Monday Perspective

Chris is home after his travel trip. He is a brave man! He took 28 teenagers to Minneapolis for a swim meet and the Mall of America. I was mad that he had scheduled the meet this weekend... one of my good friends from work had her wedding this weekend as well. I hated going to the wedding by myself, but it kept me from having to chaperone the trip! I don't like when he is gone, so I am always in a better mood once he gets home!

I didn't make any calls today. I did have lunch with friends and then had to "catch up" with Chris. There is always tomorrow, right?

I am planning to run... okay WALK another 5k on the 4th. Ever since Romeo decided to pull me down our front stairs, my knee has been bothering me. I tried to run on Saturday morning, but had sharp pains in my knee. Probably not a good sign. I have been walking, though. So at least I will walk the 5k. Chris has run this race every year so it will be nice to be taking part in it this year. Of course I won't be able to get the pictures I usually get though! I have years worth of photos. I may just have to talk someone into getting up early with us and taking photos. I am hoping that once I am done with summer school I can get into a routine of running/walking in the mornings before it gets too hot. By the time I get home from summer school I am just too tired... LOL. Only two more days of summer school, though! YAY!

Ok... off to watch the Bachelorette...

One of THOSE posts...

You've been warned. All three of you that read this. :-) This is going to be one of THOSE posts. One of those posts where I vent about infertility and our failed adoption. You knew one was coming soon...

We've been doing NOTHING in the infertility/becoming parents department for close to a year now. It's been more than 2 years since we were in active treatment. The last "treatment" was exploratory surgery in November of 2005. Surgery that once again showed that everything was "fine" Last night I spent several hours reading over all of my entries since 2003. We started "trying" in 2000 and serious treatment in soo2. It breaks my heart to go back and read my words and hopes.... especially since I know how the story ends... at least how each and every cycle ends. I don't know that I will ever be over all of the pain we've endured on this path to parenthood. I hope and pray that someday when we have the child we dream of, that I will be able to look into that child's eyes and know that all of my pain was worth it. In my heart, I have to beleive that will happen.. otherwise I am not sure how I can go on.

I am TERRIFIED to go back into treatment. I was well versed in all of the most up to date research and treatment plans in 2004. Now I feel like we are starting over. I really don't even know where to start. Do we go back to our last RE and see what he would suggest? Of course, my last memories with them are not pleasant thus the reason we've been on this "break" Chris feels strongly that we should exhaust all of our options with treatment before moving on. In my heart, I know he is right. I need some closure and I need to close this door- either with a pregnancy or knowing that we tried and it just wasn't meant to be. What doctor do I choose to hold my "golden eggs" the last shot we have at an IVF? How do I know I am choosing the right one? Looking back, my track record isn't so great when it comes to choosing doctors.

When we were entrenched in treatment before, I had an amazing network of online friends going through the same thing. I don't have that anymore. Most of those girls did get pregnant and have moved on. While I am THRILLED for each and every one of them, it still breaks my heart that I am still "left behind" even with my infertile friends. I don't even know where to begin to look for a new support network. I am a little too jaded for women who are just starting IVF. Let's face it, nobody wants to hear about the girl who has had four failures and still doesn't have a diagnosis when you are SURE your first IVF is going to work. My real life friends are great and have supported me 110% BUT they haven't been in my shoes. Many of them have gone on to have children and several more are now talking about starting a family soon.

So where do I go from here? I know I need to be proactive. I need to make some phone calls and do some research. Here we go....

Long time coming...

It's been too long since I posted here on the blog. Had to deal with the end of the school year. I can't say that I have EVER been more happy to see a year end in all of my career! It was a TOUGH one, but I am a stronger person as a result. I hope that I have learned from the year and will be able to be an even better teacher and friend in the coming school year.

Chris and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary yesterday. Hard to imagine that we have been married that long! When I look back at our wedding photos, we look like kids... and we essentially were!
It has not been an easy 12 years, but I can honestly say that I love this man more today than I did that day. We have grown into the adults we are today as a result of the challenges we have faced. We have our moments, and I am still learning to love the life of a coach's wife. I am getting there. :-) We've been blessed with 12 years to focus on our marriage and just the two of us. I know that there are many marriages out there that are not able to do that. They are blessed with children early in marriage, and the entire marriage is based on raising kids. We have built a very strong marriage that I pray will be a foundation for our family. My heart still breaks when I look into Chris' eyes and imagine what our child would look like.

We returned to one of our favorite places... the Lazy Cloud Inn. We LOVE this place. The owners have thought of everything and truly have created a romantic retreat for couples to reconnect. The best part of the weekend was having Chris all to myself for three whole days... that is a RARE thing due to his job. We relaxed and spent lots of time talking and laughing. Chris surprised me with beautiful roses, chocolates and a teddy bear. We also had in-room massages and a picnic basket dinner. It was all VERY romantic.

