The new year is almost upon us. I'm not one of those who feels compelled to make resolutions for change in a new year. Anymore, that is. But I do find that this time of year encourages me to engage in reflection.

Lately I have been reflecting on how grateful I am to have the life I live today. For years I journalled, and although I have since thrown those journals out, I often reread entries to the point that they are still etched into my memory. Those entries were most often filled with anger, frustration, pain and emptiness at how disappointed I had allowed others to make me. One of the reasons I have been engaged in this reflection is that I am realizing how completely happy I am in my relationship with HB. He has always said we could have fun in a ditch together....and it's true. He's just so easy to be with - it's not work. In the past, it was always work, and I allowed my happiness to be fully reliant upon another person. Not so much anymore, and HB often tells me that he is having the exact same experience. We just bring about the best in each other, and are happy to see growth, energy, interests, and activities in the other person's life. Holy cow ... we almost sound healthy!

I had a whole post composed that focused on Knothead and her manipulation of the last while. She is a highly negative person who thrives on drama and misery. I erased the seven paragraphs I had written about her and her recent hijinks because I realized that all I was doing was taking her inventory. Instead, I am choosing to focus on the happiness that I experience in my life today, and how grateful I am that I no longer require the drama and hijinks in my life to feel alive.

I am so grateful that I have experienced enough happiness and health to understand that the only person I can change at all is myself. I'm delighted with my husband. I feel no need to change him - well, except maybe the way he piles belongings on every flat surface in our home, but that's not really changing him now is it?

I may not be able to experience being a mom through my own biological child, but I have begun to experience the joys and trials of being a mom through Frodo and Mini-Me. As a matter of fact, Mini-Me and I had a bit of a set-to yesterday that resulted in an actual consequence, and yet today it was like nothing at all had happened. That's major progress for us. A year ago, that would have been good for at least three days of ignoring me. I'm grateful for that progress. I'm grateful for those two guys and their presence in my life.

My mother recently turned 75. I'm so grateful that both my parents are still here to enjoy life with me. My father absolutely adores HB. When they get together, it's like watching two little boys play. HB brings out the best in my father. I hear my dad laugh in ways that I haven't heard in years when we're together. They call each other just to say hi. I love that.

So ... although 2005 didn't yield me some of the things I wanted, I'm still pretty damn lucky. No resolutions for 2006, although I am still working on those next 20 lbs being gone and I want to learn to kayak this year. No resolutions - but I do absolutely plan to remain happy, healthy and engaged in bringing out the best in the love of my life.

Happy New Year ~ may 2006 bring out the best in you.

My Christmas Wishes

It's Christmas Eve. We have everything ready for our holiday celebrations. Although HB and I have only been together five short years, we've already established some strong tradition and practice that we both love during this time of the year.

The one practice that I love the most is our mutual refusal to get stressed out at this time of the year. The first year we were together, the kids' mother started to make a fuss about when the kids would see HB. She has a lot of family tradition that is important to her, and that involves the kids. We gave on that one immediately. It's more important to us that we're relaxed and able to enjoy the kids than it is to see them on the actual December 25th date. To us, that's only one short day of this marvelous season!

So HB will go see them for an hour or so this afternoon before he comes home to me. We play guitar and sing at an early mass celebration at the parish I've gone to for years, and then we'll go visit some friends who have an annual Christmas Eve open house. This year, we're adding Midnight Mass to the mix ... we want to just go and "be" at a Christmas Mass in addition to the one we sing at every year. After that mass, we've been invited to a traditional Cape Breton Christmas Eve party that goes on all night long! We'll drop in there for a little bit, before heading home to get some sleep. We've both been sick with colds that are threatening to knock the best out of us if we're not careful.

Tomorrow morning, we'll get up when we get up. We'll open our gifts from each other, and our stockings. We'll have some breakfast, and then we'll load the car up for the one hour drive to my parents' place. We'll have a full day of music, family, food and gifts there with my side of the family. My father absolutely adores my husband, so it's always lots of fun to get together with them.

On Boxing Day, the kids will arrive for three days with us. We have all their gifts under the tree where Santa has left them on Christmas Eve ... Santa also fills a stocking for them at this house too! The grandparents (my parents and HB's mom) all arrive, along with HB's sister, her son and various other friends and cohorts throughout the day. We cook another full dinner and enjoy the company of friends and family for another celebration. Inevitably the guitars and mandolin get broken out, and a good old kitchen party takes place.

We like it. The kids are not driven from house to house and family to family. They are much more manageable in terms of their excitement, and we all get to enjoy each other over a period of days, rather than trying to cram everything into one day.

I have lots of Christmas wishes this year ... and I will leave you with my Christmas wish list.

• That Cecily will continue to have a healthy pregnancy that results in a little person filled with all the awesome characteristics of both she and Charlie ... imagine the beauty of that baby;
• That Olivia will experience pain free days and be discovered by the rest of the world as the amazing artist that she has shown us to be;
• That Tiffani's home visit brings about exactly the results she wants;
• That Julianna gets that regular experience of lightness and laughter again that she has asked for;
• That Sara will continue to experience the honeymoon happiness she's currently living;
• That everyone on this list gets a moment of peace on this hellish journey of infertility.

I'd be lying if I didn't add myself to the list. I'm continuing to wish for the acceptance of what is to be for me in my life - as a stepmother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, employee, student (did I mention that I got accepted to the Master's program for which I had applied???), and if it's to be, as a biological mother. I wish for acceptance and strength.

Merry Christmas.

Since you asked

Thalia asked in the last comments why HB and I have chosen not to pursue ART or adoption. I've sent her this response in an email, but then thought I'd post here as well. I've addressed it once or twice through my blog, but usually in snippets, given that I tend to blog as I think. Wouldn't it be scarey to be in my mind?

