A Friend for Life

I've mentioned my friend S here before. Hi S! She's the only RL person besides Mr. Sparky that knows about this here website. I want to tell you a little about S. Because she rocks.

I met her in August of 2005 after I was hired to be a secretary for the company she works for. She came to train me, as we were in different locations, and we hit it off immediately. Never before had I ever "clicked" with anyone like that. And she will more than likely tell you that the same is true with her.

We spent most of our "free" time at work on the phone with each other. So much time in fact, I ended up getting in trouble for it. But it was worth it. It kind of felt like we were dating, in the way you don't want to stop talking to the person, it was that enjoyable.

S has been there for me through this whole baby roller coaster. She was one of the first "outside" people I told. And we planned and plotted and how exciting it was going to be! We talked about everything, planned for everything. We even dreamed about being pregnant at the same time!

Then when things got rough, she was still there for me. Even though she didn't get it, she never let on. She was always willing to let me cry and rant about the unfairness of it all. Sharing my broken heart with her was easier at times than sharing with Mr. Sparky. She has never once said a hurtful thing regarding this journey, and we all know how easy it is to do. But no, not S. She has always been sympathetic and loving.

Our relationship works out well. Her husband is a firefighter and mine is a cop. So there are overlapping times when we are both alone and we spend time together. It never is as much as we would like and we have to FORCE ourselves to find the time some months, but when we are together it's great. I can be free in front of her, let me "true" self be shown. In fact last night I pumped while she was there, walking around with my boob on high suction while we worked on the garage sale.

And this is where true friendship shows. We have told our small group for awhile about our garage sale and not one couple/person has offered to help or donate. And that's not why we told them, but nothing. Not one offer. But S, she has called almost every other day to ask what she can do, and she's been amazing.

I get very overwhelmed with all of this because I want it to be perfect. And Mr. Sparky really hasn't been able to help, so without S, I'd be a basket case. She's come over at least two nights a week for the past three weeks to help organize and price. Without her I would still be staring at my overflowing garage crying.

Last night we had planned for her to come over to help. She brought her dinner (she's now trying out veganism, so I have very little "approved" food for her) and some cd's and we were going to get serious. When she walked through the door she was holding a six pack of Mike's Hard Cranberry Lem*nade. It was going to be a fun night. We got to working and drinking after Mr. Sparky left for work and an hour into it, she looked at me sheepishly and said she had a confession.

Immediately my head started to wonder what was going on. Of course the drama queen that I am jumped to the worst case scenario. But you know what it was? She admitted she had read the previous entry. In her car was her super blender (you DO NOT want to know how much this woman paid for a blender. It will make you sick!) and she was getting ready to head to the store to buy margarita mix, chips and salsa! Isn't she amazing!!! If there was ever a doubt about how much I love this woman, it was wiped away last night in my kitchen. I hugged her and couldn't let her go. Of course, I ruined the whole thing because I had called her super excited about something and so she rushed over without making it to the store.

But that's ok. It's the fact that S took the time to do something for me to make me happy. Because she loves me.

So S. Thank you (and J for letting me hog your wife) for being an amazing friend. A friend who has made living in a small town far from family amazing. I can't wait to share the rest of lifes joys and sorrows with you. I love you.

This may make me sound ungrateful, but I'm not, I promise

I cannot wait until all this stuff is over.
And by stuff I mean everyday life at the moment(not in the suicidal way, just in the I NEED A BREAK way).

The things that I CANNOT WAIT TO BE OVER:

1. Preparing for the garage sale
2. Baring my soul and most intimate secrets to a stranger (the stranger who will be deciding whether or not we get to be parents)
3. Looking at baby stuff - there is so much crap and I want to breath!
4. Preparing for the garage sale (I know I've already mentioned this, but I'm totally overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that we have and that I still have to go through and price before SATURDAY)

The things that I CANNOT REMEMBER DOING IN A LONG TIME:

1. I don't remember the last time I read a book that didn't involve adoption or wasn't baby related. I do know the last magazine I read - it was S.W.A.T. or maybe POLICE, it was the only thing in the house non-baby related that didn't require major brain function.
2. A manicure or a pedicure. I think it may have been sometime LAST spring, as in a year ago.
3. My boobs haven't seen any excitement in the past week that hasn't been related to a breast pump.**
4. Looking at BRU online and thinking, "Oh how cute is that?" instead it's "Get what you need and GET OUT!" and the baby isn't even here yet.
5. I cannot remember having a conversation with someone from church that hasn't involved our reproductive plans and/or adoption plans. WHY WON'T YOU ASK ME SOMETHING ELSE!
6. A quiet night with Mr. Sparky, sans baby talk, sans adoption talk, sans breast pump.
7. Cleaning my house. It has been weeks. Seriously.

