I'm Drug Free, So Put the Crack Up

I’m 10 days off of the juice now. The “juice” being my post partum Rx for Wellbutrin. I’m handling it ok thus far. I haven’t physically harmed anyone or myself. I’m horribly tired and sluggish and I lack a will to get up and move much, but it’s not as bad as I was expecting it would be. I’ve also gained 4 lbs from the sluggishness and the amount of cokes and coffees that I’ve convinced myself that I deserve to help get me through this.

I actually had 3 months left on the Rx and at my visit for my UTI on Thursday last week, my doctor offered to refill the Wellbutrin script if I felt that I needed it, but I figured that now is as good of a time as any.

Since I grew up with a bipolar dad and my husband is bipolar and I have a vagina, I can get a Wellbutrin script easy so I figured that if I needed it, I could easily get it. In fact, my husband’s psychiatrist once told me that being the caretaker of a mentally ill spouse qualifies me for access to all kinds of fabulous mind altering drugs if I wanted them.

But really? I’m sure that the lowest dose of Wellbutrin available was doing little more for me other than acting as a placebo. If it didn’t come with all the nasty side effects, what I’d really like again is some hard core Paxil. Now that stuff doesn’t play around. My life was like running through fields of daisies in a while flouncy gown when I was on that stuff. But I also didn’t have an orgasm for the entire 2 years I was on Paxil…not that I cared at the time, because I didn’t care about anything! I remember attempting orgasm several times and after trying for 15 minutes getting nowhere just being like, “meh, who needs it anyway”.

Wellbutrin did little more than just take the edge off and it did help tremendously with those “oh my god what have I done please someone come and take this baby away because it’s ruined my life” type of feelings that come in the first few post partum weeks.

Other than my Nuvaring, I’m drug free. Woot Woot! Well, no, I lied. I do still have some Ambien in a bottle and I take one of those every other week or so. But for the most part, I’m all natural right now…which is nice and fun and exciting, but scary too. If my husband goes missing…

Pee Hole

When I was 3 going on 4, I had something major wrong with my bladder. To this day I’m not sure what the name of the condition was or what it all involved, but my very first real memories of my life begin with the pain of whatever this condition was.

To the best of my knowledge it involved me having constant Urinary Tract Infections one after the other and not being able to be potty trained because something was wrong with the muscles of my bladder. My mother lived through this without the assistance of Dr. Google, so even interviewing her doesn’t supply much more information. Whatever the issue was, it culminated with me having a Bladder Augmentation wherein my bladder size was manually increased in some kind of way that no one has ever been able to fully explain to me and is probably the reason that in adulthood I can drink all day long and only pee once or twice.

When this was all said and done I was left with a 30% loss of my kidney function. I still wet the bed throughout my childhood and even wet it once while sleeping at a friend’s house. I had to wear absorbent underwear and bring spare underwear with me to school through the 3rd grade. I once peed all over myself on the school bus in what I think was Kindergarten because an 8th grader tickled me.

The purpose of me writing this down is because I wanted to write down the very first memory that I have in my life. I can’t recall anything ever happening in my life before this moment. The memory is of me on the operating table. I was four years old. The sedation began wearing off just a few minutes earlier than what my doctor would have preferred and I was laying face down on the table while my catheters were being taped to my back (I was notorious for ripping out my catheters, so the tubes always had to be hidden from me). And I remember crying for my mom. Not screaming, but just crying softly for my mom and my Urologist telling me that it was almost over and that he would take me to my mom.

After that memory I can see cousins coming to see me in the hospital and a few other things but that one moment is the first memory of this life.

Sometimes I wonder what Luke’s first memory is or will be. I look at Shelby and wonder what hers will be and when it will happen and will I be a part of it. Something tells me that what was wrong with my bladder was more serious than my mother ever let me be aware of.

I got a Urinary Tract Infection this week. It was the first one that I’ve had in years and years and it hurt like a bitch and the physical feelings brought back all of these memories. My Urologist has moved far away, but I plan to contact him and see about getting copies of my medical records so that I can finally know the actual name of whatever was wrong with me back then.

I know this is a random blog entry so just go with it and humor me.

