Pregnancy is easy... for everyone else.

I haven't updated in some time, again. I have a creative writing style post in draft that I have been working on for some time. This is just an update on how it feels to be left behind.

Many of my babylost friends have become pregnant. 3 from the TFMR 6+ months of trying club in the past 2 months. Another 3 from the TFMR (less than 6 months of trying) board this month. Other babylost have recently given or are about to give birth. Mrs. Wonderful is hitting V-day on Thursday (week 24!). That is so wonderful, and I am so, so happy for her, happy for all of them, but we were trying together. And now Mrs. Wonderful has known she's pregnant for 5 MONTHS now. And I am exactly where I was way back when she started in April. This is my 8th cycle. Had I gotten pregnant that first month of trying, I'd be due next month (well November, next month and one day).

There are babies galore popping up on my facebook page. I just can't stand looking at it anymore. I have become very sad and bitter, just in general. I was shopping today and saw the cutest baby things. And I found myself wondering, will I ever need those?

More and more, I'm losing hope and losing control. I finally called for an acupuncture appointment (Thursday at 6:30!) and we made a spending and savings plan to get our finances in order for ART/ Adoption. I'm sitting here doing good things, things to help myself and my hub, but still feeling like there is nothing really that I can do. I have my yearly at the GYN in 3 weeks. I am trying to avoid thinking about how it was due in October because last October I did my yearly as part of my 1st prenatal visit. I will likely get a pregnancy test at that appointment, or will have to cancel because I'll have my period.

I'm CD 3 today... still bleeding and not hopeful for this cycle. I really need to get my head in a better place.

OPG no more!

OPG is no longer OPG, rather she is now MLM; maternity leave mommy. She had been working from home for a few weeks prior to giving birth, so I've been away from her huge bump for a bit, but she'd call into meetings and I'd hear about how uncomfortable she was and how many appointments she had. When she was here, she would be constantly rubbing her belly like it hurt (which I'm sure it did). It made me So. F*ing. Jealous. I am glad that is over with. Her son is here (early) and healthy. Lucky devil.

At least I feel justified in leaving you with this song- which I LOVE (guilty pleasure)

Poor, poor pitiful me!
Poor, poor pitiful me!
Oh, these boys won't let me be
Lord have mercy on me
Woe, woe is me!
Terri Clark, Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

I've been ignoring you...

NOTE: I found this in draft after it should have been published. I have a whole different sentiment today (9/18/2012)

Sometimes when a BLM goes missing it is because she is pregnant.. this is not one of those times.I don't know if I mentioned, but AF showed up- on my anniversary no less. I had been spotting, so it wasn't a surprise. It was just the same big, fucking disappointment as always.

I have the pedestrian excuses per usual- busy with work, busy with home, busy with friends. But I am really writing this to say that I have reached a saturation point with my loss. I am unable to convey my sadness in any new ways. And I am Not. That. Sad. Anymore.

I feel awful saying that. Which is why I haven't been around.

This is NOT to say, in anyway, that this is easy or that when I really think about it, my loss doesn't break my heart into a million pieces. But I don't think about it so often, and I am able to live more fully not thinking about it all the time.That's good, right? I SHOULD be enjoying my life. I'm young and childless and that isn't all bad all the time. I had a 25th friend-aversary last weekend with my bestie and the resties. (I usually don't think of all my friends but one as "the rest" they are only "the rest" for this one event) We had it at the new house of one of our other friends and good times at the beach and drinking in a furniture-less house ensued. Hub and I are planning a get-away. I'm enjoying this semester's class. All good things. All things I was ignoring a few months back.

I feel like I am getting healthy again- I've lost 5 pounds, cut back on soda,  made an effort to cook food at home, I'm going to the gym again. I had been held down by a grief so large that I couldn't be bothered by those things- diet, exercise, enjoyment of life. I feel like I'm coming alive again. Different, sad but functional.

I've found you find strength in your moments of weakness
For once I'm at peace with myself
I've been burdened with blame, trapped in the past for too long
I'm movin' on
Rascal Flatts, I'm Moving On
 

Meeting a Baby- Creating Muchness

Lizzy Meets A Baby

 Today's Muchness Challenge was to "take the scenic route....look around. Find something along the way that makes you smile. It's there". To achieve this, I ended up helping a fellow Army wife and her family pack up their home ahead of a cross-country move. I am proud of myself for getting down to see her and help her out. She has a baby daughter- born just a month before Blue Sunday was diagnosed. Until today, I had never met the baby. Before we found out about Blue Sunday, the baby was too new to bother them, and it was the holidays. After... it was just too hard to face a little baby when I had just lost my own. As time passed, it was not that the loss was fresh but that EDD was coming, or just passed. You get the picture. I'm sure BLMs can relate- when is it really time to meet your first baby post loss? Since it is still so painful to be near OPG and other pregnant women, I wasn't sure if I could handle a baby. As it turns out, babies are easier than pregnant women. I think it's because I never got close to the point that I was going to have a baby- but I was close to the point that I would have a big, pregnant bump. It was a good milestone to cross.

The Muchness Challenge photograph prompt was to "snap something that aims toward the sky" My intention was to take my picture in my back yard, looking up into the canopy of the giant oak tree that shades our yard. By the time I got home though, it was nearly dark. So instead, I took two photos of my plants. The first is the flowers hub gave me for our anniversary. Cut flowers are beautiful, though I am so sad when they wither :( I always take a photo of them, so they stay fresh in my mind.

