Well, scratch that.

I guess I don't have a job after all. At least not yet. The place where I was supposed to start next week decided they didn't have room on the schedule after all (one of the people they thought was leaving actually isn't) so I am just out of luck. I am going to Matt's company tomorrow and applying for a job there. We would be in different departments but our shifts would be similar enough that I could ride with him and the guys he carpools with. The money is great, especially for this area and it would REALLY help us to save up the money for fertility treatments or for adoption or both.

If you pray, please pray that I can get this job. We really need something and this is just about the only place that is hiring now. The benefit of all this is that now I won't be starting work before the kids leave for the summer. I will get to enjoy the last few days with them. I didn't want to give up that time, and honestly I was dreading going back to Pizza Hut. I think this other job would be a much better option for our family. We would both be working during the day (most likely) and be home with the kids in the evening.

School's out!

Today was the kids' last day of school. Of course even that couldn't happen without a little bit of drama. Not here anyway. lol Sierra got home and dug her report card out of her bookbag and found that they have given her the wrong one. I called the school and had to drive over and pick up her report card and return the one for the other little boy. Her grades weren't great, but they were mostly good. She has a 3.2 GPA. Will had a 4.0 again. He maintained that all year.

I have the kids until the 13th of June. They leave that day for 8 weeks with their father. The break is nice for 2-3 days, and then I HATE the rest of the summer. Of course this year with going back to work and moving into the new house and everything we'll be doing with that this year will probably pass a little more quickly then the past years have. At least I hope it does.

On the TTC front, AF showed up today and I'm getting pretty frustrated. I don't know what to think at the moment. Matt keeps changing the rules of the game on me. First he didn't want to do IUI or IVF. I decided to look into adoption and have been doing some research and getting pretty excited about that. Now he has decided that we need to try a few rounds of IUI with clomid and at least one round of IUI with injectibles and if none of that works move on to IVF before we consider adoption. And he wants to start IUI as early as January. We have to wait until then because first we have to take a few things. Pay off a few small debts and then I have to travel to West Virginia to get my things out of my storage unit. I hope to do that in September or October and then I want to wait until after the holidays until starting IUI. The first few rounds will be with Clomid and it doesn't like me very well. I don't want to be dealing with the side effects (or making anyone else deal with me) during the holidays.

Hopefully it works quickly and we have a healthy baby and can then adopt soon too. I want a large family and I can't go through this every time I am ready to have another baby.

Holidays

Holidays are always hard on me. Between my 6 miscarriages and losing my dad (all in the past 3 years) I have a hard time with holidays period, but Memorial Day is my Dad's favorite holiday (and mine too) so it's one of the harder ones. Add in the fact that I had to cancel my long awaited vacation and this weekend was just destined to be a bad one.

Last Sunday they announced that they were going to be doing a dedication service this week for one of the new babies in the church. I love church. I love babies. I usually love dedication services but this one I had been dreading since they announced it. Then I woke up this morning and I'm spotting. No doubt about it, AF is going to be making her appearance tomorrow or the next day right on time. So I am ovulating late, have a short LP again, I'm out yet another month.....and I skipped church this morning. There was NO WAY I could sit through a dedication service today. I just don't have the strength.

We are going to the lake later for a cookout with friends. Their 4 year old is convinced there is a baby in my belly. I actually let that get my hopes up for this cycle. I should have realized it was just because she has a 6 month old brother. Or because I am fat. That's probably more like it. I carry my weight around my hips and stomach and I've really let myself go, so I guess if I was honest I probably do look pregnant. Especially to a 4 year old. I'm going to be working really hard to change that starting Tuesday. Tomorrow we are doing hamburgers on the grill and potato salad and stuff like that so I am going to enjoy the cookouts and then I am going to throw myself back into diet and exercise and get this weight off once and for all.

Once AF starts in force I am going to be taking my prenatal and my folic acid still. I am also adding my B6 back in for the LP and trying vitex. It's supposed to regulate your cycle and help you ovulate earlier. I've heard great things about it and I ordered it a few months ago but ehen never started it. Now I am going to try it. Hopefully it helps. Even if it just relieves some of my AF cramping and my PMS symptoms I'll consider it a success. (It is suppose to do all that.)

How

I know that there are people out there that have been trying much longer than I have. I know that there are people who have gone through so much more than I have on this journey. What I don't know is how they do it. The past three years has taken so much out of me and turned me into a very bitter and angry person. I don't know how to change that either. I don't like it, but I can't change it. Right now should be one of the happiest time in my life. I mean....we are buying our first home I made it to one of my big goals. Homeowner before the age of 30. I did it, and I should be happy. Instead, all I can think about is the fact that I still don't have a baby yet. At least not here with me. I have six babies in heaven.

