Monster, thy name is Facebook

Thank you all so much for your kind comments regarding my little announcement!  You are all so great and I'm smiling non-stop!  And a super-cool thank you goes out to those who commented for the first time - it's like meeting new friends!  Even the anonymous ones - I'm counting you too!  Thanks you guys!


And guess what!  I think I'm feeling some movement!  I first felt it on Saturday.  I was coming home from yoga and I felt a bubble pop in my low abdomen - just one.  I dismissed it, thinking my body was acting funny from class.  But I felt it again a few minutes later in the exact same spot, the exact same sensation - one small bubble popping, an internal *bloop!*  I thought, no way, the doctor told me just the day before that it would be a month before I could feel anything.  But a few minutes later, I felt it again!  Every day since then, I've felt it in the same general area, same sensation and that's gotta be what it is, which is so freakin cool!  It's nowhere near consistent so I'm not bothering with kick-counts or anything like that, but when it does happen I get a little smile on my face.


Also, Drew and I had a wonderful weekend.  I have come to believe/know/be convinced that I hold the keys to the crazy.  You know that fridge magnet If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?  Totally true in our house.  I believe that we're doing well because I am in the second trimester now and I've leveled out - somewhat.  Drew and I really only fight when I lose my cool and rarely the other way around.  However, MY cool?  The yoga-cool?  When that's gone, it's World War III - some of y'all know exactly what I'm talking about and those who've read my blog for a while have a darn good idea.  It's not pretty when I'm not happy.


But this weekend, I was happy so we were all happy.  Not once did we fight and I even caught some funny 'family' moments Sunday night!

We were watching tv and Maya was unhappy that no one

was paying attention to her.  So she fixed that.

This giant beast has an eye infection and every morning and

night I have to fight her to put the cream in her eyes.

She's wise to me now and runs when she sees the tube - it's been super fun.

She doesn't dare get this forward with me.  

It's like she knows who she can rough-house with and it ain't Mama!

I've also started my Hypnobabies studying.  It's quite a lot of material and between that and the books that I'm reading, I'm learning more about childbirth, US maternity care, bureaucracy and I know all kinds of medical terms now!  This stuff is so fascinating and what I like best is that I'm getting a good view from both sides of the fence.  I reject fear-mongering outright.  I have no use for the granola side saying that all doctors, hospitals and interventions are the devil, just as I toss aside the medical-hospital types who claim that you're just a moron if you don't take advantage of every medical advancement available to you.  The middle ground isn't easy to find but it's there.  Bottom line, most babies live, no matter if you're at home or a hospital.  But just the same, some babies die - no matter what you do or where you are, home or hospital.  It's that societal/cultural thing that absolutely refuses to accept that and we run to technology, thinking that the more machines we use, the more medicine we take, the more doctors we see, we can guarantee a positive (read:  live baby) outcome and that's just not the case.  But that's a whole other touchy subject so I'll leave that where it is. 

Doing my part to get educated - these are just the books!

This doesn't count aaaaalll the internet searches I'm doing when

I'm supposed to be working - this is serious business y'all!

Which kind of brings me to the title of this post.  I read this article last Friday and wasn't going to say anything about it even though it's been swirling around my mind ever since.  This right here was the reason I got off of Facebook but then my cousin sucked me back in, and right now I log on once every couple of weeks at best, usually to look at pictures of my cousin's babies.  The last time I updated my status it was an all-call for some apple juice.  I haven't even announced my pregnancy, mostly because everyone I care about already knows and even though I cut my friend list, I still have 'friends' on there that don't necessarily need to know.  Yet, my blog link is on my page so it's not like it's a secret.  Frankly, I consider that a sign that announcing my pregnancy on Facebook is not necessary and I may do like one of my high school girlfriends and one day just add a picture of me and the baby to my photo album and leave it at that. 

But then today, Stirrup Queen wrote a post that totally hit the nail on the head and I just want to second it and encourage you to read it.  A Little Pregnant posted a fictional FB feed outlining what FB looks like to infertiles (and for conversation, that includes everyone who's ever had trouble trying to conceive, not just those who know for a fact that they can't ever get pregnant) which is what got me going in the first place, as I saw this elsewhere before Stirrup Queen's post today.

