Life after Infertility & Loss

Carena ~i~ August 7th, 1998 ~i~

2011-08-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

I can still feel you. I still wish I could have gotten to know you better.

2011-06-03T05:03:00.000-07:00

There will always be the ones I didn't get to hold.

Angel Day - Caelan 4/21/98

2011-04-21T06:30:00.001-07:00

Heavy heart. Not just my angel, but another's. A 3rd grader at my children's school was killed in a house fire yesterday along with his adult sister and 16 month old cousin. How do you explain what makes no sense when they ask why?

2011-03-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

"Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."
~Plato~

Mummers' Dance

2010-06-12T02:18:00.000-07:00

I'm totally addicted to online karaoke now.

Angel

2010-06-08T06:05:00.000-07:00

I was always going to sing to all of my babies .. .

I Dreamed a Dream

2010-06-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

"But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder;
As they tear your hopes apart,
As they turn your dream to shame."
-Les Miserables-

Little angel, begun and not finished - you were always wanted. We would have had a beautiful life. For now, you will remain a beautiful dream.

~i~ Zach 6/3/95 ~i~

Caelan - April 21, 1998

2010-04-20T16:40:00.000-07:00

another pair of tiny hands
to lay beneath the clay
slumbering little baby eyes
to wake another day
oh god of heav'n, come guard this bed
and let this angel sleep
'til earth is pure for tiny hands
and safe for tiny feet

a wondrous little baby smile
the hope of things to be
born to face the troubled world
for a moment and then set free
oh god of heav'n, take hate from man
'til lambs and lions feed
and make earth pure for tiny hands
and safe for tiny feet

tiny hands
angel hands
perfect hands
blamless hands
lifeless hands
resting in the night
waiting for the light
when life will follow

oh god of heav'n, send christ again
bringing his reign of peace
let earth turn pure for tiny hands
and safe for tiny feet

then give back my child to me

~Kenneth Cope "Tiny Hands"~

Lily - April 16th, 2002

2010-04-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

If I'd've known the way that this would end
If I'd've read the last page first
If I'd've had the strength to walk away
If I'd've known how this would hurt

I would've loved you anyway
I'd do it all the same
Not a second I would change
Not a touch that I would trade
Had I known my heart would break
I'd've loved you anyway

It's bittersweet to look back now
At memories withered on a vine
Just to hold you close to me
For a moment in time

I would've loved you anyway
I'd do it all the same
Not a second I would change
Not a touch that I would trade
Had I known my heart would break
I'd've loved you anyway

Even if I'd seen it comin'
You'd still have seen me runnin'
Straight into your arms

I would've loved you anyway
I'd do it all the same
Not a second I would change
Not a touch that I would trade
Had I known my heart would break
I would've loved you anyway
I would've loved you anyway

Monday Quote

2010-03-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."

~Anatole France~

Monday Quote

2010-03-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

"Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity."
~Herman Melville~

I was kind of a strange girl - while other girls my age had pictures of the latest teen heartthrobs in their lockers, I had pictures of jets and Herman Melville quotes.

Monday Quote

2010-03-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
~Abraham Crowley~

Monday Quote

2010-03-07T21:05:00.000-08:00

"The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle. "
~Anais Nin~

Monday Quote

2010-02-28T22:00:00.000-08:00

"The right man is the one who seizes the moment."
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe~

Monday Quote

2010-02-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

"The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way."
~Robert Kiyosaki~

My lovely friend Kristin asked me where I get my quotes from. I've been "collecting" quotes as far back as I can remember - words written on desks, walls - found in books or even said in conversation, some even left on my car windshield or mailed to me at work by a secret admirer when I was in college. I'd write them down on whatever was handy at the moment - a napkin, my hand, back of a receipt, etc. Sometimes if I have something I am thinking about or wrestling with, I will google the topic with "quotes" added and I find some of them that way. Another search tactic I've done is searching for quotes of authors I have liked. My local email server provides news headlines as well as quotes when I sign in and I am certain there is probably a Facebook application or other applications that would also provide with quotes. Most of the time, the quotes I use come to me - but sometimes searching and finding them is like going on a treasure hunt!

Monday Quote

2010-02-13T13:39:00.000-08:00

"You will never be able to escape from your heart."
~Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)~

2010-02-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

I still have the scars - the one for my IV, the incisions for the laparoscopy, and the ones on my heart and soul.

You were mine little ones - I miss all that we could have been together.

If you wish, the whole sad tale is here.

~i~ Matthew Thomas ~i~
February 8th, 2002

Monday Quote

2010-02-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer."
~Rainer Maria Rilke~

Monday Quote

2010-01-31T21:16:00.000-08:00

"Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity."
~Herman Melville~

2010-01-29T07:49:00.000-08:00

It started with a broken washing machine and ended with an epiphany.

We live in a perpetual state of laundry. This vital piece of equipment in my clean clothes for all campaign goes down and well, we reach critical mass quite rapidly. Something must be done and done post haste. Replacing the washer wasn't an option, so after a day and a half of trouble shooting our symptoms on the internet - we figure we've discovered the problem and it appears to be "fixable". I figured dh would stop by the appliance store on the way home from work, pick up the needed part and I'd be back in business by bedtime. Only, it didn't work out that way.

Within four days the stench and sheer mass is overwhelming. Yet, I have waited patiently, anticipating the arrival of my White Knight any second, any minute now . . . and in exasperation I threw up my hands upon running out of recyclable underthings and proclaimed "I should just fix it myself - one could die waiting for someone else to do it!"

Now, maybe you don't find that to be particularly earth shaking, and at first, it wasn't to me either. However, I did fix it. I called the appliance store, then loaded my two youngest into the car, drove to get the part, came home and took my washing machine apart. With the help of google and someone who blogs about fixing washing machines (truly - with pictures even!) - I took it apart and put it back together and by golly, it worked. I then spent the next 3 days, every spare second in the basement attempting vainly to catch up on laundry. As I sat sorting and folding clothes - I wondered why I hadn't just done that in that first place - rather than waiting practically a week and fixing the washer only out of frustration and impatience (and a little anger to be truthful). You see, I've always been the kind of girl who just dove right in and fixed whatever needed fixing. Half the time I didn't have any idea of what I was doing - just figured that once I got there in the middle of the problem, I would figure a way out of it. I come from a long line of "fixers". My father, my father's father, my father's father's father, etc. All genetically blessed with a mechanical aptitude. I mean, my dad can fix anything! I use to revel in that ability - thrilled to be useful and thrilled to be able to point at something that was broken and now was working and say "I fixed that!" There is something immensely satisfying in that, and rather empowering. Now, it wasn't always cool to be a girl and know more about cars than some of the guys I dated. And you know what? I didn't care! I wasn't going to be a helpless female, nor pretend to be someone other than myself, in order for someone else to feel superior, or to ask me out on a date. Yet, I had just done that - I played helpless, so someone else could play hero (and I was woefully disappointed I might add). I moan and fussed and fretted through days of inconvenience expecting someone else to slay my dragon. I hated myself for it. In the middle of this new found bit of self loathing, I wondered what the heck had happened to me. Now, in fairness - this really isn't all hubby's fault. He knew about my independence when he married me - in fact, he thought it was kind of cool. So, really, it's not that surprising that he didn't just rush in horse galloping, sword flashing and slay my beastie for me. While I am a wee bit upset still that he didn't seem to care so much that it was a major issue for me and probably wouldn't have until it began to inconvenience him, I really can't claim surprise at all. Then, while I am folding those clothes that I am now able to wash again - I'm watching tv, into the wee hours of the night. Since that is what happens when you get so far behind. And while I am watching tv, I catch a movie I haven't seen in ages, a movie I loved. "Royal Wedding" with Fred Astaire - most notable for it's dance sequence where Astaire dances on the ceiling. It is during this dance sequence that I begin to feel another sense of loss, because I am crying through it in a sense of almost joy like I have just come across a long lost friend. I use to watch old movies all the time - I couldn't get enough Rogers and Astaire. When did I stop watching old movies? It didn't stop there - there was when did I stop watching football? Stopped feeling giddy excited over jets? When did I stop listening to jazz? When did I give up musicals? When did I stop wearing high heels? When, when, when and why, why, why?

A month later I fixed my car. The blower on it went out. I started with the resistor and when that didn't fix the problem, I climbed up under the dash of my car and replaced the blower motor. Me. I did it. And it felt goooooooooooooodddd. Kind of like rediscovering a lost favorite piece of myself. This time I didn't wait for someone else to do it. I had scheduled an appointment with the garage to have them do it, but then had second thoughts and cancelled and dove right in. Ordered the part online and then put it in myself with help of another online tutorial. (Gotta say loving the internet sometimes . . .)

My 40th birthday was the beginning of one of the suckiest years of my life. Not because a bunch of horrible things happened, but because I had such a sense of dissatisfaction. I felt lost and miserable. It started with a broken washing machine and ended with an epiphany - my identity had nothing to do with my uterus, and my dissatisfaction as such had everything to do with not remaining true to myself. I felt invisible and useless - and maybe I might forgive myself at some point for allowing myself to become so, because, ultimately, I'm the one who let it happen.

"Comes the Dawn"

After awhile you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open,
And learn to build all your roads
On today because tomorrow's ground
Is too uncertain for plans, and futures have
A way of falling down in mid-flight.
After awhile you learn that even sunshine
Burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate
Your own soul, instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
that you really are strong
And you really do have worth.
And you learn and learn.. .
With every goodbye you learn.

-- Veronica Shoffstall

So Goodbye old new me I became and hello new old me that I want to be again - I've missed you! I've dug out the Billy Holiday and Cole Porter for the occasion. I have both AMC and TMC schedules so we can catch all our old favorite black and whites and borrowed "Unsinkable Molly Brown" from a friend. I cheered on the Vikings - even though they didn't make it into the superbowl. I bought three new pairs of shoes - none of which has less than 3 inches of heel. And the next time the car breaks down, I'm just diving in - probably put on my 4" retro pumps when I do - just for kicks and just because dang, they look good!

Monday Quote

2010-01-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

"Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies."
~Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man~

Trying to find my way back - to me. Too long I've been asleep. Too long I've forgotten who I am, my part, my ultimate role - that of myself. I want to be me again - the me I use to be, the me I like - not the me subjugated by loss and life, the me I always was and still am anyway. She's there, I know it - I can feel her - and I am going to find her again.

Monday Quote

2010-01-17T20:46:00.000-08:00

"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."
~Jonathan Swift~

2010-01-16T22:26:00.000-08:00

Many thoughts, maybe some insights. Hopefully I can verbalize them and write them all down in some coherent string. Still mulling it all over and thinking next week I will be able to do more than just post weekly quotes . . .

Monday Quote

2010-01-11T16:48:00.000-08:00

"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions."
~Leonardo da Vinci~

New Year and Musings on being 40 something . . .

2010-01-05T07:36:00.000-08:00

Let me be the first to say it, whoever said that 40 is the new 30 was full of it. After one year and almost 2 months of being ensconced in my 40's, I can unequivocally say that 40, well, sucks - like, a lot. Yes, I was a little new at the being 40 thing last year and I was willing to give a little latitude, but now I am 41 and let's just say that so far, this decade fits me like the pair of control top tights I tried to wrestle myself into this morning in a vain attempt for an extra layer for warmth. (I mean, seriously - what is up with the negative digits here? -7? and not an inch of snow to show for it? C'mon now really! At least if there were snow on the ground I could make a snowman and then throw ice balls at in my aggravation, but I digress . . . ) Anywho - yes, the control top tights that assured me that they were just my size somehow neglected to realize that I have not outsourced my thighs and my waist actually sits about 3-4 inches higher than they anticipated. So not worth the inch they "shaved off" of my overall measurements, because now I am twitching and scootching around trying to wiggle them back up constantly. The constant pulling and tugging upward of the waistband (and I use that term very loosely) has resulted in my fingernails tearing through and now I have a huge run that my stomach is starting to bulge through like some sort of nylon/lycra hernia. The inch they miraculously shaved off has ballooned into about 4 inches of dreaded muffin top and if I were in possession of a significantly shorter torso, I might be able to call it cleavage and shove it into my bra, but for all my indignity and assault on physical comfort, I will not be able to claim being well endowed and have to settle for just fat instead. My toes are numb, not from chill, but from the boa constricting like qualities of said tights wrapped around my thighs successfully cutting off circulation to the regions south of my knees. What does any of that have to do with infertility or loss you might ask? Not one diddly thing and this particular contribution of mine to the bloggy world certainly is not going to provide anyone with any epiphanies, BUT, it did make me feel a bit better.

Monday Quote

2010-01-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

"There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting.”

~Buddha~

Starting a diet, again.

Monday Quote

2009-12-28T22:09:00.001-08:00

"An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves."
~Bill Vaughan~

and because I had a tough time deciding:

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"~

Monday Quote

2009-12-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays!

"Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!"

~Charles Dickens~

Monday Quote

2009-12-13T22:00:00.000-08:00

One of my favorites - a lovely lady, inside and out.

"As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others."
~Audrey Hepburn~

Monday Quote

2009-12-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

"The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore."

-Vincent Van Gogh-

(My favorite painting by Van Gogh)

The Great Recipe Round-Up Blog-Hop

2009-12-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

Joining Kristin from DragonDreamer's Lair and others in this recipe exchange hop-a-long started by Mrs. Gamgee

I'm sharing a recipe that was shared with me by a dear Australian friend from college. I wanted to make it one Christmas and lacked the fruit that is usually used so modified it to reflect a more Holiday-ish taste. This has been a holiday standard in our house ever since and my oldest daughter who turns 13 today, even requested the more traditional fruit version as her birthday "cake". I only have pictures of the fruit version, but it will give you a good idea. Enjoy!

Holiday Marshmallow Pavlova

-6 egg whites
-1 cup sugar
-1/2 tsp corn starch
-1 tsp white vinegar

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Beat eggs whites until soft peaks form. Continue to beat, adding sugar one tablespoon at a time - be sure to scrape sides and beat whites until sugar dissolves before adding the next tablespoon. Once all sugar is added and dissolved, sprinkle corn starch and vinegar over top of egg whites and fold in gently. Spray and flour a large baking sheet. Place a dinner plate upside down in flour and draw around the edge leaving a circular shape in the middle of the sheet. Spoon egg whites into the circle. Spread out to the circle line and smooth edges up - keeping the outside edge of the Pavlova slightly higher than the center. (You want a bit of a "well" in the center). Bake in oven for about an hour and a half. The Pavlova will take on a pale color. The outside will crack and be somewhat crispy, but the inside will be marshmallow-y. Turn off oven and leave in with oven door ajar until cool.

For Whipped Cream:
-1 quart heavy whipping cream
1/3-1/2 cup granulated sugar

Topping:
2 cups crushed peppermint candies
1 bar chocolate for curls/grating

Beat cream until soft peaks form, add sugar (to taste - we like ours slightly less sweet) and continue to beat until the peaks are at the stiffness you prefer.

Spoon whipped cream into the center of the Pavlova. Sprinkle crushed peppermints over the top and garnish with grated chocolate or chocolate curls.

Delish! Also fabulous as shown in photo with fresh fruit. (Grated chocolate is a must with that too!)

*A little history on Pavlova: There is some hot debate over who exactly is responsible for it - Australia or New Zealand, but what is not contested is that it is named after the Russian Ballerina Anna Pavlova who toured both in the mid 20's. Essentially this is a large meringue with a lot of fresh whipped cream and fruit.

Monday Quote - A Bit Late!

2009-12-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

Didn't scientists discover some mind numbing chemical present in Turkey . . . . ?

Ah well, here is your tardy Monday Quote: (and I so love this one)

"Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act."
-Truman Capote-

Monday Quote

2009-11-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."
-Plutarch-

March of Dimes Fight For Preemies - Bloggers Unite

2009-11-17T12:42:00.001-08:00

My Daughter in the NICU - December 1996, 1 week old

In December of 1996, I became part of a statistic. I became that mom who is the mom of the one in eight prematures babies born in this country. My oldest daughter was born at 33 weeks due to an abrupting complete placenta previa. In 2000, I became part of that statistic again with the birth of my son at 36 weeks when my membranes ruptured spontaneously. Before I had my preemies (while not considered micro preemies, they still required NICU time), I had the mistaken idea that early babies were fine - just smaller than full term babies. The night my daughter was born at 33 weeks, I had no clue - not one iota of what giving birth to a premature infant really was going to be like. I really wish my doctor had prepared me better for the NICU. At 4 lbs, 17 inches, my daughter was pretty much on target for her gestational age and I had been given steroid shots to try and help her lungs mature faster as we knew with the previa she would most likely come early. She was on cpap at first because even though she could breathe on her own - she tired out rapidly and the alveoli in her little lungs were "sticky" due to immaturity - because these babies do not produce a much needed lung surfactant at first. That was the first day. She had an arterial line in her head. That was very upsetting to me as it is not easy to see this big tube stuck in a tiny, tiny head - and they don't put it in a vein, it goes in an artery. Her leg was splinted for her IV line and then her arm when they had to move the IV that supplied her with nutrition. The second day she developed a pneumothorax and they took a needle bigger than any I have ever seen before in my life and stuck it in her chest to draw off the air that had torn through her fragile lung tissue, so her lung could re-expand and she could breathe again. I didn't get to hold her until day 5 - because until then she was considered "Critical Care - Unstable" She was "Critical Care - Stable" when they finally let me hold her for the first time, arterial line still in place, leads attached to her chest, splinted arm, oxygen tube and all. The first week was literally hell. After that, things got better - slowly. There is a lot more she went through and yet, we were so fortunate. She has no lasting effects from her less than auspicious too early beginning and she came home at just over 3 weeks, weighing barely five pounds - dressed. We got off easy - no retinopathy, no hearing loss, no intercranial bleeds, no sepsis - just lots and lots of scars. Even after this - I still had the mistaken impression that my next preemie born at 36 weeks and weighing a whopping 7.5 lbs (for a month early, that's big) would be much better off. Not so. He had difficulty breathing at first too. Lungs. They get you every time. He only needed the cpap the first day and then was on oxygen for another week. He came home on the 8th day - but I didn't get to hold him for the first time and try breastfeeding him until the night before they discharged him. The doctor also wasn't convinced until 2 hours before they discharged him that he was going to be going home that day at all and that he wouldn't benefit from another week in the NICU.

