Chill Pill

I have got to chill out! I am making myself and my darling husband nuts! My emotions have been bouncing all over the place. I think that it must be the fall out from my missed period, but I feel on the verge of tears a lot, angry most of the time, and really tired - oddly, these are all the symptoms of depression according to the TV commercial.

My mom thinks that my grandmother's death may be the cause for my body being out of whack. She said that she has heard about tons of women who's cycles are effected when they have some thing cause them major stress or major grief. I hope that it just gets back in line soon - I really don't want to start my period while we are in ABQ next week, that would just suck to have cramps and whatever while I am trying to get some R & R!!

I don't think that I am depressed, just overloaded. With all that has been happening lately, with the school pressures, work stuff, family stuff, pregnancy stuff, my grandmother's death, and basics of life. It all just builds up and you need some down time. I have been looking so forward to this trip! I hope that I can keep from crying about it or yelling about it :)

I had this dream the other night and woke up from it yesterday morning feeling very frisky. I attempted to wake up my husband for a little morning fun, but he hollered at me that it was 6:20 in the morning and to let him sleep God damn it! I sort of found this funny, that I was trying to do something to him most men would not mind waking up to, and I get yelled at. I laughed and said "Maybe we should go to marriage counseling, I am concerned about you" My husband went right back to snoring and I did not give it another thought.

He seemed distant all day yesterday, but I was not really concerned about it because he has been telling me a lot about all the work stress he is under. When we got home from work yesterday, at 5:30 he went into the bedroom and fell asleep. He stayed there until 7am this morning. When I questioned him about it this morning and voiced concerns that he was sleeping so much and being distant. He started yelling at me that I knew why he was upset and ignoring it was not going to make it go away. I told him that I understood about the pressure he was under at work, but it was not my fault. He laughed (in a mean way) surprised that I did not know what he was talking about. Apparently, the marriage counseling comment from the morning before really pissed him off and he has been angry at me this whole time.

This really pissed me off, because, for one thing it was a joking comment. But more importantly, he did not mention it to me at all. He just treated me with the cold shoulder all day and all night (pushed my hand away when I put my arm around him when I came to bed). Here I thought it was all about work, and he was being pissed. If he had talked to me about it at the time, I could have apologized and told him that it was just a joke, but instead, he chose to be pissed at me.

He says that marriage counseling is nothing to joke about and that after that incident I yelled at him to get up and told him that I was leaving without him. I explained that the marriage counseling comment was at 6:20, while the yelling about leaving without him was at 7:40 - a full 10 minutes after we were supposed to have left the house for work.

He said that he would get over being pissed at me if I would just drop the subject, but my talking about it was pissing him off even more. He will get over it and I should just let him. This pissed me off big time - he gets to be pissed about something, rail on me about it, and I am not supposed to respond, explain or defend myself.

I told him that I would get over it too but it might take me longer. I have not seen much of him today, but he is acting more normal and I am trying to "get over it". I am going to talk to him about it later, hopefully when I am not so mad about the whole thing. I am not really upset that he got upset, misunderstandings happen and I have been in kind of a shitty mood lately, so I can totally understand him not getting the joke. However, I am really angry that his answer was not to discuss it with me and to just spend the next 24 hours being mad at me. This is not acceptable, our marriage deserves better.

We will get past this issue and we both still love each other deeply. I know that marriages have growing pains and we will probably be stronger for this having happened. I just want to be pissed at him right now. Hmmm, maybe that is what he was feeling yesterday....

My body is playing tricks on me

So, I have been off the pill since February, all my periods have been pretty regular (between 28-31 days). Until this month. A midwife friend of my mom's gave me some natural progesterone cream, which I started using about a week before I was due to start my period.

This cream is supposed to help the body get back into it's own natural rhythm, thus increasing the chances that the body will ovulate more regularly and also help decrease the chances for miscarriage in early pregnancy.

At 35 days I took a pregnancy test, it was negative. I called the midwife and while she did not think that the cream would cause my cycle to be late, she suggested that I stop using the cream and see if my period started. If it didn't in about 5 more days, take another test. Today is day 39, and I woke up this morning with the burning desire to take the test - negative again!

I have called my doctor and spoke to the nurse and she doesn't think that, if the tests are still saying negative, that I am pregnant. She is going to check with the doctor and see if she thinks that the cream would have anything to do with messing me up.

I am going to wait until Saturday to call the midwife back, if I still haven't started, and another test is still negative. I don't think that I am pregnant due to the fact that my husband and I have only been intimate 3 times since my last period and all 3 were interrupted before completion. I know that you can still get pregnant without a full completion, but the chances are much less and the freaking test is still negative.

