Happy New Year!!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!!

I hope this is going to be a great prosperous year for many! I hope that this will be the year I finally have a baby along with many other of my infertile friends.

Tonight I'm just staying home and off the roads. I've got myself a pizza and some movies, not to mention the 20 some blankets I have in the works and I have no plans to go anywhere. I am sort of thinking of going to the beach tomorrow though. Money as usual is a bit short but I really want to go. I haven't been to the beach in a while and something about spending the first day of the new year walking in the surf is appealing. It's also supposed to be nice there tomorrow. I hope everyone has a fun safe and happy holiday.

My Cat Is Strange

So I'm sitting here in my bedroom taking a break from sewing and checking in on blogland and I hear noises from the living room that indicates that the cat is after the thread on my machine again. Don't ask me why cats want to eat thread, I don't understand myself. So I go out to the living room and she has pulled the thread out of the needle on the machine and has grabbed the end and strung it all the way around the living room. The last 2 feet of it were wet where she had been chewing on it (ewwww!) . Goofy cat.

I'm still hanging in here. Sinuses are still sore although better than they were Friday and Saturday. I'm also coughing now which is a pain in the ass and throat. Two more days of work and then I have another 3 days off. Thank goodness.

Dare I Say I'm Feeling Better?

I am. Of course 12 hours ago I was still feeling pretty freaking miserable and some tyeln0l c0ld and sinus and some advil hadn't helped much. So as much as I don't want to take any unnecessary medications I put on enough clothes to be considered decent (although it turned out not particularly clean as I noticed stains down the front of my shirt later) and headed off to the local urgent care. Some antibiotics and a shot of steroids in the ass to decrease the inflammation in my sinuses and so very slowly I feel as if I'm feeling better. I think. Of course the antibiotics were an arm and a leg but Target was wonderful and gave me $20 in gift cards for filling my prescriptions there (where I had filled them before but not recently) which covered about half of my after Christmas specials. Or maybe it was a third. At any rate I'm hoping by the time I head back to work on Monday I'll be all better.

I've also managed to get mostly all caught up on my reader. I only have 19 things left there, 17 of which are Mel's and 2 of which belong to this fabulous blog by another RN who posts things that make me laugh about the crazy life of being a nurse. Her blog unfortunately though went password protect sometime in the last week or so and I can't get to it anymore. Darn it. If she doesn't come back I'm going to miss that one.

Still Sick

Yes the cold or whatever hit fully on Thursday. Last night I was certain it was turning into a sinus infection but today it feels a little better so maybe not. I still have a headache though which is annoying me. Neither the cold medication or the advil I'm taking is helping much. Other than feeling like crap though I had a mostly good day yesterday. I got a lot of sewing done which is nice. I'm hoping to finish up 7-10 of my blankets this weekend. I made myself (haha) a nice dinner last night. I had a h0ney*baked turkey breast (which I put in the oven to warm), mashed potatoes (premade at the grocery store) and gravy (from a jar), and yams which were the only thing I really cooked but they were yummy. I just boiled them then mashed with butter and sprinkled some brown sugar on top, pecans and a few marshmallows and stuck them in the toaster oven for a bit. So even though my dinner was mostly premade I'm not particularly picky about that stuff so I didn't mind. It was all pretty darn good. And I've got left overs. Yummy.

Today I am going to go to a movie with a friend I think and then work some more on my sewing. I will post pictures of the blankets when they are done.

Merry Christmas!

So I got my extra day off today which is oh so nice. I also got off work early yesterday as it was totally dead after about noon. I went and got myself a H0ney*baked turkey breast and am having that tomorrow. I've got lots of sewing to do this weekend. It's nice and sunny out and I'm just loving it. Of course there is a bit of a glitch to my long weekend. Seems like it always happens. I started getting sick last night. One of the guys I work with has been sick all the last week and last night I started getting sniffles. Today it feels like my sinuses are going to explode. I just took some medicine and I'm going to lay down and sleep for a bit and hope I feel better later. Damn germs.

