36

For some strange reason, the stars are aligning and making me consider the number 36. M's father was 36 when he died. Today, Aug 31st, is the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana's death in 1997. She was 36. I happen to be simultaneously DVR'ing a show on Princess Diana and a cheesy movie about a girl who finds herself in her 30s. We are also about to embark on our trip to commemorate M's father, J, to Canada on our trip and I am thinking about a special gift to leave at J's gravesite. Not to mention that both M and I are in our early 30s. So I'm thinking a lot about the number 36.

When J was 36 he had a 10 year old son. M and I have been together, collectively, for over 14 years. We could easily have a 10 year old child. But for many reasons, that was never in the cards. And now, post-miscarriage of course, I'm wondering why. Rationally... intellectually there are tons of reasons why. M was in flight school, then flying for the airlines, then I went to law school and did the big law firm gig for awhile. Then I switched careers. And all of a sudden here we are... in our 30s. Where did the time go?! Sure, we've moved 12 times in our 7 years of marriage (11 moves in the first 5 years). We were busy. But were we really too busy?

Don't get me wrong, I don't regret a single thing M and I have done in our lives together. We've travelled all over the world. We've seen and done things lots of folks our age aren't normally able to do. And we've created an incredible bond that is literally unbreakable. We've both come to realize that this miscarriage is part of the tapestry of our marriage, it always will be. But when you take time... give pause to think about where you will be in a few years... versus where your parents were at your own age. It does make you wonder.

J was incredibly, and I mean *incredibly*, mature and responsible for his age. J left his 10 year old son with life insurance and an inheritance sufficient for M to pursue higher education, private for the most part, post-mortem. He left him with a strong memory and an even stronger set of morals and values than I have (and both of my parents are still alive). When M recants stories of what his dad did, on VERY little sleep for the 10 years they were together, as a single parent no less, I am seriously awed by it. J instilled in M the kind of strength, maturity and character I measure every man, every human, against. (which is why I could never find another man as amazing as M, truly) It's really incredible what he did from the time he was 26 until he died. And M remembers every moment with unbelievable clarity.

I don't really know what the point of this post is. All I know is that I strive to be the kind of person, and parent, J was. And the funny thing is... I never met him. But to leave the kind of legacy that he did when he was only 36 years old is a feat I can't even fathom. I can only honour it and hope that my kids say the same thing about me when they're 36.

One more week

I could blame it on the pregnancy, but really it's not about that. For the past month or so, I've been feeling really burned out at work. I've only been at this job for 13 months, so it's not really justifiable in the length sense. But for some reason (and I never thought I'd feel like this) I don't feel like I'm ever really challenged at this job. Sure, getting the work done is time consuming, but it never stretches my brain the way that the practice of law used to. On the other hand, I used to hate that I was so mentally exhausted by work, in addition to the long hours. So I can't tell which is worse. All I know is that I have one more week, really 4 more days of work plus an extra day, before I can get away from it all for at least one week.
M & I are spending a week in Canada visiting family, his father's grave in WAY northern Ontario (like 6.5 hours north of Toronto, no joke), and surprising his grandmother on her 80th birthday. We'll be all over the place from Toronto and northern Ontario to way out east in Halifax (Nova Scotia)... and it'll be hectic. But I'm so looking forward to it. One whole week of being away from reminders of the miscarriage, of not doing chores around the house, about not worrying about what's for dinner or taking the garbage out or the stack of dishes I hate to do during the week when M is gone on a trip. A whole week of semi-vacation. (It's not really vacation unless we go somewhere of our choosing like Greece or Thailand or something... family visits don't count :-)
Hopefully when we return, I'll be rested and ready to tackle the insanity that Fall always brings in this job. Hopefully I'll give two shits about my numbers, performance measures and revenue.

5 more days.....

Duck Duck Goose!

I completely underestimated the effects this miscarriage would have on me. Last weekend we were socially busy, which was a great distraction. And only that, a distraction. Because once the hum-drum of the work week began, and M went to work, a fog of suckiness set in. It's kind of like a game of duck-duck-goose (or whatever the real name for that game is) in that you never know which days are going to suck. This week, it was Monday and Wednesday. So far Tuesday (my normal busy day with clients) went well and Thursday is starting off much better.
I'm trying a few things to lift my moods when they come--wine (definitely a winner), runs (not so much, surprisingly) and complaining to M (also not a winner).
Complaining to M is one of those things that's hard because on the one hand, I should be able to moan, groan, cry and complain to him (particularly about this). But since he's dealing/grieving this situation a lot differently than me, it tends to have the opposite effect, I get angry and/or resentful of his seemingly zen & 'it wasn't meant to be' attitude.

FYI: if you ever have to comfort someone going through this, the " there's a reason for everything" conversation is one you probably don't need to have. Intellect and rational understanding have nothing to do with this experience, so applying it doesn't make anyone feel any better. For good measure, neither does "well, you can always have more kids" one.

Anywhoo. Today is a goose day and I'm going to take advantage by actually getting some work done, spinning, cleaning up around the house and generally trying to be a productive person today. Never know if tomorrow is going to be a duck day.

Compassion

One of the other wierd side effects this experience has had on me is this: People experience loss and tragedy every single day. (yes, even in this country) They still have to get up, go to work, buy groceries, get gas and if they can, do something outdoors once in awhile if they're up to it. I presume that I see these people all the time. People also piss me off all the time. Perhaps I have encountered one of these people and they pissed me off (ie, cut me off in traffic, rammed me with their grocery cart, stole my treadmill even though I was obviously waiting there first, didn't flush in a public restroom). You get my drift.


I have been absent minded, a little bit at least, this past week. I probably pissed some people off as well. I'm sure I stole a parking spot, or didn't use my blinker, or generally wasn't a good citizen in the world. I may have cussed in front of someone else's small children (most likely). So next time these people happen to me, I'm going to try to remember all of this and be more compassionate. And I hope that they will return the favor.

Life really does go on

Every time I hear that phrase,"life goes on," I can't help but think of the old show from the 80's (and BT who was incessantly told she looked like Rebecca from that show, because she did!) and the theme song from the show. Good times.

As of late, I've been thinking about it more though. It's really wierd how quickly life does go on when something like this happens. And it's truly amazing how resilient we, as people in general, really are. It's also really wierd how easy and fast we can resume our normal lives after experiencing such a terrible loss. In fact, M and I have been told more than a few times by our wonderful friends and even our family that they are impressed with how we have handled this. But when I think about it, what other choice do we have? I mean, I guess we could have crawled into the proverbial hole and waited for the light of day (or another pregnancy) to bless us and make us feel better. But we aren't like that so we have no choice but to pick ourselves up, try to remind ourselves that we were lucky enough to conceive at all, be with people who make us laugh and think good thoughts about the future when I can (fingers crossed) get pregnant again.

The hardest things, at this point, are the constant reminders. As you would imagine, we see a lot more pregnant women (is *everyone* preggers right now or what?!), crazy numbers of people pushing strollers and moms lunching (ok, we were in Burlingame on a Thursday morning, but still). And those times are the ones that sting right now. I'm kinda hoping it'll be like a broken bone, eventually the bone will set, and any future pain will really be ghost pains. Reminders of what used to be broken but has since healed and is completely functional again. I haven't lost a parent or grandparent or even a loved one before, so I don't know what it feels like. But I imagine that it is similar in that after the inital shock and grief, the reminders feel like little earthquakes. You never know when one is going to strike, but it does, it sucks, and all you can do is try to keep moving forward.

Sometimes your luck runs out

When I started this blog, I did say it would be no holds barred. So here we go.

When one is lucky enough to become pregnant without really trying and when one is lucky enough to be blessed with a life situation that can accomodate a new baby and a partner who is over the moon about the pregnancy, one may be surprised when one's luck runs out. As did mine this week. M & I were *so* excited for my first prenatal appointment on Monday, we had literally waited with bated breath for 4 weeks for this appointment so we could FINALLY share the good news with the world.

Now, they made sure we understood that we may *not* hear a heartbeat because it's so early, so when we didn't, we weren't too worried. But accompanied by my reduced pregnancy symptoms, my providers felt we had enough justification to order a pre-14 week ultrasound. You can see where this story went.

Needless to say, this week has been one of the toughest of our married life. Not passing the bar the first time--disappointing definitely. Not getting job after job when M is certainly an overly-qualified candidate, if not the most--horribly unfair. But losing our first chance at a baby, along with our hopes, dreams and plans for our life with this baby, is by far the most difficult thing we have had to deal with. Thankfully, M and I have created an incredible internal support system throughout our 14 years together. We don't necessarily rely on our family for advice, support or substantive help in situations like this. We ARE each other's family. So I don't doubt for a minute that we'll make it through this. And we are. But it still REALLY SUCKS.

For now we are comforting ourselves with the knowledge that we have been able to conceive, quite easily so far, and we know for sure now that we want a baby. I'm also happy to report that I've enjoyed a few glasses of delicious wine and they have been immensely helpful. :-) Lastly, having a very close couple who have gone through this same thing exactly 7 weeks prior has been a godsend. No one can really understand what this feels like, especially as a woman, unless you have experienced it first hand. So a million thank you's to our good friends, every last one of them.

I guess the title of this blog still applies. We were almost a party of three. For now though, we remain a party of two, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Drinks for everyone!

The one thing I've noticed since becoming pregnant is how engrained drinking is in our social lives. I don't mean drinking in the college-chug-a-bunch-of beers-and-do-shots kinda way. I mean, drinking wine at barbeques with friends, lingering over dinner and a nice bottle of wine with your S.O., going winetasting on sunny summer weekends. It almost sounds too Gatsby-ish, but it's kinda true in this town. Almost every social event we normally attend includes, centrally most of the time, some kind of wine drinking. So when you can't drink anymore, it really changes both your social life and your experience of your former social self. Very bizarre.

