Genetic Testing: The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back
Really, how can you be sad when you come across cute little dogs in the nursery?
As most of you know, two weeks ago we found out that my pregnancy had ended in miscarriage. A phone conversation with my RE's office about an hour later:
Me: "What do you guys need from my local OB?"
Them: "The notes in your chart. The ultrasound. And if you can get genetic testing done, we want the results."
So the next day when I went in for the D&C, I had a list for my OB of what my RE wanted, including genetic testing if possible.
We got the bill for genetic testing yesterday. Almost $3,000.00. Crap.
So here's the deal: I take responsibility for not asking why they needed genetic testing done and/or asking how much it would cost. But come on, I was grieving heavily, how can I be expected to think this through and ask all the right questions at a time like that? I don't understand why genetic testing was necessary. This was my first miscarriage. I don't even want to know the answers to genetic testing. I think it's going to make all this hurt worse to know if it's a boy or a girl. And if there was a genetic abnormality, I think that will be comforting in a way, because then the miscarriage was "nature's way of taking care of things." But if the baby was perfectly normal, what does that mean? I think it's going to make me scared to try again. I don't know, maybe there's a good reason to have genetic testing done that I'm missing, but right now I'm just pissed about the cost, and that I wasn't asked if I wanted to do it, I was just told to get it done if I could.
And then I start thinking about how we're going to pay for it (if insurance doesn't cover it, which I'm praying they will). I can work more hours to get the money, but I'm so sick of working like crazy to get money to do fertility treatments that fail. And this is on top of all the other bills for this pregnancy (meeting my insurance's high deductible, all the blood draws for my RE that aren't covered by insurance), and we also need to get the money together for the FET this summer. Ugh. We can do it, but there is so much more I'd rather spend the money on (plus I don't want to work the extra hours needed to get the money).
And then I start thinking about how hard fertility treatments are to go through and how scared I am of our next round of this not working and what happens if in the end we can never have a family...ugh...just going to the darkest place imaginable.
And THEN, I have been having a terrible time working. I'm just now getting to the end of Monday's "TO DO" list on Tuesday afternoon. One of the things I do for work is put together websites, and we have a big presentation tomorrow and a website that doesn't have a headline...I called my Art Director (who's also a close friend) in tears earlier, I was so frustrated with my inability to write anything remotely usable. She talked me off the ledge and sent me thinking in a different direction and I finally, finally got it done. And then my mom brought me lunch and listened to me talk about my fears and took me to the nursery to buy some flowers for my garden this summer. This is all after my husband had me crawl back in bed with him early this morning and held me while I cried.
So the point of this long, rambling post is: I am just barely holding on, and something like a genetic testing bill can totally send me over the edge. But there are people to pull me back. And what do you do but tell the people you need that you need them, and then just try to keep soldiering on?
XO
Kremmling and Rabbit Ears Pass
Hi Everyone!
Wanted to share a few photos today of my weekend trip with my brother. We met in Dillon, CO, and then drove to Kremmling, which is a tiny town to the north. There we took a walk around town, had Mexican food, hung out and got an early night's sleep.
Clockwise from above left: A fiberglass elk in front of one of the businesses, an old snowmobile on top of another, a cool old motel sign...love it.
Got up at 5:30 AM the next morning, dressed, had a quick breakfast at a cafe where they also made us sandwiches to go for lunch and got on the road.
Here's (above) a picture of Miss Leah, my brother's dog. My BFF gave Leah her pink sparkle collar...love that my brother still lets her wear it...it's so opposite what he would have picked for her.
No snow in Kremmling, but TONS at the top of Rabbit Ears Pass, where we went to snowmobile and snowboard. Top photo: The "rabbit ears" Rabbit Ears Pass is named for. Bottom photo: The snow we drove out into on our snowmobiles from the parking lot. Incredible amounts of snow up there.
Had never snowmobiled before...it's fun. And exhausting...tons of work to keep the machine where you want it to go. Early morning we found a great little hill my brother rode me to the top of and I snowboarded down. About 3 inches of powder and then kind of a crispy layer under that...but what can you expect at the end of April, right? But it was just me on the mountain so fresh tracks every run. By 10 AM the snow was not really worth boarding in it was so wet and sticky. So we rode around on the snowmobiles/dug out the snowmobile I got stuck over and over (hey, I was learning).
