01.31.2006 | 9:02 pm | Daily Life
I’m so nervous about tomorrow. I hope I sleep well tonight. I’ve been so busy the past few days that I haven’t had much time to think about it until now. I hope Gray behaves himself.
Since I’m going to be in town, I’m going to stop by one of the library branches and check out Thorns of Truth, the sequel to Garden of Lies. It’s been a week since I finished G.O.L. and I can’t stop thinking about how things turned out for the characters, so I must read the sequel. I doubt it’ll be as good as the original, as sequels usually aren’t. But I have… to… know.
It’s sad that there is no branch library in our town. How can a town not have a library, even a small one? The good news is they’ve just started work on building one…it’s about time! I can’t wait to be able to take my kid to the library regularly. I’ve never taken him because the shortest trip to get to one is half an hour. Tomorrow will be his first time, but we won’t be able to stay long since we’ll only be stopping in after my appointment. I’ll have to get him home in time for lunch & his nap.
I hear the State of the Union is on (Philip’s watching). I should go watch, but I’m not too interested in seeing it for some reason. Probably because I’m constantly torn about what to think about the ongoing situation in Iraq. I think I’ll go watch anyway–it’s always a treat to watch hilary dig herself a hole with her hateful expressions and rolling eyes. ::giggle::
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01.30.2006 | 2:36 pm | Daily Life, Gray Matters
This morning we got an early start and went to the Zoo! It’s in G.Breeze and was a 35-minute drive. Philip did all his work yesterday so that he could take the morning off to do this.
It was a ton of fun! Gray was fascinated by all the animals, but one thing beat out all the animals in the world: The TRAIN. We took a train ride through several acres of protected habitat, during which we got to see many animals close up. Gorillas, Chimpanzees, hippos, zebras, camels, gazelles, and lots more. There was even a rhinoceros, which was HUGE in real life. Wow.
We walked through and viewed all the big cats- tigers, lions, leopards, and jaguars. The jaguars were frighteningly interested in Grayson, which was a weird feeling.
We saw bears and coyotes, pythons and bats, orangutans and baboons, and every kind of bird you can imagine.
The last thing we did was view and feed the giraffes. That rocked. Gray made friends with one particular giraffe, who licked him all over. Ewww.
The Zoo is pretty cool; it was our first trip ever. Sadly, there was a lot of hurricane damage, mostly from Ivan, although their signs said that Dennis and Katrina produced fairly heavy damage as well. Lots of areas were closed down due to ongoing repairs, and the tree loss & damage was evident all around. *sigh* I hope this year is storm-free for our area.
We got home just in time for naptime! It was a perfect morning out. Grayson was the best little zoo-going partner. I fell in love with him all over again today…he amazes me anew, every single day! I can’t imagine how I ever lived without his bright little presence in my life.
When we passed through the toll both to get over the bridge to G.B., the toll-taker smiled down at him and said, “he’s beautiful.” 
He sure is.
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01.25.2006 | 8:57 pm | Uncategorized, Daily Life, Gray Matters
We have an amazing county park just 9 minutes up the road from our house. Yes, nine, and yes, I timed it. It has a top-notch playground with tons of neat things to do. I took Gray to play over there this morning, since we weren’t able to afford the current gymnastics session. 
He misses his gymnastics class & exercises so much. But since he doesn’t have that for the time being, I wanted him to at least get to go play on something fun for a while.
He had so much fun, running around, up and down the maze of wide steps in the “tower”. I kinda had fun in there, too. He’s scared to do the big slides by himself, but he loves sliding with mommy. He got to walk on a suspended balance beam, which was a hit. He got to swing, sit in and steer a “Blue Angel”, and finally, walk across a suspended bridge. I was surprised he was brave enough to do that, but he did it and did it well, and kept wanting to do it over & over.
He’d just stepped off the bridge to greet a little girl about his same age, and when she walked off, he turned to follow her…and he didn’t see that there was a step down off a platform.
