Contentment

It is sometimes hard to feel content with your life situation. We want to make more money, go on vacation, be able to fix up the house, have babies, have the babies sleep through the night, have the babies be potty trained. You get the picture. Sometimes it is hard to just be okay with where you are in life. Really hard, especially when you are in the trenches of infertility.

Instead of having bitterness in my soul I am seeking and learning to be content. Would I love another little one to come our way? Absolutely! I just do not want to psycho like try for one at the moment. I figure my energy is better spent on trying to get healthy and lose weight instead of charting temps, using opks, and checking my cervix or feeling my cervical fluid to aide the debate in my head is it really ewcm?

I am down on the scale to 196.8. I am 4.8 lbs away from my previous weight. And I cannot wait to get even healthier and help set a strong foundation for healthy living in our family before Matthew has to grow up and struggle with his weight, or loses his mom and dad when he is 30 or 40 because we were fat, heart wasn't healthy, and we developed whatever condition that caused us to die young. Yes, I just said 65 was young. Working with the elderly on a daily basis you get a new perspective.

And my new perspective is this. I want to grow old and see my grandchildren and great grandchildren. I want to keep my independence and mobility as long as possible. I want to be able to share wisdom and love to the future generations in our family. And quite simply I won't be able to do that while remaining obese and out of shape. I want to run 5 ks into my 50s. I want to be able to keep up with my kids and grandchildren as I age. I don't want to forever be a slug on the couch with muffin top trying to show itself over the tops of my jeans.

BUT for now I am content with my progress and where we are in life. We are working towards an attainable goal. And there is much joy and hope in my heart!

(But also please note that a smidgen of jealousy mixed with wistfulness does spring up when I see infants or beautiful pregnant bellies. And sometimes even when I feel gas that reminds me of early movements. In those moments I thank God for what I have gotten to experience and remind myself of how blessed I am. And usually rather quickly contentment replaces the negative emotions and I again become at peace with where we stand in life.)

Feels Pretty Darn Awesome

I had like a handful of people today tell me how good I was looking and asking me what I am doing to lose weight.

Let me tell you, that feels pretty darn AMAZING! And to be able to be a motivator and encourager to make the change for themselves is awesome.

Now to add exercise so I can firm and tone as I lose weight. I miss having a nice booty. Bob's squats and lunges really are amazing.

My goal is to find at least one day before the end of this month to work out with Bob. And cancel our cable so maybe I can find a way to join the gym or pay for a Zumba class.

Feeling good lately and you know what feels even better? Not putting energy into TTC or prevention but just letting God do the planning. Really enjoying the spot I am at in this present moment in time. Contentment.

Another random thought from my head. Since I am a planner, I started thinking about what if I do get pregnant before I am able to get the tattoo I want? If I have the time and energy I would love to arrange a day for our friends and family that have lost a pregnancy or baby to do a balloon release with us and possibly talk another friend into taking pictures. And then continue to do it anually. Even if I am not pregnant it just may have to happen that way. It is a beautiful remembrance for those precious babies that entered into heaven much too soon for out liking.

Weight Loss Wednesday

Again I haven't done the best. I thought this week as going to be a gain or a wash.

I really need to try to add exercise. Our TV broke so I won't be sitting there watching my many shows. I may be exercising while using my laptop lol Because here I. MI we still have snow on the ground.

Last week: 200.8 lbs
This week: 199.4 lbs - ONEderland (-1.4 lbs and -14.6 lbs overall)

7.4 lbs to pre pregnancy weight. My goal is to see that number by the end of April.  I think I can make it! 5 weeks x 1.4 = 7 so just need to lose .4 more than what my weight loss has been lately. I would also like to lose that 2% body fat from pre pregnancy as well.

I am getting excited about the progress we are making and the goals we could actually meet! My ultimate goal is 150 lbs. Which at 5 foot 7 puts me just into the normal BMI category by a few lbs. I thought 160 was fat in high school. Boy was I wrong let me tell you.

Next Monday is James' weigh in with our family doctor because he only has to see the specialist every 6 months due to how well he did the first month. He said his hopes for James is for him to lose 75 lbs by September. Which will put him close or right at the weight he is okay with maintaining. (330 - 75 = 255 and they want him at like 220 but he said 240 or 250 would be okay with him)

I am hoping by this winter we will both be able to strength condition because he's been wanting to and I want to get rid of my lunch lady arms. And I should be able to maintain a strength regimen if I get pregnant. :-)

Planning for a Baby

I started thinking about our time line we have in our heads. And where pregnancy and baby would fit into it...

