Hi S,

I hope you had a good weekend.

I have been trying to get a hold of D for almost a week now, T and I are ready to make reservations at the campground and need to nail down the dates we have in mind with her.

I am concerned about the campground booking up for that week and I feel like I need to nail this down. I am a planner and I don’t like not having concrete details. We are planning on leaving 4 weeks from today. I want to check in on the 18th and out on the 22nd. But again, I don’t want to make reservations if she thinks that might be too long of a visit. I also don’t want to make it too short and I get overwhelmed with meeting so many people in too short of time. I want to be able to take an hour or two to myself every day so that I can process my feelings and thoughts.

Do you know how D is feeling about all of this? Does she have anyone to help her through this? I can only imagine how this might be hard for her, or how this might be bringing up old struggles and memories. I don’t want to make it any more difficult on her than it has to be or should be.

Are you comfortable or do you think it might help her for you to give her a call? I don’t know what your relationship is like I and the last thing I want is for you two to have a strained relationship just because I’m asking for insight. I also don’t want her to feel like I’ve gone behind her back or over her head. I just have no way to know how she is doing with this whole thing.

Any suggestions?

(emailed to D's older sister)

I have several fragments of thoughts regarding my feelings about my upcoming trip. TONS of what if’s have run through my brain; what if it doesn’t go well, what if we don’t get along, what if I get along with some of her other family members better, what if her boys resent me, what if she regrets her decision, I cant afford the trip, the bugs are bad, we get a flat tire, we have nothing to say to each other… the list goes on and on.

The feeling of not having any control of how the week will go has me obsessing about things that really are rather small in the grand scheme of things. Like; the route we will take to get there, what hotel we might stay at on the way, exactly what time we will leave home, when I will bring my dog to ‘grandma camp’. I feel like I need all of the logistical things worked out.

I have decided that we will be staying a bit longer than I had originally thought. I'm thinking that we will leave on Sunday, stay within 2 hours or so from our final destination. That way I can get a good nights sleep and shower before The Meeting. I have not talked with her about it yet, but I'm hoping we can meet Monday morning for breakfast, just the three or four of us (me, T, D and D’s boyfriend). Then from there we can check into the campground, set up and spend the day as just the four of us. This way we have a day together before she takes me on, what I expect to be a tour of the family.
By getting there on Monday, I hope to not have to meet large groups of the family all in one day, hopefully we can spread it out a bit over Tuesday and Wednesday so that on Thursday, my birthday, whoever comes out for dinner I will have already met.

...Rae

RaeAnne Marie
That was the name she gave me.

I know I have not talked about the fact that I am adopted at all yet. It is not always something that I think about. I have always known that I was adopted as well as my brother. I have always had the desire to find my birth family.

When I was 22 I started looking, I hired a case worker to go about the search in a legal way. As well as not scare the crap out of the biological family I have out there.

I used to send her flowers on birthday. I found a florist in her home town, told them what I was willing to spend and instructed that they be delivered ON the 21st, not the 20th or the 22nd, the 21st. The card never had my name in it just ‘thinking of you always epically today’. And then my cell phone number.
Last year I didn’t have the money to send the flowers, so instead I sent her a Facebook message titled, ‘because I couldn’t send you flowers’. She responded in 20 min.
Now, almost a year later T and I are planning a trip west to see her for my 29th birthday. The first one I will have ever spent with her.
I have not spent a lot of time cataloguing my thoughts and feelings about it all. I am excited, scared and cautiously optimistic. No big profound thoughts yet just fragments.

It Stinks In Here

I work in a corporate office. The closest ladies room to my cubicle has about 8 or so stalls. During one of the first few weeks that I worked there, I happened to notice a certain odor in the bathroom. I didn’t think anything of it. It is, after all, a bathroom. I’m sitting down, minding my own business when another lady walked in. The first thing I hear is, “It stinks in here”. Of course it stinks in here, it’s a bathroom! Now, I don’t know if she thought she was the only person in there and just talking to herself or if she thought she was trying to engage me in a conversation. Kind of odd, really. I am not the type of person that tries to talk to other people while they are in the midst of their personal time. Especially if I don’t know who is in the stall next to me. If, however, I happen to walk into the bathroom with someone I know and we happen to choose stalls next to each other, I might continue the conversation we were having prior to having my panties around my ankles. This is not the point…

The point is, if someone can’t relieve themselves of the used food in their body in a public bathroom at a cooperate office where we spend up to 12 hours a day where then, can they? Excuse me Nose, but did you want us to poop in the parking lot? Or maybe in our trash cans at our desks? Didn’t your mamma teach you that everyone poops?
I understand that there are some people in this word who will not poop in public and that’s ok. It’s up to you. But, in my opinion, if you gatta go, you gatta go. Why can’t I poop in a public bathroom? If it’s there I’m gonna use it, why? Because that’s what it was built for!
So in response to my fellow bathroom user, and her, quite obviously working nose, I let out a giant fart. My only other option was to let loose in my cube. Of course I could have gone ‘crop dusting’ past her cube, but that? That would have been rude.

