In case you were wondering, we are pseudo moved into the new place. I am at the old place, working at my old pill slinging job while various coworkers take vacations. Some day I aspire to a vacation, having nearly achieved real health insurance that costs less than $900 a month for a family of 3 (squee!).
My future office is currently filled with boxes to about shoulder height although I hear my desk is somewhere in there, and about 2/3 of the living room is also boxes. We have a couple pieces of furniture that absolutely don't fit in the new house, which is a struggle.
At the old place, the glasses and a host of other kitchen stuff needs boxing, as does the contents of one bookshelf which has already been moved so the stuff is heaped on the floor.
Tomorrow I'm going to buy more boxes since we haven't unpacked enough to finish packing the rest of the debris.
Today I did a brave thing. I bought a maternity shirt. It's one of those very fashionable numbers with scrunched sides and it's very form fitting, but it's also dressy enough for work and I somehow forgot that if I was going to be here for several days, I needed to bring clothes to wear each day, so I'm punting with some new shirts. Although just last week I was swearing up and down that I could not possibly have baby brain yet, I think I might be showing some symptoms...
I realized today that it's been almost a month since the official pregnancy test, so that means not so many more to go. This is of course the scary month so I'm working hard not to panic. So far, so good I suppose.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The life of a rusted trash can
I've been thinking about life lately. They replaced my buddy with a rubbery plastic number when he rusted out a couple of years ago, and then they started to store the big old bag of salt in me.
I knew my days were numbered. Salt is the kiss of death for us metal trash cans. Yeah, I knew I had a tiny rust spot before the salt, but I had a lot of good years ahead of me!
Then they started to ignore me, leaving my salt alone for months at a time. The damp started to get to me, but with less opening and closing, I thought I had a chance.
Then winter came and more salt turned up. Oh the shoveling! The agony!
I heard one day that the family was moving. We were all in trouble, all of us trashcans. I started composing my will and disposing of my worldly possessions.
And then that old lady showed up and instead of throwing things away like that young guy, she says, "But that could be useful to someone else! We can't throw it away!"
Now it looks like I'll rust away right here because she won't let that guy throw away anything! Amazing!
I knew my days were numbered. Salt is the kiss of death for us metal trash cans. Yeah, I knew I had a tiny rust spot before the salt, but I had a lot of good years ahead of me!
Then they started to ignore me, leaving my salt alone for months at a time. The damp started to get to me, but with less opening and closing, I thought I had a chance.
Then winter came and more salt turned up. Oh the shoveling! The agony!
I heard one day that the family was moving. We were all in trouble, all of us trashcans. I started composing my will and disposing of my worldly possessions.
And then that old lady showed up and instead of throwing things away like that young guy, she says, "But that could be useful to someone else! We can't throw it away!"
Now it looks like I'll rust away right here because she won't let that guy throw away anything! Amazing!
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Fear and acceptance
So I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll stay pregnant, that everything will be fine, and that I'll hold a baby in my arms eventually.
But as I say that, I'm crying. I'm so scared. I guess I'd glossed over how worried I am until yesterday when I was discussing the previous pregnancy with a friend.
No more glossing. I am terrified to screw this up. I am terrified that I'll have to be so sad for months again. I really feel like I just got the hang of life and quit crying randomly and here we are.
If I've learned anything, it's to accept what I get in life because today is it. There's no sense worrying about the future if you ignore today. Life is about making the most of today.
So I'm going to focus on that and manage what I can with today.
And I'm going to try to remind myself of that every day because I sure do forget.
But as I say that, I'm crying. I'm so scared. I guess I'd glossed over how worried I am until yesterday when I was discussing the previous pregnancy with a friend.
No more glossing. I am terrified to screw this up. I am terrified that I'll have to be so sad for months again. I really feel like I just got the hang of life and quit crying randomly and here we are.
If I've learned anything, it's to accept what I get in life because today is it. There's no sense worrying about the future if you ignore today. Life is about making the most of today.
So I'm going to focus on that and manage what I can with today.
And I'm going to try to remind myself of that every day because I sure do forget.
Monday, July 16, 2012
"So when are you going to have another baby?"
I like theme posts. I'm a big fan of the PAIL community (that would be parenting/pregnant after infertility and loss) and it's the theme this month! So you're subject to my theme blogging.
I'm pretty glad that nobody asked me at all about next babies until just lately. I think I'd have run off and cried. Miscarriage 1 post-kid was when she was about 15 months old and a surprise, miscarriage 2 was when the kid was 2 and a half years old, and the third when the kid was 3 and a half. In all that time, it took until a couple of months ago for anyone at all to ask.
