Throwing in the towel

This is not a pity post. I wrote that one a year ago . This is more of a sharing post. Let's share. I'll go first. We have 1 child, a son who turns 4 on March 1st. In the past 2 and a half years, I've had 4 miscarriages, 2 of them second trimester losses. After my first miscarriage, I was sort of a mess. I miscarried while my husband was in an entirely different state--Arkansas, to be exact, where he was getting us a house and moving our stuff into it in preparation for his year working as a law clerk. I had my D&C, took a day off to sleep, and the next day flew basically across the country to a town where I knew nobody except my son and my husband, and moved into a house that was only partially unpacked. I hate to move. I hate to unpack. And I hate, hate, HATE cockroaches, which are beyond abundant in the South. It was a hard week. As hard as it was, though, I did not consider myself changed much. Well, I guess any trial changes you, for better or for worse, but I still thought of myself as a bascially healthy person who had just had a minor setback. And after all, scratch the surface of any Relief Society, and you'll find a plethora of women who have had miscarriages. I felt like I had my turn, and once I pulled myself together and felt good again, I felt ready to put the incidence behind me, and get back to the business of building our family. Things continued to go contrary to my plan, however. I miscarried again while in Arkansas, and twice more once we moved to DC. After the second one, I had an inkling that this whole family thing wasn't going to be easy, and I felt myself sliding into a new category. I went from the "healthy, young, and fertile" category to the "she's having trouble" cateogry. I've been in the "she's having trouble" category for quite some time now, and ironically, I'm almost comfortable there. You get into the rythym of the doctor's appointments, the rounds of testing, and life somehow goes on. I did have to redefine some of my thoughts about family, and certainly our number goal dropped significantly, but I still never fully stepped into the "she can't ever have more children" category. That seemed far away, distant, different from where I was. I continued to believe that the next test would reveal the problem, my OB would hand me the magic cure, and we'd have that second baby, at the latest, by the time Jacob turned four. Jacob will be four on March 1. And that "she can't ever have more children" category just zoomed a lot closer. Again, in the interest of TMI, I won't go into all of my various medical issues, but I was told today that if I were to ever get pregnant again, there would be risks. High risks. The doctor who told me this is not an OB, but he did tell me that I needed to speak to my OB, sit down with her and discuss whether or not she thought a pregnancy was really a safe option. He did not say, "You can't ever have more children," but he did say, "It comes down to a risk/benefit analysis, and you need to understand that there will be some higher risks for you." Pregnancy--a risk/benefit analysis. Sounds almost like he was selling life insurance. So, I want to be done. I want so much to be done. I want to look at my perfect son, rejoice in his happiness, and say, "This is what we've got? Wow, thanks!" and move on. And go an entire month without seeing or talking to a doctor. Something won't let me, though. Call it my heart, call it my upbringing, call it a prompting, call it hoo-doo voo-doo, but I don't feel like we're done. And everybody who has gone through similar issues tells me "You'll know when you're done". I'm not closed to the idea of adoption. Not at all. So many members of my immediate and extended family are adopted, it's practically turning into a family tradition. For those of you who have adopted kids, how do you know when it's time to throw in the infertility towel and pursue other options? Short of your uterus falling out onto the pavement, how do you really know when your body can not possibly give you any more? I want to do what's right, and I'm learning to to give up, little by little and not without more than a little fight, my will to God's. I dunno--maybe the spirits that have been promised to our family just have some serious work to finish before they could come to earth, and I just have to have faith. I mean, hey, that's cool, but it sure would be nice to know if I should buy a bigger house.
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Good Mom, Bad mom

