Surgery Part 3

Had surgery on my right arm today, about a month after the left one, which was a month after my c-section. Really hoping I can stay out of ORs for a good long while now. Obviously, it's kind of annoying to type with one hand, so I'll take a break until I can type comfortably, which should be Monday.

Hopefully August's posts will be a little less depressing. Hubbs and I have our 5th anniversary next week, Ducky turns 1.5 next week, Hubbs and I have both applied for new jobs, I officially start my second job as a Notary Public, and I just might finally win employee of the month for once.

Thank you for sticking with me in July. I look forward to attempting to post every weekday in August, and I hope you'll come along for the ride.

Scars

Sometimes I'm glad I had to have an emergency C-section with Lumpy. I can look at my scar and remember that he was here, that he was real, and the last few months haven't been just a horrible dream.

I have pictures and little mementos here and there, but a scar is a permanent mark that shows the world that you were once in pain. Sure I have to lift up my little fat roll to see it so I'm the only person who ever will on a regular basis, but it is etched in my skin forever, just as my son will forever be in my heart.

Guilt

I did indeed stop by Lumpy's grave on Saturday. It made me sad but not in an overwhelmingly opressive way. I stood there thinking about him and how much time had been taken from us. Even though I know he's in a better place and not actually there,  not really, it felt weird leaving him. I kept thinking I should stay one more minute and them one minute more and so on. 

I feel a bit guilty now when Ducky does something adorable and new.  It's a bittersweet moment. I'm so glad that she's growing and learning and testing new sounds and abilities.  At the same time, I get a little pang of sadness knowing that it very well may be the last time I see a baby become a toddler and grow in to her own as a miniature,  very opinionated, person.

I sometimes dream that I'm nursing a baby.  When I wake up, I'm so sad that it wasn't real.  Ducky never got the hang of nursing and she was losing so much weight we had to give her high calorie formula every 2 hours for several months.  I had hoped that I'd be able to nurse Lumpy. My boobs definitely wanted to as well, it took almost 2 months to completely dry up.

I feel like I'm trapped in a weird place of mourning for the past, longing for the future, and just trying to make it through the present.

Graveside

I have only gone to my son's grave once since the funeral. After the headstone was put in, we went the next day to go check it out. Even though I pick up Hubbs at the cemetery, I haven't stopped. Sometimes I'll drive by the section where he's buried, but I keep driving. Tomorrow I have to head up that way, I'm taking my test to be a licensed notary public. I think I'm going to stop by and see his grave. It's still just such an odd thing to comprehend. Since Hubbs works at the cemetery, he swings by and makes sure Lumpy's headstone looks good and that it's always cleaned off. That was part of the decision to bury him there, so that Hubbs could look after him in a way.

Perhaps I just dislike the concept of graves in general. Even as Lumpy was dying and we were just talking to him, I told him we weren't going to be slaves to his grave. I just feel sorry for all of the people I see constantly visiting when I go to pick Hubbs up. Every holiday, every week, you see the same graves with new flowers or decorations. Believing what I do about the afterlife, I just can't see the point in it. My son is waiting for me in the great beyond and he wouldn't want me to dwell and linger on his body, when there is so much more to him than that.

The Great Battle of Yesterday

The new Lord of Letters stands triumphant over its fallen enemy, leaving the poor mangled corpse of a once great public servant on the ground defeated, after what I can only assume was a great and terrible battle. 

Really they just installed a new mailbox and left the old one there so we could read our mailbox number off of it that corresponds to the number on the new one. I like my version of events better.

In Bed

It's an interesting thing that when I'm out in the world I put on a brave face and for the most part am able to forget my sadness. I distract myself at work and keep myself busy. When I'm home, I play and cuddle with Ducky and forget about the world. 

When I lay in bed though and try to fall asleep, all of my walls crumble and the sadness finds its way back to me. I fully feel the loss of my adorable little baby boy.  Tears start to well in my eyes. I try to stop them but there's something about the comfort and safety of being in bed. I curl up with my four pillows and know that here I can let my emotions flow.  No one will know, it is a fluffy and comfy fortress of freedom where I don't have to be brave. 

Sometimes being brave is so very tiring. Part of me wants to stay here forever, but the majority of me knows that he wouldn't want me to wallow. The world keeps on turning and so too must I.