The ask entertained me and since I was giggling at the technique, I avoided the crying. My faith community has this group of great ladies who have kids in elementary school up through about my age and we were having lunch, and Susie says to Deb, "So how do we ask about when they're having another baby in a tactful way? It's a delicate subject" and they riff on the theme for a while. It was great. I decided that this bunch of ladies deserved the truth so the honesty and all.
So if you missed it, the saga goes as follows: we decided in the beginning on having the kid, and in about a minute we were expecting and things went well. By the first year of parenting, we were thinking about 3 years between the kid and kid 2. Then! The "whoops" pregnancy that failed, which I figured wasn't a big deal. Then a bit beyond a year later we decide the time is right to try for real, are expecting in a hot minute again, and a second "well that sucks."
And then the infertility. A year of waiting, another loss. But a diagnosis! PCOS! We get set to fix that and it occurs to us that we're pretty broke (see: pharmacy school) so the fixes you might hope for aren't an option (ie an RE).
So we accepted that we'd probably adopt when we could afford that, and in the meantime, wait and pray and assume things would stay the same and enjoy the kid.
And now we're a couple weeks into a surprise pregnancy and I'm cautiously optimistic but nowhere outside of this blog will any such news be discussed for the next several months. Yeah, that makes me paranoid. Yeah, it makes me secretive about loss, and maybe I shouldn't be so secretive. But it's my heart and I think I'd rather grieve in private if it comes to that. I may change my mind and I probably will, but for now? Quiet hope. Calm hope. Trust that whatever will be, is what should be in the bigger plan. If I have faith, I have faith all the way that I'll get where I'm meant to, and in the time I'm meant to get there.
Yeah, it's been quite the emotional roller coaster and I'm pretty sure that if this doesn't work out, I'm taking a break while I finish school. At the very least I loathe the acne that comes with no oral contraceptives and it would be nice to skip out on it for a while. BUT pregnancy also fixes my skin so that rocks. Nausea but better skin? Yes please.
I'm pretty glad that nobody asked me at all about next babies until just lately. I think I'd have run off and cried. Miscarriage 1 post-kid was when she was about 15 months old and a surprise, miscarriage 2 was when the kid was 2 and a half years old, and the third when the kid was 3 and a half. In all that time, it took until a couple of months ago for anyone at all to ask.
The ask entertained me and since I was giggling at the technique, I avoided the crying. My faith community has this group of great ladies who have kids in elementary school up through about my age and we were having lunch, and Susie says to Deb, "So how do we ask about when they're having another baby in a tactful way? It's a delicate subject" and they riff on the theme for a while. It was great. I decided that this bunch of ladies deserved the truth so the honesty and all.
So if you missed it, the saga goes as follows: we decided in the beginning on having the kid, and in about a minute we were expecting and things went well. By the first year of parenting, we were thinking about 3 years between the kid and kid 2. Then! The "whoops" pregnancy that failed, which I figured wasn't a big deal. Then a bit beyond a year later we decide the time is right to try for real, are expecting in a hot minute again, and a second "well that sucks."
And then the infertility. A year of waiting, another loss. But a diagnosis! PCOS! We get set to fix that and it occurs to us that we're pretty broke (see: pharmacy school) so the fixes you might hope for aren't an option (ie an RE).
So we accepted that we'd probably adopt when we could afford that, and in the meantime, wait and pray and assume things would stay the same and enjoy the kid.
And now we're a couple weeks into a surprise pregnancy and I'm cautiously optimistic but nowhere outside of this blog will any such news be discussed for the next several months. Yeah, that makes me paranoid. Yeah, it makes me secretive about loss, and maybe I shouldn't be so secretive. But it's my heart and I think I'd rather grieve in private if it comes to that. I may change my mind and I probably will, but for now? Quiet hope. Calm hope. Trust that whatever will be, is what should be in the bigger plan. If I have faith, I have faith all the way that I'll get where I'm meant to, and in the time I'm meant to get there.
Yeah, it's been quite the emotional roller coaster and I'm pretty sure that if this doesn't work out, I'm taking a break while I finish school. At the very least I loathe the acne that comes with no oral contraceptives and it would be nice to skip out on it for a while. BUT pregnancy also fixes my skin so that rocks. Nausea but better skin? Yes please.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Clearing out the cobwebs
Occasionally I go on an anti-nesting binge and clear out stuff.
Conveniently this time, we are moving, so it's totally fair game to clear out vast swaths of things in the name of "less is more" and "moving costs more if we move stuff we don't really need."
