I AM - BECAUSE YOU ARE

Whoa, freaky moment! First off, if you read the title of this post and had no idea what it was referring to, shame on you! The only reason I can spell "chrysanthemum" is because of Anne Shirley, Anne with an "e". I grew up watching Anne of Green Gables over and over again, memorizing every single word. I have traveled to PEI specifically to indulge in anything and everything related to the series. I have seen various plays, read the books, watched the movies, watched the spinoffs and even tried to watch the remake (I couldn't do it, although I have promised myself I would try again). I have even been to the Stratford Festival just to see Megan Follows, aka Anne, act in Amadeus. Maybe I should add, I AM CANADIAN! Anyhow, back to the freaky moment. I currently working to partially remove a tattoo on my back in order to cover it up with something that is more me. I am also working on a tattoo in honor of my daughter. So, while she is named after a flower I w

If you saw me right now, and over the past few weeks, you could clearly see that something about me was "damaged". Even if you didn't know exactly what had happened, you could clearly see that my right wrist and hand wore a brace, gauze wrap, ace bandage, industrial strength band-aid or some combination of those things at any time. And, it would be safe to assume that I was probably feeling some level of pain, discomfort and/or frustration at any given time, in addition to worrying about how to manage with an almost 2yr old depending on me. I wouldn't have had to tell you any of this, you could infer simply by looking at my hand. But what about when you don't have a visible injury? What if you are hurting on the inside? I bring this up because in the last couple of days I have realized that being off work for this 4 week period has been more therapeutic to me internally than I feel it is necessary externally. Yes, in part this is because I like to test and pus

A few friends have wondered how I was posting when I did as they were well aware what was going on in real life at those times. So, I thought I would share my answer here instead of in an email since I was probably going to get to it eventually anyway. Back before I was pregnant I had the beginnings of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, coming from far too many years typing away at a keyboard and probably too many hours playing video games too. While pregnant, the symptoms worsened but I was hopeful that they would subside again afterwards. Unfortunately, a whole year later they had not. My family doctor finally agreed to send me for testing and the EMG came back clearly showing that I was severely affected on my right arm and mildly on my left (so mild I wasn't even aware). I met with a surgeon back earlier this year and he explained the operation to me. They were ready to proceed immediately, but I delayed due to some projects at work I wanted to be present for. Stupid me, I made myself w

I suppose the majority of my CMM readers have always been those close to my journey TTC, personally or following a similar path, but my goal with IABYA is to be a bit more broad in scope and reach a larger audience. I am not looking to take over the world wide web and become an empire, just a little slice! I will continue to keep this as a personal journal of sorts, but I also hope to share guest posts and curated content as well ( in other words - if you have something to say... please message me, I want to hear from you ). There is so much information out there regarding our health, parenting, relationships and anything else you can think of, but sometimes a story jumps out at me and I just feel like it is something I need to share! So, I will try and post a list of interesting reads from time to time alongside my own story. Some may be correlated or intertwined, others may just be an interesting read. I may even dig something up from my old blog! Being a new mom as well as a

Welcome to the new blog! Did you miss me? Did you have a good summer? Did you travel? Staycation? If we haven't talked, I want to hear from you! So just to recap, for those of you who have followed me along the way (and newcomers who have no idea where they've landed), back in June I decided to shut down Creating My Monster (CMM) after 7 years keeping it going. I think I had subconsciously decided to do this long before, as you can see from my lack of posting towards the end, but one day I finally decided that it was time once and for all and I pulled the plug.  CMM was created out of a need for self expression in a very grey and lonely period of my life; a place I could creatively pour my troubles into, keep a diary of sorts about my medical journey TTC, and later my pregnancy. But, also, there was a possibly to help others through their own personal journey's too. It was a time of struggle, self discovery, failure, determination and, ultimately, triumph. If