The Ute Drama Continues..... (pg ment)

It has been a rough week. I have spent most of the last three days on the phone with various nurse practitioners, schedulers and other generally rude staff. WARNING - THIS IS A BORING AND SOMEWHAT INCOMPREHENSIBLE RANT ABOUT HOW I HATE THE MEDICAL SYSTEM. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

See, I had my cervical check last week. The Peri told me all was good and to have it checked again at my 20 week scan (4 weeks later.) After consulting with the wise ladies on the MA boards, it was advised that I push for a check every two weeks - that 4 weeks was too much time for dramatic shortening or funneling to occur. So I called the Peri and made the request. They said, call your OB and get another referral. OB said, "we talked to the Peri and the Peri says no" - NO MORE CHECKS FOR YOU!

By now I am hysterical. I talk with the nurse practitioner at the OB. She is kind, reassuring and tells me if it will give me piece of mind then I can have the check. She talks to the referral coordinator. The referral coordinator goes back to the Peri and the Peri says - NO MORE CHECKS FOR YOU! The kind nurse practitioner calls me back with her tail between her legs to relay the message. She says my last option is to talk to the Peri myself.

So I call Maternal Fetal Medicine and leave a message with their nurse practitioner. She calls me back and tells me the the Peri is not in the office (ummm, so who is telling a fib? Cuz my OB claims to have "spoken" to him). Perhaps by speaking to him they mean they read the report. This nurse practitioner, as kind as the first, tells me to go ahead and call the scheduler and make the appointment. She wants me to feel comfortable. I am finally, after two days, somewhat relieved. I call the scheduler. The only appointment she can give me is a mere 4 DAYS prior to my anatomy scan??? What is the use? I went through all of that to get in there 4 days sooner? AAAAHHHHHH!

In the midst of all this I am frantically calling all over for recommendations for a new practice - both OB and Peri. If this is how they treat their patients, then I am not so sure I want them near my cooch when that kid comes flying out. With each phone call to a new OB I am met with a variety of disappointing results. First issue is that all roads lead back to this same Peri. Seems no matter what OB I go to they all send you to this douche-bag. So that leads me to believe I need to go to a different hospital system. I thought I was at the best in the city? The other problem is that there either a 6 week wait for an appointment pretty much everywhere, or, practices are not accepting patients at all.

In the end I find a GREAT new practice in a suburban hospital. Yes, it is a 30 minute drive, but it is only 10 minutes from my work - so not entirely inconvenient. The staff was hell-a-awesome - spending time with me on the phone, listening to my concerns and squeezing me in in 2 weeks even though they are booked 6 weeks in advance too! I think what sealed the deal was that I asked, "What is going on, why is everyone so booked - like, everywhere." Seems the glorious state of Pennsylvania (or Pennsyltucky if you prefer) is in the midst of an OB crisis. Doctors are leaving the state at an alarming rate because the malpractice insurance here is so high. So basically, they are being forced out. Practices are closing, even whole maternity wards are shutting down. As a result, every damn pregnant women in the state is trying to jam into the same shortened list of practices - over-stretching their time and resource. No wonder why that douche-bag Peri told me to buzz off. He doesn't have the time or staff to manage the onslaught of knocked-up-ed-ness.

Health care in this country is in a deplorable state. I guess what I learned is if you live in Philly, plan to have your kid on the other side of the bridge. New Jersey. The obstetrical land of promise. Besides, all of the doctors who used to practice here just moved over there...

How is it that I have become such a coward?

I am just not the same person I was a year ago. Not to say that I was ever described as "bubbly," "outgoing," or even "social." But since this who turmoil began I am utterly introverted. I just want to be alone or with DH all of the time. Family is ok too. But the crew I used to run with, I just can not face them.

At the center of this is a couple that DH and I spent ALOT of time with. They bought their house in the hood the same time as us, DH plays in a band with her and the guy and I have worked together a lot on local activist and community issues.

