prep time

My parents are coming to visit us over labor day weekend, and they are bringing my nephew. I finished cleaning last night, and today I will be baking bread. I have a couple meals planned for them while they are here, so I want to do some of the prep beforehand. Friday, we will go to this awesome barbecue place that I think my parents will love. Saturday, lunch will be grilled pork chops and sugar snap peas, then the zoo, and dinner will be spaghetti with our homemade sauce, homemade bread, and a salad with most of the ingredients from our garden.

I'm looking forward to it. Our visits are almost always at my parents' house, so it will be nice to have them see (instead of just hearing about it) all the work/decorating we've done to our house since we got married. We painted pretty much every room the summer after we got married, and now our basement looks really good, and I have my cozy girl room. I guess I kind of want to show off what we've done.

And it will be fun to see my nephew and take him to our zoo. My parents took him to Phoenix to see my sister and her husband over the summer, and they took him to that zoo. He's three and a half, and that was his first visit to the zoo. Which makes me kind of mad at my brother and sister-in-law. The zoo where they live is free, and they've never taken him. Of course, they never done a lot of things they should have done as parents. He barely talks because they rarely interact with him beyond watching TV, and they're not kid shows that would help his language development. They finally got him tested and he now attends a school for kids with learning disabilities, so he's improving. My sister and I often wonder if he would have this learning disability if they had worked with him at an earlier age....you know, like reading to him. Anyway, they now live with my parents (financial issues), and my mom is stepping in to raise my nephew because now that she sees exactly what my brother and sister-in-law do with him, she knows they aren't doing enough. It's sad that she has to basically raise him for them, but it's good for my nephew.

working out

I've been working out more lately, and have noticed my arms and legs are starting to get more tone to them. Unfortunately, I am an apple shape, so I store almost all my fat in my core. And when I get bloated, which now happens around ovulation AND right before my period (awesome, I know), because I already have a nice storage of fat there, it is VERY noticeable. I'm trying to lose some of the belly fat, but I know, due to my body type, that it won't ever completely go away. I'd settle for it just being a little flatter, so that bloating doesn't make all the women in my department make not-so-subtle glances at my stomach. I kind of want to shout at them that I am not pregnant, and never will be, I'm just bloated, so stop staring at my stomach.

Okay, with that being said, I am off to work out.

coming to terms

I've been thinking a lot lately about how quickly it seems that my husband and I have come to terms with living childfree after infertility. We talked a little about it, and it makes more sense to me. I keep reading about people who took years to come to terms with their childfree life, so I was trying to figure out how we came to this point, where we are mostly happy with our lot in life, in a matter of months. We came up with a few reasons why we made the adjustment so quickly.

1. I was married once before, for seven years. My first husband and I had talked about having kids, and we had decided that we would wait five years to start trying since we were so young when we got married. All of our major purchases (house, car. etc) were chosen based on us having kids in the future. When we moved in to our house, we chose the bedroom for the office based on which room would eventually be a kid's room. You get the idea. When the five years were up, he said he wasn't ready yet, so we put it off for another year. When that year was up, he said he wasn't sure if he wanted kids at all anymore. I was devastated, but told him to make up his mind, because then I would have to decide what I wanted to do about his decision. he went back and forth with his decision for months, until finally, ultimately, deciding that he didn't think he'd ever want kids, and if he did, it wouldn't be for like 10 years. Well, since I was 29 at the time, I knew I wouldn't be okay with waiting. We talked about some compromises and what might happen with each: we have a kid anyway because I want one, and he grows to hate/resent both of us, and we still end up divorced; or we don't have a kid because he doesn't want one, and I grow increasingly jealous and bitter, and we end up divorced; or we have a kid and I am the sole caretaker, which we decided wasn't a good life for the child; or we have a kid, and he magically loves it and is happy with the decision; or we divorce somewhat amicably and I can at least try to find someone who wants to have kids with me. We met with a therapist and told her all of these things, and she said we were making very logical decisions in a very emotional time. So we divorced and have stayed in touch with each other ever since. But since I was almost 30 when we divorced, and I knew it would take some time to get over the devastation of having my life not turn out how I thought it would (one marriage, grow old together, have a family, etc), and then time to find someone to fall in love with and marry, I knew my chances of actually finding someone to have babies with while I was at an age that I wanted to do so, were slim.

2. My husband had not had a long-term relationship for a long time (we're talking years and years) before he met me. He told me he had basically given up on the idea of finding someone to marry, which in turn, had him giving up on the idea of having a family. When he met me, and our relationship progressed, he reverted a bit to thinking he could actually have it all: marriage and a family.

3. We talked about how far we wanted to go with treatments once we got the diagnosis of severe male factor infertility. We wanted to try everything that was available to us once, so that we wouldn't one day think "well, what if we had tried IVF?" We wanted to know that we had tried everything. We also talked about our Plan C before going in to IVF, mostly as an emotional safety net, so we had something positive to look forward to in case it didn't work. I started planning our trip to Phoenix two weeks after we found out the numbers weren't doubling.

So with all of that in our backgrounds, I think we were each halfway (or more) to accepting that our lives might not include children when we met each other. So once the having children part of our lives didn't work out, we didn't have much further to travel in order to come to full acceptance. I also think because we didn't really spend that much time going through treatments, that we didn't have as much to get over. I always think it's like Charlotte's (from Sex and the City) philosophy on getting over a failed relationship: it takes half the length of the relationship to be ready to move on. If it lasts four months, you will be ready to move on in two. We were in treatments for about a year, so it should take six months to be ready to move on. And this month is six months from our failed IVF.

