Hello?

Monday was my orientation for nursing school. I am SO PUMPED! I was hanging on to every word that was said, held on to all the tons and tons of handouts we got like it was a $100 bill and kept thinking to myself "this is it! i finally made it! i'm gonna be a nurse!"
We had speaker, after speaker, after speaker talking to us about rules and regulations for the program, health regulations for clinicals, uniforms, background checks, this huge and scary test called Dosage Calculations that seems very intimidating and you have to get a 100% or you fail the course, clinical sites, schedules and textbooks ($1019 in books for the FIRST SEMESTER!!!). As soon as I got into the orientation I saw two girls from my microbiology class. I was glad to see two familiar faces, so I sat with them and was able to get the same class schedule as one of them, so it will be nice to have a study partner that I know and trust.
Members of the Florida Nursing Student Association were selling used uniforms during the lunch break. I got there a little late and all that was left was an extra small top and a medium bottom. The uniforms are pretty expensive - almost $40 for the top and bottom - and the FNSA was selling them for donations only. So for $5 I got an extremely ill fitting top and bottom. And let me just say that I will wear this uniform with an enormous amount of pride and happiness but good LORD it is hideous. I mean bad, bad, bad. The top is short sleeve, all white with a FSCJ patch on the side, two pockets at the bottom and it zips up the front, instead of buttoning, and the bottoms are white drawstring with two back pockets. To top it off I have to wear all white leather clunky shoes. I tried the uniform on for Patrick and he was very sweet and said it looked great but I could see right through him.

My first day of class is set for May 10. My schedule will be:
Monday - testing from 3-5:15pm. There are no classes held on Monday for nursing students, rather it is a mandatory testing day for all the nursing students. Fourth term students test early in the day, then 3rd term, then 2nd term then 1st term (which is what i'll be). I'm not sure what the testing day is - if it is just overall nursing tests, or instead of getting a test in your regular classes you just get tested on Mondays in the auditorium.
Tuesday - 9am - Noon class Health Assessment Across the Life Span
Wednesday - 9am - Noon class Pharmacology & Nutrition
1pm - 4pm class Nursing Concepts
Thursday - pick up my care plan information from my clinical hospital (Memorial Hospital )and prepare my care plan for the following day. I have to go to the hospital each Thursday before my clinical and I have to wear my uniform.
Friday - for the first 8 weeks of the semester I'll be in class from 8am - 1:30 pm in Clinical Nursing Techniques. For the remaining 8 weeks I'll be in clinicals at Memorial Hospital from 7am - 1:30pm.

My schedule seems easier than what I was expecting, but I think I'll be spending all my time on Monday and Thursday studying. A current first term student I sought out at the orientation suggested I try and get the day before my clinicals as an "off day" so that I can spend the whole day working on my care plan, instead of being in class that whole day, then changing, fighting traffic to make it the hospital to get my patient info and then spending the rest of the day preparing the care plan.

One interesting thing I noted about all the other students in orientation is that they were all fat. Some needed to lose about 10 pounds and others needed to lose about 50+. One of the professors spoke and she was, literally, morbidly obese. And I saw a student walk out and smoke a cigarette. Really? Haven't we all learned enough in our pre-req's that being fat and smoking is bad for you?

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Is it just me or does everyone know that the wilted, sad celery at the bottom of your fridge that you are about to throw out can be perked back up if you put it in an ice bath?

I was just about to chuck some celery that had gone really limp (insert a that's what she said joke here), but I sliced it into sticks and put it in some ice water just to see what would happen. In less than an hour it was back to being normal, firm (again with an other joke here) celery.

Quinoa

I've been hearing about the nutritional wonders of quinoa for a long time, but every time I tried it make it turned out just, eh. I found a link the other day on how to cook good quinoa and it has made all the difference. We have been eating it constantly for the last 2+ weeks. I find it a really yummy mix between grits, rice and couscous. I've tried the red and white quinoa and they both taste the same. I've actually mixed them together just for a nicer color.

My new favorite breakfast recipe:

Quinoa and Eggs
Place one cup of quinoa in a saucepan, cover with water and let it sit overnight (no need to refrigerate it).* The next morning drain off the water, add in 1 1/2 cups of water and some chicken bouillon (a whole square or just a shake of some powdered bouillon). Bring the quinoa to a boil, then turn it down to low and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, spray some Pam in a frying pan. Crack an egg and let it cook to your desired doneness.
When the quinoa is done drop in a triangle of Laughing Cow low fat cheese. This is a huge step because the cheese adds a really yummy creaminess to the quinoa but is very low in fat.

Scoop a big serving onto a plate and slide your fried egg on top. Excellent, low fat, high in protein.

* Soaking the quinoa is not totally necessary, but it turns out way better when you soak it. Something about helping to open the grains, blah blah. Recipes vary in the amount of time you need to soak it, anywhere from 15 minutes to overnight. I've only tried it overnight.

pudding

I want to save the last second of that video as my screen saver.

For the record, we don't let her share her dinner with Sammie and we did get her a new spoon.

Hello spring!

You can't see it well, but there was a baby snake tucked in there next to her as well.

she has a point...

