It's About That Time...

Time for resolutions and fresh plans! I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas, but now it's time for a NEW Year! Welcome 2011.

I guess my resolution is the same as it always is... lose weight. We'll see how that works out for me this time around. I think that I'm not going to focus on a number (be it size, or weight) but more on how I want to feel, and how I look. First and foremost, I think it has to be about getting healthier. For me, that means taking the time to learn how to control my binges which have sort of taken me over for the past 6 months. One step and a time, right? I'm working on it.

So, I'm going to head to the gym tomorrow with all four of my kiddos in tow, and make my body a better place to eventually grow a little one. I'm totally uncomfortable in my own skin, and completely depressed about the way I look. Tony swears he's not concerned about it, but I'm taking my concern to the extreme. I care so much about the way I look that I don't want to leave the house. I don't even want to visit family, it's that serious.

:::Deep Breath::: One day at a time.

Happy New Year.

16& Pregnant? Yes, I was...

So, last night was the season finale of 16& Pregnant, and I have to say that it was an emotional roller coaster! I think that watching Ashley agonize over what to do with her daughter was the most real situation I've ever seen on that show. I know that millions tune in week after week to watch a bunch of kids struggle to raise babies, but up until last night, it was just a show. Last night, I think they finally succeeded in living up to their genre... docu-drama.

Week after week, we always watch naive girls get the ultimate wake-up call when they become mothers... but few of them actually grow up. You very seldom get to see the weight of their decision, they say "well, I was going to college, I was going to do this" but you never saw the reality of it until last night. Last night it came full circle for me, having lived that life once. You saw her make a life plan for herself and her daughter, and then when she fell in love, she was ready to give it all up for her child. For most of the teen moms, adoption isn't an option from the moment the stick turns blue, and the ones who did give up their baby didn't waiver much in their decisions. Well, mostly anyway. Ashley knew what she was giving up, she was right there, on the precipice of her dreams. She could reach out and touch her future, and all it took was one look at her child and it threw everything she thought she knew into question. It simply didn't matter anymore.

I was the same way, but I was a fair deal younger than most of the moms on 16& Pregnant. (I know it says "16" in the title, but most of the girls are high school seniors whereas I got pregnant at the end of the summer after freshman year though I didn't find out until I was a couple of weeks into school).

I relate to Ashley, because I agonized over the same decision... do I give my baby up for adoption, or keep her? I said the exact same thing that Ashley said when I saw my baby for the first time "I can't let her go." I could feel every emotion that she was going through, and my stomach was in knots through most of the episode. And at the end, I cried. I wanted her to keep her baby. I wanted her to see hope, to see that things could get better. I knew, just by watching her that she would live to regret her decision. Don't get me wrong, adoption is wonderful for a lot of birth moms... but Ashley didn't strike me as one of those moms. She's no Caitlyn. She will absolutely regret this decision, and worse, the baby will be in her family and she will have to face her at every family function and wonder if she did what was right. When her life is stable, she will want her daughter back. I had enough foresight to see that when I was making the same decision. I knew... no, I had faith that things would end up okay for me and my children. I trusted God to take care of us, and He did. My heart breaks for Ashley. I'm considering not watching the check-in episode next week, because I'm afraid she'll say that she made a mistake. But maybe I'll watch and be pleasantly surprised, and she'll say that she's at peace with her decision. But, she reminds me so much of me that I have a hard time believing that she'll ever make peace with herself. Sad. Although it was nice to see the end, where she was visiting New York to tour the college. Honestly though, I don't think that college will fill the void. I don't think that anything will. She could have done it, she was strong enough to do it all. She was stronger than I was, and I was 15.

The worst part was that when it ended I just sobbed. I'm actually fighting tears now just thinking about it. My children are my life, and the thought of never being able to carry another breaks my heart down to dust... I see myself in Ashley. Not trusting, trying to make the "right" decision for a child (who in my case doesn't even exist), and being plagued by all of the doubts. Am I doing the right thing? Will I regret this? How will it be in 5 years if our lives are wonderful and I didn't have another child, because I didn't have hope? Because I didn't trust.

I can't write anymore.

Trying to Figure it Out...

The baby situation is completely tied to our money situation, and we're just trying to get it all taken care of. One of the things we're doing right now to save money is a lot of belt tightening. We've ditch cable, and our home phone, and the Internet (thank goodness for cell phones that are also Internet hot spots!) We're going to stop eating out (except for one dinner out a month), and make get back to planning family meals week to week so we don't end up spending more at the grocery store than we absolutely need. We're also going to try and find more family things to do for free. Sadly, we're also going to pull Andie from competitive cheerleading at the end of this season, in favor of something cheaper. I think that we're going to end up doing most of our sports through the YMCA to save money. I would say that we considered dumping our YMCA passes, but we didn't. We may apply for their sliding scale financial assistance, but if we're denied, we're still keeping the pass, because we use it.

For summer fun, we're thinking of taking a little cash off the top of our tax return each year to buy a King's Island family pass... but I'm undecided. I really like to have it, but with the kids still being so young, and me being terrified of roller coasters, it may not be worth it this year. Who knows. We do a lot there when it's not crazy crowded, but when it is, it's very easy to get frustrated. I haven't decided about that yet.

With our annuity ending soon, we will be living on half the money that we have become accustomed to. It's going to be really really hard, but we'll figure it out. In the meantime, we're going to save as much money as we can, and pay off our furniture, and our car. Thankfully, we don't have a mortgage, so our bills are going to be mostly limited to necessities. Hopefully we will be fine on everything else. I would like to see Tony be able to make more money, but it's not looking good for now. We're honestly doing fine, and things would be absolutely easy for us if I was working, but neither one of us wants that right now, with the kids being so young, and wanting to have more. After the holidays, Tony is going to look nation wide for a new job that will allow us more financial freedom, but 'pickens are slim in this economy, and I will take job security over more money any day. Also, he's looking into construction jobs which I'm not overly thrilled about... I would like to see that as a last resort, even after the option of me going back to work. I dealt with one catastrophic injury, and I'm in no hurry to go back there again.

