Insult and Injury

I must say I've been pretty proud of myself for the last few weeks. It was so easy with the FET we just did to slip back into the infertile funk. How could it not be? Not only does it just suck a pair of huge ones that you can't get pregnant in the privacy of your own home with your husband, but you have to inject/patch on/take pills/shove stuff up your lady bits that are FULL of hormones, drain your bank account and deplete your emotional storage. And that happens whether you are successful or not, but to not have success? That was awful. I mean, really way worse than I could have imagined. Maybe I'm a wuss, but it sent me straight down into depression in just two months.

BUT . . . . I started coming around a lot quicker than I had thought and honestly can say I feel pretty good about things. I was giving myself just one more week to make it through before calling to get back on Lexapro when I had a lot of changes of heart and felt good again. A little hurt, yes, left wondering if I will ever really get over infertility, yes, but depressed and angry? No, it's gone now.

The last few weeks have been sprinkled with pregnancy announcements. When people tell me I know the tears are in there but I fight them off and by the time I am done I don't need to cry at all. I remind myself that of course I'm jealous and sad for myself, if my FET had worked I would be pregnant right now too. That being said, under no circumstance in any Universe would I wish that anyone would have to go through all this crap to have the family they want, so I can be glad for that person that it's not their reality even if it makes me jealous. I don't even wish it on the Teen Mom's from MTV who have new baby daddy's and get into YouTube fights. Nope, not even them.

Since the Universe enjoys testing my boundaries, it says "oh really, Ashley? You're going to put on your big girls panties are you? How about this!"

And then I get a bill from the RE for $643.00. Dammit! This makes me angry. On IVF #1 when this happened they sprung it on me on the way out after my first ultrasound where we saw two heart beats after 30 cycles of TTC, $22,000 and 12 assisted reproductive treatments. Of course I paid it without a second glance, if they had asked me for one of my kidney's on the way out I would have given it to them. But this time not so much. Now they want $643.00 on top of the other $3,000 that resulted in NOTHING. Not a thing but a broken heart. I had so many thoughts, not excluding sending them a mail bomb with their payment (again, just joking FBI, don't know how to do that). Instead, I pulled more money out of the savings and sent the check. Moving on again.

I mentioned in my last post that I am doing things that I enjoy again and making that a priority that is equal to other priorities and not a luxury. I have read a few books because I love reading. I really enjoy Jodi Picoult books although they tend to end in a depressing and shocking manner. I started reading "Sing You Home" because it's the only one I haven't read yet.

This has turned out to be another example of the Universe showing me who's boss. Something that I do for my enjoyment sucked me down the dark tunnel again!

The book is about all kinds of things, but long story short a divorced couple is battling over frozen embryos. The guy got really religious and they call the embryos "pre-born children."After reading into this book for a long while this weekend, that term just stuck with me. I am not a Christian and I don't think of each fertilized embryo as a child. I know scientifically our little embryo was just a ball of cells. I don't feel as though I had a miscarriage or lost a child or that I will see that embryo in Heaven or anything like that.

I would be lying if I said it didn't hit me similarly to those sentiments though. To us, the embryos that we saw are children because that is all we've ever known. We saw Ocean and Ever up on the screen and they became gorgeous little brown eyed, dark haired nuggets. It's only natural to think the same thing again. We were 2 for 2, there was no experience before of seeing an embryo and it not resulting in a baby. So when I saw the embryo on the screen, even though my logical brain told me that embryo looked like shit and would never result in a baby, I could only think of little brown eyed, dark haired babies for the next 8 days. I thought about how I could announce it in a fun way, what type of pictures I would take, what it would be like to be pregnant in the summer and going swimming with the fetus, I thought about what Ocean and Ever would do when the baby got here, I thought about what it would be like to have labor instead of a c-section, and the list goes on for eight days. It did not matter that it was just a ball of cells at the time or that the chance of success was pretty measly, all I thought was "baby, family of 5." I erased the picture of that ball of cells from my phone and camera, but it is still burned in my brain.

After reading the word "pre-born child" over and over again last night, I tossed and turned and then just let it go and started crying. Hubby asked what was wrong and I told him that I just can't believe this didn't work. He said he was sorry, he was wondering if that is what has been keeping me up at night, he thought with all his heart that this would work and never doubted it and he is shocked we are in this position too, this is all not fair, but he feels like things will be okay. And I agree. I feel that way too. Even though I had a good cry last night and it all came back and I was hurting last night, we do have a plan (that I"m not telling, ha ha) and that plan still feels good today.

So there Universe. Keep trying you little shit. I'm hanging in and I will NOT let this business bring me all the way down again. Its sucks hard that our FET failed, but we are going to keep trucking and I think things will turn out great!

