Thoughts

I got this in an email today and liked it, thought I would share. (By the way, I took the picture shown above, and I am so proud of my amazing photography skills to capture not one, but two beautiful butterflies in this photograph!) =)

'To get something you never had, you have to do something you never
did.'

When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing
you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better.

'The will of God will never take you
where the Grace of God will not protect you.'

Exciting News-A New Family Member!

I am happy to announce that hubbie and I recently adopted a new family member--pause for suspense and anticipation...Gus! We came across the opportunity to take in this adorable, dark-brindle, 13 week old English Mastiff. He is so cute and absolutely, 100% puppy. Gimli wasn't too sure what to think of him at first. We took Gimli to go look at the puppy because if they didn't get along, it wasn't going to happen. They played and had so much fun. Then we loaded up the puppy in the car to take home. Suddenly Gimli was like "I wouldn't have played with him if I had known he was coming home with us!" And Gimli wasn't too happy because one of the puppy's boxes was on his seat in the car and the puppy got to ride up front because there wasn't room for him, his stuff, and Gimli in the back. So, at first, Gimli was kind of cold to Gus. He tried to ignore him as much as possible. But he's warmed up to him. Gimli has taken on the role of big brother and has this 'no-one-picks-on-him-except-me' attitude. And Gus idolizes Gimli-he follows him everywhere he goes and mimics him. It's cute. Except the other day we got some late-winter snow (hopefully the last of it for this season) and Gus was frolicking and romping through the snow having a good time until Gimli bull-dozed him then used his paws to roll Gus through the snow until he was a little puppy-snowball. What Gimli doesn't understand is that while he is around 125 lbs., Gus's dad was 180 lbs. and Gus is going to be really, really big very soon.
Anyway, it's been nice having some puppy-love in the house. We're so excited! And if you don't hear from me for awhile, it's because puppy-training is a 24 hour job!

Sounds like Life to Me

So the other day I was driving home from work after a fairly stressful day. My head was spinning with what I had to do that day, what I didn't get done, what I still needed to do, what went wrong...and this song came on the radio. The chorus really stuck out to me as a reminder that all of this is what life is. I think sometimes I get so focused on the ups and downs of life that I forget that it's the ups and downs of a roller coaster that make it a ride. If a roller coaster just went straight with no risks, no thrills, would anyone stand in line for that? With that in mind, I'm going to start enjoying the ride more!
Here's the lyrics to the song Sounds Like Life to Me:
( Darryl Worley, Wynn Varble, Phil O’Donnell )
Got a call last night from an old friend’s wife
Said I hate to bother you
Johnny Ray fell off the wagon
He’s been gone all afternoon-
I know my buddy so I drove to Skully’s
And found him at the bar
I said "hey man, what’s going on?"
He said "I don’t know where to start-
Sarah’s old car’s about to fall apart
And the washer quit last week
We had to put momma in the nursing home
And the baby’s cutting teeth
I didn’t get much work this week
And I got bills to pay."
I said, "I know this ain’t what you wanna hear
But it’s what I’m gonna say...
(Chorus)
Sounds like life to me,
it ain’t no fantasy
It’s just a common case of everyday reality
Man, I know it’s tough but you gotta suck it up
To hear you talk you’re caught up in some tragedy
It sounds like life to me."

Well his face turned red and he shook his head
He said, "you don’t understand
Three kids and a wife depend on me
And I’m just one man
To top it off I just found out
That Sarah’s 2 months late."
I said, "hey bartender set us up a round
We need to celebrate!"

(Chorus)
Sounds like life to me,
plain old destiny
Yeah the only thing for certain is uncertainty
You gotta hold on tight just enjoy the ride
Get used to all this unpredictability
Sounds like life...
Man, I know its tough but you gotta suck it up
To hear you talk you’re caught up in some tragedy
Sounds like life to me
Sounds like life

