Pity Party

I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately! Things have been a little crazy around here. Hopefully I'll post more about that later.

No news on the IF front. I had a strange cycle this month. It was about nine days long and very light, which makes me think I won't have one next month. My body isn't cycling naturally, anyway (at least I don't think so). If I didn't have to take the estrodial and prometrium for my early menopausal bones, I wouldn't so that I wouldn't have to have periods. lol

I'm getting pretty down about my overall health. My hair is still falling out like crazy (it seems even worse than before, but I could be imagining things), my left eye feels really weird (I'm not even going to try to describe it lol), and I have an almost constant toothache. I went to the dentist about my tooth, who said it's just sensitivity, but it still really hurts. I have an eye doctor appointment on Tuesday...hopefully I get some answers. My brain feels like it's in a fog most of the time. I'll try to make conversation with people, and I have a hard time understand what they're saying and end up looking like an idiot. It's frustrating and a little scary.

My NaPro doctor referred me to an endocrinologist, since she can't figure out why my FSH is 153, which is high even for a menopausal woman. However, the endocrinologist refused to see me until I saw a "reproductive specialist". There are some reproductive specialists in the area, but they do IVF/IUI stuff, and they gave me the creeps. I'm pretty sure they'd just try to force IVF on me anyway, instead of trying to figure out what's wrong with me. None of the doctors I've ever been to has been able to figure me out. I've basically given up hope of ever being "fixed". I'm so bitter about it all...the "Why ME?!" thought and feelings come up almost everyday. Why does MY body have to act like a 60-year-old? The worst part of it all is seeing my husband go through all of this with me. I feel so guilty. He tells me all the time that it's not my fault and it's unreasonable to feel that way, but I can't help it. 

Ugh.

Evangelizing the Family

Boomz and I visited my family on the other side of the state this past weekend. :) I haven't been visited them in months, so I was excited to go "home", but there's always a little part of me that dreads it. Not because I don't love my family, of course, but because they don't understand why Boomz and I are so "into" Catholicism. There's lots of bickering and criticizing, and the TV is ALWAYS on. 


Anyway, I bought my little brother the new catechism for teens (You.cat) for his birthday, because I'm his Confirmation sponsor and I've been doing a horrible job at preparing him for the sacrament. He'd already flipped through it a little, but I wanted to go through it with him before Boomz and I went home. So on Sunday afternoon, I went through some of it with my brother, starting  with Who created us and why. We talked about baptism and the Divine Indwelling (although I didn't use those words lol), the Eucharist, and Confirmation. I showed him pictures of Eucharistic miracles, which he thought were "gross". Generally, I wasn't getting very good reactions from him. lol He said things like, "It's just a bunch of rules" and repeated that Eucharistic miracles were gross many times. I was praying to the Holy Spirit a lot while I was talking with him, but I still felt like I went way too in depth, and I was worried I just confused him. 


Well, late on Sunday night (well, actually Monday morning), I received a text from my brother saying that now that he knows God is always with him he feels more safe (he still gets pretty scared at night for some reason. It took years and years to get him to sleep in his room). Then yesterday evening, I got a text from him asking how he can learn to love God more! And he told me he read a lot of the book I gave him and that he went to the church and sat there and prayed! He said that he feels like crying when he prays but he doesn't know why, and that it feels good to be in the church "just you and God", and that taking about God makes him happy. I was blown away! I can't believe I got those texts from MY brother! lol My crazy, goofy brother who never seems to have a serious thought in his head. I hope St. Joseph (his confirmation saint) and the Holy Spirit keep working on him! :) Please keep him in your prayers! 

An Examination of Conscience and Other Bible Passages

I know, I know! Just what you all want! ;) I know this passage is almost cliche (it could never really be cliche, since it's Scripture), because it's heard at tons of weddings, but it really helps me realize how far I fall short of perfectly loving my husband.


"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong; but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7


Boy, oh boy, do I have a long way to go. I especially need to work on not insisting on my own way!


Other Bible passages that have struck me recently:


"I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him."  (Romans 12:1-3) Whoa. So much good stuff in there!


"Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." (Philippians 2:14-16)  Boomz knows I need to work on this! lol

An Excerpt...

...from My Sister Saint Therese, by Sr. Genevieve of the Holy Face (Celine Martin). 

"'That which we need more than anything else,' the Saint used to tell me 'is humility of heart, and you cannot believe you possess it until you are willing to let everybody order you about. You are pleasant enough so long as you can have your own way about things, but as soon as your opinion is ignored and contradicted you become dejected. Is there any virtue at all in that? No, for real virtue 'is to be submissive under the hand of all,'* which means to be happy whenever you are blamed for anything whatsoever. At the beginning this will not be easy, and your countenance will probably betray the effort. Then others will judge you to be imperfect still. That is the best feature of the whole matter because you will then be practising humility-which really consists not only in thinking and in saying that you are full of imperfections but in being glad that others also think you are imperfect-and even say so.'"

Oh man...I have so far to go! lol 

*Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 44