Surgery day recap

So I survived! Not that it was really a question. I had confidence in my doctor all the way. It's weird though. I've done surgery before with my mom taking care of me, but this one was so different. We arrived at the hospital at 6am. After shuffling through the paperwork and making our way through different hallways and elevators we made it to the pre-op room. It's always icy cold! So I changed into my lovely and aesthetically pleasing hospital gown, after a small mishap with the IV I was wrapped with warm blankets and waited. 

The doctor came in and greeted myself and my mom. Explained that the plan as still endometriosis removal, selective hsg and then the ovarian wedge resection. He said he would evaluate everything else while in there and give it a good once over. All in all should be expected to be about 2.5 hours. After he left the room I wanted nothing more then to have DH there holding my hand. Telling me it would be ok. I lost it for a minute and my mom hugged me and did all her mommy magic. But the biggest piece of my heart was missing. I'm getting teary-eyed writing this!

So soon after that they came in and I gave my mom a kiss as we shuffled down the hall to the OR. During this time and even looking back on it now, it was a surreal experience. Like it wasn't me. I couldn't talk because if I did, I would absolutely BURST into tears. As I got assembled on the table I felt a tear welling up in the corner of my right eye as the doctor asked me where I wanted to dream of while simultaneously a hot rushing metallic taste took over my mouth and soon two long blinks was the last I remember. 

When I started waking up all those groggy feelings and wanting to move little motions start to take over. The nurse told me I had to lay still and soon I would be wheeled down to recovery where I could see my mom. Now I've been through enough surgeries to know you aren't going anywhere until you use the bathroom. So I told her I had to go. She said I had to wait until I was in the next phase of recovery. 

Finally downstairs I saw my mom. She said the doctor told here there was no endometriosis to remove!  There was one polyp he removed from my uterus and he cleared the mucus build up in one of my fallian tubes. Then he did the ovarian wedge resection. Both of my ovaries were about 2x the size of normal ovaries. So he resized them and now here we are. 

So I'll be staying with my parents for a few days. I'm pretty mobile, just sore, slow moving and stiff. My throat is very sore. Of course it's difficult to cough or laugh. But all in all I have to say, things went well! Now I'll just put my time in for the remainder of the deployment. 

A little something something....

Today I have been thinking a lot about the upcoming summer. It usually goes so quickly, which I think this year will be a blessing. With DH deployed, it will get us closer to the window to his return. I was with my sister and my three nieces this week and the girls were asking about my husband. They are all under the age of six, so the questions are things like “does he ride camels?” and “Is he fighting bad guys?” which in all their innocence makes me smile. If only things were that simple.

Next week I’m going for my surgeries. It’s been a little emotional this week I think just leading up to that. I’ve had my mom drive me to surgeries before, but this one is different with DH half way around the world. I’ll miss him by my bedside taking care of me. He does make the best chicken soup! He had grown this moustache while he has been overseas. When we skyped yesterday I was so glad to see his handsome face – no moustache! It’s the little things that get you through! We hit the 6 month mark since he officially deployed. It’s kind of skewed since he was in the country for training for a bit. But it’s definitely been an adjustment.

My mind has been wandering to reintegration. Not only him coming home to me and readjusting to that, but also the fact that our home sold right after he left. So he isn’t even coming home to the place that he left. I’m in a small apartment waiting for him so once we have a little time to settle back into life, we can look for a new house to buy together. I wonder not only what kind of emotional bundle will be coming back to me, but what kind of emotional bundle he is coming home to! I’m sure I have changed a lot in this period as well. I definitely feel like our relationship has been through the pasta mill. It’s been the pasta dough that was watered and floured and pounded before finally run through the pasta mill. Now we are a pile of noodles waiting to be turned into something! Who knows what. Hopefully it’s a delicious thing!

Yesterday I had somewhat of a small breakthrough of sorts. I haven’t been able to get myself to go to the gym. DH and I went in the mornings together before work, and it’s been very hard for me to even face the idea of going since he has been deployed. It’s been the last big mental block in my life. I know – come on girl – get over it! So I talked my cousin into going with me. I knew if I could just get through the doors, I would be good. So yesterday, it happened! Today my arms are so sore. But it feels good. As I did certain weights and such I found myself watching for DH to come around the corner. Our normal routine. I can’t wait for him to be back. I really miss him everywhere in life!

So not much of an update here. But just a little catching up things are good post. I will have more next week after the surgery and I will let you know how that all goes!

Plans are a funny thing

Sometimes your best made plans are interrupted and cast by the wayside...Life occasionally steps in and makes a completely different plan. On a small scale, that's what happened to me this week. On a large scale, that's been the last 8 months of my life! But let's look at the small picture because the big picture has been exhausting lately.

