Little Victories

At the risk of being called the "crazy childless aunt" who hoards cats and calls her horses her "children," I have been working with horses a lot lately. Before this, my time was pretty evenly split between work and…well, work. The weekends would come and I would spend most of it with my husband and dogs, and some of it at school. While I have been diligently working on my 101 in 1,001 list, finding things to do and places to go, my "everyday" life wasn't really filled with anything that I could call a significant hobby, something I looked forward to doing on a regular basis. I've tried running, but that's very seasonal, and not even really my cup of tea. (I really do hate running, I just love what it does for my body.)

Two months ago, I met a woman who needed help with her horses. She'd taken in two new ones, both abused, and had little time to train her own and spend time with these needy ones. So, I started coming over and brushing, walking, riding, and desensitizing (to strange noises or situations) two of her horses. It is amazing. The gratification that I have not been getting from my work (most times it seems that the kids just hate what and how I teach), or my body (that still refuses to get any kind of pregnant), I am finding with these animals. Every time I work or spend time with them, they do something that they didn't do before. Like yesterday, Maverick (a beautiful Appaloosa) stood completely still while I brushed and cleaned him. He's never done that for anyone, his owner said. I did that! My love, care, and attention made a discernable difference! It feels good to have small victories, even if they are equine in nature. I had forgotten how good it feels to accomplish something tangible. I hope everyone has something like this that makes them feel helpful and appreciated. I wish I had found this a year ago…

I Blame the Pituitary!

In the last two years, I have become more aware of my body and its functions than I ever thought possible. I've charted and monitored my temperature, my cycle, cervical mucus and tenderness. There is no doubt in my mind that I know myself better now than I ever have. So why is it always a surprise to me that I can become so depressed and moody at certain times of the month? Today, I've really felt soreness in my chest. They're like little hormone barometers - relaying information about the potential for emotional storms or changes in my mood. Today was even a pretty good day by Middle School Teacher standards…nobody called me a bad name behind my back (that I could hear), and nobody barfed in my classroom. Win! So why do I feel so pessimistic and melancholy? I blame my pituitary gland. If someone's going to take the rap, it's going to be the pituitary. From what I remember in science class, that's the epicenter of hormonal action. Well, Houston, we have a problem. My pituitary is doing a pretty shoddy job of something, cause I feel like crap.

Chocolate? Wine? Chocolate and wine? Maybe just an early bedtime and a peppermint hot chocolate in the morning. Make that extra whipped cream, fella. I got a gland to appease.

Oh No She Didn't!

I haven't been writing much lately as I have been on a "TTC Hiatus." (We all know that infertility still occupies a good chunk of my time and makes me insanely jealous when someone new announces a pregnancy...I'm just not going to the RE and spending my allowance on Follistim.) The hubby and I are waiting until summertime to undergo the fabled IVF procedure. We decided that the stress of work and finances would make this cycle (read: any cycle until May) a bust no matter what. If IVF is going to be successfull (and for $5,000, it better be!), then we want to give it the best shot possible. So, here's to taking a break...

In the meantime, we've been enjoying time with friends. This weekend, we were coaxed into going to a local iconic eatery in Denver called Casa Bonita. It was...um, interesting. Think Las Vegas' Venitian hotel, but Mexicali. With a waterfall. And a cave. And an arcade. It was just kitschy enough to include a fortune-teller-in-a-box, à la "Big". (My Cultural Studies teacher, let alone Umberto Eco, would have had a field day with this place.) Anyway, for one token, Estrella would give you a fortune. I was in.

I put in my token, she waved her automated hand over her crystal ball, and violà! Nothing. No fortune appeared in the little slot. That's par for the course: my luck was crap. I asked the attendants if the machine was broken, and they in turn asked a manager to come help me out. "Do you want your fortune, or do you want your token back?" she asked, amused. "I want my fortune!" I said. In went the token, and out came not one but TWO fortunes! Oh, the luck! Here is what the fortunes said:

"Ideas are like children, there are none so wonderful as your own."

Damn you, Estrella. Damn you.

Which Way to Go?

Just when you think you're all alone…you realize you're not. I had a very strange dream about an old friend of mine last night, and I caught her on Facebook chat this morning. She and I worked together when I was in college, and we were very close. So, I didn't feel like I had to dance around my TTC frustrations when she asked how I was. As it turns out, she also had some difficulty when she began trying for a baby. At 25, she had a miscarriage, and then it took three more years to get pregnant again. She now has two beautiful little girls and never went to an RE once. She and her husband went on a long-awaited vacation and, BLAMO!, they got pregnant.

I'm trying very hard to make a decision about this IVF - do it or not? Take the natural route or the scientific one? I know that it works for some people, but I also know that it doesn't work for a lot of people. I hate to be pragmatic about it, but it will fall in the two busiest months of the school year (State testing), and I'm not really looking forward to putting stress on top of stress. I know that my work shouldn't dictate my life, but it is my job and I do take a lot of pride in doing it well. That's hard to do when you're skipping out every other day for blood tests and ultrasounds.