Super fun day. So incredibly happy I have a brother to go on little adventures with. Thanks Ben!
XOXO
A Little Break From All This...
An old friend of mine is visiting, which has been wonderful...took the day off yesterday and had fun running around town.
And today I'm headed up to the mountains to meet my brother. I know, I know, it's late April and not exactly snowboarding season, but I was so sad I didn't get to go this year, and for nothing with the miscarriage. It's going to be great to get out at least once. It's raining here so there should be snow in the mountains.
Back Monday...
Photo Credit: arielmatzuk.
Does Anything Good Come Out of All This?
My dad brought us daisies the day of the D&C...he brought me daisies when I was sick when I was little, so they have a really personal meaning. And my mom brought us this lovely little ceramic angel.
When my brother died, something a lot of people told me was you have to look for the good that came out of the situation. Like they would say, "If your brother hadn't died, you never would have met your husband," (which is a story for another post). I personally believe I would have met my husband anyway, but that's beside the point. Or they would say: "Think of how this has made you a stronger and more compassionate person." Well, I'm sorry, but nothing you gain is worth a person you love so much being killed at age 27. Nothing. Nothing made me madder than that comment.
And although I haven't heard that yet with the death of our unborn baby, I've been thinking about it a lot, for some reason. And while I'm still going to maintain that no good comes out of this situation, if I try to understand what the people who say this mean, I think it would be something like this:
People can be so kind, and you really don't always get to see that in day-to-day life. But you do see it when something bad happens. Like with my parents bringing us gifts last week and saying, "Let us know what you need, we're here for you." My friends listening to me cry and calling and texting to check up on me. My work and my husband's school making allowances for us. The kindness of the doctors and nurses the day we had the D&C. The love and support from everyone in blog-land. And back with what happened to my brother, all the people who helped the best they knew how--his best friends who moved in with me so I wouldn't have to live those first few months alone (my brother and I had lived together). My husband who I'd just met making sure I got the help that I needed. The 17-year-old who lived with me over the next year (another story for another blog post) helping me heal in his kind and gentle way. Etc.
Bad things remind me of the good in the world. Is it worth what you have to lose to find this out? No. But it is a nice thing to know.
PS. My brother seems to be sneaking into a lot of my posts lately. The anniversary of his death is next week, and right now he's pretty constantly on my mind...
FAQ Fridays: Missed Miscarriage: What Happened?
Q: What is a missed miscarriage?
A: It's where the baby dies, but your body doesn't recognize that that's happened so it doesn't expel the baby like with a "normal" miscarriage. Apparently, it's very rare.
Q: What happened with your pregnancy?
A: I had a positive beta on February 17, which rose nicely on February 19. I had an ultrasound where they saw the heartbeat and the baby measured right on track at 6 weeks 5 days (March 7) and another at 8 weeks 6 days (March 22). Went back to my OB at 11 weeks 5 days (April 11) and they told us the baby had died right after the last ultrasound, so somewhere in the 9th week.
Q: Did you have any clue something was wrong?
A: At 11 weeks 1 day (April 6) I had a tiny bit of bright red bleeding. My RE asked that my hormone levels be checked, and they were very low. They upped the medication and told me everything was fine, not to worry, there would be a lot of bleeding and cramping if something was wrong. My local OB said the same thing and that I didn’t need to be looked at…they’d just see me in a few days at my appointment. So with all that reassurance and the fact that I still felt so pregnant (nausea, exhaustion, etc.), I didn’t really worry. Maybe I knew though and was just trying to stay positive and not scare people around me (my husband, our families). I really wouldn’t let the thought that something might be wrong into my head.
Then on April 11, right before my appointment, I had my blood drawn and got the levels back. Still low, which made me really scared. And then my OB tried to find a heartbeat and couldn’t, and then looked on the ultrasound and told us.
Q: What did you do?
A: Went home and cried. Scheduled a D&C for the next day. Called my RE’s office, and they didn’t really have any explanation for what went wrong; neither did my OB. “These things happen,” is essentially what we’ve been told.
Q: How was the D&C?