October 14 we want to get tattoos and do balloon release for lost babies.

May 15 I graduate

December 15 or February 16 we are going to Florida. To Disney and Harry Potter World and Seaworld. With my sisters and my mom.

Where does another baby fit in all of this? I really don't want to be pregnant at Disney. I want to ride rides! If we had to postpone tattoos it would be okay because I would be excited for another baby but I really am thinking I am going to NOT be pregnant by then. But my luck will be to have it all planned and then be pregnant and not be able to go through with it lol

And then I think to myself you are so stupid Jessica. A baby is more important than ANY of these other things. One thing is for certain we will be buying a Ergo baby carrier if we have another baby by then. And we will be riding rides, but be taking turns between James and I. :-)

Cover Me Jesus.

Lord this is my prayer to you. When I am feeling sad or lonely wrap me in your arms so tight that there is no room for anything but Joy and laughter in my heart.

When I am feeling broken and let down, remind me of how you see me. Of who I am in You. Block the attempts from Satan to drag me down into pits of self pity and despair.

When things are going wonderful help me to dance with joy and shout of your goodness in every move I make.

Help me to succeed where you are guiding. And close the doors where you are not. Make me so aware of you in our daily lives. Wipe away the fear that comes from making these prayers. Fears that tell me sometimes when asking for these things come trials and tribulations. I know you are a big Big God. And you rule over all. You haven't given me a spirit of fear.

So I will step out in faith and blessed assurance that always and forever your plans will work out for good. And have confidence that there will always be hope in you, even when it all may seem lost.

You are my God and I pray my son will know you in his heart. That he will have an even closer relationship with you than either James or I. I pray for the big things I know you have planned for him. It gives me goosebumps. I don't know what your plans for him are but I know they are many and too big for me to comprehend.

Cover me Lord. With your goodness. Mercy. Forgiveness. A tender loving heart. Grace. And let me be a woman of Christ that shines the light of your Son to the world.

Weight Loss Wednesday

I haven't done the best (again) this week but I am still losing....slowly but surely wins the race, right?

Last week: 201.6
This week: 200.8 (as of yesterday, feeling constipated again today so I forgoed weighing in) so that is -0.8 lbs from last week and -13.2 lbs from starting weight.

And I still haven't added exercise. :-( Oh well I will get there, and then I kind of anticipate my weight losses will be 1 to 2 lbs a week again.

I took a picture of myself yesterday, I actually felt pretty good, and I wanted to take a picture to see my belly status....I'm looking forward to the day when I no longer look pregnant...or I am pregnant and then have a base picture :-) Just need to add some darn exercise! Oh and ignore the fact i am in undies and have a messy bathroom. :-)

Potty Training

That's right...Potty Training. A 16 month old. BOY at that. When he is with me he usually does awesome. He will stay dry for a good part of the day if I am paying 100% attention to him. When I am not....it is more after the fact, like he goes and then signs to me his version of poop which is this...

but instead he does it sideways and pulls on a finger instead of his thumb.

Yup, he doesn't even say potty. We use baby sign. He says with sign: more, all done, drink, poop, and milk. 

He says words like, "lala" for Missy, "tay-tay" for Stacey, "gamma" for grandma, Dada, Mama, Jack, meow, kitty, up, "Bapa" for grandpa, "Boo" when he wants to nurse, and "na na" when he wants to go to sleep. 

My favorite lately has been since he has had diarrhea the last week or whatever ago, he now quickly signs "poop" and then sits on the potty and farts. He is nervous to poop in his diaper! Sometimes. Other times he will fart and then giggle quite hilariously over the fact that he tooted.

He is 100% a boy. He LOVES playing outdoors. He thinks it is funny to throw snowballs, and doesn't mind getting dirty at all. (He likes playing in the dog water dish, especially when we tell him no, I think it is a favorite past time of his).

He does much better not going in his pants when he has a pull up on instead of a diaper, but they are more expensive so I try to use diapers at night...but when he decides all of a sudden he needs to go potty it is quite a hassle to undo the diaper. And say goodbye to footie jammies. Those are ridiculous early in the morning when I need to go, and I know that he will stay dry if I simply can get him on the potty (yup, sometimes he even wakes up dry already!). 

I wasn't prepared for potty training a 16 month old, let alone a boy. They don't warn you that even though the potties have a flap to prevent urine from coming out and over the floor...it still will. In fact, I often times have to use my hand as a flap to keep the pee in, OR if I was surprised in the beginning my hands turned into a cup for pee. Yup, sad truth right there. At least urine is sterile, right?! lol

I feel as if I am missing out on pertinent stories about our potty training adventures so far...but I really need to go to bed it is almost midnight! Can you tell that I have a laptop again? Oh how I missed you!