We were also entertained by the wonderful wildlife outside the suite. There was an amazing private deck where we sat and enjoyed the show. We saw many birds including a cardinal and blue jay and a few woodpeckers. In the morning we had these little guys to entertain us:

But then in the evenings, there were two of these masked bandits that emptied the bird feeder. They also got a little too close to the deck for my liking. We started having dinner out on the deck, but then moved inside because I was a little afraid of these guys. Silly for a country girl, but they just made me nervous!
All in all, it was an amazing weekend with the man I love. It was just the time we needed. We talked a little about where we are going with our infertility. We didn't make any solid decisions as it is still such a tender subject. But I feel that am ready to start moving forward. We just need to decide what direction.

I need to get into a summer routine and start to get some things done around here! I am hoping to get a plan into place soon. I am planning to run/WALK a 5k on the 4th of July. It will be mostly WALKING for sure as I have not been on a routine at all! That will start tomorrow....

LOM Update

I have been busy working on assignments for the Library of Memories class I am taking at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I am so in love with my progress so far. I am already feeling so much more organized and connected to my photos.

One of the big elements of the "program" are category drawers for your photos. I finally got some time to work on this over the past few days and am THRILLED with the way they are coming into place:
I am busy going through my photos and adding them to these files. I also have photos waiting to be printed at Snapfish. I am hoping to get my digital photos printed so that I can also add them to my files.

Break is almost over! :-( I worked on cleaning out the closet tonight. Chris is off at a meeting so I had the house to myself. I need to do a little more tomorrow, but that was the one thing IO really wanted to get done over break.

We have a wedding tomorrow and a pizza party on Sunday. Looks like I am back to work soon! :-)

Weekend Recap

The Shamrock Shuffle was the culmination of our weekend get away. We had a great weekend with our friends, John and Miriam Rinaldi.

On Friday we picked them up at their hotel and headed to the Health Expo where we picked up our packets for the race. There were many booths that had some freebies as well as a strange man who smelled really bad and wanted to sell us his version of under armour. We did manage to get a full set of glasses from Whole Foods:
We then had a beer at The Billy Goat at Navy Pier. Again, there was a strange bar tender there. :) He wanted to carry on a conversation about something or another. Who knows...

We finally headed to one of our favorite restaurants- Cafe Ba Ba Reba. We had LOTS of food, lots of SANGRIA (peach was our favorite)We also had LOTS of Deserts. In fact, we ordered one of everything except the coconut one:

YUM!
On Saturday we saw Wicked, which was AMAZING. None of us took any photos of that, though! We then had dinner at an Italian restaruant by the hotel Chris and I stayed at. The food was amazing and we enjoyed some wine with our dinner, too! We took a few cheesy photos to add to our collection:And my favorite... our wonder twin bracelets:
We wore these darn bracelets ALL WEEKEND and in the end, they didn't even check them at the beer tent after the race!

Sunday of course was the race. Here is one final photo of our group that ran the race:

I DID IT!!!!

So I DID IT! I finished the 2008 Shamrock Shuffle. I didn't set any records, but I finished it. It's the longest distance I have ever run/walked in MY LIFE, so I am feeling pretty good about the accomplishment. Serious runners (except Chris of course) will laugh at my time of 1:12.38, but I am thrilled with it... it means a pace of 14.5 minutes per mile for 5.1 miles. Not too shabby for a girl that didn't even THINK about running that far a year ago. Not too shabby for a girl who has only really been running since September at all.

I am sore... I mean REALLY sore, but Chris tells me that the pain is all worth it. Of course he also told me that the best way to recover is to run more today. I honestly considered it for a minute, but it is raining outside, so no go for me. :-) I really don't think I could even bring myself to do it.

I am hoping I will look back on this run as the beginning of my running "career" so to speak. Even with as much pain as I am in, I think I will keep at this running stuff. I need to find a coach that can really help me learn to run. Chris tries, but that just doesn't work as I am not a good student with him. My end goal... to be able to run WITH him, and have this be something we both enjoy doing together. I need to build a great deal of stamina before that will really be a possibility. He thinks I need to come up with a better goal, but in the end that is why I am doing all of this. Sure I would love to lose some weight, and that is happening as a "side effect" of the running.

I want to post some of my reflections on the race so that I have them too look back on. So here goes...

