New Year, New Nothing.

I can feel myself getting old. Seriously. The gray hairs should start growing in soon.

I remember when I was so excited to turn 16. And then I was so excited to turn 18. And then I was so excited to turn 21. Understandable, as all are "milestone" birthdays, right? And every new year held endless possibilities. Anything might happen. Wonderful things might happen. And magic and rainbows and sunflowers and pink and other cheerful things. (Or your husband and brother-in-law might get drunk enough to puke their guts all over the front yard... and the bathroom... and at the very least might provide some sort of entertainment before you start feeling the urge to crack some skulls.)

This new year? I hardly noticed when midnight came. My birthday? I woke up to a certain 4 year old's beautiful blonde-brown hair all over my bathroom floor.

I often say it's because I don't have any big milestones to which I can look forward anymore. (Apart from maybe 30 and 40 and 50, but who wants to look forward to that?) Perhaps it's not old age. Perhaps I'm just crabby and jaded and unimpressed with the world in general. Special days have begun to lose their meaning. Even our wedding anniversary was spent... well, I'm not quite sure. Actually, we may not have even done anything this year.

I think that kind of stinks. And I may have picked a crappy subject because now I just feel rather emo and lame, pondering all of this.

I say it's old age, but I hardly believe that anymore. Any of these occasions only hold as much meaning as you allow them to have. Honestly, I don't celebrate holidays, but it's nice to at least pretend that 12:00 midnight on January 1st is like a clock reset which miraculously rewinds the year and allows you to try it all over again.

No? Perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

Yet people, year after year, insist on making resolutions and deciding that their lives will be different *this* year, that everything (or at the very least, most things) will go right *this* time around. To me, it seems that every year, instead, gets more miserable and darker and more depressing. Glass half empty, huh?
Once upon a time, I was an optimist, and though I'm not entirely sure I'm a 100% cynic yet, I'm on my way there.

Perhaps this will be the year I start looking at the glass as half full again. Perhaps good things can happen and those can be the focus of my days. Perhaps I will make and maintain new friendships and finally crawl out of my insecure, socially awkward shell.

Perhaps. (:

Signing off (on a positive note?),
Alex.Is

 

The end of the road.

So two weeks ago, approximately, I found out I was pregnant. And it was definitely unexpected and more than slightly unwanted. But I adjusted and began making plans and figuring things out and eventually I realized things could be okay, and with that realization, I got a bit excited. I love babies. I love children. I love big families.

Sunday afternoon, I went out for sushi with some friends. And then we went to Wal-Mart. And I started feeling really lightheaded and woozy and generally weak. It's the feeling I get when my blood pressure drops, like I just wanna lay down and not hold my body up anymore. I assumed it was dehydration. One of my friends snagged me an O.J., and we kept walking around like everything was okay. Of course, I almost fell over myself a few times, but it seemed pretty funny at the time.

That is, til I got home. I wasn't even just spotting. I was essentially having a period. Having had two successful pregnancies and two miscarriages, I know what's normal and what's not. So, underneath everything, I immediately knew it was the beginning of the end. And then the cramping started.

I tried laying down and relaxing. For a while, I texted some friends, who stressed and harassed me about how I should get my butt up and go to the ER. (They're good friends, even if I wasn't immediately inclined to listen.) I think I didn't believe it was happening at first. At the very least, I had no idea how bad it was going to get.
My very wonderfully amazing friend Erica finally said she was coming to get me and didn't really give me a say in the matter. Then she dragged me to the hospital, basically speeding the whole way. At Beebe, I had the longest wait of my life. I sat in the waiting room for 40 minutes. (It really was the longest wait... normally they get you back pretty quickly.)

By the time they got me into a room, I was not hardly any good at all. The cramping was intense, and I had this insane urge to throw up. Anyone who knows me knows how I absolutely abhor vomit and will do just about anything to keep from blowing chunks. The doctor came in pretty quickly (per Erica, he was just "adorable," which kinda made me think of fuzzy kittens) and ordered Dilaudid, Zofran, labs, and an ultrasound. I looked like a mental patient tossing my head back and forth and whining and groaning in misery... til they brought in the good meds.

Zofran didn't kick in immediately, but when the nurse said, "I'm putting in the Dilaudid right now so you might feel a little lightheaded," I practically floated off into space. We won't even discuss the horribly, spine-tinglingly grammatically inaccurate text messages I was sending at this point. Talk about some serious medication! (I totally see why our patients eat this stuff like candy. I mean, I'm good without, but I see why some fools get stuck on it.)

Moving on...! I was taken to the ultrasound room, and when the tech made me lay back, it felt like someone had taken a clamp to my chest and squeeeezed. It was the scariest, worst pain I've ever felt. Apparently everyone wrote it off as anxiety, and maybe that's all it was, but I thought I was gonna die for a split 23 seconds. (I'm not a hypochondriac at alllll...) And the tech basically said, "I'll be right back," and ran out of the room, leaving me to struggle to breathe for five minutes, which at the moment felt more like five hours. If that was a panic attack... I just... wow.

Back in the room, I was a bit more coherent. The doctor explained that my hcg levels were abnormally low and the ultrasound did not show anything. The baby had probably been gone for a while.

At this point, most people would break down and cry, or at least have the decency to look sad.

I was impatient. I'd heard this speech twice already and didn't care to be soothed with well-meaning words like, "It was nothing you did." In fact, while Erica helped dress me (my BP dropped to 87/34; I was in no condition to stand alone), I repeatedly insisted that it was okay and that I felt relieved because I didn't want a baby anyway. She just nodded her head and let me continue my drug-induced rambling. (Honestly I don't remember half of what I said.)

After a pit stop at Walgreens for some Percs and Zofran, we headed home. I was thirsty as a camel and decided to guzzle some mango peach Fuze. (See previous post about mango smoothie drink...) It didn't end well. I was puking up mango the minute I got home and in my front yard.

It wasn't until the next day (or the day after? - I kinda lost track of time this week) that I realized that, yeah, I was kinda upset. Kinda a LOT upset. And yes there were tears. I mean, you start to think of baby names, and you download the baby apps (whoops, gotta uninstall those...), and you begin to plan for what you imagine will be an entire LIFE. No, now is not a good time for another baby, but I love big families and was kinda excited for Pookie and Bean to have a baby sibling. Except now all of those plans mean nothing.
Yes, it's a depressing thought.

Am I okay yet? Doubtful. Will I ever be? I don't know. The first two miscarriages don't sting as badly anymore, but mainly because I know there would be no Bean right now if either of those pregnancies had been successful. At any rate, I'm not weepy. I'm somewhat leveled out emotionally. I've finally, finally gotten the story out of my system (it took me three days to write this). I actually feel kinda optimistic about the future, as blank and scary as it seems sometimes.

And I have my crazy friends and certifiable family. And they all love me in their loony little ways. (Which is fitting, seeing as I'm a total froot loop.)

The rest of this week has been spent sleeping, talking to and hanging out with friends, and taking pictures, including the attached snapshot of a rainbow I saw leaving Broadkill Beach. I saw a lot of those this week. A friend of mine says they are a sign. Of good things to come, I hope. Like a promise from God.

I was cleared by my doctor for a return to work on Monday. After a week off work, this should be interesting. I'm not looking forward to it by any means, but as with everything else in life, I know I will survive it.

That's the funny thing about life. It keeps going and going until it doesn't anymore... so you might as well make the best of what you've got, eh?

Signing off for now,
Alex.Is