Shaken

I am perfectly fine, in the general sense.

But if I allow my mind to wander, I can't help but feel like a nervous wreck. I spend a lot of my time finding ways to distract myself so that my brain isn't allowed to put me in this place, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Right now, it seems impossible to turn my thoughts to anything else, its completely consuming ever piece of me and I don't know how to fix it.

So I decided to write.

Most of the time I have a plan for my blogs- I may not know the outcome or the content but I have a general idea of what I want to say. This time is different because there is so much going through my head that I'm not entirely sure how to figure out which thing to pay attention to. Am I the only one to experience this?

I had my follow up Dr appointment today. It was perfectly uneventful, yet I couldn't shake this uneasy feeling I had and following my appointment I just sat in my car and cried. I'm not sure if its all the stress and emotions I was fighting off the entire week leading up to my appointment, or if its the simple fact that I no longer trust my body. Our Dr said everything looked great on my ultrasound, the abnormality he saw a week ago was no longer visible, and therefore we shouldn't worry about it. He said to keep on my increased dosage of folic acid, and maybe to increase it when we get pregnant again. Oh, and if we wanted to, we could start trying in about a week.

I wasn't sure what to do with that information. I appreciated the go ahead, and it terrified me at the same time. As much as the thoughts of trying again as soon as possible consume me, the possibility that this could happen again absolutely chills me to my core. It seems so daunting and scary, to have to start all over. I think I can deal with the sickness, because at least this time I'll know what to expect. I just cant stop myself from thinking that we aren't in the clear- this could all happen again. Not even the same illness, there are a million things that can go wrong. What message would God be trying to send us if something were to go wrong again? I know, logically, there is no point to giving these thoughts any credibility- but I just can't shake that feeling that something is going to go wrong, my body will betray me again and then what will I do with myself?

I have had a really rough week- but you wouldn't know it from the outside. I have gotten good at hiding my tears, not showing my feelings when they creep up on me, putting all my energy into my job and pretending to sleep so my husband doesn't worry. I am so scared of what the future holds for us that I'm not sure I can take the steps to move towards it. Our Dr said we could start trying again and all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and hide. All I can think about lately is how I should be getting ready for my 3rd trimester, not tracking my ovulation to start over again.

When people ask me how I'm doing, what I want to respond with is "What is the most damaging thing to happen to you? How are you doing with that?" I know its an unfair reaction, but I have run out of ways to explain how I feel. Shaken is the best I can come up with right now... uneasy.. terrified.. those are good too. I'm still so SO angry all the time, and I don't know how to move past it. I desperately want to be ok again, I don't want to be the damaged person that I can feel myself becoming. I don't want to instinctively reach for a tummy that isn't there anymore and not be able to control the emotions that wash over me. I want to feel like a whole and complete person, not this damaged mess...

Appointments Part 1

Last Monday I had another Dr appointment to follow up my surgery and it was perfectly timed for a follow up to what I was pretty sure was another cyst. I felt it burst on my left side, it was different than past ones because normally I will feel really sore near my ovary like I worked out that one spot and then after it bursts It'll be sore again for a few days later. This one happened when I was walking with my hands full, and the pain was so quick and violent that I dropped everything I was holding. It only lasted for a few minutes and then it was gone.

My Dr said I he could see a corpus ludium on the left side and fluid around that ovary. Both are signs of a recent cyst burst. I don't like that these things happen to me, but I do enjoy being right. (i guess no matter what the circumstance) Cysts aren't the greatest obviously, but he did say that they were a sign of ovulation. I didn't track it this month because I assumed that it would be too soon to ovulate. In the past, he said that I ovulated on only one side, so this was a good thing.

The other thing we checked was to see if my right ovary was still attached to my uterus. When he found it the first time he said that it could become unattached 2 ways: getting pregnant or surgery. We chose to try sooner than later for a baby instead of surgery... I guess in the end I got both didn't I? Does anyone sell tickets to the bad luck lotto? During my exam he said that my right ovary was no longer attached to my uterus but it was high above it, which could be problematic, but it is too soon to tell.

