Out of Control

If you know me, you know that I am a complete control freak and yet, somehow I justify this ridiculous behavior with the fact the I can ADMIT  full out that I am a control freak.  I don't know if it's because I am particular about certain things or maybe just overly opinionated or if it's because I like organization, but I seem to control or attempt to control the majority of things in my life. 

Since I do most of the shopping I tend to control.  What we eat, what we wear, what products we use, it all comes out of my budget, so while I don't make the money in our family, I pretty much control how our disposable funds get spent.  Then there is our house, which I like to be picked up and fairly clean, more control, and Graham, whom I am trying to raise and teach good manners etc, even more control.  I also like to lead, so VBS director or MOPS steering team, more and more control. 

Feeling in control of the things in my life soothes me.  It makes me feel at ease, while feeling out of control drives me nuts and literally stresses me out... or it did until this month.  June was kind of a whirlwind month in the Ahlers household.  Between Tim and I we had commitments nearly every night of the week and it seemed our weekends were jam packed with social activities.  This scene is fairly common for us, but add all that to still trying to get pregnant, Graham entering his terrible 2 phase and VBS, my sence of control totally flew out the window. 

In a near melt down state last week, I finally just gave up and you know what?  It was the best feeling EVER!  I sat down for the first time in a really long time and earnestly prayed for God to control my life.  To just take over because I was at my wits end.  I will admit while I have been incessantly praying lately...  for another pregnancy, for Graham's behavior to improve, for all my friends/ family going through rough times, I haven't really been letting God take control of MY life.  I have been asking that He take control of everyone else's life, yet I found myself mostly bitter and upset with Him and his timing of our second baby.  I was controlling everything in my power, meds, timing sex, eating healthy, exercising, you name it, I controled it in hopes to get pregnant and still, nothing was happening.

During my prayer I realized my life is already in control, it's in God's control.  What I need to do is let go and let life take it's course.  Maybe we still won't get pregnant, and maybe Graham will continue to act naughty, but it's out of my control.  I just need to relax and enjoy all the wonderful parts of life that have already been given to me and if that means I'm flying by the seat of my pants, then so be it.  In the end things have a way of working themselves out, I just need to figure out how to let it happen!

Snap Out of It

Have you ever been in one of those places in your life where being in a bad mood just becomes your state of being?  I feel like that is where my life is right now and I just can't seem to snap out of it.  A bunch of things... potty training, pregnancy woes, my diet and all the little stuff just came to a head last week and no matter what I do, I can't get past the "bad mood" feeling. 

The beautiful weather and spending some time in the fresh air this weekend did help, but now it's Monday and I'm back to feeling blue.  Generally speaking, I'd say I'm a rather 'unemotional' person... or at least Tim thinks so.  I'm near last to cry at a sad movie or gush over happy/ sad news.  I rarely breakdown after a bad day or a bad fight and even when I do, I seem to be super quick to snap back.  I don't seem to hold grudges and can't find it in me to stay mad for very long, so why am I so 'stuck' in this bad mood and how do I get past it?

So far the failed plans have been:

• cry it out- no luck


• take out my frustration at the gym- apparently I'm not in good enough shape for this one


• talk to Tim- eh, he tried to understand, but he just wanted to enjoy his time away from work, don't blame him


• sleep- usually a good nap/ sleeping in brings me around, but I tried both and no dice


• watching the beautiful, half-naked men build my deck- OK helped a little  :)

Apparently I am just going to have to wait it out, unless someone has a sure-fire cure to SNAP OUT OF IT.

The Results are In...

I got my blood taken last Thursday in hopes to solve some of the mystery behind this whole infertility issue we are having.  And you'll never believe it... I am NOT OVULATING!  Big surprise, I swear I could have told you that 10 months ago and we could have saved everyone a lot of time and trouble worrying about this.  But at least it is an answer that is treatable. 

