I really need to take some spring-y pictures. It is April, after all. Hmmm.
Archive for the 'Deep Thoughts' Category
Bear with me while I screw around with my blog layout. I’m thinking that I’m mainly going to turn this space into a photo blog, so I want to have the best layout for picture viewing.
I will, of course, still write about my life, but I’m finding that I’m not needing to as much. My blog was extremely important for me as an outlet in order to be able to process my feelings surrounding my first miscarriage. Lately I’m able to sort things out in my head more easily without having to write them down. Plus, I’m just happier in general these days and don’t have as much that I need to vent about.
My second miscarriage is still very fresh, but this one was…I hesitate to say “easier”, but that’s really what I mean. To be honest, right now both Hawk and I are not ready to be parents. When we found out I was pregnant this last time, there was a part of me - a small part, mind you, but still a part - that was a little disappointed. We’ve really been enjoying each other lately, enjoying our freedom, enjoying sleeping in, enjoying going out to dinner whenever we want and drinking wine with friends. Right now I find I’m just not ready to give that up. It just wasn’t the right time for us to have a baby. When it is the right time, we will know, and we will devote ourselves to the journey completely. But right now is not that time.
Last year was grief, almost from beginning to end. I was such an emotional wreck that I almost consider it a wasted year, because I was so enveloped by anxiety and sadness that I couldn’t enjoy my life at all. Now that I am feeling so much better, I need some time to just be. Just feel good for a while before we start trying to have a baby again. Because when we start trying, it’s going to work, and then I’ll have other (wonderful) things to concentrate on than myself!
There are a lot of other things going on right now. I was telling Hawk after we got back from our trip, that I was feeling totally rejuvenated and “like we’re on the cusp of something really big”. I’m taking the last two classes I need to finish my Diploma in Aromatherapy, I’m really wanting to concentrate more on my photography. Hawk is concentrating on building his computer consulting business and I am helping him with that. There are great things afoot, here, I think.
I am grateful for so many things this year. This year was particularly difficult for so many reasons, but I have an amazing (not to mention handsome, sexy, brilliant…I could keep going) husband who stood by my side through all of it. I also have wonderfully supportive parents and friends, so above all else I am thankful for having that love in my life.
But here are a few other things I am thankful for that aren’t so - for lack of a better word - obvious:
I am thankful for the gift that was Maggie. I am thankful that I got to spend almost five years with her as part of our family. I learned so much from her, her love of life, the joyfulness with which she approached everything. Her loyalty and unconditional love and affection, her tenacity.
I am thankful for the gift that is my job, or more specifically, the gift that is the amazing women I work with. I’ve worked there during the most difficult time of my life thus far, and they have taught me how to be strong and compassionate through adversity. I would not be the woman I am today without the four of them in my life.
Finally, I am thankful for the gift that is my blog, because it has given me an outlet for my feelings surrounding everything that has happened this year that I would not have had otherwise, given me a space to process my thoughts, and it has led some amazing people my way who have renewed my faith in humanity with their willingness to reach out to a perfect stranger. I am thankful for all of you who are my “internet friends”, who I have never met but who share a little bit of yourselves on your own blogs, that make me feel not quite so alone in this big, scary, messy, wonderful world of ours.
Happy Thanksgiving, all of you. I hope today finds you warm, safe, and loved.
Today is the one year anniversary of my miscarriage. It might be the Zoloft talking, but I’m pretty okay with it, more like looking at it from a distance - “Oh, that was a year ago. Hmm. That sucked.”
On one hand, I can’t believe a year has passed already. On the other, it seems like it’s been forever. I am such a totally different person than I was a year ago that it almost seems to have happened to somebody else. And I guess on some level it did.
Before I got pregnant, I had always said that I would rather never get pregnant than get pregnant and miscarry. I didn’t think I could deal with that level of grief and despair. I can see now, a year later, how wrong I was. Losing my baby was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, and I saw depths of sadness that I never thought possible. But I got through it, and it taught me more about myself than anything in my life previous. I know now the wells of strength that exist within me. I know that I can go on living my life even though everything seems to be falling apart. The world keeps turning, the sun will always come up again tomorrow. There is always hope for a new day.
