Doctors and Disappointment

“Do you want me to be your surrogate?”

That isn’t a question you want to hear from your mother, it's not an option you’d think to entertain, and it’s definitely not something you’d ever want to explain to your child.

“Yes, Timmy, you’re half your father and half your mother, but you came out of grandma.”

If that’s not a recipe for identity crisis, I don’t know what is.

I know my mother wasn’t being serious. She was only attempting to cheer me up after my disappointing doctor’s appointment where I was told I’m not ovulating and there’s nothing I can do about it aside from continue trying to get my thyroid under control and lose the weight the bum thyroid put on.

Not exactly brightening news when you’ve only lost ten pounds in the last year you’ve been trying and been on the meds everyone said would fix it.

But, you know, “Thyroid problems take time. You have to be patient…”

Meanwhile, I’m rocking forty extra pounds and want to have children in the very near future, but my uterus is on thyroid time.

It really doesn’t help that Facebook has turned into Babybook, and everyone I know is on baby number 2 with just a small sect of us in the corner with our empty wombs shaking our fists.

But, the key is positivity, right?

I gotta keep looking up.

So, I’m reinstating the no-holds-bar diet and exercise plan. That means it’s back to highly regimented days, food journaling, and strict guard duty of my cupboards (coincidentally, this is also happening for my dog who’s gotten a bit chunky).

Plus, since going sans gluten, they’ve cut my hormones in half as I went a bit high and had some reoccurring heart palpitations—never fun—and I don’t want any fallout from the changes.

Ugh, all kinds of fertility fun happening over here.  

One of the Greats

My first encounter with Robin Williams was as Genie in Aladdin. He was my favorite character. I connected with the loud, erratic craziness that made Genie. As an unmedicated, hyperactive child, I sometimes felt like a screaming blue giant in a room full of cringing Aladdins.

I ran into him again in Mrs. Doubtfire and again in Jumanji, a movie I watched over and over again. Little me loved Robin Williams. He became a part of my childhood.

As I got older, I watched What Dreams May Come, which still stands as one of my favorite films, and it cemented Williams on my favorite actors list.

 

I hope his heaven looks a lot like this

I can’t say I’ve seen all his movies, but I can say that I love his characters in all the ones I’ve seen, and I always gave a movie with his name attached a watch. He’s never failed to make me laugh or cry or scare the crap out of me (I don’t think I’ve gotten my photos developed at a store since One Hour Photo. He put a whole movie to a fear I’d had for along time).

And Good Will Hunting, I cry every time he talks about his wife so passionately. Every.Time.

Hearing he died was heartbreaking. I’d never met him, but it kind of felt like a distant relative had passed or someone I used to be really close to. I teared up reading what his daughter wrote and other people who knew him personally.

I have been appalled by how some of the media is covering it. I don’t think it was necessary to give the details of his death beyond it being a suicide. It’s not our right to know things beyond that; that news serves no purpose but to invade a very personal and sad space he last existed in and shows just how far behind we are in accurately handling mental illness.

I am again flabbergasted at the ignorance of those who’ve never gone through depression but still feel like they hold some valid and all enlightening solution or judgement for those who have gone through it and succumbed to it.

It infuriates me.

I’ve been depressed; I spent a year in a black whole of isolation, where maybe I never contemplated ending my life, but I didn’t care if I got hit by a bus or some other quick solution happened. I, luckily, dug myself out, but I’m always on the precipice, and the fear of falling back in is always there.

I also have an ongoing anxiety problem, and I can not express to you the emotions that hit me when someone says things like ‘It’s all in your head; there’s nothing to fear; just don’t think about it.’

If it were that easy, mental illness wouldn’t be a problem. And these reactions are exactly why people with these problems never ask for help. When our issues are degraded, they become something that’s easier to deal with, successfully or unsuccessfully, internally. It is much easier to exist in a world where only we know our crazy. 

There is no outside help for depression and anxiety if you're not willing to take it, and even if you do want it, sometimes it still wins. Williams fought it until he was 63. That’s a damn good winning streak, and it really sucks that it took him now.

My heart goes out to his family, to his kids. I hope they can find comfort in his memories and legacy.

To celebrate his life, I’ve been watching his movies, laughing as I always have and cherishing the fact that he lives on there, doing what he always did best.

New Additions

Meet Sir Figs Birdington

It’s been a stressful month and a half. I can’t say getting another pet really did anything to lessen the financial stress, but he’s done wonders for the emotional state of the house.

I haven’t really gotten too deep into my fertility issues, since this is a public blog and the world doesn’t need to be privy to the happenings of my womb, but we’re having problems. Something’s not working in my lady area, making baby creation a problem.

A bird makes me feel better about the state of things for some reason. It soothes my baby fever a bit and helps me concentrate on other things as I wait for more testing and appointments to figure out what’s wrong and where to go from here.  

Financially, it probably wasn’t the best move, either, but sometimes you do things to forget. Some people drink to do this; I get a bird.

He’s a turquoise Green Cheek Conure, hatched back in February so not even a year old. He’s adorably cuddly, something I didn’t expect from a bird but am definitely pleased with. He plays with cat toys more than my cats do. He goes through a midafternoon scream fest that lasts about 10 minutes but is otherwise quiet. He is pretty potty trained, which I thought was impossible for birds, but the amount of poop I’ve seen him let loose makes me really happy about that.

Any other bird parents out there? Any advice?