I'm up, I'm down, all around

I walked up to an organizer for Michael Ignatieff, (not my DLC), and discovered that my pitch for better treatment of women suffering from infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal has fallen on deaf ears.

And at first, I was so angry that I wanted to beat him with a stick. But then I realized that I had another tactic in my arsenal.
You see some of his supporters, including an old friend of mine, have suffered losses, major losses. I hadn't wanted to approach Senator M. and bother her, because I didn't want to upset her, but at this point, I had no option.
So, I've spoken to her and she will be approaching Ignatieff and making it clear that he has gotten some really bad advice. And maybe he'll respond and maybe he won't.

But dammit I'm not giving up!

Onward and upward...lobbying more of these bastards to see if we can save a few of our children, and maybe save a few moms as well.

I won't be able to check all of your blogs, darn

I am so buying a laptop after this! Basically, I can check email at the internet cafe, but can't take enough time to read stuff. So I hope you are all okay, and email if anything wild happens.

And no I never did take the jeans back, they are sitting in my room, in the bag, under a pile of junk. Do I know me or what?

If any of you are in Montreal and you see large numbers of people strolling around with rollie bags behind them, looking lost and confused, take pity on us. We are the refugees of the Liberal party....pathetically wandering in the deserts waiting for a new leader.

But so far, I know a whole lot of people, so this is good, right? I may be lost and wandering around, but I'm in good company.

Just realized why I'm nervous

I have never left my kids alone with the DH for longer than 48 hours before. Hmm, well, actually 5 years ago I left them with him for 3 days, so that's not quite true. But, when that happened, he was fine for the first day, took the next day off work to recover, fell apart that evening after trying to get them to bed, and gave up and called a full-time babysitter in for the final day.

Now, don't get me wrong, little DS was only a year old, and the older one was quite a handful, but still, I keep hoping that this will all work out this time. And why would I worry? Because I'm the default parent. I'm the one who knows everything there is to know about lunches and homework and clothes and vaccinations, and which friend is the current "best friend." He's busy working like a fiend and earning money, so he misses out on their lives, and doesn't know about the important things. In the meantime, I'm leaving tomorrow morning, and after a shopping spree at the Gap I have some clothes thank goodness. I've left great instructions, my cellphone number, and warned the school and the neighbours.

So now, I just need to relax and trust that my husband can actually take care of his two kids all by himself.

Can't be that hard right?

Right?

V skinny jeans don't fit!

Crap, crap, crap.

So if I keep using Tertia words and acronyms, do you think I can be as skinny as she is? In only 36 hours?

*Sigh*

I tried them on at home tonight and discovered they are very short, as well as tight at the ankle, which I guess is part of the look, but the problem is that I have bizarre muffintops at the waist. Not nice and even all around but seriously warped. Actually puckered at the belly button. Damn stretchmarks...didn't even get a live baby out of this last set, but I still got the evidence.

My choices:
1) Take back jeans to far away downtown Winners tomorrow, try to find another pair one or two sizes up.
2) Go to Gap, and try to find another pair of jeans quickly. Return too small jeans several months from now after losing them under pile of junk in corner.
3) Make new pants out of plastic garbage bags and stapler.

Vote now, this is your chance to influence the Prime Ministership of Canada!

Too serious all the time, need some frills

The last posts have been very heavy duty serious and while it is good to contemplate a navel or two, at some point, well, maybe we all need a break?

In that spirit, this week I'm off to the Liberal Leadership Convention, and what is my greatest crisis? Not which candidate to support, cause I've got an awesome one, and not where I'm staying, or how I'm getting there. No....not even how I'll vote on various policy resolutions, & constitutional resolutions, even the idiotic nationhood one.

The greatest crisis I face is that I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!

Montreal is one of the most fabulous cosmopolitan cities in the world. The rest of Canada is hideously boring and blase, but Montreal and Quebec City are amazing. (Okay maybe I'm being a bit hard on the Rest of Canada...hmmm, may change that last bit.) It's just that from a fashion perspective, Quebec IS very amazing. I've literally never seen a badly dressed woman anywhere in Quebec. Even the women who have no money, bad body shape, etc. etc. seem to look kickass.

And so the pressure is on. I must dress well, or least decently from Wednesday to Sunday. Then I can go back to usual mom slobbiness, k? I went to Winners today and tried to find a decent pair of the new style skinny jeans, and at least one pair of dressy black pants. Hopefully more than one. Because as my regular readers know I am both on a budget, and up a size or two due to thyroid nuttiness. Therefore, my awesome, black velvet Gap pants are very tight. And both pairs of my coolest looking jeans. And don't even ask about my seriously fab casual pants and skirts that I now split out of.

