Happy Allhallowmas!

An unkind reflection

When I was about 26 years old, I began to write. Between personal
journals, fan fiction (Anne McCaffrey's Pern, in case you were
wondering), and being an extremely junior contributor on projects
belonging to writer friends, there was scarcely a day that went by
without me setting fingers to a keyboard. It felt so wonderful and
liberating: I was finally writing, something I'd always wanted to do.
I knew my talents fell firmly in the realm of the mediocre, but I was
doing it instead of just dreaming about it.

Writing had always been secret fantasy ever since I was a child. I
loved reading so much that I figured the only thing that could be
better would be if I were a writer, too, and gave others the same kind
of joy I found in books. Granted, my 12-year old thoughts probably
weren't so grandiose, but that was the main gist.

So what was the problem? Fear. I had writer friends who blew me away
with the eloquence of their words, their passionate thoughts; how
could I ever come close to that level of excellence? I could barely
speak in company for fear that something stupid would come out of my
mouth, so why would I think that I could write?

I have had a life-long battle with fear, and the Big F has won more
times than I can count. I've long had a reputation for being a
careful and deliberate person, very practical and mature. But I know,
in my heart of hearts, that a good 75% of that caution is really just
fear. Yes, fear can be a healthy and appropriate response, but not
when it's simply a fear of failure. That is the particular kind of
fear I've long tried to combat. The quote over to the right, near the
top of this page? Yeah, that's not so much something I live, as much
as it is something to which I aspire.

My mid-twenties were my breaking-out point. That time period was when
I finally began to know myself, to express myself, and to stop letting
fear win all the time. I tried my hand at writing, and loved it even
if I sucked. I discovered that my voice trends heavily to the
comedic, and it's very hard for me to be serious or grim when writing
non-journal type stuff. I guess it makes sense that one of my
all-time favorite writers is Terry Pratchett.

I let people other than my showerhead (yes, my showerhead is sentient;
he says he loves me and will never think my ass is too big) hear me
singing, and became known in my group as having a good voice. That
actually led to me doing vocals for a musician friend: yep, my voice
is recorded for posterity on a record, and I've even performed it in
concert. Even though that was a short little episode of my life, it
let me relive and remember the thrill of music and performance (I was
a symphony dork in school, playing flute, various clarinets, and
Elizabethan recorder).

I got past the feeling of being the fat-girl sidekick of the hot
chick, and just let myself be ME around people (especially the
male-type people)… and I discovered that I actually can be witty and
vivacious despite carrying major poundage, and that there are
male-type people who can see more than a dress size when they look at
a woman.

I began to walk with a confidence previously unknown to me. When I
entered a room, rather than trying to slink unnoticed into a corner, I
smiled and greeted and laughed. I didn't try to be an obnoxious
center of attention, but I wasn't afraid to be seen. I finally knew
beyond a doubt that I had worth as a person, and that I merited the
air I breathed. I had finally figured out that all I had to do was
just be myself, and I would be fairly happy. It sounds really simple,
doesn't it? "Be yourself." Believe me, that tiny statement is
fraught with more danger than a stretch of land in Cambodia, but I did
an okay job for a long time.

These days, I'm not so much myself. Or at least, I'm not the "myself"
that I used to be. But then again, I'm NOT the same person. I have
experienced soul-crushing grief for the first time; an emotional wound
that, while easier to handle everyday, still brings me to tears at odd
moments. I can honestly say that not a single day has passed that I
do not think of It. Not a single day, regardless of what I may
pretend. My miscarriage was more than just the loss of a baby. It
was the loss of a family, of a love, of a self-identity, of a future.
And now I feel like I am directionless, and I just don't know how to
find my way anymore.

While I've been overweight since puberty, my weight had been fairly
stable for ages and I had long been in a place of self-acceptance and
self-love. As Chris Rock crudely expressed while speaking for
confident chubsters, "Yeah, I have a gut, and there's some goooood
pussy under that gut!" But I've put on a lot of weight since
you-know-when. For the first time in over a decade, I do not like
myself. I do not like looking in the mirror. The person I see in
there is a gross stranger, and I don't want to know her. I have no
confidence, no sass, no pizzazz.

