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Where In The World Is My Husband?

by | Nov 27, 2015 | Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, Family, Fear, Long Distance Relationships, Military Deployment And Family | 3 comments

Almost 7 months ago, I gave birth to my first baby. Four days later, I sat on a cold set of bleachers for 6 hours and said goodbye to my husband. Surrounded by his family, I watched him hold our beautiful baby boy, give him a kiss goodbye, grab his rifle and get on a bus. His destination? Afghanistan.

The bulk of the deployment wasn’t too difficult. He called often, and I emailed him pictures every day. Our son grew. I held my breath each time someone unexpectedly knocked on my door. But my husband is on his way home right now. And this is where the trouble begins.

Where in the world is my husband? No one will tell me. I have a “window” of a week when the Marine Corps told me he would be home. It’s halfway through the week and still no word.

Is he in Afghanistan? No.

Is he in the U.S.? No.

Is he in Russia? Maybe.

But no one I have talked to who is there has seen him. Has he been able to eat? Sleep? Is he even safe? Did the plane he was on crash? (Most likely not, as I would have seen that on the news)

I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHEN I CAN HANG ANOTHER TOWEL IN THE BATHROOM!

I am not the first woman to go through this, nor will I be the last. But in the midst of a bad day, or a trying time, don’t you always feel like you are the only one who is experiencing your troubles? “There can’t possibly be another wife going crazy because she doesn’t know where her husband is”, I think to myself.

Well, there’s surely another wife out there camped out by her computer and cell phone, waiting for a call, an email, or a Facebook update. Military wives usually have to keep it together. We have to be strong for our men, children and families while our loved one is deployed. But don’t let anyone tell you to calm down in the few days before your Marine/Sailor/Soldier comes home.

Situations like this warrant a little bit of a freak out. And it’s perfectly normal.

Especially if no one will tell you where in the world your husband is.

Don’t Tell Me

by | Nov 26, 2015 | Anger, Cancer and Neoplasia, Coping With Cancer, Depression, Feelings, Jealousy, Stress, Trauma | 0 comments

don’t tell me i don’t have cancer anymore or that i “just have chemo now.”

don’t tell me to go outside and get some fresh air when i can’t be in the sun.

don’t tell me that taking a shower will make me feel better when my skin hurts too much to touch.

don’t tell me that i have the “good kind of cancer” unless you’ve had it and know how “good” it is.

don’t tell me how nicely shaped my bald head is.

don’t tell me how tired you are.

don’t tell me you’ll be there for me and then not follow through.

don’t tell me your medical opinion unless you’re my oncologist.

don’t tell me how to be me, because you aren’t.

I Want To Thank You

by | Nov 24, 2015 | Cancer and Neoplasia, Compassion, Coping With Cancer, Faith, Fear, Happiness, Hope, Love | 0 comments

a woman i used to work with emailed me this week.  i read it yesterday and it absolutely made my day, which – i might add – was spectacularly craptastic until I got the email.

“i started working at magic kingdom back in 1997 and only partially knew who you were. you were always cool to me at town square and spectromagic and stuff, but we were only acquaintances. i happened upon your page through mikki and started reading your blog, “bits of myself,” and i cannot help being taken by how fucking amazing you are.  sorry for the language from someone you do not know, but i can’t think of any other words.  i don’t even remember where i started the “bits,” but i backed up to where you found out you had cancer.  by the time i got to your final breastfeeding with nugget, there were uncontrollable tears streaming down my face at how you kept apologizing to her, for something that you did not ask for.i don’t know how much all of this means coming from someone you don’t know, but i just had to get this out.  i was driving day parade floats when you were at magic kingdom with your baby girl, and i saw you two days in a row.  knowing how painful it must be, there you stood in the sun, in a tank top, bald… smiling and waving.

i hope i didn’t weird you out with all this, but know that you have touched one more individual’s life.  you are the strongest woman that i don’t know.”

i just needed to thank you for that and let you know that your kind words have touched my heart.

thank you for reading my blog.

and thank you to all of you who continue to do so.

i hope you’ll all stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to this chapter of my life.

Infertility is a B*$%!

by | Nov 19, 2015 | Anxiety, Infertility, Unemployment | 4 comments

I want a baby.

I want one so bad that I can feel the aches and pains as if I’d been punched in the gut.

I turned 30 this year. I know intellectually that 30 does NOT mean all is lost. Emotionally? It feels like the beginning of the end.

I FINALLY got my husband on board with infertility testing. Seriously? Took freaking forever. He wants a baby just as badly as I do, but apparently he thinks they come from the brier patch or some shit. He did his testing, and he got the high five from my doc when everything on his end turned out fine (seriously, a high five. You can’t make this shit up).

Then I got laid off.

Sonofabitch, I seriously got laid off and half of our monthly income is gone. Unemployment in my state is a joke, but hey, it’s better than nothing, right?

But “nothing” is what it means for any future infertility testing, or treatment, or any of my hopes and dreams. Even once I find a job, the momentum is gone, and my husband isn’t on board anymore because there’s so many other things he wants to do with that income (i.e. shiny toys). Fuck this shit.

