There's No Place Like Hell for the Holidays..

It has started. Our tree is up. The wreath is on the door...
And while waiting in line at Star.buc.ks, the depressing Christmas music playing, the emotion swept over my body, and I stood there, feeling the tears build up. Don't cry..don't cry. I chanted to myself. Then I had the angry urge to notify the baris.ta that if their desire was to depress the customers with the choice Christmas music selection, they were succeeding.
Instead, I stood there waiting, still as a statue, until he called my name.

Latte in hand, I thought it was going to be easier. But it wasn't. The grocery store was playing its holiday selection as well. Not as depressing, but when coupled with the newborn in the sling, the youngster in the stroller, the holiday chocolates displayed, it was hard not to make a bee line straight to the alcohol section. Nevermind the fact that it was only ten in the morning.
Finally I was checking out and trying to think if I forgot something: milk, cheese, nuts...
The problem was not that I forgot something. In fact, that couldn't have been further from what the true problem was.

In the car on the way home I cried. It wasn't over any one thing. Sure, my baby died, my womb was empty, but somehow that wasn't it. Maybe it is, I don't know. What I know is that I have never liked the holidays, Christmas particularly. I would cry as a child because my parents bought me too much stuff. I don't know why. But now that I have an actual reason to hate this time of year, I guess all bets are off.

I want to call it off; stop the madness of the consumerism, the debt people get into, the disappointment over material things they didn't receive. I guess that is the double edged sword of having a living child, I have to do Christmas this year. He deserves the joy.
So I will fake it for my son, because I wish him the happiness I cannot myself feel this time of year.

No wonder there are so many suici.des around the holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving

For those of you in the states, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are hoarding tons of succulent turkey, pumpkin pie and lush vino.

My mother and sister are coming over and I will spend time with just my son, Dh, my sis and mum. I am so grateful for the people I can count on. The people I can be myself around.

I am also grateful for all of you, who are hear through my wining, through the sadness, and hopefully happier times to come. Thank you guys!

What are you grateful for?

But what I meant was...

I don't even feel that desperateness anymore. When we first started TTC, I did everything. OPK, FM, Temping, and now I just don't have the energy to throw a lot of hope or disappointment at a cycle.

I guess I'm just in a weird place. You stand in line long enough, you begin to think your turn may not come up, but you keep standing anyways.


In other news, we are avoiding Dh's family (you know, the two preggos and now my SIL wants to make money so is going to be a surrogate for some couple on the opposite coast, you know because she had a 3rd child which they can't afford anyhow) for Thanksgiving and Dh is cooking up a storm. We're laying low....

Tired..

I'm tired again. I don't think I even have the emotional energy this month to think about the 2WW. It's day 7 and there was hardly a chance this month, so what's the point? Plus, because I got sick, I didn't ovulate until day 36 and that can't be good.

I am frustrated and feel like just throwing in the towel. I'm almost considering going on BC for a couple of months to get my cycle regulated again.

It's just so exhausting. I can't even think about it. I can't even POAS. I'm almost resigned to that fact that I will never get what I want, so maybe I should stop wanting it.

How do you guys keep the hope? It's been so long since I had a little baby swishing around my tummy that I forget what it's like.

I guess I have the Monday blues. :(

Island.

I find I cannot visit the darkness anymore. I choose not to. There is nothing to be gained from going there and falling into the downward spiral of darkness, sadness, self-pity. Nothing.
And so I plug along, like a train plowing through the darkness, working through the night to get to a destination unknown. I need to keep moving FORWARDS.

When I find the demons whispering words of darkness, I go back to that place in Hawaii, where we rented a beachhouse and spent time together on the warm-pale sandy beach, watching the whales and turtles swim off in the distance, my son searching for creatures in the tidepools.The feeling that you are on an island, away from everything known, everything to be planned. There is only that moment. And the moment is calm and peaceful, warm and content.
Yes, there is joy in feeling peaceful and content.

My island will always be there, centering me. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

Off with the old...

I have officially purged my closet of some maternity clothes. I have held on to a few of my favorite articles, but the rest I have given away to a soon-to-be mom I have never met, who is 4 months pregnant and has found herself recently single and without a clothes budget.

And you know what?

It feels good.

I'm not hoarding them in hopes of getting pregnant again. I'm living in the present and the present is that I am NOT pregnant.

She was shocked and grateful and said, "There's a whole wardrobe in there!". I didn't tell her the stories behind the beautiful blouses and dresses or the comfy jeans and big over-sized shirts. Sometimes, it's good to keep them in the bubble, you know?

Letting go of simple things makes me feel just a bit lighter.....but enough.

Go me!

Fuck....

I suck at friendships. I am even more awkward about it now. I accidentally told someone about her pregnancy and she got really angry. I am always the last to know, so just figured everyone knew already. She told me she just found out last week and hadn't seen anyone until today. I listened to her announce it to everyone as they came to the park today.
I have officially quit playgroup and have no friends.
I'll never be in that club of shiny happy people again.....
I'm irreversibly broken.
I hate this.

Okay, I'm going to do it....

