She Had A Dream

Once upon a time there was a little blond head blue eyed girl. She was loved by all who met her. The breeze carried her into the lives of many and just as quickly as the breeze blew in she danced her way out. Chasing lightning bugs and rainbows through crisp corn fields kept her busy. When the clouds opened up and released their joy onto the world below she danced through the puddles with such reverence. She never met a stranger and was blessed to carry this on throughout her life. 

She had a dream.........

The love of furry things surrounded her heart. Dogs and cats could not be snuggled enough even when they tried to kick free. Animals became little families clustered in her room. She rocked them to sleep, fed them the most delectable treats a little girl could imagine up and every single one of those furry friends could read her her favorite story books. Days melted into nights as time continued to show her the beauty of the world surrounding her. 

She had a dream........

Clumsy she may have been but it never deterred her from stepping out with her tiny bare feet. She longed to feel the morning dew kissing her toes good morning and welcoming her to the new day that awaited. Spinning with her arms open until she fell to the ground giggling uncontrollably was her way of saying welcome to my world. From sun up to sun down life was a kaleidoscope of beauty that only she experienced.

She had a dream.......

As time passed and the little girl grew up she never lost her sense of childlike wonder. Life blessed her with opportunities to travel the path less traveled. These paths revealed beauty most will never see. Her dance continued through life. She danced under waterfalls in the mountains of Colorado, tiptoed up to wild turkeys, cows and animals alike off of the dirt roads. She twirled under the stars only to collapse to the ground overlooking cliffs of wonder. Her thoughts and heart were lost among the stars. As they would glisten through the sky wishes were made on every singe one. 

She had a dream........

The little girl grew into an adult. The whimsical child carried this whimsical outlook throughout her entire life. Please do not misunderstand, life has not been easy for her. Chronic illness has touched the tip of her nose with its cold icy finger. It has swept through her heart and soul and will be her shadow for the rest of her life. People have come into her life only to try and break her spirit but no one could ever succeed. She has chosen to wear her pain and suffering on her sleeve right along side of her heart. It is a part of her new dance through life and she is proud of it and the strength and courage it has filled her soul with. She is proud of the resistance that washed over her during the days as a child under the sun rays, through the rain and over the mountains and rivers alike. 

She had a dream........

After heartache love was reborn stronger than ever. A love that she never even knew could even exist. The love before that she thought she knew turned out to not be love at all. Love should not hurt, should not be selfish and one sided. Love should be kind, giving and be the light that draws you back home at night. That kind of love, that love is love she needed and knew would truly be a love of a lifetime. This love filled her life with joy and wonder once more. She danced and twirled without a care and everything she had ever wanted was finally in her hands. 

She had a dream........

Surrounded by love and compassion this once upon a time whimsical soul that is now all grown up has decided it is time for her dream to come true. The love that she carries is too much to bear alone and it is time to share the world seen only through her eyes. It is time for her whimsical little one to come into this world. She wants to once again dance in the rain, twirl in the sun light and make wishes on every star with childlike wonder. The love of all things furry must be passed on to another little one who snuggles without resistance. The whimsical child inside of her grown up heart is breaking free. Lessons of beauty and wonder will be shared. Acceptance of those who are different will be taught. Compassion will grow within before she even hears the first cry. She is ready for her heart to no longer be her own but to live outside of her own body and dance free in the sun and under the stars. 

She had a dream........

Little bean, in one month from today you and me will be begin this journey together that will last my entire lifetime. You have been wanted from the first snuggle of a teddy that was my own. I can not wait to show you how to dance and to dance as though no one is watching. You may be small but you will be mighty. We are ready for you. The world is ready for you. You may be just one in millions but you are our only one. 

You are my dream.

https://www.gofundme.com/dk6acpww

https://arizonafertility.com/

Round One

There are not a lot of things in this world I know for sure. Two things my mama always taught me when I was younger that would guide me in adulthood is that you need to treat people the way you would want to be treated in every situation and to share, share, share!!!!! Well, I am sure the later of the two pertained more to toys with my siblings and not my overall life. My mama taught me very well as you can read! When I started the IVF process I anticipated the sharing would be bumped up a notch and some simple compromises would need to occur......I had no idea what I was in for!!!

