Going crazy

I'm starting to go nuts here. I think I might have PMS which is making me bloat and feel even more emotional than I already am, but this wait is KILLING me.

I can only think about things going wrong. I really don't think N is going to change her mind, but I know B is having a hard time with it. He may have already signed papers, which is legal in FL, but is this ethical? I'm also afraid about the baby having major health problems. I'm also worried about the unknown paternity. H had a rough weekend and I'm worried about dealing with him and the baby.

I'm just suddenly feeling so fearful and like everything is wrong about this.

It's probably just my hormones freaking me out, but I'm going crazy and not in a good way.

School Troubles

Henry has been having real trouble in school. He was asked to reduce the number of days he attends because other parents are complaining about his behavior and he is disrupting the entire class.

This morning when I dropped him off, we talked about making good choices. He should do 2 things.

1) Listen to the teachers
2) Keep his hands to himself

As he talked about making good choices at school while we were still in the car, his eyes started to well up with tears.

This is the first time I've seen signs from him that he wants to make good choices but is having a difficult time doing so. I asked him if it was difficult and he said no. I was hoping he might say yes, but he could just be afraid to say that.

I ask him all the time how we can help him make good choices, but he always says he doesn't know.

My poor boy is really struggling and I don't know how to help him. I don't want him to feel bad about himself. He is truly a wonderful kid. He is doing great in the integrated special ed school. This school where he is having trouble is just not set up for a kid like him.

I am at a crossroads and I don't know what to do.

Still waiting for the glasses to come in.

We haven't filled out the paperwork for the new adoption attorney. I just don't have time with all that is going on with Henry.

I am exhausted.

On the inside

On the outside, I am doing fine.

Sad again

This episode has made me sad again. I am so ready for a baby *right now* that I'm just not sure how to proceed.  I have no particular interest in experiencing pregnancy. I am much more interested in expediency. I'm just not sure which route will be faster.

I mean, if we do this embryo donation thing, which I'm not even sure is likely because the potential west coast donor has not been particularly communicative with us unless we're being really forward, then it's going to be a year before a baby. Without question.

If we just wait, there is the possibility that a baby could come sooner. But it's also possible it would take even longer than a year.

All I know is that this really sucks and I'm sad. And the check engine light on my car came on this morning and I'm kind of pissed about it. And I still miss my dog a lot (even though I have to admit life is much easier without him here). But I just miss him.

I feel so lonely all of the time. Staying at home can be such a challenge sometimes because I am extremely extroverted, and talking with other adults helps me unwind and relax. I don't get to do that particularly often. I find myself jealous when people post on "Face Space" that they have a meeting. Meetings suck -- I remember well -- but I just wish I could be in a room with adults only for an hour and talk about something that doesn't involve going to the bathroom or making a mess.

Hoo boy, I am a mess right now. And I don't even have PMS.

Blah.

And then there was one

I just got an email from the local embryo donor possibility. She used donor gametes and her contract with the donor states she cannot donate them to another person for birthing. So, now I have to hope the west coast people want to donate to us.

I have to admit I am thrown for a loop and sad.

But now we don't have to make a decision. The decision will be made for us.

I hope the west coast people choose us. I hope I want them. They seem kind of high maintenance, but maybe that's just me.  We talked to them via skype this past weekend and I truly liked them as people.

I'm back to freaking out about this. But I guess I can cancel my appointment with the RE where the local embryos were stored.

I talk to my mom every morning. When I talk to her, I try not to sound too sad, but inevitably she says, "You sound sad." I am sad. I tell her I am sad. I will be sad for a while. I am okay, but I am sad.

I know she loves me and she doesn't want me to be sad. Being a parent makes me understand this more than I used to. But I need room to be sad. It's completely appropriate for me to be sad. I am allowed. It's only been a couple of weeks since all of this happened. Just let me be sad.

I ran in to a friend of a friend the other day. She asked how I was. I was honest. She lost her husband about 10 years ago, way too young and with a young child. How devastated she must have been. I can only imagine. But she is remarried and has a second child with her new husband. Seeing her doing well was a little helpful. She had a great, sudden loss but she has been able to move on. That has been the most helpful thing for me so far.

