Blades and Breaks

Well, today has been quite an interesting day. My problems actually started on Thanksgiving night: it was cold and had been snowing most of the day. We got in the car to leave the in-laws and the windshield was iced over. Now, being the Texan that I am, it seems silly to me to get out of a warm car (warm being relative there: it was a degree or two warmer in the car than outside in the wind) and unstick a windshield wiper blade when you've got a perfectly good little motor there for that. Note to self: get out of the car next time! A little voice was telling me that no good would come of waiting for the blade to unstick itself. You guessed it: I burnt the motor out.

No way am I 'fessing up to J about this. I just told him that the blade didn't move and I would take it in to get it looked at. He didn't say much; he's not stupid of course.

So this morning the Little Miss and I get up early for our appointment. Of course this was the morning that she wanted to go barefoot, diaperless, hatless, and coatless. Once I had all those things on her plus some clothes, we finally made it to the car with 15 minutes to get to a place that's 30 minutes away. Somehow we made it in 20 minutes.

The lady there said it would take about an hour if they had to do one thing and maybe two if they had to do another. I told her we'd be waiting and she said she'd try to hurry them up. About 30 minutes later, she comes and tells me that I have to have the two hour treatment. Well, I guess I had it coming! So I tried my best to entertain the Little Miss and tune out Mr. GW's speech on the TV that some ladies were deeply interested in. They kept giving us the evil eye whenever the noise level got too loud (ie, above a whisper).

Finally after we'd been there about an hour, the lady came back but I could tell it was bad news. Seems that in the process of doing something to the wiper blade, they managed to BREAK MY WINDSHIELD! How the heck do you break a windshield with a wiper blade? I feel so secure now knowing how protected I am in the event of an accident. Anyway, to give the place credit, they had a rental car on the way that I have for 24 hours. So now I just have to figure out when to go back and get my car.

So that was our day. Next time I can assure you that I will get out of the car and unstick the wiper blade!

Thus Spake...... Someone

I was laying in bed last night, just me and my insomnia, when all of a sudden a Bible story popped into my head. No idea where it came from. There was a time when I would have assumed it to be a message from God.

The story was the parable Jesus told about the persistent widow and the unjust judge. In case you missed that day in Sunday School, here's the text:

Luke 18:1-8
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”’ And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’
From The New Revised Standard Version

This parable always intriqued me as a child. Did I just have to be ultra-persistent to get what I wanted? Thinking about it last night in light of my current life situation, I wondered what Someone was trying to tell me. If I am persistent enough in my pleadings, will God grant me a child just for the asking? How persistent would I have to be? How long would it take?

I decided last night that I can be pretty stubborn when I set my mind to it. So, if the message was from God, I say, Okay God. Let's see who can be more persistent: You withholding a child or me asking for a child.

I'll let you know who wins.

Moving On

Well, the old hag is knocking on the door today so I have no doubts that it's over this cycle. I guess I should be getting pretty good at this up and down roller coaster by now.

I am trying to look forward at this point. I'm about to get the schedule out for December and see if there's any hope of us meeting up. I'll be making the trek Home for the Holidays so it might be tough.

I'm also starting to research fertility specialists. If anyone knows of any in the Columbus, Ohio area, I'd love to hear from you. I have an email address at the bottom of the page. Along that lines, anyone reading this - feel free to drop me an email sometime. Always looking to correspond with people who can relate! Anyway, I probably won't go see a specialist until the beginning of the year. But it's something to occupy me at the moment.

Short post but I have to go get dinner ready and play with the Little Miss for a while.

Opening the House

I started a post earlier about how I was going to resist testing again today. Then, somewhat goaded on by a comment from Lorem, I decided to go ahead and do it. Negative of course. What else did I expect with major cramping and moodiness hitting me today with a vengance?

Well, on to more interesting topics. Tonight J and I walked the neighborhood and handed out invitations to our "Second Annual Open House". So, a little background on the story is in order. Let's start with the house.