As a patient with Lupus I have grown accustomed to sharing my life and my body with medicine. I am proud to choose teaching facilities so that others coming up into the medical field will develop a knowledge for this rare disease that affects each of its hosts a bit different. I spread awareness daily and pride myself in the knowledge I can pass on to those who have never been affected by an autoimmune disease. It is a kaleidoscope of ever changing colors. Just when we think we have the upper hand on everything we are shocked with a set back. To say the least, I have lots of experience sharing.

My life is no longer shared with the medical field. My life is dictated by medicine. Our ritual begins at 6 pm. Everything is gathered at the kitchen table. We make washing our hands silly and a time to catch up on light facts from our days. Greg is the mixologist and he helps me add the saline to the powder. We stare in awe as we watch the immediate result of clear liquids. Once our science lesson is over for the night the hard part begins. Two injections in the tummy......that is not a fun shot spot and I know shots!!!!! The medicine burns as it goes in and within a hour the headache that never went away from the day before is back with a vengeance followed by constant abdominal cramping that only is relieved when lying in the comfort of my own bed. Days seep into the nights and before we know it we are always sitting at the dining room table in the evening ready for the next round. 

Once the shots move through my system the doctors take control of everything!!!! They dictate when I see them and with IVF it is not on your schedule per say but your inner bodies clock that keeps everyone involved ticking. Mornings are fast becoming reserved for blood draws and internal ultrasounds. All sense of normalcy and privacy has exited the building leaving you feeling crazy and wondering if it is just the hormones talking. At least on the way into the building you are greeted like Norm on Cheers. It is their smiling faces that keep you moving forward from one room after the other and chatting about your weekends. My IVF team are becoming fast friends and family. They are creating my family, so rightfully so.

With the loss of self and constantly injecting medication you would think I am crazy. I am not a crazy. I want to be a mother. Those who have not struggled with infertility that lead to months and years of heartbreak will never be able to wrap their hearts around our struggle. What came so easy for most becomes a constant struggle for others. Understanding and compassion take a backseat to phrases about having faith and being patient. Faith and patience is something we have an abundance of and now we cling to medicine to create our families. 

Today I was reminded of why I get up and repeat everything everyday. I looked at the screen as they examined me. My amazing nurse took the time to show me one half of every possibility. I saw what will hopefully become our tiny human. It renewed my sense of hope and filled me with encouragement. There is a reason I am doing all of this to my body. One day I want to walk the halls of my IVF clinic and see our family hanging on the wall thanking everyone for helping and encouraging those that are still hoping. 

https://www.gofundme.com/dk6acpww

You're Still Missing

He woke me up on the first cool morning of the season just so I would not miss it. The chill that surrounded each toe I stuck outside wrapped my heart in a feeling of warm joy. It is the time of year when the world sheds its layers in color embracing for the winter to follow. Time to slough off the old and start emotionally preparing for the new. It is this time of year that seems to jump start something inside of me. The summer's sun is setting earlier and as I wrap myself in a sweater I am also wrapped in the warmth from love. Love that grows with everyday and every year. A love meant to be shared with a beautiful growing family.

The time has come where I know my body has done everything it can possible do on its own. Seven supplements a day has slowly coaxed my body into a normalcy it has never known. Normalcy was not enough and where I am so proud of my body fighting so hard to make conception a possibility, it is time to let it rest and let the experts guide us on the next leg of our journey. A journey that I know will be filled with lows and possibly the most amazing high of my life, becoming a mommy. 

For the first time I have a fear living in the darkest corner of my heart. It is a fear that I have never felt while battling Lupus. It is not a fear of loosing my life but a fear of not being able to create life. I wrestle daily with the disappointment felt month after month and morn the loss of something that never was. I hold back the anger that tries desperately to bubble to the surface. I can not hate because of the time taken from me. Instead I have to come to terms that the time taken can never be returned and I have to live with the possibility that my time has just ran out. With every rise of the sun, setting of the moon and footsteps left in the sand I move forward and try hard to leave this anger behind. I prepare my heart and soul for the battle about to begin. A battle for a baby of our own that we have dreamt about our entire lives. The battle that once won will feel like a lifetime ago.

On Wednesday I will walk into the office of a doctor I never wanted to see but I am so thankful to have found. I send positive thoughts into the universe in hopes of them returning to me. I wrap my heart in bubble wrap so that it may take the pain to come but will remain whole until the day we hear our good news that our miracle has occurred. Until then I will stand tall, fill my heart with love and hope and brace myself for the hard times to come. I will be prodded and poked for something greater than myself. Someone greater than the two of us combined.