I have the appointment with the RE this afternoon. I still haven't looked for some embryos. I guess I want a kind of a timeline and a cost estimate first. Part of me really doesn't want to do this. I think I'm sort of hoping a baby materializes out of nowhere and then I won't have to go do this. But I have this sneaking suspicion that won't happen and we will try this. I am very hesitant, but just waiting and doing nothing feels awful right now. Either way, a baby a year from now is probably the quickest thing.

How did you start healing from your personal tragedies?

Losing it

I feel like I am losing my shit.

All this emotion is really hitting me hard right now. I think I am PMS-y which makes it worse. Henry's behavior has gone downhill and he is being really challenging right now.

My job is to parent my son and I feel like I am failing at it right now.

I feel like I have lost control of him. I don't know if he's feeling all the emotions from the past couple of weeks and he is acting out because of it. He has been having behavior issues all along and we've recently been getting some more interventions. He switched schools for the summer so maybe it's just all the changes that have been going on lately, but he has been so much worse and so out of control.

I am lost in a sea of misery right now.

Not great

I feel like my family has been ripped apart. I am empty inside. I miss my dog. It's difficult to walk by the empty room with the baby stuff in it. I want to scream, but I don't know what I want to say.

I am sad.

My  life looked so different last week.

On Top of Everything Else....

B-dog bit Henry in the face this morning. Henry is fine. We took him to the ER and he got 3 stitches on his cheek.

We have decided that we will have to send B-dog back to the rescue where we got him. We want everyone to be safe. But because he bit someone, he technically has to be in quarantine for 10 days, and that's supposed to be in the town where the incident occurred. In 10 days we will most likely be in FL, and I don't want this to happen again between now and then (though it is unlikely, I think.) I hate for it to drag on like this.

This has been a really horrible day.

I am feeling really sad about this decision, but know it is the right one.

We are doing ok. 

Happy & sad

Going through a pretty hard core "feeling so very happy & elated for other people and totally feeling so sad for myself" mixed feeling kinda thing here.

I know that's ok. I know it's normal. I know it will never 100% go away.

But feeling it still kinda sucks.

Paperwork

H slept over my parents' house so I could try to get some paperwork done for baby #2. This paperwork is so awful. It makes me want to cry. I hate doing it SO MUCH. I'd rather go to the dentist, and if you knew me, you'd know that means something. I cannot stand the dentist.

I'm sitting here trying to complete this crap and not cry. I just cannot stand all this intrusiveness. We are not that organized and getting all this information is really difficult. I just hate it. I HATE IT. I hate doing this. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it.

But every night I feel guilty that it's not complete. I need to complete it. I will feel so good when it's done.

It's just so very difficult. So difficult. I hate it.

I want somebody to tell me what to do

I keep feeling like I'm making a terrible mistake. I feel like B is getting better with time, and aside from the back stairs issue (which will never be resolved unless we redo the back stairs) that I could be making a bigger deal of this than it really is.

B is getting used to not having two walks every day. And when all this snow melts, I'll be able to take him out in the afternoon more often. And the back yard will have more room for him to run around.

He's still not used to having other people in the house, and he doesn't know how to remove himself from the chaos. I am still not sure how I will manage keeping H away from him when there's a newborn that needs attention. I do fear disaster and that is the main reason I'm planning on him living elsewhere. I think Bdog would do better in a house without small children.

But maybe I should make this work.

My fear is that I will try and fail and we'll have to rehome him later, which will be much, much worse for Bdog.

I'm trying to convince myself that what I'm doing is in Bdog's best interest, but all I feel is selfish.

I want somebody else to tell me what I should do.

Sad

I feel like Bdog is an innocent victim of my poor decision making.

I talked to the rescue. They're making inquiries about what we can do with him.

I feel both lost and a sense of relief. But mostly, I'm sad.

Dog

The dog now outright refuses to come up the back stairs. I just left a message at the rescue to see what bringing him back would entail. I can't handle having a dog anymore.

