Universe 3 - Me 1

I'm reviving the Happy Ranter for this post, and possibly a few subsequent ones, because this is where my other sad stories are. I feel like they belong together, in one spot.

On January 5^th, 2014 I had the pleasure of a positive home pregnancy test. On February 12^th, I had an ultrasound and the joy of seeing our baby and its healthy heartbeat. On February 28^th, I learned that little heartbeat had stopped and my heart broke.

If you've followed this blog, or have looked through the archives, you'll know that this isn't my first loss. I'm familiar with how this process will go. I know that only time is going to ease the pain. Only acknowledging my grief and letting it run it's course will get me through to the other side. But right now I'm in the thick of it and I wanted to write this out. This is part of how I deal with pain and even if no one reads it, my story will be here for me. I'll be able to come back to it in a few weeks, months or years and measure how far I've come. But I'll also be able to remember, which is also just as important.

My previous losses were very early in my pregnancies, over almost before they'd even begun. Painful none the less, because the hope, love and joy of what was wrapped up in that all came to a crashing end. This time....I don't know that I'm more sad than I was before, but there is a difference. This time I saw the heartbeat. This time I felt great, like I did during my pregnancy with Sadie. We had slowly started to tell people, parents mostly, because everything was looking so good and because we were so damn close to the 2^nd trimester. And then it all just....stopped. Suddenly it was just over.

As someone who dealt with infertility for years, and as someone who has had a baby, I've read a lot of material on the subjects and so I knew, academically, what to expect from this miscarriage. To be honest, the physical process over the past few days has been less physically painful than I thought it would be. The emotions of it though caught me off guard. I've never had anything happen to me before that I could call traumatic. I've been lucky. I am still lucky because there are worse things. My rational brain knows that.

And yet, my baby this time was no longer an embryo. My baby had officially reached fetus status. My baby had substance and weight and was a perfectly formed, though tiny, being. No one – the ER doctor, my midwife, books I have read – prepared me for what I went through. I'm not going to describe everything here in detail. I don't have the strength for that and I don't think I have the words. What I do want to say is that what I went through in the wee small hours of Saturday morning, while my family was sleeping, is something that has changed me. It has marked my heart and I will never be the same.

Those moments were some of the most terrible I've ever had but there was also love and sweetness. There was a feeling of incredible loss but thankfulness for the chance to say goodbye. I'll never let go of my love for my baby but eventually I will be able to make some peace with what happened. I just won't be the same me. I'm okay with that, too. I am not weaker for the experience, although my strength has left me momentarily.

I haven't been sleeping well. I don't want to go to bed at night because I don't feel tired but I do because I know my body needs the rest. I do fall asleep but I dream about babies, about children and it isn't very restful. I feel like I'm not getting a break. But do I want a break? Today was my first day alone in a quiet house since everything happened. At random intervals, regardless of what I was doing, I broke down and sobbed. Full, body wracking sobs, blinded by tears, and feeling like I was going to split in two. A minute or two later and I'd be fine again. Like it never happened. Then the whole process would repeat itself. I know this is something that I need, too. I know it but I don't particularly like it.

What I have found the most difficult to deal with are the moments when I forget that our baby is gone. Thoughts pop into my head about what we'll do when the baby is here and in the next instance I remember. It surprises me every single time. I never experienced that with my previous losses. I have a terrible feeling that I'm going to start talking to someone about being pregnant and realize mid sentence that I no longer am. My brain needs to catch up with my body and I hope it does soon. It will, eventually. One small step at a time.

A friend posted this on facebook today, and I thank her for it. Sometimes we all need to know it's okay.

http://chibird.com/

Adieu...and hey, follow me over here...

I've decided it's time to retire the Happy Ranter.  I still feel ranty on occasion...or quite regularly, depending on the week, but I'm going to try something new.

As you may know, if you've ever clicked on my profile button, I also have a craft blog (which I will also be retiring!).  I've decided to merge my ranty self with my crafty self and have started up a brand new blog.  I think this is going to be much easier for me to maintain and to focus on - no more feeling like I'm torn between two worlds.

So - thanks for reading along with me here.  I hope you'll continue to do so over at my new home:  Telltale Thread.  I may eventually archive my posts from this blog on the new one but for now they'll just be hanging out here in cyberspace until the end of time...or until Blogger hits the big delete button.

Carolyn

From little things, big things grow...

Last time I posted, it was nearly the new year. Now, we’re well and truly into 2012 – over a quarter of the way! Not really ‘new’ anymore, is it?

Since that last post I’ve probably drafted about 3 or 4 others, and made numerous notes, both mental and written. I wasn’t satisfied with any of it though, and so poor Blog has been neglected. I feel the need to get the ball rolling again so I’m going to try not to over think this and just write (which means this post will probably have more grammatical errors than a Stephanie Meyer novel.  Burn.) 

 Various things have happened in the time that I’ve been blog-absent. I changed jobs again – short term government contract, not very interesting but well paid. The seasons changed – sort of. Given the weather the past few days, I guess we can call it spring now in Vancouver but that could change again by the time I finish this.  

 The biggest, scariest, most awesome change, however, is what’s currently going on in my uterus. (‘Oh, geez – she’s not going to crap on about her lady bits again, is she?’ I hear you groan). Sorry, folks, but I TOTALLY AM. Because it’s good news. Really, really, fan-freaking-tastic news. In case you haven’t guessed by now – I’m growing a wee human! 

