Dot Day

It has been exactly one year now since my LMP.  It’s easy to remember the date after writing or typing it so many times to calculate the due date.  This day started the cycle when little V. was conceived. 

I remember this day last year very vividly.  I was in tears for much of it.  I didn’t want to do clmid this cycle, but T. talked me into it.  I think it sucks when you’re ttc that you get so little time to mourn a failed cycle; the day you get your period you already have to start thinking about the next one. 

Today, I am deeply grateful.

Back to school

I think I can do this.

The woman in my program who accidentally got knocked up while I was TTC and failing is back, and we’re all friendly-friendly now.  She still really annoys me though.  However, now it’s less about the bump envy and more about her penchant for dispensing unsolicited assvice ABOUT EVERYTHING.

Miscellaneous Monday

One time I was boarding a bus and the bus driver said “you’ve got a third arm coming out of your stomach!”  Her little arm had worked free from the Ella Roo wrap and was sticking out of the otherwise undifferentiated bulge.  Today I was walking across a parking lot without her, and I felt like something – such as an entire limb – was missing.

~

Ok, so I know I was going to shut up about the in-laws, but this I could not believe.  Last night my MIL was wondering out loud whether little V. can recognize individuals (i.e. Grandma) yet, and launched into a reminiscence about when T. was about this age – maybe a little more than 3 months old – and she and FIL went on vacation, and left him behind with a sitter… FOR TWO WEEKS!!!!!  I was in SHOCK.  Wha-?  She said that they wondered whether he’d recognize them when they got back, but he seemed happy to see them… that she’d been ok the first week, but the second week was really hard because she missed him so much.  HOW ON EARTH could that have seemed like a good idea?  Even in 1965???  I cannot even IMAGINE.

does this mean anything? probably not.

Last night – or, rather, early this morning – I dreamed for the second time that I was being sexually assaulted by the doctor who delivered V.  He’s kind of a small man though so in both dreams I successfully fended him off.  But it gave me a really icky feeling!!!

At sea

This excellent post by Heather really moved me, and made me revisit my thoughts and feelings about faith.

A couple years ago, when depression had delayed our starting TTC, I had this mental image of my spiritual state of being.  Imagine a lake, with a dock, and a boat tied to the dock.  Over time, the rope that moors the boat has frayed, and, without warning, one day it snaps.  At first there is no obvious consequence; the boat continues to bob on the water and bump rhythmically against the dock.  But little by little, then, it slowly begins to drift away. 

The person in the boat (erm, that would be me) is staring at the sky.  Minutes pass, then hours, days, and weeks, until at last I look up and notice that I’ve begun to drift.  No matter; I have oars, it’s not far.  I can row back anytime I want to.  It’s just that… I don’t really want to…

And the next time I look up, I’m even farther from shore.

This time it looks too far.

I would hold this mental image in my mind and feel a tremendous sadness, at the loss of the secure mooring.  For several years, I kept thinking that soon, soon I would feel the desire to pray again.  But that moment never came.  The closest I’ve really come have been the times of despair when I would talk to my late grandmother, or the litanies I’ve said for fellow stirrup queens.

But now, today, I feel like my boat has sailed into the open sea, as it was meant to do – tacking into the wind, under a cheerful sun, free into the wild blue.

Mortality

It seems like becoming a grandmother has made my MIL more conscious of her mortality.  By the third week she was musing that she’d not likely live to see little V. get married: “when she turns 20, I’ll be 88…” – much less live to see her great-grandchildren.  But really, how many of us have had the opportunity to meet our great-grandparents?  I met one great-grandmother, Rosa, a Quechua woman who wore her hair in two long braids, along with the traditional Andean skirt.  But I barely remember the meeting; it could even be that what I actually remember is the photograph of her.  I must have been 3 or 4 years old.  And how many of my grandparents made it to my wedding?  Zero.  How many of T’s?  One. 

The thing is, MIL’s older sister, who is still active and mentally acute, has any number of great-grandchildren.  I think that for all these years it has really rankled MIL to have to ooh and ah over her sister’s multiplying descendants.  Now it’s her turn, and she wants it all…

A couple times she asked in quick succession, how old was I when T and I got married?  And how long have we been married?  And how old am I now?  In my hypersensitivity, I interpret this line of questions to be about “why did you wait so long to have kids?”  (We are in the closet about our struggles to conceive).  T, on the other hand, takes it as her wondering whether there might be more where this one came from. 

It’s made me think a lot about what it means to be a grandparent. 

My ILs are away for two weeks and DAMN I miss the help.  I really really should not complain about them so much.  This here blog, though, is kind of the one spacewhere I do.

goodbye, old blog

Today I actually deleted the old blog, “The I Word.”  Even though all the posts have been uploaded here, it’s still a weird feeling.  257 posts over the course of 611 days.  Blogging has allowed me to connect to so many cool people, whose blogs I follow avidly.  People I think about throughout the day, tell my husband stories from, and … for awhile … even prayed for.  I’ve had a troubled relationship with faith, but for several months while TTC and then while PG, I used to pray a sort of version of the Hail Mary while trying to fall asleep at night.  I hope it’s not sacreligeous, but I would substitute in the names of people on my blogroll.  It seemed right, somehow, to pray to the Mother of God for all future and actual mothers.

A Stirrup-Queen friend of mine recently told me that she named her son Samuel because of her identification with Hannah in the Bible. 

Anyway… deleting the old blog has made me a mite pensive tonight.  Though, granted, it doesn’t take much 🙂