Our house was built in a smallish town in Central Ohio (I've been relocated here a couple years now so I now know that the C in Central is Capitalized) in 1929 as a 2 storey, 2 bedroom cottage. In 1939, a young couple with a baby purchased it. They lived in the house until we purchased it from them last year. Amazing, huh?! They raised 2 children and numerous grandchildren here. Originally the house was on the outskirts of town. In the late 40s/early 50s, the town began to "boom" as a local industry took off. The executives of the industry ended up building really nice houses in a new neighborhood which eventually encompassed this house. Around that time, perhaps prompted by all the building, the owners of this house decided to expend it. It's now a 4 bedroom/2.5 bath house.

When we bought the house, the decor had not been updated since the 70s. I'll leave that to your imagination. Also, the kitchen was the main thing added on in the 50s and it had not been touched since then. Our first "project" before moving in was to rip up all the carpet and remove the decades of wallpaper and repaint. We found really nice hardwood floors under the awful green shag carpet and someday we'll go back to those, but I think plush carpet is much nicer for cuddling up with a book.

Shift gears slightly for another explanation. We moved to this smallish town because I wanted out of the "big city" for a nice place to raise a child. This house is one block from the elementary school. The main reason we chose this town is because J's twin sister lives here. She's a pediatrician and my BIL is a doctor as well. They're both very active and well-known in the community.

So..... given that we were new to a very nice neighborhood and everyone in the smallish town already "knew" us as relatives of the local docs, J decided that hosting a holiday open house was the right thing to do. I'll have to hand it to him - it was a good idea. The neighbors liked being able to see what we'd done with the house and some of them liked being able to meet us and size us up. One guy down the street wrote us off immediately because 1. we don't have a huge TV on which to watch sports (no TV at all in fact!) and 2. we don't have a snow blower or leaf blower. Most of the neighbors, however, evaluated us on much fairer terms and I suppose we measure up on the whole. And we found most of them to be very nice as well.

Our project this summer was to completely gut the 1950s kitchen, insulate it (what a world of difference that made!), and put it back together again with a look that is somewhat modern (stainless steel appliances) but seems (I think) to retain the feel of the older part of the house. So of course J insisted that we have another open house this year, making it the "second annual" one with, one presumes, promise of more to come.

I'm not the party type, really. If you get more than 3 or 4 people together, I usually sneak off to a back room to read a book. So the party last year really pushed the limits of my comfort zone. We probably had well over 100 people come through my haven last year. I suppose if I need something to get my mind off certain things, this is the thing to do it! It's planned for Sunday the 4th so I anticipate this being a busy week of preparations. We're just going cookies and coffee. The real work is in getting the house presentable enough for people to view. And keeping the Little Miss entertained with other things long enough to keep it that way through next Sunday!

Closet Tester

I restrained myself from testing this morning but just barely. I woke up in the middle of a dream wherein I was hiding in the closet holding a paper cup (presumably containing pee?) looking for my pregnancy tests. I hid them there a couple months ago to make it that much harder for me to test compulsively (no it doesn't work that well). Why I had to hide in there I don't know and it's certainly beyond me why I had to carry the cup of pee in there with me. Unfortunately I woke up before being able to see the result or even know if I found the tests.

Of course yesterday I had to endure the questioning looks at dinner when I declined wine. I know that speculation was rampant but I wasn't divulging anything in the way of information. I can only hope that by the next big holiday I'll have a solid reason for passing on the alcohol.

I'm to the point in the cycle where I always get really depressed. I think I should be having symptoms by now. With the Little Miss, I was having strange vivid dreams by 9DPO and I tested positive at 10DPO. Which is about where I am now. I'm not sure whether to count the closet testing dream as strange enough though.

