"Perfect," she said, as she turned on the volume and we heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time. I wept. MFP recorded with my phone the brief moment Dr. Special showed it to us and we've already listened to that soft, miraculous sound several times already. A friend last night suggested we be prepared to record it if we heard it and that was a good idea; I wouldn't have thought of it. It helps me believe this is real, helps me at attach to my little miracle.
The gestational sac is so much bigger than when we saw it at 5 weeks, and now we can clearly see the fetal pole inside of it. There is definitely a baby growing. I am 6 weeks 6 days along today, and it looks like from the printout they gave me on the photo that the heart rate is 142 bpm--I don't know what exactly that means but Dr. Special said "Perfect" so I'm sticking with that. There are other measurements on the printout I don't understand, but they say variously 7 wks1day+/-4 days; 7wks3days; and 7 wks0days, so I'm just going to call it that my little embryo's growth is right on target. Dr. Special said we now have a 90-95% chance of having a healthy baby. This is beautiful.
I know people have lost pregnancies after they've heard a heartbeat; I know people whose perfectly healthy children were born still; I know people whose pregnancies had to be terminated because of severe fetal deformities. I know there's a whole world inside that 5-10% and there's nothing that says I won't be part of it. I also know people struggling with infertility who don't know if they'll ever get to the stage I'm at today, or if they'll get there with their own oocytes or not. My joy is intimate right now; I want to somehow be joyful and keep falling in love with my embryo and preparing for this major life change while still being humble and recognizing that I can't take anything for granted. Even if I take my healthy, squealing and squirming baby home in my arms, even after that, the world makes me no promises. I want to raise my baby with my eyes open, with my heart full, and able to savor life even while knowing that suffering can and does happen. I'm starting now.
The day we found out that pregnancy #1 had miscarried, we had planned to go out for Indian food for lunch to celebrate hearing a heartbeat. Instead, we went out for it today, one year, 3 months, and 11 days later. I feel like we've been on the journey of parenthood for a long while, even though our baby's life has barely begun. I said today, hey little one, let's try Indian food for the first time together! I am so looking forward to doing so many things together with my baby, to make a safe and loving place from which to explore the world. I'm hoping I get the chance. I'm grateful for every day I'm on this journey.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Friday, August 14, 2015
Today I am pregnant, and I'm happy about that
6 weeks, 3 days. No matter what happens on Monday or after, I have MFP and Pupstein and we dance together and we have our home and our creative work and all in all a complex life. This is another step on our journey to parenthood, and I'm proud of us for embarking on it, especially after so much grief already. And I'm pregnant right now and I'm so glad this little embryo is here.
I still only feel a rumble of nausea, but I wonder whether that's because after Monday's bout with it I've been taking it majorly easy, resting a ton. I feel so tired and my breasts are still way sore. Sometimes I feel so scared. I have all these "what if?" thoughts and I try to just recognize that they are giving me the message that this is a scary time and so I need to take care of myself as much as possible, not get wrapped up in the hypervigilance. Other times I feel pretty serene about how this is out of my control. There's nothing I can do but wait and see, so I can just enjoy this special time. And I might as well attach to my little embryo. Wouldn't you love to know you were loved from the very tiniest, most fragile beginnings of your life?
I still only feel a rumble of nausea, but I wonder whether that's because after Monday's bout with it I've been taking it majorly easy, resting a ton. I feel so tired and my breasts are still way sore. Sometimes I feel so scared. I have all these "what if?" thoughts and I try to just recognize that they are giving me the message that this is a scary time and so I need to take care of myself as much as possible, not get wrapped up in the hypervigilance. Other times I feel pretty serene about how this is out of my control. There's nothing I can do but wait and see, so I can just enjoy this special time. And I might as well attach to my little embryo. Wouldn't you love to know you were loved from the very tiniest, most fragile beginnings of your life?
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
In which I extend metaphors and maybe finally get around to mentioning Mark Zuckerberg
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!
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!
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
What doesn't kill you makes everything that much harder
Everything's OK. The male Dr. Special, who put me at ease, along with a kind-faced female resident, right away saw that this pregnancy is in the uterus and is right where it's supposed to be for this early stage--exactly five weeks today. A gestational sac, which we never saw with pregnancy #2. I liked how he was cautious and realistic. "So we're not dealing with infertility, and it's not ectopic. That's all we can see right now." Right. No, "you're going to have a baby." I love infertility doctors for this.
