Epitaph

John Green posted this on his tumblr last week, and I keep coming back to it to read it again, it struck me so.  I feel like I need to put it here as well.

clearing out

I've been getting the itch to do some spring cleaning a bit earlier than usual this year.  I was tackling the kitchen "junk" drawer, when I found this item in the very back:

My heart sank, just a bit, and I could feel the familiar fog of grief starting to creep in.

Sadness was streaming over me, as I was reminded that I will never need to take one of these tests again, since the surgery last fall.  I thought about how appropriate the term "barren" really was, now that the lining of my uterus was removed and cauterized... depleted, empty, fruitless.

Then I felt intensely guilty as I heard Emma yawn in the next room.  I felt as if the longing I was feeling in that moment, the remembrance of the years of trying, hoping, grieving, and trying again... it was insulting to my beautiful baby, that I would ever feel regret or yearning for another, an other, child.

I have what I had always longed for - an incredible little girl, who fills our house with so much joy and completes our family. She snapped me back out of my self-indulgent moment, and gave me the strength to throw the test away, and with it the last of my guilt over not being able to sustain another life within myself.

My goal, throughout this journey - I should say *our* goal, as it is the same for The Boy as it is for me - has been to be a parent, not to biologically pass on my genes.

I don't need this test anymore, just as I don't need to be pregnant and experience childbirth to be a mother. And I absolutely do not need to feel bad about my journey to parenthood anymore.

Closure, that is what I found tonight, in the back of a kitchen junk drawer.

(which, fyi, now looks lovely and organized!)

Purpose

It's been one of those nights where I click a link in a blog post, which leads to another, and another, and then a video, an article, another blog, a Google search, several more articles, and now I'm sitting here two hours later, soaked in tears, seriously considering making some plans for my future which are very different from anything I had previously considered.

I don't think there is an appropriate emoticon for that.

three months

The time is flying by.  I need to find a way to slow everything down, to savour it and really appreciate how precious each of these moments are.  If someone out there figures this out, please let me in on the secret?

She's been home for just over two months now, but it feels as if she's been here all along. We just fit, the three of us, perfectly.

I have nicknamed her "Turtle" due to the goofy way she looked up at me, all wide-eyes and wrinkly-necked, when she was learning to move her head around on her own.  I loved cuddling her on my chest, nestled beneath my chin, and the way she would lean back and pear up at me, blinking, and smiling... my heart could barely stand it! 

So she's my Turtle, or Turtle Dovlet, or Little Missy Peanut Sauce, Emmi, EmmaLaLa, Lovey, Bean, Beansie... and so on. The poor kid is going to be so confused about her name with me as her Momma!

complete and utter joy!

Tonight we met Emma. Tomorrow is my last day at work. This weekend we must acquire all the necessities for sustaining this tiny little life.

It's difficult to grasp just how much I love her already! It's amazing!

On Monday I will become a mother.

Blerfpftrsshdnejfkdpfss...

We are meeting with a set of birth parents this afternoon, as soon as I can get off work.

I am beside myself. I am thrilled. I am terrified.

I feel like this is the most important "first date" of my entire life, and I can't properly articulate all the thoughts and emotions that are coursing through me.

I want this so badly. I am so afraid that I'm going to screw this up somehow.

My stomach is doing summersaults, and my head is swimming.

My heart is aching.

not yet

Looking around the house for things to get rid of in the yard sale tomorrow. I thought about clearing this section of my bookshelf.  I almost pulled the books out, my hand was reaching for them, but my heart sped up just a bit... and I hesitated.

I don't think I'm ready yet. Not quite ready to let that dream go just yet, I guess...

Soon.  I hope.

Yearning.

There is a deep, pervasive ache. A scream being stifled, just below the surface.

Wheels are spinning in place.

Time is wasting.

tick tock, tick tock.

Another beautiful photo of a healthy infant, carefully swaddled, sleeping peacefully. Another shot of one of my friends, grinning widely, hands placed on their swollen abdomens just so, accentuating the beauty of their impending motherhood.

I am genuinely, lovingly happy for them. I am so pleased by their wonderful news! And yet...

 And yet.

 My heart aches with loss and stings from jealousy. I do my best to contain those feelings as I wish them all well, because indeed I do. My grief does not colour my happiness for them, it only serves to remind me of the losses we've had and the experiences that we won't get.

 I keep getting to a place where I think I am at peace with our infertility, but there are days when I've just had enough of being happy for others and I need a little time to feel sorry for myself. I need to cry, or write, or paint... whatever it takes to get the pain out of my heart, and out of my mind, and stop it from tearing me down.

I need to refocus. Be productive. Move forward.

I need to beleive that this gets easier with time.

a decade.

It's been ten years already.

I want to write down my account of that day as it plays over again in my mind. I want to itemize the events. I want to tell you how I was just shy of 18 years old, in the second week of my first year of college. I want to share my feelings and thoughts and all of the realizations I've come to in the years since that day.

But I don't need to do that.

The repercussions of that day are still happening. The world is still broken (most likely more so). What's important is the remembering.

I remember.

how I plan to pass the next few weeks

falling behind on my nerdy pursuits

The goal is to read fifty books in 365 days, and I am woefully behind where I had hoped to be at this point. The year is half over and I'm only on book 23.

