In the Cards

I do a tarot reading every Samhain night, aka Halloween. While I’m not nearly as spiritual as I once was, this one little ritual I keep. A tarot reading about the coming year.
It can be a little odd to watch your life laid out in symbolism. To see the foundation of the year as being caught by failure unawares with a warning not to despair. To see the past as two roads diverging in the wood, which one did I take again? To see the present spelled out as, I kid you not, the end of a cycle and being ready to move forward. Boy am I ever. The past and the present are easy to decipher it’s when we look at the future that things start to get hazy. Why? Because the future is colored by our perceptions and our desires. We will look for what we want to see or what we fear to see. In the spread I use depending on how you choose to interpret there are at least two cards representing the future. The first for me told me about contentment…alone. Being happy with what I’ve wrought by myself. It’s not the card I wanted to see. I wanted to see one of the two cards that I have dubbed the happy home cards. I didn’t get them anywhere in my spread.  The next four cards can be interpreted to be a future for each of the upcoming three months of the year  or they can be interpreted as investigative cards with the final card being the outcome. Either way the outcome doesn’t change. I see myself being led by emotion. I see a light at the end of the tunnel of an arduous journey. I see me being unsure of myself, of being overly analytical. And then I see the Sun. Another card for contentment. Contentment for the things in my life that I can do and those that I cannot do. At peace with the universe.  I want contentment, I want peace, but I can’t help but shake the feeling that it’s not going to be found where I want it to be. I keep seeing the alone flash. Boo.

Next I did two  past, present, future readings. One for adoption. One for IVF.
I pulled the happy home card for the future in adoption. Tears immediately pooled up in my eyes. I don’t even remember right now what the past and present cards were. I zeroed in on that card. All were minor arcana.
Then I did one for IVF.  I pulled the empress, which is close as you can get to earth mother for the present, and the moon for the future. The moon is uncertain, hazy. And the Hermit for the past. All were major arcana. Stronger influences.

Unsatisfied I did another spread, the dilemma. The dilemma pulled up as rational thought fleeing from emotions. Ivf’s choice pulled up as rest after a long struggle, but only a temporary rest, you have to go back to battle. Adoption’s choice pulled up that the outcome was already determined the events already set in motion. But if you change one thing, it changes everything. Then another card for a choice I’m not considering. Again contentment, sharing abundance. That third choice that’s the one I should go with. Pity I don’t know what it is.

My last card I pulled was the eight of pentacles. ‘Be wary of being so excited about the harvest, that you forget about the balance sheet’. This was the answer to my question of what should I do to be happy.

Does anybody else read cards? I’d love a second or third opinion. I’m using the Gilded Tarot.

 

Edited to add some second thoughts:  There are some trains of thought that put the major arcana as people. Only two major arcana showed up in my original spread. The lovers and The sun. Since the Lovers showed up at the crossing which means impolitely the problem that one’s probably a guarantee. It probably really does represent exactly what it says. The Sun as a person… doing a little digging I’ve found that in other decks the Sun often represents a child, either a boy or twins. Huh. See what I mean about how our hopes and desires become imprinted upon the reading.