I wanted to cry with relief when it was over, even though I felt basically okay during it. I'm just so grateful. I have a shot, a shot at mothering a healthy baby. I have no assurance that this will happen, but I have a shot, and I don't have to go through the monthly cycle of disappointment right now. And I don't have to go through another loss right now at least. Right now, everything is healthy. On the right track.
In about a week and a half, we should see a heartbeat. So that will be nearly 7 weeks. I scheduled an ultrasound with my usual female Dr. Special. That feels like a long way away from today. August 17th. On that day, we'll see if there's a heartbeat. Which, of course, could stop at any time; which, of course, could still have severe and lethal abnormalities...I know too well all the things that could go wrong. Sometimes it seems shocking that the odds are actually in the favor of things going right. Considering all we know that can go wrong. I told MFP, we can look at this as an act of parenting. Getting through this anxiety and worry about all the things that can go wrong. Living with that knowledge but learning to feel safe enough anyway; trying to live the best lives we can in the knowledge of what can go wrong.
I read about a study that showed that most people think that miscarriage is far less common than it actually is; and they mostly don't know that it's almost always completely out of the mother's control. The world is living in a delusion; that's how they can see that "plus" sign and start planning for a baby. I feel sad today because I wish I could have that happiness, I wish I could enjoy that. I wish I could say "I'm pregnant" out loud, out of secrecy; I wish I could plan for maternity clothes, even for a baby. I feel sad that I know so intimately how little pregnant I actually am, how little I can count on good news. What doesn't kill you--terrible things--doesn't make you stronger. It makes you more anxious, more scared, less happy, less secure. I do think I've gained some things from our losses--what some call "post-traumatic growth." I am more aware of the grief people go through, and hopefully more sensitive to it. I am more sure I want to be a parent. I am more trusting that I can get through the difficulties of parenting. I am a dog parent--in the wake of miscarriage #1, we adopted Pupstein, the first dog ever for either of us, and an utterly fantastic decision. But I am also so much less trusting that good things will happen to me and my baby. I am less hopeful. I feel more separate from other women who have had healthy pregnancies. And that in itself is a huge loss.
I liked how the female resident asked about our previous miscarriages, how far along they were. I felt like a person with a story, even while being probed.
I got my first sonogram photo to take home. It doesn't show anything but a dot in my uterus. Could be empty. We don't know yet. It just shows me, gives me proof, that I am indeed pregnant. That today, it's indeed healthy. And for that I am tearfully grateful. Weeping with gratitude, that it wasn't the reverse; that we aren't still staring down infertility or an ectopic pregnancy. My goal to get through the next 13 days is to take care of myself as best I can. To do a lot of yoga, a lot of meditation, a lot of things I enjoy, maybe even some asking for help. But just to get through it.
I wanted to cry with relief when it was over, even though I felt basically okay during it. I'm just so grateful. I have a shot, a shot at mothering a healthy baby. I have no assurance that this will happen, but I have a shot, and I don't have to go through the monthly cycle of disappointment right now. And I don't have to go through another loss right now at least. Right now, everything is healthy. On the right track.
In about a week and a half, we should see a heartbeat. So that will be nearly 7 weeks. I scheduled an ultrasound with my usual female Dr. Special. That feels like a long way away from today. August 17th. On that day, we'll see if there's a heartbeat. Which, of course, could stop at any time; which, of course, could still have severe and lethal abnormalities...I know too well all the things that could go wrong. Sometimes it seems shocking that the odds are actually in the favor of things going right. Considering all we know that can go wrong. I told MFP, we can look at this as an act of parenting. Getting through this anxiety and worry about all the things that can go wrong. Living with that knowledge but learning to feel safe enough anyway; trying to live the best lives we can in the knowledge of what can go wrong.
