Sprouts, What's in My Entryway, and Lost Socks

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I came home this evening and found the above in my entryway. Wanna know what it is?

It took me a minute.

Zeke bought a hitch and towing system for our car! So we can cart our little camper around without the use of the pickup (which Zeke is planning to sell). 

The original thought was that we'd go camping nearby someplace this weekend. {Happy!} Of course, that was before the temperature dropped to 33 degrees F last night- and it doesn't look like it'll warm up anytime soon. We'll see.

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And, due to the cold weather, we brought our container garden inside. My patience (ha, patience) is paying off... we've got sprouts! {Blurry, but pretty!}

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Our unmatched sock collection is growing. How does that even happen? Where are all the orphaned socks? {Funny}

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After another cycle that ended in another assurance that I'm still not ovulating, I went ahead last week and scheduled a doctor's appointment to see if we can't figure out what's going on with me. Of course, the doctor's office simply doesn't have any new patient openings until the middle of June.

(Yes, we've lived here for a year and haven't yet gotten a doctor. Despite my complaints any and every time either Zeke or I get a head cold, we're actually pretty healthy.)

In the meantime, I've done some research, and the more information I get, the more I think I may have PCOS. I still need to get testing and everything to confirm that suspicion, but I've also found some information about how dietary changes can make a difference. So, I've been trying to eat better- limiting sugar and eating fewer carbs (but oh, how I love carbs and sugar!)

Of course, it {really} doesn't help that I came home to find a bag full of Camp cookies on the trunk...

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All right, lovelies, I need some advice.

Despite the cold snap, I do believe that it will someday be summer and will someday be uncomfortably warm. And when it's uncomfortably warm (or even just warm), I like to wear skirts. I don't know, I feel more professional in skirts than in shorts. 

Anyway! I need to get myself some new ballet flats. I've been wearing these babies for the past... four? five? years...

(Won't you please excuse the very {real} dirt on the entryway floor? I knew you would. After all, I have a maintenance man for a husband. That's an excuse, right?) 

... and I think it's time for some new ones. These are getting pretty well stretched out and scuffed up. 

Any suggestions? I'd like to go with something non-rubbery-Croc-material, but still very comfortable. Arch support preferred. 

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Zeke just came home and announced that we will be camping this weekend. Good thing our little camper has a heater. 

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Most random quick-takes ever? Perhaps. 

I've been slowly going through The Power of a Praying Wife for the past month or so (thank you, understanding church library lady!) and I've really enjoyed it. I used to pray for Zeke pretty regularly, but I always seemed to be asking for the same things, praying about the same things. This book has really helped me to expand my prayers- not only does the author have an awesome first name, but she's very thorough. I've really enjoyed it thus far. 

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(And now, for some shameless plugs) 

Posts this week and from the archives:

Smooth as a River Rock: Having an Intentional Engagement : The first post in my new Intentional Engagement series. There are so many tips and tricks for wedding planning, but how many engaged couples plan for their marriage with that same intensity and focus? And why not? It is a lifetime, after all! 

Camp Fosters Faith : I may be a little bias (I mean, I do live and work at a Bible Camp...) but I've seen summer camp make a huge difference in the faith life of children.

Why My Long Distance Relationship Was Super Awesome : Four years and 500 miles, and we're so much better for it.

Maintenance Man Monday: In the Rough : In which my husband is tough on his clothes. He still is. Consider this post Exhibit A.

Exhibit B?

Compression shorts with the elastic waistband pulled away from the fabric. In several places. But they're $10 a piece, and if I didn't mend all the ripped ones, we'd be buying five pairs a month!



Have a lovely weekend!

Linked up with Jen at Conversion Diary for Seven Quick Takes, and the ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter for Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real.

Adventures in FAM

My "check your basal body temp" alarm goes off at 5:30 every morning. You would think that after like, 8 months, I'd be used to this by now.

Surprises me every morning.

Today, my alarm went off at 5:30. I was shocked! I turned off the buzzing, reached for my thermometer, and... pressed the on button? I think? Did I?

I wasn't sure, so I grabbed my cell phone so I could use it like a flashlight to see if the display was on....and dropped the phone on the ground and heard the unmistakable sound of plastic pieces flying everywhere.

I caved and turned on the lamp, then took my temp as usual.

Now, after the BBT thing was taken care of, I had to deal with the issue of the cell phone.

