Thursday, December 30, 2010

Early Experiences

When I was somewhere around five or six years old a stranger made a snide comment to me in the middle of a mall, and I think it scarred me some. I was there with my mother and grandmother, and we ran into a sweet old lady who lived across the street from us. My grandmother had taken a dish over to her a few days or so before, and for some reason I asked her, “When are you going to give us our bowl back?”. Definitely kinda rude, but hey, I was little and didn’t really know any better. My mom got really mad. She took me aside, sat me on a stool and scolded me in front of everyone in that area of the mall. Sensitive kid that I was, I started to cry. And I cried some more after she walked back over to the neighbor. As I was sitting there, crying, a woman who hadn’t seen or heard any of what happened was passing by. She looked right at me, narrowed her eyes and nastily said to me, “Spoiled brat!” I can only assume she thought I was crying because my mom wouldn’t buy me a toy or something. I don’t really know but I’ve kept that with me all these years.

I’ve been thinking about my past a lot lately. Things like that when I was really young. I keep wondering how much of what you experience when you’re tiny sticks with you and contributes to who you are as an adult.

When I was in first grade I had a few friends in my class and a crush on one of them… a little boy named Lucas. One day one of those other friends, a boy named Timothy, came up to me and asked if I liked anyone. I didn’t want to say, but he kept assuring me that he wouldn’t tell anyone. So I did, and of course like little boys do, he did. He went right over to Lucas and told him. I was mortified. Lucas made a face, and they both started laughing. I remember that being the day I realized I couldn’t really trust anyone. First grade… how sad is that?

I wonder if my social anxiety comes from occurrences like those. I get embarrassed just thinking back on them. I remember it really kicking in during second grade. We moved to a new town, and I started school in the middle of the year. No one really liked me. I dreaded going and faked being sick all the time, but my mom only bought it every now and then. The summer after that I was enrolled in a YMCA summer day camp during the week. Every day I dreaded walking into that building. While all the other kids were playing together with toys on the far side of the room, I would hang out in the book section on the opposite end and read, or pretend to just so I looked busy and content by myself. One of the counselors came up to me one day and asked if I wanted to play with the other kids, and I said I was fine reading. I remember thinking that I wanted to more than anything, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk over there. I never had anything to say and no one ever wanted to play with me anyway.

I’m still like that. I’ve been like that so long now that I don’t know how to be any other way. I want to more than anything, but I’m not sure I ever will. I keep hoping these anti-depressants will magically help, but I don’t think they work that way. I don’t even know exactly what I’ve been expecting them to do, but I’m not sure they’re doing it. I don't even know if they'll work at all since it's an experimental drug. Maybe they are working, I don’t know. Sometimes I feel just fine, but then I get a day like today where I’m paranoid and all over the place. Maybe the upped dosage will kick in soon and help some.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Happy Things

Hope everyone had a magical holiday! We awoke Christmas morning to a winter wonderland! It had snowed overnight (in Mississippi!) making for a white Christmas! It was so thrilling! We immediately took the dogs outside, and they had a blast romping in it all. We cooked some wonderful food and had a very relaxing day. It was perfect.

Santa was good to me! I got the camera I wanted! My wonderful husband and parents went in on it together, and I absolutely love it. I took a ton of pictures and can’t wait to sit down and learn all the ins and outs of it!





My wonderful husband gave me kind of a late Christmas gift last night. He was at work and sent me a text completely out of the blue.

"I think we should do your surgery.”

I didn’t really know how to respond to it, but said “Okay baby. We can talk when you get home. Everything ok?”

“Yep, I just want a family with you.”

How amazing is he?! When he got home he was telling me how everyone at work was talking about how great Christmas with their kids was, and how he wanted to have that. I got so excited. We were both exhausted last night and he’s got a crazy week, so we’re going to talk about it this weekend. I contacted the Center for Endometriosis Care in Atlanta for some info because if I have surgery it’s going to be done by a specialist who actually knows about the condition/disease and the right way to go about it. They do free phone consultations and could give me a price quote during it. I hope they have a payment plan.

I’m trying not to get my hopes up, and we’ll probably talk ourselves out of it again because we’re still nowhere close to being financially ready, but it’s just so exciting to think about TTC again! To find out the status of my insides where the endo is concerned.

But I also wonder if it’s a mistake to jump right into surgery. We only tried for nine months… should we try longer and see if anything happens? I’d definitely want the husband to do the semen analysis before surgery… I hope he’d be on board with that. Should we try the Clomid for a few months like my lady doctor wanted first? Although I really don’t see that helping as I have always ovulated on my own. And I think she just wanted us to give it a try before sending me to an endo specialist, because she knows it’s pricey and I’m insuranceless. I just don’t know.

If we do decide to start TTC again I’ll have to leave the depression study. I’d be okay with that though because I think stopping TTC is what brought on this last bout of it all. I had another appointment yesterday, and they upped my dosage. I was feeling a little better on the lower dose, but not as much as they’d like. So up I go.

My mind is racing with all this. This weekend can’t get here fast enough.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Christmas Party

Saturday night we went to a work Christmas party for the husband and the roommate. The husband had a bad day at work that morning and wasn’t sure he even really wanted to go. We decided to make a quick appearance though just so he’d be seen, so we got all dolled up and headed over. The four restaurants closed early at nine, which is when the party started. Knowing no one would be there at nine (didn’t they figure in clean-up time and that people would want to shower and change after work?), we arrived around 10:45 and stayed a little over an hour or so. The chef they work for has four restaurants, so there were a lot of people there. It was pretty nice and very festively decorated. There was good food and free drinks. Some guy younger than me called me sweetheart… blech.

