Anticipation

Yay, the day is finally here.

Grandma, Papa, and Auntie arrive today. In other words, my in-laws are coming. You know, mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law. I really hate that term “in-laws.” They are more to me than that.

Most people view family coming as a bad experience. I don’t. I’m very attached to them. I can talk to them about anything, and I do mean anything. .

Sue will be here until Rapunzel gets out of school at the end of the week, Tom will be leaving today or tomorrow and coming back next week, and Brenda will be here until Tuesday evening.

Plus I’m in the middle of packing. Packing for the girls to take their trip out to California, and for our move back to California. That’s right, we’re moving back to California. We’ll be staying with Sue until we get a place of our own. Hopefully we’ll be able to find one nearby.

Rapunzel is very excited. SuperChunk doesn’t really know what’s going on, and I’m anxious. I hate moving. But I’m really looking forward to being with family again.

I miss my mom, dad, and grandma. Plus, now they get to see the girls more. They haven’t seen them since last summer.

Well. I better get moving. I have something I really want to say, but don’t know how yet. So if I don’t stop I’ll start writing about that and it’s just not ready. So I guess I’ll just have to let it stew.

Oh and Rapunzel has her own blog, on my account that is.

Zoo Day

Today Rapunzel’s world was very, very fun.

She rode on the royal bus to the zoo. She had two very annoying students with her, Prince Christopher and Prince Tyler. They wouldn’t let Rapunzel take a nap on the bus. She told them that if they woke her up or disturbed her she would get angry. When they finally got to the zoo she was fast asleep.

Rapunzel saw her parents and her little sister Princess Fiona at the zoo. They saw a zebra, a baboon that had a baby, and an elephant with a big butt. And on that day the reptiles were closed and Rapunzel was sad.

Princess Fiona was scared when she saw the wolves. So she screamed loudly.

They stayed until the zoo closed. And then rode in the royal car and went home. And they stopped by the royal Taco Bell and picked up some food and went home and ate it all.

Then Princess Fiona burped.

The End

Has It Really Been That Long?

Tomorrow is Rapunzel’s seventh birthday which means that Sunday is our eighth wedding anniversary.

Where has the time gone? I can’t believe that it’s been eight years that we’ve been together. In some ways it feels like it’s been more than eight years and in some ways it feels like it’s been a lot less.

I know that most people probably assumed that we wouldn’t make it. Partly because we were raised SO diferently. Mostly because we got marrried after such a short amount of time. Most people consider a one year engagement to be a “short” engagement, so what we did was considered a “whirlwind” engagement. But here we are eight years later, still married, still happy, and most importantly, still in love.

Growing up I always told my mom that I was going to have kids, but I wasn’t going to have a husband to boss me around. And in a way it’s true. I am married but Shawn definately does not boss me around. I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve made it. We treat each other as equals. I’ll ask him about stuff around the house and he asks my opinion on which tools he should get. Any major decisions are made together, and most minor ones to. We don’t always agree on everything, but who does. Some times you just have to agree to disagree.

I never expected to find someone who would love me the way he does. So many people can’t take even a little confllict and he’s had to deal with a lot. When we first got married my Dad wouldn’t even talk to me. And it was a few months before that bridge was completly crossed. I got pregnant after only being married for three months. And that brought challenges of it’s own.

First came the comments that maybe we HAD to get married, and that we’d “see in nine months.” And I’m sure there was some that thought that maybe I was pregnant when we met. No one wanted to believe what the doctor said, or what the ultrasound said either. All because by the time I was three months along I was showing like most women would at five or six. But that was set straight when Rapunzel was born the day before our first anniversary.

Sometimes I think life without kids would be so much simpler. But it defiantley wouldn’t be as fulfilling. Rapunzel and SuperChunk give me so much to be grateful for. They are always willing to give me a hug, and their laughter is infectious. They both can start with this fake laugh and turn it into a real one because they know they’re being funny. They both make up their own songs at the drop of a hat. Rapunzel will pick a “melody” and SuperChunk will start to sing along to it. It nothing but la, la, la la, la, but it still makes me laugh.

Rapunzel is growing some legs and thinning out a lot. While SuperChunk is still SuperChunk. She’s thinner than she was even six months ago, but she’s still round. My girls may look alike, but that’s where the comparisons stop. They are their own little person and will make sure everyone knows it. That is probably what I love about them the most. If they want to do something on their own stand back because they are determined. But they also know when to ask for help. Plus, all the “cuddles” don’t hurt either.

I just hope they know how much I love them.

