On moving past IF.

I suppose when I say that I want to move past infertility for good, I should clarify.

I mean this.

I want to move past BATTLING infertility.

To planning going back to the RE. To scheduling the HSG, the blood draws. J’s next SA, which will confirm that yes, we are still infertile.

I am fully aware that I will always have a sense of shock when I think that there are people who can get pregnant just by having sex.

In their bedrooms.

Where some people can actually do this without really even PLANNING for it.

I can’t say I’ll ever really LIKE going to baby showers.

I’ll probably always feel that low-burning ember of anger when I hear about friends and family who have trouble conceiving.

I may also feel a dull sense of envy when I see a pregnant woman for a while. Maybe forever. I don’t know.

But I can tell you that I’m TIRED of infertility being at the forefront of our lives.

Where we have to explain to well-meaning people who ask us if we’re thinking about expanding our family that, well, we’re not sure when we want to go back to the doctor, because O was an in-vitro baby and we’ll need something like that to conceive again.

I’m tired of knowing what the next response is. “Well, pregnancy could have FIXED your infertility.”

And then have to explain that no, where my surgery may have fixed the reasons why IVF wasn’t working for us in the first place, we have MF issues which likely will require doctor intervention.

And yes, it’s POSSIBLE that we could get pregnant on our own, and yes, we’re TRYING for that, but we’re not holding our breath for it.

I want a simple answer to the question if we want more kids.

I’m tired of thinking about paying for embryo storage fees, and getting on my insurance because it’s better than J’s in how much we’ll outlay for money to the RE, but it costs a whole lot more.

And I’m tired of trying to figure out how I FEEL about the whole thing. I don’t KNOW if I’m willing to do IVF again. I don’t WANT to pump hormones in my body.

I HATE the idea of having to do 2ww agains. I’m afraid I’m going to spiral back down into the whole depressing mindfuck.

Where I hate my body and then get angry that we have to do the whole thing in the first place and shouldn’t I just be happy with what I HAVE because maybe I’m being greedy and for god’s sake Serenity just shut UP about having more kids already?

So when I say I want to move past it for good… I want to be done with being ACTIVE about infertility. I want it to be able to fade into the background. I want to heal for GOOD.

Instead of focusing on what I don’t have, I want to live my life and be happy with what I have.

And if that means it’s just J and I and O? I think I can be happy with that. Because we’re blessed beyond belief that we have him in the first place.

Anyway. That’s what I meant when I said I wanted to move past infertility.

Wordless Wednesday: Child Labor.

Click here for more WW participants.

Shoe leather. And wanting.

So, as it turns out?

My level of mental Zen is directly proportional to the amount of sleep I’m getting.

Now that O’s better, he’s sleeping more. And more importantly, LONGER.

As in, through the night.

WOO.

And so I’ve managed to catch up on my OWN sleep.

So I’m feeling good. He’s still exhausting and exciting, and physical, and playful, and fun, and every day I spend with him I collapse into my bed at the day’s end, utterly exhausted.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This weekend we went to a baby shower. For a girl who has gone to EVERY BABY SHOWER imaginable. Even when she and her husband were having marital issues. Even when kids were a LONG ways away.

So when we got the invite for the Jack and Jill party, I knew we had to go.

(Even though I still hate baby showers.)

It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. O kept me on my toes, and since husbands were there, too, it felt like just a gathering of friends moreso than a SHOWER. So that was good.

But there were babies there. My friend J, who had her utterly adorable, gorgeous, happy, smiling baby boy in June.

And another friend N, who had her son in July. Who when she was pregnant was already planning on her kids being as close together as they could possibly be.

And it came out during the course of the party that N was pregnant again.

Her kids will be 11 months apart.

My first reaction, I admit, was to remark that she was nuts.

(Yep. I actually SAID THAT. “You’re NUTS.” )

I immediately regretted it. And subsequently spent the rest of the conversation frantically trying to make things better, speaking through the taste of shoe leather.

I totally ROCK the friend thing.

But on the way home, I realized.

I want to be in her place.

I want to be pregnant.

It freaks me the fuck out, truthfully. I think “I want another baby” and then I pretty much mentally shut down.

Because when I think about having a baby… and managing O… and my marriage… and my full time job and the cost of daycare and transitioning O to another room or making the guest room another nursery and having a newborn and the bottles and sleep deprivation and schedules and money and… AND…

Well, you can see how quickly my thoughts spiral into “OMFG. NO WAY can we manage that.”

And then I think that one is enough.

I think the most annoying part of it all is that I feel like we have to make a DECISION. To go back to the doctor, to DECLARE “yes, okay, we’re ready.”

Because in my world, ready has always meant something more than where I’m at right now.

I mean, I THINK I’m as ready as I will be.

Really, how does one PREPARE for another? I have SOME knowledge of what’s involved with having a newborn.

But.

I have NO IDEA of what having a newborn AND a toddler will be like.

So yeah. All I’m going on right now is this WANT thing. I WANT to see O as a big brother. I WANT to complete our family.

But mostly?

