Finding our new normal here

So, it's been a month.

It has been a busy month at that.

Trying to deal with the mental and emotional aftermath of a loss, and still keep going with life is a challenge at best. It's not entirely as difficult because I dealt with a lot of junk that whole dreadful week. But it has still been difficult. It has been compounded by a new school year in a new school. At the same time, Devildog changed jobs and entered into the electrical apprenticeship program, which comes with him going back to school part time, and working full time. Clone is really having to step up the ante in her game across the board after 2 years of  middle school elsewhere, and having been in remediation that still did not bring improvement in her test scores (not that I rely on test scores for assessing her ability). Blur requires extra monitoring to keep her moving and develop the habits she needs to make her self sufficient. Speedy has been a typical toddler and just exhausts me. But on the upside of things, I have begun attending Mass daily at a geographically nearby parish since I'm right there every morning anyway. There is no excuse for missing it. I am not rushing off to punch a clock, and I would otherwise be at home doing little else except trying to do something productive or being lazy. So, I go 4 days during the week that there is Mass in the morning. I'd been attending mid-week Mass at my parish while Clone was in religious ed classes for the past several months. I can't say I am able to pay a whole lot of attention because Speedy is not still, and I am incessantly chasing him. I figure this is my opportunity to help teach him during the week at a shorter Mass so that he can manage to sit through Sunday Mass just a bit more. At least, that is my hope. Some days are better than others. Tonight...I struggle to shut my brain up so I can sleep. Hence this brain-dump into a blog to get it out of my head so I can't mentally harp on it so much like I am hard-wired to do. And writing this has brought tears to the surface - not entirely a bad thing but not really a way I wanted to end my day.

My hormones are still out of whack, and I know they will be for a while. I was surprised that my first post-miscarriage menses would bring up so much emotion and difficult pain for me, but it did. To be blunt and border on TMI here, I had heavier bleeding than when I was miscarrying. I had cramps that needed heat to alleviate them, which is totally new for me, and they were in a different spot than usual. I've also been wrestling with the idea of another child. I do not quite know where I am in terms of wanting another child versus preferring to avoid another pregnancy. There is fear of a lot of things. Some of that is the fact that I'm nearing 40, I never rebuilt my core muscles after my 4th pregnancy, dealing with symphasis pubis dysfunction sucks royally, I don't know that I want to re-enter that phase my mommy-board friends call "baby jail". Speedy is at that point where he can feed himself, get his feet into his shoes himself, identify when he needs a diaper, occasionally uses the potty, starting to talk, and he's just plain a monkey toddler who gets into everything. It really is exhausting, and my attempts to get anything done in a day are interrupted by his antics. Do I really want to go back to a mewling newborn, completely dependent upon me and start the clock all over again? Am I feeling like I want another child only because Francis was taken from us? Am I even considering this idea because I don't want a loss to be the end of the story of our babies? Or do I really want to enter that realm again and have another child solely because I really am crazy enough to actually legitimately want that for our life? And here is a lame one: But I have these cute cloth diapers and was looking forward to putting them on the new baby since I can't use velcro diapers with Speedy. I was loving the idea of using cloth on our next baby too, and not having to buy diapers because - hey look here's a really good stash of butt covers. I honestly have no answer for any of it. I just know that a month ago, my life spun a different course and I am still having moments of reeling, frequent spots of sadness, and forever wonder who my child would have become. And I will always have them. My 89 year old father lost 2 children to miscarriage. Each of his two wives bore a 4th child directly into heaven, and to this day he still laments over them - some 50 and 30 years later. It will never go away for any of us.