Hate It When That Happens

Over sleeping that is. Seems to set the whole day off balance a bit. I was up late last night as I couldn't sleep and wasn't tired. I knew I would pay for it today since I had a doctors appointment early this morning at 8:15 but I set the alarm for nice and early at 6:30. Turns out I had one of those moments (that in a few more years I can start referring to as senior moments) where I forgot the basic function of an alarm clock. That part that you can set the damn clock for whatever time you want but if you fail to turn on the alarm part it just doesn't work right. So I woke with that feeling of doom for having slept too long. Sure enough, it was 7:50. Amazing part? I still made it to my Doctors office at 8:15. I wasn't early at all and my BP was up a little since I had been in such a frenzy. I pulled my hair up, dressed and ran out the door. I ended up putting on make up at work when I got there. But I got there. I have new prescriptions to go back to my pregnancy friendly BP medication and to wean myself off of the chronic pain medication I take (not looking forward to that one). Down side was that I've gained some of the weight I had lost back. I knew all that candy last week was my undoing. I do still have time though between now and 2/23 to get myself back on track and hopefully lose at least another 10 pounds. Trying to have lots of activities that don't require me eating. Or aren't easy to eat and do. I spent yesterday ironing and cutting the fabric for more blankets. I've got enough fabric for 10 of the receiving blankets I make all cut and ready to go. That will be this weekends project.

Now to go work on finding a nice healthy dinner for tonight.

What A Day

I had an absolutely fabulous day today! The clouds/fog finally cleared off mostly today and it was so nice to see the sun. I took a drive out of Fresno to a near by lake which was a nice drive. Nothing much to do there other than walk which I did a bit of. I had went in hopes of seeing eagles as I've heard on the radio that you can sometimes see them there. I didn't see any but it was still nice to get out and then go for a walk in the sun. Then on the way back I stopped in the little down town area that's really close to where I'm living and did some exploring there. I found a J*im Sh0re Santa that I want really bad. No, I don't need it. Anyways walked around there some and then went and got a massage. It maybe wasn't the best one I've ever had but it wasn't the worse either and I'm hoping it will be just what I needed to get rid of the knot in my back between my shoulder blades that keeps spasming. I've also managed today to finally pretty much get rid of all the candy stuff in my house. And no we won't discuss how I managed that. We'll just say that I'm not feeling so hot right now and I need to remember this next week when I'm craving some sort of sugar. I also have a short week coming up. I get Christmas off and word is that we all might get Christmas Eve off too as we have no appointments scheduled for Thursday right now and if don't have anyone coming in we may as well take the day off. That would be so nice to have a 4 day weekend. I bet I could get a lot of sewing done then.

Now I'm off to bed. Maybe tomorrow I'll clean house. Or maybe not.

Weekend For Relaxing

I have almost nothing I "have" to do this weekend and I'm so freaking excited about that. I could do a bit more making things (although I really shouldn't) but I have not much I have to do. So I'm going to just relax some and try to stay away from the stores which should be mostly easy since I have no money.

The tree appears to be gone for good. I have walked all through my apartment complex and seen not a trace either than the one piece I found. Who knows but whoever it was is pretty much pond scum.

So I had been doing pretty darn good on my diet. Then I went home for thanksgiving and it was a bit harder after I got back (even though I did good while I was home). Now I'm pretty much failing miserably. Yesterday and today was a complete candy fest. The thing that I really need to remember though is that I really don't feel very good. I've eaten so much sugar and I just feel yucky. So I really need to start working on my eating habits again.

I also finally have some additional information on the FET. I got an e-mail yesterday that had a very short profile of the person who produced the eggs and sperm for the donor embryos. It doesn't give me age etc, basically hair color, eye color, occupation and a small amount of family medical history. Part of me wishes I had a little more but the reality is that even if I did it likely wouldn't change my mind on going through with this. The really good news?? I have 7 embryos. 7. I'm beyond excited. The FET is a little farther out than I thought it would be but that's ok. They have it schedule for 2/23 right now. I'm thinking I will likely take the whole week off work and just try to relax some. It will be interesting to not be in the middle of a move or some sort of big upheaval for this. Both my IVF's I was moving around the time of transfer. It's getting hard to keep this quiet. I want to jump up and down and tell everyone I'm so excited. Trying though to just keep my mouth shut.

I Hate Thieves

So last night sometime between when I went to bed around 10pm and this morning when I left for work 9am, some fucker stole my lighted wire Christmas tree from in front of my house. This seriously pisses me off. I found the stake that holds it in the ground just down the parking lot from where my apartment is and I'm willing to place money on the idea that it's someone who lives right here in this area and who saw it. Nice thing is that no one else's decorations seems to have been bothered. While I'm happy for them it makes me feel even more upset that why did they take mine and leave everyone else's alone. I'm glad I never put Frosty outside. Assholes.

Christmas Parties

Tis that time of year that every day is like a party. Every day someone at work has goodies to share. I love it too. Munchies every day. It's funny though how a few days after Christmas there are no more goodies and how shocking this usually is. I always have this crazy feeling of where's the good stuff a few days after Christmas. Granted I can definitely do without. In the last few days I've made fudge, peanut brittle, peanut butter snow balls, jello salad, and short bread. While I'm still not eating nearly as much as I usually do I'm still eating more of it than I need to. Enough so that I'm afraid to get on the scale. Of course AF showed up on Monday so there is no way I'm getting on the scale to see how much more I gained for that. I was down last week though to a weight I hadn't seen in quite a while. Bummer that I'm probably back up above that. At least I'm still exercising somewhat regularly.