Sometimes I am a good mom. Really, I am. Other days, I kinda suck. And some days, it goes both ways. Yesterday, I took my kid to the grocery store and ordered a custom cake for his birthday, completely fitting with the "theme" he picked out months ago (what can I say, he likes to be prepared. No, he didn't get that from me.). Good mom. Today, I picked him up 20 minutes late from preschool because I was hurridly trying to finish things at work that should have been easier to get done. When I finally picked him up, Jacob clung to me and told me, "I was so worried about you." Bad mom. After we got home from preschool, we played a rousing game of dominos together, complete with explanations about numbers. Good mom. The dominos game was from Wendy's where we stopped after preschool because I didn't have time to eat lunch. Bad mom. I woke up early with him and read Spiderman in the newspaper with him. Good mom. I just plugged him into the TV to watch "Go Diego Go" while I blog. Bad mom. Sometimes I just feel a little schizophrenic. If you'll excuse me, I have to get some cookies out of the oven to feed to my son while I snuggle with him to watch the last part of Diego. Good mom. The cookies were frozen and came straight out of a package. Bad mom. (sigh)
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Martha Vs. Oprah

This was buried in the comments of the Oprah thread, and I think it deserves its own discussion. Kristine said... "Just out of curiosity--I'm interested in how y'all would compare Oprah and Martha Stewart. After all, Martha is the only human ever featured on her covers; she's pretty bossy about how people ought to live; her personal life is (ahem) far from admirable; she's at least as out of touch with actual people as Oprah, and yet I suspect a lot of Mormon women like and respect her. My hunch is that she is OK because she has (publicly, anyway) confined her preaching to an area in which Mormon women find it acceptable to excel, whereas Oprah has rejected those boundaries. (A disclaimer: I have no dog in this fight--don't own a TV, have only seen one episode of Oprah ever. I find her magazine more distracting than Vogue when I'm huffing through that last 20 minutes on the Stairmaster, but haven't ever subscribed. My involvement with Martha Stewart is limited to having once made a squash soup for Thanksgiving using a recipe someone clipped from her magazine for me.)" As usual, Kristine has brought up a great question. For me, I think that Mormon women revere Martha because she is a tangible example of somebody who had actually achieved what every Mormon housewife is striving for--domestic nirvana. Also, I think for those of us who like crafts, homemaking, etc, having a successful woman like Martha validates a lot. Oprah validates nothing, and sometimes even goes so far as to criticize and riducule certain lifestyle choices common for Mormon women. For the rest of us, however, who are craft challenged, nay, I would almost say craft disabled, Martha represents something far worse--a smack in the face and reminder of our failures. I don't like Martha. Can you tell? Still, I guess she does have some good recipes. You know, if you have terragon and majoram just hanging about the house. Any other thoughts?
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Save our kids from ourselves

A friend of mine threw a baby shower for another friend of mine recently. I volunteered to help with the prelimenaries--food prep, cleaning, etc. I went over to my friend's house, and was doing my duty when her husband walked in and tossed her some new dish towels. I was holding an old dish towel, and asked what was wrong with the one I had. It was perfectly fine, really. No holes, no stains, and it even had a pretty pattern. Ok, the color wasn't fantastic, but it's a dish rag, who cares? My friend explained that while she was getting ready for the shower, her husband had told her that those dish towels looked "ghetto", and that they needed new ones. So he literally went out and bought new dish towels that day that were white with a brown pattern. Yes, they looked nicer than the ones they had, but the ones they had were not bad. I certainly would not have described them as "ghetto". But, her husband was adament, so new ones they had. Sometime later, she explained the real reason her husband didn't like the dishtowels. Turns out, his mother wasn't much of a cook or a housekeeper. Her son's reaction is to overreact to anything that he feels isn't really nice in the kitchen, even when the things they have are perfectly passable. I said to my friend, "Wow, I'm never showing my dishrags to your husband ever again!" My dish rags, sadly, probably could be considered "ghetto", what with the stains, the holes, and the faded color patterns from being bleached too often. But my friend said that the concern doesn't carry over to other people's houses. He doesn't give a crap what my dish towels look like because they are not in his house, and he doesn't have to associate ownership with them. And that's good, because if a man judges me by the condition of my dish towels, we are all in serious trouble. But the point is that this person, who actually is a fairly nice, normal guy, has picked up some idiosyncratic habits because of the habits of his mother. He is in direct revolt of something she did, or a part of who she was. It's harmless, I guess, needing nice dish towels, but it is sort of an interesting obsession, don't you think? And of course, the whole episode got me thinking about what my own son will do in direct rebellion to how he grew up. Will he hate peanut butter and jelly because he eats it practically every day for lunch now? Will he demand to have his children have organized toys because his current play room is affectionately nicknamed "The Pit of Despair"? Will he obsess about always having clean socks because that is the one item of clothing his mother seems to have a hard time providing for him? And those are just material, temporal things. Are there more sinister, deeply hidden emotional issues that he will have to share with his therapist because I spanked him for climbing on the counter? It's scary, really, to think how we are shaping our children. I'd like to think that we are just sort of gatekeepers, that our job is to provide a base, a solid foundation for our children so they can climb to new heights without ever having to worry about what is underneath them. But then I meet somebody who can't handle having slightly faded green dishtowels and blames that on his mother, and suddenly my role in this whole parenting gig takes on a whole new meaning. And we work so hard to protect them from all of the evils and hurts of the world, but who's there protecting them from us? I suppose I have my own revolts, my own rebellion against my upbringing. They're not big rebellions, but they are there. I suppose everybody has them. I guess I just thought (or hoped) that when my son grows up, he will clearly think I am the most perfect mother ever. I mean, is that really too much to ask? On the off chance that he doesn't grow up and think I'm perfect, I guess I should at least make sure he has some nice dish towels.
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Surviving our greatest blessings

