a philosphical LateBloomer

who knows if it's all that is going on with SIL right now that makes me philosophical lately...
(speaking of - I went to see her last night at her (no longer theirs?) apartment... everything was bagged up, portraits and art taken off the walls...

She was sitting on the couch.  Just sitting there.
As I hugged her, we both cried, her saying the words that E had told me she wailed two nights ago - "I can't believe my life is at this point...")


Button is at grandma's house today (coincidentally, daycare was closed with the snow storm - so it all worked out!) and his Aunt is there - hopefully his chubby-cheeked smiles help...


ok back to the philosophical.

I know there are a number of first-time mothers that freak out when they don't feel that "magical immediate and instant connection the second they hear their baby's first cry" (or "look into their squinty eyes"... or "have their teeny little fingers grasp yours"... enter your phrase here.)

I felt like one of those moms... wondered if I was missing some innate gene, and with that missing feature, I didn't feel the MyHeartExistsOutsideMyBody kind-of-feeling for awhile...

Of course, looking back - I can't remember the exact moment, or moments, or stretch of days where it happened - because now, I love that booger so much it hurts.  I read stories like the one YahooParents has on its homepage this morning (god.  a depressive father, whose wife has just requested a separation, who killed his two kids and then himself.  GOD....) and before my brain synapses even finish firing off the thought of "can you imagine getting a call that something happened to button?!" (had trouble even tying that!) my entire being starts to ache at the contemplation. 

This morning I was reading an old blog entry of a BL mom (whose son died from SIDS at 4 months old) and found a section that made me go, "holy shit.  that's it... I think, 19 months later, I've realized why I might have had that "missing gene" at first..."

"When [Baby] came into this world, I was almost afraid to give in and become fully attached for the fear of this exact situation. That sounds awful doesn't it? But I think it's completely natural to almost distance yourself just the least bit in order to protect yourself from being completely and utterly devastated."

Self-preservation is such a strong instinct... I honestly think that, having gone through a loss (albeit at 12w and nowhere near a full-term or peri- or neonatal loss) I was afraid, nay - TERRIFIED - to love this combination of E and I, to love him so hard and so much, and to have something happen, to have something tear that away, as once had happened...

I used to wake up (or never fell asleep to begin with) and stare at the monitor (thank the lord for video ones...) and go cross-eyed trying to see his chest or back still rising and falling.  I would jump up and run into the nursery if the blurry digital screen didn't fulfill, tiptoeing up to the side of his crib, and hold my breath as I listened to his come in and out...


I was always ok with how my feelings progressed and developed into the full-blown ones they are today about Button. I knew at the time, thanks to articles and other blogs, I wasn't some freak that couldn't love her baby.  I had faith that it would all develop, and of course it did...

It just really helped to read that blog entry this morning, to feel even more validated and comfortable being a "late bloomer..."





ALSO - recently my BFF Dee put it perfectly (as we booked one thing after another) - "We're just going to keep doing awesome things in March!"
Hittin' the BList hard this month!
          this Saturday -  CKO Kickboxing with Dee (and fBFF. *SIGH*) BAM!
          next Tuesday - MY TATTOO APPOINTMENT!!!!! (emailed pictures last night to artist, CANNOT wait to see the final designs!)
          March 26th   -  Jersey Boys on Broadway with Dee
          March 29th   -  a Sunday morning BYO Brunch & paint class with the girls!
                 (BTW) these things are SO MUCH FUN, highly recommend it for a date night or your next girls' night!

CycleStatus: 
CD15
OPKs still negative (as of this morning)
low to medium, firm & closed cervix
drinking POM daily now, and plan on crunching the good olde pineapple core after O (because that's what I did the cycle of Button's BFP... why not, right? lol)

Some Fart Talk

Recent musings while chatting with a friend about her single-ness and it's (in my mind) bitter-sweetness:
(oh the agony of wondering if he is The One, and why hasn't he called?! I thought the date went SO WELL! but oh the excitement of seeing him call, and getting a text for the next date! IS HE GONNA KISS ME?! aaaaah!)


