a testament to my time in therapy

So I started nursing school for real-real last month.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy, even without the added complications of everything going on with Sid, and the acting out from Spagett, and the stress of walking into a giant unknown as Sid is medically retired from the Navy...

I thought I knew what I was getting into.  And I was wrong.

I barely passed my first exam.  BUT I PASSED.  However, on my first summative skills check-off, I failed.  At first, I felt all right about it: I get the chance to redo, so it's not the end of the world, right?  RIGHT?!  But when I started to talk to one of my old professors about it, I burst into tears.  Right there in the middle of a crowded hallway, dressed in my uniform, I cried like a wiener.  It was the culmination of all that's come before: Sid's cancer, everything.  And it went on and on.  I went to see our nursing retention coordinator and sobbed in her office for probably an hour.

One thing she said that really stuck with me was that there are student nurses who come into her office in a worse state than me, and they don't have nearly as much bullshit going on in their personal lives.  She said that I was holding it together admirably, that she actually didn't even know how I was managing the amount of stress I must be experiencing.  I told her it must be a testament to my time in therapy, and she laughed.

I walked out of her office, not exactly feeling better, but feeling as though I wasn't fighting this uphill battle alone.  School has only been in session for a month, and I'm already blown away by the support I'm receiving from my professors - old and new -  and my fellow students.  It's been amazing and humbling and inspirational.

Nursing school isn't what I expected at all.  In some ways it's a lot better, and in some ways it's a lot worse.  I can't even imagine what next semester will be like, and truthfully, I'm trying not to think about that when there's so much going on right now.

confession

I am struggling.

My first semester of nursing school is coming to a close, and I have straight A's.  That's not the problem.

It's everything else that's the problem.

I think that Spagett has ADHD.

I can't deal with him.  I can't.  I can't mediate between him and Sid any longer.  I feel like I'm losing my mind.  I can't deal with being forced to side with my husband or my child in this bullshit drama that has become our home life.  I can't.

And yet, what choice do I have?

When the time outs have not worked, and neither have the spankings, and Spagett is throwing toys at my head because THAT is his definition of "playing with toys", when you tell him to play quietly and he starts throwing things at the ceiling fan, because hey, it's quiet, isn't it?  When it's mid afternoon and you can see his body is in need of rest and yet he can't lay still long enough to allow himself to nap, when it's midnight and he's still awake because he literally cannot stop running around and we have to be up at 7 am, but if you just lock him in his room and try to go to sleep yourself, he's going to tear everything apart and scream so loud that the whole neighborhood will hear...

What choice do I have?

When Sid has checked out, and all his contributions to the problem involve screaming "shut the fuck up, go away," what fucking choice do I as Spagett's mother HAVE?!

This is not what I wanted for my little boy.  This is not what I wanted for Sid and I as parents.  I feel like somewhere along the way, I have done something wrong, I have made a bad decision, and now every single one of us is paying the price.

So yeah.  Seriously, what do I do?  What choice do I have when I'm the only one left to handle the problem and I've been slogging away at school work for goddamn hours and I still have homework to do, and laundry and dishes, and everyone still needs dinner, and here's my kid who doesn't give a shit how many times you punish him for throwing things and climbing all over the furniture, he's just going to keep right the fuck on doing it, what the FUCK am I supposed to do?

being brave

The Mansons are facing some tough times right now.  Sid has a mass on his voice box, and is about to undergo testing to figure out if it's cancer.  His doctor is also testing him for Multiple Sclerosis, after years of weirdness.

Maybe it's not cancer (but maybe it is).  Maybe it's only benign nodules (but maybe it's not).  Maybe it's not MS (but maybe it is).  We'll have answers soon enough, and I think knowing has got to be so much less scary than this uncertainty.  I can't speak for Sid, but I know I'm going about my daily business feeling like I'm waiting to be hung: the noose is around my neck, and I know the floor is about to drop out from under me, but I don't know when.

