Pages

Wednesday, September 28

I'm melting... and stress

It's hot again here.  I wore my rayon Sencha blouse and it was a good choice, but my fingers are still sweating because the computer is warm on top of the overly warm room.

Tonight, Mr. Lina is having a friend over to play guitar with.  Ever have your husband "steal" your friends?  I worked with him at my favourite client office, he was kind of my work husband, we went for coffee/tea every morning, talked about all the same gaming/fantasy/sci-fi stuff Mr Lina was exposing me to...  Then he resigned from my client.  Mr Lina was happy, it meant he didn't have to watch his behaviour because he went into friend category, not client.  He's part of our D&D group and comes over to jam more weeks than not.

Net-net to me is time in my sewing room tonight while I stay out of their way.  I'm hoping to tackle the two UFO dresses. 

In other life news, we're off to see my specialist this weekend for our review appointment (seriously, 3:45 on a Saturday, when does this man not work?).  We should cover if they learned anything with the "natural" attempts to get me pregnant and hopefully he will have some ideas from the US about what to do with my last 4 frozen embryos.  To me, there isn't much to stress about yet.  There are three ways this goes (although he's surprised me many times before):

A.  He has a plan.  Different medications, a different strategy.  I like A.  Let's get this show on the road.
B.  There is no point in me doing this, it will always end in miscarriage.  Surrogate mother is the best way.  Right now, I am not interested, although I have been offered the use of someones uterus (you want to talk about awkward wedding conversations...).  He mentioned this option in February, but when we said no, he was very supportive and felt it was a good choice but he needed to present the option.
C.  More freaking testing.  I'm not a fan of this anymore, he's had nearly 6 years, if they don't know now, then I don't know what's left. 

Mr Lina, however, is worried.  I'm getting daily baby pictures from him, kitten videos, kitten and baby videos, videos of kittens walking over pregnant bellies, descriptions of babies he sees out for lunch...  It's like the only words he has we have both heard before so everything comes out in pictures.  I am okay with that, it's some form of communication and I oddly understand it.  It is far better than pretending that nothing is going on, which may be what I'm doing.

One of the reasons I sew is stress.  When my brain gets wrapped up in being sad, circling negative thoughts and obsessing over past/current loss, sewing stops it.  All I have to focus on is the next seam, the next instruction, the next stitch.  Starting projects can be hard, but I can't think about the rest of it when I get going.  I come out of my sewing room with something finished so I feel accomplishment. 

Initially, I made yeast breads coming out of failure - soft pretzels, cinnamon buns, pizza dough (had to start somewhere), focaccia (side note, spell check thinks this should be cowcatcher or quackish, um, no), etc.  I think some of these very homemaker type activities fill a gap of failure.  It is subconsciously like I feel failure as a woman that I can't get and stay pregnant, but I can do these other "womanly" things like sewing and baking bread (sadly this did not extend into house cleaning).  I would go crazy to do things from absolute scratch.  I have had multiple cake disasters because I felt compelled to not just buy a cake for a family event, or maybe do something from a box and buy icing.  No... it needs to be non-chocolate for Dad, halal for my brother, green because my mom likes green or whatever million constraints - add something complicated like a chocolate collar and three tiers... and wonder why I'm a freaking basket case before we are out the door.  Now I try to recognize this behaviour for the craziness that is and redirect it into something that won't set me up for tears.

The good thing about the appointment on Saturday is two fold.  We will have some sort of plan which is always a good thing, and I always feel better after seeing my specialist.  Somehow we talk about very sad events, and I leave his office feeling better.  He is a miracle worker just for that. 

2 comments:

  1. I'm right there with you on the stress. I started sewing again to battle postpartum depression after Middlest was born, having spent years away from the machine, and I started out by sewing doll clothes because they were easy and inexpensive. I branched out into sewing my own clothes when we were having pretty serious difficulties with one of our kids who is non-neurotypical and was being bullied on a daily basis. Every time things get crazy, I head for the sewing room because at least I can make sense of my projects.

    There are some studies that link crafting with increased mental health and emotional stability, and I don't doubt that's true. A lot of people suspect that one of the reasons we have more mental illness now than in the past is because we're less inclined to produce things with our hands, and there's less of a link between our work and a tangible output.

    Hope you get the answers you want on Saturday!

    ReplyDelete
  2. "at least I can make sense of my projects" - So very true.

    The crafting/mental health link is certainly food for thought. I can absolutely believe it. A sense of accomplishment from a creative, tangible output is powerful.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comments, I love to have a two way conversation. I seem to be getting a lot of spam from anonymous users and am turning off the ability to comment that way. I really would like to hear from you so if you do want to add your two cents without an OpenId, email me at seraphinalina at gmail dot com.