Fishing

In the last month or so, right after I had my reconstructive knee surgery, I was bedridden for about a week and to take my mind off my pain I turned on the t.v. and did some channel surfing.

I ended up, of all places, watching a segment on C-SPAN.

The topic isn't especially what caught my interest, but it was the guy, who was on the panel, answering the posed question that caught my attention. I thought: he's cute, sounds intelligent, seems like he's forty-something and (after close inspection) noticed isn't wearing a wedding ring.

I got to thinking when his name and the think-tank he worked at appeared on the screen, that why not take a risk and send him an e-mail just letting him know that he was noticed, in a good way. In my email, I thought, I'll send him to a link that list a few particulars about me and see if anything comes of it.

I was, after all, bedridden and it was going to be awhile before I was out and about. Plus, in the smaller town in which I live cute, smart, single guys don't seem to be a dime a dozen. What the heck, I thought, go for it.

So, I did. I sent him a nice little note with compliments on his C-SPAN appearance and said, if, after reading a few things regarding me, he were interested, I'd love to hear from him. I never did. But I felt really proud of myself for taking a risk, of putting myself out there. I saw a guy that seemed interesting and let him know that I thought so, for me, that's progress.

Miracles...

“Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.”

—St. Augustine

I love when I "accidently" come across stories like this. I thought I was reading about one thing - the old man - but then within the article is the pearl I needed to find. I'll take it as a sign.

Egg Hunt

The visible is always a mirror of the invisible. The reality is imagined before it manifests itself. Paulo Coelho

I had mentioned in an earlier blog that after getting my fertility test done, with my results being positive enough for me to start the egg freezing procedure, all I had to do then, was come up with the $10,000 dollars that I didn't have.

My plan was to try to take out a loan against the house that I owned. I was currently renting it out since my move back to my mother's home. I had an enormous amount of equity in my house so I didn't think it would be that hard to borrow the money needed off of it. And had it been before the financial/banking collapse it wouldn't have been difficult at all. But now as it was, all the banks I talked to (and I talked to at least twenty different ones all around the country) said that I would need to show what my job and wages were for the past two years. I didn't have the proof of a job and income to show since I hadn't been working full-time before my mom's breakdown, and once she came home from the psychiatric hospital I was devoted to her full-time care. It took two months for my family to give me a small stipend for helping my mom through her recovery, but it wasn't going to help me in securing a loan from the bank. I felt like I had exhausted all avenues on my own, but that there might be some other options open to me, like, for instance, getting a co-signer to back the loan off of my home.

As I mentioned before I had thought of trying to freeze my eggs since I had turned 40 (back when the procedure was just starting to show some signs of promise) but nothing came of my attempts then, and, as per my usual method of operation, I just seemed to let the notion of that scenario go by the wayside. It wasn't until my mom's breakdown that I became more determined then ever to try to make my dreams come true. But making this dream come true wasn't something that I could just snap my fingers and make happen. It was a process and it took months to fall into place.

During those months my mom was still in need of constant care. She couldn't be left alone. I was living in a crazy person's world (albeit she had been making small steps of progress towards normalcy) and I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders - trying to take care of her and yet still try to make my life something I wanted to live for. And yes, unfortunately, there had been times when I didn't see the purpose of my existence.

It was affecting the care of my mom because at times I felt depressed, frustrated, and hopeless. She knew something was wrong and wanted to know what. I've never been good at lying to my mother and because it was eating away at me with how to overcome my problems, how to attain my dreams in what seemed like impossible circumstances, I told her. Nothing could stop the tears from streaming down my cheeks. There was nothing my mother would have liked more than to be able to help me, but really, in her state, she couldn't.

Finally, I went to the last person that I thought could help and the last person that I thought would help, but as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures: I went to my oldest brother, co-executor, along with the next eldest brother, of my father's estate. It was my hope that my brother would be able to help me in attaining the loan. Sharing my long-held, deep-seated dream with my oldest brother was something that I did not look forward to; I dreaded it.

The reason I dreaded it was initiated six months before when my mom was in the psychiatric hospital. It was just before Christmas on a cold, rainy, just all-around dreary night and I was driving home after leaving my mom. Her situation at that mental hospital was so dismal, so sad, and I took all of that dismalness and sadness home with me. I couldn't seem to help it. I felt like I was losing the one person in my life who understood me and cared for me, the one person who made my life worth living

On the drive home I called my brother to give him an update on our mom's situation and as I was explaining her day, all of the sudden, I felt overwhelmed and fearful and I began to cry. My brother said to me, "If you are going to cry I'm hanging up. I don't listen to crying. I don't listen to my wife cry and I'm not going to listen to you cry." I can't remember if he hung up or not, but I can't imagine having much more to say after that. I learned something about my brother that night that I didn't know: he lacked things that were important to me: sensitivity, compassion, understanding and thoughtfulness.

