Dazed by the Blogosphere

As you can see by my growing links section, I have been stumbling about the blogosphere, turning up rare gems left and right. This would seem like a waste of time on par with the boob tube, but it certainly feels more productive.
I really must organize the links better. I'm trying to decide whether to organize by theme - i.e. (in)fertility, diabetes, quit smoking, or by type - i.e. websites or blogs. I think themes would be easier for you - the reader, but many blogs cross topics. Hmmmmm.
Feeling rather sickly all of a sudden. Going to go lie down.

Cranky, Irritable, not much fun

Yep, that's me today. I don't even have a good excuse. Not PMS, nor TOM, or high-low sugar.
It started last night when I got home and my toddler head-butted me AGAIN, this time right in the mouth, quickly causing a fat lip. I adore my little guy, but we have talked about this time and time and time again, he's been doing it for about 18 months. He just doesn't have that good of a sense of where his body resides in space yet. Or what throwing his head back can do when he is sitting on Mommy or Daddy's lap. But it can be aggravating.
Actually it started before that when I was driving home and it was taking FOREVER. My time is so over-booked that some days I really resent driving a couple hours a day. Even though my pay and benefits are good.
Then da kane ticked me off. Then I had forgotten I had a side-job to do on an antique computer system in California. I cannot believe this company is still running this 15 year old PC with 20 year old software for an important part of their business. I am just about the only person in the United States that can help them for a reasonable sum and for some strange reason I feel obligated to assist. It only took about 90 minutes but STILL.
Today I continue to feel all pi$$y. Ugly word, but it truly fits. I can't really say Cranky anymore, because it makes me think of the crane on the Island of Sodor. (Where Thomas the Tank Engine resides). Irritable sounds like a rash.
Speaking of rashes, I found a new blog to love - DoctorMama. Check it out.
Now I am just rambling. This blog is starting to irritate me too - I do not spend enough time on my posts - it is more like a diary than any kind of art. Other blogs are so much better crafted than mine.
Ok, now I can hardly stand myself. Time to put the ear buds in with some "Adult Alternative" music and try to focus on actually doing what I am paid to do!

Return to the Working World

Back to work today and it was BRUTAL.
The alarm going off at 4:45 - UGH.
I hit the snooze 3 times, therefore did not do a workout.
I thought I had kept up last week pretty well, but I was WRONG. Very busy, which made the day go faster.
I took the car in for an oil change at lunchtime. Put my tennies on to walk around the block while it was there (yay me!). Got to the end of the block and SWORE I smelled wacky tobaccy. It's been a lotta years, but this guy parked in his truck was glaring at me funny, so I walked back down the way I had come. At least it was 10 mins extra intentional exercise.
The drive home seemed to take forever, like the drive in. I guess I am so used to the 45 mins each way I had forgotten how LONG it takes.
I am exhausted and had forgotten about an outside job I promised to do tonight. It's done running now and it's 9 pm, and 4:45 comes awful early.

Attack of the Munching Redhead

My lord, eat, eat, eat, that's all I'm doing for this one week online class at home. NOTHING is safe! Not the animal crackers, nor the cheese sticks!
I have done a few work-outs at lunchtime, which has helped with the bg levels at least.
I feel fatter than ever. The funny thing is that I keep reading about weight loss and diabetes control and then just do whatever! ARGHHH.

Regrets, I've had a few

But not too few to mention.
There are only a couple of big regrets in my life. Even fewer that I am willing to discuss publicly.
My college experience. Although I discovered newspapers and started my first career at Slippery Rock; I thoroughly messed up the primary academic purpose of being there, and ended up dropping out. I could write a whole entry about it, but suffice it to say I have had more than a dozen opportunities to regret that.
My alcohol abuse. I wish I had somehow figured it out sooner, and perhaps I would have quit sooner and grown up spiritually and emotionally sooner. These 2 regrets are tied together in several ways, and launched their own smaller regrets throughout my life.
Starting motherhood so late. This is the one that I regret most of all, this is the one that I beat myself up over late at night. It appears that I started too late to have multiple biologic children as I have always wanted.
I ADORE my son. I really do. Even though I have this picture to blackmail him with later in life.
He has added dimensions to my life I never expected, as well as the ones I did expect.
I wanted so desperately to have at least 2 children.
I want James to be and have a sibling. My brothers are so important to me, and were such a big part of my life growing up, that I want that for James. I truly think your siblings are really the only people who totally get where you come from.
Our family feels a bit incomplete.
My body just wants another baby. I feel aches and yearnings when I see babies, which is each day that I pick James up at Kindercare.
I want the chance to do the infant thing again, hopefully better this time.
I want to take some of the pressure off James. The only child pressure, and the mommy-guilt-fear-hypochondriac pressure.
I had a miscarriage at 17 weeks pregnant before James, and I have had 3 since he was born, at 7, 7 and 8 weeks. This last disappointment really hurt.
I turned forty-four 10 days ago. I know that theoretically I am not too old to carry a baby - but I am 60 lbs overweight, I have hypothyroidism and Type 2 Diabetes. Getting in better health and shape is another regret - I just can't seem to do it.
I feel I must give up this 2nd baby dream, but it leaves me in tears each time I think it.

Off pins & needles, on a downer

Nope. Negative, not gonna be this month.
I got the test results yesterday, then started my period today. Waste of a blood test, guess I could have just waited.
I was going to write about my reasons for still wanting a child. But I'm tired, and worn out and crampy and ugh, just don't feel like talking right now.

