Netflix is making a big mistake

So... Netflix sent out a letter explaining their recent changes today.  I read it.  I went to their blog to respond to it, and wrote a response only to have their comment system require that I'm a Facebook member.  I'm not.  So without further ado, my open letter to Netflix:

That's a bunch of malarkey.  Re branding a successful brand is always a mistake.  I can see the price increase (though I think it could have been better implemented incrementally), and I can see re-organizing into two different groups.  But the re branding is a mistake, and a bad one.  Amazon.com made the steps to sell things other than books, and they have been successful because now folks know Amazon.com is their one stop shop.  By re-branding you're alienating all the word of mouth marketing you've had through the years.  I can see only one reason to re brand a part of the business, and that's if you're planning on selling it off.  Sooooo, when are you planning on selling off the DVD by mail business?

P.S. if you're new to the Netflix debate, you can read their blog that I'm responding to here:  http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html?lnktrk=EMP&g=924FD2284294B084FFA5EF8B00E123120AC0315E&lkid=netflixBlog

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

And of course, another disappointment. The good news is, I've gone part time at work just to have some time to take better care of myself and to take some of the stress off.

I keep wanting to cry out, begging, screaming, "God PLEASE give me a healthy full term pregnancy." But I keep reminding myself, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

I'm really trying to mean it.

The waiting game

When I talk to my friends with infertility they often talk about the month after month of disappointment.  And while that's horrible, I don't find that to be the worst of it.  See, with disappointment at least you know.  What we tried didn't work, so it's time to formulate a new plan, there're plans to make, and stuff to do.  There's always something different to try, and having something different to do makes it that much better.  It gives something to hope for.

No, the worst part of it is the time of the month where you just don't know where you stand.  You've done everything you can, and you have no idea whether it worked.  Every month you spend a couple weeks talking to your body, saying "Please let it take!"  "Everything's ok, you can focus on reproductive stuff now."  "Please let everything get together and do the right things this time."

And I'm afraid to do anything that could be the wrong thing.  I found myself watching a funny TV show last night, and laughing, wondering whether if I laughed to hard if it would jar anything loose and it wouldn't take.  I'm afraid to exercise to strenuously because I might get dehydrated and cause a problem.  I'm afraid to do anything that could cause a lot of pain or stress on my body, lest my body decide that maybe now's not so good a time to put the focus on reproduction.  I kick myself wondering if the incident with the legs I burned with expired dilatory cream could have triggered some sort of fight or flight stress release that caused my miscarriage.  I don't know that I'll ever know.

So here I am; afraid to eat the wrong thing, afraid to get sick, afraid to move the wrong way, afraid to even laugh to hard!  Tired, and yet waking up in the middle of the night unable to think of anything but what MIGHT be going on inside me now.  Is it any wonder I'm no fun at all?

I'm beginning to itentify with Job

Ok, so my house hasn't collapsed, it's just the air conditioning gone out in the middle of what I read a few days ago is a "Deadly Heat Wave" gripping half the United States.  And my children aren't all dead, it's just that I can't seem to have any in the first place.  I haven't broken out in boils and sores, it's just a doozy of a UTI on the tail end of a week of rumbling tummy trouble that ranged from Full Stop to Go, Go, Go!  But compound this on top of more than normal stresses at work, more bad news from the fertility clinic, and more frustrations ranging from a breast cancer scare (nope, it's just a cyst, everything's fine) to a guy who can't seem to decide whether he wants to sell us the car that we said we would buy MONTHS ago, and I'm wondering just exactly how much more of this we can take.

Ok, so my husband hasn't told me to "curse God and die" for which I am always thankful, but when it comes to breaking points, well, I'm way past where I thought mine would be.  Instead we lie naked in bed (it's to hot for clothes) and thank God for ceiling fans, even if the one in our bedroom has this weird tendency to cut off in the middle of the night.  We thank Him for sustaining us thus far, and pray that he will help us through whatever comes next.  Oh, and we cry, a lot, and do our best to comfort each other because we both know that God knew what he was doing when he put us together and that there's no way we would make it through this without each other.  And then there's the yelling, crying out to the universe.

WHY CAN'T WE GET A BREAK!?

If God's got a bet on with the Devil about what it'll take to break me, then I don't want to let Him down.  But I kinda wish he'd go pick someone else to bet on and let me have some time to recover from all this... stuff.  Surely work doesn't have to make both me and my husband miserable at the same time.  Surely God can heal our bodies or thyroid and hormonal issues and whatever else is making it impossible for us to have children and loose weight.  I eat really healthy, a low calorie but balanced diet with lots of leafy greens, and I started working out 3-4 times a week over a month ago.  I shouldn't be GAINING weight.  But combine PCOS with an under active thyroid (which I was doing a really good job of controlling before all these fertility treatments) and you get twenty more pounds of me since January.

