Tidbits

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 53% of unplanned pregnancies occur while using contraception.

I got an ultrasound yesterday, after losing the baby due to stress/hormones/Matt(? - it was 2 days after he left, and after the ultrasound showed a healthy baby) and it showed there is still "debris" in my uterus. After the nurse went outside, I could hear her and the nurse practitioner giggling when discussing that this is the second time in 6 months that I'd been pregnant.

The nurse practitioner came back into the room and asked "Do you just not use birth control?" Well, ma'am, I didn't know antibiotics made the pill ineffective, and I hadn't gone back on the pill when I got pregnant in February, and condoms just don't work like they make you think they will in 8th grade health class. And apparently hormones do crazy things. Like let you get pregnant even when you're on the pill (ex: my riding instructor). Or take away a healthy pregnancy when the father is not a man, but a child, and leaves you, and tells you he hopes that you miscarry.

So now, 17 days after the miscarriage, I'm taking the medication that makes your uterus cramp to "expel" the remaining "debris". I have another ultrasound schedule for Friday.

This is AWESOME.

(And all Matt is worrying about these days is golf.)

Update

This is more an update about the relationship than an update about the pregnancy, because my head's still all over the place on that one.

Here's the time line of my bipolar relationship:

3/30-4/4 -- great trip to Philadelphia with Matt. He says he wants us to have a girl so we can name her Harper. He's clearly very excited about everything
4/5 -- Matt asks for a paternity test. Seriously.
4/6 -- we talk about everything, about why him asking for a paternity test upset me. things go back to normal
4/10 -- we set a date for the wedding, start planning things
4/13 -- I come home from prenatal yoga, and Matt says he's not ready to get married
4/15 -- Matt comes back and apologizes
4/17 -- Matt asks me to have an abortion
4/18 -- Matt sends me a very long apology, saying he's lived a selfish life for the past few years only serving his immediate needs, it's been a shallow existence, he sees that life with me is so much more important, that our child and me are a blessing and he'll do anything he can to make our relationship work. That night we go to therapy, where Matt basically repeats this all to our therapist.
4/20 -- bad ultrasound
4/21 -- Matt says he needs the weekend alone without me because he is so angry, he wants his selfish life back because he was happier there. He says the night before, when I was suffering from the bad ultrasound news, he just kept thinking, "I can't wait to break up with her." He actually says to me that if I am having a miscarriage, he'd only stick around long enough to get me through it, then he'd leave. He says if I had an abortion, he'd do the same thing. Get me through it, then leave. He can't understand why this is so horrible to me. Why I can't stand the thought of someone faking support. Especially when he knows when I lost the last baby, Mark said he'd be there for me, and ran out after two days of me crying.

So that's it. I'm done.

Honestly, I feel bad for him. Because here's what I've seen for the past few months: Matt has this socially-acceptable image that he thinks he's supposed to live by, and WANTS to live by. He's supposed to marry the girl he knocks up, he's supposed to be supportive while she's throwing up from morning sickness, he's supposed to go to the doctor's appointments and get excited about the heartbeat. He's supposed to love me, the way he's said he has for three months. But he can't. He ends up faking that persona, and then he gets exhausted and the real Matt comes out. Which is fine. All I've asked him from day one is to be honest. From the FIRST DATE I told him how important that was to me, that I don't want to fall for one person only to find out he's someone different.

Matt's parents said they wished we were more confident in our relationship before conceiving a child, and the thing is, I was. I was confident in my relationship with the man Matt pretended to be. The man who has been wooing me with talk of marriage and moving bases with him and supporting me while I write and having children etc etc etc since February. And it's great that Matt thinks he wants that. But it's awful to be on the receiving end because Matt knows we work well on paper, but when push comes to shove, and the real him comes out, we don't match. What he wants in his head and what he wants in his heart are totally different. And until he can admit who he is to himself, admit what he's ready for and accept what he's not ready for, he won't be happy. He'll spend another five years alone.

Scared

Hcg level today - 46872.3

Matt and I went in for our first ultrasound today. 7 weeks, 1 day.

And you know what the doctor saw? Nothing. Not a gestational sac, not a yolk sac. Nothing. There should have been a heartbeat already.

I keep wanting to hope the doctor's U/S machine is old, the doctor isn't very good at his job, he didn't make me have a full bladder, etc etc etc. I just know this can't be right. I feel so sick all the time, I can feel this baby, so where is it?