On Pins and Needles

Alas, I have been blog-reading rather than blog-writing yet again.
There are so many talented women writing compelling blogs out there. Blogs on weight loss, on baby loss (miscarriage) and on diabetes. I start reading and if it's one I like, I go to the archives and can get lost.
Work has also picked up a bit this week. It's welcome. Another person is leaving our small, and getting smaller staff. It's difficult around here some days.
I am on day 36 of my cycle now. My cycles have always run 28-30 days, with the oddball 33 every few years. I bought a 2-pack of home pregnancy tests and both were negative.
They were the Wally World Equate brand and I noticed they have gone DOWN in price (5 pregnancies in 4 years and you notice the price). Once they were both negative, I looked more carefully at the box and they are now made in China, rather than Michigan or Canada. Hmmmmm.
I'm having a couple symptoms, but not my usual ones.
I call my beloved ob/gyn nurse. She is the greatest and has been there for me many times. It was her avoidance of eye contact at the amnio test almost 4 years ago that told me that the first baby was gone.
She says a blood test is the only way to know for sure, but the thyroid meds may have affected my cycle. I started on thyroid meds about 9 weeks ago. Shouldn't they have affected the last cycle instead? Not necessarily.
I went in and had my blood drawn this morning. My favorite phelbotomist was there and thrilled I was having a Quant HcG drawn. She has probably drawn a dozen of them on me. So I ended up telling her the story. She said I popped into her head a month or so ago at home and she hoped I would get preggers soon. My son asked last weekend where his brother was - very odd question, even from an almost-3 year old.
I have taken those 2 strange comments as a sign from the gods, heavens, whatever, that I am indeed pregnant again.
Only half, or even a quarter, of me believes this.
The other half thinks I will never have another baby. That makes me sad.
To be on the safe side, I am keeping my sugars in tight control and limiting my coffee to one cup a day.
Then I read about a 10 week old baby boy murdered by abuse and found to have several broken bones in various stages of healing and I get ANGRY. That poor precious child. How could those monsters have a baby and I can't? And why is adoption so expensive and so difficult? And I rage against it all for a few minutes.
Then tears............
then resignation................
maybe, someday............... acceptance.

Not the best Endo Visit

Ok, so I got my A1c last week - back up to 5.7. Doc marked "excellent" on my form letter, but I beg to disagree. It was 5.4 last visit. I know for a fact I have not been very good about bg control the past 8-10 weeks.
I can only try for next time. I realize for many that 5.7 would be good, but not given my history - I was only 6.0 when diagnosed with Type 2 a year ago. Doc upped my Lantus 20%.
My thyroid hasn't come up to what he'd like to see, still a touch low. So, another prescription, which I only take 1/2 a pill a day of.
I don't know when I can get the prescription filled. My brother and sister-in-law came into town Sat night for a quick visit. I have not seen them in 7 years. I came down with a cold shortly after their arrival Sat night. It was the fastest I have ever caught cold in my life. Maybe from all the house-cleaning earlier in the day? I was fine, we went for a walk, got back and my nose was all stuffed up, we all commented that maybe something was blooming. Within 30 mins I had a sore throat and headache.
Since I never see this bro, I forged ahead with sightseeing Sun and Mon and today am back to work with next to no voice left. This is probably a good thing.
More people quitting and/or being given notice. Makes for a stressful workplace. Which in turn raises my bg. I'm not sure what to do. I will telecommute tomorrow and that insulates me somewhat, at least for tomorrow.

Sleep Deprivation

About 4.5 hours of sleep last night, and it was choppy. Boy, am I tired.
We all know the effects of sleep deprivation on stress, weight loss and probably diabetes. My fbg this am is 98, higher than it *should* be. For potential pregnancy, they want me below 90 in the am. I can achieve that on these dosages of metformin and lantus, IF I get enough sleep and don't eat after 8 pm. Both of those appear to be unreachable goals this last week or two.
Yesterday was telecommute day. I started doing that again on Wednesdays. With a 45 min commute in each direction, it makes a huge difference. Plus with various other time savings, I can sleep in 1:20 longer. Ahhhhh.
My son also sleeps in, since I guess he doesn't hear me moving around. (Da Kane takes him to daycare, so theoretically he is able to sleep in everyday) He slept until 8, about 2 hours longer than normal for a weekday, about normal for Mommy being home. Daycare said he slept about 30 mins longer at naptime too. It's counter-intuitive, but the better rested toddlers are, the more they nap.
This is yet another source of Mommy guilt. 85% of the growth hormone is released during sleep. By contributing to his sleep deprivation, am I keeping him from growing?
Perhaps my biggest worry is that I will fall asleep at the wheel. Out here in the west, we do 80- 85 mph on the Interstate (75 is the official limit). Dozing off at that speed is a death sentence.
I am trying to cut out caffiene after 4 pm, but when I get home at 5 and Da Kane has made a fresh pot, it's hard to resist.
I also need Da Kane to keep the tv sound lower, since he usually stays up until midnight or so and is slightly hard of hearing, at least compared to me. He'll be watching down in the family room, and I can hear the tv - not make out the words, but hear the noise. When I'm having trouble sleeping, the quieter and darker it can be, the better.
I switched to the 7-4 shift last year from 8-5, I knew I was trading an hour of sleep for another hour with my son. A trade well worth it, but when I get on an insomnia binge like this week, it's 2-4 hours lost a night and I can't handle it. I do love the traffic at the earlier hour though, and it does save me some time because of that. Of course, leaving before everyone else in the dept means a lot of days I don't actually leave at 4.
Must go shower and wake up and function and move on out.
P.S. Da Kane is Hawaiian for The Man, and refers to my husband.
P.P.S. Made it into work safely. If it's not too hot today, I will take a nap in my car at lunchtime.