Saturday day

Happy Weekend!

Have you seen the movie Moonrise Kingdom?  Doesn't my dog look like a Wes Anderson animal character here?  I LOVE this photo!  It's a framer for sure.

Today I picked the rest of our apples.  We must have like 70lbs of apples.  So many apples...

 I'm in the process of sewing some baby burp cloths for my sister.  It's kind of silly when they are so cheap, but I wanted to make something else for her and this is something she needs.

Here's a snapshot on how I'm feeling right now:
- Must keep busy or I'll have a nuclear meltdown...
- Baby crazy.  Just want to cuddle and kiss a little one.  Lookout ladies at the grocery store... I may just have to steal one.
- Motivated.  Been to the gym 3x this week, in addition to yoga.  Plus I twisted my ankle (but still found ways to work out).
- No sex drive.  Absolutely zero libido.  Even last week when the window was open, I tried to make myself want it, but just couldn't.
- Fighting the tension of wanting to keep TTC on our own, but realizing that if it hasn't happened in 5 years on our own, it's most likely NOT going to happen randomly this month (and yet the hope still remains... go away hope!)
- I don't care.  Drinking as much alcohol as I want.  Not going to any doctor's appointments or acupuncture, or massage.
- Trying to be social, but then not wanting to hang out with people. Then being lonely.  Then forcing myself to hang out with people.  Then having an okay time but never feeling quite satisfied.  Then coming home and starting the cycle all over again.
- Wanting to cry but not being able to.  Not knowing what to cry about.
- Trying to figure out my "purpose" if I don't end up being a mom.  I never wanted to be just a "career woman."  I'm not free-spirited enough to live off the grid or go spend my life traveling.  How, then, do I be happy?
- Maybe I can fill up my days with housekeeping, knitting, sewing, drinking tea, and playing piano/singing.  Maybe that will make me happy????

Fuddy duddy

Yesterday I had a lady I know tell me I was looking really nice.

The next thing she said was, "Well it's because you haven't had kids yet."

Really lady?!?!

Just because you're a fuddy-duddy mom of 2 (children who are crazy and misbehaved), and you've given up tending to your appearance, does NOT mean that only people who haven't had children have the right to look stylish and nice!  (In actuality, she is a very nice looking lady and usually very nice... it was just a stupid, ignorant comment).

Grr!!!

I'm having a "wanting a baby" kind of week.  I look longingly at every babe that I pass by.  I want a baby to cuddle.  I want a baby to kiss.  I've actually been cuddling my dog like crazy (don't think she likes it) just for some expression of my affection.  I'm so sad about it.  But again, I can't cry.  I just want to have a big long cry, and I can't.

The commercial crier

OMG, I just cried at a Google commercial...

Have you seen it?  It's all these notes and pictures sent from a dad to his daughter, from the time she is born till she is older.  It made me cry because I wrote letters to DH from when we started dating until after we were married.  I gave them to him a few years into our marriage.  I always planned to write letters to my children and give them to them when they were older.

Stupid Google chrome toying with my emotions.  And I'm not even on clomid this month...

Recipe for disaster

So, is there a handbook on how to go through infertility without it affecting your marital relationship in negative ways???  I really wish I had a 5-step plan to follow right about now.

Last week was really tough.  I flip-flopped back and forth and up and down and couldn't seem to level myself out.  On top of that I was sick.  On top of that DH picked up a part-time job (on top of his full-time job) while he is under the deadline of finishing a bunch of assignments by the end of September...  Basically, it was a recipe for disaster.

The blow-out took place on Sunday.  It wasn't even a fight.  It was just an "I've had enough of you and I need some space but since we're together we'll bicker it out" sort of episode.  Yet there were hurtful things said (more from him than me, at least that's how I remember it).  We've made up and everything is fine, but..

I always wonder if we are handling things "right."  Like, if we're going to need major amounts of therapy 10 years from now due to the patterns we've built up and the fallout from how we are dealing with things right now.  I don't know what is the right way to deal with things now.  That always worries me.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that I'm not my normal happy self right now.  I'm trying really hard to get back to that self that I was before.  I am working my butt off to engage in the things that I know are good for me (exercise, social activities, helping others) and I can put on the happy face and even expose a level of honesty about our struggles with some people.  But nobody knows the depths of our experience the way that DH does.  So naturally, when I have some quality time alone with him, I want to talk about how things are.  I want to wallow in the despair and have him meet me there and reassure his love for me.  I want him to look at me in my struggles and in my darkest moment and say, "Even now I love you more than you'll ever know."

