Courage

I am paranoid about this pregnancy. Exactly like last time, my tummy and back are hurting, the only symptoms of pregnancy that I have are achy boobs and a slight nausea and tiredness. Achy boobs come and go freaking me out even more. Every morning I wake up and look for the achy boobs or the nausea, the normal symptoms of pregnancy and they reassure me. Sometimes when its just the achy tummy and the back, I get so scared its going to be a repeat telecast of last times. I wonder if your hormones just up and quit as you get older? I had read that lower backache is a sign of low progesterone levels but if an ignorant person like me turns to the internet for answers, there are a hundred symptoms and a hundred causes and you kinda choose your worst fears from them.

I am so very worried about the blood test. I am scared of hearing the same verdict - low HCG, low progesterone. I am scared of the painful progesterone shots. I am scared of having another miscarriage. I am scared my body is never going to create the requisite hormones level ever and every pregnancy attempt will be difficult. I am scared P is going to say "We dont need another kid". I am so tired.

I am going to call my gyne on Monday and just tell her FYI..If she wants me to go in immediately for a blood test, then doodh ka doodh aur paani ka paani ho hi jaayega. If she suggests to wait a few more weeks to see what nature has planned for me, I just have to clear my mind and focus on other things. In any case I need to put my hand on my heart and say "Aal izz well".

Pray for me

So after a week of my boobs hurting and random nausea waves over random things like R pouring her half finished milk into my cereal bowl or shoving her toothbrush into my hands to finish brushing or wanting me to admire her poo poo (I made 5 and they are all brown in color) yucck!, I finally decided to go buy a pregnancy test and find out for myself. My date of periods missed hasnt come and gone yet so I bought one of those 5 days early pregnancy detection kits and Yess!!! I saw the 2 lines!! I AM PREGNANT!! I called P immediately and he was thrilled - he kept saying "Are you sure?".

After the initial euphoria has died down, the fear came back. What if my blood tests dont show appropriate levels again? What if I have another miscarriage? What if I have to take those progesterone shots again? Good God, they were just horrible!! What if I bleed again? But I have decided to not to be worried, to take each thing as it comes, to stay calm and cool. I had one normal pregnancy and I will definitely have another.

I had taken the longest time to get pregnant with R. Finally I had freaked out and thought we were infertile, never would have a baby etc. Almost ready to embark on a fertility treatment, we conceived naturally. She is a blessing!

I have the utmost admiration, respect and sympathy for all of those who are battling infertility :( My sister being one of them. She has shut off communication with the whole family, refuses to share what she is going through because she cant talk about it, never ever calls us (but she does talk really well and appreciates when we call/visit).....I want to hurry up and have a normal pregnancy and deliver my baby and then I want to ask my darling sister if I can carry their child for them.....Its easier said than done, but I am hoping she will say Yes and I have the courage and the guts and the patience to go through with it. I feel like every couple who wants to have a child deserves one, this happiness should not be denied to anyone who is praying and hoping for it.

But for the timebeing, please pray for me...I have decided to wait till next week to call my doctor and then we will know what my body has in store for me this time around...

*Edited to add*
When I told my best friend who has had infertility issues in the past about my plans to ask my sister, she was appalled saying that if she would have been in my sister's place, she would have been extremely annoyed at the suggestion :) I love having my best friends to put me in place, sometimes well meaning thoughts turn into severe invasions of privacy, dont they. So now I have decided to shut up with my pompous suggestions and if ever in the future, my sister voluntarily tells me that they are considering a surrogate is when I will open my mouth and volunteer for the job. Otherwise I am gonna shut it and just pray for her everyday...

Miscarriage woes

I wish I were pregnant! Why did I have a miscarriage? My company is going to have a major restructuring effort come June and there is a very high possibility of me getting laid off. It would have been so perfect if I hadnt lost my baby, I would be going on maternity leave and would not care about the job or whatever. I could have spent time with my baby and then looked for a job at my leisure.

Now I am stressed about when would I get pregnant again.....my periods are a week away and I am already thinking about them. I saw the Time traveller's wife movie yesterday and everytime she had a miscarriage and bled, I cringed and was terrified. I am scared of my pregnancy, scared of my gyne saying Oh progesterone is low again, start the injections :((

I am worried of looking for a new job and then finding out I am pregnant, worried that I will be pregnant, will start to show and no one will employ me, I do not want to postpone my plans to get pregnant, I am worried I am getting older.....

Anyways I should focus on the good things in my life. My sister cant get pregnant and doesnt have a child. What will she be thinking? I need to be grateful for R and grateful for the flexible work life balance I enjoyed when she was little. I need to believe in myself and my abilities and keep faith that I can get back to work after a mini break, just in case I need to take one. I need to believe that things will be allright and everything will fall into place and when it does, I will feel that the timing was just right and I worried for no reason..

