WHY CAN’T I QUIT YOU?

I don’t intend to quit blogging altogether, just on typepad. It may not seem like such a big deal since I already have this one as a “back up”, but it’s just that I have a sentimental attachment to that one…

Plus, I know that there will be a few (OK, “several” since I know Dino will point that out) that will not join me here.

Last night I was thinking about why an absolute transition to mommy blogger seems to be more difficult for those who went through infertility. Now granted, there are a couple (actually, I can only name one), who made that leap successfully, but why is that? It’s not like ALL infertile bloggers stop blogging once they bring home a baby, even though most eventually do.

I actually follow quite a few parenting blogs. I’ve tried to “assimilate” myself into that community by commenting, emailing, and while I initially have some success, it’s really hard to maintain a foot in that door. I use to be a HUGE commenter on Mama Drama. Loved the blog. Funny ladies, Jenny, Steph and Min all were readers and commenters on my typepad blog. And then I had my fourth miscarriage last June.

I never heard from them again (until recently I started following Jenny on her new blog, The Bloggess). No sympathetic comments then and no congratulations on my donor egg pregnancy months later. It was because I had stopped going to their blog to drop my blips of wit and sarcasm - give me a break - I was mourning. In other words, I would comment on the blog and they would follow the comment back; not because they had added me to their reader. Jenny, if you are reading this now, I do understand that the task would have been monumental since you were all really just employees of the blog corporation. But you should know, it hurt.

Also, as I’ve mentioned before, I cannot constantly be “on”. I don’t have a funny anecdote to everything that goes on in my life. I’m not a performer, and most mommy bloggers that I’ve read are performers geared towards entertaining. While Infertility blogs certainly can be entertaining, mostly they are meant to provide support and information. Keyword searches for my other blog are from women trying to find out more on betas, miscarriages, ovulation, FETs, donor eggs, etc. Getting an email from someone who has just started treatment and has questions gives me immense satisfaction and purpose because I do want to help other women get through this SUCKAGE that is infertility.

But back to my point about the differences. I get parenting on the whole. It’s hard. It’s fun. So I can relate to nearly 100% with what a lot of parenting blog authors are discussing. However, try to take one of those women and see what they understand about infertility and miscarriage, and….well, they don’t. They’ve never been there, and most of them never will. So the reciprocation becomes strained and eventually peters out.

I know that I’m coming to the end of my travels, in more ways than one. Who knows if it wouldn’t have ended sooner if I hadn’t become pregnant. Who knows if it will end in July (the good Lord willing I deliver a healthy baby). I don’t have an answer to that. I might just end up like so many other great blogs of the past, like a “…a fart in the wind…”

JUNE 21, 2008

That is the date that my current typepad subscription expires, and frankly I’m seriously considering not renewing.

It’s not so much that I don’t have much to say (watch me through twitter and I’m constantly throwing out my two cents), it’s just that fewer and fewer want to hear about it. New infertility blogs are popping up all the time and frankly, for those still cycling, they are more appealing than investing time into a blog written by someone with secondary infertility and an uncomplicated pregnancy.

I’ve looked at trying to blog under the cloak of a “mommyblogger” but I don’t have it in me to do so, as I refuse to discuss blowjobs, pierced nipples, surprise pregnancies (bwahahaHA!), politics, or feminism. My life as a parent is actually too normal for that. Not a bad thing, mind you. Just not anything that will make the transition easy.

It’s not just the “new blood” that I miss. Old friends through blogging drift away, whether they’ve decided to stop treatments or because they’ve already brought home baby #1 or even baby #2; or my pregnancy has left them with the fight or flight instinct, one we all know too well; or there’s the handful I’ve pissed off along the way.

It would be wonderful to have the confidence (and talent) to be like Mimi Smartypants and not worry about feedback via comments, but I do. If I didn’t - if none of you didn’t - care, you’d shut off the comments option. I’m not going to apologize for the fact that validation is important to me. It’s why I started blogging because I couldn’t find that support in my personal life from friends and family.

I don’t know what I will do. I’ve got a month to work it out. Considering that blogging has literally been a part of my daily life (whether through reading or writing) for three years, leaving it behind will be incredibly difficult. It saddens me that I even am at the point of contemplating it.

