Life goes on...

Nothing much to report here. Just enjoying the warm weather, I hope all my readers are too! My oldest niece will be graduating in a few weeks, my sister will be visiting which I am so excited about since I haven't seen her in almost a year! I just can't believe that much time has passed, my nieces and nephews are growing up so fast.
Then we have a couple of camping trips planned for the Summer, which will be awesome. Oh and my birthday is in a month. 30 is slowly creeping up on me! I just can't believe how different my life has turned out to be...I thought I would have several children by now, a house, a nice salary...none of these have turned out to be true.
I feel like I was so naive when I was younger, I guess we all are. But like I have expressed before, a lot of times I feel like my life is frozen where it is. It doesn't feel like things are moving forward. Everything is just the same. And really I don't know if having children would even change that mindset.
So anyhow, that's what is on my mind lately! LOL. Until next time!

What does it mean?

As I sit here and contemplate the meaning of this day, I start to think about what exactly a mother is. Of course she is someone who bears children, but really that event is tiny in the life of a child. Isn't a mother someone who bears life with compassion, courage, love, and patience? If that is the case then as women we are all mother's it does not matter if we have children or not. As Sheri Dew said "Motherhood is the essence of who we are as women."
I have seen so many women in my life exhibit these qualities. A sister-in-law who has been given a lot of hard things to bear, including several little rambunctious boys. But she has risen out of it a better person, more loving, more compassionate, and patient. A woman who lost her baby before she even got the chance to know him. But is confident he is in the arms of Jesus, and has lived life with so much compassion for others. Another woman who who will never experience pregnancy at all, but lives her life helping others cope with infertility and educating others to it's many complex emotions.
Yes. These women in essence are all mother's. For those that are infertile, there is NO greater example to me of motherhood. How much courage it takes to pursue treatments, how much love for a baby unknown to subject your body and mind to pain and disappointment time and time again. How much courage it takes to accept a life of childlessness. How much patience through all these trials is expected and needed. How much compassion for others these women exhibit, there ability to love is overwhelming!!
"Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is certainly and definitely that. It is the essence of who we are as women. Motherhood defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature, and the unique traits, talents, and tendencies with which our Father endowed us." Sheri Dew in her booklet entitled "Are We Not All Mothers?"
So Happy Mother's Day to all women out there, I am blessed to know you all. Thank you for your examples of love, patience, and compassion.

New Winner!!

So, the winner never responded. So I redrew and the new winner is Chelsea!!!! So please contact me with your information, my email is to the left, or you can message me on Facebook since we are friends on there. :)
Thanks for everyone that participated! Another one is in the works so please come back again soon!!! :)

MAJOR pet peeve...

So on my Facebook I have this one "friend" who constantly makes remarks on some of my statuses essentially with the tone of "you shouldn't be feeling this way." If you are friends with me on there, you probably can pick out who that person is. And it drives me INSANE. All my status said was "This year Mother's Day is rubbing me the wrong way. I can't give a card, and I can't get a card. What's a girl to do?"
I do NOT understand why some people feel the need to control or chastise you for your feelings. Can someone explain this to me? God, I believe, gave us feelings for a reason. And most the time I don't believe in suppressing your feelings. For me I learned at a very young age that I needed to have somewhere to express my feelings about things or else they got too intense for me to control at times. There would be times where my grief would be so overwhelming about my Mom's death that I would cry and scream for hours and beg for someone to bring me my Mom. Can you imagine me in Elementary school making the traditional gifts for Mom's at school and knowing in my mind there was no one at home to give it to? Can you imagine me wondering what to do when our Young Women group at church would have a mother/daughter activity? My sister was always available for those kinds of things, and I am so grateful to have her, but its not the same you know?
I just ask you to please not make someone feel like they shouldn't feel a certain way. Especially when it comes to infertility. You are just asking them to close off to you. Most the time we just need someone to listen and be a sounding board. There are a lot of emotions tied in to infertility, and I would say most of them aren't pretty. But I think in the end that is what makes us more compassionate to others.
:)

Winner and what's new!

Okay the winner of the jewelry is...

HOLLY!!!

You have until Wednesday at 6 PM MST to contact me, my email is over on the right hand side, if not I will redraw! Come back again, I will be doing more of these for sure!!!

In what's new, Nate and I went to an Infertility seminar on Saturday. They started doing these annually last year, and they have always been great. Last year they focused more on the medical side of infertility, this time they focused more on the emotional side.

Some of the things that stuck out for me were:

* Mindfulness. This one is huge for me. I often try to think of terms of the future. I very rarely can get myself to relax and enjoy the here and now. Especially when it comes to infertility. I feel like I am always trying to live in the future and that's not even possible! So I will be working on that.

* Spouse. Remembering that your spouse is the one constant you can count on IF you remember to work on your marriage. Babies may come, they may not, but your spouse can always be there for you.

* Treatments? Having an open discussion about what you and your spouse are okay with as far as treatments. Donated sperm? Donated egg? Embryo adoption? IVF? I have always felt DH and I were pretty much on the same page here but it was nice to really lay out there again.

* Stress. They have done studies and found out that some women dealing with infertility can have as much stress as someone diagnosed with a life threatening illness. This was just amazing to me when I heard this. Because my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and struggled with it for a year or two and there was a lot of stress there. It also makes me feel like I am not so crazy...because there are times where I feel like I have a life threatening illness even though I really don't!

* Gender Differences. They talked a lot about the differences in coping for men and women. It was really a good refresher.

* Laughter. They talked about how important and beneficial it is to laugh, and laugh together.

These are just a few of the things they talked about. It was just awesome, and its always amazing to me to see how infertility effects EVERYONE. There were all kinds of different people there. The couple sitting down from us during the last speaker I would have NEVER picked out of crowd to have infertility. But that's the sad thing about this disease. It effects people in all walks of life, and all over the world!

So, hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful spring day (at least here it is finally!) :)