fertility clinic

so a couple months ago I finally go the call I'd been waiting for... one I'd been waiting for since before my marriage fell apart. the fertility clinic finally called with an appointment.

I want to go even for just myself so that I can get all the answers I possibly can about my own fertility so that I'm better informed for the future.

I'm just worried about them not taking me seriously because I'm a single person instead of part of a couple still waiting to finally conceive and get their THB  : (  I have a friend going with me for moral support.

It will help kind of determine what direction I want to go in life and my dating future. If having a baby myself is going to be next to impossible, I'm not going to date someone who absolutely wants kids. I'd date someone who is okay with either possibility. if I'm told that I should count my lucky stars that I even got pregnant twice, then I'd date someone who doesn't care to have kids or is okay without them or who already has some but doesn't want anymore. it just helps me weed out who I would and wouldn't date. if I'm told that there's definitely a chance that I can carry a healthy baby to term, then I'd date someone who does want kids, because I definitely still want kids if its a possibility, at least for the next few years its a possibility anyway.... I'm not getting any younger... ugh.

anyway, so my appointment is in a month and i'll update how that goes.

to BC or not to BC?

I've been struggling to find something to blog about given my current life situation. its hard. I don't know what to talk about anymore. I could vent away about a few interactions with XH, but that's not cool of me to do where just anyone could stumble across my blog and see it. and now thinking back, I maybe shouldn't have posted my last blog post  :-/ 

I guess there is a small handful of topics I could talk about. like how I'm trying to decide if I want to go back on BC yet or not. on one hand, it would take the guess work out of when I should be prepared for AF so I'm not surprised by her arrival. but on the other, I'm fairly good at figuring it out (thank you ovulation cramps that seem to be worse now than they were the 4 years of TTC...) and reading all my signs/symptoms, but I have no control over when she shows up. I liked being able to avoid having it while on holidays so I didn't have to pack AF related items with me. I've been off BC for almost 5 years. going back on it isn't exactly something I want to do at this point in my life. I should either be pregnant or still TTC. instead, I'm contemplating BC so that when I do meet a guy, or end up in a friends with benefits situation, there's less chance of an oops when I'm not in a great position to take on the roll of mom. as much as I would love nothing more than to finally be a mom... that's just not the way I want it to happen. I'm lucky in that I know my body very well after years of studying it for TTC purposes, but its kind of awkward to tell a guy "its okay, I'm tracking my fertile signs/symptoms to avoid pregnancy, I've got a few more days or I'm in the last half of my cycle, I'm not fertile". there's also the whole avoiding STI's as well...  : P 

to go along with the internal debate about BC, I'm still waiting for a call from the fertility clinic. yes, the referral went in in October, and yes, I'm still waiting... I never did make a call to cancel it because I was no longer TTC, but after talking to some friends, I'm thinking I should keep it and at least try to get anything to do with me tested so that I'm more informed about my future options. you know, whether i'll be looking for a guy who's open to the idea of having a family or a guy who's okay with not having kids with me. so because of this, I'm thinking about remaining off of BC until I get that testing done. yes, it sucks not having control over AF and if I don't want to have an oops right now, but knowing what's possible in the future is kind of important. it'll help avoid wasting time TTC if I know its just not in the cards, or will help speed up the process knowing if there's something that needs to be done to aid in TTC sooner, rather than later, and not need to wait a year to be put back on an apparently long ass waiting list.

anyway, that's all for now. i'll make another post soon, I promise!

amazing the clarity you receive with information

so just before I left for my time away in Ontario (and literally days after my post about splitting), I was given information that explained a hell of a lot of what happened in the preceding month.

he had started dating someone. the weekend he suddenly flipped a switch and I lost my friend, he was at a hockey tournament and had her there with him. it explained why he didn't want me there (I typically go to all fire dept functions as I have many friends on the dept since I've been around them for the last 7 years, so I wasn't only going to watch him, I was going to watch friends). he said it wouldn't be a long game but then I saw pictures from friends that were there and it hurt that they went and I was told to stay away. so finding out he was dating, explained why he didn't want me there. a lot of his friends were pissed at him because a lot of them didn't even know we had split and felt like he was cheating on me and that he should tell me about her and at least move out before actually dating someone. hence him wanting to move out almost immediately after that weekend (he moved out a week after). they also broke up that weekend (hence him being a jackass most of that weekend to pretty much everyone) so he could get his life post-split together. while they were apart, she was with the guy she had dated before him (they had split, but were still living together, obviously very similar, though he hadn't wavered with me like she did). so they were kind of together after he moved out, but she was still with the other guy.

well the weekend before I left, he actually spent a lot of time at the house finishing up the electrical work that needed to be done for final inspection. I didn't think much of it, just that it was nice to have the friend back that I had lost for about 3 weeks. at the end of the weekend, he finally told me that he had been dating someone (a girl I went to school with and was kind of friends with back then, I wasn't happy that it was someone I knew and was friendly with when seeing her around town the last 10 years) and that they had broken up for good. all of a sudden, it all made a lot of sense. things that I was confused about (like his abrupt change in attitude) were put in perspective. we were really good friends again and it was great. I could actually see us being good friends through all of this.

and then that changed again this past week. he had also taken some time away and in that time, they were talking a lot more (which I thought was weird if she were trying to make it work with the other guy. I wouldn't have been able to keep in touch with him like that, too many emotions and feelings involved and I'd always feel that pull and not be able to fully commit myself to making the other relationship work, but that's just me...) and the day before he came back, she decided she was for sure leaving her guy and once she did that, they were going to start dating again. I think it ridiculous and that if she's wavered that much with all her relationships since high school, he's likely to end up with the same problem. then again, he's also done similar things (though not nearly to that extent as his is every 5 or so years, not every few months or couple years) so maybe they deserve each other.

but I'm hurt. I felt like I lost him all over again. not that I had him back the way I wanted to have him back, but I had my friend back and that only seemed to work when he wasn't with someone.
I also hate him. I hate him for breaking the promises he made in our vows. I hate him for moving on while I'm here, still mending a broken heart before I put myself out there for someone else. I hate him for taking the life I loved away from me. I thought I was doing well after he moved out, but it was only temporary as I'm struggling with it once again.

this does get better, right? I want to either fast forward life to get to the better days or rewind to the time before there were problems...

