holy snow batman!

2010 February 8
by Sarah

We ended up stuck at home today, because the snow plows didn’t make it to our street until 5:30 this afternoon.  I’m certainly not complaining, by any means!  I got laundry done, swept and mopped the floors, cleaned the kitchen, and even shoveled some more snow!

And then we learned that tomorrow and Wednesday we’re getting another 10-20 inches!!!!

Holy crap.

My arms are so, so sore.  It makes me want to cry to think about shoveling all of that all over again.  The only reason we got our driveway done was that a neighbor stopped by with a snowblower and spent 3 hours clearing the rest of it for us!  We both could have kissed him!  We didn’t even know the neighbor or the others that were helping him.  They were hauling around a case of beer and we all stood around chatting while the guys took turns on the machine.  It was really sweet.

We’ve lived on our street for almost three years now, and only really know one neighbor, and finally we felt like we were part of a community!  Tomorrow DH is helping one neighbor clear snow off the roof of a little addition on his house so that he doesn’t fall off a ladder and kill himself (he’s an elderly man).  It feels good to be asked for a favor!  Strange how a blizzard can bring people together…

Tomorrow we’ll be at work at least half a day, but we need to make a grocery store run before the storm hits and we are possibly left without power again.  They’re expecting some serious high winds and our county once again is expected to be on the higher side of accumulation.  It’s gonna be nasty.

We definitely won’t be going anywhere Wednesday.  You can bet we won’t be dug out by Thursday.  Friday is iffy.

Yep, we may be snowed in until next week!

Wow, this is surreal.  Certainly more than a little ‘ole Louisiana girl knows what to do with!

Oh, I almost forgot – GO SAINTS!!!!!!!!

Blizzard!

2010 February 6
by Sarah

We lost power this morning around 7 am.  I wasn’t too worried at first – how bad could it get, right?  Well, it got cold pretty fast!  And with no internet, tv, hot water, or way to cook a warm meal…well, there wasn’t much to do besides read.  Which I did, bundled up in blankets.  After a while, I decided that the only way to keep warm was to head outside and shovel some snow!

Our county had the most snowfall in the state.  We got about 33 inches of snowfall, then we ended up with another few inches of drift.  It finally stopped snowing around 4:30, and our power came back on around 5.  I’m so glad that we were able to get power back before nightfall – temps are supposed to be in the single digits tonight and our pellet stove runs on electricity of course!

DH and I are both sore from shoveling for hours on end, and we were both happy when it got dark and we could come inside and enjoy a supper of hot tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  I’m not looking forward of more shoveling tomorrow…

Eddie was ecstatic playing in the snow all day.  I was worried about his paws getting frozen so I put him inside every once in a while, only to have him cry to come back out.  Ozzie wasn’t interested until we were just winding down our shoveling, then he did a circuit around the shoveled areas and that was enough for him :) .

This was around 11 am.  We got another few inches after this!

Somewhere in there is our driveway….

I won’t tell you how long it took to dig out both cars!  Shoveling snow from over your head is NO fun.

Taking a break…

Can you tell he’s happy about shoveling?

Eddie is excited that Ozzy’s coming out to play!

Snow…yummm…

There must be something interesting happening up there!

No, you can’t help shovel…


Warming up in front of the pellet stove!


stupid yoga

2010 February 5
by Sarah

Remember this post?

I showed up to yoga class yesterday, after not going for almost 2 months, and my yoga instructor is 5 months pregnant.

In July, she said they would start trying soon.  5 months ago was September.  So, at the max it took them 2 months to get pregnant.  If even, since she probably had to wait a month to stop her bcp.

Seeing her pregnant didn’t give me the nasty, jealous feeling, or even make me sad during the class, and I was waiting for those feelings of failure to wash over me and they never did.  I guess it’s a good thing I’m still feeling pretty good right now because two weeks ago, I might not have been able to handle it.  As it is, I spent the entire class staring at her beautiful belly and wondering what that would feel like.  How it would feel to be growing a tiny human inside of me.  I pretty much had no focus during class on my breathing or any of the positions, my mind was wandering so much.

I talked to her after class.  I asked her how far along she was, told her congratulations, and then told her I was quitting my job (we’ve always chatted after class and she knows I’ve been dealing with a crap job situation for a couple years now).  She asked if I was going to get another job – I told her no, I was just going to take it easy for a bit.  She then asked, “are you guys going to try soon?”  Cue the trembly lip and tears stinging my eyes.  “We’ve been trying for years.”  Awkward pause, then she said, “Well, I quit my job before we had kids….I’m sure you’ll enjoy your free time.”

