I missed last week so let’s forget about that and focus on hot cute and fun we were this past weekend.

We spent Saturday at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, enjoying walk across the 450 meter long and 230 meter high suspension bridge, a treetop adventure and of course frozen lemonade and fries . Everly was not at all afraid and there is nothing cuter than watching a 3 year old try to navigate across a long, swinging bridge:

Out on our adventure!

“This bridge is SO SO wobbly mommy!”

Treetop Adventure Time!

All the fun makes us thirsty!

Sunday was of course Father’s Day, and we spent it riding Everly’s bike from park to park (3 total!), having ice cream and ended it playing nekkid in the sprinkler (which isn’t pictured for obvious reasons):

Zip line champ!

“Spin me faster daddy!”

She’s almost got the hang of how to swing on her own.

Eating a popsicle after taking a bite of my ice cream (and eating HALF), asking her dad for just 1 bite of his ice cream….

So that was our fabulous, sunny and mostly outdoor weekend. How was yours?

This has been weighing heavy on my mind lately, the whole cost of being infertile. I haven’t even accepted that word as something that applies to us, even through it’s been medically proven otherwise. Whatever this all is, it’s expensive. Physically, emotionally and financially.

I’m not even talking about all the things I’ve bought to help this journey. Special this, that and the other which are supposed to increase your chances by 10%! You’ll be pregnant in no time! All claims, not scientifically proven, which draw you in. The success stories are coincidence wrapped in marketing, and they know how to play on the fragile emotions of an incomplete family.

I’m talking about actual treatments.

I know we’re so lucky to live in Canada, where all of our preliminary tests are covered. While the wait times are excruciating for actual treatments, the process of sorting out what’s wrong and where we stand is fairly easy. We can go to any number of labs for scans, blood work and other tests and they just send that information right on over to whatever medical professional ordered them. However, when it comes to the treatments, those aren’t covered by basic medical at all, and neither of us have insurance that will make a useful dent in it (I should note that in some provinces, you can write off your treatments on your tax returns, while other provinces offer subsidies of other types, mine however does none of that at the moment). 

I suppose I understand. Having a baby is a choice. Growing a family isn’t required. If you want to have a baby, that is your responsibility; while the government will help you care for said baby both in-utero and as a whole outside the womb human, they will not participate in the creation. And that’s all well and good when you consider that having a baby is a choice, until that choice isn’t really yours to make. Whether you’re surprise pregnant with a child you cannot care for, or you’re barren as the Arizona dessert through no fault of you own, you’re on your own there.

It’s hard. We didn’t choose this. We didn’t want this, and in my mind there is a medical reason for the problem so I feel like the resolution should be treated as other medical problems are. Only they aren’t. And while I get it, I don’t like it. In the same tone as someone will say “why should I pay for you to get pregnant” I can’t help but think “well why should I pay for you to have a cast on your leg when you fall drunk down the stairs?”. We pay together so we can treat together, that’s just how this thing works.

It’s not like we can shop around. Getting into a clinic is a battle in and of itself, and you’re not about to start dragging out the timeline to price shop for your miracle. It makes an already clinical approach to the beautiful process of building a family seem even less amorous.

So, if we want a baby, we have to pay. We have to pay a lot, and then, we don’t even get a baby, we get a chance at a baby. And if it doesn’t work, we’ve just paid a lot to turn my body into a hormone circus all for nothing.

I know it probably sounds harsh, and I’m sure I’m just being cynical, it’s just that I’m having a hard time effectively wrapping my head around the idea of paying that much money for a (at most) 50/50 shot. I know, some people will say it’s not about the money, it’s about the family you want to build, but it is about the money if you spend everything you’ve got and wind up with nothing but a destroyed psyche to show for it.

There is also our daughter to consider in this horrible math equation. While I want her to have a sibling, to so badly be the amazing big sister I know she would be, at what point do we need to say that that desire should not outweigh her overall future? This money, this money we would have to shell out for the most expensive of the fertility treatments (because that’s what we need, nothing half ass going on in Chilla land) will impact her. It will affect the life she lives. And so what if we spend it all, money we could have used to do something with her, for her, and at the end of the day we’ve got nothing to give her in return but a strung out parental unit? I know we don’t owe her money per se, but at the moment, that money belongs to her, and it nags in my brain that I could be selfishly squandering that.

Of course every single part of this conversation changes if the treatments work and we finish our family and everyone just goes on as one big happy. Nothing is certain, I realize this. No matter what we do or how we get pregnant, nothing is certain.

Babies are expensive. Children are expensive. All of it takes money. Starting off deep in the hole is scary. And it’s only necessary if we choose that path, and it’s hard to choose, because you can’t always get what you want.

