I have a great job. I work with great people. The pay is good, and you can't beat the commute. I live right across the street! I can walk across the street during my lunch break and walk my dog and make a sandwich. If I had a baby ( if only if only...) I could be home faster than it takes some people to reach their corporate daycare in their big office buildings. There is only one catch, and that is the fact that the job is seasonal. I was so happy to just get a paid job in my field in this economy three years ago that working only 6 months out of the year didn't bother me. But now, I'm not so sure.
It isn't just the fact that I work only half the year that bothers me, it is everything around the title of 'seasonal' that is starting to affect me. One day I am responsible for everything, the next day I'm back to being just seasonal staff. I am too old to be starting all over again at the bottom of the heap. But years of infertility and taking care of my kids has put me there. Not that I would trade those years to be on top of the professional ladder, mind you, but I wish there was some middle ground. I keep telling myself "Next year I will apply for a full time job someplace else if I'm not full time here." But.....aren't six months at a great job better than a full year someplace else? Maybe. But last year when November came and I was home alone for the first time in 8 years, I just sat down on the stairs and cried. I'm dreading the end of the Summer. It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Two
Yesterday or thereabouts the bean would have turned two. There would be toilet training and tantrums. Instead there just isn't. On days like today the giant pile of what isn't weighs me down. I have hit a wall. I live my life normally most of the time, but every once in a while, like now, I am laid low by grief and it is so hard to get up. And it doesn't seem to get better. I am still vulnerable. Like a tiny car broken down in the middle of the intersection, I'm still easily broadsided by the pregnant woman in the library or the newborn baby sleeping in it's car seat in front of me in the check out line. Isn't time supposed to make this all go away? It isn't ever going to go away, is it.
Oh crap.
Oh crap.
Friday, April 26, 2013
What a pissah!*
*pisser. As in doozie...whopper....one helluva week*
Last week sucked. It seemed like the bombing in Boston and the explosion in West Texas were just the culmination of a lot of sucketage. And not just for the victims and survivors, but so many of the people I know in both the blogoshpere and the real world. It was just a hard, nasty black hole of suck.
My kids all had the week off from school. Which normally would make for a happy time, but this week was just not good timing. My husband had surgery on Wednesday, which was the cause of most of the internal and personal sucketage. (not to be compared to the greater suck which was external and shared with the world). His surgery was a minor hernia repair, but it wasn't so minor that he didn't need watchful care and nurturing pretty much around the clock for several days. I felt like I wasn't doing enough for either my kids, the dog, or my husband. He is a very good patient, but it was stressful trying to keep the house quiet so he could get needed rest, or to keep the dog out of the bedroom so as not to jump on the bed - or him! When I was outside with the dog I was afraid he would need to get out of bed. And the kids were stressed because they knew their Dad was hurt and they couldn't help. This was all an aside to the horrible bombing and the aftermath. My husband's extended family, his aunt, uncle, 4 cousins and all of their children, live in the greater Boston area, as well as friends of ours who live in Watertown. Upstairs in our bedroom, the TV was on grinding the same bits of news over and over. Downstairs on my laptop my friend was running commentary on the state of fear that had overtaken their town. It was hard to try and keep our kids happy in their little bubbles of playdough molding Wii playing ceiling fan drawing innocence. I wanted to take them and the dog and just fly kites and blow bubbles, but even that wasn't enjoyable because even the weather was raw, rainy, and full of suck.
So far, this week has been an improvement. They caught the bomber, the sun is shining, my kids are back to school and my husband is back at work. Lets hope that we don't see a week like this ever again.
Last week sucked. It seemed like the bombing in Boston and the explosion in West Texas were just the culmination of a lot of sucketage. And not just for the victims and survivors, but so many of the people I know in both the blogoshpere and the real world. It was just a hard, nasty black hole of suck.
