An insight

I'm probably right this time. ;)

I think I know why this whole TTC thing is a no-go. I'm far too selfish and God knows it. Really. He's being merciful to my husband, and/or justly treating my innermost thoughts with necessary tough love.

See, Thursday is my day to get the kids ready and take them to school. And every Wednesday night, I think, "Gee I hope I get pregnant so I'm too sick and tired to get up and J will have to take them."

Consider.

1. I hate mornings. Especially the cold, dark variety. Those mornings, especially, can crawl back into the Pit from whence they came. I have no need for them and think it would be best to skip over them directly from Night to Day. If I ran the world, I would make that amendment, surely.

2. The hubs, bless his utterly incomprehensible heart, likes mornings. Even the cold dark Pit-generated ones. He perkily pops his peepers open of his own accord somewhere between 5:30 and 7:00 every morning. All on his own. I think he's excited about playing his computer game without me bugging him to turn the volume down. But nevertheless, the man is awake.

I have never quite seen the use of dumping sleepy me out of my cozy warm bed when someone else (ahem) is already up.

Pregnancy might be my door out of Thursday driving duty.

I know. Pregnancy would only in fact be a door into perpetual morning-facing. Unless my children, like me, have the sense to avoid mornings at all cost as well.

But maybe I'm on to something here. I just don't know what to do about it...

:)

ps

(my temp popped back up again. phew. yay progesterone.)

Warning: Pedantry ahead

This post is for me, though you may certainly read it.

(First, I must say that my sad pensive mood has been temporarily altered by trying to swallow a mouthful of wine before sneezing. I failed. The sinuses burn, the eyes are watering, the throat is sore, and my family is laughing. Thank God for the absurdities He sends lest we take ourselves too seriously.)

I'm 7dpo, on CD26. Had my LH surge on CD 18. Temperature jump on CD19. Just as it should be, although a bit late. And then 4 days ago, it started a nosedive. I've lost nearly a degree in 4 days. I don't know what that means. I don't think I like it, and I certainly don't like not knowing what it means. I'm guessing it means a certain lack of progesterone in ye olde system, but why is a puzzle. Just this whole TTC thing should get me a degree in reproductive medicine. Seriously.

But seriously. I'm up to my eyeballs in the whole TTC/infertility clash. Again. And it's shitty and sucky and I'm pretty freaking sad a lot of the time. It's sent that part of me that lives in the throat and chest into a downright tizzy. And I know why CS Lewis said once, "No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear." They both approach the same thing (loss) from two different sides. Fear is approaching grief. They mingle.

We've had one failed IUI. This cycle, the IUI didn't happen. Scheduling and whatnot. And now the temperature snafu...

We've got a few more IUI trials left and I think the dismay I'm mired in is a little early. But I feel it. I feel like it's just not gonna happen. I feel like I'm going to have to do a lot of mirror-talking and pillow-crying this summer when we give up IUI and turn away from IVF. But I have a 5k and another Lent and another Pascha between now and then. And perhaps I'll be more ready then than I am now.

I watched Beth's posted video "Blessed Be" this afternoon. (Thanks Beth) And it was a lovely reminder. I've become an emotional, though not intellectual, deist through all of this. I don't ask "where is God?" because it's a senseless question. I know perfectly well where He is. I just don't feel a thing about Him one way or the other. But deserts were always promised and I know a stretch of sand when I see one. Rivers and forests and rolling hills will come. And I will look back and see that the streams were always here. I see some of them even now. There is always Grace.

And I was thinking about the line, "though there's pain in the offering, blessed be the Name of the Lord." And I thought, "Yes, that's quite right."

But that can't be all. It's dangerously close to stoicism, which we're forbidden. We're not to just steel ourselves against pain, singing throughout. Christianity is not a cheat. It's a road straight through. We're required to taste even a bitter cup, and drink it to the bottom. It's poison otherwise. Consider Mara in MacDonald's Lilith.

I'm not being clear.

