tasty #5

tasties have been on the back burner for some time now. the last one i was planning was a yummy little number of chicken tenders, asiago and jam wrapped in puff pastry. delicious and easy, though i never did figure out how to cook the bottoms properly. they would never crisp up and be light brown like the tops and were always a tad gummy and undercooked. the chicken, though, was steamed to perfection. moist and (dare i say) succulent. 


the problem was this tasty was planned for the thursday before valentine's day. so, yeah.

 so, weeks, weeks, work, work and no tasty. it just wasn't in the cards.


after i realized that this twin-gut wasn't going to lose itself, T and i decided to make eating healthy a big priority. we have been doing well with a few cheats here and there. (we do live in nj, pizza folks, oh lord the pizza. *drool*) but the days we manage to eat according to plan we feel great. wonderful. energetic and healthful. it is a definite incentive to keep it up...that and the visits to whole foods. my god i may not be as crunchy as i used to be but i. love. that. store.


another thing that i have been considering is going meatless. i love meat, i do, but after seeing what really goes on in the meat packing industry, im just having a hard time accepting my place in that chain. i LOVE dairy, love it, but it isn't a health food. i won't give up cream for my coffee, but i have certainly cut down on my milk and cheese intake.


so we end up eating tons of shrimp and fish and vegetables for dinner, hummus and bell peppers and snow peas for lunch and lots and lots of mini rice cakes for snacks. 
(though i am not convinced those lil gems are healthy :)

we did have pork last night though. 

baby steps.

clarified

just kind of a continuation of last night's post where i was too tired and too emotionally drained to properly explain the links so i just kind of threw them in haphazardly hoping that you would find them. 

*the first link 
is on mourning miscarriage by an author who had one, sadly, when she was in japan for work. she discusses the japanese way for dealing with miscarriages and is comforted by their way of honoring the unborn. it is, if nothing else a new way to look at this most underestimated of losses. 

*the second link 
is from a blog i just found of a writer who has had 7 miscarriages. 
7. miscarriages. 
7.
she wishes she knew if she was mourning sons or daughters. she is hurting for focus, an understanding, something more than just a memory of pain. poor thing, grieving so heavily and living in this culture where miscarriage is shrugged off, accepted as commonplace. 
i just wanted to hug her. especially when i read this. it's needless to say that im a subscriber now, and i think you should go on over and support her if you don't already.

i wanted to also share this link with anyone who might think they would like to give their loss a name and honor them in a very special way. 
i love to think of how many families this remembrance will help. here they can create a focus, help make their child, or their connection to even a very small bundle of cells that would have been their child important in the grand scheme of things. honor the gleam of happiness and hope they once held so dear. possibly even gain a little bit of closure. i hope anyway.
 

i think i hit the anger stage

there are days when i wake up and feel as if it just happened, and im right back in the moments and the emotion and my chest feels as if ive been under water for hours.i wish i could make it go away but then i realize that if i didn't have the pain i wouldn't have those moments of wonder and love beyond belief. and it still hurts but it is tempered by the realization that nobody can ever take those precious moments (they were but moments...) away from me, from us. so wrong and unfair and god, why me, why us? why you or her or him? 
a smart commenter once mentioned that it wouldn't really help to know why. she is a hundred percent right, but reason rarely enters into matters of the heart. not these matters anyway. when babies die it is the most fucked up of situations you can imagine, so your soul cries out for a reason. why mine? why anybody's? 
and if not why, than what the hell happened and how did we end up here? 

my mantra for the first four/five months was 'god help me.' i would be going about my day, just trying to get through and suddenly i'd be struck by the concreteness of my reality, by the cold truth of what happened in that gorgeous birthing suite, large enough to hold visitors and well-wishers and the raucous glee of a new family. not meant for the sickening quiet of stillbirth. not meant for one who labors with death on her shoulder, coming to take her children. not meant for me, not for T. 

oh this rotten turn, all our hope in vain, our sweet baby girls born and burned. gone. it was in those moments, 'god help me...please'

i have been thinking a lot lately about grief and loss (not me, you say? it's true...)

i was hoping to be the only one. the one my friends all told their friends about but nobody knew. the one who shouldered this load of anguish so others could go about their merry way and get pregnant and have beautiful babies who laugh and coo and gum arrowroot cookies.
if i had to wear these shoes, id be damned if id see anyone else i knew wear them too. sadly, sadly, so very sadly this was not the case. percentages again, not in my favor (shocker) and lightening struck too close to home. one more person i know who feels what no one ever should. me included. i don't want to and i don't want anyone else to either. can't we go back to before this all happened?

when babies drank bottles and filled diapers and took naps and woke the fuck up?  

god help me

it got me thinking about loss in a greater sense. from a chemical pregnancy, a blighted ovum, a miscarriage -- all the way up to a person whose parenthood gets cut short by disease, tragedy. it is never in the order of things to be able to completely accept the loss of our children, even if they were only quite literally a glimmer in our eyes. 
they were there.

i am thankful i can put two beautiful names and irresistible faces to my pain. 

but even if you can't it doesn't make them any less loved or any less gone. 

not to me anyway.

