I have my therapy appointment on Monday. It has been a hard month and in my mind I have been logging all the things things I want to talk about… the concerns, the frustrations, the utter confusions. I don’t go so far as to make an actual list, though some days it is tempting, lest I forget something important.

I don’t know why it has been such a hard month for me, though I have my suspicions: the forced break and July being the month we got pregnant with Devin. Not even cycling this month just makes 2 years ago seem so very far away. But I wasn’t even thinking about that until yesterday when the thought snapped into place and I leaned over to Den and said, “It’s July.”

But I don’t know. It could just as likely be one of those things, the normal ebb and flow of loss and infertility. Some months are just harder than others, it’s just how it is.

::

I have felt myself drawing inward. When I am feeling down is when I most need support, and yet it is when I am the most sensitive. Instinctively I pull back, separating myself, giving myself a large buffer zone. It makes me feel even more alone, but social interactions can be full of anxiety. My paranoia starts sneaking in, frustrating me yet charming me at the same time. It becomes so hard to see things clearly. I wish I had the kind of self-confidence I project. I don’t. Sometimes I almost have it, but I’m always one little slip away from falling into self-doubt and fear. I have always felt this way – always the child who tried her best to please her teachers, fearful of falling short. But instead of becoming a friend-pleaser I isolated myself, doing my own thing instead of even trying to fit in. I was the loner, the bookworm, the geek. I was the weird one. Now I’m out in the real world, being an adult, and I find myself being far more normal than ever before. I feel comfortable in it, too, much to my surprize. But it makes me nervous, too. I feel like I twist and turn right along the edge, and I frequently have to fight the urge to run and hide before I get hurt. I am too sensitive, too soft.

Frequently I wonder what other people see. Not just when they look at me, but when they look at anything. When I drive down the road all the little things along the way now evoke memories for me. I have lived here for 4 years, and the way I see the town has changed because of my experiences. I frequently wonder as I drive along, how does my husband see these same streets? He’s lived here all his life, has had vastly different experiences than I have in my short 4 years. I try to wrap my brain around the idea that every single person driving through that intersection sees it in a different way, colored by their own personality and experiences. I wonder what my parents see when they visit; I try to remember how I saw it the very first time… how confusing it must have been.

It is the same way with people. Sometimes I stand in front of our full-length mirror and just stare at myself, tilting my head to the right and the left, squinting my eyes a little. I can spend the whole day looking down at my body and seeing one thing, then step in front of the mirror and be shocked that it looks so different from another person’s view. I lean forward to examine my nose, my eyes, that big zit that popped up on the side of my nose. I know every curve so very intimately, but then I think… if I saw myself in a crowd, would I recognize me? Would I think she had too large of a nose, would I wonder if that slightly pooched belly meant that she was pregnant? Would I think she moved gracefully or haltingly, is she tall or short? My mind struggles to picture it, but fails – I am too close to ever remove myself to the objective view.

Of all the things in the world, of all the knowledge, all the theories, all the philosophy and mathematics, the one thing I want to really truly understand I am simply too wrapped up in to ever really know. I’m not sure it’s even possible to ever truly understand oneself, though that doesn’t stop us from trying. There are always discoveries, there are degrees to attain. But there is no equation, there is no guidebook. We’re all just flailing around, doing the best that we can.

I am not one who has ever believed in the saying that when one door shuts, another opens. I rather see it as a random game of cards – some doors close, some open, but not necessarily in a way that can help you out. Sometimes maybe they all slam shut at the same time.

Yesterday my one major client, the one providing me with my one bit of reliable income, told me they no longer needed me. It wasn’t a huge hit to the point that it affects our bills or lifestyle, as my freelancing just isn’t big enough to create that much of an impact, but it still hurts. That was our emergency money, our “fun stuff” money. And more than that it was a door shutting in my face unexpectedly. I think the unexpectedness of it is what’s really bugging me. I do not like having to deal with surprizes, but that is life.

This morning at the bank my computer was having issues and throwing some weird error message and not allowing me to do anything. I called the IT department, who then forwarded the problem along to the software company. Me, being an IT-trained and experienced person, didn’t want to just sit around waiting for someone to maybe figured it out and get back to me. So I poked around in the computer, tried clearing some cache files out and such, and voila, error fixed. I called back the IT department to tell them I had fixed it and told them what the problem was. He was rather stunned, and then impressed. That was when the guy remembered who I was and that I had mentioned I have a degree in IT. He told his boss about it, and then called me back up to tell me to send over my resume.

