ball, dropped

Speaking of periods ie let's talk about practicalities and not not being pregnant (what?)

I started using sponges a while back and I give the two thumbs up.

Now you can all shut up because I'm not THAT much of a hippie that I LOVED shoving dead sea creatures up my clacker, because I didn't like the whole OkaySoWhatIfItBreaksOnExit? anticipatory anxiety I was getting the whole time I was using them, even though a) they're actually not that fragile, and b) if they break, you just scoop around up with there and swoosh any bits out.

ANYWAY

That never happened to me, but the information is there, should you ever need it.

Do you guys have the Manicare brand over there? I bought one of their round foundation sponges, sterilised it in a vinegar solution and cut it in half so they look nothing like the Cut To Shape instructions the seas sponge people had on their web sites, and I don't need to tell you what I did with them, suffice to say it was NOT applying foundation.

My periods are really light, which is why I went with smaller sponge pieces, but if you've got a heavier flow, you could probably use a whole sponge, or shove two sponges up there. Or half a cow. Or I don't know. Something.

They do need to be VERY slightly damp to Not Apply Foundation, and you've got to squeeze out as much water as you can because if you don't, your pelvic floor will do it for you when you sneeze, cough, laugh, blink, breathe, THINK, fgs. Not that it'd be a tragedy ie it not like you've just repeated the whole Wet Pants Incident Of Second Grade (not starring me, thank god. I'm using someone else's misfortune here) so no one will be standing around wondering why there's a waterfall going on under your office chair or anything, but it IS a little confrontational to squeeze excess water out of a sponge with YOUR COOCH while you're buying stamps at the post office.

Warning: If you have a latex allergy, you might also want to check what make up sponges are made of. Or just stick with the dead sea creatures or fur balls or whatefver in hell the REAL hippies are doing these days.

You take them out them every few hours, depending on your needs, which is REALLY easy to do. You DO have to poke around a little to find the edge, but not much AT ALL as they get heavier as they absorb your flow and will drop (especially if you fake Squeeze A Poo Out a little when checking) so it's not like you've got to reach up to your thyroid gland every time you need to do change it.

Then you rinse it under the tap and put it back in. Repeat.

If you're not home and rinsing in a public bathroom sink doesn't appeal, keep a few small zip lock bags on hand and go out with as many sponges you think you'll need in a day. Put the used ones in one bag (OBV) and keep the fresh ones in another (OBVx2)

If you clean them as you go, they rinse really clean. If they do stain - and sea sponges do - just soak in weak hydrogen peroxide solution. This doesn't make them cleaner (or germ free etc) than soaking in a vinegar solution or boiling lightly for five minutes will, but it will make them more asthetically appealing.

Pros: You can have sex while wearing them (BONUS!!) and I REALLY like that they do NOT feel like you're wearing anything AT ALL, even if you ARE having sex. In that instance, the first time, it did get pushed further up that I was comfortable with (emotionally. Physically my bits were still all "what sponge?) ie there was NO WAY I could find the damn thing OHMAHGOD, but it didn't end up in my circulatory system via my uterus, and it DID drop and if I'd waited rather than panicked that first time (because OMGWHERE?) I wouldn't even HAVE a story about that one time when I thought I'd lost a sponge up my vag. And they don't give me cramps like tampons ALWAYS do.

Cons: none. NONE.

So go try this out, because it really is SO MUCH better than your store bought sanitary products because maybe I have the potential for reading Braille with my girl parts, but I can ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS feel tampons, and wearing pads isn't always practical.

There really is no neato way of ending this so....

post, interrupted

This month, I really tried to do away with this year's stock sequence of LH Surge, Ridiculous High Progesterone Level with Rack Update and Magic Eightballesque Musing ("so, what do YOU think is going on in mah ute?") because it was all inevitably followed by a collective Moan Of Disappointment when my period arrived.

and when I say "really tried" what I actually meant was "no longer gave a shit". But without all that repetitive crap, what was I reduced to? LAWN UPDATES, that's what. You can thank me later.

Anyway, this year, this blog has been like watching That Guy. The one who's got the ball and is running down the field dodging and weaving and OMG, the crowd is going WILD. Then he trips over his shoelace and drops the ball, the end.

Because if I wasn't writing about THAT, I'd be writing NOTHING.

For about a year now (that's a HINT, by the way)(one I did NOT buy because I am SO SMAHT), it's been like a blender is in my head and everything has been SO overwhelming. My doctor (Dr G) says that it's because a whole lot of everything HAS been SO overwhelming, so that's a GOOD thing because I'd hate to be living The Perfect Life and having THAT be too hard to deal with. Better then, that life HAS sucked, you know?