Since I've been lucky enough not to experience any 'morning' sickness, I still really want to drink and it totally sucks because I really really can't. Over the last few weeks, M and I have been a bit MIA socially. At first we worried about how we'd "cover" for me not drinking without having to tell people that I'm preggers. But we've actually lucked out because a couple of our social engagements have (miraculously) not had wine as the focal point and most of our big wine-centric events were pre-conception (or right after, but before I knew of course). However, now that we are re-emerging a bit, but still haven't told people, manuevering around the non-drinking thing has become quite bothersome, mostly because I still want to drink! I can sniff someone else's wine and maybe have a taste... but damn.. that's almost worse.

At one of the more recent social events, a clam bake at a yacht club (and I only mention those two things because they are both major drinking events & places in my experience), I also got to see what I'm like without a few in me. I gotta say, I think the experience for both me and our friends was quite different. In fact, B's husband even said to us all, "it's too bad your funnest friend is pregnant!" Hm. At first I was like, ok, that's kind of a compliment. But it also made me feel like I'm less fun now that I can't drink. Even though B & F, as well as M all drank, and I'm sure they enjoyed the evening just fine, I couldn't help but wonder whether I really am less fun when I can't drink.

So after chatting about it with M, I've decided that I (and by default he) are going to start branching out and doing things we haven't normally done so much in the past that are [1] fun and [2] don't focus on drinking. Cuz I gotta say, being around a bunch of folks who can and are drinking, when you can't.... ain't so much fun. We're hoping that by fronting the movement our friends will start joining in. We'll see though.

My other thought as of late is that I wish I had a girlfriend going through this same thing with me. Not like in a "misery loves company" kinda way... but rather to be around someone who wants to do the same kinds of things and will start experiencing these radical changes at the same-ish time. Once I started thinking about it, I don't really have many friends who even have kids (I can count 3, but 2 live very far away and all 3 have tons of friends who have kids), let alone who are particularly close to being pregnant right now. So it's a bit lonely here in Bun-in-the-oven-ville.

Not to be a total downer! This is a great thing to be doing and I'm super excited that we'll have a new family member (homegrown nonetheless) here in 7-ish months. All very cool. But sometimes being a cool kid isn't all that.

How are you feeling?

If you are, or have been, pregnant I don't have to tell you the question you get most often when you're new to this is "how are you feeling?" These well-intended folks probably don't know what might fly out of your mouth at any given time (not literally, puh-leeze), especially if you're me.

In the first 3 weeks (after I found out) I had nothing exciting to report. I really felt normal except that I was super tired. The last couple weeks, however, have been a bit wierd.

In addition to being really tired most of the day, most of the foods I used to love (fresh salads, veggies, even wine) sound horrible. In fact, I made spinach salads for the both of us a couple weekends ago and gagged after the first bite. I made M finish both of them and I had to leave the table because the smell of spinach grossed me out.

I swear this isn't me not being on a diet (for once in my life)... but I absolutely love the following things that I never used to eat with any consistency: sourdough bread, grilled cheese sandwiches (on sourdough bread of course) with tomato soup (it's August people!), apple juice--gallons of apple juice, french fries, oatmeal and hard-boiled eggs. I swear, hard-boiled eggs have never tasted so good to me.

Why can't I be one of those girls who craves bags and bags of oranges? Or cantaloupe? Or flats of strawberries? Why does this baby want nothing but simple carbs and fat? Even protein sounds nasty most days. I used to love grilled shrimp or a boca burger. Gross.

All in all, I guess I should consider myself very lucky (hm, guess the name now means something other than the girl who used to read Lucky). I haven't had serious morning sickness. No vomiting here at all. Just some days of feeling like absolute crap. I told my M, who was on the phone with his mum at the time, that I felt like I ate a can of bad tuna. I don't even know what that means (and niether did he nor my mother-in-law)... but apparently that also goes with the turf (pregnant lady is insane).

After all is said and done, in the 4 weeks I've known I am pregnant I have already gained 4 lbs. Average for the first trimester is 2-5. Sweet. I've got 3 more weeks to go and 1 more lb to spare. :-)
Cheers! (Wine for you, apple juice for me)

Being conservative?

So, once one finds out one is pregnant (and it's good news) the natural reaction is to want to share the good news with those close to you. In all other instances in life, I tend to be liberal-- (formerly) with my wine intake during a Saturday night dinner with close friends, with my spending on vacation and not to mention my political and social viewpoints. So, to be called "conservative" on my first decision during this pregnancy is quite odd. But apparently true. When I found out I was pregnant (and overcame the shock of "how did this happen? I know how it happened, but how did this happen?") and told M (who was equally shocked)... we decided to wait the prescribed 12 weeks to tell people.

As it turns out, I'm a pretty bad secret keeper. No shock there. But when a close friend said, "I completely understand you wanting to wait. It's the conservative thing to do," I was a bit taken aback. Never having been associated with the conservative side of things, it's definitely wierd. But I guess I am in this case. And I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. Although the odds of a healthy, 30-ish woman of carrying a first child to term tend to be in my favor, I am very aware of the other possibility.

These notions aside, we (I cringe to say "we" here, but it is a "we" situation) are both extremely happy with our little surprise. Big surprise. Here's to hoping the next 7 1/2 months go well and in the Spring of 2008 we'll have good news to report!