Laughing with Sarah

Thursday morning, December 27, 10:00 a.m.: my quantitative beta. Leading into Thursday, I'd felt crampy for the whole week since the previous Thursday's transfer. Kept my mind and heart occupied with Christmas celebrations with lots of family. No signs one way or the other going into the blood draw. Thursday afternoon, December 27, 2:00 p.m.: A call from my RE's office telling me the beta had come back POSITIVE! Wahoo! Beta was at 32. Today is Saturday. The plan this morning was to get a repeat beta drawn here in NJ (where we are celebrating late Christmas with Matt's family). Got up, showered, had a little pink spotting (argh!). Put it out of my head and hopped into the car to drive to a Quest Diagnostics for my blood draw, only to find out that they don't do same-day results on Saturdays (which I absolutely need). So we go on an adventure to the new University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro. They need a patient ID number that I don't h...

" THE VISITATION " by Fergal of Claddagh, on Flickr In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his na...

This is, in a way, a secret blog. Very few people in my life know about it, and it's my safe space to talk about our IFV attempts, since not many people know that we're doing it, and even fewer know about the ins and outs of each cycle. As it turns out, I'm nursing a few secrets right now, things that are on my heart but that aren't for wider consumption. Besides nursing the ttc/infertility/IFV secret, I'm also living a double life right now, because I love the people in my congregation and love my church, but have been exploring (and even interviewing) for a new call, and trying to discern whether I stay here longer or whether it is time to go somewhere else and do something new. It's strange - to say the least - to go on with life as usual around my current congregation while also trying to picture myself somewhere else. Takes quite a bit of emotional energy, it turns out. The bigger secret right now, though, is that one of these other churches has off...