Is the Universe Going to Strike Out at Me for Being Happy?
Another day, more good news from the clinic on how our IVF cycle's going. This is such a new experience for me. All last year, every visit, every phone call brought more and more and more bad news. It's a little overwhelming to have everything going so right.
I cried when I got the call from the clinic this morning--Day 3 embryo report, they definitely want to do a Day 5 (Monday) transfer, all is looking wonderful. I cried and got excited about the fact that this time I might actually get pregnant, and started feeling very, very, very happy. It's like I got this little glimpse of what life could be like without this film of sadness and grief constantly covering everything. A film that has been with me since one morning way back in May of 2003--I can even tell you the exact day, but that's another story for another time.
No sooner did I start to feel happy than I got scared. I mean, isn't being happy just taunting the powers that be? If I'm happy at this stage, is it guaranteeing that I won't end up pregnant or that I'll miscarry or something else awful will happen to one of the little babies currently growing in the petri dish down in Denver sometime in the future? Is it OK to be happy? Why do I feel like I need to be so guarded, like getting excited about something before it happens is going to guarantee failure?
Trying hard to hold onto the happiness I feel today, even if it does end up to be fleeting...
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.
Fertilization Report Today
It's been snowing big, fat, fluffy flakes all afternoon. If this whole baby thing works, not being able to snowboard this season will soooo be worth it!
Fertilization report was also very positive. Things have been going so smoothly with this IVF cycle, and for that I am very grateful. A lot of the worries on my list have not come to pass. Six out of eight of the things I was scared about a few days ago are over and done with and worked out in our favor. :)
Absolutley exhausted today, like can't-get-up-off-the-couch exhausted. I know my body's being put through a lot, and all the drugs, and the fact I haven't been sleeping well, and I'm sure all the stress and unknowns have contributed. We've cleared so many hurdles the past few days. Can't seem to sleep but am not really working and just trying to rest. Hope to have a little bit of energy back tomorrow!
Am I Slacking, or Should I Give Myself a Break?
So one of my New Year's Resolutions was to send out for publication some of the little stories I've been writing. I'm pretty good about making time to write, terrible about marketing my work. January's over and I'm already behind on my resolution...was trying to send out something once a month.
I'm trying to decide if this is OK. After all, we were on vacation at the beginning of the month, my father-in-law died in the middle, and I'm in the middle of an IVF cycle now and into February. Plus, I was away from home 19 out of 31 days last month (also blowing my "travel less" resolution). It's no wonder that I can't get anything in the mail.
But I do wonder if all that's just an excuse. That I need to find time to submit things no matter what else is going on. After all, hopefully before long I'll have a baby (or possibly two), and there's no convenient time to do this kind of stuff once that happens, right?
It's hard to know when to be tough on yourself and when to make allowances.
IVF and Anxiety
The woodpile outside my brother's back door. One of the pleasures of staying with him is a warm fire when it's snowing outside.
Lots of anxiety this IVF cycle, not sure why. Having trouble sleeping because of it. My nurse today, bless her, had me make a list of things I'm worried about:
- This broad general fear that I'm going to do something wrong by mistake, and ruin this cycle
- That my husband will not be able to travel to be here on retreival day (we won't be able to get him a last-minute ticket, the airport will be shut down by the weather, etc.)
- That the weather will get so bad I can't drive to the clinic
- That I won't get the call from the clinic that it's time to trigger because my phone's not working (which is ridiculous, because my phone always works)
- That the trigger shot will be bad and there won't be any eggs
- That if we get eggs they won't fertilize
- That if they fertilize they won't grow
- That if this cycle doesn't work, we're not quite at the end of the line as far as having a baby, but we're getting pretty darn close
Here's what my nurse said, and I've been feeling better ever since:
- Take each of the things you're worried about, and think about how realistic it is for the thing to happen, and also, if it does happen, what's the worst case scenario. For example: my husband not being able to travel: we have back-up "donations," so if that did happen it's not game over. And the trigger shot being bad--the chances of that happening are almost zero
- Focus on today only...don't let your thoughts spiral into the future
- Do everything you can regarding the things you do have control over (taking meds on time, getting my husband a plane ticket once I know which day he needs to be here), and try to let go of the things you don't have control over (the weather, my phone randomly stopping working on the day the clinic calls telling me it's time to trigger)
- Be good to yourself. My nurse told me to shopping and go out to lunch and so that's what I did: a candle that smells like angel food cake, notecards with dogs in winter gear on the fronts, a cookbook holder made of crossed silver spoons, and a cute hat with little ribbons on it on sale at Anthropologie, and Vietnamese food for lunch (one of my favorites)
It's afternoon now and I'm back at my brother's, trying to put in some semblance of a work day (I telecommute and work seems pretty slow this week, which is a blessing). Waiting again for a phone call from my clinic letting me know if tonight is trigger shot night or not. Feeling less anxious and also very sleepy...hopefully tonight I'll be able to get a good night's sleep.
