Saturday morning bliss...

The house is a little too cold for my liking, I turned the heat off too early again this year, I was fooled by spring again. Those two weeks of warmth and sunshine lulled me into a false sense of security, I forgot the basics, I live in Nova Scotia. However the hot tea is helping to warm my hands and my innards. My feet are warming in the knitted slippers and I have stolen the "brother sweater" from Gil's side of the closet and I am wearing it like a hug. I am not always a practical dresser but with age I am learning the subtle art of layering, of not turning up the heat because I am cold. This house has taught me much about warmth. At the moment it is teaching me about silence, how there is no such thing. The hum of the computer, the trickle of the cats water fountain, the keys clicking beneath my fingers. And yet there is such stillness while the cat and the husband sleep, huddled beneath the covers together, sharing their body heat. I wish it could be like this every morning. Mornings like this my fears are squished back into the very back of my mind, everything seems safe and steady. Time is not flying past me at speeds I can't manage. Up early in the gray light of dawn I snuck out with my girls to the market where I enjoyed hot coffee, warm cinnamon buns, and the therapeutic company of girl friends. I came home with a bag laden with breads and cheese and meat and a pervasive feeling of calm, the house still quiet and dark. While I know there are errands to be run today I am certainly in no hurry to break this reverie.

More thoughts!

I saw Michelle yesterday. I held her while she cried. I listened to her anger. I watched her hold it together and be a parent. I watched her breath, blink and exist. And I wonder how the hell she does it? How does she pick herself off the floor? How does she draw that next breath? How does she look in the eyes of her children and not die of a broken heart. Where does she find the strength? Does she hate God because the sun came up today? Because people went and got groceries and walked their kids to school, kissed their husbands good morning and now good night. Because I would die, I would go super nova. I am so sad for her and i have so much respect for her. Friday is going to be such a hard day.

Terrible Day...

I don't even know where to start. I was feeling pretty good today. The sun was shinning and everything was great. Gil and I had breakfast together before we went to work. It was a good day. Then Gil called. He had a call at work from my friends Michelle's mom. It seems that some time last night her husbands car went off the road and he was killed. The news is reporting that alcohol may have been a factor. I don't know if I believe that. What I do know is that Michelle is the same age as me. She has two young children. She is a widow. A widow. How the fuck is that possible? I feel like my faith in marriage not my marriage mind but as a whole. So many people I know are struggling in their relationships. Three couples who were married around the same time Gil and I are separated and or getting a divorce. It hasn't even been TWO years. And now Kevin is dead. and that could happen to anyone. I have been having a huge amount death anxiety since I found my lump but it has been about me. My fears. I know we all are all going to die someday but it scared the shit out of me. I don't know what I would do if I were Michelle. If something happened to Gil I would be shattered. And now I am afraid. I don't want to become one of those people is so afraid they stop living. I don't want that for myself or my family.
I want to be alive in every sense. And I want to be a good friend to Michelle when she needs me. Sometimes I get this whole deer in the headlights going on in times of need. It is a failing of mine as a friend. It has happened more then once and it is not something I like about myself. I would like very much to change that part of me.

And thus it begins...

I know that it is three months until we move but packing started today. It doesn't seem possible that we have been here two and half years. It feels like I was just packing to move here. Of course then I only had three WEEKS to pack. I was SO stressed I thought I was going to explode. I hope that does not happen this time. It is very hard to have all your stuff in boxes and have boxes piled up all around. I love being in a new place, especially this time knowing that is OUR home, but I hate all the hoopla that goes with it. I am also starting to purge, to throw out things that we no longer need, things we need not hold on to, things that are a bigger pain to move then they are worth. We got rid of the big TV that hardly ever works. We also got rid of the 5 disc CD changer that we never even plugged in.
I want to get rid of more stuff but some of it is hard to part with even though it is just weighing me down. I am thinking about taking some of my old journals up to New Brunswick and throwing them in a bonfire. I don't really need them anymore. I used to think I wanted to keep them because I wanted my children to know all about me. But as I get older, as I look back on that me who was so fucked up, who was so lonely and so hurt and so full of rage and I think I don't want my children to know her. I want them to know more about me then I know about my own mother but I want it to be passed through the mom filter first. They don't need to know all the gory details. And I don't have to be be burdened with the memories they contain. What is in there that can help me now, that can make me a better wife, a better mother? No. Plain and simple. There is nothing there that can bring me happiness so when not watch it all burn which frankly will give me great pleasure. I love watching things burn! I think I will also burn the court transcripts and everything related to that and maybe some old letters too. We'll make an event of it. Let this whole thing be a fresh start.

