The truth? I’m really sick. I spend a majority of each day feeling truly awful but can’t bring myself to talk about it because I waited so long for this. There’s so many women that will never experience this kind of sick, and not because they’re lucky, but because their bodies won’t cooperate allowing them to feel this kind of awful.
I’d rather stay quiet than complain.
I knew you’d understand.
I wasn’t going to go out into the city to take pictures.
But someone commented how my aura changed when I had my camera in my hands.
I then realized when I had my camera in my hands outside I didn’t feel sick.
I felt happy.
So I took pictures.
It’s funny to think how many times that camera has saved me.
Hi kid.
So today marks the first time I leave you with dad while I travel with Mozzi across state lines.
I mean, Mozzi doesn’t really have a choice. Involuntary uterine travel and all.
But it feels weird. Separating our family.
This is also the first time I leave you as a Kindergartener.
Please make sure your dad remembers to take you to the book fair, it goes until 7.
Your homework is in your bag, I’ll be back on Monday.
Dad will be here when you get off the bus.
Oh, how I love watching you get off the bus. (This may or may not have something to do with you not getting off the bus on the first day…police bringing you home…blah blah blah…)
Sometimes you watch the bus drive away, sometimes you bend down and look at a bug on the sidewalk. Occasionally you skip, most of the time you run and on the really good days? You dance home. Sometimes you make grand gestures towards your mouth and your stomach signaling that I am to feed you as soon as you cross the threshold. But you always smile and wave as soon as you see me.
And my heart melts when you do.
I miss you already.
Do you think it would be weird if I asked my roommate to rub and kiss my belly every morning when I wake up?
Yeah…me too.
Nearly 60 years ago, while I was serving as a young bishop, Kathleen McKee, a widow in my ward, passed away. Among her things were three pet canaries. Two, with perfect yellow coloring, were to be given to her friends. The third, Billie, had yellow coloring marred by gray on his wings. Sister McKee had written in a note to me: “Will you and your family make a home for him? He isn’t the prettiest, but his song is the best.”
Sister McKee was much like her yellow canary with gray on its wings. She was not blessed with beauty, gifted with poise, or honored by posterity. Yet her song helped others to more willingly bear their burdens and more ably shoulder their tasks.
The world is filled with yellow canaries with gray on their wings. The pity is that so precious few have learned to sing. Some are young people who don’t know who they are, what they can be or even want to be; all they want is to be somebody. Others are stooped with age, burdened with care, or filled with doubt—living lives far below the level of their capabilities.
To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility. You ask, “How might we achieve these goals?” I answer, “By gaining a true perspective of who we really are!” We are sons and daughters of a living God, in whose image we have been created. Think of that: created in the image of God. We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power.
You can read the full article here.
I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself yesterday.
I need to face my troubles with a little more courage and my disappointments with a little more cheerfulness.
I need to find my song. And I need to sing it.
I know God knows me. And that He loves me, oh how I know.
He knows and loves you too, whether you know much about Him or not.
I am the Rudy Ruttiger of gestation.
Only instead of Notre Dame football it’s pregnancy.
And instead of being carried off the field I’ll be having a baby.
And instead of having the crap kicked out of me on the scout team I’m having the crap kicked out of me by the nausea.
And instead of a movie with a stirring soundtrack I have a blog and an iPod loaded with lots of Miley Cyrus.
I love being pregnant. I love the thought of it. The priviledge of it. The power of it. The honor of it. The belly. The boobs.
But I suck at it. It just plain kicks my ass to be honest.
It has always bothered me when women say they hate or hated being pregnant or when they would make statements such as “GET THIS KID OUT OF ME!” They look forward to scheduled inductions weeks ahead of schedule to keep themselves comfortable and convenienced.
I’m not going to spend very many days of my life pregnant, so the ones I do have? I’m going to enjoy.
Even if I do spend them uncomfortable and sick.
This will all be over so quickly.
Yep, I’ve complained, and I’ll probably continue to on occasion.
No one is ever going to be excited about consistently feeling awful.
But I can see the silver lining. Well, the soft cotton lining with contrast piping.
My Anna emailed me when she was hugely pregnant with twins and said “I am happy that these kids are growing stronger each day I keep them in my belly.”
225 days to go until I have a real live Hoosier of my very own.
a gift from fellow hoosier transplant emily.
I was on the phone with my cousin Cassie back in July as my Aunt Cheryl was lying in a hospital bed dying.
The last thing Cassie told Cheryl while I was on the phone was “When you get up there, can you see about getting Casey and me our babies? Casey wants a boy.”
