When you think everything's okay.....

3/14/12
10 Weeks

It's been 10 weeks since I freed Blue Sunday from this unfair life. 10 whole weeks. That is more than half the time Blue Sunday spent in me (18.6 less 2 prior to conception that counts as pregnancy) How can someone be so thoroughly changed by something in their lives for not quite 17 weeks?

I had been having a string of OK days. Not great- never great- but OK. Sometimes even happy. I went home after work yesterday and went shopping for clothes for vacation. It was fun. I did see little baby Red Sox outfits at the entrance to one store. I felt that stabby in my heart thinking about how, had this chromosomal fluke hadn't happened I most certainly would have gotten one. There was another moment, trying on bathing suits where I wanted to cry looking at the flabbiness that sits where a firm, round, moving bump should be. There were two pregnant women in one store. When we left Hub said "Sometimes I think the world is out to get us. Like it's rubbing our noses in it". I have to agree hub. Overall though- it was fun and I was OK.

After we got home,  I was trying to watch "The New Girl". The show is very funny which is what I needed. The episode we turned on was about a cancer scare in one of the main characters. Strike One- please no medical crises for awhile.  Due to his lack of insurance, he ends up at a gynecologist's office, complete with lots of roundly pregnant women. Strike Two. After a night of getting high on pain pills and reflecting on life- they all end up at the beach in Santa Monica. Strike Three.

How do I know they are at the beach in Santa Monica? Why is that a strike? I could see the Santa Monica pier in the background. The giant Ferris Wheel overlooking the ocean. The same Ferris Wheel hub and I rode the day I tested positive- pregnant with Blue Sunday. I was so happy.

When we went to bed, hub brought Blue Sunday up. That he is sad for me. That it is so unfair because I'll be such a good mom. That he believes it will happen for us. I just don't know anymore. I don't want just any baby-- I want that baby. I want my baby.

I saw this on a blog today- a blog far, far sadder than my own. I think it is beautiful.

"Dear Lord, I would have loved to have held my baby on my lap and tell him about You,
but since I didn't get the chance, would You please hold Him on your lap and tell him about me."

To say that I am questioning my faith is putting it mildly, but this makes me want to believe. I guess that's a start.

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face

Alanis Morissette, Ironic

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Muppet Show

3/12/12
Kermit

How many times has Kermit ruined YOUR day?

Yes, that Kermit. The green frog, in love with Miss Piggy heading up The Muppet Show.

May be "Ruined" is too strong a word, but I did dissolve in a puddle of tears and my runner's high was obliterated.  I was out for a run on an incredibly-nice-for-early-March-in-Boston day yesterday. It was the very first day of daylight savings time so it was still bright sun at about 4 when I left for my run. I was almost home about 35 minutes later in the mandated 5 minute cool down when The Song came on. You know the one, the one about Rainbows and dreaming and disbelief and faith.

Though it has a special meaning now, this had always been a crying song to me. There is something so sad about it that I just can't put into words.  When I was still pregnant and unaware of the 3rd 18th chromosome dooming our baby, I went to see The Muppet Movie- which I loved. The last scene is the singing of The Song, it was already an emotional scene and I had a tear or two in my eyes. Then I heard the opening notes and bawled like a baby. Hub also had a few tears from the ending of the movie, but took the opportunity to laugh at me. He looked over as that opening note played and asked "Really?" as the heaving sobs started. He knows that power that song has over me.

'Rainbow' is the term given to pregnancies and babies born after a loss. Yesterday, when those opening notes  came blaring out of the headphones of my beloved iPhone I wasn't thinking about that movie. I was thinking about Blue Sunday. And about the dream of Blue Sunday's Little. About how some choose to believe that "Rainbows are visions, but only illusions". I don't know if I'm the dreamer- or the disbeliever. May be Little is only an illusion.

