Number four was always my favourite number, but is it lucky?

So here we are once again.  Trying to get, and remain, pregnant.  So it goes.  Excited and glad to be on this road again, but if there was ever a use for the phrase "feel like I'm running on a treadmill", this would be it.  Why a treadmill?  Because I associate a treadmill with exercise that can easily become formulaic; because on a treadmill the scenery repeats itself; and because you keep getting on it, but going nowhere. It has been a real struggle to not let this situation infiltrate and impact my entire life, including my relationship.  I've been fairly successful I think, overall, at doing this.

But that's not to say that this is a sad story, folks. I have a LOT of hope.

There is no reason they have really found for why we have had three miscarriages, and we DON'T have trouble getting pregnant, so that's good, right?  Yes, it is.  I know just how lucky I am that this, at least, is not a problem.

Here's the issue, though.  It's kinda sad, really, that the joy one is supposed to feel when they become pregnant is never going to be what I feel again. For my own sanity, I HAVE to temper my excitement and proceed cautiously. Even if we DO manage to make it through the first trimestre...I dunno, but I imagine I won't be able to help but feel anxious, you know?

But looking at it from a positive angle, it is what it is, and if what that is, is a healthy baby in the end?  I can reserve my full joy for the outcome and for many, many years to come. 

And THAT is worth getting excited about.

Take this to the bank...life isn't lived through an action plan

It's about control, isn't it, with us? We're raised believing that if we set goals, work hard, come up with a game plan, that we will be successful. We strive, oh how we strive! And guess what? In my life, that has consistently worked out and I have achieved virtually EVERYTHING I have ever wanted to achieve - and yes, I refer to my personal life experiences as well as my professional.

Men and women alike in today's generation feel this way, and believe that life, lived as an action plan, is a great approach to take. I specifically remember a special Grade 9 English and Home Room teacher (A little shout out to Mr. Leo Abbass who is now the Mayor of Happy Valley/Goose Bay, Labrador...) who said to me "Pam, you will be someone who will achieve anything and everything you set your mind to."

We are even led to believe that women's biological nuances can be controlled - our cycles through birth control, our situations through abortion, fertility treatments, etc. There are even drugs that take away our damn monthly visitor! We are IN CONTROL, right? Previous generations never thought this, but our generation certainly did and does.

What I learned today?

It's a load of hooey.

Well, okay, let me back up a bit. What I learned was that life's biggest moments are truly seredipitous, and that to try to control what cannot be controlled will result in confusion, frustration, and, in my case, just a little bit of rage. Specifically, to have suffered three miscarriages in a year has exposed me to a level of experience that is often takes others much longer to achieve. And what this experience means is that I am sensitive to how unfair life can be. In my despair, I became sensitized to other suffering that also was unfair, and saw this through new eyes. There is a reason that many of the aged seem accepting, calm, and take life as it comes. They are in on the secret.

And what is that secret? What has this new experience level ultimately meant to me? I can never see the world in the same way I used to - with unbridled optimism and a full belief that you reap what you sew and that good things will always come to good people etc. etc. etc.

This MAY sound depressing, and believe me...it has been. But thanks to a therapy session today, what it has made me realize is that SOME things in life just will not, cannot, refuse to be, controlled. Action plans won't work.

So what can you do? Well, you can focus instead on what you CAN control - such as your time spent socializing/doing something you enjoy; such as finding jobs and opportunities in which you will thrive; such as moving more, eating better and generally having FUN.

And what will happen while you are out there 'controlling' your fun and living your 'action plan'?

Life will happen.

More specifically, I believe a NEW life will happen.

And I am going to take that to the bank.

One helluva trip...

One year ago today my new husband and I were on a plane headed for Spain for a honeymoon a few months after our wedding. It was a lovely trip and a wonderful time. And never ever to take anything away from that time, but it also marked the launch of our first forays into family planning.

It has been the hardest year of my life, when I thought it was going to be one of the best....

But. That year is now behind us, and we are about to embark on the next, with enough hope leftover for many more attempts, if necessary. I've put time and effort into both my mental and physical health once again, and hopefully that will have set me up nicely for the right environment.

And really? This stage IS awfully fun...

Here's to a great 2010...

Me and Dick

If I ever needed a reminder that life continuously changes, meeting a contact from my past at a wine and food event this weekend transported me back over a decade to when I worked in film and television production. Back to a time when I worked for two seasons on a brutally crass and tasteless comedy series for the Comedy Network. Back when I worked with a man named Greg Lawrence, dressed a man named Greg Lawrence, shopped for Greg Lawrence's underwear, and dealt with the continuity issues on set, should Greg's underwear scene not look like the previous camera setup's. Very glamourous work.

So...for those who didn't know me then...I give you the best of "Butch Patterson, Private Dick", season 1 and season 2!

Bon appetit!

On making babies

Oh so much that could follow that title, eh?

So after an incredible weekend getaway to Huff Estates in Prince Edward County, my husband and I will celebrate our one year wedding anniversary this week on Thursday. Time goes at times by very quickly and at other times slow as molasses. While we have had overall an incredible first year together, we have had a tough winter, and never is the hurry up and wait feel to time passing been more prevalent than now. Ever since we lost the baby in November, I have tried, entirely unsuccessfully, not to calendar watch. Not to wait and hope and see how I am 'feeling' on any given day. Not to analyse every burst of gas, every tingle of flesh or tenderness of breast... I have sailed with the certainty that I am pregnant again, only to get stuck in the muck, low in spirits and iron each month that followed. I have figured out the hard way that my body is a bit screwed up with the hormones and after-effects of what I have to say is one of the hardest things I have gone through in my life.

But of course, many MANY women experience the same thing. It does comfort a little bit, but not really. We had a baby growing, and then we didn't and that simply sucked.

So. We now again find ourselves at the top of the hope spectrum, as another wait and see fortnight elapses. Will it happen or won't it? How do I stop thinking about it? How do I force myself not to analyse my body's signals, which has proven to be fruitless as it mocks me with every conceivable symptom at the oddest times?

I don't know how, but I do know that I am more relaxed than I have been in a long time, that somehow or other a curtain has lifted a bit and I am more positive and happy than I have been since that hideous month, and I am less obsessed than I have been. That's gotta be good for something. So...we wait and see where the next turn on this roller coaster takes us.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

My roots at 24 frames per second

You know, every now and again I go back in time a bit to a world I used to inhabit, live, breathe, and struggle in. It was a time of intense creativity, flagrant mistreatment of my body, and relative poverty where I used a line of credit to pay my rent for months at a time...but it was great. Really , really great.

This video that I have seen featured on youtube for a while now, illustrates how film and photography coupled with vision and ingenuity, can create a really compelling piece of art. It is lovely - beautiful, fun and one of the best videos I have seen in a long time. And maybe because I see it from a filmmmaker's eyes, I know just how much effort and VERY careful orchestration went into this excellent piece. I hope it leads to great things for the creator, because it is really well done. Here it is: