What Alex was referring to was my offense against red wine everywhere that occurred last week: I’d opened a bottle, poured a glass, and promptly forgot about the rest of the bottle, which sat open on the counter for a few days until he got home from the academy. What I immediately thought was, “yep, I shouldn’t be allowed to have any. I should be almost 8 months pregnant, getting ready to have a baby in July.” Alex had unwittingly tossed out a landmine that I fell on hard.

I kind of thought I was over it. I mean, I’d been referring to it as “our quitter baby… our little emo fetus who couldn’t take life” when I needed to talk about it. Joking is my way of dealing with things and I thought it was dealt with. Guess not. I’m really, really, really not looking forward to July. July is usually a really great month for me – I love fireworks and family so the Fourth is one of my favorite holidays, my birthday is in July, and our wedding anniversary – but this year I’m afraid of July. I’m afraid I’m going to get really depressed towards the end of July when our due date comes and goes and we’re no closer to being “back on track” and pregnant again.

I don’t feel like this all the time. Most days I can be pretty positive and tell myself that it’ll happen when the time is right and that next time will be great and we won’t go through this again and everything happens for a reason and blah blah blah. But then I’ll step on a landmine and suddenly I’ll be consumed with fears over having multiple miscarriages or having difficulties getting pregnant again. I get frustrated that it’s taking so long for it to happen again (it’s been four months now since I’ve been physically able to try) since it was so easy for us before. I get worried that it means something that it’s taking a long time now (when, rationally, I know that it’s probably just because our timing is just not right with Alex being away every week at the academy). I stare at my BBT charts and get nervous about what signs they might be giving me and I think, “My waking temps seem much lower than a normal person’s… Could I have some sort of hormone deficiency?! Is that what caused the miscarriage?! Does it mean that it’ll happen again?!” I got so spun up over thoughts like that the other day that I called the doctor’s office that I want to switch to to make an appointment, and the first thing they had for the doctor that everyone raved about was in August. I took the appointment, and then called my current doctor’s office to see if I could get in there sooner and the first thing they had was July. I took that appointment too and then hung up the phone and cried.

I get so frustrated because everyone tells me not to worry. Just calm down and let nature take its course. Que sera, sera, right? Yeah, I wish I could be like that. I don’t know how to not be neurotic, though. I try and tell myself to not worry about it until after Alex graduates, to just stop taking my waking temps and put it all out of my head and not focus on it again until after June. I actually started off this month pretty good in that respect. I was still charting my temps because that’s just what I do – what I have been doing for almost two years now. But just when I thought I was out, I got pulled back in. I thought I saw a “sign” that made me think that we had a chance this month. I actually even had a positive looking test, which turned out to be a false positive. That pretty much sucked a lot. I can obsess enough on my own without “proof”.

So, I haven’t come to any conclusions writing this out. I haven’t solved any problems, but I do feel a little better for now. Guess I just needed a little whine.

Unfortunately, I’m just not a patient girl. So, the fact that my body has basically conspired against me to keep us from being able to really start to try again in earnest is torture. It doesn’t help that I literally know half a dozen pregnant girls right now – a constant reminder of what I had and what I want back. Fortunately, I’ve been able to avoid being bitter… I’m just impatient! I know that once next time comes around I’m going to immediately switch to being scared out of my mind that it will end in another miscarriage and vocally fatalistic about that potentiality while remaining secretly optimistic which will lead to being absolutely crushed if it does happen again… But for now I’ve decided to just focus on the getting to the next time around.

Which leads me to my whine. I feel like the whole process is on hold. According to my calculations (because, as I realized today, I track pretty much everything about myself – my thoughts here on my blog, my food intake, weight, and exercise activity on DailyBurn, and my waking temps on FertilityFriend), we really only have one more chance to try when Alex is home on the weekends from the Academy and then after that the timing is just wrong. So, basically, if it doesn’t happen for us this month, we’ll have to wait until after he graduates in June. So here’s my whine: I’m home and lonely and probably have nothing to look forward to in the near future. Boo! Life on hold sucks.

I’d been so excited for weeks for that appointment. All day today at work I was planning on how I was going to tell my boss and coming up with a maternity leave plan that I was super proud of. I had no expectation of anything but good news at this appointment, and so I was shocked. I couldn’t ask the doctor any questions and could only half listen as she explained that I would need to have surgery to remove the placenta and fetal remains. Apparently I’m looking at a good few weeks of unpleasantness, and then will need to wait for my body to get back to normal before we can even think about trying again. It’s so depressing.

I feel betrayed. I don’t know by what – my body I guess. I feel stupid for believing that everything would, of course, be alright. I feel sad for the loss of our hopes for the summer. I feel dread for the next few weeks of unpleasantness. I feel worried that it will take months and months before we can start trying again. I’m worried that once we are able to start trying again, it will take us months and months before we are successful again. And I dread that if/when we are successful again, that we’ll go through this pain another time.

