The End of the World as We Know It

Last year on December 21 I had my first scheduled appointment with my OB. It was supposed to be a happy time, but instead I got to see my doctor's newest most wonderful ultrasound machine giving me a clear image of the bean floating to the bottom of my uterus, it's sack collapsing upon it like a deflated balloon, no heartbeat in sight. It wasn't like it was a surprise or anything. I had started bleeding on the 19th and they showed me the fact that it had no heartbeat then. But I had been hoping, not for a miracle, but that there would be nothing there, so I wouldn't have to schedule a D&C. No such luck.

December 19th started my week at the end of the World. I am no longer the same person. I no longer have the same life. The bean died and it took a part of me with it. All year I have been dreading this time, it's like a twisted alternate Universe Advent, with little chocolates of pain behind doors of razor wire and glass. On the 19th I just broke down and cried, right there at the kitchen table. I didn't even have the decency to go into the bathroom and hide my tears. I sat there and dared my daughter to come in and ask me why I was crying, but she didn't, and I got up and washed my face and carried on. I don't want to carry on. I want to curl up in bed and wake up on Christmas morning and wallow in my children's happiness and love. I don't want to be here for one minute of December 23rd. I don't want to remember, not for one moment, the hard looks on the nurses faces...as if I was having an abortion by choice two days before Christmas. I don't want to think about the elderly nurse asking me if I was still bleeding in her heavy accent, and her telling me that it meant that it was not too late for me to have more children if I was. I don't want to hear them telling me it was not too late to change my mind. Then the icing on the cake, the anesthesiologist asking me the date of my last period, and then inquiring if I could possibly be pregnant? Begging the question, does anyone in a hospital read a fucking chart anymore? Why didn't it say anywhere, this is a miscarriage, handle with care, be kind? Because I need some kindness, here, at the End of the World.

Tragedy

On the other side of the state, a gunman walked into an elementary school and murdered 20 children and 6 adults. It is a town much like our town, a school very much like my kids' school. All of my heart, the most important part of my life, goes to that school each day, and I trust that they will come home safe to me. Today, 20 sets of parents and 6 other families had their trust shattered and their hearts torn apart.

My husband and I had our first apartment in Danbury 15 years ago. We lived within minutes of that school. There is a very good chance that people that both my husband and I worked with went to Sandy Hook, and have kids that go there now.

How can this happen? It took over six years to bring our sons into being...the thought that they could be taken away from us in just a minute by a madman with a gun....there are no words. I don't think I could survive it.

All my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the children, teachers, and the brave principal at Sandy Hook. I hope that our Governor and State Board of Education do something, anything, to improve the safety of our schools.

Today

Today it has been a year since I found out I was pregnant with the bean. In another 4 weeks or so it will have been a year since I lost the bean. Happy times.

I'm no closer to trying again than I was 5 months ago. I feel like I was forced off of the IVF cycle train onto a platform in the middle of nowhere, and no train ever comes. I'm not sure what to do here. Should I jump off the platform and start walking? Wait for a train? Give up and decide that the platform is a great place to hang out indefinitely?

I'm so tired of being angry at my husband. I'm not all the time, but often enough, and rightfully so. He hasn't done anything about finding us a couples counselor or trying to bridge the gap between us. That's not to say that he hasn't been nice, or sweet, or that I haven't tried to do nice things for him and be sweet back. But sometimes I just get so angry. I am also tired of being sad. I don't want to be sad anymore...or hopeful...or to want another baby anymore. But I DO want, and I can't help it, and I can't make myself stop wishing or hoping that things will change.

I know how old my baby would have been. I feel its absence all the time. I missed the little costumed bundle on Halloween. I missed the baby in the backseat today when we visited the aquarium. I miss the crying in the night when I am lying in bed awake.

Kant says that the recipe for happiness is to have something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. Well...I love my children desperately, but I have nothing much to do except laundry and yard work until I get my job back in the Spring...and as for something to hope for, I don't have much.

Thank You to all of the kind people who have dropped by here during my self enforced exile. Reading about pregnancies and babies is still very painful, but I still read your posts. I'm trying to crawl my way back, and I wish you all the best. I'm going to try to comment more and post more, even though I don't have anything to say.

I wish I had something to say. I keep coming back to my blog as if I'm hoping that some happy entry will appear, just like when I'm reading other people's blogs. But alas, no happy blogger gnomes have written any posts about my life. Oh dang it.

I do have good news. I got a job. It is actually in my field, the pay is better than minimum wage, and the commute can't be beat..all I have to do is walk out my front door and cross the street. At any other time I would be floating on cloud nine. One of the reasons I was so excited to move here was because there was a museum across the street and I was hoping that I could get my career back on track. I am so sad that an opportunity that at any other time would seem heaven sent just tastes like ashes in my mouth. I am just so struck low. I am happy for no one, I envy everyone, I hope for nothing.

I spent a good two hours pouring through a box of papers looking for my birth certificate and social security card. What I found instead were baby shower cards, newborn photos of my twins, ultrasound pictures, mothers day cards, love notes from my husband, and so many cards and letters from him telling me "we will get through this, we will have children." I envy myself most of all. Why can't I remember all these happy moments better than I do? Why does it seem like it has all happened to someone else? I walk around during a normal day and a sudden jolt will hit me out of the blue. It feels like the sudden panic that you get when you are in a taxi and you realize that your purse with all of your money and your passport is still hanging over the back of the chair in the restaurant, or maybe the one when you get off the elevator in the parking garage and there is only a glass on the ground where your car is supposed to be. I keep hoping for the relief when I look down at my feet and see my purse has been there all along, or that I took the wrong elevator and my car is safe and sound across the lot. But the relief never comes. I feel so helpless to do anything to make that feeling go away. And my husband has been so incredibly....nice! I can't stand it. Why can't he at least be a jerk so I can hate his guts? He's a nice guy. He WANTS to be the nice guy. Except that nothing about what he did was nice. He stole my purse, he stole my car, he knocked me down. He dangled hope in front of me and then he snatched it away.

I was so lucky to be able to vacation on the most wonderful island you can imagine. All I have ever wanted since I left was to go back. I know that there are so many others who have never been there even once...but I was so close.

Mother's Day

I'm still here. Limping along.

Mother's day was about what I expected. I loved waking up to my kids piling on top of me with the cards they had made and purchased. Both of my boys had cute crafty things they had made at school, which are worth their weight in gold. I was always totally skeptical of my mother's teary-eyed joy when I would give her my handmade cards and gifts, but now I know she wasn't lying. They are truly priceless.