He also discovered a 'shadow' on my uterus. Since it was later into my cycle he couldn't get a clear picture, so he didn't speculate much. Instead I am to go see him again this coming Friday (day 10 of my cycle for those following closely) because the lining on my uterus will be much thinner and they can put water around my uterus to get a better picture of the 'shadow' to find out if it is scarring or something else. He described that scarring from my procedure should be a small circle-ish shape but this shadow was long and line-like which made it hard for him to tell me what it was. If there is one thing my Aries personality isn't good with, is the unknown. Although, I feel like I should give myself credit because I am dealing with it better than I would have thought given the circumstance. I guess everything we've dealt with has led me into a more zen waiting zone. We will see what Friday brings.

He was also curious about how the folic acid was affecting my blood, so he sent me for a blood test to check my Homocysteine levels. Usually this is common to find out about heart disease, but it also tests folic acid levels, and mine came back normal.

Our Dr also said that waiting 3 months seems like overkill. Folic acid doesn't stay in your system, so it's not like I can stock pile it like other medications. Instead he bumped up my 1gram regimen to a 4 gram prescription on top of my prenatal, and it also has some B6 and B12 in there which is good for me in case I do have another sick pregnancy. We decided that regardless of his blessing to get on the baby making early, we want to wait until after my birthday in April. It feels weird to say that, when all I have thought about since all this has happened to us is when we can try again, but I think a part of me knows that I really need this time to get myself together. By that time if we have trouble conceiving, our Dr said he could give me a shot to speed up the process, and I guess it's nice to have a plan B... or I guess that would be C in our case. I find it intriguing what becomes the 'norm' as time goes on, and I guess the hurry up and wait has now become ours.

The Curse of Valentines Day

Here we are on our first Valentines Day 7 years ago

My husband and I have never had a successful Valentines Day. First of all, we have a hard time putting too much effort into Valentines Day because our anniversary is on St. Patricks Day and we would rather save our time, energy and money on that (which is more of a holiday in our opinion) because truly, how romantic is it celebrating your love with a million other couples?

I think we sealed our V-Day fate on the very first Valentines Day right before we got together. That was the last holiday I celebrated with my ex (and that didn't go well either) and a few weeks later I started hanging out with Kevin as a "rebound". Don't worry- he loves telling people how I just couldn't get enough of him and how he went from a rebound to a perminate fixture. So anyway, I figure I already had that bad V-Day mojo surrounding me when we started dating. So, 11 months later we had our first V-Day and I made us the shirts above and we proudly wore them all day. He also brought me what I call 'the works' (flowers, balloons, chocolates) to my work and we went out to dinner.

Later that night, we got into a fight and I tried to break up with him. Basically he started loosing all his friends because he spent so much time with me and I just didn't want to be 'that girlfriend' that caused him to loose all his friendships. I was his first serious girlfriend and he wasn't as good at balancing his time between the friends we shared together and the friends he had before we started dating. It killed me to be the reason he was loosing friends, and when I tried to do what I thought was right he flat out told me that our breakup wasn't happening. It was one of the best my-life-is-a-movie moments. Hubby- please forgive me for sharing this! We were both crying and he said "I'm not done loving you yet" and that was that. I knew I couldn't leave this wonderful man, and I am so proud to be his wife because we still have those movie-like moments that remind me how blessed and lucky I am.

It's hard to recount all 7 of our V-Days but they all consistently have hiccups in them to make them anything but romantic. One of them my friend and I thought it would be funny to get our guys "Its a Girl" balloons. I have a sick sense of humor sometimes and I thought it would be funny. My friend's boyfriend ran away from her screaming "NOOOO!" so it wasn't until then that I got nervous about our prank. When we went to give Kev his balloon he just hugged me and kissed me and asked if it was for real with a huge smile on his face. (Yes, I'm aware this prank now makes me a huge bitch) He proved to me again how wonderful he is, and I still get a laugh remembering him trying to sneak the balloon in past his parents and eventually popping it to hide in his sock drawer.

On another V-Day we were living with another couple and they weren't the most... stable.. couple and everything that we did for each other somehow caused a problem with them and we got stuck dealing with it. Kev rescued us from the drama in time to go to dinner in Pebble Beach at a place called Roy's and while the dinner was fantastic I had too much to drink and got sick, so our celebrating ended there. Plus, we could hear the other couple fighting through the walls- not the most romantic situation. However, it did make us feel lucky to have each other and to be grateful that we didn't have silly fights like that.

