confession

Taking Care Of Business

Posted on August 10, 2016 Written by Tonya

It’s a leap of fate starting a business, there is also a very, very steep learning curve and things pop up almost daily that you never thought would. Decisions to be made, records to keep, documents to create, meetings, brainstorming sessions, strategy, and expenses. So. many. expenses. But here we are, Take Flight Social Media Consulting is almost 6 months old!!

We had a business plan by mid-February, took on our first client March 1, filed for an LLC March 22, launched our website April 5 and became “Facebook official” April 7.

We have worked with 11 clients to date and currently have eight on our roster.

I learn something new almost every day and thrive from trying to balance all my different roles. It’s definitely a juggling act. I misstep on occasion, but today, all the balls are in the air.

Things I didn’t know I’d love about having my own business. Also known as, things I’ll never take for granted:

Choosing an awesome business partner, who shares your vision, work ethic and is always a friend first. I’m so glad we are in this together, Nichole!
Reliable Wi-Fi. Duh.
Excepting help when offered and knowing when to ask for it.
Supportive husbands and families.
All. the. caffeine.
Dry shampoo.
Voxer.
Amazing friends who send business our way and cheer us on because they genuinely want us to be successful.
Clients that let us do you what we’ve promised.
Asking for what we’re worth!!
Taking on the risk and reaping the rewards.
~~Slowly~~ paying off our investor.
Karma.
Sundays. Sundays are sacred. Sundays are for family.

Things I’ve done while owning my own business that I’m not so proud of:

Held conference calls in the car, bathroom (with the mute button on, of course!), grocery store, car pool, parking lots, my closet, dressing rooms, etc.
Produced eight pens from my purse at any given time.
Gone through the Starbucks drive-thru just so I can respond to an email.
Been in jammies and not brushed my teeth until way past noon.
Let my children watch way too much TV on the days they are both home with me. Mommy guilt, much?
Manically checked and rechecked my phone and email for likes, engagements, notes from clients or potential clients after having delivered a killer proposal.
Told a client I didn’t care for their product. Gulp. They took it pretty well, considering.

The list of things I’ve done that I am proud of far exceeds the above list. I never thought I’d be here at all, but it has been an amazing ride and I have enjoyed every minute. I love what I do, who I do it with and I’m eager to see where the next six months take us!

“Your reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career.”

– Ryan Freitas, About.me co-founder

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Frozen: Six Options

Posted on August 16, 2015 Written by Tonya

My six-year-old son doesn’t remember hanging out with me for countless hours in our fertility doctor’s waiting room.

Much more patient than I ever was, I might add.

He doesn’t recall the separate, much smaller waiting area for patients who already have children.

He has no memory of the kind nurses, physician’s assistants, lab technicians, doctors or receptionists who knew him by name, gushed over his long eyelashes and offered him lollipops every time he visited.

He doesn’t recollect his father administering the twice daily shots of progesterone in the fleshy part of my hips or the heparin shots I’d give myself in my belly or the handful of pills I would take as we practiced his counting.

I’m grateful that Lucas doesn’t remember our struggle to give him a sibling, but I do. Just like it was yesterday.

And when he wistfully asks when I am going to have another baby, my heart aches and I am taken aback.

There are also times when it is just the two of us and his little sister is being cared for so we can do “big kid stuff” and he’ll announce unabashedly, “I really love Lola but I am so glad she isn’t with us right now”. Once again, my heart aches and I am taken aback.

It is no secret that our daughter, Lola is an IVF baby.

A miracle baby.

But aren’t they all?

After struggling with secondary infertility for over three years; having six miscarriages, countless failed natural cycles, IUIs and one failed IVF, our second attempt at IVF worked!

Of the five eggs retrieved, three fertilized but only two were good after PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis).

A boy and a girl.

The girl became Lola.

The other embryo is still frozen.

Typically two embryos are transferred increasing the odds of conception or attaching to the uterine wall, but in my case, my fertility doctor’s statistics were better with patients with my history and age to only transfer one embryo.

All it takes is one!

Thinking pessimistically, I thought we would fail again and try to use the second one right away, but instead we succeeded!

We were lucky.

And now we have an embryo on ice.

The boy.

It costs roughly $350 per year to store.

We have six options and please trust that this is a deeply personal decision, a moral and ethical decision and there is so much more to each and every one of these options than what I have shared here. It is weighting heavily on my mind and heart and so I write about it. Because that is what works for me.

I’m also not looking for advice or a solution.

It will come to us, my husband and I.

In time.