Right now, running is what is keeping me sane.  What I've learned while outside sweating and plodding are keeping me from losing myself in anxiety, and until now, I had no idea there was anything at all to learn from putting one foot in front of the other, but that itself is the lesson: all you can do is put one foot in front of the other.  Keep moving, and eventually, it will be over.  It feels like it will last forever, but it ends.  It will end.

Plus, The Zone.  Oh, The Zone.  Fuck a runner's high, The Zone is where it's at.  There's nothing at all but the silence.  Nothing else.  No worries, no doubts, no voice in your head telling you shit you don't want to hear.  Just the rhythm of your breathing and your feet on the pavement.  I call it my brutal meditation, and it is glorious.

Sometimes I have to remind myself, I am doing this.  I am running, I am going to nursing school, I am going to sit in the waiting room while Sid has his surgery and wait to hear what the doctors say.  I am doing it.  I am brave, I am strong, I am doing this.

And it helps.

when it rains, it pours

Truly.

Friday, first thing in the morning, I had my wisdom teeth out.  The bottom two were sideways, and all four were impacted.  The surgery went fine, all I remember was they were having a hard time finding a vein for the IV, they gave me nitrous, and once the IV was in everything went wonky.  Right before I passed out, I remember thinking I was never going to pass out, that I would just feel dizzy and sleepy forever. Next thing I know, I'm waking up with gauze in my mouth and being herded out the door.

That afternoon, I looked like Bethenny Frankel.  The next day, my face was unrecognizable from the cheekbones down.  I blew up.  The swelling was worse the next day, if such a thing could be possible.  I cried.  Spagett was scared of me.  It was horrible.  The Vicodin I'd been prescribed didn't seem to take a dent out of the pain I was in.  I can't say it enough: it was horrible.

While the swelling has gone down, my face is all bruised along my jaw, and I still can't open my mouth very far.  It isn't pain stopping me; I literally cannot open my mouth.  While I understand this is normal and will resolve in time, it fucking sucks trying to eat.

But.  That's not even the worst of it.

Yesterday Knut disappeared.  I spent all day today walking around with Spagett on my back, or biking with Spagett in his seat, putting up flyers with Sid and looking for that bitch cat.  And she is nowhere to be found.  We lost Knut.

Holy shit, we lost Knut.  We may never get her back.  I don't even want to talk about it anymore right now, just thinking about it, just typing the words, leaves me with this hollow, sick feeling.  Even though I know, I fucking know anything could have happened to her, I can't even bring myself to consider that she might be dead.  Eaten or otherwise killed by another animal.  It simply is not a thought I am willing to entertain.  Even though I know she is old, missing teeth, not as spry or able to defend herself, following that train of thought to it's conclusion is unfathomable.

I have to believe she'll come back.  That someone will find her, someone will pick her up and call me.  Or that I'll open the door one morning and there she'll be on the porch, having gotten tired of her adventures and found her way home.  This has to happen, because if it doesn't, the implications are more than I can take.

thank goodness for little therapists

There are times when I don't know whether I should laugh, cry, or just shit my pants. Lately I've been having a lot of those times.

Spagett is still teething, and showing no signs of letting up any time soon. The dark circles under my eyes may well become permanent. Sid and I have been... well, to put it gently, we've hit one of those inevitable spots in a relationship where you are either going to kill each other with the fighting, or work through it and come out stronger. Which outcome we'll have remains to be seen.

We're both stressed out. I'm not sleeping well, he's working all the time, and when he's home, it's just nonstop whining and screaming from Spagett. There is not a moment's peace to be had here at Manson Homestead II. Ever. At any time of the day or night.

Thank fuck for my therapist.

perhaps I spoke too soon

It's like a law of the internet that once you commit something to type on said internets, whatever you just said about whatever is going on in your life will be proven false.