My experience didn’t only teach me about myself, but about the people in my life, and how I relate to them. My relationship with my husband is even stronger than it was before, mainly due to his boundless patience and compassion. I’m sure there were times where he just wanted to walk out the door and leave me in my puddle of misery, but he never did. He held me while I cried - every time. He took every single phone call where I was freaking out and positive that we would never have a baby and needed to be talked off my ledge.
My friends listened to countless stories about doctors appointments and blood tests, gave innumerable hugs of support. It got to the point where I wanted to come through my grief and anxiety for them as much as for myself, so that I wouldn’t exhaust them with all of my problems. They were there for me, I wanted to be able to be there for them during their hard times. I hope that now I am a better wife and friend, because I want to do for the people I love what they did for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I am “enlightened” now or that it’s not still hard sometimes, because god knows the past few months have been a nightmare. The medication I’m on is totally necessary for me at this point in time in order to deal with everything that has happened, but it has also helped to quiet my mind enough so that I can actually reflect on the past year with more clarity. I’ve got a long way to go before I can say that I am really truly healed. But I’ve also learned that I’m not afraid of the work.
In the end, I suppose that I would not have given up this experience for anything. That I felt the loss of my baby so deeply gives me a glimpse of how much I will love the child I believe I will one day have. I am the person I am today because of what I lived through; I am stronger for it, I love more deeply because of it. My miscarriage was just another step along my path, one that taught me that I have what it takes, with the love and support of my family and friends, to survive whatever comes my way.
Once again I seem to have fallen off the face of the planet, so, oops! I’ve been busy, first with my folks being in town, then with work and house stuff. But I’ve also been in my head quite a bit, and I haven’t really been in the mood to write, mainly because I just haven’t known what to say. And when I do start to write, I’m not happy with the way it comes out. Apparently, I can write well when I am happy, sad, or angry, but not so much when I’m stressed out.
I’m doing much better than I was a few weeks ago. The hypochondria seems to have passed, for the most part. I had a couple days last week right after my folks left where the “early menopause” thing was trying to creep its way back in, along with about forty eight hours of depression of the “pit of despair” variety, but, like I said, it passed. I think it was more about being exhausted from work and driving back and forth to Malibu every day, not to mention ten days of too many cocktails. What can I say - when my family gets together, the booze, it flows freely. After a couple days of teetotaling, herbal tea and evenings on my own couch in front of the TV, I felt much MUCH better.
I’ve also started seeing my therapist again, which is a huge help. She knows me so well and knows just how to reign me back in when I’m feeling like I’m starting to lose it. This past appointment, I had been telling her that I’m having a hard time deciding when the right time to go back to the doctor is, to start the baby making efforts again. I keep waiting for a “perfect” cycle – a month where my stress level is relatively low and my ovulation and period go well (don’t ask me what “well” means, because I really couldn’t tell you) – before we go back. But something always seems to come up. The “perfect” cycle remains elusive, and I don’t know if it should be like ripping off a band-aid and we should just go back at the start of my next cycle to get the anticipation anxiety over with. Or should we make a pact to start again at the turn of the year, and I take the next few months to try and get my head on straight. I told her, “I just wish I knew what the answer is”.
She smiled, wisely and a little mischievously, and said, “I picture you like a comic strip.”
Come again?
“I see you,” she said, “like a comic strip. The first frame is you, drawn in black and white, with your fists on your hips, and your face looking all angry, and you’re screaming up to the sky, to the universe. You’re yelling ‘WHY? WHEN? WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN? WHEN IS IT GOING TO HAPPEN?’”
I smile sheepishly because, yeah, that sounds about right.
“The next frame,” she says, “is of a voice speaking back to you from the clouds, and it’s saying ‘It’s none of your business’.”
Immediately I knew in my heart she was right. The answers to those questions are none of my business. I may not believe in God, but I believe in a universe with some kind of order. I have a path, and I am walking it the best I can. I don’t know where my path is leading me, but I trust enough to know that whatever happens, I will be OK.
