Waiting to begin again.

Today was a rough day. I knew that it was going to be a busy day at work, but work ended up being unexpectedly turbulent. Change is the only constant you can expect in life, right? Besides work, I got some news from my doctor’s office that was annoying/depressing. I’d been to the doctor a couple of weeks back to have blood work done to see if all of the pregnancy hormones were out of my system yet after the miscarriage and my levels came back unexpectedly high. I was kind of afraid of that happening because I really hoped we could start trying again right away and hormones hanging around mean that it’s taking longer than usual for my body to get back to normal. Alex will be leaving for the Academy after next week, which will mean that our opportunities for trying will be limited over the next few months. So, since my body is not cooperating and we can’t start trying (well, we won’t be successful) again for a while, it’s just depressing thinking of how long it will probably take before we’re successful again. I really hoped that I’d be pregnant again by July so that I didn’t have to go through my 31st birthday and past our previous expected due date without at least something “concrete” to be looking forward to (and not just a hope). Well, anyway… here’s hoping that I’ve got more than just hope by then. My emotions are ready – come on, body, catch up!

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Sick of feeling sick

Seriously, I’m pretty much done with this. As I type, I’m sitting here feeling dizzy and nauseous and a little bit in pain even though I’ve taken some pretty serious painkillers. I’ve been on antibiotics for a week now and I’m really ready to be done with feeling sick. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. First there was the initial shock of finding out that I’d miscarried, and the emotional pain that went along with it. Then there was the surgery the following Monday, followed by a few days of working from my couch while I tried to shake off the after effects of anesthesia and physically recovered. I went back to work last Thursday, but by late Friday afternoon I wasn’t feeling right.

Saturday started off crappy – I felt tired and was starting to feel what I thought were normal side effects from the surgery. I took some Advil and started to get ready for Carrie and John’s son’s baptism party. I was feeling really out of it, though, and didn’t remember that our super huge mirror that usually hung on the wall above my dresser was off the wall and propped up behind the dresser while we painted the bedroom. I moved the dresser to get out a pair of jeans and ended up smashing the huge mirror into a thousand pieces. I called Alex crying – it just seemed like a huge deal to me at the time and all I could think (besides how much cleaning up all of those tiny shards was going to suck) was that we really, really, really didn’t need 7 years of bad luck. Alex told me that I was being rediculous – all a broken mirror meant was you couldn’t use it anymore. I pulled myself together and finished getting ready and headed up to Clifton Park, pausing to layer on some extra strength Tylenol with my Advil.

As the day progressed, the pain I was feeling intensified. I ended up leaving the party early and went to my parents’ house. I spent most of the day on the couch or pacing when my pain got too much to bear laying still. I was getting frustrated that even though I was being diligent about taking my pain meds every four hours, I wasn’t feeling any better. I was feeling progressively worse.

By the time guests started arriving for my dad’s going away party, I was feeling really bad. I tried to not look as miserable ad I felt, but I don’t think I was terribly successful in that endeavor. A couple of hours later, I had to bail out early and Alex and I headed home.

When we got home, I popped a couple of Tylenol with codiene and layed on the sofa with Alex while we watched Netflix movies. I still wasn’t feeling any better. I whined and moaned as we layed there and Alex told me he wa calling my dr in the morning. Finally we decided to just go to bed. Alex gave me an Ambien in the hopes that I’d pass out and not feel any pain.

Unfortunately, that plan didn’t work out too well. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning in pain. I got up to go to the bathroom and ended up in so much pain that I actually screamed. Alex came rushing out to me and I started to pass out. I kept moaning, “we gotta go… we gotta go to the ER…”. Alex got me in the car and took me to Ellis.

The ER was not busy when we got to Ellis and I made it through triage and into a private room very quickly – which meant that I got morphine fairly quickly. I was incredibly thankful for that. I was comfortable there in my hospital gown on my bed, hooked up to an IV and getting good pain meds. I was sent for a CT scan which showed that I fortunately had no injury from my surgery, but that I was inflamed, which was evidence of an infection. They gave me antibiotics by IV and then sent me home with prescriptions for 2 different antibiotics and for Percocet for my pain.

I was so out of it from the infection and Percocet that I don’t remember much of Sunday or Monday. I followed up with my dr on Monday, who seemed pissy at the ER for some reason. I was still in a lot of pain then, but she wouldn’t give me anything else for pain because I was taking a lot already (2 Percocet every 4 hrs) and she felt that after the antibiotics started to kick in that I’d be in less pain. She was right. By Tuesday I was feeling better, but still pretty sick. I went back to work Wednesday, which was really too soon. At my follow up appointment with my doctor on Thursday afternoon, I was chastised for returning to work so soon and “ordered” to take the next day off of work and rest.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the couch the last couple of days, but I think I have this irrational expectation that I should instantly feel better after this investment of couch time. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. At this point, I really am (really!) “over” the whole miscarriage part of it. Because I’ve been so open with everyone about what’s been going on, I’ve been able to hear about other people’s experiences and been able to see how common it is, even among my friends, to go through this. What’s been really great to hear is how many of them have gone on very quickly to have successful pregnancies. So yeah, I’m over that part. What I’m really having a problem with now, is that I’m still feeling so incredibly crappy. I’m just done with this. I want to feel better and just move on at this point.