And then there is the other side of this loss. A strange sense of relief that I won't have to deal with an expanding body that physically struggled with the 4th & 5th pregnancies. That the exhaustion of pregnancy is not coinciding with the exhaustion of raising a child in the toddler stage. That the exhaustion of a newborn and infant stage isn't right there with the exhaustion of a toddler becoming a preschooler. And then all that sense of relief leaves me feeling guilty for feeling relieved. And I grapple with the reconciliation between the pain of a loss, the relief of not having that segment of my life to handle, and the guilt of it all. I ache to know who my child would have become, what kind of personality quirks would appear, the kind snark our family is known for having, what kind of amazing things would be done at my child's hand. And that is an ache I feel in every part of my person. I get sad, angry, frustrated and sometimes just have to stop what I am doing and spend time being in that moment of emotion to acknowledge it and let it have a visit. I am also always afraid of getting stuck in that emotion too long, or even not enough. I am afraid of moving onwards and forward too much or too soon. I'm afraid of allowing myself to be angry too long or too much. I just don't want to get stuck there, and I know I run that risk every time I let any of it visit. But I can't run away from it or hide. I have to run headlong into it so that I don't ignore it, shove it aside, or insulate myself too much from it. Maybe I have some warped logic that wants to immerse myself in the pain in hopes of getting it over with so I can find some kind of normalcy that I lack currently.

I don't even have a lot of direction right now, and I am feeling like I have an idea of where I want to head, but there are so many spoons in my fire at the moment, I can't do everything. And that is bugging me because Devildog is making dinner more often than he should have to, especially since I am the one at home most of the day. I'm fighting to up my own ante, and I feel like I am battling muddy banks on a rainy afternoon. I just want some kind of normal and not this haphazard random flopping around that I feel like I am doing. But I don't even know what my new normal is supposed to even look like. I am just incredibly grateful that my husband is this patient, understanding, and kind man who does not complain when I haven't gotten dinner ready and it's nearing dinnertime. Which then prompts more guilt. But it's laced with immense gratitude for his help and strength where I can't muster it. He spurns me forward when I stall out, and he graciously takes up my slack as I work to heal. Every time I think I have gained some measure of improvement, I hit a point of detour or pain and he bolsters me yet again. I keep feeling like I can't let that stay the norm, even though he can cook some amazing food that makes mine look boring. A girl could get really used to that, and my husband would be willing to keep it up if that's what it took to get me over the hurdle.

Regardless, I am still patiently seeking to find our next version of our normal. This just does not feel like it's

Food...and my yammering about it

Growing up broke, living off 2nd (or 8th) hand tangibles, I didn't have the same kind of upbringing my peers got. Mom didn't learn to cook from her mother, or anyone else. We ate some gross stuff, some weird stuff, and lots of carbs. The only thing Mom cooked well was roasted chicken and egg noodles with TONS of butter, but it was probably margarine. Dad's parents were Irish immigrants and the only way his mother cooked was to boil everything, and you brought the salt shaker to the table. To this day he STILL salts his food first before tasting the first bite.

So when my sister went to the doctor at the end of 2011 for an issue with sleeping 99.999% of the day during certain parts of her cycle, her doctor sent her to an endocrinologist who told her on the first visit that if she didn't get the carbs out of her diet, she was going to be diabetic inside of a year. Well those labs came back the opposite - sis is actually hypoglycemic. She still needed to get off the carbs though. Her physiology just doesn't do well when wheat is involved, plus she has other allergies to tomatoes, beans (legumes), and I forget what else. In her search for foods and recipes that she COULD eat, she found Paleo-style eating. And she's done really well eating this way. She eats more calories per day than before (1500 easily vs the <1000 she ate previously). She weighs less, feels better overall, and has more mobility where she previously had injuries that plagued her ability to walk through the house. Of course she weighs less, she's fueling her metabolism instead of scaring it into dormancy for lack of sufficient fuel. In turn she's been preaching her diet to anyone that would listen, and anyone whose eyes glazed over after several hours listening to it anyway.

Prior to her diagnosis I had been cutting back on my sugar intake for a few months. I've encountered varied levels of success in the last year. I found that in general, I crave less in the way of baked goods, carbs and sweets in general. It started by simply reducing the sugar in my coffee by one spoonful. After a while, I didn't need as much sugar in my coffee. This does not entirely apply to coffee I have gotten from McDonald's or Chick-Fil-A, as their brews are just really bold and strong. It's not bad, so much as just stronger than I usually have my own home brewed coffee. Even then, I'm not putting as much sugar in the strong coffee as I was before making a conscious effort to reduce the sugar intake.

