I will learn to Love the skies I'm under.

Is it just me or does it feel like this has been the longest month ever? Well. Maybe not 'month.' I guess more like this cycle. It has seriously just drug on. I think its because I realized I didn't ovulate this month, so there really wasn't anything to 'look forward too.' 

I did, however, start my first year of college this week! 24 years old, and I'm just now a freshmen in college. Better late than never, I guess. It feels kind of bitter sweet though. I put off college because I KNEW I wouldn't get pregnant easy, and I knew that I needed to cut down on stress - I wanted to be a mother first. Let my child grow up a bit, then be able to attend college while he or she attended pre-school, or kindergarten, etc. I have to keep telling myself that I'm not giving up on being a mother by going to college now - I'm just re-writing my chapter. I'm getting a head start.

I can't keep continuing to live in a world all about a baby that may or may not happen. I need to do something for my husband and myself. I don't want to look back ten years from now, maybe still childless, and realize that I could of been bettering myself all that time. I have those moments now - I'd have a degree by now if I would of just started college when my high school friends did. They're growing up - And I'm still just a third shift Security Officer. Sure, we're not hurting for money per se, or a roof over our heads. Andrew has a wonderful job, and for someone with only a High School Diploma, I make great money. We're more fortunate than MANY people. I've known about our last chance of a baby being IVF for years, so we made the decision to start saving as much as we could then. I've been working on establishing my credit for just as long, and I'm happy to say its perfect right now, should we ever need to get out a loan to cover what we might not save.

My oldest sister needed a total hysterectomy by 28 due to severe endometriosis. If my PCOS starts getting out of hand to the point where maybe I'll start developing uterine cancer, I'll want to do IVF as soon as possible. Pregnancy usually reverses uterine cancer, at least for the time being. So I'm glad we made the decision to save, just in case. Its looking more and more like that's the path we will have to take to get the family we've always seen for ourselves. And, if we decide not to do IVF (a 40% chance scares me), we'll have a good down payment to start building a house, or we'll be able to buy Andrew's dream car. Either way, I really have nothing to complain about, besides my non-working uterus who refuses to do it's job. 

Trying to remain positive is ridiculously hard, especially through infertility. Sometimes, I'm so tired of being the person that everyone knows as 'the infertile' or 'the girl who can't have kids.' I can't stand it. I want everyone to start seeing me as I'm starting to see myself. Determined. Proud. Brave. A fighter. Courageous. I want them to know that I'm definitely not the person I used to be. Being broken so many times has 100% changed me. But I'm slowly realizing that infertility will not define me. I will be better than it. I will beat it. Even if its just with the way I live the rest of my life.

-J