I got the results back from my karyotyping and recurrent loss shenanigans, and … there was nothing. While the fetus showed chromosomal abnormalities (a thought I found strangely comforting), they were/are mostly anomalous and not likely the result of a carrier issue. Thrombotic panel? Negative. Fifteen (15!) other blood tests? All normal.
What we appear to have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a case of crappy luck.
My feelings on this are understandably mixed. On the one hand, I mean, HOORAY! There’s nothing wrong with us, and all signs point to us being able to have a healthy pregnancy down the road. When I balked about my age (35), the nurse actually laughed and said, “You’re 35, not 45, Jonna. Most women we see at your age are trying for their FIRST baby.” Which, you know, comforting, and also true. The east coast is not known for its young mothers.
On the other hand, I really wanted it to be something we could fix easily. Which, haaaa, easily, as if such a thing exists even if there’s an issue. But I really wanted it to be MTHFR or Factor V Leiden or hell, I was even hoping for lupus antibodies at this point. But you know, instead it was probably a bum egg or an issue with all that dividing and multiplying and busy work that embryos have to do, and that is … frustrating and terribly normal. And scary, because, you know, it could happen again. It MIGHT happen again. I’m 35, and my eggs are what they are, and it’s … oh, blergh.
I know, right? Two miscarriages, so what? People go through worse. But it sucks, it sucks, to think about having to go through it again, assuming that the chances are exactly the same as they always were — which is to say that statistically, my chances of having a miscarriage the third time are not much higher than a first-time pregnancy. You’d think this would be comforting, but instead, it just means that I’m unprotected, as illogical as that sounds. Having two miscarriages does not statistically protect me from a third. My body doesn’t care whether it’s my first or my third, it just goes on as though everything is fresh. Statistically, each pregnancy is its own entity, and statistically — most of the time, anyway — they can’t find a reason for it, it just is.
Well, it means I just have to buck up, grow some balls and keep at it, is what it means. After all, is that not the quintessential lesson of parenthood, in all forms? I don’t know why all ovulation kits don’t bear a surgeon general’s warning that this shit is not for the weak, that once you start down this path, you are essentially fucked, in every possible meaning of the word.
We went to playgroup today and Sam wore a helmet for a rather significant portion of the morning. She picked up her friend Molly’s bike helmet, insisted on putting it on to ride the motorcycle, then kept it on for pool time, swing time, water table time. She wore that stupid helmet and she looked ridiculous, and my heart sort of shattered for her then, because God, there’s my kid, wearing an absurd-looking helmet, but she doesn’t know how silly she looks, she just wants to wear the helmet because she thinks it’s cool. She’s doesn’t know it’s not cool, and if she did, she doesn’t care, because at two, she’s not self-conscious about anything. She sings along to Elmo’s World in the most off-key voice you’ve ever heard, and when she sees a bunny, no matter how many times you tell her to be quiet, she immediately screams, “MOMMY, ITSA BUNNY! LOOK! LOOK!” and goes excitedly lumbering towards it.
I just … you know, I’d do anything for her. Anything. I’d have the guts to do anything if it meant she could have a better life. And if I apply the same logic (however flimsy the application may be) to my future children, well, I guess I can at least muster the guts to keep trying for them to be born, I figure. (FLIMSY CONNECTION, RIGHT? I KNOW.)
It’s going to take a little time, though, I think.
Happy Thursday!
*Badly Drawn Boy
July 13th, 2011
I took last week off just to kick back, enjoy summer and catch up on some stuff, if by “stuff,” you mean, oh my God everything. We went to parades! Barbecues! Nantucket!
Yes, we saw Meredith and family last week, and oh, man, I just love them so. Unfortunately, I took jack for photos, so you’re just going to have to view Mer’s, which includes a photo of our children KISSING. Felicity is a dream, and did, quite literally, follow Sam around whisper-yelling, “SHAM! SHAM!” Her little face is this amazing mix of everyone in their family — I could see Joe, Mer’s parents, Meredith. It’s not often that a kid is such a perfect physical reflection of everyone who loves them, but she really is.
It’s a hideous thing when your friends don’t live near you, and I hate that our kids won’t live near each other to grow up and poke each other in the eyes in greeting for as long as they live at home. Meredith, too, as always, makes me feel normal and sane just in being near her for five minutes. And Joe. HA! Joe had Sam wrapped around his finger the moment he picked up and ant, just for her, and let it wind between his fingers while she screamed in excitement, “LOOKIT MOMMY! It’s an ANT!” followed by, “Joe is so cool.”