So, I did find a couple of pairs of pants, and a new sweater, and a white dressy shirt. Now, I just have to remember not to wear my new white shirt with my new black pants or I will look like a waiter. Whoops! The other complication is that I have bought a few new sweaters and shirts to go with my new larger thyroid enhanced breasts. It was either that or burst out of a shirt like Britney Spears did. But the new sweaters are still a bit tight on my throat, which is a bit irritated and swollen still.

The long and short of it is that I am madly packing and trying things on and throwing things willy nilly everywhere in a total panic. I no longer give a damn who gets elected leader of the party, I just want to look HOT on the convention floor. Especially because I will not be dragging any small children with me to the convention. Unlike previous conventions, my purse will not have a breast pump, spare Teletubby underpants, or Baby Tylenol. No bloody noses and tissues, no curfew for Mom, no babysitter guilt.

And don't even get me started on the choices in shoe selection! I'm going to need a separate suitcase just for shoes.

I am Mary freakin' Poppins everyday of my life, and do I love it normally, but for the next week, I am really going to enjoy not telling anyone to flush and wash their hands, y'know?

The kid gained some weight!

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that my 10 year old is really underweight, like in the 2nd percentile. As of September 29th, he weighed 24.8 kg, or 54.7 pounds. This was due to a combination of things, including being genetically predisposed on both sides to thinness, being a picky 10 year old eater, and taking Concerta for ADD.

So my Pediatrician gave us grief and we proceeded to engage in a fattening campaign. Unlike the average family, we already ate very very healthy, so I've had to do a bit of a 180 here. We switched from 1% milk to homogenized milk, started serving dessert after dinner, and changed our snacking habits from fresh fruit to the equivalent of food porn. I'm talking cookies, cakes, pastries, crackers, the kind of stuff we NEVER have around. And this ain't easy these days. Every product on the shelf seems to have reduced its fat or become low-carb. Plus some of his favourite foods like sushi or dim sum are naturally low in fat and calories.

There have been a few times when I had to bribe him to eat a chocolate bar, seriously...

And the good news is, drum roll please...he is now officially 26.6 kg, or 58.6 pounds, plus he grew .5 cm, or a quarter of an inch!! Sigh of relief, we are now above 10th percentile.

And Christmas is coming, so the high fat eating opportunities are everywhere.

Now, I just have to resist the temptation to overeat. I'm at an okay weight, slightly down from the heights of thyroid overeating, so my pants fit, but not underweight either. With all this temptation around the house, it might be difficult to keep an even keel.

But at least my son has gained some weight, thank God.

A Little Inspiration

*Updated below*

Mel's post about blogs that have disappeared has made me think about Jessica's last postings over at Cancer, Baby. After I commented on Mel's post, I went back over to Jessica's blog, still up, thank God, (I hope they NEVER take down such a beautiful monument to her life). I sat and reread a whole bunch of posts and comments.

And cried out loud all morning.

Even though I've never met, never emailed with her, and didn't even know she had existed until after her death. What is it about the blogworld and the internet that has changed everything for me? Why does the media keep telling me that nothing is changed by the internet? I emailed a Toronto Star columnist, David Olive, a while back when he ranted on about this, and pointed out Jessica's blog, among others. He wrote back, "You're right: as a business writer, I have been preoccupied by the overblown financial promise of the Web, overlooking the millions of often specialized conversations happening in real time about real issues."

Yes, David I am right.

I know because I've changed, I've grown, I've learned so much.

Maybe the internet wasn't ever meant to teleport our bodies around the world. Maybe just our hearts.

Edited to add: I just clicked over to YouTube and saw this.

To the Turducken people...

*Updated below*

This week and especially today, I seem to have attracted some hits from people in the U.S. who are searching for Turducken cooking instructions, recipes, etc.

Ummm, this blog may not be quite what you are looking for!

Yes, I managed to cook one, and it turned out rather well even though we did not follow the precise directions we were given. And it was delicious, but still...I really don't think you want to read about my Turducken dreams. Seriously, it may turn you off eating the dish forever.

Anyway, I would like to thank all my new US friends for sticking with me and reading all about my neuroses. You have turned my lonely infertility journey into a giant group hug. Because of the blog world, I know for sure that there are other people who share the same rollercoaster feelings I do. Now, I may never have to feel alone again.