Sigh…

I got home and told DH.  And then I let myself cry on his shoulder for a bit.  What bothers me is not that she’s pregnant.  It’s not even that everyone is pregnant and I’m not (well, maybe a little bit).  It’s that realization once again that I have NO control over anything.  Other people say they’re going to get pregnant…and they DO.  It’s just that easy.  We say we’re going to get pregnant (because we’re optimistic like that) and we hope and pray every single month.  And after we’re devastated, we pick ourselves back up and hope and pray some more.

I felt like I earned a treat after that yoga class, so I tried the gym’s tanning bed for the first time.  I know, I know, they are horrible for you.  But…I’m going to Mexico in a little over two weeks (YAY!) and I’m white as a sheet.  I’m just going to fake-bake maybe two more times before I go and that’s it.  I only did it for 8 minutes – I didn’t want to fry myself on the first round – but I probably won’t do more than that next time either.

Our friend F. (If you’ve been following my blog for a while, F. is a coworker and college friend of DH’s.) and his wife are hosting a Super Bowl party on Sunday, but since they live in the ‘boonies out in western Maryland we may not make it after such a huge snowstorm.  I can’t decide if I’m bummed about it or not.  On one hand, watching the Super Bowl with a group of people is more fun than watching it at home, but on the other hand F.’s wife is pregnant with their second (not sure when she’s due?), and most of their friends have one or two kids already or are pregnant, so it’s usually just a lot of baby and kid talk and I always feel left out.  I’m not really close with any of their friends either, so I even feel left out of the non-kid-related conversations.  I do love playing with their daughter, though.  I usually put up with these get-togethers to make DH happy so I just grin and bear it.  In my current positive state, that might just be easier to pull off.  We’ll see.

Today, I have a hair appointment at 12:45.  It was originally scheduled for 4 pm, but this nasty snowstorm is supposed to start dumping on us any minute now, so I moved it up.  As soon as it starts snowing, they’re sending people home from work anyway, so I’d be surprised if we were even still at work at noon.  They’re expected at least 2 feet of snow over the next couple of day, so we’re just going to stock up on groceries and wood pellets and “hunker down”.  And probably get a lot of “doin’ it” in, since I got a peak reading on the monitor this morning :) .

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.  Stay safe!

no snow day :(

2010 February 3
by Sarah

Even though we had a solid 4 inches of snow this morning, we had to go to work.  It took DH only a few minutes to clear out the car, but when we got to the hilly part of our driveway the car slid back down and to the right.  We ended up straddling our driveway with a tree at the trunk and hood.  If it wasn’t horribly frustrating, it would have been comical.  It felt like the ridiculous scene in Austin Powers, when he gets the cart stuck in the hallway.  DH sent me back inside where it was warm, and then spent 45 minutes clearing the ground around the car, spreading salt and getting the car back straight.

This is just the kind of situation that would put DH in a bad mood, and then I would end up in a bad mood because I don’t like when he’s in a bad mood.  A vicious circle, really.  It didn’t happen like that at all, though!  I don’t know what it is exactly, but in the last few months, since our anniversary really, DH has been…different.

He’s always been sweet, he’s always been gentle and kind and never had a quick temper.  But, no one’s perfect and we both had our grumpy moments.  Lately, though, it seems like he’s a lot more conscious of how his words or moods are affecting me.  He even apologized for being a little snippy the other day – which is unusual for him.  He’s come to bed on early every night, won’t let me lift the bags of wood pellets for the stove, offers to get me a blanket or make me some tea if I’m cold while we’re watching TV.  It’s not like any huge change, because he’s always been extremely thoughtful, but it’s a bunch of little things.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have him, and I realize that everything we’ve gone through in the last few years has just brought us closer together.  Not that stress has been limited to just the last few years of marriage – we have gone through quite a lot in these 7 years.  From taking guardianship of my sister when we were only married for 2 years, dealing with family drama, moving overseas, deaths of grandparents and parents, to dealing with endometriosis and infertility and job stresses, everything has just showed us how much we need and love each other.

I’ve felt more positive in general these last two weeks, and it’s reinforced how much I have to be thankful for.  I have even enjoyed thinking about babies, talking about baby stuff, and have allowed myself to dream about the future.  It feels good not to be weighed down by constant negative thoughts for once!  Hey, it may not last (hello, cd1 – I see you looming in about 2 1/2 weeks…), but I’m going to enjoy it while it does.

