The Year of...

Daniel wrote me in December that next year was the Year of the Gun.  I really like that he for once has a resolution.  We are going to shoot guns in February. He says that we should buy a gun, but that seems a little scary to me and a really big investment.  I'm game for a year, so we will see what this turns into.

I thought about what my resolution would be and I decided mine would be the Year of the Club. I have never been to a club and I love to dance. I think this is a terrible shame.  I feel I'm almost aged out of the club scene. I know that 30 year old's go to the club, especially in Atlanta, but it's like watching Madonna  hump her way across the stage (Live Aid circa 2006)...she is no longer 20 and it just looks awful and makes her look older. I have a few club names from a girl at work, and I figured to treat myself I would go to New York one weekend and go clubbing with Emily.

Serious goals are to actually design a sweater. I have ideas and tools to jump right in, but I'm a little scared and fighting my perfectionist complex. I even have to design floating around in my head. SO not hard, really.

Since goals are out and words and themes seem to be in for resolutions, my theme of the year is community. I feel like this is the area in my life to move forward with and I need to actually participate in my community. So I don't know if that means to create a knitting community that I meet in person with or just help people more, but that is the plan.

Ugh usually I go over the last year for what stunk and how it was okay by good things. Even though the year wasn't really bad for me, except the miscarriage, it really stunk for Daniel's family. Divorces, abuse, threatening church excommunications, and of course my miscarriage topped off the list it seems to be dragging up more drama than it's worth to go over.

Last But Not Least

After trying to lose this sac for over a month, I told the doctor I would like to do a D&C.  My mothers were upset that I could possibly get an infection because I’ve had it in me for so long; they were relieved I finally chose this option.  I even had the anesthesiologist at my surgery ask me how far along I was. I said, “Well I think 15/16 weeks but my sac is 7 weeks.” She gave me the most horrified look when I told her how long I had been trying to miscarry.  

I guess a D&C is a real surgery. I was put under for a 15 min procedure. The staff at outpatient surgery loved us because we were upbeat and easy going. I gather everyone is in such pain that they are grumpy. I was chatting up all the nurses. They were short staffed so my nurse escorted me to ultrasound. We saw a rapper for a snickers and we both said that sounded good to have. When I came back, the nurse had run to gift shop and had bought me one. That's when I knew that the staff liked us.   

The first nurse told me to take a pregnancy test. I almost looked at her and said "Seriously? You haven't read my chart and must  be joking.", But I decided that I wanted to see if my hormones would say if I was pregnant or not.  She told me I wasn't and I thought "way to go body get on the right page....sort of." This is important because they also took a  HCG test (pregnancy hormone) I was at 12. They took the same test three weeks prior and I was at 19.  25 or less is not pregnant.    So the doctor asked me if I had passed anything during the week since I saw her in

Yeah cause I knit everywhere

case I didn't need surgery. I told her no, so she ordered another sonogram just to make sure the sac was still in there. 

The sonogram said I had "Retained Products" Both Daniel and I looked at each other and said "What's that?" The nurse said "It means products of conception."  I said "Oh I just have been calling the sac." Daniel said "That makes her sound like some marketing tool."  We laughing so hard about it. The doctor showed up and said  she was going to vacuum the "products of conception." There could be some puncturing of the uterus and  could suck out some organs.  This is the reason I wanted to avoid this surgery since she had said this since the beginning.  At this point I figured the chance was pretty high since everything had gone wrong, but hey whatever.  Daniel asked "Which organs, like her intestines?" The doctor kept asking what was wrong with us and had to knock on wood because she said, "we were tempting fate." 