I am unfortunately (fortunately?) blessed with a child who, like her idol Muno, thinks bugs are the bomb. An hour doesn’t go by in our house where she’s not screeching from her playroom (a converted patio, now a sunroom and its former patio nature attracts more bugs than the rest of the house), “MOMMY! MOMMY! IT’S A SPIDER!” Following this excited declaration, I either sweep up the spider in question to, um, put it down for a nap in night-night (what?) or inform my precious offspring that it’s a fuzzy or a piece of lint. “It’s a FUZZY,” she says with total reverence. “A FUZZY!” As though this stray piece of flurn is a new species of bug, waiting to be discovered and documented.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am enjoying the hell out of this summer with my kid. I really am. We’re spending most days outside, covered in sunscreen, sweat and the mist of whatever water-type attraction is in closest proximity, even if it’s just the $10 baby pool I got at BJ’s (totally a store, not a euphemism). This year, one of the smartest things I did was to get a season pass to Davis Farmland, because we’ve spent at least two days a week there, feeding the goats, cows and sheep that, um, roam free, for serious (“ANIMALSGOATS!” all one word, just like that), hitting the splash pad and getting ice cream before we play in the bubble pit. (There is a bubble pit. I KNOW.) When we’re not there, we’ve been hitting playdates galore, and one of our good friends owns (OWNS!) a near-regulation size bounce house, and there has already been bouncing, and promises to be a lot more.
I tell you something, for as much drama as they bring, two-year-olds are basically advertisements for why people should have children. I’m having so much fun with this kid lately. She’s verbal enough that communication is rarely a source of frustration anymore, super-sweet and affectionate and is at a stage where I am not only her favorite person in the world for things like food and comfort, but conversation and hanging out, too. It’s so obviously fleeting — hell, she’s going to SCHOOL in the fall — but I just want to freeze time and make this summer go on as long as possible.
I’ll see you more this week, but for now, I’ve got to crash. Two parks, a trip to Davis, some pool time and a long walk in the neighborhood (ALL TODAY) tuckered me out, although it barely made a DENT in my child’s energy level, WHAT THE HELL?
Happy Tuesday!
*Jesca Hoop. Usin’ it again!
July 11th, 2011
Whenever Adam or I is at a drugstore without the other, we usually pick up a treat for the other person — you know, like a magazine or some Starburst or something little and lame. A few times, recently, he’s brought me home Cosmo. This tickles me on a thousand levels, because I can’t remember a time that I ever bought Cosmo on the reg, but when I DID, I was most definitely in my 20s, and likely the EARLY portion of the decade. How else could I put up with “reader questions” such as this gem, in the beauty section?
Q: What kind of jewelry should I wear with my bikini?
A: Colorful feather necklaces! They’re in and their tropical vibe is perfect for a day at the beach or pool. Layer on a few!
YOU GUYS. Jewelry. With a bikini. I CANNOT EVEN. Feather necklaces. With a bikini. And, I’m guessing, horridly high platforms and full make-up a la Gretchen Rossi, which means that the vast majority of Cosmo readers are living a far more glamorous life than I was. Or it’s aspirational bullshit. Yes, that’s it. ASPIRATIONAL BULLSHIT.
(I mean, right? Do YOU wear feather necklaces with your bikini?) (Is it wrong of me to laugh?)
It then goes on for an entire magazine, telling you how to meet, hook and please your man (give him extended orgasms!), while at the BACK of the magazine, explaining that sometimes, grooms kill their brides on the honeymoon. What makes them do it? AN IN-DEPTH LOOK. So meet him! Hook him! Give him extended orgasms! BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE, DO NOT LET HIM KILL YOU. GROOMS ARE DEADLY.
It’s a wonder ANYONE survives their twenties, really. The way Cosmo paints it, it is both frivolous and fraught with danger, in equal measure. And that’s probably the way it felt for me, too, but I will concede that I rarely wore a bikini, and if I did, I SURE AS SHIT was not contemplating what kind of JEWELRY to wear.
Although the murderous trajectory WOULD explain Adam’s recent addiction to the Investigation Discovery channel, wouldn’t it? He’s trying to figure out how to get away with it, Murder by Numbers-style.
(Remember that? With Ryan Gosling, who then dated Sandra Bullock? Also, Michael Pitt, who was SO GROSS back then, but is strangely attractive, albeit not my type, in Boardwalk Empire?)
Ahhh, Cosmo. I have four back issues to read through and catch up on the latest vibrator technology AND learn about sociopaths whose sole purpose in life is to stalk and kill young women. Perfect.
Meanwhile, I have TOLD y’all that I’m reading Discovery of Witches and I think you should ALL read it and then join me as I, quite literally in the actual definition of the word ‘literal’, FAN MYSELF WITH MY KINDLE, because Matthew Clairmont makes Edward Cullen and Eric Northman look like WEE LITTLE BOYS with no SKILLZ.
(FAN MYSELF WITH THE KINDLE.)
I’ve got to go to bed, because witnessing some ABSURDLY ABSURD Twitter drama (WHY?) has kept me up far too late, but I’m going to the eye doctor tomorrow, and am seriously considering prescription sunglasses. The older I get, the drier my eyes get, and I CANNOT TAKE it anymore, nor can I take NOT wearing sunglasses. On the one hand, prescription seems like a reasonable solution. On the other, let’s be honest, I BREAK THEM ALL THE TIME. The Target ones anyway. I mean, would I be ANY GENTLER with prescription ones?
Help me, Internet.
*Corey whatsisface Hart. SRSLY
June 29th, 2011
The weekend kicked off with thunderstorms and a 5 a.m. Sam wake-up, and honestly, if you’d told me years ago that someday I’d consider 7 a.m. to be sleeping in, I, like everyone else, would have laughed in your face! But when Adam got up with her Sunday while I slept in, I eyed him with envy, “You got 7:15!” I accused. “That’s so LUXURIOUS.”
Obviously, she’s no longer sleeping until 8 or later like she used to. Oh, those halcyon days of yore! I DO have a very important Life Tip, however: If you go to bed earlier, the mornings are more pleasant! Free advice from me to you!
I had a few bizarrely disjointed thoughts that wouldn’t leave my head this weekend that seem related, but I … I’m not sure they are, nor am I really positive of any takeaways up in here. But you know, these FEEL like lesson-learning situations, but I’m not sure they actually ARE.
THING THE FIRST
I used to work with a woman who claimed to be “heavy” in high school, and it really shaped who she was. Mind you, her pictures from that era were of a kid who was a size 12 or 14 at most, so it’s not like she was really all that heavy at all. But we’re all different, and I got the impression that for her, her weight really shaped her high school experience. And there was this GUY, you know, That Guy we all have? That guy she was always madly in love with, but was not all that into her, but was that unattainable GUY? The guy she hooked up with a few times, who was on the high school A-list, while she was … not, and oh God, I might as well be explaining that WATER IS WET, because you all know what I mean.
By the time I knew her, she was probably a size 4 sopping wet and honestly, she was (and I’m guessing still is) one of the most beautiful people I’d ever met in person. And she was smart! And funny! And all-around fantastic and a good, pure person and … God, she just had NO IDEA. None. And everywhere we went, these really smart, attractive, accomplished men would fall all over her, and she constantly — constantly! — rebuffed them, not because she wasn’t interested, but because on some level, she believed she wasn’t worthy. After all, she was the Fat Girl, right?
A few years later, who comes sniffing back around? That Guy, who is now so far from A-list, I don’t even know if he’s still in the alphabet. He was unemployed, overweight, generally as douchey as ever, but OH GOD, if things didn’t end up going in such a way that she MARRIED HIM, COULD YOU DIE? They’re married. It still makes me want to take boiled forks to my eyelids.
THING THE SECOND
I was listening to Kiss 108 — the allegedly hip, young-people’s station for you non-Bostonians — and Jennifer Lopez came on the radio (ON THE FLOOR OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP) and I realized that I could never be a pop star like her, because GOD, it means taking yourself seriously enough that you have to practice looking Serious and Sexy in the mirror, and these are things I could not do with a straight face. I love me some JLo on American Idol, and that song sure is, um, catchy, but if you watch her in ANY video, she’s always so GODDAMNED SERIOUS, with the Cheekbone Face and the whole thing, and … yeah.
Ke$ha, on the other hand, does NOT take herself seriously, and is painfully endearing in the process. However, she is also one concert away from peeing in her pants a la Fergie, because, well, she’s taken the whole “don’t be serious” thing just a SMIDGE too far. I don’t know about your world, but Ke$ha’s seems to include a lot more glitter than mine does, unless it’s of the craft variety.
I just completely lack the ability to take myself seriously. Completely.
And now that I’ve written it all down, wow, there is really nothing deep to take away from either of those things, except that you — well, we all, really — need to strike the perfect balance between taking yourself seriously enough and having the confidence to NOT marry the asshole, but not SO seriously/overconfident that you find yourself making JLo cheekbone faces in the mirror, right?
I DO think, however, that I have a tendency to do what my colleague did, which is to see myself ONE way, and one way only, and I often wonder how many opportunities I’m missing out on by not looking at other angles. I certainly don’t mean in the husband way — I did quite well there, thank you — but in OTHER ways. I have a tendency to dismiss things as “not me” or lack the guts to try something simply because I don’t think I deserve it, or because that’s not the way things have gone in the past. I think I’m often so afraid of going all JLo’s cheekbones on people that I don’t try for things outside of my comfort zone that might seem incongruous with who I thought I was.
But honestly, you guys, you KNOW Jennifer Lopez, like, PRACTICES HER FACES IN THE MIRROR and shit, and I just … come on.
Thus ends the disjointed weekend deep thoughts that are so absurdly disjointed and ridiculous that I am embarrassed for myself. But have a great Tuesday!
*Kesha. Yes, I am not kidding, I … I love her.
June 27th, 2011
Well! As it turns out, my tubes ‘n utes are all clear. Or at least, they are now. I got the old song and dance about how I’m getting an extra fertility boost, thanks to tubes that are freshly flushed! And then I had to explain that no, really, GETTING pregnant is not my problem, man, so even if my tubes are lubed up with an entire gallon of baby sauce, it’s KEEPING THEM that seems to be an issue. Or isn’t. Oh, I don’t even know anymore. Two miscarriages could mean DOOM! and BAD THINGS! or it could just be dumb-shit luck. You don’t know.
What I DO know is that despite Julie’s terrifying warning to me that the HSG was the single most painful gynecological procedure she’s ever had (AND THIS IS JULIE, PEOPLE), it … well, it was pretty much not that bad. I thought the whole washing of the cervix (with special soap and a … brush?) was going to be painful, along with the insertion of a balloon (YES REALLY) and a catheter (NOT THAT KIND) was going to hurt like a bitch, but instead, I felt nothing. “You’re done?” I chirped hopefully. “Uhhh, not at all,” came the reply.