A: Awful, of course, but everyone was really kind, and it didn’t hurt other than getting the IV in. I don’t really remember it to be honest. After, my husband sat with me while I was monitored for about an hour, and when we got up to leave he hugged me and said, “We’ll never be in this room again.” It was such a sweet thing to say to me.
Mild cramping that day and the next. Pretty severe cramping that came in waves 2 days post-procedure. Feeling pretty OK today so far.
Q: How have you been since?
A: Beyond sad. Heartbroken. This is a really horrible thing to have to go through.
Q: Have you gone back to work?
A: I work at home, and have done a few hours here and there, but not much this week. Haven't been able to concentrate. My husband took the week off school.
Q: Were there a lot of people you had to tell?
A: Our parents knew we were expecting and are so sad as well, of course. We’d also told a handful of friends about the pregnancy, and they have all been really caring and loving and supportive about the miscarriage. One person where I work and my husband’s professors at school knew…they have all been wonderful, as well. We’ve gotten a ton of love and support this week, for which I am grateful. I’m also glad we didn’t tell more people than we did about the pregnancy so there aren’t a ton of people we have to explain this to. We were going to start spreading the news next week…so heartbroken we don’t get to do that.
Q: Do you know what’s next?
A: We’ll do a regroup with our RE, try to get a better understanding of what happened. We have frozen embryos--a fact that I am so, so, so, so grateful for--and we will do an FET as soon as they’ll let us…looking like July at this point. Pray that things work next time around.
Ugh, what an awful, awful week. So glad it’s almost over.
D&C Today
Wow, I don't even know where to begin with the last 24 hours.
First of all, did not sleep a wink last night, just could not stop picturing my OB trying to get a heartbeat and failing, and then doing an ultrasound and saying, "I'm sorry, it's not good."
I can't get it out of my head that my OB might have been wrong, although I know that's just wishful thinking.
I don't understand how I could have had a dead baby inside me for 2 or 3 weeks and not have known.
I haven't really cried hard, it's more like I just start oozing tears for no reason. This has happened like 20 times today. I remember this happening in the days after my brother died, too, although that was mixed in with screaming crying fits, which isn't happening right now, mostly because I've got to hold it together for my husband, who's hurting as much or more than me.
Had the D&C today, which was pretty easy considering, except for the fact they had to try five or six times to get an IV in...I was cold and scared and shaking, crying and just generally a mess. But once that was done they gave me enough painkillers I don't really remember the rest and now I'm home resting and the discomfort is minimal.
My husband has been wonderful. He's so sad...breaks my heart.
Friends and family have been wonderful.
I got to eat eggs over easy this morning, which I've really, really missed (no half-cooked eggs while you're pregnant).
I called in sick to work today but am going to try and work tomorrow.
Tylenol PM picked up at the drugstore a few hours ago is my plan to get some sleep tonight...hope it works.
And bottom line...God, we are just so incredibly sad. My heart is just broken. I can't believe we've got to go through more of this infertility crap before we end up with a baby (right now I just have to assume we're going to end up with a baby at the end of all this...otherwise I just can't function).
Why why why why why why why????
Missing Seattle: The House on Dexter Avenue North
About halfway up the long shore of this lake, closest to the viewer, a few blocks away from the lake in one of those patches of trees is the house my grandparents lived in. I came for long visits, sometimes whole summers, for years, and then lived with them the first few months I was in Seattle right after college, while I got on my feet. They called it the dollhouse and it was such a cute little Victorian, with a view of the lake and easy walking distance to downtown and the Freemont neighborhood.
Would love, love, love to own that house. Actually looked into buying it a few years ago when I moved back to Seattle, but it was the height of the real estate boom and the price was so high. Plus I was in the middle of leaving California and the house I'd lived in with my pretty recently dead brother and all the trauma that went with that and plus the fact I had no idea what I was doing. It just wasn't the right time to buy the house. Maybe someday it will be...would love to have that connection to my beloved grandparents.
Image Credit: Skunks.
March Writing Submission
The little story I'm submitting this month is about Connecticut and my grandmother and kind of motherhood in general. It's a lot more straightforward/less experimental than a lot of my other writing tends to be these days, but maybe that's a good thing. This is a portion of my grandmother's house in North Haven, Connecticut. Love it there...it's so peaceful and beautiful.
