Getting Butterflies...

Ok y'all...today I'm starting to really see the outward indicators of my inner worries and anxieties.  I went for a run this morning and I was just mad.  And pretty short with Jonathan.  Yikes!  I got a call  from OU Infertility this morning confirming my appointment for NEXT WEEK and setting into motion all the insurance stuff and paper work involved.  I drove by the building where OU Infertility is housed and immediately got butterflies in my stomach.  I'm not really sure whether this is all fear or excitement or worry.  It's probably a healthy dose of all 3 of those and other things.  I've probably asked Jonathan a million times "what would happen if...". He's of course very gracious and caring in his answers, but the bottom line is that lots of my worries are irrational.  They are worries about things that are SO unlikely to actually be realities.  I find myself thinking that if those things ARE found, I'll just pass them off as "See, I told you this wouldn't be easy."  And maybe it won't be.  If our last 5 years on the baby front are any indication, it definitely won't be.  But then again...maybe this is just such a wide open door for us that God will just perfectly orchestrate everything and we'll be announcing our precious angels sooner rather than later...

I had a conversation with my mother-in-law Bernice yesterday and got unexpectedly emotional when the words "I'm just ready for my kids to be here" came out of my mouth.  I think that's because THOSE words are really my heart right now.  I am just SO ready for our babies to get here.  I'm ready to meet them, to name them, to bring them home.  I'm so ready to be able to join into those "mommy convos" and be a voice of experience, I'm so ready for our babies to meet our family.  I can't wait to hear my babies say "Pa" or "Nene" or "Papa".  I can't wait to see Jonathan kiss their precious newborn heads, can't wait to see their tiny fingers wrapped around his.  I can't wait to smell their newborn baby heads, can't wait for them to be a part of our lives...

And I want all of that so bad that I'm terrified that it's all going to come crashing down once again and I won't know how to pick myself back up from that.  I'm terrified that we will find what our "problem" is and that it won't be fixable.  My girlfriend Sara said she didn't like me saying that this was our only shot.  Because what if it doesn't work the first time...then what?  And I honestly don't know.  I can say that I've become very familiar with how it feels to take a negative pregnancy test over these past 5 years.  So maybe if this first round doesn't work I can pitch out the reality of the money that we spent and just process it like a negative pregnancy test.  I really don't even know...I don't like to even think about that!

But then again...maybe I will be in unfamiliar territory in the next coming months.  Maybe I will be overwhelmingly emotional because NONE of my worries became a reality.  Maybe Dr. Hansen was the missing piece all these years.  And maybe this really IS our year!  Maybe I will have to learn how to process a POSITIVE pregnancy test and an ultrasound that reveals a perfectly placed sac and a strong heartbeat.  Maybe my tears will be full of joy instead of pain!

We leave tomorrow to spend Father's Day weekend with my parents and my sister and her family.  I'm grateful for what promises to be a nice distraction as we get closer and closer to this appointment on Monday morning.  Otherwise I might spend this weekend making myself crazy over things I have literally NO control over!  But if you think of us in the next 5-6 days, say a little prayer for us and one for Dr. Hansen.  To say this is getting real is the understatement of the century.  I mean...it's a reality now.  We are locked in and ready as we will ever be to do this thing...

Just Beyond Our Anxieties...

Jonathan and I are back in the promised land (a.k.a.-the good ol' US of A), but we haven't really "landed" anywhere yet.  We spent 4 glorious days in Houston with the Hendersons just relaxing and catching up.  We went to UBC on Sunday where several women got together to pray over me in anticipation of what's to come in our lives in the coming months.  It was so refreshing and centering.  Made me feel like I'm really ready to take this next step and go for it with IVF.  Those prayers and those women gave me just the solid ground I needed to be able to go forward boldly and with confidence into this "great unknown"...

I am praying fervently for peace and calm from my Lord these days.  What remains in our 2014 are things that have the potential for unspeakable joy, crippling anxiety, super human strength, and/or debilitating pain.  I am reminded of what it took to get us out of the USA into the Caribbean to start medical school.  Satan was ALL over the place just throwing road blocks in our way.  Pulling out all the stops to keep us from going.  He made us wonder often if we were doing the right thing.  He made us question our faith, question our God, question our calling.  Once we finally got there, we knew why.  Because we found God where we went.  We found Him in the beauty of those islands, in the faces of His people, in the quietness of our simple lives, and in Jonathan's success in medical school.  Satan didn't want us to experience any of that amazing love, but we did it anyway and we found God waiting just beyond our anxieties.  He was waiting and softly calling and we had to step out into the waves and take His hand to see how marvelous His plan for our lives was!

