Living in Hope-- in the Midst of Infertility

I have been thinking about this post for over a week now. I have written it in my head a dozen times- each time it is different. It seems every day there is something different that I would want to share, but the overwhelming drive behind this post is to expound on how it is even possible to live in hope during infertility. I am not going to give a timeline or go into detail about the medical part about our infertility journey in this post. I will save that for another day. This entry is about how what seemed impossible (having hope during infertility) not only became possible, but currently is my life.

NOTE: "IF" is the abbreviation for "infertility". So if you see "IF" in my writing, you now know what it means.

Decisions to start a family are all about hope-- hoping for pregnancy to occur, hoping for a boy, hoping for a girl, hoping that you have a baby in the Spring, hoping that you will be a good parent, hoping that your children won't have any disabilities. It's scary and exciting. These hopes are also very personal and dear to the heart-- usually the most precious of these hopes are only shared between partners, although I'm sure no one shares all their hopes even with their partner. I'm sure there are people that find it more scary than exciting, but for me and Andy, our decision to start a family was full of hope and we were excited!

I don't know if I can explain how it feels to be told that all these hopes may never come to pass without ART (assistive reproductive technology-- read more here). I have never experienced any other situation that caused me an emotional response that this news provided. I was grieved, disappointed, discouraged, lost, depressed, in despair, frightened, and angry-- just to name a few of the intense emotions I felt. All those hopes I had when we decided to go off the birth control and begin planning for a baby had been replaced by worry and stress as we went over a year with no success, but being told not only were we BOTH infertile but that we have significantly less than 1% of a chance of getting pregnant on our own was a horse of another color. You cannot understand it unless you've been there-- and even then everybody experiences it differently as every person and every story is different.

I can tell you how I experienced the despair this brought about:

• random bursting out in tears in privacy, at work, in the car, at the doctor's office, etc
• intense jealousy whenever I saw a pregnant woman, heard a story about how easy it was for so-and-so to get pregnant, etc
• bitterness and resentfulness whenever I heard someone complain about being pregnant "again" or tell me "you're young, don't worry" or "just relax" or "just adopt"
• panic attacks before baby showers
• fighting with Andy
• anger whenever I heard someone talk about how they would be willing to have a baby and give it to so-and-so who is infertile (as if that will just fix things?)
• stopped attending church on a regular basis as church seemed to make everything worse (in reality I was also mad at God)

The good things I did were:

• I joined a local infertility support group (if you are currently undergoing infertility and live in the San Diego area, please check us out at http://sandiegocookies.proboards.com. If you live elsewhere, Resolve.org has lists of local infertility support groups).
• I began to be open about my journey
• I started therapy
• I began spending my alone time telling God exactly how I felt, no matter how negative the emotion
• I began setting boundaries to avoid the painful situations I could not handle

About a year ago, I realized that when I thought about who I am the first thing I thought was "infertile". I decided that I WOULD NOT LET INFERTILITY DEFINE ME. I would not live in despair as that was not fair to me. Just because Andrew and I are infertile, does not mean that all of the other good things in my life are any less good. I began to work really hard at following through with all the "homework" my counselor gave me. I began to focus on the good things and talk to God about the good He has put in my life. I began to see opportunity. I began to nurture my inner child. I continued to be active online in my IF support group even though I stopped going to meetings. Andy and I decided to take a year off of all IF related things and were able to interact simple as a newly married couple and actually RELAXED and had FUN! All this revealed to me that there is so much hope-- even in my situation. I have a God who is hope and loves me! I have a husband who loves me and is always there for me. There is more to me and more in store for me-- even if I never have a child, even if Andy and I decide to be childfree!

My life has been changed because of hope. Of course, I still have moments where the sadness and grief overwhelm me. When I heard my brother was having a baby, I was so excited for him and immediately loved the baby. However, my sense of loss was great. The losses I thought about included:

• my not having a baby
• my not having a cousin to give this nephew to be and maybe never being able to give him one
• being unable to give my brother and sister in law of any advice or words of wisdom as they start this part of their journey
• potential loss of any shared parenting experience alongside my brother and sister in law in the future (e.g. never having the opportunity to take our children to Disneyland or camping together, never having a chance to exchange parenting stories, no future opportunity to exchange hand me down clothes, this list could go on and on)
• continued empty womb and empty arms with no promise they would ever be filled

Once I was dealt with my grief for a few days, I was reminded again that my loss does not mean the good things in my life are any less good. Just because I experienced loss, does not mean remove any of the love and excitement that I have about my nephew that will be born in October. Once I remembered this  I began making items for the baby and was able to focus my attention to him (I think I will refer to him as Miller Mouse until I know what his name will be- a reference to a nick-name my brother gave himself around age 3). I was able to focus my attention on how good of a father my brother will be, on how great an aunt my sister will be, how nice it will be to have the Miller family name continue on, etc... Now the loss is diminished so I don't notice it. I am so filled with joy, excitement, and HOPE about Miller Mouse's arrival. I am looking forward to being an aunt and see possibility and good things. October can't come fast enough!