I know this sounds horribly ungrateful but shoot. Every girl has her limits and I just need a break. And a big ole' margarita. Mmmmm. With chips and salsa. Mmmmmmmmmm.

** - This is possibly the saddest thing I have ever written in the history of my life. It is also sad that I am sharing this with the internets. Apparently I have no shame. I am ok with this.

More Blessings

On Saturday we had our last class to take with our agency. It was the infertility class and there was supposed to be us and the two other couples we took the first classes with. We were the only ones who showed.

As we waited for the class to begin I kept thinking to myself that it was going to be a huge waste of time and what, if anything, was God (really I was think me) going to get out of this class with just us? I was actually really annoyed. Mr. Sparky got home at 6:30 that morning and the class was at 9:30 so he never went to bed. We didn't even start until after 10:30! I was really ticked that this was taking so long, I wanted him to go home and go to bed.

Well for all my grumbling and annoyance of the way the morning was going, it turned out to be the biggest blessing! What I didn't know at the time was if the other couples had shown up we would have had to make ANOTHER appointment with the counselor down in Phoenix. We ended up having a really good conversation with the counselor and I got to deal with some old issues and she thought that we were both in a really good place! She even told us that E (our case worker) might be able to present us before the board by the middle of next month! Which means our letter can go in the book by the middle of next month!

It's amazing what happens when we just put everything in God's hands. It's the hardest thing ever, but I know that He is going to make this experience glorify Him. And the blessings just keep on coming.

Last night we had a bon fire at one of the couples from our small groups house. They live out in the boonies and it was beautiful! All the stars and the lights from town (they are perched on top of a hill), it was so relaxing. Anyway, the girls were all talking about breastfeeding and other such nonsense and it turn out one of the girls has an extra electric double pump and she is going to just give it to me!

I really cannot imagine going through any of this without being a believer. It would be devastating not to know that there was a greater plan in store for us. Not knowing God is in control would be the worst.

Where did THAT come from?

Yesterday I had an appointment with my favorite (don't know what she is, RN? NP?) at my OBGYN's. I see Ann Marie since I despise the doctor at the practice and since it is very likely that I will never deliver a child, I don't need to worry about it.

I made the appointment to discuss inducing lactation with her. Even though I have done a ton of research on it myself, I love and respect this woman and wanted to know what she thought and if she had had any experience with it. When I made the appointment they asked what it was for (I HATE this - even though I know they must know, I hate it) I told them an infertility check-up.

I show up and we start talking about the progesterone I am/was taking and she brought up cl*mid. I hadn't told her about the adoption yet and immediately my heart said YES!! GIVE ME THE CLOMID I WANT TO HAVE A BABY! And I almost started to cry.

And I'm not exactly sure why. We know there is a possibility that we could get pregnant since we have no known cause. We also know we may never get pregnant. I am so emotionally involved in this adoption, it's what we want, it's what we are preparing for. In fact, I haven't tracked my cycle (except on FF so I know if my periods get all wonky, but NO tracking of ovulation) since the beginning of the year. I haven't even thought of sex as a way to get pregnant, which is rather nice I might add.

So where is this emotion coming from? I know in my heart I still want to be pregnant and have a biological child. I want there to be that connection between my husband and myself. I want to feel our child grow and kick and experience the excitement of having my body deliver our child.

Last night I was very cranky. In fact I have been for the past week. Much more so than any typical PMS I've had, so I don't know if it's the stress of the home study and the garage sale or I'm dealing with some weird closure emotions or what. But my emotions yesterday after the appointment totally took me for a loop.

I know I want this adoption. I want to be a mom and God has made it clear that is where we are headed. So why all of a sudden does this happen? Why is this emotion slapping me in the face? Why do I feel like I'm being traitorous to the family that is waiting to be created through adoption?