Office Supply Request

On Friday I made a request for an office supply that I never thought in a million years would be approved. Since I got re-promoted, I've definitely noticed an increased stress level, which apparently I hold in a knot just above my shoulder blade, to the left of my neck. For shits and giggles, I wrote an e-mail to our office manager for a neck massager. In the e-mail, I mentioned the stress knot and said, that it couldn't hurt to ask. She ran my request up the chain and the owners of the company approved it. I was floored. Now I'm not sure if I'm getting my own personal one, or if we're just getting one for office use, but I am excited. Goodbye stress knot.I'm not going to start asking for random things all willy-nilly, but every once in a while, go for it. You'll never get a yes if you never ask!

The Apocalypse

I realized today that your first real post-partum period is quite similar to a disaster movie's scenes involving mass looting, riots, and lawlessness surrounding a confirmed apocalypse.

Your uterus is like "fuck it, we're all gonna die, let's destroy everything, it's the end of the world aaaaahhhhhh"

Not to get all TMI up in here, but holy hell, I have double protection right now and fear every small movement and potential sneeze checking everything every 2 hours to make sure I'm not ruining my outfit.

Which did happen once, it was awful. Ahh, the joys of being a woman.

Fish as a Dish, Fish as a Fear

I am absolutely 100% terrified of fish. Anything much larger than your standard goldfish freaks me out. Even when they're dead, wrapped in plastic, and in the frozen food section, if it still has a head on it, I secretly believe it can come to life and kill me. I know it's stupid. Logically, I know it probably, most likely, really could never happen... but a tiny part of my brain is still convinced it can.

I bring this up because yesterday Hubbs caught a fish, his very first fish, and he was incredibly proud. His friend taught him how to gut and clean it (and for my sake, remove the head). His friend even kindly threw the head in the dumpster down the block instead of leaving it in our garbage can, where in the night, it could obviously make its way upstairs and into the bedroom to attack and try to eat me.

We baked it in the oven stuffed with slices of lime, butter, and just a dash of salt and pepper. Let me tell you, that brown trout was absolutely scrumptious. Next time, he's going to go catch some rainbow trout. I certainly welcome many more fresh caught headless fish into our home for delicious dinners.

I know the fish fear stems from my traumatic snorkeling expedition as a child, eventually it morphed into a fear of a majority of things that live in the ocean. Some part of me is even convinced that there's a secret trapdoor shark tank in every pool and one day someone will press the release button while I'm swimming. To this day I get freaked out and refuse to swim in a pool alone, no matter how shallow it is. It really seems quite pathetic now that I say that out loud. I'm weird I guess, and that's ok.

Work Stress and Wishes.

Two weeks ago I was recently re-promoted back up to my old job title. At first I dreaded being back to those job duties, but over the last few weeks I've grown to like it sometimes. 

I typically don't ever really feel stressed, I feel a sense of urgency relating to some tasks or duties, but I am not one to easily feel overwhelmed or freak out. 

I have noticed though that since I've been back, I have this terribly painful knot in the muscle just above my shoulder-blade and to the side of my neck. I'm sure sure if it's from wearing a sling for the last two weeks or having to awkwardly hold my healing arm at an unfamiliar angle. I suppose it could also be getting used to my new desk (next to a window! A WINDOW!). Technically I have my own little mini-office at the front of the building. It's quite nice. Hopefully it's not stress, but maybe it is. 

In other, probably TMI news, lady time has returned. I thought it had come back a month or so ago and I was definitely right. It's only been two months since I delivered, my OB recommended waiting at least that long before trying again, but said waiting six months would be ideal. Call us crazy, but considering the fact that since it usually takes us a long time of actually trying to even get pregnant, we're thinking of starting now. We're not trying to replace the baby we lost, because we love him and know we'll get to spend time with him in the afterlife, but lately I've had this strong feeling that we're supposed to have another child. If the OB doesn't see anything wrong with it, and we're willing to try, we're gonna go for it. I'm not going to bother temping and charting because both times we've gotten pregnant so far, it just happened naturally without much thought to it. I'll still keep track of my wildly irregularly timed cycles just to get a rough estimate of whether or not a pregnancy test is warranted, but nothing too in depth. Wish us luck!