So I have been planning some fun things over these months during the deployment to keep myself busy and such. One of the things I did plan was a mud run - it is a 5K mud run that I was going to do up in Boston with some friends. It's this Saturday! So the last 48 hours I have been plagued with this awful stomach bug! It has been just dreadful. While I had every intention of going up to do the run, I don't think I'm going to be able to go. I'm just today able to eat some crackers and a banana. Hoping that things get better from here.

An interesting observation I've made over the last few months has been regarding my decision to come off Facebook. Initially, during the first phase of the miscarriage, it was a lot to have the input of seemingly everyone posting that they were pregnant. That, coupled with the idea that people would be knowing or potentially posting that DH was away, lead me to come off the social media site. I have definitely noticed some of my friendships have fallen off and become more distant. It takes a lot to keep friendships going with the busy lives that everyone has, and in some ways, social media has made it easier for us to just know the day to day of people's lives without even really trying. I have found myself putting more time into the people that invest their time into me. There is definitely a clear line of people who have reached out and invested into me. Who know what is going on with me. Who know what is happening in my life. And there are others that have moved to the fringe.

The evolution of life is something that is really very funny.

Light in the tunnel!

Have you been to the eye doctor when they sit you behind that black apparatus and make you lean your head against it to look through the impossibly small holes? Then they hook up the "reading" bar with a little card and slide it closer to your eyes obstructing everything else in view but bringing those tiny little letters into your whole range of focus. That exactly explains where my life has been for the last few weeks. Those tiny letters on that little card have been the miscarriage - obstructing my ENTIRE LIFE. I haven't been able to see anything past that.

Why now? It's 6 months past when it actually happened, so why now? Let's think about that....At the time of the miscarriage, DH was getting ready to deploy, he was away at training, the house was in the final stages of selling, packing, apartment hunting, DH departing to CA, moving, back and forth to CA to visit him, moving again, finally DH going overseas.....then I came home to quiet. I was left with my DH deployed, I wasn't 6 months pregnant. I was in an apartment alone. I was dredging through life. I was finally facing the fact that here I was, in a non-ordinary life, alone - no husband and no baby. Not only that, but we didn't even really have another chance to try for a baby after the miscarriage because of the timing.

So we miscarried and I've just been kind of sitting with the disappointment. No hope to try again for a year. Now don't get me wrong. I know God has a plan. I know that things happened the way that they did for a reason. I know that it also took me a good 3 weeks to get in touch with what exactly my problem was! Guys, I was in  HUGE FUNK!

I finally identified the problem. I finally began talking about it. Working through it. I'm definitely not through it. But I've found a candle in my tunnel. I can at least see where I'm going now. It's a dim light, but it's helping me keep my balance, and step over the obstacles in the way. I feel much more in control since I've identified what it is that was weighing me down.

So I feel ready to move forward a little at a time. The first step is going forward with the surgeries I have scheduled with my NaPro doctor. I see him next Thursday and I have a list of questions. I'm scheduled for three surgeries. One to remove the endometriosis (endo as most people shorten it to), a selective HSG, and an ovarian wedge resection. The hope is to get in, get cleaned up and get healed and hopefully ready and ovulating on my own (without meds!) so when DH is back, we can start trying again for the family we want so badly.

It's funny the way life works out sometimes. In this season of Easter, I feel that I have been given new hope, new life and a new chance. I hope that I can hold onto this feeling of newness as I watch the flowers start to poke their heads up, trees start to slowly turn green and the sun stay a little higher in the sky a few minutes longer every day. It's such a hopeful time of year. I hope that the hope extends to you and your family too.

Dredging Through

So March is almost over, that will mark the first month down. It's been really rough since DH went overseas. We have gotten to e-mail pretty regularly, and we use Google Chat (instant message) a few times a week. We have gotten to talk on the phone twice since he's been over there, so it's in some ways not as bad as I thought. In other ways it is harder.

It's taken me a while to kind of get in touch with the fact that I feel like those scenes in the movies when one main point freezes, and everything else is spinning and whirling all around. I feel frozen and time is still passing. Life goes on, but I'm frozen in place! It's a weird feeling. This is the temporary normal. I'm so thankful it's temporary!

Lets change gears before I get too emotional....I booked my three surgeries. They are all going to be in one shot - the endo removal, the selective HSG and the ovarian wedge. They will be in May (hopefully). It's at least things I can do to get myself ready for DH return. It's so weird to think I will be 35 by the time we are able to try again for a baby. That means I'll be near 36 if we are successful right away. Where did the years go?