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Protected: BITING THE BUTT THAT MOONS YOU

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Protected: THE FAIR MERRY-GO-ROUND

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Protected: LAPPING IT UP, AGAIN

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THE RESULTS ARE IN

• 30 votes - cleaning Service
• 9 votes - knife set
• 5 votes - “head light”
• 5 votes - iron
• 1 vote - salad serving set
• 1 vote - earrings
• 1 vote - horse shoe game 
  • 52 total votes 

I think that’s what we call a “landslide” in the voting department. Shall I now give you what could be the bad news? The GC for the cleaning is just for $25.00. But that’s fine with me. Now I have to figure out when I want it done.

I thought about using it as part of my “spring cleaning”, which doesn’t seem to be any different than my usual lame attempts at monthly  weekly cleaning the house. How sad is it that when I come home from work, I sit down and watch a little TV (CSI Las Vegas, thank you). Not just that, but while I’m sitting there, becoming one with the loveseat, I can see out of the corner of my eye, the dusty film building up on our entryway floor.

It’s at the point I calculate the amount of dust that certainly must be all over the house. It’s just an unfortunate fact that hardwood flooring shows off that dust in all it’s glory. Lord, I hate cleaning.

Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad except we live on a hill, in the middle of a prairie with nary a yard in sight. Any sand and dirt that blows somehow accumulates safely in our house through the smallest and most insignificant openings.

My dream for a grassy backyard instead of what currently now appears to be a beachy retreat will probably remain on hold this summer. While I don’t have the same great aspirations for expanding on the landscaping we started last year, I have already purchased a new tree and another flat of ornamental grass. Who will plant any of this stuff?

I’ll just let you know this: if you stop by my house sometime this May or June and think you see a ginormous pot-bellied pig holding a shovel and wearing the most obnoxious yellow crocs you’ve seen in your life, that’d be me.

Inside the house, you may just find a bevvy of model-ishess women in frilly aprons and armed with ostrich feather dusters happily sucking up my cleaning gift-certificate within 15 minutes.

No rest for the wicked, as they say.

PICK MY PRIZE

  These are some of the things that were on the web-site as “rewards” for employees where I work. While there’s quite a variety of things, I pulled these as my favorites. I have to narrow it down to one.

Actually, YOU are going to help me narrow it down to one.

Whatever item gets the most votes will be the one I get, so follow the link and begin your voting pleasure! (btw, I have this poll set up so you can’t see what’s getting the most votes)

surveys - Take Our Poll

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OVERREACTION PREVENTION

XBoy “took a tumble” (his words) Wednesday at school down the church steps (outside). He said he tripped, fell on his head and then flipped over. He had a knot on his forehead and a scraped up knee. No blood. He said the grown-ups and his classmates came to his aid.

He’s fine.

However, do you think that this incident qualifies for a formal notification to the parents, via either a note, email, phone call, etc., or not?

I ask because we did not know about this until we noticed his knee during his bath that night. I did see he had a red mark on his forehead when I had picked him up at five but didn’t think much of it as he has a tendency to bump into things (I think I’ve mentioned before his large head which tends to screw with his center of balance).

I am wondering if I should have expected a note about it or if I’m just being an overprotective Mom. If you wouldn’t expect a note for this example, what kind of injury would you expect to receive notice for, whether it’s daycare or school?

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Hairy Scary

I got a haircut last weekend and I don’t know what the hell happened to me. When she said she was going to cut in some layers, I must of mm-mmm’ed, distracted by People magazine’s attempt at journalism.

How could I forget when my hair reaches a certain (short) length, it begins to show just the tiniest of wave? Of course I didn’t notice at the time because my hairdresser dried my hair using a $100 boar’s hairbrush the size of a soda can. It wasn’t until I washed it the first time and looked in the mirror with my damp hair.

Fuck.

So no more Katie Holmes hairdo. I now have what could be this commercial model’s hairstyle after I spend too damn long with a hot curling iron and some hairspray, something I didn’t have to do before. By the way, I’m talking about the model with two legs, not four.

Would you believe I have proof! I tried to take some flattering pictures of me, but three things thwarted my attempt:

1. I’m using a camera phone;
2. In the bathroom with bad lighting;
3. And I’m the least photogenic person in the world (and I feel weird smiling at myself).

