Retail therapy is my new thing.

Apparently the timing isn't right for pregnancy to be my thing.
I refuse to let miscarriage be my thing.
But I can still shop.  And suddenly, I don't need to start stocking up on diapers to get used to accounting for the expense in my budget.  All that extra money!!!

So I've gone shopping.  Yesterday, I bought new lotions and a lemon-scented body wash.  I replaced our immersion blender - guess who's having smoothies for breakfast again?  That's right -this girl!  I stocked up on colorful plastic tumblers, because I prefer to drink out of a plastic cup and it seems like the few we have are always dirty.  So I bought 16 of them.  That should last a while.  :)  I bought Jimi a "ham knife" - an 8" slicing knife.  I figured I could find a decent one for twenty or thirty bucks, but the nice ones were more like seventy or eighty (and up), and the only other one I found was the one that came in a set of four blades for $15.  Whatever.  It's a ham knife.  It'll do until I'm willing to spend almost a hundred bucks on a single knife.  We ain't that kind of high falutin' just yet.  I wanted to buy all kinds of chocolate, but I kept reminding myself that we've got four dozen cookies in the house and two half-gallons of ice cream and that I really don't need to add chocolate to the arsenal, especially not when we're all "Okay, we're going to get healthy and get ready and we're gonna do this thing."  I bought 2 lamps, because they were on sale for $7 each and they're super cute and I was just complaining the other day about how the only lights in our bedrooms are the overhead lights and that light is so harsh, you know?

I want to buy jewelry.  I want to buy Jimi a watch or a ring, and I want pearls.  Diapers don't cost that much, though, so I don't have that sort of money to blow.

Today, I went in for the follow-up blood work.  They're comparing my hcg levels of today with those from Monday to confirm what we already know so I can get on with my life. The intake nurse who took my blood pressure and weight and confirmed what was in the computer, she kept saying "oh, honey, you'd be surprised at how many women bleed and are still pregnant."  "This isn't that sort of bleeding.  I'm not holding out any hope," was my reply, which I thought was more polite than pulling her hair and screaming "DON'T GIVE ME FALSE HOPE, BITCH!  I CAN'T TAKE IT!", because that's what I wanted to do after she said "Oh, then you'll just be that much happier when you find out everything's okay."  Later, when they did the physical exam, and she was in the room, and the doctor was all "Yes, I think with what I'm seeing down here, I think your assumption was correct, I do believe you have miscarried" I wanted to be real nasty and say to that nurse, "See?  THIS is why I didn't need your false hope, you cruel evil person."  But that was Monday.  Today, I just had to go in, sign in, get stuck twice (only good ones can find the veins on the first try.  Most aren't good ones.), wait for 10 minutes so they could get a copy of the card saying I'd had the Rhogam shot, and then I was free to go about my business.  There were pregnant women everywhere.  The sign on the parking garage, a cut-out of a pregnant woman, made me cry.  The woman wobbling toward the building entrance with her husband at her side carrying her overnight bag - she made me cry.

I was in great shape when I got to work.  I started crying almost immediately.  I wanted to be almost anywhere else - except maybe for the doctor's office or parking garage.  Rick gathered up my paperwork, handed me his laptop, and sent me home.  I'm working from home today.  Thank goodness.  I wasn't ready to be there.  To be around everyone being sad for me.  Christi brought me a rose.  It smells really nice.  It makes me smile.

I've sorted my paperwork, I've done my billing, and now I've got orders to enter and a lot of data entry.  But I took a break, because on my way back to work this morning, I stopped at Walgreens and bought some pads.  The pads I bought?  Look like they were made for dolls.  They're tiny and not at all what I needed.  I fail at buying pads.  I'm a 30 year old woman, and I'm incapable of purchasing the correct menstrual product I need to get me through a single monthly cycle.  Thank goodness my boyfriend knows what he's doing.  So I had to go to the CVS this afternoon to purchase the correct pads - the ones like the package Jimi bought.  While I was there, I decided I needed to get some hair dye, too.  In that dark red color Jimi's been saying he'd like to see on me.  And a new lipstick, because maybe it'll make me feel better if I feel prettier.  And some peanut butter M&M's.  Because i couldn't resist the call of the chocolate any longer.

I swear retail therapy is my new thing.  Miscarriage is NOT my thing.  I just need to talk about it a little bit, I guess.  I'm sorry.  I'll try to be happier again soon.  I promise.