Last year hubs and I started our own tradition of staying at home for Christmas. Possibly the most challenging part of this is that we feel obligated to spend some time around Christmas with each of our extended families. Essentially it means that we will be traveling four consecutive weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings. It's not big travel because all of the trips are less than three hours one way, but it still wears on us, and falls at a really busy time of year for me job wise.
Anyway we had Christmas with hubs' parents, brother, sister-in-law, and the kids last weekend. It was fun, for the most part. It was nice to see everybody and spend quality time with them, give gifts, and get some gifts too. Probably the highlight was playing a game of pick up basketball with our 12 year old niece where she beat me badly (and I was actually trying). I used to be a pretty decent basketball player....
Hands down, the worst part was a get together guest that I wasn't expecting. Remember the friend's baby shower that hubs RSVP'd to without consulting me first? That couple and their baby were there. I could tell by the look on hubs' face that he was completely surprised too. The look can roughly be translated as "oh shit, how's she going to react?" Hubs brother has a pretty big house so I was able to duck out of conversations revolving around growing, feeding, puking, pooping, sleeping, and the like. Especially with what happened on Friday and my resulting semi-fragile emotional state, I thought that I handled this little surprise as well as I could.
This coming weekend we'll go and have Christmas with my family, weekend three of four on the road. I'm looking forward to it. This will also probably be the last time that I see my pregnant sister while she is still pregnant. It's been a long 20 (consecutive) months with at least one sister pregnant. Only two more to go!
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I'm woefully behind on doing my monthly reading posts. I think that at this point I'll just wait and do a big year end reading post to summarize everything that I read in October, November, and December.
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I experienced my first night sweat other night. Now, I thought I'd been having night sweats for a while. I've been waking up sweaty at night for a while now and I honestly thought that was night sweats. I've never been one to sweat profusely so I thought that was it. Yeah. Not so much. I woke up drenched. My night shirt and the sheets were soaked. Disgusting. I literally don't know if I've ever sweat so much in my life. So far I haven't had a second episode and I won't be disappointed if it doesn't happen again for a while. I need to write a post about peri-menopause but I can't seem to find the words to say what I want to say. Or, more specifically, the emotional part of peri-menopause. The physical part is annoying, but mostly I can deal. But the emotional part is far harder, and I'm just not sure how to write about that. It's like infertility is unfair enough, but to go through this crap a decade plus earlier than average is just hard. It just feels like one more way to make me different from my peer group. Ugh.
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I'm so excited that it's almost Christmas and that I get a few weeks off to catch up on things. This fall has been crazy.
Sorry to hear about the night sweat. I agree - it is not fair to experience peri-menopause 15 years before the peers do. But we have learnt that already with the infertility. Life is not fair.
ReplyDeletehugs.
Life definitely isn't fair. But it is what it is. I do find it quite enjoyable to see the look on the faces of women 15+ years my senior when I start talking about hot flashes and the like. :)
DeleteLoving your postings! The links to previous posts are helping to bring me up to speed.
ReplyDeleteJust read the baby shower RSVP post – oh the horror. What was he thinking? I won’t do baby showers either, much too painful. Been lucky in the past that most friends seem to understand why I decline. Was gobsmacked when I had to explain it to my husband the first time.... guess like several other childless men I know, they close the door and walk on with life seemingly without the level of baggage we are carrying with us.
You’ll be ready for a holiday at home after all your weekends away.
As Klara said, life is unfair. That’s why we are all here reading these amazing posts trying to learn how to cope with it all.
Maybe you could look at us as one of your peer groups too, since we all have our childlessness in common. We are of all ages but our common bond certainly helps me to relate more to you all on these posts than I do sometimes with friends of my own age. It’s probably a bit harder to perceive as we are all spread across the globe and pretty much faceless to boot, but I do look forward every other day to checking out what my new online friends are up to.
Thanks for the heads up re the night sweats... something to be prepared for by the sound of it. I’ve only had a few hot flushes so far. Sorry to hear you are experiencing it so much earlier.
Christmas here in Australia all but shuts everything down. It’s major holiday time for businesses and employees. I’ll be catching up with reading a number of these back posts.
I'm pretty sure that he wasn't thinking when he RSVP'd to that shower. That's the only plausible explanation I can come up with, at least. I totally agree about it being different for men though. Not having kids was a black and white issue for hubs, whereas it's a bazillion shades of grey for me.
DeleteI love, love, love blogging. Both because of all the support that I receive (and give, I guess) and because of all of the friends that I've made. It makes me feel not so alone.
Glad you're reading! DO you have your own blog too?
I've only just started reading blogs this year... my gosh what have I been missing! I'm limiting myself to a handful otherwise the days get taken up with all the blogs I would like to read.
DeleteMy biggest surprise in reading your blog and the others who comment on your posts is the feeling of connection I have with you all about our situations. It's been very liberating actually. So special to feel like I have my own group now who all understand my journey ‘cause we are all travelling along the same path.
For years I just didn't want to deal with all the fallout that infertility brings with it. Just wanted to slam the door shut on it and move on from it (much like hubs is able to do). But that’s never going to happen. This year I decided to be a tiny bit proactive and do some reading online, trying to find that glimmer, that switch that I can flick that will help me find that the rest of my life will be one that I can flourish in and not just have to cope with...Maybe next year (all of 3 weeks away) I’ll try and reach out and join a local Gateway Women’s group.... still trying to talk myself up to that one. There’s a lot of emotional safety behind a keyboard!
So I have found that touching base with all of you very cathartic and surprisingly catching up every other day or so isn’t as distressing as I thought it would be. Most of the blogs still leave me weepy; as we’ve all experienced similar struggles and time does not heal, it just covers the scars. But I often have a good chuckle as well at the antics of the hubbies or the families or the so called friends or the ridiculousness of some of our situations.
Do I have a blog? No (not yet????) I have set up a site, mainly so I can reply to all the other wonderful bloggers who post, but it’s not out there anywhere and I seriously haven’t thought about posting. My life is pretty mundane, really not sure what I would post about. Although I am beginning to see with my comments on the different blogs that the words just seem to fall onto the page without too much trouble.
First steps I suppose, replying to these posts maybe the first step to blogging myself some day in the future.
Is there a blog etiquette? Are my comments too long. Please don't hesitate to point me in the right direction if I start waffling on too much.
Regards Kathryn
There is such a feeling of connection! No worries about the long comments! I love the interaction. No worries about not having your own blog (yet). I read the blogs of others for a solid 5 months before I even worked up the nerve to comment and then another couple of months before I started my own. Most of the blogs that I follow almost two years ago, I went back and read from the beginning of their stories to present.
DeleteLet me know if you eventually start blogging!