Also, we're kicking around the option to downsize. We have an enormous house, and it's got plenty of room for everyone. This kind of house was our "dream house" and we're very blessed to have it... but I don't want us to have to sacrifice everything to keep this house. A smaller house means cheaper utilities, and less taxes.... so we're looking at that too.

After all of this, I need a vacation! I can't wait to head to Gatlinburg in a few weeks and leave all of this crap in Ohio for a while.

On the baby front, we've put a savings plan into place so that we can get the reversal done by the end of 2011 with any luck. I'm sad about not being able to move forward with the IUI and have that 2011 baby... but I'll live. But, what's worse is I'm embarrassed that I let myself get so excited, start this blog, and then still be so far away from having another child.

So, on to 2012.

Fail?

Today has been a rough day, and even though we saw it coming, I'm still floored by reality. Things are about to become the way that they're going to be... forever, and I'm not ready for that. But it is what it is. Tony had said something about failing... and while I agree that we are coming up short here and there, we're really losing sight of the important things. Especially me. I think at the core of it, we have been failing. This life we live, it isn't the one we were supposed to be living, it just sort of fell in our laps, and because of that, we were trying to capitalize on... well, capital. We had money, and we wanted to have as much as we could for as long as we could and we minimized our love as a result. See, when we were dirt poor we were fine, and we were happy. We were also abundantly blessed with and by our children. Then came the money. And when we talked about kids it became "money this" and "money that." Forget the fact that God had been taking care of us just fine up to that point. We had troubles sure, but we didn't dwell on them, we just took them as they came and made every day the very best that it could be.

Enter money.

"How are we going to save money?" "How are we going to pay for this?" "Can we buy [enter unnecessary piece of random crap here]?"

"I know how.... let's cut our losses and stop having children. Screw the fact that everything up to this point has been perfect, simple."

I hate this place we're in right now. It wasn't supposed to be this way. We were supposed to be poor, but happy. And we were supposed to be surrounded by as many children as God had planned for us before we took matters out of His hands and into ours.

It's making me crazy, and it's making life difficult... and worse, unenjoyable. I miss happiness.

My Day Off...

So, per my plan, I didn't run today. I have a couple miles to do in the morning, but today was solidly lazy. I did head out to the store about 3 too many times today trying to find a gift (ended up getting a gift card), getting groceries, and then taking my brother to get his groceries... though that time didn't really count because I just sat in the parking lot for the whole 15 or so minutes it took for him to get his food. It was a little cold, but it was a lot quiet. That was nice. I didn't feel much like walking around by myself, and I felt less like having to hear anything about Jon Cena. I swear I've never watched pro-wrestling, but I could tell you more than enough about the Nexus storyline. And no, I'm not proud of that.

Anyway, the point is, it was a sad day off. My mind wasn't consumed by running, the thought of running, or my current hatred of running... and therefore it was allowed to roam to unsettling feelings of baby. Ugh. The good news is, while I'm running, I'm not thinking about getting pregnant, I'm only thinking "good God how many miles could I possibly have left!?" But it's the not running days that I'm going to have to work on. One day at a time, right? I will eventually get over this.

I can't help but think, in a perfect world, we would hit the lottery, move away from this place, and live out our lives stress free with as many babies as God blessed us with. Ugh. I'm so glad that I will be running tomorrow... even if I currently LOATHE running.

Marathon...

I was wrong, the Cleveland Marathon is in May, and I plan to move forward with training. Unless Tony has a change of heart, or this year's tax return is crazy huge, it looks like baby making is going to be on hold... stupid economy. But we have to do what we have to do. I guess it's bittersweet that we can't have an "oops" baby. As much as I would love to find out that we accidentally got pregnant, it's comforting to know that if the money situation doesn't get resolved that we're not going to end up with another mouth to feed that we can't afford. I can't imagine letting our other kiddos go without when things are tight enough as it is. We get by just fine right now, we who knows about next year, or heck, next week?! So, it's good that we're 'being grown ups' and using the money that we've got to pay off some bills so that we can be minimalists after we lose our annuity in October.

So, I'm jumping in and training for this marathon (that is now less than 23 weeks away) to keep my mind off of the sadness that is encroaching on me over knowing that it's going to be a little while until we add our new precious bundle of baby to the family. I'm already getting a little heartsick at the sight of babies, and pregnant women, and that sort of thing... but I'm sure once training for this race really picks up that I will be too busy to lament too long. At least that's the hope.

Some day little Angel baby. We will meet you some day. When we can offer you the very best that we can. When we can give you all that we've been able to give your sister and brothers. And when we are able to be the very best parents that we can be to you. In the meantime, know that Mommy is aching as I wait for your arrival. I love you little one, even though you remain a twinkle in my eye.

False Alarm...

No period for me... not yet anyway. Maybe I'm ovulating though? Who knows? It's been forever! Ugh.

On an unrelated to baby making note: I'm going to start training for a marathon on Tuesday! I'm pretty stoked, and also nervous. I've done a triathlon, and squeaked out a half marathon distance once, but never the whole darn thing. So we'll see how it goes. Just because I start the training doesn't mean that I'm going to be able to run the race. If worst comes to worst, I will train for the full, then run the half, continue my training and run a full in the fall. I'm pretty sure that Cleveland hosts a full marathon in the fall, and it would be a great excuse to go and visit my mom. Besides, I think that accomplishing that would be something amazing to share with her....

Of course, this is all operating on the assumption that I am not with child by then :)