This is what's keeping me together

1. Prayer. God is my therapist, y'all. I tell Him everything.

2. Matt. We both have our up days and our down days and times when we're unbearably grumpy and irritable, but for the most part he's so supportive and considerate of my grief that I have to remind myself that HE'S the one who just lost his parents. And then my heart breaks for him all over again, and I pull it together to be the supportive one and let him lean on me for a while. It's a give and take, and I'm trying to give as much as I take, but I know I couldn't get through it without him. All that, and he cooks, too. I love that man.

3. Healthy eating and exercise, which are both something I'm just getting back to. Since Rob died, we've been riding the fast food junk train again, and I've been pretty sedentary. Because when you feel too depressed to cook you tend to eat a lot of crap and not feel like working out, but that makes you feel even worse, and it's a sick, vicious merry-go-round of bad eating and not moving and feeling worse and worse. I'm finally sick and disgusted enough to force myself to get off of it. I'm getting back on the Cake or Baby? wagon, and choosing Baby. And I'm getting off of the couch and going outside and walking once and a while. After just a few days of this I'm already starting to feel better. I'm sure the warm weather and sunshine and fresh air are helping, too.

4. My bass. I'm still focusing on the fundamentals and building up my calluses and my hand strength and dexterity. I'd probably be a lot further along if I could devote a couple of hours a day to practicing like an actual musician, instead of just 30 minutes here and there like the hobbyist that I am. But it takes every ounce of my concentration to hit the right notes and make them sound halfway decent, which is great, because it gets my mind off of all of the stressful and sad things, and for that 30 minutes I get to just exist and make a joyful noise. It is awesome.

5. This blog. It's helping me to talk about this stuff, which is why there's been a sudden increase in posting. Some of you might wonder why I just talk AT you here on the blog instead of talking TO you, but I'm still at a place where I just need to get stuff out without having to answer questions or field advice or--and I'm well aware how selfish and awful this is of me--hear your problems, too, no matter how big or small. I'm trying to pull myself out of this place, because I don't enjoy it. But I'm still there, too mired in my own crap to even contemplate dealing with anybody else's, and I continue to withdraw and feel like the horrible friend that I am, and hope everyone will just be patient with me until this passes and I'm up to two-way personal conversations again.

6. You guys--here, and on Facebook, and Twitter, and in e-mail, who let me know that you're thinking of us and we're not alone, and that I'm not crazy, and that it's okay to still be weighed down with all this grief and dealing with it the best I can.

7. Demand Studios. It's not my favorite gig, but it's a safety net, and knowing it's there is helping to ease my worry about where our next mortgage payment is coming from, as well as the stiffness in my neck and shoulders and the tightness in my chest that I feared was maybe becoming permanent.

8. Pete. You know that we're crazy pet people, right? Well, we're craziest about our tiny dog. He is hilarious and sweet and the cutest thing ever, and he's usually the brightest spot in our day.

Monday Fail

I meant to wake up early (for me) today and kick things into high gear and show my professional life who's boss. Instead I overslept and had to scramble to eat breakfast and wake my brain all the way up and de-stinkify my office-slash-cat toilet in time for a conference call, only to log on in the nick of time to see that the client postponed it a couple of hours. So here I am blogging instead. So much for taking this work week by the horns.

Also pwning me today is the weather, who's cloudy skies and cooler temperatures are sucking away all of my motivation to keep up with my walking regimen. Maybe it's just nature's way of telling me to stop talking about doing pilates again and start doing them already.

I guess I should move them from my Wanna Do list over to my Must Do list. See, the other day when I was feeling like there's not nearly enough balance in my life between doing things for other people and doing things for myself, I made those lists, both on the same notebook page with a line drawn down the center. On the Must Do side is all of my work and home obligations, and on the Want side are all of the personal projects I keep putting off in order to meet those obligations...

...and I just dribbled coffee on my shirt, because that's just the kind of spaz I am...

...with the idea being that for every three things I cross off of the Must side I earn myself an hour to devote to the Want side. The problem, of course, is making myself stop working on the Must Dos long enough to redeem the Want hours. Although, blogging is on the Wanna Do side, so I guess I'm redeeming part of it right now.

