Menopause and Infertility

So hey there loves.
Yesterday was menopause day, aka CD 366. One full year with no period.

The past year has been filled with chin pimples and fading hair, skin that is thinning everywhere, showing the impact of gravity and estrogen loss.

As someone who lived, it seemed, cycle to cycle for so many years.  A late cycle would bring hope then torment and sadness. The year before last was a year of long periods, of wondering more than once if maybe, just maybe........ but then a panic would set it, what if? and what if I had a loss? And I think that might have happened but I did not check with sticks or temping... just waited things out.

Once, my first long cycle, I was sure I was pregnant. And the mixture of emotions was profound.  Amazement.  Fury. Hope. Fear. and then, when the bleeding started, such immense loss.  And then, the next time, I mostly felt loss, that I was officially out of the zone of possibility, no way for a good outcome even if... and to feel my body changing, to see it changing.... well, some changes are easier than others.

So today marks perhaps the first day of not wondering.
A feeling of in between. No longer that.  Not yet wholly and fully this.

Maiden, mother, crone. and the middle one holy moly mo-cro.
I am both.

not a day goes by where I don't feel wonder, even if it is wonder and madness.

So here we are.  in the middle of the middle.

big love and gratitude

Time is a funny thing, isn't it? It goes too slowly or too quickly. And then suddenly it feels like I drop out of the maelstrom and months have passed.

There is no single day that passes when I don't think about this space. How it has held me, saved me, kept me from going insane. How you, the you that read back then, and those of you who stop by and say hello, the friends I have made, and the blogs I still visit from time to time to see if there is any new news... you are a family to me. A family that understands things that no one else really can, and I want to say thank you.

I am not going anywhere, just feeling very big gratitude right now.
For not having to go this alone.

THANK YOU
big love,
Kate

7

Somehow through miracles bigger than I will ever understand, Della is 7 today. She is immense and beautiful. Smart and funny. Snarky and tender and spirited. She is magical and complicated. Sensitive.
She is not yet independent or resilient or patient or empathetic. She is an only child who wants and believes she needs full immersion intensity, attention, interaction, responsiveness. School is hard, structure is not hard but noise is, and chaos, and no space for quiet. She arrives home tired and hungry. And needing to be internal. So in she goes, but near by.  barks out needs: Toast!  More toast! while her screen saves her with magical worlds the way mine once did with the original Star Trek and no I am not kidding.

I have rarely known anyone so often and deeply disappointed and disapppointable. Or someone with as lovely and contagious a smile and laugh and true silliness.  She knows we are here,  but aches for us to be closer. No longer wants kisses, will negotiate for hugs.

parenting in the time of consent is curious.  Yes it is your body but we NEED to wash it.

and me, oh I am missing the snuggles. I am missing being the throw pillow that held her weight even if not her attention. And as I try to reconnect with my own independence. My own patience. My own resilience. I am strung deep and hard into empathy and anxiousness, my desire to avoid discomfort a true pathology that gets in the way of joy and experience.  And I am navigating like a new driver with a standard transmission, too many pedals, too abrupt a change causes a lurch or a stall or a fearfilled rolling backwards as I forget all I know, emergency brake, flashers, ignition, my ability to walk or sit still or wait or think. there is a perpetual immediacy that I feel in parenting, and am learning (SLOWLY) to create gaps.  longer and longer.  between a thing and a response while still being responsive.  I can say, let me think about that. I can say, hm. I'm not sure.

Parenting means parenting me too.  this weirdness of finding out all the areas I've glosssed over with make do skills.  la la la avoidance. la la la.   well hello there unfinished business, guess I will scooch over and make some more room for you at this big ole table of other things I need to address.    learning and learning and relearning. not always comfortable.  no, that's a lie.  not comfortable nearly ever.   I reposted something on FB today, a great quote posted by someone who posts great quotes. 

