A Happy Medium

When I was growing up, I was the biggest bookworm around. If my nose wasn't buried in a book, there was something seriously wrong. I have read THOUSANDS of novels in my lifetime, which I think has contributed to my ridiculous obsession with spelling mistakes and typos (the one main thing I forgot to write about in my 7 crazy things list) but I also think it has made me a more intelligent, well-rounded person. If that makes sense. Anyways, there is a point to my blather about reading, I promise. Since I was little, every time I hear the term "happy medium" I think of the book A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle. In the book, the Happy Medium was actually a woman, or a spirit if you will, that lived in a cave and had a crystal ball. Now I am all grown up and feel as though I am desperately seeking my very own Happy Medium in all different aspects of my life. The real meaning of happy medium that is. Compromise, middle ground or whatever you want to call it.

For example, this recent decision to try for another baby, which by the way has been put off until March cycle because I don't want to be a giant whale in the dead of summer, not that we get a summer here but whatever. It really is a HUGE compromise on my part. This is something my man really wants and is looking forward to and something I am scared to death of doing. We are on extreme opposite ends of the spectrum on this matter, but there is really no common ground, nowhere to meet in the middle. There's either a pregnancy and (hopefully) a baby....or there isn't. It's pretty shitty that I have to feel this way about it and totally unfair that I would have to add 'hopefully', but that's just the way it is.

Along with my intense fear of having yet another miscarriage or crazy pregnancy comes another fear that is totally shallow and vain and I am not ashamed to admit it. I've mentioned before that I lost a lot of weight last year (in the neighborhood of 65lbs) and to be honest, I just don't want to gain it back. Since the move and excessive eating/drinking over the holidays, I managed to pack on a nasty 14lbs. I am utterly disgusted with myself. I am however bound determined to lose it and get back in shape (I finally found a treadmill, yay!) I'm on Day 5 of a cleanse right now and feeling fantastic. I have been working out every day, sweating my ass off and loving it. I'm actually down 9.5lbs already, but I will gain some back when I reintroduce food next week. I didn't do the cleanse to lose weight, because I am smart enough to realize that would be a temporary fix. I did it to kick start myself and my body into action and clearly, it's working. I flat out refuse to go into this pregnancy feeling unhappy about my body. I already told my man that since this WILL be my LAST baby, I have every intention on enjoying the ten months of Hell pregnancy, or at the very least try my best to. I will buy killer maternity clothes and I will be radiant, god damnit. lol. The decision to wait until March to try also gives me the opportunity to shed some fat and tone up a bit before I get myself knocked up, which is a bonus. I can picture myself now in SFAMK maternity jeans and a tight fitting, low-cut top and everyone looking and thinking how great I look for being preggers. Oh come on, a girl can dream can't she?

OK, so here's the Happy Medium thing in relation to my weight loss. When I lost all my weight last year, I thought I looked fabulous. I was so proud of myself (and still am) for perservering and achieving my goal. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line and I am honestly not sure where, I surpassed my goal and lost control. I have pictures from a trip to Kelowna that we took in August and let me tell you, I don't look anything like I thought I looked. My head looks too big for my body and my neck and arms are scrawny. My man's friend Jamie told me last week that I looked like I was about to die. I burst out laughing when he told me that, but I suppose in some exaggerated way, he is right on the money.

Somehow, I must find my middle ground with my body. I'm not sure how I go about doing it, but I sure as hell am going to try. I plan on being very careful once I feel that I am approaching a weight that I am comfortable with. I am well aware that I have some major body image issues so this really is a difficult undertaking for me. I lose weight very quickly too, and not because I crash diet, it's just the way I am...but of course it doesn't help when trying to achieve the difference between fit and emaciated.

I need to find a balance between where I was a little mushy in some areas (I'm wearing shorts for a reason, people) and still felt like I hadn't quite achieved my goal (in June):



and Bobble Head Girl (in August):




If I had a crystal ball like Madeleine wrote about, then I would know when I would achieve my goal. But since realistically that's never going to happen, it leaves me only with the question...Is a true Happy Medium actually achievable?

Bittersweet Decisions

So, it looks like two lines it's going to be. Starting my next cycle, we will be actively trying to conceive. Unfortunately, this decision comes in the wake of terrible news. The job I was waiting to hear about is no longer available, as the person for whom I would have been working for has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It would be awful news whether I knew her or not, but it's especially saddening because she is a family member of a friend of mine, a friend whom I would consider in my "inner circle", even if we have only been friends for a short period of time. I care about her and what happens in her world, so I am sad for her. And for me, too. Not on the same level, but I am disappointed that I won't be given the opportunity to work for this person, because I believe she would have been the perfect person to help me on my way in my career.

I wasn't sure that me not going back to work right away was going to push me to make a decision about getting pregnant, but after several days of mulling it over, talking it out with my man and weighing the pros and cons, I figured why the hell not. Let's face it, waiting another 3 months or even 3 years isn't going to take away any of the fears I have about pregnancy. I am going to make an appointment with my doctor, but I know she will tell me the standard stuff....not to worry, I will be monitored, blah blah blah. I know she will give me the go ahead.