Piper: "Mommy! I want pinkie (her favorite stuffed bear)!"
Me: "Piper, please ask nicely sweetie."
Piper: "Nicely!!"

spin!

This video is so awesome. I could barely hold the camera still I was laughing so hard. For the record, she LOVED this and kept wanting to spin. The last second is the best.

beach

Just got back from a super fun, relaxing week at the beach with M&D. Lots of lounging, reading, playing with play dough, starting cocktail hour at 5:00 and waking up at 7:10 a.m. with an over excited Piper who was ready to start her day.

Trip to the top of the St. George Lighthouse. I look super shiny and Piper does NOT smile for pictures.

We got to the top and waved to my dad who was waiting at the bottom for us.

Piper wigging out at the sight of my dad out the window as we made our way down the stairs.

We ate lots of yum beach food which can also be called FRIED FOOD. Fried oysters, fried shrimp, french fries, etc. I haven't been able to shake off the 4ish pounds I gained during the pregnancy (gee, thanks for that!) so I was really trying to eat well and not go crazy. We stopped at BJ's pizza and I had, quite possibly the best salad of my life. It was a grilled Cajun chicken salad and it had marinated and grilled mushrooms and grilled peppers on top of a huge thing of lettuce with awesome, perfect ranch dressing. Anyhoo, that is not the point of this story. The point is that Piper took a gigantic poop in the restaurant that Dad described perfectly as "a baked potato stuffed in her diaper." It was so classic and and hilarious that I had to photograph how outrageous she looked.

I got a few jogs in, just 2+ miles, but it felt good to get out and run again. I've really missed it. I enjoy running but only when I'm in good shape because dang is it hard to get out and huff and puff through the first mile. Once I get going it is so nice and calming and therapeutic.

Oh yea, and I got into nursing school! More on that later.

celeb sighting!!!

We just went to a super fun party (we were the LAST ones to leave) and Shannon Miller was there. Yea, Shannon Miller, as in the Olympic gymnast. The only Olympian in history to have as many gold medals as her (yea, I don't know how many she has), the one who was on the cover of all the Wheaties boxes. She was at the same party as us!

She was oh, let's say about 4 feet tall and about 80 pounds and from about 30 feet away seemed like she was really nice. No one paid her special attention, since it was hard to tell who she was.

But she lives in our 'hood and is married to some bigwig Republican party guy. How weird is that and what a small world I live in?

ebb and flow

As quickly as I felt down and out the other day I feel back up and about now. I am such a heavily sensitive, emotional person that I have to get ALL of my feelings out out out and then I can start feeling better.

I am naturally a happy, uplifted person and can I just say how much being down and depressed sucks? I don't like being sad and I don't want to stay that way. I've been feeling happy and far away from all the miscarriage shiz over the last 48 hours and I haven't had to try hard to feel that way. Basically I am so over feeling sad and sorry for myself. I know there will be more shitty reminders of the pregnancy to pop up, but overall I'm hoping that I'm on the up and up for good now.

suckssuckssucks

well it finally happened.

a friend of my mom's stopped me to say hello today after we got out of a movie (It's Complicated, it wasn't too bad) and asked me how the baby was. I replied "she's good, she just turned two." She looked at me a little puzzled and my heart sank. I had a feeling she didn't mean piper but I was so hoping she did. she said "so i understand you are expecting!" I replied politely the first thing that came to my mind, "no, but we are hoping to soon." and she looked at me puzzled again and said "oh, i...i...i thought your mom told me you were pregnant." clearly this woman doesn't taking a f*cking clue. i gently replied "well, i was, but i'm not anymore." the look on her face guaranteed me she won't be asking that question to anyone else for a long time.

my aftermath was horrible. i got to the car and sobbed giant, huge, breathless sobs the whole ride home. this was the shittiest ending to an already difficult (to say the least) week.

i thought i was doing okay. i've been feeling genuinely happy and uplifted. that all changed after a series of just sad, sad, sad reminders hit me all last week. i started a really long post about it but i never uploaded it because it was just so depressing and i sounded so sorry for myself that i couldn't even bear for you guys to read it. i was for sure that i had hit rock bottom on sunday when i pretty much cried off-and-on for the entire day. sweet patrick listened to me for hours talk about the many and varied levels of unfairness in all of this. maybe it is the youngest child mentality i have, but i am always stricken by things being fair and this, THIS! it just does not get any more unfair than all of this. i'm jealous and bitter and angry and i hate that i am feeling this way.

i woke up monday feeling a bit lighter. during the drive to tallahassee i started thinking that maybe i had in fact hit rock bottom and now i'm clawing my way back up. now the healing will really begin. and then less than 48 hours later i'm back in a miserable pile of tears. i cried to my mom in the car, then got home and cried during piper's bathtime. "what's wrong mommy?" she kept asking me. "mommy is sad," I told her and then she took her little chubby, dimpled fingers and started wiping the dozens of tears i had all over my face. i later got in the hot tub with my dad and in the quiet darkness of their backyard i unloaded on him. i sobbed and sobbed and asked why, why, why. why us? why again? why for a fourth time? it's not that i wish fertility problems on anyone else, but why us and not the 16-year old girl who is standing outside of wal-mart smoking a cigarette and pissed as hell that she got knocked up. that baby is doomed from the start. why us and not her? why do some couples have to pay their life savings for a chance at a baby when others fall ass backwards into a oh shit pregnancy?