Robert Kaplan

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo

 I cannot promise the same.  Something great may not come of it.  But as I am learning my tiny brave steps.  my tiny insane moments of courage.  I can say that they are their own tiny greatness.  Look, I can say, look. I am trying.  I am pushing beyond what I knew or know. I am thinking of things differently.  I am willing to try to change.   Panic still has fun with me. A recent Lyme diagnosis has not been resolved with doxy. I wonder as I move forward who I am and what will stay, what will go. and how I will adjust to what my body feels like whatever that turns out to be. the same way I wonder who I am and what will stay in the wake of so many years of struggling with panic. I know I am still here. but also ever evolving. ever changing.

Last night, I tucked a sleeping Della into bed after reading, and I felt teary.  A deep ache for time passed and passing.  the preciousness of it all. and the impossibility of the adage to treasure and remember every moment. Some moments suck and are not treasured. Many go unnoticed in the act of being and doing and folding and working. Almost none can be remembered for me.  I know I held that baby full time for nearly a year. And yet, my memory is nearly a dream. the curve of her cheek. her ear. Her eyebrows. the way her chin dimples. Now stretched into a strong 7 year old who cartwheels in the living room, dances, and cries every single time she needs a bath. That, at least, remains the same. A touchpoint that connects the beginning to the now.

 

unexpected tenderness

Ok-- so-- first, the hair loss. Ratios of my thyroid levels indicate something wacky between the whole Make T3! call to action by the TSH and the T3 levels themselves.  So, selenium as a facilitator and we shall see. I am not optimistic my hair will grow back, but that's what hats are for.

In the meantime, so much else has happened that it is hard to even get riled up about it.

I had my first mammogram call back, after my first mammogram in 4 years. I had a lump last year, followed by an ultrasound, followed by an all clear and the lump vanishing. But I had never had a call back on a mammogram before.

I'll start this by saying, I'm ok. The reading was ok- and I go back in 6 months. But here is what I wrote while I waited:

I'm in the waiting room at radiology. Waiting waiting for a call-back mammogram. I am thinking if all of the waiting rooms. All of the waiting. The fluorescent lights. The linoleum floor. The cold air and scratchy cotton. I am thinking about turning points, decision points, change of plan points. I am thinking about love and connection and feel an unexpectedly tender love for my body.

Now, I have not felt much tenderness toward my body, ever.
It has caused me untold grief with colitis, acne, the whitest skin on the planet, bruises, bulges, infertility, the birth saga with uncooperative cervix then c section... anxiety, hair loss, blah blah blah blah blah....
it has always been it. not me. it.
a separate container for my Self to ambulate in, to use the sensors with great gratitude, but also a separateness, often hostile, or annoying, or shameful.

Suddenly, in the harsh light of that waiting room, I cradled myself in my arms, truly whole maybe for the first time ever. A surprise integration. Suffused with love. And I have a feeling of wholeness that is different now. I'm getting to know it. But the love and tenderness and gratitude are profound.


And, in other breast related news, we weaned. Not in any way I would have wanted. In fact, I don't think I can even talk about it.
I bought a beautiful bra to celebrate the parts of this worth celebrating (there are plenty, I know).
I don't want anyone to say "About Damned Time!"-- just don't.
You can't say anything I have not already thought or heard or worried about.
Here we are, finally, totally not baby led, or toddler led, or pre-schooler-led. Good lord, left to her, we'd nurse until the cows come home, and since we have no cows, that is a long, long time.

Now we're moving on to addressing the sleep deprivation in all of us, and trying not to make things worse by trying to make them better. Not succeeding yet. Della, in fact, is asleep right this very moment having huffed off into the other room when my beloved mom touched some toy she wasn't supposed to. So Della stormed off, lay down, and conked out.  11am.
Life, love, the pursuit of sleep.
We are in the midst of it.

3.083333

Della, somehow you are 3.
Magnificent, magical, astonishingly 3.
You have been a miracle since those two cells decided to join up and create a possibility, where, statistically, there was none.
You make me laugh every day. Drive me wild with my impatience and your own. Challenge me to be the best of myself, and to be compassionate when I am the worst of myself.
You are tender and fierce, and have taught me so much about my own tenderness and the surprising depth of my fierceness.

You are so smart
when you act like a 3 year old, it is shocking.
and I catch myself over and over and over again feeling shocked at things that are so completely typical of 3.

You are so eloquent, that I am lost when your fears or sadness cannot find words.
You are so kinetic, and want so badly to share every moment of your movement.
You love to dance and sing, and dance and dance and dance. You climb on daddy like he is a jungle gym. You love to be carried "like a baby", but at 50 lbs, I cannot carry you as easily as I once could.
You negotiate like a diplomat.
You state your needs like a pro when you know what they are.
You come apart when you are tired.
(so do I, so do I...)

You sing your own words so our lullabye now goes
Lullabye, go tonight
sleepy dreams to you
sleepy dreams
sleepy dreams
sleepy dreams come true

You are losing your baby-speak, so I find I am not wanting to correct the ones that are left-- vanilla is something else, like, vallina.  Banana just graduated from buyana. Granola is still something like grallona. Coloring or drawing is Drullering. You know coloring. you know drawing. but you also know you most often do both. hence drullering.
we could all do a little more of that.

You are starting to play a little more on your own, for moments at a time. But always want to engage us, and want us to be on your level. When you sit on the floor, you want us to sit on the floor too. When you dance, you want us to dance with you too. You are flooded with instantaneous sadness when we say no.
We say no.
There is sadness.
We are all learning how to surf this.
It is so not easy.

You are complex and beautiful. You are so smart and strong,
We may never wean, you exclaim that you LOVE NURSING, LOVE MY BOOBS (oy), and while we have cut way back, and want to cut back more, it is so not easy.
We may never potty train. An event at daycare with a scary toilet that caused pain once has set us back years it seems. you are too big for success on the small potty. You will NOT sit on the big potty even with a special small seat... oy, it is hard.  But we are working on it, by offering opportunities, quiet rewards, support.  You do not poop for days at a time, worried about the discomfort, so you hold it, and create discomfort that then causes more concern. So, Miralax. but that is not so easy or magical either. Except yesterday when I took it by accident thinking it was water.
That was easy. And magical. In a sarcastic pooptastic sort of way.
We may never sleep apart. You sleep crazy-- sitting up, talking, lying down in random directions. I have lots of retroactive wishes that were not possible at the time. Like, say, CRIB.  But there we are. Here we are.

You count to 20, know the alphabet, recognize all numbers and some letters. Are starting to see the connection between letters and words, words and reading... I can see the circuits starting to form.

Your language skills are insane, nuanced, complex, sophisticated.  So are your facial expressions, and your mannerisms. You get jokes-- and have cultivated a spooky fake laugh.
I love making you laugh more than almost anything, the real laugh, the one that causes dimples.

You love toast and peas and cucumbers. You love apples. You look at carrots with suspicion and have stopped eating sweet potatoes outright. I am not sure what you think they are, except, perhaps, carrots in disguise.  I wish you would eat food that I remember loving. But you are you.

you are you.

you are you.

Every day is a miracle with you.
I get lost, sometimes, in the logistics-- getting you dressed and out the door, getting you down the stairs and into the car, getting you to do anything that is not motivated by you or chocolate bits...
I get impatient and I am sorry. I do not like my own voice then, my own face, my own impatient body. I want to soften into the moments, since hardening does not create ease, or make things happen faster or more efficiently.

You are friends right now with Lucy, whom you idolize (since she is 4 and has princess dresses). Your best days are at her house.

I cannot imagine life without you except when I do, say, 20 minutes into a crying jag, when I feel  my edges fraying, and I remember that I always wanted to drive cross country alone.


But even a few hours apart when we would normally be together and I feel a pull like gravity, and feel so grateful to walk back in, and see you, hear you say Momma. You are now calling me MOM with a teenage lilt. And Mommy, sometimes. But I want you to call me Momma forever.

with my mom, sharing a scarf

3!!! just. like. that.

rocked

today is my last day with a 2 year old.
how is that possible? truly... astonishing.

