I sit in quiet and mull over things I want to write… things that will have to wait until another day. The thoughts are not yet fully formed, but one.

It is September. I was dreading it, to a degree. I didn’t know what to expect, but I feared the milestones hitting at once: my 26th and his 6 month. Too close together. I still feel very guarded; I do not know what this week will bring.

But, yet, when I looked at the calendar at work, newly flipped to September, I said to my coworker quietly, “Next year will be better. Next year will be different.” I realized then that I really believed that. I really meant it.

I am looking forward to December. I am looking forward to another chance. I am looking forward to going through it again. Not with the stark, burning need that I once felt, but with anticipation of something wonderful. I was given a gift those 8 months, and it will not be the only one.

I lay in waiting for my turn to come around again.

Almost immediately after I lost Devin I was contacted on one of my forums by a woman who had lost her child. She stood by me… offered me advice when I asked… I asked questions on how she survived through it, how she feels now, how she was able to get through a subsequent pregnancy. Somehow talking to her reassured me that I was going to be okay, too. I saw all the things she’d done in her son’s memory, all the ways she had moved forward without ever letting go, and I knew I could do that too.

She just started a blog. Go read her story – Curtis’ story. It’s heartbreaking, just like my story is. My heart caught in my throat a couple of times in her story, the parts that I could have written. But it is different from mine.

Apparently, in addition to the phantom kicks I’ve been getting the past 6 months, I now also get phantom rib aches. Late at night, laying on my back in bed, by right ribs started aching sharply… right where Devin lodged his feet at the end. I rubbed the area absently to help it go away, but at the same time… I didn’t really mind the reminder.

::

I don’t know how many of you read the comic strip For Better Or For Worse, but the storyline just ended. Today’s strip was tying up loose ends. What struck me right away was how, of course, Elizabeth’s epilogue included a baby. Don’t they all end that way? “… and they welcomed a new baby and lived happily ever after.” I guess it wouldn’t really work too well to have an epilogue that read something like, “And after 2 years of infertility treatments they finally got pregnant, only for their son to die.” It strikes me quite often how infrequently books and stories are actually like real life.

But then again, my story isn’t over yet.

I went shopping today. Oh boy is it expensive. However, I managed to snag a couple of nice things (and will be returning a couple more I bought earlier in the day, before I hit Target – why do I do that? Duh). But my biggest score of the day was shoes. Shoes!

I decided last week that enough is enough, my old comfy shoes are just not classy enough looking for work – especially not since I wore them to my other job all year. I needed… heels. Oh dear.

Of course I made a beeline for the Payless Shoes in my town. They didn’t have anything much of interest. I was highly irritated. So I looked at shoes in Kohls… yikes! Maybe I’m just cheap, but I am not paying $60 for a pair of shoes that don’t have built in massages or flashing landing lights or something. Nope. On to the mall, hunted down the Payless Shoes there. And yippee! I found something!

I ended up buying two pairs – I was going to get just one of them, but they had a BOGO half price thing going on, so I ended up getting both for $30. Yeah, you heard me… $30 total. Take that, Kohls! And they had cuter shoes, too!

And apparently, without my socks on (nylons – I had to buy friggin nylons!) I can sometimes even be a size 6 1/2 in shoes. Yep. I didn’t know that. Normally I’m a 7… sometimes even a 7 1/2 if the shoes fit weird. So one of those two from today is a 6 1/2 wide, and the other is a straight 7. Strange.

Oh, and here’s me all dressed as if I’m going to work. Even though it’s sunday and I am most definitely not going to work. Because I wanted to take a photo. So there.

Oh! And! I learned how to blowdry my hair! I’m all growed up. *sniff* Now if only I could figure out the makeup thing. I can do one thing, and one thing only: brown eyeshadow with black mascara. I try colors and it’s all run for your life! Or maybe that’s just me.

I’m getting faaaaaat. I noticed at work. I slouch down in my chair when I’m bored and… wtf is that? My shirt is baggy. Wait… that’s not my shirt. That’s my fat! Ug. Guess it’s true… the belly is just not going to ever go back to normal. It still pooches out far more than it ever did before.

But the chub around my hips and waist? Yeah. That’s just me. Yeah, umm, I need to get back to exercising. And stop eating so much junk. I have been seriously bad with the cravings and the food eating. I indulge myself way too often. It makes me feel better. Yes… I said it. I comfort myself with food. Shit.

Chubbawubbawubba.

So I haven’t been talking about Devin’s tree – mainly it was because I was afraid to look at it, since the whole situation upset me so much. The other part of it was that in some corner of my brain I was convinced that if I hovered it would die. And hurt me more. So I ignored it and just pretended it didn’t exist.

