Hi. My name is Theresa. I have catastrophe brain. I am a catastrophe-brain-aholic. (I also consume a bit too much sugar, while we are confessing things)

On birthday morning my alarm went off at 7 so I could give myself my injection.Then I loaded up my ipod and took the dogs for a walk while I rocked to some recently downloaded Ace of Base. (On a side note – I had the cassette tape of their first album in 1996 and listened to it SO MUCH that I literally wore the tape out and had to get another one) After a couple trips around the block I dropped them back home and walked some more on my own. The sun was shining and I thought to myself that having to kick my activity down a notch to walking once I start stims might not be so bad. The slower pace allowed me to be more observant. I stopped to give a dog a belly rub. I stood and watched a butterfly land on a flower and just hung out for a minute before flying by me and away.

I was getting dressed thinking about how I might start my birthday blog post about how peaceful I felt when the phone rang.

It was the skydiving company.

As soon as I saw it I knew what was coming.

Canceled due to weather. My huge mess finally scheduled on the last slot ON MY BIRTHDAY skydive wasn’t happening. And not only that, they didn’t have any spots open next weekend. Meaning: no skydive before IVF.

Without thinking much about it, I confessed to the lady that I was scheduled for a procedure in September and couldn’t jump after August. (I felt slightly guilty about this admission later, not knowing what the outcome of this was going to be for sure). She took pity on me and the fact that I was choking back tears and squeezed us in for next weekend.

So I can still do my skydive.

But at the time it didn’t matter – all that inner peace and zen I had an hour ago? Gone. I was annoyed that the plans were ruined and annoyed that I hadn’t thought of a back up plan.

I finally decided to go shopping. Bryan and I keep some separate finances and so his gift to me was spending money – because in all the craziness of infertility among other things, I’ve been a nut about money (ok ok, I’m always a nut about money) recently. Even shopping I couldn’t quite relax. I’d pick up clothes I like and Bryan would encourage me to buy them and I just couldn’t because “this sweater is$40!”. (Though I did manage to chill a bit later and had decided to say screw it -went back for said sweater and didn’t like it once I tried it on later anyway. True to form I found 2 sweaters and a tank top at a different store for the same price as the one I was fretting over…old habits die hard)

Sigh.

We had thrown together some last minute dinner plans and found 8 people willing and able to join us. Unfortunately, the waiter totally sucked, kept forgetting things, and when he brought out birthday ice cream, put it in front of the wrong person. Then, at the hotel, the fireplace didn’t work. (Yes, I know its August. I was cold) And I left my Ipod there. (Its whereabouts are still currently unknown)

Annoyed, I declared once the night was over that this birthday “kinda sucked”.

Going backwards a bit – a blog friend of mine a couple of nights ago had sent me a tweet about a difficult yoga pose that was causing her some frustration. The elusive Crow – a difficult balance pose. I went to yoga once a week in college and that was one of my favorite poses. I can manage to get into it and hold it for a few seconds. I tried it Sunday morning and found that while it took a great deal of concentration, I have some decent muscle  memory.

I fell out of this the second he snapped the picture

I sent this picture and she asked me what muscles I used more…my abs or my arms. I thought about it and realized I wasn’t sure, so I tried it again. I said it was really a mixture of both in combination with the placement of your legs to find the right balance….some pun intended.

Fast forward. This morning I got out of bed for my  run – that I so happened to time perfectly with the sunrise. Stopping to watch the sun rise over the Charleston Battery I found myself not really caring any more about the sucky birthday.

Life, birthdays, yoga, infertility. It’s all about finding a balance. Of muscles, relationships, plans, of the good and the bad.

No, I didn’t get to skydive. Yes, the waiter at dinner sucked and yes the day as a whole didn’t go at all as planned, but it didn’t suck. I still got to spend the day with my husband who so sensitively gave me a perfect birthday present, had a good time hanging out with those who could come to my last minute birthday dinner and make fun of the waiter, and ended up with 60 some odd birthday messages on Facebook. Will this new found insight keep me from having catastrophe brain in the future? Probably not any time soon, but I’m quickly learning that very few things are true coincidences.

This is before I realized my Ipod had gone AWOL

And just because I found this to be absolutely hysterical today:

Everyone have a good day and shit