#MicroblogMondays: Recurring Dreams

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is?Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too

A lot of my recurring dreams relate to anxiety.  I used to have the naked-in-public dream a lot, though that one hasn't come in a long time.  What I get more frequently is either that it's the end of the semester and I haven't been to class or studied or (FAR more often before pregnancy) that I'm supposed to be taking care of a baby human or animal and I end up forgetting about it and leaving it for days or weeks until it is either almost or completely dead.  I've eventually figured out that these dreams relate to my anxiety about dropping the ball on one thing or another.  I try to do so much, and I have so little confidence in myself that I'm always sure I'm going to be screwing something up.  I was running a tournament this past weekend, and I am waiting for the results of whether I passed my second attempt to become a full presenter for a workshop (after technology issues have forced late starts).  My mind conflated those two, and I had a dream towards the end of last week where the tournament (which was supposed to start at 9 and go all day) wasn't ready to begin round 1 until about 2 in the afternoon.  OK, brain, enough!

So what kind of recurring dreams do you have?

A Different Kind of Self-Hate

I hate my body.

I don't mean that I hate my appearance.  I mean, I do hate it plenty of times, I hate the shape of my body, I hate how fat I've always been.  But what I mean is that I hate my body on the inside.

I hate the way my body fails me.  I hate what my body does to me.  When I work with clients on not hating their bodies, one thing I work on is changing the focus from how their body looks to the ways their body is powerful and what their body can do for them.

But what my body can do for me is pain.  What my body can do for me is fail.  Fail to be a real woman.  Fail to carry my baby.  Fail to even put my baby in the right place in my body.

I found myself this week focusing on trying to "get ahead of the pain" with how I timed taking my medicine, and it felt mentally like trying to get ahead of the pain as I recovered from the surgery.  There's something wrong with that.  I find myself rationing my medicine because of how expensive it is.  And that's a generic, it's just a rare one.  There's something wrong with that.  It's my body, failing me like it does every month.

What's there to love about that?

I was working on several things, and I saw a link pop up in my Facebook feed from the fertility clinic that I had used back in Maryland.  The link was about things no one tells you about having a miscarriage.  I went to click on it...and then I couldn't.  And that was a day when I was "doing well."

#MicroblogMondays: Weather

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is?Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

Last weekend, I took the toddler sledding on the inch of snow we had.  Last night, I turned the air conditioning on because even with opening the windows it hit 76 in my apartment.  That's just nuts.

Grief is Why We Tell the Story

I've been listening to the soundtrack for Once on this Island over and over as I introduce the older kids to it (and then keep playing it when they're not in the car, which is most of my driving time).  If you go by the measurement of how long it takes me to wear out the CD, Wicked is definitely my favorite musical, with Once on this Island and Ragtime close behind.  This song made me tear up as I was driving to work this morning.

For those who aren't familiar with it, the end of the show is very bittersweet, as the main character dies for her love.  This song celebrates the sharing of stories within societies and families and across generations.

"Life is why we tell the story
Pain is why we tell the story
Love is why we tell the story
Grief is why we tell the story
Hope is why we tell the story
Faith is why we tell the story
You are why we tell the story."

This fits with why I talk about my loss of Otter.  The whole story of Once on this Island is being passed down from older generation to younger in a peasant village, and it made me think of telling my son some day about his sibling, or of telling any other children we may be able to have about their other sibling that they never knew.

All of these are why we tell the story.  Otter had life, even if it was not life outside of my body.  We loved Otter, and losing her (see past post for why Otter has a gender in my writing) led to pain and grief.  The circumstances surrounding the loss ruined the hope that we had, but they also led to the possibility of new hope (if I could only feel it myself) of conception not being affected by endometriosis.  I try to have faith that we will be able to have another child.

And my son (as well as any others we may have) is why we tell the story.  At some point in the future, he will know what a miracle it was that I was able to conceive and carry him.  Because even though Otter came and went after him, it is somewhat his story as well.

