Detoxing from hormones

"Love as distinct from 'being in love' is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will."
~C.S. Lewis
(as tweeted by Alton Brown)

The hubby and I recently made the somewhat large decision that I would go off hormonal birth control.

No, breathe, we are NOT trying for another baby. Quite the opposite, in fact - we do not want to have a second child at this time. Financially, it would doom us. I would, though, like to have a second child at some point so any permanent birth control options are off the table right now.

This decision wasn't easy and took months to make - well, months and a year, really, if we look at it a certain way. And while it solves some problems, it opens others. But for us, the quality of the problems this decision is solving far outweighs the new problems it presents.

What it comes down to is this: I cannot find a hormonal birth control option that works for me. Due to my gastric bypass, I do not trust taking the pill. I've read the results of several studies that indicated that the pill isn't metabolized in a consistent way in patients who had gastric bypass and I'd rather not play that game of roulette, thinking I'm covered when I'm not. I don't want to do injections or an IUD (hormonal or not).

I was on the Nuvaring, which worked well for years, but something changed in the past few years and especially since I had Nate. Basically, it was making me crazy. I'm actually not even really ready to fully disclose just how bad I was feeling, but I will share some.

The most ironic part of the Nuvaring is that its purpose is to prevent pregnancy, but the hormones from the birth control made me not want to have anything to do with my husband. I was cranky. Not just moody, because that implies up AND down. No, I was mostly just down. I would wake up and be fuming angry within minutes and nothing would help that. If you have emotional PMS, imagine the cranky/angry part of that, but all month long - and THEN, during PMS? It was that times ten. I just felt rage coursing through my veins. It took serious, exhausting effort not to snap at some comments and requests - and some times, I didn't succeed. And the person who got the worst of it, continually? The hubby. It is truly, solely to his credit that I even still have a husband after how awful it was sometimes.

So, yeah - the birth control really worked two ways over. It prevented ovulation and it prevented me really wanting to even... you know, spend time with my husband.

When I went off the birth control right before I got pregnant, I felt amazing. I remember thinking at the time that I never wanted to go back on hormonal birth control again. But after Nate was born, I did anyway because we really, really didn't want to take any chances.

And I remember having more emotional PMS on birth control before (as in, throughout my 20s) but it's been different since Nate was born, which I can imagine makes sense considering the hormonal flux a woman's body goes through during and after pregnancy. It makes sense to me that my body may react to things differently now, especially hormones.

It simply became unbearable, though - for both me and the hubby. And I really believe that our marriage was on the fast track to disintegration because of it. The change between how things were two months ago and how they are now is palpable. The whole household feels lighter. There are more smiles, much more laughing, much more together time, much more talking. Much more of all that is good and worthwhile and healthy to a marriage and a family.

So we are, of course, still "being safe" as the ever-present instruction goes and that takes more concerted effort than hormonal birth control requires. But our marriage is taking significantly less effort. In fact, it's really feeling like no effort at all at this point. And the effort required, as all marriages do require work, is enjoyable now and worth far more than the energy required. I've been feeling like I did when we first started dating, something I haven't felt in a long time. And it's wonderful.

A poem for Thursday

A little poem for today (and I don’t know what’s up with the AABCCB rhyme scheme I just made up; I’m feeling odd today – perhaps I hit my head when I fell and just don’t remember):

Today, This Thursday

Today began with my arse on the ice;

Walking Buster, I slipped more than twice.

But only once was I totally felled

By an unkind neighbor’s unsalted drive.

At least I didn’t completely swan dive

Into the dirty, slushy road snow that dwells.

Today the sun has been shining bright

And I sure hope its heat bears its might

Down upon the remaining icy ways

That make me – unlikely! – wish for spring

And all the annoyingly happy sunshine it brings.

I long to read outdoors in a chaise.

Instead, I am stuck inside, at my desk

Surfing for jobs that are not grotesque

So the hubby can find something he enjoys -

Somewhere he’ll be happy to go every day

With a boss who won’t make him want to run away

So hopefully on weekends he can jam with the boys.

I don’t feel like it’s too much to ask

For steady employment with a list of tasks

That don’t contradict or require odd hours

So we could have family weekends

And do crazy things like see our friends!

And the hubs and I could feel more empowered.

The bills keep coming and paying is a stretch;

And I have no interest in continuing to kvetch,

But this lack of money and of free time

Is taking a toll on my home and my life

And I’d rather enjoy being a wife

And all the things in a life sublime.

So here’s to hoping we all find peace

And a little place where we belong and can decrease

The stresses that chase us in our minds,

Leaving us only with happy, grateful notions

And the confidence that we, indeed, can move oceans

Because we have the love, support, and time

Of those with whom our lives intertwine.



Happy Birthday Hubby!

Happy 31st Birthday to my hubby today!

(You youngin'!)

source

We might not have enough money to go out to eat tonight

and I might not be able to afford a gift for you this week

but I love you

and we can have Mexican pizzas for dinner tonight

even though we just had tacos last night.

Yes, this is love.

Happy Birthday, honey.

Learning how to love and cry

The post-partum hormone roller coaster dip is over, yet I find myself so easily in tears.  It's as though with all the shifting and moving my internal organs did during the last few months of pregnancy, they made way for my brain and my heart to tap into this deep river of emotion that was previously blocked and unknown.

My parents have always been sappy, especially my dad.  I could never keep track of how many emails we've received that end with the line, "Okay, fuzzy screen, I have to go now!" ("Fuzzy screen" being code for "I'm crying and can't see the screen to type anymore.")  I'd always think, "Okay, Dad, so one of us did something great, what's with the overly emotional response?"

