Those little periods and dots…

I get a big kick out of reading blogs.  Sometimes, I will google search key terms like clomid, femara, ivf, etc… just to find more blogs to read.  But over time have started noticing a little trend in the blogosphere.  Clomid is now cl.omid or clo.mid or clom.id.  You get my drift.  Same for other words.  I can understand doing that to drug names because there are a plethora of internet sites just wanting to sell you some clomid from China… and not to be a part of the recent heparin recall where the verdict is still out if the deaths caused by it were intentional placing of a fake ingredient that caused up to 19 known deaths and countless allergic reactions to chinese heparin… but I digress!  Those spider crawlers are trying to find your blog.  WINK

I have found a site that is doing the period trick for way more words than that.  I actually read her blog and like it but just noticed that Chinese water torture is chi.nese wa.ter tort.ure.  And Kegals are Keg.als.  Why would you want to trick the spiders on those?  Anyway, just thought it was funny.  Not to mention the trend in my head as I’m reading …  my brain stumbles over Clo.mid like a 4th grader reading and pronouncing the word hesitantly for the first time.  It DOES get annoying.

You DO know you can go google Clo.mid and your post will come up, right?

Yo.u DO know you are dri.ving me ba.na.nas!

Completely embarrassed

Wouldn’t you be if you held a post-doctorate degree yet your blog actually is written elementary school level?  How could an elementary student understand ovulation, etc…?

Surely it’s a joke.  Let me know what yours is.  I found one guy’s blog that said his was genius and quite honestly I couldn’t find a single difficult word listed.

Edited to add:  Good, the original place I found this looney test had Genius listed.  I ran their website again, and this time it said Junior High.

Completely random… 

Hateful

A new comment on the post #201 “Online Oddities…” is waiting for your approval

http://gratefulalways.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/online-oddities/

Author : Merle (IP: 195.93.21.98 , cache-los-ad02.proxy.aol.com)
E-mail : blackbyrd@hotmail.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=195.93.21.98
Comment:

Geez, infertility is clearly making you bloody bitter – you get all pissy at being rejected and post some private groups addy. Are you stupid enough to not realize what ‘private’ means or did they forget to teach ethics in your pharmacy degree? Sometimes I think the BFP fairy gets it right……

OK, first of all I never exhibited what you called pissy behavior. I’m a curious person by nature and had found the forum link through a search engine. I was called a liar because of it? It kind of threw me off. It seems so easy to find bravery and lack of kindness protected behind a computer, eh? Am I stupid enough to not realize what private means? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I didn’t have free speech on the internet. But wait. That’s right, I do. Teach ethics in my pharmacy degree? What does publishing a blog on the internet (free speech) have to do with ethics in a doctorate of pharmacy? Oh wait, that’s right, it has nothing to do with it. I think we spent the majority of time studying pharmacokinetics, pharmacology, biochemistry, etc… and not the rules and regulations behind a private forum created for people to message board back and forth. I must have failed to sign up for that class, apparently! Or maybe they don’t teach you there in Amsterdam that free speech does reign? I don’t know which.

And for your last parting words, which I’m sure took awhile to conjure ’sometimes I think the BFP Fairy gets it right’? Is there something I’m missing about a BFP Fairy? What creature are you referring to? I DID get a BFP (Big Fat Positive for those of you not accustomed to this special language ) and will again. However, my BFP won’t come from a fairy. It’ll come from my husband and me… last time I checked. And, oh that’s right, we learned about reproduction in my doctorate program… so at least that came in handy to demystify your BFP Fairy. But whatever you have to believe in to feel good is ok by me.

As my blog is called, “Grateful Always,” I am just that. I have down days due to a miscarriage; however, they are very common. I wouldn’t wish one on you for anything Ms. Merle. Even though it’s obvious you have great disdain for me, I would not wish a miscarriage on my worst enemy. I’m just not like that. Regardless of my circumstances I’m able to stand in the midst of all the turmoil and have peace. And the peace gets brighter and brighter on the other side of tears. I’m the opposite of bitter. I’m what you call a hopeful with a few bad days here in there.

I just hope you find your peace. I really do because it’s obvious you are not at peace but resort to name calling and even insulting that I’m not pregnant for a reason? Wow. What a hateful lady.

Oh and for the record, my comments are moderated. Just so I can read them first and decide if I even want to publish them. This one was too disrespectful not to address.

Online Oddities…

Do you ever sit and wonder if in the future there will be no face-to-face time but all communication with a laptop in your lap laying on a couch? Your best friend forever will be someone thousands of miles away who logs into a forum where she can find out that you and your husband have reconciled and that your cervical mucous is ready and primed for ovulation? I find myself doing this too much. On the drive to work today I thought about all the online forums I have visited – either as a guest or actually registered to just read. The day before I searched different ways to find different sites, etc… I’m on a few already of course all with the same user name so that the other ladies that jump around know me. I really have nothing to hide. I have a few friends I’ve met online (not in person), and it’s nice to sometimes vent about the things that I could never do in real life. I can’t tell my coworker that I’m surprised that a starving Nicole Ritchie is pregnant and why not me without sounding like a total jealous-heart. I can’t openly cry like I can in the safety of my home with sobs and chokes all included. Online forums and groups have been nice for that… It’s nice to know that I’m not alone.

It’s funny though, I find that online forums kind of mimic high school cliques in a way. Different groups doing different things both public and private… and the private forums are even harder to get into. Seems like you have to know someone or say what they think is the truth, whatever that means. If it’s not the right answer, you are called a liar. I got a big laugh out of it this evening. One forum in particular came on strong when I registered, etc… then I was accused that my story of how I found them didn’t check out. I was literally sitting here laughing outloud feeling as though I was in a virtual interrogation room in an old smokey 70’s cop show. One particular member was praised for finding a connection between the two I mentioned to them (I only mentioned two… when asked what others I found, even though I bookmarked more….) as another blog that I’ve long already discovered myself. I’ve posted the link on a couple of sites myself… but laughed even louder when I went back to look  and thought… how is that the link between the two sites I mentioned? I didn’t check out the other forum I mentioned yet… Strange. The other members of the “other forum” all praised the detective as a genius. Not really since that site had nothing to do with me. I had to log into their site tonight to see the responses… and one even asked that I come back to “play?” Strangeness indeed. My college professor in sociology would have loved this little social experiment. I suppose I failed miserably, but had a laugh anyway.

It’s late, and I have to write

Here it is 2:06 AM and an infomercial is on titled, “Battling Depression and Anxiety,” and I’m laughing so hard.  Quote, “Put you on all these milligrams.”  Milligrams of what, lady?  Funny.  Anyway, it’s cracking me up because now the main lady is listing all the symptoms and signs of anxiety and depression.  Where is my mute button?  I can’t even think straight.  There.  Much better.

So here I am laying on the couch with the laptop on my lap with three little dogs cuddled up around me.  Alone.  In the house.  I’m off work tomorrow and Friday, so it is quite alright to have a late night doing nothing but thinking and wondering about things.

Work is better.  Of course going from hating and despising it to just hate it IS a step forward.  It’s not so bad really, but my boss just really gets to me.  He doesn’t follow through with tasks.  He has these phrases he has to say every morning in his morning “huddle” that are like nails on a chalkboard.  I’ve already googled the phrases and nothing comes up, and I certainly don’t want this blog to come up if he decides in his infinite wisdom to google his overused and worn out phrases!

So here I am.  Happy first anniversary of getting off the pill.  Happy 4 month anniversary of the miscarriage.  Happy five years with my hubby.  Hubby will be back in town on my cycle day 15.  Isn’t that sad?  I list the days no longer by day of the week but by cycle day of my menstrual cycle.  How desperate and insane is that?  I’m talking to the monitor every morning.  “Be High.  Be High.”  In other words, don’t be peak yet.  Hold off to peak until hubby gets home to at least have a hair of a chance to get pregnant.  I know it won’t happen, just like the last few months.  Just like the 6 months waiting the first time.  I’m so lost.

I don’t care about logging into these fertility sites anymore.  I have been logging in just to catch up and plug in these temps now that I’m trying to see if hubby’s return home from Philly will be in time.  Hold off egg.  Who knows.

I was sitting in the room where the pharmacists sit on a particular rotation verifying orders from the different floors of the hospital — critical care, neonatal, on and on… and it was just Lisa and me.  Lisa is a staunch Christian I believe.  She thinks that Joel Osteen is “name it; claim it,” which just means that he thinks God will give you anything you want and ask of Him.  I have heard Joel a couple of times on the radio and just found him to be exasperatingly positive.  Even his southern Texan drawl complimented the positiveness, and on a truly negative day, he was nice to hear.  Well Lisa doesn’t like him and had bought a series on tape or CD and was going to play it for her daughter on their drive to take her to college.  Lisa’s glad she listened to it first because she said she wouldn’t want her daughter hearing it.

I asked why?

She said that she just didn’t want her daughter to believe that you can name it and claim it, and it’s all you have to do.  I’m sensing a realist.  Good.  Sometimes it’s refreshing to hear one.  The non-realists in Christianity fully believe that their deeds and works toward God, for God, etc… will put God in a position to have to give you your desire… like a spoiled child that gets everything they want of their parents.

Lisa was telling me of all the calamity going on in her life right now with her father’s melanoma, her husband’s accident, and her daughter’s return home to attend a closer college due to too much partying away from home her first year of higher education.  I paused.  That was a lot of stuff to go through.

So being that I’m nowhere near super Christian, I asked her what she was doing to deal with all of it.  She listed some things… reading the Bible more, praying more, on and on…

I paused…

“How’s that working for you?”

I know… a Dr. Phil -esque type line, but I really meant it, because none of it is working for me.  In fact, I’m in a place with all of this where I am even wondering what the point is?  How much control does God have over the earth?  Apparently not much, but when I said that to Lisa, she disagreed.  Well, then that’s even worse to me… it means He has the control but CHOOSES not to intervene.  Um… hello?  I’m in pain here… an intervention would be nice.  But even now, I know that deeply there is a trust there that might be defined by an unbeliever as stupid hope… but it is much more.  Otherwise, I would go ahead and end it all.  I have to have faith and hope in the process, in that I’ll see the twins I miscarried again, and that somehow there is a purpose in the madness.

I don’t fit in online with any of the TTC forums I’ve been to.  Haley had one… it closed down.  Fertility Friend… it’s a joke really.  Here’s why…  Things I see in “Waiting to Test…”  the most painful thread to read while TTC for a long period of time.  OK, I know I know… it’s only been a year for me.  OK… not long enough?  One year has almost done me in.  I’m not so strong.

Waiting to Test…  **examples of posts scanned one morning by myself before work**

1.  Subject:  OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!  After TWO whole cycles, the digi doesn’t lie!!!!!!

2.  I am freaking out here!!!!!!!!! — I just HAD a baby and now think I may be pregnant again.  I’m scared that I’m not ready for this… no flames please.

3.  Do you see this line??????????????????  (proceed to tell her it’s an evap….  it turns into a BFP)

4.  My Beta is rising…!!!!!!!  It’s 100,000,000 now!  What does that mean?  Um hello – go to the pregnancy side…  you are already pregnant.  Quit asking the ones NOT.

5.  Who has been blessed with a Christmas BFP???  **brings back memories… I didn’t know I was YET and someone posted that and it crawled all over me…. as in conversely if you were NOT pregnant, you were not blessed**  (Told her so).

And the list goes on.  I’m dying to post something in there funny, but I haven’t.  I don’t belong there.  I don’t belong here.  I don’t belong feeling this way.  How may I go back to May 2006.  Return there.  Married 6 months… trying to hold off on TTC though our ages were 33 and 38.  Oh heck.  We have time.  BUT, I can’t go back.

