NY, cycles, work

We spent a week in New York (well, we didn't actually venture out of Manhattan). There is a lot to see in New York and we certainly didn't see all of it! It was unseasonably warm, so our hats, gloves and scarves stayed in the suitcase. I couldn't get into the spirit of clothes shopping as I'm still not reconciled to my post pregnancy belly flab and didn't know my US size anymore and got pretty demotivated when I realised the larger size I had guessed at and taken into a fitting room along with the next size up to be sure were all still too small....

But we did the classics; among them: Empire State Building, MoMA, the Met, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty, stroll in autumnal Central Park, boat trip around Manhattan Island, quick trip to the Museum of Natural History, my first ever basketball game (NY Knicks vs Cleveland Cavaliers) at Madison Square Garden. We didn't really understand the rules but we more or less followed it. I was going to buy a NY Knicks cap as a souvenir if they won... but they lost, so I didn't :o). Maybe I will post some pictures when I have loaded them off the camera.

We also managed to catch up with my younger cousin who lives in Philadelphia and my brother who was in New Jersey for business one night. DH, who speaks fluent English although it's not his first language, was overly intrigued by the New York way of saying the word "coffee" and kept saying to me, "shall we go and get a caawwfee" despite me telling him that someone would punch him soon unless he stopped doing that. Luckily I was wrong.

New places I have cried in: Little Italy, Starbucks (various), two Japanese restaurants near Times Square, an Indian restaurant in Greenwich Village, on a subway train on the way to JFK, in a midtown hotel room. I believe that the low points were accentuated by PMT - doesn't seem to make me irritable as before Moksha but more depressed now. And indeed CD1 manifested itself at JFK just before boarding our flight home.

So this is the first cycle we will be "allowed" to start TTC again. I have had four cycles since Moksha was born. The first lasted 10 days, the second 16 days, the third 23 days and the last one 29 days. I have been feeling slightly stressed about this "milestone" as there are now new unknowns to face - how long will it take to conceive, will there be a miscarriage, will the baby have a problem that is "incompatible with life", will I go to the doctor one day and find no heartbeat etc. etc. Goddammit these boil down to: 1) will there be another baby and 2) will he/she die before me?

But as I think I have said before, I don't think waiting two more months is going to help me in any of this. Secretly, although I don't like admitting it as I think I'm setting myself up for failure, I want to be pregnant before I'm 34. That's on 3rd January. Have I learned nothing about expectations in life?

I am going back to work on Monday afternoon. Not looking forward to it, but another thing that I just have to get through, another thing about which I have no choice. In the end I used all of the 16 weeks maternity leave I was entitled to which is a lot more than is available in some countries, I know. But until now, if I didn't want to deal with someone I was able to more or less ignore them and hide in my appartment; now I will be exposed to many more insensitive and / or inappropriate remarks. The very thin, new outer shell formed since Moksha died is going to be tested and will have to get a bit thicker.

Oh, and I have been tagged by Artblog, so that will have to be my next post.