The rest of my weekend pretty much sucked off and on. Friday I found out that my daughter got into the pre school program. I thought I would be happy with the news, but it made me weepy on Friday and I have been fighting a downward funk ever since. I was supposed to be having a baby in July. AK going to school for almost 3 hours a day was going to be the time I could spend alone with the baby, as well as giving AK time to socialize and prepare for kindergarten. I keep thinking I should be happy, that I should be looking forward to a chunk of time without any children around, but I'm not. The silence of having the house all to myself is the last thing I want. It's not like there isn't a thousand things I could find to occupy my time for 2 hours and 45 minutes...it's just that I probably won't want to do a single one of them.

I truly don't know what to do or where to go from here. If I had transferred embryos and gotten a BFN, I would be where I am now, grieving and struggling. That's fine. Well, it's not FINE, but it is what it is. I was prepared for the giant tidal wave of loss-on-top of  loss-on top of this-is-the-very-end that I'm drowning in. But, now I have the never ending suck of not knowing how to deal with my husband. I just don't know what to do. I guess it's like how two people stumble around each other after one of them has had an affair, when neither one of them wants to give up on the marriage and leave. Except that is something my husband would understand, my reaction to this he thinks is "childish"...any day now I should just get over it and everything will get back to normal. What he doesn't realize is that right now he could toss a woman on the floor in front of me and go all '50 shades of grey' on her ass and I wouldn't even care. I'm that numb inside. If it wasn't for our kids I would probably have changed the locks weeks ago.

Frozen

Yesterday was both a non event and a total nightmare. My husband and the counselor talked like old buddies about his stress and going to a marriage counselor, all while my life was on fire. I felt like standing up and yelling "That's great, but can't you see I'm burning? How do I get to make it stop?!?"  I told her I would rather destroy the embryos than have them sitting there for the rest of my life. I just want it to be over. It will never be over. They won't let us destroy them, they won't let us transfer them. The counselor must have mentioned 5 times at least how we have three children and 15 years invested in this marriage. I know lady, and he has all of our children hostage. Thanks for reminding me that I have no choice but to hurt or be hurt.

I was blessed on the way up with the sensation of holding a young baby against my shoulder. I could feel the shape of the back of it's head cupped in my hand. I could the feel the weight against my shoulder and the porcelain smooth skin at the temple where I kissed it. I held that baby again when I got home, sitting on the swings in the rain, crying again. I took the baby off my shoulder and laid it on the ground and said goodbye. I can't stop the wishing or the longing, but the hope stops here.

Tomorrow is another day

Tomorrow hubby and I are going in for our counseling session at the fertility clinic. I am incredibly depressed and anxious about this visit. I also feel a little bit angry...ok, a LOT angry. I don't think that anyone should be able to weigh in on how many children my husband and I have except for my husband and me. Yes, my husband is all kinds of messed up and confused, and I don't want to have a child with someone that is feeling so ambivalent...but I don't think that it is their place to stand guard over our embryos. I also feel that part of their motivation for making us put the embryos on ice is a financial one. If they had gone through with the transfer it would be on our insurance, but since a thaw cycle will technically be a separate cycle, they can bill us all over again for something that would be have just been part of the fresh cycle...if they had allowed us to move forward. My husband turned around and said "Just go ahead and do it" 10 minutes after throwing his fit, but they wouldn't let us move forward. If he can have cold feet in the moment, why isn't he allowed to change his mind back just as fast? He will probably have a whole different list of feelings tomorrow, and another 6 months from now.

I am tired of feeling so utterly hopeless. Something that was so close...I was actually pregnant...is now slipping into impossibility. It was a goal, then a dream, and now it is just a fantasy. Some people fantasize about winning the lottery, becoming an American Idol contestant, or finding something incredibly rare and valuable in their attic...I fantasize about having more time. I have given up so much to be a parent, over a decade of my life, and I have put my career indefinitely on hold, and I am watching them grow up and leave bit by bit, day by day. Having another child would give me that time. What do I dream for now? If I won a million dollars tomorrow, I know what I would spend it on, my children...and the chance to have more time being a parent. Going through the 2ww is hard enough, but never being allowed to go through it and get to the other side is just torture. As far as dreams go, nothing compares to the chance to create a new person within your body or to raise a child, at least for me. A new car? who needs it. A stylish wardrobe? whatever. An exciting, profitable career? nice...but at the end of the day I would still give it all to go back in time one day to when my twins were babies. I'd give anything to have one more day helping my daughter learn how to walk. But I can't. One day soon my boys won't blow kisses at me from the school bus, or need me to sing them songs at night, or run to me to give them hugs. One day my daughter will be getting on the school bus and not looking back. I don't want to stop them from growing up, I just want more time. I know that another baby would mean just a few more years, but it is a few more years of everything. I have done everything within my power to make that dream come true, and now I am helpless to finish the deal.

I believe in love and disaster
Sometimes the two are just the same
I'm beginning to see, what is left of  me will have to be free to survive
And I'll be sleeping by myself tonight
     
              Eddie Vedder


I am still here. I'm still reeling from the shock of last week. My boys have been on vacation since last Friday so I've been acting my normal self on the outside during the day and crying and avoiding my husband at night. Yesterday I went to Mickey D's for dinner and ate in my car in the parking lot so I wouldn't have to sit with other people. I'm tired and sad, and tired of being sad. I'm sure my husband thinks that I will 'just get over it' and that if he keeps pretending it didn't happen then all the bad feelings will just gooooo awaaaaaaay. I'm sure that he thinks that the fact that I'm still here being the good mommy and the good wifey instead of stabbing him with a dull steak knife is proof positive that he's 'done the right thing'.

He must have called my desire to have another child and actually trying to make that dream come true CRAZY about 10 times or more between Friday and Monday. That's right, I'm crazy because I want something he doesn't want. The fact that he actually agreed to all three cycles, not just verbally but with his signature, and that he had his blood tested AND provided the clinic with a sperm sample, all while thinking I was crazy doesn't seem to phase him at all. I'm not the one whose thoughts and actions seem to be at odds with one another. Now because of his craziness our embryos are held hostage by the clinic. I'm sure they will stay there forever. The soonest appointment we can make, thanks to his crazy work schedule will be May 22, and nothing I can say will make any difference. I don't know why he couldn't just let nature be the bad guy. I was all prepared for this cycle to fail just fine all on it's own.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know what I'm NOT going to do. I'm never leaving my house or my kids without being forced, and I'm not giving my husband so much as the time of day until he makes this right.