Thanksgiving

I don't know why I feel so compelled to write something in relation to the Thanksgiving holiday. I guess it's because right now I am so focused on wanting another child that I may at times forget to be focused on the wonderful child I already have. I could easily make a list of all the "standard" things I have to be thankful for: home, family, friends, etc. But I thought it might be a bit more challenging to find some things off the beatin' path that I'm thankful for:

1. I'm thankful that there is a community of people out there who can understand on some level what I have been through and what I'm going through. I wish that no other human being had to deal with loss and infertility but since I have no control over that, I'm glad that I'm not alone in the journey.
2. I'm thankful to have a metabolism that allows me at almost 37 years of age to still enjoy the ocassional chocolate binge.
3. I'm thankful for my Y membership that probably makes the above possible
4. I'm thankful for my Ipod. I abosultely love music and can't imagine life without some sort of soundtrack, especially while I'm working out.
5. I'm thankful for the 3 ladies at the Y who provide such great childcare and give me a daily break. All I have to do is mention the Y and the Little Miss is running to find her shoes.

I hope everyone out there in blogland is having/had a good day, whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not. J is working today, maybe flying some of you around the country. I am off to the in-laws house to brave the gaggle of people and noise. Little Miss will be in her element; I'll be hiding in a corner reading a book.

Bad, Bad, Bad Girl

It was eerily quiet when I stepped out of the shower this morning. That is never a good sign when there's a toddler in the house. My fears were confirmed when the Little Miss came running into the bathroom covered in powder with the most wicked grin on her cute little face.

I, like most, came to parenthood with some pretty definite ideas on the important topic of discipline. My folks believed in spanking and so did J's folks. We both turned out okay so we both figured that's what we would use on the Little Miss. Well, I'm here to tell you that not all discipline approaches work for all children. A swift palm applied to a bare butt will actually get her attention. Layers of clothes and a thick, fat cloth diaper seem to soften the blow enough that all I get is an expression that begs "is that the best you can do?!".

So I've reluctantly entered the world of "timeouts". I say "relucantly" for a variety of reasons. For one, my preconceived notions on this topic were that timeouts were the wimps way out. The reality, I've learned, is that taking attention away from my attention-loving toddler speaks more volumes than physical pain ever could.

Not feeling up to a timeout this morning myself, I tried the other tactic that seems to work remarkably well with her. I got down at eye level, held her chin, and calmly proceeded to tell her how bad it is to pour the entire bottle of baby powder into the bath tub. I wish I had a picture of the Little Miss when I uttered the word "bad". I don't know where she figured out that it has such, well, bad connotations, but her little lip went out and tears filled her eyes and she went running off to find solace in her stuffed animals.

No doubt to tell them how bad it is to pour an entire bottle of baby powder into the bath tub.

---

I've finally managed to enter single digits in the countdown phase. And, yes, I broke down and counted how many days past ovulation I am: 7 as of today. Which means that it's technically only 7 days till the POAS party. So I changed my ticker to make myself feel better. No, it's not really working. korisiri (cellsgonewild ) said that she likes to delay testing so that she can live that much longer with the hope that this might be the month. This is the first month that I haven't planned to start testing at 10DPO and I really see the wisdom in that outlook. At this point I need all the hope I can get. Having said that, like her, I will be hard pressed not to start testing on Friday.

Debunking The Myths

Updated to include Myth #5

Looking back over my posts this week, you probably think all we do is watch movies. Granted, this week has been a bit different because J had a stretch of 8 whole days off. Pretty unusual for him. He goes back to work tomorrow for a 3 day trip. Yep - right over Thanksgiving. Again. You'd think after 5 years he might get Thanksgiving off. Good thing it's not a holiday with a lot of emotion invested for me!

At any rate, being the wife of an airline pilot, I often get hit with people's myths about the profession. I thought I'd start by debunking the ones that I hear most often. If anyone has any other things they've "heard" about the life of a pilot, leave a comment and I'll see how many other myths I can shoot down.

The longtime stereotype of airline pilots is that they are male, fearless, perfectly fit, good at math, trained in the military, blessed with perfect vision, all paid like super senior 747 captains (regardless of what they really fly) and only at work three days every other month.
- http://travel.howstuffworks.com/pilot1.htm

Myth #1: Airline pilots make lots of money
This is my favorite! This is probably true for a captain in the majors (ie Delta, Continental) flying transatlantic routes or ones who've been there 30 years. It is definitely not true in the "regionals" (the small aircraft feeder airlines to the majors) where J works. A person just starting out flying here is eligible for food stamps in most states. Think about that the next time you step on an airplane!