So I haven't been writing as much lately, and now I know why. While
part of it, in truth, is because I have little to report on the TTC
front and that I feel I am very boring, it is mostly because of
everything that is messed up in my head. For me, writing is a thing
of empowerment; even when I was sad and writing was a catharsis, I was
still in a place of "I am woman, hear me roar!" But now I am more
like the mouse than the lion, having emotionally regressed over a
decade.

I try to remember how I used to be, but that person seems like a
strange fantasy. I don't quite remember how to be her, how she felt,
how she acted. What made her think she was so great, anyway? I don't
know. I just wish I could remember.

2001: A Space Onion

I can't freaking believe I just discovered "The Onion" on Youtube. I now have a new comedic addiction. Here's a little somethin' for you.

Twilight is coming!

In all the crazy, non-stop drama that has been my life, I completely missed the release of the final Twilight book in early August. I picked it up almost a month late, but have read it cover to cover almost a half-dozen times since. I really like this series, and am sad it's over. I managed to get a extra mini-fix by downloading the partial draft of "Midnight Sun", but alas, it's over now.

But wait! There's even more proof that I've been living under a rock: I didn't know about the upcoming movie until about a week after I got the last book. And yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing the movie, but I gotta say that I've been laughing my ass off at some of the parodies I've found on Youtube. So of course I have to share! If you haven't read at least the first book, these won't make any sense, but if you have, I hope you bust a gut as much I have. Out of the billion I've watched, I like these two the best.

Nasty heifers...

… are in my office everyday.  For the second time this week (and come on, it's only Wednesday), I've been in the toilet and heard someone leave their stall, and walk out without washing their hands.  I just wished that I hadn't gone into a stall yet, so I could see just who the women are that leave with pee-hands.  That way I'd know whose little homemade treats to avoid, know what I mean?  People are always bringing in muffins or cookies or things to share with the office, and I shudder to think of eating pee-cookies.

 

Okay, yeah, the pee ladies at least get a squirt of hand-sanitizer (there's a dispenser just as you walk out of the toilet and it makes a distinct sound), but I still feel icked out about people not washing their hands after using the facilities.  I think of the sanitizer as an added bonus for paranoid people like me, not as a substitute for kindergarten-level hygiene.

 

And people wonder why I get so weird about things like washing up before preparing food (and then washing again after touching different types of food), or not letting people use my phone, or things like that. Some people are gross!

Look, Ma! No more blood!

I went to the doctor last week, and am happy to report that I am fine and dandy.  I had, as many had suggested, a withdrawal bleed.  I had considered that possibility, but dismissed it because as a PCOSer, believe me, I've had many a withdrawal bleed over the years.  The problem was the severity of the bleeding, and the nature of the blood.  So of course, I had to have a twist.

 

Apparently, when my over-abundant lining began sloughing off, I developed an actual bleeding wound.  As in, lining coming out, but causing a small tear where it was disengaging, and then me bleeding from that tear.  Lovely.

 

It wasn't funny at the time, but looking back now—with a week's worth of time to see it—I can't help but giggle at my RE's plan.  I go in with a complaint of severe vaginal/menstrual bleeding, and his remedy is to have me do a round of provera to induce a bleed.

 

What.  The.  Hell?!?!?  I'd only just gone down to a spot or two, and he wants me to bleed some more?  But it all made sense when he explained things, although I have to admit that I haven't started it [provera] yet.  I was/am curious to see what my body is going to do, so I decided to give it a week or two and see what happens.

 

My biggest frustration about the RE visit was that he kept using baby-talk with me.  I don't mean that he was telling me that I had an owwie and he'd kiss it and make it better.  No, I mean that he spoke to me like I was a PCOS/infertility "virgin", using small words and over-explaining things the way he'd have to on an initial consult with a newbie.  While I can appreciate how much it would help a newb, I just felt frustrated because it was wasting time.  I didn't need a 5-minute explanation of how provera works, really.  I'm the one who, by the time we were 10 minutes into our initial consultation, had him asking me if I were in the medical field.  Seriously.

