Learning to speak of "if," not "when." Learning not to plan. That's what the experience of two miscarriages has taught us. That's pain in and of itself--being a person who always knew I wanted to be a mother, having to realize how hard it might be to become one. I know those who struggle with infertility must feel similarly. Envying naiveté. I know so many people who saw that positive pregnancy test and then--whaddya know--had a baby. Multiple times. Each time. That positive meant that a baby was coming. Sure, they were nervous; sure, they were very worried that it was too good to be true. But still, it happened. The hoped-for outcome of a healthy child. MFP pointed out to me today when I was saying that our occasional waves of panic make sense, considering we've been here before and we got, metaphorically, hit by a truck, that this panic makes even more sense because it was like we had never crossed a street before, and we got hit by a truck *the first time.* And the second. It's like our only experience crossing the street is getting hit by a truck, we've never had it go differently. So here we are again. 6 weeks, 1 day gestation. Ultrasound to see if there's a heartbeat this coming Monday, at 6 weeks, 6 days. 5 long ass days to go.
I felt so much nausea on Monday, it really hit, unmistakably. Then again on Tuesday, and I decided to stay home and rest all day. My acupuncturist recommended rest: "Even if you feel like, 'oh, I could do a bit more,' rest. Rest as much as you can." I like that advice! So I did. Then today, I wanted to get up and shower and be up and about, and still I'm taking it easy but--little to no nausea. And I remember how the nausea subsided before I found out my first pregnancy had died. The nausea ended around 8 weeks--I don't remember exactly, and then my first appointment to see there was no heartbeat was at 9.5 weeks. My breasts are still tender and my bras are tight; I'm still tired. But still. Maybe this is it--maybe the embryo has just died. Or maybe I just got a lot of rest yesterday and my hormones just aren't surging in a way today that would make me nauseated. Cue me googling message boards and the American Pregnancy Association on whether "nausea can come and go." I guess it can. But also cessation of nausea and other pregnancy symptoms can be a sign of miscarriage. Go figure. It was reassuring to see so many other women who've had multiple miscarriages on these boards talking about how hard it is to feel hopeful now that they're pregnant again. One of them wrote that her mantra is, I'm pregnant today and I'm happy about that. I try to say the same thing to myself, many of the same things these women wrote. I almost responded to one of them and then the fucking board required me to sign in to their goddamned updates, and considering just yesterday I AGAIN got promotional material for my nonexistent baby due in July from Similac in the mail, there's no fucking way I'm signing up for that. I still want to rage at the company for doing such a shitty promotion when miscarriage is so common. My therapist said something off-hand like, that stuff's expensive, hold on to that! Wrong move. Not helpful. I did see that someone has already written about this issue, in the New York Times no less, the bullshit horribleness of formula companies taking the advertising gamble that it's worth 25% of the time sending shit to women who've had miscarriages to advertise to the 75% of women who actually had their babies. Sorry, miscarriers! Don't mind our salt in your wound!
The thing about Monday, is it's not going to be neutral no matter what. Either we'll be crushed, facing our third loss, or we'll be ecstatic, having heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time (knowing full well that even then, it could stop at any minute). MFP reminded me of how I'd said, after our first prenatal appointment with pregnancy #1, let's get Indian food afterward to celebrate hearing the heartbeat, because I'd been nervous about having a new doctor put an internal ultrasound probe inside me and had considered declining (ha! oh how my worries seem so small now. For a long time I feared that the nurses and doctor must have thought that, like, "lady, your worries are in the wrong place." Probably though they just felt sorry for me). He said today, maybe on Monday we can go out for Indian food. We'll see. I'm not nauseated right now. Maybe it's already gone. Maybe it's not. I remember even as the spotting was picking up with pregnancy #2, I told MFP, wouldn't we want our child to hold on, even when all hope is lost? Wouldn't we tell it to fight? Fight for its life? That's so sad to think about now. My chemical, maybe ectopic pregnancy, that's all it was. Nothing fighting for anything's life. And then I went through through a traumatic D&C, making it all so much worse. For the woman whose biggest concern a few months before was whether or not I wanted a probe in my vagina on my first prenatal visit. Because I guess I thought I'd be okay if I didn't have spotting. But I was wrong.