One thing Dr. Jen told me that has stuck with me is that our minds are very powerful things.  You know how the first day of vacation, you’re all excited and relaxed and ready to go?  And how the last day is depressing and you get anxious about returning to the real world?  In reality, there’s nothing different about those two days except our perception of what’s coming next.  She asked me to try and discover how I can capture some of the excitement and relaxation of the first day of vacation for every day.

So that’s what I’ve been working on.  I’ve been trying to imagine how wonderful I’ll feel on my last day of work, and trying to spread that feeling into every day.  Obviously, now that I have something concrete to look forward too, it’s easier to do.  Before I knew that I was definitely quitting, I’m not sure I would have been willing to even try.

Tomorrow at noon is my acupuncture appointment.  I’ve seen ewcm the last couple of days, so I’m actually thinking I might ovulate around cd14 this month.  And the needles will help that happen, so yay!

______________

Update:  My sister just called – apparently after I left work today, my boss finally started to realize what my quitting meant and that he was going to have some serious trouble filling the gaps.  He told her that it was like “trying to staunch an open chest wound and all I have are paper towels…”.  Apparently, he was clutching his chest as he said it and looking rather pitiful.

Is it wrong that I find that funny?

cd11 and hoping for snow

2010 February 2
by Sarah

Today was awesome.  Nothing spectacular happened, but it felt great to have everyone know I was quitting.  Our VP came in and asked if I was excited to be “escaping”.  Haha, of course I am!  DH told me later that the first thing he asked when he found out I was quitting was when DH was going to give notice.  He said, “as soon as I get a better offer!”.  I think they’re worried about him leaving now…as they should be.

DH told a couple of our other coworkers, since he was working with them down at the Capitol yesterday.  They both looked at him a little crooked when he told them I wasn’t jumping right into another job.  He just laughed about it when he told me – he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks, and neither do I!

I feel tension oozing out of me already.  Every task I had to complete today, I just smiled to myself and thought, “this could be the last time I ever have to do this”.  It was awesome!  I’m hoping that by the time I get to my acupuncture appointment on Thursday, Dr. Jen will be impressed with my calm, strong pulse :) .  Haha, that would be a first.

I’m really looking forward to the appointment.  We scheduled it for Thursday, hoping she could give me a treatment to help make sure ovulation happens on time.  I’m on cd11 right now, so hopefully she can ensure that I don’t have a repeat of last month (I ended up ovulating on cd17 or 18 I think).  She was very sympathetic to me not wanting AF to hit right as I get to Mexico :) .  The treatments won’t be done in the student clinic anymore, since she graduated from the acupuncture course and moved her medical practice and acupuncture into a new building (closer to my house, which is great), so it should  be a different experience from the last couple appointments.

It’s snowing again tonight – we still have plenty of snow on the ground from the ~8 inches we got Saturday.  The forecast calls for 4-6 inches tonight, and I’m hoping for a snow day tomorrow.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

A couple days early, but I did it!

2010 February 1
by Sarah

I gave my three weeks notice!

DH asked me on Saturday if I was going to break the news on Monday, and I thought about it for a second and then wondered…why was I waiting until Friday?  I was going to stress myself out all week anticipating having to tell my boss, then probably get to Friday and realize he had scheduled demos or meetings or was going to be out of the office or something stupid like that, so I decided to just get it over with.  Plus, it makes me look good to give three weeks instead of two even though my last day hasn’t changed – it’s still the 19th.

I was a bundle of nerves this morning!  He didn’t come in until 11, so I had 3 hours of trying to keep my mind of what was about to happen.  I was having some small panic attacks – nothing too major, just some chest pain and trouble breathing, and I was able to keep things under control for the most part.  I rehearsed what I was going to say over and over in my mind.  I planned on keeping it short and sweet.

I told him that I continued to have health problems, and that even though I had a lot of pain relief from my most recent surgery, my health wasn’t where it needed to be.  With the encouragement of my doctor, I decided to stop working for a while.  And left it at that.

He was a little taken aback.  He actually said that he didn’t see how my job could affect my health because it wasn’t physically demanding.  I said, of course you don’t understand, because you don’t sit at my desk and do my job everyday.  He said, oh, well, yeah I guess that’s true.

