I think there's something wrong with my watch.

I’m scared by the things that go through my head sometimes. I’m mean and rotten for no particular reason. Thank god most of this stuff doesn’t come out of my mouth because I would certainly be committed, or at least ostracized to a lonely desert island by this time. I’ve known for a long time that this inner-nasty-person is the main reason for my lovely low self-esteem but I still can’t shake it. I feel like people can see how mean and nasty I really am and they treat me differently because I’m so rotten. Sigh. You want an example? How about the comment I was dying to blurt out to a woman I work with on her gaudy, terrible, neon blue polyester suit. I mean, come ON. That suit just screams “Donate me to a third-world country!” and yet she still wears it religiously. I could go on for hours… Ok. Enough with the daily confessional. How about a pet peeve to lighten things up a bit? I hate stupid people. Man, I hate stupid people. It amazes me how many of them are out there, wandering aimlessly across the earth, screwing things up here and there as they roam around. I need something, anything to get my mind off this constant waiting. Time is just dragging and dragging. I just want to go home and knit until my eyes cross. Is that such a bad thing?


This post makes me seem like I’m in a bad mood or cranky. I’m really not. Honestly. I’m about as content as I could possibly be right now, given the fact that I am feeling like a chicken, sans head right now. In reality, I’m just anxious and peeved. I’ve been reading Misconceptions by Naomi Wolfe and it is not the type of book I really should be reading right now. It’s gotten me all peevish and fired up about the terrible state of child-birth practices in this country. Not something I should be feeling now, since I’m so desperately trying to conceive another child and enter, yet again, into the super-sterile, childbirth-is-to-be-feared world again. I think that what she’s saying resonates so much with me because, despite having a ‘normal’ vaginal birth with E, I wasn’t pleased with myself for not having gone 100% natural. I ‘tried’, but after reading this book I’m more and more convinced I was being set up for failure. Deep in my heart, I wanted a home birth. I wanted a warmer, more nurturing environment to bring my child into the world. It’s not that I look back on the whole experience with anything less than joy, but it would have been nice to feel a little less clinical and cold and, I don’t know, hospital-ish.

Part of me wonders if maybe she was bitter about her own C-section and this book is her outlet to vent that pain of having the less-than-perfect birth that she was expecting. I don’t know. I’ll have to finish the rest of it. Just don’t read that book if you’ve had a C-section, that’s all I’ll say.

So, no, don’t worry about me. I’m not all crazy and wacked out as I seem to be in this message. I’m just antsy and anxious. I swear, the next 11 days are just going to drag by… I think there’s something wrong with my watch…

Hello, I'd like you to meet Miss Motivation...

It's just something I'm not these days... Miss Motivation. Ugh. I'm using all the energy I have to just keep my head from falling onto the pile of books I am working on. Ok, that's not really true. I'm not that exhausted, but this cold is kicking my ass and it's just a little bitty one. Not even that bad, just annoying and draining. I'm just anxious about the waiting and it's easier to get my mind off it if I pretend to be really tired. To top it off, I'm still having cramps here and there, which may or may not mean anything. It is so annoying to think that this may not add up to anything at all. I mean, come on. What sort of cruel joke is that? To give me cramps and not have any joy come from it?

As I was getting ready for bed last night I had the most wonderful patch of eggy-cervical mucus. I never thought I would be so very happy to see such slimy stuff! It was the sort of mucus that I had the weekend I got pregnant with E, so I pressed the husband into service. Sadly, the whole event was less than climactic for him and we struck out. I can't even describe how hopeless I felt afterwards. I just got this disgusting feeling like we were never, ever going to succeed at getting pregnant and for once, I didn't feel like it was my fault. I wanted us to succeed naturally, not with tubes of pink sperm-concentrate injected into my uterus. I wanted to at least feel like it was us creating that baby, and not some nurse with a badly bleached mustache and moles on her neck.

The wondering never leaves my mind. Every waking second, no, every second whether waking or sleeping is spent wondering "Am I pregnant right now? Is that cramp a good sign? Did I feel like this in all the past months of trying?" I want some little voice to creep out of the darkness and answer all the questions. I want to get that feeling that I'm pregnant again, that without a doubt feeling that I had when I was pregnant with E.

