This Little Happies link up is brought to you by the Easter Triduum!
–one–
Holy Thursday
Jonathan and I were honored to be asked by our Deacon to have our feet washed at the Holy Thursday evening mass. I have never gotten to do that before and it was truly a humbling and meditative experience.
Afterwards, our parish had a side chapel where people could spend time with Jesus in the “garden” since we are remembering those three days with him. After the Last Supper, he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemene and finally was arrested and imprisoned that night. It’s a really special time to “keep watch” with the Lord “in the garden” to prepare for Good Friday.
–two–
Good Friday
We were unable to make it to any Good Friday services at our parish due to a ultra-sound I had to get on my ovaries to check for any follicles. The happy in this was that I was able to unite my real sufferings to Jesus during the hour of Divine Mercy on Good Friday. Usually I don’t get to have that concrete of something to grasp onto when I am drowning in pain or sadness. Another happy was that there was a mature follicle and I got to take a HCG trigger shot to attempt at getting it to ovulate. Getting a intra-muscular butt shot from Jonathan was another way to unite myself to the cross in a tangible way that made me happy.
–three–
Holy Saturday
Jonathan and I went to our friends’ home on Saturday to color Ukranian Psanky Easter Eggs! This is just one example of the cool things you can do with these eggs. Try it sometime!
We had plans to go to the Easter Vigil but Jonathan’s psanky egg may or may not have taken five hours…so we missed the vigil this year and went Sunday morning instead. As we prepped food and cleaned the house, we watched The Ten Commandments again. Love that movie!
–four–
We had another couple friend over for the day and had an Easter Sunday Dominion Tournament. Enough said.
This was part of the food spread. I even used the good china! We had homeade gluten-free crepes with a variety of fixings, a sausage breakfast casserole, asparagus, baked grapefruit, smoky gouda cheese and cracker platter, veggie platter, coffee, mimosas, and chocolate chip cookies with vanilla bean ice cream. It was glorious.
We even threw a game of Catan Cities and Knights into the day to mix things up. Our friends came over at 11:30am and left eleven hours later. It was a very fun day and it took my mind of the HCG trigger shot situation.
But sadly, as I write this post, I have a lot of abdominal pain. Meaning I most likely did NOT ovulate and have yet another leutinized unruptured follicle aka LUF…I guess the Good Friday graces for me to suffer happily are gone, as I feel totally devastated and alone…again. It also doesn’t help that everyone and their dog decided to announce they are pregnant on Facebook today. Lesson learned – don’t get on Facebook on national holidays when you are infertile. Everyone will either be 1. pregnant or 2. taking some perfect family photo with their children in cute outfits and posting it for me to see. I know nobody means harm to me but getting on Facebook anymore feels like getting run over by a semi truck. An infertile girl can only take so many babies and bellies being flaunted on one’s newsfeed before they go insane and grow into a depressed shell of themselves.
But this is not a post about being sad. It’s about the happies in life, so I won’t linger any longer.
Getting back to focusing on the blessings in life – How will we celebrate the entire EASTER OCTAVE?!?!?!?! I don’t know yet but we will be doing something to celebrate every single day. Hope yall do the same because it’s really Easter for eight full days! Wahoo!
11 Comments
Ok, so this post is fantastic! Except for the LUF part — I’m so bummed about that!! Grr! And then the abundance of baby announcements/pics on fb for Easter… ugh. I’m so sorry. My newsfeed was flooded with babies too. Babies in baskets, babies doing Easter egg hunts, babies in pretty dresses. I mean, I love babies, but is that all Easter is about?!? If it makes you feel any better, (I hope this does and doesn’t make you feel worse), John and I are announcing that we’re adopting on facebook soon! So hopefully that’ll negate some of those baby announcements for ya! 😉 It’s kinda fun to do something less traditional than everyone else.
Can we talk about that Dominion Tournament??! That’s awesome! We haven’t played Dominion yet, but it’s on our list! That and Ticket to Ride. Sounds like we’re missing out!
Also, I spy some gluten free almond crackers. Am I right? If so, those are so tasty and don’t make me miss gluteny crackers at all!!
That egg is incredible! Did you paint that, or did Jonathan? B/c if it was Jonathan, I can see why you missed the Easter Vigil. Dang!! That’s some skill!!
Have a happy and blessed Easter Octave!! Wahoooo is right! 😀
Thanks for your encouragement! I can’t wait to see your adoption announcement. No hurt in the slightest to see that. Only happiness! Thank goodness God can and does redeem the pain of infertility. You’re adoption truly gives me hope.
And yes, we can talk about Dominion! 🙂 We love that game. So nerdy but so much fun. Once we were at a coffee shop playing for a date night. Dozens of people kept staring at us, especially when we would say things like “Village-Smithy Combo!” and “Throne Rooming my Festival!” Total nerd talk but oh so strategic and competitive! 🙂
Yes those crackers were GF. Our friends brought them – I want to say they were the Blue Diamond brand. The ranch ones were delicious.
That egg is the one I drew and dyed, in 2 hours compared to Jonathan’s 5 hours. His is so much more precise and intricate. I gotta get a pic of it up on the blog now. I was too impatient to wait for him to finish when I snapped the photo. Whoops. You should do it sometimes, it’s seriously such a fun craft. And it totally beats that old dye-kit we grew up with!