Regrets

Early this morning, a little before 7:00 a.m., I was in the hospital room as my uncle took his last breath. My brother called me a little before midnight the previous night that my uncle had been taken to the hospital, and that it didn't look good. My uncle has stage 4 melanoma cancer that started in his right arm and quickly spread through out his body. He tried several treatments, including some very harsh chemotherapy, but eventually the doctors began talking of quality of life rather than length. I realized today that my uncle, my dad's only brother and the baby of a family of 6 children, was only 9 years older than me. Most of the family spent the entire night by his bed, none of us really sleeping for fear that he would slip away when we weren't looking. He fought a great battle last night, struggling with every breath to breathe one more time. He was in a coma, the entire time, since he was being kept on morphine and because of the many blood clots rupturing in his brain. I was intrigued and frightened to watch the death process happen in what seemed slow motion as his body began to systematically shut down. I've never actually been in the room when someone has died. I've seen the last struggle to continue breathing as I watched my grandparents die, but have never been in the room when a person takes one last, struggled breath, and then silence. What surprised me was in that few seconds of silence as we waited to see if he would draw another breath, I felt such an overpowering force of love that I knew that my uncle had just been welcomed into the arms of a loving brother and Savior. It was just a few seconds, but what a powerful feeling of love! A love that confirmed to me that the old cliche 'he's in a better place now' really is true. The heartbreaking thing is that he leaves behind an 18 year old and 15 year old son. My uncle was divorced and the younger son ended up closer to his mom (they just returned here from living in Germany for a few years), but my uncle is extremely close to his older son. They have got through the tough times in life together and have been best friends. As someone noted today, my cousin not only lost his father but his security, his best friend, his everything today. My cousin has some difficulties-I think some anxieties disorders or something. Although he will graduate from high school this spring, he is still so young mentally and emotionally. Fortunately, my parents are going to take him in, and I know that they will take good care of him.

Anyway, my aunts asked me to put together a slideshow for his funeral. At some time last night I heard someone mention that my uncle had an account on MySpace. So, just a little bit ago, I looked him up to try to get an idea of the style of the slideshow and what music he liked. I have been estranged (is that the right word?) from my uncle for a long time, and right now I'm feeling such guilt. Reading his profile and looking at his favorite things and reading his blog, I realize how much we have in common and how many things we could have talked about and enjoyed together. Opportunities missed. What really broke my heart was on the blog entry in October when he announced his diagnosis with cancer, there were no comments. No encouragement to be strong, no sympathy...nothing. Now I realize that I can't be aware of every blog out there or anything like that, but I wish someone would have. And I wish I could have found that opportunity to reach out to him.

So, I guess, to close this entry, I'll just end with a few words for my Uncle:
First, I know you made some mistakes.
I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago.
Know that I really do love you.
And I'm sorry I waited so long to say that.

Infertility in the Media

So I've noticed lately that there seems to be more and more infertility on TV. I think there's pros and cons to this. Pro-finally infertility is beginning to 'come out of the closet' and not be seen as something to be ashamed of. It gives a little bit of balance to Hollywood's baby craze of recent years. Con-sometimes it's kind of hard to watch people dealing with infertility on TV when you're living it everyday. And sometimes when infertility isn't dealt with realistically, it tends to make me kind of angry. For example, one of my favorite shows is Ghost Whisperer. Sidenote: Hubbie isn't generally very much into television while I am very much into watching TV. Generally, he doesn't watch shows with me, but every once-in-awhile I can get him to watch the Ghost Whisperer with me-mainly because he thinks Jennifer Love Hewitt is hot and she often runs around scantily clad while talking to ghosts. I'm not sure if this is a win situation, but I do get to cuddle with Hubbie and watch my fave show, so I guess I'll accept my losses and move on!
Anyway, back to infertility and the Ghost Whisperer. So Melinda (Hewitt) and her husband have finally decided to try to start a family. For the first few seasons, Melinda wasn't too keen on having children-she had some unresolved issues, one of which was how to deal with seeing dead people and having a baby at the same time. But then they started to try and get pregnant but were having difficulties. Then all of a sudden, in one of the episodes, Melinda finds out that there is a pill that she can take that will make it possible for her to have a baby. So after that episode, I felt a little angry with the writers because they made it too easy. And I worried that maybe some other women dealing with infertility would get more frustrated with their situation because it wasn't that easy. I know, I know, it's just a show, but these are the things that go through my mind (to think I watch TV to relax. Ha!). So this is what I was thinking, and I was getting ready to give up my Ghost Whisperer addiction, but then I decided to give it one more chance and in the next episode, they kill off Melinda's husband. Then I was extremely angry because just when things were going to get better for her, she was going to be able to have a baby...it was a low blow. And then I was fuming. She's been dealing with dead people's problems for years now and then infertility and then they kill her husband?! Why do they have to be so hard on the poor girl? Have the writers no mercy? If you haven't figured it out by now, I think I'm a nutcase. These are truly the thoughts that go through my head at any given moment...sad.