Throughout this process, I realize that the further away from my fertility struggle I get, it is still there, front and center, ready for access.

Six Options:

1. Transfer. It works and we go from a family of four to a family of five. Of course, I just turned 43 and my husband is already 43 and our family feels perfect just the way it is. This option also involves a heavy dose of fertility medications and doctors visits throughout the pregnancy. Due to my age, I’m already considered high-risk and given my struggles in the past, I will see a perinatologist beginning at 12 weeks, if not sooner. A very small price to pay for an addition to our family, but must be considered nonetheless. Can my body go through all that again? I still have bruises from my pregnancy with Lola, who is a year and a half! Are we naive to think everything will work out as well? And let’s say we make it full term, what would our family of five look like? What if this third child needed additional care of one sort or the other? So many questions.

2. Transfer. It doesn’t work and we grieve the loss and move on the best way we can.

3. Donate. We know the fertility struggle all too well and would love to help a couple or family have a child or another child. Sounds simple enough and completely altruistic, but dealing with the fact that our “son” is out there somewhere could be more than we can bear.

4. Put the embryo up for adoption. Yes, you really can do this, but again see above. Plus, I doubt either of us could ever accept payment for our embryo.

5. Discard. At this moment in time, time option is out of the question. I simply do not have the heart or strength for this. And I probably never will.

6. Store. Continue paying storage fees until the end of time.

Option 6 it is.

For now.

We have decided to table our decision for six months.

According to the National Embryo Donation Center, an estimated 600,000 unused embryos are currently frozen in clinics throughout the country.

Last year, doctors at IVF clinics performed more than 165,000 treatments — more than ever before.

Embracing Pink

Posted on July 21, 2014 Written by Tonya

I am in no way, shape or form a girly girl, which according to Wikipedia is defined as:

“…a slang term for a girl or woman who chooses to dress and behave in an especially feminine style, such as wearing pink, using make-up, using perfume, dressing in skirts, dresses and blouses, and talking about relationships and other activities which are associated with the traditional gender role of a girl.”

I’m not into ribbons and bows, lace or frilly flowery things.

I don’t wear a lot of makeup, if any, absolutely no sparkly stuff and you can typically find my hair pulled back in a ponytail under a baseball cap.

There are way more pairs of jeans and sneakers in my closet than dresses, blouses or heels. In fact, I look like the Jolly Green Giant whenever I try to walk in heels. Seriously, there should be a class.

I don’t like to shop, hate gossip, except of the celebrity variety and don’t know the current “in” princesses, although you’d have to be living under a rock not to have heard about Elsa and Anna.

And I hate the color pink!

It’s funny though, when Lucas was born I grew so tired of blue, my favorite color that very much out of character bought a hot pink wallet and then later purse to match.

Feeling engulfed by boys (just the two… my husband and son) I started to get comfortable with my feminine side. I began to enjoy getting dressed up in heels and dresses for date nights and dinner with my girlfriends and asked a friend more than once to help me apply my makeup.

Before the ultrasound tech could confirm I was having a boy with Lucas I knew and the same thing happened with Lola. I just felt she was a girl. I have always dreaded the possibility of having a daughter, which deserves to be the subject of its own post, but one main reason is because I still feel so out of touch with girly things.

And let’s face it, too much pink can be sickening!I refuse to buy Lola pink anything, but I still seem to be surrounded by the hue.

So while I’m not looking forward to braiding hair, pretend spa in my living room, cleaning up piles of glitter or the sheer drama that comes with being a female, I am s l o w l y embracing pink and hoping that Lola finds her own style as she grows, just so long as it isn’t to girly girl.

I Was Attacked

Posted on October 9, 2013 Written by Tonya

It’s strange how with age, memories of my youth come back to me in waves.

Vivid memories, snippets of conversations I had dozens of years ago and events down to the detail replay in my mind.

Both good and bad memories occupy space in my head.

One memory I’ll never be able to shake is triggered from time to time and although it’s a part of my past and I’d rather keep it there, never to be recalled again, I know writing about it will help. And sadly, I know I’m not the only one that this has happened to.

26 years ago, just before my fifteenth birthday I was attacked by a fellow classmate.

I was living in Banjul, The Gambia in West Africa at the time. My parents worked at the American International school that I was attending. There were fewer than 200 students in the entire K-9 school, it was a very close-knit ex-pat community.

I had invited him and a dozen other friends to my birthday party. We were at a discotheque at a hotel. The song, “Casanova” by Levert was playing when I left the dance floor.