In this instance, a vast swath of baby things is being cleared out in the name of "after two freaking years of hoping, I am done with hope and saving and this stuff can go away already."
And of course, everyone in my family and several friends are all "but won't you need it again? Won't you have room to store it?"
Since this whole infertility/miscarriages thing has been pretty private because, well, because we're pretty private and I'm probably ten times more private than the spouse, it doesn't make sense to anyone else. They figure the fact that we own a 4 year old and have no other children is on purpose. Ha.
Eventually we went with the "we don't know when we'll have more children, and any more children might not be babies, so we don't need to move all this stuff 'just in case.'" story.
And of course, the spouse is all "you know, the best way to get pregnant is to get rid of all this baby stuff" and I scoffed. Right. As if, after nearly 2 years, we'd finally get lucky again and things would go right.
And the Divine laughed at the idea that I knew what was coming next, and the test was positive. It's out there and if things go well, we'll have a spring break baby. Holy Hannah. Not sure whether to cry or laugh or both. For now, the blogging and a lot of naps and all day sickness.
Conveniently this time, we are moving, so it's totally fair game to clear out vast swaths of things in the name of "less is more" and "moving costs more if we move stuff we don't really need."
In this instance, a vast swath of baby things is being cleared out in the name of "after two freaking years of hoping, I am done with hope and saving and this stuff can go away already."
And of course, everyone in my family and several friends are all "but won't you need it again? Won't you have room to store it?"
Since this whole infertility/miscarriages thing has been pretty private because, well, because we're pretty private and I'm probably ten times more private than the spouse, it doesn't make sense to anyone else. They figure the fact that we own a 4 year old and have no other children is on purpose. Ha.
Eventually we went with the "we don't know when we'll have more children, and any more children might not be babies, so we don't need to move all this stuff 'just in case.'" story.
And of course, the spouse is all "you know, the best way to get pregnant is to get rid of all this baby stuff" and I scoffed. Right. As if, after nearly 2 years, we'd finally get lucky again and things would go right.
And the Divine laughed at the idea that I knew what was coming next, and the test was positive. It's out there and if things go well, we'll have a spring break baby. Holy Hannah. Not sure whether to cry or laugh or both. For now, the blogging and a lot of naps and all day sickness.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Relationships
I make no bones about being good at relationships. I am not a people person. I like words and data and a quiet office with my demotivational posters on the walls to remind me that I am not the greatest thing since sliced bread for at least a part of my day, every day.
And yet I've chosen a profession where I am in communication with people all the time, and where miscommunication or noncommunication can be fatal.
Why?
In part because I figured out young that I was lacking natural social skills so I needed to build them, and I worked hard to do so. In part because it's where my skills intersect the needs of the world. In part because it's where I'm called to be.
The calling part I'm happy to keep a mystery. It just is, and that's cool.
My mother is visiting and it's stressful for whatever reason. I think it's either that we're a lot alike and just enough different to rub each other the wrong way, or because we're very different and find the other one irritating, OR because of some old resentment on both our parts.
It irritates me that for whatever reason my mother can't make a decision herself. Example: moving sale is tomorrow, she's doing laundry, and there was a pair of pants still with tags on it, so I said she should put it in the sale pile. Instead of asking where that might be, or guessing that the big pile of things we've been sorting through might be the sale pile, or just doing something with the pants, she said that she'd just set it on a random empty box that happened to be next to her so we'd remember to take it out.
This begs the question: why on earth can't she just think independently of the solution to any problem she encounters? Why must she decide she knows how to do everything better than me while being unable to figure out what to do with things (putting away dinner, putting away things for the sale, the list could go on for weeks)?
It is pretty entertaining to see such a high level of denial in a person walking and talking about a thing happening. Example: the house is being sold, there's an awful lot of my folks' stuff here and much of it is trash (excuse me, beloved family heirlooms that have been stored in a barn for years and years), and yet she thinks she shouldn't have to help pay for the dumpster. Hmm.
Arg. Moving. Stuff.
I'm not sure if I care about the relationship with my mother to make any changes to it. Really. She forgets things left and right and is indignant when corrected, so I sort of think it's not worth my time to change things, and that's sort of sad.
And yet I've chosen a profession where I am in communication with people all the time, and where miscommunication or noncommunication can be fatal.
Why?
In part because I figured out young that I was lacking natural social skills so I needed to build them, and I worked hard to do so. In part because it's where my skills intersect the needs of the world. In part because it's where I'm called to be.
The calling part I'm happy to keep a mystery. It just is, and that's cool.