It's kind of nice at work too as it's slowed down some. Makes it a little nicer. I got to leave early yesterday which was really nice. Of course there is as always the fun stuff. I was going through a chart today for a patient that is having a procedure done next week and trying to see what labs etc had already been done. I found a dictation that HAD to have come from a resident, likely a first year resident. First it described the patient (92 year old, alert and oriented and so on) and then was discussing what the problem was. The doc then says he also discussed with the patient that the problem could possibly be that she has cystic fibrosis although that is something that would have likely been diagnosed earlier in life. You think??? Really??? I laughed so hard at that. Some of these doctors seriously crack me up.

Not really much else going on. Kind of a slow week. I'm hoping too for a slow weekend. Where maybe I can get my sewing out and work on it for a bit.

Christmas Baking

So this year I started getting out all my recipes I love to make and decided to do some baking. Or maybe I should say cooking because much of what I love to make is candies that are more cooking than baking. At any rate it should be very yummy. I'm totally aware that I really don't need to be doing this but I don't care. I know I need to be careful about what I'm eating and all that and I'm working on it. But it's important to me to be able to make all this stuff. Yes I love it and yes I am going to eat some of it. I'm also planning on taking some of it to work to share though too so I'm not going to be eating all of it. Little steps. I'm still working on watching what I eat most all of the time. Yesterday was a bit of an exception. I went to a Christmas party at a coworkers house yesterday and had a great time. Fabulous. The food was amazing. I had no idea H0ney*baked had such good ham and turkey. I may have to get myself one. Maybe for Christmas. I love Ham but I hate buying a whole one. I end up eating a bunch of it and then put the rest in the freezer where it stays about 6 months or so and then gets thrown out. Maybe I need to buy me one and take what I want and then give the rest away to someone else. At any rate I ate more than I needed to yesterday. It was all really good though. Now today cooking. Yes I went and worked out this morning. I'm still losing weight (slowly though) so I must not be doing too badly. I can't believe Christmas is almost here. I still have some things to do too. And things to ship. I suppose I should get busy again.

Further Thoughts On The Book Tour

I wanted to thank all those who came to visit yesterday from the "Primal Wound" book tour. All your comments and visiting other blogs has been a great experience. It helped very much to read other peoples perspectives on the book and helped me to gain some perspective myself. With reading the book I sort of got so overwhelmed by many of the feelings it brought out that all I could see was the perspective of the author. It was helpful to see many others perspectives too. I am more able to look at the situation as a whole. Yes, I have issues, baggage, whatever the hell you want to call it. I have difficulties in liking myself, low self esteem, and problems trusting others among others. Did the fact that I'm adopted possibly or probably contribute to this? Yes. Is it the only thing that caused it? Hell no. I can see again that I still believe that who I am is related to many different things that have happened during my life. Adoption, the nurturing parents I did have, the crazy ass religion I was taught to believe and all of the really kooky things my mom did in an effort to teach me those things, the fact that when I left the religion my adoptive mom left me. All of it has affected me. So just as I don't think that it's all my mom's fault it's not all the fault of adoption. I also think that in many ways it's also up to me. The more I understand the process behind my wounds the more that I will hopefully be able to address those wounds and heal them. As far as my mom? I know in my heart that when I was a child she did the best she could with what she had. There is still a couple of things that I would look at her today and say "You were wrong to tell me this..." but outside of those things (religion related) I had a mostly good childhood and a far better childhood than many. Things my mom has done since I've been an adult? I'm not quite as ready to dismiss. I struggle with the fact that I know she truly believes that she is doing the right thing and yet know how much she has hurt me so many times and I truly don't know if we will ever be able to go back to a place where we have a good relationship. To some extent I see some of those things as sort of unforgivable. When you decide to have children, no matter what path you choose, you are saying you will love them unconditionally. I haven't felt loved unconditionally for a long time by her. I think she was wrong. While I can maybe see why she would react in the manner she has doesn't make it any more right. At any rate, I know that it is up to me as far as what I do with my life.

Book Tour

First of all I know that there are those who read my blog that have adopted or are trying to adopt and I would like to say that this post in no way is meant to offend or hurt anyones feelings. These are just my feelings that I'm just discovering and still trying to find my way around.

