30 October, 2011

your mother's life in a nutshell

things were always easy for me and went pretty much however i wanted them to go.

i grew up in a house with two parents in a nice little neighborhood. we lived in the same house all of my life. it was grandmom, grandpop, me and then uncle chris. we always had a dog. and new cars. and a pool in the yard. things were easy. i pretty much got what i wanted. but i wasn't spoiled. we got our clothes at k-mart with scattered in jordache jeans...never guess or benetton anything like that. we took day trips to the beach. we went to disney a few times. i never felt like i was missing out on anything.

i hated high school. a lot. i was a shitty student. and a cheerleader. the captain. i only mention this because anyone who knows me now always gets a kick out of hearing that. most people don't believe it.

but as for school, i would have quit if it weren't for my guidance counselor who let me cut class and hang out with him most of the day almost every day. he was pretty awesome. and there was tera and pam and karis and "velezzie". my partners in crime. i loved those chicks and if it weren't for them i would have a lot less fun stories to tell about my high school years. they got me through it.

i was a total asshole in high school. so ignorant. and even mean. i would have hated that girl if i met her now. thank god for the people who changed me the most. jason was uncle chris' friend. and amit. he was jason's friend who was from israel and living here for a few years. jason made me realize (though he never said it) that i talked to much and was too much about me. and amit made me see how small i was in this huge world. he made me want to travel. to really travel, not just to go to disney world and the bahamas.

after i graduated there was no way in hell i was going to college. i hated school. so i went to this four month travel program in miami beach. i wanted to be a travel agent. i wanted to get out. to see it all.

so grandmom and grandpop paid for me to go down there and learn some stuff about how to enter things into a computer and to search for airfares and blah blah blah. i learned all of that stuff but more importantly i met kendra. she taught me how to be a good student. she taught me to love to learn.

after coming home from that school, i got a job as a travel agent. i hated it. i wasn't going anywhere with that job except to disney world and the bahamas.

so i quit.

and i started to work at the disney store (yes, the disney store).

and i bought a plane ticket to isreal. i informed your grandmother of this when she came home from work one day. i told her i was going and she said i wasn't and i said i already bought the ticket. i was 19. israel was in the news a lot at the time. buses were getting blown up. and i was going to visit my friend (who i was in love with) while he was on his leave from the israeli army. grandmom wanted to kill me. and i couldn't wait.

it was amazing two weeks. i came home with a feeling of smallness, but of greatness all at once.

i enrolled in county college. i took three and a half years to get out of there. i loved every minute of it. lots of times i showed up to class still hungover. and lots of times i was high while i was there. but i learned so much more than i ever thought i could care about.

i worked two jobs and saved all of my pennies. i was super lucky to have college paid for and to live at home rent free. so i saved and i traveled.

my girl caryn and i backpacked around europe together. we spent two and a half months romping around, relaxing outside of the louvre, wondering what it was like inside because we would rather spend our money on beer than on a ticket to get in.

we slept in atm machines. on the side of rail road tracks. we bought weed from cafe windows and saw bulls run through the streets of pamplona. we went canyoning in switzerland and rode milk trains along the coast of italy. it was eye-opening. and fun as shit.

so after europe, i spent another summer roaming around central america. (god i miss my backpack.) three of those weeks were spent on a beach in belize. drinking coconut rum and eating lobster tacos. i hope to get back there someday.

i pretty much alternated travel with work and school for those five and a half years. i was on a plane at least twice a year. and when i was home i was out partying and being a twenty-something. doing things i hope you never do but i am pretty sure you will. but hopefully you will be smarter than i was. and have more confidence. and feel like you belong everywhere you go.

i never felt that way. that's why the beer and the weed. i never ever in my life felt as if i fit in or belonged where i was. i hope that i can give that gift to you. i hope that you always feel as if you belong where ever it is you want to be.

i finally transferred to rowan university and decided to be a teacher. i knew i could do a better job teaching than any of the teachers i ever had. except for mrs. lyons. she was awesome. and i wanted to teach history because i figured that if i was going to see the world, i might as well learn about the places i was going to go.

i remember telling my favorite professor in the world that i would teach in cherry hill someday. he kind of laughed at me and said that it was a really tough district to get into. (see, easy.)

i met my first husband at rowan. we backpacked around cuba for our honeymoon.

i know it will probably be really weird for you to know that i was married before. but even that went well. we were just friends. and after about a year we realized that. we even drove to our divorce hearing together and laughed and joked. the people around us asked why we were getting divorced. we're still friends today.

so it is weird and i guess you could say that was the first big mistake of my life. but i don't know if it can be called a mistake. because everything in my life has brought me to you.

