Back to Work

I apologize again for the delay in posting. It's just been hard to find the time or energy to post. Daniel is quite a dynamo!

Amazingly and sadly, tomorrow is my first day back at work. I can't believe it has been 12 weeks already. The summer is almost over! September is mere days away! Daniel will be 12 weeks on Tuesday and 3 months on September 2. I've enjoyed these last 12 weeks so much. It's not an option for me to stay home, and in some ways, I feel relief that the choice is made for me. I don't know what I would choose otherwise.

Daniel is great. He is a robust 11 pounds, 14 ounces as of Thursday...a whole 5 pounds, 4 ounces more than he weighed at birth! I think he's about to outgrow many of his 0-3 months outfits. Suddenly it has hit me that my baby boy is getting big!

He is cooing and chatting up a storm. I love it. We talk all day. I sing to him, and it is so rewarding when he gives me a big grin in response. Ohhhhh he is precious!

I don't deal well with change in general, so that's part of my nervousness about tomorrow. In some ways, it feels like the first day of school. I know there have also been a ton of changes at work, and the effort required to reacquaint myself with them and force my brain into work-mode seems exhausting. But I think it will be nice at the same time which of course is part of the problem. Thankfully I am working half days my first week back, so that will help the transition.

Our daycare situation has changed in that my MIL has volunteered to watch Daniel, and we accepted. It was completely unexpected, but she and my step-FIL as well as her parents are super excited about it because they didn't get this much time with their other grandchild and are excited to be able to spend time with D. We're going to pay her, but it still will come out way less than daycare. We were really lucky. I'm not 100% convinced the situation is going to work out due to Husband's grandmother's health problems. My MIL is an only child, and I wonder if she will need to take care of Husband's grandmother, but it is extremely important to Husband's grandmother that D not go to daycare, so we'll play it by ear for now. I had a minor freak out a few weeks ago about D in daycare and worrying about whether the staff would comfort him when he cried (silly I know since we loved the daycare we had selected), so I'm happy for Daniel to be with family for at least a little while.

There has been some drama with my mother over Daniel staying with MIL. Argh. I'm not sure what to make of my mother. She was great when we brought him home (cooking and cleaning non-stop) but over the 4th she read Twilight practically the entire time and then whined about how she hadn't gotten to spend any time with him. She then wanted desperately to come up again, and we settled on a date only for her to decide to reschedule at the last minute. We decided on early August, and they were running late to the point where they didn't arrive until almost 2pm. It was kind of weird considering all I had been hearing was how much she and my stepfather longed to see him again. He was napping when they arrived.

I told her gently about Husband's mom keeping D instead of him going to daycare (and it's kind of absurd that I felt the need to tiptoe around this revelation at all) and while she was supportive of that, she became maudlin. The quantity of alcohol she consumed didn't help. She went outside and cried, later informing us she was having a bit of a pity party. She barely held D, only talking to him and then whining that he wasn't going to know them. I think she went outside to cry a few more times. Keep in mind at this point he was about 9 weeks old...he had barely started to recognize and respond even to Husband at this point. D starts crying late in the afternoon like hungry, sleepy babies do, and we were trying to feed, change and put him to bed. My mother and stepfather followed us everywhere---even into our bedroom where D's Pack N Play is--and tried to help, handing us diapers and just generally getting in the way. It was so annoying that we finally shooed everyone out. My mother proceeded to make a mess in the kitchen cooking (we had originally planned to go out to eat but she decided to bring food). Around 10pm, I absconded to the bedroom where Husband already was keeping guard over the baby. He was furious. We rounded up the cats and locked the door, all 6 of us sleeping in the bedroom because we didn't trust my mother not to try to come in and see Daniel.

Argh. It's a weird situation. I believe my mother loves her grandson, but my stepfather keeps mentioning how she's trying to get used to having a grandson instead of a granddaughter and will have to figure out what to do with him. In April when he said that I didn't pay too much attention because it may have been a one-off comment but he has repeated it several times since then. She doesn't interact with D much though. She doesn't hold him much but instead spends time looking over patterns to make him a christening gown or reading. I can't decide if she truly has a problem with him being a boy or just isn't good with babies. It's hard because she tells me she wishes she were closer and saw him more and that they have my cousin bring over her baby boy (less than 1 month older than D) so they can get their baby fix. I feel like they get their "fix" satisfied to the point where they don't even need to hold D.

The one bright spot is that I have always rather cow-towed to my mother due to her unpredictability, and I wondered if I would be able to stand up to her once D was here, and I was reassured to discover that yes, I could. I went into Mama Bear mode. HE is my priority and HE gives me the strength to stand up to her. I don't want him to have to worry about any of this crap.

Fingers crossed tomorrow and the rest of the go smoothly! My hair has been cut and my toes freshly polished :-) Hopefully that helps give me strength.

My old friend anxiety

It's funny because the hardest part about blogging for me is coming up with a post title. Do I go for pithy? Should I avoid pathos? My mind is foggy right now, so nothing is leaping to mind. Maybe a title will come to me after I write.

So, vacation is over. And unfortunately, it was just "ok." We had only 1 good day at the beach before Tropical Storm Cristobal came through. We were already leaving on Monday, so we ended up coming home on Sunday, a day early. It sucked because the tropical storm wasn't bad, but it was bad enough to make the ocean dangerous and cause it to rain all day, so we decided to head home instead of stay in our room. The food was just ok as well, and unfortunately, the bookstore wasn't open when we left. So it kinda sucked all around.

