Now that we live in the same state as our mother's we are heading out tomorrow for the obligitory long weekend visit. E has a four day weekend so we have some extra time to kill. We are only spending Sat. and Sun. with his brother, wife, nephew, and mother then we are coming home. We still have a lot of work to do in the house and maybe this weekend I will be able to get my new dining room table.
I love my mother-in-law for the wonderful man that she raised in E. His other two brothers are, for the most part, very nice too. Both are in long term, satisfying relationships. I just love E. He is a fantastic husband and father. His mom, C, and his dad, J, divorced when E was 1. J moved to Michigan and E and his brother only saw him a handful of times during their childhood. I can't even begin to calculate the amount of child support that they boys never saw. So, C raised the boys on her own. She had her mom and dad nearby to help and E feels very satisfied his childhood.
As much as I respect what she has done with the boys, visiting them is always a little uncomfortable. They live at the bottom of the Okefenokee Swamp in northern Florida. E's mom is a believer in nature and I lovingly refer to her as The Swamp Witch....cuz she kinda really is. She fits the bill by being a small statured woman, surrounded by cats (about 30), raspy voice (from 40 years of smoking), she reads Tarot, and she has been known to wish unfortunate events on people that occured. She insists that the house not infringe on the woods that they live in. For example, no trees get cut down, no flower beds planted, and the lawn rarely gets mowed. We won't discuss the roach problem before my brother-in-law and his wife moved in with her.
They had to move in with her you see, because one year she got sick. And none of her boys called to see if she was OK. She was determined to die there as a lesson to the boys I guess. So, the dutiful oldest son moved out there so that if she got sick again they would be able to help her. She cut down on smoking....now she only smokes outside when she isn't sucking off the oxygen tank. Eh, what are you gonna do?
So, we are off for the weekend. I can't wait to come home.
Happy 4th Everyone!!!!
Friday, June 30, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Sitting On the Nest
I am officially under the care of a civilian doctor. I didn’t know that doctor’s were friendly and listened to your concerns!! I love my doctor in case you can’t tell. He was very concerned about my back pain and my infertility both which have plagued me my entire adult life. Probably in some parallel universe they are related.
He seemed distressed that I was on day 60 of my cycle and that my abdomen was severely distended and tender. He did bloodwork to confirm the diagnosis of PCOS, which the diagnosing doctor did NOT do. He cannot, however, prescribe Clomid so he sent a referral out through our insurance. I told him my back pain is not primary for me right now so we are waiting to begin a pain management regimen.
I expected a good 3 weeks to hear anything about a referral so imagine my surprise to get a call saying that I had been referred to a civilian! RE. The only daunting part of becoming a patient of theirs it that I had to go through the past 10 years of my medical records and pull out everything pertinent to my infertility. But I did it, I filled out their forms, got the 2 reports that I needed from E’s med. file and sent it off to their office in Pensacola. I’m currently waiting for the nurse to look through the papers to schedule an appt.
I am optimistic about TTC again. At the same time, I feel….guilty about leaving adoption on the back burner. E and I discussed in depth our feelings on our drive down here. I am still pulled to adoption.
I made the mistake of looking at the national database of available children. So many of them had severe medical problems. I wish that I had the strength to explore that but I don’t want to make myself vulnerable to falling in love with a child only to have to turn them away because I can’t provide what they need emotionally.
I also feel that now, I am not in the same genre that most of my other bloggy friends are. I was so grateful to have connected with the families who were in the same situation that I was. Now, they are moving on and I kind of took a detour. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge them in any way. I am ecstatic that these loving mothers are getting the opportunity to share their love with children. I just feel like, in some way, I chickened out.
He seemed distressed that I was on day 60 of my cycle and that my abdomen was severely distended and tender. He did bloodwork to confirm the diagnosis of PCOS, which the diagnosing doctor did NOT do. He cannot, however, prescribe Clomid so he sent a referral out through our insurance. I told him my back pain is not primary for me right now so we are waiting to begin a pain management regimen.
I expected a good 3 weeks to hear anything about a referral so imagine my surprise to get a call saying that I had been referred to a civilian! RE. The only daunting part of becoming a patient of theirs it that I had to go through the past 10 years of my medical records and pull out everything pertinent to my infertility. But I did it, I filled out their forms, got the 2 reports that I needed from E’s med. file and sent it off to their office in Pensacola. I’m currently waiting for the nurse to look through the papers to schedule an appt.
I am optimistic about TTC again. At the same time, I feel….guilty about leaving adoption on the back burner. E and I discussed in depth our feelings on our drive down here. I am still pulled to adoption.
I made the mistake of looking at the national database of available children. So many of them had severe medical problems. I wish that I had the strength to explore that but I don’t want to make myself vulnerable to falling in love with a child only to have to turn them away because I can’t provide what they need emotionally.
I also feel that now, I am not in the same genre that most of my other bloggy friends are. I was so grateful to have connected with the families who were in the same situation that I was. Now, they are moving on and I kind of took a detour. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge them in any way. I am ecstatic that these loving mothers are getting the opportunity to share their love with children. I just feel like, in some way, I chickened out.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Happy Birthday
Dear Lana,
Today is your first birthday! You will never know how badly we wanted to spend it with you. In fact, you will never how deeply you touched our lives and still do every day. There are so many things that I wanted to teach you and my deepest wish is that your family will be able to teach you those things instead.
