In a nutshell...

If it's okay with you, I don't really want to go over all of the gory details thing here. It's just completely unnecessary. So I'll give you the quick version, with a few necessary flourishes.

About three weeks ago, I had a D&C for an incomplete miscarriage. That I was pregnant was a total surprise as (a) my period hadn't come back after weaning, and (b) we weren't even trying, although we do want to have a third child. I woke up during the night (thanks, Jack!) to find that I was bleeding and thought it was my period, but it only lasted about five hours. So I called my doctor, who wanted to see me, and lo and behold, the urine test was positive. I went to get my progesterone and HCG tested, and the results led the doctor to think I was having twins. Yes, twins. Holy 3#$%. After several inconclusive ultrasounds in the doctor's office, I went to the hospital to get a high resolution scan, which is where it was discovered that while I had a gestational sac, it was empty. The yolk sac, fetal pole, anything that would indicate a viable pregnancy was missing. They never developed.

Amazingly, I was really only upset for a couple of hours the day I went to the hospital for the ultrasound. Otherwise, during this whole rollercoaster of a time, I felt very at peace. I just knew that whatever happened was meant to be, and I fully accepted that. I honestly believe that this was a conversation God wanted to have with me, and that this was the only way I would listen.

Notes to myself from the journey:

• I am not in charge. Period. (I know, har har... except not)
• Whether I have a son or daughter is not up to me. It is not decided by me. I cannot do anything to sway the odds one way or the other. I will be given the child I am supposed to have, whether boy or girl.
• Whatever the makeup of my family, I will be fine. I will love them dearly, and enjoy them completely.

Whatever...

So much has happened over the past few weeks, but I just don't feel like posting it here. It's nothing to be ashamed of or to keep from anyone, but I'm not ready to share just yet. I might not ever be. Let's just say that something happened that reaffirmed my faith in God and right now I want to keep it close to me. So that's all for now...

We're waiting...

I think I told you that we bought an HDTV on Sunday night. Since nobody had the TV we wanted in stock (because we, like everybody else in the New York/New England geographical area, decided to buy a new HDTV the weekend before the Giants play the Pats in the SuperBowl... duh), we ordered it online from Sears to pick it up at the store. The order confirmation gave yesterday as the estimated arrival date, but no TV yet. I called customer service tonight and was told that I have to call the pick up store directly to find out when they expect to have it ready for us.

I hope it gets here before the cable guys do (between 3 and 5pm on Saturday).

My Brain Hurts

Since we visited my parents over the holidays, John has been bugging me to get an HDTV.

My parents' TV was so old (twenty years old, I think) that the bottom six inches of the picture just disappeared. Dad kept putting off buying a new TV (had to be HD, of course) because he wanted to wait until they sold the house and he could get a bigass one for their new living room. As we all know, the real estate market tanked, so nobody's coming through to look at their house (if you're looking to relocate to Bucks County, PA, email me. my parents have a beautiful home for sale). My brother Ronnie finally shamed my dad into buying a new TV, along with upgrading to HD Cable. After a couple of hours of watching sports in HD, John was convinced.

So back to John and his latest quest. In order to keep him from walking into a random electronics superstore and throwing money down on some TV that we know nothing about, I must do research.

So I've been spending lots of time on cnet and reading Home Theater magazine in a futile effort to absorb everything I need to know about HDTV. In a nutshell: it's going to come down to whose remote and user controls are prettiest.

And then I've been doing all of this comparing between Charter Cable's and at&t Dish's offerings. Because we can't have a high-def TV without high-def cable, obviously. Ugh. I can't even stand to read this post anymore.

Lemon out...

There Goes the Neighborhood

I read some rather shocking and disturbing news on page two in the local paper last week. One of my neighbors was arrested for and pled guilty to possession of child pornography. He was caught when he tried to buy a videotape online that was actually a sting operation. Trial is set for March, but until then he's free on bond. He was arrested in 2006, so why are we just learning this now? What if, God forbid, one of our kids was molested by this guy?

Now, here's something I don't understand. One of the conditions of his bond is that he can't work with or be around children under 18 years of age. So how is he still living at home? I don't know this for certain, but another neighbor told me that the wife is standing by him and strongly suspects that he's still living in the house. The couple has three children under four years old.

And here's something else I don't understand. If buying child porn is what he got busted for, and for what proof exists, what else has this guy done that the authorities can't prove? Disgusting. I hate to wish harm against people, but if he's done worse than view child pornography, he deserves to be put in jail for a nice, long while. I feel bad for the kids.

No More Martyr Mama

I never understood why stay-at-home moms hired babysitters. To me, it seemed like they were cheating: if you're not working outside the home, why on earth do you need to hire someone to watch your kids?

Of course, at the time, it all made perfect sense to me. I had only one child, and he took a two-hour nap each day. I had a nice, long stretch of time every afternoon to spend however I wished. I could watch Dr. Phil, surf the internet, or - gasp! - do housework. Oh sure, I was drained by the end of the day, but I never felt like I couldn't catch a break until he went to bed.

And then my world changed. We had a second child, our first's naps became more sporadic (and rarely did they coincide with the baby's naptimes). I finally got fed up with wondering whether the oldest would nap and forced him to drop them altogether. That long break I used to have was gone - and was replaced by nighttime feedings, prying a toddler off a crawling baby, and believing that watching only one child was my break.

One year later, I have now come to decide that those moms are geniuses, and I have been a naive, stupid martyr. Tomorrow I am going to make my first phone call to an outside babysitter.

Now please don't think I'm going to start going out to lunch and getting manicures every week (I'm Catholic, I could never hire a babysitter to watch the kids while I do that - the guilt!). I just want someone to come for two or three hours every other week so I can leave the house by myself and come back feeling refreshed and ready to be with my kids again.

Crush With Eyeliner

If you've read any of my posts, you've probably gathered that I am (a) married, (b) a mother of two small boys, and (c) straight. All three are true. That said, I have a secret girly crush. No, not that kind of girly crush (you know, the kind your husband only wishes you had). The kind of girly crush where you think this woman is just so freaking smart and funny and successful and cool and you not only wish you were smart and funny and successful and therefore cool like her, but you want to be BFF friends with her and hang out and go to lunch and then go shopping with her. I have one of those big, fat girly crushes on Tina Fey. It would be so cool to be friends with her; our kids would have playdates and we'd sit around watching them play, shooting the breeze about parenting, marriage, and most importantly, snark on the world.

Maybe it's because I discovered that she's from Upper Darby, or that her birthday is the same day as my friend Stacy's, or we both graduated from high school and college the same year, or maybe it's because in my fantasy life I am that smart, funny, and successful. After all, I do have shoulder length brown hair, wear similarly-shaped tortoise shell glasses, but I'm about three inches taller. But that's neither here nor there... I like to think of Tina as my alter ego, the "me" I would be if I had gotten my head together a little sooner in life and was confident enough not only to know what I wanted, but to actually go out there and get it at any cost.