Stuff...

So there has been no resolution about the whole wedding situation but I don't really want to talk about that, it is still to painful and there is so much more going on in my life at the moment.
For example Gil and I bought a house!!! YAY!!!


I am so excited. We don't move until July but I am loving it so much. I have so many plans and dreams. There is so much to do and I look forward to having some time to get things together rather then rush we had last time.
There was a week or so when things were SUPER stressful but over all it has been fun and much easier then planning a wedding. this is going to be the house we call home, where we raise our children, where we grow old together. This is our Home. We are the Richard's of Hilltop Terrace.
I am going to garden and get a dog and paint and dance around.
That is of course providing that the mass I found is not cancer. Yup. I have a mass, the doctor confirmed it and I am waiting to see someone else. I am scared. I admit it. After a few days of Gil being very passive about the whole thing I finally got him to have a real conversation and he acknowledged my fears and his own and we have a plan and it is a good one. I am scared but I am going to keep putting one foot in front of the other. There are moments when I am consumed but fear, when I can't move or breath or call to Gil for help because my voice is gone. I don't know what scares me more the thought of dying of the thought of being seriously ill but both sound sucky. But I will keep trying to think positive. I will focus on my husband and our new house. Until I have cause not to I will keep up with the adoption prep classes. I will continue my volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity. I will look forward to all the wonderful things my life has to offer and maybe this will be a wake up call for me to simplify and prioritize things.
I am pretty tough!

Happy

Somehow I managed to get enough sleep last night that I woke up feeling refreshed (although a little panicked as I was late for an MSN date with Shannon) I made some tea, read some adoption blogs, chatted with some mates online. I woke Gilly and we went out to run some errands, which included buying me a baseball bat for protection when he is out of town on business (okay it is a little lame but it does make me feel better) and eating chili dogs. We got to have coffee at Starbuck's but Gilly came down with a headache and decided he felt too poopy to go to the Maple Syrup festival. Rather then getting all sulky I was FINE. We came home and sent him to bed for a nap (where he still is). I spent the afternoon reading and drinking coffee and feeling... you guessed it... relaxed! It happened all on it's own. How cool is that? We are spending the night geeking and I am very excited about that. I am having a great day. YAY!

the MELT down...

So last night I just lost it. Not normal losing it but HUGE losing it. I had a hard day. I was angry at Gil from pretty much the time we woke up. Poor pooper couldn't catch a break. We were mean and snarky to each other all day. Then in the afternoon when I had a terrible headache (again) he called to tell me that he is going to be out of town on business on the 2nd and 3rd. Normally I live for this stuff. Just for a night or so I love it when I get the whole house to myself, the whole BED, it is fun, it is nice to miss each other. But THIS time it means that he will be missing our first Adoption prep class. This makes me insane. I know it is not his fault and that he would change the dates if he could but I am still pissed at HIM. So on the way home there is more snarking. We get home and it gets worse. I am tired, probably PMSing and unhappy with how this day is turning out. I say something to Gil, he responds with a smartass remark which is framed to just dent my feelings a little but I LOSE it. I silently go up to the room and flop on the bed. Then my brain gets going a million miles an hour. Half and hour later when Gil comes to see how I am doing (because in his mind it is over) and I just erupt into the ugly cry. There are tears and snot everywhere. I am speaking but the words are just coming out in sobs. I tell him that he doesn't love me because he never shares his feelings with me, that I am such a terrible mother I shouldn't even have a cat. That I will NEVER have a baby and probably don't want one anyway. I tell him that no one understands because they don't have to take these terrible pills and feel all crazy and know that it is their fault we can't make a baby and then I just bawled more. I bawled until my face hurt and he just sat there rubbing my back calm as can be. He is so cool under pressure. Anyway in hind sight I could have seen that coming, it has been a big week. I never do well with big weeks. We have started looking at houses and I totally fell in love with one. Gil's ex added him as a friend on fbook and I had a weird PMSy reaction to that when I thought I would be fine with it. We were out of the house ALL week. I swear we did not eat dinner here once this week. It was a VERY stressful week at work and that was starting to wear on me. All this is usually a recipe for disaster.
I was happy tonight, despite me serious hate on for winter at the moment, that it was too nasty to go out tonight so it has been a very quiet night in, just Gil and I (with brief visits from Aimee and Brianna) Gil is happily blowing stuff up and I am reading and had a LONG bath. This is just what the doctor prescribed.

