Not a good day.

I seem to have hit a slump. It was a long, somewhat depressing day, and there's no one to talk to. It's nice to know that a few of you will read this and that I have you ladies, including those I don't personally know, praying for me. I hate being a downer, but it's just been one of those days.

I had another doctors appointment today for a progesterone test, so we could see if the Clomid worked (since at last weeks ultrasound it looked like it didn't). I got a call bright and early this morning (around 6:50, thankfully I was already up!) from the Dr. office saying they needed to reschedule my appointment due to an emergency. I understand things come up, but this was one of those appointments that had to be done today, because the blood had to be drawn on a certain day of my cycle. So they decided to keep my appointment. Until I got there.

Then they told me that the blood has to be analyzed on the day it's drawn, and the guy who picks up the lab work had already been there that day, so they couldn't do it there. They sent me over to another lab place. I got there at 4:05. They close at 4:00.

So, on to a third place, where I finally get the blood drawn. Now I wait. I don't know how long I have to wait, but I so want to know the results. I'm tired of not knowing, I'm tired of false hope, I'm tired of well-intentioned people asking me when we're going to have children. It makes me want to cry every time someone asks me. And I get asked all the time.

Play practice tonight was rough. They aren't memorized yet. They were scatterbrained, and late to practice, and we weren't able to run the whole play. We go up in less than two weeks.I just wanted to cry when I got home.

Kyle is handling this totally different than me. All he can say is that "this sucks." Pray that our marriage is strengthened through this process, and that infertility and treatments don't put a strain on our relationship.

In happier news, Saturday night's formal was a blast. I so enjoyed being with the kids, and had a great time with them. The clue theme was a hit, and I so enjoyed being Mrs. Peacock. Mysteriously widowed five times.... hmmm...



You can kinda see my peacock feather earrings. I also had a bunch of peacock feathers in my hair. This is me with a wonderful, dear coworker, playing Mrs. White, the maid who ends up very wealthy, due to rifling through other's jewelry boxes.



We were on the Fox Theater marquee!

Thank you ladies for your prayers, for your encouragement, and your frienship. I couldn't go through all this without women like you! I love you guys!

Coolest Thing Ever.

Well, not really ever, but still pretty cool. I'm chaparoning the KCHS formal on Saturday, and it's a CLUE theme. I'm one of the characters, and instead of getting Miss Scarlet (I already have a red dress I could wear), I'm Mrs. Peacock. I didn't own a blue or green dress, so I was stuck trying to find one to wear. Well, I wandered into a little second hand store (Karma Konsignment) a few days ago, the very first store I went into, and started looking on the rack. I found a beautiful green Jessica McClintock ($$) dress in my size (it fits me perfectly) for, get this, only $10.00! So exciting. So I go to pay, and the store owner even comments on how cheap it is. See, she just bought out My Sister's Closet, and had only been open a week, and she had just kept the same price tags on the merchandise she bought. So, someone had made a mistake in pricing it before (most other formals were $40-$50), but since that's the price that was on it, that's what I paid. Oh, and the JM tag was still on it!
So... the dry cleaning bill is twice what I paid for the dress... but still, how incredible was my luck!?

Oh yeah, I just started a new daily devotional, and my goal is to have some of my thoughts about each day up here... eventually. :)

Another Dr. Appointment...

I had another doctor appointment today for an ultrasound to see if the Clomid worked this round. They were wanting to see enlarged ovaries, which would mean that the Clomid stimulated my body to mature and release an egg. Unfortunately, they weren't big enough, which means the medication probably didn't work this round. There were also multiple small cysts on both ovaries, but he didn't say anything about those - other than that they were present - so I don't know if it's a 'good' cyst (normal part of the cycle) or a 'bad' cyst (like with PCOS).

I did have a positive ovulation test on Friday (course, two cycles ago I had 7-8 positive test days in a row - even though I wasn't ovulating - so my confidance in the test is not high), so there is a slight possibility that I ovulated early and so what we saw today (smaller ovaries) was due to that fact. I go back Monday for a progesterone test to see if I actually did ovulate, and if that comes back negative we up the Clomid dose and try again.

Sorry if I'm sharing too many details for your taste, it's a comfort for me to write this all out, and know that there are a few women who read this and are keeping us in their prayers. Your prayers are helping tremendously. I have been so much more at peace with all of this lately, and I'm being able to trust God's plan more freely, rather than my own. Today I'm a little shaken, because I was so hoping to hear good news at the appointment, but I'm still doing okay. I'm functioning rather mechanically right now, though, so we'll see if my emotions about this catch up to me later. Pray I hear good news on Monday!