Total effing disaster

Friday totally sucked. My husband decided to have a total freak out and change his mind before we were supposed to go in for the retrieval. We did end up going, but we were very late, and things did not go smoothly. The nurses found us a little office to sit and talk about what we wanted to do. We could either throw in the towel and do a cycle another time, or we could go through with the retrieval if my husband was willing, and put the embryos on ice for another time. They refused to do a transfer on Monday. After all the shit my husband put me through, he decided that he would go through with it. I'm not sure what the point was, since I'm sure those embryos will never see the light of day. We have used up our insurance, so we will have to pay for a thaw cycle out of pocket, and we have to go to the IVF counselor first...which I doubt I will get my husband to attend. And all I kept thinking was I'm supposed to be pregnant right now! What the hell would he do when the baby arrived in July? Disown it?

I would never have bought the medications if I didn't have his support. I wrote right here on this blog that I called him before I put in the order and confirmed that it was ok to move forward. Friday was not the time to back out. Now I can neither hope to become pregnant, or have the closure I so desperately wanted. Now I don't get to be finished...this cycle is indefinitely frozen at it's midpoint. I don't know if, or when, I'll know when to get rid of the crib upstairs. Now I am in limbo forever.

I had 16 eggs, 15 were mature, 8 fertilized. Not that it makes any difference.

Cycle day 9

It's go time! Trigger is tonight and retrieval is on Friday the 13th. I had lots of follicles that were over 17mm, I think around 15 total, with a an additional 9 or so measuring at 15. I have to stay up until 12:30 tonight to get the trigger shot, and then I have to get up at 6 tomorrow to drive into the city to have blood drawn. Monday is the transfer day, since they always transfer 3 day embryos at my clinic. The amount of embryos they will transfer depends strictly on quality. They have written down 2, 3, 4, or 5 embryos...assuming that we have embryos to transfer. I'm trying not to do any assuming. Past failure doesn't mean we won't have success. And of course...past success doesn't mean that this cycle won't crash and burn. I just keep saying to myself think positive think positive think positive.

I found myself looking at my giant chart and wondering what they will do with it. Will they burn it? Can I take it home? After Monday, will I ever be here again? And if I have embryos enough to freeze....what then? Will I have the strength to dispose of them and move on? Or will they continue to torture me? I must have stood in the waiting room at the lab staring at the chart on the wall that spells out all the odds for a good 5 minutes or more. 103 IVF cycles for women 41-42 last year. 29.9% walked away with a live baby, and of that percentage, 34.4% had multiples. I looked at the statistics and thought that somewhere in those numbers, between women who got pregnant and women who took home a baby, there was me...and by the looks of it a couple of other women like me...who got knocked up but didn't stay that way. Which number will I be this time? Nobody knows. You spin the wheel and you take your chances.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck by me. Good luck to all the women who are spinning the wheel with me. Good luck to us all.

Cycle day 7

It's cycle day 7, or at least that's what I was told. I've got follicles popping out all over. The intern giving me my scan today said that my ovaries were "over achievers". That's nice to know :) I have a conservative count of about 12-14 follicles measurable follicles, with several smaller ones in the running. My estrogen was high enough to dial down the Gonal a couple of notches. Next check is on Wednesday. I'm betting on a Friday or Saturday retrieval.

I have been plugging along. We've bought paint, curtains, and hold backs. We've all gotten sick, and gotten better again. We've dyed Easter eggs, started seeds indoors, and spent countless hours enjoying the flowers and the sunshine. I've also spent many hours researching about IEPs and disability law, while reading with NB from the school book I purchased from Amazon and trying to bring him up to speed. But most of my time is just spent waiting. I'm waiting for the school to set a date for NB's PPT. I'm waiting for the painting of the trim to be done and for wallpaper to arrive. I'm waiting for warmer spring weather. And most of all, I'm waiting for retrieval and transfer, the 2ww, and the results.

I wish I had a back up plan for the worst case scenario. It would be great to be able to plan a tropical vacation or something of that sort. A class on something fun and totally unnecessary would be cool...like basket weaving or print making. Maybe even a new pet is a possibility. Out of all the animals my husband and I have adopted over the years only one cat remains. It would be nice to have something small and fluffy to love, to help fill the hole in my heart. I'm so afraid of facing the earthquake and the tsunami with only my children to keep me anchored. I'm so afraid of drowning under a wave of grief and the drudgery of the every day grind. I want my children to be safe from the after shock, and for my husband to be there with a life boat.

Socks! And other small and monumental things

Lindsay at Tiny Bits of Hope has sent me the most delicious socks through the sock exchange. (thanks to Cristy at Searching for our silver lining!). They are warm and cozy, perfect for the chilly damp of a New England spring. And they have polka dots...which I love. I wore them today (as you can see) because I couldn't wait, but I will be wearing them this Saturday when I have my next ultrasound, guaranteed.

Now I have to get some socks for my sock buddy. I'm working on it, I promise.

Yesterday I FINALLY got in for my baseline ultrasound and bloodwork. Everything looked great, and I was all on track to start stims. Then I waltzed out the door without having my blood drawn. ARG! I can't believe I did that. So I had to go to the local lab bright and early today instead. Hopefully I will be able to start stims today. Geez Louise it's taking me forever to get started this cycle. Can you tell that subconsciously I'm dragging my feet? Because I think I am. Because if this cycle doesn't start...then it can't come to a painful end. I have become just a tad bit fatalistic about the whole thing. The way I see it, there are countless ways that this cycle can end badly, and only one way for it to end well.

When I started this last round of ttc, I was naively ignorant of the consequences. I wanted another baby, we had health insurance....I figured I was 'playing with house money'. This baby would be a total bonus, the icing on an already rich and wonderful cake. I thought I had nothing to lose. What did I know? I lost a piece of my heart. I was overjoyed to have three more chances for a baby, and if I hadn't gotten pregnant and miscarried, I would still be excited this last cycle. But the miscarriage sucked all the hope and all of the excitement of trying right out of me. I am still trying to put the pieces of my heart back in place, and not doing the greatest job of it, I have to say.

Good thing my heart doesn't talk to my uterus and ovaries, and that being sad, scared, and heartbroken hasn't kept me from getting pregnant in the past. There are icebergs in the water, but I'm still moving ahead.

Sick and tired

Yet another lovely Friday in the chickenpen. This week our house has been taken over by the plague. It started on Wednesday night with my husband feeling poorly. Then early Thursday morning it spread to me, and last night poor NB fell ill. He's been such a brave, little trooper. AK has been wearing pull ups all day, poor thing, although she seems to be her chipper self. Only DA appears to be unaffected so far (knock on wood).

