What is the last thing you want to find at 3am? I’ll go with… dog diarrhea. All over the bedroom. We woke up, I said, “I think your dog puked.” He turned on the light, and we said… what the FUCK? Nasty, nasty, large amounts of diarrhea. From a german shepherd. That’s a large amount of shit. So there we were, half-naked and half-asleep, running out of paper towel and gagging helplessly. We sprayed the Oust and crawled back into bed, muttering, and fell back asleep.

Den woke up again at 5am. I was asleep. I woke up when he said, “He did it again! And it’s all over this stuff! Ugggghhhhh!!” You know those moments where you want to squeeze your eyes shut and fall back asleep and maybe you didn’t hear what you just did? Instead I sat up as Den was picking up some bag that had been in front of our closet and rushed it outside. I heard the hose turn on. I got up to wipe up the rest. Then Den took Zeeke out for a walk, because more than likely he wasn’t done (he wasn’t). My dog, Zoe, was very upset with this, because daddy always takes both dogs out in the morning and she thought she had been forgotten. I shushed her and told her to wait her turn. I mean, hello, extenuating circumstances here.

Den jumped in the shower, Zeeke was locked in Zoe’s crate so we could monitor him, and Zoe flings herself off the bed in typical Zoe fashion. I hear the clank of the water bowl and see a cascade of water fly up into the air. Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. Water ALL over the floor and on the corner of the bed. I grabbed some towels and set to mopping it all up. I pressed on the puddle on the bed with the towel and suddenly I realized, this is warm. On the floor is water. On the bed? PEE.

As I was cleaning that up I noticed Zeeke licking his lips. I let him out of the crate so he could run into the living room to throw up. Which he did. Den cleaned that up while I stripped the bed. And then we laughed, because we know, this is one of those days… you either laugh or cry.

We have no bed, Zeeke has no crate, there are things all over our lawn, the house stinks, we’ve gone through an entire roll of paper towel, and it is only 6am.

We’re hoping the cats don’t join in.

(Note: Zeeke gets sick easily… we have no idea what he got into this time, but he has an extremely sensitive stomach – he gets diarrhea every time we switch dog food brands, for crying out loud. So at this point we’re not too concerned about him… just have to wait for his system to flush itself out and calm down.)

Yesterday after work I went out and planted some spinach seeds in my garden. The rest of my veggies are waiting until it stays warm consistently, but the spinach can be planted when it is cooler.

I’ve been thinking about the planting of things… growing something from a tiny seed. It seems so unreal when I place a seed in the dirt that somehow something will actually grow. The soil seems so coarse… the water so scarce, but somedays too much. It feels like I ought to have to offer more than just dirt and water and sunshine. I fret over my plants all the time, because I don’t fully understand what I’m supposed to do, but also because it just seems so unreal to me. Last year I carefully planted my garden in measured, marked rows, watered it all, and then stood back and knew that it would never work. Something would have to go wrong, surely.

I think that’s why I am liking gardening so much. It’s this physical, very visual reminder of how things grow from tiny seeds… how nature knows how to flourish, even when conditions aren’t perfect. I, like many, infertiles, find it easy to fall into the trap of thinking everything has to be Just So – you have to eat these special foods and drink this much water and stand only this much, and move only this certain way… or surely the embryo will not stick. Because we weren’t perfect enough. But life is never perfect. Life grows where it will grow – there has to be soil, but it doesn’t have to be perfect soil.

This year I have improved on it – I built special borders and filled it with special soil and bought a special watering hose, but it is with the knowledge that I don’t need to. Last year I cleared some earth. I planted seeds and added water, and had a flourishing garden. I needed it to be simple. There was dirt, and water, and sunshine… and my plants grew in my less-than-perfect garden.

I am healing up pretty well. I had to snip a bit of stitch that was sticking out, but both lower incisions feel smooth and quite healed now. The naval incision still has a bit of a scab, but I do have a belly button again, which is quite nice. It is still a tiny bit swollen underneath, but far less than what it was a couple weeks ago.

I have 2 more birth control pills left to take. I’m expecting to get my period next Tuesday and start my protocol from there. Estimated transfer is June 9. And now that I have figured out when my last pill is and what my protocol schedule will be I will be closing all calendars and trying to not think about it. It worked well last time, and I’m hoping I can pull it off again… but it will probably be more difficult now, considering that last time worked. Sort of.

