement when my prayer was answered this week. Never did I think I would be so happy to start my cycle!

Second Step in a New Direction

So the decision to leave my career as a teacher was driven by God. The first step in my journey to a new career was starting nursing school. I hit the ground running in May and haven't looked back once. Sure, I was a little unsure of my decision the first week of classes but that disappeared quickly. Merely just a case of jitters.

I was hoping to find a job at Aultman Hospital. I applied for any job I thought I was even remotely qualified for. My desire to find a job there was twofold. I was going to be down there 4 days a week, I might as well get paid to be there. Also, if I were to be an employee I would get 25% off my tuition each semester. That would save me some big bucks.

It seemed that my attempts to become employed there were in vain. I branched out my job search to all the other nearby hospitals. I applied for food service, housekeeping, being a patient transporter, nurses aide, and secretary. Low and behold, I managed an interview at a large hospital for a unit secretary position. The interview went really well. The interviewer told me that if I could rearrange my Mondays and Fridays, she would give me a shot at the job. That was July 2nd.

August rolled around and I really didn't know anything about my status. I made some phone calls and was finally offered the job. I am pretty excited about it. Pretty sure it will be a hectic job and possibly pretty stressful. My training starts tomorrow, which I am very thankful for. Originally I wasn't going to be trained until the second week of September. If this would have happened, I would have had to miss an entire week of classes.

Looking forward to this next phase of my journey!

Best Laid Plans

     The past three years have been the most difficult of my life. I have great family and a friend or two that have stuck by me, and a husband that supports me and tries his hardest to comfort me, but even with all that I have still (at times) felt alone. Deep down I know that I have never been alone. At my darkest moments, I have been hedged in under God's hand. He alone has protected me from something I can only imagine to be so much more scary, painful and darker had I turned from Him. There are so many times I have been angry and cursed at God. He is a big God and can take it. I don't know why He would place such strong desires on my heart only for them not to be fulfilled. Many times (often more than once a day) I have to remind myself that these may only be MY plans and not God's. That is when I have to read Jeremiah 29:11-12 ESV "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord , plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you."

Even knowing that God has great plans for me doesn't make letting go of my plans any easier. God's plans for me are probably so much better than mine. I have made steps toward really, completely letting go. As you know, in May I left my job to pursue a career in nursing. Scott and I have been forced to live off one income. I recently became employed again, but have yet to start work. When I do start working, my income will be just enough a month to pay for our medical insurance. We have been okay so far monetarily because God has interceded on our behalf and has amazingly provided for us by somehow getting just enough money for tuition. Before quitting my job I had prayed about it a lot and had other people pray about it for me. He calmed my mind and told me He would provide. So here we are, trusting in our God and trying to share with others all He has revealed to us. I know the road will be bumpy (really bumpy), but we have THE BEST tour guide and navigator. It is He that will get us through.

P90X

Yesterday I started an exercise program that I have never used. Sadly, I purchased it on Groupon well over a year ago. Up until Saturday, it was still in the shipping box unopened. I started P90X.

It wasn't horrific but it wasn't great by any means. I was able to complete the "Core Synergistics" program with some modifications. I felt pretty good a little while after. Today I completed the "Cardio X" program. Again, I needed some modifications and didn't always go at their speed but I at least attempted/did every exercise.

I wish I could say that I looked like these women during or after the workout.

I am pretty sure I looked like this during Superman Banana:

However, this was me a minute after completing the program.

Aye carumba do I have a lot of work to do! I know I will never look like the women on the videos or in the book that comes with it. I am most definitely okay with that. I just want to be more healthy so I can feel better and do things I know I can't do now. Have you ever done P90X? If so, what is your favorite disc to do? I am looking forward to the yoga, but am pretty sure it will be much more difficult than any yoga I have ever done.

"The Sugar"

My last post was five days ago. I had just gotten news from my Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) that I possibly am not ovulating. This could be a new thing or something that has gone on for years or my entire life (well since I got my first period). There is no way to identify when it all started and it isn't really important. I knew I was ovulating while I fertility medicine because that is what the meds were supposed to make my body do. Being anovulatory could be the reason I have only been able to get pregnant with medical interventions.

Last Friday I got orders to have some blood work completed. I needed to fast for a two hour glucose tolerance test and a fasting insulin blood test. Yesterday (Tuesday) morning I went for my test. Let me just tell you it wasn't fun. If you have never experienced one, be happy. The glucose drink is like a thicker, warm, flat orange pop. I had to drink it in less than five minutes with someone watching mento make sure I didn't do anything like pour it down the drain.

