The Fourth of July...

Here I am, sitting on my balcony, at 10:30 at night on the fourth of July. I'll admit, today has been really tough. I have these days, I refer to them as my "bipolar" days. I'm not intentionally mocking the actual bipolar disorder, but as a psychology degree holder, I feel it's acceptable to use the term.

Last Friday I began to see some spotting when I went to the bathroom. This makes me think several things: maybe this is implantation spotting and I could be pregnant, maybe this is the start of my period and I'm not pregnant, or the trickier one, maybe this is just spotting and I could be pregnant anyway. Lots of women have spotting when they are pregnant. So I continued to see spotting Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and into Tuesday. Monday afternoon I had a doctor appointment for unrelated stuff and asked if they could do a blood test for me to see if I'm pregnant. They were more than happy to, and informed me that if I didn't hear from them by Wednesday afternoon to call them for the results. More waiting. Of course. Isn't that the norm at this point??

Tuesday morning I woke up in pain. And I mean PAIN. I haven't had this much pain from my period (or anything!) in a couple months. I was miserable. I moved slowly to get ready for work, did the bare minimum, ate a granola bar and took 1000 mg of Tylenol, and drove to my moms to go to work. On my way, I called my doctor and said, "I totally don't expect you to have the results of my test yet, but I'm in a lot of pain and don't know if it's ok to take my menstrual cramp medication because I might be pregnant. What do I do??" She was so nice to me on the phone and asked me to hold on for a minute. She came back with the results... She said it came back as a 2. A 2 means not pregnant or pre-menopausal. I thanked her for checking and got off the phone.

I cried. I was driving down Hill road crying. Crying because I hurt so bad. My cramps were killing me. I was sad that once again I'm not pregnant. So I called my wife. And I cried to her. She can only say or do so much over the phone, but her voice telling me she was so sorry and she wished she could be here to hug me was comforting. She calmed me down enough to make it safer for me to drive, and I continued to my moms house.

The rest of Tuesday and most of Wednesday I was in a stoned stupor. I take an Oxycodone (Percocet) and a Promethazine (for nausea) every four hours to keep the pain of my cramps tolerable. Not gone, but tolerable. This is good to not be in so much pain, but it's difficult to function in life high on pills all day.

Amanda took me to see fireworks in Lansing yesterday, and my mom, Logan and Ashley came along too. It was a lot of fun. We ate at Logans roadhouse for dinner and saw fireworks after. Amanda said she knew fireworks were important to me, knew she couldn't take me tonight, so wanted to go last night. She really is an amazing woman who loves me more than the world.

So, as I look back on today, feeling bitter about not getting a vacation like everyone else, not being pregnant like everyone else (as it seems), not going to see fireworks on the Fourth of July like everyone else, I see something different.

I'm sitting on my balcony watching my own fireworks. MY balcony that I pay for. That I am lucky to have. I'm able to say that I have a Psychology degree, and am able to pull information from my brain so that life makes a little bit of sense. I'm lucky to have the opportunity to try to get pregnant. Lucky to have the money to try. Lucky to have a partner willing to try just as hard and stand by me through the tough times. Lucky to have people in my life who love me-no matter what. Yesterday I was able to see my brother. He's so important to me, I'm lucky to have such an amazing brother. Lucky to have all the little things, that might not be little things to others.

So as I sit here, on my balcony, writing a blog on my smartphone, I realize that while I'm waiting for something big, I really need to slow down so I don't miss the small things.

While we were waiting we slowed down so we could see the small things in life.