Normal people would get out of bed and gather the scattered parts from the recesses of under the nightstand and on top of that pair of socks on the floor...

But I have flannel sheets... so getting out of bed was sooo not an option. Warm and cozy, you know.

So I did one of these...

Bear with me, I'm no Mama H.

And upon my foot grazing his face (read, *smacking*), my husband, still mostly asleep, instinctively pushed my leg away... which apparently was just the right movement to enact the laws of motion and gravity, and result in me... all of me.. sliding onto the floor. Head first.

I think a picture of this should be featured in Taking Charge of Your Fertility, don't you think?

Linking up with Messy Marriage and To Love, Honor, and Vacuum today, because marriage is all about loving the person who smacks you in the face with her foot.

Not for a Moment

(Hey, hey! Two posts in one day! Take that, 7 in 7!)  Disclaimer: I'm going to complain a little.

Today just... ugh.

I thought this time was different, you know? I get so hopeful and then so disappointed. I really thought my body finally worked this time, started to think about announcements and names... all while telling myself  Nuh uh, girl. Don't go there. You'll just be crushed... 

But I thought this time felt... different. Zeke reminded me, "You thought last time felt different, too." And he was right (and the little-girl-me inside my head is stomping my foot that he was right) and I'm disappointed. Again.

And Zeke says, "God has everything under control. He knows best- we have to trust that. It just wasn't the right time yet."

I know he's right. But geez. I just really wanted it to be the right time, already!

And Zeke says, "Honey, be patient and trust. We'll have children someday, whether they're from us or from someone else. God knows your heart." And that makes me want to cry because I don't like being patient.

And I'm mad at Zeke for being so very right and so very trusting and for having his emotions so very under control and for being just.so.faithful.

This song came on at work today. I want to listen to it over and over and over...

"Not for a moment will you forsake me, not for a moment will you forsake me."

I know the truth in that. I know it.

Hopefully the message in my head will work its way into my heart today.

Linking up with Living Proverbs 31, Marriage Monday, and Monday Musings

When There's No Fruit

Original Image Source

(This post is tough for me to write. I've written and deleted it several times now, honestly. So here it goes. Please be gentle. )

I am not a patient person. I am not patient, and I do not like to surrender control. I'm the type of person who sees an issue, sees something that needs to be done, and I want to tackle it right. now.

I've shared some of the story of my journey to FAM and my fascination with how my body works, but I'll be honest. It hasn't been smooth sailing.

The first couple of months went great. I began to trust my body, and everything looked great. We were avoiding pregnancy for the first few months.

And then, after discussing and praying and calculating, we decided to stop preventing pregnancy, and try to conceive our first little one.

And my "normal" cycles stopped. My charts have been all over the place, and I'm not ovulating.
 
Honestly? I'm frustrated. Frustrated and disheartened. Why isn't my body doing what it's supposed to do? Granted, it's only been four months. I know so many people have struggled for much, much longer. My heart goes out to them. As I said, I'm impatient.

I want babies at my breast, I want little feet, I want horribly disgusting diapers, I want challenges and emotions and hard decisions, I want sweet baby smell, I want waking up at three in the morning.

I am open to life. Very open. I am willing to carry, bear, and raise as many children as the Lord blesses us with. I believe all children are a blessing. All of them.

But what do you do when life just doesn't seem to come? What do I do when my body is fighting against my ideals and my dreams? 

I've been, in the words of my darling husband, "grumpy." He's much less tightly wound then I am. Perhaps he has a deeper faith. He keeps reminding me that I need to trust in God, that He knows best. The other day, after a sobbing breakdown, Zeke set me down with a Bible, and told me to find some truth.

The Bible is pretty great for attitude adjustments, too, but Hunky Husband was too sweet (or too afraid of what my reaction would be) to suggest that I needed one of those.

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will exalt my God who is my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights."

Habakkuk 3:17-19 (emphasis mine)

 Another cycle just ended, and my womb is still empty. Fruitless. There are no cattle in my stall.

I'm holding on to these verses. "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exalt my God."

Of course, I don't have all the answers. I don't even know all the questions, for that matter. And I know that I will have a hard time rejoicing and exalting. A very hard time.

Pray for me, will you?

Learning to Trust My Body

A huge adjustment of using FAM, at least for me, was really relying on and believing in my body. Before using FAM, a lot of the signals my body sends me were ignored completely. I just wasn't aware of them. Cut to using FAM- the Fertility AWARENESS Method!