I'll admit it here and now. The thought of having another baby still sort of terrifies me. How will I balance two of them? Will the next baby be like E was? Will I really love the next baby like I love E? What if that kid turns into a holy terror once another baby arrives? Will I stop loving him and love the new baby instead?

Quote for the day:

Gather me up
because I'm lost
or I'm back
where I started from.
-- Kristen Hersh

And now the waiting... waiting... waiting...

The deed is done! I had my first (and hopefully only) IUI done yesterday. It had to be the most surrealistic experience of my entire life. Why? Do you know how strange it was to carry half of the genetic information for my possible future child across the street in a paper bag with my last name written across it? The whole experience was just bizarre. After the ‘procedure’ was done, the nurse actually sighed and said “Well, I hope that worked!” I didn’t know how to respond to that so I just said “Hmmm.”

All in all, the procedure was very easy. The nurse even said “You were easy to do. I usually think that’s a good sign.” I don’t know about any of this. I’m still skeptical that you can just slip a catheter of sperm in there, inject and hope for a good outcome. There has to be more to it than that, right?

So now the waiting game begins. I keep wondering if it’s good karma that E was conceived on the same weekend, exactly four years ago. I keep having little cramps here and there and I’m still fighting off this cold that I started a few days ago. I’m also spotting, which I don’t normally do in-between periods, but the nurse said it was ‘normal’. Is any of this normal anymore?

After she was ‘done with me’, I had to lie there for about 10 minutes. So I meditated and kept my mind still and quiet. I had this sudden realization that I had just undergone a fertility treatment and from now on, things wouldn’t be the same with my body. For now on I’ll have to say “I underwent an IUI” when I talk about getting pregnant again. I guess this is really REAL now.

R asked me if I thought I would have a ‘feeling’ either way after it was done. I just don’t know anymore. I had that feeling that I was pregnant with E. I didn’t even have to think about it, it was just a truth created in my soul: I’m pregnant. My body and mind just knew it. I probably didn’t even need that test when I was pregnant with him, it was that absolute. This time around, I just don’t know if I’ll feel that again. I’ve lost all faith in my body and I have lost the ability to listen to it with a clear mind. It’s all become so clouded with infertility talk and doubt that I can’t really trust it anymore.

The wait is going to be excruciating.

Quote for the day:

The waiting
is the hardest part.
-- Tom Petty

The race is on!

So. Tomorrow is the big day. My first IUI. I'm nervous about how this is going to play out. The fertility monitor was giving me low, low, low readings for days and then suddenly I get a Peak reading this morning. No 'high' in-between there, just low to peak. Strange. The stranger part is that I took an OPK on Saturday night, just to check and see how things were moving along and it wasn't positive. It was getting there, but definitely not a positive. And then WHAM... peak reading on Sunday morning. So, I called the clinic and they set up all the necessary appointments for tomorrow morning. R's dropping his boys off at 9:00am and I go in for the 'procedure' at 9:45am. Since when did getting pregnant become a 'procedure'???

I'm nervous. I'm afraid it won't work. I have a hard time picturing myself getting pregnant ever again. We've been trying for so long that I've just lost all faith in my body and myself, for that matter. I'm trying to remain calm about it all; I'm trying to keep my spirits up but it's not easy. I want this to work. I don't want to have to do this again.

I feel like I'm coming down with a cold too.

Why am I having such a hard time picturing myself pregnant again? I keep worrying that this mental block is part of why it's not working. Then again, if that was true, every woman who just wished she was pregnant would probably get pregnant. I mean, I know I'm smart and that my mind is a powerful thing, but that would just be ridiculous to think that my mental state would affect my fertility that much. Right?

This is me, being optimistic.

Quote for the day:

Could God really be so cruel
to give us feelings
that can never be fulfilled?
-- The The

What we'll deal with...

Classes have started and I'm SO looking forward to this semester. If you can't smell the sarcasm in that last statement you need to clear that little nose of yours. Seriously, have I mentioned yet how much I'm looking forward to no more school? ARGH!!! I just want my life back!!! (I'm pouting and stamping my feet as I type this...)

My father once told me that people are amazingly resilient creatures. He said that it is incredible what we'll deal with and he was right. The older I get, the more I realize what every person on this planet deals with. We all deal with problems and the way that we deal with them is what makes each of us individuals. I don't think that I'm even close to learning how to deal with life any better. I look at some people with the patience of a saint and wonder "how can I be more like that?" and then I see some people fly off the handle at the smallest thing and I think "would I act like that?".