I do not do well with other peoples blood

Mr. Sparky always gets bloody noses, it's just his thing. So I've gotten used to most mornings entailing a few bloody tissues in the bathroom trash can. This morning was no different.

He got home from work while I was getting ready and blew his nose (allergies are HORRENDOUS right now in Podunk and we are both suffering. It also doesn't help that he spends most nights in the cold dry dusty outside air). And of course he got a bloody nose. Like I said earlier, totally normal and not a big deal. Except this one didn't stop, and didn't stop, and didn't' stop. He kept bleeding for 25 minutes.

Now, being one who has had MAYBE 3 bloody noses EVER, I think I have learned fairly well how to handle a bloody nose since being married to Mr. Sparky. I told him to sit down, tilt his head forward and pinch his nose at the base of the bridge. So he did and he kept going through tissue after tissue.

He kept doing this while I was finishing getting ready for work and for some reason I poked my head out of the bathroom and realized there were GOBS of blood all over the cream (I think that's the color it's supposed to be, but I could very well be wrong. It looks more like oatmeal to me. We really need to get our carpets cleaned) carpet and streams of blood running down our white bench in front of the bed. I called my mom to see what would get that much blood out of white and carpet (all the while assuming his nose would eventually STOP BLEEDING) and my dad answered.

Half way through my question ***YOU MAY WANT TO STOP READING IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH. I AM GETTING QUEASY JUST WRITING THIS*** I looked over and saw Mr. Sparky stand up, remove the tissue from his face and hold his head over the trash can. CLOTS and STREAMS of blood poured from his face and I may have said, "Holy S*&^, we have to go to the hospital" and hung up on my dad.

I have never been so grossed out in my entire life. Really. There is no way I could be a cop/firefighter/EMS/nurse/doctor anything that has to deal with other's bodily fluids. I get faint if I slice my OWN finger open. What am I going to do when we get a kid??

Anyway, we didn't have to go to the hospital because Mr. Sparky did stop hemorrhaging after that last gush and it's a good thing. I may have fainted if they had to cauterize his nose!

And the worst part? He kept chasing me around the bedroom trying to get me to look at the massacre in the trash can! What an ass. But I did feel bad for him, he lost a lot of blood and he looked like he had been in a bad accident. The lower part of his face and most of his t-shirt was COVERED in blood. Gross.

I ordered him to take a shower and NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. I was late to work because I needed to get the blood trail out of the carpet and bench before it stained. Oh well, as Mr. Sparky would say -just preparing you for kids!

Moving Quickly

Well.

We just bought a crib, changing table and mattress.

For $110.

Off of craigslist.

It's the exact crib I wanted.

This is getting very real.

Sucking

I can't remember if I've talked about it here, but we've decided that I'm going to try to breastfeed the baby. It's an amazing thing that I really want to do, really more for the bond than anything else. And if my body does produce a little milk, more power to it.

I haven't really told many people about it outside of a few family members and a select group of friends. I don't know how well it would be received by the "public" and I don't think I want or need to explain myself before hand.

If you've never heard of this don't worry, neither had I until the end of last year. For the life of me, I cannot remember where I heard about it, maybe online or something came up while I was doing adoption searches. But I'm really excited about it.

Any woman can lactate. You don't need to have ever been pregnant, you don't even have to have a uterus. It's all about the sucking. Here's a brief anatomy lesson.

When a mother gives birth the baby doesn't receive milk right away (most of you know this) and the baby gets colostrum and it takes a few days for the mothers' milk to come in. It's the sucking of the baby that signals the brain to release pitocin (and another hormone, but I can't remember right now) and that is what brings in the milk. That is the simple version, in theory it is a lot easier for a biological mother to create enough breast milk due to the extra hormones going on during pregnancy. But by no means does that mean an adoptive mom can't do it as well.

There are several different ways to go about inducing your milk supply. You can take birth control paired with a medication called Domperidone(not sure about the spelling, but it sounds like the champagne) to induce lactation. This requires a lot of medication and usually needs to be started about six months before baby arrives. This is expensive, and also, you can't get the medication in the U.S, you have to have a dr here write a prescription and send it to a Canadian pharmacy to ship to you. It's all very legal that way, just very expensive.