Questions from the Queen of Rambles

While visiting The Queen of Rambles I decided to be lazy and crazy at the same time. Lazy because I couldn’t think of anything I could post about quite yet, and crazy because you never know what questions a stranger will ask you.

So here they are:

1) What surprised you most about having children?
That they would be so much like me. I now know what I put my parents through and I’m surprised I’m still alive. Rapunzel, who is 5 days from her 7th birthday, behaves more like a teenager. She likes to get filthy dirty in the mud, like I did when I was a little tom boy. She also knows everything and is never wrong. SuperChunk my little 2 1/2 year old terror is more mischevious than anything. SuperChunk hates to get dirty, but likes to play dress-up and carry around her “baby.” ( I carried a bear or something all the way through high school because I could.) She is also very loud and strongwilled.

2) Who is your oldest friend/how did you meet?
I would have to say that my oldest friend is my Mom and I think that explains how we met. I say my Mom because I do not have contact with anyone from my childhood or high school. It only goes to show that my “friends” really weren’t my friends. When they disappeared when I needed them the most my Mom was always there. My Mom was there for me when I cut my leg and needed stitches in the third grade, when my “first love” broke my heart in the eighth grade, when I had an abortion the summer before I started my senior year of high school after my boyfriend flew to Colorado, when she held the little pink kidney shaped bowl for me in the hospital during Rapunzel’s birth, and most recently for my breakdown last week when she couldn’t even see me she showed me how much she loved me. Thanks Mom.

3) You are given a million dollars, but you are not allowed to spend it on yourself or any family members. What do you do with it?
I would give half of it to Bible Truth Publishers the company Shawn used to work for. They print christian calendars, Sunday School papers, tracts and pamphlets. They ship these items plus, bibles, Sunday School supplies, charts, and many other items world wide. With large quantities of calendars going ot third world countries free of charge. I would split a quarter of it between different assemblies in our church to be able to help spread the gospel. And last but definately not least I would give the remainder to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital because there are so many children who are sick and without our children there is no tomorrow. You never know maybe one of the kids that St. Jude’s helps will be the one to find a cure for cancer.

4) How did you meet your husband?
I was completing my senior year of high school at a continuation school because I moved to a different school district in the middle of my senior year wher I met a guy named Bobby. One day Bobby was talking with another student and friend, Misty, about a freind he had who was 23 and still a virgin. This got my attention because I didn’t know of any of anyone who was still a virgin. Anyways, at midnight that night, literally, there was a knock at my bedroom window. Bobby was standing outside and he said that Shawn was with him and they were bored out of their mind. So I let them in the side gate of the yard and we sat out on the patio and talked until two in the morning. The next day at school I couldn’t stop asking Bobby questions about Shawn and found out that Shawn had asked some qustions about me too. We all hung out together that day and night and got to know each other a little better. Our first date was to his church our second date was to Red Robin for appetizers and the movie Anacondas. Just a few weeks later and we were married.

5) What’s one thing you fantasize about doing, but it’s out of your comfort zone so you probably will never do it?
This question is a difficult one for me because I’ve only recently figured out what I want to do as a career. But it would probably be to have my writing published. I have a lot of poetry that I’ve written that isn’t all that bad but I don’t even want Shawn to read it so I don’t think I can let anyone alse read it. I’m actually going to start posting some of it on my blog, just to see if I can get over the fear. Not that I have any readers or anything but knowing it’s there for anyone to see is scary. I would also like to write children’s picture books, but it’s not exactly the easiest field to get into. There would be a lot involved and not necessarily anyone who would be interested in my ideas.

So there you have it. I hope my answers weren’t to wordy.

If anyone would like to be interviewed this is what you need to do:

1) Leave a comment asking me to interview you.
2) I will send you five questions that I get to pick.
3) Update your blog with the answers to the questions AND post the answers as a comment on my blog.
4) Include this explanation on what to do and offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5) If someone asks you to interview them send them five questions of your choosing.

Stuck On the Shoulder of the Road

I finally get up the courage to go to the doctor and they can’t see me. All because of this stupid new policy that the Public Aid office implemented. A policy that says I can’t be seen by my OBGYN for my yearly exam but I can see them if I am having a problem. Except they changed the service area and I am no longer in it. So I have to see a Family Practitioner to get a refferral to my OBGYN. Plus to see my OBGYN I have to have a “pink card” which is some new Illinois Women’s Wellness thingy.

Great. No problem. I can do that. So I call an office in my area, just minutes from my home, and they can’t see me either. Unless I was seen by the doctor in the Urgent Care and I am coming in for a follow-up. I have to go to the local Health Office to be seen.