Yes, I’m pissed. I’m pissed because I gave up my dreams for a family and to be married to this man, who admittedly, is pretty darn perfect in every other way.

He’s supportive and loving and attentive, but he doesn’t have the ambition or attention span or whatever to actually TRY for a baby in the medical sense. So, I basically gave up my lifelong ambitions and dreams for something that may never happen.

Fuck you Universe.

How can this be happening?

I’d like to say that I know everything will work out fine in the end, but my overreaching anxiety keeps me from being that optimistic. Instead, I cry when he goes to work.

I cry and I hope that this month will be the magical band aid. “Maybe this month will be the month that defies all odds, right?” Yea, it hasn’t happened yet. 55 months since we started trying. 4 years, 7 months and we still don’t have a baby, and there’s no indication it will happen anytime soon.

A blocked Fallopian tube, fibroid tumor, hemorrhagic cyst, and God knows what else because I can’t afford further testing. Basically, I’m fucked.

My reproductive system has said “Fuck You” in a magnitude of epic proportions.

But all I want is a baby. I used to daydream about how I’d tell my family and what I’d name my child. I’d imagine life with several children and how sweetly chaotic it would be. I’d think about the best places to live in our area with access to the best schools, and how many children we’d have.

Now all I want is one.

Just one healthy baby.

Is that really so much to ask?

 

An End And A Beginning

by | Nov 17, 2015 | Abortion, Abortion Recovery, Hospice, Rape/Sexual Assault, Trauma | 0 comments

I saw the lights on the ceiling. I felt the tear. The nurse held my hand with saintly love as I sobbed. A part of me died in that moment, a ripple through the eons.

I was 21 and a newly graduated nurse when I went through my abortion and had landed a prestigious hospital job. My mum was accidentally pregnant at the time at 40 with my brother who I later helped to deliver with the midwife (after I had undergone my abortion)

I freaked out. I couldn’t move back home in a small town with a pregnant mother. My boyfriend said he wasn’t ready for a child and we couldn’t afford it (I later discovered he was wealthy and had not been honest with me). He was living far away at the time going to university.

As he slept in my room one night at the nursing quarters against the rules of no men, we were discussing what to do. I got caught with him in my room and I was kicked out by the nun. Pregnant, I went to house hunt by day after my night shift work. The nun who found us gave me one week to find a place after I begged her. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t tell a soul.

My boyfriend booked a hotel for the week as I was homeless and I went through with the abortion. I didn’t want to go through with it but I was so scared, alone and overwhelmed. I always said I would have a child if I accidentally became pregnant, but I just didn’t realize what it was actually like to be in that position.

The first doctor I approached rejected to care for me due to his religious beliefs so I had to hunt for a doctor who would.

I went to get counselling afterwards and was paired with another religious man who rejected me so I had to keep searching for help. I gave up.

I went back to work and it was a very hard year. I saved a few lives and I decided to work in hospice to become more familiar with death. I nurtured people through their losses.

Many hard, lonely years accompanied me with multiple instances of sexual assault and trauma I started to have difficulties coping. I always comforted myself with the idea that losing a child to help others may be excusable as a choice but when I left my career, in those last days I sat down by my friends nieces side who was losing her new baby that had just been born. It was dying in her arms and her tears dropped on that babies face. I watched that baby die as I said goodbye to my career. She didn’t know of my past and now I hear she wants to be a nurse. The chain continues.

My whole family said I was always the mothering, nurturing type and I would have the most kids. I am childless and not married. Tortured by bad memories. Too lost for words.

You don’t forget but you learn to live with it. Its a silent shame for me but I see now with my history of abuse I needed to feel some control over my body. I don’t feel it was the answer now, and in retrospect I would like to say I had all this courage to stand up to this invisible community who bad mouthed people but I was a young vulnerable frightened girl. While I was being accused of being a baby murderer I was saving their lives in hospital.

I think now about it more in philosophical ways. The things we should terminate in our minds and and how a new beginning can start for us to live a happier life. My God believes in redemption and love.

Woe is Married

by | Nov 9, 2015 | Depression, Unemployment | 0 comments

I am starting to hate my husband.

I dread being around him.

I think part of it is that he’s home pretty much all the time now. He lost his job and he can’t find another one, so he’s gone back to acting, which isn’t happening for him either. He always talks about all this stuff he’s going to do or needs to do, but it never happens.

He’s home, and yet nothing more is getting done. I think I’m actually writing less. You would think he would shoulder more of the child care,  cleaning, shopping, bill paying or any of the 100 other things that need to be done now that he’s home all the time, but you’d be wrong. Some of the stuff for the kids he will do, but not if it’s too complicated (and juggling 3 busy kids is complicated). If it involves too much time on the playground he has no interest. He does cook, but only when he can go to the store and make a fancy meal – if we don’t have the money for $30 of ingredients or $60 to go out, then he’s really bitter.

I’m so sick of having someone who’s supposed to be my partner act like a fourth child – a fourth problem child. He would like a medal for not punching a wall lately. Never mind that he still yells so loud that the neighbors can hear him.

It’s always my fault. I use a bitchy and/or impatient tone, but I don’t know what else to do.