Triggering tonight! :)
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.
Crazy IVF Dreams...And Good News at the Clinic
I've had a couple nights pretty bad insomnia...probably some of it having to do with the drugs I'm on, some of it my anxiety about traveling/how this cycle is going. Last night I lay awake for hours, and when I finally fell asleep had the weirdest dreams about my clinic.
First, they didn't do an ultrasound to check the follicles, they had me lean forward and could see them as little ovals on my lower back. They said I had a lot, and then said that they weren't going to retrieve any, and I couldn't quite figure out why. Then, I went to have my blood drawn, and they needed a different kind of blood draw, they said, and they used a needle the size of the barrel of a ballpoint pen and put a big puncture wound in my arm that needed a couple stitches after. And the whole visit took 24 hours and no one seemed concerned about that. And then I got in a pretty major car wreck on the way home, but didn't really seem to be hurt. Has anyone else had weird dreams like this?
Back in the real world, I had my first visit at my out-of-town clinic today (I've been being seen locally up until now) and everything is looking really, really good. They're thinking retreival next Tuesday or Wednesday, possibly Thursday. The fact that we won't know the retrieval day until 36 hours ahead of time is causing stress as we've got to get my husband out here and he's in college and has already missed a lot of school because of his dad dying and we're going to have to get him a plane ticket at the last minute and he has a test on Tuesday that could cause big problems if missed...ugh...stressful. Need to focus on today's good news and not our potential scheduling nightmares.
Hope everyone else is doing well on this lovely, sunny (in Colorado at least) Friday. Happy almost-weekend! :)
Is it Better to Keep the Negative to Yourself?
“In our marriage, it was our practice not to share anything that was upsetting, demoralizing, or tedious, unless it was unavoidable…for what is the purpose of sharing your misery with another person, except to make that person miserable too?”
--Joyce Carol Oates, in The New Yorker, December 13, 2010
I’ve been thinking about this statement since I read it about a month ago, and about the implications it has for my marriage.
I have historically tended to share everything--positive and negative--that goes on in my life. My husband, on the other hand, rarely brings up the negative. I’ve been playing around with keeping the negative to myself and you know what? It’s not as hard as I thought, and I think it might be very good for our marriage.
I’ve always thought, “What’s a husband for, if you can’t tell him your troubles? Then you have to tell them to someone else, and then you’re closer to that someone else, and that doesn’t make sense at all.”
But there’s a third option. Keep your troubles to yourself, at least some of the time. No one needs to hear all the time how sad I am about my husband’s dad dying, how scared I am that this IVF procedure won’t work, how thinking about my brother’s death can still practically stop me breathing, how I don’t really know what to do with my career, how sometimes I’m scared I’ll never figure out how to be really and truly happy again (I know it’s possible; I’ve been happy before).
My husband’s usually right about things. Maybe he’s right about this, too.
The Stirrup Queen's List of Blogs
Also known as "The Stirrup Queen's Completely Anal List of Blogs That Proves That She Really Missed Her Calling as a Personal Organizer." I wish I'd found this list when I first started with fertility treatments. It can direct you to blogs focused on all sorts of infertility-related topics (including pregnancy and parenting). Such a great resource.
An Artsy Weekend...I'm a Happy Girl
So if I still lived in Seattle or San Francisco, or were in Boston, a weekend like this would be easy to put together. But not that much happens in Grand Junction, so having all this stuff in one weekend was such a treat.
I love the arts and don't usually get enough. One of the hardest things about living in a small town. Grateful for weekends like this.
Positive Thinking and IVF
So here’s what happened last summer with IVF cycle #3:
A few weeks before everything kicked into high gear, I went to an acupuncture appointment. The acupuncturist said to me, “There’s no medical reason you can’t be pregnant. Your only problem is that you’re not happy. Think positive and be happy, and you’ll get pregnant, no problem.”
First off, this was terrible advice to give me with only a couple weeks to go before treatment. Also, my fertility clinic had told me there were five different medical things wrong with me. And I was trying my best to be happy…how was I going to turn things around in just a few weeks?