I was supposed to go to the clinic on Thursday, but for obvious reasons, it wasn't happening. The nurse told me to keep taking the Lupron and to call today if I couldn't make it. Well, I feel worse today than yesterday. According to the nurse everything is fine and I can keep taking the Lupron until Monday. I hope I can make it. I just feel so tired. I can't help but wonder if this is a sign that I should just give up. My heart already feels heavy. To be honest, I just don't have any hope that this cycle will work. I just want to dig a hole and crawl inside. I feel so shaky on my feet already, and I just know that the next wind is going to knock me down. I guess that all I can do is to keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope I'm wrong.

Just another Friday

This week sucked. It still sucks. Tuesday morning I found a tick imbedded in my daughter's neck. My husband had to bring her to urgent care to have it removed. They told us to be on the lookout for symptoms of tick born illness, and today she is mildly feverish, weepy, and all together out of sorts.

Tuesday night I had my sleep study to look forward to. Because I went to the walk in clinic weeks ago for experiencing bouts of shortness of breath, and my dodo husband mentioned that I snored OCCASIONALLY, the doctor decided I had anxiety due to a sleep disorder. WTH? So I had to pack my bag and sleep in a strange place for a night. It shouldn't have been a big deal...but it was. First off, the only small overnight bag I have is the one I purchased as my hospital bag when I was pregnant with the twins. I have only used it for overnight trips since their birth twice, and one of those was another trip to the hospital to have my daughter. Packing the bag with my sleepwear, robe and slippers, my Kindle, and my toiletries slowly filled me with sadness. Walking into the building with my pillow under my arm was so strangely like going into the hospital the day my daughter was born it was like deja vu. All the straps and monitors were very similar to baby monitors and stuff, all I needed was an IV and blood pressure cuff to make the ensemble complete. It sank me into a funk the whole next day.

Yesterday at parent teacher conferences NB's teacher and special education coordinator informed my husband and myself that they would be holding NB back in first grade because he wasn't attending in class and was spending most of his day whining for the last two weeks. This is in spite of the fact that he is on or above grade level academically. I have a communication notebook that goes back and forth to school every day. Do you think they would have mentioned this trend? Or mention that they wanted to review the possibility of holding him back in there even once? No...of course not. So now my husband and I have to go all angry mama bear on their asses and try to figure out if it is what is really best for my son.

On top of this, my poor husband has an infected tooth, and I have a wicked, splitting, Lupron headache. At least I'm not thinking about how many weeks I would have been...much.

Yeah! Baby hats! *UPDATED*

Kristen at Buck up Buttercup has had her twins! I'm so happy and excited for her :)

I finished her baby hats, but I don't have her address yet. I took a couple of pictures, but my computer is being cranky and I'm having trouble uploading them.

So.....Whose next? I promise that this time I'll be a little more punctual. Baby hats are free to all followers. I make them in newborn size, but if you are in need of a larger size I can do that.

*UPDATE*

Hubby fixed the worm that attacked my computer, so now I have pictures! That is Baby Doll X modeling the hats. 

Drain on the main brain...a parent complains.

        * WARNING* If you can't handle hearing a parent complain, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU* (you totally rock if you hear Eddie Vedder in your head when you read THIS IS NOT FOR YOU!) I have about four or five different posts in the queue that I would like to write. But writing a thought provoking post requires actual THOUGHT...and I've got nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I've had lots of thoughts on various issues, I thought about responses to the questions I was tagged with, but they flew out of my head somewhere. I've had lots of thoughts on PAIL vrs the ALI community, and when I've had a minute to read other people's blogs and comment I've done so. I had a blog post for PAIL about breastfeeding just about written in my head, but I think I've missed the deadline now. I'm not sure...but my thoughts are gone anyway. 

The truth is that I have a small window in the evening when I normally write. It was from around 6 or so until 7:30 ish most weekdays.  My husband has been coming home from work, bathing the kids and making them dinner. I usually do homework with the boys and clean the bathtub before quietly retreating the relatively peaceful quiet of our bedroom. But for some unknown reason, this time has started to shrink and decay. Yesterday my DH didn't make it home from work until almost 7. When I finally got upstairs, my brain was too fried and I ended up knitting instead for about 15 minutes. Not only has the amount of time shrunk, but the quality of the time as well. More often than not, my husband has had at least one kid 'slip under the radar' and end up in our bed keeping me company.Don't get me wrong, more often than not it is a nice time to connect with the boys, but sometimes I just need my space. It happened tonight, but when NB started to pester me about what I was writing I kindly brought him downstairs and put on Thomas. I'm going to have to find some other time, or some other place, to blog if I'm ever going to write anything interesting again.

The truth is, I feel burnt out. The boredom of the daily routine is grinding me down. The weariness of being repeatedly sad is grinding me down. These past couple of weeks I have been having a hard time hearing my inner voice. This is the part about parenting that really sucks. Being a parent doesn't suck, and the kids never do. It's all the brain/time/soul sucking stuff around it that does. It is the same brain/time/soul sucking stuff that kills you when you're not a parent...but you can't put it off because it's not for you. When we didn't have kids, I didn't cook, because my husband likes to. I didn't have to step into a grocery store. If my husband didn't feel like shopping or cooking, we just went out to eat. I would eat peanut butter and sandwiches every day if there was nothing in the house. Now I'm always cooking and grocery shopping...and I can't put into words how much I hate it. But...the kids need to eat well. My boys also can't aim worth a damn. Seriously. I have to clean both toilets almost every single day. That's ok...I write a lot of blog posts in my head while cleaning toilets. It's just that by the time I get to sit down and actually write.? Well....you've all seen the result. To make a crappy post short, my brain needs a vacation. It isn't that I can't make the time, it's just that I don't have the mental space.

On the ttc front, for anyone that's still following along: I had to go back to the lab on Monday because I hadn't ovulated on Friday. I was told Monday afternoon that I had ovulated too recently to start the Lupron yet, but I have been scheduled to start it on Saturday. Just the first hiccup in this cycle, and probably not the last.

Quicky *updated*

AAArg I never have time to post anymore. Things have been up, and things have been down. Today has been pretty 'up'.

I drove in to the city today in a snowstorm to go to the clinic. I was actually 15 minutes early, for once, but that is only because I gave myself 2 hrs to get there. I had a sonohystogram, or saline ultrasound, to check my uterus. Everything looks great. It looks like I may have some small fibroids in my uterine wall, but nothing that would hurt an IVF cycle. My ovaries look good, and they can tell that my right one will be the one producing an egg this month. On March 9th I go in for a blood test to see if I've ovulated. If I have, I'll be starting the Lupron. The meds have already been ordered, and will be arriving on the 6th. It looks like we're a go!