My mother is visiting and it's stressful for whatever reason. I think it's either that we're a lot alike and just enough different to rub each other the wrong way, or because we're very different and find the other one irritating, OR because of some old resentment on both our parts.
It irritates me that for whatever reason my mother can't make a decision herself. Example: moving sale is tomorrow, she's doing laundry, and there was a pair of pants still with tags on it, so I said she should put it in the sale pile. Instead of asking where that might be, or guessing that the big pile of things we've been sorting through might be the sale pile, or just doing something with the pants, she said that she'd just set it on a random empty box that happened to be next to her so we'd remember to take it out.
This begs the question: why on earth can't she just think independently of the solution to any problem she encounters? Why must she decide she knows how to do everything better than me while being unable to figure out what to do with things (putting away dinner, putting away things for the sale, the list could go on for weeks)?
It is pretty entertaining to see such a high level of denial in a person walking and talking about a thing happening. Example: the house is being sold, there's an awful lot of my folks' stuff here and much of it is trash (excuse me, beloved family heirlooms that have been stored in a barn for years and years), and yet she thinks she shouldn't have to help pay for the dumpster. Hmm.
Arg. Moving. Stuff.
I'm not sure if I care about the relationship with my mother to make any changes to it. Really. She forgets things left and right and is indignant when corrected, so I sort of think it's not worth my time to change things, and that's sort of sad.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
On Time
Some days I feel it is futile to keep explaining time to the kid. The concept of time is totally foreign to her.
Example:
Kid: I never get to pick the movie!
Me: You picked the movie this afternoon, and you get to pick tomorrow. That's twice in two days,which means it can't be true that you never get to pick.
Kid: But I want to pick now!
Me: It isn't your turn, it's the spouse's turn.
Kid: I NEVER GET TO PICK THE MOVIE! ::throws self to the floor and pounds fists and feet::
Me: Hmm. I'm sorry you feel that way.
Another example:
Kid: When are we moving?
Me: In a few weeks.
Kid: Do I ever get to go to daycare again? ::sobs::
Me: Yes you do. You get to go to daycare today, in about 10 minutes. We're leaving as soon as you have some clothes on.
Kid: Oh. That's good.
Me: You get to go to daycare about another 35 times in fact.
Kid: How long is that?
Me:... you get to go tomorrow too, and the day after that, and a bunch more. Don't worry about when we're moving. When it gets close, we'll let you know.
Hysterical example: (well, I laughed a great deal at the time, possibly because I couldn't think of any other way to respond without my own temper tantrum and I was driving at the time)
Kid: Are we almost there yet?
Me: No. You asked just a minute ago and we aren't much closer.
Kid: ::gurgle rar huff noise::
Me: Tell you what. In about 6 more songs we'll be there.
Kid: How long is that?
Me: ... after... the "There's a word for that" song is over.
Kid: OK
5 minutes later:
Kid: How soon is the "There's a word for that" song coming up?
Me: ... soon kid, very soon.
So at what age to kids grow a sense of time?
Example:
Kid: I never get to pick the movie!
Me: You picked the movie this afternoon, and you get to pick tomorrow. That's twice in two days,which means it can't be true that you never get to pick.
Kid: But I want to pick now!
Me: It isn't your turn, it's the spouse's turn.
Kid: I NEVER GET TO PICK THE MOVIE! ::throws self to the floor and pounds fists and feet::
Me: Hmm. I'm sorry you feel that way.
Another example:
Kid: When are we moving?
Me: In a few weeks.
Kid: Do I ever get to go to daycare again? ::sobs::
Me: Yes you do. You get to go to daycare today, in about 10 minutes. We're leaving as soon as you have some clothes on.
Kid: Oh. That's good.
Me: You get to go to daycare about another 35 times in fact.
Kid: How long is that?
Me:... you get to go tomorrow too, and the day after that, and a bunch more. Don't worry about when we're moving. When it gets close, we'll let you know.
Hysterical example: (well, I laughed a great deal at the time, possibly because I couldn't think of any other way to respond without my own temper tantrum and I was driving at the time)
Kid: Are we almost there yet?
Me: No. You asked just a minute ago and we aren't much closer.
Kid: ::gurgle rar huff noise::
Me: Tell you what. In about 6 more songs we'll be there.
Kid: How long is that?
Me: ... after... the "There's a word for that" song is over.
Kid: OK
5 minutes later:
Kid: How soon is the "There's a word for that" song coming up?
Me: ... soon kid, very soon.
So at what age to kids grow a sense of time?
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