Spagett has hit a growth spurt, or found a mighty appetite, because my breasts have not had a break in almost a week. This kid is just eating and eating and eating. Up every hour during the night, nursing for an hour at a time, and my wagon is draggin'. He pukes like Old Faithful after almost every feeding, too, which has me worried he's got reflux or something. I don't understand how you can eat until you puke, and then lie there and insist you want to eat more. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

He refuses to sleep in his bassinet, to make matters worse. He could be dead asleep, having not even awakened during his burping, and the moment I lay him down in his co-sleeper bassinet, he's wide awake. He sleeps on the couch, in my bed, in his swing, in his carseat, on my chest, in my arms... everywhere but where I want him to. I don't understand that, either. But for now, I've given up that particular battle: he wants to sleep on my chest, and I just want to SLEEP, so that was a quick resolution to that.

It has to get better soon, or I'm going to lose my mind.

DRAMA! or How To Keep Up A Winning Streak, by starky

Over the weekend, I got a sub from Publix. An italian sub, with DELI MEAT, OMG. DON'T YOU KNOW YOU'LL GIVE YOUR BABY LISTERIA AND HE'LL DIE?! To which I say, I knew the risks, and it was a chance I took, knowing I have better odds of being struck by lightning or winning the lottery than I do of contracting listeria from a fucking deli sub and potentially killing my resident fetus.

Anyway, Monday rolls around and Spagett is not his or her usual kicky, active self. And then I thought, well, you know, maybe I did kill my kid with listeria. And then I started getting menstrual-like cramps low down in my belly, and that plus the other thing had me rolling to the hospital.

IT WASN'T LISTERIA. IT WAS PRE-TERM LABOR!

They put me in an observation room with a monitor for Spagett's heartbeat, and a monitor to check for contractions. Yeah, apparently I was having contractions, and couldn't even feel the bitches except for a tightening in my guts. It wasn't painful. It wasn't what I expected. And when they took my blood pressure, HOLY CRAP. It was through the fucking roof. I mean like 160/100 and then the labor and delivery doctors came in and said "we're going to keep you under observation for a few hours to make sure you're not dilating and that your blood pressure goes back down."

I was promptly whisked away to a more private room where three doctors proceeded to do things to my vagina that my own husband would balk at. I had swabs inside my bagina, hands in my vagoo! Turns out my cervix was beginning to thin out and dilate. LIKE IT SHOULD WHEN YOU'RE IN LABOR, NOT AT 33 WEEKS! Also, no one, no woman ever prepared me for how motherfucking PAINFUL a pelvic exam is. LADIES, YOU FAILED ME. There was so much pain and pressure when they jammed their hands in there that if I had had to go #1 or even #2, it would have all flown out. All over the doctor with his arm buried to the wrist in my flippy flaps, and in my opinion, what he was doing was bad, but not bad enough to warrant that kind of punishment.

Anyway, two hours later, my blood pressure was still high, and another pelvic revealed further cervical thinning and dilation. Also, one of the swab tests they'd done showed the presence of a protein called fetal fibronectin, which is a pretty good indicator that the bun in your oven is not staying there much longer, no matter how underdone it may be. And also those contractions never went away, and were in fact still coming pretty regularly, and also still very NOT PAINFUL.

They started giving me a drug called Procardia, which is primarily used for angina pain, but it also works really really well at lowering blood pressure and stopping contractions (who ever figured that out?). It did what it was supposed to, and I was admitted. Also, I got buttshots, aka STEROIDS.

Because steroids accelerate fetal lung development. And the doctors were/are convinced Spagett is not going to be a Christmas baby after all. More like a Thanksgiving baby, if everything goes well.

The hospital is a noisy place, even at night, and I am a light sleeper, so it was no surprise to me when I could not sleep a wink all night in that place. Between the blood pressure checks every fifteen minutes, to the alarms beeping on my monitors, to the fact that I had to get up and unhook myself from the monitors every time I needed to use the toilet... I didn't sleep.

