Forget That Plan

It's about time I get back here

2010-11-02T13:39:00.002-05:00

Again I have no idea what to say. R and the felon have been causing all sorts of drama recently, but I would rather just pretend they both died in their sleep last night than deal with it. He has spent so much time wanting to be my friend, he had to sneak behind her back to contact me but (now that we are past our marriage) the friendship we'd had since high school was important to both of us. She thinks that I initiated all contact and that I'm trying to steal him back from her. She emails me from his facebook account, she texts me from his phone trying to get me to say something incriminating. He gave her the passwords and handed her his phone. He even said that she's allowed to have my number and he wants her to call me anytime she feels like it because he won't ever keep a secret from her. Suddenly G and I are both harassed for days at a time and R says he won't do anything to stop it. Of course, he will hit another low period of his bipolar in a week or two and call me crying that he wants to stay friends and that he'll fix everything. He'll tell her he's going to "run to the store for cigarettes" at 10pm and take an hour to get home, he'll "have lunch at the office" once or twice a week, he'll claim to be "on the phone with mom..." He'll call me or text me every day for a month, begging me to forgive him. And I will talk to him, hoping that he's better, letting myself believe that he will stop her from contacting me again. Another month or two will go by where we only talk once a week. Then she'll sign into his facebook or open his mail and see a note from me thanking him for talking to me one night when I was really stressed, the floodgates will open and I will get threatening messages again. I see a visit to Jerry Springer in her future. I just hope I can finally say goodbye to my friendship with R before I get dragged on that stage with them. I am too sentimental, I hold onto things for much longer than they are worth saving. Time to clean house.

Time to enjoy my life with G! Making his favorite meals; sneaking in wonderful dessert once a month; inventing silly TV watching rules like "commercial time is mandatory make-out time;" feeling his whole body laugh, asking him why, and getting the response of "you were just so cute when you did that, that's why I love you..." This is the life I want, what I want to focus on. Disappear from my life, R, you don't deserve me.

The Evolution of Birthdays

2010-08-24T11:58:00.002-05:00

I remember my mom planning birthday parties when we were little: baking the cake, blowing up balloons, cleaning the house knowing that us kids would just trash it beyond recognition, renting movies and mentally preparing herself for us to keep her up all night with the giggling and asking for popcorn... And then the late-teen, early adult years. Birthdays turned into watching us rush out the door, barely acknowledging the cake she still dutifully made, as we hurried to spend the occassion with friends instead of family. Then we became actual adults and birthdays meant very little. Sometimes a dinner out, maybe a simple gift, but really it's just another day.

Today I turned 28. Doesn't seem that old, but it took so few years for this day to morph from blissful celebration into just another Tuesday. I'm even going to work tonight for a few hours!

But this is also the age of social media- twitter and facebook rule the day. And that is where I was reminded that birthdays can still be a celebration even if they are just another Tuesday. Friends who were never at slumber parties, ones I was close with for only a short time, ones who seemed lost due to distance and circumstance... they all came to my profile today and posted on my wall. By 1am there were already 5 messages, another 10 before I woke up this morning. As of noon today, 27 people loved me enough to make my birthday their priority for the 5 seconds it took to type and post a message. 5 seconds may not seem like a lot, but it's enough to make me smile.

And my facebook wall is so much easier to clean up than a carpet full of trampled cake.

Life Moving On

2010-07-31T15:10:00.002-05:00

It has been too long yet again. I guess maybe I could blame it on work (after over 2 months unemployed I found a part-time job, and then 3 weeks ago found a second part-time job), or say that it is summer and I have been busy enjoying the great weather, or some other excuse... But I think that a lot of the reason is that I have my friends back. The ones I didn't have time to see when I was married to R, the ones that R called a dozen times a day while we were separated- so much that they changed their phone number and avoided me so that they could avoid him, the ones I forgot about when I was spending every second forcing a "perfect marriage" onto what was so obviously broken... I have my girls that I can say anything to and love hanging out with. And now I have ignored the blog world that I turned to (and hid in) for so long. I am sorry, my dear readers, you deserve more out of me.

It is finally confirmed that my boyfriend (G) and I are moving in together! His father is moving out of state and giving him the house. Small house out in the country, a little piece of land, halfway between town and my mom's house way out in the country... Of course, we have no idea when his father is moving. Possibly this October, maybe next fall sometime... Wonderful news, wrapped in a bit of uncertainty and disappointment. It is hard for me to keep from wanting to break into the house now and take measurements for new curtains, check out lighting to plan for painting, and daydream in every furniture store within 100 miles. 3 months isn't so long to wait, a year would give me plenty of time to plan and design and slowly start buying new dishes... Oh the unfinished thoughts running through my head, because without a timeline I can't prepare. I really do like to plan and prepare and daydream.

The housing situation is up in the air, but the relationship is as amazing as ever. His mother is up here visiting from Louisianna the past week and last night was a family get-together at his sister's house. His brother has always welcomed me with open arms, but I was a little nervous about his mom and sister (R used to be quite close with the family, cut them off before we even started dating, then tried to re-bond with them after our divorce when he found out that my friendship with G was turning into a relationship). Everybody was so great to me last night, telling stories about when they were kids, Mom even leaning in to tell me silly memories she had of them growing up.

What an amazing feeling, being included. R's family was always so cold to me, and sometimes downright cruel to him right in front of me. I have always known that my family couldn't be the only one that loved so deeply and obvoiusly, that only wanted each other to be happy, that welcomed new members with open arms. It is so great to see everything wonderful about my family reflected in G's. They don't even blink at the age difference (I will be 28 in 3 weeks, he will be 40 this winter), they don't question how we became so close (my brothers knew him, R never introduced us or ever wanted to be around him while we were married, even though R and G had known each other since R was born), they just accept me and actually care about getting to know me. A horrible family can so easily wreck a relationship, but G's family is going to be the kind that embraces it and makes the relationship that much better. Loving him is the easiest thing I have ever tried or wanted to do.

R is engaged. Turns out the felon got off with just some probation. She has banned him from letting me see Little H, and he is going along with it. I miss my son. His smile, his laugh, his cocky attitude. Watching him sleep at night, the faces he makes when he is reading an advanced book and he can't pronounce a word. I die inside when I think about it, so I shut it out. Even these few sentences took so long to write because I couldn't see through the tears.

So that's where I am now: so in love with G, wanting nothing but forever by his side, devastated that my ex is moving on because that means my stepson is gone too. Life isn't perfect, but for the most part it is pretty damn close.

Not much to say, but I'll write anyway

2010-04-15T16:25:00.003-05:00

So, it's been a month since I last wrote. Still no job, still no major progress on my boyfriend's house hunt, no contact with Little H in the past month either. I guess there is some moving forward, though. Tomorrow is my nephew's first birthday.

Boog (the nephew) spends one day a week with me. It started as time with his daddy (my brother), but Daddy got a full-time job so Auntie Roy became daycare. He was a terror today! Spitting food, screaming, biting, repeatedly doing the exact same thing he's been told "no" about a million times before. Throwing toys out the window, grabbing my glasses, slamming his toy train against the ferret cage... Out came the pack-n-play and he got put in jail. Which made him laugh. He doesn't even understand punishment!!! Makes Auntie Roy even more frustrated. Last month he was cutting a molar, so he spent all day in my lap, hugging me, silent, content to just sit there and play with my fingers. Can I have my Cuddle Boog back? I don't mind returning the Devil Boog I accidentally got today.

Yep, 1 day a week is enough parenting for me. Even on the cute days I don't mind sending him back to his mother. I am still amazed by how I feel about having children of my own. I know I would love having a child, I get a little jealous when everybody around me is pregnant (which has been the case for the past year straight, including one who just found out so I'll be hearing about her for another 7 months), and my boyfriend would make an incredible father. But I also know that I don't like waking up in the middle of the night, changing diapers every hour or two gets to be exhausting, I like my boobs exactly the way they are, and I don't want to change my favorite sexual positions to accommodate a growing belly. I like making plans for myself, not trying to squeeze in what I want to do around nap times and play dates. And I definitely like having my man to myself.

I never thought I was the type that would be this selfish. I want what I want and I don't want a baby to demand things from me. Or is it simpler than that: I can't have a baby so I'm going to brainwash myself into believing that I don't want one anyway... I'm thinking I don't want to know which it is, I would rather feel relief knowing that there is some reason why I'm content without children than feel guilt that I'm either selfish or mental enough to brainwash myself.

2010-03-16T12:32:00.002-05:00

April 2008 to March 2010...

June 2008 my marriage officially ended. It was past time, believe me. I hated him, he sure didn't seem to like me at all anymore, the only thing that held me there was the intense desire to not lose Little H- the only child I would ever have. Even Little H wasn't enough to combat being yelled at and called names constantly.

Turns out R is bipolar, the version with rage and jealousy and paranoia. Nope, he couldn't be the hyper kind, his manic episodes were mean ones. I kind of thought that was the case, but he refused to get any help at all until his new girlfriend (she moved in 3 weeks after I left) said something. He's been through 3 live-in girlfriends since then, one of whom was girlfriend #1's sister... The current girl is also a temporary one- she is awaiting her sentencing on federal drug trafficking charges and within a month will likely be "leaving" for 6-12 months. He's going to wait for her, he has never felt this way about anybody before, etc.

I have been dating a wonderful man for 15 months now. We worked together until just a couple weeks ago. Everybody says they don't know how we could stand working together all day and then spending the rest of the day together, too. It worked for us, like really well worked for us. At work we were completely professional, and then we'd be home and could relax and enjoy each other. We both actually miss being together 24 hours a day. With me no longer working there, we only see each other 2 nights a week (can't waste all of my savings driving 20 miles each way to see him, gotta find a new job first), and we are both miserable. He is currently living in an apartment where the rent is "per person," so moving in together is not possible until he moves. Which will probably be happening sometime this year. He has been looking more and more for a house to buy, and has made it obvious that the house is for me as well.

Commitment is scary, it has gone so wrong for me in the past. I'm afraid to feel this in-love again, I don't want to feel like I'm floating when he looks at me, I get a little nervous when my heart wants to scream the "L" word... He is even more afraid of commitment than I am. And here we are, stumbling through it together, indulging in every moment we can spend in each others arms, talking about the future (including the extreme future) as if it's a given, committing to each other so extremely- as long as there are no labels...

I am in love- a love that I could have never defined before now, so different from what I thought love was when I married R- solid, heavy, honest, scary. I thought love was floating, I thought it meant sparkles and bubbles and sugar and dancing on air. I never thought love could mean sweating like never before while watching a softball tournament or not having to say a word for hours or just contentment. When I am with him, there is nowhere else I would ever want to be. I don't dream of romantic dates or escaping to a tropical island, I just want him. I can live without him, as long as that only means my twice a month girls night out, and his weekly boys night playing video games. I can be with him 24 hours a day and not want him to leave my side. I almost didn't know I was in love, but I think that's because I'm not in love. I just love him, and that is a huge difference. There are no illusions, no games, no secrets. We are completely ourselves and there is love.

Two months

2008-04-18T21:29:00.003-05:00

That's how long it's been since my last blog. I'm not sure how long before my next. Not only does R read my blog secretly, but there is also at least one anonymous "friend" that stalks all of my internet activity. I've secluded myself to just 2 message boards that I feel safe on (well moderated, and never spoken of by name, by invitation only, etc).

6 months ago I didn't feel safe on my laptop. R had installed a keystroke logger and watched everything I did. I still don't trust that I can speak (type) freely on it. Which leaves the desktop, which R has constant access to, so I can pretty much guarantee it's bugged in some way. I'm not out trolling for a lover or stashing money so I can disappear, so I'm not feeling any sort of guilt. But R has taken away my way to share my feelings while still being private, if you know what I mean. Every time I log on I'm reminded that he didn't trust me (at the time I was having a flirtatious fling, so I guess he was slightly justified, but R assumed it was a sexual affair not just humorous flirting), and that I can't trust anything he touches.

It's crazy, but so many of the issues I still have can be linked back to that program. If I am at the store and run into the DJ I was accused of sleeping with, my heart pounds and I'm scared to say hello, even though we were friends for years before R and I got married (and nothing happened between us, no matter what my exBFF says- she admitted to trying to use the "news" to get into R's pants, but that's beside the point). My mind races and I immediately call R and tell him every word of the conversation, just to make sure he hears it from me first. I've turned shy around even my closest friends if we go out, because I don't want anybody to assume that I'm acting "too single" or "not married enough" or whatever they want to call it. I have actually really withdrawn from my message boards even. I post a couple times a week, usually oooh-ing at a new baby or answering the "what are you doing this weekend?" poll. Never anything personal, never anything that deals with R or emotions. Just the usual "awww, look at that beautiful tiny, I just wanna nibble his/her toes" and I disappear again. I hide even the good things, because I'm afraid I'll get comfortable sharing and let something less-than-perfect slip.

So I write this blog, knowing that R will read it. And the anonymous friend (who posted as "concerned" or "worried" or something like that earlier this year). And I prepare to disappear again. I'm going to be scared of my shadow for a very long time. *insert groundhog joke here* Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice trying to save my marriage. Some days it seems beyond repair, others it seems hopeless. But every once in a while we have one great day and I wish we could have more. So I stay, and hope those great days become more frequent. So far they haven't.

*Oh, and the tattoo is finished- the outline anyway- for those of you following that saga. As you can tell from the above, pics are probably not going to be posted here anytime soon, but you can email me and I'll send you one that way (in a week or two, once I've actually taken the time to take pics of it)... infertileroy@yahoo*

No clue, but I'm trying (kids mentioned)

2008-02-13T10:40:00.004-05:00

It has been entirely too long since I've blogged. I say that so often, because so often I get lazy with my blogging. Sometimes I'm distracted, sometimes I am away from home, sometimes my life is just so boring that I can't think of anything worthwhile to blog about. Last week was excuse #2, yesterday was excuse #1, today is excuse #3. Although I'm going to type anyway, no matter how pointless the information is.

I never did blog about my friend's baby a couple weeks ago. There was a lot of drama in K's relationship with J way back when. They did the on-off thing, although in the year before they got married it was extreme. On=pregnant, off=m/c. Seriously. They got married during pgcy #3, which resulted in a beautiful little girl (they oh-so-deserved a perfect baby after what they'd been through, even though I wasn't sure I liked him marrying her). For the record- K is a guy, my best friend, I know I've blogged about him before, in my 100 things. Anyway, their little girl is 2 1/2-ish. New baby just came out a couple weeks ago, they induced at 37 weeks because J was in so much pain and had been on bedrest since 16, strict bedrest since 22wks. I don't know all the details from early on, because they nearly divorced over this baby. My dearest K is not the daddy and he knew it from the beginning. They have resolved all baby-daddy issues and are happy now. I'm still slightly conflicted. Although hearing the wonder in K's voice when he talks about his new son, it melts me. As long as K is happy, so am I.

Last week I disappeared on Tuesday. Snow was forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, the two options for when I could go downstate to get Little H (I pick him up on Thurs, but sometimes go down a night early and hang out with Uncle Tattoo and such). So, R rushed me into packing my stuff and we took off. You see, the truck has a seemingly exploded brake line, so my car is our only vehicle. And he needed it for work for the week, so he dropped me in town with Uncle Tattoo and made arrangements for me to use my mom's car to pick up Little H from school. 2 days before I could pick up Little H, stranded in town with no car (I could have gotten a ride to my mom's house when my dad got out of work, but stranded in town is SOOOOO much better than stranded at mom's), didn't bring my laptop. Holy wow that sucked. But I did get to watch some awesome tattoos being done, saw some amazing artwork, and got to hang out with the crew at the shop. I used to spend whole days there over the summer, so I really missed being there.

Thursday was yet another snow day for Little H. And his mom's house is impossible to get to without 4wheel drive and a winch. So I decided that I'd just wait and pick him up from school on Friday. His mom threw a fit. Apparently she likes getting rid of her kids whenever possible and demanded that I drive out there and get him. It's over an hour from my mom's house, the last 4 miles of roads are NEVER plowed, and she lives on a hill with huge pits at the end of her driveway that suck in cars and seriously upset the super-winch on the tow truck getting the car out. NO WAY. More bitching from her, but she eventually gave in when the only option was for her to meet me in her town- she has no car so she couldn't do it at the time the court order says the exchange is supposed to be. Another snow day on Monday, more whining from her. I ended up dropping off Little H with R's grandma for a little while until the mom's boyfriend got out of work to pick him up. At this rate, the kid won't get out of school in the summer until July. They've had 5 snow days during R's days, plus another 4 that I can think of, and probably more than that. They get 3 free (as in, they expect at least 3 snow days so they start the school year with 3 more days than required, so they can pretend they're not making up as many actual days), but they've gone way beyond that already. And we aren't done with the storms yet, so there is a possibility of 2-4 more snow days before winter is over. Then they have the possibility of cancellations due to fog. Yep, he'll be in school till July.

My mom is up visiting right now. She brought her 3 1/2 month old puppy. I have pictures- on the desktop- I will try to be less lazy and post some soon. Tiffany took 2 days to tolerate him, but now she'll wrestle and everything. Argos liked him well enough from the start, but does no real playing even now. But they are so cute together, all 3 of them. Yes, I promise pictures this week, I can't help but share the adorableness of it all.

*note about my last post- I have learned to never leave home without my Valium. It was prescribed to help me sleep (an not have wacky-vivid dreams that prevented relaxation), but I know all it's uses and know it would help me if I were to ever have another panic attack. It takes up a lot of valuable space in my purse- only one type of tattoo ointment fits now- but just knowing it is there is actually very helpful. Yay drugs.*

Heart? Where did you go??? (edit at the end)

2008-01-29T14:38:00.001-05:00

Have any of you had a panic attack before? I've heard them described, but never truly understood until yesterday. Remember that whole going in the ditch thing around Christmas? It's actually in the post below this. I didn't say much about it, just that it rained and the car went in the median and we needed a tow. I briefly mentioned that a slightly further distance sliding could have ended up with the car flipping, but the whole paragraph is written in an amusing sort of way. Yesterday I realized that it wasn't so amusing.

It was raining, slightly. Late afternoon, the sun was hiding behind clouds and preparing to set. Whatever, I've driven in blizzards before, it had been warm all day so I knew there was no ice on the roads. Hmmm, I'm going 65 when the speed limit is 70? That's fine, a bit of caution never hurt anybody. OK, some more caution and I'll slow down to 60 (and get passed by a driver's ed car). Ummmm, the water looks deeper, I don't like going 60. 55 is a good speed, I like 55. But the water's even deeper, at least 6 inches of water on the road and it gets deeper every time my wipers go across the window. Every time I blink I feel the car floating on top of the water, so I have to force my eyes to stay open so the car will stay on the road. Please, God, help me. I start singing songs from my college bible study group, they have calmed me through so many rough drives. My voice is so quiet and shaky that even I can't tell if I'm saying a word. Oh no, the water is at least a foot deep, I can't see the road anymore, just a flood of water.

Oh, please, where is that rest area, I know it's at mile marker 174, how far is that from here? 11 miles. I can stop there and take off my coat and relax for a minute, then I'll be fine. 8 miles, if only there was somewhere else to stop sooner. 7 miles, I need the rest area, I have to get out of the car. 4 miles, ok I'm almost there, I can do this. 3 miles, I can't do this, please, God, direct my car and keep me safe, I can't do it alone. 2 miles, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. 1 mile, my hands are shaking, I can't let go of the steering wheel or even slide them to a different position. The offramp, 100 more yards to the parking area. The very first parking space. Call R, stop breathing, cry in panic.

By the time I got out of the car (and ran away from it), my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it. Except my heart was nowhere inside my body, I couldn't feel it anywhere. My throat was closed, but I was breathing so hard I felt like my lungs would explode. Nowhere felt safe, I could still smell the rain, hear it when the door opened, feel it where it had attacked me and wet my hair as I ran inside. I could see my car through the window, the vehicle that would surely float down the river that used to be a road and crash into everything in sight.

It took R, my mom, my brother CML, and my aunt (who just happens to be a nurse) to calm me down over the phone. And that took 45 minutes, plus a couple backslides when the rain picked up and I could hear it hit the skylights. It was 30 minutes after that before my brother got there to pick me up (he was an hour away, and it took 15 minutes to coordinate the pick-up), including a couple more calls to mom or R or my aunt when something else caused me to panic again. It felt like the entire world was conspiring to make me as scared as possible, and it was succeeding.

I stayed with uncle Tattoo last night (his house was the closest one to get to and even in the back seat, rocking, with my eyes closed I couldn't handle being in a car any longer than absolutely necessary). We rented a couple movies. He mocked me for being scared of the rain but wanting a shower to help me relax (yes, I do see the irony there, but they are totally different in my head, and that's all that matters). Yeah, we're at the point where we can make fun of me with words. My brother thinking he's being funny and squiggling the steering wheel? Not ready for that yet. He realized his mistake on that one and begged me not to shoot him in the head once the car stopped. I obliged, but I've made the mental note that I get one free super-bitchy moment to make up for him scaring me.

Why didn't R come get me, since I was pretty much halfway? That would be because the brake line in his truck blew over the weekend. I don't have the exact details, such as hole vs. broke in half, but I do know it's broken and the truck does not stop. So, he couldn't come. He called both sets of neighbors and neither was home.

I did drive home today, in the mist/sprinkling rain. But it was daylight and I wasn't hallucinating lakes in the road. R asked me to pick him up from work, since he had to get a ride in today due to the brakes on the truck. I can't do it. I got here from the rest area, but only because I had to. Stepping out of the car is the safest feeling I've ever had, I can't handle getting into it unless I have no choice. I don't have to drive again until next Thursday when I pick up Little H again. Pray for no rain for me.

*edit* Although I say that the water was a foot deep, it really wasn't. There wasn't even a layer on the road, just that the road was damp. But when you're freaking out, a little hallucinating is to be expected...

Too Long (kid mentioned)

2008-01-06T12:10:00.001-05:00

It has been so long since I've blogged. I let it slide because I was preparing for our vacation to Louisiana. Then I was gone for 6 days. Then my excuse was that we were recovering from the long drive. Then we had to unpack and re-organize Little H's room to fit the new toys. Then I had a sudden undeniable need to move the furniture in our bedroom. And then I just became too lazy. I really like lazy, but it's time for me to snap out of it.

The trip down wasn't bad, although there were a few bumps in the road (Little H's mom freaking out in the middle of the school and sobbing that she can't survive without him for 6 days- hey, bitch, don't ruin the kid's vacation, and what about those times when he was 4 months old and 9 months old and a dozen times when he was 1-4 years old when you'd drop him off for 2-6 weeks straight and not bat an eye?... Oh, and we drove 1300 miles without stopping except for food and gas... And Little H was woderfully blessed with a thankfully minor case of some stomach bug and threw up in a McDonald's bathroom in Mississippi). Everybody loved everybody, we had a great vacation. Little H rode horses, I finally got to bond with my mother-in-law, there was no snow. Boatload of presents which barely fit in the car to come home, snuggle time at the Christmas Eve bonfire Mama built, roasting marshmallows and falling in love with that entire side of R's family. It was just about perfect.

I cried when we left, I needed more time. I needed weeks with Mama, I needed a few relaxing days in the South without holiday plans and trying to make up for sleep lost on the drive. The South agreed with me, it didn't want us to leave either. So, the South rained. It rained until the roads became rivers. It rained until an especially deep road-river wiggled us around. It rained until a second road-river 10 yards further up the road kept us wiggling and wouldn't let us recover to steer straight. It rained until we were sliding through the median. It rained just enough so that the car dug into the mushy Mississippi ground and stopped before hitting a culvert that would have guaranteed to have flipped the car. It rained while Little H awoke from his nap with a start and asked what state we were in and why we were stopped. It rained while we waited 2 hours for the damn tow truck (because we had to go through our insurance company to find a tow company that they contracted through to have it covered). It rained while sensors were covered in mud and caused the heater to blow cold air. It rained while over 2 dozen cars stopped to make sure we were ok and regretfully mention that they'd left their tow straps at home (when I say cars, I mean huge pickup trucks with beefy men or adorably tiny women driving them).

OK, you get it, there was a lot of rain. Eventually we got pulled out and rinsed off and the car was running fine. There's some Mississippi mud stuck inside the rear driver's side wheel well, but everybody loves souvenirs. A small question about whether the exhaust was fine, but the car wasn't any louder than before, so it must be fine. At exactly the Missouri state line, that questionable exhaust broke in two. Several stops and a duct tape and Red Bull can fix job later, the car was made right again. Which only last 56 miles. Back to the noise. In the middle of the night, while Little H was sleeping. He didn't notices a thing until after breakfast the next morning when he mentioned that the car farts really loud now. Just what I need with 200 miles left to go, fart jokes.

Anyway, the gifts are put away, most of the travel gear is out of the car, and I've caught up on most of the missing sleep. And the bedroom furniture is all rearranged, making one large open area instead of two long-ish skinny open areas. It required R and I to switch sides of the bed, he nearly jumped on top of me when his alarm went off for the first time. It will take some getting used to, but R hasn't gotten used to me being on the wrong side yet, so he doesn't steal all the blankets from me. That will change, but I'm liking the brief amount of time where he tugs blankets from the floor and not my side.

Which brings us to now. I have been really sucking in the "me" time. After weeks of listening to R whine about our nonexistent sex life and catering to every other aspect of the house, I have decided that his penis doesn't matter and I'm taking care of what I need. Yeah, I let my XH come over one day for a couple hours (told R about it way ahead of time), but what about every other weekend when I am forced to see his ex when I pick up or drop off Little H? What makes him so loving and patient and giving (his claim was that he's so much of all those things that he's earned some sort of "reward")? He met my XH once! "But I never married Little H's mom..." (so somehow what I've done in past relationships is worse than him, so he has a right to be resentful that XH was coming over) Nope, you didn't. But me marrying XH meant that once the divorce was final it is 100% MY decision if I ever see him again. You knocked up Little H's mom, which means that we have to see her every time anything special happens in Little H's life, and every other weekend. Wait, not US, since R is working during scheduled drop-off and pick-up times, so it's ME that has to see her constantly. So, who is loving and patient and giving? One 90 minute meeting, then nothing for the rest of your life? -or- EVERY time one of us wants to see Little H for the next 12 years (assuming that he lives with her until he's 18) PLUS every significant event for the rest of his life- graduation, moving away for college, wedding, babies, etc?

So, R, your penis can shrivel up and fall off for all I care. Even now, I'm still giving and not getting much in return except bitching about when I'm going to want to have sex. The answer- NEVER! Quit assuming that you rubbing my feet after I spend all day cleaning the house (and getting ready for YOUR son's visit) is ever going to guarantee you sex. Yes, you do more than you did before the separation, but it's still not more than what I do and therefore does not demand sexual reciprocation. Maybe that's why I still refuse to put out, because you act like the things you do are only to get sex. Rub my back because you want to, help with the laundry because 75% of it is yours, quit riling up the dogs 15 seconds before you walk out the door and expecting them to behave after that (it's not them being hyper that pisses me off, you fucking moron, it's the fact that they were calm and sleeping until you started wrestling for less than a minute and left them hyper when I had told you to leave them alone because I knew you were on your way out the door).

