Showing posts with label frustration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frustration. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

*tap tap tap* ...is this thing on?


oy. nothing like pms grouchiness to pull me out from this rock ive been hiding under. its been a shameful amount of time since i last posted. not that anyone out there in cyberworld loses sleep over a silent jersey. i mostly feel ashamed because this blog has been such a fantastic coping mechanism for me through this nightmare of years and years and years of TTC, and i feel like ive been letting myself down by not keeping up with it.

sometimes its just hard to feel inspired to write when i think about the fact that the entire crew of folks i began blogging with... all of them... have either had a BFN, adopted or birthed a child by now. it feels like im the only kid in elementary school who didnt  go to summer camp and now i get to sit here and hear aaaallll about how awesome macrame class was and how much fun it was to swim in the lake. basically, i feel like the vo-tech stoner loser of my class. *folding arms and pouting*

the truth is, until recently... there hasn't been anything to write about on this blog. we have been going about our normal routine... working, hanging out with friends, drinking adult beverages, fixing up the house, hanging out with other people's kids, drinking adult beverages, seeing lots of movies, drinking adult beverages... basically doing all of the things that we hear get tossed out the window once you have a tiny human screaming in the other room.

i got'sta admit, the yay-we-are-free-from-the-shackles-of-motherhood good times are fun, and for the most part, keep us fulfilled and happy.  im reminded everyday that i married THE coolest woman on the planet and find myself pausing at random moments to scratch my head and ask how the hell i managed to pull this whole thing off. we hang out and plan road trips, attend fabulous late-night concerts, try new trendy restaurants... and always, without fail, say at least once,  "we TOTALLY couldn't be doing this right now if we had a kid". SCORE!

and then there are those moments... when we see a cute family in the grocery store or we look back at journal entries or insemination-day photos, that i feel the ache in my heart. i sometimes feel like NM and i are on pause, our family in limbo as we wait and wait and wait for the next phase of our life to begin. its not that we are "incomplete" without a baby... that's not at all what i mean. i really believe that had we decided against having kids, we would have lived a full and happy life together...complete in all its glory with just the two of us.

the problem though is that we haven't decided against kids. 4 years ago we sat down and pictured our immediate and long term future and decided then and there that the picture would be WAY cooler if it included at least one tiny human to corrupt. and so the TTC journey began.

sometimes i use this blog as a way to measure time. i look back at the dates of my early posts and think, "wow... its been 2 years and 8 months." or "3 years already?? that's such a long time to wait." i sometimes picture our three-year-old-imaginary-child and wonder what she/he would be doing right now while i write this silly blog.

but then today, while skimming the dates of my early posts, i actually paused long enough to click on one. and um, holy shit. as i read the post i realized that i started writing this blog ONE YEAR into our attempts at pregnancy! my three-year-old-imaginary-child just aged a year in one click of the mouse.

i wont get all Rent-The-Musical on you by counting how many minutes there are in a year... but trust me, its a lot. add four of those years together and holy crap, we have been waiting for a long time.

i often hear people say while *bouncing their free baby on their hip* "oh, just enjooooy your time alone now while you can. this little one keeps us soooo busy!" and most of the time i just want to punch them in the neck. riiiight lady. the problem here is that NM and i aren't "enjoying" the 4-year suspense roller coaster enough. *rolling my eyes*

i feel like NM and i agonized over whether we should enter the baby race to begin with and once we finally decided to compete and laced up our sneakers and found our spot at the starting line and waited for the gun to fire.... *boom!* off everyone else went without us. and here we sit, still at the starting line, watching competitor after competitor lap us (some for the second time!).

and sure, i suppose we could take the advice of the young parents in our life to "enjoy the time you have alone while you can". but really, how much fun can you have while sitting at the friggin starting line for 4 years?! its like sitting in the waiting room OF YOUR LIFE!

again, let me reassure all the feminist readers out there that im not suggesting our lives are incomplete without a baby. its more about the fact that the things we want to do as a family include kids. and we cant just live the life that doesn't involve kids because that would require that we actually SPEND MONEY on things like airline tickets and new cars or a fancy new flat in the heart of london!

this living in limbo thing is terrible and only made worse by the "live in the moment" breeder mumbo-jumbo we hear all the time. like what am i supposed to do, "enjoy the time alone" by moving abroad? joining the circus? going to vet school? (all things i would do in a life-with-no-kids).

when parents around us swash their wrist and say "oh just live in the moment" i want to yell-
EASY FOR YOU TO SAY! youre not the one who will have to explain this to a kid one day! i can picture it now, "gee, im sorry little jersey. we would have had money to send you to college but the thing is, you cost like TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS to adopt and then there was that whole live-in-the-moment circus stint that your mom and i had while we were 'living in the moment' waiting for you...*day dream sigh*... oh that circus was sure fun. anywho, the point is, we are a little drained on funds. sorry. *pat on the head*

oy. i swear. this pms is killing me.

