i must hate myself

I must hate myself.

I purposefully looked at ultrasound and bump pictures of women who are currently pregnant.

What good did that do me?  None.

It just made me sad.

and cry.

goodbye facebook....again.

two months

Two months have passed. Crazy.

Now that I've hit this mark I'm allowed to use tampons, take baths and use hot tubs, and even have the sexy time (spoken in Borat's voice).

I'm not feeling very insightful today. Work has actually been busy for me these past two days and I don't even have time to be sad. Wow. That must be why I broke down after work and randomly started crying on the way to craft night.

I am so so so thankful for all of my friends. Thank you so much for remembering and thinking of me, Keith and Aidan. It truly means so much to me.

greeting card

http://www.someecards.com/baby-cards/congratulations-on-not-having-a-miscarriage

That's my exact thought every time I see a mom and her new baby.

red poppies

If you hadn't noticed, I changed the design of my blog a short while ago (it used to be orangey with watermarked flowers and hummingbirds). This design called to me for a few reasons...

I had started looking for nursery themes and bedding early on in my pregnancy. I tried not to get too into it, as I knew I wanted to decorate based on the gender of the baby, and we weren't going to find that out until I was 20 weeks. But I had such a strong feeling that Aidan was going to be a boy that I researched a lot, only looking at "boy" themes. I never found the perfect bedding, but I knew I wanted red in it - either as the main color or as a strong accent color. I have associated the color red with Aidan since then, and it has come back to me several times (born bright red, our little fire, etc). So the fact that there is red in this design is reason #1.

When I first found out I was pregnant I immediately started browsing the forums on thebump.com. I never posted there, but I liked reading about other women's pregnancies, what they were up to and what they were experiencing, and in general just getting advice about things (all without talking to anyone). Aidan was due in August, so I mainly looked at the board for us August 2011 moms. A lot of the women had little pictures of red poppies in their signature, stating that they were "Ready to 'pop' in August." I eventually discovered that each month has a flower (or two) associated with it, just like there is a birthstone for every month. Poppies are the flower for August. The flowers you see in my new design are poppies, making this reason #2.  The fact that the poppies are red (or perhaps red-orange?) are an added bonus.

This background is one of many that blogger allows you to choose from. I wasn't up for finding my own background and getting super creative, so I was content to choose from their vast list. Initially I only looked at backgrounds with a lot of red in them, but I was finding that they were too bright or too harsh. I passed this one up at first, but I came back to it, appreciating its simplicity and the serenity it brought to the page. So, there you have reason #3.

It may seem silly to write a whole post about why I changed my design, but I'm finding throughout the day that I'll just come here and stare at the screen.  Just looking at my blog brings me a little peace, and hey, at this point I'll take whatever I can get. 

without you

MIMI
Without you, the ground thaws, the rain falls, the grass grows.
Without you, the seeds root, the flowers bloom, the children play.
The stars gleam, the poets dream, the eagles fly, without you.
The earth turns, the sun burns, but I die, without you.

Without you, the breeze warms, the girl smiles, the cloud moves.
Without you, the tides change, the boys run, the oceans crash.
The crowds roar, the days soar, the babies cry, without you.
The moon glows, the river flows, but I die, without you.

ROGER
The world revives—

MIMI
Colors renew—

BOTH
But I know blue, only blue, lonely blue, within me blue.

MIMI
Without you.
Without you, the hand gropes, the ear hears, the pulse beats.

ROGER
Without you, the eyes gaze, the legs walk, the lungs breathe.

ROGER
The mind churns!

MIMI
The mind churns!

ROGER
The heart yearns!

MIMI
The heart yearns!

BOTH
The tears dry, without you.
Life goes on, but I’m gone.
Cause I die, without you.

MIMI
Without you.

ROGER
Without you.

BOTH
Without you.

quick update

I went from having hypothyroidism to hyperthyroidism, i.e. my thyroid was doing too little and now it is doing too much. Thank you, pregnancy.

I still need medicine to control my thyroid, but now I'll take a lower dose to bring my levels back to normal.