Deep Brain Ache.

Tonight I am feeling like a wet rag. I have be plagued by headache all day and I am not exhausted. I can feel the sensitivity to light, sound and smell coming on and I know there is little I can do about it.
I have been saddled with headaches my whole life. I can't remember a time when they were not a problem but a few months ago I realized that I had been having them EVERY day for weeks and it was time I did something about it. I went to the doctor and she sent me for a CATscan. I don't have a tumor! Yay. I went to the optometrist, turns out I needed glasses rather badly. But they didn't stop the headaches. So I went to a chiropractor. My neck is all messed up and he thinks he can help me and for a while he does. But the past two weeks the constant dull ache is back. I am fed up. Headaches make me cranky, being cranky makes me no fun to be around. I want to be fun dammit!
Gil and I were out for dinner with a friend visiting from Toronto this evening but my head was pounding and I didn't want to be there, I KNOW I was lousy company. That sucks since we only see this guy once a year or so. He did crack me up though telling me a story about his roommates girlfriend from Scarborough who he met on Craig's List (gag) and who is a "dispatcher" for an escort agency. Only in Toronto man.
Well I am going to take my brain ache to bed, because sleep in a good dark room is the only relief I am going to get.

Okay okay pitty party over.

Let me just say this, it may not seem like it but I love my life. I bitch a lot on here about trying to get pregnant and it has been consuming me for a while however it is not everything and I do know that I am blessed in SO many ways. (1) I have an AMAZING husband. I love him more then I can ever describe with language. He might be the most incredible man on the planet and I feel sad so all the other women who don't get to be married to him. Does he drive me nutty? Sometimes. Does he out and out piss me off? From time to time. If he didn't I would be worried about our marriage. People who live together and socialize together and basically spend a lot of time together, they tick each other off from time to time. Having said that 98% of the time we get along great, he is actually my best friend. I don't mean that in a cheesy way. I mean he IS my best friend.
Okay blessing (2) I have the best group a friends anyone could ever ask for. I am not kidding, my friends are stellar. (3) I have a family who loves me and would do anything for me. The best part of this is that other then my two wonderful brothers, I was not born into this family but they love me anyway and I love them right back. (4) I live in a nice house filled with nice things. In a world so full of want I have everything I need. I am safe and warm and well fed. It is too easy to take that for granted but it is huge blessing. I have a good job, I get my Starbucks fix when ever I need it. I am free to practice or not practice what ever religion I choose. I have the right to vote. The world is pretty much my oyster. I am blessed. I just wanted you to know that I know this and that even when I am feeling lousy about trying to get pregnant I _DO_ see the bigger picture.

I wish I could just be pleased...