A little over a month ago I signed up to do a book tour that Lori had mentioned I think on her blog and also in some things she had written at the Examiner. I'm not even totally sure what motivated me to sign up for it as I don't usually do these and I almost never commit myself to reading a book that's non-fiction. For me reading is a fun past time and an escape and I've never been very good at getting into non-fiction books and having enough interest to continue reading them. For whatever reason though I decided to give it a go.

I didn't really know what the book was even about other than it had something to do with adoption. A Saturday trip to B&N and I had the book in my hands, ready to start reading. I stopped for a moment to look at the back cover and found myself thinking "Hmm. This doesn't sound like what I expected." From what I saw on the back cover I started reading this book with a preconceived idea that I wouldn't believe the premise that the author was trying to make. I mean really. I'm adopted. I'm an adult and while I'm far from a perfect example of a well rounded (unless you count my shape) individual I'm pretty much ok. I know that I have faults and fears and quirks and a while back I had decided to live with those faults, fears and quirks to the best of my ability whatever that entailed. Besides whatever problems I have were of course related more to my mom's strange ass religion and not because I was adopted. I don't remember ever feeling like I didn't fit in to my family because I was different. Yet after the first 10 or so pages I was intrigued. Still disbelieving but intrigued. By page 34 though I started getting uncomfortable. Because the first paragraph on that page described me and many personality traits that I have and have struggled with exactly. Through the rest of the book I've come across many other things that also have made me feel like there is definitely some merit to this idea. I've had a hard time with it though too. I've had a hard time with the fact that lately I feel even more "broken" that I usually do and sometimes it feels like I'm irreparably broken. Like how do I go back to fix that which happened almost 40 years ago. And I don't know. I've tried therapy before with a couple of different counselors and haven't had huge success with it. I never felt much better or more able to deal with things after the therapy. So basically I have to admit that I don't know the answer to the "What now?" question. I don't know what's next. It's given me a lot to think about though.

I received a little bit ago a list of questions to answer. I'll try to answer these to the best of my ability. I will say please forgive me for not getting out my college books to properly do all the quote stuff etc and I sure as heck don't remember all that stuff. I'll do the best I can though.

1. What 2 or 3 concepts in this book made you say, "Yes! That's my experience!" What others did not resonate?

The first concept that truly hit me was the one of the "False Self." This was described as "the children being people pleasers, constantly seeking approval. As children they were/are cooperative, polite, charming and good." While this section also talks about some adopted children feeling as if the baby they were died which I don't really feel like I relate to. I do however very much relate to the whole people pleasers thing.

Another concept that truly hit home for me was when the author was talking about adopted children being told they are special and chosen and that the child needs to then "be perfect to retain the love and acceptance of his parents." This I also relate to very much. I was told I was special, that I was chosen and how much I was wanted. Yes I've spent years and years of my life feeling like I wasn't good enough. I have in the past associated this with the religion I was raised in. I felt like I was a bad person because I wanted to do things that were bad according to the religion I was raised with. It never occurred to me that maybe I had already had this feeling of being "bad" and that the religion simply compounded a problem that was already there. I know that I truly have no self confidence and for the most part I can't even explain why.

2. Has being adopted/abandoned affected your past or present relationships (marriage, family, etc.) If so, how?

This is another one of those areas that I never before connected the "problem" to my being adopted but something that I can look at and see the possibility and if the sureness of being related. I'm not great at relationships. Of much of any kind. I frequently don't know how to interact with people on a regular basis. Most people who know me would have no idea that it's very difficult for me to reach out to others or to ask to be included. Asking for help from someone is pretty much a near impossibility. I have to be truly desperate to ask for help. Also when I have been "rejected" by someone while I am able on some level to forgive them, I am unable to trust and mostly unable to let them back in. This is likely evident in many relationships on some level or another but the two main and somewhat recent ones are with one of my cousins whom I used to be very close to but after a falling out a few years back I find it very difficult to allow her to get close to me. I very much keep her at a distance. It's the same with my adoptive mom whom rejected me (completely and on one occasion very publicly) based on my refusal to remain part of the religious group to which she belongs. I've talked to her a couple of times since then and while she has been mostly kind and even possibly tried to rebuild things I have been unable to participate and don't truly feel as if I can ever trust her again. The interesting thing is that she states I abandoned her when I left her religion. I am able to see a bit that her reaction to my leaving the religion may be related to being an adoptive parent and feeling rejected by me. I can see that but still don't know if I can make my way past it without a huge amount of work on her part.

3. To those who have adopted or are planning or hoping to adopt, does this change how you feel about adoption and how would you or will you deal with things in the future?