And here we are again at a crossroads.  Bracing ourselves to push through our anxieties, ignore the fact that we have literally no freakin' clue what's going to happen even in the next 90 days, and reach out and take His hand and trust that He's got this covered.  I am more than fully aware that the enemy lurks like a hungry lion just waiting to devour us.  He is diligent in waiting and watching for our human nature to give way so that he can find a foothold to take us down.  There is some comfort in that knowing...because I've learned to recognize those jabs and convert my pain and fear into anticipation for what's to come.  If Satan is being this vigilant, it must mean he knows there is something amazing waiting for us just beyond our fear and worry...

So in the next few months, if you think of us, please say a prayer for us.  Pray for peace and calm, pray for protection from the enemy, and ask that God be present and real for us as we keep completing the difficult task of seeing beyond our anxieties.  He is faithful, He never fails, and He has our best interest at heart.  I *know* He won't forsake us, whatever the outcome of the next few months.  He is requiring super human strength from both of us right now.  Which means the only way we are going to come out on the other side of all of this is with full and complete reliance on Him.  He is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or can imagine.  And we are banking on that right now.  Gripping tightly to His promises and soaking up as much reassurance from our support system as we can get.  As we are mindful of His presence, we ask that you, as our support system, remind us to watch and pray.  Remind us of the army we have behind us.  Here we go y'all...it's starting to get real...

On This Mother's Day...

About a year ago, I came across an idea on Pinterest.  A mother had started writing letters to her children starting the day they were born.  Her plan was to compile all these letters and give them to her daughter on a special occasion in her adulthood.  Maybe when she left for college or got married. It was so inspiring!

So inspiring, in fact, that I decided to start my own letters.  So I write to my future children every so often.  When they're on my mind or I'm sad they're not here yet.  So today, on this Mother's Day, I thought I would give you a little glimpse of my musings.  I'll let you know that some of my baby names are revealed in this post.  Lots of you already know my first girl name.  Eventually I'll post my "Full Disclosure Baby Names" post and you can see what the others are.  For now, I picked a sweet note I wrote to my Maggie Soutine  in October of last year.  If you're a mommy already, I would encourage you to start writing to your kids.  What a special thing to be able to give them eventually!  If you are waiting for your angels like me, write to them too!  It's therapeutic and it reminds me that they're on their way!

October 20, 2013

My Sweet, Beautiful Maggie,

You are on my heart today.  Really you’re on my heart every day, but today especially, my heart aches for you.  I heard someone say the other day that their arms were aching to hold a baby.  Well, my arms ache to hold you!  One of my best friends, her name is Rachel too, just had a baby this week.  You will get to know him one day…his name is Henry.  He’s a beautiful baby boy…I think he looks just like Rachel!  It’s surreal for me to start seeing my best friends and my sister having babies.  When they’re born they inevitably look like just the perfect representation of them.  A baby, perfectly manufactured by God, with their features and personality.  It’s pretty cool! 

Man, I can’t wait for you to get here.  It’s going to be a glorious day!  Each month I pray for you.  I think about that egg being released into my body and I wonder “Is this Maggie?  Is this Greysen?”  One sweet day, it will be.  One fine, sweet day I’ll take another positive pregnancy test and your daddy will wrap me up in that impossibly excited hug that says “We’re gonna have a baby!!”  And you’ll be on your way my sweet girl.   And I won’t be able to contain myself when I see your sweet face for the first time.  I will be overwhelmed!  It will take my breath away when I hear your heartbeat on ultrasound, when I feel you move inside of me for the first time, when I get hooked up to all the machines in the hospital on the day of your birth… Because all those things will remind me that your life is about to begin.  Your life which I’ve prayed for, hoped for, dreamed of…it’s about to start.  All those things I kept hidden away in my heart will soon be a reality.  I’ll be your mommy…finally!  That day is coming for sure.  My God solidifies that for me on a daily basis!

