I’m guessing that this is the case for all small town grocery stores. Not just mine.

I hate grocery shopping. Well, that’s a lie. I don’t hate the act of grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping with my mom may be a more accurate statement. My dad used to take me grocery shopping at a kid so I learned the ropes early and learned to enjoy the process. In fact, we still go together, just the two of us to do the Christmas grocery order every single year. Its our day together before Christmas, we go out for supper together and everything and no one is allowed to come with us. In the ideal conditions, I love it. Its relaxing. Just me and my cart, I take my time, pick up what I need and we are good I know the layout of my stores and write my list in a way that makes complete sense to me. I leave Chris home cause we just fight through it and he doesn’t understand my system. Most times, I take my iPod with me and pop in my earphones and ignore everything around me and I’m in the zone. A friend once had to run her cart into mine to get my attention but she seen the earbuds in my ear and knew I was in my zone. I can easily get away with ignoring everyone.

But when I shop with others, I have no such enjoyment of shopping (well except for dad, I learned my system from him). Today for instance: Mom needed to go to the grocery store and she needed me because she can’t lift the big water bottles by herself. I go along and mom is all over the place. I know where everything is, and  I usually go with a list to base myself off of. She does no such thing. She has no list, she goes back to the produce section 3 times. Waste of time in a busy grocery store. The only grocery store in town (so its always busy!). So we finally get down to the milk and frozen food section. We have by this time spent double the amount of time I normally spend, people are cutting me off, I don’t have my ipod going so I can calm myself with music and mom has stopped to talk to someone in EVERY SECTION OF THE GROCERY STORE. I’m hoping I can reign her in and get her to the check out in the next 5 mins if I plan carefully and avoid people.

But in the last stop before the checkout, she runs into someone that asks about my Aunt Paula. And they get talking. And the old lady asked if I was the daughter. To be precise, the daughter that got married the same day as her granddaughter. They proceed to talk about the reproductive systems of both me and the granddaughter. The lady talks about her granddaughters miscarriages like shes talking bout what shes gonna make for supper. I’m standing 5 feet away listening to my mother go on about my infertility and our struggles for the past 2.5 years like its her story to tell, and she’s telling it to someone who I couldn’t pick out of a crowd if held at gunpoint. So I get my iPhone out and starting keeping myself busy while my mother talks about about my infertility by logging into facebook. Where the first thing I see in my news feed is yet another pregnancy announcement and congratulations for a girl who already has a son and spends every single weekend partying at the bars. At this point, I turn off my phone and I brace the shopping cart for the wave of pain and that burn in my stomach that makes me feel like I’m gonna be sick. I feel like I’m in hell. And no one is the wiser. Mom notices my mood change and moves (finally) towards the register. When I get in the truck I try to hide the tears but mom sees it and just lets me cry and she holds my hand. She knows what she did to contribute to the mood and apologizes for it. But otherwise, she just leaves me be cause she knows its useless to do anything other than that. I can’t explain how it kills me to find out about two pregnancies in less than a week, and one couple are stoners and the other parties every weekend instead of staying home with the son she already has. Yet we are following every suggestion made by doctors to help Chris’s swimmers only to find out that we are ALREADY DOING EVERYTHING ON THE LIST before it was even suggested to do it. Its what we’ve always done. I just sound petty and people just tell me its not my time and it will all happen when its suppose to. HUH?

Have you ever seen the movie “Paul”? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1092026/)

It’s a pretty funny movie. I love the cast. And the movie was just fucked up enough for me to completely fall in love with it. But there is this scene in the movie (sadly I can’t find a clip of it) but at one point Paul is trying to get through to Ruth (played by the awesome Kristen Wiig) and then touches her forehead and he is able to project all of his knowledge into Ruth. Shes is knocked off her ass with the sudden onslaught of information.