Firm Fridays

I am linking up with K. Law today to hopefully get some motivation to lose some weight and get in good shape! I realized at the end of the year how much I have let myself go and let things slide and it just doesn't feel good. I am not planning on dieting hardcore, just being aware of what I am eating and eating less. I am going to up my exercise because I feel so much better when I do.

I cannot believe I am going to show you these love handles, but it's the real deal, so here we go!

Starting Stats 1/6/11

Wt: 158 Goal: 140

Waist: 33 inches

Bust: 42 inches

Thigh: 23 inches

Booty: 40.5 inches

That is scary! You will not see any love handle pictures again until they are gone. When you see pictures of me on this blog, I am usually stuffed into a Suddenly Skinny tank that is so tight I can hardly breathe and I count putting it on as a workout because it takes a lot of effort. Since this picture was taken I did do one five mile run outdoors accompanied by 32 lunges and just this morning got up at 5:30 a.m. to use the elliptical and work on my core. I don't lift arm weights, I have a set of 20-something each pounds twins for that.

Getting in shape isn't the only thing I am going to be doing to get myself back together.

1. I am going to put more effort into my overall appearance. I can't tell you how many weekends (and sometimes even workdays, yikes) I go without putting on a drop of make-up or anything other than sweats or PJs. That feels good to my laziness, bad to my self esteem so I have put an effort into looking cuter and not just putting my hair in a bun.

2. Reading. I love, I mean LOVE, to read! I have since I was in Kindy but I never do it anymore. While I was pregnant I couldn't think. People kept giving me pregnancy/child birth/child rearing books but all I wanted to do was watch Pineapple Express over and over and then once the twins were here I didn't read at all except for the week I went on a cruise with hubby. So far I have read all three of the Hunger Games books and just polished off The Night Circus. I haven't decided what is next.

3. Hubby. Spending good quality time with hubby makes things better. We went on a date Monday night and it was so nice. Having a good, solid relationship makes me feel good about myself too.

4. Half marathon! I loved training and running the half marathon I the year before IVF #1. Running is like therapy for me so I will be hopefully doing that in April. Unless of course I have a natural miracle pregnancy. So basically I'm saying I will be running a half marathon in April.

P.S. Do you like my cleanly playroom in the background? No matter what we do, it always looks like a freaking bomb has gone off in there!

Public Tantrum

It has happened.

My kids have gotten rowdy or loud or they run around when they shouldn't be, but we have never had a full blown public tantrum before.

Before I begin, let me admit that this is partially my fault. The nuggets weren't feeling great and we should have stayed home. But it was a playdate day and I was so looking forward to it because I miss out on those things a lot as a working mama. I had also been feeling like poo after the surgery and stayed home the entire day Sunday. The kids were sleeping like crap and I knew they needed to be let free into the world to burn off some steam. So we went to the playdate against my better judgement at a very overly crowded place that has climbers, jump jumps, slides and other various play equipment.

A few times Ever had flailed and kicked her legs and let out a few tears so I knew her patience was short if I corrected her from going head first down things, climbing up things you are supposed to go down, etc. We were taking a snack break and I watched as another child was having an all out blood curdling scream tantrum and the two ladies who were sitting and talking to each other and messing on their smart phones said "oh, I would just take that child home if it were me." I was tempted to ask them if they even knew where their kids were, but decided it was not my bees wax.

Ocean said "all done" and got up to go play. Ever followed with her bag of snacks. I told her no, we do not take snacks in the play area. She told me no and kept going. I asked her to put the snacks in my hand, she yelled "no, no, no" to me and scurried up a climber. She got to the top and I told her to give mommy the snacks or mommy will take them. She said no again.

So I took the snacks.

Blood curdling scream. Flailing on the ground. Yelling "no, no, no, mine." Ocean stood above her and was shaking his head and said "oh no, oh nooo" and then decided to keep playing. I said "Ever, come see mommy, mommy will hold you, you're tired." She screamed no at me and then reached out to hit me but I was too far from her. People are watching to see what happens.

What to do? I have seen many a mom give their tantruming child lectures and gentle talking and honestly, I think that's nuts. Do people really think you can rationalize with a tantruming two year old? Obviously they do, but no, you cannot. I laugh when I see that, but it is nice that some mom's have the patience to give that a try. I could do as I have seen before and start yelling at her in public, but I would never do that either. I could scoop her up and run out of their for fear of annoying other customers, but I do have a second child who was having a great time that I didn't want to punish, even if Ever's screaming was annoying to everyone. So . . . . . . .

I had my camera around my neck. I thought it would be wise to document the first tantrum. I took some photos.

Then I laughed a little bit because the girl was determined to cause a scene. Then I walked away and pretended I didn't know her.

