Show & Tell: Anti-Bitterness

A lot of people have been apologizing to me lately.

A co-worker in my office... "I'm sorry. Does the picture of my new niece on my desk bother you?"

A staff-member who's pregnant... "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be talking about my pregnancy."

My Beloved, at a restaurant this week, after pointing out an adorable little one... "I'm sorry. Is it too hard on you to see that?"

I just want to scream at everyone to stop.

Yes, I have lost two babies. Yes, it is something that is still very much a part of my daily life. Yes, I deal with jealousy every day when I see others' babies and pregnancies. Yes, I am envious of the girls who get knocked up without seeming to try. Yes, I have packed away all the reminders of babies in my house. Yes, I am an infertile!

But that doesn't mean that I am bitter 24/7. That doesn't mean that I hate the sight of all babies.

Back in January, February, even March, if you had asked if I was ok with celebrating others' babies and pregnancies, I wouldn't have been able to give you a positive answer. But even in my darkest moments I recognized that my pain and bitterness were just that, mine.

There are fortunate people who get pregnant easily, and carry their babies to term without a whole lot of difficulty. Do I envy them? Yes! Do I hate them or avoid them like the plague? No!

I love babies. I think that pregnant women are beautiful. I rejoice when I hear that a friend in RL or in the blogosphere announce that they have succeeded where I have failed. I love to make stupid faces at the teeny ones who make their way into my store. I coo and make an idiot of myself over babies regularly. Have I said it loud enough? I LOVE BABIES!

I hate being infertile. I hate that it has become a part of my identity in a way that I can't escape. I hate that it has changed my view on something that I had always thought would be so simple for me.

But I hope that I will never be bitter about a baby. Babies are cause for celebration! They are hope, faith and love personified.

I just want one of my own.

(I don't mean this post as a judgement on anyone who is struggleing to feel happy about a friend's baby or pregnancy. Your feelings are yours and are therefore correct for whatever situation you are currently facing.)

I know that this isn't a typical Show & Tell post, but it's where I'm at today. If you want to see a collection of more normal showing and telling, head on over to Mel's and see what the rest of the class is up to.

Oh the Joy of Sound

Well kids, I did it. I went to work today and worked a whole shift. It's my first full shift since May 2nd. Crazy!

I'm exhausted, but it felt good to be out of the house and doing things again. My voice is thrashed again from having to talk so much, but I am seeing (or should I say hearing?) some improvement in other areas...

Yup... My ears have started to pop.

My right ear popped for the first time last night, and let me tell you, I thought I was going to die! (Imagine that obit... 'After a long struggle with the rhino virus, Mrs. Gamgee succumbed to a fatal popping of her right ear...') It felt like someone was driving a hot poker right through my ear drum. After the pain faded, though, the release of pressure was fabulous! My left ear has popped a few times today, which created a few interesting moments with my staff... imagine me clutching the side of my head after sneezing and one of my retiree part-timers staring at the grimace on my face... not easy to explain to a very prim 70 year old lady.

So, I'm on the mend... just in time for the phantom tww symptoms to kick in. *sigh* I KNOW that the odds are very seriously against anything coming of this cycle... but now that we've been given the 'all clear' I hate having to wait! Oh well... Come on AF!

Off to take a nap...

The Craziest Thing I have seen on the Net Yet!

So I came across this in a round about way. I was looking through the stuffed animals on my store's website, looking for any new elephant stuffies... yes, it's an addiction, but I digress.

In my search I came across the strangest stuffie I have ever seen. Check out this company: Giant Microbes. Yes, kids that's correct! Stuffies of bacteria, viruses, and other ookiness. HIV, Hepatitis, Black Death, Ebola, Gangrene, and West Nile are all represented along with the common cold, the Flu, and Herpes. Germs and illnesses, from the common to the deadly. I was honestly never so repulsed and at the same time fascinated!

Oh, and for all my friends in the world of IF... check out the Egg & Sperm stuffies!

So strange!

Hobbit-ish Potpurri

Hello all my humble readers... Just a few odds and ends from the flatland.


The Crud is still making my life unpleasant, although not in a major way. I tried to go to work on Sunday (the first time in a week) and almost fell over from dizziness shortly after I got there. Needless to say, I didn't stay long. I did go to the ER (because there are NO walk in clinics open in this town on Sundays... grrrr), and found out that my blood pressure was through the roof and that what I thought was an ear infection is a blockage in the tubes that run from my ears to my jaw. So, the long and the short of it is that I just get to tough it out until they unblock (doc recommended using a saline nasal spray to attempt to move things along, so far it hasn't helped much). Increased blood pressure was attributed to too much cold medication in a 24 hour period. Fabulous... So, now I'm almost feeling human, albeit a slightly deaf human.