A lot of the time I'm happy that I'm pregnant. Despite the misery of the nausea yesterday--fearing constantly that I'd vomit in public--I was glad to really have evidence I'm pregnant. The cliched Hollywood shot of a woman puking--oh! she's pregnant. Because apparently all Hollywood pregnancies are unplanned. Just like all Hollywood labors start with water breaking. And all Hollywood miscarriages are convenient, not mourned, and all Hollywood babies are born healthy and screaming (and about a month old already by the looks of it), never dead. Today I feel like a human being in the world again, and yet I'm terrified my embryo stopped growing. I know we'll make it through whatever happens. I know we made good choices about this doctors' office. I know this won't be the end of our journey to parenthood, no matter what. I guess that does ease my panic a little bit. And the fact that I know it's out of my control. That as far as I know, I'm still pregnant today. A friend of mine recommended "sea bands" for my wrists as a way to help with the nausea. Afraid I'd puke on the bus on Monday, I pushed on my wrist pressure points. It helped for like a second. So I was in CVS today, nausea-less, and I was thinking, I should probably buy sea bands. They have a kind especially for "Mama," which is probably the same except it's lavender. (And I may never be a "Mama," regardless of my ability to get pregnant three times in a year and a half). I looked at MFP and I had to say out loud--or actually he might have had to say it--"I have no control. Whether or not I have a miscarriage has nothing to do with whether or not I buy these." I can just imagine them sitting on the counter, unopened, when I come home from seeing an empty gestational sac on Monday, and feeling the irresistible urge to burn them, like I burned the expensive swaddle blankets I'd bought during pregnancy #1 after pregnancy #2 officially ended. Something sitting around the house to spite me, to laugh at my hopefulness, thinking I'd be like other mothers; at my hubris at buying sea bands when I was only six weeks along. I bought them. If I'm nauseated again like I was on Monday or Tuesday, I'm not going to want to go to CVS to get them. Maybe I'll use them on my next pregnancy. Which might take another 9 months, like this one did....
What an unkind internal dialogue I have. There's nothing wrong with choosing hope. There's nothing wrong with expecting the nausea to come back and buying myself something for it, when it was pretty debilitating just a day ago. If I have a third miscarriage it will just be sad, horribly sad; I won't have done anything wrong. I won't deserve any spite, I won't have been presumptuous, I'll only deserve sympathy and kindness in my grief.
So notoriously young multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife suffered three miscarriages. They announced their pregnancy, at first sounding like everybody else on Facebook announcing a pregnancy, but then shared the long journey they'd been on. And his wife's only 30, much younger than me. Three. Three times in my position. The positive sign, the breast tenderness, the nausea maybe, the should we tell or shouldn't we? The date marked in a mental calendar...then nothing. I felt so sorry for them, even given their wealth. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Three times in a row. The brutality. That could be me. This could be the third time. And then maybe I'd have a healthy child on the way after that, like them too. Or maybe, this is my "rainbow baby"--my beautiful reminder of a promise once made after terrible storms. Oh, how I hope it's the latter. Oh how I love this baby already. I guess I'd rather not lose out on these early days of building my attachment to my baby, even if I lose it. I won't regret the time spent feeling that love.
Anyway back to Mr. and Mrs. Facebook. I was really glad that he brought attention to miscarriages. I definitely feel less alone. And I'd love it if talking about the pain of it--that it IS a big loss, and nothing shameful--were more common. I didn't share his status though. I feel weird even hinting at my miscarriages, even though co-workers know, as a professional woman I guess. I don't want to be known for my uterus. And there's probably a lot of shame too. I don't want to be known for my failure. And I didn't even want to gesture toward my losses by sharing his status, even though it might help people. Yes I am part of the problem. I will say though, that my friend struggling with infertility felt really left out of the discussion; and I can tell you right now I'll bet those women I know who've suffered stillbirth will tell you there is no "safe" time to announce a pregnancy. I also wish miscarriages weren't only okay to talk about *after* you've had a healthy pregnancy. Like we have to hide it until/unless we have a child. I try to talk about mine relatively openly with good friends. But part of the reason some of us don't share isn't necessarily shame, it's pain. It's painful to talk about, and I want to wait to talk about it with people who will respond well. Too many people respond with the silence or shit like "everything happens for a reason."
Last thing. I told MFP today that I need "Coach" again. That attitude helped us when we were mourning another month of trying and failing to get pregnant. This is what I need to hear now: "We've got to keep our head in the game. We made it to the next round, doing exactly what we had been doing. Now the stakes are higher, and we gotta stay focused. Keep our eyes on the prize. Don't think about what might happen, stay focused on what's right in front of me and play it well. We're gonna rest. We're gonna take progesterone and vitamins. We're going to eat safe foods only. Keep your head in the game, in today's game, not in Monday's game." Let's go, team!
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