The reasons are seemingly simple to me, but probably are more complicated at the root. This is a second marriage for both HB and I...and although my first one was only for a minute by mistake, I was involved with the fertility clinic at that time as well.

I had unsuccessful treatments there over the two years that we were involved. I sometimes believe that I tried to play God in my first marriage with all the treatments I underwent trying to conceive. I was so focused on getting pregnant, and having all the trappings that went along with being married ~ trying to force something that wasn't there and was never going to be there ~ that I lost focus on the reality that there would be a child brought into the world should I successfully conceive.

It was an awful marriage to an awful man that ended abruptly before the third anniversary. At the time people were saying "thank God you didn't have children with him". All I could think was "now I'll never have children".

It took me a while to think about it this way, but in hindsight, I believe that God protected me from having children with that man. This prevented another child from being damaged by him. He had two children from a previous marriage that he never saw or even spoke to on the telephone. They were lovely people, but I know that one has been in constant therapy, and the second cannot sustain relationships of any kind now.

All of my treatments and tests at that time indicated that there was no scientific or physical reason I shouldn't be able to conceive.

Four years later I met HB, and finally understood what true love, respect and relationships were all about. And we conceived for the first time in our first year together.

Now here's where the decisions regarding choice of treatment come into play. Every time I have conceived with HB, it's been naturally and without any assistance from medication or treatment.

HB and I both believe that the God of our understanding brought us together and saved our lives. That's a very long story that I won't bore you with right now, largely because it's not all my story to tell. Suffice to say that we have had many examples of direct guidance from the God of our understanding in our lives since we've learned to shut up and listen!

Because of what we've seen happen due to that belief, we've chosen to believe that God has a plan for us around our family and children. Although some might say that we were hypocritical by going for some assistance through the clinic, we aren't above helping out a bit again by accepting medical assistance. We strongly believe that we would be great parents.

We thought long and hard about even going into the clinic for medicated help to conceive this time (one year ago) but were glad that we did. However, before we went in, we had decided that we would not do anything more invasive than medication. I'm going to be 43 in February. We already have two boys through HB and although they're not mine biologically, they're mine from a loved perspective (most days...unless they're little terrors...then I blame that entirely on their mother's gene pool...hehehe). Add to that reality that I became obsessed with trying to conceive and carry before ... we did not want this to become the only focus of our relationship.

So that's why for us, we've made the decision not to pursue ART. As for adoption, it's not about having a family for us ... we have one already with Frodo and Mini-Me. It is about us having a biological child together. I have the greatest respect for adoption. My only brother was adopted into our family, and I'm eternally grateful for his presence in my life.

Sometimes I wonder if there's not something huge going to happen in our lives around the two boys and we'll end up with them here full time.....something that's not totally out of the question!

Having said all of that, should I conceive again naturally, we will be accepting every form of medical treatment possible to help keep the child to full term.

I have learned, through the many blogs that I read, how very personal the decisions required to build a family are for people. Our decisions may not make sense to others, but they work for us. I've had to learn to quiet the voices from the world and listen to the voice in my heart. Had I listened to that voice years ago, I would never have entered that first sham of a marriage, nor would I have done a million other things. I work hard today to listen to the voice within, and to make the kind of decisions it calls me to make daily. HB and I found a little ceramic sign that simply says "Follow Your Heart". It hangs at the bottom of our stairs, so it's the first thing we see when we come down the stairs in the morning.

These decisions feel right. Feels like I'm following my heart.

Your Will Be Done

I have hung up my basal thermometer.

I have stopped waking precisely at 6:00 a.m. to take my temperature.

Does this mean I've stopped trying to conceive? I don't know. Perhaps.

I do know that I feel as if I've chosen to stop obsessing over whether or not my temperature staying high at the end of each month could possibly mean we've accomplished what seems to be the impossible.

I know not everyone that reads here is a Christian, but HB and I have a strong belief in and relationship with the God of our understandings. I have prayed many many times in the last year about our infertility journey.

At first I would pray to be able to conceive.

Then I moved onto being very specific with the wording of my prayer. I would specifically ask to be able to get pregnant with a baby that I would carry to full term. Then I moved even more boldly to full term with a safe delivery. And then, brazen hussy that I am, I began to ask for full term, with a safe delivery, and that the baby would be healthy.

Nothing.

Lately I've just been praying that I be able to recognize and accept God's will for us around parenting.

I was home for a very short time this weekend. On Sunday it became evident that we had not managed to conceive again this month. On Monday morning, I put the themometer away in the bathroom cabinet and came back into the bedroom. I told HB what I had done. He just smiled and hugged me.

I love that man so much. Maybe I'm not meant to carry his baby to a full term safe delivery. Maybe God's will for us is that we are to continue to be each others' best friends, parent Frodo and Mini-Me, rescue and return stray dawgs to their owners, and travel through the rest of this life together.

I could accept that. Your will be done.

Reunited and it feels so good

I'm home for another weekend with a list of a bazillion things to do. We're not huge present givers but do like to do stockings up for each other. I got some very cool things at some of the industries I'm reviewing for HB's stocking ... it will be fun to watch him open some of these little gifts!

He had to play last night at a local bar. We went down and did the sound check together. I've become the band ear for sound check. Normally I love this job, but yesterday I was dead tired from having been on the road all week, and none of the guys showed up at the same time! So we spent two hours, levelling each one of the guys to HB. Lots of fun.

I then drove home to feed the dawgs. We were having a bit of snow so the driving wasn't a big whack of fun ... but nothing compared to the fun coming home at 1 a.m. after 6 hours of snow and rain had descended!