He followed me into the women’s restroom in the lobby of the hotel, stared at me over the stall and then by the time I had tucked in my aqua tank top and zipped up my white pants to vacate, knowing that this scenario was wrong, he pushed me back into my stall and wrapped his hands around my neck causing me to pass out.

He didn’t say a word.

When I came to, my pants were undone and his hands were groping me.

I lost my mind.

I have no idea how long I was out.

I screamed, I yelled, I clawed at him and chased him out of the bathroom and across the lobby.

I picked up a heavy glass ashtray and threw it at him. It shattered on the marble floor.

I was like a rabid dog out for blood.

I was 14. I had never been touched my anyone that way before.

He acted like I was crazy and the hotel staff was bewildered. Security officials eventually stepped in and escorted him off the property. At the time, I didn’t realize that was the least of my concerns. Come Monday, I’d have to see him in school. There were only seven other students in my class so there would be no avoiding him.

The hand marks around my neck turned red and scabbed by the next morning. I told my parents what had happened. I stayed home from school on Monday and cried most of the day. My father, the principal of the school spoke to him and his father, an apology was made, but never to me directly, our desks were moved as far a part from one another as possible and I was never left alone with him again.

I realize what happened to me was attempted rape and had we been in this country, he would have been charged with that.

Prior to the attack, he had repeatedly expressed a romantic interest in me and it was never reciprocated. We were friends. I didn’t ask for this. I wasn’t dressed provocatively (not that I even knew what that meant or was at the time, nor should it matter anyway), I had been drinking, but was by no means drunk. My memories of what took place that night are crystal clear.

A teenage boy took advantage of me and used his power for his sick pleasure and it has stayed with me for life.

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop, Prompt 3. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Inspired by Carol, a blog friend hosting a walk in honor of her daughter Shaniel who recently lost her life due to domestic violence.

Domestic violence or any other violence against women should not happen. Ever. Period.

If you or someone you love is being abused, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE).

My attack was not by definition considered domestic violence, but violence nevertheless.

I am also linking up with Shell’s Pour Your Heart Out.

I Don’t Know How To Play

Posted on September 17, 2013 Written by Tonya

I’m a terrible mother because the three words I loathe the most are: play with me, especially when strung together repeated and delivered in a whinny four year old voice.

I will go round after round and even let him win sometimes at Junior Scrabble, UNO and Connect Four, in fact I love games!

I will ask 20 questions, trying to figure out what he spies with his little blue eyes.

I will search high and low for gel food dye to add to shaving cream to smear all over the shower stall, bend and twist pipe cleaners, clean up glitter and tiny pieces of construction paper and attempt to draw anything he asks me to.

I will create a playlist of his favorite Top 40 hits and have a dance party in our living room.

I will spend hours at Disneyland, California Adventure, Knott’s Berry Farm, Sea World and Legoland with him by my side waiting patiently to go on each and every ride he desires.

I will push him on swings, play hide-and-seek and time him on his scooter as he makes loop after loop around the park.

I will load the car with sand toys, sunscreen and towels in order to to spend the afternoon at the beach building castles, hunting for shells and chasing seagulls.

I will take him to Target knowing full well I’ll be spending most of our trip in the toy aisle agonizing over Cars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other items he has, wants or needs.

I will learn all his favorite characters names and let him quiz me on them.

I will carefully pre-measure ingredients for him to add to bowls and let him try using the mixer on low so he can “help” me bake a cake.

I will pack his backpack with his beloved snacks and activities and take him on many trips to visit family in the Bay Area.

I will read him any of the dozens of books we own over and over all day long.

I will take him to the latest kids movie where we share the biggest bag of popcorn they sell.

I will send mothers I don’t know notes asking if their sons would enjoy coming to our home to spend time with my son.

I will make up silly songs, perform puppet shows with no real story lines and do just about anything to make Lucas smile or laugh.

There are tons of things I will do with my son and thoroughly enjoy, but playing with him is not one of them.

Pushing cars around the floor and having “races” is not fun for me.

I don’t know how to be a ninja and I hate holding toys or stuffed animals in my hand making them have conversations with one another.

It’s not that I feel silly or stupid, I’m just not good at pretending. I think maybe I was once… I loved playing with Barbies but not anymore and I feel guilty because I hear “play with me” A LOT!! And too many times my response is, “let’s go to the park!”.

Do you know how to play with your children? Please tell me I’m not alone in my guilt.

Why I Hate Clothes Shopping

Posted on August 6, 2013 Written by Tonya

We all have that friend that looks like she just walked off the pages of the latest magazine… no matter what the event, she is impeccably put together head to toe, wearing the latest styles, “in” colors and jewelry to match. As much as you want to hate her, you admire her, even envy her and above all wish you could either consult her before leaving your house or raid her closet.

