Marriage | Chasing Baby Mayr

Tag: Marriage

Cycle Day 3: Mostly Nothing Today

Posted at 11:07 pm by amayr1984, on January 20, 2019

A rare and uneventful day emotionally in a cycle. I shall cherish it.

I do not feel sick. I am not tired. I got up and I got some chores done today which was wonderful. I have actually been doing a pretty good job of keeping the house moderately together while I am off and keeping up on the laundry. Being at home all the time still is not ideal for me as I love to be at work but I am making a better go of it than I expected especially considering my battles with winter depression. I fell short of my goal of working out 5 days a week last week. I did 2 boot camps and I am totally counting shoveling the snow last night as a third day of working out since my Apple Watch counted it too. I will be more diligent about it this week. My menstrual cramps set me back.

Overall I feel cautiously optimistic even though there has been some darkness in my life. The darkest is I have a friend who has a daughter who is on life support right now and in intensive care. I really feel so horrible for her that she is experiencing such pain and all I can do is be there for her. I went and sat with her for 4 or so hours last night before I drove home in the freezing cold. By the time I got home I saw the kitchen was in disarray and I spent time cleaning it before bed.

Which leads me to my next bit of very minor but quite irritating darkness: my husband’s mood. Our weekend started off nice in that he made me breakfast but from there it seesawed from kind to snappy at any moment’s notice. I had been mentioning for weeks that we needed to sit down and assess our financial goals (something we do yearly but always at my behest) and figure out where we were. He was not supportive of this and a lot of times (though he has gotten better) he is very difficult to talk to about money. If there is one thing in our relationship that I absolutely find the hardest to stand it is the super negative reactions to basic marital business. Money is marital business. Assessing financial goals and looking at our credit scores and our debt shouldn’t be fight fodder but for several times in the past almost 4 years we have been together it has been. He has gotten better with money management slightly but there is always room for improvement. Myself included. I always sit down and look at where I am, where I was and where I want to go. Since we are not financially tied together I don’t think it is radical to ask for him to do the same. But he is very obstinate about it.

What frustrates me is at first he will seem reasonable. He will agree to it. Then as the date we agreed on becomes closer he will complain but not do anything to prepare. Then when I tell him what I want for the meeting (which is basically the same thing every year: savings balance, debt, credit score, reflection on how last year went and goals and changes for this year) I am met with resistance like it is too much. Last night I again reminded him of what I needed and when I started listing things he said “I’m not doing that!” so I immediately stopped listing them. It was at that moment sitting in the negative stewing energy that I realized I was not supposed to be there. I reminded my husband that we are married now and his finances are also my concern and this is nothing any different than I have always asked. Then I went upstairs and I wanted to cry in all my emotional state because…I wish my husband was more supportive about my trying to keep us in a financially healthy state. Not trying to always fight about talking about money a few times a year. This is something I am good at and have been instrumental in keeping together in our relationship despite many of the obstacles we have faced and yet where is the credit and basic respect?

In those moments I realized I should actually be with my friend and her child anyway. Where I was appreciated and needed. My husband didn’t need me at the time and I damn sure did not feel appreciated by him after that afternoon of just mood swings and resistance. Maybe I couldn’t make a difference in my friend’s daughter’s condition sadly but I could make a difference by being there for her and I wouldn’t be in negative energy. So that was full circle yesterday coming into today. I plan to go and sit with her again tonight either way it goes if necessary. I just want to feel useful right now and like I am bringing some light somewhere and I want to make sure to take care of people who have been there for me through difficult times as well.

That is how I wound up shoveling the snow. To get my car out so I could go to be with my friend. I know it was the right thing to do too reflecting back on all of it.

I am waiting for the time to have our meeting still. I promised to wait til after these stupid NFL playoff games (I am team Kaepernick and haven’t watched the NFL in a long time but I respect that is what he wants to do). So wish me luck this doesn’t turn into World War whatever as I am trying to just make sure that if there is going to be baby he or she is coming into the most financially secure situation possible.

| 0 Comments Tagged budget, cycle day 3, emotions, finances, friendship, frustrations, Marriage, menstrual, money

Cycle Day 2: Bringing That “Spark” Back Into The Relationship

Posted at 10:53 pm by amayr1984, on January 19, 2019

The hardest part of trying to conceive, besides the constant disappointment, is how it impacts your relationship over all.