I have heard about people that have normal periods during their first 3 months of pregnancy, and stories about false negative pregnancy tests, but when you add everything together, it doesn't seem likely that I would be pregnant.

This whole process is making me angry at my husband for 2 reasons. First, and probably mostly, because he is there and makes an easy target. Second, if he were as excited about getting pregnant and I am, wouldn't he want to have sex more often? I know that he is having a major meltdown at work right now, and he is stressed out all the time, but really? No desire for sex?

For me, I can say that the first time we made love and I knew that we could be making a baby, I was more turned on than I have ever been in my life! I have such an increased sex drive now, from the desire to conceive as well as (probably) getting off the artificial hormones in the birth control pill. I am not able to pull off the seduction type thing, I want him to want me and want a baby as much as I do. I think that is the sexiest thing ever!

I feel like I need to find a support group for women how have become obsessed with conception. I don't want this to drive a wedge between us, but we have discussed this over and over. Each time we talk, I suggest trying to pinpoint the perfect date, or trying to have sex every other day. He feels this is planning or a schedule and he doesn't want that. I tell him that my sex drive is huge now that I am off the pill, and he says that this is great and we will have sex more often. Then nothing happens! I try to seduce him, or talk dirty or whatever - he is not interested most of the time, or we get into it and then he stops.

I am concerned that a couple of things may be effecting his libido. It could be that the thought of making a baby is scary to him and thus causes him to lose his "interest". It could be that the increased stress at work is causing his sex drive to be way down. It could be that he perceives my increased sex drive as just using him as a tool to get what I want. It could be that his sleep apnea is causing him to have low energy and low interest.

I just hope that this missed period thing does not have something to do with my age or is an indicator of future fertility issues. I just want a normal cycle, a normal conception, and a normal pregnancy. I know, I know - stop stressing about it, stop worrying about it - I don't seem able :(

I don't know how....

UPDATE: Doctor's office just called back and they don't think that the cream caused the missed period. They said that they would not be able to give me anything to make me start until I have missed 3 consecutive periods. They also don't think that I am pregnant, but suggested taking a test about every 2 weeks. I think that I am going to get some of those ovulation tests and see if that tells me anything...

Recovery

Grief is a selfish emotion. You are not grieving that someone has died, you know that they are at peace, out of pain, and moving on. You are grieving for yourself. You are grieving the loss of a friend, someone that you loved.

I cry less each day, so I assume that I am coming to terms with the passing of my Me-Me. I still am not sure that my mind believes that she is gone. I keep pushing the fact that I will never hear her little whistle or play cards with her again out of my mind.

I am anxious to get back to my "normal" life, as if that will make it all go away. Like doing normal, everyday things will make this past week just a really bad dream or something. I am looking forward to getting my homework done, working out, grocery shopping, etc. Generally restoring order to my battered up life.

I have this strange feeling that I will be pregnant very soon. Not sure if it was all the aunts talking about it this week, or the decision my husband and I made to name our daughter after both our grandmothers, or something else. I don't think that I am pregnant yet, but I really think that it will be soon. My husband seems to be thinking along the same lines, as he has been talking about getting a second job and worrying about money more lately. He says that soon he is going to be the sole income and wants to be able to take care of his family.

My husband is so cute and so sweet. He has stopped wearing underwear. He read something about underwear causing lower sperm count, so he stopped wearing them. He wears boxers. I find this to be the sweetest thing ever.

I have stopped taking my temperature. It was making me crazy, and I was doing nothing but thinking about my body, my cycle, my "optimum" time, and so on. I just have to let go, and let it happen. This is very hard for me, but I am going to try to go with the flow. My child is out there waiting to come into this world, waiting for me to get my shit together and chill.

Loss and new life somehow seem to go hand in hand, and I am looking forward to telling my daughter about her namesake!

My grandmother (Dad's mother) had been feeling very lonely and depressed as of late. All her children and grandchildren are working and busy raising their own families and her husband has recently taken a part time job to ease his own loneliness. She finally called and told some family members about this depression and people took steps to spend more time with her. About 2 days later, her husband, Pa-Pa, decided that she, Me-Me was not feeling any better and he was so concerned about her that he took her to the emergency room.

The emergency room decided that she should be taken to the mental health care facility for observation and treatment for this depression. Both Pa-Pa and one of my uncles wanted to stay with her, but the facility would not allow it. She was even more lonely and those places can be really creepy, so she was having trouble sleeping. The facility gave her a sleeping pill.

