Vegas Mommy

Anyone have a happy pill?

Ambivalent. That is about how I feel about everything, it seems. It is pretty obvious that this month is a bust. Just waiting around for the impending period from hell. I have no desire to go and see my doctor or a specialist, even though I am due for my yearly exam. Guess I should get around to making that appointment and start scheduling. Maybe I am afraid of what they will tell me or what tests they will want to run. Maybe I am just hoping that my body will remember what to do and get pregnant. I hate the ritual of temping, of taking medication, of monitoring hopeless pregnancy signs. I hate that I can’t be one of those people who “doesn’t try” to get pregnant and just . . does. After all, I have to take the Prometrium, which means I have to know when I ovulate, etc. It is such a stupid, boring, endless ordeal. I have been weepy since Tuesday of last week. I actually thought I would escape to the movies today while Ainsley napped at home (while Mike was working in the yard.) I went to see Indiana Jones. I thought, “Sure! Action flick! Keep my mind off of things!” Yeah. Uh, no. It reminded me of loving the movies when I was a child, and then I inevitably started thinking about Ainsley growing up, hopefully with a little brother or sister to chase around, about the family movie nights we’ll hold with popcorn and cuddly blankets. Which made me cry. I CRIED DURING AN ACTION MOVIE! I hate hormones. P.S. The movie sucked. I hate being disappointed by movies. The Happening was awful, too. I kept waiting for Al Gore to crawl out from under the curtain and tell me to stop global warming.

 

Other things on my mind? I have 9.5 days of school left. Then, I am off to the new job. Where I know no one. I would be fine with this, but I am leaving my classroom after five long years, leaving some of the families that I love dearly. I had parents so upset last week that I wouldn’t have their children next year. My principal keeps hinting at me to stay. But I know I need a change. Change is hard, though.

 

The other thing weighing me down is my friend, Kim. She has just accepted a position with the Department of Defense. Great, right? It is in Korea, which means she is moving away with her daughter, Emily.

 

Emily just happens to be Ainsley’s BFF. It is strange – books tell us children can’t form close friendships until they are around 2 years of age, but these two sought each other early on, well before their first birthday, at school. That is actually how Kim and I became friends. And they are going through all of the drama with moving, selling cars, houses, etc. So, we haven’t been around each other much lately and Ainsley asks no less than 10 times a day to see Emily. It breaks my heart. I think my husband thinks, “Oh! Ainsley will just make new friends!” And I know she will. But it doesn’t change the fact that I know Ainsley misses her already and I wonder what it will be like when she moves in just a few short weeks? You have read about my inability to get really close to people and so I catch myself looking around for other parents with children Ainsley likes to see if I can start setting up some new playdates. And really? This whole cyclical thing leads me back to how sad I am that I am not pregnant with a sibling for Ainsley to play with . . . does that make sense, in a strange way? I know, they will be so many years apart, etc. and it will be years before they can play together. But I grew up on a farm and my brother was born when I was 3 ½  and he was my best friend from that point on. I didn’t formulate deeper friendships with kids my own age until well into first grade. But then Sam, my brother, was always a part of our time together.

 

Oh, blah. I just feel blah. I just want to go and argue with someone to make myself feel better or do something totally stupid and mindless.

I need a calculator!

Since I have last posted, I find myself on countdown mode: counting how many school days I have left (16), counting how many doses of Motrin I gave Ainsley this weekend as we waited for her fever to go down (4), counting how many times Ainsley begged me to go to gymnastics, not quite understanding my explanation that she had a yucky fever/cold and we weren't going to spread it around (432), counting how many times throughout the day my pubic bone ached from all of the let's-get-pregnant-THIS-month! sex, (uncountable) counting calories and a few more pounds I have managed to lose, (4).

I am exhausted. Margarita, anyone?

Contemplating

Thanks for all of your ideas. I am still sifting through your thoughts and I will have a decision made here in the next day or two on what to do about my fertility roller coaster.

In the meantime, I have this awesome chain letter sitting here. (Don't you just LOVE chain letters?? Especially when people do what they are SUPPOSED to do when they get them?!?) Anyway, it is a paperback exchange chain letter and I love to read, as do many of you. Basically, you send one used paperback to the first person on the list, move the second name up, put your name on the list, and give the letter to 6 other people. You are *supposed to* get 36 books for the price of mailing one used one. (Book rate is like $2.00, people!) So . . . who wants to give it a shot? Pretty please? Think of it as sharing great literature with strangers and hoping what you give out, you get in return. Email me or let me know if you would like to participate. My coworkers will just f$%8 it all up.

What's next?

Okay, so here I am, now 6 months into trying for #2. To bring you up to speed, in case you haven't been following along for the many years that I have been blogging, when we began trying for Ainsley, I had already had two miscarriages, neither of which came when we were trying, strangely enough. I then had a chemical pregnancy a few months before we finally got pregnant with Ainsley. The specialists I saw during this whole dilemma checked his sperm, which were "normal" at that time. We were evaluated for chromosomal issues and found both of us have no chipped chromosomes. During my panel of bloodwork, they discovered I have one copy of MTHFR, which I take the baby Aspirin and Foltx for. I tested negative for all of the other tests, but the antibodies test wasn't included in that. I ovulate normally, according to my charting. My periods have been very difficult these past few months, as I have said before, but I don't know if that is because of the Prometrium or not. Should I continue being patient and trying? Should I see the OB for my periods and mention everything else? Does my husband need to have his sperm count and motility reevaluated? Should I even be thinking about such things?