So one of my New Year's Resolutions is to actually SUBMIT all the little bits of writing I've been working on, rather than let them languish as .doc files on my computer because they're not perfect enough to send out, or I'm scared I'm not a good enough writer, or whatever else it is that's keeping me from getting my writing out into the world. I'm exhausted late on March 31, but this week I 1) finished a piece I started months ago, 2) decided on where to submit, and 3) submitted. This month's submissions go to:
- anderbo.com
- Grist
- Hayden's Ferry Review
- Paradigm
- The Paris Review
- Passages North
- Phoebe
- PMS poemmemoirstory
- Redivider
- The Saint Ann's Review
- Salamander
- Shenandoah
- Silk Road
- The Southampton Review
- The Southern Review
- Superstition Review
- TriQuarterly Online
- West Branch
- Willow Springs
- Zone 3
Oh, and PS, I've gotten 6 rejections from the 20 journals I submitted to last month, but two of those rejections were handwritten "this isn't exactly right for us but we like your work please send us more" vs the standard form letter. Those handwritten notes are really encouraging! :)
Yet Another Thing That's Surprised Me About Being Pregnant That Shouldn't
So this coming week is my husband's spring break, and we're going to Vegas! I'm so excited...it's just going to be great to spend some time with him. His mom and brother are there, too (that's why we're going, actually...his mom is recently widowed)...it's going to be good to see them.
I work at home mostly, have been wearing comfy jeans and T-shirts pretty much since I got pregnant. But today I go to pack and I want to look cute for Vegas, right? And have some outfits to dress up in in case we decide to do some fun things in the evenings? And I tell you...trying to find outfits that fit? Not an easy task.
OK, of course I knew I was going to gain weight when I got pregnant. And I thought I was totally fine with that. But the reality is after spending my entire life trying to stay as skinny as possible, to realize that 95% of your cute clothes don't fit and aren't going to fit for some time...that's a little sobering. Especially when you don't even look pregnant yet.
My husband came upstairs mid-packing and I got all teary (I know there's insane hormonal stuff going on these days too, so it's not all me being crazy). He's so sweet and supportive, I know he'll love me even as I, ahem, expand over the next months. He made me feel really beautiful and loved. And with his help I even managed to put together a few outfits. Plus he said we could go shopping.
Love this guy.
Stay tuned over the next week for (sober and nauseous and tired) dispatches from Sin City!
Happy weekend everyone. :)
Image credit: 8 News NOW.
Feminism vs. Babies
So I’m reading a book of essays by Joan Didion (love her!) called The White Album, and one of the essays, written in 1972, is about the women’s movement. She wasn’t a fan of it, which is a little surprising to me, as she was a prime example of what feminists wanted for women, with her wildly successful journalism career and all.
The feminism that I was introduced to in the late 1970s and 1980s--the message I got loud and clear was that being a wife and mother and homemaker is demeaning and a waste. The only proper thing for women to do is strike out on their own, not be dependent on men, pursue high-powered careers. According to a feminist friend of mine in San Francisco, that message has changed a bit, and nowadays the message is women should be free to choose the path that most fulfills them. But that’s not how it used to be.
I went to college and worked hard at my career, as I was told, but secretly always wanted a husband and babies and a house of my own, the sooner the better. I honestly think part of why I married my first husband was that I wanted that life so badly, and he at least offered the hope of making those dreams come true. Everything went badly for him and for us, though, so a few years later I found myself divorced, and really, living my life the way the feminisim I grew up with said you should--not about husband and family and commitment, but self-fulfillment.
I lived in San Francisco at the time, and I surfed every single day. I started freelancing, and my career really took off. I dated, a lot, but refused to get serious with anyone. I traveled. I went out most nights.
Fun. Really fun. But honestly, never what I actually wanted.
Ms. Didion talks about this kind of stuff as acting like a child, not an adult. And I think it’s very true to look at my life and say I had a very extended adolescence, avoiding (although not really on purpose) adult responsibilities for a long, long time.
I’m married again now, to an incredible man, and this is our fifth year in a row trying to have a child. Oh, how I want a child, how I want that life I’ve longed for--a life that’s been so elusive for me.
Being a wife and mother and homemaker isn’t something that will oppress me, I really don’t think. It’s been my dream, for a long, long time. I know from personal experience that a life lived as prescribed by feminists (or at least the feminists of old) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, at least it wasn’t for me.