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NON-FUNCTIONING LIFE FORM

And the familiar sense of panic settles back in…

I’ll be 17 weeks tomorrow. At what point should I “pop” (like I’m a goddamn turkey button or something)? I’m no bigger right now then I was at 10w. OK, I’m a little bigger but certainly not by much. My OB said at my last appt that my uterine growth appears to be on track, but I swear there’s no growth.

Heart-rate seems to be OK. I was finally able to get a count of about 143. I hear movement through the doppler, but don’t feel anything.

I can’t believe I’m bitching about this, but I am. I honestly thought that I would have something to show by now besides looking like I’m partaking in too many ho-hos and raspberry white-chocolate mochas (curse those stupid studies on caffeine for making me feel even more guilty!).

I thought it was because I’m now only wearing maternity pants, which can be too comfortable. Maybe I should try stuffing my butt into my regular pants to get a better handle on what’s going on?

You want to hear the crazy reason why I’m stressing about this? In a week or so we plan on telling XBoy. I was hoping that by then we could have visual proof.

This sucks: I bitch because I don’t want anyone to notice; and I bitch because there’s nothing to notice. Gawd, I’ve got issues on top of my issues, don’t I?

And apropos to nothing, my left hand smells like a cigarette; and I ordered the wrong type of blinds for the spare bedroom so now Mr. DD has to rig up some shims in order to hang them since they were custom cut.

I need a drink. Or some ice cream. Or both.

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PARENT - TEACHERS CONFERENCE

Tonight.

Wish us luck…

Ugh.

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DO YOU KNOW THIS WOMAN?

I was reading some opinions from parents on whether or not they found out the sex of their unborn baby when I stumbled upon this statement:

From Susan ~ We Had our first ultrasound a little too early, though the tech said “well it looks like a girl.” Because of complications later on, we found out for sure…yeah… it was a girl. We had already started calling her Kimberlee, so I would have felt as if I lost a child if it had been a boy.

Is it the bitter in me or is Susan totally shallow and clueless?

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Protected: BACK TO SCHOOL

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SNOW & PUKE

The snowy special affects? Wow. It just proves to me that you all are easily amused. Apparently so am I.

I’ve been meaning to explain to the newbies (new since Spring 2006, so just about everyone) that the email address you may see in my responses to your comments, ddknockedup@yahoo.com, was not taken on as a direct result of Murdock’s appearance. Instead, it was my original email from 2005 to match my blog, knockedupthenknockeddown.blogspot.com. Unfortunately, wordpress registers you based on an email and instead of creating ANOTHER email address (I currently have 5 yahoo and 1 gmail), I just went with this one. Judge me not.

Congratulations to me. I puked Saturday morning about an hour after breakfast. Strangely, Captain Crunch tastes the same coming up as it does going down. Take my word for it.

I also bought a bellaband. The jury is still out however I admit I like how it bridges the unsightly gap between my just-a-little-too-short sweater and the zippered region of my pants. It’s the first purchase as a direct relationship to this pregnancy that I did not have to pick up from a pharmacist.

Happy New Year, everyone. At least I hope it is.

Protected: WORK vs. HOME

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Protected: THANK KRIS KRINGLE, THAT’S OVER

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UNTIL NEXT TIME

I have accepted a doppler from Catherine, who is graciously loaning me hers. I will try my damnednest not to become spastic if I do not have any luck at first.

I’m glad I didn’t try to sneak in an ultrasound before Christmas. I figured if Murdock was dead that I wouldn’t want that hanging over my head over the next few days. I still expect to see blood when I go into the bathroom and really? I hate feeling relatively well.

Next time you see me, I’ll have a new haircut. I’m getting it cut and re-colored tonight. Now while I hold no stock in the perception that hair-coloring is bad when pregnant, I will feel inclined to shave my head if next Thursday, they calculate that Murdock ceased growing around 9w2d.

More than likely, I will not get a chance to post again until after Christmas. If so, I’ll let you know now that I wish you all peace and comforting love from those who mean the most to you.

Happy Christmas - Merry Holidays

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Protected: I STILL HAVE STORIES FOR HERE

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