No SAD WAD

One of my friend's mother in law passed away suddenly. Ever since I have been thinking about end of life and fast forwarding many years from now, and would I be okay if I passed away suddenly. I also look at the other family/friends around me, who are retired and muse upon their lives, some see their past with satisfaction, some with regrets. My grandmother who was widowed at fifty always looked back on her life and claimed she had the best husband in the world and that she led a peaceful and satisfied life, even in her old age, she was fiercely independent and led a calm serene life. And then there are others who have so many regrets in their lives......wouldnt it be nice to turn back thirty years from now and say - I wouldnt have changed a thing if I had to live my life all over again. But as I think about it more and more, I feel satisfaction or dissatisfaction with ones life is completely dependent on the personality of the person involved. Some people are just not happy or satisfied in any condition and vice versa.

Anyways after spending a frustrating couple of hours in the evening thinking I am so bored, I did a root cause analysis on myself. Why am I bored? Because I am fat, I dont exercise, I am overweight, I have a deliverable due at work on Monday which I am not prepared for at all, which means working through the weekend, which I hate to do, I feel guilty, I am not spending enough quality time with R, I wonder if I am pregnant, if I am pregnant then I will get fatter, I wish I would have lost some weight before I get pregnant, Oh god, please dont delay my pregnancy for this, I want to get pregnant asap.....see how my mind flies!!!

Anyways I have decided I am losing track of whats important in life, apart from the usual grind of home, work, home, family; I also need to make time for me. I had decided 2 years back that I would do something for myself every year, something to enrich ME, this life is too short and there is an ocean of knowledge out there, we cant even begin to touch a drop of it in one lifetime. So 2008 was my Spanish classes (we can ignore the fact that I cant remember any of it as I dont use it). 2009 was my half marathon. I havent yet decided what I should be doing for 2010!!

When P woke up, he said "Look at the big picture always", dont let yourself be bogged down by minor stresses. So when I think of 2010, I cant think past a baby and I am stressed in my mind about when will I get pregnant, will I have a normal pregnancy, will I have another miscarriage and so on.....I have to look past it and then think about what should I do for myself....

Anyways baby steps, I made a list of all my things to do over the weekend (20 things yeeesh). I and R played with her toy kitchen; she made a complete nutritious meal for me and then served it to me so nicely, forks and plates and glasses. It boosted my morale, she is learning about whats right, whats wrong - eat your vegetables, dessert only if you finish your mamm mamum, the tea is hot etc..It was so nice and relaxing.......there is no reason for me to waste any time in unhappiness, or blame boredom on the weather outside, there should always be summer in my heart and I will always be warm and happy...

SAD

I HATE this weather, its so cold and dreary outside....A good six months of our lives is spent indoors. Calculate how many days, months, years and it adds up to a huge chunk of life!! Why do we live here!! I wish we could just move but I dont know if I have the guts to uproot and move again. Its been ten years in my current place and we have family and friends nearby. It would be so hard to pack up and move but then this weather, below freezing, cold, dreary and dark.......

I was horribly unproductive today, I am going to be working from home on Fridays and all I did was eat everything in sight at home. Now as I gaze at my horrible tummy spilling all over my laptop, I feel gross :( How did I get so out of shape!!

R is here chattering away and P is taking a nap on the sofa which is irritating me even more. Lets ignore the fact that I did nothing all day while he went to work, I am still bored with the fact that he is sleeping during the evening hours. I am so bored.

We have turned into boring people with a bright kid who needs attention but we are too tired or too bored to do anything with her.

SIgggh......okay let me get off this idiot sofa and get something done...

Turning a negative into a positive....Part 2

Last year was a particularly tough one for us. My in laws are quite healthy and fit for their age but whenever they visit us, it’s like they are on an extended vacation, which is quite fine, if you are visiting for one or two months but when you are here for six months, they overstay their welcome in my mind. I don’t want to go further into what they do and don’t do but suffice it to say that every prior visit has ended in us drifting further apart than getting closer. Every visit, I would check off the days mentally until the day of their departure and sigh in relief when they did leave. Anyways, long story short, P’s Uncle notified P to start their green card processing and P asked his parents if they were willing to move here and they said Yes, so of course I was notified of the grand plans and while I was boiling with anger on – Shouldn’t you have tried to have a good relationship with your daughter in law before you thought of moving in with us? OR Shouldn’t someone have thought of asking my opinion or whether the timing is right for us when you made this big decision? And other such questions, but there was nothing I could do about it. My year started with me bursting into tears and crying all night after P informed me that come summer, they will be here with us and that’s going to be pretty much the story of our lives this year onwards!

