Big, fat update post

It's been a whole month since I last updated and things have progressed.  A lot. Rather than turn this into a monster post, I'll break down what's been happening in manageable bites:

Reunion

This was before the beard came off.  I loved that beard..

On April 5th, Dave touched down at Pearson and we were finally reunited after 83 days of living apart.  He breezed through immigration and into my arms and he hasn't left them since.  I can't really describe how it felt to see his beardy face after nearly 3 months of infuriatingly haphazard Skype chats and broken up long distance conversations.  I can't get enough of his kisses, his voice and his smell.  This is the closest to feeling whole in about a year.  He has been working hard at settling in, putting together furniture for me and applying for jobs.  I'm so happy he's here and we can truly start over again.


Home

Our apartment is coming along now.  We have hung up items on the walls, personalized furuniture and purchased a new home entertainment unit.  There are items missing like a rug, a coffee table, a sitting chair and odds and ends, but we're here for the long haul.  All that stuff can wait until we found the perfect accompaniement rather than running out to buy something just because I want the finished look.  I plan on posting a few before and afters because I'm really "in like" with our home and happy with where we live.

Health

These ads are ridiculous. Love the grafitti.

Due to the graciousness of a great friend, I met up with a holistic therapist who came over to my house about a month ago to talk about our loss and healing.  I never got the chance to talk to a therapist after losing Isla, and after all the months that have passed, I feel like talking it out is the best thing for me.  Rebecca communicated with me from the point of view of a naturopath and spiritual healer and I did feel lighter and more hopeful after we talked, and luckily, I have been riding that wave ever since.  She also diagnosed with me with having too much acid in my body which has led to some unpleasant side effects ever since after I gave birth.  Based on her suggestions, I've undertaken a fairly strict diet where I have cut out dairy, sweets (including most fruits), wheat and everything delicious and fattening in an effort to balance my body out.  While I was focusing on ridding myself of my oh-so-annoying affliction, I lost weight without even trying.  I have gone down two belt sizes and my clothes are all looser.  I have a more athletic build right now with abs and smaller hips, which is a bit weird.  Dave thinks my body is rocking and I'm pleased, but I want to be better on the inside as well.  This is month 2 so we'll see if I'm "cured".

Job

Since arriving in January, I have had two jobs and have been interviewed 5 times.  I can finally say that I will be starting a third job next month, which, happily is permanent.  That means I'll have benefits, vacation, security, and one less thing to worry about when planning about the future.  It has been a struggle to get to this place.  This is a topic I'll probably revisit in the future.

Extracurricular Activities

As I mentioned a couple of months back, I got elected to the executive of the JET alumni organization here so I have been out to meeting and activities, which have been a really great way to meet new people and get out in the city.  I also got the opportunity to write a restaurant review, participate in a fundraiser for the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami and try my hand at rock climbing.  It has been taking more of my time than I anticipated, but that has been good.  I've realized though that my focus right now is on pregnancy losses (duh) and connecting with other women who have suffered.  I think that's probably something I'll get more involved in as time goes by.  In the meantime, I organized and participated in a meet up for other baby loss mommas in the GTA and our first meeting was great (well, as great as can be when you're talking about the babies that you lost).  It helps me have an outlet for the pain I still and will always have.  We're meeting again in a few days and I can't wait.

Social Life

To put it briefly, my social life has been rocking.  I have such great friends here and I feel like a fun outing is just a text away. I have peeps here from university and an old job, as well as my old friends, the Pinay crew.  I cannot say how much I laugh when I'm with my friends.  When we get together, we are 18 years old again, and I savour those moments.  On the flip side, they have also cried with me when I've had my down days.  I love them so much.  Toronto would not be the same without them.

