Mamazen

Autism wins.

Somedays, Autism wins. Yes, that's Autism with a Capital A, as opposed to autism, the one that doesn't reduce you to a sniveling mess in the car outside your kids school.

Today was Run for the Arts at Ruby's school. Through the generosity of family and friends, she had about $400 worth of pledges on her sheet. I doubted she'd run more than 2-3 laps but you never know, the girl does love to run. I was excited for her first school fundraiser, and as a runner, excited to watch her run. Also, the arts programs can use all the help they can get, so knowing we had a lovely amount to donate to her school filled me with joy. So, I decided to volunteer the day of the run and help her class out.

I showed up in the classroom at the appointed time, and all the kids were still out at recess. I chatted with Ms. F about how things were going, shared some cute anectdotes and waited for the class to return. The second they came in, all the kids surrounded me asking who i was, and telling me about their day with Ruby. And then she walked in, and it all fell apart.

She saw me and thought it was time to go home. Nothing could dissuade her. I told her I was there to help, and that we were going to PE to run, and the tears started. We walked together to circle time where she buried her head in her lap and cried hysterically. When the kids went to line up she just completely freaked out. I tried hugging her, reassuring her, holding her hand, and every trick I had in my tool box. When the kids filed out, she ran to the table and just kept crying. Part of me knew it was over at this point, but part of me thought that maybe she might calm down and pull it together and be able to participate. 

She yelled at me to leave, saying "GOOD BYE! GOOD BYE! GO GO GO!" so I stepped out into the hallway to see if Ms. F could bring her sensory system down, the classroom after all is her territory, and Ru is used to her being there, not me. I stood outside the door, hearing her weep and hearing sweet Ms. F offer so many comforting things that usually help calm Ru down.  There was another little girl having a terriffic meltdown and it took two adults to keep her safe and I'm sure her outbursts were not helping Ruby's spiralling sensory system.

Finally Ms. F stepped out, and said Ruby was just crying on a bean bag, and she had to go check on the rest of the class in PE. I said I was going in to be with her, and Ms. F said "I think if you go in she's just going to want to go home" to which I replied "Yeah I think that's the only option, I don't think she can pull it  together, and I can't take much more" ((and I burst into tears)). I reassured Ms. F that I'm just an overly emotional pregnant lady and went in to Ruby.

I sat next to her on the floor, offering a hug, or a hand to hold or anything, and she just kept refusing me. Finally, after a couple of minutes she sat up, crawled into my lap and asked for a hug. I was doing my best NOT to cry, as I held her close, realizing my huge mistake in this debacle. I asked if she wanted to try to go to PE, and she said yes, but clearly she was so overwhelmed and confused that she didn't mean it because she immediately grabbed her jacket and backpack and wanted to go home. Ms. F came back, and we were going to try and walk to the track to watch the other kids, but the tears started again, and Ru practically climbed up my leg she was so anxious, shouting "Goodbye!" to her teacher. We bid her farewell and  headed out to the car, the sobs getting further and further apart.

Once we were outside, it was like it had never happened. She walked to the car, talking about the trees and the kids she saw at school that day, and asking for a snack. We buckled in, and headed out to the other stops we had that afternoon, groceries, milk, speech therapy, and other than not letting me out of her sight, she was totally normal.

I on the other hand, called Ryan (who is away in Texas on business) and cried like a baby. There is NOTHING harder than seeing your kid in a place that you can't reach, a place you put them in because you didn't think that maybe, just maybe the separation of home and school isn't something she's ready to shift yet. Nothing harder than watching her anxiety escalate to a point where she can't have rational thoughts.

Nothing worse  than knowing the only thing you can do is let Autism win, and try again tomorrow.

Fortunately, Ms. F is going to have Ruby run tomorrow at PE so she can still get credit for participating. Autism won today but it won't keep us down for long.

69 months

My dear sweet Ruby, 

It's been a while since I wrote you a letter, 6 months to be exact. But, we've been busy, and well, I forgot. So much has happened, SO MUCH. Frankly, as per usual, you've blown our minds with what you've done and how you've grown. Kindergarden has proven to be so much fun for you, you've made friends, you're working hard on communicating and interacting with them. You've been hugely successful with potty at school, tho we're still working on getting poops in the toilet, and we're all doing our best to be patient with you as you learn how to do this and communicate your needs to us. 