after i got divorced i did some of that traveling i said i would never do. i got an actual suitcase and stayed at resorts in the caribbean and never came into contact with locals unless they were serving my drinks or making my bed. blech. that shit i regret.

i was teaching at maple shade high school. i taught there for five years. i had some really awesome students...like bre, who we all love today and are so happy to have as a little part of our family. but that place wasn't for me. and i was feeling burnt out of teaching. so i resigned from my tenured position even though everyone said i was nuts.

i remember my last day. i went straight to the bus station and went to nyc for a kids yoga teacher training with the amazing jodi komitor. see, while i was married and feeling lost, i found yoga. and i became certified to teach yoga (with my teacher, flossie, another one of those people who helped me see the light) but i wasn't really into teaching adults yoga. i wanted to teach kids yoga. so i did. i got a bunch of certifications and eventually opened a yoga studio just for kids. it was the only one in south jersey. there still hasn't been another one. we made some mistakes and financially we couldn't cut it, but for a while dawn and tiff of yoga clubhouse were the go-to people for kids yoga in this area. it was a really exciting time. full of lots of learning and life lessons.

overlapping with that i ended up teaching at carusi middle school. back in cherry hill. where i grew up. where i had hate and swore i would never live. that's where we live. and that's where i was teaching (even though dr. m made it seem so hard). and that's where i met your dad.

we met in august of 2006. he moved in with me in november. we were engaged in january of 2007. pregnant with your brother cooper in september and married in november. things went so fast.

here is where it stopped being easy.

i got pneumonia on our honeymoon. at a resort. in the carribbean.

when i came home i ended up in the hospital. cooper and i both survived it. but that was the first of many absolutely shitty events in my life. up until then, my life had been pretty damn easy. i went where i pleased. things had pretty much always gone my way.

until then.

in february 2008 your brother was born too soon. i was devastated. babies were not supposed to die. not my baby. bad things never happened to me. i was so unprepared. i cried for weeks. i looked like i had the shit beaten out of me my eyes were so black.

once we had gotten back on our feet we wanted to try for another baby.

we tried for months. infertility. more shit.

we ended up having to go through ivf to have you. we wanted you so badly we would have done anything.

we were so lucky that it worked on our first try. maybe things were turning around for us. my pregnancy was awesome.

but then you were breech. home birth turned c-section. more shit.

and then you were you. as much as i love you, my perfect little boy, you were not easy. you rocked my world more than i had ever imagined you could. you demanded constant rocking and holding and nursing. you never slept unless you were on my boob. you barely accepted help form your dad. and you still don't most of the time. it's just me. me. me. me. you demanded that i learn how to take care of you in the way that you needed. and so i did. i was consumed by it. and i still am. everything else takes a back seat. me. your dad. the dogs. the house. everything.

and now that we feel ready, we want another baby. a failed ivf cycle. more. shit.

i guess sometimes i sound like a real whiner. or complainer. or a martyr. or just a miserable bitch. but what the fuck? i just wish that some shit would go right for your dad and me. for us it's been so hard. so fucking hard.

and it used to be so fucking easy.

21 October, 2011

positive

ok, so now that i have vented some anger, let me see if i can really let all of the positive things sink in.

mason is still so little. now we get more alone time. and maybe he will wean himself while i am pregnant next time since he will be older. deep down i guess i really did want him to be older before i had another baby.

i just have to get rid of the jealousy when i see friends having their seconds and thirds. or when i hear about really shitty people i know having more and more babies. i have to let it go and just focus on me and what's right for us.

don't get me wrong, i do want another baby. i really want three more babies, and maybe that will still happen. whatever happens is exactly what is meant to happen. i just have to remember that.

we won't try again for another ivf treatment until mason is done nursing because of all of the medications i will have to take. maybe we can get pregnant on our own in the meantime and i won't ever have to go back to the fertility center again.

i will be able to actually finish my childbirth education certificate. i was afraid that if i were pregnant i would never get it done. so i have only three more papers to write and then i can start offering my eight-week courses. i am really excited for that.

i can take on more doula clients and maybe finish that certification, too.

i can drink beer.

josh will be higher up on the pay scale when we do have another baby and maybe he will be able to take a few weeks off with us.

so there are good things. it doesn't take away from the fact that all of the negatives are there. and after some time passes, i know i will believe that these good things are really good. i am just really shocked. i never thought this was where this would end up, i really believed this would work.

