A Bit Depressed

There are times when I feel like my emotions have been taken over by someone else. I'm normally a pretty happy, upbeat person. I like to think positive and believe all is good.

A few months ago, for about a month I was feeling very depressed about our angel babies. I just felt like people didn't understand and really still don't understand how that effects a person. I lashed out at people on facebook for not acknowledging that I am a mom without kids or that my babies even existed. My family is especially guilty of this. I will admit, I still am very angry with my family for the way they handled things after Nora died.

I suppose it's easier for people in my family to pretend my babies didn't exist because then they don't have to experience the emotions that Mike and I deal with on a daily basis and will continue to deal with daily for the rest of our lives.

I am feeling depressed now. This is the end of our first cycle of clomid and if it worked we'd be able to find out by the last day of September. Being anxious to know, I did a test and it came out negative. Seeing that negative just made me so sad and flipped that switch in me. I really did have myself convinced that it would happen this month. There's still a possibility that it could be a false negative but I'm almost certain it's not.

I always said I wanted to have kids before I was 30 and that didn't happen. I feel like I just want to get in bed and cry myself to sleep. I feel like this is so hopeless. I almost feel like this was the last shot, and I know it's not, but it feels like it. Logic doesn't enter into the emotional side of wanting to have a baby.

It feels like we've been trying forever. We started trying to have a baby in March 2006, so it's been over 4 years, and despite 2 pregnancies we haven't reached the desired outcome. So, excuse me if I'm a bit bitchy...I believe I have a right to be. So little in life is certain, I just wish that I knew for certain about this one thing.

What Ifs

I'm sure everyone has had one of those what if moments. I don't have many of them, thankfully. There's not much in my life that I do regret or am doubtful enough of to wonder what might have been. There's always been one thing and it hasn't really been an issue for a very long time but it came up recently.

About a week or so ago I had a dream that I was about 14 again and on an annual camping trip with my mom, sister, brother, and a bunch of people in our old church youth group. This isn't a random event, we used to do it annually every year from the time I was about 13 until I was 18. I'm not really sure what brought it up in my mind, maybe because a lot of friends and family members have been going camping in recent months and while Mike and I really enjoy camping we can't go since we are sans vehicle.

Well, back to my point, when I was 14 I had a huge crush on a guy in the youth group and, to me it seemed, there was a lot of chemistry between us. Well, he popped up in this dream. Like I said, in the dream I was about 14 again and the same thing happened in the dream that happened in real life...nothing.

It really shocked me that he was in this dream because even when I had that huge crush on him, I never dreamed about him. It also made me feel really guilty because in the dream all of those old feelings were there even though I don't have them now. I woke up feeling guilty that he'd even been in my dream.

Honestly, I hadn't even thought about this guy until I found his younger brother on facebook and he added me as a friend. I wasn't even sure I wanted to add my former crush as a friend on facebook for just this reason. I didn't want to add him as a friend and start thinking about the what ifs. After this though, I had to really come to terms with it.

Part of that was talking to Mike about it. That's the thing about Mike, I can talk to him about that kind of stuff and he just listens to me. So, I told him I was feeling guilty about having the dream and he asked why. I then told him about things that had happened that I interpreted as chemistry between myself and my former crush. I told him about things that happened on the camping trips, not just with me but everyone that went on them.

I finally told him it's because in the dream I reverted back to a time when I had very strong feelings for someone else and it made me feel like I'd been unfaithful. He told me that I couldn't control what I dream about, so it wasn't as if I'd actually been unfaithful.

I told him another part of it is because part of me does wonder what if. I wouldn't trade what I have with him for anything in the world, but part of me would like to at least have closure on that part of my life. In reality, there wasn't really any closure because my crush moved away to go to school and stayed gone (I haven't seen or talked to him in about 10 years). Once I graduated from high school I went away to school, came back, and then moved away too.

Now that I've had this discussion with Mike, I do feel better. I do feel like I had to tell Mike about all of it before it was truly a non-issue, not that it ever was a real issue between us. I think I had to talk about it because I never really talked about it to anyone. Sure people knew how I felt, but I never really talked in detail about my perceptions of what happened back then. I was deeply embarrassed by my feelings and mortified that anyone would find out or guess those feelings.

I also admitted to Mike that I do wish that I had at least kissed my crush back then because it would have been a form of closure. We talked for a bit then about how there's always the one that got away for a person that nothing happened with and you wish something had just so you can stop wondering.

