Day 2

So, you know what, there is something about posting your intentions online that helps turn them from idea to reality. Yesterday I went home at 2:30 (yeehaw!) and fiddled around the house and then took a nap with my cats and dog. Go ahead, judge away. I'm childless and have very few responsibilities so I napped for 2.5 hours on a Wednesday afternoon. I live in the lap of luxury, for real, y'all. While I napped it rained, and not a little bit. It poured. When I woke up it was drizzling, but I knew I had to run or risk letting all of my Facebook friends down. So I pulled on a hat, leashed up Stella, popped in my headphones and stepped outside. It wasn't raining  anymore, but it sure was steamy. Stella and I plodded along for a slowwwww mile, but I ran the whole way and feel good about that. Today, will be more of the same, sans nap.

I mentioned a a couple of posts back that Michael and I have been trying to start our family. We are teetering on the edge of going live with our adoption, just waiting on our home study report to be written and approved, which I hope will be done in the next 10ish days. We are also waiting on our Dear Birth Mother letter proof to be approved so we can send it to the printer. We hope to be live by July! We are also trying to have a biological child, which is proving to be almost as daunting as the adoption process. We are in a season in our lives where we have very little control over something that we want very badly. We are both forever in search of positive distractions, Michael has approximately 1 million yard projects and recently bought a broken riding lawn mower off of craigslist for $25, taught himself small motor repair, and got it up and running, I'm super impressed with his skillz! He convinced me to race him since we temporarily have 2 riding lawn mowers in our possession.  I lost, but mostly because this was my first time ever driving a riding mower. And also because throttles. 

I read and cook and do the occasional craft project, but I don't have any major hobbies or projects that I can use as an outlet for the frustration and disappointment that have accompanied out attempts to grow our family. I'm hoping that running will be the perfect distraction from the emotional roller coaster we are on. 

Admire Your Own

The name of this blog is something that I've mentioned briefly in the past, but I think it is worth revisiting. I often remind Michael (and myself) that comparison is the thief of joy. To that end, I often try to redirect my thoughts when I find myself feeling envious of what others have, or feeling like what we have isn't enough.
1-2 years ago it seemed like all of my very close girlfriends were announcing pregnancies, I was genuinely excited for them and not one bit jealous. Michael and I were on a different path, he was living two hours away and going back to school full time, we were living on one income in two different households. Pregnancy was not on our minds, we were focused on learning to navigate the first year of marriage without living together, learning to prioritize communication because phone calls, text messages and Facetime were they only ways we got to connect some weeks. We knew we wanted children, but we weren't there yet.
If I may toot my own horn for a second, although long distance marriage was hard, and frustrating and sometimes sad, we rocked it. I mean seriously, our marriage is so much stronger and we are so much happier as a couple than we were before Michael moved. Living apart was great perspective, we put aside a lot of small stuff in the name of enjoying the little time we had together, we learned to communicate like champs because we had to, and we made some big, tough decisions as Team Butzen-not Lauren and Michael. I hope our season of long distance marriage is over, but I sure am grateful for it.
After we hit our stride and Michael was settling into the second (and final) year of nursing school in Augusta we decided we were ready to start thinking about growing our family. I stopped taking birth control in June of last year knowing that if I got pregnant at any point after that Michael would either be about to graduate or recently graduated. We were pumped! For 11 months I tracked my cycle and ovulation and we tried our best to make things happen despite living apart. According to my calculations, we missed our prime time window to conceive during 3 months (or less) of that entire 11 month time frame. I felt like we were doing everything right, hitting the right times, keeping track of everything on my end, but after a year nothing had happened.
We attended baby showers and one year old birthday parties for our friends and while it crushed me on the inside I kept reminding myself that we were on our own path, we had to admire the things that we did have-Michael graduated, we were living together, our time was coming, we just had to keep the faith.