Myth #2: The life of an airline pilot is a glamorous one
John Wayne personified this myth in The High and Mighty which glorified airline travel in the mid 1950s. Pilots then were seen as debonair young gentleman who took a measure of risk up in the cockpit but always managed to look great in the coat and hat. They jetted from city to city and had friends everywhere. The reality of J's life is that he sleeps in a different, cheap hotel room every night and is lucky to have time for one decent meal in any given day. The FAA requires that he get 8 hours of "rest" per day but the reality is that rest starts when you leave the airplane and stops when you get back to the airplane resulting in considerably less sleep than the recommended daily allowance.

Myth #3: Pilots have to have perfect vision
This is a minor one but people still tend to buy into it. The only requirement nowadays is that a pilot's vision is correctable to 20/20.

Myth #4: Most pilots trained in the military
That was true at one time but nowadays many pilots come through a general aviation career. J started flying small planes, then started instructing in them. He/We paid for every single hour of flying that got him into his job.

This post may sound like I'm complaining about the life of an airline pilot. Granted, it is a very different one. J is usually gone for 3-4-5 days at a time and home for 2-3 (or sometimes more) days at a time. I figured up just recently that he was gone for almost 60% of the hours in October. The flip side is that when he is home, we get to enjoy a lot of quality time together as a family. Plus he absolutely loves to fly so he loves his job. I think that sums up what's important in life: loving what you do with the majority of your time and having time left over to love your family.

Myth #5: Infidelity is the name of the game

From Lorem

Here's one I hope you can shoot down!

My FIL was an F-14 instructor in the Navy (Vietnam era). He knew many pilots who went on to commercial careers, and he said that once that happened he didn't want to join them because he didn't know one who was faithful to the wife back home.

I don't know if this was the era, the lifestyle back then or the guys he knew, but I hope that this supposedly rampant infidelity is not as common anymore.

Well, I was trying to avoid this one but since you asked..... I think this is a "myth" that grew out of reality and is still somewhat true. I wouldn't go so far as to say that every pilot is unfaithful (I am trusting here that J is at least one exception!) but I have heard too many stories about ones that are. A commercial pilot who hasn't had at least one divorce is rare. Sadly, the lifestyle makes it very easy to be unfaithful; not to mention that the lifestyle puts a lot of stress on a relationship. You really have to actively work at maintaining open communication and trust. It bothers J a lot that so many of his coworkers take their marriage vows so lightly. I wish it bothered more people.

Dates

J and I had a nice "date night" Friday. We saw The Legend of Zorro. Both that and Batman Begins earlier this week were J's picks. I told him we should watch "Men In Black" again to round out the black-wearing, crime-fighting theme.

I've decided it's a whole lot easier mentally to count down to something (11 days till I get to POAS) than to count from something (days past ovulation which I haven't really calculated and hope I can keep myself from doing so). In a couple days I'll be down to single digits - what could be easier?!

The Countdown is On

Finally got my third high temp so I'm considering myself to have officially ovulated for this cycle. Now we start the countdown to the POAS party. My research on progesterone tells me that it can prolong the luteal phase and some women don't start until stopping the progesterone. Plus I am trying aspirin and Vitamin B Complex to try and lengthen my luteal phase. So I am going to test on 1 December and we'll see. It's funny: at the end of every cycle since my miscarriage I have sworn up and down that the next month I wasn't going to chart or even "try" and I certainly wasn't going to do a countdown to testing. And every month I realize that deep down I can't give up that easily. And I know that the charting will be invaluable should I end up going to a specialist, which I plan to do at the start of the new year. Unless this cycle proves different.

Lorem wanted to know what kind of progesterone I was using. I got mine OTC from drugstore.com. It's only about 20mg strong. Whatever an RE prescribes is bound to be much stronger and more effective.