But I tried…oh, I tried. I tried thinking positive to the point of being delusional. I tried to be happy, although how you’re just supposed to magically be happy all of a sudden is something that’s always eluded me.
And then my cycle ended with a chemical pregnancy, which means that technically I got pregnant, but my body was unable to hold onto the baby.
And I blamed myself--clearly, I wasn’t happy enough and positive enough.
“What baby wants to stay inside a mom that’s not happy?” the acupuncturist had said to me. My not being able to buck up had killed that baby.
Those were dark weeks. The guilt was overwhelming. My deepest fears surfaced--that I shouldn’t be a mom, I wasn’t happy enough to be a mom, I’d be doing any child of mine a disservice by bringing him or her into the world.
I had let bad/scared/conflicting thoughts into my head. And because I wasn’t able to keep them out, everything was doomed. There was no use even trying again--every baby was going to die and each time it was going to be my fault.
And then a friend sent me a book called Bright Sided, by Barbara Ehrenreich. Once I read it, I felt so much better. The author’s talking about cancer here, but I think this applies absolutely to those dealing with infertility…just substitute “infertility” for “cancer” and “not getting/staying pregnant” for “cancer spreading” in the following passage:
“…without question there is a problem when positive thinking 'fails' and the cancer spreads or eludes treatment. Then the patient can only blame herself: she is not being positive enough; possibly it was her negative attitude that brought on the disease in the first place. At this point, the exhortation to think positively is ‘an additional burden to an already devastated patient,’ as oncology nurse Cynthia Rittenberg has written. Jimmie Holland, a psychiatrist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, writes that cancer patients experience a kind of victim blaming:
‘It began to be clear to me about ten years ago that society was placing another undue and inappropriate burden on patients that seemed to come out of the popular beliefs about the mind-body connection. I would find patients coming in with stories of being told by well-meaning friends, “I’ve read all about this—if you got cancer, you must have wanted it…” Even more distressing was the person who said, “I know I have to be positive all the time and that is the only way to cope with cancer--but it’s so hard to do. I know that if I get sad, or scared or upset, I am making my tumor grow faster and I will have shortened my life.”’”
I’m back at this fertility business again, in the middle of another cycle. And this time? I don’t care about being positive. I just want to stay calm, do what I can to not lose these weeks of my life to worry and stress and obsession over numbers and progress and statistical chances. I’m trying to have a good attitude, absolutely, trying not to go to that dark, scared place that is so, so close. But I think I can get through things this time without blaming myself, even if I’m once again not pregnant/without a baby at the end of all this.
The doctors are doing their job; they’re very good at their job. Aside from following their instructions exactly, it’s not up to me. I’m not going to cause this to succeed or fail.
Oh, and I’m not going back to that acupuncturist ever again.
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.
My Dream Life, Part 5 of 5: The Coffee Shop (or Alpaca Ranch)
(See also parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.)
My dream life with my best friend involves this:
We all move back to California and buy and run a coffee shop, something along the lines of Reds in Santa Barbara (which sadly no longer exists as a coffee shop. But my SB friends will know what I'm talking about.) She and I will decorate it super cute, and she knows how to make coffee. Charlie, an old roommate of ours, will make the muffins and her husband is an accountant and can do the books and my husband is handy and can fix things. We'll have a passel of kids and dogs that everyone'll take turns watching and we'll go to the beach in the afternoons and barbeque at nights and it'll just be dreamy.
A variation of this dream originated with my husband's good friend in Florida, who had it in his head that he wanted alpacas. My husband and I were scheming about how we could buy a big ranch in southern Colorado, the San Juans which are so lovely, and raise alpacas. The ranch would have lots of little houses scattered over it so our friends could all live there with us. My best friend loves animals, so I know she'd be in. Someone would get a pilot's licence so we could make trips to the city. Maybe it'd even have a hill out back we could put in a tow rope and have our own little snowboarding mountain.
And then we found out what alpacas cost. Don't know how realistic a herd of alpacas is, unless one of us wins the lottery.
Don't know if any of this will ever come true. But it's fun to dream. :)
Image credit: Rahim Packir Saibo
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
Halfway Pregnant
So I’ve stumbled onto a concept that’s working well for me as I go through my next fertility cycle:
My husband (a few days ago): “Can you help me lift this super-heavy water heater?”
Me: “I’m not supposed to lift heavy things. I’m halfway pregnant.”
