The plan is in action

Thank you all for the support regarding my idea to have a baby, it's so helpful to hear that it is not a terrible plan and in fact it sounds like a wonderful plan!

That night I spoke with SnuggleBunny about it.  He was not freaked out one little bit!  Instead he is very excited and mentions it almost everyday.  He is way more comfortable with the idea of having a baby than I am :)

He has some terms though - he wants to be there, he wants to be an active parent, he wants us to live together, he wants us to be a family.  SB understands well that I do not want to get married but aside from the ceremony and legal binding we are talking about being together in a situation that will look very much like marriage.

I flip back and forth between being scared out of my mind and being overwhelmed with the romance of it all.

Last weekend he said that he would like to live together for a little while before we have a baby - this never occurred to me!  But it is a very good idea.  But this makes it seem very real and I don't think I'm as ready for this as I thought I was.  The baby part is much easier to consider than having a family complete with SB.  An estimated time for when he will move in has not been decided on yet.

Here are some issues:
1.  SB and I met about 11 months ago, which isn't that long.  But since I reject the idea of marriage I can also reject the idea of knowing a person for a few years before being a family together.  In my gut I think it will work out very well for at least a while.

2.  I like my financial independence, even though I have so little money.  We will not share a bank account but that means he will have to contribute to the bills and it's uncomfortable to me to have him owe rent since he wouldn't be a real renter.  But we would have to decide on a way to share the costs of living without either one of us taking on too much (which that one of us would be me since I habitually pay for health insurance, gym memberships, and what not for boys.  I gave SB a gym membership for his birthday - see, I can't stop!).  He said that we would simply split the house payment and utility bills.

3.  I like having some evenings alone.  It's good for me to have time when I'm not influenced by anyone else.  Will my moods be dependent enough on his moods that I become lost again?

4.  I like my housemates but they would have to leave.  Which would make me even more dependent on SB paying rent.



I asked SB what would happen if we lived together but then couldn't get pregnant or have a living baby and he said we would adopt.  No hesitation. 

After being treated like crap by my husband it's hard to accept that SB truly wants to be with me.  He wants to live with me.  He wants to have a baby with me and he thinks I would be a great mother.  All of these lovely thoughts float along the surface of the huge bubble of bad marriage hurt that encompasses my soul.  I see that I could be happy and that this is exciting news that I could tell people about (you all are the first to know).  It's kind of like a non-engagement announcement.  We are preparing to join our lives.


Back to cynicism and worry - what else should I take into account with this plan to have SB move in?

ICLW Baseball

Kym conjured up this fun game in a dream!

Here's what to do if you want to play ICLW Baseball:
1. Copy these instructions and post them on your blog.
2. Answer the Base Questions.
3. Find other participating bloggers who have the same answers you do. Find at least one blogger for each base and link back to them in your baseball post. You may find more than one blogger with common answers for each post base. Your post will be a work in progress. Get YOUR base answers up ASAP,  then go back often to edit and add the links of bloggers who share answers with you!
4. Once your base answers are up, go to I'm a Smart One/Kymberli's blog and add your baseball post hyperlink to the list. Kym's blog is home base; check the list to find the other players.








My answers:


1st base - Club soda

2nd base - Bone Garden Cantina (it's not a chain though so I think any amazing, local Mexican restaurant could count as being the same answer)

3rd base - February (the 10th) - shared with Kym   and Mrs. Dreamer 
and Megan

Home - Finding Nemo - shared with Dragondreamer's Lair

Oh boy that was a huge pity party yesterday!  I sobbed for hours, which has not happened in a long time.  A big cry fest  has been lurking in the periphery for months now so it was time to get all out.  The pregnancy announcement plus PMS plus muscle spasms from a new knee brace, and the stage was set for tears.

*****

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than  yourself." - William Faulkner

I can continue feeling sorry for myself, which is justifiable since the past 2+ years have been full of super sucky events, or I can be better than myself.