 

Anyway, that whole bleeding drama seems over, so I'm happy about that.  But the major suckage is that my RE is leaving the practice at the end of the month.  In fact, he's moving to the other side of the state to open his own practice.  I'm sad that he's leaving, and very jealous of the women in Chattanooga who'll get to have him as their RE.

Bloody blood bloody blood blood

Two days after my mom's surgery was my expected ovulation date, and even with everything that was going on, I wasn't going to let that egg go to waste. Well, my temps didn't really rise enough to indicate ovulation. I mean, they went up a tad, but nowhere near my usual levels. I figured that with all the stress and craziness, my ovulation was just delayed. Not the first time, wouldn't be the last, no big whoop. I wasn't on drugs, or even using opks; I was just going by fertile signs and my usual calendar, so it was all very low-key and laid back.

Fast forward another three weeks, and I start seeing fertile signs again. Ah hah! This must be the real deal. I decided to use opks this time, got my positive, spermed up again, and settled in for a two week wait. Except that 3 days past ovulation--the Sunday before Labor Day-- I began to spot. It was a little heavier than spotting, actually, but lighter than a light day, so I'm going with "spotting". That went on for four days, and completely freaked me out. I don't generally spot at ovulation, and definitely not that much or for that long. If only I'd known what was coming.

On the fifth day after ovulation, which was this past Thursday night, I passed a big strawberry-sized clot. And that's when I all started. I bled harder than I've ever bled before in my life. Except for once, on a Friday night this past January when I miscarried. My uterus can't be large enough to have held all of what came out of me: giant waves of blood that soaked pads every other hour, grape-to-strawberry sized clots popping out constantly. I didn't tell anyone what was going on. I was freaking out way too much.

In the back of my mind, I wondered if maybe I'd gotten pregnant that first time I thought I would ovulate, and was I miscarrying now? After the first day, I broke down and took a pregnancy test (even though I really didn't want to know), and it was negative. I'm still not sure how I feel about that: part of me knows I would go bat-shit crazy if I was/had been pregnant, but at the same time at least I'd have a reason for all of this.

So, for reasons unknown, I have been bleeding to the point of actually being afraid at night, that I am going to go to sleep, bleed out, and die in my sleep. And despite that fear, I could not bring myself to go to a doctor. Me, the person who'll go to a doctor over a hangnail, wouldn't go when I was honestly afraid I might die. All because I could not handle even the possibility that I might be told that I'd been pregnant, and was miscarrying.

How effing stupid is that? Don't answer that, really. I know how stupid it is. The weirdest part of the bleeding is that there was no pain involved. Massive bleeding, yes. But no cramps or contractions or jabs of pain.

Anyway, I decided to do a little self-doctoring, and stopped my aspirin therapy as of Saturday. Even though my doc had told me that it wouldn't affect menstrual bleeding, I figured it wouldn't kill me to lay off for a few days and see what happened. Well, I don't know if it helped or if my gushing was winding down on its own, but today saw at least a 50% decrease in bleeding, down to a fairly "normal" amount of menstrual bleeding. If I am menstruating, which I'm not sure about. I had either:

*A 7-week miscarriage, or
*A cd45 ovulation, followed by a mere 6 day LP and a massive period, or
*A spontaneous freak occurrence of unending, vaginal stigmata.

But now, I have pain. WTF?!? Big blood, no pain. Much less blood, and there's cramps and stabbing and so on.

So, I'm going to call around tomorrow and see if I can 1) find a doctor, since I fired my horrible ob-gyn after my miscarriage and haven't found a new one yet, and 2) if I find one, beg for an urgent care appointment. Bloody freakiness, and I can be all martyr-like and fear in silence. But pain? Oh no, pain means something's really wrong, and I need tests and ultrasounds and palpitating and all that.

I'm taking my crazy self to bed now.