I don't know what's next. . .

"Strays" Tim Kasher

I’ve been thinking I should write some kind of love song for you…
To prove to you I do
It shouldn’t be to hard to write
I’ll just think of that time I first saw you in Omaha
You were stranded on Jackson with a bus fare to who know’s where
I took you in, right, then and there
And life took on a new form
No more stayin out all night
No more killin ourselves just to make ourselves feel alright
No more sleepin with stranger’s and those awkward, goodbyes

I never had much family, never had too many friends
Then you came wandering through
Pompously I took you for granted
That’s why I gotta write this little, this little love song for you
I’ll sing about those Denver mornings you’d wake up bawling bout a long lost kid
Your maternal instincts were kicking in
As the sun dazzled bright upon the peaks
You brought home a dog you found in the alley
You said can we keep her? I said well, what kind of man would I be?
So you bought her a collar, and you called her your family

Writers are selfish, writers are egotists
I’m afraid I’m as bad as it gets
I keep forgetting to sensor the truth
That’s why I better write some, some kinda love song for you

We’re drivin cross country in a U-haul, on the hunt for our new home
High atop Eagle Rock, we found a house with a big back yard
So we picked up another mutt from the Crenshaw Pound
Sippin coffee on the porch while the dogs wrestle on the lawn
I’m sorry I’ve had my doubts…

We're a family of strays but together we’ve been found
We're a family of strays but together we’ve been found

Swimming in the Volcano

So, I don't know if anyone still even reads this since I haven't updated in approximately forever. . .but anyway. Here's the latest: I'm scared out of my mind.

I had a horseback riding accident three weeks ago, and while getting checked on for that, I found out I was pregnant. Now I'm 6.5 weeks along, and I'm sick as a dog. (Doing the math, it's Matt's, not Kira&Scott's, as we didn't inseminate in March). What did I eat today? Half a row of Saltines, a banana, some ginger ale. Got a massage this afternoon, and promptly threw up in the parking lot afterwards. This is AWFUL. I can't really do yoga, or eat, or do anything, because I'm so nauseous. Heck, it's 4:30 am and guess why I'm not sleeping?

Well, there's the nausea. There's also Matt. Who has dropped a giant bomb on me. After we found out we were pregnant, there was much talk of getting married. It was super important to Matt that we marry before the baby comes. And I love him to death, so I was on board. Was it early? Yes. Did I think we could make it? Absolutely.

So two days ago, I come home from prenatal yoga, feeling horrible, and Matt says he doesn't want to get married. He's not ready, he wants more time. But as this all unfolds, it turns out Matt is seriously unhappy in our relationship. He has complaints left and right. I feel like I've just been thrown into a volcano. We were in totally different relationships. All he's ever said was, "I'm so lucky to come home to you" and "I had such a great weekend" and "I'm really happy" etc etc, because Matt doesn't like to say things (or hear things) that aren't completely positive. So if I did or said anything that bothered him, he wouldn't tell me.

And it's an awesome thing to be a positive person, who never has anything bad to say. But, in my opinion it's more important to be honest. And I don't think honesty necessarily means you are negative. It destines a relationship to be ruined if you don't tell the person you love and live with that they're upsetting you. It doesn't take a psychologist to know that those feelings then get bottled up, and eventually explode. Not only that, it doesn't give the other person a chance to fix what they're doing, which means they keep doing it, which compounds your own frustrations.

When I went to counseling with R, our therapist talked to us about how it's important to develop rules of communication. Like telling your partner that saying "xyz" hurts you, and you'd rather they said "abc". Then, once that rule is laid out, if your partner chooses to say "xyz" instead of "abc" you know they are blatantly disregarding your feelings, and being a bad partner. But if they don't know, how can they choose to say "abc" instead?

Last night, I was thinking back through our relationship, so confused. And I thought about how Matt has hounded me (successfully) to stop cursing, how he told me he doesn't like when I say I hate things because "I sound ugly," how he asked me to "tone down my passion" in front of his parents so they could see "the sweet girl he knows is inside." And I'm starting to think, maybe Matt just doesn't like who I am. I'm pretty sure he truly loves the idea he has created of me in his head, but I don't think it lines up with who I am. He wants me to act the way he does, pretending nothing is wrong ever, not saying it when something he says or does bothers me (like when he doesn't brush his teeth before going to work in the morning, or he chomps gum), but where would that get me?