So do I want to have a baby?  The lack of a husband does not seem like a large obstacle anymore.  To make that happen here is what I need:

1.  A new job that pays a whole lot of money.  I am ready to get back into research and leave this underpaying administrative job behind.  And call me a bitch but I DO NOT WANT to cover my colleagues work while she is on maternity leave again.  Last time I worked my ass off only to stay underpaid and the only reason I was able to work such long hours was because I had no family to go home to at night.  I would be too resentful this time around.

2.  Talk to SnuggleBunny and see if he wants to reproduce with me.  I think he will, but if not, I need to find other sperm.

That's it.

*****

Do I want a child though?  I want Toren; will a different one be ok?

Issue 1:  Other people's children annoy me - one, because they exist here on Earth and Toren doesn't and try as I may to not be bitter about this all of the time the fact is that this still hurts and it still feels so unfair; and two, kids ARE rather annoying!  but there are plenty of women who only really like their own children so it's ok to feel this way.

Issue 2:  I feel like a basket case much of the time still.  But I think this is temporary and life is slowing getting more organized.

Right now the most compelling reason to try for a baby that lives is that I have had two pregnancies and both ended traumatically.  If there is never a positive pregnancy ending to counter the horrible ones will I feel like I'm missing out on something important?  Do I want to leave life still completely heartbroken where reproduction is concerned?  Even if I always feel sad that Toren is dead, I think it is possible to gain some healing from fulfilling the dream to mother a child.  There were so many things I was going to do for Toren - I am missing out on sharing some of the beauty of living with a child.

*****

It's a lot to consider.  But enough chatter for now - I need to kick ass at work to get closer to a new job!

"I wish you'd never learned to weep"

I must have listened to "Pure" by the Lightning Seeds thousands of times as a young girl.  Even after so many years I remember every word.

So there I am in the ladies room at work blotting tears quickly because I need to pull it together and get back to my office and my brain remembered that line.  "I wish you'd never learned to weep"

It's like tears are for the shorter lived sorrows but once you weep you cannot go back.  You can't un-learn it.  And quietly in the back stall, weeping was exactly what happened just minutes after smiling, reassuring, and asking questions after my colleague told me she was pregnant.  Since I began this blog she has already had a baby.  SHE ALREADY HAS ONE.  The little boy who wouldn't smile for me a few weeks back.

Where is mine?

I tried to have a baby and that turned into unimaginable heartache.  I tried to have a baby and my entire life fell apart.  Two and a half years later I'm still trying to put things back together.

*****

The past two days have been incredible - I made progress towards getting a student loan out of default, a housemate issue is improving, and my fractured patella is healing well and I'm now able to wear a flexible, supportive knee brace instead of the one that has kept my knee straight for the last 3 weeks.  But these are really just situations where a something bad is getting better, and it's so pathetic that I was so truly happy about these things just hours ago.  I understand now why she has been distant and distracted and it sucks that when I stopped by her office to chat she was probably just thinking about how she needed to tell me about her pregnancy because she knows it is a sensitive topic for me.

*****

A "sensitive topic" - that's how I act about it when really it is a soul smashing topic that strikes down whatever lightness was buoying up the leaden weight in my chest.  And then this body remembers what it was like to carry a baby, and not just any baby, MY precious little boy.  This body remembers releasing him into the world and then these arms released him and he went to the morgue and I went home.  Empty womb, empty arms, empty home.

If emptiness had a sound I think it would be weeping - weeping echoing on and on and on. 

*****
"still I love you"

Thank you all so much for listening to my last rant and giving such supportive feedback.  It is a confusing situation with the collisions of past and present.  I don't know if BF's new friend is a warning sign or red flag, or just simply a new friendship with someone who happens to be female.  My gut says run away, but that would really be running away from the actions of my ex, which are in the past.  I hope that makes sense.