Even though you can’t be with us, you are still a daily part of my life. I think about you every day and love you deeply. Some day, I hope that you will get to love a child as much as I love you and that somewhere in your soul you will discover all of the love that I have sent you over your whole life.
While I think of you everyday, I wonder when the pain of losing you will start to feel better. I see little girls your age all the time and it always makes me wonder what you are doing, what you are eating, and whether you are laughing..
I am not the only one who misses you. Dani asks all the time about you. She says she is sad that you didn’t come home with us. We told her that you stayed with your family in Russia and we are happy that you have a home. She wanted a baby sister badly and it’s hard for her to understand what happened. Over time, she will probably forget and stop asking. I look forward to and dread that time. I like talking about you even if I don’t have any memories with you.
I do have one memory, the first time that I saw your face. I gasped because you were so perfect. You had a look in your eyes that to me was searching and unsure of the person who was looking at you. Maybe you had just woken up and didn’t want your picture taken. Either way, I fell in love with you in that instant, much in the same way that I fell in love with Dani the moment she was born.
I could go on and on about how much I love you; it will never cease. To me, that’s how I know that I am your mother although a very different one that you hold in that role now.
I hope that when you get older, you look at the stars and feel love. That you smell a flower and feel loved. That you ride a merry- go- round and feel loved. That you laugh and feel loved. Even if you cry that you feel loved.
Because you are.
Happy Birthday.
Love,
Mama
Today is your first birthday! You will never know how badly we wanted to spend it with you. In fact, you will never how deeply you touched our lives and still do every day. There are so many things that I wanted to teach you and my deepest wish is that your family will be able to teach you those things instead.
Even though you can’t be with us, you are still a daily part of my life. I think about you every day and love you deeply. Some day, I hope that you will get to love a child as much as I love you and that somewhere in your soul you will discover all of the love that I have sent you over your whole life.
While I think of you everyday, I wonder when the pain of losing you will start to feel better. I see little girls your age all the time and it always makes me wonder what you are doing, what you are eating, and whether you are laughing..
I am not the only one who misses you. Dani asks all the time about you. She says she is sad that you didn’t come home with us. We told her that you stayed with your family in Russia and we are happy that you have a home. She wanted a baby sister badly and it’s hard for her to understand what happened. Over time, she will probably forget and stop asking. I look forward to and dread that time. I like talking about you even if I don’t have any memories with you.
I do have one memory, the first time that I saw your face. I gasped because you were so perfect. You had a look in your eyes that to me was searching and unsure of the person who was looking at you. Maybe you had just woken up and didn’t want your picture taken. Either way, I fell in love with you in that instant, much in the same way that I fell in love with Dani the moment she was born.
I could go on and on about how much I love you; it will never cease. To me, that’s how I know that I am your mother although a very different one that you hold in that role now.
I hope that when you get older, you look at the stars and feel love. That you smell a flower and feel loved. That you ride a merry- go- round and feel loved. That you laugh and feel loved. Even if you cry that you feel loved.
Because you are.
Happy Birthday.
Love,
Mama
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Travel days 2 & 3
Ok, we are in our house, we have internet. Half of our boxes are unpacked and I have lost steam. So, I will continue the Canada Saga.
Our second day (4/27) was pretty uneventful the first half of the day. Sometime after lunch we started seeing really big piles of poop along the road and I thought it was very odd that there were horses around because there we NO people. Then we happened upon a buffalo sign. A buffalo sign? Yes. Not long after, we rounded a bend in the road and saw this.
Pretty cool huh? Later on getting to dinner time E is driving and he says, “Bear!!” And there is a bear running along the woods. It was so awesome. It must have come out of hibernation a few days ago. We barely recovered from the shock of the bear and we see a small herd of elk. It was a good day. That was the night that we stopped at the Liard River Hot Springs. There was a really cute lodge that we got some good grub at. It was so nice inside and they said they had a pet room that we could have the dog in. So we decided to stay.
Thank goodness we did because the next ‘town’ was 3 hours away and the next morning as we drove through it, it wasn’t even open. See, in the Yukon and British Columbia, from September to May, most roadside amenities are not open because there is no business during the winter. So if you are planning a trip on the AlCan, plan your stops in larger cities so that you can at least fill up your gas tank.On day 3 (4/28), we started the morning driving through and around Sheep Mountain. Aptly named because of the huge herds of Dall Sheep that live on the slopes. It’s amazing when you look at the mountain and wonder why there are those odd clumps of snow on the hill. Then you realize that they are SHEEP!! The little things amaze me.
After we came off sheep mountain we spotted this little poser.
Oh, and they really are more afraid of you, than you are of them. (that's a caribou running alongside our van)
By the end of the day we made it to the city of Dawson, a.k.a. the end of the Alaska Highway. I kind of wish that I did buy a bumper sticker commemorating the event but, there’s no turning back now.
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