I had butt shots, hands in my vagoo, ANOTHER TWENTY FOUR HOUR URINE COLLECTION TEST, monitors on stomach and arm and finger continuously for over 24 hours, an IV that kept getting tangled up in EVERYTHING, and no sleep for an eight months pregnant woman in over 36 hours, and the part that finally made me cry was when they discharged me with a big bottle of Procardia and ordered my ass on bedrest. I was fine until then! Laughing and joking with the staff up to that point, but once we left the labor and delivery floor, I cried and couldn't stop all the way home.

And then I wanted to cry again when I got home and went potty and instead of clean toilet paper, came back with a big slug looking chunk of brown and red mucous. And I had to call labor and delivery back and ask what I should do if I'd passed my mucous plug. They said "nothing, just relax. Come back in if you start leaking fluid, or you start having contractions again."

So my tired ass went to bed and passed out.

And the funniest part of all this? I DEFINITELY DO NOT HAVE PREECLAMPSIA. The repeat urine test came back with protein level of 7. You must have a level of over 300 for it to be considered preeclampsia. So there is that.

Anyway, I'm at home now. Bedrest is actually not so bad: its a great excuse to just sit around and be lazy all day and get Sid to do things for me. The Procardia really makes me loopy, so I spend a lot of time napping, which is fine with me.

oh, I saw this one coming...

I had an OB appointment out at the naval base yesterday, met my new midwife, and everything seemed to be going pretty well. My weight gain was spot on, and there were only a few blood tests I needed, simple things like thyroid function and platelets. Nothing major.

But it turns out that my blood pressure is high. Every other appointment I've had, it's been totally normal, 120/60, absolutely textbook perfect. But this time it was 150/90. Yeah. So now I have to go back to the hospital to have a bunch more tests done today to rule out preeclampsia. Oh joy!

Surprisingly enough, I don't really feel worried. Sure, preeclampsia would be bad. Very bad, actually. But that might not be what this is, after all. And before I raise my blood pressure further and stress myself all out to hell, I want to know that I actually have something to freak out about.

just call me the Bitchy Wizzle Beast

I can't stop peeing.

Seriously.

I wake up every hour and a half during the night to go take the hugest horse pisses, and I can't understand where all this water is coming from. Because I make sure not to drink anything after 6 pm. And yet I'm still up all night having these huge bladder-busting wees. Wizzles so big that it's physically painful to get out of bed and stumble to the bathroom, and then act of voiding pisses off my uterus and gives me braxton-hicks contractions.

Holy shit, that's a huge fucking piss.

Added to the fact that I'm barely sleeping at night with all this peeing, I'm not used to the heat and I am DYING. DYING I SAY. Tired and overheated, that's my Florida Experience so far.

I fucking hate Florida.

the kind of person I might actually despise

If I met myself on a message board, or even in real life, I think I'd find myself to be exactly the kind of person I claim to hate: one of those people who just get lucky.

Okay, we certainly struggled to get pregnant, but after that? It's been pretty smooth sailing. I haven't gained a ton of weight. There have been no scares with contractions or anything like that. I'm not terribly uncomfortable like a lot of women at seven months. All my bloodwork has been totally normal: no false positives on the AFP screen, no antibodies, no high blood glucose... it's been absolutely by-the book.

And my thyroid has behaved so well! Lots of women with hypothyroidism find that they must increase their medication while pregnant. I've made it to seven months without needing a single dosage change, and beyond that, my TSH has been progressively lower and lower at each check. I started this pregnancy with my TSH fluctuating between about 2 to 2.5, and when it was checked last week, it came back at 0.8. That's great! That's fucking fantastic! I never expected to be one of those rare lucky ones whose thyroid function actually improves: if this improvement continues, I may be able to stop taking meds altogether, and wouldn't that be nice?