And, yes, I do get to sleep until 8:30 every morning, but that's not sleeping in for me. So on weekends when you whimper about me wanting to go to bed at our normal time and force me to stay awake until 1am, telling me that I "always get to sleep in" so it's your turn, is total BS. Keeping me up 2-3 extra hours is stealing my sleep and making me feel like weekends are twice as much work for me as weekdays. No wonder Monday is my favorite day of the week, it's the beginning of my weekend and getting to sleep normally again. And 3pm is not sleeping in, it's sloth! Go to bed earlier during the week, you're the one keeping me up and then complaining that you're exhausted every day. And when I turn you down for sex (because you waited until we had been in bed talking for 20 minutes- when I was already exhausted- then trying to fall asleep for 10 minutes... if I'm nearly unconscious, I'm NOT HORNY), don't get pissy and get out of bed for 2 hours, just jerk off in the bathroom quick and go to sleep. No wonder you're worthless on weekends.

OK, I have to stop bitching. Besides, I have a house to clean and R is too busy building websites to be any help at all...

I think I have enough time... (kids mentioned)

2007-12-17T17:47:00.001-05:00

This is probably my last chance to blog before we leave for Louisianna for the holidays, so here I go. Very quickly, though, because R is in the ceiling right now.

The ornaments were a hit at school. The kids had so much fun. I think "THE" popular girl in the class has a little crush on Little H. And I mean "THE" girl- blonde hair, blue eyes, competes in figure skating, great reader (hey, it's 1st grade, that is a big deal), the works. She blinks her long, perfectly curved lashes just a little bit more when he's around. And she kept talking to him and me, but not clingy like a couple of the girls. Of course, she'll turn into a bitch around middle school and barely look at him because her parents have money and his mom doesn't, but for now I think she likes him.

The puppies are growing so fast. The camera's still out in the car, but I got some great pics so I will try very hard to post again before we leave. They're almost standing on their feet now instead of scooting across the floor. And they go potty on their own (quite gross, actually, but a stage in growing up so it's like an accomplishment), they lick Mama's food sometimes (they love the yogurt that my mom mixes in to help Mama Dog get more calcium and have less gas), and you can see little nubbies in their mouths where teeth will soon come in.

Sorry I don't have time for more, R has now found the leak (he got dripped on last night, out of nowhere). The next couple days will be spent trying to figure out what to do there until Spring (when we will likely have to re-roof the house). Any free time will be spent cleaning, packing, cleaning, packing, and going over my list repeatedly to make sure nothing was forgotten. Would you all mind emailing me every once in a while reminding me to eat? That's not written on my schedule so I'll probably forget. Thanks!

If I don't get a chance before then: Merry Christmas (and Joyful Celebration of whatever holiday(s) you choose to recognize, I only specified Christmas because that is my belief/holiday of choice, I am open and loving of all holidays and times of togetherness and cheer)! And Happy New Year (I should be home by then, but just in case)!

Oh, and a tiny tidbit of ponderful information- I took a "what's the best religion for you" test thing, and it said that I'm 94% in agreement with the Jewish faith. I'm not immensely dedicated to Christianity, there is much I disagree with (I'm pro-choice and I love gay people, just to name a couple arguements). Maybe I should research this some more. I could so light candles and rid my house of flour products once a year, and all that other stuff Mel does. And love every part of my chosen faith, not just "some of the big stuff." I'm not even that dedicated to Christmas, except for the emphasis on family and togetherness, and Judaism has days emphasizing family and togetherness, so I think I could convert well. Yeah, very much wanting to research more. I'll keep you all updated. (R doesn't dig the conversion idea, that may put a damper in my plans. But at least I'll know that my beliefs do fit somewhere, I'm not the worst Christian ever, I just think like a Jew... can I joke like that? is it offensive? because I see it as Jews being way more accepting and Christians being way too judgemental, so thinking like a Jew is a good thing in my experience. I'll shut up now.)

Festively... decorative

2007-12-09T19:54:00.000-05:00

Half the ornaments are done (the round ones, they're so much easier). The other half are hopefully getting cut by the awesome machine at the copy shop tomorrow afternoon. Which means tomorrow evening and all day Tuesday are scheduled for folding and gluing (every second, because it took 2 full days to fold and glue the easy ones).

And now, the pics. Hello? Crafty McCrafty? You here to see them? You requested. And I'm doing pretty good at that pictures in every post thing so far... I'll be lazy later, right now I want to show off.

Please ignore the extensive dirtiness of my floor, the grout never got sealed (that is the least of my complaints about the shitty contractor the guy we bought the house from hired) and one little grain of sand can make the whole floor look black. Instead, focus on the gigantic pile of ornaments that R and I made. And the measly 4 pointy ones, which means we have 56 left to do.

Festively Barely Dressed

2007-12-07T10:29:00.000-05:00

Last night was it, T-day, the time to finally get a picture of my tattoo (stage 3 of ?). Took a shower, shaved my legs carefully, applied lotion (and leg make-up to hide the fact that my tan is beyond faded away and there are stretch marks on my butt- way to be a late bloomer, Roy). Cute little skirt, lacy boy-short panties because I had to lift my skirt a little to expose all of it, sexy black heels. It's a picture of my leg, no need to put on a shirt, right?

R took a little creative license with the photography. Cut out the shoe once, trying to get a good angle and catch me not covering my boob. Hello, the shoes are important, I love those shoes! Anyway, I guess I should post the evidence now. And a reminder from when I first got it done- NEVER TATTOO YOUR ASS! I'm hoping for stage 4 next Wednesday, although I'm not looking forward to it because I'm really not excited for the pain. What we do for beauty (or what we consider beauty, because I'm sure there are some out there that don't think my tattoo is anywhere near beautiful, but I'm in love with it)...

Volunteering to be crafty- why it's the stupidest idea ever! (kids mentioned)

2007-12-06T15:04:00.000-05:00

Little H is adorable. He's in first grade. By default of age and size, pretty much his entire class is adorable. As well as the other first grade class in his school, located in the classroom across the hall. The things they do are adorable. The things they say are adorable. The cheap crap they make at school is adorable. And now, storytime:

So...... one day a gorgeous, intelligent, lovable stepmother was making paper Christmas ornaments. Her mom and aunt had gotten a book of them at some craft store for her birthday in August, knowing that she would love it (and that it would take her those entire 4 months in between to actually get them done, because her craftiness comes in very short spurts). Her adorable stepson wanted to help. That's a big N-O. After spending hours cutting them out, gluing them together, and adding glitter paint and beads and pieces of random jewelry that nobody wears anymore, there was no way she was going to let little 6 year old hands screw it up.

Instead, the fabulous, genius that she was offered to come into his classroom for an entire day and decorate some (made of construction paper) with all of his classmates. The stepson with the pinchable cheeks consented to that idea. The caring, stunning, amazing stepmother made the same proposition to the teacher. The teacher beamed with delight.

Two weeks later, the alluring, radiant, astute stepmother and the teacher met to look at the template, decide how many, and set a date. The teacher asked if both classrooms could do it. The giving, naive stepmother happily agreed (the teacher had made it a point to rave about the gullible stepmother to the other first grade teacher right in front of her, so the moronic stepmother was in an all-to-ambitious mood).

Now the doltish, witless stepmother is attempting this impossible feat. She has managed to print the template onto the construction paper, but the remainder of the project seems insurmountable. Cutting out 6 designs per ornament, folding them, gluing them, starting all over again for the next one. 120 ornaments, that's 720 pieces. Sure, half of them are circles (which are easier to cut, but harder to fold), but the other half resemble squares with spades attached to each side. A mere 40 pieces have been cut, which has rendered the scissors dull and the haggard stepmother's hands cramped.

Only one week left to finish them all. They go to the teacher on Thursday to be punched and string added to hang them with. The stepmother is driving downstate on Wednesday to do some necessary picture-taking for the tattoo-shop website (and some sitting around, because the crew there is awesome and fun). So, really only 5 days to complete the project. The stepmother has begun wondering if there is anything short of the flu that will get her out of this. But she knows that even if she was near-death with the flu she would feel guilty about messing up the teacher's craft time plans and never forgive herself for it (this stepmother is very good at causing/pointing out guilt, so much so that she overwhelms herself in her own). So, the cramped hands take a short break and then return to their arduous task.

Those adorable children better be excited, lest the fatigued stepmother have a mental break down and be unable to maintain her cheerful facade in their presence.

Seriously, I'll fucking scream and rip the ornaments to shreds if those little brats don't enjoy my hard work. Those were my favorite scissors, damn it, and now they don't cut anything. Off to buy at least 2 more pairs of scissors, hopefully they will make it through.

Cuteness (in 3 day old puppy form)!!!

2007-11-30T20:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, first off the babies. During the night, #10 appeared. We have not confiscated all of them again to try to figure out if that one was male or female, but it exists and that's all that matters. A few are staying quite runty, so I may or may not be bringing a couple puppies home with me after I take Little H back down to his mom's. If so, there will be plenty of pictures, hopefully chronicalling the transformation from pseudo-ugly to actually adorable (please, God, let them become adorable).

Still no clue on who the daddy might be, poor bastard puppies.

PCOSMama asked, and I have yet to deny my readers anything they ask (other than that creepy anonymous one that wanted more nudie pics), so I will slightly expound on the sex I had Sunday night. R was incredibly nervous- it had been 8 months, and he wasn't very "generous" in the "giving me pleasure" department prior to that. He focused so much on trying hard that the mood pretty much died. And I tried so hard to "urge" myself towards involuntary muscle spasms of the ecstasy type that I just stalled right at the edge and nothing would get me over it. We tried a second time about 15 minutes later, but R getting his rocks off without me the first time made him twice as nervous the second and I stalled again. Hopefully we'll have a calm night between now and when we leave for his mom's house for the holidays (because she's forcing us to stay in the master bedroom and he refuses to have sex on her bed) and we can try again. It was quite late Sunday night when we attempted (and we had no idea an attempt would be made, it was rather spur-of-the-moment and there had been no hinting beforehand) and with Monday being our court date we were both extremely stressed. It will get better with practice, right?

Yeah, that's not the vicarious living you were hoping for, is it? I'm gonna end up with cranky comments over my sub-par sex life, I can see it now. I promise to vaguely disguise and share some hotter details once they occur.

Now I'm off to stencil, cut, and glue 120 paper ornaments for Little H's class to decorate on the 14th. I already very much regret volunteering, let's hope the day spent in his classroom is adorable enough to make up for the carpal tunnel I'll get from cutting for days on end.

Not what I expected to do last night...

2007-11-27T10:59:00.000-05:00

This weekend was so long. Quick note- court for Little H was yesterday. We didn't get custody, but we did get extended weekends (thursday thru monday) and way more time in the summer, and we get to take him to Louisianna for Christmas (which his mother was so incredibly pissed about, because we offered to give her all of Christmas next year so we could have it this year, and she refused. the judge gave us most of Christmas this year- including both Christmas eve and Christmas day- and not letting her have any extra time to make it up). Bitch should have worked with us in the first place.

Oh, and I had sex with R on Sunday night. For the first time in 8 months. For the first time since before the separation.

Now, all about last night. After court, we went back to my parents' house to pack up the car and get the dogs. Trunk packed. Last minute things found and crowding the front seat. Tiffany super excited. Leashes located. Tiffany in the back seat. R on his way to get Argos from the back yard. My dad's dog has something in her mouth. It's a newborn puppy. Hear screaming. There's another newborn puppy buried in the dirt. And a third abandoned in the dog house.

(disclaimer- that dog showed up as a stray, she did not get pg at my parents' house as the only male around there is a chihuahua and these puppies are huge, way bigger than I would have expected out of a beagle-sized dog, they did not know she was pg as she was VERY fat when she showed up and has actually slimmed down slightly towards a healthy size, she was beyond obese before, it was sick)

In comes the dog (the pup in her mouth was not alive, we have no idea when she had those three), we warmed up the two living pups, search more in her pen out back to see if there were more, sent R to the store for any type of formula he can find. She had 7 more inside. She'd mostly take care of one, but once she had a second pup with her, she got overwhelmed and didn't do anything. At one point, she had two she was taking care of and gave birth to a third, which she completely ignored. We had to take away them away, I had to actually remove that ignored pup from the sac, she hadn't done anything at all. It was a frantic few hours, with the first two nearly dead from cold, one still in a sac that I had to cut out and convince to breathe (I nearly had to breathe for him at first), feeding 9 newborns with the only formula and bottles we could get without a 90 minute round trip, starting the feeding schedule all over again by the time we had finished with the 9th pup, tying strings on everybody to help identify them, making lists of who was who and when they ate, taking them all into the bathroom to wipe them with a wet washcloth to get them to potty. Oh, and taking care of my own two dogs somehow in the mix.

Once the mama stopped laboring, we gave her some time to relax, then put the pups in with her to see if she would take care of them. Thankfully, she allowed them to nurse and she started licking them and it looked like she was going to do her thing. She is still nursing and taking care of them this morning. She has to be hidden inside her crate at all times, because any time she sees a cat or person moving around she freaks out. We are so glad she's doing good, because I really didn't want to take on 3-4 pups (my mom would have kept the rest, she has help down there and I'd be doing it alone up here). It takes 20 minutes to care for each pup, so I'd be working with them for an hour and really only get an hour or so break before I had to start it all up again. R very much values my sleep, he knows how vital it is for my happiness, so he's very glad we didn't end up with pups. We may end up having to take in one or two (because mama doesn't have enough nipples to feed everybody at once), but not having to raise an entire litter is such a relief.

Anybody want a puppy in 8 - 12 weeks? Mama is a beagle/german shepherd?/something else hairy mix. Not sure what daddy is, probably something kinda big, most of the pups look slightly rottweiler-ish. Eventually they will be cute, I swear. And until then, they smell like puppies, which is awesome.

My 101 Things

2007-11-09T13:17:00.001-05:00

In catching up on Beth's blog, I stumbled on her 101 things. And decided that I should try one too. I'm not sure how excited I am, because this will prove to all of you just how "off" I can be sometimes. What the hell, that didn't stop me from posting nude pictures, so it's not stopping me now.

1. I need to have an ending point, I need to see the end of the tunnel. Case in point- I typed in every number before starting, even though it caused me to forget several of the things I had already thought of.

2. I need to know that my effort is appreciated. This means I can do very little just for myself. While R has been gone, I rarely clean the house or do dishes, because I cannot appreciate my own hard work. I will scrub every nook and cranny right before he comes home, but until then I can't force myself to be proactive. I can't even enjoy cooking for myself, food just doesn't have that relaxing and indulgent flavor if I'm not making it for somebody else too.

3. As much as I really want to know what is going on in our budget, I need R to be in charge of it. I try to give my ideas on what money to save and our "play money," but I have some sort of fear of having to take care of it myself.

4. This drives R crazy, because I'm constantly asking to be involved but freaking out and running away when he does try to involve me in the monthly budget planning.

5. R also hates my eating habits when he's gone. Since I can't enjoy eating food I've spent time preparing, I eat nothing but TV dinners, bagel pizzas, and lun.chables. And cereal.

6. I don't usually eat those things when R is here, I save the "comfort food" factor of those things for when he's gone. I worry that if I indulge in bagel pizzas when he's around, they won't taste as good when he's gone and therefore I wouldn't eat much at all.

7. If I could eat nothing but Taco Bell while R is gone, I would. There is something about their chips that is just heavenly when dipped into that hot little plastic cup of cheese goo.

8. I nearly drove back to Taco Bell on Monday, because they only gave me 2 sauce packets total for my 2 tacos. I always use 2 mild packets per taco. From now on I will go inside to order so I can grab my own sauce packets and not deal with the stingy drive-thru lady. If I hadn't had extra sauce packets in my fridge (for just such an emergency), I wouldn't have been able to eat, seriously.

9. Which means my sauce packet emergency stash is now drained (because we always do drive-thru and they always stiff me on extra sauce packets) and I'm slightly panicked about the next time I have Taco Bell.

10. My brain latches on to weird things to obsessively worry about. Like wondering how hard it would be to replace a few ceiling tiles, if we'd have to take out the whole row, just the few surrounding tiles, everything to the wall... if the candelabra were to fall. A candelabra that is NOT currently put up, and I have no idea if we'll ever put up at all, considering the house is a little small for something of that size hanging from the ceiling, plus we never use candles, and it doesn't really match the decor. But I've been worrying for days about how to fix the ceiling if it falls.

11. I'm now considering drywalling the ceiling so that tiles are not an issue should we ever decide to put up the candelabra.

12. I really want new furniture, to go with the great rug we bought a few months ago.

13. But the rug has me so content that I don't actually care about furniture right now.

14. My dogs eat holistic, grain-free food. I was adament about cutting out fillers and poor-quality ingredients in their food.

15. But their treats are full of the crap I made sure their food doesn't have.

16. I don't care if that makes me a hypocrite, they rarely get treats anyway, so I don't see it as affecting them much. Plus, that food is expensive, which I don't mind, but grain-free treats cost as much per month as their food, and that's crazy.

17. I love both of my dogs, but pet one more than the other. The one I pet less is because he is always licking and rubbing his nose all over me, and I hate being slimed. I give the extra pettings when he is not around, because I don't want him to get jealous.

18. I feel so guilty about that, so I give him one more treat than the other dog every day. They don't notice the difference (because I give him an extra bedtime treat, and they are separated at night), but it eases my guilt to know that I'm somehow spoiling him in a way I don't spoil her.

19. I'm pretty sure that makes me crazy.

20. And I don't care, because my dogs are happy and loved.

21. Here begins writing session 2 of this little experiment in knowing myself. Session 1 went well, but I'm starting to feel a little lost and wondering how much there really is to know about me.

22. R tells me I'm perfect on a daily basis.

23. It means more to me coming from my friend K.

24. Only because K startled me the first time he said it. I had mentioned to K a conversation I'd had with my ex-husband prior to the divorce, telling him that every once in a while I just wanted him to tell me that I'm perfect. And said ex replied with "you're perfect, FOR ME." Yep, that divorce was worth it. But K remembered, and one day I was really down and upset and he told me I was perfect. I didn't think he had paid attention to that conversation, and I never expected him to remember. But he did, so I will always smile so big I almost cry when K tells me I'm perfect.

25. I feel like R jumped on the "perfect" bandwagon because he was jealous that K could affect me so much with just 2 words. I'd told him the ex story long before I told K, and K was the one that remembered and made a point to say it when I needed it most. R says it constantly, and that takes away a lot of the meaning for me.

26. I met K when I worked at cub scout camp (he worked on the boy scout side of camp). I was the "health officer." A glorified name for "girl who dispenses medications and sometimes washes a boo boo."

27. K was infatuated with me, but I thought very little of it, since I was one of 3 female staff members at the entire camp. We eventually did "date" long distance after camp, but we didn't "click" as a romantic couple and just stayed friends.

28. That was over 5 years ago, and I have considered him one of my very best friends since that summer.

29. Considering R and I have been together 7 1/2 years, that whole 5 years ago date can be confusing. R and I were very on-again-off-again. We were together for the first time 7 1/2 years ago, but it was about 50/50 on and off until 4 1/2 years ago when he proposed.

30. Those off-again times resulted in my first marriage and Little H's conception.

31. I got married the first time for none of the right reasons. I didn't want to be alone, an ex-boyfriend turned friend stood up to his family for me, diamonds are pretty, R was being an idiot and had completely cut off communication with me for no reason 2 months prior to me getting engaged. The guy promised to take care of me forever.

32. 3 months later he was calling me, drunk, from the strip club every night, telling me what his favorite girl was wearing and which girl he was going to have dinner with or take to the movies.

33. The ex and I were married for 6 months before we knew it was legal.

34. The county clerk had no marriage record for us, kept claiming it was lost in the mail or never sent by the official. Turns out it was there the whole time, "somebody" had convinced them to file it under the wrong date (because it was still in alphabetical order) and not enter it into the computers.

35. That "somebody" was ex's grandfather, who had way more weight in that town than somebody of his morals ever should.

36. Our marriage record appeared instantly when grandpa called to get it so ex could get a bigger paycheck from the military, but for another 2 months after that when I needed it the thing was still "lost."

37. I'm weird, so I actually considered deleting this number and making a stupid joke at the end about nobody noticing. Then I realized that it would be very m.yspace to do such a thing, and I'm way more mature than that. But I am curious as to why this number stuck out in my head as being the one I should delete.

38. My favorite number is actually 15, so 37 holds no significance that I know of.

39. I am OCD about my keys. I check my purse twice before I get out of the car, twice more after I get out but before I shut the door, and at least once more as I walk away from the car- making sure I did put my car keys in their pocket in my purse. I also take my house keys with me when I walk to the end of my tiny driveway to check the mail.

40. The house keys are somewhat justified, though. Last winter we had adopted a german shepherd from the shelter, and while R and I unloaded some things from the truck into the garage we had the dogs in the laundry room (this is before the male we have now, but we had our lab mix). When we went to enter the house after we finished, the deadbolt was locked. Turns our the german shepherd really wanted to come outside with us and pawed at the door until it locked. My keys were in my purse, in the house, and that was the exact moment we realized R had locked his keys in the truck.

41. The truck window was open just enough to reach in and unlock it, so we weren't locked outside all night and no locksmith was necessary. But I will never be on the outside of anything without my keys again.

42. Our house only has 2 bedrooms, one for us and one for Little H. I think I let R buy this house for that reason, because I had lost all hope of having a baby and couldn't handle the idea of a third bedroom that would never become a nursery.

43. Turns out our insurance does cover the RE. We were told multiple times last year that it didn't, so we cancelled our appt and I went on BCP to control the endo. I just got the benefits book, and the RE is covered, including any diagnostics. And there is no mention of medications not being covered, so I think we actually have coverage for those, too, just a crazy-high copay because there is no way IF meds are part of their formulary.

44. I'm excited by that and scared at the same time, because of the whole "haven't had sex with my husband in 8 months" thing I blogged about not long ago. I want to get started right away, but I don't want R to feel like he's just a sperm bank, and I want to be in a place inside myself where I can "be" with R completely, before I'm knocked up and morning sickness takes away any chance of nookie.

45. R is even more excited than I am, he's making plans for how to take care of me after lap (because I can feel that the endo is raging again, so I need/want one before we start TTC again), wondering what drugs he can give me before the HSG so I'm not in as much pain this time, wants the list of baby names we came up with way back when we were naive and hopeful, keeping track of the foods I sometimes crave now, especially the odd ones (like Pi.zza Hut cheesy breadsticks, made on an unwashed cinnamon breadsticks pan, so they have cinnamon sugar on the bottom and cheese on the top- had it once on accident, and now I need it sometimes).

46. But we actually don't have to have sex to get pg, in fact, sex won't get us pg. So we could start seeing the RE and doing IUI, and never have sex again. Not that we would, but it's strange to know that I could NEVER have sex again, and still get pg.

47. I'm not telling R about that. Besides the fact that he would be crushed, he would also agree with me and drag me to the RE right away to get started.

48. He's got the baby bug more than me, like 2ww with strange symptoms, he just knows it's going to happen, baby bug.

49. I don't know if I'm amazed by his continuing naivete or irritated by his lack of reality.

50. I chose to write from the computer desk today, rather than my comfy lap desk at the couch, because the dogs are comfy on the couch.

51. If a bigger couch would fit in my house, I would buy one so that they could stretch out on in and still leave me a little bit of room to sit.

52. Except they would just stretch out even more, so I'd still have to sit elsewhere. And I wouldn't mind at all.

53. They drive me so crazy when I'm trying to use the computer. I think they are jealous of the laptop, because it's the only time I won't give them at least a little attention before telling them to go play on their own.

54. Writing day 3, which is over a week since the last time I was writing here...

55. My thoughts tend to ramble inside my head, so much that even I can't always figure out how I got from one thought to the next.

56. Back to the K thing- when I worked at camp, my "camp name" (for fun, and I think a little to protect everybody's privacy) was Lucky Bug.

57. K gave me that name, because on the night I was trying to come up with a name a bug fell down my shirt. I'm sure you can all guess the rest of the story.

58. My great-grandmother was a mail-order bride of some sort.

59. But not the Russian stereotype, she was from the Netherlands or something (I don't have all the details, but if anybody can guess her country-of-origin I will write an entire blog about how awesome you are. The last name is Nutting, if that helps).

60. R and I are getting each other new cell phones for Christmas this year (he's doing the ordering, but we each picked out the one we want), mostly because they're practically free when we renew our contract, and partially because we both just want new cute phones.

61. Mine was so much harder to decide to get, because I only had 1 option. I HATE flip phones, don't want any type of bla.ckberry-ish thing, and the only slider phone option has an MP3 player, which I would never use (I have 3 CDs on rotation in my car, but I only switch between them once every 2-4 months), so I was left with a single choice. Which is ok, because it's just a standard bar phone, it calls people and it has text messaging. That's all I want or need. Yeah, a camera would be convenient, but camera phones take shitty pictures and I have an awesome digital camera if I really want pictures of anything.

62. You would think that only 1 option would make it easy, but it didn't, because then the choice wasn't "which phone do I want?" but rather "do I really want a new phone if the only option isn't exactly what I had wanted?"

63. I really wanted a slider phone.

64. Almost entirely because I'm pretty sure it would look completely bitchy to hang up on somebody with one, and I think that would be fun.

65. The image of hanging up on somebody is probably the worst reason EVER to choose a specific phone, but I'm ok with that.

66. Thursday is my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary.

67. They had a double wedding, my grandma's sister married my grandpa's brother in the same ceremony.

68. The cousins from those two couples are SO similar- looks, voice, mannerisms, etc. They're basically all brothers and sisters genetically.

69. Sadly, that also extends to the prevalence of diabetes in that generation.

70. R suggested hanging that chandelier. I immediately projected my state of near-panic about the possibility of it falling, so it's now sitting in the bedroom with no ideas what to do with it.

71. R and I have decided to have Thanksgiving Dinner alone this year. Maybe not alone, because we are going to invite our friend and her baby (my godson) since her fiance is gone and her family sucks. But she may not feel like driving 2 hours, which actually wouldn't bother me at all.

72. I don't think I'm even making a turkey, probably just baking chicken breast.

73. The "fixin's" are the important part anyway, who cares what kind of bird it is as long as there is stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy and corn and rolls and pie (additional "fixin's" suggestions welcome. please note that we don't like cranberries, or onions, or green bean casserole). I plan on doing it up right (with the exception of the bird) and really enjoying ourselves.

74. I am sad that we won't be with my family, but Argos is stuck outside when we go downstate and I am tired of him being ignored and tied up. My dad was an ass about things over the weekend, which gave me even more reason to boycott family dinner.

75. My family used to be so close, we did everything together. Now two of my cousins live too far away to come home (one is in Wyoming and was just home over the summer, the other is in Australia), one cousin just doesn't come around at all anymore, another cousin should be in jail for all the shit he's pulled recently (including driving bad on his dad's motorcycle, even though he doesn't have a licence to drive even a car, stealing money from every family member he's been allowed around in the past year, etc), that one's dad has a new girlfriend with a 5 year old son and she's one of the worst parents I've encountered in a long time (the kid swears constantly, screams at all times, hits, kicks, bites, violently abuses the chihuahua his dumbass mother got for him). Honestly, if my family just consisted of my mom, my grandparents, my aunt, and the two cousins that are too far away (and my brothers, they're alright), I'd be happy. The rest really aren't worth my time.

76. I'm really mourning the long-lost perfect family holiday. We'd eat off the good china and the special silverware, everybody smiled and laughed, everything tasted perfect, the house smelled like love. Honestly, we were a fucking greeting card! Aunt J's waldorf salad, cousin SJ and her determination to make mac & cheese from scratch (she always loved it, but it was NOT my favorite), grandma's pies, loaded with whipped cream.