Yes, there were other mother's looking at me like "OMG Becky, I am going to tweet this on my smart phone, this bitch obviously didn't read Dr. So and So's book about giving lectures to your two year old."

Sure enough, about one minute after I walked away and sat with our stuff, she was up running after Ocean and playing on slides.

I survived the first public tantrum. I'm sure there is more where that came from.

Then we went to eat a huge ice cream sundae after lunch. It was fun. And the best part? I wore those kids out! They slept all night, in their own beds that night. It was glorious. I love spending time with my kiddies, even when they are attempting to own me in public.

The Situation

Wednesday I had my lap surgery. It was pretty easy. I have absolutely no memory of waking up at the surgery center or going home or getting home or anything which was super creepy. I haven't had pain in my incisions but have had stomach aches and head aches since then. I went and worked a full eight hour day Friday and went to a birthday party and a fancy shmancy work dinner with Hubby on Saturday, so I have been pleasantly surprised by lack of pain. I still feel groggy and achy, but not in pain.

I was not surprised that they did find endometriosis in my lady bits. I don't know the details, because as I said, I was on another planet that I now can't remember. So the situation is as follows:

1. PCOS - known about that for years, actually since 9 months after we started TTC at the end of 2007
2. Lefty the Loser Ovary - I had suspicions during treatments, but not confirmed until recently
3. Endometriosis - Thought about it, but never had any overwhelming symptoms, so this is a new one

Sounds like a winning combination, no?

Despite the odds slowly racking up against me, something weird happened this week out of nowhere. I just feel calm now. I don't feel as angry or sad or anything really. I was looking at pictures of Ocean and Ever when they were fresh little newborns last Tuesday. I thought it would make me sad and crave the chance to do it again. It is no secret that I have always wanted a large family. It is no secret that Hubby would love to have at least one more kiddo.

But when I was looking at the pictures of my nuggets, looking like scrawny little chickens that popped out of an egg with bug eyes, it just made me smile. Then I turned and saw them, now almost two (gasp!) as Ocean was pretending to shoot Afrin up his nose while Ever told him "no, no, no Ocean" and he was grinning from ear to ear, and I realized that I have it pretty good. Pretty awesome, really. I know lots of women crave newborns, but I love watching these two grow. And it is going by at the speed of light. Each day with them is so new and so out of the ordinary, even if we are doing nothing.

Of course more kiddos would be adding to the joy, but it is something that I really want, not something that I really need. I certainly don't want it to impair my ability to soak up the joy I get to feel right now with them.

On the other hand, tonight Ocean found a thermometer on the floor and said "what's this?" My very classy husband told him it's something that we stick up Mommy's butt. I told him no and then lectured hubby. I saw Ocean eyeing me but Ever and I were playing an Elmo game on the iPad so I wasn't getting up. I did later and didn't even think about the thermometer. As I was walking to the kitchen I felt the pitter patter of feet chasing after me and that boy was trying to stick the thermometer on my butt! I started laughing and said no, and then took off running. He chased me! He did not forget for one second what Hubby told him that was for and he was not giving up. Jeebus. I might need a third kid so I can get a re-do in the parenting department.

This is Ever working hard in Grampa's office. She colored all over his PO's very seriously and eyed everyone who came through the door. If you tell her "make money" then she reaches over and hits the plus sign on the calculator!

So serious!

It's My SITS Day!

Welcome! I am so excited about this! I have trolled SITS for awhile now checking out tons of blogs and it is pretty awesome to now be one of them!

My name is Ashley, I'm 27, I met Hubby when I was 19 and we got hitched when I was 23. We have twins, Ocean (Oshy) and Ever (Peanut) who were born full term and will be two on Earth Day. I work full time with kids but I always dream of being with my own kids full time. Our spiritual beliefs are complicated so I won't mention it in this short synopsis.

I started this blog as a place share and vent my infertility journey. The other thing I did here was find so many sources of support. People in the real world who have not experienced it or known someone that have experienced are generally not great supporters because they either don't know how to be supportive or they don't get why not being able to have babies is "such a big deal." So . . . .I turned to the interwebs and have found a great source of support and free therapy! I had no idea I would have trouble getting knocked up at the age of 23. It has made me feel sad, angry, guilty, worthless, jealous and then eventually grateful and happy because we have the twins now and they are super! We would love a big family and are back in the trenches and recently had a failed fertility treatment. Boo. So now I feel sad, angry, guilty, worthless, jealous, happy, grateful and in love with O&E all at once.

The second most popular course of discussion on this blog is mommyhood! It has really surprised me. I absolutely love it, but I think I have made my fair share of new mommy mistakes. Hubby, the twins and I are just all trying to figure this out together and be the family we want to be and that works for us.

(the partners in crime flushing the potty over and over as I'm telling them not to)

Thank you so much for stopping by! Feel free to roam around!