So, I knew going into asking this particular brother for help, and having to reveal to him the one passion of my soul, which was to have the chance to have a baby of my own, was a huge risk and could possibly be the biggest mistake of my life. But I was so driven to find a way to have my hopes kept alive by trying to freeze my eggs that I was willing to do whatever it took. The night before I was to have the conversation with my brother I prayed that no matter what happened, whether he was able to help me, or not, that things would be okay, that they would work out, that at the very least, he would be understanding.

When we finally met and I faced him and told him this dream of mine that had been held close to my heart my whole life, of getting married and having a family of my own, how it hadn't worked out like I planned, but how I still felt like there might be hope left if I could get the money needed to freeze my eggs, he was as I feared anything but understanding. First, he told me if I wanted to do it, I should sell my house.

As much as I wanted to have my eggs frozen to keep my dreams of having children live on, selling my house I knew would not be an option, not when all I needed was $10,000. My house was the only bank I had. It was my only sense of financial security. It was my investment in my future and for $10,000 there was no way it would be a wise decision to get rid of.

The next thing he said to me is that if I wanted a baby I should find a guy and get married. When I asked him how I was supposed to do that, he said, "You need to be nice to a man." When I talked about wanting to have children, he said, "Get a dog, get a cat." It went down hill from there. At one point, when I said that some way I was going to have a baby, with or without his help, he told me that the minute my mom died I would be kicked out of the house we were living in.

What I wanted from my brother, even if he personally couldn't help me get the loan, was something along the lines of, "Well, I can't help you, but let's put our heads together and see if we can figure something out." All I didn't want, what I had prayed for not to happen, was for me to reveal my heart's dream only to have him crush it.

In my desperation I revealed my creative passion to the one person who doesn't understand either creativity or passion. Needless to say, to this day he is someone who I have chosen not to have as a part of my life any longer. He will never understand me, there is no effort on my part that could make him do so. I look at his life like this: sometimes you have "old souls," people from whom wisdom exudes from their being and then you have someone like my brother: a premature newborn.

I anguished for many more weeks until a miracle of sorts happened - I found someone that was willing to help me get the $10,000. Once I knew I had the money. I called the clinic in Chicago and set up an appointment for the procedure.

Dragon Slaying Season

It's dragon slaying season and I'm slaying them day and night, left and right. Oh, I am fighting my dragons to the best of my ability. This is a good song to take me into battle - something to inspire me that there will be reward coming. And I wait, not needing to know how, knowing.

Bah Humbug...

According to all of the commercials I'm seeing on t.v. during this holiday season I guess this is the time of year when men go out and buy engagement rings for the woman they want to spend the rest of their lives with. The commercials are all about hopefulness and happiness and it's... depressing. When all you've ever wanted was that down-on-one-knee-engagement-ring-moment to play out in your own life and it just hasn't, it's hard to watch it seemingly play out in everyone else's life. Seriously, I just really have a little pang of regret and a feeling of loss every time I see one of those commercials.

I don't want to live with a feeling of lack hanging over me, but I can't figure out how to find my happiness. I need to go on a thirty day happiness diet. I need to come up with a strategy for working my mind and body through a rigid happiness regimen for thirty days. I have to come up with something, because what I'm doing now isn't working out for me.

In the Game

I had another woe is me day yesterday. I've been diagnosed with gastroparesis and yesterday I felt nausea about as bad as I've ever felt it. When I feel that sick I can't function and I don't want to eat. I've now lost a total of 22 pounds in the past five months, only twelve of which I needed to lose.

I also found out that I have to go back in for more surgery on my knee - too much scar tissue has built up so I can't straighten it which is necessary for normal walking. The doctor has to arthroscopically go in and remove the offending tissue.

And to add more stress my period hadn't come - it was day 28 and I hadn't had a period that late (my normal has been a 26 day cycle) in years, but I've had a few come early recently. I just felt worried that maybe my stressors, my age, and my health had finally done me in and that this could be the first of me not having a regular period anymore.

As much as I tried to rally I wasn't doing a very good job of it. I did talk to God about my hopes, but a lot of my praying was about peace. I want to have peace in my life with whatever happens. I did talk to God about "signs" about how either He wasn't sending them or that I wasn't seeing them because it had been awhile since I had a feeling of assurance, of hope, that a sign can give.

Anyway, late this morning my period came. It felt good to still be in the game.

