Ch-Ch-Ch Changes

So as Google has made changes to its Blogger feature, it has become more difficult for me to post updates regularly as I can no longer post or make changes through their mobile app anymore. Which is where almost all of my photos for this blog, and ability to write when the moment strikes me, come from. Because of this I am moving the blog to Wordpress, beginning later this week I will be uploading the first post on Wordpress for this blog. I will also keep the posts that are on here for as long as I can, but will eventually move all of the older ones to the new site to keep everything in one place.

So keep an eye out for the brand new site and fresh look later this week!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween every one! I hope you enjoy a safe and wicked holiday! Personally one of my favorites.

Moving on to Better Things

As many of you know, after a lot of thought and prayer my husband and I decided that we needed to move out of California. It had been something on our minds for a while now, but we never really seriously thought about pursing that move. It wasn't until our vacation in July that we came to the conclusion that moving out of California was something we felt led to do as soon as we could. Then the dilemma became deicing on what state, or even country, to move to. After a couple of weeks we narrowed it down to three states: Texas, Washington, or Colorado. Texas ultimately won out in the end.

One of the main reasons we picked Texas was because one of the bigger well known Churches that our current Church is connected with, is out there. Number one on our list was needing to know that there would be a good and highly rated Church that we could connect to that held the same beliefs and values that we do. Secondly, we needed to be in a state that had great schools and a lower crime rate than Orange County/Los Angeles which is where we are currently established. Right now, the only areas that we can afford to live in have terrible schools. I mean terrible as in they are below a 5 pt rating on the 1-10 scale and have horrible reputations. So horrible that we would ultimately need to place our future kids in a private school of some kind.  We also are planning on adopting soon after we buy our first home, which means that we will need plenty of space and we will need to pay off all of our personal debt in order to have the funds to begin the adoption. Currently we are faced with either buying a home or placing all of our beloved pets in different homes and renting in a different area in order to afford adoption.

Now I say placing our pets in different homes because currently, there are little to no homes that are for rent that are allowing pets of any kind. Saying goodbye to our pets is not an option for either one of us. They are members of our family and we would not get rid of anyone in our family just because we wanted to live somewhere else. When we looked at possible places to rent in Texas, we discovered most if not all the places accept pets of all sizes and kinds. They were also okay with multiple pets in many cases as well. That was a hugs plus for us.

Lastly, we needed to live somewhere that did not have such long and horrific commutes like we do now. As of right now, it takes me two hours to get to work and about two to two and a half hours to get home. And that's on a good day. Thankfully I work part time now so it's not as much of a strain as it was when I worked full time. For my husband, if he doesn't have a carpool buddy it takes him almost the same amount of time. If we had any kids right now, my husband would only see our kid on the weekends because he would be gone before they woke up and be home by the time they were in bed. This was not okay for either of us. He has coworkers who actually have that situation currently at home, he also sees how it negatively effects them emotionally and physically.  He himself does not want to be put through that. He wants to be able to have dinner with his kids during the week and to be able to build an actual relationship with them. To not just be another Dad that is a 'weekends only' parent.

After thinking through all of these things and having visited each state we were considering, we realized that Texas was the state for us. So, Lord willing, we will be moved out to the Fort Worth/Dallas area by summer 2017. We never thought that we would ever be truly saying goodbye to California and be moving to a different state, but God is funny like that. Like it says in Proverbs, we may put a plan together or think that we have all of our next steps figured out, but God has a better and bigger plan in store for us than we can imagine. We know that by submitting to His plan for us, that we will finally be able to add a child to our home and to have a much better quality of life than we will be able to here in California. It will be difficult to part with our family and to not have the ability to just stop by whenever we feel like it, but ultimately we know we will be able to adjust and find our new normal.

To Our Future Child

One of the things that I decided to do in order to keep my spirits up is to begin a journal that I could one day give to out future child when they are old enough to read. I have heard so many women begin something similar to their future husbands when they begin dating, or even little notes to their fiance to be opened during their first year of marriage. That's when it popped into my head, 'why don't I do the same, but to our future child as a keepsake?' I mainly wanted to begin the journal so that they would be able to see the rough journey we went through just to meet and love them. That they would be able to be reminded over the years just how loved and wanted they were before we even met them. Just how God loves and wants us before we were even placed in our Mother's womb.