I heard back from Rice University this week saying that they received my application. I did some more research on the school the other day and now I'm a little intimidated by having applied to "The Ivy League of the South". Man... what will I do if they actually call me for an interview? Then I realize that I'm just a lowly little not-even-recent Grad and the realization that they'll probably never call sets in. Oh gosh, I hate job searches.

The E-boy has been super happy and bubbly lately. He's so much fun when he's like this. THe thoughts that go through his little head make me crazy, happy, at peace with the world and more. This morning he was staring at the recycling bins in the kitchen, which were sitting side-by-side and he says "Momma, those look like steps!" Talk about perfecting the abstract thought patterns. I know every parent thinks that their kid is smart, but man, he's just SMART.

The Baby-Making mission is coming along... still Low on the monitor, but something should be happening this weekend. It still bugs me to no end that I need some old man to inject sperm into my body in order to hopefully get pregnant, but so be it. I flucuate between hopeful and miserably sad about the whole process. I'm trying not to think about it; I wonder if my ovaries can sense me not thinking about it.

Quote for the day:

Who could have seen
you'd be so hard to please?
-- Tom Petty

Is that Pine-Sol I smell?

A good weekend can brighten your week. I just have that nice calm before the storm feeling. I was super-industrious-Girl and got lots of housework done and now I feel much better about my surroundings. I was getting tired of walking in the house and being knee-deep in hairballs and toy trucks. Plus, my summer schedule starts at work this week too. I now am officially in the flex-time world and my schedule will alternate with four day weeks and four and ½ day weeks. So, I will either have Friday’s off or work only half a day. Ahhh… I feel more relaxed already. Doesn't it figure that classes start tomorrow??? Why, oh why does our time off seem so much shorter than the time we work?

As for the baby-making journey, not much happening. The torture device that I call a Fertility Monitor asked me for my first stick this morning and so the race begins. I really just miss those ‘Have sex and hope for the best’ days. And, what the hell, since I’m on the subject of sex… We’ve been reduced to doing nothing but baby-making sex. I cannot remember the last time we really just had sex for fun. The worst part is that this isn’t something new; it’s been on the steady decline since I was about eight months pregnant with E. It was almost as if there was something tangible between the two of us that just broke, creating this huge lack-of-sex hole that we fell into. I’m not even sure how or why it happened, but it’s such a one-sided problem. There are so many, many nights when I have to ask if he’s in the mood or actually have to make the first move. I've even had to give him the biggest guilt trip just to get things moving. The constant rebuff and lack of affection have a terrible way of eroding my self-esteem to nothing. I find myself wondering if I’m still even the least bit attractive in his eyes. I even find myself wondering if other people find me attractive at all. I hate that feeling, that constant searching for approval. I just want some sort of sign, some overture that would confirm that he’s still in there somewhere. I don’t want the gifts, I don’t care about the material objects he thinks I want or need. I would just like to feel adored again.

Quote for the day:

Temptation comes not from hell
but from above.
-- The Afghan Whigs

Gloat, gloat, gloat.

I got an e-mail from my GovDocs professor today that said he had made an error in calculating final grades. So, I got an A. The 4.0 stands. Yee-HA!

And despite that, I’m in a pissy, cranky mood. But I didn’t get here by myself, you know. Oh no. I had HELP. Wouldn’t you know, it follows yesterday’s line of thinking: the lack of support. Why is it that when someone gives you a snide comment, but says ‘encouraging’ words, he thinks that he’s being ‘encouraging’. The comment “Fine, you do what you want to do.” is not supporting, no matter how much you may think it is. No matter if you say it with a smile or not, it’s not encouraging. It’s not helpful when the person that you want to depend on is not willing to shoulder some of the burden for a few hours every few weeks. Instead of being willing to make a small personal sacrifice in order to benefit the greater good, the griping attitude emerges. For years, I did what I had to do as a mother, as a wife. I stayed at home when I would have liked to do something, anything else but be home yet another Saturday afternoon with a baby. Even though there is ample time to plan, the attitude is that his time is more important and as soon as a request is made, the troops are called out to do his duty. I don’t understand it. Where is the support in that? I want him to make some sacrifice for ME for one. I put up with six years of lost Saturdays, why is it so much to ask for a few of my own?