From our first date, I told Matt I was honest. You see what you get, and you know where you stand at all times. I don't expect you to read my mind, I expect good communication. I don't play games. And he said, at that point, that he liked it. That he was the same way. He said, "if anything I do bothers you, let me know instead of bottling it up." Turns out, not so much.

And yes, I can be "East Coast." I can be rough around the edges, and say things in a tone I don't know I'm saying them in. And sometimes, I can be a bitch. But when I know that I have been, I feel awful about it. Because I would never hurt anyone intentionally, ever. And if I knew I was hurting someone, I would do my best to stop it immediately.

So where does this leave me? *sigh* I guess this is how people become single parents. . .

Panzer-Woman, Panzer-Man

(extra credit to anyone who knows where this entry title came from)

This morning, while reading my beloved Psychology Today, I came across an article on how difficult mothers end up raising children who have to develop sometimes-detrimental manners of coping with having their initial nurturer treat them abrasively.

A long excerpt:
"The difficult mother imposes her dilemma harshly -- with unpredictable and ferocious anger, punitive inflexibility, rigid expectations, and expressions of neediness that take priority over a child's needs. Envy may compound the mix. Sure, many mothers show anger, inflexibility, neediness and elements of envy from time to time. But it's the routine use of such behaviors that distinguishes difficult mothers and sets up a coercive relationship.
A child does not have the option to say to a mother, I don't care whether you think I'm bad, or, I am not frightened by the prospect of your leaving me. A primitive panic at rejection lasts long after the infant's physical helplessness comes to an end.
Children are therefore likely to work hard to adopt special strategies to protect themselves from a mother's rejection. The particular strategies a difficult mother poses on a child are ruled by fear, anxiety, and confusion. And each mother's particular brand of difficult shapes the strategies that a child develops. . .
[These children's] aim in personal interactions is to please and placate, rather than to genuinely engage. They may be primed to respond with compliance to outbursts or even hints of anger in others; they may assume that others are behaving appropriately in expressing anger towards them. In some cases, they may even be attracted to people whose anger is easily aroused -- because they associate that behavior with attachment and authority."

After this paragraph, I stopped reading. My mind started buzzing. I had never before wondered about my mother's role in my abusive relationships. And as I write this now, I think it's incredibly cliched -- yes yes, blame the mother. But is there something here? Is there something to this?

When people find out I've been in not one, but 2.5 abusive relationships (Mark was a nasty person, with severe emotional disorders, but to his credit (?) he said "I never hit you. I wanted to, but I didn't." He was emotionally and verbally abusive, but very proud of himself that he drew the line at physical. So let's call that a half.) people always ask, "Did your dad beat your mom?" No. Never. Actually my parents (now divorced) never fought. And when I told my dad I knew he and my mom were wrong for each other since I was a child, he asked how I knew. "It's not that there was fighting," I answered, "it's that there wasn't even talking." It was a very quiet household, with the kind of peacefulness that is charged with tension. The kind that you are always afraid to set off, so you behave very carefully, treading a delicate line, to maintain the silence, afraid that anything else would be infinitely worse.

And when I first dated H in 2006, the man who started the horrible cycle that I'm just now getting out of, I attributed the abuse to his history -- his father had beaten his mother during H's entire childhood. And what really horrified me about the situation is that H's mother would take his two sisters and go to a hotel room, but would leave H at home with his raging father. H told me about how there was a bathroom in his parents' Victorian home that had a door into the hallway, and a door into the master bedroom, and he would run into it, trying to lock both doors before his father could reach him. He told me of sneaking a phone into there, trying to call the police, but his father unplugged it. 'What kind of mother,' I thought, 'leaves behind one of her children?' Ironically, H's mother questioned my role before I ever did. When H called his mother after 6 months of frequently punching, choking, shoving, burning, and harassing me, his mother (who is still with his father) said only, "Promise not to see her again."

After H, in 2008, I ended up with R (who, as far as I know, has no history of domestic violence in his family). I started wondering what it was about me that made people do this to me -- after all, H had never hit a girlfriend before. R had been controlling and jealous, but I don't think he had ever been abusive to the extent he was with me. What was it about me that brought this out in men? I spoke to a therapist about it, and he said it wasn't that I made men do this to me, it's that after I became accustomed to being treated like this, it's what I expect, so I somehow felt comfortable when later boyfriends treated me this way. I just assumed that this all began with H, that's where I became accustomed to it, that there was no earlier foundation.