And lest I give anyone the impression that I'm some kind of workaholic, I should disclose that a lot of the time I could be working on the Wanna Do projects is instead spent on things like napping and watching TV and reading about TV on the internet. So, yeah, I don't need more time so much as better time management and discipline. The impending summer hiatus ought to help out with that.

In other news, my insurance said they would cover the thrombophilia testing, so I had that done on Friday, when they drew so much blood that I really thought they should have given me some juice and a cookie before sending me on my way. I probably won't learn the results until my next appointment mid-May. Meanwhile, I've become slightly paranoid about the possibility of keeling over from an embolism, and have started taking a daily aspirin to thin my blood, just in case. And typing that just made me feel so old.

I still have an hour to kill before my conference call. I think I'll spend it on the Wanna Do list. Because I've earned it.

Who's That Girl?

I'm getting some head shots taken today. Li'l Sis owes me some free pictures for doing her web site last year, so when I asked her if she had any decent candid shots of me that I could use on my new bio page, she offered to do a head shot session instead (and to buy me sushi for a belated birthday lunch, which, YAY! But I digress).

I'm feeling some anxiety about it, and not just because I'm carrying some extra weight in my face right now. Nor is it because last night I decided to trim the bangs I'd been growing out for the past several months and made a complete disaster of it -- though come to think of it, neither of those things is helping. But mostly, it's because these pictures are supposed to be a representation of who I am, or at least who I want to present to potential clients; and I really have no idea who that is right now.

As I try to decide what to wear to the shoot, it's hitting me. I have this picture of myself in my head, and in that picture I have an adorable and hip (but not hipster) hair cut with blonde (and possibly some pink) highlights mixed in with the red. My clothes are cute but geek-chic, my nails are short but manicured, and, weirdly, I'm wearing glasses, with thick retro tortoise-shell frames that are slightly geeky but flatter my face. This imaginary me that I envision is nowhere near reality.

I tell myself that this is what I would look like if I had the money (and the time and energy) to spend on clothes and haircuts and getting my eyes checked. But the reality is a tired chick who trims her own hair (sometimes badly) and doesn't even bother to do self-manicures anymore and needs glasses but can't afford them and buys whatever clothes can be found on the clearance rack that look passable in public, who is doing the best she can on limited resources to look presentable but who just doesn't have the time, energy or money to spend on her appearance. And usually, it doesn't matter, because I work at home and my husband says he likes me better au naturale, anyway, and most days he's the only one who ever sees me.

But that's not really the version of myself that I want to display on the Internet for all of my clients and potential clients to see. So getting dressed today feels like picking out a costume. But which costume? Which side of myself do I want to portray? There's the casual, laid-back, semi-fashionable business woman, which is pretty much the costume I used to wear to work every day when I had a corporate job. That seems appropriate, considering this is for my business web site. But then there's the geek girl, the girl with the (imaginary) glasses who wears funky tee-shirts and no jewelry and loves to read and write urban fantasy and romance and is addicted to TV and spends the majority of her time online... which also seems appropriate, because I do work online, and I am a web designer, which is fairly geeky in and of itself, and also because it's really ME.

I honestly can't decide which version to go with. It doesn't help that I'm having a bit of an identity crisis, what with the whole "I'm so psyched to become a mother -- oh, wait, PSYCH! That's apparently not for me!" thing that's been happening with me lately, but that's fodder for another post. Whichever version I go with, I'd better decide soon - I have another hour before I need to get dressed and prettify myself, and with all of the time I anticipate I'll spend standing on the verge of tears in the middle of my closet, I'd better get started early. Hopefully, I'll be able to come up with some kind of happy medium. Or maybe I'll just take a second set of clothes and let Li'l Sis decide. Either way, one thing's for sure -- whoever I present myself as today, she's going to have terrible bangs.

A Spark of Hope, Extinguished

This won't be an easy post to read, but I'm feeling a powerful need to write it right now. I had another miscarriage. I'm sure most, if not all, of you who read my last post guessed that my "secret" was that I was pregnant again. As much as I was dying to announce it, Matt and I had decided this time to wait until we were safely into the second trimester to tell anyone other than close family. Well, we didn't make it that far.

