pinterest pretties: january 25

In an effort to make things a little brighter around here, I'm going to start sharing some things that I like. I'm a big fan of pinterest and find that it's a great way to lose myself in pretty things. It's also made my cooking life a lot more fun. I would say that 90% of the things we make are from pinterest.

So, each week I'm going to share a few things I've found on pinterest that I'm currently loving. For those of you that come here strictly for IF news, please allow the distraction. I think we all need it every now and then.

{1} farmhouse sink from High Camp Home via bloom
{2} Chile Honey Butter from Padma Lakshmi of Top Chef fame
{3} Chocolate Bacon Peanut Bark from Framed Cooks (I made this and it's amazing!)
{4) Pretty Beach House via Home-Designing
{5} Ellery dress from The Iconic & Zara clutch via The Manor Magazine (this took me forever to source, but I think it's important; the dress and clutch are no longer available from what I can tell)
{6} diy Envelopes from fellow fellow

I like looking at pretty things. Hope you do too!

updates

Some updates on a couple of loose ends...

the Christmas tree
We took it down this weekend. I felt it coming for about a week. It was starting to feel sad and pathetic. No longer a good memory of how we felt at Christmas. I feel good about it. It feels like we are getting back to normal.

old friends
I've talked about them a few times. Part of me knows that this issue is not just miscarriage and infertility related. It's hard to make new and maintain old friendships in this stage of life. It would be hard even without all of these complications. I'm still very hurt by a few specific people, but I can't just sit and wait for them to call. I either need to get over it and forget about them, or get over it and reach out myself. Either way, I need to get over it. I called my college roommate last week. I haven't talked to her since she told me she was getting remarried (it was a small wedding; only family). I called her a few times leading up to the wedding, the morning of, and one week later. All calls went unreturned. I've been feeling so bitter that I didn't get to share good news with her. So I actually texted her because I thought I could express myself better in an email, but she called right back because it was a good time for her to talk. From her perspective, nothing will ever change between us, we will always pick up right where we left off. Form my perspective, the conversation was a bit awkward and forced. We'll see.

new friends
I told a newish friend at church about the miscarriage last week. I always feel like I'm having to explain myself. In this case, I wanted her to know why I had been a bit MIA (everyone notices when the preacher's wife isn't around). I have missed a few Sundays and specifically a program that she was working on. She was so incredibly wonderful. She hugged and cried with me, told me about her own experiences, and just basically listened to anything I had to say. Then yesterday she gave me a card and sweet little present. It's actually the first card I've gotten through this whole experience (which is fine, I'm not really a fan of cards:).

my fragile emotional state from last week
I think I've almost convinced myself that the miscarriage was more than likely a crazy happenstance that probably won't happen again for the same reasons. Based on how far along I was, the gestational sac size and progesterone levels, I feel good about my treatment and future treatments. I have been making a long list of questions and plan to call my doctor back and discuss things. I'm feeling so much better about things. For now.

personal training
It's going really well. I want to write more about it, but for now I'll just say I love it. It feels really great to actually be doing something during this wait. To actually feel I am working toward something. So glad I made this decision.

facebook
I didn't deactivate my account, but I did delete the app from my phone and the page from my regular browser view at work. I can't tell you how good this makes me feel. Almost as good of a decision as personal training. Guess what? I haven't missed it! I'm loving life without the stupid book.

babybump app birth club
I needed to stop looking at this crazy forum when I was actually pregnant. I certainly need to stop now. I'm just stalking along. But I think I broke my habit yesterday. There was an asinine post about announcing your pregnancy on facebook. Oh my gosh. Some of the ideas were ridiculous. A picture of a jar of prego spaghetti sauce? barf. A picture of your pee stick on your belly? gag. Your status update, "God decided to bless me and my love with a baby. We are so blessed." kiss my ass. (first of all, it's my love and me, but whatever) Yep, think that did it. Haven't opened the app since.

music
LOVE IT. Love finding new music. This is my most recent favorite. And of course, this is exactly how



Whew, I feel better.