Mother's Day

for at least 3 years I've hated this day. I still do. not because I hate mothers but because I feel like nobody cares about the bereaved mother who lost their child before they even got to hold them tight and kiss their forehead. the seemingly smaller losses because they were lost far too soon. before you could even really announce to the world that there was going to be a baby on the way. before anyone but you and your significant other could bond with this new life to feel a connection and subsequent loss when things went wrong. I'm not trying to minimize the women who lose a child after that magical first trimester mark, or lose them after being able to hold them in their arms, that's never my intention. I just feel like society looks at the ones who you can physically see the life that's growing, with either a burgeoning belly or a baby in arms, differently. like because they were never really seen, they don't exist. maybe it's because that's all I have experience with...

i'll never forget my 2 little angels. the lives that could have been. how differently my life would be if either of them made it to the other side of the womb.

DH sent me a really thoughtful text mother's day morning and also tagged me in a post on FB.

"happy mothers day.

I know we stopped saying it aloud a long time ago

but I love you and you will always be a mom"

 

he was the only person to take the time to wish me a happy mothers day, or to even acknowledge that I'm a mother, even if they aren't in my arms.

I hope that there's a point in my future where i'm not hurt by this day. I wish even more that i can one day actually enjoy it as a mother to living child. I don't know what the future holds for me, i just hope that it does include a great guy and some kids, even if they end up being stepchildren (since my dating pool will be 50% who already have kids and 50% who don't...).

the day my life turned upside down...

I'm afraid I don't have happy news. I wish I had been quiet on the blog because of craziness that resulted in a baby, but in fact, its quite the opposite.

just days after my last post, my DH came to me and dropped a bomb. he wanted to split. at first he told me he wanted to stop ttc, which I was already having ideas of doing the same because of our struggles ttc, and then told me it wasn't just that, he no longer wanted to be married.

its been a long few months of me hoping we could slowly work it out and get back on track like we've done before, but just a couple weeks ago he started pushing for separation and wanting to move out and live separate lives and move on from 'us'.

much too long a story to tell in just one blog post, but i'll try to condense it. I've gone over everything over the last 8 years in my head too many times, so forgive me if I leave details out. partly because I'm actually getting tired of talking about it and because it doesn't matter anymore because what's done is done.


it started that Friday after my last post with the ominous 'we need to talk about something' and then both being too busy through the day and not getting to talk til almost bedtime. he moved out of our bedroom that night.
what followed in the next 2 months was a lot of destructive behavior on his part. not physically destructive, just a lot of going out, hanging out with toxic friends that just exacerbate his behaviors, a lot of drinking, and overall depressing. in those 2 months, he went to Ontario to be with his family for xmas, got a DUI (yep, you read that right) and was not pleasant to be around. I tried to just be there if he needed me but not be asking when he'll be home, still continuing my house duties and doing our groceries and cooking.
after those 2 months, I felt like something shifted and it might be possible for a reconciliation. we were more friendly than we'd been since the day it all started. I was hoping that if given enough time, he would see the error of his ways and change his mind. I had my friend back. not my husband, but the jokey guy I enjoyed being around forever.
3 weeks into march, things shifted again. not in a good way. that's when he started pushing me to tell more ppl so that he could feel free to do what he wanted without ppl thinking badly of him because he's married (or something to that effect). I was hoping I'd still have that friend that I had since mid January, but after that day, he disappeared, seemingly for good. things were tense at home and felt incredibly awkward. in my head I wasn't expecting him to move until after his court date in july (for the DUI), but he wanted out as soon as possible. something about it being better for both of us if we're not in the same house sharing living quarters anymore... at the time that was the opposite of what I felt I needed so it was hard for me to come around to being okay with him moving out so soon when I had told myself it wouldn't be for a few more months. I need time to process big changes and I had already processed it one way in my head and now had to process it all over again in a new way. it was really hard for me and I spent the time between him voicing his want to move out so soon and actually moving out crying a lot.
it was only a week and a half, but I think the hardest week and a half out of the last 5 months. the very beginning was hard, but I kept telling myself it would get better and it was just a phase and he'll snap out of it eventually. maybe in 3 months, maybe in 12, but it would happen. but after he said it wasn't going to work and we needed to make it more permanent, that's when things got real hard.
surprisingly, after he moved out, I felt like a weight had been lifted. I can't explain it, but not having him in the house anymore felt oddly liberating. I didn't feel like I had stopped myself from doing anything through all of this, but I apparently needed him to move out as much as he felt he needed to move out.
its been almost 2 weeks since moving day, and I'm already feeling better about it all. obviously not happy that I'm going to be starting my life all over again, divorced with no kids. but that weight that got lifted was obviously something I didn't know I needed.


anyway, that's all you'll get for now. i'll follow up more frequently, but this blog is obviously going to change direction. I'm not sure how often i'll post, but I promise to keep in touch far more often  : )