My RE seems to thing that the reason the bean didn't make it was genetic. I totally agree, since all my hormone levels were very good, and that even early on the fetus seemed to have an odd shape to it. We talked for a long time about what my protocol would be (the same, since I got pregnant, and had a good amount of eggs that fertilized) and how many embryos we would transfer. On this point, I'm stuck. For women in my age range, the suggest transferring 5. (5?!) I told him that since my last cycle produced 3 good ones, and two that were put in culture but didn't make it to freeze, that maybe I should have transferred all 5? At the end of our talk we agreed to look at the quality. What optimism, heh? :)  *update* My doctor's opinion on this is that the best that could have happened is that I would have gotten pregnant with twins and one would have survived. Well YEAH. That would have been cool. Still being pregnant right now and not having to do this again, even if I still lost one, would be better than the alternative.

*updated*  I won't be looking at transferring 5 this upcoming cycle. My thought was that if the embryos don't look good enough to transfer, and aren't good enough to make it out of culture, I would rather transfer them and give them their best chance. So...it's more of a quality thing. All 3 of the embryos I transferred last time looked good enough, although not perfect 8 cell beauties. We don't have another cycle after this, and I don't want the dilemma I've had in the past with what to do with frozen embryos...so I will probably put back more than 3 if there is a straggler or two. BUT if there are more good ones than that to freeze, I will freeze them. I think it's crazy at my age to be thinking I could possibly have that many good embryos. HA.

I'm standing in the starting gate, and itching to run.

Wordless Wednesday

in mourning 

a scrap of mourning fabric that my great-great grandmother pressed between the pages of her Bible

purchased in 1880  upon the death of her daughter, Catherine Louisa, at the age of 4

For Mo

and everyone else I know who has lost a child, of any age

and for those who are still trying, and mourn every cycle

Do you believe?

• Fridays still suck. I would have been 18 weeks last Friday. I have now officially been not pregnant as long as I was pregnant. 
• No progress has been made on my dining room. We need to purchase wall paper and to see if the paint color I have chosen will actually work. The ceiling needs to be put in primer. Since my husband agreed to prime/paint the ceiling because my mother is very short, and I can't purchase wallpaper without an infusion of cash, it is completely out of my hands at the moment. This bums me out. I think I will pick up the roller extension and or brush and paint something tonight. I can't paint while the kids are home and awake, which is why my mother is doing the painting. 
• Pablo decided to clean the pool early this month. No doubt he is being spiteful because I kicked him out from October until January. He should probably be cleaning someone ELSE'S pool right now. Jerk. 
• I am knitting baby hats. I hope to have both of them done by the end of this week. If they don't suck and I take them apart, grumbling under my breath all the while, and have to start over. I blame Downton Abby. I usually knit during football, because I can follow a game with less than half my attention. DA is far too engrossing. I am not the best knitter in the world, so I have to give more attention to my knitting than really good knitters do. 
• There have been some BFNs out there that have really made me sad. Sad because I really want everyone's cycle to work...even though I know it's not statistically possible. And sad because it reminds me how low my chances really are of getting, and staying, pregnant are at my age. It drives me crazy that I'm upset about a cycle failing that hasn't even gotten the chance to get underway yet. I have always taken IF one step at a time so I'm not wallowing in it. I know it is because in my heart of hearts I feel like I should be pregnant right now and should never have to do this again. Instead of focusing on all the great BFPs and growing bellies out there, it's only the negatives I see. That's just not ME and it's never BEEN me. 
• I have been able to knit baby hats, (which involves measuring baby doll Xs head for accuracy and using a baby hat one of my boys was given in the hospital as a model) play dolls with my daughter, and even walk around Target all without feeling miserable and sorry for myself. There are still times where I'm still sad, but I haven't cried in at least a couple of weeks. That feels great! Like I'm getting over the worst of the 'grief flu'. 
• I got a wonderful fortune cookie when we got Chinese take out this weekend. "Do you believe? Endurance and persistence will be rewarded." :)

Valentine's shmalentines *updated*

I am busy busy busy. I've been tagged, but I haven't had time to sit down and write a response. It's Valentine's day today, but I haven't bought a so much as a card for my hubby, although I snuck cards into the boys' lunch boxes this morning. All weekend the kids were sick, and yesterday I was sick, so I spent all day in bed sleeping. I'm not joking, I didn't wake up until 12:30. I'm still not feeling 100%. I remembered that the boys had to have valentines for all the kids in their classes as of 2 pm yesterday, and since I haven't been farther than 15 feet or so from a bathroom in two days, I had to send my husband out on an emergency valentine run. I was up until 11:30 last night addressing them...with two mad dashes to the toilet.

My clinic called me sometime yesterday afternoon. I was in bed at the time, and my husband came in with the phone and tossed it at me while literally snarling that it was my doctor before storming out of the room. When I went to answer it the line was dead, so I got out of bed and went after him. Once again my husband was angry, even though he promised that it was ok to move forward and that he wasn't going to be a prick about it. Once again I'm left with not knowing if I'm supposed to move forward or if I'm just supposed to dangle in the breeze with my pants down. I am so fed up, I can't even tell you. And tomorrow is cycle day 21 for me, so it is possible that the clinic was calling me to tell me to get blood drawn tomorrow so I can start Lupron, which would mean scrabbling to buy it today so it can be shipped. Of course I called them back yesterday, but it was already late in the afternoon so all I could do was leave a message. I'm hoping they get back to me early today so I know what's up. But before they do I have to call hubby at work and confirm that it is indeed ok for me to move forward. GAH! He drives me crazy. I don't need flowers or roses, I just need some consistency from this dude.

Anyway, I apologize if I haven't been keeping up with everyone's posts and whatnot. I'll be back on top of things.....sometime.

*UPDATE*  I called my tricky hubby to see if I had the go ahead or not. I emphasized the fact that I didn't want to do this without him on board 100%, and that this was the last time I wanted to hear any objections, and he told me to "go ahead and call the clinic". So I did. They called me back promptly, I'm pleased to say. My doctor knows that Pablo is due back from Boca..(or wherever he is off spoiling someone's day)...next week, and when he arrives I am to call them to schedule a saline ultrasound strait away to be sure that all the *products of conception* have been properly removed.  So...still on target for an April cycle most likely. YEAH!

Let's get the show on the road!