This could explain some of the craziness I've been experiencing (mood swings, tired all the time, some insomnia, some weight loss) but I also just lost a child, so who knows.

let's go red wings

What's new?

The Detroit Red Wings swept the Phoenix Coyotes last night and are now moving on to Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This is our 20th consecutive year in the playoffs. We are pretty much the bomb diggity.

I had a good day yesterday and even felt good about myself for a change, so I rewarded myself by staying up till 1am watching the game at Cheli's with Keith and some friends.  The last time I hung out with these guys was St. Patty's day when I had two breakdowns, and some random guy apparently wanted to take my picture while I was sobbing on Keith's shoulder. Good times.  But! I did not cry last night!  Success!

I pretty much cried all day on Tuesday, though, so yesterday was a nice change of pace.

I'm probably going to start using facebook again..My single-word post the other day was just to see who's out there. And, btw, none of you responded appropriately, although I should have written it better..  I was hoping to see "I'm a car" as a response. Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about.

It's actually really nice not checking facebook every day to see what others are doing, then worrying that you missed something so you spend an hour reading through everything in your newsfeed.  It's freeing.  But, I do miss seeing pictures (even the ones that I torture myself with) and I think I'm feeling ok enough to not post something depressing every day. Well, I feel ok enough today not to post something depressing. Can I just point out that I'm not crazy and babies/pregnancy-related things really are following me? I did look at facebook on Tuesday and what were the first things in my newsfeed? (Adorable) Baby bump pictures from that girl-that-I-really-like-and-we-were-supposed-to-share-our-pregnancies-together-but-I-just-had-to-ruin-it and a pic of an acquaintance's brand new baby girl, who is perfect, of course, and alive. The magic word.

I'm going to make this an extra long post, as I just received a call from my doctor. I had some bloodwork done last week to make sure all of my levels are ok. Apparently my thyroid is low. I'm not sure how low, but I now have an appointment this afternoon to find out.  I've been on thyroid medication for.. some amount of time now. A year? or two? And I honestly believe that either my thyroid or my medication for it is encouraging my depression(or whatever you want to call it), and both could be true according to the interwebs.  I'm not sure how long the medication stays in your system, but I'm pretty sure I forgot to take my pill on Tuesday (did I mention how bad my memory has gotten?). Tuesday ended up being a terribly bad day for me. Coincidence? I don't know.  I also think I might have forgotten to take a pill around the time I had the bloodwork done (maybe a few days before) so I wonder if that screwed up the test? We shall see. I'll let you know what's up after my appointment.

back to reality

I had a good time in Kansas City this past weekend. Double D and LicK 'M did many things.. we ate, drank, watched free movies, traveled back and forth between KS and MO a million times, four squared (we're not in Kansas any more!), shopped, danced like fools, hung out with giant plastic animals, and I got two manicures. Yes, two. 

I only cried once (thanks Keith) but almost cried again when the subject of kangaroos was brought up (thanks again, Keith!).

All in all, a good trip.

Thank you D&D for hosting us and taking us out and almost punching that waddling pregnant lady.



I was hoping that the positive vibes of the trip would carry me through this week, but I didn't even make it through this morning.  There are so many thoughts running through my head I don't even know where to start. They will have to be saved for another post. Or two. Or twenty.

So, just letting you know that I'm back. Back to work, back to thinking, back to feeling sad.

viability

Today would have marked my 24th week of pregnancy. That means five and a half months pregnant, a.k.a. a long-ass time.

This also means that if Aidan were still alive and in my womb, if he were born today or any day after, he would have a 50% chance of surviving, or higher (according to our information god, wikipedia). Granted, Aidan would need a lot of intervention, as his lungs would not be fully developed and who knows what else would be wrong, but at least he'd have a chance to fight and to live.

Some day I hope to make it this far.

Today I am thinking about all of the mothers out there, whether they are brand new, a BLM or one of the lucky ones, who are praying that they make it to viability. Be strong, fight that god-damn infection, lie upside-down, drink lots of water, do whatever your doctor says to stop the bleeding, think positively...  just don't ever give up.

lightweight

All right, world. What's next?

