War Buddies

The events of the past year and a half of my life have made me a pessimist. I have always leaned towards to pessimistic side of life, but now I openly claim to be a pessimist. I try to be optimistic but then life cuts me down a notch so I find pessimism to be safer. A defense mechanism, if you will.
I am not a happy person.
Funny, though. This new, sad me has met some of the best friends of my life over the last year. And they are all sad, like me. But together, we are happy, we have fun, we laugh because we know we're all in the same boat. Or, similar boats.
Dee lost her dad very unexpectedly. He was her best friend and closest confidant. He literally dropped dead in front of her.
B left his life behind on the west coast to start new here. He left behind a lot of baggage. A lot. I swear, sometimes I think he ripped off his life story from Days of Our Lives, or something.
Jer came home from work and found that his wife, his high school sweetheart, had moved all of her stuff out of their home with no warning. She served him divorce papers on his birthday.
Sometimes, when I go out with "regular people" it feels so forced. They are all so supremely happy, with their new babies and their perfect marriages and their intact families. But when I get together with this motley crew, it's genuine. There is no pity in their eyes when they look at me because their hell is just as real as mine. They don't judge if I snap for no apparent reason because little triggers set them off too. They don't hesitate to lend me a shoulder to cry on because they need a shoulder sometimes too.
It sucks that we all have these trials to deal with, but out of the muck and mire came these new friends. These are friendships forged in the heat of battle. We're there to carry each other out of the trenches and nurse each others wounds. We all cherish our own lives a little bit more, while at the same time hating every minute of them right now. No matter what happens from here on out, the memories of this painful time will always be with us, a black splotch in what I hope are otherwise bright lives.
Don't get me wrong, I still would rather be planning my child's first birthday party for the end of this month. I'd rather be agonizing over leaving my baby at daycare. I'd rather be a mom. I wish I didn't know this darkness. But, I'm glad that out of these clouds I've found a slice of sunshine. I'm glad I found some people to fight this battle with.

A List

I feel like I have a million things to say but I can't seem to organize them. I figured I'd try a list, in no particular order.
1. The Ex is pregnant. She is eight years older than me and a shitty, shitty person and a terrible mother. Her husband smokes a pack a day and looks like a pedophile. So of course, she immediately gets pregnant with a healthy baby while I continue to miscarry. I won't tell you the things I said when I found out; they are pretty horrible.
2. The Kid is not thrilled with the new pregnancy. "They're just treating me so different," he says. He lives with us again. *sigh* And of course, now that The Ex is starting her "new family" she doesn't give a crap about the kid she already has. She doesn't even care if he visits on weekends.
3. The Husband and I are never going to get pregnant again with a teenager living with us. I miss privacy!
4. I had another brief pregnancy in November. It only lasted a week after I found out. I prefer that type of miscarriage to the three month kind, but it still sucks.
5. Due to results of the Celiac antibody panel (which I begged my doctor for), I am now gluten free. The first week was horrible but now I feel great. But I do miss beer. A lot.
6. At this current point in my life, I am the most sad I have ever felt. I cry every. single. day. I am everything 20-year-old me said I'd never be. Most of the time I can't stand my husband, who is never home due to his work schedule anyway. So I'm stuck taking care of his kid, whose mother doesn't want him anymore because she's gestating new spawn. No amount of yoga or meditation seems to help me let it go. I hate my job. The only things that make me smile are my dogs. I'm at a loss for what to do to get myself back on track again.
7. Oh yeah, dogs. Plural. We adopted another dog in September, shortly after Big Dog died. She was abandoned by her previous family (like, literally tied to a tree when they moved away), so she has some "issues" but overall has been a great addition to our household. Girl Dog and Little Dog are best friends and keep me pretty busy. I have officially become a crazy dog lady, and may or may not have dressed them in Santa and Mrs. Claus suits last month. Note to fellow infertiles: get a dog, if you can. It really, really helps.

So there you have it: a list. It's a bit squirrelly and not really complete, but I don't know where to put the things in my head lately so here they go.

Sayonara 2011

Well, thank God that's over. 2011, that is. I am so ready for a new year, a fresh start.

My goal for 2012 is not to be so angry all the time. I spent so much of 2011 angry at things I couldn't control. The always-angry me is not who I really am, it it disrupted my life tremendously.