I WANT to be finished with thinking about TTC. I WANT to be DONE with doctors and reproductive medicine.

I WANT to live our life, and be a mom, and have our two kids, and just be DONE with all this TTC nonsense. I DON’T WANT to have the internal debate whenever I see EWCM – do I seduce my husband or not? (Because there’s always a CHANCE that we can get pregnant, as small as it is.)

I WANT to set how far we’re willing to go in stone (FETs only? ONE IVF cycle? Two? Three? Seventeen?) and then stick to that plan.

And be DONE when we end up there with nothing to show for it.

At this point, I just WANT to be done. I WANT to feel like I’m NORMAL.

Where, you know, I have the family I planned for because I WANTED it.

I know it doesn’t work that way, though. Maybe it will for us, because we get lucky enough to be blessed with the two kids we WANT.

Maybe it won’t for us, either. Maybe it’ll just be our family of three.

I’m just tired of THINKING about it, though.

And really, it boils down to this.

I just want to move past infertility for good.

Perfect Moments.

(My first foray into Perfect Moment Monday.)

First night of standard time. It’s dark outside. Our kitchen is warm with light and dinner cooking.

O and I are playing “Ring Around the Rosie.” When it comes to the part where we all fall down, I sit down on the floor, and he runs over to me, throws his arms around me, and we fall down together, giggling.

He stands, up, tugs at my hands, and says “UP!”

And we play it again.

___________________________

It’s 3am, and I hear him on the monitor. He’s in light pajamas, and I’ve turned the overnight heat down in the house. As soon as I hear him say “hot” (yeah, we’re working on cold) I wonder if he’s cold.

He finally calls out, questioningly – “Mommy?”

So I go into his room.

His hands and feet are cold. I put on a pair of socks and gather a couple of blankets. We rock, him cradled to my chest, listening to the soft classical music from his clock radio, his shampoo sweet against my cheek.

He resists when I put him back into his crib. “Hot.”

So I pick him back up, and he clings to me, his arms around me neck. We rock for another 5 minutes, and his breathing slows. I know he’s almost asleep, so I put him in his crib. He looks up at me, sleepily, and smiles.

Then rolls over under the blankets and closes his eyes.

I am so lucky to be his mom.

On music appreciation.

Note to self: Really, Serenity – it’s okay NOT to post if you have nothing but whining to post about.

Really. No one wants to read your complaining.

“Wah, my life is so hard.”

When really it’s pretty damn good.

I actually got to leave work on TIME yesterday in order to pick up O. And we had a great night – Lots of giggles and fun. He ate a good dinner, we sang songs on the way home from daycare, he chased me around the house, bathtime was good (and wet!) fun, and he snuggled with be before bed and gave me eskimo kisses before he went to sleep.

And last night J and I bought tickets for the three of us to the Kids’ Matinee of the Boston Holiday Pops.

It’s a 70 minute show, with no intermission, where kids can dance in the
aisles, do a Christmas carol sing-a-long, and meet and take pictures of Santa.

And it’s at Symphony Hall, and it’s classical music, and it means a trip for the three of us into Boston for the morning.

I am super, super excited about it.

And then I slept spectacularly, with no wake up in the middle of the night.

So I’m feeling a LOT better today.

_________________________________

O is REALLY into music these days.

A few weeks ago I bought him a CD of “First Sing-a-Long Songs.” He ADORES them. He does the motions for the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Then claps his hands and stomps his feet for “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” He’s starting to sing along with “Row Row Row Your Boat” – will yell “ROW! ROW! ROW! ROW!” during the instrumental part.

And in between every song, he says, hopefully, “More?”

And when the music comes back on, he claps and giggles with glee.

And any time he hears some music – doesn’t matter what it is – he dances.

Having played the clarinet for more than 20 years now, it’s really important for me that O has, at the very least, an APPRECIATION for music.

Of course I will LOVE it if he plays an instrument. And would absolutely ADORE if he loves it just as much as I do.

But I also know that I don’t want to be that parent that PUSHES my kid into doing something he otherwise wouldn’t do.

So right now? I LOVE that he’s aware of music, and dances to songs, and sings and asks for more whenever there’s quiet.

And all I want for him is that he appreciate music as much as J and I do.

I can’t wait for the Holiday Pops and see what he thinks.

And honestly? THIS is the magic of being a parent. Getting to experience something I love – music – through his eyes.

It’s just AWESOME.

Good news for a change!

Because I am almost GIDDY with happiness right now?

I needed to share.

My friend S emailed us this morning and said that this week, at the almost halfway point through her 12 week chemo treatment period…

… her oncologist is seeing “significant response” to her treatment.

Her white blood count is normal.

Her underarm lymph nodes have shrunk from 3cm to the size of a pea.

The large tumor in her breast has shrunk “significantly” and the smaller one (which was 1cm) is no longer detectable by physical examination.

Her oncologist believes that the lesions on her liver and accompanying lymph nodes will have responded accordingly.

It’s the BEST. NEWS. EVER.

Since she’s seeing results from the current treatment, her oncologist wants her to stay the course and continue down the path they’re going. In a few weeks they might add another drug into her chemo cocktail which has been known to prolong the time between recurrence.