Interesting

Hmm... some interesting coincidences happened over the Thanksgiving holiday that felt like a big gift to me. The first coincidence occurred because my Yahoo e-mail account got hacked.

I'm too technologically naive to know how that might adversely affect me, but what it did do was send out an e-mail from me to people in my address book. One friend wrote back asking me if I got hacked. One professional acquaintance (who I actually had been avoiding, but needed to talk to) wrote me asking me if I was trying to get in touch with him (I wrote back that, yes, I was, and asked him what I needed to ask him). Another person told me they got my e-mail but didn't understand it. And the fourth person (a guy from my high school that I hadn't heard from in two years) wrote to tell me he would be in town visiting his parents for the holiday and maybe we could get together. I don't think this guy would have actually called me if not for the hack job e-mail sent out from me.

Anyway, we did get together for a few beers and it was just really nice to re-connect and just reminded me of why we were friends in high school in the first place. This guy, P., had also been trying to get in touch with another kid (okay, man) from high school (G., from this previous post) to try to see him and maybe a few other guys in our class, but because of family obligations and time constraints it wasn't working out.

G. did text me Sunday to say that he was leaving the next morning, but that maybe things would be less hectic and we could get together on his next visit. Then on Monday I get a text from him saying he was staying an extra day and maybe P. and I and another guy could meet at this little bar for Happy Hour. And even though I'm still wearing a brace and walking on crutches and the weather was supposed to be a little threatening, I was like, I'm in!

Well, the long story short is that G. got to stay the extra day because the airline had over-booked his flight and he accepted the offer of a free flight voucher. And G. ended up getting ten guys and one girl I went to high school with all at the bar. It was just a really awesome, fun and funny time catching up and remembering the antics of our high school years. Who knows if anything more will come from the meet-up (one of the guys said he would like to invite me over to he and his wife's next dinner get-together) but once again, it just strengthens my belief that there are no coincidences in life.

Being Reminded

This excerpt from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a nice message for me today.

Hope

I saw that Kelly Preston gave birth to a baby boy yesterday at age 48. What a miracle and blessing for her and her husband and daughter. I'm so thrilled for them!

I then came across this miracle of birth that just continues to tell me "it's not over 'til it's over."

WTH?!

This is one of the saddest things I've read in a while. A couple who have already previously gone through a couple of miscarriages and are now seventeen weeks pregnant with a baby are taking a poll on the internet asking if they should abort or keep the baby. As offensive as this is to my way of thinking (and I can't believe the shallowness of these people as to put this to a vote) why don't they have a third option to vote on: adoption. There is someone out there who would love to have a baby not wanted by its parents. What has the world come to?

UPDATE: They're keeping the baby - it's a girl!

My Mom's Story is My Story (Part 2)

I'm really trying to get to the story of how I was going to try to come up with the money to have my eggs frozen which I knew, considering the cost, was going to be a challenge, but I really don't feel like I can get to that story until I tell my mom's story which is so integral to my own. So, if you have some time (it's long) here's the next installment of my mom's journey into Breakdownland.

Reminder

I've read a lot of Paulo Coelho's books, especially liking The Alchemist and By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. This post, from his blog, is something I know I need to remember.

Fertile Soil

Well, I've told you about having my reconstructive knee operation. I was supposed to get my stitches out on Wednesday, but they weren't quite healed, so hopefully at the beginning of this week I will get them out and start rehab. It'll be a good three month process, but I've been assured my knee is gonna be like a new one.

I did finally have that breakdown that I alluded might be in the works. Outside of the pain I was physically in from my knee surgery, I think I mentally, emotionally, and spiritually lost it when I had another period - twenty days after I started the one on my 47th birthday which in itself was way earlier than my normal twenty-six day cycle.

In the end you know how it goes, one thought leads down a shadowy trail, the next thought leads down a darker one, until your thoughts have no light left to lead you anywhere you can find you're way out of. I had my pity-pat party - cried my eyes out for all the lack and loss I feel in my life and when I hit the bottom, found my way out by counting my blessings and forging on in faith that it ain't over til it's over.

I'm supposed to be writing this all down. Sometimes I don't want to take the time to do it. But in my heart I know that it is a testimony to something; and I believe, that something, has to do with God, His will for my life, faith (or overcoming a lack thereof), creating, and staying true to the dreams of my soul.

In the end all I really have control over are my thoughts. Thoughts like seeds planted in the soil, need a fertile environment to prosper and, in my mind, there is no better fertile environment than BELIEVING. Rising up from the soil of believing my thoughts can flourish in the direction I lead them, even if that means it may go against the grain of how "nature" usually grows things. There are anomalies in nature all of the time; that is what creation is all about: an anomaly that flourishes becomes what was always supposed to be.