Congrats Karuss and Jeremy!

I had the privilege of travelling to San Jose this weekend to attend the wedding of a long-time friend, Karuss. It was a beautiful wedding, and it was so awesome to witness the union of two people who are so in love with each other and God. I got to catch up with so many old friends, and just had a grand time! Congrats Karuss and Jeremy!


This is me and my Hannah-Banana at the reception.




Hannah took it...


Annette, Amanda, Karuss, Sarah, Lauren, and me - almost the whole high school small group was present! Jess and Jamie - we missed you!


The Happy Couple!

Passion

I was inspired by Leslie and Rhonda to write about what I'm passionate about. Something beyond chocolate or scrapbooking (two things I do love, however!). At first I wasn't going to write anything, since I'm really supposed to be asleep by now, but something in me needed to write once I started thinking about my answer.

See, I don't know if I'm passionate enough about anything. There are the obvious answers - God, my husband, my family, my future children and my students. And yes, I'm passionate about Christ and the people around me - but not enough. Lately I've been so consumed with other things - worries, being busy - that there isn't room left for my passion. I want to be passionate - more passionate - about my relationship with God. I need to be. I want to be more passionate about my husband - I want to feel like I did when we were newlyweds and I was so excited to spend every moment with him- just on a deeper level. I want to be more passionate about my students - I've been entrusted with growing them in to Christian men and women - I have a huge responsibility and I can't let them down.

There's so much passion there, but it's been crowded out. Crowded out by worries about the future. For a time, it was worries about our financial situation and Kyle's job. Even though God provided for us every month, I still worried. I think, because of my nature, I felt like I had to worry. I'm one of those people who likes to know what's going on - I need to know the game plan and how every thing is going to work out ahead of time. God's been working on that in me, and He still is. Now that things are going so much better financially (once again God has proved He is faithful and has provided us with Kyle's dream career), I'm worried about being able to have children. There are so many things up in the air right now. And I want to be pregnant now. Well, really, months ago. (God's also working on patience in me...) Not being able to get pregnant and being put on infertility drugs has consumed my mind. In a way, and I don't know if this is irrational or if other women have felt this way to while dealing with infertility, I feel like less of a woman - like I'm unable to provide children to my husband. This is something that women are supposed to do - and I can't. At least without help. And, who knows (God) when, or if, this medication will work? This has been my passion lately - my worry. And that needs to change.

Pray for me. I need patience. I need to refocus. I need to trust that God knows best - since He always does.

Stir in me, a passion that my heart cannot contain. God, stir in my heart a passion for you and a passion for people. I want to worship You.

Homes and babies...

So... on a whim, Kyle and I decided to go down to Lemoore Real Estate on Friday to see what they had to rent or buy. We're so sick of where we live, and are sooooo ready to be in a bigger, nicer place, and in a better neighborhood. Well, we had no clue if we would qualify to buy a home, but figured it's not going to hurt anything to check. Well, we met with this awesome realtor (with a great southern accent) who set us up an appointment with Kings Mortgage, and we met with them yesterday... and we're going to buy a house!

We went and looked at a four houses yesterday, ruled one out, and really liked the other three, but two of them already have offers on them, so we're pretty much ruling those two out. So, we have a good potential from yesterday, and then looked at two others today, and really liked one of them. We're still going to look more, of course, but we've already found a couple potentials. There are still many more steps to go before we actually buy a house, but it's so exciting to actually be looking and considering this! Hopefully we'll get everything taken care of in the next few months, but we're not in a big rush.

It's so crazy to be talking about homes, because of waiting for so long for Kyle to get a good job. After struggling to get by for so many months, we feel so blessed, and we're so thankful for everything God is doing in our lives! We would appreciate your prayers (the few of you who read this) that we would find a home in our price range, and that we'll be wise in our decisions.

Another thing you could be praying for (the short version)... Kyle and I are wanting to start a family, and have been trying for many months. For whatever reason, it hasn't worked yet. I have now been put on fertility medications, which was a huge, emotional trial for me. It's been a rather hard journey for us, with so many ups and downs, and rising hopes, and negative tests... and so on. We both need patience in this, we both need to rely fuly on God and His timing, and I need prayer for emotional stability in all this! Needless to say, this has been a very hard thing for me/us to deal with and sort through, and something we never thought we would have to face. Thanks for your prayers and your friendship!