SHE

My sweet friend J, who I will sadly refer to as "Early Bird" from now on, gave me SHE after I posted about the quote in the locket my sister gave me. It's chock full of similar quotes in handwritten cursive on peppy colors like dirty lime, salmon pink, and orange. J mentioned buying the book to frame individual pages for her daughter's wall. Genius! I am bonkers for this book. It is a whimsical way to empower someone who might otherwise be fighting the battle of their life. I think every girl, little and up, needs to have this book read to her. I read it to RE and she loved it. Greg was in the background and he loved it too. Greg likes girl books! Maybe they remind him of meat...

These pages plucked at my heartstrings:

SHE decided to enjoy more and endure less.

SHE pursued big dreams instead of small realities.

SHE turned her can'ts into cans, and her dreams into plans.

SHE decided to start living the life she'd imagined.

SHE loved life and it loved her back.

SHE designed a life she loved. (I'm a designer! I'm a designer!)

The one I put in the picture up top was my favorite. I read that sentence and saw the fast motion replay of my past two years. It helped me realize that I did it. I made it through with my dream intact and my life enlarged! The world chewed me up, spit me out and left me for dead but somehow I ended up prettier with a bonus pair of wings.

Other things about J: square pincushions, salted chocolate, label maker, Sharpie marker pen, math whiz who actually knows what kind of fractals Idina Menzel is singing about, orzo salad, turquoise and lime, Diet Coke, book inhaler, the back-up Becky Higgins, owls, pears, and Mickey Mouse on her old vantennae.

*Illustration by Jenica Wilkie & Steve Potter, quote written by Kobi Yamada

Foreshadow

 

Morphing a guest/craft room into a nursery has forced me to sift through lots of stuff. I have used up stuff, thrown away stuff, put existing stuff in a better place...that kind of stuff. My mom gave me a box of my baby stuff a few years ago: cards she received when I was born, my growth chart, birthday party invitations, snippets of my copper-brown hair, etc. This comic was in the box. My poor parents cut it out of the newspaper shortly after I ruined their lives. I, of course, was the baby that refused to sleep at night.

I was born a night owl. I grew up a night owl. I was a night owl in college. I am now a seasoned night owl. I am chained to my awful circadian rhythm and cannot alter my body clock. I. Love. Nighttime.

Recently I read an article that promised increased personal revelation and clarity if I would go to bed early and arise early. I gave it a valiant effort but am here to report that it can't be done. Especially these days when the baby-is-coming-anxiety hits me just after 9 pm.

Last night between 10 and midnight I wrote a letter to my niece in the MTC, digitized RE's portraits/class photos since birth, glued a wooden Pinocchio head to the top of a vintage spool and staged it under a glass cloche (the head fell off of a Florentine pencil my aunt bought me a decade ago...and my mother raised me better than to throw away wooden Pinocchio heads from Italy), ironed Greg's Sunday shirts, shredded old credit reports and ALL of my IVF paperwork/pharmacy printouts/receipts from the last two years (talk about closure), and sampled 18 versions of Bach's "Brandenburg" concertos on iTunes. These are things that cannot be done in the day.

When I try to get these things done in the day I either end up in a trance watching cattail fluff blow around our yard or eating the pantry bare (except for the shelves - I don't eat wood). This is why working like a madman in the dark and napping before I pick RE up from school works for me. 

I texted my neighbor (and fellow night owl) about my inability to change and told her that becoming a morning person must be harder than kicking heroin. I felt relief learning that she has also been unable to kill her inner night owl. We will see what happens when baby comes but my hunch is the comic strip printed in 1976 foreshadowed the rest of my life.

A 1975 Similac formula ad was included in my baby box. On the back of the formula ad was this 1963 reprint of a poster called "Parent's Creed." At the time you could mail in $3.25 and receive a handscreened felt scroll of this verse ready for hanging. I agree with this creed 100%. It reminds me of what Marmie from Little Women would say about mothering.

Soul Food

The theme for our first round of IVF was IT'S GONNA HAPPEN. It came about one day by an old man walking out of the bank in a sleeveless shirt while I was on the verge of tears/craving a Hannah Dixon cupcake.

Ryan Dixon, brother to the cupcake maker and one of my former Primary kids, made me a t-shirt a few days before the embryo transfer that said IT'S GONNA HAPPEN. He brought it down to the house and after I closed the front door I sat on the bottom stair hugging the shirt. I was so touched that a 12-year old boy would have the creativity/nerve to do such a thing. I was wearing his shirt as he ran beside our car cheering us on as we drove up our street towards the big appointment.

In this photo I had just had three embryos implanted and was waiting out the twenty mandatory minutes of rest before standing. I was also super doped up on Valium. Valium makes the uterus say, "Come here little egg and burrow into my super squishy wall that is not contracting."

