Already

Hard to believe it's been a whole year.

Happy birthday to my sweet little man.

Done and done

Two big work projects finished successfully. Whew. Though tons of wrap up to do, of course.

But hitting the road. It took 50 miles, but it suddenly occurred to me this trip was paralleling the one I took two years ago, my daughter
and me without my husband for thanksgiving.

More on this when I can type on a computer, not pecking it out on my phone.

few random things

My friend from yesterday, whose sister suffered pregnancy loss at 38 weeks, wrote me back and said she thought Glow In The The Woods was amazing, so I'm glad I sent it to her. She said the doctors were doing an autopsy, and that her sister was mostly angry right now - she was a high risk pregnancy for some other medical reasons and was monitored very carefully, but as we all know things can turn so quickly. I am so glad this resource exists. It truly is invaluable.

My first work event went off very well. The second is tomorrow morning, and immediately after we are hitting the road for Thanksgiving, headed to my parents for a long week away.

And I still am coughing! This all started right at Halloween, so I am on day 19 of a really bad cough. Am so hoping some time away, with no work, will clear things up.

new member

I got an e-mail a few hours ago from a dear friend. She has two sisters, both pregnant. Sister 1 was due in two weeks, sister 2 December 30. Sister 1 went to regular check up yesterday, and the baby was dead. She was induced, and delivered 12 hours later.

My friend sent this to a group of her friends, letting us know, saying that she wanted to share to have some support.

I wanted to reply immediately, but paused. I wanted to type the right thing, and I wanted to offer resources. But I didn't want to say I know this great! group! of babyloss mamas! and you should check out this blog and that blog and etc etc etc. Because I do not want her to stumble across WhichBox. Selfish! But I also do think you have to come to this organically, in many ways. Find what speaks to you. In the end I did suggest Glow in the Woods. I think my friend gets it. My heart goes out to them all.

What would you suggest?

what a week

I keep thinking about doing a backdated post for yesterday jsut to stick with NaBloPoMo, but I don't even have the motivation for that. This cough is taking it all out of me. That, plus the fact that I've hit well over 120 hours of work the month of November for my 80 hour per month job. Oh, boohoo, poor me, complaining about working a full schedule. I've grown soft. I used to power through hours like a champ. But not anymore. Just not my priority. But, this is the week my two big projects are complete. two days down, three to go. And then we head out of town for Thanksgiving. And I'm not doing a lick of work while away.

24 hours and 8 spam comments! So frigging annoying.

we interrupt for a bloggy question

OK, I need bloggy guidance of a technical sort. A past post, from November 2008, is continually receiving comments from spam. I have this set to send me e-mails when I get a comment, so I know what's going on. If not for that feature, I'd have no idea this post was attracting so much spam. I keep going in and deleting it, and then 2 more messages show up overnight.

Why one post from Nov 08? Is this a precursor to the entire blog being spammed? Should I worry? Do I just ignore, and keep deleting as I have time? Is there a way to stop this? Wait, hmm, you can close coments on specific posts, right? I should probably do that? On all old posts? Can I do it on specific ones? Oh ye of more experience - help!

not asking

So, the story of my sister is long and easy to get caught in the details. The bottom line is for thr past 4 years she's lived with her roommate, who is a women's college soccer coach at a very small university. My sister teaches at a private Catholic middle school. It's taken a while, but for the past year or so my brother and I have been speculating that her roommate is more than merely a roommate. We started out 50/50. There was a lot of evidence on both sides. But over time we've all pretty much moved to yeah, most likely.

I tihnk in a normal family you might ask. She's my sister. We're supposedly close. Since this has come up, though, I've found myself being more distant with her. It's harder to talk to her. Is she actively hiding something central to her life? Is she not? In my family, though, you don't ask. I can't even imagine asking.

My husband actually decided he would ask my mom over the summer. My mom said she didn't know, and preferred just to not think about it. Denials runs deep in this family.