I really didn't start this diet and exercise plan thinking that it would result in me only gaining a pound and a half in the last month, and now I need to go out and buy all new jeans.  I mean, I like shopping as much as the next girl, but in general I just want my clothes to fit!  And I'd really prefer a new pair of earrings to shopping for a new air conditioning unit.

This too shall pass

I’ve been comforting myself lately with the idea of change. No matter what happens, this will pass. Change is the only thing I can count on, so no matter what has me down now I know that in a few days or weeks it’ll be something else, or my circumstances will change, and whatever seems insurmountable now won’t be there, or won’t seem so bad, or will have changed into something else. This is something I learned from Mark Lowrey.  

All I have to do is wait.  If nothing else my ADD will kick in and I'll forget to be upset about whatever's upsetting me.  Right?

3 months

Three months and I'm still not pregnant.  Confirmed today.  All I want to do is go home and cry.

Well, that and a big FU to all the folks who said "Don't worry, you'll try again next month."

In other news, I think my hair is falling out faster than normal.  It's a good thing I have more than average to start with.  I can stand to loose a fair bit without looking like a freak... well, no more of a freak than normal anyway.

Terrified, Annoyed - Confessions of wigging out

Ok, so my one and only pregnancy thus far was an unmitigated disaster.  From the Sunday before I knew I was pregnant I started having horrible pain anywhere from 2-4 times a day, and each pain lasted anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours.  This lasted for the entire duration of the pregnancy and only stopped well after my miscarriage was in progress.  I can count on one hand the number of nights I was able to sleep through during that almost three weeks I was pregnant.  Each night I'd wake up with pains shooting across my middle, wrapped around to my back, and sometimes down to my knees.  Unable to get comfortable in any position I paced the house, often for hours at a time.  Of course if they hit during the day when I was stuck in a meeting I was in worse luck.  Sitting made the hurting worse, so I found myself shifting in my seat, unable to concentrate, unable to focus on anything but the pain.

I told one doctor about this and he told me that normal women whose ovaries work right go through this every month.  Right.  I'm not buying that normal women have PMS three weeks out of the month.  If they did there would be a LOT more voluntary hysterectomies.  For another thing, I don't think I'm THAT wussy!  I know what PMS is, I've had it, and it's nothing to write home about. It's DEFINITELY nothing that would keep me up at night. 

And then my world crashed down.  Having a miscarriage the same week Grandpa died... I don't even have the words.  It's been over a month now and I still don't have the words to express how much the world was against me.  I remember one time when I was in middle school, 8th grade I think, and I had the flu on the heels of strep throat.  I was in bed much of that time, and the very first time I went outside in over a week I sat down on a cross-tie next to the driveway and as I straightened up from sitting a bird pooped on the back of my head and down the back of my shirt.  Having a miscarriage?  Worse than that!

So now, a month later, I'm looking at our next steps with more than a little trepidation. I'm terrified, and I feel evil for being terrified.  I'm terrified of getting pregnant and losing the baby, and I'm scared of the pain that I had during my first pregnancy that kept me up at night and made it near impossible to think at work.  And I'm just all around scared and nervous volunteering for this process again.  I came home a few nights back and went straight for the jellybeans and chocolate.  I've really noticed this miscarriage has caused huge stress eating.  The week of the miscarriage I went through a large bag of dark chocolate peanut M&M's in about two days.  And then there were the jellybeans.  Add to this that my doctor asked me to cut my thyroid medicine in half for this try, and I've gained 10 lbs since January, most of it since the miscarriage I'm sure.  Of course I was to upset to go near a scale so I don't really know when all this started.  I'm just now starting to get my focus off the comfort eating and onto trying to be healthy again.

I know I'm just wigging out from nerves.  I WANT a baby, I DON'T want to loose another one.  This is not the same as thinking I can't handle it.  I can handle quite a lot without dying, or throwing myself off a cliff, or staying in bed for the rest of my life, but I know that losing another baby would be very HARD to handle.  I'm scared of the pain that went with my last pregnancy coming back.  I was seriously miserable and couldn't sleep through the night for something like two weeks.  I had people calling me a wuss, telling me to get over it, and telling me to get used to it because this was going to be what motherhood is like.  So, I'm still trying, but I've lost all joy in it.  And I'm scared.  

That's my confession, sorry for pouring it out like that, and I'm sure that really is TMI.