If I could do backflips, it’s what I’d be doing right now. Even as tired as I am.

BEST. NEWS. EVER.

(And. Please, PLEASE, keep her in your thoughts and prayers.)

[Great] Expectations.

I’m sorry for not posting sooner. Work is nuts right now.

J and I are exhausted from managing weeks of sick.

We’re low on sleep and by the end of the day we can’t manage to do much but sit on the couch and just chill out.

O, thankfully, started feeling better almost immediately after starting the antibiotics. He’s a whole new kid – happy, smiling. There’s less whining and clinging.

When I think over the past few weeks, I’m torn. I do feel pretty guilty that we didn’t realize just how LONG he hadn’t been himself.

But I also feel vindicated that I KNEW something was wrong, something was off, and I was right.

In my two discussions with his pediatrician, she told me that his infection was pretty dense on the x-ray. Enough that when she saw it, she called me immediately to check on him.

But he’s feeling better. Thank goodness.

And always, after one of his illnesses, it takes J and I take MUCH longer to recover than it does him.

And over the past week, when I have moments to actually THINK, I find myself wondering when J or I will ever have down time for ourselves.

Because right now, there really isn’t MUCH down time we can manage. At all.

And when I think about trying to find ourselves some time to relax, most of the time I’m struck with a thought.

I never expected that being a parent would be this hard – for this long.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this. Because I do consider myself a fairly intelligent person.

And it seems like it should be COMMON SENSE that being a parent is, you know, HARD WORK.

But people kept telling me, from the moment O was born.

“It gets easier.”

When he gets to 6 weeks. When he’s eating cereal. When he’s sitting up. When he’s sleeping through the night. When he’s older and you don’t have to hover as much.

Et cetera.

And some things HAVE gotten easier. I generally know if something’s wrong with him. My mom instincts are honed to a fine point.

But there’s ALWAYS a lot of work. Managing the sleep schedule. And now the tantrums. And sick.

And then figuring out answers when he starts getting “why?”

And the homework, and the activities.

And the teenage years.

There will ALWAYS be something to do.

Now, see. I’m not BITTER that there’s a lot of work or anything.

I mean, I definitely didn’t think that being a parent was going to be a stroll in the park.

I knew there was a lot of work that went into it.

It’s more that our life is moving so damn fast. And I just want a chance to sit down and REST. And decompress. And take a BREATH.

And when I get into periods of time like this, where it takes me WEEKS to get back into feeling okay myself, it makes me question everything.

Do I have what it takes to be a good parent to my ONE kid?

And to that – how can I possibly think I’m ready for another?

When I get to this point in my thoughts, I call a break. I turn up the radio, and I listen to my classical music, and I take a deep breath, and I tell myself that somehow we’ll manage.

Because, you know. I’m NOT the only person who feels this way. Overwhelmed with the responsibility. Tired from the work. Desperately needing a BREAK, but knowing I won’t really get it.

Because the reality is that, for the next while at least, my breaks will come in sips. In the small waft of a breeze which seeps through a barely cracked window.

A date night. An overnight here and there. Maybe an afternoon nap when O is napping. Or a bubble bath one night after dinner.

And somehow that’s going to have to be enough.

Wordless Wednesday: How to Get a Lion Through a Hoop.

Click here for more WW images.

Finally.

I KNEW something wasn’t right.

I just didn’t know what.

O hasn’t been himself for a while. At least a couple of weeks, I thought. Not sleeping. Not eating. Et cetera.

So when daycare called me yesterday to tell me that he was clingy and tired and fussy and had ANOTHER low grade fever… I decided to call his pediatrician.

And I felt really stupid about it. Because he’s had a low grade fever once a week or so. For what I thought was the past three weeks.

But aside from that? He hasn’t been acting SICK.

Just not HIMSELF.

And I didn’t want to be THAT mom – who brings her kid in with a cold and asks for antibiotics.

But it’s been long enough, and I didn’t think it could HURT.

So I called when he was taking his nap. And they told me to come in, just to be sure.

And he ate snacks and said “Hi!” multiple times to the Nurse Practicioner so that she would let him look at her computer.

And she didn’t hear anything in his lungs but sent us for an x-ray, just in case. Because they noted that he had a cough when he went to his 18 month well-baby appointment about a month ago. And it hadn’t really gone away since.

O ran around the waiting room for the x-ray like a kid possessed. He seemed completely over whatever it was that had bothered him that morning. And I felt so stupid for even being there – he was clearly fine.

Except he’s not.

He actually has pneumonia. In his upper right lobe.

From the quick googling I did, every sign seems to point to walking pneumonia, though it’s rare in toddlers. Maybe it’s viral.

But they gave us antibiotics for him.

And now we have a REASON for the night wakings. For the lack of eating. I KNEW something was off with him – I just couldn’t figure out what it was.

So now we know. And he’s on antibiotics. So hopefully, in a few days, he’ll be back to himself again.

Wordless Wednesday: WTF?

Click here for more WW images.