At school you're progressing well on all of your goals, not blowing through them, but slowly working on each one. I'm not sure you'll reach all of them, but you're trying, and we're so proud of you. Your language is progressing with leaps and bounds, your conversational skills surprise me every day. You'd think that I would be used to these surprises by now, but I never am, they always blow me away. 

You've been having sleep troubles off and on again but the awesome thing is that you're sleeping in your own room! We moved your bed into your Lorax room shortly before Christmas, and surprisingly it was an pretty easy transition... well the going to bed part was. Every night you're happy as can be to run into your room after your shower and hop into bed and to let one of us read books to you and snuggle you till  you fall asleep. However you've only had a night or two that you slept all night alone in there, and after a month and half of your daddy and I taking turns sleeping in your twin bed we finally decided to just put a twin mattress on the floor of your room so we'd have a comfortable place to sleep. I figure all of your sleep transitions have been difficult and have taken a long time so this one probably will be too but we might as well get as much rest as possible during it. 

Your daddy is doing all the nght duty because I realized I just needed more sleep... because you're going to be a big sister! It's still very abstract for you, but I think you're starting to get it. Every night when I do bedtime you like to rest your head on my belly and say "good night! sweet dreams baby!" We listen to the heartbeat with a doppler and you will sometimes get a HUGE smile on your face when we hear that sweet galloping sound that is your little brother or sister. I can't wait till you can feel the kicks and rolls as he or she grows bigger in my belly, and I really can't wait to see how you grow and mature when he or she arrives. 

My dear, amazing Ruby, I can't believe you're closer to six than you are to five. Every day you amaze me, and every day I'm grateful to be your mother. Every day you shake me to my core, empty me out and fill me up again. Every day, you show me thing I didn't know existed in the world around me, and in the world within me. 

I love you, I love you, I love you. 

xoxo Mama

Oh Hai!

No, I'm not dead. I'm still here, still have plenty of things to say, I'm just... pregnant.

At first I couldn't write here because it wasn't public and it was too hard to find things to write about when every waking minute my brain was thinking "OMFG FINALLY I'M PREGNANT WITH A VIABLE BABY!" and then when I went public my desire to write just went... bleh.  But, it's 3 months since I last posted so I figured I owed you (my loyal 4 readers) some words about how I got here.

Well as most of you know, it hasn't been easy, painless or remotely cheap. Long story short, three fresh embryo transfers, three frozen, thousands of needles in my ass and belly, two miscarriages, and countless tears... and I'm back, finally, hopeful we will complete our family and that Ruby will have the joy of being a big sister. 

In more detail... Ruby was our first lucky IVF after seven IUIs and we had six frozen embryos in which to make her a sibling. Cue 2009, the year that shall not be named, wherein we did our first frozen transfer, got pregnant, had a miscarriage. Did a second transfer, got bubkiss and then manned up and did a full fresh cycle in the hopes that my 34 year old body could do it, why not my 38 year old body? Um. No. do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not do anything but cry your eyes out and be thankful for the tax return next year because you spent $20K out of pocket in medical expenses. 

We threw in the towel. Gave up. Let it all go. I gave away all baby things, all the cloth diapers, maternity clothes, everything. I just wanted out of my house. I was not in a good place. 2010 came and went, with little talk of trying again, till right around my birthday when I decided maybe we'd give it another shot.  We drew our line in the sand and I hopped back into the stirrups with my cautious but happy ass in the air. 2011 we got back to business in earnest, had some long tearful discussions with our Doc and made decisions that included crossing many of our previously drawn line in the proverbial sand and spending a LOT of money. 

For my 40th birthday I was finally pregnant. Pregnant, but knowing that it probably wasn't viable. Let's just say, that my decision to be done trying at 40 was shot. Especially since we were lucky enough to have embryos in the freezer after this magical cycle. As devastating as that loss was, I knew we had another chance. The week before our Decmber 1 frozen embryo transfer, I counted and had 1015 paper cranes hanging over my bed. One Thousand Fifteen. 