We talked about getting my assistant up to speed on things.  He wants me to write a “manual” to my job.  As laughable as that is, I agreed.  I had already started writing something similar when I had my second surgery, and updated it before my third surgery.  It’s impossible to write step-by-step instructions to every aspect of my job, but I’ll do what I can to make it easier on my assistant.  I have a feeling she might just quit herself…

He wants me to come in next month for a day or two just to walk everyone through the monthly closeout tasks, and I told him I’d think about it.  I told him he’d have to make it worth my time.  It was hard, but I had to be blunt, because I don’t want to leave things open where he thinks he can call me if he has a question anytime.

Overall, it went well.  Afterward, he said that as tough as it would be on everyone, he was glad that I was going to be able to get healthy and that was the most important thing after all.  And I agree.

I feel like the last three and half years in this job has changed me.  I don’t smile often, am always tired and lethargic, I dread every weekday, and can’t seem to get any enjoyment out of life.  That is NOT who I am.  If you’ve met me IRL – I love to laugh and joke and goof around.  I used to wake up excited about the world, wondering what would happen next.  I had crappy jobs before, but none that had this kind of affect on my spirit.  Infertility is spirit crushing too, don’t get me wrong, but this year if I had to rank what I found worse – my job or the infertility – well…I’d have put my job at #1.

At the moment, I don’t have a part-time job.  I am going to keep looking, but I’m NOT looking at anything in the field I’m in now.  I don’t want to work in an office.  I don’t care to use my clearance.  I would like to do something that enriches my life or the lives of those around me.  I’m applying to some tutoring programs (after-school Sy.lvan-type things) at the moment, but I’m not stressing about it at all.  And better yet, DH isn’t stressing either.  With the GI Bill benefits starting soon, we’ll be at a net zero with our incomes, and any extra I earn we’ll use to work on the house.  So really, there’s no pressure for me to rush into anything.

We went out to celebrate tonight.  I’m a fan of those restaurant.com certificates when they put them on sale 80% off.  I get about 10 0r so every year – a couple for the restaurant nearby and then a few to new restaurants in either Baltimore or Annapolis.  That way we can try new places for cheap, and if we’re too tired to cook one night we can head to the local place for a quick bite.  So, tonight, we stayed local and had a fantastic lobster and crab legs dinner.

It felt great to finally be celebrating what I’ve only dreamed of doing for the last couple of years.  18 days to go until I’m a free woman!!!

i’m not a widow…

2010 January 31
by Sarah

…but today I came close.

This morning, DH popped out to the drugstore to pick up some school supplies for the class he’s taking.  He walked out of the store, stopped by the trashcan to empty his pockets, and almost died.

Some lady was pulling into a parking space right in front of him, when instead of hitting the brake she stomped on the accelerator.  As she drove up over the sidewalk, Hubby jumped over the hood of her car and the car sent the trashcan he was standing next to flying across the parking lot as it climbed up the wood and cement post, then came crashing down right where he was standing.

If his reflexes had been just a second slower, the car would have chopped him off at the knees, driven up the post and then crashed down on top of him.

A bystander called 911 and reported that someone was intentionally trying to kill a pedestrian.  After hearing the story, the cops on the scene just looked at him and said, “How the hell did you do that?”

After he jumped out of the way, he ran over to help the woman get out of the car and brought her inside the store.  Luckily, she wasn’t hurt, but I’m not sure she realized that she had almost killed someone, because she kept saying over and over that she had just totalled her only car and she was already late picking up her daughter.  She was probably just in shock.

I was home, sipping my tea, blissfully unaware about how close I came to losing the most important person in my life.  All day, “what if” has been running through my mind and every time I get scared of what almost was, I just walk over and hug and kiss my husband.

God was good to us today.

We went back a couple hours later and took a picture.  They had already taken away the car and cleaned up the scene – you can see the bare post the car drove up.

phone call out of the blue

2010 January 29
by Sarah

My aunt just called.  This is one of my dad’s sisters – the one with endometriosis.

I sent her an email last spring about the Juneau research study for endo, asking her to participate, and apparently she hadn’t known until that moment that I had endo as well!  I can’t believe it – I just assumed my dad would have told her, or my other aunts since most of them knew (I thought?).  She said when she asked about how I was doing, all he ever said was that we were doing fine.  Huh.  I was very surprised at that.  I mean, that side of the family is not exactly known for their open communication, but it’s not like I’ve been hiding this disease!  Or the infertility.  Hello, very Catholic family, I’ve been married for 7 years and no baby!