77. I know Thanksgiving this year wouldn't be that, so I'm glad that I can use Argos as an additional excuse to not go. I really don't want to be disappointed by my family.

78. I kick ass at Har.ry Po.tter for Ga.meboy. I had to learn how to play it so I could help Little H if he needed it. I totally beat the game in less than a week.

79. I suck at just about every other video game ever invented. I can't even get through 3 screens in Zeld.a before dying. There are not enough fairies in that game!

80. Except for Drag.on Que.st. That is the awesomest game ever. I have one with an emulator on my laptop (I believe it's DQ5), but I want them all. I can play for 6 hours without any sort of break and be perfectly happy.

81. I never played that game on our N.inte.ndo as a child, never really cared to. But now I love it so much.

82. R does the same thing, except with games that people have actually heard of, and that are new and use real technology.

83. Technology pisses me off, give me Ore.gon Trail anyday.

84. I think maybe I feel that way because I suck. There are entirely too many buttons on the new game controllers.

85. I recently found out that I did a lot more damage than originally thought when I strained my neck as a child (every muscle on the right side was pulled, my left ear actually touched my chest). As a result, I have very little head-tilting range of motion, and my head is permanently cocked just a little bit.

86. When my head is positioned properly, everything looks different, because for 18 years I've adjusted to it being "off."

87. I have a degree as a paramedic.

88. I decided not to complete my internship or do the national testing for licensure when I nearly had a mental breakdown in the back of the ambulance one day.

89. I haven't looked back.

90. Although sometimes I get jealous when I see an ambulance go by with lights and siren. I miss the adrenaline rush, and the feeling of helping people.

91. I was also a firefighter for a year and a half.

92. I didn't do much fire fighting because it was a small rural department, and then I injured my back during training class and had to step away from most of it.

93. My poor spine is straight in places that should curve and curved in places that should be straight. For being an extremely cautious, tiny, 25 year old girl, my back is fucked. I am so gonna be the grandma with the hump, there's really no hope for me.

94. On the topic of my family, my grandpa's side of the family has a very persistent trait of "the hidden baby toe." Nearly 1/2 of my baby toe is underneath its neighbor, my grandpa's is so bad you can barely tell he has one at all. Crazy genetics, even my nephews have slightly hidden baby toes.

95. That damn toe is what makes me saddest about Little H not being mine biologically. I cut his toenails every weekend he comes over, and I get slightly sad when I cut the baby toenail because I don't have to search for it under the next toe.

96. I also hate that his mother never cuts them, which is why at 2 years old his toenails wrapped all the way around the ends of his toes and ended underneath.

97. It took me 6 months of fighting and kicking and screaming and cutting his toenails to get them back to near where they belonged.

98. The way we got him to sit still while I did it: "if you sit still, for every toe that hurts you can punch Daddy one time."

99. So it taught him to hit, at least his toenails end on the top if his foot and not the bottom now. And he only ever hit when cutting his nails, he knew better than to try that crap any other time.

100. His mother still doesn't cut his nails, although she will sometimes do the tiniest of trimmings and claim she did (as in his nails were still in desperate need of being cut, but at least he didn't look like he was wearing fake nails anymore because of the length).

101. Being with R still makes me happier than anything else in the world, I breathe deeper and feel more comfortable with him around than I ever have before. I can't imagine my life without that. Oh, and I never did remember those things I had forgotten while typing in the numbers before starting.

I'm not lonely

2007-11-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

Not that I'm embarassed about the dirty dream, I just figured I should put something else up so that I'm not "that weird girl who's always talking about taboo shit." You know, like the 2 weeks I was obsessed by my nude photo shoot (ok, it was more than 2 weeks, I admit it).

I'm not lonely, I swear. I'm bored out of my freaking skull, but not lonely. I love having my house to myself (as long as the sun is somewhere above the horizon). But oh so bored. And bored leads to rambling thoughts, which leads to "I should blog about that" even if it's not very interesting. Sorry you all have to put up with me during my boredom.

It also means checking out sta.tcounter much more regularly. Apparently I was popular in Dubai one day (likely just one person, but they clicked all over the place reading my babble). Most often people come to my blog from Mel's blog, quite a few from Amy's blog too. And then I saw it, somebody came from Beth's blog. Holy crap, I'm linked to from Beth's blog too. More than 2 people like me enough to provide links in their blogs. I'm astonished, because really I do ramble and make little sense most of the time, and I do not stick to the whole IF theme of my blog, ever. And then I realized, I don't really know Beth, I haven't been following her story. Hell, I hadn't read her blog at all before this week. I have got a lot of catching up to do. I promise, Beth, I'm reading a lot, I will do right by you. I will be worthy of your link.

Mel, Amy, not meaning to say that your readership and links don't mean the world to me as well, because they do. I read you every day. I'm just sucking up to Beth a little because I suddenly feel extra-special that somebody I haven't commented on or exchanged emails with actually linked to me. I'm in love with the way that feels.

And it makes more work for me, because it reminds me that I haven't edited/added to my blog links since I started this thing. And I read way more blogs than I have linked to. Time to step up, I'm making myself look bad. Oooh, hey, anybody out there that has links to me, tell me, I want to know. It'll make me giddy for a month, and I'll add you too and read you every day. That makes me sound so sad, begging for people to acknowledge me, but I'm ok with that.

Seriously, Beth, that made my month.

I had a naughty dream!!!!

2007-11-08T21:55:00.000-05:00

Not that any of you really want these details, I'm just so excited. As you know, I moved out back in May. Things were bad with R. The summer went by, things were slowly getting better. Then all of the issues with Little H, so I moved back a little earlier than I had really planned. We've been continuing to work on our issues, and we've come so far. Except where intimacy is concerned. It's been since March. I just can't get past the trust issues (as in trusting that he will provide adequate attention to me, not just enjoy himself and fall asleep), and that is really hindering getting any further in our reconnection. I want to love him in every way, and emotionally I am feeling the pull towards him more and more every day, but something is holding me back physically.

Last night, my subconcious started getting a little impatient. It decided to let me know that at least some parts of me are quite ready. Holy crap! In 8 months, absolutely nothing has hinted to me that I want to be intimate with R, not much hinting in the 6 months before that either. I think I might want to have sex with my husband. This is a very new thought to me (and a very important one, considering this is supposed to be my TTC with IF blog). I'm not saying that I'm not physically attracted to R, and his arms around me make me feel better than anything in the world. When he holds me, or kisses my cheek, or absentmindedly rubs my feet, I never want to be with anybody else. But this whole wanting to have sex with him thing is actually quite new. I think I like it. Not that I'm really ready to act on it yet, but there seems to finally be a light at the end of the tunnel. If only I could tell R without him getting frantically excited and talking about nothing else until I punch him in the face. At least I know, that's better than nothing.

How this came to be (my story)

2007-11-06T10:41:00.000-05:00

I've always dreamed about being a stay-at-home-mom: baking cookies, teaching my children how to color inside the lines, giggling all day, and sighing in relaxation when they are finally tucked into bed. R didn't really have a "parenthood" dream, but when he heard mine he promised to make it come true. He started trying to fulfill that promise the day we got married. We knew my endometriosis might cause a problem, but everybody I personally knew with endometriosis had children without treatments and we thought we'd be just as lucky.

One year later, on our anniversary, we got our very first positive pregnancy test. We cried, I slept sitting up because I was so nauseous all night long. A week later I was already a DD (up from a decent C), but that night I didn't need to prop myself up. A few days after that, the doctor confirmed that I was no longer pregnant. One whole year of trying, charting my temperature, peeing on any kind of testing device I could find (only the last 3 months, I stayed POAS-free for the first 9 months), and my baby was dead before I had a chance to experience even the first awkward OB appointment. Another 18 months of trying, laparoscopy to remove endometrial adhesions and cysts (and also move one ovary back into position, as it had been yanked back and down due to the adhesions), screaming with pain as dye was injected to see if my fallopian tubes were open, never buying another pregnancy test because I knew I was barren. We finally decided to give up, I got a prescription for birth control to help "control" the endometriosis until we were ready to try again. I was waiting for my period so I could start taking the pills, it came late. I was in an excited daze as I rushed to the store to buy a pregnancy test. Positive, barely. The next day my period came, but the test was still positive, barely. I begged my new doctor for a blood test, I went in later that day, and it was too low. This baby didn't even truly exist before it was gone.

Today we should be preparing for my firstborn's second birthday (a bit early, but I like to be well prepared), the new baby just a couple months old. Most of the family would be meeting the new baby for the first time at Thanksgiving Dinner. I would be washing baby socks, cursing how fast a toddler's feet grow as I pack a diaper bag to go to the store for yet another pair of shoes, and humming lullabies as I nurse my infant to sleep, big brother/sister sharing our rocking chair and humming along, R watching from across the room and smiling. Instead we are doing nothing. We aren't even seeing a specialist to help us make our dreams a reality. We can't. Our insurance won't cover medications or procedures, they have denied our request for even a consultation with the reproductive endocrinologist. It is pretty much set in stone that we will never be able to get pregnant the "old fashioned" way, and now we are also being denied treatment that would get around the medical condition I have been diagnosed with.

If my legs didn't work, they'd give me a wheelchair and physical therapy and a special car with speed control on the steering wheel. If I couldn't see, I'd get some sunglasses, a cool dog, books on tape, brail writing on bathroom doors. If I had cancer, people would wear ribbons to support me, women would grow their hair extra long so they could donate it for wigs, my struggle would have everybody standing by me and trying to help. But I can't have a baby. Women don't have egg donation parties, people don't see my empty womb and offer to read the menu for me if it doesn't come in a "fertility impaired" version, movies don't have a "child free for the emotionally devastated" option. But I don't care if society does anything to make my life easier, all I want is insurance coverage. Let me have the same pregnancy abilities as everybody else.

A couple days late

2007-11-01T09:08:00.000-05:00

It has been slightly over a week. But still very close, so I'm going to pretend I didn't fail at my goal. You should all pretend with me.

My brother CML is visiting, for another hour and a half before we leave to go back downstate. He came up with me on Tuesday to keep me company while R is gone. That and his girlfriend is an insensitive whore. Long story, but I'll try to break it down.
Backstory: Tattooist is R's uncle, we're all part of a group of friends with several little breakaway groups, CML and Tattooist are very close, nearly as close as Tattooist and I, CML and DW (dirty whore) have been together for a couple years, the last 15 months she has been living in our parents' house with him.

OK, now for the current story: DW suddenly decides she's not entirely in love with CML, and tells him that. But she stays for a couple months, "hoping the feelings come back." At the same time, she is starting to develop a crush on Tattooist (who happens to be 18 years older than her, she's barely 20, going on 14). She tells Tattooist, he constantly tries to get her to go away without telling her off (because of the group of friends thing), she goes as far as trying to get Tattooist to let her sleep on his couch on the nights she works late (because my parents live 35 minutes from her work). Tattooist wants nothing to do with her, but she's developed Delusional and Horny Stalker Syndrome (DHSS for short). DHSS causes her to tell people that they've kissed (before she officially broke up with CML even).

When that doesn't work to get Tattooist to fall in love with her, she tells a coworker that she's had sex with both Tattooist and another coworker. The coworker she is part of the group of friends, in fact, Tattooist was best man in her wedding 3 months ago. Coworker tells her hubby, the hubby tells CML's best friend from high school, the friend tells CML. That friend also tells his girlfriend, who used to work at the tattoo studio, the girlfriend immediately calls Tattooist.

At the same time, she's text messaging R constantly. He has never spoken to her on the phone and does not respond to any of her text messages. But, that didn't stop her from sending 10 in one day, all about how she's in love with Tattooist. "I like Tattooist more than anybody" "It hurts so much that I can't be with Tattooist" You get the idea. Very middle school, but that's her maturity level. She also claimed to have had sex with "somebody else" and that she thought of Tattooist the entire time. R forwarded the text messages to me. I was 3 blocks from Tattooist's house, so I went over there and showed him, then showed CML when I got back to my parents' that night. CML called DW, lots of yelling, called her the "c" word. She was clueless as to how he would have heard any of that info (um, hello, best friend's best friend, oh and brother-in-law, did you expect them to hold your confidence over somebody they have known way longer and doesn't drive them crazy?). He told her about the text messages, but not the stuff she told her coworker. She called R when she got off the phone with CML. "I thought the conversations we had were confidential?" "What conversations?" "Rememver when CML and I visited you and we talked about 'stuff' that might happen between us?" "You're fucking crazy, we never had any conversations about that psycho shit, and CML was always there, we never had a single conversation alone, even about boring shit!"

OMG, I have never held such contempt for anybody in my entire life (ok, maybe Little H's biological mother, but we communicate through lawyers now, so she's not nearly as big of a pain in my ass). Not only did DW screw around on my brother, she also tried to scam my beloved Uncle Tattooist into falling madly in love with her, then she claimed he did even though he did everything possible to get rid of her, and then she tried to claim a tryst with MY HUSBAND! That bitch has issues! And she's staying with the mother of my godson while she tries to find some new boyfriend to shack up with. Which means I have to see her at my dear godson's 1st birthday party this weekend. If she speaks to me, I'm going to stab her with my plastic fork.

Accomplishing my goal, somewhat...

2007-10-23T12:34:00.000-05:00

Half the goal is just blogging weekly, which I am doing now. The other half, the part about having something worthwhile to blog about, that's a bunch of crap.

R left on Thursday. Last night was my first night alone, because I spent the weekend at my parents' house with Little H. Yesterday also happened to be the day AF and her sidekick Endo decided to attack. AF prodded Endo to flaunt it's full power and cause major back pain. My body responded the way it usually does to Endo and tried to rid itself of the evil by vomiting. My body does not understand the logic of "Endo is not in my stomach, it is mauling my abdomen from outside the organs." And Endo has not gotten the memo about "BC is supposed to stop the symptoms." Usually Endo is lazy and just causes minor back pain, but this month it has decided to kick into full throttle. I am not happy. And now I'm tired and my belly hurts from wretching all night. Hopefully it was just a one-time thing, because I really don't want another lap anytime soon. The holidays are coming, it's just not a good time for that.

The good news- throwing up made me forget that I was missing R. Usually I can't sleep and am up till 5 am every time he's gone, even for weekend drill. I'm trying desperately to be better this month and thrive while he's gone, not just survive. Tiffany and Argos will take turns sharing my bed. I feel safer and more comfortable when the other side of the bed is not empty. Although I do prefer sleeping with Tiffany over Argos, she doesn't hog the bed. And Argos usually sleeps in the laundry room, guarding the door. I like that idea. He may not actually guard anything, but knowing that anybody trying to break into my house would see a German Shepherd first thing makes me feel better. I still wish I had an unemployed friend or two to stay up here with me, but I made it through the first night OK.

R left the house after I did this weekend (we both went downstate on Wednesday), and he left me a little surprise. Everwhere I looked when I got back were little notes. Most just said "I love you," but there was also "you're perfect," "hello, beautiful," and "hugs and kisses." I was OK with him being gone till I saw those, then I realized that I miss him so much. I did so well when he left, no tears, but seeing those love notes made me break down. So much for being that "perfect military wife" that lets her hubby do his job and leave whenever he has to, showing him how strong she can be and not bawling her eyes out over minor training or field work. At least I'm still a "good military wife" not begging him to stay home or trying to prohibit him from going away. It's harder than I thought. We've been through a big deployment, I thought one little month at school would be easy.

Oh, and I got more work done on my tattoo. Not sure when I'll get pics up (because it's really awkward to hold the camera and try to take a picture of your own leg), but it's awesome. Now the vine goes from my ankle all the way to my butt. Not a smart place to tattoo, btw. The lower ass cusp is quite sensitive, especially near the dimple region. But, it had to go over my butt somewhere to continue to my back. And this sitting accomplished more than the first two combined, my whole thigh and starting on my butt. The first two were calf, then knee. I am so proud of myself for sitting through that much. I really wanted to wimp out 3/4 of the way through my thigh, but I hung in there and did everything we had stenciled. Yeah, I whined the whole fricken time, but I did it. I can't wait to get the outline finished so we can start coloring it in. I love just the outline, but Uncle Tattooist really wants to color it and won't settle for anything less than shading, so I'm all in. Fuck, it's going to hurt. But, it looks amazing, so a little pain is worth it. I'm even "modifying" my halloween costume to show it off. I'm going as a fairy and had this awesome lavender sparkly dress that I'm ripping a seam out of to show my whole leg. The dress looks better that way anyway. And I'm never going to wear it anywhere else, so it's not like I'm ruining anything. Now to sew the edges and figure out how to make wings...

Yep, nothing interesting to blog about. At least I tried.

Trying to keep up

2007-10-17T08:54:00.001-05:00

I've set a new goal for my blog: actually posting once a week. Doesn't seem like a big goal, but I've never actually made a specific plan for how often I should post, so it's big to me. And having that in the back of my mind is going to keep me constantly thinking about blogging, make me more aware of my everyday life and the things that are blogworthy.

But, this is a really new goal, so I haven't come up with anything so far. Recently an "internet friend" of mine has decided to get a puppy. This has been a long time coming, for the past couple years she has been dealing with a car accident that caused injuries resulting in the removal of part of a lung. At that time, they also found lung cancer, so she's been enduring chemo. She can finally walk again, and she's feeling strong and healthy. So she's getting a puppy, from a wonderful breeder, with great lineage. I can't imagine how great she must feel if she's ready for a puppy. I am so proud of her, for making it through everything (she had several battles with pneumonia this spring, spending days to weeks in the hospital each time) and for the amazing person she has been. She is one of the strongest people I have ever "known." I know she'll never read this, but: Fiona (you know I'm talking to you), you are incredible. I know you hear it all the time, but that's because it's true. Your new little girl is the luckiest puppy in the entire world. I love you.

Other news: as of tomorrow, I'm alone for a month. R is going away for training. I don't do living alone, even with two big dogs to protect me. I guess it's good practice for if R ever gets deployed again (I write "if," but in my head I know the truth, I know the reality is "when"), but I don't want to practice being alone. I would just lock up the house and stay with my parents the whole time, but I have jury duty till the end of the month, so I have to be here. Anybody want to sleep over for a few weeks? My dogs are great cuddlers, I'll even let you pick which one to sleep with (because sharing any size bed with both is impossible). My mom is probably coming up for a while, and I have a few other friends that offered me their weekends, so I'm sure I'll be fine. And between the dogs and a couple loaded clips for the gun, I think am well protected. The dogs don't do much protecting, but they do freak out at tiny sounds, so I'll be very alert.

Birds have been attacking my house the past couple weeks. Apparently the frame around the window is the perfect ledge for standing on while they beat seeds against the side of the house to open them. Took 9 days to figure out the exact details, that's a lot of crazy dog moments.

I really hope the next few days give me something profound and thoughtful to blog about. Hell, I'd be happy with something even remotely interesting (because I'm sure nobody really cares about the birds using my house as a nutcracker). Maybe this new goal is impossible? I really need to learn to be more creative.

Anonymous said I have to... (children mentioned)

2007-10-09T08:21:00.000-05:00

Actually, just a couple days after my last post I did snap out of it. A friend of mine just got engaged to a soldier, less than a week before he left for 2 1/2 months of training. R and I stayed with her that weekend, her first alone in quite a while. Having somebody else to take care of was just what I needed to get back to "normal." That same weekend, my parents installed new floors (by that, I mean R did 75% of the work and my brother cut everything that needed to be cut, while my parents thankfully disappeared to watch my other brother play rugby) and I got suckered into making stovetop baked apples for dessert. And the busyness hasn't stopped ever since.

My favorite tattoo shop is being remodeled, I spent 2 days there last week (I painted boards and fetched the level), then we had Little H for the weekend. It was great. He loves spending Thursday night with my parents and me (because that's when R's parenting time starts, but R has work on Friday and Little H has school, so I pick him up and we stay with my parents for a night and I take him to school in the morning), and can't wait to get up here on Fridays. Not sure how much of it is being with R and how much is playing with Shamu next door, but excited is excited, so I'll take it. Little H went with Shamu and his parents to see the train on Saturday. Something about it being the "insipiration" for Po.lar E.xpre.ss. They got him a wooden train whistle and the photographer for the local paper took their picture. Yay, my little boy is gonna be in the paper. Shamu's mom gave him the wrong spelling of our last name (um, lady, the kid knows how to spell his name, ask him if you don't know, silly), but who cares, he's gonna be in the paper. We usually read the paper online, but I guess we'll have to buy it this week.

The new dog is still doing great, I can't imagine life without him. I don't know where his original family is or why they haven't looked for him, but it's been long enough that we've decided they can't have him back even if they do show up (unless there is a child crying and Argos obviously loves them). We still have a lot of work to do, he's a little too eager to play with cats. It doesn't help that the first cats he was really around when we got him were nursing mothers that still freak out as soon as they see him (I'm talking balls of fur trying to kill him through the sliding glass door). He thinks it's the funnest game ever and nearly breaks down the door trying to play back. It could be a long process.

I have the rough design drawn up for my new desk, which I'll be emailing to my brother down at U of M to have a real engineering student perfect. What I have is good enough to build from, but I'm building with my grandfather and he'd try to "help" me "fix" it. I don't want help or fixing, so the best quality blueprint I can get is totally worth owing somebody a small favor. How difficult can building one desk be? Well, it's going in a corner, with 3 workstations (one desktop and 2 laptops), a bookshelf on the end towards the living room, some sort of shelving above, and a cut-out area where the desktop goes for convenience. One side will be nearly 7 feet long, and the other just over 5 feet. This is going to be the biggest computer desk ever built, and it's going in my 980sqft house. A massive undertaking, with the potential to overwhelm the entire house, but R and I are so excited. The excitement will probably wane for quite a while, since I will require the array of tools in my grandfather's garage and he's leaving Dec 1 for the winter in Florida (my grandparents fit so well into the stereotype of Michigan retired folk), but once the snow is gone again and we actually get to work on it, it's gonna be great.

Still no decisions made on the TTC front. But I've been back here for 2 months and I don't want to leave, so there is progress. And we planned to wait until 2008 anyway. We should have the truck and motorcycle paid off by next summer, some cash stowed away for treatments, and all the home-improvement ideas out of my head and into the house, so I'm thinking lap sometime in the fall and whatever treatments starting by the holiday season (is that a stupid plan? monitoring and treatments and massive dinners and all that shopping all thrown together? please give me your opinions. we're taking our time starting back up, so if it's smarter to wait until spring I have no problem with that)

Here it comes

2007-09-27T18:20:00.001-05:00

I can feel another black hole on its way in. This isn't supposed to be happening, the last one really wasn't that long ago. And everything is working with it, pushing me further in. The dogs are extra-needy (they can probably sense that there's something wrong with me), the neighbor dog broke their fence today so I had to lock him in our yard, which meant Argos couldn't go out until R got home to take the neighbor dog home, which made Tiffany and Argos an even bigger pain in my butt. And my damn computer chair is going to hell, randomly it just gets shorter, whatever it is that holds it up is going out. I'm currently 4 inches shorter than I was when I started typing.

I knew it was coming, there were signs, I just pretended they weren't real. Like the entire past week when I haven't cared to eat at all, when food has lost almost all flavor. I didn't even enjoy the Taco Bell nachos I had last weekend, usually they are an indulgence (because I refuse to eat crap very often, but it tastes sooooo good). And I've been tired, not just slightly tired, I mean unable to focus on anything and so lazy I go 3 days without showering tired. This thing is about to suck me in, and I have no idea how to get away.

On top of that, I have commitments. This weekend R and I are staying with a friend of mine, her fiance (as of last weekend, yay them) just left for 2 1/2 months of military training and she doesn't want to be alone this first weekend. So I have to entertain her, and be all smiles and sunshine for her baby boy- my godson. When all I really want to do is lay on the couch with random packages of instant food around me (like tostitos and salsa, and lunchables pizza) and only get up to pee all weekend long. I'm not going to actually enjoy the black hole, but fighting it doesn't work, so I'd might as well just do what I can to get myself through it easiest (instant food is the only option, if it requires any effort beyond opening a bag or box I will not eat until the black hole is over in a week or so).

I sound fucking mental. Sometimes I think I must be. How can I be normal if this sudden depression hits me like this? I know that it's only about 2 weeks start to finish (including the few days of crankiness before I realize it's happening and the few days of quiet and crying after I start coming around), and I can completely function the whole time (the first time it happened after we got married, R never knew, he thought I was PMSing or something), this just makes me feel out of control. I want some sort of protective cage to hide myself in until it's over, where can I find one of those?

No more stealthiness, the truth is revealed (kid mentioned)

2007-09-18T12:12:00.000-05:00

OK, so I wasn't being all that stealthy, I'm sure some of you figured it out. But now for the details.

Yesterday we went to court over custody of Little H. It was intended to be an emergency hearing (which was scheduled over a month after we asked for it), but it's going to end up being an all out battle. Little H and his mom (aka: womb host) plus her boyfriend (who does not rate a name) and the other 3 kids (products of an unworthy mother who will forever suffer needlessly- POAUMWWFSN) lived in a tent over the summer. Womb Host claims that they just stayed there 1-3 weeks per month all summer, but Little H doesn't remember ever sleeping in a house from the time the first "camping trip" started until after CPS got involved 3 months later.

Other things eventually came up, like Little H's lack of dental care (he will be 6 in November and had never been to a dentist, he finally went last week and needed 2 root canals- if anybody can explain how teeth get that bad in 5 years, please let me know because I'm apalled) and his attendance record in Kindergarten (21 1/2 days absent, 14 tardies, the only reason a truency officer wasn't called is that truency doesn't apply to Kindergarten, at least not in our area), plus 5 previous CPS complaints that CPS didn't look at or even know existed when they started the most recent investigation.

We ran out of time yesterday (were only scheduled for 1 hour, and we went over by 20 minutes with 2 witnesses still waiting, and a list of a dozen more now that we have time to find/subpoena them), so we're waiting to hear when the next court date is. So far, every point scored in that courtroom is on our side, and Womb Host dug herself one big hole. She dragged Little H there, thinking that she could force him to testify against his father (she's coached him), but instead got an ass chewing from the judge for it. She got mouthy back at him and got scolded again. She is showing them her true colors, and it's gonna get us custody. I'm so happy. Little H deserves a stable environment, not moving every few months or missing school an average of over 2 days per month.

Keep your fingers crossed everybody. We can't think of any ace in the hole she might have (because we've already pre-empted the ones we knew about, and Little H won't be testifying at all- which was half of her strategy from what we can tell), so now it's just riding it out and getting ready to be full-time parents. We can't wait.

Being on a break does not give you a break

2007-09-11T12:25:00.000-05:00

No energy to tell you the frustrating news about Little H, the fact that our lawyer has almost no hope now (it's amazing how one little dentist appt takes biomom from unfit to parent of the year). I don't want to talk about it. Today I need to talk about even more dreams, the kind that you can't get away from, the kind that hurt that part of your heart that is supposed to feel only true happiness.