Isla

Thoughts of my daughter are, of course, are on my mind every day, just not all day any more.  I think of her frequently and it always reaches fever pitch around the middle of the month.  My brain subconsciously marks the time of the month when we lost her last May.  She was born on the 17th and without fail and usually without me realizing it, I go down that deep pit of despair for a while.  I remember things vividly and I cry and feel lost and empty.  I am coping with these dark times better and better though.  Her birthday is coming up and I have been racking my brain thinking of coming up with a good way to...pay homage to her life?  No, that's not it.  Acknowledge her presence here on earth?  Hmmm....getting closer.  It's just hard.  One of my BFFs gave me a cracking idea - pay it forward.  She told me about a friend of a friend who lost a baby and who honours her baby's life by buying various baby items and donating it to the maternity ward of a hospital.  That's nice but I think I rather donate to other mothers who are going through the same thing I went through last year.  One thing that struck me when they brought Isla to me was that she was dressed in a very lovely outfit.  Someone, most likely a woman who had to say goodbye to her baby too soon, took the time to sit down and make clothes for really small babies.  Isla weighed 1lb 1oz when she was born.  And she was decked out in a lovely pink knitted dress and a pink and white knitted toque.  And she looked lovely.  Someone gave her clothes when nothing you could have bought in a store would have fit her and I'm grateful my baby had something made just for her.  So it seems right to do that for someone else.  With just a few weeks to go before her birthday, I won't have enough time to knit something that is of good quality, but in the months to come, I swear I'll do this and send it to the hospital in Isla's name.

And that's where we are.  I plan on having a lot of fun this summer and being really, really busy having a life.  Toronto is truly a great city and I'm sorry I never gave it a good chance till now.  Here are a few scenes from our walk this past weekend:

Underwear found in Kensington Market.

Dave is apparently quite a well known artist in Canada.  Google it.

Ramen mascot on Spadina Ave.

I think they suit him.

Progress

Hi y'all.  I feel like I haven't had a chance to blog in a while and I really want to, but alas, I'm without internet right now and blogging at work is kinda tacky, huh (sheepish grin)?  Things have been moving forward and I have been feeling better than I have in a long while.  Things are in a little bit of a transition right now - emotionally, physically and spiritually, but I feel (dare I say?) happy.  I have been learning a few things and I have so much support, so I'm going to try to make this last.

Until I can write a proper blog post, here are a couple of lovely things I found:

This makes me thing about Dave and I, but then again, everything does!  I can't wait for him to get here.  TWO MORE WEEKS!

This article also made me smile.  It's all about finding love abroad, which as you know, is truly close to my heart.  Thanks to Loverly for having such a sweet story (and blog)!

Lemonade

I realize the last post was pretty heavy.  I got some concerned phone calls and emails, and I'm so grateful for all the love I have in my life.  I've written a post that is honest and hardcore, but I'm not ready to share that, but I promise I will one day.  I guess I just want to be even more honest about what I've been feeling regarding being a baby loss mama.  One day.

Lately, I've been on an upswing.  I went to a local support group for grieving parents and that helped immensely.  While I have friends who I can share so much with and who cry and grieve with me, there is something calming about being in a room full of people who have also lost a baby or babies.  It just feels like I'm less of a freak and that my tears/rage/sadness is NORMAL.  So yeah.  That was very intense, but cathartic as well.  I've also made contact with another group that will be closer to our new apartment and should start in the summer.  Hopefully, that will be successful too.

I'm also very happy that the countdown to Dave's arrival is now on! 4 MORE WEEKS!  I can't wait to kiss his beardy face again.  In the meantime, I have been driving around this sprawling megapolis securing furniture, furnshings and supplies for our new apartment, which I will be moving into on Saturday.  I have been finding inspiration everywhere and I can't wait to make it our own.  Our stuff that was shipped from Scotland should be arriving in a few weeks and it'll be great to have all our stuff we've collected from Japan and Scotland here, under one roof.  I plan on blogging about making our apartment a home, so that will be different, and hopefully good.

I've also taken a risk in terms of my job/career and I'm hoping it will pay off.  I don't want to say much more right now, but it was very uncharacteristic of me to say no even though I would have jumped up and down saying "YES" 8 years ago.  Well, we all know that that girl is dead and gone. I guess the biggest thing I've learned through all this stuff is that life is risky, life isn't guaranteed and take advantage of every good thing when you have it.  I'm trying.  Holy crap, I'm trying.

Honesty

I have to be honest:  I'm a liar.  A lie nearly every day.  I lie through my teeth when people ask me things and I lie by withholding my true feelings.  I'm a dirty, filthy liar.  And I can't stop.

I wish I had the power and the guts to say "No, I'm not okay" when someone asks me how I am.  I wish I can answer truthfully and tell them I cried my eyes out for hours when they ask me what I did last night.  I wish I could wipe that stupid, pasted on smile off my face when all I want to do is grimace and moan.  I'm so scared that I'll alienate everyone in my life by telling a simple truth: that I'm grieving, I'm depressed and I sometimes have "bad thoughts".

I know I'm getting better but in some ways, I feel like this grief will never go away.  I so wish this wasn't my life.
I just don't know what to do.