I went through phases of trying to accept and adjust but then memories of prior visits made me miserable. P and I who love each other so much and are happy otherwise went through this constant sadness and stress, we fought daily and there came a point when I asked him – if he wanted a divorce. He didn’t even say No to it, just said that he wanted us both – his parents and R and me but because his parents were “helpless and old” while I could fend for myself; he would have to choose his parents. His parents are in their early sixties and anything but helpless and old.

January through June, we fought and cried, I prepared myself mentally to be divorced, imagining my birth mother’s torture (every time I face something bad, I am more stressed out with the thought of the dramatic fits my birth mom will throw, yes, that’s the kind of support she has given me over the years), imagining her saying a divorcee’s kid turns out to be a divorcee…Truth be told, I also tried to be the bigger person here and tried to be accommodating and adjusting but if anything my birth mother’s life has taught me, is to create your own happiness, you cannot silently/quietly slave away and make sacrifices for someone who doesn’t deserve them. And then when you have wasted a chunk of your life toiling for someone, who doesn't appreciate it and look back and regret it, you are the only one to blame here. Do what you do, with your own choice and your free will. I, at the very least, feel entitled to this, being brought up in a free country and independent and what not..

Come June, they landed at our place. It was like emotions were already running high for me. They of course jumped right into vacation mode with my father in law gluing himself to the computer all day and just showing up for lunch-dinner and spending half an hour or so with R – quality time which was enough for him and everything adjusted according to his TV schedule. Mother-in-law started trying to attain Most important person in the house status with all invitations and advice to be routed through her without actually doing any of the work. R took an instant dislike to these new guests who encroached on her precious evening time with Mommy; after all, coming home from daycare everyday she would miss me and want to play with me but I would be in the kitchen all evening, cleaning and cooking. Plus sister in law agreed to one month visit by her parents, promised a 2 month stay and then cut back to one, most conveniently. Things just turned from bad to horrible to worse and every thing I did was misunderstood and vice versa. MIL made amazing accusations to P, "S must have told bad things about me to R so R doesn’t bond with me", if you couldn’t bond with your grand daughter even after five months of staying here day in day out, the problem is with you! She is freaking 2, its hard to bias a child at that age, they are very innocent. Of course I am decent enough to not do a mean thing like that but even if MIL believed it with her heart that I was capable of it, its not possible, that’s a baby, you cannot teach a baby to hate.

Many accusations, uncomfortable evenings, tears shed on both sides later, finally one day we had the conversation about the green card sponsorship. We didn’t encourage it and they left it at that. October is when they finally left. I got pregnant in November and felt on top of the world with a baby in my arms and another one in my tummy and an India trip planned. Of course that was not meant to be, India trip was cancelled on doctor’s orders, baby in my tummy departed and I was left crying when I didn’t think I had any more tears left in me through the year.

I had kinda seen it coming, not the miscarriage, but the visit, so I had signed up for the half marathon and I did it and P ran with me and somehow those 13.1 miles made us reaffirm our love for each other, our belief in our relationship and our marriage. Now I will try to remember 2009 as the year in which I ran my first half marathon (much to the chagrin of my family members, friends and co-workers because I am not really an athletic type). I will not remember 2009 as the year in which I must have cried more than all my 31 years on this planet combined. But I will hope I will never have such a 2009 again because from this point on, I refuse to make sacrifices for people who don’t appreciate me. I refuse to feel guilty for not having fulfilled duties when I haven’t been fortunate enough to have received the same treatment. I refuse to be a bigger person because I am not a saint. I refuse to live my life in misery for people who do not appreciate anything I do. I will focus on my priorities – my husband, my daughter, my baby in the future, my work, my home, my family, my friends. I will cut out the pain and the hurt. I am a good person and I will not allow someone else to make me doubt it.

I so wanted a Hum Saath Saath hain type family arrangement. Anyone who knows me in personal life know how much I like having people over and staying in touch and all that. So I kept feeling guilty and sad over how this whole situation has panned out. But now I have realised you cannot get along with everyone in the world. And sometimes you just cant live under the same roof for an extended period of time with someone else. So you just do the next best thing. Instead of six months, you try for three months visits; instead of a green card sponsorship right now, you think about a gc sponsorship ten years from now and so on. And hopefully as time passes old wounds will be healed and new relationships will be forged.

Turning a negative into a positive....Part 1

Many years back, we were newly married and I moved from living in an 850 sq feet apartment in bustling Mumbai with my parents, sister and grandmother to a 1600 sq feet townhome in an area quiet as a cemetery. No matter what window I looked out of, apart from lush green lawns and a beautiful lake and a road, I couldn’t see anything else. Add to it, the fact that I am a major darpok, and whenever P would leave for work, I would be terrified even during the day! So you can imagine my condition when he started traveling for work! I have spent many a sleepless nights imagining horrible serial killers and rapists suffocating and torturing me.

