Originally written on 2/23/2016....while my ex was having an affair that I knew nothing about and defended him daily on why he should treat me so awful.
I have healed so much since this past reality - wow..I am one strong bitch! <3
-----written by me as a draft on 2/23/2016... about 3 years ago to the day... -----------------------
It seems cliché to me to admit the different lifestyle that exists when a child is your responsibility. I have fought so hard for my daughter and love her in ways I didn't know I was capable of. Yes, another cliche. But what I was told and am now experiencing is that choosing not to work and become this new version of me is incredibly difficult. I have lost touch with all of my work friends. In part because some were just not into kids, already had kids, and mostly they don't know of my journey to grow as a mother. I have lost my friends with no kids. No more invites to the mountains, bars, movies. My long time mom friends seem to want to nod from afar and giggle at my discussions of sleeping less, and feeling isolated. Not always empathetic to what I am going through. And my husband is still richly connected to his work world, while adjusting to his role as dad in this house.
In all of this, I feel pretty alone. I have a wonderful friend, who by text and phone, has helped me a lot. However we live across the country from each other.
I guess what I am blogging about today, is the reality of postpartum sadness. Perhaps I need to visit my doctor, but these feelings of loneliness as though I am not important in the larger world are getting to me. I feel overwhelmed to simply hire a sitter during a weekday to take a nap, or finish a load of chores. It's like I feel that the money I would spend to do that is selfish, that I should be doing all of the chores alone, since I don't have a job! The funny thing is I am doing basically all the same chores I was usually on top of as a working women. I always did all the laundry, dishes, bathroom cleaning, vacuuming etc, and I was home 1/4 less than I am these days. Watching or bringing up my baby is a lot of work, the night nursing is a beautiful part of this journey. I even wear her in a wrap most days as I clean dishes, vacuum, do laundry and clean. But it still feels I don't get what I intend to Done.
I feel like my body is turning off. Emotions. Sleep. Desire. Hunger. I am doing the chores in routine now. Even though I don't think I do them well like I used to. I feel my quality in life has been downgraded. None of this is blaming baby, I love every second with her and watching, teaching, nursing and learning from her.
But she can't have a full grown up conversation with me about today's politics, or healthy living or just offer feedback on whether I am doing well by her.
I realize this post is silly. I don't have many readers. But sometimes I get relief by just posting.
I haven't slept more than an hour or so in days. I am tired, but too wrung up to sleep. I miss having closeness with other adults.
Damn, now I'm being a whiner. Ugh. I better sign off and decide when I will delete this post.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Wow... If I knew then....
Well, all I can say is wow.
It's been a few years since my last post. Here I sit all these years wiser and will a beautiful little girl beside me.
She really is everything I ever dreamed about. And more.
My love for my little crazy monkey is boundless. She is the bees knees.
While I am so grateful for this addition to my family - I am also grateful for the ending of a major relationship. That one I posted about so often in the past. The one who turned one of my first posts about bawling and asking for understanding and forgiveness. The one who actually had me trained to apologize to him because I was feeling blue. Yeah, that one. He left the relationship while we were finally in a healthy pregnancy. Left the marriage nearly 13 months to the date of the most hero-ing nights of my life.
But I digress to speak of this person in any way other than with gratitude.
Gratitude? you may ask... yes, I am grateful for the selfishness and horrific behavior this guy shared with me for 20+ years. And in these post divorce years, the behavior continues. The jabs and attempts to get me apologizing for being alive and interrupting his happiness are on-going. You'd think his marriage to his affair less than a year after divorce was oddly timed... he didn't even include any of her children or his to the event. I'm grateful he continues to make decisions that remind me how healthy, strong and stable I AM as a person. It reminds me how much my relationship with our daughter is so unique. There is no substitution for me as her mom and no reason for me to ever be concerned that she and I are not two parts of the richest bond known to humankind.
