Lessons Learned

While my year in review is still being formulated I realized there's something else that has happened to me that's not necessarily fit for my year in reveiw. This year, with the lenght of time it's taking us to get pregnant, I've learned that sometimes even the most welling meaning family and friends just have no idea what it's like to what a baby so bad and not be able to make it happen. Most of the women in my family and hubz' family have or have had kids and with no problems making it happen. So while they mean well with their words of wisdom and what not they just have no clue! No clue how it feels month in and month out to know the tell tell signs of AF arrival. How after a while you start actually feeling a bit of relife when AF does come because it puts you one month closer to the year mark when you can start trying to get some answers. How every time a friend or family member tells you they're pregnant you smile like your suppose and congratulate them all while another little piece of your heart breaks.

Somthing else I've learned that a good cry does a lot to help you move onto the next month. I use to throw week long pity parties, but now the day I know AF is here I have a good cry throw my pity party and move on because like people are constantly reminding there's not really much I can do about it. I can't wish AF back to pits of hell or hate myself anymore than I already do for this continuous failure.

By far the biggest lesson I've learned this year, the last 10 months really, is that my need for control is totally relenquished when it comes to making this happen, OBVIOUSLY otherwise it'd already be a done deal. I have no say in if and when it will happen, as much as it chaps my ass! So month after month I just sit back and watch as my hopes and dreams of a family get pushed back into the future further and further.

Weekend Away

We took a much needed weekend away this past weekend. We went to Jersey to visit an old college friend of mine and her husband. Though I wish we had been able to get there earlier on Friday, but you know what they say about the best laid plans, we still had a good visit. She was one of my best friends in college, even after she transfered home after fall semester of our sophomore year, and we've kept in touch ever since there. She can always make me laugh and see the positive in things and that's definately what I needed this weekend as I realized that we're only 3 months to the one year mark of TTC and then we can start figuring out if one or both of us is broken or what! And as I've made a vow to not dwell on it for the holidays that's all I have to say about.

Now we're back and with only one week left of classes for both hubz and I things are gonna be a little hectic until next weekend. I have two papers to write in the next week and half as well as a presentation to go with one of those papers. Hubz has a field trip and a paper about the field trip to do...I'm pretty sure he'll leave it until the last minute like he did the last one. Then we've got a nice break until classes start up again in January. My winter classes are both online so I have a very open schedule that I'm hopefully going to fill with so aerobics at our local rec center so I can lose some weight for my sisters wedding in May. We're just about ready for Christmas, the step-son is done and I'm just about done with hubz, then it's my parents and hubz' dad, my brother and two nephews! I'm hoping to finish this weekend but we'll see.

Thanksgiving and Christmas beginnings

Thanksgiving was low key this year. My sister and brother-in-law that got married in September hosted this year, it's kind of like a little tradition to host either Thanksgiving or Christmas the year you get married. There were only 7 of us: me, hubz, the step-son, SIL, BIL, nephew and MIL. It was nice though because Christams is going to CRAZY! I drank a little to much wine, like 1/2 a bottle two much, I should have stopped 1/2 way through the second bottle instead of finishing it. However, 2 bottles of wine and six hours of sleep later, for a 550 am wake-up, I was up and shopping. SIL and I have been doing black friday shopping for a couple of years now and I love it. I can normally get all 12 nieces and nephews done and the step-son and hubz about 1/2 way done..it's great! The rest of the weekend was nice with nothing to do but sleep in and lounge around which is exactly what we did.

Now it's on to Christmas and all the holiday has to bring. Like family, the birth of Christ and the joys of Christmas in general. With hubz out of work this Christams we're only gifting nieces, nephews and parents and then each other and the step-son. I'm sad about it b/c there's nothing I love more than giving presents but what can we do really? We're also hosting dinner at our house this year and rather then a buffet where we find a seat where ever we can we're having a sit down. The table have been gotten and now we have to figure out the chair situation and see how many of the family will be joining us. It should be fun, exhausting and fulfilling. Hubz and my family's are both very different but I love any opportunity we can have to get us all together in one place. Our families shape us and to have all 20+ of us together for a least on holiday a year makes me happy.

Another Month...

So I'm one more closer to the one year mark. AF is on her way and should be here by the end of the day or early tomorrow. I had a good cry before work this morning and now I'm just trying to get through the day. I always used to be that girl who would tell those having problems TTC that they just needed to relax and let it happen, but now that it's me I realize that even though those words were coming from a good place they're hurtful. Unless you've struggle with having a baby you don't understand the pain you feel every month when AF rears her ugly head. My heart literaly breaks every month when my temp falls, when I'm temping, or I start spotting because I know exactly what's coming next.

