Tag Archives: me

Mar 19 2013

When do I get to be excited?

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This pregnancy hasn’t been as much fun as I would like it to be.  Unexpected, yes, but not as much fun.  I am happy about it, but not as excited as I would like to be.  I am finding it hard to really get excited, for a bunch of reasons.  And I really want that to change.

For one, I don’t think I have entirely grasped the idea that I even AM pregnant.  I spent the last several years in such crappy health and having my doctor tell me that it wasn’t even possible.  So then, at the ripe old age of 42, finding out that I am pregnant was a bit of a shock.  And with that comes the constant worry about the health of this baby.  There are risks when one is the age that I am and I worry about that constantly.  The stress is almost overwhelming sometimes.  We go for genetic counseling (more on that in a moment) on 15 April in Tuscon to see about various tests available to me to check on the baby.  The fact is that I am a high risk pregnancy, partially due to my age and partially due to my weight.  My health has caused me to put on weight over the last several years, although it has gotten progressively better since moving to Arizona.  In fact, that improved health is probably exactly why I was able to get pregnant at all.  But it is what it is.  I have more weight on me than is ideal, although I have lost a lot since being here.  My OB/GYN wants me on a 1500 calorie-a-day diet, so that I add no more weight during my pregnancy but get sufficient nutrition for Baby Zoe (named in the tradition of all my embryos after Sesame Street characters).  This doesn’t sound like a lot, and I thought it was going to be hard to do.  I was right, but not for the reasons I thought.  For the last several years, despite the weight gain, I have not been eating like I should.  It isn’t that I have been eating crap and ballooning.  Actually, the weight is a side effect of the health issues, NOT food.  I have been so sick that keeping much of anything down has been sort of “hit and miss”.  Corey is always on me that I haven’t eaten enough, which I pushed off.  While I knew in my head that he was right, the size of my ass argued with me.  I always joke that if I am going to have a fat ass, I ought to have the appetite to go with it.  So, when the doctor told me this, I downloaded an excellent calorie counter app to my phone and I religiously record everything I eat.  The astounding thing for me was how hard it was to keep to this.  I didn’t realize just how little I eat until I started tracking it.  My first day, I made about 900+ calories by 2200 and had to push myself to get to 1300.  My second day was worse, just over 1100 calories.  Today, even counting in my dinner for tonight, lunch, breakfast, and a snack, I am just over 900 calories.  I need more than that for this baby.  I feel like I am stuffing myself, even though it is healthy food I am eating.  I had no idea how stressful this could be!

But the hardest part to get past is the sheer amount of judgment that is being cast my way from unexpected places.  It isn’t about my age and pregnancy, but about being pregnant at all and my own personal choices.  I feel like I have to justify my pregnancy, and that just shouldn’t be.  There are those who are acting as if I did this on purpose, simply to offend them.  Which is insane, since I didn’t even think it was possible to even get pregnant.  The passive-aggressive, snarky comments behind my back… they don’t escape my notice and they hurt.  My being pregnant is no reflection on anyone else and my choices are my own.  So the comments about mothers with multiple children having more children being irresponsible… not your judgment to make.  If I can afford them and can love them, then that is what counts.  I don’t deserve to be judged simply because I am fertile.  Nature ran its course, end of story.  And yet, with this post, I have justified my pregnancy.  Not right.

I made a comment recently on my Facebook page about the fact that we were going to genetic counseling.  That was all I said, that we had an appointment for it.  I ended up taking it down because, within seconds, I was attacked by several people.  The fact that I am going for counseling is nobody’s decision or business but mine and Corey’s.  The fact is that my age is a factor in the health of my baby.  Genetic counseling and testing is a tool.  Counseling is an information gathering appointment, plain and simple.  It educates us on risks, possible tests, and what they mean for us.  That is it.  I believe in being prepared for anything I can be.  That’s what genetic counseling and testing is.  It is not a statement on any potential choices I make, although those, too, are my right and my business.  I was called all kinds of names by several people who thought they had the right to tell me what my choices should or shouldn’t be.  This is my pregnancy, my family, my body, my choices, my business.  The fact is that when Tyler was born with his cleft lip and palate, I wasn’t prepared.  The special tests I had had done prior to birth when there was a suspicion of it were never read, so I was blindsided when he was born.  I was a basket case with guilt and fear.  I don’t ever want to go through that again.  Hence, being prepared.  And, once again, I have justified my choices, which truly pisses me off.

