Art

"I'd rather be optimistic and a fool, than pessimistic and right." ~ Unknown

I've had a hard couple of weeks... mentally.

Surprisingly, my latest meltdown didn't happen during all the Valentine's Day hullabaloo... the single persons no-mans-land of holidays. It happened more than a week after that. 

I feel like I go for long stretches of time and my faith is strong; lifted up by the signs I ask for and receive. 

Faith never feels like an easy thing for me to hold onto... I always feel like I'm grasping to keep it. But I try to remind myself that I don't have to have faith in abundance, but rather just the tiniest bit... the mustard seed size. And I usually feel like, yeah, I can have at least that amount, that's not beyond the realm of belief that I am capable of, that should be doable. And it is doable, until something happens wherein even a mustard seed's size of faith seems daunting to hold tightly to. 

And the thing that happened is really something that didn't happen... I haven't had my period since January 5th. And I should have... at least according to the OV watch that I wear. 

I can't find, in searching my past blog posts, that I have written anything about the OV Watch. I'm perplexed as to why I wouldn't have written something about having bought the watch nearly a year ago and been using it ever since.

The OV watch is a ovulation predictor watch. The watch is able to "read" through sensors that touch your skin, when you are beginning your ovulation process. It gives you an alert to the four days leading up to ovulation, the actual day of ovulation and what they call, the two less fertile days after ovulation. The watch and sensors are pretty expensive, but when I bought it I thought that the ovulation test kits you buy at the store were really expensive, too, and they didn't give nearly the insightful information that the watch gives me.

My doctor has, several times, gotten blood work done during the time my OV watch says I'm about to ovulate, or am ovulating, and the results match up pretty well. That is, my doctor can see through my blood work what is happening and it has correlated with what the watch is indicating is happening. The only minor difference is that sometimes she thinks my ovulation day is actually the day before the watch indicates it is, but that is not a concern for me as the watch lets you know the four days leading up to ovulation, anyway. 

So, the watch had told me I ovulated on January 19th. And for me I usually have a 16 day luteal phase of my cycle so I would have expected my period around February 3rd. But I told my doctor that I felt like I was having symptoms of ovulation on January 22nd. My doctor told me that for older woman it's not uncommon to ovulate twice in their cycle. But if I did indeed ovulate twice (the OV watch only works for the one ovulation period) then I would have expected my period around the 6th of February, but it never came. 

I was concerned at that time, but I wasn't worried, mostly because I kept thinking my period would come! I mean, how can you ovulate and not have a period? 

But my body has been acting strangely of late, wherein I felt like everything that I was aware of, those little clues that tell you what stage of your cycle you are in, seemed to be happening a lot! 

For instance, throughout all my years of menstruating, I rarely ever had symptoms alerting me that I was about to have my period. No bloating, no cramps, no change emotionally, nothing. My period almost always came as a surprise to me. 

However, maybe once a year - some years, possibly twice - I would have some of those symptoms I mentioned above, most notably the feeling of bloatiness and emotional change, i.e., I'd find myself impatient, or even crying over something I normally wouldn't cry over. But often those symptoms wouldn't occur at the same time. So, then my period would surprisingly start and I'd be like, oh, that's why I cried, or that's why I was so impatient. But on the rare times I had the bloaty-feeling I would be made aware that my period was about to start... I didn't particularly like the bloaty-feeling, but I liked that it allowed me to prepare for my period, as in, you're out of Tampons, you better go buy a box now!

But in the past two months I've had that bloaty feeling a lot, which made me think I was going to start my period any day. And, also, because I have a cyst on my right ovary, I often feel when I'm ovulating, I guess because it "inflames" the ovary with the egg, or something. And I do "feel" that kind of achyness in my ovary that tells me what's going on... at least what I had thought was going on, i.e., I'm ovulating. 

Also, my Chinese acupuncturist, whom I think is really very accurate and good at what she does, twice, in the past couple of weeks, has felt my pulse (she feels the pulse at the wrist on both arms) and she said that she thought my period was about to begin. And yet, it didn't. It hasn't.

When I told my doctor in February I thought I was ovulating she did another round of blood work and when she got the results back I felt disheartened for the first time in a long time because she said my FSH was higher than it had been - not in the normal range. Previously my FSH had always been right within the normal range at 9-10. But on this sample of blood work she told me it could have just been that I wasn't in the stage of the cycle I thought I was. 

Then she (and remember this is my GP who had her last child at 45 years old) prescribed an rx for progesterone capsules for me to take over a ten day period to "jump start" my menstruation if it didn't occur by this past Friday. She then gave me a requisition form for another blood draw on day  three of my period to get a better idea of what my FSH level is. 

Well, I didn't take the pill on Friday night because my acupuncturist felt like I would have my period come by Sunday. She said if it didn't, then I should start the progesterone pills. So, I waited and it didn't come Sunday night, but I still didn't take the pill. I so didn't want to have to take it. I so wanted my body to naturally "stay in the game!" But on Monday night - now well over two months since my period  - I did as my doctor prescribed. 

So, I guess I did feel real down over all of that happening... or rather not happening. It was the first time in my life where, when filling out a medical form, and asked the question: do you have regular periods, I had to mark, no. It felt like such a disappointment.

But, again, I think it is just still all a part of my Hero's Journey... 

The part where Joseph Campbell, whom I have written of in earlier posts regarding The Hero's Journey, when 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...?" 

And I knew all along, from the moment I started writing this blog, that I was going to be faced with "slaying dragons" and having faith in that seed of a thought; the thought that I believe God put into my heart, and mind, and soul, of finding a husband, getting married and having biological children of my own (our own!).

And, really, I had been super-duper fortunate that at the age of 50 my fertility was still going strong. So, I've been blessed that I wasn't really having to "fight that battle;" I wasn't having to think so much about that part of the game. I was actually more concentrated on how I was going to find the guy to get me in the "big leagues." That was where my faith was always being tested... finding my guy. 

But now I do have to face that dragon - of hanging onto my fertility. And somehow I have to slay that dragon, too. And at this point, I think the only thing I can add to all the positive things I've been doing is to just keep believing in my creative ability. After all, I do believe God created me in His image, hence my belief that I have the same ability: to create something from nothing but the pureness of my desire.

I'm not a trained artist, nor am I a trained writer, but I do both, I guess, because I'm sort of just a creative type of person. I have visions of things that I feel the need to express. And I think the one thing I've learned about undertaking a creative endeavor, is that there are stages to the process, and most of the time you find yourself at a stage you were hoping to avoid, but rarely do... the lost stage. 

I guess it's kinda like a sculptor, for instance, who has a huge block of marble sitting there before him. He has a vision of what he wants the final result to be, but he would need to chip, chip, chip away at it until he had what he desired, a statue, say, like the famous, Venus de Milo! 

But that chipping away took time and patience, and during the process the block of marble probably looked pitiful; he might have even had a worry that it was going to turn out ugly... nothing like his final artistic expression. But in the end, all of his creative effort, vision and attention to detail had the result that, 2,000 years later, despite being damaged and broken, we're still in awe of it...

I think what I'm trying to say is, I'm at the "ugly" "hard" stage of the creative process now, but if I press on - keep chipping away - keep working at seeing my "vision" - at some point I'll get to that place where I will see the fruits of my labors... start seeing everything coming together, and finally, achieving my desired result: my husband, and my children; my family! *faith* : )