Does it matter? Well, it does matter - it matters that she feels she must keep this hidden from her family. How would you feel if a close relative was closeted? Have you ever had someone come out to you?

i got nothing

NaBloPo Mo is kicking my ass. I have topics I want to cover (my sister: a lesbian or just friends?), I have thoughts, but I got nothing on a daily basis.

So what you got? What's interesting out there in the blogosphere these days?

Just fine

Well, the pediatrician said my daughter was mostly fine, but that perhaps she's picked up some sort of secondary infection that's extending her illness. Probably a viral infection, so nothing ot be done but get through it.

But, doctor also said - based on my husband's descriptions of all our varying illnesses, that we probably all had H1N1. And, he was quite concerned for me, since my husband said I wasn't getting better and I was a nursing mother.

I am getting better. My husband is a wee bit of a hypochondriac. Last Monday I lost my voice completely for three days, but it's growing stronger every day. Still hoarse, and I'm still coughing a lot, but I'm definitely better. Last Thursday and Friday my throat hurt so much I had trouble swallowing, but I had a strep test and it was clean. I feel fine now - tired, but that could be because my son gets up at 6 am these days.

I think this doctor was showing an exaggerated level of concern. I've had the flu twice in the past 15 years. When you have the flu, you know it. You are flat on your back exhausted and bone deep weary from the slightest exertion. You have a fever. I had none of those things and mostly worked through it all, except for the no voice part.

But now I'm aggravated. With the pediatrician's certainty, maybe we did have a mild case of the swine flu? How to know? So are we done with it and I can stop wishing we'd all get better so we could get vaccinated? If my husband is a wee bit of a hyponchondriac, I'm the flip - it's fine, I'm fine, she's fine, we're all fine, no need to go to the doctor, we'll be fine.

How do you feel about the docotr? About the flu vaccine?

annoyed

There are times my husband just annoys me, and this afternoon is one of them. So we've all been sick, and my mother-in-law got wind of it. Her email relayed to my husband that our niece, husband's brother's daughter, has pneumonia. My SIL took her to the doctor and heard just a bad cold. My MIL took her to the doctor two days later and got the pneumonia diagnosis. Now I'm sure my SIL just couldn't take her the 2nd time, but of course my MIL's sense of self importance makes her the savior of the story, the only competent childcare giver in the family. So her offer was to come help us. After all, she was a dental hygenist.

I think - I know - my husband just wants to be a son again, in some ways. It's nice to live by family and when you're sick have family come over and help out. I get that. But the strings attached - it's too much.

Anyway, I'm annoyed because through all this, my husband has become convinced my daughter is not getting and better (she is) and needs to go to the doctor. So they're off - I am busy with work, she's going to miss her little dance class with her friends, and she is getting better.

Now I'm in this pickle. I know she is fine. I hope she is fine. As then I can be smug about my superior medical skills.

hmmm

So my husband exchanged an e-mail with his mom, but no discussion about the coming weekend, and we've not discussed further. Kinda hoping this fades away in the busyness of life. Fingers crossed.

uh oh

So, I was kinda cursing NaBloPoMo and wondering what the heck I was going to post tonight, when my husband gave me a topic.

Kids in bed, we're cleaning up kitchen, and he says, just want to float something by you. Haven't done anything, but want to get your reaction.

Uh oh.

He says, how about if we get together with my parents this coming weekend? Try to meet up halfway in between? (they are 2 hours away)

Dum dum dum.

Uh, why? Is the immediate question. He says he's just sick of the cards and the passive aggressive e-mails after the cards and this just isn't working and maybe we just need to try something else. Plus, she heard we were all sick and sent a nice e-mail offering to come down and help out.

I want to scream hell no, but instead I say, I have a hard time seeing how this would play out.

He says he knows I've been worried that our traveling to my parents for Thanksgiving will just piss them off.

