Growing!

Good news, all! I'm growing as a person! Not so much physically, but emotionally.

As I'm sure you've all noticed, I've had a hard time being surrounded by pregnant friends since we started trying for baby #2, two and a half years ago. Sometimes it feels like everyone I know is pregnant - even though that's not actually the case. Still, it didn't help spending the last year in a young ward where there was definitely a higher-than-average pregnancy rate. Also, since most of my Facebook friends are around my same age, there are a lot of pregnancy/baby announcements and updates online. A lot.

It's been hard for me. That's no secret. There's not much worse than looking around and feeling like some kind of freak. I wonder sometimes what's so wrong with me, that I'm not Super-Fertility Woman (heck, I'm not even Regular-Fertility Woman). There are excited announcements popping up on almost a daily basis, but none from me. Even the people I know who have struggled getting pregnant have been successful in the time since we started trying again. It kind of sucks.

And sometimes people unintentionally say things that hurt, which makes it harder. A lot of people just don't understand what it's like, struggling with getting pregnant. I have a few friends who practically get pregnant just from their husbands smiling at them the right way. They're so fertile, they really can't empathize with me. They've never been in a situation anything like mine. That makes it hard for them to know what to say, and unfortunately they spend more time saying the wrong thing than being helpful, even when helpful is what they're going for. I try not to get too upset about it, because I know they mean well. But it still sometimes feels like a slap in the face, and it's worse when it comes from someone who's super-fertile and just doesn't understand.

Anyway, the lack of understanding coupled with the excess of pregnancies around me has made me very grumpy. I tell myself over and over again that I'm happy for my pregnant friends - and I am! I hope they all have perfect pregnancies and completely healthy babies. But I can't help feeling a little resentful, even as I recognize that the problem is not with them. It's with me.

It doesn't help that my friends are all so much prettier than I am, too. It's like adding insult to injury!

ANYWAY! The good news is, I'm growing. I've been praying so hard to let go of my envy and resentment. I hate feeling that way, and I know that I'm subconsciously driving a wedge between myself and my preggo friends. I don't want to do that! I really, really, really don't want to do that! I love my friends, and my own personal problems are not their fault.

I didn't think I was having much success letting go, however. As much as I tried not to feel jealous and mean-spirited, I couldn't help thinking angry thoughts sometimes. But I kept trying, and finally it seems to be paying off.

A friend of mine announced her pregnancy on Facebook today, and the only thing I felt was 100% happy for her and her husband. This is their first baby, and I love these friends, and I'm so happy for them. Even now, after it's had a chance to sink in, I feel completely happy for them. There's no bad feeling in me at all.

I'm not sure why things suddenly changed for me. Maybe it's because this is their first baby. Maybe it's because this particular friend has never said anything rude or thoughtless to me regarding my own situation, intentional or otherwise. Maybe it's because my body seems to finally be doing what it's supposed to do every month (this is my third month of charting my temperature, and the first that has actually looked like it's supposed to - which of course gives me hope that I'll get pregnant soon myself).

Maybe I'm actually growing up.

I certainly hope I am. I've been trying really hard for a long time now to reach this point. It's a much better feeling, being happy for people, than feeling resentful and self-pitying.

Let's hope it sticks.

Random Thoughts

I haven't written a blog entry in almost two months, so I figured that was reason enough to try and pound something out. I don't really know what to say, but that just means we'll all be surprised to find out where this leads!

I always get good ideas for blogs at night, when I'm falling asleep. Then, the next day, I can't for the life of me remember just what those good ideas were. It's more than a little frustrating.

Speaking of nighttime, and sleep, I dreamed last night that we hadn't moved to Little Rock yet, and that Ben was loading up two huge moving trucks with our stuff. He couldn't fit all of our stuff in, however, probably because he was just chucking everything in without trying to make it fit nicely, so it was this huge tangle of furniture and boxes. It was frustrating. And, in my dream, when I tried to get him to do it a different way he was like, "Who the heck are you? I'll do this however I want, you weirdo." So apparently we weren't married, either. I tried to remedy that by flirting with him and wearing cute, albeit moderately revealing clothes, but he wasn't interested. What do you suppose that means?

