Stir (stim?) Crazy

Today, I organized for six straight hours leading up to my first stim injection--stim meds are what cause you to grow lots of follicles for egg retrieval (ER). I thought that the anticipation of my first injection ever would be the worst, but I now realize that each milestone will bring on new levels of anxiety.

This morning at church was stewardship Sunday--you know, the one where the pastor tries to guilt you into tithing. About halfway through the sermon about paying unto Caesar what is Caesar's, I started to feel panicky. Oh my bills! I haven't even begun to pay for IVF, and the front corner of our house is sinking because the clay soils of North Texas were not meant for home foundations.

One of the results of our trials in the last six months has been cutting off our regular offering at church. We've given all we can for the time being. We've got to stay solvent in order to pay for our mortgage, Wisehubby's graduate school because we didn't qualify for financial aid, our car, our new electrical panel, our foundation, and IVF. I am normally a compulsive charitable giver, but times have been a little tough for us Wisepeople lately.

Anyway, those concerns launched me into a stir crazy mood that lasted all day. I cried on the way to Sunday family lunch when Wisehubby suggested we sell our tickets to the OU-Texas A&M game to help off-set the cost of foundation repairs. My Wiseparents are normally great lunch time company, but there was a distinct down vibe today.

Then I got home, and I let my stir crazy mood out to play. I cleaned the kitchen, folded the laundry, put away the laundry, organized our mail, shredded documents, organized our medical bills and other papers, and generally put my life in order. I'm not one for organizing anything, so this was a majorly weird string of events.

So, I'm stimming in earnest, and I think that the anticipation of moving forward with IVF is the root cause of my sudden panic today. Luckily, I've worked through the problem that triggered my panic in the first place.

I think that I'm going to adopt the attitude that I'm just participating in a different type of financial stewardship. Instead of giving a large percentage of my paltry teacher's salary to the church, I'm giving it to the Quest for Wisebaby. When we've got a Wisebaby (or two?), we'll give him or her to God's service. You can't give a better gift than that!