Now, where do I get off, being so goddamn lucky? I just about make myself sick. Trust me that I know I could have it a lot worse than I do, and I am so grateful that this has been, all in all, a very easy and fairly enjoyable pregnancy so far (if we conveniently forget the vomiting and heartburn). I wouldn't be surprised if I made up for all this sunshine-and-roses with a heinous labor and delivery.

belated update

Last week I had the big anatomy ultrasound, where they take all sorts of measurements and make sure that there aren't any gross anatomical defects in the fetus. We got some good pictures, which by now have probably made the rounds to family I didn't know we had, courtesy of Sid's mother. I won't share them all, because that would be obnoxious and boring, but I want to post the one that is my favorite...



I like to compare it to the nine week sonogram, just because there's such a marked difference in the development. You don't have to squint and tilt your head to try and make out the head end from the butt end! It's no longer a little blobby gummy bear creature!

But enough about that, it gets old after a while. I want to put down for posterity the most appalling thing EVER.

Not only is my blood pressure wonky, and oftentimes gets too low and I feel like I'm going to faint dead away, and not only do I have monstrous round ligament pain that is so bad I have been walking around like an old woman... I had to venture outside yesterday for twenty minutes and get bumrushed by mosquitoes. I am not exaggerating when I say I have got at least fifteen or twenty bites on each leg. From the knees down, I'm a throbbing lumpy mess of itchiness. I am in a veritable PANIC: nothing is easing this itch, nothing is helping at all.

As if mad heartburn, wonky blood pressure, and crippling round ligament pain weren't enough... this is the cherry on the shit sundae, let me tell you.

gag me...with anything

I had a couple really bad days in the week leading up to our trip to Florida, days which had me hanging over the toilet and retching so hard that vomity toilet water would splash up into my face. So I was expecting the trip down to be hell. Sid and I were fully prepared for lots and lots of hurling. And there was none. On the drive down, I was fine. During our week-long stay at his father's house, I was fine (okay, so there was one iffy moment where I actually hung over the toilet expecting to spew my guts up, but nothing happened). On the drive back, I felt a little gross, but it was nothing like the way I'd felt previously.

And then we got back home. And the very next day, surprise surprise, I'm back hanging out with my old friend Mr Potty. I don't know if it's something about the air in this house, or the fact that cooking dinner is a surefire way to make me retch, but everything is conspiring to make sure that from the moment I wake up in the morning to the moment I fall asleep at night, it is a battle to keep from sharing the contents of my stomach with the crapper.

Looking on the bright side, lots of women say that their "morning sickness" (HA, I say) becomes much more manageable and/or disappears completely around week fourteen. If I've been putting up with this for six weeks now, another two won't kill me. It'll suck, but it won't kill me.

But in the meantime, I think I'll just stick close to the bathroom.

I keep telling myself...

...I wanted this.

I hoped I would be one of those women who never get morning sickness. Aaannnnd, it turns out... I am not. I am lucky, but not that lucky. A few days before I hit the six week mark, I started feeling nauseated. It has not let up since then.

All I can do is lie on the couch and desperately hope I won't start retching. But the good part? If I eat exactly what I'm craving at the moment, seriously, the nausea goes away. It comes back, sure, but I can snatch a break for a few hours. The drawback is that I have been wanting things that I don't have in the house. Like yesterday: I would have straight up shanked someone if it got me some cream cheese on toast. We had none, and I felt too damn sick to peel myself off the couch and go to the store. Then I wanted salt and vinegar chips. Alas, none to be had.

Thank FSM that today I wanted a fried egg sandwich and I had the makings of one in the fridge. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to sit here and type, I'd just be lying on the floor moaning.

