St. Andrew novena

I just wanted to post a reminder that the St. Andrew novena starts today, the feast of St. Andrew.  The prayer to the right is prayed 15 times each day from November 30 through Christmas.  DH and I usually pray all 15 prayers right before bed during our normal prayer time.  I've found it to be a nice way to quiet my mind and really reflect on the birth of Christ as we prepare to celebrate Christmas.  Even though it's a short prayer, I find myself focusing on a different phrase each day (like "in piercing cold"), which helps me imagine what it would have been like to be there.  I thought the timing this year is perfect because it's also the beginning of Advent, so we'll be praying by candlelight (from the Advent wreath).

DH and I have prayed the St. Andrew novena for the past few years.  I know some IFers have conceived after praying it, and I still pray that it might happen for us and others who are still waiting, but even if we don't conceive, it has become one of my favorite prayers and a family tradition.  (Family=DH+me)  :)

Two years ago I made a chaplet with 15 beads so I wouldn't have to count while we prayed.  If you'd like to make one, it's pretty easy to do.  I have no prior jewelry making experience...just taught myself from an online tutorial.  And the supplies aren't too expensive.

Happy Advent!

Surgery's done

Dr. E found stage I endo in a few spots, and at least one of them is in a tricky place to reach, so I'll need another bigger surgery with the robot to remove it.  There were no new fibroids.  She also did endometrial cultures.  We're heading home shortly, and I'm looking forward to a nice long nap.  I'm offering up the pain for all of you.

Surgery tomorrow

My laparoscopy to (hopefully) remove endo is first thing tomorrow morning.  We have to be at the hospital bright and early at 5:30 a.m.  I'm thankful that I'm not feeling nervous yet.  I received the Anointing of the Sick last weekend at the retreat, so I'm sure that has been helping me stay calm.

Somehow I lucked out and don't have to do a bowel prep today.  (I'm glad you can only throw virtual tomatoes at me right now...)  I'm offering up my day today on a clear liquid diet for all of you.  :)

DH will post an update here tomorrow when I'm out of surgery.

There's a hole in my soul

The retreat center.  St. John XXIII, pray for us!

The IF retreat that Rebecca organized was this past weekend.  It was just what I needed. I've been having a pretty rough past month or so, and the retreat was able to put a lot into perspective.  More people attended than last year, and something about seeing all of them in one room together was healing in itself.  In real life, I've only ever been in the same room as a handful of other IF ladies.  Having a whole room full of others carrying the same cross was a huge reminder that I am not alone.  It really hit home when one of the presenters (who was infertile) asked everyone whose life had been impacted by infertility to raise his/her hand; everyone's hand went up.  That visual alone was powerful.  Being able to see their reactions (i.e., tears) during the presentations was reassuring that I'm not just being too sensitive when I feel the pain of IF.  The pain is real and profound and even though everyone has a slightly different perspective, it is very much a shared experience.

very comfortable room where I did not spend much time

The presentations were excellent, but like last year, I got the most out of talking to the other retreatants.  It's rare to have time for fellowship with others who can relate to what I'm going through.  The IF blogs and the IF Fac.ebook group are great, but it's just so nice to sit and chat with people in person (says the shy phlegmatic).  Not having to put on a fake smile and pretend everything is fine with people I just met was rather refreshing.  Several of us stayed up rather late talking.  I figured I could sleep when I got home.  :)

One priest gave us a blessing with
a relic of Sts. Joachim and Anne.

While the retreat did shine a big spotlight on the pain of IF, it also encouraged me to try to move beyond the pain.  Often, when you're sitting at home on CD1, for example, the sadness is so great that all you do is turn inward.  That is the big problem with pain of any kind.  When your focus is only on yourself and what is making you miserable, it's harder to attempt to see the bigger picture of what God might want for you or your life.  The priests who attended the retreat struck a good balance between acknowledging the suffering of IF and challenging us to accept this cross and discern how to move forward in the circumstances we find ourselves.  They also reminded us that if we pray for very specific things, we run the risk of expecting God's will to match our will, a lesson that has been hard for me to learn over the past few years.

The retreat did help me to have an epiphany of sorts.  For a long time, I have had a question swimming around in my head that I could not answer.  I had studied St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body (beginner level) before I met DH.  It definitely deepened my desire for children.  There is so much more to TOB than having children, but that's a practical part of what I took away from it.  Since we started experiencing IF, I could never really mesh TOB with IF.  Granted, it has been a long time since I delved into the specifics of TOB, it kind of bothered me that I couldn't answer this question:  In light of TOB, how do you view IF?  No answer anyone gave me satisfied me, including my stab at an answer (that IF is a tragedy).

Here's my train of thought as a non-theologian:  The Trinity is a communion of persons.  God loves the Son, and the love between them is so powerful that it becomes a third person, the Holy Spirit. Marriage images the Trinity.  But if the marriage experiences IF, there is no third person.  According to that analogy I described, marriage with IF seems to not image the Trinity, at least in the physical sense, and that's why I came to the conclusion that IF is a tragedy.  I realize all analogies of the Trinity fall short in some way, but it doesn't feel so good to think of your marriage as some broken image of the Trinity.