I was thinking back to before, as if it is a different lifetime. Standing at the fridge with the vials of liquid gold. Hoping for the best with each stinging injection, each stylized ritual.
There was a rhythm to it. The cycles, I mean.
And now, it is all downhill wild rush of in-the-moment-ness, yes with moments of foreshadowing and some of nostalgia.
Was she ever little? She is so big now.
Was I ever not this person? This one, this tired one with the biggest most filled and overflowing heart? This one, struggling and blessed, competent, incompetent, flailing, tender?
This one who is loving more and more and more and realizing, bone deep, that love has NOTHING to do with ease, and everything to do with mystery.

I hate when folks talk about marriage being work
and parenting being work
and work work work
hard hard hard
i thought, great, thanks for that. welcome! I wanted to hear, welcome to the best things ever!

and it is the best thing ever,
but to be honest, a lot of it is hard. hard hard. hard because there has never been a me doing this before, parenting this amazing child, learning these things in these moments.
i am humbled and awed and feel as if there is KNOWING that is just over there, that if I could just reach out and touch it, I could socket into a river of knowing, a river of ease, a river of being able to go with the flow of this without so much internal struggle and doubt.

it is the hardest most wonderful thing I have ever done, have ever had done to me, have ever taken part in doing.
there is no ease in this.
there are easy moments, moments that feel like silk, calm water under calm sky.
gentle.

but most of this truly is a mad rush.
a mad rush flying by in a twirly skirt wearing wings
or flashing impatience
or laughing hard enough to reach the very core of the earth and the heavens above.
my earth is being rocked, people. In every moment.

I am learning by the moment, learning how to be(more) centered in the storm, how to create safety, when to walk away, how to get down on my knees, hold my arms out, and welcome a sad being close, when no magic can happen but everything is magical that is happening...
I am learning to hold on and let go of ideas of plans of expectations of self judgement...
I am learning and relearning and relearning.
I am in need of a well to recharge and want quite desperately to build a tiny reserve so my patience does not end like a cliff dive onto rocks bristled with barnacles.
it runs out. just. like. that. and I suddenly hate the way my voice sounds, my chest feels, my face feels, my eyes, my mouth, as if I have been hijacked.
I am learning to get up, or go inwards. I am trying to learn to shut my mouth. Breathe.

but the thing I am learning most is how rarely I give my full attention.
and this may be the saddest thing.
the phone, email, internet, connection with things *out there*, pull at me all the time. I don't want to miss out, and in so doing I am missing out
on this
this miraculous now.

so my intention truly is to spend more time present. even if it is in one minute increments.
the space of 10 breaths.
focus, singularly, as singularly as possible on this amazing person.

I know this is about me me me and you want to know about Della Della Della and that will come, I promise.

Journeys: the day after

waking to a flat cloudy sky

the long dark morning of late fall, the slowest dawn

a stillness

it hits me that it was not a dream

my grandparents used to live on long island sound, on a bluff with a view out over the water. one cold winter, the sound froze.

and where there had been motion, there was suddenly a jarring stillness.

yesterday when I came home, alone, my eyes moved to all of his places-- seeking a glimpse

the kitchen under the highchair

the strange spot on the shoes by the door

the closet

the bed

the bathroom rug

the tub

all night my eyes kept vigil, seeking the tell tale slink or flicker of him.

"I see his tail" Della said once. And then said she was just pretending. But in that moment before she confessed, my heart leapt, as if.

as if.

today, I am busy and grateful for the busy. but my eyes seek the motion that has always been. the quiet company. My friend Lorraine reminds me that he is here differently now, and "here" has expanded into everywhere. But my eyes and heart ache for the familiar, the furry presence, the small reassuring movements of breath and tail and whisker.

Journeys: the way this has gone

Driving up north on Route 3 is a slow rewind through spring.

Back to buds and near bare branches

back to just the gentlest haze of color on the hillsides

snow in the shadows

last week I drove up, 4 hours each way through fog that broke open into ragged-bottomed clouds, the bluest sky, then the hardest rain.

I was looking for a cemetery that I did not find.

Instead I found myself pulling off the road without choosing to, into a gravel parking lot, taking a right turn at the bottom down a dirt road.  Into a smaller space, where my fingers turned the key, opened the door and then I was walking thorugh the woods on a path from my memory

through it, I guess

drawn by it

to turn down a path obscured by a fallen log

through the scent of lemony evergreens (hemlock?) 

the first time I ever walked those paths without a fishing pole, without Jeff.

down to the river, down the bank,

hands into the cold water by the falls.

