Today I got the bad news that I didn’t pass the Science teacher test that I took last month.  I have to admit, I had my hopes way up about it and after another baby-less month, I was really hoping that passing the test would put some wind in my deflated sails.  So, how did I handle the news?  The answer is not well.

I didnt realize how much I had banked on passing the test.  Luckily there are no real consequences to not passing this time and I can take it again without penalty, however, the disappointment of not passing the test hit me like a punch in the face.  Unable to punch Disappointment back, I needed to do something with the volcano of angry energy that begged to spill out of me.  I put my running shoes on, grabbed my ipod and started to run (well, full disclosure: walk/ jog).

As my feet hit down on the sidewalk I found a rhythm and a pattern of thought emerged.  Pound, Pound, Pound, “Show up God!”  Pound, Pound, Pound, “Why dont you love me?”  Pound, Pound, Pound, “Do something God!”.  I gulped in air and squeaked out near sobs at the same time as I ran like this until I started to hear the words of a song sing through my earbuds.  I had selected my running playlist “Jesus Jams” and in the words of the song God answered.  Even if God doesnt do another thing to bless me, He has done enough.  My relationship with God and my Christian life is not about gathering blessings and is definitely not about earning them.

Slowly I began to remember countless times that God has come through for me.  I didn’t realize how I had kind of put the test out there to God.  Kind of like, “Okay God, so you wont give me a baby, but surely you will just do this little thing for me, right?”  I dont understand why the timing of Muffin Wonderful is not mine, and why I continue to face disappointment in this season of my life.  All I know is that when I need God to show up for me, He always does and that has to be enough for now.

Life has been busy lately with work, friends, family, and of course the quest for Muffin Wonderful in there too.  Today I faced the evidence that once again this is not the magical month that will mark the start of my journey to motherhood.  Dealing with the disappointment is tough, especially because every month, as I drag myself into the house after a long day at work, I somehow convince myself that my fatigue is surely due to pregnancy!  My mind is so powerfully convincing and my 5 (!) months of trying have taught me a lot but I still fall for it every time.

I have tried a lot of different things to help me cope with disappointment and stay optimistic and thankfully today I was able to come up with several reasons why I can be okay with the fact that this month was not the right time for Muffin Wonderful.

1.  I love my life.  I am so thankful that I have Mr. Wonderful as my partner in life.  Just last night I was thinking about our relationship.  I heard a statistic that 90% of married couples are less happy after their first year of marriage that that they continue to find less satisfaction as the years go on.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  I have hit the husband jackpot because I feel like our relationship continues to get better and better each year.  I also started thinking:  What’s my hurry?  Why am I so anxious to change my life that is all around great?  I think sometimes my desire for a baby is fueled by a need to catch up or a fear of missing out.  Facebook is exploding with precious pictures of new moms and status updates proclaiming the joys of motherhood.  I want to be mindful of the why behind my desire for motherhood.  In itself I think it is good, but the “hurry up and happen” part is definitely not necessary.

2.  More Money, Less Problems:  Another month of no baby equals another month of savings.  We’ve been strategic about paying off debt and making good financial decisions so that hopefully I can stay home (almost) full time with our baby (which is no small feat in Southern California).  I’ve been pining away for a new car for YEARS now, and as ‘ol Hoopty’s mileage continues to climb (170K now), I want a new car almost as much as a baby.  Another month of saving is that much better of a car for our family.

3.  First trimesters and pig dissections don’t mix:  I’m stepping into new shoes as a Biology teacher at our school.  For the next few weeks I will fill in for a teacher who left and I get to do the funnest part of the whole thing, the pig and frog dissections.  When I was hoping for pregnancy this month the one thing in the back of my mind was the idea of doing dissections while exhausted and nauseous.  Not a good combo.

4.  I Heart Exercise:  Guess who runs 5 miles at a time?  Guess who got a Nike swimsuit and actually swims laps?  Me!  I got really into exercise again and its doing me a lot of good!  I’m feeling so much better overall, making better food choices, and managing my work stress better as the worries of my day pound out on the treadmill.  Being pregnant would definitely derail my fitness progress.  Another month improving my mile time?  Sure, why not.