It is so hard for me not to constantly think about being pregnant again soon, like a carrot dangling in front of me. (Which is a stupid analogy since I’m not fond of carrots. Say, maybe, chocolate. Right now that fits very well.) But I am far, far too paranoid to actually let my mind really believe in that. I fully accept that it’s possible, but it’s also just as possible that it won’t happen… so I just can’t let myself anticipate it.

It’s especially hard with my co-worker being pregnant. Many times a day I’ll think, It’s okay, I’ll be pregnant soon, but that’s no guarantee. Then I start casting my planning net into the future… if this cycle doesn’t work, then when might I be pregnant? And what if that one doesn’t? And then I start panicking that I’m going to have to deal with yet another birth without me actually being pregnant yet.

I have what has turned into a huge spreadsheet for my IVFs. At first it was a fun thing to track, thinking about how I’d save all these special dates and info as a part of my baby book. And then it became necessity, just trying to keep up with everything. And now… now I do it, to keep it complete… to keep up… and to remember. This blog is a record of my emotional journey, it is the commentary… the spreadsheet is my journey in numbers: dates, medications, hormone levels, statistics. It is like this giant calendar of the last 2 years of my life. I look at it with both awe and such sadness. These are not the milestones I’m supposed to be keeping track of. This is not what my calendar was supposed to look like.

But regardless of what it was supposed to look like, it is what it is, and it’s a very nice record of my life. I am proud of what I have been through – still a little bit resentful that I had to go through it, but happy that I have survived. I feel like every mark on my calendar is like a badge. Not of honor, exactly… but more just, “I did that.”

It’s kind of like my Girl Guide badges. I worked hard for those badges, sewed them all on my sash. I was very pleased with them. But then later I sat back and thought, man… that was pretty useless. But at least I have these damn badges and I’m hanging them on my freaking wall.

No more birth control pills!! I am very excited about that, and really hoping that my moods will get back to normal. If they don’t, well, either me or Den is going to snap soon, and I have no idea who it will be. I don’t even know why I’m so cranky, I just am. Oh it’s aweful.

Also I’m getting sick. It’s that crappy feeling that something is coming, but it’s just not there yet. It started Wednesday with a throat “thing” in the morning, and it’s just hanging around. It hasn’t exploded into anything yet, but I can just feel something off in my sinuses and throat. So now it’s just a matter of waiting to see what it does… I’m hoping my immune system kicks it out. Hoping.

But no, tonight the sinuses are not behaving at all. Allergies + virus? Looks like I’m in for a rough night.

::

Today we were at a large family party. It was fun because I had forgotten that most of the extended family out here had not seen me with my shorter hair, and they were all doing double-takes when they saw me. Plus I’ve lost some weight and am fitting into a smaller size, so I’m feeling very pleased with myself. (Not so pleased after the pigging out I did tonight, though. That isn’t going to help keep me in smaller pants!) I guess I kind of have the feeling of, I’m not pregnant, I don’t have a cute baby in my arms (like many others there tonight), so at least I can have a good looking body, goddamnit. It’s not much of a recompense – I’d trade in a second, but it’s something to hold tight to, that all is not lost.

I noticed that I don’t really react to the babies like I used to. They are less elephants in the room as… raccoons. Kind of unusual, and you do want to go and look, but it’s not this big huge thing anymore.

My chiropractor was there, though – she is friends of friends. Very nice lady, I like her a lot as a person and as a doctor… but she’s also one of the few who knew I was pregnant. Whom I haven’t seen yet. So she comes up to me and says I look fantastic, asks how I am with a big smile. I shake my head and say, “Actually… not so good, no.” She knew what I meant immediately and blurted out, “Oh no! That’s just shitty!” Then she paused and said, “That’s not very professional.” I told her she wasn’t acting in a professional capacity today, so it was perfectly acceptable, lol. She gave me a hug and asked me how I was doing at work with all of this. And she said we’d talk at my appointment next week.

Just such a nice person. Going to the chiropractor isn’t just about my back. She’s a very earthy person, their office always has some soft meditation music playing and every appointment she comes in and we chat… it’s like a little time-out for the week. While she’s working I have to really focus on relaxing my muscles and letting stress go, and honestly if there was nothing more done than just that it would be worth it. And I noticed my back doesn’t hurt half as much as it used to, which is extremely exciting for me.