I hate clothes shopping!! It is on my top five list of activities I despise the most. Just thinking about it causes me anxiety. I wander around clothing stores aimlessly, completely overwhelmed, purposely avoiding the overbearing sales staff, fingering through beautiful racks of clothing and getting more and more frustrated that I’m not a size two. I’m actually okay with my body and size, I’ve been every where from a size 6 to a 10 and back again. These days I’m somewhere in between, but shopping for and putting together outfits is not my forte no matter what size I am.

I always admire the flawlessly dressed, coiffed and accessorized mannequins in the windows, but as soon as I foolishly think for one second that I can replicate their look, I fall flat. Or the store is out of my size. Or (and this is more than likely the case) it NEVER looks as good on me as the display.

The other extremely annoying phenomena that occurs upon entering a clothing store is I get closet amnesia and can never seem to remember what I already have at home. Hence the reason I end up with more stripes or black shirts.

I never feel less put together, frumpy, clueless or out of my element than when trying to clothes shop.

And don’t even get me started on three way mirrors! They are seriously a cruel joke and because of them, I hardly ever try anything on in the store and therefore end up returning a lot of items. Last week alone, I’ve bought and returned four things. To four different stores! I ended up with nothing.

Once, I enlisted my fashionista friend (as described above) and owner of Inside Out, Wardrobe Rehab to help me overhaul my closet and I shared my experience here. I think it might be time for another session.

At least I’m not alone, according to a study I found online, only 29% of women actually admit to enjoying going out to buy something to wear.

However, I read another study that said, assuming a woman lives to be 63, she will spend 25,184 hours and 53 minutes of her life buying things. On a yearly basis, this adds up to just shy of 400 hours. 95 of which are dedicated to buying food, which makes sense as I know I’m at the super market at least twice a week! 170 hours are dedicated to buying clothes. 170 hours of clothes shopping?! I’d rather have a root canal every day for a week or have my friend dress me.

Do you like clothes shopping?

Back To Basics

Posted on March 28, 2013 Written by Tonya

From the time I was 17 on, I only saw my parents 3-4 times a year. They worked and lived overseas while I was in boarding school and then college in Arizona. Our time together was precious and never long enough. I believe they made up for the distance, the absence and maybe a sense of abandonment they felt by showering me with material things and checks.

For a while, I liked it.

A lot.

What greedy teenager wouldn’t?

I would pine for something and get it. I will be the first to admit I was spoiled and still have selfish tendencies because of it.

But there came a moment, sometime around my Sophomore year of college that I didn’t like the “gifts” and even began refusing the checks my father would try to hand me with tears in his eyes at the airport upon saying goodbye.

It started to feel like guilt money. I tried to explain my feelings, but they said I was being crazy.

I swore I wouldn’t do this to my children.

Funny how as parents we do that a lot, huh?

In the weeks leading up to our recent move and as we have been settling in, I have overindulged Lucas with more treats and cars and other toys than I care to fess up to. I wanted the transition to be a smooth one for him and I thought the gifts would help. He’s done fantastic. Of course. All he really cares about is that his family; mommy, daddy, puppy and fishy are all together under the same roof.

I have had to bring Lucas along with me to dozens of doctor’s appointments in the last few months and when he waits patiently (WAY more patient than I ever am) by my side, I feel the need to reward him with the toys he asks for. All he really cares about is spending time with mommy.

I learned a long time ago that I cannot take Lucas with me to the supermarket, Target or any other establishment that sells toys because he gets a terrible case of the gimmes and I fall prey each and every time, buying him more crap he doesn’t really need.

The stuff is not only a waste of money, it’s a poor excuse for my love and praise and he doesn’t need a million toys. I know there’s a I want him to have a better childhood than I did thing going on, but the truth is I had a full and rich childhood and I wanted for nothing. I was blessed.

I need to break this cycle now and get more creative with my affections. I need to learn to say no and not be so weak and cave when he says please, Mommy in that sweet little boy voice I know will soon change.

His dad and I do our best to teach our son about gratitude and being thankful for the things he has but my continuous buying doesn’t help.

It’s hard when everything is a negotiation with a three year old and you want to give him the world and that’s why I have decided starting Monday, April 1, because Sunday is Easter and I have already made up an Easter basket for Lucas, I am going to go on a one month, no buying strike. No toys, no games, no Matchbox cars, no packages of Micro Drifters, no sweets, no books, no plastic junk. I will post updates here on my progress.