On the drive home, we almost ran over this beautiful boxer dawg who was running loose up the middle of a busy four lane road.

Guess who slept at the foot of our bed last night?

So this morning will be spent hanging posters, visiting vet clinics and trying to find this beautiful guy's home. He is very well trained and loved, so his family must be frantic this morning. I'm looking forward to reuniting them!

Then I'm looking forward to a little reunion of my own this afternoon if you catch my drift ...

Busy is as busy does

I'm just home for the weekend and trying to cram as much into it as possible. We have been:

• shopping
• wreath and bough gathering and decorating
• Christmas light hangers
• Christmas ornament unpackers and putter-outers (yes, it's a word in my world)
• up to my parents' place (an hour away) for a visit and out to a surprise dinner for my mom's 75th birthday
• to a dance for which only 15 or so folks showed up despite the fact that about 200 were expected

and that was just yesterday! I don't know how people who travel for a living all the time do it! I suppose you get used to it, but HB and I are just drinking each other in on these two short days together. Today we will go to mass, finish decorating the front deck, he'll head to band practice while I head into the office for a minute and then off to meet some girlfriends for an annual Christmas gathering before I head out again tonight for another week.

Yesterday HB told me that he had pretty much given up on us having a child. I asked him if he thought I was silly for continuing to take my temperature every morning. He said "you need to do what you need to do until you hit some level of peace with where it is we might land".

How true. How true.

Hormonal Harriet

This assignment that I'm on is going to be an emotional rollercoaster. I am tasked with reviewing a bunch of centers that provide day and employment services to adults with disabilities. Most of the disabilities are intellectual or developmental in nature, but there are also many of the adults who have physical disabilities.

This week we did the first two reviews. We have 28 in total to carry out, and each one takes a full day. I have a team of four who come with me. We arrive at the center, where the staff have been asked to make a presentation on what it is that they do. Then we take a tour of the center and meet the folks.

Twice yesterday I had to escape to the restroom before the tears flowed.

First, it hit me that I have been asked to lead this process that is so incredibly important. I have to get this right! I am being asked to make recommendations about changing this system in our province. I am being asked to make recommendations that will balance the political agenda (do the right thing in the public eye), the bureaucratic agenda (do the right thing in the public eye, for the people and oh by the way save us some money while you're doing it) and the people's agenda (help me to have a quality life and treat me with respect).

On the tour yesterday, we walked into a room where a session of music therapy was taking place. There were 35 profoundly disabled adults in this room....some on chairs, some in wheelchairs, some walking around. The music therapist was leading a medley of Christmas songs, and everybody had an instrument of some sort to play along. Some had sticks and claves, some had eggs or tambourines, and two had xylophones. It was an amazing sound. But the sweetest sight and sound was the joy in the voices that were singing along ... even if you couldn't make out the words because of speech defects ... and the sight of a non-verbal young woman shaking her tambourine, waving and shaking with joy as she made noises to the music. We then moved into the woodworking shop, where the guys spoke so proudly about the recycling bins that are made and sold at craft shows. They talked about how they loved to come to work, and how they had been able to help put new windows in their shop last month....and had we gone outside to see the new garage they had helped to build yet?

The other reason that it's so important that I get this right is personal. I realized that should I continue to pursue pregnancy as an option for building our family, we have a fairly high chance of having a disabled child. I say this because there is a lot of hereditary stuff in my family, as well as the obvious bits about trying to have a child at my age. I witnessed the impact of having a good service for the families of the folks I met this week.

I don't know how my heart and hormones will make it through 26 more of these reviews.

Absence and the heart

So today I leave for the first part of the Fantabulous Road Tour 2005. I will be home for one day this weekend before getting back in the car on Sunday.

I will be missing many things over the next few weeks. The obvious ones are HB, the dawgs, Frodo and Mini-Me. I will have time on the weekends with them, but it just seems to me that our weekends are always so full.

I'm also concerned about being out of the picture for almost four weeks. I was watching Dr. Phil yesterday (I know...don't even go there) and the show was about step and blended families. One of the stories struck so close to home. The 11 year old daughter was basically a surrogate wife (in the emotional sense) to the father. The new wife was complaining about no alone time with her husband when the daughter was around, and how the daughter and husband had a relationship that just took over the home.

That is often how I feel when Frodo is around.

HB still experiences bouts of tremendous guilt for having broken up this child's family. They have fallen into a pattern of interacting that sometimes disturbs me. This kid controls the adults around him ... except for me...which is why we don't get along all that well. I refuse to be controlled by a 10 year old, but then again, I'm less emotionally involved here so it's a bit easier for me to say that and stick with it.

HB, on the other hand, although an awesome dad, gets manipulated easily by this child. This child will be a master manipulator in his adult life, and I can only hope that he chooses to use the skill for good instead of evil.

What's hard about all of this is that it's quite subtle. I don't think he means to manipulate, nor does he consciously acknowledge the reality that he'd be happier if I wasn't around to interrupt his time with HB. But it's all there.

So me being gone for four weeks is going to give him a lot of alone time with HB ... which means that I will have to work all that much harder upon my return to reestablish my rightful place in HB's world for this child.

You know, I love HB with all my heart. I understand the whole thing about being willing to lay your life down for someone now due to this love I have for him. But if I could redraw my family scene, there are days when I wouldn't have step kids. I know that sounds awful and harsh, but it has its moments of truth to it. Some days it's just such a long walk. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other - knowing that it's all part of parenting. This walk will result in two well adjusted young men in a few years.

Don't think for a minute that I don't love these kids....I do. I just wish they weren't step kids. Sharing the upbringing with their mother, and not having a well established place in their lives. That's what I'd change.