He fell face-first onto the lower platform. He laid there for a few seconds and screamed, and when I pulled him up, I was afraid I was going to see a missing tooth. There was already blood pooling around his mouth, but I saw that he’d only busted his lip. He screamed loud enough to alarm everyone around us. The little girl’s mom stayed and tried to help comfort him. In between his screams, he was making kissing sounds, because when he hurts something, he always does that to let me know it needs kissing to feel better. I kissed his little bloody, snotty mouth so many times, but he kept asking for more kisses as fast as I could give them. He kept touching it & then rubbing his eyes, so he had blood smeared all over his face, as well as all over my shirt and his, too. We must’ve looked mighty gory. Just as it was looking as if the playground fun was over, he abruptly stopped screaming, pointed to the slide a few feet away, and said,
“Green slide!”
Apparently, he was going to make it.
LOL!
I wiped the blood off of his face with his shirt and we took another run down the green slide before we left.
Overall, he had a great time. I think I’ll take him back up there again soon!
His top lip is busted on the inside, but not too badly. It’s swollen and sore enough that I’ve had to kiss it many times today when he’s forgotten and rammed his sippy cup up against it. He also skinned his nose a little bit, the poor little guy.
I’m sure it won’t be the last time that chasing a girl gets him into trouble. Heehee!
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01.23.2006 | 12:50 pm | Daily Life
Garden of Lies is the best book I’ve read in a long time. I’ve been reading it all last week, and this weekend it became nearly impossible to put down. It’s going to end up on my favorites list for sure.
It’s riveting, exciting, and heartwrenching. I relate so much to one of the main characters, so cynical after a lifetime of people letting her down. She trusts no one and is always brooding inside herself. Good grief, that’s me. Other than Philip and very few others, I view the world as full of shallow and untrustworthy people. More and more people prove me right all the time.
So, I love this book. I’m going to be so sad when I’m done, and I’ve only about 70 pages to go. I can’t imagine leaving these characters behind!
There is a sequel, but I don’t know how it can top this original epic. Even so, I’ll probably end up checking it out at the library next week.
I wish I had the time to read for hours every day. Nothing feels so good as lounging in bed beneath the warm sheets, reading a delicious book like this one!
(special thanks to Philip, who took extra care of Grayson this weekend so I could do just that!)
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01.20.2006 | 8:35 am | Daily Life, Ranting
I POAS this morning. BFN! THANK YOU LORD. I can sleep again!
That is, if my neighbors could be quiet for once! This morning it was the stupid-ass kids from the bus stop, teasing Reagan and making him bark (Reagan NEVER barks, unless someone steps onto our property). Philip went out and tore into them, but not before they’d woken the entire house up prematurely. I would give anything to live around normal, decent people.
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01.19.2006 | 8:22 am | Ranting
I hate my neighborhood.
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01.16.2006 | 9:38 pm | Uncategorized, Infertility/Miscarriage
January 16th is here again. It’s been three years.
Three years since I woke up and spent the morning hoping, praying for a miracle. That somehow, our tiny baby had weathered the storm of cramps & bleeding that had gone on for the past 18 hours (before that it had been only spotting for two days). That the little inch long sac that had fallen from my body the night before was merely a clot, rather than the broken shell that held a tiny, ended life. If it was to be as I hoped, only God could’ve made it so. But, he didn’t. Not this time.
My appointment was at 2:00, and I arrived, brown paper bag in hand. It contained a ziploc bag that held the torn sac that had passed the night before. I was holding on to shreds of faith and hope, that somehow, it wasn’t the end. Philip, who’d taken off work to be there, joined me in the waiting room.
I met Dr. T for the first time. For an OB, she was amazingly kind and understanding. She told me she was holding out hope, too. But as she peered at the ultrasound screen, she shook her head, gave a sad sigh and said, “Nope. It’s gone.” (Yes I remember that like she just said it to me a minute ago. One of the defining moments in my life.) She told us to meet her in her office after I got dressed.
I didn’t cry.
