Crash FM

I've learned that playing video games is much more fun after a few martinis. :-) I'm feeling better today. Have stopped acupuncture at the moment. May try massage next to work on my stress level. We'll see how things go. I'm just tired of everything and am ready for a change. I'm thinking a trip/vacation would be just what the doctor ordered. But for now, off to finish my vanilla-tini and to play some more Burnout.

Why why why...

It's funny how I used to think I had plenty of time to have a career/job and could wait to have kids when I was older. Then when I started actually trying, and learned it might not be as easy as I once thought, my stress level went up about 20 notches.

Unfortunately, once you start thinking about not having something, it makes you want it all the more. Especially when it's a baby--your genetic imprint on the world. I actually had a dream the other night that Tim came home (to a gorgeous country Victorian we lived in) walking down the cobblestone, flower lined lane with a baby and a petite young woman trailing behind him. Saying something to the effect of "I decided to have a baby, and found someone who could. Isn't our daughter beautiful? I had her for you!" Talk about a messed up dream!

Having a baby has become the focus of our life. Every morning I wake up and take my temperature with my digital basal thermometer that beeps the announcement that I am desperately trying to figure out why I'm not pregnant. Every day I enter my temperature on the chart and try to see if the chart is normal. Every evening for the past 6 cycles I've prepared my "Ancient Chinese Medicine" to drink it down before I fall asleep. Twice a week I see my acupuncturist to get my anti-stress/pro-baby needle treatment and yet my Chi is still weak.

The sad part is I am just starting to get back to "normal" after all of the fertility meds and emotions that I went through during my IUI attempts. I'm scared of going through IVF since I have to go under for them to retrieve the eggs. IUI was such a roller coaster, I can't imagine what IVF would be like! I would be devastated if it didn't work or if we had complications or the baby isn't healthy.

One of my friends (who is a new mother) told me that I am handle infertility well, and don't seem to mind the fact that I can't get pregnant. I guess I fool people pretty well. I even handled my Mom sending me a picture of my cousin and his young wife's baby with the comment "I'll always love you even if you don't have a child." (My cousin is 4 months older than me, so maybe that's why she felt the need to let me know how much she loved me!) Ouch.

After that I came up with my Top 10 things NOT to say to people who are struggling to have a baby:

1. "Do you have any children?" "No, why not?"
2. "You're still young you have plenty of time..." and then upon hearing you're 36 saying "OMG, you need to hurry."
3. "Have you seen a doctor? Do you know what's wrong? Did your husband go too?"
4. "Consider yourself lucky, I would love to get rid of one of my kids." AKA "You can have one of my kids."
5. "You just need to go on a vacation."
6. "Why don't you adopt? That's a sure way to get pregnant."
7. "Why don't you come to Jane's baby shower, there will be a lot of pregnant women and kids there, maybe it will rub off."
8. "Have you tried..." followed by a long story about things you can try. (Especially embarrassing when it's a stranger at a dinner party.)
9. "Meet June, she's infertile too, I thought you might enjoy talking to each other since neither of you have children."
10. "Well, if the lord wants it to happen, it will."

Most of the time I can handle these comments, but not always. The best bet is if you know someone who might be going through infertility problems, just offer to listen. But be prepared if they actually decide to take you up on the offer!

On the mend

My grandmother has been complaining of pain and being exhausted in the evenings, and I figured something was up when she considered staying at my Aunt's house for awhile after Mother's Day. (Since she's usually very adamant about staying at home.) Well on Mother's Day, she had a few relatives over, and as the day went on she started really dragging, and obviously in more pain than she described over the phone. So they called an ambulance. One of the first things she said as they whisked her away was "Call Susie and tell her not to worry."

Once at the hospital, they discovered the cause of her pain, she had broken her pelvis! So needless to say, she's staying in the hospital for awhile, and then the family is going to put her in a nursing home until she mends. I hope she'll be ok, as both of us hate nursing homes! It's just not the same as your warm and cozy home. It sounds like it will be just a temporary thing, and she will be able to go back to her home soon. I wish I lived closer so I could visit her more often or even stay and take care of her! That's the hard thing about being thousands of miles away.

Mother's Day Morels

Mother's Day has a whole new meaning to me now that I can't seem to obtain motherhood status. It's funny how perceptions change. Tim likes the fact that it's one "made up" holiday that he's off the hook on.

I guess I've been a "mother" to quite a few kids when I was a nanny, so maybe I made a difference in someone's life--and I didn't even have to deal with the pain of childbirth in the process.