I saw a famous movie star, and she was sneaking a smoke inside listening to the band. I can’t figure out why she would want to go to a small town work Christmas party though. I guess she lives around town because the roommate has seen her at a local bar before. Maybe she was invited by a friend. Maybe celebrities flock together… I guess the chef could be considered a celebrity in the cooking world.

I was more preoccupied with how all the women there were in teeny tiny miniskirt dresses, and how I was one of only two or three wearing pants. Dress pants, but still. They all looked to be really early twenty-somethings with teeny tiny little bodies, so why not I guess. But I wouldn’t have worn something like that even if I’d had a body similar to theirs when I was that age. I did flaunt (well, a little) what I do have to work with now which is huge boobs (thanks to the damn birth control), which make for nice cleavage. Most of their skimpy dresses were conservative in the chest area, so I got to show them up there. Ha, take that, little girls.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

♪ It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ♫

It has been for awhile now, and we love it! We started decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving, and the house has had a festive spirit ever since.

We weren't planning on having a tree this year. Our old little one didn't make it onto the moving truck this past summer, and we had decided to wait until we were at a more permanent residence to get another. But it didn't really feel like Christmas without a tree, and the husband surprised me with a huge 7.5-foot one!


And now there are a few presents under it waiting patiently to be opened.


We decided to put up just a few lights outside also, to make it festive on the outside too. We weren't sure how this would go without a ladder, but the husband and roommate made it work with some creative climbing up onto the roof, and it looks great!


Can't wait for Christmas!



Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Virtual Preggo Eggos and Actual Creaking Knees

It seems like every two to three weeks someone announces they’re preggo on facebook. Most of these people I haven’t seen since high school, and even then we weren’t great friends, but it still hurts to see all the time. Another one of those came yesterday morning. Then yesterday evening I was watching one of my regular shows and one of the main characters found out she was pregnant. She and her somewhat estranged husband had been trying for maybe a month or two, and I’m thinking the “session” that got her knocked up was (impromptu and awkward in a boat house!) a kinda angry make up sex thing, she thought, and a whatever kind of thing in his mind. I think... it’s all very confusing. Anyways, I totally know that these are fictional characters and none of it is real, but I absolutely LOST IT as I was watching.

It got me thinking how often that really happens… plan to have a baby (or not!), have sex whenever they feel like it for a few months, sometimes only once or twice, then BAM… it happens. When for so many other people, they have to deal with medical conditions getting the way, plan their lives around fertile times, obsess about when to have sex, how often is too often or it not happening often enough, etc. It just stinks that it’s so difficult for some people. I’m still angry that it didn’t work so easily for us. I know I sound like a broken record.

Onto other things. I’m out of the study I was in… apparently I wasn’t depressed or suicidal enough for it. But I’m into another for moderate depression now. I’m guaranteed the actual drug for twelve weeks, then I’ll either stay on it or get a placebo for the rest of the trial, the decision of which is completely random and neither I nor the doctor will know which I’m taking. Sounds so freaky.

Oh, and they told me my cholesterol is high. How freakin old am I?! My back hurts, my knees creak when I squat down, I can’t hear sometimes, I need to get a stronger prescription for my reading glasses, and now I have to eat a shit-ton of oatmeal. Seriously, on paper I could pass for 57 instead of 27.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

A Kind-Hearted Stranger

Thursday we had a little bit of a scare. That afternoon the husband and I headed out to run a few errands, and right as we were getting into town he got a call. The number was unrecognized, but thankfully he decided to answer.

“Hey, I just picked your dog up off the highway.”

WHAT?!?! They talked for a minute, and the guy said the dog was okay and he was calling the number on its tag. OH MY GOD!!! How did she get out??? The husband whipped the car around, and we had the longest ten minute drive back towards our house ever! We were running through the possible situations as we drove. We saw her sitting in the kitchen when we left, and I closed and locked the door behind me. Did a window break?? Did someone break in and leave the door open??

Finally we pulled up to the spot where the guy was at, and sure enough he had our dog! I began crying immediately, so happy she wasn't hurt. He was soooo nice. He asked if she’d been missing long, and all I could get out was a stammered “No, we just left the house!” and a whole bunch of thank yous over and over. You could see our house from there, so he must have picked her up right after she got out. Thank goodness for people like him!

So we started driving back to the house, still panicked because we figured if the dog was out, the cat must have gotten out also (the new puppy was in his crate, thank goodness!!). As we neared the house we saw the door was open, and thankfully the cat was just hanging out in the front yard. I thought he would have taken the opportunity to run, but I guess he truly is my sweet, lazy housecat. We parked a bit up the road and calmly walked up to him. His fur was all puffed out and he was totally freaked. I grabbed him, and the husband checked out the house, which was empty of burglars and nothing was missing.

We examined the door, and apparently the latch had somehow broken and didn't catch when we shut it. Geez. The door now stays dead bolted, and I've been trying to get the maintenance man to call me back.

I feel so lucky. This could have turned out a lot worse. All night, all the “what ifs” kept running through my head, but luckily we don’t have to worry about that and everyone is safe at home.

Passed out together, happy and safe at home.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Can't have a baby, so we got a puppy...

That wasn’t our reasoning at all, but we did get a puppy. An adorably sweet puppy that has helped to cheer us all up, especially me. He came from the shelter sick so he’s required extra attention and care, and I feel like I’ve gotten to “mother” him. He falls asleep in my arms and whimpers when I’m not in sight. He makes me feel needed and like I have a purpose again. It’s sad that it’s taken a dog to do that. He’s only been with us a few days, but I already can’t imagine our house without him. He’s brought some excitement back into it.