I feel broken and I don't know how to fix it. The doctors say it's just bad luc and that it likely won't happen again, but then it does. It happens again every single time and they can't tell me why. There is no reason that has been found (yet anyway). All my tests are normal so far so there is nothing I can do to "fix" the problem.I don't know how to deal with that. When there is a problem I want to know what it is and how to fix it so that I can do whatever it takes to correct the problem. When noone can tell me how to do that, I don't know....it seems impossible to deal with. I am terrified to keep trying because I am so afraid that I am going to just continue to have one miscarriage after another, and I really think even one more might push me over the edge. I am just as afraid to stop trying though because I don't know that I can face never having another baby. Yes, I have two great kids, and I am forever grateful for them, but I really thought I would have a housefull of babies by now. Then I survived infidelity and a divorce that put those plans on hold for a while and now that I have found someone else, now I am struggling with something I didn't even know existed.

Secondary Infertility

How can you be infertile when you have already had kids? How is it that your body just forgets how to stay pregnant? Getting pregnant isn't a problem. I've proven that. 6 pregnancies in 3 years proves that getting pregnant definitely isn't an issue. Staying that way is a whole different story though. I guess it's time to try to do more research. Find more information to print off....more tests to have the doctor run. I should have went to medical school! Then I could just order my own tests and not have to pay obsene amounts of money to my reproductive endocrinologist.

Remembering my babies

One thing about my miscarriages that has always bothered me is that people seem to think that you should get over a miscarriage in very little time. If I had been further along, there could have been a funeral and a headstone and a place to go to remember my babies. Because I don't have anyplace like that (at the moment anyway) I decided that for Memorial Day I was going to buy flowers and take them to the baby land section of the local cemetery and decorate the graves of "forgotten" babies. Now, don't read that the wrong way. I don't for a single instant think that any of these babies were actually forgotten. I think more than likely the parents have either moved away, or else have gotten older and just can't get to the cemetery anymore or something. I mean....some of these "babies" would be nearing 40 today and so their parents would easily be in theirs 60's, 70's or even 80's now. After many trips past the cemetery (the local bike trail runs just along the cemetery fence line) and several visits to it, I've noticed that these graves are never decorated, no one seems to be visiting them.....the appear to be "forgotten".

Since we have had 6 miscarriages we bought flowers to decorate the 6 graves that seemed to be the longest "forgotten". The oldest graves in this section that seem to be "forgotten". Tonight we took the flowers to the cemetery and decorated the graves and then took pictures of each one. It breaks my heart seeing that some of these graves don't even have proper headstones so I have made it my mission to save up my "fun" money and work with the cemetery to anonymously purchase headstones for these babies. They all died in the 70's and it's pretty obvious that for whatever reason, they still don't have headstones. There are two others that died in the 80's or 90's that don't have headstones either and it breaks my heart, so since I can't do that for my babies, I want to do it for these. I know it will take me a while to save the money and I will have to do it one baby at a time but I just feel like it's something I need to do.



Once we get moved into our new house we are going to build our memorial garden and then I will have a place to go to remember our babies and put flowers for them and what not, but I really think this is going to become an annual tradition. I am going to continue my walks past the cemetery and I am going to watch the other "newer" graves and next year I will put flowers on ALL of the "forgotten" graves....not just these 6. I'll probably check the cemetery in the town where we are buying the house too and see if there are any "forgotten" babies there that need flowers too.

On the TTC front.... I *think* I am around 5 dpo. My breasts are SOOOO sore and very itchy too! I can't really judge off the pain alone because my breasts get sore EVERY cycle but they don't usually itch. And they really seem to hurt more this time than usual. Hopefully it's a good sign. I'm sure not holding my breath though. After three years, I really can't get my hopes up anymore. It hurst too much to be wrong month after month.

I should be....

I should be leaving for vacation tomorrow night. I'm not. We canceled our vacation. I've been trying to take a vacation and get back home for a fun visit since I moved out here three years ago and every single time something goes wrong. It SUCKS! Sometimes I hate being an adult. lol

On the bright side of things, we did get the house. We are closing on June 30th. That is why we canceled the vacation....to make sure we had the money for the down payment. We also bought a used stove and refrigerator for the new place. It's the ones that are in the house now. She originally was taking them with her, but the place she is going to already has new appliances. It's a side by side fridge and an electric range with a double oven in it. I'm really excited about that. They aren't new, but they are "new to me" and in much better shape than the appliances that I currently have.

We are putting a privacy fence up at least along the back side of the property and possible all the way around. Matt wants it all the way and I have mixed feelings. Because we are going to put a hot tub in the yard I kind of agree that I like the idea but at the same time privacy fences always kind of screamed snob to me. lol I just wanted chain link, but we are going to compromise. I think most of the yard is being fenced, but the front won't be. I don't know.....I guess time will tell for sure what we do. lol

We are also planning to put in a fish pond, gazebo and memorial garden. It will have a stone for my Dad in it and a plaque or some sort or memorial for our babies we have lost. I've always hated not having something for them, so now that we are going to own, we are going to build that in. I'm excited about it. I know it's going to take quite a while though because stuff like that is really expensive! lol It'll be a work in progress and it's probably always going to be growing and changing.

