i + i = backwards

It’s funny how one moment can turn your world upside down.  It can make you start spinning out of control, throwing you backwards into time.  That’s what happened when I lost this pregnancy.  Life became a question, a series of many questions.  See I placed my faith in getting pregnant, but not just getting pregnant but actually having a child.  Then the carpet was ripped out from under me.

Many, many moons ago I had hoped for a child with my first husband, except we weren’t married yet, we were only dating…for 7 years before we even got married.  Who wouldn’t have wanted a child then.  Anyway my point is this, I have been stuck in the past, reliving the past over and over again.  Thinking about my wrongs, the things that have led to problems in my adult life (child bearing due to bad decisions as a teenager), harm I have caused others, my ex-husband, my abandoned cat, and on and on and on.

My cat was put to sleep this week.  The thing is that this cat was my first pet, this adorable white kitty with a grey patch of fur on his forehead, and a freckle on his nose. who stole my heart 15 years or so ago.  There he was walking around my boyfriend(ex-husband) at the times Halloween party, with his sister that I found a home for also.  that is what I named him, perfect for the holiday.  He cuddled, kept me company, took walks around the neighborhood.  The best, most chill cat.  Even ran the posy of cats in our neighborhood.  They all used to lay in our lawn, what a sight that was looking out the window and seeing like 5 cats basking in the sun. When I left my ex-husband I didn’t take Boo with me. I left him behind in Vermont(where I lived for like 5 months while my ex-husband and I started a business, a record store “In the Moment” – it is still there and he still owns it).  When I left I had not idea where I was going, and I couldn’t bring him with me and I knew that he would be taken care of.  Tore my heart apart, we had been together for 8 years.  Then it stirs up the experience with my ex-husband whom I also spent 8 years with and all the shit that went on during our relationship, which by the way was not a bad one.  It was actually a good relationship minus the fact that I wasn’t in love with him because I didn’t even love myself.

Which leads me to the fact that I am currently making a list of all persons that I have harmed and how.  Yea, fun!  I have been replaying my entire life, and I mean entire.  The damage that I have caused, things I have tried long and hard to shove down deep into my psyche.  Now piece by piece I am looking at each person both directly and indirectly that I hurt in one way or another.  This could take ages.

This whole losing my child was the beginning of my self destruction as well.  I haven’t exercised, I have been wanting nothing more than to eat a bunch of junk and now of course I am feeling sorry for myself.  I keep putting it off, and it isn’t going away it is only getting worse and my clothes are tight.  It is the same old pattern of my life.  It is self hatred at its finest.

I have even been questioning if I would even be a good mother.  That maybe I just shouldn’t be a mom.  I still hate myself, how in the world could I care for another human being?  I am not selfless, I am self centered.  I don’t even want to pick up the phone when it rings.  I haven’t been sincere to anyone who comes in my path.  Again, same behavior, same old defect. I’ve even started to notice that I don’t make friends with people really, that I act like I am and then I disappear because I don’t want people to get close to me.  I don’t want to invest time in them because I am fearful of them leaving.  I am not a genuine friend.  Terrible!

I don’t know.  I recently heard someone asking that age old question, what is the purpose of life?  Hell, I have no idea.  I don’t even know what I want to be when I grow up and I am 37 years old.  Which again I have been thinking a lot about because I am looking at my past!! Why didn’t I go to graduate school, why didn’t I save money, why did I fu@@ up my entire life, blah blah blah.  I don’t even have a hobby.  I thought my purpose would be to some day be a stay at home mother and we can’t even afford for me to do that because I take more money home than my husband (not his fault by the way, he has 2 beautiful teenage boys from a previous marriage and provides half his paycheck to his ex-wife).

I feel like I am in a bad dream and I am moving backwards.  Watching my life in rewind.  I keep praying, the only word that comes out of my mouth is help.  I don’t know what I need, I have no idea what I even want.  And would it matter anyway?  I never get what I want, only what I need.  Dammit I want and I am sick of not getting.

~ Jessica (pause)

i + i = tempermental

My emotional state has not been well.  I am temperamental and feel it to my core.  It is not just in my actions but in my being, in every fiber of my soul.  Understandably why wouldn’t I be?   I lost a child.  I have been through a lot this past week and a half.  I am emotionally eating, and I know it but continue to shove the junk into my mouth.  It seems as though I am losing all sense of caring.  The first step is knowing and then the second is doing something about it.  I am in the process of taking steps to change it.  Change is action!  So I am off to Weight Watchers tonight to get back on the program before I feel anymore shame and guilt in an area of my life that I am tired of fixing.

I have been super busy on top of everything.  Never a moment for me.  Just go, go, go.  I will be busy from the time I leave work until I finally get to sit down at 9:30 tonight!  Sometimes I really hate life.  That feeling is always temporary.  It will pass.