#MicroblogMondays: The Sands of Time

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is?Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

It's amazing how time dribbles away in little things.  I think I have a long gap in my day, and I plan things I'm going to get done in that gap, and then it's gone and I've done very little on my list.  Some of that is Facebook+gaming+ADHD.  Some of it is things taking longer than I think they will.  Some of it is needing at least some mental break.  Some of it is getting new referrals to call, which is a very good thing but still takes time I haven't planned for.  It seems to hit every time, though.  I need to work on that...when I get a chance.

A Thin Line Between Depression and Anxiety

I've always been anxious, but for most of my life I didn't know it.  I used to always think that feeling in the pit of my stomach was guilt.  Guilt for everything I had messed up.  Guilt for everything I had left undone.  Guilt for everything I had done that I shouldn't have.  Guilt for everything I hadn't done quickly enough or perfectly enough.  Guilt, guilt, guilt, always guilt.  It wasn't until a few years after becoming a mental health therapist that it finally hit me upside the head one day...BOOM!  That's not guilt!  That's ANXIETY!!

Oh.

You'd think that knowing that and being a therapist, I'd know what to do about it, what techniques to use to help myself relax.  But I can't.  Because along comes the depression to tell me I don't deserve to relax, right along the anxiety telling me I can't afford to relax.

I have ADHD, so I always have something, somewhere that I'm screwing up or haven't done or haven't done well enough.  Usually lots of somethings.  And that's even with constantly worrying and trying to focus on everything I have to do in a vain effort to keep up with things.

So when someone (most often my husband) tells me to relax and calm down, it feels like doing so would be the equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.  Because I already screw everything up as it is, so how much more would I screw up and drop the ball on if I did give in and relax???

I can't afford to relax.  I can't afford to go to bed when I'm merely tired and not collapsed.  I can't afford the time, because every time I relax, there's yet another thing that I fail at.

I'm trying to give myself permission to relax.  Right now, I've got a glass of wine (brought by my husband) and Cake Wars on (put on by my husband) while I blog.  But I'm also feeling guilty for taking the time to blog when there's other things I didn't get done today.  Even though I didn't get them done because I was doing other things that badly needed doing.

I'm trying.

#MicroblogMondays: Brrrrrrr

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too

This weather needs to shit or get off the pot.  My biggest pet peeve is waiting for the next book in a series to come out, but my second-biggest pet peeve is when it's cold and it's not snowing.  I did appreciate when Indian summer lasted well into December, but now it's COLD and dry.  Yes, that's better than sleet, but I want snow.  There's a big storm predicted for my home state this coming weekend, and I'm jealous. I at least have warm, fuzzy pajama pants with penguins on them, but I can't wear them to work.  :-(

Proud of Myself

The closer I got to my due date, the harder it has been to be around tiny babies or people who were pregnant, especially people who were as pregnant as I would have been.  But I had an intake today with someone who was visibly pregnant, and I braced myself when I noticed, but it didn't hurt.  I didn't have to hold back the feelings until after the session because I wasn't actually having the feelings.  This feels like a big breakthrough, and I'm proud of myself.

Meta #MicroblogMondays: The Nature of Blogging

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the original post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

I was writing in my other blog, SnarkFood, tonight, and my husband (who wrote last week's post) was asking me how it felt to be writing it again after a hiatus.  I couldn't really answer that because I've been so much more focused on how it felt to be blogging on this site again.  I've needed the outlet and the connection.  I was really disappointed to see that ICLW and LFCA stopped while I was gone, so I'm hoping that #MicroblogMondays helps me to make connections again, because I was lost, now I'm found (cue background music of "Amazing Grace"), and I want connections to abound.  Right now I'm full of blogging energy, and when I stopped blogging before it was because it was awkward to continue, not because I didn't want to, but this will probably also be good for me when the energy does run low as it often does.  So yeah, we're going meta for my first Microblog Monday.

The Pull Between Isolating and Reaching Out

Agitated and upset.  Wanting to talk about it.  But also wanting to hide in a hole and not talk to anyone.  Scrolling through the chat section of my Facebook feed to see who's online.  Not clicking on anyone.