When Life Gives You Lemons....

Hahaha.... This woman is making lemonade. To hell with it all, she seems to be saying, I want the damn wedding!!!

The Spin Cycle

I had my reconstructive knee surgery done eleven days ago. I finally got a shower nine days after the operation. Unlike my younger sister who, as an outdoor adventure travel leader, can seem to go weeks without a shower, to me it was one of the most blessed gifts to be given in a long time and I had two "angels" that helped me accomplish it.

For the fist few days, I was like, this is the: Worst. Pain. Ever. I couldn't do anything without help and what seemed like the sounds of my wailing and gnashing of teeth. Which led me to a thought. Having never had a baby I don't know what it feels like. It seems like so much of what I've heard is that it is the Worst. Pain. Ever. So, I guess when I was in the midst of my pain, trying to offer it up and "spin" it in any positive way I could, I thought: maybe this is just one more preparation for what's ahead for me; maybe the pain is just a training session for the pain that may come with delivering a baby (or babies), who knows? And maybe, I needed this operation done now because I need to be able to run after two year olds and there is no way I could be this laid up for this long with little ones in need of me. Like I said, who knows? I'm thinking like a dreamer thinks. Like a creative visionary - or at least that's how I'm gonna spin it.

Breaking it Down

I feel like I'm close to breakdown mode. I don't want to be too dramatic, I know I'll survive, but I'm in the weeds (if you've ever waited tables at a restaurant or bar you'll know what I mean).

I was visiting my mom's home state for three weeks and did really well for two of them and then took a dive back down into the feel-like-crap pool for the last week. The morning after I got home I had my third test to check and see what's up with my feeling nauseous so often.

The next day I had my pre-op appointment for my reconstructive knee surgery. I haven't even mentioned that up coming event. It's an old injury (snapped ACL, torn MCL and meniscus tear) from my college athletic days. Why am I having it now? First, it should have been done long ago, but your side-lined (0n crutches etc.) with this operation and I never seemed to have the time, second, because I've met my insurance deductible (which is pretty high) because of my illness and I need to get it and a lot of the rehab done before the end of the year. Third, I really didn't think my nausea problem was going to keep going on. My latest test revealed that I'm not digesting food like a normal person would. So the food is just sitting there "festering" (which is how my doctor gingerly put it) which would, she said, make anyone feel nauseous. Anyway, she's put me on a medicine that will (hopefully) help.

Outside of the the nausea, and now the reconstructive knee surgery, I just turned 47, had my period on my birthday and it was three days earlier than normal which put me into a bit of a depression. Ugh! My doctor said for me not to read more into, that my body has been under a great deal of stress and we're going to be trying to get it healed.

I hear the Faith Train coming and I've gotta get on board!

Yay!

This is an update regarding my illness. The taurine and digestive enzymes (I take two enzymes with each meal) that my doctor suggested I take have made such a huge difference! I've now felt pretty good for the past ten days and I'm able to eat all kinds of foods (I literally had eaten homemade chicken or beef soup for the fifty prior days)!

And best of all, I was able to reschedule the trip I had had to cancel earlier because of my illness. So, I am now on vacation with my mom visiting the state where she grew up. We are staying with my oldest sister and her family who also resides here. We will also have the opportunity of taking a few side trips to visit other family members and special places from my mom's youth.

It is such a blessing to be feeling better and I feel encouraged that it will last, so I'm just going to take each day as it comes and enjoy being far away from home, seeing new places, meeting new people, and enjoying my mom's family.

Test

I had three hours of medical test done on me today with the intent of finding out what is causing my severe nausea. I see my general practitioner doctor tomorrow so maybe she can give me some insight on the results. Hope so...

UPDATE: One of the test confirmed an under-performing gallbladder. In other words, it's still functioning, but not very well. My GP has put me on taurine and digestive enzymes in the hopes of bolstering its ability to do its job. I still have a test for "lazy stomach" to see what is going on with my digestion and if that could be causing my nausea problems. Thankfully, I have had some better days recently.

Dreaming Baseball

I came across this sports story and it just made me feel happy. A lesson in staying true to your dreams.

UPDATE: A nice reminder that dreams really do come true!

Sidetracks and Setbacks

I've spent the past five weeks ill. I had nausea so bad that I didn't want to eat, and I didn't. I've lost ten pounds (I was twelve pounds overweight, but believe me, being sick wasn't how I planned to lose it). I finally had a EGD done last Tuesday and it revealed that it was red and inflamed from my throat down into my stomach. The cause has yet to be determined.