I really wanted to get Evie back into dance classes when we moved out here, but apparently they only take new students at the beginning of the semester or whatever. The schools in the area have already paid recital and costume fees for their recitals in June, so there's no way we could get a costume for Evie in time. That's probably the biggest reason for it. So we'll have to wait until we move to Abilene in October and hope it's not too late to enroll her then. I know she misses dancing, and I know she's bored with no one but me to play with, but I'm not really sure what to do about it at this point. Poor thing.

I watched The Incredibles with Evie last night. It was the first time I'd seen it in a long time. I'd forgotten what a fantastic movie it is. That part where they're on the plane, and the missiles are coming at them, and the mom is yelling, "Abort! Abort! There are children on board!" still gives me chills and makes me cry. As a mom, I can only imagine how terrifying a situation like that would be. Yeah, I'm a boob, I know. I cried a couple of weeks back watching My Friends Tigger and Pooh with Evie, too. I was listening to Kanga's voice and I thought, "That's how a mom should sound. Her voice is melodic, soothing, and totally maternal. I sound like a 12-year-old when I talk." That's when I found my eyes tearing up. That's when I realized that I was probably a little hormonal. Or crazy.

A lady at church gave a talk on Sunday (weird, I know!) and she said something that has really stuck with me - you know, over the past 4 days. Anyway, what she said was, "Blessings don't always come at convenient times." I'd never really thought about that. When you think about blessings, you think about things that make you happy, improve your life, etc. You think about things that you were excited to find out about. You don't generally think about things that made you go, "Oh. Okay." But it's really true! So many times stuff happens to us that we just don't want at the moment. Maybe it's an unplanned pregnancy, or finding a dog on the side of the road that needs a home, or getting a calling at church that you didn't really want. Those kinds of things are often inconvenient, and stressful. But most of the time, they turn out to be huge blessings as well.

I've been thinking lately about how it would kind of stink to get pregnant anytime in the next few months. That's not to say that I wouldn't be thrilled, it just would be more convenient if it happened at a different time. Ben, Evie and I want to go see our families for Christmas this year. We have a whole big vacation planned. Ben hasn't been allowed any leave time pretty much since he commissioned in the Air Force two years ago, so he's got a lot stored up. We want to use it to try and go to Idaho and see our families from Thanksgiving-New Year's. We're really looking forward to it! The thing is, if I get pregnant in the next few months, I'll be right at the end of my pregnancy at that time and wouldn't be able to go. That's not to say that it wouldn't be more than a fair trade, it absolutely would, it would just be kind of inconvenient.

But blessings don't always come at convenient times! As I think about it more, Evie's already going to be more than 4 years older than the next kid. Do I really want to increase that age gap? Heck no! The sooner we get pregnant, the better, as far as I'm concerned! I'm not even going to use the word "inconvenient" anymore, in relation to getting pregnant. If it happens, it will be a huge blessing, and will be 100% welcome and convenient. Yeah, it will be sad not to see our families, but it will be a fantastic reason for missing Christmas with them.

On the other hand, with my luck I still won't get pregnant and they'll deploy Ben so he can't have Christmas with us anyway. That's not really a blessing in my mind, so I can call it "inconvenient" all I want. On the other hand, Ben's being deployed would be a huge blessing to the people he'd be helping.

I'd still rather have him with me for Christmas.