She’s such a motherly personality… you can tell she was meant for that profession. Not a doctor in a white coat, but a slightly alternative path, but helping others, nurturing others. Not only does she help my spine back into place, but in a little way she helps my soul, too.

For the past several years I’d tossed around the thought that I should take some more suppliments, like Fish Oil, but the thought of adding yet more pills to my daily regimen held me back. Did I really need those extra pills? I always felt like I ought to try to take as little as possible.

Well I’m at the point now where I say “screw that!” If I need it, if it could possibly in some way help, I’ll take it. Today I bought some more vitamins in that “should probably take” category, like extra B-6 (which I had been taking, a million years ago, for morning sickness with Devin), Fish Oil, and a high dose of Vitamin C (because studies are showing that it might help with allergies). I had already started taking Calcium suppliments last month, to make up for the fact that I had to cut milk out of my diet because of the allergies. Plus my iron pills, because I’m anemic. And of course my prenatal with the very required Folic Acid. (And don’t worry, I did thorough research beforehand, figuring out what I need, what is too much, and what the prenatal already has in it.)

My nightstand is its own little pharmacy.

::

Today we cleaned out the future-baby’s-room. Since Devin died we had just used it as a storage room, and at some point it reached critical mass. This past week I was trying to find something, knew it was probably in that room somewhere, but I could barely make it through the deep pile of stuff to look. I got so frustrated I decided that was it, time to clean the room. So we did. It looks… empty.

I have no deep emotional feelings to that room, since we had only begun clearing it out for Devin and hadn’t gotten anywhere close to making it “his room” – there is still dark panelling on the walls instead of paint, there is no baby furniture set up, nothing. Just a futon and some book shelves. It still sits empty. That’s what gets to me. It’s a room with no purpose… an entire room in our house that sits vacant, door closed at all times. We don’t set it up to be a library, because we know one day – hopefully soon – it will be for someone. Like our lives, like my body, the room waits.

In the cleaning up I finally let Devin’s box be put away in that spare bedroom, safe on top of the bookshelves. It’s been 14 months now, and I am just now okay with it being in a back room rather than out in the living room – last time we did a major clean I insisted it stay out in the open. It’s just a blue box with all his things in it, and some white envelopes with all the important papers in them. They’re not pretty, they’re not decorative, but I just needed to have them there, where I could touch them as I walked by, where I could see them. I guess now I’m finally at a point in my grief, in my life, where I’m okay with them being out of sight.

We also found some stickers that I had bought for Devin: numbered jumping sheep, 1 – 10. I had intended to put them up in his room above his crib. After he died I didn’t want to throw them away, so I just stashed it in the back bedroom. Today we pulled it out and stared at it. I thought for a moment, then scurried off with them while Den looked puzzled. They are now stuck on the wall above our bed, around the quilt my friends made for Devin. This is going to be the spot the co-sleeper is going to go, where our next baby will sleep. It seems like a fitting place for them.

::

I am focussing a lot on the dates of the pregnancy that would occur from this coming transfer – more than I usually do during a cycle. I realized today why I’m doing it: to try to push out of my mind the dates of the pregnancy-turned-ectopic. I have enough loss dates to think about with regards to my pregnancy with Devin, and I really just want to not think about what could have been last time. I do not want to forget what happened – I will be making a small memory box for my little trinkets from that pregnancy – but I just can’t spend my time thinking about what never was. Instead I choose to focus on what still could be. Hopefully.

I had my chiropractic appointment this afternoon and it was the most lovely 15 minutes of my day. I am obviously carrying a lot of stress. I think I almost fell asleep on the table while the little tingly things loosened up my back.

I want a new laptop – and am pretty sure soon I will need a new laptop – but I need to wait until July to buy one. July is when Microsoft will start including a free Windows 7 upgrade to purchases. But it is so hard to wait! I am drooling over laptops. Why do I torture myself?? (Oh yes… it’s more pleasant than thinking about the lack of babies.)

::

Today I caught sight of someone’s sig on a forum, someone who I remembered had been pregnant within a day or two of myself. I was stunned to see that she was 10 weeks already. 10 weeks? That would mean it’s been almost a month since my loss. But that is right, seeing how I’m starting my next cycle already.

It hurt. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to think about it. It is gone… that chance, that calendar, is no longer mine.

