FALL

Most people enjoy Fall because of Pumpkin Spice Lattes and falling leaves, but I dislike both of these things. I only enjoy the taste of pumpkin when it's accompanied by mounds of cream cheese frosting and falling leaves just mean hours of yard work and blistered hands from raking. No thank you. Here are some commonly ignored reasons why I believe Fall is the best.

1. Blankets become socially acceptable clothing. Whether it's a massive scarf or a baggy sweater, it appears that the majority of the population is walking around with blankets on. I can't tell if some women are on their way to work or just woke up from a nap.

2. My hair looks amazing. After surviving yet another humid Kansas summer full of pony tails, seemingly overnight my hair decides to be fabulous again. My bangs stay put, my hair is less frizzy, and each day is like another opportunity to create my version of the Zooey D. Pantene ads.

 

3. 16-24 year old girls are hilarious! Leggings as pants, pictures in the leaves, ginormous sweaters, complicated Starbucks orders, Uggs... I snicker and roll my eyes more during Fall than any other season, and I love it! I also get a kick out of all the angry social media posts from people hating on leggings as pants. Can we all just calm down and focus on how great our hair looks?

 


4. Playing the game "Male Fashionista or Homeless Man?" Say what you will about young ladies' clothing choices during the Fall, but I find male fashion to be much more outrageous. To add a fun, competitive edge to your Fall season, play the game "Male Fashionista or Homeless Man" and guess whether the individual is a wealthy Calvin Klein model or a man in need of food and shelter!






















5. The world stops (or decreases) the complaining for a few days. We are constantly bombarded with uptight social media posts and political strife, but for a few days towards the beginning of Fall all people can seem to talk about and post about is all the little things they love about this season. Social media is filled with pictures of beautiful scenery, relaxing settings, and people enjoying themselves: a much needed break from the monotony. Happy fall, y'all!

"Relentlessly Optimistic"

My husband and I can't have babies on our own. Between the two of us, without the help of doctors and a miracle from the Lord, there will be no buns in this oven. We have a lot to be angry and confused about and I have spent a good 40% of our infertility journey living in this angry place. Mike has spent a maximum of 5% of our infertility journey in this angry place. (He is so good at life!) For example:

Anyway, after years of trying to conceive, a couple diagnoses, massive financial contributions from our community, some medications, lots of prayer, and a few procedures later... I have 2 embryos in the lining of my uterus as I type this! I am carrying life in my body! Life that came from the life of my husband and me! Thank you, Jesus. What a gift. We will know if we are officially pregnant in just a few short days. I am awestruck with gratitude. For like a minute. Then I remember that after all of this I got severe strep throat the day after our transfer. For those of you that don't know much about IVF, being sick after the transfer and during implantation is not a good thing as it could negatively effect the outcome. We had several things planned for this time while I was carrying our babies. We were going to get our pictures taken, finally let ourselves browse through a baby clothes department and maybe even buy something, and visit all our favorite spots in KC. These are things we would want to do pregnant or as a family that we may never get to do if we get bad news later this week. We just wanted to take in this time and make it special. I am too sick to do any of these things though and I've got an illness looming that could decrease the already small odds of this IVF transfer working. I have a choice to make about how I am going to let this affect me. As you've read in previous posts, my go-to move is to ruminate on negativity, or as I often call it, "being realistic." A true pessimist never refers to themselves as a pessimist. This negativity isn't being exaggerated or blown out of proportion, we are convinced this is reality. Every time I hear someone (including myself) refer to themselves as a realist, I know I've spotted a pessimist in disguise, and I'm one of the worst of them! I've got a lot of work to do on this.

After a pep talk from a friend today I am not going to revert back to old ways and ruminate on the negative and all that could go wrong (and is going wrong, and already has gone wrong) here. "I'M DECIDING TO BE RELENTLESSLY OPTOMISITC BECAUSE AS IRRATIONAL AS IT IS, I FEEL LIKE I HAVE SOME AGENCY AND BELIEVING IT IS SO WILL MAKE IT SO. I WILL BE CHEERY AND UPBEAT AND BELIEVE THAT I WILL BE A MOTHER UNTIL I AM A MOTHER OR DECIDE THAT I DON'T WANT TO BE ONE ANYMORE." Thanks, Alicia. Don't feel bad for me or question my intentions here either. I have felt my feelings. I have been "real" and "authentic" and I have mourned and grieved and felt the very deepest pain this process has for me. We are allowed to feel our feelings and I have felt mine. If I want to be a good mother I can start now. When I tell my children, BECAUSE I AM GOING TO BE A PARENT, about the journey that brought us together I want them to be proud of me. I want to set a good example for them. Part of this good example is honoring your experiences and your feelings by grieving, and part of this example is moving forward and clinging to what you know is true based on your identity in Christ.

Here is my relentlessly optimistic reality: I love kids. I am going to be a great mom. I am looking forward to our pregnancy test later this week because I believe I am going to be and already am a mommy. I believe that God has good things waiting for me. He loves me and sees the best in me and is going to cultivate and grow my strengths even more as I journey into parenthood. When it's hard to believe these things for myself, I am going to believe them for my husband. Have you met Mike? Anybody who has spent more than 15 minutes with this guy knows that "Dad" has been written into his DNA. It's who he is. Children are drawn to him and he is drawn to them. If anyone was born to be a parent it is him, and I'm married to him, so that goodness and that promise can spill over onto me, too. I believe this is going to work out for us! I believe this illness/strep throat is yet another attempt from the enemy to try and rob me of the faith and hope I have been working so hard to choose every day. I believe the enemy has no power over me. I can choose hope and I can choose happiness and I can choose optimism because God is good and He loves me. And more about this illness... I have been made more aware than ever of all the goodness in my family and friends who have been willing to do anything and everything for me. We haven't gotten to go frolic about the city with our embryos, but we have gotten to get really real with Jesus when presented with yet another obstacle. Do we REALLY believe in His goodness? Even now? Even when everything is seemingly going wrong? YEP! God is so good!

