My Traveling Red Dress Experience

The history of the dress

I bought this dress a little over seven years ago.  

It’s been worn exactly twice, and languishing in my closet the rest of the time.  It was bought for me to wear as a bridesmaid in a Christmas wedding, the wedding of two of my best friends who soon started trying to have a family.  After a two and a half year struggle with infertility they were finally able to conceive, and now they have two of the most beautiful twin girls I’ve ever seen (saw them just last week).

When my husband and I started our attempts to have a baby they, along with another close friend who has PCOS like me, were my inspiration.  From tests to treatments to disappointments they had been through it all before me, and held my hand (literally and figuratively) through it all.  Then four years in I started with a new group of fertility specialists and FINALLY got pregnant.

It was the last week in January 2011 that I wore this dress for a second time.  I’ve been deeply involved in music from very early on: sang before I could talk, piano lessons from age 3, music major in college, and through it all I’ve had debilitating stage fright.  I try over and over with mixed results to force myself to sing/play/speak in public.  That January, the same week I started new treatments for what was wrong inside me, I decided to work on the outside as well.  America’s Got Tallent auditions came to Atlanta, so inspired by theblogess and her red dress wearing encouragement I went to the auditions, red dress and all.  The good news is, I’m not bad enough to make it on TV.  The bad news is, I’m not good enough to make it on TV either.  But I made it through, and with that boost of confidence I didn’t embarrass myself to badly.

Only two weeks later I found out I was pregnant for the first time.  I was overjoyed, only to have a miscarriage three weeks in.  It was devastating.  I tried to see the good in all this.  I mean, at least this proved that I COULD get pregnant, something I hadn’t managed in four years of trying.  But to have our hopes raised and dashed in such short order, only to be followed by month after month of disappointment seemed more than I could take.  My self-image went to pot!  From January to September I had gained nearly 20 lbs.  Nothing seemed to matter, not how much I ate or exercised, I’m sure all the crazy hormones I was on didn’t help, so we decided to take the rest of the year off to focus on getting healthy and then decide how to face the new year.

In October I started having horrible lower back and stomach pain, similar to monthly cramps, but instead of a day or so and then my period they went on for nearly a week with no sign of change.  I finally realized that they were in the same location as pains I had had during my first pregnancy.  Turns out, I managed to conceive, no timing, no drugs, no idea how this happened after almost five years of trying everything under the sun.  I spent the next two months terrified to eat the wrong thing, exercise to hard, expose myself to any chemicals, anything at all.  I was so terrified of another miscarriage.  Add to that terrified to tell people I was pregnant again only to have it end in disappointment again.

The dress moves on

So when Jenny mentioned having a new red dress photo shoot a few days back, http://thebloggess.com/2012/01/the-traveling-red-dress-revisited/, I looked at my body and said, no way am I fitting into that dress.  But it got me to wondering, if I can’t wear the dress, who could?  I mean, it’s a beautiful dress, and it’s spent the majority of the last seven years crushed in my closet gathering dust.  So I offered it out.  This was the response I got:

I need this dress. My struggles are with infertility, and weight. I turned 30 back in June, and every day my hopes of becoming a mother just slip further away. My life is consumed by the tremendous booming of my biological clock. We can not get pregnant without IVF, but financially we are fish out of water. Asking us for $15,000.00 is like asking for a million. 

I wake up every single day, chocking back the tears and just feeling damn sorry for myself. I can’t seem to shake it. I don’t want to work, or be social, or even cook a meal for my husband. For the life of me, I’m trying to summon the will to do anything-absolutely anything. I haven’t allowed photos of myself to be taken in over 8 years, because I HATE what I see looking back at me. I’ve completely lost my own worth. And I need to find it again. I have to. I have to wear that dress.

I swear only God could have let this person see my little comment way down on theblogess’s website offering the dress.  To have this dress offer encouragement to someone else going through the same struggles I’ve been through means so much to me.  So as this dress is on its way to its new home in Idaho it goes with all the prayers and blessings and love I can send with it, for the next lady who will wear it, and the next, and the next.

An open letter to US Bank

Dear US Bank,
When you call and repeatedly get our answering machine but never leave a message, it is our natural assumption that you have nothing good to talk about.  When you call and ask for a person and I tell you he is not interested in speaking to you, that is not an indication that you should call at a better time.  When someone is not interested in speaking to you and they have caller ID, your calls will not be answered at whatever time you call.

If you have something important to talk about, please leave a message.  Otherwise, quit calling 4 times a week!  Get a clue!

Thanks,
Someone who was woken up by the phone ringing this morning

amazing

Well, I was planning a post about how hard it is to find skin care products that can be used during pregnancy in regular stores.  Sure, we all know not to use vitamin A derivatives, and to avoid salicylic acid, and BHAs but when you have a history of miscarriage there's SO much more to avoid!  You don't want to eat basil, sage, or rosemary because they can cause contractions, so do I really want to run the risk of rubbing them into my skin?  I love how folks keep pointing me to the organic lines of skin care products, like there aren't organic forms of vitamin A, and rosemary's a top ingredient in half these products as well.  So I was going to rant about how I can't seem to find anything to use on my skin in Kroger anymore, but then I got distracted.

This morning I had a doctor's appointment, really just a test to see if the baby's nerve development appears normal, or if it looks like he/she could be at risk for Downs.  Not that we would love a baby with Downs any less, I just figure its good to know so that I can prepare the best I can for whatever we can know.  So we started this ultrasound, and I thought things looked kinda twitchy, but then maybe that was the lady moving the want, right?  Nope, we have a very jumpy baby in there, not the most cooperative at holding still for the technician.  I thought about telling him to hold still so she could get her measurements, but then I figured the technician would think I was talking to her, or she would think I was crazy for talking to a baby that doesn't yet have ears.  Anyway, laying there, listening to a heartbeat, watching a twitchy baby who didn't particularly care to be measured, was amazing.