This woman is honest in a way I wish I could be now.

Toronto thus far

I've been in Toronto for a month now, and so far, I've been digging it.  Yeah, I go through this every time I initially settle some where (well, except Scotland truthfully), but since this is now my home FOREVER, I feel like I'm digging in more.  I mean, I have to like it and thankfully, right now, it's coming pretty easily.

Toronto is a sprawling metropolis and is a bit intimidating.  It's really disconcerting being away from your native country for so long and then returning to find that everything is more expensive than you remember and things are just so different.  Thankfully, even though Dave is across the ocean, I'm not alone.  I have been living with my sister who has been helping me navigate this new landscape, and my friends have been helping me settle in to a social life.  I've been getting to know some new areas and I've been trying out new restaurants.  I am also trying to get more involved. By all accounts, things are going well.

My gorgeous pal, C.

Pretty horticultural society building.

I've been literally walking all around the city when I'm out to a) save cash and b) see more of the area.  Even though it has been brick freezing (-28 one day!), I loved looking at buildings, taking note of cool looking restaurants and stores, and just feeling my way around.  In between the hours and hours exploring, I have also been looking for an apartment, which I'm happy to report, I've found.  It's in the hip Yonge and Eglinton area (nicknamed  Young and Eligible) and the apartment is right in the middle of the well-to-do neighbourhood, Forest Hill.  I've been back about 5 times and I'm still in love with the place.  I've managed to pick out a kick ass couch and bought a very comfortable mattress set, and I'm so excited to turn a nice apartment into a really sweet home.

The living room.  This house has some good bones and I love this space.

I mentioned that I've been getting involved and I've been doing that by becoming more active on the JET alumni association scene.  I'm really happy to say that I got elected to the executive and starting in April, I will be the conference organizer!  It's pretty exciting since I'm such a big planner and have big love for my time in Japan.  Plus the members seem pretty awesome so I'm looking forward to hanging with them doing some cool things.

I also decided to throw my hat into the ring and volunteer myself as a group leader for Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope.  It's a really amazing place online where women who have lost babies at all stages of pregnancy can go on and tell their stories (and read others) to gain a sense of community and support.  I've said so many times that losing a baby and grieving is such an isolating process, so it's nice to find that you're not alone (as heartbreaking as that is).  Anyway, the founders of the site recently had a lightbulb moment - they invited members of the community to set up face to face groups where people can get together with others who share a similar fate and I thought it was such a great idea.  I've mentioned that the SANDS support meetings probably helped to save my life and I was desperately looking for similar in the Toronto area.  I haven't found anything yet so I thought this would be a great thing.  Now, I'm not the most seasoned of baby loss mamas but I feel if I can help support someone who is grieving, like I was supported by SANDS in the early days, then that would be a very great thing.  Plus, I'm, hoping that I can get support as well.  All in all, a pretty good thing.  I've thought that since losing Isla, I'm trying to be the kind of women that would have been an amazing mother to my daughter.  I'm really trying to live my best life and she is my motivation.

And with all that stuff going on, I landed a temporary job at the number 1 place I wanted to work in.  I'm hoping one good thing can leader to even greater things so here's hoping.  I start next week!  So Toronto, cheers!

Epic Success!

I meant to post this a little while ago, but we were in the midst of going through it.  So now that Dave has booked his plane ticket (April 5th!), it seems like the right time.

Under normal circumstances, I hate filling out application forms.  They can be so tedious and boring: getting the dates right, looking up addresses and contacts, dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts.  Funnily enough though, I was downright excited when Dave and I started his application for Canadian permenant residency. 

Make no mistake.  It's a freaking monster of packet.  I'm sorry, but reams and reams of paper were printed in order to get my husband from here to there.  A moment of silence please.

Where was I?  Oh yes, it's a freaking monster.  So in order not to bore the lot of you, I'll break these down in manageable steps.

The first thing I did was read the Citizenship and Immigration Canada site thoroughly.  I mean, we became BFF.  It's a lot of information, some of it confusing and sometimes a bit vague, but overall, it's easily understandable.  I did, however, use my other BFF (Google) to read about other people's experiences and what I should do to avoid common pitfalls.  The site I found the most useful was http://www.britishexpats.com/ particularly the discussion forum.  I would urge, no push, anyone going through this to go on a forum and read what others have done in order to save yourself headaches and anxiety in the long run.