So today, I blog about being grateful for a person in my past who had tried, so desperately, to tear me down, to make me feel shame at being my authentic self. Someone who belittled me in front of others. Someone who didn't know his asshole from his mouth. I am grateful that I am moved on. I am grateful I still harbor some hate and ill feelings, but also, have hopes that he somehow finds a way to be less self centered, narcissistic, hurtful and oblivious to the mess he creates each day. I will never care to be 'friends' with this person ever again, as some behavior will kill you if you keep it part of a friendship.
But I can be grateful for all I have gained becoming free of the ego monster.
I travel alone - and LOVE IT!! I still need to set my international trip asap. I am thinking S. America or S Africa - more on that later
I own my home 100% alone. I decorate as I wish, I clean as I wish, I grow a beautiful garden, raise an amazing dog, talk to my giant koi. My house is mine, and I invite whomever I wish to visit and enjoy a meal, a drink, a show.
I fix things. All things. I was always the home-fixer, even with that old relationship. Now, I have 100% pride in myself for learning how to build a dog crate, build a life-size kids outdoor playhouse, prune my trees each year, fix the washer/dryer, fix my car, shovel my snow, caulk my bathtubs. Mow my lawn, wash my windows. Buy my books, rent my movies. It's all up to me to build my home in my village. And I Love IT.
I am proud of who I am. I wept, I laughed, I stopped eating, I started eating again, I stopped working out, I started again. I couldn't be home alone, now, I value the time I get to be just me... or just me and my beautiful 4 legged friend.
I guess what I mean to say is... Thank you, Ex. For passing on being in my life. Thank you, I love having my life back.
I will no longer cater to the ego of another. I am worthy of much more than that. I deserve genuine love, genuine conversation, genuine truth, love and compassion.
I find these things in my friends (old and new), in my lovers, in my workmates. And what's great - is I now know how to return these things in kind.
That brings me to what I wish for you... I wish for you to be kind and generous. To be grateful and loving of the world around you. To have empathy and common sense as you navigate your future.
I only wish this for you - because actually loving others is the greatest freedom in this world. And I wish for you to someday experience life like mine. I am loved, admired, befriended, given such wonderful opportunities, simply because of the way I live my life.
So farewell, jackass. I will move on in my next post, sharing more things that fill me with gratitude!
It's been a few years since my last post. Here I sit all these years wiser and will a beautiful little girl beside me.
She really is everything I ever dreamed about. And more.
My love for my little crazy monkey is boundless. She is the bees knees.
While I am so grateful for this addition to my family - I am also grateful for the ending of a major relationship. That one I posted about so often in the past. The one who turned one of my first posts about bawling and asking for understanding and forgiveness. The one who actually had me trained to apologize to him because I was feeling blue. Yeah, that one. He left the relationship while we were finally in a healthy pregnancy. Left the marriage nearly 13 months to the date of the most hero-ing nights of my life.
But I digress to speak of this person in any way other than with gratitude.
Gratitude? you may ask... yes, I am grateful for the selfishness and horrific behavior this guy shared with me for 20+ years. And in these post divorce years, the behavior continues. The jabs and attempts to get me apologizing for being alive and interrupting his happiness are on-going. You'd think his marriage to his affair less than a year after divorce was oddly timed... he didn't even include any of her children or his to the event. I'm grateful he continues to make decisions that remind me how healthy, strong and stable I AM as a person. It reminds me how much my relationship with our daughter is so unique. There is no substitution for me as her mom and no reason for me to ever be concerned that she and I are not two parts of the richest bond known to humankind.
So today, I blog about being grateful for a person in my past who had tried, so desperately, to tear me down, to make me feel shame at being my authentic self. Someone who belittled me in front of others. Someone who didn't know his asshole from his mouth. I am grateful that I am moved on. I am grateful I still harbor some hate and ill feelings, but also, have hopes that he somehow finds a way to be less self centered, narcissistic, hurtful and oblivious to the mess he creates each day. I will never care to be 'friends' with this person ever again, as some behavior will kill you if you keep it part of a friendship.
But I can be grateful for all I have gained becoming free of the ego monster.