I was VERY nervous about the race... to the point of TEARS the night before. I really didn't think I would be able to finish it. I also was afraid of being ALONE during the race. (All of our friends who ran the race are "real" runners and I knew that they would be WAY ahead of the pace that I could keep)

I started with everyone in the 11 minute mile pace. I knew that this was WAY faster than I would be going, but they wanted us all to start together. I lasted about 1/4 mile running at that pace. Looking back, that isn't too bad. Chris tells me that they were actually at a faster than 11 minute pace at that time. I followed etiquette and moved as far to the outside as I could and started walking. I lost sight of Chris in moments. That was the lowest point of the race for me. I was scared. This suburban girl all alone amidst THOUSANDS of people all running past her. Honestly, if there had been a way for me to quit at that point, I may very well have quit. I teared up a tad, but told myself to stop crying and just do the best I could. At that point I decided that I wouldn't stop unless they made me. I would finish.

I hit the first mile mark and the clock said something like 43 minutes had passed. Panic set in until I remembered that the start of the clock was for the elite and that I hadn't started that early at all. I made a mental note of the time and just started pacing myself. I would pick a point and then run to that point. Then I would walk. I just kept alternating between walking and running the best I could. When I got to mile two, the clock read 58 something. Not too bad... that meant that mile 2 had been done in 15 minutes. I had always told myself that if I did at least that pace, they wouldn't close the course on me. That was my real fear at this point.

Mile 3 came and again I was just under a 15 minute mile pace. This is also the point when I started looking back. I got the first glimpse of the police cars at the end of the race. Once again, panic set in. Maybe I wasn't going to be able to finish this thing. However, I just kept going. At this time, there were many others doing the same thing I was.... alternating walking and running. This made me feel better. I didn't want to be the only one. I paced myself with a few other people. I would challenge myself to stay ahead of one person or another. That helped me keep moving.

I had been too nervous to eat much before the race, and Chris and I had not planned well. So between miles 3 and 4 I started to feel my blood sugar drop. I was mad at myself for not preparing. Looking back, I think I could have pushed faster/farther but I was worried about having problems with my blood sugar dropping. So I didn't push myself because at this point my biggest goal was just to finish... without stopping at all.

Mile 4 came and Chris started calling. He was finished and wanted to know where I was at. He later told me that he feared that I had quit back at the start. I think he saw the panic in my face when I realized I was on my own. I didn't want to answer the phone. I had come this far on my own and wanted to finish. Silly... yes. But it was what I needed to do. Went through the last aid station and had some gatorade in the hopes of bringing up my blood sugar. Helped some, but I knew that I needed to eat as soon as I finished. Now, at this point I was under the assumption that the race was 4.8 miles long since that is what Chris had told me all along. I had no idea it was 5.1 at this point. Probably a good thing!

The bottom of my feet started to hurt, which was strange since I had not had that happen ever before. No shin splints, which was odd since I had been dealing with those during my training runs over the past few weeks. But I knew the end was in sight! We rounded the corner coming onto Michigan Avenue. It was really beautiful. I did keep looking behind me to make sure that there were still people behind me. After making that turn, I couldn't see the police cars any more, so that was a good thing.

One more panic... when I realized that the end of the race was on the other side of the bridge, which was UPHILL. Just plain mean, I tell you! Chris called again just as I was trying to run up the hill. I let it ring and just wanted to finish at this point. I rounded the corner to the end stretch and just ran. My feet hurt and I didn't even know what was going on around me. I just wanted to finish. I crossed the finish line and then the tears came. I had done it. I had finished the race. I had my chip removed and then answered Chris' final call. After walking through the ending galley area and getting a banana and some water I was finally reunited with Chris and our friends.

I had strange pain in the bottom of my feet for several hours after the race. When we finally got back to our hotel, I took off my shoes figuring I would find blisters, but I did not. Last night my heels hurt terribly. Chris was having some of the same pain. That made me feel a little better. :-) Today my legs are just really tight and my feet/heels don't seem to be an issue. I think a nice whirlpool bath is calling my name now! :-)

Spring Break... Day 4 :-)

Another uneventful day. Slept in and had a late breakfast. Had lunch with Grandma, which was a nice treat. I really need to make an effort to visit her more often. I need to make plans to go visit my other grandmother as well. Dad tells me she is not doing well.

Didn't make the calls I needed to... onto tomorrow's to-do list. :-) Nothing more really on the list at all other than continuing the process of sorting photos.

I did run today for a SHORT time. I just don't think I am really going to be able to finish the shuffle. Chris keeps assuring me that even if I walk, I will be fine. We'll see. I am getting bad shin splints and I don't think it is my shoes. I have only had them since September and I am not that serious of a runner. Who knows. I need to figure that out since it is really hindering my running at this time. I think I need to seriously consider finding a trainer to get my butt in gear. I really want to LIKE running and I am just not there yet. Hmpf!

One more share for today... Here is a recent LO I did for the LOM class:



Off to finish dinner... Chicken and Potatoes... which will make more dishes. Have I mentioned how many dishes I have done? LOL.