But now, looking back, was I wrong? Is my relationship with my mother what set me up for my relationships with H, then R, then Mark?

My mother is. . .somewhere on the Autistic spectrum, and she has severe depression. Or maybe it looks more severe to me because of her Autistic tendencies. Or maybe it's harder to treat because of the Autistic tendencies. What I think about most about my mother is how she complains to me that "when you were a baby, I had to hold you all the time. If I ever put you down, you cried." She doesn't say this in a charming way, like 'Oh I have a baby that loves me and is very connected with me.' She complains about it. She makes it clear to me that I took over her life 24 hours a day, and she resented every minute of it. She still resents it. Once, when I asked her why, if she quit teaching elementary school because she hated children, she then had four of her own, and she said, "I didn't want kids, your father did. And then he got to go to work every day and I got stuck raising you." I have vivid memories of being in my mom's bedroom upstairs, watching her car drive away with my siblings to a holiday party, or some other celebration, leaving me at home because I wasn't behaving. I remember stapling through my finger, and crying about it, and how my mother refused to tend to my finger until the crying stopped (she was this way about broken bones too, and even then we were sent to our room until we stopped crying). I remember coming home on Thanksgiving break from college and admitting to my parents that I had an eating disorder, and after a long conversation full of tears, my mom telling me to go to take a nap and calm down, and when I woke up, my whole family was gone -- had left for Thanksgiving dinner without me. That night my mom told her siblings that I had stayed home because I was sick, and she later told me she was too embarrassed to have them see me. I also remember my mother "spanking" us all the time. One of the most commonly-heard phrases of my youth was, "Come down here so I can spank you!" I remember threatening my mother that if she ever "spanker" my younger (by 6 years) sister, I would hit her. I remember the first time I realized that I was taller and stronger than my mother, and telling her if she dared to hit me again, I would hit her right back.

Thinking about all of this, it seems ridiculous to suggest that it could not have impacted my future relationships. People ask how I didn't see hints of how H was before the abuse started. Well, yes, he did the typical abuser priming -- act perfect until you trust him, too good to be true, and then once he knows you're too far in to leave, he slowly starts shaking your self-confidence, breaking you down little by little until you will take whatever it is he doles out. But maybe there were hints of his aggression, of his authoritative personality. And maybe I strove to pacify him, maybe I have imprinted on myself the need to placate those who are quick to anger after years of attempting to please my mother, to do anything to get her to actually show her love for me. Maybe, as independent as I like to think I am, I don't actually stand on my own at all.

The Happiness Project

Lawyers are notoriously unhappy. Look at all the books on the topic:

* Melcher's The Creative Lawyer: A Practical Guide to Authentic Professional Satisfaction
* Levit's The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law
* Schreiter's The Happy Lawyer: How to Gain More Satisfaction, Suffer Less Stress and Enjoy Higher Earnings in Your Law Practice
* Parker's The Unhappy Lawyer: A Roadmap to Finding Meaningful Work Outside of the Law

* Happy Hour is for Amateurs: A Lost Decade in the World's Worst Profession
* Fort Collins's own Kevin Houchin's book, Fuel the Spark: 5 Guiding Values for Success in Law and Life

And then there was Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project (which I had read about previously, particularly in Psychology Today, but had rejected as too kitschy). . .But now I am taking another look.

"After graduating from law school in the early 1990s, Rubin served as a law clerk for the US Supreme Court. This job is perhaps the sweetest plum in the American legal orchard. It practically guarantees a career of high-level positions in law firms and government.

But during her stint, Rubin's eyes wandered away from the law.

"When I had free time, I never wanted to talk about cases or read law journals, the way my fellow clerks did. Instead, I spent hours reading, taking notes and writing my observations about the worldly passions – power, money, fame and sex," Rubin says.

"Finally, I realised, 'Hey, I'm writing a book.' And it dawned on me that some people write books for a living. This project didn't have to be my hobby; it could be my job."

She wrote her first book – Power Money Fame Sex: A User's Guide – and soon she realised that she wasn't a lawyer. She was a writer."

And I'm starting to think that maybe the best way to be a happy lawyer is to not be a lawyer at all.