It was a crazy surreal experience — and one that I now CLEARLY remember having before, albeit in a much different setting — having dye shot through my uterus and tubes and watching it go sliding on in as I, um, felt it, in the form of creepy, awful cramping. Not super-painful, necessarily, just CREEPY, knowing that there was this bright-orange iodine solution causing my discomfort and I could actually WITNESS IT. I suppose it’s why I never wanted to stick my hand down there while I was in labor, nor did I have any interest in the mirror. I’m cool with pain, so long as I don’t actually see where it’s coming from. Because EW.
What turned out to be much more miserable was the recurrent loss blood work-up I had done a full two hours later, which involved so much blood that they treated me like I was a donor. Juice, cookies, the whole nine yards. It was … kind of absurd, woozy-making and resulted in a butterfly-shaped bruise and a sore arm. Dye through the utes? Painless. Bloodwork? HOURS OF AGONY. WTF.
I might find out what, if anything, is going on as soon as tomorrow — at least part of the story, anyway — and I’m both nervous and excited and a little freaked out overall. I have no idea what’s going to happen. I have no idea if I’m 100% ready to get back into this circus. I know that I’ll wait at least a few months before hopping on the train, because you guys, I’ve been pregnant, or recovering from being pregnant, since last November. It’s JUNE. That’s eight months of my body going through a shit-ton of roller coasters, both physically and emotionally, and it’s … well, it’s a ride I am ready for the RESULTS of, but not the actual RIDING THEREOF. What I would like to do is be put into a coma during any future pregnancies — oh, and put Sam on ice, too — and then wake up and resume my life with two children, unaware of the process of getting there entirely.
Also, let’s be honest, I’ve just lost thirteen pounds through some serious blood, sweat and sinuses. I’m down a pants size. Am I all that jazzed about getting into a pair with a waistband that can only be described as VOLUMINOUS?
(Well, kind of. MAN.)
I tell you what this whole thing has cured me of: any desire whatsoever to have a third child. Once I have a second, God willing? DONE. DONE. DONE. So hilariously finished, I can’t even tell you. I don’t have the stomach for this. I cannot imagine doing this a third time. I can’t. Once was worth it, OBVIOUSLY. Twice is something I believe strongly in and want desperately. I know I can’t guarantee how I’ll feel a third time, but after this? HAAAAA NO. I am somewhat grateful that I feel this way, because I think two is an appropriate limit for me, time-wise and finance-wise, and yet honestly, I love being a mom so goddamned much that I would legitimately consider having an entire basketball team of them if it were remotely practical for us. And you know, if I’d started procreating at 23 instead of 33.
The other thing is, dude, the babysitter. I love her, Sam loved her, she emptied my dishwasher (?!) and it was perfect. I COULD GET HOOKED ON THIS. I find myself wanting to push Adam to get a major promotion so that we can hire someone more often without requiring me to work! I could have a nanny AND be a stay-at-home mom! Real Housewives of Boston’s Western Suburbs, here I come! But seriously, she was fantastic. And surprisingly, she did NOT abscond with my daughter! Whaaaaat?
Listen, I hope you have a great weekend. I’ll be catching up on email and reading A Discovery of Witches, which I LOVE.
*Avett Brothers
June 23rd, 2011
First of all, I found your comments FASCINATING re: having a childcare provider bring her own kids to the job. It’s funny, I listened to all of them, and thought of the few ways that I’d be cool with it, and none of them presented themselves to me — i.e., the nannies who had babies and then BROUGHT their babies after they had them (and were well established at the family to begin with)? Well, of course, DUH, I’d be fine with that. A kid at or vaguely around Sam’s age, who would be into keeping a similar schedule who wasn’t, say, a total bully asshole? I could be OK with that, too. See also: if I were in their home and not mine, for the reasons I mentioned in the comments.
There’s something about your own kid in your own house that you can just … relax a little. I mean, of course Sam is always supervised, but I know every corner of this house. I know when her silence means she’s concentrating (i.e., in the back playroom, where her fuzzies and crayons are) and when being quiet means DEFCON 1: GUARD THE SUDAFED because she’s in the bathroom, sifting through the drawers. These are sounds, for better or for worse, you’re trained to listen for in your own house. Someone else’s, not so much.
Anyway. It’s moot, sort of, because I found at least one sitter who’s coming tomorrow (today for most of you reading this) and will be paid an ungodly money for the sole purpose of having my tubes ‘n utes shot through with dye and examined under an … I don’t even know what, as I had this before, I SWEAR, but the thing is, I HAVE NO MEMORY. I have very little memory of the whole pre-Sam shenanigans, and I don’t know why. I hope it’s the same if I get to the second baby portion of our show, that this all becomes kind of … faded.
We’ve been still, ahh, sick at our house, and it all started with Sam and her ridiculous beach-bound illnesses, and then there was me, who was misdiagnosed with a sinus infection (non-contagious! HAA!), who then passed it on to Adam, who is lying beside me right now, wheezing into his Wheat Thins. Both of us will very likely be passed out cold by 10 p.m., which happens in this house, mmm, pretty much never. Good thing I’m on antibiotics, though! I am what’s wrong with pharmacology today, man. I told you.