You can also do nothing, just wait until the baby arrives and use a supplementer (Medela SNS or a Lact-Aid). This gives the baby the nutrition he needs, either through formula or banked breastmilk, and stimulates the hormones needed to create milk.

Or you can pump ahead of time. This is what I am doing, as well as using a supplementer once the baby is here. I was given a Medela Harmony on Sunday by a fantastic woman in my bible study who got it for FREE and gave it to me for FREE. I love FREE. So I started pumping 5-10 minutes per side whenever I feel like it. Sunday I only pumped once because I didn't get it until late, yesterday I pumped once in the morning and twice when I got home. I didn't pump this morning because I was running late, but that's ok, I don't have to pump if I don't want to. And the nice thing about this is that if I only pump once a day during the week but have the time to pump 6 or 8 times during the weekend I can. And I may never be able to produce more than drops in the pump, it's all about the sucking and sending the message to the brain.

There are some draw backs to this method. If you pump and pump for a long time and then the adoption falls through, some woman can't handle that. It's an emotional process preparing your body to do something it should do on it's own, but can't. For some, for me, it's knowing that this is the ONE thing my body has a shot of doing when it comes to anything baby.

And pumping really isn't a great way to know what your supply is like. Some women don't get a lot of milk while pumping, but have a great supply while baby is nursing. More than likely I will never produce enough milk to be the only source of food for our baby, but if I can give him or her any breastmilk at all, it will be worth all the trouble.

Only one full day of pumping so far and I can already feel a difference in my breasts. Mr. Sparky thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever seen. But one up-side to the pumping? When I get home from work I sit on the couch and pump. Mr. Sparky and I can have some one-on-one time without distraction of getting dinner made, paying bills or anything else. It's just 20-30 minutes of us time. It's wonderful. And what child doesn't benefit from parents who have a strong relationship.

So close I can taste it and I'm a big dork

When we first moved to AZ my parents were going to buy an A&W stand (for those who remember those, weren't they kick ass?) in a small mountainous town not far from the one I live in now. But that fell through and we moved to hell instead (otherwise known as Phoenix). My mother ALWAYS wanted to live where I live now. We have beautiful old homes and gorgeous scenery. They wanted to buy a $250,000 fixer upper and refurbish it.

That was in 1985 and the "fixer-uppers" are now worth over 1.5 mil. It's disgusting. But still very pretty.

Anyway, once I got married and moved to Podunk my parents started to really toy with the idea of buying a home up here for when my dad can finally retire. Except the prices here were astronomical and no one in their right mind would buy a retirement home they didn't plan on living in for several years unless they were loaded. Which my parents are not.

Then the market crashed here and suddenly all these homes started going into foreclosure (as with most of AZ) and my dad decided NOW would be a great time. My brother's kids are in high school and well, you know where are kids are (or aren't) and I am my mother's baby and she wants to be near me and yada yada yada. So tonight I am going to look at a home for my parents. It even comes with it's own renter! Who happens to be a pastor from our church (not anymore, he's moved to a different one) and it's him and his wife and their two kids. Gravy.

Except I don't think my mom will like the neighborhood. It's about a mile and a half from our house and nearly as nice as nice as our neighborhood and I'm pretty sure it will not meet my mother's expectations. But we will see. Who knows. All I know is I want my parents to live here, now would be preferable, but I'll take five years from now too.

I just hope if this isn't the home they will buy we can find one they want. And everything here is super cheap right now. We could buy a BRAND NEW 2000 sq ft home w/ upgrades in the neighborhood we WANT TO LIVE IN for under $200,000. Except we paid WAY MORE than that for our 1600 sq ft (only if you count the AZ room - without that it's only 1300) and since the market took a dive, we owe more than it's worth. Suck it.

Also - this is my 103 post. I totally spaced my 100th post. I am a dork.

How NOT to Lose 20 pounds

Eat three doughnuts at work.

Eat leftover Olive G*rden.

Eat a HUGE piece of chocolate cake with three scoops of ice cream.

First Meeting

I just got off the phone with our case worker and we have our first meeting this Friday! This is just a get-to-know you meeting, we will still need to meet with her three more times. I asked her how long this process usually takes with her and she said if we can get things scheduled, she could be able to present our homestudy before the judge by the end of May.