Now I’m not putting any weight on the idea that they’ll turn around and hire me tomorrow, because it’s a very small IT department and I don’t think they’re looking to add anyone. But the fact of the matter is that I made an impression, and they’ll have my resume on-hand when they are. I’ve been looking for a job in IT, but, as a person with the college training but little real-world experience, it is very hard to find a place to get into the field. I need to get my foot in the door, and maybe this will be it.

The thing is, regardless of why you think the doors open and close, one will eventually open. I just happened to get a reminder of that very soon after one closed, and I am thankful for that. Sometimes I just need a little encouragement – especially since I’m trying to move in a direction I haven’t before.

::

I’m going to be 27 in a couple of months and it feels like I still have so much more to learn about myself, about life. In one way that doesn’t seem surprizing, it is only 27, after all. And yet I guess I always figured by my late twenties I’d have a little bit more of a handle on my own self, that I’d feel more like an adult rather than a student still searching for her comfort zone. I had hoped to have more self-confidence, more success – maybe those go hand-in-hand.

I wish I wasn’t so afraid. You’d think after what I’ve been through that the little things wouldn’t bother me so much – and sometimes they don’t. But sometimes, often, they do. In many ways I wish I cared less, like the months after Devin died where nothing else really did matter. Our minds went into crisis mode, where everything else was insignificant out of pure self-preservation, knowing that we were already taxed to our limits dealing with the only one thing that did matter, and anything else would send us over the edge. There was a comforting peace to that numbness, in knowing so very clearly what was important in your life and that everything else could wait. But somehow over the last year it has crept back in, the anxiety and fear that stems simply from caring: caring about what people think, about what I do, about who I am, about the future. Life does keep moving, and you either have to move with it or sink. So, damnit, why does it feel like I’m still just trying to keep my head above water?

I do not like the jealous, angry, bitter pieces of me. I hate feeling upset at others’ successes… it makes me feel like a terrible person. Why can’t I just feel happy, even at a distance? The bitterness just bubbles up, congealing from little disappointments to one giant bubble of unhappiness. I know where it comes from, I know where it starts: I feel like I have failed myself in so many ways. My unhappiness is not because of others – triggered by others, but it comes from within myself. I know that, but I don’t know how to escape it, either. I don’t know how to lose the pain I carry around with me.

I miss that feeling of happiness… the feeling that you’re holding something so precious and so perfect that nothing can touch it, that it outweighs everything else.

At the support group today we had an opportunity to do a writing exercise based on a heart prompt. This was mine.

Twisted inner heart, transparent but hidden. I once was warm and pliant, but now I am cold and hard. Blue ribbons, pink ribbons, spiderwebs flung across the cavern like an explosion.
It was an explosion.
It nearly killed me.
Nearly.
But now there is beauty in the mess left behind.
There is life still slowly beating.
I am glass, waiting to shatter, but for the moment I sit in your hand, in your pocket, weighted like a large pebble. With smooth edges I slide back from where you took me. Hide me, guard me, keep me safe.
I wait for another day.

Love is not a word I use very much anymore. It is too risky. Love I left behind, buried in the ground with my son.
It is not gone – just missing. Maybe I’ll find it again someday.
The metronome tick-tocks. It is stuck in a loop, never forward, never back, just stuck, counting down from nothing to nothing. Where do I go from here? How do I find my heart again if I’m not allowed to move? I wish I could reach out and stop the beat. Or change it. But it’s not mine to touch, my arm isn’t that long. I grow restless, frustrated. This is not my beat anymore. I start to hate it, despise it.
This is not love. I’ve lost it and I need it back.

I’ve been keeping an eye on my CM, and while it has looked non-fertile for the past week I’ve gotten some almost-fertile CM in the last day. So this morning I do a quick check and… wait, what is that? YES! It is AF!! Den made a sad face when I told him, but really, did I actually think I would get pregnant on an off-cycle? Hahahah no.

No what this means is that IVF#5 is officially ON. Starting the BCP tonight.

At my acupuncture appointment today she asked where I was in my cycle, and I told her that I am pretty sure that I ovulated last weekend. She asked if I’d done any homework. I threw my mind back to last appointment, was there something she had asked me to think about or look up? “What kind of homework?” I asked tentatively. She leaned forward in a conspiratorial way, “Sex?” Oh, right. Yes.

The first half of my appointment was an interesting attempted at meditation. My mind was running in all directions – nothing in particular, just restless. It’s rather hard to sink into a sleep state when every few seconds your five-year-old subconscious self is poking around asking, “Am I asleep now? How about now? … Now?” I kept opening my eyes to stare at the ceiling fan above my head, roll my eyes, and silently mutter to myself. The murmured sounds from the lobby seemed very loud, every little knock and voice had me twitching. I resigned myself to spending an hour just laying there, thinking of a million things at once. But, regardless, I breathed in and out, relaxed, and let my body sink into the pillowy table.

