the tipping point

I had a crummy week.

I want to write a positive post because I feel guilty for spending so much time complaining about what I don't have when I've been immensely blessed in comparison to most of the rest of the world, but if I'm honest, it's been a hard week. I've spent so much time worrying about and waiting for doctor's appointments and test results that I've become even more self-absorbed than usual. Life has revolved completely around me, and being me hasn't been very fun.

My new student teacher came for the first time this Wednesday, and I realized about five minutes in that starting down the path of fertility treatments has already changed me for the worse. I think I was a pretty good mentor in the fall, but just the thought of mentoring this new girl makes me tired. It's not that I think she'll be particularly difficult or anything. It's just that she's one more person I have to take care of, and taking care of extra people feels really hard when I've got so much going on outside of school.

Teaching little bitties has always been emotionally demanding. In fact, it used to feel crushing to me, but this year it hasn't. Until this week, picking up my kids in the mornings tended to be the highlight of the day. They would see me walk in the door and jump up, all fighting to be first to tell me whatever exciting news they've picked up since the previous afternoon, and the stress of the rest of my life would melt away. This week that didn't happen. There were moments that they'd do or say something precious and I'd get pulled back in for a bit, but apparently I've reached the tipping point where the stress is too much to sweep under the carpet with a few cute smiles. Adding responsibilities certainly didn't help.

I'm beyond thankful for the moments that were special. Seeing a picture of words written in chalk on a sidewalk proclaiming to the world that I take care of my class when they're hurt and help them with their learning. Escaping into a magical pirate world during recess with one of my autistic kids. Reading a card that described me as "loevly." Having a dance party after we were the best behaved kindergarten class in the lunch room yet again. Those are the parts of the week that I want to remember. That's the post I want to write... the one where my week totally rocked.

Maybe next week...

reality

Infertility sucks.

I've shied away from using that word to describe what I'm going through, but since my doctor seems ok with claiming it, I guess it's time that I accept that it's accurate. I'm dealing with infertility. It is an issue, and it isn't going to magically disappear. It's my reality. My problem has always been that I have friends much further down the path than me, people who've gone through years and years of heartache, and I tend to feel guilty placing us all in the same category. I don't know when the magic moment would be when I would have felt enough pain to qualify though, so perhaps it's time to let go of that distinction and admit that, unfortunately, I already do.

I've enjoyed the last couple of weeks because, to be completely honest, I'd given up hope of ever getting pregnant. That sounds like a really awful place to be, but surprisingly, it wasn't. I'd started researching other options like fostering or adopting kids, and I started to get excited about those things. I could walk through the children's building at church or read that another friend was pregnant and not want to scream out of jealousy or burst into tears, and that was nice. Life wasn't going as I planned, but this was a workable alternative.

Then I went to the doctor, and she brought hope back into the equation.

It's counter intuitive, but when she insisted there was still lots of hope for me getting pregnant, everything fell apart again. Not immediately. At first I was thrilled, but that didn't last long. The problem with this new hope of pregnancy is that along with it comes a lot of risk. Treatments that may or may not work. More months or years of the emotional roller coaster of waiting for test results, knowing the answer I want is unlikely, but still getting my hopes up anyway. Having my heart ripped out every time another friend announces her "accidental" pregnancy. Life-altering ethical decisions that scare me to death. When the situation looked hopeless, there was a peace in at least having a clear answer and an end in sight, but with hope there's no black or white next step... just lots of uncertainty.

So that's this week. I'm glad it's almost over...

a new year

We're only five days in, but 2011 is already off to a better start than 2010. No one has died. I haven't lost my voice. My bones are all intact (well, as far as I know). The first week of this year is definitely an improvement!

Actually though, this week has been great. Other than having to wake up early, being back at work is wonderful. I've always known that I thrive on structure and sameness, but lately the routine of school is a greater comfort than usual... well, except for the part where the kids are irate about my new haircut. They had a MUCH stronger reaction than I expected, but luckily they seem to be adapting. Today I only got two, "You look like a boy," comments which was a huge improvement over the roughly two hundred critical comments yesterday.

Nothing in my life has really changed. All the problems that were here last week are still around today, but it's amazing how the perception of a fresh start and the reality of eighteen smiling faces thrilled to be back at school has improved my outlook on life. That, coupled with a great conversation with a friend over dinner, has made for one of the best days in a long time.

The problems will come back to the forefront soon enough, I'm sure, but for now I'm going to enjoy the rest of this first fabulous week. Happy January!

goodbye, 2010!

Last December I made the comment that 2009 was so good that I didn't think 2010 could compete, and while 2010 had its good moments, I can definitely say my prediction was right. It's been a rough year.

I hope 2011 will be better, but if I'm honest, I don't really believe that it will be. There are no simple answers to the problems weighing on my heart, and I know that the next few weeks and months are going to bring answers I don't want to hear and decisions I don't want to make. Despite that, I am hopeful that at least we're reaching a place where there will be answers, even if they aren't the ones I want. Waiting and wondering is exhausting, so I will gladly move past that stage.

At any rate, tomorrow means a new year and the end of the holiday season, and I'm SO ready! Goodbye, 2010. I'm not so sad to see you go...

a shift I never expected...

Usually breaks from school are sort of the best part of my job. There are moments of teaching that are great, but the many, many holidays are definitely a plus. For the past month or so I've noticed myself dreading the breaks. That was the first sign there might be a problem.