So while you've lost the excitement of dating in marriage, there's also the plus side of KNOWING your partner loves you and so you no longer have to be on your "Best Behavior"...

Like, we still don't fart in front of each other, but now we acknowledge that we fart!  Case in point: E was recently telling me how he farted while holding Button, who then pointed towards E's butt, then to his own, and then grunted and squeezed out a fart of his own.
Father+Son bonding time at it's best...


And speaking of farts, here's a little ThatAkwardMoment:
I was in hot yoga last night (score 1 for the BuggyList!), and felt a little one slip out (silently...) but - well, pretty deadly...

And then I realized the best part: in yoga, no one will ever know who really released the stinker!
I mean, I just did the LookAround of "Ew what is that smell?! what crawled up that person's butt and died?"

Also - BuggyList news: I have a dentist appointment next Wednesday to get going on the root canal (x-rays, yay!)
I also have an appointment to get my tattoo!!!! OMG guys I designed the coolest one ever while waiting to discuss with an artist yesterday... I can't wait to show you!

ALSO - WHATWOULDYOUDO?!
so, I originally booked the tat appointment for this coming Tuesday (CD12 - preO) but during work hours (1pm-4pm) and I'm not sure I can swing that time off given the dentist appt that Wednesday at 3:30...
The only other appointment that could work in the next few weeks is the NEXT Tuesday (which will be CD20 - which could be around 4DPO if I O on my average day, or could be even less daysPO...) and that appointment is 7pm-10pm so I could bring E with me and not have to leave work...

What say you about getting inked at that point in a cycle?!

late ICLW intro and an apology...

(No ICLWers, as much as I feel contrite for posting a late intro, the apology is not necessarily for you! More on that later...)


Hi ICLWers!

Long (kind of) story much shorter - a (relatively) long 18 months after going off birth control, I got my "sticky" positive pregnancy test, and 9 months later met Button.

TTC #2 has officially begun as of this month with cycle#1 resulting in a tattoo and dentist appointment... (see here for why!)  ((and just so you know, they are not all the same appointment, the tattoo and dentist work... lol))

As for the apology - I'm sorry, Wondfos, for basically calling you liars... alas, you were right, not pregnant this time... "I'll get you next time!" *Shakes fists*

(and while the dentist appointment to begin the long-dreaded root canal (new x-rays needed since it's been so long) is set for 1.5 weeks from now, the tattoo is waiting for this current snow storm in the NJ area to end so I can meet with an artist to get the design started!  
(Last time I spontaneously got a tattoo, E (thankfully!) convinced me to switch from my desired "615 BITCHES" tattoo (to support his engine number (615) and the other firefighter wives) to a much nicer "La Vie Est Belle"... nice, right?  I've learned from this experience that I need to take a little bit more time for tattoo consideration...)



Anyways - welcome to The Buggy List!

Listen..

Listen - just let me indulge my craziness for a bit, eh? Cold hard reality will set in eventually...

Tested again last night (I know, no first morning urine again...)
BFN.

another one this morning, with FMU for a change...

And as of this morning, there was no sign of AF at 12DPO (which is a "long" LP for me - AF usually shows exactly ON 12DPO...)

I was still (imagining/having?) symptoms - headache, nauseous-hunger... had to restrain myself from looking up bad batches of wondfos...
 I've got a FR (not sure if it's an FRER) that I was tempted to use this morning - but that meant I was basically calling the Wondfos liars... (unless - BAD BATCH?!)





But as of lunch today - (TMI warning? nawwww - no such thing on a TTC blog...) a CP check (not sure why I did one, lol) brought about some light brown, so it seems the crimson tide is creeping closer to shore...


And that's ok.

This is totally so different than TTC #1 (especially TTCAL - when we reached almost 18 months from the date I stopped birth control...)

That was pure desperation.  Utter knee-knocking fear when the timer went off at 5 minutes, indicating it was time to go check for those two pink lines.

Heart-pounding seconds as eyes focused in on the "test" line area on the pee stick...


