I am a bad blogger. Also, I can't believe November is already half over.
What have I been up to lately? I have been baking muffins, for one thing. I made orange cranberry muffins and banana coconut muffins with blueberries. They were made without butter and a person would never know.
Keith got Netflix which downloads movies and shows instantly through his PS3. This is how we came to be watching "Better Off Ted," seasons one and two, for about the past week straight. When we ran out of episodes, it was like losing a friend.
We finally sold the Jeep and put almost every single dollar towards the Star Card debt. We are now so very close to being free of Tier Two debt. It's Christmas season, so perhaps forward movement on that front will stall for the next little while, but we will enter the new year with no more than about four hundred dollars owed.
Also, I had the worst day a couple days ago. It was one of those bad junctures of circumstances that does sometimes land on a person all at once. One of my sister's in law have recently given birth and we were invited up for a barbecue and to meet the baby. So I got myself in hand and up we went.
Only, it was unfortunate because my cycle had been up to its usual tricks and been about ten days late, leading me to believe that maybe, just maybe....but of course not. I started to get my period the night before the get together. How's that for awesome.
What makes it worse is that any time I start to think I might actually be pregnant, I begin to disconnect from the idea of immediately adopting and then when I realize that I'm not pregnant, I have to disconnect from that idea and reacquaint myself with adoption. It's an inevitable emotional swing ride.
So I was literally in the middle of this emotional adjustment as we drove up. When we got there, things seemed to be going well. I couldn't hold the baby because I had a sore throat and wasn't feeling well, which actually made it easier. Not that I would have minded holding her, it's just such a mixed bag.
Then, in the kitchen, my sister in law let it drop that my other sister in law is pregnant.
(Crickets chirping.)
I didn't even know she had been trying, but apparently she had been, for about six months. Even my mother in law had known, but hadn't told me because she was hoping that I was pregnant-news flash-my mother in law knows my cycle and keeps track of it.... So she had also been wondering if I was pregnant.
Well, bloggy friends, there was just no recovering from that piece of news. I said in a stunned way, "Everyone is getting pregnant but me," at which point my sister in law half heartedly assured me it would "happen in time," blah blah blah.
I'm sure she was regretting telling me, but what did she think would happen? I still don't understand it. Did she not remember that Keith and I had been trying for a year and a half now, had tried Clomid and had failed? How did she think telling me that would make me feel?
I was talking to my mother on the way back home and Mom said that most people probably have no idea how painful this is and that really stuck with me. It's true. Most people just don't have any idea, how could they? They can't imagine what this feels like.
The worst part was that I made a complete fool of myself. I couldn't hide my emotions. If only someone had told me in private, I would have been able to pull myself together decently and then presented the proper emotional response, which would have been happiness for her.
And I am happy for her, I truly am. I would not have had to pretend. All I needed was some time to sort through my own pain and grief. As it was, I felt like I ruined the occasion and made it all about myself and ended up babbling on, in a thoroughly depressing way, about adoption. And it was depressing because I hadn't yet reconnected emotionally, as I was still letting go of my own, private hopes of pregnancy.
As my husband would say, it was a clusterf-.
It took an entire day to recover from. I felt like someone had kicked me all over black and blue on the inside. I sobbed on the phone to my mother and then, even off the phone couldn't stop crying. I took the girls for a walk with tears still streaming down my face.
Keith did his best to comfort me, he made omelets for dinner and didn't let me be alone for a moment. We ended up going to bed ridiculously early, and then stayed up talking. He admitted that it was hard for him too; he hadn't even been able to hold the new baby. He had simply passed by, glanced down, admitted her cute and then kept on walking.
I saw him do this and wondered. I also saw the look on his step mother's face. She thought he was a little rude, I'm sure. But there's only so much a person can take. They cannot help being happy and we cannot help being miserable and it is no one's fault. These are the pitfalls of being human.
