The Light at the End

I feel terrible for not posting this earlier. I mean, how could I forget?! I suppose the same way I forgot to post Monster’s 12th birthday letter until well over 16 days past his birthday. I think it was the unemployment thing, the stagnation of life that happens and enfolds you when you’re scrabbling to search for that light at the end of the tunnel. The long ass tunnel I was stuck in for 2 months. That was torture.

My last post, on the 5th, was at 5 in the afternoon. Hey, that’s kind of neat. Anyway, I posted shortly after returning home from an interview wherein I got the job. I can’t believe I didn’t mention it or anything, but I guess I was high on life and feeling goopy with emotions towards my son. I’ll never know. The past week was a blur of activity and happiness.

I can honestly say that for the first time in a year I thorougly enjoy what I’m doing. My first job was taxing and frustrating, trying to squish a 40 hour position into 20 hours was too much to ask of one person. My second job was easy, but boring. I guess it was a nice break in the monotony, though. My third job, the most recent past one, was trying in its own way – a personal way.

This job, however, is brilliant. I’m transcribing dictations for two lawyers and helping around the office as needed. I love my boss, even if he is batty, and I love the office manager and other lawyers here. It’s relaxed enough to not make me feel stressed, I don’t have to battle 7 a.m. traffice since I start at 9 a.m. and lunch isn’t a thing to plan around, it just happens. I can’t say it’ll always be like this, what if it won’t? It doesn’t matter. I didn’t fall into a position that was overwhelming in its duties and priorities. I’m easing in, slowly taking things on as they come at me, learning the programmes and systems as things flow. I’m just starting to answer the phones on a more regular basis, with slightly more confidence than last week.

I’m looking at long term employment here. I’ll work here through my transcription degree and transition into a part-time medical transcription job while continuing to work for this law firm. I hope that after two years, I’ll have accrued enough in-field practice to bid the firm adieu and focus full time on my medical transcription job. So I’m going to be insanely busy.

One thing I realized, with great sadness, is that we will be living in our same apartment for another year. Which means Monster is stuck at the same school for another year. Which means we’re stuck in our crappy neighbourhood for another year. Tihs also means we wait another year to get a dog. Which kind of destroyed me for about three days. I want a dog with such a ridiculous passion, I imagine every dog I see on the street as being our dog and how it would work out. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. Another year to plan isn’t too bad, though.

The last thing on my mind right now is TTC. It’s still there, though, gnawing at my brain. Every time I see a little baby, my heart gets that fluttery feeling and I wonder when our relationship will get back on that track. Not any time soon, and I’ve accepted that. I cherish that knowledge and hope that when we are ready, we have everything we need to hit the ground running. This includes a dog first. And a bigger place – a rented house, maybe? Who knows.

Right now, I’m happy. I haven’t been happy in months. My last job was sucking my soul straight from my body, and unemployment just made me feel terrible about myself. This job seems to be restoring a huge part of my personality to ‘right’. I’m also spending a lot of time with my best friend, and that seems to be helping substantially with my cabin fever.

My next post will be about the hardcore/awesome/amazing weekend I just spent with her. Let me just say that we communed with nature.

(Also, yesterday was my cat’s birthday. Nefertiti turned 6 years old. I remember the day I got her, she was only 8 weeks old and tiny as can be. It was the middle of summer and she used to cry because she couldn’t get onto the desk to sit with me. She learned how to crawl up the side of my bed, using her baby claws, just so she could sleep by my head. I miss the tiny, sweet kitten who watched Law & Order: SVU before bed and slept with her favourite toy mouse betwee her paws.)

Married? With Children?!

Yeah, that’s a really cheesy title. But it caught your attention, didn’t it. Suckers.

This is going to be a quick post about future marriage and future baby-makin’… because I have a lot in my head and if I get this out, I can flush out a huge post over the weekend about it. I know, you’re excited.

Marriage: It might be happening, for me and Fil, that is. I know I said we wouldn’t waste our money on it, but it may be a situation where we spend little-to-no money of our own. Ooh.

Baby makin’: We might be moving out of our dreadful apartment sooner rather than April, so you’re soon going to be seeing “is this temp normal around ovulation?” questions… lots of questions. Oh and so much sperm talk you’ll be turned off the stuff for years. (I really just did that to tag this Sperm)

Did that tantalise your tastebuds? I hope so.

Cheers, Friday is three days away!