Everytime someone posts about being pregnant, posts their ultrasound pictures, baby pictures and say things like, “I’m sorry, I wish I could understand what you are going through and help”, I want to have Paul’s ability to just touch someones forehead and have them feel every ounce of pain and see every low day and feel every moment of this. Because when I’m mad sometimes and really hate people for stupid things, I don’t think before I talk and sometimes say that I wish that I could wish this pain on people. But I really don’t. No one deserves this pain. But I do wish that I could do what Paul does and show you a complete glimpse of the pain that we feel. To know how broken we feel and how much pain we are in. I think if this was possible, people would think before they post this stuff. Or just make you think in general about people who don’t have what you have.

People tend to be silent about this, and honestly, I don’t blame them. It took a lot to first make that post relating to infertility on my public pages (like facebook). But once I did, and more or less “came out of the infertility closet” I was surprised by how people started “liking” those posts and how people I normally don’t talk to about anything serious suddenly started messaging me to tell me that they were thinking of me and there for support because they struggled for years to have the kids they have. Others have opened up to me about their issues from my hairdresser, to some cousins on both mine and hubby’s side. And then there are others that I expected to hear from over it and there hasn’t been a peep. But now that I’m “out” I don’t plan to hide. I now regularly share posts about RESOLVE or other organizations, posts about infertility that affect me deeply and I will not have any shame over it. If we can be regularly slammed with pregnancy announcements and ultrasound and belly pics, then new born pics, then you can deal with my constant info about infertility and the help available to infertiles. That’s fair. Right?

My songs for today: “Won’t Back Down” by Eminem & PINK, “I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like This” by Elton John. These songs have helped life my mood today. I hope they help you too! ❤

So the past couple of days have been somewhat interesting.

Two days ago, I was having a down day so I did what I do best on my down days, I started baking delicious baked goods. When I have bad days, or need to organize all the jumbled mess in my head, I usually take to baking. Its gotten to the point that when I feel the need to bake, I wonder what my mind needs to sort out.There is something wonderful about the repetitive nature of baking. Of following instructions to give you an end result. The repetition helps me sort through feelings and thoughts. My husband, while he understands my need to bake, seems to think that I’m out to kill him with one sweet treat at a time. So I happily made cinnamon rolls and whipped up the recipe for cinnamon roll cookies and set them in the freezer til I was ready to bake them.That took up my entire day.

Then I get to yesterday where I had the joy of going shopping for a new computer with my father for his business. That was about as much fun as clawing my own eyeballs out. Thankfully I went to a friend who sells computers for help and she knew what basics we were looking for and knew our budget before we got in there. But it still proved to cause headaches. Dad talked about his own netbook by referring to it as his “shitbook” or “shitrag”. Yup. And he just kept going on about how he “hates the fucker” cause it “doesn’t work”. Hes also the one who has called me from the Gobi Desert on his satellite phone and told me that his computer is broken and for me to fix it. From Cape Breton. Needless to say, after an hour or so, we were finished, dad had a great computer and got it under his budget. This of course is after we talked dad down from a 27 inch screen to a 24 inch screen. (“are you sure, 24 seems too small”. “dad, it looks small cause we are in the store, if we go with the 27 inch, it won’t fit on the desk”) Then it got even better when I went back to mom and dads cause mom became my shadow and asked me non stop questions about what I was doing, so much so that I was completely distracted. I asked her to leave me be, she got all offended and pouted around the house til supper. Then I listened to mom complain about me and dad, and dad complain about mom. I just remind myself that I get paid more doing this and I get to spend quality time with my parents instead of working for that bitch of a former boss.

After all those headaches, I ended up going out with Chris with the MacSweens to play some pool and have some beers. We had a great night out. Chris was happy for once. Everyone was laughing and getting along wonderfully. Then we went out for a late night appetizer at Boston Pizza and by the time I got home I was pretty buzzed off of 3 beer. Over the past couple of years, I have turned into a complete lightweight when it comes to drinking. I was so tired when I got home, I passed the fuck out and slept like the dead. 

And all that brings me to today. I woke up with a killer hangover. I had my grease and caffiene and went to the parents. I knew my parents were going to a wedding today, so planned to go over so I could work in peace without all the incessant questions. I got the computer working and set up how I want it for the business, in peace. By the time I left, mom and dad were still out and I had a complete night in peace. On the way home I started feeling down again. And it was a personal blame on myself for our infertility. It was nothing specific, I just get in these down moods about our infertility and the standstill we are in and I have to work it out and let it pass. So when I got home, I got back into baking for tomorrow’s girls day. I feel a bit better now but still a bit low. I’m hoping that a goods night sleep curled up with hubby will put this bad mood to rest for a bit. If not, the girls day at Kelly’s tomorrow followed then by geek night at MacSweenTown will help finish it off for a bit.

