Thursday, December 29, 2005

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.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

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.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

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.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

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.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

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 ...

Sunday, December 04, 2005

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.