I have a feeling this is going to haunt me for some time. Hopefully it will ease up when I am pregnant again. While I am not new to loss, I am somewhat new to this aspect of it… loss after a late stillbirth like I had doesn’t leave much room for shadowing others’ pregnancies. Kel, my first and closest pregnancy buddy, gave birth a mere week after I did. And that first month was such a haze to begin with, nothing much penetrated until later, after my due date had passed.

::

I am extremely anxious for my period to start so I can get started on the protocol and get some dates written in. I’ve started spotting so it should be sometime tonight or tomorrow morning. I’m just impatient. Just get started already, so I can move on to waiting for the next thing.

I had it all planned. Last BCP would be friday, which would mean period on tuesday, which would mean ovulation on a wednesday, transfer on a tuesday, and a due date of February 24. Sunday I spotted. Monday I spotted. And then finally on Tuesday I… spotted. Ummmm.

I felt like I should jump up and down and do some squats or something to get things moving, as if there was some magical button to press. It felt kinda like it was going to start, but it wasn’t freaking starting. One of the few times I actually wanted my period to come, and she was being a bitch. I was getting really pissy, because the whole point of being on the pill was to make sure I got my period when I wanted it. I have control over so little, so when something feels like it is in my control well it had better damnwell work when I tell it to.

Not that it would be a huge problem if it came a day later, not like the cycle would be cancelled or anything. But if it did it would mean transfer on a wednesday, so I’d have to miss another day of work, and the “new week” day of pregnancy to be thursday. Kel and I both said, “I don’t like that.” Thursday is the day that Devin was pronounced dead. Thursday is a Bad Day. Definitely something to avoid.

By some blessing the spotting turned heavier as it reached into late afternoon, enough that I could call it cycle day one and slap a patch on my ass to start protocol. I heaved a huge sigh of relief… and then held my breath again. One funny little side-effect of cycles going wrong, multiple negatives, a dead baby and pregnancy-in-a-tube: you don’t really trust anything anymore. I called the nurses this morning to let them know about the start of protocol, then waited uneasily for them to confirm the dates that it should all fall on.

And she did! Ultrasound and bloodwork on June 3 before starting progesterone, and transfer on the 9th. I am good to go.

First hurdle down. Many, many more to go.

::

Today was another momentous day for our household, another investment into our home-sweet-home: we ordered a new front door.

I have spent months researching doors. Not actively, but every couple of weeks I would check out the catalogs again and refine my preferences. Then it got to the point where every couple of weeks I would open up the page just to nod to myself that yep, that was definitely the one. Definitely. Oh so gorgeous.

Only then did I finally go to the store to get a quote. And then I went home and wailed. It’s HOW MUCH?!? For a DOOR?!

But the husband, after recovering from the price, told me that it is a worthy investment into our house, and it’s something I should be happy with for the next 20 years. We should get what I really want. (Note I said what I really want. He had input, but he knows it’s me that’s going to be either very happy or very unhappy and he really doesn’t want me very unhappy every day I come home and see our door. I think to him the price of emotional sanity is worth it.)

It was the right one. I looked at a bunch of other catalogs yesterday to make sure. It’s perfect. Den likes it. So today we walked into Home Depot, sat down, took a deep breath and plunked down a whole lot of plastic for a fancy new door-and-sidelites.

The act of making a large purchase inevitably has one major side-effect: I go home and proceed to freak out that we just made a Huge Fucking Mistake. I wanted zinc. But the door I wanted, the style I wanted, only came in patina. Was it too black? I think it was too black. OMFG it’s too black. It’s going to look nothing like what I pictured it! I went online searching for pictures… nothing, just the manufacturers very photoshopped photo-slash-graphic-design. Hyperventillating now. We have 72 hours to change our minds. That’s all. No returns after it’s been custom ordered.

Back to Home Depot. I ran over to the floor models, to the one that had the “patina” style. Oh, it doesn’t look as bad as I thought. I stood back. Actually… that looks quite nice. Sets off the design. Not too dark, really. I mean, the lighting makes it hard to see, but… I leaned in close to inspect it… okay, it’s not really black. I mean, it’s darker than silver. But not black. It’s more… pewter. Yeah, that’s it. Pewter. I like pewter. That’s kind of pretty.

So I jogged out front to where Den was standing to tell him, Yep it’s the right door, we can go home now… it’s pretty, I think I’ll like it.

Den rolled his eyes. He’s used to this routine.

On the way home, his new grill (our other purchase of the day) in the back of his brother’s truck ahead of us, he turned to me and said, “I’m not sure I like the grill.” I turned to him with wide eyes. He grinned and said, “Just kidding.” A few seconds later he added with a laugh, “A little taste of what I go through.”

