All Filled Up

If you've followed my blog recently then you know I went down to Florida {which was beautiful!} this past weekend to meet my Birthdad! I was adopted at birth and had never met him. 

I have sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much to share, obviously, but I do not have time to write about it this morning. But I did want to check in and say that it was the best weekend ever. I met him, my great-aunt & uncle, a second cousin... and a bunch of my dad's friends. There is so much about their lives that I found out this weekend. I had no idea that my absence throughout the years had affected my ENTIRE extended family. I was always "The Missing Grandchild" and was always thought of throughout the years.... it's a pretty intense feeling to know you affected so many lives. They thought of me as much as I did them.

I had a mainly happy childhood though I always felt like something was missing... that I was part of something else. I am part of something greater! This whole big, very close family always left a spot for me in their hearts; I was always part of the family even though no one knew where I was. 

This weekend filled up an empty little piece of me that I thought would never be filled. I am all filled up with love and family.... 

and it's the best feeling ever. 

EVER. 

Will write more again soon! And share pictures!! I look just like him. :)

A Fireworks Show

I feel like a Fireworks Show of emotion. I'm so excited about the trip and so nervous, too. Emotions are pulling me in every direction, it's hard to focus on just one. We're meeting at his house {my birthdad} and I'm glad because I think it will be nice and private. And more special that way. I hope we click and that things aren't TOO awkward. I know it's probably going to be super weird at first.... but.... I'm okay with that. Sometimes the best things begin awkwardly.

These are MY people. Like, for real, MY people. I realize the magnitude of this weekend is probably a hard concept to grasp for those of you who aren't adopted or have experienced a similar situation. Quadmama pointed this fact out to me on my most recent post; and it makes sense. I am unable to explain how it feels, really... or what it's like. But I CAN tell you that it feels exhilarating to finally be putting a piece in the big puzzle of my life. I've been waiting for this one for a long time.

And so have they. :)

I have dreamed about this day for SO LONG. For as long as I've thought about my birth-family, I suppose... and I can't believe it's actually here. It's 1:14am so technically today is actually THE day. THE day. I can't wait to meet the person who is responsible for half of what made me ME, and one of the two people who created my life.

WOW!!!! 

And I just wanted to write all that down before I turned off the computer for the weekend and unplugged. :) Everything changes after this weekend. Good or bad, I do not know. This is certainly life-changing though, no matter how it goes. Please keep me in your thoughts this weekend!

Just Saying

I'm meeting my Birthdad and his side of the family this weekend.

I have had zero time alone in this house to prepare myself.

I haven't even done my laundry yet!

I relaxed yesterday afternoon/early evening by going to the Goodwill Outlet and searching for treasure... and then I went to Starbucks and then I went and got a brow/lip wax. I'd hate to meet my Birthdad with unruly eyebrows and a mustache (please say that moo-stash). My aesthetician is really wonderful and so insightful; I enjoy going to see her and she always has nice things to share. She is great to talk to/bounce thoughts off and I'm glad I got to see her {not just get waxed!} before I meet my Birthdad. 

Gigi couldn't watch the girls on Wednesday this week so my 'day off' didn't happen. Of course, the week I really truly NEED a day "off".... {I quote "off" because I still have Snowdrop so technically I'm not really having a day off.}

So I'm just saying that this is a really emotional thing and I'm doing it all by myself. My support system {other than Hubby, who I think still really doesn't "get it"; He keeps talking about how he hasn't been to FL since he was 11. That not what this trip is about. Sorry but I have to be incredibly selfish on this one!!} are the two friends who know about it happening. They both live more than 300 miles from here. I think it's incredibly unfair that no one else recognizes the importance of this event and how life-changing it will be. I feel like I shouldn't have to explain that to people?? I feel like I shouldn't have to ask for someone to take the girls for a day so I can have peace to myself to prepare and reflect.

Like, I wish my husband had taken control of the situation and arranged for a sitter this week. 

That would have been cool.

Le Sigh.

I'm off to break up an argument about something ridiculous between my oldest girls... and then I have to change this rank diaper on Snowdrop that I keep smelling as she parades beneath my feet, clawing at my thighs, screaming "Moooooommy Mooooooooommy Up".

Le Freakin' Sigh.

IT'S OFFICIAL: I'm Gonna Meet My BirthDad!!!

I was going to mention this in my most recent post BUT I really thought it was important enough to deserve its own mini-post. 

Last night, we booked our airfare to Tampa so I can meet my birthdad and most of his side of the family!! 

It's official!!! :)

I'm full of all sorts of emotions. It's gonna be a good thing.

So have any of you done this before? What did you bring? What did you do? I'd love to hear about it!

5 mg

Pretty sure I am feeling every bit of the extra 5mg (of Paxil) that I took last night. 