Desperation.



This time, the 3-4 BFNs (but who's counting...) this week brought my shoulders a little lower, and drew a quick sigh of disappointment (but seriously?! I expected to be KTFU on the first cycle?!)

 But today, I think I'll start hydrating hardcore for my hot yoga class tonight (after which, I'll quickly shower and hopefully get to the liquor store before they close.  And if I don't make it, I believe there's a little Tennessee Jack Daniel's Honey in the freezer with my name on it...)


And tomorrow?


Buying some pom juice (can't hurt right? lol oh to quickly fall back into old TTC habits)
Buying some OPKs
Making dentist appointment (awful root canal NEEDS to get done!)
Making tattoo appointment to get a design drawn this weekend!!


Basically, some more Buggy List.

(Also - a quick Wardrobe Wednesday! (I almost totally forgot about this series... LOL))
SO these leggings, I loved them when I saw them in a funky boutique store in TX... and then they sat in a drawer for months maybe a year with me clueless how to rock them...
enter a men's dress shirt layered under a gray sweater, some riding boots and cuffs - and voila!

An actual (gratuitous) work-bathroom shot!

(Because, seriously - you try to find the right words to google
to find an image of THOSE pants!)



Also?

I made those boot-cuffs... now taking orders! =)

Dpo

So yesterday (Sunday) - coffee tasted like utter crap...

the second I took the first sip, what usually is like a little bit of heaven - that first hot sip - was definitely not good.

Did I not put enough sugar? ooooooooor pregnant symptom?!
So then I added more sugar, and then it tasted like utter too-sweet crap...

And that stupid 7dpo BFN.
I tried to dig it out of the bathroom trash Saturday night night... but it had fallen, like those teeny tiny wondfos will do, far past where I was willing to dumpster-dive...

(Note to self : use first morning urine next time, and then destroy the evidence.. HPT bonfire?)

This morning?
I felt so fucking moody at home, pissed at E because I woke up early, jumped in the shower and got myself ready and he slept in (makes no sense right?)
and then I got pissed at him for leaving an entire cup of Button's milk out overnight (are we both at fault and that's why I didn't rub E's nose in it this morning?)
and I thought, Ugh this is fucking PMS

And then I got even more bitchy because I'm pretty sure I'm PMS-ing, which means AF is on her way.

I didn't dare test..


The battles in my brain:


I am able to wake up with ease even at 7am (I usually snooze my alarm for 30-40 minutes, and I had noticed myself waking up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed during 1st Tri with Button...)
but
I'm PMSing like a pro

I'm not waking up for MOTN pee's
but
I've had that slight not-painful-but-mostly-annoying headache that I had the last few days before testing with Button...

I get the shaky haven't-eaten-yet feeling when i get to work, even though I had a bowl of cereal at home...

my regular DD coffee: french vanilla, skim milk + 2 sugars - still tastes funny...

it used to taste like heaven (even more than at-home-brewed coffee!) at the first sip...

I had horribly dry eyes all day friday at the computer - like, unprecedented dry eyes... (oh that's a pregnancy symptom! Ignore the website that says it usually starts around the end of the first trimester...)

This morning I got all road-ragey (I honestly don't even remember why, because I was barely off our street when I started cursing)
and then I cursed (silently) again, thinking I'm a horrible mother, because Button is sitting in the backseat listening...

And now - second time needing to pee in an hour. oooo!
Most likely because the coffee I just finished is a diuretic. duh.

**and let's not miss what just happened at lunch: I thought a coworker was setting down a plate of steak being served so I grabbed a piece. 

I accidentally ate off of his personal plate.. 

and my brain has been on-and-off since this morning when I almost got into the wrong black SUV after dropping off Button..


I've already decided - if this cycle is BFN, I'm making two phone calls on CD1:
1. dentist (yes, the root canal I was supposed to begin/continue as soon as Button was born? *hangs head...*
still not done...

2. Tattoo shop.  
=)

Back to The Buggy List!!

Back to Buggy

I've spent the past few days (at work, when I was supposed to be working!) perusing through old blog entries and discovered two things...