162

one hundred and sixty two days since we were together sweet girls. 

i miss you bunches today. 

this song makes your mommy smile, cry, and feel you near

"Adrift"

Your voice is adrift
I can't expect it to sing to me
As if I was the only one

I'll follow you
The leaf that's following the sun
When will my weight be too much for you?
When will these ideas really be my own?
Cause this moment keeps on moving
We were never meant to hold on

This was a scene worth waking up for
When I woke up
You planted me in my own body
Don't know why
But somehow it just feels so wrong
When you're sad I will be lonely
But when you rise again I'll become the sun
I will shine down upon you
As if you were the only one

Your voice is your own, I can't protect it
You'll have to sing
A verse no one has ever known

Don't be afraid
Cause no one ever sings alone
Your way will never be too much for me
Your ideas have always been your own
And this moment keeps on moving
We were never meant to hold on

 

 

secrets

i have to give a big shout out to erika at life with endometriosis and pcos. she was my secret pal for the month of march and she gave me a ton of support and a really beautiful gift at the end!!

erika gave me a gift certificate to lindsey (from the r house)'s etsy shop. aaaand to make things even more awesome, i got to create a custom order.

this is the necklace that inspired me but i 'ordered' it with the beads from this necklace (a design inspired by another BLM who lost her daughter at 20 weeks :(


but i asked lindsey to stamp the words 

joy 

grace 

love

i wasn't in love with the idea of using the girls' first names, but by using their middle names it can be a memento without requiring explanation to the outside world. i don't dread the question "are those your daughter's names?" but i'd rather avoid it if possible. this way the meaning can be my little secret (and all of the internet's i guess :). i think this will be a gorgeous remembrance of them as well as a reminder to me about how i choose to live, for myself and in their honor. thank you so very much erika<3

ill make sure to post a pic when it comes in the mail 

oh and be sure to check out patrish's blog, i was her secret pal!

***************

in other news, i've been sick all week with a weird virus. it started out in my nose and the next day i felt like i was going to die, kind of the way you feel before a chest cold settles all the way into your lungs. well, the coughing never came and whatever it was turned into a stomach flu with body aches and pains and now it's back up in my nose. the weirdest part was it would go away for a few hours each day and i would feel better, then it would come back. so strange. T and i slept most of the day yesterday and today was rough at work. hoping that being in bed already tonight (8 pm) will help me feel a lil better tomorrow.

im looking to take a page out of lukey's book

***************

i was at lunch with my nana this weekend and i got this picture from T:

w

with the caption "there is a rainbow in our living room" 

isn't it beautiful?

(just go ahead and disregard the 'christmas tree' and the tv wires and yes, it is so beautiful)

***************

I ALMOST FORGOT i am sending back my spit sample for the endometriosis study tomorrow. it wasn't just a swab, i had to spit in a test tube for a few minutes and then twist on a reagent and a new top. i felt very scientific!
PLEASE sign up for it if you have been diagnosed with endo. it took five minutes of my time and has the possibility to help innumerable women.


thanks

mine

cell phone pic, but it was just so sweet i had to share it with you all. for those of you who don't know, my nephew little A was born the day after my girls on his true due date. i felt so guilty for my girls being born the day before him. i didn't want their birth/death to overshadow the precious gift of his life.

 on october 21st, we spoke to my brother who was in the hospital with his new baby boy, finally a father after 3 years of trying and infertility treatments. he was hurting so bad for us while falling in love with his little boy. T and i were both aching emotionally, mentally lost and the pain of having just given birth was settling in as the medications wore slowly off.

such a muddle of emotions for everyone in the family. no one knew what to do, how to feel or which end was up. 

