Resilience

Resilience.
That's my new word of the day.
Resilience is defined in two ways

• the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens
• the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc.

My aim for here on out is resiliency.
IF certainly qualifies as something bad happening, and it is definitely stretching, pulling, and bending every second of our lives.

Our Uro appt was on Tuesday and as I expected we didn't get good news. 150,000/ml with distinct abnormalities. I'm learning to roll with the punches. Dh not so much. He was visibly upset and frustrated. I'm not. It's just another push towards where I feel we will inevitably wind up. IVF. The Uro is keeping him on clomid. The odd guy sang and hummed through our entire appointment again. It didn't ruffle my feathers quite so much this time. However his parting comment did try to inch its way under my skin. 'It may take a year but we'll get this figured out.' In less than one month we will have been at this for 2 years. One fearing there was a problem, and another knowing there was a problem. Nu-uh. I'm not pussy-footing around for another year. You can forget it.
We have however decided to treat this 3 month cycle as a break. Our definition of a break. No charting. No TI. Fewer in-depth IF conversations. No pressure to perform our duties.
Dh will still be taking his medicine. I will be saving as much money as possible from my second job. My family and I will also begin the fundraising process, which quite frankly scares the crap out of me. For a person with a rather well-documented history of what my family calls people-phobia the idea of opening up the extremely private and emotional side of myself is terrifying. But you gotta do what you gotta do.
With some thoughtful advice from my favorite internet ladies, we've decided to go ahead with our RE consult as soon as possible. I'm waiting on my new schedule from work, which I'm supposed to get on Monday at orientation, before making the call. They only book 1-2 weeks in advance so I'm confident we can get in. I won't lie, I'm scared about what they will say. I'm scared that there will be more problems discovered that we didn't know about. I'm scared they will find a reason to say that even IVF is not an option for us.
In related news, Dh gave me his final word on the donor sperm option the night before our Uro appointment. And that word is no. I wish he had never brought it up again. I now have to process no all over again.
And finally on the fundraising front. Our tax refund money came in today and went straight into The Fund. Bringing our total to 4,000.

A good day

I'm all smiles right now. I have had the best day in such a long while. It's amazing how little it really does take to make me happy.
I got an offer letter yesterday on a job. It was for a simple part time cashier position at a new store in town. When I went in today to fill out all the paperwork I was surprised when both the interviewers remembered me by name! Apparently I made an impression since I know they have had to have interviewed at least a 100 people around here. Then one of them pulled me aside with a we have to talk type spiel. The last time I heard that I was being let go. Yeah, I felt sad panic butterflies in my stomach as my adrenaline spiked. He pulled up a chair directly in front of his and we had a little pow wow session. He asked why I'd applied for the cashier position. I told him it was what I had the most prior experience with. He then said well we have this other position and I've been waiting to fill it til I talked with you. I think you'd be perfect for it and I really think it'd be good for you and your photography.
He then proceeded to completely sell me on a full time position that has sat and suns off and in his experience usually works from 5a to 1p leaving me every afternoon and that precious golden hour to make photography appointments. And it pays more.
How awesome is that!  So it looks like I'm going to be a Price Checker. I'm beyond excited.
But the day gets better!
I had an appointment with a prospective wedding client later on the day. She gushed over my portfolio. She was nice, intelligent, creative, prepared, and beautiful. I mean it'll be so easy to take wonderful pictures of her. Then she picked my biggest package, with an engagement session, then she added on a boudoir session, then she added on discs. Then she picked the most expensive leather album I offer and save the dates and mentioned that she probably wanted more later. I am beyond ecstatic to work with her for soooo many reasons.
So despite the fact that I am spotting and probably a day or two away from my period, I am so happy right now. I'm going to float on this little high all weekend or at least until I get the aforementioned period.

Bouncing Back

Bouncing back is hard especially when everything in life seems to be determined to push you down. Sometimes I feel like a wayward leaf left in the mercy of the wind. Some days it lifts me so high I can't see anything but clouds, others I scud along the ground scraping my backside on the concrete.  Regardless I'm moving, whether its back, forth, or side to side.
It was harder than it should have been to come back after my unexpected job loss. I let myself have real solid hope for the first time in probably a year. It was like being trapped underground with no light and then viola the light at the end of the tunnel. It's faint but it's there. And then Bam! landslide and no more light. I did however learn that my suspicions for the reason they let me go were right on target. They had that new girl in there the very next day.
During the worst of my moments my mom who is usually so supportive in so many ways just got on my every nerve. She's an endless fount of hope. It made me feel like she doesn't understand the gravity of the situation. So when my mind was finally clear, I set down and had a face to face talk to her about the percentages, what I felt like in the present, what IF made my future look like. Nothing seemed to hit home for her until I said, 'When you and dad, and nana and don, are gone, I will have no one except DH, and when he's gone I'll be alone.'  'You'll have your brother,' she responded quietly. To which I gave her a steady stare. My brother and I haven't been close in so many years, I can barely remember the time. We still sit and play video games, but video games are literally all we have in common anymore, and that won't last forever. We are so different, its amazing we're siblings. I love him and I'm pretty sure he loves me, but when it comes to family and connecting on a real level love isn't always enough.
We were scheduled to do our SA on Tuesday. On Friday as we prepared to get the time period of abstinence right on the money, DH let the stress of IF get in his head. I think he was on the verge of having a panic attack. I assured him it was no big deal and we pushed the SA to tomorrow. On Saturday he called from work to tell me he was aching all over and had chills. Then dropped the bomb on me when he said it felt like another UTI. I panicked a little. The last time he had a UTI close to SA time his count was 0. I told him to go the nurse, get his temp taken, and if it was up take something. For some reason he refused. When he got home he had a temperature of 101.  An hour after tylenol it was back to normal. Four hours after that it was back to 101. More tylenol and back to bed. When he woke up the next morning he no longer had a temperature and felt 90% better. I have no idea what happened. I have no idea how long he had that fever. We have no idea what caused it. But I do know he hadn't taken his metformin that day, he'd had twice as much sugar as he should have had the day before, he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and it was 9 at night, his blood sugar was 150 which is not horrible except that he hadn't eaten anything all day, and he was stressed out to the max. I put my foot down. Banned sweets completely for the forseeable future til he can control himself without me hovering. Put a two drink limit on diet sodas. And told him he needed to drink 8 cups of water everyday or nearly every day from now on. We're still going through with the SA tomorrow but I'm kinda at the point where I don't see the point in going. I think the fever probably did its damage and we won't be able to get an accurate picture of whether or not the clomid worked for him. But...we'll see.
Oh by the way I passed through the first round of interviews for a new store in town. So hopefully I'll have a new job soon!