I travel alone - and LOVE IT!! I still need to set my international trip asap. I am thinking S. America or S Africa - more on that later
I own my home 100% alone. I decorate as I wish, I clean as I wish, I grow a beautiful garden, raise an amazing dog, talk to my giant koi. My house is mine, and I invite whomever I wish to visit and enjoy a meal, a drink, a show.
I fix things. All things. I was always the home-fixer, even with that old relationship. Now, I have 100% pride in myself for learning how to build a dog crate, build a life-size kids outdoor playhouse, prune my trees each year, fix the washer/dryer, fix my car, shovel my snow, caulk my bathtubs. Mow my lawn, wash my windows. Buy my books, rent my movies. It's all up to me to build my home in my village. And I Love IT.
I am proud of who I am. I wept, I laughed, I stopped eating, I started eating again, I stopped working out, I started again. I couldn't be home alone, now, I value the time I get to be just me... or just me and my beautiful 4 legged friend.
I guess what I mean to say is... Thank you, Ex. For passing on being in my life. Thank you, I love having my life back.
I will no longer cater to the ego of another. I am worthy of much more than that. I deserve genuine love, genuine conversation, genuine truth, love and compassion.
I find these things in my friends (old and new), in my lovers, in my workmates. And what's great - is I now know how to return these things in kind.
That brings me to what I wish for you... I wish for you to be kind and generous. To be grateful and loving of the world around you. To have empathy and common sense as you navigate your future.
I only wish this for you - because actually loving others is the greatest freedom in this world. And I wish for you to someday experience life like mine. I am loved, admired, befriended, given such wonderful opportunities, simply because of the way I live my life.
So farewell, jackass. I will move on in my next post, sharing more things that fill me with gratitude!
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Catching up
Wow, so I just published a post that I started more than a year ago.
It has been difficult. At that point I was so excited, we had transferred again and had the start of a little one grow inside. When I wrote, I didn't know that the twins would be less difficult to experience as that most recent pregnancy. We had our little girl through to the second trimester. I thought babies were supposed to be in the clear when you made it past 14 weeks. But our little one didn't make it. That was a fourth loss in too close a time.
With time we readied ourselves to try again, only this time we had very glum expectations. But thankfully we were surprised. The weeks kept passing and our baby kept fighting to grow and be with us. We still had some complications that took my full attention and I resigned from a great job to focus on the pregnancy and being healthy and reduced in stress. Last Spring our fantastic rainbow girl was born!
She is everything in our world. Beautiful. Hilarious. Inspiring. Fun. Smart. Athletic. And she's only a few months old!! The life with IF hasn't changed. I still hate LUVs commercials. Fertile soil still piss me off. I still wish and wonder if we will be able to have a second. We both nearly didn't make it through the birth, but in the end, we did. We made it. We are a family. In a way all we have gone through is over. I have her in my arms, on my breast, sleeping beside me. But the part of me that has struggled for all these years and lived so long wondering....what if? Is still working on accepting this new lifestyle. We are moving to a new home soon. In a neighborhood with children. We kept ourselves from this kind of interaction for years because the idea of being surrounded by fertiles scared me so much. Now here we are, seemingly one of them. We know the length it has taken to get here...and I sometimes feel like a fraud, like I should be carrying a load of struggle on my shoulders still. But I know I also deserve to enjoy the moment without that backpack of fear, sadness and depression. We have made it through a terrible time of fear, and our little baby is the lightness in a world that has been so heavy for so long.
I love her with every part of my being, and I am so grateful.
I may start changing this blog if I continue to write. I want to focus on how I can help myself and others and enjoy the love and life with my daughter. Wow, my daughter. Some day I'd like to share this with her and let her peek into how much her parents fought to become the family we are today. I hope she will teach us to start anew and let trauma pass and allow happiness to fill in those dark spaces.
Until next post....xoxox
It has been difficult. At that point I was so excited, we had transferred again and had the start of a little one grow inside. When I wrote, I didn't know that the twins would be less difficult to experience as that most recent pregnancy. We had our little girl through to the second trimester. I thought babies were supposed to be in the clear when you made it past 14 weeks. But our little one didn't make it. That was a fourth loss in too close a time.