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Feeling Empty

I haven’t posted publicly about it, but I found out I was pregnant in November. I was beyond thrilled and Alex and I were really excited for July, when our baby was expected to arrive. We slowly told family and friends as I neared the end of my first trimester and everything seemed fine. Well, today we received terrible, terrible news. Our baby had miscarried. It came as a complete shock as I’d never had a lot of pregnancy symptoms when the pregnancy was confirmed, and so there was no noticeable difference in how I’d been feeling. We found out when we went in for our twelve week ultrasound. I could tell right away that something was wrong. The tech couldn’t find anything and instantly looked worried. The images that I could see didn’t look right – what I recognized as the uterus didn’t look big enough, compared to the pictures that I’d been staring at online for weeks. Alex was oblivious to the fact that something was going wrong. He asked the tech what we were looking at and if it was too early to be able to make things out and her answers back to him confirmed my fears – she was red cheeked as she stammered something about the doctor needing to look at the images. We waited to see my doctor upstairs and when the nurse brought me directly to her office instead of the scale I really knew. The doctor came in and told us what I expected to hear by that point, that the ultrasound showed no heartbeat and that it didn’t measure up to the 12 week mark. She left us for a few minutes and I fell apart.

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.

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Check out how pissed this kid looks to be wearing this hat…

clipped from thepatacakebaby.com Mini Monkey Flap Hat in Oatmeal and Sky

Alex says that kid’s saying, “Fuck you, fuck this, I’m outta here.”

Freaking adorable hat, though.

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“A goal is not a plan and a goal without a plan is called a wish.”

I received an email from a coworker today with the quote, “A goal is not a plan and a goal without a plan is called a wish” in his signature. He had it on his email because he’s dissatisfied with the lack of a plan for the direction of our company and he’s trying to make a point with every email he sends. I feel like I should adopt that quote as my own personal motto because it might help people to understand why I obsess over things. That quote perfectly sums up my outlook on life. I get so frustrated just “talking” about things – I always want a plan of action for getting things done!

I’m not sure that Alex completely understands that about me yet. He gets frustrated that I “obsess” over things (ahem, baby) and I guess I’m not communicating to him what I need. I don’t NEED to get pregnant RIGHT NOW, but what I NEED is a PLAN to make sure that happens in a reasonable time frame. I unfortunately am not a person who can be content with a “someday” answer. “Someday” to me always sounds like a “No”. (It’s like that Jack Johnston song, Flake: “It seems to me that maybe, pretty much always means ‘no’.”) So when I get a “Someday” type answer, I tend to keep bringing the issue up until I’m content that we’ve established a plan to make the goal a reality.

I love to plan and to have something to look forward to (like, right now, it’s killing me to not have a countdown ticker to something on the side of my blog) and I tend to apply goals and plans to every aspect of my life. When I come into work, I always sit down first thing and figure out my goals and priorities for the day. Even on weekends, I sit down at my computer and figure out everything that I’d like to get done – all the chores and fun things – and create a to-do list for the weekend. I feel lost without a plan – chaotic.

Actually, I’m not sure that I even completely understood that about myself before I started writing this. I mean, I knew that I need a plan at work and when I sat down on weekends and wrote out a to-do list for myself I realized that it was not necessarily a normal action. But I didn’t ever apply that to why I obsess over bigger things, like our debt, getting a house, and having a baby. These are all things that we’ve had discussions over and that I’ve always found myself exclaiming at one point or another, “things don’t just happen, you have to make them happen!” So even though we’d have discussions about the big, important things and talk about what we wanted to do, I’d still leave the discussion feeling a bit dissatisfied. So that’s it. I guess I figured out what I need in life to be happy – a plan.

Oh goody. Now I get to go home and talk to Alex about all those lovely fun subjects again and harass a plan out of him. He probably deserves sainthood for putting up with me.

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I am not Obsessed

Or weird.  Or whatever.

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.

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Waaa. My Arm.

I went to my doctor today and I’m not sure if I totally think she just sucks or what.  Well, that’s not fair.  She’s my GP and doesn’t specialize in back stuff so I should probably give her a break.  But she was just like, “well, I guess you can go back to see Dr Gordan (the neurosurgeon) and then he’ll probably refer you to the Physical Medicine & Rehab doctor again.”  What a joy that will be.  Take time out of work to go to the neurosurgeon who isn’t going to do anything for me and who will be snotty and annoyed that I’m there because he’s a big fancy neurosurgeon and I don’t need surgery only to be referred again to a PM&R doctor who will refer me for more physical therapy.  I want off this crazy train.  I have the exercises from PT and I’m convinced that I’m not getting better because I haven’t really been making an effort towards really focusing on sitting correctly and doing my exercises so I’m just going to do what I can on my own.  That’s what I’ve decided, dammit.  Of course, Alex won’t be happy with that assessment.

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!

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Cutest thing ever.

clipped from www.etsy.com

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Protected: Drat

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Protected: Convinced Now.

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