I've gone back and forth with whether or not the mood I'm in qualifies as depression because it's so transient. When I have tons of free time, like during school breaks, I inevitably start thinking about how very different I always thought my life would be, but as long as I'm distracted by work for most of the day, I'm ok. It probably doesn't help that holidays pretty much revolve around children, but still. I don't know that there's ever been a time when work was the thing I looked forward to. I used to try to pretend the breaks wouldn't end. Now I'm almost ready to start some sort of countdown until my life is filled with distractions again and the sadness won't be so consuming.

I realized today that a lot of the sadness comes not from the frustration of waiting like I sort of thought but from the worry that no kids now will mean no kids ever. It might be begrudgingly, but I can accept later. But when I start to think about never... that God might have deliberately chosen for me to be childless... I have no schema for that possibility. Over the past few years of being on and off meds and dealing with what that might mean for having kids I considered lots of possible eventualities, but even my worst case scenarios involved us with kids. Now that we're actually here though, it turns out that considering things in the abstract, way-off future is a lot different than considering them as possible next steps, and suddenly the idea of us ending up childless is looking like a very real possibility to me.

I've already been told by roughly everyone I know that I'm being too negative, and maybe I am. I could get pregnant any time. After all, God can do whatever he chooses... but what if nothing changes?

What if this is the path he chose?

what a difference a year makes!

I'm having a hard time believing it's almost Christmas again.

Last December was kind of huge for me, although I didn't know at this point that it was going to be. I spent the end of November and the beginning of December redoing some of the more painful parts of my inventory, the ones I glossed over the first time through. I knew from the start that it would be an important step, but it ended up being bigger than I had even begun to imagine. By the time I'd finished praying and writing and sharing, I was exhausted and ready to give up, but I'll never forget the words one of the women spoke after listening to all my deepest secrets: God created you to bring him joy. As I sat there attempting to soak that statement in, everything changed.

See, somewhere along the way in my life, I picked up the belief that God created me to make people miserable... and that's a pretty awful thing to believe. I'd heard that God loved me, and I believed that he did. I just thought that it was more the sort of thing where he loved me because he had to. You know, because God has to love everyone, even the people who are here only to bring misery. It's amazing how much that one belief impacted EVERYTHING! There was nothing at all left untouched by the deep loneliness that came with believing I ruined everyone and everything I was near, so when I heard someone say that not only was that belief completely false, that God actually found JOY in ME... there are no words to express the joy I felt. It sounds cliche, but that moment changed my  life.

Over the next few weeks and months the new belief, that I'm adored by God and bring him joy, began to take hold, and while I'm by no means perfect, I'm loving that the change is still evident a year later and grows deeper each day. I sat down for coffee this afternoon with that woman, and as we chatted, I was shocked again at just how much I've changed (you'd think that at some point I'd stop being so surprised...). I'm slowly getting better at trusting people who say they care about me, although it's still a huge struggle, but even more surprising to me, I realized I no longer see my relationships as completely one sided where I have nothing worthwhile to offer. Some days are better than others when it comes to living that out, but a year ago even the good days were worse than the not so good days now... and that's amazing.

This December isn't shaping up to be a blockbuster like last year, but I'm starting to think that might be ok. Maybe it's time to appreciate all that I've already gotten.

the path that was best

My posts haven't been the happiest as of late. I've had a lot of not so fun stuff going on with school starting and things just generally not going my way, but this weekend was awesome... so I'm going to try to be a little more positive.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to two friends about God's plans (of course), and I made the comment that I knew God had a plan for me but I just wished I could see it right now. When I look at the people who've impacted me greatly, most of them aren't exactly where they wish they were, and while I know it's sometimes painful for them to not get what they want in life, I also see how God has used them to change my life. If they were living the lives they wanted with husbands and families, they wouldn't have been there to play the role God had for them in my life. Again, it's selfish, but it's easy for me to see that while God's plan may not be easy for them, it's definitely a good one, at least for my sake... and I wanted to see that in my own life. As my friends quickly reminded me, we don't always get to see why the plan is better, so I tried to put that desire out of my mind as something that just wasn't going to happen.

And that brings us to yesterday! After several months of scheduling and rescheduling and one conflict after another, I finally got to hang out with a friend I hadn't seen since before school started. We went for yogurt, but most of the afternoon was spent simply sitting in her living room talking (and laughing so hard I could hardly breathe). She knows me quite well, so when she asked how she could pray for me, I responded more honestly than I might have with someone else. I told her that I've been praying that I'd accept God's plan no matter what it is, even if it doesn't line up with my own, and then I told her the story about the women who've impacted me and how I wished that I could see God's plan so clearly in my own life. By that point I was tearing up, but she looked at me sort of questioningly and said, "You seriously don't see it?" I said no, and she replied, "You're that person to us."

Tears rolled down my cheeks as she kept talking, but even more than being touched by the sweet words she was saying, I was humbled that God gave me what I wanted. He let me see how the past few years of my life not going as I hoped had actually impacted someone else's life, and he showed me that despite my fussing, this plan was great. I can honestly say that I wouldn't want to go back and get my own way if it meant losing this relationship. I never would have chosen this path or even imagined it could exist, but it truly was the best one.

Getting this glimpse of God's plan doesn't totally take away the struggle of wanting my own way for my future, but it's definitely a huge encouragement that God's plan isn't just best for other people. He cares about me and has my best interests in mind, too. I'm grateful that he took the time to remind me and give me another moment to look back on the next time I start to doubt.