My kids all had the week off from school. Which normally would make for a happy time, but this week was just not good timing. My husband had surgery on Wednesday, which was the cause of most of the internal and personal sucketage. (not to be compared to the greater suck which was external and shared with the world). His surgery was a minor hernia repair, but it wasn't so minor that he didn't need watchful care and nurturing pretty much around the clock for several days. I felt like I wasn't doing enough for either my kids, the dog, or my husband. He is a very good patient, but it was stressful trying to keep the house quiet so he could get needed rest, or to keep the dog out of the bedroom so as not to jump on the bed - or him! When I was outside with the dog I was afraid he would need to get out of bed. And the kids were stressed because they knew their Dad was hurt and they couldn't help. This was all an aside to the horrible bombing and the aftermath. My husband's extended family, his aunt, uncle, 4 cousins and all of their children, live in the greater Boston area, as well as friends of ours who live in Watertown. Upstairs in our bedroom, the TV was on grinding the same bits of news over and over. Downstairs on my laptop my friend was running commentary on the state of fear that had overtaken their town. It was hard to try and keep our kids happy in their little bubbles of playdough molding Wii playing ceiling fan drawing innocence. I wanted to take them and the dog and just fly kites and blow bubbles, but even that wasn't enjoyable because even the weather was raw, rainy, and full of suck.
So far, this week has been an improvement. They caught the bomber, the sun is shining, my kids are back to school and my husband is back at work. Lets hope that we don't see a week like this ever again.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Obtainable joy
I miss my dogs. When I'm at my loneliest and feeling blue, I miss them putting their muzzles in my lap. When I am running around outside with the kids, I miss them chasing each other, and always circling. They would constantly be keeping an eye on all of us like the good herding dogs they were.
I am sad that I don't have many pictures of them on my computer to share with you. One was fairly large and wooly, the other was medium sized with smoother fur. They were both black and white border collie mixes.
Today, on a whim, I went to Pet.finder and looked at collie cross dogs. There were so many it was almost overwhelming, even with the search narrowed down to young collie dogs in the North East. Thousands of dogs that need homes.
Could it really be this easy? Is it obtainable joy, or just a band aid for a broken heart? We had always intended to adopt another dog when the boys were somewhere around 7 or 8, when they were old enough to lend a hand in a dog's care. A young dog adopted now would be able to see them through until they went to college. Maybe...maybe. Right now I am looking at the adorable faces of just a couple and wishing I had one here to pat, and hug, and lick my tears.
I am sad that I don't have many pictures of them on my computer to share with you. One was fairly large and wooly, the other was medium sized with smoother fur. They were both black and white border collie mixes.
Today, on a whim, I went to Pet.finder and looked at collie cross dogs. There were so many it was almost overwhelming, even with the search narrowed down to young collie dogs in the North East. Thousands of dogs that need homes.
Could it really be this easy? Is it obtainable joy, or just a band aid for a broken heart? We had always intended to adopt another dog when the boys were somewhere around 7 or 8, when they were old enough to lend a hand in a dog's care. A young dog adopted now would be able to see them through until they went to college. Maybe...maybe. Right now I am looking at the adorable faces of just a couple and wishing I had one here to pat, and hug, and lick my tears.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Hoping for Hope
I would give my left ovary right now to just be able to HOPE for a chance at a FET. Not the hope that my lining would be good, that the embryos would thaw, that I would have at least one to transfer, that one would stick...but just the hope that I may actually do it.
I am tired of having the same conversations with my husband over and over. The last time I only mentioned that we HAD to go to counseling, that he had no choice, and he blew up at me. At the end of fight #whothehellisstillcounting he said that maybe he would consider going through with a FET, after counseling. It was like I had been swimming against a rip tide and I suddenly could see the shore, just for a minute. It was hope. But by the time I was snuggled in our bed, I realized that he was just putting me off again. And even if he wasn't, I can't trust anything he says.