My eyes are wide open (but feel heavy). I feel like a zombie, lol. A zombie full of energy. Does that make sense? At least my mind is quiet again and I can putter through the day and get things done.

Definitely not feeling anxious about meeting my birthdad this morning. I haven't filled the Rx for the Xanax yet. If the extra 5mg of Paxil really can rid of me the anxiety then I won't need to take the Xanax for that. And that would be a good thing ~ because I really don't like taking medicine. 

But I will need the Xanax for the flights to and from Florida. I hate flying. It's freaky.

But let's not talk about that now. I don't want to ruin my non-nervous morning! :) 

Psych 101

     Today I saw a psychiatrist. She is amazing and I'm SO GLAD, SOVERYGLAD, that I called and got an appointment. As luck would have it, I called her on Friday and someone had just cancelled a Monday appointment. When I first started going to PT at the beginning of the year, I kept saying that God had sent Christie (my PT-ist) to me. I was sure of it. She was supposed to help me in some way; I thought it was with my tailbone. And she definitely helped with my tailbone (I have my last - fingers crossed - PT appointment this week for that.) but we also talked a lot about all sorts of stuff while we did the PT exercises. It was therapeutic. Soooo as our PT sessions were coming to an end, she suggested that I entertain the idea of talking to a professional. I knew deep down that it was time. So, I actually got the info for this psychiatrist from her! I'm not surprised that it worked out when I called to schedule and that there was a cancellation. It usually takes months to get into see a psychiatrist. God works in mysterious, and sometimes not that mysterious, ways! I know this is all connected to help me.... so I'm going with the flow.

     Anyways, the appointment went really well. It was a good first appointment, and we talked about nothing I thought we would! Yes, of course I cried. I laughed a bit, too. She's a redhead - well, formerly a redhead like me. We must be kindred spirits to some degree; and she reminds me of Sarah Jessica Parker but not in a squeaky mousey way (No offense, SJP!! Loved you in Girls Just Want to Have Fun!! Classic!!) And she was able to point out so many things about me already. This is her job and she's been doing it for a long time so of course she's really great at it ~ attended Columbia, John Hopkins, Yale... has had a lot of training in all sorts of areas, is also a psycho-analyst, a doctor in other areas too, etc... I just feel like she's really going to be able to help me get to the bottom of myself and fix things. I'm looking forward to next week's appointment. She upped my Paroxetine (Paxil) by 5mg and gave me a month of Alprazolam (Xanax). I hope I won't need the Xanax for a long time; I think the whole "meeting my birthdad" thing has me really anxious lately.     ............ Obviously that would make someone anxious and emotionally charged; I didn't really put two and two together, lol. Lunatic. :) I thought my body had conquered the medicine and wasn't going to let the medicine help me anymore. Yes, I probably had some little vision in my head of Viking-hatted Masked Marauders invading my little Happy Rainbow Medicine Cells inside and pillaging them. 

I need to be easier on myself. There are reasonable explanations for almost everything.

Anyways, I'm glad to have it for the days when I need it and for our flight to Flo-Rida.

I am too old to say Flo-Rida.

    My only qualm about this therapy is that it's expensive. $165/50 minutes. I do not see any dinners out in our near future! :) I really do NEED this though. It's been a long time coming and frankly, I'd like to feel like a regular person by the time I'm 30. You know? I can't be an emotional nutcase forever right? 

She suggested I ask my parents for the money to pay for the appointments. I said I'd think about it; and I really will. But I'm 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% positive I do not even want them knowing that I'm IN therapy. We'll be fine. We'll make ends meet. 

God will provide. He always does.

Blogging Again :)

Me: Feeling Good These Days

Ahhhhh I haven't blogged since June. I started taking medication for my PPD/PPAnxiety about that same time. Of course, I think it's all related. Since being on medicine, I've been super active around the house keeping up with chores and with the girls. I've been Twittering {Superfab912} a bunch and have been enjoying it. I've also come to the conclusion that I think I actually NEED to be on medicine full-time. I'm not sure if this is totally a PPD thing or not. It all might have just manifested into the worst-blue-period ever after having these babies. You know? Without sharing too much, I feel like such a better person now that I'm taking medicine. I was super against it but I can think more clearly now. And that's so good. The morning after I took it for the first time, when I woke up, it was so silent. In my head. Like when a record is turned off real fast and the sound goes "zzzzzzchuupe" and then it's silent... or when you're the only person in a small coffee shoppe and a gaggle of people come in and are chatty and giggly and busy, and when they leave the store ~ THAT silence. That's how it felt in my head.

I wasn't hearing voices or anything but do you know what I mean? That Inner Monologue just shut-up.

