Rumors of my demise...

Coming out of hibernation just to say once again how much I love Glee, and how I enjoyed the latest episode "Born This Way."

Bad Luck, or "How the Dentist Made Me Cry"

I had a fairly straightforward dental appointment today to fill some small cavities. I have terrible tooth genetics and so my mouth more closely resembles a desperately defended shanty of a fort against the ravening horde of cavities. I apparently have the most innocuous spit or flimsiest enamel in human history.

Anyway. It was supposed to be simple, but in the last few days one of my molars had me puzzling. It was a little tender to chew on it, and some investigative tongue-prodding left me wondering if that was a dent where a filling used to be. Staring at it in the mirror didn't help; I mean that tooth is WAY back there. But if you're taking odds as to whether or not a tooth of mine is supposed to have a filling in it, always bet on the filling.

So before the dentist started in on me today, I asked "So hey, is there supposed to be a filling in this tooth?" I already knew the answer, because I'm a quick study and they have monitors up displaying your chart in plain view from the chair. He took a quick look and indeed, the filling was gone, and part of my cusp with it. A couple x-rays later, and I'm having a discussion with him about the horizontal fracture running through my tooth and the crown that needs to go on it, pronto.

This is not what I had planned.

Motto of my life.

Unimpressed, mostly because our dental insurance appears to be largely lackluster, and I didn't intend to drop another $600 into my mouth today, they change their plans for me, nudge the next two crown seating appointments for other people back, and here we go again.

The dentist was trying to joke and tease with me. "Oh Melissa why'd you have to do this to me, I don't want to have to put a crown in!" We also have a chat about how I seem to be clenching or grinding my teeth, and how people will often apply maximum pressure during sleep and such. Lately I've been finding myself with tension headaches and keeping my jaw too tight, even waking up with headaches, and so this all makes sense. He wants to get me one of those super awesome guards to wear at night so I don't proceed to snap the rest of my teeth. Something my insurance does not cover. At all. At least I have the privilege of being annoyed rather than financially devastated by such things, but it still sucks?

I spend a few minutes in my chair, stewing over how my general tension and stress and unhappiness with my life has managed to manifest itself physically. I'm not impressed and I'm trying to think of ways I can forcibly will myself into being calmer, more relaxed. They administer the anesthetic, and while they're waiting for it to kick in, the dentist says:

"Well, Melissa. I wouldn't say you have terrible luck. I don't want to say that. But I would say that you have bad luck."

The poor man thinks he's talking about the kind of luck that makes a filling fall out and take part of your tooth with it.

I'm thinking about the kind of luck that means your child gets a congenital defect that happens to only 1 in 250,000 people. The kind of luck that means despite unimpressive odds, that your kid should have been able to live. But doesn't. The kind of odds that means your kid has complications, and then more complications, and then every problem in the book. The kind of luck that means your baby dies. That means you go on to have a miscarriage. And infertility. The kind of bad luck that means you're in the small percentage for whom Clomid doesn't work. That puts you in such a place where you start clenching your jaw in your sleep on top of / because of everything else.

My weak and fragile grasp on sanity and composure just crumbles as in a flash I contemplate that sort of feeling that's been bubbling under the surface for a long, long time: shitty things keep happening.

I can feel the cry coming. I'm willing it away. I'm trying so hard, but I lose. And the tears well up, and my chin starts to quiver. In moments I've lost it entirely, and I've buried my rapidly numbing face in my hands, lost in a full on sobbing cry.

The dental assistant is hugging me sideways from next to the chair. Someone else is holding Kleenex out to me. The dentist is assuring me that it's fine, and he was so sorry, and we're gonna get it taken care of, and it's not a big deal.

Later, he tried to entertain and cheer me up with youtube videos.




They thought I was crying about a crown.

Zumba

So I mentioned a while back how I was starting to go to Curves. With the exception of two weeks when I was sick, and about 2-3 weeks around the holidays, I've been pretty consistent about going.

I can't say as I've really lost any weight. I'd managed to go from 140 to 137, but between the holidays and my body fucking up and not having a period, I've managed to get back to 140.

But I guess the good news is that I stopped gaining weight, as I'd gone from 127 to 140 between January and September of last year.

But more than that, because while I am somewhat unhappy with the little bit of extra padding I am carrying around, almost exclusively in my belly, I feel so much better. I can feel that I am in better shape. I can feel that I am building muscle. I feel stronger. I have my belly flub, but my sides are tightening in so I actually feel like I have a discernible waist again.