Health Office is more like Hell Office, sorry mom. I don’t like going. They always make me feel like I’m an incompetent woman who doesn’t know anyhting. They tell me that what I’m saying is wrong. It’s my body, not theirs. They’re just some stupid woman sitting behinda desk who doesn’t know my situation.

When I got pregnant with SuperChunk she actually had the gall to tell me that one, I didn’t wait long enough after losing Ashleyto get pregnant, two, being that this was my sixth pregnancy, yes sixth, should I really have gotten pregnant, and third, that I was awfully young to have been pregnant so many times.

It’s not like I started at 14. I didn’t. I got pregnant at 17 and had an abortion. Then I met Shawn. We knew each other almost a week when he asked me out. We dated for a week when he proposed. And we were engaged for almost three weeks when we got married. Rapunzel was born the day before our first wedding anniversary. When Rapunzel was almost two we started to try again.

We had a miscarriage in August of 2000. Then we got pregnant in October of 2000 and miscarried in December of 2000. Then we got pregnant with Ashley in February of 2001 and moved to Illinois. Ashley was born at 28 1/2 weeks in August of 2001. Then came the realization that I was pregnant in March of 2002. And a very long nine months later my Turkey baby, SuperChunk, arrived.

So here is a breakdown age wise.

Pregnancy #1 at 17, had an abortion. Married at 18, pregnancy #2, Rapunzel, at 19. Pregnancy #3 at 21 and miscarried, pregnancy #4 at 21 and miscarried at 22. Pregnancy #5 at 22 with stillborn. Pregancy #6 at 23, SuperChunk. The end of babies for me came in November 2003 when I had my tubes “tied.”

So now I get to explain all of this to another complete stranger who really doesn’t care. And may not think that the problem I’m having now is a problem. I don’t think people, in general, can’t see the problem if they’ve never experienced it. I don’t mean all problems just this one.

I feel like a failure as a wife. I have a husband who can’t keep his hands off me, in spite of my round figure, and yet I can’t have an intimate relationship wiht him. It’s afecting my emotional and physical well-being.

It’s very depressing to know what the problem is and not be able to fix it. Especially knowing that the problem is me. I should be able to fix this on my own. It’s my body, it should be as simple as mind over matter. But my mind doesn’t seem to be strong enough.

I can’t even think about seeing another person and explaining this with out bawling like a baby. How stable is that, really?

I guess it’s a good thing the girls are going to California for a few weeks. Maybe I’ll be able to get a few of these things under control. Maybe.

Time To Suck It Up

This entry is not for the faint hearted or those who have a fear of “TMI.”

I have come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to suck it up and go back to the doctor. It’s been over a year and my libido is so dead it’s not even funny anymore. And I mean that literally. I’d be lucky if I could think of ten times that I actually wanted to have sex in the last year. The key word there is wanted.

I’m not looking forward to this visit, which I will attempt to schedule tomorrow. Why you ask would I be so terrified of this? Because of what I was told before and I know is now the only option. I have to see a specialist. And not just any specialist, a sex specialist. And this is why:

1) About 99.9% of the time sex is painful. No matter what position, what time of day/night, level of arousal, ot length of time it lasts.

2) About 90% of the time the sex is painful the pain is excruciating. I mean instant, hot, burning, sharp, gouging pain. Worse than my labor pains pain.

3) I have no libido. It’s dead, or at least barely surviving.

and finally

4) I can’t even have sex just for his sake anymore. Maybe this is why I haven’t been able to sleep in over two months. Bed=Sex. Not good.

This is what I’m supposed to do. Have him massage me daily in an area that is extremely unwilling. Because sometime after my first was born things started to “fuse together.” I don’t mean my tubes are stuck or anything just that some of the muscles have. That doesn’t seem so bad. But it is.

Because since we can’t do it, someone will have to. That’s right. Someone else.

I don’t even like my husband to see me, let alone a stranger. I hate my yearly exams more for the fact that there looking at me than the pain they cause during the exam. But since realizing my problem they are much more careful with me, which means it takes even longer to finish.

So now I get to call my friendly OBGYN and tell her I want someone else poking around down there. I really don’t want to. I understand that this person is a doctor and they know what they’re doing. But still. I will have this persons fingers in me. IUGH. Did I mention I don’t even know if I will be seeing a man or a woman, or if I even have a choice.

Now that I’ve completely over-informed you. I think I’ll try to go to bed. It’s only 1 :20 am. If I’m lucky I’ll be asleep in about an hour.