Anyway, she called this morning to ask if she and my uncle and two cousins could stay with us in June.  I guess my younger cousin is getting a Congressional award of some sort, and they are coming for the presentation.  I’m not close at all to this aunt – they didn’t go to our church growing up so I only saw them every couple of months, and then they moved a couple hours away and I saw them only on holidays.  And she’s always been pretty intense.  Having a conversation with her is like being interrogated, except that in an interrogation at least you know what kind of information they’re trying to get out of you.  She’s always been a closed book – very quiet and with a HUGE chip on her shoulder (mostly from her childhood – she has mentioned that she had an unhappy childhood and had a lot of issues with my grandfather, but I don’t know more than that).

After talking about their visit to the D.C. area, she asked me how I was feeling.  I told her that I was feeling better than I had in years, that I was 10 months post-surgery and I had never gotten this far with no pain before.  She had no idea what kind of surgeries I had done, or what extent, so I explained that I had lost my right ovary and tube as well as part of my left ovary.  Turns out - so did she!  I knew my grandmother had also lost an ovary, so I was kind of shocked to hear that all three of us had.  The more I shared, the more she opened up.  She told me that she had had 6 surgeries, and they had seen an endo infertility specialist in New Orleans finally who performed her last surgery.  She was doing ultrasounds almost every day with them, and they had pretty much given up conceiving.  She and my uncle had started the paperwork for adoption, when they got a call in early January that a baby would be born later that summer.  They just needed to finish their home study quickly, so they would be approved.  At the same time, the doctor told them that if they didn’t get pregnant that month, they should take a year off (I imagine she was on some hormone treatment, but I didn’t ask) before they start trying again.  They found out she was pregnant two weeks later.  One year after her last surgery.  Unbelievable.

After that pregnancy, she didn’t have another endo symptom again.  She got pregnant again with her second daughter a couple years later.  I didn’t ask if she only wanted two (every one else has 5 or more kids, so I don’t know if she wanted more and was never successful), but I might ask her later.  She said that she didn’t expect anything she was saying to be encouraging to me, because when she was going through it the last thing she wanted to hear was some person with two kids telling her to have hope.  She just wanted to share her story, and let me know that she was thinking about me.  She understood that even though we both had endo, we are completely different people with different bodies and feelings.  She wanted to acknowledge that she was sure I was suffering – that it was devastating to her and my uncle both and that the grief of infertility is the single most painful thing she’s ever dealt with in her life.  She told me how many times she heard people telling her that as soon as they adopted they’d get pregnant, and she remembered being furious at the comments and upset that people had no clue.  Especially her family – one of eight kids, everyone else is super-fertile and they all got married young and had kids right away.

My heart just ached while she was telling me all of this.  I shared with her that I was lucky to have a sister who struggled as well (well, lucky is relative), and she didn’t know K. had had trouble conceiving either!  That I couldn’t believe, because K. lived in town when she was trying to get pregnant with my nephew and she was very open with the family about how much they wanted a baby and couldn’t get pregnant.  You think as someone who had gone through it, she would have picked up on something.  I’m sure K. would have been happy for some support – someone else to talk to.

Before we hung up, she told me that she hoped that nothing she said had offended, and that everything she said was with the intention of offering love and support.  If I didn’t get anything else from our conversation, she hoped that I understood that she was thinking about me and praying for me.

I was totally shocked.  That was one of the most amazing conversations I’ve ever had with anyone about infertility.  I wish I could have recorded our phone call and typed it out here verbatim.  I wish I could remember exactly what she said, so that I could share it with everyone struggling right now.

That totally made my morning.  I wasn’t really eager to talk to her, since we’ve never had a great conversation in the past, but I’m so glad I picked up the phone.

And for those of you who are wondering how I managed to have such a personal conversation at work – I take my cell phone into a large closet in our training room.  It’s got a chair, it’s own light, and no one ever goes back there.  Perfect spot :) .

Okay, I was planning on a completely different post for today, but this is running long so I’ll have to save it for later.  I’ve been asked a few questions in the comments that I’ve been meaning to get around to answering.  Sorry!

I hope everyone is having  fantastic Friday :) .

the time has come

2010 January 26
by Sarah

Drumroll please………….

Okay, everyone ready?

Next Friday, February the 5th, I will be giving my two weeks’ notice.

YAY!!!!!!!

No, I don’t have a part-time job yet, but I don’t care.  I’m quitting, come hell or high water.

And just in time, apparently, since I just found out today that my coworker C. is pregnant.  Unmarried, dating her boyfriend for less than a year (they just moved in together a couple months ago), and around 2 months pregnant.

