June 17, 2008
Sharing some happiness of the kidlets
Because I’m tired of all the sadness around here, and I need to get back to enjoying my children.
I’ve been home with the kids for about a month now. It’s been pretty enjoyable for the most part. We have a good routine down–we try to do something in the morning or late morning, come home and have lunch and quiet time, then have a snack, some home playing, dinner, and some after-dinner fun of some sort. I’ve instituted an at-least-once-a-week No Drive Day, when we don’t leave home. We play in the wading pool, garden, and have lots of fun at home.
Swimming is big with both kids. K is a water baby of the highest order, which is truly amazing for a child who would scream while standing in the tub, grabbing at us for dear life, when he first came home. The boy wants to swim by himself in the worst way, though I can’t quite let him do that yet. P likes to swim on his own now that he’s figured out that a life jacket will keep him up. Let’s hear it for the peer pressure that taught him that he could do it–it makes taking both kids to the pool on my own MUCH more enjoyable! I turned in the paperwork for them to both have swim lessons and am hoping to get them scheduled soon.
We read a lot of books. Today, I realized that we’d read 5 books of P’s choosing (well, one was a chapter of Runaway Ralph) by 2 p.m. K’s not quite as interested in books yet–he likes to listen but isn’t particularly interested in sitting still to do so, even with a short book of his choice. I think it’s mostly that he doesn’t like to sit still. Did I mention that he’s walking and doesn’t like to stop? Anyway, P is very into long stories and chapter books lately, so we probably spend an hour or more reading each day. It’s spread out quite a bit–we read a couple of stories after getting dressed, another couple at the beginning of quiet time, and then later some more before bedtime–but it’s a lot of time to spend reading. My “voices” are atrocious but the kids don’t seem to mind.
We also had our 3 month post-placement report done for K last week. Three months. He’s been home for three months. It is incredible. He is such an incredible kid. We struggled a lot the first month but honestly, I sometimes can’t believe the difference in such a short period of time. At first, he almost never smiled. He was noticeably scared and anxious ALL the time. His sleep was punctuated by terrified cries and screams, as was much of the rest of his day. Now, he is the happiest of children. He and P spent the time at our new social worker’s house chasing each other, wrestling, and laughing without reserve. She looked at them at one point and said “They just adore each other, don’t they?” Tonight, I flipped K upside down to blow kisses on his tummy. He giggled and every time I’d turn him upright, he’d arch his back and expose his tummy so that I’d do it again. His giggle is infectious. His smile makes me fill with joy. We were a happy family before he came–who knew there was so much more happiness to be had?
June 12, 2008
Unsettled
It's hard to know how to feel lately. Actually, that's not quite true. It's not really hard to know how to feel, because I tend to just let those feelings come and go as they need to be. It's hard to know what to write. I want to write about how I feel almost unbearably sad sometimes, but it doesn't feel like I should. I want to write about how thinking that my due date likely would have been right around my next birthday brings on waves of depression, but it doesn't seem write. I know that I can feel these things, but write about them? This wasn't a desperately-yearned-for-5-IVFs-years-and-years-in-the-making pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. This was an unexpected, unplanned-for pregnancy (though I won't dare go as far as saying unwanted, as that would never be true) that ended in miscarriage. In the Pain Olympics, I'm not even a spectator in the stadium.
I didn't think it would be like this. It was so ridiculous, so ludicrous that I conceived 3 1/2 years after we began trying and 1 1/2 years after we stopped trying. It was so absurd that I conceived while on the pill. It was insane that I conceived after adopting without treatment. I almost found it laughable. Almost. I wasn't sad, not at first. Just bewildered. How could it have happened? Why did it happen? Did I finally ovulate on my left side again? Since I had the exact same symtoms that I had with P (albeit with no chicken aversion), how could I not have realized it earlier?
Then, almost unwillingly, I stopped thinking of "a pregnancy" and started thinking of "a baby". Was it a boy or a girl? When would I have been due, assuming I was about 7 weeks along? (Answer: early January.) Would he or she have been a good sleeper/good nurser/happy? And on and on–there are so many "What if's?"
Maybe it's the years of infertility talking*, but a part of me doesn't feel like I've earned the right to grieve this loss. It's almost the opposite of survivor's guilt, when pregnant infertiles don't feel like they can talk about the joy of their pregnancy or baby. I feel like, since I didn't have to try and didn't even know until it was over, that I shouldn't be upset.
But I can't manage that.
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*My doctor, who doesn't even earn a "bless her heart" comment so typical when you're saying anything mean about someone in the south, also said that maybe I'm not as infertile as I think I am. Since it took 3 1/2 years to get pregnant, the first two of those with treatment, only to miscarry, I'm pretty sure that I'm infertile. Perhaps she needs to look at the definition of infertile again.
June 3, 2008
Sorry for the disappearing act
I was planning/hosting my sister's bridal shower and didn't have a chance to post before I left. It was very happy and enjoyable, except when my brain would interject, at the happiest and most enjoyable moments, "You've just had a miscarriage."
Miscarriage was confirmed. Beta was "low" (I only got a message) and my dr doesn't feel a need for me to repeat it. She asked me to call if I bled for "too long" and, since I'm down to just a tiny bit of spotting at 9 days afterwards, I think it's OK. She said to wait out this cycle without birth control and gave me a new prescription for a higher-dose birth control (one I was on before trying for P). She suspects that the long-term stuff, which is at a very low-dose, wasn't actually keeping me from ovulating but was keeping the lining intact as long as it could. It would explain why I would spot continuously if I tried to stay on the pill for more than 7 weeks, as my normal, unmedicated cycle is about 6-7 weeks.
She also said that "this is what just happens" after you adopt.
Erin's brain: Um, excuse me? I don't think I could POSSIBLY have heard you correctly. Did you just tell me that I'd get pregnant because I adopted?
I educated her through my disbelief. I said that yes, I'm infertile, but there is no way that I would ever want to hear that adoption was an infertility treatment. I said that it always upset me when I would hear someone say that while we were adopting. I wanted K. I want to be his parent. I didn't want K in the hopes that would allow me to get pregnant. She said "But it makes such a great story! You always hear about it!" I explained that you hear about the 2% for whom that happens because who talks about the 98% for whom it doesn't (or who may have miscarried, apparently)? She agreed.
I was still appalled.
PCOS Baby 