Game Changers

The iron is out, and the cat is in.  Never mind that cats don't move me, (though nor do irons, as a rule,) but I liked the iron game piece in the classic Monopoly game. It had a flat surface that made cruising towards "GO" easier, especially for those slightly OCD people that want their game pieces to stand upright. I wonder how much time we idiosyncratic Monopoly players will waste trying to keep the cat upright? The Battleship better watch its back. I hear the Apache helicopter is waiting in the wings.

The post office announced that they are no longer delivering Saturday mail, except for important packages. Is this sad to anyone else? It seems to be just one more step in the slow decline of everything that seems good and right.  Soon, will all be obese, sitting in chairs all day, living and working completely via our gadgets and remote controls, like in Wall-E? Push a button for this, beam that. I don't know why, but it hits me in a weird place in my gut.

Topping out the list of the Top 5 biggest game changers of my life is my salvation through faith in Christ.  The other four things rotate in their importance.  Always there, usually around 2nd or 3rd place, is my inability to have children. The one year anniversary of my hysterectomy came and went, uneventfully. Of course I thought of  it, but I didn't cry or wallow, or post it on Facebook.  I've reevaluated my attention seeking behaviors.  Everyone moves on, as have I. Mostly.  Today, it's on my mind, but not in a bad way.

Not unlike having to play Monopoly with a *GASP* cat on the board, or *FAINT* no mail on Saturdays, living without the possibility of giving birth, while severely traumatic for a time, is just another blip. I've grown used to it, and have tremendous gratitude for all of the blessings since one of the worst days of my life.  No more physical pain. No worrying about planning vacations around pain and blood loss.  Not having to see my husband's distraught face when he couldn't console me and sat helplessly while I'd scream and writhe in agony for hours, several days per month. Instead, sex doesn't hurt, now, I have significantly less mood swings and lost work. I'm not stuck anymore, emotionally, in "woe is me" land.  Mike and I can come and go as we please, and are not bound by day care, diapers, croup, ear infections, or heaven forbid, Radio Disney.  I can't even say that I'd trade it all for a baby at this point. How's that for honest?

I'm at that place, post-hysterectomy, where I can live.  God knows what's best for me, and I thank Him for that.

Blessings! ~ Laura Story

It's not me. It's you.

I totally went off the deep end for a while. Have I mentioned that? Depending on your true presence in my life-oh, sometime between February and July 4th, 2012- you may or may have not noticed. You may or may have not been exposed to my hormonal (or lack thereof) (or, which dose will I take today?) (or, I hate this pill! I want another!) fluctuations or my generally dysfunctional recovery. But if you would have noticed (and not many people did, or if they did, they didn't typically bother to acknowledge it) you probably would have gotten an earful. And it probably would have been your fault.

I guess I hit a bottom of sorts that I didn't know I was plummeting towards until I did a face-plant. It totally sucked. Some things were good, if not better than ever. Other aspects of life were painfully severe and heavy. It was hard to get through a day without rage or tears. I took aim and fired at the easiest targets. July 4th marked the day of an awakening of sorts. I was that crazy person that needed the intervention, and I got it.  

I'd like to give a hearty thanks to a barrage of supplements, as well as months of a consistent level of (fake) estrogen  in my body, for a slow and steady wave of stability that I've attempted to surf since the end of July. I'd also like to thank my husband, who was kind and loving enough to hit me with the truth after several rocky months.  I only saw what I wanted to see: him retreating and our marriage suffering.  While I never doubted we would endure, and God would see us through the hard times, the ugly reality was that I wasn't right, and I pushed him and pushed him away until he gave it to me.  I needed it. 

July 4th has a special meaning for me.  Particularly, July 4th, 2004.  It was the day after I took a break from my ex-husband, as the marriage was about to fall apart. It was the day a wise man told me with certainty that a year from that day, I would be with a man who loved me more than anything.  He was right, and every July 4th since that one, I have driven down that old road in my mind, and thanked God for sending me Mike. 

When Mike and I went out to watch fireworks this year, I was in a particularly foul mood and blaming him for the distance between us. I was so frustrated by him, and by what I perceived as his intolerance of poor old me and my suffering. He'd never pulled so far from me. One certainty: no matter how much I hated myself or how unhappy I was, I knew Mike and I would be fine.  I knew God had his hands on our relationship.  I didn't like where we were at, but I knew it would be a short trip.  My head knew, had known all along,  in that place in your mind that just "knows" and believes, but my heart wasn't able to feel it. 