C'mon. Throw another punch or two.

Each swing just makes me stronger.






no.. really. I've had enough.

a not sad day

When I wake up each morning I have no idea how that day is going to be. I could have a great day or I could have an utterly sad day (as has been the past several days). I might even wake up feeling like P. Diddy and then I might brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack. Still waiting for this day to happen.

Today happened to be a good day. Other than crying a little this morning when thinking of the impending baby shower, I was not sad for most of the day.

Some things that made me not sad...

#1 The weather was AMAZING today. After weeks of cold, gloomy weather, we finally had a real spring day. Heck, it was like summer outside. I wore shorts! and no jacket! I am definitely one of those people who gets sad and depressed in the winter, due to seasonal affective disorder (I should probably look into getting one of those therapy lights to help with that), so you can only imagine how awful I've been feeling, not only because my child is dead but the frickin' weather just gets me down. Did I ever mention that February is my least favorite month? Maybe I'll write a post on that later. Anyway, thank you weather for being nice today!!

#2 My flowers are growing and my plants are budding. I planted tulips and other random flowers last year in the flower beds Keith and I created in front of our house. Amazingly, Sergei the Squirrel did not eat all of them (like he's done in past years) and I have real flowers growing! I kind of consider these as Aidan's flowers, since I planted them in November of last year, around the time that he was conceived. So.. grow Aidan's flowers, grow! Carry on.

These were supposed to be in a straight line...

Tulips and other random things

Lilac buds in our back yard

#3 My husband made this for me:

It's a shoe bench. The top part opens up so I can put gloves, hats and other things in there, and then below that we have 3 rows of shoe storage. How cool is that? He just needs to stain it and it'll be all done.

So, that's my day. We actually also celebrated my mother-in-law's and her husband's birthdays today. We had lunch at Famous Dave's and then a young girl and her family (and what appeared to be her baby-daddy) decided to sit down at the table next to us and for the next hour I got to stare at their months-old son. Awesome.  But, for the most part, it was a not sad day.

breathe

I was writing this in response to Claire's comment, but it turned into something post-worthy.

The next big event (that I know of) is going to be a thousand times worse than the birthday party I skipped yesterday.  I cry just thinking about it.

I have three weeks to prepare myself for this event. As much as I am dreading it, I do not want to miss it for the world.

Commence countdown to my best friend's baby shower.


edit: I feel I have to clarify that I have three best friends, in case some of you are confused. Thankfully only one of them is pregnant.

edit #2: or maybe it's four best friends. or five. Whatever. You all are important to me!

not to go

I didn't go. Not up for torturing myself tonight.

to go or not to go

A friend is having a birthday party tomorrow night. A lot of people I know will be there, along with a lot of people I don't know.

I'm really anxious about going. The last time I was around that many people I knew, I had to leave 10 minutes after showing up because I couldn't stop myself from crying.

Don't know what to do.

return to sender

I dreamt last night that a UPS driver came to our house to deliver a package. I was home, and answered the door as he dropped off the package. Looking at the label, I realized it was not meant for us - someone else's name and address was written on it; someone I had never heard of and whose address was nowhere near our house. I yelled for the driver to come back for the package. He came back and apologized, unsure of how this mistake happened.  He left with the package and drove off.

Earlier this morning a UPS truck pulled up in front of the house next to ours. I watched the driver grab a package from the back and exit his truck. He walked across the street and put the package in our neighbor's door, then went back to his truck and drove away. A half hour later I saw a FedEx truck drive by, but he didn't stop.

FUCK

YOU

thank you door

Today I am thankful for my office door.

Our building has some heating problems (which are supposed to get fixed today!), so with my space heater running I can close the door and make it nice and warm in here.

When I shut the door it blocks out most sounds from neighboring offices and allows me to have phone calls without disturbing anyone else.

I can also hide from everyone when I close the door, which allows me to have a crying session whenever I want, like I did 5 minutes ago.

A thank you also goes out to Mark, my office-mate, for not being here so I don't have to cry in the bathroom.

bloody exciting

TMI Alert.