Edit: The Evolution of a Plan

Let me start of by saying thank you to halfadozenfor tipping my comment total to 100. Woohoo!

My neurotic page “The Evolution of a Plan” has fallen into disarray. That plan has altered alarmingly over the past month, going from “we’re never having a baby, period” to “I’m going to stop trying to get into nursing school and focus on getting a certification or shorter degree” to “we’re going to start trying in December, again, *BREATHE IN BAG*”

All the *huff, huff, huff* that has followed those drastic dips and rises has left me completely incapable of figuring out exactly what our plan looks like.

Now that I’ve edited it, trimmed the fat (school), figured out what we’re doing with ourselves TTC wise and other things, the plan feels smoother, smaller and more slick. I like it, a lot. The *huff, huff, huff* feeling it used to create, because it was this thing, wholly unfinished and glaring at me from my backseat, is totally gone. Now I can start working on checking those things off.

A lot of the changes came as a shock to me. Fil and I formulated the school jump as well as the need for an immediate 40 hours after I found out my parents were no longer going to be able to financially help. They could only contribute what my school had given to them in the form of a loan. At this junction in our lives, that amount of money, plus my tiny little check, will do nothing for us. Not to mention, all parental aide is cut off come May. So SCRAMBLE, is what that said to us.

I feel largely at peace with out TTC choices. I’m happy because I will have the education to be able to stay at home with my baby. I will spend so much more time with Fil, and we will get to heal our relationship. The chores will get done faster, Monster will get more attention and the baby will have 2 pairs of hands, ready to unfreeze breastmilk or change a stinky diaper. I thrill at the thought of not missing my child’s first smiles, first utterances, first steps.

Right now I’m trying very hard to get my body under control. In 9 short months we will start TTC and I want my body to be a good vessel for that little life. Cosmetically, I don’t want to be the woman who people always wonder “is she pregnant or just fat?” I want to have a gorgeous bump to put on display, rather than hide below layers of fabric like I hide my body now. I want to take pride in pregnancy, and not fall into deep depression over how much worse my body gets after the baby. I know that if I’m not happy with myself during the pregnancy, it will be so easy for me to fall into post partum depression. So very easy. So I want to be comfortable with my body before I allow it to become home for another being.

9 months. That’s all that seperates me from the start line. Wow. I need to go clean.

More Questions and Plans

(There are some hot topic questions if you scroll down. You can skip my blabbery, even!)

Almost 6 months ago I posted my 2 year plan, with hopes of surgeries and other delightful things.

Since I’m such a planner … (I mean, my all day date with Fil is planned to the T but a part of said plan is to make it seem spontaneous!) I’ve decided to create another page just for said 2 year plan. It’s gone through changes, and I plan on putting up the drafts as they roll through my head and out of my fingers. Watch my plan grow and get accomplished on the page titled “The Evolution of a Plan”

Onto the questions. In the post Years I detailed a few pressing questions I had, simply out of curiosity from reading other blogs. My questions then honed in on natural birthing and parenting.

Since then, I’ve developed my own ideas about how I want my birthing experience to go.

But here are my new questions. I know a lot of them pertain to information most people wouldn’t cough up at gun point, so I don’t expect a lot of answers. That’s just what’s floating around in my head, bouncing off the walls and preventing me from doing my work (well not really it’s a sloooow day). If you’ve been lurking and you have an answer to something, please feel free to share it, I won’t bite!

• If I’m under the right assumption, doulas are not covered by any insurance. If that is so, then how much are doula fees? Are post-partum doulas more expensive than birthing doulas? Do you recommend a doula through the whole experience or would using just a post partum doula be okay?
•  As I STILL haven’t gotten an GYN appointment, do you recommend I find a great OB/GYN who will effortlessly transition into my OB or do you recommend seperating the two practices? (I do imagine that could get expensive, but I think insurance covers both, either together or seperate.)
• Since I have had a miscarriage, and PID associated with it, I think I need to have my internal bits looked at before we barrel ahead with TTC. How soon should I have that looked at? Whenever?
• How do you get into a routine of temping? I’m anxiously waiting my period this month so I can finally start temping. I tried it before August of 2007, hoping we would be using WonderSperm. I failed MISERABLY! What little tricks did you use to remind yourself to temp?
• Let’s talk fertility drugs. I’ve noticed that some people try once and then jump straight into using FDs. If you had to make the choice to use fertility drugs, how many tries before you started using them? What prompted the switch?
• How did you find your KD? I know I’ve pressed this question several times on this journal. But I’ve come to the conclusion that I desperately want a KD and not CryoSperm. We will still use a cryobank if it is necessary, but we want to exhaust all KD options first.
• How organised is too organised? In my life there can never be too much organisation, but I know that in the heat of TTC, most planned events go haywire and you have to improvise. Am I going down the right path, though? Formulating strong, solid ideas about what I want for my journey and yet still being willing to bend and flex.