  

that night we congratulated and cried and welcomed little A to the world, then we hung up the phone and drove home in the dark, empty and somber. all that was left of the dream and stark reality that was our girls filled a white shoebox that someone had decorated with fancy baby stickers. 

at the time, i was unable to embrace my new status as aunt. the timing and juxtaposition of the two events was just too much for me to handle. i put the blanket i had made the night before i went into labor in the mail and forgot that the whole west coast even existed for a while. 

then i went there in february. one of the hardest things i have ever had to do, and one of the first times i admitted to myself that my pregnancy was over. i was holding onto that big belly and extra weight tight, just hoping hard and so so deep in denial. 
ohh, that was a deep valley along the road of grief. 

i loved my time with him, even while there was a constant ache for what could and should have been. i loved him immediately and intensely from the first time i saw him. when he saw me he smiled and i felt some warmth creep in to my frozen heart. he knew who i was. and he knows who they are too. probably better than i do. lucky baby.

  i realized that the birth of little A was like the spring unfolding into bitter cold winds. 

a tiny pocket of hope placed just where our confidence had been, a glimmer, a glimpse at how oh-so-slowly and all-at-once life goes on. a promise of a better day, of love and life and family.

look at this beautiful healthy boy with a simple smile on his precious face. 

he is innocently mending so many shattered pieces of my heart.

at times you have to look hard to find a silver lining. but when it finds you it's remarkable. 

little A came into this world just when he was supposed to, for all of us. 

and we are so very lucky to have him.

50

well...i am a chatty person, so im not really that surprised that i reached 50 posts in little over two months. 

what does surprise me is everything that has happened since i began feeling out loud in january. i thought i was doing so well when i started. god, so wrong and so blissfully ignorant about the ever changing story of grief.

when i think of what drove me to write, i want to cry. about a week before i wrote this post, i sat in T's arms on my mother's couch watching her and my sister decorate the christmas tree and weeping fat hot tears. i was supposed to be six months pregnant. i was 1 month un-so and the world was closing in on me to the holiday stylings of martina mcbride.

i almost went over the edge that day. i certainly peeked into the chasm and at once knew and fully understood that the choice was mine. stay or go.
i have never felt detached from myself, but that day i felt something unhinge. all i felt was death, all i saw was what was supposed to be. all i knew was that this was all so wrong, so very wrong. 

i almost lost my mind that day.

but i chose to stay, stay in this life, and think through this pained mind. i had to write, you see (can you feel the english majors nodding?) i had to get it out or i was going down that twisted road, and i wasn't coming back.
so when you say i am strong, i thank you. and i also thank my parents, my siblings, my husband, who loved me in that order. for it wasn't my own strength that kept me here that worst day, i know that if they hadn't raised and taught and loved me well, it would all have been gone. just. like. that.


so you see, i didn't set out on this unexpected labor of love for "followers" (hate that word), subscribers (how freakin cool), or to fit into the same category as those i have enjoyed reading for so long. meantime, this category that we are all lumped into, BLOWS. nobody wants to be a "grief blogger," nobody sets out to "get big" in the infertility blogosphere and that's kinda why i like it here. if mommyblogging is  picking out a new suit at banana republic, IF blogging is running into old navy to get a new pack of period panties.
i fit here. i can dump the worst of the worst on you, and even before you knew who i was you cared. that is a very easy thing to get used to, but i would never take it for granted. even though i thought i was here because i needed to write out loud, i guess im also here because i needed someone to read it. 

thank you for every time you read and sent me good thoughts, or took the time to comment. thank you for writing if you do. i love following each of you and making your story my own. i love to keep up with the chapters of your personal novels as my reader updates throughout the day. thank you for caring whether i stay or go. thank you ever so much for remembering my daughters to me.

and thank you to the person who found my site by searching for "tasty puffs" i hope you were not disappointed. 

"fifty!"  (*as polly*)
  

endo/update

thanks to babyinterrupted for posting the link to this new endometriosis study.
please sign up to participate if you have been diagnosed with/are suspected of having endo. we have to support studies like this if we expect them to make strides in helping us deal with and diagnose this disease earlier. 

this study's aim is to be able to diagnose endo without surgery. WITHOUT SURGERY OMG.

how different my life would be if this had come along before 2004...

all you have to agree to do if chosen to participate is provide a sample of your saliva.

please help if you can and spread the word...

************
i spoke to my dear friend today and as expected, she is still reeling from the shock of losing her little boy on friday. she asked me if it will ever get better because everyday she just feels worse :(
the poor thing. i would take her pain on myself if i could. i told her that it could feel like that for a while. i told her that the longing and the hurt never goes away, but that it does get easier and it doesn't stay as overwhelmingly painful forever. the hope in her voice when i said that was heartbreaking. i know the feeling of being buried in grief and i would do anything to save her from that sick sinking feeling. i cried with her.
she says it isn't real yet, she's wishing that its all a dream. i told her there is nothing more that i could wish for her than to wake up and have this all be a nightmare. i know how she feels (even if i don't know how she feels). 
i told her that right now she needs to take things day by day.  i told her that i will be there for her and to call me, day or night if she needs to talk.

i hope i said the right things.

