100 year flood?

Let me tell you a story about a little town in Northwestern Arizona called Beaver Dam. We're a small little town. We're not on the map. If we want mail to go to our Post Office we have to use the name of the even smaller town 2 miles away. 5 years and 50 weeks ago we had a devastating flood. It took out the bridge, stranding residents unless they wanted to travel 2 hours on a dirt, poorly maintained road. It cause us to miss a week of school and have another month with only 3 hours of school a day because students had to take a 3 hour bus ride each way. It kept mail from being sent or delivered. I knocked out power to the entire town. Many people lost their homes, hundreds more were flooded, and the local gas station they were making bigger and better lost all the land they were going to build on.

Because of that flood, which they called a "100 year flood", they (whomever they are) built an erosion fence in much of the wash (think weird steal poles and wire X looking things, AKA the Beaver Dam demilitarized zone) where the usually non-existent Beaver Dam Creek flows. They also built a new bridge (they started in April and still need to finish little things like final paving and the sidewalk.) They redid the power lines so that they weren't down in the wash.

This story continues 5 years and 50 weeks, almost to the day, after that flood. December 21, 2010.

Well if you've been watching the national news lately or local news if you live in AZ, NV, or UT; then you've seen pictures of a house falling into a raging river in a little town called Beaver Dam in Northwestern AZ. That house is about a mile and a half downstream from me. That raging river is usually a dry span of earth for most of the year with sometimes a trickle from underground streams. Things went from awful yesterday, to MUCH, MUCH better this morning after very little rain last night. (so much better that water flow in the wash was down at least several feet from the day before. Then the steady downpour from 10-12 o'clock made things much trickier in the early afternoon. By 2 it was hardly raining and calming back down somewhat and come 6 this evening the downpour started again.

The wash is now full from bank to bank. It literally sounds like Niagara falls if you're standing in my back yard. We can now even hear it in the house, with the TV going. The water is rising steadily and not expected to crest until tomorrow morning because of the continuance of the rain.

So a mile and a half downstream has been mostly destroyed/damaged and they just asked people a mile upstream to be prepared to evacuate. My good friend stopped by in a panic, leaving her drums in my garage.

I'm nervous. We have friends with significant damage to their homes or land. Our friends that evacuated may loose their whole house. Before they left, the flooding had already taken the back wall of their neighbor's house across the street.

We most likely will be just fine. We probably have about 4-6 more feet for the river to rise before we are in real danger. Our neighbors out the back put a trailer to divert water where it was eroding earlier. It seems to be holding for now. But IT'S STILL RAINING!

I've alerted my family, that the only reason I will call them is if something is wrong. I said "If you don't hear from me, we're fine and sleeping."

Regardless, I'm off to pack up pictures and valuables and a suitcase just in case.

5 years and 50 weeks... Some 100 year flood, eh?

What I Knew, What I Forgot, and What I Know Now

I've realized multiple times over the past 21 days how much I take for granted. I really seem to not get 'how good I've got it' until it's over.

21 days ago I knew:

• going off the birth control pills I would feel different. (I warned people remember?)
• it would most likely be physically painful most days.
• I act like a real jerk, a lot, without the aide of hormonal regulation. (Hello, 4 days a month is enough!)
• I might not be ready for this whole process to start again yet.

Also, I remembered, albeit only vaguely, how off I get emotionally without them to regulate my hormones.

However...I had forgotten:

• how much pain, and the severity of said pain, I lived with everyday!
• how moody I get at the drop of a hat. (Talk about emotional roller coaster, Batman!)
• how hard it is sometimes to not jump down someones throat (read third grader, co-worker, family member, heck ANY LIVING THING) because they looked at me the wrong way.
• how much people bug me. Just there being people around me. At ALL.
• what a strain me not having my hormones regulated puts on my husband. He knew it was coming, but I think he forgot the gravity and swiftness of the process. I can tell by the look on his face how hurt and confused, yet trying to be understanding, he is. Especially when all he wants to do is be close to me and for me to want to be close to him.
• how much I don't know how to control 'this' version of me.
• how much I hate myself for thinking and saying the things I've been thinking and saying the last 21 days.

I don't know how i survived teaching for the two years before I went back on the birth control pills. HONESTLY! The phrase often running through my head or being muttered under my breath is "stupid children". Not a very good sentiment to have as a teacher!

So going forward... how do I do this?

Here's what I know now.