Well, today I had to spray it again. It has been apparent to me that the one branch – the lowest branch – has retained all its leaves. Even in that phase of ignoring it I could still see that one branch still had most of its leaves, and that kept me from giving up completely. However beyond that one branch, well, I wasn’t really sure. And a tree with only one branch is depressing as hell. But today I figured, okay, I’ve ignored it long enough, it’s not getting any worse. The damage was done and now I’ll just have to deal with it.

So I went out there with my scissors to see which branches were dead (apparently you can tell by scraping the bark, if it’s brown it’s dead; if it’s green it’s alive). Remember how the guy came out and cut off the top half of the tree? Yeah, it was all dead, the whole top half, stem and up. And he had mentioned that the next few branches may die too. So I decided to start from the top and work my way down to see how far the damage and gone.

Tested the topmost branch of what was left… dead. Next one? Dead. Ick. It wasn’t looking good. So I changed tactics… I left the one with the leaves alone, since that was obvious, went to the next one up. Green! It was alive! At least I’ll have a balanced looking tree, with two main trunks or whatever. So I went to the next branch up? Alive! Eeee! Three branches!

Turns out that’s all I’ve got left, the top three were all dead… but hey! I have three branches! And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any worse, unless the winter kills it all.

No consensus has ever been reached on what exactly the problem was… two different professionals said two different things, but since their solutions didn’t hurt each other I did them both. Dug down to expose more of the trunk to the root flare and watered more, and of course the spray once a week. Was it the dirt? Lack of water? Fungus? Dunno. But some combo of that is working.

I exhale a little bit. Not a lot… just a little. Safe for one more day.

You know what is frustrating? Coming home from work to the big pile of papers and crap on your desk. It just piles up over the month and I run out of spots to “put” things… and the bills sit in my “to file” pile until it’s overtaking my desk. I am irritated. I made a dent in it today, and hopefully tomorrow I’ll get everything filed and put away so I can clean off my desktop. I think I will feel SO much better once that is done.

I don’t even know why it bugged me so much today – it’s not like this is a new situation. Didn’t bother me yesterday. Or the day before. But today? Today it pisses me off.

::

Den leaves for a trip tomorrow. At first I was all excited that I’ll have only one person to clean up after, but after we crawled into bed I started feeling clingy. Yeah, I do the exact thing I said I’d never do: I take his presence for granted. I know I’ll be fine and functional without him (I have to work thurs through sat at my various jobs so it’s not like I’ll be bored), but still. It’ll be weird not to have anyone to talk to. As tired or grouchy as I am, I always appreciate having someone to tell about my day. And he puts up with it and even appears to listen to my babble. It’s commendable.

::

This new working schedule of mine has been… well, actually it’s been pretty easy to get used to. I’ve never been fond of mornings, but here I am, setting my alarm for 6:45 so I can get a shower and be out the door by 7:45. And it’s not that hard. I don’t even have to really fight the urge to roll over and go back to sleep. I’m even getting tired earlier in the evening so I’m still getting a good night’s sleep (tonight being the exception – I’m only just now starting to get tired). At work I’m alert and functional. Is it the shower in the morning? Is it the newness of the job and what I’m learning? Is it just that I’ve adjusted to the new schedule? I don’t know. But the transition sure was easy.

I’m also not feeling much nervousness about work. I should be, by all accounts – “should” being used here to denote what I would expect of my normal behavior. But, as with everything else, normal has been redefined. I’m enjoying what I’m doing at my new job, which is a big help. But even the prospect of being put “on my own” next week, done with training, isn’t causing me too much jitters. Two things keep running through my head: first, that it’s their job to train me and make sure I’m doing everything correctly so they’re not going to throw me to the wolves; and two, even if I mess up it’s fixable and not a huge crisis.

It all comes down to perspective, again. This would surely have sent me into a major tizzy, before. Now? Well, this is what I’m doing right now with my life. So I’m going to do it to my best ability, I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can, I’m going to reap the benefits of it (financial and insurance-wise), and then I’m going to go home and clean my house and feed my pets. You know? As much as a job can at times define you, it’s not who you are. It doesn’t really make a dent in who I am after what I’ve been through. I think I fit this role very well, and I think I am going to excel in it – I hope that I can grow in the future and move on to bigger things at this company. But in the end it’s not really the most important thing in my day.

So I set my alarm and pull out an outfit and wonder what I’m going to learn tomorrow. I will probably enjoy it. And it will be another day I can cross off on my mental calendar.