I say yes, but what I mean is that I fear it'll just ratchet up the crazy again. Otherwise, I don't care, and I only care about the crazy because not dealing with them is really working for me. And honestly? If we do this, then we're just in it all again, and there's Christmas, and expectations, and we're right back into having to go up there all the time and her getting mad when we don't follow her desires completely.

He agrees, but says he just can't take where we are with them anymore.

UGH. So now I am thinking about it.

Hell, I know what I think.

doctor visit

Finally headed to a doctor today, only to get confirmation it was only a cold. I had thought so, then my throat started hurting, so better to check.

The thing is, with 4 pregnancies in 5 years, 2 children, plus 27 months of breastfeeding, I haven't seen anyone but my OB, the RE, or the nurse practitioner/lactation consultant at the pediatrician, in a long time. Anything I needed, the OB could cover, including two rounds of antibiotics with my daughter (bronchitis in the beginning, sinus infection near the end).

So, found a 24-hour clinic near my home, they took insurance, they had appointments, and I was in and out in no time with a negative strep test and perfectly clear lungs. And so I am off to bed to try to catch up on some rest and hoping it does all just clear up soon.

And you know what? It was weird to go into the doctor, see someone, and walk out. I had to fill out the patient history form and I tensed halfway through thinking there'd be the how many pregnancies/how many children question, but it wasn't there. I was just a patient with a cold.

work tears

So, I burst into tears today at work. Awesome. Back story: I work remotely for a company based far away. I'm organizing an event with one of the head guys. I'm also organizing an event the very same week with THE head guy. Let's call them Top Dog and Nearly Top Dog. These two have not entirely been getting along lately, and the Top Dog called me last week furious I had done something Nearly Top Dog wanted me to do. We worked it out. Yesterday, I did something for Nearly Top Dog's event that Top Dog wanted me to do - and was something I thought was a good idea and should be done and maybe Nearly Top Dog wouldn't like it but tough. So Nearly Top Dog calls me this morning and lets me have it. I apologize, I weave around, I explain, I invoke Top Dog - but Nearly Top Dog was having none of it. Why? he keeps asking me, why would you do that without asking me? (Because I knew you'd shortsightedly say no and it's the right thing to do and I'm empowered to make these decisions, jerk, is the technically correct answer.) So finally I say, I...I...I....I can't talk to you right now (obviously crying) and hang up.

My initial thought was good, maybe he'll feel bad he made me cry. But then I really did start to cry. I'm sick and yet working hard on these two events and these two jokers had been putting me in the middle for weeks of whatever it was that was going on between them and Wah!!!!!

So after I calm down I think, great, now what. I need to call Nearly Top Dog back and apologize for hanging up and (hoping he feels bad) just agree to move past this. Before I can, Nearly Top Dog calls. He apologizes, I apologize, he tells me there's been a lot going on in the office, tensions are high, leadership of the office is in question, etc, but that he and Top Dog had a big clearing the air meeting yesterday and things were back on track and obviously I had gotten caught in the middle. So we're all good. (and it is all good - I do love this job, and I love it exactly because it is challenging.)

But back to my first reaction when I hung up. It was definitely good, I hope he feels badly that I am crying. I've worked for some powerful women in my day - one of whom told me never, ever cry. Another of whom said, a good cry, strategically played, is a powerful tool in a working woman's arsenal. I think I've absorbed lesson #2. What do you think of crying in the workplace? Verboten? Or, when used wisely and not too often, a good strategic move?

The creme

The Best of the Adoption/Loss/Infertility Blogs of 2009

I was just reading the instructions for the Creme de la Creme list 2009 style. I've never participated, but, well, why not? So I'll go through my archives and see if anything jumps out at me.

Or maybe I'll try extra hard to write something meaningful this month of blog posting. Today is not that day, however. I don't know what I've got, but it is terrible. And lingering. Last week I was blah and lethargic and felt like I had a slight cold. Over the weekend, it turned into full blown cold, plus cough. Sunday and Monday were horrible. And when the baby is sick, too....well, let's just say the get plenty of rest thing is, well, not exactly happening. Every day I think I must be getting better, but every day is blah. And then yesterday my throat started hurting like crazy. So do I have more than a cold?

