Gratitude

Okay, everyone's been doing these gratitude/Thanksgiving posts, and I'm late with mine, but really I love to practice gratitude. I've done gratitude journals in the past and I think they really work. Writing down even 3 things I'm grateful for on a bad day puts me in a better place. So here goes. I'm going to try to come up with 10 things I'm grateful for from the past year:

1. Our honeymoon in New Zealand. We went over Christmas last year and it was great. For one thing, it was nice to not feel obliged to spend time with or call family. Since we were out of the country we could just focus on ourselves. We were in a totally new place, and we didn't know anyone, so we really bonded. And New Zealand is a fabulous country to be in. We stayed in one city and just got to know the local area. It was very relaxing. We didn't over-plan, so we were able to just spend time in our room watching TV when we didn't feel like going out.
2. Joining a Moms-to-Be support group before we started TTC. I thought it would be a good way to prepare for pregnancy, but it has turned out to be an invaluable support for surviving pregnancy loss as well. Also, the leader of the group is the sole reason I was able to get a new patient appoitnment with my RE.
3. My volunteer work at a local educational garden. It gets me out of doors on a regular basis, interacting with like-minded people, and working with the earth and growing things. Plus I get to bring home fresh, organic produce.
4. Attending a KidPower workshop for adults. I was emotionally abused by my peers as a child and attending this workshop was very cathartic. It was a step in starting to realize that I have the right to say "no" and protect myself from emotional as well as physical abuse. I am also learning to avoid potentially triggering situations.
5. Spending time with two friends whose children were all "accidents" before the grief and envy from my miscarriages really kicked in. These people have been important to me in the past, but I have had to distance myself from them over the past months. One probably won't notice, we don't see each other more than once or twice a year anyway, but the other may be offended. She's more needy, and I was distancing myself from her anyway, so I'm trying to let her go.
6. My decision to quit a very "public" volunteer position in my church before we started TTC. I had to avoid the church almost entirely in the early months after my miscarriages. Quitting that position also made it possible for me to consider a position as a Sunday School teacher--this gives me a wonderful opportunity to interact with children without feeling any resentment towards their parents.
7. Deciding to volunteer as a Music Docent. I love music, and even though I am still not teaching in the classroom, I really think that it will end up being a positive experience. In fact, I'm optimistic enough that I got some books out of the library so I can be prepared to go in on short notice as soon as the teacher contacts me with some possible times.
8. My cousin who gave me the family history of miscarriage and her emotional support when I called. Her information was very helpful when it came to getting a diagnosis from my RE.
9. Finding a good team of professionals who will support me through all the aspects of preparing to try again--medical, physical, emotional.
10. Finally, last but most important, I am grateful for my dear husband. He is my hero and my greatest support. He has seen me through so many challenges over the past year, and he has stood firm through all of them. I know that I would not be as balanced and happy as I am today without his emotional, and financial, support. He is an amazing man and I am lucky and blessed to be married to him.

Whew. I made it to ten. I'm sure there are more. Other wonderful friends and family and helping professionals. Other enjoyable experiences, like going to the beach and to baseball games. But I'll leave it at that. Those are probably the key things. Well there is one more. I'm grateful for Astin and Ember. Not so much for the miscarriages as for how they touched my lives and what I have learned about myself and the world because of their brief time with me.

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We had a quiet Thanksgiving Day. I took a blog break. We didn't have a Turkey, but I did buy myself some cranberry relish. It was the one thing I thought I'd really miss that I also thought I could justify on a low GI diet. Then we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. I've read all the books, and DH hasn't read any of them. I thought it was okay, for a dramatization, but if you want my opinion, I thing that the first 4 books were the best, and that after that, Ms. Rowling focused too much on plot and forgot about character development. Even though the last 3 books were each quite long, the seemed short because there was no character development to help me get invested in the story. Also, it seemed like there wasn't much new magic introduced after about book 4. (Also, when it comes to books vs. movies, I almost always vote books. I like to use my own imagination, thankyouverymuch!:-) But it was still fun to go to a movie in the theater. It's not something we do very often, maybe 3 or 4 times a year, so when we do go it's a real treat.