My local place has started doing the Zumba classes lately, and I've been going. It's a lot of fun. I also get to work on overcoming my overblown sense of self-consciousness and fear of embarrassing myself, because it makes me do a bunch of latin-esque dance moves I am no good at in a group of people. But I am having fun with it, and feeling better about myself. So that's a win.

Acceptance?

I haven't updated in a while.

I know this has worried a fair number of people: the suddenly dropping quiet.

I'm okay though.

And I'll explain the picture above in the process, but let's get right to killing any hopeful assumptions first -- I am not pregnant.


In the time since I've last blogged anything with substance here, I've officially gone off Clomid because it didn't work. I haven't ovulated since fucking July, and apparently my body has no interest in cooperating with the meds, either. I noted in my original post about taking Clomid that 20% of people who take it still don't ovulate. Hello, nice to meet you.

My OB's office wanted to refer me to the "big guns" reproductive and infertility specialist in Seattle. I told them no. One reason is that that shit's expensive. And still is no guarantee. I haven't looked into it to confirm, but I don't believe our current insurance has any coverage at all for infertility stuff. There's not a damn thing wrong with me that they can diagnose or point to, I just don't work? The second reason, and really the only reason I need is that I need a damn break from this.

I've had my fill on failure, disappointment, heartbreak, and always managing to land in the shitty end of the odds of any given thing. I was a terrible little ball of misery for a bit there. The last round of Clomid, I just knew it didn't work. I stopped taking my temps around CD21 when they were still too low for me to have ovulated. I went like a good little girl to get my blood drawn that day anyway, even though I knew what the results would be. (In retrospect, and from the nasty bruise I had on my hand for the next two weeks, and two other sticks in my arm from unsuccessful draws, I shouldn't have bothered.) By that time, I was well on my way to accepting my fate, and ready to move on, at least for now.

I'm okay with it. And I'm not saying I'm giving up trying forever. I'm not going to go on any form or birth control or anything, so there's always that "not preventing is as good as trying" thing, but when you're not ovulating, it doesn't really matter what you do. When my body decides it wants to participate again, then maybe it'll be game on.

Deciding to take a break has been a weight off. I've had people try to suggest taking a break, or just relax, or all the other useless platitudes, but when you're not ready to take a break, you're not ready, and that will just make you unhappy too. I am finding freedom in not taking my temperature every morning; the little beep beep beep that proceeds the low temp that tells me I still haven't ovulated. I am finding freedom in not having to think about it. I am enjoying eating all the things that the hyper-vigilant avoid. I drank coffee. I feel liberated.



As for the little onesie up there, I had scoured Etsy and ordered it way back a ways before we knew Clomid was a total bust. Through an address mixup (my fault) it took a while to get here, and didn't even show up until I knew Clomid hadn't worked. I looked hard to find it. Because of the "rainbow baby" symbolism in miscarriage and babyloss circles of the "rainbow after the storm" when you manage to have a living child after a loss, it was an affirmation to myself that it would happen some day, that there would be a little baby to take home in that. A baby that would actually come home. ('Cause my brain is broken; I can't see baby clothes without some little voice piping up from the back about how a pull-over-the-head style'd never work with all the tubes and wires and leads.)

The irony of me finally getting onesie after I had decided to stop trying is not lost on me.

But I am really am oddly okay with the decision to take a break for a while. Maybe it works because I've separated myself from that world. If you're not trying, you can't fail? But I still find that I have these veins of bitterness within me. It seems like everywhere I look someone is pregnant, someone is having a baby, yet another person from my past is shooting out another kid, like this is all the easiest thing in the world for everyone but me, and so it's not a world I want to be part of, and one I meet with some bitter antagonism.

I know the bitterness will fade in time, but right now I don't want anything to do with the whole world of reproducing. I've unfollowed lots of stuff in my media consumption, twitter, podcasts, Google Reader, wholesale hid people on Facebook who can't shut up about their kids, or post daily cell phone pictures of their kid making the same exact face every. single. day.

I had lamented a while back that of all the voices you hear about infertility, making it "better" is always all about getting a kid anyway, through some means. No one is the voice of saying you're okay no matter what. That you can be happy no matter what. And while I am definitely not happy now, I know that a lot of that is circumstances that are because of, but also separate from a failed attempt to have children. No one made me quit my job and up and move 1200 miles away from anything I knew to go start a family. This was not some 1950s arrangement of a submissive housewife. I fully chose do to so entirely on my own, and Josh would have never asked me to do it had I not wanted to. I chose this because it was what I wanted. And it not happening how I wanted is no one's fault, even though it sucks ass, and having made that choice makes the infertility even worse, because I don't have those other parts of my life to still be part of.

