Can it be our turn yet?

I haven't, and don't talk about my feelings or struggles much, at least not in a public way. I am a pretty private person when it comes to matters of the heart. But I feel like venting. And since no one reads my blog anyways here goes my jumbled mis-mosh of thoughts:

I am infertile and this is how it feels-

Life is confusing. I cry a lot. My heart hurts. I have sad days. I get angry. I can be jealous and sometimes resentful. I yearn and ache. I feel left out. I feel behind. I feel judged. I feel alone. I question a lot of things. I am no stranger to disappointment, but it doesn't make it hurt any less. I don't want to be broken.  It's my fault.  I want to be normal. I pretend like everything is ok.  I'm hormonal and irrational and quite frankly sick of being poked and prodded and pumped full of drugs. I really don't want to hear another "oh just stop thinking about it, that's when it happens", because right now, yes, this is what I think a lot about, because if I don't think about it and put forth the added effort, it is NOT going to happen- so I HAVE to "think" about it.

 I don't like having the conflicting feelings when another person announces they are expecting. I know everyone has their own story's and struggles and deep down do not want to judge, but to see it all around me it pricks at my heart. Its difficult to see so many pregnant people and family's around me posting maternity pictures, baby pictures, nursery pictures, pinning baby this and that and having baby showers. Its not that I'm not happy for them- I am happy for them because I DO love people and genuinely care, but is it so bad that I want to taste a little piece of their same happiness? I guess I'm selfish. Its such an awkward position to be in. I try not to let it affect me, but it does.  I am trying to live happy here and now and have had help from my husband.

 Barry and I have really tried hard to enjoy our time together and I think we have done a good job at that. We have had a lot of really fun memorable times together. We stay busy and active. We have taken fun trips, cruises, lake outings, and do all the things that we "can't do" with kids- go to the movies, go out to dinner, stay up late, work out, spend money-- you know.  We try not to just "sit around and feel sorry for ourselves". At the end of the day, no cruise can replace the hole in our heart that we really want a family. We are happy though. If anything, and as cliche as it is to say, we really have become closer. Barry is my best buddy. He has been perfectly supportive. He's just there for me and loves me no matter what. I am grateful for him and his good humor to keep me smiling on the days I don't want to.

Barry and I have always known we wanted a family since we got married in 2009. We have never done anything in the way of prevention. We started seeing a doctor right after we got married knowing fertility could be a challenge for me. I have never had a normal cycle and have struggled with hormonal imbalances my whole life.  I was diagnosed with a very common generic infertility term PCOS -poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, though I exhibit none of the normal symptoms of PCOS. My body just doesn't produce mature follicles and prevents ovulation. After many, many appointments, consultations, ultrasounds, treatments, tests, rounds of medications and shots with a few different recommended doctors we have spend thousands of dollars and have had no success. We have never been pregnant.  In 4 years we have never seen that happy little + sign.  This has led us to where we are today, under the care of fertility specialist Dr. Randall Craig a reproductive endocrinologist.  We are still moving forward. The process of fertility is very drawn-out and long because its an entire month at a time. We do have a game plan. We are determined to have a family. If in the end, after all our options have been exhausted we aren't able to get pregnant we will adopt.  I do have faith and trust that there is a plan for us it just might look different than what I think.

Dealing with infertility is roller coaster of emotions, yet despite every hard emotion I experience,  month after month after month, I remain hopeful. I still have the spark of "what-if?" What if this time it works? So I keep trying. I am hopeful because ultimately I know it will be worth every single hard day. I remain hopeful because I know I want a baby. I want to be a mother and feeling inadequate to be one weighs me down.  I just want it to be my turn and it is hard to be patient. I see life passing me by. I always wanted to be a young "hip" Mom. I am now 30 years old. I always thought I'd be married at 21 and have a least a few kids. Life just doesn't turn out they way you expect it to. I'm trying to be a good person. I am trying to be a good member of the church. I want to keep the commandments. What an interesting trial infertility is. It truly tests your faith. I am grateful for those is my life that I have been there for me! My two sisters Kari Kinsey and Tami Peters and other family members also Brielle Gunderson, Julie Porter, Amy Betz and Tiffany Passey have really cared, stayed interested, hopeful and have showed love for us.