I don't plan on telling the family what's going on until I hit 12 weeks. Unfortunately, I have to make a trip down to see them all for my sister's high school graduation, and if I'm this miserably ill, I won't be able to hide it. Here's hoping I'll luck out and only be sick for a few weeks.

a little happy

Sid received his orders yesterday: it looks like we're headed for Flori-duh! Even though I really, really am not looking forward to the palmetto bugs, or the love bugs (FISTSHAKE AT YOU, LOVE BUGS, FISTSHAKE OF DOOM!), or the rabid mosquitoes... I'm very much looking forward to being able to see my sisters pretty much any time I want. That makes up for the bugs, in my mind.

Unfortunately, the re-enlistment bonus we were expecting is not coming. This is a bit of a sticky wicket, but not the end of the world. So yeah, taking it in stride. It could be worse. It could be BETTER, but it could be worse.

because I am a masochist

So, give or take a few weeks, it's been about eight months since Sid and I first started trying for a sprog. EIGHT MONTHS. I realized the other day that a woman I know has gotten pregnant TWICE in the time that Sid and I have been at this. TWICE, I SAY (one blighted ovum that ended in a D&C, and the other she just found out about). And yet for me it's just month after month of failure.

And I know, without doubt, every month when I'm waiting for Miss P, that she's going to show. Because, to use the vernacular, "that's how she do." And yet, every month I get my hopes up and think "maybe this time, THAT'S HOW SHE DON'T!" Yeah, positive thinking changes lives, people. Surely it does. Just not mine. Because I can almost make myself believe it, and then the inevitable happens. And you know what? IT SUCKS.

Sid apologized the other day, and it was funny and heartbreaking all at once. He said, "I'm sorry you have to go through that every month." And I was like "what, the cramps? BITCH, THAT'S NOTHING." Because while I do get the cramps from Hell (I can't even urinate without pain sometimes when it's truly bad), it's nothing compared to the emotional wreckage I'm left with.

And doesn't that sound emo as hell?

Seriously though, emotionally, it's just harder to deal with. I can take a couple Motrin to blunt the physical pain of the cramps. And I can take a long hot bath while I wait for the pills to work. I can't really do that to stop the anger, the sadness, the frustration. There's nothing I have on hand to stop that elastic band that tightens up under my ribs and makes it hard to breathe when I think maybe it's just never going to happen.

I got Miss P this weekend (oh, joy!), and I seriously could not tell you what I did with myself besides piss off Sid. We argued to the point where I just wanted to bust his chops. I wanted to ask him when would enough be enough, when would he finally decide that it's not going to happen to us like it does for other couples? When will he finally throw in the fucking towel and concede defeat? When will it be time to seek outside help? But it's not a discussion I want to have while we're angry. I'm a bitch, but I'm not stupid: Once I'm done fucking around with my menstrual cup, and we've both cooled off (give it a few days on both counts) I'll be ready to initiate that conversation, and I assure you I won't word it like I did here.

I've asked him before, and he said, "yeah, I need to make an appointment for that" and then he never did it. I DON'T WANT TO BE A NAG. I don't want to be the woman who alienates her husband by demanding "GIVE ME A BABY, NOW!" because that shit never turns out well. But for fuck's sake, enough is enough. I want a resolution to this one way or the other.

I am THAT woman

The other day, I started researching adoption, foster care programs. And Sid said he didn't want to do it, that he was not ready, not able to take that step. I do not understand: I only want to be a parent, I don't care how that child comes to us. I mentioned it on one of the boards I post at, and another one of the women there also dealing with infertility thought it was a great idea. Her husband agreed, it is a wonderful idea. They are starting the foster-parent training.

I am glad for her, I am so glad that she is finally happy, that her husband shares her feelings. And yet I spent the rest of the day struggling not to cry. I was so frustrated and angry at Sid for foisting this kind of despair on me, for not being willing to consider any of the options available to us, that it was actually very hard for me to be civil. I felt like a bratty child. Still do, actually, but I'm well-behaved today.