I was okay with having surgery, but the first time I was scared was walking into the operating room. I was intimidated with all the lights and machinery.  Daniel really wanted to see me after I woke up from the anesthetic because he is so loopy after he is drugged. I always make fun of him for it, so he thought it would be great to see me equally as funny.  Unfortunately he missed most of it, but I remember being super analytical. Daniel was right that it was the best nap I've ever had. I remember coming to with oxygen on and thinking "I'm okay...oh this is pure oxygen I had better breathe deep  cause this is good for me and my brain." Then I thought, "hey I have no pants on and the doctor said I would be bleeding. Oh crap I'm bleeding over this bed. I can't make a mess for these ladies." I asked the nurse if I was bleeding everywhere. She looked and said, "oh yeah you're leaking out of the pad!" I was relieved cause I finally felt the pad and then freaked out for making a mess.  The nurse took me to the bathroom while I said, "I'm sorry for making a mess!" They told me to change and handed me another pad and disposable underwear. That was the best underwear ever; it hugged in all the right places. It didn't matter if it leaked because you got to throw it away. The toilet didn't have a sanitary napkin disposable bin to put my pad in and all I could think of was my flight attendant training that "Bodily fluids are hazmat and must be disposed of properly."  I wrapped it up as best I could when the nurse tapped on the door asking, "Are you all right?" I said, "Yes, that's hazmat, pointing to my blob of stuff, and I couldn't properly dispose of it. I'm sorry." The nurse just smiled, probably laughing inside as I walked off.  

When I was walking out of the hospital, I was excitedly sent off by the receptionist. She really liked me for some reason. She came out from her desk to say goodbye and wish me a good weekend. Everyone was really nice considering why I was there. It was actually a "good" hospital experience, but we were both glad to get home. We flopped on the bed and Daniel let out a big breath and completely relaxed. That was the moment I realized how hard all of this waiting to "move forward" had taken its toll on him. 

It surprised me what was helpful during this process. Mostly, I was a wreak when someone was nice to me. I would burst up into tears. I figured I must be use to passengers being jerks and not really seeing me that I was surprised that anyone would be nice to me.   Some of the comforts were silly like my best friend writing a email cussing out how much this sucked (for some reason that was so satisfying), my father-in-law sending flowers so that I could dye yarn, a girlfriend offering to bring lunch, and the ridiculous card from my grandmother.  Possibly the best "condolence" was Daniel's best friend awkwardly standing around wishing to say something to make it better when not know what to say at all. It was nice because he didn't attempt to say anything to make himself feel better, but recognized how much it sucked.

You're STILL "pregnant"

I came back from Vietnam and had about a period flow of blood. I thought the doctor was a little dramatic about the bleeding out part of this miscarriage. I had another sonogram and realized that I hoped magically they would find the baby . This tech was much nicer and explained that scientists think that blighted ovum’s are when the DNA code comes out as a kill switch which is why there’s a sac, but no embryo. She kept apologizing for being so clinical, but it was nice to hear something. It was nice to hear it wasn’t anybody’s fault, that it was just a game of odds. Since I suck at gambling this seemed about right for me.

The biggest surprise was I still had the sac in me. Not only that, it had grown to 7 weeks while I was in Vietnam for two weeks! My ovary was still sending hormones to keep it alive. which is pretty cool to look at on a sonogram. The doctor gave me the same three options of natural miscarriage, medicine to induce miscarriage, or a D&C. I opted to take the medicine. I didn’t realize that it was the abortion pill until I looked up on the Internet to make sure I took it right.  It was a little disturbing that I kept reading abortion and how to abort the baby. I really did want this baby. I took two doses because I panicked. I had only passed what was a huge blood clot, and I was ready to move passed this.  I had a checkup and I couldn’t believe I still had it. At least my ovaries had shut down, so I was making slow progress. I joked that my body didn’t get the memo about there being no baby. The doctor said I had the best attitude. I still don't know what that means or how to react to that.  I just didn’t know what else to do.  There is some sort of expected reaction and I can't figure out what it was suppose to be. I did realize that I am a "glass half full" person because I had my disappointment but was ready to move on and try again. Maybe fail for real next time. 

The doctor gave me one more dose because we thought the sac would come out. I had a hard time getting the drugs because the insurance was freaking out that I had filled the prescriptions so close together. I had to call them up and I totally pulled the pity me card on me. I told the insurance lady "I've had a miscarriage and I can't get rid of the baby can you please get me the medicine!" She was really helpful after that. The last dose I took at work because I had a long layover and I was bored with sitting home waiting for this miscarriage to happen.  Nothing happened but some pain and no bleeding. 

The “best” part of taking the medicine was that I went over to a friend’s house to take one of the doses so I didn’t have to be alone while Daniel was at work. My friend’s son, 3 years old, climbed on me and kept shoving his knees into my stomach. I told him to stop because my stomach hurt he asked why and I told him that I was losing my baby. He looked at me and said, “You have a baby in your belly like my mom has a baby in her belly?” I thought my friend was hoping the earth would swallow her whole. She said, “I didn’t want you to find out this way!” I just started laughing because you can’t make horrible awkward moments like this up. I still think it’s funny, and the only part that even hurt was her baby is due the same time as mine was. 

Miscarriage-The hot new show on NBC

I’ve had a miscarriage and I feel weird about it. I feel like there is some expectation that I will fall apart and never want to talk about it. The Internet, various TV shows and books have told me this is how I’m to react.  So the Internet will hear about it, just like they have to hear about women’s birth stories and I want to talk about. I don’t regret telling my family or close friends. I will tell them again when and if I get pregnant again. This will be long so I split it into three parts.

I ended up having a blighted ovum which is an egg that has been fertilized with a sac and no baby/embryo. As I told one friend “I had a little burrito with no stuffing in it. A nice tortilla, but no chicken.” Being pregnant was great. It was a pretty good experience, but miscarriage was like a really awful TV program.

I went in for my 10 week check up with a midwife, she was awful and made me feel stupid when asking questions.  She went to check the heart beat and couldn’t find one, there was an old sonogram machine in the room, and she couldn’t find anything on it, and finally did a manual exam and said I was only 6 weeks along.  At this point I was like okay she doesn’t seem worried, and you can’t really hear a heartbeat at 6 weeks.  She did say that we should get a real sonogram and to make an appointment and acted like it was elective.   I came home I was doing the math and there was no way that I could lose a whole month. When I got the call from the ultrasound tech, he let it slip that this had to be done within the week. I pretty much knew that something was wrong and cried the rest of the day until Daniel got home. There was a chance I was just being a hormonal nut job worrying for no reason why freak out Daniel or anyone else.

The night before we went into the doctor, I started to bleed “a lot”. I just remember saying “shit” and Daniel running in asking what’s wrong. I told him and we decided to wait until the next day because there was no real rush.  We waited forever to get the ultrasound and found out that Daniel’s dad woke up and couldn’t remember the previous day (again terrible TV). Waiting was probably the worst thing for us.

Once we got into the Ultra sound Daniel first said “Wow that’s your uterus!” The tech kept saying, “Well I see a sac. I want the doctor look at it though.”   When she left the room to get the doctor, I turned to Daniel and said “I failed at failing! I couldn’t even get a baby to miscarry.” Daniel was in shock and kept asking if this was a real thing and we should wait for the doctor.  When the tech came back, she said the doctor would be here soon, and sit in this room across the way. Daniel went to the bathroom while we waited, I then over heard the ultrasound tech and office ladies talking about how there is no baby and the doctor is on rounds, but there really is no baby and where did I go. I finally said I was right here, where they put me (thinking, who the crap talks about patients in the hallway how unprofessional, I really didn’t want to find out this way). Only one of the ladies was embarrassed that I caught them, she was kind and told us where to eat lunch while we waited for the doctor to finish rounds.  Daniel came out of bathroom totally confused as why I was trying to rush out quickly.  I was going to lose it, and I hate to cry in front of strangers (I’m pretty sure it would be the ugly cry).  

We spent an hour, with me crying off and on about Daniel’s dad and losing the baby. The worst day ever (Daniel’s dad ended up being okay). We went back and waited for the doctor and Daniel saw the ultrasound tech coming down the hall and leaned into me and said “There goes the lady that murdered our baby. I can’t believe they let her walk around free.” I busted up laughing. The whole day was just so absurd.  We went back into the room, as the nurse who escorted us leaves, smiles and says “congratulations!” I looked at Daniel incredulously saying, “Seriously, I get congratulated now! I know she clearly doesn’t know what’s going on, but come on.” He smirked, “You were complaining that no one in the office had congratulated you, so here it is.”

The doctor came and was the first person who explain anything and everything. She said I had three options to continue to bleed and see if I would miscarry on my own. Take medication to miscarry or do a D&C. I knew that I didn’t want anything too invasive and I was leaving for Vietnam the next day, so I opted for natural miscarry.  The doctor kept telling me that there would be a lot of blood, and Daniel said I was leaving the country. She said if I started to bleed out that they would have to land the plane, but I could go.  I went to Vietnam in disbelief mostly because I was in denial. Probably a good and bad thing. Good for me to get away from it, bad for Daniel who just didn’t deal at all.  As a friend put it, miscarrying is the dying of your hopes and dreams.  I really had been hoping and dreaming hard with this baby and it wasn’t happening anymore.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream so completely die. I’ve been disappointed or changed a dream to make it work, but never had it just die.

