Good to know, good to know.

Under no circumstances should you attempt to make apple pie when you're so hopped up on fertility medications that you can barely think straight, you're beyond tired and you hate pretty much everyone who breathes.

I'm quite serious about this. Don't do it. It'll end in tears and a spectacular kitchen tantrum compete with the pitching of dough, the whipping of pantry doors with a damp dish towel and swearing that would make a sailor blush.

And while you're at it, don't listen to that snobby Hampton bitch ina garten (who is too chic to use capitals, sweetie) who claims you can make pastry dough in your stand mixer. You can't. At least not the "No Fail Pastry" recipe Crisco has on the back of its package. It does fail - and quite dramatically - when you attempt to make it in your stand mixer.

You'll peer deep into the bowl of sticky, yellowish dough and wonder if a little extra flour will do the trick. But it won't. It'll appear as though the dough has been repaired (at which point a little self-satisfied gloating might ensue) but it's not actually fixed.

Not buy a crumbly long-shot.

It won't roll out. It'll just crack and fall apart. And then fall apart some more. It will mock you like you've never been mocked before until finally in a fit of rage you'll throw the whole works into the garbage, seething and spewing like a madwoman all the while.

Please don't ask me how I know all this. Just trust me, I do.

Where am I?

I'm lost in a sleepy, irritable and slightly bloaty Clomid haze.

If you see me wandering helplessly through the streets looking confused and a little pissed off, please give me a cookie and point me in the general direction of home. Or the closest bakery.

Time

We were laying about like sloths on Saturday night watching something or other on TV, when a wedding scene flickered onto the screen. The divorced parents of the bride and groom were making awkward small talk when one ex asked the other, "Are you happy?"

The response was, "Of course I'm happy - we're at our son's wedding."

And that's the point at which my mind, as it so often does these days, wandered off on a little journey of its own. It went to the land of "there'll be no wedding for your son" very rapidly, before finally coming to rest in "you might not live to see your grandchildren" town.

Seriously. It's theoretically quite possible that I'll die before my grandchildren are born. If I got pregnant right now I wouldn't give birth until after my 37th birthday. If we started adoption proceedings right this second it would be longer than that. If our child ends up on the same timeline as we are for starting a family, I'd be in my mid 70s before its child was born.

I'm not planning on dying at 74, I'm just saying it's not beyond the realm of possibility to think that I won't last that long.

And even if I do, I'll be old. Way old. The grandparents of my generation were young when we were born (relatively speaking) and in many cases lived well into our adulthood. I lost my last living grandparent when I was 34, just a few months before giving birth to Thomas.

For my grandchild to have the same experience, I would have to live to be 108.

Call me pessimistic, but I have my doubts about my ability to manage that feat. I already feel old in body and spirit. I'm not sure if I can handle another 72 years.

This is the way it is these days. People are staying in school longer and working hard at building their careers, and as a result they're getting married and having children much later than they used to. I'm not saying education and careers are a bad thing. Not at all. I'm merely pointing out that in our quest to achieve personal greatness and self fulfillment before our time to do so runs out, we may have overlooked something very important.

That is, of course, that time will run out on something else.

We are older mothers - wiser maybe, and with much more life experience to pass on to our children - but we won't be here for them for as long as many of our own mothers will be here for us. We'll be great-grandparent age when our first grandchildren are born. We won't dance at their weddings. And we won't have a chance in hell of being in one of those once-popular four-generation photo shoots.

I'm not trying to start a debate and I'm not being judgmental - honest. I did it all too. I went to University and started a career and always felt young enough to conquer the world. Mortality, scrambled eggs and the rapid approach of 40 were a million miles away.

Until suddenly they weren't.

I don't regret the experiences I had and the choices I made before I married My Beloved at 32. I loved going to school and my early working years were fun and exciting. I grew into the person I am today because of the life I chose.

I just wish I wasn't so old.

Things I love

In no particular order...

Cake. I love cake. In fact one of my very first blogs was about my overwhelming affection for cake. Almost two years later my love for cake is still as strong as ever. I can never resist its sweet siren song. Seriously. Never.



I didn't take this picture and I don't know exactly where in Muskoka, Ontario it is, but that region is one of the most beautiful in the world and a place that holds some of my dearest childhood memories.



Thomas' angel wings, high atop our Christmas tree last year. I found them at Canadian Tire, of all places, and knew that they had to have a place of honour on our tree - which is where they'll find themselves this year and every year.



Me Beloved tending the beets in our little vegetable garden. He's so proud of that garden (he designed and built the frame and is usually responsible for the majority of the harvesting) and I love it because it reminds me of how much I love him.



Lucy. Sweet, simple Lucy. She's been a loyal and loving companion to me for almost 10 years. She's always there with a deafening purr when I'm desperate for something to cuddle and all she asks for in return is a Lucy size share of the bed, a few treaties every once in a while and breakfast RIGHT NOW. BREAKFAST NOW. NOW. NOW. NOW.



This always makes me laugh - the whole idea of it. I asked my sibling to put together a vegetable platter for a BBQ My Beloved and I threw in the summer, and this is what we ended up with. A weird fruit guy. Oh, and some vegetables too. She never fails to disappoint, my sibling.



Last Christmas was unspeakably difficult for a million different reasons, but this moment - this shot of my Dad by the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve - was one that brought me a momentary feeling of peace. I had so few last year, and I'm glad I captured this one on film to remind me that even in the midst of hell there are the briefest glimpses of heaven if you look hard enough to find them.




There. That ought to help me make it through another round of Clomid.

The remedy for wallowing

Okay, so you know what helps to combat wallowing in self pity (other than wallowing in a vat of chocolate)? Spending $75 on yarn and Christmas decorations at Michael's.

I was practically giddy.

We have a system, My Beloved and I, that allows this kind of frivolous spending. It's called "fun money" and we each get a certain amount of it every month that we can spend on absolutely anything that tickles our fancies. And for me, the more unnecessary and cozy-inducing, the better.

I needed the yarn, but the tiny silver Christmas tree and accompanying ornaments (including a tiny tree skirt, a tiny garland, tiny balls, and tiny little lights)? Nope - didn't need any of that. But I pictured it up in our little sitting room (converted from a nursery oh so long ago now) and I pictured My Beloved and I curled up on the futon watching It's a Wonderful Life in the glow of the tiny, fully dressed tree - and I had to have it.

I'm not going to apologize for this either. I know I could have put the money to better use. I could have donated it or bought a pair of dress pants (which I'm desperately in need of) or gotten a much-needed haircut. But aside from the fact that none of those things are supposed to come out of our fun money, I needed to do what I did. I didn't need the things themselves, but I needed to have them just the same.

Trust me, it makes sense.

When you're sad and struggling so much and you find a way to make yourself happy and excited, even for a few minutes, you do it. And you revel in it. You buy the package of tiny sparkling candy canes for your little silver Christmas tree and you don't look back.

As a matter of fact I'm NOT sorry

There are some days that find me desperate to wallow in self pity. I'll have used up all my mental resources, and the only thing left to do that I know will please me (and appease the beast of grief within me) is to feel sorry for myself. Mope, sigh, stare out the window and wish I had someone else's life. Someone who didn't happen to breed only dead children.

I don't feel like crying. It's not that I'm on the verge of tears. I just feel like acknowledging this ungodly shit storm is the right thing to do. Some days it refuses to be ignored and pretending it doesn't exist doesn't work.

It's there. It's right there. It's always fucking RIGHT. THERE. I can't escape from the sorrow of three lost babies or the frustration, guilt and shame of not being able to get pregnant again.

I know there's more to my life than this. I'm not just a walking uterus. I'm married to my soul mate and our life together, shit storm aside, is one blessed by the heavens. And I'm grateful for that - and for all the things in my life that are so unquestionably good, pure and true.

But the ugly facts remain. And they haunt me. I can keep the attic door closed on the ghosts for a little while, but on days like today when the skies are gray and filled with endless drops of rain, I have to unlock the door and let them come screaming the hell out.

This part of my life isn't pretty. It's awful. It tears me apart on a daily basis and forces me to work harder than I've ever had to work in my life just to stay above water.

Some days I slam the windows shut on the sounds of crying babies. Some days I slam the windows shut on the sounds of children playing. Some days I turn away when I see a mother with her child. I can't bear to hear what I've lost. I can't stand to see what I don't have.

This is the ugly truth.

I'm so lonely for my boy and so bruised and battered by the happiness around me that continues to stay frustratingly and achingly out of my reach.

And today I'm not going to apologize for it.

Like ships that pass in the night

My Beloved and I were at Costco today picking up 15 tons of toilet paper and a shed full of dishwashing liquid. You know, the usual.

I was shoving the massive, and slightly overloaded cart along the book aisle when I looked up and saw a girl I worked with years ago coming towards me. The last time I saw her I was about 5 months pregnant with Thomas. Like today, we ran into her while shopping and, having heard the news through my cousin who she still worked with at the time, she excitedly rushed over to ask me all about my pregnancy and to congratulate us.

I hadn't seen her since, until today. And it was a very, very different encounter indeed.

