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.