I’ve been trying not to get too invested in this theoretical June cycle, just in case tomorrow my doctor tells me he wants me to take another month off. Even though my incisions are healing very nicely. I just find it hard to trust that anything will happen when I actually want it to happen. Or, at all. Just not big on the whole trust thing in general, really. I’ll just wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime I have been hit by the gardening bug, and I’ve been itching to get out there and start pulling some weeds. Today I managed to do that, and put down mulch around the base of Devin’s tree. It looks far better now. I’m hoping it will also function better, but again, we’ll just wait and see.

I am very excited about my vegetable garden, and trying not to rush it. Since last year was actually successfull – in the definition that I actually kept up on it and didn’t wander off looking for shiny objects – I have decided to improve on it a little bit. Last year it was more an act of desperation and keeping busy hands than anything, so I just cleared a spot of earth and planted things. This year I’m going to build a little raised bed! It will look much neater, and be easier to maintain. I will, of course, be taking photos.

I’m also trying to figure out what trees we should plant around the yard. We definitely want trees, and we don’t want boring, typical ones, but then we have to figure out where is best to put them (have to take into account, the future fence, the future pool, the future house expansion, what lawn area we want to keep open, shade and sun… etc). The next one may just end up being a Yoshino Cherry (Devin’s tree is a fruiting cherry variety), and I think I want at least one Elm tree in the back. Eventually we would like to take down all the stupid pine trees in the woods and replace them with Elms, Birches and other such trees.

I don’t really know where this sudden interest in gardening came from… well, some combination of grief and family predisposition (my dad is an avid gardener, as was his mom and almost all of his siblings and cousins). I guess my interest needed to be kickstarted. Maybe it’ll die off in time, maybe not. But for now it certainly holds my interest.

A part of it, I am sure, is that by doing this I am still working towards our future, especially with the trees. The veggies and flowers are yearly distractions, but the trees are a part of a bigger picture. I can see in my head our children playing ball in the shade of an Elm and admiring the Japanese Red Maples. It’s a way for us to shape this house and land to get it ready. Every month that I am not pregnant I feel this drive to keep moving forward, to keep getting things done and getting prepared for a child we will bring home. I know this house will never be done, but every completed project brings me a sense of accomplishment, pride, and relief.

Which is really a very good thing. Some weeks it just feels like I’m doing the same things over and over again and getting nowhere. Pregnancy is at least forward motion. Even active IVF cycles feel like forward motion – even though they may just dump you out exactly where you started, at least it feels like forward motion for the duration of the ride. But in between? Stagnant.

We all need something to keep us moving. I guess this is mine.