A glimpse

Today is cd1.
Yesterday I was asked to watch my godsons for the day. I arrived at 6:10. Sat in silence while the boys slept all the time watching the clock. Just before 7 I went and moved the car seats into my car and started it because it was a chilly twenty something outside. At 7:00 I went into the oldest's room, E, and woke him up. He's changed from the last time I did this, almost a year ago. Usually he pops right up. Today he grumbled and flopped over. Then grumbled and flopped over again pulling his teddy bear over his face. I remember not wanting to get up for school. My mom used to turn on the light, which infuriated me and only made me want to burrow deeper into the covers. So I sat on the edge of his bed in the dark and rubbed his back talking quietly to him. Time to get up. It's almost time for school. Gotta get dressed. You don't want to be late, do you? It didn't take too much before he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. I brought him his clothes and then warned him I was turning on the light before I left the room to get his almost two year old brother, P, ready. He wasn't ready to get up either, and whiney cried while I changed his nighttime diaper and got him dressed for the day. While I was doing that I reminded the eldest to brush his teeth. Dressed and ready for the day we headed into the kitchen to make a sippy cup for the road.  E came back in dressed, teethbrushed but shoeless. Go get your shoes. He darted off down the hall. I called after him, and a jacket! I put a jacket on P, then helped E when the zipper proved troublesome. Got out E's lunch box from the frig, grabbed E's backpack and my purse and headed out into the cold. E promptly told me the ground was frozen. We made it to school, dropped E off, and headed back home. I took off P's jacket and made him breakfast, chopped up bananas and grapes with a side of apple juice. He didn't eat much, so I put in the fridge for later. Gave him the benedryl his mom had left out for his sinus drainage in a little dropper. Must taste good cause he wanted more. Nu-uh not happening little guy.  Changed over to milk and laid him back down when he started rubbing at his eyes. Yeah Benedryl makes me sleepy too. He slept til almost noon and I napped on the couch. Everytime I nap when the kids sleep I have nightmares. Every single time. They're crying and I can't get up, he fell out of the crib and busted his head, he climbed out of the crib and is now running rampant through the house. You get the gist. So I woke up every 30 minutes to an hour and tiptoed to check in on him. He was always sound asleep. He was happy to get up when I came for him this time. We played in the living room for a while, spiderman and trucks. Then we tried breakfast again. Still not much luck. Changed a dirty diaper, attempted potty training with no luck and moved to E's room to watch a cartoon. Kung-Fu Panda  3. One of those movies I absolutely cannot watch without crying now. Ugh. P lost interest halfway through and kept bringing me stuff to look at, "Mama look". The little voice kinda ripping at my heart as I told him repeatedly 'not Mama, Cindal.' Before I knew it was time to go pick up E. We waited in line for around 30 minutes before we got him. They had a pep rally at school. It was fun. He got to sit with his friends. We got home and I fixed E  corndogs and ketchup for a snack. P finally dove into his fruit with abandon and then shared E's second corndog. E pulled out super mario brothers on the super nintendo while I read P a story for the hundredth time. Their mom got home. To my surprise neither of the boys got up and ran to her. P sat on my lap, E binging and boinging his way across my childhood. I asked if P called everybody mama. She got an odd look and said no. We decided it was because we're around the same age and the lady that normally watches them is a lot older. E asked me to stay for dinner and I agreed.
It was a weird day. I haven't watched both the boys since our infertility problem became real. You know it all comes so natural, even the car seats in my rear view. I used to worry about being a good mother. I worried alot. Watching my godsons on a regular basis helped to ease that worry.  It's good practice, I don't care what anyone says *Ahem GM*, its practice. I know how to do things that alot of new mothers don't have a clue on. When E was P's age, I watched him 4 days a week from 5 in the morning til 5 at night for almost 2 years. Yeah, that's hella practice. Bath time, breakfast lunch and sometimes even dinner, naps, potty training, please and thankyou, tantrums from hell and back, I've even tagged along on more than a dozen doctor's visits. I've been puked on, sneezed on, and on one newborn photography shoot peed on.
I'm as prepared as I can be. I'm ready. This little glimpse into motherhood doesn't scare me or put me off the idea of kids, even with a croupy two year old who is fascinated with the word no and six year old whose favorite phrase is 'Guess what?' I know I'm ready. It's not fair, but IF is definitely not fair.  

