Not for Grandma :-)
I want to preface this post by saying that I am truly happy overall with my life. I have a great marriage, a fantastic little boy, we are surviving financially, taking vacations, and I'm getting my education. And that is what I chose to focus on most of the time. There is so much that is good in my life that I prefer to focus on that rather than the not so good stuff.
In addition to generally choosing to stay positive, I also find that when I'm writing blog entries, I am aware that there are members of my friends and family that read them (especially that my mom prints them all out for my grandma). I'm happy about all of that - it makes me feel good to know that people care enough (or are curious enough) to check in with me (well, us). And I'm so awful about writing in general that it makes me feel good to know that Grandma reads them and enjoys them. But the consequence of that is that I think I often censor myself more than perhaps I should. I have considered from time to time writing another blog that says some of the stuff I don't want my grandma to read, but, truthfully, probably for the reaons outlined in paragraph 1, there really isn't enough of that stuff to create a whole other blog.
So I did some thinking. I reminded myself that the purpose of this blog is to have a sort of chronicle of our lives during this period. Something that maybe someday I can edit and print out and give to Thomas as a memoir of his childhood. With that in mind, I wouldn't want to write things that he wouldn't want to read or things that are, let's just say, too personal. If I even wanted to document things like every fight Emmett and I have or whatever it is, that would be the place to have another journal just for me. Again, not enough content and I don't think I need to document that stuff anyway. What I am taking so long to get around to saying, though, is that I think that presenting the situation as perfect isn't honest. And I DO want this to be honest. So maybe this isn't the post to print off and give to Grandma but it will be an honest account of some of the challenges we have at this point in our lives.
Most people by now know that Emmett and I have been having trouble conceiving another child. It has been very frustrating and upsetting - probably because we just didn't expect this. Obviously, it wasn't hard to conceive Thomas so we didn't anticipate that we would have trouble having another baby. But here we are almost a year from the time we started trying and no baby yet. I haven't said much about this because I don't like to focus on it - it's upsetting. I was so hoping to have another baby in the house by now and we arent' getting anywhere. My quests to get medical help have been frustrating, to say the very least. After like 10 doctors appointments, countless labs and two ultrasounds, I have finally started on Clomid. Today is day 4 of the Clomid and I'm happy to report that I'm not (yet) having any of the awful side effects that some people report (keep your fingers crossed). I'm really hoping this works because it turns out to be pretty much our only option for having another baby of our own. I did a lot of thinking about this over the last year and decided that, since we DO have a beautiful little boy already, and we still have so far to go financially to get where we want to be, it just doesn't make sense to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have another baby - AND not even be sure that we would actually be successful. It's not fair to Thomas. My regular ob/gyn will prescribe the Clomid but if that doesn't work, he will refer me to a fertility specialist and those office visits cost $600 each before the doctor even touches you. Basically, just to do the testing to START the process costs about $10K-$15K. That doesn't include the shots they might want to give you at $1K each or in vitro, which would be another $10K or so. I'm guessing all of this, and my numbers may be off, but the point is that anything like that is just way out of our means right now. And if we had those kind of means, I would prefer to spend it getting Thomas into an awesome private school or saving for the house with a yard that we would all enjoy so much. The other thing is that if we spent all that money on creating the baby, then the baby is born and now we have two kids and we're REALLY poor. haha - but true. No, I don't think we're going to be going too deep into the fertility treatment route. Adoption is a consideration, but not sure if I want to go that route, either. I never wanted to have an only child, it's not ideal, but it's really not the end of the world, either.
The one side effect of the Clomid that I am experiencing is mood swings. Yesterday I took Thomas to see the cooking rat movie (Ratatouille or something like that) and the theater downtown was the one that had the best show time, so we went down there. Well, I couldn't find the parking garage, I couldn't get where I wanted to be because of all the one way streets and then once I found the garage I couldn't get into the garage because I couldn't find an entrance. And all of this circling is in afternoon rush traffic in downtown. It was horrendous. It took 25 minutes from time we got to the theater to actually get into the parking garage. By then I was completely frazzled and melting down. I then got lost in the parking garage and had trouble navigating how to go UP to the upper levels where there were spots available. Instead I ending up in a DOWN loops which I could not get out of that took me right back to the exit. I just completely lost it at this point. Some guy who was working in the garage came up to the car and said, "Ma'am, are you alright?" At which point I just went off, "NO! I'm not alright! I've been driving around for 25 minutes trying to get into this garage and now I can't get to where I can park, I can't stand it anymore, I need to get the car parked! I NEED TO GET OUT OF THIS CAR!" Oh, yes, not one of my finer moments. The man then calmly directed me where to go to park the car and we FINALLY got parked.
Which brings me to a little side note. I'm sure there are parents out there who may read this and think, what kind of mother melts down like that in front of her child? Well, this mother does. I do feel bad about it, but I'm starting to make my peace with the fact that I DO sometimes melt down and it doesn't make me a terrible mother. One of my professors at SFSU says, and I think I've quoted this before, "you don't have to be a great parent. You just have to be an okay parent". I think what this means is that it is very important to make your children feel loved and valued and important. Beyond that the rest is gravy. It doesn't excuse all behavior but I'm not going to beat myself up for yelling or melting down sometimes. For good or for ill, Thomas is used to me and I've noticed that while it may cause him some stress (I'd be fooling myself if I said otherwise), Thomas is a very secure little boy and my melting down doesn't change that. Yesterday he just sat quietly in the backseat through all of this and when we got out of the car (finally), he said, "Mom, are you happy now?" I smiled at him and he smiled back and we were fine.
Anyway, the whole thing yesterday really brought up all the issues I have with living in the city. My unhappiness with living in SF is exacerbated right now by my Clomid mood and by the fact that every day for the last several weeks it is wet and foggy and rainy every single morning when I get up. Today was no exception, except for the fact that it was so cold that Thomas and I were huddling under blankets this morning trying to stay warm. Neither of us wanted to get up. As I type this I finally had to turn the heat on because my fingers were so icy cold that I was having trouble typing. Yuck. Add to that the things that have been stolen from us since we moved here - the break in at our apartment last year and then one night a few months back when Emmett accidentally forgot to lock the car doors one night and someone ripped off all our cd's and also Emmett' s mountain bike. Ugh. When I mentioned this to my mother-in-law, she said (regarding Emmett), "When will he ever learn?" Something about that just struck me. I am so far away from where I should be. I don't want to live in a place where it's like that. I'm not saying I need to live in the sticks where you can leave your front door open every day, but I don't think that you should have to be so diligent. That just seems wrong to me. When we lived in Redwood City one night I accidentally left my purse outside and when I realized in the morning what I had done, I ran outside and there was my purse still sitting right where I left it. I'm not saying that you should be able to do stuff like that every day but every mistake should not be met with such dire consequences. I don't know, maybe I'm just too naive.
There are so many other reasons that I don't like living in the city - but I've been on a rant about this to my Mom and Emmett and all day and now I'm sort of petered out. As Emmett pointed out, there isn't much point when the reality is that I am committed to Thomas's school right now for the year so it's unlikely we're going to move out of the city at least this year. But I hope we get out of the city at some point. The way that people who are crowded together (almost a million in 49 square miles) causes people to develop an indifference to one another that I find appalling.
Okay, enough rant. I'm ready to be happy again. :-)
Love,
Melissa