It's kind of sad that I have very few super-close friends that aren't related or married to me. I know it comes with growing up in the military, but I think a big part of it is just me, as well. I was in Utah for 7 - 8 years, which is a good amount of time, but I still don't have any friends that I talk to more than once or twice a month. We send emails occasionally, but that's about it. It's kind of sad. We moved here to Little Rock two weeks ago, almost, and I haven't heard from any of my Oklahoma friends. It's lonely, starting over in a new place, and I don't feel like there are many people I can call. I'm sure if I did call, most of my friends would be completely thrilled to hear from me, but I think I worry about being an inconvenience (there's that word again!) to them. I worry that, now that I'm far away, they would feel like they were wasting their time, talking to me. It's an irrational worry, I know, but years and years of not hearing from long-distance friends has led me to subconsciously believe that once I'm gone, they don't really care much about me anymore. I am lucky, however, that I have a wonderful family - and wonderful in-laws! - that I can call if I really need to talk. I don't get to talk to them as much as I'd like to, either, but at least I don't worry that I'm imposing when I call them. Anyway, I wonder how much of all this insecurity is due to the way I grew up, and how much is just my nature?

The newest Fablehaven book is coming out next week, as is New Moon (which I still haven't seen), and The Princess and the Frog came out this week! March is a good month for entertainment, I guess. :) Also, apparently it's a good month for giving birth. I think literally half the people I know have March birthdays. What's up with that?

My thoughts seems to have finally run dry, and Evie's been in here 5 times to ask me for lunch (it's only 12:30 for crying out loud!), so I guess I'd better end there.

The End.

I'm the Booger

As Colin Mochrie so eloquently stated once, "You've got a booger!" Mom, you have got a booger, and that booger is me.

Evie woke up at 5:00 this morning, coughing and wheezing and whimpering. After giving her a drink and some medicine, I went back to bed. I couldn't sleep, though. I found my mind drifting to years past, and recalling memories that had all but disappeared from my mind.

I'm a lot like my mom. I love surprises, but I'm rarely surprised. Somehow, I always find out about things before I'm supposed to.

When I turned 18, my family decided to throw me a surprise party. I was heading off to college in a month or two, and I'm sure they wanted to have a fun celebration with me while they still could. Or something.

At the time, I was dating a few guys, I had a job, and I was keeping pretty busy. I happened to be home, however, when my friend Amber's mom called to RSVP for my party. In fact, I'm the one who answered the phone. I had no idea what she was talking about, of course, but I figured it out pretty quickly. I didn't want to ruin it for my family, though, so I pretended that I didn't know about the party.

The trouble was, one of the guys I was dating kept asking me if he could take me out on a date for my birthday. I kept telling him "no." I didn't want to screw things up for my family! Finally I just told him about the surprise party, so he would know why I couldn't go out with him. That's when he admitted to me that it was his job to get me out of the house and to the party.

Oops.

One thing led to another, and, while I got to the party just like planned, everyone found out that I hadn't been surprised. I felt bad about it... But that wasn't the last time I ruined a surprise party for myself.

A few years later, I was home from college for the summer. I was working at a hair salon as a receptionist. When I came home from work on my birthday, I noticed extra cars parked around the house and people moving around inside. I was tired, cranky, and all my closest friends were still at college so I didn't anticipate that there would be all that many people I'd really want to see at my party.

So, what did I do?

I snuck around the back of the house, unlocked the utility room door by sticking my arm through the dog door, and hid downstairs in the family room. I didn't let anyone know I was home, I just sat there and listened to the people chatting upstairs. I felt a little guilty, but I found the entire thing highly funny as well.

Eventually my family spotted my car outside. Lyssa came downstairs and told me to stop being a jerk and go upstairs. Then she told me that someone had come out from Utah to surprise me.

That stopped me short. Who on earth could it be? I ran upstairs and found my ex-boyfriend (who was also one of my close friends) in the kitchen, doing the dishes. I was so excited! And I felt like a complete moron for ruining the surprise. Again.

To this day, I still complain about not getting surprise parties. There's nothing more exciting than finding out that people went through a lot of trouble to celebrate how much they love you.

Honestly, though, I shouldn't complain. It's no one's fault but my own.

I'm such a booger.