Unfortunately, although I'm now aware of those signals, I still try to come up with logical ways to explain them that make sense to me, rather than just trusting those signals.

Last night, I was super crabby toward Zeke. Like, really angry. For no reason. I just thought, "well, I'm really tired. I'm just cranky because I need more sleep!"

My basal body temperature today was low... 96.8. Yesterday I was at 97.1. Probably because I went to bed later than I should have.

Then I woke up this morning with a headache- another one of my signals. Hmm, must need caffeine.

And then, at 10:30, I got my period. In my office, completely without supplies.

My body was all like, "HELLO!?! What do you mean you're not prepared and have to run home? I totally warned you!"

But I didn't think about the signs. I was aware of them, I just didn't take them seriously and instead rationalized them subconsciously.

Conclusion: The human body (especially the female version, in my opinion) is a fantastic thing. It knows what it's doing, generally speaking. I've gotta be aware of the signals it sends, and think about what those might mean!

The Nitty- FAM and Me Thus Far

So, I started writing about why I ditched birth control the other day. We're on cycle 3 of all charting, no horrible artificial hormones! It's really been a learning experience, and I thought I'd share a little more about some of the stuff I've learned, how it's going, and the more logistical side of practicing the Fertility Awareness Method.

1. Get a system
One of the most important steps for me was wading through the many, many choices of how and where to chart. I use the sympto-thermal method, which means I record my temperatures and my cervical fluid. I knew from the get-go that I wanted to use a paper chart, simply because I could record my BBT (basal body temperature) right away in the morning and not worry about forgetting to put it online, and also because I figured, I'm going lower-tech for birth control, why not go low-tech for charting?

I learned pretty quickly that, as nice as paper charting is, I had some issues with remembering what my cervical fluid was like by the end of the day, and that I wanted quick and easy confirmation of what I was experiencing. I solved the first issue through my handy Daily Do's planner, where I write down all the details. I also chose to chart online using the Taking Charge of Your Fertility's online charting option, simply because I can share my charts with other people and ask for help very easily. As an added bonus, Zeke got an Ipod Touch through work, and so I downloaded the Kindara App (the free one) to use when we're not at home.

So yeah, right now I'm charting three times over, which admittedly is a little bit of overkill, but it's what's working for me right now. Which leads me to my second point...

2. Figure out what works for you
Some of the adjustments you have to make to use FAM include  taking your temperature at the same time every day, checking cervical fluid, and checking cervix position. Well... I learned pretty quickly that I don't like checking my cervix- I feel like I'm way too inexperienced with feeling around all up there to be an objective judge of how my cervix is doing. I just never really seemed to know what I was feeling for. Maybe I'll try using this fertility sign again after a few months.

I found that taking my temperature when I wake up in the morning was hard for me. I kept falling back to sleep after taking my temp, and that's no good when you've gotta get to work! Instead, I set an alarm to get me up at 5:30 every morning, wake up and pop a thermometer in my mouth, wait for the beep, and then fall back asleep. When I do finally get up, then I record my temperature. Making it 5:30 also means that if I have to get up super early for whatever reason (which does sometimes happen), I'm okay.

Then it came to checking my cervical fluid....

3. Take a deep breath and just stinking do it.
After being told throughout most of my young adolescence that cervical fluid was gross, unnatural, and subsequentially being embarrassed and grossed out by it, I was worried that checking this particular fertility sign wasn't gonna be pleasant. But you know what? It's my body. It's real and natural and me. So I just got over it. I started checking cervical fluid externally, but I found that I'm not a good judge of that, so I use internal checks instead.

My first cycle, the cervical fluid I had was confusing. Some days it would be sorta sticky, others sorta creamy, and never eggwhite. I was worried that this non-pattern of cervical fluid meant that I wasn't "doing it right"  or that I'd never get the hang of it. Turns out, I was just being overdramatic. My second cycle made much more sense when it came to cervical fluid. Coming off the Pill might mess with a woman's CF, like it did mine- just hang in there!

And you know what? It's not even a little bit gross to me anymore.


4. Be ready to get pissed.
Excuse the impolite language.

This was one part I wasn't anticipating. I see commercials for IUD's and I think, "Why? Why would this woman harm her body, open herself up to infections, and potentially sacrifice her fertility? DON'T DO IT, COMMERCIAL LADY! Chart instead!"

