{I Won the Powerball}

I feel rich. I feel full of life. I feel possibly the most motivated I have felt in a long time. My brain feels satisfied. My career feels like it is moving forward, in the right direction. I have a family vacation booked for less than a month away. The smell spring, new life, and longer days is so close I can touch it. I use to say I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Today, I can say there is no tunnel. My world is full of luster and hope. I still get my lows, hence the blank space between the last post and now. Things were written but I don’t see the need to share them quite yet. I don’t want to rain on any parades. I want to constantly remind myself that life is good. God is good. There is ALWAYS a rainbow after the storm; it’s up to me to find it. My heart has not felt this full in a long time, and it feels like new. That’s why I am telling you, people, I won the Powerball.

I have often thought during these last 18 months of waiting, that there has got to be a reason things are not happening the way I want them to. God knows best… maybe I am sick. Maybe something is wrong with me. Maybe someone I know is sick. Maybe Sal will need more attention than we know soon enough. Maybe something will happen and it will hit me in the face and I will say, “I get it – I know why I am not pregnant, yet!”

It happened.

I probably had one of my lowest lows in January with this whole baby{less} thing. Knowing that we were opening ourselves up to seeing the doctor and figuring things out… I was probably the most hopeful I had been in a while. Maybe because I was sure something was wrong, or maybe because we were finally able to see our favorite doctor in the history of doctors, the one that was with us for Sal’s pregnancy and delivery, but mostly because I thought I would get answers. I did get some answers, and they were great – for the most part, I am well. But of course, there are always more tests and more ways to see why… why no baby… and there will continue to be if we go down that route.

All in all, I felt good. I felt like this was THE month. And the red signal was late. So I REALLY thought: This. Was. The. Month. But then, the red signal came. And there was no baby. And frustration, to the max, swarmed over me.

We sat at my birthday dinner, just Tyler and I, looking at each other with wonder. What’s next? How far are we willing to go for this baby we don’t have yet? How much are we willing to spend? What are the extents that we will reach to make this happen? When is enough, enough? How much longer will we put life on “hold” for pregnancy and newborns stages? What emotional capacity do with have for this journey? What is our plan?

These answers made me realize that deep in my aching heart, my husband said all the exact things he was supposed to say to make this whole situation okay. I was liberated from 18 months of pain. And I cried right at the dinner table in the middle of the restaurant. Happiest tears I have cried in 18 months. I discovered a new layer in our marriage that comforted all my worries. It was a discussion that left me feeling more in love with this man than I ever thought would have ever been possible. I left that dinner thinking, if we never have another kid for the rest of our lives, my heart is full and I do not hurt indefinitely because of this loss.

I won the Powerball that night. I know why I am not pregnant yet, God wanted this to happen to my marriage. God wanted to tighten this bond that I have with my best friend. God, wanted to remind me: I won the Powerball, already – I have my husband. He will fill any void in my life. I trust that.

Lord, we rest our faith in your hands. You are the creator of all things, all life. We await the miracle you may or may not give us again, one day. Until then, Lord, we thank you and praise you all day, every day for all the good we are and have in our lives because of you. We do not hunger. We do not thirst. And we are overflowing with love. You fill us. Lord, you make us complete. We do not yearn and we await patiently for your plan for us.

Many Blessings and Cheers, Jax

{Minus One}

Last week I picked Sal up from daycare and the staff was drooling over how awesome the kid is. {That might be a little exaggerated, but he is pretty cool so I understand their obsession with him.} Lately, he has been spending the mornings in the preschool room with the “big kids”… counting and singing ABC’s. In fact, they mentioned to us that if he were potty trained, he would be more than welcome to spend every day, all day in the preschool room. {Side story starts now.} The weekend goal became: Potty-train the Sal-Man and as of this morning, about five minutes after we began the mission, the mission failed. But I swear, we did not push him much. He turned down the new, hot purchase: Thomas the Train undies.  Which were a huge hit all week; he wanted to wear them everyday. They were just laying around the house, constantly in his eyesight building the suspense for the weekend… And then this morning, he got cold feet when we attempted to get them on. We were dumbfounded. {Side story over.}

Anyway, before I left daycare with babe pulling at my finger to go outside and see the train tracks on the way home, the teacher says, “You guys are such great parents, when do you think you will have more?”