My right ear yet again had a warm, almost-buzzing feeling again – but this time it wasn’t distracting, it was more centering. It was like my nerves were saying, “Here, focus on this.” I layed there and wondered what those little needles were doing. Were they really sending a message to my uterus? Is anything in there shifting a molecule to the left, just enough to do something? I don’t think I really believe that it is – though if I show up pregnant this month I will be a FULL believer in acupuncture. But for now I take it as a lesson in meditation and mindfulness.

Somehow the second half of my appointment passed much more quickly than the first, and I opened my eyes to the acupuncturist coming in and removing the needles. I must have drifted off once again. I like how I feel when I leave. The place is full of potted plants in the rooms, the bathroom, and all over the outside of the little house are more plants. It’s very homey, very organic feeling. Peaceful.

I wish the rest of life could feel more like that.

I lead a full life. This is not something I could have said at many times along the way, but right now it is full. I try to fill it with the happy things, the good things… and for the most part I succeed. I may not be blissfully happy, but at least I accomplish something.

My little brother keeps coming to me looking for advice. He doesn’t come right out and ask what he should do, but I can tell he’s searching for something, for some kind of brilliant knowledge or truth, something to make his way clear. Sometimes I can’t bring myself to tell him that I still haven’t figured things out yet, that I am still lost, too. Even though I’ve been through the stage he’s at – the dating, living-at-home, struggling-with-friendships stage, I still look back on it bewildered, knowing no more how to navigate it than I did when I was in the middle of it. All I do know is that later things just don’t seem as important as they did, decisions don’t seem so huge. Of course it doesn’t – the decision’s already been made, you already know how it all falls out. There is an anxiety about being stuck in the middle, of not knowing how things turn out, that is almost debilitating at times. Oh yes, I wish I had the magic answers for him. But I just don’t.

I see in my brother a younger, male version me – overly critical to a fault, overly analytical to the point of paralysis. Too often I make the mistake of assuming he is different, unknowable… and then he says something that makes me realize he’s more like me than either of us know. He shows it differently. He has always put on the confident, don’t-give-a-damn facade, whereas I was always the quiet, petrified one. I lost myself in my tears and anguish, and he loses himself in anger and frustration. But it all comes from the same place… a place of fear, anxiety and self-doubt.

I have started to find a place of confidence… a center, a calmness. I think is is due to my medication, my loving husband, lovely friends, and experience. I wish I wouldn’t get knocked off it so frequently – lately it has certainly not been easy – but it is there. I hold on tight and feel thankful. I wish I could give my brother that… but I know that only time and experience will help. So I wait beside him, my hand on his shoulder, and try to help him navigate his way.

::

Yesterday the boys were out, so SIL and I took BabyH to the park. She had great fun climbing up and down the stairs on the little kids playground and sliding down the slide with us. I had such fun with her. The sun was hot and it was exhausting, sure, but it is just so fun to watch her play and laugh and figure new things out.

I’ve honestly never been quite sure of myself around kids. They just feel like little aliens to me… I don’t understand what they say, what they need, what they want. Even Kel’s boys, whom I am sort of an Auntie to, I just am not around them very much at all. I found myself looking around in alarm more than once, asking if Danny making that noise is normal or did he want something, and is Eric supposed to be playing with that? Then I came home to BabyH and realized that I get her. I know what she eats, I know that she hates to be picked up, I know what her grunts mean, I know what her favorite toys are. I feel completely at home looking after her, playing with her. And she knows me. Her big smile when she sees me, her shrieking laughter as I chase her on the floor, her little fist wrapped around my fingers as she trusts me to help her up the stairs… they melt my heart.

I wondered, when she was born, how I was going to navigate it. I wanted to desperately to be a mother, to love this child, to be an important part of her life, but she was not mine. I had lost mine, and she was someone else’s. Sometimes it felt like the only way I could handle that was to pull back entirely and give myself some breathing room. But now I realize I have figured it out: I am the Auntie. She is not mine, but she is still a piece of my heart, I am a part of her life. I am so thankful that I was able to build this relationship with her.

I look at BabyH and feel such pride and joy… and then I wonder how it will feel with my own. The thought cuts… and yet the hope makes it a little bit joyful, too. One day I will experience it for myself.

I got a new laptop this week. (This one… with many upgrades. 2.5ghz dual-core processor; 320gb 7200rpm hard drive; 4gb RAM; 512gb GeForce vid card; bluray drive; 16:9 ultra-glossy 1080p screen.) Well, it arrived this week… I ordered it last week, alongside a very hefty panic attack. I am so nervous about big decisions, especially when it comes to spending hefty amounts of money.