So I was feeling pretty good about this decision and then I remembered something, something huge. In some sick sense of irony (the story of my life), the day that I made this decision to have another baby, today, January 7th, is also my daughter's 15th birthday. Fifteen years ago today, when I was only 15 years old, I was laying in the hospital, alone (my mother having literally dropped me on the curb outside the entrance doors because she was late for work) and I was riddled with fear. It's almost funny when I think back. I was scared of the pain of labor and delivery. I was nervous about whether or not I would be able to take care of my tiny, fragile newborn baby because I was still a baby myself. Fast forward fifteen years and nothing much has changed. I am a grown woman now, but I am still unable to care for that very same child. Despite my best efforts, I was incapable of making my daughter's life a good one. She is on a path to self destruction and I am a helpless bystander. I have failed horribly as a Mother and yet here I am, ready to bring another child into my life.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

A Tale Of Two Lines

So last night at about 10pm, I decided I was pregnant.

I am late, but my cycle has been whacked for months, from stress I am sure. But my boobs are so sore. Like big, heavy, sore watermelons hanging off me. Ok maybe cantaloupes, but whatever. They're sore. So anyways, I call my man at work and ask him to bring home a HPT. He knows the drill, we have done this LOTS. He gets home an hour later and he has the test in the package, but not in the box. I guess he took it out and threw it away after he paid for it because he didn't want any of his gossip loving staff to see the box through the plastic bag. Good idea, except that the test he bought wasn't the one I usually take. So, I peed on the stick and then waited.....

Two lines. Two lines. TWO F*CKING LINES. No, no, NO! This is not happening to me, not right now. I had a meltdown. A sobbing, ready to jump off the nearest bridge, raving lunatic needing medication, m-e-l-t-d-o-w-n.

As it turns out, the test was one of those ones that turns to a + sign if you are pregnant, so I mistook my | as the "2nd" line, when in fact it was a - meaning negative as in not pregnant. Now there's a sick cruel joke to play on someone. Perhaps ONE day I will laugh about this, but definitely not today.

Anyways, this really got me thinking. Why was I so upset? The idea of another baby doesn't scare me, on the surface of it. It's what comes with pregnancy that terrifies me. My track record is horrible, having had more losses than babies, ranging from 8 weeks along to 20 weeks. To add insult to injury, half the time my body doesn't realize it's not pregnant anymore and I have to have a D&C. My pregnancies have been far from "normal" - my doctor actually laughs about it. Not in a mean way, but in a shaking her head, baffled kind of way.

My 3rd baby M was born with Down syndrome. Please don't get me wrong, he is the love of my life....but that's not what I signed up for. Nobody wants that. My entire world has changed, I have been forced to become this whole other person I never intended or knew how to be. Does it scare me that I might have another baby with Ds? Honestly, not really. That doesn't mean that I don't feel an immense amount of guilt that my body did that to me. I know it wasn't anything I did. I know it wasn't anything that could be prevented. I know that it happened at the moment of conception. I know all of these things, but it doesn't take away the fact that I feel like my womb is a failure. I can't explain it, it's just how I feel. I could write an entire novel about my experience of having a baby with Ds, so I'll leave it at that.

My 4th baby M pregnancy was a roller coaster ride. I was diagnosed with Cholestasis, a rare (of course it's rare, this is me we are talking about) but serious liver condition that can cause stillbirth, especially if the pregnancy goes further than 36 weeks. I existed day to day, wondering if my baby was going to die inside of me. How does a person deliver a baby they know is dead? I lived in fear for months and drove myself crazy if the baby didn't move. The poor boy was poked and prodded and jiggled around several times a day, just to be sure. I battled with my doctor as to when we would deliver. She felt it was safe to wait until 38 weeks as long as we monitored carefully, I completely disagreed. After weeks of harrassing talking to her about it and printing off every statistic and medical article on the net, she caved agreed to induce at 36 weeks. Of course the induction(s) resulted in nothing more than 4 days of mild labor and no progress and ended in a c-section. The likelihood of me having Cholestasis with subsequent pregnancies is as high as 90%.

It always strikes me as strange that my first 2 baby M's were pretty much textbook pregnancies. They were also completely unplanned pregnancies when I was 14 and 19, with the same loser guy (apparently I never learned my lesson the 1st time). 3rd and 4th M's were planned, oh how they were planned. Temping, charting, timed. Very planned. Mother Nature sure can be a b!tch, eh?

So I'm scared. I'm not the kind of person who is scared of anything. Not heights, not spiders, snakes, death. Nothing like that. Just pregnancy, it terrifies me right to my core. And yet, I just don't feel like I am "done" having babies. I want one more, just not right now, not right this minute. Not that the fear will change months or years down the road. Will I be more mentally prepared? Probably not. So I don't know what the f*ck I am doing, whether I am coming or going. I am waiting to hear about a possible job opportunity and that will probably be the deciding factor for me, or maybe not. The waiting is exruciating though, I just want the god damn phone to ring already so I can get on with my life, whichever path it may be taking. I will truly, honestly be fine with either path. They will each be rewarding (yet frightening) in their own way. But I would like to be able to make a decision. Knowing what I am facing will help. Maybe I do have another fear, fear of the unknown. I need to be in control of something right now. A career and a life with the babies I have or a life with babies and then a career.

Two paths to choose from. One line or two lines? I just don't know.