We had our first loss and we did not tell them. I just started to withdraw. About 2 months later, I felt like I needed to tell them to explain my sudden absence from their life. I told the guy, because I am closer with he than her. His response was, "I am sorry and by the way we are trying too." Ugh.

For the next 2 months I watch her drinking habits wax and wain on the 2ww. The following month I was dropping off something at their house and noticed her b00bs were HUGE. I went home and told DH, "She is pregnant," and my suspicions were confirmed a few weeks later. I had just had a D&E for my second loss about 2 weeks prior.

I know they were scared to tell us - but insisted in doing it in person. I did ok with the announcement, but DH was pretty sad. Sad for us.

I saw them both a few times after the announcement, but felt really consumed with sadness. Her pregnancy was a few short weeks behind mine. It was hard not to see her and think, "that is where I would be right now if I had not lost another." So I just stopped. I stopped seeing both of them because I felt terrible around them. I felt terrible that their joy was something I could not just accept and give back. I felt ashamed that I was just so incapable of supporting them.

DH's band is playing this afternoon and they were there. I had already started with a migraine last night and by today it was nearly full force. I went with DH to drop off his drum kit. I even walked around and shopped a bit before the show. I went back while the first band was playing and saw the couple from a distance. They did not see me. I sat outside for a few minutes and tried to get up the nerve to face them. How to you say hello to someone who is 39 weeks pregnant and you have not seen her since week 10?

My head started to pound again. I couldn't do it. I left. I am such a f'ing coward. I am so ashamed of my behavior. But I am also so sad that they were so unequipped to support J. and I - because they were. I tried repeatedly to explain to them that hearing about there plans might be hard for us - but at every step they each made some hurtful comments. None of it was intensional, and to this day neither of them probably know that what they said hurt me. I am just so tired of this permeating my entire existence. You think I would be over it by now - but I am not. I am just so raw - and so sick of the fact that pregnancy loss is so terribly misunderstood.

And the most terrible part is that I don't even care anymore. I don't even care if we remain friends. I don't know how to get past this, past them - and their great fortune. I know they have plenty of support. They don't need me. And I don't need them. Can I just be done? Can I just not be friends with them? That would make me a pretty terrible person, right? Guess what else - I don't really care...

Spotting already? Really?

For pete's sake. It was just a "soft" announcement.

I started spotting about 10 minutes ago. Red, not brown. Could mean something. Could mean nothing. Either way, it is weird. My period is not even due for another 3 days? Huh?

Damn those early pregnancy tests.

I want to melt into air

One year of trying, two miscarriages, two surgeries, three months of waiting and one month of deep anticipation makes me so tired. It is also the night after my husband tells me on cycle day 14 that he wants to wait till next month. We talked about this. We planned on this. Why did he have to wait to tell me till now? Why can't he talk to me about everything? The lengths to which he will go to protect me is hurting me instead. I feel like I got my heart broken all over again.

I want to throw in the towel. On ttc, on work, on home. I wanna run. I am tired of feeling ashamed for who this has made me. I just want to be someone else. I did not sign up for this shit. I did not volunteer to have a million little holes punched into the most important relationship in my life.

I guess I could use some advise. There is not a bone in my body that doesn't know the strength of my relationship with J. But I feel like something happened. I think I am starting to, unknowingly, push him away like I have everyone else. I would give up the chance to ever have children if it would prevent me from loosing him.

Let me just say that this is far from a fatal flaw. But how do I get him to talk to me? He rarely "shares"? How do I get him to understand how profoundly this effects me every day with out him thinking I am totally nuts? I have never felt this way about us. I have never felt a millimeter of distance between us. But today there is the slightest of gaps - separating him from me.

What we thought we knew based on what we have been told

What we were told:
Your a woman, a breeder. Your big b00bs and wide hips will serve you well. Go forth, have fun. You'll know. You'll glow.

What it is:
Bleeding is normal. Women just like you have successful pregnancies everyday. Well at least you know you can get pregnant. You can have another. It will happen when you least expect it.