The waiting is hard.  I cry for you.  I long for you.  Some days I don’t understand why you’re not here yet.  Most days I feel like I won’t be able to wait another cycle to see that positive pregnancy test.  I question God.  I plead with Him to PLEASE send me my babies.  Sometimes I feel like He doesn’t hear me.  But I know, deep down, that He does.  And He’s setting up the perfect life for you and me and Daddy.  The perfect timing.  If you come soon Daddy will be a resident before you have the capacity to remember all this hard stuff.  We will be living in a nice house, in a good neighborhood.  Daddy will be making enough money for us to go on nice vacations and have nice things.  You will never want for anything my darling.  Your daddy and I will be able to provide the most perfect life for you.  We are sacrificing now for YOUR future, my love.  For YOURS!

Every day I pray for you.  Every day I ask God to send you to me.  And I have faith that He will make that a reality so very soon.  I was created to be a mommy.  To be YOUR Mommy!  And I just can’t wait for the day when I can say “Hi Maggie…I’m your mommy!”  It will be such a sweet precious day!  I can’t wait to see your daddy hold you and look at you and tell you how beautiful you are.  You’ll have him wrapped around your tiny little finger in no time.  Watching him love you will make my heart so full.  He can’t wait for you to get here either!

Until that sweet, sweet day arrives…we watch and wait for you my Maggie Soutine…

Love Beyond Words,

Mommy 

For I Know The Plans I Have For You...

Wanna know where my mind has been these past few weeks?  Well...judging by the fact that in the last month Jonathan has taken two pivotal tests and we've packed up our apartment, I'd say it's been on the future!  You know, a large part of the medical school journey includes the fear of the unknown.  There is always that chance that even though you work really, really hard, you might still have abandoned everything for this and not see a positive outcome.  After the results from the first mini exam were posted in MERP nearly 2 years ago, Jonathan was really displeased with his scores.  I mean REALLY displeased.  He was beyond frustrated with himself saying things like "I'm in med school now.  I can't just take a bad test the first go round and then redeem myself the second time around anymore."  But that was the turning point for him...for us.  His quote then was this:

"Babe.  I made us give up everything for this.  And I promise I'm going to make this happen.  I'm not going to let this end in failure.  Whatever is in my power to do, I'm going to do it.  And this WILL end in an M.D."

A bit of determination, huh?  And you know, ever since then he has not quit amazing me.  Both with his tenacity and with his scores.  It's becoming more and more real this idea that what he is doing right now is setting us up for a beautiful future.  He's had a vision all along.  THIS is when I realize how invested he's been in our future.  How smart and calculated he's been.  And how serious he has been all along about that promise he made to my dad nearly 8 years ago when he asked for my hand in marriage.  He promised he would take care of me in the way that I've been accustomed to being taken care of.  And even though the journey to get there has meant lots of sacrifice and difficulty along the way, our future is bright, bright, bright!

In these past few weeks I've been dreaming about our future home.  All the wonderful vacations we will take our children on.  All the road trips to visit family and friends.  The fact that our babies will go to college on our dime, never want for anything, have beautiful weddings, and experience the world.  How gorgeous is our family's future??  

The hardest part of this journey through medicine will likely be those first 2 years of internship and residency.  I know this full well.  I remember as a child *hating* those nights that my daddy wasn't home because he was working shift work.  As a little girl, your house never seems quite safe enough when your protector isn't there at tonight.  In retrospect I know how difficult that work must have been for my dad.  But I know now that his choice to take on those "scut work" type jobs meant that he built a reputation for himself and a future for our family.  My sister and I lived a beautiful childhood because of my dad's unwillingness to accept mediocrity in his job.  And I am SO grateful for that!  And I'm excited for my own babies when I consider the fact that my Jonathan is doing that very same thing for them right now...before they're even conceived!  And thankfully, by the grace of God, by the time their ability to form long term memories has developed, residency and long grueling hours at the hospital will be a thing of the past for us.   Their formative years will be when we are making a 6 figure salary, living in a beautiful home, and enjoying great vacations and family time together...

If only our babies right now today could see and hear and experience how much their daddy and I already love them.  If only they could know how hard we are working, what we are sacrificing, to give them a spectacular future.  If only *I* knew 8 years ago what today would look like!  Though I probably wouldn't have believed it, honestly...

We are right on the cusp of one of our turning points in this.  Just a few short weeks will see us ending this Caribbean med school experience and heading back to the states.  A few more weeks will *hopefully* see us with a healthy pregnancy...just months away from realizing one of our most deep seated hopes for our family.  If we are lucky, this time next year we will be holding our baby (or babies) in our arms.  We'll be making plans to head to New York for a year for Jonathan to work through his clinicals.  2 years from now we will be putting the finishing touches on his residency applications.  No way!!  