My last miscarriage happened at 8 weeks. This past Saturday, when I reached the 9 week mark without any apparent problems, I was so overjoyed that I had to reign myself in from spilling the beans in my Livejournal. It was a benchmark I had been anxious to reach, and with only 4 more weeks to go until the second trimester it felt like I was practically there, and everything was going to be okay with this baby. The next day, the spotting started.

It was Sunday night when I first saw blood. I freaked out, panicked crying close to hyperventilating, and Matt had to calm me down. After that we just tried to stay calm and hopeful until we knew for certain there was a reason not to be. Monday morning I called my doctor's clinic, and they managed to work me into their schedule for Wednesday morning. I went all day Monday and all day Tuesday without any more bleeding, and my hopes were ratcheting back up, until about 1 AM Wednesday morning when it started again.

Later that morning, my mom picked me up and took me to my appointment. We'd ordered a new bed last weekend and it was scheduled to be delivered that day, so Matt had to stay behind in case it arrived that morning. As we sat in the waiting room, I still managed to stay hopeful. My mom told me about all of the women in her church and circle of friends who were praying for us, all of whom felt certain that I was going to have this baby. Also, the spotting had been bright red, which I'd read usually has something to do with the placenta not being attached correctly, but that the baby could still be fine.  Finally, the doctor saw me, and the physical exam didn't show any cause for concern, but she ordered an ultrasound to be sure.

We had to wait another hour or so before they could get me into the ultrasound, and by then I was starting to feel like everything was going to be okay. When we finally got back there, the US tech was great. She explained how she wasn't allowed to tell me if anything was wrong, but that she could tell me if everything was fine... which meant that her silence would indicate that there was no heartbeat. My mom held my hand as she performed the US, and after several agonizing minutes waiting for her to take all of my lady plumbing measurements, we finally saw my baby up there on the screen. I held my breath as she measured it, and then looked over at her. The grim look on her face told me everything I needed to know, but then she looked me in the eye and shook her head to confirm it.

I felt like I cried my soul out while my mother held me and cried with me there on the ultrasound table. The tech slipped out to give us a few minutes alone, but before she left I managed to ask if she could print a picture for me. I'm glad I did. It's comforting to have tangible proof that this baby existed. I didn't get that with the last one.

Once I was able to pull myself together, we were taken back to an exam room to wait for the doctor. When she arrived, she confirmed that there was no heartbeat, and that the baby died at 7 weeks and 3 days - one day before my last blog post. She suggested that we undergo genetic testing before trying again, which I don't know how or if we'll ever be able to afford. She gave me a choice between scheduling a D&C or waiting to see if I passed it on my own, and I chose the D&C. I passed it naturally last time, and that ended up requiring two trips to the ER and a lot of physical pain and stress that I would just as soon avoid this time if possible, and at this point I was ready to get it over with.

I went home, where Matt and I curled up in bed and just held each other for a long time. When we finally talked, it became clear that we're both too frustrated and beaten down to make any decisions about whether to keep trying, so for the time being we've decided not to decide--to give ourselves at least six months off from even thinking about it, and to go back to living our lives the way we did before we started trying. We even discussed the possibility of using the money we had put back for the baby to take a badly needed vacation somewhere warm and relaxing. We spent the rest of the evening putting the new bed together, because we were both feeling numb and we needed a project to distract us, and because Matt wanted me to be able to sleep off my surgery on a comfortable mattress.

Thursday morning I had the D&C. It went smoothly, and afterwards they loaded me up with pain pills and antibiotics and sent me home to recover. I was sore and had lingering nausea all day from the general anesthesia, but I didn't mind. It kept me distracted from the real pain of the whole situation.

I've pretty much felt empty and numb since I left the doctor's office on Wednesday, but since waking up this morning I've been pretty weepy. I think I'm just beginning to really process everything, and I'm sure at some point soon the dam will burst and my breakdown will be spectacular. Matt is, of course, grieving, but he did a better job than I did of staying detached and not getting his hopes up prior to the second trimester.  I, in fact, did a lousy job of it.