Living in Health-- Weight Loss

One way living in hope has impacted me is to allow me to look down the road and see a future full of possibility. Because of this, I decided to take my weight issues seriously, make an investment in ME and get to work! I signed up for Kaiser San Diego's Positive Choice full fasting weight loss program. In this post, I am going to talk about my program so when/if I refer to it in future posts, you will understand what I am referring too.

My program:
The program that I choose is the Full Fasting program. One of the major reasons I choose this program is because one of it's components in psychological related-- we discuss the reasons WHY we eat, and it can get pretty nitty gritty! I decided that if I am going to change my life and live in hope for the future, I needed to not only get serious about losing weight, but also about doing the psychological work needed to change my thinking and therefore change my way of relating to food.

In this program, you stop eating food and only take their supplement meal replacement shakes and soups. The brand of supplements is call Nutrimed and they are all tasty! I started on shakes on April 2, 2015. My weight at the beginning of the program was 215 lbs. Last Wednesday when I weighed in, the scale said 180.5 lbs! I am anticipating seeing around a 3 lb weight loss this week.

I thought I would post some pictures so you can see the difference. The older picture is not high quality because it was taken at my first weight loss appointment and printed on paper.

March 23- 215 lbs

May 20- 180.5 lbs

This diet has been changing my life- inside and outside! I have a much better understanding of WHY I struggle with my weight and this can only help me!

This diet is very low calorie and I am losing my weight very fast (at least until this point). This is a medically monitored weight loss program, which means that you have access to medical staff whenever needed.

This turned out great for me, because about 4 weeks ago I noticed that when I worked out I was getting light headed in the afternoon. I am terrified of passing out while holding a patient or while driving, so I immediately called and spoke to the P.A. As a result, I started taking an extra shake (from 5 shakes to 6 shakes).

After a few weeks, that wasn't cutting it and I was still feeling light headed. Blood tests were run to see if there might be other reasons I was feeling light headed, but it turns out I simply needed more calories (apparently this happens to taller patients that loose very quickly). So now I am able to eat 3 lean protein exchanges AND my 6 shakes. If you are interested in seeing what the exchanges are check out this link: NIH Food Exchange Lists.

This has been a great lesson for me-- in the past, as a result of my depressed and hopeless outlook I wouldn't have called and just "dealt" with the light headedness no matter the consequences. My outlook would have been "What's the use? They aren't going to take me seriously." Instead I thought "Why wouldn't I talk to them about it? They can tell me if it's something to worry about or not. If it's not great! If it is, then it will be addressed. If I don't speak up, it definitely won't be addressed!" The results speak for themselves-- not only was I taken seriously, but I got to eat more food as a result!

Since today was a holiday, I took pictures of my meals so you might be able to understand it better. I will have one more shake later on this evening. I doubled up at dinner because I had a late start today and didn't want to have my 6th shake at 11pm.

Breakfast 8am - 3 egg whites, 1 chocolate shake mix
 I used hot water to make Hot Chocolate- so yummy!

Lunch 11am- 2 oz seared scallops (no oil) and 1 Wildberry Shake

Afternoon snack 2pm- Bowl of Bouillon and Wildberry Shake
I only had the bouillon because we had just come back from a walk and I wanted something for hydration that wasn't a water, diet soda, or a shake.

Dinner 5pm- Bowl of Nutrimed Tomato Soup and "Chai Tea Latte"
(Chai Tea with the Vanilla Shake mix)

So far, not only has this program helped me lose weight, but it has brought me a better understanding of myself and encouraged me to look a deep issues. I think one of the most important lessons I've learned is to understand how I define success and to take a look at my definition of success and see if it makes sense. For so long I've held myself to impossible standards and felt unsuccessful despite having accomplished much. Changing the way I view success (mostly by lowering my unrealistic standards and acknowledging all I have accomplished) has not only helped me with this weight loss, but I can see it affecting my professional life as well! To God be the glory!

Living in Hope

Once upon a time there was a girl who looked at the world through depressed, hopeless eyes. Her life was changed when, after much individual counseling, group therapy, lots of reading, and much prayer and support, the depression lifted and she realized she not only had reason to hope, but could LIVE IN HOPE.

This girl, of course, was me. I have decided to write this blog to share the hope I live in. I was depressed from when I was 14 years old until last year-- I CANNOT express what a change having hope has had on my psyche, my physical being, my relationships, my work and my spiritual self. I have realized that THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE. I do not fool myself thinking that I will never have a hopeless moment or times I want to throw the towel in, but I know now I can come through it. I recognize that life continues to have difficulty, but I know now I can navigate it and will be blogging about that. Please join me!




Romans 5:3-5

3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.