Even Superheroes Feel Silly Sometimes . . .

Despite my insistance that it is a superhero mask - wearing this eye mask actually just leaves me feeling a bit on the dorky side. It really does help with the achy sinuses though and the fact that I am prone to a bit of swelling still.

The cherry to this sundae was the infection I started coming down with by Monday evening and now I am taking antibiotics for that.

Really anxious for things to recover more so I can see if this sinus surgery is going to make the difference I hope it will or not. For now though, I am taking as many afternoon naps as I can . . .

Show & Tell - June 7th

This is what Sinus Surgery gets you:



(The peppermints are to help with the nasty taste of all those sprays running down the back of your throat - yuck!)

I found this to be quite useful in soothing some of the residual aches following sinus surgery:

This is my Super Hero mask. Wish I looked as cool as Batman in it!

This is what Vicodin induced creativity gets you:


I found the irony of making a rabbit pendant while in a drug induced haze for my daughter rather funny. (Anyone into Jefferson Starship??) Probably funnier than I would have without the Vicodin.


For those of you who are into gratuitous flower shots:





For more Show and Tell, just follow your way down the Rabbit Hole.

You Never Forget Your First

Original posting date:

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Doctor . . .

Seemed like such a simple task - provide child one with a sibling. Now that we had things figured out - or so we thought, getting pregnant again should not be so difficult, right? Well - getting pregnant again actually wasn't so hard this time - one cycle of clomid was all it took and I was staring at my second positive pregnancy test just when child one turned one. Mostly I was concerned I would be horribly sick again, the first week started off only mildly queasy. The second week after the positive test was the same. Halfway into the third week - disaster struck. No queasiness, but a low crampy ache that wouldn't let up. You know that miscarriages happen - you know that sometimes a pregnancy starts and doesn't end the right way. I had friends who had miscarriages. Somehow I guess I figured that having to take fertility drugs to conceive somehow gave me a pass on this - couldn't have more bad luck right? I knew that most women would experience at least one miscarriage over the course of their life - still this did not prepare me. Knowing it happens and then having to face it happening to you are two different things. There are no handbooks, no "how to" guides for having and coping with the loss of a pregnancy. Any of the help given by your health care provider will follow more along the lines of practical care meant to safeguard you from any complications. My personal opinion is - the miscarriage is already a complication. My doctor at the time was not completely convinced I was having a miscarriage initially. (Well if he was going to see me before 10 weeks he would have been able to verify it for himself) At the office he essentially told me to treat it like a "hard period" and not worry about it. Gave me the usual list of watch-for's and sent me on my way. At home I was stumped. I had no idea how to act, how to feel, how to grieve or even if I should/could grieve. So, being a bit of a pragmatist, I decided that these things happen and life goes on and I would simply get pregnant again (ha ha - right; though at the time, I thought I had all the answers or at least knew the "trick"). I had my one statistical miscarriage and so it wouldn't happen again. There was however, an ache in my heart - the tiniest handprint of something that I couldn't quite place a finger on and I could never fully wipe away.

Angel Zach 6/95

Show & Tell - May 30th

A proliferation of Asiatic Lilies . . .




With more to come in hues of apricot and palest pink . . .




The sight that thrilled me most alongside the feast of Lilies - first rose . . .




The bushes need some organic mulch - too much rain lately, so there are some spots on the petals. I can hardly wait for more to bloom - this one's fragrance was quite heady even by itself and even not full out open.

All these blooms leave me to heave a contented sigh . . .

For more of what the class has brought, see here.

I didn't forget.

I just didn't want to have to remember.

I've actually gotten pretty good at the year after year anniversary dates and such - I have had the luxury of time, lots and lots of time. Some years go by, a specific date a little hiccup in an otherwise all right year. Then other years, the hiccup is a massive spasm - one that leaves you gasping for air and trying to hold yourself together. Eleven years is a long time - a long time to hold onto a hurt, and still hurt. But hurt it did - eleven years later, a wee little one, begun and not finished, and harder than I expected. A hurt profound and confusing enough in complexities that I can only begin to verbalize it now - more than a month after the fact.