1- I can be pretty funny!

2 - I SUCK SUCK SUCK at follow-through:
hi Tour Tuesdays - sorry you took MONTHS to come to fruition, and then never made it past the first room...
hi Glorified-To-Do-List... sorry that I followed up for one month (with half of the items still not done) and then let you die a quiet death that most well-intended ToDoLists die...

and the biggest, hi BUGGY LIST! You helped me out so much during a hard TTA time post-mmc, and again during a TTC period when every BFN made me fly to uncork a bottle of wine... I abandoned the whole original point of this blog after I was done needing it.  (wow, really existential and heavy all of a sudden huh? lol)

And here we are - CD19(ish) having just O'd on CD17.

Yup.  The TTC acronyms are back... starting next cycle, we're in it.
But only casually.

As casual as you can be shoving fingers up your hoo-ha every day and checking on ye olde cervixe... Yup - I'm going to by-pass the BBT and OPKs for now, and go with checking CP and CM...

I've loosely tracked it the past few months, mostly to nail down when I need to start wearing black underwear and carrying tampons around, and found it to be a pretty reliable method with O coming on average CD17.

So.

TFAS. ****GULP*****

Time for BuggyList reruns:
I am still going to hot yoga every Wednesday night (except I haven't been since before Christmas, what with traveling to Texas and then having a physical for life insurance policies last Wednesday.  Which, derrrrrr - E had tobacco (lip-dip YUCK) the DAY OF and of course nicotine showed up in his test results so now we have to wait a year to re-apply so we don't have to pay "smoker's premiums" which are like, quadruple! C'MON E!)
So I finally made it back to yoga last night, slightly nervous that it would be like my first ever hot yoga class (10 minutes in, sweating like a stuck pig, face shockingly bright red, getting dizzy at every sun salutation...)

NOPE - rocked that bitch.


and speaking of Glorified To-Do Lists and accountability - that whole weight loss goal?
I'd mentally settled on being "X" pounds, about 6 lbs short of my goal...
Without meaning to, I somehow, over the last few months, dropped the final few pounds and then some..
(total of 13 lbs lost from the starting point!)

SUCK THAT, ACCOUNTABILITY!!!


(and let's just ignore the fact that I still haven't had that root canal I've been needing....)


And boo - how boring, a post with no pictures....

In honor Hank's NY Rangers being HOT HOT HOT - let's get to the Cup boys!!!

And in honor of my boy Brady and his Pats on the road to the Super Bowl:

and totally just because:

YERRR WELCOME!

Takin the Good with the Bad

Friday night was Buggy Item #3!!
E and I went with a group to a Moroccan restauraunt, which was the first time we'd eaten Middle Eastern food, and I was a little nervous as spicy foods don't agree well with me and my mouth, throat and stomach...

The restaurant was VERY authentic and I felt a little embarrassed by our loud, obnoxious and American group drinking beer and Cosmos (BYOB!!)

BUT - it was great food and the belly dancers didn't start til 9pm so we were VERY loud and obnoxious by then (reservations were at 5:15!!)

Aaaaand then E and I were home and in bed by 10pm. 
On a Friday night. 
When I complained to E about that, his response was "Well, we're married now."

And?! 

As of recently, we officially don't have any kids - or any on the way! - and what the hell is our excuse for being so lame?!

I made up for it for the BOTH of us the next night:

All martinis.  All mine.

Saturday morning I crossed the bridge into NYC, paid SIXTY-FOUR F*CKING DOLLARS for garage parking after cruising for 20 minutes...

(what the HELL is up with me and not being able to find parking?!?!? seriously.)

My friend in the city is awesome - she recently had called to tell me she and her bf had broken up, in hysterics and crying and blurts out - "I *hiccup* feel so baaaaaad (she was slightly drunk and by slightly I mean seriously) you're PREEEEHGnant and I'm SO HAPPEEEEEEE for you *sniff sniff *GULP* I'm so saaaad for meeeeee - but I'm happy for youuuu!!!!"

