I am not going to sugar coat it, 2013 was an extremely difficult year for Jamie and I. There were times where we both wished that we could have laid our head down and slept through it. Infertility, struggles with our weight, job loss, unemployment, and months with great financial uncertainty, could basically summarize the year we went through. Every month made us feel more and more raw and exposed. Sometimes the only thing I could muster to pray was "Lord have mercy on us." One of my wishes that I often expressed to Jamie was simply that I wished I could hold in more and become desensitized to the situations we were facing, due to the fact that I had a lot of moments in 2013 where my tearful moments were on display. I still hold a lot of shame for those times even though I know it is healthy to have vulnerable weak moments.
There were only a few months at the beginning of the year where we could afford to seek out infertility treatments; however, the rest of the year was painful for us to waste good months all because we were unsure of jobs, finances, and health insurance. After losing quite a bit of weight on a low carb diet, with each difficult month the clothes that I bought during the height of my weight loss got tighter and tighter until they couldn't fit anymore and I returned to the clothes I wore before losing the weight. The same month that Jamie graduated from graduate school, was the same month that my full-time teaching position was cut from the budget. We were left relying on Jamie's continued part-time work, my part-time teaching work over the summer, and an occasional client from my new business, which we always saw as a sign of God's grace. However, from August until the end of the year, I greatly missed teaching and being with my students and Jamie and I both missed the income. Every month we learned how to live on less and less, until our spending became as a lean as it could get. Learning how to live on less has taught us some valuable lessons that we are continuing this year. We were blessed to have some savings, which we refer to as our "baby fund" and with every spending decision we made, we fought to keep that money in savings. It is a true miracle, given our job situation, that we still have a significant portion of that savings still available for infertility treatments. Twice over the past three months we have unexpectedly received contributions to this fund. Let me tell you, I still am almost speechless about this. It brings tears to my eyes even thinking about the hearts of those who are praying for us and who have blessed us in this way.
When the ball dropped on New Year's Eve, Jamie and I kissed, wished 2013 good riddance, and agreed that 2014 was going to be our year of hope. In January, I started teaching a couple interior design courses at a program in Durham and was offered work to teach part-time from the program that I taught in before. Jamie started working full-time hours at a firm for tax season and is expecting to get a lot of overtime hours. He is continuing his part-time land surveying work from home in the evenings and studying to take his third (out of fourth) section of his CPA exam in any other spare minutes he can scrounge up. We don't get a lot of time together, and though we miss each other, we consider that a little bit of a blessing because we feel so thankful for work. Many a morning I have been driving to class and have broken down in tears of thanksgiving for the blessing to go to a job, and not just any job, but one that I love so dearly.
We are continually praying that the company Jamie is working for seasonally will have a full-time opening for him later this year. I was considering trying to find an additional part-time job outside of teaching to build our "baby fund", but instead I have been enjoying working on various furniture projects throughout the month and selling them for a profit. Jamie and I both joined Weight Watchers last week in hopes of getting back on track with a more healthy lifestyle.
Because 2013 was such a wash in terms of feeling like we were making progress in our journey to have children, we are really insistent that 2014 not go to waste and that we use it to try several types of infertility treatment. Originally we were planning to have one good in-vitro fertilization (IVF) try; however, the thought of spending one whole year on just one try seemed sad. So Jamie and I have decided to undergo a few more intrauterine inseminations (IUI's) before proceeding with IVF. We are not really expecting the IUI's to work due to our low chances. However, it would be a miracle for one of the iui's to work and save us from the expensive road that IVF entails. We prayfully feel like this is the road we need to take and have sought counsel from many people. Sometimes I worry that sharing this much information will cause people to want to put their two cents in and I would politely ask that unless they are kind supportive thoughts, that you keep them to yourself. This road is painful to walk through and I beg of you to be cautious of that. I have been the one saying all of the wrong things to someone with infertility before I was married. Here is a great article about "What Not to Say To an Infertile Couple." Reading this really would have saved me some embarrassment in a lot of things that I said.
So goodbye 2013. Sayonara! Peace out! Adios! As N'Sync would have said "Baby Bye Bye Bye." I did my best to learn from the path God had us walk through on this really sucky year and I am holding onto hope that 2014 will be our year or at the very least one year closer to Jamie and I growing our family and having the children we so desperately want. Greetings 2014! Howdy! Good to see ya! Let's do this!
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