Interview

I decided a week or so back that there is no way that we are going to be able to afford ivf or adoption at this point by ourselves. Something has got to change. I love doing my photography but honestly it doesn't bring home much more than gas money and a couple lunches out a month. If I could get more business in the door it would work but right now it's not reliable. I can't save 15 to 30k when I'm only clearing 3k a year. It's impossible. This year has been hella hard on us. First the infertility, then the diabetes, then a broken down truck and two cars. Money just seems to be flying out the door hand over fist. So I sat down to do a little creative math. I set my goal for around 10k. My results went something like this. Part time job working 20 hours a week, I'd have to bring home about 10/hr to make my goal. Full time job working 40 hours a week, I could make anything over $5/hr and make the goal, which is great since minimum wage is what $7.25 these days? So a full time job working 40 hours a week at minimum wage would put me around 13k.
With the math pushing me onwards I sent in an application on Tuesday. A vet's office in the town over, about a 25 minute drive, was looking for a receptionist. 'Hey," I thought, "I could do that and I love animals. Probably won't get it but hey what the hell. And I'd have at least every Sunday for photography." Well they called this morning and asked me to come in for an interview. Honestly I was a little flabbergasted. I did not think they would call. I arrived almost 30 minutes early and parked at the Co-op up the street to wait. I broke at the 10 minute mark, drove down to their parking lot, and walked in. The vet saw me almost immediately. She took me into an examination room, the same examination room I've brought my furbabies over the years, and started the interview. I'm honest person I didn't hold anything back.
When she asked about why I was interested in the position I told her about the diabetes, the broke cars, etc and that I was not looking forward to another year like this one. We talked a little more. She hinted that she might like me to take Pet Santa photos for them. Great. She asked if we had kids. I told her about the infertility diagnosis and that we needed to save somewhere between 15 and 30 thousand regardless of which direction we ultimately decided to take so no kids were not an issue. I don't know if it was wise to be that open with her, but IF I do get the job and like it, and IF we do save the money we need, and IF we do pursue IVF I'm going to need an understanding boss who will let me off to do the countless appointments. If she's not that person why bother, right? Cause honestly once the money is there if push comes to shove our family building trumps a job.
The whole interview process took around 15 minutes according to my husband who waited out the car. It seemed like a lot longer than that to me. It's been over 4 years since the last time I had an interview where I wasn't letting my portfolio do the talking for me. I don't know if it went well or not. I don't even know if I want it to have gone well. Honestly I'm not looking forward to rejoining the typical workforce, but I know its necessary if I ever want to follow this process to its end.  The things we do for our children, even the ones who don't exist yet.

A Dash of excitement

I made my very first Zazzle sale today!!! Yay! A wondrous little thrill raced up my spine when I saw the notification email.
It's really amazing because less than 4 days ago I pulled up the Zazzle site and stared at everything I  had designed. I looked at the page views of every item. I clicked select all and then hovered over the delete button for a good 5 minutes. I was ready to toss in the towel. It's been months since I built my Zazzle store. Months. And then Bam!!!
Someone somewhere out there bought my Stand Up Poster. So I just have this to say...
Hey..you...THANK YOU.

Left Behind

Today I am 4dpo with a massive .5 temp dip. Boo, hiss, like I need something else to over analyze. But of course, I will because I just can't seem to help myself. So I cut my workout at the gym in half, just in case I should over exert myself. Silly me.
This past weekend I ran a photobooth at our 10th annual Bark in the Park, an annual fundraiser that benefits the local no-kill animal shelter. It was my second year being invited. I remember thinking last year that all the good karma would surely boost my chances of getting pregnant. This year it didn't even cross my mind. Good karma or no, it didn't happen before and I can't help but think it's not going to happen again. I spent the first 2 or so hours at the event battling ovulation pains. Yay! Not. When they finally relented I started having fun. The day goes like this, smile at the people, smile at the dog, wait for tail wag, squat and love on the dog while making small talk with its person, stand up, arrange people and pets, squat again to take pictures, stand, take money, hand out flyer, mentally fuss at the dog who just marked my tablecloth, assure dog's owner that its no biggie, repeat at least 20 times during the 5 hour event. I loved meeting everyone's furbabies. My favorites of the day were the great danes, irish wolfhounds, and a beautiful wolf/malamute mix. I was happy to see several of my customers from last year come back to my booth again. Repeat customers are always the ultimate compliment. Last year we made $100 for the shelter this year its looking like $160 though I haven't got all the numbers in yet. My poor tablecloth absolutely reeked by the end of the day. Could barely hold it long enough to get it in the wash. Shew! And of course I let myself get dehydrated. Bleck. Of course I woke up the next day with screeching thigh muscles. I am so disappointed in those muscles. I thought for sure with all the gym days and weight lifting especially on the thigh machine, that it wouldn't happen this year. No such luck.

This little furbaby is waiting for someone to bring him to his forever home. Err...maybe it was a her.

