Tentative Update...

So, I know you’ve been on the edge of your seat, waiting for me to announce my late period. Oh, you haven’t? Well, let’s pretend you have been. Because then you can be excited when I make said announcement: said period is said late. Only two days. Enough to make me extremely nervous. Cautiously excited even. But not enough late to make me whip out a pregnancy test and go through that whole drama, nosiree. I know enough about pregnancy tests to know I can’t quite convince myself to do it. What if it’s too early and comes out negative but my period still doesn’t show up? What if it’s positive and then I get my period tomorrow? What if I can’t tell what the hell it says? What if it’s positive and I actually am pregnant and have to go through with this again? Holy moly people. Stress City.

Here’s the thing of it: I’m 99% sure I’m pregnant. I have the same symptoms as last time, such as: extreme, huge, bitchiness toward my husband occurring in completely random bursts; cramps in the baby-making region; crankiness (more than usual); the ever obvious late period. My mind plays tricks on me though, because I can explain away any and all of these symptoms. Watch me: Hubby is annoying; my period should be coming so I should be crampy; I’m tired and bored; I don’t really yet know my “cycle” well enough to call Auntie Flo tardy. But still…I know it’s true. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be brave enough.

New Doctor

Hubby is on the prowl. No, we didn’t split up (like he could do better, please). He is trawling for health care. I know I have bored you with details about my health insurance before, but I have one more thing to share: it is possible to pre-negotiate how much you will pay to get a baby into the world. Hopefully a live one, but that’s another freak-out-for-the-future. Since Colorado’s crappy individual insurance will not deign to cover maternity, this is an important step for broke student-types like Hubby and me. We can get an idea ahead of time about what kind of ridiculous payments we will have to make “next time.” Again, this may be jumping the gun, as laws change in January and if Baby #2 waits until then we can get coverage and happily pay cheap copayments and go on our merry way. But, again, I am not waiting until January to at least give it a shot. (Technically Hubby gives it a shot, he he. Eww, sorry).

Thus, we find Dr. B’s prices, find them to be good, and therefore meet with Dr. B. He is the sole doc in his practice which means there is a 95% chance he will deliver the baby and a 100% chance he will be at every prenatal visit. For someone who plans to freak out over everything “next time,” this is good news. Plus ten. (I already know the secret that nurses are the key during delivery anyway—it’s the office I’m worried about). We head in there with our list of questions and our pile of records and the first thing he did was start talking about my lacrosse t-shirt. Plus three. He tells us Wyatt dying “sucks.” Plus another ten. He looks at the records and finds a gene mutation in my blood chart, immediately giving me three things to do to help. Plus ten. This is especially plus ten because I had to ask the last doctor what this gene mutation meant, and then I had to ask another doctor what to do about it because the first one said it wasn’t a big deal. Dr. B is also awesome because he went through the details, offering a couple potential reasons for Wyatt’s death, writing me prescriptions, and assuring me I can go skiing at altitude when/if I get pregnant. I have read morning sickness gets worse up there, but one worry at a time here. Plus twenty for the three. Dr. B gets a good score and a new patient. Here’s hoping!!

The Holidays

Blech. Such is how I feel about the holidays this year. As we have previously discussed, several times, I am not a super social or celebratory person to begin with. Normally, I am happy to do the obligatory smiling and nodding and just hide myself in the corner while everyone mingles and shares and enough time has passed that I can leave without being rude (if I couldn’t get out of attending in the first place—I use the term ‘happy’ loosely). This year, however, I am freaking out about the potential for sadness in the holiday season. Our friend/Hubby’s boss invited us over for Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays because it revolves around food, sloth, a woodstove, and watching television (football and/or movies). My immediate reaction was absolutely not. I would enjoy a turkey dinner and Patriots game of 2-4 people maximum (plus dogs, dogs are okay) this year, thank you very much. It was a very real and strong reaction. I know my heart rate went up a bunch just thinking about people. No offense to the boss and his family (they do pay the bills around here—and they’re good peeps to boot) but I’m really not interested in meeting random extended family and having to fake happiness in front of said strangers. Especially if I am missing Wyatt and need to have a meltdown, which, by the way, come on fast. Meltdowns aside, Hubby and his brother/sister-in-law convinced me it would be okay, I could do it, we could fritter most of the day away skiing, and it would be fun. I caved and our invitation was accepted.

Just to make things interesting, Boss subsequently blurted out that his wife is pregnant. Because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut when they started “trying” (eww—don’t need to know that), I was expecting this news sometime around now anyway. But that expectation did not make hearing their happiness any easier. After my big [genuine-I swear] smile and envious heart palpitation, panic set in. Tears shortly followed. “I can’t…go…to…their house…and..sniff…sniff…listen to them..ack..sniff...talk about babies!” I wailed. If Hubby’s mom scheduled a knee replacement the instant she found out about Wyatt, you better believe these guys will at least be giddy and talking about their new grandchild-to-be. I had to go to work (of course) ten minutes after this announcement, but when I got back I spent a solid hour in bed staring at baby photos and getting up the courage to tell Hubby that I had to back out. He obviously offered this before I had to mention it because he’s the bomb, but it was still hard because Boss’s wife was so super excited to cook for a large crowd and I don’t want them to feel bad about sharing their happy news. They’re our friends for god’s sake. And life goes on, as we know. I can’t be babied about babies my whole life, dammit. But I can cry a whole lot in the safety of my own comforter.