I guess maybe some times you have to be the voice you want to hear in the world. The world does not need any one else to rub their pregnant belly and tell infertile people that it gets better, but it could do with more people who can say "Yes, that really fucking sucks, but it's not the end." That you can pick back up from rock bottom and be okay. Because I am god damned well going to be okay.


I'm still looking for something else to do with my life, at least for a while. I need something. I am looking into ways to afford going back to school, trying to decide what I would go back for, ways to pay for it, work I can do. A suckass economy and knowing NO ONE here makes these things harder. But I'll get there.

In a perfect, dream world, where I could actually afford to do so, and wasn't a 30 year old trying to start from scratch now, I'd go into medical research. The closest I could ever come to punching CHD right in its fucking stupid face is to go fix it so it can't kill anyone else's beautiful little babies.

Elizabeth Edwards

With the passing of Elizabeth Edwards, whom I unfortunately have learned more about in her death than in her life, I have seen quotes from her all over the interwebs.

This one in particular, I really liked, and so I will pass it on.
(To the unaware, she lost her teenage son in a car accident.)

"If you know someone who has lost a child, and you're afraid to mention them because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died--you're not reminding them. They didn't forget they died. What you're reminding them of is that you remembered that they lived, and that is a great gift."

-Elizabeth Edwards

Turkey Day Late

So we ended up doing Thanksgiving a day late, since that's when company was able to come around.



This is the kind of photo you get of your Turkey while taking a picture as an almost-afterthought, and realizing your settings are all still weird from trying to take pictures of Halloween lights and pumpkins, so you shoot in auto holding the flash lid down.

It works.

The food was amaaaaazing.

Here's how I did my turkey:

Day before, I made a brine:

1.5 gallons water
1 cup salt
~2 cups brown sugar
2 tbsp dried Rosemary
1-2 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp allspice berries
1-2 tbsp dried cloves
4-6 bay leaves
~5 sprigs of thyme, even better if you wander out in the snow, uncover your plant, and THEN pick the thyme.

All the measures above are estimates. I eyeball just about everything unless it's chemically relevant. I don't mess around with proportions in baking. Seasoning? Eh, throw it in! This was also for a 12.5 lb. turkey.

Chuck it all in a big stockpot, bring it to a boil. Remove from heat, and let cool. This took eons, so I tossed some ice in with it when I put the turkey in. Protip: remove the giblets.

I couldn't find brining bags, and was going to substitute with an oven bag, but in the moment, I decided it was actually favorable to rearrange my fridge, drop the bird in the stock pot, and shove the whole thing in there.

Leave the bird in the brine overnight, around 20-24 hours is ideal.


Turkey prep:

2 Potatoes
2 Onions
Carrots
2 sticks of Butter
Random herbs: parsley, thyme, sage, basil, oregano, etc.
Bulb of Garlic

Remove the birdy from the brew. Save 2-3 cups of the brine juice.
Rinse the bird off real good, inside and out to help purge it from being too salty on the surfaces, especially if you intend to eat the skin.

Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Without this step, slathering the beast with herb butter gets even more ridiculous.

Cut up potatoes and one of the onions into chunks, and put a layer of them on the bottom of the roasting pan. I used baby carrots and tossed them in whole, if you have whole carrots chop them into reasonable chunks. Add the garlic, and you can do other sturdy veggies down there, like the vile celery if you're not a hater like me. These partially serve as a delicious baking rack to keep the bird off the bottom of the pan and drowning in its own juices, and partially to taste a-ma-zing later. Pour in a little of the reserved brine juice, just so you have some liquid down there, barely covering the bottom of the pan.

Smish together 1 stick of butter, 2 if you're decadent or have a giant bird, and some herbs. I used dried, parsley, basil, and thyme. I used probably 1 tbsp of parsley, less of the others. You are going to get butter all over your hands. I am clumsy, and there was herb butter all over the edges of my roasting pan, and I even dropped a blob on the floor.

The best tasting food is the messiest.