I don't know this person well enough to talk about it.  That person can't relate.  This person won't want to hear about it.  This other person would relate but isn't online.  I could talk to that one, but...and I still don't click.  Because it might just be easier to keep playing Facebook games and refreshing my news feed while I try to get paperwork done.  Then I know I'm not bothering anyone.  And I can continue to hide in my hole.  It's comfortable in there, wallowing.  Kinda.  At least I kinda know what to expect there.  And I don't have to risk bothering anyone, nor do I have to find other things to talk about to avoid bothering them with what's really upsetting me.

But then I click on the chat list again, just to see if anyone different is online.  Maybe that person I was thinking of who would relate has jumped on.  Or that other person who I can chat with about little things and cheer myself up a little.  Nope, no one else has jumped on Facebook in the 30 seconds since I clicked the last time.  So I should go write a client note.  And then I click again on the chat list, and still do nothing.

That's part of why I started blogging again.  Part of it was to reconnect, but part of it was because there's less pressure (that I know I put on myself) here and less concern about bothering people.  Even though I got some criticism from friends and others when I was writing on this blog before, it's other people's choice of whether to read or not.  So if they don't like what I write, they don't have to read it.  And if I would be bothering them, they don't have to read it.  But I still get to write it.

Finishing Out The Week

Today was more of the same pull between holding it together and...not holding it together.  I still managed to keep the not holding it together contained, letting the ugly crying happen while I was driving.

There was something that my work BFF said that made me feel a little better, though, even while it made me tear up.  She said that she believes our babies are together in heaven and that Got has told them plenty of time that their mommies are friends and love them beyond words.  I like that idea.  One of the things that helped me a little when we first lost Otter (what we called the baby, like my son was Penguin in utero) was the thought that my mom was holding her.  (We didn't get any testing done, so we don't know the gender, but we thought of Otter as a girl all along, and I'd rather use a more specific pronoun than "it" because "it" doesn't sound like a baby, a person to me, "it" sounds like a thing.)  So now I have the mental image of my mom playing with both of our babies, spoiling them like she always wanted to do with her grandchildren and like she didn't get the chance to do with my son.

It's Over, I Guess?

I was numb until about lunch today (which, based on my client schedule, came at 2).  I don't know whether it was wine from last night or fatigue or being emotionally drained, but I felt like I was moving through a numb haze as I took the baby to daycare, walked the dog, snuggled with the dog for a nap before my first session, went through my first 4 sessions.

The numbness wore off as I was heading to lunch.  Interestingly, it was triggered as much by my mom as by the due date.  (For those that I don't know IRL, I lost my mom to cancer in September 2014.)  Because of the due date, it really hurt that I couldn't call her and talk to her.  From that point on, the day was back and forth between struggling to hold back tears and failing to hold them back.  I'm just glad I managed to be distracted enough from my feelings to keep control during sessions.

It was nice being off work early enough to pick the baby up from daycare before it closed, especially since he was in a good mood.  As I was getting home, though, I found out that my husband needed to run out for spaghetti sauce.  I was already feeling like I wanted to stay at work until the kids were all in bed because I was afraid of breaking down in front of them and scaring them, and then I had to manage 2 of them alone (my husband took my car, with the baby in it).  I had to wipe away tears before I walked in, both from all the emotion and from fear of not holding it together well enough.  The fact that one was doing homework and the other had other things she could focus on gave me the ability to just cook and load the dishwasher.  My husband got home quickly, at least, which took focus off of me.  I was able to do a decent amount of isolating without it affecting the kids by being the one to put the baby to bed, and I got the side benefit of baby snuggles.

After we got the older kids to bed, I semi-unintentionally made a cushion fort in the corner of the sectional while my husband brought me mint moose tracks ice cream with whipped cream and crumbled Thin Mints on top.  That got me able to do the notes I had to do tonight for work.  OK, that and more wine.  What the hell.  I'm not pregnant, and for all I know I never will be again.  And that hurts.

