Here we go again

We were so nervous last night. Knowing that I have to take a pregnancy test after 14 days of taking progesterone every month has been so nerve-wracking. This was the fifth time, and each time the fear of how sad we'd be got worse, despite knowing that we kept being sad and it was okay. It's just so hard to want something and know it's out of my control. My temp dropped the day before so I thought, I'm probably out again. Then this. I had set a timer and wasn't going to look beforehand but MFP glanced before the timer was up and just held it up to me and said, "Look!" We were so happy! He was joyful too. Much better than pregnancy #2. I was so happy then, but he was just worried. Terrified. I know some women go through this four, five, six, even more times: a positive pregnancy test, then a miscarriage. Maybe that'll be me too. Right now I just feel so grateful. I'm grateful. So grateful to be pregnant again, like I wanted to be. To have another shot at loving someone. Just right now, right now is good. I have to keep telling myself that if I start bleeding tomorrow and it's all over, I wasn't wrong to be happy now, to feel grateful now. I'm grateful that the positive line is strong and unmistakeable. I'm grateful that MFP is happy too. I'm grateful--very grateful--that right now at least, we aren't dealing with the secondary problem of infertility. Just recurrent miscarriage still. I don't need to go on Clomid, to get shots, to have an IUI, to have MFP masturbate into a cup. We were willing and ready to do it a month from now if necessary, but we didn't get there. Whew. I'm grateful that I've been loving this baby even before it existed, taking my extra folic acid and my prenatal vitamin and my prenatal DHA, even though for a while there I felt like an imposter, taking all those for two years with no luck. I remember after our first miscarriage we learned that this is out of our control. We learned that we can help or hinder, but ultimately the power to ensure that this little bit of life will keep growing and someday become a living breathing human child is out of our control. I have been helping, maybe even the progesterone will help. Oh baby, keep growing. Burrow in there deep. Take your time. I love you right now. I have always loved you. So does MFP. I love you even if I will lose you tomorrow. I love you massively.

I'm out of town, so I have to wait to go in for blood work until Monday. Very different from my last experience with Dr. Keep Trying's office--with BFP (that's "big fat positive," which I learned the hard way after reading infertility boards) #2, I called and got an appointment (admittedly, they squeezed me in for a 6 week appointment then, which I was grateful for). But this time I called Dr. Special's office and they said, can you come in for blood work today? Ha, I wish! I guess after my levels get high enough then they'll schedule an ultrasound. *If*, creation-willing, my levels get high enough, that is. I might wait until then to tell my closest friends. I know if I miscarry again I'll need support, so I might as well share with them before that happens. The circle is going to be damn small though for a while. Right now I'm out of town and I'm kind of okay with telling you, which is to say, just telling myself. I'm happy.

People who have had pregnancy losses probably understand now that that picture I posted up there of a positive pregnancy test has nothing to do with having a baby. No baby shower for me--ever--and no calculating due dates and thinking about plans anytime soon. MFP and I are planning a big work thing that we're going to continue to plan, even though if this pregnancy grows beyond the first trimester I will have a responsibility to cancel it. Those plans will continue apace.

What the positive pregnancy test does tell me is that we don't have infertility. It tells me that we kept trying after traumatic heartbreak we couldn't even have imagined, and so much sadness and despair, and I'm glad we kept trying. It tells me that we have developed some fucking mature self-soothing skills--telling each other over and over last night and even this morning that no matter what happens, we have our great dog--I'll call her Pupstein--we have each other, we have our health, we have our jobs, we have this relaxing week away, and that is always true. That we can be sad and we won't be alone, we'll get through it together. We'll get through this happiness together too. I remember a mentor once told me to try, in an interview, to turn my nervousness into excitement. They're very similar emotions. I'm feeling that today. My chest is constricted, I can tell, and I'm doing this breathing thing I've had for years when I'm stressed--having a hard time getting a deep enough breath. I found a yoga class to go to, stat. My excitement bleeds over into nervousness. Like there's a part of my brain that is saying, "PROTECT YOUR BABY!", a primal, protective, fight or flight part. That part doesn't quite understand about miscarriages being mostly out of my control. But if I take a calm breath and feel the sun on my back and smell the fresh air, it can get the message that I and everyone I love are very safe right now.

MFP is very happy to have caffeinated coffee now whenever he wants. After a friend said she thinks her husband cutting down on coffee helped them get pregnant, he started restricting it. As for me, I'm happy to now have zero coffee and zero alcohol. Dr. Special's orders (I had asked how much). Always going back and forth with well, I can have a little, but not too much, but am I just trying to exert some control when it's really out of my control? Was getting tiring. Now I know for a fact I'm pregnant, I know for a fact I've lost two pregnancies, and it's easier to say none than "well maybe this much." I'm happy I don't have to go back to that acupuncturist across town that was kind of a hassle, and I don't have to feel guilty like, "maybe if I went I'd have a kid."

The thing with pregnancy symptoms is that the progesterone mimics them. That has sucked about being on it. Swelling of my fingers so bad that my rings don't fit any more (edema), that's a side effect; so's breast pain; even nausea and constipation. I've had all those. Today my boobs are okay but man, last week, when I was also noticing a temp dip (maybe the fabled ovulation dip? Or total bullshit randomness?), my breasts hurt something awful--a sharp pain. Ow. Now they're just vaguely sore if I touch them. Now I don't mind having to wear my rings on my pinky finger. I'm pregnant! That sounds much better to tell myself than "I'm on progesterone to try unsuccessfully to have a kid!" I need to remember to drink lots of water--I've been trying to already recently because of my swollen fingers, my swollen everything--my skirt barely fit the other day. An annoying reality when you're not pregnant, but a much, much less annoying one when I am. Fuck it, negative body image!

I'm grateful that, unlike pregnancy #2, I have had zero spotting. No "implantation spotting," nothing. I hope, like with pregnancy #1, I never have any spotting. Except I hope that, unlike pregnancy #1, I get to see a heartbeat. Hope is hard. I want to stay in the present. A bright, dark positive today instead of a negative. But like a blogger who's lost a child wrote recently, "Hope never killed a baby." It's safe to hope. I'm not inviting misfortune, and if misfortune happens, I'll try not to be ashamed of the joy I've felt today. Maybe I'll have a baby before I turn 36...that's a long way off, a long road ahead. Just yesterday I was emailing a friend about how when I turned on social media yesterday I saw not one, not two, but THREE birth announcements from random people I barely know. How I wished I was feeling that joy! Just when I was trying to focus on the great aspects of my life as they are right now, and maybe even try to savor not having a kid. One thing about anticipating a negative pregnancy test after recurrent miscarriage, I was thinking yesterday, is it's hard not to think like it's the most important thing in our life. Because last year we lost with the miscarriage #1 what we realized, especially afterward, was the most important thing in our lives. And *not* getting pregnant again can feel like a mini-repeat of that, rather than just a bummer on our longer journey. It's true, though, that this pregnancy is my favorite thing I've got going on. I've got MFP, Pupstein, my health, my job, my own ongoing healing journey, my volunteering, my friends, my home--but this is my favorite thing. My most important thing. My child deserves that love. Now I just need to focus on all those other things that haven't changed since yesterday, to let go of the need to feel like there's something I need *to do* besides breathe and feel grateful. And tell myself, B'sha'ah tovah.

In closing, here are the two songs MFP and I needed to dance to after we saw that nice dark plus:

Enjoy--we certainly did.