-Baby E-

my dear, dear friend and hairdresser S lost her 2 month and 2 day old baby boy today. i spoke with her briefly and she said they told her it was from SIDS. my heart is just breaking for her and her family right now. and im sorry if i was at all hard on those people who don't know what to say. 

you see, my first instinct was to say what can i do? 
though i didn't say that, i couldn't manage much more than oh, no oh, no no no. im so very sorry.

because the feeling, hot and angry and loud was: oh, god, please tell me i can do something to ease her pain. even as i know that there is nothing for me to do, nothing for anyone to say that will help too much, the desire to ease some of her suffering was present and immediate. 

i ache for her, and i fully realize that i understand nothing of what she feels. nothing. not a bit. i just know nobody deserves that kind of pain. nobody. and today i understand better how it feels from the other side, and im sorry, just so sorry  for all of us that we have to live in a world where babies die.

i sent her a few heartfelt texts after i pulled myself out of the shock, telling her how he will always be with her, she will always be his mom, and not to forget to talk to him because that will keep him near. i told her i love him and that i love her. i felt the hesitation before i pressed send. now i know the feeling of not being sure what im saying is right, or will be welcomed. but i know enough about how i felt to imagine that hearing (reading) sweet words and words of love about her baby would never be wrong.
  
this is not the world i wanted to grow up into. i wanted to see little E grow up in my world. im sending him hugs and kisses on the breeze right now. i hope they find him sweet and soft and peaceful.
 

i speak about meeting Baby E here

he was a little doll. a snuggly bunch of love. i was so lucky to hold him and give him kisses and a bottle and change his diaper. 

ill never ever forget him...today i weep for him and his mother and father, and one day i'll be feeling him in the sunlight.

sunrise

i don't know what to think about not getting any comments from LCFA on the IC thing. i got no less than 80 visitors to my page from submitting news...(mel asks you to write in third person and i felt like a dork). but i really neeeded some information, a glimmer of hope, and nothing. so now i am hoping that people aren't just reading and whispering to themselves, "she's fucked."

i wasn't trying to say that i have any issues with waiting until the fall or that the article i cited had anything to do with our decision to wait a year. i have a feeling that i was unclear on this, so i feel like i need to explain. we are waiting for that specific amount of time because i want to be able to go out on maternity leave (as early as 16 weeks) as a full fledged worker, not someone who will have to come back and still be a trainee. geez, a year as a trainee is long enough. plus i think it is easier for them to get rid of me and fill my position if im not what is considered a full employee before the year is up.
that being said, we also decided that we want to enjoy our summer, go on vacation, chill.
last summer most of my waking moments were spent puking. i'd much rather puke at work on a break from my cubicle than in the summer on a break from laying by the pool or ocean.

we are excited to try again and will be doing a fresh cycle. that fact alone really helps me feel positive about our chances. it's still scary that not only do i have tubal factor, but now cervical issues as well. T's sperm is "phenomenal" and both of my embryos settled in last time, so i guess fertilization/implantation is kind of last on the list of things i worry about.

it's everything after that i worry hard about. 

*********

i've been thinking about my girls a lot today. grief does not follow a straight line, as ive stated before. this is not an easy life to live. i have issues with thinking of them in heaven. i know people love to say i have angels in heaven, and that to other babylost moms this provides some comfort. hell, i have even said it before. it's in my girls' obituary for goodness sakes.

but, i just don't know.

i may not go to church every sunday, and i may question those long-held standards of religion i was taught as a child, but i got one thing out of 12 years of catholic school.

i am very spiritual.i speak to my grandfather and other relatives frequently. i treat them as if they were here, because i believe they are, in a sense. i feel them still with me. it's comforting. since i lost the girls i have longed for that connection we shared, tried hard to make it work from my end. but there are lots of times that i can't feel them. its those times i feel so cold, the way i felt when i came home from the hospital with empty arms and an empty belly. i told myself it was because pregnancy raises your body temperature, but every other mother who has lost a baby knows why i was cold. and it has nothing to do with biology.

heaven (in the opinion of this lapsed catholic/agnostic) is somewhere my grandfather got his body back in better shape than it was, with the radiance of youth and a ticker that, well, kept tickin. i feel him around me, i know he is with his family. i know he is happy because i had a dream once and i saw him, them, all of them really. i knew all of them but i had never met some of them. they were my family. they were bathed in a golden ocean with a bright yellow sky, but not the kind that blinds, the kind that warms you from the inside. they were better. they were perfect and happy and i knew that was it. 
that's my heaven. except i know they don't really have their bodies. that was just for my benefit so i knew who was who...
so, yeah. um, where were we?


i do believe a soul is present in a baby but it's such a young, innocent, just wonderfully lovely thing. i don't see them as i see grandpa or grandma or grandpa joe. i don't see them standing with aunt dolly and uncle al. i don't see them next to uncle george and i certainly don't see them getting back what they never had.

i know, i know, mysteries. i'm not supposed to understand. please forgive this mother for trying to make sense of where her babies are. i have been waiting for them to come to me, but wondered if they were just too pure, too sweet to know how to find me.


finally i felt them today in the sunlight. it was bright and warm and more perfect than usual. and at once i understood where they were.
i can see them perfectly blending in with the light and becoming the glow. they are the aura of beauty that i remember from that long-ago, rarely remembered dream. 

and they are all there...

