Vacation

It's getting so close now, I can almost hear the waves crashing on the beach and warm sea air blowing through my hair.

I took a half day at work and then got my nails done. I feel very fancy now which is quite the change of pace for a jeans and t-shirt kind of person. It's interesting that I dress like a slob for the most part and then I go on vacation and I have a dress or skirt lined up for every night. Several pairs of shoes to go with it all too.

So this is a farewell of sorts, I most likely won't have access to my email or the internet in general until I get back and even if I did have access I could stand to be unconnected for a while.

Thank you to those who wished me a happy birthday.

1 day until vacation and birthday.
:)

Flowing Like Water

Vacation is looming closer, I'm starting to get excited and slightly stressed about getting packed and everything done before we go.

I had an appointment with my therapist today which I thought went really well. We talked about a game plan for when I get back from vacation and the advice I've been getting from my new blogging buddy on managing antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. It gives me a little glimmer of hope considering I figured we'd "just try" next month and everything would miraculously work out.

As far as the roller coaster that is my life goes it's on the upswing. I hope it will continue with sun, sand, margaritas and wine flowing like water and a couple much needed massages at the spa on board our cruise ship. It's finally starting to warm up here but it will be just the right medicine to go somewhere tropical and do absolutely nothing but relax and enjoy.

3 days until vacation and birthday.

Vent

It’s been a couple weeks since my last post. I’ve been feeling wayward lately. I had my second support group meeting last night and no one showed up. The woman who came last month called me to say she is sick and wouldn’t be coming so I at least expected to not see her. But after all the advertising I did I have to admit that I’m really surprised that no one came. I’m debating bothering to have it at all next month.

My husband and I visited his family this past weekend for his grandmother’s 80th birthday. In all it was an uneventful visit (probably because it was a short one) but we still had the fighting and sleepless nights leading up to and following the visit.

(Vent)
I’m really tired of hearing about his sister’s wedding. It’s probably just jealousy but I don’t remember being so endlessly consumed with wedding talk when we were engaged. Not to mention that I did everything myself and didn’t live at home with my parents where some people are practically waited on hand and foot. I doubt much will change when she moves into a house with her fiancé, my husband’s family lives for fawning all over him and his sister, alas we live too far away to take as much advantage as she does. What’s ridiculous is that she gets upset when we visit that they are so excited to see him that she is virtually ignored (yeah, right). Maybe if she went away for a while people would be excited to see her when she came back.

My husband made the announcement that we wouldn’t be visiting for Easter this year. While parents and grandparents seemed to “understand”, his sister voiced her disappointment/annoyance to me in a side discussion I had with her about all the jobs I’ve seemed to acquire for her wedding that I didn’t realized I had been asked to do. She’s been very cold to me lately so I can’t understand why she would be sad to not see me. Plus without my husband there she will get all the spotlight.

I don’t want to visit for Easter because of many things, the usual being my discomfort in their company, but also that we don’t go to Mass together anymore as his parents have taken to going to a traditional Latin Mass church which isn’t our cup of tea (so if we're going to go to Mass alone, I would rather go to our own church), and I don’t really care for the food served at Easter: lasagna with American cheese on it*, cold ham (because his mom is lazy and cooks it the day before), kielbasa, hard boiled eggs, kolachi and other things that I can’t remember. The only thing I do like is the Paska bread and I don’t have to go there to eat it because I can make it myself.

*Northeast Pennsylvania likes its American cheese, they also have it on pizza à la Old Forge Style. I remember after many years of eating the pizza there and wondering why it tasted so weird (bad) finding out why and feeling I had been duped all those years into thinking I was eating normal pizza.
(End Vent)

I had my period last week, it was a 26 day cycle, the shortest in a long time because we didn’t try this month and I didn’t take progesterone to prolong the inevitable. I was cranky and moody and lack of sleep and in-laws didn’t help.

9 days until vacation and birthday.

Fanning the Fire

I got an email from my therapist this afternoon. I have been meeting with him every Tuesday for a while now and this is the first week that we’ve planned on skipping a session. (An attempt to wean me.) It was interesting to hear from him because I had been thinking earlier in the day that the receptionists would wonder where I was.

Not much has been going on lately on my end which is why I haven’t posted in a while. I got myself so worked up over my last post that I probably just needed a rest.

Hearing from him made me think of something he said about therapy leading to more therapy and I wondered if going every week was just fanning the fire. Of course I would feel differently if something crazy had happened or I had some other revelation similar to the one in my last post.

I feel like I’ve been flying under the radar a bit so that’s good. I’ve been reading others’ blogs and commenting here and there, but otherwise I’m laying low.

24 days until vacation and birthday.

