Turning into a Hippie

Lately I've been more and more interested in making everything I can for myself. I'm really starting to feel like the cause of my infertility might be all the toxic things I have around me. My doctor has advised me to avoid foods with added hormones. We've been trying to do this by eating organic as much as possible for at least eggs, dairy and meat. I also recently made my own deodorant. Regular antiperspirant deodorant has aluminum and is known to cause cancer so I decided that I need to stop using it. I don't want to be smelly though. Luckily I have a friend that recently gave me a recipe for coconut lime deodorant. Oh my gosh it smells amazing and it is so creamy and light. Best of all it lasts all day. I'm never going back to store bought deodorant. My most recent experiment was last night making yogurt. I've been wanting to do this for a while. I've really gotten into Greek yogurt and it is just so expensive so I thought I'd try making my own. It's not completely done yet, but so far I'm really excited with the results. I can't wait for it to finish straining so I can add some honey and have some delicious yogurt.

New Years Without Kids

New Years Eve is definitely one time that I don't miss having kids. We were invited over to a friend's house and it was nice to be able to stay out as late as I wanted. All of the people at the party were couples that haven't been able to have kids. It was nice to be able to avoid uncomfortable conversations about kids and just be able to hang out.

Strawberries in November?

This has been such a wacky year for gardening. I have yet to pull out my garden and winterize the area because it is still producing. Just today I picked some cherry tomatoes, Anaheim peppers, zucchini and strawberries.

Here is a picture of my strawberry haul. Some didn't make it into the picture because I was eating as I picked.

Profound Thoughts

I'm sure we've all had moments when we are listening to something and someone says something that completely hits home. I don't know if it is the way they say it that makes the difference or if is just because we having been thinking about a certain subject and that person opens their mouth and gives an answer to our prayers. It's probably a combination of the two.

I was up late on Saturday night after I wrote my last post and was listening to a Christian radio station through Dish Network. There was a program called "music and the spoken word" that was playing. During this program they will have someone share a brief thought and then the choir will sing a song related to what was just being mentioned.

The conductor of the program shared a story about three women who were talking. Two of the women were going on and on about all of their children's achievements. The third woman didn't have anything wonderful to share about her child, but was genuinely happy for the other two women. Afterwards she was asked how she took the successes of these other people so well when she didn't have any successes of her own to share. She simply said: "It's much easier to celebrate than compete."

The conductor then went on to share that "Victories for others don't mean failures for us." For some reason this one line really seemed profound to me. Looking back this seems really obvious, but I think I needed a reminder that I can be genuinely happy for people and that I need to stop comparing myself to others so much.

Who cares if other people seem to have things that I want but don't have. I need to forget myself more and be more willing to praise other people's achievements. You can all be my witness that here and now I am recommitting myself to banishing the green-eyed monster that lives inside me.

Truth About Trying

I found out about Redbook's "Truth about trying" campaign through a friend's blog. (Click on the title of my post to be linked with Redbook's website.)The goal of the campaign is to end the secrecy and shame connected with infertility. They are encouraging women to make short videos about their struggles with infertility so that those of us dealing with infertility don't feel so alone and those who are not can be more educated about what 1 in 8 women are experiencing.

This is a very worthy campaign and I am so glad they are doing it, but I can't be a part of it right now. I'm in a place in my life right now where I'm trying not to be defined by my inability to have children and thinking about infertility is bringing everything front and center. I know that ignoring the issue isn't going to solve anything, but I can't fix the problem right now so why focus on it.

I watched some of the videos and felt extremely depressed afterwards. I know this isn't the point of the campaign. The whole point is to let people know they aren't alone and give them hope. It just breaks my heart that so many women deal with infertility. It also breaks my heart that no matter what else I try to do in my life I will never escape the fact that I have no control over making my desire to have children become a reality.

Since this subject is extremely depressing I'm going to stop talking about it now. I promise that my next post will be more upbeat.