::

I forgot to add… There’s one woman in the office at work who is pregnant. I don’t see her very often and don’t have to work with her. After training is over I will no longer even be at the same location as her. Most of the time I just see her in passing in the lunch room and I avert my eyes and my thoughts.

Today, however, she was talking with some of the other ladies. “30 days left,” she said, and made a comment about her ribs hurting. I swallowed the lump. 1 month to go… when I lost Devin. My head started aching, probably from me unconciously clenching my jaw. She will probably have a healthy baby in a month. It was a very uncomfortable moment of “what could have been.”

That was the extent of their conversation. Nothing more was said about babies or pregnancy. I left anyways to go sit outside in the sunshine.

Know that terrific weight loss I’d achieved? Yeah, not so much. Going in the other direction now. I’ve been loving my food a little too much…. and not exercising. The pudge, it is returning. Not so pretty.

I am hoping that once my life calms down into some semblence of a real weekly schedule (once training is done) that I’ll be able to fall into some regular patterns and get back to taking care of myself a little better. Not that a new job is really a good excuse for not exercising, but everything’s kind of a mess right now.

::

If you recall, there were two conferences I was really looking forward to attending… the AFA conference in NYC and the RESOLVE of the Bay State conference in central MA. I was leaning towards going to the one in MA, because it’s far easier to get to and thus a lot cheaper. Well I realized that these conferences are probably on Saturdays… and I will be scheduled to work every Saturday. Major bummer. So I checked… one is on a Saturday. The other is on a Sunday! Of course it’s the one in NYC. So it looks like I’ll be headed into NYC again this year.

I’m a little nervous about it, because this time it’s not right beside Grand Central… but thankfully they are offering shuttle busses to the location. I’m still nervous, though.

Hopefully it’ll be worth my time. I had such a great time there last year… I’m hoping to get the same kind of benefits this time. And it’s right before I start cycling, which is good timing.

Laying here in bed, bloated from dinner and ice cream, I pictured for a moment laying here pregnant again, feeling a baby move within me. Not Devin… someone else. The next one.

The image soothed me. And for a moment I loved that future child as fiercely as I do Devin.

It will happen. And I will be okay.

I keep saying “I’ve been busy,” but that’s not really the whole story.

I had the day off today, but when I woke up (had to pee so bad I was dreaming about finding a bathroom!) I took a shower, got dressed. I ended up going to Walmart to buy that new blowdryer I needed (thanks for the tip, G! The ionizer ones were wicked cheap, so I got one!). Then I had lunch with hubby. After I got home I ended cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, doing a load of laundry, cleaning out the sink and running dishes through the dishwasher. Then I watched some Olympics (so sad it’s over, sigh) and played some Warcraft.

That may sound like a lot, but trust me, it’s not. It was just a nice, relaxing, lazy day – without laying in bed feeling depressed.

But I still didn’t post here. Why? Because I don’t have anything to say.

I spent nearly two years prior to getting pregnant watching my cycles: I charted, I counted, I analyzed symptoms. It was fun for a while, then desperate for a while, and then a necessity during treatments. I got pregnant, and with that there were no cycles – but instead I counted weeks, symptoms… I revelled in the details. Then 9 weeks of blankness. No cycles, no pregnancy, and it seemed like no time. It all ceased, frozen. But inevitably it started up again. For the past three+ months of cycles I’ve fallen back into my old pattern. Counting days, wondering, hoping, waiting. Believing it was possible.

I don’t anymore. It is obvious to me that I have completely surrendered, white flag in the air. I know in my heart this is not going to work without IVF again. It’s one thing to think it might be… to know your chance is low. It’s another to truly give up.

Don’t feel like you need to give me new hope. It’s okay. I have plenty of hope for IVF. I am waiting more or less patiently for my chance. With my job and my insurance means that it will happen for us again. It’s just that I am no longer sitting here waiting for a miracle to happen in the meantime. It’s not going to happen. I’ve accepted that.

And you know… I’m kind of relieved. Relieved that I don’t have to wonder. Relieved that I don’t have to plan sex and keep track and maintain hope anymore. It hurts to carry that torch. It’s physically painful. Every month the disappointment, like a wall falling on me. Every time. Knowing I shouldn’t feel so hopeful, but carrying that hope anyways. Feeling like I should hang on, that maybe this time will be different.

This is a respite. It’s a breather, a pause button on life. I did not decide to take a break. I did not call up some sort of willpower to stop obsessing and wondering and watching. It just came. And I invited it in to stay a while.

I wait.