J and I are off for a "date night" today. We're dropping the Little Miss off with her second favorite person (besides Mommy - what an ego trip!) and we'll go do a little shopping, see a movie, and grab a bite to eat. As usually happens with these dates, I am in the ambiguous phase of not being able to drink alcohol, so a margarita is out I suppose.

Speaking of movies, last night's choice was The Aviator. Weird guy, weird movie. Cool airplanes. Weird movie. They could have cut about an hour out of it and it would have been more bearable.

Goodbye Autumn, Hello Eggie

My temp was up again today. The rule is 3 temps above "coverline" indicates ovulation. I don't know what my coverline is (I'm not charting this month on Fertility Friend) but I'm pretty sure I've ovulated. If tomorrow's temp is in range of the previous 2 days, I plan to start self-medicating with progesterone. Yes, I know I should talk to my doctor about it. Truthfully, though, I don't want to see my doctor again until I'm at least 12 weeks pregnant. My research indicates that an OTC progesterone supplement won't harm and could possibly help. Since my miscarriage, I have fertile CM throughout my whole cycle, even after ovulation (TMI yet?!). I'm self-diagnosing this as a progesterone problem. Maybe it's not. But at least I feel like I'm doing something, anything.

I don't think it got much above freezing all day today. And the wind absolutely bit through you. I think Fall is officially over and Winter has arrived.

Fall has always been my favorite time of the year. I think it comes from growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast where the only two seasons are Hot and Hotter. I'd always see pictures of beautifully colored trees and think wistfully how nice it would be to enjoy four seasons. Granted, I'm a thin-skinned girl who can take 100+ degrees and 99% humidity somewhat better than 0 degrees and 4' of snow. But I still wouldn't trade it for a place with no seasons. I like going through different phases throughout the year - it just makes me feel more in tune with some deeper rhythm of life. Perhaps knowing that the dead of Winter is coming brings to mind that it is always followed by the rebirth of Spring and I suppose that gives me hope of things to come.

So, for the moment, I'm burrowing in my winter den: stocking up on the hot tea and bringing out the winter coat and hat. Dreaming of the Spring and hoping for the new life to come.

Unitarianism

Lorem responded to an earlier post saying that I might check out Unitarianism. Well, I finally had a chance to do a little research and have to say that we can rule this one out. Here's one definition:

Unitarianism is the belief that God exists in one person, not three. It is a denial of the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the full divinity of Jesus. Therefore, it is not Christian.

That's from CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS & RESEARCH MINISTRY
I think my background is just too steeped in the Christian tradition to deny the divinity of Jesus or the Trinity.

Well, any other suggestions?! I've often thought of researching some of the Eastern traditions. Some of them seem to be more life philosophies than religions; things that could comfortably sit alongside my "God doesn't care but I still feel the need to be a good person" sort of thinking. I figure I have to come up with a sound religious philosophy before the Little Miss is old enough to start asking piercing questions.

Finally?!

I *think* I may have ovulated finally! My temp is a little ambiguous though. Little Miss woke up crying at 3:30. I decided to go ahead and take my temp, not knowing if I would have to get up with her. It was a very low pre-ovulation temp. I ended up going back to sleep and waking at 6, my regular temping time. At that point, my temp was very comfortably in the post-ovulation range. If I hadn't taken the earlier temp, I would have never questioned it. But now I'm wondering.... Did I actually ovulate sometime in the early morning hours and my temp shot up just like that? I wasn't sleeping under any more covers than usual. I don't know. But I've decided to stop the robitussin for now and also the green tea. Tomorrow's temp will tell me for sure. But I did have a positive OPK yesterday and I might have had ovulation pains last night. So we'll see.

The movie of choice last night was Batman Begins. I'm not a huge Batman fan, but I'll have to say I liked this. Although they could have cut out 75% of the car chase scene; gotta keep the guys happy I guess. I liked Christian Bale in Reign of Fire but I'm not sure he's "the" Batman. The movie was a little on the scary side for my tastes - I don't like anything even remotely scarry. And the scarecrow mask and drugs made it a little creepy.

I'm happy to say that we got most of the painting done last night. Except for the back door which is off the hinges in the garage. J insisted it would be easier to paint that way and I have to admit he was right. But we probably could have timed it a tad bit better than the night of the first arctic cold front of the season. Good thing we have a storm door!

Speaking of cold, it's a windy, blustery day and I've already seen snow flurries here in central Ohio. Definitely the kind of day to just stay inside and drink hot chocolate and maybe take a nap. And dream sweet dreams. About sweet babies to come.

The Heat Is On

Well, my temp was still down this morning. Where's that damn egg? On top of that, the last two times, J has had what I can only term as "performance problems". He gets there eventually but I think he's rather feeling the pressure. He told me this morning he's feeling old. He's never had this problem in our 9 years of marriage. As if we didn't have enough issues!

At any rate, I think I got a peak OPK this afternoon. Here's hoping for a temp rise in the morning.

Tonight we're painting the kitchen. Or, I should say, completing the kitchen painting. We remodeled this past summer (8 weeks without a sink - don't get me started!) and there was some lingering touchup work to be done. J wants to do a holiday party thing this year so I took advantage of that to put out the ultimatum: no painting, no party. Hopefully it'll only take us an hour or so tonight.

We watched an awesome movie last night called Sahara with Matthew McConaughey. I have to say that man is growing on me. I don't know if it's the southern accent or the baby blues that do it for me, but I wouldn't mind meeting him some day.

Mom From Hell

Okay, she's not really the Mom from hell. She just seems like it sometimes. I am speaking of my own, by the way. I have heard it said that what you most dislike in other people is what you secretely most dislike about yourself. Or something like that. At any rate, if I have the qualities that I hate in my own mother, I am doomed.

So I talked to her last night and I don't think a conversation could have gotten any more depressing. She's worried about her brother who is in the midst of another divorce. Number 5 or 6 - I can't keep track. There's kids involved again. So, my uncle is in his mid 60s - you'd think he's figured out things by now. Apparantly not. This one's leaving him with like $32,000 in credit card debt. My Mom apparantly wants to get back at the evil witch for hurting her baby brother by cutting out the kids.

Now, there's no love lost for this woman who is tearing apart our family at the expense of "finding" herself. But not buying the kids Christmas presents? Come on, that's just plain mean Mom.

Over my 30 something years, I have developed a survival tactic for staying sane in my family. None of them know what I really think. None of them know that my best friend is gay, that I loathe Mr. President Bush, that I secretly think my mother is the real evil witch. God, I hope she never finds this blog.

Back on the subject, I took an OPK today. At first I thought it was negative but now that it's dry I think it's close to a positive! I haven't ever been able to really see a peak when it happens - it's always in comparing them over the days that I figure out when the peak was. So I guess tomorrow will tell. Or I can hope that I caught the end of the peak and tomorrow my temp will go up. Anyway, we're off to watch a DVD before bed.

Still Waiting For That Egg

It's CD16 and still no egg apparantly. I tried soy this cycle which is purported to work like Clomid without the side effects of producing multiple eggs. Many women have reported much earlier ovulation with it which didn't seem to be the case for me. Some women report an annovulatory cycle with it which I'm beginning to wonder if that may be my fate. Time will tell I suppose.

My thermometer worked perfectly fine this morning. I tell you, it's possessed.

I'm spending today working on a tutorial for J's software. I've been needing to do it for months and finally ran out of excuses. Have to keep the paying public happy!

Okay, that last post was too heavy and definitely not coherent! I blame it on lack of sleep. The Little Miss picked up a cold somewhere and was up almost all night. She would cry, I would rock her, she would settle down and then start talking to me, I would put her down to bed. Repeat.... all night. Normally she is a good sleeper. I don't know what got into her last night but I am too dead tired to analyze it right now.