I heard from a dear friend last night. She is 27 weeks pregnant after having an early loss the same time as my first loss. She and her partner did it DIY - at home insemination with a known donor. They are dear friends and will make wonderfully delicious parents. They ooze love, in the best way possible. Their journey has been difficult and unconventional. I am, I have been, pulling for them all along.

S.'s first trimester was tough. Lots of bleeding. Then, on two separate occasions they got bad news from a genetics councilor. Once, they were advised they had a 1 in 3 chance of downs. Everything turned out ok. Next, they were informed of a rare chromosomal issue, which S. now knows she carries. She has passed it to her son. He a few weeks behind in growth because her placenta has not developed properly. She was on her way to the doctor with a packed bag this morning, expecting to be admitted to the hospital and kept on strict bedrest.

Pregnancy is not at all what either S. or I thought it would be. I am so alarmed by this fairytale we have all been taught to believe. No one ever tells you you might get your heart broken. No one ever tells you that it is possible to fail. Even when you ultimately have a real, live baby, you may have just experienced one of the most physically and emotionally taxing 9 months of your life. And if you had trouble getting pregnant in the first place - you can double or triple that 9 months - in both physical and emotion pain.

I have learned to stop expecting. I don't envision I am walking into a hopeless cloud of doom, but I am cautious. I know now that I should be critical of my own expectations. That your body, your mind, your life, does not always cooperate. It is not that I expect to fail at getting pregnanct, or at bringing a pregnancy to term. Rather, I enter the process again with hope, but also with a distinct set of experiences that I have prepare me for whatever my jacked up body decides to do next. In the end, I hope that by knowing my Ute might misbehave, perhaps it will do as it should - grow, support and nourish. Now THAT would be unexpected.

Is this the same as my last post?

Everything is still. I am just waiting. Waiting, hoping, thinking. I have been feeling much recovered over the last few weeks-- which I attribute to seeing a therapist. Not so much because the therapy has helped, but as it is in life, once you finally step forward to grasp that thing you have been needing, you no longer really need it so much.

I have been happily sunk into my work life. I have been reading again, thinking about some projects to start, even offering to run a training for a local organization that I used to spend a lot of time volunteering for. I check the blogs and the boards on a daily basis, and still follow everything- but no longer do I do it obsessively. I think all of this points to me being a little more healthy than I was even a few weeks ago.

But there is still one strange thing that is nagging me. I STILL do not want to see our best friends who are pregnant. She got pregnant right after I lost the second. I have not seen her since September, I think. Her body must be bursting at the seams by now. But I can not see her. I am too scared. Scared of how I might react. Scared that they both think I am a complete ass for having avoided them for so long. I feel ashamed of my behavior. But I feel safe and protected here, hold up in my own space. I can edit out what I know I can not handle.

The other part is that I do not know how to begin again. If I did feel ready to see them, what would I say? What would I do? "Hey, sorry for missing out on one of the most monumental events in your entire life, uhh, and by the way, can you refrain too much from talking about the arrival of your bundle of joy? I'm ready to see you but not quite sure I can handle the constant baby talk yet..." Seriously? What kind of a friend am I? My only hope is that the people who really know me, know I am not so shallow as to do this on purpose. If I could do a better job, I would. But so far, I can't.

J. wonders if finally getting pregnant and staying pregnant will solve this dilemma. But I don't think so. I might feel better about physically seeing them, but not emotionally. I was not there to support them through their pregnancies, so why should I ask them to be here for me? I fantasize about getting pregnant and not telling anyone for as long as I possibly can. I don't want anyone to know. Maybe it is because I will always be fearful f loss. Maybe it is because I will have to begin to mend these relationships. Or say goodbye to them forever. I can not remember a time when I had so few people in my life- and was fine with it.

Although I do hope to get pregnant soon, it is not the best timing. Being more saturated in my work has made me want to hold off a bit. If I were to get a full-time gig this year, having a baby would put a very serious question-mark in my file. I am really enjoying teaching right now, especially working with upperclassmen again. I don't want to loose sight of that. And I want to be able to salvage a career out of my train-wreck of a reproductive life after all this is said and done.