 

Eating Primal

When we first moved in to our new house, Hubbs and I decided to act on our plan to live well and eat healthily. We did months of research and eventually decided that eating Primal would be a good idea. Primal is basically "Paleo with Dairy". I love dairy, and if I was going to give up my delicious carbs cold turkey, dairy was going to stay. No processed foods. No added sugar. Grass-fed and pastured meats. No corn. No wheat. No soy. Rice and potatoes are a "sometimes food". Eat good fats (avocado, bacon, butter, etc). Basically eat whole food whenever possible.  

We found a local farm and bought ourselves one half of a grass-fed cow and a new freezer to go with it, we switched from 1% to whole milk, only good oils like Olive and Avocado, we use a whole lot of butter (grass fed when we can find it), and eat bacon and eggs for breakfast. We're working in finding pastured eggs, but they're hard to find around here. It's also hard scanning through the cheese and yogurt shelves trying to find the high fat stuff, EVERYTHING is low fat and it is supremely annoying. (Hello Noosa yogurt and hello Kerrygold butter and cheese)

Hubbs is obsessed with  Mark's Daily Apple and I bought him the cookbook for Father's Day this year. Eating Primal took a bit of a backseat while I was pregnant with Lumpy, but now we're getting back in to the swing of things.

Giving up delicious things was difficult in the beginning, we started making substitutions here and there. When you start, you're hungry all the time and feel like you're starving. Eventually, your body gets used to the idea that it's supposed to burn fat for energy and goes to work. After a while, you don't even miss the foods you gave up.

Since we started last August, Hubbs has lost 30 lbs, and I have lost 27. Granted, we haven't started exercising at all yet, and I was pregnant for 9 months of that. Overall we're pretty pleased. Hubbs is getting close to his goal weight, and I still have a bit to go. When I was pregnant, I pretty much ditched the diet and was eating garbage, so I'm hoping the numbers will continue to go down now. It's not all about weight though, we just felt better. We had more energy and felt less weighed down. We stopped hitting the snooze button and it was great to see our month-to-month progress. I'm really excited to get back to it and finally start being active again (Hello Roller Derby, oh how I've missed you).

How about all of you, have you ever made any life-changes to try to eat more healthfully or start an exercise regimen? What worked for you? What did you hate? What did you love?

Slurpee Time

While I have given up sugar for the most part (Hubbs and I have gone back to eating Primal. It's Paleo, but with dairy)... this was the only thing that helped me make it through the incredibly slow and boring work day. I essentially had to look busy for the last 4 hours because there was literally nothing to do. Trust me, I checked. Luckily, the things that inhibited me from having work to do today will be done by the time I get in tomorrow morning, so I will be plenty busy then.

 

Just say yes to the Dr. Pepper Slurpee

Yesterday

I was pretty sure that yesterday was going to be a hard day. Ducky kept me distracted for the majority of the day as she fussed over her fever and demanded extra cuddles with Mommy. Hubbs went to the family BBQ without us, and then we switched halfway through. I was distracted by the food and listening in on other people's conversations for a while. There were moments during the fireworks though, when it was quiet and no one was talking. I focused on the bright, explosive colors and the smell of smoke. I couldn't help but think how different this 4th of July should have been. Instead of being outside getting mauled by mosquitoes, I should have been inside making sure my baby was fed, happy, and not freaked out by the loud noises. If everything had gone according to plan, and we remained healthy during my pregnancy, he'd be just 2 weeks old now. In reality, he was born and died almost 2 months ago.

Only one person mentioned him. I don't know if it's because people think it would be too painful to bring up or if it's just an uncomfortable thing for them to talk about. I think back to the Infertility walk a few weeks ago, when one of my co-workers asked about Lumpy and genuinely wanted to know about him, it was so nice. If felt so good to share and talk about what an adorable little fighter he was. I miss him, but getting to share his memory kept him present in a way. I wish I could talk about him more, but I fear people don't want to hear it. 

Family Time

It was nice to spend some time together as a family on a weekday. Ducky spiked a fever last night, which had gone down, but came back in full force later in the day. Poor little girl was miserable. The on-call nurse just said to keep an eye on her and make sure she's hydrated and to call back if it gets to 105. That seems excessively high to me. If it doesn't go away in a few days we're supposed to make an appointment for her.