Specifically, what riled me up was the isolation that infertiles feel - that the whole world is pregnant but them.  And God knows, I know that feeling intimately.  But you know what?  Spin this whole topic and you can talk about isolation from every standpoint - the single girl, the girl who's married but her husband sucks, the unemployed girl, the girl who works but at a job that sucks, the girl who's broke, the girl who has no friends, the girl with a secret, the girl who has kids that misbehave all the time - all of us get punched in the gut at one time or another and it's rarely on purpose.

You know when I get wistful?  When I hear/read about a woman whose husband is home every night.  I sleep alone four to five nights a week every week.  Yet a military wife will throat-punch me because she hasn't seen her husband in four or five months AND she doesn't even know if he's alive.  I get wistful when I hear about couples who rarely fight or who resolve their fights within minutes.  When things were super bad with me and Drew I admit, I could only take certain blogs in tiny doses because their marriages seemed so perfect.  But, I should be happy I'm married at all, right?  I should try not having a date for two years, right?  Is that the answer?

I get wistful when I see small, well-behaved dogs - no lie.  I love my dog but you guys know - that dog ruined my sanctuary and that was very hard to accept.  There is dog hair on every inch of my house and I hate it - and then there's the occasional dog-ish smell.  I could sweep and vacuum every day and the improvement can be measured in seconds because with one good doggy-shake, there is hair everywhere all over again.  These days I pick my battles - I pretend I don't see the hair, I Febreze all the time and I clean once a week or right before we have company.  And she's not small and cuddly - she's a fracking beast (see above) and I fight her for space in the bed, on the sofa and just about everywhere else all the time.  So many days I fervently wish for a little dog with good manners, yet someone else surely would come along and slap me for daring to whine about something so trivial.  

I get wistful when I hear about people making wedding plans because there was so. much. drama! surrounding the time I got married that we never had that.  YET, one year later here I am, just as married as anyone else but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't wistful that I picked out my dress alone and then cried in the car after.  But then here comes the single girl telling me to shut up, at least I'm married!

And oooh Jesus!  Don't let me say anything about being pregnant!  But I will anyway - I get wistful when I hear about uneventful pregnancies and I get downright jealous of that pregnancy innocence.  That shit is painful!  But I sure as HELL better shut my mouth because I have a live baby in me right now.   

That's why Facebook sucks.  The medium is too big, the net is too wide and people are allowing themselves to get their feelings hurt far too easily.  Since when did we all become living, breathing, gaping wounds, unable to withstand the slightest breeze?  Since when have we become so wrapped up in our own pain that we're unable to simply see things for what they are?      Since when do we take frickin status updates so freaking personally??  Since when do we un-friend someone (don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of that particular term) just because their life has an element we wish we had for our own?

Don't get me wrong, I was firmly in the everyone-is-pregnant-but-me camp but I'd like to think I wasn't hateful of other people's good fortune.  And come on you guys, it's FACEBOOK - not real life!  These people are not out to twist the knife in your heart!  For that matter, no one on the Internet is out to get you and you alone!  There is no bullseye on any of our backs - I swear!  

When I was in college, I accidentally found myself in a philosophy class.  Before I dropped it with a quickness, we talked about pain and the philosophical definition of pain.  After long, brain-draining, circular discussions we arrived at the conclusion that pain is what YOU say it is and it hurts however much YOU say it hurts.  

There is no measuring stick for pain and we are all justified in feeling hurt, whatever the reason.  What's trivial and bearable to you can cause someone else's world to implode.  But that doesn't mean we're not entitled to hurt!  However, walking on eggshells is not the answer - it's no way to live and frankly, it's not possible. 

I wonder if we can just be mindful?  Can we just acknowledge that we all carry burdens and our burdens are heavy and painful TO US?  Can we simply focus on carrying our burdens with grace instead of getting all butt-hurt because you perceive someone else's burden to be less important than yours so they shouldn't be crying so much?  Or have we become too narcissistic, convinced that we're alone in this and no one else has or ever will feel the pain we feel?

The burdens I bear are heavy and painful to me and while I will not post them as status updates on my Facebook page, I have and will continue to write about them here.  My writing is the way I learn to bear them with grace and it's how I gain perspective.  I never seek to rub anything in anyone's face and while I apologize if I've ever done that, I also gently ask that any offended party remember that I'm just a nameless, faceless person on this planet and I have way too much on my own plate to intentionally try and mess up your world.   

Yeah, Stirrup Queen wrote about Facebook and infertility and she did it far more eloquently than I did, but you can exchange infertility for your burden of choice and it's the same story.  

For all of us.