But I do have a toddler that I love very much and who is finally getting better with sleep.  This would hurt a lot more if I also had added to the pain the question of whether I would ever become a real parent.  And I have a husband who loves me dearly and brings me ice cream.  And I have a dog that loves to snuggle.  And I know that on other nights, I will not feel this bad.  But right now, I do.  And I know that's ok now that the kids are in bed.  I didn't want to burden the kids with seeing how awful I felt.  But now I can show it and be honest about who I am and how I feel because anyone who would be bothered by it can choose not to read.

I Didn't Want to Need This

I hadn't done anything to deactivate this blog or anything, but I thought I had outgrown it in my process.  I had been able to conceive quickly in my second marriage, and I have a healthy now-toddler.

But then after getting pregnant unexpectedly in May, we lost the baby at 10 1/2 weeks.  And I almost died.  (Literally, not hyperbole here.)  Apparently, I was a once-in-a-career case.  I could have lived better without that recognition.  Long story (which will probably come out in another post) short, the type of miscarriage was misdiagnosed, and the true cause wasn't figured out until I was bleeding out on the table during my D&C.  In the end, I lost my right tube and ovary and went to ICU overnight, and we learned that I had endometriosis.  Which, for the record, spellcheck doesn't even recognize as a work.  That says something to my cynical little heart.

Today would have been my due date.  January 6 or 7, depending on whether you focus on counting weeks since LMP, like my husband was, or the date guess from the first sonogram, like I was.  That's why I'm posting at night like this, to be right on the border between the two.

I've got so many feelings that I can't even identify all of them.  And I'm a therapist, so that takes a lot!  I had been managing ok (as compared to what I expect from tomorrow, at least, since I was focused more on tomorrow as the due date) and bracing myself for tomorrow.  And then I ran into my best friend from work, who had a miscarriage at the same time I did.  And I lost it.  Sobbing into her shoulder.  Which makes sense, I know.  But it broke the seal on all the feels.  The rest of the day, I've been pinging back and forth between falling apart and holding myself back from falling apart.

One of the main feelings that is predominating (aside from pain so deep that I can't really describe it from there right now) is a deep and burning anger at the medical professionals that I've dealt with over the years.  I've been a patient for excessive PMS pain since my freshman year of college.  I spent all of my time from when lesser meds didn't work (spectacularly) until I was ready to start TTC with my ex on the strongest Pill that is even still made.  I loved the doctor that prescribed a strong NSAID so that I had something to take when I wasn't taking the Pill anymore.  But why just give me more and stronger meds without ever bringing up the possibility of endo?  I had about a year, all told, of various infertility testing and monitoring.  But why didn't anyone bring up the possibility of endo?  When doctors didn't bring it up, or dismissed it if I did, that sent the message that I should just suck it up and manage with the meds because periods hurt and that's just what happens.  And that almost killed me later.

I don't know how often I will be posting.  I tried to do another blog before and when I was pregnant with my son, and one of the main things I learned was that I had neither the time nor the energy for blogging.  But I think I need this.  I need to reconnect with the ALI community.  I need to find other people like me.  I was scanning FB tonight looking for people on chat to be able to talk to and relate to, and most of the people who were on at the time didn't have the experience to relate.  And I'm glad they don't.  I hate that my work best friend can relate.  I hate it for other people who have told me they can.  I don't want anyone else to be able to relate.  But since there are people who have already had their losses and are still in their struggles, I need to find them and connect with them again.

What one book do you believe NEEDS to be taught in school?

This post is part of the GRAB(ook) Club, an online book club open to anyone where you can drop in and out as you wish.  However, you do not need to be part of the book club to comment; I'm curious about everyone's opinions.

This month's selection was To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.  I'm guessing that for most people this was a reread, but for me it actually wasn't.  I never had to read it in school and never ended up picking it up after that.  There's a lot of books like that for me.  I've never read anything by J.D. Salinger, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alice Walker, or any number of other classic authors.  Some, like Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, I've picked up on my own, but plenty of others I haven't so far.