The first time I had a NICU baby, I had one child at home - almost 3 years old. The second time, two children - one 6 and the other 3.5 years. I was torn. Wanting to be at the hospital every waking second - needing to be there, and wanting to be there for my other children at home, needing to be there too. I felt like a huge failure on all counts - my body failed my babies, I was a failure as a mom, I was a failure as a wife because the house was a wreck and I was a wreck too - notwithstanding I wasn't in great physical shape either - 3 weeks bedrest, hemorrhaging, csection - doesn't put you at fighting status. Being a NICU parent is emotionally and physically exhausting - even when things are going "well". Even once home, preemie infants are high maintenance - not a week went by without a visit to the pediatrician. Not having a phone call in to their office every other day was unusual. I had to keep a journal and calendar of all the medications and issues just ONE baby was having. Things were difficult enough even with another parent thrown in the mix to help out. I wish that more people knew and understood that prematurity is a struggle. When my pregnant friends say they can't wait for delivery and they just wish they could have the baby now - even weeks or a month (and once 2 months!) early - I tell them "you can wait." These are not just "mini" babies, usually they are doing about as well as can be expected for their size and gestation, and much of the time all you can do is be hopeful that every day will be a little bit better than the one before; they require critical care and time.

Today my preemies are 12 and 9 and beautiful and healthy. I was always amazed and impressed by my daughter's resiliency and serenity in the NICU. She was tough - tougher than I was. My son was tough too - but he hated every second he was in the NICU and voiced his displeasure often and loudly. You would never know to look at them today that their beginnings were difficult and trying - that there was a time when I didn't know if I should dare to imagine this day at all.

For more information on Prematurity or to participate in Bloggers Unite for Prematurity - please follow this link. This month is Prematurity Awareness Month and today is the day to help fight.

And so ends my 40th year . . .

2009-11-17T00:15:00.000-08:00

Maybe 41 will be kinder now that I'm starting to get the hang of things?

Monday Quote

2009-11-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray-

Monday Quote

2009-11-08T21:26:00.000-08:00

Still and all, why bother? Here's my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.
-Kurt Vonnegut-

Amen

Baby Mine

2009-11-06T22:15:00.001-08:00

I planned on reading you many books

I was going to be the coolest mom ever

You would remember days spent at the park, the zoo, the library

I was never going to be too tired

If I had made half the outfits I planned on sewing you - there wouldn't have been enough days in the year to wear them all

You would always know how smart and amazing you are

There were going to be many days we made cookies together

I was never going to be impatient

I would listen twice as much as I talked

I was never going to be cross

There were always going to be crayons and playdough

There were going to be lots of games

Everything you drew would be a masterpiece and carefully preserved

I would never be too busy

Music and laughter would always fill the air

I would dry your tears, not be the cause of them

I would never forget how precious you are

I would never forget to thank God every day for you

I would never wish you would just grow up

You would never doubt how much I love you

I would have sung to you - every day.

~i~ Aiden - November 7th, 1995 ~i~

Monday Quote

2009-11-01T15:47:00.000-08:00

I think I chose this one because I started a new diet . . .

The worst education which teaches self-denial, is better than the best which teaches everything else, and not that.
John Sterling

A diet is definitely a miserable education in self-denial . . . particularly the day after Halloween.

Whoops! Monday Quote Tardy!

2009-10-24T17:38:00.000-07:00

This one is ripe for interpretation and introspection . . . .

"Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only." ~Samuel Butler, Erewhon

Monday Quote

2009-10-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

I always liked Edgar Allen Poe.

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."

October 15th - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

2009-10-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

Always Remembered

~i~ ~i~ ~i~ ~i~ ~i~ ~i~ ~i~

Monday Quote

2009-10-12T12:07:00.001-07:00

I've always been a collector of quotes, thoughts, etc. I'd find them in books or even carved into desks at schools I visited for band/choir competitions. This one I found in such a place - carved into the top of an old wooden desk at a school I didn't attend. At 16 it struck me enough that I copied it down and even today at the age of 40 (almost 41 - just another month!) it still hits me on many levels.

"Just when life becomes a habit I barely notice, I meet you, of all people."
unknown

Have you ever felt like this? Life just the same old, same old and then someone happens along and things just aren't the same again?

Monday Quote

2009-10-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

I've seen other people do this on their blogs and thought it might help me get back into the swing of posting more frequently. At the very least - maybe it might spur some discourse or other thoughts worthy of blog posts.

So, today's quote:

Horace Walpole - "Life is a comedy for those who think... and a tragedy for those who feel."

I liked this, it touched me on a interesting level as I consider myself both a thinking and feeling person. I find that if I can laugh about a situation- whether the irony or just the ridiculousness of it all, then maybe it is not so bad that I can't survive it.

What are your thoughts? How do you cope with tragedy or life events? By thinking through them or feeling your way through them?

Fourteen Years

2009-09-20T19:18:00.000-07:00

"If I knew I would have a terrible accident, would I live my life trying to avoid it? Would I lock myself inside a room being safe? Or would I go outside and live day by day?" Emily in "Breathless" by Lurlene McDaniel.

~i~Hannah~i~ September 20th, 1995

A Year Later in the Brave New World

2009-09-16T11:20:00.001-07:00

It has been a year since my hysterectomy - an interesting year, swapping whatever was left of my fertility for a lot less pain, a lot less mess and hopefully better overall wellbeing. All is well there - some emotional blips now and then, bellies and newborns do make me take pause sometimes, but I'm good with how things are for the most part. Forty, on the other hand - is kicking my fanny. Kicking it but good. My wishes for this anniversary and my birthday in 2 months, that 41 will be a bit kinder to me - that I can get my brain back, cultivate whatever is left of my creativity and maybe reclaim some greater flexibility since I no longer have an excuse for "taking it easy" post-surgery. Who knows - the person whose physical exercise philosophy has always been "I don't run unless something is chasing me" may actually take up running. Or Yoga. I do a mean "dead man's" pose . . .

September 11th

2009-09-11T19:48:00.000-07:00

Little Girl Lost

2009-08-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just don't know what to say. I've been through the various stages of grief numerous times and eventually I ended up with acceptance. Acceptance that in my life's history there are just some things that were tragic and awful and really really painful on all levels and that I did not know how or if I could survive. Acceptance that despite how much sometimes it hurt, I could still go on living. Could laugh again and smile again - and that it was okay to laugh and smile again. Still, despite all that acceptance and time, I find myself wondering at times what she would have been like. What it would have been like to have never lost the sight or sound of her heartbeat. Wonder how differently life would be today if only . . .

For my Carena whom I will not know in this life, but hopefully in the next, and remembering always with love, another little girl and her mother, with whom we share this bittersweet bond of little girl lost . . .

August 7, 1998

Even Superheroes Feel Silly Sometimes . . .

2009-06-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-30T17:23:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-05-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-23T17:04:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

Soon . . .

More Show&Tell

"It is the Hour to Rend Thy Chains, the Blossom Time of Souls . . ."

2009-04-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Katherine Lee Bates

I go from 0 to 60 in a year's time. On the 16th of this month in 2002, I had my seventh and final miscarriage. One year later in 2003, almost to the day, I am holding my newborn daughter in my arms and thinking she will be another last. Almost 10 months prior I stood in my bathroom, belly exposed - riddled with bruises from twice daily injections. I had just prepared another one and as I made ready to stick the needle in, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and I just couldn't do it. I didn't want to do it, I wanted to be done. I was weary. Weary of temperature charting, weary of injections, weary of blood draws and follicle scans, of progesterone supplementation and baby aspirin, weary of peeing on sticks and crying in disappointment or crying in fear, and of running to the bathroom and checking, always checking. I'd had 2 miscarriages already that year. One, a multiples pregnancy with intrauterine sacs and one growing in my right fallopian tube. I dealt with mild overstimming and cysts rupturing and then my tube rupturing. Then, another HSG, to get the all clear to try again. Trying again, more injections, more scans, more peeing on a stick and then low betas. Betas that don't quite double - almost, but not quite there. Finally, bleeding, and crashing betas and me crashing, falling to earth and landing hard. Trying yet again - one month, two months, three months of the same and then that 4th month after. I hit the wall. I cannot do this anymore. I have done this for years, a full decade of loss - loss of babies I had created and loss of my sense of humanity. What it meant to be normal - to lay with your husband and without knowing what cycle day you were on or even what a bbt was, creating something beautiful in the moment and perhaps hoping, but not really knowing, until later. I didn't want to know anymore - what ovary they came from and to within 36 hours. And I was tired of loss. So, win, lose or draw - that would be it. No looking back. And finally, finally - choosing to stop, I felt relief. Not sadness, relief. So that day, looking in the mirror I knew I was done - no more injections. There would be no more after that cycle, no matter how it turned out. And it seemed as though this was it - all there was and all there would be to the story. We doubled my dose, my labs were poor, my ovaries bare of follicles - slow to respond, ten days, then twelve and finally - one follicle, 19mm, mature and ready to go and on the wrong side. The side that was bound up in adhesions and endometriosis - out of position. Scrap the AI. Cry for two hours in the car on the way home. Then, get up the next morning and get on with the getting on with my life.

Only, even though I thought I knew the ending - it ended differently than I expected, and one year, almost to the exact day after my last lost baby - I found joy again.

I never take another injection or have a follicle scan again. And the story doesn't end there after all.

Happy Birthday Sweet Sadie Rose and Happy Angel Day my Easter Lily
April 15th, 2003 and April 16th, 2002

Glow In The Woods 7x7 - The Body Shop

2009-04-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

1 | Give us a few words you would have used to describe your body, your health or your sense of physical vitality before the experience of babyloss—and a few that you’d use to describe it now.

Before - optimistic, hopeful - felt strong and capable. After - old, worn-out, less confident in myself and my body

2 | What do you do to take care of yourself? Has this changed?

I try to remember myself - nurture what I have rather than bemoan what my body is not or no longer capable of. I have to remind myself sometimes to stop and take a break, a warm bath, some quiet meditation, read a book, listen to music.

3 | Give us one or two words to describe sex or physical intimacy before, and then after the loss of your baby.

Before - Because of the rpl and infertility, sex was a means to an end, a chore - another thing to do on the "Honey Do" list; After - initially after a loss, it was horrific - emotional, usually involved a lot of tears the first few times because of the sense of having to start all over again. Now later - ttc years are behind us, "hey - I can have sex for sex sake?!" It's getting better - not as sad as it use to be and less of a chore now that it is because I can if I want to and not because I'm ovulating or the doc told me to do so and it's what I have to do. I know that isn't "one or two words", sorry!

4 | Has loss and/or grief left a physical mark on you (a scar, a chronic condition, insomnia, a tattoo)?

Anxiety, lots of physical scars - I spoke about the physical ones in a previous post. There were the csections, the d&cs - any or all of which led to the break in my uterine lining that allowed the endometriosis to grow into the muscle and ultimately required the loss of my uterus. The adhesions that still cause pain - but dramatically less so now because of the hysterectomy. The anxiety is the biggest thing - it affects my abilty to sleep, to enjoy things, to not worry about all the things that COULD go really bad.

5 | Do you medicate or control your emotions with food, wine, altered states, prescriptions? Without judgement, what have you gravitated towards in an effort to heal, and how do you feel about it?

I wasn't a drinker, smoker or a pill taker before my losses, but I can see some of the motivating factors that might compel a person to get caught up in those addictions. When there is so much "badness" that you feel, you just need something that feels good. For me it ended up being Dt. Coke (pathetic addiction I know!) and also needing anti-depressants that I can't seem to get completely off of. I try, go for short periods of time where I seem to do okay without that daily pill and then, it builds and builds and I have to go back on again. There have been times I wish I could just "check out" - not in a suicidal sense, though there have been the occasional wishes to just go to sleep and never wake up over the years; but a checking out in the sense that I just don't have to be present or involved and I can just hibernate or isolate myself. I withdrew into myself a lot and sometimes still do - not answering the phone, avoiding social situations, etc.

6 | Was physical healing important for you in the first year after your loss? What did/does physical healing entail and how did/do you work towards it? If physicality hasn't been a priority for you, what do you do that makes you feel stronger or more able to cope?

Physically I recovered pretty quickly, comparatively speaking. Not having to cope with physical difficulties on top of the emotional ones did make it easier to focus my energies on the mental. For that I have always been grateful - having major physical issues heaped on top would have seriously compounded the recovery period. Having my body back to it's prior state did help me feel like I was closer to being able to achieve my goals of getting pregnant again and trying to stay that way.

7 | If you could change anything about your body and/or health, what would it be? What would it feel like to be either at peace with your body, or at peace with this babylost state?

Some of those coping mechanisms were eating my feelings. So, I wish I could have found a better, less fattening, way of dealing with things. If money were no option, sky's the limit, I'd have a tummy tuck, seriously. I'm okay with the actual scars. What I want is a flat belly - and not for vanity's sake. Combo of emotional eating, infrequent exercise and stomach muscles that are completely shot after all they've been through, and yeah, I can see where people might make the assumption. I've endured years of people checking out the gut and assuming I am pregnant and commenting on it. When it was during ttc and I wasn't pg, it was aggravating. When it was shortly after a loss - devastating. Now it is just really depressing and reminds me that this gut is not going to be for a good reason ever again.

Join in with your own answers or read what others have had to say.

Show & Tell - April 5th

2009-04-04T17:15:00.000-07:00

Okay - I know y'all are probably sick of all my plant show and tells! So many of you thought this was such a neat plant though, that I thought it would be fun to show you what they look like when the blooms fully open. I love how the "heart" opens up and the inner white part is exposed. Both bushes have dozens of blooms on them now and have grown to about 18" tall and about 12" wide.

And . . . ta da! These are my white Bleeding Hearts - though it is a little ways off from blooming. If you click on the picture and look very carefully, you can see some tiny, tiny buds beginning. Also, I've noticed I have some Columbines coming up in the middle of it - they seem to have wandered. I'm going to have to wait until every one "grows up" a little more so I have an easier time differentiating between Bleeding Heart and Columbine. The rounder leaves are the Columbines and the pointier ones belong to the Bleeding Heart. I'm hoping they will cohabitate nicely until I can seperate them.

My Lilies are really growing good - pretty soon I'll be subjecting you to more endless gratuitous flower shots!

Dh and I headed to Lowe's today for some home improvement stuff and came home with an Azeala bush and a Lilac bush. Aren't you excited? But, no worries - I really only get super excited about the spring flowers. Once summer hits - I prefer to stay indoors with the A/C, so I'll be all "plantsed" out by then.

You know the drill.

Show & Tell - Sunday March 29th

2009-03-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

Last week I told you about some of the flowers and plants I have coming up in my yard. This week I have actual blooms to show you! I am very excited to see these - though I hadn't expected them to bloom so soon. My Bleeding Hearts are still on the smallish side, but I hope they will continue to grow larger and bloom some more. They usually do if the weather stays consistent with few extremes. No sign yet of my white Bleeding Hearts. When they do, I will be sure to share. What I love about these particular plants (besides the symbolism and the unique flowers it produces) are they are true spring plants. They like things warmish - but not too hot. They like a little sun, but are just as happy in the rain. I've been able to grow them in the arid climate of Colorado and Idaho and been just as successful in the hot and humid clime of Missouri. They are my kind of plant - easy to maintain, require little fussing and bloom pretty much where-ever they are planted, coming back year after year, even bigger and better than before.

Enjoy my first little blooms of spring!

OH! I also noticed that my rosebush I thought had succumbed last year may have a bit of life left in it. I found one of the long main stems has some green to it and appears to be trying to put out some leaf buds. We shall see . . . .

For more Show & Tell - see here .

2009-03-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

"All of us, whether guilty or not, whether old or young, must accept the past. It is not a case of coming to terms with the past. That is not possible. It cannot be subsequently modified or undone. "
~Richard von Weizsaecker~

Last night I dreamt I was pregnant.