A large water bird flew down the river, fast and low. Black and white and silent.

The day pulled me apart in ways and places I did not expect, and had me laughing, and swearing, as I went down each of a hundred roads, over a bridge (YES), up a hill that turned just so and opened up (YES, said my body, HERE) only to find that no, it was not the right place. the lump in my throat gathering so much unexpressed and inexpressible

sadness

frustration

loss, and lostness

I drove and drove and drove. I drove for two and a half hours, down roads, up roads, across bridges.

Rain so hard I could barely see.

Rain so hard it turned the dirt roads to muddy slides

I felt my tires slip a million times and each time felt a very different depth of alone-- I was not anywhere that anyone would find me and my signal had been lost 2 hours south.

Then I simply ran out of time.

Drove home.

Could not have been more exhausted.

***

Yesterday, I drove up again. Armed, this time, with different information. My first trip triggered memories, memories of a specific stone, one that was insanely easy to search for on google.

I went with a map, with a plan.

Back through the craggy mountains at franconia notch

back by the old man in the mountain, who fell the year Jeff died.

back up and through and beyond into the strange wide open that is the great northern woods.

I drove to the cemetery on the map. 

Found the stone of memory.

Left the twig of hemlock taken from the fishing spot. Left the pinecone. The stone is of Mettalak, the last of a tribe.

But it was not the cemetery. It is not the one, all those many winters ago, where I stood by the side of the road and threw snowballs laced with ashes over a snowbank too high to climb.

It wasn't. 

So said my body that felt no sign of him, did not feel him in the way the road had been worn down below the grade of the stones. 

So said the sign that noted the road is closed December-May 10th. 

I could not have driven that road.

It was february and the road would have been impassable.

There has been no simplicity in this journey. And that moment, there was an opening back into curiosity.

The wind was howling and the amazingly bright clouds were moving so fast their shadows felt almost tangible.

I got back in my car, and decided to drive back in a different direction, taking different roads, wondering if I would trigger more body memories that could help me navigate. 

Eventually I turned back onto pavement, and I immediately realized I'd turned the wrong way, and I heard, no it isn't. So I drove a mile at most, back to a cemetery I had found last week. One that said yes in every way except the lack of the stone that I had remembered.

But this time, I knew it was the right one. 

I got out and walked.

I looked on the ground, for what, fragments of bone? my wedding ring? I put a stone in my pocket.

I got back in my car, and turned toward home. 

It is high there, and the mountains fall away in all directions, and the light and shadows were moving so quickly with that wild wind, there was more than I could see.

Dark pines are nearly black against the spring green of new buds,

and the hillsides, that amount of open, 

I pulled off to let a truck pass, and to my complete surprise, cried a different way than I usually do about this. It was about the beauty, I guess, and my luck at the gift of just being able to witness.

Witnessing the shadows moving so fast, the light, on that hillside, that one. The one with the bright spring buds, the ones with the dark pines.

remembering how to walk.

Each season, my eyes learn something new. This spring, I learned that the papery leaves on the beech trees that last, miraculously, all winter-- get pushed off by these long spiny spiraled furls of new leaves. The old leaves are parchment. The new ones begin as dark red tips on gray brown twigs.

I walked. I walked in the woods.

In the old days, this would have been nothing to remark on. The walking I mean. The beech leaves would have been worth remarking any day.

But the walking. Remember how i used to walk? I hiked every day, or most days. I spent time outdoors every day. Sometimes in the garden. Sometimes in the hammock. But outside. looking long and far (sky and stars) or close at flowers and roots and dirt.

I walked and breathed fresh air and felt my muscles push me uphill, and slow me down on the descents.  I walked and walked and walked.

I walked.

I have missed it. OH how I have missed it.

Della and I climbed into the thicket beside the big overgrown apple tree, up behind the garage thingy that holds the tools for maintenance here at our apartment building. We made a hole through the branches of the tree, the branches of the bushes next to it, and suddenly were under the tree, a mystical umbrella of branches and sky. Oh loveliness.