I had a little movie date with myself, something I like to do on occasion. I saw Tomorrowland, which is basically a prequel to Wall-e if you think about it. It was entertaining, but seeing it once is definitely enough.

I feel like tomorrow is going to be a weird day. One, being surrounded by extended family is always very taxing for me. I don't know if it's my anxiety or that I dislike being around strangers. I consider people I've only met once pretty much strangers. If I had my way I'd just sit in the corner and observe every family function I attend, but people insist on talking to me. Plus it's hard to wrangle my increasingly independent toddler. Two, tomorrow was Lumpy's due date. It's weird thinking that he was born almost two months ago. It will also be the first large family function since he died. I dread people asking about him and at the same time, I dread them pretending he didn't exist.

The 4th of July and fireworks are a fond memory for me. I spent the summers of my formative years at a sleep-away camp. Every Independence Day they'd sit us all on the beach on the lake and put on an impressive fireworks show from the other side of the lake. We'd shout Oooooh, Ahhhhh, Ohhhhh as a group, timed with the colorful bursts in the sky.

Hubbs mentioned today that fireworks are always awesome as you're a kid, but when you're an adult, if you've seen one fireworks show, you've seen them all. He said that as a parent, they hold a new special meaning as he gets to watch Ducky experience them for the first time and appreciate the sense of wonder and awe that she'll have. It's kind of cliche, but I definitely think it's true that when you're a parent, you see the world in an entirely different light. You witness how wonderful it is for your child when they experience everything for the first time or when they learn something new.

Accidentally High

I have a prescription for pain killers from my elbow surgery last week. I've been taking just one every 4-6 hours as needed, even though the bottle says I can take two.
This morning at work, I accidentally took two while slamming 4 Ibuprofen (because I need to take 800mg every 8 hours for the swelling and inflammation). Anyway. After about 30 mins, I realized that I was feeling a little loopy and after 15 more minutes, realized I was definitely high.
It was interesting sitting in my little front office actually doing work all the while feeling a little floaty and dreamy. I definitely won't be doing that again, but it made for an interesting start of the end of the work week. Luckily it wore off after about 3 hours.

Hubbs and I both have the next three days off, and I'm excited to get to spend some good quality time together as a family. If it's not too hot, we might even go to the park, and if it's super hot, maybe we'll go to the park with the splash pad. We're going to see a lot of family on the 4th because there happens to be a family reunion for the older generations this weekend, so some of them will stop by.

Ducky has a fever, which I hope clears up shortly. I would hate for her to miss out on all of the festivities because she has a mysterious ailment. On the brighter side though, it looks like we've successfully weaned her off of her allergy medicine and her chronic hives seem to have gone away. She'd had them since November, so it feels pretty good to see her looking less like a pink leopard and more like an adorable toddler.

Hello July

It's a new month, and that means I make myself a promise that I'll try to blog every day. I do try, but sometimes just fail.

Over the last few years, big things have happened in July. This July, was the month of Lumpy's due date. Last July we bought our first house. The July before that we announced our pregnancy with Ducky. Hopefully next July will bring good things as well.

After forcing myself to go back to work last week and really just tough it out, I feel much better about everything. I got re-promoted to my old job title and dove in to the work. I keep myself busy and that does mean I think about Lumpy much less during the day. When I get home and play with Ducky, in the few minutes before I fall asleep, and other random times I still think of him and the things that might have been, but I don't get as sad.

We ordered a necklace from the funeral home. A lady came and took a little big toeprint from Lumpy and made it into a pendant for me, it has a little tag with his name etched on it and a small emerald which was his birthstone. I haven't taken it off since it came in the mail. I hear it jingle a little when I walk or move around a lot and I think of him fondly. My imperfect but perfect little boy.

I had elbow surgery a few days ago and am recovering nicely from that. I have a mummy arm and it still hurts a bit but I think it's healing well under there. I only have to wear the dressing for another week.

I'm looking forward to having a four day weekend. Hubbs has off and it will be nice to spend some time together all as a family. We keep trying to do our nightly walks but it has been brutally hot and Ducky has been fighting naps at daycare, so she now goes to bed at 7pm. Hopefully in the fall we can pick it up again.