It makes it hard to get excited when I am in a constant state of stress.  Between the worry and the hurt from those who are supposed to be my friends, it puts a damper on it all.  And it doesn’t help that Corey has something inexplicable going on with his left arm that worries the hell out of me.  It started out with some numbing on the pads of a few fingers and a random area on his left area.  He went to the doctor who couldn’t find anything obvious, but ruled out pinched nerves and felt it would go away in a week or two.  It’s been a week and now he has discovered that there is a definitive loss of strength in that arm.  This scares the hell out of me.

All in all, it has been kind of rough going emotionally, and that doesn’t really help.  I need support, not judgment.

Dec 9 2012

Catching up…

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Time flies…

It's been more than a month since I last blogged.  I had been good about blogging regularly, but I needed to take a bit of a step back, I guess.  I have been taking a bit of a social media hiatus, light on the blogging, light on the Facebook.  I have been kind of anti-social lately.  I think the hate, both pre- and post-election shook my faith in humanity.  That is something that has been a bit tenuous at best over the last several years.  So I took a bit of a break, limiting my time on FB, many days playing games but talking to no one.  It  was necessary, and it has hellped.  I also stopped having a complex about deleting people.  I hate the idea of hurting ayone's feelings but sometimes it is just a matter of self-preservation.

 

Teaching an old dog new tricks…

The other thing that got me was a not-so-fabby grade in one of my classes.  I am not going to lie… I've been pretty proud of my grades thus far, especially since there have been literally decades since I have been in school full-time.  But I blew my midterm in my Romance Novel class.  I didn't get a horrible grade, a B+, but I totally know I could have done better.  I deserved the damn grade, and I know it and it sucks.  I am hoping it doesn't blow my GPA because I have had a 4.0 every semester running.  

On the flip side, I am a bit disappointed with both of my writing classes this semester.  I thought that both of them would involve creative writing, MY creative writing.  Nope.  Not at all.  The Romance Novel class has been about reading and analyzing the romance genre, interesting, but not what I was expecting.  We have a huge reading list, half of which haven't been discussed or really used.  We have had two homework assignments that were kind of on the early high school level.  We had one paper which was pretty simplistic, our midterm, and a final paper.  That's it.  It was an independent study class but I guess I expected some more input and in-depth study and writing.  My other writing class has involved non-fiction.  Each module consists of an article that we have to read and journal about.  It's another independent study and there is only one other person in the class.  We are supposed to discuss the pieces with each other but she never posts unntil AFTER the due date.  So I end up talking with the prof or not at all.  The final consists of a research paper.  I like the professor but I have gotten nothing out of the class.  I hoping next semester is different.

The other three classes have been fabulous.  I love my women's criminology class and my forensic psych class, neither of which pertain to my major but taken just because I wanted to.  They have been fascinating!  The other class was a literature class, focused on Hamlet and Child of God.  My mom was an English teached in my high school and she taught Hamlet but, because I was her daughter, I had the other teacher who didn't teach it so I never read it.  The teacher was actually a friend of mine from high school, which was different.  But she is pretty fabulous and I LOVED that class.  It was a fantastic mix of students, some of which I got into some great discussions with.