On her third night's stay (Friday night), after taking her sleeping pill, she attempted to get up to use the bathroom and fell hitting her head. I don't know the details of how she fell or how long it was before she was found, but they took her to the hospital and notified the family.

She had a subdural hematoma that was putting pressure on her brain. The took her into surgery and cut a small piece from her skull to relieve the pressure and remove the clot and stop the bleeding. During the operation her EKG had "some changes" but they told the family that they would not know the extent of any brain damage until she woke up.

Smug-Sister and I were supposed to do some shopping and see a movie on Saturday. But after hearing about Me-Me's fall we decided that we wanted to drive up to Richmond to see her, even though she was supposed to be stable and their was nothing to do but wait for her to wake up. We decided that our significant others should not need to make the trip unless something else happened since she was stable.

We were about an hour out of town, still 2+ hours from Richmond when we got the call. There was another bleed in her brain and significant brain damage along with diminishing cerebral activity. She was not going to wake up. The decision had to be made to keep her on life support or take her off. The doctors were thinking that even with life support she would only last 24-48 hours.

I listened to my dad choked with sobs trying to fill me in and after I got off the phone, Smug-Sister and I held hands and cried for a long time. We decided to keep driving rather than heading home for the husbands because there was still a chance that we would make it before the life support decision had to be made. I called my husband and asked him to mobilize the other boys (Sister's boyfriend, our brother, our step-brother) and get heading up to be with us.

We drove at a safe speed and arrived at the hospital without incident. They showed us into the cubicle where Me-Me was so we could touch, kiss and talk to her one last time. The whole family took turns telling her how loved she was and missed she was going to be. Then Pa-Pa took his turn, thanking her for being his best friend and wife.

We all gathered by her bed as they removed the tubes and wires. She quietly died about an hour later.

Several friend and a few family members were too late to see her in time. Smug-Sister and I only made it there 2 hours before she was gone. The nurses at the hospital told us that they had never seen so many people, so much family there for someone. The family all took turns holding each other and crying for a long time.

We headed back to one of the aunt's homes and family, friend and pizza began to poor in. No one felt much like eating, but the general mood was light. People stayed away from too much discussion about the day. My husband finally arrived and took me into his arms, held me close and made me feel safe. I told him that it seemed like so long since I had seen him, my whole life had changed in the few hours since I had laughingly kissed him good-bye assuring him that she was going to be fine.

We decided to get a hotel room for the night, since there would probably be people stopping by all night, not to mention several young, hyper, loud children. I was feeling like I needed a hot shower, a dark room, and my husband to hold me in the quite for a bit. We found a room close by and the hot shower put me right to sleep. I thankfully slept until about 5am without bad dreams and without waking.

The funeral is going to be on Wednesday morning. We came back home tonight and will work tomorrow while making some arrangements with work and school. I need to get some clothes, order flowers, make hotel arrangements, etc. I think that we will drive back up to Richmond Tuesday afternoon for the wake, stay overnight for the funeral and then come back home Wednesday evening.

When my cousin died, the wake and funeral were the hardest things that I ever endured, this will be much harder. I was close to my cousin, but not as close as I was with my grandmother.

I am struggling with a good deal of guilt, because I was also too busy to make the trip to see her much or even at all. I saw her at my wedding in Sept. and again at Easter, but nothing since then. I had a wedding picture blown up to mail to her, but kept putting off getting a frame for it and getting it mailed - now it is too late.

I am thankful that my family is so close and not at all the type to fight over her possessions or blame each other. We are tight and stand together to hold each other up in tough times. We all have our own faults, but when push comes to shove, we unite.

My heart is broken and I have sobbed and sobbed while typing - I don't know how I am going to get through the next week.

Family, The Ties That Bind And Gag!

This week has been very emotional for me. It seems that each one of my family members is going through something tough and have come to me as a sounding board, or venting vehicle. I love being there for my family, but to have all of them leaning on me at once is hurting my back :) I can't fix any of their issues and that is really hard for me. I want to help, I want to take their various pains away and I can't.

My husband tries to help me by advising that I should not allow the family to "dump their baggage on me" and I know that he is trying to look out for my best interest and is unhappy with my depressed state, but listening seems to be the only thing I can do to help my family. I can't and won't turn someone away when I can help them, even if it is only by listening. I normally love to hear from my family and discuss the things that are bothering them and helping them talk out solutions. It just all hit at once yesterday.

I was so drained that I just wanted to crawl under the covers and sleep - but I didn't! I went to the gym! I worked out for an hour! I did 30 minutes on the Arc Trainer (Which I totally love BTW!) and then upper body weights. I listened to some kick ass music and got sweaty! I did feel better while working out, got out of my head! I was still emotionally drained however, and did not eat well last night. I have mostly only good foods in my house, but the ease of obtaining crap food is way too easy. I think that I am going to talk to my husband about helping keep me from cheating whenever possible.