I am my best source for answers, but for some reason my faith in myself has faltered a bit. When I’m feeling insecure and anxious, I have to be quiet and look inward for the answers only I can give myself. I have to trust that the one person who really knows what is best for me is me. The question isn’t “Should I go back to the doctor and start trying again?” The question is “Am I ready to start trying again?” I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been absent from my writing. I’ve been wrapped up thinking on the wrong question and finding no answers.
My “homework” from my therapist is to start a meditation practice, just ten minutes a day, to learn to quiet my mind. It’s funny that she brought up meditation, because I’ve actually been reading a lot about it lately. It sounds like exactly what I need, though I don’t expect it to be easy. But I have to try. The fearful and anxious thoughts get in the way of my real voice being able to come through, and I need to hear it.
I’ve got a question to ask myself.
Just a quick note to say that after my last post, which, admittedly was pretty intense, I’ve been feeling a lot better. I made an appointment with my therapist for Saturday, I exercised, and haven’t thought once all day that I have either MS or early menopause. Hey, it’s a start, right?
I think that the stress from losing Maggie and traveling and jet lag and everything just overloaded my system. Pushed me over the edge and now I’m clawing my way back. I hate getting all angsty like this, but the good news is that I recognize when something isn’t working for me. I can ask for help when I need it and I can express my feelings to the people who love me (and apparently, to the rest of you who just stopped by for pictures of Patrick Dempsey or information on rabbit birthing procedures - for the last time I CAN’T HELP YOU!!!).
Plus, after writing it all out, I felt better almost immediately. It’s hard to explain, but being able to get all this stuff out of my head and onto virtual paper somehow takes the urgency out of it. I think it’s because for days I stew on it, I get all wrapped up in it and can’t see a way out. But then I write it, it’s out there, anyone can read it, and I can let it go. The bad thoughts are sort of robbed of their power over me when I release them like this.
I’ve been having a hard time lately. I’ve basically been driving myself slowly insane and making myself sick and I don’t know what to do about it. This is a window into my mind, and let me tell you, it’s not a pretty picture.
I’ve mentioned before about the nerve twitch in my foot that I’ve had for several months that my doctor told me was stress related. While we were in France, I was totally fine. The muscle in my foot twitched, but not badly, and I was having a good time so I barely noticed. Then the stuff with Maggie and The Pet Staff happened and the twitch got worse. It got really bad when we got back and I wasn’t sleeping well and readjusting from jet lag. The foot twitch turned into twitches all over my body - the backs of my thighs, my calves, my arms, my back. It’s bad enough and annoying enough that I called my doctor again and she referred me to the UCLA Neurology department, but I couldn’t get an appointment until early September. In the meantime, I’ve sort of stepped my exercise, and it really has helped alleviate the twitches. They are still there, but nowhere near as bad.
Here’s the thing, though, and the crux of the problem. Before I called the doctor, I go online. I look up “muscle twitches” and it spits out a list a mile long of horrible degenerative nerve diseases like multiple sclerosis and ALS and stuff like that. I freak out. Even though when I first went to my doctor about the twitch in my foot she told me that it was nothing like that. Even though she told me it is most likely stress related. I read everything I can get my hands on about MS and read the list of other symptoms, like blurred vision and numbness and tingling in the limbs, and at first I think “oh thank goodness I don’t have that”, but the next day, whaddya know, I have a tingly sense in my hands, and suddenly my eyes are all irritated and I’m constantly squinting at things, thinking to myself “I swear that yesterday I could see that more clearly”. I convince myself that I have MS.
The other set of symptoms that I run across in my search for “muscle twitches” are symptoms related to Menopause. Also in that list are things like “hot flashes” and “tingling skin” and “heart palpitations”. I think to myself, panicked, “oh my god I was really hot at work the other day so hot that I had to take off my sweater and I NEVER get hot could that have been a hot flash that was a hot flash oh my god I’M IN EARLY MENOPAUSE”. Or “Did that little patch of skin on my leg just tingle? It totally tingled out of nowhere oh my god I’M IN EARLY MENOPAUSE”. Or “Is my heart beating really fast right now? It kind of is, it’s kind of fast oh my god I’M IN EARLY MENOPAUSE”.