I'm not very eloquent with words and it is hard to express how difficult infertility is for me but there is just a little insight of what it feels like.

Adventures: a super duper post

 Barry and I flew to New Orleans LA. Saturday Morning 4-20-13 to begin our adventure. Thank you to our good pal Herbz for dropping us off bright and early.

We met up with Mark, Holly, Holly's sister Kelly, her husband David, Jill Holly's Mom and of course, the kiddos!

 After day day of giggles, dress up, puzzles and alligator hunting at Mark and Holly's house, we big people went out to dinner at a fancy restaurant called Clancy's.

We had reservations for 8:30 and.....well....waited and waited and waited.....in the chilly, chilly, not-exactly-arizonas-warm-spring, New Orleans weather and finally got seated in none other than the wine room upstairs where, well, yes, of course, they must keep it cool...poor Barry who was in shorts and a t-shirt was frozen like a pop-sickle shivering and all and the grouchiest I think I have ever seen him in my life, which actually was pretty funny (to the rest of us). The servers where all men, dressed like butlers.

The Menu was hard to read...

This is what I ordered. Grilled Baby drum (fish) and shrimp. It was real good.

That night Barry and I stayed at the Marriott in down-town New Orleans, which was really nice. After a long flight and subjection to the meat locker we were tired and cold and ready for bed. We crashed out until almost noon the next day.

Day 1

Ahhhh, finally aboard! Getting cozy in our cabin.

Sunday 4-21-13 we embarked the Carnival Conquest a ship that is becoming quite a novelty for Mark, Holly, Barry and I. We say her name with endearing sentiment.


After getting settled in, we toured the ship a bit to see what changes had been make since they had done renovations. They updated the yellow hot tubs to a more appealing color (thank you) and changed a bunch of decor. The biggest changes that we enjoyed were the addition of the Blue Iguana Mexican Grill and Guys Hamburger Stand!! We partook frequently. The cute Indonesian guys even knew me by name.

We met up with our crew: Mark, Holly, Daniel and Brooke Zufelt and let the party begin.
Day 2 and 3
We had two days at sea to get to our first port so...we vacationed of course, slept in, went to the gym, ate, laid by the pool,  read, played games, talked, and my favorite: people watching. I could do this all. day. long. There are some interesting characters in this world.

 Just back from the ship gym. I watched an entire show while riding the bike. I just had to note this.

Pool side with my floppy hat and shades.

At night we went to the kid friendly comedy shows which we got some good laughs out of. We liked a comedian named Jason Blanchard and we got to see Cowboy Comedian from Americas got talent.

Tuesday night was get-dressed-up-fancy night for dinner AND a BIG show night called DIVAS. Well this is a show that Barry and I won't forget!! So to get the show started the cruise director and MC, Gary, and his assistant introduced the show by having a little fun with the guests. YES!! We got called up on stage. If you know Barry at all, he HATES this kind of attention. I like it. So us and another couple were front and center and the Guys then had to duplicate the process of assembling  a "dress" out of a long long piece of fabric on their model, the girls. Well for some reason the audience felt sorry for loved us and we WON...

 

If that wasn't bad enough for Barry, next they asked him to walk the CAT WALK and STRIKE a POSE... ok peeps this is BARRY LAWRENCE KEIME here... manlist man's man....ever

I got Holly all dolled up! Doesn't she look gorgeous!!

 I was so shocked proud of him for being a sport. So after he strutted his stuff we thought we were done. Well Barry was, but they sent ME back stage to get a mini make-over to become there DIVA of the night to make my grad appearance at the end of the show... 

Don't you just love my Divalicious outfit??? haahaa!!

 sorta a bad video but you get the idea...
Yup, I made a fool of myself, but I didn't care. Come on lets be honest I have been waiting for a stage...

We won a bottle of wine (sweet) and I got a free facial from the spa and the rest of the cruise everyone recognized Barry and I and would talk to us. Yeah, we were like celebrity's of the Conquest you could say. Wink.

DAY 4
Wednesday we arrived in Roatan, Honduras. Today the plan was to rent scooters, find beaches Mark had researched for good snorkeling, ride about and see the sights and get lunch. It started with a slight course deviation complements to our driver, who was trying to get us to go zip-lining so he made a random stop at what seemed to be a family business of sorts. They lure you in with these cute animals.

