Thanksgiving

Occasionally, I find myself surfing around to the blogs, websites, and support groups that helped me survive my long haul through infertility and recurrent loss. It's sometimes to find resources for a friend, or for me to try to find a little something to use that can help raise public awareness just a little. Tonight was one of those nights. For years, I spent so much time reading and connecting with others who understood. For someone going through it, their day to day lives make them feel like an outsider. They are going through a crisis that no one around them comprehends. However, the blogs and online communities make them feel a part of a group. Their sorrows are shared, their joys are shared, they can chat with people who understand the procedure they had that day, the fears they have, the storm of emotional chaos going on inside of them. Online, they feel, I felt, in a sense... 'normal'.

The house is full of sleeping babies and children. Jeff is asleep on the couch, to the soothing sounds of Conan O'Brian. I try to type quietly, for fear that I will wake up the lightest sleeping baby on the planet. I can hear her occasionally stir in her little restless way... the one that I used to try to attribute to hunger or cold or music or no music... realized I wasn't winning any battles... and started chalking up to personality. Ivey, in all of her silly eccentricity, has decided to camp out in the middle of her floor, GeoTracks filling station to her left (so she can ring the bell on occasion), her ABC 'computer' to her right, and "Here Come the ABC's" in the air. She politely, yet adamantly, refused my attempts to lay her on a cushy blanket. "Sleep on my floor". Asa and Addison are snuggled under each and every sheet out of the linen closet, but in separate beds tonight. They played so hard with their cousin Zack today that they actually fell asleep at a reasonable time for a change, their timely slumber allowing me to feel like I accomplished my new goal of gaining control of their independent bedtime non-routine, although I had nothing to do with it.

I am in the same ponytail that I pulled back yesterday morning. I intentionally wore the same clothes today as yesterday for the sole purpose of reducing the insane amount of laundry we create. I have so many things that I want to do... sew that new mei tai carrier I want so I can strap Olive on my back, thus reducing my dependence on finding the double-seater buggy at the grocery store parking lot... replace the elastic in my BumGenius cloth diapers and convert them from velcro to snaps... file all the paperwork sitting in front of me... put away the laundry that I piled up on the bed.  Why is it that I continue to pile laundry on my bed, thinking each and every time that I will put it away before I go to sleep, not realizing that it NEVER happens and they ALWAYS end up in a pile on the desk or the dresser or the floor?  While I'm on the topic of laundry, why is it that I always want to add something to the wash during the exact times when the washer has decided that it must protect me from the spin cycle, thus locking me out?  I am tired of being told what I cannot do by a washing machine.  I think I have the ability, as an intelligent adult, to make the call of when to open the door on my own.  A while back, I fought this oppression by yanking and pulling and prying the washer door, to assert my power, as the human in this equation.  I was determined to win.  I should win.  Being restricted by this machine for something so ridiculous was striking a cord with my inner self-reliant and authority-questioning spirit.  I gave it one final massive yank and WHAM!  It flew up with awesome force, nailing me square in the forehead.  My head flew back, I let out a pained "Yelp".  I thought it might have caused serious damage.  I wondered if I should get someone to check on me that night while I slept.  So now, even though the washer's frivolous and tyrannical restrictions infuriate me to no end... my reluctant submission
is agonizing, as I am now too intimidated by the door lock to try any more funny business.  It made its point, but I don't have to like it.  I digress.

I need to move the diapers from the washer to the dryer. I need to go down and fully clean in the kitchen instead of giving it the half-attempt "I'll just put the food away and run these dishes" that I did. I need to get the unfolded laundry off the school table, gather supplies to make Valentine's boxes for Monday's party, figure out what appetizer I am bringing, and get our taxes together. I cannot type this, watch tv, or just sit and drink a latte without guilt for what I should be doing, and I can't even go shopping on my own without feeling the pressure and guilt of having someone else watching the kids while I go.

I constantly feel that I do 8 million things poorly. I teach the boys, but not as well as I would like because of the girls. Yet, I feel guilt for not spending the educational time with Ivey that I did with the boys when they were two. There just isn't enough Mommy to go around. But, I thank God that I feel this way. I thank God that I get the chance to. While I am sticking the pacifier back in the 11 month old's mouth in the middle of the night over and over, eating the Kraft Mac n Cheese that Ivey left in her bowl as my lunch, or driving down the road with Greenday blaring out of the front two speakers in order to drown out the whining in the backseat and give myself a temporary oasis, there are plenty of things that I am NOT doing.

I am not skipping church on Mother's Day, I am not making excuses not to attend baby showers, I am not standing in a grocery store explaining to someone I haven't seen in a while that I am not pregnant anymore. I am not spending our savings on medical care. I am not handing a needle to Jeff to give me an intramuscular shot and crying because there are no places left on my backside that aren't knotted and bruised. I am not driving back and forth to the doctor 4 or more times a week, on weekends, or on holidays. I'm not flinching inside as I get unintentionally hurtful 'advice', I'm not obsessively trying to suck up each tiny drop of the medicine in the vial or thinking that if I don't it might ruin my cycle... or that the teeny drop in there probably costs $50. I'm not worried that we won't be chosen for a study or a donor or an adoption. I'm not hyper-stimulating my ovaries to where they feel like grapefruit. I am not comparing E2 or FSH or Progesterone levels from this month with previous cycles,  I'm not staring at a calendar, counting days until I start this drug or that, or wondering how Jeff is going to be able to get out of the office and meet me for yet another appointment. I don't feel hopeless, or alone, or broken. No jealousy.



Tomorrow, when Ivey is yelling "NO!" at Olive for touching her shirt, or Olive wakes up only 20 minutes into her very important nap, or Asa and Addison are slugging it out in the car, or when Ivey, Asa, and Addison are running frantic screaming laps around the island in the kitchen while Olive screeches like a tropical bird with a megaphone, I will be thankful for it all. Thankful for being in over my head. Thankful for each and every one of them and for the ability to stay home and be driven crazy by them... and thankful that my heart is full and that I no longer have an empty space to fill, even that empty space I didn't even know I had.