So of course, I become hysterical. I am completely convinced that I am in early menopause. What with my irregular periods, my doctor-diagnosed hormonal imbalance, and the myriad other “symptoms” I convince myself that I have, what other diagnosis is possible? I think, is there possibly a way that I’m NOT in early menopause? And my brain says, “No. There is no way that this is anything other than early menopause. You will never have a baby, you will lose your sex drive and never desire your husband ever again, and it’s going to happen all before the tender age of 31.”
I am on high alert all the time, searching my body for new sensations – a twitch here, a tingle there. I’m afraid to go to bed at night because I’m afraid of having hot flashes and night sweats. I’ve been constantly checking my pulse, to see if my heartbeat is rapid. Which it always is. I’ve had a high resting heartbeat since I was a teenager. I know this. Plus, all the stress I am putting on myself with all this bullshit can’t be helping.
In my heart, I know how this sounds. I know I sound like a raving lunatic. I have moments of clarity, a voice that comes from deep inside me that says “Don’t you see? Don’t you see what you are doing to yourself?” But I can’t make it stop.
The past two years of infertility has made me lose faith in my body. In my mind, how can I possibly be healthy if I can’t get pregnant, or if I can’t sustain a pregnancy? Something must be horribly wrong. And when all the stress from the past two years began to manifest physically as the twitch in my foot, it was all over. It was as if my body was confirming what my inner demon had been whispering in my ear all this time – “You’re broken”.
I look at my body, this body that has been my true home for thirty years, that has grown with me and taken the brunt of so much, from the scraping of knees from falling off my bike as a kid, to being stuck with needles and forced to grow more eggs than should be humanly possible. I treat it like crap, filling it with alcohol, not giving it the nutrition it needs to operate properly, not exercising enough. Allowing myself to become so overwhelmed with stress that I make it sick. And I blame it? My body has done nothing but serve me as well as it could. There are wells of strength within it that I never knew existed, never knew I could put my body through so much. And when it starts to show signs of fatigue, I think that it’s broken. I think that not only have I lost faith in my body, my body is starting to lose faith in me, too.
Hawk has been so kind and patient with me, always the voice of reason, trying to bring me back down, again and again. It breaks my heart that I’m doing this to him. I had a breakdown in the car the other day when we were going out to breakfast, and I cried and told him over and over that I was sorry, that it’s not fair to him to have to deal with me like this, but that I can’t make it stop. He wants me to call my therapist and go get some help and I’m going to.
We’re supposed to do an insemination with my next cycle and I have to get a handle on this before then. I know that I need to be as calm as possible during that time to give us the best chance of success, and with how I’ve been feeling the past three weeks, there’s no way it would work. I have to be good to myself, to take care of myself, to be kind and gentle with myself. Why is it that my first instinct is to beat myself up, to blame myself, to accept so readily that there is something “wrong” with me?
I wish I knew.
I haven’t really been in the mood for posting lately, mainly because I just don’t know what to say. There’s so much to say, but I just haven’t felt like saying it. But I think that it would be good for me to say it, so here goes.
I have been one big fat ball of nerves since I got back from Hawaii, and especially since my accident. I felt so good when we came back from our trip, relaxed and healthy, and as soon as I stepped off the plane in L.A., all my neuroses were waiting for me at the gate. “Hi!” they said. “We missed you! Did you miss us?” And they jumped right back in my brain and threw a party. A big, raucous party where they all sat around and did Jaeger shots.
I immediately started obsessing about my cycle and babymaking again, so much so that I had Hawk call my doctor. See, my doctor is always very calm and confident with me, telling me that everything is going to be fine and pretty much not to worry my pretty little head about it. But he’s straighter with Hawk. No less confident or optimistic, but straighter. And this whole time that he’s been telling me that everything is fine, I haven’t felt fine. If everything is fine, then why is my cycle so irregular? If everything is fine, then (fill in the blank).
So Hawk called and got the real story out of him. He says that I have an ovarian dysfuntion which causes a hormonal imbalance, and while he’s confident that with his help we will have a baby, he doesn’t think I could sustain a pregnancy on my own.
Ouch.
