Going to Take It Anymore

Friends, I am so sorry for staying away so long. Bla, bla, bla.... but you know how it is. I've been busy doing as little as possible, including going for 2 nights to a B&B with DH. Getting away from my family-friendly small city was HEAVEN. I didn't even realize just how suffocating it really was.

I'm not going to take it anymore - just being sad.

True, grief is a life event. I am so much more than my sadness. I have to remember that. Suffering from depression for over 10 years - and probably much longer, perhaps even from childhood - I tend to get wrapped around the axle about sad things I cannot change. Powerlessness is one of the worst things about infertility, but my goal is to live more fully.

I visited my friend Beth Anne* a few hours away. Aaahh, someone who gets it. She is hilarious, single for now, and a pharmacist like me. We gab and joke about our jobs and how much they su*&, though we are both grateful for our jobs. Um, yes we are. But life has not been as kind as I would like to my friend, and along with me, we are journeying down the road of Dreams on Hold.

We made a pledge to get together more often, and we should. Life is too short to be alone for long, and I've been alone about as long as I can take it.

That doesn't mean I won't be up for more solitude. Sometimes it's a bummer being an introvert, but I get energized by being alone. One of my favorite things to do is to visit our botanical garden and just walk slowly and sit for long periods of time. I usually stay about 2 hours. God and I talk, and I get a chance to listen to Him for a change, and I come away - changed. I wouldn't say I feel 'better,' because sometimes I leave with tears in my eyes clinging stubbornly to my mascara. I may leave tired. But grieving is hard work. I leave feeling closer to who I really am.

My mom, for those of you who know, is doing well. She had her thyroid removed in May and she won't have to have radioactive iodine, which is usually used to 'eat' up the cancer cells the thyroid may have sent out to the body. Her doctor didn't say she didn't have cancer, only that her diagnosis is Hashimoto's thyroiditis - an autoimmune disease. There must have been some cells that looked suspect for them to even call it the c-word at all, but WE ARE SO GRATEFUL. Wow. I feel like we dodged a bullet. Thank you, Jesus.

But, the Hashimoto's diagnosis got me thinking - maybe I should have my thyroid checked, including checking for antithyroid antibodies and other autoimmune disease markers like NK cells and antiphospholipid antibodies. Forgive me if I'm inaccurate here, but I've tried to put all this out of my mind - over $1,000 worth of tests (deductible previously met, yea!) - because they are all completely normal.

I've never been so saddened by normal lab results.

Interestingly, the nurse I had talked to that day at my doctor's office had just had this exact panel drawn after her recent miscarriage and difficulty TTC, so I didn't have to know the names of all the tests or convince the doctor to order them. She was there, validating the legitimacy of my request. That really was comforting.

Even though my one shot in the dark left to have a 'condition' on which to blame my infertility is now gone. Gone. DOR it is. Yucky, yucky.

I keep praying for that radical miracle, that only God could have done this miracle out of nowhere. For each of us. Because He can do it.

I have no idea why He might not.