To add insult to injury, he went out and bought a $600 lens for his $300 camera. Without telling me. I hit the roof. What the hell were you thinking? My god, when you finally decide that you're ready for a kid, you won't hesitate to drop the cash to make it happen, will you? That money could have bought three rounds of artificial insemination, it could have bought nearly 80 digital pregnancy tests, it could have bought a crib and a changing table! What the fuck were you thinking?! Not.happy. I am tired of waiting, I am tired of having what I want deemed stupid and unnecessary. I am sick of being told to be patient, that I shouldn't be so unhappy, that we're doing it without condoms and it will happen! No, it is not going to happen. I have given up hope of that. I have given up entirely on this whole thing, and right now I would like to see him just fucking castrated.

We started this feeling so hopeful, so sure that everything would work out for us. And looking back, we were so fucking stupid, so naive and full of hubris. We just assumed thateverything would be fine! And when we started to realize that everything was not fine, that everything was, in fact, fucked up and nothing would turn out the way we'd imagined... well, it all fell apart. I'm mad at Sid for being uncooperative and I'm sure he's mad at me for being an obsessive bitch.

I am so unspeakably sick and tired of being jealous of my friends' good fortune. I am tired of being happy for them for only one second before the stab of bitterness and anger takes over. I am fucking tired of being that woman. And yet I don't know how to stop. Trust me, I would dearly like to stop.

home makeover: Manson edition

It is always something in this house. First it was the ceiling in the bathroom. Then it was the roof in the attic, and the water damage to the floor up there. Now the wall in the bathtub is falling to bits, and oh, by the way, the attic is leaking again.

Seriously, what the hell is this? This house is old, sure, but I wasn't aware it was quite to the falling-down stage yet.

The good news is that our landlady is really awesome about stuff like this. We're splitting the cost of a replacement shower wall, and we're putting it in this weekend. And also, the guys who did a really spiffy job fixing the bathroom ceiling (and roof) are coming back to take a look at the leak in the attic.

Fingers crossed that by this time on Monday something will be fixed.

happy anniversary

For our anniversary, we found out that Sid's not quite up to snuff in the baby-making department. Yes, the results of his semen analysis are in, and some of his numbers are way off, His doctors are going to be doing more tests.

So yeah, happy anniversary to us... right?

I'm actually not really bothered by it, I just wish the timing had been a little better. When asked what we did for our third wedding anniversary, I will ever after be forced to reply, "we found out that we suck at making babies."

HAR.

stop the world, I want to get off

Another one of my friends is pregnant.

Seriously.

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

At this point, it's safe to assume that if you are a female of childbearing age who is even an oblique acquaintance of mine, you're going to find yourself knocked up. I think it would be best for everyone if I stopped having lady-friends, yes? Solve that problem in one fell swoop.

I would feel better if even one of my friends could just manage to avoid fecundity, but that seems unlikely in the extreme. And this whole situation might be kind of amusing to me, if only it could manage to be slightly less pathetic.

the end

It was our last chance. Our last.fucking.chance for me to get pregnant. And naturally, with what felt like EVERYTHING hanging onto the slim hope that maybe this time will be different, this time was really no different at all. So that's it. Five months, six counting the time before deployment, and nothing at all to show for it.

We've begun to think something is wrong with one or the other of us. Everyone else we know got pregnant right away, and we didn't. It's not rocket science; it shouldn't BE this hard. It's sex, right? It's nature. How can you fuck up something like that? Trust me, the Mansons can. And we did.

Sid's got an appointment for a semen analysis coming up later this week, and if that comes back normal, it's my turn to go to the doctor and start asking questions. And you know what? I'm deathly afraid that something else will be wrong with me, something else besides my thyroid. Something I can't fix with a pill.

I hope that Sid's the one who's messed up - and isn't that fucked up? - because if he's not, that means there's something wrong with ME. I don't want to say the word, I don't want that label...infertile. I don't want either of us to carry that burden, but if someone must, let it be him. Sid said the same thing: "If it has to be either of us, I hope it's me, because if it's you, you'd never forgive yourself." And he's right, I wouldn't.