In her office, Dr. T told me that it appeared I was shedding the lining well, and she expected everything would be fully “over” within a week. She explained that it’s best to let it happen naturally if at all possible, saying she didn’t like to perform a D&C on anyone without drastic need, due to the riskiness of that procedure (I agree wholeheartedly with that, and wouldn’t have let her do a D&C on me if she’d wanted to!). Of course, it all worked out fine (if that can be said for a miscarriage), no medical tampering needed.
She took the bag and said she’d send it to pathology to be examined. I regret that to this day. They never found anything, and oh how I would’ve loved to have had that baby to take home and give a proper burial. It seems so wrong that it ended up being tossed in the trash. It was a mother’s dream, and it was loved, even if it didn’t end up a full-term baby.
She told me to go straight to the lab and get blood drawn. The results were that I had low progesterone. Stupid, stupid low progesterone.
I was advised to wait the obligatory 3 months, which is the usual obstetrical BS. Who has 3 months to wait anyway? I decided to leave it in God’s hands, which was the best decision I ever made, since Grayson was conceived within 2 months of that very day.
Walking out of the office, we passed at least four pregnant women. I hated them so much. I still resent all pregnant women, unless I know they had to really “work” to get that baby in there. Isn’t that awful? But it’s true. It just shouldn’t be that easy for some…unless it is for all.
Philip had to get back to work, and I headed home in the truck. As soon as I pulled out onto 12th avenue, all the grief hit me. I cried. I cried, and I didn’t care who saw me when I was stopped at all the red lights. I’d just lost everything that mattered to me. It had taken years to finally conceive that baby, and it was gone. While everywhere, women walked around with their big bellies, whining about how uncomfortable they were. The unfairness of it all was unbearable. I drove the long 12 miles home, squinting to see the road through my tears.
When I got home, the last thing I wanted to do was be in the house. That empty, silent, childless house. I leashed up Reagan and took him for a walk. It was a cold day, a raw winter day full of clouds, but no rain. The kind of weather usually makes me avoid being outside, but on that afternoon, I welcomed it. I was even colder on the inside, anyway. That sounds oh-so-dramatic, but it’s the truth.
When I got back from the walk, I still couldn’t bear to go inside. Philip would be home in less than an hour, so I stayed outside to wait for him. I sat down on the front porch, facing west. My view was of the weak sun setting behind a row of majestic Pine trees. And right in front of me, at the edge of our property, was our Pecan tree. I’d always admired it and how full and green it was in the summer. But now, in the dead of winter, it stood completely bare, its jagged, clawed limbs bouncing erratically in the breeze. I was struck by the parallel between how it looked, and how I felt. That tree resembled my body. Empty, jagged, and robbed of the beautiful, lush fullness it had recently boasted. It was useless and barren, just like me. It was empty of life, and so was my body.
So cold were my thoughts that late afternoon.
Philip finally arrived and ushered me inside. He brought in a bag, and pulled out of it a potted Daffodil, full of yellow blooms. At first it cheered me, as simple flowers always do. But then I realized that Daffodils are for planting and keeping, to bloom year after year. The last thing I wanted was a flower that would remind me every year of what I’d lost. I felt overwhelmed with sadness again, knowing he’d meant well. My eyes filled up with tears again, but this time I wasn’t alone.
Philip sat down in a chair and invited me into his lap. I fell in his arms and let those suckers flow. I cried so hard, so long, and so bitterly, that I’m amazed I didn’t run out of tears.
Whenever I think of all the reasons why I love Philip, I always remember that evening, crying in his arms, the most. He just let me cry, with no words needed. I think he shed a few tears, himself.
A long time passed, but when I was ready, we got up and sat together in the living room. I wasn’t hungry and when I refused supper, Philip declined his also, to stay by my side. We sat there all night, until bedtime. I didn’t feel like talking about it yet, so he let me be and just sat with me and held my hand. We watched a documentary on PBS. It was about Japan’s attack on the Aleutian Islands during WWII, and how it affected the soldiers involved, as well as the Native Alaskans that had lived there. It was morbid, dark and depressing. In other words, perfect for that night.