Gah.

She didn’t exactly announce it to the office…but she did post it on her blog.  She doesn’t think anyone knows about her blog, but a couple months ago my boss told her she can’t use face.book anymore at work, so instead she writes on her blog all day (we’re talking 5 and 6 posts a day).  She’s not exactly computer-savvy, so when you walk over to talk to her, she minimizes the window, but you can still see the title in the tool bar.  Sometimes, she’s not even fast enough to minimize it and she just pulls the window down to the bottom of her monitor.  Duh.

There are a few of us who read it.  I’ve been tempted to send it to my boss, because she posts while they are doing trade shows about how little work she’s doing, but then I realize that I don’t really care and it’s his own damn fault if he thinks she’s actually a productive employee.

So yes, 16% of our office is now pregnant.  And it’s pretty much time for me to get the hell out of there.

on husbands and babies…

2010 January 25
by Sarah

Blogger is being wonky today and none of the comment boxes are working AT ALL.  I don’t think it has anything to do with being on WordPress, because I can’t even get to the point where I enter my wordpress info.  So…for those of you on blogger, I will comment as soon as it starts working again.  I promise!

————-

I was a little depressed this weekend, if you didn’t catch that from my previous posts.  Instead of sitting on the couch glued to my laptop like I normally would, I decided to get out and do some shopping.  Not just any shopping – shopping for baby clothes.  (Some of you may remember that my sister is pregnant with her second child after 6 years of secondary infertility (it also took them three years to get pregnant with my nephew), and she is due at the end of March. )

I know what you’re thinking -  “On cd1, really?  What are you nuts?”

It wasn’t that bad, actually.  I had talked my sister a couple days before and she had seen a sale at Chil.dren’s Pl.ace in St. Louis, but hadn’t been able to go in because her doctor appointment ran long (they don’t live in St. Louis – they live an hour and a half away) and was disappointed to miss it.  I guess she still needs sleepers and socks – they’ve gotten a lot of gifts, but most of them are sundresses and other little cute girly things.  I guess most people don’t pick up the super practical stuff because it’s not as “fun”.  Anyway, I decided to go check out the sale since we have one 5 miles away at the giant mall near our house.

Hubby was happy to go along (weird), and we had a good time.  I think infertile girls tend to wall ourselves off from everything pregnancy/baby/children related – to protect ourselves of course.  But that’s not who I am!  I love babies!  And kids!  I love big families, toys, kids’ books, etc. but I haven’t allowed myself to think about these things in the last couple years.  I used to collect children’s books and movies – the ones that we grew up reading and watching, anticipating sharing them with our children one day.  And then our infertility just started weighing on me, so that seeing all of those things on the shelves in the room that was to be the nursery made we want to scream with frustration.  It was too heartbreaking to look at those things I had picked out so lovingly, so hopefully.

My sister’s pregnancy has allowed me to love looking at children’s things again, dream of baby things.  My infertile brain is allowing me some enjoyment and the protective part of my heart is backing off for a time.  And it feels good.  And it allows for exchanges with DH that probably wouldn’t happen otherwise…

While we were digging through the sale racks, out of nowhere he said – What do you think about _____(girl’s name)?  I was a bit taken aback.  It has been years since I’d allowed myself to dream about children’s names.  I loved the name – he explained why he liked it, what he liked about the way it was spelled, and we talked about how much easier it was to pick a boy’s name (we’re naming our first son after his father and his friend with a severe disability who died when he was 16).  We even have a second boy’s name we both like.  Because, of course we wanted a few kids and assumed we’d have more than one boy.  Girl’s names were harder though – and the first couple of years when I was crying about my endo and worrying about ever being able to have children, he used to make me laugh by coming up with names like “Vag.iniq.ue”.  The man is crazy.

It was strange to have him bring up the subject on his own.  I can see that he’s thinking more about what we’re missing, and getting involved on a different level than he used to.  Before, he was my support, the source of my optimism, in every way a part of things, but this is different.  I think he could always see himself as a father…someday…and now it’s become more present maybe?  I can’t presume to know what is going on inside of his head, but there is a change of some sort.

Later that afternoon, we sat at the coffee shop while we were waiting to meet my sister and he started googling the meanings of the name he had picked out.  It felt so good to be sitting next to him on a cozy little couch, with our cups of tea and coffee, dreaming about the future again, making jokes and cracking each other up.

And that’s a little window into how my day went from totally crappy (hello, AF!) to not too shabby :) .