I called my clinic on Friday to tell them the bad news that my pregnancy didn't stick, and that I would be using my last cycle. As usual, I gave the message to the IVF nurse's line, since it wasn't about an appointment or an emergency. (the nurses always answer questions that day if made before 4, even if it is just to call you back and reassure you, they are great that way). When my nurse called me back (patients have a team assigned them, so I always have the same nurse) she felt so bad for me I almost started to cry. She said to me "I feel terrible because I know how much you wanted this." My doctor is out for 2 weeks so she couldn't tell me about my protocol, but they will be getting back to me as soon as he returns.

I can't wait. I know it sounds crazy to WANT to shoot yourself up with hormones, but I do. I really, really do. I know that right now, April will be the soonest I can cycle. (unless my doc gets back, sees me RIGHT away and puts me on the Lupron immediately. It could happen, but I'm betting not. The clinic checks to see if I've ovulated on day 21 of the cycle, and then starts the Lup that night if I have. Day 21 would be Feb 15 for me). The crazy thing is that if I get knocked up in April, I'll be due in December. The absolute latest I can cycle and still have a baby in 2012. I don't know why, but for some reason that feels important to me. Maybe because that is when the world is going to end??? ;)

Maybe it is just important so that I can move on with my life. Of course, I am moving on with my life. I'm still doing the things I planned to do, but not knowing for certain if I can ditch all the baby stuff and use the back bedroom for something else kind of throws a monkey wrench in at least part of my '2012 moving forward' scheme. And of course, not being able to get this cycle over with is a wall between me and processing my grief. I know that if/when I get that BFN (if the cycle gets far enough to get a BFN) the sh*t is really going to hit the fan. But that's ok....because it will all be done and gone and I can finally put way the the ttc portion of my life away for good. I am ready to be DONE. I want another child more than anything. But no matter what happens, I will be done.

But I've got one more cycle in me first. C'mon...bring on that big box of meds. I'm ready. Give me what you got!!! Because if I'm going down, I'm going down fighting. :)

running to stand still

Today is another Friday. That means I would have been 15 weeks today...at least I'm pretty sure. Out of the first trimester anyway. Probably starting to get a little bump, too, if past experience is any indicator. I would be looking forward to movement...and it would be the size of a cumquat or something.

Last year I was dreading Valentines Day. My husband and I were going out to a romantic local restaurant that serves a fixed menu of delicious gourmet food made only with local ingredients. I was dreading it, because I had been working up my nerve to ask my husband about using our remaining frozen embryos. I didn't do it. We were having a wonderful time, and I knew he would probably get angry at me just for asking. So I wasted another month...and another.

This year I'm dreading Valentine's Day. I don't want to be reminded that I'm basically at the same exact place I was last year...wanting a baby and not being able to move forward. Except that now my children are another year older, and my daughter is convinced that she wants a little brother or sister more than ever. Plus, I'm not exactly feeling romantic towards my husband these days.

It's another Friday. I've got no belly pics to show, no scan results, no follicle counts, no fertilization reports. But I'm making progress...really I am. I don't have ultrasound pictures to share, but I do have something.




Behold, my entry way. You will notice that I have hooks for jackets, and I have a system for paper...I'm not buried in junk mail and mittens!

And look...I've got wallpaper. Sort of.



And I bought a couple of flowers to take care of and brighten my day:



All of it great progress. I'm moving forward. But then there is this:The back bedroom. Sometimes known as "where dreams go to die" when I'm in a very bad mood. My future studio or a great guest room when I'm feeling better. And the future nursery, when I'm feeling hopeful.

And then there's this: My daughter and her twin brother and sister. A boy and a girl she tells me. And no, she is NOT the mommy, I am. Do you want to know why it isn't always better to have children to hold when you've had a miscarriage? This is it...in a nutshell.

love conquers all

I have to say thank you all for your continuing support. Some of your thoughts and prayers must have been heard, because I have been getting more support...both from my husband and my mom, and I can't think of any other reason for the sudden turn around.

I spent the weekend avoiding my husband completely. On Sunday I spent a good amount of time putting Christmas stuff into the attic. The attic entrance is in the back bedroom, the would be nursery. I ended up sitting on the floor and thinking that maybe I could just live in that room instead. I would still be there for my kids, and my husband and I could still be civil with each other, but we wouldn't have to be together. Then I could hear NB calling for me. He cautiously pushed the door open and came to me. He wrapped his arms around me and started talking all about his day, and pulled me back out of my loneliness and grief like only my kids can.

That night I helped get the kids through their evening routine with my husband, without speaking much to him other than the most necessary communication. I threw in a load of laundry...I made an effort to include none of my husband's clothes since I was feeling petty and miserable. I heated up a meager meal and brought it upstairs to watch Downton Abby in our bedroom by myself. Needless to say, thinking about this being the rest of my life filled my heart with sadness, but I didn't think that I could forgive him his cruelty and his coldness towards me, to be honest. But leaving just isn't an option. I need my kids like breathing, and I love my home so much and have worked so hard for it. I decided that I had to go downstairs and talk to my husband about everything.

In spite of my husband's roaring tirade the other night, it seems he does in fact remember telling me that we had agreed to using all three cycles given to us by insurance. He agreed that he had in fact sat next to me and said that he was 'on board' with having a fourth child...although he said that in all fairness I was already pregnant so what else was he supposed to say? He told me that he had been too stunned to comfort me when I started crying because it was "unexpected", and that when I ran into the bedroom and curled up on the bed, he covered me with blankets and I pulled away...so he didn't know what else to do. (I don't remember him touching me or pulling away from him). He wanted to know if I wanted a divorce, if I still loved him. I told him I was sorry that I wanted to try again, and that I have my reasons for wanting a fourth child, and that I have lots of other plans still underway for my life. He said that he couldn't stand to see me hurting and not be able to do anything about it. I told him the best thing he could do was to let me try again, and this time stand behind me 100%. I told him that the hardest thing about this wasn't losing a baby alone, it was being pregnant and being alone. I didn't show him the positive pregnancy tests because I thought he wouldn't care, he didn't ask to see the ultrasound pictures. I told my husband that if he got a promotion for the most wonderful job, how would he feel if he couldn't call me right away to share his happiness? Or if someone he loved dearly died but he didn't include me because he thought I wouldn't give a shit? Then he told me that I was right, that he thinks we should use our last cycle, and that he was sorry.