So, I picked a fight with him this past July 4th, for the bazillionth time since my surgery, sitting in our car, watching fireworks on the side of the road. I spewed anger, cried, the works.  Mike told me something then, and it rocked me. He told me he was sorry. He told me that he was sorry, but that it wasn't him, and that it was me. I pushed him away. I rejected him. I was not ok.  I was hit by a brick, a surreal jolt of the truth. I can't explain how instantly I understood the weight of what he said.  It was a flood of unbelievable acknowledgment, insight, shame, and deep remorse for how I'd treated him for months. Instant. And now, I had to pray that he'd forgive me.

Five months have gone by since then, and ten months since my surgery.  Mike and I? We're solid.  And I'm much more solid.   Praise God from whom all blessings flow! I think I thought I was better when I wrote my last blog post, but I was still in sufficient pain.   I'll likely look back 6 months from now, God willing, and be even stronger. There is damage that lingers in another relationship that took a nose dive. My marriage is what matters, though. Sometimes, attempting to make amends and repent is unsuccessful.  Sometimes, you do what you can do, and it's not enough. Sometimes, there are people that cannot empathize or even sympathize, can't or wont forgive. It's heartbreaking, but it is a work that has to be left up to God.

I have a beautiful new infant client I was treating the other day and I completely zoned out holding him. I mean, I was just lost in his smell, his eyes, his sweet noises, even fussing he was just beautiful. I snapped back to the present, hoped no one noticed that I went to my own little fantasy land for a bit, and gave the baby back to his mommy.  In about 6 months, I have to give my exchange student back to her  parents, too.  I already know I'll miss her terribly. I think I may be getting more out of her time with us than she. In the mean time, a part of the hole in my heart has been filled by that blessing, and I'll treasure it as long as I can.

Fake it 'til you make it!

My heart is healing, and this is good. I suppose setbacks are normal, especially considering changes in hormones (or lack thereof?)  I'm still finding a balance on these pills. My choices seem to be: hot flashes and severe mood swings, or headaches, weight gain, mood swings, and stupid acne. I mean, worse-than-teenager acne. As if this whole thing wasn't a drag, I get giant, hard, painful zits, 2 to 5 at a time: groups of monstrosities my face never saw, even as a high-school girl.  I call foul! I OBJECT! I strenuously OBJECT!

I dreamed the other night that I went to the doctor for my tooth, and he prescribed me an anti-depressant/ anti-anxiety.  I wonder.....

Anyway!

My poor niece. I only half-honestly wanted to steal her chubby, blue-eyed 5-month-old when we visited my family recently.  Smiley, beautiful bundle of love. Setbacks. Yea, they happen. 

And then I go to Walmart and see someone's unattended toddler playing in the bulk pinto beans and think to myself "Thank you, Lord, for making the best decision for me."

Often, lately, I am walking through the motions of gratitude.  I pretty much fake it,  but it's working, little by little. I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful. Grateful for the screaming infants in restaurants and grocery stores.  Grateful for the entitled teenagers. Grateful for this terrible, horrible sin infested world that I do NOT have to raise a baby in.  Grateful that I won't have to confront birth control or TV parental controls or any other controls. The compounding and overwhelming negatives (zeitgeist, cough, cough) are affording me a positive.  Thank you, Lord!

I am soooooo believable!

A Sam's Club Receipt Checker by Any Other Name

I have little melt-downs about once a day, but it's getting better. I need to stay away from "Teen Mom" and "16 and Pregnant" reruns during my recovery from the hysterectomy. Those shows in no way, shape, or form contribute anything positive to my recovery. In fact, they do nothing more than contribute to my pity party. They are the downfall of society in general, but I digress. Sometimes I don't need provocation to cry. I just cry.

Last summer, when we were going to adopt the baby (that was not to meant to be ours) we spent a good amount of time on names, of course. Well, I did. I would throw them out by the dozen to my husband, who primarily hated all of them. We had a few that we thought were "meh" but we finally settled on one. It was indeed a process. The baby had Mexican parents, but we didn't choose a name based on ethnicity. We chose a name that was sweet, cheerful, and not common. It was a nice name, not one of those weird, rare, attention-getting names, nor was it trendy. It was not an ethnic name, just a decent name that we were quite confident she would not share with many peers, especially not with peers of Mexican decent.

