Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Day 7 - Cramps suck

I have cramps.  Bad ones.  Took a 800 mg motrin and then 3 hours later took a half vicodin.  And I'm still in pain.  The weird thing is - no blood.  Sorry if that's gross.  But since no one reads this anyways, I guess its okay ; )  I feel like I am full blown on my period except for the bleeding.  Is it possible my uterus is now completely shut?  My periods have been light since having Finn.  Which, after only two years, we figured out was because the scarring in my uterus is really bad.  They have been even lighter since my hysteroscopy - which is how I knew that the surgery did not work. But now nothing?

I have fears about the hysterectomy.  I have very complicated feelings about not having a uterus.  But I really look forward to the possibility of being without this pain.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Day 5 (a day late) - 8's my lucky number

"What are your thoughts about tomorrow's election?"

The above sentence is as far as I got yesterday.  Dammit.  Well, I posted for 4 days in a row.  A new record.  But here I am before 8am the next day, making up for yesterday's missed post.  That's still pretty good.

Instead of writing about how I feel about THIS election (which to sum up is NERVOUS), I want to write about 2008.  2008 was supposed to be my year.  Why?  8 is my favorite and lucky number.  Its the number I always pick if I use "I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10."  I always use 8 for the lottery.  I even like getting eights when I play poker or blackjack (which is also irrational and stupid unless you get 3 or 4 of them in poker).  So 2008 would be MY YEAR.  Great things would happen.  In other words, I would SURELY get pregnant and give birth to a real live baby.  These are the types of things crazy people who have trouble getting pregnant think.

We lost our baby in March of 2007.  2007 was the worst year of my life.  SO bad, I don't even really remember anything that happened after March.  But I do remember that on New Year's Eve night my husband and I hugged with tears in our eyes, and I was thinking "Thank God that year is over.  Let this next one be better."  And a part of me believed that it would be.  Things just had to turn around.  Right?

Yeah right.  2008 proved to be pretty tough as well.  We started trying to get pregnant again in the summer of 2007 and it didn't happen month after month.  By 2008, we were concerned and went in to see a fertility doctor.  We discovered that I had "old ass eggs" for my age and they recommended that we do fertility treatments.  We were about to start those treatments in April when I got pregnant.  And to make a long story short - I had a miscarriage.  Which turned out to be a pretty long and drawn out process and tough on me physically (I think the fact that it was also tough emotionally goes without saying).  Meanwhile everyone and their mother was getting pregnant and having babies.  2008 was turning out to NOT be my year.

I also started a new teaching job in the fall that was incredibly difficult, stressful and time-consuming.  So we decided that baby-making via fertility treatments would have to wait until 2009.  So no baby in 2008.  So much for my lucky number.

But election night 2008 was amazing.  A friend of mine had a party (I made Barack-li salad).  Greg and I wore our Obama shirts.  We brought champagne.  If I remember correctly, they called the election soon after the west coast polls closed.  And I was VERY happy about that.  We cheered and danced and popped open our champagne bottles.  It was great.  To be honest, I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary but I fully supported Obama in the general.  After 8 looooonnnnnngggg years of President Bush I was ready for a change.  DESPERATE for a change.  And the thought of Sarah Palin being next in line to the presidency was truly terrifying.

But what I remember most is watching Obama give his acceptance speech.  We all stood there, silent, tears in our eyes.  It wasn't just that "my guy" had won.  It was so much bigger than that.  This was history happening right before my eyes.  I voted for the first black president.  And he won.  Wow.  I thought of what this meant for our country and for so many people, in ways that I could never understand.  I thought of many of my students and so many little children seeing this happen.  It was wonderful.  It may sound cliche, but I felt so hopeful.

It was the highlight of an otherwise shitty year.


Sunday, November 4, 2012

Day 4 - Fall Back Sucks

I used to love fall back.  I got to sleep late.  And it got dark earlier and it felt all cozy and autumnal.  And it was lighter earlier in the morning making it easier to wake up and get to work.

Now I'm a parent.  Let me state the obvious - I did NOT get to sleep in.  And getting darker earlier means less time outside and more time inside entertaining an active, easily bored almost three year old.  And lighter earlier means up earlier and less sleep.  At least until we all get used to losing that very important hour.

Me too tired to write more.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Day 3 - We have a date....

....for my hysterectomy.  Woo hoo!

Let's do this by the numbers.  Maybe that will help me focus and be able to finish this post before Finn wakes up from his nap.

18: the date in December that I will have my uterus removed

5000: dollars, that is.  That's my medical insurance out-of-pocket max for the year which I have already reached.  If the surgery had not been scheduled in 2012, I would have had to shell out another $5000 for the hysterectomy.  But my doctor, who is fucking awesome, agreed to do the surgery on the 18th even though she originally told me that December 17th was her absolute last day of availability for the year.

