About the Author: Shannon

Name: Shannon Ivy
Age: 27
Born: August 13th
Nationality/Heritage: Czech/Polish & European Mix
City/State/Country: Arlington, TX USA
Occupation: Certified Nurse Aide
Kid's Names and Ages: None
TTC Since: April 2008
Infertility Diagnosis: August 2008 - PCOS
Spouse: Jeff, 27
Religion: Me-Wiccan, DH-Christian
Tattoos & Piercings: 2 piercings in each ear, L ear has a cartilage piercing; 5 tattoos: celtic butterfly on R ankle, Shooting star with a quote on R back shoulder, 3 four-leaf clovers on L back shoulder (2 tattoos in 1), and a "Hope" tattoo on my wrist with the "o" being a teal heart for PCOS
5 Things I Love: Family, friends, cooking, crafts of all sorts, animals (esp. babies!)
Favorite Books: Almost any romance, mystery, paranormal... To name a few: Discovery of Witches, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Mortal Instruments, Beautiful Creatures, Creating a Life memoir, The Highlander, Mary Higgins Clark books, etc...
Favorite Movies: A TON: Harry Potter, Sweet Home Alabama, Burlesque, Marvel comics, Disney movies, comedy... Anything but scary movies
Favorite Shows: Big Bang Theory, Family Guy, Guiliana and Bill, Love it or List it, DIY & Home improvement shows, 2 Broke Girls, How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, and more
Favorite Music: Country, Pop, Current hits, Some Rap (Eminem)
Favorite Food: Ice cream. Spaghetti, stuffed bell peppers, stuffed cabbage, sweet and sour pork, fried rice, and soooo much more.
Six Things I Could Now Live Without: My husband, my phone, my kindle, toothbrush and toothpaste, underwear, jeans
I'm Really Good At: crafts, reading, typing, being empathetic
I Spend a Lot of Time Thinking About: The book I just finished reading, whatever book it is; a slew of other things
On My Free Time I: catch up on DVR shows and do crafty things like sewing and quilting
A Secret About Me: I wonder if I will be able to adjust to having kids, when that day comes
If Money Were No Object & I Could Do What I Wanted for 1 Week I Would: Pay off all debts, buy a house and vehicles my husband actually loves, buy a nice, long vacation to travel the world.
What I Talk About On The Blog: Current procedures I am undergoing, PCOS, and emotions (plus others)
Blog Position: Founder, Author, Designer, Facebook Poster
Contact Info:
Email: shannonw@fighting4fertility.org.in
Myfitnesspal: sivywright
Weight Blog: http://shannonsweightstory.blogspot.com/

Shhh... We are Being Quiet... LOL!!!

I'm sorry the blog has been so quiet lately... Life just gets crazy at times!

I know I have some requests I need to respond to about author's for secondary infertility and I need to find some male infertility writers. But time slips by quickly :o)

February has been an... interesting month for me. 2013 for that matter.

For Christmas we went and saw my grandmother who had cancer. Wanted to make sure we took the time to see her. Then my brother spent 3 weeks in TX with us (she is in AZ).
Early January I made a religion change (prefer to keep it private for now).
Mid-January I had surprise spotting for 3 days (very light).
January 14th my grandmother chose to stop chemo because it wasn't benefiting her.
BFN towards the end of January.
February 5th my favorite grandmother passed away... The one we visited at Christmas.
February 13th I started spotting again.
February 14th we arrived in AZ.
February 14th I find out a cousin is pregnant with her 2nd child.
February 15th was Grandmama's memorial.
February 17th we are home in TX.
February 18th spotting gets a little heavier.
And then February 21st the period stops.

Weird. I haven't taken ANY vitamins since Christmas yet the second spotting started 28 days after the first spotting stopped.

That has NEVER happened except on birth control pills.

How has your 2013 treated you so far??

Question #23

23. Does your religion (or lack of) help/hurt/affect your infertility journey? Have you found religion? Lost it? Does it affect what treatments you do?

Mrs Red:
Honesty time! I made the decision to become Christian in February 2002. I spent the first 4ish years of my Christianity trying to find my spiritually through bible study and from church hopping (my first church got real gossipy) then a little before I got married we found a church we both liked and went occasionally. Well we got married and started on our journey.... Im not going to lie, this has been a long and hard 5 years. The first year I was all optimistic and like yeah pray and it will happen right away. Then the first year passed and still no baby. I got depressed and started doubting. Year 2 took a really bad toll on me spiritually. I sought out for a lot of answers. I had started listening to k-love radio and it helped by giving me some encouragement. At the new year we started going to church regularly. We never really had and we weren't talking about it, we were just like let's go to church and the pastor at my church is amazing. He makes you not feel like a piece of crud and explains things simply. He gives you encouragement to get through the week and to reflect on things. I was never raised as "go to church everyday and worship" but this church made me want to go and learn more. I feel I'm more understanding now and that God isn't not answering my prayers, he's simply telling me to wait. I can accept that. This journey has actually renewed my strength and made me appreciate things in my life more. I still wouldn't call myself the best representation of Christianity but I have learned a lot in the last 5 years.

Shannon:

Honestly? I will get a LOT of crap for this. Especially if people I know read this... I was raised catholic (and in the summers went to a baptist church with my dad's side of the family). I've been a very strong believer... until the last year or so. Fertility issues really make you think. And it would drive me nuts that people would tell me to just pray about it. Or the ones that said I couldn't get pregnant because I didn't go to church. Stuff like this makes you think. Taking anatomy classes for school doesn't help either. And KNOWING that a hormone is what is causing all of these problems... I just felt like I had a chemical imbalance, that it is all scientific. I now consider myself Agnostic. Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable. I don't deny that there is a God. But I can't deny other possibilities of being purely scientific or multiple deities. I did consider Wicca because I liked it in high school when I did it for a short while. But at this point in my life I don't find I have the energy or time to learn a new religion. And I still couldn't get into it 100%. I'm sure many people will not like me because of this admittance, but this is a blog about total honesty and openness to all groups/types of people.

Ashley:

My husband and I were both born and raised Roman Catholic. Religion is important to us, I think me even more so, however I don't necessarily believe in the position the Roman Catholic Church takes on infertility/conceiving. God is a very important structure in my life and I feel if he didn't want us to use conventional methods (IUI, IVF, etc.) then he wouldn't have given mankind the intellectual ability to develop such methods. So it really hasn't affect how we proceed with our treatment journey. I don't feel I have lost faith along the way but may be at short times...but I still always believe even though I may be angry with God or questioning Him. I also feel I have more and more faith as we go because I think that's the only thing I can believe in.