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.

Copper kettles and warm woolen mittens just aint cuttin' it

Hey everyone in blog land. Just reporting that the D & C went well as can be expected. I really overdid it between Saturday and Christmas, and spent most of the day after Christmas pounding the ibuprofen and feeling sorry for myself.

I have spent a huge amount of time squeezing my kids until they push me away and being terribly over indulgent. Some of it because I'm just so thankful for their presence, but mostly because I'm tired and numb and don't see the reason why my kids need to be dressed before noon. I am trying to enjoy the things about this holiday season I like the most, but sometimes thinking about my favorite things just isn't enough, and this is one of those times.

2011 sucked ass. Our beautiful cat, our first pet that we took in as a kitten before we were married, died in September at the age of 15 years. My husband and I had terrible fights going round and round because of my desire to have another child. My wonderful husband gave in, and even came to be excited about the prospect of having another baby, only to have it come smack him in the face when we had the miscarriage. We had battles with our home owners insurance and had to tear down the garage...which is still lying mostly in a heap. And we got to see our lovely boy NB who LOVED school sooo much get further and further dragged down until the homework he used to beg for started driving him to tears. And I STILL have no idea for a color scheme for my dining room.

I wanted so much to have a baby to look forward to. Now I just have battles with the school and the drudgery of routine. There will be thousands of little joys and happy moments along the way, but they won't be the life changing ones I was hoping for. I am just so tired most of the time, and oh so very sad. I know that there will be happiness in the ordinary things, I just can't find it now.

Thank You, again

Thank you everyone for your kind words. In my virtual house, everything is clean and my fridge is stocked with delicious, mild food to eat. My kids all want their new friends to come back and play. It is a hard time, but your long distance support really helps. Even if it is only the virtual kind :)

In real life my husband had to go to work today. Of course, this had to go down during my husband's busiest time. I'm debating asking my mom to help me when the boys come off of the bus this afternoon. She is so busy right now, though, and I am not up to explaining everything about this pregnancy and my choice to get pregnant now that it is over.

I went in for my first OB appointment yesterday. I was sooo hoping that there wouldn't be anything to see. Unfortunately, the bean was still there, giving us all the finger. They scheduled me for a D & C on Friday morning. Joy joy joy. I can't believe there can still be something in there after the two days I've had!

I know it may be hard to believe, but I am over the moon about the new BFPs and heartbeats out there this week. After Christmas I'm going to start making baby hats and sending them out. My email address is Chickenpig2 at yaho.o dot com. Send me your mailing addresses for a hat at anytime.

not okay

It seems like every hour I forget that I'm not pregnant anymore, and then something reminds me that I'm not and my world crashes in again. I'm so tired I wish I could have a cup of coffee...oh right..I can. That would be a lovely name if we have a girl...but we aren't having anything now. That yellow would be perfect for a nursery...oh damn it all to hell. How can my body be in such agony but my head and heart just refuse to get the message?

It doesn't help that my sense of smell is still hitting me full force. I opened up a magazine from its protective plastic yesterday and the inky-plastic smell nearly made me vomit. I can't stand to be in the kitchen, everything stinks to high heaven. I don't want to eat anything. After I've finally got something in front of me that I want, I eat two bites and feel nauseous. All of them wonderfully appropriate pregnancy symptoms...if you're PREGNANT. *sigh* If this fetus had to pack up and leave, couldn't it take all of its baggage with it??

I'm so tired and crampy. Everything hurts. Nothing like a miscarriage to remind me that my abdomen is a giant web of scar tissue attaching everything to everything else. One of these days my doctor is going to tell me to kick my uterus to the curb. Maybe today.

I just want to curl up in bed with a heating pad and a giant bottle of Adv.il.
I wish it was 100 years ago. I wish my doctor made house calls. I wouldn't have to take a shower and get dressed to sit in his waiting room for an hour in a room full of happily pregnant women. I wish I had a nanny. Someone who would get the boys ready for school and get them off of the bus. Someone who would play with my daughter so I wouldn't have her begging for me on the other side of the bathroom door while I'm bleeding and quietly crying my eyes out. I wish I had a maid or two who would clean me up and bring me what I need, a cook to make the meals, and a housekeeper who would tell me not to worry about a thing and who would efficiently take care of the household. I wish it wasn't Christmas time. I wish this was all behind me. But most of all I wish that I could see the bean's beating heart today and that this was all just a horribly bad dream. I wish.

All over

The bean was only measuring around 7 weeks and change. No heartbeat. It was also shaped a little oddly, a very strange blob without a recognizable head or rump to measure. I'm having a stiff drink right now and waiting for the miscarriage to work itself out. I'm keeping my Wednesday appointment so they can check how things are progressing.

I haven't shed a tear. I feel oddly disconnected from the whole thing. I have three beautiful kids, and as much as I really, really want another baby it probably just isn't meant to be. My eggs are getting older, and with my husband's sperm being so crappy I'm sure it's just a recipe for disaster.

The hope and joy were so wonderful while they lasted, though. Good bye, my beautiful bean. You were wanted and loved more than you'll ever know.