I just loves me some Muffin* (not her real name - I'd hope you'd assume that lol)

We set out for some serious shopping down in Chelsea, stopped off for some brie cheese and crackers to go with my whine ("It's Not Fair" was playing this weekend... again...) - real wine mixed well with that...

AAAAAWESOME Italian dinner reservations at 7:30 where we stuffed our freaking faces, then met friends for drinks - "friends" being:

one famous TV host (not telling, but she's awesome)

one VH1 producer, and gads of gays! (I <3 them all, seriously...)

On the Seventh morning, we rested.  And brunched.  DUH - she lives in the Upper  West Si-eeeeede - eeeeeveryone spends Sunday brunching!!  Stuffed our faces again, and helped along our hangovers with Pellini's - bellinis with POM juice (I'm always courteous to my uterine lining!)

An hour or so in Central Park capped off my time in NYC and back over the bridge I came in a fury - mad dash home to shower and change and head to a wake... (hey, see post title! Here comes the bad!)

******

E's family all lives really close, and they all maintain close relationships (which I love, given that my family is all 1600 miles away...)

His sister's mother-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around Christmas of 2011.  I think (because I don't know for SURE all the details) that they found it very late, and it very quickly spread... She got progressively much sicker, and lost so much weight that she told family she didn't want them to come visit and see her the way she was...

She died last Thursday, after being on hospice for about 2 weeks.  My sister-in-law's husband is just an awesome guy - they're an awesome couple - and the four of us are pretty close.  My heart just broke for him...  His father had died 10 years prior, and he's an only child.  Orphaned at 34 years old...

So we had the wake last night, and the funeral service this morning.  E and I of course took work off (1/2 days anyway) to be able to attend the church service, burial service, and repast afterwards. 

I'm normally not too big a crier (especially at funerals for someone that, as awesome as she was, I'd only met about 3-4 times...)

What gets me is when OTHER people cry and get emotional.  I'm a sympathetic crier?

So when a cousin gave a eulogy and got so choked up that she had to stop, cue my water works.  And when another cousin, an adorable little old man, patted the coffin and got emotional walking back to his seat after HIS eulogy, I couldn't keep it together. 

This has happened before at wakes for people I barely know - E's fire lieutenant passed a few years ago (very sudden, and tragic at 36 years old so the wake was very emotional)

The widow at the wake just broke my heart...

I'm almost embarassed by it sometimes, and I assume close family and friends of the recently deceased judge me and think, who IS this chick?  WE have the monopoly on grief tonight!

what made me tear up at a certain point in yesterday's service was not anyone else's emotions, but the priest's words... He said things that made me wish I could whip out my phone right then and start recording or taking notes... I did my best to commit the key parts to memory...

(And after the hot yoga instructor spoke to me last week, I feel like I hear messages everywhere now... a mixture of Sixth Sense and the freaky Mel Gibson movie - "I see Signs...")

The priest spoke about everyone wanting to know WHY did God make her suffer so horribly through months of cancer the way she did.  Why would God let ANYONE suffer?  A question that has been around for a thousand years, and will be around for thousands of years to come...

His answer?  "I honestly can't tell you."

Aside from it all, it was so refreshing to not hear a man of the cloth saying "God works in mysterious ways, trust in Him."

Instead, he said, "I don't have an answer for you.  I don't know why."

And THAT got me thinking... I keep asking why, too.  WHY ME.

Why any of us.  I probably ask at least once a day... (usually while trying to find DAMN parking somewhere...)

I've decided to stop asking. 

No one's going to have the answer, least of all me. 

No one can tell me why this happened to me. 

So I'm going to stop asking.

I also won't let this conquer me. 

I won't let the WHY's dominate my thoughts anymore. 

There will still be good days and bad days.

There'll be light days and heavy days (no pun intended, Aunt Flo.)

Now there'll be Buggy List days:

Cardio Kickboxing tonight

Paddleboarding this summer

maybe an extreme Mud Race - 5 miles anyone?!

But no more WHY days.

Pound it out!