So here I sit staring month 9 in the eye and all I can think is that if I had gotten PG the first month we'd have a baby sometime soon. Instead I'm planning a second Christmas, this year hosted by us, in our house with no baby to call my own. All while people around me get PG, are PG or are getting ready to welcome new additions into thier families in the next few weeks. It breaks my heart because while I'm happy for all of them I want what they have and don't know one way or the other if I'll ever have it.

Now I wait for a positive or a negative next month so that I can move one more month closer to the one year mark and finding out some answers. I pray and I'm thankful that I learned a long time ago that life's not always fair because it makes dealing with the monthly disappointment easier.

Finally!!!

This weekend was a weekend of finallys. The Redskins finally played like a team with some heart! I got to go to the game with my mom Sunday because the little bro was at the sleepover so glad I didn't miss that game. It was good, at little questionable at the beginning, but good!

My sister finally found her wedding dress! It's beautiful and she's going to be stunning in it! I can't believe my little sister is getting married! We still have tons to do but by finding her dress one of the big things can finally be checked off the list.

My Org Behavior teacher finally graded my first paper from week 2! I got an 'A' so I can't complain but I wish she'd had that graded before we turned in our second paper because all the stuff I had wrong on the first one, as far as format goes, is wrong on the second one. I'm hoping that doesn't affect my grade.

Veteran's Day

Yesterday I spent the day working on a paper for Finance and also being thankful for the soliders in my life as well as those who have fought or fight everyday for our freedom as well as their families. As a child of a retired Army solider I know the sacrafice that is being part of a military family. Thankfully my dad was never sent off to war but today in a time when we are fighting multiple wars in multiple countries I have known what it's like to worry for the safety of the ones you love who have choosen to serve our country. Most days it's a thankless job...long days, endless hours and time spent away from family. Unlike those of us in the civilian world for the most part soliders don't run their lives Uncle Sam does and most of the follow without question.

I'm the first to say I don't agree with the war we're currently fighting, but I don't know that I'd agree with any war. It seems like such an unnecesasry waste of life, especially when we have problems here in the good old U.S.A. It sometimes seems as if we waste all our time and resources on fighting other peoples fights and not enough time focusing on our own fight right here at home. But these soliders they go and they fight because it's their job and so I support them not the cause but them. I support them as a friend would support another friend in doing what's expected of them.

So to the Soliders in my life, past and present, thank you! Thank you for the sacrafices you've made and make...thank you for doing what someone of aren't physically or emotionally doing...thank you for risking your lives so we don't have to. And to their families, the forgotten Vets, thank you for standing by the solider in your life....thank you for allowing them to do what they do. For those we have lost I thank you for making the ultimate sacrafice and to their families know that your loved ones died doing what they believed in, protecting our country.

A year older...and wiser!

Last Saturday was my birthday, 28 years of life celebrated. While I had come to terms with doing nothing because not only was it Halloween but it was also Saturday hubz had other plans, he and my sister-in-law that is. I was forced out of my house to take the step-son trick-or-treating and returned to home to a house decoreated with Scooby Doo streamers and masks! It was great! I realized along time ago that a birthday celebration for someone with a birthday on Halloween would be next to impossible as I got older and started a family. While I wish I'd had a few more years to enjoy having a day where everyone is totally focused on me I married someone with a kid and by doing that gave up those precious few years. All in all though the day was fantastic, minus finding out that yet ANOTHER friend is PG. I layed in bed drinking mimosas most of the day and did little else, I couldn't have asked for a better birthday. Hubz got me an IPOD touch which I'd been talking about getting for a while now but back burnered when he got laid off. My sister-in-laws got me gift cards to BBB and Lowe's so I get to buy stuff for the house!!!! And my mom and step-mother-in-law got me a Virgin Mary and kitchen stuff repectively. I also got a Redskins purse, scrapbook stuff and a yet unknown present from one of my sisters.

In light of the last two weeks, which have been the hardest I've dealt with in a while, I'm taking tomorrow off and giving myself a four day weekend. I need this and hubz and I need this. I've been short with him lately and I realize it so I'm taking tomorrow for us to have some QT and for me to decompress. We'll go do the things we use to do when we didn't have money like we did before he lost his job. Friday's my regular day off and I'm getting my hair cut...not sure how yet but it's going and I can't wait. Then it's a soccer filled weekend with some scrapbooking thrown in on Saturday nite. Before I know it'll be back to work on Monday with a very busy two weeks at work.

I can't believe how fast this year has flown by! I haven't accomplished half of the things I wanted to. Some of them are in my control, like having the house all painted and getting our bedroom completely put together. However, some are not in my control, like getting PG and getting a promotion. So for the remainder of the year I'm gonna focus on those things I can take care of and let the rest just happen, hopefully soon!