 

The snorkeling was really beautiful at this beach. The water looked fake. We had lots of beach vendors trying to sell beach massages, food and stuff you don't need. 

The fish loved to nibble on Barry

 After the beach we hopped on our scooters and rode about an hour  or so through town to a restaurant called Cal's which was super delicious. Mark got the best carne asada bean dip. It came out on top of this little pot with  hot coals in it. Cals was not exactly authentic, but great none the less. It was worth the view alone.

If  you look close at my helmet it say "happy fox" well this happy fox has a really small head and only fits into child size head gear!

Roatan, Honduras was beautiful! Barry's bum was a bit sore from all the scooter-ing. He's a bit big for a scooter... but we loved it.

 Our Dining room this time was the Renoir vrs the Monet (The whole ship has a French-like theme). We liked to be  awesomly hick and call it the "Reen-er" We ate here every single night because we loved the service staff. We become quite fond of them by the end. We also enjoy the dining room staff manager guy Shane, who's Bali-sian-or-whatever-it-is  accent cracked us up. "SHOW TIME!!" "Dear guest, firs (no t) of all..."

Barry and I had this matchy-matching thing going on with a lot of our outfits this year. If you notice on first fancy night, Barry has purple in is shirt that matched my belt. We didn't really mean to. Holly joined in too.

Day 5

We had to take a ferry to Belize because there is no port. Apparently this is my lets get ready for some sun face.

Thursday we excursion'ed  in Belize. Belize is... well... not so pretty to look at, really. Its kinda dry and VERY 3rd world. There was a lot of what seemed to be poverty in my eyes.

There graves are above ground because the ground is so wet the bodies would float out of the ground.

The landscape improved as we got further into the mountains. This excursion we had our own tour guide  Jose/ Juan (well that's what I kept calling him) who drove us way into the mountains to go ZIP-LINING and CAVE TUBING and fed us a yummy buffet. Barry was excited about the fried plantains, they reminded him of his mission!! This was a BLAST!!

 sporting another child-size helmet. Gett'n geared up!

I really thought our flip flops were going to drop down to the jungle below and RIP in Belize but they didn't.

 Next,
 CAVE TUBING!!! This might have been my favorite.
We had to hike for what seemed like miles to get to the mouth of the cave. But this little journey was well worth it. We had to rent $3 already-wore-who-know-who's-athletes-foot-has-been-in-here water shoes for this hike. I was actually glad to have them.

The weather was hot, humid and sweaty.  So along the was we took a dip.

heading into the cave. which was about a 30 min. So cool. I loved the sparkly rocks- so typical.

We all had head lamps to see the cave, which was legit!!

This is the largest stalagmite in the world. If our tour guide was telling the truth.

and out the other side of the cave. thow'n the peace sign, while Barry picks his nose?

because we are cool like that.

Thursday was another Formal dining night. Mark got a really bad head ache that night and could not dine with us. Bummer Mark LOVES to eat. Speaking of eating. We did a lot, a lot a lot of it. Yummmmm!!

 Day 6
Our 3rd and last port was Cozumel Mexico Where we were participants in the "Amazing Cozumel Race" This is the only excursion we did through the cruise line. There were about 15  teams I think, our team name was "SHOW TIME" We ran all around the city collecting clues, solving puzzles, and finding secret agents.  We went inside their museum, their market and Mark even snorkeled down to a sunken ship to get a clue. It was really high energy! FUN!! We got 3rd place. 2nd place only beat us by 1min and 1st place smoked us by like 12 mins.

 After the race. Mark and Barry wanted to do some more snorkeling so we set off on another journey to find a beach while Brook and Daniel went to have Brooks hair braided. Well, after a couple of "it should be right up here's...." we made it to a not so beach-y beach and the boys went snorkeling while Holly and I looked at weird snails and slime on the rocks and them went Iguana hunting.

Our Cabin. This year we got to stay in a room with a balcony. Barry loved it. He went out there every night and fell asleep, I mean down right snoring, on the lawn chairs.

Day 7
Last day. Day at sea. aka saddest day of my life.