swollen

Well, I guess I've been served up a super fancy dose of sitting time. I had planned to work in the gardens all weekend, but yesterday's work will have to suffice. For the first time in 1.7 years, my knee has ballooned up into its swollen irritated self.

Instead of garden work, I will consume copious amounts of ibuprofen and heat, ice, heat, ice, heat, ice. It seems like my knee always has a beef with me after a strenuous work event.

I guess my body responds in ways that I listen. It is saying sit the fuck down. And now, I am forced to.

It gives me time to think and write and perhaps read things I feel like catching up on.

Now, on to nursing my gelatinous appendage.

four wisdom teeth extracted and six movies watched

Today, I have four less teeth than I had last week. I had my wisdom teeth yanked out on thursday afternoon. I did it with only the local numbing. I have this terrible fear of being put under, so I resigned myself to being awake for the pliering, levering, drilling experience that oral surgery really is.

The pain has not been all that bad, but the tiredness that has crept up on me, because of the procedure, is something else. I have been sleeping like crazy--10 to 14 hours in a 24 hour day. My dentist had been bugging me to get them pulled for years and then I got pregnant and I got this little nagging infection like thing in my one wisdom tooth and she said, "I don't mean to say I told you so, but I told you to get them out." And then I became no longer pregnant and then k went to the dentist (the same dentist I go to) and the two of them set up my oral surgery consult and appointment and then let me know they had done so. It is all good cause in the next few months the organization I work for will be taking away our dental coverage, so I had to get them out...

I've been living on liquidy things and have been mystified at the constipating powers of codeine (I stopped taking it early saturday morning but that shit blocks up a person's intestines like you would not believe--the regular flow is almost back in order--for those of you who care).

K took me up north on Friday--she went to plant flowers and I went to heal--and I lazed around the cabin watching movies on my macbook and trying to heal and get through the haze of codeine (I am not a pill popper; I like the realm of sober very, very much). I watched 6 movies in four nights.

The movie list in best to worst order with super brief one sentence reviews:
The Wrestler (excellent; Mickey Rourke was fucking phenomenal--I think it is the best movie I've seen in a long time and the main character was real and deeply developed)
Slumdog Millionaire (visually amazing and I dug the soundtrack a hell of a lot)
Twilight (I liked it; what can I say it was fun fodder for the evening)
The Secret Life of Bees (cheesy but moving at parts and Dakota Fanning is a good little actor)
Tied for worst below
Some horrible lesbian movie that I cannot remember the real name of Running on Empty
Dreams or something like that (absolutely the worst lesbian movie I have ever seen which does not say that much about it cause you all know how bad the girl on girl movies are; I fast forwarded it through much of the shit to the girl kissing girl parts)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (I thought is was a fucking sappy, horrible, mess of a movie. a movie that shallowly depicted the deep and complex human experience of aging, dying, and living; it was bad; real bad. The wrestler captured way more realistically and creatively the human experience of growing old and living into death.)

coping

i know it has been a long time...

i've been down and out. learning to cope with this critter living in me, has been quite a ride so far. as kk so eloquently put it, i've been feeling downright crappy. i lost about eight pounds, but i am gaining it back. i straight up lost my appetite for two whole weeks. for one week, i shoved bits of food in my mouth, but not enough food so i felt like even worse crap. i was glued to the couch and depressed--depression to the point of no shower for almost one solid week.

i went from being super active to no action...at all. now i am walking at least 40 minutes a day which helps immensely. and i plan on visiting the bicycle at the gym as soon as i am eating more veg and protein again.

anyhow, this ride is something. it is miraculous that the sperm took after one time. i feel blessed and scared and thrilled and more scared and excited and scared.

i also feel loved. i feel loved by my bio-family and my chosen family and neighbors and old friends and new friends. i am so thankful for this abounding love. i am so thankful that k and i get to bring a wee one onto this life surrounded with good and strong and caring and loving people.

i have my first phone interview with the clinic next week and my first appointment with the midwife is on february 6--one more month of waiting. it seems like forever, but i know it is not.

that's it for now.

happy,happy new year!

doing the work

Hi ya'll-
this is KK.

I have to tell you I've been a bit nervous to post anything. N (as we will now call the previous injector, for now I am the injector!!), as you all probably have noticed, has quite a way with words and I am a little nervous about following her act.

That said, I thought I should log (or would it be blog) in and tell you what has been going on with us even if I am no where near as entertaining!

N is sick. Very sick. Sick with a capital S sick.

I make her an english muffin with Jiffy on it and she eats two bites. Christmas Eve? An english muffin with peanut butter that she ate in entirety. Christmas day dinner? We had a feast at my best friend from childhood's families house and she ate.... (drum roll please)... half of one dinner roll.

Friends of ours passed over some ovaltine and that is going really well. Indeed- once this sickness has passed I am quite certain she will never want to see a jar of ovaltine again!!!