This year we figured our tattoos would be our V-Day presents to each other. Somehow my husband got the day off, but I had to work. He came and met me for lunch but otherwise my day was pretty normal. When I got home I found these waiting for me:


I named the leemer Lolly and tulips are my favorite. 

My husband had another surprise too: he booked our flights to visit some very special people for our first wedding anniversary. We are going to renew our vows with the people I lovingly refer to as 'my other family' who couldn't be at our big wedding in March, so it's the perfect way to celebrate in my opinion. We talked about the trip, and started to make plans but we hadn't been able to afford the tickets just yet so I was more than excited to find out the trip has moved from hopeful plans to a definite action. I seriously cannot wait! We spent some time at the beach too since it was a really nice day, it was just what we needed, to be by the water. We love water over here.

I am usually the planner in our relationship but I always leave V-Day up to him to figure out. I think of it as a present to myself, to just go along for the ride. This year we took so long to figure out if we even wanted to do anything that it was too late to go out to dinner, so we ended up getting a pizza, a movie and some drinks and went back home to celebrate. The hiccup this year was that I was just too tired to care about going out, and when he finally convinced me I got all dressed up only to be told there was a 2 hour wait everywhere we tried to go. Basically I got all dolled up to go back home- a few years ago this would have warranted a small fight but maybe it's all the changes in our life that has calmed me, or at least changed my view on things because I was happy to go through with our plan B. I just wanted to be cozy at home, not uncomfortable surrounded by strangers. It also helped that he is taking me to Macy's to spend our 'dinner money' on me now (and my changing body). So maybe we started making up for all the past V-Day mistakes and next year will be completely hiccup free.

Although, I'm starting to love the hiccups...

Secrets Revealed

Friday was finally the day that we got our tattoos to remember Mason. I was really excited but also terrified because I already have 2 tattoos one hurt, and the other didn't so I wasn't sure what to expect. For a control freak like me, the unexpected is more terror than the actual tattoo process. I arrived earlier than my husband so the artist got to work on me first. I have to say, in 100% complete honesty that it didn't hurt. It was more like an annoying poke than anything. If your thinking about getting a tattoo, the back of your shoulder is a pretty pleasant place to do it. (at least in my experience... my other 2 are on my ankle and my lower back... yes, i have a tramp stamp... it's not something we talk about haha) Anyway... it was only about 20 minutes and it was probably easier that my husband wasn't with me because he makes me nervous (in all the good ways) and i was able to just relax. Here is the final product:

I only got one foot so I could add feet later if we are blessed with more kids.

The full shot... I'm ok with the fact that it's not my best photo- i am in love with my tattoo!

Ready for secret #1? I had been in contact with the tattoo artist for a few weeks about a secret tattoo for my husband. I wanted something that was obviously for him, but I wasn't about to be one of those girls with a guys' name on her boob. The artist and i went back and forth for a few weeks to figure out what kind of object or word and we settled on a letter. The first letter of my husband's name in cursive. So I got to the shop about 45 minutes earlier than my husband. It was super quick and not painful at all. Here is the final product of that:



It's on my right wrist- I wanted to balance out all the left side tattoos



It's the only tattoo I have where I can easily see it all the time. I like that (weather intentional or not- i didn't ask) it looks like there is a cursive C for me too. My husband has said for years that getting someone's name is the kiss of death. I don't know if I agree or not but I wanted something to represent the person that has changed my life. No mater what happens in the future, I know I'll always want to remember the man that made me a better person, accepted me for who I was, and who shared this very unique experience with me. So, happy Valentines Day sweety, i love you. He was super surprised (i don't have a picture of that) and now says he owns that arm.

Here is my husband's tattoo:

I am absolutely in love with the colors. I may have to go back and get some kind of border just so I can have the pretty blue put around it. I don't want to speak for my husband and his experience getting his first tattoo, but i can tell he is thrilled with it, and he was a trooper during the painful parts.