Bad day

Today is a bad day.

I have to do a volunteer shift at a co-operative play space we joined and I have no one to look after Henry when I'm working. My mom backed and and the neighbor who was going to help is way too sick to come. It will work out, but it's a bit of a pain. If this was my only issue, I'd get over it fast.

Bdog won't climb the back stairs any more. This means I have to walk him around front to get him back in the house. This creates a huge issue for his going out issues. He won't climb the inside stairs, either. I feel like I am doing Bdog a disservice and I feel like it's untenable for us to keep him. He needs a better home than we can provide for him. This is really depressing me.

H is having sleeping issues. He's waking up early(ish) in the morning (for him, and it interferes with Bdog's walk schedule) and his napping is being weird. It's only 2 days, but I'm concerned. He's never had sleeping issues before and he wouldn't go down for a nap quickly today or yesterday and he woke up in the middle of his nap today, but he did go back to sleep. Now I need to wake him up in 10 minutes so that I can make that shift at the play space.

I have 6 bags of leaves from the back yard waiting to be picked up by the town, but apparently no leaves are collected after December 11th in this town. So how I have 6 bags of leaves until April. I don't have any place to keep them until then. What am I supposed to do?

Writing this, it makes me wonder why I feel as distraught as I do, but I feel distraught. Maybe it's the Bdog thing. I really question my ability to care for him every single day. He is so attached to me, but he won't let anyone else care for him. I just don't know what to do now that it seems I can't simply let him out in the back yard. T doesn't really like Bdog anyway.

I just feel like crying. Today sucks.

Tomorrow morning I"m dropping H off at Grammie and Grampie's for 24 hours. We have T's office holiday party tomorrow night. I hope I can relax a little.

Bad

T is in the hospital. He has a staph infection. He's been there for 2 days now.

We're moving in 2 weeks and we've barely started packing.

H woke up at quarter of six this morning. He never gets up that early. I was peeing and H was crying and the dog was whining and the cat was howling and I was alone.

T doesn't know when he's coming home. He's lonely and sad. I'm lonely and sad.

All I can think about...

is how we're going to piss away the money for our next adoption on an empty house. And these people who were going to buy our house are expecting a baby, of course.

It's funny how infertility affects parts of your life that you didn't expect.

Still not sure if they're in or they're out. I'm hoping to know for sure by the end of the day.

Bumps in the road

We're having some bumps in the road with selling the house, but I'm crossing my fingers that things will still work out. It's freaking me out a little.

I've been dealing with contractors on a daily basis. I'm bringing Henry and B-dog to the new house every day to help them get used to it. We put a pack n play in H's bedroom and he takes his afternoon nap there. As long as he has his lovey, he'll sleep. He's such a good sleeper. We're so lucky in that regard. (Well, we're lucky with him in so many ways it's difficult to count.)

Today was a sad day for me. I'm trying to get my family together to celebrate Henry's first birthday and one of my brother's family isn't going to be able to be there. I'm feeling rather angry about it right now. But we'll celebrate with my parents and my other brother's family. It's just how it is. It just feels like a big deal right now. The first birthday is a pretty significant one.

Then we hit the bump with selling the house.

I hated having a sad day because things are really good for us. I feel guilty feeling sad when our lives are truly very good, which they are.

So I'm trying to kick the sadness and remember the good. I'm sure it will be fleeting. Our buyers haven't backed out yet, so I guess that's good. I don't know what the deadline is for this so I'm not sure how long I'm going to be worried about it.

But I love the new house. I sat in the back yard with B-dog while Henry slept in his room. It was nice.

ETA:
I think they're going to back out. We're screwed. They wanted an enormous further reduction in price. We will not go down in price from what we originally agreed. Going down further will put us under water. It's ridiculous.

Have I mentioned we're screwed?

I really don't want to be ruined financially. Of my own making. It's not like someone got laid off or anything.

I feel miserable.

PMS

Dear PMS,

F*ck you.

Love,
-Rachel

Goodbye Girl

Goodbye, girl.