Now I continue to thank God for the blessings he has already given me and I will trust in Him and His perfect timing.  I will choose to remind myself that He is not withholding, and in the waiting time I will be open and ready to grow and develop a character that will make me an even better mother.

One of my students has been pretty salty lately.  She has had a bit of an attitude in class and a constant stream of negativity coming out of her mouth.  I tried to keep her cheerful and teased her with things like, “I’m tired of salty, I want you to be sugar!  Sugar, sugar, sugar!”  That wasn’t working and so now I have really had it.  Today at the break of the math section of the test she exclaimed, “I failed.”  Immediately, I took her to my desk and began to speak with her about positivity vs negativity.  I admit, I’ve gone a little Oprah lately in my positive visualization.  I spoke with the student about her attitude and about the potential consequences of putting all of that negative energy into something that she wants so bad.  She finally admitted that she wasn’t trying to be negative, but that she doesn’t really believe in herself.  I told her that she could play a new tape and instead of saying to herself, “I failed” to say “I am so capable”.  She told me she is afraid that if she doesn’t pass the test that she wont graduate.  Of course this is not true, she will have many more chances to take the test before she earns all of her graduation credits.  I had her picture herself and how she would feel when I call her six weeks from now (when we get the scores from the state) to tell her that she did in fact pass.  I thought it was a pretty damn good speech, and I’m not sure how much the student really responded to it but I felt like I did a good job of making her think differently.

So as the words were coming out of my mouth I started to realize that I need to listen to what I am saying.  As I’ve lamented on this blog recently, I am starting to feel increasingly more discouraged at the delay of Muffin Wonderful’s arrival.  Like my student, I’ve prepared and I’m doing my very best, but I fear that it wont be good enough.  I want to practice what I preach and to think positively.  I want to see the big picture and not the right now.  I don’t want to catastrophize and think only of the worst case scenario.  I’m thankful for the opportunity to see my struggle mirrored in my student today.  My strongest desire for her was for her to think positively, believe in herself, and feel confident that she is capable.  I’m so humbled that God gave me that experience.  It helped me to remember that just because pregnancy has not come right when I wanted it, doesn’t mean it wont happen.  I will continue to picture myself finally seeing that pregnancy test plus sign and will choose to stay positive as I face my fears and wait for Muffin Wonderful.

I have decided that as I wait for my baby, I need a hobby.  I want to redirect some of the energy I have poured into baby making into learning something new and finding new things about life to enjoy each day.  Also, I want to find more things I am good at.  Ive been so blessed because I generally succeed at tasks when I give it my all, however, I have found it disheartening that I have not immediately succeeded at conception.

Thinking about finding a new hobby makes me recall my hobbies of the past.  I think I was in second grade when my mom encouraged me to join a parks and rec softball league.  I excitedly became a part of the Dodgers team and it was almost immediately apparent even at eight years old, that I was not destined for sports greatness.  I earned the position of Rover which is clearly the position of the least athletic member of the team.  We lost every single game, but that didn’t stop me from proudly claiming my honorable mention trophy at the end of season pizza party.  Even though my mom pushed me to finish what I started, thankfully she never pushed me to try a second season.

One of my favorite childhood memories is learning to play the accordion.  It all started when  a man knocked on the door of our suburban home.  I answered the door and the man asked if I wanted to learn to play the accordion.  Im not exactly sure how it all worked out, but with mom’s permission he came in and gave me a mini lesson in the kitchen.  I was hooked!  My mom drove me across town to lessons for awhile, and I even participated in a small recital.  I took lessons for as long as our family’s limited means lasted.  That was my one and only foray into music.

My adult hobbies so far have been sewing, exercise, and recently, writing.   My ideas for things to try include sailing, tennis, learning to play the guitar or piano, singing in the Easter choir at church, karate, and taking a writing class.  I’m hoping that in finding new hobbies I will discover more to love about myself as I continue endeavor to live life fully during an uncertain time of waiting<—-Hey! That sounds like a mission statement!

