Where Have I Been?

It's been a bit since I posted. I haven't really been around here much, as I've placed my energy elsewhere lately.

My health. Taking that darn antibiotic for 21 days to treat my TEBB sucked! We had bad breath non-stop, and Kris Kringle had bad digestive issues. Hopefully, that did the trick for with the TEBB. I took a round of progesterone shots to start a cycle, and then I took my first round of Femara on CD 3. I was hellacious on it - several fights with KK that were just ridiculous. I was in rare form, and it was awful. I had a pretty decent round of fertile CM, no random bleeding like last cycle, but here it is, P+22 (CD 40-something, 50-something?) with no AF. I took a pregnancy test on P+16 and it was negative (naturally, I had no hope for anything else because I had 0 symptoms).

So, I was supposed to let the doctor's office know where I was at this Monday to probably get a pregnancy test (ha) and start another round of progesterone, but right now, I'm just waiting until mid-December. We have other stuff to focus on right now, and I really don't want to be on crazy fertility drugs during the holiday season. I'm due for my well-woman's visit in mid-December, so I think I'll take that opportunity to talk to Dr. K about where we are with TTC and how we can continue to work on my health without focusing on TTC anymore.

Adoption. We took a big step yesterday on Thanksgiving and announced our adoption plans to the world through Facebook. We made a cute little video that we posted after a week of teasers that we had a big announcement. Some folks made a few comments about it being a pregnancy, which we sort of asked for in a way, but all but one of them really had no idea we were struggling with IF. The wave of love that came from our networks when we released the video was incredible! There was tons of support and few folks let us know how adoption was a part of their story - we had no idea! If you would like to follow our journey on Facebook and our other blog that reveals our identities, please send an email to half.full.of.grace@gmail.com (remove all the dots before the @). I would like to keep this blog somewhat anonymous.

We have our last home study visit on Monday, and once all our background checks come back, we'll be done with that important step. Then, our agency needs to review the home study, and we have to get a few more references in order to comply with other states' requirements. We aren't sure when we'll go live, but we're hoping for February.

One thing that will impact how quickly we can go live is how well we can save money in the next few months. We put our house in the Kansas City area back on the market in early October. We've had a lot of showings and finally had a second showing (our first one) earlier this week. We are praying to St. Joseph to intercede and help us sell the house. If we can't get it sold or rented, we will be paying rent in Nebraska and a mortgage, and our adoption saving will pretty much grind to a halt.

It's funny how because adoption has become our new hope and our new focus, IF isn't bothering me a ton right now. Sure, I've had "flare ups" of emotion here and there (a "friend" who knows about our struggles told me in a very insensitive way that they are pregnant through IVF and I didn't take that very well), but all in all, the home study process and designing our new blog has really shifted my energy to a different process, a different journey. We know this path will be challenging and rewarding in its own, unique way, and we truly believe God has brought us here. This is our fiat, and we're going to try our best to embrace it.