But finally I think I have an answer that satisfies me:  The main way marriage images the Trinity is in the self-gift of the spouses.  Yes, in the majority of marriages that self-gift results in (biological) children.  But focusing on the presence (or absence in our case) of children as the main sign misses the foundation of self-gift that all marriages are built on.  I might be the only person that was hung up on this, but I'm really glad going to the retreat was able to shed light on this.

One of the presenting couples played the song below for us.  While it's not about IF. there were two parts of the song that really hit me.

"There's a hole in my soul. I can't fill it. I can't fill it.
There's a hole in my soul. Can you fill it? Can you fill it?"

For a long time, there has been a child-sized hole in my soul.  It's still there, but I'm slowly learning to fill it with God and all the other blessings in my life.  It's definitely a work in progress.  :)

"You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve,

And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground."

This describes DH and me in regard to emotions about IF.  I don't hide what I'm feeling, and he is more likely to keep his hidden inside.  I think going through IF is helping both of us understand the other better in this area.

"Flaws" by Bastille

I've been listening to it almost non-stop since the weekend.  Such a good song.  :)

There will be the same IF retreat in Omaha in March.  I highly recommend going if you're in the area...or even if you're not.  Quite a few of the retreatants from this past weekend drove five or six or more hours in order to attend, and I'm guessing they would all say it was worth the drive.  :)

If you test, she will come

I had heard of this phenomenon that if you (an IFer) take a home pregnancy test (HPT), AF will arrive shortly after.  I can say now that it happened to me.

I took my first ever HPT a cycle ago.  In over five years of TTC, I had never made it long enough to test.  I broke my rule of waiting until P+17 this time because it was a crazy cycle, and I needed to rule out things. I was pretty sick during the "fertile" time of the cycle and had pathetic mucus, so all signs pointed toward a double peak (assuming ovulation had not actually happened yet).  I've been charting for a looooong time and have never double peaked even amid significant stress, but there's a first time for everything.  :)  So I waited for the second mucus build up to start and did not take my HCG, which I normally take after peak day.

Ten days after the first peak, I had good mucus for two days.  I thought it was my second peak. That was followed by spotting...which didn't make any sense.  Another interpretation could have been that I did ovulate during the first peak, and this second patch of mucus was implantation mucus.  We had used P+2, so it was a possibility.  When the spotting continued for the third day, I was scratching my head.  I needed to rule out something.  Anything.  Taking my temperature wouldn't have helped at that point because I was post-peak regardless (either P+3 or P+14).  So I did the only other thing that I could think of that might shed some light on things—take a HPT.  DH came along to the store for moral support.  I found one of the $0.88 ones that I had heard about from NFP circles.

The before picture.  Prior to opening the box, I didn't even know
what the test would look like.  This was foreign territory.

I read the directions about twenty times because I didn't want to mess it up.  I was nervous, even though I was 99% sure it would be negative.  It was.

My first ever real BFN.

AF started the next day.  What a messed up cycle.  Dr. K thought the two days of good mucus post-peak was just premenstrual mucus/fluid that some women have.  I didn't know you could all of a sudden develop premenstrual mucus, but I guess you can...?

In that same cycle review, I mentioned that I have pain again during my period.  Boo.  :(  I've had a couple cycles lately with premenstrual spotting (three or more days of spotting before AF), and Dr. K had thought that was due to inflammation because my hormone levels were above normal. Does pain + inflammation = endo??

Well, we're going to find out.  In a week.  It all came together really quickly.

Next Friday, I'm having a laparoscopy with Dr. E, who did my last surgery 21 months ago.  Surgery #3.  Honestly, I hope it IS endo and that it can be cleaned out with just a regular laparoscopy.  Last time Dr. E had the option to switch to the robot during my surgery if she needed it (and she did). This time there will be no switching, so if there is too much endo or it's too hard to reach, I'll need a second bigger surgery with the robot (and a two week recovery).  If this is endo again, I must have some crazy aggressive form that it keeps coming back.  :(

I really don't expect this surgery to help us get pregnant.  DH is more optimistic.  I feel like we're fighting an uphill, losing battle against endo and infection/inflammation.  It seems like we can never fix both at the same time. The infection/inflammation had been taken care of for several months, but who knows if I had endo sneakily growing back during that time.  And now if we remove the endo again, I don't know that the antibiotic that used to work will still be strong enough to beat the TEBB.  Dr. E will be doing cultures of my uterus during my surgery, so we'll see what the bug status is in there.  I hope I haven't picked up any new bacteria like last time I was cultured.  :(

I'm disappointed to be having surgery again.  Being pain-free would be really nice.  Maybe the third time's the charm and this will keep the endo away longer?  A girl can dream...  :)

Tomorrow I'm headed to the IF retreat Rebecca is running this weekend, so hopefully that will take my mind off of surgery.  I'm looking forward to some IRL conversations with other IFers.  :)