I haven't wanted to write about trying to get pregnant for a while, it seems like such a bummer but I have to say this. In the past few weeks it seems like EVERYONE is getting pregnant except me. I have had so many people tell me they were expecting or that they know some who is in the club. I smile, I hug, I congratulate, I silently die inside. SO many pregnant women! Teach me the secret hand shake! For the love of god! I am saying that this news is coming to me once or twice a week! I am being SO good. I am taking the folic acid, I am taking the pills that make me insane, I am eating right, not drinking, reading all the books, seeing the doctor more then I see some members of my family. I am trying to not think about, trying to relax. I swear to got the next person who tells me that I need to just relax and not think about it is getting a punch. I don't believe in violence but I can start. I am exercising, I am getting acupuncture, I am walking around with a stone in my belly button. I am visualizing. I am doing it. Dammit I want to stamp my feet and have a temper tantrum.
okay... I just needed to get that off my chest. Have a good day.

My Blended Family

People are always telling me that they need a road map to follow my family tree. I, of course, think it is fairly easy to navigate but then I have been doing it for 33 years. I have decided it is time to bust it down here.

My Mother, the woman who gave birth to me, was a lovely soul named Leone. She was born in Sydney Nova Scotia in 1940. She grew up... she met and married another lovely soul who we will call Uncle W. They lived in Montreal and had two children, my lovely, awesome brothers who we will refer to as MJ and DeeDee. Note: Here is my first set of siblings and the ONLY ones I know who are biologically related to me- Sadly for all this marriage did not last and while MJ and DeeDee were still very young Leone and Uncle W. divorced. Uncle W. went on to marry a woman who I adore whose name is frighteningly close to Leone's. She had Three children from a previous marriage, Gerry, Brian and Kim. Note:These are my brothers step-siblings but because of the nature of my family I consider these three people to be siblings.-

Leone, MJ and DeeDee moved to Nova Scotia where she took a job, as an RN,at the local nut house. There upon she my biological father. I want to call him ass face, but that is rude and I am grown-up so I will call him Jim. Jim and Leone hooked up. Leone had the misguided impression that she could save Jim despite the fact he was desperately, unalterably broken. One magic night , bing -boom, they made me. By the time nine months rolled by and I made my entrance on to the scene Jim and Leone's marriage had pretty much unraveled (shocking) and after months of bitter divorce and custody battle Jim and Leone divorced. Jim basically wandered into obscurity. When I met him 20 odd years later Jim told me that after Leone he was briefly married or lived with with a woman named Barbara who he left when she was pregnant (yeah what a charmer!) NOTE: I presume that she went ahead and had said child but I do not consider said child to be my sibling in any meaningful way.

Leone went on to marry Paul who she also met at the nut house, who was also desperately, unalterably broken. Paul had two children from a previous marriage, Sean and Kim. Note: I was raised believing Paul to be my biological father so naturally I counted Sean and Kim among my siblings and despite the fact that it was later learned that Paul was not my biological father and the fact that I have not seen them for more then twenty years i still count them in there.
Leone and Paul stayed unhappily married for 8ish years. Let's not mince words... they were not happy years. Their marriage ended when Leone died tragically at the age of 44 from breast cancer.
A few months after Leone passed away Paul's girlfriend moved in and some time later they married. I want to call her The Evil Bitch from Hell, but as I said earlier but that is rude and I am grown-up so I will just call her The
Evil Step-Mother. The Evil Step-Mother brought with her, along with all her other baggage, two Evil Step Sisters. Note: despite the fact that we lived under the same roof for several years and behaved as siblings I do not consider the Evil Step Sisters members of my family-.
On March the 8th 1988, at the age of thirteen I was taken into the care of Child Protection Services for reasons which we can talk about another day. I never went back.
I lived in a group home for most of my teen years. I lived with a LOT of girls over those years and while not siblings I consider most of them to be members of my family.
For a while I lived with some very kind and loving Foster Parents who tired very hard to make it work with me but I was in a bad place and it didn't work out. NOTE: They went on to have 4 children and have a very extensive extended family who have embraced me wholly and I consider them to be to be part of my extended family-.
In this time I also became best friends with Little Bits. Her family became mine, completely. Mother who I call Mom, Father who I call Dad, Brothers(3), Sisters(2), Step-Siblings (3), Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandparents who I call Grammy and Grampy, the whole lot of them took me lock, stock and all. I love them with my whole being, they are my family in every way that means anything.
My family is big and complex. I have two brothers with the same name, two sisters with the same name, two sisters with the same birth date, many of them have never even met each other; however there is so much love there, so much kindness. It might sounds like I have had a tough time of it, but imagine how lucky and loved I feel tucked inside this big blended family.