Then up behind the tree into the woods.  Woods with tiny tiny pinecones. Woods with fallen branches to step over. Woods with fallen leaves. Woods filled with deer poop.  Woods that smelled like woods and dirt and life.  Up the hill toward the clearning I could feel by the light.  And to the edge of the back side of the golf course! What a surprise that was. I did not know that is where this property ended.  The rustic local course that feels like it is far away. I realize now, the roads fold back, and the clearing makes sense now that I know it. But it felt like a surprise, like I was expecting sheep up there. Not greens.  

We turned back and came downhill again, back under the tree, through the branches, and back into the small slice of grass before the parking lot.  It was a small walk, but a very big walk. I spent so much time thinking about it. How the woods have been there much longer than I have lived here (of course), and of course I look at them and look at them and look at them.  But then, that day, something shifted. The light maybe. My perspective. The woods, I realized, could be hiked through.... it was like an epiphany. And it felt *possible* for the first time. A walk! Yes, with Della. Yes, holding hands and lifting over logs and under branches, and no don't pick that up it's poo. And yes....

And up there, a beech tree. Parchment leaves littering the ground underneath, with a few still on the branches...and new furled leaves waiting.

***

Totally gratuitous Della photo and me, smiling, and leaning wayyyyyy over to compensate for the DellaGrande.  From friday at my Mom's.

Just for now, not for always

snow and stillness
motion now just snow falling off of wires and branches
drips dripping from icicles
otherwise, it is the kind of still that feels nearly unnerving, like looking at a frozen ocean. It reminds me of the million tiny movements that we get accustomed to... movement of trees, sky, grasses....even light.
This milky sky and shadowless ground.... so     very     still

***

thank you all for your great recommendations for Della's hair-- coconut oil! Frizz 'Fro indeed-- what a perfect description!
for your support about reading/videos/longing.... the one thing I know is that whatever I know today may or may not have any bearing on tomorrow... Della changes, and changes and changes, and it is for me to be sensitive, aware, and adjust.  Re-offer the food re-offer the book and activity that may not have been right yesterday. The ruts are often mine based on concluding rather than just resting in the moment.  This is our truth right now, I need to remind myself. Just for now. Not for always.

We memorialized my grandmother this weekend. And I swear, I feel as if she is just in the next room. I keep waiting for her to pop in and see if we need anything, tea or cookies... her voice is so present in my heart. My favorite moment from the service-- ok, there are three:  Della, in her big voice, pointing at the minister saying Who's that man? And then calling him a superhero (standing up high, wearing a cape-like-object, he really did look like a super hero);  a sudden loud organ chord that had us all levitate and then laugh....;  and the most beautiful bells.  I had never heard anyone play the bells, not alone, not christmasy, and wow... it was totally hauntingly lovely and emotionally right on.

Doug's beloved grandpa is suddenly failing, so Doug is off on a plane today after deciding, scheduling, getting more phone calls, and changing the flight to be much sooner...  This is such a sad season of transitions and losses I don't like it one bit.  Papa (Doug's grandpa) is a real character, I mean it, the kind if I wrote him everyone would think I'd gone too far, was too extreme...  I will always think of his laugh, head thrown back, full throated, joyful.... as he recounted how he met Doug's grandma.
We were all going to go in April. At least, that was the plan. Plans, shplans... we will change what we need to change, knowing the whole time that those things are not at all the things we would change right now if we could...

1dp46y

... to the humorless check out lady at the grocery store
who during a quick stop on my harried way home, to pick up cat litter, bread, and gluten free cookies along with a cheap 4 pack of mini cheapo wine

actually carded me

I THANK YOU!

non-weaning, an update

First, thank you.

Thank you B and Sprogblogger. Thank you Emily Erin and Trece.  Thank you Michele and Jenn and Lori.

I so appreciate your stories and support.

I realized, re-realized really, that I am just not ready.
I'm just not.