31 years young today

Pushing the questions like, "Are my eggs too old?" and "Are my tubes blocked?" out of my head today and trying to be happy for all the things I do have in my life . . . . .

A New Beginning

For the past few days, I have gone through a grueling, hour-long interview and had the administrator doing the interview watch me teach a lengthy and detailed Language Arts lesson. Apparently, I made the cut because next year, I will be the new G.A.T.E specialist at a school not far from where I work currently. (well, I will be split between two schools, but I have a "home school".) So . . . my days will be spent working with gifted children and getting a chance to feed that creative drive that has been dormant for the past year. I am so excited and really looking forward to it!

As for this month, I am 6 or 7 days past ovulation. I am still really hopeful and am crossing everything. In the meantime, I am going to bed early. Trying not to read into how exhausted I am - I think it is just stress.

Bed, Birth, and Beyond

After Ainsley went to bed on Wednesday, I made comfort food and settled in at my computer to watch "The Business of Being Born". I had so many thoughts during the duration of the film that varied from, "Wow, it is friggin' awesome that Ricki Lake showed her birth video for her project" to "Is the reason I had the baby blues so badly because I had a c-section and didn't get the hormonal rush they talked about that only happens after a vaginal delivery?" I laid awake in bed that night and pondered Ainsley's birth and whether I had been cheated somehow. By Thursday, I had decided that no, I hadn't and I did everything I could to get her here as naturally as possible. It just didn't quite work out that way and I believe I will be totally okay if I never get to have a "natural delivery". There is something very appealing about being able to say "I did it!" But if I never get to, that is okay . . .

Which leads me to what is not okay with me, and that is only having one child. I really, really, really, really want another baby. Really. It aches. I spent the duration of my massage last weekend visualing my eggs and picturing them gleaming with health. I envisioned my pregnancy and the ultimate perfect, healthy outcome. And when I got my peak reading on the monitor this month, the time I spent trying for another was less about *doing* and more about *enjoying and achieving*. I won't say this isn't my month - I will say that I feel positive for this month, more than before. I am so, so optimistic. I even cleaned out the guest room today, sold my queen bedroom set that no one uses, and laid on the floor in the empty room and pictured it encompassing all of Ainsley's furniture, my growing belly shaking with fleshy kicks, my daughter laying in my lap and knowing she gets to have a brother or sister soon, my husband painting the walls while listening to Fleetwood Mac because he doesn't want me to fall off the ladder or breathe the fumes.

It was beyond all of the dreams I have had recently . . .  and it was so real I could almost touch it.

Grrr

I feel like my foul mood has started to rub off on those around me. So . . . I will get out all my irritations in the first paragraph and then let's move on, shall we? During this week alone, I have received word of three friends' pregnancies. It is so hard to be happy for them, I am not going to lie. I am, but the *old me*, which could quite possibly still be the me that is trying again, if that makes sense, still gets all worked up inside when I see how easy it is for someone to conceive. Other annoyances? We are having our first heat wave here and I have killed 6 scorpions in my house in the past month. I fucking hate bugs, especially ones that could potentially hurt my child. I don't sleep well because of this and so now I am irritated AND tired.

On a lighter note, I got a new camera from my husband for Mother's Day, which I am loving. I also get to indulge in my post-Mother's Day spa day tomorrow for three grand hours. I need a few hours to just clear my head and do something for me. Overall, I think I have been pretty calm with my range of emotions lately, but slowly I am starting to feel things creep up on me that I don't like. Maybe it is just because now I can count the amount of months I have been trying again on two hands. I don't know.

But anyway, maybe tomorrow will give me a chance to refocus and relax a little. Ovulation is approaching. I am pretending that it isn't important, but it has been weighing on my mind.

Dr. Google, can you see what finger I am holding up??

After googling "ways to increase your fertility", I basically came up with the same three things time and time again, in every article I read.

1. Eat more colorful, healthy foods and vary your diet. Stay away from alcohol, caffeine (ug), refined sugars.

2. Don't smoke, use lubricants, and get some exercise.

3. Your most fertile months are October-March.

So, basically, all I need to do is end my love affair with Starbucks, shove some red, green, and yellow bell peppers into my salads (ew), and wait another 5 fucking months until October. 

Mothering Today and Everyday

I have always wanted to be a mother, for as long as I could possibly remember. And the ache of longing for my own child is something that is still fresh, like a pink scar that doesn't fade. Having to battle through my own personal hell to get my daughter here has made me the person I am and I believe it has made me appreciate her more, too.

Nearly two or three times a week, I am struck by a fellow blogger's story of loss, heartache, pain, longing, and sometimes I even meet people in my own life that are going through troubles similar to my own. I weep openly when I read them because there are so many women who should be mothers and aren't yet. I saw the look on the woman's face today as my family and I left dinner and the hostess said, "Happy Mother's Day!" to her. The woman's eyes welled up with tears and I knew, just knew, that she had been trying and never succeeded. That very same thing happened to me a few years ago and I couldn't believe the insensitivity of someone. Even when someone says it to me now, I scratch my head. I'm a mother? Finally? Really? The Mother's Day cards from my students just made my head swim.

So, I will be thinking of all of you tomorrow. Do something for yourself, regardless of whether you have reached motherhood or not. Celebrate you.