March 29, 2008

TIBET

Charlie thinks that you should read this article about the oppression of his people: Why Do Palestinians Get Much More Attention than Tibetans?

He also thinks the Tibetan people could learn from the Tibetan terriers, such as how to hide.

charlie_and_rug_2.jpg

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MY BRAIN HAS ROTTED

Knitters watch a lot of TV. And since I've been cranking out baby gifts and scarves for my mama and squares for HCC, I watch a lot of TV during the day. Oh hooey, I won't even blame it on the knitting; I like watching TV. And I try to watch interesting things on the National Geographic channel, but they take more concentration than reruns of cop dramas, and I need that concentration for the knitting.

But I've discovered a funny side-effect of all this TV: I am starting to dream about TV characters as if they're people in my life, or as if I'm in an episode of their show. About a week ago, I dreamt about Calleigh Duquesne and Eric Delko. I just thought it was funny when I woke up. But two days later, I was solving a murder with Goren and Eames. The next night, I hung out with Wash from Firefly, and then last night I was a high schooler sitting next to Sam Weir. It's starting to creep me out.

I am turning into Mike TV.

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March 26, 2008

A FRIEND FOR A NIGHT

As I was leaving my house tonight to have dinner with friends, I noticed a dog wandering on my street. I started to drive away since I was already a few minutes late, but I changed my mind and called the dog over to me. He had tags, but nothing that indicated where he belonged.

(Incidentally, what is up with that? We get dogs roaming our neighborhood all the time, and none of them ever have a tag with their address or phone number on it. What is wrong with people?)

He did have a tag noting that he was chipped, with a 1-800 number. I took him home -- he followed quite willingly -- and called the people. They tracked him down and called the owners; no answer. They left a message saying I had their dog and to call me. I left this dog in our backyard while I went to dinner.

I should've remembered Mare's warning. He was a beautiful husky mix, just so handsome. He also apparently had the husky's digging fetish. I got home from dinner and he was gone, leaving me with a major hole under the fence. Now I know how he disappeared from his owner's house.

I hope he's OK and found his way home.
I'm kind of sad; Charlie wanted to keep him.

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March 25, 2008

REPRIMANDING MYSELF

Must...stop...fingers from typing.

Stop talking about not having a baby.

Just stop.

No one wants to hear it. No one cares. I mean, they do care, but they don't need to hear about it every day.

Just talk about something else. What's Obama doing? Talk about that guy who died and came back to life. Something, anything else.

But all I can do is sit here and think about how it wasn't supposed to be like this. Having a baby was supposed to be happy, fun, natural. I never envisioned this for myself.

Oh lord, I'm Dante Hicks.

Just, bleh. Talk about something else. Don't write about this anymore. The more you write about it, the more people comment and send you emails, which means the more you think about it, which means the more depressed you get.

Duh. Stop it.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:46 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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TRYING

LauraB asks a pertinent question in the comments section:

So for those people who cannot/have not/may never conceive - isn't there a point at which you just have to surrender to it and live your lives together even if it is childless?

I have thought a lot about this too over the past year.

Look, I am an obsessive type person. I think that if you're going to do something, you do it wholeheartedly. So when we weren't quite ready for children, we were actively preventing the possibility. Every single time, no exceptions, for many years. So when we decided it was time for a family, it just wasn't in our nature to take the whatever-happens-happens approach. I am an all-or-nothing gal; I immediately started maximizing chances for baby to happen. I read books, websites, sought tips, everything. I began charting immediately. It was the exact opposite of the diligence with which we had previously prevented pregnancy.

My ultimate fear isn't necessarily that we might not be able to have kids. It's that I might not be able to "switch off" this diligence. We are trying to have a baby; at what point do we give up? When do you give up hope? Because, really, it's the hope that kills you. It's the hope, every month, that you might've gotten what you wanted.

If a doctor told me tomorrow that I would never have kids, that there was no chance of it happening, I could mourn and then move on. And I would recover and go on to lead a happy and normal life. Because I wouldn't be trying anymore.