Ayla and Juliet and Enzo and Cadynce and Joseph and Zachary and Will and Maddie and Maya and Hannah and Wyatt and Nicholas and Sophia and Alexander and even the ones who were gone so soon they didn't get to hear their names, they are there too. 


they are all too important to just be in heaven, they are what makes heaven beautiful.

after

do you ever long for the innocence of days gone past?
the simple times when worry was at arms length and your hopes and dreams seemed possible?

back when you thought all you needed to find was the perfect husband (wife, SO) to create a family with and all the rest would fall into place...
back when you could see your life laid out ahead of you in pristine detail, you and your loved ones chasing one happy memory after another...

back when goals seemed attainable and murphy's law didn't seem to be ever so present...


well im having that kind of nostalgia today, but im yearning for yesterday. 
yes, just 24+ hours ago i was charmed, effusive about the wonder of ART and it's place in the kind world. it was as sweet as it sounded.


today i feel like shit. i want yesterday, 9 months, 4 years ago back. i want hope in my front pocket and luck in my back. 


it doesn't help that the period from hell is plaguing me. or that when i went into the bathroom to find out this new development in my otherwise boring day that i was greeted with not one, but two preggos. but guess what? no twinge. no jealousy. 
know why? because my babies are done born, died and i passed their due date. 

i did feel a bit confused, like, how in the world are they going to have babies after march 9th? i don't know if i'm properly explaining but i tell ya, sometimes my feelings are sooo strange and in this case, surprising. and i went along my merry bewildered way. 
like, wow. huh. pregnant. weird.
somewhere deep in my brain i realize that some people have sex, get pregnant, and have babies but man, does. not. compute. especially today.


T and i have been talking lately about the best time to take this ART show on the road again. hence my love-laced post from yesterday. and i am in no way saying that i have changed my mind about anything. just my tone.


(disclaimer: i may love ART and the possibility that it lends to me and T, but i never even thought the first one would work past the transfer so just indulge me as i talk about fictional dates and possible real life pregnancies)
so there have been way too many thoughts rolling around my pea brain lately...
i am considered a trainee at work for a full year-that puts the first possible due date after march 2011-i have a new insurance that kicks in around may 1-im sure they will want some type of proof that my "uterus" if we can call her that, makes gobs and gobs of grossness on the daily that in turn spurts up instead of out and sticks shit all sideways and slanty like-so i will need tests, i will be record gathering, pleading, praying, carrying out virgin sacrifices, etc. ( i was never on an insurance plan before that would actually foot the bill, so im imagining that they don't make it easy to be considered eligible) 

i planned *insert laugh track here* 
to be jumping through hoops from may until mid to late august and then we would try a frozen cycle.


then today i spoke to them. can i just mention again how much i love nurses? 
especially ones that take the time to explain things to me and are patient with my billion questions. the ones who acknowledge my need to be heard, taught,and helped.
i spoke to two today. bonnie and linda. (both with the MFM office (perinatology for all the former-me's) they were both warm and kind, and they had all the time in the world for me and my questions.
it was on the phone with linda when i realized how much i ache for not only those years of innocence past, but even for the tempered naivete of yesterday.


linda explained that my infection was most likely a result of IC, not the birth a result of an infection. it hit me like a kick in, well, the stomach.


not having incompetent cervix was kind of my silver lining on the loss, but today gray clouds rolled in. my voice strained, i lost a tear or two but somehow managed to keep a hold of myself. im sad. i can't look with wide eyed wonder towards our next attempt. i'm not feeling confident in my body or it's ability to hold a pregnancy. i'm doubting today. i'm still so grateful for the chance, but so scared to try again now...


that being said, you know as well as i do what the next breath will bring. we will try again. we will probably wait until october or november and do a fresh cycle. both nurses today spoke with me about single embryo transfer and how important that is to our chances of success. i can't see thawing 3 embryos just to use one, so fresh it is. 
i worry about lefty and i feel a lil better knowing that i'll be using her while she's still kicking.
they don't do cerclage there. i don't know enough right now to know what to think about that. linda said that i would start to have my cervix measured at 16 weeks and any change would win me bedrest. hence the 4 month wait to start trying again. if our IVF works, ill be a full employee by march (16 wks if if if if if if if).