As I looked up, I saw her quickly look away - off to the side and down to a stack of books which allowed her to keep walking towards me without having to acknowledge me. I did the same. Our eyes met for just a fraction of a second but I know she saw me. With a strange, unspoken understanding we quietly passed each other by. There was too much to say and not enough courage or energy for either of us to utter a single word. I was as guilty as she was for not stopping to chat, but it made me sad just the same.

These little moments are the ones that remind me that I'm different. They're the moments that make me want to run outside and scream - throw a 36-year old tantrum that you wouldn't believe. Break things. Hit things. Cry.

But they're also the moments that help to remind me that there are a lot of people who don't care that I'm different, and who embrace the person I've become since Thomas died. They're the ones who are always there when I need them and who unflinchingly look me straight in the eye, no matter what.

I don't blame the girl who passed me by today. In fact, I'm sure I'd have done the very same thing if I was her. No one likes awkward moments and extending belated sympathies. Not this kind of sympathy, and especially not in the book aisle of Costco.

But to everyone who hasn't passed me by, thank you. I am where I am today because you've been brave enough to walk with me every step of the way.

Remembering...

Thinking of my three little Peanuts with so much love, today and always.

The great escape

We ran away from home for a few days this week, all the way to Niagara Falls.

That's me. The Falls are back there somewhere too.

I highly recommend running away from home every now and then. It's not great for the waistline (I ate pretty much everything that wasn't nailed down - mmmmm, cheesecake) but it's very, very good for the soul.

Now go on, you go somewhere too. And let me know what you had for dessert.

The joy of multicoloured yarn

And tassels - the joy of tassels too! I just figured out how to make them (shut up, I'm slow) and I'm now I'm fully immersed in a passionate love affair with tassels.

As for the yarn (which I'm also loving), why is it that when it's multicoloured it's called ombre?

Ombre. It sounds like it should be wearing a black Stetson and reeking of whisky and horse manure. It makes no sense to me. If I researched the origin of the word it might, but I can't be bothered, so I'll just continue to enjoy the dark, dangerous sounding yarn that ends up looking so pretty when it's crocheted. And especially when it's made into tassels.

Mmmmm. Tassels.

P.S. Since some of you asked (and I'm going to assume you weren't just being kind to the crazy yarn lady) I'm thinking of setting up a separate website where you can buy the hats. God knows it would be useful to have an actual legitimate reason to keep making them (since I can't stop and it's starting to get very cluttered and yarny around here) so if someone's willing to buy them, we'll all be happy. Me and the hats, I mean.

You'd never know it to look at me

For some reason most of the time we only have half the curtains open in our bedroom. Other than being pathologically lazy, I really have no explanation for this odd phenomenon. I always throw open the right hand side - where the open part of the window is - to make sure that air can properly circulate through the room (I'm a little pathological about the need for constant fresh air too, so much so that once I woke up in the middle of the night to find it snowing a little inside our bedroom). But since the left side of the window has no air-based function, I don't bother uncovering it. There's not all that much to see back there, especially now that the angel garden has started to die back.

Anyway, I was feeling a little irritable this afternoon for no particular reason and decided to throw back the left side of the bedroom curtains for a little extra light and cheer.

Which is when I saw the two moms with their tots. Our sightlines through the bedroom window include a peek between the two houses behind us and onto the street they front on. It's chock full of babies and toddlers, much like our street. The two moms were playing with their babies on the lawn - the tiny little snatch of lawn I could see between the houses. I suppose they bumped into each other and just got talking.

It got me thinking about the way you're approached, or not approached as the case may be, when you don't have kids in tow. When I'm walking or shopping, be it alone or with My Beloved, no one with a stroller stops to talk. They smile and pass right by. I'm childless - I clearly have nothing to talk about. But people with babies do. They have endless things to discuss - war stories to tell, hints and tips to swap, sweet ramblings about baby smiles and first steps. And they can talk for hours without even knowing each other's names. Because they have babies in common.

I, on the other hand, have a terrifying birth story that ends very, very badly. And who the hell wants to talk about that?

I have of course told my story (to two hairdressers, the next door neighbours we don't know all that well and my dental hygienist - twice) but telling the same horror story to each new person who somehow manages to ask that one question for which there is no answer but the sad truth is no fun at all. It doesn't bring any joy - to any of us.

It just serves to remind me that I'm standing on the outside looking in and have lost more in three years than many people lose in a lifetime.

I want to stop the ladies with strollers and tell them that if the world was right and the gods fair, I'd have a little boy with me too. I want to tell them that I'm not childless by choice, that I didn't opt to have a career instead of a family and that I love my three lost little souls so much I can barely breathe sometimes - so much that sometimes it feels like I'm going to implode from the combined force of the contained grief, anger and longing.

But instead we pass by, me with a strained, plastic smile on my face and them never knowing how much we almost had in common.

I realize that there's nothing I can do to remedy this. I know this is just the way it is. The mothers who don't know me will continue to talk amongst themselves and I'll continue to pass them by. The parents in the park by our house will continue to acknowledge My Beloved and I with a quick, polite smile at best. Because why would they do anything else? Why would we if we were in their shoes instead of our own?

It's not their fault and it's not ours. It just is what it is.

And I will never get used to it, this business of being an invisible mom. Never.

And speaking of candles...

I was just about finished setting the table at my Mom and Dad's before our Thanksgiving dinner last night, when my Mom told me to light the little pumpkin candle she'd bought for the centre of the table. It was nestled in some dried eucalyptus and wheat, and sitting in front of the harvest angel I bought her a month or so ago.

As I was lighting it she told me she bought the candle for Thomas - a little light for my little Peanut at Thanksgiving.

Thanks Mom

Light a little candle

www.october15th.com

If the world sees all our tiny candles on the night of the 15th, it will see - and maybe better understand - that the light our babies brought to our lives will burn brightly for as long as we live.

And that we will always remember.

Seriously, I can't stop

The grass really is always greener

I was struck by something I read on someone else's blog today. Like me, she's been trying to bring home a baby since 2003, and like me she has nothing to show for it except sorrow. Our stories differ here and there, but they both have the same ending. We are both childless - mothers only to heavenly babies.

She has had repeated, unexplained miscarriages. I guess there's enough reason to believe that she won't be able to carry a child to term, which may be part of the reason that she is resolved to accept her fate in a way I just can't. I have yet to be given that horrible sentence.

But even though she has, I'm strangely envious of her. I'm dreadfully sorry for her and absolutely sick that she has gone through so much, don't misunderstand me. But I'm envious of the way she is dealing with this new chapter in her life. She's making the supreme effort to extract herself from the torturous limbo of the infertile. She's not waiting anymore. Her life isn't on hold.

She's moving on.

She's actively searching for ways to live a life that isn't defined by her inability to carry a child. She's looking for new experiences and opening herself up to the world at large in all its wonder and glory. She's charting a new course and finding something else to be - many other things to be - if she's not going to be a mother.

I was breathless with excitement. Drunk with the idea of this newfound freedom.

Until I realized I'm still good and trapped in my own limbo.

I don't resent the fact that we're still trying and I don't want to stop. Not yet. But I'm looking at this woman - this childless woman - with longing because she has found a peace that I feel a million and a half miles away from. And even if I come to a point where I'm forced to make the same decision she did, I don't know if I'll do it with half the grace she has. I don't know if I'll be able to muster the enthusiasm to look for the joie de vivre she seems so determined to find again.

I feel too beaten down to ever be able to walk away from all this with my head held high and my heart set on a new dream. And God help me, I haven't the faintest idea what that dream might even be.

Maybe she felt this way once too. Maybe we all do. Maybe circumstances eventually force us to learn a grace we never knew we had in us, and when the time is right it's there for us to display to a wondering world just the way she is.

I don't know.

I just know I applaud her, and every single woman like her, for not letting this ungodly sorrow eat her alive. For not letting it define her. For not letting it suffocate the person she once was and the person she was meant to become.

It would have fit. Imagine that.

I normally park on the driveway after I go grocery shopping because I'm too lazy to get out of the car, lift up the garage door, get back in the car, drive into the garage and haul down the door after I'm finished unloading the groceries.

'Cause you know, that amount of exercise would most certainly kill me.

So instead I pull the car up as close to the garage door as I can. I have it down to a fine art (Much to My Beloved's glee, I no longer hit the door leaving dents and gashes) which means the other car can tuck in behind it without hanging over onto the sidewalk.

And everyone's happy. Except maybe the neighbours who get stuck looking at 28 feet of end-to-end car out their front window.

But today, in an uncharacteristic fit of energy, I decided to put the car away all neat and tidy. I pulled it in, right up to the fabulous (and I mean that) shelving unit My Beloved built at the back of the garage, and got out to start the unloading process. When I rounded the back of the car I was struck by the amount of space left behind it.

"Yes," I thought stupidly, "the stroller would totally fit in here."

You see, after we were given the beautiful Peg Perego stroller by my Mom and Dad, I was consumed with thoughts of how best to store it between uses. Lots of people in our neighbourhood leave their strollers on their porches and I figured we'd just do the same. But My Beloved worried that it would get stolen in the night. I loved my stroller too much to have that happen, so I figured we'd stash it in the garage between the many walks Thomas and I had planned to take through the neighbourhood that spring.