So I've been working like crazy on this tricky tray for DH motorcycle club. I really want it to be a success for multiple reasons, but mostly because he isn't here. I want to represent him well and have it be a successful event for him and the club. They are so generous and they donate 100% of their proceeds to the cause each year that they support.

I felt like I had a lot to blog about. My brain is so full carrying around this deployment. I'll try to focus more next time and come up with some more to blog about, I know there is more in there!

A new reality

So it's not quite new, but it's not old, but it's the now and it's not forever. So let's just go with new-ish. My routine was just starting to settle in... and by routine I of course mean keeping myself so insanely busy that I don't have even a minute to think about what is actually happening in my head! I mentioned in my last post that I called the NaPro doc as soon as I got back from Cali after sending DH on his way overseas. That is just in a lull right now. Waiting on insurance, which we all know can take some time..

In the meantime, I have scheduled dinners, and outings and meetings and made plans with everyone I can think of. DH is in a motorcycle club, which I was at first resistant to, but have since warmed up to very much! I adore the women in the club and the good hearts of these "motorcycle" guys never ceases to amaze me. They are made up of all veterans, army, navy, air force, marines, police, fire fighters, the list goes on and on. They are the most generous souls and some of the kindest men I have ever met in my life. The fact that I get along with the women in the club is just an enormous bonus! So they run a fundraiser every year, so I'm pushing to throw myself into that to not only help the club, but also to distract and to give back.

Something I have learned over my 34 years on this globe is that when things in my life get crummy, things seem more hopeful if I can come out of myself and serve others. Somewhere along my journey I heard a quote - I googled it to make sure I got it right!

“The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes

When you can give someone else assistance, or hope, or a helping hand or even a smile - what a great feeling. Keeping my heart in shape is important. I need to make sure it stays strong for not only me, but so I can continue to life DH burden - after all, I'm not the only one separated from their spouse! I got a call at 1:30am today from him telling me that it will be a while before he can call or contact me again. One of the worst calls to get as a military spouse - yet one of the best, because it was a heads up. Now I operate off the "no news is good news" mantra! I will focus on a weekly e-mail full of uplifting stories of how I'm keeping busy and seeing my friends, both of our families and relay entertaining stories and pictures to him. I don't want him to have an image of me sitting at home with piles of tissues around me wallowing in his absence!

There's a picture of us I keep on my desk at work. It was taken just a few weeks after we started dating, which we coincidentally used as our engagement announcement picture. I'd love to show it to you, but he is very cautious about information and pictures on the internet. The leaves are bright and bold with fall colors, he is looking at me and smiling with the most genuine smile while his arm is around me. It looks so natural. And we had only been dating for a few weeks! I hold on to the fact that we came together so easily and quickly. I hope the home adjustment is just as easy and quick! I'll try not to borrow sorrow from tomorrow - haha 

Explosion of emotion!

Today I popped into a local eatery for lunch. I ordered a sandwich that I was very excited to enjoy. I haven't been sleeping well this week - but I made it through the week (almost)! My emotions are ready to bubble out at ANY time.

I have read a LOT of blogs and articles about deployments and what to expect. One of the great ones that stands out in my head is this one - Why I wish Your Husband Would Deploy. Today I had a first experience - it was with the waitress of the lunch place. When I mentioned in conversation that my DH was deployed, she said "I wish my husband would leave for a year." This comment may seem innocent from the civilian side of things, but I burst into tears. I would give ANYTHING to have him back at my side.

It took me a minute to pull myself together, but things flash through my head. I'd love to be able to boss him around to take out the trash, I want to feel his body heat in bed to warm my cold toes. I want him to help me put my jacket on, kiss my forehead, open my car door for me, fight with him about stupid little things, listen to him laugh on the phone with his friends, talk to him about whether or not we should buy a raffle ticket for some random prize, eat the crust on his pizza, put my arms around his body and hug him and to be able to kiss his soft loving lips. I would give anything to be close to him again.

Re-reading that paragraph, it's the little things. Don't get me wrong though! There are times that I just want DH to be quiet and stop arguing with me, or times I just want space for a few hours from him. Overall though, I miss him and I want him home! I have reached out to a lot of the wives I know through his different commands of days past. I am very lucky that he set me up with a network of people I can talk to about this whole situation. It's always funny when the guys give their opinions also! If I listened to the men, it would be all naked pictures lining his care packages! That's not happening - absolutely not.

So this week I also called my Doctor to get in for the NaPro surgeries. They are contacting the insurance company and they will get back to me to schedule. The things I have read online regarding the Ovarian Wedge surgery say that people have the highest success rate in the first 6 months after the surgery. So maybe before the summer I will go, and then DH return should fall in that 6 month window somewhere! I hope....

