I did it!

I just called the RE and scheduled an appointment for August to talk to her about trying for number two.  I've been thinking about it for a long time but just couldn't get myself going to do it.  Then I saw how much Bean could really roll with the punches on this trip we just took and started thinking a lot about how long we wanted to have between babies, if we have any control over it.  So all the sudden I felt ready and I just sat down and did it. And it felt really good.  Scary, but good.

Vacation Revelations

We just got back from our "vacation" a few days ago.  I use the word vacation loosely because I always think of a vacation as something relaxing that you come back from feeling refreshed and ready to go.  I came back feeling exhausted and like I needed about 3 days to sleep it off.  We have a lot of family and friends in different places, so our vacations often turn into trips to visit folks we don't get to see very often.  Often it involves Hubby's family too.  There is good and bad in all of this, and while it is very tempting to use this post to rant about all the frustrating and exhausting things that happened in the last week and a half, instead I'm going to focus on some things I learned on this vacation.  It may not have helped me recharge my batteries, but it did give me new perspective on my life, and that's worth an awful lot.  So here's what I learned.

-I have an amazing husband.  Amazing.  He is so great with Bean, he's so supportive of me, he's funny and silly but knows when to be serious.  He helps me stay calm when I'm starting to lose my cool and he knows when I need a little reminder to just chill out and stop getting so worked up about things.  I realize more and more how lucky I am to have not only a husband, but a partner in life.  He helps with everything and doesn't expect me to take on the role of parent or home caretaker alone.  I am so very thankful for him.

-Bean is more able to go with the flow then I am.  I had a lot of worries about this trip related to Bean because there wasn't a lot of concern about her schedule or about baby proofing so that she'd be in a safer/easier environment.  I almost broke down a couple times with the anticipation of how hard it was going to be for her to play and sleep in our surroundings.  Well, she was just fine.  She didn't touch what she was told not to touch and she slept better on our trip then she has at home in awhile.  She was able to deal with the fact that we stayed in three different places with different people.  The only real problem that she had was that she didn't want to eat a lot of the food that she was offered, but I was prepared for that and had back ups.  She totally made me realize that I have to give her the opportunity to try things more often because she can handle what's thrown at her.

-I have to be less of a control freak.  If my 14 month old can deal with all this change and doesn't bat an eye when her nap is late or dinner is early or our normal schedule is completely thrown out the window, then I need to be better about dealing with it too.  On the outside, you'd probably never know that I'm having any kind of a problem, because I try to make sure that my craziness doesn't effect the other people we're spending time with, on the inside though I'm definitely having trouble giving up my control freak tendencies and am usually a big ball of stress.  I relax more as time goes by, but I admit that I do have a hard time, and I need to work on that.

-I love my house.  I was so happy to come home.  It's so cozy and comfy and it's safe for Bean.  I love her nursery.  I love rocking her to sleep in her big, comfy glider and snuggling her into her crib.  I love watching her run around and dance to her favorite music and I love that she can play in our fenced yard without having to worry about cars or neighbors or anything else.  I love how comfortable she is here and how she feels like she can be herself.  I love the moments when she starts babbling at the tree out her window or when she runs away without a diaper on and her little naked tush disappears around the corner.  I am so blessed to have such a wonderful home and yes, I wish I had more time to keep it more orderly, but it's ours and I love it and I am SO happy to be back here.

-Finally, as much as I complain about the fact that I wish all of my friends lived in the same place and weren't spread out across the country, I am so thankful for the fact that I have these friends.  It's nice to know that when you're in a new place, you have familiar faces to see there, and while I do wish that I got to see them much more often, we make the most of our time together and I'm just really thankful to have such wonderful people in my life.  People who you can be stressed and crazy around but they still remember who you really are without all the nuttiness.  People who have seen the hardest times in your life and now can really celebrate the victories with you.  People who understand you and who you don't have to explain yourself to.  People who it's just easy to be with and who you love more each time you see them, even when you don't think it's possible to love them any more.

It wasn't a relaxing vacation for sure, but it did make me think a lot about how very lucky I am.  It also helped me learn a lot about traveling with a little one and that will hopefully make our future trips a lot easier.  In the end, it was worth it both for what I learned on this trip and because our little family got to spend every single day together for over a week.  And any time that happens, it's a good thing, no matter the circumstances.

An Old Friend

Today I got to spend the morning with an old friend.  We see each other about once a year and talk on the phone whenever we have the chance (and since I have Bean and she has three little guys, that isn't nearly as often as we would like).  We live pretty far away from each other, so these face to face visits are pretty special and really looked forward to.