The flip side of all this is that I am dropping weight like a saddle bag of hot potatoes. This is what happens when you can pretty much taste nothing for two weeks. Food becomes remarkably uninteresting if you can’t taste it! Who knew? Truth is, I’ve been fantasizing about cupcakes and peanut butter bars pretty much non-stop — and I’m a savory gal! — for no other reason that they are the only things I can really remember the flavor of. I can’t smell anything either, so changing diapers, too, is a surprisingly pleasant task.
I thought about marketing this as a weight-loss tool — invite everyone to my house! Give them the disease and then VOILA! Watch the pounds fly off! There’s got to be an infomercial I can make out of this, maybe featuring Suzanne Somers. Sinus Camp 2011: It’s Infectious! I think, is our tagline. Unfortunately, I have moved beyond the contagious phase, and thus, everyone would have to get in close quarters with Adam, instead, and that’s … less appealing than you might think, although I imagined I was about as delicious-looking while I, too, was coughing until I vomited.
I think my revenue options may be limited by the gross-out factor, but I’m not ruling this shit out! WEIGHT LOSS IN A CURABLE DISEASE.
In recent days, however, I’ve been able to taste a little more, and by that, I mean I can taste sriracha, which is why my last three meals have consisted of various noodles and/or sandwiches drenched in more sriracha than a normal person could probably handle, and it burns like FIYAH, but at least I’m ALIVE. This must be why people tattoo their bodies to FEEL THE BURN! Walk on fire! LET US LIVE. GIVE US THE SRIRACHA.
(Side note: there is something depressing about losing 10+ pounds and being acutely aware that you still have, um, FORTY, or so to go. Seriously. FORTY. I am usually pretty chill about my weight/body image, and for the most part, I am — I mean, I’m not really all that consumed by it — but something about feeling my clothes FINALLY fit much looser has given me enough of a taste that I’m all LET’S GO, WEIGHT! BRING ON THE SIZE SIX!)
(HAAAA I SAID SIX. What an ass.)
Anyway, I’ve GOT to tell you that I’ve been watching NOTHING on television. NOTHING. Should I be watching Game of Thrones? I mean, on HBO.com, that is, because I know it’s over. The Killing? Falling Skies? True Blood is back this week, thank GOD (well, Sunday), but that’s … all I’ve got. And I miss TV. A lot. (Already seen FNL, so it’s not NEW.)
Happy Wednesday! Or as it’s known around here, Tubes, Utes and Babysitter Day! Oh, God.
*Mumford & Sons. The Cave being my uterus. OH I KILL ME.
June 21st, 2011
As it turns out, I’ve got a sinus infection, and I’m on the first antibiotic I’ve been on in … decades, I think? I am not particularly hippie-ish about medicine — I mean, I take two big pharma-esque pills a day, and will likely do so for the rest of my life — but you, too, might be squirrelly about antibiotics if you had adolescent bladder infections that rendered you immune to every single one except the ones that cause hallucinations (but conveniently, cure anthrax!). And – AND! – knowing one too many people infected with (OMFG) C diff after antibiotics which causes the MOST unsavory symptoms of anything I have ever dreamed of and I’m terrified of … OMFG HA HA, WHY AM I TALKING ABOUT THIS?
I forget sometimes, like in situations like last week, what a good kid Sam is. I know it will change, and that she’ll eventually (SOON) be punky and Freshy VonFresherson (though she’ll still be a good kid), but for now, she is rarely fresh or willfully defiant, she shares nicely and loves her friends, and hell, I just love the spit out of my sweet girl. There are lots and lots of hugs and kisses – initiated by her — and she’ll hug anyone who asks, and plenty who don’t, sometimes to the surprise of others. Before bedtime, I tell her to “get your lips ready!” and she pouts like Angelina Jolie posing for photographers as she swoops in to kiss everyone in the room.
She’s gentle and kind to plants and animals, has a great sense of humor (I mean, for a two-year-old, let’s be realistic here, it’s not like she’s quoting Seinfeld) and … oh, man. I love her. I say this not to brag, because I recognize that these are things we ALL think about our kids, but it’s more to remind myself, and her, someday, that she’s a great kid whose current failings are purely the circumstance of her age and lapses on my part, not hers. I don’t want her to ever read this and think, wow, my mom thought I was a total pain in the ass. Because oh hell no, kid. You’re fucking awesome.
And hey, do y’all remember the disco kitty shirt? Well, more proof that while my girl might be amazing, personality-wise, she, um, SORELY LACKS in the taste department, and I promise you, I had nothing to do with her latest attachment:
Yes, that’s a boa-wrapped hot-pink fur notebook with a POODLE on it that Adam won her at a corporate outing at — oh, I can barely type it — Dave and Buster’s. “Pink doggie come? Pink notebook? WITHA PEN?” UGH, FINE KID. Here’s your hideous notebook.
In other news, I’m currently interviewing sitters for some (VERY) part-time help while I get some work done and also, uhhh, have my fertility appointments and other sundry items taken care of. Like my HSG which, for the uninitiated, is that test where they shoot dye into your tubes ‘n utes and view all your lady parts via ultrasound to make sure they’re smooth and shiny, and NO ONE, I assure you, wants a two-year-old in that situation. Or you know, at the dentist. Or while trying to conduct a client call with a modicum of professionalism.