But I always wondered if it would fit behind the car. I never thought to actually look and see for some reason.

Until today. Nearly 19 months after he died, I determined that Thomas' stroller will indeed fit quite nicely behind the car.

The stroller that never made it out of the boxes it came in and remains stashed, unassembled and unseen, in the basement beside the similarly unused crib.

I don't know why these things still happen - the random, innocent thought followed by the jolt and lurching stomach. It's so cruel that the healing process dribbles along like a leaky faucet that can't be fixed. Quiet and relentless. And agonizingly torturous.

I wish I'd just left the car on the driveway. I wouldn't still be thinking about the stroller tonight if I had.

Damn.

Free to good home

I made this little guy a few weeks ago out of some beautiful, soft orange yarn I somehow miraculously managed to find after deciding I wanted to make a pumpkin hat. It was waiting for me in its little wire bin at Michael's and I couldn't have been more excited.

I was pretty proud of the finished product - until My Beloved had a look at it. He was kind, but decidedly unenthusiastic about my cozy gourd hat.

"Maybe it's the eyebrows? Maybe it's the smile?" He didn't know, but something wasn't "right".

So I cast the pumpkin hat aside and continued making other hats that did find favour with the critics (another bear, a cat, a bunny and a blue and white striped hat with ears).

But the pumpkin hat taunted me. I knew it was there, unloved and unwanted, and I knew it had no place to go, unlike the other hats that have all been claimed.

So I've decided it's time to go public with my shame. Admit that the pumpkin hat exists and has no home.

It's kind of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeers of hats, I suppose. And it's yours if you want it. Just leave me a comment and let me know. I think it would fit a child up to about two (although this is a best guess because there aren't any two-year old heads around here for me to try it out on).

Anyone? Anyone?

One small step

I just fired off a letter to my MP asking for help with getting October 15th officially recognized in Canada too.

We shall see.

The government failed my son miserably when he was alive. Having only one OB on duty in a hugely busy hospital labour and delivery ward is unthinkably stupid and, frankly, borders on negligent - and it cost my son his life.

Let's see what the government is willing to do for him now that he's gone.

Fingers crossed.

It's official

October 15th is officially Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in the United States. It was passed in Congress today.

According to the wonderful people at www.october15th.com:

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is to promote support, education and awareness for grieving parents nationwide (and worldwide).

Too many families grieve in silence, sometimes never coming to terms with their loss. Our goal is to help others relate to our loss, know what to say, do or not say, not do and to help families live with their loss, not "get over" their loss.

I only wish the day was also recognized here in Canada. If I had any inkling as to how to go about doing here what the October 15th supporters have done in the States, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Any ideas? Anyone? Anyone?

Beans and fibre on a rockin' Tuesday night

Last night My Beloved and I went on a futile hunt for dried butter beans. I wasn't able to find them when I went shopping in the afternoon, and he suggested we try a different store which has a greater selection of non-traditional foods (a classification I assumed butter beans must fall under). So off we went.

No one told us that "butter beans" is just another name for lima beans. We saw a zillion different brands of lima beans, both dried and canned, but passed them up in search of the elusive butter bean. In fact, as he was putting back yet another can of limas he'd grabbed thinking they were the sneaky little butter bean, My Beloved commented on how much the two looked alike.

No kidding.

Anyway, we eventually gave up and found ourselves wandering through the cereal aisle. Beanless.

We're very particular about our cereals, the better half and me. I lean towards crispy flakes or wheaty squares and he sticks with fruity granolas and nutty oats.

But we both love fibre. Ever since we learned the magical equation (in every serving there should be at least 1g of fibre per 100 calories for the product to be considered relatively healthy) we've been fiends about finding the most healthy (a.k.a. fibre-leaden) cereals we can.

So we took our positions in the aisle, grabbed a box each and happily started perusing nutritional stats.

We'd been fully engrossed in label reading for quite some time when My Beloved stopped, cereal box in hand, looked at his watch, looked at me and pointed out how undeniably pitiful it was that we were standing in the grocery store at 10:00pm on a Tuesday night marveling at the whole wheat and bran content of cereals. And enjoying it.

I quietly dropped my box of Muffets in the basket and we slunk off to the cash, two old people wearing pretty convincing 30-something disguises.

We stayed up until after 1:00am watching TV and playing on the computer in what I'm pretty sure was a subconscious way of proving that we're not that old. But I'm feeling it today.

Thank God I had my fibre.

Butter tarts and a billion hats

I've been missing Thomas so much the last few days. I miss him all the time, but every now and then it hits me like a freight train and sends me into complete mental chaos. The disappointment of the IUI and the general infertility malaise that I'm settling into hasn't helped either.

For some reason, every cycle that I find myself still miserably and utterly unpregnant makes me miss Thomas more. It's as though I'm moving farther and farther away from all babies - including him - with each failed cycle. Like they're all out of reach. Like I'm hurtling into a vast babyless void.

And I don't know what to fill it with. I don't know what I will fill it with if it stays empty forever. I guess there will be a lot of bear hats for my friends' kids and a freezer full of butter tarts and pumpkin loaves for My Beloved and me. I can make other things if I can't make babies, I suppose.

Eeew. How maudlin and self-servingly pathetic. But what's a melancholic girl to do? Bake and crochet. Blog and moan. Repeat.

On Saturday night we went to the in-laws for dinner where there was lots of good food and lots of people I love. But I kept seeing the empty space where Thomas should have been. I watched his three cousins running and playing and getting cuddles and kisses from their aunts, uncles and grandparents - and I ached because Thomas wasn't there to do the same.

The kids are all growing up and getting so big and my Thomas is still a little baby.

What a great, big, horrible mind fuck.

Geez, I can't even blame this funk on Clomid since we're playing hooky from the clinic this cycle. It's all me baby. All the negativity and resentment and grief and frustration. It's all me.

Fantastic.

10 Ways to cope with a failed IUI

1. Cry a little bit, but try to control yourself while driving because not only do you look like a lunatic (which is probably really disconcerting to other drivers), but it's hard to see properly when you're looking through tears.

2. Keep any non-fertility related doctor's appointments you may have already made, because finding out your blood pressure is perfect will make you feel infinitesimally better about the state of your stupid, broken-down, and frustratingly malfunctioning body. And infinitesimally better is better than nothing.

3. Count your blessings, like the husband who gets mad at you for apologizing when you tell him that the IUI failed and makes very sure that you know he doesn't feel an ounce of anger towards you or said frustratingly malfunctioning body.

4. Treat yourself. Go to your favourite grocery store instead of the discount chain with the shitty produce where you have to bag your own groceries and get a big honking chocolate cake. Eat close to a quarter of it almost as soon as you get home.

5. Decide to take a holiday from the fertility clinic. Throw caution to the wind and bar all doctors, nurses and ultrasound technicians from your nether regions and refuse to take any and all mood-altering fertility medications for the period of one complete cycle. Just because you can. And if you don't you may go stark raving mad.

6. Keep on crocheting little hats for little heads even though you know full well they might never find their way onto a child of your own. Take comfort in knowing that little heads somewhere will be snug and toasty just the same.

7. Mope, but don't lose hope.

8. Recognize that number 7 is really hard to do (the not losing hope part) and that it's kind of annoying that it rhymes.

9. Gratefully accept the hugs and positive thoughts from the 9 billion people you told about the IUI in the first place.

10. Vow to keep things a little more private in future in order to spare everyone's feelings - including your own.

I may have a problem...

Can't. Stop. Making. Hats.

The big lie

It's easy to lull yourself into believing that you'd be okay with not having another baby when you're not around them all that much - and when your memory of the one you had feels more and more like a beautiful dream as time passes. It's easy to lie to yourself when you've been doing it for so long and pretending that you're just being grounded and realistic and mature about the whole thing.

But when you hold a baby - when you look into her tiny little face and are rewarded with big, toothless, open-mouthed smiles and baby-sized giggles, when you feel her warmth and smell the intoxicating babyness of her - it's almost impossible to believe the lie.

I went for lunch with my neighbour and her 4-month old baby today, and I fell in love with her like I do every time I see her. The world around me fell silent while I held her and talked to her and bounced her on my knee and watched her watching me with her big, wondering eyes.

And I ached.

How can I give up when I know this is what I'm fighting for?

The bookstore

Last week, on a rather rainy Tuesday, we headed out to the bookstore in search of evening entertainment because it was just too soggy to go for a walk.

I wasn't looking for anything specific, but I found the lazy wander through the store (our favourite one - slightly farther away but worth the drive) very relaxing. I picked up an interesting looking novel from the bargain fiction area (because I'm cheap) and a crocheting magazine (because I'm delusional - I'll likely not make a single thing from the magazine because it all looks too hard, but it's cozy pretending that I actually could).

I wandered my way into the self-help section and off-handedly glanced at the shelves to see if there were any books on infertility. As it happens, I was standing right in front of them - a whole shelf full. I sort of just stood there dumbly looking at their spines, thinking about how odd it was that I should be in a position to thumb through one and pick up a tip or two - tips that I might actually need.

I took my time, weighed my options and plucked a title from the shelf.