I've been so discouraged, not just at feeling so bad physically, but in losing all of the hard work I had done in trying to keep my body at as peak a condition as I could for maintaining my fertility. I had been religiously taking my vitamins (I take 15-18 supplements daily) which I had to quit. I was working hard on my diet; getting the best nutrient-rich foods I could muster (not easy for a junk food lover!). In addition, I was trying my best to stay positive and faith-filled.

Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging on to my dreams by a thread. At 46 years old, with the odds already stacked against me, I can't afford to be hanging on to an unraveling thread and that's what being so sick has felt like.

The best thing I could do for myself is learn from my past. So, I did the same thing that I did three years ago when I had my debilitating headaches: I thanked the illness. I just said, "Thank you sickness for coming into my life because I know you are here to teach me something I need to learn. I don't know what the lesson is, but I know it is for me to be able to advance positively forward." And then I added, "I offer up my feeling bad, both physically and mentally, to the benefit of G's good health and happiness and P's hopes and dreams coming true (I felt so sick that I thought I had enough suffering to be able to do two beneficial offerings!).

But I guess another thing that this challenge, at this time, has taught me is that my "heels are dug in." I may lack faith in many areas of my life, but come hell or high water, I am not loosing my faith on my Dreaming Miracles journey. I will have the faith of a mustard seed. Maybe God hasn't come down to tell me, like he did telling Abraham of Sarah's future pregnancy, but I'm going to act as if He has told me something: keep going towards your dreams.

My M/O (method of operation) has always been to give up when times are tough, to just curl up in a ball and let the world pass me by, and this time, on this particular journey, I refuse to do anything other than, in faith, slay dragons.

UPDATE: The biopsy from my stomach came back negative (I guess for cancer) which is great news! I was feeling so hopeful because I had about five days where I actually felt better and thought, okay, it's over, then my nausea kicked back in. I've now lost three more pounds and am under what I consider my ideal weight. It's discouraging!

Good Advice

Aw, this is good advice. I love it : )

Comfort Zone

A few post back I wrote that a friend recommended I try an online dating site like match.com. I've really been opposed to that sort of thing. I hear about people having met their "soul-mate" on some of those dating sites, but it just didn't seem like something that appealed to me. However, since that friend had spoken so positively about it, and because I felt like I needed to get out of my "comfort zone," I dipped my toe in the water - I tried the "free weekend trial offer" and the ones that let you check out the men on the site without first having to join, and I have to say, after viewing the guys that were my "matches," there's gotta be another way!

And this New York Times article gave me an option more up my alley. I mean, it would still take me out of my comfort zone, but I could see it working for me in a much more productive way. I mean, there have been plenty of times in my life when I've seen a guy that interested me, but without knowing anything about him, without the situation, or timing, being appropriate to finding out, he was just left to be put in that stack (piling up) of "what-ifs." But this idea of giving a card to a guy with information about how to contact you, should he be interested in doing so, seems like a doable (though, for me, still scary) idea.

But you've actually got to leave your house and go out to places where guys are, to give it a shot so, now I've gotta figure that one out : )

Dream with a Twist

Last night I had a dream that a seemingly cool and interesting guy was kissing me deeply. I was into him, so when he said that he wanted to take me back to his place and fix me dinner I was like, "Let's go!" His place was an apartment, and as I looked around I could see he had cooked some beautiful, big, juicy steaks. Yum! But also, I notice what a disaster he's living in. His place is a pig sty! It's so messy and chaotic. My heart kinda sinks. Then the guy, not noticing my drooping spirit, hands me a martini - which under normal circumstances would lift my mood quite nicely - and (what the hell?) it's got a twist of lime and a twist of lemon in it. I'm panicking. I'm a dirty martini kinda girl! Even spying that he had a glass filled with olives on the side couldn't bring me back to the warm and fuzzy feelings I experienced when he had me mesmerized by his charms (and lip lock!).

I'm sure analysis of this dream reveals a lot, but I'm just chalking it up to a hahaha moment!

My Mom's Story is My Story

As I wrote in an earlier post I moved back to my hometown to live with my mother about a year and a half after my father's death. The move was an adjustment on both of our parts.

My mom had a hang-up about having a forty-three year old daughter moving back in with her. I felt like she cared too much about what others' thought of her. I mean, yes, it is unusual to have an adult child moving back in to live with their parent, but it isn't so unusual to have an older parent move in with their adult child, so what's the big deal I thought? I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't really have any angsty moments over how it “looked” about me moving in with my mom.

It did take us awhile to get used to sharing space with each other. I mean, I had been living alone for about twenty years, my mom, on the other hand, had never lived alone at any time in her life until my dad died. They had been married fifty years.

