Magical thinking

Happy New Year's Eve! We are getting ready to visit my in-laws for the next two days. And I'll also have a chance to see Lifehopes and, hopefully, her new puppy!

I'm doing good. Trying to keep the positive attitude going! I had a mini-breakdown yesterday but I picked myself back up, starting working on things on my to-do list, and immediately started feeling better.

Once again my cycle is seeing changes. I am now on day 14 of my luteal phase, the longest I've gone since I started charting. They are normally eleven days, a couple were twelve, and earlier this year, after my surgery, they were even shorter. No, I do not think I am pregnant. I feel pre-menstrual and I know it will come at any point. The only reason I am even posting about it is because I'm trying not to let superstitions get the best of me. At the end of my cycles, I always post that it hasn't come yet, then get it right afterwards. So, my tendency would be to not post today, to ward it off. But because I know that way of thinking is insane and possibly even worth confessing, I am forcing myself to post. God isn't going to put off a new cycle simply because I DIDN'T POST ABOUT IT ON MY BLOG! He is in control, not me. I am trying to combat those superstitions by posting, to show God that I know that it is up to Him and not some magical thinking. I have always had a tendency toward magical thinking.

That being said, a 13 day luteal phase - or longer - will be nice. Not that my 11 or 12 day ones weren't good. My doctor just told me on Monday that are perfectly fine. But isn't one day longer even better? Maybe not. But at the very least it shows that things are still changing, hence the reason (perhaps) that I haven't conceived yet. Hormones are still shifting and fixing themselves and haven't settled down yet. Things are still getting even healthier. The body taking a lot of time to heal is always one of the themes of my doctor's appointments. Somehow that is so easy for doctors to realize but much harder for us patients to understand.

I have been struggling with some faith questions that I will post more about here soon. Mainly, how to have hope and faith that our specific prayer will be answered when we know that for some people, it is not. I know, that's nothing new. I've written about it here a million times. I just always come back to it. I do feel as if the Holy Spirit has filled me with a new desire to ask big things of God and trust that he can and will deliver, but that voice in my head is always whispering, But some people pray and pray and never conceive. What about them? While that statement is most certainly true, I think that might be the devil pushing me to doubt God and his awesome power.

But that is a topic for another time. I also wanted to share with you a blog I found through Just Another Catholic Mom. It's the blog of a woman who passed away on Christmas Eve, and it pulled my heart out this morning as I sat here and sobbed as I read it. While her struggle is very different from that of infertility, it is clear she had a lot to teach all those who suffer. I think I can learn a lot from her words about finding joy in the darkness (a column she wrote about it weeks before her death can be found here). For me, personally, reading all this (at the very least) will help to soften the blow of starting a new cycle today. It really puts things into perspective and reminds me that I have so much. Not that our time here on earth is the end all be all - she is in Heaven where we all desire to be - but it reminds me that the time we have been given to do His work is short and it shouldn't be wasted wallowing in sadness. I hope I can find joy in my darkness, if that is where I find myself the next few days.