We are going to rediscover toys Lucas already has and spend quality time together playing games and visiting the library and parks and having good old fashioned play dates. We are going to get back to basics and I will be weak no more. Wish me luck!

Sentimental Value

Posted on September 7, 2012 Written by Tonya

Sentimental clutter is the adult equivalent of a teddy bear.

– Ellen Madere

I don’t like to shop all that much, I have what I need plus a few extras. My closet isn’t bursting at the seams with articles of clothing I never wear. I’m good about purging. If I haven’t worn an item in two years, it goes to goodwill or the garage sale pile.

My shoes are kept in boxes and are organized by style and color.

Lucas has a space of his own in our home and so does Charlie, our new puppy. My husband has an entire room to himself, granted it has a treadmill and spin bike in the middle of it, but aside from exercising in there, I steer clear.

The rest of our house is orderly too, everything has a place. There is very minimal clutter laying around, apart from weekly mail, monthly magazines I know I’ll never get to and things for me to file.

And therein lies my problem… my confession of the day. I file everything! I keep things. As far back as I can remember, I have kept tubs and files of stuff. Stupid stuff.

I save ticket (movie, concert and airline) stubs, playbills and maps, restaurant business cards and museum brochures.

I have a hard time getting rid of wedding invitations, birth announcements, thank you cards, letters and birthday greetings.

I hesitate to throw away any of Lucas’ artwork, so I place each and every page in sheet protectors and keep them all together in big three-ring binders.

I’m reluctant to delete photographs and if you follow me on Instagram, you know I take a butt load of photos! They aren’t quite as well organized as the rest of my stuff, but I keep every singe one.

I struggle almost daily with letting go of junk.

It’s all junk.

I’m not exactly hoarder material, though my husband might disagree, but I definitely have difficulty parting with these sentimental mementos.

Sentimental to no one but me.

It has gotten to the point where it is really starting to bother me and make me mad at myself.

I like to think I’m a rational person, I realize I lived the event and have the memory tucked away in my heart and mind, so what’s my problem?

I doubt Lucas is going to ever care about the things in the overloaded French memo board in his bedroom, things I’ve been keeping on his behalf. Is he?

It’s not like I sit around with my tubs of scraps of paper and relive my experiences. Even if I had the time, I wouldn’t do that. And yet, I am faced with the challenge of throwing away things I’m not all that attached to.

Any advice, or maybe a confession of your own?

The Good Stuff

Posted on July 2, 2012 Written by Tonya

I hope my son doesn’t remember.

I hope he can’t recall everything I say and do.

I’d rather his memories of me standing in front of the mirror plucking my gray hairs and applying face masks be fuzzy.

Just as I’d rather he completely block out the time I yelled at him so loudly my entire body shook,

beat myself up about not working out or accomplishing more on my “To Do” list,

ran out of patience, not to mention creative ideas because he wouldn’t go to bed and I hid out in the bathroom for several minutes before I regained composure,

would go days without make-up or washing my hair,

wept for people he’ll never know and those we both have yet to meet.

called a friend an unkind word under my breath,

banged my fists on the steering wheel in anguish,

sighed heavily at unmet expectations that were set entirely too high to begin with,

slammed a door in frustration,

cried as I told his dad I didn’t think I was cut out for this motherhood thing,

threw my phone across the room in a blind rage.

The list of my not so finer moments goes on and on. I’m sure you have one of your own; things you wish you could change, protect your child from, moments you would do over if it were possible.

We are parents.

We are human.

We make mistakes.

I make mistakes.

Tons of them.

I hope my son only remembers the good stuff.

And if not, I hope he can forgive my flaws and indiscretions.

Five Hearts

Posted on April 14, 2012 Written by Tonya

I know I’ll never forget.

How could I?

And yet, I still felt a burning need to do something or rather have something to remind me and to acknowledge where we’ve been.

Something to commemorate the tears and heartbreak, my way of memorializing five lives that never came to be.

I bought the first one just before we started our last round of IVF, a process that we were certain would work.

I carried it with me everywhere, in my pocket or purse, always within reach. I carried it for luck and love, but most of all for hope.

When the process didn’t work, I wanted to throw it against the wall with all my strength and watch it shatter, like my own heart had.

Again.

Instead, I placed it in a box on my dresser and there it stayed.

Recently I added four more just like it because it has taken on a different meaning: what could have been.

Sometimes it is agonizing just knowing they are there, but they represent a very long and grueling journey that we have not yet completed.

They represent loss.

And peace.

Frozen: Six Options

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