The second photo is of the bamboo plant my Army spouse friends sent me when I lost Blue Sunday. When it first arrived, the arrangement was made up of 6 stalks, 2 on each side bent into a heart shape. Early on, one of the stalks had an infection and I had to remove it, but since then the remaining 5 stalks have created new off shoots. Today, I gave one of the shoots to my friend who is moving!

 

And yesterday I knew just what you wanted

When you came walkin' up to me with him
So I told you that I was happy for you
And given the chance I'd lie again

Tim McGraw, Just to See You Smile

Muchness Day One

I am participating in a photography challenge which has a goal of "finding my muchness". The actual site is here but I wanted to share my daily photos with all of you. This means I am going to be spamming your blogger feeds with daily posts with a photo. I am putting these photos here and not on a Muchness blog because this process of photography is directly related to the reason I write. The founder of the Muchness movement is a BLM, she lost her twin girls Sunshine and Daisy at 22 weeks. Muchness is about living life fully, even when it is hard. This photo challenge is meant to help people find their inner light again.

Today's photo was to be a "before" photo of ourselves, taken in black and white. It was to be taken in the place were I mentally and physically spend the most time. This would be my home, on my sofa (or bed) this isn't necessarily a depression thing. I'm a homebody by nature. When hub was deployed I most missed evenings on the couch watching movies or in bed... together... Since Blue Sunday, the couch and home have become a place of mental refuge, which isn't my nature. I am 70% of the time happy to be home, on my couch, playing a board game, talking on the phone or just lounging with hub. 30% of the time, I'm there because I feel like I can't be anywhere else. It's the 30% I'll be working on this month. Without further ado, here I am!

Happy anniversary to me?

On September 1st 2006 I married  my best friend. I know that everyone says they married their best friend, but I really mean it. We are friends first. We laugh all the time. Without him I'm not sure how I would have survived this year- of course, without him I never would have been pregnant in the first place, so that was silly. What I mean is without hub being the type of person- the type of husband- that he is- I never would have survived, WE never would have survived. We have further to go, we're not out of the grief yet, but we're getting there. 

Our marriage has never been easy, really in spite of ourselves. Right from the start there was outside forces testing our marriage. Two weeks before my wedding I reminded my boss that I had 2 weeks vacation coming up, it was a pre-hire commitment and was "set in stone" when  I accepted the position. When I reminded my boss, I was denied the vacation time due to "operational need" and I was forced to quit or skip both my rehearsal dinner and my honeymoon (they were willing to give me a half-day off for my actual wedding- how kind). So... I was out of work for the first 3 months of our marriage- and I hated every minute I was stuck at home alone. Of course, I wasn't home by myself as often as one would think: about a month after our wedding hub was laid off from his job and got a series of odd jobs after a few weeks out of work. Money was tight, but we did have fun hanging out together and "playing house" in our first apartment. Come December, we were both back in full-time professional work and settled into married life- for about 10 months. Back to back hub lost 2 friends- one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan- and he decided to.... join the Army. 24 years old, newly married and gainfully employed. After much talk and compromise, he joined as a National Guard solider and left for 15 months is Feb of 2007. 

We lived apart for those 15 months, with me visiting him every 6 weeks or so after the first 6 months of training was over. Until the events of December 26th 2011, those 1st 6 months in the Army were the hardest time of our marriage. He had unusually limited phone time, he didn't call at all in the first month he was away, when he did call, in the 5th week, it was for 5 minutes. We didn't speak again until he pretended to forget some personal information that was needed for paperwork and was required to make a call to me to get the info. We spoke twice more in the 11th, and final, week once the night before our reunion. That isn't how it was supposed to go, or what I had expected from my army wife freinds, but the base was overcrowded and hub's unit was in an auxiliary barrack away from everyone else. Basically the drill sargents were left to their own devices- and chose to mess with them. In that time, I moved out of our first apartment and back home- ouch. It wasn't the first time we were apart (5 years apart in college) but it had been 7 years since we had limited phone contact (he went to a military college, so we were semi-inducted in the mind games of boot camp) 

When he came home I naively thought we could resume normal life. We started to search for a home and talked about having kids. While we set up our lives again, we lived with his parents- double ouch. Blow one was finding out we didn't have nearly enough money saved for a down payment. On top of that the economy crashed and while hub was lucky to find a job, it wasn't one he liked. So there we were, living in his parents house, with7 other people and no foreseeable way out. We still were having a blast, finally reunited. Then he got deployment orders.

When he left in December of 2009, I moved back home, he spent a year in Iraq. It was nerve wracking and difficult, communication was spotty at best- I heard from him every 10 days or so. Once he called me in a real mood and I later found out that he had to hold bandages to what was left of his buddy's hands after an accident. More days like that followed. In September, about 2.5 months before he was due home, I put in an offer on our first home. It was a very difficult transaction, bank errors, delays, miscommunications. All the while, hubs return dae kept being pushed back. We were told they would be home for Thanksgiving- didn't happen. On December 4th 2010, Hub returned. 2 days later, we closed on our first home. I really thought the worst was behind us. For almost a year, I thought I was right. Reintegration was rough, but not impossible. There was no PTSD, no infidelity and few role issues. We started trying to conceive in March and were pregnant in September.  

So that's a chronological of the difficulties of our marriage thus far, without re-hashing the content of this blog. There are a myriad of other, normal annoyances as well- he was called up for duty this weekend and is working a high profile event in Charlotte this week (hint-hint) so I am alone this anniversary, the house has needed and continues to need significant work, we aren't in love with all of each other's friends.  You know what I mean. All in all though, we consider ourselves incredibly lucky and incredibly in love. I am genuinely baffled for those that settle for less in their marriages. I wouldn't trade the quality of my relationship for anything, even a healthy baby- because without hub, I can't be a family.