1. Beloved - Toni Morrison
2. Funny Boy - Shyam Selvadurai
3. Sundays at Tiffany’s - James Patterson
4. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
5. Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
6. Stand Still Like The Hummingbird - Henry Miller
7. The Art of Happiness - Dalai Lama
8. A Complicated Kindness - Miriam Toews
9. You Suck - Christopher Moore
10. When You Are Engulfed In Flames - David Sedaris
11. Looking for Alaska - John Green
12. Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
13. Her Last Death, a Memoir - Susanna Sonnenberg
14. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
15. American on Purpose - Craig Ferguson
16. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marques
17. The Girls Who Went Away - Ann Fesler
18. You Remind Me of Me - Dan Chaon
19. The End of Faith - Sam Harris
20. Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
21. Things I Learned About My Dad (In Therapy) - Heather Armstrong
22. Colors Insulting to Nature - Cintra Wilson

Currently working on Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham, and planning to dive into another David Sedaris book next.

Clearly, I need to hike up my glasses and get to it! ;)

the next chapter

We have begun the process of (hopefully) becoming adoptive parents, officially, tonight. There is a great deal of paperwork to get through, some alarming and disheartening statistics to wade through, classes to register for, and many conversations to be had with our families.

We've been talking about the option of adoption since shortly after our wedding, almost four years ago, but it actually feels real now.

I'm feeling excited, nervous and hopeful. Mostly hopeful. Hopeful is good.

promiscuous girl...

and what a month it has been

The time has come for me to declare defeat... I have officially failed at this blog challenge. At least I did post a bunch of new content for a while, and kept it up for nineteen days... but 19/30 is still a pretty crappy grade.

birthday-shmirthday...

I'm supposed to be writing about my favourite birthday today, but here's the thing... I avoid my birthday, and choose to mostly ignore it. When I was younger, and believed in things like superstition, I used to think that September the 25th was a cursed day in general for me. A myriad of horrible things have happened to me on that day, year after year. I've had nastiness across the spectrum, from a seagull pooping on my French-braided hair at lunch time in high school, to learning the news of my grandfather's terminal cancer.

The last few years haven't been bad at all, consisting mostly of relaxed dinners with The Boy, followed by ice cream cake from DQ. However, I still don't like doing anything very interesting or exciting enough to warrant calling any of my birthdays as my favourite. I enjoy other people's birthdays, love baking cakes, cupcakes, and all manner of special treats for my friends and family on their birthdays, but having a big to-do for myself... meh. Not my thing.

my favourite memories

I wouldn't have any clue how to choose just one...

my first kiss

I was a naughty little girl, and my parents tell me that I have been smooching on the boys since I could toddle myself over to them... yup. The first one I remember was Corey, we were five, and it was while playing in his basement, hiding from the babysitter. There was much giggling, as I recall.

My first "real" kiss (aka "French" kiss) was in eighth grade, under a jungle gym at the park, and there was too much saliva going on.

*shudders*

Yup. So that's that!

:)

what dreams may come

Blargh.

So I fail at this blog challenge, that is clear enough. Friday's post was a cop-out, and then I missed yesterday's post, which was an additional "what I wore today" day, because I was visiting family all day... and it completely slipped my mind.

Today's topic is "my dreams". I'm not sure if it's meant to be about my goals/aspirations, or my nighttime forays into my own psyche, so I'm going to go with the latter.

Lately, my dreams have very clearly been centred around my anxiety. There have been elaborate labyrinths, puzzles, and nonsensical problems that need solving, and a cast of characters who are modelled mostly after my family. I have a tendency to try to analyze my dreams when I wake up and am still in the midst of that sleep fog, before the details disappear... I'm sure this only adds to my neurosis, but it is what it is.

We watched inception recently, and it reminded me of how often I experience lucid dreams. Very frequently, I will me in the middle of a completely crazy dream, and I will become aware that I am dreaming and will feel like I need to influence the dream or direct it a certain way in order to try to figure out what it is my subconscious is trying to tell me.

See how I over-analyze things, even when I'm not awake?

The topic of dreams, and why we dream, has always been very interesting to me. I enjoy reading about the research of sleep and the studies done on the sleeping brain. I find it so interesting to watch documentaries on the subject, or segments of NOVA that talk about sleep research. I like that we haven't really figured out why we need sleep yet, or how exactly dreams come about. I sometimes which I had tried a little harder in high school to focus on my maths and sciences, and become a neurologist or psychologist.

Years ago, I used to keep a notebook by my bed so that I could write bits of my dreams down before I forgot them, thereby being able to look up symbols and meanings in a dream dictionary and try to interpret things, but I have since given up this behaviour. Mostly because I feel like it is a silly, fruitless practice that only leads me to dwell on things that are best left as they are.

I am not a very good sleeper. It is difficult for me to fall asleep, and when I am woken up suddenly, either by a nightmare or a noise in the night, it is really hard for me to fall back asleep. There is always this track running in my mind of things that need doing, and things that I want to think about... and when the plot of a crazy dream is added to that, I can sometimes fixate on whatever it was about. I've noticed that since I've been on the Effexor, the dreams have been a little kookier than they used to be. Maybe it's a side-effect, or maybe it's just my brain trying to work things out and heal itself.

Who really knows?

this week...

... has kicked my ass. I just finished up ten days straight of working some very long and varied shifts, and I'm beat. I think it's time for me to go to bed now... I promise that tomorrow's post will be better!

Nighty night...