I feel the need to post a "disclaimer" of sorts. I created this blog with the intention of remaining somewhat anonymous. For the most part I have not used my families names and have tried to keep it more of a personal reflection on my thoughts and feelings as opposed to a blog that shares various details of my life. It has come to my attention that there may be readers who know who I am. I have used my husband and daughters name a few times and have posted some things that would make it pretty clear to those who know me. I have also posted about feelings that I wouldn't necessarily share with my family and friends. Why you ask? For one reason, I love and care about them and don't want to be the cause of anyone hurting, be it intentional or not.

In my defense I have to say that until you have walked in our shoes, until you have tried and tried to conceive a child, a child that you so desperately want, until you have been successful and then stood by helplessly as your dream fades away in front of you, until you have to answer daily questions from your child about why you can't have a baby, until you have heard the prayers of a 4 year old little girl, begging Jesus to give her a baby brother of sister, until you have experienced all of that you cannot fully understand what it is that we are feeling. There are some of you who understand and some of you who don't...not becaue you don't care, but because you can't.

All I ask is that as you read this you read it with the knowledge that these are my personal thoughts and feelings. Feelings that given similar circumstances chances are you would have to. Know that I would *never* wish anything even remotely bad on anyone else, let alone those whom I love. If I've referred to you in any of my posts, please do your best not to take it personally because it wasn't personal. The words on this blog have everything to do with me and nothing to do with anyone else. They are my innermost thoughts and as crazy as it may seem to some, it really helps to have an outlet like this.

With that I am going to continue to be as candid as I have been in the past on this blog. If you can read and understand what this blog is to me then by all means, stick around. If it's just too hard, do yourself a favor and just don't read (I mean that kindly, really I do). I love my family and friends more than words can express. In your own ways you have been caring and compassionate during this difficult time for us. You have encouraged us and loved us and we are forever grateful for that. We love you and will always love you!!!

Here I am in the middle of yet another cycle. I'm not sure what happend last month, but I was really let down when my period started. I'm trying to find the optimism I had no more than a month ago, but honestly I about as pessimistic as they come right now. I made the appt with the RE, but am not happy about it. Instead of focusing on that I'm trying to focus on the 2 cycles we have between now and my appt, but I'm not doing a very good job. I'm tired of everyone asking me if Bella is an only child. Today someone asked me and I felt myself flush while answering him. He was a stranger trying to be kind and had no idea of our struggles to have another child, yet as I said, "yes, she's our only one", I felt this emotion well up in me that I wasn't expecting. Afterwards, I felt ridiculous that I couldn't even answer his simple question without turning beat red. I just pray that he didn't notice.

My best friend is visiting with her newborn son. She found out she was pregnant 2 weeks before I did. We hadn't planned to be pregnant together in the least, but were thrilled to find out that we were expecting our 2nd babies together. Of course I miscarried shortly there after and she didn't. Seeing her little boy for the first time filled me with more emotions that I can describe. I fell in love with him the instant I saw him and at the same time felt my heart sink at the reminder of what could have been mine. Her baby lived and is a beautiful newborn. Mine died and is spending an enternity with our Heavenly Father. For that I am forever grateful, and knowing that we will one day be reunited gives me great peace, but while I'm here on earth my heart longs to know just who our 2nd child would have been.

Hubby is home, so I'll cut this short.

Today I celebrate the first day of my last year as a "twenty-something". Next year I will enter into my thirties and you know what...I'm kind of excited about it! Sure, there have been some tough times lately, but I can honestly say that I'm more comfortable in my skin now that ever before and I can only hope that as the years have proven good to me thus far, they will continue to do so.

For years I was certain that I would have 4 children, all before the age of 32. I wanted to be a younger mother and felt confident that my plan would work out just fine. Now my dream of a family of 6 is just that...a dream, more importantly, a naive dream. It's amazing how I've gone from being so certain of wanting a large family to contemplating life with an only child. I've mentioned this before, but if it weren't for my husbands strong desire for another child, I may just be able to find contentment in the one we have. Of course, knowing that we have made the decision to have another child (God willing), I yearn for the things that a pregnancy brings and if I'm being totally honest, I get more excited about the pregnancy part than the child part. Not that I don't want another child, but I LOVED being pregnant. I was never too uncomfortable, never too miserable, and actually sad when I went into labor 4 days before my due date. I would have been perfectly content to have stayed pregnant for another 9 months at that point.

So, with another year under my belt, I will continue on in my journey. This morning I thanked God for giving me another year to enjoy the many blessings he has given to me on earth. I know they pale in comparison to what it will be like when I spend eternity with him, but until I am there I want to live a life full of joy and thankfulness.

A joyful heart and a thankful spirit...my goals for my 29th year of life!

CD 1. I should be used to this by now, but I'm not. The reality of my broken body is hitting me hard today. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Do we give up? Do we press on? Is it not in God's will for us to have more children? How do we know?

I have the number for the RE and am going to try to make the call today. For some reason I'm having a really hard time doing it. I guess I'm still in a bit of denial.

I had a friend give me a speech yesterday about how I needed to be thankful that I have a child and how she couldn't understand why it was so hard for us because if she couldn't have anymore children (she has 1) she would be just fine. She also made sure to tell me about a friend of hers who has been trying for their first for 2 years and asked me, "how would you like to be them?" Thinking about it just makes me want to cry. I would NEVER compare myself to someone with primary infertility, but are we realy just selfish and ungrateful people because we long for another child?

Anyways, I will continue to pray, continue to listen and hope that my answers come. Even if they don't I know that God is with me and cares about our hurting hearts.