Or when I hear someone saying that birth control has liberated women- What? WHAT?! How is chaining yourself to artificial chemicals freeing? How is sacrificing your health a liberation?

Or when I read about the Yaz lawsuit- Seriously. These drugs are killing women. Killing them. We frown on putting hormones in our chicken (and no studies have shown that chickens pumped with hormones are deadly as of the time being), but we put them in our bodies every day, knowing full well that they can cause strokes, heart attacks, and cancer? Grr!

Or even when I hear other women talking about fertility, and realizing that these smart, well-educated women have no idea what they're talking about. Like my friend who hasn't exercised in months because she's trying to conceive and "you never know." Well, if she knew how to check her fertility signs, she'd realize when there's no chance that she's pregnant, and when she needs to be more cautious regarding her pretty strenuous exercise routine.

Even more so, I find myself wondering, why didn't I learn any of this? Why wasn't this important, empowering information provided in sex-ed class in school?

Using FAM has taught me so much- I would really recommend that all women learn more about their own bodies and become more informed about the choices we make about our health and well-being!

Why I Said Goodbye to Birth Control Pills

Disclaimer- this post may be a little TMI (too much information) for some. If so, click away now!

Another disclaimer- I'm still learning this stuff. I strongly suggest that if you're interested in this method of avoiding pregnancy, that you do your research! I know I did!

Source

Three months ago today, I took my very last birth control pill. No, there is no Hunky/Little Offspring in the plans. No, we're not crazy. We're using FAM.

A little background info-

I've been on birth control since I started college... so.... 7 years. My mom told me she thought it would be a good idea- that it would help regulate my periods and clear up my acne. I'd always had pretty regular periods, but I liked the idea of starting fresh in college without zits.

During those college years, I was pretty stretched for cash, so I had to prioritize my budget. First on the list was birth control, followed by food. I was a dedicated pill user. I had alarms on my phone to remind me. I carried an extra pill pack in my purse in case I forgot to take a pill and I remembered when I was out and about. I really liked knowing exactly when my period would arrive, the fact that my embarrassing zits cleared up, and frankly, that I was doing what all responsible grown-up women do.

I never had any side very noticeable side effects. Sure, I gained some weight, but almost everyone does in college- I attribute putting on the pounds more to the ice cream machine in the dining hall than the Pill. However, I did see some of my close friends experience side effects. One friend was taking a version of Yaz and had terrible mood swings that left her feeling powerless and a little crazy. She switched pills and the side effects went away. Just one of those crazy things, I thought.

After Zeke and I got married, I continued using the Pill to regulate my period and to avoid pregnancy early in our marriage. Now that I was sexually active, though, I started paying more attention to the signals my body was sending just in case, on the off chance, I did get pregnant while on the Pill. Paying closer attention to my body made me realize a couple of things.

First, I noticed that I got headaches before and after every period. Secondly, I noticed that while my periods were never very long, I always had lingering spotting for a couple of days afterward, something I didn't remember having happened before I was on the Pill. And thirdly, I realized that my sex drive was super low (which I didn't know before getting married, anyways).

With my new health insurance, though, the Pill was free. And everybody takes the Pill, right? The other options were an IUD or condoms, so I thought.

Still, I didn't like the very minor side effects I was recognizing, and I also didn't like the fact that I was forcing my body into a pattern other than the natural and normal pattern God gave me. I started finding information about natural birth control, and came across several bloggers who use the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) or Natural Family Planning (NFP). I talked to Zeke about it. He told me that he wanted me to be healthy, but wasn't so sure about FAM. Sounded risky.

So I did more research. I was really surprised by some of the information I found, like that the "yucky discharge" I found in my panties as a teenager was natural, normal, and was able to tell me a lot about myself. I found research that showed that the Pill is a cause of cancer, that the Pill ages the cervix twice as fast, that the Pill can act as an abortifacient. I learned that FAM has been used for years and years, that it's scientifically accurate, and that if it's used correctly, it can prevent pregnancy 99% of the time.

I bought the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility, read it cover to cover and then again, and then decided to start charting. I talked to Zeke again... and he read TCOYF and made faces about some of the pictures... and agreed that we could do it. I practiced charting my Basal Body Temperature (BBT) and checking my cervical fluid, and when I had taken my last pill for that cycle, I didn't refill my prescription. I kissed birth control goodbye.

See another post here about our FAM journey!