So needless to say, I made it back to the house and collapsed crying in bed where Hub was watching woodworking videos (A.K.A .man- porn). I couldn't even talk. All I got out was "The.... Muppet's... song". At least Hub didn't laugh this time.

I'm not linking any lyrics. I'm saving The Song for a baby. I'm going to make it happy someday.

I'm not Crazy, I'm Just a Little Unwell

3/8/12
It feels like spring out today. It smells like spring, too. Even in my office, behind windows that don't open I smell spring. All fall and some winter I thought "Once it's warm again, I'll be having a baby soon". Not so much. I have played that game for years it feels- all the times hub was away, planning for my wedding. Once it is (season) I'll be (happy event). The last one- when he was deployed was "Next time it's cold/snowy/awful out Hub will be here!" It kept me going. When he did come home it was the worst/best snow season in a decade. It snowed every single week. Does this mean it will be a wonderful, yet baby-less Spring?

The wonderful, taunting weather makes me think even more about TTC. This month, in 6 days, we'll start trying again. Last time it took 5 months (4 not really trying and then one with a fertility monitor and BFP). The first 4 we were kind of just having fun. I think I sabotaged it. I had a weekend of drinking canoeing down the Saco planned and I wanted an Octoberfest before I started riding the wagon.

I'm already feeling hopeless about this cycle. I have so much riding on it. My only shot at a 40-week 2012 baby and 1 of only 3 cycles to have a BFP before Blue Sunday's due date. Right now, I feel trying is going to be a long haul thing.

This morning I felt differently. I dreamed I was pregnant and had just gotten word the baby was healthy. I got the call at a work meeting, some of my favorite work people were there (I only like a few of them). I got a call on my personal cell and stepped outside to take it, this is a big deal. Cells are forbidden in work meetings, I knew the call was coming and had prior approval. It was the OB who said that the tests were back and everything was negative (which is a positive thing!). I went back into the meeting crying. Everyone was very concerned and I said "This time everything is just perfect". Though people asked, I wouldn't confirm I was pregnant because I has to tell Chris first and he was in Puerto Rico with the Army. I took from that that I will be in the 20-22 week range the last week of July- when Hub will be away.  Meaning conception this cycle.

Now I'm thinking may be it was the first tri screens and scans and not the amnio and 20 week anatomy scan. That would be conception the cycle encompassing my due date. I don't want to go down that road. I don't want to conceive when I should have been giving birth...

Crazy-cakes? No? It was a DREAM not a flash into the future. 

Hold on
I'm feeling like I'm headed for a
Breakdown
I don't know why
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me 

Matchbox 20, Unwell

How Come I Miss What I Never Knew

3/16/12
Baby Boom Baby 

As I am sure you are slowly realizing, though I claim to love all music, I am impartial to Folk music- James Taylor being the creme de la creme in my mind. I have long had this theory that there is a JT song for every occasion (Yes, JT, we're close like that). Baby Boom Baby is the most under-rated song of his career. I tried to find a version of it on YouTube and there isn't one with lyrics, THAT'S how underrated it is. This guitar-only version by YouTube user GioPelosi is very beautifully done, the music is haunting. The lyrics are what does me in though. It is the perfect hopeless/hopeful song.

http://youtu.be/TLAbhouGyAw

Right now I am right in-between hopeless and hopeful. I have started my second post-termination period and am looking ahead to another pregnancy. I am hoping to get this part- the very end- of the song soon:

Now I'm caught in the spotlight

Walking the wire

my feet are frozen and my heart's on fire

What do I do if my dream comes true 

James Taylor, Baby Boom Baby

But most of the time I feel stuck in the early verses. The parts of the song lamenting a loss. I very much miss Blue Sunday. I miss being pregnant, sure. But I mostly miss the idea of Blue Sunday. The dreams I had, the things I wanted to share with a baby of mine.