And that ain't no small thing to give thanks for.

(Edited to add: Thanks to ALL my internet friends, US, UK, everywhere....Sorry Thalia! Just realized that US friends could also mean ultrasound friends? Guffawing at own pun now.)

Five things about me that you don't know

Sky Maybe has tagged me to write about "Five things about me that you don't know". Now, the last time I participated in one of these all hell broke loose what with troll infections, etc. But this time will be better right? It must! Especially because I'm going to reveal some really new stuff.

1. I have ADD, techincally ADHD inattentive type. I've had it all my life, and was never diagnosed until about 5 years ago. Ritalin, Dexedrine and more specifically Concerta now have radically changed my life. Unfortunately, this does not undo a lifetime of unmedicated verbal gaffes, school failures, broken friendships and employment issues. Why haven't I written about this before? Because when I have told people, they think less of me, and tell me so.

And if all of you on the internet did that, it would kill me.

ADD is a real disease and people like me really suffer when we can't function, but it is also the joke du jour for the public, and the medical profession. So real sufferers like me hide, terrified we will be humiliated by bullies.

2. On a lighter note, I have previously hired a professional organizer to deal with my house, and I may have to do it again. My basement is getting so bad, I can't walk in it! This is a problem because many important things are in it, like Christmas presents---

3. Those credit cards we paid off recently? Weeell, to start DH's new business we loaded up credit cards and lines of credit, to the tune of $123,000. As of today, we have paid off two Visa's and one Amex, at $20,000, $9,000, and $11,000, for a total of $40,000. We still owe $83,000, but a large part of that is the line of credit for the house and car. Yes, tsk, tsk...I know, but starting the business was worth the risk, even when there have been months when I couldn't figure out how to pay the bills. The good news is, now we can.

4. My DH makes a dramatically larger salary than me, and since he is so much farther ahead in his career, I can never catch up. By the time I make as much as he does, he will have retired. When we met he was already in a law firm and made loads of cash. He was also 8 years older. It didn't matter at the time, but as I've gotten older and it's been harder and harder to catch up, it does tend to wear on the ego to realize that I'll never be his financial equal. Morally, mentally, in parenting skills, and in lots of other areas, we are equals, but in earning capacity, not. And yes, this is a frustration.

5. I am not just an advocate for grieving parents and the infertile, I also advocate for victims of crime, especially abused women and children. In fact, I'm going to a conference in December that will bring together victims, law enforcement, prosecutors, shelter administrators, and others to try to find solutions to the problems women experience. I'm not sure if this will work or not, but hey, it can't hurt to try, right?

So, here I am internet, hoping that you are open and accepting of me. And I'm tagging AJW5403 at My Pain I Hide, and my newest commenter, (welcome!), NinaB at White Chocolate Baby Dream. V cool name for a blog BTW...

Starting fresh in January

I have put off attempting to get pregnant for awhile, because I have been worried about the possibility of thyroid complications. Plus I've been trying to get my head sorted out about a bunch of issues including my marriage, our finances, and my own mental muddle about how I view my life.

But my hyperthyroid/Graves Disease/TMG blah blah aside, I am slowly getting unmuddled about my marriage. My husband has tried being patient over the years, and I've tried being patient with him, but neither of us are very good at handling serious stress. And starting a new business can be very stressful.

We are finally digging out of the financial mess we have been in for a few years, and that has prompted great relief, plus my DH thinks that he and his partners can finally give themselves some serious raises in January. And best of all, the long awaited dream of a benefit plan might happen. (Yes in Canada we have free health care but not for prescription drugs used out of hospital, unless you are poor or elderly, or have a plan through work. We have had none of these.)

And throughout this financial craziness, I have not been working for a variety of reasons. Some times I feel like truly sick, and other times merely lethargic, and quite often depressed at the choices I have. If I got to work at a job I enjoy, it will mean long hours and our family life can't take that. Or I can get some crappy job I am bored at, with fewer hours, and way less pay. This will crush my self-esteem. My DH knows this but he tends to think, well, "who cares, just get a job"---trouble is, at the first sign that my job is interfering with his life, he starts haranging me to quit! Quite two-faced, hmm?

The therapist I have right now has been helping me with sorting out my feelings about my birth family and my adoptive family, maybe I'll talk about that in another post----it's getting better, but it's kind of upsetting still.

