February 26, 2009

PUPDATE, LUCAS STYLE

In dog news, Charlie has decided that he wants to be Charlie Bronson and make a Great Escape.

Our backyard is a disaster, with dirt on one side and sand on the other. It's like a spectrum running from Mildly Crappy to Completely Worthless. Charlie recently discovered that sand is easy to dig and wriggle through. Thus, he keeps escaping. I bought those cheapy wire garden dividers, and I even strategically placed an old flowerpot so he couldn't get out again.

He still managed to escape.

To put things in Rachel Lucas terms:

greatescape1.jpg

He can still manage to squeeze out of that space. This means he can't have unsupervised backyard time, which is a real pain in the neck.

greatescape2.jpg

Very annoying. I will have to go steal some dirt from the construction site in our neighborhood to put on top of that sand to keep the danged dog in the yard.

greatescape3.jpg

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UPDATE

I figured I should give you a small update re: baby.

So here's the deal: You take women who are extremely freaked out about miscarriage and you give them a medicine which prevents miscarriage but which also has the absurd side effect of irritating your cervix and making you bleed.

(I'm reminded of the scene in Futurama when Fry says he can't swallow a pill that size, and the professor says "Well then good news!" because you don't swallow it. Ahem. Oh, and they're refrigerated.)

Anti-Pressure_Pill.jpg

So basically now it's just a waiting game until I go for my ultrasound in two weeks. I won't know anything until then, but even then I won't feel great: the last time, you'll remember, we managed to become one of the 5% of people whose baby has a heartbeat and then subsequently dies.

I may be a while before I feel confident. Please don't try to convince me I should get that way right now. I won't breathe easily until I make it to a milestone that I haven't reached in the past. Like seeing a doctor. I've never even done that yet.

So we wait it out.

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February 22, 2009

UPDATE

I had a little bleeding today, which sufficiently destroyed my enthusiasm and optimism.
I won't be blogging about it anymore for quite a while, at least not until I know something one way or the other.
I am OK, but I would prefer not to talk about it, so no need to phone.

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February 14, 2009

I ALMOST FORGOT WHAT DAY IT IS

I can't believe it's been five years since my husband left for Iraq the first time. What a Valentine's Day that was.

We're not much for celebrating the 14th, but there are two things we do every year.

One, we sing this.
Two, we watch this.

Happy Valentine's Day, husband. I still choo-choo-choose you.

valshat.jpg

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February 13, 2009

SPENDING

You know that 1% retail gain in January? I think that was my husband and I. Since my husband is having two deployment years in a row, and since the stock market is in the toilet, there's no sense in hiding money in Roths or TSP. So we've been spending it like it's going out of style. My husband got a bunch of stuff that he needs for SERE and for the next deployment (He's an "operator" now, which apparently means he needs a bunch of stuff that the Army won't provide.) I decided to live in the now by doing two things I've wanted to do for a while: I bought an elliptical machine to make good on my promise to start exercising, and I bought a plane ticket to go visit CaliValleyGirl and finally meet her baby.

Spending is kinda fun; no wonder other people do it so often.

UPDATE:

I said to my husband, "Oh, I also should've put that we paid off our car." And he joked in a cartoonish announcer voice, "Freeing up capital for someone else!" Heh. We're doing what we can to help the ecominy.

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February 12, 2009

STRESSED

Yes, the timestamp on this entry is correct. I've developed a terrible new habit: I wake up every night around 4 AM to fret. I have been awake for an hour now, so stressed out that I don't know whether to cry or throw up.

My husband leaves for SERE school on Monday. A few days later, I will find out whether I am pregnant. If I am, I won't be able to tell him for two and a half weeks. But the more likely scenario, obviously, is that I am not, in which case I will have to do the next fertility round by myself a day or two before he gets home. Thus, I will have to pick up my husband from SERE and drive him straight home for babymaking. The thought of forcing the situation the day he finishes being beaten and starved makes me sick to my stomach...but so does the thought of skipping a cycle when we have precious few left.