What kills me, however, is how stupidly guilty I feel about the whole thing. As though I’m putting her in HARM’S WAY by allowing someone other than me (or Adam or my parents or siblings) to care for her. God, it’s so ABSURD. I don’t feel this way about other people — quite the opposite, in fact — and logically, I KNOW that this is NORMAL and GOOD FOR HER and GOOD FOR ME (and our bank account! And my teeth! And my … uterus?), but there I am, all Cringey McCringerson about having a perfectly capable, kind human being feed my child lunch and put her down for a nap. As though because I am paying them, rather than squeezing their familial obligation out of their pores, that they will somehow fail in an immeasurable, damaging way.
This is one of those cases — like, say, breastfeeding, at least for me — where my emotions cloud my actual, logical judgment of the situation at hand. I was all, I MUST BREASTFEED OR THE WORLD WILL END. And yet, if other people formula fed, I did not assume the world would end, and in fact, admired them for making a totally reasonable choice that worked best for them. Kind of like how I always assume MY plane will crash, although I willingly allow my loved ones to fly without a care in the world. IT IS SO ABSURD. She’s TWO. I CAN GO TO THE DENTIST. PEOPLE PUT THEIR KIDS IN DAYCARE. AND IT WORKS GREAT. GET OVER YOURSELF, JONNA.
What I DO find a little strange, however, is the number of applicants who want to … bring their own child along? Is that strange to anyone else? I feel like I can disassociate the emotional factor from this one enough to suss out the feeling that, a) it would be kind of disruptive to Sam to not only have a new person to get used to, but a new person and their kid? And navigating that dynamic of mother/child and then poor Sam? It’s one thing to leave her at my friends’ house with their kids, but she KNOWS all of them and … and I just … well, is it me?
(It might be.)
(But I still don’t think I’m going to hire anyone who does.)
Hey, have a happy Thursday! Woo!
June 15th, 2011
Aaaand, we’re back. That was … special. Some of that is certainly sarcasm, but some of it is also that it WAS special. Honestly, it was fun. We had fun. Sam had a blast running around with her cousins, and even tried surfing a little, if by surfing, you mean standing on a boogie board while the waves came in and ran over her feet.
“I DID it, Mommy! I did it! Like TOODEE!” Oof, my heart. Kid was so proud of her surfing abilities, and honest to God, she really thought she was doing it. Also, errr, that’s how pervasive her Yo Gabba Gabba obsession runs, friends. There’s ONE episode (“Ride”) where Toodee goes surfing with Foofa’s big brother, Foofle (I cannot make this shit up, people), and Sam was OBSESSED with surfing like Toodee. She even made me sing the damn song while she did it. (“Surfing today, sunny day! Into the water to play!” And hahahahaha, I KNOW THE LYRICS OH MY GOD.)
It was actually quite sad that on our first day back, she woke up and asked to go to the beach. Oh darlin’. It’s not warm enough up here, yet.
The bad was … kind of really awfully bad. Over the course of the two weeks since we left our house, Sam had three (3) separate fevers, a horrid cough/cold (separate from the fevers!) and a – oh I can barely type it – a VAGINAL INFECTION FROM THE SAND-SLASH-SWIM DIAPER. HOLD ME. HOLD ME. All this, plus she slept in two separate hotels, a strange house, followed by a DIFFERENT strange house, along with a FOURTEEN HOUR DRIVE, split over two days. I mean, honestly, the kid was a hot fucking mess, and so was I.
I am not even going to pretend that I handled it well, because I didn’t. I cringe at how touchy I was on Wednesday — which, conveniently, was my day to cook dinner for everyone — and how I was chopping onions, sobbing while my kid sobbed and chased after me, stuck to me like glue. That morning, I’d lost it on my poor dad — AKA the man who requires the least amount of sleep of ANYONE I KNOW, EVER — because he rises at 5:30 or 6 and makes coffee, waking up the first floor. Meanwhile, he acquiesced to my demand to come out a LEETLE BIT later and guess what? Sam continued to wake at 6, exhausted and miserable, ANYWAY. (Note: I don’t mind the 6 a.m. wakings, except when they mean that she hasn’t gotten enough sleep, making our mornings EYE-POKINGLY MISERABLE, because all she wants to do is go back to bed, at like, NINE AM. But she won’t, natch, and besides, it would eff her nap for the day.)
Plus, I was alone. I’m alone a lot, obviously, as the primary at-home parent, but it’s too easy to discount the role that Adam plays at home and on the weekends. He plays with her the second he walks in the door. I get extra sleep on the weekends (we alternate days). I get nights out with my friends as often as I want. He can give her a bath if I’m feeling wiped out or lousy or just having a long, tired day, you know? He’s a great dad, and he does a lot, and GOD I MISSED HIM. All of him, obviously, not just the parts of him that help me out. To be clear.
(PS, he cleaned the WHOLE HOUSE while we were gone. I walked in to a SPOTLESS HOUSE. Who does that? HE DOES.)
