Life Happens

Hello dusty old blog.  What am I to do with you?  Dust you off and journal feelings again?  Leave you as is for a remembrance of my feelings during that year?

I read back through a few of my old posts.  There is so much pain and wanting to heal.  It's just painful.

Well we will start with an update from my last post.

My brother is still with me.  They are currently regularly monitoring his tests and levels, and they have remained the same for the last several months.  No new growth or spreading so for now that is good news that he is happy and alive.  Sadly my Grandma and Uncle are loosing the battle against cancer.  It's such a terrible disease.

I took the anti-depressants for a few months.  Looking back it helped me gain perspective and have the ability to focus on the positive again.

I lost my little dog last fall.  She got out of the yard and into the road and didn't survive an accident with a car.  It still makes me tear up because I sure miss that little ball of energy so much!  We had her less than 1 year and I can't believe how much a 7 lb dog made such an impact in my life.  Things the little girl taught me:

• It felt so good to open my heat and love something new!
• It felt good to feel needed.  I still have my 2 cats, but they don't need near the care my little dog did.
• Go for walks, it feels good to be outside.  
• Greet your loved ones every day.  
• Poop happens, clean it up and get over it.

I finished my masters degree!  No, I did not add on extra classes.  I couldn't take anymore school.

The endo diet... I sure struggle with that.  I am definitely a stress/emotional eater, at least I confirmed that.

I'm still here!

I really haven’t fallen off the face of the world.  I’m still here living my crazy life.  Things just really starting getting out of control for me this winter, and this little blog is one of the things that had to move to the back burner.

I found out my younger brother has cancer… and the Dr’s are not giving him a good recovery outcome.  I have a hard time not concentrating on all the things he could possibly miss out on in his life.  He started another round of chemo again last week.  This has really put life in a different perspective for me.  Knowing what he is going through and the torture his body is experiencing leaves less time for me to think about myself and my infertility.  Our extended family has had bad luck with cancer too.  I have an uncle and my husband has an aunt that is also fighting cancer.

I did go into the Dr’s office in November, asking them to check my hormone levels.  I was emotional, anxious, couldn’t sleep, gaining weight and my acne was out of control.  I was convinced that my hormones were out of whack.  Well, my blood tests came back with everything in a normal range and I left with a prescription for anti-depressants.  I don’t think that it helped that I broke out into tears when the Dr asked me if we were going to start “trying” again.  I just get so frustrated trying to explain myself when someone asks me that question.  I left the office pissed that I had that prescription, but my husband talked me into filling it.  So I filled it and started taking it.  It has made me feel better.  I don’t think I obsess about single things for hours like I have been doing the past few years.  But the bad side affect is that I sleep so much!  These last few months I have had the best sleep of my life!  I kind of wonder if that is really the thing that is making me feel better… having a normal 8 hour sleep schedule has done wonders for my mood.  Sadly, the late nights surfing the Internet is when I did the majority of my blog writing and reading.

I do have good news.  We added new member to our family just before Christmas!  The animals now outnumber the people in my house. 

 

She is the cutest little puppy ever and I love her so much!  This picture is of her (and my knees).  We had to get a little sweater for her because the week we got her the temperature was below zero and she had a hard time going to the bathroom outside in the extreme cold.  The sweater is a XS and now fits her better.  She is a mix of about 6 small dog breeds.  She is currently 4 ½ months old and weighs about 4 lbs.  Everyone keeps asking me how big she will be when she is fully grown, and I’m not really sure since she comes from so many breeds of smaller dogs.  We think she will stay pretty little.  Her mom is only about 5 lbs.  Unfortunately my cats were not happy when we brought the puppy home.  The younger cat has learned to accept her, but the older cat is still pretty pissed off about her.  He tolerates her as long as she stays away from him.  We have already completed a 6 week puppy training class (another thing that has taken away from my blogging time).  Of course she was everyone’s favorite because she was by far the smallest puppy in the class.  Now, if only we can get past the chewing phase…  She chews on everything! 

I’m still working on my graduate degree.  I have just under a year left to complete my program but I have been thinking about adding a few more classes and extending my graduation date.  I think this would be good for my career, but I am so ready to be done with school and to have my weekends back.  I will have to decide in a few months if I will be adding extra classes or not.