We had a good couple of days at home, though. We went to see The Dark Knight on Monday afternoon, and it was as good as everyone says it was. There is something very decadent about eating a large over-buttered popcorn at 2pm on a Monday when everyone else is at work :-) We've decided that our less-than-stellar beach trip means that we are going to try to plan another weekend in late September while it is still warm. I was able to read 8 books in the last week, though, so that was quite heavenly.

I was not thrilled to return to work. There is so much drama there. I've discovered that I think my real problem is anxiety more than depression, and I REALLY miss my medication. There are situations at work that are really stressing me out and making me anxious, and I'm having a hard time dealing with it. Intellectually, I know and I have been told by caring co-workers that the situations making me anxious are not worth it and don't matter in the scheme of things, but I can't turn off the worry and anxiety. I seem to go through a bad phase like this about 6 months. Last August/September was bad. Last January was bad and now here I am again. It's difficult for me because this drama and the situations play on my insecurities perfectly. My chief insecurity is that I am a fraud and have no idea how to do my job, am a screw up and that I'm going to be found out and humiliated. I've been dealing with this insecurity for a long time. Does everyone feel that way to some extent? Does it go along with being a perfectionist? I just wish I didn't care so much about everything. If anyone has any tips for quietening an over-active, anxious mind, I'm all ears.

In cycling news, AF arrived only 4 days after finishing progesterone. That is a record for me. I started BCPs on Friday. If everything goes as planned (ha ha ha), it's possible I could get the go-ahead to start stimming around August 19. That would be lovely, but I'm not going to count on it.

The clinic is being frustrating. The financial person we had worked with quit and the new one is not up to speed yet. Supposedly, the cycling calendars will be created and mailed to me and our surro next week, at which point we will be able to order meds. And my aspiration is Thursday and no one could tell Husband with confidence where the pre-op visit on Tuesday is. We were supposed to get a call from the hospital last week but didn't. Thankfully, Husband is on top of it. He lives for this sort of thing. Oh, we weren't able to get the aspiration rescheduled, so my next task will be to try to get them to agree to a light meal very early on Thursday morning. If not, I'll just have to suck it up and deal with it. I'm good at that by now, I think ;-)

And, now, to end this post on a more positive note, here are some pics:

Approach of TS Cristobal


Book, drink, beach


My front flower garden


Roses from my rose garden

Various and Sundry

Hi ladies,
Thanks for the commiseration, advice and support you offered during my blue Friday last week. I'm still having ups and downs but overall, I feel better. I had an appointment with my therapist last Saturday, and it's so nice to be validated and reminded that yeah, Husband and I are dealing with a lot and we're coping with it the best we can. Worth every penny of that $40 copay :)

Surrogacy update: We had the nurse education class and psych eval today. It honestly was probably the best appointment we've had there so far. We had to wait only a few minutes and we got out only 15 minutes late. Not bad! It was good to go over the schedule with the donor coordinator. It's sort of weird because they are treating me like I'm my own donor LOL, so they are planning my cycle as if it were a donor cycle, only I'm the donor. I think we still have some details to work out, but it sounds like I will be stimming in August...possibly early August but more likely mid-August. I can deal with that. The unknown is still how/when we handle my cycle since I'm an infrequent ovulator. I won't be on lupron before I start stimming, which is interesting, but instead I'll be on an antagonist protocol, which is familiar to me since that's what I was on at clinic #2. I have an appointment on July 10 for the RE to meet my endometrioma and decide what he wants to do.

The most surprising news is that we apparently no longer have a male factor issue. Husband gave a sample yesterday, and his numbers were very good. Our problem with him had been slightly low motility, but it's back in the normal range. I guess that's why they recommend having more than 1 sample tested if there's an issue. As far as SCSA, Husband argued with them about it since the RE left us with the impression that if we didn't want to use donor sperm if there were a problem, we might as well not get the test. He told them they could pay for it if they really wanted it, and they are!!!!

The psych eval was odd. Well, more accurately, the psychiatrist was odd. He kept staring at us and not asking questions, and we had that uncomfortable urge to talk to get rid of the silence. Ick. I think we *passed* but IMO, it was so totally NOT worth the $185 it cost.

Summer school: I started summer school last week, and it's keeping me busy. I go to class every day for 3.5 hours and drive an hour each way. Class is in session until July 10. It's a good class, though. It's on services marketing, and since I work in the marketing department for a service company, it's very relevant. I created a blog for my coworkers in marketing so we can discuss some of the stuff I'm learning. It makes for a long day, though. I get to work at 7, work until noon, and then drive to class. I'm in class from 1 - 4:30 and then drive home. Read a chapter and do homework. Rinse and repeat. This week is the longest week b/c it's a full week. The next two weeks are only four-day weeks, so that helps. Long story short, I probably won't have a chance to update much in the next couple of weeks.

Work: It looks like there is some work drama about to start with my former boss from when I was in another department, and I'm trying to keep an extremely low profile since the man hates me (who could hate me????) and a paranoid coworker says the shit is about to hit the fan, and the former boss will likely be lashing out at a lot of people. Apparently, he might even be monitoring web usage and email (!!!!), so forgive me if I don't get to your blogs regularly in the next few weeks since I'll be avoiding doing so from work (bad me). Hopefully it will blow over without me being dragged into it.

So, things are progressing. We booked our beach vacation, and it will happen the week after summer school ends, which is suddenly right around the corner. I'm tucking the idea of cycling in mid-August in the back of my mind. I don't won't to get my heart set on the dates since dates change so much, but I think we're close. Maybe. Hopefully.