We went to the dentist today and I just can’t help but share this. She did SO well, I’m blown away. They were practically throwing prizes at her as we left and then I plied her with sugar because who the hell likes the dentist? Her face in the first one is priceless.

I’m so proud of her!

It’s Monday and, no one likes that really. Also sometimes, blogging is hard because you don’t have anything valuable to say (I mean do I ever really? No but still) and yet, you want to post to avoid doing all the things you avoided doing last week.

We always have pretty fun filled weekends and, I often spend most of Monday thinking back to those simple joys and wishing every day was Saturday. So I’m going to start posting something from our weekends every Monday, so I don’t lose that weekend feeling. It might be just a picture or a short story or both, but it’ll be light hearted and fun. I was going to make a badge but I am void of any ounce of design prowess and I’ve been sitting on this idea for 3 months because of that, so I didn’t. I was going to try a link up but let’s be honest, I don’t have time to sort out the how and the management of it so, eff it. Lazy blogging for the win! If you’d like to join in the fun and post YOUR Mellowing Monday post, let me know in the comments so I can check it out. Or don’t. Whatever works for you.

So I present, Mellowing Monday #1: Spoiled. Perfectly.

Rough life, eh?

Everly and I had errands to run and mama got tired. I needed some caffeine so we hit Starbucks and Everly got a “milkshake” which is mommy code for “very expensive sugar beverage from the coffee shop” but, whatever. She digs it. We hit the little plaza across the street and she performed a few shoes for me then kicked back to take in the scenery while enjoying her treat. And before anyone makes the comment, no I didn’t give her coffee, no that isn’t how I spell my name and yes, I’m aware that Starbucks is for adults and surely she will becomes a stuck up sociopath because mommy let her have a frappucino but hey, choice and consequence right?

Unfortunately, it appears she got her dance moves from me. I find it adorable, but long term she may not

Do you follow your gut instinct?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, in light of so many things. That in general, while I can be way too pessimistic realistic, there is always this nagging part in the back of my brain that’s telling me something else. While I’m putting forward all the “what’s if’s” and “we’re fucked’s” and “THE WHOLE WORLD IS ENDING” thoughts and feelings, I don’t always actually believe them to my core, at least not always. Maybe it’s a simple defense mechanism designed to help me save face when things do go wrong, or maybe it’s just that I don’t know how to BE the annoying optimistic person who thinks big picture and just KNOWS everything happens for a reason. It’s just, this weird internal struggle I have because, while I am often feeling one thing, I’m believing another.

And, none of it makes any sense. Is it misplaced hopelessness that doesn’t allow me to feel and believe the same thing? Is it some sort of unconscious awareness that no matter how bad things sometimes seem, they can’t be taken at face value? Or is is really truly some form of cosmic intervention in my mind, which overrides that which I claim to know with that which is true and real? Is it just the brains normal way to cope with the unknown?

So many times things have seemed so overwhelming, so difficult, so personally tragic and yet, while I’m crying on the outside my insides are nagging at me to just accept that it will all work out. And so many times, it has. When my hubs wasn’t working for almost a year, it was hard and real and very scary. And while I watched our debt grow and felt an intense sense of fear, in the back of my head I always knew we’d be ok. I knew he’d find something when we needed it, and I knew that all the worrying in the world wasn’t going to speed up the process. And  yet, I let that stress eat away at me.

When we sold our house and needed to find a new one, there was that same sense of panic. House after house we toured was either a disgusting shithole or it was gone before we got the chance to put an offer in. Time was not on our side, we had a toddler and we needed a stable place to live. It wasn’t a fun experience, looking for the right place, and yet I always knew the right one would just come along. I laid awake night after night playing out different scenarios where we stored all our stuff and had to live in a hotel. I tried to prepare myself for that inevitable, even though I knew, I KNEW that wouldn’t happen. And it didn’t. We found a great house, just in the nick of time, just like I always knew.

It’s a running theme in my life, and I don’t know if it’s just simple coincidence of if it’s something more. I don’t know if everyone operates this way, or if this is some sort of strange mental disorder I should have checked out. It’s just, one of those things.

Do you know what I mean? And I’m not talking about when your kid is cranky and pulling his ear and has a runny knows and you just KNOW he has an ear infection. Save me that shit, that isn’t mother’s instinct, that’s common sense. I mean something real and serious but totally intangible. Things for which there are no signs which point towards yes, where there isn’t past or shared experience to draw from. Where really it’s a crap shoot and could easily got the wrong way just as soon as the right.

Do we all live in this state of not trusting our gut, or is that something I do to myself? And if you all do trust your gut, do you find it’s right or is it just some sort of mental defense mechanism designs to stop you from losing you mind when considering the reality of the alternate?

Am I just crazy? (This last one is rhetorical).