I of course shouted through the phone from Indiana, “GIRL! SEND GIRL BABIES!”
Cassie corrected herself and Cheryl laughed. She was gone an hour later.
I know whoever comes to our family this spring will have been picked, primed and prepared up in heaven by my Aunt Cheryl.
I miss her so much.
You? You are my sunshine. You also have a lot of questions (like A LOT)…so…here…I shall answer them.
I have peed on every dollar store pregnancy test in Marion, Johnson, Hendricks, Hancock and Hamilton County. It’s become a party trick…see how quick I can make the second line show up. I’m to the point I can make the pregnant line show up before the default line, I’d show you…but…no.
I am eight weeks. I think. Pregnancy math is hard. Apparently it starts before you even get pregnant. I am due at the end of April/early May (I think) which is also when my birthday is. Look, I know I waited a long time for this…but I’m not sure I’m ready to share my birthday yet. We’ll discuss.
I know eight weeks isn’t out of the woods. But frankly I was tired of being in the woods by myself. And besides, if something were to happen I would tell you anyway so regardless I would have dragged you all into the woods with me at some point anyway. Here, bug spray, you’ll need it.
Yes. My husband is an attorney. No. We do not have insurance. Yes. This scares the hell out of me.
Hyperemesis. Nope, not this time (so far. yay!) It hit me like a ton of bricks with Addie between seven and eight weeks, this time it’s just a gentle slime of nausea that ebbs and flows with the occasional barf and numerous dry heaves. If *this* is the morning sickness so many books talk about? I want a trophy for surviving with Addie.
Yes. I’m aware that with the difference in sickness there’s a good chance this one has some extra parts. Which means there could be a little tiny penis inside me. This unnerves me greatly.
Things I forgot about? The pee. How I can produce so much pee at all hours of the day is beyond my comprehension. And my hair. Which probably shouldn’t follow the pee thing, but still. My hair hasn’t been falling out. Which is totally awesome. And it’s all lustrous and bouncy. Go pregnancy hair! Also? Pregnancy boobs. The titty fairy giveth and birth will taketh away.
The biggest thing I forgot about? Making people is exhausting.
How did I tell Cody? I threw a stick at him from across his big lawyer desk at work. Exactly how you pictured it, I know. Nothing says surprise! like an overpriced piece of plastic your wife has peed on to really drive the point home.
Does Addie know? Yes. We told her after I had a particularly rough day with the barfs. She wasn’t happy. (Remember, this is the kid who shouted “I DON’T WANT KIDS, THEY’RE TOO MUCH WORK.” at the dinner table. Amen kid, amen.) However she slept on it and now she thinks it’s a capital idea. But she makes everyone who comes in contact with me promise to take care of me. Which is cute when it’s Cody but gets awkward in the Costco checkout line.
Nickname? Mozzi. As in the little charming bald guy from White Collar He can’t be dead. If he’s really dead? You’re dead to us USA writers.
Most of all? The emotions. Pregnancy is full of so much funny (gas! boobzilla!)…but it’s shadowed by so much stress.
But with all the comments yesterday (!!) this one in particular struck me (thank you Sarah)…I need to remember nothing has gone wrong. I need to quit thinking about it as if something has. Because it hasn’t. Well, except for the grilled cheese Cody made for dinner. That? WAS WRONG.
I am allowed to be happy about this.
Bridget said “Miscarriage and infertility steal a part of you. The part that lets you hope and dream with reckless abandon.”
Well I’m stealing them back.
So there.
Addie will almost be six and a half.
Cody and I will have been married a decade.
It has been almost a year since I became at peace with it never happening again.
I’ve become that story I hated so much “Well I know this girl who tried for five years, she finally gave up and it happened.”
I know the physical ache that this has caused some of you to feel. Oh, how I know. And I hate that I caused it.
I’m no longer allowed to sit with the infertiles, even though I was a spokesperson and card carrying member for years. However I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to take my place on the other side either…I’m listening too closely for the shoe to drop.
Turns out that getting pregnant after so long comes with a whole new deluge of emotions. Ones I didn’t see coming. Ones even fewer people understand, let alone talk about.
Ones I’m in therapy for.
I’m done choking on all these emotions silently. Because I know if I’m choking? There’s hundreds more of you out there choking as well. I don’t want anyone to feel alone, I hate feeling alone. And if I have to be the first one to say it? Then so be it.
I am finally pregnant after almost five years of secondary infertility, and I’m scared.
I also know somewhere deep down inside there’s a reason people keep having babies and there’s a reason people get so excited at the announcement of a new pregnancy.
I’m going to have to go off that knowledge, and off your excitement until I’m there too.