I'm glad that he and I have the kind of relationship that we can be honest and open about those kinds of things without jealousy entering into it on either side. I think that's what they meant when they say Love is never jealous. If you really truly love someone then jealousy really isn't necessary because you trust so completely in that other person's love. That said, that doesn't mean either of us will put up with someone else trying to take what's ours. Neither of us are willing to share and won't put up with flirtations.

It's one of those things where we trust each other but don't trust others to be so honorable. I'm relieved that feeling of what if has left me since I talked to Mike about this because there is too much between us for me to start wondering about the past.

Always Waiting

It's 12:40 am and here I am working on one of my blogs. It's kind of depressing. I ran out of work after only an hour and am trying to find internet based things to do until some more work magically pops up.

It seems like I'm always waiting. I have been so anxious the last few days because Friday I went in for a progesterone test at the lab to see if the first round of clomid did its job. I'm not sure what to think. I'm almost afraid of getting my hopes up again because it always seems like they get dashed cycle after cycle.

I don't want to give up on having children and won't but the waiting gets to me. It seems like a punishment of some kind. It's cruel because getting pregnant isn't even half the battle with us. The biggest worry comes after we get pregnant because we have to wait until the end of the 1st trimester, if we make it that far, to be sure the baby is healthy. Not only that but just because it's healthy doesn't mean that Mike's chromosome defect hasn't been passed on.

It gets to be very depressing to see all of these women in my life are pregnant, just delivered, or have had children in the 4.5 years we've been trying. It's depressing that it seems like some of them don't even have to try before it happens while I have to take pills, use ovulation tests, track basal body temperature, and go to a specialized doctor.

I am hopeful that this time it worked and really want to have a baby around Mike's birthday and he's so excited that it could happen. The thing is the closer I get to the time to test, the more doubtful I get that the clomid worked and honestly it's a bit heartbreaking every time a cycle passes and we don't conceive. I'd give almost anything to take a test and get a positive that resulted in a healthy baby 9 months from now.

Why does it seem like so many of the women I have befriended on BabyCenter are in the same situation as me? They are some of the most kind-hearted women I've ever met and they, like me, are always waiting. It's not fair that we have to suffer this way when we are only trying to accomplish the only thing women are truly gifted with.

I've always been told that God wouldn't allow me to go through anything that I couldn't handle. I know that God sacrificed Jesus, so He knows what losing a child is like. What I want to know is having experienced and pre-ordained something that would cause not only His son pain but Himself as well, why would He do that to others? Does God not realize how much a loss like that devastates? Why even give us that precious gift if He was going to take it away? Especially when He allows others to have them when they hurt, molest, and kill their own children. How can it be justified that He lets that happen?

How is it fair that there are couples willing to walk through fire to have children but aren't given them while there are women and men who abort, abuse, molest, and even kill the precious gifts they were given?

I guess instead of it being the always the bridesmaid, never the bride it's always the Godmother, never the mother.

Writing

Okay, so here it is. I've always wanted to be a published author. Not jut my freelance journalism work but novels. I started writing stories when I was in 2nd grade and have always dreamed about getting published. In college, I wrote fan fiction for Days of Our Lives but I became so consumed with writing it that I lived, ate, and breathed for my fan fiction and the compliments I got on it. Every once in awhile, I still get emails requesting permission to add them to people's websites.

The problem with this dream is until now, I haven't been able to finish the stories I've begun. Sure, I finished the fan fiction stories but that was so much easier because they were about established characters. I didn't have to describe looks and details about their lives like I would in a novel.

I can always come up with an idea to start a story but it loses steam after I finish outlining the plot. It's thinking about all of the details and the dialogue that always burns me out. I started thinking that maybe those two things need to be separated out for me to finish a story. Maybe I need to actually write the story without the dialogue and get the details and descriptions down. Once I finish that, I can go back and add dialogue in and make it much smoother than it would be if I had to sit there and think about all of it at once.

So a couple months ago I was inspired to begin writing a story about a girl kidnapped into the sex trade while she's on spring break. It's different than other stories I've written because most of the other stories I've tried to write were romances and this isn't. I'm a big reader of romance novels and have evolved my tastes, but maybe that's not the kind of novels I'm meant to write. There are authors that really inspire the artist in me.

I finally can visualize in my head the ending of the story. So, I hope that I can soon finish my first novel. The next step is even harder, getting it published but I'm willing to go through it.