I realized that I am, however, feeling more and more socially awkward about it, and while this sucks for every reason, it is still true. So, for now anyway, screw social awkwardness. I acknowledge it but am not willing to change my immediate choices to do anything about it.  I no longer nurse in public if I can help it, I did make that change already. But my little one is vocal and also clear with her signals, and we've had many conversations with strangers as a result.

The facts are these:  This is my one time through all of this, and while I hate some parts of it (to be detailed shortly), I love the closeness, the magical fact of it. Della is thriving. She is no where near ready to stop, so it may be a battle judging from how things are going as I try to cut back at key times.  See next point. I will need to be ready, or be ready to follow her lead. I will need to play this by ear.

Here's what I am missing:  Sleep.  So we will work on this. We will be continuing to transition Della out of our bed into her own, and hope that those stretches of time begin to lengthen. Right now it is intermittent success, with stretches of 1-3 hours.  I am hopeful and we will persist.

Here's what I hate:  I'm sore.  Sore sore sore.
I hate that Della needs (OCD needs) to play with the opposite side while she nurses. I am sure this started innocently, so innocently that I did not even notice. Now it is rough and irritating and annoying and painful and unfun and Persistent.  She *will not stop*.  We're working on it, talking about it, but at night when my own resilience is low, it really rots. I make her stop, or block her, and she has a flailing freak out. Our place is small folks, it's an apartment with neighbors. Even if I did not give in I would give in.

I also hate pumping, and if I need to go away (should I be so lucky as to have another business trip), I will need to very mindfully schedule travel and my time away to make room for really great pumping since last time I was both engorged and had a painful blocked duct. And yeah, those things sucked rocks. So did pumping at the airport in the bathroom stall.


So-- yes.  I am not done.
So weaning has time to begin on its own or wait for me to be ready.
I realized that following my own feelings on this one will be the way, as it almost always is.  It is just complicated by the social climate.

life by chocolate

Today, instead of just surviving, I've decided to live.
This took more work than I care to admit, but I've stacked the cards in my favor.
I began the day with tea and chocolate, and a sunrise under a clearish sky for the first time in days.
A few minutes of guitar.
A conversation with my sister. (Please check out her beautiful site, and be sure to go to this page for some amazing writing.)
And a conversation with a dear friend.

I'm ok.

This has sucked. Other tragedies (9/11) have struck in the midst of other personal horrors or somehow have not felt quite so personal (like the tsunamis).  Maybe they were just too big. Or too far away. This one, wow, this one struck me to the core.

I have finally realized that there is nothing I can do to make it not have happened.
But there are things I can do now.
I can keep loving people. I can pay attention. I can listen. I can be compassionate. I can think about consequences. I can apologize.  I can be kind. I can be honest. I can cultivate peace in my heart, in my home, in my family, in my community, in my world.

I'll write again soon with an update on my not-weaning. But for now, I just wanted to say thank you for your kindness. To hear your voices here, to know I was not alone in my struggle and sadness, it has made a difference.

Della photos by Susan Mullen

It was *SO COLD* and yet, Susan still managed to make magic happen.
Want more?  Head over to Susan's blog.  Oh my my.

crazy good

Just back from a weekend in Maine to celebrate our almost two year anniversary! I can't quite believe that, but to celebrate, we asked our amazingly gifted and talented friend and life photographer Susan Mullen to do some family photos up at the location of the wedding.

It was a day almost completely unlike our wedding, it was so warm! No rain/snow!  But so very beautiful. We played around and she took photos in the windy wild grasses, and, well, the results are amazing.

CRAZY GOOD.

Please stop by her blog to see more and and say hello.

My first guest post!

I am VERY excited.
I'm just sayin'.
Please stop by Dani's blog and share the love.

http://lifeunconstrained.com/blog

Dreamy dreams

Doug and I went out to dinner alone last night thanks to dearest Tammy who sat with Della.
We talked about many things, but one of them was this: how dreamy (as in dream-like) this reality with Della feels compared to when we were mired in all of the fertility treatments. For both of us, this feels a little un-real, like we might wake from it at any time.

Maybe it is the sleep deprivation; maybe it is because we tried for so long that it still is hard to believe it worked.