i know that people who have never experienced something like this chalk it up to "it was nature's way of letting you know it wasn't your time." i've been told that so many times. what those people don't know is that miscarriage is a real loss of a loved one. and the painful thing is that you never got to meet that loved one. you never got to know if they were a he, or a she. if they were going to grow up to be a sweet, lovable, precocious toddler, to have a sweet lisp that makes them say "yesch" (like piper), or to have your curly hair and his beautiful blue eyes. it's a loss of a real and true person that you and your beloved created out of a beautiful moment of love and hope.

i read an incredible book, recommended to me by The Bell's, called The Baby Catcher. it is the chronicles of a midwife working in the Berkeley area in the 80s. She had a piece in the book about spirit babies, which has brought Patrick and I a lot of peace in the past. Here is that piece:

Colin, my twelve-year-old son, discovered me late one rainy afternoon sitting at the kitchen table, a damp Kleenex crumpled in my left hand, wiping my eyes as I tried to compose myself for his sake. It was the third week of January, two months after I’d miscarried a pregnancy, but I still found it impossible to get through a day without at least one meltdown into misery.

Stunned w hen the test came back positive, Rog and I had stared at each other with doubt and ambivalence. At forty-one, my professional life consumed me. I’d just achieved what some had predicted was an impossibility: I’d been granted delivery privileges at Alta Bates, and as a consequence, my midwifery practice burgeoned. Some months I delivered twelve babies, and no one ever knew if or when I’d be home. Rog, too, felt stretched to his limits, keeping his business afloat while picking up the slack for my frequent unscheduled absences. Colin and Jill approached their challenging adolescent years. How could we fit an infant into our lives? But when I lost the pregnancy and all hope for resolution dissolved with my tears, I fell in love with the baby that was not to be.

Colin asked, "Are you crying about the baby?" and when I nodded tearfully, he said, "Well, you just have to have another one, Mom, because it’s a Spirit Baby, and you should be its mother."

I must have looked puzzled because he said, "Don’t you know about Spirit Babies? How could I know about them if you don’t? I mean, you’re my mom!" But he could see my perplexity.

So my first child, this not-yet-teenaged boy, pulled a wooden chair to my side and draped his thin arm across my shoulders, saying, "Well, Mom, here’s how it is. See, I was one myself, so that must be how I know. Anyway, every woman has a circle of babies that goes around and around above her head, and those are all the possible babies she could have in her whole life. Every month, one of those babies is first in line. If she gets pregnant, then that’s the baby that’s born. If she doesn’t get pregnant, the baby goes back into the circle and keeps going around with all the others. If she gets pregnant but something bad happens before the baby’s born…now listen, Mom, because here’s the really cool part. It goes back into the circle, but it becomes a Spirit Baby, and all the other babies give it cuts. Each month, it’s always first in line. Isn’t that great?

"So you just have to get pregnant again, and you’ll have the same Spirit Baby. If you don’t, though, then the baby circle will just beam that little Spirit Baby over to some other woman’s circle, and it’ll be first in line for her. It keeps being first in line somewhere until it finally gets born.

"But it’d be a shame for you not to have it yourself, because I know how much you want it. So you just have to try again. Mom, remember that baby you lost before I was born?" I nodded wordlessly. "Well, that was me. Really. I’ve always known I was a Spirit Baby. I mean, I know what I’m talking about here, Mom."

In spite of Colin’s certainty that our household, so often bordering on chaos, lacked only an infant to make things perfect, Rog and I demurred. But Colin didn’t give up and even enlisted his sister’s support. Driving with them in the car one evening, I looked at my son in the passenger seat beside me. He stared out the side window and tried to hide his tears, but I saw the flush on his face, the shaking of his shoulders, and the surreptitious swipe of hand across cheek.

Six months had passed since my miscarriage, and I had just finished yet another discussion in which I’d told my pleading son that having a third baby at my age was out of the question. I reached over the space between us and squeezed his fingers. "Colin, I don’t understand this passion you have for a baby. Why do you want one so much?"

He tore his gaze from the distant hills and looked at me with swimming eyes and trembling lips. In a choking voice, he put all of his twelve-year-old passion into his reply.

"Oh, Mom! Oh. Just for the joy of it!"

Jill stretched forward from the back seat and placed a hand on each of our shoulders. "Yeah, Mom, just for the joy of it."

It was my turn to look out the side window and struggle with misty vision.
So, at a time when most women eye the empty nest at the end of their branch on the family tree with something approaching relief, I gave consideration to laying just one more egg. Several months of discussions peppered with doubt and disbelief followed. Although Rog and I made the final decision, there’s no denying that a big part of our decision to have a third child began with the insistence of our adolescent children that we "needed a baby in the house." Rog and I took a deep breath, looked at each other across the blond heads of those two wishful children, swallowed – and made a giant leap of faith.

I conceived my Spirit Baby a week later. Just for the joy of it.