I wanted to make it even more of point to do so after we determined that God is leading us to have children through adoption. Through my school years I knew a handful of kids who were adopted, some as a baby, some as children by other family members, some who had adopted parents, and of course some who lived in foster homes at the time. For the most part many of those kids I knew felt completely loved, and couldn't imagine their lives without those who stepped up to the plate to raise them. But then there were a few others who were adopted who didn't feel loved at all, not by their family or by fellow classmates. They always felt out of place and like they didn't belong. This wasn't a complete surprise to me growing up, manly because the city I grew up in did not have many families that had adopted children. Infertility and adoption was still a complete taboo back then, which was funny since we had an actual orphanage in town at the time. Some of the kids from that orphanage even went to my school.

 Knowing this past experience I started to think about our future child, would they have those feelings of being unloved and out of place too? Since we are planning on adopting an older child, what we weren't able to bond with them correctly? What if they ended up just hating us or not feeling connected to us at all? What if...what if...what if...insert mini panic attack here. We haven't even begun the adoption process and I was already starting to freak out. I knew I had to do something proactive to curb the anxiety and stress of it all. That's when I decided to begin the journal.

I don't write in it every day, but just at major points that would convey just how loved and wanted they are. To show that we fought tooth and nail to have them placed in our lives, to share our love and hearts with them.

Why We Decided to Try Holistic Treatments

When we decided to try a basic IUI treatment, we had no idea just how many injections that it was going to entail. You can imagine my surprise when I received the instructions from the doctor and noticed that there were going to be several injections as well as pills. Not exactly the best news for some one who has a phobia of medical needles. My fear only grew when I went to the pharmacy to pick up the medications and saw just how large AND long the needles were. I swear I just about passed out when the poor pharmacist gave me the needles, I even laughed and said, 'this must be for some one else, right?'. Sadly, it was not a mistake and they were all for me. I went home trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was going to have to somehow muster up the strength (mentally and physically) to go through with both injections at home.

The pills were easy enough to take, but it was the crazy symptoms they commonly caused that had me worried. I was at a new job where no one knew me that well just yet and also wouldn't know that I might have mood swings that were not a reflection of my normal personality. I also have a track record of being allergic to new medications, naturally I was worried that I would randomly be allergic to one of these new pills. Because of that possibility I decided to tell my new boss so that if heaven forbid it happened at work, they would know what was going on. Thankfully, I didn't develop any allergies to the medications.


When it came time for my husband to give me the first two injections all hell broke lose, at least mentally for me. Obviously I knew that later that night my husband would be giving me the injections, so I tried to prepare myself mentally for it all day. I prayed, I even tried to watch videos of people getting injections during lunch to try and desensitize myself a little bit. When I got home I tried to tell myself that I was ready for this and that it would be worth it if I got pregnant. I felt confident and ready for the injection. Boy was I enormously wrong about that. The whole day I kept envisioning the needle, I would tell myself it's just the small needle. How bad could it hurt? When my husband brought everything out I noticed that the small thin needles were not the ones he was holding, but instead the massive and long needles. I went into instant freakout mode.

I literally smacked his hand away and almost knocked them right out of his grip. I even checked the instructions because I though surely he was mistaken and had the wrong ones. Nope, they were the correct needles. After about 30 minutes of crying while having a panic attack, my husband made the executive decision to just do the injections quick and while I was completely distracted. Part of me was thankful that he decided to think quick and just do it so I had no time to think or process what was going on. The other half of me was going to murder him in his sleep for doing something like that. Mainly because the needles were so big and long that I could feel every second of it in me and it hurt like hell. The third injection I convinced the doctor to give to me during my appointment, because otherwise I was going to have to give it to myself at work. And we all know how the first to went at home, that was not going to happen at work.

As most of you know we did not have success with the IUI, I didn't even remotely have the slightest of pregnancy symptoms. AF came right on time and with no complications. After all of that craziness and realizing that my fear of medical needles was still alive and well, we decided to instead focus on holistic or natural treatments instead. We also decided to focus on looking for adoption agencies and what we need to do in order to prepare for that journey. We also decided that in continuing to move up to more powerful medications for treatments, which would include more injections, would only cause more stress for both of us. Which would only continue to reduce the chances of us getting pregnant. The statistics the doctor gave us for chances of success for IVF was still incredibly low for us. After a lot of prayer we decided to not go through expensive western treatments, but to instead go the more natural route. Even if it meant we would never have any children of our own.

Making this decision also helped us to begin looking more seriously into adoption and preparing for that journey. But it also meant that we didn't have to worry about spending large sums of money all at once on the treatments. Spending all of that money would effectively make us go bankrupt. We still do not have a little one of our own yet, but I can safely say that our mental and physical health are much better after coming to that conclusion.