With time we readied ourselves to try again, only this time we had very glum expectations. But thankfully we were surprised. The weeks kept passing and our baby kept fighting to grow and be with us. We still had some complications that took my full attention and I resigned from a great job to focus on the pregnancy and being healthy and reduced in stress. Last Spring our fantastic rainbow girl was born!
She is everything in our world. Beautiful. Hilarious. Inspiring. Fun. Smart. Athletic. And she's only a few months old!! The life with IF hasn't changed. I still hate LUVs commercials. Fertile soil still piss me off. I still wish and wonder if we will be able to have a second. We both nearly didn't make it through the birth, but in the end, we did. We made it. We are a family. In a way all we have gone through is over. I have her in my arms, on my breast, sleeping beside me. But the part of me that has struggled for all these years and lived so long wondering....what if? Is still working on accepting this new lifestyle. We are moving to a new home soon. In a neighborhood with children. We kept ourselves from this kind of interaction for years because the idea of being surrounded by fertiles scared me so much. Now here we are, seemingly one of them. We know the length it has taken to get here...and I sometimes feel like a fraud, like I should be carrying a load of struggle on my shoulders still. But I know I also deserve to enjoy the moment without that backpack of fear, sadness and depression. We have made it through a terrible time of fear, and our little baby is the lightness in a world that has been so heavy for so long.
I love her with every part of my being, and I am so grateful.
I may start changing this blog if I continue to write. I want to focus on how I can help myself and others and enjoy the love and life with my daughter. Wow, my daughter. Some day I'd like to share this with her and let her peek into how much her parents fought to become the family we are today. I hope she will teach us to start anew and let trauma pass and allow happiness to fill in those dark spaces.
Until next post....xoxox
Sharing with strangers to survive.
Grieving again.
We made it all the way to 14 weeks before our little girl had to let go.
This year has been filled with exciting moments.
We found out our first FET was successful. First beta was nearly 400!
Then, our 2nd US was considered 'normal' but we left with a recommendation to have another in 3 weeks.
We made it all the way to 14 weeks before our little girl had to let go.
This year has been filled with exciting moments.
We found out our first FET was successful. First beta was nearly 400!
- We were excited - is this really happening?
- I remember crying as I asked the nurse if she really thought our pregnancy might stick? She said, yes
Then, our 2nd US was considered 'normal' but we left with a recommendation to have another in 3 weeks.
- I thought, yeah, they are releasing us to an OB/Midwife - this must mean we are on our way and not in danger of another loss.
- PTSD of recurring losses - prepped us...
Saturday, January 11, 2014
New Year, New Beginnings! New waiting cycles.
There are many difficult things to deal with when you have IF. One of the most frustrating, are the waiting games. When will my cycle start, will they find cysts? Will my E2 be at the right level? Will my lining measure up? Did an embryo implant? Is my beta doubling? And on, and on.
So right now, I am in a one week waiting cycle to find out if I am ready for the 5 day waiting cycle to have my FET, so I can begin a two week wait to see if our little embryo has implanted. Then begins a cycle of 3 day waiting periods where I will have my beta checked again and again with the hopes the HcG numbers continue to rise. If I pass all those waiting games, then it wait for 10 weeks to end and with it my PIO shots, then another two weeks before we will be able to share our news with the chosen few! After that, I hear some women actually go on to have about 28 more weeks of waiting until their baby is born!!! Am I getting ahead of myself, perhaps. But after all these years of waiting, this may be the closet shot I have to ever experiencing a healthy pregnancy, so I think I have earned the right to be ahead of myself a bit. :)
As you can see the waiting cycles are endless and will make the most zen Buddha anxious!
But here I am, we are, at the edge of our real life sci-fi adventure to create our beautiful family. I've got my fingers and toes crossed that we will make it happen this month. I do have some doubts, but for now, I am choosing to be optimistic and inspired by all we have done to get to this point, we have done the homework, the heavy lifting, paid the enormous fees, developed the emotional balance to come to terms with all that we have lost, and we see all that we may gain.