So our future is bright...and it's exciting to think about it.  The next step in the short term is our first OU appointment.  44 days until we meet Dr. Hansen for the first time and create our official IVF plan!  I just can't believe it's almost here.  But instead of feeling nervous and anxious and scared, I feel excited.  I'm ready.  Jonathan takes the USMLE Step 1 on June 18th and then it's 12 weeks full of focusing on our little (hopefully growing) family and on our future together.  

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  To give you a hope and a future..."-Jeremiah 29:11

He knew before Jonathan and I drew breath, before we fell in love, before we married.  He saw all of this and He said it would be good.  He said He would give us a Hope and a Future.  And He has delivered on all counts so far.  Here's hoping and praying that the next item on His agenda is sending us our miracle babies!

If He Can Do That, He Can Do This...

Happy Good Friday y'all!  This weekend is usually my favorite time of year.  This year my Facebook newsfeed was blown up with hymn lyrics and Bible verses that speak to the beauty of this day in the Christian faith.  For today marks the fulfillment of our faith in God.  He manifested Himself as a human, walked this earth free from sin and blame, died a gruesome death to atone for all the sin that had already been committed and all that would be committed in the future.  And on the 3rd day HE ROSE!  He conquered death...there is no more to conquer!

So today that fact gives me glorious hope!  That if He can conquer death.  If He can rise above the grave.  If He was willing to sacrifice Himself to save our souls.  Hallelujah, I have everything to hope for in this life and the next!

I had a short chat with Elise the other day and I told her, in response to my last blog post, that I really do believe that no matter what the outcome of our IVF, God will be glorified.  His power will be manifested in praise and thanksgiving, or through my own weakness in failure.  Either way He will be the center...

But she said, "Rachel, I just don't feel like failure is what He's setting up here.  I mean, I can't see the future or anything, but I just don't see it ending that way."

I'm trying not to sell myself out here y'all.  Years of failure in this keep me from really doing the "name and claim" thing.  I know God well enough by now to know that no matter what, what He has planned is better.  Even if His outcome in this is still no baby Womacks on the horizon...

I'm with Elise, though.  In my heart of hearts, I have a hard time seeing Him ending this in failure.  But He's not really giving me more than I should know at this point because He's requiring faith from me right now.  He's requiring patience.  He's requiring that last mile from me...

I *know* that something is about to give here.  Something is going to change.  We are close to *something*.  My head and heart hope unwaveringly that that "something" is a baby...

 I am reminded of a hike that I took with Jonathan, Patrick, and Nicole nearly 2 years ago.  Jonathan talked all of us into hiking Mt. Royal in Colorado and we all fairly blindly followed because he said it wouldn't be that hard.  It kicked my friggin' butt man!  Probably 10 times on the way up and on the way down I thought about quitting.  Just parking it right there on the trail and pouting about how little oxygen I had, how tired my legs were, how many times I had literally fallen on my butt in the process of this hike.  Now looking back, I can see where perseverance simply had to win out.  Tenacity and unwillingness to accept defeat were things that had to exist in order for me not to STILL be sitting on that trail to this day pouting...

But it's not the summit that is the parallel for me in this.  It is the climb (<----insert kitschy Miley Cyrus reference here...).  It is pressing on when you have no idea what's ahead of you.  Is it another straight up cliff?  Is it a beautiful view?  Will I fall once again and have to dust myself off and keep going?  Will this all be worth it in the end?  Will I be laid up in bed unable to move the next day wishing I'd never taken on the challenge?

The Bible says that "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen."(Heb. 11:1).  What that tells me is that my inability to abandon faith in this endeavor means that there is something more to the story.  It won't end in failure.  It won't end in defeat.  Would God have told Joshua to march around Jericho and do all those crazy things if He really intended for the army to yell at the wall and nothing happen??

I can't believe that He would call me to such boldness in my faith just for this all to end in failure.  This thing is bigger than us at this point.  So the reminder that I have today about God's boldness in loving us...His laying down His own life to save ours...centers me.  It reminds me that no matter what, God is in control.  And He will never leave me or forsake me.  Even thousands of years ago on this day when they took His body from the cross and put it in the tomb.  When the Mary's wept over His passing.  When His disciples hid because they thought it was all over and they were next.  When the whole world thought it was over...