I want, have always wanted, to be what Ms. Didion describes those with family obligations as--a grown-up.
I wish it wasn’t taking so long to get there.
Another Little Road Trip...This Time Brekenridge
One of the snow sculptures we saw up in Brekenridge today.
Another little road trip today...trying to distract myself from obsessing about my IVF cycle. Went over Kenosha and Hoosier passes to Brekenridge, where they were having a snow sculpture contest...pretty cool. We also saw some friends of my brothers that I know who were up there snowmobiling. I asked my brother if I could snowmobile and keep my heart rate down (not allowed to raise my heart rate high with the IVF) and he laughed.
"No," he said (and I knew that was probably the answer...my brother and all those guys tend to be a little extreme). "I'll take you some other time."
Four o'clock and sitting at my brother's house now waiting for my clinic to call and tell me if it's time to trigger tonight or not. Praying not so travel/missing school is not so bad for my husband. Triggering tomorrow would make things so much easier. But of course it's out of my control...we'll just have to make things work however they shake out.
We've got a snowstorm coming, too...feeling anxious about things I can't control...
A Warm January Saturday, Perfect for a Road Trip to Manitou Springs/ Colorado Springs
My uncle's old red VW bug. Love the colors on old cars...there's something about them...
Lovely day today with my brother...really just can't spend enough time with that guy. He's wonderful. One of the silver linings of having to do multiple IVF procedures at my out-of-town clinic is all the time we've gotten to spend together over the past year (I stay with him when I'm in Denver).
Today, we drove to Manitou Springs and went to see the Seven Falls. Beautiful, and warm enough to walk around out there in a T-shirt, which is pretty much unheard of in January. After, we went to my aunt's in Colorado Springs (my uncle died a few weeks ago, so really wanted to see her.) My cousin kicked all of our butts playing Boggle. (At the end I had 8 points, she had 43. Kind of embarrassing when you work professionally as a writer.)
My aunt had up the loveliest picture of her and my uncle at their high school prom...it must have been the very early 60s (they're older than my parents)...my aunt had on the most divine dress, knee-length, white eyelet fabric. And the cat-eye glasses she wore in her wedding picture...to die for.
Back to Manitou for dinner (chili renellos...yum) and then the drive home, most of it through national forest, really remote and dark and quiet and peaceful at night. We did that drive to visit my Aunt and Uncle dozens and dozens of times as children...it was kind of nice to do it with my brother again.
Good day.
Out-of-Town Fertility Clinic
I'm going to Denver next week for two weeks, as we're in the middle of a fertility cycle and my clinic's out of town (we live on the other side of Colorado).
Having to travel for treatment complicates an already difficult situation. I was feeling really overwhelmed this past week trying to figure everything out--where am I going to stay, who's going to be with me when I need someone at the clinic (my husband's in college and can't really miss class so I'm doing the trip by myself), how are we going to get my husband there on retrieval day for his "donation", who's going to give me shots (I am a total baby with needles and have yet to give myself even one), are the passes going to be OK or will there be a ton of snow making driving difficult/impossible, how am I going to deal with missing my husband, etc. This is on top of all the normal stuff everyone has to deal with, such as having to take time off work for all the appointments etc. and trying to keep emotionally calm while doing something with such high stakes while all hopped up on hormones.
It'd probably do me good to focus on the positives of the situation:
1) I am so lucky that I get to go to my clinic, which one of the best in the world
2) My brother lives about an hour outside Denver, up in the mountains, and I can stay with him vs having to spend two weeks in a hotel
3) I telecommute for work, so there's no need to take all this time off
I'm grateful for these small blessings.
I think the best thing to do is to try and really enjoy this time as much as possible, and also make it as easy on myself as possible. There are so many friends that I want to see (I grew up and went to college in the area) that I'm not going to schedule things with, because I don't think running all over Denver/Boulder/the Front Range while not feeling so great and trying to keep all my medical appointments and working is such a great idea.
But I can see my brother, and a couple really close friends. Do some city things that I miss in my small town (good restaurants, boutiques, the art museum, etc.) And I get to have some days resting in bed, which I never do so I'm kind of looking forward to it.