 

http://www.fairhavenhealth.com/

Wrinkle of Life

The coordinates tell us we are close and the clues we read over and over leave us filled full of excitement, it's a scavenger hunt for grown ups! One that allows us to search at night with no curfew or bed time hanging over our heads. Of course we have to get up with the sun but it is far to much fun not to go to bed with the moon. The ones that came before led us to seek even more. On the top of a mountain I climbed, I ruffled around a power box and chased the setting summer sun to a fountain in the middle of Oldtown. You may think that there must have been a great reward waiting for us or a clue to something even greater but I must stop you there. At the top of the mountain was a little book and lots of tiny trinkets others have left in their wake. Behind the power box was a magnet that lead us to giggles at how silly we felt but also the complete wonder at how something so simple could take us back to being so young. Treasures left by others only to be added to with passing time. A memory from the past that I continue to take with me in the future.

As time marches on and life speeds by I find it harder to stop and find the childlike sense of wonder in our everyday world. There are times I am left wondering as I wrestle with sleep what moved me today.......what inspires me and what about tomorrow still ignites unimaginable hope and curiosity in this ever aging soul?

I find the answer in the question posed. It is the hope and beauty in the future that draws us in. There is a constant reminder of who we were when the world was an open book of endless possibilities and paths less traveled. In a life where giving up would seem so easy and no one would criticize due to your daily struggle with pain and reoccurring heartbreak, the end of the tunnel still beckons with a beautiful kaleidoscope of color. It pulls you back out from the grasp of what originally pushed you in. 

I knew the true prison of being drawn from the kaleidoscope of life for far to long. The darkness that drew me in during those final moments left me always needing more light to grow. I never knew true color until I lived in true sadness. Today with every twist of fates hand the beauty of life is spread out in front of me begging for me to take its hand and dance with the winds of change. It is an insight that can not be contained. Lupus showed up and forced my heart and soul to truly change the way the world was seen. I have accepted this beautiful gift with the true cost being something no one would choose to pay. 

I have wrapped my kaleidoscope in a perfect little box. I have stored it in my heart for safe keeping until it is time to share once more with tiny eyes filled with childlike wonder. There it will stay until the day my miracle finds me. 

http://www.fairhavenhealth.com/

Are you there..........

The pain used to come in waves. It would ebb and flow and as I would brace for impact I knew in my heart that this would pass. Days of pain washing up on the shore of my life would disappear and days with more comfort were seen on the horizon. I clung to those moments of relief. A small respite in this never ending battle. Now the waves no longer come in and go out. I have found myself wading through the still and stagnant waters of constant pain. I have chosen to sacrifice my comfort for the possibility of the joy of a child. 

Recently I have found myself questioning when to much is simply just too much. I will not admit that out loud and even seeing it in writing breaks my heart a little piece at a time. Do I have enough strength for another month or maybe six more months of trying? Lupus has robbed me of so much in my life. I can not allow it to take one more dream of mine away. I have to fight. I have to fight for everything. I have to fight for things that come so easily to others. I have never wasted a moment of my life asking why and I will not start now. 

I am on my knees looking up above asking if there is a God. I beg for relief and resilience that is needed to make my small but significant mark on this world. I ask for the grace of understanding to be placed on my heart and the knowledge to know when my body has had enough. In my soul I know that everything happens for a reason. I may not understand today or even tomorrow but one day, one day my life will be clear and I will see why this suffering and struggle had to take place and had to be a part of me. 

I must have faith. I must believe that there is a greater purpose to my life with Lupus. It is not time to abandon my dream of being a mother. I will not let Lupus rob me of my love, my commitment to my family or my heart of a fighter. For when the days seem to be the darkest the most beautiful light is still yet to come. 

May I Have This Dance

The clinking of the glasses echo through the room. The rolls of the eyes are clearly made for all to see but the kiss, the kiss that was forced by everyone else surrounding them was pure and real. Love exists between these two beautiful souls. A love that could not be denied, even with the roll of the eye. 

As the celebration carried on the stars of the show decide that enough attention was poured onto them and it was time to reflect it back to those who mattered most in their lives. The parents who nurtured these two hearts to adult hood and helped shape them into the people who stand before us. The grandparents whose shoulders were a safe haven to cry on with no judgement living amongst this relationship. On and on, one by one, you could pinpoint the significance every heart in the room had on this newly formed family. I watched as the newest bride and groom danced their first dance. Once the song concluded an announcement was made that all married couples must report to the dance floor for a very special tribute.