I'm not sure why To Kill A Mockingbird wasn't part of the curriculum for me.  I don't know if it was because of the use of the n-word throughout, or if they thought it wasn't necessary because we covered other female authors and people writing about race relations or what.  I will say that I would have gladly traded this for Invisible Man with regards to books discussing racism.

I liked the character development and descriptions a lot more in To Kill A Mockingbird, as well as the way that Lee handled people understanding or not understanding Scout.  But also, I find To Kill A Mockingbird much more appropriate for the high school age group with how it handles sexual content.  I suppose at least part of that comes from it being written from the point of view of Scout, with an eight-year-old's understanding of sexual matters.  No matter how or why it was done this way, though, the question of and description of rape was managed delicately enough that I could have handled it in high school and had read worse on my own.  Invisible Man, on the other hand, skeeved me out in high school with the graphic descriptions of the naked women in the Battle Royale scene.  I wasn't ready for it, and I was disturbed by it.  The rest of the book I was just bored by, but I squirmed both mentally and physically when I read that part.  Yes, I believe that assigned reading should broaden our horizons and make us think about things we might not have otherwise.  But I also believe, now that I've read it, that To Kill A Mockingbird would have been a better choice for making students think about the past and what is still here in the present in a new way.

So what do you think is just that important in classic literature that it NEEDS to be taught to students?  And what about that book/play/poem/etc. makes it that important?

After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for To Kill A Mockingbird. You can get your own copy of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee at bookstores including Amazon.

A Prince Among Babies

I've seen a lot of people over the past month, both infertile and not, wanting the world to just shut the heck up about Duchess Catherine and Prince George.  I'm not among them.  This may surprise some people, and it did surprise me a little bit.

Part of it is having always been interested in the British royals, FAR more than in any other celebrity or celebrity-like creature.  I couldn't care less which Kardashian is which and I don't even know who the father of Jennifer Aniston's baby is.  But I was rooting for Catherine to end up with Prince William when she was first on the cover of magazines in the supermarket and when he broke up with her for a while and when she was patiently waiting for an engagement for what seemed like forever.  I have in a box the special in the Washington Post about William and Catherine's wedding.  I did not Tivo the wedding, but I did look for pictures when I got home from work.  I even had a dream before the wedding that she and I became friends.

But part of it is also sympathy.  Even before the wedding, people were speculating on how long it would take her to conceive.  Her. Not how fertile Prince William would be and how long it would take him, but how long it would take her.  And she had to be at least a little scared about that.  After all, she didn't know whether she would be able to conceive.  You can't exactly take the Prince's fiancee out for a test drive to find out!

And as soon as the wedding was over, the pressure was ON.  From the palace, from the media (both legitimate and tabloid), from the public.  Even if she avoided it as much as possible, living out in the country where Prince William was stationed and doing her own grocery shopping, she was aware of it.  She had one job to do and she knew it, and it wasn't even anything under her control.  She could do everything she was supposed to and still not know if she would get pregnant.  I felt bad for her as the months went on, because she didn't just have to worry about herself and William being disappointed, there was the rest of the country to think about.

And if you think about it, by US standards, she and William dealt with infertility.  It took her over one year, basically a year and a half, to conceive.  That's not infertility in the UK, where the cutoff is two years of trying to "earn" the distinction.  But it is here.  When I heard about her being hospitalized with Hyperemesis gravidarum and learned that it was more common when a woman was pregnant with multiples, my first thought was to wonder, since it had been a while since the wedding, if she had seen a fertility specialist and was having twins after IUI or IVF.  Apparently not.

But still, the feelings had to be there for her, whether she qualified for a diagnosis in the UK or not.  When I've felt like less of a woman because of not being able to accomplish the defining aspect of womanhood, she had to deal with not just the expectations of womanhood in general but also of someone married to the heir to the throne.  When I was fielding questions from family members on whether I had any news, she had to field questions from the media.  When I looked down at my stomach and wanted to see a bump that wasn't fat, she had the whole world watching her for a bump.

