You know how you feel after Christmas and New Year’s is over?  Kind of sad, depressed, let down and empty?  (Or is that just me?)  Coming home from a vacation like the one we were on is just like that.  BUT WORSE.

I keep joking that Kile and I are ruined for other vacations now.  That our expectations of just how awesome a trip can be has made our usual vacations to visit family in San Jose and Elko that much more… well… lame.  It’s not that visiting family is lame.  But we now know what a vacation can feel like.  And visiting family, as nice as it is, is not a vacation.  It’s not activities piled on food piled on adventure.  Good, yes.  Absolutely fabulous?  Not so much.

The bad news is: that’s the sort of vacation we take.  We’re not the sort of family that can just take these fabulous family vacations once a year (or even once every five years).  It just doesn’t HAPPEN. So I just worry that we’re going to feel depressed when it comes to vacation time now.  Because, you know, driving over Donner isn’t the Disney Cruise.  Shopping at Walmart in Elko isn’t the Magic Kingdom.

SIGH.

Our longing has been so bad that Kile has been madly researching future vacations that we might (theoretically) take.  Right now leading the pack is an Alaskan cruise.  It’s fun to play “what if” but I don’t know how realistic going on one of those would be.  But, oh boy, would it be awesome.

So life here in Reno has been rather disappointing since we returned.  In large part because August sucks.

Remember the venom I used to spew forth in regards to March?  Oh, how March was loathed here.  But then Evie was born in March.  And now it’s a “good” month (I’m still keeping my eye on it though).   With the focus off of March, August has stepped into the limelight.

My dislike for August isn’t exactly new.  Just like my dislike for March wasn’t a new thing when Jackson died.  It just is.  And why?

The big reason is Kile’s work schedule.  August is a mondo month at the University.  And a mondo month for the housing department.  It means long hours, working weekends, stress and no days off.  It was a REALLY big deal that Kile was able to go on our Disney Extravaganza considering such time off in August is not usual.  It makes him crabby.  And when Kile gets crabby, I get crabby.  And when I get crabby, the kids hide.

Seriously though, it does have an impact on the household.  And I count the days until September and things can return to quasi-normal.

Also: August is the month that I had the D&E back in 2005.  I had found out that my pregnancy was kaput and was sent on a hellish roller coaster that resulted in our nightly alcohol drinking for the duration of the month, just to get through. (Though come to think of it, I think every August should have nightly alcohol drinking because that wasn’t half bad.)   It was bad, that August.

Then there was that August a couple years ago that I was on an emotional roller coaster, unsure of where the ground was.  I eventually discovered I was pregnant and that was GOOD, but the emotional fallout from that month continues to haunt me to this day.  It was bad.  Bad enough that it has changed me in some not so good ways and I’m not sure I can ever be the same person I was before.

Finally, there’s the obvious: the heat.  Not a big fan of heat in general, by the time August rolls around I HAVE HAD IT.   The days and days and days of hot, hot weather have taken their toll and I’m just plain SICK of it.  It makes me crabby to have yet another day of mid to high 90 degree temperatures.  On top of everything else, the heat causes extra stress, extra pain and extra orneriness.   For instance, right now I’m so ready for fall and fall temperatures that when we had a downright COOL day on Sunday, I almost cried with relief.

We were married in August, which is GOOD.  In my opinion, a month like this NEEDS some good stuff.  But the anniversary is in the beginning of the month and August doesn’t really start to really suck the big one until the middle to the end of the month.

So yes, our Disney trip was AWESOME this month.  And you would think that would be enough to redeem the entire month, at least for this year.  But as I see it, the Disney trip was a respite from a shitty month.  And even the trip would have been that much more awesome had it taken place in almost any other month.  And the coming home from the Disney trip has only served to ADD to the suck that is August.

Basically, I’m a rather disgruntled person and if August knew what was good for it, it’d just hurry up the next seven days and get me the heck to September already.

I read this post over at Suburban Turmoil and had I guess what you would call a physical reaction to it.  I kinda wanted to crawl through my laptop screen, find this meddling little old woman and beat her with her purse.  Who does this lady think she is?  That just because she’s lived a handful of years more than some of us that it gives her the right to be a complete unthinking asshole?  That maybe we’ll even THANK HER for her assholery?  Little old ladies get a bad reputation and it’s from women like this one who I’m sure THINK they’re doing us all a huge favor but who are actually being complete assholes.

(Want me to say it again?  ASSHOLE!)

Something similar happened to me once.  I may have mentioned it on this here blog but if I did I a) don’t remember it and b) don’t care because I’m going to talk about it again.  This happened years ago, back when life was The Suck for us.  Actually, I think it was before things got REALLY sucky.  But just barely.  If I recall correctly, we had gone to church that morning and were going out to lunch afterward at one of my favorite restaurants, Romano’s Macaroni Grill.  This was done in an effort to cheer me up.  We were still trying SO HARD to have another baby but hadn’t made the leap to Clomid yet.  I’m pretty sure this was after I had seen the reproductive endocrinologist and before my thyroid issues were diagnosed.  All I knew was that I had been told that I was not ovulating and that if I wanted to ovulate, I would have to take Clomid.

I like to think of that period of my life as The Great Denial.  I was told to call up the doctor’s office when I got my next period and they would run all the necessary bloodwork and get me started on Clomid.  That just scared the crap out of me, for whatever reason.  I didn’t want to have to take Clomid.  I didn’t want to have to go get an exam on day 2 of my period.  I wanted to get pregnant normally, damnit.