(He also bought a new TV. Surprise! Oh, wait … )
I was just … alone. Not that my parents and siblings weren’t willing to help me — they WERE — but my kid was so disoriented and cranky and feeling so lousy that she wouldn’t let them touch her. NO ONE COULD TOUCH HER. For two. weeks. And not only was this sucktacular for me, but it was hardly the bonding experience with the rest of my family that you would expect, you know? I mean, the kid just RAGED any time anyone came near her — and this includes my paternal parents, who are the very same people who kept her for a WEEK without incident while we went to Vegas. Was bizarroland. And also, uhh, kind of sucky for all of us.
Mind you, I’m fully aware that single parents do this day in and day out (I WORSHIP AT YOUR FEET), but I will also say there is a difference between having velcro kid in a strange environment and just having a kid at home, doing her normal routine. It was kind of exhausting, and I kind of handled it pretty badly. I was loose with my emotions, and I kind of felt like everything was just there, bubbling so close to the surface that everything exploded at the slightest provocation.
And I just felt ungrateful and awful and UGHHHHH, I know, I sound like I’m just over here self-flagellating (I AM), but there’s something about parenting my kid at her worst in front of people I don’t normally live with, no matter how much they love me (and they do!), that makes me feel so exposed. Especially if those people are other parents and THEIR kids are acting like near-perfect children with only minor imperfections. Meanwhile, I had a kid with an INFECTED VAGINA, FOR THE LOVE.
This is one of those times where I can’t tell if it’s just the snowball effect of, you know, EVERYTHING, or if it was just, hello, a challenging situation that anyone would have broken down in. I was extra-weepy and I let myself lose it in situations — and in front of people — I normally wouldn’t. I mean, not that I’m afraid of being judged by my own FAMILY, but I guess I do have a thing against appearing weak and/or crazy and BELIEVE ME, FRIENDS, I WAS BOTH. Yet, I like to think it was the latter — that is, it was a normally shitty situation to lose it in — but I’m not entirely sure. One never knows these days.
Honestly about the Other Thing, I do feel better — I feel more ready to tackle what’s to come, and I feel more focused on what’s in front of me — the life part, that is. Honestly, I suppose it’s hard not to, when what’s in front of you is a sick toddler while you YOURSELF are hacking and wheezing, but strangely, I’ve got a lot of OTHER good stuff to focus on. Friends who claim to have missed me terribly (and I, them), new work projects, an entire summer to play in the water with my kid, an assload of books to read and the resurgence of the Book Lushes, which I SWEAR is coming, but HA HA, UNEXPECTED EVENTS have precluded that little project.
And, uhh, fertility work-up stuff. Again. But even that I feel relatively calm about at the moment. Apparently the whole “one day at a time” mantra really seems to be working. Recovery people! They know what they’re talking about.
Hey, have a happy Tuesday.
June 13th, 2011
Listen, this is a placeholder to inform you that unless you follow me on Twitter, you might not realize that I am not, in fact, dead and/or wallowing in a pool of grief, but am on vacation in North Carolina with my brother and his family, etc etc. (My brother, who informed me when I reached the beach that he’d just seen “three fins, probably sharks” but that I shouldn’t be alarmed! HA HA HA!! NO NEED FOR ALARM IT IS JUST SHARKS HELLO, WE ARE IN JAWWWWZZZZZ.)
Sam and I are flyin’ solo, as Adam is at home working (someone has to!), but hey, we’re having a great time anyway. We are NOW, anyway, after an epically awful road trip to a wedding that seriously left me wondering if leaving the house EVER AGAIN was REMOTELY ADVISABLE. But now? HAPPY HAPPY.
See you next week!
June 6th, 2011
First, let me say that I am not a fool, although I have been acting like one, and the fact that so many people took a few moments out of their day to think about me, leave me a comment or write me an email, is beyond meaningful to me, I can’t even tell you. What you might not know, though, is how much it means to my family. My parents read every last one of those comments, as did some of Adam’s family, and I just … well, thank you seems silly and fruitless, really, it does, but I wanted you to know that it’s not just me who reads them and appreciates them, even when I’m acting like I don’t. My mother and Adam’s Aunt Carol were particularly moved, just so you know.
Which brings me to … well, what I think strikes me the most about the past week, and was entirely unexpected, was — is, really — how quickly I turned into an ungracious asshole. I want to put it another way, but I can’t. I’m amazed and, quite honestly, totally saddened, by how fast I moved from being a person who could compose herself enough to be considerate to someone else, even with a thousand tiny darts sticking out of her chest, to someone who, frankly, did not give a shit about anyone but herself. Everyone said the wrong thing. Everyone. Sarah in Huntsville did NOT say the wrong thing, however, and captured my feelings perfectly when she said:
” I felt like dickpunching everyone who said ANYTHING to me about it, because there was nothing they could say that either didn’t make me sneer at them in derision or cry. But I also wanted to facestab the people who just kind of ignored the whole thing.”
I LAUGHED. Because my God, yes, that’s pretty much it. I also — and this is perhaps most disturbing — had this almost (and at times, more than almost) irrepressible urge to wave a verbal air horn in someone’s face after uttering something I deemed inappropriate. “WRONG!” the air horn would blat, loud and forceful, right in their foolishly loose lips. “WRONG! WRONG!” I could almost see their hair blowing back from the force of the blast, as I stomped away, stuffing the instrument back in my purse without looking back.