I remember that as we told people, I kept thinking that we were going against advice to hold off until we were out of the first trimester, “just in case”. We were so happy and excited, though, that keeping it to ourselves wasn’t an option. We’re not private people, Alex and I. That’s just not the way we are. And now that the worst has happened, I don’t feel terrible about having to tell people about it. I’d rather people know why I’m sad or looking depressed. I’d rather people know that we’ve had a loss than unknowingly insensitively ask us, “when are you having kids?” I’m an over-sharer with most things in my life, so I just didn’t see why this should be any different. And frankly, talking about it helps. If I couldn’t talk about it, I’d internalize and get extremely depressed – that’s just my nature.

I took all of my pregnancy books and the few baby things we were given over Christmas upstairs to the nursery where I put it in the closet and closed the door. That was really hard, but I needed to make sure that I didn’t have a bunch of “emotional triggers” laying around the house. I’m trying to stay positive and distract myself as much as possible and focus on the fact that we were able to achieve one time (and really quickly) – so we should be able to do it again. I can try and lose some weight in the meantime and the longer we wait the more we’ll have in savings (theoretically). I know, rationally, that there are a lot of positives that I can focus on, but it’s hard. Hard to see past the immense disappointment, sadness, and shock. Hard to not think of the next four or five months as time wasted – a terrible purgatory of waiting when it was supposed to be an exciting and happy time.

Just a little bored at work.

Ok, and a little obsessed.

Definitely creepy that the eyes move and the bottom lip is a little weird, but actually kind of cute…
Somehow less creepy than the kids that MakeMeBabies.com made for us:

Creepy, serious children.

Yeah….. back to work.

So anyway when my doctor was done annoying me this morning she asked, “do you want a flu shot?” and I was like, “oh totally because at least I’ll get something useful out of today’s visit” (well, I didn’t SAY that – what I said was “sure” – but I definitely thought that…) and then the nurse came in and stuck me and now my arm is all hurty and I feel vaguely crappy.

This is me whining again.  I’m such a whiner lately.  Just ask Beck and Dodi.

It’s because I’m obsessing again.  Oh, you know about what.  Take a look at that post two down.  Babies.  Well, a baby.  Having one.  I’d told Alex back in June that I’d give him a six month break and that I wouldn’t bring it up again until December 12th but I couldn’t make it that long.  He had me babysit a 10 week old a few weeks ago, can you blame me for getting the crazies again?!  No.  You can’t.  I’m completely rational.  (Not at all.)

I’m old.  I’m like, 29.  That’s ancient.  But beyond that, I just can’t stop thinking of babies.  Babies, babies, babies.  It’s retarded.  Like today, I was at work trying to write up a review of one of my employees but I kept just staring off into space.  And then all of a sudden I was on amazon.com cruising baby paraphenalia.  Argh!  This happens, like, daily.

Anyway, I couldn’t take it anymore so I brought it up with Alex yesterday and he shit on my dreams.  He told me that his feelings towards children have changed (meaning, he’s ok with having them sometime in the near future) but that he’s worried about my back.  ARGH.  So I went to the doctor today and asked her about having a baby with back problems like mine.  She didn’t seem to think it was such a big deal.  She told me that I probably would experience some increased back pain with more weight, but that I could always try and lose some weight first and that it shouldn’t prevent us from trying for kids.  See?  I knew it.

So I decided to talk to Alex again tonight.  I told him that he didn’t have my back as an excuse so if there was anything else that was bothering him he better tell me now.  He admitted that while he’s not freaked out anymore about having kids, he is freaked out about the next year for him.  He’s in school to get his Paramedic and he’s required to do a bunch of ride time (which caused him to get a per diem job with the Clifton Park ambulance) and hospital time.  He’s nervous because on top of all that, he’s required by his job to take on call time as well.  And, next semester he goes up to 4 days a week for school from three.  He’s just not sure how it will all work out.  I told him that he needs to talk to his boss – there’s no sense in just worrying over it without attempting to make some sense of it.  I asked him if he really was sure about being a firefighter, because he’d said something last weekend that made me think that he wasn’t sure.  He confirmed that he’s positive about it – and that his comment last weekend was more to do with convincing himself that if it doesn’t happen, he’d still be OK.  Then I told him that he just needs to focus on that.  He’s doing things to make that happen and if he’s insanely busy for a year, then that’s what it’s going to take.  I won’t whine to him about his not being around.  I’m a big girl and can take care of myself.

So I guess I understand why he’s not completely on board with starting to try to have a baby.  He’s worried about this year and stressed out and I get it.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t make me want it any less, but I get it.  Sigh.  So now I guess I have to wait till the Spring.  At that point, he’ll be well into the next semester and the light at the end of the tunnel will be a little closer for him.  And if we actually started trying and succeeded right away in like April or May we’d have a baby by early 2010.