I think it's finally safe to say that I just finished up a two-week long period.

What?  Remember that spotting I told you about, oh, two weeks ago? Yeah, that never stopped, until now. In fact, it got heavier and heavier until yesterday when it just decided to stop, cold turkey. There was a trickle here and there but it didn't slow down or taper off as I was expecting it to. I'm so glad my body knows what it's doing.

I had actually written up a post a few days ago about this, but never got around to posting it. "Enough already" was it's title. That was my mantra every time I used the bathroom. Enough of this frickin' blood already! Just stop! Thankfully my body has finally listened. This is something I am actually excited about. For realz.

Seriously, though, what is my body going to do next? It surprised me with an early period and surprised me even more by making it last two bloody weeks (pun intended, thank you British slang).  Is it going to wait another few weeks and then start up again? Well, I suppose if I'm on a normal cycle then that's exactly what it should do. But will it last three weeks (going up by one each time) or perhaps it will give me a four-week long period (doubling every time or going up exponentially)? Maybe it will be super short or skip the next one all-together.

Body, all I ask is that you figure yourself out. The only thing I can do to help is medicate you, and I prefer doing that as little as possible. Please take me back to a normal cycle. Get us as normal as possible and as healthy as possible (I'll try to eat better to help with that). Refresh that uterus and replenish the gallons of blood I lost these past few weeks. The sooner we get better means the sooner we can try again and therefore the sooner we can give Aidan a little brother or sister.

pants.

My pants are too big.


Usually that is a sign of a great accomplishment, such as weight loss, and now you get to go shopping (woo!) and buy new clothes (woo! woo!). Most women would be jumping for joy if that phrase was ever uttered from their mouth. Not me. I'm sure you know where this is going.

You see, about three months ago I realized I could no longer comfortably fit into my pre-pregnancy pants. That's when I bought some BeBands from Target. They're probably the most amazing things ever. They are a wide, stretchy elastic band that you wear around your waist/hips, and they allow you to wear your pants unbuttoned, and therefore more comfortably, without anyone knowing.

About a month after that I realized that I needed new work pants, as a few had shrunk (my pants always shrink up instead of in) and the others were not warm enough for walking around in chilly New York City. I don't have to wear work pants that often, only when I'm on-site at a client, so I don't have that many pairs.. like 5 total.   I headed back to Target in search of cheap pants. Amazingly enough I found three pairs that fit almost perfectly. Two were a little snug in the waist if buttoned, but roomy enough in the hips, which allowed my hips to grow with the looming baby weight and I could still wear the BeBand to keep everything from falling down when I unbuttoned them. The third pair was a perfect fit - I didn't need to unbutton them and they didn't dig into my stomach. I was quite excited about these pants (amazing how such a little thing could get me excited back then (that's what she said?)) and how good I felt in them.

Now, all three pairs are too big. Even the two that were snug when buttoned. If I want to wear these, I either need to gain weight (um, not till the next baby, plz) or wear the BeBand. Guess what I found myself doing these past two mornings?  Yup. Putting on the giant pants and pulling that meant-for-pregnancy BeBand up around my waist.   I suppose I could have worn my other work pants, but honestly, I didn't want to.  I really do like these pants. I want them to fit. I want to be pregnant with Aidan. But, I digress.

So there I am, wearing these too-big pants and an elastic band to keep them from falling down. You can't tell I'm wearing the band as I'm wearing a shirt over it (thank goodness, it would be a little awkward if i went to work shirtless) but I can feel the band and have to adjust it every now and then when it shifts. I go to work, do my thang, and come home. A normal day, for the most part. But I kinda feel like an impostor, wearing this band, like I'm pretending to be in the early stages of pregnancy again.  It's true that they advertise the possibility of using the band after pregnancy, to keep those maternity pants from falling down and so you can wear your pre-pregnancy pants until you lose all of the baby weight.  I wonder if they ever thought of women wearing these after a miscarriage? Perhaps I should tell them to advertise this prospect as well. They could put a flashing yellow sign on their website stating "Works for miscarriages, too! Guaranteed to keep those maternity jeans up even though you never got a chance to wear them."