It was like a weird Pandora's box. Upon opening it, the quiet of my lazy trip to the bookstore was shattered and my noisy, uncertain life rushed into my ears. All the words I try to avoid thinking about were swimming on the pages in front of me in ways that I presume were meant to be helpful, but just made my heart pound instead.

I wanted to put it down - as if closing the book would make the words not apply to me anymore. As if it would make me pregnant or not infertile or not the mother of a dead boy.

And then someone joined me, directed to one of the saddest spots in the bookstore by a loud and slightly bumbling clerk whose booming voice cut the silence of my melancholic revery. She stood beside me pondering the spines as I'd just done before reaching out and making her choice. I took a sideways glance at her. I wanted to see if she looked different - if she maybe looked a little like me in some way.

She looked normal. In her late 30s, maybe early 40s. Slim, pretty, ordinary. I wondered what brought her here, to the infertility section of the bookstore. I wondered about her journey and how long it had been. And I wanted to say something - to touch her arm and show her that I understood the nine million things that were probably swirling around her head - that had been swirling there since she first figured out that something wasn't quite right.

I looked at her again.

Then I closed my book, put it back on the shelf and walked away.

What else could I do? We walk alone.

In case anyone was wondering...

....this is what I've been doing instead of blogging the last few days.



It's not that I haven't had anything to say, it's just that I've been keeping my fingers busy with crochet. And my mind too. Which is always a very, very good thing...

'Tis the season...

...for crochet!!

I made this small lovey for the sweet little girl of a virtual friend of mine. Little E just happens to love blankies, and when I found out I decided it was the perfect way to thank them for donating a pair of Dr. Seuss books (our favourites!!) to their local library in Thomas' memory, and for making a beautiful scrapbook for Thomas' birthday.

I intended the lovey to be a bit more decorative, but I'm simple (and by that I mean not as skilled as I wish I was) and this was all I could manage. I desperately need someone to teach me how to properly crochet in rounds so I can expand my repertoire someday very, very soon...

In the meantime, I hope E enjoys cuddling with her new lovey, and I hope she feels the hugs in every stitch!

It's in the stars

Today's horoscope:

Too many things look as though they can go badly wrong. Your concerns are understandable, but the cosmic message is clear - things will turn out fine, albeit after a long haul.

Long haul?

Buddy, you don't know the half of it.

Can I print a retraction?

Me and my big mouth.

My Beloved and I weren't totally sure what we'd do if we ever found ourselves in the enviable position of having to decide to tell family and friends about a brand new pregnancy. There were certainly more cons than pros, given our less than stellar reproductive history. Even just the two miscarriages made us wary of spilling the beans too soon. And then there was Thomas.

But because I can't keep my big gaping maw shut, anyone and everyone who reads this blog (family, friends and strangers) now knows that I'm in the two week wait, with increased chances that something might indeed be percolating within.

I've taken away our ability to choose when we will announce our happy news (if we do indeed get some).

I'm an idiot. Our choice now is to tell the truth or lie. Fantastic.

It's not that we want to withhold good news (for God's sake, we revel in even the tiniest bit of it ourselves, so we know how news this big and this good would make the people we love feel) it's just that we're possibly the most gun-shy people on the planet when it comes to second lines on a pee stick. And when we see them this time - if we see them - we'll need time to absorb it all. To mourn our boy as we celebrate the possibility of a new life, and to make sense of our excitement, fear, bewilderment and disbelief.

And it would be nice to be able to do that without every single person we know staring at us.

Which brings us back to my flapping pie hole. I'm kind of sorry I opened it. And I don't know what we'll do now, so all I can say is please don't ask. Please let us do this the way we need to, even though it might be hard for you while you're waiting and wondering.

Just imagine how much harder it is for us and give us the space we need.

As for me, I guess I'll have to bind my fingers so I can't type and keep my mouth full of cookies so I can't speak.

Hmmm. The cookie thing doesn't sound half bad...

And scene

Phew.

No clamps. Three eggs released. A combined 37 million sperm advancing.

And now, we wait.

Come on baby, come on...

Halfway there

Okay, in a word - ow.

I guess every OBGYN has his own personal little touch, and Dr. Tiny, as we'll call him, likes the tenaculum. A scary sounding name quite befitting the object that bears it. The insemination itself was virtually painless - even the catheter going in was barely noticeable - and there was almost no cramping afterwards. But the clamp on the cervix, yeah, I felt that.

Clamp. On. The. Cervix. Good God, that's just barbaric. And not the least bit romantic, I might add. If we conceive, my memory of that blessed moment will be of Dr. Tiny's head between my legs, the stale air of the exam room, the discomfort of My poor Beloved who wanted to be anywhere else but stuck in that tiny room with me, and that awful clamp.

It all seems like a strange way to make a baby.

And yesterday as I sat in the waiting room at the clinic for what felt like the 900th time this week, I was suddenly seized with doubts about what we're doing. I mean, is it right to force your body to do what it doesn't seem particularly interested in doing just because you deem it should be doing it? Does pumping yourself full of drugs and submitting your innards to countless ultrasounds make good sense over the long haul? Will there be any repercussions for me years from now? Should we just accept the fact that Thomas was our chance at having our own child and move on, confident that the gods have our best interests at heart and know what they're doing?

And speaking of God, Is it right to sneak around behind his back like this?

I know scores of people do it every day. The clinic is jam packed almost every time I'm there, and I'm sure the numbers are indicative of patient volume at clinics all across the country. There are thousands and thousands of couples who resort to assisted reproductive technology to have the families of their dreams.

But does that make it right? Just because we can do it, does that make it okay?

It seems logical that in this case, having the ability to do it does make it okay. Why wouldn't we use the technology we have to do something as wonderful as make babies, right? So why does it still seem off to me somehow? It is because it's a little grittier when you're actually in the trenches? Is it because it's easier when it's "them" and not you? Is it because I'm afraid that this, our last hope, won't work and I'll finally be forced to face the fact that I will never carry another child?

And why the hell am I doubting it now? For one thing, it's clearly too late. There are twenty one million of My Beloved's very best, hand selected swimmers having a party in my uterus right now. Thanks to Dr. Tiny and his cervix mangling clamp.

(He must be in cahoots with Helga, the vagina mangling ultrasound technician. A story for another blog.)

And I'm going back for an insurance squirt tomorrow morning, so clearly I don't think it's all that wrong.

Oh Lord, I just don't know anything anymore.

I guess looking into the face of a child you've borne, no matter how that child came into being, erases every single doubt and makes the months of turmoil, disappointment and despair completely and utterly worthwhile.

Having already looked into the face of my beautiful first-born son, I have a feeling that must certainly be true. And in the absence of any other certainty, I'm going to hang onto that.

Particularly tomorrow when I meet Dr. Tiny for a second round of clamp action.

Open wide...

So, we have the IUI tomorrow morning, bright and early.

I wish there was a prayer for this.

Mostly I guess I wish I believed praying would make a difference...

Grass and purgatory

I don't know when the last time we cut the back lawn was, but judging from it's deep, jungle-like thickness this afternoon, I'm thinking it's been a few weeks. If I'm not mistaken, the last time was when My Beloved ran over a mouse.

Good times.

Anyway, it's been too rainy or we've been too busy lately and it just got kind of forgotten, my precious lawn. But today felt like a good day to go out and restore it to its former beauty. I needed an escape - a way of blowing off some restless energy that didn't involve researching infertility or brooding about my broken parts. Or thinking about Thomas.

It was very therapeutic. Cutting beautiful, kelly green swaths out of the jungle with each pass of the mower made me feel productive and useful. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was illuminating the grass in a way that always takes my breath away and, strangely, reminds me of home.

It was meditative and comforting. And just destructive and loud enough to satisfy the Clomid-driven beast within.

Because it's been so long - and because we have an ancient, hand-me-down mower without a bag - the mulch blanketed the newly cut grass in a dangerously heavy layer. It would have looked awful if I left it and, even worse, it would have killed the grass beneath it. So I found myself re-mowing the lawn in an attempt to mulch the mulch.

I kind of did it without thinking, lost in my meditative grass cutting trance, but eventually I realized what I was doing - and that I'd been doing it for a while. And I very briefly wondered if at some point during the day I'd died and that this endless grass cutting exercise was actually purgatory. Not unpleasant, in fact kind of satisfying, but still repetitive, dirty work.

I usually picture purgatory as a big, white room with small white benches all around its perimeter. Souls waiting for the call hang out there chatting and playing tic-tac-toe. It's kind of boring, but comfortable enough.

I bet purgatory has its own flip flopping attendant who calls out the names of those waiting in a maddeningly random order.

Hmmm. Maybe I died yesterday...

Game on

So my left ovary cooperated this cycle. I have three follicles waiting in the wings for their big IUI debut, which will likely be on Friday or Saturday depending upon the results of my ultrasound tomorrow morning.

I was giddy when I heard the news (no small feat after waiting almost an hour and a half to see the doctor, by which time I was as steamed as a Maritime lobster) but now I'm just feeling kind of dazed and confused. And I have no idea why.

Let's just blame it on the Clomid again, shall we?

You know, it occurred to me the other day that it's possible that I'll move directly from trying to conceive (and hopefully succeeding) into menopause with barely time to pee in between. Which means it could literally be years until I feel sane again.