Of course, I didn’t know that the thyroid was junking things up.  That it was why I was feeling so tired and cranky and fat.  But tired and cranky and fat I was definitely feeling.  And that week had been a particularly rough one.  So Kile took me to the Macaroni Grill to do something nice.  Harry was about 3 at the time, if I remember right.  He’s a good kid but even good kids have off days and this was an off day.  He was being frustrating and I was feeling frustrated.  While we were sitting at our table, waiting for our lunches to be served, I had to reprimand him a time or two.  We have always expected all of our children to behave when eating out in public.  I don’t recall him doing anything especially bad (because he rarely ever did), but I probably snapped at him to keep his voice down or to stop throwing his bread or somesuch.  And yes, I was probably a little more annoyed than usual. I had a lot on my mind, with my recent INFERTILE diagnosis and all.

Well, the next thing I knew, a line of little old ladies was filing past our table on their way out of the restaurant.  One of them stopped and leaned down to speak to me.  For a minute, I thought she was going to praise Harry.  That often happened while we were out.  Random strangers have often stopped to tell us how impressed they were with how he behaved in public or how cute he was, etc and so forth.  So imagine my shock when said something to the effect of, “I’m going to pray for you that you can look past your venom and see what a sweet little boy you have.  You really should have more patience with him, they’re only little for such a short time.  So I’m going to pray that are able to fully appreciate your little angel while you still can.”

Do you know what that did to me?  Do you know how those words ate a hole in my soul that afternoon?  It was a noisy restaurant and she spoke rather quietly so I was the only one who heard her words.  At the time, I was so stunned, that I just nodded dumbly while she went on her way.  Kile smiled at her, thinking she had stopped to praise Harry, much like I had initially thought.  Next think Kile knew, I was crying into my lemonade.

Of course, how could this lady know all the stress we were under, trying to have another baby?  Still, to have my parenting called into question at a time where I was yearning so MUCH to have another child was gut-wrenching.  It introduced that evilest of all little voices in my head: “This is why you don’t have another baby yet.  You don’t deserve one.  You are a BAD MOTHER.”

I would remember this incident for years.  Every time I would ache over empty arms, negative pregnancy tests, stillborn babies and heartbreaking miscarriages, I would remember that little old lady.  And I would hear that voice, “You don’t deserve another baby.  YOU ARE A BAD MOTHER.”

Rational or not, true or not…  we all know that such thoughts don’t spring forth from a rational part of our minds and hearts.  If I could go back to that afternoon, would I have the strength to say something to that woman?  What would I say?  “I do appreciate my son and I would thank you to mind your own business.  You don’t know anything about me and my family.  I’m going to pray for you, that you find peace in your own life and stop feeling the need to spread your negativity to others.”

Who am I kidding?  I would never have that sort of courage.  Still.  It sure would have felt good to see the look on her face.  That or I could have beat her with her own purse.  That would have felt good too.

There is no doubt in my mind. This pregnancy isn’t a result of luck or just mere chance. I do believe this is a gift from God, for whatever reason, and that it’s a miracle. I know not everyone shares my beliefs and that’s fine with me. Doesn’t change what I believe though. But it does make me wonder, why me? It’s hard not to question these things, even when you know you shouldn’t. It’s not for me to know why this has happened, but rather to accept it and do as best I can with the gift I’ve been given. This baby is a gift, a miracle. And ever since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve been trying to reconcile my feelings about it all.

I know so many women who deserve to be pregnant right now. There are ones who would like another. There are ones who would like to be able to stay pregnant (for pete’s sake). There are ones who would be happy with just one, that’s all they ask. There are ones who have been battered by loss and are scared of the journey. Suffice it to say, each of these women (and more) deserve to be in the position I am in right now. Maybe they deserve it more than I do.

We’ve been through quite a bit and for a while, I thought I actually might have belonged to the world of the infertile. I know, it sounds laughable now, doesn’t it? But for so many years after we had Harry, I simply could not get pregnant without Clomid. And believe me when I say, WE TRIED. I was so desperate that I avoided the RE’s office for a year on two separate occasions in the hopes that I could get pregnant on my own. I charted my temperature, I took vitamins, I did everything they say you should do. And in all of that I NEVER once got a positive pregnancy test. Ever. And the RE told me that I wasn’t ovulating on my own. That my thyroid was to blame. I’ve been on thyroid medication, but when we tried for a year after Jackson died I still didn’t get pregnant on my own. So yeah, maybe you can see why I thought maybe I was infertile.

But now I feel a little silly for even thinking that I was infertile. Because, obviously, I’m not. Sure, I doubted it before because you aren’t totally infertile when you can get pregnant on Clomid fairly easily, right? But here, getting pregnant completely out of the blue with pretty much zero effort on our part… No charting, no timing, no thought towards getting pregnant in the least. Does this mean I’m officially kicked out of “the club”?

I think I will always identify more with the people who have had difficulty getting pregnant than the ones who get knocked up at the drop of a hat. It goes without saying that I’ll identify with people who have suffered loss as well. I may not be in the club anymore, but I’ll never forget what that agony was like.

And I’ll always wonder if I’m worthy of this great miracle that has dropped in my lap.

Turns out I had reason to be nervous, to be worried… because this is me we’re talking about here, right? And why else would I expect anything different than to go in for a 15week appointment and find out my baby had died one day past my last appointment, four weeks ago? That’s right, no heartbeat. No growth. Nothing.Nothing except an appointment tomorrow to go over financial arrangements with the dr’s office and get some sort of SOMETHING inserted into me. And an appointment early Friday to “take care of it.”

So fucking unfair.