It consumes it in many ways.

And as a woman it often is an imbalance of labor and guilt on your own end that you feel like your husband never really feels or experiences. In a lot of ways he gets a break that you never do.

Really if all the testing and everything is done your husband only has to be there for one week out of the month and the rest is back to his regularly scheduled program if you are doing just plain old timed intercourse. It is hard to not make the entire sex life of the relationship revolve around this though because after a while sex seems to be a part of a routine. And it can be draining on both people.

But to hear your husband complain about it you feel this quiet rage brew in you…like gee…could you just work with me on this little part? Could you?

Today I began to explain to my husband, in admittedly not the most exciting way that this month I wanted to try the Sperm Meets Egg Plan and I had highlighted on the calendar to make it easier what days we would need to have sex. This is not romantic. A sex calendar. My husband told me “way to put the spark back into our marriage” and in that moment I was delivered back to a nightmare I had the previous night where everyone was pregnant and I was crying the entire dream. At one point one of the pregnant people told me if I all I was going to do was cry she wasn’t going to let me near her baby. At that moment I came and got on the computer to blog all of this.

My husband was joking and he didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. And I was serious and I didn’t mean to make sex more of a chore than it already is for us. We both want the same thing but our approaches just are not matching and neither are our moods.

For me I am willing to do about anything to increase our chances of getting pregnant. I can’t pump myself full of anything much else short of doing IVF at this point which we simply can’t afford. I am trying to maximize the free method for what it is worth. Is trying the SMEP plan really going to change things so much?

All I have asked my husband to do differently is drink more water during the fertile week and try this plan. He takes a vitamin daily too.

I have to go to multiple ultrasounds to make sure I don’t have cysts and suck down a medicine cabinet of supplements and medications and be the reminder of when to have sex. The sex bad guy. The spark killer. I am in charge of all of that. And then after all of that is done I get to ride the emotional Two Week Wait rollercoaster while he watches from below. Sure he sees me and experiences me as I am going through it but I am riding it by myself and only I feel the sickness, twists and turns and dips and highs.

Perhaps he is on his own rollercoaster he hasn’t told me about? I can’t testify to that I suppose. I shouldn’t try to speak for how he feels but that is how it seems to me anyway. That there is still a lot of his world that isn’t about this and this is an irritating side project with ever changing rules.

You know what would be dope to hear from my husband?

“I would love to try that!”

“Great idea, honey!”

Or to even know he has been researching ways to increase our chances to get pregnant and he came home and suggested something to try so we could have a more successful outcomes would feel supportive as well.

Actually this whole thing has sprung into a half of a fight between us. I asked him was he doing anything independently to help with us trying to get pregnant because I didn’t want to assume for this writing he wasn’t? He said he felt the questioning was judgmental and explained why. I don’t feel it was but because I said he was “irritated” by some of the plan changes (which I still do. There isn’t enthusiasm a lot of times when I suggest something new).

Even trying to write this blog and really get some of his ow perspective on this to make sure I am not just living in my own head and being grossly unfair has removed the “spark” in some ways I guess.

It can be difficult to stay connected as a couple in these relationships where you are trying to conceive. It can be difficult to feel supported. And these challenges are just from trying to make a baby which to some people would be really fun but for many of us couples, especially when we have been on the journey a long time, the fun dissipates. The life wafts out.

And then you don’t want to talk about it. Then it becomes that hot button issue you want to avoid or have to mentally prepare yourself for because of all of the feelings. So many feelings.

Hopefully we can come together.

| 0 Comments Tagged Difficulty, Marriage, New cycle, Relationships, Sperm Meets Egg, Trying To Conceive, Two Week Wait

Chasing Baby Mayr