I believe that God is in control of this process, so its hard for me to find a balance where I do my part while trusting God to do His.  A few days ago when I found my hopes demolished yet again with the arrival of my period, I wept bitterly as I tried to fall asleep.  I felt so mad at God, so angry that He was not giving me what I wanted most in the whole world.  I look around at everyone else who is pregnant, all of my friends, coworkers and students who didn’t even try, it just happened for them whether they planned it or not.  I cant figure out why its not happening for me.

My mom was super helpful yesterday.  I was telling her how disappointed I am that yet again, I am not pregnant this month.  She told me that she prays for me everyday, that I wouldn’t just get pregnant, but that I would become pregnant with a baby that I will carry to term.  That really got me thinking that God knows how much I really want a baby and perhaps He wants to give me just that, a baby, not just a pregnancy.

I didn’t intend for this blog to go from yoga to teaching to babies, but I want to write about what is important to me right now.  Next, it will hopefully become a place where I write about pregnancy too, and eventually a platform for mommy woes and for shamelessly displaying pictures of THE Muffin Wonderful in adorable outfits and poses.  I’m really looking forward to that.

In order to focus on the good things in my life, I wanted to do something daily to help me re-focus on all of the things about my life that are great just as they are.  Instead of the usual notations of thankfulness each day, I decided to choose one thing that I love about my life each day.  I even got a little white board to write it on that I proudly display in the living room.

Something that has surprised me is that more often than not, I spontaneously think of things about my job that I love.  I thought it would be so tough to think of things during my Monday through Friday drag, but it turns out, I am actually loving many things about my job.  I’ve always really liked working, but no matter where I am, I always have something of an “exit strategy” that I have in the back of my mind on bad days.  My current exit strategy is Muffin Wonderful.  Since I haven’t immediately achieved my pregnancy goal, I started to fret about the extra months I would spend working instead of mothering.

I’m so glad I decieded to do this exercise of mindfulness because I am able to realize that while I’m waiting for Muffin Wonderful, I am in a great place.  I’m finding more satisfaction in my job than I ever realized.  I get the opportunity to speak words of encouragement to my students and I know that God uses me daily.  Even though I had a pretty horrible work week, I was still able to pinpoint several moments that I loved.

I’m so glad that I started this.  I still want Muffin Wonderful to hurry up and take residence in my anxious womb, but while I’m waiting, I look forward to experiencing all of the little moments that make my life so fulfilling just as it is.

On my fifth birthday I had planned a big party at Farrell’s ice cream parlor.  I loved it there and I wanted to eat my very own giant ice cream sundae.  I remember being so excited for the waiters to sing, and I remember something about them beating a big drum to call attention to the birthday girl.  Unfortunately, I was just recovering from a bout of the chickenpox I had caught in Kindergarten.  Just in time for my birthday I was feeling better but my mom and two sisters had caught them!  I remember my mom, miserable with adult chickenpox practically begging me to postpone the party so she could go.  I stubbornly would not delay my ice cream extravaganza, so I went on with the party, my wonderful grandparents taking care of the details while my poor mom stayed home with my two younger (and equally miserable) sissies.  I still feel so bad about that!

Over my childhood years I had many special birthdays including bowling, Magic Mountain, and even a makeover party.  One special birthday was when my new step dad took my mom, me and a friend to the fancy smancy restaurant Spago in Beverly Hills!  He even rented a limo, which made me feel so special.

The party I probably looked forward to most was my sweet sixteenth.  My very first boy girl party was to be a 50′s themed dress up party.  I made flyers and invited a hundred friends (mostly youth group kids, this was not the type of high school “flyer party” raunchy teen movies are made of).  On the big day, I dressed up, put the tunes on the jukebox, and waited for my friends to come.  Without reliving all of the pain of 15 years ago and wallowing in teenage self pity, I will just say it was not the all out tribute to my greatness I had hoped it would be.  If you ask anyone in my family, it was a great party but that day, I decided I would never have another birthday party.  Other than low key dinners with a small handful of friends, I stayed true to my word.