ICLW

Hello to those of you from ICLW. It's great to have you around.

I'm slowly but surely recovering from a miscarriage in December at one day shy of eight weeks. If you stick around for any amount of time, you'll see that it's definitely a journey of highs and lows.

But I'm glad you're here, feel free to look around and stay a while.

perspective

Of course, things look a little different the next day. Thank you for all of the thoughts you offered. We will do autoimmune testing before the next IUI to check for problems. I'm not familiar with that at all and wasn't in a place to ask many questions yesterday. But I've been writing some things down and will call back in a couple of days to get some more information.

You know that line that people say after a miscarriage? "It's for the best. It's usually because something was wrong." or something along those lines. When you hear it, it's stupid and annoying, maybe hurtful or enraging. Depending on who it's from, some strong language or desire for bodily harm may ensue. But if I'm being honest, there was a part of me that held on to that fact. Depending on which facts you read, 50-75% of miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities. And many of those are one-time flukes that will never happen again.

What it meant for me was that maybe my baby was spared from a lifetime of pain and suffering. Maybe our family was spared from a more complicated and dangerous issue later in the pregnancy that would have ultimately ended the same.

Instead, now I'm thinking about the tiny, healthy baby that did not survive for some other unknown reason. I know there are hundreds of other possible reasons. Many of which are also one-time flukes that will never happen again. But there are other scary reasons too. And while I know in my head that it wasn't my fault, it was still something my body did or didn't do. And my heart feels so alone in that. It's something that is impossible for Max to understand, as hard as he tries.

Through the process of getting pregnant, I always imagined that once we did, everything would be fine. Getting pregnant is the hard part. But now, there are all of these possibilities that could keep recurring. We will do another IUI in March, and it could work again, and I could lose the baby. Again. The thought of having to go through this over and over and over is terrifying.

My head knows these things: there is a good chance that our next pregnancy will be successful and we will bring a baby home; it is not my fault that we miscarried; it may never happen again; a chromosome abnormality could have been very bad news; there are no test results that would have made this ok.

My heart knows this: I'm grieving for my healthy baby; I'm scared I will have to do this again.

chromosome testing

I just got a call from the doctor's office about the results of our chromosome testing. The chromosomes were normal. I'm having trouble processing what that means. It basically means that there was nothing wrong with our baby. That it was something wrong with me.

I literally thoughts 10 times today about how much better I was doing. How it must be the endorphins. Well damn the endorphins.

I spent about 15 minutes on the floor of my office crying. I was so totally unprepared for this call. She knew if the baby was a boy or a girl too. But I couldn't bring myself to know. Not yet anyway.

In my daily google reader perusal this morning, I came across a post with a song that I tabbed out to listen to later. It literally sat in my browser all day. I listened to it approximately 3 minutes before my phone rang. Coincidence? Here is the link.

personal training

So I had my assessment yesterday. It actually went pretty well and I only cried like 6 times. I kept apologizing and saying I knew it wasn't a counseling appointment. I never cried to the point of not being able to talk, only to where she could barely understand me. I call that a win.

We basically just talked about why I was there, my goals and my nutrition and exercise habits. I felt pretty comfortable there, which I was fairly nervous about. We talked for almost an hour, then did some fitness assessment basics so she could figure out which of their levels I would be on.

I had to step up and down on a block for 3 minutes to check my heart rate after. Ok, I'm 5'2". That's short. The block was probably 12-15 inches high, which is really high for a short person. And I am soooo sore today! My heart rate was 120 when I was finished and she said she likes to see it in the 90's. I asked what that meant and her response was "You're out of shape." Well no shit!