He was working on something marvelous.  Spectacular victory which demanded all He had.  And if He can do that, He can do this...

When Victory Demands All You've Got

If you've been reading my blogs, you know I've been working through a Beth Moore study called Believing God.  I finished it a few days ago and loved every minute of it.  The 16th chapter of the book is called Believing God When Victory Demands Your All.  It was a chapter that resonated so clearly and so genuinely with me that I wrote probably an entire page of notes on that chapter alone.

She spoke of Joshua and of the Israelites in battle.  Almost immediately a quote jumped off the page for me:

"The Israelites had to step out in faith and commit to the battle before they received any word from God concerning the outcome..."

And aren't we doing the same?  Haven't we been trying to keep our ears fixed on His voice and follow the path we feel Him leading us down?  Even though we have no idea what the outcome is going to look like, that's exactly what we've tried to do.  There are two possible scenarios here when it comes to the outcome of our battle.  And I don't put that word in quotes because what we've been through is most certainly a battle.  We've been beat up, beat down, stripped down to nothing.  We've walked through this battle of infertility and loss for years now.  There have been times, both in the past and recently, when we've thought maybe defeat in this realm was all we were destined to experience.  Scenario A - the walls of our infertility are gonna come crashing down and once the dust settles, we will be holding our "magnum opus" in our arms, or Scenario B - we will be defeated once again and maybe more devastatingly so this time.  But either way I'm certain we will be awestruck by the unwavering power of God in us.  Because He promised to never leave us or forsake us.  He said His power was made perfect in our weakness...

But there has been new life breathed into me and Jonathan recently.  A second wind if you will.  And I can only believe that it comes directly from His power manifesting itself in us.  It is only Him who can give us such a renewed since of hope and the grace to not grow debilitatingly bitter as we've walked this long and winding road of disappointment and loss.

"The perfect setup for catastrophic defeat is also the perfect setup for miraculous victory!"

Oh how my heart LONGS for that miraculous victory in this.  And this most certainly is the perfect setup for either catastrophic defeat or incredibly marvelous victory isn't it?  A success here would be the answer to not only the prayers of mine and Jonathan, but also so many others.  What a volley of praise there will be when we DO get to announce this victory!  I get chills just thinking about it actually...

"Sometimes God requires so much of us just so we can experience the unmatched exhilaration of partnering in divine triumph..."

One thing I've had to learn in all of this is that I may or may not be able to pin point a *reason* why things happen.  The quote "everything happens for a reason" is true, but there are times when we may never know what that reason is.  For His ways are higher than ours...His thoughts higher than our own.  But I *can* say that the build up...the anticipation associated with finding out whether this is a go or a no go really does connect me with Him on a deeper level.  I literally can't wait to see what He's going to do in this.  Because it will either be breathtaking victory where His glory will be blindingly bright, or devastating defeat where His power in me is manifested in the most perfect way that it can be...during the point in my life that I will surely experience my greatest point of weakness.  

There was a part in the book that literally brought me to tears (well...there were lots of those actually...).  Toward the end she speculates a little about God's timeline and His reasoning for doing things the way He does.  I can't explain it any better than she does:

"I'm not much for numerology, but the repetition of some numbers and their similar contexts can hardly be denied.  In Scripture seven is believed by many scholars to be the number of completion.  The creation account seems to be the paradigm.  The seven days and seven repetitions God required of the Israelites before He'd give them Jericho was a literal time frame for them, but it presents a figurative application for us.  Sometimes God requires us to follow a fair amount of repetition for a considerable amount of time until He deems a season complete.  Then all of the sudden He seems to do something profound or miraculous, and we can't figure out what changed..."

I'm not much for numerology myself, and I'm not superstitious.  But what I heard in my head is SEVEN.  Did you know that on June 2nd of this year Jonathan and I will have been married SEVEN years?  Did you know that this is will be the SEVENTH time we've made such a bold attempt to push through this infertility wall?  We've done the repetition thing.  We've been through our regime for so long now.  Going through the motions of similarity...following the plan...trying our hardest to say yes when He calls.  I can't help but feel like we are coming to the end of a "season" in our lives right now.  There is a feeling of completion and finality that is looming over us.  In 47 days this part of our journey will be over.  In something like 60 days, the last bit of this part of medical school really will be finished.  And then it's on to the next season...