So I lie in bed fretting and stressing every single night. I'm back at the Choose Your Own Adventure stage.

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February 05, 2009

I UNQUIT MY JOB

I was joking with Amritas and David the other day that I have found the secret to workplace productivity: Hire people who don't need the money and then tell them that they can go home when they finish all their work.

My managers wanted me to stay on at the store so badly that they offered me whatever I want...except money. I said I would stay on if I could work one day a week and only do things that are fun. Amazingly, they agreed.

There were some parts of my job that I really liked, like organizing the yarn section. I love doing that; I would do it for free. I like to see how quickly I can do it. On Monday, I shelved all the new yarn in 24 minutes. I was sweating and puffing by the end.

And, absurdly enough, I have grown fond of making those foam houses. Now that I have several of them under my belt, I automatically know what will and won't work, and I just glue-gun the hell out of it and go to town. (I made an Easter castle today, and I was just thrilled that it didn't have any butterflies on it. They are the worst.)

So I am staying on to work one day a week, sorting yarn and doing crafts. And I go home when I'm done with my tasks. I'm cool with that.

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February 01, 2009

BOOKS

I'm on track to beat Bush's 2008 and 2007 scores in my George Bush 2009 Reading Challenge: I've read four books in four weeks. I'm gonna make sure I keep up the pace, which I think will be easy once my husband starts leaving town all the time. Heck, maybe I could even beat Rove.

I have plenty of things on my bookshelves to keep me occupied, but I always enjoy asking people to recommend books. What are your favorites? Maybe I will add some of them to my list this year.

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January 31, 2009

UPDATE

Quick update...

I realized that I couldn't wait until Monday morning, because in order to be ready for the procedure on Tuesday, I have to give myself that trigger shot Sunday night. So I had to find out if the procedure was still a go-flight.

Luckily, my neighbor is friends with my fertility doctor's wife. She called their house and got me permission to call the doctor today. Otherwise I have no idea what I would've done.

He listened and said that it probably is just the hormone levels tricking my endometrium into doing goofy things. He said that as long as the bleeding is letting up, and it has, then we are still on track.

So whew.

Hindsight sucks. I wish I'd gotten a good night's sleep last night instead.

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THE TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD DAY

Some days just beg to be blogged about. They have Palahniuk's "paperback potential." But other days are just too much to even form a coherent story.

Yesterday was the perfect storm of awful. In bed last night, the husband and I rated it as one of our three all-time worst days of our marriage. And by "in bed last night," I mean this morning, because we didn't get into bed until after 5 AM.

We started our day Friday at 5 AM with a trip to the fertility clinic. Everything looked good for a procedure next week. And then all sorts of little things started going wrong during our day, things barely worth mentioning save the fact that they all happened in a row: had to buy a new printer, knocked over a can of coke on the sofa and my knitting project, the garbage disposal broke, etc. We kept describing our day like this: Life FAIL. We just wanted the day to be over.

But around dinnertime, I started bleeding...and there's no earthly reason why I should be bleeding today. It was enough to make me nervous, and since it was a Friday night and I wouldn't be able to reach my doctor or nurse until Monday, we decided we'd better head to the ER. Luckily we ate dinner first, because we had no idea what we were in for.

I expected to be there until midnight. I didn't expect to be there until 4:30 AM. During that time, I had less than ten minutes of actual medical care -- take blood pressure, ask about my symptoms, quick pelvic exam -- and was eventually told...drumroll..."Geez, I don't know anything about fertility stuff, so just call your doctor Monday morning."

When we walked in the house to finally go to sleep, my husband's watch alarm went off. It had woken us up at 5 AM that morning to start our day, and he wryly announced it was ending our day as well.

Thanks to everyone who noted my offhanded Facebook status and checked on me. I am fine, apparently, even though I am still bleeding and don't know why or what this means.

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January 28, 2009

THE END OF AN ERA

I case you were sitting on the edge of your chair in anticipation (snort), I did go ahead and resign from my job. I will not be staying on in a more generic capacity; I will finish out the remaining three weeks of this job and then say my goodbyes.