Work It On Out

So I've been working out regularly for a month now, and it's amazing how fast my body is changing! Not appearance-wise; in that regard, it's amazing how fast it's not changing. I've only lost 2 lbs. But stamina-wise, I'm on fire.

I've been logging my activities every day at presidentschallenge.com, and looking back over the past month, I'm definitely doing a lot more now than I was then.

Four weeks ago, I was working out 45-60 minutes a day.

Now, it's weird if I don't work out at least 90 minutes a day.

Four weeks ago, my goal every day was to burn at least 250 calories per workout.

Now, I'm upset with myself if I don't hit at least 600.

Four weeks ago, I was basically speed-walking on the treadmill, biking at a level 1, and... that was it.

Now, I spend at least half of my time on the treadmill running, I bike at a level 6 or 7, and I also do 15-20 minutes going as hard as I can on the eliptical machine.

Four weeks ago, my legs (especially my shins) hurt so bad after a workout that I could barely walk the next day.

Now, my shins ache a little but it's not holding me back or slowing me down in any way. They pretty much only ache when I try to sit on them while kneeling.

I have enough energy to chase Evie, take her to the playground, dance with her in the kitchen, and play games with her that normally would exhaust me.

I sleep better at night, and get more accomplished during the day.

I've made lots of friends at the gym that I get to socialize with every day.

I haven't been even a little bit sick since I started working out. (Coincidence? Okay, maybe)

Most importantly, I feel fantastic. It's a great sense of accomplishment, to look back over your workout and realize that you've run a mile and a half, walked another mile, gone 7 miles on a bike and done almost two miles on an eliptical - and burned 700 calories.

Yeah, it's kind of annoying that my body isn't looking as good as it feels, but as my endurance increases and I burn more and more calories, the weight is going to have to come off, right? I just hope I can lose those 6 lbs. or so I'm trying to get rid of before Ben's pilot graduation. It's in three and a half weeks!

Wish me luck!

Clarification

Just for the record, I do NOT hate pregnant women, and I especially don't hate my friends who are pregnant. I know there are some of you who read this blog and are pregnant, and I don't want you to think that I'm mad at you or anything! I'm really not, I swear. It's more the fact that everyone around me seems to be getting pregnant while I've been struggling for more than 2 years now. It's not a personal thing at ALL. The people I block on Facebook are the ones who I don't know very well, and who can't help but talk about their pregnancies CONSTANTLY. I would never block any of you who I consider close friends. I love you way too much for that. I know your struggles, I know what you've gone through in the past, and I'm nothing but 100% happy for you. So please don't think you shouldn't talk to me, don't think that I hate you, and please don't avoid me or anything like that. I'm truly, sincerely, completely happy for you guys. Don't let my problems put a damper on your happiness! I love you guys more than I hate being infertile, if that makes sense. Please don't take anything in my last post as a personal attack, I never, NEVER meant that.

And hey - I AM feeling better today! (See the picture? I'm fine!) I knew I would be. The last couple of days were just like the perfect storm. My period was starting, so once again I knew I wasn't pregnant, which was depressing. On top of that, the crazy hormones made me way more emotional than usual. On top of THAT, I had a couple more random people on Facebook announce pregnancies. It just kind of grew and grew until I exploded. You should have seen me bawling all over Ben's shirt last night! Pathetic. Poor guy, he has to deal with this about once every 4 weeks - although, it's not usually this bad. It just seems like everything came together at exactly the same time this week, to make me really, really, depressed. I'm back to normal today, though! And I'm sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings with what I said yesterday, I never intended that. I was just venting.

I hope that clears things up.

???

I'm not entirely sure what this blog is going to be about. All I know is, I feel like I should be writing. Maybe I'm keeping too many things bottled up. Maybe I haven't been talking to enough adults recently, and feel the need to really SAY something. Maybe I'm just bored. Who can tell, really?