 

Settling in…

Even though it is temporary, our house is starting to look like a home.  We haven't unpacked everything because it is temporary, but at some point, you just have to make it a home regardless.  On Black Friday, Corey and I braved the outside world long enough to go to the furniture and buy a new set of cocktail tables and matching coffee table, along with a spiffy media cabinet.  All of which I love and on which we got a rockin' discount.  We ended up paying just over $600 for about $1100 worth of stuff and they delivered it an hour later!  For the first month we were here, we having been lamp shopping for the living room and just couldn't agree on bases and shades.  I look color and pattern, he eschews it.  Not easy!  We finally found a pair of brownish-black, distressed wood bases that we both liked and I compromised on the shades.  They are gray silk, crinkle-pleated shades that are beautiful when the lights are on.  Yesterday we bought curtains and a rod for the living room, too, and they are gorgeous.  We had Venetian blinds but there was still a glare on Corey's laptop.  So we went curtain shopping, which I anticipated would be as easy as the lamp shopping.  It took us only a record 30 minutes to compromise and buy.  Amazing.  We got a gorgeous rod with brownish-black marble-look finials and fabulous dusty teal curtains.  I wanted a set of blue and white, almost Morrocan-inspired patterned ones, but the hubs hated them.  Since he wanted some lovely (NOT) dark, poop-brown ones, I feel lucky that I got the ones I did, a dusty teal set of faux-silk panels with a tone-on-tone zebra pattern.  They sound, admittedly, hideous, but the pattern is subtle and they look beautiful balanced against all the dark furniture and black couches.  They only had two panels left, but I want four so I will have to keep watching for more to come in.

Oct 15 2012

Monday Madness

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This has been an illuminating weekend, even if I spent most of it tethered to textbooks and my laptop.  It started with a post from Dominee of Blessing Manifesting, whom I adore.  The girl, while well over a decade younger than me, is one of the wisest and kindest souls I have ever met.  And she does it in a completely non-fluffy bunny way, which makes her all the more wonderful.  She wrote a post about change and how it doesn't always seem to be worth the chaos and upheaval it causes, that sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.  Go read the post.  It is dead on and insightful and it made me look at the issues I am having with change in my own life.  

Change = Chaos?!

I was pretty miserable, prior to leaving New York.  It wasn't just any one thing, but more of a general dissatisfaction with life.  Family, friends, me.  All of it.  There are tons of reasons and things that happened to lead me to feeling the way that I did, most of which I have talked about at one time or another on the blog.  I wanted change.  I needed change.  The negative BS was dragging me down to the point that sometimes I felt like I was drowning.  Moving to Arizona became sort of a symbol for me, a fresh start.  A fresh start for life, for family, for my health, for me.  Maybe I pinned too much hope on that, or had unreal expectations, or maybe it is just part of the process of change, but it hasn't been as fluffy bunny wonderful as I guess I secretly hoped it would be.  Some things are better, some things aren't.  

When you make positive changes, or try to, you don't anticipate the down side.  At least, I didn't, and maybe I should have.  The big three…

  1. The teasing.  I get that not everybody gets the "positive change" stuff, and that's okay.  I expected some teasing about it.  But what I didn't expect was the teasing to the point of cruelty and bullying.  That just sucks.  I didn't anticipate that at all, not to that extent.  I have gotten some pretty nasty comments from "friends" that are just plain mean.
  2. No support.  The other thing I hoped for was a little support, and I haven't really gotten that AT ALL.  My changes and quest for positivity are accepted, as long as I don't ask for anything along the way.  And that part is really hard, especially when it is inside your own little family unit.  I get that change comes from within, but the reality is that the people around you affect that.  I have yelled cried asked for help with that, for them to maybe tone it down a little, my husband especially. He has the patience of a gnat and it frequently causes him to be overly negative.  It drives me nuts and it affects EVERYONE around him.  I have been fighting that battle for years to no avail.  And it is frustrating as hell.  
  3. The anger/resentment.  Some of this comes from #2.  Actually, a lot of it comes from #2.  I ask for very little around here, so it really hurts that I have no real support.  They know I have been miserable, but it doesn't matter enough for them to put themselves out to help me.  That is not what a family is supposed to be like.  It's basically the story of my life around here.  Kim/Mama can do what she wants as long as it doesn't require anything of <insert name here>.  That doesn't help my need for positivity AT ALL.  The other side of that comes from my changes themselves.  I have learned that, once you embrace the positive, it makes the negative stand out all that much more.  And that drives me insane.  This whole thing is supposed to be about embracing the positive, but the negative is so much more annoying now!