Wanted: Brain Power

So I'm home - I spent 2 weeks in SoCal with my DH...and now he is gone. I tracked his flight as he took his 4 leg trip from SoCal to the Middle East - each leg taking him further and further from me. Technology is so great because it gives us a way to keep in touch, but watching his little icon plane fly further from home was an awful feeling.

This being my first deployment, everyone tells me it's the worst. I started a new cycle just days before he left, so now he's gone and so are any chances of us conceiving. A hugely bitter-sweet pill to swallow with a smile on my face. As I sat at work today, people passed by my desk and with the best intentions asked how I was doing. I hope it was normal "par-for-the-course" behavior to want to just stab everyone (including myself) in the eye. I wanted to cry, and then got aggravated at myself for wanting to cry....It's day ONE! Pull yourself together, woman! I hope this gets easier.

As I stood at the curb with DH waiting for the luggage to arrive at the airport from the base, I looked around at the other guys deploying with him. I don't know these men and women - and while they are all going to the same place - they are all strangers. They are supposed to put their trust in each other. They are supposed to rely on their combat brothers and sisters to get them home. STRANGERS! I was both overwhelmed at the fact that so many were there at the airport alone - and also overwhelmed at the fact that these men and women (like my DH) were leaving their families and loved ones to fight for our country. For God and Country.....really a remarkable thing. It only makes it easier for a minute. Once that national pride wears off, I'm left with my feelings of quiet aloneness.

My friends and family have been trying to convey and shower me with support, but I still feel alone. I want the days to go quickly and I want to hold on to that feeling of how perfectly he fit into my arms as I hugged him at the airport. How I felt his breath on my shoulder telling me he would be back to me. How I felt his arms squeeze my back as if he was trying to shove more of his love into my body to keep me going. How I felt when I kissed him through the tears that were rolling down my cheek that one last time. Today is Day 1 back to normal life. I hope it gets better from here.

Weightlifting Life

I feel like I have just about a 500lb boulder on my back! Life right now if VERY HEAVY!!

St. Anne pray for me! I don't know that St. Anne is the patron saint of STRESSED OUT, but I love her and she has been so good to me.

So I have been absent from this blog - not sure at this point if anyone is reading it though. I think it's more of a help to me to just get my thoughts on track. Plus a lot has happened over the last few weeks.

I'm back in SoCal for my last trip to see my DH before he deploys. If that wasn't enough stress, I met with the surgeon last week, and he wants me to go for a trifecta - three procedures in one! One would be just a scouting mission to make sure everything is good with my uterus. Then one would be an endometriosis removal surgery with the final one being an ovarian wedge. AHHH!!!

I'm not even sure where to start, so let's just jump in with what I'm most nervous about - the ovarian wedge. So when I met with my NaPro surgeon my husband was able to video chat with us during the consult. What an unexpected blessing! I had a hard time concentrating on what the Doctor was saying due to the images he was showing. I realized I have a weak stomach when it comes to surgical images.

Luckily for me, WebMD had this link. Basically my body should be able to ovulate on it's own after this surgery. We will have roughly 8 months before DH returns, so that gives me plenty of time to have the surgery and heal.

Since I'm out in SoCal with him, I arrived on P+1. Having met with the surgeon before I came out here, I know I had a nice follicle that was ready to burst the day before I came out to SoCal. Fingers crossed! I will be able to take a HPT before he goes, so we will atleast know where we stand. If I end up staring a new cycle, we already decided I would go forward with the endo and wedge surgery. There is some other irons in the fire, but I'm not really ready to talk about that yet! That will have to come in the next blog. Exciting hook - right?

Calendar Mixup and Charting

So as a new cycle started, things continue to chug along. It's kind of sad that a new cycle started, but like I said in my last post, I didn't even expect to be pregnant. We missed pretty much any chance last cycle, and this one doesn't look any more lucky since I won't be out in California until days after potential peak day. But such is the life of a sailor's wife!

One thing that did work to my advantage..and my surprise! I had a work thing come up for March, which happened to be the same date as the appointment I had scheduled with the surgeon to talk about my endometriosis. I called to reschedule and there was a mix-up when the appointment was made and it was actually made for Feburary 12th instead of March 12th, so score! I get to go see him a month sooner.

So when I first started seeing Dr. J, my NaPro doctor, it was about 6 months prior to our wedding. It was recommended to us by our priest, who happens to be a very good friend of mine! DH and I started out on the Creighton Model charting. It was an interesting dynamic for our relationship. Especially for me. I never never was comfortable talking about sex openly or sexual humor. Talk about tight laced, right?! Now here I am talking about it on a blog.....