Running out of Cheeks

Something came up at my meeting on Tuesday that I hadn't really given much thought to before. My husband's sister is getting married this August and he has said that she will probably get pregnant right away, or at least be trying right away. So it made me think, what if she gets pregnant and has a baby before we do. How much is it going to suck when everyone refers to that baby as the first grandchild? I told him later how I thought of and talked about that with the woman who came to my meeting. He said there's nothing I can do if that's what they say. I realize that there's a chance that I will get pregnant in the months before the wedding and may in fact "beat" her or that she might not conceive as quickly etc, etc. I also wonder how it would go if she had a miscarriage (not that I would wish it on my worst enemy) but I bet it would be a completely different story for them to see their own daughter go through it, I wouldn't assume that they learned anything from dealing with me. But if it does happen that she gets pregnant and I'm not, I'm going to make it clear to my husband that he should tell his family how I feel about who the first grandchild is. It's Isabella. Thinking about it now I find it patronizing that my f-i-l wanted to have "the talk" back at Christmas time but they still refuse to acknowledge Isabella and Sean by name. So I'm probably just setting myself up for more disappointment. And making myself a little crazy in the process. :(

Thinking more about it, I think if that does happen and they behave as expected then they shouldn't be surprised when things are "tense". It will just further reinforce for me that they were patronizing me with the little talk we had back at Christmas. We visit my in-laws considerably less than we did in the years before I first got pregnant and I can only see that amount reducing further if those things transpire. I realize that it hasn't happened yet, but I'm getting so angry just thinking about it. I think that's what frustrates my husband so much is that he thinks they have apologized to me over and over and I suppose that is true, but because we aren't around them all the time it has never sunk in. That or I have serious issues accepting someone's apology. My husband and I had a long talk in the days after this last loss and extended family issues always rear their ugly head. He thinks that because of all the crap my dad put me through is why I can't accept an apology and would rather write someone off as I've done with him. In the case of my dad I feel ok about writing him off because of the years and years of misery he put me, my mom and sister through. I don't have that luxury with my in-laws and aside from this one (albeit major) point, they're not that bad. When I talked to my old priest a year or two ago about what to do about my dad (who at the time was trying to weasel his way back into my life) I was surprised that he thought I should run in the other direction as fast as I could. Surprised because that doesn't sound like the Catholic and supposedly forgiving thing to do. He said "sometimes you run out of cheeks". So that makes sense to me and reassures me that you shouldn't have to go through life dealing with people who treat you like crap. If my husband's parents' "beliefs" that a baby isn't a baby until it's born (yet the opposite is true in the case of abortion) and they continue to dismiss the existence of Isabella and Sean then I think I've run out of cheeks. It's too big of a deal for me to let it slide.

If you expect someone to behave a certain way and they do, can you still be upset about it?

Frazzled

What a crazy day. I can't believe I'm still up, I wanted to go to bed hours ago.

There are a handful of thing freaking me out but I'm so frazzled I couldn't string a sentence together to go into it right now.

Even though my husband made me a little crazy tonight, he's away on a business trip and I miss him. I'm glad I have Katie snuggled on my lap and Krista snuggled on the bed nearby. It's better than being completely alone.

Success!

I had my first support group meeting last night and I was worried that no one would show up, but one did and that’s all that matters. We talked from 7pm until 9:30 and planned on meeting again next month. So next meeting is March 10th (second Tuesday)!

I’m so glad that someone came.

Also, today I got a phone call from a woman asking about my meeting. At first I was bummed out because she missed the meeting last night, but then she said she lives about an hour away so she probably wouldn’t have come. I gave her the information for Carol’s meeting since she lives much closer to her area than mine. I hope she’ll find comfort with Carol’s group and I’m confident she will because Carol is amazing.

Now I need to think of more ways to get the word out about this next meeting and really get after the local paper to print a notice for it. Wish me luck!

Onward and Upward

I am the queen of chemical pregnancies. Three in five months.

I was really upset Monday and Tuesday, but I think I'm ok now. I feel lame because it's like I keep crying wolf. I realize this is the place to lay it all out there, but it still sucks to say "Hurray, I'm pregnant!" only to have to turn around and say "Never mind..."

So now we take a break. We're going on vacation at the end of March, so come April we'll give it another go. I'm not sure about doctor recommendations to do the dye test, it seems that the eggs are bopping along just fine. But I have time to think about that and decide when the time comes.

In the meantime I'm going to focus on being positive, having fun, exercising, and starting some sort of project.

Also, I have to get my stuff together for my meeting next Tuesday. I want to make up some handouts and other things, so I need to get a move on.

I don't know where the kick in the ass came from, but I'll take it.

Not Long

I didn't call my doctor on Friday. We decided to wait and do another test this morning and then call.

It was negative.

I guess that's how long it would last.

Not long.

Sleepy Weekend

I've been super sleepy all weekend. Last week was really busy and I stayed up much too late every night. As is normal for us, we went to bed much earlier on Friday night than we did any other night this week. So I've been catching up this weekend, that and playing sudoku on my iPod. :)

Today were watching the super bowl although it's more for the commercials than the game. We're going to make yummy chicken wings and guacamole.

Maybe I can sneak in a nap before game time.