8 years ago October 7, 2008

It was cold that day.  I remember waiting at the back of the church, freezing cold in the silk dress my mom had made, watching out the door and seeing a few flakes of snow drift down.  In October!  I would have been annoyed or amused, but I was preoccupied.  The woman at the back told me it was time, and I grabbed my parents’ arms, entered the sanctuary and saw all these faces turn to look at me.  I had been calm and collected, but the sight of all those faces of family and friends broke me down.  And there was Chris, at the front of the church, waiting for me.  I think we both smiled through tears.

8 years ago today

I don’t actually remember much about the service except that my feet were freezing cold on the cold stone floor.  We have an audio cassette tape of the whole thing, so I could listen to it.  If I had a tape player.  Who has tape players these days?  My car doesn’t even play tapes.

I remember walking out of the church and laughing, and seeing a friend who had run into troubles finding a parking spot.  He arrived 18 minutes late.  He missed the whole service.  It was short.  But it was sweet.

At the reception, our photographer was getting antsy since we had only booked him for the first hour or so, he wanted to be sure to get a picture of us toasting.  The champagne wasn’t opened yet, so in our photos, we’re toasting with beer.  The food was very good (we were worried because we hadn’t actually done any tastings).  The friends and family were even better.

I am so happy that we shared those vows eight years ago, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.  And it keeps getting better.  If things are this good now, I can’t wait to see what the next 8, 16, 32, or hell even 64 years hold for us.

bitterness starting to slowly seep back in January 21, 2008

Just got blindsided by two pregnancy announcements in the past 3 days. In retrospect, I should have guessed that both were coming since both women had mentioned that they would probably be trying soon. My one friend is pregnant with her second child and is already 6 months along and somehow I hadn’t caught on. When I was in the middle of the infertility treatments, I used to have a great pregnancy radar (pregdar?) and could anticipate the pregnancy announcements and at least steel myself ahead of time. But then I had those blissful months when the bitterness at hearing about pregnancies just went away, and my pregdar got a bit rusty, and ultimately failed me, and now I’m stinging a bit from these latest two hits.

It’s not that I’m not happy for them. I really am very happy for both families, it’s great news for everyone involved, but today while everyone was happily chattering away about baby things, I felt that familiar pasted on smile and quietness come over me when I’m trying not to rain on anyone’s parade by letting my bummedoutedness and out-and-out envy show.

That was particularly hard this weekend when my friend’s husband spilled the beans that she was expecting their second. Someone then asked if she’d be using her same midwife. Oh yes, she says, in fact, before they even conceived, they called the midwife to make sure she’d be in town during the “window of time” they were planning to give birth. Ok, so they were not only confident enough of conceiving quickly to give the medical professionals a year’s warning, but they were so unconcerned about conceiving that they were willing to put off trying if it happened that this midwife was going to be busy at that time? It kind of blew my mind - these people are not like me. Sort of like when a colleague at the school I work at asked me if I’d timed things so that Zoe’s birth would fit the best time to be on leave in the academic calendar. Not exactly - I’d timed things so that my baby’s birth would correspond to about 9 months after the fertility treatments that worked.

I’m sure that part of my recent unease with pregnancy announcements is that Chris and I have been talking about whether or not we want a second child. I have promised myself that I won’t make a decision until my birthday, since I wouldn’t start trying again until then anyway.** I’m not sure we’re leaning strongly one way or another right now. Some days it seems like there’s no question - of course we’ll have a second child. Other days, I think to myself how happy I am that, for instance, Zoe is past the wake up and nurse every two hours. Then I remember that we’d have to go through that again if we had a second. And the poopsplosion blow-out diapers, I’m so glad to be done with them, except that we aren’t if we have another. But then I look at my friends that have two kids and realize how much I enjoy watching siblings interact. If I’m honest though, the thing that scares me the most about the idea of trying to have a second is having to face the infertility again. I’ve told some friends that we would quite possible try for a second, but if it didn’t happen, we’d be ok with having Zoe as our only child. But that’s a complete and utter lie. I know that if I decide that I want to try to conceive, I’ll go for it with my whole heart, which means that I’ll be heartbroken at the unsuccessful attempts, and I won’t be willing to just give up and be content with our little family of three.