Years before a clear, concise, logical thought passes through my addled brain.

Speaking of which, it took most of my scanty mental reserves not to go ape-shit while I was waiting at the clinic. I don't mind waiting, and I understand that it's a busy clinic and I can't expect to be in an out in much less than an hour - I do. But when people who come in for cycle monitoring 45 minutes after me leave before me, I get really, really agitated.

I thought at one point I might seriously cry - great angry tears of hormonal rage (which, of course, I would have blamed on the Clomid).

I made due with imagining the great satisfaction with which I would pummel the nurse who I pinned as the one randomly deciding who got called in next. I loathed her today. Every time she lazily flapped by in her ill-fitting rubber flip-flops it was all I could do not to scream, "Pick me!! Pick me, dammit!!! I've been waiting here since before Kennedy was shot!!"

But I quietly seethed instead, sighing and checking my watch and looking disgruntled. And hating the nurse as she flip-flopped her way around the clinic with her powers and her bad dye job and her nose in the air.

I'm crazy and mean. I shot death rays at the ultrasound receptionists when they asked those of us waiting to see the doctor after cycle monitoring to move to the front waiting room in order to make room for ultrasound patients - most of whom were pregnant. Evidently I'd been waiting there so long that people who came in after me were already visibly pregnant and back for prenatal care.

I skulked off to the front waiting room (where it's virtually impossible to hear your name being called by the flip-flopping nurse) and pouted until a chair in the hallway close to the nursing station became available.

The flip-flopping nurse's shift must have ended while I was out front sulking because I was eventually called in by a different one. She seemed nice enough, but I punished her - and the clinic at large - by not smiling at her. Which I think is actually pretty restrained of me since I was really out for blood.

She looked at me kind of nervously and hurried from the room as I mumbled a disingenuous thank you. The doctor appeared about 10 minutes later and gave me the good news.

He has no idea how lucky he is that he had some.

So that's where things stand. An IUI any day now. And all I feel at the moment is fatigue and leftover resentment at the flip-flopping nurse who I'm fairly certain forgot about me, leaving me to rot - barren and uncomfortable - in a room full of pregnant women waiting for ultrasounds.

Ah, Clomid. God help us all if this infertility gig goes on much longer.

A tiny angel

Today I found out that a very, very sweet friend of mine lost her baby. She went in for her 10 week appointment this morning and left with the knowledge that her very loved and very wanted little Button had died.

She's not a blogger so there's no place to leave condolences, but if you'd think of her and her husband tonight as they deal with the first few terrible hours of realization and sorrow, I think she would appreciate it very much.

I'm so, so sorry C.

(((HUGS))) and love to you, my friend.

I'm officially old

Last night we called the police. Twice.

The parents of a sullen and mostly invisible 16-year old girl who lives beside us went away for the long weekend - but they left her behind. And apparently she has a lot of friends, all of whom descended upon the house last night for an unforgettable end of summer bash.

It kept us up, fuming and complaining to each other, until close to 3:00am.

It's not so much the party that bothered me. In fact I didn't even care all that much about the noise. It's when I saw someone pissing on the side of my house that I got a little pissed myself. Eventually the area between our house and theirs became a communal bathroom for every single staggering, nauseous little idiot who couldn't be bothered to use the washrooms inside the house. Yes, it seems boys well under the legal drinking age can't hold their liquor. Shocking.

This morning it looks like a crime scene out there. Empty bottles and cans of beer littering lawns, vomit soaking into the mud, shattered glass on the streets, and peaches, obviously used as projectiles, smashed on the sidewalk and on neighbouring driveways.

To give the little hooligans credit, they're out they're cleaning up right now, but it never should have come to this in the first place. And we all know they're only cleaning up in a vain attempt to erase the night and spare the sullen, invisible girl from the wrath of her parents, lest they find out about her little shin-dig.

The arrogance is what stuns me. The notion that they think it's okay for them to roar well into the night, puke on other people's property, smash bottles and then happily stagger home.

I can't bear that they think this is okay. That it's acceptable and there are no consequences beyond a little cleaning and a big headache.

UPDATE:

It's like the gods of justice heard our prayers. The sullen girl's aunt and uncle showed up this morning while the cleaning crew was still hard at work.

It got ugly. The aunt angrily (and loudly) kicked everyone out of the house while the sullen girl hurled obscenities at her shocked and raging aunt.

Eventually the police showed up. Three cruisers worth of them (which is great - they didn't bother to come last night when dozens of drunk teenagers were stumbling about the neighbourhood breaking stuff, but they show up in full force this morning when the crowd has dwindled down to a handful of kids and an irate set of relatives.

To make a long story short, the sullen girl was made to sweep the streets under the watchful eye of a beefy cop while she back-talked him (BACK-TALKED A COP????). The Aunt and Uncle were asked to leave, since their presence was only making sullen girl freak out.

So all's quiet for now.

My advice to sullen girl, if she asked, would be to soak up the daylight and fresh air while she can because my guess is she won't be seeing much of it once Mom and Dad get home.

As My Beloved and I lay in bed last night talking about the party, I realized we sounded more like someone's parents than people who might actually have a shot at attending a party like that. It was a little sobering.

But when our conversation lazily shifted to our mutual need for more bran and maybe even dried fruit, I knew we'd officially turned a corner.

We. Are. Old.

I did it too...

Being someone who is larger than average, I was very, very proud of my pregnant belly once it finally stopped looking like one too many cheeseburgers and started looking like a proper pregnant bump. I loved it to death, that little belly of mine. I was kind of shy around people I knew for some reason, but when I was with strangers it was a different story. I loved knowing that they could tell I had company just by looking at me sideways.

This sounds ridiculous, but my favourite time at Mass was going up to communion. I know my favourite time should have been something less me-centric and more God focused, but it was what it was. And it was sweet. See, because I was getting too big to properly clasp my hands below my tummy, I'd rest my hands on top of it while I shuffled up the communion line with the rest of the congregation. And the whole time I was excitedly thinking that anyone who looked at me would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was having a baby.

Last Sunday as I sat in the same spot I always used to sit in when I was pregnant, I started thinking about that. About how I so proudly showed off my pregnant tummy and how I hoped people would look at me and smile.

And that's when it occurred to me that women who had experienced miscarriage - maybe even stillbirth or a loss caused by birth injury, abruption or congenital defects - saw me. They watched me holding my tummy lovingly and protectively, and they felt the dull ache that I feel now when I see the same thing innocently paraded in front of me.

I caused the same pain I feel now. And it never once occurred to me while I was pregnant, even after having two miscarriages before getting pregnant with Thomas.

I was horrified. I sat there in utter horror feeling miserably guilty that I caused this kind of pain. Unintentionally, of course. But just by being visibly pregnant, I know I must have made someone wince and look away. I was a reminder of what someone had and lost - or of what someone never even had to begin with.

It was a sobering thought. I tend to think that no one in my world knows this kind of sorrow, but people are good at hiding the horrors they live with and the sorrows they bear. I'm sure I opened wounds. God, I must have.

I don't quite know what to do with this. If I get pregnant again I know I'll feel that same pride - maybe even tenfold because of the lengths we've gone through to coax my body into cooperating and carrying a life again. But I will also now be aware that my joy could be the cause of someone else's pain.

The worst of it is, there's just no way around it. My hard won joy is going to cause someone else pain. It's inevitable.

Ain't life grand?

Writer for hire

So it's come to this - a shameless plea for work.

See the thing of it is, for a number of reasons getting a full-time gig just isn't feasible at the moment (I could be wrong, but I just don't see employers jumping at the chance to hire someone who lives at the doctor's office and who, presuming all goes well, is planning to be fully engaged in the process of maintaining a high-risk pregnancy in the hopefully near future).

But freelance writing, well there's another story. I can work around my dates with the dildocam and it doesn't require a full-time, onsite commitment which I just can't make right now.

Aside from blogging about my son and my desperate attempts to procreate, I've written everything from newspaper ads and radio commercials to really, really, boring corporate brochures over the last twelve or so years.

I'm a whore, is what I'm saying. I'll write just about anything for just about anyone.

So, uh, if you know anyone who needs a freelance writer, point them my way, won't you?

And now back to your regularly scheduled blog...

Angels of mercy

There was a nurse trainee at the clinic today. She was probably in her 50s so she certainly wasn't new to nursing and patient care, but she had a sweet, fresh-scrubbed look about her - all rosy cheeked and earth-mothery - that was so welcome. And so very needed there.

Don't get me wrong, the nurses at the clinic are all very nice - very polite, professional and competent - but when the new nurse smiled sweetly at me and said "good luck" as she was leaving, I knew she genuinely meant it. I wasn't one of hundreds of assembly line uteruses to her. I was also a face and a heart and carrier of dreams. And she knew it, and acknowledged it.

I wanted to cry right then and there.

After being anonymously probed and stabbed for the last two months, someone finally really showed me something beyond clinical courtesy.

I think people in the medical professional sometimes underestimate the value of breaking down that patient/caregiver barrier. It made an otherwise burdensome visit (which included a very uncomfortable probe by a tech who had a lot of difficulty finding my left ovary - seriously, it's like she was digging for clams) just that much better. And when you're feeling vulnerable and unsure, that much better is priceless.