I am finding no matter what point you come to in this life, there are just some things you never get over - or perhaps, some things are like a bad habit, one you just don't know how to or just can't break, a knee jerk reaction - one that comes before you even have time to think about it. Pushing up the glasses you haven't worn since you got contacts. Checking the calendar to see when your "monthly gift" should arrive - even though it hasn't for six months now and won't ever again. Finding out someone I know is pregnant and feeling it like a kick to the stomach. That sudden, sickening, lurch. Those old feelings come back so easily, haunting me. A little pink bundle in the store - and overwhelming pangs of what might have been, what could have been, what should have been, follow me all the way out the doors and to the car and back home.

And I am one of the fortunate ones. Me. I can't even tell you why. Because I know I am no better nor worse than anyone else. No less or more deserving. Things just worked out this way. And I feel guilty. Even now, my past is trying to rob me of my happiness. That which I worked for, bled for and cried for - even now, it wants to taint my joy. And I feel guilty.

A friend who chuckles when she "confesses" to being almost through the first trimester "I thought we were done. Guess someone had other ideas!" And me, trying vainly, still trying to fit in, to belong somewhere, says "I thought I was done years ago . . ." and another friend who says "That is what happens when you are fertile." And I laugh - I have to laugh and I choke on that laugh. She with the children spaced far enough apart that you wonder if there is a story to that, a reason - a painful secret perhaps? Because I know those backstories, and those reasons, and those painful secrets. She doesn't know I know. So I tell her. I tell her my first babies are fertility drug babies because I didn't work right, my body didn't do what it was suppose to do. I tell her that personal bit of "dirty laundry" that my ovaries didn't put out eggs without prodding them with injected drugs. That they didn't for 12 years and then, when they were supposed to stop working as efficiently, they suddenly got it figured out. I tell her this, but I don't tell her that there were more than four fertility drug babies. I don't tell her of my angels. And I feel guilty. I feel embarrassed. ashamed. Why? It is a hard thing to admit sometimes - a hard thing to say I am imperfect. I didn't work right. I got myself pregnant with babies I couldn't keep. Couldn't hold on to. I still think of them. I still mourn them. I still wonder about them. And I don't mention them because I have babies I did manage to hang onto, obviously, and I mustn't appear ungrateful. And I feel guilty. It seems unbelievable at times. Amazing. And I lived it, I was there, and sometimes even I wonder. What was I thinking? Was any of that real? Were they real?

For those few weeks, a mere matter of months, they were mine.

I may not know what they looked like - whose nose they had, what color their eyes were or if they would have let me sleep through the night or not; but I remember how they made me feel. I remember how it felt to know they were there. For that, I would never change one thing.

And I feel guilty.

Show & Tell - March 22nd

2009-03-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

Out of all the seasons, I like spring the best. Even though today was a little cool still at 54, I did notice signs of impending spring around our yard and wanted to share my excitement with you.

I think these are my Asiatic Lilies. They are kind of like a Stargazer Lily - but they are this amazing reddish-orange hue and have proven quite hardy and prolific over the years.

This little bit of green made me exceptionally happy when I saw it. I put in 4 Hydrangea Bushes last year. Two suffered an early demise following a run in with my three year old, a tricycle and our driveway. The other two lingered a bit longer, but didn't seem to do so well and I had doubts that I would see them again. Today I saw this and was absolutely thrilled - at least one bush survived! I can't wait to see which color this one turns out to be - the blooms also will take on different hues depending on the alkalinity/acidity of the soil.

The squirrels always seem to eat all my crocus bulbs and I always mourn the loss of those little colorful blooms. I was pleased to see they left these little purple guys. I can't for the life of me remember what they are - I just know they aren't crocuses. Maybe Hyacinth?

From the time I began having miscarriages - I have always had these in my garden. They are Bleeding Hearts - I have white and pinky red ones and they are the most unique flowers. They come back year after year with the bushes becoming larger and larger each year. I put these in when we moved here and they are starting to get quite bushy now after 6 years. I will have to take some pictures once they start blooming.

One of my rose bushes. This one has the most beautiful white blooms - they have the barest blush of pink to them. I lost one of my rose bushes last year to a brutal late frost - it use to produce HUGE hot pink blooms and the smell was unearthly! The previous owners put in Hostas and they get enormous and are often fighting my Roses for occupancy. I'm going to try relocating some of the Hostas this year once they start coming in.

All my neighbors have scads of daffodils and I only seem to have stragglers. One here, one there, another one over there - but plenty of green leaves which would imply there should be more than one. I think I have some other spring lovers in residence that have been so excited by these first blooms, that they just couldn't help themselves from carrying them off . . .

No sign of the Calla Lilies I put in last year - though they like things a little hotter. There is a little chipmunk who made a little nest in that particular flower bed and I think he may have made himself a winter's snack out of my bulbs. This is one of the entrances to his lair. (He has two.) Be sure to stay tuned for further updates to the Chipmunk Calla Catastrophe.

Lastly, I so wanted to get a shot of the Blue Jay I saw today - but he flew off before I could. He was big and gorgeous - the main blue of his feathers and the darker blue band absolutely breathtaking. He was definitely a beauty. Hopefully I will be able to catch a picture of one and maybe a Cardinal or two before too long to share with you.

Now tiptoe through the tulips and go see what the other kids have brought.

2009-03-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I hit the 6 month anniversary of my hysterectomy.

Sometimes I think they removed my creativity along with my uterus. (Either that or my muse. Perhaps there is a great deal more tied up in that particular organ than I previously surmised . . . hmmmm.) Trying to write, and write like I remember being able to, is not coming as easily as it once did.

Anyway - no more pain, or rather significantly less pain, is definitely good. No more hemorrhaging monthly, anemia or extreme pms - even better.

So, I'm glad I had it done. For me it was the right thing to do at the right time. Yes, there are moments now and then (like yesterday - those baby showers can still trip me up a bit), for the most part however, it's okay. I'm okay.

And that's the best I can come up with on a literary front - I'm okay. No Pulitzer contention there I tell you.

(Like I said - creation, creativity, it does make you wonder . . .)

Show & Tell Sunday March 15th

2009-03-14T13:06:00.001-07:00

Some architectural shots I took in our downtown area while waiting for the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade to start.

I grew up in a very historical town - rich with architectural interest and plenty of mountains. So for me, it is fun to see many of these similar elements in whatever places I find myself since leaving home.

This one above and the one below are two of my favorites.

I thought this one was quite interesting. The building itself was rather ugly and plain for the most part, but up top on the roof it had something akin to brick pedestals with these urn-type things on them.

When I was trying to take this last shot - a man also waiting for the parade to start asked me what I was taking pictures of. He said I looked like I must have found something interesting and was wondering what it was. I told him I was just taking shots of some of the architecture around. Later during the parade I found out he was a photographer for our local paper. I guess he must have been hoping I had found something newsworthy! Nope, just windows and cornices.

Now, go look and see what the other kids have brought to Circle Time.

A Cautionary Tale

2009-03-03T08:00:00.001-08:00

(Duplicate post on Desperate Mothering blog - children/past pregnancy mentioned briefly)

I typically joke when my husband is heading off on a business trip that I am always sick or will get sick and some disaster will ensue. Two Christmases ago it was the car accident that totaled our van and broke my foot. Many years ago, just over 12 - it was ending up in the hospital with a complete placenta previa that was abrupting while my spouse was in Texas. Another trip of his to Texas was when I had the worst asthma attack of my adult years, a 2 year old with RSV and a doctor who only agreed not to hospitalize me provided I found an adult to take care of me and I got my O2 sats above 90 before he sent me home. The month before our youngest was born it was an ice storm that knocked our power out for 36 hours. (Spent the day Matt left at Walmart with 5 kids and at 35 weeks pregnant because they had lights and heat.) Early last year there was the morning he kissed me goodbye before another such trip and said "Bye, love you and oh, the heater isn't coming on . . ." That year the switch telling the furnace the cover was closed was broken - open door, no work. Just this past summer it was the starter motor on my van dying. This weekend with 4.5 inches of icy snowfall, everyone sick to varying degrees and Matt gearing up for a business trip to Kentucky, we discover the heater doesn't seem to be working. The fan just runs and runs and the heat never comes on. I figure, of course, I'm sick, the kids are sick, the furnace isn't working and it must be time for Matt to leave on a business trip again. (He always misses the drama!) He tried replacing the thermostat yesterday morning before he left (the temperature inside the house had dropped to 54 degrees by morning) to no avail. I drove him to the car rental place after dropping the kids off at school. My head was splitting, I somewhat questioned my ability to drive, feeling weak and teary and just wanted to go home to my mommy. Trent had dragged himself off to Seminary Monday morning despite have a miserable weekend as well. He complained of a headache and just seemed to want to sleep non-stop. We all made it to church on Sunday, but he left in the middle of Sacrament meeting and didn't return. We found him in the Seminary room asleep on the floor. After returning home from church, he headed straight to bed. Matt complained he felt even worse than he had during the week and I took a 4 hour nap trying to find relief from my pounding head, queasiness and various aches.

So yesterday, after dropping Matt off at the car rental place and a brief foray to Walmart to procure more cold and flu medications and refill my asthma inhaler, I make the call for a repair man. He shows up and finds the problem with the fan right away - a bad switch. He also discovers our flue pipe is leaking. Yes, leaking, as in Carbon Monoxide leaking. "Did you say y'all have been sick lately?" he asks me. He is able to repair both problems quickly - neither of which is relative to the other. Without the bad switch, the heater would still have come on and we would not have had reason to call a repair man. If replacing the thermostat had solved our problem initially, again, no call to the repair man. No call to the repair man = ? We would not have known about the CO leak. I would have continued to chalk up how awful we all felt to being sick. Everyone is sick right now - our friends, the kids say that half their friends are missing from school. This is cold and flu season. Never in a million years would I have ever entertained the notion this was Carbon Monoxide poisoning - low level to be sure, but still, in addition to being legitimately sick. I also have carbon monoxide alarms on each floor of our home. According to what the repair man told me and also doing some research of my own, these alarms are not particularly reliable. I went out and purchased an alarm that shows the level of CO present in ppm. Even if the alarm doesn't sound, I will at least have a continuous reading of the CO level in our home. Matt called me from the road and said he was feeling a lot better - then I told him about the heater. In true unphased Matt style he said "Oh, it was good you got it fixed then." Also according to my research, it is not uncommon for people experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning to feel better when away from the source of CO. Matt is at work during the week, he felt worse at home on the weekend. I was very interested and concerned to see what condition Trent would be in on his return home from school. His room is right off the closet where the furnace and water heater sit - you access the closet through his bedroom. He came home from school a completely different kid. He was bright eyed and clear - looking and sounding 100% better. I asked him how he felt and he said he felt much improved. By evening, I too noticed that what I had attributed to cold and flu symptoms were much alleviated as well. Wow, just, wow.

The reason I am sharing all this with you is because also in my research I found this article that states accidental carbon monoxide poisoning kills approximately 500 people each year. Most at risk from dying from even low level poisoning are small children, the infirmed and elderly. Poisoning is not restricted to malfunctioning heaters during the winter time; one student died and several others were sickened due to a malfunctioning gas water heater at a Roanake College during the summer. The recent ice storms in Kentucky lead to the deaths of people who had to find other heat sources when they lost their power. Improper ventilation swiftly led to toxic CO levels. In the town where I grew up, this past December, a 22 year old mother died from CO poisoning which also seriously sickened her husband and 2 year old son. They had believed as I had so readily, that they simply had a case of flu. By the time they realized this was more serious than just a case of flu, it was too late.

This article outlines ways you can help prevent Carbon Monoxide poisoning. I would add to this list regularly checking your gas appliances to ensure proper function/ventilation as well as installing carbon monoxide detectors that show you the level of CO present. Units can be found reasonably priced and fairly easily where you would also find smoke detectors and fire alarms sold. Our local Walmart had one for less than $30. My only complaint is that it is only battery powered and I would have preferred one that plugged into an electrical outlet with battery back up. A biochemist friend of mine says increasing your iron intake and even exercise if you suspect low level poisoning can help facilitate a quick recovery - anything that increases the oxygen levels in your body. Adding the cost of the CO monitor to the $90 charge for the repair man, I spent less than $120. The cost could have been so much more..

Mrs. Spit interviews Moi!

2009-02-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

Interview questions courtesy of Mrs. Spit. Answers courtesy of myself (well, what did you expect? It is my blog after all!)

1. What would be your perfect day.

Any day where I feel well rested and have full mental acuity! Seriously though - it is hard to say which would be "more" perfect for me - being at home, and by that I mean home where I grew up with family; or a day spent at the beach in Maine with family, which is where many of my happiest childhood memories center around.

2. You are the mother of children in heaven and children on earth. What, if anything, do you tell your children on earth about the ones in heaven? Are they part of not just your memory, but your family's memory as well.

Initially it was pretty basic, we told our oldest nothing. I figured he was too little to really understand what was going on, and since I hadn't even told him I had been pregnant, how or why would I tell him I was now un-pregnant? While I was correct in assuming it wouldn't be something he would understand to grieve at the time - he was grieving in his own way - grieving a loss of his own, albeit a different one from that of mine. He noticed his parents grieving and this became quite unsettling to him. My son was just a year old when I had my first miscarriage and still not quite 2 by the time I had the third. He is a very sensitive soul though and my grief, tears, anger, frustration were not unnoticed by him. This led us to realize that we needed to address the losses in some way for him/any future living children. My son and daughter were going on 4 and 2 respectively when I had my next set of miscarriages. This is when we opened that dialog. Mostly we kept it simple. From our experience before, we knew they would notice our grief and wanted to make sure they understood that our grief had nothing to do with them, they didn't make us sad and that they were safe and loved and still wanted by us. We told them that I had a baby that had started growing in my tummy, just like they had: but unlike them, that baby couldn't grow big enough to live outside my body and the baby died. We have always been very careful of the words we chose , because we didn't want to say the baby was sleeping or lost, as kids tend to think rather literally. We also had to tell them that I had to go to the doctor (for my d&c's) and that I would be sore afterward and we would need to be gentle while I healed physically.

About this time I put together a charm necklace with charms for each of my babies - born and lost and they have always known which charms were theirs and that the other charms belonged to the babies I had lost. Beyond that, specifics were pretty sparse. I also hadn't named any of those babies yet. Things changed after the 5th loss however, when the children were 5 and 3. I had lost my 5th baby the summer before and had just been referred to a specialist in St. Louis. In preparation for that appointment, I had my medical records which I was going to hand deliver. I was going through them and came across the pathology report for the 5th baby and discovered the baby had been a girl. This was not information our doctor at the time had shared with us. Following this revelation, I felt my grief returning anew. Now I wasn't just mourning a lost baby, I was mourning a girl, my daughter. My oldest son came across me a few days later fingering my charm necklace, and without knowing what I knew or even knowing which one of the 5 lost baby charms belonged to which lost baby, pointed to the specific charm for my last little one and said, "I know that baby, she's a girl - her name is Carena. I played with her before I was born." Then he turned and left, leaving me completely dumbfounded. We knew no one with the name Carena. Not of his little friends at school or church, no relatives, no cartoon characters - no one - with that name. This wasn't even a name we had ever entertained as a potential moniker for any of our children. Where he came up with this name, I could never figure out in any easily explainable manner - nor could I explain how out of the 5, he knew exactly which one was hers. This moment though, became the catalyst for a different level of mourning and healing. The kids - at least the older two do, know that the babies I lost have names now - but we talk about them infrequently . For awhile, my oldest daughter use to tell everyone she saw that she was "the 5th child and we had a bunch of babies that didn't grow and got dieded(sic)" These experiences showed us that they not only remembered, but also thought about them. I didn't realize how much until I became pregnant after the 5th miscarriage. I was horribly sick and ended up being hospitalized at one point. We told the kids that I was pregnant and that was why I was so sick and also why I needed to rest a great deal because things were pretty rocky. After finding out that I was pregnant, our son who was almost 6, started asking me every morning if the baby had grown during the night. He kept bringing me food all the time too - even though I never asked him to or expressed any hunger. I soon realized it was because he was concerned for the welfare of the baby and had remembered what we had told him about the babies we lost not being able to grow big enough to live outside my body. He was going to feed that baby as best as he could figure how to make sure it grew.

The younger children really don't know much about my miscarriages. My last one was the year before our youngest daughter was born. The two pregnancies following her birth resulted in live births - so the topic didn't come up. They are also still fairly young. They all do know however, that I have special Christmas ornaments that I hang on the tree every year and that those ornaments are for our babies who are not here with us. I really haven't worn my charm necklace in years. With all the charms on it, the thing was getting really heavy to wear. For a Show and Tell a while back, I showed the mother's bracelet I made as a replacement, and those little babies are a part of that as are my living children.

So, a long way of saying that our living children do know they were not my only babies - but also that the information that we did give was fairly simplistic and pertinent. We never made a big dramatic ordeal of the losses for them, but didn't keep them a secret either. We just made sure they knew enough not to be afraid when they saw our tears, that it was okay to be sad, or angry and to ask questions. With my losses all being so early, this just seemed the best way to handle something that would be rather oblique for them.