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Went to see the fabulous Dr. U yesterday. After more discussion with the xray tech and some more analysis, he is leaning toward that spot that showed up on my HSG being a polyp rather than scar tissue. For those who are unaware, uterine polyps are generally considered benign, and for all intents and purposes they look like skin tags. He made sure to be very clear that they polyp would not have caused my m/c's... those were blighted ovums. He does want to remove the polyp tho, just in the sake of being thorough... so that we can be sure that it does not play any kind of a role in future pregnancies. He got me set up on the waiting list for a hysteroscopy and went through all the risks associated with the procedure (same as a D&C) and that I get to be sedated but awake the whole time (YIKES!). The last thing he said was that we should keep trying to get pregnant. It may be a couple of months before I get moved up the list, and if I get pregnant, they will just cancel the procedure.

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Spring may actually be arriving here in the arctic north... I actually saw the hint of leaves yesterday and the tulip garden in front of the hospital actually has some shoots. Of course, the weather people are saying that we may actually get some snow tonight. INSANE!

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Petey the PT Cruiser is now hopefully completely healed up from his recent round of repairs. The last couple of months have been brutal on our bottom line because of everything that seemed to go wrong at once with the car. The power steering was the last on the list to fix, and now it's done... maybe I'll be able to get that air conditioner I was hoping for after all.

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My 'OMG You Rock' package was great! Thank you again Shannon! It was wonderful to have something to look forward to on a day that I was really dreading. Thank you Liv for setting it up!

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I'm looking for a recipe for German potato salad. Anyone have a good one? (I'm thinking of one I had a long time ago... really tangy, it had sausage in it too) My beloved is asking for potato salad, but I don't want to make the 'usual'.

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Here's hoping I'm feeling a ton better this weekend. I actually get two days of the three day weekend off! I want to go to a movie (so stoked to see Star Trek!) and spend some time outside.

That's about it for now. I hope everyone is well!

How could you, Bones?

Hello humble readers...

Well, I believe I've turned a corner with the Crud. I'm pooped, tuckered, and generally wiped out, but breathing is much easier today. I am at the point where I'm sure that if my ears would just pop all would be pretty much well. Thank you all so much for your kind words and warm thoughts this week.

So, in my drug induced stupor this week I have spent most of my time curled up on our couch with my fuzzy blankets, multiple boxes of triscuits (to scratch my throat), strawberry popcicles, tissues, and industrial size jugs of OJ. I haven't been able to read because I can't seem to focus on the words on the page (which has also contributed to me being a bad bloggy-friend this week too, so sorry everyone!), so of course I have been watching waaaaay too much tv. Star Trek, Rachel Ray, various home improvement shows, and of course CSI (because it's on EVERYWHERE!) have all filled my hours.

Last night, when I was beginning to feel slightly human again, I got very excited because I realized that I was actually going to get to watch Bones. I have always loved that show, but with my work schedule and the changes in the show's time slot, I haven't gotten to watch it all that often this year. So, I settled into the cushions, ready to enjoy a good and disgusting episode of dead bodies and the sexual tension between Booth and Bones.

The episode started off encouragingly. An extremely decomposed dead body in a wine cask. Fabulously gross! I actually had to turn away a few times. Okay, so cut to the obligatory relationship part of the show... Booth and Bones in Dr. Sweets' office for their weekly therapy session. And what does Bones say? 'I want to have a baby.'

The long and the short of it is... Bones decides she want to have a baby, but doesn't want the baggage of the 'ephemeral emotions' that go with doing things the old fashioned way. She, in her usual tactless, clueless way, tells Booth that she wants to have his baby because he is the ideal breeding partner. They then go through the whole bit about does he want to have a baby but not be the daddy... the whole time assuming that it's a given that she will get pregnant. At one point she even says 'I could be pregnant in a month'.

Not even taking into account that she has only decided that she wants to do this yesterday (in tv-land), apparently she was already able to get in to a fertility specialist, has been ok'd for IVF, had Booth drop off his sample, had it analyzed (28 million, and he was proud... ha! some of my friends' hubbies in the blogosphere can beat that without trying!) and found out that he has good motility. At the rate she was going, I was just waiting for the shot of her walking out of the bathroom at the Jeffersonian with a positive hpt at the end of the show.

Talk about trivializing ART! I was so disgusted! I know that there is an overriding assumption out there that IVF is an 'easy' option, but come on! I have always been so impressed with that tv show... entertaining and yet nasty crime drama... lots of pseudo-science to keep me intrigued... but this just totally irked me! And I've never even gone through IUI or IVF. I was so offended, for myself as an infertile, and for all my friends who struggle month after month with this battle.

Shame on you, Bones! Shame on you!

(yes, I realize that it's just a tv show... but it still really bothered me)