It was discovered early on through the various ultrasounds that I did have some endometriosis. I'm very lucky that I've never really had painful periods, a tell-tale sign of endo. Over the last almost two years, my cycles have leveled off and become quite healthy looking. My doctor is happy with that aspect I suppose, and it's good to remind myself that things have been evolving for me. It's hard to keep positive and see the upside of things when the whole point is to have a little baby, and that just hasn't happened (to term) yet for us.

So some key ideas and terms that go with this Creighton charting:

1. Observations - These are done routinely, before and after anything involving your body - haha. Before anything in the bathroom basically - toilet, shower..

2. Fertile Days: Believe it or not, that includes period days, then during observations you can see/feel fertile times. If there is lubrication (aka a slippery wipe) it would be a fertile day. If there is mucus on the toilet tissue, that would be fertile days too.

The level of fertility that is the highest is when it's clear, stretchy and lubricative. The last day that you have those three things in one single observation - that would be peak day!

You're considered fertile for three days post peak - referred to as P+1, P+2 and P+3.

3. All other days (if there is no lubrication or mucus) they are just regular days. They can be dry, wet or shiny based on any observations you may have.

Those are the basics. So now I can tell you, I won't see DH until at least P+3 based on the current cycle trend I have been going through.

This post has been informative, but a big yawn in the excitement department. Sorry about that! Not every blog can be amazing - haha. I'll try to work on my pizzaz for the next one :-)

Unintentional sting

So, I'm back from the left coast. Kinda depressing being back in the snow covered NJ. The winter is such a low time for everything, but the low temperatures are the worst. To add insult to injury, after leaving sunny California I landed back in NJ and had to de-ice, de-snow and somehow break through the massive encrustation of muck to get into my car. I managed to cut my hand on the ice - ouch!

My husband was VERY happy to see me! Hooray! We even got to spend one whole day together! A day off has been rare for him. Sunday was his first day off in three weeks! We went to mass, breakfast, a beautiful hike in Torrey Pines...it was an absolutely perfect day....

I managed to make it home with no problems. I grabbed some soup out of the freezer and stuck it in the microwave while I quickly unpacked some of my stuff - comprising of several bottles of medication. Progesterone, glumetza, and letrozole (just in case I got stuck in CA longer than planned!) It's funny how things like medication start to make you feel defined, or forced into some crazy hole. I had to have my progesterone called into a pharmacy in CA. When the pharmacist asked if I was on any other medication so she could make sure there wouldn't be any conflict, I told her glumetza.....she then proceeded to talk to me for 5 minutes about how diabetes can be handled with diet and exercise. Thanks, lady......I already have a no carb diet and I work out 5 days a week....my A1C also is in fine shape - so thanks......I'm not diabetic. I'm trying to make a baby, yo!

Once I finally made it to the couch, I saw I had an e-mail from my NaPro Doctor....I had gone for blood work while I was in California since my flight was delayed...twice! I called the office and they sent me over a script for the blood work, and off I charged with two different scrips in hand. Coincidentally I have my endo this week also, so it lined up to have that, plus my P+7 bloodwork done (I should do a post on what the lingo I've learned so far actually means when it comes to NaPro and Creighton Model)

Anyway, I opened the e-mail from my Doc, and it said "labs negative for pregnancy - see attached"...I didn't even realize HCG was on the lab slip e-mailed to me, but it was. I didn't even think I was pregnant....I wasn't even with my husband to try during the fertile window. But it stung reading those words. In my head it was coming across as "FAILURE FOR PREGNANCY!" which I know is completely unreasonable. It may have been just because I was exhausted from a day of travel and running through the airport to catch a connection home, but my heart hurt getting that e-mail.

I guess this is kind of par for the course when it comes to IF....we want so badly to be parents. Under normal circumstances, I'm stalking my chart and just waiting for the first day I can take a home pregnancy test (HPT) just to get a negative. This time, it wasn't even on my radar since my DH and I haven't even been together since New Years! It kind of stung....I don't know that it will ever be OK hearing that I'm not pregnant....but this time was weird, because we weren't even available to try!

Time vortex - A miscarriage story

I've become so aware of time. How quickly it's been going by and how much everyone seems to be craving extra hours in the day. Some people want that time to work, or clean, or exercise, or just to jam in a few extra minutes of sleep. Where does the time go? I went to have blood drawn this morning, and after a quick stop at Whole Foods (yum!) I got back to the hotel and realized I had been running around for 3 hours. It didn't seem possible, but clearly it was. Ha ha

I'm so fortunate to get to spend a little extra time with my hunnie before he deploys. As I mentioned in other posts, we have been trying since we were married to conceive. One of the plus sides of regulating my cycles with NaPro Creighton Model charting is kind of being able to guesstimate when our chances to try for pregnancy will fall for the next month. Sadly, it won't line up for us to have another try before he leaves. At first I was really sad about that fact. Then after lots of time to reflect and work through my self-imposed "must be pregnant ASAP" pressure, I realize that my state in life has me being a wife. Why not totally embrace that? Obviously it's not our time to be parents, especially for us to become first time parents while we are worlds apart. 