Needless to say, we had some issues that we had to work on resolving (mostly in the control department, as in, each of us wanted to be the controller), but for the most part I felt like we did really well getting along. It seemed mutually beneficial.

About a year and a half after I had moved home, in the fall of 2008, my mom wasn’t feeling well; bad enough where she quit having her evening cocktail (a ritual she had enjoyed since her kids had grown and gone). Around the same time period she seemed like she was starting to get overwhelmed by things.

My dad had put her in charge of paying the bills so that in the event that something ever did happen to him she would understand their financial situation and be able to deal with it. So that’s what she had been doing: dealing with it.

She also had lived in her home for nearly thirty-five years and was ready to downsize her clutter, like shoes and clothes and furniture and things that one accumulates over the years, and thoughts of that challenge seemed also to be weighing on her.

I remember kind of bartering with her that if she would make an appointment to see a psychologist or counselor so would I. I thought we both needed it - me because when I moved I had left my old counselor behind and hadn’t found a new one, my mom because I really thought that she seemed depressed. Well, she didn’t want anything to do with what I considered to be a “win-win” for both of us. She felt like I was manipulating her. That’s what she said.

By late September she was having some emotional issues that I had never observed in her before - she got weepy over things that wouldn’t normally make her weepy.

I had tried to offer help to my mom; like paying the bills for her, sorting through things to keep or give away, but my mom was strongly opposed to giving up control.

So finally, I decided to call my oldest sister, who was a plane flight’s distance from us. I told her I really thought it would be good for her to come home and try to help our mom get organized, that she was overwhelmed, and I didn’t know what to do.

Within two weeks my sister came but not much got accomplished. Not for not trying. It’s just that again my mom just gave resistance to getting anything done.

By November I called that same sister to ask if she could get our mom to relinquish the bill paying to her (she was a financial planner), take what was becoming a real burden to my mom and free her of that. My sister was willing to do it, but my mom wasn’t.

Through the month of November my mom’s behavior got stranger. We were packing to go on a weekend trip from which my mom would continue on, via air travel, to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving and she couldn’t make decisions on what to bring. That had never been a problem before. And when I say, couldn’t make a decision, I mean her suitcase was out and ready to be filled two days before departure and she’d go back and forth from her closet to her suitcase without ever keeping one thing in it.

Finally, the night before we were to leave I just made decisions about what she should bring and put them in the suitcase. I told her that I’d bring extra clothes and she could pare that down when we got to our weekend destination.

She seemed grateful for that as she told me she still needed to pay the bills before she left.

Around midnight I saw that a light was still on and went to go find out the reason. My mom had all the lights out in her room except her closet light and when I asked what in the world she was doing up at midnight (she’s usually in bed by 9:30) and basically in the dark, she said that she didn’t want me to know that she was still working on the bills.

In hindsight I can see that even though I was aware that my mom was having problems I didn’t realize the extent and seriousness of the situation. I see all of the signs of what was coming, now, but then, it was just my mom being frustrated and me being frustrated with her.

Two weeks later when I went to the airport to pick her up from her stay at my sister’s place she seemed to have aged ten years! It was shocking. Within ten days of her arrival back home she was involuntarily confined in the mental ward of a local hospital. It was one of the saddest sights I have ever experienced in my life. Nothing prepares you for seeing your seventy-eight year old mother being held in the sterile prison-like environment of mental hospital.

Here's the long version of what happened.

And so began the next year of my life.

Dragons Wear T-shirts?

Two of my guy friends from high school took me out for beers today. One of them is recently divorced and visiting from out of state. The other, a confirmed bachelor, has a job that takes him out of town for long periods of time, so I don't see either of them very often. It was a nice, out-of-the-blue, surprise to have them call.

It was just fun to have good conversation and laughs. They gave me the feeling that they thought I was interesting and funny. And in typical guy fashion, they both kinda hit on me. It's too bad I'm not interested in either of them like that. I mean, I like both of them, I feel like I've known them forever, but it's in that brother sort of way. But in addition to being a nice way to spend the day, it gave me a shot of confidence in myself that I've been lacking.

Now, I just need to meet and charm a single guy who I'm attracted to. And slay the dragon sporting the "where-the-hell-are-you-gonna-find-him?" t-shirt.

Faith vs Fantasy

Sometimes I have to wonder if there is just a thin line between faith and fantasy. A definition of fantasy is: the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable. A definition of faith is: a firm belief in something for which there is no proof.

When I get down about my quest I ask myself if I'm just living in a fantasy; believing that I can create from nothing - something - especially when it seems that all of the experts tell me it is, if not impossible, then, improbable. But faith tells me to believe even when it's hard to believe.