It arrived yesterday and I have been tinkering with it. It’s running Vista at the moment, though when the time comes I’ll get a free upgrade to Windows 7. It also has a very different screen than my previous two laptops: they were 14 inch standard screens, this one is a 16 inch ultra-wide screen with high-def resolution. It is a major change, and the main reason I was so anxious. Because of these two major differences, unlike my other new computers I have not started with loading over all of my previous “stuff” and settings exactly as-is. I have so many customized settings in my XP computers it’s a little crazy. Oh, and it’s a different brand than my previous two laptops, so the keyboard is all different. It has a numberpad on the side, too. Compared to my old computers this is just so utterly different… so I tinker.

One thing is for certain: it is a gorgeous, gorgeous laptop – both in looks and in specs. A few of the little things are making me giddy. The screen is glossy, which I know will be a bit hellish in an office environment, but at home where I usually am it is lovely just lovely. The keyboard seems to be treating me well, my fingers are quickly finding their places, and having a full numberpad is such a luxury. This ultra-wide screen allows me to open a large web browser window, see my program icons on the left, and have my messenger open on the right… nothing crowded, everything visible. I really get giddy when I think about doing work in Photoshop with this much landscape. Doing anything on the 1024 res was extremely frustrating. It feels like I just got a huge desk delivered, so I can spread out all my stuff. Glorious, just glorious.

The res being what it is – 1920, in case you’re wondering – the thing that I was most worried about was being able to read text. It’s not aweful, but at the same time I could feel myself leaning towards the screen as I read blogs and forums. Not ideal. I cringe at the thought of changing the screen DPI or in any way messing with the overall layout… but I have discovered that there’s a nifty FireFox add-on that allows you to zoom in – not just increase the text size (which makes things squishy and ruins designs), but blows up the whole page bigger. I’m running at 120% and it seems perfect! This way all the rest of windows is small and unobtrusive, I have a ton of space, and yet everything I read or see in my browser is at a standard, easily readable size. I am freaking thrilled at this solution… I really thought I’d have to choose one or the other.

For all the frustrations that my work and clients can give me, it has allowed me this. I don’t make much, but enough that I can spoil myself with a beautiful new laptop every 4 years. LOL (Yes… I’m a web designer/programmer who survives on one new computer every 4 years. I take very good care of my computers. I have to.)

Oh yes, I think I’m in love.

::

I once was an avid book reader. I spent my high school years buried in books – socially awkward, shy and bored in class, my books were my escape. I was the picture-perfect straight-A student, but I frequently got reprimanded for reading through lectures and discussions. Mostly Fantasy, but I would read almost anything.

I got so busy during college, and I developed some actual social skills. Mainly online, but still – given the choice I would rather spend my time interacting with people than lost in a book. I couldn’t seem to devote the time that my books required of me. Somewhere in between school, moving, getting married and becoming an adult I stopped reading altogether. I’ve been worried about this ever since. Did I just lose the desire, the interest? Did I lose some capability? Or was it just not who I was anymore?

While stuck in Washington, DC during my travels I spent a long time at the gift shop, hovering over the books, evaluating, and finally settled on one. I read most of it on the plane, and finished it the next night when I should have been sleeping. Then I bought another book, and read half of that on the return flight. Today I went to the book store and bought three more books from the series.

I can’t say that the series is the best I’ve ever read. It’s good, it’s satisfying. But there’s a lot more to it than that, I realized. I want to read. Suddenly I realized: here is the timesink I’ve been searching for… a way to hide away from the world and all its frustrations, to occupy and distract my mind while I sit around waiting. I read while my flight was delayed out on the tarmac; I should read while my life is delayed.

I think a big part of my aversion to reading these past few years is that I was so busy on the other things in my life… I didn’t want to miss out on things because of my books. And I would have. Reading to me is an addiction… once I start I tend not to stop. I ignore everything around me. I get very angry at interruptions, I forget to eat, and I don’t go to sleep until my eyesight gets too blurry. On one hand I have to try to curb that… but on the other, I’m not so sure I mind an obsession like that right now.

The magazine I was reading had an essay prompt: when did you feel like you became an adult? My answer came easy: when my child died.