It’s weird, being in the middle of a cycle. I’m obviously not pregnant. But the list of things I can’t do is long and essentially like I’m pregnant. No caffeine (oh, I miss tea in the mornings). No alcohol (ditto a glass of wine at night). No lifting heavy things. No baths. No hard hikes (must keep my heart rate below 140). No yoga (not allowed to sweat). No snowboarding (this one’s killing me, but at least the snow’s not epic this year). No trying to lose weight. Etc.
Essentially, I’ve got to act like I’m pregnant, even though I’m not. Again with the limbo.
Somehow, thinking of myself as halfway pregnant makes it all a little easier.
Image credit: Sleeping Sun
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."
Ugh…None of My Clothes Fit! (And the Limbo of Going Through Multiple Rounds of Fertility Treatments)
Advice from this January's issue of Vogue.
So I was reading Vogue on the plane last week (I own almost nothing designer, but dream about having a closet full of those clothes), and January Vogue says new clothes are coming, it’s time to clean out your closet and get ready for them. And I so want to do just that (I love buying clothes…it’s my weakness), but it’s impossible in the middle of fertility treatments. Does anyone else have this issue?
First, the IVF cycles I went through last year led to weight gain. It’s only five pounds (OK, seven), but enough that some of my clothes are tight in the hips, and if I planned on staying this size, I would get rid of them, buy something new. But I don’t plan on staying this size. But I can’t lose the weight at the moment, because I’m in the middle of another IVF cycle.
Second, IVF hormones/prescribed herbal supplements (of which I took a ton) have made my boobs huge. I went from a B cup to a DD cup last year, and I have no idea how long that’s going to stick around (so far the DD is here to stay). My husband loves it, and I guess I don’t mind (although I was never one of those women who lusted after bigger boobs), except that it makes it so a lot of my tops and dresses (not to mention all my pretty bras) no longer fit, which is annoying. But I can’t get rid of all that stuff, because I don’t know what my body’s going to do in the end. I don’t want to buy new stuff for the same reason (although I had to buy new bras, there was no way of getting around that).
Third, hopefully, hopefully this current IVF cycle will work and by next month I’ll be pregnant! Yay! Which means soon nothing’s going to fit (which would be unbelieveably wonderful…I’m one of those women who have always wanted to be pregnant, I do not dread the changes to my body in the slightest). But even if I’m not pregnant with this cycle, I’m probably still going to be in that limbo place where there are more procedures coming…
Bottom line: Very few things in my closet fit. And I don’t know what the future holds as far as pregnancy/further IVF treatments/getting to the end of the line where it becomes clear I’ll never be pregnant and then working out like crazy to get my body back to where it was before all of this madness started.
What to do? I guess I should box up everything that doesn’t currently fit, reevaluate those clothes when my body is back to normal (whatever normal turns out to be). I have enough that works to get by. Maybe buy a few things in my current size if it looks like I’ve got more fertility treatments ahead of me. Pray that soon I’ll be buying maternity clothes, and this limbo will be over.
It’s the limbo I’m hating right now--the clothes are just a place to focus my frustration and anger and fear, emotions I’m trying to suppress, but today are apparently bubbling to the top. Please, God, either get me pregnant, or let me know this isn’t going to happen so I can get my body and life back and get off this horrible fertility merry-go-round. I’m tired of being in limbo.
Road Trips. Love Them.
Utah's so beautiful, in a wild, desolate kind of way...
It sucks the reason we’re driving to Las Vegas (my husband’s father’s sick), but oh, do I ever love to go on long drives. I’ve done this particular drive a lot, too, as it’s how I used to get to and from visiting my parents when I lived in Southern California. Out of Colorado on I-70, then hours and hours in the wilds of Utah…there are two 100-mile stretches right off the bat of nothingness, no gas, no towns, no cell phone service. The rock formations and the desert are covered with snow right now and very beautiful. The roads were good and the sun was out. We turned up the stereo and sang along to songs from the 70s and 80s—Funkytown, Eye of the Tiger, I Will Survive. We stopped for sandwiches at the I-15 junction in a place with enormous deer and elk heads (hunting trophies) all over the walls. Poor animals, but the hunting trophy thing is so iconic and Western, it made me smile. And then coming into Vegas they were doing training exercises out of Nellis Air Force Base, we opened the sunroof, got to see fighter planes up close. Don’t know why, but I love watching those planes. My husband and I always have good, deep, big-picture conversations when we’re driving, too.
Good drive. Fun drive.