Surfing the Future

It's getting real.

Talk of my future with sh/cm that is.

My dreams last night had huge waves and people trying to surf them.  I was watching from a ledge a bit off the beach and scanning for those that managed to "catch the wave."  Then, it gets fuzzy: there was some kind of danger and a guy carried me up to another place on the ledge (higher level) where it was safer.

Psychologically, as many of you may know, water often represents our emotions and/or sub-conscious, so, yeah, I think I was a little stirred up last night.

The day had started with a great morning together, waking up at my place and then heading over to his neighborhood Farmer's Market and one of the most delicious cups of coffee I've ever had.  Then off to my dance/his workout, followed by walking up to bookstores - and a sidewalk sale - in his neighborhood to pick up a relationship journal (yes we are so geeky as to be starting a relationship journal), and a few used books and CDs.

Back at his house, I guess I was the culprit who took the first dive into the deep end of the pool by asking if he thought we would actually, somehow/some way, end up with a baby.  And we were off!

He said yes, he had, and we went back and forth exploring much more detail than we ever had before about next steps and creating a foundation either for the biological child we create or one that we might adopt through the foster care system.  We had never really talked about adoption before, but he must have been thinking about it on his own because he had lots of concrete ideas!

Details discussed included:

• The idea of us moving in together in a few months; choosing a place that would be good for a child and consider the school system, etc.
• What age child we would be open to in the adoption process and whether it would benefit us to be married or not (I said I wasn't sure since the Bay Area is progressive and less discriminating than some places, but maybe because it is one factor out of many that might indicate to an agency that we are "stable").  Yeah, the "M" word was thrown out there.  It has been touched on before but not this directly.
• The idea of a child who may have some adjustment issues needing lots of love and his feeling that he could fill that role well.

Later, we continued the foray into deep waters by talking further about his new health insurance potentially covering me as his "partner," different health plans offered, and some specifics around IVF procedures and costs (I would appreciate prayers or positive thoughts that I get coverage because this might allow me to go forward with IVF in the next couple months).

Much of the day was fun and relaxing, including a yummy steak and potato barbeque (a side salad and coffee frozen yogurt for desert too!), but it sure does seem we jumped into some big topics!

When I think about moving forward with him in these ways, I feel excited and hopeful, as well as a little anxiety.  The anxiety is connected to the marriage part, I think, because I can't say things are perfect.  I know I love him a lot and feel closer to him than anyone I've ever been with.  But part of me believes it should be perfect, or close to it anyway.

We have worked through a lot of challenging issues that have proven to be game stoppers for me in the past.  I do see that we are growing and developing what I would consider "true" intimacy.

Yikes!

Between Exes

Today, sh/cm and I were stuck between exes.

We started the day with a long conversation about his ex-wife, who is coming for two weeks in January for work.  Before we were together, he promised to help her with an audio aspect of her accent book, creating a recording of an American accent.  I guess.

Then we spent the afternoon at his ex-girlfriend's birthday party - the relationship he had prior to me.  We emerged from both these experiences in a remarkably positive place, though this morning's conversation was especially difficult.

I agreed to "let" him work with her, with the agreement that he will tell her this will be his final project assisting her.  Apparently, helping her in this way was a big part of their relationship, and he wanted to honor this final commitment (in part, out of guilt for abruptly closing the door on romantic possibilities with her in order to commit to me, which I talked about in a post back in June).

For a while in our process around this, I felt like he was choosing his friendship/loyalty to her over his relationship with me.  I wanted him to let go of his attachment to doing it so that we could openly discuss our feelings and needs before making a decision.  In the end, it does seem like this train has travelled too far down the track, and I agreed to go along with it.  But only after he had shared in a vulnerable way how he had developed this pattern of making solo decisions and talked about how he knew he needed and wanted to change this pattern for the benefit of our relationship going forward.

Anyway, after we worked our way through that maze, we went to Farmer's Market then jaunted off to his other ex's house for a lovely party.  It was surprisingly meaningful and enjoyable.  A lot of the folks there were from the local Non-Violent Communication community, and I knew a few of them and liked all the rest.

We participated in a "Giving Circle," in which each of us shared needs with the group, as well as things we wanted to offer to others.  I came away with a Life/Career Coaching Session, massage, and a Sand Tray Therapy Session.  Cool, no?  In return, I'm giving a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, an empathy session, and help with organizing a studio apartment.

After the party, we raced over to the Art in Nature festival, which was potentially awesome but in the throes of wrapping up.  There, we ran into the guy who caused strife between sh/cm and I a while back when he got the hots for me at my friend K's party and proceeded to talk about these feelings in his men's group, of which sh/cm was a member.  Random.

An overall kickin' day considering we spent much of it bouncing between exes and ghosts from the past.  For dinner, I made delicious Eggplant Almond Enchiladas from the Moosewood Cookbook using tomatoes and eggplants from our garden.  Yummy.

For those of you on the ttc track, I still haven't gotten a positive on the OPK, here now on Cycle Day 12.  

And I wanted to ask:  have any of you taken Femara?  If so, did it raise your basal body temperature, if you temp?  My temperature today was 97.7 and yesterday 97.9, several tenths above what it normally is at this time.  I'm thinking it has to be the Femara. . .