Along the way there have been a lot of times that I have taken little steps forward, overcoming new obstacles, handling situations that I would previously have classified as “adult.” But March 6, 2008 I jumped forward 10 years. I was given no choice, no alternative, I simply had to deal. Death is sobering, death makes you suddenly feel your mortality like a physical weight hanging within, tick-tocking back and forth counting down the days though you can’t see the numbers. Everyone, child and adult alike, will freely admit that someday they will die. But to a child that day seems in another lifetime, certainly not something to concern themselves with now. But an adult is in that lifetime, and knows it. When my child died, so did my sense of security, the feeling that I had my whole life ahead of me. What I had was so fleeting, and taken away before we really understood what we had. To me being an adult means not just living for today, but recognizing that the little things really are little things and life’s journey does not necessarily lead you where you wanted to go. It’s about recognizing and accepting my limits.

::

Yesterday my flights got fucked up. My first flight was over an hour late arriving at the airport, therefore over an hour late taking off with us inside. It was headed to one of the airline’s massive hubs, and almost all of us were scheduled for connecting flights to our destinations. We all missed those connecting flights.

There was a mass of angry people. I don’t blame them for their anger – it was a mechanical, not weather, delay, which means it was solely the responsibility of the airline. I looked around at all these upset people who were snapping at the customer service representatives and bitching about this and that, and smiled at the person on the other side of the counter. I thanked them for their help and observed that it must be a very long, trying day for them. There was woman with a 10 month old baby. That baby swung her legs in her stroller, looked around and smiled broadly at me. I made faces at her and giggled. She and I shared a secret: our forced layover was not a disaster.

I got a free night in a very nice hotel room. I got to sleep on a large, comfy bed, with fresh sheets, all to myself. I had time to take a shower, brush my teeth, change my clothes. I had a free breakfast. I got some time to read a book.

Is it where I wanted to be today? No. But I’m not at work, I’m not cleaning my house. I’m still on vacation, it just changed a little.

One year, when I was dating Den while in college in Canada, I flew out to visit him for Christmas. Being that it was the middle of winter, I ended up getting stranded in Chicago overnight due to a winter storm. Back then I didn’t handle it as gracefully, crying on the phone. I wanted to be with Den, not stuck in Chicago! But, with no alternative, I pulled myself together and got help at the service desk. They helped me find a hotel room (not free, since that time it was not their fault, but I had a credit card and generous parents), directed me to the shuttle bus, rebooked my flight. After making it to the hotel I walked down the street to a macdonalds to get some dinner before heading to bed. Very early in the morning I took the shuttle bus back to the airport to catch my flight. I got off that plane with an incredible sense of accomplishment. Life threw me a curveball, and I caught it. I think that was my first real lesson that things don’t have to go as planned for it to turn out okay. When I look back at that trip I don’t remember frustration or fear. I remember a blissful night and pride.

Yesterday when I learned that I was going to miss my connecting flight I decided to look forward to a nice, peaceful night – my own private getaway. There are too many stressful things in life. This didn’t need to be one of them.

::

Granted after I wrote all of that I got to the airport and found out my flight was cancelled. But there was a new one scheduled for the same time slot so they put me on that. No worries, crisis averted. I sat and read a book until it was time to board.

And then we ended up getting diverted mid-flight to a different airport due to weather. I started laughing when they told us we weren’t landing in St. Louis… I mean, really?? My husband’s exact response after I landed and texted him was “O M F G.” I think that summed it all up. Thankfully it was a very quick stop and we were able to land soon enough, but holy hell man, this was supposed to be a short day of travel… not nearly 24 hours of problems!

::

If you didn’t know, I am visiting Kel for a few days. Woo hoo!

Oh! Oh! I’ve been taking some OPKs in the morning, which have shown no progress. The last couple of days I’ve been having CM that trends towards fertile, and I’m leaving for a short vacation tomorrow evening, so I figured oh what the hell, and tested after work. If it isn’t positive it is very nearly so. Yippeee!! Not that I think having sex will ever actually get me pregnant, or that I’m even ovulating on the side that has a tube (though I think I am), but I just want this to get moving now so I can get my period and get started on the next cycle.

Now I’m just hoping my body doesn’t change directions and not follow through.

No ovulation at all. Looks like my body might be considering it, but not right now. Fucker.

On the semi-positive side I mentioned my concern to my acupuncturist, who scheduled me an appointment for next wednesday when I get back from my trip. If I still haven’t ovulated she said she has some herbs that can help things along. And if that fails I’ll be calling the nurses for medication.

Although I have to admit, it’s tempting to consider just taking some progesterone to fake-ovulate like a FET. At this point I’m totally not concerned about catching an egg – if it’s even on the side that has a tube still. I just want to keep things on schedule for my IVF cycle, damnit.

And also, I am so not having a good week. This time the week itself seems fine… it’s me that’s all messed up. Anxiety… way too much anxiety. And for what? I’ve just not been right since Saturday.