>8----------cross-posted----------8<
Week three, day 1.
9:23 am: Resolve "urgent" conflict using three paperclips and a well-placed giggle. Alright, I'm lying about the paperclips. Two opposing forces in an age-old security debate put down their weapons and send a supervised "alright, I agree to compromise" email, dictated by monstre.
11:01 am: Meet first project milestone, two out of three stakeholders are all smiles. Of course, second milestone is getting everyone *else* to sign off...
11:22 am: Sign off that I will assume "Acting Director" duties while boss is gone. Swallow hard and make mental "put this on resume" note once it's over.
11:24 am: Document that maybe I'm finally getting a handle on this back-to-work thing.
>8--------------------------------8<
Update:
3:23 pm: Sumbit project management exam results to apply for course credits towards Master's degree. I'm two credits closer to grownup degree!
All that being said, "easing" back into life isn't the word for it though; there's been nothing easy about it. On my first day back I was out of the office by 1pm, and sobbing uncontrollably all the way home.
Nothing drives home that whole "dead baby" thing until people start asking questions...
"Where've you been?"
"What happened to your belly?"
"You were gone two months?!? What was wrong with you?!"
"Hey, have you had your baby yet?"
Coupled with my inability to sit in a chair without putting myself through excruciating pain from the sheer strain of having to sit upright; and I was a mess that first week, freaked out and panicking and terrified and flipping between tears and tantrums nonstop.
Dave was an exemplary figure throughout it all, I can't believe he still kissed me in the morning; I am not proud of who I let myself become amidst the terror.
I'm still slowly adjusting from there. The constant reminder that "if I'm not careful I'm going to hurt Dave" is one of the fews things that kept my head on at all right up until this weekend...
...and the thing that's helping hugely now is that:
I'm ovulating this week. Sometime between Wednesday and Friday my discharge will thicken, I'll get that UNBELIEVABLY horny feeling, my temperature will shoot up (I've been taking it religiously every morning at 6:05 for the last six weeks), and an egg will be in just the right place for the great Davinator to fertilize it.
(Just in case, though, we spent the weekend practicing. ;)
Last night we had dinner and my new favourite restaurant -- the thai place just up Roncesvalles. The only other couple in there was about 6 months in the bag, and the first thought in my head was "she's lucky, she made it farther than I did". The second thought, though, was "I'll be there soon."
For the last two months I've been in this horrible limbo, the worst sort of lost. Everything about me, my body, my hormones, my mind, my heart, our house, our lifestyle -- was so completely primed for a baby that even though we've done so well coping with our grief, there was still this huge gaping hole inside me. We'd come so far, completed all our ultrasounds, made it past our first trimester, almost finished the second one.
Until this weekend when I finally started charting my ovulation (I usually just know but am so gung ho that I'm not taking any chances), I was stuck in that limbo.
Yesterday morning is when the anticipation began to build again.
Will we get pregnant on the first try? I'm a little-overconfident on that point, but even if we don't -- at least we're going somewhere, have something to start looking forward to. We survived the two menstrual cycles that we were told to wait, I'm in better shape, my back is still hurt but better enough that I'll be ready when my belly starts to swell again.
The baby room is still coming along, the extra time has given us a chance to strip 80 years of paint off, and replace baseboards and quarter round. It is a beautiful warm yellow, and I plan to spend much of the coming months sitting in it and dreaming.
It's been a hard autumn thus far, but I'm starting to believe it when I let my heart hope for the future.