FML

I have some friends all around me who are going through some extremely tough trials in their lives. Their trials are either life threatening or marriage threatening. In comparison, my life is a god damned walk in the park.

Whining makes me feel horribly guilty. It’s worse than the kind of guilt that you feel while jamming a double cheeseburger down your throat and feeding your kids’ chicken nuggets while a Feed the Children commercial is on television.

Thankfully, God has spared me the kind of trials that these friends are facing. For that, I am immensely grateful and blessed. But let me tell you what God is not sparing me from. He’s throwing 16,000 small trials my way – one after the other – occasionally several at a time. None are threatening my life, marriage or livelihood. None are going to kill anyone in my family.

But each one is just large enough to be really fucking annoying and difficult and time consuming and exhausting. Right now I have about 4 at one time and I’m about to start ripping my hair out of my head. I won’t whine or complain or wah wah, but I’d really just like a flipping break.

Easy Breezy Beautiful

I’ve noticed after catching my reflection in mirrors under certain lighting that my makeup was the wrong color for my skin and no matter how long I spend blending, I still have a noticeable orange makeup line on my neck. I don’t use cheap makeup so I went to the department store to have my foundation color checked out.

According to the “specialist” in the little lab coat, my makeup is a perfect match and I suck and would suck less only if I purchase this and that and this and that. So me and my barely breathing self esteem shuffled off. Seeing that I do spend quite a bit on my makeup already, I didn’t want to spend even more, but I did.

I upgraded to the next most expensive makeup at the department store. Fast forward a few months and I’m still having the same issues. My face is oily, I have noticeable makeup lines and by the end of the day my face just always feels dirty and leaves orange marks on my daughter’s clothes when I hug her.

I’ve tried the powders that you have to sit and scrub into your face for an hour with that kubuki brush that leave my face feeling more sandblasted than fresh and free. I don’t like those. I’ve tried it all. From $20 foundations to $100 foundations – I’ve tried them.

Defeated and feeling like I was destined to a life of orange greasiness, I happened upon a commercial on TV where a gorgeous and young and fresh faced Drew Barrymore says that if I go online to this super cheap makeup’s website, they’ll match me to their makeup using my department store brand’s shades. This makeup is what I wore when I was 11 years old because it’s super cheap. But now only Walmartians and 11 year olds still wear that makeup, right?

I ignore the commercial, but I keep seeing it over and over and over. This past weekend, I gave in and went online. I matched my shade to the department store one that the lab coat chic said was my perfect match, grabbed the baby and my purse and headed out to buy the cheap stuff.

Oh. My. God. My whole life has changed. This cheap ass makeup is my dream come true, no lie. I can’t believe it. I am just stunned at how this stuff feels and works and looks. Why did I give this stuff up at some point in my teen years? My face feels clean all day. Not a drop of oil or grease beyond a natural glow. It matches my skin so perfectly that I can’t see it on my neck anywhere or in any lighting. It never rubs off and when it does, it’s barely noticeable. Totally awesome! Plus it’s so cheap! SO CHEAP! SCORE!

Moral of the story – the pricier something is, doesn’t always guarantee its value.

My Morning

This morning Shelby was sitting in the living room very busy busy stirring her toy kitchen pot with her toy spoon. Busy Busy. I walked by and went to make the bed. Then I walked back in and she had food all over her face. And I said, "Luke, what did you feed her?". Luke said, "Nothing, why?"

Then I looked in her pot.

Shelby had somehow sat on her pot...and poo'd. Shelby. Was. Eating. Her. Poo.

It was all over her face.

But, at least she was dainty and used a spoon.

That's Just a Sock in My Pants

When I was a pre-teen I used to wish that I was a boy. I mean that I wished for it INTENSELY and even went so far as to go out into the garage (which was my land of imagination) and pretend speaking like, walking like and acting like a boy. I would stand up to pee. I would stuff a sock down my pants. My desire to be a boy was rather consuming.

I’m not sure if my mother ever noticed this or anything related to it. I’m not sure if she was ever worried or if she was on the phone discussing this with her girlfriends. She’s never mentioned it in all these years so I assume that my secret is safe…until now that I’m sharing it with the Internets, that is.