Another shout out to Pamela Jeanne at Coming2Terms for her post this week. She has the capability to articulate so much of what I am feeling in a way that is dense and true and fair. I would love to cut and paste half of her blog to my own and sign my name to the bottom... Even better, I'll encourage you to go over there and take a gander.

Potatoes and Pee

I laugh, slightly liberated, as I even think to share this story in any public way. But really, it is just too funny to keep locked up.

So I had my septum removed about 6 weeks ago. At last check with my ol' friend the dildo cam, all looks good. We've been instructed to wait another cycle till we ttc. Fine, just fine. "WAIT" has become my middle name.

So this month we were officially "off" and is was the first time in months, I mean months, that our lives were uninterrupted by intrusions into my body. No D&E's, no surgeries, no miscarriages. As a result, we took liberties "enjoying" ourselves, ya know... together. We ended up, in the midst of our fun-fest, having a minor malfunction with our man-protection. {Ummmm, definitely not a true infertile if I still need the sheaths.} Anyhow, it was a minor incident and I didn't really think anything of it.

Earlier this week I started having some nausea and waking up at 4 am and not being able to get to sleep. It happened 4 times in a row. This was something I suffered from when I was pregnant before - sleeplessness + nausea. So while I was up on one of my 4 am jaunts to the world wide web, I took a look at the calendar. Turns out the "incident" happened a mere 3 - 4 days prior to ovulation. Opps. My RE might be ticked at me. I started to imagine how embarrassing that conversation would be. Me, apologizing to my RE for getting knocked up because my husband didn't wrap it up right. Fact is, the U is not ready for visitors yet. She still needs time to get all healed up.

So then obsession starts setting in. I started getting worried and super excited at the same time. I start doing stupid sh*t like googling "cond0m spillage," as if the internet were going to disclose whether or not I had gotten knocked up. It was pretty funny too because all of the websites were geared toward teenagers, so you got these really crazy forum questions that started with "My boyfriend" and ended with "on my leg?" Those were the days.

Then yesterday. Oh man, I had a MAJOR meld down in so many ways. First I tried to start working on job applications. That just got me thinking about how my life has been at a stand-still for the last year, and how can I apply for jobs when on paper I appear to have stopped living for the last 6 months. My failed attempts to start applications ended in a crying fit, with my dear J. attempting to console me. Then at about 6 pm I started to get the chills. The nasty 24 hour bug my family has been single-handedly distributing around south eastern pennsylvania had finally found me. By 9 pm I was in bed with a fever.

Even with the fever I was able to sleep ok, with the exception of J. sitting up, gasping and letting out a big yelp at about 3am. Strange. In the morning I woke up with a headache and still kind of sweating out the fever, but feeling on the upswing. While still in bed, I asked J. what that crazy dream was all about that made him scream in the middle of the night. He said, "Someone was strangling me." I said, " Really, who?" He hesitated and said, "It was you." I am not really sure what I am supposed to think about that, but ok. I had a dream that my students were jumping off a cliff and I didn't care. I also had lots of potatoes in my pockets. Ah, dreams - at least I will have something to talk to my new therapist about this week.

So the idea that I may have gotten knocked up was still nagging me, even though the nausea was nearly definitely related to the fact that I was fighting off that nasty stomach bug. Problem is, I am scheduled for an endometrial biopsy tomorrow and I am pretty sure that shouldn't be done while pregnant. Plus, I wanted to be able to drink heavily on New Years with a clean conscience. So I decided to run out and get a test while J. was on an errand. It was just be too foolish and neurotic to reveal to him. There are just some things about myself I prefer he would never know. One of those things happens to my love of peeing on sticks.

It is about a 10 minute walk to the drug store. On the way there I considered how foolish I was being. I envisioned one line. I wondered if it was actually possible for you to convince yourself that you were pregnant. It was busy at the store. I chose the more expensive tests that I had had early positives on before.

Here is where it gets good.
So it is mid-day and I am only on 11 dpo. Do I wait till morning? Hormone concentration will not be strong in the afternoon. It had been about 2 hours since my last trip to the girls room. Earlier this month I had a bad OPK test - a dud. So I decided to pee in a cup and dip the stick, so as not to waist the goods.

So I am on the can. I pee in the cup. I dip the stick. I deposit the cup and the stick on the radiator in front of me and reach for the TP. While reaching for the TP, I bump the cup and my remaining "products" fall to the floor !!! GROSS!!! Now I am laughing, almost hysterically at my foolish behavior. I am thinking I am pregnant when I am totally not - and I knew it. Here I am dropping cash of way too expensive tests. And now, dropping pee all over my bathroom floor??? I have gone overboard. But by going overboard I think I came back around full circle again. And somehow all those shinanigans made me feel better. I felt really ok when the test was negative. I really did. Because I am not ready yet, emotionally or physically. Because I would have felt absolutely terrible if I would have gotten pregnant and it would have ended in miscarriage. It would have been my fault for not being patient and giving my body time to heal. I also would have really struggled to explain this to my RE...

So now, for the first time in a long time, I feel kinda good. I feel like I have 6 weeks free. 6 weeks to get my shit back in order, to make some realistic plans. We'll try in February, like we said we would. And we'll just have to see how it goes from there.

How do you begin to un-stall?

How do you begin to un-stall.
How do you start anything when everything stopped months ago.

There was so much more to me. I used to read theory, I used to write, I used to go to community meetings. I was an activist.

But now, I try to begin over and over again. I try to dust off my old teaching philosophy, so I might begin a new one and I just stare at it blankly. I read the first sentence and it means nothing to me. I used to think about education all of the time. I was consumed by it. Now I read the words I wrote and it seems like it was someone else all together who wrote it.

There are so many reasons.
*We bought this house. Rehabbing it started to eat away at our life.
*I started working as an adjunct. Battered and severely underpaid - it is hard to get excited about your job when you can't even make enough to pay back your student loans. As an adjunct you are a peripheral employee, with no tangible ties to the school other than walking through the doors a few times a week. You do not get the privilege of knowing other staff, of getting to know students long term, or of job stability.
*The students. East coast students are a totally different breed than the midwesterners I cut my teeth on. I have had some lovely students here - but none are as invested in their education as my kids in Illinois.
*The funk which is my {un}reproductive hell. It is the razor that made the first cut. As the months went by all of the thread around it just started to unravel, until there was this gaping hole where my life, my interests, my passions used to be. I need a patch.

Motivation.
I have none.
My mind is like gum that you have been chewing for too long. Not very elastic, not very tasty, and nearly impossible to revive.
I disappoint myself every day by not getting a damn thing done.
I do not even come close to resembling the person I was a year ago.
NOT - EVEN - CLOSE.

Peek-a-boo period and a sad man friend.

Peek-a-boo period
My period is meant to arrive tomorrow had my body not been laproscopically and hysteroscopically invaded nearly three weeks ago. I have been having some pretty nasty cramping and a bit of spotting-- very unlike me. Hopefully the crimson tide will wash up a big, nasty clot, or whatever that mysterious black spot was on my ultrasound last week. I had the surgery at a teaching hospital. Perhaps it is a Junior Mint? (remember that Seinfeld episode?)

and a sad man-friend.
My very special man-friend arrived home from his re-union and said, "I am glad you didn't come along."

Normally, one would be alarmed by such a statement, but in this case he was glad I had the foresight not to submerse myself into the grad school pals reunion-- the one where our friends M & J are 6 months pregnant. Ugh, a whole weekend of non-stop baby-talk action and the occasional 'your next' glances. I would have never survived.

I had just started to be not hysterical about our first loss. It was fourth of July weekend. It was hot and we were plastering the hell out of the front room of our broke down house. The room looked like a block of swiss cheese, with a little lath thrown in. We foolishly thought we could get it patched, skimmed and primed by Sunday night. We were so wrong.

Plastering away. Did I mention it is friggin hot? It's mid-day. J.'s phone rings. A call from a good friend of his from grad school. The guy who I argue with all the time because although he acts like a nice guy, he is really a misogynist and treats his wife like a child, not a partner. She likes it. It is all pretty nauseating, but I tolerate it, because they are his friends. But they are not mine.

Small talk ensues. J. says, "What, like a bean, I don't get it? A peanut?" He is so clueless. YO, J. take off the blinders. That's cutsy lingo for baby. They are trying to tell you in some obligatory, 'my brain is turning to baby-mush' code that they are knocked up! Get with the program!

I start to hyperventilate, then run upstairs, embarrassed at how quickly and physically I react to the knife that was just jabbed, one more time, into my heart. I hide in our bathroom and almost pass out because I am crying so hard i can't even breath. Hiding is no use, our bathroom is as porous as the front room-- gaps in the drywall do not make good sound barriers.

This is my recount of M & J's pregnancy announcement. She was 6 weeks pregnant. I was 5 weeks past my first loss.

After the second miscarriage J. told this couple of our problems. J (the grad school dude) was kind and sad for us, and that was nice. They know what we have been through, but not in any detail, because my J. doesn't do detail. But no one else at the reunion this weekend knows that we are struggling with this. So I dodged a bullet by staying home this weekend-- knowing full well that they, in their absence from our dilemma and blurred by their pregnancy bliss, would not be able to refrain from drooling baby talk for the entire 36 hours. And that is just what happened. So J. came home feeling pretty sad.

J. deals with this far less. Feeling the sadness of our situation may very well be part of the many random thoughts he has from day to day. But he doesn't have to think of it every time he calls the Dr., every time my mom calls, every time he has a cramp, every time he goes to the bathroom, ever time he opens a browser window. He has the privilege of the slightest distance.

This weekend there was no distance for him. He was ambushed. Even though I never want him to feel pain, in a way, I am glad he went to the baby-talk weekend reunion. Because he knows better today, how I feel every day.

Self-alienation feels so right

A list of reasons why I have decided I am totally cool to not have any fertile friends in the form of a list of things that have been said to me in the last few months by by these same fertile friends:

L: It just seems like this is another reason why women get pitted against each other. I can't help it that you can not get pregnant.
Response I would given in hindsight: I can get pregnant... over, and over and over and over. But my body kills them. Big freakin difference.

C: I am disappointed and pissed that I can not use a midwife because of my epilepsy - Can you tell me the name of the Dr. who gave you bad advise so I don't go to him?
Response I would give in hindsight: Don't come to me with your sob stories. Lesson number one - having kids is nothing like the bull-shit lines we've been fed since we were kids. I know that all too well. Not everyone gets the glow, the perfect birth, etc. Some of us don't even get the kid. So suck it up, go to your OB and don't bother me with questions I can not answer. Remember, while you were getting knocked up, I was getting fetus #2 vuc-u-sucked from my womb.

L: I know exactly what you are going through because when I was in my thirties I wanted kids like crazy but there was just no partners around.
My response: Well, actually, it is nothing like that. There is a big difference between not having a partner and your body being physically malformed in a way that prevents successful pregnancies.

N: You can have one of my kids. Take your pick.
My response: I think they might be a little attached to you by now.

C (at a social gathering): Pregnancy is really just on inconvenience. I am just tired and hungry all of the time.
My response: Chin to chest. Don't make eye contact with anyone. Block it out. Inconvenience? Is she kidding? F-off.

Goodbye friends. You can get updates from my husband, but I would rather you did not care, because I know that ignoring you is shitty. I am a total asshole for this. But it is the best I can do, even if it is nasty at best.

Sinking, sinking, sunk...

I like to think I do a pretty good job of keeping my chin up. I have had a lot of ups and downs through this whole process (we all have). One of the more distinct moments was when my diagnosis was finalized. I knew that the septum and a pretty large adhesion were preventing me from carrying a pregnancy. It was a moment of clarity. I remember calling my husband on my cell, weaving a dodging a small army of pregnant woman, for the first time with a huge grin on my face. It was a septum.

