Zero babies and another trip to Europe

(This is a pic from Ljubljana, Slovenia that Dillon recovered after I deleted them all!)

That's right, still not pregnant.  And yes, we are heading to Europe again this next spring.  We found some more crazy cheap tickets and couldn't pass it up.  This time we will be going with Dillon's parents and one of his sisters, for 2.5 weeks to Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.  I'm really excited to go back!

It's nice to have something really awesome to look forward to now that we've gone through a few rounds of unsuccessful fertility treatment.  We will take a break from treatment and try on our own again for a while since, in our case, the next treatment option is IVF (in vitro fertilization) and that is like 4 trips to Europe--at least how we travel ;).

We would like to get a second opinion and see if we can get a better diagnosis, rather than just the unexplained stamp we've got.  Since the treatment we did (hyper-ovulation, trigger shot, and timed to a "T" IUI) worked perfectly but with no pregnancy results, it's looking more and more like there is a legitimate problem that is underlying.

My favorite fertility website (is is it weird that I just said that? But seriously, some sites have info that I swear was written by a 4th grader from a developing country...) gives a good breakdown of what "unexplained" actually means and points out that there are actually hundreds of things that have to go right in order to get pregnant, but that we are only measuring and testing a few of those things--partly because some of the things can't be measured and some can only be measured during the process of IVF.  This leaves a whole lot of room for guesswork.

I'll be honest though, I've had it pretty easy through this entire process.  It hasn't been as hard on me emotionally as I know it is for a lot of women.  Maybe because it's only been 22 months and not 10 years, maybe because it's not the hardest thing I've ever gone through--there have been a few things much, much harder--maybe because I've got such good perspective ;) (ha, super joke, because I've said to Dillon more than one time,"Why can't God just do what I want?!" and then heard in my mind "Are you doing what I want...?" So, touche). But really, sometimes I wonder what could be coming our way since this isn't really as hard as it could be.

Now here comes the religious part ;)

I like the quote "Just because God is smiling on someone else doesn't mean He is raining on you." This is a philosophy that helps me when everyone else seems to get pregnant--especially those little teenagers. I don't subscribe to the 'destiny' attitude of "it'll happen when it's supposed to" because was a thirteen year old really "supposed to" get pregnant?  A lot of the time things just happen--because of our actions and the actions of others. What I do believe is that God guides and directs us--He really is in the details of our lives and we need to have faith in Him and His timing, but He also gives us freedom of choice and doesn't dictate everything.

I am 100% certain that God is aware of us and our situation, and knew before we did that there would be a problem for us.  We were going to wait to have kids until the fall after our first anniversary.  But then, right after our first Christmas--six months into our marriage--I felt strongly we needed to start much sooner.  So we did. I am lucky to have married a man who trusted me and that feeling, and has trusted other feelings I've had as well, and then gone on to confirm those things for himself.  We definitely thought that prompting meant we would actually have the kids sooner ;) but I am so glad that we listened.  We would be so much farther away from our goal of kids, and I sure wouldn't have gone to Europe that first time, nor would we be going again.  Our life together is so so good.

With each step of this process we have felt guidance and the comfort of doing what we felt we were supposed to be doing.  We have tried to use this as an opportunity to have more faith, become more tenderhearted, and gain more empathy. We have seen so many blessings in our lives and have felt the love and support of our family and friends who pray for us and who send us all the most positive vibes the world has to offer.  I think that is the real reason why we are doing as well as we are.  So thank you for helping us with this small bump in the road.

And Merry Christmas!!!