She's a friend of mine from before married life.  We went to school together and were "in the trenches" of inner city teaching together.  She kept me sane, made me laugh, and listened to me cry.  We were even kind of in the infertility trenches together.  When I was trying to get pregnant with Bean, she was trying to get pregnant with her second.  She never went to see a doctor or had interventions, but it took her a year to get pregnant, and we would talk about the heartache and frustration.

Not long after I had my miscarriage, she called to say that she was pregnant again.  I have to say that it was the only time during those years that I was able to be happy for someone without being sad for myself.  When I did finally get pregnant, we happened to be visiting near where she lived and I got to spend the day with her.  Her birthday had just passed and I had been so crazy with all of the newly pregnant details, that I hadn't had a chance to get her a gift.  Just before we left home though, actually on her birthday, we had our first or second ultrasound at about 6 weeks and I had a picture from it.  I told her that I was sorry that I didn't have a present for her, but I could show her a present that I got on her birthday.  When she took the picture out of the envelope and realized what it was, she was beyond excited.  The threw the picture up in the air and yelled, scaring both of her kids, and then worrying that she had hurt my precious picture.  It was the best reaction I got telling people that I was pregnant because she didn't know the ins and outs of our doctors visits like most people did, so I could surprise her, and she really got it.

She's my only fertile friend who I really feel like understands all parts of me.  When I was trying to have a baby and we'd get to spend time together, I would love on her kids and just imagine what it would be like to add my own to the mix.  So this visit was really special because it was the first time that she met Bean and the first time that our little miracle babies were together.  Hubby and I have joked ever since Bean was born that her little boy that it took her so long to add to her family, was Bean's little boyfriend. The just both seem like special little babies and since they're only a year apart, we just couldn't help it.  Well today when they met it seemed like they knew our plan, because they got along just wonderfully together and took to each other right away.

So today I got the day that I had dreamed of long ago with the two of us chatting while our little ones played.  Talking about nap times, breastfeeding, and play dates instead of basal body temperatures and negative pregnancy tests.  It was a special day, with a one of a kind friend, and our little miracles.

Rejuvenated

It's been a tough couple days here.  We're visiting with family and it's been a little trying.  I won't go into too many details, because I'm so tired of being negative and I feel like that's what's happened to me these few days.  I've been bogged down in the badness of it all.  Then I finally had five minutes to myself and I started reading other people's blogs and you know what, it totally rejuvenated me.  I was reminded of all the wonderful gifts that I have in my life, of the job that I have been given to set an example for Bean, and that I can do difficult things gracefully instead of just getting through it.  I feel ready to face the rest of this visit with a new source of energy and I have all of you brilliant bloggers to thank for it.  Thank you for being such a wonderful community and for continuing to push and inspire me everyday.  You're all amazing!

Still Broken

I don't like to speak for other people, but I don't think I'm pushing it when I say that at some point in the infertility journey, there's a point when you hope that you'll wake up and be fixed.  I know I had those moments often.  I knew pretty early on that something was wrong with me.  I didn't get my period until I was 16 or 17, and at the time I thought that was awesome.  It didn't hit me until later that this could be bad (it was actually a made for tv movie with Tr.acey G.old about infertility that opened my eyes to that fact).  My GP right before I got married told me not to worry, that a lot of people just need their cycles "reset" and after I stopped birth control I could very well be "normal."  I'd love to meet these people, because I'm really skeptical about their existence.  Anyway, I was really hopeful that I would in fact be fixed.  Not so much though.

As soon as I stopped taking birth control, my body slowly went out of whack again.  It took a little while.  I thought for awhile maybe I was okay because it took a couple months for my cycles to stretch themselves out and then stop again.  Some other things happened too though, the most obvious to me was the fact that my hair fell out much more easily then it ever had before.  Now I'm not saying that you could tell this by looking at me, but when I'd brush my hair or run my fingers through it, I'd be left with enough hair that I had to make a trip to the garbage can.  It was disconcerting.  And once I got diagnosed with PCOS, it became the only really daily reminder that I was broken.  My periods didn't come very often, so I could briefly forget I was infertile when I wasn't having one and physically, I don't have a lot of the other outward signs that some folks with PCOS have.  I count myself lucky for the fact that I don't have a lot of problems from the PCOS, but I know that I'll never be fixed.  I don't ovulate.  You can't make a baby if you don't ovulate.  So the hair falling out, it reminded me for 3 years that I couldn't make a baby.