There have been a lot of pregnancies popping up that I am dealing with.  In June my husband and I will have a total of 15 nieces and nephews!  That is not a typo, the number really is 15, and I’m sure it will keep growing.  My close friend is pregnant.  I wrote about expecting that to happen after I saw some baby books at her house back here.  The announcements really haven’t been that hard to deal with.  The worst is that feeling of being left behind when I hear an announcement, but that is part of life that I accepted when we quit fertility treatments.  I’m learning that this feeling will always be a part of life.

I have been experimenting with cooking, new foods, and new recipes.  I have been reading about the endo diet and trying to incorporate that into my life.  I’m starting slowly and changing things little by little.  I think if I jumped in full speed ahead into the diet I would hate it and it would only last a few weeks.  My husband has been a good sport.  Cooking has never been something that came naturally to me, and we have had some disappointing dinners lately!  I think I would like to write about this more when I find time.  The last month I have been able to feel some benefits from eating healthier.

I appreciate all of you, my friends out here on the Internet.  I am hoping that I will be back soon.  I passed my 1 year blog anniversary on Feb 2^nd and didn’t even realize it!  I have a lot of reading and catching up to do in blog land!

HOTPIL #1 – Halloween Dress Up

I enjoy making lists.  I don’t know why, but writing things down and making a list usually gives me a sense of control.  It helps me put things in better perspective. This blog could use a little more something…  I have been foundering with what I want to do with this blog lately, so I decided it needed a list.  This is my first post in my HOTPIL Series (Happiness on This Path in Life).  Sounds cheery, right?  I think this gloomy blog needed something to cheer things up lately.  Plus, HOTPIL posts will only contain accounts, stories, things, or ways that I find happiness in life.

Halloween Past

I honestly think that Halloween is one holiday that I enjoy more as an adult than I enjoyed it as a child.  When I was a child usually dressing up was a day before, or the day of Halloween rush to find a costume.  For the most part my costumes consisted of random old pieces of dance costumes, hand-me-downs, or any last minute item my mom could spare a minute to throw together. 

Trick or Treat in a small town in Wyoming isn’t that fun.  Is was nothing like I would see other kids do on movies or TV shows, where groups of kids would walk down city blocks, going from door to door and getting bundles of candy.  Trick or Treating in a small town in Wyoming often included bundling winter clothes over your Halloween costume because you had to Trick or Treat during a snow storm or cold rain.  It was usually wet and cold and it ended early.  I lived outside of our small town so my mom would have to drive us from house to house, so it consisted of getting in and out of the car a lot, being wet and cold, and it did not usually last long. 

My favorite part of Halloween as a child was AFTER we went Trick or Treating.  My dad created a tradition of watching a Halloween movie afterwards.  Sometimes they were old movies that were done terribly, other times they were scary movies that would leave me afraid of dark corners for a few nights, and other times they were silly movies.  But, everyone in the family was allowed to stay up late and eat candy.  It was something the family did together.

Halloween Present

I love Halloween as an adult.  We go to at least 1 Halloween dress up party every year.  Some years involve weeks of planning my costume.  Some years I buy a costume and spend time shopping for the perfect costume and accessories.  Other years I have spent weeks trying to use my rusty sewing skills to create the perfect costume that I will only wear once.  My favorite costume I have ever made for myself as an adult was a She-Ra costume.  I was a big fan of the cartoon as a child.  It was my first attempt at making a corset and also included a sword that had a light on it (I know it was pretty silly, but it turned out so good).  This year with my busy schedule between school and work, I had to settle for a more common costume.  I dressed up as a 1920’s Flapper with fringed dress.  We traveled out of town this last weekend to go to a bar where a band we know of was playing.  The best part of dressing up as a flapper is dancing with a fringed dress.  I twisted and danced myself until I had to more energy, and I still have a few sore muscles that remind me of the fun I had that night.

The HOTPIL bonus is that we didn’t have to worry about having an overnight babysitter to go to a Halloween party.  We didn’t have to debate about doing Trick or Treating with children vs. going to a Halloween party.  We took our time traveling home the next day because our cats don’t mind if we come home early or late, just as long as we come home!

Anyone else out there love Halloween more as an adult than when they were children?

Suspended In Time

Have you ever felt like you are stuck in time?  Like the world just keeps on moving past you while you sit and watch?  This is how I have been feeling lately.  I’m just sitting here in my life watching other people live theirs.  Watching my family, friends, and work acquaintances add to their families.  I was contemplating this and I got a picture in my head of myself suspended in time while the world whizzes by (you know, like it does on those sci-fi shows).

I realized that this picture is inaccurate.  I’m not suspended in time.  I am aging with the rest of the world.  I need to quit focusing on the external and focus more on my internal. 