So I can't begrudge her the attention she's getting from the world.  She's put up with enough to get it.  All the great clothes and jewelry and not having to worry about money don't make up for the worry and stress and heartache any more than they did for Giuliana Rancic or anyone else rich who wants to be a mother.

The Secret Club that No One Wants to Join

I met Senate candidate Karen Handel at an event yesterday.  At this point, Googling her mostly turns up links about her candidacy and about her having been an executive with the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  However, one thing I had learned about her was what had happened when she ran for governor of Georgia. For those that don't know, Handel lost in a primary runoff to Nathan Deal, and one significant factor in this loss (since she had had a significantly larger percentage in the first election) was Georgia Right to Life throwing their support behind Deal.  One of the reasons they gave?  Handel not taking action to ban IVF.

But there's more to it than that.  Karen is one of us.  She and her husband, Steve, tried, including using treatments, for almost ten years and were not able to become parents.  And for that, GRTL called her a "barren" woman.

Those of you who know me in real life know that I am vehemently pro-life.  However, as I become active in political events in Georgia, I cannot and will not support any organization that wants to take away my ability to create life.  I will continue to support pro-life initiatives that do not interfere with IVF, but I will not support those that do.  Because, like Karen Handel, I have been there.

When I met Karen yesterday, the first thing I did was thank her for standing up for infertiles and explain why it was so important to me that she had.  Karen immediately hugged me and said she was sorry for that as we both teared up.  We understood each other.  We had never met before, but we understood each other immediately because of our membership in that secret club.  We talked about how that word "barren" gets used as an accusation and an epithet.  We talked about how it was hard to find people who could relate.  We didn't need to say the words, because we both understood, but it still helped to say them.  Because at the same time that you never want someone else to be a member of the club, it's still helpful to talk to someone that is.

Hope and Despair

Christy at Searching for our Silver Lining asked me about a comment I made in another post about struggling with the question of hope versus despair.  In his post about infertility, Steve Wiens asserts that it's ok to hope.  But for me, it's not.  For me, having hope just makes the despair worse when I fail, when I am failed by my body.

I've watched The Dark Knight Rises several times recently, and there's something Bane says that captures it for me.  Yes, I'm looking to Bane for philosophy, but it fits.  "There's a reason why this prison is the worst hell on earth... Hope. Every man who has ventured here over the centuries has looked up to the light and imagined climbing to freedom. So easy... So simple... And like shipwrecked men turning to sea water from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying. I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope. "

That's the danger of hope.  The despair is going to be there no matter what.  But when I still let myself hope before, the fall was worse because it was from a greater height.  The months when I had no hope truly were easier than the ones where I thought something could happen.

I'm glad that other people have hope for me.  It touched me deeply when a friend of mine told me a couple years ago that she would hold my hope for me until I was ready for it.  There are a few other people that I know have hope that I will be a mother someday, and it means the world to me that they do.

But I can't.

Follow Up

For a while I kept only remembering to post the Steve Wiens blog post about infertility either when I wasn't at Facebook or when it was late enough that no one would see it.  I just remembered at a decent hour (yes, so quarter of midnight is a decent hour in my book, 100 plus other people on my friends list agree, so there) and posted, so we'll see what reaction, if any, it gets.

Parenting and Guys and Infertility and the Media

There's a blog post floating around Facebook after HuffPost reprinted it, about the stress of being a parent of small children, even while appreciating it after infertility.  In the post, he says he's going to write a post soon about infertility, and if you follow the link to the original post, he links to his post about infertility.  I'm really happy to see a guy posting about infertility, there's not nearly enough of it.

At the same time, it made me cry, because I'm still struggling with a lot of this, especially the question of hope and despair.

And it also makes me a little mad, because the article on parenting is circulating far and wide, but you know the one about infertility won't.  It'll get more views than it otherwise would because of the reposting, but only from people who bother to go to his blog from HuffPost and from there to the infertility post.  HuffPost didn't bother to link to it, because really, who cares about infertility out there in the wider world?  Not enough people to be worth posting a link for, apparently.