Odd little thought that morning I was awakened by a vibration on my hip. Sleepy as I was I immediately swooped my hand down into my imaginary pocket looking for my phone. Yeah, no pocket, no phone. I started to drift back off to sleep when it happened again. This time I sat all the way up, threw back the covers, and looked around the bed. Nothing. I sat there warily for a few minutes. It didn't happen again and I fell back asleep. But how weird was that.

Anyways also during the weekend I was added to highschool reunion group on facebook. Of course one of the first three posts is asking how many of us have kids. Ick. A glutton for punishment I perused the list. I expected most of my classmates to have one maybe two kids. Nu-uh. More than a dozen have 5 kids. Several have 7. Seven kids. We've only been graduated for eight years. They've pretty much literally popped one out every single year. Wth, man! I can't help but feel even more left behind than I did before. Which is stupid. Why do I care how many kids so and so that I haven't seen or talked to in eight years has. Really. Course I think I took more offense to the post from the popular kids apologising for their behavior in school. It's so easy for them to apologise and so hard for the people that took the abuse to move past it. They go on about how life experiences made them mature and grow up and look at things in a new perspective. Yeah, I didn't need life experiences or more maturity to know that you shouldn't treat others that way, and I bet if they were honest with themselves they knew what they were doing was wrong when they were doing. The apology feels like such a cop out. End rant.

Chugging along

Several seemingly random topics to cover today.
First....I finally got my dad to read a story for my storybook cd. He complained and grumbled all the way up to the time I counted him in. It took less than 5 minutes and as soon as I stopped the recording he started grumbling again. Sometimes I just want to sit there and shake my head at him.  I don't know why he insists on playing the grizzly bear when inside he's cotton candy. One of the gems from that short time...'I'm not gonna croak anytime soon and even if I do the kid's probably better off not knowing me.' Gee, dad, that's a wonderful sentiment. *eyeroll* My mom and I keep reminding him that its not necessarily just for in case he 'croaks' so much as it's a really nice idea.
A few weeks earlier my brother asked me why I hadn't asked him to read a story. I was a little dumbstruck. Honestly I hadn't even considered him. I don't know why but while I can imagine losing everyone else in my life for some reason I never think about losing him. I don't know why that is. And even though it never occurred to me to ask him, it was also because it never occurred to me that he would even want to be included in this project. He's not exactly warm and fuzzy unless he gets a couple shots in him. I told him that I didn't think he would want to do it. His response was, ' well you knew dad wouldn't want to do it either.'  I think maybe I hurt his feelings and that was something I certainly hadn't intended to do, but it got me thinking. So after I finished with my father's story I sent my brother a text, mainly because it was raining outside and I didn't want to get soaked to walk up to his apartment, telling him to come on up and pick out a story and to tell his wife, J, that if she wanted to read one she could come up too. I waited and waited. Thirty minutes passed and no reply. So I sent him another one letting him know I was planning on going back to my house in about an hour. Again no reply. I waited the full hour and then left feeling even more confused. Why did he make an issue of me not asking him, if he didn't want to do it in the first place? I really don't understand people.
I have however thought of a way to improve my idea even more. I think I will scan in all the pages of the book along with a picture of whoever is telling the story and make a dvd out of it. With my husbands audio engineering expertise he should be able to eq and master the sound any way I want it and I can handle the rest. I had, at one time, casually mentioned creating a movie instead of just sound but everyone shied away from that idea pretty quick. lol. Everybody is concerned about how they look and how they sound. It's kinda funny in a way.
Moving on... I discovered recently that PepsiCo offers its employees $8,000 in adoption assistance. Pretty nifty, right? Makes me want to go work for them. Our friend who is actively pursuing adoption just quit his job and got on with Fritolay which is a subsidiary of PepsiCo. Of course the employer he quit from is also my husband's employer and guess what...no adoption assistance. Bleck.
I have so many questions about their journey. They asked me to take pictures for them for their profile book, at first I was jazzed about it. Then they asked if I could take nice pictures that didn't look posed or professional. Huh. That actually makes it alot harder. My husband doesn't seem to understand that creating posed pictures that don't look posed is actually more difficult than regular posed, even though I use natural posing techniques usually. They said the adoption agency strongly suggested not using professional posed pictures. Never heard that before. But I told them I'd make a  go of it. Then they mentioned that the homestudy wouldn't be finished for a year. Huh. My somewhat limited research and lurking on adoption boards certainly hasn't suggested that. Most homestudies seemed to get done in about 3 months. I'm so confused, so so much conflicting info out there.
Finally my grandmother just finished organizing/helping with a fundraiser/benefit for a local couple who are in deep with medical expenses. She's had alot of years of experiencing doing similar things for 'Pokey' which is the affectionate nickname we've given to the building that is now just a community center but used to be the local senior citizen's center and even further back the school where my grandmother attended as a child. Any rate they raised $7,000 for the couple in one night. Wow. I have to say that gives me a little bit of hope if we need to fundraise ourselves.
Speaking of fundraising, tomorrow I get to be a part of a charity event supporting our local no-kill animal shelter. I did pet portraits for them last year and was able to raise $100 for them. They were so pleased that they asked me back again this year! I'm excited to see everybody's furbabies. My favorites from last year were the Irish Wolfhounds. I so hope they'll be back again this year and even more hopefully that maybe they'll stop by my booth.   