Flash forward to now.  Last year was my big 3-0 and I determined to get over my birthday anxiety.  I succeeded by having a great birthday filled with out of the box and memorable moments.  This year, I took the day off and had a great day by myself!  I’m so glad that in adulthood I’m finding that there is more to my birthday than a public display of how many people love and remember me.  I am so excited for my 31st year.  Last year was hands down, my best yet.  This year has a lot to live up to, and I hope that will will exceed my expectations.  Bring it on 2012!

I’ve started a new journey in my life that has made me thinking of dancing.  Its a dance to the song of Motherhood.  I’ve always wanted to have a baby.  Something inside of me wants to be a mom so much that I feel like it is part of my reason for being on Earth.  Once I met and married my Mr. Wonderful, my desire kicked into high gear.  I am so in love with my husband that it completely fills my heart when I think about creating a baby that is half me and half him.  We chose to wait a few years before we had kids and the time has finally arrived!  We are trying for “Muffin Wonderful”.

I think that trying for a baby is one of the most emotional things I have ever done.  I have been diligent to track every last symptom and feeling in a special app on my phone, so I knew exactly when to try.  I thought that if I had enough faith and enough hope that I would be able to will a baby into existence.  I got a little journal to write down all my feelings and prayers during the waiting time.  I thought about Muffin Wonderful almost constantly.  My brain played some very mean tricks on me making me think that I had pregnancy symptoms.  I was so excited yet cautious as I waited for the sure confirmation of yes or no.  Monday morning I got my “no”.

What does this have to do with the movie Dirty Dancing? The main character, ironically named “Baby” danced with a desire.  Her desire was Johnny, the sexy bad boy dance instructor, but my desire is hope for Muffin Wonderful.  When Baby and Johnny danced it was all emotion and mystery, much like my dance with Hope.  Really, hoping to conceive is a lot like a dance.  At the beginning of the month, Hope finds me standing on the sidelines of a dance.  I was horribly disappointed last month, so naturally Im feeling shy and scared, but willing to try.  Hope holds out its hand, inviting me to dance.  It’s a slow song, easy and inviting.  ”Okay”, I think as I sway to the music.  ”I’m ready to try again.”  Just then the  music changes to a fun, fast song.  I start dancing, arms in the air, euphoric with thoughts of possibilities.  I’m having so much fun!  Just as I start to tire, a new song comes on.  Its the theme from “Dirty Dancing”!  Hope invites me to dance again.  We dance in perfect sync until just like in the movie, Hope signals me to trust, to try the big lift.  I get into position, jump into the air…this time will Hope catch me?  Or will I miss again and tumble to the ground, where I’ll lie, bruised and embarrassed until I am ready to try once more?  I guess I won’t know unless I take a risk and accept the invitation to dance.

Last night for date night, Mr. Wonderful and I watched Little Women.  Clearly, it was my turn to pick, but I picked it specifically because I was thinking a lot about my sisters.  We recently returned from an amazing vacation with my sister and her husband.  It was even more fun than I hoped it would be and it was almost unbelievable to realize how connected we are.  We haven’t lived in the same city for ten years now, but even with a country of miles between us, the fact that we grew up in the same crazy house formed an unbreakable bond.  It was amazing the way she still intuitively knew when I was becoming anxious (in elevators, in reaction to a change in our flights, when I hadn’t had my coffee yet) and even more amazing that we have such similar food tastes (who doesn’t like pretzels?  Us!).  The comfort and ease of vacationing with a sister is something so natural that it could not be duplicated, even by the closest of friends.

I’m lucky though, because I have not one special sister bond, but two.  I am the oldest of three girls and the youngest is about to be married.  We are so close in age, there are not more than 4 years between us.  As my younger sister plans her wedding, I feel so fortunate to be a true part of all the planning.  Giving her honest sisterly advice and excitedly supporting her as she embarks on the epic journey of marriage are benefits of sisterhood I greedily reap.