As for my kids, they are settling into school, and life is calmer. There are still jolts here and there like discovering that my oldest son is underweight, like in the 2nd percentile and we have to feed him like crazy or else. We go for another weigh-in on Friday and I'm hoping he will have gained weight soon. We switched to homo milk from 1% and I'm feeding him anything he'll eat. Combination of picky eater + ADD kid on Concerta + excellent low fat family diet + inherited skinny gene= superskinny child. I think I may have gone overboard on the vegetables! Interesting factoid though, I have now discovered that one cup of homo milk plus 2 tablespoons of Nestle Quik chocolate syrup is the same amount of calories and fat as Pediasure. And stunningly cheaper! Throw in a Flintstones once a day and we're covered.

So if things stay stable around here, and life is calmer, maybe I will try to get pregnant again. Supposedly, my thyroid is in "remission" from Grave's Disease right now. Either that or I have a brain tumour and I can do nothing about that, so I'm going with the remission theory. (The brain tumour on my pituitary is a rare remote possibility, and I'm writing here just so I can verbalize it, and stop being afraid of it, silly, but helps me stay sane) I'll just have to get monitored during pregnancy and until then once a month get my TSH, T3, & T4 measured and see if that works.

I'm on Day 4 of this cycle right now, so I'll HRT for awhile and count down until January. Then let the fun begin, right?

Yes, I'm alive

Just a short post to say, I'm alive and feeling more mentally energetic. (Did I mention I sincerely believe that estrogen is a sacrament for the premature menopause set?)

Unfortunately, my lungs are not cooperating. I have some sort of chest cold with cough, that has turned me into a hacking, wheezing caricature of myself. I sound like a TB patient from the 19th Century, ever so classy...

I'm on puffers, and ibuprofen and steam and blah, blah, blah....and my husband has the same thing, and so does the youngest kid. So far I am keeping my head up and coping, I just haven't been able to comment and post and surf everywhere. But I am reading everybody's posts.

On the good side, we paid off another couple of credit cards this week with another bonus from the DH's work. I know everybody has debts and credit card problems, but someday I'll outline it all here. You know that line from the song, "They had outrageous parties and paid heavenly bills"? Well, that's us, except we had outrageous expenses, no parties unfortunately---and it's all been on credit.

Now it is disappearing, slowly. This might be a nice Christmas after all!

TTYL internets, I have to go have a hacking cough.

What would I do?

Over at Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters, The Town Criers have been talking about instant motherhood, and how we'd react. I've been thinking about this alot, since really I am terrified of another pregnancy, and boy if I could skip ahead to the baby part that would be great. Don't get me wrong, I love being pregnant, and if I could have a low-risk easy pregnancy & birth I'd do my nine months without a word of complaint. But that's not my lot in life---so instead I complain bitterly, while I vomit, inject myself with HCG every day, take suppositories and pills and pray for a live baby, instead of a dead one.

We've had a few opportunities to skip the pregnancy too, like when I discovered that my husband's 2nd cousin, a teenager, was pregnant, & unmarried. The first thing I thought about was that we could take the baby. In the case, never mind the unmarried teenager part, she was going to a lousy mother, and Children's Aid was going to be monitoring her anyway, so why not ask if she wanted to give up her child to us?

I know, I know, if she just had support and a place to live, etc. etc. she could be a good mom, but that doesn't apply in this case. Her Mom and her family have loads of money. They would never throw her out of the house, but money can't make up for the fact that she is a goof. A high school dropout whose parents are willing to PAY her to go back to school, she would rather sit around her house at night and be a mallrat by day.

Anyway, it turned out that she wanted to keep the baby, and Children's Aid will only allow her to keep custody as long as she lives in her mom's house. They have come close to seizing the little girl on more than one occasion, on the grounds of emotional neglect. Basically, the kid is an accessory for her, like a new cellphone. Yep, great life....

Then a few years ago in Toronto, a baby was found late at night outside City Hall, in the freezing cold. The woman who found him was going home after work, but instead of calling 911 right away, she picked him up and warmed him inside of her coat and shirt. She said later she was so shocked, and it was almost instinctual to nestle the baby into her chest. She wasn't infertile, just a normal woman. Very shortly after someone found her sitting there with the baby and helped her call the police on her cell. The baby turned out to be fine, and it turned out the bio mom was a schizophrenic street person who did not remember she was pregnant. She had gone off her drugs when she found out she was pregnant, and lost connection with reality at that point. She had no idea she was even giving birth since she was psychotic at the time, and had wandered away leaving the baby behind.