Update on me real quick: I am FINALLY  turning in LPN board application stuff. We need the pay raise. Desperately...medical bills are coming out of nowhere, but really everywhere. It makes me feel like I am drowning. Also, finances suck. But we are trying to make them better. Long road ahead of us. TTC front? NT/NP is currently our method. I really want to wait to get pregnant until I have short-term disability and will have a paid maternity leave. That would be oh so helpful next time around. I am on CD14 or somewhere around there and have been having 35 day cycles lately. So I would dare say I have almost a week until ovulation or there abouts. 

Bedtime for this lady now though! Hope you all are finding blessings in your day! :-)

Love ya all!

Weight Loss...

Thursday? Lol I missed it by a day again.

I started this journey at 214.0
Last week I weighed in at 202.0 (-12 lbs)
This week after ravenous eating I weighed in at 201.6 (-0.4/-12.4)

Not too shabby with as craptastic I ate this week. Especially since Monday the scale said 204. Yup, I ate McDonald's,  fries and all, and ate way too much other junk.

On other news...James and I talked again about babies. It isn't that he doesn't want another or isn't ready. He thinks I am not really ready with school and Matthew still being so needy.

But I am still leaning towards at least waiting until I can pick up the short term disability from work so I won't have an unpaid maternity leave again. AND I would love to have our medical bills paid off.

So that's life...busy with work and school and trying to do my best to make better choices with food. Oh and did I mention potty training Matthew as well? Yup!

I will leave you with a pic of Matthew. Sleeping boy and when he was sick...He also had a black eye and a big bruise on his head from falling...The week he was sick he had a rough week! lol I felt so bad for him!

Late Night Discussions

James and I managed to squeeze in some lovey time towards the end of last week. But it was so late and we both dragged butt the next day. It had been such a long week with a sick little boy and school. I started this post then so my house isn't quite as messy. Laundry is starting to get caught up...but the rest is the same.

My house is a mess. Laundry is behind. I just got caught up on mandatory school work yesterday. But, it is what it is, right? The world sort of stops when you have a sick little one.

James and I finally got time together to have lovey time and just talk face to face without interuption. It was so nice. We got on the topic of weight loss. We both have goals to hit by the end of the year. Mine is to weigh 165 (that is a 49 lb loss) and his is to weigh 260 (I think that is a 70 lb loss or pretty close). We were discussing how close I am to my first goal of losing the baby weight (10 lbs away!). When he says to me, "I just don't want to get pregnant yet. It would be easier if he wasn't nursing any more."

I informed him of my gut telling me another viable pregnancy won't happen until much later this year. We discussed about how that would be more ideal because if I found out I was pregnant in December I would be done with school before the baby came. But we all know how well our plans for when we will have babies work out.

Then we talked about how Matthew and I are not ready to wean yet. I would have loved to tandem nurse but that isn't looking as if it is going to be a possibility. He is just tired of having him in our bed. But I told him as it is I have little energy in the mornings add to it having to physically get out of bed every night and you would have a very cranky mom. I told him if he was serious about wanting me to wean and have him not in our bed it would mean he would have to be the one to get up with him so the book lady would not be the one soothing him back to sleep. Let's just say, he is in our bed but James told me it is on me when we finally get him out of our room.

I swore before becoming a mom that I would never let my son sleep with me. That he would sleep in his crib from day one. That we would cry it out. Ha! Crying it out is harsh to me and too hard. Co sleeping is easier because I just roll over to give him the other boob as I fall asleep. I love my late night cuddles, especially on the days we don't get to see each other. These past 15 months have went by too quickly. Who cares if he sleeps with us? Do you know a child that struggled going to college because he wanted to sleep with his Mom? Because I certainly don't.

Off soap box. We just came to the conclusion we need a king size bed. Because this queen gets a little small for a dog, two chunky adults and a boobie monster.

On another note. James has lost 17 lbs. He is so close to being under 300 again! I am so proud of him! I ate horrid this past weekend and managed to gain a pound. So this week is all about self control and focusing on the goal of being under 200 lbs again. And then pre pregnancy weight. And then 180s followed by 170s followed by 165 by the end of the year.

A little TMI maybe, but it might be hard not getting pregnant before the end of the year, especially if God wills it! Since we are both losing weight we are definitely having a spike in sex drive and enjoying it a lot more. I forgot how much better sex is when you feel good about yourself and are not so chunky!