All morning I have been worried that the tests were going to come back the same as every other test we have taken, with nothing wrong.  And while this should be good news, it wouldn't explain why we aren't getting pregnant, nor would it point us in the direction of a course of treatment.  My other fear was they would have found indicators for Endometriosis.  Then I would have really been up a crick without a paddle.  We are talking surgery and meds, all sorts of fun stuff, but still no baby.

So I guess all in all I am glad to hear that I am not ovulating, I just really hope Clomid is the answer to the problem!

Seriously, What Does a Girl Need to Do...

So I get it, I have Crohn's Disease, have for 11+ years now!  Which, that being said, means that on any given day, for no apparent reason at all, my stomach/ ab area is going to swell and make me look slightly pregnant.  I get that, accept it and have moved on... until recently! 

I diet and watch what I eat, I work out 5-6 days a week, 5-6 freakin' days, I'd say that's a decent work out effort wouldn't you?  But in the last 2.5 months I have been asked 6 times "if I am expecting" or "when I am due" at the gym.  Really people, 6 times?  I haven't been asked 6 times in 11 years, even when I was pregnant!  :)  And usually when I am I asked, I try to find some sort of humor in the situation and just laugh it off, but when the question sparks 10 people in the locker room to immediately glare at my stomach... it's just too awkward!  I mean what do you say?  :)

Do you try to make the person asking feel better by making up some sort of excuse, because by now they are clearly embarrassed?  But why should I do that, they are the ass who asked you in the first place.   :)  Do you just ignore the comment all together like you didn't hear it?  Do you just laugh and say no and walk away?  After pondering the issue a bit, I truly believe the appropriate response is "F-Off" or at least in this case when I had just completed bodypump and ran 2.5 miles, but even I am not that brave.  So, I am just at a loss... how do you answer that question WHEN YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT? 

And really, why would you ever, ever, ever ask someone that question in the first place?  I mean just save yourself the trouble of looking like an ass, it's just embarrassing for everyone, including the poor, innocent by-standers in the room who want to crawl into a hole just to get away from the situation.  :)  I promise you, unless you are giving birth to a child in my presence or you have personally told me that you are expecting, I will never ask you "when you are due!"  Ahh, just shake your head and laugh... that's all anyone can do!  Hope my fabulously blessed life made you smile!  :)

* I almost forgot... on an upside, Graham actually told the gym daycare lady he had to go potty AND he went!  WooHoo, at least the trip wasn't a total loss!

Re-Evaluating Priorities

With all this "baby crazy" going on in my life lately I feel maybe my priorities have gotten a bit skewed  :(  I began 2010 wanting to do some things for myself, as I felt I had spent almost all of the last 3 years doing things for Graham and Tim and work and never really taking time to myself.  But 2 months into 2010 and I am starting to think that maybe I've taken things a bit overboard.

I've taken some time this past week to do some "meditating" if you will, on my life and you know what I realized?  I already have the most perfect little boy anyone could ever ask for.  God has already blessed me just by giving me the opportunity to be a mom and even more, he has given me a wonderful husband who supports me so I can stay home to take can of him. 

I have spent so much time lately worrying about trying to get pregnant or why it is that I can't get pregnant again that I've almost forgotten what happens when you do get pregnant... you get to be a mom!  I am a mom and I really need to remember that.  Of course I know that I am a mom, I mean I'm still with Graham 24-7, but am I really remembering what it means to be a mom?  Like taking the time to laugh and play and hug, taking the time to teach and pray, taking the time to enjoy all that I have already been given!  It's unfortunate that sometimes you get so caught up with life and all it's struggles that you forget the important stuff.  So even if I'm only ever able to have one baby, I just need to remember: I am already the luckiest person just to have Graham and be a mom!

No Dice...

So last weekend was an all together failure in many departments for me...