There is still part of me that grieves every day for the family I wasn’t able to create.  I grieve for children that were never created, for traits of me and my spouse that will never be passed on to anyone.  This piece of me will probably always be there.  But, instead of trying to shove it aside, shrink it, or trying to put other things in its place I need to let it be.  I need to accept that it is part of me and makes me who I am.  It might be an experience that other people want to ignore, but it is an experience that I need to learn to embrace because it is who I am now.  Easier said than done, right!

It’s Only a Matter of Time

Baptism By Fire’s recent post Running out, about losing her friends without children is a topic that I have been thinking about the past month. 

A friend posted on facebook that they are expecting recently, just inside their 1 year marriage mark.  While I am happy for them I was shocked that she would make this public announcement at 5 weeks pregnant!  I was amazed that she would make that announcement so early in her pregnancy, and with her being a nurse I am sure she has plenty of knowledge of all things that could possibly go wrong, but then again she has never lived in the infertility world where things in that area of life just don’t work out as planned.  So, I hope everything goes well for her.

A few weeks later I was at my other friend’s house waiting for her to get ready so we could go out.  I was standing next to her bookshelf looking at what she has to read.  We have swapped books several times so I didn’t think she would mind me looking at her bookcase in her living room.  I spied the dreaded book that pregnant people read when they are expecting (I don’t want to name the book here as to not draw innocent Google searchers to my barren womb blog).  Next to it was a book about being a father, and next to that one was a book of baby names.  This set of friends has just been married 1 year also.  I stood there and realized that they will probably be next to join the parenting group.  Our circle of carefree friends that can do any activity on a whim will once again be shrinking.

I have done this circuit before.  When our friends have children we see them less.  Our get-togethers become less frequent.  They must get home in the night earlier than us, or arrange for overnight sitters.  They plan activities that exclude us because they are kid oriented.  We have found new friendships during these prior wakes that fill in the holes that were left, but it still sucks to cycle through again.

With the culture in the state that I reside in, people start their families a lot earlier here than in other parts of the US.  Early 20’s is standard.  This leaves the pool of childfree/childless people in our age group pretty sparse.  Both of my above mentioned friends are 9 to 7 years younger than me now. So where does this leave me now getting ready to look for new friends?  Ok so picture this, currently I have gotten back my acne problems since my Dr took me off birth control after my surgery.  33 and acne is not a good combination!  Plus to add to the awkwardness I am getting braces next week!  I have finally decided to fix my overbite that I have always been self-conscious of.  I hate looking at pictures of me if I am smiling too big because it is more gums than teeth.  I know it is a vanity thing, but I figure why not just fix it now rather than complain about it the rest of my life.  So I have been picturing my 30 something self with acne and braces looking for new friends out of the 20 something childfree pool!  So I am laughing at myself picturing my dorky self out there trying to find new friendsJ 

I’m actually pretty happy with myself right now.  This would have left me devastated in the past.  But then again my second friend isn’t pregnant yet and I don’t even know for sure if they are trying.  I just found some books on the shelf that have lead me to waste time thinking about something that isn’t even happening.  Infertility leaves you trying to brace and prepare for events that haven’t even happened.

Paradigms

I have been absence from this blog for a while.  Not on purpose, life just got a little busy for me.  So to catch you up…I finished up my summer semester and went straight into a big home improvement project.  We replaced the roof on our house by ourselves with the help of some amazing friends of ours.  That was 2 layers of shingles that had to be torn off and new shingles put on.  It was a big project but it felt so good to watch it slowly come together and ended with a terrific emotion of self-accomplishment.  And for some reason it amazes everyone that I was on the roof helping to shingle (I must not have the look of a roofer) and my roof is 3 stories high at the back of the house.  Our land is sloped and we have a walk out basement.  I never thought before that I had a fear of heights, but I can tell you with confidence that I do have a fear of 3 story high ledges!  This took a couple of weeks since we both work full time and could only work on the roof weekends and evening. After that we went straight into play mode.  Within 1 week I traveled to Vegas for a few days with a close girlfriend of mine, M and I went to the sand dunes in Idaho to play on atvs with several friends over one weekend, and we went to Wyoming to visit my parents.  That trip was supposed to end with a day fishing, but due to some allergic reactions I was having I came home early without M while he finished out the trip.  All in all, it has been several happy/busy/full weeks.