Lise and Nadine, two nurses who cared for me after Thomas was born and died, were those kind of nurses. My Beloved and I were lost. We were both in shock and I was sick. We were alone and adrift in a strange, sad and very, very frightening world. Lise and Nadine were our anchors. I mean, we relied very heavily on our families who gave us constant and unwavering support, but Lise and Nadine were our lifelines at the hospital - that scary, sterile, anonymous behemoth. They took care of me - of both of us - as though we were their own. They talked to us, sat with us, laughed with us and quietly left us when we needed to cry. We were terrified, but they weren't afraid of us. They knew what needed to be said - even when it was to ask about funeral arrangements - and did so without flinching, and with a kindness I thought you needed a lifetime to cultivate.

I often think of them. I have no idea if they remember us, but one day I will find a way to make sure they know how they somehow managed to save me from drowning during those first terrible and totally unreal days.

What a priceless gift indeed.

Slaves to the melon

We went to a nearby farmer's market on Saturday morning to peruse the local produce and soak up the small town atmosphere. It was a really nice way to start the day. There's nothing quite like bringing home bags of locally grown produce on a surprisingly crisp weekend morning before you're normally even up and functioning.

I did notice that we were missing the seemingly requisite dog on a leash and kid in a stroller, but at least we fit in with the old people who were also there without small things to push and pick up after.

We bought leeks and sweet carrots as well as a basket of gorgeous peaches. But my most prized purchase was a pair of great big musk melons - one of my all-time favourite late summer market treats. The size of small bowling balls, they held the promise of delectable summer sweetness within their deeply rippled skins.

We tore into one of the big beauties the moment we got home. In minutes we were covered in golden juice that dripped down our chins and off of our fingers. Truth be told, it was a bit of an orgy.

The next day as we were enjoying the second half of the melon, My Beloved pointed out its ingenious nature. The seeds, tucked safely - and cleverly - inside the heart of the fruit, are designed to be eaten and subsequently transported to new potential breeding locales.

They take a free ride through our digestive tracts and are summarily deposited, encapsulated in a delightfully fertile medium, ready to take root and begin the cycle again.

As My Beloved said, we are slaves to the melon.

That is, of course, if we eat the seeds (which we don't) and deposit our fertile medium somewhere other than in a vessel that immediately directs it to a treatment facility (which I haven't done since the days of the cottage outhouse 30 odd years ago).

But it's still a very cool notion. Slaves to the melon.

Anyway, it all got me thinking about how life just seems to find a way - about how it's designed to take great advantage of even the smallest opportunity.

Which of course makes me think that that's exactly what we're doing. Taking great advantage of a small opportunity.

IUI will increase our chances of conceiving. By how much, I'm not sure. Tubal issues aside, at my age the odds of conception each cycle probably fall below 20%. With IUI it's raised to about that. Possibly more.

Which means, of course, that it has a 75% - 80% of failing.

But I'm not supposed to be thinking negatively, so I'm going to revel in the glory that is 20% and think like a melon. Think that if I just entrust the little seeds within me to the big world out there, one will find its way. Just because that's what it was ingeniously designed to do.

En garde!!

So we have a plan of attack. Because feeling like you're going into battle is precisely the right atmosphere in which one should create a baby, isn't it?

The sad thing is, it is the right way to go when you've been trying to conceive for a few days shy of 15 months. At this point, the more ammunition, the better.

Which is why as soon as the conditions are right we'll be doing IUI. Intrauterine Insemination.

Gosh, it even sounds romantic, doesn't it? All sterile and mediciney.

As the good doctor said, My Beloved and I don't even have to be in the building at the same time to have a baby this way. And isn't that every loving couple's dream? I've always hoped to conceive a child using a speculum, a long syringe and the help of masked strangers.

I'm being so ungrateful. I know I am. We're very lucky to be good candidates for this procedure and I'm also very lucky that I responded so well to the Clomid and that My Beloved's swimmers are in peak condition.

I just need a little time to adjust to this strange new world in which everyone is invited into my vagina for a looky-loo and nature takes a back seat to science. It's very foreign to me.

But if it means that one day we'll be bringing a real live baby home to stay, I'll do it. I'll do it all and then some.

Trial by fire

Last night I dreamt that the house burned down. My Beloved and I stood on the front lawn with our jaws on our chests watching everything we have go up in smoke. The only thing My Beloved was able to reach in and save was Thomas' teddy bear - the one who appears in the precious few pictures we have of our baby, and who now sits on our bed every day.

It was night, and the flames licking up the walls of the living room and engulfing the pictures on the piano were almost beautiful. I guess they would have been if it wasn't all so horrible, and if it didn't mean that the fire was erasing everything and taking all that I have left in the world from me.

I then found myself alone on a dark street near my parents' house trying to find my way to my old home. I was scared, and so because I knew I was close enough for it to be okay, I closed my eyes and ran as fast as I could. I don't know how it's possible to run so far with your eyes closed, but because it's a dream it totally makes sense that when I opened my eyes I was about 70 kilometers from my Mom and Dad's house.

Good and lost.

I wandered into a bar to ask for directions. The guy behind the counter was someone I knew - someone who knew we'd lost Thomas. He didn't help me, and when I turned to leave I heard him say, "I bet she wishes there were fewer hours in the day". And I knew what he meant, because if there were fewer hours there'd be less time to feel the aching sorrow that still eats me up on a good day.

When I went back outside it was daylight. I looked at the unfamiliar street signs and decided that I'd just try walking in the direction that seemed right to me, even though I had no idea if it was actually the right way to go. I was about to take my first step when I felt a hand in mine. I looked over and saw My Beloved, who had somehow managed to find me even though I'd disappeared from the fire, run through the night and gotten horribly lost in the process. He found me.

He wasn't sure which way was the right way to go either, but we set out anyway. Together.

I woke up happy.

I'm just so tired

I'm in such a ferociously foul mood right now. I feel like I've been stretched to my absolute emotional limit. I couldn't possibly squeeze even the tiniest bit more negativity, sorrow, anger or hopelessness into my head because it feels like I've already somehow managed to gather every last bit of it available to me and cram it in there until it's as tight as a drum.

This is one of those "how do I keep doing this?" kind of days. The ones in which the road before me is all uphill and I'm wearing boots made of lead. I keep trudging, but I'm not getting anywhere and the boots are getting heavier with each and every step.

I'm just tired. I'm tired of feeling sad, I'm tired of missing Thomas, I'm tired of wanting him here, I'm tired of trying to get pregnant, I'm tired of failing every month, I'm tired of fertility treatments, I'm tired of feeling broken, I'm tired of pitying looks, I'm tired of endless questions, I'm tired of trying to pretend I'm okay on the days when I'm not.

I need a vacation. But unfortunately you can't have a vacation from your own life, can you?

We didn't sign up for this, My Beloved and I. And fuck it, we didn't deserve it either.

If

I know it's wrong, and certainly just plain icky of me, but I'm currently working on a nice, slow seethe over Britney's ability to procreate with such apparent ease ( I shouldn't have picked up that People magazine this morning).

It bugged me the first time, but the second time - an admitted oops - is just plain annoying to the uterinely challenged.

I should NOT begrudge someone a child, no matter how vapid they are or how atrocious their choice of breeding partner. But I do.

There she is - in all her nubile glory, buck naked on the cover of some magazine - flaunting her fertility in my face. And only two months after she tearfully begged the media to leave her alone and just let her be a regular wife and mom.

'Cause you know, that's what all regular moms do - strip down to the skivvies God gave 'em and pose for national magazines with strategically placed hands covering enormous breasts and legs crossed 'just so" to avoid giving readers a view of baby's escape hatch.

She just bugs me, that's all.

It's because I'm old and bitter. And require drugs to make my innards do what hers are still able to do all on their own, dammit.

After I flipped past the Britney article I came across an ad that showed a harried mom with two toddlers doing harried mom stuff. I can't remember what produce was being advertised. In fact I'm not sure I even noticed because I just kept thinking that I was once this close to being a mom just like that - one with a baby right here instead of in heaven.

It's a funky blue day, I guess. A day for lavish pity parties and thoughts of what might have been. If I was younger. If I'd known something was wrong. If I could turn back time.

If I still had my Thomas.

Take THAT!

There's just something about the place. Maybe it's because the priest who said Thomas' funeral left the parish, or maybe it's because my patience is waning the longer things don't go the way I want them to (and I'm acting like a petulant child because of it) but each Sunday at church is a new experience in futility these days.

I was actually feeling fine this Sunday morning before church. On the way there I even vowed to begin anew with God. I thought I'd start fresh, let bygones be bygones, bury the hatchet and see if I could just get over it already. It was a pretty, cool day, the sun was out and I felt totally fine. Almost peaceful.

Which lasted all of five minutes once I got into the church. I couldn't concentrate on my prayers and gave up, and then spent the bulk of the Mass thinking about Thomas. But not in a good way. I kept thinking about how close we were to having him - to being able to bring him home, safe and sound like so many thousands of parents do every day. How it was just a matter of minutes - precious, unmonitored minutes - and he was taken from us. How it would have been so painfully easy for God, who is apparently capable of some pretty astounding miracles, to make everything just fine. To save our son.