After a little coaxing, everyone found their way to the dance floor. Music began and the dancing started. A few moments passed and  a request was made that everyone married for less than a year to please exit the floor and find their way back to their tables. The music continued to play and slowly with each new request fewer couples remained. Finally one couple was left standing, holding on to each other and gazing into each others eyes.

They no longer resembled the two young kids who were married at eighteen. Time had marched on and aging crept its way across their young faces. Bodies were war torn from long ago battles and children blessed their lives but took a toll on their aging hearts. The fluidity of the boxtrot could not be found and a gentle sway was witnessed as they each secretly held the other up. Even after all the years had passed the faces they gazed upon were the most familiar of all. Every wrinkle that found its home found a place in the others heart. Every part of them had been detailed in a fine map tucked in the recess of their memories.. Here is where they were and here is where they would always be. They live in a place where age does not touch their love. It is cemented into their history and has been the foundation for the story of their lives.

Recently married I am infant in the marriage world. We continue to live in the newlywed bliss of everyday life. Fights erupt but the comfort of knowing the other will always be there has given way to new forms of communication. Everyday is a learning experience and also contains some of the most rewarding of moments. It is a comradery of the two of us against the world which results in a feeling of being larger than life itself. In the middle of everyday life we searched and found a life long companion that never limits the amount of love given in a single moment. Lupus and infertility does not hold back this love but nurtures it and teaches us personal humility, grace and wonder in the simple moments of life.

I have taken away in the brief time I have been married a knowledge that I always knew but never experienced. Love is an ever changing horizon we each look out upon in our lives. Clouds roll in, storms drop rain and as the sun peaks back out another layer has been washed away and exposed leaving a new layer of love to be nourished. This new layer is enriched by its surrounding environment and grows wild under the sun. Time passes and layer after layer is added and a true love story is created. One that is carried on for generations to come and sets an example for all of us to dance to.

http://www.fairhavenhealth.com/

Personal Inventory

Fall is fast approaching and the summer sun will soon set and give way to the organic beauty of nature. Golds, oranges and reds will warm us from the inside as the outside chill swirls around kissing our cheeks. Trees will shed their leaves in preparation for their winter sleep and grass will brown as it prepares for the winters first fresh blanket of snow. The year will be coming to an end and the time to reflect will be upon us. 

As Fall winds its way into the world I am left thinking of this past year and what an amazing year it has been for us so far. Yes, I know that we are months away from letting go of the old and bringing in the new but I am a strong believer in positive thinking and pure reflection on ones life. It clears the soul and alleviates the heart. It allows us to constantly take inventory of our personal happiness in real time. 

As I start to reflect I am in bed this weekend resting. Lupus has shown its ugly little head (picture the worst bed head ever) and has landed me in the hot seat once more. It is testing my personal strength but more importantly it is trying to test my belief in myself . As I lay here in bed it would be very easy to fall into the sad, angry and frustrated abyss that lies below the surface. I could ask questions in regards to why do I have to suffer every day and why have I had to make so many sacrifices that most will never even have to consider? Why is becoming pregnant so hard for me and so easy for others? I could lay here and wallow in self pity; however, that is not true Danica fashion for we all know that I am better than that!

Today, as I continue to take inventory of my personal happiness, I close my eyes and revisit the first date Greg and I had. For a moment I find myself back in Ohio running with Lauren and Mia and taking in every ounce of love because these moments are fleeting. I find myself in Colorado hiking down Box Canyon Falls breathing in the mist and truly finding my heaven on earth. Greg and I are sitting next to each other Christmas morning when I started opening box after smaller box until the moment when I became a fiance. Boxes are being unpacked as we move into our first home together and embark on a new adventure. I am standing under the gazebo listening to the music and feeling the ocean breeze whisp a piece of my sun kissed hair across my cheek as I say I do and became a wife. Families are joined, friendships are nurtured and time is filled with nothing but joy from my heart. When life shows me pain and suffering I draw from these happy moments in my life and use them to build a stronger foundation of love. It is in this foundation where I draw the most strength.

Now it is time to embark on another month of sweet anticipation in the hopes of our miracle. I reflect on everything that is good in the world and in my life and use it to muster up enough courage to put a brave face on and believe this month is THE month. Even if this month does not result in the way we hope, I carry with me that with each passing day we are closer to realizing our dream of a family. One that will be built on a foundation of unconditional love, never ending encouragement and pure acceptance.

http://www.fairhavenhealth.com/