Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Here we go again on our own.....

Pardon me we saw Rock Star over the weekend and the ballads are still racing through my brain. 

My PAP is scheduled for Thursday. Too much too soon? Well none the less, my annual is due in June. Last year at this time I asked to go off of birth control and to start charting. It's a year later and I have yet to ovulate. I have had four periods all chemically induced. I attempted to be normal and it did not happen. So I want to talk to the doctor about getting his blessing for starting on the fertility road. 

Insurance with the new company is a little strange. I have never had this insurance and not too sure how it all works. Found out that my therapist is obviously not a fan of them. So I called the customer service line, which I’ve spoken to as much as I’ve spoken to any other insurance company during the totality of my enrollment. I digress…..

So the dingbat at customer service yesterday, and yes I did clarify yesterday to differentiate between the other dingbats I’ve spoken to in the past, told me the following:

1. My OB/GYN who I’ve been with since my son is not in the network and

2. I must pay all costs up front until my deductible is met and when its outside of the network then my deductible is $2500.

Tears immediately sprung into my eyes and I choked back tears and told her that this was shitty coverage and hung up. I never claimed to be an adult.


Thankfully it was the end of the day so I quickly shut down my computer and dashed out of the office to call Juanito and fall apart. While I cried, I drove through the watery blur of traffic and blubbered to my husband.

I don’t want to leave my doctor or that office. They have a lab and ultra sound in the office and I have spent so much time with Tamika the lab tech between the blood glucose during pregnancy and the diabetic screening that I feel like she is an old friend. The nurse practitioner is a fellow cyster so when she gives me tough love I know that it’s coming from a genuine, educated place and not a place of judgment. After having The Boy I went to a few appointments for either incision checks or just routine postpartum. One time the baby was crying so hard and I was naked from the waist down and my doctor wanted to talk to discuss how things were going (aka how are the baby blues) so he just took him out of his carrier and gave him a bottle right there so we could talk. What other doctor takes such care? Another time the nurse carried The Boy around and showed him off to the office so that I could get my appointment over with. These people are not just medical staff with a smile. They are people who understand, have been there and are on the other side encouraging you to walk the trail. I can also say that the other doctors in the practice have delivered friends’ babies. I love that community and camaraderie. I don’t want to have to leave and find a new doctor.  And hope to God that I’m comfortable with that new person. Fertility and PCOS are sensitive issues and I’ve had bad experiences. I don’t want some asshat telling me that I just need to lose weight and then I’ll be fine. I want this office.

As I was driving home last night breaking down all of this for Juanito he is saying all the right things to make me feel better. Not that they are true or plausible but they soothed my breaking heart. And it’s not just because I can’t go to this office that breaks my heart. It’s because I am so paranoid/afraid/anxious/fearful/jinxed that we won’t be able to do it again. That The Boy will be an only child. That I won’t be able to experience pregnancy again. That I won’t have one more baby. I’m afraid that this is a sign that it will forever be just us three.

After picking up The Boy and having dinner of chicken strips and temper tantrums. After pajamas, brushing teeth and watching Poppy Cat and Nina tell Star a sandy story and giving hugs and kisses to every stuffed animal on his bed, I got back on the insurance web site. I eventually found my doctor in their network. For whatever reason the dingbat at customer service couldn’t find him but he was there. I wanted to cry again, only tears of joy. Regardless of cost (yet again) we bravely will move forward with our family. 

I do recognize that I had, what for me is a major melt down over what is essentially a PAP smear appointment. I totally see how that is crazy and yes I worry about adding in dosages of hormones to heightened that.  Yes, I am concerned.  I feel that there is so much pressure this time around.  I'm afraid to tell people that we're gonna maybe try again.  See I can't even say it here.  I've had people tell me that since we've had one it's super easy to do it again.  They don't know shit about my situation, let alone fertility or PCOS.  When it was the first time I guess my feelings and emotions where hardened against the pain of failure.  I didn't know what I was missing so it was easy to brush it off.  This time I know and I want it even worse than before.  Before I could resign that we weren't meant to have a family.  This time I know we can, but can we again?   


Monday, June 25, 2012

Nature vs Nurture

So we're gearing up  for a big vacation.  A whole week to enjoy my family.  I'm sure you are just a surprised as my mother in law that I would dare take a vacation so soon into my new employment.  We'll lets just say I'm a risk taker and have completely disregarded my family and their welfare, shall we? 

So my parents started talking about this venture at the first of the year.  They are inhabiting my uncle's house on a lake for the entire summer with no set plans to return to The Valley other than to, oh let's say, in the Fall.  If you have ever lived or visited The Valley you would know that could mean they won't be back until after Thanksgiving. 