Monday, November 9, 2009

wouldnt you like to be a goddess too?

*peeking my head out from under my rock*


so.....its been a while. my last failed cycle proved to be much more difficult to cope with than i had anticipated. i have logged on many times with the full intention of posting something new, but i end up staring blankly at the screen. i didn't realize how much this blog was tied to my process of TTC. i mean, i always knew that writing and reading other blogs helped me with my past failed cycles but now that i have experienced my last attempt to get prego, i am realizing that it is hard to separate this blog from my feelings of disappointment. those of you who have struggled to get prego....you know the panic that sets in when you find yourself at opposite ends of the same grocery store aisle with a big ol' pregnant belly? even though the belly is undoubtedly attached to a human female person, all you see coming your way is a lush, fully functioning womb. your heartbeat races and you begin to have the internal dialogue that sounds something like this:
ok.
there is a pregnant belly
coming this way.
take a deep breath.
pay
attention
to the sale items.
dont stare at the belly
the lady attached will think you are strange
dont
stare
dont
stare
look at the cake mix
count the different types of icing
1- chocolate, 2- vanilla, 3- cream cheese
anything to
keep your eyes
off of
the
belly.

*sigh*

well that's kind of what this blog has started to feel like. i have spent so many hours day-dreaming about the days when i could post a photo of a BFP prego stick, or an updated photo from ultrasounds or a belly shot of my own. but, since i wont have that experience, i think i had to step away from this blog and heal a little.


i want to say thank you so much to all of you who posted such wonderfully supportive (and funny!!) comments on my last few posts. i know its a total no-no to go this long without reciprocation but please know that im keeping up with all of your developments (both happy and sad) and am working to get back on the "how to be a good blog community member" horse again.


i dont really have much to update today. im still barren and the world still sucks sometimes. NM and i teach a class together and we recently had a panel of guests come in to talk about parenting. some panel members are the parents of teens and some have young kids. some identify as fathers, some as adoptive moms and some as bio moms. it was fascinating to hear the differences in parenting as connected to social identities like race, class, gender and sexual orientation. "sexual orientation".... i hate that word. it sounds so nautical or something. like my "orientation" could be plotted on some graph or something. *shrug*.

anyway, i digress....

one panel member talked pretty explicitly about her thoughts about being pregnant and child birth. she spoke so freely and it seemed like the mere reflection on the past experience of pregnancy still fills her with energy. she said that being pregnant and giving birth reinforced the notion that "women are goddesses". *nod* it was a super cool moment.

and.... it made me lose my breath. i welled up and felt like i couldn't breathe. i guess i just want to be a goddess too.

i have realized that some of the most difficult parts of coping with infertility are those unexpected moments where the wave of emotion totally sneaks up on you and knocks you on your ass. its like being clotheslined by a giant pregnant belly or something. it sucks and i kinda cant wait for this phase of the infertility grieving process to be over.

im currently not sure about what to do with this blog in the future. it has been such a great source of support for me but im not sure how to transition out of a TTC mode and into something else. if i cant transition it comfortably away from being a TTC blog, then maybe its time to close up shop and start something new. we shall see. in the meantime...thanks again for the wonderful support.

oh... a friend shared this post from get born magazine and i loved it. check it out.

word.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

as it turns out, i have twins.


i heard that my ex-boyfriend (the one from high school who i mentioned in THIS post) just had twin boys. typically this would be an occasion to offer congrats but here is a recap of our conversation which occurred via text:


NJ: hey...i see on facebook that your sister is holding 2 babies. the caption says they are her "new nephews". did you have a couple kids since we last spoke a month ago??

the ex: yeah...as it turns out, i have twins.

NJ: as it turns out? what does that mean? and how come you didnt mention the fact that you were expecting?

the ex: well i didnt know. we just got the paternity test back and it turns out they are my boys.

*deep breath*




i swear.



if i hear.


about one more person.


having a kid.



that they weren't intentionally trying to have....


i.



am.





going.



to.





scream!!!!!!