Meghan

PS- Now I get to call Gil's family mine too! Don't even get me started there. :)

The Ex Factor,

Okay enough baby talk for right now, on to another topic that his been on my mind lately. The exes. I love my husband very much, he is the delight of my universe and by any yard stick he is the most important person in my life, my most significant relationship. However he is not my only significant relationship and my adoration of him does not alter the history of my life or erase the previous men in my life. Nor should it. For good or for bad our past relationships shape our current ones. I can tell you now with 100% certainty that my relationship with PM has had a real and pertinent impact on what kind of wife and partner I am to Gil.
I have had many Ahh-ha moments over the years about my past relationships, about the nature and function of love. I learned that to really love someone means wanting what is best for them even when that is not you. I learned that it is more important to be honest with myself then with anyone else. I learned that it my happiness is my own responsibility. I also learned that you can love more then one person at a time. This is a concept that many people have a very hard time dealing with and I am not sure why. A mother of three does not love only one of her children. I do not love only one of my parents or my siblings. The human heart has an amazing capacity for love. This in no way means that feel a romantic attraction to any of my exes. I would not trade in my relationship with Gil for a single other man on this planet. But I refuse to believe love just ends out right. In some cases it morphs it's self into hate, or diminishes to indifference, but genuine love does not evaporate with the dissolution of a relationship. Loving someone else does not diminish what I give to my husband, does not lessen the intensity or scope of my love for him. I won't disgust you all we a pre-valentine gush about our love being bigger or better then all other loves in history, who am I to judge? But I will tell you that there is something special, even magical about my relationship with my husband. Long ago we came to understand that romantic love has a time and a place, that it has highs and lows. Friendship on the other hand, which is the basis for our love, our relationship, our partnership, that is a rock that can not shaken. The subtleties, the intricacies, the complex ebb and flow of our daily life, they seem so mundane but they are silk threads with which we weave our magic.
I have as ever gone completely of course. I have several exes in my life who I am very grateful for, some who I could have lived without. But they have and continue to shape me into the woman I today.
Now mister magic wants a chance to check his mail so I had better run. See, compromises, another gift I leaned from an ex!

I Laid An Egg!

I had very very good news at the doctors office today!! The clomid did what it was supposed to do. I didn't get pregnant but the egg was there! I have been given hope. I feel so good right now. Hope can keep me going for a while, hope can keep my spirits up. I know it is still possible that we won't conceive a baby, I know that. Gil is going next week to have his swimmers tested just as a precaution. It would suck for me to get everything in working condition only to find out Gil's swimmers didn't swim. If we don't get pregnant we are still looking strongly at adoption. I just
don't want to shut this door prematurely, I don't want to live with any regrets, any "what ifs". I am tired, I do hate the way that the clomid makes me feel but some sacrifices are worth making. Gil and I are still good and he is totally supporting me and my choices. I laid an egg. I don't know how to walk away from that!

More questions....

1.What level of openness am I able to handle, emotionally
2.Who am I willing to visit with? Both birth parents? Biological grandparents? Aunts, uncles, cousins and other extended family? Friends of the birth parents

Questions I have about adoption?

1. Can I Christen/Baptize an older child who may have already been baptized by their birth parents?

2. If we adopt from Children's Aid isn't there a chance that the birth parents are local and we could at some point bump into them?

A frustrating time....