I'm getting emotional even typing this. I feel so so so lucky to have the husband that I have. I can't imagine enduring the miscarriage that we did without him by my side. He is so wonderful, supportive, understanding and can always lighten my spirits when I'm feeling down. We work very hard to have open communication in our relationship and be totally honest with each other. It's one of the things that  took me some time to get used to! Since the miscarriage really has catapulted me onto a different (overly) emotional level, I thought I would force myself to talk about it, so here it goes.

In October DH and I were in Florida visiting his parents. Things felt so different in my cycle. We had hit our peak time to try for a pregnancy, I had been doing acupuncture for pregnancy, I had a huge change in the way my appetite was, I was soooooo tired and I was having a lot of cramping on one side of my belly. I would break into sweat, my heart was racing a lot of the time...just weird. So my SIL who is a nurse, handed me a pregnancy test. I took the test the next morning, ran into the kitchen where she was, and she confirmed, there were two lines. I couldn't believe it was real. I showed DH and he was just as shocked. "Are you serious, babe?" As his eyes lit up. I felt like I could take on anything in the whole world. We flew back to NJ, I called my NaPro doctors office and they sent me right away for blood work. The blood work confirmed, I was pregnant. I couldn't believe it! DH would be able to hear the heartbeat before he left, we would have a baby in June 2015 and suddenly our whole world was changed. They said I was 5 weeks at the point we found out. Apparently that is early.  

So I went for blood work again a few days later and when my NaPro practitioner called me, she sounded apologetic. She said my HCG numbers weren't doubling. They wanted me to start a special progesterone injection compound right away and told me to stay off my feet for a few days. With DH in NYC training, I did just that. The injection progesterone came, and we started on that as quickly as we could. We started getting comfortable with the idea we were going to be parents! After a few days, they sent me for more blood work. My HCG numbers had increased, but weren't doubling, which is what they are supposed to do early on in pregnancy. I started reading everything known to man on the entire internet about early pregnancy HCG numbers. There were women who had successful pregnancies after low numbers, as well as women who had successful pregnancies after first tirmester bleeding (which I was having). I would call the doctor every day to make sure every little pain or twang that I felt was normal. I started worrying that everything was wrong. 

I went to have blood work done again in the middle of week 6 of the pregnancy. I stalked the doctors office to find out what the bloodwork said! Finally my Doctor called me back, not the NaPro practitioner. Her voice was calm and very very somber. My low HCG numbers had fallen. She said that this was the tell tale sign of a miscarriage. I kept myself together and I asked her several questions about what to expect over the next few weeks and what were the "normal" parameters. I called my husband and told him what the doctor said. He was away for training and I asked him to please come home that night. Not totally unreasonable since he as about 1.5 hours away and could make that happen. Then I called my mom and I lost it. I cried and cried.

To try to explain the loss I felt is very hard. I felt like I let down our baby, I felt like I let down my husband, and even thought it was 6.5 weeks into the pregnancy, I felt like I let myself down. The doctor assured me several times that it wasn't my fault. There is nothing I personally could have done to change the outcome, but my heart felt so incredibly hollow. I really felt like a disappointment as a wife... I mean what's the root of being a wife? I think it's to segway to a Mom...  if I can't carry our first baby to term, what am I supposed to do? That feeling took some time to kind of figure out. My DH never once said anything other then how proud he was. He told me he married me because he loved me, not because I could maybe one day mother his children. 

Miscarriage is such a hit to a lot of areas of life. I feel like I'm still stuck in this time vortex. I can't quite get my head back into the game of life. Granted, a lot has changed in the last 3 months. We sold our house, we miscarried, we moved into an apt and probably most importantly, DH moved across the country to continue training. Life has taken some unexpected turns. Sometimes you just have to hold on and pray that God will get you through!

My growing grinch heart and surprise travel

So I have a new respect for people who support a deployed spouse or loved one. This business is hard! I haven't seen my DH since New Year's Day. What a scam! I cry literally every time I talk to him on  the phone. It's a lot harder than I thought! Of course I know I can do it, but that doesn't make it any easier.

You'll be relieved to hear (or I'm relieved to be typing) that this message is being typed to you from the  skies courtesy of United Airlines. The weather forecast in NJ was calling for 2 feet of snow! Holy moly! So instead of staying to face it, I decided I would up and book a last minute ticket to see DH. Now this is going be to be a total surprise to him...So don't tell him! 