I’m not really looking for any advice on making the decision by the way. Like I said, I’m not committing to any decision until June, I’m just letting out these thoughts that are rattling in my brain. Maybe airing them a bit will give me more space to think.

**(Unlike my friend whose plan was to call her midwife, and then get pregnant, my plan is a bit more complicated - but still in my mind, optimistic: try for 6 months, call the RE, wait 2 months for an appointment, wait a month for results of testing, start treatment, possibly conceive 3-6 months later, for a total wait time of only ~21-24 months from trying to baby - maybe I should call a midwife now and make sure she’s not booked up 2 1/2 years from now).

On weddings and marriage… October 7, 2007

Wedding

My brother got married last Saturday, to an amazing woman, in a wonderful wedding. His wife’s family is from India, so the ceremony was a combined Hindu/Lutheran one.

I spent much of the time worried about how Zoe would deal - with the plane ride, with the food, with the messed up schedule, with all the people, with all the parties, etc. Turns out I needn’t have worried. At almost every event, we would show up and within minutes, someone would take Zoe from me and she’d be passed from person to person - loving every minute of it.

(no, I’m not sure who is holding my baby here).

This was especially great at the Mehndi party - where the women all had our hands decorated with henna. You have to leave the henna on for a couple of hours to get it to stay - and the longer you leave it, the darker it gets.

I only had my right hand decorated, so I could still pick up Zoe if need be, but having lots of people willing to help with Zoe made things much easier.

As I said, the wedding was spectacular. It started with the Bharaat procession, where the groom processes to the wedding amidst music and dancing with friends and family. Traditionally, the groom is supposed to ride a horse or elephant, but my brother wanted to dance instead. Personally, I think everyone should dance to their wedding with friends and family.

The ceremony was long - 2 1/2 hours, but it somehow didn’t seem as long. Probably because it was broken up with the bride leaving to change into a new sari in the middle, and also because I felt totally fine getting up and walking around, and even leaving a few times with Zoe when she got restless.

Zoe stayed up until 10 pm the first two nights of the weekend because there were so many fun people to play with, and music to dance to, and new things to see. Unfortunately, the late nights meant that she crashed a couple times on the day of the wedding. Including having a meltdown while I was giving a toast to the couple at the reception. But she still did so much better that I had dared to hope for. And I’m glad we thought to bring her stroller, we just let her nap in there, which worked very well.

Lunchtime nap

This is at the reception, shortly before she had her meltdown.

Just a couple more pictures, because I feel like showing off…

Zoe and I in our outfits, both from India. It took two women to tie me into the sari. I’ll need to learn to get into it myself because I really want to wear it again someday.

As much as I loved wearing the sari, it was hard to keep it on correctly with a nearly 1-year-old constantly pulling at the skirt, so I changed for the evening reception. Zoe stayed in her cute little outfit.

The newlyweds, Carl and Roopa

~~~

Marriage

(warning, a schmoopy post about my marriage is ahead)

Today is Chris and my (mine and Chris’s, Chris’s and mine, stupid grammar) 7th wedding anniversary. We had his parents take Zoe for the early afternoon, and had a lovely time going out and just being together.

The past seven years have been good ones. I mean we’ve definitely had our share of difficulties: my going to grad school, both of us dealing with really bad times at work, job changes, infertility, the first year of parenting. I certainly could have done without some of those difficulties (the infertility and bad job stuff, that is. The first year of parenting has not been easy, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world), but there isn’t anyone I would rather have faced them with. And we know now how much stronger we are together. I know that Chris has seen me at my bitterest, when I’m irrationally angry at the world, and he still loves me. I’ve seen Chris horribly frustrated and cynical, but I still love him. And that’s a good thing to know.

My toast at Carl and Roopa’s wedding was:

“May you look back on today [your wedding day] with fondness, remembering how happy and in love you were. But may you not remember today as your happiest day, or the day you were most in love. Rather, as you look back on this day, may you marvel at how much happier and how much more in love you are now.”

It’s true for Chris and I, I hope the same is true for Carl and Roopa.