A story that came to mind when I was thinking about the fine line between faith and fantasy is the one about a religious man who was caught in his house during a flood.

The water quickly rose from just an inch or two to the point where it was rushing around his ankles. He prayed fervently, "God please save me." Soon thereafter his neighbors came by in a truck and told him to come with them to safety. He said, "No thanks, God will save me."

As the flood waters got higher and more forceful he climbed the stairs to the second floor. A man in a boat came by and offered to take him to safety. He declined, telling the man "God will save me."

Soon the man found himself up to his neck in water and made his way out onto the roof. After a time a rescue helicopter appeared overhead and a man dropped down a rope ladder. Even though the water was threatening to carry him away the man waved the helicopter off, "I'm a man of faith. God will save me!"

Finally, the man drowned.

Next thing he knew, he was in heaven, where he was greeted by God. "Why didn't you save me?" he asked God. "I tried," God answered, "I sent your neighbors, I sent a boat, and I sent a helicopter!"

To me this story represents that fine line between faith and fantasy. The man's faith was strong. He knew the power of prayer. It wasn't a fantasy to believe that God could save him. But he got stuck on how exactly God should save him. The fantasy was that he was only open to one way for God to help him - his way.

I guess what I need to stay focused on is that there is power in prayer. I just need to be open to, and ready for, whatever God's answer to that prayer is, even if it isn't how I picture it. When God is trying to help me I can either sit idly by waiting for what I have in mind to occur, or take advantage of what God has in mind and what He presents me with.

A Year Ago

A year ago I was desperate. I had been trying for a long time to figure out how to attain my heart's desire: finding a husband and getting pregnant with my own eggs.

Things weren't working out. A few months earlier, Life had thrown me a curveball. My mom had had a serious medical emergency that required me to give her full-time care. I'll write more about that in a future post, but suffice it to say, one good thing that came out of her ordeal was that it made me more determined than ever to try to get the life I wanted.

For the past two years I had been reading everything I could regarding pregnancy later in life. The statistics were dismal, the doctors spouting the statistics were dismal, so I just started skipping over those parts of the articles. Truly, I don't think it was an attempt to put my head in the sand, so much as my way of saying, "Enough already. Yes, world of conventional medical doctors I hear you, but once is fine. I have noted your enthused unenthusiasm for anyone over forty attempting pregnancy and now I will be moving on. Thank you for causing me to want to beat the hell of out of every dismal statistic you've got in your statistical-nightmare arsenal."

I finally made an appointment with my new doctor, Dr. M, whom I knew had gotten pregnant with her son later in life (she has been my mom's doctor for the past ten years). She is a medical doctor who practices Integrative medicine.

I told Dr. M my dream: that I wanted to get pregnant. I explained how I really was hoping (praying) that I would meet the right guy, fall in love and have a baby, but since that wasn't happening so far, my next thought was to try to freeze my eggs. My thinking has always been that if I didn't have a husband yet, it didn't mean I wouldn't ever have him. And if I could meet him in the next couple of years and I had viable eggs frozen, then maybe I could still have the family I hoped for.

I had never tried to get pregnant before and I had never had any fertility test done so I had no idea what to expect. At forty-five years old, I have to say, I was pretty scared of what the outcome would be. I was preparing myself for beating the odds no matter how poorly my results were.

In my research I wasn't finding clinics that would take a women over forty (and certainly not forty-five) in their egg freezing program. But after numerous phone calls to clinics all over the country I finally found a Big City one that would be willing to do the procedure. I set up a phone conference appointment to talk with the clinic's doctor. He asked me questions and explained to me the egg freezing process. He also noted the expense of the procedure - $9,500 - not including the fertility medicines which would cost $3000 more. He said at my age I would be lucky to get two viable eggs; the more I got the better my odds of success would be. Sometime during our conversation he said the statistics for a woman my age to have a successful pregnancy was one percent. I said it was my intention to be in that one percent. He laughed. They sent me all the information regarding what testing needed to be done.

So when I went to Dr. M with my plan she was completely supportive. She gave me the name of a local fertility clinic where I could start the initial testing.

I went and met with the fertility doctor, got all my blood work done to measure my hormone levels and did a clomid "challenge" to see how I responded to that fertility drug. My results would be gathered and I set up an appointment to meet with the doctor in one months time.

I tried to be positive throughout the experience but it's easier said than done. I was worried. At my age I was preparing myself for the worst and planning how to overcome whatever bad outcome might be presented. But I was also hoping beyond hope for some good outcome. A miracle.

When the time came for my results appointment I was nervous, but faith-filled. I was called into the doctors personal office and, unbeknownst to me, I was greeted by the clinic's head doctor whom I had never met. I was surprised and a little intimidated. I felt small sitting there. My life's dream was being laid out in front of this doctor and he seemed big and imposing with his ability to either crush it or keep the flame lit. He began by talking about fertility and statistics and all the while my mind was just praying for it not to be too late.

Finally, he said how surprised he was to see the good results of my fertility testing given my age. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. At that moment it was as if God laid a gentle kiss on the top of my head and said, "You see, I told you everything will be alright." The doctor went on to explain all of the options that the fertility clinic offered and told me that if I wanted to do an intrauterine insemination using donor sperm my fertility was good enough to warrant doing it right away.

Wow. It is so good to get good news! But I told this fertility doctor that I really wanted to just continue on with trying to get my eggs frozen. Although he explained the still experimental nature of that procedure, he was willing to assist the clinic that I found in the Big City.

As I got in my car to drive home I felt so relieved that it wasn't bad news. At forty-five I was still fertile enough to get and maintain a pregnancy. It didn't mean that I would, but it was a good start. It was amazing to me. I had a long journey ahead and it was a godsend that I could start the journey in as good a position as anyone my age could expect. One dragon slain, more to go, the next being how to get the thousands of dollars needed for the procedure.

Slaying Dragons

In Joseph Campbell's book, The Power of Myth, he delves deeply into what he calls, "the hero's journey."

He explains that the basic motif of the universal hero's journey - "is leaving one condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or mature condition." He notes what all the myths of the hero have to deal with is "transformations of consciousness of one kind or another; that you have been thinking one way and you now have to think a different way."

He goes on to say that the usual hero adventure begins with "someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there's something lacking in the normal experiences available or permitted to the members of his society. This person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It's usually a cycle, a going and a returning."

In numerous myth stories the hero must slay a dragon (or something equally as frightening) while on his quest in order to succeed at what he is attempting. As Campbell explains, regarding myth stories, "All of these dragon killings and threshold crossings have to do with getting past being stuck."

When Campbell was asked what the significance of the trials, and tests and ordeals of the hero were, he answered, “If you want to put it in terms of intentions, the trials are designed to see to it that the intending hero should be really a hero. Is he really a match for this task? Can he overcome the dangers? Does he have the courage, the knowledge, the capacity, to enable him to serve?"

Right now I am on my 'hero's journey." My quest is to attain something seemingly unattainable. I am trying to leave the condition of my present life - the loneliness of being single and childless - and finding the source of life to bring me forth into a richer or mature condition - being married and a mother.

My journey of "transformed consciousness" began at least two years ago when I had been thinking one way - that I was forty-four and it was too late for me to find a husband and have a baby - to thinking a different way - that it wasn't too late.

I have now taken off on my adventure "beyond the ordinary." I'm am leaving my old belief system of woe-is-me and lack. I am on the quest which ultimately will tell me who I am and what I am made of. Do I have the courage, the knowledge, the capacity to follow my dreams, to attain my dreams?

On my journey I will have plenty of "dragons" to slay; one of the biggest and fiercest is Self Doubt. The children of Self Doubt, Inaction and Fear, must also be battled into submission. I will be tested. I have been tested. And I am finding that the dream is worthy of the quest.

Signs

It took two days, but I'll take this and this as my signs. I saw both of these articles today while doing my morning news reading on the internet. I clicked on a news article and when I finished my eye caught, over on the side of the page, the headline about John Travolta and Kelly Preston. Later, while reading a different news article I saw something equally as random (maybe random isn't the best word usage in this case, if you know what I mean, so I'll say, interesting), clicked on that link, which in turn led me to the older woman/younger man article. So, anyway, that's how signs are, they're often revealed in convoluted ways. The key to seeing signs is asking to receive them, believing that you will receive them, and being aware of receiving them.

I took the older woman/younger man article as a sign because it is so "out there." It seems like such an impossibility for love to happen between them, and yet it did. And plus, she's forty-three and pregnant!

For Crying Out Loud

I cried tonight. Just kinda broke down. I had been looking at a website that had a bunch of people who have exactly what I don't have and I felt sad for me. Sad that I have a dream that I don't know how to realize. That kind of overwhelming sad where I just doubted everything. I get this way every three or four months. I go along being as positive as I can in my outlook, in my faith, and then I just kind of 'hit the wall." I usually ask God to send me a sign to keep me strong in my faith, to help me believe, to know, that everything will work out. I'll look for it tomorrow, or maybe it will come to me in a dream tonight. I'm open. My mom reassured me. She told me how much I mean to her. It's as if I was a little kid again and she kissed my boo boo and made it all better. I'll pick myself up and go around the wall the next time, or over it. I'm open.