Scotch, Sudafed, one line

Thinking of re-starting this blog.  Need a place to spill out the crazy.

It's the day before the pain really starts.  The day I got yet another negative pregnancy test.  When even in a month when I am not trying to get pregnant, I would be hormonally endo-rifically sad-for-no-reason at this point in my cycle.  When that fizzy hormone mixture hits when I have a reason, a reason to despair?  Take cover.

I am sipping scotch to celebrate no baby (in the grand tradition of drinking and blogging about one's personal shit).  I took lots of Sudafed today to also celebrate no baby.  There's got to be some kind of up-side, right?

My Facebook feed today: one friend's uterus ultrasound showing creepy vertebrae like she's growing a fish (with 280 likes), one much-loved friend's pregnant belly picture (I'm happy for her right right right?), one acquaintance's very pregnant belly picture, and one update from a friend about to go into labor lamenting how hard it is.  Everyone I drive by on the street is pushing a stroller.  I read someone's random blog post and of course it is about her own fruitful womb.  Then in the newspaper this morning there is a granola recipe for "those remarkable women," new mothers.  Who uses the word remarkable?  Mothers have their own special granola now?  Fuck that granola.

Having violent thoughts towards granola.  This is not good.

New job = pretty darn good.  Very thankful for that.  I have lots and lots to be thankful for, but none of those grateful attempts have much hold today.  Today I just need to be down here.  Black dog, etc., etc.

Speaking of black dogs that are not depression metaphors, we might get a real live black dog.  We can pretend it's our new child, refer to our expanding family, and divert focus from the pregnancy quest in such a way that we make carefree love and get knocked up when we weren't even thinking about it!  Wheee!

change is weird

The feeling in the air is so heavy.  Or maybe I'm just imagining that.  Yesterday I got the job and called my husband crying, so he couldn't even tell if I was happy or sad.  I can't tell if I'm happy or sad.  I'm so worried about what if it seems like I'm screwing over my current situation by leaving.  So weird to tell people.  I don't know how much I should say on a blog.  Suffice it to say that right now things feel heavy and complicated.  At least yesterday's pregnancy test was negative.  But wait, maybe I wanted it to be positive?  Oh man I'm so confused.

Hinge

Picture found when googling "hinge." Cool original jewelry by Kelli Horrigan.

Everywhere I look, it's a crossroads, a fork, a hinge.  I'm all hinge-y.  I don't know what job I'll have, who will be president or governor, if I'll get a summer vacation, if I'm right this very second pregnant (probably not).  It's quite unsettling. 

I soaked up massive gobs of Vitamin D this weekend, and though I'm massively allergic to this lush spring air, it is still lush.  Is there anything more hopeful than planting literal seeds in the dirt and watering them, and then checking each day to see if they're poking through? 

I was going to write "at least the seasons still work," but then a dark part of me said, "No, we've even broken that - the weather is broken."  Gah!  I wish I could shut up this mind of mine sometimes, especially when I am trying my damnedest to be hopeful.  The seeds WILL come up, and I will be ok, and the earth is not broken.

And just look at this amazing picture I came across for my silly little blog post.  Not sure if it's OK to post here or not, but God, just look at that woman!  I want to be her.  It's so comforting to know that there is art in the world.  Women wearing feathers on their shoulders and strange artistic hinges around their necks.

The best part of last week was going to the (free!) Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI with an old friend and seeing the art of Carol Prusa.  I haven't been so moved by art in a while.  I loved the female imagery and forms - like making art on big pregnant bellies, or orbs that represent the universe/globes/eyes/brains.  I loved the old technique (silverpoint) with the modern technology (fiber optics).  I loved the meticulous, meditative process thrown in with a haphazard graphite wash that dripped every which way.  I loved the slightly gross anatomical shapes being cast as beautiful and repeating like the hum of creation itself.  It was like peering into the daydreams of God, or whatever created us and our galaxy.  She is so cool.  (Why am I not an artist? WTF am I doing in this office prison?  shit.)

P.S. If anyone asks me to take down this photo, I am happy to - I don't know if it is copyrighted.

What we're worth

Source

I just had to email someone my "salary requirements."  I am so nervous.  How do you say how much you think you should be worth?  I changed my numbers like three times, couched them in polite sentences, and finally pressed "send".

Google sources pretty much told me to blow off the question with a B.S. politician's change-the-subject sort of answer, but I think that is disrespectful.

Nothing is happening at my job.  It makes me feel not worth very much.  But looking at new opportunities, refining my resume, and creating a portfolio of professional writing samples kind of made me feel like my services could be worth a lot, and that I deserved more.

I'm scared that she will see the numbers I wrote and think, "Who does this girl think she is?  I could get a hundred people to do this for cheaper than that.  She doesn't deserve that, and she's BAD for thinking that she does."  I know, I sound like a 5-year-old.

But then I think of how happy I would be to work very hard for an amount that felt fair, and that pushed me to be worth it, to add value and make a contribution.  I want to be challenged.  I want to feel good about myself.

You always hear that women don't get paid much because we are too scared to ask for raises or to negotiate salaries.  What if I internalized that and now I just asked for too much?  Like to compensate for all the women who don't ask for what they're worth?  eeek.     

