Class of 2025

This is Mrs. Melissa with the preschool class of 2025 on the first day! I started out having them call me Mrs. Skindlov but that was pretty hard for them. So, I quickly became Mrs. Melissa. This was published in the Mountaineer, the local Big Sandy newspaper. I later realized that I forgot to have parents sign a release saying their child could be in the newspaper but by then it was too late. No complaints yet! These are the little ones I spend my Tuesday and Thursday mornings with. The ones who try me, make me annoyed, and bring me joy and excitement! They are frustrating and fun! There are 13 of them and me. No helper. I have my hands full. Yesterday 3 were absent from the class and I have to admit, having 10 was so much more peaceful...but 13 plus the teacher we will be!

Parenthood take 3

Well, last night on Parenthood, a baby was born and a baby was given. One more little one was added to the Braverman clan, and one was promised. Adam (the oldest Braverman Son, a main character) and his wife Christina (another main character), gave birth to their third child, a little girl named Norah. The entire family was there to greet her. Another sweet moment was with the latte lady. Remember how she said no to Julia because she wants a closed adoption for her baby? Last night she changed her mind. She offered her baby to Julia and family. In the hospital, as Julia asked to hold little Norah my heart was breaking, I could feel her longing for the same thing. And later, as the latte lady showed up at her doorstep I cried along with Julia as responded with a simple "yes." She gets a little baby boy, not yet born, but I suppose that is coming up soon.
I also cried yesterday as I was watching the show Make it or Break it (about gymnasts) and the best gymnast, the one destined to win olympic gold (yes, I know this is all fake), suffered a career ending injury. Career ending? I saw her crushed as she tried to deal with a dream dying and I saw her find hope when she thought maybe another doctor would be able to help her and her dream would stay alive. Only to have it dashed again. In a weird sort of way I think my tears were because I don't want our dream to die. I want to have babies. I want to believe. I don't want our dream to die. As often as I have given up on it and thought it impossible, I don't want it to die. I don't know how we would handle that.

Birthdays

We have 2 birthdays coming up at our house. Birthdays used to be fun a and we excitedly anticipated them. Now they scare us. It's one more year older without kids. When I turned 30 we made a list of things to do at 30 and one of them was get pregnant. We still have that list somewhere in a box and every once in a while it surfaces. And it ticks us off. We had the same goal when I turned 29, we wanted me to be pregnant in my 20's, then at year 30, and now I will be 33 and even though the doctors say that's not too old, every day is one more day towards being too old. Neither one of us is getting any younger! And it sucks. Maybe it's time to abandon, or throw away, lists and dreams. Maybe that would make it easier. If we didn't want, we wouldn't feel all of this pain.

We will have cake though and a homemade latte and try to do something fun for our back to back birthdays (even though Joel has meetings both nights!). I might even make a cake for each church to have the Sunday before Joel's birthday that says "Happy Birthday Pastor Joel" because I think he would like that and I think the congregations would get a real kick out of it!

Punishment?

I don't think I have ever really written about this...but it's something that is often talked about at our house. The question is, are we being punished? We have a lot of debt. I am looking for a second job so we can afford to live...so are the decisions we have made that got us this debt, the reason we cannot have a child? Is God punishing us? We ask each other this all the time and the answer we give is no. Our God is not a punishing God...but seriously, the more this won't go away, the more we think we might be being punished. I have heard a lot of times over the years people say "if you wait until you can afford kids, you will never have them." We tried adoption and were told we didn't make enough money, or that we couldn't afford to. We tried fertility treatments and just ended up with a bill. In both endeavors we thought God was leading us...and all we ended up with was financial trouble. This is all so darn frustrating. And we can't help thinking maybe we are being punished. This will not go away. Why can't it just be easy? Why can't we just use an ovulation test kit, try, and get pregnant. Why won't that happen for us? Are we being punished? That's what it feels like. It sort of feels like God is not on our side. It doesn't make any sense to us. It scares us a lot. It's lonely. And sometimes we are even really angry.