So here we are, 3 days in and I'm feeling like maybe this is our year. With lots of yoga to clear my head, I'm very optimistic. I think I may even return to the blogosphere, since not every post will be a raging rant.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy 2012. If it's not better than last year, then it better bring the end of the world.

xx

The Truth About Trying

I know I've said before, shortly after I joined the Recurrent Pregnant Loss club, that this blog wouldn't become an infertility blog. But, as I continued to lose pregnancies, my infertility became a huge part of my life as a stepmother. In fact, it nearly destroyed my relationship with my stepson, who I sometimes call "The Boy Who Lived." To raise a child whose mother is a complete wackadoo, who pretty much dropped him like a hot potato when she met a man, when you can't have your own children, is awful. It is truly a special kind of grief (and I know there are so many of you out there with me). When I look at The Kid, I get angry, even still. Why could she have a baby? Why does SHE get to be the mother of the man I love's child? What is wrong with me?
Locked inside my own head, I was losing it. I was tired of people asking when we were going to have kids. I was tired of people not acknowledging that for 7 months last year, I was pregnant. I was a mother. Three times. To three potential children. Who died. I wanted everyone to know what I have gone through. So I started telling them. I tried to move past the loneliness, the shame, and the sadness that reached to the core of my being.
It has been 16 months since we started trying to grow our family. In that time, I have lost three pregnancies and my mind. Now, I'm trying really hard to come back to me.
Today, I stumbled upon this project, The Truth About Trying, an infertility video series built from a partnership between Redbook Magazine and RESOLVE. The goal of the project is the end the stigma of shame and secrecy surrounding infertility, and to start a dialogue about the disease. Though there are many, many blogs out there that provide necessary and meaningful support to women in all walks of infertility and pregnancy loss, I've been hardpressed to find mainstream media that offers the same. I hope this project catches on and inspires women not to suffer in silence anymore. Because it's impossible to do it alone.
If you are struggling to build your family, or if you have friends who are struggling, I recommend checking this series out.

Quotable Sunday

The moment you can visualize being free from the things that hold you back, you have indeed begun to set yourself free.

UNKNOWN

Should Marriage Have a Sell-By Date?

Most of you who read this are probably either in your second marriage, or with to a partner who was married prior to being with you. Being in this situation gives us a unique perspective on the longevity of marriage, I think. This morning, I came across this article on the Huffington Post site.
It discusses how a political party in Mexico is proposing a minimum marriage contract, wherein newlyweds reevaluate their marriage at the two year mark and renew the marriage contract if they are still happy. Child custody and mutual property provisions written into the term contract.
I am fascinated with the idea.
Would you participate in a term marriage? Do you think it negates the whole idea of marriage?
Would you have renewed at two years? I'm not so sure I would have...

Quotable Sunday

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

HARPER LEE
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

A Sad Goodbye

The one thing that our messed up little family had in common was our Big Dog. The Husband got Big Dog when The Ex left him. Big Dog was a tiny, 15 pound monster, small enough to sit inside The Husband's jacket when they went outside. He grew to be a 90 pound powerhouse who could drag you down the street if he a saw a squirrel he felt was worth it.
The Kid called Big Dog his brother. He was the dog that got him through his parent's divorce. They were the best of friends.
I met The Husband when Big Dog was about a year and a half. At the time, The Husband was a commercial fisherman and was leaving Big Dog alone, in his crate, for way too long. I couldn't bear it and would go over to his apartment and let Big Dog out, take him for walks play with him. We became fast friends.
A year after that, I moved in with The Husband. I took it upon myself to acclimate the puppy to living outside the crate. He was a crazy dog and this was no easy task. At the time, The Husband had this hideous living room set. It looked like he stole it from a retirement home in south Florida. It. Was. Awful. I came to find out that The Ex had chosen it for their marital home. Now, Big Dog had a penchant for couch cushions. He loved to jump on them, chew them, rip them off the couch etc. Did I mention he was a crazy dog? Well, I may have encouraged said behavior because about a month in to my out-of-crate training, that awful, awful couch was all but destroyed. Stuffing was everywhere, pillows were shredded, fabric was dirty and torn. (I may or may not have helped in the process.) I think all stepmoms can related to wanting as many traces of the ex-wife out of their lives as possible. Big Dog helped to start the purge (and was a great scapegoat!).
I never shared this story with The Husband until this past Monday, when we spent the day remembering all sorts of things about our Big Dog. We came home from getting ice in the neighboring state (since Irene knocked out our power for three days) to find our beloved Big Dog lying next to Little Dog's crate, cold and lifeless. He was not sick (that we know of) and he was not old. We have no idea what happened. We are devastated.

Big Dog saw us through a lot. The divorce. The Ex taking away The Kid. Us splitting up. Our eventual reconciliation and marriage. Our miscarriages. Our grief. Our triumphs. He was always there to put his massive head and your lap, look up with his big, kind eyes and let you know that everything would be okay. The day he died, I gave him a huge hug and told him he was my favorite dog ever. I didn't know that I would come home just a few short hours later and he wouldn't be there anymore. I'm so, so glad those were my last words to him.

Little Dog, you have some big paw prints to fill.

Quotable Sunday

For every loss there is an equal gain, for every gain there is an equal loss.

YOGI TEA BAG

Quotable Sunday

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES