2012.

2012.

So much has happened this year.

I started this year hopeless, defeated, & broken. 2012 has brought a lot of ups and down. It brought strength & determination. It brought me a new love and respect for my husband. It brought me ovulatory cycles. But it also brought loss, a loss that though it was early I will never understand or forget. My faith was tested. I questioned our plans, I questioned if were meant to have kids, and I questioned God.
At the end I had only enough strength to believe. I had no other choice than to have faith.

In 2012 we also found a house, our home. The home where we will raise our children, both ones that we conceive through natural or medical methods  and ones that we are blessed with through adoption.

2012 showed me that I am strong enough to beat this and 2013 will be the year that I do.

Peace,  Love, & Happy New Year Y'all,
Kayla

All I want for Christmas....

I am 7dpo and all I want for Christmas is for this cycle to work! This month marked 2 from when we stop preventing and in just 2 more months it will be 2 years since we actively started TTC. However,I can say I am much less frustrated, irritated, & depressed than I was last year. In fact, I would take "depressed" off that list entirely. Though as we approach another baby-less Christmas in the Vidrine house, it would be east to be angry, bitter, and depressed. However all of those emotions take far to much energy.

Here lately, I have made peace with my current state of childlessness because I know that it shall pass. I know in my heart of hearts that I will not be childless forever, our family will grow, possibly through good old-fashioned baby making, maybe with the help of fertility treatments or reproductive technologies, and definitely at some point through adoption. That is not to say that I don't still have bad moments, and even the occasional bad day, but I am choosing to not let those moments, hours, or days, when I feel bitter, jealous, or irritated define me as a person.

A while back, my amazing herbalist whom I love sent me a message that has stuck with me over these last few months. She told me to stop referring to myself as infertile, though it may be medically true. In her words, "The body obeys what the mind believes", In other words if my mind is constantly bitter, angry and 'infertile' then my body is going to be bitter, angry, and infertile. So as I sit here I think about how far I have come in the past year. I have lost about 30lbs, I have gone from 60+ day anovulatory cycles to 32-34 day ovulatory cycles. I am hopeful where I was before depressed and defeated. I no longer feel tired and irritable all the time, and I have learned to appreciate all the many blessings that I do have in my life, instead of focusing on what I don't have YET! I hope that all the amazing women I know that suffer from infertility can eventually find this peace. Here's to hoping for a Christmas miracle, I can only pray that this time next year will be our first Christmas with a baby and I also pray that all of my TTC friends get that gift too!

Merry Christmas Y'all