i'm glad i was a nerd

I had a moment of nostalgia today. I was taken back to my middle school/junior high days, which I fondly refer to as my "nerd among nerds" years. Think of the nerdy kid in your 7th grade science class... got them in mind? Now magnify it by an orange mullet, multicolored stone-washed jeans, over-sized glasses, brown-nosing band nerd and you get me. And to top it all off with a dollop of "even more annoying", I was confident, outspoken, and opinionated. I liked myself. I wasn't the shy, quiet nerd in the corner, I was the answer all the questions, no shame, talk to the popular kids like they might actually not hate you, tae kwon do loving, teacher's pet nerd. Even the band nerds didn't like me (they voted me "Most Annoying", and I have the certificate to prove it). And I mean it when I say I liked myself. I was confident in who I was. I thought of myself as beautiful and intelligent and funny and someone everyone would want to hang out with if they just knew me better... etc. etc. etc. But I was also incredibly lonely, and heart broken that no one wanted to be my friend. I remember crying, literally, to my mom that no one wanted to be my friend. On multiple occasions. But I saw no need to change anything about myself to be more likable.

Excluded. In a word, I felt excluded.

And that's the feeling that took me back today. Exclusion. And I realized that it's a deep-seated fear of mine. Exclusion. Not being accepted. Not being liked for who I am. Which sucks, just like in middle school, because I like me. Just how I am. And that was an epiphany I had today, that those fundamental characteristics... confident, outspoken, opinionated... those haven't changed. So as much as I have changed, I haven't changed at all.

Seven years. We've lived in Hawaii seven years and I feel like we (I) am just now starting to make some friends in the past few months. I mean, there were a few here and there along the way (you know who you are....) But usually they would either move or I'd shut them out before they had a chance to reject me. Before I could be/feel excluded. Because if someone rejects/excludes you and you don't know them well, no biggie. You can write it off as, "They don't know me well." But if you've hung out a few times, had real chats, gotten to know each other, yada yada... well, that's choosing against having you around. read: exclusion (refer to previous introspection regarding "deep-seated fears")

Now let's not be on a pity train here, because that's really not where I'm headed. Remember the whole "I like myself" spiel. Yah, I meant it. What I'm getting around to is, I'm grateful for my years in nerd-dom. I'm grateful to know what exclusion feels like. I'm grateful to know that there is life after craptasticness, and mostly, I'm grateful for my sympathy towards others which leads to a desire to include everyone on everything. To find common ground. To be genuinely interested in what other people care about. And I'm glad I can pass this on to my kids... I'm glad they don't see people that way (yes they're young, and I'll get back to you in 10 years, but so far, so good). Of course there's the downside of being afraid of getting to know people. But all in all, I'm glad I was a nerd.

ITIWAB

NOTE: This post will talk about female stuff. And I'm not really one to use fluffy comfortable words, so if all that makes you squeamish, turn back now.

We started trying to get pregnant in the late summer of 2010. Casey was working off-island a lot, which didn't help, but I figured my other two pregnancies had happened quickly and easily and this one would follow suit. Casey wasn't completely sure he wanted another kiddo, but then one day he texted me ITIWAB. I said "What?" he said ITIWAB. I made a guess... yada yada yada ITIWAB = I Think I Want A Baby. We were gung-ho on adding a little Jorgensen!

Weeks ticked on to months... I started living the 2-week cycle many hopeful mothers are familiar with: 2 weeks of hope-filled anticipation, "I think I'm nauseous!" or "My boobs are definitely sore." or "I'm WAY more tired than usual...." and 2 weeks of impatience and waiting for ovulation. After 6-8 months I knew something was up, and I was definitely having some weirdness in my cycle.

My periods were intense... heavy, painful, emotional, did I mention heavy? They were really heavy. Even between periods I was in pain: crampy, stabby, "I don't really want to get off the couch today" type pain. I asked friends and talked to family... I was overly worried because I don't have the best family history in the female organ department. (Lots of cancers. No one's female nether regions have lasted past 35.) So I just let the time keep ticking, and pretty much gave up on the whole "have another baby" thing. I was approaching 30 and that was the family marker... my woman parts had ticked their last tock and that was that. I'm the type of gal who has to mentally process stuff before I'm ready to swallow it whole, so I basically spent a year or so just digesting the fact that we were not going to have any more children, and I would probably have something severely wrong with me when I finally had the guts to see a doctor.

July 4th of this year we attended a breakfast party at a friend's house. I was menstruating and debating going at all, but decided instead to just double up my preparations (read: super tampon + one of those pads that feels like a diaper, and of course plenty of "reserves"). I reassured myself that it was only a 30ish minute drive to their house and I'd be fine. So wrong... oh so so wrong. The thing is, I would lose like clots of blood... chunks sometimes the size of walnuts. (Hey, I warned you in the beginning.) And gosh the pain.... So after spending an hour in a friend's bathroom cleaning up what look like a murder scene, I decided it was time to make the appointment. And I was ready to hear whatever the doc had to say.

Skip to late July... appointment day. They were all up in my business... ultrasounding and examining and all sorts of stuff. The diagnosis: crazy polycystic ovaries (there were all sorts of cysts up in there) and what appeared to be very progressed endometriosis (but you can't really know without exploratory surgery). Basically I was told that I would not get pregnant without assistance... lots of assistance. Period. Case and I had already had this talk and decided that we were completely and utterly happy with our family as it was and were not going to take any extraordinary measures to make more babies, so the goal was HEALTH. I wanted to feel healthy again. Doc said to come back in when my period started and he'd get me going on birth control to help out with the PCOS (Polycystic Ovaries Syndrome) and then once that was under control we'd do surgery for the endometriosis.

but then my period didn't start.
Enter Elise.