My big thing recently is, once again, the pregnancy issue. After everything that went down last year, with the blessing and imaginary pregnancy and all, I figured I'd be pregnant for real pretty quickly. But once again, I'm not pregnant. If I were to get pregnant this month, Evie and the next baby would be almost exactly 4 years apart. That's too much! It's too much! And chances are, it will be another year before I actually get pregnant (if I even get pregnant then), and the age gap will be even bigger. I'm really unhappy about it.

Maybe I should just forget about having more kids, and be content with one. Lots of people just have one kid, right? Granted, I don't like the idea of moving all over the place with just one kid. I grew up moving a lot, and had to depend on my siblings most of the time for friendship. It's hard to make and keep friends when you're moving every couple of years. Evie is likely to be a really lonely kid if she's an only child. But Ben's career is already in motion, we can't do anything about the moving around at this point.

We could adopt. I've always wanted to adopt. But we can't afford it, and it's likely to be years before we can. By then, Evie will be even older. It will be hard for her to develop a friendship with a sibling who's 6 or 7 years younger than her. And I know people are joking when they talk about how they gave birth to the "babysitter" first, then had their "family" (when there's a big gap in the ages of the oldest child and the next), but I hate that kind of joke. Evie is my child, and I want her to have siblings, friends, peers, not responsibilities. Yes, she'll have responsibilities, but that's not the main thing that she would be getting with younger brothers and sisters. Siblings are a blessing. They have the same parents you do, the same genes, similar experiences, the same family traditions, etc. There's a bond there that you can't get anywhere else. I want Evie to have that!!! If the age gap is too big, that bond might be harder to grasp and appreciate. Maybe I'm crazy, but that's the way I see things.

I'm so sick of everyone I know on Facebook talking about their pregnancies constantly, posting pictures of baby clothes, car seats, and ultrasounds. Yes, I get it, you're happy. That's great. But I don't like to have constant reminders that everyone else I know is fertile and I'm not. It's gotten to the point where, every time someone announces their pregnancy, I block them from my news feed. Not everyone, my good friends don't get blocked, but half the people I'm "friends" with on Facebook are nothing more than acquaintances. It's a lot easier to be jealous of their good fortune and be angry with them, because I don't really care about them, personally, all that much. Don't get me wrong! I don't wish them any ill will. I hope they have safe pregnancies and healthy babies. I just don't want to hear about it. The people I really love though, my close friends, I'm genuinely happy for. Sometimes I'm jealous, but I'm mostly happy. But the sheer number of pregnant women surrounding me at home, in church, and online is ridiculous! I feel like I have to take it out on somebody, so I take it out on my pregnant Facebook acquaintances. They don't know about it, they have no idea that I'm blocking them. I've never come out and told any of them "you suck," even when that's the first response in my mind. I'd never trample on their happiness that way. Maybe I'm a hypocrite, secretly being angry at the pregnant women's good fortune while pretending to be happy for them, but I can't help it. Honestly, I don't hate them. The anger is more at my own situation than at them, and it only lasts for a few minutes. I get over it quickly. But it definitely depresses me to see baby talk all over Facebook, so I block them. Does that make me a bad person? Maybe. But they'd definitely think I was a bad person if I didn't block them, because eventually I would snap and say something I'd regret. Like my friends who had hard pregnancies this past year, and complained about it constantly. I wanted to smack them in the face. I would have done just about anything to trade places with them. They had no idea how lucky they were to be having those babies. They just complained about how uncomfortable it was. If I hadn't blocked them, I probably would have chewed them out competely.

I know! I know! I'm an awful person. It just hurts. It sucks. I love my daughter, but I'm aching for more children. All I've ever wanted in my life is to be a wife and a mom. I want to be surrounded by children when I'm old. I want to have years of Christmases with a flock of my own kids around me. I want to be constantly planning for birthdays, buying new shoes, and taking kids to after-school activities. My family is not complete yet. I know it's not. But for some reason, I can't seem to have any more children. It's been two and a half years since we started trying again. I know, some people try a lot longer than that. I shouldn't be losing hope yet. But it feels like it's been forever. And every month that passes is another month older that Evie gets, another month in the age difference between her and (fingers crossed) the next one. Will my kids be able to be friends?