Seriously though, I used to swim 3 times a week and I could tell a huge difference in my energy and general fitness level. But I haven't been to the gym since the end of October, so I'm basically starting over again. Realistically, it's impossible to lose all the weight I need to before my next IUI. But I can't wait until I'm skinny to have a baby. It will never happen. I'm just trying to make the most of this time that I unfortunately have and go into the next pregnancy in the best shape possible. I also know it will help me feel better.

They do packages of either 1 on 1 hour sessions small groups training with 3-4 people that they call Pack Training. I decided to go with a combo package of 1 individual and 2 pack trainings per week. We honestly couldn't do any more than that financially. I'm already stressed about this enough. Max is being so great and helped me decide what we realistically could afford and where we could make sacrifices. I so appreciate his optimism and support in this endeavor, but to be honest I'm the one that does the budget every week and I'm stressed about money. It feels so selfish to spend this much money on myself when soon, hopefully, we will have many different things to spend money on. But I know this isn't just for me. I just have to keep telling myself that.

I'm considering doing some weekly weigh-ins or other sorts of updates on here. I'm so hesitant to reveal my weight though. I don't know why I feel fine talking about my intimate lady business but not weight. Oh, the power of self image.

My first appointment is tomorrow after work. I'm excited, but know I will be in pain after. Should be fun!

emotional exhaustion

According to wikipedia, emotional exhaustion is a real thing. It sounds like something a celebrity might have. Or a politician.

I'm diagnosing myself. If it's all the same to you.

I have so much emotion coursing through me these days. It's not all bad. It's an exciting time at work, new semester and all. Yesterday we had a big training with 56 student leaders, the first weekly session of the semester. Lots of planning, but lots of excitement. It brings along some stress, some anxiety, some frustration, and also happiness.

Then there's the sadness, fear, worry, doubt, guilt. It hits throughout the day. Randomly, or caused by someone's innocent words. I might be talking to a coworker and then all of a sudden, mid-sentence, I can't say the next word without bursting into tears. I've been wearing my August birthstone necklace for the last few days. I love it, both for what it means to me and I just think it's pretty. Often throughout the day I find myself touching it, to make sure it's still there or just to focus my thoughts. I must have done that while having a quick meeting with a coworker yesterday, but it made her notice it and she mentioned that it must be new and she really liked it. Tears started immediately and I had to leave to go get myself together. Last night during dinner, Max made a little joke which made me laugh. Then, all of a sudden I was crying. Uncontrollably.

And let's not forget about the anger. At myself for letting this happen. At my mom for offering to meet me in the middle for a weekend getaway, then rethinking about how she committed to watch my nephew while my brother and sil finish work on their house before their new baby arrives. While my mom has been constantly checking in on me, we haven't had time or energy for an extended phone conversation about how I am. The thought of spending the weekend with just her and talking some about how I feel gave me some hope. Now there is just anger and disappointment. I know they need her, but I do too (selfish much Hattie?). And I'm angry at my close friends who don't even know what's happening. Who I probably would have told about the pregnancy, or who I would tell about the miscarriage, but who don't have a clue because they haven't called me. Don't worry, I'm not entirely unreasonable. My anger is reserved for those who I emailed, texted and called several times back in the fall who never returned any contact, but know from our last conversations that the attempt at a baby was getting more and more difficult. Or who I emailed a long, heart wrenching email about how I was feeling and got nothing but silence in return.

So, if you're keeping count that's a lot of emotion. Which leaves me exhausted. And bitter. And hard to deal with. To the pure delight of everyone around me.

I am trying to deal with it. I actually have an appointment tonight with a trainer at Fitness Together. Anyone familiar with them or used them before? The business is basically focused on just personal training. My plan is to use the time I'm waiting for the next IUI to focus on fitness and weight loss. That gives me something to think about and do, plus a way to work off some emotional steam. And allows me to go into the next pregnancy in the best shape possible (or the best I can get in the next 6-8 weeks).

So we'll see how tonight goes. I'm not entirely convinced yet, as it will be a large financial commitment. But it may just be worth it.

Anyway. A bit of a random post, but I got some things off my chest.