But he can't always do that.  Oh yes, I know that deep down that is how he feels (or so I hope!), but he can't always express it.  Or his own insecurities or judgments get in the way and he expresses the complete opposite of what I long for.  I still trust him.  I still have faith in our relationship.  I believe that we will come through this together, and I hope that we will be stronger for it.  But there are moments of wavering on that belief.  And that is yet another "thing" that sucks about infertility.

Sidenote

Does anyone know how to contact other bloggers apart from their blog?  Is there an option somewhere to send an email directly?

If you're reading this M, your blog over at (http://alwayswishhopethinkpray.blogspot.com/) is no longer allowing me to read it.  It comes up with the message: "Permission denied.  This blog is for invited readers only".  I'm not sure if that is the way you meant for it to be or not... I just know that last week I could read it and now I can't.  Thought I'd just mention it here in case you didn't know.

Thanks for the kind comment and I'm thinking of you too!

No emotion

Do you ever feel like you're just going through the motions of life, without any meaning?

These past few weeks I have been "good."  What I mean by that, is that I have not been sobbing in a mess of tears in my bed each night.  I have been going to work and doing a good job.  I've been hanging out with friends and being social again.  DH and I have been getting along great with no fights or tears.

But amidst it all, I feel so empty.  Everything I do is like a routine.  I do these things that I know I should enjoy but they do not provide any lasting fulfillment.  I'm not depressed, because I am able to get up and go out and have fun in the moment.  Just none of it lasts.

I've been trying to give myself time to grieve and experience my emotions.  I have purposefully not kept myself busy so that I have time to do what I need to.  I still have barely cried.  In a way, I feel like I have numbed over all my emotions.  The sad was too hard to deal with, so I've closed off.  I can't feel happy.  I can't feel excited.  I can't feel love.  We call kids who are like this "tuned out and turned off" in my field.  I feel like one of those kids.  I don't know what to do with myself next.  I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Or, as a friend of mine used to say: "Just keep swimming... just keep swimming..."

Time to knit

Homemade applesauce (apples from our trees)

Pecan caramel apple crumble pie (from scratch)!

Fall walks

My life is a deck of cards

What to say?  What to say?

I wanted to give a little update that I am not in the depths of despair, though I certainly was on Saturday when I last wrote.  I also realized (of course, at the end of the day) that Saturday was CD5, which for when I was on clomid was the day from hell!  Maybe it wasn't so much the clomid, but maybe it was a huge hormone drop at the end of my period.  I don't know.  All I know is that I wanted to die on Saturday and not wake up again.

Fortunately, that feeling has not lasted.  I even had a pretty good day yesterday, despite all that is going on.

Have I mentioned how much I hate change/transition.  It just irks me and makes me so disagreeable!  Well my friends, we are right in the midst of it.  My job is ending in less than 3 weeks.  I do not have another job lined up at this point.  DH's job is not up in the air, but there is transition happening there too.  As a result, he took on a second job at a cafe, partially to be safe, partially for enjoyment (he wants to learn to roast coffee on a large scale).  So now our entire schedule/routine has been uprooted, AND we do not know what the future holds.  I described it to my friend as this: it's as if my life is a deck of cards, and that deck of cards has just been thrown up in the air and I have no idea how/where the cards are going to land.  I feel like I am watching them fall and can't do anything but wait for them to land in place.  And I HATE that feeling.  I want to plan.  I want to be in control.  I want to know what to expect.

However, though it may not be the most enjoyable time right now for me, I am surviving it.  I'm not having meltdowns every day.  I am finding bits of enjoyment here and there.  And I have hope that once the cards land, our lives will carry on and we will pursue what is next.

In other news, I am so so so so so frustrated over not feeling well.  I finally had my period and wanted to get on with life and lose weight and get back in control of my body.  But with my period, I felt so horrible and yucky that I couldn't do much.  And now since it's over, I have been fighting a flu or something and I can't seem to shake it.  All I want to do is go to the gym and have a huge sweat to let it all out!  I want to go running.  I want to go hiking.  I have all this drive and ambition, but my body is letting me down.  I've started eating healthier again.  (Side note: I actually heard a girl at the hairdressers talking about having ovarian cysts and she did a month of no cow products - milk, beef, etc. - and the cysts went WAY down in size.  So, just in case there is anything lingering around inside my uterus, I decided to try a month of no cow products, limiting caffeine once again, and limiting alcohol.).  Overall, I just want to be well and it is proving to be so difficult.  I want to have energy.  I want to be in shape (and look like it!).  If I can't have a baby, well damn, I want to be hot!