The first two days after that news I was inconsolable. On one hand it felt good to validate what my instincts had been telling me all along, that things were not “fine” like everyone had been telling me. On the other hand, to me it confirmed that I am broken. That my body doesn’t work right. That we really can’t do this on our own, that in order to have a baby I need to put myself through the bloodtests, and the ultrasounds, and the injections. That my stupid body is the reason I lost my baby. That, even if I manage to get pregnant again, that won’t be the end of the challenge, but the beginning. KEEPING me pregnant will be a challenge as well. I do not, repeat, do not want to miscarry again. That, my friends, is an experience I could truly live without (even though it taught me so much and blah blah blah - you know what I mean).
But one of the women that I work with suggested to me that I look at this as an “and” instead of a “but”. “I have a hormonal imbalance and may not be able to sustain a pregnancy on my own AND I have a great doctor who knows how to help me”. It also helped me not obsess quite so much about my fertility signs, because, hey, of course they aren’t going to look like the internet says they should, because my hormones are fucked up.
We have a meeting with my doctor next Friday to set out a Game Plan for Successful Pregnancy. I like to imagine a wipe board and the doctor wearing a whistle around his neck, drawing out plays like a “Conception Coach” or something. He told Hawk when they spoke that he is completely confident that if we set out a treatment plan and follow it, that I will be pregnant within nine months. The doc has never been anything but confident, and I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who makes promises if he doesn’t think it can be done. I don’t think he’d be telling us that it is going to work if he didn’t think it would.
But of course, I am scared and retreating to that pessimistic place that I find it so easy to hide. I hate it FUCKING HATE IT that the first place I go to is “What if it doesn’t work? What if we go through the plan and I put myself through all that and it doesn’t work?” Why can’t I think to myself, “Thank God, now we know there’s a problem, and we’ve got a doctor who knows how to work with it, and this means that we have a really good chance of having a baby! This is totally going to work!” I have moments like that, interspersed through all of the negative crap. Glimmering moments where I think, Dude, this is totally going to work. But those are few and far between. I don’t believe in “The Secret” and that all crap, but I do believe in the power of positive thinking. I just wish I could actually do it.
NEXT: The Meds
Yesterday I had my usual appointment with my therapist. I hadn’t seen her in a month, because our schedules just didn’t mesh. So I caught her up on all of my goings on in the past few weeks - the HCG stuff, work stuff, home stuff.
Mainly we talked about how I’m a little nervous about starting the “trying to get pregnant” again. Not because I’m afraid of another loss, even though that is a concern, but because I was such a fucking basket case for a year and a half while we were trying to do it the first time. The past three months since my miscarriage (yep, twelve weeks yesterday) have been, how do I put this, kind of nice because I’ve gotten a break from the stress, the Clomid, the sex under duress, the “will this be the month?”. Now, in the next four to six weeks, I would guess, we’ll be starting up again with more concentrated efforts, this time with a fertility specialist, injectible hormones and IUI’s.
I’ve gotten to a point with myself that I’m so much more at peace with all of this. The sense of urgency (must get pregnant NOW NOW NOW!!!) isn’t nearly as strong as it was. I’m going into this with hopes, but no expectations. I also have a fairly strong feeling that everything is going to work out. I do believe that I will have a baby. I just don’t know when or how. And that’s OK. I just don’t want to stress of “trying” to make me revert back to the mess that I was. I’m happy with who I have become, and I don’t want to lose her.
My therapist totally understood what I meant, and told me that there is a chance that my old ways could come creeping back, but that I have the tools to keep it under control. She encouraged me to write down my feelings, so that if the old mania starts creeping back, I can read my words and see what it felt like to be so at peace. She said the most important voice I can listen to is my own. And I know that she’s right.
And, with that, I told her that I don’t think I need to see her regularly anymore. I’ve gotten strong enough and healthy enough that I think I can handle whatever comes up on my own. She agreed. She told me that she’s watched me grow and change in many ways. When I first came to see her, I was trying to control everything - my body, my feelings, my husband. And when I couldn’t control everything, I beat myself up, told myself I was weak, stupid, wrong.
She helped me learn to let go of the control, which was SO HARD. It still is, I struggle with it every day. But I’ve seen what happens when I do, the peace that I gain from it, the sense of well being that comes from opening myself up and allowing myself to learn from each experience rather than trying to control it. One of the most important things she helped me learn was to truly let myself feel my feelings. Before, I would try and push sadness or depression away, deny that I was feeling that way, because I thought they made me weak. I learned to let myself be sad. Not to wallow in it, mind you, but to honor it. It makes it that much easier to let go.