Soooo far off!

While we were at the mall, I picked up a birthday gift for Amy & Foster’s baby, Morgan, at Baby Gap. Her first birthday part is next weekend so I’m actually way ahead of my usual schedule of picking up gifts the night before or on the way to a party. Baby clothes are too cute for words. We got her a little pink sun dress with a coordinating handkerchief headband. I can just see Amy with Morgan this summer at the Cape – Morgan running around barefoot on the beach with this little dress on. I can’t believe it’s been a year since she was born already. Nora will be turning one pretty soon too and even Avery is already seven months old! It’s amazing how quickly time seems to go by now! I remember when I was little and in school – time seemed to drag on so that summer vacation always seemed to be soooooooo far away. Now a whole year has come and gone and I feel like my head’s spinning!

Maybe it’s all the babies we know or maybe it’s because I’m feeling old and time seems to be slipping by so fast or maybe it’s just Mother Nature kicking in but over the past few weeks I’ve come to the realization that I’m no longer freaked out by the thought of having a baby. I’m a little freaked out by how suddenly my feelings have changed, because if you’d asked me about a month ago when we were having kids I’d have said, “oh, not for a couple of years.” I didn’t want to plan on having kids before we were a bit further out of debt and we’ve been enjoying our “freedom” so much. I mean, when we went to Boston on our Spur-of-the-Moment trip near the end of March we secretly called it our “because we have no kids and we can” trip. So Alex was understandably taken off guard when I blurted out in the car after having cuddled Avery at Uno’s last week, “I want one.”

Unfortunately, he’s not in line with my way of thinking yet, which I completely understand because up until a few weeks ago I totally felt the same way as him. I hadn’t let him in on my change of heart before that because I was a little unsure of the reality of my feelings considering my sudden thought reversal. I decided to put it out there because keeping it from him felt like lying and I figured that he’d never start actually thinking about it unless he knew that I was ready for it. Besides, I actually don’t want to have a baby before next Summer (09) because I can’t imagine my Wham not being here for when the time comes (and frankly for before that when I’m sure I’ll freak out over every feeling/change/experience and will need easy access to Wham advice). But, since they take so long to bake, that means that we could start trying late this Fall to time it right… So I guess we’ll see if he’s ready by then.

In the meantime, I can focus on getting healthy physically and financially first. Just because there is no “official” planning yet doesn’t mean that I can’t “unofficially pre-plan”.

I woke up today again at 6am. Annoying. I think it’s nerves. I’m not sure why I’m feeling like that – I’ve got pretty much everything done. Amy and Wham helped me tons with some of the DIY stuff so that was all done pretty much by Sunday night. All of the “wedding crap” (accessories, props, etc) is out of the apartment and either already down at Franklin Plaza or is at the Folk’s house waiting to be taken over this AM. I feel like I’ve got everything pretty much under control!

I guess the nerves come in because while I’ve consulted my many, many checklists, I’m nervous that I’m forgetting something. I know what I need to do to get finished up in the next two days: pack for my nights at the hotel, confirm the hotel for the honeymoon, start packing for the honeymoon, make sure that I have the marriage certificate in with my “wedding day stuff”, make sure the boy puts someone in charge of my ring, get a pedicure and eyebrow wax, have my spa day tomorrow, pick up my gown, and check into the Franklin Suites. Once that’s all done, it’s really wedding time! I just hope that I’m not forgetting anything important.

We found out on Monday night that Beck is not going to be able to be at the wedding. It’s sad, of course, that she can’t be there but Mother Nature will do what she has to do so there’s no use getting too upset about it. She also found out that she’ll be getting induced on Sunday so that means that probably by Sunday night she’s going to have her baby!!! We’ll have a ton of photos and our DVD – which our videographer ships to us within a week after the wedding! – to share with her afterwards and I’ll make sure to set aside one each of the DIY projects that I did so that she can have some little pieces of the day. Her mom told us Monday that Beck was really upset about it, but I hope that she’s doing better now – I hope that she’s focusing on the little peanut that’s on his or her way! That’s the most exciting thing ever!!! I hope that she has the baby early in the day on Sunday – maybe Alex and I can stop by the hospital on our way down to JFK. I don’t want to go to London without knowing that everything went OK!

I’m going into work today because I am a crazy person, which means that I need to start getting ready. I really, really, really would rather not go into work because I’m starting to feel insane and work stresses me out and I really don’t need that on top of everything else. I’ve decided that I’ll only go in a half day, though. There are some things for a couple of my clients that I really want to get done so that no one else has to get saddled with it while I’m gone and once I get that stuff done I’m out of there today! Then, it’s off for a pedicure and eyebrow wax and then back here to start packing.

40 hours, 45 minutes remaining!!!!!