I feel like I'm heading to a first date. I'm so nervous that he won't like the surprise. He's not big on being surprised. I managed to pull off a surprise birthday party for him last year. He was so surprised I was able to keep the secret. He enjoyed that party, but this is different. His head isn't in being married mode. It's in prepping for mobilization mode. So it's not that he wouldn't love to see me I'm sure, it's more his head is in the game. I might just be a distraction. 

As I enjoyed a glass of wine before the flight I was chatting with the lovely woman next to me. She was traveling for work and was excited to be getting out of town with the pending doom....I mean snow. When she asked why I was traveling I told her it was to see DH before he deployed. She started telling me of everyone in her family who has served or was married to someone who was/has served. She said to me when I told her the outrageous last minute price I paid for this ticket, "the things we do for love.." And it got the wheels turning. 

My outlook on love has absolutely evolved over the last 3 years.  Growing up in the family I did, we always had implied love. Not expressed love. We didn't really ever say I love you, we more just knew everyone loved everyone else from the way we treated each other. Now I'm married to a Puerto Rican and boy when it comes to love, he knows how to show, tell, express, and layer it on. It's one of the things that drew me to him. This unexplainable openness with emotion that he has.  I feel so lucky to have a husband who is willing to share that side of himself with me. It has got me opening up more. Every once in a while I'll sneak in an "I love you" to my Mom, or Dad or siblings or cousins. It's crazy how one change can have a ripple effect on your norm.

Then I started thinking. I wonder if the emotionally bound Katie would handle this deployment differently. Would I have been as weepy as I am? Would I be breaking out into tears at work as much as I do? I'd like to think that I would, but being through everything I've been through in the last 3 years has brought me to who I am today. And I never thought openly emotional would be who I am. Yes, i am welled up with tears right now on the plane. Haha I'm like the grinch in the way that my heart has begun to grow at a rate I couldn't imagine. My emotional heart is about the size of Noah's ark right now. I feel all emotions on a new level. Especially love!

Coming back to my initial thought in this post I feel overwhelming thanks. Being a military spouse is a defining role and it is only enhanced by support of others. So thank you, whoever you are who is reading this. Thanks for being you. Thank you to spouses and military support systems. Thank you to all hopeful mothers like myself. Thank you to everyone who has shared their blogs for me to read silently for months. Thank you to my DH for serving our country and for loving me as much as you do. 

Disclaimer: this was typed on an iPad. Sorry for any spelling errors!

Great to meetcha....

So I found myself with some extra time - I have a lot of that these days. I thought I would introduce you a little more to my life.

There are two big parts of my life as it currently rolls, and that's being a wife and a military spouse. Both are big changes from what I was used to! Might as well introduce you to the man who changed my whole life, right? DH and I met on September 11, 2012 on none other than match.com. There were A LOT of bad dates I had to endure before I finally met the one. Both from online dating and just regular life (you know, blind dates, speed dating, etc...) I knew things with him were different pretty early on - we endured hurricane Sandy together and the way he treated me, took care of me, was so aware and in tune to my fears and really went over and above what I would expect out of a new relationship. No wonder he is still around! He treats me with the same respect, genuine concern and love that he did when we first met and started dating.

So the story he tells of when he "fell in love"with me was Christmas 2012. He was working ovenights at his job at the time and had to work Christmas eve AND Christmas day! How awful...he claims the money was worth it, but the jury is still out on that one. Since he was working (he worked at the airport) all night, I wasn't going to miss my chance to have a Christmas dinner with my new beau. So I cooked up pounds and pounds of chicken legs, vegetables and baked easily 4 dozen cookies of all variety types and sizes. I packed up place settings of glass dishes, silverware and placemats and headed to meet him for dinner. There we sat, in baggage claim outside Dunkin Donuts, having our Christmas dinner. That is when he said he knew I was a keeper!

We had only been dating 3 months at that point, but in January 2013 he bought a ring. He worked millions of hours and I had no idea why. He set a goal to pay the ring off before he talked to my Dad. How sweet! So March 8, 2013 he proposed to me! The timing was crazy because at about 9am March 9th I headed to a 10 day vacation in Hawaii I had booked with one of my girlfriends. (Side note: the trip was booked because we weren't going to wait for Mr. Right......I booked it 3 weeks before I met DH).

Once back from Hawaii, we went high gear planning for the wedding! We did precana and all our marriage prep and managed to pull of an October wedding. What a whirlwind! We knew eachother for 13 months on the day of our wedding. And here we are, in year 2 of our marriage. I always wanted to be a wife and mother. So far, the wife part is going great! I miss him a lot more then I thought was imaginable. I am so immensely proud of him serving our country and keeping us safe so I can sit here and blog while he is working in some desert.

