the continuing saga…

Remember this?  Well, is this the hot new haircut?  If yes, I think it looks great on Katie, but would not work on my round face. 

 However, I have been digging this type of bang as of late.  Thanks to America’s Next Top Model past & present:

 I like Chantal’s bangs better, but the rest of my hair looks more like Brittany’s.  (Do you like how I talk about them like we’re bffs?)  I have a hair appointment Wednesday.  We’ll see what happens.  Most likely I’ll just get a trim and be over my need for new hair. 

I’m sure you’re all at the edge of your seats.

olive, the other reindeer

I managed to drop my curling iron on Saturday just enough that it burnt the tip of my nose.  Last night, it started looking brown – like a huge mass of freckles – and feeling a little dry.  This morning in the shower, I accidentally knocked the dry, brown off and exposed a raw, red, tip-of-my-nose.  Its one of those facial flaws that is just big and red enough that people notice it easily, but not big enough that people ask what happened for fear it was some pimple explosion.  I’m thinking about printing a t-shirt that explains the whole thing to salvage a portion of my vanity.

Christmas list

So, my friend just had a baby.  I decided that I want a baby.  Like a tiny newborn baby.  I want an episiotomy to complain about.  I want a bunch of loose empty skin on my belly.  I want to wake up every 2 hours in the middle of the night.  I want to be afraid to go to the grocery store for fear of a blow-out or a melt-down.  I want to have spit-up stains on my furniture and carpet.  I want my dishwasher to be full of pacifiers and sippy cups and funny plastic forks that don’t stab anything.  I want to catch vomit in my hand.  I want to forget what its like to have my hair fixed or wear clothes that actually fit me.  I want to greet my husband at the door with a screaming infant and say, “take your son/daughter.”  I want to have tiny socks sprinkled throughout my house amongst the slimy, discarded cheerios and half-eaten graham crackers.  I want to have to dig through the toy box to find my keys and be five minutes later than I was going to be already.  I want morning sickness and swollen ankles.  I want to have sore feet from stepping on Happy Meal toys and sore biceps from carrying around the infant car seat.

I told God all of this the other day.  He didn’t say anything, but He did give me a stern look.

I’m still working on contentment (clearly).  I came across these verses the other day though, and I’m liking them right now.  They are taken out of context a little bit, but at the end of the day, I’m not warping the meaning altogether.

Habakkuk 3:17-19 (NIV):

 17 Though the fig tree does not bud
       and there are no grapes on the vines,
       though the olive crop fails
       and the fields produce no food,
       though there are no sheep in the pen
       and no cattle in the stalls,

 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
       I will be joyful in God my Savior.

 19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
       he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
       he enables me to go on the heights.

it

I am fighting with darkness.  I don’t know how to make it go away and I don’t know how to describe it.  I cry, I worry, I scream in my head in confusion.  I don’t know when it started, but I barely remember before it happened and I want it to end.  It comes and goes and sometimes it isn’t that strong and I can ignore it and other times it is so powerful that I retreat deeper and deeper inside myself and into it.  I try to practice mind-numbing exercises – concentrate on the tv, quote Scripture, pray, cry out to God – to make it go away and it remains ever present in that moment.  It is a wrestling match against an intangible foe; and yet my enemy is so enveloping.  It scares me.  It is very self-involved, very lonely, very ugly and very dark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve been feeling terribly uninspired lately, so I decided to post this that has been sitting in my drafts for months.  When I wrote it, it was so real and scary and I felt vulnerable writing it, even just for myself.  I never dreamed of posting it.  Now, I look at it and the emotion isn’t there in the words like it was when I wrote it.  I wish I had dated it for posterity sake.  I think it was sometime in August/September.  Now, I remember those feelings like something far away.  I know they were real, but I can’t tap into them.  Not that I’m really trying.

wow, just wow

A baby boy survived two attempts by doctors to terminate his mother’s pregnancy earlier this year, BBC reports.

At 20 weeks, Gabriel Jones was not growing in his mother’s womb and doctors at Birmingham Women’s Hospital in the U.K. feared continuing the pregnancy would jeopardize the life of his twin brother, Ieuan. Later, at 22 weeks, Gabriel was not moving and doctors said his heart was growing to a dangerous size.

On the advice of doctors, Rebecca and Mark Jones of Straffordshire, U.K., allowed hospital staff on Feb. 13 of this year to sever Gabriel’s umbilical cord at 25 weeks to cut off his blood supply.

Click here to read the whole BBC story and to see a picture of the boys

When that was unsuccessful, the twins placenta was cut in half. The measures had the opposite effect and Gabriel began to grow.