3. Tell us about the craziest thing you've ever done.

Well, I told you last week I flashed the high school varsity football team! Though, that really wasn't intentional. An intentionally crazy thing then? This may fall more under the heading of "dumb stuff I did because of a guy". I saved all my waitress tip money the summer after I graduated so I could take a trip to Utah to see the guy I took to my senior prom. He was a senior Air Force Academy cadet and I fancied myself madly in love with him. My big beastie of a car was not working and so I talked a friend of mine into letting me drive his car to Utah. All so I could go see this guy. By the end of the trip I had been through two cars (one broke down and the other I managed to wreck), my self-esteemed completely decimated when it became clear the object of my affection did not feel the same way and then had to find a way home back to Colorado - since I now had no vehicle and limited money. I wrote said former object of my affection a long-winded, rambly letter including lyrics to a show tune (something like 3 pages worth!) before I left and then found another potential boyfriend on the way home. Call it the Scarlett O'Hara effect - but I landed on my feet. Though I did spend 4 months writing weepy, depressing, overly dramatic entries into my journal. Maybe not so crazy - but I look back at that trip and can't believe I took on such an adventure at that age and didn't think it was totally nuts to do it. At the time - it really was the biggest thing I planned to undertake.

4. All members of religious groups get judged by the crazies (because we all *must* believe the same things as the crazies). The LDS are judged by the FLDS. How does that make you feel?

Oh it makes me absolutely crazy! I really don't understand people who are not LDS telling me - who is and have been all my life - what I believe. Does this make any sense? I know what I believe. I know what I practice. Do they think I am going to say "I didn't know that!"? I also think I would notice if we had any extra wives living around our house. They tell us we're not Christian - and this is despite the fact each one of our church buildings prominantly says "The Church of Jesus Christ". Absence of a cross does not mean absence of belief. There are the stereotypes - I have a large family because I am Mormon. Yet, I know more families - some I am related to, that have half and even a third of the children I do and they consider themselves contentedly "done". Family planning is a big deal in the church. Most of us follow the counsel given us by our leaders - have the children you can care for physically, financially, emotionally and spiritually. The amount that turns out to be varies from person to person. Truly aggravating is seeing these misperceptions and stereotypes in the media. The most hurtful is when people who know me beyond a first impression, find out my religion, and all those stereotypes and media errors instantly color their perception of me and who I am as a person. All of sudden I am a completely different person to them, and I haven't changed at all! Ask me, ask me! Ask me before you believe everything you see on tv or read in the paper or heard from a friend of a friend who was related to a guy who knew somebody who lived next to someone they thought was a Mormon in Utah! In Jr. High I lost a friend who decided she couldn't like me anymore when she found out I was LDS. That was her only reason why she couldn't like me.

5. What do you think a mother's most important job is?

I have actually been discussing this quite a bit the last couple weeks with people following the recent birth of the octuplets in California. The most important job is to love my children. Unconditionally love them. To truly love them means their needs are more important than mine. That this love is not just lip service. That I teach them the things they need to know - whether it be manners or how to care for themselves. To equip them with the knowledge they need in order to live independently in the world, be a good person, a likeable person and how to love others and love themselves. With loving them this way also comes making sure they also know and feel that love from me. An all encompassing love - that utilizes not only my heart, but my hands and my brain as well.

Honest Scrap Award

2009-02-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks to CLC for tagging me with this award.

The rules of the award:1) Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.2) Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with "Honest Scrap." Well, there's no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.3) List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

10 honest things about me:

1) I use to think I was most like my dad - getting married brought out my mom in me.

2) My own tears I can bear - someone elses, doesn't matter if it's over a skinned knee or loss of loved one and even if the person is a total stranger to me, I bawl and bawl.

3) People with no sense drive me crazy.

4) I am a planner - love to plan, love to see it all laid out in my head. Implementation however, not so much my thing!

5) Like CLC - I was a late bloomer - periods starting at 16, didn't even start ovulating on my own until the age of 36, my awkward phase seemed to go on interminably. I did get married young though - 23.

6) I can do algebraic equations, enjoy them even - like a puzzle to me. However, simple addition and subtraction trips me up all the time - it's like I'm numbers dyslexic.

7) I remember trivia - useless bits of information that make me good at Trivial Pursuit, but as about enjoyable to be around as Cliff Clavin from Cheers sometimes!

8) I had an Aunt Julie growing up who was the best. Now I tell my nieces and nephews that I had an awesome Aunt Julie and now they have one too!

9) I collect quotes - have for years. I've gleaned them off bathroom walls, from books, and even scratched into school desks.

10) I was a bit of an old soul in school - I started school later at the age of 6 and maybe being almost a full year older was some of it. Mostly I thought the kids in my high school was fabulously immature and fickle. I never felt like I fit in - felt older in a way. I dated guys who were much older than me - my prom dates were at least 3-4 years older than me. When I was 20, I dated a 34 and a 43 year old. The funny thing about that is I married a guy younger than me. I told him it was for completely pragmatic reasons - women have a longer life expectancy than men, so this way we might just even out and go together!

and a bonus:

11. I am a total pragmatist/realist - neither optimistic nor pessimistic. I don't see the glass as half full or as half empty. I see a dirty cup that someone is going to have to wash (and usually it ends up being me!)

I could cry that I always get picked last - but even if I were first at this, trying to choose would be extremely difficult and this has been going around a bit. There are so many excellent bloggers out there I would love to get to know a little more about so it is hard to narrow things down. But, here goes: Katie from Taking the Statistical Bullet, Kristin, Mrs. Spock, Lori at Weebles Wobblog, Kathy at Three of Kind, Kimberli of I'm a Smart One (and it's her birthday too!), & Natalie from Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies.

2009-02-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

After great pain a formal feeling comes --
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff heart questions -- was it he that bore?
And yesterday - - or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.
-Emily Dickinson-

-All the things I might have known and all the things I might not have known because of them-
"The heart never forgets"

I use to sign my posts on spals with those words. I'm sure Loribeth remembers - she and the other baby lost mamas on spals held my hand a time or two during some dark and sad days, including this one seven years ago.

It's not an easy thing, to be mother to the unseen. To want to tell everyone that they existed and feeling like the only one who ever really, truly knows that. To be keeper of their memories, of an entire existance, brief, but real.

Thank you for remembering this day with me. For remembering the little beings who were. For getting it. For being here.

I've written of my little one before on this day - you can go here for the tale. It is long, wordy as typical for me, and raw. Just knowing you're here though, helps. It makes a difference.

~i~ Matthew Thomas February 8th, 2002 ~i~

Show & Tell With Mel - Feb. 8th

2009-02-07T16:40:00.000-08:00

Behold, I show you my Thespian Card. I was in my first play at the age of 5. My first role? That of "child". It was a musical - so I had songs to learn and sing. As with many musicals, there was also dancing involved. Since I was young (and cute at the time) my part in the one big dance number was to sit sweetly on the front edge of the stage and play with a dolly. I was to do nothing more than to sit, play with the dolly and sing. For some reason, on the night of the last show, I got it in my head I needed to do more than just sit, play, sing. So, when the dancers finished their number - which was a big square dance type thing and ended with them on their backs kicking their feet in the air, I decided to join them. They were wearing pantaloons - I was not. When you're 5 and cute - you can get away with flashing the audience in your days of the week undies with the polyester lace. I was a hit. Flash forward some almost 12 or 13 years . . . .

Definitely not as young. Still kind of cute though. Still not wearing pantaloons. This time I got to sing AND dance. We did a musical revue this year in high school. One of my big numbers was to sing "Baby Face" with 5 other girls. We started off sweet and adorable - note the big, dopey bow. We were supposed to end in a sort of burlesque-y grand finish with involved a chorus line bit of kicking and some shimmying. Given that we were a smallish high school with a drama budget to match, many of our costumes were pretty much spit and gum and mostly held together with safety pins. Our first performance was a matinee for the high school. The entire Varsity football team sat in the first two rows, together - a loud, rowdy and verbal bunch guaranteed to consider this an interactive type activity. When it came turn for our number, the other girls and I smartly marched out on stage and began singing and dancing. "baby face, you got the cutest little baby face . . . " Things were going quite well. Near the end of the song and before the chorus line kick, we were to kneel in a cheerleader pose. We knelt and when I stood up, caught the heel of my character shoes on the hem of my pinafore. So much for safety pins. So, now I am standing, heading into what it supposed to be an impressive show of shimmying followed by synchronized kicking with my dress around my ankles. Talk about a wardrobe malfunction. The first two rows are in an absolute uproar. I shimmied my pinafore to one foot and then kicked it into the front row. The show must go on right? And that, my good folks, is how I managed to moon the entire Varsity football team and earn my Thespian Card.

Now, stop snickering and go see who else is mooning the class . . .

Article on Recurrent Pregnancy Loss & California Octuplets

2009-02-02T11:01:00.000-08:00

I've actually been sitting on this post a little while, having been distracted by other things. I came across this article last week on recurrent loss. Many articles I come across are usually pretty basic, mostly facts, a little human aspect which leaves you thinking "oh that's sad" and there is usually a nice pretty little tidy wrap-up; the lady in the story with the recurrent loss has a baby and they ride off into the sunset together - all better. This article was a bit different in the regard that there wasn't a happy ending - at least not yet. The author spoke about the conclusion to her story being either the physical and literal end of her childbearing years with another child or just having tried for that other child. Perhaps some of why the article got to me so much was because I could identify so strongly with much of what the author describes. I thought it was a very open and honest viewpoint that oftentimes gets neglected or glossed over. Many times the women who are deeply upset by loss are portrayed as desperate or obsessive and creatures to be pitied. The thing is - not all of us are like that, and just because we mourn our losses doesn't mean we aren't just normal human beings dealing with a difficult situation. I'm sure there have been people who pitied me over the years. I've been told a great many times how strong I must be, and just as many as there were who thought me strong, I am equally sure there have been a few who have thought me more crazy and obsessed. Personally, I think it was probably a little of each, with a healthy dose of mule-headed stubborn thrown in. I am sure that all of us have been told we are strong - strong at a time when we probably feel our most frail. Mostly though, I really just survived. Isn't that what you do? Survive?

In all I thought the article was a worthy read and got the point across without beating you over the head with it or going for the high drama factor. Hopefully the link will still work for you! If not, let me know.

The other topic that had me so distracted from getting this post up was the recent delivery of octuplets in California. I am not one to judge on family size and certainly not on the use of infertility treatments. I also don't tend to believe everything I read - but some of the stuff coming out since the delivery is a bit, well, mind-boggling and a bit unbelievable to say the least. Lately, a lady claiming to be the mother of the mother of the octuplets has been speaking to the press calling her daughter "obsessed" and also claiming that the woman not only lives at home with her parents, already has 6 children under the age of 7, is a student, not married and went through in-vitro. The thing I find most unsettling is if she truly went through IVF and ended up with 8 babies, that would mean they put EIGHT embryos back in this girl. This really disturbs me. Those of us who have been through infertility treatments know that the "litters" usually result from IUI and not IVF, since most doctors will only put back 2-3 embryos. With IUI, when overstimming, the doctor usually recommends scrapping the insemination and refraining from intercourse if there is a chance of a high order multiple pg occurring. Having been through the injections and trying to conceive beyond conventional means, I know how hard it would be to refrain if I have eggs and I am going to be ovulating - the whole point is trying to get pg right? What I am trying to figure out, is if this truly is a case of extreme IVF, who in their right mind would request eight (or more - since not all of them will take) embryos to be transferred at once and what kind of doctor would actually agree to that? Perhaps that is the issue - the right mind part. Which I rankle at because I have to wonder how many people will make the assumption that anyone who pursues assisted reproductive technologies must not be in their right mind and obsessed. Speaking to a friend of mine, she mused that maybe the doctor didn't think they would all take. Well, the chances of winning the lottery aren't that great either, but people do win the lottery, so it isn't impossible. Part of me doesn't think there should be "requirements" to be met for treatment. On the other hand, in situations that are somewhat extreme as this one in California may be - I have to wonder if there should be some sort of screening process in place, or even some restrictions. (Which I completely grate at that word - restrictions. As if infertility weren't limiting enough.) All anyone needs to do is google "octuplets" and you get a whole slew of articles detailing what may be the situation these 8 babies have been born into.

Another pet peeve of mine with this - is how all the press conferences at the hospital, they tell you that 8 babies ranging in weight from just over a pound to just over 3 lbs, born 9 weeks early and expected to stay in the NICU for at least a month are "all healthy, doing great and breathing unassisted." Okay - they may not be on vents - but most likely are receiving oxygen. My guess is mom received steroid shots to try and help mature their lungs faster prior to delivery. This was hailed as a "medical triumph" with 46 people in the delivery room and even a surprise "stow-a-way" extra baby. However, a baby who is expected to be in the NICU for at least a month and weighs less than a small bag of sugar cannot regulate their own body temp, let alone has enough energy stores to nurse adequately and is being fed intravenously or through gavage tube, is receiving oxygen that can lead to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) but is a necessary "evil", and at risk for a whole plethora of not so great setbacks and/or permanent disabilities. That is not "doing great". Before I had my preemies (born at 33 and 36 weeks respectively - and not micro by any means, but still required NICU time), I had the mistaken idea that early babies were fine - just smaller than full term babies. News reports exactly like this one were what gave me that idea. The night my daughter was born at 33 weeks, I had no clue - not one iota of what giving birth to a premature infant really was going to be like. I really wish my doctor had prepared me better for the NICU. At 4 lbs, 17 inches, my daughter was bigger by a pound than the largest of these octuplets, I had been given steroid shots and gestated 2 weeks longer. She was on cpap at first because even though she could breathe on her own - she tired out rapidly and the alveoli in her little lungs were "sticky" due to immaturity - because these babies do not produce a much needed lung surfactant at first. That was the first day. She had an arterial line in her head. That was very upsetting to me as it is not easy to see this big tube stuck in a tiny, tiny head - and they don't put it in a vein, it goes in an artery. Her leg was splinted for her IV line and then her arm when they had to move the IV that supplied her with nutrition. The second day she developed a pneumothorax and they took a needle bigger than any I have ever seen before in my life and stuck it in her chest to draw off the air that had torn through her fragile lung tissue, so her lung could re-expand and she could breathe again. I didn't get to hold her until day 5 - because until then she was considered "Critical Care - Unstable" She was "Critical Care - Stable" when they finally let me hold her for the first time, arterial line still in place, leads attached to her chest, splinted arm, oxygen tube and all. The first week was literally hell. After that, things got better - slowly. There is a lot more she went through and yet, we were so fortunate. She has no lasting effects from her less than auspicious too early beginning and she came home at just over 3 weeks, weighing barely five pounds - dressed. We got off easy - no retinopathy, no hearing loss, no intercranial bleeds, no sepsis - just lots and lots of scars. Even after this - I still had the mistaken impression that my next preemie born at 36 weeks and weighing a whopping 7.5 lbs (for a month early, that's big) would be much better off. Not so. He had difficulty breathing at first too. Lungs. They get you every time. He only needed the cpap the first day and then was on oxygen for another week. He came home on the 8th day - but I didn't get to hold him for the first time and try breastfeeding him until the night before they discharged him. The doctor also wasn't convinced until 2 hours before they discharged him that he was going to be going home that day at all and that he wouldn't benefit from another week in the NICU.

Jessica NICU December 1996

The first time I had a NICU baby, I had one child at home - almost 3 years old. The second time, two children - one 6 and the other 3.5 years. I was torn. Wanting to be at the hospital every waking second - needing to be there, and wanting to be there for my other children at home, needing to be there too. I felt like a huge failure on all counts - my body failed my babies, I was a failure as a mom, I was a failure as a wife because the house was a wreck and I was a wreck too - notwithstanding I wasn't in great physical shape either - 3 weeks bedrest, hemorrhaging, csection - doesn't put you at fighting status. Being a NICU parent is emotionally and physically exhausting - even when things are going "well". I cannot even imagine multiplying that by 8 and throwing in six more children ranging from 2 to 7 years on top of that - by myself. Even once home, preemie infants are high maintenance - not a week went by without a visit to the pediatrician. Not having a phone call in to their office every other day was unusual. I had to keep a journal and calendar of all the medications and issues just ONE baby was having. Things were difficult enough even with another parent thrown in the mix. I wish that when they hold these press conferences they would honestly state that prematurity is a struggle. These are not just "mini" babies - say that they are doing about as well as can be expected for their size and gestation, and hopeful that every day will be a little bit better than the one before, but they require critical care and time.

Today I sit here and wonder though, me who has never criticized someone else for family size or the lengths they went to getting there, how much of a good idea it is not to ask some questions at least and if maybe a line should be drawn somewhere? Because at some point it stops being about me - what I want and need, and starts being about the child (or children) we bring into this world and what they need. Most of the time - these two purposes balance themselves out - in this instance, it seems a bit lopsided, okay - really lopsided. Wouldn't it also be beneficial to stop presenting this Oprah-esque, rose-colored glasses, riding off into the sunset view? The one thing I do know for certain, these eight newborns and their siblings are going to need a lot of care, love and attention. I hope they receive it. I hope they are all able to make it home and that home is ready for them.