What I'm learning is that you don't become a parent just because you've married a man who has children. It is taking years for us to establish this relationship. I am waiting for the day that I hear the words "I love you" from one or both of them. Or that they give me a spontaneous hug that isn't just for show.

In the meantime, I'll take my special moments with Mini-Me and hold onto them. It's moments like those that keep me pushing forth on this journey. The other thing I hold onto is the knowledge that these boys have the most awesome father in the world, and they have a pretty good chance of turning out just like him.

So I'll pack their pictures in my bag with me today, and just offer up a prayer that our little family won't suffer too much by a month apart.

Star Struck - edited

My husband's band was playing their monthly gig last night at a cool little bar here in our city. At the very end of the night, one of the bartenders comes over and tells us that Chris de Burgh, who we will be seeing in concert tonight, has been sitting quietly at the back of the bar for the last two sets.

My sister-in-law, who hosts an entertainment show on one of the tv stations in the area, was with us and wandered back to see him. HB and I, on the other hand, stood by our gear, giggling like fools. HB wouldn't go back, saying that the man deserved to be able to have a quiet beer without interruption. My sister in law wasn't convinced that it was indeed him ... but it sure looked like him, and I remember seeing a guy with a small entourage of guys who look like roadies, come in earlier. I didn't think too much of it as there was also a movie being shot around the corner that night, and I figured it was the crew coming in for a beer and to warm up.

Canadians. We're so frigging polite and considerate! So, if indeed it was him, we missed our chance to be star struck in person!

Edited to add: It was indeed him! We went to the concert last night (which, by the way, was beyond amazing!) and he came out into the audience on a walk about. I saw him and one of the crew together, and realized they were indeed the same folks that were in the bar the night before. We must have been their second stop, as he referenced another bar when talking during the show. How cool is that? HB's band didn't drive Chris de Burgh out of the bar with their music! Actually, when we heard the cover stuff he did in his extended encore last night (we were the last concert of an 18 month tour, so we got some extra goodies I think), we realized that he would have greatly enjoyed the music the guys play.

I score 12 out of 35!

I was reading this post at Julie's the other day. I wanted to post a comment there, but then realized I didn't know what to say that wouldn't sound like I was whining or bitching.

Because I think what happened for me when I read her post was that I realized...

I have given up hope.

I have given up hope that I will conceive and carry a healthy baby to term that will actually grow up as my son or daughter.

I have indeed given up hope.

I have even begun to realize that perhaps I'm entering menopause. I applied my Google U skills and found this website that lists 35 symptoms. Of the 35, I have experienced 12 with some regularity in recent months.

This sucks.

Mery Christmis

Nights like this make it all worth while.

HB and I had decided last week that we would take two boxes from the Operation Christmas Child campaign that is running at our little parish here in our community. They had to be filled and returned by Friday November 11, so we didn't have much time.

Frodo and Mini-Me are with us every Wednesday night. We've been having some real challenges with Frodo of late. He is displaying behaviours that are very self-centered, and indicate that he has a huge focus on money and material items. That's hard for us because neither are at the center of the universe for HB or I, and so we can't always relate. We also get frustrated with the "gimme gimme" attitude of entitlement that gets displayed frequently by Frodo, and has been fairly regular behaviour for the last four or five years, meaning that it doesn't look like it's 'just a stage' ... which is what we had both been hoping.

So....we decided to see if we could involve both boys in filling these boxes with us. And just to further torture ourselves, decided that we would take them shopping Wednesday night but that we had to all make a deal with each other.

None of us would buy anything for ourselves that night - nor talk about what we would like to be able to buy. Nothing. Not a drink, game, piece of clothing. Nothing.

What an incredible experience.

They each agreed to fill a box for a boy their age. So Frodo was shopping for a 10 year old boy, and Mini-Me for an 8 year old boy. The deal was they would pick out some items, consult with us, with the final decision resting with HB and I. We made sure that they understood the money in the can on top of our fridge was covering the cost, so we did have a bit of a budget. HB and I have a large cookie jar into which all of our change goes year round. In Canada that's significant, since our $1 and $2 are in coin form!

It started out rocky. We hit the toy aisle at Walmart and Frodo started with the "oh! look at that! I'd love to have that!" ... which morphed into "I don't mean now...but for Christmas". I'll give him this - he's quick. He soon realized that he could get the message across by saying "I think my kid would like this!"

We just kept up the mantra. "Who are we shopping for? No, I don't think a child in a third world country really could use the Star Wars dvd box set, but good thinking Frodo!"

We spent two hours and about $100 in the mall.

We found cool little toys (balls, cars that run on magnetized plastic ramps, a recorder), coloured pencils, books, t-shirts, socks, hard candy ... all of which were appropriate and could fit in a shoe box easily.

And we bought nothing for ourselves or each other. To the point that we had no milk the next morning for breakfast because I really had meant to pick that up on the way home!

When we got home, the boys each packed their shoe box. We held hands and said a little prayer, and invited each boy to add his thoughts.

Frodo prayed that the boxes would get there safely.

Mini-Me prayed that the boys receiving the boxes would love their presents. Then he sat and decorated the top of the shoe box lid. He wrote:

"Mery Christmis. Love your presents. From Mini-Me, age 8"

and I fell in love all over again.

On the road again

I'm touched that Angela was concerned that I hadn't blogged in a few days...I am fine. I've just had a lot going on.

For one thing, I've been busy getting my application in for a graduate degree program. I received a copy of an incredibly positive letter from my former supervisor today. In it, he made a very strong case for full sponsorship of the program by my employer. I should know whether I've been accepted, and whether my employer is going to pay for the degree very soon. If it all goes well, I'll be studying my butt off by January.

I'm getting ready to head out on the road for the next month, which really sucks. And I mean on. the. road. I'll be away for four full continuous weeks (home on weekends) before Christmas, and then another three continuous beginning mid-January. It's not even a case of getting to set up in one hotel and using it as a base. We'll be working during the day and then moving to a new hotel so that we can go to work in a different location the next day. Lots of fun.

Which kind of means that any chance for conceiving is out the window until maybe February for us. In case any one is actually following the bouncing ball with me, I started my period today. An eight day luteal phase...what's up with that? Peri-menopause perhaps?

The circle of life

I went for a long overdue visit to my GP yesterday. She's awesome, and has been my doctor for 20 years now - ever since I graduated from college. She's seen me through a lot, including both referrals to the fertility clinic, and our pregnancy. She also saw me through a very long bout with dysplasia back in the early '90s. I had the great fortune of being in that .1 percentile for whom the laser treatment does not work. The specialist I was seeing for treatment had the bedside manner of a monkey...no, let me take that back....the monkey on ER last night had better bedside manner than he did. I was terrified, alone and being told casually that I had crossed over from latter end severe to the first stage of cervical cancer by a man who was busy running between the four patient rooms he always kept going. He informed me that his preferred method of treatment in cases like mine was hysterectomy. I refused. I was 27 or 28 years old at the time, had not yet been married, and had high hopes that I would be a mother some day. A hysterectomy was not high on my to-do list at that time.

After three laser treatments and one cone biopsy that didn't work, I finally had a cervix strip which has kept me mostly cell free, except for one teeny scare about six years ago. I have usually been regimental about having pap tests - it's the best form of detection, and given that I was on an increasing schedule for having them for five years, they became standard fare for me at the doctor's office. I'd just drop my drawers out of habit when I would see her ... which was somewhat embarrassing the day we ran into each other the mall....hehe.

I got thinking that it had been a while since I'd had a pap - and sure enough, when I went to see her yesterday, she informed me that it had been two years since my last one. We assumed the position, but holy cow, it was the most painful exam I've ever had! She informed me that my cervix was hiding and hard to get at, and that from what she could see, my uterus looked tipped. What's with that???

We decided to do the whole enchilada while I was there, plus have a chat. I had a breast exam, internal, blood pressure check (which is always totally fine, even with my family history of high bp), bloodwork for cholesterol (uh oh), liver, thyroid, diabetes....you get the picture.

In short, I had an old lady check up yesterday.

Followed by a whole conversation about when we might want to start having a conversation about when HB and I will start working to prevent pregnancy. She had the letter from my June visit to the clinic which basically said there was nothing more that they could do to assist us.

She said that given my health, there's no reason to start thinking about it now. That it's reasonable to keep trying until I'm 45 ... which is just over two more years.

Amazing. I spent my younger years preventing pregnancy ... my middle years attempting to get pregnant ... and apparently I will spend more years preventing pregnancy.

To blog or not to blog?

It's been a fairly uneventful week in our household. I've been on the road for work. We dodged the 'perfect storm' that was predicted for mid week - the remnants of three weather forces (two of them tropical storms) coming together on the same day. Worked for me since that was the day I was scheduled to be driving the coast line home.

What I didn't dodge was this nasty cold that settled in just before I had to present at a conference on Wednesday.

Consequently, my temps have been up and down all week and the last thing I've felt like doing is having a roll with the lovely HB - as much as I adore him. So we're probably out of the running of this month. And next month as well. This project that I'm leading at work will have me on the road and out of town for about 40 days over the next three months.

I've been trying to keep my links up on this blog ... making sure that I'm moving those who have received great news of late, like Cecily to the appropriate list, and those who have arrived to their rightful spot in the links. It occurs to me that in the 15 months that I've been blogging, I've seen a lot of people move to different spots. Some have continued to blog about the new place they are at in their lives - parenting, adoption or preparing to adopt, and even for some - now blogging about coming to terms with not having children.

I wonder what I will blog about once the decision regarding biological children in my life is finally made for and/or by me? Will I even continue to blog? I guess we'll find out pretty soon.

Odd odds

So what are the odds of this happening?

This morning HB and I were headed to 11:00 a.m. Mass at the small parish here in our community. This is not the parish I usually go to because I've played the guitar at another parish since 1992, and even though it's in the city, I usually go back there. But this little parish in our community is quite nice - and there is a real, true sense of community there. It's one of those little churches that has people at the door, smiling and saying hello to you. We know a number of people that go here.

We walked in this morning to find the entry unusually crowded. There were at least eight adults we didn't recognize, and two of the women were holding small babies.

And as I said hello, the light comes on. We had walked into the "surprise! It's a baptism this morning!" mass.

Now don't get me wrong. I love my faith, and I love baptisms. But since we've been walking this walk, I do tend to get emotional at them. Now at my other parish, it's no biggie because I'm with friends, and have the guitar strapped on and can hide my tears behind it, should they come.

But this morning, there we were....two pews behind one of the families. We didn't recognize any of them. The dad hoisted his little boy up onto his shoulder, and that beautiful baby boy promptly locked eyes with me.

I decided then and there that I was not going to cry. I was going to be happy for this family, and I was going to pray for this awesome little boy as he received the sacrament of baptism.

And then the priest said "what name have you chosen for your child" to the parents.

Their last name was the same as ours. We do not have a very common last name, and it's not a name from around here - but there it was. This beautiful baby boy, being baptized in front of us, carried our name, and locked eyes with both my husband and I.

What are the odds of that happening?

Lessons learned

I'm thinking about this post by Mare, and the subsequent discussion in her comments regarding whether there are lessons to be learned as a result of infertility.

