Breaks Give Perspective

I had to take a break from writing out my innermost feelings.  I take a lot of time to put my thoughts out there, and after re-reading my previous posts, I was very sad with myself.  I have really tried to stay as positive as possible throughout this whole process, but my posts on here seem so bitter and down.  That is not how I want to portray myself. Or our journey.  Sure, our situation sucks.  No one wants to be infertile. But believe me, being the "bitter infertile" is even worse.  The pity, the eye avoiders, the topic avoiders... it's hard to be yourself when people are trying so hard to ignore the elephant in the room.

I promise, I live a normal life.  Yes, I want kids, as does B.  But it is not an all consuming thought.  We have our moments or weakness; some worse than others, but we smile and move on.  Every pregnancy announcement, every baby shower, every birth... yes, it make slow us down a little, but it is never about taking away from anyone else's happiness.  It is a moment of remembrance of our loss or of our inability to have what so many create so easily. But we always recognize the joyous occasion for others, and cannot wait to be able to share that moment with everyone soon!

My goals the last few weeks have been few, but they have been very poignant to me.  Almost a turning point in my life and how I am living it.  Positivity has been the main priority.  Positivity in everything I do, everyone I see, everything I say.  Sure, I have already failed several times, but the point is to keep moving forward, keep thinking in a positive manner.  The more positive I can be, the easier it is to be thankful for everything I have in my life.  I have been working on losing weight, eating healthier, and staying positive.  I am proud of losing 8 pounds, adding a ton of fruit and veggies into my diet (and ridding myself of too many sweets- save a few Easter treats- in moderation, of course!), and cutting out the dead weight in my life.  It is tough to make those changes, but oddly enough, it was easier to let go of those around me who are not supportive of my life in general (absolutely nothing to do with infertility) than it was to keep working out every day!

B and I have also created a wonderful budget.  Now, truth be told, I have been trying to implement a budget in our house for several years *thank you mint.com,* but somehow it never took.  Moving past that, I am very proud of the commitment B made to cutting out our debt, unnecessary spending, and creating multiple savings accounts (including our BabyFund!) to help us reach our goals. He created a wonderful spreadsheet that we share through Dropbox (awesome invention- we share documents between computers and our phones to help us keep track of all of our expenses) and we made a commitment to stay on top of our spending.  We have already put a nice little chunk of change in our main savings account, as well as a tax fund (because we get hit with paying taxes every year, despite claiming zero!) and our BabyFund.  And we have made paying of some stupid credit card debt a main goal.  We are both also pursuing other means of income.  B has recently tried his hand at designing t-shirts, and I have been doing a little freelance work through oDesk.com, as well as banking my homebound paycheck (I work with one of my previous students in his home twice a week whose health is too fragile to attend school- love my sweet boy!), and selling items on eBay and through our local yard sale pages (Thank you Tifferny for your help with that!).

Budgeting, saving, healthier lifestyle, and staying positive! That is how we are spending the 2nd quarter of 2014 (and 3rd, and 4th!).  We are hopeful to start IVF #3 later this year, and I am proud to say we are doing it on our own, and without outside funds.  We were so grateful to our friends that contributed to our gofundme, but as you can see, I took that campaign down not too long after I started this blog.  It didn't feel right to me when we started it, and I just couldn't put our burden on everyone else.  We are POSITIVE we can make this happen with non monetary support from our friends and family! (but a hug or an "I'm thinking of you" is always welcome :) )

What changes are you making as we enter the Marvelous Month of May?