Yes. So today’s the day. The day I turn a big whop­ping thirty-​​six. Woo-​​hoo. (Uhm, yeah … that was a sar­cas­tic woo-​​hoo, if you didn’t catch on.)

It’s 9 am this Sun­day morn­ing and I’m back at home from vaca­tion, after arriv­ing from the air­port at about 10 pm last night. Did I men­tion how much I missed sleep­ing in my own bed? As much as I love trav­el­ing and explor­ing new places, I do enjoy com­ing back home and climb­ing into my cool, soft, com­fort­able bed. Noth­ing says “I’m home” more than that … Okay, so I lie. No mat­ter where we’re at, being with Hubby is always going to be home. Must be the Can­cer­ian in me.

Any­way, I decided today that there is no way in H*LL that I’m going to catch up with read­ing over two weeks worth of G**gle Reader posts. SO … I’ve made the deci­sion to just clear any new ones off my list for now. I promise to be much bet­ter at read­ing and com­ment­ing this year … but right now I just don’t want to be over­whelmed and stressed over some­thing like that. At least I can con­trol THAT stressor.

Speak­ing of stress, I men­tioned in a pre­vi­ous post that I’d tell you exacty how high my blood pres­sure (BP) got at my Doc appt on the Fri­day before I left on vaca. It was as high as 180⁄100. Yep. You read that right. And the scary thing … that’s not the high­est I’ve ever been. The first time I was diag­nosed with hyper­ten­sion (HTN) was after the last laparoscopy I had in Octo­ber of 2002. I was feel­ing dizzy at work that fol­low­ing Mon­day after surgery and one of the many nurses at work decided to take my BP which was 180⁄110. So I drove my butt to my pri­mary doc at the time (and got a d*mn speed­ing ticket along the way … grrr), and was promptly started on the low­est dose of hyper­ten­sive med­ica­tions pos­si­ble. They didn’t want to put me on any­thing stronger at the time, as I was still try­ing to get pregnant.

Flash for­ward five years. My HTN has been “con­trolled” through a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent BP meds. Because since I’m not actively try­ing to get preg­nant at this time, we’ve decided to try a lit­tle stronger med­ica­tion. My base­line BP has been run­ning in the 140’s/80’s. But nope. Not that Fri­day before vaca­tion. Of course, it could have been that I was affected by white coat syn­drome. But the truth is, it’s prob­a­bly because of all the weeks months of stress I’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing in my life.

A-​​hem … let’s recap what has hap­pened in the past 7 months, since the begin­ning of the year. Hubby’s grand­mother passed away (bad stress). Found out good friend in Port­land, OR is expect­ing (bad stress, but got­ten over it over time). And within that same week, found out SIL was also expect­ing (bad stress … and the jury is out still on how I’m deal­ing with it). Dad had a heart attack and sub­se­quently hos­pi­tal­ized for three weeks after com­pli­ca­tions from surgery (bad stress). And have been going with him to follow-​​up appoint­ments (expected stress) to make sure he fol­lows up on his health (bad stress). But since he’s “mas­ter of his own body,” I’ve all but told him it’s up to him how he wants to keep up his health (good stress). I’ve taken part in a work-​​improvement group (good stress) and ini­tially have got­ten neg­a­tive crit­i­cism from my peers (bad stress) but have since improved as we con­tinue to roll out changes (good stress) and work towards our end-​​of-​​July dead­line (bad stress). I’ve seen pic­tures of my high school friend’s new baby … whose mid­dle name is that of a Red Wings player, just like his older brother (actu­ally … good stress. I’m happy for her!). And I’ve been to Chicago a cou­ple times to visit with Dr. Bro, Dr. SIL and the cat-​​nieces and dog-​​nephews (good stress). And I’ve just recently been on vaca­tion in Cal­gary and Can­more /​ Banff National Park (good stress) with my par­ents (mixed stress). Except on the morn­ing we flew out, Hubby & I had to drive back and forth from the air­port to pick up our pass­ports that I thought we left from home (bad stress). And now I turn 36, know­ing full well I’m on the down­hill slope of my already screwed up repro­duc­tive years (bad stress).

So there you have it. I’m stressed. But then the ques­tion I always ask myself is … Is this any worse than any­body else’s level of stress? And why should I be sit­ting here b*tching about being stressed when there are prob­a­bly so many more peo­ple out there with much more stress in their lives (uh … can­cer or unem­ploy­ment, for exam­ple)? Am I being such a frickin’ sorry a$$ for feel­ing so stressed and let­ting my health be affected by it?

Seri­ously peo­ple. I’m not just being rhetor­i­cal here. I really wanna know.

On a sep­a­rate, but some­what related note … while in Cal­gary, we vis­ited with my younger cousin (M) and her hubby (D) who just recently had their first baby (J) last Sep­tem­ber. M & D have been mar­ried now for at least 5 years (I’m so for­get­ful with these things) and they are the absolute great­est cou­ple together, so I can’t be any­thing but com­pletely happy for the two of them that they have this incred­i­bly beau­ti­ful son who … even at close to 10-​​months … has this incred­i­ble per­son­al­ity. And to watch M & D with their par­ent­ing style … I couldn’t be more proud of the two of them, know­ing how much they’ve grown since last spend­ing this much qual­ity time with them.

But as I was already expect­ing (d*mn infer­til­ity!), the hour ride back to Can­more from Cal­gary and the day after­wards was tough. It’s that desire to have what M & D have; the won­der­ful baby, the team­work and … most impor­tantly, the hap­pi­ness that they have with tak­ing care of J.

Let me be clear here (for those non-​​IF read­ers), I don’t con­sider the desire to have what M & D have is jeal­ousy. Because to be jeal­ous infers that I’m envi­ous of what the two of them have and that I wish that the two of them could expe­ri­ence even a frac­tion of what I’m feel­ing with my IF. No way would I EVER wish that on them; they are truly a cou­ple that deserves to have this hap­pi­ness in their life.

Okay, now back to the pre­vi­ously sched­uled blog session …

As I was say­ing, it was quite a dif­fi­cult cou­ple days after that visit. My mind kept going back to all the dis­apoin­ments I have with myself and with my infer­til­ity. I kept kick­ing myself down for not mov­ing any more for­ward with the adop­tion process which then made me feel like I am such a wimp for being so afraid to take the next step. Which then made me just so … sad.

Sad because dur­ing that visit, I also saw how much my par­ents love babies. How great my Dad is in get­ting babies (and any kid, really) to play with him. How my Mom tried to sit patiently until J came up her, but in the end went up to him because she couldn’t wait to hold him. And see­ing the look in their faces. See­ing how happy they were to be hold­ing a baby. No, they didn’t have to tell me what I already knew. I saw it in their faces how much they really wish they had a grand­child of their own. And. That. Just about. Killed. Me.

Some­times I wish I didn’t have to feel these things. And some­times I wish I wasn’t so attuned to other people’s feel­ings. I truly wish I could go back in time and change some events that may have affected my repro­duc­tive health (eat bet­ter, exer­cise more, see an IF spe­cial­ist sooner, etc). And I absolutely wish I could give my Hus­band our bio­log­i­cal child.

So on this birth­day … you know what I’ll be wish­ing for. Bet­ter health. More emo­tional strength. And a grand­child to give my par­ents who gave ME life on this day.

Related Posts