I tortured myself uncontrollably in the house of God until I was so furious my only option was to leave. But because I'm still faithful (or stupid) enough to fear the wrath of God (although I have no idea why - what more could he possibly do to me?), I waited until after communion. Until after I knelt down and pretended to pray. I gauged the flow of post communion foot traffic until I saw a break in the line and jumped into it, flowing effortlessly to the back of the church where I continued out the door and into the sunshine, free at last.

It's the only thing I'm brave enough to do to God. Isn't that pathetic? As if leaving Mass before the final blessing is the worst earthly crime a person can possibly commit.

"Never mind the pedophiles, axe murders and terrorists," says God, "what the heck am I going to do with that defiant girl who keeps leaving Mass before she's been dismissed??"

But it's all I've got. It's my only protest against what I still can't understand or bear - the loss of my son and the feeling that God betrayed me.

Sigh. Can't wait for next week.

Was that the pill or a Peanut?

I wish I knew enough about clomid to know if the symptoms I'm having are drug-related or not. I've heard that it amplifies any and all forms of PMS, sneaky little pill that it is, so I'm assuming it can also masquerade as a pregnancy too.

Fantastic. Because evidently the process isn't torturous enough without throwing in decoys.

Harumph.

Sweet

Ah, so we ALL like a little gratuitous sugar, eh?

I'd love to send some to you, Abby (and to everyone else who so kindly stroked my baker's ego with those glowing compliments), but for some reason I don't think they'd travel well - and I can't think of anything sadder than a box full of sticky tart crumbs stuck to errant globs of filling.

Okay, I actually can think of a few things sadder than some busted tarts, but you know what I mean.

So I'm doing the next best thing and posting the recipe, which includes the dough (which yes, I did make myself, she said proudly).

PLEASE someone make these. Honest to God, they're so good and really, really easy. The worst part is making the pastry, and this recipe makes such lovely supple dough even THAT'S not all that taxing.

One quick word of advice though: Cut the filling recipe in half. I did and it STILL made more than two dozen tarts. If you're not interested in having an army of tarts taunting you with their sugary goodness for weeks on end (from the depths of your freezer, of course, since these probably shouldn't be hanging about for weeks on end), I recommend making just half the recipe. I made the full amount of pastry dough though. I just froze what I didn't use (which means my next tart adventure will be a breeze!).

Without further ado...

BEST EVER BUTTER TARTS

Never Fail Pastry
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pound Tenderflake lard (or Crisco Shortening, which is what I used)
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 egg, slightly beaten
Water

Filling
2 cups dark brown sugar, packed
2 cups corn syrup
1/2 pound butter
8 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups raisins, washed and rinsed (I don't like raisins so I left them out)

DIRECTIONS

Pastry
Cut lard (or Crisco) into cubes (about 1 inch) and freeze. Mix together flour, salt, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor.

After the lard is frozen, add to the food processor. Pulse until the flour mixture is crumbly and resembles small peas.

Combine vinegar and egg in a measuring cup and add enough water to make 1 cup. Add the liquid mixture through the feed tube. Continue until the mixture forms a ball.

Divide into four and form into flat disks. Chill for about 15 minutes. Roll out 1 piece of dough on a floured board until 1/8 inch thick. Cut to the appropriate size and line the tart tins.

Place the lined tart tins in the freezer. You get flakier pastry if you keep it chilled before baking.

Note: I don't have a food processor, so I made the pastry the old fashioned way - with a pastry cutter and elbow grease. I also didn't freeze the cubes of Crisco. I think that's only important if you're using Lard)

Filling
Mix the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and eggs in the food processor (or mixer) until smooth. Add salt and vanilla and mix well.

Place about 9 raisins in each tart shell. Add the syrup mixture until about 3/4 full.

Bake in a 400 degree F. oven for about 15 to 20 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool slightly before removing from tins. These freeze well. Makes 36 or more medium tarts.

ENJOY!!! And be sure to let me know how they turn out!

Gratuitous sugar

Because I'm embarrassingly proud of the things I bake that actually turn out, I needed to post a picture of the butter tarts I made to take to a BBQ we were invited to last weekend.

It was risky - I've never made butter tarts before and I waited until the afternoon of the shin dig to start baking - but they turned out just fine.

You see, historically "event baking" hasn't always worked out too well for me (hard cookie-like cakes, runny pecan pies, biscotti with plastic spatula bits) - a fact My Beloved never seems to tire of reminding me. But this time things went in my favour and I pulled tart after near-perfect tart from the oven in a glorious haze of sugar-coated triumph.

I was practically giddy. So much so that I ate a half a scalding tart to see if they tasted as good as they looked.

And oh, they did.

We took more than necessary to the neighbours and gave some away to the in-laws the next day because they were simply too dangerous to keep in the house. We'd polished off the remaining four by Monday night.

I miss them.

A new 'do

I switched hair dressers. The girl I had been seeing wore thin after just two visits. Not only did she forget about Thomas and ask me about my kids the second time I was in, but she essentially told me I looked like a fat Mom. Not in so many words, but that was the gist of it. I don't need to be told I have a "round face" repeatedly before getting seriously disgruntled.

I knew then that we'd be breaking up.

But I've since found a keeper. She's a tiny little thing in her mid 50s, I think. She used to work in the film industry (which explains the autographed Stephanie Zimbalist picture by her station - which I have to admit I found rather cool) but switched to steady salon work when she had her child.

Or, I should say, when she adopted her child.

The inevitable "so, do you have kids" question popped up about halfway into my cut. I'd already decided to tell the truth, albeit abbreviated and as "But I'm okay" as possible.

To my surprise she knew exactly what to say, and went on to tell me about her own battle with infertility and the subsequent adoption of a little girl from Russia.

Our circumstances are different, but she got it. She said she somehow doesn't quite feel like a woman. She has all the parts, but they didn't work properly so she doesn't know what it's like to be a complete and functioning woman like the mothers she talks to at the salon who all assume she carried her little girl as they did theirs.

I wanted to jump out of the chair and hug her and say "I know. Oh God, I know."

I mean, I realize I can't compare my situation with the agony of never having conceived at all, but I carried my child to term and my body failed him. It didn't do what it should have - what millions of other women's bodies do every day - and he died. That can most certainly fuck with your womanly sense of self esteem. Trust me.

What I assumed would end up being another disastrous and awkward appointment with someone who, horrified and shocked by my story, would end up putting her foot in her mouth repeatedly while I assured her she wasn't at all, turned into a very calming bonding session.

I seriously considered inviting her out for coffee but figured that would be crossing the client/stylist boundary - and could very possibly make me look like a lunatic. So I didn't.

But thank God for Debra. She happened to give me a great cut, but even if she hadn't I know I'd have gone back just the same.

The wine was nice

What a difference a few days makes. And some sleep. And some wine. And the glorious news that you've ovulated and will be spared the indignity of the dildocam and the annoyance of blood letting for at least a few weeks.

I feel better. I feel a little less like I'm drowning under the weight of the news the good doctor delivered after the HSG. I'm not particularly optimistic, not just yet (and maybe never), but I'm starting to feel slightly less icky, for lack of a better word.

Because believe me, it's pretty icky to find out that so many things are wrong when so many things have already gone so very, very wrong. It's icky news to have to tell your darling husband who wants a child as much as you do, and it's icky news to have to deliver to hopeful, anxious, wide-eyed family members who are waiting for blessed news to arrive on angels' wings.

It's icky all 'round. It's actually pretty shitty, as a matter of fact.

But it's done. Everyone knows the score and hopefully things will return to business as usual as I quietly go about trying not to think too much about getting pregnant and not getting pregnant while feeling so frustratingly broken.

As if.

Thinking of an angel

Sending (((((HUGS))))) to Ryan's Mommy and Daddy and wishes for peace and comfort.

Happy first birthday little one

Yeah, so about that twin thing...

I think I need to backtrack a little. A good night's sleep and an HSG sure can change a girl's mind. Particularly when it turns out she's only firing on one cylinder and was built with faulty equipment.

One blocked fallopian tube and a bicornuate uterus. Fan-fucking-tastic. For the blissfully ignorant (and oh how I wish I was among your ranks) a bicornuate uterus is heart shaped, and formed when two uteruses (uteri?) joined to become one way back when I was but a tiny peanut in my own mommy's tummy.

You'd think with two uteruses I'd be the world's most fertile woman. But apparently not.

I can't even bear to consider what affect my flawed interior design may have had on Thomas - or what part it might have played in his death. I just can't bear it. Not today.

I don't really have enough information to know how all this affects our future breeding prospects either. I was unable to ask any intelligent questions as I lay there on the table with dye oozing out of my nether regions and the shock of it all hanging around me like a thick fog. My doctor seemed optimistic for me - one tube and Clomid are enough, according to the good doctor - but he also admitted that he'd need to see my ultrasounds (which he hasn't, as yet) in order to get a good handle on things.

I really think he just wanted to get to his lunch. How he could even think of eating after what he'd just done and seen is a whole other puzzle. But that's his problem, not mine. I have enough of my own to think about, thank you very much.