We enter these weeks with hope. Ready to accept whatever comes of all we have out on the line. We are as ready as we will ever be!
Embracing a New day and a New Year!!
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Wow! Where to begin...?
Huge next step just happened.
I've been licking my wounds from our losses. Then we lost or beloved fur-baby just after Thanksgiving. Hubs and I grieved, wailed for days. She was our everything for 10 whole years and she had a full 16 and a half years of a beautiful life.
This week - we began creating new life...
Yesterday:
22 eggs were retrieved
18 were mature
18 fertilized!!!
Today:
Now we wait as our 'Posse' (possibilities) chill out on their incubation-vacation. Sunday, the lab-gods will take a peek and if we are lucky we will have a good number of embies to freeze for our FET in January.
My nurse said we should expect to lose about half of these as they grow and double to 100 cell blasts. Please keep us in your thoughts and fingers crossed that we get a great crew as we head toward the next step in this crazy, out of this world, sci-fi process. :)
Tomorrow:
I get to share my woo-hoo again to make sure I am no longer hiding 'pregnancy matter' in there. I think I'm going to pass that test, but we'll see. Those two little twins really wanted to hang on. (and to be honest, I was totally rooting for them)
Huge next step just happened.
I've been licking my wounds from our losses. Then we lost or beloved fur-baby just after Thanksgiving. Hubs and I grieved, wailed for days. She was our everything for 10 whole years and she had a full 16 and a half years of a beautiful life.
This week - we began creating new life...
Yesterday:
22 eggs were retrieved
18 were mature
18 fertilized!!!
Today:
Now we wait as our 'Posse' (possibilities) chill out on their incubation-vacation. Sunday, the lab-gods will take a peek and if we are lucky we will have a good number of embies to freeze for our FET in January.
My nurse said we should expect to lose about half of these as they grow and double to 100 cell blasts. Please keep us in your thoughts and fingers crossed that we get a great crew as we head toward the next step in this crazy, out of this world, sci-fi process. :)
Tomorrow:
I get to share my woo-hoo again to make sure I am no longer hiding 'pregnancy matter' in there. I think I'm going to pass that test, but we'll see. Those two little twins really wanted to hang on. (and to be honest, I was totally rooting for them)
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Been a while...
Hi.
It's been a while since I've had the guts to blog.
Since last time, I lost our beautiful twins.
There isn't much more to say than that is the most horrific experience of all this IF.
There are no words of support for myself or my hubs.
We have been trying to put our pieces back together.
It's not easy.
We are going to go away for a spell.
To try and learn how to celebrate something again.
We are both, forever changed.
We are at the end of our rope.
We are trying our best to be the best for each other.
When we fail at this, our worlds come tumbling down, again.
It stinks.
We are looking for moments to laugh.
Moments to reflect that life has taken a break from shitting on us.
We are tired of being down.
We are tired of being.
Focusing on the moments - is that all there is?
Why don't we get to focus on the big picture, like so many others?
Why don't we get a break?
We have a 'plan'.
We hope it will work.
It's not ideal.
But it's what we have to work with.
Wishing all of you a love filled Thanksgiving.
Please be good to your selves.
It's been a while since I've had the guts to blog.
Since last time, I lost our beautiful twins.
There isn't much more to say than that is the most horrific experience of all this IF.
There are no words of support for myself or my hubs.
We have been trying to put our pieces back together.
It's not easy.
We are going to go away for a spell.
To try and learn how to celebrate something again.
We are both, forever changed.
We are at the end of our rope.
We are trying our best to be the best for each other.
When we fail at this, our worlds come tumbling down, again.
It stinks.
We are looking for moments to laugh.
Moments to reflect that life has taken a break from shitting on us.
We are tired of being down.
We are tired of being.
Focusing on the moments - is that all there is?
Why don't we get to focus on the big picture, like so many others?
Why don't we get a break?
We have a 'plan'.
We hope it will work.
It's not ideal.
But it's what we have to work with.
Wishing all of you a love filled Thanksgiving.
Please be good to your selves.
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