Under The Moon

Piercing Through    11.4.99

Going to Pottery Class is like going to therapy. I basically did nothing but talk the whole entire time to my instructor about my mother dying and her illness. In case I haven't mentioned it before, Deanna - the instructor, was one of my mother's best friends.

The conversation started while I was attempting to throw on the wheel. Deanna mentioned that for a period of time my mother ignored her and acted very abrupt. I assured her that it was nothing she had done but was about her being depressed and struggling with her illness. Though my mother was physically feeling good, mentally she was a wreck. I told Deanna about how I would have to give my mom pep talks to get her away from watching TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) and other religious broadcasts and go out and live. My mother would spend half her days in her nightgown and robe and do nothing but watch religious TV and asking god why she had not been healed. Deanna and I talked about how my mother struggled with her faith and the Pentecostal teachings she filled her mind with everyday. I rambled about how sick it made me to think of all the time my mother wasted begging and pleading with god to heal her instead of just living her life. I also talked about the relief I felt when she did die, and the guilt I have for feeling that relief.

Deanna has become my surrogate mother. I've poured my heart out to her, cried and have been completely open with her about my struggle with Christianity and my own spirituality. I feel she does not judge me and I find comfort when I am with her. She is in her sixties but doesn't look or act it, and is full of life. Her faith in God is so strong, and she beams in complete happiness. I know she has had many struggles in her life, she had a child that drowned when he was four, and she live in a abusive marriage for years. I think one of the things I admire in her the most is her strength and her ability to go forward instead of backwards in her life. I often wish my own mother would have had some of these traits.

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I feel as if I am seriously slacking in my domestic duties as wife and mother. I haven't been cooking as much as I feel I should and my time with Elizabeth is very unstructured. I am trying to implement Montessori in our home and I find myself being distracted. I know part of the problem is trying to have a second child and feeling disappointment that I am not pregnant.

Saturday and Sunday I had really fertile cervical mucus so Jeff and I did the baby dance three times in twenty-four hours. I was on a natural high thinking that maybe, just maybe, this was it, the moment was here and I was ovulating and would get pregnant. Yesterday I woke up to a BBT above my coverline and I was convinced I had ovulated. I was excited, and even wrote my notify list about it. I even got out my EDD chart and figured out that if I had ovulated Tuesday or Wednesday then I would have a due date of July 25. when Jeff came home from work, and Elizabeth had left to go to MsEm's house, we baby danced again, just in case there is a release of more than one egg. This morning, my whole ovulation theory went down the toilet when my BBT was back below the coverline. I've been in a funk ever since.

If I don't get pregnant in the next few weeks, I can completely hang up getting pregnant in 1999 and having a baby next summer. This means that after the first of the year I will be seeking infertility treatment, and I'm not looking forward to it. Many of my friends and family keep telling me that the reason I'm not getting pregnant is because we are "trying". I remind them that if you don't ovulate how in the hell can you conceive. Every month my mother-in-law has asked if I'm pregnant yet, I try to be nice with my replies but I'm afraid I may turn nasty soon.

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Today just hasn't been a good day. Besides feeling down in the dumps, I feel like a bad mother. I yelled at Elizabeth this afternoon and put her in her room for continuously throwing crayons. I know this wasn't the way to handle things, but I was feeling frustrated. Jeff left me without a carseat and I had a lot of errands to run so I called everyone I knew and couldn't find a sitter. I finally decided to strap Elizabeth into a regular seat and go to Jeff's work to get the carseat out of the car. Well, on the way I stopped off at errand number one, and then went to the school to discover that the car was no where in sight. Jeff was not at work, so I turned back to drive home and did errand number two. When I finally made it back home I opened up the front door to see the carseat sitting in the foyer and a note from Jeff saynig he was sorry that he forgot to leave the carseat. The entire day Elizabeth tested me. She threw her toys around the room, jumped on the sofa, chased the cats, whined, and refused to take a nap. Just being a mom today was totally exhausting.

I need to go to bed. Nite.

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