Christ talked about taking up our crosses and following Him. Lewis, in the Screwtape Letters talked about taking up our present crosses. There's no sense in trying to take up future crosses, because they conflict, they may never come to pass, and moreover, they're not here yet. it's today's cross that needs tending to. It's the daily bread that requires requesting. My present cross right now is not knowing. And fear. And the frustration of years of what feels like lost time.

And so I tell myself over and again, "courage, courage."

Motherhood is a joy that I may never taste. I'm starting to look that in the face. That loss is massive. Vacuous to consider. But I am deciding not to let the possible loss of one joy mean the loss of all joys. Today's cross, oddly enough, is carrying the joys that I wouldn't have chosen first, but have received in spite of myself. How stupid, no? To consider joys a cross?

And there I find that they're not a cross at all, but joys. Duh.

The real cross is the wanting of a different joy. But, I will swim in the wave Maleldil sends (check out Lewis's Perelandra to decipher that line). Perhaps not a cross. Perhaps a coin to polish and give back. I'm not sure.

Where am I going with this? Running. Motherhood requires the changing of a body to do things that seem impossible at first consideration. It requires the growing of a new sort of strength.

And so I run. My body is changing, and I am developing a kind of strength I have never had before. I take step after step after step and I get tired and sore, but it's exhilarating. Even as I face the possible loss of a lifelong dream, I'm finding a joy I never imagined. There are gifts, always, all around. My own body (imagine me saying this!) is one of them, and I can choose to polish it til it shines.

I went 3.8 miles yesterday in 42 minutes. In 5 weeks, I plan to run 3.1 miles (5k) without stopping. Run. Tomorrow I will run more and farther. Run. Love and polish what I have.

My stepdaughter struggles with anxiety. She's 9. I have a certain history here and a certain sympathy, and I've actually been able to help her a bit. My husband called me a "Godsend" to her. Run. Love and polish what I have.

There are some things that are not up to me. And there are many things that are. It is a race, in fact.

Funny, isn't it. All the images our Lord used. They're not just images after all. They're not like, they are.

Day 2

Status update regarding the madness described in my last post.

Workout for today (remembering that I am a "novice" runner): Walk 10 minutes. (Run 3 minutes, walk 1 minute)x5. Walk 10 minutes. Total time: 40 minutes.

3 miles travelled.

Quads are quite a bit sore, but it's sorta nice. I feel like I might be accomplishing something.

Had the thought while running: "Exactly how large is my butt?" I never really considered it to be that big, but man alive... It felt big while I was running. haha

Something new

I am becoming a runner.

I ran in high school - track. Sprints. (Badly) (Slowly)

I've been meaning to try running distances for a while, but partially because I'm a chicken and partially because of this whole TTC thing, I've not done it. I was under the impression since last spring that running could interfere with implantation, and prior to last spring, I operated a great deal under the impression that trying anything so dramatically new would be pointless, because, well, what if I ended up pregnant?

Enough of putting life on hold.

I talked to my doctor and was told that running is (theoretically, as long as nothing is wrong) fine in early pregnancy and wouldn't interfere with the becoming pregnant process. If we were to do IVF (which we won't), I wouldn't be allowed to run because IVF drugs cause the ovaries to expand so much that they'd bounce much more and could twist. And that would be bad.

So I talked to my brother in law, who runs, and he recommended a book called Run Less, Run Faster and I started the training Tuesday. Everything hurts, but not in an injury way. In a, "hey, we've not been used like this in a LONG time" way. But it's exciting.

I'll be running a 5K at the end of February. The plan, assuming I don't become pregnant and a couch potato (hopefully one, but not both, will come to pass) is to run a couple 8 and 10Ks over the summer and a half marathon in November. And a full marathon next spring sometime.

I'm excited. I have mixed motives for this move. It's partially because it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. But it's also something that I can focus on that I have some measure of control over. I would say equal parts of both. Plus it's healthy. And cool.

:)

CD12 today. Probably going in for IUI2 early next week.

Til then, I will dream about finishing a race, having run the whole way.

Surely, there is a metaphor here. But I'm going to leave it alone for now. ;)