I've been seeing DrG regularly because of that Being Run Over By A Whole Lot Of Trollies thing from last year (three ruptured discs! Yippee!), so this one time I sat there and commenced with the crying, all I can't cope! Am not coping! I will TAKE THE CRAZY DRUGS! Because NOT COPING! Depressed, OBV!

But he said I wasn't depressed (me: THANK GOD. Except...no chemically drowning out of mah pain? *plans trip to The Bluff* ), I was someone who's life was out of control through no fault of her own (if you don't count the COUNTLESS sprints down the football field. I take full responsibility for continuing to run down the length of the field shouting "whoopee!" without first checking my shoes)(that whole thing where my life's plans were BLOWN out the window by The Trolley Thing though? NOT MY FAULT. woe, etc)( And then there's that little Other Thing, the thing where I lost a pregnancy)

Oh yeah. THAT.

so it took me about a year to realise that I'm GRIEVING.

(you: NO SHIT)

I think it took me a year, denial of said aside, because it took that long to realise this whole loss thing is, like, PERMANENT.

I've been so busy not losing my shit, I forgot I went though the saddest most awesomely difficult thing I've EVER experienced.

Annnd, I've been through it alone (*cue violins*)

When my due date rolled around this year - which really, could have been any time from February third until March the third, everything went black, but I didn't get it. For that whole time, I didn't know WHY the lights went off. I just figured life FELT like shit so I didn't hurl myself off a cliff (mostly - okay, ONLY, because of Daniel) because I figured that while it FELT so real, it had to be only my potato peelings and NOT relisty, it would go away eventually, bunnies and kittens etc.

it didn't.

Then June crept up and it smacked me SO HARD.

And I still didn't get it.

It was only when I was talking to a girlfriend about being pregnant last year (in the carpark at MacDonald's because MaCafe= best marketing plan EVAH, and the carpark because kids are assholes and will TEST you the ENTIRE time you're telling them "go out and PLAY" because you want to drink your coffee and enjoy some grown up company and they WON'T LET YOU, not until they're all sitting in someone else's car doing NOTHING except, you know, SIT), that I realised THAT five minutes was the MOST I'd EVER talked to anyone.

and then I realised it was june 14, 2009, ie The Beginning Of the Equal Happiest and Singular Saddest Event Of My Life.

So I did the sensible thing and called the grief counsellor.

The one I tried to emote to last year but who I ended up discussing everything else EXCEPT loss with instead.

By this time last year, I'd been newly and bunny in the headlights pregnant ie gobsmackedly and over-the-moon happy, and then I WASN'T pregnant, and at this exact time last year I was waiting for it to be over so I could start again, just like none of it ever happened.

Thing is, when you lose babies - and it doesn't matter if your loss occured five days after you got that double line, or YEARS later, it's still your child's lifetime gone in your lifetime, and YOU ARE NEVER THE SAME AGAIN. EVER.

If you DO lose a child later in pregnancy, or sometime after that child was born, it's a recognisable loss.

If you lose that child early on, it's all "it's for the best, move on, think of what you have, it would have been too hard with two, God's will, you can try again". You are told SO MUCH SHIT by people that mean well that it's HARD to even imagine your grief is real.

The pain of NEVER knowing your child is just as real as the pain of losing a child you've met, or of losing a baby you've felt kick, but somehow an "early pregnancy loss", or a "blighted ovum" lacks credibility.

My dreams - YOUR dreams - for our lost pregnancies are just as real as ANYONE'S for THEIR lost children.

I don't think you can compare the pain factor here. I don't think you can say THAT woman is MORE deserving of understanding - from others, but mostly, from HERSELF - because she felt a kick, changed a diaper, proudly watched a graduation ceremony, that that woman over there, the one who's grieving because she NEVER got to experience those things.

One of the hardest things, second only to That Fateful Day, was the understanding that this sadness NEVER goes, the wondering what could have been will NEVER go, this gaping wound in my heart will never be healed. I'll just get used to feeling this way. I'll get used to missing two little lives I never ever knew.

I feel like I'm letting Daniel down, that I WILLINGLY put myself in a position where I could be forever changed, so I feel like kind of a dumbass to continue with this delusional shit that might but probably won't end well.


and on that note.I've got to go. This is a disjointed entry that needs a fisnish but I'm late already and this is the most I've written in a long while about stuff I should have been writing about for a year and if I don't hit Publish now, I probably never will.

Momentitio. This entry WASN'T going to be about The Sad, it was meant to be about Not Being That Guy.

But fuck that.