Imagine my shock when, upon having our receipt checked exiting Sam's last summer, I saw the name tag of this beautiful Hispanic girl in her teens with the same name we were going to give our baby girl.  Didn't we just choose this name? We got a good laugh at the time.  Since then, though, since the whole thing fell apart, seeing her has incited some pretty intense emotion.  I flash back to the first time we saw this girl, how strange it all was! How coincidental! Would our baby be pretty like this girl? Did her friends think her name was fitting or odd? Did she like her name?

I've seen her several times since the bad news in September. Now it's the "it wasn't meant to be" that I deal with, that I keep having to deal with.  The anger. The emptiness. The bitterness. She's so innocent in all this. I see her about every other time we go to Sam' Club, politely doing her job, making sure we weren't unloading any unpaid for electronics or what have you. She has no idea.  Her name. No idea.  I tear up, breathe, and move on. It's brief, over before we unload the cart.

I saw her yesterday.  I don't look for her when we go. We only go about twice a month. I'm not 3 weeks post op yet, so outings are still brief and a bit uncomfortable, but very much anticipated. We were headed towards that area between the bakery and the gourmet cheeses and the rotisserie chickens. And there she was, heading towards the back of the store. Probably for a break. It doesn't matter. I see her and it all floods back. This girl really has no idea.

Insert tearful breakdown here. Look at the bread. Act like you care about the bread.  Let's not freak out the customers. What ingredients does this loaf have? No one sees you cry. GET IT TOGETHER! Why does gluten have to be in everything?  You are pretending to shop for bread that you don't eat until you can regain control of yourself. Your husband wonders why you are looking at bread. You ask him "Did you see her?"  and he instantly knows why the bread has become important. Breathe. Look at the bread. Pretend to care about the bread. FOCUS. Pray for some peace in the moment.  Go get the rest of your groceries. Move on.

And get out before her break is over and she checks your receipt.

You Fought the Good Fight

I was supposed to evaluate a new client, a baby, last week. The family had something come up and we rescheduled for today. They needed to change it again, so we moved the appointment to Monday.  This morning at about 6:45 I got a call from the social worker that the baby passed away last night. This is the second time in my career that a baby passed away before I got to meet the family. The first time it happened, I lost 4 clients in about the same amount of weeks; one I had never met, one I had evaluated and was waiting for it to get healthy and out of the hospital to begin ongoing services, and two I'd seen a handful of times each.  I'm not sure why I'm sharing this exactly. Parents should never outlive their babies.  What a cruel and terrible thing to endure.

Loss is vicious, weather it's the loss of something you held in your arms, or the loss of something you will never have the opportunity to hold at all. I don't know which is worse.

Yesterday, my doctor said "You fought the good fight." This was after a very messy ultrasound to determine why I've been bleeding for 2 weeks, and a review of the volumes of history in my charts. I honestly thought he'd tell me it was another bad period.  A fibroid? Yea, I've had them before. Not a shock. They come, they go, they get burned off in surgery.  This one, about the size of a golf ball, is causing me to bleed, among other things.  For some reason, I never thought a fibroid would be the final straw.  Well, that, and "I can't find your right ovary. It probably shrunk because it's non-functional. That happens to women after menopause."

I thought I'd get to hold onto my parts for at least another 6 months before I had to contemplate this decision, and that my decision would be based on how much pain the endometriosis that is sure to rear its ugly head again was causing, and if I wanted to bother with yet another laparoscopy.  There is no time for that, since the bleeding will likely not stop, per the doc. The fibroid is likely calcifying and would be medication-resistant. It will continue to cause painful cycles, painful intercourse, stupid crazy bleeding, bowel and bladder issues, and block any minute chance that my questionable left ovary, assuming again, a miracle happens, could do its job (there are cysts in the lefty, anyway, so who knows if eggs exist, and if it would matter.)  And if it were to do its job, it would be fruitless anyway, since this particular golf ball that's taken up residence in my pelvic cavity would mess up any opportunity for a cozy 9-month nesting place.

Let's face it, I just turned 35.  I was hoping that a miracle would happen sometime before summer, since it's happened for so many of my friends at this very age. But, alas. No such miracle is in store for me. I've officially been smacked upside the head.  I will never conceive, nor give birth.  Perhaps another miracle is in the works, perhaps something amazing. Or perhaps the lesson is "This life is rough, and the next will be better. Hold onto that!"

Hold on, I shall!

A slotted spoon holds no soup.

What does that mean? And why did it pop into my head? I sure hope it doesn't indicate weeks of having songs from the Musical "Into the Woods" in my head for weeks.

The adoption did not work out, which was very difficult for me for a short time, and on and off since. And life goes on. 

