Double Three's

This past Saturday, I celebrated my thirty-third birthday. It came with great joy and a little bit of sadness. The great joy is that my parents came and stayed with us for 4 days and it was sooo good to see them. I took a long weekend off from work so we spent a lot of time together. Granted, one full day was shopping (and I found a great new watch!) but we did take a nice walk around the zoo, took in the Home Improvement show, went to Red Lobster for my annual birthday dinner, and just relaxed in each other's company. Saturday, we had some friends and family over for a BBQ. I'm used to nice weather on my birthday but it decided to rain this year, so everyone was huddled tightly together in my cozy little home. It's always nice to be surrounded by people who care for you. I felt pretty darn special.

My cool gift collection included a camera bag, new lens, and other accessories for the camera Gil gave me for our anniversary last month. Gil and my folks pitched in together on those, scheming behind my back for the past few weeks. I also received some money, a coffee gift card and some chocolate (double delight!), note cards, pens and other stationary products from friends who know of and support my pen-and-paper addiction, and some Mary Kay products and perfume from another friend who knows that side of me well! All in all, I received all gifts that I absolutely love, the greatest of which - aww! - is just having all these people in my life.

A little bit of sadness crept in when I realized that another year of "fertility" was behind me. Since being diagnosed with PCOS at age 26, I have stopped counting my age as years lived but rather count it as years of fertility left. Since my mom started menopause before 40, I most likely will as well. That means I only have about 5-7 more years. I can't really call them fertile years because, well, I'm not fertile. But I will most definitely NOT be fertile once menopause comes. There's a marked and definite finality in that and it hurts to close in on it even more. It also didn't help when I found out that another cousin of mine is expecting her second child (I currently have a couple of pregnant cousins). She's not married, not working, her children will have different daddies... here I am doing it "right" and she's the one getting the babies. I know we can't compare life stories and everything happens for a reason, but it still hurts. I don't know how NOT to let it hurt. If you have any ideas on how to help with that, please let me know.

All-in-all, I had a fabulous weekend and I'm sorry to see it over. I loved having the 'rents here and I was sad as ever to have to say goodbye yet again. It hurts being so far away from them. But we're going to try and make it home for a football game sometime this fall, they'll be back for Thanksgiving, and we'll go home for Christmas! So with a little over three months left in the year, we'll get to see them three more times! Once a month is pretty darn good!