Cycle Day 25 sucked. It was a huge pain in my ass, literally. Who knew that shoving a 3.5" needle into the muscles of your buttocks would not hurt a bit - until 48 hours later when every movement and pressure made me yelp. This morning the pain is much less already, thank you GODS! Not looking forward to the trio of needles waiting for me today though: tummy, left buttock, right arm. Whose idea was it to have a blood draw on a butt injection day?

Other than that, my symptoms so far have become negligible. I've had a headache almost every afternoon, but they go away just fine with some Excedrin - definitely not migraines!

So let us continue on to the second question of twenty that I mentioned the other day...

2. Is this what I want to be doing?
This very moment is, always, the only moment in which you can make changes. Knowing which changes are best for you comes, always, from assessing what you feel. Ask yourself many times every day if you like what you're doing. If the answer is no, start noticing what you'd prefer. Thus begins the revolution.

Outside! Right now my mind is squealing: outside, outside, outside! I would rather be doing anything that takes me out of this house. I want to see the world, but I will settle for something beyond these walls.

Looking beyond the moment and into my current life, I can say yes. Resoundingly. I have my doubts about turning myself into a baby-making machine, resentment of the injections, trepidations about raising a child in this house. But do I want to be making a baby? Do I want to introduce a baby into our lives? Yes. Oh, yes, definitely!

All of my worries and concerns are about how equipped we are to do this. How prepared we are, how responsible we can become, how diligent and clean and house-bound. But do I want to be doing everything in my power to have a child? Yes. No question.

I've felt for some time that being a parent is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I feel like I've just been spinning my wheels, waiting for life to call me up to bat. I've always believed that every past moment of life is preparing you for this one, right now, as well as the future. I think my life of physical and mental anguish has been preparing me for this, drilling into me all the things not to do, how not to be. I've lived so much of my adult life so selfishly that I've become sick of myself. I really feel like having a child will bring balance to my life: a way to be both selfish and self-sacrificing at the same time.