Is it too early for ‘Bah humbug’?? Damn you, Holiday Season. Always ruining stuff.

Now what?

We went back East for a quick visit based around a memorial service, the one for my friend’s mom. It was amazing; I only hope my friend agrees. The service was beautiful, happy, and promising. There were approximately one million people there. It was a gorgeous day. They hosted a busy, smiley, cozy party at their house afterward and a beautiful candle-lit walk that the mama used to do with her dog every night. We had a sleepover with a bunch of friends and a great hike capped off by lunch all together. I just really can’t explain how nice it was. My only problem, and my friend expressed this a little bit too, is: now what?

After people leave, after a little bit of time has passed, after you spend so much time trying to memorialize someone, find the perfect urn, write the perfect note, etc., now what? Life goes on all around you. Except the one life you just want so much, you miss so much. It feels like a different world almost, like something is constantly missing. And you have your good moments, where you can tell a happy story and laugh about your loved one, look at the photo album and smile, but mostly it feels foreign. Like you just can’t put your finger on what’s missing in your daily life. Obviously you know what it is, and other people do too, and it doesn’t hurt as much as time goes on, but it’s just a void. So, if you have any advice, let me know: now what?

a good feeling

No, I don’t have “a good feeling” about Take Two (I hope I don’t call the next baby Take Two, as I called Wyatt The Creature—I fear it is sticking though. It’s kind of cute, but in a sick way). I don’t think I would be brave enough to share that with you even if I did, so there. I have a good feeling called elation for my friend who just told me in secret that she is pregnant. Yippeee! Luckily, as I already mentioned, I am one of the world’s greatest secret keepers. Literally. I can’t even tell you some of the secrets I have kept because even if they are now known to the people who weren’t, at the time, allowed to know, I wouldn’t be good at keeping the secret of me keeping the secrets in the first place and that would not fly.

Now, I don’t want to share my friend’s secret with you, hence you will never hear her name, address, Twitter account or whatever cool things kids use for ID these days, but I do want to share that I was able to be happy—no ecstatic—for her. I got all jittery and hyper like Hubby on Christmas morning. This is a big deal for me because I really feared that my friends would all start getting pregnant and I would flip out from jealousy. I was supposed to have a baby first, you know? Be the expert on colic and cloth diapers and surviving on no sleep and all that stuff. My plans changed…but that doesn’t mean anyone else’s did, and that’s a hard pill to swallow (like my stupid B-complex ones that don’t have a coating and are HUGE). So anyway, my point is not to share dear friends’ secrets, even though I did, it is that I made it past a big hurdle and it felt like stepping over a staple instead of a steeplechase jump. Yay me!

Take Two

Well, I’ve told you how I want to make another baby. We don’t need to go into too much detail, but you know what that entails. Since I’ve boycotted sex for the past month (did I mention that I hate condoms-not something I noticed before, hmm) I’m pretty excited for obvious reasons. I don’t need to discuss Hubby’s elation, you can imagine it yourself. And I’m finally covered by “real” health insurance so I guess it’s okay to give it a whirl. (I say “real” in quotes because it is pretty crappy insurance and doesn’t cover maternity unless there are complications, and let’s face it the whole reason I need insurance is because I want a baby. If I—we—don’t succeed until January or later then all the health plans in Colorado have to cover maternity and my stress and worry will be for naught anyway; I’ll just have another kind of stress and worry but that’s not the point). The point is I am trying to dig up the courage to try again. And I still hate calling it that but that’s really what it is. Take Two. Attempt Two. Baby Two. I don’t know how I won’t be freaking out the whole “next time” but since I want a baby I’ve got to start somewhere. With some sex. I suppose that’s not a bad place to start.

Double whammy

One of my bestest friend’s mum died yesterday. She had a long, brave battle with the evil Brain Cancer. She was a warrior, and I’m talking Xena Warrior Princess, Brad Pitt in Troy kind of warrior. It’s just so sad. Why do we have to lose good people? Babies who didn’t even get to meet anyone, moms who are amazing? It’s a lesson in a lot of things, and a lesson nobody should have to learn. Why don’t they just try to teach us this crap in school and forget the “real-life” aspect of it? I mean, I know half the kids wouldn’t do their homework, but that seems worth it to me. So they don’t get an A in that class, big deal.

I’m feeling sad for my friend, for her family, for her mom…and yesterday on top of that I couldn’t stop thinking about Baby Wyatt too. It was like another round of smacks in the face. I was shedding tears for more than one person, and that is not a fair or fun situation. I never thought much about Heaven before, Dog Heaven maybe, but now I can’t stop thinking about how I hope there is a Heaven, and I hope the people there get to do whatever they want and be their best, happiest, shiniest selves. And I hope all the people I know in Heaven get to meet each other and see why they mean so much to me and how awesome they truly are. When I’m really sad I try to think of that and make myself believe that they’re having a good time, even if they miss us too.