My LH was 30 whatnots on July 14, and 34(!) the next day. Insemination occured on July 15 and 16. My (effective) day 21 progesterone was last wednesday and came in at a respectable 57 thingummydoovers, which felt SO MUCH better than the crazy inducing high notes I've been reachingn all year, ie no sore boobages, no INSANITY! and is still GREAT when thinking pregnancy (remember, a non pregnant cycle prog is around 20-30) .

My period is due in the next day or three, and I have THE most gigantic rack right now, and The Sore, OMG.

All this in a week.

BECAUSE I AM THAT GUY AND I STILL HAVEN'T CHECKED MAH SHOES.

Okay, now you can go.

let's play a game

It's called WTF Is Up With My Back Lawn?

Aside from the mad landscaping, that is.

That shit was laid about two and half years ago (which, as an aside, is why I have that obnoxious donate button over there on the side bar. In the event some passing philanthopist drops by and needs to know where to dump his thousands of surplus dollars) and as far as I know, didn't come with a built in self destruction device. Moreover, it's a WEED. My back lawn is a vast expanse of weed ie you can't kill it. And yet!

This is what looked like before the big bucks were splashed around:


Holy shit, right? So I'm not totally negativo about what we can see here:

I KNOW. Holy shit! Check out the transformation! etc

Except it should be GREEN. And THIS is what those brown patches look like close up.



They look just like DIRT, maybe because they ARE dirt.

My lawn guy said "I dunno. Beetles?", so, seriously, wtf IS is up with my back lawn? Because, sportsfans, it's NOT beetles.

and that's when I died

Daniel went to the chiropractor for the first time ever the other day and that went well, and I totally DIDN'T include the Sarcasmo Tone when I said that. He held my hand and lay on the table his little body was cracked and stretched and when he got off the table he was, like, TEN FEET TALL, which is a slight exaggeration, but he DID get off the table looking a little spaced out.

We paid our bill and spent some time shooting the breeze with the receptionist, all like we usually do, nothing out of the ordinary going on here, but when we were leaving the (VERY crowded) waiting room, he got a little antsy. Probably just being post-adjustment weird or maybe he's just three or something, and he didn't want to leave. So I reached for his hand and said something non threatening and true like "Let's go, chuff. You want to go meet Mallory and Jane at MacDonald's, don't you?" and Daniel recoiled in horror and yelled "MUMMY, NO! NO!! PLEASE DON'T BREAK MY OTHER ARM!!".

snacktime with flourish

eta: for the CAT, people. I don't always often ever let my kid eat off the floor. Geesh.

wish

if I could reach it, I'd totally kick my uterus's ass

Not pregnant.

Thing is, I've been keeping notes for the last five months of Cycle Observation. The unit thinks I'm a whackjob, but I when I call for my results, I ask for the numbers, not just vague shit like "you're heading toward a surge", or "yes you ovulated last week". I want the detaily details and I can write them down on the corresponding page in my diary because somewhere in my head, they make sense.

I did one of those online intelligence tests once upon a time, on that assessed the TYPE of intelligence you have as well as your IQ, and according to that, my brain does some kind of sequence recognition shit, in that I can predict patterns and create patterns and recognise patterns and patterns patterns patterns bla bla BLA, and it was a RELIEF to read a generic explanation of an actual recognisable and KNOWN manner of thought, because it exactly described ME, and if it was on the internet, it had to be RIGHT, and also, maybe I wasn't such a freak after all because hey, there were 0.2 per cent of OTHER freaks in the whole population of earth that think the same way so I'm not alone, but they probably all hide in laboratories and think up mathematical equations and stuff, which I do not, and the people I DO mix with ie the 99.8% of the population who DON'T think like that, always tell me to not think so much ie to NOT BE ME because I'd be SO MUCH HAPPIER if I wasn't ME and I probably would be if I could perform miracles like self lobotomies but I CAN'T so fuck off.

ANYWAY

What that means to YOU, sportsfans, is that when I say stuff, you can pretty much assume it's not going to be random.

I get my period within fourteen days of my LH surge, not usually, not maybe. ALWAYS, and while five months tracking LH surges might not be a 100% reliable predictor of future unterine bahaviour, it's a pretty good one.

So when I come out and say things like "Pregnant?!", it's NOT just wishful thinking. It's because holy fuck, y'all, I MIGHT BE pregnant.

Even the unit told me "Monday at the latest, this is looking good" when I called Tuesday to ask when I was due because I figured I must have stuffed up the dates somehow.

And then I got my period yesterday, a full seventeen days after it was due, because my body hates me and wants me to be miserable.

And because the Universe likes a good joke, I was also on the phone with my mother at the time which made the whole experience a BILLION times more enjoyable.

Every other month, I've had a period. This month, I've lost a dream.

And that hurts.