Welcome back, right?

I know I haven’t written in a while… I was using this as an outlet, a way to talk myself through thoughts and ideas running through my head, a way to process.

The title of this blog and even my screen name are all about the names I am called.
Stacie; one day as I was giving my husband a hug he called me Stacie. He has never dated or even knows a Stacie, it just came out. Now when I’ve had a few drinks in me my alter ego comes out and she has kept the name Stacie. Not that I am not her, she just does and says things that I would not normally do. Sometimes she is my outlet, a way for me to let loose.
Stessie; my oldest nephew couldn’t say my name when he was little. Stessie is how it came out and now it stuck. Many of my family members call me Stessie. With the kids, I will always be Aunt Stessie.
Rae…

“It wouldn’t be summer without the Baker kids fighting over the boat.”

I have spent every summer of my life at Sand Lake. It is probably one of my favorite places on Earth. I have had many of my life’s firsts there. I had my first kiss there, I learned how to ride a bike, roller skate and water ski at “The Lake”.

When I was somewhere between the ages of seven and nine my dad bought a boat. Not just any boat but a boat that I have come to love. It was a red 1968 Ski Nautique with white interior. It was trashed. From what I remember it had been sitting in a field without a cover for over three years before my dad bought it. It was what I would later call his mid-life-crisis. This thing needed work and I was so willing to help. My dad, on the other hand, didn’t think I was old enough to help him gut it and clean it. No, my brother was the one to do that. There were summers when this boat would spend more time in the shop than in the water.

I remember one birthday all I wanted was to have the boat back from the shop. My dad sat for 8 hours waiting for a part to come into the shop and for the guys to install it. He missed my birthday dinner, he missed cake and ice cream and he want there when I opened my presents. I thought he was going to miss the whole day. But in the late evening he pulled in with the boat. We launched it as fast as we could. My cousin was soon in the passenger seat, my friend Julie and I were on tubes. We were ready for a lap around the lake just as the sun was going down. And the boat barely moves. The next thing I know, my cousin is sitting on the side of the boat trying to pump water out of it with a hand pump while my dad has the engine cover open, and is shoulder deep in water reaching under the engine. Apparently the plug had not been put in and it was taking on water. I spent the last moments of daylight of that birthday on a tube going around the lake one time at a speed slower than I could walk. At the time I was calling it ‘the worst birthday ever’. I think I yelled at my dad for being gone all day, for the fact that my brother burned my birthday dinner because he wasn’t there to grill and that my tube ride was nothing more than a dinner opportunity for the mosquitoes. He reminded me that “all I wanted was the boat in the water”.

I now think fondly of that birthday. That my dad sacrificed his entire day to sit at a crappy boat shop an hour away so that he could grant me my birthday wish. That he would miss dinner and cake and ice cream so that I could have the boat.
When he died my mom sold the boat. It needed too much work and she couldn’t handle the cost. She bought a new boat. A 1999 Ebtide. A boat that I didn’t want. I didn’t want to sell my dad’s boat. I didn’t want an inboard-outboard. I wanted the red 1968 ski Nautique, even if she couldn’t afford to keep it running, even if it sat unused for years.

When she got the Ebtide my brother and I agreed to split the maintenance cost, gas money and general responsibility. The problem with that is that my brother tends to be a self absorbed a-hole. Sure he paid his half of the fees, he had the truck to pull it out and take it to get winterized but he never lifted a finger to keep it clean. At the beginning of the season I’d clean it. At the end of the day I’d be the one to clean out the cigarette boxes, lighters, food wrappers, towels and pop cans that he and his friends left. I’d be the one covering it even if I hadn’t even used it that day. I’m the one that took care of a boat that I didn’t even want.
Three years ago by brother sold his trailer at the lake. (that’s a whole other story) He hasn’t been there to use the boat on a regular basis but when he is there he acts as if the boat is his. He doesn’t contribute toward the gas, I’m still cleaning up after him and his kids and I’m still covering it when he was the one to use it.