It's all going to be good. And hopefully at the end I'm pregnant and can do for a while what I really want to do: stay home. :)
Image credit: Ishmael Orendain.
Some Nice Things Happened in Vegas
I've always absolutely adored this print on my in-law's vintage lawn furniture.
Glad to be home. And a lot of good happened on what would seem on the surface to be an awful trip, with my father-in-law passing away:
- I am glad beyond words that we got to spend time with my husband’s father in the days before he passed
- Seventy degrees and sunny in January—can’t beat it. Especially when there’s cool lawn furniture to hang out on
- The evening of the day my father-in-law passed, we went out to dinner at a swanky Chinese place with my mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and a close cousin and his wife. It sounds strange to say, but we all had a really, really lovely time. God, it’s sad that my father-in-law passed away, and everybody’s feeling it, no question (there were lots and lots and lots of tears that day), but it’s not the horrible tragedy and utter, paralyzing despair that went on around the sudden death of my young brother. I think it’s been good for me to see that death can happen without everyone’s world being shattered beyond repair
- A Vietnamese food lunch at the Lemongrass Café. This is the one thing I always want to do when I come to Vegas (all the Asian food in my town sucks, and there is no Vietnamese). Vermicelli noodles—yum. Not quite the same as Golden Star in San Francisco on lunch break from the ad agency with Marco and Habeeba, but I’ll take it
- Meeting my husband’s next-oldest brother was such a pleasure (I’d never met any of his siblings before this past year and his dad getting sick). I’m still kind of in awe of what he did for his dad, sat with him day and night in the hospital over the entire last month of his life, worked hard with those in the healthcare system to get him the best possible care. He’s staying with my mother-in-law indefinitely, to help her with the transition. Oh, and he makes the best fried eggs over easy I’ve ever had
My Father-in-Law Died Yesterday
My father-in-law loved Las Vegas.
Peacefully, with one of his sons at his side. My husband and I were on our way home...turned around and came back to Las Vegas. It was a beautiful sunny holiday Monday, which feels so weird. Don't know what weather would be appropriate...crazy torrential rainstorms?
My father-in-law and I had lots of conversations over the years that I knew him, just me and him. He was no stranger to hardship and grief--losing a baby to cancer, and his first wife in a car wreck when she was 39 and they had three little kids. The thing that he told me in all those conversations that sticks with me the most is this:
"I don't want people to say of me, 'Look at that man, he's had so many horrible things happen to him, oh how he's suffered.' I want them to say, 'Look at how he picked himself up and kept going."
Love to my dear father-in-law. I can't believe he's gone.
P.S. And here is something small and beautiful that my husband wrote sitting in the hospital room with his father's body, waiting for the mortuary, tears running down his cheeks as he wrote:
"I never really knew my father, but I felt love for him. He was always in my life, but his past was always a mystery. He helped to shape me into who I am. He picked me up when I fell. He taught me to see the world as it is. Without him I would have been lost. I am going to miss the father that I never really knew. I am going to miss my dad."
Uncle Allan
My Uncle Allan as a child, on the left in this photo. My grandma's pregnant with my mom here.
One of my favorite uncles, Allan Greist, died January 6th. There's an informal service at his home on Sunday, and I can't go because my husband's dad, who lives in Las Vegas, is going into hospice and we have to travel there to be with him. Ugh. Too much emotional stuff to come back to (we found all this out on a layover trying to get home from Europe). Plus I'm all hopped up on fertility hormones, which doesn't help.
I cried yesterday, for my uncle and for me, but mostly for my dear aunt and cousin, who have to go through the grief left in the wake of this death. I wish they didn't have to go through it. I wish no one had to go through it.
My cousin asked me to write something that she could read at the service. I thought I'd share what I wrote here:
"My Uncle Allan was my mom’s oldest brother, and I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in my life. We lived two hours apart: us in the Colorado mountains, he and his family in Colorado Springs, in my mind the big city. Our families got together frequently, took turns spending weekends at each other’s houses. And always, always, always: Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
"Uncle Allan: such an upbeat, calming, serene presence. I never saw him get angry or frustrated. He took an interest in me—in all us kids. He taught me how to spit watermelon seeds, so I’d have a chance at winning the contest he hosted each summer. He showed me the sunflowers five times bigger than me that he grew in his lush backyard. He taught me how to develop film in his basement dark room, let me loose in there when I was still young enough to do some serious damage. He said, “Of course! Read anything you want,” when I asked him about the wall of books in his living room, and I subsequently spent many happy afternoons curled up in the swivel chair beside them.
