Signs

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO SPELL CHECK????????????

Now that I have that off my chest, I have to preface all of my future blogs with the disclaimer that I hate spelling, but even more than that, I hate proof reading, so you may notice a much dumbed down version of me until SPELL CHECK comes back. Now, back to our previously scheduled blog...


In my before life, I used to laugh, a little, when people would talk about "signs". In my dark and pessimistic little brain I always look for the 'other sign', the one people ignore while they are oohing and ahhing over the one they believe is telling them their destiny.

I rememeber in the immediate days after 9/11 there was an email that circulated about how God was hard at work that day saving lives. The email went on about the subway trains that were inexplicably late that day, the buses that were delayed for no reason, the various stories by people who worked in the Towers who were unavoidably detained that morning, the people who missed their flights because of incidental decisions etc.. At the end of the email it said something really hokey, such as "God's power is everywhere...even when it doesn't feel like He is there." I can't remember exactly. I do remember thinking, Jesus, wouldn't it have been easier for God to have just made some bolts go missing from the aircraft so the flights would never have taken off in the first place? I mean really. If that other stuff is a "sign" of His Power, me thinks God may need to retake 3rd grade.

In recent years, as friends have been adding to the gene pool, some successfully and others not so much, I started hearing more of the "I really think God wants me to have children, he is just testing my determination" type comments. Whenever that was said to me I would do the nod and smile bit and think to myself, "Well, if God is handing out signs, maybe you're not reading yours right. Maybe yours says adopt." (Let me just say here, LOUDLY, to anyone who is or has dealt with Infertility of any kind, this comment does not in any way mean that I think people shouldn't try as hard as they feel able to, to make a baby with whatever medical intervention is available to them.) I just think why the fuck would God make a perfectly capable, loving family struggle to have a child and at the same time have the entire fucking population of Ethiopia breed like rabbits?? It just doesn't pass the giggle test for me.

So now, given my recent ah, 'history' and my 'advanced maternal age' I have to wonder, "Am I not reading the signs?" One of my favorite 'signs' sayings, which I guess doesn't have to be about God but does usually incorporate Him/Her, says that when God/Life is trying to teach you something and you are not listening, first life taps you on the shoulder, then if you don't listen life will shake you a little, then if you still don't listen life gives you a slap and finally if you still haven't learned, life will hit you with a brick.

As I look back here is what I see: After my daughter was born 6 years ago, my beloved former OB said to me, "If you think you are going to have another one, don't wait more than a year to do it. You aren't getting any younger and it's only going to get harder for you the longer you wait." There was my tap. Then we decided almost 5 years later to go for it. Got pregnant after 3 tries, yay eggs! and proceeded to miscarry. Boo eggs and here's your shake, courtesy of life. Then instead of just an ugh, "routine" miscarriage and D & C, the new OB perforates my aging uterus, panics, leaves the baby in me and admits me to the hospital where my BP bottoms out and I think I am going to die. Not to mention I have to come back 5 days later for a second D & C. Anyone else out there feel or maybe hear the slap? 4 months later, I am pregnant again, yay eggs! and then 23 weeks into it, well you know. I got hit with a brick, it came wrapped in a hospital blanket, he was beautiful, he was my son and he was dead.

I hate signs.