This was listed as a question for adoptive parents but it also asks about those hoping to adopt so I felt I wanted to answer or discuss this. I've looked at adoption as a back up plan for several years now. I even considered foreign adoption as a primary path to parenthood (at least until I figured out how much it cost). Reading this book has changed my feelings about how I may feel about adoption and I can no longer say that I'm fine with the idea of adopting. I won't say I would totally rule it out but I'm much more skeptical of it than I was before. I'm not saying that adoption is bad. I'm not saying that those who adopt or that those who decide for whatever reason to relinquish are bad. I'm just saying that this has given me a lot more to think about than just the quickest path to a baby. I feel very much that I need to understand myself better before I try adopting and maybe making things worse for not just me but a potentially fragile or wounded child.

So if you've made it this far, thanks for reading. Please also remember this is my feelings on the subject and not every one's feelings. To visit another stop on this tour check out the main list at the Examiner and see other peoples thoughts.

Wow, A Week Already

It's been almost a week since I've posted. Funny thing is that I've had lots going on in my mind but somewhat unsure of how to put it down.

Last weekend in midst of putting up the tree and all the Christmas lights I also got notification of a potential problem in relation to my house in Washington. The issue was dealt with by Sunday and it's fine but I left me very much with a lingering feeling of hopelessness. I know that with the house I'm walking a pretty fine line. If something major were to go wrong or need fixing I wouldn't have the money to fix it. Not and pay the house payment. Yes I have it rented but the rent doesn't cover the mortgage and because of IF (and my not so great spending habits) I don't have a savings and have several fairly significant bills that I'm paying on, ie: IVF numbers 1 and 2. So there's that constant state of anxiety that's associated with my house. Things going wrong are inevitable since it was built in 1955 and most everything is original. Then my brain started working on the fact that I'm planning on going out and spending more money for another possibility that may turn out to still not be enough. And the idea that I've spent the last 3 Christmas's and this year being the fourth obsessing over how to have a baby. To the point that I haven't really gotten to completely enjoy Christmas like I usually do while focusing on TTC. At any rate I spent the weekend and some of the week feeling a bit down. I'm doing better but I'm still working on working my way through it all. And trying not to think about how much I want to drown my sadness in cookies and Christmas candy. That of course has been a rough aspect too. I've had a lot of anger associated with the trying to eat healthy thing. Anger that I don't want to do this even if I know I have to, baby or no baby. I know it's all a work in progress but sometimes all the work of keeping myself together and sane is making me crazy.

Good news is that my tree and decorations look really good. I had a snowman that was supposed be an outdoor decoration. I've had him for 3 years and this is the first year I put him together. I actually tried to sell him a couple of months ago and I'm glad he didn't sell cause he's seriously very cute. So cute in fact that I couldn't stand to put him outside. So I have a 5 foot lighted snowman in my living room. He looks good there too.

TGIF

So glad it's Friday. I've been so busy since I got home Monday night. I didn't get home until late and had to work Tuesday and then Wednesday I had a cookie exchange party to go to. It's been busy at work too.

So much going on and so much on my mind. Work is still great. I've got a project (may have mentioned it before) that has sort of become mine since I'm trying to pick up some overtime for it. I don't mind that it's mine but it's still been a bit frustrating trying to figure out the process for it. Today I also had a big reminder that even though I'm not working on the floor anymore, I still have much I need to remember. Stuff I seem to have forgotten. Which left me very embarrassed when I had to call the physician's assistant for the 3rd time in about 3 hours for the same patient. Yes, next time I go to call someone I will look at all the of the labs etc before I page them. Funny how when we change environments we forget some of the basics just because we're not always having to be so super vigilant since most of our patients are reasonably stable. At least the PA was nice about it and even laughed when I told him he could come beat me with a wet noodle. Of course I've also gotten the laughable stuff this week too. I love how peoples perceptions are so vastly different sometimes. One guy when questioned about alcohol intake stated he didn't drink much. Only 3 32 oz beers a day. Dude, that is some serious drinking. Not much my ass. I also got the lady with chronic pain issues. As I've stated before I figure it's not my job to reform the addicts of the world and I do believe that even addicts have chronic pain problems. What I find myself wondering though is how they get all this stuff. I've got chronic pain and while I don't want all the narcotics etc I will also say that for all the times I went to the doctor for my pain and was never given much more than ibuprofen I can't figure out how these people get all these meds. I spoke with a lady who took multiple heavy duty meds on a daily basis. All I could think was holy shit I'd be dead if I took all that and how did she get all that prescribed. Crazy.

Now a weekend off to work on decorating for Christmas and getting festive. I better make my grocery list now and figure out what all I need for baking.