{I ask people this same question all the time. Or should I say I have asked people this question a lot in the past.  Now, I think twice about asking it.}

I smile and say, “Soon hopefully!” I think she knew she pressed a button.  Maybe I gave it away on my face. She seemed to get somber. I laughed to lighten the mood… “We have been trying… {shut up, Jackie.} …for more than a year…. sooo we are really hoping sometime soon… {fake smile}” I have always worn my heart on my sleeve… curse this damn heart. I think she felt like a pile of shit. Probably a pile of shit with a dozen flies hovering over it. {Communication fail.}

It wasn’t her fault. She was genuinely complementing Sal’s parents. And she feels the same way we do – we should have more kids! Ugh. If it were just that easy, Lady.

I think it was easy when we weren’t pregnant the first couple months… We knew Sal was luck. Friends warned us before we had him, “It won’t happen right when you start trying so don’t get all worked up if you have to try a couple months” and then – boom! – I missed my monthly treat right out of the gates. Called up a good friend and said we have to go get a beer, now, as in tonight, pronto. Told her this might be the last time I am drinking for a while. During our drink, I shared with her my plan to get a pregnancy test on my way home. Got home and Tyler asked why I felt it was appropriate to go out to have a drink knowing that my next stop was to pick up a pregnancy test? {I was in understanding from other pregnant ladies that nine months without a beer was a long time and, technically, I had no clue if I was really pregnant… yet. Hence, the pregnancy test. Beer was pre-mother-approved.} Took the test. Test read positive. Took a picture of test and text it to sister-in-law, Lindsay {because she was a labor and delivery nurse and we needed to ask her if it really was positive…} She says the obvious: “It looks like it is positive.” We decide to go to bed, still not sure we were believing our eyes, and with the understanding we will check it again in the morning to see if it really was true.  {Exactly what the directions say NOT to do.}  Woke up – it was still true. I was pregnant.

This time around, it was when we got to about nine months {sans baby #2} that it started emotionally hitting me, across the face, month after month. I kept thinking we could be a family of four now if things would have just happened the way we were hoping they were going to happen. But now we are just a family of four {minus one}. My baby fever continues to spike over and over… Since trying to get pregnant, I think everyone and their mother has had a baby. {Yes, “and their mother”. In my delusion, their grandma, too.} Some are on their second. Some are pregnant with their third. And for the love of bacon, I am beyond happy for these people. Babies are the best thing since sliced bread. Everyone should have like seven of them. {Baby fever talking again.} And here we are. Living and loving life, none the less, but kind-a, sort-a feeling like… minus one.

We have constantly been looking into the future for the last year and we have been saying, “Ya – maybe we will be pregnant by then… or what if we have a second babe for {insert event here}…”

But then the future becomes the present and we are still minus one.

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Many Blessings and Cheers, Jax

A Month of Thanksgiving Day 18

I am thankful for disappointments.

Without disappointments, goals and dreams cannot be put into perspective.  The hardship of disappointments actually reveals a how bad I really wanted something, and maybe before I realized I actually wanted it.  Example: There are times where a situation flies by and I never realized what I wanted from it and then after it is all said and done, the disappointment sets in from not making the most of it while I could have.  Diving deep into why I feel disappointed helps me know what I really want next time I might fall into a similar situation.  I suppose you are looking for me to get a little more personal here.  Well… I take disappointments hard.  They are open wounds for me, longer than I should let them be.  Being the very stubborn person I am I have a hard time admitting my personal disappointments in public.  But today I am saying that I am thankful for the reactive measures I take when faced with them!  One day I will share some with you… but today I am going to cop-out right here and leave a little challenge for you:  What was the last disappointment that happened to you?  How did you react differently after the disappointment?  Are you comfortable sharing this disappointment with others?  Will it make you act differently in the future?

Today, I am thankful for disappointments. 

Many Blessings and Cheers, Jax

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