Why I Miss OCD

So I had a bout with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I needed organization and order like I needed oxygen. OCD effected my career, my relationships, my education, my schedule, and my general ability to function as a happy, healthy person. It took me years of counseling and exposure therapy to overcome my need to have every single aspect of my environment positioned in specific angles, labeled, alphabetical, and twice disinfected. Sometimes I miss it. Here is why.

It helped me cope. Fight with my husband? Clean the baseboards. Stressful day at work? Disinfect the doorknobs and light switches at home. Can’t sleep? Alphabetize or re-alphabetize my medicine cabinet or movie collections. This behavior gave me a false sense that my world was in order, despite what may have happened that day. Logically, I knew that clean baseboards would not undo that hurtful comment I made to my husband, but it sure did temporarily help me feel better, and cleaner, after sorting through the mess I just created emotionally.

It was always there for me. Cleaning didn’t judge me. Washing would never leave me. Whenever I needed help, day or night, my compulsions were loyal companions. This was also the hardest part of overcoming it. It’s like an alcoholic attempting sobriety while living in a bar. Temporary relief is always at arm’s length.

Nobody could take it away from me. If I wanted OCD to leave, I would have to conquer it myself, in my own time, if and only if I ever wanted it gone. OCD wanted to stay with me and it would fight back every time I tried to get rid of it. As sick as it sounds, sometimes it felt nice to have something want to stick around that badly.

Although I occasionally miss certain elements of it, I will never imprison myself with my compulsions again. They fooled me into thinking I was in control when really, they owned me. They told me what I needed to do and when I needed to do it. OCD lied to me about what it meant to cope with life’s difficulties and how to navigate stressful situations. I care about myself, my family, and my friends too much to participate in the delusion ever again.

Timely Preparation for Future Eventualities

I have truly come to the end of my strength in this infertility journey. (As my father-in-law shared, perhaps that's the point.) I feel tired, weak, and angry. I am not proud to admit this but a few nights ago I was tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep due to the racing thoughts and emotional strain, and found myself questioning the character of God and His care for me. Why would He give me the desire to be a mother and not bring it to fruition? If He wanted Mike and I to be parents, why doesn't He just give us a baby the natural way? What is the point of having us suffer through this financial/physical/emotional IVF nightmare? Is God cruel? (I know this reeks of entitlement, but I'm trying to be honest about where my heart is at even when it's not pretty.) I began to cry and in a moment of desperation I thought, "God, are you even real? I do not see you and I do not feel you and I'm doubting that you are real." As soon as I finished my thought I heard a loud smack of thunder that physically shook the foundation of our home. I shot out of bed and looked over at Mike to see if he was awake from the jolt. He was sound asleep. I feel it's important to note that I was also wearing earplugs at the time. These have become a necessity ever since our 45 year-old neighbor began practicing with his garage band of other 40-somethings well into the wee small hours of the morning. This would be cool if they were like AC/DC or something, retired but still addicted to rock and roll, but I cannot overstate how little the sounds they create resemble music. Anyway, the thunder was loud enough and strong enough to penetrate my earplugs and cause sincere concern about our safety and the wellbeing of our home. When I noticed that Mike was still asleep and our cat was resting un-phased at the foot of our bed, I knew that I had just encountered God. He responded to my insecurities in a way I could not ignore. God shook my very foundation to reassure me of His providence and ultimately, His existence in my life. Sometimes it takes being shaken up to come to a better realization of God's sovereignty and intimate care for your every moment.

When debriefing the encounter the next day I realized that I did not view this abrupt thunder as cruelty. It did not tire me or result in anger or bitterness. I viewed this gesture as compassionate, loving, and energizing because it resulted in a keener awareness of my Savior. On that note, infertility is truly shaking my foundation as well. What if I started viewing infertility the same way I viewed the thunder: as compassionate, loving, and energizing? God shakes our foundations in all sorts of ways. God brings us into a fuller understanding of Himself in all sorts of ways. This experience taught me that God is using our struggles with infertility in the same way He used the thunder, to reassure me of His providence and existence in my life. When doing some light Googling on the meaning of "providence" this definition stood out to me: timely preparation for future eventualities. Each one of our life experiences, no matter how inflamed or seemingly insignificant, is saturated in God's providence and if used correctly will help prepare us for a future that will eventually be introduced to us when the timing is right. "Providence" was also referred to as God's protective care. This indicates that God's providence is also rooted in care and intended for our protection. When applied to our season of infertility I understood that what I am experiencing now isn't God's cruelty or lack of investment in our situation, it's actually God's protection, preparation, care, and most of all, his deep love for me. I don't know what my "eventualities" will consist of, but I do know that God is deeply invested in my present circumstances and how this will help me later. He is real. He is not cruel. There is purpose in this pain.

 

Daniel 4:35: "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?'"

Psalm 145:15-16: "The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing."