reflections on 2010

so i didn't really want to reflect on 2010, but the more i think about it and am reminded about the year that was, i feel more and more obligated to close the door on it. so here goes...

since the spring, i've wanted the year to be over, and truly for good reason. not all because of bad things that happened directly to me, but because i take other people's pain and struggles to heart, i hurt for so many people in 2010.

best i can recall, it started with the passing of my uncle steve, my dad's brother. i was hit hard by this loss for a number of reasons. one - he never met my noah, which hurts in and of itself, but also because my dad never got to meet noah (and vice versa) and i guess in my mind steve was the closest thing to him. two - he was so much like my dad, in both the good ways and the bad, but regardless, every time i saw him, it was haunting... three - i can't remember the last time i saw him. stab, and twist. i mourn that we haven't been closer to him and my dad's family since my dad died in 97, but yet, we still don't see that part of the family, except at funerals, it seems...

sometime around then, i started having a flare-up of my arthritis. i distinctly remember getting my nails done for amanda's wedding in arizona, and the manicurist tweeked something in one of my fingers and that started it. from there, my fingers swelled, my joints locked, and i started going downhill fast. by summer, i was basically crippled and struggled to care for myself and noah. work was challenging for me, as every keystroke made my fingers ache and my knees throbbed as i sat at my desk.

and then there was the swing that hit me in my gut like nothing i've ever experienced. i've experienced loss in tragic ways and felt sadness more overwhelming than can be described, but i will never forget the day i received the phone call at work in early april. after getting pregnant with twins after five rounds of IVF, my dear friend called following her 20 week high risk appointment saying that she was being admitted to the hospital because she was almost fully effaced. i held it together while i was on the phone, but after i got off, i lost it. i know at that moment there would not be a positive outcome. three weeks later, she had to give birth to twin boys at 23 weeks.

i know that this was truly the turning point of my year. i held stacy's loss as if it had happened to me, and despite my best efforts, i could not shake the pain. she was so strong, so stoic, so brave. i know i would not have been able to keep it together. i don't know how, but she put the pieces back together, and jumped back in. she is now 18 weeks pregnant.

a month and a day after stacy gave birth, another blow. a friend - whom i call my friend, because she is, though we have never met - lost her four month old, one of twins, to SIDS. i met sam through my IVF message boards on ivillage.com and we were due one day apart with noah and caden, and we lived every moment of that IVF cycle and our pregnancies right along with one another. we shared every happiness, every fear, and every dirty detail of labor, delivery, breastfeeding, diaper changing, etc. us October girls were tight. so when i read on her facebook page a month and a day after stacy's boys were born and died that mason had died in his crib, i fell apart. poor noah must've thought his mama was crazy during those months. i was an emotional mess. i was heart broken all over again.

but we pushed on. i had thought we'd start back with IVF around noah's first birthday, but i wasn't feeling quite ready at the time. so we pushed it back. or i did. we never really talked about it. it just never felt right, and honestly, looking back, i'm not sure what made us go for it in june. i think i needed something good to happen, and i hoped that this would be it.

unfortunately, as you know, it didn't work, and in retrospect, i think i wasn't fully ready emotionally, and i know now that physically, i should not have cycled. i was in the midst of the worst flare-up of my adult life, yet i went ahead with my cycle.

from there, things kind of leveled out. i got my negative pregnancy test, and decided it was time to change rheumatologists, explore my fertility options, and try to refocus my life. i still kind of feel all over the place sometimes. i know i should exercise, eat better, declutter my life, but with two boys in the house, it's hard to make some of those changes.

it also doesn't help that arthritis wears you down, both physically and emotionally. i always think of things that i WANT to do, but don't have the energy or strength to do. i always thing of things that i should say, but can't muster the courage, strength, or fight to do it. and when i do, i get a moment's reprieve and then it's back to the grind.

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so with that, i say peace out 2010, and don't let the door hit'cha! i'm gonna take 2011 by the balls and say eff you to pain and sadness. i'm gonna get pregnant this year, i'm gonna make certain that i get all aspects of my life and house in order (within reason), and i'm gonna be happy.

<3