P.S. If you know of any decent grocery store skin care products that are safe let me know.  I don't want to have to order from specialty stores and spend an arm and a leg!

Well, I thought I was taking a break (warning, probably contains over-sharing)

I was just looking through old drafts and realized I never posted one from a month and a half back called "Taking a Break."  You know how they say that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans?  Well, I'm thinking the folks that say that know what they're talking about!

After years of trying and months of invasive and painful treatments, we decided back in October to stop trying for a baby.  Well at least through the end of the year.  All the ups and downs were getting to me.  The weight gain, the hormones, sex on demand, the uncomfortable and sometimes painful procedures, knowing that THIS month was FINALLY going to be the month only to have something go wrong and have my hopes crushed, again.  I just couldn't take the stress.

So instead of another round of treatment starting in October I went on a diet and lost 8 lbs.  My husband and I went on a cruise.  I drank all the martinis I wanted.  Sex was spontaneous instead of planned, and I avoided thinking about anything having to do with anybody's reproductive schedule.  When the end of the month rolled around without a sign of my period, well, we all know I'm not likely to ovulate on schedule if at all, so I took a pregnancy test (negative) and started the standard progesterone to reboot the system another month.  But after a week, I realized I was feeling kinda weird.  My back hurt, not all that unusual for me, but my stomach hurt too, and then I realized that I was hurting in the same places that I hurt back in February with the pregnancy that ended in miscarriage, and I began to wonder.  Oh, I didn't feel as bad as I had back then, but then things could be early on.  Some stuff I could account to the progesterone.  My boobs had hurt in other cycles when I hadn't turned out to be pregnant, but my stomach, that was hard to discount.  So when I got home that night I looked, and I had one pregnancy test left.  I told myself I was stupid for wasting it.

I put it off until after dinner.  And then I took it, and watched it.  You know how you're supposed to wait three minutes for the line to develop?  Well I didn't even have to wait 30 seconds.  I was shaking when I showed it to my husband.  My next call was to the doctor's office to confirm.

I spent the next week and a half terrified at every twinge, looking for blood at every trip to the bathroom.  When I had my miscarriage in February I had no idea that there was even a possibility that anything was wrong.  I hadn't worried that anything would happen until it did.  This time I knew just how badly things could go, and it was a rare moment that I wasn't terrified that something was going wrong.  Then this:

In case you're wondering, that's a heartbeat there.  Now, can anyone tell me how to stop being terrified that something will go wrong at any minute?

Complaints: Now with Real Ingredients!!!

Ok, so I'm noticing a trend in advertising.  This all started a few days ago when my mother-in-law asked me what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday.  Well I knew right off that I wanted the most chocolaty thing you can find in a cake mix, and since I've had good luck with Duncan Hines I thought I'd look through the flavors on their website to see what seemed to have chocolate on top of chocolate with a side of chocolate.  I ended up here:
http://www.duncanhines.com/products/cakes

At first glance this looks like a simple list of a variety of cake flavors.  But then I noticed something.  Under the heading "Decadent Mixes" there is the phrase "contains an additional pouch of real ingredients."  This got me wondering.  What exactly is a cake mix made up of if it's not ingredients?  I mean, when I was a kid and I made mud pies, these mud pies had ingredients (mostly mud).  When I look on the side of a box of regular cake mix, what exactly would you call the list of things that supposedly go into the box?

But it didn't stop there.  Today, I spent most of the day watching football with my husband.  Ok, so I don't so much watch football as exist in a room where football is on TV while I pay attention to other things, but occasionally something on the TV catches my attention.  This time it was a Tostitos commercial.  Now I love Tostitos.  They are the corn chip that I am most likely to buy, more because they're often on sale and in the shapes I like than because I think they're particularly nutritious, but I've eaten and enjoyed a variety of Tostitos products.  So when I heard them advertising that they're made with "real ingredients" it got me thinking.  Why in the world would anyone with a lick of sense advertise that a food is made with real ingredients?  Are these real ingredients as opposed to the fake ones?  If Tostitos are made with real ingredients does that mean that Fritos are made with paste and paint?  (I love Fritos, and would never mean to malign their excellent reputation, and they go really well with chili.)  What kind of idiot do the advertising executives think I am?  Who would spend millions of dollars to tell me that their food-like substances are made with real ingredients?

This really makes me wonder what other advertising and marketing campaigns are utterly meaningless.  Does my toothpaste really keep working for hours, or does it just remove the grubby stuff and it takes time (and eating) for it to come back?  Is lite mayonnaise really light, or is it just lighter than say, injecting lard directly into my veins?  Are these desiccated grapes or plumper juicier raisins?  Will the shoes make me run faster even though I don't like to run.  I mean really, I spend more time driving a car or sitting at a desk than anything else in life.  Will this added layer of clothing make me look thinner, or will it just add another layer to my already extensive padding?  When you say something tastes better, better than what?

Silly, silly advertising executives.  You're even stupider than you think I am.

P.S. My actual birthday cake was a Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix with the Creamy Home-Style Dark Chocolate Fudge Frosting, and it was VERY good even though my husband complained that it was ugly.  I picked a cake because it would TASTE good, not because it would look good (if I'd wanted a pretty cake I'd have let him spread frosting on a hunk of styrofoam), and not because it had REAL INGREDIENTS!

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.