The twins were born in March at 31 weeks by emergency caesarean section. Both were healthy and are now living at home with their parents. At birth, Ieuan weighed 3 pounds, 8 ounces and Gabriel 1-pound, 15-ounces, according to the Daily Mail. At seven months, Ieuan weighs 15-pounds and Gabriel 12-pounds, 6-ounces.

from: foxnews.com

en-title-ment

I have always wanted to be called Auntie.  Not ANT-IE, but ON-Tee…old school style.  And not Auntie Lizzie (my name…gasp!), just Auntie.  Due to the fact that I am a frivolous nut compared to my oh-so-practical in-laws, I have reserved this title for the children of my sister (that don’t exist and may never exist) to escape certain loony-labels from the more sensible branch of the family.  So, to my actual nephew (and now niece), I am Aunt Lizzie.  Plain, old practical Aunt Lizzie.

Speaking of me being anything but plain and practical (frivolous nut, anyone?), I found out tonight that my brother/sister-in-law want to ship my 20 month old nephew to the big city to spend a few days with his Aunt Lizzie, and I’m so excited about it that I can’t sleep.  Yep, I was sleepy right up until Husband listened to the message from Brother-in-Law as I was climbing into bed.  Then my mind started reeling as I contemplated all the fun we were going to have walking to the park, eating candy and drinking soda (what are aunts for, if not to spoil?), playing with ghetto things like tupperware and spoonulas and decorative rattan balls from Pier 1 because I have exactly two real toys…

and of course…practicing saying “Auntie”.

because you have a sick obsession

I swear, if you knew me in real life, you would not think that my fertility issues were the most interesting thing about me – not even close.  However, it is apparent to me that to the Internet, I am most fascinating, captivating and readable when I’m discussing this nonsense that has plagued me.  So, for posterity and because I love you, dear Internet, here is the scoop as things sit today.  (In bulleted format, because that’s my favorite, and I’m so the boss of this blog.)

• Today I bought a box of 4 pregnancy tests because they were on sale at Costco.  I still feel really juvenile buying pregnancy tests.  I feel like I’m 13 and I’m at Wal-Mart buying tampons for the first time ever.  How embarrassing!  What if someone I know sees me?!
• Husband and I made some decisions regarding the RE’s recommendations:
  • No to chromosome testing
  • No to IUI (this was a no-brainer for us)
  • No to dye test
  • No to additional blood tests
  • Yes to metformin (this deserves a whole post with singular devotion, but I don’t really know how to describe what this has done to my stomach delicately and yet with full effect)
  • Yes to femara when we decide to start “trying” (umm…can we come up with a better phrase for this than “trying”?  Seriously.)
  • Yes to a baby aspirin a day
  • Yes to a round of antibiotics for Husband and me – to clear up any bacterial things that might have been happening
  • No to additional RE appointments

Making those decisions was kind of a two step process.  We made some initial decisions and then after a few weeks of stress on my part, Husband suggested we go back and re-look the rest of the decisions and it was as if it hadn’t occurred to me that we had any other options.  It was like a million pounds were lifted off of me when we did that.  I knew he was a gem when I married him.  I can go into detail on the different decisions if anyone is curious as to why we decided what we decided with each different bullet points.  There isn’t necessarily a lot of deep soul searching thought processes behind all of these decisions though, so if you ask and you think my reasons are lame, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Blog topics to look forward to that may or may not be related to this post:

• hope & faith – not just a cancelled Kelly Ripa sitcom
• metformin and why I don’t buy generic toilet paper
• first impressions, blond moments, and proving that I’m smrt

do I know you?

I often remind myself and my husband of the “way I used to be” or the “old me”. The me back when he met me who was clever and witty and really funny. Outgoing and confident and smart.  My friend’s husband used to ask to read the emails I sent her because they were so clever.  I mean, how do you think I reeled in Husband?  Somewhere along the way I’ve lost that version of me. I used to think that the stress that my job ended up becoming sucked it out of me or squashed it somehow. Now that I’ve not been working, it hasn’t come back and I’ve attributed that to the toll that this baby-making fiasco has taken. I was kind of resolved to get to know the now me/new me better rather than longingly reminisce about the me that I miss being.

I lost that resolve this week.

I lost that resolve because I saw that me! I saw her. She was with her friends and was hilarious and laughing and punny and chatty and did I mention hilarious? That was Tuesday night. I saw her again today. I was meeting at my former employer to discuss my upcoming employment stint and I was talking with co-workers about work and I was aware and confident and capable. I was me.

So, now that I know she’s in there somewhere, how do I find her more often? I like her way better than the me I’ve been seeing lately. She totally rocks.