Ready for secret #2? I almost joined the military about 2 years ago. I was very serious about it, I had started working out regularly, and I went and spoke to a recruiter. Then he signed me up to take the ASVAB (don't ask me what it stands for, i don't remember) but you have to take it before you can enlist. I consider myself a pretty liberal person and I wouldn't ever want to aim a gun at someone, but somehow I got it into my head that I wanted what the ARMY was offering. I did extremely well on my test, I got a 98 (a very high score) and the recruiter told me with my score i could have any job i wanted. I was all set to do it, until my husband and i had a very serious talk about our future.

Unknown to me he was working out how he was going to propose to me and didn't think me enlisting in the military would go along with his plans. He didn't tell me any of this of course, so on my birthday he took me out to a romantic dinner on the wharf in Monterey. On  the way back to our car he stopped at this little rock lagoon looking part of the wharf and got down on one knee. I wish i could tell you the words he said, but i was so shocked that i don't remember anything besides me giggling uncontrollably and then saying yes, just once.



This is us on the beach at our wedding, not to be cliche but it was one of the best days of my life.

 Alright, it's time for Secret #3 Before the wedding above, we had a very secret wedding on September 5th, 2010. Only our immediate family members knew about it, and even then they got very short notice. They were sworn to secrecy, so if you find yourself upset at one of them for not telling you- they were under very strict orders to wait until we were ready to spill the beans. We found ourselves 6 months away from our huge beach wedding and it was insanely overwhelming. There was a lot of drama surrounding our wedding leading up to it, and the financial part of it was downright exhausting. Both of our families were planning a trip to Reno together and we thought it would be the perfect place for a semi-planned elopement. We literally gave everyone days notice and started hatching a plan...


Here we are moments after getting married (for the first time)

My sister and my brother lived in Reno at the time, and my sister happened to be good friends with a minister. We got married in her living room- in our jeans. It was pretty awesome actually, and if everyone had let me, I would have gotten married in my pj's. Our ceremony was about 2 minutes long- direct and to the point. We didn't say vows, we just repeated what the minister told us to and then we went out and partied with our family and a good friend from high school who also happened to live in Reno. It wasn't super special but that's how he wanted it. We wanted to do this for us, and share the big event with our friends and family. We needed it to be a no-big-deal kind of event so we could fully enjoy our big day, but with all the pressure removed. It was exactly what we needed, and we loved every minute of it. We will always celebrate our huge wedding in March as our wedding anniversary, and have a special date night in September.

If your wondering why I've decided to share this last secret when we made a big deal about keeping it a secret, it's because it's part of Mason's story. We started trying for him one year later on September 5th 2011 and it just felt weird leaving a part of his story out. Especially when the date was so special for us. You can read more about that night here.

So now you know a few things about us, that you might have never known. Here is one more: we grew closer again, and it's always a nice surprise when you think your as close as possible already. I look forward to being happily surprised the rest of my life.

One Month

When I was pregnant, and no longer fit into my regular clothes I decided to pack up the ones that didn't fit and it basically left my once full to the brim closet looking very sad. Then, after surgery i lived in limbo for about a week where i would put on maternity pants and a regular shirt. Only a short time later I was ready to fit into my regular clothes, but they were still packed away which meant i had to make the effort to unpack them and pack away my maternity clothes. I decided to put on my 'regular girl' panties if you will, and got to work.

It was easier than I thought. When I was wide awake in bed the night before I was sure that when it actually came time to make the moves I would be frozen in my emotions, but it wasn't like that. I guess it's still helping me to keep moving forward, to keep following through with the plans that I make. When it came time to re-label the storage bins I decided to give myself a little encouragement:

                                           (I think the kitties wanted to help me pack too)
I know it's cheesy and I can't really defend my adorkableness (thank you New Girl for the vocab!) I just love words. I love that you can read something and it can make you feel a certain way. When i see encouraging things in my own hand writing it gives me that little something extra- so sometimes I leave myself post-its or messages on our white board and it helps. I also went the extra mile and wrote a little note to myself for when I get to re-open this box and use it's contents. I tucked it into the clothes, and I know I will forget that I did it. I also know that I will for sure be feeling something I am unfamiliar with when it comes time to need these again, and some words written by me to me will be what I need.