2:  the number of doctors who will perform the surgery.  One is my regular OB.  She did my hysteroscopy in May.  When the topic of MORE surgery came up, I asked her about a second opinion and someone who is more of a specialist.  She referred me to a urogynecologist.  The two of them are going to do robotic laparoscopic surgery on me.

6:  the number of weeks that it will take for me to fully recover.  My doctor doesn't want me to do any heavy lifting during this time.  Gah.  Does picking up an almost three year old count?

6: this is also the number of weeks I have to train my son to sleep in a big boy bed and to get in and out of the car by himself.  I am NOT forcing the potty training thing.  I figure if it happens, it happens.  And if it doesn't, I'll change him on his new bed (that we need to buy).  We can potty train him after I heal.

137:  the number of doctors who have seen my vagina.  Okay, I made this number up.  But between infertility and all the problems I've had in the last 3 years, it feels like a conservative estimate.  I really hope that after this procedure I can go back to being more normal - one doctor, once a year gets to see my hoohaw and that's it.  Its kinda funny though.  I've become totally desensitized to it.  I'll go see a new doctor or ultrasound tech and they'll be so kind and careful and I'm ripping off my tearaway sweats and putting my legs up in the stirrups, saying "Alrighty, let's go doc."

4 or 5: the number of months pregnant I currently look.  And I am obviously NOT pregnant or I'm pretty sure they would not perform a hysterectomy on me next month.  But man am I bloated and in pain again.  This is the worst I've felt in over a year.  Maybe my body or the Universe is trying to tell me - "Do it!  Have the surgery!  You've tried so many other things that haven't worked!  Now its time to try this."  PLEASE let this hysterectomy help me feel better.

Alright, that's all I have time for.  There's more to write and more to process another day.  For example, how I feel about absolutely never being able to get pregnant again.  I already pretty much knew this, but this sure makes it FOR SURE.  And I would imagine that when I'm laying around feeling like shit, it will be really easy to feel very sad about it.  Or how I'm pretty terrified of having surgery again.  What if something bad happens?  What if it doesn't work?  What if it makes things worse?

But maybe it will help me feel better.





Friday, November 2, 2012

Day Two and I'm still Writing!

I don't have much time, but I'm determined to write so I'm going with the prompt of the day:

"If you could live anywhere, where would it be?"

I like this prompt and its actually relevant to me because we short saled our house this year and are currently living in a rental.  Not that there's anything wrong with renting, but the circumstances under which we find ourselves here are less than satisfactory.  And while I really like the house we are renting and I enjoy the neighborhood so far, this is not where we want to live forever.

So I have three answers.

#1 Where I ACTUALLY want to live (and can afford buy) when our credit recovers and we can buy again:  Benicia.  Or Martinez.  But the hubs says no to Benicia - he doesn't want to cross two bridges to get to work,which I totally understand.  So it will probably (hopefully) be Martinez.  Its a nice little town.

#2 Where I would live in my real life, if we had tons of money:  Probably still Martinez.  Just in a nicer, bigger house with land.  Or maybe Lafayette or Orinda.  If we had lots of money I would definitely want a house with a little bit of land for a huge garden and some chickens.

#3 My fantasy/dream answer: Somewhere in Europe.  Probably in France.  I'd have a house in the Provincial countryside and an apartment in Paris.  And eat good food and drink wine and see beautiful buildings and art all the time and be just a train ride away from so many amazing places.

I pray that #1 comes to pass.  If win the lottery, it'll be #2.  If I win some crazy multi-state, biggest jackpot in history lottery, I'll add on #3.




Thursday, November 1, 2012

#1261

I have a lot going on.  2012 has been quite a year.  Wonderful and difficult, exciting and sad.  Of course, one would never know this by reading my blog.  Since I don't actually WRITE any posts.  I mean, I think about blogging and writing all the time.  I have things I want to remember.  I have things I need to get off my chest.  I feel I should do something to keep my poor, tired, "stay-at-home mom" brain in better shape.  But my last blog post was in August.  Gah.

I need to get in the habit of writing and processing and figuring shit out that needs to be figured out.  I need to stop watching 2 or 3 hours of TV every night after I put my son to bed.  I need to stop falling asleep watching the news (and by news, I mean Real Housewives of New Jersey). Blogging, reading, unpacking those last pesky 10 or 12 boxes, learning to knit again - these are things I should do.

Since organizing my closet and knitting seem totally unlikely, I signed up for NaBloPoMo.  I'm number 1261 on the blogroll.  I like my number - I've got a good feeling about this.  Thank God Melissa provides a list of prompts or I'd be in trouble.  Although I can't think of a good quote for the life of me, so I'm just writing about how I never write but really want to.  Fascinating stuff.  But its a start.

Hmmm, well, that's all I've got for today.  My husband is actually home early tonight so we're gonna catch up on The Amazing Race.  And I don't feel bad about watching TV after writing that I should watch less TV.