Bad news, Good news and Blessings

Bad News:
I woke up today with my temps starting to drop and cramping. Looks like Aunt Flow will be visiting and progesterone is still dumb. Bbs hurt even worse, hunger symptoms stopped yesterday, and I'm so bloated I look like I just ate a small village. IVF, here we come...

Good News:
I called my RE's office because I never heard back on my progesterone and found out it was 56. Yep, so now I've had a 75 and a 56. That means one of two things: I ovulated more than one egg causing two corpus lutems to bring my progesterone up, or I keep conceiving but not implanting. This would be confirmed by the cramping I got days 6-9. Will they do anything about this? No because I still don't have a positive pg test and they don't do an HCG blood draw without a call from me saying, "I got two lines," which I've never said before. Wait this is the "Good News" section? Stay positive. OK. No issues with progesterone = good news.

We can still rejoice in our victories this month: lefty works and Fertilaid makes a difference for Hammer. I'm going to order more after I post.

Also, I might be able to do another IUI this month because of how my cycle fell with my travel for work. I'll have to work these details out with the RE's office but I think I may have spoken too soon when I rejoiced over no more clomid.

The Blessings
I am actually not overly sad knowing that this cycle did not work, I know it's weird. Especially since I previously posted that I would likely be really crushed. When I told Hammer that Aunt Flow appeared to be on her way I had a moment. He looked at me and saw my face get all squishy because I was about to cry. He took my hand and said in a soft and calming voice, "Are you trying not to cry, don't cry, we'll be alright." And I knew in that second that it was alright, God was in control and we would be alright. I feel totally at peace and I recalled the verse:

Philippians 4:6 "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I know that God has heard our cries, our prayers and pleadings for a baby. Our requests have been made known to Him for the last 2 years and 8 months. That fact is comforting but what is even more comforting is that He has given me the peace that is guarding my heart and my mind from overwhelming sadness. As it is human to do so I had my moments this month where I thought, "It didn't work" and "I think it worked" but I would stop and tell myself to guard my heart and prayed for God to grant me His peace. And now I am wrapped up in that peace, thank you Jesus.

The other thing that He's put in my heart is that we are very close. Yes, "very close." I have prayed over what that could mean. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't my own humanness to be subliminally banking on IVF and I can tell you now that it's not. Of course God's definition of close can be very different than our own. Very close to me is like going on a long car drive and after asking, "Are we there yet?," a bunch of times you finally get the answer of, "very soon", instead of just, "soon." And then 20 minutes later you reach your destination. If we look at God's definition it could be "Sarah-close" or "Hannah-close"

"Sarah-close" was God telling Abraham who was 75 years of age at the time that He would make a great nation from Abraham's line. Then 15 years later God comes down and say to Abraham who is now 99 years old that his 90 year old wife, Sarah, would conceive but it took 16 years from the time of the prophecy and one surrogate son before Sarah gave birth to Issac.

"Hannah-close" was one of the rare cases when God closed a womb. Hannah was at the temple praying fervently with a passion that only us IFers understand and so passionately that the priest thought she was drunk. While we don't know exactly how long Hannah suffered with infertility we do know that on this day the priest said, "Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of Him." And then shortly after that it is written that after she laid with her husband, "...the LORD remembered her," she gave birth to Samuel and then she went on to bear several other children. One other thing that I find comforting about Hannah's story is that she also brought her petition to God just as Philippians tells us to do and her petition was heard!

In my human brain "Sarah-close" would equate to "soon" while "Hannah-close" would equate to "very soon." I don't know exactly which one I'm dealing with but I do know that in each instance when God gave insight into his plan they all came to fruition. So that will be the knowledge that I will cling to whether I am "Sarah-close" or "Hannah-close" because I am another month closer to the completion of God's plan.

On a side note, when I first started blogging I had posted about an insight I had into why Sarah laughed when God said she would bear a child at age 90. At this time in my TTC I had hit a low point and felt that I needed to keep the pre-prophecy name of Sarai instead of Sarah because I felt like God had not given me the word of His blessing for our family. Today, I called her Sarah.