On edge

Reading another blogger's description of her pregnancy after losing her daughter was helpful today. This time is hard for every woman, but it's especially hard after losing pregnancies or a child. I watched an interview with Jeanine Tesori, co-winner of the Tony for best score of a musical for the mind-blowingly good "Fun Home" in which she said she's always BFF, "braced for failure." Yes indeed. I saw Dr. Special walking the halls of her office when I went to get blood taken today, and she asked how I was and I said "very good!" in front of a room full of people waiting at an infertility clinic. I am afraid of the "evil eye," of bad karma, bad juju, for seeming happy. Did I jinx this pregnancy? I realized that was insane. I took a bite of lox for breakfast before realizing that it, like a million other things, is not recommended for pregnant women. This waiting is so excruciating I fixate on the things that are in my control, the few tiny ways I can help or hinder.

I was relieved to learn other women have had weekly first trimester ultrasounds. I'm over 35 and have had two miscarriages, so I hope that makes me high risk enough. I want to know as soon as I can when something goes wrong. I remember when the nausea and breast tenderness faded with pregnancy #1; I just thought I was over the worst of it. Turns out, my body was in the initial stages of figuring out the embryo had fizzled. Like a dud firecracker. Sssssssss. We wondered aloud today, did that baby ever have a heartbeat? Maybe not. I hope not, in a way, so maybe I can believe that when we hear a heartbeat, if we do, we can actually feel hopeful. There was an op-ed by a woman who had 4 miscarriages in a year. When she heard a heartbeat during her successful pregnancy, she said she turned to her partner and said, "Is it too much too ask for this heart to keep beating for the next 80 years?" Knowing just how much that was to ask. A miracle.

I feel very angry today that last fall, Dr. Keep Trying's office did not order a blood test, ever, when I kept calling to say I was spotting. I never had a confirmed pregnancy that time, as Dr. Special said, because no one ever saw a gestational sac. I remember the day, at 6 weeks, I walked in, having had the full-on bright red bloody, cramping miscarriage the night before and having called the office to say this. Then we waited for an eternity, much longer than normal, in the waiting room, around all the  visibly pregnant women and their babies. I just listened to the same song on repeat and cried onto MFP's shoulder. For 45 minutes. When a nurse finally greeted us in the exam room, supposedly holding my chart which she clearly hadn't read, she said, "So you're here for your first pregnancy appointment?" No, you fucking bitch. Fuckers. "No, I had a miscarriage yesterday and I called to tell you that and the nurse said to come in anyway." Then I remember after the D&C when the MALE (I only want female doctors, it's a personal thing) resident I had never even met, announced, me groggy from anasthesia, weepy, with MFP kept from me, that HE had in fact performed my surgery, despite me never having met him before, and he said, oh so memorably, "There wasn't much in there." Yes indeed, not much except my hopes and dreams. Except my fragile will to live at an incredibly difficult time in my life. Except what I fleetingly thought might be my baby, my chance at being a mother. Asshole. We were only doing the D&C, according to Dr. Keep Trying who didn't bother to show up because she was having some undisclosed health emergency due to her own, ultimately healthy pregnancy, in order to rule out an ectopic pregnancy, because my hcg numbers were inexplicably rising--miniscule though they were. I had only agreed to the procedure because I trusted her to perform it, to be there for me through it, instead of opting for methotrexate. And no one called me afterward to explain why the fuck she wasn't there. I worry about going back there if indeed I ever do make it to the second trimester. Is it responsible, given my experience?

But all that was then. This is today. A new pregnancy. 9 months later. No spotting. The promise of ultrasounds well before 9.5 weeks, the earliest I could get in with pregnancy #1. A blood test today. Lots of monitoring. It makes sense that all of those traumatic memories and emotions are coming up today, as I wait for the first blood test results. I wish I could just barely think about this, given that I'm barely pregnant--only 5 weeks today. Hardly at all. And yet it changes so much. I remember a coworker said once about her miscarriage, as soon as you find out you're pregnant, you start building a nest in your heart for that baby. Yes. I can't help it. Why try?

I grew up in a culture of prayer. I feel like fervently praying. But what will happen, will happen, no matter what I do. The sheer helplessness in the face of an all-powerful--and terrifying--creation. I can meditate on being present. Right now, nothing traumatic is happening. Right now, is a new and different day.

****

I heard from Dr. Special's office. My hCG number is 3,700+. The nurse said, "That's very good." I'll take it. For comparison, with pregnancy #2, the D&C was ordered when my numbers went up from like 104 to 112. Clearly not a healthy pregnancy, but something unhealthy was growing somewhere. Like something out of "Alien." Anyway. The nurse also asked if I could come in for an ultrasound tomorrow--I guess my numbers are now out of the blood test zone and into the ultrasound zone. She said that they won't be able to see a heartbeat, but we could at least confirm the pregnancy. See a gestational sac. With bells on! Even though Dr. Special is out of town, so I'll have to see a male doctor, one of the other doctors in the practice. A friend sees him, which is comforting. Just give me good news, and I'll forgive you for being a man holding a probe inside my vagina.

I asked how often I might get ultrasounds--not every week, but about every 10 days, the nurse said. I hope tomorrow I at least find out that this pregnancy is healthy so far, and not ectopic or something. And then, the next ultrasound, if all goes well, we would hopefully be able to see a heartbeat. I think I'm waiting for a heartbeat to tell anyone, even my closest friends. It would be our first heartbeat in three pregnancies. I just don't want anyone to start talking about the future, to start getting excited. MFP understands that we're right now still just happy to not be dealing with secondary infertility. Happy to not have to be sad for two days this month, as has been the pattern. I doubt any of my friends would understand that. That having hCG confirmed in my system has, for us, very little to do with having a baby.

I cried after I got off the phone, probably with relief. Also, maybe a part of me didn't really believe this pregnancy was real, until it was confirmed. By someone else. I did keep doubting that the pregnancy test was right. It was a relief to hear "the numbers are good" after all those weekly blood tests last fall when the numbers just wouldn't go down.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping. Of course I am. I hope this is the one. The one that ends the "long time without a child, which was a great grief to me and cost me many prayers and tears until I obtained one."

I was just thinking, this must be so fucking awful for women dealing with infertility. To go through all of those invasive procedures, all of that monitoring, your partner involved too, and then to get to this stage--good god the anxiety. The difficulty of believing this must be so intense. I have a friend who is going through infertility right now, and we've been sharing stories of Dr. Special's office, and how hard it is seeing other people have kids. I thought about telling her at least once I got the confirmation of the blood test. After the gritty details we've each shared, she seems to warrant full disclosure. But now I might still wait like I'm waiting with my close friends--until the heartbeat.

Why am I even waiting? I even considered waiting to tell my therapist, who I see tomorrow. I've just been here too many times before. I want something concrete, something real first. But this is a hard time. I could use some support. I feel envious of women who have mothers to call at times like these...mothers they could trust to say the right thing. Or not, but who would be okay with hearing when it's not. I suppose that's rare. Maybe a lot of women, even women with good relationships with their moms, would wait to tell, to avoid the happy "it will be okay" excitement. MFP is not telling his parents yet.

I'm going to try to put the worrying and hyper vigilance in Dr. Special's office's hands. Me, I'm just going to try to soothe the bad memories and stay in the present. I hope I can concentrate on other things.