Trying to Stay Positive

For whatever reason, this past month has been just plain difficult for me both emotionally and physically. I thought I was beginning to return to normal in the sense that I was able to be around babies without instantly tearing up. I also thought that the unexplained chronic pain I have was beginning to taper off and was finally under control. Apparently I was wrong on both accounts. Being in a job where you are constantly interacting with the public and with individuals of all ages means that you become numb to certain things in order to do your job. I was really hoping that being forced to being around families with babies would help me to become happy around babies again. Before we were officially diagnosed with infertility I loved being around babies. I loved everything about them, and just seeing their adorable faces could turn my day around. That was part of the reason why I decided to become a full time nanny.

Now whenever I am in the same space as a baby I have to fight hard to choke back tears of complete sadness. It's a constant reminder of the fact that we will likely never have a baby or child of our own. This isn't to say that I dislike kids or babies and that I never want to be around them period, I still love children of all ages. And I am still trying to hold on to the microscopic shred of hope that I will be able to bear children someday. It just means that right now in this point of time I have a really difficult time continuing to separate the thoughts of "that should have been us" or "why are we still childless" from being around a baby. There have been times where I've been incredibly grateful for the fact that I have to wear sunglasses most of the time at work because then the visitors and my colleagues aren't able to see the tears beginning to slip out of my eyes.

To make matters worse, my chronic pain that once was thought to be endometriosis has come back with full force. It was manageable for a few months now which made me hopeful that I finally had it under control. Apparently I was wrong. The 'phantom pains', as the doctor calls it, have also returned on the side where one of my ovaries is missing. Sometimes the pain just shows up suddenly like a sharp knife is being thrust into my side and abdomen. The doctors still have no idea what or why I keep getting these pains, which is why they continue to diagnose them as chronic or phantom pains. I'm also thankful that I have doctors who understand that I only speak up about being in pain when it's at its absolute worst. They know that I don't exaggerate what I'm feeling.

In an effort to refocus and re-energize myself I started to practice yoga again. With the new job and work schedule I accidentally let yoga slip out of my routine. I also started to journal again, for me writing down my thoughts and prayers has always been incredibly therapeutic. I'm hoping that adding these two things back into my daily routine will help me mentally process everything in a positive way.

Life

Normally I don't do life updates as posts, but so many exciting changes have been going on. After much prayer and contemplation my husband and I decided that it was time for me to look for a new job. The current one I was in was just not working out, I was so unhappy and it was creating to much stress. I also needed a full time job to help us save up money to buy a house later this year and to pay for the adoption shortly after. It was such a difficult decision, but I really felt like God was leading me to begin a new journey. Boy was I glad I listened to Him and his prompting because little did I know that He had a much better plan in store for me. 

After searching for a few months and talking to several people from the museum I was currently at, I realized that in order to move into the position I ultimately wanted I needed to add a lot more to resume which was going to be difficult. So I began looking for internships and landed one at a small gallery. It wasn't where I ultimately wanted to be, but it was s start. That's when I had the opportunity to interview at my dream museum, I wasn't even convinced that they would hire me after the interviews. Even though both interview went well, I still didn't want to get my hopes up just in case I didn't get the position. All I could do was pray that God would help me get the position and wait to hear from the museum. 

After a couple of weeks of not hearing from the museum I just assumed that I didn't get the position. Just when I began to give up all hope, they called. I was officially offered a full time position and a pay increase at the museum. 'Praise God!'  Was all I could think. Not only do I have the opportunity to work at a museum I've only dreamed about, I also was able to have full time status which was going to be a major help to our savings budget. The only negative is that the job is a much farther commute than what my previous job was, and that was already quite an extensive drive. But hopefully God will provide a house for us that cuts down on the drive to both of our jobs. Fingers crossed!

With the new job I also get medical coverage which was slightly depressing at first because that meant I was going to have to be taken off my husband's amazing insurance plan, but after looking into the options I had I realized that I might actually have the chance to finally visit a holistic infertility specialist. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while now, but our current medical provider doesn't cover any portion of that type of Doctor. After going through the first round of infertility treatments and realizing that my phobia of medical needles is still alive and well, we came to the conclusion that we needed to pursue holistic treatments instead if we still wanted kids through the natural way. 

All in all once again, God had bigger things in store for us. As we begin this new chapter in our lives we will continue to trust God and follow the path that He has set before us.