Since she's on contract with our agency and not a full time employee her cases tend to move quicker through the system than the other case workers. Wow. I don't even have words to describe how quickly this is going! We could have our letter in the book for birthparents to choose from before June.

Wow.

Gulp

I've been looking forward to my 10 year reunion since Mr. Sparky's in 06. I even laid out a plan to lose at least 20 lbs before. Just to at least "freshen up" a bit.

Does anyone know how to lose twenty pounds in 2 weeks?! That's right. Two weeks! I got in touch with an old friend the other day and she sent me the e-mail this morning! I'm so beside myself it's not even funny.

And then I'm wondering why I even care what these people think. It could possibly be the fact that I've known most of these people since kindergarten and I want to make a good impression. The last time I saw a group of girls (the popular kids) that I've known since forever I was terribly drunk and made an ass of myself. Lovely.

So this time I want to make a good impression. And I'm worried that Mr. Sparky won't have any fun. You see he's about as social as a, as a. See? I don't even know what to compare him to. Even with our small group that we've been in for OVER A YEAR he will still sit and be quiet. I'm afraid I'm going to be sitting with him all night so that he doesn't feel left out. Is that stupid? Should I even worry about that?

Gah. I don't know. I'm vacillating between calm and cool and freaking the &%*& out. I don't even know what I'm going to wear! This is NOT ENOUGH TIME! NOT ENOUGH TIME! NOT ENOUGH TIME! I really must discuss this with our class president when I see him on the 26th with my undone hair (not ENOUGH TIME to get into the hair dresser) and my non-reunion specific clothes (not ENOUGH TIME to go shopping for new clothes).

Sheesh.

Word Verification

I had to add word verification to my blog. Sorry! I thought I could get away without it, but recently I've been getting some scary viruses through comments, well the potential for viruses anyway. Whatever you do if you're reading my comments, do NOT click on anything with a link in the word HERE. It could destroy your computer.

Anyway, sorry.

Have a great day, hopefully more will come later, but I have to actually do work.

Blech.

A New Place

Well it's up.

Just please don't link to this spot in a comment over there or anything. Not that you would, but you know. This spot is sacred and I talk about things I don't want the real world to now about. And if anyone can tell me why I can't get paragraphs to show there, I would appreciate it! It's annoying and I can't figure it out. Also, I've spent most of the afternoon finishing the new place and work has been piling up. Crap.

I'm not gonna make you read it, in fact you'll hear most of the same stuff here.

Like today we turned in our application. Holy crap.

The Bathroom That Made My Skin Crawl

This is our master bath. Well, the shower and toilet room anyway. This room has always made me feel gross - yucky flowered wallpaper, cutesey lace valance, soft cushy toilet seat.

So I decided to take action against the monstrosity and from the day we moved in every time I would get out of the shower I would peel a little bit of the vinyl wall paper off. Needless to say the progress in the picture below took me almost a year and half to accomplish shower by shower. I had had enough. One weekend while Mr. Sparky was working I set to making over that room.

Here is what I started with.




This is after getting all the paper and glue off and a coat of Killz because they had painted beneath it a rediculously bright blue. And I mean Navy, only brighter. Gross.



It took me almost two full days to prep and paint the room. It took two coats to cover because our walls are VERY textured and even with the longest napped roller it still didn't cover very well the first time. I painted the woodwork (pain in the a#$ woodwork!) of the doorframe and door (which is still in the garage where it has been waiting for a second coat of paint for over a month now) white while the bassboards are the same color as the walls. There is still yucky peeling linoleum flooring and nasty cushy toilet seat, but that is for another month in which we win the lottery.

Here is my masterpiece,







I feel like a normal human being while in this room now. The one thing still needing to be done is to install the outlet covers (which are on my dining room table receiving a coat or two of paint) and hand the door. And the door would be nice, because although we have an open door policy for most things, I do like a little privacy if you know what I mean. Amen.

Up next - A virtual tour of my home in all it's disaray.

Miscelaneaus* Ramblings and Other Such Nonsense

Gah. I am so tired of hearing about this stupid dog situation. JUST GET OVER IT ALREADY! I imagine my three loyal readers feel the same way too!