Saturday was the big party at the tattoo shop. R had to work, so it was my job to take pictures for the website. It was a long day, making sure I got shots of the bands, all the sponsors, the owner and artists having fun, etc. And then my little brother (CML) (who had been there most of the day) starts seriously looking into the design of his next tattoo. That tattoo will be his memorial for Goofball. As I walk past with the camera, on my way to get a few shots of the band jamming away, I see his go.ogle image search- gorilla. Goofball's collection of gorillas pops into my head, and I blink back a few tears and walk faster to get outside. The sun is glaring down and I'm instantly hot and wishing I was still standing in air conditioning, but afraid to step back inside for fear I would break down. An hour later, as I'm watching a group of college students get matching tattoos (and the girls in the group getting pierced), CML comes up to me with a few sheets of paper. "Which do you think is more like Goofball?" I have to look, I can't hide from it forever. One is a big silverback gorilla pounding his chest and roaring. That's not Goofball, he had no need to act aggressive. The other is standing on all 4 extremities, but with a serious look on his face, like he's protecting what he needs to, but not beyond the ability to comfort "his" children. That's Goofball, every bit of his personality, it says so much more to CML and I, because we know what that gorilla is thinking, we can see it in his eyes, and we miss it.

What does that have to do with the dream? Nothing really, there's no real link, until you get really deep into my brain. Somehow, Goofball is so linked to my desire for children that it felt like I lost more than him when he died. He was my link to hope that we'd overcome IF, he was the person I wanted to give a baby to, almost more than I wanted to give R a baby. So crying over Goofball suddenly feels like a precursor to my terrible dream. A dream that I could never imagine living through in real life, one that I am devistated that any of you have had to.

I don't remember how it started, but the beginning isn't important anyway. The part that keeps replaying over and over in my head, that kept me awake most of Saturday night, is the important part. I was in some sort of office building, not sure if it was a medical office or not. The dreaming me didn't realize that I was pregnant, but the me in my dream knew. I remember the feel of my stomach, how soft it was, a little bit squishy, a safe place for my little one to grow. And then the baby started talking to me (inside my head). I was so happy to have that small conversation, it felt like the purest connection two beings could ever have. And then my baby told me the news, that it was about to die and there was no way to stop it. The baby asked me to call R over and tell him, so that he would know. I started feeling the baby's heartbeat, right through my belly, I knew that he/she was putting everything left into making it beat so hard we could feel it, to give us the comfort of saying goodbye. And then it stopped and my baby whispered goodbye to me, and I moved R's hand away from my stomach because the heartbeat was gone. We were still standing in the hallway of an office building, quiet, knowing that we'd still never be parents.

And then, in my dream, I woke up and felt my belly. Felt that it was still big and squishy and holding a baby. And then I woke up for real, knowing that the dream -and the dream it was apparently inside of- was fake. That I've never made it past 5 1/2 weeks, never long enough to bloat, definitely never long enough to feel the baby or look pregnant, or even find a heartbeat. And even if I did, Goofball won't be there to share any of it. Go ahead subconcious, kick me while I'm down.

Late Night Reruns

2007-09-06T10:13:00.001-05:00

There comes a time when husbands finally "get it." After the frustration and cluelessness about IF, eventually they just understand. No more "let's keep trying, I just know it'll happen naturally this time," no more "I don't know why you're so upset by a BFN, you said you didn't think it had worked," no more "I'm tired of having sex when you're fertile, let's just do it for fun." At some point, they have that epiphany, a sudden understanding and empathy for what you've been through. And eventually, they show that knowledge and curse at Sex and the City.

Late at night, there really isn't anything that great on, even now that we have cable again. So, you end up watching random episodes of SATC, with all sorts of words omitted because it's on TBS or some wimpy channel like that and they don't allow any cursing. You don't really pay much attention to the TV, you pet the dogs and just leave it on as background noise. And then you hear "just because we can't have a baby doesn't mean we can't live our lives" or something very similar. Your husband's mouth drops open, and you suddenly realize that he's no longer an IF idiot.

Later in the show there's a cardboard baby, the whole "I can't give you a real one, but here's one to look at and make you 100X's more depressed" concept. R yelled at the TV, called the guy an inconsiderate douchebag, promised me to do whatever it takes to give me a real baby and never do something that cruel to me, EVER. I told him that if he ever did, I'd pack my stuff instantly, and use the cardboard baby as kindling to set his truck on fire. He agreed that it would be suitable punishment, that actually somebody as ass-ish as that deserved way more than a flaming truck.

I think I kinda like this husband of mine. Now that he's grown a brain, he might be worth holding onto.

Still being vague, but I can talk about the weekend

2007-09-04T09:04:00.000-05:00

Little H was up for the weekend! R went and got him on Thursday after going to a few appointments in town (one of which was CPS to get the "real" story, because the biomom isn't always the best at relaying information), but the pick up time is rather late, so Little H went straight to bed when he got here.

Friday morning was all on me- getting him used to being at our house again after being denied so many of our weekends this summer and spending the ones we got with my parents, introducing him to Argos (which went great, they love each other), and getting ready for R's birthday. We made a couple invitations on the computer (very crappy ones, "somebody" decided I didn't need Paint or any other fun programs on my laptop, so I had to make them in Word) and took them to our two neighbors. R's office closed early so he came home around noon. I ran to the store with Little H, then took him next door to meet the neighbor boy (ummm, I'm gonna call him Shamu, because that's the toy he was obsessing over all weekend). That's the last I saw of Little H until it was time for R's party. A couple times he rode past on Shamu's bike (we live on a dead end, between the two driveways is totally safe because there are no other houses on our road), but that's it.

Shamu ended up spending the night at our house that night. R spent a little time fixing the neighbor's computer (umm, they need names- I could never think of their names when I first met them, always thought they were Bruce and MaryAnne), so they were over too, and of course their other kid, Hello (2 1/2 year old girl). 3 children and 2 dogs on my hide-a-bed trying to watch a movie, 4 adults in my kitchen huddled around a laptop, and a feeling of chaos overwhelming everything. It was perfect.

Little H and Shamu played all day Saturday, too. I'm so glad that kids can become "best friends" instantly, and that the novelty of a new best friend doesn't wear off that quickly. They never once fought, and Shamu was an angel while he was here (he can be a bit whiny and throw tantrums on occassion with his mom). R even got up and made them pancakes. It was like those old cutesy calendars, with the "perfect" family, the ones that hint about how life was "back in the day." Dad flipping pancakes, two boys with messy hair and mismatched pajamas waiting eagerly, dog trying to sneak under the table to catch scraps. Turning the page you see a little boy riding a bike, stopping at the mailbox, laughing at the cat stalking him as he rides. Next is Mom, Dad, and the boy cuddled on the couch to watch TV, a pair of dogs at their feet, heads resting on laps and begging for attention. That's my life. I can't believe it.

And maybe this time next year we can add a page, one with the big brother listening to Mom's belly, trying to hear his baby brother or sister inside. Wouldn't that be the perfect picture. You never know what's coming next...

Who told people it was my birthday?

2007-08-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

Thank you to those who sent me birthday wishes! I'm totally lost on how you all found out (because I didn't post that it was my birthday, not recently at least), but very happy you stopped by to comment.

Not exactly the birthday I had imagined, I have to admit. I was expecting my closest friends to meet me at the bar and just hang out for a few hours. R's uncle didn't show (one of my favorite people in the world, but he did have an acceptable excuse), but the people who did come gave me presents. I really wasn't expecting presents. Yay pretty smelly candle for my house. And my biggest present (from R, of course):
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(wait for it)
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Isn't he adorable? His name is Argos. He wandered into the yard, loved on the neighbor kids, just really needed a home. He's 15lbs underweight, plus the added weight he should have in muscle structure. Probably around 2 years old, very likely pure-bred. Loves our other dog Tiffany, and she's glad to have a constant playmate too.

It's gonna be a full house with Little H here this weekend for visitation (or longer), but I wouldn't have it any other way. Here it comes, that "perfect" family: Mom in an apron baking cookies, Dad coming home from the office with his thermos in hand, Son that acts just like Dad did at that age, Dog (or two) for Son to play catch with, cute little house, heaven. OK, so Mom isn't putting out and Dad is getting a little "frustrated" in that area, but the outward appearance is perfection. We're working on that "behind the scenes" stuff...

Neuro is DONE!!!!

2007-08-21T11:36:00.000-05:00

MRI and EEG came back with nothing unusual, so no more restrictions on R. He can drive, he can PT, he can do his job. Yay.

A few updates, then I will be fairly cryptic for a month or two (maybe a little longer, depends on how the first "conflict" goes):
1. I have officially moved back to the house R and I share.
2. CPS has become involved in the welfare of Little H.
3. We are preparing for the possibility of becoming a full-time family, possibly within 2 weeks.
4. We are starting to redecorate the house (no need to be cryptic here)- new rug for the living room, some wall decorations, spray painted the metal on a couple lamps and light fixtures, slightly rearranged some furniture. Hopefully we can save up in the next few months and get a new couch, and by the end of the year a chair or two to finish off the seating. Screw it, I'll elaborate on the redecorating in it's own paragraph, since a lot happened.

The walls looked boring. I wanted any sort of random metal crap, spray painted bronze-ish. We figured Big Lots (since they have cheap crap, which is fine, since I was going to spray paint it anyway). $15 later we have a pair of round metal-y things. Off to Lowes for spray paint. We had a few options, chose some "hammered" metal-looking stuff in "weathered bronze" or "antique bronze" or "old bronze" or something similar. Walked to the end of the aisle, and there we see (across the sea of flooring samples) a beautiful rug hung up, and a giant orange Clearance sign. Original price: 198. Clearance price (because all they had left was the display rug): 37. We got a new rug. It reminds me of those bored pictures I used to do- swirling lines around and overlapping, then coloring each section a different color. Mostly browns, a little green that matches our wall somewhat, and some pale dusty blue. I fucking love it! Then we came home, put down the rug, demolished our table lamps and took down the ceiling lights in the kitchen/dining area (open floor plan, so they are way visible from the living room) and started spray painting.

OK, so the table lamps aren't back together yet (forgot how they went together, plus I don't like the wood color now, it doesn't match with the bronze, so I'm trying to come up with paint or something to cover that, probably another can of spray paint, I'm too lazy to strip and sand and stain the wood), but everything else is up and looking great. Waiting for a financial upswing so we can buy a nice couch and oversized chair, probably in tan microfiber/microsuede. A couple end tables, a new entertainment center (the old one is black, R's preferred color for most of his life), then the ultimate indulgence- new computer desk, probably L shaped, with separate work stations for desktop and laptop, and a pair of fabulous computer chairs to match. I am going to be in living room Heaven.

And that just makes me dream about the other rooms in the house- new dining set, remodeling the laundry/mud room (that'll be a lot of work, mostly serious stuff- rewiring/replumbing to move washer and dryer, new floor, ripping off the knotty pine and putting up drywall, etc), new/bigger bed in our room, the upgrades Little H's room will need as he gets older... The list goes on, and I'm so excited to tackle each piece. I can't wait! Yeah, so my relationship with R still needs some work (it is coming along, time and patience), but I'm completely in love with my house again, head over heels. And soon we'll be sandblasting the old cast-iron fireplace that's sitting out in the garage, and I'll be painting/tiling it to put in the living room (it'll be completely decorative for now, the only fire that would be in it is candles, and I'm working out a filter in the "chimney" piece so we don't even have candle smoke in the house. Yep, in love with my house again. That's gotta be a step forward in falling back in love with my husband, right?

Neuro Visit #1 (and the exhaustion to come)

2007-08-15T09:59:00.001-05:00

I won't get into a lot of details, but I LOVE R's Neurologist (hereby named Dr Giggly)! The whole office is bubbly and fun, he gave me candy while he whacked R's knees, and he thinks that whole "seizure" thing is a bunch of bullshit. Tentative diagnosis: complicated migraine with aura. R has samples of a couple things to try to stop the headaches when they start, and if they don't work, Dr Giggly will give him something to take daily to prevent them. And, really, if R only has serious migraines like this once a year or so, I think we're all good. Dr Giggly is still going to do an EEG and MRI just in case, but he's really certain. At least I think that's what he said. He's Italian, a little pudgy, loud and happy, and you have to guess 2/3 of the words he says due to his accent. He offered to tell the military that it was a seizure, if R would split the retirement benefits (R would be medically retired *kicked out* from the military for seizure and begin receiving partial retirement benefits immediately). Dr Giggly had it all planned out, retirement in Venezuela, offered to send us good Venezuelan wine as gifts. He pushed for it, R had to be all upstanding and honest and want the truth. Oh well, I don't think I could deal with retired R anyway.

The rest of the testing is on Friday. Friday is also the day some our best friends (R's former unit) come home from Ir.aq. So, EEG at 7:45am, then the 2-ish hour drive downstate to watch our friends get off that bus and officially be home, hang out for a little while- crying, hugs, etc, then the 2-ish hour drive back for the MRI at 5:15pm, oh, and then we're spending the weekend downstate, so we get to make that 2-ish hour drive again, probably go out with the guys and cry and hug more that night. I'm going to be fucking exhausted, but I can't wait to see Little Debbie, Double Tap, and Cousie-Pooh again. My heart is lighter knowing that they are in the US doing all their debriefings and evaluations already, they made it home from war. Too many of our guys didn't, and the ones that did will never be the same, but for now they are safe, and that makes me happy cry.

Almost forgot- Dr Giggly is not the Wizard, that all got fucked up by military red tape and we had to wiggle around and beg and plead and finally got into Dr Giggly instead of the Wizard (we saw Dr Giggly this Monday, the Wizard means nothing to us now).

We're off to see the Wizard

2007-08-04T19:29:00.000-05:00

Tuesday 2pm. That's when R sees the neurologist to figure out what the hell was going wrong last Saturday. Hopefully they'll realize that the shaking hand was 99% likely to have been caused by the wrench that hit him when he was riding his motorcycle a few weeks ago (apparently some guy had a toolbox in the back of his truck, it flew open, lots of tools came flying out, R caught the wrench in his shoulder, which is much better than a screwdriver or saw blade). Which would mean he'd be allowed to drive again and I wouldn't have to be up here all the time. Kind of tired of being a chauffeur and missing everything downstate (like weekly tubing down the Muske.gon River or the big wedding that was today, I really wanted to go to that wedding it would have been so much fun). And the driving 110 miles (one way) almost daily is killing me. I go back downstate tomorrow night after I pick him up from work, I nanny all day on Monday, come back up here Monday night, to the neurologist (65 miles away) on Tuesday, then bring him back here (another 65 miles) and stay in the car because I have to drive back down that night so I can nanny first thing Wednesday morning. I am soooo glad I have to work the rest of the week, I need the vacation from driving back and forth.

Son of a bitch! Almost forgot we're supposed to meet a few people at the NCO club tonight, better get my ass in the bedroom and change (and put on more makeup, I look exhausted). Guess I'll have time to think about anything else I need to update on, because I don't have the time to type more now.

Update on what the Wizard says on Wednesday. Good thing about Oz... real restaurants, the only option here is a dinky townie restaurant or B.ig B.oy. Yay going out for dinner!

More health-related issues for R

2007-07-29T12:18:00.000-05:00

Guess who is back up at the house.... Yep, me. R called early yesterday morning to tell me he was going to the ER. He was having some issues with tingling/shaking in his right hand, bad headache on the left side of his head, random/slight tunnel vision, and a bit of lightheadedness. Oh, and he also couldn't talk, as in he would try to say words and they came out and mumbling no matter how hard he tried. Being medically trained, I immediately associate the dysphasia (speech problem) with maybe a minor stroke or blood clot in his brain. Everything else can be tied back to brain injury as well. The doctors didn't focus as much trying to diagnose the dysphasia, they really wanted to explain the shaking in his arm because that was coming and going all day long and the dysphasia resolved itself in 10-15 minutes.

Diagnosis- focal seizure. Oooooh, the dreaded "S" word. Not so scary because it's just in one hand and we're pretty sure we know why (I will get into those details momentarily), but it does prevent him from being allowed to drive at least until his followup with the neurologist, and possibly for 6 months. His job requires driving, so that might be in jeopardy. The military freaks out when they see the "s" word, so that career might be in jeopardy too. We're not going to jump to any conclusions until we get the neurology report, but the future is really up in the air.

So, I am up here (thankfully I have all but 1 day off this week from nannying, and my mom will come up and drive him around that day) driving him around. Waking up at 5:30am so I can drive him to work (ok, he wakes up at 5:30, I sleep until 5 minutes before we have to leave, but I do hear his alarm clock...), driving back to base to bring him lunch so we can eat together, and back on base again to pick him up after work. Plus any driving to the grocery store for whatever we need. It seems so pointless, because he feels fine and even when the episode was at its worst he could still function (speaking isn't his strong suit anyway, so I don't see it as much of a loss) (joking). But, the dr said no driving, so here I am, personal chauffeur.

On to the cause. When R was 17 he got into a car accident, his car basically ping-ponged off the guardrails on both sides of a small country road. His head hit the post next to him. The cop asked if he wanted an ambulance, R was admirably strong and said he was uninjured and didn't need one. The moron cop listened. R walked the mile and a half home, where he promptly loss conciousness and was found 6 hours later and an ambulance was called. CT scan, MRI, EEG. Nothing found, played off as a concussion with no brain injury. 3 months later he randomly passed out at work, that was basically ignored and called an "anxiety attack." Since then, nothing until about 15 months ago when he had the whole speech issue at work one day, but it resolved itself in just a few minutes so R ignored it thinking it was just a tired thing.

CT yesterday didn't show anything, but they are getting all the authorizations required to send him for an MRI and a consult with a neurologist. It is going to be a very long few weeks. I'm supposed to nanny 2 hours away, 10 hour days, there is no way I can drive R back and forth to work and still work myself. It's no career, but I love the baby I watch and with the possibility that R's job might be on the line, we're gonna need all the money we can get. This is going to be rough.

Until yesterday, I really only had the desire to be here on weekends, maybe one or two days during the week if I didn't have to work. Even now, I don't think I'm even close to ready to move back in. But, R needs me and I can't stand to turn my back on that. Yeah, he only needs me for half an hour twice a day, but he does need me. Hopefully he can find another way to and from work soon, because I can't justify quitting my job just to drive him around. And hopefully the neurologist will find something wrong (because that would mean it's fixable and would never cause another problem in the future, which would mean he could keep his job and stay in the military) and we can fix this soon. If only things were easy.

Yay, I can post titles again

2007-07-26T11:38:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was R and mine's anniversary. 3 years. Not quite the anniversary we had planned, considering I'm still living somewhere else and he is still lacking adequate knives (they were a wedding gift from a close friend of mine that he barely knows, so logically the knife set belongs to me if we are separated). That and Ha.rry Po.tter was quite the interference. Some may argue that I should have postponed my reading of the book until after our anniversary, but I had no intention of listening to those killjoys. It's fricken Ha.rry Po.tter, no way is that waiting 2 entire days so that I'd have to read during the baby's naptime (I am now a nanny, a very underpaid nanny, but it's a friend and just about the perfect baby so I don't mind). R felt neglected, but coped very well (he chose to rub my feet and calves while I was reading, not sure when he decided that because I was well into the book before I realized he was even in the living room with me).

Still no progress on my tattoo. There are a few factors effecting that, though. One- watching the baby makes tattoos more dangerous, he's 8 months old and starting to pull himself to standing. One of his favorite standing posts is my legs, and tiny fingernails in a fresh tattoo hurt nearly as much as an HSG. Two- my schedule requires me to be awake early in the day, so I'm tired by the time openings in the tattooists schedule come up, it's hard to be awake and willing to endure pain at 10pm when I have to get up early. Three (and probably the biggest issue, because I can deal with the other two)- I can't stand the owner of the shop, so I schedule my appointments when he isn't there, but he has been there almost constantly for weeks. He's not a terrible guy, but he's not into doing favors for anybody so he'd throw a fit if he found out I was paying less than average for my tattoo, and he'd be a dick about me whining, he can be quite intollerant depending on his moods. I'm biding my time, because I really want to get more work done. I crave ink!

R is still going crazy over planning our next IF move. I'm not even ready to move back in here (2-3 day visits are as long as I can tolerate, and only every other week), but he's got plans for where we'll save money and which bank we'll start an IF treatment savings account in and how to get more vacation days saved up for appointments. He's eating right and cutting back on his coffee, getting help to quit smoking, taking vitamins, scheduling SA just because he wants to know where we're at. Every infertile's dream, except I'm not "infertile" right now, for the time being I'm "not ready for kids." Yeah, I'm still infertile, I still have endo and my body still wouldn't get/stay pg if I tried, but I feel way less infertile than I do "not ready." I've told him that, but he needs to make plans apparently.

Being worried about getting pushed into TTC has me even more apprehensive about moving back. Am I ready for wandings and injections? Am I ready to have another lap and HSG before we even start (because if I do it, I want to do it right and get started with the cleanest reproductive organs I can get)? I'm about to turn 25, my aunt with endo had a complete hysterectomy at 31. Am I headed down that road? Do I have time to put off kids, or should I jump right into it just in case? One of R's best friends is getting a hysterectomy next month, she's 26. Is the birth control I've been on for most of my life enough to control it so I don't end up that way? If I don't feel the overwhelming need to be a mother right now, will that make me less of a good parent if I do get pg soon? Will not feeling that need make my body even less hospitable to a baby? Will my baby know that I had doubts about creating him/her and not love me? I know the answers, but that doesn't stop the questions from swirling around in my head.

2007-07-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

Damn blogger and the bug that is not allowing me to title my posts.

I know, weird that I'm blogging again just minutes after my last post. But, I checked with st.atcounter and found something I wanted to share. I have been found by Ira.q. Not just found, I mean found in a search. Not just any search- "real naked soldier pics." So, in honor of my nudie g.oog.le fame, here is a shout out to Camp Li.berty in Ira.q. Lots of love to all our servicemembers, come home safe!

2007-07-06T18:34:00.000-05:00

OK, so no title for this one (because blogger is being a bitch and won't let me click up there).

I lied about counseling. Not on purpose, but R fired his counselor and we have yet to find a new one. So no counseling this week, but nearly 6 whole days together, which is way more intense than some hour with a guy who barely knows us.

Nearly killed R about a week and a half ago. I was up here for a couple days (if you hadn't noticed, I'm at our house right now, not at my parents'), and wouldn't you know it, he got a really fast speeding ticket on his new motorcycle on the drive here. Really fast, as in they could have taken away his bike. They wrote him for 30 over and let him keep the bike. That was nice of them. I, on the other hand, was a gigantic bitch. Lots of yelling, by the time I was done he was on his knees and crying. It also just so happens that a very good friend's father is still on life support in a medically induced coma missing half his skull (to relieve pressure when his brain started swelling) after hitting a deer on his motorcycle, and he was going the speed limit. R deserved the guilt trip, and I'm getting really good at giving that ride.

Little H is up here with us. We picked him up after the fireworks Wednesday night. He was an ass yesterday, threw the biggest temper tantrum (a team of 2 year olds couldn't compare to him), argued about everything, screamed and cried over the tiniest of things. Today is much better, which I atribute to actual sleep (oh, and getting to wear underwear because for the 2 weeks prior he hadn't, his mother forgot to bring any on their camping trip, she also forgot to bathe him the entire time, and didn't have enough clean shirts because he ended up having to wear one of hers).

The air show starts tomorrow. We (R, me, Little H, my brother CML, his girlfriend L, and on Sunday R's uncle Tattoo) have VIP passes for the whole event, and R and I are getting All Access passes for backstage at the concerts tomorrow night (backstage passes courtesy of Ra.ymond H.arris). It's going to be so much fun. I'm really not into planes and all that junk, but it'll be great to see how excited Little H gets at everything. He's still confused about how the parachute team does anything cool while they're falling from the sky, so that's going to be amusing to see him realize.

Oh, and before I completely forget: a pic of the start of my new tattoo. Hopefully I'll get in for my second sitting next week, my goal is to finish my leg in that sitting, and start on my back by the end of the month (I have to work around his regular schedule, since I'm paying way less than normal customers it's only fair). I swear it looks way sexier when I'm wearing heels and a short skirt, but that's not the easiest pic to take when I'm the one holding the camera (and didn't have my heels or skirt at the time).

Two weeks till counseling

2007-06-17T20:58:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been a long couple weeks. R seems to have smartened up, staying away from my blog, not calling as much, leaving me alone when I ask. It's a step, and the one that was required for me to set a timeline for starting counseling. I will be up there the weekend of the 7th for the airshow, so I'm going up a day or two early and we'll have a couples counseling session. Woohoo, we're making progress.

Shit, I really want to write more, I want to update on things, but I'm exhausted. It's been a few late nights lately, so I just don't have the energy to. I have a new tattoo design picked out, vines and flowers from my ankle all the way up to my shoulder. It's fucking HOT! I can't wait to get it done, I will post pictures of it. Well, off I go, time to relax and shower and get ready for bed early. My love to you all!

I know you were here

2007-06-04T14:56:00.001-05:00

R,
This place is not for you. I created it intending for you to NEVER find and NEVER read. Now that you've been here, it's ruined. Do not come back. If I ever find out you came here again, I will delete the whole thing. You have violated my safe place, you have stolen the comfort I find when I write and the compassion I get from the women that read and comment. You cannot be here. If I lose this place, you lose me, this is your ONLY warning.

Far, far away

2007-06-04T12:50:00.001-05:00

In my search for some time to myself, I have fled out of state. Now I'm in Ohio, for a week (got here on Friday, kinda late at night, leaving Thursday afternoon-ish depending on how early in the day I want to brave the heat in my car with the broken a/c). It feels so good to be away from all of the drama. I resolved the issue with Little H (long story, but basically- somebody told him that he couldn't stay at Daddy's house last weekend because he was the reason we were separated and neither of us loved him anymore- the truth being that R had to work and I was coming down here. that sucked, took 2 whole days to get him to even talk to R on the phone to get it straightened out, and then I went into his school before I left to come down here and talk face to face. it's better now), and now I'm free to relax.

Tonight is the start of my best friend's (we'll call him Boy Scout, we met working at B.S. camp about 5 years ago) weekend (he works 4 10-hour shifts a week, off Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday), so it's going to be a late night. The house will be pretty full tonight, though, his wife has a friend here too. Tomorrow the wife is leaving to take her friend home, so it'll just be me, Boy Scout, and their housemate. I expect lots of crying out of me, and hopefully some sort of epiphany about what I want. Same goes for Wednesday night, except the wife will be back and wanting Boy Scout's attention all on her (which is understandable, she is the wife, but I'm selfishly glad that she will be gone tomorrow night and I can have his shoulder to cry on without her butting in). That makes me sound like a bitch, but Boy Scout and I have always confided everything in each other, and we can always make each other feel better about situations. I need my time with him, because I know that he knows exactly what to say and how to make me talk without pushing, a few hours of talking to him is guaranteed to make me feel better. And since he's almost like a brother to me, there's not even the slightest possibility of dumb flirtation to distract from it. He knows there's something wrong, he knows every detail of my personality and can pinpoint everything that is off about me right now. Sometimes I think we must be plutonic soulmates, we just fit so well together as friends.

In other news, R is now wearing a pomegranate-colored string on his right wrist. He googled infertility, apparently in his desire to understand what I went through for so long, and stumbled upon the Sti.rrup Que.ens blog. Read all about the Common Thread Project, became suddenly proud of my rather miniscule contribution, and is now wearing a bracelet. The only problem is- it's too late. Not that I will never want children, just that right now I don't feel any desire towards it. This is a weird feeling for me, I've always felt the need for children, I don't know how to act without it. I can walk past pregnant women and have my heart stay in place, I can see newborns and not start to cry, I can play with a toddler and not ache to hold him/her forever. Not sure I like this feeling, but I'm learning to accept it as a new part of myself.