Tonight we talked about paradigms that people have.  A paradigm is the way we see, interpert, and understand things around us and the world.   Now the class is a business class, but the conversation shifted to personal matters and examples.  As I sat there and absorbed the information in the class I could relate everything that was being said to our infertility journey.

We started ttc like any couple, we had a paradigm that we would have a family and although we had an inkling that our journey to our family might take us longer than others (because of problems I had associated with my cycles) we didn’t have any doubt that our dream wouldn’t come true.  As the years passed us by and we watched our friends and family start and add to their families our paradigm of our family shifted.  It included different ART that we would use, but it would be worth the sacrifice to get our family, because families come with sacrifice anyways and we just had to sacrifice more at the beginning of the journey than most other people did.  We had another shift in our family paradigm when our family dream dwindled to a family of 2.  We realized that this was probably our future.  M accepted it faster and with more grace than I did (still am).  As I struggled it really bothered me that other people couldn’t accept that we are just a family of 2.  It would grate on my nerves and emotions when people still wanted to tell me about every miracle birth or adoption story.  I felt like other people didn’t want me to accept our decision and I took it personally.

I have been taking this graduate degree program with the same group of people since January.  This is our 5^th class together.  We have gotten to know each other and it is more personal than traditional college courses.  As our teacher was having us introduce ourselves to him today (since our teachers change with each class) one guy mentioned that he is a new father to his 3^rd child this week, another guy brought up that he and his wife will soon be empty nesters, and towards the end of the introductions a third guy mentioned that they brought home a baby this week to adopt.  I could feel the evil green monster building in me.  The third announcement just brought the jealousy brimming inside me.  Yet again I don’t have a family announcement.  I felt like an outsider in yet another group.  I sat there for a while and kind of tuned things out while I blinked away the tears that were beginning to sting my eyes.  No I didn’t cry, it was just the threat of them.  This didn’t last long and I tuned back into class.

Later in the class, the idea of paradigm shifts was talked about and how shifting relationships with people from dependent to independent relationships with private victories.  When you are a dependent person what other people do and say affect your emotions and actions.  The goal is to become independent where you are the one that affects your emotions and reactions.  I realized that I have been waiting for the world to accept our childless paradigm shift, and I am the one that needs to accept it.  I have been waiting for acceptance and recognition of this shift which is my own internal battle.  I know that we have made this decision, but I need to really see it as it is, and all of a sudden I felt differently.  This is my life, and I need to take responsibility of my feelings.  I felt such a drastic change in my feelings where just a little over an hour earlier I was close to tears because of the helplessness I was feeling, where currently I was feeling powerful and in control of my feelings and my life.  Then as I was feeling this shift from helplessness to powerful this quote from Stephen Covey was placed on the screen.

                If you want small changes, work on your behavior, if you want quantum-leap changes, work on your paradigms.

I’m going to have to think more about this subject and this powerful feeling it is giving me.

Raising Kitties

Raising Kitties

Friday was desolate at my work.  It is the end of July and a lot of people are on vacations.  In the afternoon I found myself surrounded by 2 ladies that are now grandmas, and for some reason they both decided to let me know how they wished that they had opted to “raise kitties instead of children” and told me of all the hard times they are having with their grown children right now.

Even though I was glaring daggers though them as they told ME about the pitfalls of parenthood in MY cubicle area, they didn’t notice.

What can you do?

I took a deep breathe and realized that I have been talking about embracing the joy in my life and it’s time to start acting on it.

Here are my kitties I am raising, and how I do love both of my boys.

Both boys were born to wild feral cats in our area. The orange stipe one is 2 years old, and the siamese mix is 12. M got the older one when we were dating and the orange one was abandoned by his mother in our pump house in the field. They are both fixed, live indoors and outdoors, catch rodents and birds, and pretty much rule our house. We own 2 acres that they prowl. The siamese mix is ornery and hates strangers. He does cuddle to M or I, but only on his terms and when he deems necessary. The orange stripe is a purring and cuddling machine.   Our older cat was not happy when the orange one moved in, but they are now good company for each other.

So, even though this happened Friday and this blog post idea happened Friday (as soon as I stopped glaring daggers through my 2 co-workers), I have been too busy to post about it.  Raising kitties gives me the freedom to go to school for 8 hours this weekend, attend 1 bbq at a friend’s house, talk my sweet M into taking me to a movie, and spend a glorious Sunday at the pool with friends and then go get pizza and beer for dinner. 

Ah… the freedom of raising kitties!  This was a great weekend:)