Paranoia?

I have always been one of those people that cannot watch horror movies. I am extremely liable to bouts of paranoia after watching those movies or even seeing movie previews. I will have nightmares when I do finally fall asleep after laying awake for hours with the childish fear that if I close my eyes, the bad guys will get me. It drives Mike nuts because if I see a scary movie, show, or movie trailer before we go to bed I will want to sleep with the light and radio on.

Honestly, I really cannot say I'm paranoid because I've had experiences in my life that could be termed supernatural or paranormal. I think that the paranoia comes from these experiences that I've had and not wanting to experience them again. You know what I mean, those experiences that you feel like someone is watching you, you feel the hair raise up on the back of your neck, when you see something out of the corner of your eye that isn't really there, or those close calls that make you realize that it wasn't your time.

The first experience I can remember was when I was about four and at my grandma's house. I was playing outside on the swing set with my sister and brother, as I came down the slide I was looking towards a pile of rock on the side of the house when I saw a man in running shorts and a t-shirt run past. I asked my sister and brother if they saw him but neither of them did and he couldn't have disappeared from view that easily since he was running towards the vegetable garden.

After my grandpa died, I couldn't sleep when I stayed at my grandma's house because whenever I did, I'd always see him. It would always be the same vision, I'd be coming around the corner from the dining room and into the kitchen. I'd see my grandpa sitting in his spot at the table, then he'd turn around and his eyes would be unnaturally wide open as if he was telling me he was watching me.

Years later I began having dreams about him coming back from the dead. We'd always be catching him up on things that happened and he'd always have an answer about something I was struggling with emotionally. The first time was something about my oldest Godson and his mom, my cousin. The second time was after my college graduation and I was mad at my aunt because I felt like she'd ruined my post-graduation night celebration with my family. The last was right after I moved to Vegas and I was questioning why I moved here; he told me because he wanted me to. I also had a dream similar to these about my sister-in-law's mom, who had passed away right before we moved to Vegas.

When I was a teenager and working nights after school, my sister and I worked at the same place and we'd alternate who was driving. I would see people walking out in front of my car who weren't there and it would freak my sister out. The funny thing is that my mom and sister swear that one of the houses we lived in was haunted and I never had any problems while there.

I did have one experience that was psychically traumatic to me as a teenager. My best friend, at the time, and I were in her basement family room with her date the afternoon before junior prom and we decided to get out her mom's very old ouija board. We knew you weren't supposed to ask personal questions, but we did anyway, and every question about my friend was answered directly but every question about me was replied with a cryptic "It's a secret." While we were sitting with it there between us, my fingernails turned sky blue and my fingers were icy cold. The very last question we asked was who we were going to marry. It said she was going to marry someone named Andy and I was going to marry someone named Mike. We kind of laughed it off figuring the names had gotten mixed up because her date's name was Mike and my crush's name was Andy, twelve years later she's married to a guy who we called Andy back in high school, and I'm married to my husband, Mike.

After that we'd gotten up from where we were sitting on the floor and put the ouija board across the room on the ottoman by the stairs. My best friend was getting ready to go to her hair appointment, so I hung around until she was ready to leave. She asked me to go back downstairs and put it away, so I waited until she turned out of the driveway and left. I just felt like there was something evil there. A few days later, my best friend called me and asked if I had put it away even though she never noticed it out while she'd been down there since. I asked why and she told me her and her brother had gone down there to watch a movie and it was sitting in the middle of the floor where we'd played it, not where we'd left it. I was never able to visit her house after that without getting the creeps.


I've never told anyone, including my husband, but a couple weeks before we found out our daughter died, I had a dream that she was dead and woke up crying that she was gone. My mom knew though without me telling her because she had a dream about my oldest sister being with my mom's mom in heave before she died after birth.

I told Mike that I think one of the reasons I react so strongly to shows and movies about these bad things is because I feel like by watching them, you give those things a power over you that wouldn't be there if you hadn't watched them. You allow them into your aura by acknowledging the possibility that they exist. It's basically, if you don't acknowledge the danger, it can't hurt you.

Every time I've watched movies or shows that do that, I can't sleep for the paranoia and I get jumpy. Watching the old Unsolved Mysteries or the show Haunted would make the hair stand up on end all over my body. So, is it paranoia or is it acknowledging that through other experiences, that I know those things can and do hurt people? I don't know but you won't catch me watching A Haunting at my apartment.