After reading the site, I printed out the application guides as well as the application itself and Dave and I sat down together to see what we needed to do. As it turned out, it was quite a lot. The application is in two parts: the first part is for the sponsor and the second part is for the applicant. As I'm the Canadian citizen, I would sponsor Dave, thus being financially responsible for him for the next three years. In order to get approved at a sponsor, I had to show that I wasn't a drain on the State and that I had ties to Canada since I have been living abroad for the past few years. I had to complete a 5 page application form and provide information about myself and my sponsored person and basically promise to look after him while we live in Canada. I also had to sign a sponsorship agreement and a sponsorship evaluation to ascertain if I was rich enough (i.e. not on benefits) to take care of my man, as well as a sponsor questionnaire that entailed me answering questions about my past jobs and addresses as well as my master plan when I arrive in Canada. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. In total, this part of the application was about 11 pages, plus my birth and marriage certificates, and tax and financial documents.


The second part was a little more...involved. Dave and I worked on this for about a week. This part of the application focused on him and his history. He had to answer the usual questions: address, height, weight, if he has ever been involved in an act of genocide...what??? Yes, there were several questions about any criminal activities he may have taken part in.  He also had to provide details on what he has been doing and where he has living since he was 18.  It took a little while to remember all the details but we got there.

Last but not least, we had to go through the whole history of our relationship including dating, proposal, wedding and honeymoon, and provide pictures of us over the last five years.  We had to provide details of when and where we met, if our close friends and families knew of our relationship and if and when I met any of them, who proposed to whom and where and when, describe our wedding and honeymoon, and how we communicate when we're not together among other questions that are just too numerous to list here.

We gave ourselves a deadline date to finish the application, made copies of important documents, printed out photos and checked each part at least 3 times.  I forgot to mention that while we were sorting this out, we were simultaneously ticking off other boxes, namely obtaining a medical certificate and criminal checks for each country Dave has lived in for over 6 months.  So in addition to the $1040, we paid £190 for the medical check and around £30 for the police checks.  We kissed it goodbye in mid August and it reached the Mississauga offices on the last day of August.

And then we began the waiting game.

On around the 30th of September we received notification that I had been accepted as his sponsor.  Yay!  That didn't take too long, as the members of britishexpats.com indicated.  At this point, we were dead set on moving and I booked my ticket to leave Scotland.  We fully expected this process to take around 6 months, which seems to be average.  I hoped to hear back earlier but I wasn't about to hold my breath.

Maybe I should have.  Because at the the beginning of November, we got a request asking for Dave's passport!  We dropped off his passport in London when we visited at the beginning of December, and a week later, we received his passport with his brand new permanent resident visa.  Soooo, my husband has been accepted as a future immigrant to Canada.  Yay for speedy bureaucracy!

So, I held a baby

Yeah.  Last weekend, I went to my friend J-La's place for a late Ukranian Christmas and I decided to come earlier to catch up with my pal.  My sister dropped me off and came inside to say hi and we heard the unmistakable screech of a baby.  I was stunned.  J-La didn't realize but my sister immediately knew that maybe this was not a good thing.  She left and I went to the kitchen to meet my friend's friends.  And there he was, Z.  A very cute and very vibrant baby.  There were introductions and some chit chat and I heard my phone ringing so I went in the next room to answer it and it was my sister asking me if I was alright.  At that moment I knew that I wasn't and I just burst into tears.  I started crying because 1) someone cared about my feelings and 2) there was a baby I wasn't prepared for and I was pretending I was ok.

My sister offered to come back and pick me up but I decided to stay.  I figured I was going to be meeting babies of friends soon, so I guessed NOW was as good as time as any to break myself in.  I called J-La to the room and told her I was freaking out.  I couldn't stop crying but I managed to tell her babies still really, really freak me out and I was having a hard time.  She rubbed my leg and tried to comfort me.  I asked her to tell her friends about what happened because I couldn't pretend any longer.  I cried for a while longer, pulled myself together and went back into the room where the baby was.

After some talking I asked to hold the baby. Yes, I asked to hold this baby.  And I did.  It wasn't so bad.  He was an easy baby to handle and big too.  I think he was 7 months old.  I tried not to think of what Isla would have been like if she made it to that age.

I don't know.  I think it was a wall I had to climb over.  But it was hard.  Happily, after they left, I had some amazingly strong and delicious gin and tonics and laughed the night away.  I'm feeling my way through this.  I'm trying my best.