This is so unbelievably unfair. If we were a fertile couple, we would have agreed to try after going around and around, and I would have ditched the birth control. Then after trying one month, he would have balked again. Then he would agree to try again. Then we would get pregnant. Then we would lose the baby. We would fight again, and he would agree to try one more time. Then we would have sex, and he would freak out! He would be screaming that there was no way he wanted another child. And he would tell me to take the morning after pill and rant and rave that he was forced into this against his will and that if I became pregnant I would have to have an abortion. WHAT? Hold on...that's illegal. But because I'm infertile, my embryos can exist in a frozen state at three days of life for all eternity. It's not right. I didn't flush birth control pills down the toilet, poke holes in condoms, or sleep with a random guy to get pregnant. It's not even like we got pregnant by accident, because accidents happen to fertile people, not people like us. He signed a permission form. He got his blood tested...including an AIDS test...which he had to sign. He had to give me our prescription card to pay for the medications. He had to watch our children while I drove to the clinic over and over again getting follicle checks and blood draws. And then, the icing on the cake, after he had his freak out and didn't want to go through with it, he spanked into a cup and agreed to have embryos created. GAH!!!
All I wanted was some hope. An actual baby would be nice, but the hope that I could actually get pregnant would be a nice start.
I am tired of having the same conversations with my husband over and over. The last time I only mentioned that we HAD to go to counseling, that he had no choice, and he blew up at me. At the end of fight #whothehellisstillcounting he said that maybe he would consider going through with a FET, after counseling. It was like I had been swimming against a rip tide and I suddenly could see the shore, just for a minute. It was hope. But by the time I was snuggled in our bed, I realized that he was just putting me off again. And even if he wasn't, I can't trust anything he says.
This is so unbelievably unfair. If we were a fertile couple, we would have agreed to try after going around and around, and I would have ditched the birth control. Then after trying one month, he would have balked again. Then he would agree to try again. Then we would get pregnant. Then we would lose the baby. We would fight again, and he would agree to try one more time. Then we would have sex, and he would freak out! He would be screaming that there was no way he wanted another child. And he would tell me to take the morning after pill and rant and rave that he was forced into this against his will and that if I became pregnant I would have to have an abortion. WHAT? Hold on...that's illegal. But because I'm infertile, my embryos can exist in a frozen state at three days of life for all eternity. It's not right. I didn't flush birth control pills down the toilet, poke holes in condoms, or sleep with a random guy to get pregnant. It's not even like we got pregnant by accident, because accidents happen to fertile people, not people like us. He signed a permission form. He got his blood tested...including an AIDS test...which he had to sign. He had to give me our prescription card to pay for the medications. He had to watch our children while I drove to the clinic over and over again getting follicle checks and blood draws. And then, the icing on the cake, after he had his freak out and didn't want to go through with it, he spanked into a cup and agreed to have embryos created. GAH!!!
All I wanted was some hope. An actual baby would be nice, but the hope that I could actually get pregnant would be a nice start.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
This too shall pass
I need to have some hope. I need something to look forward to. It is hard for me right now because I am a do-er person. I don't sit around and hope for things to happen. When I feel stuck (and boy do I feel stuck right now) I look around for something I can do about it. Which is how I got into this mess in the first place. Since there is nothing I can do about my current situation, I have decided to look back. There were so many times I have been down-in-the-ditch-low with seemingly no way out...and yet I'm here. I'm not in that ditch anymore. I may be in an equally nasty ditch of my own making, but if I made it out then, I can make it out now.
January of 2003 was a nasty spot. We had been ttc for 3 years, and had been undergoing ART for one of them. 2002 had been a whirlwind of doctors, tests, piles of medications...but only two actual cycles attempted. After the second cycle failed, a FET, my RE told us that he would not go forward and pursue any more treatments until I had my nasty fibroid removed. The only thing was that the fibroid was of a sort that had many tentacles reaching outward. There was a good chance that I would lose my uterus from blood loss. There was also a chance that it was cancerous because it was growing so fast. I wouldn't be able to go through the surgery until May, and then there would be months of recovery after that...if I had a uterus. I was already 33 years old. I didn't want to wait anymore. I didn't want to have surgery. I was a mess. But here I am now! I've still got my uterus, and it still works. I lost my job, I spent a whole summer pretty much an invalid, but it was worth it. I can say that now with my 20/20 hindsight.