As we all know the first round didn't work. It didn't happen. But it was still gonna.

When I had resurfaced to the land of the living I framed a sign that said NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE. I looked at it often from my computer and dared myself to believe again.

Greg started sporadically saving his fortunes from Panda Express if they seemed like positive IVF outcomes. He would give them to me after work and I hid them in a little box while I seriously stewed over the future.

Midsummer nights brought the determination and resolution to try IVF one last time. Greg and I chose to do this round secretly. We didn't even tell RE. I printed this verbal boost from the internet, ostensibly for RE's junior high locker, and stuck the "extra" print on the inside of our front door. I read it multiple times a day during the two months of meds and shots and blood draws.

An hour after my second egg harvest I bought a sweater at the mall. I was hanging on Greg's arm big time because my anesthesia was still wearing off but I was alert enough to spot the words I loved on flaming red cotton through a store window. CARPE DIEM. It signified everything about the second round since we were seizing our fate if it was to be had. The following day I wore it to my second embryo transfer where the doctor placed three more fertilized embryos into my Valium-hushed uterus. Déjà vu.

And we all know that the second time was the charm.

Words matter.

What you feed to your eyes matters because it goes from your eyes to your brain.

What you repeat to yourself in hard times matters

because the words you digest

      over and over

      again and again

             will become the etchings of your soul.

*Last month when I flew to Missouri to hang out with Sister Suz she gave me a locket. Inside was the phrase SHE BELIEVED SHE COULD, SO SHE DID. I did a double take and then explained to her that this was the phrase that had fortified me enough to try again. These were the words that were precious to me. I don't know how she knew other than she must be my Brain Whisperer (as evidenced by the locket and vintage circus tin she bought my baby).

Pitch Perfect

Old people pitch horseshoes.

Smart people pitch burdens.

Both are easier said than done.

Shipping label with the smallest phrase ever (seriously, like 5 pt) in the left corner. FYI I stink at horseshoes.

Acrobat

In June of 2012 I blogged about falling off of a tightrope. I used a card from my childhood deck of Crazy Eights for the image. The number 11 card displayed a happy-looking female trapeze artist swinging high above an elephant.

I had just miscarried after ten years of babywanting.

Two weeks after the folly we went to Colorado Springs to visit Greg's family. The circus was in town and his sister had set some tickets aside for us. The last thing I felt like doing was going to the circus but as I sat surrounded by toy dogs jumping through hoops and motorcycles driving on ropes this message came through on my phone:

Dear Melissa:

I am so sad to hear that you aren’t pregnant anymore.

I’m not sure what your future plans are in this area of your life. The one thing I’ve learned after 12 years of infertility is that you never know what Heavenly Father has in store for you. It isn’t over “until the fat lady sings” and I thought she had sung twice for me. I’m not sure that that is any comfort to you, but I do know that Heavenly Father is mindful of His daughters who want to have more children. I will keep praying for you and hoping that the fat lady is still in her dressing room.

Julia

Julia was qualified to give me advice because she endured 12 years of infertility, two failed cycles of in vitro, two adoptions and 2 miracle pregnancies in her 40s. She might have felt barren but she ended up with four boys. She was right. She had no idea what the Lord had in store for her.

Coincidentally, no fat lady sang a final note at the Colorado Springs circus. I'm not sure when that tradition stopped. Probably when they replaced melodious rotund beauties with super creepy clowns.

I left the circus with a mind full of wonder. What was in my future? At that moment I had no idea what the Lord had in store for me.

He had 2 in vitro cycles in my future and he placed Julia in my life to get me through the first one. He had a medical diagnosis, two amazing doctors less than 20 miles away, a lifetime of physical therapy, a few hundred shots of imported drugs and as many days of patience on my agenda. He also supplied me with an army of friends and supporters.

This morning via 16 ounces of water in my bladder, cold blue tummy gel and a magic wand I saw a preview of what the Lord has been saving for me all these years: a baby boy. He's been very dynamic in all the ultrasounds. "Abundant movement" they write on my chart.

A little acrobat is just what my circus has been missing. 

My older sister Suzette has been my #1 fertility cheerleader. During in vitro she would call and leave funny, encouraging messages on the machine for my follicles and uterus. She would text me when she knew I was heading to an appointment. She cried the hardest when we failed. Last week I flew to Missouri to have some sister time with her. I was not surprised that she already had a baby gift for me. It's just typical Suz. She bought Baby a vintage oval lunch tin with a circus painted on it. A beautiful, muted, clown-free circus with an elephant holding a blue balloon in its trunk. I should have known it was a sign.