 To be fair, this actually happened before my last post, so it isn’t really a change (other than the constant development that’s occurring) – I just didn’t mention it before. Mostly, I kept it under my lid because of fear. I was terrified of another miscarriage, even though the experience was completely different right from the get go. I imagine any woman feels some of that fear, especially so if she’s already experienced it before. For quite a while, until quite recently, I felt a little bit like I was holding my breath. The fear hasn’t left completely, but I am able to breathe a little easier now that we’ve had the anatomy scan and now that I can feel The Kid move on a daily basis.  

 As of today, I am almost 24 weeks, due roughly the first week or so of August. My OB and I have differing ideas of when my due date actually is but I guess we’ll see who’s right soon! I haven’t been to see him since my scan, so maybe he’ll have changed his tune when I meet with him on Friday.  

 This blog maybe become a little baby-centric for a while and I hope that won’t scare any of you off but I totally get it if it does. I will still be ranting though – if anything, my fluctuating hormones have left me with far less tolerance for my fellow humans. Especially those on public transport. (And yes, I still hate giant strollers on buses).

Holy crap...

...it's almost a new year.

I don't have to tell you again how I feel about the Christmas season since I've already written about that here.  This year, the Boy is working on Christmas and I'll be working every day but the weekends as well. Since we're not going anywhere, it will be very quiet and peaceful but the downside is, we won't be seeing any family or friends either.

On the upside, we have a dinner reservation for our anniversary booked at Bishop's.  I dare you to click on the link and check out the food.  Maybe I'll just have 3 courses of dessert.

Soon 2012 will be upon us and while I'm not so much about making resolutions, I do find this time of year to be a time of reflection.  I like to think about where the year has taken me and where I hope to be and what I hope to accomplish in the year to come.  I also like to do some de-cluttering and organizing to get myself ready for the new year.

This year, I'm getting started a little earlier.  Life has gotten a little busier since I've been back at work and I've had less time for fun stuff like crafting, blogging, reading.  My blog reader has gotten out of hand and I'm routinely finding myself with a list that has more than a 1000 posts unread.  Yikes.  My first order of business will be to cull the list of blogs I have in my feeder and just keep the ones that really speak to me, that make me laugh or think and that inspire me.

So, my apologies to those who don't make the cut.  It's nothing personal but I really need to start using more of my time for my blog and for the other things I have to work on.  I'm expecting 2012 to be even busier than these last few months of 2011 have been so I think my word for the new year is going to be 'prioritize'.

I may also be taking this blog in a slightly different direction but more on that later.  For now, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season - eat, drink and be merry!

I want to be a cat...

...and spend my days wandering between my food dish, the window and the bed.  Since this is all I feel like I've been doing lately, at least as a cat I would feel that I was being productive.

My current schedule is kicking my blog-posting, crafty, do-something ass.  The hours of my job are just not conducive to any kind of creativity.  Okay, that's not entirely true because I do still have ideas - I just don't have the energy to do anything about them.

Blogtoberfest did get me posting more but I really didn't do as well at it as I had hoped.  I briefly thought that maybe I'd give NaNoWriMo another go but the hysterical laughter that sounded in brain put the kibosh on that.

Added to the fun of my current job is my search for a new, permanent job.  I have a test on Tuesday that is part of that search.  Unfortunately, it involves over an hour of travel on public transport.  Do I really want to be doing that twice a day, 5 days a week?  I don't know.

Plus, there is the possibility of a move in the next few months which would be awesome but the likely hood of that happening is so up in the air, it almost doesn't even bear thought.  And yet...I can't stop thinking about it.

At any rate, life is pretty good at the moment apart from the feeling of standing still.  I need just a little momentum to get me going.

Back in the swing..

...sort of.  Getting used to working full time hours has been difficult.  Worse still, those hours are 12-8 which makes it feel like I only have a couple of hours either side of that to either get ready for work or to de-compress afterwards.  It's not ideal but it's what I need to do to pay the bills.

Being a thirty-something, it feels increasingly...strange?  depressing? embarrassing? to admit that I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.  I'm slowly developing a better idea of what it is that I want to do but how to make it happen, or what steps I really need to take are still eluding me.

I've always been a little torn between being envious of, and being glad that I'm not, one of those people who has always known what they wanted to be or do.  On the one hand, how great to have such a clear idea of your goal and the path you need to take to achieve it.  On the other hand, how sad to know exactly which fork in the road to take.  Where is the mystery in that?

Lately I've been reading and taking in anything I can get my hands on regarding the subject of finding an answer to the question of what to do with the rest of my life.  Not that I think anyone else can give me the answer but I suppose I'm just looking for clues or some key phrase that is going to set off fireworks in my brain.  The important thing, for me anyway, is that I at least am thinking about it and asking myself questions.  I keep digging to get to the heart of the matter.

For those reasons, I am really looking forward to this and I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that it comes to Vancouver soon:


Finding Joe - Trailer V.7 from pat solomon on Vimeo.

Brain...melting...

So, I bid adieu to my retail job on Saturday and started training for a new position with a cable company today.

What is it about training - even if it's similar to a job you've done in the past - that makes your brain turn to goo?  Maybe it's just me but man, training wipes me out.  I think it's a combo of first day nerves and information overload.

I will do my best to be more entertaining by the weekend at the very latest.  While you wait, here's an amusing pub sign from one of my trips to Australia:

Photo by me!

Tee hee!