right after i came home from the hospital i read this article. the author was pregnant for a second time after losing her baby boy to stillbirth and makes a case for waiting a year after a loss to try again. looking through the article again, im surprised at how much i didn't even process when i read it the first time. i'm sure back then all that i was thinking was
gawd a year is a long time...


yes, a year is a long time. but i want to make sure that we are ready, body and spirit, to handle whatever the next try brings our way. 


my, my, what a difference a day makes.

help

being a part, however small, of a community is a lovely thing. for me, finding a place in the ALI community came at a time when I couldn't need it more and made such a difference in my little world. i started blogging because i thought IVF was going to be the most stressful time of my life. i was convinced that it was going to be a terrible cross to bear, hard on my marriage and my body. i really could not even fathom the turn that my life and my reason to write would take.

i didn't keep up with blogging in the beginning because i was so surprised at how mellow the IVF was. i didn't end up with a whole bunch of pent up emotion to get out or overwhelming stress to discuss. now i will be the first admit that is not the easiest thing you can put your body through, though most of the negative response to medication came after the transfer for me. but it was so worth it, and as i mentioned before, we enjoyed it as much as we could. we held on to the blessings of being able to even pay for a cycle, and the realization that it wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be.

hell, i used to belong to one of those pre-and-post pregnancy sites and on my homepage i wrote "stage 4 endometriosis and we are avoiding IVF at all costs!!!"


why? i ask my former naive self--why did it scare you so? was it the needles, the hormones? i can only remember a fear of the unknown. and of course the needles! 
who likes needles? not me! and i remember crying as we watched the video for the first time, after our informational session with the meds nurse. 
i was scared of the injections. 
i was worried about the pain. 
let me tell you girls, the ouch of a tiny needle once or twice a day is NOTHING compared to the emotional sting of 36, 48, 60+ negative pregnancy tests.  
IVF can't hold a candle to the horror of repeat loss and failed medicated cycles. it can't equal the ache of not being able to do what your body is fucking supposed to do so easily, what others pay doctors to help them prevent for god's sake.

it is a beacon of hope for those who are lucky enough to get to try it. i am so very grateful for the ability to have done it, and i am amazed that one day, i will be able to do it again. i am fortunate to live in a time where ART is something that is almost commonplace. it is mostly a widely accepted form of family building. it helps people like and unlike me have a chance at a family. if i was my age 30 or 40 years ago i would have lived childless. 

so newbies, don't be afraid of IVF or its lovely counterparts. they are most definitely your friends. thank the president, no matter what your political affiliation, for approving the practice of stem cell research, as one day it WILL benefit you or your son or daughter, niece or nephew in a way you could never imagine.

i never imagined i might need science in order to help me have a baby, and who knows? it might never work again, but in ART there is a hope, an opportunity for us all.
if we can afford it.
for us, it is the sweet induction into a new insurance plan that will fund our next try. getting fired may have just been a blessing in disguise.

so i came into this community finding out in real time what a wonderful experience IVF can be if you let it. i wanted to shout it from the rooftops. IT DOES'T HURT THAT BAD!!! LOOK! WE ARE MAKING OUR BABIES! and we did. and even if none of them ever sleep in a crib in my house, they were/are still a little bit of me and my husband that exists where there was none. and some days that has to be good enough.

now, ART isn't the only way to build a family, as you may have been told by the "JUST ADOPT" camp. though most of us want to tell these people to shut the fuck up, adoption is never something that T and i have ruled out. and im certain that even if your response is the same, you still bristle at the mention of how you should just adopt instead of trying ART. did anyone tell these assholes to adopt instead of getting pregnant naturally? i may just start to make a point...
and did anyone ever tell these people how HARD it is to adopt??

but lord, the support needs to be there no matter what you try. building a family is stressful even under the best circumstances.

anyway i guess my bottom line is how blessed i feel to be a part of this community. i may not have needed you to get me through IVF but oh how i needed you and you were there when i lost my girls. i can't ever thank you enough. the mutual support and love is just an awesome thing to be a part of. ive been so slacking lately but please know that i keep up with all of you daily on my phone and just have been so busy i haven't been commenting. but i will always continue to pay forward all the help and kindness that i have been shown through the comments and emails i have received.

someone i know who needs your support right now is bonnie over at i can haz bebe?. she and her husband kyle are trying to adopt from africa. they are illustrating the frustration and hope of the adoption process. i am soaking up every bit of their story because one day i may be going through the same thing. i thank them for sharing their journey.