And then, as luck, science, magic and faith collided, it worked. I was elated and terrified at every turn. When my beta levels didn't rise as perfectly as they should and Dr. M wanted me to come back for not two or three but FOUR return checks, my heart was nervous and anxious and fearful. Finally one glorious winter day, nestled between Christmas and New Years, we had an ultrasound that showed a perfectly beating heart within a perfectly growing embryo. Folks, we have a winner.

We inched forward, day by day, week by week, and right before we should be released from our infertility specialists care into the loving hands of our low intervention, low risk midwife... there was blood. Not enough to send me into a complete panic, but enough to get my attention. It was too soon to hear a heartbeat on the doppler with our midwife, so when there was blood again the next day, we called Dr. M's office and they rushed us in for a quick peek. Ryan wasn't able to be there, but I had two awesome friends by my side and we were all elated to see that perfect little person still wiggling away. I had a small and resolving subchorionic hematoma that thankfully hasn't given me any more grief, but it hasn't left me with a sense of calm or ease either. 

At 16 weeks my chances of losing this pregnancy are 1%. Those are pretty good odds, and I'll take them anyday over where we've been, since my chances of actually getting pregnant in the first place were around that, I'm thinking we have pretty magical luck working on our side this time. But when a friend offered me a doppler to use at home, it only took me an hour to say yes, and the next day I picked it up, and every night, we're happy to hear that horse galloping sound that reminds me that, Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus. 

So here we are. Thankful, cautiously optimistic, and surprisingly planning for the future. 

 

Yeah it bothered me too but...

Lately there has been a (poorly written with some wretched grammar, but with some good points) article about running circulating. I'm not going to link to it, because I don't believe it needs or deserves any more traffic. It's not because it was poorly written, or because it has bad grammar, but because in the very first paragraph, before I can even bring myself to like the guy, he pulls the R word. Makes a joke about being retarded and acutally says 'to put it politely'.

 

POLITELY? it's Polite to ridicule and offend people who can't defend themselves? It's more POLITE to call your inability/non desire to take care of your body through exercise retarded than to say... um LAZY? 

POLITE?

FUCKING BULLSHIT. You know, you're a relatively intelligent human being with access to MANY words in the human language and this is all you can come up with?  Seriously? I mean I know in your title you admit you're an idiot, but REALLY?

But the article isn't the only reason I'm blogging about this. If this were written by someone I knew they would have probably gotten a email filled with education about the word choices they used, and depending on their response, might not really be my friend anymore. The reason I'm writing about this is because of the number of people I know, and love, and respect who are sharing links to this article.

When you click *like* or you share these things, you condone the language.  When you post this article and then say 'yeah it bothered me to' but still share it... do you not care? Do you not care that now more people are clicking and reading and assuming that it's ok to make retard jokes because the rest of the article is funny? I had one person respond to me that the article was 'borderline offensive'... This isn't borderline offensive, trust me, I've got a kid in special ed, this guy crossed the border a long time ago. It's rude, it's wrong and it's time to grow the fuck up and change our language.

The thing is, I could have written this article myself, down to the huffing and puffing when I started running, to the revelation that running clothes are super rad, to the fact that when you actually start doing it, it's FUN... but I could have done it with out hurting my kid, and many other kids who do ride the special ed bus, and do attend a special class and just possibly might end up getting a check for disability for the rest of her life.

So please, think twice when you recommend something that carries this word with it. It's not just that it's offensive, it's that you're allowing this word to be whitewashed into daily life, swept under the rug because 'the rest of it was good' and people remain desensitized to the discrimination.

Do it for me. Do it for Ruby.

Nailed it!

Yep, it's November 30th and I posted every damn day, bitches. 

What happens now? will I disappear into the ethers, never to blog again? Will I return to the occasional rant about jerks and the less occasional boast about my awesome kid? 

What color will my hair be next month? 

The possiblities are endless. 

 

Progress

So close. So close to the end I can taste it. I'd like to go out with a bang, telling you some outrageous story about me, Tony Soprano and a pipe wrench but... I really shouldn't.

Instead I'll tell you that at 4 am I was woken up by being pummeled with a multitude of elbows and knees that completely scared the bejesus out of me. I yelped and startled the poor kid (who was clearly having a bad dream) back into her own bed where she cried out "I'm saweeee I'm saweeee!!!" to which I tried to reassure her that there was absolutely nothing to be sorry about, I was just startled.