I'm going to look into seeing an RE. Thanks to many of your comments, I have realized that this is not something scary and necessarily outrageously expensive.
After thinking about it, I have always had irregular periods, maybe I have a problem with ovulation. I am consistently ovulating after day 20 and after consulting Dr. Google, he seems to think that if you ovulate too late, the egg may be too old. I have tried diet, exercise, giving up caffeine, alcohol, supplements and still I ovulate late (often after day 30). So even though we could rationalize that I've been pregnant 3 times (twice on the pill and once the month after I went off of it) and I am 26 (Dh is 32), have had clean bloodwork on thyroid and progesterone, maybe I do have a little problem. Heck, I joke that maybe I can only get pregnant while on the pill (maybe it wasn't a joke after all). Since I've been charting, once I ovulate I get my period about 14-15 days after, and have passed the progesterone onset test, so I don't think it's that.
Bottom line is, it can't hurt, right?
I talked to Dh and he said, "If it'll make you feel better, I'm all for it". How sweet is that!?!

Thanks Charmy for making me realize that it doesn't have to be a big thing and could just mean I need to get my ovulation started. I'm getting recommendations as we speak. Wish me luck.....I hope it's something easy to fix...

You know the irony is that when I was in my teens, I had this overwhelming fear that I would not be able to have kids. Everyone told me I was very silly to think this, I had years of fertility ahead of me, but maybe I knew something was not quite right all along, that my periods every other month were not something that was normal. Of course when I got pregnant with my son, these fears went away, only to return after. But then I got pregnant again, so with physical evidence to the contrary, I had to set my fear aside. Of course, it has returned. It's not panicky and I am grateful I have one living child, but it's still there....

(ps I do have a good philosphophical post I'm working up in my head, but have not had the time to put it to paper...er...screen. But, it's coming..I promise)

Complaining....

I have a post I've been working on in my head, but now, I need to declutter.

Things to feel bad about:
-having weird brown spotting for 3 days now....I guess the good news is it started on day 30 and not 45 like last month
-"Friend" with two toddlers who announced to me about a month ago that they were "trying " for their third...just told me today she is pregnant. My knee jerk reaction was to say "Congrats" ..then look away
-I'm sick.
-I am apprehensive about the holidays and want to escape to some tropical island
-I bit my nails off today
-Being sick makes me eat Carbs and I feel like a fat cow.
-My house is a mess
-In my head I wanted to tell a student what a "f-*king, lazy, disrespectful jerk" he was...but didn't of course

Is this my life now? Having very few things to feel happy about and the rest having some annoying undercurrent of crapiness?

Day Off...

It's my day off and I'm here taking care of my sick kid. A year-and-a-half ago I would have been miserable. But today, it's nice to feel needed.
In fact, I've been content all day.

I hate that I'm a better mother because my baby died.

Getting back to my roots...

...well, root vegetables anyways. I've almost gone two days without meat. Yay! I'm trying the fertility diet which reduces carbohydrates (which I already was doing), increases vegetables (which I was already doing) and limit animal products.
I have also miraculously switched from coffee to tea. Go me! I am also exercising consistently still at about 4 days per week for 40-50 min.

I'm trying to ignore the fact that it is CD24 and I haven't ovulated yet (last month was CD 31). But, since I am consistently ovulating late, is there something that could be wrong? I have had irregular periods my whole life-not too irregular, but mostly just longer than average cycles, like now.
I think I am doing everything right. I am eating healthy, exercising, taking vitamin and herbal supplements, and sleeping(7-8 hours at night and usually an hour nap during the day). So what is the deal?

I want to be pregnant so I don't have that sickening feeling of envy that comes when I see a preggo or newborn. And yes, it will go away when I get pg (see, me being optimistic about the "when"). The only reason I was able to withstand my SIL's baby shower this summer was because I was pregnant too(even though no one knew). So I know it goes away.

Originally, we were going to avoid people this holiday season, but then Dh came up with the brilliant idea to mess with them. If they ask when they're going to get another grandkid or greatgrandkid etc., say, "no, we're done." or "one's enough" or "we don't think it's economically responsible to have another in these trying times"... and then watch their jaws fall to the ground. Muwahaha. This I think I could do. Maybe then they will stop asking me and expecting me to be a breeding machine for their genetic information. We shall see.

How about you? How are you planning to deal with the holidays?

Another Reminder....

Displayed in the breezeway at my son's school, some of the older kids have assembled their own altars for Dia De Muertos, the Hispanic holiday celebrating the return of spirits of loved ones. They were colorful with candied skulls and candles and pictures of loved ones who were no longer with us. My eye was drawn to the picture of the one with the smiling baby that was maybe a month or two old.

Someone in the school had lost a baby brother or sister. Some family had to say goodbye to their baby too, proving that db moms are all around us. There weren't any names on the altar so I don't know whose it was. But it was there. I envy the month or two they had shared with their little one, but still, I was sad they had to say goodbye.

I'm sure others who see the altar will wonder what happened, or how they could prevent such a tragedy themselves, or how long ago it was; but all I thought was I wonder who it is and how they are coping. We don't ask all the 'how' questions because we know it matters little how it happens, because it just happens. Babies die all the time, and we still haven't figured out how to stop that. And we seldom ask "how long ago" because we know that our love and our loss are eternal. We will forever long for our babies.