In transition

I've been pulled in a few different directions lately, my friends, and I apologize for not being as present here with you. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Holiday. I've been thinking of you and catching up with your blogs here and there. I plan to sit down for a bigger catch up session this week.

This is my last full week in Pleasantville before my job starts next Monday. I'll be working in Fertility Treatment Town (FTT), which is about 90 minutes away. This means that I have to stay in that city during the week and come home to Mr. August and chicken (my kitty) only on weekends. Sigh. That's a bit hard for us. We did it for a full year while I was on my clinical internship and it was manageable. But it feels hard to gather momentum to leave this time. I like our little life here. But the thing is that psychologist jobs are really excellent in FTT, much better than in this area. This is how I agreed to take this contract for a year. It will give me great experience and build up my c.v. to get a good job closer to Pleasantville next year.

The other great thing about this job is that it's a mat leave coverage. Yes, in Canada, a mat leave lasts for a year. The psychologist I'm replacing is off on her second mat leave. During her first mat leave (when I was a resident there), another female psychologist covered her mat leave. And this psychologist got pregnant during the time she covered the mat leave. Call me superstitious, but methinks that's a fertile position to be in.

So this week is a bit of a mad dash to the finish line. Still trying to do the last bits on my dissertation (the reference list took me 4 days to finalize. Darn 6th edition of the APA publication manual and its requirement for digital object identifiers), finish some TA duties, get a hair cut (comes with the real job), etc. Oh, and you should sit down for this next one and put on a helmet. It might blow your mind. You sitting? Ok. I am going to. get. a. cellphone. YES! It's true. I've been resisting the 21st century for over 10 years now, but it's time to be a modern woman. I thought I'd go full hog and get an i.pho.ne, but upon questioning myself more, I realized I just wanted to have what the cool kids have. I'll just get a plane jane cellphone and that will meet my needs just fine. A cell phone will be useful in case of an emergency in my drives between here and there. Also, with the upcoming DE cycle, I realized I wanted to be available to take calls.

Speaking of the DE cycle...We have appointments booked! Mr. August and I are going to meet with the psychologist on Jan. 4 and Sattva and her husband will meet with him two days later on the 6th. Our big orientation half day will be on Feb. 2, which is to say that that's when the cycle will start. I was excited to book those dates.

I'm trying to let my mind go to the place where I visualize myself pregnant, where I think of this working out. It's hard to do after having quashed all those thoughts for the last year. I think all my life I imagined I would be pregnant someday and have babies. Once the treatments failed last year though, I would stop those kinds of daydreams anytime they appeared. I just told myself that it wasn't going to happen, that I had to start envisioning my life differently. It's now reflexive to do that. However, in the last week or so, I'm trying to just allow my mind to imagine pregnancy again. I know that I need to allow it in my mind. I need to see it. I need to know that it is coming. I need to my mind and my body to work as a team, both of them ready to welcome an embryo and grow it into a baby.

And of course, being so focused on acceptance, I also want to allow my grief. I have felt a good dose of it lately. I have been so incredibly saddened by the hardships that some of you have faced in the recent weeks. I'm speaking specifically of Roccie, R, and Jess. As it does for all of us, your grief has resonance with my grief. And so, I've been spending time in that sad, dark place with you, dear women. I feel so sad that things didn't work out for you, and I feel so much grief for myself and for our collective that IF exists and breaks our hearts again and again.

Nurturing the hope and honouring the grief.
Not an easy balancing act.
I'll keep working on it.