Let us move on to other examples of infertility in the media. The Practice deals with quite a few infertility issues since that's what some of the doctors do on that show. But I don't watch that show very often...it's up against another show that I love. And I've heard that on a certain soap opera there's been a some different infertility issues with some of the characters. I've just heard this from a friend of a friend, mind you. I would never waste my time watching that mindless, trashy stuff. Though if I did occassionally catch a couple of hours, I would have to admit that I find Sonny from GH very sexy...or so my friend of a friend thinks, anyway.

Well, the other day I was watching another one of my addictions, ER, and they have one of the doctors going through infertility. She lost a young child a few years back and she and her husband have just begun to try to have a baby. Because she is older, her chances were pretty slim, so she decided to go with IVF. This past week she went through the egg retrieval. It was heart wrenching because she told her husband that if it was bad news she wanted to hear it from him. And so just when she wakes up from the anesthetics, her husband comes and holds her and breaks the news to her that the retrieval was unsuccessful. The acting was incredible-I recognized the pain she was portraying. I know that hurt. I had to remind myself, again, that it's just a show so that I wouldn't do something crazy like send a letter of condolesences, a tub of icecream, and giant stuffed animal off to Angela Bassett (the actor who plays Dr. Banfeld).

Anyway, now you know what's in my head. I could go on and on. I haven't even touched on movies yet...Baby Mama...Juno...but I think I'll call it a night!

New Year's Resolution 1032: Be a Better Blogger.

Wow...I just noticed that it has almost been a month since my last entry. I have many excuses, but no reasons really. Every year I forget how crazy December and January can be for me. I had so many wonderful things I was going to write too. I had Christmas carols for the infertile...

Have yourself a very fertile Christmas...

I'm dreaming of a fertile Christmas,
Just like the ones the other girls know...

To name a few. I had rantings and ravings about this and that. I wanted to write poetry and inspirational stuff. But, alas, time flew by and here I am too tired to really remember what I wanted to write about when I began this entry a few minutes ago. Oh well.
As for the baby-front: I'm trying to decide whether or not I should do another laparoscopy. I'm planning on doing my 4th and final round of IVF this summer and really want everything to be in tip top shape. And my periods have been getting more and more painful like they were in the past. If I decide to do it, I should probably do it soon so that I'll be ready for the summer. But then part of me remembers the last time...the worst part is the gas they fill you up with. And I remember the first time I woke up at home and tried to use the bathroom...not a pleasant memory. And then I feel a little guilty because my poor husband sacrifices so much. For example, he has this dumb broken tooth that he keeps putting off getting fixed because I tend to use up all the money for my medical bills. But then I think that if this is really going to be my last try at IVF, I really want to know that I did everything in my power to make things work. Maybe I should just talk to my doctor and see what he thinks...
For now I think I just need to go to bed.

Be Nice, Infertile Myrtle! Be Nice!

The crazy, bitter Infertile Myrtle of yesterday has now left the building. Children, it is safe to come out of hiding now...
Like I said, I figured I would be over it soon enough, and I am. And actually I have been taught a lesson. See, after my ranting and raving yesterday, I went to bed. Hubbie had already gone to bed and was completely hogging the covers. (Generally, I'm the one hogging the covers, so I'm not holding this against him)! Being a sometimes-good person and seeing how cute Hubbie looked snoring away all wrapped up in 4-layers of blankets (a 4-layer dip, haha), I decided to make do with this little blanket I affectionately call my woobie. Apparently, some time in the middle of the night however, I found myself freezing cold, didn't feel like a good person anymore, and Hubbie wasn't looking so cute, so I attempted to reach over and steal away some of the covers. Well, as I was trying to steal the covers, somehow I managed to pinch a nerve or something which actually caused me to yelp in pain. Then when I woke up in the morning I discovered that it had gotten worse. Now trying to hold anything heavier than 2 ounces causes this spot just under my right shoulder blade to throb with pain or also doing anything small with my right hand (like brushing my teeth or hair, or even typing) also causes sharp pains in that spot. And I can't run around flapping my arms like a bird. I don't know how I possibly could have caused such damage by just trying to steal a blanket or two, so my conclusion is that this is punishment for the mean things I said yesterday. Lesson learned: Being mean is literally a pain in the neck!
But don't worry about me being in pain, dear readers, as long as I can still reach out and bring handfuls of the yummy treats to my mouth that neighbors and friends have given me so far, I'll be okay!