What do we do when we lose that urge? Am I the only one? Does it come back? Is my desire for motherhood broken forever? Will it feel the same to have a baby after I've gone through this period of indifference? All these questions, and I'm still trying to answer the most important one- do I want to try one more time with R, or have I lost that urge to fight for us?

Woot! I found internet

2007-05-21T12:03:00.000-05:00

I have snuck my way into the computer lab of the local university, so here I am.

It's been almost 3 weeks since I moved down here. There are still a few things in my car (yes, I am that lazy, plus my room is so damn tiny and I don't know where to put the stuff), but I'm basically moved in. My dad is already driving me crazy- the day I moved in, hadn't even unpacked one box from the car, the first thing he said to me: "what are you making for dinner?" My mom is great, basically just giving me space. R talks to her on the phone most nights, he doesn't have any friends he can rely on, he ditched most of them during his fling with the church. He's getting them back, though. I'm glad, he needs friends, he needs somebody to talk to and relax with while he's going through this.

R is in counseling, he's about to upgrade to twice weekly for about a month. I am so glad he is going, it is going to help him so much. He wants me to start coming up to visit for a day or two a week (not for another couple weeks, he has finally realized the need to back off). I don't know. He isn't that religious freak anymore, but he also isn't really himself yet. He's trying so hard, which is just screwing things up more, going from one extreme last month to the other this month. Maybe once he settles back down I will think about it. I've never been able to say no when it comes to him, all logic goes to hell and my brain doesn't even try to override my heart. But I am being strong, I am taking this time for myself and not even offering the option until he's been in counseling a month (almost 2 weeks already, so he is making progress). If I do go up to visit, I think I want it to be on a day he has counseling, so I can go with him and have a couples session, work on some of "our" issues. I won't be sleeping in his bed, none of that kind of stuff, just being in the same half of the state and talking. We'll need a lot of that before we can really do much else toward staying together.

I have about 20 other things to do while I have access to the internet. Thank you everybody for your support and kind words. I couldn't do this without you.

It's officially over

2007-04-30T13:51:00.000-05:00

I have made the absolute decision to leave. There is no turning back or way to fix things. I gave R the ultimatum to either see a marriage counselor (and NOT one through his church) or divorce. He told me that he'd never see a secular counselor and if I didn't want a divorce I'd have to go to counseling through his church. Nope, that's not the deal I offered him, and I've given in on every demand he's ever made, not this time. He wasn't willing to compromise just a little bit to make our marriage work. So, I'm out, and there is nothing that will change my mind. He has proven that he doesn't respect my faith or even who I am as a person, he has proven that he is the only one that matters in this marriage. Doesn't sound like a situation I want to stay in, and it's definitely not something I'm willing to put up with.

I don't feel sad that I'm leaving R. I hate this town and can't wait to leave, and I'm feeling less and less concern for R as he is starting to show how selfish and manipulative he can be. I will miss Little H, but one happy weekend a month isn't worth it. I won't be able to tell him goodbye, he won't be here again before I leave. But we will be living in the same area (read: the only WalMart within 20 miles) so I'm sure I'll see him again sometime. The dog is mine, R's keeping the stray cats. And I have never been so happy to break up in my life. I realized that I haven't been myself in at least a year, and in the past 6 months I haven't been anything, I'm empty as a person. This is my chance to fill myself again, with happiness and energy and excitement for life. And I am telling everybody I talk to that I'm getting a divorce, making damn sure I can't talk myself out of it (not that I would ever want to now that I see the rest of the world around me, I don't know how I lost sight of it for so long).

Mel, sneak in the back of the Lushary (I know it's not open today, but please) and pour everybody a drink! Today is a day to celebrate me becoming me again, being full rather than hollow, and independent rather than withdrawn! My life is mine again, and I will enjoy it.

Don't blame it on the sunshine!

2007-04-23T14:12:00.000-05:00

Don't blame it on the moonlight!
Don't blame it on the good times!
Blame it on the boogie!

OK, enough Michael Jackson reminiscing. I have been away for quite a while, haven't I? And really, it had nothing to do with the nice weather, or my overwhelming need to sleep, or anything exciting happening. Blame it on the boogie (which in the song means boogie, here I'm using the word to reference everyday life). And then, I went downstate for the weekend, which means that I guess it can be blamed on the good times (partially, from Thursday until last night).

I spent Thursday in Ann Arbor with my baby brother (have I named him yet? I don't think so, we'll go with Doe). Yummy chinese food, sitting around the dorm, contributing to the delinquency (just a little bit, hey, he's in college, he'd find another buyer if I wasn't around). It was nice. We never hang out when he's home, so it's nice to get to know him a little bit when he's in his element at college.

The rest of the weekend was spent in Fenton catching up with some old friends. We hung out, watched a live band at the local bar, watched movies. Every time we left the house we ended up drinking, it's like those girls look for every excuse they can find (not really, we were having an indulgent girls weekend). Waiting for haircut appt??? Let's go to Buffalo Wild Wings and have a beer on the patio. Gave up on haircut after waiting so long??? Let's go to another bar and have Long Islands and play with the jukebox. Live band??? Let's go to the bar and have drinks. And that was all on Saturday. It was indulgent and relaxing and I didn't think about IF or DH at all. I miss those carefree days. And not just the weekend, I miss back in college when I had so few responsibilities and I got to be selfish every once in a while. Even on my indulgent weekend I didn't get to be selfish, because I had a strict budget to follow. Being a grown up sucks!

But, I do get to brag about R a little bit. Saturday there was a tragic crash at a Blue Angels show, one of the pilots died. Saturday afternoon R got a call asking him to completely revamp the official fan club website and include a memorial guest book. He stayed up all night to do it, and now the link is being forwarded to national news stations. Here's the link (go ahead and leave feedback in my comments if you want, he loves any sort of feedback on his websites as he is fairly new at building them): www.blueangelsfanclub.com

Now to catch up on all the housework that R didn't even attempt to do while I was gone. Home for 2 weeks after lap, all weekend by himself, didn't even do dishes. Watched the dog dig a huge hole under the fence, didn't even push dirt back in the hole (or toss in pieces of our old sidewalk like he planned, to keep her from wanting to dig there anymore), so the wife has to do that too. I swear, one of these days I'm going to stab him in the throat while he's sleeping.

Breeding, continued

2007-04-13T21:46:00.000-05:00

I realize that I was rather confusing in my last post, maybe. What I really was trying to get out was the thought I had back when R and I decided to work things out. That he is the man I want to do daily injections for, the man I want to show my goods to the RE for, the man I want children with so much that I am excited to endure fertility treatments. At one point, years ago, he was the man that I wanted to roll around naked with, and instantly have a child. But that's not exactly a possibility. Before some of the most recent events, I needed him to become more. I needed to see dedication and blinding desire for children. Before, he was the guy that I knew would bring me a glass of water because of a cl.omid hot flash, but I didn't know if he was the guy that would be everything I needed through all of it. And I wasn't sure if he had risen above "roll around naked to get a baby" status and into "side effects and mixing medications to get a baby" status.

Do our husbands magically make it to that point when we need them to? Does it take a crisis to get them to that next level? The ones that do need a crisis to step up: are they still a step behind the "prepared from the beginning" guys? Have you ever had that warm fuzzy moment when you realized DH had gone beyond "nakie time" and into "fertility treatments" worthy?

Deciding who to breed with

2007-04-13T10:23:00.000-05:00

I inspired myself to think about this topic back before the ER/surgery saga, and I believe I now have the time to dedicate to a proper completion to my thoughts.

When I was younger, I wanted to have the life my mom did. She was married at 19, gave birth to me exactly 1 month after the wedding (ok, I was going to change that timeline a bit and be married before I got pg, but 19 was the magic age). By 24 she had her three kids and was the epitome of SAHM. She baked her own bread, she made perfect mac & cheese (it is possible to screw it up, but we're leaving Dad's mother out of this), taught us how to read, showed us the joy of rolling down hills and catching worms for fishing. She crocheted intricate snowflake ornaments, enough to cover the Christmas tree and hang in every window. She taught us to covet the simple things and evade the materialism of the world around us. She taught us to be proud of ourselves and never let somebody else put us down. Until I was 5 years old, she was a single mom, because Dad was a Marine and almost never stayed in one place. Rather than move us around every 6 months (and very often Dad was out of country), we stayed near extended family.

Rather insignificant bit of information: Dad is not biologically related to me. They were married before I was born, his name is on my birth certificate, but his sperm did not contribute to my existance. That guy has never been a part of my life, only met him once and I was too little to remember. But there is a significance, because it contributes to the "choosing who to produce children with" dilema. At the time I was conceived, Mom was romantically involved with that guy, had been for quite some time. She had dated Dad a few times, but he was always taking off for another month in the field or whatever military thing, so she was still somewhat involved with high school boyfriend (i.e. that guy). Things end with that guy, things step up a notch with Dad. Turns out that guy got her pg before Dad came back in the picture. Dad doesn't care, he loves her, wants a family with her. Half a year later they are married, fetal me in the way of their first kiss as husband and wife. And now fast forward to the topic at hand: choosing the "father" of your children.

When it comes to my conception, the criteria for mating was high school love. That imagined love, love that you realize was nearly insignificant once you grow and feel real love (and sometimes that real love is with the same guy, but HS love really is nothing like adult love). Some possibly magical moments, but really just sneaking around to "do it" without parents finding out. That's how my "father" was chosen.

And my dad? Well, with the information at hand, it appears that it was a case of a relationship given the time to blossom, but with a due date approaching and decisions needing to be made. He would be seen as my father no matter what, and if he wanted to stay with my mom he had to be a part of my life as well. It was a situation he jumped into with open eyes and open arms. He is the only father I have ever known, and I know that he sees me as his daughter 100%, I am in no way his stepdaughter. How about my mom's choice in it all, did she put much thought into who I would call daddy? Is it as much thought as we put into that decision when we are diagnosed with infertility.

For most women, being the man they love is enough criteria to father a child. For some, the man just has to be the one they found that night. But for us, is there something more? Do we hold our men to a higher standard? Do we judge whether or not they are worth injections or hot flashes or laparoscopic surgery? Do we question whether they deserve the child we are going through so much to conceive? Do we question whether they are the support system we need while doing so? Is it enough that we love them? Or do we demand that they go above and beyond the "normal" fathering requirements to validate our choice in enduring treatments to have their child? What criteria do we really hold our men to?

We ask them to do so much more in light of infertility. Jerking off in cups, holding our hand during the pain of an HSG, pacing the waiting room when our lap last 3x as long as the doctor prepared him for, wiping our tears and holding our shaking bodies when grief explodes from a failed cycle.

And if this guy doesn't work out, if he can't be what we need, does that change how we date and search for a new mate? Do we test them in upsetting situations? Do we push them a little too hard, to make sure they will be able to handle it?

My cousin is so fricken lucky. She was getting really serious with a guy (Drummer), more serious than she'd ever been before. Tragedy struck our family, our favorite uncle died (one of my first posts tells the story of Goofball). He had been a second father to all of us, even more to her because her parents were divorced. Drummer had just driven from Wyoming to Tennessee two days prior (and we got the call early in the morning, so really he had only been home for 18 hours or so), but immediately packed a suitcase and drove her to Michigan. He had never met the extended family (all 300 of them), and it was the worst case scenario to do so. He was tested that weekend, his energy drained, feeling helpless in such an emotional situation. Lucky her, he was amazing. They are married now. But how lucky is that, to have life test your man so wholely right at the cusp of engagement? Going into it, she has proof that he'd do anything for her and be the kind of man she needs. He is so the perfect husband for an infertile. Of course, they will probably pop out perfect little children without a care.

So, do we judge our men differently because of our infertility? Do we hold them to a higher standard? Do we question or desire to have children with them? Or does or desire to have children trump all?

Goodbye gallbladder, hello whiny husband

2007-04-08T12:52:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed that I didn't continue my blog yesterday, and that I didn't update at all after surgery. You may have, but I did not. I was running on 3 hours of crappy sleep yesterday, and I don't remember eating from the time R went to the ER Friday morning until late Saturday afternoon (while he was in the recovery room after the surgeon gave us the report, my mom took me to the cafeteria and made me eat something, which was a good idea since I nearly passed out standing there deciding what to eat).

Surgery went great. They were hoping they could do laparoscopy rather than cutting one huge incision, and they were able to. Four small incisions in R's abdomen, plus the belly button incision. They kept him overnight again last night, which was good because he needed their super drugs to fight the pain. He's been holding down liquids since 6pm yesterday, ate a mushy breakfast this morning, and had turkey/mashed potatoes/stuffing/green beans for lunch. He did well with all of that, so they let him get dressed and come home. He's so much happier in his own bed. He's zonked out in there, I'm assuming he'll probably sleep most of the afternoon and then wake up for an hour or two before sleeping through the night. He took a vic.odin before going into the bedroom, although he had refused pain meds all morning. He's got a heating pad on his back because the hospital bed was uncomfortable and I'll probably give him a backrub later if he's awake.

R's grandma came up, but left not long after he got back to his room after surgery. My mom stayed the night to help take care of the dog since I wouldn't be home much. I was glad for that, I think I was more worried about the dog being left alone than I was about any part of R's surgery. The dog did demolish a brand new ball of crochet thread this morning while we were at the hospital waiting for R to be discharged, but I don't blame her since the past few days have been so hectic and she's been alone and bored.

I am currently enjoying a tiny bit of quiet time before I have to revert back into nursemaid mode and go adjust pillows, bring glasses of water, help in and out of bed, etc. It's going to be a long couple days before R starts feeling like himself again, but he did take care of me after my lap so I can't complain (although he didn't keep the house nearly as clean as I like to, and he's a terrible cook). The neighbors across the road invited me to Easter dinner over there, which I will probably go to. It saves me from having to cook, especially not knowing if R is going to want to eat or not. And I'm still so tired that I don't know if anything I cooked would be edible, or if it's even safe for me to cook in my current state. I'd probably fall asleep at the table and burn everything.

Now for a nap until then.

Diary of a Waiting Room Wife

2007-04-07T17:51:00.000-05:00

11:30am Saturday

First we'll get the background out of the way.

R went into the ER around 10am on Friday. Diagnosis: ga.llstones. A bunch of them, big as marbles. IV, medications, and finally a surgery consult around 4pm. They thought his pain was under control and that he'd be able to ride it out with Vic.odin till Monday, so they let him go home around 5pm. Their pain meds wore off around 8pm and he took his first pill. By 9:30 he was in pain again, and by 10pm it was severe enough that he wanted to come back to the hospital. New doc, this one very much more attentive (checked on him every half hour at least, the one in the morning came twice in 6 hours), but not very proactive. We had to request the surgeon come back down, the doc kinda wanted to send him back home again. The surgeon came in, said hi, palpated his abdomen, and pretty much immediately admitted him. The surgeon ordered more meds (R had gotten two doses of De.merol within the first hour we were there, with no relief at all). Those meds were great (if I remember what it was, I'll let you know). R finally got his room upstairs around 4am, all the paperwork and questions were done around 5. I went home, made a couple phone calls (my dad is always up that early), brought the dog into our bedroom (she shares a room with Little H, but I love sleeping with her when R is away), and tried to get some sleep. My alarm went off at 8am, I cursed and turned it off, then went back to sleep for a little while. I woke up again at 8:30 and started making the rest of the morning's phone calls: R's grandma (she raised him), R's mom, my parents again, R's boss/pastor. I gave them the phone number here and his room number and told them to sit tight until we saw the surgeon this morning.

Fast forward past my breakfast and bank card fiasco at the gas station (damn thing stopped working, it worked at BK, then right across the street it wouldn't do anything, not even in their A.TM).

I finally got back to the hospital around 10am. Still hadn't seen the surgeon this morning, but he was doped up on pain meds pretty well. I checked with the nurses to see if there was any idea when the surgeon would show up and how he did overnight (in the 4 1/2 hours I was gone). Half an hour later the surgeon came in, palpated again, and scheduled the surgery. The surgeon had another surgery that was more urgent to do first, so R is scheduled to go in sometime between 2-3pm. R asked for his bible, which I had forgotten when I came in, so I ran home to get it and made another round of phone calls. My mom asked if I needed her, because she could tell I hadn't had any sort of emotional reaction to this yet. I told her no. Called Grandma, R's mom, R's aunt, R's boss. Called mom back and asked her to come up, I think I'll need her later (damn her, I hadn't even thought about being worried or nervous or upset in any way until she suggested it). R's grandma is on her way, too. I got back here again and R's boss and his wife were on their way out (I had left them a message). They let me know that he had just requested something for nausea and was pretty much out of it again. We hugged (which was nice, because there was a lot of drama with them during that whole possible divorce fiasco), and they said to let them know how things go and call if I need anything.

So here we are, now 11:45am, R's out cold, I'm watching the Ja.ckie Ch.an cartoon (because that's the channel R had it on) and writing this all out in wor.dpad (somebody's husband still hasn't installed Office on her laptop). I don't know when I'm going to break, but, now that I know I should, I know I will. I'd spent the entire time in only the clinical mindset, reverting back to my paramedic training and seeing only the clinical aspect and not the personal one. I kept track of his meds and pain, I was his constant bedside nurse. My mom is expecting me to burst when he gets out of the OR, when it's over and I know he's safe and better and I don't have to be strong anymore. I don't know what I would have done, but now that she has suggested it I can't think of anything else. It's like I'm preparing myself for my own breakdown, trying to figure out how I'm going to be strong when I stop being strong. I am so glad my mom is coming, she is my comfort and my rock and I'm going to need that. I can't break down alone, I have to know that somebody is here to take care of him and take care of me first. I won't allow any emotions until I know it won't effect him, so if my mom weren't coming anything that I'm "not" feeling would never come out. I think her coming is a good thing.

So, I actually am a bitch

2007-04-06T09:39:00.000-05:00

Think back however long I've been blogging (it hasn't been that long, I just don't care to check and see how long), remember my very first post, the one about J? Well, she just had her HSG. And it didn't go well. Both tubes are something not open (I don't know if they are too narrow or blocked or whatever, she didn't hear much of the initial report due to her crying). My heart goes out for her more than I can say. And it feels a whole lot of guilt.

She started out as that annoying girl that gets "worried" when it hasn't happened in the first 2 months. And then it was 6, and then more. And then she had an appointment with the RE. I was so jealous and hated that she was getting further than I had, that I had been trying for almost 2 years when she started and I had no hope of getting to an RE. I did what I had promised myself I would never do- I rated our infertility. I thought I was more infertile than her because I had been through more, that I was a better infertile because I had researched all the REs in the state and success rates and patient experiences, and because I kept hope that whole first year (sometimes I was a little nervous, but I had hope, refused to chart until 10 months TTC because I "knew" everything was normal, I recently reread my journals from back then and I was surprised at how much hope I had, I had forgotten that it was even possible to feel hope when TTC). I never said anything about that, and I spewed forth my knowledge for her. I listened when she cried, I felt her heart break in the emails she sent me, and I did/said everything that had helped me through failed cycles.

And now that I know she "really is infertile," I feel like crap. I feel so guilty that I ever felt those other things, even though I kept them inside. I feel guilty that I judged her infertility or was frustrated with her emotional breakdown in month 5. Because hindsight shows me that she was justified in her feelings. I had been so bombarded with fertility all around me that I hadn't accepted the possibility that she was one of us. And I kept that admission of possibility out of my mind because I didn't want to feel the hurt if she wasn't one of us, if she magically got pg on month 6 or 10. I didn't want to pour out my heart and feel that empathy towards her, just to get a message a month down the road saying "ooops, I guess I'm not infertile, it just took me a little longer than I wanted to get pg, sorry you can't be as lucky as me." I know she would never say anything like that, but dammit, that's what I would hear.

It wasn't all judging and frustration. I truly did feel for her, I wanted to help her and comfort her and show her the way. I wanted to be someone she could turn to, the person I didn't really have when I had just started out. I would have driven 3 hours (one way) to take her to her HSG. I would answer my phone in the middle of the night and just listen while she cried and screamed and asked God why. Her IUI got cancelled, but I've had the dates written in my calendar for weeks, and the HSG she just had, too. I mentally kept track of the days she was taking clom.id and when her AF would come (so I could check my mail twice as often that day and not miss any messages she sent while upset). I invested as much of myself as I could while still trying to protect myself in case she got what I couldn't have. But I feel guilty that I didn't invest enough. I didn't take that leap of faith and stand behind her 100% in her journey.

I'm sorry J, I will be whatever you need now, I'm sorry if I wasn't that before.

The Bastard

2007-04-03T17:36:00.000-05:00

-OR-

I was married once before and it sucked big sweaty monkey nuts

Amy asked, so I will deliver: the story of my first marriage. It all begins my sophomore year of college. R and I had dated for a while and been through breakups #1 and #2. It was the day after Valen.tine's 2001, and I had none. Sitting at the coffee shop, in walks a pretty good looking guy, a regular, but outside of his normal time. I was a regular, too, and the owner decided that this guy and I should talk. We talked for a while, exchanged numbers and all that jazz. That night I got a phone call from the guy. We dated for a while, did that college sleeping together before we really should have thing, etc. He had been living with his parents (ewww, a townie that lives at home, somebody should have warned me), but decided to get his own place not long after we started dating. He was looking for something serious, I was just playing the field for a while. Of course, things didn't work out. We remained friends, he came to me for life advice.

One day he starts talking about the military. Really seriously. I had concerns, he seemed very predisposed to alcoholism (saw getting drunk as a way to "escape" reality, didn't know his limits, never stopped drinking before he was drunk) and that worried me. He joined anyway. He was at staging (self-explanatory) for basic training for the Army on 9-11. He started his training 2 days later. I flew out to Oklahoma for his graduation (I was the only friend he invited, the rest was his family, we truly were best friends at the time). It was very emotional, especially with all of the post-9-11 stuff going on, deployments coming up and all that. He proposed, we picked out my ring at the mall the afternoon after his graduation ceremony, it got resized super quick and he put it on my finger the morning I left to go back home, which also happened to be his 19th birthday.

We eloped 5 weeks later when he was home on leave. His mom was furious, but we were in love. 2 weeks later he had developed an abdominal hernia and had to temporarily stop his AIT training (he could continue with the classwork, but the physical part had to be suspended). That meant a whole lot of time with nothing to do, a lot of free time to explore the town. And if anybody knows anything about military towns, it's that they are filled with strip clubs, bars, and strip clubs. Which is where he started spending all that free time. At that time, I looked way hotter than I do in the pics I posted (not fishing for compliments, I lost the perfect abs and tight little butt when I became a SAHW, I admit it, so even though I do still like the way I look there was a time when I felt better about my body, except my boobs which were smaller back then), so why he was at strip clubs is beyond me. Yeah, I was a dozen states away working on my college degree (I had already enrolled for the semester when we eloped, and had I dropped out of school I couldn't have moved with him anyway since there was a waiting list for base housing), but I was still his wife. Anyway, lots of drinking ensued. Drunk + strippers + calling your wife to tell her all about it = BASTARD!

And he did call, every night. Sometimes we talked about when I would move out there, sometimes we talked about my classes, sometimes we talked about his hernia surgery and how bad I felt that I couldn't fly out to be with him (midterms week, plus no money because he spent it all on strippers and beer). The conversation always ended on how much he drank and which stripper was his favorite that night. He felt the need to tell me what she was wearing, that he had hit on her, that he was taking her to a movie next week. Of course, he didn't remember any of those conversations when he was sober. But I did. It went on for a couple months, me yelling at him, him crying and promising to change and begging me to help him, everything happening again the next night.

I gave up and asked for a divorce, but he wanted one last chance to work on things in person. He flew me out for a week. We were supposed to spend the week together, talking, maybe seeing a counselor, trying to work on things. The second I got off the plane, he started rubbing all over me and trying to make out. I told him before I went out there that he had no hope of getting anything and that he had a lot of work to do to convince me to stay married to him. Guess he didn't listen. One night I forced him to take me to the strip club he always called me from. We went with a group of his friends, the guys pulled me aside and told me that they actually didn't go to this one much, it was too expensive, they usually went to the cheap dirty one where you could get a little "extra" in the lapdance room. I enjoyed myself, I went in with the mentality that I was single and I wanted to have fun. He threw a fit, when we left he threatened to go inside and punch every guy that looked at me or mistook me for one of the dancers. He was drunk, I only remembered him having 2 drinks, but he must have gotten a lot more and hid them from me because he could barely walk.

That night I sat up late with his "best friend" talking about things. This is the guy that Bastard told all of our problems to, the one he confided in. So, I talked to him, got the inside info on Bastard and how he saw things. He told me how much of an asshole Bastard really was, and that is some heavy information coming from the guy he considered his best friend. Bastard was passed out way before the friend and I started talking, but woke up at some point while the friend and I were sitting in the courtyard talking. He must have walked another way to the friends' room and when best friend and I weren't there, he started screaming. He threatened to kill us both. I spent the last 2 days of my "visit" with the best friend and a few others, basically hiding from Bastard. He knew where I was, but he also knew that he couldn't get near me, so he left me alone. I didn't go outside without at least 3 guys around me, not even to walk from the door to the car, and I was never left alone in the house.

4 years later I messaged back and forth with Bastard's best friend from high school (different best friend, this one I'll call DJ for simplicity). DJ hadn't talked to Bastard since he went to basic training. Bastard had thrown things all over his house and nearly stabbed him with a pair of scissors when DJ beat him at some video game. Had I known any of that then, things would have been so different. I didn't know that he had forced his HS girlfriend to get an abortion in Canada (lived near the border) because he didn't want to be stuck with her forever. I didn't know he had threatened to beat up several of my friends that knew his real personality if they ever told me. He somehow scared everybody without letting me see it, and if a big group of his friends hadn't "spontaneously" decided to do the same thing they knew he was doing that night, I might have been too late in seeing it. He had never threatened me before, never raised his voice. Anytime I had said anything to him about his drinking or told him I didn't want to be with him, he cried. No yelling, no attacking me back, just crying and begging. I don't know what made him snap that night when he never had before, but I'm glad I was behind a couple locked doors before he found me.

Several months later we were divorced (later as in after I left the town he was in, the convo with DJ happened kinda recently, sorry I wrote in a screwy order, that's how my brain works). He dragged it out and scammed the government out of over $6000 that was supposed to go to me that I never saw a penny of. I wanted him out of my life, so I never pursued it when I should have. I will always regret any part of my life that involved him, except the day of our divorce. I freed myself from a worthless, manipulative, fake jackass, and I made sure he knew that I was better than him and not afraid of him. And every day I know that I care about myself enough to never associate with that kind of scum again. I'm still a little bitter, I still wish I had gone after the money (because it could have led to military criminal charges against him, including fraud), but as far as I'm concerned he died a long time ago. Unless I ever find out who he is dating, because I will save her the trouble of finding out who he really is on her own.

More Counting

2007-04-02T08:28:00.000-05:00

I had a very creepy, way-too-vivid dream last night. Actually, it was this morning right before I woke up (woke me up an hour and a half early and I couldn't even think about going back to sleep). I can still hear the things in the dream, and none of them are anything I ever want to hear in real life. Anybody have a good way to repress creepy dream memories? I want to get it all out of my head and never think about it again.