And I was never one of those women who loves babies or wanted to be a kindergarten teacher her whole life. This may sound terrible, but there's a part of me that's ready to throw in the towel because the more elusive it gets, the less important it feels. The less emotional it feels. I think human beings ought to procreate, and I think that people with stable, loving homes like ours are a good place for kids. (And Mark Steyn makes me think I need to have ten of them, to shore up our numbers.) I was always fairly matter-of-fact about having a baby anyway, and this year of over-thinking it hasn't helped any. My husband re-convinces me every day to keep trying, because I'd love to abandon hope and forget about it.

It's the trying, the hope, that's beating me down.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:30 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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March 20, 2008

PERFECT GENTLEMAN

Oh look, another chance to rave about my husband!

I already wrote about how my husband and I ended up together:

When I realized that my friendship with my husband was turning into something more than friendship, I knew I didn't want to make the same mistake twice. So I flat out told him one night, told him that I really liked him and that I was starting to think about him all the time, and asked him how he felt. He was quite taken aback, and that's when he gave his famous "well, I like you, but I'm not going to marry you or anything" line. He wasn't quite sure what to think, but he slept on it (for two weeks!) and finally told me that he wanted to be with me too.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier did a follow-up post and wrote about dating rules for men. One of the things that so impressed me about my husband was that, while he was taking his time deciding whether he wanted us to be together, he never abused his position in the relationship. He could've used the info to try to get me to go home with him, or strung me along, or whatever. But he was a perfect gentleman. Just perfect.

And I complimented his mother on his behavior later on.

I really liked this part of Melissa's post:

Another aside: I think men are more romantic than women, not less. A man will fall in love and be in love and stay in love with a woman and he just knows. It's often very cut and dried for him. Women are often more needing of proof and evidence. Now, I realize this is a generalization, but I believe it to be true.

My husband is very cut and dried. He just fell in love with me and never stopped, and never considered not being in love with me. It's so simple and so wonderful. Granted, sometimes he could work on his delivery: for example, we are attending a military ball tonight, and when I tried on my new dress to show him the other day, he barely looked up from playing with the dog. He takes it for granted that I know he thinks I'm pretty, which is actually quite cute. He also thinks the height of romance is funding my IRA. He says things like, "See how much I love you; I put money in an account that I would never be able to touch if you divorced me." That's true love for my husband.

And I've been meaning to tell this story for a while now. We were watching highlights of a slam-dunk contest on ESPN a few weeks back, and I asked my husband if he can dunk. He got the cutest look on his face and said, "No, absolutely not, but I think it is such a compliment that you even remotely thought I might be able to."

One of my cherished readers reminded me in an email that, despite the fact that we have encountered roadblocks trying to get pregnant, I have many things to be thankful for. She said that many people would give anything to have the marriage I have, let alone kids. And she's right. Since then, I tell my husband often that I'd rather have zero babies with him than five babies with anyone else.

I am lucky and happy, and I know it.

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March 07, 2008

FEELING LONELY

Angie posted a link about large families (4+ kids). I knew I shouldn't read it, I just knew it. But I went anyway. Ouch, does it hurt to read comment after comment from people who had all of these accidental kids. Pregnant while on birth control, pregnant after having tubes tied (!), etc. It's so hard to hear about all these surprises when we'd give anything to get the one mega-planned-for baby we've been working on for 13 months.

I have begun to feel discouraged again. It's been three months since the miscarriage and, despite the fact that friends and family all assured me I'd be pregnant again by now, no such luck. And I'm starting to wish that I just had someone to go through this with me. I know several people who had trouble getting pregnant, but, happily for them, they have all gone on to start families. They completely understand what I'm going through, but since they're all past that stage of their lives, it's not the same thing; they know that life eventually works out for them, but I don't have that guarantee yet. So while it's reassuring to me that everyone has gone on to have a baby, either by adoption or IVF, I don't know anyone in the same situation as I am right now: trying unsuccessfully to have her first child. Do any of you readers know of someone currently going through this stage of her life? I'd really like to find a comrade in this struggle.

Because it's rough knowing that people who got pregnant five months after I started trying are getting ready to give birth...

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