Two years ago there was some mechanicals problems and it almost sank in our slip. We were quoted on the costs to fix the problem as well as other problems that were caused due to the fact that the engine was underwater for more than eight hours. I didn’t have the money, and my brother wouldn’t help. He no longer used the boat and therefore felt he was no longer obligated to pay his half.
My mother has resolved that this year it’s going to be fixed and if that means that she pays for it then so be it.

It is currently sitting in the drive way. Tony and I spent over two hours cleaning it today because my brother decided that he didn’t want it in his 4 stall garage anymore. He put it in his barn with the horses, cow and chickens. There were bugs and dirt and grime and mildew and cat hair all over the inside of it. That’s two hours cleaning the inside of it. You know the part that is under the cover. Can’t wait to see how long it’s going to take to clean the outside. Not to mention the cover it’s self. That thing is trashed.

The boat is being fixed next week Monday. And I am already freaking out about the next time my brother will be at the lake with his kids. I know I am just borrowing trouble. But I WILL NOT be cleaning it out at the end of the day like I used to. I will also be compensated for the gas he uses. We are living in my mother’s basement on unemployment for goodness sakes. I can’t afford for him to take his kids out all day with my gas money that I pain staking built into my already over worked budget.

I don’t even want this boat. I want the Nautique back.

Miscarriage After-Math

So, I was dealing with the miscarriage quite well, I thought. People kept asking me how I was doing with it. I would always respond by saying, "I'm fine". Really I was. I felt like everyone wanted or expected me to be doing bad or at least worse than I was. I talked with my mom every day for the first few days. I told her that I was fine and that I thought everyone expected me to be doing worse. She told me that it was OK to feel that way, that everyone deals with it differently.

I think that if we had been trying a lot harder, as in, taking my temperature and charting my cycles a bit closer than I was, that it would be more difficult. Yes we were trying, but not in the sense that we were doing it every other day or, like I said, temping, we were going with the flow. I think that if I had gotten a positive test, that would have been harder. Or if I had been eight or ten weeks along. Or close to an ultrasound. Or had gotten to the ultrasound and not found a heartbeat. I could think of all of these reasons that would have made it harder. I really was doing OK.

I had a physical back in January and was prompted by my husband to ask about testing about why I hadn't gotten pregnant. When she did my pap she also ran some other tests for infections and whatnot. They came back negative but I did have some abnormal cells. She isn't concerned since my HPV test was negative. She also suggested that my husband, Tony, go for sperm testing. He went after a bit of whining. The thinking was that if the problem was him that it would be easier and cheaper to fix his problem. That, if the problem was with me it would be harder on us as a couple to fix. A lot of procedures and cost. A lot of testing and a lot of drugs.

We got his results about a week after the miscarriage, I'm not 'fine' anymore. He has minor-low-mobility, minor-low count and some abnormal sperm. We don't know exactly what that means or how it has effected me not getting pregnant. We can only assume that is the cause. I know I am ovulating. What if his abnormal swimmers were the cause of the miscarriage? What if my abnormal cells were the cause?

With his results I am not doing as well. I feel like that was my only chance. My only pregnancy in 16 cycles. What if it takes another 16 to get pregnant again, what if that one doesn't stick? What if...What if...What if?

I also have developed and inability to 'perform'. I feel that I have a 'mental block' that is stopping me from having sex. I'm not just having bad sex, I can't do it, at all. Its uncomfortable, mentally and slightly physically painful. Last time we tried this past Friday night, I broke down and cried, bawled actually for over a half hour.

Tony is supposed to go for more tests at a reproductive endocrinologist. How much is that going to cost? From the little research I've done I will still have to go for my own testing and drugs. It also means that we may have to do IVF or an IUI anyway. More money, more tests and more stress. It may as well have been me with the problem.

I am such an all or nothing type person. I feel that I am standing on an edge, that I need to chose to go forward and go all the way or that I need to not do anything. Do we continue to just go with the flow and hope it happens or do we go down the path of medical assistance? What if we choose to continue with medical testing? If the first attempt or procedures don't work will we then think that we should move on to the next, and the next and the next? At what point do we think that we could stop all of the medical assistance and accept being a childless couple? Could I accept that now? Can I let go now? Can I handle not ever getting pregnant? Will I feel like a failure as a woman? I am really struggling with all of these questions. I know that these questions cannot be answered now, that I just need to take it one day at a time.
I think we will go ahead with the testing, to at least see if we can learn our probability of getting pregnant on our own, with out the drugs and medical assistance.

I think that will be my new plan.