With karmic timing, more foam houses arrived this week, so I will be making Easter-themed castles. But I plan to smile while I do it, because I have gotten darned good at it. I am a quick-draw with that glue gun these days. It will be my last hurrah there at the store.

And as much as I hated that foam when I first started, I think I will miss it, in a small way.

Not enough to buy one though.

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January 27, 2009

ENJOYING OUR TIME

I wrote at SpouseBUZZ about how we've been spending our block leave. One nice thing about just being at home is that we can be so lazy. We've been waking up and then spending about another hour or so talking and loafing in bed. It has been nice to be able to do that.

And we know it and keep talking about it in a meta-knowledge way.

I have been trying harder to live in the now, to live my real life and not the parallel one. We have been trying to find the good in not having a baby, and lazing around in bed until 9 AM is a definite start. We keep reminding each other that we can't do that anymore once we have kids, so we should enjoy it while we can. We are trying to be happier about not having a baby and focusing on the silver lining.

Another mental change I need to make is about my health. For two years, I have stressed out about what I was eating and drinking, in case it would have either a positive or negative effect on fertility. I have made myself sick with this cycle of guilt about having a glass of wine, etc. No more. I can't keep living this way, where I am freaked out that every little thing I do might injure this baby that doesn't even exist yet.

I also have put off diving into an exercise regime because you're not supposed to drastically change your exercise habits upon becoming pregnant. I never wanted to go to the gym because, what was the point?: If I got into a good habit of going to the gym for two weeks, I might get pregnant and quit going anyway. So I never had the motivation to start something that I imagined myself quitting. And two years later, I am just mad that I have been living my life in two-week intervals. So I'm going to start exercising, and we'll deal with baby if/when it happens.

We're hardening our hearts a little, mentally preparing ourselves for not having a baby, which is a hard thing to do when you also have appointments for fertility treatments. But I have hated the way we've been living for the past two years, so it's not like it can get any worse.

So we're enjoying doing whatever the heck we want with our time while our time is still ours.

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January 26, 2009

LAME

Professor: Well, it looks like I'll need my heroic bureaucrat back. At severely reduced pay, of course
Fry: What about me? Can I come back at severely reduced pay?
Hermes: You got it, mon. In fact, severely reduced pay all around!

That Futurama quote has been running through my head all day.

So Obama becomes president, and I lose my job. Causation or correlation?

Seriously, I just found out today that my job has disappeared. I can stay on as a regular associate, at severely reduced pay, if I so choose. Try this on for size: do all the same work you've been doing, for a dollar less per hour.

I'm sure it's For The Greater Good.

Oy.

Must decide by tomorrow.

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January 21, 2009

PIECES OF THE CRAZY PIE

It's been two years since we started trying to have a baby.

No two journeys are exactly the same, but I have been fortunate to know several different ladies who each understand one piece of the crazy pie.

A girl I know here in town, she understands the obsession. She was a charter and a planner. Though it only took her a few months to get pregnant, she remembers vividly the obsession with the science aspect. Like me, she never stopped picking up her charts and comparing month to month. She knows the agony of knowledge and the grief of searching for some medical indicator of why things don't seem to be working.

Another person from my Real Life understands the bitterness. She is mad, mad that she grew up, finished school, got married, got a good job, planned and saved, and now is stuck frozen in time, just like I am. She also hates her high school health teacher for saying that Man + Woman = Baby, because for some of us, it just simply doesn't. She is the only person I know who is as bitter about her lot in life as I am.

I am eternally grateful to know Darla, who like me counts the chickens far before they're hatched. Every month I too check the due date calendars online and plan for a baby nine months later. She and I remain hopeful to a fault, because the overwhelming evidence in our faces should make us slit our wrists rather than start picking out names. But we do it anyway, torturing ourselves with hope. I am glad to know Darla can still do that after seven years, because I have felt crazy for doing it for two.