I was one of the commenters who said, quite honestly, that I've struggled to see what the lesson is in this infertility with which my husband and I live.

I first realized that I was having trouble conceiving in 1994, shortly after I got married for a minute by mistake. When that sham, which didn't even make it to a third anniversary, dissolved, I remember people saying "thank goodness you didn't have children". All I could think of was "now I'll never have children". Now I look back and agree. Thank goodness I didn't have children with that man.

Was there a lesson there? I don't think so. I'm ashamed to say that I'm grateful the treatments I was engaging in at that time didn't work.

Fast forward four years. I meet my best friend and soul mate. He already has two children, the youngest of which was born the year my sham ended. Without even consciously trying, we conceive our son in the first year we are together.

After we lost Brodie, I really did search for the lesson. And found none. I wasn't angry with God, nor did I think I was being punished, but I could find no lesson.

That was 2002. It's been three long years since I realized that in fact I could conceive. We've experienced several early positives that resulted in equally early miscarriages since that first big one. It makes me ashamed to say I don't know exactly how many - I think it's three, but once I started testing early, seeing positives and then getting my "period", I realized that I have had many late and heavy periods that were just like those I now knew to be early miscarriages.

Is there a lesson in all of that? Again, I can't find it.

What I do know is this. I am married to a most amazing man. Despite everything we have travelled through together - and there's been a shitload - my heart flutters when I see him enter a room. He wakes me up with butterfly kisses and giggles. He sends me emails in the middle of the day, sometimes with nothing else in them but the acronym "SHMILY". We read this story about the origin of the word SHMILY somewhere early on in our relationship, and just stole it outright, making it ours. I've had it engraved on his watch, and he's written it on many a note I've found tucked into my luggage when I travel. He is genuinely interested in who I am as a person, and tells me he is proud of me. He supports me and is my biggest cheerleader.

I can't imagine sharing this journey of infertility with anyone but him. He's not afraid to cry about it, but at the same time he's also the first to say he can imagine the rest of his life spent with the two of us not having a child. He rejoices at our positive test results when we have received them, and he holds me on the months that I weep. He shares his two awesome little boys with me, and shows me that we are already a family.

Is there a lesson in that? Yeah. Finally I know that good things can and do happen in my life. My marriage is living proof of that lesson.

Free Trade and the Wal-Mart

I had a moment today. I was at the Wal-Mart (yes, we're just hick enough here that we call it The Wal-Mart) where we know that babies and pregnant women lurk in every aisle due to the low, low prices. And truly ... babies and pregnant women were lurking in every aisle. Now I was having a good day. Good hair day. New pink sweater from Old Navy on, and my new shoes. Matching lipstick. Even got the lip liner on without looking clownish. I was kicking it today. So I was not about to let any baby bombard get to me. I was resolved to smile and have a good karma day.

I swear the Infertility Gawds are having a field day with me of late. They said "waaaaaatch...let's kick it up a notch today".

And so they sent twins.

Not just one set. Nooooo.

TWO sets of newborn twins at the Wal-Mart.

I managed to get by the first set ... no harm, no foul. Even managed to smile at momma. She was beautiful. Sure as hell didn't look like someone who had just birthed twins, let me tell you. In that moment, she looked like a catalogue model, with the little leather jacket and heels on, pushing her double carriage. I don't think I weighed as little as she appeared to at birth. Whatever. I don't know her story and am sure not going to be the one to judge her. Besides, it was pure jealousy speaking inside me at that moment anyhow.

I go about my business, picking up the many and varied bargains that one inevitably purchases at the Wal-Mart, and there they were - the second set of twins. Waiting for me at the cash register. The cashier that is serving me is cooing and gooing at them. I actually did this primal scream thing inside thinking "just check my freaking halloween lights and glow in the dark skull through so I can get the eff out of here" but my perfectly painted lips maintained their perfectly bowed smile the whole time I waited for her to finish and turn back to me. I endured all the comments about the twins while she was ringing through my bag of fake bones. I paid, left the store, and proceeded to my vehicle, which happened to be parked right next to another perfect mother with her perfect child in carriage, who was being approached by a friend in that parking lot who was screeching "loooooook at yoouuuuu! Looooook at that baaaaabeeeee".

You know what? I'm tired.

I'm tired of not being able to be sincerely happy for others. I'm tired of being bothered by this. I'm tired of feeling shitty because I feel jealous and have nasty thoughts in my head about people. I am not, by nature, a nasty person. And yet I'm thinking these nasty thoughts in the lineup at the Wal-Mart. I have sunk to a new low.

Last week my mother called from northern Ontario, where she is visiting her sister. She called because my sister told her I had stayed home from work, and she wanted to know if I was alright. I told her I was just having a really heavy period. To which my mother replies:

"Don't worry honey. You'll be finished with all that real soon."

Talk about feeling deflated. Knowing that I'm this jealous, barren, bitchy old hag that buys bags of glow in the dark skulls at the Wal-Mart (which, by the way, do NOT glow in the dark) who will never ever have a child of her own.

And then to add insult to injury, I went on line tonight to order some soap from Bath_and_Bodyworks. I was busily filling my 'shopping bag' with these, getting almost orgasmic at the thought of the box arriving at my home in a few short weeks. I went to checkout, only to find that they do NOT ship "internationally". Apparently Canada is considered international. Why the hell did I support a free trade agreement again??? And why can't some Canadian shop come up with the same kind of awesome soap in that beautiful little bottle???

There. I think it's all out of my system. I'm boycotting the Wal-Mart and obviously I'm going to spend time stinking until the Bath and Bodyworks people understand that Canada does not count as international!!!

It was the best of times....