Embracing the Wild Woman

Yesterday, I got a newsletter from Lyn Thurman of Wise Woman Whispers and it struck a chord with me.  The newsletter was inspired by an Allen Ginsberg quote:

Follow your iner moonlight; don't hide the madness.

I'm not talking about insane madness, but the things that make us US.  The uniqueness, the quirks,, the creativity.  That sort of thing.  The things that make us different, make us who we are.  She asked a question… do you let yourself shine like the moonlight, or do you hide it away from the world?

My first instinct was to answer that I don't hide it.  I mean, I am 42 and I sport hot pink hair.  Subtlety is not a concept I tend to embrace.  But inner moonlight is more than that.  It isn't just about being visually bold. It is about being bold and fabulous in every way.  It is about not being afraid to be who you are and to show it.  It's about not giving a damn how the world sees you but how you see yourself.  I'd like to think that I let it shine.

But I thought about it, really thought about it.  And I realized that I really don't, not like I really want.  There is a whole lot of me that I "tone down" for public consumption.  And why?  That just means that I am essentially living by others' rules and why the hell should I do that?  That isn't me, and there isn't a damn thing wrong with being me.

I had an "almost boyfriend" (and still great friend) tell me a few years ago that, back when he wanted to date me, I was intense. Not intense in the emo sense, but intense in living with heart, soul, and passion.  He told me that I had a fire in me that drew him in and scared the hell out of him at the same time.  He told me that he had never met anyone before me, or after, that lived my life the way I did.  Full-speed, passionatey, and with no fear. I had never looked at myself that way, but he was right.  I did.  When I loved, I loved hard.  When I played, I played hard.  When I made mistakes, I made big ones.  I lived by the motto "go big or go home" and it was just the way I was.  Admittedly, that time in my life was coming after some intensely bad times, times that had filled me with fear.  While I don't miss the bad times that got me there, I miss that me.

When did I stop living like that?  The minute I started listening to other people instead of my own heart and soul.  That was when it started to erode.  That is when I started living to other people's rules and expectations.  Well, to hell with that!  Why should I conform when that isn't who I am.  That implies that there is something wrong with me, wrong with how I think and feel and dress and live.  And there isn't.

Sep 16 2012

Inner Journey: Day 5

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Day 5 of the Beautiful Body Acceptance Inner Journey with Dominee of Blessing Manifesting!  

Today's daily affirmation is one I can't say with sincerity, but it is one I need to be able to say with all the sincerity in the world.  I love and respect my body. I take care of it and I give it what it needs.  I am not even close to it, but I am working on it.

Today's journaling prompt…  When was the first time you can ever remember feeling badly about your body? Do you still feel the same way about yourself?  I think everyone has moments of it, but the problem really started for me after I hurt my foot while I was still active duty.  I had surgery and was off of it for two months.  That was the beginning.  It wasn't long after I had my third child and I couldn't work out.  My foot has never been right since, a permanent issue, and it makes good exercise hard.  But that isn't the sum total of how I got where I am.  I had another child,, but even that didn't do it.  It was after he was born.  I was on chemo off and on for several years and I put on a ton of weight.  More injuries, more illnesses, just one thing after another.  It is frustrating because I haven't been able to heal from one thing before another hits.  All of this combined with one emotionally charged event after another in my personal life and it has left me feeling somewhat defeated.  And the feelings have only gotten worse over time.  But I am working my way out of it!