I’m tired of it. My shoulders are sore and tired from carrying the burden for too long. I’d like some relief, please. I’d like to feel like we’re in this world TOGETHER for once, not two blind acquaintances, bouncing off one another when the space gets too cramped to maneuver around each other. I walked on eggshells for so long, afraid to speak my mind for fear that it would increase the stress level, upset the status quo, that I don’t even know how to express myself anymore. I can’t defend myself without tears; I can’t state what I want clearly so that others can understand my thoughts and it bothers me. It bothers me to not be able to communicate in a level that can be understood.

It’s not even the sacrifice (or lack thereof, in this case) that matters anymore. It’s the act of selfishness. It’s the act that everything is more important that what I do. It’s little things like skipping the call-waiting on the other line to talk to ME instead of some client. It’s the fact that I would really like it when things just get done without having to be mentioned time and time again. I think it’s all just beyond comprehension anymore.

I’m tired of feeling alone. I’m tired of feeling like I’m fighting the tides, and even worse, fighting it alone. I’m supposed to have a partner in all of this and I don’t.

What happens when I get a B+?

There’s been a recurring thought floating around my head about self-sacrifice. Why is it that women seem to be so much more willing to engage in self-sacrifice than men are? Why are we willing to deprive ourselves of things, be it material, spiritual or otherwise, while men seem to be able to follow the ‘I want it now or else’ mentality? It bothers me to no end. It bothers me that I’m willing to do it too, and hate it while I do it. It doesn’t make me feel like the bigger person, although it should. It makes me feel like the slave of the household. Are women taught to be this way or is it just in our blood?

With this, of course, comes the realization that I am a glutton for punishment. I heap it onto myself and then cry when it gets too hard. Perfect example: I’m taking three classes this summer. Why? Because I want to get this Master’s degree over and done with. It is going to be ten weeks of pure hell. PURE HELL. And I know it. But I’ll still bitch and moan about it every step of the way. And, while writing this, I had the brainstorm to try to check on my grades from last semester’s classes. Wouldn’t you know, I got my first B+. NOOOOO!!!! I had an A going into the final, and I got an A on the final, but for some reason that professor gave me only 50% for participation. What in the world is THAT about? Unlike my usual ‘take it on the chin and be glad for it’ self, I e-mailed the professor and asked him to justify the participation grade. I’ll be interested to see what he says. I just can’t even think of what he could say to justify a 50% participation grade. This should be interesting. So, going into my final semester I had a perfect 4.0 GPA for grad school. I was proud of that; it’s the first time I have EVER gotten a 4.0 and earned it. And man, I’m going to protect it if I can!

The saga continues...

Ugh, I just got a 'low battery' pop-up from the laptop, so this will be short... I'm an aunt! Again! Well, my first nephew anyways. No name yet, so for now he's the 'child yet to be named'.

E's oh-so-sick right now and being an absolute PILL. I hate saying that when he's not well, but MAN he's a baby when he's ill! Then again, he probably gets that from me. I'm a wimp when I'm sick too.

Baking banana bread at 11:00pm at night is not a nice thing to do to yourself. It smells SO tasty. Plus it's like 80 million degrees in the house with the oven on for two hours.

I never said I was very intelligent.

Today is the day!

Today is the day! The big appointment! I can’t wait to hear what this new doctor has to say. I’m nervous about what might happen and of course, I freaked myself out by doing too much research on the subject. Now I’m praying he doesn’t say the dreaded “Premature Ovarian Failure”. I had strange dreams last night about these Velcro eggs (like the ones in E’s kitchen set) and going to the doctors. Gee, I wonder what that could have represented? Nothing like the psyche trying to work the obvious out, right?

Starting a new journey...

So, I’m thinking about starting a blog. Ugh. How freaking trendy. But the other journaling site I belong to is beginning to depress me. Utterly depress me. I feel like people don’t understand how hard it is for me to participate when I am constantly jealous about their good fortune and angry about my own bad luck. So, I’m trying this. We’ll see… I just need a place to go to daily to get whatever is on my mind out. Plus, I need less distractions from school in the next few months. Yeah, keep telling myself that.