I've joined the crazy club

It's official: I'm in the "John Hurt Way"

Technically, I'm maybe possibly, 3 1/2 weeks, so we will see once I find time to get it official from the health care professional (ugh now I sound like the info sites).

Throwback Adventure

This was the haircut of an adventuress. I was hating my hair because it was in between long and short.  I walked in a Belgium salon and in broken French asked for a haircut. She butchered my hair because she cut it with hair clippers, but it got me back to the states looking good.

2015 New Year New You

I've been avoiding my poor blog. I do feel I need to review 2014 as I had written a post about why I decided to actively abandon my resolutions and then never published it. May be it was shame for wimping out, or because I wrote it and forgot.  I thought I would review because all of my close friends were happy to see the end of 2014. I wondered if I felt the same and then realized I couldn't even tell what day was New Year.  I do have to say the 2014 wasn't stellar, but not bad either.

2014 Yeahs and Boos

Yeah

In March I got into Podcasts... while I'm behind the times. I have learned many great and interesting things.

My knitting skill has massively grown, and added an obsession with fiber/yarn

I got to indulge my fiber obsession by going to Ecuador... twice.

Daniel graduated from school and started working full time.

We bought a new car.

I was brave enough to work on a larger aircraft.

Had a great year in health and learn some new New Age ways to heal

Went to a family reunion, had a great time with no major blow ups (epic for Peshell's)

Boos

Daniel was hospitalized for a bleeding esophagus.

Daniel failed a semester

Had horrible things happen to those I love

I had two of my close friends move away from Atlanta

Lost my faith in my culture in a very brutal way.

 I was pushed out from ward and silenced

Meh it looks like 2014 is a winner because I have more positive then negative. I do have to say the negative has taken a bigger toll than it looks on paper.

Now that Daniel is out of school I will set up a "plan" for life. Mostly so I can come back to it and laugh at how it didn't work.

Within the next year I would like to travel to :

• Panama City to see the canal
• Spain
• Vietnam with my dad
• The beach... Destin?
• More South or Central America

Maybe think about having a kid??? Maybe a second one, if I get started.

Looking at buying a condo or home

Visit Africa and Australia/New Zealand

Would love to learn to spin and visit a sheep farm, maybe write a knitting pattern

This year's resolutions are going to be fabulously frivolous start digital scrapbooking and get caught up in my physical scrapbooks. Speak up more (okay that one is serious and will I probably flake out on). I am also thinking of learning "ballroom" dances with Daniel.

Throwback Nativity

We use to act out the nativity. Which this year, my brothers, the angels stole the show with their antics.

Throwback Comms

My obsession with phone booths. Every country I see one I run in and take a picture. I have bathroom obsession too, but I thought not to post.  Wow how communication has changed.

Throwback Parents

I realize I should show my parents at their best and not too old (my dad is 70 this year!).

Throwback Mom

Happy Birthday Mom!  You are now old. No, you have four more years until that date.

Throwback Football

Fiesta Bowl as a family. Woot Woot go Ute!

Throwback Sunday Dinner

In London, I was able to convince them to take a week and on Sunday cook what they usually had at home.  Some were better cooks then others, but hey we also didn't have the same ingredients as at home.

Throwback Daddy Daughter

Thought I should show some of my troll pictures. Not my best, but I have a great smile.

Throwback Birthday

Opa at my last birthday dinner at a friend's house.

Mouth of the Abyss...Amazon Here We Come.

Our third day we went to Banos, south of Quito at the mouth of the Amazon. It was a cool resort outdoor town. It did take us four hours to get there but so worth it.  We past the tallest volcano, Cotopaxi, on our way. We were going to go, but we didn't want to hike because we were so tired. Anyways we went to Banos because it is famous for it's own volcano that creates hot springs. I was determined to go because I've never been to one and everyone bails out on me when I get a group to go with me. These hot springs were special because the Virgin Mary had shown up and performed a miracle next to the pool house.
 We walked around the town, had a volcanic stone massage with a facial for $25 which was pretty good considering it wasn't really a native thing for them (massages);saw their local church and many water falls.  The thing I loved most was all the art work on the walls. Sure most people think that's trashy, but it was actual pictures instead of scribal marks.