Show & Tell with Mel - Feb. 1st

2009-01-31T15:19:00.001-08:00

I teased you last week by just showing you a bit of lumber, glue and some odds and ends of paper, ribbon, etc. So, now for the tell portion.

I saw this project over at a friend's house and have wanted to do it too. The last year or so, I've been collecting word decor. I have home, love, dream and some other words - faith, hope, etc. The one word I did not have, and have been looking for some time for, was "family". Those of you who have been around these parts before, probably have a sense that family is very important to me - not just the one I've tried to create, but also the one that I come from and the one my husband comes from, going back for generations. What I loved most about this project was the little bit of this and the little bit of that aspect. The bits and pieces that don't exactly match, but have just enough of a similar element that it all comes together in the end and ties together in a wonderful and beautiful hodge podge. Proof that with enough glue - you can put anything together and have a fun time doing it.

Now I just need to find a place to put it.

Now, go see what the other kids have brought.

Show & Tell With Mel - Jan 25th

2009-01-24T13:22:00.001-08:00

Show for now; Tell later. :0)

Go see what the other kids are showing.

I Really Need to Wash my Hair

2009-01-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

Working my way down the Creme de la Creme list - kind of like Chicken Soup for the Blogger's Soul. So many beautiful and thoughtful posts. I wish I had gotten started earlier in the year - as I am only to the 20th blog on the list. I did make some resolutions at the beginning of the year. I don't always, or say I won't, and then inadvertantly one or two or 15 crop up. I already have blown two resolutions and may have potentially blown a third. See what a loser I am?! Not only was I late getting the resolutions made, but less than a month into the new year and I have achieved almost total suckage at keeping them. One of the resolutions was to read through every submission to the Creme de la Creme list. I figured take them 5 at a time, daily. Once I got started, I had done pretty good, two days in a row and that third day - well, got a little sidetracked with some family drama, but made up two days' worth today. So, slow out of the gate - but hanging in there.

Resolution the second was no more sewing for other people who ask me to sew for them - for one year. This year I sew for ME, be it gifts for others, but only personal sewing and only if I want to. Part of my scarcity the last several weeks was the catalyst for this particular resolution. A wedding, originally supposed to be in May, moved to January instead. Five weeks as opposed to 6 months. Sorry, no can do dress. Can do alterations in 5 weeks. While I know that there are many, many, and possibly more important, details than how many cummerbunds and what sizes, how many bridesmaids need sashes - these little minute details are actually quite important to your seamstress. Five minutes on the phone people, five minutes to give me quantity and size. I made a pest of myself leaving phone messages, because one week, ONE WEEK, before said blessed event is scheduled to occur, I still do not know that which I must know. Dress was finally chosen one week prior. What alterations were wanted settled on 3 days prior but only after I finally issued 3 options as an ultimatum. Speak now or seriously, forever wear something else. Honestly, I don't know how they managed to decide to even get married if we could be so indecisive about something as silly as sashes! Day before the wedding I acquired one pair of pants and a maid of honor dress to alter unexpectedly. Less than 29 hours prior to starting gun being fired and I am still getting harnesses to make ready . . . No, I don't sleep, I don't eat, I don't have family obligations and I really do like sewing under the gun after have weeks of stressing about this KNOWING I would have to sew something, but not knowing exactly what or how much until the last minute. I did in 2 days what 5 weeks would have been ample time for. No, I was not paid. This was gratis. My aggravation was bought and paid for with their inconsiderateness. However, the wedding was pulled off, the bride looked beautiful - my handiwork providing lovely details. I even kind of miss those cummerbunds. I never made any before - they came out nice too. **sigh**

I broke Resolution the second by offering **cringe**, yes, I offered, to sew a baby sling for the girl at my chiropractor's office who weighs me and takes my blood pressure. She's nice, she's considerate and I was feeling weak from a pinched nerve from my last round of high stress sewing. What is that phrase about old dogs and new tricks . . . . ?

Resolution the third was kicking my Dt. Coke "habit" - or basically, no more soda. Weddings and drama done me in. I am weak, I know. However, I have managed to reduce the amount I swill. So maybe if I just modify the resolution a bit - add a codicil perhaps?

Mostly I am blah. Blah as evidenced by not posting for almost a month. Blah as in not even "cheating" at the blogging thing by simply sticking with Show and Tell once a week. Blah enough that Resolution the fourth was a bust before even getting out of the starting gate. Resolution the fourth being writing more regularly, at least twice a week. Perhaps I could count comments?

Alas, I hear life calling me and if I go one more day without shampooing my hair, my husband might divorce me.

Gonna Have My Cake and Eat it Too!

2009-01-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

Happy 1st Blogoversary to me!

Glow in the Woods - 7x7 January 2009

2009-01-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

I really enjoy when Glow in the Woods posts these, and I enjoy reading others' answers even more.

(Cut & paste from GITW along with my answers.)

Join us for a Winter/Holiday/New Year's 7x7, won't you? Here are the questions:

1 | Welcome to 2009. What have you left behind in the year just past? What do you hope to find in the year to come?

Left behind: my 30's, my uterus - which also means my reproductive years, and is quite bittersweet I've found. No more mess and pain to deal with on a somewhat regular basis - but still, it was nice knowing the possibility was there, however not probable (or even a good idea).

Hoping to find in 2009: Me - seriously. I have been wife, mother, subfertile and trying to be those or overcome them for so long, I seem to have lost sight of the real me. I accept that change is not a bad thing - just need to get use to the changes and the older (maybe wiser?) me.

2 | We've just come through the season in which our culture touts cheer and peace and family togetherness rather relentlessly. How did your child's death impact your experience of the "holiday" season, personally or culturally?

My seven losses were spread out over a decade. The first three were one right after the other within a 6-7 month period of time and the last of which fell just weeks before Christmas that year. I was working on some serious depression which also had a negative impact on my physical health. I look at those pictures from that Christmas and I am 20 lbs down from my (then) healthy weight, hair a mess - I doubt I brushed my teeth, wearing my rattiest pajamas and my dh is snapping pictures. One, I am the picture taker - so that right there means something is off. Two, I would never be caught dead for photographic posterity looking like I did that day. I smiled for the camera but my eyes tell a completely different story. I flat out didn't care - didn't care how I looked, didn't care what kind of day we had, I just went through the motions. I am pretty certain that I crawled back into bed after we were finished opening presents.

Christmases since then I have found I prefer a much quieter, more family oriented affair. I don't like the big parties, the big celebration, the massive crowds. I feel much more introverted (which is somewhat atypical for me). I like nice, quiet, cozy and laid back and dislike all the social activities. I pretty much always end up participating in our church Christmas party, and since I sing, I end up getting asked to sing that month quite a bit. Normally, I wouldn't mind it one bit and enjoy it even, but that time of year, I find I just don't want to have to be "on" and would rather be home hibernating.

3 | If you celebrate in any way through December, are there ways you include or acknowledge your lost baby/babies?

I have ornaments on the tree that have special significance to me and represent the members of our family that should have been here and who are not. I have hung ornaments since that very first Christmas, even long before I even gave those babies names. I just really needed them there in some form, because they would have been otherwise. Each lost baby has an ornament specific to them. This year I added angel wings - one for each "angel", so seven and then thirteen snowflakes. For me it was the symbolism - each snowflake is different, no two are alike - just as my children would have been and are.

4 | Through the year are there any holidays, seasons, or parts of what were once cherished rituals that have changed for you because of your child's death?

Well, Mother's Day for one! Though, I think I have kind of always had issues with that one. I hate the commercialism aspect to it and think that shows of appreciation and love should be made on a regular and frequent basis - not just because some card and flower companies say you need to on one specific day. I tell my mother I love her and appreciate her at least once a week over the phone, not just on that one day in May so she can spend the rest of the year wondering . . . ? Also, I just feel there is something less sincere if it's something that you only make a show of on a specific day set aside for making a show of it. Though, that's just me! The Mother's Day before our first child was born I got myself in a snit over not being wished a Happy Mother's Day by my spouse. When he finally asked what I was upset about, I told him, to which he replied "Well, you're not a mother yet." Okay, while this is not a wise thing to say to your wife who is hugely and obscenely 8 months pregnant with a baby that took 18 months of trying and 6 rounds of fertility drugs - in his defense, he was pretty young at the time, and we were both rather naive. This was long before we became acquainted with baby loss. I have had some pretty lousy Mother's Days since then, but other than that first one, it was not due to any expectations I had of a grand show.

5 | Do you do anything to remember your baby/babies' birth and/or death day? Or will you?

The first year anniversary, I usually bought myself some flowers - just for a spot of beauty in my life. The further away I have gotten from those anniversary dates, the easier they are to get through - or at least not as hard as the first ones. Now I try to mark the occasion with an act of kindness. Even if it is just smiling and being kind to the cashier who was just given a hard time by the customer in front of me in line. Just something small, spur of the moment that might brighten someone's day or lighten their burden. The big anniversary dates, or the milestone type dates - those get to me. You look at your family dynamic as it is now and think about a different dynamic that could have been if life had followed a different path. A baby that would be heading off to school, getting baptized, turning 10, becoming a teenager. Most of the time nowadays, I do okay - I have learned to live with the losses, disappointment, frustration and anger I use to deal with in those earlier years. Sometimes though - I think back and I am completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the losses - and it isn't just the loss of a pregnancy itself. We're talking about an entire lifetime and its requisite events that would have been played out had things gone differently.

6 | Is there anything about the winter season (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere right now) that lifts your spirits? Is there anything that especially brings them down?

I like snow, I always have. I love the freshly, fallen, pristine snow - how white and and clean it looks. I love finding tracks - animal, human - proof that someone was there, even if you didn't see them. Yes, I realize the symbolism there and I think that is part of why I really groove on it - proof of the unseen. I find that cold, wintry days have me focusing more inward - curling up with a book and an afghan, feeling more quiet. Perhaps it is a hibernation type instinct I find myself feeling. What I really miss though, is where I grew up - during the winter I would sit by our big picture window all wrapped up and cozy and look out over the valley (we lived on the side of a mountain at 6500 ft) and see snow and mountain peaks and bits of evergreen peaking out. That sight never has lost its thrill for me and in many ways become more and more a treasured memory to me because it is a time I remember feeling at peace and all being right with the world.

7 | During your hardest times, how have you found your way forward?

I slept a lot at first. My first impulse when things get really difficult is usually to head to the safety of my bed and bury myself under the covers. At first it was so I didn't have to be aware - when you're asleep, you feel nothing. Later on in the grieving process, it was to recover strength, sometimes my health. The first bit it is hard to do anything other than just breathe - and even that can be phenomenally difficult to do sometimes. Getting back to a "normal" routine was what helped me feel like I was moving forward again the most.

There was a point between the first three miscarriages and then then next two where I came to realize I had a choice to make - I could allow this terrible thing that happened, and seemed to keep happening, destroy me completely or I could survive and even become something better because of or even in spite of. I knew that it hurt so much only because I cared so much - so stopping the hurt meant I had to stop caring. That wasn't an option. Loving someone else sometimes means making sacrifices - sacrifice by its very definition is not easy, nor is is something you always get to choose the parameters of. Becoming something better, surviving was not easy and it took time, still takes time and effort! Living life after is something that takes practice, you just keep doing it and doing it until you don't have to think about doing it as much.

If you choose to participate in this 7x7, please link up to me in my comments section - I am interested in your thoughts also!

Show & Tell With Mel - Dec. 27th

2008-12-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

“Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!”

~William Butler Yeats~

My little driveway fairy:

What my Christmas looked like through my picture window:(Yes, those are raindrops)

What are you showing today? More Circle Time.

Show & Tell with Mel - Dec. 20th - Making Cookies!

2008-12-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be fun for this week's Show & Tell if we made cookies together! Every year at Christmastime we make Snowballs. That really isn't their name, but that's what everyone ends up calling them anyway. We make a TON of Snowballs and then we usually give them all away. We made a quadruple batch - 125 cookies (less 2 one of the midgets in my house ran off with). Follows is the pictorial and recipe!

I'm a very big proponent of the dump and mix method. The dark spots are the vanilla.

Add the nuts.

Mix to a soft dough consistancy. With a handmixer this usually takes forever and makes your arm feel like it's gonna fall off. It will seem like it is too dry - but keep mixing, some sort of chemical change takes place and you get this nice dough. My Bosch does this in just about a minute - it totally rocks!

Now form the dough into small balls. You don't need much space between them on the cookie sheet as they do not flatten out. (Yes, that's my recipe written in crayon on the paper covering my table - I had to call my mom when I couldn't find my old copy!)

Bake and cool on racks.

When cool, roll in powdered sugar. That's my assistant - isn't she cute? She's also very slow - I dusted about 4.5 dozen snowballs to her measly one. That's what you get when you don't pay your help.

That is what over 10 dozen Snowballs looks like. I usually put a 21 lb turkey on that platter. (Don't worry - I washed it after Thanksgiving!)

We counted them out and put them in Gladware. (Great stuff - reusable too!)

Top with a bow and tag and voila! You get to eat the six that are leftover now.

Now that you've seen the action - here's the recipe. Hope you make them and enjoy a bit of sweetness from my house to yours!

Pecan Petites (aka Snowballs)

1 cup butter
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Mix well to a soft dough. Roll into balls and bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 15 minutes at 325 degrees. Cool on racks. When cool, roll in powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

To see what the rest of the class might be cooking up - see here.

Little Red Sports Car with a Bottle of Clairol on the Side, Please!

2008-12-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know things have been rather dull around this here blog. I seem to be overcome with a big case of the "blahs". One would think I should have plenty of things to talk about - having a hysterectomy and turning 40 shortly thereafter, both topics ripe for plenty of introspection, retrospection - some kind of 'spection. Alas, I am falling short of any thing remotely brilliant. Then, I read some magnificent posts by others in the blogosphere and begin to feel woefully inadequate. (Mel, the great Stirrup Queen herself, with "Tertiary Mourning", Mrs. Spit - who is always brilliant and witty, my dear friend Loribeth who always finds the best articles on topic - the list would go on and on - and even in the comments sections of various blogs, some amazing and profound minds at work - truly very humbling.)

Oh, I have plenty of things stewing around in my brain - many of which I think would make excellent topics for a blog post. Sit down at the keyboard and poof! Fabulous topic vanishes. While I remember well my anatomy and physiology, I can't help but wonder if removal of my uterus somehow severed some connection my brain required for capable thought output? Maybe it is Holidayitis, and the 'sturm und drang' of the season is causing my current state of befuddlement. Maybe, and this may likely be the true culprit, I am just still trying to sort myself out. Most of the time I am alright with the whole surgery-I-am-absolutely-completely-infertile-now thing and other times I find myself thinking "holy ovaries - what just happened to me??!" I don't feel different, but then again, I really, really do feel different. There was before, during and now after. Before I know, during I know well too - this after thing - wayyyyyyyyyyy more daunting than it sounds. I have no idea what to expect, where I fit in - the devil you know right? Because this devil I don't know and, what if I do the after, well, you know, wrong, because I don't know how to do it? Permanence is also a very scary thing - this cannot be undone, so no going back. Truly, I am pretty certain I don't want to go back. I did the infertility and loss thing for 15 years and that is plenty of ttc, fertility drugs, tests, miscarriages and all the rest for a lifetime, definitely! Then it hits me, I always expected the "after" thing to be when I was older, so now that we're here at after, I must be old. And maybe that is what this is all about - accepting that I am getting older and I've reached that age that my 20-something self considered no longer "young". That younger me didn't think 40 was incredibly old, but definitely considered it not young. So, enter in midlife crisis. For now, I am plucking at the gray hairs that are cropping up (inexplicably kinky, curly gray hairs in my black, stick straight too thin hair already) and hoping that this time next year, I will have sorted through all the flotsam and jetsam of the 40, hysterectomied and finding myself after the younger me era, and be back to my normal brilliant self (feel free to snort right along with me) or at the very least, feel a bit more steady on my feet again.

Show & Tell With Mel - Dec. 7th

2008-12-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've missed the last couple S&T's; today I am trying out a new toy (for details on what happened to the "old toy" see here - warning, this takes you to my other more kid-centric blog, but involves a somewhat entertaining video) and I did get my Christmas tree up this weekend. This week's Show & Tell is - yep, you guessed, pictures of my Christmas tree!

Ta-da!

There are seven pairs of angel wing ornaments on the tree for my angel babies. The snowflake tile ornaments are also symbolic - as you know, no two snowflakes are alike. I'll leave it to you to determine the symbolism there. ;0)

For more of this week's Show & Tell - go here - it'll be fun, I promise!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-11-17T11:26:00.001-08:00

Excuse the poor picture quality - scanned photo from 40 years ago!!

Yup - that's how old I am today.

Nope, not gonna show you a more recent photo than that!

I like people to think of me as cute and cuddly - this photo serves that purpose. :0)

Off to make my favorite cake now . . .