"He carved turkeys with finesse and flair all those holidays, all the while telling puns that were over my head as a child, but that made the adults groan. He made me laugh by just acting like he was going to tickle me; he never actually had to do it. And the railroad—he let my brothers run his model railroad trains, a whole portion of the basement with life-like buildings set up on a platform that you could duck under to get into the open middle. I liked being in the center of that world, a place where everything was in order, nothing ever went wrong.
"One of my clearest and best memories happened on a camping trip, a family reunion, a place called Cottonwood. I was six, plus or minus. We went for a hike, a half-dozen of us. We came to a river, a thick, felled evergreen the bridge across. The tree probably wasn’t as high above the water as I remember, and the river probably wasn’t as huge or as swift, but regardless: none of us kids were traversing on our own. My uncle scooped me up, swung me onto his shoulders, walked steadily across, not looking down, footing sure even though the tree was rounded and barky and a fall could have had dire consequences. He set me down safe, where the dirt path started again.
"We all need people to help us across the rivers in our lives, both real and metaphorical. My Uncle Allan helped me. I am so very lucky to have had such a kind, caring, gentle, wise, and loving presence in my life. My dear uncle: Godspeed and God bless.
Love,
Kristen"
"Health and Family First"
The last few days of work before vacation have been, predictably, crazy. I keep repeating to myself over and over my mantra for the year, which is: "Health and Family First." Not work.
So when I'm asked to do another and another and another thing before leaving, I say no and instead get some exercise and help my mom with something she needs and go out to dinner with my husband. I no longer say yes and sacrifice all else, which is how it used to be.
I need to keep this up as I go through IVF in January. It's OK to take days off to deal with the appointments etc.
Work is no longer king. "Health and Family First."
Grief: Does it Ever Get Better?
Luke on our last Baja surf trip, just before lighting the evening's fire. He died April 29, 2005 at age 27.
So I lived with my little brother in Santa Barbara, CA, in a little stucco house on the hill we called “The Cota House.” He was killed five years ago, a Friday evening in a motorcycle accident, coming home for a barbecue before we and a bunch of friends went to Ventura to see his band play. He was my best friend, and, when he died, the person I was spending all my time with. My day-to-day life was catastrophically disrupted.
The first few years were absolutely horrible. Lately, I can’t pinpoint exactly when, I’ve been feeling a little better. It’s taken so long to get to this point. I’m starting to feel like his death won’t destroy me. I’m trying hard to build a new life for myself. It’s complicated because it wasn’t just losing him--I also feel like when he died, my whole world got taken away from me. I loved Santa Barbara, loved the beach, loved to surf, and life had it’s challenges for sure but overall the set-up we had, it was pretty idyllic. None of that’s part of my life any longer and that in itself is so, so hard.
The way I generally cope with my brother’s death is to try not to think about it. Pretend it didn’t happen. But once in a while (well, often, if I’m honest) things happen that make it rise to the surface. Like yesterday evening an email inviting me to a bachelorette party for a friend who was there for me those first days and weeks and months. Her party’s the day after my brother’s death date. I’m going to go if I can because I love her and I really believe in celebrating every little thing you can in life, but I wonder how I’m going to be. And reading the paper this morning, I happened across an article that said Prince William's wedding will be held the day of my brother’s death. I’m really sensitive to dates, not just the day my brother died but the days right around that, I have such crystal-clear memories of everything that happened. Seeing those dates the pain comes back and it’s raw and awful, like no time has gone by at all.
I know time has healed me, at least to some extent. But sometimes I wonder if my brother’s death didn’t permanently break me in some very fundamental way.
In the end, I look at it this way. There are two choices: suicide, or to get up every morning and try to make the day a good one. Suicide is absolutely not an option for me, never was. So I get up each day and try.