It’s bittersweet, not going to see her anymore. On one hand, I’ve come to enjoy that outlet, a safe place to talk about whatever I want, to someone who doesn’t judge me, who can help guide me to see myself more clearly. I’ll miss her, and I couldn’t have done it without her. On the other hand, I am so proud of myself that I have worked so hard to get healthy, and now I feel that it’s time for me to make it on my own. I have the tools, I have the strength, and I am kind to myself now, and that’s something I didn’t have before.
And that’s the most important thing in the world.
I am not a good flyer. Wait, I take that back. I’m not a great flyer. I used to be much worse. I would dread vacations where I had to get on a plane. Every tiny bump of turbulence would send me bursting into tears. I clutched the armrests with white knuckles and hyperventilated my way through perfectly calm, fifty-minute flights from L.A. to San Jose to see my folks.
About five years ago, I was going to Bali with my husband’s family and was having a full blown panic attack while we were still sitting on the runway at LAX. I was sure that if I didn’t get off that plane that I was going to die. I was crying, hyperventilating. I told Hawk I was going to get off the plane and go home and that he could go without me. He tried to calm me down as best he could but I was inconsolable. I was literally about to flag down a flight attendant and tell her to turn the damn plane around when we took off. I wept through takeoff, but as the plane climbed into the sky, I suddenly felt calm. I stopped crying, I picked up a People magazine and started reading about Brad Pitt’s hair or something.
I think what happened is that I knew that I didn’t have control over the situation anymore, so I didn’t fight it. Either I was going to make it to Bali or I wasn’t. Turns out I did, which was great. If I had gotten off that plane, I wouldn’t have had the experiences I did on that trip and seen such a different part of the world. I would have gone back to my apartment, alone, and hated myself for missing out.
Since then I haven’t been quite so bad on planes, although I still hate the turbulence and have been known to let out a big gasp if a bump hits unexpectedly. I don’t dread air travel anymore, but am by no means a fan.
This past Wednesday night my brother and I were flying back from Northern California after Christmas, and it just happened to be the windiest day of the year. Winds gusts around 40 mph. It was the most turbulent flight I have ever been on, rocking side to side, bumping up and down. A lady in the row in front of me had her hands clenched on the top of the seat in front of her, her head bowed, praying.
And I was fine. I wasn’t scared at all. I was perfectly calm. Aside from a little nausea, which subsided when I put my book down, I was fine. If I had been on that flight five years ago, I would have been screaming, weeping, unable to breathe. I didn’t start thinking about it until later when Nate and I were telling Hawk how rocky the flight had been, but I had just known that everything was going to be all right.
Which brings me to 2006. This past year sucked big fat monkey balls. Very few things were good about this past year. Besides months and months of getting stuck with needles, the indignity of repeated vaginal ultrasounds, worrying about my mom’s health, deciding the fate of a man who took the life of another, and losing a baby, I am also having the longest fucking miscarriage in the history of the world (eight weeks and counting, thank you very much). This year I have experienced sadness and stress to degrees that I never thought possible.
The funny thing is, that despite all of that sadness and anger and worry, in coming out the other side of it, I feel more peaceful than I ever have in my life. I just have this sense - that admittedly comes and goes - that everything is going to be all right. I have discovered wells of strength within myself, and within my family and friends, that I didn’t know were there.
I’m beginning to understand what people talk about when they say they have faith. Most talk in terms of faith in whatever god they believe in, but through my experiences in the past year, I have found faith in myself. I got knocked down this year, again and again, and, with the help of the people who love me, every time I picked myself back up, albeit on unsteady legs.
I don’t want to experience sadness and pain like I did this past year ever again. No one wants that. But I know now that I can deal with whatever comes. I can get knocked to the ground, it can hurt like hell, I can scream and cry and curse the universe. But when I’m done, I can let out a shuddering breath and start moving again.
So, thank you, 2006, for teaching me that, above all else, I have myself. And in 2007, I want to take that and turn it into something wonderful.