I sent an e-mail explaining why I was being so distant (it's best if he has time to think about potentially troubling information so e-mail is better than face to face) and I'll just see what happens from there.

The scars that we carry can be exhausting.  One deadbaby and suddenly seeing a pregnant women or baby becomes so COMPLICATED.  There's the social norm that says we should be happy for pregnant women and seeing a baby should be a joyous experience.  And even bitter old me gets emotional thinking about how that women is experiencing the complete and pure love that I have for Toren and I am happy when people get to feel that love because it is so beautiful.  But then there's all of the other feelings: confusion over why others get living babies and I didn't, rage that my life is lived without my son, sorrowful nausea because by womb and arms still feel so empty.

One ended marriage to an unfaithful partner and I'm having trust issues over something that has not been proven to be suspect and even though I don't think trust is necessary for a romantic relationship.  At least I don't want trust to be necessary.

And there are countless other ways that people can be hurt and react over and over to situations that happened before. 

It's scary and sad that we can feel heartbroken over and over from things of the past.

Do any of you have weird emotional triggers?
There are certain restaurants that I won't go to because my husband and used to eat there together.
I get angry at SUV's because I wanted one to drive my kid around in.  If I ever need a car that holds more than two people I'll probably go for a sedan - who knows though, maybe someday I could turn back into a softer person and fulfill that old wish for a mommy mobile.

I know I'm in this office to work but sometimes a girl can only take so many "Can I get this done NOW?"s Before she snaps and retreats to blogland for a bit. The reports, letters, e-mails to write and phone calls to return are now prioritized behind expressing my feelings.

And what I'm feeling is this: depleted

I spent Friday through Saturday night celebrating BF's birthday. The wee hours of Sunday were not great; without details, he was very ill from alcohol and I am a freaking saint. Then Sunday I canceled my plans to drive the still drunk boy to a dj job. It was fun hanging out where he was but it was so hot. I was positive, pleasant, patient, and encouraging all day. Driving home I tell him how much I enjoyed meeting one of his female friends at dinner the night before (she and I talked and talked!) and then it turns out that at dinner was the first time they had met in person but they have been talking on-line for months.

Can you say "emotional trigger"? He and I haven't been intimate lately - he is not interested - and now he's getting to know other girls on-line then meeting up with them. On the emotional level it doesn't matter that I was at dinner too, right now all that matters is that I've seen this pattern of behavior before and it ended so painfully.

There is no need for BF to be trusted - I don't need to trust him in the sense that I will not have so much of my life entwined with his that every part of life is negatively impacted if he were to suddenly be gone. But the worry that there are quiet conversations going on behind my back takes me to that anxious place where boys lie about their love, fuck around, and ultimately leave you with all of the household responsibilities and bills even though you fought your instincts and forgave over and over.

.....

I'm mulling over "trust". How important is it? Do we need to trust others to fully love or care for someone? Can one have a meaningful life without trusting or relying on anyone else?

I couldn't make the little boy smile. Or wave. Or say hello. He's about 1 and a half years old.

It's harder than it should be, you know. I figured that perhaps the time for looking away or hiding when babies are in view has to end, but now I feel shot down. Silly huh? I don't spend time with babies or children so of course I'm not practiced, but it makes me think that I'm innately horrible with children. So horrible and anti-motherly that my baby died. I repelled him away.

I must not look maternal either - people rarely ask me if I have any children (we're talking once or twice a year I'll be asked about kids). And now I waver back and forth with desire to reproduce. A few weeks ago it was all I could think about but most of the time I simply wish that Toren were here and I have little interest in other babies. I messed up his life before he was even born, the prospect of making further fatal reproductive mistakes is nauseating. And yes, yes, I know that I didn't do anything to cause him not to develop all of his organs - I know it but I don't believe it all of the time.

And that is the mental trip I took all because a tiny boy was shy.

How do you all really feel about other babies post babyloss (your own or others')? Is it healing? Awkward? Still heartbreaking?