January 2005 was equally depressing. After finally being allowed to do another round of ART, I was finally pregnant. But it was short lived, and I ended up using cytotec to end the pregnancy after 8 weeks because there was no heartbeat. I was terrified because I thought that the surgery had rendered my uterus totally inhospitable. We had some embryos frozen in storage, but I was afraid to try again. I began looking at our state's foster care website, and I began to have hope again...even if it wasn't the road to parenthood I'd been expecting. We had awesome insurance which paid for a limitless amount of cycles...and we had embryos in storage. We couldn't pursue adoption while leaving that chance up in the air, so in March we did a Hail Mary FET. It was both frightening and depressing, there wasn't much hope or happiness in it. But needless to say, it worked. By the end of 2005 our twins were born safe and healthy, and after 6 years I considered our TTC journey DONE. I was wrong, of course, but at least the hardest parts of the road were behind me.
There have been many other hard things than infertility to deal with along the way. Trying to buy a home comes to mind...it was really tough both times. Looking around at my house now I still can't believe it that we could afford this place. (I won't talk about all the frightening possible paranormal activity, or the mice, which are annoying but at least cute). And I haven't mentioned January of 2006, in which I was totally, utterly miserable from PPD with a dash of PTSD thrown in for seasoning.
I am here. I don't know what to do about my current state of unhappiness and helplessness, but this too will pass, and if it works out the way that I wish and hope for, how amazing will that be? Maybe next year I will be able to look back on this time and smile.
January of 2003 was a nasty spot. We had been ttc for 3 years, and had been undergoing ART for one of them. 2002 had been a whirlwind of doctors, tests, piles of medications...but only two actual cycles attempted. After the second cycle failed, a FET, my RE told us that he would not go forward and pursue any more treatments until I had my nasty fibroid removed. The only thing was that the fibroid was of a sort that had many tentacles reaching outward. There was a good chance that I would lose my uterus from blood loss. There was also a chance that it was cancerous because it was growing so fast. I wouldn't be able to go through the surgery until May, and then there would be months of recovery after that...if I had a uterus. I was already 33 years old. I didn't want to wait anymore. I didn't want to have surgery. I was a mess. But here I am now! I've still got my uterus, and it still works. I lost my job, I spent a whole summer pretty much an invalid, but it was worth it. I can say that now with my 20/20 hindsight.
January 2005 was equally depressing. After finally being allowed to do another round of ART, I was finally pregnant. But it was short lived, and I ended up using cytotec to end the pregnancy after 8 weeks because there was no heartbeat. I was terrified because I thought that the surgery had rendered my uterus totally inhospitable. We had some embryos frozen in storage, but I was afraid to try again. I began looking at our state's foster care website, and I began to have hope again...even if it wasn't the road to parenthood I'd been expecting. We had awesome insurance which paid for a limitless amount of cycles...and we had embryos in storage. We couldn't pursue adoption while leaving that chance up in the air, so in March we did a Hail Mary FET. It was both frightening and depressing, there wasn't much hope or happiness in it. But needless to say, it worked. By the end of 2005 our twins were born safe and healthy, and after 6 years I considered our TTC journey DONE. I was wrong, of course, but at least the hardest parts of the road were behind me.
There have been many other hard things than infertility to deal with along the way. Trying to buy a home comes to mind...it was really tough both times. Looking around at my house now I still can't believe it that we could afford this place. (I won't talk about all the frightening possible paranormal activity, or the mice, which are annoying but at least cute). And I haven't mentioned January of 2006, in which I was totally, utterly miserable from PPD with a dash of PTSD thrown in for seasoning.
I am here. I don't know what to do about my current state of unhappiness and helplessness, but this too will pass, and if it works out the way that I wish and hope for, how amazing will that be? Maybe next year I will be able to look back on this time and smile.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Hey, 2012, don't let the door hit you on the way out!