I managed to surface to consciousness around 6:30 this morning. Normally I take my temp around 5. Wouldn't you know, the dang thermometer didn't work. I figured the batteries were dead and went back to sleep (well, for all of 15 minutes until the Little Miss started crying again). When I finally got up at 9, it seemed to be working just fine. I think it's possessed. But my temp at 9 didn't seem to be post-ovulation, so I think we're still good. J gets home late tonight so hopefully I can stay awake long enough to do the deed. After that, it's Dad's turn to be up all night!

Does God Care?

So, it's Sunday and seems like a good time to psychoanalyze religion. Let me give a brief rundown of my "religious" life to date.

I was born and bred a Southern Baptist. My grandfather was a preacher and we were the family that was always at the church. Doors open or not. I went to a Southern Baptist school (although I graduated elsewhere). In my mid-20s, I took a sabbatical from my job and worked at a mission hospital for a year. Then I met J. He was <GASP> Catholic. Surprisingly enough, my family was cool with it because they liked him. Not surprisingly, his family was very against a match. In the end, we married in the Catholic church. A few years later, I decided to join the Catholic church (I hate the term "convert" but I'll leave that for another post). If I was alone again I think I would turn Quaker (seriously).

That about sums it up. Southern Baptist teetotaler turned Catholic wine connoisseur Quaker at heart. I always felt like God had a hand in my life. I felt he led me to serve in a mission hospital - that wasn't something I would have chosen to do myself. I felt like he brought me J and the Little Miss. I felt like he had blessed me with all things material.

Then my unborn baby died and I began to question everything.

In short, at the moment I'm having trouble with the whole concept that a loving God can permit such suffering. And I'm not just talking about me losing a baby. I'm talking about suffering on a much grander scale. Starvation in Africa. Religious "cleansings" in Eastern Europe. Wars tearing families apart. Somehow it's easier for me to believe that God just doesn't care about mankind that to believe that he allows this stuff to go on.

Funny thing is, I can draw on my baptist heritage and argue the other side of the case. Sad thing is, I have no wish to, nor do I believe those arguments any longer.

I haven't been to mass in weeks, nay months. J is shocked as I have always been the religious one of the family. I could go and sit through all the motions and do all the right things. But it doesn't hold anything for me - I don't feel like God really cares if I go or not.

In a previous post, I called myself an agnostic. Here is the definition of that from one site:

An agnostic is a person who feels that God's existence can neither be proved nor disproved, on the basis of current evidence.

Based on that, I can't say that I am an agnostic because I do believe in God's existence. I can't honestly look at my beautiful Little Miss and not think that some living being didn't create her.
So I don't know what label to apply to myself at the moment.

I find hope in a quote from Thomas Jefferson:

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Maybe I should call this blog "Odyssey To Finding God"! At any rate, that is enough heavy stuff for one day!

Thus ends CD14

Today was the 14th day of the 7th cycle since my miscarriage. My doc wanted me to wait 3 months to start trying again. Turns out that first cycle was 89 days long! This is the 5th cycle that we've been actively trying.

My cycles have always been a bit screwy. Statistically I should ovulate on Monday. Which would be good timing since J will be home. Did I mention that he's an airline pilot and we're trying to conceive around his funky schedule? Amazingly enough he has been home at the "right" time the last 4 cycles. I guess God hasn't thought to screw with his schedule yet. <lightening bolt strikes author>

About Me and This Blog

In February 2004 I delivered a beautiful, healthy baby girl. In January 2005 I got pregnant again. On March 16, 2005 we had an ultrasound but there was no heartbeat. Two days later I had a D&C.

I've passed the mileston of my due date. I've passed the milestone of "trying" again for 6 months.

More and more these days I find myself unable to contain my anger over all this. It seeps out at my daughter (is that nuts or what?!), my husband, family, friends. Even complete strangers get the brunt of my anger. Recently I decided that I was agnostic as God doesn't seem interested at all in me.

So that's where I am in my life at this moment. I decided I needed a place to channel all the negative energy and pick up some positive vibes. Back in the day, I would do this through writing, so I decided a blog might help. Here's to hope!