We started NaPro and Creighton Model charting before we were married. It's been an up and down roller coaster going through trying to conceive, and now even adding the deployment. We tried up until the last minute that we could. We were almost there....In the fall we found we had a positive home pregnancy test. For 6 weeks I was a mom to a perfect little angel. Just as the idea of being parents (and the baby being born during his deployment) started feeling more real, we miscarried. It was COMPLETELY heart wrenching. Looking for the positive became so hard, but looking back, I feel so lucky that DH was home while we went through that emotional torture. My DH was there to support me, hold me, tell me it would be ok and shower me with unyielding love. I never was happier to have someone to be there solely for me. It was selfish, but he really helped me carry that cross. It was what I always yearned for as a single woman and my heart is just so full now even thinking about that painful journey.

This is longer than I thought......I will earmark until a later date!

Scatterbrained

So that mostly describes my day to day dealings with just about anything! It's been three weeks since I got to physically hug my DH. I kind of feel like I have to constantly drag this 200lb brick everywhere I go. I'm always tired and nothing is fulfilling. I've tried shopping, and spending time with family and friends. I'm missing a piece of me and my heart! The separate just sucks.

Moving on though - because dwelling on the negative is never a good thing! I saw my fertility doctor...let me tell you a little about that! Being Catholic, it is important to both DH and myself that we follow the "old fashioned" seeming rules of the church when it comes to babies. Infertility is unfortunately common within my family, so I followed the lead of some of the ladies who had successful pregnancies (within the confines of the church rules - yay!) following The Creighton Model. So basically I chart on a daily basis and keep an eye on when fertile and non-fertile days are. They have discovered over the past 15 months we have been trying to conceive that I do in fact have endometriosis,  PCOS, insulin resistance and of course could stand to lose a few pounds. The problem is when this mix all gets together, it makes is VERY hard to lose weight.

Sidetrack to the weight thing for a minute. I have tried everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! Doctor moderated diets, low car, no carb, low fat, no fat, no sugar, no caffeine, low glycemic index, you name it, I tried it. I even had the lap band and was the only stalemate they had experienced. I lost ZERO weight! So I went forward and had gastric bypass where I lost 30lbs and stalled out. Since then, keeping to a strict 80/20 eating philosophy (good 80% of the time, cheat a little) I have managed to watch my weight begin creep back up little by little. This is despite the 4-5x a week I am at the gym working out. I cardio, I weight train, I use free weights, body weight, machines, elliptical, I feel like I could be a spokeswomen for how to make the gym more fun - is it really too much to ask for a separate weight area for women? Anyway......that's my weight story....back to the feature focus - fertility.

So while my husband is away, I plan to work on myself and what I have control over. I have an appointment already scheduled for the surgeon regarding the endometriosis. Who knows what will happen there but I hear amazing things about this doctor. He is a Creighton Model doctor, and is supposed to be very gentle and welcoming to deal with. That's one of the things I like about all the doctors I have met through this Creighton Model journey (I should do a post on that, right?). All the doctors, practitioners, nurses, etc that I have met have been wonderful.

Along the fertility lines, I have also decided to try adding acupuncture back onto the list. I did it briefly in October, when we actually conceived and then lost the baby at only a few weeks. I don't know if that was the reason, but I figure it atleast gives me one hour in a dark room to nap! The best kind of stress reduction ever :-)

Starting out

Making a first post is the best way to start a blog, I guess? Things in my life are crazy, but I figure as I write, something will always bubble to the top to talk about.

A little about me, so you know whose blog you are reading. My present life lends me to being a military wife. My wonderful husband and I have been married for just over a year. While he presently is serving our country, I find myself lost mostly in how much my heart aches to be in his arms! He is a reservist, which means he has been home with me aside from drill weekends and the all too often schools, training and qualification achievements. This will be our first deployment together, and my first one all together! It is definitely an adjustment to go back to a "single" mindset when it comes to taking care of things around the house.

When I'm not missing my DH I am left to ponder our ongoing fertility issues. We want so badly to be parents, and it just didn't seem to happen (yet?). We found out we were pregnant just at our first anniversary, but we lost the baby at just 6 weeks. We thought we would have another chance to try over Christmas when I saw him for a few days. A very large part of who I am is a Roman Catholic. Some will think it's old fashioned or there are too many rules, but I find there is so much that it offers to me. It has helped me through some rough times! So I have praying like a mad-woman that we will have our own "Miracle".

We weren't successful over Christmas, which just broke my heart. Who knows if we will have another chance before he actually deploys out of the country....

I think this is a good place to start, I hope this ends up being a positive thing for me, and maybe even someone else!