We weren’t always this close.  Before we somehow arrived in the comfortable place of sister/friends, we fought like crazy.  Sisters can be a great source of love and support, but they can also hurt each other in a way that no one else can.  I remember that when we were teenagers we knew exactly what to say to make the other sister stop in her tracks, struck by the power of hurtful words. In Little Women, there is a scene where little Amy is mad at Jo when she feels left out because she isn’t old enough to attend a big party with the two older girls.  Jo comes home and finds that Amy has burned her manuscript, sending Jo into a mad rage.  Amy immediately regrets having impulsively hurt her sister right where it would get her the most.  I can remember many times being hurt and hurting my sisters, as we grew up, and now, less frequently even as adults.

The thing about sisters that is so unique is that no matter what the inflicted harm (words now, full on physical fights are in the past), we get over it.  Like Jo and Amy in Little Women, we move on and continue to love and support one another through the years in all situations.  Because we love each other, we hold up a mirror to our sister, honestly and lovingly helping our sisters be the best person they can be.  Sisterhood means that someone always has your back despite your imperfections and for that, I am thankful.  There is a line in the movie that my sisters and I have repeated throughout the years.  Jo says, “I’ll never love anyone as I love my sisters”.  There could never be another sentiment to sum up the sweetness of love that sisters feel.

Except maybe “Pooping turtles eat peeing pickles”.  I love you Sissies!

This morning, I got up early, excited to start my walk to the train station.  It was invigorating to begin my walk in the early morning mist.  I caught the train right away, and even made my connection at the more sketchy train station.  I made it to my stop without event (unless you count the homeless man at the station who shouted at me a la Joey Tribioni, “Hey girl!  How you doin”?”) and proceeded my walk to work from the station.  This was the part I was feeling most nervous about, as it is the most adventurous part of the trip.  Only a .8 mile stretch, its a straight shot to work, with plenty of charm (read: stray dogs, teenagers, and early morning loiterers) along the way.  This morning, I confidently started walking in the direction I thought I was supposed to go.  I remember consulting my carefully googled directions and it had said proceed toward 112th street.  So I chose a direction, observed a 116th street sign and sighed relief when I noticed that the street numbers were going down.  I walked at a brisk pace and was engrossed in watching the high school students walk to school all around me.  They greeted each other with hugs and high fives, and I got to thinking what it was like when I was in high school.  Distracted by memories, I lost track of how far I had been walking.  I had passed the high school and started wondering when I would arrive at my own school.

Finally, I realized I may have walked in the wrong direction.  I was in a really sketchy area and I knew I needed a plan.  Thankfully, I came across two J Dubs standing on the corner with their witnessing materials.  ”Is it this way to my street?” I asked.  The older woman looked at me and exclaimed, “Oh no honey!  Its a ways back that way”.  I had done it.  I turned the wrong way back at the train station (another look at my directions later revealed that I had remembered the street number wrong, I was actually supposed to walk toward 118th street!).  When I asked what time it was and they told me it was already 8:00, I knew I had walked really far out of my way.  Now I had another dilemma.  Do I take out my iPhone right here on the corner of ghetto and crazy to call my coworkers?  On the total down low, within sight of the kind witnessers, I called work.  One of my sweet coworkers offered to come and pick me up and I waited in front of a grocery store nearby.  To give you an idea of the area I was in, during the course of my five minute wait I saw a woman in a full nightgown park in a handicapped spot then literally run into the store.  Then another man pulled up to the curb, left his hoopty’s car engine running, and climbed out the passenger window before strutting into the store.  I was on the verge of breakdown when my coworker pulled up.  I had made myself keep it together until my coworker arrived, and I planned on breaking down in tears the minute I jumped into the safety of her car’s passenger seat.  Instead, I opened her car door and she was cracking up.  Like full on laughing.  I started laughing too and realized that the choice to laugh at myself and this mishap was so much more fun than crying about it.

I got to work safely and googled how far away I was.  I had walked exactly 2 miles into the ‘hood.  It might sound crazy, but Im still looking forward to trying again tomorrow!