Evil bastard.

But man, I put him through hell, don’t I.

Okay, you asked… here it is, the door we ordered! I hope hope hope it looks this pretty in real life. I am so excited! This is the first major thing we’ve done to the exterior of the house itself, other than re-roofing.

You might not expect it, a month out from my most recent loss – I certainly didn’t – but while driving home from work yesterday I realized that I am… content. My sunroof was open on my car, which always makes me happy because I have a car – after years of having to share a vehicle I still get excited every morning I go out and hop into my own car. The sun was out, it was warm enough for me not to have to wear a sweater or jacket. And the trees are green.

Driving through this area almost always makes me smile because of the trees. (Not the traffic I assure you – there are as many assholes on the road here as anywhere else.) The cities around here have made a very obvious effort to plant trees lining the streets, and as they grow bigger they start to overhang the streets a little, creating a beautiful green canopy. There are parks with trees and yards with trees, and everywhere is this bursting of color right now. Where I grew up there was so much new development, and they would inevitably bulldoze a huge section of the landscape to build their packed-in-tight half a million dollar townhouses. It was so freaking depressing. But this area, it doesn’t have that population explosion… it has been here for hundreds of years and will be here for hundreds more, growing only slowly.

I get a lot of people asking me if I miss home. And I do, in some ways. I miss the familiarity. I miss the house I grew up in. But what I miss most is the family I left behind, not the place. Frequently people will suggest to me in a supposed-to-be-comforting manner that maybe in the future the opportunity will present itself for me and my family to move back to Canada. The thing is, I don’t think I would, even if we got the chance.

When I first moved here I really didn’t feel like this house was my home. I lived here, but it was someone else’s home… not even my husband’s, he had just moved in a year and a half before and hadn’t been able to do much to it since. It was so overwhelming to even really picture this place feeling like my home. It was dark and depressing, broken and outdated. It didn’t need a makeover, it needed some severe reconstructive surgery.

I’ve been here for four years now. We have painted and re-done the living room, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom. We built an entertainment room in the unfinished basement. We’ve torn out overgrown bushes of all sorts, cut down trees, planted new ones. It’s been a lot of hard work. It’s cost money. And it has been very, very slow. Many things need finishing trim, painted ceilings and new furniture still. But slowly I can see the change. I walk into the living room and it is my living room. I lay down in my bedroom. I can see what this house will become, and I am excited. I am motivated.

This year we are able to do a lot of the things to the house that we always wanted to, but couldn’t afford – I am working full-time, we have a lot more income than we used to. It definitely holds a shadow over it. When I mention to people what we are working on, the new door, the new fence, refinishing the floor, rebuilding the stairs… I know they are probably thinking that I am lucky to be able to do all those things. And we are. But I didn’t want to be working full-time right now. I was supposed to be staying home with our baby, keeping an eye on the budget and putting off house projects until later. Now we are able to do all these things we wanted to do, and I know it will be really nice to have them done before raising a child in this house…. but we would have been fine without them. Once in a while I will catch what could be an imagined look of jealousy on someone’s face, and I almost want to laugh sadly and say, you have no idea, I would trade you in an instant.

But I am proud of what we do have and try to enjoy it. I gave up putting my life on hold to wait. We will do as much as we can until the next baby comes along, and then we will continue the original plan. This helps pass the time, and helps give something positive about every month spent waiting – it’s another month worth of income and time to throw at our projects. Another month to make this our own.

I am tired, sore, pleased. It has been a productive weekend, and I need some sleep to recover.

And I want to let you know that I hate being dirty. My gardening gloves are some of the best things ever, and pretty much the only way I can work in the garden for any length of time. As it is I still run in to wash my hands frequently, I spent several hours today almost physically itching with the need to take a shower – but couldn’t, because we had more dirty work to be done. I do always feel happy with what we have accomplished, but boy do I hate that feeling of being sweaty and dusty with dirt under your fingernails. Oh it just makes me shudder.

Thankfully my garden has pretty much been set. The seeds are all planted, the fence installed… now I just have to make sure I keep the weeds out and keep it watered – which the new soaker hose should easily help me accomplish. Den keeps coming up with new projects outside and I’m all like, dude, I have some ceilings and trim inside that need to get painted… then I tip-toe off really quietly.