Anyway, something like 30 couples called desperate to adopt the baby. Eventually someone did adopt the kid after child services took on the case, because even with meds the bio mom was incapable of taking care of her child, terribly sad. Interestingly I feel more sympathetic to her than I do towards the teenage mom who never left her baby outside. And why? Because the homeless schizophrenic mom was trying to take care of her baby when she went off her drugs, which tells me she cares more about the long-term future of her child than the idiot second cousin-in-law.

And the woman who found the baby first? Apparently this sometimes happens when an abandoned baby has been found, to grab it and hold it---anyway, EMS decided she was a hero for saving the child.

As for me, all I could think about was how much I wanted to be the one who found the baby, and yes, I would've gone to the hospital with it, but would I have had the guts to give the baby back to the cops? To child services and foster care? Oh crap, I don't know...knowing how many mistakes CAS makes, I might wonder for a moment which was the ethical choice.

Kissing some Frogs

I just wanted to say that I'm feeling better, ever so slightly, and I've decided to be a bit more proactive with the Docs and less reactive.

In other words, I'm back on estrogen, "she says as she dances with JOY!" Bwa-ha-ha. And all my other regimes, like prometrium and estrogel, and mega vitamins, etc. Plus, I'm asking my GP for an ultrasound requisition to redo my thyroid ultrasound, and I'm going to bug someone to get my new blood results to see if anything has changed.

Because it's my body, right? Not the Docs, not the hospitals, and not the OHIP billing guys. I don't care if I've had it done already, it was done wrong and it needs to be redone. My RE is very good at fertility and IVF and menopause, but he isn't thyroid specialist, so he can't help me much, although, (god love him he tries). But that's okay.

When I first thought I might have endometriosis I was 21, and had to see 5 different Gynecologists before someone gave me a laser laparoscopy and got rid of it, for awhile anyway. Same multiple Doctor diagnostic goof-ups with infertility and miscarriages, at this point, I swear there have been more hands up my cha than there have been in a 5 star Las Vegas hooker.

So on the thyroid issue, drumroll, please, ta-daaaaaaa, I have had one family Doc, one RE, 2 endocrinologists, one psychiatrist, and 2 radiologists. Silly me, I have at least 2 or 3 more Doctors to go before someone diagnoses me with the actual problem, right? And a few more after that before we get to a cure, right?

I feel more like taking charge at this point, and less demoralized. Must.focus.on.life.

In fun news, the kids had a good Halloween, yayyy! My 6 year old was a "monster buster", sort of a Ghostbuster for monsters. He invented this himself, green makeup, giant sword, etc. My 10 year old was a Raccoon, dragging a green garbage bin. To anyone outside of Toronto, you will not understand why this is scary, you'll have to trust me, every adult in our neighbourhood agreed he was the most terrifying creature in Toronto, hands down! I made the raccoon costume, sewing my little hands away, and helped with the makeup. My kids friends came over, and the moms and I all sat around drinking wine and handing out candy, while the husband took the kids around to the houses. I think we had about 100 kids, not bad?

Today was the beginning of hockey season. The 6 year old played his first real game, and did pretty well, and my 10 year old became a goalie. This completely freaked me out, since 10 year old DS is as light as a feather. I kept hoping that the equipment would make up for it. It sort of did, and sort of didn't. Eeek, I'm going to try to be a "good" hockey mom and not kill the first child who tries to hurt my baby. Okay, I won't hurt any other kids...it's just really hard hoping and praying that my little guys are really grown up enough to deal with all this. And that I'm grown up enough too.

I guess I'll have to kiss a few frogs before Prince Charming comes along, and haul a few hockey bags.

@#$%@^

I can't bear to put swear words in a post title, so here this sits. I am so depressed by today's appointment I cannot begin to express it. I'll just say that Doctors suck and I have once again been patted on the head. Ironically, by a woman once again.

In short, there are nodules on my thyroid and I may have a problem, but no one wants to check it out because really, "Dear it's probably all in your head." Yep, because I called myself a SAHM instead of a political lobbyist, therefore I must be wrong, inaccurate, mentally unbalanced, unhinged, and of course, all these "mental issues" must be capable of causing tumours on a body organ....

If no one solves this problem soon, I'm going to go crazy, for real. I'm too nervous to attempt pregnancy if my thyroid will just kill it off. I don't know what to do.