Anyway, anything I've written this past year that you think is great? Are you submitting?

My November Guest

My November Guest

MY Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane. 5

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist. 10

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why. 15

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise. 20

- Robert Frost, A Boy's Will, 1915

sick

*cough*cough*cough*

See you tomorrow.

oversharing

Yesterday I went to a jewelry party, hosted by one of the moms from my daughter's summer co-op, featuring jewelry made by the mom I like. The one that shared with me this summer what a lousy year + she's been having, with cancer, miscarriage, financial troubles, marital troubles, infertility due to the cancer, etc. I told her a little of my troubles, over e-mail, and said I thought life was easier when you were able to share more that life can be really, really tough.

Well, I was there at the end of the party, so for a few minutes we were alone and she again mentioned some of her worries, but said she thoght it was finally getting better. And I sympathized with her, and said it was so hard when you're in the shitstorm to see a way out of it, but that way would come. She told me our exchange this summer had meant a lot ot her and she was really touched we had connected, and how much she appreciated it. We continued to talk, and her marriage is tough right now, because her husband, who had been the breadwinner, is having a lot trouble finding work (he is a consultant) and money is tight and he is depressed and talks about how much better off she'd be if he left, or even if he died and they had the insurance money. So we talked about husbands and their weaknesses and somehow I ended up saying that what I had not told her was that my marital problems included my husband having an affair. She was shocked, genuinely shocked.

I walked home thinking I had overshared. That it was too much, and we weren't really that good of friends, and it wasn't entirely my secret to share - that I had somehow betrayed my husband's trust by sharing. Women's friendships, right, are built on sharing. And men can spend all day with each other and come away not knowing anything about the other guy's life. But is this too much? Is it my secret to share? If she feels very strongly, she might not want anything to do with my husband, so even though we haven't socialized much, any thought of us getting together is gone?

My husband viciously betrayed my trust 2 years ago. He knows I've shared with friends and knows I've needed the support from friends. He probably does not think I still share. And I rarely do. And I know he thinks it's in the past and done. He does not know how present it sometimes is.

I hate the greeting card industry

I mean seriously. I was going to do a post about the start of NaBloPoMo and how I was doing it again this year but didn't have as much going on etc etc etc. Last year was the horrible in-laws and then the wonderful birth. The year before was my marriage, and part of my sanity, dissolving before my eyes. We'll see what this year holds, but I'm sure something will turn up. But then my dumb-ass mother in law, the most passive agreesive idiot I know, had to turn up the crazy (albeit only slightly) to kick off the month.

So my husband's birthday was last Monday. No acknowledgement. Later in the week there were two greeting cards in the mail to the two kids, each with a Halloween card, each with $5.

This afternoon, she sends my husband an e-mail. "Did you get the cards? Cause I hate sending money through the mail and jsut wanted to make sure they were received."

Which translates roughly into, 'pay attention to me, it's been too long with no craziness and I can't stand being ignored.'

Husband says to me, if she wants to see her grandkids, she has to do better than did you get the cards. How about I'd like to move forward and resolve our problems and be in my grandchildren's lives again - or at least meet my grandson. Then he snorted and said, my counselor was right: pathological.

I linked to all their/her craziness with greeting cards in this post. Her passive aggressive I'm reaching out ot you because I sent you a card bullshit drives me nuts. That we're the bad guys because we don't acknowledge her cards. Is there anyone on this planet who puts more stock in the greeting card industry than this woman? Garr.

Well, so that was my Sunday. We need to use some back channels to make sure the in-laws know we're off to visit my parents for Thanksgiving, and thus the little guy's first birthday. Which I am sure will only piss her off more, so maybe buys me yet a few more months of not having to deal with her.