Air Conditioning Broken

Luckily it's just the upstairs window unit. Unfortunately, it's the only thing cooling the bedroom. After a few days (three?) of no AC at night, I have learned that I sleep like a rock in the hot air. I am so rested. My skin has broken out in tiny whiteheads all over my chin. I smell bad every morning, as if I went running in my sleep.

The windows are open and the whole world makes more noise. Louise next door is doing music lessons. I can hear it now, clarinet, tuba and flute in half hour doses. Today is garbage day and I can hear the truck.

I am so glad we got a cool streak for August. It's in the seventies and nicely cool all morning.

Ingrid Day

Tired all over again. I slept until almost 9:00! It was amazing.

Today was the third week of Ingrid days. I have been taking off Tuesdays to help out Amanda and give her an opportunity to go to the hospital. Ares is in the NICU and just graduated to an open crib! He's bigger than his birth weight now - over three pounds. His skin isn't hot red at every moment but stills gets red when he cries. He's wearing preemie clothes now, little t-shirts! He just needs to learn to eat from a bottle and pass the 35 week mark. I'm getting excited and I cannot imagine how excited Amanda must be.

So Ingrid and I went to the local Children's Museum today. I love that Ingrid calls my tiny hatchback a van. She thinks the shape dictates the name of the vehicle. We only had to stop once one the one mile drive over. Once we got there, we played for almost three hours. She played with one stuffed animal for two of those hours. It was exhausting. Of course she wants me to play with her and I don't want to act like the bored coffee-drinking moms who refuse to look up to see if their kid is kidnapped or anything. I'll wait until I have a kid to do that. Two hours discussing a stuffed ferret (or weasel as she called it) was quite a lot.

Then we went to Portillo's for some gourmet lunching. I learned that dining alone with a kid means that lunch ends when the kid needs to poop, whether you finished that delicious salad or not. So, I dumped half a salad and spent ten minutes in the bathroom, telling "jokes" to the stall door.

These are the types of jokes Ingrid loves: What does a cat put in his drink to keep it cold? Mice cubes.

She branched out into telling the joke about a horse (hay cubes).

I got a good laugh from What is brown and sticky? (a stick).

I just melt when she reaches her little hand up into mine when we walk through a parking lot or climb into a road. I fucking love that kid, poop and all.

With Ingrid

Today was another day with Ingrid. I am really enjoying my time with her. Mom, on the other hand, is having a breakdown these days. She can't quite seem to process her feelings and she's lashing out. Amanda is very frustrated with dear ole Mom. Mom is retaliating by being snide.

We played in the park and went to McDonald's playland. McDonald's playland is never just McDonald's lest you mistakenly believe it's a place to eat food. No. McDonald's playland is the most sacred and fun place that Mom never wants to go. It's a special event or manipulated auntie kind place.

Ingrid is wearing a hideous hairband made of fake neon pink hair that has multicolored braid tassels. It's the ugliest thing from the dollar store, so she loves it. It's adorable in her long, black waves.

I hate to focus on looks but she's an exceptionally beautiful child. She's getting prettier too.

Fairness

In the past few months, I have read lots of pregnancy blogs, infertility blogs and message boards. I read one message board pretty often but post very little. This message board is like the train wreck person I love to have on facebook. It draws me in out of horror.

Trying to Conceive boards tend to be very, very judgmental. I say this having read many of them. I have never found a TTC board, as they're called by those in the know, that didn't have it's policing regulars and scathing comments.

For the uninitiated, here's a handy dandy cheat sheet.

The following things are OK to say or discuss:

• Being sad, angry or jealous about the pregnancies of others.
• Expecting the world to pull you aside to announce pregnancies to spare your feelings.
• Expecting your pregnant friends to never gripe or complain out of respect for your infertility/non-pregnancy.
• Crying all the fucking time.
• Crying about baby showers, facebook feeds or holidays.
  
• Describing your mucus discharges at length.
• Saying that you will never, ever, ever complain when you get pregnant because you'll understand and appreciate the miracle of it all.
  
• Asking other people how they deal with the agony of not being pregnant.
  
• Creating a hierarchy of how sad anyone else is allowed to be. For example, women who already have a child should be grateful. Women who have has a miscarriage "at least" know they can get pregnant.
  

Then the following are not OK and will get the poster smacked down immediately:

• Calling anyone bitter - ever.
• Not taking your basal body temperature daily. That's a huge one. It's funny because my doctor tells me ovulation predictors (which is what I use. I don't feel like graphing, thanks) are more accurate.
  
• Not believing that TCOYF (Taking Charge of Your Fertility) is the Bible.
  
• Disagreeing with the leaders of the pack about anything.
  
• Fishing for others to guess that you might be pregnant. People do this one all the time and it is insane. "Oh, my boobs hurt so much and my sense of smell is so strong. I wonder if I'm getting sick? Oh, and my period is eight minutes late....ahem!"
• Wishing ill on all the pregnant friends you currently hate who aren't even allowed to talk to you lest they wake the beast within. It's a fine line with that one.
  
• Expressing any interest in a child of a particular sex or hoping for a baby born at a certain time. That will get you ten instant replies along the lines of, "Oh yeah, well all I want is a healthy baby whenever God/nature wills it!" Implication: I am a better person/parent than you.
• Being worried too soon. Too soon is defined as one month less than you've been trying. Every poster is a special snowflake who is allowed to spread her own doom and gloom. While every poster other than one's self is a worrywart.
  

It's really fucking old. All the new people lamenting one period. All the old people who just lie in wait to snap at new folks for not knowing the rules. The lifers, who are infertile, are revered as gods. That sets up some fucked up dynamics. Everyone wants to pose as if they have conception troubles. To appear cool or in the know? I can't figure it out.

Today might be the last straw. I read a post that linked to a woman's blog entry about the ways in which you're ALLOWED to tell other couples you're pregnant. If, God forbid, any of those other couples have fertility issues, you must tell them privately and practically apologize to them for your great joy. You must offer to never ever ever bitch and moan and be ready for them to not be happy for you. This blog post was longer and used more flowery language but that was the gist. In a situation where one couple is pregnant and another couple isn't, the pregnant couple must defer to the non-pregnant just in case it causes heartache or jealousy. Seriously, what the fuck?

These women work themselves into a fucking froth pretending to be infertile just to get a rise out of themselves. They feed each other's fears and horrors like kids at a slumber party until all reason is gone.

I wish they would quit counting everything and deciding what's fair and unfair. I wish they would quit weighing how sad someone else is allowed to be after how many months of trying versus their advanced age and factoring in their medical history.

I know my sister isn't going to be telling other mothers of twins that they aren't allowed to mention both kids. I know I am not going to forbid anyone else from having a baby in February. The world keeps moving whether or not we try and set rules about fairness.