Friends

Have I ever said how much I need and love friends?

I have learned in my married life that as much as I love Derek, I need girl friends. Need. Like Desperately.

All of my best friends, save one (love you Sarah), have moved away from Utah. Talk about lonely! But recently, I have become more involved in my ward relief society and I'm starting to make some really good friends. It started with volleyball and that's all it took. These people want to keep doing things with me so they invited me to be a part of their book club (I feel like one of those super insecure kids in high school who gets all excited when the "cool kids" invite her to a party or something:).

But, I love being around girls. I love our conversations and how they can switch from one subject to another so fluidly and yet we can never remember how we got there.

I remember moving around a bit during my childhood and always being worried about making friends. It was so important to have friends as a child, so obviously it was worrisome that I would never make them. I never should have worried because as a child, it was so easy to make friends.

As an adult, I still think it is crucially important for me to have friends. And, I still worry that I won't make any as I move from one apartment complex to another. Unfortunately, it's a little harder to make friends as an adult. It's not like, "Hi, I'm Courtney" and then we proceed to play dolls and by the end of five minutes, we're best friends! It's definitely harder. That is why it was so devastating to have my friends move away.

I've been in this ward for over a year and a half and I'm just now starting to feel apart of this relief society, this woman's society. It feels good! I am learning a lot about myself and I know that the next time I move, I'm not going to be so shy when I get to a new ward (easier said than done, I know). I know that the only way for me to have friends is to just put myself out there. If I had just done volleyball last year, this past year would have been a lot more rewarding!

As an ending note, I just want to say how grateful I am for the church, even if just for the social aspect of it. Anywhere I move, I will have a relief society and I can learn to put myself out there more and make friends easier and quicker than if I moved and didn't have the church. I'm really not sure how regular people do it. How do they meet people? Make friends? I know going to work does a lot of it, but what if you are a stay-at-home mom? How do you do it then? I know they must somehow, but I'm just grateful I don't have to figure that one out. I will always have a relief society that can provide automatic friends, if I'll just let it!

If You Haven't Heard

I have thought and thought about how I would write this post. I honestly never thought I would have to, but alas, here I am bearing it all in front of whoever chooses to read this blog. The only way I can think to say it is just to say it:

Derek and I have been trying to have a baby.

I have been seeing a standard OB/GYN for a year, and he put me on medication and did several tests to try and figure out why we were having a difficult time getting pregnant. The tests weren't fun to go through, but one of them revealed one of the reasons we couldn't get pregnant. I only have one working fallopian tube. The other one is blocked in some way. My doctor told me the only way to find out what was blocking it was to have surgery, but discouraged that idea because it can sometimes do more harm than good (scar tissue as the main reason). And then he left it at that. He didn't tell me anything else he could do, just do exactly what we had been doing for a year, which obviously wasn't working. Plus, I realized that I was having twice the difficulty of getting pregnant because of the one working tube. So, I figured it was high time I went and saw a specialist to see if anything else could be done.

We saw a specialist January 3rd. We talked to him for about an hour and he spent a lot of time explaining things, informing us of potential reasons for our difficulty, and gave several options as to what we can do for all of those reasons. He spent a lot of time talking to us about our medical history and there were things that he asked that seemed really out there (like Derek's lack of smell can have something to do with reproductive issues so we should test him to figure that out...). I mean, this guy knew what he was talking about. He was up on the latest research, and I was grateful that we had found someone with such expertise in the field (he was the director of the infertility program at University of Utah for 15 years).

What does this mean for us?

More tests, that's for sure, and then there might be the need for insemination, in vitro, or adoption. I am not opposed to any of those options; in fact, it excites me that something can be done so that we can have a baby. There are many options for us. It might take longer for us than we might have liked (that dang tube again...3 rounds of insemination would take one couple 3 months to complete, for us it's 6...) but I am certainly learning from this experience.

It is definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with, but I am learning what it takes to have faith that everything will work out. I am learning to accept God's timetable (emphasize "learning" because there are many more days that I get angry that it's not happening when I want it to!) and I am doing my best to live every day to the fullest. I love being married to Derek and the fact that we have had 3+ years to spend together, without children, is truly a blessing to me. He brings so much happiness to my life, even when I'm the saddest. And, I'm grateful that we get to do a lot of things that we wouldn't otherwise get to do with kids. We go on spontaneous dates in the middle of the week, we sleep in on Saturdays, and we travel a lot! Sometimes, I get embarrassed when I tell people how much traveling we've done because I'm afraid they'll think we're irresponsible, or spoiled. But, I love traveling and I know we won't be able to do much of that when kids start showing up. So, we're doing it now. Plus (and maybe this isn't a good thing to admit), it helps me to escape life when I just don't want to deal with it all anymore. It's a great therapy, traveling!

Anyway, that's really my life right now. I wanted to share it with people because I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. I want people to know what my life is really about right now, what I'm really thinking and feeling. Please feel free to talk openly with me about it. I don't want anyone to be timid about the situation. I'm not, and it actually helps me to talk about it.