So we leave this tired topic behind and move on to more exciting things. Like baby clothes and adoption applications that only need a few more flourishes and a huge check and the cutest fabric EVER for our baby' room. Oh! and Easter too. I've always been a little behind the times so it shouldn't surprise anyone that it is now the 4th of April and I am just getting to Easter.

But that will all have to come later, tonight or this weekend as apparently I have a job that requires me to work and not spend all day reading my blogs. It's a shame, but true. I do not get paid to surf the internet.

Oh, and pictures too. We are going to start cleaning out the office/future nursery this weekend and I will document its progress with pictures. Yeah! How exciting! Aren't you all riveted?** I know I would be. Plus I'll let you tag along on the journey of my obsession to get the house "ready" for our home study. Which is stupid because it is ready, just not my kind of ready.

Have a great Friday!!

*I have no idea how to spell that word right now and spell check doesn't like titles
**I typed this word no less than five times before realizing that spell check will catch that. This is why I am still a secretary and not a CEO. I just ran spell check and I spelled it right all by myself. Power suits and a corner office here I come!

Eyeballs

Have you ever stared at the computer so long your eyes felt like imploding? No? Just me? Darn.

Thanks for the sweet messages ladies, you have helped to make a yucky situation a little less yucky.

Resurfacing for Air

I have never gone this long without an entry. I have been so out of sorts the last few weeks dealing with the Jax issue and whatnot. I just have not felt like blogging. I've been reading, some commenting, but trying to put words together has just been torture.

Things of course took a turn for the worse after my last entry. It was an ordeal trying to get in touch with the woman from UAF (the place we got Jax from). There were no empty foster homes so we had to keep Jax until they could find a place for him. By Friday we had to make a decision. I called the local border we have used for Austin in the past and reserved two places for the weekend.

I had to dash home at lunch to get the dogs' things ready and get them over there. They had been playing nicely all day outside and when I came home I let them in. For 15 minutes while I was getting food and beds ready to go they were sweet to each other. Playing and kissing and generally getting along (which sucks when you see how good they get along and you KNOW that Jax could snap any minute) until something set Jax off and he viciously attacked Austin. So bad that I could not get them apart. All I could do was scream and kick them both. Mr. Sparky, who was sleeping, came running in and somehow got them apart. I grabbed Austin's collar while he got Jax out of the house.

It was so ferocious and so emotional. All I could do was hold Austin while sobbing. I couldn't do anything, it was as if I were frozen. Then I noticed Austin was covered in blood and of course I sobbed even harder. Jax had ripped a chunk of Austin's cheek out. It wasn't bad enough to need the vet, but it did solidify in Mr. Sparky's head that we really did have a huge issue. He still at that point was having a hard time with the fact we needed to get Jax out of the house ASAP.

We each took a dog in separate cars to the border. I had stopped by before and explained the situation to them, that the dogs had to be separated, that Jax could not under any circumstances be around other dogs and that we were working with UAF to find a home for him. Once the dogs were both taken back I went out and brought in their beds. While holding both beds I sat on their bench and broke down. I was just so overwhelmed! Luckily the owner was there and some other really wonderful people. They made the whole experience much easier than it could have been. They were very reassuring, telling us it wasn't anything we did or didn't do, it was the nature of the dog and there was no way we would have been able to tell that when we first got him at 5 months.

After four days of the UAF woman not returning our several messages, we decided we could no longer afford to board Jax and took him to the Humane Society a week ago today. It was easier than I thought it would be, as easy as anything like this can be. We were both a little teary while waiting for the lady to take him, but when we took his leash and collar off of him and they slipped their leash on him, it was too much. He of course went happily. Stupid dog. We both cried all the way home and spent most of that night loving on Austin.

Austin never went looking for Jax, it was almost as if he knew what was going on. That doesn't mean we haven't' been dealing with a depressed dog though. He has a hard time eating, he's already lost five pounds (we're doing everything we can to get him to eat, but I will not force him as long as he's getting some in his system) and on top of losing his winter coat, we're pretty sure he's shedding more due to being sad. My house is disgusting, I vacuumed on Friday and by Monday the house was COVERED in dog hair!

There will be more later, but this is turning into a novel and I have to get some work done this week.