2012 was not the best year for me. It wasn't the worst, not by a long shot, but it wasn't great. I am glad to see it go!
The Christmas season was a lot of fun here. Aside from the moments of total melancholy on the 19th and the 21st, I was too busy preparing for Christmas, cleaning up after Christmas, preparing for in laws, cleaning up again, having a New Year's party...then cleaning up again. I had offered to have Christmas dinner at our house this year, but I didn't expect my mom to take me up on it. I was very happy she did. Focusing on getting everything I needed done took my mind off of things until Christmas.
I spoiled my kids absolutely rotten. It was the first Christmas I have worked and had my own money to spend since the twins were born 7 years ago. I took absolute delight in choosing gifts I knew they would love. My sister and mother in law also spoiled them, buying all three of them big Christmas gifts for the first time ever. Christmas morning was a crazy delight...and then I had to find a home immediately for three kids worth of stocking stuff and a giant pile of wrapping paper.
By 10:30 I had the turkey on the spit and in front of the fire. (the pictures show a chicken, the turkey looked exactly the same when it was done, only twice as big). The contraption that you see there is called a 'tin kitchen' and it is an 18th century cooking device. It is the best way in the world to cook a turkey, and incredibly easy to boot. We had 14 adults and 4 children for dinner, including ourselves, and it was a bit of a trick making enough table space for everyone. We ended up pressing every table we own in the house into service, including our computer desk and the boys' desk from upstairs.The dinner went amazingly well, but I was exhausted and glad to have the last of our guests leave at almost midnight.
Now the holidays are finally over. I took the last of the decorations off of the tree today. I'm so sad to see it go. I wish I had big plans for 2013. But I am left with a weak resolution to not be so sad. 2012 had some great times. There was my daughter's birthday party and the first day of school.
Halloween and the boys 7th birthday. But the special times make me sad, too. I walked down the street on Halloween looking up at the stars and just wishing that I could stop time. If I could just hold my breathe, would they stay little, just a little bit longer? I'm not sad because I don't appreciate everything I have, but because I am infinitely greedy. I can't get enough. How many more years will my boys let me hold their hands as we trick or treat? How many years will they believe in Santa Claus? I don't know. And I am afraid that I will spend the rest of my life bitterly resenting my husband and never forgiving him for taking my last chance.
I spoiled my kids absolutely rotten. It was the first Christmas I have worked and had my own money to spend since the twins were born 7 years ago. I took absolute delight in choosing gifts I knew they would love. My sister and mother in law also spoiled them, buying all three of them big Christmas gifts for the first time ever. Christmas morning was a crazy delight...and then I had to find a home immediately for three kids worth of stocking stuff and a giant pile of wrapping paper.
By 10:30 I had the turkey on the spit and in front of the fire. (the pictures show a chicken, the turkey looked exactly the same when it was done, only twice as big). The contraption that you see there is called a 'tin kitchen' and it is an 18th century cooking device. It is the best way in the world to cook a turkey, and incredibly easy to boot. We had 14 adults and 4 children for dinner, including ourselves, and it was a bit of a trick making enough table space for everyone. We ended up pressing every table we own in the house into service, including our computer desk and the boys' desk from upstairs.The dinner went amazingly well, but I was exhausted and glad to have the last of our guests leave at almost midnight.
Now the holidays are finally over. I took the last of the decorations off of the tree today. I'm so sad to see it go. I wish I had big plans for 2013. But I am left with a weak resolution to not be so sad. 2012 had some great times. There was my daughter's birthday party and the first day of school.Halloween and the boys 7th birthday. But the special times make me sad, too. I walked down the street on Halloween looking up at the stars and just wishing that I could stop time. If I could just hold my breathe, would they stay little, just a little bit longer? I'm not sad because I don't appreciate everything I have, but because I am infinitely greedy. I can't get enough. How many more years will my boys let me hold their hands as we trick or treat? How many years will they believe in Santa Claus? I don't know. And I am afraid that I will spend the rest of my life bitterly resenting my husband and never forgiving him for taking my last chance.
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