Outside right now, it's raining and thundering ( and hailing - April in Oklahoma's getting off to a proper start), which matches my mood. I may take some more pain pills and go back to bed after I post this. I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since the spotting started. I'd hoped that the pain pills would take care of that, but even drugged last night I didn't fall asleep until after 1 AM, and I woke up crying just after six this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I've been pretty weepy all morning. I'm not sure what the rest of today will bring. I need a day (at least) to just rest and grieve, but we need to run some errands and I need to make some phone calls and cancel some baby-related appointments. Right now I'm grateful for the distractions, but I know that soon I need to give myself time to process everything before it sneaks up on me and we get that spectacular breakdown that nobody really wants to see.

I wanted to apologize to everyone I've fallen out of touch with the last couple of months. The first trimester fatigue hit me pretty hard, and while I was pregnant I literally was only ever awake long enough to get my work done -- not even long enough for that, really. I'm wondering how much sheer stress might have been responsible for this miscarriage. We were relying solely on my income, and with the fatigue I wasn't able to put in all of the hours I needed to to keep us afloat, which was stressing me out pretty severely. A couple of weeks ago we learned that Matt's finally approved to receive SSDI, plus I got approved for WIC to help out with groceries, both of which allowed me to be able to cut back on my working hours and took care of the majority of my stress; but by then it was already too late for the baby.

Anyway, at least I don't have the fatigue to contend with anymore, so I should start having more time for being social once we're done licking our wounds. Meanwhile, I'm going to keep cutting back some on my freelance hours and throw myself back into editing my novel (something else I haven't had time to so much as think about since getting pregnant and becoming full-time Sleepy Jean) and other creative pursuits, because I know those have the power to heal. For the foreseeable future, we're both going to focus on improving our physical health, and also on squaring away our finances, so that hopefully when the time comes, money won't need to be a factor in deciding whether to have that genetic testing done.

By the grace of God, I know that we're going to get through this and be okay. I just wish "okay" didn't seem so distant right now.

Goal Post: Week 2

Today I'm drinking coffee for the first time in about six weeks, and savoring every drop. I'm also working in my office for the first time in about as long, on the theory that I'll be more focused and productive in here than I tend to be when sitting on the couch. We shall see. Either way, the cats keep jumping up and getting in my face, apparently wanting to make out--either that or trying to tell me to get out of their chair. In here, if I don't comply either way, they start knocking crap off of my window sill, trying to kill either me or my computer; whereas on the sofa they would just give up and go away. So the jury's still out whether the office will be more distraction-free.

I also got up this morning at the crack of 8 AM. I'm attempting a new schedule, one where I hunker down and get all of my work done during daylight hours, freeing up the evenings for R&R and guilt-free TV viewing. I tend to be slightly more of a morning person in the winter, in that I tend to want to go to bed earlier when it's cold and has already been dark outside for several hours, which lends itself more to getting up in the morning than does the night-owlishness and insomnia I tend toward during the summer months. I predict that I'll be able to keep up this new schedule until the time change, at which point I'll probably need to spring it forward an hour to adjust to that lost hour of sleep. Again, we shall see.

On to the goals. I guess I just told you my personal goal for this week: get up earlier and get my work--including writing, client assignments, and housework, done before nightfall. I've pretty well got the "getting dressed" down; I'm sure there will still be days when I'm tempted to forgo that part, but I accomplished it enough times last week, and today, to strike it off of my goal list and move on.

The writing/editing goal continues apace. I took the weekend off, but I was back to tackle Chapter 6 edits this morning, and plan to have it done through Chapter 10 by Friday. I'll need to write two or three brand new scenes this week, so that might be more of a challenge than it was last week, to get it done in the time allotted, but I think it can be done.

Last week's business goal, to make some progress on my new business web site, was a total bust. With two client redesigns on my slate, I don't see myself getting around to mine any time soon, so I'm going to back-burner that one and set a new goal: start writing regularly for Demand Studios.

