Sc.ott Hah.n and Jo.hn Mar.tignoni * Updated

If you ever have the chance to see either of them speak, I would definitely recommend going.

John Mar.tignoni spoke on "Marriage and the Eucharist: And the Two Shall Become One" (you can get all of his talks on his website for free or you can donate).  He explains how the Eucharist can be explained in martial terms and marriage in Eucharist terms.  He then uses this relationship to explain why contraception is a problem, why non-Catholics can't receive the Eucharist, why sex shouldn't happen outside of marriage, and why there is no such thing as gay marriage (which is also something that Leila posted about).  We all know that the Eucharist re-presents and makes present the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.  JM brought up that each time we have intercourse with our spouse, when are renewing our martial vows and re-presenting and our total giving of self from our wedding day and making the consummation of it present, which means we need to remember that this is more than just a physical act.  The one area that I wished that JM had discussed since he brought up contraception and how it separates life and love was the flip side of IVF.  Contraception is "love" without life and IVF is life without "love".  During the lunch break, I actually mentioned to JM that he should add a discussion of infertility and IVF to his talk, and he said he'd consider it.

Sc.ott H.ahn gave two talks.  One was on the the "Letter & Spirit: From Written Text to Living Word in Liturgy" and "Reasons to Believe: How to Understand, Explain, & Defend the Catholic Faith".  If you have never read a SH book or hear a CD of him giving a talk, you need to do it now.  Both talks are parts of books that he has, which I haven't read yet but definitely plan to.  In the Letter and Spirit talk, he focused on how his conversion from a Presbyterian minister to a Catholic came through reading the Bible, the early Church Fathers, and then seeing it all put together in the Mass.  He reminded us that the Bible came from the Liturgy and the Liturgy is thus filled with interconnections with the Bible.  Letter and Spirit is a follow-up to the Lamb's Supper, which is a great book on the Mass and its relation to the book of Revelation.  One other important point that he brought up is that the Eucharist is what makes the Crucifixion a sacrifice instead of just an execution, which is what everyone present (with the possible exception of Mary and the Apostles) would have seen it as.  You have to eat the Passover Lamb for the sacrifice to be complete.

I may write about the Reasons to Believe talk later.  The talk was interesting, but I'm having issues pulling out what I want to discuss.

Article on Chastity and Waiting

Life in Mazes shared this article with me, and I thought I'd pass it along.

I'm still doing ok after my surgery. I'm feeling pretty good except I have a rash by my incision (don't worry...I already checked with Dr. H's office and they said to just use hydrocortizone ointment on it). I went back to work yesterday. I'm trying to minimize how much I carry W, the 2 year old I take care of. I think I overdid it a bit yesterday; I got pretty tired. I think the spotting finally stopped yesterday (the good news it was red and not brown!). I've had 10YL for the last couple days, but we haven't used any days yet, maybe tonight.

I've been talking to my mom to make plans for her to come for my next surgery.

To wait and to hope

Today at Mass during the homily, the priest was discussing how Advent is to remind us of the time of the Israelites in the Old Testament. The quote that really struck me was that they "had little reason to celebrate, or to wait and to hope." This quote is so applicable to infertility. Even though Advent is waiting for a birth, I think that it's also a season for infertiles. Our lives are spent in waiting (trying to be hopeful).

I also talked to my priest about getting Anointing of the Sick next week.

I'm at 11 DPO and still spotting/bleeding, but not so much that it's a new cycle yet. I'll be on cycle 7-9 on surgery day, which is in 10 days!

Francis de Sales on Finding God's Will

I found this on another blog from Francis de Sales's Finding God's Will for You:

Even in important matters, we must be very humble and not think of finding God's will by force of scrutiny and subtle discussion. After we have implored the light of the Holy Spirit, applied our thought to search for His good pleasure, taken counsel with our [spiritual] director and perhaps with two or three other spiritual persons, we must come to a resolution and decision in the name of God. After that we must not call our choice in doubt, but devoutly, peacefully, and firmly keep and sustain it.

Quick stuff

My brother is going to the Divine Mercy Shrine in Poland this weekend and he is going to put in a special intention for all Catholic infertility bloggers.

D's best friend's wife (that we went to the wedding for recently) is pregnant. I'm happy for them, especially since she's a year older than me, but I wish that I wasn't still here in IF land.