So there you have it. I'm good and broken.

And I'm not entirely sure how I even feel about having babies anymore. Is it fair to keep trying if there's a possibility that more babies could die because of me? I don't know. I don't know all the stats and odds and risks yet (except what I've gleaned by poking around online) so it's premature of me to make any decisions (not to mention the fact that I'm not the only one who gets to make this one).

But I'm just saying, I don't know how much more of this I can stand.

The more answers we find, the more I crumble inside under the weight of the guilt I haven't been able to shake since Thomas died.

Who knew there was more where that came from?

The post in which I prove I'm bi-polar

So I was thinking about having twins. I realize I can't just wish them into existence (wouldn't that be handy though?), but for some reason yesterday I was able to believe that it might actually be possible not only to conceive, but to conceive two healthy take-home babies.

I told you I was bi-polar.

The twins would be girls, and it would mean that I wouldn't have to choose between the two girl names My Beloved and I already have picked out (he likes one, I like the other).

See? Wouldn't it be so neat and tidy for the Clomid fairy to bring us twins? That would be a whole family in one shot, complete with big brother Thomas watching vigilantly from what I imagine is probably the nicest cloud in the heavens - certainly the one closest to the chocolate dispenser, anyway.

Clomid increases the risk of having twins by 10%, according to something I was reading the other day. I managed to fall into the 1% of people who experience a massive abruption, and Thomas landed squarely in the 15% of babies for whom abruption is fatal, so I think a 10% twin risk is well within our fighting range.

Or maybe I'm just insane. Could be.

I'm not completely out of my mind though. Most of me still finds it next to impossible to believe that I'll ever hold a live, wiggling, screaming baby of my own, but I suppose it's a good thing that I'm willing to entertain the notion that there could be a different ending to our story one day. I don't necessarily believe it, but I can entertain it. That's something, right?

Last night, just before we drifted off to sleep, I whispered to My Beloved, asking if he still truly believed we would have another baby. In the dim light of the hall night light I saw him nod his head and smile almost imperceptibly.

Peace flooded my body and I slept.

Let's talk some more about me

I'm in a bad mood, but I don't know if it's me or the Clomid.

Let's blame it on the Clomid, shall we?

I don't know much about this alleged baby-inducing wonder drug, but I do know that it's going to be my scapegoat for the next three weeks or so. All foul moods, crying jags, cold shoulders and snarls will be blamed squarely on that benign looking little pill. And his four brothers.

I'm skeptical of Clomid. I can't shake the feeling that all it's going to produce is a string of dark days and a torrent of tears.

My Beloved, if he reads this, will want to curse me for not thinking positively, but I've done just about all the positive thinking I can. None of my positive baby thoughts have led to a live baby, so it's far easier for me to believe that this isn't going to work either, no matter how positive I am. I'm not superstitious enough to believe that THAT'S what's going to prevent me from getting pregnant - not thinking happy enough thoughts, I mean. That's complete rubbish.

My mind is a powerful thing and all, but I'm fairly certain it's not the cause of my secondary infertility.

And if it is, I will certainly need to figure out a way to properly harness that power into some sort of money-making venture. Mustn't let it go to waste (particularly not with the cost of fertility treatments these days).

I do believe that stress can do some dastardly things, but surely crack whores lead stressful lives, and they get pregnant with alarming frequency, don't they? Or is that just what those of us with funky plumbing and corrupt uteruses think when we're in Clomid-induced hazes? Maybe, but even one successfully breeding crack whore is enough to blow the "stress" theory out of the water as far as I'm concerned.

I've long forgotten how to relax anyway. That's stuff of long ago and far away.

When I looked at the Clomid before I swallowed it this morning, I wanted to cry. I get that I need help conceiving and that any baby that is (magically) produced after all this poking, prodding and scientific intervention is still a product of the love between My Beloved and me, but it still seems like an awful way to make a child - with pills and dildocams and bloodtests.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned just how much I'm hating all this. And oooooooh, perhaps the worst part of it all is the nauseating self-absorption (for which I apologize profusely).

Stay tuned - I think tomorrow we're going to talk some more about me.

Gulp...

I popped my first Clomid this morning. Then I went to have a shower and waited for the horrible side effects to kick in.

I briefly thought there was going to be an anaphylactic incident, but it turned out to be a little bit of phlegm instead.

Fasten your seatbelts and hold onto your hats. This could be a very long and bumpy road indeed.

My apologies in advance.

And then there were none. Again.

Another family of birds has come and gone. Sigh.

This was the last picture I took of the baby Mourning Doves. Well, one baby and one mama, anyway. I snapped it on Monday, the day before they left the nest (a less than graceful departure, incidentally - think Woodstock in vulture's clothing).

I'm glad we're no longer the crazy people with one dead hanging basket twisting wildly in the wind, but I'll miss the little fellows who've been calling it home since the end of June. As much as I loved our tree swallows, they were very territorial in the last weeks before they flew the coop. The doves, by sharp contrast, were very peaceful house guests. The worst they did was eye us warily.

Oh, and there was a disgruntled "MRrrrroooCOOOOOOO" when My Beloved cracked his head on the bottom of the pot one afternoon while he was gardening, but other than that they were quiet and extremely good natured.

I miss them.

Now what?

In summary

My Day:

1. Blood draw from friendly phlebotomist who left an alarming bruise on my arm

2. Dildocam with accompanying uncomfortable conversation about upcoming baby shower tech is throwing for her sister

3. Awkward waiting room conversation with fellow patient that started with her query about length of post-dildocam wait times. Thomas mentioned. Not sure if I should have done that...

4. Consultation with doctor (the one who did the D&C after my first miscarriage and who re-stapled me when I sprung a leak after Thomas' C-section. He didn't remember me, but I can't forget the sorrow that clings to him)

5. Prescription for Clomid

6. Is that the smell of fear?

7. Worrying and driving

8. Visit with my parents, complete with toasted tomato sandwich (a restorative and all-too-brief reprieve from the scary world)

9. Grocery shopping

10. Drug store shopping

11. Battle with the humidity-ravaged front door lock

12. Muttered expletives

13. Garage door entry

14. People magazine, chocolate and 90210

15. Dinner preparation

16. Dinner with wine

17. More wine

18. My Beloved, at long last

All's well that ends well.

The lake

If I could have one wish today - aside from the obvious and ever-present wish of having Thomas back - it would be that I could somehow find myself sitting by the shore of the lake I knew as a child, watching the water lap up over the stones and sand my Grandma used to rake into a fresh beach every spring. She fought with grass, weeds and the tiny nubs of new pine trees that littered her beautiful little beach each year after the winter snows receded.

That's life cottage life in Northern Ontario for you.

And I loved it. The smell of it, the look of it, the feel of it - how I felt when I was there.

It was the most magical place I've ever known. The sound of the wind tickling the trees in the wood lot beside the cottage, the screech of the red squirrels, the chill of the morning air, the heat of the afternoon, the lazy tick-tock of the clock in the tiny kitchen that now hangs broken in my own, the cheese-slice sandwiches and orange pop for lunch, walks to the bridge with gravel crunching beneath my feet and the smell of road tar in my nose, bonfires with gooey toasted marshmallows, wet bathing suits draped on the porch railing, laundry dancing on the line strung between the cottage and a tall maple tree, the mist on the pre-dawn water, row boat rides to the cove across the lake, swimming until we were wrinkled and chilled to the bone.

If I could just go back there. Drink my fill of it. Take refuge in it.

I could breathe in strength from that sweet, beautiful world I loved so much, and take enough with me to help me cope with the world I live in now. The one filled with fear and sorrow and frustration. The one that doesn't make any sense and the one that would be unbearable were it not for the people I love who keep me sane and grounded.

I love them with all my heart. But sometimes I still just want to sit by the lake.

In my sister's garden

God and I have our issues, but he certainly does make some very, very beautiful things, doesn't he? My sister caught this Monarch butterfly dancing around her garden last week and was able to snap some great shots of it while it took a little rest on one of her cone flowers.



Monarchs remind us of our Grandmother who passed away 16 years ago. The cottage she and my Grandfather had on a beautiful little lake in Ontario's Muskoka region was home to hundreds of migrating Monarchs each summer. They were always floating by the shoreline and fluttering through the leaves of the white birch trees that my Grandma loved so much.

They look like little stained glass windows that have broken free from their lead frames, and they have the same kind of light and magic that my Grandma did. Her spirit was every bit as lovely as a Monarch's delicate wings.

Whenever we see them now, we always think of her and imagine that she's sending us a message to let us that she's always close. Gone, but never far away.

Just beyond the veil.

I thought about having a Monarch release ceremony for Thomas once upon a time. My Beloved and I were at a flower show (yes, it was my idea) and there was a man there who raises and sells Monarchs for just such purposes. I loved the idea, but it was too soon after Thomas' death for me to seriously entertain the notion.

Plus I figured my family - including My Beloved - would think I was insane.

But since it still seems like a really beautiful thing to do (not insane at all, as a matter of fact), I might just arrange to do a release next spring.

I know my Grandma, floating just out of sight, will love it too.