Inability to Conceive vs. Miscarriage

I'm not feeling particularly sad today, I've just had this sitting in my draft folder for a week or two and wanted to post it before I no longer feel this way and never post it.  I wanted to document the processing of emotions after a miscarriage I guess.  

Everyone insists that after a miscarriage the fact that you were able to GET pregnant in the first place is a good thing and that you're very likely to be able to get pregnant again and unlikely to miscarry again.

Fair enough.

I believe the logic.

But a miscarriage is SO MUCH HARDER mentally than the inability to conceive in the first place.

One year of trying with no pregnancy was a much easier place to be in than 16 months of trying and 1 miscarriage.

I don't care about the ability to get pregnant being a good sign, I care about the fact that I WAS pregnant and now I'm not, with no baby to show for it.

If you've never been pregnant you will never be able to say oh my kid would be this age now. All you can say is that if we'd become pregnant when we wanted to we would of had a kid this age now. Small difference, but a huge huge difference mentally.

I never think if we had become pregnant when we wanted to we would have a 7 month old child now, that never actually enters my head...except now because I had to think about it to write it.

But we had a due date. So, forever there will be a theoretical birth date to the baby we lost.

Huge mind fuck.

When people get pregnant after you've lost yours you think oh my baby would be this many weeks older than theirs.

And then after all the babies are born you'll forever have the age of your own baby that you don't have ingrained on their happy growing little faces.

I did not have such a problem with pregnant people when we were struggling to conceive. I didn't like that people were getting pregnant all around me, but I was a little more indifferent to it than I am now.  I felt excluded from a group that I desperately wanted to be a part of.

But it was so much easier than getting to join the group for a few weeks and then getting KICKED OUT of the group.  So now not only am I feeling left out, I'm feeling rejected.

After having been a part of the TTC for over a year with no pregnancy club and now my newest membership in the miscarriage after a year of infertility club I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the miscarriage club is a harder one to be a member.

My heart aches desperately for all the women who are part of the recurrent miscarriage club and I am scared to death that that will be the next club I have to join.

Fucking pregnancy loss.  Hardest thing I've ever had to struggle through.

The Skinny on Skinny Jeans

I have thighs.

I think the correct term might be thunder thighs, but lets pretend it's not cause when you google thunder thighs you get some pretty horrendous photos.

So let's just stick with...I have thighs.

My legs do not go straight down from my hip to my ankle, there is a very distinct hump in the thigh area.

This is the one feature of my body that I would change if I could.

But I accept this. I know this. I will never have tiny toothpick legs.

And you know what? This means 2 things.

One, I don't have great thighs but I have a great ass.

and two, skinny jeans are not my friend.

Skinny jeans are made for people with skinny legs.

Skinny thighs specifically.

It's true.

No matter how much I try to deny it and no matter how many pairs of skinny jeans I buy, they will never look good on me.

But I love the skinny jean look.

LOVE.

WANT.

source

And I also love to BUY skinny jeans.

I have millions of pairs in my closet.

When I'm shopping skinny jeans look fabulous on me in the dressing room.

Then I get home and put them on and my husband has to say "I thought you said leggings weren't pants".

Yeah, I did say that.

Shit.

Skinny jeans shouldn't look like leggings.

Straight leg jeans are my look, de-emphasizing the thighs and streamlining my legs.

I know this.

I have exactly one pair of straight leg pants and everytime I put them on I think to myself DAMN YOUR LEGS LOOK GOOD!

And yet I refuse to buy straight leg pants.

I think I'm secretly hoping that one day I'll put on a pair of my skinny jeans and MAGICALLY HAVE CUTE THIGHS.

Anyone else refuse to acknowledge a body flaw when shopping? Or is it just me?

Getting My Tudor On

I love all things Tudor.

Seriously.

Tudor England is my favorite time period in history.

Not only because of all the castles and kings and princesses and fairy tale shit.

But because real life history is so much more interesting than fairy tales sometimes.

Henry VIII married for love 4 times out of the 6 times that he was married. And those same 4 marriages were to English women. Kind of unheard of in times where royal marriages were all about political alliances and thus kings almost always married foreign princesses.

And even though he chopped off 2 out of those 4's heads, it is still SO ROMANTIC that he married them for love and not because it was beneficial to England.

So, in honor of my love for all things Tudor and most especially my love for Henry's ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn we stopped off at some Tudor castles as we drove around the countryside.

First up:

Hever Castle - Anne Boleyn's childhood home.

Obnoxiously we were not allowed to take pictures inside the castle, BUMMER! But I must say, if you ever just happen to be in Kent, stop off at Hever Castle, it was well worth the 15 pounds and has an awesome maze/labyrinth out in the garden as well as just being uber cool to be in the same place as Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII once were.

Drawbridge over the moat into the castle and that's as far as we were allowed to photograph =(

Next up is Hampton Court Palace.

Henry's lavish 2nd palace he used as a residence after Whitehall.

My initial impression was...underwhelming.

I think I was expecting it to look like Versailles...and it didn't.

Much less extravagant, much smaller, just not as lavish as I was expecting.

That being said, it was still unbelievable and I'm so happy we took the time to visit.

Please disregard the craptastic nature of these photos as I stupidly left my camera in the car and was left with just the iphone to document the awesomeness of Hampton Court.

Much to my chagrin there was scaffolding everywhere, so this is the only bit of the outside I managed to capture that didn't have scaffolding covering it.