I read about a study that showed that most people think that miscarriage is far less common than it actually is; and they mostly don't know that it's almost always completely out of the mother's control. The world is living in a delusion; that's how they can see that "plus" sign and start planning for a baby. I feel sad today because I wish I could have that happiness, I wish I could enjoy that. I wish I could say "I'm pregnant" out loud, out of secrecy; I wish I could plan for maternity clothes, even for a baby. I feel sad that I know so intimately how little pregnant I actually am, how little I can count on good news. What doesn't kill you--terrible things--doesn't make you stronger. It makes you more anxious, more scared, less happy, less secure. I do think I've gained some things from our losses--what some call "post-traumatic growth." I am more aware of the grief people go through, and hopefully more sensitive to it. I am more sure I want to be a parent. I am more trusting that I can get through the difficulties of parenting. I am a dog parent--in the wake of miscarriage #1, we adopted Pupstein, the first dog ever for either of us, and an utterly fantastic decision. But I am also so much less trusting that good things will happen to me and my baby. I am less hopeful. I feel more separate from other women who have had healthy pregnancies. And that in itself is a huge loss.
I liked how the female resident asked about our previous miscarriages, how far along they were. I felt like a person with a story, even while being probed.
I got my first sonogram photo to take home. It doesn't show anything but a dot in my uterus. Could be empty. We don't know yet. It just shows me, gives me proof, that I am indeed pregnant. That today, it's indeed healthy. And for that I am tearfully grateful. Weeping with gratitude, that it wasn't the reverse; that we aren't still staring down infertility or an ectopic pregnancy. My goal to get through the next 13 days is to take care of myself as best I can. To do a lot of yoga, a lot of meditation, a lot of things I enjoy, maybe even some asking for help. But just to get through it.
Monday, August 3, 2015
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.
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.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
On being "a little pregnant"
I know there's an infertility blog called "A Little Pregnant" and it's apt. A few weeks ago an acquaintance (who has a child) made a comment in conversation that used the term in the usual way: "[Such and such] is one of those things you can't be just a little bit. Like you can't be a little pregnant!" Oh, how lucky you are to believe that's true. I have been "a little pregnant" in many different ways. For pregnancy #1, I would have told you I was pregnant all the way up to that 9.5-week silent sonogram. Then I spent a week in this horrible limbo of knowing my hoped-for baby was dead, but waiting for the (excruciatingly painful, by the way) actual miscarriage. So I was pregnant but not. Then, with pregnancy #2, I'd had some spotting, but no period, so when I took the pregnancy test and it was positive, I was like, Yay...I guess? I'm pregnant? And then the oh-so-light spotting trickled for a while as Dr. Keep Trying's nurses just kept telling me not to worry. So I'd think to myself I was pregnant but with a question mark. I'm pregnant? Six weeks or so? I guess? I'm due in July? Supposedly? Then, a week after what I thought was an early miscarriage--bleeding and cramping--I was told to take a pregnancy test at home to make sure my levels were down. By the way: what an assholic thing to do to a woman with a miscarriage! Make her take a pregnancy test at home! So I did, and whaddya know, the longed-for positive, except not longed-for at all. I threw it across the room. I was kinda pregnant. Technically pregnant, but not actually going to have a baby. So then began the months of weekly blood draws: the levels went up; I had to have an emergency D&C; I waited a month after that to finally have indiscernible levels of HCG, the pregnancy hormone, in my bloodstream. I figured I was technically pregnant for half of 2014. My poor, weight-gaining body.
Which brings me to today. In yoga, the instructor said to push on our abdominal psoas muscles "unless you're pregnant." Well...I doubt one day post-positive-test means I'm pregnant, but yeah, technically I am. Being out of town, I don't get some kind of reassuring doctor response, blood test results in hand, saying, "everything is going okay." How cool that would have been to have gotten to go in the *day* of the positive test for that. Maybe I'll find out on Monday this is all over. Will I regret having let myself be happy for five days? I don't know; I don't care. I'm happy now. Still no spotting. I'm not taking my temps or taking another home test. I'm putting this one in Dr. Special's office's hands. I told MFP, it would be easier if the news I was waiting on wasn't inside my own body. Like we were waiting to get a call on Monday letting us know everything is okay; and maybe at some point we'd get a call saying it wasn't. But the news is right here. Only it works a similar way. I really just don't know. I know that I'm pregnant, but I don't know if I'm going to have a baby. I won't say I'll know that until it is in my arms, squirming and screaming. My child's life begins as a mystery to me. I suppose in many ways it will always be a mystery to me, if it lives. No matter how close we are, how bound up with one another. I am not all-knowing, I am not in control. This little life has got its own trajectory. Help or hinder, that's all I can do.