I’m not a lesbian or transgender or whatever the word would be for a woman who wants to be a man. I don’t wish to be male as an adult. I kissed a girl once and found it to be gross – way too soft and blah. While I do enjoy staring at a nice set of boobs, I seemed to outgrow my desire to actually be a man.

I get all embarrassed when I sit and think of that time now that I’m an adult. What was wrong with me? Was it some kind of obsession of missing having a father in my life? I’ve never asked anyone if it was normal or what the cause could have been or why it didn’t progress into me becoming something different as an adult.

It’s on my mind today for 2 reasons. First, my son will turn 10 next month and the age of 10 is exactly when all of this occurred in my life. I realize now that he is now old enough to be in his room living a life that I know nothing about. It’s not that I think he’s in his room pretending to be a girl. Of course, if he was, I would accept it totally and love him still and take him shoe shopping. It’s that he is hitting an age where I don’t know his every thought or feeling anymore. He’s having curiosities and lessons and fantasies about things that I probably couldn’t imagine nor would I even probably want to imagine.

That is a scary and exciting thought to me. My baby boy is now more of a person and a human being than just my son. When I think on my childhood, 10 years old is really a pivotal age where I go from remembering tidbits of my childhood to really remembering day to day life and events and feelings. So as a parent, if I fuck up now, I can’t just shrug it off and say, “oh he won’t even remember me doing this to him”. He WILL remember it now. This realization has brought a deep sense of responsibility in me on how I speak to him, how I speak to others, my actions and my reactions.

Heavy.

The other reason I’m thinking of my pre-teen male tendencies? My husband has a cold. This naturally means that he may as well have god damn stage 4 lung cancer with how he’s acting and carrying on as if he’s dying. And as he is lying in bed at home right now at 1:58pm on a Thursday actually getting to use a whole sick day for himself because HE is actually ill, I just really hate him for it and I’m jealous and pissed of how cushy most men with wives have it and I really wish for this moment that I was a man.

Almost There

There is a photograph of me in my photo album from my 30th birthday “party”. My birthday was a Thursday that year and I spent the day at work and the evening at my 8 year old son’s football game. My husband left early from the game to set up my obvious surprise party. The party attendants were (including me) only my husband, my mother and my son.

The girl in that photograph is horribly intensely sad and depressed. It’s an embarrassing photo and I’m ashamed of how I looked in that photo. I can’t believe that is what I offered to the world. I can’t believe that was who I’d become.

I had just begun my 6th cycle of Clomid, a low grade fertility drug whose side effects are nothing “low grade”. I had just hit 180 pounds. And I had no idea that I was only 3 months away from finally acheiving conception of my daughter. I felt hopeless and defeated.

The largest side effect that Clomid had on me was weight gain. My normal comfortable weight is about 140/145. That comfortable weight is where I’ve spent about 75% of my adult life with the other 25% accounting for pregnancies, break ups, new relationship gains, savage hurricanes and general out of hand tom foolery moments.

So here I was at 180. In the photo, I’m wearing a frumpy dumpy sweatshirt (because nothing fit me), my face is bloated beyond belief and despite the balloons, candles, presents and happy child sitting on my knee, I’m about 1 nutshell shy of getting full blown suicidal. My eyes are glistening because I was doing everything in my power to not cry and go insane. I had been trying to conceive for 14 months unsuccessfully.

Trying to conceive my daughter is by far the hardest trial I have ever lived through as an adult. Katrina? That was a breeze compared to 8 cycles of Clomid and 5 additional cycles of temping and peeing on thousands upon thousands of sticks including an additional 4 months crammed into those cycles where my body just didn’t cycle at all.

I am so incredibly sad for that girl in that picture and also for the scared husband who tried so hard that year to make my birthday and fabulous event to get my mind off of failing as a woman at the one thing that I’m biologically supposed to do with my life.

Here I am, close to 3 years later. When I turn 33 in 3 months, I will have a 10 year old son, a 13 month old daughter and I WILL be 140lbs again in those photos (I’m down to 150 now). I will see a different girl in my pictures this year. She’s a happier girl and despite this daughter almost bankrupting us, she has *almost* everything she’s ever asked for in her life.

Now I need to learn to maintain, be grateful and enjoy and not constantly think of everything that I do not have because the majority of those things just don’t matter compared to what I have.