A month and a half later, I threw myself head-first into being an emergency host family to a foreign exchange student losing her current placement. That fell through. I nearly cried. I was very excited, and absolutely fell in love with the girl and the idea.  My heart really wants to make a difference for a child, MY child, or, well, the child that God may or may not decide to loan me while i'm on this earth. God and I need to have a serious chat about what his plan is for me, regarding this need I have to bring children into my life, and the opportunities that flutter in and out like the wind, and that don't culminate in to what I want, but rather ways that He knows is best. 

We are considering hosting an exchange student, actually going through the process.  We have applied, and are awaiting results from the background check, which will be solid and clean. My husband worries about my and my delicate heart in this matter of children. Will I be able to send them back to Germany or Italy or Sweden without ultimate heartbreak? It's the reason we haven't persued adoption further at this time. I have difficulty seperating my head and my heart from let downs. I know all of the rationality of the outcome, and why things don't work out, and trust the "why" even if I hate it. The problem? I *feel* so hard and strong that it interrupts reality for me, if I let it.

Here again, I need to lean on my Daddy. My creator's plan is turning out to be vastly different for me than what I want and when I want it. He does know best.

I have a job that is impacting children and families daily through therapy.  This is good. God put them in my life so I can do his work... There are some interesting opportunities coming up. A charity organization for children in underdeveloped countries to receive the Gospel, that I will contribute to this year. This is good, as well.  Perhaps a student from abroad will land in my home in the near future. I want a girl, I won't lie. And I will be teaching young school-aged children at church this month. This is also good, but scares the crap out of me. My nieces and nephew blow me away. I'm so excited to be some kind of influence on them as they grow. I have 2 step kids that I was hoping to be able to "mother" in a certain way, but I just don't think they want or ever wanted the picture I envisioned for our relationships. This doesn't mean I stop wanting a closeness and a bond with them. But I am not their mother.

God has placed many, many children in my path that he clearly wants me to support, help, nurture, love.

And.

I can't help but continue to pray to Him that he grant me a miracle.

Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing,

but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Cliches galore going through my mind.
"God doesn't give you anything you can't handle."
"No one said life was fair."
"If it wasn't meant to be..."
"If you love someone, set them free..."

I suppose they come from somewhere. Comforting thoughts for people when life gets tough. I think Paul said it best though. No matter what happens,  God knows what's best for us. He already knows our needs and desires but to present them to him humbly through prayer, and to thank him for the outcome regardless of whether or not it is what we wanted or thought we needed is freeing.

I was whining to a friend the other night, which I often do about this or that difficult situation, and she reminded me that God is in control.  Well, yeah, I know that! I thought "And this helps me HOW? I want to DO something to make things BETTER! I want to KNOW the outcome! I want to have CONTROL! How am I supposed to WAIT when this situation is just NOT FAIR?!"  She said something to me, something I've heard a thousand times, even felt before, but haven't allowed myself to grasp lately, despite the pure simplicity of it. She said that it helps her relax knowing that she's not in control, that someone bigger than her is in charge, that she can go about her business, knowing her Father has it all under contol and that He knows what's best.

Oh. Yes, that's right! Well, that was easy.  Gee, I wonder why I didn't think of that before? Oh, well, I did in fact. I just didn't put it into motion. I have been telling myself, family and friends the same things: God is orchestrating this whole thing. God is in control. Apparently I didn't really believe it, or allow myself to feel it, because I've been a stressed out mess for weeks.

She also said something that I have been able to use the past few days. She said that when she was younger and would get mopey and depressed, her mother would tell her "It looks like you are thinking about yourself a little too much. Maybe you should go do something nice for someone and stop thinking about yourself so much."

Well, DUH. I've been tempted lately to cancel work, nap, generally avoid life. It's easy for me to sink into despair. I didn't really grow up with God, so there is a lot of "I-centered thinking" to undo. That little tip resonated with me, though. A reminder, once again, that "It is NOT about ME." I know it, I say it, but I FELT it that night. It was like "Ah.. peace. Something to implement!" God gave me some skills, some talents, and a great job. This is where my head is now. If I start to get mopey, I can go do something for someone else. I can serve. Heck, I could even do the dishes or laundry.  I can look at is as doing something for another, not for myself.

Maybe this isn't very profound or insightful for anyone else, but since Tuesday night, I am ok. No meltdowns for 2.5 days, and this is good.

So quit your whining. It's not about YOU either. Go do something nice for someone else.