Thyroid study, waiting to o and other stuff

I did my temps and pulses last week for the Thyroid Study. My ave. temp was about 98.1 (pre-Peak), but my pulse was almost always between 80-90. I definitely have a family history of thyroid issues on my dad's side of the family (grandmother, great-aunt, aunt, and cousin all have diagnosed issues).

I'm still just charting yellow stickers (I'm using them both pre- and post-peak now) with 6C or 8C, so I'm guessing I'm not going to o on CD 16 like last month. Oh well, I doubt that the physical conditions in my uterus are such that pregnancy is probable before my surgery.

D and I are trying to decide if November or December will be better for the surgery, but he has to think about it some more. D probably won't be able to come up to Omaha with me, but either my mom or my middle brother, M/BP, will try to come with me.

M/BP, the brother who is a Brother (in the monk/religious vow sense), is going to be going to seminary this fall. The other Brother recently finished seminary and once their order grows large enough he will be ordained.

I've got a bit of a stuffy nose, which is of course at a horrible time, being relatively close to and before ovulation. I know that "normal/fertile" people get pregnant after taking Sudafed, but we are getting close to two years of trying and I want to maximize our chances.

D and I have a bit of traveling coming up soon. His cousin gets married in about 10 days in NJ. His best friend gets married in late June in St. Louis. We are also going to visit my dad's side of the family in the Pacific Northwest in August. We are only flying to the first wedding; the rest of the trips will be by car.

Having problems waiting

I wish that I didn't have to wait until December for my surgery.  Since the only problem that was found in my b/w was the thyroid issue, I (self-diagnosing of course) think that there's a good chance that endo is what's causing my bleeding.  I don't have horrible cramps, but I do definitely have bad cramps at least one day each cycle.  

I'm also feeling like I'm stuck in the intellectual side of my relationship with God.  I say the Morning and Evening Prayers from the Magnificat everyday, but I have a hard time praying in my own words.  My mind knows about God, but my heart is scared to let go and have faith.  I'm still trying to figure out where my place is my parish is and I haven't met any church friends.  That combined with IF is making me feel lost.

Good Friday, CD 1...Cycle #19

It looks like today is the start of Cycle #19 (although it's hard to know what's really CD 1 with the crazy bleeding that I have start around 3DPO/just after Peak).  I'm getting frustrated again at the lack of progress we seem to be making.  I'll be doing the Symptom Checklist and Temperature Assessment for the T3 study this month.  Even if the T3 is an issue, I'm pretty sure that it's not what's causing my bleeding.  Since nothing else seems to be hormonely wrong with me, there has to be some sort of structural problem causing it, right?  My surgery won't be until December, which is still 8 months away.  If there is a problem, it might not even be fixed then depending on how serious it is.  I hate the fact that we are going to hit the two-year mark without know the cause of the bleeding (which has to be at least part of the the cause of the infertility).  

D and I had a pretty good time in Las Vegas.  It was kind of tiring though and D is not good about calling it a night around the friends we went with.  I was kind of hopeful when the bleeding/spotting stopped for almost a day, but it started right back up again.  D actually managed to win almost $200, so that was cool.  All the food we ate was great.  I think D had a good 27th birthday.

One of the hardest things to do is remember that my suffering is minor compared to Christ's and to many other people's.  The other thing I have to remember is that without the suffering of Good Friday, there's no joyful resurrection on Easter Sunday.  One day I will receive the joyous gift that God has prepared for me, but it may not be the gift that I hope it is.

With regard to the letter from Dr. Hilgers, plus a cycle update

A couple of people have commented on my last post about the letter from Dr. Hilgers, so I thought I would make a post response instead of replying to each.

• I live in NW Louisiana for those who didn't know.  I am not aware of a Napro doctor close by.
  
• When the nurse calls on Tuesday, I'm going to find out about my options for treatment and prices (and how to find out about insurance coverage).  
• I'm going to see if the bloodwork can be done locally so I could get it done relatively soon.  I would also try to see about getting the u/s series done locally if possible.
• Since our parents are from Houston, if there is a doctor in Houston since that would be easier than going to Omaha.  
• I haven't talked to D yet about everything since we went out with a friend of ours last night and he's working today.
• I have to see if my employers (I'm a nanny) have any upcoming vacations since that would make it easier for me to go either to Houston or to Omaha.
  