I need to give credit where credit is due (and possibly mandated by law!). The title of this post is from a talk given by Emily Watts, a mother and an editor for Deseret Book who often speaks at the popular "Time Out for Women" events around the country. She has written 2 books: _Being The Mom_, and _Take Two Chocolates and Call Me in the Morning_. I highly recommend both books. Anyway, she and I were chatting once about this talk she gives, called "Surviving your greatest blessings". I haven't actually heard the talk, but I'm sure it's fabulous. She says that two of our greatest blesssings are also two of our greatest challenges: our bodies and our children. We followed the Lord's plan to come here to earth to get a body, and yet so many of us struggle so much when it comes to bodies. And, of course, we all love our children and are grateful for them, but somedays you just need a break! So I've been thinking about that lately. I think originally Emily was talking about body image issues, how none of us are completely satisfied with the one that we got, but lately I'm thinking about it from a different angle. I've talked before about some health issues that I have had, and other administrators on this blog, as well as some of the commentors, have alluded to other serious health issues, too. Sounds like we are all sort of a sick bunch. And it's hard to be sick. It's hard to have a doctor tell you that your body is not functioning the way that it's supposed to. It's hard to realize that you can't do the things that other people can do, or have the things other people have. And it's hard to come to terms with a situation that you have really very little control over, either because God hasn't let you in on His plan, or your HMO gives you people like Dr. Ugly Teeth to work with. So in dealing with being sick, I'm trying to put it all in perspective, and try to understand what my Heavenly Father would have me do with it. And I think I have an answer. God wants, above all, me to rejoice. There are other things as well, but I think this is the key, the big one. So I'm going to rejoice. I can poop and pee without pain--REJOICE! I can brush my hair without it falling out--REJOICE! I can walk up the stairs in my house--REJOICE! I can eat solid food--REJOICE! I can brush my own teeth--REJOICE! I can put on my own pants and tie my own shoes--REJOICE! I can lick chocolate icing off my cheek when I'm stuffing chocolate cake in my mouth--REJOICE! The list can go on, and making a list like that makes me feel like my body may be in pretty good shape, especially since I know people who CAN'T do the things I just listed. So it may be simple and silly and sound sort of like a primary lesson, but I think the answer to surviving our greatest blessings is to rejoice in them. Completely. Always. Now, if I could just remember that the next time Jacob colors on the walls.... Hey, he's artistic--REJOICE!
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Please don't waste my time or my Copay