First, our Dr. did not agree that we should start any type of fertility drugs without going through the whole series of tests to make sure there is not an actual problem first.  Normally I would be on her side, but since we went through these same tests 3 years ago, and found nothing, I'm not really all that jacked up to do them again.  Some are super painful, some are really expensive and some are just annoying.  My opinion this time around is try the drugs, if we still aren't pregnant then clearly there is a bigger issue and we need to do some more exploring in my lady business.  But why beat me up for 2 months?  Anyway, my lack of a medical degree came into play and even after begging and some tears, I settled for a gauntlet of tests, the first of which is on Wednesday.  I will be having my second HSG, which if you've had one, you know feels very similar to having a giant needle stuck through both your ovaries.  Apparently it's really just a small tube with some dye in it so x-rays can be taken, but I would like to see the actual apparatus this time, b/c I'm fairly certain it must look more like a giant needle!  Then in two weeks I have to go in for a series of blood tests and the whole nine yards.  We shall see from there what other tortures they can come up with.  So now I am praying even harder to get pregnant just so they'll stop beating up my girlie parts!

Second, Graham came down with some terrible diarrhea this past weekend and pretty much shot our whole potty training progress to hell.  He had gone 2, almost 3 days without an accident when this started and it all just went out the window.  We had to revert back to Pull-Ups out of sheer lack of underwear and the fact that we were at Tim's Aunt's house... not really cool to have your kid pooping on everything at the relatives!  So we are finally over our bug, but the potty training is slow going again today.  Lots of accidents and not wanting to go, ugg! 

And third, due to all this lovely disappointment, my diet was totally sabotaged over the weekend.  We were traveling and I was already upset and I just gave in  :(  It's not like I gained 10 lbs overnight, but it was more that I totally lost my will-power.  I suppose, as with almost everything in life, there are going to be setbacks, but this weekend was a giant step in the wrong direction in oh so many ways.  But today started a new week and tomorrow will be a new day, so I guess I'm just going to take each thing one day at a time!

Keep Your Fingers Crossed!

As most of you know, our family is a little challenged when it comes to making babies... it's not that we can't have them, we obviously have Graham and as far as I'm concerned he's perfect in every way, it's just that it takes us about a hundred years to actually conceive a baby.  Why you ask?  Who in the hell knows!  If you have any suggestions you'd like to throw out there, please let me know.  I'm up for some new ones, because the same old 'ovulation troubles,' 'not enough sperm,' ' having to have sex while standing on your head to be in the right position' have all been thoroughly tested and ruled out. 

According to medical knowledge as it stands today, we should be able to make a baby in any given month, yet this miraculous occurence has yet to happen and now another nine months of my life has gone by.  That's nine months of peeing on sticks, forcing the ever so endearing "wanna try to have a baby" sex, which we all know is great, and nine whole months of WAITING for that little pink line that never appears.  So add that to the 18 months it took us to get pregnant with Graham and I could have 4 kids by now... well maybe not, but 2 at least!

Enough of that, the point is that this Friday is "D-Day" in baby world for me.  We have a fertility appointment at 1:45 and I will either find out I am already pregnant, which would totally be my luck now that I've waited for 3 months for this appointment, or I will find out what my next steps are towards actually conceiving another child before I'm 40!  Either way I'm hoping for big things... so keep your fingers crossed, maybe say a little prayer or throw an extra Hail Mary my way because as things seems to roll in my life, I'm going to need it!

One last story on this note... we have been saying night-time prayers with Graham now that we feel he is old enough to somewhat understand.  So we were praying on Saturday night and he asked me who I pray for and I told him I pray for him and our family and that hopefully someday he will have a brother or sister to play with.  When we went to church on Sunday I told Graham to remember to pray to baby Jesus, because like Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights, we must pray to "baby" Jesus.  Anyway, he told me he did and I asked what he prayed for.  He said he asked baby Jesus if he could have a baby brother or sister to play with.  I asked what baby Jesus said, he told me "baby Jesus said to give me a baby sister right now... I want to play with it!"  Not totally sure that we're quite there on grasping the idea of praying or even what a baby brother/ sister really is, but I guess it's the effort that counts  :)