Show & Tell With Mel - Nov 16th: The Five Generation Afghan

2008-11-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

The Afghan was begun no one recalls exactly when, it started off as many skeins of variegated yarn, dozens of granny squares and good intentions. My Great-Grandmother Meme started it. My mother said Meme started it when mom was pregnant with one of my brothers - she can't recall which one - given the youngest is now 22 and she is pretty certain it was before him, that is at least a couple decades plus. My Great-Grandmother for some reason was unable to finish it and sent it to my mom. My mom gave an attempt - but didn't get very far. She wasn't much with granny squares. Years ago I inherited it - a bag of yarn and squares, good intentions and unfinished business. Relegated to a box and forgotten about through several moves, and then, one day I opened that box not really remembering what was in it and found the bag of squares and skeins. I had never learned to crochet a granny square. Feeling a new found interest in picking up a crochet hook again, I asked a good friend to teach me how to make a granny square. She was a left handed crocheter, but willing. I learned sitting opposite her - mirror image. I finished the afghan, a couple decades later and with hands a few generations from those that began it. I crocheted enough squares to finish a throw sized afghan. Then I sewed them all together, crocheted around the edges to finish it and used it to catch my newborn daughter in - she of the red curly hair and fearless blue eyes.

The years go by and things get forgotten sometimes even when you don't mean to. I cleaned out a closet and found the afghan folded neatly into yet another box - having been stored for another move, and never unpacked. This time however, I pulled it out of the box finished and whole. I called my curly haired daughter to see and told her this was her afghan. She asked me if I made it and I told her that I did and her grandma did and her great-great grandma did - that they started it and I finished it. Her blue eyes widened and she exclaimed "They all did?! Oh I love it!" Then she and the afghan disappeared to her room and been inseparable since.

Perhaps I am putting too much thinking into it - but I honestly believe this afghan was meant to be hers. Begun by a grandmother for a great-grandchild to be that she just couldn't seem to finish. Attempted by a mother too busy and lacking in skill to finish for her child. Handed off to another child for another grandchild - the fifth generation. A child who never got to meet her Great-Great-Grandmother in this life, but can wrap herself up safe and cozy in the hopeful creation of loving hands - born of love, given with love, finished with love.

For more Show & Tell - click here

"The Time has Come,"

2008-11-07T06:24:00.000-08:00

the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
-Lewis Carroll "Through The Looking Glass"-

I've really struggled with this post. Where to start? What to say? How can I tell you of a spark so brief, I barely felt its warmth? I want you to know, I want you to know Aidan - I want you to know of the dreams I had and the possibilities pondered - how losing that slayed me. Yet, I am at a loss for words.

I could tell you of blood draws - every 48 hours for almost a month. On and off bleeding that had me vacillating between fear and relief. Losing Aidan was a long protracted agony of numbers, a taffy pull of emotions - back and forth, from home to lab, from hope to despair until finally, there came the crash and the duel- edged respite of resolution.

I could tell you of the doctor who unwittingly placed the blame on my shoulders for not waiting "like he told me to". You would snort indignantly over his ineffective attempts at comfort when he told me not to worry, because he was the doctor and he would worry about it. Roll your eyes when I tell you he didn't think we needed to start testing (even after 3 consecutive losses) when I requested it. You would applaud my bravery when I told you I left the exam room after that and immediately signed a release for my records. I had no idea where I would go next - but I knew I was finding another doctor. You would cheer me on when I turned from timid, acquiescent mouse to self-advocating lioness. You would cry with me when the sadness and discouragement engulfed me and left me spent and beaten and frail.

The first baby I lost saddened me. The second baby I lost left me less certain. The third baby I lost left me hopeless and bereft. The third baby I lost also gave me strength and determination - somehow, someway.

~i~ Aidan ~i~
November 1995

Show & Tell With Mel, Sunday, October 26th

2008-10-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

So I turn 40 next month. I figured that was worth something special and since I usually end up picking out my own "presents", this is what I wanted with which to mark the occasion:

Some of you may recall my previous Show & Tell on the subject of reading and Margaret Mitchell's well known novel in particular. At the end of the post, I mentioned wanting to read the book again. Well, time passed, and I forgot about that desire in the busy pace of summer. My first Sunday home following discharge from my surgery, I lay on the couch and watched "Gone With The Wind" while my family was at church. Selznick's GWTW lasts longer than church and my family found me, still on the couch, watching the movie when they returned. Again I thought, "I really need to give this book another go through." Yet again, this desire got relegated to the back burners of my mind, until desperate for some sort of useful household type activity, I decided to dust the bookshelves - since I still am not allowed to push a vacuum. It was there I came across my copy - dogeared and battered and missing the last several pages. This was the moment when I decided it was high time I got a new copy and hardcover to boot. So I let my fingers do the googling and I am now anxiously awaiting my "new" book. There are many, many different versions to be found, from the leatherbound to the anniversary editions to the first editions. I chose this one - I liked the red toile slipcover. The birthday thing was a very convenient excuse.

You can see more pictures at this e.Bay auction. (Note: This is not ** the one** I purchased - just had some more purty(sic) pictures. )

For more Show & Tell - click here

My Parents Held Me Back a Year So I got Stuck With 1987

2008-10-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

A.) Go to musicoutfitters.com

B.) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function box at the top of the page. The first thing on the list should be a link to the list of the 100 most popular songs of that year.

C.) Cut & paste the list into your blog. Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you REALLY hate.

1. Walk Like An Egyptian, Bangles
2. Alone, Heart (still gets a great deal of airplay 'round my house!)
~~3. Shake You Down, Gregory Abbott~~
4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Whitney Houston
5. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Starship
~~6. C'est La Vie, Robbie Nevil~~
7. Here I Go Again, Whitesnake (I liked the car in the video - my brother would say he liked the girl. Oh, Tawny Kitaen made me want to be a redhead in the worst way!)
8. The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby and the Range
9. Shakedown, Bob Seger (I like "Turn The Page" wayyyyyyyyyy better; always enjoy Seger's voice though.)
10. Livin' On A Prayer, Bon Jovi (It took me a while to warm up to these guys - had a real issue with guys whose hair looked better than mine!)
11. La Bamba, Los Lobos
12. Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Wang Chung
13. Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House
~~14. Always, Atlantic Starr~~
15. With Or Without You, U2
16. Looking For A New Love, Jody Watley
~~17. Head To Toe, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam~~ ("Lost in Emotion" was better)
18. I Think We're Alone Now, Tiffany
19. Mony Mony, Billy Idol (They played this ALL the time at school and church dances.)
20. At This Moment, Billy Vera and The Beaters
~~21. Lady In Red, Chris De Burgh~~
22. Didn't We Almost Have It All, Whitney Houston
23. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, U2
24. I Want Your Sex, George Michael
25. Notorious, Duran Duran
26. Only In My Dreams, Debbie Gibson (Okay - now I can't stand her, but at the time she was okay - same with Tiffany.)
27. (I've Had) The Time Of My Life, Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes (All I can say is "Dirty Dancing"; ' nuff said)
28. The Next Time I Fall, Peter Cetera and Amy Grant
29. Lean On Me, Club Nouveau
30. Open Your Heart, Madonna
31. Lost In Emotion, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
32. (I Just) Died In Your Arms, Cutting Crew (One of the few dh and I agree on music-wise)
33. Heart And Soul, T'pau
34. You Keep Me Hangin' On, Kim Wilde
35. Keep Your Hands To Yourself, Georgia Satellites (This song always cracked me up! The rest of their stuff was pretty lame.)
~~36. I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me), Aretha Franklin and George Michael~~ (I like Aretha - just not this duet!)
37. Control, Janet Jackson
38. Somewhere Out There, Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram (Another movie - who doesn't love a cute mouse?)
39. U Got The Look, Prince (Yes, I like Prince - I think I actually wore my "Purple Rain" cassette out!)
40. Land Of Confusion, Genesis (Did anyone else think the video with the puppets was just plain strange?)
41. Jacob's Ladder, Huey Lewis and The News
42. Who's That Girl, Madonna
43. You Got It All, Jets
44. Touch Me (I Want Your Body), Samantha Fox
45. I Just Can't Stop Loving You, Michael Jackson and Siedah Garrett
46. Causing A Commotion, Madonna (This is the one I liked best off this list. Embarrassing secret? I had EVERYTHING she put out in the 80's and early 90's including the cassette that she put out that smelled like Patchouli. I wore the rubber/stacked bracelets and lace gloves - though skipped the "boy toy" belt and bustier. Didn't have much to hold that up with then! lol)
47. In Too Deep, Genesis
~~48. Let's Wait Awhile, Janet Jackson~~ (Miss Jackson, if you're nasty - she had better songs off this album - "Control" for one)
49. Hip To Be Square, Huey Lewis and the News
50. Will You Still Love Me?, Chicago
51. Little Lies, Fleetwood Mac (Been a Mac fan since the 3rd grade and my teacher Mr. Denman use to play their albums for us during class.)
~~52. Luka, Suzanne Vega~~ ("Tom's Diner" was on my playlist a lot when I deejayed)
53. I Heard A Rumour, Bananarama
54. Don't Mean Nothing, Richard Marx (my gal pals and I thought he was so cute)
55. Songbird, Kenny G
56. Carrie, Europe
~~57. Don't Disturb This Groove, System~~
58. La Isla Bonita, Madonna
59. Bad, Michael Jackson
60. Sign 'O' The Times, Prince
61. Change Of Heart, Cyndi Lauper
62. Come Go With Me, Expose
63. Can't We Try, Dan Hill
64. To Be A Lover, Billy Idol
65. Mandolin Rain, Bruce Hornsby and the Range (He does a version of this with Ricky Skaggs and it is AWESOME!)
66. Breakout, Swing Out Sister
67. Stand By Me, Ben E. King (Movie soundtracks made up a large part of my music collection - this one no exception - Ben E. King's voice is smooth and exceptional)
68. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, Genesis (I like Genesis, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel - what can I say?)
69. Someday, Glass Tiger
70. When Smokey Sings, ABC (Thought it was interesting Smokey Robinson and this song were both on the list this year)
71. Casanova, Levert
72. Rhythm Is Gonna Get You, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
73. Rock Steady, Whispers
74. Wanted Dead Or Alive, Bon Jovi
75. Big Time, Peter Gabriel
76. The Finer Things, Steve Winwood ("Chronicles was one of my fave albums; "While You See a Chance" I listened to a lot)
77. Let Me Be The One, Expose (I have this album - my daughter listens to it now.)
78. Is This Love, Survivor
79. Diamonds, Herb Alpert (Last station I worked at had a nostalgia format and his Tijiuana Brass stuff is pretty good - this really doesn't show him off that well - it's mostly Janet Jackson.)
80. Point Of No Return, Expose
81. Big Love, Fleetwood Mac
82. Midnight Blue, Lou Gramm
83. Something So Strong, Crowded House
84. Heat Of The Night, Bryan Adams ("Everything I Do" is mine and dh's song - this one was okay.)
85. Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You, Glenn Medeiros (I had a boyfriend when this was getting a lot of airplay :0)
~~86. Brilliant Disguise, Bruce Springsteen~~ (Maybe it's un-American, but I have never really cared for Bruce - just "Pink Cadillac" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town")
87. Just To See Her, Smokey Robinson
88. Who Will You Run Too, Heart
~~89. Respect Yourself, Bruce Willis~~ (Uhhh, no, just no)
90. Cross My Broken Heart, Jets
91. Victory, Kool and The Gang
~~92. Don't Get Me Wrong, Pretenders~~ (Chrissy et al had better ones than this)
~~93. Doing It All For My Baby, Huey Lewis and The News~~ (overkill on the HL&theNews here)
94. Right On Track, Breakfast Club
~~95. Ballerina Girl, Lionel Richie~~
96. Meet Me Half Way, Kenny Loggins (Interviewed him on air and he sounds amazing with just an acoustic guitar and without the sound guy/mixer.)
97. I've Been In Love Before, Cutting Crew
98. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right To Party, Beastie Boys (My parents HATED this song! My brother loved it!)
99. Funkytown, Pseudo Echo (I just couldn't help myself! It was hard not to like this one.)
100. Love You Down, Ready For The World

I had more of a leaning towards classic rock at this point in time thanks to older boyfriends: Chicago, Bosten, Def Leppard, Foreigner, Survivor, Reo Speedwagon, Icehouse, Styx, Kansas, Journey, Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Cars, Scorpions, etc.

This was fun. If you decide to do it too - link up in my comments section and share with the rest of us. As a former record spinner with a music collection that runs a broad spectrum of genres and decades - this is a lot of fun for me!

Great Scott Madam! I've Been Tagged!

2008-10-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Loribeth at The Road Less Traveled:

31 questions - one word answers. Then, turn around and tag seven (7) other bloggers with the award and questions. Ready? Go!

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse

2. Where is your significant other? Loveseat

3. Your hair color? Brown

4. Your mother? Creative

5. Your father? Trustworthy

6. Your favorite thing? Books

7. Your dream last night? Unknown (I was under the influence of Ambien . . .)

8. Your dream/goal? Vacation

9. The room you’re in? Livingroom

10. Your hobby? Sewing

11. Your fear? Loss

12. Where do you want to be in six years? Content (do states of being count?)

13. Where were you last night? Home

14. What you’re not? Sane

15. One of your wish list items? Travel

16. Where you grew up? Colorado

17. The last thing you did? Munchies!

18. What are you wearing? Clothes

19. Your T.V.? Whodunnit

20. Your pet? Dumb

21. Your computer? Addiction

22. Your mood? Weary

23. Missing someone? Always

24. Your car? Voyager

25. Something you’re not wearing? Glasses

26. Favorite store? Fabric

27. Your Summer? Long

28.Love someone? Insanely

29. Your favorite color? Sage

30. When is the last time you laughed? Tonight (Third Rock from the Sun reruns - need I say more? :0)

31. Last time you cried? Yesterday

Now for the tough part, choosing seven others.

Hmmmmmm, I think I will cheat and say - if you're here reading this, "Tag! You're it!" Link up in the comments section so we can read your answers.

(I know, I know - awfully lazy of me - isn't it?) :0)

Show & Tell with Mel Sunday, October 19, 2008

2008-10-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

Having exhausted my interest for making book thongs, I have moved on to other creative things to entertain my convalescing self with that do not flaunt any restrictions I may be under. My question: who does not like sparkly things? I happen to like sparkly things - I particularly like sparkly things with meaning. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness got me thinking about how I will never have another loss again, though no new living children either, since I am now sans reproductive capabilities. Something I have always wanted is a piece of "mother's jewelry" - something all mine, but not cheesy and trite, and now that I won't be "changing things up", seemed like a good time to commit to something. While I am pretty certain a career in jewelry making is not in my future - I did manage to come up with a bracelet that I am fairly happy with and, dare I admit it - gasp, proud of? I know, I know - it must a character flaw.

But, see, looky what I did!

I could not make a Mother's Bracelet though, without including my angels somehow. Here is what I came up with:

There are seven little silver butterflies around the bracelet - the seventh little one on the dangle. The crystal on the dangle is my husband's birthstone - seemed appropriate since he was at least 50% responsible for the lot. I figured I was wearing the bracelet - so adding my birthstone was more self-indulgent than necessary. (We won't mention the birthstone necklace - my birthstone - I wear all the time. :0) Hey, I figure you can never have too many sparkly things with meaning.) The other birthstone crystals are, of course, my living children.

Here is me wearing the bracelet with my Loss Awareness bracelet. I found the Awareness bracelet at a certain shoe store (Hey, a girl can't have too much footwear either!) and thought that it would look neat pink and blue instead of just pink, so I fixed that and started wearing it on the 15th. (Lest any of you think I am neglecting awareness for Breast Cancer - I have a sparkly pin for that. Again, I like sparkly things with meaning, can you tell?)

I hope you all appreciate the effort I went through to take a picture of it on my wrist. That was not easy. I tried to take a picture of it on my right wrist just as I wear it. Trying to snap a picture of the hand that you typically snap a picture with was sheer folly. So, after a moment of wishing I were left handed - I had the brilliant idea of switching wrists. Yeah, I'm a little slow sometimes.

I have no idea why the tube beads look tarnished in the photos - trust me, they are much shinier in person, and definitely sparkly.

For more Show & Tell with Mel Sunday - see here .

The Heart Never Forgets

2008-10-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

In June 0f 1995, I joined the millions of women affected by pregnancy and infant loss. Since that time I have endured 6 more losses - and while so very early on in pregnancy, were no less devastating due to their brevity.

In 1986, then President Ronald Reagan signed his name to a proclamation stating the month of October to be Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. (see sidebar) Following suit in 2005, Congress passed a bill proclaiming the 15th of October to be Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. In current years this day and month are marked by Remembrance Walks, Prayer Ceremonies and many other rituals meant to help healing, spread awareness and engender compassion.

Please join my sisters and I in remembering our little ones, particularly today. Anyone touched by the tragedy of losing a child - whether in infancy, at birth or before knows how life altering and devastating the experience is.

I invite you to enter the name(s) of your little ones in my comments section so that we might remember them with you also today. At your request, I will add them to the list at the end of this posting.

Remembering . . .