Sis found an Irish blogger who eats Paleo, and shared the link with me. We're all over on crackbook too, but seeing as how this is a slower paced, easier to follow blog I'm just gonna share it here. The little I've perused, has been interesting. But the crackbook page/wall/timeline (what ever the hell it's called anymore) has some useful bits too.

In the meantime, my sister's improvement can be summed up nicely with: it's a VAST improvement over a year ago. My improvement can be summed up with: I crave protein and vegetables frequently before I'll crave sweets. Tonight, Evil Genius wanted to eat at Subway, and I didn't want anything. Except, they have white chocolate macadamia cookies and those are some of my favorites. And I only ate one cookie. A year ago, I would've eaten 2, and seriously considered eating the others. And the one I did eat seemed like a lot to me.

I promise nothing exciting

Yea, don't mind the pregnancy ticker at the top of the page either. I still lack sufficient mental energy to tweak layouts, even if that includes a simple deletion of something like a ticker. I'm sure you'll forgive me, and if not I am already over it.
I'm still busy tending the mini-human and her 3 older siblings, plus working (yes already) and going to the chiropractor twice a week for adjustments. I missed Friday's appointment because I was running behind the 8-ball and then there was an accident RIGHT in front of me. Then the mini-human screamed for my help with a yucky diaper, but I couldn't get out of the mom-bus to tend her because the rubberneckers are morons and would have clobbered me as they gawked at the vehicular carnage. I really needed an adjustment Friday, so I was upset with myself for being late, and really frustrated that I missed my appointment. That in conjunction with the postpartum hormones, I wanted to cry actually. Love the hormones. Really.

Today's adjustment consisted of a few additional manipulations than previous visits involved. I was really trying NOT to undo the chiropractor's handiwork. So I honestly did very little today in hopes of achieving that particular goal. Two of the kids were home from school today for planning day, and it was fairly quiet for the most part. Except, the Clone and her hormones were out of whack and PMSing today. I offered her chocolate and she said she didn't like it. ::quizzical look::

I'd be rambling with a bunch more of the mommy-blather at this point but I will spare you the boredom-induced drooling. I'm sure you would much rather use that salivary function for baked goods or that hidden Halloween candy you've been trying not to eat - but just can't seem to ignore its call.

Lakanuki and Cankonkinaminit

I have a chat buddy that I've known for a couple years that like a few of my in-person friends, just gets me. I haven't had a chance to talk to Insanelybusymomma in a while because her real life has been... well, insanely busy. She's a police dispatcher, so she is unabashed in her commentary about things, and stuff that makes some women blush do not faze her one bit. Sex is one thing that has come up in conversation between us, like it does with several of my equally off-color humored friends. I commented on how my preggo hormones are utterly raging and Devildog is not complaining. I personally feel like I have the Hawaiian Curse (as in lakanuki). She commented on her recent personal experiences being brief. I'm being kind because it's not my detail to share. So later as I was about to say goodnight, at this ungodly late hour, I said something about being willing to take a loss of sleep (as in Cankonkinaminit) to rectify the hormonal imbalance I currently possess.
I was told not to hurt my husband - which I won't do because that would be an additional problem for me, and I try to make as few problems for myself as possible.

here, let me make it much simpler:

"I.B.M" (3:10:32 AM): Oh geesh, don't hurt the guy Feisty LOL

Feisty (3:10:34 AM): nope, not quite the kiddie carnival ride

Feisty (3:10:57 AM): two ups, two downs and a couple lefts

"I.B.M." (3:11:06 AM): BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Feisty (3:11:10 AM): omg i just cracked myself up even

"I.B.M." (3:11:15 AM): ROFLMAO

"I.B.M." (3:11:36 AM): I'd be lucky if it got to a couple of lefts

So, as you try to digest that...I'm going to my bed. And if you didn't see the humor we saw in it, meh, better luck next time for both of us. I'll just blame the sleep deprivation and the hawaiian curse. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.