Reminders of Spring

Little Birds...






It's Winter Solstice! After today, the days will stay light a little longer and Spring will be a little closer to erupting in life and loveliness.

As a reminder of the coming spring, I've been listening to an album made for and with children, You are My Little Bird by Elizabeth Mitchell She is able to revive the sweetest gems of songs and make my heart ache with happiness and longing.

Years ago, K and I stumbled upon Mitchell's You are My Flower (with a beautiful cover of A.P. Carter's You are My Flower--Carter Family Fold) and spread the love to many friends with kids, but adult me found it to be so uplifting and good.

And now You are My Little Bird is feeling me up with gleefulness. Birds always bring
out memories of spring--the time of life unfolding in waves of bounty before our eyes. But Winter has little tid-bits of life lingering on the edges. Even the snow is full of new energy falling onto the frozen, semi-inert earth. Problem is when the snow stays put and no new snow falls; the old snow gets all hard and dirtied (from too many cars and too many factories and too many people) and out-right unsightly. When this happens, my yearning for Spring gets bigger.

For now, I will listen to this sweet music and celebrate the coming longer days and today's longest night of the year.

she started bleeding

ahh fuck.

k's cycle was super long this time around and she went to a 15 day lunar phase; plus she ovulated super late so her whole cycle was like 38 fucking long-ass days.

Why all the sudden is her shit getting very whack?

She spotted on Sunday and Monday (very tiny amounts of pink) and then nothing yesterday. We thought--maybe just maybe...But then this morning she started her period.

So no prego. And now I can go back to the dull drudge of rolling in my winter blues. I am exceedingly depressed and overworked and stressed.

A michigan winter night--strange and beautiful

We had a big old snow storm here on Sunday. It was lovely. I shoveled for hours and went on a snowshoeing adventure through my neighborhood. That's the best thing that has happened in days.

clearing a path during the storm.



Yesterday, I thought I might crack...

Today, I am leaving behind the work I am supposed to be completing while I am technically on my goddamn vacation. For all of the times I try to lift my heart into places of hope, there are the equivalent times of despair. I guess that is where I am floating now--in this hazy despair.

Don't get me wrong--I love so much about my life. But when I seriously start to think about the work that I do day in and day out and the state of the world on top of it, suffocation surfaces. While I do not want to lean on the creation of another being to relieve me of this not being able to breathe, I do believe concentrating on a wee semi-innocent creature would help mend some of the cracks that my work (often fruitless, or at least I am not fortunate enough to see the fruits of it)leave on the surface of my insides.

That said there is no wee creature implanted this time around...We will keep on keeping on and hopefully something will take someday and help lift my heart up out of the thick haze.

the stuff of winter blues

Rain, with intermittent spits of ice, is falling here in southeastern Michigan. It is the kind of day I would love to spend in bed. I have not been able to cycle to work since November 30th. The weather has been wet and cold. I can ride in wet or cold, but the two together make for unwieldy roads and I would rather not slip into traffic.

So, this gray, cold weather makes for downer kinds of days. When I slap on the fact that I am absolutely overwhelmed at work, well then the days sink even more.

However, waiting for the outcome of our latest injection efforts has added a bit of hopefulness and thankfulness to the winter blues mix that has been reeling through my head. It is not that I totally expect kk to be all knocked up (cause i do not) that draws a little smiley face on the inside of my otherwise frowning eyelids; rather, it is this time of waiting with kk that makes things in life a bit more hopeful.

Our mutual desire to have a kid has become super solidified over the last few months and this time of waiting amplifies our shared desires and dreams in a very real way. I am touched daily by the blessing of being able to share my life with this amazing woman. She is the kindest person I know. While I often think that people are mal-intentioned or mean-spirited by default, kk thinks the best of folks until they prove themselves assholes.

These things I know about my girl come surfacing into the forefront of my brain and then I think yes we are on the right track—to build our family/community with friends and neighbors and a homemade, biological experiment!

Now back to the rigmarole of work accompanied by the freezing cold, rain drenched air that is circulating outside and leaving the inside of places damp and cold—the stuff of winter blues.

learning more about the mystery from a whack cycle

I’ve decided that kk’s cycle is whack. She is on the 22nd day of her cycle and supposedly she is having her LH surge right now. According to all other calculations—this includes temperature, goo check, and horniness levels—she was busting with fertility last week.

We dosed on Monday evening, Wednesday evening, and Friday evening.

This time around we bought the CVS brand (much cheaper) ovulation tests. While the line got darker, it never got all the way dark. After Friday’s injection, we thought we were through for this time around.

However, kk woke up yesterday and said, “I think my mucus is egg whitey and fertile; maybe we should try again tonight.” That was it, though, we put the notion aside thinking 22nd day, no way.

Then, a sweet, serendipitous email came from potential bio-dad. He asked kk if we were all through for this time around? His message got kk and me thinking—maybe we should give it one more try.

So last night after watching the witches of eastwick and discussing which of those foxy ladies we thought was the foxiest, we shot another wad of jiz up inside kk.
Then this morning using the more expensive ovulation predictor kit, kk got a positive for an LH surge in the next 24 hours.

Obviously, none of this is precise. Even though we try to narrow it down into a kind of perfect science, it just does not work that way. And so I have been toying with opening myself up more to using loving kindness and calling on the wisdom of elders and wise women in this process. Not that this hasn’t been about loving kindness from the get go, but as much as I want to call on the mystery and scoff at modern day reliance on scientific inquiry, I still find myself wrapped up in using the rational to make sense of this process. Alas, the rational is the last thing I should be relying on.

So, whacky cycle I adore you for your unexplainable patterns and when we do find some method to your flowing, mysteries ways, well thank you for that. Here’s crossing my fingers and bowing to the winds.