bonnie and kyle had a shitty 2009 when the birth mother of their little boy changed her mind after he was born, leaving them in all sorts of limbo and anguish. these two are so sweet and they were able to regroup, gather some strength, and plow on through the minefield of IF. high five B and K, you guys are an inspiration!

so B and K have set up a raffle to help fund their adoption which is going to cost somewhere in the range of 50 million dollars or thereabouts. please drop by and put some cash into their CHIPIN fund. (powered by paypal) 
if you do you will have a chance to win a blankie made by yours truly!! there is a picture over there of a blanket i made for our good friends' two year old. i am giving the winner the choice of color and pattern.

good luck bonnie and kyle! 
 

tasty #4

im just going to go ahead and post this early because all of my subscribers just got a random little A pic in their reader, and they were all wah???

oh yeah and they also got this...target="_blank"

scheduled tasty post for tomorrow...FAIL 

so ill share with you what that little gem of html code means. if you want to link to another page, but you want that linked page to come up in its own tab so that people can read it when they've finished your blog post, for example, you click on over to Edit HTML and insert target="_blank" after the " and before the > in the link.  
(i happen to have it set to appear in every post when i open it because im usually pretty link-happy and its so much easier than searching for it or remembering it. i have more important things to remember, like to buy more cherry pop tarts and coca cola.)

for example:
if happily ever after is your link
< a href="http://jenn-happilyeverafter.blogspot.com/"**** > is how it shows up in HTML and you insert the code where i put red. go ahead, click on it and see how jenn's blog opens in a new tab. ill wait...cool huh?

so now im even later for bed!!! sorry about the mix up! not my secret baby! LOL

**WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR ORIGINAL PRE-DRAFTED TASTY POST **

this is a recipe i have made no less than 6 times since coming home from san francisco

did i mention that i left my heart there? 

 little A

and i should say heartS because my dear brother is there as well. i miss him and we all entertain the idea of "IF" he will ever move home again with his lovely family. i have a feeling it aint happenin' but i do love the idea.

so my brother makes this bread and it is TO DIE FOR. im not going to spell it out for you because frankly im soooo tired and im pre-writing this so as to actually have a tasty this week. really though, you won't need me to. it's pretty self explanatory and simple. you will need at least 19 hours for the dough to rise, and then a 4 hour window before you bake it where you will need to attend to it but it is SO WORTH IT. i usually will start the dough on a friday night around 6 so i know ill be there to tend to it at 2 and then it will be baking around 6 the next night.
it is a little easier to  get the measurements perfect if you have a scale (i don't) because the recipe is in ounces. just remember that 8 oz=1cup and i think it's 2T=1 oz. hope im right, pretty sure that i am and ill update if im wrong.


oh one little thing...i don't have a dutch oven or anything that is really suitable for the baking, but i am using a 4 qt pot with a lid and it is working perfectly.

and just one little request, don't blame me for the 8 pounds you gain from this recipe? k thx

silent

all is quiet and the house is mostly dark. im waiting for my husband to come home. oh, how i've missed him this week!

i need to thank you for your sweet comments and remembrances in the name of my daughters. they will always be with me, always close. that wasn't enough for me for a long time. one of the many signs that things are progressing. slowly, slightly, day by day. 

life moves on. 
i am changed. 
most of the change was sudden, immediate, breathtaking and miserable.
the realization though was painstakingly measured, revealing itself to me only when i was ready to accept a new piece of this sickening wonder i call reality. 

T would tell you it was mad real when he was smelling that right armpit.


but boy, if it didn't take me some time re-arrange the pieces of myself to at least a semblance of what i used to be, leaving room for what i have grown into and what is left to come. and in doing that i have realized the beauty in what i have been through. the value in two little lives who came through me and made this world, my life, and my love better.


im lucky.
you may not understand that and that's ok. but some of you will, and you will smile.
im smiling today. 


there is relief in passing the due date. the vigil feels like it's supposed to end here. it always did. 
this is the last day that this date will matter to me. 
from here on out. it will be just a day that holds the possibilities of any other.


if you have some time (and god knows, i don't) please head over to see astral at it is written in the stars...she is preparing for her first retrieval tomorrow morning! also go see brandy at a mother's love. she is trying for a rainbow baby and her transfer is in the morning!

expected

tomorrow is march 9, 2010. 

it was (by) tomorrow that we should have found out Ayla Joy was her father's twin and Juliet Grace mine, in addition to the more likely pair the two of them had made.

tomorrow i will be just as many weeks unpregnant as i was pregnant 20 weeks ago.
 
and i cringe as i yearn to be freshly un-so, holding chubby babies and reveling in their sweetness, noting like and differences. 

we should be counting fingers and toes and worrying about latching skills and gaining weight. 
we should be admiring tiny outfits bought by mo mo.