Maybe the IVF can wait a few months. I don't have an discernable condition, so perhaps a few months of R&R on the TTC front could be beneficial…it's worth a shot, I guess. I know I'm not getting any younger (oh, hello Birthday, just around the corner), but I don't want to go crazy in the meantime.

New Year, New Me...Really

I buried my youth today. One of the things that has bugged me about infertility these last two years is that I feel like I'm stuck between two lives: my youth and parenthood. I went from being a raft-guiding, college girl to being a wife and teacher, expecting children to be close at hand. I only got married when I felt the ticking of my biological clock. (Don't worry, I loved my husband just as much then as I do now, but my mother always told me I would know I'd found my husband when I discovered that I loved him so much I'd want to have his children. She was right.) I just assumed that it would be a quick transition between fun-loving freedom and buckle-down parenthood, and I was ready for the leap. It has not been a smooth transition at all: it has been a long, frustrating, drawn-out affair that has put my identity into question.

I hold on to my youth and my experiences in a small, black, Molskine notebook. I've had it since the year 2000 and have chronicled all the books I've read, pithy phrases that have made an impact on me, things I've done, and things I mean to do. Every so often, I look back in this book and remind myself of who I am, what I want, and where I've been. Today I decided, however, that I need to re-evaluate things. I need to figure out who I am as an adult without kids. What are the things that inspire me? What do I want? What do I like to do?

So, I got out the new, red Molskine that I bought at the National Gallery in England this summer. I knew that my old black one was going to eventually run out of pages, and I was lamenting the fact that I'd have to switch over. But this, I think, is much better. I made a conscious decision to lay it to rest. It is no more. Now I have a fresh book, blank and inviting, waiting to be filled with quotes from new books, clippings from new magazines, lists of movies I want to see, and such. I am not the same person I was ten years ago, and I need to let go of that. I also need to let go of any preconceived notions I had about who I would be and what I would have at 31 (in one month) years of age. It's a new dawn, and I'm going to fill the page of my new year with a new me. (Though the old me can still hang out when I listen to Taio Cruz and go out dancing.)

The Things That Keep Us Going

I went to see '127 Hours' this week with my mom and brothers - IT WAS AMAZING! The movie is the reconstructed story of Aron Ralston and his harrowing days stuck in a slot canyon. As most of you know, he ends up cutting his arm off, and the movie doesn't really dance around that. The cinematography is amazing, the soundtrack is cool, and James Franco does a really nice job of portraying (what I expect to be) a full-loving but slightly flawed main character. Almost the entire movie takes place in the canyon, with Aron's arm pinned between a 'Rock and a Hard Place' (the name of his book, if you haven't read it), but the director, Danny Boyle, (who also directed 'Slumdog Millionare') does an amazing job of keeping your attention riveted to the screen for what could have easily been a very boring 94 minutes.

At some point (SPOILER ALERT!) Aron hallucinates about the things that will make life worth fighting for, and he eventually sees the face of his son. (He has yet to even meet his future wife. It's all very hypothetical.) The little boy's visage gives him the strength he needs to do the inconceivable - cut of fhis own arm. It's awesome.

It did make me think, however, about how much we (and I'm talking WE, gals) will do to reach the end of our own battle. The very images in our mind of what our kids will look like, what they will say, and how much we will love them gives us all the strength to keep on keepin' on. To Aron, the very idea of having kids was worth putting a blunt instrument through his radius. For us, it's worth dozens of doctor's visits, months of despair, and hundreds of little white sticks that we pee on in the morning. (At least we don't have to drink urine like Aron. Ick.) In the end, like it was for Aron, it will all be worth it. It will. Someday.

Oh, the holidays...

Day one of vising home was a marginal success: I didn't cry once! Hubby and I had dinner with my parents and my 6-months pregnant sister, her husband, and their two-year-old daughter. I love playing with my niece, who is adorable, and lisening to the funny things she says. (Yesterday, I asked her how many legs she had, and she promptly lifted one leg, looked down, and answered, "One.") But seeing my sister with a big (albeit cute) baby bump is just plain tortuous. I'm not going to mince words, here: this is really tough and a little bit f-ed up. Two other friends have recently announced their second pregnancies, too. It's begining to look a lot like Christmas, indeed. Santa sure isn't going to be brining me what I want.

Especially since, on the drive out to California, I experienced the aftermath of what appears to have been a very early miscarriage. It turns out the tardiness of my cycle was not just an oversight on my body's part - it was a physical reaction to implantation and then, inevitably, loss. On one hand, it SUCKED. On the other hand, it's something that I've never experienced before, and that means that something is happening that never happened before. I've never had any evidence that I've been pregnant for any time at all, and this was proof that at least something is going on inside me. Obviously, this isn't the proof that I wanted, but it's something...

I'm hoping that every day will be easier, and I'll be able to have a nice time here at home for the holidays. I was going to try drinking heavily and spending the whole week in an alcohol-induced hase, but I guess that's not a very healthy option. Maybe chocolate and shopping, instead...let's go with that.