Look Cotopaxi in the distance!

We went to this awesome  vegetarian restaurant where the owner invited you into his home and made the meal from his garden (which was quite extensive and he let us in to look at). The best thing was his cat jumped on Chante and she screamed, shoving the cat off of her as though it was a tiger. I was laughing so hard I choked. Ride home was long and relaxing and for watching almost three Transporter movies in Spanish, pretty good. Chante was shocked after third one started and asked if there really was a third one. I told her that I think there may even be a fourth.

The park where the Virgin came, next to the city laundry.

The next day we decided to stay in Quito since we had spent no time in it. We went to the National Basilica which was amazing example of architecture. I went nuts on pictures, so thank goodness for collages.  The best part of the is Basilica is that no one is there protecting you. You can climb all over this extremely tall building with no one to watch you. You could jump off because very few things are cornered off.  I never paid money to climb Notre Dame but looking from the bottom up you could see that it was roped off all over the place. There were amazing views and I was able to get a few artsy pictures. It was the most impressive thing to see in the city.

Because of the Spanish Conqustiors Quito is heavily Catholic. They could not be out done by Europe for gaudy churches. I liked their churches better because they weren't competing with other European countries for which decoration or feat in church was better. It was more "I love my church so I'm going to put every single precious thing I own into it whether it is necessary or matches the current style of the building." The pretension was missing, that was it. Even though it wasn't my style of gaudy; it worked.

Moor Architecture right of the Independence Square

Cathedral of Quito

The last day we were there we went up to the TeleferiQo which is a tram that takes you to the tallest mountain/volcano in the city. Again picture crazy, but the mountain was 13,000 feet. The Flight Attendant in me needed a picture of me on my phone since most of the cell towers were on this mountain. We could hike higher than that, but we didn't really want to because it was so cold, despite the sunshine.  We found ourselves walking a few feet and our ears would be popping. You kind of have to be fit to live in this city.  I will say that I didn't have pressurization problems at work for like a week after this trip.

Using my cell phone above 10,000 feet.

You could hike up to that top mountain.

The crazy part of this touristy place was a church. They didn't even really have a touristy place except a gift shop and food, but there was a place to worship. A nice place too. I don't know if people came up Sunday and worshiped cause they would literally be closer to God or why it was even there.

It was hard to get pictures because the clouds kept getting in the way of Cotopaxi, tallest Volcano in the country.

After the TeleferiQo, we bummed around old town and had a run in with the gypsies.  They were shoes clearing boys. The only English words they knew were "We need money for lunch!" they said this as they were eating ice cream. We (Chante) talked to them, they said they came from school, clearly not in any of the uniforms we watched kids from school walk around in (our apartment was near an academy), and it was to early for them to be out of school and they were dirty; we knew they were gypsies.  They kept trying to talk us into getting our shoe shined even though we had running shoes on.  Finally I caved because they entertained me and I would pay for that. They wanted to charge me $5 for a shoe shine and probably for each boy to do a shoe. We both scoffed at that, but I told them I would pay a $1 for the whole process (50 cents per boy). As they were doing their job some man came and started to yell at the older boy, the boy yelled back. The man came and stomped on the boys ice cream cone (he'd put it down on the ground while he worked). I was shocked and yelled "hey" the boy really started to yell bac. The man came and hit the boy. Chante and I then both yelled "Hey stop that! Don't hit him. Leave sir." The man said "You dont' know who they are. You don't know." I said " Yes I know who they are. I've got it under control. I understand what's going on. Just leave." He left, but our fun was ruined. I wouldn't let the boys finish their job. I pulled out my dollar coin and handed it to the older boy. He quickly took it. The younger boy asked for his dollar and then whined when I wouldn't give him one. I told him that wasn't the deal. He whined and whined until I look at the older boy and asked for the dollar back so I could split it (come to find out it was all we had and couldn't split it) the boy said no. He and I argued (and I was pissed at his selfishness) until he was made a mistake and dropped the coin while he was cleaning up and I snatched it back. The younger boy magically produced two 50 cent pieces once he found out I didn't have change. I gave them each one and sent them on their way. It was an adventure for sure.