Well if you've stuck with me for this long how about a song. This one is my new favorite and it's lifting my spirits when I badly need it.  BTW she's accepting videos as to what you think is 'Brave'. I thought about doing one on infertility and adoption but a. not a filmmaker  b. not out of the infertility closet just yet   c. its not just my journey but also my husband's and he's not comfortable at all with being open about our situation.

Baby Things

This week has been...interesting to say the least. No less than 3 newborn babies showing up in my feed, all born within 24 hours of each other, and within 36 hours of the start of my period.
1. A girl from highschool who told several people quite loudly that she wasn't happy about being pregnant and that it was going to ruin her life.
2. My brother's best friend. It's his second child but first kid for his second marriage. He was ecstatic and more than happy to shove his 'boy' in my brother's face. My brother wanted a little boy and got a girl. He's happy about it now.
3. My sister in law's niece. She lost her husband to a car wreck about a month after finding out they were pregnant. It's her first son, but her fourth child.
It's difficult seeing all those babies showing up in my feed. They're all from different backgrounds and different situations, but all of them make me feel sad. Sometimes its for me, sometimes its for them, sometimes its for the kid. But I can't help but feel sad. I know now after months of being on this crazy train that my feelings are natural. At one point or another everyone struggling with infertility will feel this way, this sadness in the face of a happy occasion.

The phone call I received last night only seemed to make it worse. It was my mother and usually conversations with her don't hurt. This one did. We made a little bit of small talk, caught up on each other's day and then she dived in. 'So what do you want us to do with 'Little Bit's' baby thing?" (Little Bit is my nickname for my niece. My mom didn't use it but it's not fair to include her in my blogging by name. Anyway.) I paused for a minute, a sinking feeling in my stomach, 'What do you mean?"
"Well do you want us to keep them and save them for you or can J give them away? She was thinking of giving alot of the stuff to (#2 on the list). But I told her we should ask you first."
"Oh..." I got quiet. Rolled the thoughts around in my head. Played devil's advocate in silence. It would be great to have some of that stuff around for when we finally become parents. But then...all I could see was a storage room full of baby things that might never get used. The reminder as the years pass on. I pulled myself out of my vision. "Tell her to give it to whoever she wants," I finally answered, "There's no sense in having all this stuff laying around for years on end when someone could be getting good use of it." I don't think it was the answer my mom wanted to hear. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she paused, "and I guess we can always buy more of it when the time comes."
"Yep," I nodded my head vigorously even though she couldn't see it through the phone cord. We talked for maybe a minute or two more and then I said goodbye. The conversation had left a bad taste in my mouth and an empty spot in my stomach. And I for one wasn't interested in dragging it out any longer.
My mom told me the other day that she's still holding out hope that this will happen for us naturally. I know that it bothers her that I don't really have that much hope for it anymore. It bothers my husband as well. It bothers me that my not having hope bothers them. I'm just being rational, looking at the statistics, and attempting to accept our situation for what it really is so that I can process it and move on with life.