Good advertising, eh? It would definitely reach a broader audience.

I digress, again.   Next week Keith and I will be visiting Danielle and Derek in good ole' Kansas City. They have an outlet mall there, which Danielle and I will be hitting up. Guess what they have at the outlet mall? Pants. I will be an impostor no more and my pants will fit once again.

I'm sure we can all relate to this

http://xkcd.com/881/

Alt text: "My normal approach is useless here, too."

what if?

what if i took better care of myself during my pregnancy? what if i drank more cranberry juice or ate more yogurt? what if i noticed those tiny signs that seemed so normal; just a pregnancy thing? what if i did something about it?

would i still have gotten the infection?

what if i hadn't reacted to those antibiotics? what if i took them, and they didn't cause me to vomit, and it cured my infection before it was too late?

would i still have aidan? would i be on inverted bed rest praying that my sac would repair itself as it slowly filled with fresh, live-giving fluid?

what if i would have been one of the lucky few who made it to viability? to full term?

would aidan be ok? would he have deformities, breathing issues or mental problems due to the stress and low fluid?

i'd like to think that he would have made it far enough, as least so he could be born alive. so he didn't have to struggle by himself in my womb. so he could take a breath of air. so he could open his eyes and look at me, and i could gaze right back at him, into his beautiful hazel eyes. so he could wrap his little hand around my finger.  alive long enough to recognize me as his mother and to hear my voice outside of the womb. long enough for me to tell him how much i tried. and how much i love him.

aweſome! Fantaſtical! Senſational!

April Fools' Day has now become my second favorite holiday. Halloween is first.

I appreciate anything that can make me laugh and today proved to be a good day for that.  I first visited ThinkGeek.com, who always unveils new fake gadgets on April 1st. Last year I believe they had canned unicorn meat, and the year before they had a Tauntaun sleeping bag (remember when Luke sleeps in the slain Tauntaun to stay warm in The Empire Strikes Back?). Both items eventually became so popular that they ended up making them for real. This year they unveiled a slew of things, including Angry Birds pork rinds and arsenic-based sea monkeys. My favorite was the Star Wars lightsaber popsicles. I would buy those in a heartbeat! Hopefully they actually make these and it's totally ok if you want to buy them for my birthday.

Xkcd.com was next on my list. Xkcd is a webcomic about romance, sarcasm, math, and language (that's what it says on the website). It's a really fun comic for anyone, but you'll especially love it if you're into sciencey stuff. Last year Randall, the writer, turned the site into a unix console, so instead of clicking forward, next, etc., you type in your commands just like in a terminal or command shell. He actually still has that available here: unix xkcd.  This year he and a bunch of readers made every comic 3D. When you move your mouse around the screen the perspective changes, giving the comic depth and making it seem like you are looking into a room filled with his stick figure characters.

Xkcd also has a forum, where readers can discuss the comics and other things, such as coding and sports. This week apparently is "Mod Madness," which they coincided with April Fools. The forum admins set up a parser that changes specific words found throughout the forums to something else. For example, anywhere you see the word "thread" you would now see "powwow." Since these are a bunch of geeky guys, phrases like "the speed of light" would get changed to the actual equation for the speed of light!  Little things were done too, like "of" was changed to "o'" (so everyone sounded Irish) and they changed the letter S in some words to a tall s, ſ. It may not sound that fun here, but I spent a good part of my day reading the forums, laughing at all of the silly sentences and words that came up. I could go on forever listing all of the things they changed, but you can just take a look for yourself if you want: xkcd forums. 

There were a bunch of other good ones too, like Google's Gmail Motion, a British newspaper saying that Portugal is selling Ronaldo (their star soccer player) to Spain to pay off their debt (The Independent), and LinkedIn.com listing historical people we might know, like Sherlock Holmes and Groucho Marx.  If you looked at any of those links, I hope you found them somewhat amusing.  Did you discover any other funny April Fools' jokes today? Feel free to share.. I'm always up for some humor.