I know, I'm a drama queen. Whatever. All the rest of my friends have oldest children that are younger than mine, and are already on #2 or 3. Evie's one of the oldest of her friends. And she's the only one even close to her age who doesn't have a sibling on the way. She prays every night to be a big sister soon. She keeps asking me when the baby is coming. It's killing me. It's breaking my heart. And there's nothing I can do to change it.

I'm done complaining now. Honestly, most of the time I'm fine. I don't stress out about it that much. I know stressing out about it just makes it that much harder to get pregnant, anyway. I'm exercising regularly, trying to slim down - living under the assumption that I'm not going to get pregnant. I've got a big formal party coming up next month, and a cruise a couple of months after that. I'm living life, I'm making plans, I'm doing my best. But with every new pregnancy announced, it feels like another knife is being stabbed into my heart. It makes it a little harder for me to deal. But I'm doing my best, and my best is really okay. It's just every once in a while, on a day like today, that I can't handle it. I get angry. I feel hurt. I wonder what's so wrong with me, that God hasn't blessed me with any more children? Everyone else seems to be getting those blessings, what did I do wrong? But I know that I'm being foolish. Everyone has trials, everyone has problems. This is mine.

I'll shut up and deal with it. I'm not quite ready to count my blessings and rejoice in all of my good luck just yet, but I will eventually. Check back tomorrow, I'll probably be fine by then.

Let's Resolve Things

I don't usually worry about making New Year's resolutions, because I don't usually keep them anyway. I'm terrible, I know. But recently I've been trying to make changes in my life, and since it happens to be close to New Year's, we might as well call them "New Year's resolutions" and leave it at that. Maybe this time they'll actually stick!

I resolve to work out every day except Sundays, barring illness or other unforseen conflicts. This week has been a success, I worked out Monday-Saturday, for an hour each day. It's so easy to do, I really have no excuse not to. There's a gym on base, and it's completely free for military personnel and their families. And in the gym, there's a family room where parents can exercise while their children play. Evie loves it there, and I can work out without worrying about her being underfoot. I have a few friends who go around the same time as me most days, and it's fun to see them and socialize a little. So really, it's super easy, convenient, and fun! I also just bought a $90 pair of running shoes, so if I'd better keep going every day! So far, it's been great. I had shin splints and blisters the first couple of days, but the new shoes fixed those problems and now it's all good. I feel more energized, I feel stronger, I feel more self-confident. I've lost 2 lbs. this week, which is great!

Another resolution, which goes along with the first, is to fit into my white and yellow evening gown for graduation. I bought it last summer, and it fit beautifully. Seriously gorgeous dress. Then, I had that hysterical pregnancy a few months ago and gained about 10 lbs. Since it turns out there's no baby, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to wear my dress for graduation in February. BUT, because of the weight I gained, it's a little too tight. I can still zip it, but it's uncomfortable and not nearly as flattering. So I'm trying to lose the weight and wear the dress. Two pounds is a good start if you ask me! Overall, I want the exercise routine to become a habit so my life is healthier in general, but at least I have a goal to work toward for the first six weeks. That'll give me a good start.

Finally, I resolve to have another baby this year. Granted, I can't do anything about it aside from what Ben and I are already doing... But still, it's a goal that I'm hopeful we'll be able to meet. Even if I got pregnant immediately, there would be almost a 4-year age difference between Evie and the next child. That seems like such a big gap to me, I really don't want it to be any more than that. On the other hand, I didn't really want it to be more than 3 years age difference, and that boat has sailed. All I can really do is hope and pray for this one, but it's a resolution I'm definitely dedicated to.

That's it for my resolutions. If things work out like I hope they will, I'll meet all three of them! Check back occasionally for progress reports!