I got hired and wrote a few articles for them last year, but at the time the pay wasn't consistently good enough and the article format they wanted tended to take me too long to make it worth my while. But I checked back recently, and they've upped their pay to $15/article for EVERY article, and re-organized the format so that I can now easily bang out an article in an hour. And $15 an hour is nothing to shake a stick at. I'm not sure why you'd shake a stick at anything, really, except maybe a rabid animal if you didn't have anything else to scare it off with; but you certainly wouldn't shake one at $15/hour. I have a feeling that this will drastically change our situation for the better--much more than getting my web site redo online would.

Okay, I showed you mine, now show me yours. What's on your "must accomplish" plate this week?

Blue Christmas

It has happened. All month long I've been in a cheerful mood, too distracted by everything I needed to get done to have time to think. But now things are winding down, and I'm finding time for that most dangerous thing, introspection. Introspection rarely, if ever, makes me happy, especially around holidays. That's probably because I always focus on the things that disappoint, instead of on the things I have to be happy about and grateful for. And then I have guilt and shame, because I know I have plenty to be grateful for, like a job and a mortgage in good standing and the luxury of being able to afford gifts for my loved ones, who can still afford gifts for me in return, and all of that's just for starters, and now I'm sorry it's too late to pick an angel from the Angel Tree.

But disappointment nags. Worse yet, I can't put my finger on what, exactly, is disappointing me. It's a number of little things, really. Little unmet expectations all adding up to one big empty feeling, a feeling that makes me not want to get out of bed, let alone wrap presents and bake and put on a happy face for the family. Going to the mall yesterday didn't help. I think a shopping mall right before Christmas must be one of the circles of Hell. It's impossible to shop there for any length of time without becoming stressed and angry, and with the mall traffic and the parking situation, the anger and stress starts before you even get inside. And then I have more guilt and shame, because I know that Christmas isn't about presents or tree trimming or surviving the mall, or even hanging out with family. I'm a Christian. I know what tomorrow is supposed to be about. But I'm not feeling it. And that's just one more unmet expectation to add to the heap.

So I go through the motions, and hope that faking it will at some point make it so. If that doesn't, then maybe copious amounts of fudge and spiked eggnog will make it happen, at least for a few minutes. Sweet little sugar and alcohol-induced bursts of happiness to get me through the day. Maybe that's what this commercialized First World brand of Christmas is really all about.

D-day

Today wasn't such a good day for the novel. My allergies are defying my Claritin and flaring up anyway, and it's making me more (yes, even more) scatter-brained than the usual. I pretty much spent the last hour staring at the little bit of this new scene that I started yesterday, knowing I didn't like it and trying to figure out why, and what it needed to be instead, but nothing was coming to me, and I can't focus on it any longer. Oh well. At least now it has the whole weekend to incubate, so it should be ready to spill out come Monday.

Moving on: since I'm in no mental shape to write, I guess I'll spend the day doing maintenancy things, and finally forcing myself to get some of that dag-burned filing out of the way. I have a feeling I'm going to be mostly useless today, though, so we'll see how it goes.

Today is decision day regarding the Weight Watchers account, and I think I'm going to cancel it. The fabulous Fenwic pointed me to Sparkpeople.com, a FREE diet community with its own set of FREE tools, so I'm going to give that a try. I'm also thinking about setting up a spreadsheet to track Zone points that's based on the WW points tracker. If those don't work for me, I can always sign up to WW again in the future, and wait for coupon or a sign-up special, or even just sign up for one month at a time so I don't have to pay the huge fee up front. I'll let you know how that all goes.

I'm pretty proud of how well I've done all week at sticking to the healthy eating plan. Especially last night. Matt called me at work to ask me to pick up some burgers on the way home. I got him burgers, but I didn't cave to the temptation, and got myself a grilled chicken garden salad (no croutons) instead. I brought it home and made my own light citrus vinaigrette for the dressing. It was pretty yummy and satisfying, and didn't leave me hating myself the way a burger and fries would have. Best yet, I still had enough points left over for a glass of Merlot and a piece of dark chocolate. So go team me!