Even leading up to the surgery I felt pretty good. Scared, but good. A septum could be "fixed." Rumor has it your uterine cavity is close to "normal" after a resection. We'll see about that.

Now the surgery is over, and I feel like I am just bottoming out. I thought I would be happy, but I find myself unsure all over again. What if I had a successful resection and I still can not have kids? God, I am even scared to write that down in fear that it will come true! I just have this wretched forecast in my head. You know the one-- where my thirties are consumed almost entirely by my inability to have children. I am way past down, I think I am sunk.

Even worse, I truly believe that none of my friends or family are capable of helping me. I decided, with great certainly, that I am really ok with alienating all of my fertile friends. 1.) I don't want to feel sad and angry every time I see them. 2.) I don't want to feel guilty about that sadness and anger. 3.) I don't want to be constantly reminded of how self-consumed I have become. 4.) I don't want them to have to tip-toe around me, editing themselves. 5.) Alienation is just speeding up the natural process of what children will do for our relationships regardless. They will have kids and we will not. Their lives will change drastically, and ours will be the same. 6.) I can hardly take care of myself-- I have no more energy to expend on tutoring them on how to deal with me. Besides, I don' believe there is a way to deal with me. 7.) I don't want them subjected to the same thing I am now, and unsupporting friend. They can't figure out how to deal with me and I have no clue how to deal with them.

"Normal" people are allowed to be happy for their friends, supporting them through pregnancy and child-rearing. But that has been taking from me. Along with two potential children, now my friends have been eaten by this whole mess too. And today, I don't even care. I just want to be alone.

Based on the above drivel I have decided to see if my insurance will cover therapy. I have never had therapy before, but based on some of the more disparaging imagery that seems to pop in in my cap these days, I think it might be a good idea. I have tried to go to some support meetings for recurrent loss, but unfortunately, they meet on the nights that I teach. So instead, I'm headed for the couch...

Blurg Again!

Years ago my older sister would probably have been the first person I would have gone to with my problems, especially with my miscarriages. But we have grown apart over the years, mostly because she creates a lot of unnecessary drama in her own life, and in my opinion, has failed repeatedly to protect her children emotionally. She also kind of can't stand her own kids, and it is just really sad to see. I accept that I have been unnecessary judgmental of her, but it is too hard to watch her stand in front of a moving train over and over again.

So yesterday, my sister and her daughter and I were building a little house out of popsicle sticks and A. (niece) says, "Mommy, did you tell Dit (me) about Betsy!!" My sister pauses and kinda frowns. A. asks again. I say, "Let me guess, is Betsy pregnant?" Yep, with twins. She got married about 3 months ago. My response, "Well isn't Betsy a little greedy." (Blurg, who am I?)


My sister and I have yet to speak directly about my situation. She gains her intel from my mom in favor of speaking to me directly. I have tried a few times to reach out, even if slightly, but she never takes the bait. Her response to the above conversations was - "well, that's why I hadn't said anything. You know you can have a pick of any one of my three." I say, "Unfortunately, I think they might be a little attached to you by now."

I know she is trying to help, and I am sure her joking response was more of a nervous reaction than anything, but why is it people like us are such freaks that no one ever knows what to say to us? And why is it that 90% of the time I feel pissed or saddened by their failed attempts to console me? Why is it that I feel like I spend more time talking to my friends and family about how to deal with me than actually getting the support I need?

When this all began, I took the approach that I wanted to be a silence breaker. I did not broadcast my problems, but after the second mis, it seemed stupid not to tell the people who care about me what was going on. But now I am starting to see why people keep quiet. It isn't about shame, or feelings of failure. It is because people have no clue what to do with you. Some of my friends have even pulled away from me.

I have almost zero experience dealing with grief, or supporting my friends who are dealing with it. So chances are I would be pretty bad at it too.