Oh, but if you didn’t say ANYTHING? Well, wait … this actually wasn’t so bad, I mean, unless it was one of my close friends, in which case, FLEE THE COUNTRY, IMMA COME GETCHOO WITH THE AIR HORN.
I mean, yes, there are a few people — a few that I am unwilling to forgive, like those who have publicly questioned my friendship and made demands on it until I acquiesced against my better judgment and then HA HA! never said a word to me about this. And the others, who gleefully talked about my FIRST pregnancy, over and over again, in a flurry of excited sisterly emails and then, when I lost THAT baby … nothing. Not a word since. Yes, people like that, I am finished with. But for the most part, I understand that no one knows what the fuck to say to someone in my situation, so they panic and say nothing and I don’t hold it against them.
(I am, by the way, married to a completely loving, kind, thoughtful person who tends to PANIC! and say nothing in these situations, so I understand this phenomenon more than most.)
Basically, it was just awful, I was just awful, and … well, I’m still kind of just awful, for I have these moments of outright horror at the things people say. Things that, actually, are not THAT horrifying, but in my addled state tend to be magnified to DEFCON 1: LOAD THE AIR HORNS. The problem with all of this is that it turns me into someone I don’t like, and I’m not particularly proud of, and if THAT isn’t an excellent spirit to pour into this magnificent cocktail of suckitude, I don’t know what is!
The one thing I will say is the absolute wrong thing to say is this: “I know how you feel.” No, you don’t. NO ONE DOES, because you are not me, and I am not you. Two people can go through the exact same experience on paper, and feel completely differently, and want to hear/need completely different things. I was stunned by commenter Auntie G’s revelation that she didn’t share her own happy ending with me, because when SHE went through the same thing, she wanted nothing to do with happy endings. Me, however? I drink them up like water in the desert.
So no. You don’t know how I feel, even when I describe it to you in exquisite detail.
***
I do, however, feel better. I am not fully healed, but it has just occurred to me that life will – and does – go on, and that life includes all the things I was looking forward to before (minus the baby). Fun things, like hitting the beach with my family and taking Sam to a summer full of water parks. And of course, the less-fun things like measuring the playroom for carpet tiles and finally getting rid of the ancient Ikea chairs. These things will, God willing, still happen, and I get to enjoy them just the same. It’s when I think about the future — the Other — that things get murky.
***
What remains, too, is this very strange, thin membrane separating me and a much sadder, emptier life than I thought I’d have. I don’t know how to put it any better than that. The membrane is not real; the alternate life isn’t even real, not even if it ends here and now with just Adam, Sam and me, which, I hasten to add, I don’t think it will. I felt this most acutely when I foolishly Googled myself into some message boards of the, uh, recurring miscarriage ilk, and got a glimpse into a world that I can’t seem to shake. A world where people — and please God help me, I am not judging, or at the very least, I am BUSTING MY ASS not to judge, for we all process grief differently — save their wee embryos (yes, I mean pre-12-week embryos) after D&C’s and dress them in hats and take pictures and hold funerals for them. It’s a culture — a cult, almost — that I can’t see myself ever being a part of, even if things had worked out differently, but God, it’s there, and it’s so close and it’s one of those things, like I said, I can’t shake.
I can’t say I would ever be the type to, um, dress my embryo in corduroy and denim (mine is, after routine chromosomal testing, being flushed with the hospital waste of the week, and maybe that seems heartless), but I guess what strikes me is that it’s so easy to see how it could happen; how CONSUMING it could be if you really dug your heels into a place like that. I feel like I am the thinnest air pocket away from being a person who buys clothes for her embryos, even though rationally, I know that’s not true.
Online communities — particularly ones that are highly specialized and focused — are extremely powerful. Please, one day let me regale you of the YEAR OF MY LIFE I spent embroiled in a — oh I can barely type it — CAT MESSAGE BOARD. WHERE PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT THEIR CATS. I DID THIS. I DID THIS. I, a perfectly well-adjusted, pretty twentysomething with lots of friends and a hot boyfriend (now husband), spent an UNGODLY AMOUNT OF TIME talking about the merits of wet food vs. canned and examining my cat’s stool for optimum health.
(If you’re wondering how it happened, it started because — surprise! — I was googling after discovering that my cat had recurrent urinary problems. And if you’re thinking that CAT MESSAGE BOARDS do not have flame wars, HA HA YOU ARE SO WRONG AND ARE YOU DYING, BECAUSE I AM DYING TYPING THIS OUT.)
(Also, I no longer own a cat, and in fact, hate cats. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS IS HILARIOUS.)
These places are rabbit holes. RABBIT HOLES. And if I have any advice to anyone going through this, it is that maybe you should stick to blogs that talk about this kind of thing, and step away from the pinkie nail-sized knitted hats, for it struck me as a fast track to an insane asylum. Email Julie, who will probably say the perfect thing to you, even though she doesn’t know it. (To me, she simply said, “I AM APPALLED,” and honestly, I hold it with me, because it is so hilarious and so perfect, I don’t know why.)
Happy Tuesday, friends. Thanks for listening, and my apologies for my astonishingly douchey comments and written air horns over the last seven days.
*Dave Matthews Band, whatever. I’m not judging your tiny hats, so lay off my lame music.
May 23rd, 2011
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