I will tell you though, that I would love to have a baby. The plus sign yesterday allowed me to indulge in a few seconds of hope. MFP as a dad. I think about diaper tables for some reason. Maybe next summer, a baby pool...that's it. I won't go so far as to think about the calendar. Right now I'm on the hopeful side of "a little pregnant," not the trying-to-get-unpregnant side, and I'm grateful for that.
In a larger way, I think this is a big part of what's wrong with the way people talk about reproductive justice, the idea that you can't be "a little pregnant." That's fundamentally wrong, just not scientific. Just ask Dr. Special. There are all kinds of ways to be "a little pregnant." Human life starts out all bound up with other life, we don't start out as separate. We actually don't become separate people for a long, long time. I am my baby, my baby is me, right now. It's also a little MFP. It's a life-threatening medical condition. I think if we respected the realities of this whole, incredibly complicated process more, legislators and others wouldn't constantly be attacking women for navigating it. I've said it before, being "a little pregnant" for so much of last year, and now again, has only confirmed and emboldened my commitment to reproductive rights. This stage is bewildering and scary; it is utterly unjust to put roadblocks up that force a woman to go through it when she doesn't want to. I respect parenthood too much for that. I respect parenthood enough to plan it, to choose it deliberately. In good time: B'Sha'ah Tovah.
Which brings me to today. In yoga, the instructor said to push on our abdominal psoas muscles "unless you're pregnant." Well...I doubt one day post-positive-test means I'm pregnant, but yeah, technically I am. Being out of town, I don't get some kind of reassuring doctor response, blood test results in hand, saying, "everything is going okay." How cool that would have been to have gotten to go in the *day* of the positive test for that. Maybe I'll find out on Monday this is all over. Will I regret having let myself be happy for five days? I don't know; I don't care. I'm happy now. Still no spotting. I'm not taking my temps or taking another home test. I'm putting this one in Dr. Special's office's hands. I told MFP, it would be easier if the news I was waiting on wasn't inside my own body. Like we were waiting to get a call on Monday letting us know everything is okay; and maybe at some point we'd get a call saying it wasn't. But the news is right here. Only it works a similar way. I really just don't know. I know that I'm pregnant, but I don't know if I'm going to have a baby. I won't say I'll know that until it is in my arms, squirming and screaming. My child's life begins as a mystery to me. I suppose in many ways it will always be a mystery to me, if it lives. No matter how close we are, how bound up with one another. I am not all-knowing, I am not in control. This little life has got its own trajectory. Help or hinder, that's all I can do.
I will tell you though, that I would love to have a baby. The plus sign yesterday allowed me to indulge in a few seconds of hope. MFP as a dad. I think about diaper tables for some reason. Maybe next summer, a baby pool...that's it. I won't go so far as to think about the calendar. Right now I'm on the hopeful side of "a little pregnant," not the trying-to-get-unpregnant side, and I'm grateful for that.
In a larger way, I think this is a big part of what's wrong with the way people talk about reproductive justice, the idea that you can't be "a little pregnant." That's fundamentally wrong, just not scientific. Just ask Dr. Special. There are all kinds of ways to be "a little pregnant." Human life starts out all bound up with other life, we don't start out as separate. We actually don't become separate people for a long, long time. I am my baby, my baby is me, right now. It's also a little MFP. It's a life-threatening medical condition. I think if we respected the realities of this whole, incredibly complicated process more, legislators and others wouldn't constantly be attacking women for navigating it. I've said it before, being "a little pregnant" for so much of last year, and now again, has only confirmed and emboldened my commitment to reproductive rights. This stage is bewildering and scary; it is utterly unjust to put roadblocks up that force a woman to go through it when she doesn't want to. I respect parenthood too much for that. I respect parenthood enough to plan it, to choose it deliberately. In good time: B'Sha'ah Tovah.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
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.
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