I dunno about you, but I...

I'm feeling hormonal, so you can just skip this post.  Unless you, like me, are going through early menopause and are feeling the swing.  (And I don't mean dancing.) 

Nothing melts my heart like those baby jowls...

About a year ago (shortly after we moved), I started having minor hot flashes and cold sweats at night.  No biggie: I've done Lupron & Clomid in my past and knew that these things tended to come and go.  A year later, i.e. earlier this summer, I realized that they had failed to go, and were in fact becoming more severe.  It was to the point that I would wake up more than once at night in a drenching sweat the days leading up to my period.  I won't gross you out with the details of said period, but suffice it to say, it had also changed.  Instead of being my same old sadistic Aunt Flow, it became erratic and inconsistent, sometimes here for 7 days, and others for only 4.  Basically, she went senile. 

Now normally I would've just blown it off and not worried about it--after all, I'm looking forward to menopause, when my hormones stop doing the grandfather clock thing and start laying low.  I know my  mood will improve over all and I will be a saner person all around.  Not to mention I won't have to fear sudden endometriosis flare-ups.  But for one little, tiny problem.  We aren't done adding to our family.

Crazy you say?  Not nearly as crazy as Flow.  But yes, still on the brink of insanity.  You see, not long after number 5 was born (aka, my only man-child), I started having this feeling that someone was missing in our family.  It would happen around the dinner table when everyone was present, or when we were walking into church meetings.  It was frequent and powerful, much more so than how I felt before I had my other babies.  Go figure--God knows I wanted to be done 5 kids ago...  ;)  I'm sure He's trying to convince me that it's worth it.  So when little Mr. XY was weaned, we grudgingly began trying to conceive again. 

I figured it would take a while, and was content to wait, esp when I learned we were moving across the country, buying our first house (which was a dump), and adjusting to life in Mormondom.  But in May, after that nagging feeling began to gain on me, and the hot flashes & cold sweats made their more dramatic showings, I realized that I was nearly out of time.  And for a moment, a tiny Voice whispered to me that if we intended to follow through with having another wee one, we were going to have to get some help.  As in fertility doc help.

I've done one round of the fertility meds.  As you can probably guess, they failed to take, and I'm okay with that.  One more month to get our dumpy yard into more order and get past the appraisal for refinancing.  (Can you believe these interest rates?  We thought they were awesome last year!)  I've enjoyed giving myself the shots in the belly (I really should just go to nursing school.  It's almost gruesome how much fun I think this medical stuff is.), and I don't mind the constant doctor's visits.  I'm even resigned to the twins I'll probably end up with.  (Small request sent heavenward: please make them the same gender?...)  What I think is hard is the same thing that's hard every month for every woman who is trying to get pregnant: the inability to plan your future.  I hate not knowing where we'll be next summer.  Do I start a running club in the Spring as I've been dearly wanting to do (in the elementary school)?  Or should I wait one more year just in case I'm giving birth then?  I hate planning and then cancelling stuff, but I also hate not planning stuff, then sitting on my hands because nothing is going on.  Even worse, what if I give birth on the first day of class like I did with number 2?  (At least then Dh was a student and not the professor.)  Or when Dh is in the middle of prepping for his tenure case.  So I feel time constraints in more ways than one. 

Heck, what if I never do get preggers and we end up adopting (which I'm also fine with)?  I know I'm a total control-freak and it's worse when my hormones are doing the Cha-Cha.  I'm also on the comedown from some serious heavy-labor (9 hours on Sat) in the yard and house before the weather turns.  Basically it all comes down to this: I need to go to bed and remember that "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."  I think that's a nice way of saying that I can start over tomorrow...  Okay, off to bed, and hopefully I'll get some pics up soon of the progress we've made in our yard.  Crossing my fingers now that the seed we put in will actually germinate--I like to think of my thumb as more black than green.  (My farming ancestors would not claim me for sure.)

Before you feel too sorry for me, you should know that I had an excellent nap with my newest napping buddy, the Wudge.  He's taking fewer and fewer naps, but he sure zonked right out today.  Must be my super comfy bed...