I am actually thinking about using opks to avoid pregnancy for a few months. We haven't done that in over 3 years. What a crazy possibility to be facing! :-)

Weight Loss Wednesday

Soooo I am a day late on this post, just shoot me. Life has been insane.

Last week's weight: 207.0
This week's weight: 202.0

That's right somehow by nursing a puking boy and eating junk I am down 5 lbs.

Total weight loss: 12 lbs

I am now officially 10 lbs from my pre pregnancy weight. I am hoping for by the end of this month or mid April I will see 192 or the 180s!

I am starting to see a difference in the size of my stomach. Yay! Unfortunately I was only able to find the time to exercise with Bob for one day. And that one day was 10 minutes because it was killing me lol I am so out of shape!

James has his next doctor's appointment tomorrow after work so I will update on his progress.

Life is super crazy with school and me being behind because I had a pukey pooping boy that couldn't keep anything down for very long. The past 3 days brought me through the wringer that us for sure.

In fact it made me forget about 3 assignments that were due. One of which mail fail me from the nursing program and all it was was a stupid discussion board post. Still waiting to hear from my instructor. So you can imagine how high my stress level is. So much homework to do so I had best go attempt to work on it!!!!

CD 1

Well I had a 35 day cycle.aybe that will become my new normal and I shouldn't expect anything different or test before CD 36.

I woke up to cramps. Fantastic,  I know. Especially since I had a puke monster yesterday that was a "milk puke fountain" as my husband called him. I couldn't very well tell him no when he wanted to nurse because I wanted him to stay hydrated but I knew he would just puke it up. Then he kept down a couple pieces of banana and some rice crispie cereal pieces. Bow he just has had diarrhea and no puking since 4 pm yesterday...and it is now 3am.

On another note, feeling constipated again. So I took miralax. And ate 2 fiber one bars. Blah. My cycles really have been playing havoc on my body and mind lately.

Confession

I have done pretty fantastic at eating in moderation.

I have done pretty well adding some exercise, like walking quicker or more places, taking the steps, and yesterday I worked out with Bob.

I am even down to 204. I have lost 10lbs in a month.

But here is my confession....I am a day late on this stupid cycle. CD 33 at the moment. I had my hopes up. I got a BFN. We had lunch with my best friend that is pregnant, and let me tell you. I got home. I cried. I ate 6 lemon Oreos. And quite possibly almost an entire pack of graham crackers.

I am feeling depressed. But I shouldn't be. I am beyond excited for her, they deserve this little one. Just a little lot mad at God. Why is it that I have to work hard to lose weight and go through loss after loss? It isn't fair. At all. I wish I could know what a fear free pregnancy was like. A pregnancy not affected by the ugliness of loss and infertility.

I disgust myself even having to admit that this is the way I have been feeling. WHY? UGH. And all I am doing is backsliding into the old times of ttc where I was a miserable person and fat. Because all that overeating does is add unnecessary freaking calories and make me feel like even more crap after the fact.

October cannot get here close enough. A date night with just James and I, getting tattoos together and then maybe a few drinks with friends celebrating the fact that we have the promise of heaven so we will get to see our babies again, followed by a balloon release. Or maybe split all that up. I don't care but we are doing it. It is the one way I will be okay with not being pregnant come October. Because just as I had a feeling a while back that my friend would be pregnant before me, I have this feeling that even when I get down to 192 I still won't be able to get and stay pregnant. In fact, I think this time I have to get down to my goal weight of 150 and wean Matthew, which I am not ready to do yet. I think we have another journey before us. My hope and thought and prayer is to be pregnant by December of this year with our take home baby. That's my gut. And my gut has been right. Maybe God will prove me wrong, or maybe He is the one whispering all of this to me.

I have to keep Hope alive. And some days that is a hard hard thing to do. But God does not give me a spirit of fear, so whom shall I fear? Not the future. And not another loss. Because He is by my side.

Lost Babies

Forever I have felt like we haven't done enough to remember our lost babies.  I have finally decided what we are going to do.

For one I am getting a tattoo sometimes this year. I will put the picture of my plan at the end. Matthews butterfly will be sitting on the cross and be blue in color. I am leaving room for another baby on the other arm of the cross because I truly believe that we will be granted with one more biological baby.

My other plan is to do a balloon release every October, right around the 15th...The day for pregnancy and infant loss. We will release 8. And I may attach a letter to them. Matthew will be able to help. Because right now there will be 8 balloons being released. In fact, October might be the month I get this tattoo as well.