So on Monday I have my first appointment with a psychiatrist. She was recommended to me by my physical therapist (who I just had a playdate with this morning - her daughter is a month younger than my oldest girls - we had a blast, and I think I made a friend for myself!! YAY!!!) I really don't want to talk to anyone about all my shit but I think it's time. And I don't think my OB can handle the adjusting of this, not in offense to her ~ it's just not her area of expertise. It's time to pass the torch from OB to Pysch. I think I need some adjustments on my medication AND I think I might need a PRN. I think going to a psychiatrist is the best way to figure out the right plan of action. Sometimes the medicine works really well but I have days at a time where it just seems like it's not enough. Does that make sense? As always, I will let y'all know how it goes. I don't ever actually say "y'all" it just seemed appropriate to use at this time. :)

MIRACULOUSLY, I haven't lost a follower during this little blogging sabbatical of mine. {Can I call this a sabbatical?} I'd like to thank the Thirty-Nine of you Followers for sticking around! Maybe you have been on the edge of your seat anxiously waiting for my return. Maybe you've been busy yourself and haven't even noticed. :) That's okay, too. I am starting to feel more like writing again so I hope to be blogging more. School is starting soon so I'm definitely going to have more time on my hands to blog. I really have a hard time blogging when the kiddies are about. :)

As far as the house goes, I finished, & started and finished, several projects (& started a few more) around the house that I've been wanting to get done for quite some time. Like these things:

hallway curtains

bookcase

the Hancock shelf

frames for Snowdrop's frame-wall

baking, baking, baking

curtains in our bathroom

sewing, sewing, sewing

cleaned out and organized so many things

threw out so many things that I didn't need/want

AND four years of projects that never got started or finished.

If I had time right now I would take and post pictures of these things to show you. But I don't today. Sorry.

I've pretty much caught up on Project Baby Clothes {which I talked about in one of the Vloggin' Vednesdays that I'd love to get back into doing}. I've got one basket of clothes that turned up after I put away all the other stuff and did more laundry. BUT, I've got almost everything that doesn't fit put away! The upstairs closets are dangerously stuffed with bins and other things haha ~ it's always a little scary to open the doors! I never know if something is going to come flying out at me. :)

I {mainly} finished that project in June but this past week we moved all three girls into one room. The third floor is no longer Snowdrop's room ~ it's the playroom! I'm thrilled!! I even moved my sewing machine up there. We're moving my desk up there this weekend so I'll have a little space of my own within the playroom to work on MY stuff. :) OK. SO. The big move. I did it all by myself. See. I've been on Hubby for like two months to do this and it {ahem, he} keeps pushing it back. He went golfing on Sunday and I was mad about something that happened the previous night so I said "F it. I'm doing it myself!" All it really involved was moving the full size mattress from the third floor, taking down one toddler bed, and converting the other back into a crib. Mattress moving isn't really that hard when you're just going down the stairs. The girls totally helped me maneuver it around a couple corners ~ they were awesome helpers! So we got the room set up and I'm just so happy with it. I think we need a little tweaking here and there, and I need to fix some of their alphabet but for the most part I'm just thrilled to have them in one room. It opened up the third floor to become a straight up playroom, which in turn meant that we moved every. single. toy. upstairs. WHOOHOO!!! We left a bunch of books on this floor but other than those {and of course, the tv} our main floor is now 'kid free'. YAY! :)

We went to Portland in the middle of June for a friend's wedding and had a blast. I LOVE PORTLAND!!! It was seriously a great trip. Honestly, there isn't time to talk about how much I loved it. The street-pirates (the street kids/people) that were so very interesting to watch and talk to. The freedom I felt there to be ME. We were there for the PRIDE parade, too, which absolutely contributed to the feelings of acceptance, friendliness, and youth of the city. I love the downtown area so much, I could definitely see us living there. I could open my vintage/handmade shop in a little place in the city instead of on Etsy (it's coming soon!!!)... Hubby is not sold on the idea for "right now" because of the family business (of course) but maybe we can retire there someday. Early. Early retirement in Portland. Haha. In my dreams.

Actually, in my dreams ~ I'll retire to Europe. Vacationing in America occasionally when I get homesick for a Windy City or SoCal beaches. Anyways..........

A good friend of mine came to visit over the Fourth of July holiday and we had a blast. We've been friends since high school, worked at THE bakery together, I was involved with her older brother for a few years and generally always figured I'd wind up as part of the family. THAT didn't happen (obviously) but we've all remained super close friends over the years. It was sooooooooo good to see her. I am lucky to have such great friends even though they don't live nearby. It's hard not having "real friends" down here. Do you know what I mean? Not that I don't enjoy the company of my friends here, I just feel so often like people "have" to be my friend just because I married their friend.... anyways. MY friend and I had a spectacular time. We cooked and baked, and refinished/painted/recovered two chairs I found at the Goodwill Outlet for the girls room, and we sewed a bunch of little things for the girls (like pillowcases!). We stayed up late and laughed for hours. And we brainstormed about some projects we're going to work on together. It was SUCH a great weekend when she was here.