I have no eloquent way to end this. I pretty much went to bed that night, and woke the next morning to start the mourning process. It would be a few days yet before the healing began…but it eventually did. “Began” is the operative word. The sting of that loss is still with me now, and I imagine it always will be.
The good news is, it’s much smaller now, and overall, my life is full of joy. And my house is full of much-welcome noise!
And that’s the story of January 16th, 2003.
All at once,
I finally took a moment and I’m realizing that
You’re not coming back
And it finally hit me all at once
All at once,
I started counting teardrops and at least a million fell
My eyes began to swell,
And all my dreams were shattered all at once
– lyrics ripped from “pre-Bobby” Whitney Houston (LOL)
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01.15.2006 | 6:23 pm | Infertility/Miscarriage, Writings
Remembering you
how you slipped from refuge
No wake, no dirge
as if you didn’t matter
A brown paper bag
Your new resting place
So unfit
So unfair
But no one cares
No one cares
None but these two
who will never forget.
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01.13.2006 | 10:21 am | Infertility/Miscarriage, Writings
Elation turns to gloom
as she discovers
one
foreboding
spot
Trepidation worms in
Takes root
Infiltrates
The end has begun
Though still unbeknownst
to the one
who vainly clings to hope.
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01.9.2006 | 11:53 am | Uncategorized, Infertility/Miscarriage
This morning the first thing I thought about when I opened my eyes was the date. It’s the 9th, which is the day (three years ago) that I found out I was pregnant with our first baby. After years of wanting, wishing, hoping and praying for a child, I finally got to experience the joy & giddiness of looking down and seeing two lines on an HPT. I was just over 5 weeks pregnant that morning, and I don’t think I can find a way to express how happy I was.
Sadly, the happiness was to be very short-lived, because four days later, the spotting began, which led to the end of that dream. Our little unknown child will always be in my heart. There’s never a day that I don’t think of her and wonder what could’ve been.
Yet, at the same time, I know that if she would’ve been, then there would be no Grayson. It’s quite a bittersweet paradox. The best way I’ve been able to sum it up (and find some peace with it), is to just rest in the fact that God always knows what he’s doing, and he owes us no explanations for the way things happen in life.
I know that I now have the child he intended for me to have all along, even from the very moment he gave me the promise of a child.
So on to the cheerier part.
After breakfast I went to our room and opened up my cedar keepsake box. Inside it is where I keep two of my sweetest treasures: my two positive HPTs. One is from April 2, 2003, which is from my sweet Grayson. The other is from January 9th, 2003, the one from the first pregnancy. I took it out and stared at the two lines, the test line still SO very dark it’s nearly impossible to fathom how that baby didn’t “stick”. Seeing that line brought all the feelings rushing back to my conscious mind - how shocking it felt to see it that morning 3 years ago. How I stood there, shaking, in disbelief.
After a few minutes of quiet retrospection alone in the bedroom, I walked out to find Philip, so I could remind him of the date and let him remember, also.
Philip was in the kitchen, making himself a grilled cheese, while at the same time keeping Grayson at bay. I held out the HPT stick, and said, “Here, look at this.” He turned and looked at it as I approached.
He looked a little odd.
Maybe a little bit sick.
By now I was standing next to him at the stove, holding the test out for him to see, and wondering why he was just looking at it, not saying anything.
Finally he said, “Good thing that’s an old test… …right?”
LMBO!
In my sentimental, remembering-back haze, I’d completely not thought of how it MIGHT freak him out for me to come out of the room (after having been in there for five or ten minutes), and then stick a positive pregnancy test in front of him and say, “Here, look at this.”
LOL!
It’s probably a story you have to’ve “been there” to appreciate, but we both got a good laugh out of it. He said he was mortified for just a second or two, and then he realized that I must’ve gotten out one of my old tests and was playing a joke on him.
He was still wrong because that never even crossed my mind, but HA was it funny!
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