Otherwise, this has been the events of the past couple of days. I know I live this epic life that everyone wants to know about lol. But this is me. This is my life. As boring and uneventful as it is.

…but they are gonna put me in an early grave. Well, 6:30 arrived here good and early. I didn’t get near enough sleep but this is sorta becoming the story of my life.

Mom called me good and early and kept on calling me to the point that my new Robin Sparkles ringtone that I made last night is already getting old an crying to be changed. She made me late picking her up because she just kept calling and I had to pull over to answer. Mom is such a habitual worrier and I get it from her. So much so that I’m surprised that my wedding went so smoothly (but then again, we were ahead of schedule all day til the supper). We got here on time, despite her panicking.

On top of that, dad flies home today and he’s spoiled by mom. Mom always calls to wake him an he asked me to call him at 8am to make sure he is up on time to get the bus out of camp to go to the airport. So I set an alarm for 8am just so I wouldn’t forget. I call and it tells me that his phone is unavailable. I start panicking cause if he misses his flight, he’s gonna blame me and I know it’s cause his phone is dead and I have no other number to reach him. I finally reach him cause he charged his phone and he’s at breakfast. After I bitch him out for making me go gray before I’m thirty, we set pick up times for 1am tonight (ugh so late). But he did make it up to me by letting me take the truck tonight.

The rest of my day will be spent with mom and taking care of her, post-procedure, in her doped up state. If this is a preview of what I’ll be dealing with when my parents hit their old age, god help me.

And not to forget my songs of the day! Today’s songs are Naughty by Nature’s “Hip Hop Horray”, “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield and Motley Crue’s “Dr. Feelgood”.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hubby and I suffer from infertility. We have for the past 2.5 years. Yet, I’ve been walking on egg shells around everyone, trying to protect myself and everyone around me from this shameful problem.

But the thing is, there is nothing shameful about this. We are a happily married couple who have 3 wonderful fur children, who want to bring a child into this world so that we can love them with all our hearts. Whats so wrong with that? It just so happens that we need medical assistance in making this happen (and possibly pay out the ass for it).

So you know what? I’m not going to hide anymore. I’m not ashamed that I want to be a mom and that I’m willing to do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING (including surgeries, IUI’s, IVF’s and whatever else is needed) to make this happen. Sure it won’t be romantic or unplanned, in fact, outside of our wedding day, this will be the most planned thing we have ever done in our entire life. We can’t just relax and it will happen eventually. But it won’t stop us from our end goal.

This is such a big part of my life, so why am I hiding behind a private anonymous journal? So I don’t hurt others? Fuck everyone else. Everyone else has no problem sharing their pregnancy or birth announcements with me. Or their baby pictures or their mothers day statuses on facebook. No one hides their pregnancy from me. In most cases, its shoved in my face and my fragile grip on my emotions and sanity are tested every single time but no one thinks of me while I go cry in the bathroom. So why should I hide? This is part of who I am.

I’m taking a new stance. I’m gonna be out about this. I’m coming out of the infertility closet and saying fuck it all, this is me, this is us, this is what we are dealing with. And if its too much for you, then you deal with it. If you can’t handle me talking about my pain or making jokes about our condition, then you are not welcome here. Take your eyes elsewhere. If I don’t have your support, then I don’t need your support. And if I don’t have your support, then I don’t want you here. This is who I am. This is a part of me, this is a part of us as a couple. I will no longer hide, accept me as Kim the Infertile dealing with Infertility and all my posts and thoughts about it, or take a hike. I deal with your pregnancy announcements and ultra sound profile pictures. I deal with baby pictures and holiday family pictures thrown in my face EVERY SINGLE DAY. So I feel no need to hide anymore.

This is who I am, take it or leave it.

(x-posted to my tumblr account)