Some days are harder than others. I’m feeling edgy today. But I have a lot of good and happy things planned for this lovely Sunday--finishing Christmas gifts for people I love, packing for my long-delayed honeymoon trip to Europe (we got married two years ago, leave Thursday), taking my dad to the airport, making my husband (a third-year engineering student) and the guys he’s studying for finals with chicken tacos for dinner so they can concentrate on thermodynamics or fluids or electronics or whatever they’re doing.
I pray for some happiness and peace today, as I do every day. We’ll see how the day pans out.
Is it OK to Be an Older Mom?
I’m going to be an older mom. Not really by choice; I tried to have kids back in the 90s, and have been trying hard again for years. But it is what it is at this point, and I really need to find some acceptance with it. I think I’m also having a hard time living in a small town, where everyone seems to have their babies in high school or just out. In a place like San Francisco or New York, I’m sure I wouldn’t feel like such an oddity.
There are definitely advantages to being older, I know: more stable emotionally and financially, and I’ve done pretty much everything I wanted to do as a young adult, so there will be no regrets along the lines of “if only we didn’t have kids, we could be doing A, B, C and D.”
Still, the age thing is something I struggle with. Is it fair to the kid? Am I going to have the energy? Am I going to be able to make the necessary adjustments, having had so many years to get set in my ways?
My parents last week both inadvertently said things related to this that made me feel better.
My mom mentioned that when (if) I have the baby that’ll come out of the January IVF cycle, she’ll be the age her mother was when she had Luke, my youngest brother. Now granted, my mom was her mom’s last child, and Luke was my mom’s last child, but still, when my mom’s helping me she’ll be the same age as when her mom was helping her.
And then I was hiking with my dad and he was talking about how the life span is 20 years longer now than it was in his grandparents age, and why is it that we’re still pushing kids through college right after high school and then to get married and work and start a family? Why are all those extra years being tacked onto retirement? Why aren’t we altering things so they can be enjoyed earlier in life?
Now, I am well aware of the biological reasons to have kids in your 20s or 30s, and the earlier the better. But circumstances worked out so that that wasn’t possible for me. Instead, I got a whole lot of extra years to be young and have fun before starting a family.
“Well, seeing as if all goes well I’ll have my first baby next fall, I’m doing my part to put some of those years up-front,” I told my dad, laughing. Maybe I need to step back and truly appreciate that. How lucky to have some of those years up front when you’re young.
It’s OK to not be a young mom. I’ve just got to get my head around it. The things my mom and dad said, they’re helping me do that.
Some Good Things That Happened Over the Thanksgiving Holiday
Ugh. Sick on a holiday's the worst. Grateful it wasn't anything serious.- Driving over to Colorado’s front range where my brother lives, stopped in Rifle for drive-through Starbucks. When we got to the window the pretty blonde said, “No charge. The people in the black truck in front of you asked how much your order was and paid your bill.” I’ve heard of stuff like that happening, but it’s never happened to me. Totally made my day.
- I had a urinary tract infection (UTI) in San Francisco early this month, had it treated when I got home but it was back with a vengeance Thanksgiving morning. My first personal experience with resistant bacteria. Wow that hurt and of course everywhere (doctor’s offices, urgent care centers) was closed. But my dad went to the store and got me cranberry juice and painkillers (I had never heard of Azo; it’s amazing) and my mom and husband figured out where to take me to get a prescription. Ended up with my husband in the ER at Swedish Hospital in Denver, they were so nice, tested me and said my white blood cell count was off the charts (“too many to count,”) got me all fixed up. So grateful for all the help.
- Once I was back at my brothers and feeling better, my mom helped me with the somewhat labor-intensive table decorations I’ve been so excited about and didn’t have the energy to do on my own. Turned out super rustic and cute.
- Playing Cranium with lots of relatives and friends. Haven’t played since I spent a week in the Florida Keys with my lovely friend Sam, where we played every night. So fun. So good to laugh.
- Thanksgiving’s usually a pretty traumatic holiday missing my brother who died (we spent many Thanksgivings together just the two of us out in California), but it wasn’t so bad this year. I think my tears early in the day over the pain of the UTI and frustration of trying to find a way to get treated also included some for my brother. After that, the rest of the day I was really OK. Grateful for that. Holidays can be so hard.
Fertility doctor appointments today. Home tomorrow. It’s been a good trip.
Photo Credit: Taber Andrew Bain