I’m stuck here…  with levels of anxiety so high… hopes so low… outlook poor… regretting changes I made… on and on…  but somehow I have to believe deep down that there is a plan I’m unaware of….  surely this is not a journey with no meaning or end result — or even a better place after our time on earth.  If this is IT… please take me out of this misery now, because it’s not worth it.

Hiatus – I’m diggin’ it…

It’s nice to not obsess about TTC. I have done a good job not obsessing. I’ve been doing well on the diet and still trying to figure out the job thing. The big deal is that I’m going to start taking my wellbutrin xl again. I’m a pharmacist and totally for any help possible. In truth, I have a family history of severe depression. My grandmother was institutionalized for 7-9 years for severe depression back before SSRIs (prozac, paxil, etc…) were available. I wonder what she went through, what were her symptoms, and how she recovered. I could get a lot of good information from my family – the older ones… but they are all gone.

And here I sit thinking about it and I still haven’t called my grandmother. The only one I have left. I need to call her this week.

Anyway, I’ve been working on my website – the one that is NOT anonymous that I do not discuss TTC, and I upgraded WordPress on my actual family website with my hubby. I should buy some HTML books and learn it – or go back to school for web design. I would love it.

Haven’t heard back from the job yet. I’m thinking it’s a negative because there is no 401k. Not good.

Back to work tomorrow! Hubby out-of-town until Friday.

It’s going to be a long week.

I got my hair done…

… and my hairdresser and good friend confides in me that she is 6 weeks pregnant. Wow. That’s three friends in three weeks. I came home and immediately cried as soon as I got through the front door. In usual style, my husband had no words and no comfort for me. I think I’m hard to comfort. His way of comforting me was to take me to Home Depot to help me get some mulch and make all my beds around the house pretty. That counts as comfort for me! I feel better now.

Beth,
I happened across your blog while looking through the links on my own site. I’m truly sorry for your miscarriage. My wife and I experienced one several years ago, early in our marriage. Our kids are now 22 & 18, both serving the Lord. In our sadness, we soon came to understand that miscarriages are very common, and they happen quite frequently, which I’m sure you have come to realize as well.

I mainly wanted to encourage you today to stay on the path of faith. The Hebrews scripture you quoted is one of my favorites. Many times we fall into the temptation to allow our faith to be determined by our life experiences, when the bible teaches us that faith comes by reading and hearing of the Word. Our life experiences reveals our character. If we respond in faith, as you have, our character develops more and more into the likeness of Christ, which is God’s will for His children. As you have found, life brings us hard stuff. God allows it to further develop us into the image of His Son. One of the greatest witnesses of all, is when the world sees you suffer, and even though you may have questions of “why,” you respond with faith, hope, and trust.

God bless you!
Brian

I got that comment today. I just have to say that the comment made everything better. It was received at the perfect time… right when I was about to climb back into the pool of pity and wallow in my own sorrows of what I don’t have. I’m really trying to trust. I’m really trying to keep the faith. I really just want a baby so bad…

Many apologies

For the many changes in title of my blog. It’s a long story but I suppose I have a real-life online stalker. It’s nothing serious at all but someone who just wants to read my stuff that shouldn’t be here locally. It’s my own fault… who knew that Google was so freaking powerful? Google is the Big Brother of the web. And He found me. Long story short. This is the last time I pray. Now to go update my TTC links.

Well I had to go and do it…

That is… change the url address to my blog. It seems like the BIG BROTHER eye of Google had to find me because somehow my FIRST and LAST name were attached to this blog where out of curiosity I added a counter to the site and could see WHERE people are from who read my crap.

Lo and behold, it’s someone in the same city. An IP address that points to someone I DON’T want reading it, so had to move and delete my trail. I’m not that big of a force in blogland to even matter, so only need to update a few links in cyberland and then move over all of my links and have a real chance at anonymous type blogging again. WordPress is great about importing and exporting, so I didn’t really lose anything… except Google still has me up with “Trying to have a baby” right behind my name. All it takes is one person to google my odd last name with my first and there I am… I hope it doesn’t take long for Google to change it… I may have to email them but what good would that do?

Cycle 10 is now beginning. No clomid… only vitex this time. I’m bummed.