Prior to drinking the "nasty", I had to give a urine sample and they took a baseline blood sample. Two hours later I had peed on my hand four times for urine samples and been stuck with a needle four times. Luckily, my phlebotomist (?) was really good. I may have made her feel like a heel when she asked me if I had been to the gift shop and seen all the baby stuff for sale. She had assumed I was pregnant based on the dr that had ordered the test. I have her my little sob story and changed the subject.

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from my RE's office; he wanted me to come in to discuss my blood results. I knew something had to be "bad" because otherwise she would have just said everything looks fine. That brings us to this afternoon.

Praise Jesus! I do not have "the sugar!" No prediabetes or type 2 diabetes here. That was good to know. He said everything looked good as far as my glucose tolerance test went. However, I do have something called "Insulin Resistance." Having this problem (where your body needs excess insulin to regulate blood sugar levels) can lead to hormone confusion in the ovaries.

He explained that my ovaries could have started making too much male hormones (testosterone) which can't be detected in my blood, only localized in the ovaries. So this can lead to my ovaries "shutting down" the ovulation process thus making me ANOVULATORY! It is all making sense now to me. There is a treatment for it. I have to start taking Glucophage (Metformin) which will make my insulin levels regulate. Dr. M told me that he has had great success with many, many patients on this medicine; there is still a 50-50 chance that it won't beat my ovaries back into "submission" (my word choice, not his).

He said to view this as my silver lining and hopefully this will help a lot. That it will bring us a few steps closer to having and keeping a pregnancy successfully. Another perk he mentioned is that I will probably drop some weight as well. I know this isn't the light at the end of the tunnel, but it gives me some more hope. Ultimately, whether I end up pregnant and with a baby in my arms is God's doing, not the doctors.

My break

My first term as a nursing student is over. When I signed up for classes in May, the people involved in registration seemed to act like I was going to be in over my head by taking 10 credit hours. By no means was this summer term easy, it came fast and furious. After all the dust and tears settled, I walked away with a 3.61 GPA. While this is nothing to scoff at, it didn't meet my expectations. Now I am more determined to do an even better job during the fall term.

Since summer term was officially over August 1st, I have been on a "break". I really wanted to be able to relax and enjoy my break, hopefully getting away for a few days. The "getting away" isn't going to happen. Instead, there will be multiple trips to doctors offices and hospitals. I am still dealing with the after effects of a kidney stone. I am not in pain, but have to have tests done to see if a cause for them can be identified. My thyroid has also been going crazy this summer, so I have been dealing with endocrinologists of two sorts.

Today I went to the RE for a follow-up on some blood work I had done two weeks ago. He told me that my thyroid levels look great, they are nice and suppressed. My reproductive hormones looks great. With that being said, due to some symptoms I have been having he thinks that I have anovulatory dysfunction. While I was relieved to hear that my hormones all looked good, this news was a bit hard to swallow. Basically, it means that either I am not ovulating at all or no on a monthly basis. He asked me how I wanted to proceed in the future. I must have either given him a dirty look or looked completely dumbfounded, because he just looked at me for a minute without saying anything. I told him I don't know. I didn't understand what he was asking.

I remember saying, "So basically, what you are telling me is that it will pretty much be next to impossible for me to ever get pregnant on my own." He kind of grimaced and looked down, shrugged his shoulders and said, "I am not going to say that, but more than likely, you will need some interventions." At that point I desperately wished Scott was with me. The rest of the conversation was mostly a blur. I know that I asked him what my options were going forward. I have three options: 1) use just ovulation inducing meds 2) meds in conjunction with IUI 3) IVF. Due to my lack of income, options 2 and 3 are out of the question.

When the time comes that we want to pursue trying to conceive again, we will have to go with option 1. At this point, I am broken. I feel like I am back at square one but even worse off than before. Never in my life did I imagine that this is what my life would entail. My mom never had any trouble getting pregnant. My sister just said the word and she got pregnant. Why is this so hard for me? I know that I am not being punished, but it sure feels like I am. I try to do everything right. I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I rarely drink, I have been a productive member of society, Scott and I are loyal to each other, we are working at strengthening our faith, I am eating better than I ever have. I just don't understand why I have to work so hard for everything. Just once, I would like for something to come easy for me...specifically starting my family.

On a good note the doctor seems to think that now that we know I have a blood clotting disorder and have a game plan for that, once I GET pregnant it shouldn't be a problem this time. I will continue to pray to God for a miracle. That by His grace alone, I will have a baby. Whether that includes all on our own or with medical intervention, it will still be a miracle from God.