It started to rain Saturday morning, and it hasn't stopped yet. We had a delightful Thanksgiving dinner with Frodo, Mini-Me and HB's mother whom we affectionately call MotherMom, on Saturday night. Frodo surprised us by asking if we could cook the turkey on Saturday so they could come share Thanksgiving with us. The poor wee buggars then had to eat turkey Sunday night at their grandparents' home, and again today at their mother's place.

Although it warmed my heart to hear Frodo tell his dad today that the dressing at our place was the best he'd had all weekend.

He doesn't need to know that the dressing came in the turkey now, does he?

Other things going through my mind today:

Martha was expected to participate in a pumpkin regatta in this little town not too far from me yesterday. At one point it was cancelled due to the fact that she couldn't get across the Canadian border, being you know, a convicted criminal and all, but our government found a way to speed up her paperwork. The poor folks of Windsor have been in a tizzy about the diva's visit. Well, this morning I woke up to the news that she had not made it after all. We were Martha-less on Thanksgiving weekend. I'm devastated.

My "might-be but probably not" chart woes from yesterday are over. My temp took a dive this morning and just for good measure, I pissed away another $15 at the drugstore on tests yesterday. Odd how you can literally piss away $15 with a pregnancy test, isn't it?

This is the first Thanksgiving in years that I haven't spent with my extended family. My parents are headed into their late 70's, and decided this was the year they wanted to travel and visit my mom's only remaining sister for Thanksgiving. It makes me kind of sad to know that our lives are changing.

I've had an amazing weekend with my husband. We went to see this movie yesterday afternoon. Us and the six other people in my city that had no other plans for Thanksgiving Sunday! The movie was filled with non-sensical violence, but the popcorn was good. On the way home, we stopped to visit friends before hitting the video store and stocking up on four no-brainer movies. We've spent yesterday and today watching movies and eating leftover turkey. Both are finished now.

The neighbours two doors down are bringing home their baby girl today. There are pink balloons blowing in the rain and wind all over their house. I marvelled at how sincerely HB was in his congratulations to the new dad yesterday, and sometimes wonder if I could just get to a point where I could be sincerely and honestly happy for others, I might be rewarded with a babe of my own. I'm not there yet.

And finally, I am in the process of completing a project that I've been working on since April. It's my portfolio, and damn, I'm proud of it! I'll be submitting it in application for a masters in public administration program. In my humble opinion, they're out of their minds if they don't accept me once they see this portfolio! If they don't, I plan to adopt my friend Greg Tamblyn's attitude and put NCW after my name.

It's all good.

Bob the Builder says "Yes, we can!"

It's the start of the long Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. I live in a small coastal community, right on the ocean. The air is heavy with rain and fog this morning, and promises to be so for the rest of this weekend. HB and I have no commitments, obligations, activities this weekend. We are ecstatic at the thought of having a weekend to just be.

I'm not pregnant again this month. I'm in an oddly ok place with that this morning. It's like I'm disentangling myself from this journey of attempted conception one step at a time. Last month I made the decision about not taking the clomid. This month I'm thinking about hanging up the old basal temp stick. The thought doesn't bother me at all. I feel like I've been moving to a place of que sera sera for a few months now.

The other night we had the kids over for the regular mid week overnight with us. HB had, for some reason I now believe was totally fate related, forgotten about this (we won't get into the fact that these kids have been coming over every Wednesday night for the last five years) and had scheduled himself into a meeting across town.

Frodo was totally distressed upon hearing that his dad wasn't going to be around for the evening, and decided that was it - he was taking his homework with him and going to that meeting with Dad.

Which left Mini-Me sitting across the table from me .... facing the prospect of a long evening alone with the wicked stepmother. (muahahahahaha)

We had the absolute best evening. The. Absolute. Best.

We played outside with the neighbours for the first hour or so. I helped him to build a fort, carefully constructed so that it would collapse upon him at just the right time. We came inside and made the lunches for the next day together. We studied his spelling words (I passed!), and made hot chocolate with mini marshmallows. Then it was bedtime - and he crawled right inside my heart by saying "I always read to my mom at bedtime. Can I read to you???"

He read Bob the Builder (Yes We Can!!!) and Pooh's Pumpkin to me and we did all the voices together (I do a wicked Eeyore, by the way). Then it was my turn to read to him. I read Brady Brady .... as he fought sleep, tucked under his duvet.

Last night, HB told me that their mother wanted to know what I had done with Mini-Me that night because before he went to sleep the next night, he told her that he had so much fun with Sandy....and he had decided he, in his own words, "needed to spend more time with me".

I have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend.

UPDATED TO ADD: To support Emily's theory that Fertility Friend is the work of the devil, I logged my temp today, after a negative Early Response test yesterday. FF immediately updates the data and shares this information with me:

Implantation Signs: Possibly Triphasic on Day 28

along with this oh-so-helpful explanation of 'triphasic':

A triphasic chart shows three levels of temperatures: pre-ovulation, post-ovulation, and then a second rise around 7-10 days after ovulation.

Some women with charts that show this pattern turn out to be pregnant. But many do not. blah blah blah stuff....If your chart shows a second significant thermal shift that begins 7-10 days past ovulation, Fertility Friend will indicate a triphasic pattern in the Pregnancy Monitor. A triphasic chart, however, is not a definite sign that you are or are not pregnant. It is just increasing your probability if you also have well-timed intercourse. Likewise, you can be pregnant and not have a triphasic pattern. Like all signs of possible implantation or pregnancy, you can really only speculate about it once a pregnancy has already been confirmed.

I have a vision of the Fertility Friend Gawds sitting there this morning saying "she's just beginning to accept the prospect of not conceiving....now waaatch as we play with her mind!"