I still have bad days where I get sad or jealous or bitter, but those are so far and few between now. I know I wanted kids; I wanted them my whole life. But our Plan C looks pretty good too.

baby announcements

At work, at each meeting we have (about every three months), our principal asks for "celebrations." They are almost always pregnancy announcements, with the occasional engagement, house purchase, masters completion, etc, but by far, the majority are pregnancy-related. So at the one for the beginning of this year, the principal asked for any celebrations, and no one spoke up, so then he starts asking all the people who had babies last year how they are doing, and then went on and on about what a babyfest it was at the end of the school year. Luckily, my PMS was over, and I had already had a good cry about other people getting to have babies, so it only annoyed me instead of making me sad. It mostly annoys me that I have to hear about the announcement of the pregnancy, and then I get the mass email birth announcement, do I really need ANOTHER celebration for the same thing?

And I've also noticed that people without kids have a little more to talk about. They ask others how their summer was, and if they traveled anywhere, and then share stories about what they did over the summer. People with kids talking to another with kids only seem capable of asking "how's the little one(s)?" I'm sure I wouldn't notice this if I hadn't gone through infertility, but it's so obvious now. I was having a perfectly good, flowing conversation with a coworker whose wife just had a baby in May (our conversation was completely unrelated to babies). Then another coworker pipes in with "how's the baby?" He answered the question, and the conversation just kind of died because there wasn't any kind of follow-up or resulting flow of conversation. And then he and I picked our conversation back up. It was nice to talk to someone who didn't constantly steer the conversation back to his kid.

awards

I got an award! Thanks, Sweet Pea! My positive NOW thought is that I am looking forward to starting my 12th school year as a high school math teacher. That and the Social Distortion concert tonight. Should be a good time even if it will make getting up early tomorrow a little difficult! For the future: I'm hoping that my husband and I continue to enjoy each other's company and continue to discover fun things to do together.

And now to pass on the award: Here's what you need to do ! Put that picture up; that one up there on your blog and blog about one thing you're happy about right now and one thing that you're hoping for in the future. You are acknowledging something that's making you smile right now and also putting out there that you have hope for thing one amazing thing to happen in the future, for you to bring you even more happiness! oh and then you have to pass this award onto anyone who you believe would benefit from looking at their surroundings, their life now and finding happiness in it!


The following women amaze me all the time with their strength and support, so I'd like to share this award with them: Jem, Danielle, msfitzita, Lu, and wifey. There are others, but they were already given the award on someone else's blog.


And I'd also like to give a shout out to Life Without Baby and Silent Sorority because without them, I wouldn't have found a lot of my support group members on the internet, along with the support found on their sites.

two is my limit

Well, I just heard a third pregnancy announcement in as many weeks, and that triggered the tears. I didn't cry at all with the first two. I blame, at least a little, PMS, and the fact that my husband slipped the other night and said "our kid is going to have" and then quickly changed to "our kid would have had...." Just thinking about it makes me sad because it tells me he's not quite as moved on as he likes to say he is. I think he's probably in about the same place as me: accepting of our new life, but certain reminders (of what we would have done with our kids, that other people get to do those things and not us) feel like a kick to the stomach.

Apparently, I can handle two kicks to the stomach. Three set me over the edge.

Fun day/night

We went to the peach festival at a nearby orchard, had samples of local BBQ, and had samples of some orchard wines. The sweet red was pretty good, but the strawberry wine, peach wine, and apple wine were not as good as they sounded. The strawberry tasted EXACTLY like cough syrup, gross aftertaste and all. Then we shopped and bought peach cobbler in a jar for D, black walnut syrup for me, cucumber dill salad dressing also for me, cherry cider for D, and fresh peaches for both of us. We got home and ate one peach each. VERY good.

Then we went to dinner at a local restaurant that we've been to before; nothing spectacular, but still good.

And then we went to a women's flat track roller derby bout. It was our first time seeing one, and it was awesome. D caught a tank top that was thrown out in the crowd and promptly gave it to me. It is an extra large, so I am going to take it in a bit, and add a punk-rock looking skirt to the bottom to create an awesome dress. Assuming I can manage to do so in a way that doesn't look like crap. If it turns out well, I will post pics. The next bout is on the 21st, so I'm hoping I can find time to do some sewing before then.

We sat in the front row; the place was loaded with signs that said no one under 18 is allowed in the front row. So I said to my friend, "there's a good reason to not have kids; I can sit in the front row at roller derby." She then goes "would you have even brought your kids if you had them?" I looked at her and said "um, yeah." I really have no idea why you wouldn't. D and I talked about that on the way home, and he agreed with me that we totally would have taken our kid to a roller derby bout. Of course, we kind of like all that punk rock, rockabilly culture that goes along with roller derby, and I don't think she's as into that scene as we are.

well, I THOUGHT I was making progress

A few weeks ago, a friend told me she was pregnant, and my first reaction was happiness for her.


Today, I found out that another friend is pregnant with her second (her first just turned a year old), and it was an "oops" baby. My first reaction was to roll my eyes.


Is it the fact that it's an "oops" baby? I don't know, but I'm definitely not to the point of being happy for her yet.

top ten finished!

1. Sleeping in.

2. Having the freedom to switch my sleep schedule to my husband's on my weekends and summers off (he works night shift).

3. Getting to have spontaneous date nights with no worry about getting a sitter.

4. Having the freedom to watch whatever I want, whenever I want, and not worry about appropriateness.

5. I can have all the road rage I want, and swear all I want, and not worry about setting a bad example.

6. I can continue to spoil my kitties with attention and cuddling for hours at a time.

7. I can talk on the phone to my sister for hours with no interruptions.

8. We can take a trip anywhere we want to.

9. We can save a bigger chunk of money each month toward our dream cabin in the woods, so it will actually happen before we retire.

10. It's a lot easier to experiment with recipes when I only have to worry about two people's preferences.