 

i + i = The Big Day

Well I went into work early this morning. I have to make up the hours I’m going to miss tomorrow. We are going to the doctors to collect the eggs and leave a sperm sample. Let me just talk about that for a minute. They lead you down a long hallway to the back of the office. There are a few doors with do not disturb signs on them. You enter a room with a television, DVD player, a counter, soft lighting from a lamp on an end table, a couch with a throw away pad on it and a cabinet with movies and magazines. Now I don’t know about anyone else but this is uncomfortable and the videos are out dated. I guess I’m fortunate that I took the suggestion to stay out of a relationship for my first year of recovery and became very good at pleasing myself. The last time I had to leave a sample, when we first started IVF, I was in the room for about 3 minutes. That’s gotta be some kind of record, right? Well gotta get back to work. TTYS

~ Phil

i + i = waiting

Another morning at the clinic. Waiting seems to be something I’ll be doing a lot. Waiting for blood work, waiting for ultrasounds, waiting for test results, waiting for my nurse to call me back, waiting to see what happens, waiting to see if my follicles are growing, waiting to see if i can start my ganirelix And not just in the realm of IVF but in life as well. It’s like 2 parallel worlds running in unison.

Waiting for change, waiting for the process to happen, waiting for people to get it, waiting to see if they come back alive or live for that matter. Being someone who watches people make bad choices over and over again and not changing when you know exactly how they feel, that empty hopeless feeling YUCK! I am so glad it’s not me today. I have hope.

So here I sit waiting, hoping, wishing, praying for both a pregnancy and for those who are still sick and suffering.

~Jessica (patience)

i + i = Relief

I can breath again, went well. We decided to move to the back of her arm. No pain inflicted. What a relief. I had some worries about having to be around syringes due to my past being a recovering intravenous drug user. I don’t think of it the same as before. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I have a strong program of recovery, deeply involved in service and an incredible life beyond my wildest dreams. I’m going to be embarking on a journey myself with the consequences of my addiction…. Hepatitis “C”. I am going to be starting treatment with Interferon and Ribavirin for my Type 2 Hepatitis. I will have to be giving myself injections and thought that it would be a trigger. Time will tell and I don’t want to project. I have a healthy fear. I love being apart of my recovery community, a respectable, responsible and productive member of society. The stigma that I believed for your of once and addict always an addict is a lie. We do recover!!! Thank God.

~ Phil

i + i = chemicals

My uncle came out to look at our basement. Phil & I made the really bad choice of not having an inspection when we purchased the house. We have a mold problem in our basement and in our attic. I have been bothering Phil about this problem for over a year. See we had water problems that caused major flooding over numerous occasions. We fell in love with this house, and we just didn’t think logically about what we were getting into. A wonderful redeeming quality of being an addict, we want what we want when we want it. So here we are in our home which we love, and feel is where we are supposed to be but now we have to tackle this problem before I become pregnant and before we bring a new born into this house. We need to bleach everything in both the attic and the basement, and we need to cut out sections of the sheet rock to test and see if there is mold behind the walls. Uggghhhh!! I can’t be around either of those things. I don’t want to risk anything with this IVF or pregnancy(when that occurs, hoping it works this time, fingers crossed!!) This means it is all on Phil. Poor thing. He is getting the short end of the stick on this one. I would say this is for the future 9 months I have but that isn’t a fair statement either since he will be embarking on a journey with Interferon to treat his Hep C once we a positive pregnancy test and a green light from the doctor. See once he sprays all of that bleach we will have to leave the house for a few days to let it air out. Not even sure where we will go, especially because we have the dog, probably my parents for the weekend. To be determine!

So all this chemical talk got me to thinking. What cleaning supplies and what chemicals should I be avoiding other then artificial sweetener? I will I live without my diet root beer, or bazillion teaspoons of sweetener in my coffee. Coffee, well I guess that will be easy since I have only been drinking one cup a day, down from 4 to 6 cups. Damn that caffeine! I order a decaf tea this morning and it was actually really yummy. Although, you have to be aware that caffeine free is not 100% caffeine free and you have to be careful what kind of tea you drink because some of them are herbal. I found this great information on What To Expect When Expecting website Cleaning During Pregnancy: Some Dos and Don’ts. Phil thinks I am getting carried away but I feel like this child’s (potential child) life is in my belly! This takes the saying “you are what you eat” to a whole other level. I mean processed foods are bad too! Really if you think about is anything made in a lab or factory is probably not good for you. God I hope I don’t turn into a crazy lady, I am aren’t I?

~ Jessica (obsessing)

i + i = self care

Lunch break on Friday. It’s usually when I get a pedicure. It helps me relax and like Billy Joel sings in the Piano Man “forget about life a while”. It’s my hour therapy. If only I had a chair and a nail technician at my disposal I feel like every day would be a relaxing day.
This self care thing is important and I am sure that it will be even more important during this process. I used to do yoga and meditate. I really need to get back to doing this. I can’t be all worked up over everything going on around me. Although sometimes its hard to shut down when people are relapsing or you see friends struggling through a life threatening illness, or a major life event that is causing them pain. Just so you get an idea I’m a cancer and I feel everything other people feel, everything. I’m cursed with this thing I call over productive tear ducts. It’s like the faucet turns on and nothing can stop it. When I was active in my addiction those tears went away. I remember when they came back I despised it. Anyway back to self care. I’ve got to find a way to reduce my anxiety and stay centered. Self care is the solution. The last thing I want is a producing a child that lives in a fluid filled bag of stress. I have to think about something other than myself. This is for the greater good of another human being. I was thinking about it this morning, having a child has got to be the #1 most selfless thing you do because it isn’t about your wants anymore its about providing for the needs of an innocent fragile beautiful helpless baby. It has got to change you through to the depths of your soul. See here come those tears I told you about. Just the thought of a child brings me to tears.
~ Jessica (changing)