27 Candles

I turned 27 on Friday. All things considered, it was a pretty good day. I had to work, but some of my coworkers surprised me with one of those yummy Costco cakes. After work, DH and I got together with some of our friends and went out to dinner. After dinner, we came back to our house and had cake, ice cream, and played games. Last night, DH and I went to dinner with his dad and step-mom, and tonight, we are getting together with my family. My sister's birthday is today, and my other sister's birthday is tomorrow, so this time of year is always busy with birthdays!

DH gave be Photoshop for my birthday, so I am so excited to try it out! I have been wanting it for a while, so it should be fun to play with. Not that I am that great of a photographer...but hopefully this will make it look like I have more talent! :)

I decided that I want to set some goals for myself this year. I realize that most people set their goals at the beginning of the calendar year, but I want to set mine at my birthday. The reason why is that for the past few years, I have always thought "By my next birthday, I will be a mom or at least be pg". And then the next birthday comes along, I am not a mom, and I feel like I failed and am disappointed that I am not where I wanted to be in life. So, I decided to set some goals that I can at least have some control over and accomplish. I have chosen three goals for myself, and they are:

1. Run the Utah Ragnar - This is a 188 mile relay run from Logan, UT to Park City, UT. Each team has twelve members and each runner runs three legs of the race, and each leg ranges from 3 - 8 miles. I am already signed up with a team, so I just need to keep training so that I can keep up and not hold my team back.
2. Get back to my "wedding day" size - hopefully training for the Ragnar will help with this.
3. Learn a new language - I have tried learning Spanish a few times, so I want to stick with it enough to actually learn it this time.

Now, even if I am not pg or don't have a baby by the time I turn 28, I will at least be able to look back at the past year and remember the things that I worked to accomplish.

Yesterday I was soaking in the tub and it finally hit me that we have had another loss, and that we have probably had so many others that we didn't even know about it. Even though I have suspected it before, it was like it kind of sunk in. I kind of broke down and got really frustrated and angry. Why do my babies never get a chance at life? Why don't we get a chance to be parents? I believe that we are given trials for a reason, and obviously this is the trial that is teaching me the most, but it is so hard. So much of my church, community, and extended family focuses on having children and families, and I just feel like a failure sometimes. I know (or at least am hoping) that one day in the future, I will be able to look back on this time in my life and say that the pain was all worth it, because it taught me so much and I have my children. I know that I am not the only person going through trials, and that some people definitely have harder trials than what I am facing, but sometimes it just seems so hard. It is hard to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and sometimes I feel like I am so far in, that it is hard to remember what the light at the beginning of the tunnel even looked like.

Crisis

I kind of feel a little bit silly writing this post, but I honestly feel like I am having a mini mid-twenties crisis. Who does that? I kind of feel like my life is in this holding pattern. I am the type of person who needs a project or something to be working on or towards. I don't really do well with having long breaks. I know that seems strange, but I can't really describe it. Like I told DH, after I graduated from nursing school, I got married, then went back for a master's degree, then thought I would be a mom. It has been progressive, I have been able to have some control over it, and I have known what to expect. Little did I know that it would take so long for that next step to happen.

I just feel restless. I find myself daydreaming about DH and me finding new jobs and moving across the country. I even went so far as to look at houses in South Carolina today while I was at work. I know that is VERY extreme...that is why it is just a daydream. But I feel like I need to do SOMETHING. I need SOMETHING on the horizon to look forward to. And, I guess you could argue that I kind of do - we are about halfway finished with all of our paperwork, so maybe we will have the adoption of our baby to look forward to, but that could take a long time. I told DH that maybe I just need to take a vacation (this time without the extended family), but I don't think that is really in the cards right now. We are saving up all of our money to pay for adoption expenses, so I have a hard time justifying spending our savings to take a vacation.

I just feel like I am in a rut. I need to find something to spice things up, but I don't know what. Any suggestions?

Getting Ready to Run...

...No, not a marathon, but at least a 5K! I figured that would be a good short term goal for me to look forward to. It is something that I know I will be able to accomplish and can be in control of. Plus, having the deadline to look forward to (the race is April 17) will help keep me on track with my exercise. I can run a 5K right now, so my goal is to improve my time and run it in under 35 minutes. We'll see how that goes. But, it is nice to have something positive to focus on besides TTC.