But I get it now.  It's not overly emotional.  It's just what parenthood is.

As of this Monday, I will have been a parent for one month.  Just four short weeks.  And, yet, this little piece of information is enough to bring tears.  When I realized that Nate would be four weeks old this Monday (although he'll technically be one month on Thursday), I said to him, "You're going to be a month old this Monday - and it's been the best month of Mommy's life."  Except it came out more like this: "You're going to be a month old this Monday - and it's be.... waaaah..." I couldn't even get the sentence out.

I've always been a bit uncomfortable with expressing emotion.  It makes you vulnerable.  You expose yourself when you expose what touches your heart or worries you or makes you angry.  I'm still learning how to express these things in a constructive way.

Because of this discomfort, I haven't been a fan of many overly mushy movies.  My least favorite, in particular, is The Notebook.  I have more than once called it overly emotional, sappy schlock.  People always respond, "But you can't tell me you didn't cry."  Actually, yes I can - I watched that movie and did not shed a single tear.

One day, though, I came home and my parents were watching it and both were sobbing.  I had told them they'd enjoy the movie, so they expressed their discontent with my recommendation because it was too sad to enjoy.

"Too sad???" I thought.  But it's so manipulative.  It's so obviously TRYING to make you sad that no one should fall for it.  I mean, really.

But I'm going to admit something just to you folks right now: I think if I were to watch that movie this week, I'd end up sobbing hysterically at the end . . . and then I'd feel dirty for how manipulated I'd feel (sorry, I can't give that part up).

Because something's happened.  I can't control my heart anymore.  I love the hubby and Nate so deeply, so completely with my whole being, that my heart just doesn't fit inside anymore and so it bursts out.  I saw someone once say that being a mom means you wear your heart on the outside now.  I thought that was a silly idea at the time, but I get it now.  Boy, do I get it.

So now I understand why my parents cried so easily at things when I was growing up.  Why they fell for The Notebook's manipulation.  Why so many of my dad's emails end with a fuzzy screen.

But I still refuse to watch The Notebook again because there's no way I'm letting anyone catch me crying at that schlock.

This post is an entry for the Living Out Loud project.  This month’s theme was “All in the family” (and the timing couldn't be more perfect).  If you’d like to take part in future projects, click here!

To sleep, perchance to snuggle

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the best things about feeling like myself in my body again is the ability to snuggle with the hubby again.

This really can't be overstated.  When you're pregnant, you're only supposed to sleep on your left side.  I would sleep on my right side at least a third of the time, though, because various body parts on my left side would fall asleep (and not in the way I intended/hoped to fall asleep).  Plus, sleeping on my left side meant I was always facing away from the hubby.  You can't sleep on your stomach while pregnant (obviously) and you can't sleep on your back.  Eventually, sleeping on my side was uncomfortable, but my friend Tracy gave me her body pillow:

It helped me sleep SO much . . . but as you can imagine, it pretty much created a boundary between me and the hubby.  I tried to go without the body pillow one weekend, but got such terrible sleep that I had to go back to using it.  In the scheme of things, it was more important - both for me and The Force - to be rested.  The lack of snuggling didn't take an obvious toll on us, but we both missed it and spoke about it often.

When I came home from the hospital, one of the first things I did was take the body pillow off the bed and shove it in the closet.  However, after the c-section, I could only sleep on my back.  Ironically, after months of being so sick and tired of sleeping on my side, all I wanted to do was sleep on my side - but I couldn't sleep on my sides because it felt like my insides were sliding and everything was pushing and pulling on my scar.  And even now, two and a half weeks later, I can't yet sleep on my stomach. 

But at least I could lay up against the hubby without the body pillow acting like a moat between us.  And now, I can sleep on my side and we can snuggle up together.  There's an amazing depth of feeling to this simple physicality.

The love we have in our marriage has definitely shifted and grown since Nate's arrival.  There hasn't been a day that's gone by where one of us hasn't asked, "How did we create something so adorable/amazing/beautiful?"

I always thought it was remarkably cheesy when someone explained that babies come from "when a mommy and daddy love each other very much" because, honestly, plenty of people who don't love each other create beautiful children.  But I can't think of that line as cheesy anymore because when I look at Nate, I am filled not just with the love I feel for him, but the love I feel for the hubby.  I feel like the answer to how did we create something so beautiful is that Nate is the embodiment of the love we have for each other.

During my pregnancy, I read a lot about the first year of parenthood being one of the unhappiest times in many marriages and it's something I've feared quite a bit.  And, obviously, only two and a half weeks into that first year, I can't make any assumptions about us avoiding that pitfall.  I think it's easier now, while I'm still home and it's all still brand new, than it will be six months from now when we're both working and dealing with a child care schedule and fretting about baby proofing as Nate begins to be mobile - especially if we haven't moved and are still in our postage stamp-sized apartment.

But things right now are so amazing, so wonderful, so better than ever, that I'm no longer worried about that.  From the very beginning of our relationship - from our very first date - I marveled at how the hubby and I physically fit together like two puzzle pieces.  When I curl up in bed with him, it feels more natural than sleeping alone does - and that's something I never dreamed I would find with someone.  I always thought I'd need separate beds when I got married because I could never sleep well with someone else in the bed.  But the hubby and I have got comfortable nights' sleep on a twin bed - and once we fell asleep on my parents' sofa, entangled in a way that 1 - I can't even describe and 2 - makes me wonder just how incredibly tired we were to fall asleep that way.

So part of me feeling like myself again after having Nate involves feeling like a wife again - even better than the wife I was before I got pregnant, the wife I am in my heart - the half of the puzzle.