I think my husband was shaken by this pregnancy loss. I think he didn't want to open his heart to the pain of ttc again, and when he agreed, it caused him pain. I think he placed the blame on me, and he is right. I don't know why I would torture myself either, except that I feel compelled too, and I can't completely explain why. It is much more than just wanting another baby, it is about how our family feels, and it feels like someone is missing. I just hope that my husband can find it in his heart to forgive me if we suffer another loss. He is a tender hearted and vulnerable person and I am so thankful that he has agreed to trust me one more time and follow me where my heart leads. I just hope his trust in me is well placed.

another terrible, horrible night

Last night while getting ready for bed I commented to my husband about how I was looking forward to getting another cycle underway because of how stuck I have been feeling lately, and he totally freaked the flying f@#k out! He started shouting at me about how he doesn't want this, that he agreed to try once (a lie...we went over this last time, he agreed to keep trying until it worked or the last two cycles were used up, whatever came first). He shouted at me that I'm ruining our family...that he is too old...that he doesn't want this. It came totally out of the blue for me, since I thought we had gone through all of this exact same shit the last time.

He hasn't supported me at all through this miscarriage. The only other person who knows about it is my mom, and only because I needed someone to watch the kids while my husband dropped me off for the D & C. (and no, he didn't stay with me). My mom's comment to me? "It's all for the best" and she hasn't mentioned it since. I didn't even get a hug. Thanks mom. I went upstairs to lie down after the procedure and cried my eyes out, and those were the last tears I've shed, until last night that is. I broke down into tears because I just can't stand the pain anymore, and I don't have anything to hold onto except my kids...which is exactly why I want another baby to begin with. Did my husband try to comfort me? Tell me that he has been hurting too? Offer suggestions to help? No. He told me that I was crying to emotionally manipulate him into agreeing to another cycle. THAT HE ALREADY AGREED TO DO.

I lost a baby. OUR baby. I wanted it so very, very much. I endured shots...that I gave myself, even the PLO, an egg retrieval, a transfer, the 2ww.... and the one thing that has kept me going is that I have one more shot.

I don't know what to do right now. I don't think I can love the person who stood there while I was at the lowest point in my life, watch me sob uncontrollably without comforting me, and blame me for manipulating him. In fact, I don't think I ever hated anyone as much as I hate him right now. I thought that I had reached my lowest point and that there was nowhere to go but up. I was wrong.

The toddler inside *updated*

My grief was a giant that sat on my chest and blocked out the light. Then it was a feisty honey badger that scratched and bit and fought, even as I was strangling it and refusing to give in. Then my grief began to settle in and fade into the background. I had stuff to do and a plan to make it happen. Everything was going to be okey diddly dokey.


But then last weekend came, and my grief grew into a full size toddler. I read blogs, and the toddler screamed "I don't wanna!!!". It said terrible things. "I don't care. I hate that person. I want I want I want. " It pounded its little fists against my heart and kicked into my gut. I did the good parent thing. First I tried to divert it. I went to Pin.terest...and everywhere I looked baby stuff seemed to sneak in, until the toddler was howling. I tried everything I could, but everywhere I went baby things smacked me in the face. The mail had a Babies R Us catalog...the bottom of the laundry closet I was trying to organize had maternity clothes and baby blankets...The top drawer of my dresser had the baby booties I had saved 'just in case' that somehow managed to find me while I was trying to match odd socks. On Saturday a trip to Targe.t brought the toddler out in full force. Babies everywhere...and it doesn't help that my daughter needs pull ups and baby shampoo, smack dab in baby central. The toddler howled and cried, it gnashed it's terrible teeth and roared its terrible roar. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. IT'S NOT FAAAAAAIR. I finally had to pack the toddler up and bring it home.

That night I sat numbly on the couch with a beer and played Angry Birds until the toddler finally gave in, it's eyes all glazed over as it sucked its thumb and thankfully passed out.

I'm so tired. I wish for the first time I had never done this. I wish I had never gotten pregnant at all. I wish I couldn't remember how happy I was when I saw those two lines. I wish packing up my daughter's baby stuff didn't hurt so much. I wish my period would show up so I can try again.

*Pablo finally decided to show up. Now I know why I have been feeling so particularly terrible the last couple of days. Yeah for CD1!

Advice

In honor of SOPA, and blackouts, and blah blah blah blahbbity blah blah, I'm writing an extremely brief bit of advice.

I have spent 12 years trying to conceive, on and off. And in that time I have learned a LOT. Boatloads of stuff. Great ways to give injections, what exactly those grades mean on your embryos, and what kind of stuff can help embryos implant. (not much). Out of the 8 transfers I've done, I've been pregnant after 5 of those transfers.

But the most important thing I've learned is: Live your life. Live it right now, as it is, not as it will be. If you don't want to spend your life bitter and angry, don't. If you want to go on vacation, do. Treat your pregnant friends as you would if they never got pregnant. Love your spouse as you would if you never have children. Make plans, and keep them. Enjoy your home and make it beautiful, eat well, enjoy a drink, eat sushi... And before you wrinkle up your nose at this advice and say "It is easy for her to say she has three kids." Well...I didn't. I spent 6 years trying before I brought home my boys. My husband was on the brink of giving up, that 4th round of IVF was going to be our last. I almost lost my uterus, and spent over a year benched from ttc. I was going to foster care sites looking at kids and finding out what fostering entailed. It was almost over for me, and I wasn't angry, I didn't get bitter.

Whatever life brings, it is too short to spend over a decade in pain. I spent over a decade doing round after round of IVF, having chemical pregnancies, surgery,and miscarriages...but I didn't spend a decade of my life unhappy. Go out there and enjoy the journey. Even the parts that suck. And drink your coffee if you want. Cutting caffeine doesn't do a thing except give you headaches and make you cranky. Honest.

Put your hands in the air like you just don't care!

I have been working on my list like crazy. I found a wallpaper that my husband and I like for the dining room and a color scheme to go with it. I have spent hours on the computer trying to find a chandelier that won't cost an arm and a leg and curtains for both the parlor and dining room. Tuesday I went to Target with my daughter and bought some baskets on clearance to organize our mounds of paper, and I spent a good portion of my time today sorting through paper and dumping mounds into the recycling bin. It is only January, and in spite of still being sad about the miscarriage for at least part of every day, I feel like I'm really making progress. More importantly, I'm really enjoying doing something that feels like it has forward momentum so I'm not just treading water in place.

While some days it feels like my grief is a giant boulder that I'm trying to roll up hill, there is one immovable object that has become more of a barrier...and that's my husband. I love my husband, I really do, but he is HUGE procrastinating stick in the mud.

I need him to cut a board and attach the hooks to reclaim our entrance way. And although he promised he would do it last weekend, he only got as far as hanging the calendar. (and caused me to take a spill, I might add, since he yelled for my help instead of putting the calendar down and walking to get me.) I bought the baskets to get the paper under control, but if he isn't willing to spend a minute looking at his mail every day and sort it, none of the system I'm trying to get in place will work. The dining room will never get done without his input (thankfully he likes the wallpaper, it was like pulling teeth trying to get his opinion on colors) and I need him to extend me a little more cash flow to make the purchases necessary.