Most importantly…

How do you over come the gnawing fear that everything will fall apart?

I really appreciate any help or guidance you can give me on this. I know my TTC days are still a good stride in the future, but one of my core beliefs is that it’s never too early to at least get an idea, if not a plan. I like knowing what I’m up against and TTC is one of the bigger beasts I will have to fight. I want so much for this experience to be a good one for Fil and myself. We’ve just gotten to normal, I think, and I’d like to keep it that way… if only in our eyes.

TTC… SRSLY?!

Everyone makes a New Year’s pact to do something… not eat greasy foods… not eat chocolate every day, only on Saturdays… stop drinking… stop smoking.

All good, valid resolutions with simple plans to keep them in effect.

This year I have the standard resolutions: get back in touch with my body, restore healthy eating habits, try exercises to return normal function of left ankle, etc.

But I have a few new ones.

Like, drink water at every meal. I do that now, but I mean at every meal. No more diet Pepsi or iced tea. Only water. Especially if we’re eating out. It will not only save us money but it will save my body, too.

Also, I won’t snack at work. Lately the early mornings and late nights have made me ravenous at 11 a.m. I was snacking on carby salty crackers and throwing back a Diet Dr. Pepper at noon, but no more. I will bring a sandwich and water bottle every day and eat only that.

Sort of a side resolution to that, I will eat breakfast every morning, even if it kills me. No diet/exercise schedule will work if I don’t eat at least 3 meals a day. It’s also really bad for my blood sugar that likes to plummet after a few hours of constant monotony.

And I will meditate… because 20 minutes a day helps keep the doctors AWAY.

I will talk to my doctor about my various health concerns. Namely, a possible thyroid problem, gas pains before ovulation and during my period and my damn hips. I will also see the dentist and have my wisdom teeth removed before they destroy my perfect orthodontics.

I will take care of myself in every way possible. I will only buy clothes that fit me right and that make me feel like I’m on top of the world. I will straighten my hair whenever I want because it makes me feel good. I won’t wear make up because I’m beautiful without it. And I will find a pair of pretty, comfortable flats to wear to work.

I will work hand in hand with Fil to help JT through therapy and medication so that he can get better, happier and healthier.

I will work on this relationship with Fil so that we are safe and sound and confident in ourselves as a couple. We will be the amazing couple we once were and I will help her kick cancer’s ass.**

I will keep thinking like we’re going to start TTC come next November and by then I will be serene and Earth Mother Goddess about it.

We will find our donor. He will be perfect and wonderful and beautiful and will be so much like Fil you’d never know the baby wasn’t part of her, and part of me.

(First we have to, you know, make FRIENDS in order to find that perfect, wonderful donor I talk about. How do we do that, huh?)

And on that TTC note, I will try to convince Fil to start a nest egg fund over the summer, since we’ll hopefully both be working.

On that working note, I will try very hard to be a valuable asset to this department. I will be so damn valuable that D, my boss, will want to make me full time and give me a raise and it.will.be.glorious.

Just wait and see. The new me? The NEWAtt is going to take the freakin’ world by storm.

** That totally includes WAY more sex than we are having now!

Sad

To start, here is our 2 year plan because I’m waaay too lazy to backtrack. Italicised items are school items, which tandem our 2 year plan.