Mother's Day while growing up was usually spent heading to Gramies and going Morel mushroom hunting with our cousins. We always had a lot of fun, and once we felt we found enough mushrooms, we usually ended up finding something to keep us occupied. One year we found a piece of plywood and a creek, and thought for sure we could make a raft by balancing the plywood on some sticks and then carefully getting into the center of the "raft". It appeared to work for a few moments, and we did ok, until the raft decided to go under a barbed wire fence that was streached across the stream. Needless to say the entire party was soaking wet after that.

My Dad has been working close to home lately, so has actually had time to go mushroom hunting after work. He surprised us this week with a nice sized box of mushrooms! Yum! They have been delicious! Even though Tim is from the mid-west, he had never had morels! I could never eat tons at once since they are quite rich, but really enjoyed having some this year. It reminded me of home, and the fun times we had finding them. I even found them horseback riding on occasion. We always breaded them with saltine cracker crumbs, and fried them in butter. They're best eaten warm, right out of the pan. :-)

Gateway to slang...

My Mom calls me "Girlfriend". It drives me nuts! She has been informed of this, and now tries not to say it around me, but she still slips up. I think the primary reason I have the hang up is how it came into her vocabulary. The "Charity" episode of Moral Orel pretty much sums it up. (In case you're not familiar with the show, Moral, a devout Christian from Middle America, tries to do the right thing but his good intentions often find him in unthinkable situations.) In "Charity" Orel charitably gives money he earned to a street person, who gives him crack in return. He goes home, and since "It's a sin to waste your money" he must smoke the crack. It goes down hill quickly from there. It all turned out well in the end though--Morel learns a valuable lesson that Crack is the "gateway to slang".

Which is ironic, since my very religious Mom only started using "Girlfriend" when my sister started hanging with a crack dealer she met at what she calls the "Ghetto" Hy-Vee. Luckily she managed to stay clean once she became pregnant, and her son just celebrated his first birthday in April, he's a cutie and is doing well. My sister found a good job and we thought she was over the bad influences in her life since she moved 4 hours away from them. But unfortunately she hooked up with the father again immediately after he was released from jail. The good news is, she hasn't married the guy, but since he's already fathered 6 kids from other relationships, I don't think even he's stupid enough to get married. Plus he's back in jail again for whatever reason.

The bad news is my sister has announced this "supposedly reformed" black crack addict and drug dealer has gotten her pregnant again and their twin boys are due in July! I guess it goes to show that truth often is stranger than fiction.

My Mom is excited / ecstatic about twins in the family and just bubbles with joy at the thought. (She tends to not notice the other circumstances surrounding the situation.) The sad part is, the way she announces it she makes everyone guess what the exciting news is... and since the entire group knows we've been going through fertility treatments, everyone assumes Tim and I are the ones expecting twins. This probably doesn't help their reaction when they learn it's not us. Of course my Mom thinks it's all the crack addict father's fault. But since my sister is almost 30, I don't think it's fair to just blame one party.

It's really amazing how people can grow up in the same house and be so completely different. My sister is a sweet person but keeps making some very poor choices. Her major fear is that one of the twins will look white! (Hello!?! She's going to be a single mom with three kids under the age of 2, who may have messed up DNA due to drugs, and she's not worried about that!?!) I guess I ended up with all the stress genes in our family. My brothers refuse to communicate with my sister or her son until she stops seeing the father. I make it a point to treat all of my nephews fairly since they didn't choose the family they ended up in.

We keep hoping my sister will calm down. Only time will tell.

Whatever Wednesday

Work is crazy as usual, I've been bad about working right through lunch the past few weeks, so today I drove the convertible just so I would force myself to go to lunch and enjoy the nice weather. It was so nice Tim even made it over to join me. The heated seats are GREAT though, talk about relieving tension after a rough day hunched over the computer. I really should drive it more often.

We planted potted plants a couple of weeks ago instead of an official vegetable garden this year, and the tomatoes and peppers already have blooms! We have to be diligent about watering them, but I'm looking forward to having a butterfly garden full of flowers outside our bedroom as well as our potted vegetables outside the kitchen window. We have some artichoke plants in our herb garden that have 3 artichokes on them! I can't wait until we start harvesting things.

When you work all the time, there really isn't much to write about. My boss said that I can find a person to replace part of my job whenever I want, which is nice. Except that means interviewing, which opens up a whole can of new worms. I haven't had time to even post a listing.

That's it for excitement in my life lately: roll out of bed, go to work, eat when hungry, garden, veg, drink my herbs, sleep, repeat. Hopefully this will change soon, and the longer days will find me with more energy and more time to go horseback riding.