I have also come to a new body image idea, which I think is healthy. I am planning on getting pregnant as soon as possible. This means that my body is going to be getting bigger, not smaller. I need to appreciate the body that I have now, and understand that I may never look this good again. I may someday be totally excited about being small enough to fit into the "fat" clothes I wear now. I need to focus on being healthy, and if some weight comes off - great! If not, that's fine too.

The only important thing is being a healthy vessel for growing a new life. If I focus on the baby and wanting to be a good mother then I need to focus on eating the foods that are going to help me be the healthiest I can be. When I start thinking about eating something bad for me, I have to think about the baby. This way, once I actually get pregnant and start craving ice cream all the time - I can give in to those cravings some knowing that I have established good habits for 95% of the time!

Updates

OK, so my last post was very depressing, and that day ended up getting worse before it got better. I will try to sum up...

My brother was in a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago and we needed to go to a follow up doctor appointment. I was going to take him, but Mom wanted to. She calls me to tell me that the doctor would not see him because he could not pay for the visit. Long story shorter, I ended up haling ass over there to pay so he could be seen. This ended up being a really good thing as the doctor was really concerned about the swelling in his knees. I was really upset at my mom for not thinking to call me or otherwise come up with the $60 needed to get him seen.

I then went to lunch with dear Sassy who let me vent about everything and gave me some really good advice and after lunch I felt a ton better about everything!

That evening my husband and I reconnected (hint, hint) and it really helped to make us closer and happier. I guess that making time to be with each other is a really important thing, not just to help make a baby, but to keep our marriage working! I vowed to make sure that we make more time for each other more often from now on!

I have been doing really well on my plans for diet and exercise! I have been to gym twice this week and am going again after work today. I have stuck to my eating goals with only one slip up this week (OK I know it is only Wednesday, but whatever!) I had some apple crisp topping as a late night snack, but I was able to stop myself before eating all the topping off the entire pan! Score!

I did wake up this morning to proof that I am not going to be pregnant this month, so last nights little sugar attack may have had something to do with PMS or something.

OK, I think that is everything important since my last post, basically, while I am still not pregnant, I am focused on eating well, exercising, and spending quality time with my husband. I want to make sure that my body is ready and my marriage is strong, so each month that passes without getting pregnant is just one more month for my body to get healthier!

Depressed

I am struggling with a major bad mood today. I got upset last night and even though we did not go to bed mad at each other, I woke up in a funk. I am angry and irritable and totally on edge.

Let's start with last night - as you know my husband and I have been having the baby talks and decided to start trying. Well, in the last 3 months of "trying" we have had sex a total of 3 times! Suddenly all the passion has left! When I try to initiate I get turned down because the news is coming on or whatever. We talked last night and feels like the only times I want to have sex is when my temperature indicates that I am "optimal" and I feel very unattractive and unsexy when I get turned down. We talked about everything and laid everything out and basically, he does not want the baby making thing to become a scheduled program where we have to "perform" - I totally understand this and agree in theory.

My problem is that I can't seem to make him understand that this trying to have a baby could take a really long time. He kept saying "we have the rest of our lives..." We don't! I do not want to be on the high risk list and be forced to do all the prenatal testing that is dangerous and if you refuse your insurance may not cover you. I need to be pregnant by the time I am 34 to avoid that. I would like to have more than 1 child, and if I am going to achieve both multiple kids and stay off the high risk list we need to get pregnant like now!

OK, I know that I am a planner, and anal retentive, and all that - but facts are facts - 35 = older mother = high risk

The most frustrating thing for me is that I can't plan it out and make it happen. This is how I approach everything in my life and I can't just "relax, go with the flow" if I had done that, we would not be married and not have our house.

I am angry that I can't make him understand. I am angry that he wants me to stop talking about it when it is the only thing on my mind...ever.... I am angry that I am not able to let this go and put my marriage above my need to get what I want. I am so angry....

I have totally blown my diet this weekend and into this week. I am angry and depressed so I want to "punish" myself by eating crap - I am not even really enjoying the experience. If would be different, if it was a splurge that really meant something, but the new hash browns from Dunkin Donuts are not that good.

I am mad at my husband, I am mad at myself and I am mad at the whole baby situation! I know that when I was late last month he was really excited that we might have been pregnant, so why doesn't he want to take steps to ensure that we have the best chance possible?

Maybe this is just PMS and I will be fine in a few days.... of course that will mean another month closer to the high risk list.