Well here we are again; hormonal, tired, over emotional. This cycle of Clomid has really taken a toll on me. I am exhausted. I don't know how to keep it up. I don't know how some women do this for years. I don't want every thing in my whole life to revolve around getting pregnant. My marriage is the most important relationship in my world. I don't want the process of having to have a child to have a negative impact on that. I would rather be married to Gil then have a baby. I don't think that Gil would leave me or anything, I mean don't get me wrong. But this treatment makes me crazy, it makes me insane, it makes me unhappy. When I am unhappy I am hard to live with. Really hard to live with. When I am hard to live with I make mistakes. I have fears. I want to be a mommy, more then just about anything. But there are lots of ways to meet that goal. I am 33 years old, I don't want to still be trying in 2 or 3 years and be an old mother, not when we can start our family soon through adoption. So we have started to lay the initial ground work. I have talked to a social worker and we are going to an information session next month and we will fill out more papers then. We have decided to have one more go on the Clomid and then after that no more "heroic measures". We will go full steam into adoption and then just have sex for fun and if we get pregnant then yay and if not we will have our other child/children.
So that is our choice, this is where we are going. yeah.

So here we are again in the middle of a fertility treatment cycle. At the moment my ovaries are doing the tango out my back. My emotions are ALL over the place. I am basically exhausted. I haven't been sleeping well. Gil and I are starting to talk about where we go from here if this Clomid cycle doesn't work. Do we go another round, do we go stronger? Do we have the time and money to take the next step? When does infertility lead into adoption? Can I adopt given my personal history? I have already been looking into some adoption information and it is a scary process.
I think that Gil and I would be great parents given the chance. I worry that I will always wonder about what it would be like to have my "own" baby. I worry that we might not be good enough parents for a child with special needs. I worry about being judged not good enough. I think that I need to get some sleep. I need to rest and clear my head. Tomorrow is Friday and hen on the weekend I can rest. I can try and get more perspective. I can keep trying to make a baby with my husband until we are little and old.

Today I am feeling old and busted. My back is aching and my joints are like an 80 year old woman. I am pmsy and I am exhausted and I am ready for a vacation that is not embroiled in "the season". I love Christmas, I really do but I always get to this point and just want it to be over. I feel torn between relaxing and squeezing in as MANY people as possible. Christmas should be a week long 7 whole days off. Shopping should be outlawed two weeks before. The week should be spent drinking hot chocolate or red wine and sitting buy a fire talking with friends. Dinning with family. Looking at lights with loved ones. I shouldn't feel like guilty for wishing people Merry Christmas. I shouldn't feel guilty for enjoying the religious aspect of the holiday. I am sorry people it is a fucking religious holiday. Pagan, Christian, Jewish, but religious no matter how you slice it. Get over. You want to have a commercial greed fest you go right ahead but don't shit on me for attempting to keep the spirit in the season. Okay I told you I was feeling pmsy. I am going to take my headache to bed and try and feel better in the morning.

Let ms be perfectly candid. Some days I hate my body. Some days it is because it does not look the way I want it to, or it doesn't look like it did ten years ago. Some days it is because I have aches and pains I think I am too young to have. And more recently it is because it is not doing what I have asked it to do. It is not, at least in part, performing the functions it was made for. I take this medicine which makes me crazy, which makes me cry, which makes me feel like 8 different kinds of ass and it is supposed to make the broken parts work. It didn't. IF I had gone to see Doctor Lee and she had said" sorry your not pregnant, try again next month" I would have taken that, I would have been disappointed but I know it is a numbers game. But to be told that the meds didn't work, that I still didn't ovulate... ARG! I am just so angry. All the things that I took to be symptoms of pregnancy we side effects of the clomid. I was fooled by that poison that is meant to be helping me. ASSHOLE!

Glarp!!

Okay I am a bit of a mess. I am frustrated. I am crazy. All I can think about is "Am I?" I am feeling weird. I am having the craziest reactions to smell. Every where I go there are smells assaulting viciously making me feel terrible. But what if that is all in my head. What if I am just going crazy? What if I just want to be pregnant so badly I am experiencing this weirdness?
It is almost Christmas and I want to enjoy the holidays but right ow I am not enjoying anything. I just want to be happy. I want to be normal. Dammit. Why does this have to be so hard? Yeah I am feeling sorry for myself. I know it. Maybe this mood is pms. I don't know. ARG. I think I am going to go bury myself in bed and Hero's. I hope I feel better soon.