Yeah, the counting, almost forgot (and it's only been 2 minutes since I typed the title, that dream was creepy, it's screwing up my entire day). Number of contacts in my cell phone: 61. Number that are not friends (Dr, vet, etc): 9. Number that I haven't called in over 6 months and have no idea if they are still working numbers: 15. Number that are additional numbers for a person (home, cell, work): 9. Number that I called when I started packing: 2. That's right, out of 28 people that I know and love, I told 2 (and one on messenger, but we're talking cell phone here). Subconcious faith that I was staying married no matter what it looked like at the time? Laziness? Not wanting to cry yet again? Shame for being in a second failed marriage (the first time I was 19, long story, I may tell it sometime if anybody asks)? Lack of consideration for the people who would most want to comfort me? I don't fucking know. But I do know that I kept thinking in my head that night "would you just go to bed so I can get on blo.gger?" Thanks to everybody who made that thought worthwhile. Your comments really did help me get through every day. A couple times a day I'd get an email telling me about a message, and those emails were my bright spots. I couldn't thank any of you enough.

How many boxes?

2007-04-01T11:12:00.000-05:00

How many boxes does it take to hold all my stuff? Well, I guess we won't find that out anytime soon. How many boxes does it take to make R mention that the kitchen feels so empty? Just 1 (granted, it was pretty big) and a tiny start on box 2. How many rooms have to start feeling that empty before R will shut up about not agreeing with the pictures and instead tell me how fabulous they look? 3- kitchen, living room, bedroom. Not quite the answer I would want, considering there are only 2 other rooms in the house (Little H's room and the bathroom) and neither holds any significant amount of stuff. I, of course, made sure I packed the most obvious and likely to be missed items first (like the measuring cups and knife block). I was tired of fighting, I was too emotionally drained to fight to stay. So I did the only thing I could do, I accepted his choice. OK, so packing right in front of him, not allowing him to help, asking about so many random things ("do you want the tree-shaped kitchen timer?" "how about the box of extra toothpicks?"), that was a bit passive-aggressive. But, it did accomplish the desired result: R making the choice to work on our marriage without me begging him or forcing him. Whether I manipulated the situation or not makes little difference, he feels happy with his decision.

5 boxes to unpack today. 1 is clothes, 1 is mostly books, 1 is kitchen stuff, 1 has 3-4 kitchen items in it, and the last contains the bouquets from our wedding. The flowers were all fake, I had them put up on the wall for a while, the only real decoration we had for 4 months (until we got the clock a month ago, that really was a big excitement). R wants to finally take down the Christmas lights around the ceiling. I like having them up, it's convenient to be able to light the entire front half of the house from just one plug. OK, the plug is behind the couch and so we have to move that to plug/unplug, and they're not up evenly or even that prettily, but sometimes I don't want to use 2 lamps and 2 overhead lights to make it less dark. Oh well, minor concession on my part. As long as he takes them down carefully and winds them up carefully so that I don't have to spend 4 hours untangling when it comes time to put them up this winter.

Even after we've decided to work hard on this, even after all the tears and the good night we had (bought Ea.ster supplies for Little H and a couple things to mail to my cousin in A.ustralia, got a nice massage that was very much needed after several nights sleeping on the couch, that kind of stuff), unpacking is stressful. After a few days in limbo, I'm stuck feeling indifferent. I am more relaxed, I did actually sleep well last night, I finally ate without feeling like I was going to hurl, I brushed my teeth and actually cared while I was doing it. But the rest of it, I'm not feeling much anything for. I have no desire to do the dishes, no drive to make my home beautiful and clean again. I don't care if my laundry gets done, I'm staying in my pajamas for a few days anyway. I feel a bit of relief, but I don't want things to "get back to normal." That normal is what got us where we were, but it's also the only kind of routine we have. I have no expectations, just a little bit of hope. 2 1/2 years of infertility have taught me how to have just enough guarded hope to not be depressed, but little enough that I don't get broken by the next upset. Not a personality trait I ever wanted to be grateful for or proud of.

Little H will be here tomorrow night. We have big plans for the week: Tuesday video games and reuniting with the toys he has here, Wednesday video games with dad (R has bible study Tuesday night, so they won't have as much quality time available then) and any spring break homework (gives him plenty of time to ignore school, but not long enough that he can't remember what needs to be done or how to do it), Thursday boil and decorate eggs for Ea.ster (we got a Spon.gebob decorating kit, the cardboard rings are the bottom half of the characters and there are those fun shrinky plastic ring things that are the top half), Friday afternoon is early Ea.ster (we'll all go outside and play, Mama Roy will have to "go potty" and run inside for a minute, when we all come in, the bunny will have magically stopped by while we were playing with the dog), and he goes home at some point after that (the details with that are yet undiscussed). Busy week.

Time to get started with staying, we're going to need a lot of the stuff that belongs to me this week, and it's unusable when it's packed in a box. It will take a long time to come back from this, to trust and understand and listen again. I'm glad I'll have somewhere to turn during this journey, a whole world to escape into, a place to get out my feelings without having to effect R until I figure them out.

On the IF front: one of the pictures is me on my side, sheet draped across my groin. R wants a picture just like it with my pregnant belly instead of a flat one. He talked about it for an hour yesterday, he's desperate to have a baby once we start trying again (we're still taking a break till 2008, no plans to change that part of it, but he is now as desperate for a child as I am, completely willing to jerk in as many cups as I ask him to and spend thousands of dollars on doctors our insurance says we can't see). He's never been proactive about IF before, it's one fabulous change. Little H just had to get old enough to be fun, now R is wondering what he's missing during the week when Little H is at his mom's, and he's wondering how much really great stuff he missed out on before now. Sad that he had to miss so much before he realised he was missing anything, but it's awesome seeing how into being a dad he is. Definitely the man I want to inject myself and have dozens of internal ultrasounds for (hmmm, I wonder how fertile girls decide if a guy is worth it? maybe that's why "we" question them so much, because their only qualification for the father of their child is somebody they'd be willing to have sex with... save that thought for another time, I think I should devote a blog to it, when I'm ready)

I am (temporarily) married to....

2007-03-30T18:08:00.000-05:00

......the most insensitive jackass to ever aspire to be a youth pastor. Yesterday we sat down to talk things out, to see if there was any way to work things out and stay together. He asked me for ideas, then decided he didn't care because he can never forgive me for the pictures (which he encouraged until 2 days before I went for the photo shoot, and was beyond excited about afterwards). Then he cried and wanted to know what it would take, then he demanded that I feel guilty for taking the pictures (which I don't, because it was an amazing experience and I really like the end result) or else it was over. And then he went to praise and worship and asked me to pray while he was gone (because God would obviously come down and slap us in the face with an answer).

I did pray, I did search my heart for answers. The answer I found was: free will. God gave it to us (not any of His other creations, just us), it is ours to use and make our lives what we will. (side note: R doesn't see free will that way, as far as he's concerned the only free will we have is to choose God or not, the rest is completely planned out for us) He didn't like my answer, instead he looked up scripture and definitions so he could prove to me that taking the pictures was adultery (because somebody, somewhere, at some point in time, might possibly be aroused by it which makes it adultery, even though the intention was art). I yelled at him, he told me to make a list of who gets what. I made the list, he started crying and begging me to try to work things out with him. Then he decided to try to count how many times the word wife is in the bible, not sure why. Best part: he preached to me about the story of Job and how it's exactly like infertility. If anybody else can find the connection, please tell me what it is, because when I asked him to he just repeated the story of Job over and over again like the connection should be obvious.

Eventually, I screamed at him, in my loudest voice I told him how I pray constantly throughout the day and don't have to be in a church to feel like I have a relationship with God. Somehow that got through his head, we started talking again. I told him that I felt like he had not only put God first in his life, but actually made God the only thing that mattered and kicked me out completely. Epiphany for him, oh yeah, he had been ignoring his wife for 6 months (except for the crappiest sex of her life), never talking to her except to tell her how her life was not Christ-like. So, things felt good. I even slept in our bed with him last night, his arm around me to make me feel better.

This morning comes. A friend from out of town might be coming down this weekend to take me out for lunch one day. His computer is having issues, I tell him that R might be able to help him and that if he can't get it fixed up there to bring it with him when he comes down. I call R at work to tell him and make sure it's OK. R tells me he has doubts, that he didn't get any sleep because he still doesn't know if he wants to stay together. WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?! Last night he cried, he begged me to forgive him for ignoring me, he asked me a dozen times if we could just have one more chance, he held me and pet my hair while I cried myself to sleep. And the whole time he had doubts.

I was coping, I was accepting that our marriage was over, I was planning how to start my life over. And he begged me to stay in our marriage because he couldn't live without me. I had to un-cope, I had to un-accept divorce, I had to un-plan my new life. And now I find out he faked the whole thing. He didn't think anything through, he just spit out whatever came to mind and to hell with actually meaning it. I'm sure he meant it while he was saying it, but not deep inside.

I can't bounce back and forth a dozen times a day, I can't devote my energy and emotions to one and then the other, based on his whims. But what do I do until he decides? If I move out, he'll just say that I decided for him so that he doesn't have to admit any sort of reality to himself. If I stay, I'm subjected to his frantic decision swings. Both options suck! I don't know anybody in this wretched town, so it's not like I could stay with a friend for just one night or anything like that. If I go anywhere it's 2 hours away and the only way we could talk would be on the phone.

Why can't he just tell me the fucking truth? Tell me how he really feels instead of hiding behind scripture? Sometimes I think he uses God to not have to face reality. He doesn't have to make any decisions if he can get God to make them for him. He manipulates scripture (or just invents entirely new meaning for it) to fit his desires. He won't say that he doesn't enjoy alcohol anymore, instead he finds one tiny bit of scripture about it and quotes it constantly, like it's his new mantra. And if I have a drink with a friend to celebrate her birthday and the fact that she's even in the state for the first time in 3 months, out comes the scripture again and I get berated about how I went against God. Just fucking tell me that you don't want to drink anymore! Just fucking admit that you ONLY equate drinking with the way you used to drink (read: get drunk and sleep around) and think I'm going to go whore around if I get tipsy. It doesn't matter that it's never happened, he used to be a drunk man-whore and he thinks that's the only thing that can happen when people drink. Oh, you're jealous that somebody else (an artist, a fucking artist, not somebody that is trying to get in my pants, just a fucking artist) will see me naked. How about telling me that you're a jealous prick and don't want me to do something that I really, really, really want to do? Nope, find a way to "prove" that I commited adultery instead.

I'M AN ADULTEROUS WHORE! But, I'm happy with my life and don't need to defend myself to anybody. And I admit it, I say it clearly and don't try to hide behind anything. I have never hidden who I am or pretended to be anything else. I'm quiet and reserved sometimes. Sometimes I'm goofy and eccentric. Every once in a while I'm loud and overly-energetic. But I don't hide myself. I don't sulk in the corner when I'm feeling bouncy, I don't force myself to be the center of attention when I want to chill out by myself. I am always true to myself. I don't hold some book in front of me and justify myself through it. I don't hide from reality by throwing out scripture instead of original thoughts and feelings.

Just wake up from your fucking nap and make a choice! You can decide to put an effort into our marriage and accept me for who I am (the same person I have been for years, I'm not the one that suddenly changed and demanded everybody else to do the same). Or you can decide that honesty and acceptance is too much to handle, that it's harder than hiding behind a bible, and I go. I won't stand by and tolerate both. I won't stay just to be berated and belittled by things you don't even understand, by thoughts and arguements that are not your own. Choose, R, because if you wait much longer I will choose for you. I can't force you to change, but I can choose to not subject myself to your attacks and criticism if that's how you continue. My faith and relationship with God are my own, you have no right to tell me I'm wrong or judge them. If you can't accept that, I go. Decide quick, R, I don't do limbo.

Now that it's morning, what happens next?

2007-03-29T10:02:00.000-05:00

So far, nothing else has been figured out. Little H is supposed to come up for his spring break next week, a whole week. His mom offered us the whole week, no fights, no begging by R, none of the usual drama. That's supposed to be celebrated like a miracle, but instead we're trying to figure out how/if. I'd have to be here, R works and we don't have a babysitter or even anybody to watch him if I can't. So, do I stay so Little H can have a week with his dad, a week they have both been wanting for a while? Or do we take that away from Little H and I start moving immediately? His mother finally started accepting me, before she would have never let us have Little H during the week because she didn't want him left with me while R was at work. We finally had some positive progress, and now it's worthless. R was building a real relationship with Little H (which is hard to do in 4 days a month, especially since they didn't have the chance to build any relationship when Little H was a baby), but it took a lot of encouragement from me. A lot of extra effort on my part to make sure Little H got up here for his weekend visitations (which would have been cut short by a day if R had to go pick him up because there wasn't enough time for the long drive down and back after R got out of work), I encouraged playtime and board games instead of just video games, I made sure we all sat down for dinner together and spent that time talking. One of my biggest fears is that R won't be able to build on that relationship without my help, that he won't be able to be a single parent on his weekends and that their relationship will slowly fail.

I'm not worried about moving out, not really. I have a room at my parents' house, they will welcome me home. I will find a job in the town my mom works in, we'll carpool most days. The rest I don't know. What will I do on weekends? Will I go out a night or two a week and hang out with my old friends? Will I start looking for somebody new? And when I do (which will probably be a while), how will that work with all the new criteria I have for a husband- like amazing medical insurance that will cover IVF, desire to have kids soon, and somehow the ability to make me happy I'm not with R anymore. Because eventually I have to be happy that I'm divorced. Eventually I have to not wish things were different and I will have to be glad I'm out of this marriage so that some other relationship will work. If I spend the rest of my life loving R and remembering everything that was good, there is no way I could get past him and even try to find something better.

Divorce is never easy, but it is so much harder when you still love the other person with everything you are, and know that they love you back. I can't change the person I am to stay with R, and he can't change either, neither of us want to and neither want the other to. So, here we are, two people who don't know how to not love each other, completely incompatable, wishing that everything were different.

I might have to change my blog name

2007-03-29T00:51:00.000-05:00

Well Blogosphere, things are not so good in the marriage department over here. So not good that I have already told 2 really good friends about my impending divorce. Which was quite difficult to do (not only because it's very sad, but also because it was after midnight, which is a very rare time for any of my really good friends to be online). There is a lot to it, but it basically boils down to R wanting religion to be the main focus of our lives, and I am not willing to change who I am inside to fit into that plan. It's not his fault, religion plays a different part in everybody's life and he has the right to make it his top priority. That's just not where I am right now, and it makes it impossible for us to stay married. It'll be a couple weeks before I can get moved out of here and back with my parents, so I will probably be blogging at least that much longer. I don't know about anything after that. I don't even know how to tell my parents that it's happening.

Going on a not-fishing trip

2007-03-26T09:23:00.000-05:00

Spring is popping up around me. The flowers that my mom and grandma helped me plant way back in October are starting to push their way up (if those damn cats would stop using my flower beds as litter boxes it would be much prettier, but it is still a happy sight), my yard is now completely snow-free and quickly drying (which is good, because that inch of water that was covering the back yard made for one muddy puppy), and it was 60 degrees when I woke up at 9:30 this morning. I took advantage of the niceness of the weather yesterday and raked some of my back yard- I raked for an hour, realized I was almost to the area of dog poo (not entirely our fault, you see, the snow came very unexpectedly this winter on the exact day we had planned to clean up the back yard) and decided I was tired. I will finish raking when R is home to participate in the dirty work (it was his job to clean up that poo, he put it off until the day of the fateful snow storm).

Our yard really does look miserable right now- twigs and sticks broken off the trees during those evil wind storms, leaves that didn't get raked in the fall because we were gone so often then and when we were home it seemed to always be raining, the siding missing from the eaves of the garage because of a wretched late-winter wind storm. Spring will take some work to look as pretty as it should, but it will be beautiful. Our first spring in the new house, the house we own, our house. It's a wonderful thought, one I didn't expect for quite a while (seriously, I'm 24, R is 26, who buys a house at that age, especially on one income). I am so proud of R for accomplishing as much as he has and providing for our family so well.

Yes, about that title. I leave tomorrow afternoon for an overnight not-fishing trip. Everybody else will be fishing, but I don't eat fish (it tastes yucky), so I'm going to stand back and watch. And I will also be appearing in the role of beer-bitch (don't think of it as condescending, I find it amusing and plan to be the best beer-bitch ever). R will be working, poor Tiffany pup has to stay home with him. A couple friends from Ohio (they just moved there, dammit, they used to only be 3 hours away and I could visit every couple months) will be there, and they are bringing 2 guys with them.

Kev and Jes (my friends, I met Kev when I worked at boyscout camp, Jes is his wife) are two of my bestest friends in the whole world, I am so glad I get the chance to see them. And the fishing cabin is only a little over an hour from where I live, so it's even better than where they lived before. The list of drink is a long one, much longer than the list of food they are bringing (hmmm, bunch of guys fishing, who would have imagined...). I plan to take full advantage of my beer-bitch role, which includes the mixing of drinks, and make mine extremely weak and everybody else's full strength. That seems rude, but they drink, and I do so only rarely, and I really would like to be functional on Wednesday as that night is Little H's school concert. They will have a very large bottle of the blue-raspberry vodka that haunted my photo shoot, it could be a very long night.

*kid talk, beware*

And once the night of debauchery with friends is over, I will return on Wednesday to shower, hopefully nap, and try desperately to look alive and healthy for the concert at Little H's school (a 2 hour drive to get to). The boy is in kindergarten, so there will likely be two short songs sung by his entire grade and the rest of the hour and a half dominated by the older students. R and I will play the role of proud parent with honor! We even purchased a new digital camera especially for the occassion (ok, R really wanted it for the air show this summer- must blog about that, it's awesome- but we ordered it and are having it shipped super fast so that it will be here before the concert). Our little boy is growing up so fast.

I remember the first time Little H slept over at my house. He was only 20 months old, nervous around strangers, barely knew his daddy (R had been deployed for over a year of H's life already). Roy knew what to do: bath time with any toys I could find (I was grown up, all I had around was a collection of stuffed dragons, luckily I found a couple toy dragons that were waterproof) and bubbles. After that, Little H was my shadow, he'd follow me around the house and mimic everything I did. A few months later, R was deployed again and I wasn't allowed to see Little H even once till R came home. A year changes so much. Little H became a kid and not just a little bitty toddler. He had spunk and attitude (he was also a bit of a sissy, but I loved that too because it meant he came running, crying for hugs and to kiss his booboo a dozen times a day, and I would have hugged and kissed a million times if he let me), he was the poster child for "kids say the darndest things." Too cute for words. And now, in school, learning to read (his kindergarten teacher sends home easy books with only the most advanced students, and he's one of them), writing his name and simple words, just exploding into being a boy (not my baby boy anymore, not even a little boy, he's a BOY). That's amazing to me. And it makes me that much more desperate to have a baby, to be able to live every day with that child growing in front of me, not the randomness of Little H's youngest childhood. For now, I will take what I have, I will be thankful for every moment with Little H, that I am a part of his life and his second mother, even though he couldn't have come from my womb. It is an amazing gift to be allowed to participate in the life of a child, to observe and influence. I thank R every day that he loved me enough to ask me to be not only his wife, but also a mother to his son.

See you all on Thursday (unless the camping trip gets extended, which it might, in which case I might just go back on Thursday for another night and therefore see you all on Friday instead)!

They have arrived

2007-03-22T19:09:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if I've taken a single breath since the mail came at 2:45pm today (the normal time, a little bit early, actually). I looked them over quickly, then ripped the disc out of my computer and hid it in a closet. I'm don't know why, I just had to. Hours later I have taken a second and third look, studied them closely, and have decided that I don't hate them. In fact, there are a dozen or so that I really like (there are 44 total pictures). Only a couple of which I feel comfortable posting on here (who would have thought so many of my nude photographs would contain a nipple shot, or more). Anyway, here is my blogger nude debut:

here's that really cool spider from Venice (those legs were pointy, very hard to stay still)

and the only other acceptable photo to post (plus, I think it looks good)

This week!!!

2007-03-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

Just talked to NotPorn, he is burning my DVD as I type. He said there are 45-50 pictures on it. Holy crap! And he rattled off a few ideas for the next shoot (including waxing, ouch). OMG, I'm going to have my pictures in a few days. I will do my best to learn how this whole posting photos works and put up one or two next week (I have to go through them all and only pick the very best ones to share). I promise, nothing graphic or including body parts that would get me arrested for indecent exposure.

Dr. Seu.ss took my nudie pics

2007-03-20T08:24:00.000-05:00

Another crazy dream post. I try to think of IF-related topics, but magically I am actually handling this break so well that I have started to think of things other than babies. I'm not so sure I like that, but it does piss off R a bit less this way. Although, he's so distracted by all the graphics work he's doing for the air show that we couldn't make a baby right now even if my body worked properly. I'm rarely able to stay awake long enough for us to even go to bed at the same time. He tells me every night that he wants to "go to bed early," oooh what a turn on that is. I finally told him that his stupid comment is not foreplay and that he'd better learn what is if he ever wants to do something other than sleep in our bed.

*****skip next 2 paragraphs if you don't want to hear about my sex life*****

He greatly took advantage of TTC, let me tell you. Because I would have sex during O time no matter what. So tired I sleep through it? Sure, R, have fun. Back spasms from my firefighting injury? Stick a pillow there and pretend it's a new position. So dry down there it's dusty? Squirt in some fake moisture and let's get going. 2 1/2 years with the guarantee of sex every other day for a week (sometimes 2 just to make sure we got the day right) really made R lazy. As far as he's concerned, the goal is still to make sure he gets some sperm in there. Wifey's enjoyment is not the top of his priority list, most of the time it's not on R's list at all.

It was not always this way. We used to spend hours every night doing all the stuff that feels good. Sex lasted so long, I always had multiples and we'd exhaust ourselves before falling asleep. Now, I rush myself to get one before he's spent. There's no foreplay, no kissing, no touching, nothing. He says he doesn't know where/how to touch me, but for the first 4 years of our relationship he knew it all by instict. He could make my knees shake with a tiny kiss in just the right spot. He forgot all of it when he was deployed before the wedding, and he's never made any attempt to remember. He used to be the best lover I'd ever had, but the man he is now ranks pretty close to the bottom. How do you tell a guy that without bruising his ego and making his nuts shrivel up into raisins at the shame?

*****ok, now I'll talk about the title*****

Another crazy dream last night. This time it focused on that infamous photo shoot. You all know the one, I've been babbling about it for weeks (a majority of that time freaking out about when I'll get my pics and see how it all turned out). Anyway, in my dream I finally got a book of photos. -cue bouncy child-like background music and singing/dancing Seu.ss creatures- Yep, there were actual singing and dancing creatures all around me, to go with the illustrated (and narrated -cue voice-over narrator-) book of nude photos. I only got about halfway through it, I was in shock. -Blink- And now I'm awakening (still in my dream) and slightly freaking out that R may have watched the video while I was asleep (video? oh, yeah, because in this part of the dream it's a video instead, -die bouncy music-). I put it in the VCR (hmmm, technology has not caught up with this dream, or maybe it's also about our horrible luck with DVD players, which always die within 3 months) and push play. There's some dorky stuff, NotPorn and I sitting around talking, some really crappy ghetto dancing (on my part mostly), etc. And then that dream pretty much ended. So I still haven't seen my pics, not even in my dreams.

I'm sure none of you will believe me, but I hadn't had vivid dreams like this in quite a while, almost no dreams that I remembered for almost a year and none this vivid since way before then. Basically since about 6 months into TTC. The dreams started off just being vivid, then progressed in intensity until I was getting so little rest at night that I could barely stay awake 3-4 hours at a time without a nap (it is hard napping 4 times a day, really cuts out a lot of stuff you could do). It all ended when I finally talked to Elvis and got some nice pills. I was TTC, so most sleeping meds were not allowed (and the problem wasn't sleeping, it was the intensity of my brain while I was trying to sleep), so we settled and compromised and decided on diaz.epam (that's Va.lium for those not "in the know"). I took it nightly for a week, then only on days I felt unsettled and unable to relax before bed (because those would be the nights the dreams were the worst). Within a month, I was only taking my pills 2-3 times a month, then I wasn't taking them at all anymore. It just took a couple weeks of decent sleep to get my brain back on track and let my life get back to normal. I'm starting to get more and more tired during the day, so I think it's about time for a booster of meds before I get as bad as I was before. Then maybe I'll be able to think better and make this an IF blog like it was intended.

I love statco.unter

2007-03-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

So, I have been using statc.ounter since the beginning, because I am the curious type. For quite a while I got little joy (well, my readership is quite low, so why expect dramatic stats), but today I checked and got a small giggle. Apparently, a goo.gle search for the keywords "back of my knee" directs you to my blog. To one of the posts about my nude photo shoot. Nothing dirty or unsuitable for reading, but not what one would expect. The origin of the search: University College Of Stockton-on-tees (goo.gling by me confirms that it is basically a satellite campus of Durham University, in the UK). Not an international incident by any means, but I am easily amused and therefore felt the need to tell everybody about it. Aren't I adorable.

Drunken sorority girls

2007-03-19T10:47:00.000-05:00

That's what I missed this weekend. I hadn't mentioned in my previous post that it was Greek Formal weekend, and that I was giving up my greek weekend to spend with Little H. Of course I love my boy, he is second only to R in my life (tied with the dog, but if you really knew my dog you'd understand). But it's been a year since I was back in my old college town (Formal last year, R wore his dress blues), and I miss the girls. I was supposed to go back in October for the huge fund raiser (Teeter Totter and Formal are the reasons alum go back, they are the best sisterhood bonding experiences), but we had just moved into the new house and there was so much that still needed to be done (I think we painted the living room that weekend and rearranged the kitchen- what moron puts the fridge next to the oven?).

So, although I loved the time I spent with Little H, I'm really bummed that I missed the weekend with my sorority. We share our formal with our brother fraternity and it's so much fun. We eat dinner separately (usually some sort of divided banquet hall), do the awards ceremony, then take down the divider and party all night together. Last year I got to hang out with my little sister (in the sorority sense), half of my pledge class, my favorite sisters, and the fraternity boy I used to date (hadn't seen him since graduation, we dated my freshman year, we were casual friends after that and have become good friends in the past year). I still don't know what I missed this year, but I'm sad that I missed it. I have a fabulous dress and sparkly shoes and fantastic jewelry that were just waiting to be worn, but I guess they will all have to wait for next year. I was going to look amazing, dammit! Maybe I'll.... nevermind, I'm too lazy to decorate the house and cook a nice dinner and dress up just for R, and he wouldn't appreciate the effort enough to make me feel like it was worth it anyway.

*****cute story about kids ahead*****

Beaver was not visiting over the weekend like I had previously thought he would be. Just another of those parents trading visitation weekends things that is so common anymore. But, Baby B was there. His mom wanted to go out of state for the weekend to visit her dad and stepmom but didn't want to take both children (she has a little girl, 18 months-ish), so my parents got a weekend with Baby B. Little H gets along much better with Baby B than he does Beaver, because he has so much more in common with Baby B. Yeah, Baby B is 18 months younger than Little H (Beaver is only 6 months younger than Little H), but they have such similar attitudes and preferences. They are both relaxed and kinda quiet, comfortable reading books or sitting down to watch an entire movie. Beaver yells and runs and jumps constantly, he can't settle down to read 3 pages of a book and he has never seen more than 10 straight minutes of any movie.