But it got me to thinking about the unfairness of some things: how we can so easily remember painful horrible shite, but then cannot quite recall feeling fine, or even pretty darned happy.  We're wired to protect ourselves against future pain by remembering past pain (avoid jungle, remember tiger/venomous snakes/fear-or-threat-of-choice)....
But wouldn't it be great if we could evolve into being able to recall the bliss just as easily.  Be able to revel in the happy, the ordinary, the everyday... with acute awareness that it is actually happening, without this edge-dulling dream-like weirdness.

My dreams are often more real than my waking these days, and that I find to be disturbing.

I cannot help but retroactively wish things had been different-- that I'd been able to sit back and totally groove on my pregnancy. But I didn't. I couldn't. I was too scared.  And now, with Della, how do I hone my consciousness to allow the reality of her to feel as real, more real, than The Quest?

I don't know. I guess I just wanted to say it out loud.

Regardless of dreaminess, with Della sometimes, when we are looking at one another, or when she squeals DADA and runs to the door... my heart just about bursts with love and with surprise that she is actually here, that she IS.

Oh, how lucky we are, dreamy or not.

45

And today, I turn 45.
Here I am, suddenly (it seems) finding myself midway through the middle.

I had trouble with this one. I usually don't. Birthdays for me are days to thank my mom, thank my parents, and sort of feel awe. I could freak out about mortality any old day.  So I don't usually get swept up in birthday angst. But this one came with some pre-anxiety. Maybe it is because I am still seeking my path(s). Maybe it is because it feels very midlifey in a way other birthday's somehow avoided (44? still "early" 40s!).  Not sure, but with relief I can say that today dawned with no anxiety. "There", I felt, with some lightness, some solidity. "There".

Solstice

Today was cold and rainy, with the kind of air that pushes woodsmoke down like fog. This morning I watched the sky turn light through windows skimmed with condensation, and now, on this second shortest day, it is already dark enough at 4:30 that I can barely see the pines against the nearly black sky.

What I really want to say is thank you. Sincerely. Big-heartedly. Your comments helped knit me back together.

I'll just do what I do here.
And I'll start by posting an image of one of the paintings I did a few weeks back during the campfire weekend.  No need to comment on it. This kind of stuff is really personal, and no two people respond the same way. I want to share it because I like it. Here it is: abstracted November.

Tomorrow will be dark too. But then, the next day? LIGHTER.

the M word, two teeth, and quitting my day job

My ass has been well and truly kicked by two bottom teeth that decided to arrive without preamble starting thursday night.

We were slow on the uptake, took a return to inconsolable crying as a return of belly issues when, really? white pointy tetons breaking through non stretchy skin in some sort of rapid fire fast forward painful push. Poor sweet kid. One thursday to saturday, the second friday through today so far. Not sure where we are in this moment.

But

Tylenol, orajel... lots and lots of bewildered tears.

Hard days (and nights) I admit, and we're all a bit worse for wear.

This weekend I visited my sister, and my dad was visiting from Denver, and it was a wonderful fabulous love fest. Driving away was horrible. Dad got to meet Della in real life (we've skyped) and I am not sure anything could be cooler than that. I will have photos but not today. Soon.

The past two weeks I've spent every tiny scrap of time and energy I had making the house ready...packing things up and taking them to the basement. Friday "they" came and took photos of the house and put up a sign. Gosh darn. That's all I'll say about that.

And

other big (immense, colossal, life changing and please-god-life-improving) news: I looked deeply into my heart, put on my big girl pants, gathered my courage and all of the frayed edges of my self esteem and gave notice at work. My last day will be the end of June. I'll work three days a week until then starting this week. I will be writing more about this I am sure.

Today is Mother's day, holy shit. I hardly know what to say about that either. Except, even hip deep in this particular pile of poop, I could not be luckier than to have Doug and Della in my life. And, believe me, I know it with each grateful breath. I am still stunned at my luck. I would not trade any decision I have ever made that would have deviated me from the path to this moment: Doug singing to Della, christmas lights around the window, the sky darkening slowly but still bright enough to see up through the skylight at the webwork of inky branches holding clusters of buds like hopes and wishes.