• Summer ’08: Begin workout regiment. Discuss weight loss with PCP, now known as WonderLee or WL. Discuss plastic surgery with WL and begin researching local plastic surgeons. (Side note: get annoying, could become cancerous moles removed.) Complete BA and get into anatomy.
• August – December ’08: Continue workout regiment, accompanied by supplements for weight loss. Goal is to obtain a healthy pre-op weight (note: NOT desired weight) and general mental well being related to physical appearance. Complete total course load. Anatomy,  Human G&D, Maths.
• Winter Break ’08-’09: Have breast reduction surgery (right breast hypertrophy). Take the whole break off from anything like school. Start a savings account AND get a cell phone plan for family.
• January – May ’09: Post recovery, return to normal workout regiment and continue weight loss to desired weight. Finish all pre-requisites for nursing school and file the application. Discuss with counselors about an accelerated degree course.
• Summer ’09: Start looking for houses in desired Austin area (south-west Austin, Barton Springs area or Duval area), squirreling away money for substantial down payment (think, $10,000+ which according to a real estate broker is a great down payment) and if needed, finding a donor (if UD is needed, split savings into frozen sperm fund). If possible, start accelerated degree course, finish 1 semester of nursing.
• August – December ’09: Keep saving for a house/sperm/baby. Keep on the accelerated course, DON NOT DROP THE BALL!
• January ’10 – May ’10: Start temping, wonder if VIP FF account is worth the money. Maybe do a few OPKs for confirmed ovulation. Re: Last bullet.
• Summer ’10: If nursing degree is obtained, start finding a job and start waiting for the insurance plan to kick in. If no degree, re: last bullet.
• August – December ’10: Should finish nursing school at the latest. Job finding during winter break. Most like, TTC begins here. (2 years after the plan was written!) At least, serious ovulation tracking and a definite internal check-up (due to last years PID/miscarriage, there could be unknown fallopian damage, or whatever) Adopt JT and look into common law/name changes.

The rest you really can’t bullet point. Our whole plan relies heavily on the completion of my degree. I will be nearing 22 and I would definitely LIKE to be pregnant before we cross that line (I’m thinking in terms of Fil’s age, really). But mostly I want to be out of school and into the field. Finishing college, means to me, more financial stability and emancipation from my parents. I am most excited about the emancipation thing. Being under my parents wing is comforting at times when we don’t have anywhere or anyone else to run to, but it’s taxing. Constantly being aware that our future plans (a house, more children) do not line up with their life plan for yours truly makes me nauseous. At any moment JT could spill the beans that in one or two years he’s going to be a big brother, and then we’ll have to deal with a whole can of worms. If I’m in the profession, and we either are on our way to owning a home or already own one, there is NOTHING my parents even have the option of being disappointed in.

Wasn’t it my first post where I, in a long-winded way, said I’d much rather have our child RIGHTNOW than wait until we were, uh, ready? Didn’t Fil agree? I think the Att of a year ago was way more immature about having a child than the Att of now. Not saying that I wasn’t ready back then, because I was. We would have perservered and made it through a pregnancy with no qualms. Fil would have worked two jobs, I would have chosen a quicker degree (like, medical coding which is a year) and we would have been okay, as we are okay now.

However, I think taking the drastic steps we were planning (sometimes I’m glad we lost the option of WonderSeed, it’s awful what happened to him, but it threw a definite monkeywrench into the plan and made us wait) would have ruined us. Financially we would have never been as stable as we are now. We would have lost the trust of my parents (and probably permanently lost them in our lives, our children would literally have no grandparents) and possibly ended up a wrecked couple squabbling over pennies that went out with the trash.

You can say, for our children’s sake, we make this long winded plan towards financial stability. The stability Fil has always craved (a home, the same partner until death, children and the option to retire in the future) will come to us. JT will probably spend a good amount of his teen years envying his younger siblings for the simple stability and continuity in their lives that his youth has lacked. Perhaps the majority of his issues are sprung from the fact that everything changes in his life after 2 or 3 years – new house, new school, new state, new parent. But, I do believe that if he gets the stability he needs (we’re almost there, at least he’s had two parents for a year and we’ve promised NEVER to move out of Texas) he will be a better boy for it.

Our plan seems logical to me, comfortable in every way. I’m at peace with waiting to have a baby. While I sometimes look out at the sheer number of pregnant women around me (seriously, every where we go it’s preggo-extravaganza) and wish I was one of their numbers, I know soon I will be. I know the reward of waiting will be an amazing life for them.

However, it seems Fil is increasingly uncomfortable with the plan. Most days she’s either sad or down-trodden at the idea of waiting. Sometimes I know she doesn’t just want to TALK about it, she wants to do it. It may just be because we have a donor now and it could just happen so easily. She probably keeps the majority of her qualms silent because I really want to wait until I’m at least happy with myself (i.e. post-op me) before donating my body to baby. She knows if we don’t wait, I may end up hating myself a lot more than I did when we met. I only wish there was some way for me to ease her sadness over waiting.

On that note, I must end this loong post. I commend anyone who got this far. Now I have to make that first bit up there (about WL) come true and make appointments with her. Also, laundry has to be folded. Yay…