Anyway, Saturday all the men went down to the gravel pit to shoot skeet. 6 rifles/shotguns, 3 handguns of some sort, 2 boxes of clay pigeons, a dozen boxes of ammunition, scorecards, skeet throwers (both a hand thrower thing and some sort of ground mounted, spring-action kind of thing), and 5 hours. Sometime late in hour 3 I took both kids down to watch. Early in hour 4 I could barely move from cold. Shortly thereafter I convinced the men to let the kids have a shot (with R holding the rifle and the kids merely giving the command to throw the skeet and pulling the trigger). The boys took 2 shots each (neither coming anywhere near hitting the flying clay disk), then we went home to let the men finish up. The boys were absolutely giddy about their shooting skills, told everybody they saw all about it. Time to break out the pellet gun and teach them respect and rules when it comes to guns.

I know some people don't agree with that at all, but that's how I was raised (R too). And we do have guns in our house, so Little H needs to know the rules in case he ever accidentally finds one (here or at a friends' house, you never know which families have guns). When I was little, at any given time I could have told you where to find at least a dozen guns and their ammunition. But I never once touched a gun or bullet without adult supervision. I knew the rules, I respected what guns could do, my curiosity was replaced with knowledge and guidelines. Now there are trigger locks and ammunition safes and all of that, but knowledge is safer than all of those things combined (although we do also use a trigger lock on the rifle and a locked case for the handgun, and the ammunition is stored in another area of the house- you can never be too safe).

And my lighthearted post has suddenly turned controversial. Please, I don't want to hear warnings about guns, I don't want to hear rants or raves about gun control, I definitely don't want flames for allowing my stepson and nephew to touch a gun. Nothing you say would change my beliefs or opinions, so please don't try. I just had to write about something and my nudie pics aren't here yet (and I don't know exactly when to expect them) so I had to come up with something. :)

Two weekends in a row! (children mentioned)

2007-03-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, I said that Little H would hardly be mentioned on here, but here I go with a whole post that will likely revolve entirely around him.

Before I get into that, how about another dream? I don't remember much, just a huge examining room, me in one of those cute little butt-baring hospital gowns, big metal table (with about 50 layers of that paint they use on them, bright white), some stirrups, and a conversation. There was a dr, but he's rather unimportant in comparison to the conversation. The conversation was a bit argumentative, a little manipulative, and maybe a slight guilt trip. I wanted the guy with me to hold my hand. Many reasons: 1. he was standing down past the stirrups, and that didn't feel right, guys don't need to see us in that position, EVER. 2. I was nervous and wanted somebody to hold my hand. 3. if I was pg, then he was the father dammit, and he owed me. Hmmm, the guy was very much not R. I'm not really sure who he was, when he was past the stirrups I had a huge operating room light shining and couldn't see him and when he came up to hold my hand he was in some serious shadow (how blinding light and impenetrable shadow are in the same room I don't know, just go with it). Very weird. There was nothing else, just the surroundings and the conversation. Whatever test I was having must have been performed after I awoke, and the dr was mute.

And now, on to Little H. He came up for a day last weekend, amid all the furniture moving and other general busyness. Well, his mom wants to trade this weekend for next, which means we get to see the little man 2 weekends in a row. It works out great, because R is taking Friday off (he needs a day off, this week has kicked his butt and next week will be even worse) so he'll be well-rested and relaxed when we go down to see Little H on Saturday. There is an important family funeral on Friday that Little H needs to make an appearance at, but R's aunt is willing to take him for us so we don't have to drive down a day early (not that important if we can skip it without hesitation, but one that Little H should make an appearance at to see relatives that aren't often around). We'll probably end up going to a movie or bowling (one of Little H's favorites) or renting some video games to play at my parents' house. Who knows, but it'll be fun and I'll get to see my little boy again.

Adding to the energy level of the weekend, one nephew will be at my parents' house (because my brother lives with them) this weekend, too. This nephew (we'll call him Beaver) is 6 months younger than Little H and turns 5 in May (the other nephew- Baby B- is a year younger than Beaver, just for reference), with 10X the energy. Beaver can run and yell and spin in circles and jump off stairs and climb the toy shelves and carry around a dozen books and throw a ball for the dog all at the same time. I get exhausted watching that boy sleep, because I know once he's awake he'll be on the move again. It's like police surveilance, we post family members throughout the house to kind of keep track of him as he moves. When you get any other child within 100 yards of Beaver, he goes into overdrive. Hugging and trying to carry around (he picks up my brother's 95lb girlfriend, he's fricken 4 years old, that's massive) and inventing games and whatever other interactions two little boys have, all in the first 5 seconds of the second child's arrival. It's crazy. I'm going to need diazep.am to come down from the day (crap, I've been out for over a year, stupid me wanting to "deal with my emotions myself." Rely on drugs, you moron, it works), maybe just a nice long shower and a foot rub from R. All that running will make my feet ache. R is the designated X-b.ox operator and ruler supreme, which leaves me to fetch and read and cook and tend booboos and attempt to maintain some level of control (or at least tolerable volume level). We shall bring the Nin.ja Turt.les game we bought Little H for Christmas, that will teach R to try to electronically parent. Both will be jumping and kicking in time with the characters on the screen and I will have time for a leisurely walk to visit Papa and Grandma and see what new quilt Grandma is working on and what random item Papa bought because it was really cheap. That man can get a good deal on anything (my dining room table and 4 chairs: yard sale originally marked $20, Papa got it all for $4).

New development: we will be returning Little H to his biomom instead of using R's aunt as a go-between. This is a very rare occurance indeed (has only happened once in the past year, before that it hadn't been since before our wedding- that was a fun drop-off, lots o' drama), but she has seemed to mature in the past couple years. I guess popping out bastard child #3 and #4 will do that to trailer trash (I would never say anything bad about Little H's mom in front of him, but behind his back I can say whatever I want, and all her kids are totally innocent, they didn't choose the circumstances of their birth, I feel terrible for all of them, they have a hard life ahead, made even harder because of what they have for a mom, and we are always beyond civil around her, we want to get/stay on her good side and if that means sucking up that's what we do). This is going to be one interesting weekend.

Another whole week?!

2007-03-14T08:48:00.000-05:00

It seems as though my readers are getting just as anxious as I am about my photos. OK, there is no way any of you could be as anxious as I am, but I have been getting comments about them. Here's the update: The photographer (hmmm, he needs a name, how about NotPorn) is still working on touching them up just a bit and going through to find the best ones. I talked to him last night, and he promised to get my disc in the mail by the end of the week. I thought he had sent them sometime last week, but he does have a real job and that takes priority. And I will be showing them to R. He's not getting the disc, but I will let him view them on my laptop. It's a compromise and allows me some feeling of control (and a tiny bit of revenge, but only a tiny bit). NotPorn said he was very happy with the results. He says I photograph very well under harsh lighting (remember, he is artsy, he likes that kind of stuff) and won't stop talking about me coming down for another shoot. He's come up with a whole bunch of ideas for location and lighting, probably an all-day shoot instead of just the evening we did last time.

I am more nervous to see the pictures he's already done than I am to do a second shoot, more nervous than I was even at the very beginning of the first shoot. Weird how I can be so comfortable walking around naked, but not about seeing what I look like later. I think it has something to do with his vision, his idea, his fantasy of the perfect female body. I mean, he had it all worked out in his head, how I should sit/lay, where the lighting and shadows should fall. I put myself into his dream world and I don't know if I lived up to his or my expectations (or if his dream world is something I will find flattering). I know I lived up to his expectations or else he wouldn't be happy with the photos and he wouldn't be asking me to pose again, but I don't know if I can see myself as the art he sees. Women are so self-concious. If I was a guy, I'd have been swinging my dick around, happy to let it free and happy with my body. But I'm a girl, so I can't stop wondering if I missed a spot on the back of my knee when I shaved or if my hair looked stupid or if that chip in my nailpolish (that I got less than an hour before the shoot and didn't have the polish with me to fix) is visible. I'm so detail-oriented (read: anal about even minute details) that I know I won't be happy until I see my pictures.

Giving up control is so hard. You'd think I would have figured out how by now. Several doctors and nurses, surgeon, labs, insurance company- they all have control over my fertility, I had no choice but to hand it over to them and hope for the best. But even in those situations, I did have a measure of control. It was my choice to do lap, it was my choice to demand blood tests by my new gyn (moved even before the lap with old gyn, so I wasn't making the 3 hour drive to give up a couple vials of blood), it was my choice to go back on birth control for a while until R and I are ready to pay out our asses for the next step. I've never given up control like this. Some guy I barely know is sitting in front of his brand new laptop deciding which nude pictures of me are worth sharing and which ones suck too much to even send to me. A bad drivers license photo I can keep to myself unless absolutely necessary, but some guy is downstate judging nude photographs of me. It's almost too much to handle, I don't even want to think about it.

And now an old friend (ok, not so old since I only graduated college 4 1/2 years ago and we actually hung out quite a bit for the first year after college- we went to different schools, but he went to the one in my old hometown and graduated a year after me- go super senior, I think it took him 6 years to get his degree) and I have been talking and I told him about it. He moved to Cali and started his own photography studio (headshots for "actresses" and such) a few years ago, but is back in Michi.gan. So, the happy photographer (we'll call this one Pike) starts rattling off his own ideas for me. Something about outside at night (which requires a full-moon and no clouds) and a few other things. Seems like my naked body is in high demand these days. I haven't said anything to R about Pike, mostly because I don't know what I think about it. Stripping down and posing for a guy I know only as a photographer is one thing, but I've known Pike for quite a while and that makes it feel different. It gives it the possibility of being awkward. And a girl can only juggle so many photographers without getting overwhelmed.

Any insight, readers? Should I stay faithful to NotPorn, or see what Pike has to offer on the side? It could be interesting to see myself in two different sets of eyes, it could be even more nerve-wracking.

I want to see me naked

2007-03-13T14:09:00.000-05:00

Is it really so much to ask that my disc of photos finally show up? It was put in the mailbox sometime mid-week (Tuesday or Wednesday of last week), so it should have made it circuit of distribution and routing centers and made its way to my mailbox by now. I'm only freaking out a little bit. I mean, 4-5 hours of shooting, wearing nothing more than a robe and very seldom that (we moved to several different rooms of the house, past a couple windows and everything), and now the guy has all of it and may have even shown them off and I have no clue what they look like. I was drunk when I put my makeup on, what if my eyeliner is all runny? Or what if I had a pimple on my butt or something? I can't freak out and make him destroy the worst pictures if I don't even know which ones are bad. He displays his favorite pictures, what if I'm on display in his house already and don't even know what photo it is? I am so close to ditching R for the night (he has bible study anyway, so he'd barely miss me except for dinner, and there's leftover pizza so he might not even realize I'm gone) and driving 3 1/2 hours each way to get my pictures NOW! Somebody talk me down off this ledge, I'm going crazy!

I feel like I have to

2007-03-12T16:24:00.000-05:00

It's been a couple days since my last post, so I feel this need to blog. Nothing important going on, still haven't gotten my photo disc (and I've been stalking the mailbox, I spy at the mail lady every day when she puts the mail in, just to see if anything looks like it could hold a CD). Busy weekend up here, though. We went downstate on Saturday to spend the day with Little H and pick up some dressers from R's grandma. They are the dressers that go with the bed that her and her husband bought not long after they got married, the first thing they ever bought together. R's aunt has the matching bed, we kind of wish we had gotten that, too, because our bed is only full sized and that one is queen.

We ended up visiting my parents, my grandparents, and then the trip to R's grandma. Little H begged to come back up with us, so we indulged him. We took him to the youth center that R is involved with. Little H and R played pool (Little H doesn't use the stick, he's only 5), Little H won, of course. And then bright and early (well, it felt really early because of the time change) Sunday morning we had french toast and eggs and bacon for breakfast before I had to drive Little H back downstate (R had important plans, which later were cancelled- beyond his control. He cleaned the house instead).

But, the new dressers are in the bedroom and filled with clothes. A vast improvement over my clothes being in cupboards in the hallway (very cute little built-in cupboards, but my socks and underwear were all in little plastic bins stacked up to save space). Our old "dresser" (an entertainment center-type thing with drawers under it, very similar to ones you would see in a hotel actually) is now in Little H's room. He didn't need it for his clothes, but now we can move the X-bo.x to that TV and have a nearly empty entertainment center in the living room. The DVD player is broken (unknown issue, sometimes it stalls and skips constantly, sometimes it'll work for 20 minutes straight), so it will be a rather empty TV stand out here, but I can live with that since we cancelled cable and NEVER watch TV anyway. It's just something to aim the couch at.

And the dog no longer sleeps in her kennel. We've been slowly trying her out with letting her sleep in their (her's and Little H's) bedroom outside of the kennel and she's done great. We let her run free in there if we're gone less than 2 hours, and free roam of the entire house if we'll be back within 30 minutes. OMG, my puppy is turning into a dog and not destroying my house! It seems like a small accomplishment, but it's big to us. And it'll free up a lot of space in the bedroom to take the kennel out. For the child only being up here a few days a month, he's got more toys that I had in my entire childhood combined: Lin.coln Lo.gs, racetracks for his toy cars, wooden train set, Le.gos, Pla.ydough, Ere.ctor Set, Le.ap Pad, Gam.eboy, video games for the computer (he has his own, plus our super desktop) and X-bo.x, Arm.y men, toy helicopter, more stuff than I can even remember. (ooops, that was all sorts of random, this paragraph was about my dog...)

The snow is melting, which means it will soon be a slimy mess in my back yard. The dog sprints and turns and all of that, and all of that rips out the grass quite a bit, leaving a whole lot of dirt. I'll be mopping the kitchen daily pretty soon, but I don't care because mopping means it's spring. And once everything dries out a bit, the neighbor's dog can come over and play and both will sleep well every night. Everything is going to feel so much better soon. Life is just more enjoyable when you can open your windows without shivering.

We already chose names

2007-03-07T09:25:00.000-05:00

...or....
I wouldn't name my baby boy Dave.

Maybe we need to start up a twins name list, because last night the universe felt like it needed to tell me something. Waking up hurts the deepest parts of you when you dream about the child/children you may never have.

Apparently my subconcious likes screwing with the rest of my brain. So, sometime between 2 and 4 am, I delivered twins. Baby A: boy, 5 lbs, we named him Dave. Baby B: girl, 4-ish lbs, can't remember her name but I think it was Dana. BTW: in my dream I had to invent the weights myself, but the dream got to choose names that were not on our list. Full term, natural vaginal delivery. And like every good mother, I don't remember anything about labor. Not easy knowing you are dreaming and having to pull weights out of your butt for the twins you know damn well you did not just deliver. The girl was much smaller, but those are respectable weights considering I'm 5'4" and 104lbs pre-pg (and I did use that exact logic while I was dreaming).

The dream focused on the weirdest of details. I would think (when awake) that I would stare and touch every spot on my babies, I would memorize their hands and feet and not be able to stop stroking their head or back while I held them. Nope, not in that dream. In my dream, I spent a lot of time in front of a full-length mirror (which my parents do not have in their house) checking out my pp belly. At least that part was realistic- it was big, very squishy, I'm pretty sure it was a rather realistic interpretation of my body with a 24hr pp belly (I've seen a few on other people, so I guess that's what it would likely look like in me). Of course, the rest of the dream was off.

* they would not send twins home at 12 hrs old, especially with one barely weighing 4lbs (she looked so tiny, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen)
* we went to my parents' house, and that's 2 hours from where we live
* R was nowhere in my dream
* my parents' house was spotless, and that absolutely never happens, ever
* I decided to walk to Goofball's house (which, even in reality, is only 1/4 mile down the road from my parents), the day after delivering twins, and I only took the boy. No way I would leave my newborn girl the day after she was born (left her with my dad, who was absolutely in love with her, but still, I wouldn't let my babies out of my sight) and I don't think walking any distance would be part of my plan 12 hrs pp
* I don't remember Goofball holding the baby, but I remember calling it Goofball's house and not Papa (my grandfather, the most amazing man I know)'s house, and my grandparents moved in there almost 10 years ago when they built the addition and sold their house to my parents (hence the 1/4 mile distance inbetween). I haven't called it Goofball's house (not out loud) since he died, I have to call it Papa's house so I don't cry.

And that's what I really remember. There was somebody at my other uncle's house (which is located between my parents and grandparents), but I don't remember anything about that other than vague remembrance of talking to them. It was a very skinny person, and neither my uncle nor his son is that, but I don't remember who it was. In the dream neither baby cried, I didn't feed them, I didn't change a diaper, I didn't even see the carseats we must have used to bring them home from the hospital. Come to think of it, I didn't see any baby stuff at all, no crib, no diapers, no swing. Great, now the dream got even weirder when I think about it. But my babies were perfect, so tiny and soft, and I could see absolute devotion in the eyes of everybody who held them. A pure love that can only come from grandparents and great-grandparents. It was beautiful. 2008 cannot come fast enough. Time to write my congressman and see how that bill to add infertility coverage to federal/military insurance is coming along.

Nooner

2007-03-06T12:01:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, a day happens that makes you eat your words. Just 5 days ago I was sure my marriage was in trouble, I just knew we couldn't survive the fight we had. And then today R comes home for lunch (with Mt. Dew for me because there was none in the house and I am seriously addicted) and I couldn't keep my hands off him. It wasn't a horny thing, because AF is fixing to arrive this afternoon and she ruins any sort of sex drive. It was a "I love my husband and I would do anything to be close to him RIGHT NOW" thing. I haven't felt that in at least 3 months (hmmm, that length of time coincides with us making our TTC break official).

He's back at work now, but as I sip my uber-caffeinated sugar drink I can't help but feel like I would die without him. How could those problems get so big that it would risk our marriage? For 5 days I figured I'd just go through the motions until we both just broke down and admitted our marriage was unfixable. And today I've changed my mind. He is the one I want to be with forever, and I've always known that. We have to get through this rough patch, because I can't imagine kissing somebody else feeling that perfect- the world melting away and my whole body flooding with pure happiness and comfort.

OK, so I'd trade sexual favors for Mt. Dew any day, but today wasn't about the Mt. Dew. Today feels better. The black hole is 100% behind me and I feel like myself and I'm happy. I still hate our town, I still want a baby more than anything, I still wish some things were different. But I'm happy and I can enjoy today. The sun is peeking out for a few minutes before the massive snowfall we expect tonight, the icicles are glittering in its rays, and just seeing it through my insulated windows makes me feel warmer. Today is good, and I don't ever want it to change.

It's not porn, it's art (edited)

2007-03-04T19:51:00.000-05:00

So, I did my photo shoot Friday night. It took me well over 4 hours to make the 3 hour drive across the state (oh the snow and blowing wind, and morons in front of me). I did impress myself, though. Those who know me understand my complete lack of direction, that I can't find anywhere without lots and lots of landmark instructions (I can't turn North, I have to turn left at the big stone house with the lime green doghouse out back). Anyway, I was driving along and all of a sudden everybody was parked, semi's were using their "I'm gonna be sitting here forever" brakes and everything. So, I wiggled my way down the offramp and found myself in a town I had never taken the time to notice existed. I zoomed off one way, turned at a random stoplight, followed a curve here and there, and magically found my way back to the expressway. And I did it all by myself without having a panic attack or anything. (Oh, and the spot I returned to the expressway at was less than 1/4 mile ahead of the accident that had apparently stopped all forward motion of traffic and would have left me stuck at the back of the line for a half hour at least if I hadn't skirted it with my supreme driving skills)

Yeah, back to the photos. Finally got there at nearly 5pm. These things take some preparation, as most clothing leaves marks on your body, especially after 4 hours in the car. I changed into pajama pants and a loose t-shirt, commando and braless. We had a drink to relax the atmosphere (I was about to get naked and let somebody take pictures of me like that, the drink was necessary) while we waited. I know, you must be curious- how did she do amateur night at a strip club if she can't handle one guy seeing her goods? The answer- no pictures at the strip club, it was live only, nothing to be taken home and framed. I might be in a frame, part of a portfolio, on his i-p.od at least. That did not happen before. And this was way more personal: posing, following instructions, trying to recreate his ideas in real life, and one-on-one. On the stage, I was in charge, I had all the power and control, I was giving the instructions not getting them. Friday night, I was just the model, the form, some curves. He adjusted lights, had me change angles, manipulated shadows. I was a prop, he had all the control, and he had clothes on. I did have some control, if anything was uncomfortable for me I could have said no and it would have been fine. But the whole thing was me giving him the control to make my body into his art.

We started out with him making a political statement. After a thorough lesson in gun safety- including no less than 6 checks to be sure none of the weapons were loaded and no ammunition was anywhere nearby- I was handcuffed (fakes with a safety release), blindfolded, and gagged with an American flag. Then there were a dozen test shots to adjust angles and lighting and zoom, and the final photos included simulated prayer with the gun aimed at me. Wow, it was definitely out of the ordinary. Whether I agree with the intended statement of the photo doesn't matter, it was the ability to participate in such a statement. A bit nerve-wracking, even though I knew the gun was empty I couldn't look at it when it was aimed at me (there were quite a few test shots before we included all the props for the actual photo), I made sure the blindfold was on and my eyes were closed any time he was holding it. Maybe it was partly because R has the same type gun, and I've seen the targets he's shot with it. I knew it was faked, but it felt almost too real for comfort the one time I got a glimpse up the barrel. Drink #2 came and went fast during the set-up and shooting of this photo, but can you blame me?

Next, things got a lot more relaxed. Lounging around, not even paying attention to the camera. He takes pictures of bodies, very few face shots, so I basically got to relax while he took pictures of the small of my back and the curve of my thigh and just the edge of a nipple. Some was on a white base with black background, some was on a huge oak table with a deep blue background. On the table he used publisher's lights for most of the lighting (those cute desk lamps with the green shades), and he had big stand lights and spotlights and fabric-ish reflector things.

And the spider. He bought a very delicate lime green and black glass spider in Venice a few years ago. He'd been wanting to use it as a prop for a while and decided I was perfect for the ideas he'd had. I'm really hoping some of the pictures with it show nothing too risque so I can post one to show you all. I hate spiders, but it was beautiful. Long tapered legs, metallic flecks in the glass of the body, fangs (ok, those were not my favorite part), a piece of art balanced on my body. The legs were kind of poky, it tickled/hurt when he sat it on me, I had to stay extra still so I didn't risk it falling off and breaking. It was a tedious bit of shooting, but I think I will love the end product. The hangover was definitely worth it, but I think if we do another shoot I'll lay off the drinking for the most part. It's hard to twist and arch and keep your arms out of the shot when you've had even 1/2 of what I drank.

I had to leave town a day earlier than expected (he had a family emergency and I didn't have any other reason to stay), so instead of getting a CD of pics at the end of the weekend I have to wait for it to be sent in the mail. I'll be stalking the mailbox all week. Well, maybe not till Wednesday. The earliest he could put it in at his end is today, and it takes at least 3 days for anything to get here, so it likely won't be here till Friday at the soonest, but that won't stop me from watching the mail lady come by until then. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I want to see my photos, but I'm also scared for anybody to see them. My brain knows how contradictory it is, because I can't wait to show off the pics (to a very select few people, but still showing off), but another part of me wants to hide them before even I see them.

Quick poll: should I let R see the pics? He chastized me for wanting to do the shoot, he quoted scripture and admonished me for premeditated sinning, he made it very clear that he considered it a sin, art or not, he tried to forbid me (yeah, like that would go over well). So, should he benefit from my sin? Should he have the opportunity to feel proud of his wife for being a bit of art? Should he be allowed to get aroused by the curves he forbid from being uncovered? He didn't want it to happen, he was very vocal against it, but now he thinks he should see every photo. I told him that he will not benefit from my sin, it would be as bad as comitting that sin himself. He thinks it's ok, that there is a level of degree in sinning, and that this isn't bad enough to upset God. For being so "fired up about God" R sure doesn't stick to the Word when it doesn't suit his ends.

*oh, and if anybody can very much dumb down the necessary instructions for adding photos on here- like the profile pic that everybody has, or the random AWing pics that people post and I'm too dumb to figure out- I would really appreciate it. And I do mean dumb down the instructions, all the way down to sub-moronic, how-does-she-make-her-own-toast-she's-so-stupid level. Thanks*

Escape is on the horizon

2007-03-01T09:44:00.000-05:00

OK, not that kind of escape, nothing huge like divorce. Right now I'm just going away for the weekend, something I've had planned for a while already and not the result of recent events. My little nephew is with my parents (little brother BR is there, too, but the nephew is what counts), so I'm dying to see him. And tomorrow I trek sideways across the state for that photo shoot I mentioned, and a trip to see a good friends' new puppy (not so new, he's had him since before Christmas, I just haven't seen the little moster boy yet so he's new to me). I had originally thought of this trip as catching up with some people I love and miss, and it's still that, but it is a bit of an escape, too. A distraction from "the conversation."

Last night was good, though. We took a long shower, washed each others' back, the whole deal. Then R was nice enough to lotion all of me (usually I get everything but my back and he barely whines), his idea and everything. We just talked like we used to, not about baby stuff, not about Little H (always a fight, there is so much drama there you couldn't follow it if you tried, so I'll spare the details), not about God, not about anything. We need a lot more time like that. Maybe if that becomes routine, maybe if we can lock out everything else and just be together, maybe we have a chance. Nobody cheated, nobody hit, nobody called names. We were seriously considering a divorce because we disagree about God and when to have a baby. And it's still on the table if he can't guarantee me we'll have kids someday, no matter the cost or treatment. But that seems unimportant at this exact second, after we had such a good night. One day at a time...

Thankful I started blogging when I did

2007-02-28T10:50:00.000-05:00

Ha, I thought this was going to be a blog about infertility. I thought it was going to be a place where I work out my conflicts about our choice to stop trying for now. I thought it was going to be a lot more than it has suddenly turned into. Well, what it will turn into very shortly, the beginnings of the change being thrust on me last night.

I never wanted this to be a place for me to bitch about R, I never wanted this to be where I go when I'm mad at him or the place where everybody takes my side. I never wanted to let this part of my personal life dictate my blog. But then last night happened. And I do refuse to talk to people IRL. I won't talk to my mom and have her upset at R over it, I don't talk to my dad period so this is no different, I won't talk to my friends about it because me going downstate this weekend has been planned for a month and I refuse to let it be negatively affected by last night. So, I'm going against my original plan, and blogging about my brush with divorce. (the following is nowhere near chronological order, so don't expect to be able to follow it)

Black holes suck! And when your husband doesn't understand them and just expects you to come out as soon as he wants you to, they suck more. And when he doesn't trust you to not drown his son in the tub because of one, he becomes the one that sucks. OK, so he didn't get into any details about why he's "nervous" to have Little H up here, just that "what if" I get in a black hole. "What if he needs me" "what if something happens and R isn't around" "what if I can't handle things." I was in that hole for over a week before R realized it, because I maintained life around here as we knew it, no matter how I felt inside. And now he doesn't trust that I could do that.

And the whole God thing. DH is newly saved, all fired up about God. I don't know what I am, but the Pentecostal church does not hold it for me. Nearly every "Christian" I have met around here is hipocritical and self-serving. They all (and I mean ALL) speak in tongues (at the same time, competing in volume) and then babble on about how it means they are truly devout and God spoke through them. Now, I've never been to a pentecostal church before, but my grandpa was raised in one and my grandma started going when they got married. So, I asked Grandma. Turns out, every pentecostal church she has ever been in has only had 1 person speaking in tongues at a time, and always with an interpreter (unless it was a very rare, very profound moment and no interpreter was around). 25 people did not yell to have their tongues heard over everybody else, and it never happened during the sermon (I think it might have been a decent sermon, if I had been able to hear any of it). Just walking in the doors of the church made me nauseous, as if I could feel the judgement and competition inside, the overwhelming need to prove who was the most Christ-like. And I hated it, I still do. I refuse to go back, and I want to throw up every time I see somebody I met at that church.