My hope is solid and vivid and powerful.  There is no fear when I fix my eyes and mind and heart on Him.  When I falter (which I do often) those are the times that I lose my focus and begin speculating as to what might happen if He fails me.  And then I get snapped back into reality.  He's never failed me yet (right Mrs. Muz??)!  And I can't sit here and say that I believe there will come a day when He will.  We have prayed that if children were not in His will for us that He would take that desire away. But instead He has intensified it 100 fold over the past 5 1/2 years and I can only believe that the intensity with which He will be answering our prayers soon will be unbelievably miraculous...

"To Him who is ABLE to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power which is at work within us..."-Ephesians 3:20 

His power is most assuredly at work within me right now.  It's that buzz my insides have been feeling lately I think.  And if He's planning to do immeasurably more than I have asked or can imagine...wow.  Talk about miraculous...

My Insides are Buzzing...

I am literally CHOMPING AT THE BIT at this moment in my life.  You know that feeling you get when loose ends are beginning to be tied up in one of life's chapters?  Someone made the statement the other day that I've got both feet out the door and I'm just dangling from the door frame at this point.  There is a part of me that will always be left here in Dominica.  Maybe more specifically with some of the people I have come to know and love here during our experience.  But I'm feeling a little like I'm in limbo.  It's the worlds most excruciating waiting game!!

It's funny because a few months ago when I thought about these last few months before our first IVF appointment I thought I would be getting nervous and anxious and feeling uneasy about starting the process.  But instead it's a different kind of anxiety.  I literally CAN'T WAIT to get going with this.  I'm trying REALLY hard not to sell out too quickly.  Jonathan has 3 more very important tests to pass between now and when we have our appointment.  I can't let my anxiety be a barrier to his success.  But literally all day long every day I am floating in and out of daydreams and thoughts about this process.  I'm just so ready to be a mommy y'all.  I'm so ready.  I feel like a runner waiting at the starting line...just waiting for that pistol to go off letting me know it's time to run.  There is a buzz inside of me that makes me literally want to get up and SPRINT sometimes just to have something to do with this pent up energy and anticipation.

I called the OU clinic this week to ask them some questions about my insurance and about how to go about getting my previous medical records released to them.  The girl on the other end of the phone was a little overwhelmed with my very specific questions so she handed the phone to the head nurse who happened to be standing there.  She was very gracious in answering my questions but she finally had to say, "Honey, don't worry so much about it.  We will figure all of that out when you get here for your first appointment.  You're in good hands with Dr. Hansen.  He's gonna take good care of you...just relax!"  The buzz inside of me must have been translating through the phone loud and clear to her!

My head knows that there are LOTS of things between now and our first appointment.  My head also knows that there are lots of unknowns when it comes to our IVF cycle.  Heck I even know that despite my desperate longing to be a mommy, this endeavor itself might STILL not get me there.  But my heart is already sold, y'all.  My heart is already sitting in that waiting room in OKC.  My heart is telling me to calculate those due dates, pore over that calendar, pin that baby stuff.  My heart is telling me to plan the next year of our lives with the idea of a pregnancy and new baby (or babies) in mind.  My heart is 80 days ahead of my head...

For this reason I find myself already retreating here in Dominica.  My heart has already left the island.  My head says "Rach, come on.  Just show up and be sociable."  My heart is not interested.  I am already miles away man.  There are days that I get jolted back into reality and I realize that me leaving this place means saying see ya later to some people that I love dearly.  It means kissing those sweet little cheeks of my favorite red head for the last time for a long time (maybe ever...will his 4 year old self still let me scoop him up and give him sugars when I see him in the states in a few months??).  It means hugging the necks of some women who, here in Dominica, have literally become my lifeline.  My confidants.  It means acknowledging the fact that this crazy Caribbean med school ride is over.  Those times I find it hard not to feel choked up about leaving...

So I truly don't want to wish these next 7 1/2 weeks away, but I'm having a hard time keeping my feet on the ground.  My insides feel like one of those cartoons that's running as fast as they can on a super slick floor and going nowhere.  There are things that were important to me 4-5 months ago that just don't matter that much anymore.  THIS is everything.  Jonathan's USMLE test, our IVF, moving back to the states...that is EVERYTHING right now.  Most everything else pales in comparison...