• I have to constantly talk myself down off the ledge.
• I have to be willing to walk away from any conversation, TV show, commercial, meeting, etc when I reach the ledge and I can't talk myself down anymore.
• I don't have to be social. AT ALL. Unless I want to.
• I MUST find some people that will put up with me to surround myself with that understand but will keep me in line.
• Ignoring is the best option I have with third graders. None of this is their fault, they're children, and not perfect either.
• If this is anything like how my mother felt every day when I was growing up, I'm so sorry she had 5 crazy kids to wrangle!

Most of all, I know that life like this, feeling like this, isn't worth it. If we don't get this going here soon, I'm done. I'm not strong enough to keep up the smiling "fake it 'til you make it" facade. There's already cracks in it and it is crumbling quickly. There are other ways for us to have a family if we choose. We also know if we, John and I, are the only ones in "our" family we'll be okay with that.

Is it bad that I already want to throw in the towel, give up my white flag, and surrender? I'm not sure I'm strong enough for this. We haven't even gotten to the Pro.vera beast yet! Heaven help John!

HSG and Thyroid update

So I finally called to get my thyroid level test results. They came back at 3.8. I don't really know what that means, they said it was normal. But for the little research I did throughout the Internet it appears that it might be a little high. So I don't know what that will mean in the long run since my current Dr. thinks its normal.

Also, way back on the 1st I had my HSG (hysterosalpinogram) done. Remind me, next time, that when the Dr. offers stronger pain meds... TAKE THEM! It was awful! Seriously, one of the most painful 10 minutes of my life in recent years. I had it done 6 years ago, and I KNOW it wasn't as painful as it was this time. I waited this long to post about it hoping I'd know the results and what they mean, but alas, they never called me back to explain in normal words what it all means. Basically, what I gathered from all of the medical jargon was that my right tube has scarring, but it's still open (which i'm not quite sure how that works or what it will mean going forward.) Also, I have some uterine abnormalities... i don't remember what they called it. Hopefully, I'll get some "all of this means" information here soon. The receptionist that read me all of the results said the Dr. or Nurse at the office would call me either way, whatever that means.

Overall, nothing too productive. A lot of "up in the air"ness. I think that's what I hate most about this crazy roller coaster.

Sharing

So on the way home from our appointment we discussed who we were telling and who we weren't telling that we were trying again. Many people in our day to day lives are close friends and know about our infertility issues. We ultimately decided it was an all or none kind of thing after the 'who we should tell' list kept getting longer. The major reason for this is that Pro.vera makes me a psycho! My sister had called earlier and I returned her call when we were almost home and she was the lucky first to know. It was good to get it out there.

I told our principal on Wednesday and she was SO supportive saying wonderful words of encouragement. I also told her I felt like I really needed to let the rest of the staff know what was going on. She insisted that I didn't have to tell them and she'd just stick up for me and make excuses if needed... but if you know me at all, you know excuses are a HUGE pet peeve! I told a few of my co-workers because I had to tell someone else (and my mom wouldn't answer the phone, so she still doesn't know). Then at a faculty meeting I told everyone through tears that we were trying again. I also told them how the meds make me crazy, and to feel free to ask questions about the process or procedures, and be sure to tell me to go hide in my room when I was unbearable. They were so excited for us and they have all been SO supportive.

I've been pleasantly surprised at the lack of "infertility clueless" comments I've gotten... although that may have something to do with the fact that I told them if they told me to "just relax and it will happen" I might cause them physical harm. That doesn't mean I haven't heard some though! I was offered some unsolicited advice... I should have politely declined when I had the chance. She said I should name my 'psycho Pro.vera induced side' and talk badly about it and tell it to go away. It was very interesting.

In addition to my co-workers, we are also sharing the news in our Christmas letter. I know so many family members who suffer or have suffered from infertility that I just can't pretend like it's not happening to us anymore. Also, I have some very opinionated family members that think John and I are selfish for not having children yet and also think I shouldn't be so "career minded and focus more on growing my family" (direct quote from an uncle of mine). So we figured, the more prayers out there for us the better and we were going to be open, honest, and frank about the situation.

I have to say, this is the most freeing thing I've done.EVER.in my life! I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. If I would have known how much better I would feel after letting it go and "sharing" this burden of ours, I would have done it YEARS ago.


If only i could figure out how/what to tell my third graders that is age level appropriate to explain my wild mood swings... my life would be a piece of cake!