Billings...err...Bozeman

We're going for a consultation with a fertility doctor on October 20th at 1:45pm in Bozeman (I think, she does appts. both places, i'll know more when we get our info packet). When I called to schedule the appointment at first it was awkward and I started to freak out. I do this said freaking out when calling a doctor's office isn't easy. The lady who I was talking to seemed a bit confused as to why I was calling. She eventually asked if I had been referred, maybe that was why she was acting strange? I told her about Mayo and how the doc there said we should call them. She perked up then and was very helpful. It was actually really easy after that to get an appointment. I picked the date and had 3 times to choose from.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful for this opportunity, but here are some thoughts I am having: this is a lot of work. We have to gather records, call doctors, ask for records, find all of our mayo stuff, fight (again) with healthpartners in Minnesota (they do not like record requests), and the worst...go for another consultation. Start all over with someone else. Listen to options, get scared, sad, confused, mad, worried, try not to cry, try to be realistic and not get caught up in the moment...etc. It's hard. And a little part of me doesn't want to go through with it all. More hormones? More trying to figure out who in the state of Montana even carries fertility medicine, more figuring out the calendar and if we can even do treatments based on our work schedules and if we can afford (insurance covers part of it but there is still so much financially that goes into this) going for treatments. It all makes me sad and tired. And to be honest we might even cancel the appointment if it weren't for being curious about how they can really help us living 265 miles away and more importantly wanting to talk to someone who will understand my thyroid and it's problems and it's levels and the metformin prescription that I am on and that expires soon. For all nerves that feeling about going to this appointment, I will do it all, twice, three times, four if it means not going to a non-fertility specialist doctor here who will not understand my meds and how to help us. I did that in Williston. They messed up, I am not doing that again, ever. At least not without the direction of the fertility doctor in Bozeman or our trusty Mayo doctor.

An update on the TV Latte Lady

Lady week, the character, Julia, who wanted to "buy" the latte lady's baby asked her if she could, "will you let me adopt your baby?" she asked after an episode of buying lots of coffee and helping the latte lady with a legal landlord situation (for free of course). The latte lady's answer? "No". What? No? Crushing disappointment, awkwardness, sadness. And no more coffee. Last night we found Julia avoiding the latte lady, not drinking coffee (sad day), all because she was embarrassed that she has asked. It sort of looked like she was helping the latte lady for free with a legal issue, to influence her decision. But of course she wasn't. She wanted a baby, this baby needed a mom and dad, seemed to be a perfect solution. Towards the end of the episode, the latte lady finally asked Julia if she wanted to know why she said no. With tears running down her face, she explained that she wanted a closed adoption. If she gave her baby to someone she sells coffee to every day, it would make it that much harder. Tears. Pain. And an amazing, almost grace like, understanding from Julia. The closed adoption part made me want the latte lady's baby even more. I wonder, in the weeks to come, as this story unfolds, if Julia will concoct a plan to leave her job, say goodbye to the latte lady, whose name is Zoe by the way, all to have a sweet babe in her arms. Maybe not, maybe this is the end of that story line. But I do hope that we see Julia and her husband with a baby sometime in the future. Just like I hope the same thing for Joel and I. It might seem strange to be talking about this story line like it is real when I know it's not. When you are walking through infertility, you truly are drawn to people "like" you, whether real or fictional. Maybe there is a little bit of hope for us in their story, or maybe not, but we will continue to tune in. We will watch and wait and hopefully in the end we will either find our own biological miracle, or latte lady who picks us!

It was the lowest of times, it was the highest of times

Yesterday was a pretty low day for us on this infertility journey. We were sad and to be honest, completely lacking hope. A few days ago Joel said to me "I always have hope," and I responded with an "I don't". I guess it is good when at least one of us does. But yesterday, hope was no where to be found. We hit bottom. We were immersed in our lack of parenthood. I even went through the baby box and pulled out a bunch of stuff to give away. I know I have often said I was going to do this, but now I have a pile. We just can't see it happening. We are frustrated and sad and tired of hoping only to have our hopes die. We counted it up...it's been 43 months of disappointment. That's a lot of heartache. And that 43 isn't counting the 5 months we did fertility treatments when we were so hopeful and then so crushed, month after month. So, really it's been 48 months. And it's hard. Really really hard. We just can't see it happening any more. We are at a loss as to how to make it happen. I think a little more each day and each month the dream dies. We are at the point in this journey where we think up things we can do instead of being parents...like maybe travel more (ha, like a pastor and preschool teacher have time for that!). Such is life. It was the lowest of times.

The highest of times came when we remembered today that we can call the Billings clinic and maybe they will be able to help us, or at least see us once. In my research before calling I learned that we can go to either Billings or Bozeman. There are two specialists, one located at each location, and they are both associated with the fertility clinic in Billings. The Billings specialist knows Dr. Jensen at Mayo, the Bozeman specialist knows Dr. Phoebe, who is Dr. Jensen's shadow (for lack of the correct term) at Mayo. Both come recommended. The logical thing, which I did, is to see which one is the closest and go to them. But there is only a 14 mile difference in the treks to each from Big Sandy. I guess I will look to see which "city" has better shopping and starbucks! Or maybe which one can give us the soonest appointment...hmmm...stay tuned...