I went to the doctor yesterday. I do that. A lot. Especially lately, but I won't get into that in the interest of TMI. Let's just say that I had to see my OB/GYN about some unexplained, mysterious womanly events that sort of freaked me out. I called my HMO for an appointment, only to be told that my previous doctor moved to another facility, and she didn't have an appointment available that day. The only doctor who could see me that same day was Dr. Ugly Teeth. Hmm...never heard of Dr. Ugly Teeth, but, if he could see me that day, fine. I'm calling him Dr. Ugly Teeth because I feel bad publically bashing (oops--spoiler!) a medical physician by name. And seriously, he had way ugly teeth. And a gross little mustache. Men, take note. Women hate mustaches. Unless you're Burt Reynolds. Which most of you are not. Sorry. Deal with it. Anyway, this man comes into the room and procedes to tell me that my problem is nothing to worry about. Really? Nothing to worry about? Yes, yes, nothing to worry about, and then precedes to explain to me how a woman's cycle works. Yes, this MAN is explaining it to me. ME! A woman who has been pregnant several times, who has gone through countless ovulation kits, pregnancy tests, hormone testing, and heaven knows what other kind of infertility crap. Clearly, he thinks I am misinformed. Now, I don't mind getting explanations from doctors. Actually, usually I like it, because they give me information that helps me make informed decisions about my medical care. But I don't like being talked down to, and I don't like a doctor assuming that I don't know that when a woman isn't pregnant, the lining of her uterus sloughs off, and that's considered the first day of her cycle. Thanks, but I learned that in the fifth grade, compliments of the California public school system. The other thing that drove me nuts is that this man dismissed my concerns about my body. Now, I'll concede that maybe my problem is nothing to worry about. In fact, I hope he's right. I've got plenty of other things to stress about without thinking about my uterus all the time. Still, I'd rather be reassured than dismissed. Doctors, take note. There is a difference. Men, take note again. Women don't like to be dismissed. And what kind of man wants to be OB/GYN in the first place? Dealing with a bunch of hormonal women who are freaking out all the time and trying to regulate a system that makes absolutely no sense and can be thrown off at the slightest provocation? That sounds like fun? Whatever. If it were me, I'd pick something safer. Like podiatry. Women love to have pretty feet. Anyway, I has highly disappointed with my care yesterday, and thoroughly pissed that I had to pay a $10 copay to have a man with bad teeth and nasty facial hair who barely bothered to look at my face, much less any other part my body, tell me that I'm fine. Needless to say, I'm not going back to Ugly Teeth again. I have better things to do with my time and my copay. Like go to Starbucks for some serious almond steamer/chocolate cake therapy. Now there's some medical care I can endorse.
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5 Lawyers and a mom

DH and I went out to dinner the other night. I know, wonder of wonders, but we managed it. We went to dinner with 2 other couples who are loosely connected with DH's work, and we didn't know them very well. Actually, I didn't know them at all, and DH had met them all only briefly in the past. It was a "get to know you" kind of meal, which is always a bit of a crap shoot, if you ask me. I mean, what if you get to know each other and find out right away that you have nothing in common, and actually can't stand each other? That kind of stuff makes you feel like dessert is a long time coming. In this case, everybody was fairly pleasant and easygoing, but I did discover something very rapidly: I was the only non lawyer at the table. Now, when you are married to a lawyer, this happens, unfortunately, quite frequently. I'm usually the only nonlawyer at these kinds of things, as well as the only mom. However, the other night, this was not the case. The other 2 women were mothers too, but worked, full time, as lawyers. So, when the inevitable question came, the "And what do you do, Heather?", this time put to me by a new mom who had just gone off about how hard it is to find good day care, I coudn't do it. I couldn't look her in the eye and say, "I'm a stay at home mom". I knew the minute I did, it would shut down all conversation, all relationship building, all pretense of easy going-ness, and tension would fill the room. So I just said, "I'm a speech therapist". There was the obligatory, "Oh, that's interesting," the pause as she tried to figure out what that meant, the smile, and the change of subject when she decided she didn't know what it meant and didn't really care to invest the conversational energy to find out. And that was fine--I was more willing to take the indifference I knew was coming rather than the coating of ice I knew would cover the rest of evening if I revealed the truth. Interestingly, when I have been in this situation at a table dominated by men or older career women, I don't have a problem saying, "I'm a mom who works perdiem as a speech therapist", or "I'm at home with my son, and work occasionally." Somehow, when a man asks me what I do, I feel proud to say that I'm a mom. I know that he doesn't feel threatened by what I do, and the conversation can still continue on amicable terms. But the other night, when asked by a woman my age who works VERY full time with a 2 year old in day care because the nanny just didn't work out, I had a harder time telling her about my life in the same terms, just because I knew (or imagined) that she would feel threatened, and the conversation and relationship would then progress on a less amicable level. I could be, perhaps, reading into the situation far more than was really there. When it comes down to it, she may not have cared about me enough at all to feel threatened by anything about me, much less threatened by who takes care of my kid. But I still felt that I couldn't tell her that I am, for the most part, a SAHM. Sad, but true. Anybody else have similar experiences? Anyody else feel the differences between talking to men about Stay-At-Home momhood vs. women? Dessert, by the way, was delicious. Chocoloate creme broulee(sp?), a.k.a death by chocolate. Yum!
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You know you're a sleep-deprived mom when....