Zach, Hannah, Aiden, Caelan, Carena, Matthew Thomas &
Lilith "Lily"
David Merlin Avatar Porter 3/22/1998-5/22/1998
Lawrence Peterson
Bryan Nathaniel 10/1/80 & Travis Seth Green 5/1/82
Emma Grace
Kieran, Noillag & Little Ones
Hannah
Ethan Jakob & August Elizabeth
Baby K
Jack & Rose
~i~

Not Quite Basket Weaving, but Getting Close . . .

2008-10-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

So I have made several crocheted bookmarks now. The winner of my giveaway should be receiving the one I made for her in a week or so (US to Canada you know). I think I am sick of crochet thread and beads. I need a new hobby - one that weighs less than 10 lbs (I graduated up from 5!) and is not strenuous.

For those of you who have expressed an interest - here is the link to the pattern I used:

http://crochetme.com/patterns/book-thong

It's called a "book thong" tee hee!

When people ask me what I've been doing the last couple weeks since my surgery, I can cheerfully reply "I've been making book-thongs!"

The Title of This Post Could Be: "Change in the Weather"

2008-10-05T15:56:00.003-07:00

OR "Getting Used to My New Climate".

So I have been recovering pretty well. The usual aches and pains as one would expect and I get tired easily - but I am beginning to feel like I am getting my feet back under me again. The lifting restriction still remains in force - which is kind of a nuisance, but I am glad that is the extent of my limitations.

I have had plenty of help around which has been very welcome. When all you're able to heft is 2 pillows (can you believe two of them weigh 5 lbs??), having someone else around to do stuff like put your large glass serving bowl away is kind of handy.

I have no qualms about saying that while I have a fairly high tolerance for pain, I have been "hitting the bottle" on a somewhat regular basis. Pain is exhausting and counterproductive sometimes when it comes to healing, and while not a wimp, I don't see the need to feel pain if I don't have to. They sent me home with Percocet and Motrin, which was just groovy with this gal. By the end of the first week (and I have been on Perc before without this interesting side effect) I noticed something odd. I was beginning to think in rhyme. Yes, rhyming thoughts - like some Dr. Suess monologue playing in my head.

I do not like to lay. I do not like to lay all day. In my bed I stay, stay, stay. In my bed I lay, lay, lay. I do not like to lay I say, I really want to play, play, play.

You get the idea. This was somewhat disconcerting because my thoughts usually tend not to rhyme, be repetitive or come in Iambic pentameter. Once I reached the bottom of the percocet bottle the rhyming thing seem to clear up. When my Doctor asked me about any "unusual symptoms" at my 2 week check I thought this might qualify - but felt somewhat reluctant to admit it. She was stunned enough by my extensive cervix that the rhyming thoughts might have been a bit much to process and I didn't want her to think me an even bigger freak than she already did. I didn't want her questioning my mental capacity as I really wanted her to say I could start driving again.

About the time the hot flashes/fever cycles started leveling off I noticed something really strange one day. My arms were covered in flesh colored bumps. I showed them to my mom. At first she was as stumped as I was. I thought - surely I could not be having some allergic reaction to the Ambien I had just started taking. Could this be some strange side effect, withdrawal from losing my uterus? I was actually quite concerned. My daughter also examined these strange new bumps on my arms and pronounced them "goose bumps." Goose bumps! I have had goose bumps before and while these were similar, in fact, exactly like them - nothing eerie or supernatural had happened to cause them to crop up. Then it hit me - I was cold. Now, this may seem pretty dumb to the rest of you. Just let me say that I usually have one temperature setting - hot. My internal thermostat has up to now been perpetually stuck on high. I just do not understand cold, at least not in the sense that my body feels cold and reacts by breaking out in goose bumps. Though, here I was - broken out in just that and I was cold. I have a sweater - but no idea as to where it might be as I never wear it. I had to buy myself a new sweater because I was cold. I have worn it more in the last couple weeks than I have ever worn a sweater before in at least 15 years. I am usually the person people look at strangely because she is walking calmly into the store wearing sandals and a short sleeved tshirt when it is 40 degrees out, and I am comfortable. Last winter here did get brutally cold and I condescended to wearing a light coat, closed toe shoes and covering my digits, but once inside, short sleeves and sweating whenever the heater came on. Feeling the need for a sweater, particularly while indoors is very new to me and the fact that this is happening frequently now and not because I am spiking a temp is quite novel. So novel in fact, that I keep misplacing my sweater and become almost frantic in tracking it down when I feel chilled. So, changes I have noticed since losing my uterus - I think in rhyme, am easily confounded by common phenomenon such as goose pimples and can't keep track of my possessions.

BUT - I can drive!

And Now the Moment We've All Been Waiting For . . .

2008-09-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

As you know (or may not) we have been holding a giveaway at this here blog.

The guesses have been made, the totals tallied and the pathology report disclosed.

Now, because I just love the thought of making you all squirm a little bit in anxious anticipation - just a couple of side notes. I was mistaken in saying the normal uterus is about 100g, etc. THAT is the typical size of the ones they REMOVE. They usually remove them for not being normal. Well, mine wasn't exactly normal - so it still kind of worked. Also, I found that they measure uterus from cervix to fundus and I had a super freaky long cervix. This I am not mistaken about. Doc said a normal (and yes, she used the term normal which did seem to imply mine was considerably not normal - and I was totally okay with that.) cervix is about 3-4 cm long. Mine came in at a most impressive 7cm. Yes, not a typo. She double checked. Almost TWICE the length of normal. For whatever that means and I don't so much care about that now. Just kind of a weird little bit of info.

So, uterus. I'm getting there - be patient. She said it was not as big as they thought - but bigger than a typical 80 gram uterus. (That would be normal, nothing wrong with it, pristine condition organ - so not what I had hitherto been in possession of). Pathology noted no unusual epithelials (which would indicate they didn't get all the bladder - which would be bad) so that was good; no evidence of anything cancerous, bad, etc - just endometriosis, which we knew. The report also noted it was misshapen and odd looking. Doc likened it to a floppy looking mushroom cap atop a very looooooonnnnnggg stem (cervix) which also happened to look like it was attempting to eat my bladder (which she said was all over the place.) Even at that - I came in above normal and pristine at (drumroll please):

95 grams, 9.5x5x3 cm

I actually felt somewhat disappointed. Certainly not the GENEROUSLY SIZED thing I was expecting from all their talking it up beforehand. But, we'll take it - or rather, we'll let them keep it. My doc did keep muttering "that was a long ol' cervix, I kept waiting to find the end of it . . . ." and shaking her head.

SO, in review of the entries - there were two who came amazingly close. So close, that I had to total and tally and recheck and ask dh for assistance in determining who was the closest. The distance between closest and second closest was a mere .2 cm and 2 grams if you can believe that.

Without further ado - I happily proclaim the winner of this somewhat bizarre giveaway to be:

Busy Momma (aka Amanda) I will be emailing you shortly.

With Honorable Mention going to:

Arian

Seriously - .2 cm and 2 grams, it made my head hurt trying to figure that out . . .

Anywho - I also need to mention Cara, who prophetically had this to say:

"Watch them be wrong and it be under 100gms...then what???"

All I have to say (other than Congratulations and thanks for playing along) is, I can pee and I haven't felt any of that old pain - so that is making me pretty darn happy! (She also said I could start driving again once I felt up to it - yippee!! Maybe next week . . .AND I have lost 22 lbs since the start of the summer, 12 since before surgery.)

It is a Hopeless Case

2008-09-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

I intended to rock this ICLW. I figured my body would be down - but my mind would be active. Unfortunately - that mind/body connection thing kind of tripped me up and I fell woefully short of any sort of Iron Commentator status about 12 blogs in. There is next month. I am slowly finding my feet again.

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have stopped by this last week. I have appreciated your comments and visits! I hope to follow in your footsteps next month and do ever so much better.

To Tell You About Hannah

2008-09-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

Is to tell you about the loss of innocence, mine. The innocent ideal that once pg, nine months = baby, the naivete that there is any "safe" point.

Hannah was my second loss. My first one had been so early and so unexpected, I dealt with things somewhat pragmatically. I didn't entertain the thought it would happen again - these things happen. That was what they told me - and at this point in my life, it was easy to believe them. I was told to "get pg again right away - all would be okay" and while my heart ached, I still believed them. Something so sad, so wrong, could not possibly happen again - could it?

I was elated, though hesitant at first. We did the things we had to do to conceive - the charting, the clomid, the timing and we succeeded. I held the secret close - not wishing to tempt fate, waiting to pass the "safe point". And then I was past that and I felt more secure and I divulged my secret, not thinking that I shouldn't, not thinking that all was not going as it should, or wouldn't. I believed, I hoped, I had that confidence that only comes from not knowing otherwise.

During the weeks I was pg, I felt the smallest, sweetest presence - but I never took it to be the baby I was carrying. I often felt as though someone was following me constantly, someone little, and if I turned around quickly enough - I would catch sight of whoever this little someone was. I never did.

The day I lost Hannah was like any other day - I got up, I got dressed. I dressed and fed my toddler. My college friend from out of town visited with her toddler. We enjoyed talking, some games and then we discovered a shared yen for something sweet - for French Toast. So we went to the store. As I walked out of the store back to the car, I felt a gush - an "uh oh" sort of feeling that can't be ignored. When I checked - I was bleeding. I phoned my doctor, was given vague instructions and told to "come in" in the morning. I was so completely unprepared for the night ahead.

As I put my son to bed, I prayed over his head "please no, please no, please no - hold this baby safe." I had no more bleeding from the initial gush and I took that to be a good sign. I went to bed and could not sleep.

Constant pains overtook me. Cramping - regular and hard, contractions. I thought it could not be, I was only 12 weeks, but yet, this felt very similar to the early labor I had had the year before when my son was born. I wandered back and forth from bed to bathroom - contracting, spotting, not understanding fully what was happening - while everyone else slept. During the final hour the pains increased and the pressure became overwhelming. In the bathroom - so very early in the morning, and to my complete shock - I delivered her. My water broke in a small gush of fluid and then there she was. She fit in the palm of my hand and looked like the pictures I had seen of the babies in utero, the ones around 10 weeks. For two weeks she could have been gone and I had no idea - me, who was to be her mother. For all I knew her more than anyone else, I hardly knew her at all. I sat there on the floor of my bathroom stunned, relieved, amazed. Her umbilical cord was so tiny - but it was her little lifeline. Somewhere along that line - her end, or mine, something had gone very wrong. I saved her for the doctor, I went to sleep.

I would like to say my doctor was compassionate and understanding. He was cold and factual. The information he gave me was far less than I needed. He thrust a tri-fold pamphlet on Miscarriage at me, and pointed to the pie graph on the middle page. He said "this is where you fall" and pointed to the wedge marked "Unexplained Causes". Though, I don't think there would have been enough information that would have answered my most pressing question - why? Because I only delivered the fetus, I had to have a d&c for "retained products of conception", the placenta, in this case. I was given the option of being asleep or "awake", I chose asleep. I could not bear the thought of being awake while the rest of my pregnancy was scraped from my insides. I had already been awake when my baby left my body.

The nurse tending me post procedure tried to be compassionate. It was clear, she didn't understand. She meant to be positive and encouraging. She meant well - everyone always meant well. She asked how old I was. When I answered, she replied "Oh, you're young! You could still have a dozen more babies!" I wanted to tell her I didn't want a dozen more babies - I wanted that baby.

The next morning when I woke up - the little presence I had felt for more than two months was gone and all I could do was cry.

My sweet Hannah ~i~ September 20th, 1995

I Am Home - Brave New World

2008-09-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Oh. my. gosh.

Sums up most of the last week quite succinctly.

You are some of the best and most caring individuals I know - your sweet messages, prayers and wishes have moved me to tears. Me - a real life stranger, a blogging friend. Words are powerful - I have been touched and strengthened by yours. Apologies for not replying individually just yet - that will come later when I am not so bound by timed restrictions and physical constraints. Just for now - thank you, thank you all from the bottom of my heart (oh so cliche!). I have felt much peace and comfort this week and I am certain is due to all the kind words and thoughts.

Surgery went well. My guest blogger (Cindy - dear sweet funny Cindy!) updated you well. There were some surprises - not unpleasant ones. We arrived at the time we were told to be at the hospital and at 9 when I was scheduled to be in the OR, was still waiting in pre-pre-op. Of to an almost 2 hour late start. I was separated from dh and still waited - lying on a bed next to several other people lying on beds, waiting. Then, finally it was my turn and I got to sleep for all of it.

I will admit to a bit of smugness on my part - thinking that after 6 csections, two hsgs, 3 d&cs and 2 laparoscopies - I knew what to expect pain/recovery wise and this would be another walk in the park. I was mistaken - grossly mistaken! This is singularly the worst physical pain I have ever endured. Waking up after was horrific. I am certain they rendered me unconscious again as other than a few seconds of overwhelming pain and crying "it hurts! it hurts!", I have no recollections until waking up in a new room with dh at the foot of my bed reading a book. He said he had been there about an hour. I have a fairly high tolerance for pain - this was so unexpected and beyond that it was quite the shock. I am happy to say - they kept me as comfortable as possible. Two days of a morphine drip during which I was told I did and said some interesting things - most of which I have no recollection of.

Day three dawned after a miserable night and suddenly, it was if the storm had passed - I was clearer, felt more steady and I could cope with moving around better. They pulled the catheter that same morning and thirty minutes later I waddled to the bathroom and peed like nobody's business. Seems a silly thing in some regards - but I will admit to considering that the best pee ever! No problems at all - just like we had always done before, like it should be and hopefully will continue for a long time to come. When Matt arrived later, he asked how I was doing and I sat there in my hospital bed, messy hair,fuzzy teeth, goofy gown and cheshire cat grin and said "I peed!" My greatest accomplishment of the week. I suppose, in some regards - it doesn't get much better than that!

I spoke with my OB/GYN who wisely chose to speak with me when I was in a more lucid state. (Ahhhhhhh morphine - what a bizarre trip, makes you so numb you forget to breathe . . .). I got to keep both my ovaries - yes, TWO! The scarring and adhesions that have held Lefty out of position all these years were attached everywhere but the ovary itself. She said it looked great, and Righty was no slouch either. Good news - no instant menopause. Hopefully the next several years will be an easier downslide into the "change of life". Now - Ute. Well - to use her words, it looked like my uterus was trying to eat my bladder. Bladder was completely ensconced into the old scarline and the uterus was up all around the edges of it. It was at this point she called the Urologist back in and said "If someone has to tell her she is wearing a catheter for ten days - I want it to be you!" They both did their jobs well and I only had a catheter for a little over 2 days. She told me that if I had ever had another baby, they would have had to go right through the bladder first - it was "plastered" all over the front. That would have been ugly. We also had the mystery explained of why I never dilated despite having constant preterm contractions in each pg and my water eventually breaking without dilation - she said I had the "World's longest Cervix". If Guiness ever opens up that category in his book of records - you may very well see my name and picture there. She did say my uterus was "impressive" - and not so much in a good way - but not the biggest she has taken out. (You giveaway entrants will have to be patient until the 30th - she assured me she would have a weight for me then.) All in all, both doctors were very pleased with how it went - said it was a bit tricky, but not disastrously so.

I am home as of Friday night around 9ish. The trip home was a veritable minefield of potholes and bumps and jostling that was not so pleasant. But, I am home; I am in my own bed; I can pee!

My friend Cindy asked how I was doing emotionally - and so far, that has been okay. They had me on the maternity floor and being wheeled past the doors with all the announcement banners with a plant in my lap brought back some sad thoughts. I think the physical is outweighing the emotional and so all my energies are focused there for the time being. There may still be some of that yet to come.

Again, thank you for all the compassion you have offered me this week - truly I have felt it a real blessing. I've already flaunted my "sitting up" time allowed, so I must go. Each day is a little better - each day a little closer to normal.

My best . . .

PS - I will tell you about my sweet Hannah tomorrow, her day was yesterday . . .

Surgery Update by "Guest Blogger, Cindy"

2008-09-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

WOW my very first blog post and it is about our truly amazing friend Julia...

I just got "the call" from Matt (her DH) and she is doing well... there were no complications and her bladder (her worst fear she confided to me, and maybe you as well, was not being able to pee after this was all said and done) is fine, no nicks or tears, although they are not sure how annoyed it is after being pushed around. Her ovaries both looked great and so they remain (I am sure she will be pleases since she thought one was a goner) that is a relief so she won't be thrown into instant menopause (is that like instant oatmeal, hot and lumpy?) I hope she sees the humor in this... Jules I know you love me so you can always edit this after you are back from la la land (LOL)... ok so Matt will be able to see her within the hour (which really won't mean much if you read this weeks or days or even a few hours from now, but there it is) she has my number and I expect her to be calling me sometime before Saturday (that will depend on the drugs, but she is so fun to talk with when doped up on narcotics) so... all is well... now she can start the road to recovery... hopefully it will be quick :)

Thanks for reading Julia's surgery update... back to your regularly scheduled blogger shortly...

Cindy

AKA Guest Blogger

The Night Before

2008-09-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Did I pack everything I am going to want/need? Did I leave enough detailed instructions so the house doesn't fall down around my parents' ears? And the lovely anxiety - blasted hormones! (Which reminds me - I need to toss my Well.butrin in my bag. See blogging is good for jogging your memory!)