And on the flip side, my best friend from high school understands the despair. She understands those days when you wallow and feel like it will never happen. Because although she eventually went on to have children, she never fully recovered from the emotional damage the journey took on her. She never gives me any platitudes, never tries to cheer me up, never tells me that things will work out. She keenly remembers the despair, and she too is a bruised orange.

And this Army Wife, whom I recently discovered because of The Worst Possible Thing, understands feeling like a biological failure. When the majority of people on this planet can and do reproduce, and you slowly realize that you can't, it is a severe blow. I feel like we have lesser genes, that we are faulty, that we are not the fittest and thus shouldn't survive. I've never heard anyone else even mention how not getting pregnant or miscarrying feels like a personal biological failure. Reading that on her blog made me finally feel normal about that one piece of the crazy pie.

These women help me realize I am not alone and I am not insane. I am so grateful to each of them for what they have taught me along the way.

Two years.

Damn.

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January 20, 2009

SNOW

We woke up to our first real snow in three years.
Charlie loves it, just like he did as a puppy.

pupsnow.jpg

We're getting smiles where we can today.

Also, people in the South can NOT drive in snow. I was laughing with my husband that I took my driving test at 16 in more snow than we have today.

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January 15, 2009

GRRR

Could life get any more annoying right now? First annoyance: We noticed that we weren't getting any mail delivered. Not even a piece of junk mail for over a week. I called yesterday, and someone had gone online and put a hold on our mail for a month. Thanks a heap. Then this morning, Ticketmaster calls and says that someone fraudulently charged NY Knicks tickets to our credit card. Fantastic. Maybe tomorrow someone could slash my tires.

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January 11, 2009

COMPARISON BABIES

My husband and I have been torturing ourselves with alternate reality a little lately. Our due date is coming up this week, which just underscores how perfectly timed that baby was. I got pregnant right before he deployed, and he would've returned with a little over a month before I gave birth. And the birth would've happened right during block leave. It saddens us to think how perfectly that would've worked out.

Another wife in the unit got pregnant right at the same time I did. She is due any day now. I also hate that I keep getting hit with these Comparison Babies. Sometimes I look at CaliValleyBaby and think that my own first baby would be teething and scooting around these days too. And now I will have to look at this new baby in our unit and be reminded of the progress that our second baby isn't here to make.

Some days I am hopeful that this will work for us. Other days I think that, with our track record, we have little chance for success with only five times to try before the husband deploys again.

My New Year's resolution ought to have been to stop being Dante Hicks.

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January 01, 2009

LONELY

OK, so it's not just the dog who's bummed.

I think it was too soon to send my husband away again. I cannot remember a night during deployment when I felt as lonely and depressed as I do tonight. I have been on the verge of tears all afternoon.

But all these pants stories helped.

Is it bedtime yet? Heck, is it Sunday yet?

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ALONE AGAIN

I called my husband last night a few minutes after midnight and said, "It's 2009 here; what year is it where you are?" He said, "2008. Are you calling me from the future?" It cracked me up.

I spent the evening with a friend, which was fun. I am home alone now, and it's surprising how normal it feels. Almost like my husband was never here. This is just how I lived for so long that it feels normal.

I think the dog is depressed though.

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December 29, 2008

DYNAMIC STAGNANCY

My husband finished his MBA three days before deploying. He took a full load of distance classes every term in addition to his full-time Army job. He was always busy. And he finished the program and deployed, so I was really looking forward to having him home and having him to myself. No more homework, no more projects, no more me sitting alone in the TV room all day Saturday and Sunday while he worked.

He sat me down last night and said that he wants to start a new Master's Degree. Or learn Pashto. Or both. Either way, he warned me, he will be busy again. There go our Saturdays and Sundays.

I admire him for taking his professional development so seriously. But I can't help but feel frustrated that the thing I was supposed to be doing -- raising a baby -- hasn't happened yet and I keep sitting around waiting for my life to start. I could relate to Heidi's recent post about being consumed with the way life should have been instead of what it really is. I don't know what to do with myself besides sit around and wait for baby to show up. That's my only major life goal, and I've been twiddling my thumbs on it for two years now.

Maybe I ought to learn Pashto too.

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