Then I got pregnant, and my hair was beautiful pregnancy hair.  I don't think a strand fell out for 9 months.  It was pretty nice.  And since then I've been nursing, which has kept my hormones all wacky.  I finally got a period right around Easter and around the same time, guess what started happening?  Yup, the hair thing.  Now I never expected to be fixed after I had a baby.  I never thought that all the sudden I would be able to have as many as I wanted, whenever I wanted.  I just didn't have to think about it for awhile.  We weren't ready to think about more and I was thick in the middle of mama-hood.  I was happily ignoring my infertility, so it came and knocked on my door.  Just to remind me that it was still there, that I was still broken, that those silly little dreams I have of the surprise positive pregnancy test are just that, silly little dreams.  And so that's when I started thinking more seriously about going back to the RE, of what it would take for us to be ready, and I reminded myself of what all this was going to be like.  I can't say I was too excited when I really thought about walking into that office again.

So I'm curious to hear from those of you who have been through it more then once.  How was it the same or different the second time?  Is there any hope that it will be easier this time, or is that as foolish an idea as the dream of being fixed?  I'd love to hear from those who've been there.  Because maybe if I know the reality of it, I can stop fixating on this stupid hair of mine.

A summertime word of warning

We learned the hard way yesterday that sandboxes and onsies DO NOT go together.  I didn't even think about it when I let Bean into her sandbox wearing just a diaper and a onsie but before long she was shifting around, getting up and down, and looking uncomfortable.  I realized pretty quickly that her little diaper was filled with sand so I was going to take it off of her so she could run around in the back yard and get as much of the sand off as she could.  (For the record, our yard is fenced so she wouldn't be showing her naked self to the whole neighborhood.)  Well, I quickly aborted this when I realized that sand wasn't the only thing that her diaper was filled with which lead to a BAD situation.  It's impossible to clean a dirty little butt that's also covered in sand without causing a lot of discomfort.  Hubby tried briefly before she got pretty sad and we just plopped her into the bathtub.  Of course, at this point she was really sad and would only be happy if I got into the tub with her.  Finding yourself in a bathtub with a poo and sand covered baby is one of those situations that you just don't imagine when you have a baby!  Needless to say, I took a shower after our bath, but the whole thing was just such a disaster, so I'm putting it out there to save all of the rest of you (although you may be smarter then me and not do this in the first place.)  No sandboxes and onesies!  Put some pants on those kiddos first!

Being a mama

I've been thinking about this one for a long time.  I spent a long time longing for and working hard to physically be a mama.  This gave me lots of time to think about parenthood and my relationship with my own mother, which, isn't so great.  We don't have a horrible relationship, we just don't really have a good one.  She's pretty much openly favored my brother as long as I can remember and it's caused a lot of tension in our relationship.  We're civil and I do what I have to do to make sure that I don't make any waves, but when I see people who enjoy spending time with their mother or who look forward to calling her to share news or get advice, I have NO idea what that is like.  My mother isn't the one who went wedding dress shopping with me, she wasn't giving me advice on the phone when I was pregnant, and she certainly didn't support me when I was struggling to get pregnant.  And I've come to terms with all that over the years, but now that I'm the mama of a little girl, I see things a little differently.

At first when I was pregnant, I gave my mom more leeway then I have in a long time.  I started to realize that as a parent, you do the best that you possibly can in any given situation.  You're going to make mistakes, you're going to look back in hindsight and say, I should have done that differently, but in the end you want the best for your child.  You come to the table with love and that's the most important thing.  So I started trying to give my mom the benefit of the doubt and look back on her parenting decisions from her perspective instead of my own, because that's what I hope Bean will do some day.

Then Bean arrived and I can't describe the love that I feel for her.  I am bringing love to the table, I am making every decision the best that I possibly can at that moment, and I am doing everything in my power to have a relationship with her that is different then the one that I have with my mom.  I have less understanding now then I did before.  I see this little person growing and developing and I can't understand how some of the emotions that it's clear my own mother has towards me are possible.  I just can't wrap my brain around it.  So I'm trying very hard to make sure that things are different for Bean, but to be honest, I'm not sure how.  My mother didn't have a good relationship with her mother and spent her entire life as a parent trying to do the opposite so that she would have a different outcome.  She tried so hard and yet failed so badly.  How do I not fall into that same trap?

I don't have an answer for that.  I don't have answers for any of it and I know that my relationship with Bean is going to change over the years.  I just want to figure out how to do it right.  I want to do as little as possible to mess her up because both hubby and I realize that currently our biggest challenges in our lives (outside of infertility) come from our families and our relationships with them.  The last thing I want to be for Bean is a challenge.  The only plan that I can currently come up with is to go with my gut.  My mother made the mistake of trying to be the opposite of someone else instead of just being herself, and in the end, she turned out just like her mother in many, many ways.  So I think the right thing to do is just be real and do what feels right to me.  All of my life experiences have gotten me to this point and I can't believe that I'm going to walk the same path that my mother did, because I'm so aware of it, so I just have to believe that I'm prepared and that when I come to the table with love, that Bean will feel it.  Because believing anything else at this point, just breaks my heart.