In this craptastic photo we have an H and an A entwined. After Henry had Anne beheaded he ordered these all to be removed but somehow one was missed. What? You can't see it? That's because it's an iphone photo...you'll have to just trust me that somewhere in that darkness is an H and A entwined.

Very famous portrait of Henry VIII.

The other wing of the palace that was designed for William and Mary, thus not Tudor and much more modern and...ornate if you will.

A fantastic photo of ourselves.

Verdict: Hever and Hampton Court Palace both get a big thumbs up from me!

Bursting the Happy Bubble

I was in a pretty good place.

A happy little bubble if you will.

I no longer thought about how far along in my pregnancy I would be.

I no longer thought about how many weeks since the miscarriage.

All was in the past.

And I was looking forward.

Forward to when I may or may not ovulate.

Forward to when it didn't matter anymore and I could try Clomid again.

Forward to when we were no longer in the worst year of my life and it was finally 2012.

Forward.

And then, with one text message, my happy little bubble has burst.

First pregnancy announcement post miscarriage.

She is 41 and he must be 45...ish.

And they've been married maybe a year.

I'm devastated.

Devastated because I'm not pregnant...still.

And devastated because I'm struggling to be happy for others.

I don't want to be this person. This person that instead of thinking oh yay, good for them. I think, wtf? really? even the over 40's can manage it easier than me? un-fucking-believable.

I don't want to be here. I don't want to be this person.

But here I am.

Happy bubble burst.

And I have no idea what to do about it.

Conwy Castle

I love castles.

I find it sad that America missed out on the whole castle building era of history.

There's something romantic and awe-inspiring about them...even though their original purpose was as a military stronghold I prefer to think of them as romantic fairy tale residences. Not accurate but who cares?

My castle experience is limited. I have seen a few in Ireland and...well that's it, that's all I got. Though I have to mention I did stay one night at the fantabulous Ashford Castle in Ireland. Beautiful 13th century castle once owned by the infamous Guinness family.

Anyway, on to Britain.

Most impressive on my list was Wales, did you know that Wales has like millions of castles in various states of decomp? I did not.

But they do, they have like over a hundred still standing today...IMPRESSIVE.

We tried to stop by several but for one reason or another ie. raining, not open, etc. we really only had a chance to tour one properly.

But holy hell, I think we picked the best one.

Conwy castle, built by Edward I in the 13th century. The exterior of the castle is almost completely preserved as well as the walled city surrounding the remarkable castle. You can still walk to the top of any of the 8 towers of the castle as well as walk along the wall that protected this ancient city.

SO AMAZING THAT THIS THING IS STILL STANDING!

Stairs up to the wall walk. Taking a little stroll along the wall that guards the city. This wood is OLD, I felt like I was going to fall through it.

Small doors!

Wall walk.

This would have been the great hall, fireplace is at the end and a floor is missing which would have been just below the fireplace, where all the holes are along the wall would have been wood beams to support a floor.

Some of the wall that surrounds the city.

Prison Tower! So creepy, they just threw people down here and left them there...there's no way out.

This is Edward I's quarters, he would of had a gorgeous view!

Rest of the castle from the King's quarters.

Close up of fireplace.

A small bit of the town. Such a cute little place, it's like time stood still here!

Oldest house in Conwy, built circa 1300 and still standing!

LOVED visiting this castle. If you're ever in Wales make sure you visit Conwy or some of their other remarkable castles!

Is that an O?

Guys...I think I might have ovulated.

Please, hold your applause.

I took the opportunity these past two weeks to COMPLETELY IGNORE my body and everything that it was or was not doing.

I did not take my temperature.

I did not pee on anything.

I did not check for CM.

I didn't even know what CD I was on the WHOLE TIME.

I took my temperature once the day before we came home just for shits and giggles and it was just as low as it always is.

But 3 days home I've had 3 high temps in a row.

My chart is disgusting I know. But look at my high temps!

97.5 is usually my highest temp pre ovulation (with 2 ovulation cycles EVER I am totally an expert ;-) But 97.6 two days in a row and then a 98.2!

Only tomorrow will tell if the temps stay up. So, please no applause yet!

Anyway, since I have no idea when the temp spike actually happened and I just have a range I have no idea if we hit it this time, but whatevs, I'll take ovulating over not ovulating even with a BFN.

Watch I just jinxed it and tomorrow it will be like 96.8.

Have I confused all of non infertile followers yet? What? Doesn't everyone obsess over their temperature every morning???

Wales

For some reason that I have yet to understand the Welsh get a bad rap from the English.

They get made fun of, all in good fun of course, but are generally thought to be a bit backwards by the rest of the people in the UK.

I only know 3 Welsh so my experience is limited, but they are all lovely people...I don't get it.

But regardless of one's views on it's people I think most will agree that Wales has some of the most beautiful countryside in the whole of the United Kingdom.

I had never been to Wales before and since we were driving SO close to it to get from Bath to Liverpool we thought why the hell not dive over to the west and drive up through Wales.

So we did.

We started in Bath, drove north through the Brecon Beacons, stopped for one night in the middle of nowhere and the next day drove through Snowdonia before hitting up Liverpool.

My thoughts on Wales:

Beautiful, breathtaking scenery...but I wouldn't want to live there...and I wouldn't purposely make a trip to the UK just to see Wales.

What does everyone else who's visited Wales think of it?

And in other news I started my period 2 weeks ago which was good news but now I am STILL spotting.

Longest. Period. Ever.