I am also going to be planting a garden but that won't happen until NEXT spring just because we are getting into the house to late to plant much this year. We will probably plant some bulbs in some of the flower beds this fall, but the actual garden won't be planted until spring.

And to update on the TTC front..... I am in the 2ww again. Not feeling too hopeful at the moment though. Sunday night I was at a friend's house and his four year old step-daughter decided that I have a baby in my belly. She wanted to know the baby's name was. She argued about it for a long time and I kind of thought maybe it was just because she just got a baby brother recently (he's 6 months old). He called me later to say he hoped she hadn't upset me and that he really didn't know what had gotten into her. He's never seen her act that way with anyone. Part of me really hopes she knows something I don't (I ovulated on Saturday so it's possible) but I am also being realistic and not getting my hopes up.

Why? Just some random ramblings.

Why do we tell people to follow their hearts when the majority of the time they end up regretting the decision that was made when they "followed their heart"? Why do we allow people we care about to make a decision that is only going to cause pain for them and those around them and pretend that they did the right thing. It's time we stood up for what is right and told people that instead of "following your heart" you need to honor your commitments. Life is not a fairy tale. Love is not all sunshine and roses. There are going to be times when the grass is going to look greener in another pasture. You have to stick it out and honor your commitments though. Our grandparents did it, and our great grandparents and for generations and generations before them. Why do we all suddenly think we know so much more than all of those before us?

You really want to know why the world we live in today is so screwed up? Because we gave up on families! Because when life gets just a little bit tough we walk out on our marriages, our children , our siblings....whoever. We need to get back to our roots. Back to a time when family was our first and most important commitment. Back to a time when you never said enough is enough. When you gritted your teeth, pulled together and worked through the bad times together. A time when the whole family came together and celebrated the good times and mourned in the bad times. Where families supported each other through struggles and were stronger because of it.

I have married into one of the most amazing families and I am so thankful for that. Growing up I thought I had a close knit family. I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it is to actually be part of a close knit family. A family that does everything they possibly can together. A family that pulls together into a little cluster and makes sure that everyone in the family is taken care of. I feel so blessed today. I wish more people could experience this.

Moving on

Things have been kind of crazy since the miscarriage. We've had two yard sales recently. We made a grand total of around $330 - 350 in two days. Not too shabby. We opened up around 7:30 each day. The first one we shut down around 11:00 or so thanks to rain. The second we shut down around 1 or so. I still have tons and tons of clothing but I think I am just going to donate it rather than go through all the work of another yard sale. Originally I was going to have another yard sale around mid June, but things are changing pretty quickly around here and I just don't think I am going to have time for that.

On May 21st when the kids get home from school we are packing up the car, grabbing a bite to eat and then heading to West Virginia. I'm going home for a visit for the first time since my Dad died. I will be spending a few days at his house and on the 25th (Memorial Day) we will get up and go to the parade. After that I am going to have a yard sale (I think) to get rid of some of what I have in storage there. The things I want to keep will go to my mom's house for a while and anything that didn't sell will be donated.

Later that afternoon we will check into the cabin we are renting for the week. I've got a busy week of visiting and hopefully some relaxing. Wednesday we are going sight seeing I think and then my brother will get there on Wednesday night or Thursday morning and then Sunday we are going to my Great Grandma's for a family dinner. All this winds down when we head home on June 1st.

I'm going back to work in June. I told them I could start on June 6th. That gives me a couple of days to get unpacked and rested from vacation before I have to be at work. I have to have the 13th off though because that is the day I have to have the kids at the airport to go to their Dad's house. I think they are coming home on the 14th, but I don't know for sure yet. My ex wanted to keep them until the 18th but that would only give me one day to do the school shopping and get them settled in before school starts again on the 20th. Hopefully he won't give me to much trouble. Or maybe he will offer to take them school shopping. I can send him the supply list and he can buy that and the clothing and keep them until the 18th. Who knows what he'll do. Only time will tell I guess.

In the midst of all this, it looks like we are going to be moving. I think we are buying a house in a nearby town. It's tiny little place with a population of right around 250 people. There is a post office, a bar, and cafe. That's pretty much it. It sits right in the bend of a river and is just a sleepy little town that time seems to have forgotten about. Matt's Grandma lives just up the block from the house we are buying and Matt's aunt and uncle (the ones who just had a house fire) are putting a modular home up right behind her, so lots of family in the area. Matt also has some more distant relatives (his dad's cousins) in the town....probably 1/4 of the town is related to Matt! lol. His parents and his brother are still only going to be about 15 minutes away, so we can still see them any time we want.

The house is a 5 bedrooms but we plan on converting the smallest bedroom into a second bathroom. I am still waiting to hear back from the bank to find out for sure if we got the loan or not but it looks very promising at this point. Hopefully I'll have an update and pictures soon!