So so sorry to hear about the LUF, and about the pregnancy announcements/etc. I can relate to how you’re feeling, as I was also surrounded by ‘baby talk’ this Easter. It hurts to avoid these things, but it hurts much worse to encounter them when you’re not ready. I’m glad you were able to focus on so many happy things this weekend! I will be praying for you 🙂
Thanks for your encouragement and prayers.I know I shouldn’t put too much stock into Facebook newsfeeds because nothing is usually as it appears. It feels like our life got “paused” and we will forever be stuck in a mile-stoneless life as we watch everyone else sail on by. It feels like if and when we do shore up to the land of parenthood, we will be late to the party and all the new moms with kids our kids ages will be a decade younger than I am. Not the worst thing ever, obviously, but I am starting to wonder if I will ever “fit in” anywhere and Facebook is only making that feeling worse these days.
I commented on another post a few days ago but wanted to comment again. I got off Facebook over a year ago for that exact reason. Every time I went on there there were new pregnancy announcements, belly updates, or photos of children. I guess that’s what I should expect at my age when everyone is having babies. Being off Facebook has been one of the best things for my emotional well-being.
I also meant to mention this in my last comment. I know you mentioned being in a weird stage where you’re discerning adoption but still pursing medical treatment. I’ve spoken with lots of adoptive mothers (some who have gone on to also have biological children and some who have not) and they all say it’s OK to pursue both of these things as a parallel path. If you do conceive, it’s a wonderful thing, but if you don’t, you aren’t way behind on the adoption process. That’s what we have done. We started pursuing adoption after a year and 10 months of infertility (and after speaking with an adoptive couple who really opened our hearts to the idea). We took our time on the paperwork because at first, I wasn’t ready to adopt, I was still really really grieving our biological child. We are just now finishing up our home study (we took 6 or 7 months to do the paperwork) and are waiting on one final paper to come in before we are officially approved to adopt. Even now, I’m still hoping we conceive (since I just had surgery for endo) but I know we have other issues as well that make it doubly hard so if we don’t, I still have hope in adoption. It really is miraculous how much focusing on the adoption paperwork really took my mind off pregnancy and helped me to be a much more hopeful and joyful person these past 6 or 7 months. Anyway, I know adoption is not for everyone, I truly believe it is a calling but I wanted to encourage you and say it is ok to to pursue both adoption and medical treatment at once. Either way, you’re going to be blessed!
Also, have you read the book My Sisters the Saints? It’s one of my faves, I think you would enjoy it (the author struggles through infertility and writes about the Saints that helped her through various stages/struggles in her life).
Also here is a recent article on infertility written by a friend of mine (the wife of the adoptive couple that opened our hearts to adoption) that I thought was really good: http://www.aleteia.org/en/health/article/10-things-over-than-ivf-that-could-help-a-couple-suffering-with-infertility-5905598654709760
God Bless!
Okay so I have a couple random questions. 1)Did you have your toes painted for Holy Thursday?? I would have been freaking out about people judging my feet:-) That is really cool that you guys could have that experience together. 2) You do your HCG intramuscularly? I wonder why PPVI has me to mine sub-cue. 3) I am so so so sorry about the pain and possible LUF. I’ve been praying the novena you sent me! Which is a big deal for my spiritually slothful self. Keep us posted!
Haha! Yes my toes were painted. Although chipped, so actually it was quite humbling. I found myself wishing I had gotten a pedicure but I knew for vanity’s sake, my chipped toe nail paint was best! 🙂
As for the hcg IM shot…no idea why I get it IM opposed to SubQ. Maybe it’s a doctor’s preference. Believe me, I would RATHER get a tiny little SubQ. Jonathan hit my sciatic nerve (on accident!!) once and I have been scared for my life every injection since.
Commenting on the happies first – love them! Especially the Dominion tournament. We heart Dominion, esp. the Dark Ages. Okay, and Seaside. Okay, all of them! So fun.
Ugh, I’m so, so sorry about the possible LUF. =( My heart hurts for you reading that. Embracing the cross indeed.
I too have left Facebook, over a year ago. I agree with beingmrsmurray – it’s done wonders for my emotional state. It’s just not a safe place for me, and real life is hard enough without getting bombarded with everyone’s pg pics and baby news.
Praying for healing in every way possible!
Thanks for your comments. I am glad you enjoy the world of Dominion too!! This was our first dabble into the Seaside expansion. Those dang Pirates!!!! Killed my strategy entirely!
Yea, the LUF…I went in for an u/s to check to see if I ovulated. Waiting to her back from PPVI on the results. Even though I am nearly 99% positive it’s another LUF cycle, there is some plan within me that refuses to accept it until it’s confirmed in stone from the Doc. Oh, my hopeful and denying heart! I guess I always want to leave a 1% chance for a miracle. Could happen, right?
As for Facebook – I am thinking about starting a TGB facebook page and then abandoning my personal account forever. I hate hate hate 1. wasting any amount of time on FB and 2. Feeling crazy/depressed/jealous after seeing twenty people in a row announcing pregnancies, belly shots, or some cute kid photo. Maybe I will get back on FB when everyone in my age group hits menopause. 🙂
Totally celebrating the Octave with plenty of good food! The scale says I should maybe slow down on that soon. 😉 I hear you on the perfect family photos. I definitely limited my Facebook exposure over Easter.
So sorry to hear about the LUF…you’re in my prayers!