they. should. be. here.

and we, we should all be somewhere else. 

how in the world did we ever get here? 

we have been where no one wants to go.
we are what everyone wants to talk about but no one wants to discuss. 
we know what you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

but we also have moments to look back on and treasure forever.
ill never forget the delight of the first time i felt them push me from the inside.
ill always remember how lovely it was to hold them safe inside and have them all to myself. i always thought they were girls. i knew knew knew ayla was. and i always had a feeling that they both were. i was right.

then there were the moments when we first saw and held our children and as importantly, watched each other hold the children we had given to one another.  
we will do that again, someday.
god willing, we will get to hold and not let go next time.

tonight, i remember our girls. they were more beautiful than anything you can imagine. 
their daddy loved them more than he ever thought was possible, and so did i.

 

even when we knew them from only this far.

 

random

first i want to apologize to beckie at beckie's infertility journey 
somehow she is not in my blog list but is in my reader. and i know she was on my blogroll before. sorry beckie, i realized the other day after i wrote the post with the awards, meant to put you in and it slipped my mind again during the hours and hours of mind numbing studying i have been doing. i want you to have both awards even though i know you were given one already.


so that brings us to work....
i have been sitting in a room all week with no windows. i have been moving my feet a lot to try and keep circulation going. in the past five days i have taken in and processed more information than in the most involved of my graduate courses. i am commuting (1 hr each way) to a new city, making new friends and acquaintances and becoming new myself. i am paying way too much for parking, tolls, and COFFEE. it's ridiculous that i spent 3 and a half months trying to get to sleep and now i can't keep my eyes open.


life just goes on.

im trying to keep up. im so glad that no one there knows of my misfortune, of the past 4 months of agony. im just trying to keep my head above water and so far, thankfully, its working.  
i am seeing the opportunity in my new job and it seems to be too good to pass up. i want to do well and succeed there and i believe that i can and will. 

*****
i spoke to the RE on tuesday night. i was looking forward to the call because i thought it would put my mind at ease. i was wrong. :o(
he basically said that he has almost no experience with this occurring and told me more than once how it only happens in 1% of pregnancies. he wants me to see one of the perinatologists that treated me in the hospital because he thinks they will be able to give me more information on what caused the infection, either through reading my medical records (im 99% sure it's not in there) or running tests. he also wants to take some cultures to see if i currently have any infections. im surprised because anyone who has done IVF knows that you (and your husband!) have an extensive communicable disease workup before you are even allowed to plan for your protocol. also, i was in the hospital for 3 days on antibiotics. so im thinking not much could survive that heavy duty stuff they gave me at the hospital, but what do i know? he's the doctor.

now that i don't have access to him i have a ton of questions running through my head. he wants to test for BV (which i have had in the past. it is an extremely unpleasant infection and you pretty much KNOW when you have it...the girls who have  KNOW what im talking about and i won't discuss because it's almost dinnertime). 
but now im wondering what else he wants to test for so i can ask dr. google about it.


he is a wonderful doctor. i was amazed by his knowledge on the subject of ART. he simply said that he doesn't know much about chorioamnionitis. and here i was thinking that this loss was just an unlucky fluke, not a super duper rare, almost unheard of issue. *sigh*


he did say that i would probably be required to take antibiotics for most or all of my pregnancy the next time. i just was hoping for him to say he was sorry, it happens, and i want you to do this. or that. before an FET.

i feel a TTC break coming on.


*****

so many of you know too well the ache that comes along with the unfulfilled desire of TTC and loss. im so sick of it and even as it ebbs and flows, i carry it with me always. i wish i could rise above it, live for the moment every moment, but im only human. 
damn how human i have been this year.


so since i most of you know what i mean i don't have to explain how hard i have to try and block out the people talking about their babies at work and the so very many pregnant women i see everyday. i wish these things didn't get to me, and most of the times i can block them out/rationalize with myself and i don't let it upset me.
but, GOD, it just gets to be comical at times! how can i ALWAYS get stuck alone in the elevator with someone who looks like her water is about to break? 


CMON UNIVERSE, I GET IT

busy

as expected, training is kicking my butt. it's a welcome distraction from the monotony of endless days spent contemplating, analyzing, and re-living the worst of days. it's so refreshing to have a purpose. i'm giving it my all.

saw this song on american idol tonight, haven't heard it in so long. 

Gravity is working against me

 And gravity wants to bring me down

Oh gravity, stay the hell away from me
And gravity has taken better men than me (now how can that be?)

Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
Just keep me where the light is
C'mon keep me where the light is
C'mon keep me where the light is
Oh... where the light is...

i understand the plea. its exhausting but im still working hard to stay in the light.