Sleep deprivation and cement don't mix. She should've called in sick. Gives "self service" a whole new meaning. (NOTE: This is a truck. No room for car seats. Maybe Dad needs some sleep too?) Things in side view mirror are closer than they appear. I just moved to the coast. My visual spatial skills are not what they once were. Hey, Snarky, what are you doing with your helmet on backwards?
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The Great Zucchini

I originally posted this on Tuesday, then took it down in favor of my political soapbox. I was going to let it rot in the "Save as Draft" folder, but then Tracy mentioned that she liked it and was inspired by it, so here it is, resurrected, if you will. Happy Reading. I have a new hero. The Great Zucchini. He's funny, he's upbeat, he's great with kids, and, perhaps most importantly, he's hot. If I were ever to hire a nanny, I'd hire The Great Zucchini. I want to be just like him when I grow up. Who is this super veggie, you say? He's is, quite simply, the best child's entertainer around. Seriously. For $300 per half hour, he can be your child's entertainer. Just be sure to book 6 months in advance. What makes this squash-like man so popular, you say? Does he do tricks? Does he dance on his toes? Does he make balloon animals so amazing, they put the Macy's Day parade to shame? Nah, apparantly he can't do balloon animals to save his life. He tries, but they just keep hitting him in the head. His tricks are pretty bad, too. Any 3 year old could see where that card is hiding! He can't even juggle. He's always dropping the balls and slipping on them and stuff. He doesn't even know that stinky diapers go in the trash. He puts them on his head instead. Ewww! He understands kids. That's it. And kids love him. He understands that 3 year olds don't get irony, or sarcasm, but they have a particular love of the absurd. And they like to feel smart. Seeing an adult act like a total idiot makes them, well, feel good. So they laugh. And when the Great Zucchini is around, they laugh a lot. And he doesn't dress up like a vegetable, either, by the way. He wears dirty painters overalls so the kids can say stuff like "Eww, dirty!", and I'm pretty sure he picked his entertainer's name just because "Zucchini" is a pretty interesting name for a 3 year old to say. Try it. Draw out the "ooo" after the "zz", and speed up the "ini" part, and well, you have a pretty funny sounding word. (You are all puckering up your lips and doing it right now, I know it.) Of course, it turns out that the Great Zucchini, as successful as he is, has some problems. He's a compulsive gambler, and hopelessly disorganized. And I don't just mean "Hey, did I forget to pay my Visa Bill?" His personal life goes beyond dysfuntional, and he's lucky he's not in jail, for a variety of financial reasons. I won't elaborate, but reading about him made me feel practically OCD because I pay my bills on time. Still, he taught me a lot about relating to preschoolers in the 10 minutes I spent with the magazine article about him, which was lying about in the doctor's office. I tried implementing some of his thoughts about kids, and their love for the absurd. This afternoon, I fell down, stiff bodied and face first, on my bed in front of Jacob. I pretended to eat his treat, then held it in plain sight next to my face, and told him that I must've eaten it, because I didn't see it anywhere. And when we went to Target, I crashed (gently, mind you!) the cart into the aisles every few feet, saying, "oops" every time I did it. When he opened his mouth to eat something, I told him I could see all the way down into his toes. Jacob literally spent our afternoon laughing. Not a single whine in sight. How refreshing! So I thank the Great Zucchini for teaching me about my child today. And I seriously wish I had the extra $300 for a live performance. I have no doubt that it is worth it. Maybe I can get the Great Pumpkin on the cheap.
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