stress vent

Soooo, the baby is now 7 and a half months old. I can say that I have been so busy with everything that I haven't had a second to post anything and I wouldn't be totally lying. I am able to do so now because I am out of town for work. I've got two major things to write about, I guess you could say. The first is the baby, and all that goes with trying to figure out what the hell I/we are doing with her (she was recently seriously congested and had a bad cough--I of course assumed it was whooping cough, although cold was another option). The second is my state of mind in general, which has been suspect lately, although getting better, and dealing with constantly thinking about well, everything like IVF and infertility and things out of my control.

The baby seems to be doing well, meeting the milestones and what-not. She gets sick, then gets us sick, then gets better, then we get better, and the cycle continues. Apparently, that's the beauty of daycare, but in two years, she'll have the immunity of gold. great. I should just have $15 debited from my account to the pediatrician every month for the co-pay. I hope we are feeding her the right way. Of course I don't want advice on that from my MIL and I don't want to ask any of my friends because then I look like I don't know what I am doing, and I can't have that, right? So, we read articles and books and do what we think is right and then read something totally different and worry that what we read before was wrong. But the next day comes and the baby grows....It is THE most stressful thing about her so far. And dear God I don't have time to read a whole friggin book about it. By the time I get home from work and clean up and do whatever else needs to get done, I'm too tired. That is a goal for the new year...read more about what we should be doing with the baby, well, and you know, eat better.

As for the other thing, I don't know if I have been depressed or what but I did look into therapy or a counselor or something. I am not totally thinking that route now, though, because for whatever reason, I feel significantly better. Since I have been back at work, I've had a lot more stress there than ever for various reasons. That and taking care of the baby have me highly stressed. I've been blaming d-man for things, whether it is legit or not. I was having these thoughts that he felt like he was losing his life, and it wasn't good enough anymore because he wasn't traveling the world with his buddy. I don't know....I don't want to stop him from doing things that make him happy (although a potential week away on a boat without me was a bit much...not happening, by the way), but I guess since I am sort of happy just coming home and hanging out with him and the baby, that he should be too. So, we did talk about it, and he IS very happy.

I think part of the stress is money (isn't it always?). We don't have enough, we'll never have enough and there's a lot to think about. We want to buy a house and live in a neighborhood with families and yards...we rent right now. Where we are, the houses we like are about $400,000. The easy math on a down payment is $80,000. No, we don't have that lying around. We are both so friggin far behind our friends that it's depressing. We want another baby, too. To TRY for that is minimally $7,000-10,000 and that's with a cheap RE. I'm not going to get into the fairness of that, but I think about it, a lot. I had to go into the house/baby fund because I haven't been really good with budgeting all things baby (daycare, food, etc) and um, Christmas. So, new year, more tightening of the belt. The sick thing about this? We are in the top 10% in this country (not 1%....so we ARE in the 99%). The problem is we weren't when the housing market was booming.

Anyway, the having another baby (and ONE..which is another blog post) has me worried a lot. Can we, will we, how can we afford it? I get so angry that we have to go through all of this again. I have heard of stories where people get pregnant after IVF. In all honesty, my cycle is pretty normal now, but I am pretty sure my having a baby did nothing to d-man's sperm count. Plus I know some of my hormones are still out of whack. I mean, not everything changed. So, I have been focusing on it lately, and getting myself all upset. Why?? I have definitely realized that having a baby doesn't totally change the fact that we deal with this crap.

BUT, I digress.....I don't mean to have a long-ish vent, since I am supposed to be focused with this blog, though I guess it's changed. It's just that so many things affect life in general, and the IF thing keeps making it difficult. I am learning, to focus on good things, and plan, and live life. I think I'm doing a pretty decent job of it. And I will try to write more...as along as it is relevant.

Don't worry...I actually feel pretty good right now.