So under a wee bit of pressure, my family and my sisters' families will be joining my parents at this house.  We will be spending the week of 4th of July here:


Its very Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I have many expectations for this trip.  I never went to camp as a child.  Well, unless you count Bible school, which I don't.  So I am looking to this trip to fulfil my childhood camp fantasies.  Fantasies fueled by this movie.  I will make out with Juanito under the stars in a canoe, but not go all the way because I'm not that kind of girl, until the last night.  I will weave foliage together and make something with my nieces.  I will cook with my Mom and she will appreciate my skills and just spending time with me.  I will chase bullfrogs and lightning bugs with The Boy.  I will fish with my Dad. Cannonballs off the dock with my nephew. Drink wine (ok not so much camp of my childhood but still) with my sisters. And take lots and lots and lots of pictures. 

While I know that there will be a ton of emotional land mines throughout this trip, I vow here that I will not let those things trip me up.  I will not react but be an observer of the quirks that make my family tick.  While it might look all Walden, I'm afraid it will be more On Golden Pond or worse.  But I will take in my surroundings and attempt to channel Emerson during my time there or as Ralph was quoted saying ...."Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."






Friday, June 22, 2012

Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle

Can you believe that I made this?
This is The Boy eating a chili covered mango candy.  Its a pretty common candy in Mexico and easily found here in The Valley. We were recently at a 1st birthday party with a pinata filled with such candies.  All the adults there were quite concerned that if he ate the candy he would....I don't know what they thought would happen.  I was afraid that he would yell "Yuck" like he does when he sees me without underwear.  Have I not shared this story?  Maybe later.  Anyways, I didn't want to offend the hosts which my vocal, opinionated two year old.  But he grabbed the sucker and scampered up the slide and stealthily ripped the wrapper off and shoved it in his pie hole.  There was a collective gasp as his audience awaited his response.  I asked him if it was good.  He said "mmm-mmm, yum!"  And the crowd went wild! 

When he was little and new and squishy, I thought I could not love him any more that day than ten years from now.  When he was starting to toddle around and giggle and laugh, I thought, I guess I can love him more.  Two years later I can't imagine how much bigger my love for him will get.  As he develops and grows and becomes a little person my heart grows right along with him.  I'm pretty sure the teen years squash all that back to a normal size heart so that parents live longer. 
But for now let say this kid...this one...

Well, lets just say he's got swagger and style and he's got moves you haven't seen before.  (Note that these sun glasses he picked out.  At Cabella's.  Because where else do you purchase your LMFAO-esque clothes from but amidst camouflage and turkey calls?  I love him, even though he calls me Daddy.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Category 4

Temper tantrums. They have taken on a new meaning for me these days. Before I thought they were emotional outbursts stemming from some selfish well that bubbled up and oozed over everything, permeating it with snotty retorts, eye rolling and patent leather Mary Jane’s tapping out the anger.

But like I said that was before The Boy gained some independence. Before The Boy learned how to kick not out of frustration but with the intent to do harm. Before the biting could sever not just your hand but all of you out of the situation. And way before he understood the power of ear piercing, glass shattering screeching. 

Now temper tantrums are violent and loud and scary. The rage inside his little body is just beyond me. And like how I imagine the devil being expelled from a boy during an exorcism, his limbs flail about and saliva sprays from his mouth and snot runs from nose, both nostrils, making his face a hot pink slip and slide. Trying to hold on to him is a little like trying to stay on a mechanical bull. You know that is gonna buck and spin. You just don’t know when the asshole running the controller is gonna do it. You’re all prepared to buck and the little slimy sucker spins. And what takes all of this to a whole new level now is the ear piercing screaming. The one that starts loud by everyone’s standards but we know that its just a warning. Juanito says The Boy is like a tornado these days. Just the right atmospheric conditions can set him off and you know where or when he will touch down or how much damage he will do when it does eventually happen. I could parallel his screeching to perhaps a tornado whistle/warning system. But now imagine that said whistle is right in your ear.

And it’s biting you.

I know that these are the terrible 2s.  I know that this is his way of handling situations he feels out of control in.  I know that we the adults need to identify the time he is testing us and the times the limits test him back.  I know all the articles I've read on handling the Terrible Twos.  I know what my sisters say/did.  I know what friends say.did.  None of this logic is with me when a two year old is kicking in the crotch and/or stomach screaming blood curdling screams "No Daddy"

When I tell people stories of these microbursts, they ask, “What do you do?” All I can say is that I don’t hit him. Now before you call Child Protective Services (CPS) on me hear me out. I love my son. Words will never be enough to express my love for my son. In those moments, those, sweating, snotty, whirling violent thrusts of independence and parental control, the only thing I can focus on is that I love my child and do not react. If an adult came at me like The Boy does I would swing back to protect myself and then call the authorities because that guy is foaming at the mouth and it ain’t right. But when its your child, the extension of all that is good between you and your partner, who is now most obviously possessed by the devil, all you can remember to do is hang on and not go to that instinct.


I am only thankful that when the neighbors do call CPS to report the apparent child abuse it will be Daddy who gets in trouble.  It sounds like Mommy is never around.