Forty was just a number to me. I honestly didn't approach it with any more regard than I have previous birthdays. I'm only as old as I feel right? The problem is, some days, I feel old - so exhaustingly old. I've told myself I'm no wus when it comes to aging - but frankly, I've decided that some of it really sucks. Big time - and this year? I feel really really really old. Some of it is because it feels like the warranty has expired on my body. There's aching and creaking and stiffness and other things that just really weren't ever there before - and allergies! I grew up with cats and now I'm allergic?! I always pictured myself in my waning years crocheting with a cat playing with my yarn. Reading a book with a fuzzy, purring friend by my side. The novelty of discovering a grey hair has rapidly dissipated. These are hardly unique injustices. What did hit me harder than I anticipated, was facing my past - and facing that past feeling so gosh darn old. Facing those anniversary dates have become something entirely different now - facing those past losses without a uterus. (I know - you're all rolling your eyes - there she goes again!) I told myself it wouldn't matter - that it would not change the who I am. I was right, and yet I was also wrong. I am still the same person - rapidly greying, metabolism slogging along ever slower with each passing moment - but the same. What did change were the possibilities. Not probable, but possible - and now those possibilities have been slid over into the impossible column.

Pregnancy is all about possibilities. Loss is an end to them. Hope for the possibility of pregnancy without loss is what kept me going. Loss anniversaries without hope of possibilities - horse of a different color, and I find myself feeling cheated all over again. The other women I see around me with their beautiful new infants that once left me sad and wondering if it would ever be me again, now I KNOW it will not ever be me again. That what if became a what is. I spent years trying to train myself to deal in what is, to ignore the what ifs in each new pregnancy. That was what I had to do to survive. If I gave myself into all the what ifs, just trying to get out of the first trimester with my sanity intact would have been impossible. So day by day, hour by hour and sometimes even minute by minute - I focused on "what is" - right now I am pregnant. For this moment in time - it could change in an hour, it could change tomorrow or a week from now, but for now this is what is. And minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day I remained pregnant, or I did not. I tried to keep from crossing that bridge until I had to. I have become so well trained in the art of what is that it now has become a stumbling block. What is is that the possibility of pregnancy and live birth is impossible. Not just improbable, but completely and utterly impossible. That is what makes each loss date this year especially poignant. Facing those losses again knowing that the possibility is forever gone drives home the finality of it all. For that, I mourn anew. Not the fresh, raw and jagged ugly mourning I did in the days immediately following - but a grieving nonetheless.

I wrestled with how to deal with this on my blog. How do I speak of this? It seemed somewhat ridiculous, even to myself. Things I thought about writing about - I would ask, is this relevant? Am I wallowing? Do I still need to let go? Did I just think I was getting on with my life and I really wasn't? 'Cause you know, I'm kind of struggling right now. Should I be? Quit being a weenie! Then it occurred to me - an epiphany if you will, it is all relevant. The woman in the grocery store aisle trying to decide between the one ply or the two ply tissue is the woman she is because of, not in spite of, everything that brought her to this point: the losses, the joys, the good, the bad, the ugly and the utterly amazing. This woman struggling with what to write because she wonders if it is relevant or not - I am who I am because of who I have been. I've been the woman trying to conceive. I've been the woman trying to stay pregnant. I've been the woman scheduling the d&c. I've been the woman going home with the empty arms and the woman with the crib that is going to get used. I've been down and I've been up. I haven't stopped to tally whether the ups or the downs were greater, it really doesn't matter because I am still standing. Aches and pains come with fighting a battle and,

with living a life.

Yeah, I am starting to see a great deal more grey hair than I would like to. I don't have to like it and I can live with it or bring home that box of Clairol. Maybe I don't have a uterus anymore, but that doesn't mean I've suddenly stopped craving that feeling of the possibility of bringing new life to this world - and it would be a little strange if it did, I have to feel something about it, right? Eleven years and a month ago I lay on a table in an emergency room and was told I didn't have a viable pregnancy - and sometimes even now, that day hurts still. All of it, every bit is completely relevant. What it is, is what it is - what I get to do, is choose what I do with it.

Caelan, April 21st, 1998, you have been and always will be relevant.

Show & Tell - May 24th

For the anniversary Show and Tell post, click here. This was one of my favorites of Show & Tells past.

For this week's current Show & Tell:

First bloom . . .



First yummies from our garden . . .



I have some red leaf lettuce almost ready for harvest - that and the radishes will help make a yummy salad.


More Show and Tell

Show & Tell - May 11th

Soon . . .





More Show&Tell