How come I miss 

what I never knew

and drag out the past just to paint it blue

And spend my days with a dream of you
James Taylor, Baby Boom Baby

I desperately miss what I never knew.  I know this is way high on the crazy scale- but I love that "Blue" is in there. I feel like it is in there for us- Blue Sunday and me. Yes, I know that this song was released in 1988- when I was 5. I have (sadly) never met JT. But it makes me feel better- we have a song. I have that to hold onto.

Supersize It

So that was a downer. In a funnier note:

I had a dream last night that reminded me of one of my favorite SNL skits of all time. I dreamed that I got a baby from a drive though window. The person in front of me took the one I wanted, the younger baby. It was looking at me with those big eyes babies have when they are small and playing with a sucker. The bigger baby was really cute though, a red-head holding a blue blanket, like my pink one. I ended up with the bigger baby- a one-year old boy. Always boys. In thinking how silly it is to get someone from a drive through, I started thinking about "Supersize It" from SNL with N*SYNC It went:

Why don't drive through my heart Can I take your order?

Look what you get for just one more quarter

Wanna supersize it

Hold the pickles 

and do it up big

When it comes to my love, I be a hungry pig (snort snort).

Come on and supersize it

Hold the pickles 

I'm down on my knees 

If you don't want all my love, next window please.

If there was such a thing as "The Internet" when that came out it would have been HUGE. (*This is hyperbole- there was the internet-- but it was still just weird AOL chat rooms and IMs that were sent to random people that said "A/S/L?". I know for a fact that this song came out my senior year of high school- so in 2000 or 2001. I was newly dating my husband. 2 friends of mine reenacted this skit in my kitchen after giving blood that afternoon at the school blood drive and then going bowling. We were all light-headed and about to faint- but had a blast. I might post a picture later. It is pretty classic (*by which I mean "embarrassing to 99% of people")

I've got friends in low places

3/2/12
I've Got Friends in Low Places.. and it is a Wonderful Thing

I have a friend from an internet site unrelated to my loss. As the spouse of a National Guard solider, I sometimes have to break my adamant refusal to ever define myself by someone else.  It is difficult to navigate the culture of the military without eventually joining a mil spouse group. When hub first joined and was on his way to basic my days were dark (comparatively easy given what was coming but I didn't know better at the time). I found a wonderful chat site full of knowledgeable, caring and supportive women. We had our moments, but were like a family. It is on that site that I met my friend- Mrs. Wonderful (no sarcasm).

Mrs. Wonderful had the WORST pregnancy I had ever heard of, her hub was far away and out of contact, intractable nausea/vomiting, heavy bleeding for weeks. Finally, things started going well for her, she told people in real life that she was expecting-- then her water broke. Her and her precious baby held on for 7 days, but on the day she reached 20 weeks her baby passed.

At the time, I was 8 weeks or so less pregnant than she was. I cried for her and said a little prayer that I wouldn't follow in her pPROM footsteps. I counted up the ways our pregnancies were dissimilar. When I got my devastating diagnosis I told my chat board ladies. They surrounded me with love. A gift card to a spa, a (living) plant, notes on-line of all kinds. Mrs. Wonderful in particular was there for me. Sending me messages of hope and love. Sharing her story of post-loss life. We've been FB messaging almost daily.

She asked me for my address and I gave it to her. The other day I received a  note too kind to attempt to summarize and a locket with a bird flying over trees etched into the front of it. Blue Sunday has always been a bird to me- needing to fly away from the pain of life, from the tree-top nursery I was planning, away from me. Her note reminded me that our babies are looking over us somewhere, wishing us well- wishing us to go on pain-free as they are able to.

I have always been one to seek out people in similar situations- My military chat board, the pregnancy boards and now loss boards. I under-estimated having a real life connection. I have never met Mrs. Wonderful, though I would love to if the opportunity arises (we live very far apart). But I truly feel I have a friend in a low place. I would never wish anyone down there, but it is a comfort.

I've got friends in low places
where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases 
my blues away and I'll be OK
Garth Brooks, Friends in Low Places