blondedawn

i’m back…

i took a break from blogging because i needed a break from thinking about, talking about, reading about, and worrying about getting pregnant.

but now we’re ready to move forward now…very exciting!!!

i want to  update what’s been going on for the past two months…hopefully later this afternoon!

hold on

hold on is one of my favorite songs by sarah mclachlan; it’s also what i’m doing right now…really, really holding on. holding on to faith and hope and that things will work out. but honestly? i haven’t even started treatment yet and i’m sick of holding on to only this. i need something else in my life, but i don’t know what it is. train for a 5k? start some sort of hobby? graduate school usually keeps me super busy, but now that i am off for the summer, i’m realizing how i hate not having anything to do.

i’ve been thinking about going to the local school’s track in the evenings after work. i can get outside and exercise and have an outlet for work stress. i think it will also be good for me to get out of my house more because i seriously do not do anything after work. if james is working evenings or nights, i just stay at home and feel sorry for myself. it has to stop. i can feel the downward spiral (i talked about that in an earlier post) and it’s really starting to bum me out.

so give me some ideas! what do you do for fun? hobbies? after work activities? do you go to the gym? belong to a book club?

a quote that i need to read every day

i have a habit of saying too much. giving too much information. filling silence with unnecessary chatter. not thinking before i speak. this bad little habit is hard to break (esp for a people-pleaser like me) but i really do want to work on it.

“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” – Lady Dorothy Nevi

don’t forget grieving mothers on mothers’ day

this is something many don’t often talk about because it’s sad and uncomfortable, but we cannot forget our friends and loved ones who have lost their children.

this (below)  was written by tammy ruiz, who is the perinatal bereavement coordinator at medicorp’s mary washington hospital; she cares for women and families in times of pregnancy loss and infant death. she designed and implemented the garden of angels burial program which has thus far provided respectful burial to 150 babies and began one of the first 40 perinatal hospice programs in the country (one of the first 45 in the world). she speaks regionally and nationally to health care professionals on excellence in the provision of perinatal bereavement care.
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The gal at work who had an early loss, your Aunt who lost a child to drugs or suicide, the friend who had a baby too early to live. 50,000 babies die in the US alone every year and their moms grieve for a long time, usually forever. Then there is SIDS, accidents, cancer…and folks are so afraid to speak to them that they get ignored or folks trivialize their pain or assume they are “over it”.

Here are 5 things you can do…if you think of others, post them below…

1. Tell her you would be honored to listen to the story of her child – whether the child lived 2 minutes or 20 years
2. Speak the name of her child with love and respect, it will sound like music to her ears
3. Don’t be afraid to do an act of kindness for a mom on Mother’s Day – especially if it is a loss where the baby didnt survive the pregnancy…you wont remind her of her loss, she never really forgets. A “Thinking of you” card, flower or call would all be nice.
4. Remember to honor THIS baby, THIS child with anything you say…comments about other blessings or ones to come in the future don’t salve her pain at all…they discount the magnitude of her loss.
5. Remember that bereaved mothers have pregnancy and labor stories too…let them tell those stories when motherhood is the topic of conversation.

slug life

for the crazy commute to dc every day, northern virginians came up with something called slugging, which is really organized carpooling with strangers. we have designated pick up and drop off locations for the morning and afternoon commutes, and there’s a whole community of slugs made up of various suburbs of washington dc. the driver picks up the passengers (or slugs) at the designated areas, and off we go to dc. the driver benefits so he/she can take the hov-3 lanes, and the rider gets a free ride to work. it’s win-win. there are rules and a whole web site dedicated to slugging, and while some people disregard all rules or even common courtesy, most are friendly and polite.

my friend e-mailed me this picture that she took during her ride home on wednesday. i think it’s hilarious. in my almost four years of slugging (as a driver and a rider), i have never seen such a thing. i’m all for following rules, but this is a bit much.