• I can't really make any decisions until I've talked to the nurse on Tuesday and have more information.  I'm going to try not to worry about it too much until then.
• I'm very much looking forward to moving forward in getting my body healthy and normalized.

Cycle update:

I'm on CD 14, and I've had 10C/KL (very fertile EWCM for non-Creighton charters) since CD 10.   We took advantage of Wednesday as a day of fertility, and I'm hoping to use today too.  If I o at my normal time, I've still got a week to go (aaahhh).  

I got a St. Anne medal and a Miraculous Medal on Thursday when I went to the local Catholic bookstore, and I started a Novena yesterday to St. Anne.  Gram (D's grandma) enrolled us in The Central Association of the Miraculous Medal for our anniversary.

Sick again, and some things I want to share

I'm sick again, and the kids I nanny for are sick too.  Over the weekend, the low level cold/allergies thing that I've have off and on for a month or more has come back stronger.  I feel congested, I wake up in the the middle of the night, and I've been getting a bit of a fever.  D hasn't been feeling well at night either, and he has been snoring (not for a normal person, but enough that it bothers me when he gets to sleep first...as almost always happens).  My stomach feels a bit messed up too.  I'm ready to feel better.

I talked about my friend David last week, so I though I'd share some other Catholic/Christian music that I like.  Here are some of my favorite songs:

• Be Thou My Vision (which is on David's CD)
• The End and the Beginning (Matt Maher is wonderful)
• Love Has Come (another Matt Maher song)
• Forever
• My Glorious
• Salvation
• Days of Elijah
• All Creatures of Our God and King
• How Great is Our God

Also, I want to share that you can get the daily Mass reading for the previous week and the rest of the month in iTunes.  The information is available on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website http://www.usccb.org/nab/nabpodcast.shtml.

It's actually kind of interesting that today's Gospel is about healing, since I'm sick and also I'm waiting for answers and healing from PPVI.  I need to remember to pray for heal for myself and for others.

Changes

I have be feeling a call lately to go back to church and to learn more about my faith. I don't know that we would have ever considered ART but we definitely won't do them now. I do need to find out what the problems are, especially what's causing my bleeding. I'm hoping that D will be ok with learning the Creighton Model and having Dr. Hilgers look at my chart, sooner rather than later. The only problem that he might have is wanting to wait for financial reasons, and I'm going to talk to him tonight to get his opinion on it.

I'm trying to figure out what other than prayer and Church that I need to be doing to learn about my faith. Thankfully, I have a brother who co-founded a religious community (I'm not quite comfortable posting the link to their website here since it has a lot of IRL information), but I'm also looking for suggestions.

Hurricane Gustav has actually given me the last few days off since the family I nanny for had the extended family up for W's birthday, and they haven't back to southern Louisiana yet due to Gustav.

CD 10

I stopped bleeding Friday, but I had some spotting yesterday. I'm really hoping that it's done with or will be soon since I've been spotting or bleeding 58 days since the beginning of June (when all this craziness started). If it was all put together I've been spotting or bleeding 2 whole months out of the past three.

D caught my cold and has had a bad cough for 4 or 5 days now. It's actually bad enough that it kept me up a lot of last night, until he went to see in the other room. I'm really hoping that he'll be better soon; it bothers me so much to not be able to make him feel better.

W, the boy that I nanny, had his first birthday on Saturday. D and I went to the party, and it was a pretty good time. D had never met them, so it was nice that he went with me. W was funny since he won't let some of his relatives hold him but he'd practically try to jump into my arms.

Despite my strong political feelings, I generally avoid political discussions since I tend to avoid conflict. However, I was so happy when I heard about McCain picking Palin as his VP running mate. I'm so glad he picked a good pro-life, conservative and the cherry on top is that she's a woman.

I've decided that it's time for me to go back to church. I haven't really been going since we moved here about 2 years ago, but I actually taught for a few months at the school connected to the parish. It's also where the older two kids I that I nanny go to school (one's in 6th grade and the other in PK-3). I don't think that D will go with me, even though he's Catholic too. I was reading a blog that has been pushing me to get back into it, and they also talk about the Creighton Model which is something I'm going to look into. I just wish that there was something closer than where we used to live.