It surprised me today when I realized that it's been exactly one month since our ultrasound changed our futures. I know I should probably have some profound thought on it all but I don't. I am living it as I go, doing the best I can. Some days it feels like all of this happened years ago and I feel perfectly fine. Other days I find myself googling emotional rehab centers, convinced that what I am feeling will last forever. The one thing I can say is, the harder days are getting fewer and I can focus on the great blessings I have around me.

I find myself surprised sometimes but the things, or people that have helped me along the way. I never could have guessed some of the people in my life that have experienced something similar, and their strength is truly inspiring. I never could have guessed a few people from my past could be so helpful on my way to the future. It's easy to talk to them, because they don't treat me differently, maybe they don't know me as well or maybe its because there are no expectations from either of us to get in the way. Whatever the reason, I am grateful.

A friend who went through a grieving process of their own said "I'm starting to run out of 'firsts' so it's gotta get easier," and I couldn't agree more. Today I was surprised how someone else's reaction to what happened to us affected me. I ran into this someone while I was on my lunch break at work, it was a kind and sweet someone that I hadn't seen in a while. They asked me how the baby was and I had to tell them our story. I kept it short and tried to stay positive but... have you ever looked at someone the minute their heart breaks and you can see it the very second it happens in their eyes? Sadly I've seen this many times, and that's what I saw and then they were just... crying. Before I knew it they had their arms around me and I couldn't hold back my own emotions anymore. We were just two crying dorks standing in the candy isle... at my job. It was the first time I've allowed myself to cry in front of anyone but my husband, and while it felt strange- I mean I wasn't only in a public place, I was at work- it also felt good to let someone else see me without all my guards up. Another first. I guess it's following in the trend of people that I am not close to making me feel better (at least I'm consistent...)

When I was finally alone I couldn't stop thinking about what our therapist had told me at our last session- that I didn't allow people to tell me how they felt about what happened, because I had my own feelings to deal with. By asking to grieve alone I wasn't allowing anyone else to get out their own emotions. I couldn't control myself- so basically I was controlling what was around me. Then it made me sad to think that I made anyone close to us feel like they couldn't talk to me about what was going on, or how either of us felt about it. Now, that doesn't mean I am going to go around talking to anyone who will listen about what happened, or that I will subject myself to stupid questions. I guess what it means is that I am going to work on being open. I know its only natural for people to want to talk, and I need to let them do that. I can't hide behind a blog where I can control what comments I see forever. The only fear I have is that once I acknowledge all of this to someone, they are going to take that inch and turn it into a mile and think it's ok to ask (while well intentioned) inappropriate questions. I guess that is a bridge I'll have to cross when I come to it.

While today feels like it was 50 hours long, I know tomorrow will feel shorter and that helps me get through it. I can't believe how much our life has changed in only 30 days. We are already healthier, our bodies changing, our lives are moving forward and I am letting myself feel happy without feeling guilty more and more. Bring on the next 30 I guess... we can get through it.

Happy Thoughts

I have made a conscious effort the last few weeks to keep my Facebook status' relatively positive while writing my true feeling here. Today, those two things get to cross over. I have had a pretty good week, and while i still have some weak moments, they are Becomming more manageable as time goes on. I hope that things can keep improving so that I can continue to grow as a person as well as my emotional being (the latter is easier said than done)

The last few days I decided to travel to our hometown and just hang out, something I feel I havent been able to do for quite some time, but in actuality it's probably just been a few months. My husband had work and school the entire time I was to have a few days off together (also something that doesn't happen often) and i just couldn't see myself sitting around the house alone- that would surely take me a few steps back in my opinion, so off I went.

I have to say, i had the absolute best time! This is something I'm actually not used to. I have fun plenty, but my husband is usually included in that fun. While I missed him like crazy I was proud of myself for figuring out my own fun without relying on my husband to entertain me. The last few years I have been redeveloping friendships and it seems to be working for me because for once I actually want to do something other than sitting around at my place alone.

The highlight of my trip was talking with my good friend who also happens to be writing a book similar to mine. I love getting his feedback, and I also like that when we share our material I'm not the only one putting themself out there- I tend to not do so well when I have to be vulnerable.

I'm going to continue my happy streak tonight when I get home and finally get to spend time with my hubby!