All of this wouldn't be as bothersome to me if not for the underlying reason for my resentment. I really need to make progress on stuff so I don't get bogged down in despair, but my DH isn't with me. I know that the loss of this pregnancy doesn't hurt him the way it hurts me. He seems totally indifferent as far as I can tell, he may even be relieved. When we were going round and round in circles debating whether or not we were going to do IVF again, I won the argument because it mattered so much to me, and my husband couldn't counter with anything that mattered equally as much to him. He could have named anything...he wanted to go snorkeling in Aruba, he had a life long dream to quite his job and open up a restaurant, he wanted to spend the next couple of years trying to master all the positions in the Karma Sutra. But he had nothing, and as far as I can tell, he still doesn't. Well...if he doesn't have any New Year's resolutions of his own, he might as well help me with mine. And a little more compassion and sympathy wouldn't hurt either. Just saying.

Slam!

Boy, do I feel like an idiot today. Yesterday I was sweeping up pine needles and cleaning up after the Christmas tree, when my husband called for "Help!" from the kitchen. Being a good wifey, I got up from using the pan and brush and jogged, not shuffled, to the kitchen...and promptly went ass over tea kettle in the process. As I was turning to go through the doorway, I hit a pile of pine needles, and came crashing to the ground. I managed to wrench my back, land HARD on both my knees, and something from deep within my abdomen kind of went 'sproing'. The funny thing is that at the time all I could think of was "Good thing I'm not pregnant anymore, because that would have REALLY sucked!" Great thinking, stupid brain.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the evening laid up with a heating pad and Advil, again. Today I'm functioning ok. A status report lists my back as still hurting, my right wrist throbs a bit, my knees are complaining, and deep within my abdomen, in the general uterine area, I ache...again.

Today, I lift my head to the heavens and say "Ok...I get it. " I have been officially given 'something to cry about'. No more wining posts from me. :)

Two weeks *updated*

It's been two weeks now since my D&C and the official end to my pregnancy that wasn't. I would be 11 weeks today. I wonder how long I will still know in my head exactly how many weeks I would have been? I wish it would stop because it doesn't do my heart any good.

Progress has been made. My husband and I agreed on a wallpaper choice for the dining room*, and it is almost completely in primer (thanks mom!). This weekend I hope to have a board up in our kitchen with the hand forged hooks for the kids coats. This Sunday I plan to meet with my sister for lunch, and then go to the giant antique store in hopes of finding something I can buy with my Christmas present money. Soon I'm planning to tackle the paper issue by buying...something to help organize. Maybe 3 different somethings, for different groupings of paper? I'm obviously still working on that one.

I am taking baby steps forward day by day. But I feel like there are two of me moving forward side by side. There is the happier, more positive me...and then there is the depressed me. I seem to feel the sadness around the corner, even as I'm having a good time or focusing on something I have to do. I don't know why I thought that making a conscious effort to move forward would actually make the sadness go away. At least the sad me isn't up front and center all the time. The hardest part is thinking of doing the last cycle of IVF. It frightens me so much that the cycle will be the end, my absolute last chance. I hope that I am able to do it soon and get it out of the way so I will know if I have to grieve completely and move on...or if I get to buy another hook for the wall.

*This is Rosalie in blue.

Wordless Wednesday

When the gods piss down the back of your neck, make a yurt.

I am sick to death of moping about feeling sad about this miscarriage. I am SO over it. I'm tired of the moment when I read a happy pregnancy post and my heart sinks...I want it gone. I'm sick to death of the emotions that broadside me out of nowhere. Most of the time now I'm fine. It's almost like the pregnancy never happened then WHAMO smack my daughter tells me that she wants a little sister to play with. I'm done. It's gone. Go away.

The only thing I can think of to put this whole sad mess behind me is to MOVE ON, already, so I'm moving on. I'm going to make myself a list of things I want to do this year and hopefully cheer myself the hell up a teensy bit. So....here goes nothing.

1. Use up my last cycle of IVF covered by insurance. What the hell, right? The only thing I have to pay is my $750 deductible with some minor things attached here and there. The worst that can happen is that I'll get a BFN...or a chemical pregnancy...or another miscarriage. But you know what they say, nothing ventured nothing gained.

2. Finish up at least a couple of rooms in the house. I have to paint the dining room at the very least, because it has already been started. I would also like to tackle the back bedroom. If I manage to get resolution #1 to work, it will be a necessity. If it doesn't, then I don't want it mocking me every time I go in there. I'll get rid of the crib, put the extra junk that's accumulated in the attic, and turn it into a nice guestroom or something. There are also a few furniture items I really need to purchase, like some sort of china hutch (we had a built in in our last house, and now our wedding china and stuff is in boxes with no safe place to put it).

3. Do some stuff for me that doesn't involve injecting myself with hormones or getting wanded with a dildo-cam. This can be anything, but I need to make time to do things that are just for me that make me happy. Work in the garden...paint a picture...spend more time with my sister just hanging out.

4. Spend more quality time with my husband.

5. Spend time thinking and working towards my future outside of the home. I need to figure out what I'm going to do with myself. I need some goals so I can get rid of this feeling that I'm just in free fall without a net. The kids are growing and soon I'll be out of a job. Somehow living in the moment and enjoying my kids has stretched into years. How did that happen?

6. Focus on little things in the here and now that give me pleasure and move me forward. Reading a good book, enjoying a glass of wine and a favorite TV show with my husband, snuggly pajamas, knitting baby hats for friends, looking at garden catalogs and drooling over the plants I want, playing with my kids...bathing them...snuggling with them while I read them books...hugs and kisses..and all the wonderful things they bring to my life every day.

7. Organize, organize, organize. I need a system to deal with all of the paper. I'm being buried alive! I also need a more organized way to deal with all of the laundry, right now I just end up with baskets of clean clothes all over our bedroom. And the entry way...Gah! I need hooks, and mats, and places for hats and mittens. It's a total disaster! And the toys. OMG the toys. I have toys that belonged to the boys when they were babies. I am great at getting rid of baby gear, and outgrown clothes, but the toys? For some reason I still have them all. (well, I know the reason, because every time I am about ready to get rid of something, AK decides that she must have it. She's a worse hoarder than her dad, and that's saying something.)

That's it so far. The trying-to-get-over-my-miscarriage-winter-post-holidays-blahs list. I hope it cuts the mustard.