Dinner, courtesy of my basal themometre

I've been using that online fertility friend thing to track what's up with my body, and I must say I'm becoming a bit fixated on it. It has tricked me twice in the past by saying I ovulated on thus and such a day, only to suddenly decide I actually hadn't ovulated on thus and such a day, but had instead ovulated on this or that day. I know I ovulate really late in a cycle, and then boom! In 10 days, it's all done but the crying.

But this month it seemed to be sticking to its prediction that I had indeed ovulated on day 11, and was dangling that "testing on Saturday is ok" date in front of me. I had one hpt in the cupboard that had been there for quite a while. So Saturday morning I got up and tested.

And no shit ... I could swear I was seeing a positive sign. Faint. But it sure looked like it was there.

I put it in the cupboard. We had Frodo, Mini-Me and our nephew for the weekend, and I couldn't really guarantee that I could discuss this with HB in private.

I finally managed to get to him ... still within 30 minutes or so of the test ... and got him to come look. I know he thinks I'm out of my mind. There was no way in the world there was a second line there. No way. Even I thought I was losing my mind.

I went out and bought another test. Used it. Absolutely, without question, no hesitation, negative.

The next morning fertility friend laughed at me as I watched the dotted line move forth 10 days.

I don't know why I don't just give my credit card number to the 17th commenter on this blog, and tell them to take themselves out to dinner on me. I'd get the same value for my money on that as I do from this fertility friend investment! (hehe...notice how safe I am with that offer...I never get 17 comments!!!)

The Day The Music Died

Three years ago today we experienced the death of innocence. I remember the day as clearly as if it were yesterday.

HB was teaching at a huge school, being led by a horrible, nasty man as administrator. I was working three blocks from the maternity hospital, and being followed by the high risk unit due to my "advanced maternal age" syndrome. We had a 3:30 p.m. appointment for our third ultrasound, and were quite excited about seeing our little boy again. I was particularly looking forward to it because, although we had heard his heartbeat on the doppler at our regular GP appointment two weeks earlier, I had felt little movement on his part during the last few days.

HB's Nasty Man decided that morning that HB would not be able to leave school early to both meet and drive me to the appointment, but rather that he would have to stay and coach the soccer team after school. Fortunately, HB took a stand and refused. Not in time to pick me up, but he did make it on time for the appointment.

I grabbed a cab, and found my way up to the clinic....absently rubbing my bump. I remember the taxi driver chatting away about his grandchildren, and wishing me luck as I got out of the cab.

HB arrived all in a flap, and we settled down to wait.

The nurse called us in, and got us settled on the table. The wand appeared and the screen flashed up.

HB was up by my head, holding my hand.

And the picture appeared on the screen. An angelic little boy, hands practically curled under his head...settled in a forever sleeping fetal position at the bottom of the screen.

I knew right away. The nurse technician looked at me, and said "I think we all know what we're seeing here", to which I replied "yes".

HB was frantically looking back and forth between me, the nurse and the screen. "No! No!" he insisted. "No, the baby is just sleeping. Look...he's fine. He'll be just fine!"

And then he too realized.

The rest is a bit of a blur. The crying. The phone calls to cancel a gig we had booked for that night...ever responsible the two of us are even in grief....the amnio to see if there could be any possible answer....the awesomeness of the nurse we were blessed to have that awful day.

And the walk back out to the car, and home.

I found a picture of myself this weekend. I was obviously pregnant, in the kitchen, with Mini Me and Frodo sitting at the table while I stood at the counter. They never even knew that they had a brother.

Ironic that as I type this today, the skies have just opened up and the heavens are pouring out their tears right along with mine.

Low Points and High Fives

I haven't been writing much ... although I've had lots going on this past week or so. I've been on the road a lot for work, and then was off attending a conference over the weekend. It seems like HB and I have been passing in the front foyer, and occasionally make time for a grope and such in the bedroom.

When I got home Sunday night, I didn't even make it into the house before he started to dump! He got me in the driveway and he talked and talked and talked. He had been alone with the kidlings all weekend and it did not go so well. I guess we've become accustomed to being a two adult family. There was a part of me that did heart flips when I realized that I do, indeed, have a solid place in this family, and that when I'm not here, there's an impact. So tonight, I sat with Mini-Me and helped with his homework while HB did the domestic dinner and lunch making thing. It was awesome. I didn't get a hug or anything, but I did get a few belly laughs, two high fives and one "that was cool Sandy". I'll take it.

I've had a few tear bursts around babies of late. I really thought I was so over that stuff! I saw the perfect little family at the grocery store yesterday. Mom, Dad and two kids under 2, wheeling around playing peek a boo. I did the pinched smile cuz I'm gonna cry thing, and avoided them for the rest of the shopping trip.

The day before that I couldn't help but overhear my coworker congratulating someone on their pregnancy over the phone. They discussed it for a long time. I left to catch the bus, and sat in front of someone who talked about her sister-in-law's miscarriage at five months for most of the trip home.

I realized tonight that I'm six days away from the anniversary of Brodie's death. Three years ago. And here I sit ... no closer, just older and a little bit slimmer.

In case anyone's following, I decided not to fill the clomid again this month. I know it's there if I decide differently. I just can't keep filling myself up with false hope every month, and every month I take the clomid, I just can't imagine why it won't help me. In a sick kind of way, I'm almost grateful that I'm not a candidate for any other treatment that we would have considered. I have a whole new sense of amazement at the strength of the women who pursue other treatments. Truly. Courageous, strong women ... all of whom would make the best damn mothers in the world.

So perhaps I won't get to experience a full term pregnancy. Perhaps I won't even get to experience pregnancy again at all. Maybe it's time to begin understanding and celebrating the mother role that I do have - and savour those high-fives.