Start with the turkey breast side down, and butter up the underside of the bird, in between its legs and wings and whatever else you can reach. Place the turkey buttered (back) side down in the roasting pan on top of the veggie layer. Butter the top of the Turkey liberally. Coat all the surface area you can find, and even rub down the inside of the cavities.

Take the second chopped onion and push the chunks into the cavities at the neck and legs. This helps keep the turkey nice and moist from the inside, without really providing a stuffing that makes the bird take even longer to cook.

Cover with foil, and roast. I followed the directions on the turkey package, and did 325, expecting it to take 2.5-3 hours. It took longer.

When the turkey is getting closer, maybe around 140ish in the deepest parts, take off the foil cover, drizzle a little bit of the juices or some melted butter on the exposed bird, and let it finish cooking all the way uncovered to get the nice golden brown look. If your wing tips or other parts are getting too dark, you can make little foil covers for them. I do not seem to own a turkey baster, so I went with the melted butter route. You can repeat the drizzle if anything is looking too dry, but you don't want to wash it down constantly so that it'll have a chance to get golden.

I have an amazing family stuffing recipe, which I will not share or else I might have to kill you. Or come to your house and eat it up when you make it. I do not put the stuffing in the turkey. That raises your roasting time considerably, which sucks, and can make dry turkey.
I toss all my stuffing in a baking dish and slide it in for the last half hour+. You can also crank the oven heat up a bit, to 350 or 375ish to help push it over safe temp, and golden it up. Roll with whatever any additional sides you are tossing in require.

Turkey needs to get to 160 or above in the deepest thickest parts of the meat. Remove turkey, yoink it out of the pan. You may need to tilt it up to drain juices out of the cavity from the onions cooking down. Set it aside and cover well with foil. The turkey will continue cooking a bit from residual heat and stay moist. It should rest there for at least 15 minutes before carving. When I pulled my turkey out of the oven, its pop up thing was still down. When we were ready to carve, it had popped. Perfect! Carrying over the heat to finish roasting out of the oven is great because it won't overcook your meat. It's also great because it gives you time to harvest some sweet sweet wonderful turkey juices and make gravy.

Strain out the veggies from the roasting pan and keep the juices. The carrots and potatoes will have turned into little nuggets of flavor explosion, and make a great easy veggie side. Whisk the juices into a roux to make amazing gravy. Turn all the juices into gravy. You will not regret it.



MMMmmmmmmm.

I've been refining my turkey tactics for a few years, and I think this is definitely the best so far. Last year I decided I was too lazy to brine, but did the rest of the steps above and it was still good.

Protip: one year I followed Alton Brown's roast turkey recipe. His calls to put a red apple in the cavity; this basically provides the same function as my onion chunks. But here's the thing: the red apple leaked red-colored juices all over the place. It made the fully cooked turkey look raw. It was delicious, but unsettling. Perhaps peel the apple, or go with Team Onion.

Talking Big

One thing annoyed me about the news coverage I saw for the "Baby Bowen" CHD story. I am minding my own business, watching my news podcast and here comes a story about a baby that almost didn't survive his heart defect. (They never said what it was) He apparently coded in the hospital, the parents got "that phone call" and were expecting the baby to die when--SUDDENLY!--he started breathing and his heart started beating again.

All this was undercut with the song the father had written about the experience, while I sit there willing myself not to think or bawl terribly.

The piece concluded with an interview with the parents, overjoyed. But here's the part that pisses me off. They decided to rattle on about how they're just going to be so much better for this bad experience and it was so terrible and it would be so bad to give in to sadness and bitterness, and they're going to make it MEAN SOMETHING.

I guess that's pretty easy to make sure you touch people when you have the national news covering you.

I guess it's pretty easy to talk big about not feeling sadness and bitterness when you get to declare a miracle and take your living child home.


But it's pretty fucking insulting to the average joe with the dead baby, who struggles with the sadness and bitterness that you can only imagine the depth of, and only felt the first cut of. You sit there so pleased with yourself that you "overcame" these bad feelings. You didn't overcome them because you're some amazing person that still stayed amazing despite tragedy. You don't have those feelings anymore because the reason for them--sick kid--went away. You sit there on T.V. holding your living child and basically imply that I am not as good a person as you because I can't be happy and make lemonade as well as you can.


Don't talk to me about sadness, or about bitterness, or about how I should feel.


YOUR. KID. LIVED.


And I hope to God that you will NEVER understand what it is like to actually lose a child, and the gasping chasm in differences in our experiences, in the feelings and fears and loss we will have the rest of our lives.