And last night at another gathering of good friends, she ate 4 small pieces of french bread with cheddar cheese.

I know, I know, you are saying to yourselves: why, KK, it sounds like she is eating a ton! And, it sounds like she is out and about doing all sort of festive activities!

You are completely correct- N has been a real trooper tagging along with me. We went to her families for Christmas Eve and morning, then to my families and other friends in Detroit on Christmas Day. On Boxing Day, I actually kidnapped her after going to the U of M Birthing Center to fill out paperwork and get all of her appointments set. We went to Riverside Arena in Livonia to a rollerskating party (yes, you read that right!), and then to see friends in from Florida in Ann Arbor.



But everywhere we go she either lays under a blanket or sits on the couch. With a blank look in her eye and with "fog in her head", or so she says. Which is all good and fine with me and with everyone she sees. I think that really, she is the only one having a problem with it. She doesn't like to feel sick (really, who does?) but she REALLY doesn't like it. She can't deal with it- and not being able to deal with it spirals her into further depression.

Before our 3 days of being out and about she was confined to the couch for a week. Her dad [FYI: her family is being totally and completely amazing about her being pregnant. Really supportive and loving. It is beautiful to watch], understanding depression, asked the real questions: are you taking showers? (answer: no); are you exercising? (answer: no). And he told her that she HAS to take a shower and she HAS to exercise. You can't go from riding your bike 20 miles a day to not doing a single thing but lying on the couch and expect that the lack of endorphins won't mess you up. So true, so true, Mr. G. So she took some showers and then used the treadmill at their house. It really did help. Yay! (and now that we have -what 70 degree weather, ha ha- above freezing weather I will go out on walks with her and Pookah the dog. Or kidnap her again to go to the gym (she is extremely afraid of being anywhere should she need to vomit. Which she is deathly afraid of, I am sure she has mentioned somewhere in this blog).

She has lost about 5-8 lbs at this point.

I am feeling o.k. with all of this- I know she will be okay. She will gain the weight back and much much more, she will feel better, she will be happy again, she will be active, she will learn to trust her body and love her body and except the innate wisdom of herself.

She has to do the work of pregnancy.

no more something is wrong with my body

I have been a bad blogger these last few weeks. Mostly, I have been too busy to think. Also, when these words came out of my kk's mouth, i got furious with this whole process, "N, I used to think my body was good and worked right and well, and I hate that this is making me think that something is wrong with my body. I hate thinking that my body is not working right. If we were not trying this, then I would not think these thoughts."

All because her temperature is all over the place.

I've come to hate that little purple thermometer. I think it is a joke.


My kk's body is just fucking fine. And to all of you out there trying, your bodies are fine too.

While I want to create a kid with my girl and I want it real bad, I do not want to get hung up in this thinking that something is wrong with kk's body.
Now, if she had breast cancer or ovarian cancer or some kind of growth in her kidney then something would be amiss and potentially life-threatening and we would work to make it not so amiss.

But, because we have decided to participate in the over-population of the american human landscape does not then make my baby's body all fucked up cause it is not happening asap. Her inability to get pregnant right now is not life-threatening. it is not an illness.

K an i are lucky to even have the time to mull over such decisions and find people who are willing to give up time in their lives to provide us with the jiz that we need to potentially make this happen. I am happy that we cannot just fuck and procreate. I think all people everywhere should have to ponder and plan before bringing a life into this world. I want to focus on the healthiness of our bodies. If we were not trying this pregnancy thing,k would never have jumped to thinking her reproductive system was unhealthy or fucked up or what ever. So, no more of this something is wrong...
I simply will not have it.

i'll be damned

well, i'll be damned...
once again, there is a snow storm blowing around out my window.
once again, i had a super long day at work.
once again, fever and cough is visiting our house.

right when the potential sperm/egg combo could/would be implanting on the wall of kk's uterus, she came down with full on illness with a high ass fever. She has had a fever since last night and at this moment her temperature is raging at 102.6 F.

she is being good and only taking tylenol for her achy bones every 6-8 hours. but i want her to take something for her wicked cough.

i guess stress is really the biggest immune killer on the planet. cause really our sweet, little family is a healthy one. we eat good; we usually get good rest; we exercise diligently; we love relentlessly. however, this winter has been full up loaded with stress on both the home front and work front, so maybe it is spiking through my darling girl's body and leaving little holes in her immune system.

i'm so looking forward to the healing energy of more sun. i long for the disappearance of the cold, dark days and the hollow holes of hospitals and close quarters of being kept up inside for too many hours during the day even if my house is comfy and cozy and my work-place quaint and tolerable.

i want to sit by the river and feel a warm wind on my face. i want calmness to surround us for hours on end. i want to watch the sunset on lake michigan--the pink orange sprays of light fading from the day into the vast, dark, eternal lake--and the certain lines of the horizon to hold me and tell me that it is all going to be okay.