Putting Down Roots

It has been quite a while since I last posted. Let's see, probably the best place to start is the trying to conceive aspect of our lives...

Following doctor's orders, we took a break from trying to get pregnant for a few months. The break was good for my body, but even better for my heart and soul. I didn't realize how hard the trying to conceive journey had become for me until I had a break from worrying about it for a while. When it was time to start trying again, I was in a much better place than before and I had a new resolve. I would give it a couple of months and then I would push as hard as I had to for additional tests.

I'm just so ready to turn this over to someone else to try to figure out for us. I don't know if I can describe to anyone what it's like to try for months on end to get pregnant. It really is a rollercoaster in and of itself. You spend the first few weeks of your cycle trying to psych yourself up into believing that "this is the month". Then, you have a window of a few days that you're expecting to ovulate and you worry about whether or not your fertility monitor was accurate and your timing was right. Then what's called "the two week window" begins - this is the time between ovulation and your expected period that you can't test and you just have to wait. I try very hard not to get my hopes up too high during this time anymore, but it's almost impossible... After all, you spend the first few weeks convincing yourself that this is "the month" so it's hard to talk yourself down from that. Add to that the emotional ups and downs of finding out you're finally pregnant and then finding out you miscarried... It's a lot to deal with. I can't wait to have someone with years of experience take this on. I've spent so much time trying to figure out my body and pinpoint what could be wrong and what we should do about it. I think I know more about my cycle than anyone ever should at this point but I know these doctors are going to figure it all out for us. And then we'll have a plan for the next 3-6 months. I absolutely can not wait for that part. It will really feel like we're on the right track then and not just guessing.

The past few months have brought about a few other changes. First and foremost, my 36 year-old brother found out he has significant heart problems and actually underwent open-heart surgery 2 weeks ago. It was the shock of a lifetime to find out that he was sick! And to be so young and need open-heart surgery was almost too much for any of us to comprehend. People were praying for him all over the world and God saw him through the surgery and is now seeing him through the recovery. Everyone has been amazed with how quickly he's bouncing back from this. If you knew my brother, you wouldn't be surprised at all because he's pretty amazing himself. Finding all this out, has given me the kick in the pants I needed to change my life. He and I knew that with the heart problems on my father's side of the family we would have to be careful - we just had no idea it could affect us this early. I've been wanting to take better care of myself for a while now but with everything else going on, I just never made it a priority. Now, I realize I have no time to waste. I have completely changed how I eat and I'm slowly working up to more strenuous exercise. This isn't just a diet, it's my new life. It's not easy, but much easier than I ever imagined it would be now that I've seen how urgent the need is. I will also be going to see a cardiologist so that any problems can be caught early. It's scary but I want to live to be very old with my husband and this is just what I have to do.

The other big event is that Lewis and I bought a house. :) It's actually the house we've been living in since we moved here 3 years ago so we didn't even have to move! We have been renting it from Lewis's parents -who live across the street - this whole time and we were content with that because we kept thinking we may want to relocate and wanted to keep our options open. We knew his dad wanted to sell the house within the next 6 months but we still weren't convinced that this was the right house for us. Then after everything that happened in August, we started thinking about where we want to live when we have our babies and we realized that we do really love it here. We actually love living across the street from Lew's parents and we also love all the room this house has. The house does need a few cosmetic improvements but nothing major. We are very excited about being homeowners and look forward to all the stuff that goes along with that! And hopefully, we'll start filling up the extra rooms soon. ;)

For me personally, it just feels really good to finally put down some roots here. For the past 3 years, everything from my job to this house has felt temporary. We moved here for Lewis to finish school and we made no commitment to stay. I think that was mostly because neither of us was sure how I would adjust to being so far from my family. I still have a hard time with that some days, but overall, I have grown to love living here. Now that I know this is something more than temporary, it feels like it's the beginning of a very exciting new phase in my life and I couldn't be sharing it with a more amazing man!