What if I am influenced by my husband's promotion to think that such jumps in rank and salary are the natural way of things, when really they are rare and only happen when you have connections that I don't have? 

What if I missed my opportunity for a happy, healthy work environment by emailing the wrong numbers?  What if she asks what I'm making now and is appalled that I asked for such a jump in numbers?

What I really want to say is that if I had a crystal ball that told me your organization and job were the right fit for me, and that I would make work-friends who I could talk to, and I would feel useful and competent and healthy, and I don't have to be afraid if I get pregnant or need to deal with endo at work, then I don't care much about the money, just please please be the right fit!  But now I'm in the game and I've got to play the game until it's over.

In my workday, I feel like I'm incubating secrets like a fat hen sitting on breakable eggs.  I'm terrified of having three jobs in a row that are a bad fit.  Currently stewing in number two.

I'm also scared of what a hard job plus potential pregnancy/kids plus husband's hard job could mean.  We are not that great at managing our household as it is...  Is this all too much?

Did a walk-a-thon this weekend and my hamstrings and hips were so tight.  Because all I do all week is sit crunched up in this chair like a bored zombie zig zag, staring at a screen all day five days a week.  Sometimes I opt to use the bathroom on another floor and it's like - ooh!  an outing!  stairs!  Then I come back and sit down again in this never-ending silence.  Which makes me wonder if I should have said I would work for anything for my freedom.  Instead I wrote down bigger numbers than have ever applied to me before.  Shit.

Sorry for the freak-out post.  Hopefully will return to normal programming soon.
 

Schnoz Versus Baby

Source

I want to get started writing posts again but I'm not sure how to dive in.  There's been some medical shit going down, and not in the direction I've expected.  I need a surgery on my nose to correct a deviated septum and some other issues.  This could double the oxygen I take in each day! 

I am mostly feeling really hopeful that I could feel better, more energetic, more well-rested.  It is also alleviating my fears that if I got pregnant and were not able to medicate when allergy season hit, I would not be able to breathe or sleep and I'd pretty much just die. 

It is really hard to accept that impending surgery means that we are not currently trying to conceive.  We've done soooooo much work to get to this point of both being on the same page, ready to go in trying.  This month could have been it, who knows.  But now I will be trying NOT to get pregnant, so that mommy can breathe through both nostrils and alleviate the constant pressure and ache.

Will I be smarter?  Able to concentrate longer, or, like, at all?  Well-rested?  Cheerful?  Will I feel like exercising?  Will exercising energize me instead of making me feel like crap?  Will I feel like cooking healthy meals and organizing my household a bit? 

Will my husband be able to care for me in the way I need post-surgery?  We'll be breaking new ground here.  I know my mother is awesome at care in these sorts of situations, but now I am a wife, so I guess we'll try out hubby-care.  Let's see if he can handle disgusting nasal things.

I look on Facebook and see former classmates who are the same age as me with two kids already.  Smiling in front of a massive Christmas tree or something.  I know comparisons are not helpful, but I feel behind, and I feel worried.  As someone with endometriosis, I probably should have been first in line for trying to conceive.  Instead, I dated badly for years, got a graduate degree, and after finally getting married and ready to go for it, I am putting everything on hold to tend to my stupid nasal passageways!  It is weird to think about being an old mom, a mom so much older than my own that it is like a completely different species of family life. 

I am worried.  I'm also a little angry that my very passive allergy doc didn't refer me to an Ear Nose and Throat doctor a year ago when it was clear my allergy meds were not helping me very much.  I could have had this all taken care of before baby-trying time.  That is something that is pulling at my energy that I just need to let go.  I need to accept that things did not go down that way.

Have any imaginary readers had nasal surgery, or had fairly old parents?

The Kardashians inflame my sinuses

Turns out, it is not good to watch Kim Kardashian's disintegrating marriage on TV right before going to sleep.  When I wasn't tossing and turning from the inability to breathe through my clogged sinuses, I was having the weirdest dreams of being in that crazy condo with those crazy false eyelash people.  I'm not a regular viewer, but it's oddly compelling to observe her misery and disappointment in her husband being filmed just a month into her marriage.  You can see her thoughts of "this is tooooooootally not working. Shit." as she continues to go along with the reality TV semi-scripted shenanigans.  She deserves some of her bad press of course, but it's kind of a sad situation for all involved.  And so annoying that she keeps referring to herself as old at age 30.  OK, enough commenting on other people's absurd marriages...

In other news - I have come to terms with sacrificing my breathing to the Allergy Gods in the spring and summer and early fall.  WTF is up with winter congestion?  No fair.  I just downed my first Sudafed since early fall and can't wait for it to kick in, my little red friends.  My sinuses are prickling with inflammation, heavy like two saddle bags that hang outside of my face.  Sorry if that's too gross.

I'm terrified of what will happen if a potential pregnancy/nursing overlaps with allergy times.  Fellow allergy moms, what did you do to breathe?  How do you handle the sleep deprivation of normal parenting plus the inability to nose-breathe? 

Baby dream

Last night I dreamed that I gave birth.  It must have been a dream, since there was no pain.  I was all by myself but I wasn't scared.  Then I nursed.  I knew what to do.  It was a boy.

Real life seems disappointingly mundane after a dream like that.