negative

i hate shitty parents
i hate that i am sickeningly jealous of people who get pregnant easily
i hate that there are people who get pregnant accidentally
i hate people who don't take care of themselves while they are pregnant
i hate that so many people don't appreciate the miracle that a baby is
i hate people who take their birthing experiences for granted
i hate that i paid over $1600 in embryo storage over the past three years
i hate that i spent hundreds of dollars on acupuncture treatments
i hate that i paid hundreds of dollars for medicines that i pumped into my body
i hate that my son may have taken in some of those medicines
i hate that i had to take two courses of antibiotics
i hate that i had josh bring all of my maternity clothes down from the attic
i hate the embryologist at my doctor's office because she is a miserable bitch
i hate the voice of the woman on my meditation cds
i hate that my doctors just got richer
i hate that i waited all day to get bad news
i hate that i was worried about having twins and i won't even have one
i hate that i am mourning the loss of three embryos
i hate that i am now afraid i will never have another baby
i hate that i lost a baby at 22 weeks
i hate that i had to deal with infertility after losing my baby at 22 weeks
i hate that i had to have a c-section
i hate that i did not get my home birth
i hate that i can't try again to have another baby until mason is done nursing
i hate that this shit can't just be fucking easy for us

19 October, 2011

quick update

i am still feeling really positive and surprising calm about this whole thing. i am having a hard time not POAS (peeing on a stick for all of you who are not fertilly challenged and never have to learn these acronyms). but i figure if it is a false negative that will throw me into sadness and worry and it could possibly be unnecessary. but it's really killing me waiting. it's only a ten day wait as opposed the the two day, since the embies were already six days old when they were transferred back to me.

but ten days is a long time when you just can't seem to give your mind a rest.

i have been falling asleep every night while nursing you to sleep. your dad thinks i must be pregnant because i never fall asleep like that. but i also attended a birth the night of the transfer (no, i didn't follow the two days of rest after transfer rule) and was there for 24 hours. so i missed an entire night of sleep. i think i am just catching up on that. but any positive signs pointing towards a positive test are invited.

the best positive sign is that my acupuncturist says i have a pregnant pulse. she also says you are going to have a sister. the pulse thing makes sense to me, and from what i have found online on the infertility boards, no one's acupuncturist has been wrong on pregnancy prediction. the gender is another story.

but it doesn't matter to me if you have a sister or a brother.

with you i was desperate for a boy. i guess it was partly because i was used to boys because of your cousins, and because of your uncle, and because i always had more guy friends than girl friends when i was younger. but i think it was mostly because i was afraid that cooper would be my only boy. and if that had happened i would have probably been sad about that for my entire life.

but this time, boy or girl, i really don't care.

two girls, though, that would be a lot for me to swallow...

the transfer

this morning we woke up like everything was normal. we had our breakfast. you whined a lot for milkies with alternating bouts of play. daddy was home with us because he took off from work, but to you that was probably nothing different. grandmom and grandpop came over and daddy and i left together. this is something we have only done i think four times now since you were born. once was for my birthday dinner when you were about seven weeks old (we were gone about 45 minutes). then we went to our friend's surprise birthday party (that was awesome. it was my first time being back on daddy's motorcycle since before you were conceived.) last week we went out to shop for your birthday gifts. and now today, so that your sibling(s) could be transferred back to me. to us.

i had an acupuncture treatment before and after. that is supposed to increase the success rates of ivf transfers by something like 75% or so. i forget. it's been almost three years since i checked into it. so we got there about 11 o'clock this morning. i was freezing in the room and i had to pee. i need to drink 16 ounces of water just beforehand and then hold it until the procedure was done. it wasn't the most relaxing acupuncture treatment i have had.

so the doc came in after the treatment and i was terrified i was going to pee on him. and i asked the nurse if that had ever happened. she said yes, which didn't make me feel better. actually, a no wouldn't have been what i wanted to hear, either. (no, i didn't pee. well, not on him, anyway. i peed in a bed pan right after the procedure because they want you laying down for twenty minutes and i was having another acupuncture treatment so there was no way in hell i could have held all of that for another half hour.)

but the news was that the first embryo did not survive the thaw. and i know it's just a bunch of cells, but it made me really sad to hear that. then after the sad feeling sunk in, i realized that meant we were putting two embryos back in. the other two had survived, and there was no way i was letting one die off and there was no way i was re-freezing one.

so we watched in the ultrasound screen as a tiny bubble entered my uterus. it was just like watching when you were transferred back to my body. it's amazing to know what that tiny bubble can become.

so here we are. i have two embryos in my uterus. floating around in there looking to attach to the uterine wall. i am meditating and visualizing and hoping. and i am asking all of my friends to do the same. we find out next friday whether you will have a sibling. and then sometime next month we find out whether you will have one or two. it's going to be a long wait. both times. but i am feeling positive and hopeful. and i know that in the end it all happens the way it's supposed to.