Why does that matter? Because R is bestest friends with a family from there. They now attend a different church, but they still act a whole lot like the people from there. He wants me to be BFF with the wife. She's in her late 40's, her kids are driving themselves around, I have nothing in common with her (oh, and the constant "I have to serve the Lord and witness to you" is getting kind of old, badgering me every 10 minutes with the same "Jesus died so you could be absolved of your sins" story isn't going to get me to "come to God" with you. If/when I feel the need to change the relationship I have with God, it will be on my terms and in my heart. Nobody can force it on me, and the constant attack on my faith just puts me on the defensive and makes me resent any God that would instruct his followers to do it *point of fact- I know God didn't instruct her to attack my faith, but she thinks he did, and it really puts me off*). So, if I can't be BFF with the wife, why not the daughters? Ummm, because they are 14/16 years old and still in high school. I'm 24 and it's been 3 1/2 years since I graduated COLLEGE. I don't care about black nail polish, trying to con my parents (who never say no) into doing whatever I want, or getting boys to like me because of my Christian Rock band. They can have the lives they choose, the ones their parents don't make much effort to control (the 14 year old is trying to make plans with some guy she met in a chat room, and the parents believe that she will "make the right decision" before that time comes, no punishment, no supervision while online, just absolute trust and no effort made to help direct her to the right decision), but that's not who I chose to be friends with.

He doesn't think I should drink anymore, he resents me for doing it. The family from church doesn't drink, when R started hanging out with them he decided not to drink either. I drink once a month, if that often, when I am downstate with friends. Usually it's half a rum & coke when I go out with his uncle, sometimes it's 3 beers when I play beer pong with my brothers & cousin. And I did get pretty drunk last time I was downstate, I played beer pong and then went out to a bar with friends of my cousin (and they bought me a drink there, but I only drank half, then sobered up for the next 3 hours so I could drive them home- they had no plans for a DD) and then we drank back at the house afterwards while we sat around and talked. I didn't do anything stupid, I didn't dance with the wrong guys at the bar or get so drunk I couldn't stand (when I say drunk, I really only mean buzzed most of the time, I hate to be without complete control of myself and I refuse to lose any control unless I 100% trust who I am with), I didn't smile the wrong way at the guys who stared at me, I didn't accidentally flirt with even the bouncer. But, R hates that I did it. Alcohol is now evil to him.

More of what I do that upsets him: on Friday I am posing for nude photographs. Not porn, not for dirty money, nothing like that. The photographer is an artist, the nudes he's done that I've seen are more than just something to look at. I felt the photos I saw (not in any creepy, pet-the-picture kind of way, but something inside me caught when I looked at the photos and I was drawn to them), beautiful photos of the curve of a hip against a scarlet background, or hazy edges on the black velvet backdrop of a smooth behind, or a breast barely visible and very underlit developed in sienna shades. They are fantastic, and I am awed that he could see such art in my body (not that I don't think my body is freaking awesome, but for somebody who can make something already perfect somehow better, I didn't expect my body to get a second look from him). R was very for the idea when I proposed it to him, but now it's such a sin that he can't allow me to do it (he knows he can't stop me, but he doesn't abide by it) and he needs to witness to me about the Lord so that I can see the evil of my ways. Hey, look at that, it's back to my relationship with God and how R doesn't think I have one.

Before R was saved, he thought nothing of spending $100 at the bar in one night (on drinks for himself only, I have always been the DD and embraced my sobriety in our marriage). He'd jump at the opportunity to show me off (not like I'm a prize, but he enjoyed when I dressed for the bar and he got to be the one with his arm around me). He accepted it when I chose to strip at amateur night, and encouraged me to do it as often as I wanted. And now all of his beliefs are the exact opposite. He doesn't want me to choose to indulge in and experience life in this world, because he wants to ensure that I am "with him in the next." Yeah, I've done things that are regrettable, that others wouldn't approve of, but I don't regret them because they have made me who I am. If I hadn't stripped I wouldn't feel empowered just by being myself, if I hadn't been married to my X I wouldn't know that I have the strength to walk away from abuse, if I hadn't gotten drunk a month ago I wouldn't know I haven't become a shell of who I was and that I can still let go and just dance to the beat. I truly know myself, and I don't want absolution for how that came to be. I don't want God to forgive me and make it as though I never did anything bad, because if He takes that memory from Himself and absolves me of whatever I've done, I feel like I'd lose part of myself. I don't regret it and I don't feel guilty.

All that about why he doesn't know if he should stay married to me. And my side of it: he told me he never wants children. Oh, that might change in 10 years, but right now he never wants children and really never did. He was doing things and saying things to appease me, but he hated every conversation we ever had about children. And he thinks I'm petty because "I don't want J to have a baby." Completely lost the point there. I want J to have a baby, I want her to be happy and have the belly. But I want to know that I'm going to be there someday and for a long time I've doubted that R was willing to do what it will take. He's one of those fanaticals that repeats over and over that "it's in God's hands" no matter how much I tell him that hurts, no matter how I run away from him and cry when he shows so little respect for me that he'd repeat it again after I told him I don't want to hear it. He's beyond Christian, he's fucking brainwashed and he wants to drag me with him. God gave us doctors, He gave them the knowledge to identify and treat the problem, maybe that's the fucking answered prayer, not "give up, God wants you barren."

I think it actually still is over, even if we both want to stay together. I don't think counseling will help. He refuses to see a "secular" counselor because they're "full of crap and don't instruct couples according to God's word." And just having another person tell me that my relationship with God has to be stronger isn't going to fix our marriage. I've asked a thousand times for R to not equate fertility with God's plan, and his immediate response is to break out a dozen quotes from scripture (all of which were spoon fed to him by somebody). I can't be happy being directly defied and attacked like that. I quit talking to him about infertility, I hadn't said the word "baby" in this house in 2 months, but since I was sad about J he has gone back on his tirade about God not wanting me to have children. At least I'll have time to pack more carefully this way.

How about actually writing about infertility?

2007-02-27T13:01:00.000-05:00

The reason I came here was so I could talk about IF as much as I wanted without R trying to console me (he says ALL of the wrong things, repeatedly, no matter how much I try to get him to understand that him even thinking the word "God" makes me want to stab through the roof of his mouth and pull out his brains with the sketti-getter *side note: is there an actual name for that prongy ladle/scoop thing intended for dishing out spaghetti? inquiring minds want to know, and R would then stop mocking me for calling it a sketti-getter*). This is my place, the safe zone in life's game of tag. I was thinking that maybe I should get around to using it as such.

Timeline:
July 2004: elope, begin TTC immediately
Sept 2004: actual wedding ceremony as planned, dammit 2 months and still not pg
March 2005: beg Elvis to start testing, suspected endometriosis all along, no go since it hadn't been 12 months
July 2005: BFP on anniversary of TTC
July 2005: 10 days later +urine test in Elvis' office, - beta, no baby
July 2005: Elvis obviously in pain over my loss (he loves me, I love him, too, he is the standard by which all dr's are now measured), refers me to gyn (Dr. T)
Dec 2005: after a couple visits, time for lap/hyst/hsg
results: level 4 endo, one ovary yanked out of position and down/behind uterus, minor bladder inclusion, nothing on tubes or ute, hsg inconclusive, ute totally normal, ovulating at time of surgery (Dr. T showed R pics of my ready-to-burst follicle, he was very proud of my ovary)
Jan 2006: repeat HSG- all clear after possibly pushing a tiny bit of blockage out of right tube
May-Sept 2006: new gyn (we aren't naming him, I hate him, he's fired) tests all hormone levels, everything normal, says he can't do anything else at all for me, refers to RE (now to be named: Dr-my-insurance-company-won't-let-me-see *DMICWLMS*), the MICWLMS info is discovered
Dec 2006: OPK as HPT + later HPT barely visible +, faded fast, beta 2 days later -
Dec 2006: we quit, no more, endo is back and trying to kill me, I can't handle it right now, lots of crying, decided to go on birth control for a year and reassess situation then

So, that's where I am now. Lots of fights, lots of crying, lots of me hating just about everything. I hate the situation, I hate every little thing about it, but I've learned to accept it. I tolerated the endo all along, I knew it might make things difficult, I was willing to try for a year, but 2 1/2 years and not even one pregnancy lasting long enough for the dr to confirm. I've never seen a truly positive HPT, just faint ones. I've never heard my dr say "congrats, you're pregnant, let's schedule an u/s." R doesn't mind, he's never felt an desire or need to have children (he supports my desire, and would love to have more than just Little H, but he feels like his life is complete either way). I feel useless and empty.

I need a house full of noise, constant chaos to supervise. I need little eyes to stare at me as they slowly close for sleep. I need the smell of baby powder, and little toy boats in my bathtub. I need to pinch a little butt as it runs past, excited to learn how to take off his/her own diaper. I need to sew up favorite stuffed animals that rip. And I need to kiss booboos. I need to hold a tiny bundle of screams until he/she is comforted. I need to do laundry in the middle of the night after a diaper blowout. I need the bad and the good, not just dreams about them. I need to kiss a little head with my pride at learning how to write his/her name. I need to rush to school in the middle of the day to pick up a sick child. I need to have a 5 year old always in my way while I do dishes because he/she wants to help. I need to pick up sharp little toys from the floor, and read the same book 3 times every day. I need to have a movie collection dominated by Disney, and a thousand magnets on my refrigerator to play with. I need to clean up a spilled cereal bowl, and refuse to let him/her leave the dinner table until all the vegetables are eaten. I need to replant the same flower bulb 4 times because he/she keeps digging them back up. I need to grab a hand and pull it away before he/she eats the ladybug that landed on it. I need to teach my children that respect and love are not the same thing, but that they need both in their lives. I need to help with math homework, even if it means reading the whole book first to remember how to do the problem. I need to comb hair for the first day of school, and get kicked out of his/her bedroom while they do it themself for prom. I need to have the uncomfortable talk at age 4 "where do babies come from" and the even more uncomfortable talk at age 15 "I know you're thinking about it and I can't stop you, but please wait and always be responsible about it." How can any life feel complete without all that?

10 more months before we even talk about it being a possibility again. 10 more months. I'm in hell. But if R isn't ready, if he isn't going to be behind me 100%, then it wouldn't happen anyway. So I wait.

A short break from the list

2007-02-26T10:09:00.000-05:00

The list is not quite complete, there are a few other things to point out, but the biggest things are there (Goofball, my dysfunctional-yet-thriving-and-loving family, R's family that we are constantly trying to be good enough for). And yet, the list has nothing to do with the black hole I eluded to in my first post. Yeah, I totally forgot I had promised to blog about that and instead made a list of what effects my life most. A little bit of forgetfulness, a little bit of fear to admit my issues.

Two generations of my family have had medical intervention when it comes to emotional issues. My mom and her little breakdown, CML and depression, cousin SJ was on antidepressants, as was her sister Cousin JM, and I think their mom was too, and Goofball smoked pot his entire life (not something any of us condoned, but there was no reasoning with him on that one, he gave up so much to stay healthy as a diabetic, he guilted us with not being able to eat birthday cake that didn't taste like cardboard). Youngest brother BR could probably use some sort of mood medication, I have suspicions about my other uncle being on/needing antidepressants, too, and I'm fairly certain that at least one of his two children has been on them. Two generations and not one person is safe from issues (all listed are on my mom's side, bio dad unknown so I can't link to any family history that might be there). So it is only inevitable that I suffer the same fate. But I've been putting it off. Mild depression isn't so bad to admit (none ever had suicidal thoughts, one did burn himself, but he is learning how to better cope), a mental breakdown is fully understandable when the reasoning behind it is a flood of repressed memories of sexual abuse by your grandfather when you were 4-6, the escape of marijuanna may not be legal but I can see how it was helpful to him. I don't think that's what I have. I think I'm slightly bipolar.

We'll ignore the manic part, because I don't do anything crazy, I'm just happy in a way that nothing can make me unhappy (ok, so I did sprint through my front yard at 8am in a foot of snow with my slippers on back in November, but it was the first snowfall in my new house and it was beautiful, I had to take a picture). But the other end of it, the depression, it kicks my butt. Again, no "bad" thoughts, I don't feel any sort of urge to hurt myself or others, I make a concious effort to continue everyday life and succeed for the most part. On the outside I just seem tired (at least that's what I'm told), but inside I feel totally empty. Not IF empty, more than that. I feel like my stomach is gone, so I don't really eat, I feel like my heart is gone, so I avoid things/people I love, I feel like my brain is gone, so I don't do anything that requires thought, I feel like my uterus is gone, so no nakie time for R. I don't get dressed, I rarely shower, I cook for R but find some excuse to not eat much myself, the house doesn't get cleaned other than what HAS to be done. R can see it, but he doesn't understand it, so he stands back waiting for me to tell him what to do. I don't know what he should to do fix it, so I just don't tell him anything, which is kind of what I want anyway.

Last week was nothing new to me, I've been through enough black holes to know that I will come out on my own in a week or two (still not completely out, but I'm slowly on my way). I don't know what causes it, and I don't know how to fix it or prevent it. It happens randomly, some years 3 times, some only once. I missed a week of college my senior year, I called my advisor (who is also the head of the program and lead instructor) and told him that if I came to class I would probably have a breakdown or in some other way give them a reason to kick me out of the program. He gave me permission to stay in my room for a week. And I did- no sorority meetings, no class, no labs, none of my clinical shifts. I went to the dining hall once a day, at the very beginning of lunch so there were as few people as possible. I ate french fries or nachos, then went back to my room. The girls in my hall thought I left for the week, they never saw me, I only went out when I knew there were as few people as possible around. And then it passed. I got the notes I had missed, I made up my clinical shifts, I spent time with my sorority, and I finished #2 in my program. No harm, no foul. But I did have to admit how I felt to my advisor (still a close friend, I trust him with my life), which I had never done before, to anyone.

Now I'm admitting it here. Scariest thing I have ever done. I am baring myself like never before. And I know a thing or two about baring myself, I did amateur night at the strip club. This is much scarier. Admitting that some unknown force drags me down and ruins me for a week, that I can't get away from it until it suddenly releases me. Admitting that this time I went without a fight and without a care, that I wanted a week of isolation and letting this black hole take me gave me an excuse. Typing it here was the first time I had admitted that part, even to myself.

Sometimes it feels like the black hole is more indifference to life than depression, I don't care if dinner gets burnt, I don't care if the power goes out because of the storm, I don't care if I haven't brushed my hair in 4 days. And then I got that message from J, and the black hole became a swirling attack of things I can't have, it beat me with unfulfilled desires. Suddenly the black hole was a bad thing, but I hadn't known that when I went into it willingly. I hadn't created the black hole, I just felt the beginning ot its pull and didn't fight against it, I let it take me because this time I wanted to take advantage of it. And my illusion of a comforting black hole was banished by the truth that came out- it's a monster.

I don't know how long it's been there, how long ago I first went into it. It took a while to recognize what it was, so I'm sure there were many times it took me before I saw the truth in it. But now I know, I just don't know how to banish it. Even after seeing the monster for what it truly is, I secretly long to go back into it. Coming out and returning to reality is not the wonderful, cleansing rebirth it should be. I kind of want to go back until it can be, but I know it may never be that way and the longer I stay in the less I am. So out I come, admitting it to the blogosphere. People I meet at the laundry center (at midnight when they are drunk even) know that I'm infertile, people that know the guy that lives across the hall from my brother's friends know that I'm infertile, anybody that sees my pomegranate-colored string and ask know that I'm infertile. Only the blogosphere and R know about my black hole. It's so much harder to own up to.

The List, cont.

2007-02-25T14:56:00.000-05:00

This list could take a while, but I feel like background is important. In a normal situation, you would be learning the details slowly, as part of individual thoughts. But, I tend to ramble and forget the background information sometimes, so the list can be some sort of reference, if nothing else.

4. R was raised by his grandparents. His mother was only 15 when he was born, his father 16. It took a while for them to get custody. R's father is an abusive drunk, he was back then, too. And while they play the heroes for saving R from that life, they constantly turn that against him. R is his father's son in their eyes, and he will never accomplish enough/do enough good/prove himself enough to get out from under that cruel shadow. And they think very little of me for being with him. They told me once that he would never actually love me, that he was incapable of knowing the true emotion, that he would always be indifferent and lie to me. What a welcome to the family. And it has all gone downhill from there.

5. My mom married a Marine (we'll use his nickname from back then: Rat) when she was 8 months pregnant with me. He is not my biological father, but I have never met the one that is. Rat raised me as his own, his name is on my birth certificate. He's an ass. I love him as my father, but cannot respect him as a person. Rat left my mom several times, each to be with another woman. Mom is strong, but would do anything to make her children happy, even allow Rat to come home. Rat was an alcoholic while he was in the corps, something Mom forced him to give up if he really wanted to come back to our family. Now that all us children are grown (me-24, CML-21, BR-19), he has gone back to his old ways. He drinks and drives, he smokes pot with dirty/creepy people he met when he was drunk. Mom is financially dependent on him, she had a mental breakdown several years ago and he drove them to the verge of bankruptcy before could get healthy again, she has spent every penny since trying to get things back on course. If she left him, she would lose the house, car, everything, it would all get taken by the bank. My life has been lived with finances always looming overhead and sacrifices being made to save the budget.

6. At age 24, my budget is no longer always breaking. R has a good job, a secure job, one that affords what we need. Every once in a while we even get to spoil ourselves a little. We own our house, R had a newer truck, our bills all get paid. At one point, this would have felt like heaven to me, not having to decide which bills to pay or not pay this month. But actually having the money we need is also a reminder that we don't have much left over for wants. And when you can't have a baby, wants start feeling a lot like needs (RE, IUI, IVF, ICSI).

7. Our infertility is partly caused by my endometriosis. It was bad, my lapa.roscopy took 3 times longer than they had planned. One ovary was out of position, but still functioning, and there was no affect on my ute or tubes. So, a very bad case of endo, but no real reason behind my IF because it wasn't affecting vital reproductive tissue. The rest is unexplained. Not diagnosed as unexplained, they just haven't given me any information to explain why the lap didn't help or why I still can't get pregnant. All I know is that endo is way too painful for me to live with. Almost exactly 1 year after my lap, I returned to the comforting arms of birth control pills. I don't have to give up one week a month to lie writhing in pain on the couch, taking the maximum dose of every medication I can find, painkiller or not. It also guarantees I won't be getting pregnant (HA, like that was ever a possibility anyway).

8. I was pregnant, once, for about 10 days. I actually started spotting 2 days after I found out, the spotting lasted about a week, then I had my first prenatal visit with my primary doctor (we'll call this one Elvis). I had a positive urine test at the beginning of my appointment, although it was faint. A few hours later I got the call about my beta number: 4, not pregnant. Still no explanation why the positive urine test, my slightly educated guess is that my beta had been dropping for days, the hcg was properly filtered out of my blood, but had yet to be completely passed in my urine. No matter how I ended up with conflicting results, there was no baby coming in 8 months.

9. We had already named that baby. Not fully, but we knew for sure the middle name would be Dean, no matter the gender. With a father in the military, I was moved around a lot as a kid. To base for a while to live with him, back to my grandparents for a while when he got sent overseas, to another base, and back to my grandparents. My uncle (here we use his favorite nickname to use on all children: Goofball) lived 1/4 mile down the road from my grandparents. He was diabetic, unable to work his entire life, unwilling to marry or have children because he refused to be the cause of somebody else suffering because of his diabetes (whether that be passing it on to children, or his wife mourning because he knew he would pass away long before her). He was a second father to me, his middle name was Dean. He passed away 2 days before father's day last year. The funeral was on father's day, which happened to also be his father's birthday. He didn't know that R and I plan to name our child after him, whenever it is we have one. He didn't know that his memory will forever live in a baby that I bring into this world. He didn't know he had so much effect on my life that I refused to marry R if he didn't agree whole-heartedly to having our child be my uncle's namesake. I had begged him to stay alive long enough to hold my babies, instead of begging I should have told him my plan, at least he would have known.

Part 3 of the list to come, first I have to recover from writing part 2. The wounds from losing my uncle are still very deep, they effect my life more than even I realize. The worst knowledge I have is that even if I do have children they will never know him. Infertility has stolen him from my children, it caused them to not be born soon enough to know his love. We will touch much more on Goofball in the future, he is part of my heart.

How about a real(ish) introduction?

2007-02-25T09:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I needed to vent, I needed to babble on and on, I needed to get the words out no matter who read them. This morning is a fresh start, however, and as such I think it should be used to properly make my start here.

There are so many things affecting my life/brain/emotions, that I don't know where to begin. I'm just going to start listing. Maybe in the coming weeks/months I will return to the list and get into the details of individual points. Right now, though, let it be the highlights of what makes me tick.

THE LIST:

1. 24 years old, married 2 1/2 years, together an indeterminable amount of time. We'd known each other since 5th grade (never liked each other in that way, but it was a small school so you knew everybody), started "dating" a year after graduation when he came back from A.rmy Bas.ic Training (he was buff, compared to the rather scrawny guy he was in hs, I had finally started looking like a grown teen instead of an 11 year old). It was mostly physical for quite a while, very off and on for 3 years. He proposed out of the blue, we weren't even "on again" when he proposed. I accepted, a few months later he deployed to S.inai Egy.pt, he came home, we eloped, big wedding 2 months later. We both had amazingly crappy jobs, not a penny to spare for anything other than car insurance and gas to get to work (shared his care, lived with my parents because we couldn't afford rent even). He lucked upon a job 2 hours away, an opportunity that only lasted a split second, and he took it. 8 months later I finally moved with him. A year later we bought our house. We've lived in this house almost 6 months now.

2. I actually hate the town we live in. I gave up all my friends to come here, and this town isn't one that replaces friends well. 18 months here and people still won't look at me in the grocery store. Nobody says hello when they pass you walking in the parking lot. They cling to their own and it takes a decade for an "outsider" to even start breaking in. There is no nightlife, no place for a girl in her 20's to get out and experience life. We went from a college town to an empty one. People look at me out of the corner of their eye, and their looks tell me that I'm not one of them. I can try, I can be the polite one that initiates conversations, I can pursue relationships with them, but it won't work. The closest thing I have to a friend up here is the 70 year old couple across the road, and I don't even know their names.

3. I have a stepson (meet Little H). He won't be talked about much on here, that situation is so much more than a blog can handle, and it's not the reason for my blogging. But, if I do mention him in passing, now you know.

TO BE CONTINUED... (when R isn't here and able to read over my shoulder)

What a way to start!

2007-02-24T22:19:00.000-05:00

After reading blog after blog for months (ok, more closely a year), I've decided I need my own. I need a place to vent and to celebrate, a place all my own. Somewhere I can decorate myself (which I won't end up doing, I'm entirely technology illiterate), somewhere I can turn to when the rest of the world seems too hard to be in, somewhere I can claim as my own and not introduce my real life to. Not that I won't be real, in fact I may be more real here than anywhere else. My husband (introducing the wonderful R) won't know this place, neither will my family and friends. I vent to them individually, with the words and information that I know is best with them. Here I will tell it how it is, without worry of it changing my relationships outside of here. Here I can truly feel safe.

And, now the heartache that caused this to be created: for about 6 months I've been in contact with a girl from high school (meet J). Now, we weren't particularly close- I was the quiet bookworm type, J was popular (she doesn't think so, but she was close with some of the popular kids, which was beyond my realm back then), but she read on my mysp.ace that I'm infertile. It started out just taking longer than she wanted for her to get pregnant, then it turned into 6 months of talking and her still not being pregnant. For 6 months, I was her person. When her husband (another J, but he's not important to the story) didn't want to listen, I did. When her period came, I comforted her. I was her rock at the end of a cycle, and I showered her with hope for the next. Not an easy position to take, considering R and I had been trying for 2 years by that point, but one I assumed on my own.

And it felt good to be the voice of experience (I was a year and a half younger than anybody in my graduating class, by virtue of a fluke jump in grades back in elementary school- I was a flipping genius at age 7, ok not genius, but I was doing algebra for fun), it felt good to be the one that J turned to. People don't look up to me often, they don't see me as anything, it was something I latched onto. I prided myself at knowing J's cycles so I could be prepared with information/hugs/hope/tears/whatever she would need that day. She turned to me.

And then R and I had to stop trying. My endometriosis was wreaking havoc on my body, and the alternating hope/pain was wreaking havoc on my emotions. There was no option to pursue treatment, no savings to use, no insurance coverage for treatment or even consultation with an RE. We had an appointment with an RE all set up, but then we decided to check with the insurance just to make sure and they dropped the bomb- NO.

J offered to find another person, to let me off the hook since I couldn't stay on the path with her. Oh how brave was I, I decided to stay and assured her that I could still be her person. That was 2 1/2 months ago. Things were still great. We messaged back and forth, I helped her get through her sister's baby shower, more ends of cycles for her. Things were perfect: I wasn't pregnant, but neither was she and I made her feel better about it.

And then today happened. Got another message from J. No, she's not pregnant, that I would be excited about because it's what's supposed to happen. She's supposed to not need me anymore because she got pregnant. That I could be happy about.* Nope, she had an appointment with an RE. Not just any RE, but the very same RE that R and I couldn't go see. And she got an appointment within days of her very first call. We scheduled back in December, and the appointment we would have had still isn't here. How's that for a kick in the crotch.

All I could think about was that our RE is going to be getting her pregnant instead of me. Not that I would mind if he did both, but since he can't me then I don't want her (a twist on the old if-I-can't-have-him-nobody-can psychosis). And that's the least of my issues. I won't be her person anymore. She doesn't need me, because she now has somebody infinitely better, somebody with a degree in woman-parts and everything. I want J back, I want her to depend on me. I can't have a fricken kid, is it so much to ask that a grown woman need me? I feel like something was stolen from me. I consoled her, I cheered her on, and now the RE that I have heard nothing but rave reviews of has taken her away. And he hasn't yet, she's still messaging me, but I know he will and I'm pulling away from J out of fear of her hurting me more by leading me on.** My heart aches and it feels like my insides have died. I nurtured her, and she's getting what I can't have. It's not even the baby she will inevitably get, it's the chance to take any step forward. I am stalled, waiting for an act of congress to change my insurance coverage, waiting for money to suddenly appear for us to use to pay for it ourselves, waiting to want children less so that every day doesn't hurt so much. She doesn't have to wait anymore.

So, I feel like the biggest bitch on earth. And I feel like I have every right to be selfish and want this one thing for myself (whether it's wanting to seek further treatment for myself, wanting a baby, wanting the infertility attention for myself instead of her, or just wanting her to still need me... taking bets on which it actually is, my subconcious isn't letting that information out at the moment). So much emotion it's overload. I'm on a birth control pill that actually mellows my moods, scary though, eh?

* never try to understand my logic, it's twisted and will only make your brain hurt*
**more of my crap logic, but that's how I feel so I get to say it**

Here ends my very first blog. Next time I'll be even more confusing as I attempt to describe the hole-I-don't-care-to-crawl-out-of feeling I've been dealing with all week, which led to my near-meltdown over J. It's a doosy.