My soulmate (and very best friend in the entire world), O and I had a Girls Weekend late in July and it was just ridiculous. So much fun!! It was just like the old days. But better. So neeeeeeeeded to be just us girls. O's boyfriend (who I love and who will marry her someday; I've already granted my permission. He was very sweet in asking for it, seeing as I am his future wife's soulmate. Really, isn't that cute to ask me? What a doll.) was going out of town for the weekend so we had full-range of the apartment to ourselves. It was a great weekend; we also got together with some other girlfriends of ours ~ grilling tofu and drinking champagne on rooftop decks overlooking the skyline. It's so great that we're all still close. We've known each other since high school. Like Freshman Year. It's nice to have people from back in the day still around. They've been around through it all. A girlfriend of ours works at Tiffanys so we went that Saturday and tried on ridiculous rings. And by ridiculous, I mean HUGE. And redonkulously expensive. I tried on a $165,000 ring. ZOMG. It really WAS beautiful. Though, I think I'd rather we pay off the house than spend that kind of money on a ring (we don't have that kind of money anyways, haha!).  That said, however, I would absolutely accept and proudly wear a ring of that caliber and size. HA! :) OMG. It was so pretty. And it looked nice on my finger. ;) O also bought all us girls a stacking ring to commemorate the weekend. She had a LOT of credit from a (an old-boyfriend's) gift she had returned. WHAT an awesome friend I have. AWESOME!!! My ring is pretty and had to be ordered so I'll get it the next time I go up there for a visit. Which will be soon. I think the more I see my soulmate, the happier I am. And vice-versa. We are seriously like part of each other. It's amazing to me, our friendship has come so far and been through so much (long story, not for today) and here we are: as strong as ever, finishing thoughts again, can't stand being 300 miles away from each other... in fixing our friendship (and growing the fuck up), I have been able to find so much of myself that I thought I had lost years ago when I became a mom and moved out. O had those pieces the whole time. And you know what's funny? I had her pieces that left with me when I left ~ we were both fools and I'm just so glad we can share our pieces again. I missed her SOFREAKINMUCH and while it doesn't necessarily make me happy to think of her sharing all that pain with me, I'm "glad" (?) that I wasn't the only one who felt so lonely without the other. We are truly soulmates. How cool is that!

I am meeting my birth-dad and his side of my family the weekend of August 19th. 

This is a HUGE DEAL, of course. I'm SO full of all sorts of feelings and emotions. I am super excited and super nervous. I think it's going to go great! I have a feeling that I am very much like this side of my family. Part of the reason I am seeing this psychiatrist now is so she can help me prepare for this. Hubby, God Bless him, just doesn't get it. I don't expect him to, he's not adopted so he'll never really 'get it'. But he tries and is being supportive of this event even though I KNOW I'm being very wishy-washy emotional high-strung about it. I'm all over the chart of emotions these days when it comes to meeting him, understandably. I hope I get the chance to cook with my grandma/aunts, that would just be so cool. I have a full-blood biological brother who lives in the same city as my dad (Tampa/Ocala, FL) (and a full-blood bio sister, but she lives with my mom in Pennsylvania) and I'm hoping he'll come and meet me, too. When I asked my JohnDad (that's what I call him; his name is John but that didn't seem personal enough; I already have a Dad so... JohnDad it is) about it, it didn't really sound to me like my bio-brother was going to come. That's okay. I don't want to push anybody into doing this, you know? It's a big deal. I know that my biological mom doesn't want to meet me. Or at least that's how she felt several years ago... or maybe it's that she wants to but can't because it's too hard. I totally get it. {as much as I can get it.} Part of me feels like she should be the very first person to meet me, considering she's my mom, but I really can't wait forever for her to come around and want to meet me. I wanna meet my grandma before she kicks the bucket ~ sorry to be so insensitive about that thought.

*sigh*. 

Okay. I totally whipped all of this out in the last hour or so while I let the girls play upstairs. They are supposed to be napping but I REALLY wanted to post on my blog so I'm letting them run around like banshees up there. {Disclaimer, they are totally safe in their room.} It's been forever since I posted and I'd probably write more but it's time for "naptime" to be over. I tried a few times before to post this summer but the girls got in the way and I didn't finish my thoughts, things ended up needing to get done, there were poopy diapers, etc. I'm glad I could get this posted today.

Hope everyone is doing well! I hope to catch up on lots of things this weekend. Like some more blogging. And reading about your lives. I have thought of so many of you during my time off and truly hope everything is fabulous in your neck of BlogLand.