Stress Induced Venting

You've been warned, it's right there in the post title.

I'm definitely getting there. Twenty eight days until AF is expected to arrive again (or 29 or 30) and at that point, I'll be back in the game. It's getting awfully big in the window (remember that line from Apollo 13? I love it). If you think about it, after I 'O' in just two weeks (x-ing fingers) I will be back in the game - as long as my betas stay negative. As I approach reentry into the world of two week waits and pee sticks and hoping my betas go UP instead of down, I am starting to get more apprehensive about the time remaining. Now I need to be EXTRA careful about my nutrition, exercise, stress levels, etc. I need to do all that I can do to make sure I keep cycling regularly and to make sure my body is ready to produce healthy eggs and harbor a little life for a while. So in true form I am becoming acutely aware of all the things that can go wrong.

I thought I was doing pretty well, I felt blessed that I had gotten this far, blessed that I have been able to accept one more month of waiting relatively painlessly, blessed that AF keeps on coming almost when she's supposed to, blessed blessed blessed. And then, bam. Obstacle. I got a letter in the mail from the local animal control (have you noticed they have started calling them animal care now? That's nice. I hope the people as nice as their new name) saying that one of our neighbors is complaining about our dog barking. I have a pretty strong feeling they're talking about the newest fur baby and I also have a strong suspicion as to who the complainant is (a very old retired guy who is home all day without much to do). My newest fur baby does bark, when provoked by a person or animal near the yard, during the day. And I can see it getting annoying, but she does NOT bark outside during the night which I personally think is a worse offense than day-barking. Anyway, I am taking the complaint seriously because the thought of losing my dog scares the s-- out of me. I immediately ran out and got one of those citronella bark collars and though it pained me to do it (I cried, fully) I put it on her and started having her get used to it last night. She HATES it. And she has to wear it for a long time every day. So far it seems to have had it's desired effect but it also depresses her. I can only hope she'll get more used to it...although I don't want her getting too used to it to the point where it's no longer effective.

This is one of the last things I need (the others being a rise in HCG or a death in the family). I have been having a really lousy week and things were just starting to look up after AF's arrival when I got the smack down about my poor dog. I am so stressed out about this - I'm kind of shaky and my heart pounds and I didn't sleep well last night. This is the kind of problem that doesn't just go away - it's trial and error and hoping and praying potentially forever. It's not like there is a prescribed course of action and once I take it, the problem will be solved. And it's not something that happened and is now over with. It's ongoing and emotional. Sometimes to abate my anxiety i think of the worst case scenario and try to get comfortable with it. That doesn't work here because the worst case scenario is that animal "care" takes my baby away. Not acceptable.



There are a few things I can do if the collar doesn't work. Like keep her in the garage - but that would be kind of cruel and she'd probably still bark. The only other options seem to be to throw money at it with doggy day care or a dog sitter and with my DH lecturing me on finances lately and with us wanting to plan for a baby, I don't want to push those options. The first thing DH said was "maybe we should give her to your parents." As if my parents just sit around waiting for someone to bestow a hyperactive young upstart upon their peaceful lives. I don't think they'd go for that idea and I was miffed that that was the first place DH's mind went.

I think the biggest pain about all of this is the stress it's causing. Because these days I think of stress in terms of what it does to my fertility. When I have days like this, I wonder if they will throw off my cycles and that makes me more stressed out. I technically have 1.5 months until when I think I will really be actively 'trying' again so there is time for this all to blow over. But if anything is off in the meantime, I'll probably just continuously freak out between now and then and it's not good for my health or my relationship - which means it's not good for babymaking.

Anyway, adding to the mayhem, I've noticed that I haven't gotten a new driver license since I went to the DMV to renew it a month ago. So I called the DMV and they told me they were waiting on a vision test. They told me to go in and get the vision test and then they could issue the license. W.T.F??? I was ranting on this very blog about a month ago about how I almost missed a letter on the vision test and subsequently went to my optometrist and got glasses. I very specifically recall taking the vision test - and passing. So the bitch on the phone told me there was nothing I could do but go back to the DMV. Hell No. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with her, here's an excerpt:

Me: "Ok well I'll call the field office then and get them to input the information, [namely that I passed my vision test] so you can close your file and issue the license."

Bitch on the Phone (BOTP): "You can't. There's no number you can call. You have to go in."

Me: "I already went in. Can you contact them and get the information you need to close the file?"

BOTP: "No, we don't do that."

Me: "Why not?

BOTP: "We just don't do it."

Me: "Do you ever need information from the field offices?"

BOTP: "What kind of information?"

Me: "ANY information?"

BOTP: "yes, sure."

Me: "How do you get it?"

BOTP: "We call them."

Me: "So you can contact them - can you let them know you have an open file?"

BOTP: "No, we don't do that. And I don't have the access numbers, someone else has the phone numbers."

She went on being supremely unhelpful until I hung up. And then I called back (being mildly OCD) and got someone more helpful. This doesn't usually work for me, the calling back thing. But this time it did. The new person gave me a phone number for 'issuance' and when I called that number they said "Just send us you interim license and a receipt and we'll issue it." Thank you god.

I had to go home to get that paperwork and on the way into the house I rang the doorbell to see what the dogs would do. Normally this would send them into quite the loud fuss but I didn't hear a peep out of the offending furbaby and the other one only barked a couple times. Progress I think.

So for now my projects are: breathe, think more positively. Do what you can do and stop worrying so much about what you can't control. Why is that so hard to do?