So, after a few games of internet Scrab.ble, the last of the dinner pizza (can't eat after midnight and then it's hospital gourmet from there on out . . .) and some mindless browsing - I may try heading to bed here in a bit and trying to get some rest. Or take my pre-surgery shower. My comedy team surgeons desire me to not only to pee on a futile stick, but to scrub with antibacterial soap prior to showing up. I am stuck with the dilemma of washing my hair and/or shaving my legs - decisions, decisions. Perhaps I will just show up with hairy legs and shiny, full and bouncy hair which we will promptly shove under a poofy paper cap . . .

I'm enjoying the guesses people have been making so far for my giveaway. (And very much appreciating all the good wishes! There is something very comforting about having so many people wishing you well.) Some of you are very kind in your estimates and I appreciate that. Though - the bigger this darn thing turns out to be, the smaller the pants I'll be wearing afterward, so maybe in this case, bigger IS better! Which does bring up a thought - off to measure my girth . . .

Tomorrow I will be featuring a guest blogger - my lovely and wonderful friend whose number my dh has stashed in his wallet. His task is rather simple - phone "my people". She'll be letting you know what news there be tomorrow after all is said and done. (Guest blogger - doesn't that make me sound fancy?!)

Lastly - my very first submission to Bridges is up (see sidebar). If you haven't been there yet, you really should check it out. I did post the Bridges submission here previously. There have been some wonderful submissions from other bloggers there already. I have learned quite a bit and been even more impressed with our fellow bloggers and their wealth of experience and strength. Some very powerful and beautiful writing going on . . .

So, that's it for tonight I think.

More to come . . .

The Final HPT

2008-09-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

There you have it folks - the very last stick I will ever pee on.

Because those comedic medical folks want to make sure I didn't do something silly like get myself in the "family way" right before my hysterectomy(oh yes, they make me laugh merrily with their sense of humor), I was instructed to take one last test.

I'm not really sure which result I was hoping for . . .

Surgery tomorrow - they moved it up one half hour, now it is scheduled for 9 am.

Now just gearing up for the looooonnnnggg sleepless night.

P.S. Don't forget the giveawa y; I'll take guesses until the 30th.

Show & Tell with Mel Sunday September 14th

2008-09-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

This week's Show & Tell is more of a giveaway.

With the upcoming hysterectomy and the extreme limitations during the recovery period - I'm going to be feeling somewhat stir crazy after a while. Reading books and watching a great deal of TV only takes you so far. I learned how to make these bookmarks at our last family reunion - they are kind of fun and easy to make. Plus - they don't flaunt any restrictions I'm going to have, which makes them an ideal activity. (Guess who's family is going to be receiving beaucoup crocheted bookmarks for Christmas this year?!)

So, here's the deal, you get to guess the size and weight of my soon to be "birthed" uterus and leave your guess in the comments section for this post. C'mon - it will be fun - you know, just like a party game! (a really lame party without food however) The person who comes closest - will be mailed the following:

Two books - one from a previous Double B Book Brigade Tour and one from the upcoming tour. The previous tour book is paperback and titled "The Empty Picture Frame" by Jenna Nadeau. The upcoming tour book is hardback and titled "The Baby Trail" by Sinead Moriarty. (You can see here for more info on past and present tours.) Both books are used, in good condition and the words all still work just fine!

One hand crocheted bookmark made especially for the reader with the best guess.

It's a win win situation - you may end up with something fun arriving in your mailbox and I will have something with which to help keep myself entertained during the restrictive recuperating.

The bookmarks in the pictures are samples of the one I will make for the winner - you may get one that looks remarkably similar to one of them, one of them, or something in a completely different color scheme altogether . . .

I am not going to leave you all to just start guessing blindly - oh no, not I! I am going to give you a couple hints to help you make your guesses.

Hint #1: The normal uterus weighs around 100 Gm. and measures about 11 X 5 X 5 Cm.

Hint #2: When I received my dx of adenomyosis, the doctor who did one of the ultrasounds said my uterus was "generously sized".

I can't make any promises on when the winner will be mailed their package. I'm going to have a driving restriction for the first 2-3 weeks, so post office visits are not likely unless I ask my mommy to drive me there (since she has already told me she is willing to tie me to the bed, I think my field trips may be rather limited initially). I should have the pertinent information at my post-surgical visit with the Doctor on the 30th of this month and hope to be able to announce the winner then.

Okay, so you know the date: September 17th, 2008 and here is the time: 9:30 am. Just need weight and length now. Gender is a moot point . . . :0)

Happy guessing!

For more Show and Tell this weekend, see here.

Home of the Brave

2008-09-11T08:17:00.001-07:00

Remembering . . .

Those who also remember, in their own words at Bridges . . .

One Week

2008-09-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

One week from today is my surgery. I thought I would compile a list of the things I will not miss, so if I start to second guess myself afterward I can just refer back and say, okay - maybe there were a few good things about this after all. I think I may also have a giveaway to "honor" the occasion - more details to be forthcoming, so stay tuned.

What I will not miss:

1. Irregular cycles that have a tendency to start and end at the worst and most inconvenient time
2. Monster pms that lasts for three weeks and has me vacillating between borderline psychotic and hysterical sobbing: Week one - disliking everyone and everything; Week two - hating everyone and everything; Week three - hating everyone and everything, wanting to run away or wanting everyone else to go away and in abject pain.
3. Killer cramps that start three weeks out and just get worse until you are ready to take the offending part out DIY
4. Hemorrhaging for 4 days so I have to rearrange my entire life around my proximity to a bathroom, and then just heavy bleeding for another 10 days. (which is only going to progressively get worse rapidly over time unchecked.)
5. Pain that hurts waist to knee from standing too long or sitting too long (since when is 10 minutes too long?)
6. The varied and massive assortment of "feminine hygiene products", none of which are sufficient (even when all used concurrently) or comfortable for that matter
7. Looking like I am 6 months pg and having everyone ask me if I know what I am having . . .
(the last person who asked this was told "a mangy uterus" I planned on naming Chuck as in "Chuck it please")
8. Being the sole person responsible for the makers of Advil & Clorox getting mega Christmas bonuses every year
9. Being constantly anemic and therefore exhausted all the time
10. Subsisting for 2 week periods of time on the pain dulling properties of diet cola and Ibuprofen spurring my liver into orchestrating an uprising.

6x6 for September from Glow in the Woods

2008-09-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

From the ladies at Glow in the Woods, a spiritual themed 6x6 for September. To read more and to participate, please see here.

1 | Do you feel as though a higher entity/supreme being/energy force has a presence in your life? What do you call it, and what makes you feel it exists?

Yes - I have felt this in various ways, but mostly as a warmth, a sense of peace and sense of being "held safe". It is an asking followed by a knowing with surety that **this I believe** There have been so many times in my life where I felt guided or that others were guided by some greater force to be just what was needed at just the right time. I call it "God" or Heavenly Father and that feeling the Holy Ghost telling me "This is God". I also feel a motivation to become more, to become better and consider more of this as a higher force encouraging me rather than simply a matter of biology.

2 | Describe, in a word or two, the nature of your spiritual self before and then after the loss of your baby/babies.

Just a word or two? Before - confident and untried; after - committed and reliant, tender

3 | Do you pray, even if you wouldn’t call it praying? To whom? What for?

Constant prayer - though not always in the traditional sense. There is a continuous dialog often going in my heart, my mind - looking for guidance, comfort, hope - asking God to help make up for my deficits when I fall short, to guide me when/where I can be of help to someone else, to watch over people where I cannot. When I had my miscarriages often it was a plea - a plea that I couldn't do this, but if I had to, please do not leave me to do this alone.

4 | Is there a particular line of scripture/teaching/sentiment that you find particularly helpful? Or is there one that’s commonly referred to but is unhelpful?

Matthew chapter 10 - the discussion of how a sparrow does not fall without the Father knowing and being there. How the very hairs of your head are counted. This gave me peace in knowing that even the tiniest of my babies were not considered nothing. This gives me a very empowering sense of self-worth, while also reminding me that I am not the only one whose hairs are counted to the last one; that none of us is "forgotten" or considered less by He who knows us all.

5 | Did your faith offer rites, rituals or teachings that acknowledged your baby and your healing? If not (or if you didn't seek it out in an organized fashion), what rites, rituals or mantras have you adopted as your own?

The LDS faith (more commonly known as Mormon) does not offer "saving ordinances" (ie: baptism) for children under the age of 8 as they are considered innocent. The families are provided the spiritual guidance and support they need - often in the form of blessings. They also believe in an eternal spirit - children who die before baptism are not "lost" nor are they sent to suffer eternal torment in hell. We also believe that we are held accountable for our own sins - not that of someone else. Here are my beliefs based on my religion: Losing my babies was not a punishment for some misdeed - nor did God cause it to happen; I will see my children again. Yes, I do believe in a God who performs miracles and could have prevented my losses. However, in order to continue to claim my agency to choose for myself independently - I am subject to nature and life in general. I consider it like this - I could be walking alongside my child and they trip on a rock and fall. I did not cause them to trip and fall, I did not put the rock there. However, because I am their parent and I love them - I will pick them up, brush off the wound, clean it, dress it, hold them and comfort them. I will help guide them to do what needs to be done to heal and recover from their injury. I do not believe my infertility and losses were a "message" God was giving me that I was not meant to have children. I think I simply am one of those women who is born with a body that either through environment, some childhood disease or a quirk of nature didn't work quite the way it was supposed to. I do believe that He has been there when I have called and in a sense said "Okay, this hard thing is happening to you - let's get through this together, and let's make something good happen. "

For the more practical, not as religious side - I have been well taken care of over the years and trials with meals, people from church willing to take care of the things at home that I was unable to, watch my living children, run errands for me, etc. When I spent weeks in the hospital prior to my daughter's premature birth - I was often visited, brought books, games, my 2 year old son cared for, the young women's group made cookies and brought them to me one evening (which also happened to be an evening I was feeling terribly alone), another friend came to wash and fix my hair for me. The night my daughter was born - the woman in charge of the woman's group at church was there. She stayed by my side when I began hemorrhaging and even helped the nurse wring out the cloths they were using to soak up my bleeding. She stayed as a proxy mom since mine was so very far away that night - not just to help the nurse, but to be a comfort to me. Compassion, charity and service are things that are continually taught in our church - and I have been blessed numerous times as a recipient, and also often as a giver.

6 | Some people say that in a foxhole (a desperate, life-threatening situation), there are no atheists. You’ve been in a foxhole. Discuss.

I think in most traumatic situations humans are hit with that "flight or fight" response. The human will to survive can be amazingly powerful. In my "foxhole" I first resisted, tried to avoid and deny the situation I was in. This in turn quickly became extreme upset - how can this be happening to me? I don't want this! The tears, the grief, the sadness, depression and discouragment. (flight) This soon turned to anger and then a fierce desire to survive - though not just in a physical sense, but a mental and emotional sense. There was an occasion (or two or three or more, to be honest) where I really wanted to just give up and at one point where that desire to just give up was its strongest, I realized I had a choice - to let this thing completely destroy me or fight and survive. That decision was the moment I chose to fight and survive while in the foxhole and eventually climb out of it. (fight) When I made that decision - I stopped asking why me? I came to the conclusion that I was no better or worse than anyone else. I didn't do something to deserve this - it just happened that way. I realized that no matter what happened to me, what I did after that point because of it also mattered greatly. Because these were things I wanted to do, but I was still "recovering" - I needed help and that became part of my prayers.

Show & Tell with Mel - Sunday, August 31, 2008

2008-08-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

I shared the women from my father's side of the family in a previous Show & Tell; seems only fair I share the women from my mother's side also. Family is extremely important to me; knowing where/who one comes from - a genetic legacy and birthright. I have been blessed to know some remarkable women in my life and even more blessed to be related to many of them.

My Meme Tondreau and me around 2 years of age.

My mother's mother was barely out of her teens when she became pregnant with my mother. There has been some family debate whether or not she was married to my mother's father at the time - though, at some point, they were married. My mother was born on a stormy night at home in Rockland, Maine; premature and with my great-grandmother playing the role of doctor. When the actual doctor finally made it through the storm to their house, he pronounced my mother too weak and too early to survive saying "Don't waste any milk on her." My great-grandmother promptly kicked him out of the house, stoked up her wood stove and kept my mother warm in a wooden box and plied her frequently with small smounts of milk. They named my mother after the doctor - I am completely certain out of spite; it would be so like my great-grandmother to want him to have a living and long lasting memory of being so very mistaken! My grandmother struggled as a very young mother and as a consequence, my mother was raised by her grandparents. Even once she divorced my mother's father, remarried and began raising more children, my mother chose to remain with her grandparents and was raised as an only child.

My Meme

All my life we have called our grandmothers "Meme" (pronounced mem-mee). In many ways, Meme felt more like my grandmother than my actual grandmother, whom we called Meme Tondreau. My mother's mother continued to struggle through her adulthood - with alcoholism, depression. I have limited memories - our visits were often "surprises". We couldn't say ahead of time we were coming to visit - she would have reasons why it was a bad time, why we couldn't visit, etc. - we had to just show up and she would then visit with us. My step-grandfather I have many pleasant memories of. He was always genuinely happy to see us and I remember sitting in his lap and the smell of his pipe tobacco. My grandmother sometimes remembered our birthdays with cards and letters, though she died young, in her 50's - a sudden and traumatic event for her family. Her drinking and depression having caught up with her.

Of Meme though, I have so many wonderful memories. She had a large strawberry patch in her backyard. I was often dispatched with a container to fill and she would make all sorts of wonderful treats- sliced strawberries with milk or strawberry shortcake with fresh whipped cream, my favorites. Maine was a wonderful place to visit as a child - we enjoyed the beaches; my brother and I fascinated with the small tide pools. Shortly after boxing up all my belongings and leaving home for college, I opened up a small box of shells I had collected years ago. Being contained in a small space concentrated the smell of the sea that still clung to the shells and rocks I had collected. I drank in the scent and for a brief moment, I was back at the beach on a grey, windy day - wearing my windbreaker and poking at a small pool filled with all sorts of sea treasures. From my very young years I have just snatches, bits and pieces of memories - most of which are prompted back by smells, sounds, tastes or feelings. When my dh and I were looking at homes, we toured a very old farmhouse and I had such a flashback of memories I was overcome. The home had the same smells and textures (dh called it "eau de old people") I remembered from my Meme's house. The kitchen was in the back of the house and I wanted to see if there were the same white metal kitchen cabinets I remembered from my Great-grandmother's house - and there were! We didn't purchase the house - but walking through was such a treat of forgotten memories. Standing in that kitchen, thousands of miles and years after, I remembered sitting at a small table with formica top, eating a bowl of strawberries in milk. My tears when I sat on the same table after cutting my toe at the beach - her gentle and capable hands cleaning and dressing my wound. Asking her, "will it stop hurting?" and her voice saying "Ay-yah, it will." in her husky and thick New England accent. Standing on a stool with an apron tied up under my armpits next to the stove and being handed a wooden spoon and told "When those lobsters try to climb out of the pot - you smack them back down with that spoon now!" We had walked down to the docks and picked the lobsters ourselves, straight off the boat. Later they were the most amazing lobster rolls. She had told me I had the most important job. She also remembered birthdays with cards and letters. All through my childhood and while I was at college. She was extremely crafty - she and her daughter (my mother's aunt) made all sorts of crafts, even through her waning years. They often sold these crafts. I inherited this from her. For Christmas I often received yarn, pompoms, beads, chenille wire - all sorts of craft supplies and would be delighted. She was the type who would see something and say "I can make that!" and she would. I am the same way. I have the ability to see how something goes together in my head. There have been times I have been trying to figure out how to make something and will sleep on it. During the night, I will dream and "see" how to put it all together. I never got the chance to ask her if she figured out how to make things the same way - I have a feeling she likely did.

The summer my husband and I moved to Missouri, my mother called and said she was headed to Maine to visit Meme - her health was deteriorating. I wanted to believe she would live forever - she had already survived so much - breast cancer, diabetes, constant medical issues, the loss of her daughter, a grandson, her husband. We had just moved, still had a home we were trying to sell, I had just several months earlier given birth to a baby who was premature and spent time in the NICU and then again in the PICU with RSV. We had medical bills, moving bills - so many things that made a trip seem impossible. I made the practical and realistic decision not to go. I wanted to take my daughter back there - to get a picture of all of us, five generations. Just a few days after making this decision, I was standing in my kitchen cleaning and cutting up strawberries to make into jam. I was overcome with a sense of sadness, knowing that if I did not take the opportunity to go, there would not be another one. My mother went, I did not. Shortly afterward, my Meme passed away on August 26th, 1997.

My mother and I 2004

I never got my 5 generation photo. My premature daughter is now an amazing 11 year old who looks remarkably like my mother when she was younger. My daughter is also very crafty and very creative. She makes most of the gifts she bestows upon her friends and family - I have a choker she made me that when I wear it, people always ask about it. The other day she was looking through a magazine and saw something she liked - I overheard her say "I could make that!" I had to smile when I had a sudden craving for Strawberry Shortcake.

For more of this weekend's Circle Time Show & Tell with Mel - see here.