She then popped her head up and shouted: I HAVE TO GO POTTY!

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and so we ran to the bathroom, pulled off her night time diaper (that usually wakes up dry) and popped her up on the toilet in the darkness.

*

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and then she peed. For the first time ever, my kid woke up to pee in the night. The heavens parted, and a choir of angels sang a holy tune of tinkle tinkle little pee. Progress people, it's all about progress.

The new girl

There she stands, hesitant to open the door, but not wanting to turn back to the elevator. I've just gotten off the elevator myself, heading in for a routine blood draw, and she's blocking my way into the office. She looks nervous, scared, like she feels a little silly.  We make eye contact, something you rarely do in the office of grief and shame and I shrug and reach for the door. She laughs a little and goes on in. 

The front desk attendant knows me well, checks me in and summons the phlebotomist. I overhear the woman from the doorway apologize for coming back in, but she wanted to discuss some questions about her calendar. As I walk away, she sits down with my favorite nurse and they discuss her upcoming cycle. Clearly her first. 

My blood draw is quick and easy. The phlebotomist and I laugh and talk about silly things like refrigerator magnets and pie. She's my favorite, by far. 

As I check out, I notice the girl from the doorway sitting alone on the consult couch, fretting her hands, checking her phone. My favorite nurse comes out and hands her a bag, tells her to just take it one day at a time. Easily said from someone who isn't staring down the barrel of a 2 page calendar filled with needles in the stomach. 

We both end up waiting for the elevator at the same time again. She keeps her eyes on the floor as I ask her what floor, and press the buttons. When the doors open, and she takes a step out, I say, softly: 

Good luck.

She turns back to me, tears in her eyes and says:

Thank you, I'm kind of scared.

I smile and nod as the elevator closes and I head down to my own car. I feel a little choked up myself, remembering my first time, the anxiety, the fears, the wonder of: what will happen. I'm grateful  I'm not the new girl, grateful I'm not in that precarious place of: will I ever know what it's like to be a mother. And yet, here I am, still here after all these years, trying to complete my family, wondering what will happen, feeling anxious, scared and precarious. I know what it's like to be a mother, and it's so good I want to do it again. But I'm so very glad I'm not the new girl. 

I hope she's not for long either. 

 

Running out of steam

Oy. 4 days left and I'm really running out of steam. It's not that I don't have anything to write about, I just don't want to share it with you. 

I thought I might finish up the 30 days of truth, but... eh, I'm not feeling it. 

I thought maybe I'd find some inspiration in other bloggers, but... eh, none of them are lighting  my fire. 

So I'm going to end this sunday by telling you how much I love Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Chocolates. 

 

 

A lot. 

Muppet madness

 

Yesterday I took Ruby to see the new Muppet Movie with most of my family.  A few of the dudes stayed behind to watch foozball, but really they missed the best show. 

I was skeptical that Ru would make it though the movie at all, since she'd pretty much been a melting, screaming mess most of the morning. She'd had such  a great day on Thanksgiving that it was no surprise she had a hard time keeping her shit together on Friday. Lots of melt downs, lots of crying, lots of throwing stuff. I kept asking her if she wanted to go see a movie and she'd say "no, no movie!" so I finally showed her the trailer to the Muppet movie and her interest peaked. It wasn't until I told her we could get popcorn that she willingly changed her clothes, grabbed her backpack and headed for the car. 

She hadn't peed in a while, so I kept asking her if she needed to go potty, which of course she didn't once we were in the theater. We had 30 minutes of previews (some of which were way too intense for my kid) and I was sure that we'd never make it through the whole movie without a melt down and/or wet pants. 

Finally the movie started and Ruby was riveted. She sat on the edge of the seat or cuddled up in my lap and couldn't take her eyes off the screen.  She enjoyed each song, bopping her head and singing along even though she didn't know the words most of the time. When it finally came time for the Chickens to perform Forget you by Cee Lo Green she was 100% in Ruby Show mode. She had every person around us laughing and watching her, not the screen. 

I could not have loved her more in that moment. My girl has the Muppet Madness and I plan on doing everything I can to feed it. 

Under the wire

I almost forgot.

Busy day.

Saw muppet movie.

Kid loved it.

Date night.

Happy.