Finally I realized I have to turn to myself to make me strong, I started reading the Seven Habits of Highly Effective people and willed myself to make those changes in my attitude and my life. In one of my management classes, the professor defined Fear as Fantasized evidence appearing real. Isn’t this definition awesome? It’s so true!! Sometimes you freak yourself out so much over something not real or which has not yet happened that you truly experience the emotions of that terrible thing happening to you. You know how there are those stress management techniques via which you imagine your stressful situation and mentally walk through it – like presenting before an important audience etc and then the technique promises you to be calm and prepared for the actual event. I have used it many times with success but feel that it can’t be applied to fantasy fear situations; then it just depresses and freaks you out even more. Anyways I tried and tried and it helped and slowly I got better with handling my fears and actually even started sleeping through the nights peacefully.

Until you experience something worse than your current troubles, your current woes seem the world to you, don’t they? It’s so true, when they say – what doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger, but again that’s true if you let it make you stronger, if you choose to sulk and mope around and wallow in self pity and not learn something from it, dust yourselves off and stand up and walk again, it’s never going to make you stronger. Well, I became a stronger person by taking the first step – learning to adjust to solitude. From being someone who was never ever alone even for a second in her life, I went to being alone for days on end. And I survived….

Anger management

is what I am lacking today.....

I have been coughing all night and day for the past week and I have just had it....every little thing and every idiot remark is setting me off. I have NO patience left to deal with anyone. I am MAD at:

1) My idiot doctor for not prescribing antibiotics even after I specifically begged him for them.

2) My daughter's daycare for ripping me off - she transitioned from two's room to preschool and they didnt change the amount they were charging in the system and lazy me didnt change my autopayments so I have been consistently paying more for the past month and so, and NOW they say they cant do anything about the past. I know past is irreversible in real life, but in computer systems payments life, it shouldnt be. Hmmphhh

3) P, because he keeps reminding me about my swimming class and as Tuesdays and Thursdays come and go, I try to muster strength to don my newly acquired "fat girl" swimsuit, a modest skirt and top to cover my yuccccccccccccky fatladen body and then realise that I would rather lie on the sofa coughing and blowing my nose than go swim :( There go the fees...

4) The fact that I am overweight - how did that happen? :( In my mind I am so slim and sexy :((

5) memories of my in laws's stays with us and how I cringe at the thought of them visiting again and then again, I do want us all to be a Hum Saath saath hain type family

6) myself, I want to do so much at work and be all Superwoman incarnate but everyday as five o clock rolls around, I wonder what I accomplished all day :((

7) myself and P, for letting R watch so much TV when we all come home from daycare and work but then again, when you are not feeling well, its so convenient to let Mickey Mouse Clubhouse do your work for you.

8) the lunch lady, who charged me for a meat sandwich when I had a veggie one; granted the difference is only a couple of bucks but still...the unfairness of it all :(

Siggggggh, what a relief!! Felt so much better and made me realise that the root of all my problems is my diminished physical condition so the minute my cough and cold gets better, I will be all smiling and sweet again :))) Thanks bloggie..

Honestly speaking...

My first ever award (for writing)!!! It was a Miss Universe type moment when I logged on to my computer and went to one of my favorite blogs to read and saw this award given to me...Thank you so much dear Roops!! I am SO thrilled!! The award says to write down ten honest things about oneself so here goes...

1) I got married to my husband within a week of saying Yes to the rishtaa and realised what I was doing on the day of my marriage; result: looking terrified and unsmiling in ALL my wedding pictures :(
2) The divorce of my birth parents was final on my birth. I never saw my birth father and vice versa. At the age of three, my birth mother's sister and husband took me in to give me a "normal" family life; an act for which I am grateful every day of my life since...
3) When I was in India and in trying situations, I would go into the bathroom, look into the mirror, stare resolutely into my eyes and tell myself confidently that this is going to get better and project a future happy image.....worked every time.
4) Maybe becoz of 4 above, I believe in myself more than anyone/anything else.
5) I have this faded memory of a building uncle asking me to touch his pen!s; and this memory has awakened decades after the event, I dont know if its true or an overactive imagination.
6) I do not like odd numbers, if I am making a list and am ending on an odd number, I make up one more just so I end on an even number.
7) I wish I could get along with my mother in law and share a wonderful mother-daughter relationship.
8) I desire to run the full marathon one day
9) I am trying to get pregnant now and trying not to think about it much so that it doesnt lead to tears every time my periods come around.
10) I am terrified of losing someone, first it was my father and I would have nightmares over him passing away, now its the fear of me and my husband being divorced, ten years into our marriage, the fear is slowly fading away.

I would like to tag some of my other favorite bloggers - Tears and Dreams, Anna Parabrahma, Some of my thoughts - these girls write from their heart and deserve the Honest blogger award.......and anyone else who stops by and reads this post, after all I am not a very networked blogger and dont know very many, yet...