Why does Garfield hate Mondays? It's not like he had a job, had to get up and go to work. I don't even remember Jon having a job, really. A Monday to Garfield should be just like a Sunday or a Tuesday. It doesn't really make sense, they're just pandering to us working workers who would feel the empathy.
Plans to get chickens over the weekend fell through, which was probably a good thing as the coop isn't quite finished yet. Still needs wheels, a roof, and the window.
Saw a bumper sticker today that said, "Midwives, they help people out!" which just slayed me. Think about it, it's funny. I wonder if the car belongs to the midwife I talked to in February, before I knew I was a special case (and that I'd lose that pregnancy.) From what I can find, there are maybe four midwives here-- two practices-- so the odds are good, unless there are more around who just don't advertise their services.
We have finished an entire bottle of multivitamins for men, an entire bottle of fish oil, and almost all of the L-Carnitine, which means it's been sixty days since I put Don on all this stuff, which means that it's been more than two months since the last miscarriage.
I could possibly be pregnant again, it's too soon to know. I don't know how I feel about that, except that I feel I have no real choice, as I'm compelled to keep trying by a force stronger than rational decision-making. (Which may not be all that strong anyways, as neither of us are much known for our powers of the rational as it is.) So, wait and see. I have a different mentality now about the chances for each pregnancy. It's sort of hard to explain. Before, I was convinced that each pregnancy was IT, the one that would be our baby. Everything I read, everything the doctors said, reinforced the idea that the odds were in our favor. There's no reason, they said, why your next pregnancy wouldn't work out! Even now, after four miscarriages and no successful pregnancies, the literature claims our chances for a successful try next time are still better than 50-50, and that's not assuming any kind of treatment.
Now I feel like this: clearly, there's something that makes it difficult for me (or us) to hold onto a pregnancy. It may be just the progesterone issue, or maybe it's that plus something else, something the doctors couldn't find or didn't look for. I did the progesterone religiously last time, but to no avail: could be "bad luck" (the doctors' theory), could be some problem with the method (maybe I'm not absorbing it properly, or once it's in me, it doesn't act right, or something-- I'm no scientist), or maybe there's another issue, either in general or with just that pregnancy-- a bad egg or a lousy sperm or a bad implantation. I feel like there's a number out there, that describes our odds of success. The doctors don't know it, nobody does. Is it one-in-ten? One-in-twenty? Or one-in-a-million? I'm veering towards the lower end because there's so much that's not wrong, so much that tested clean. But there's no way to know: it could be impossible but how to find that out without trying again and again? Everything we do is to push those odds higher: the progesterone, the supplements, the specialists. Maybe this next time, it will work because of some little change; maybe all the vitamins I'm force-feeding into Don will make his swimmer straighten up and fly right... if that was ever a problem. Maybe my megadoses of folic acid will make some kind of difference. We don't know. Maybe it will work because statistically, it's just chance, just a million different things falling into place. If our odds are one-in-ten for a good pregnancy, maybe this time the dice will roll right. Or maybe it will fail again. But I think I can be OK with that, maybe. Because I'm no longer telling myself that this next time is IT.
Showing posts with label Miscarriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscarriage. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Ketchup
It seems that I haven't written here in forever. Oops about that. Nothing's wrong or anything, just a confluence of factors conspiring against the blog. It started with a few really hectic weeks at work, with me working overtime all over the place, as well as being really busy while at work. I hate to admit it, but downtime at work is generally when I write in here. Then the camera batteries died, and I really wanted to put up a picture of something... Now I can't remember what. Mostly, though, it's because I've been really struggling with the miscarriage thing (again. or still.) and it makes for such repetitive writing. In a novel or a movie, trauma resolves itself to some kind of conclusion; in a journal it just rehashes itself endlessly.
I didn't want to write much about (or think about) the last miscarriage, because it was awful. So I kind of dealt with it in the most minimal way possible, which worked until a month later when my period came, because that was awful too, and it was like some kind of freaky flashback thing. (Note to self: vocabulary. find some.) I didn't feel like working through that on paper, so to speak. So I just didn't write at all. Then Don and I were confronted with the approach of the Fertile Window and had to decide whether or not we were Trying Again this cycle. After four miscarriages it's become a grim decision, not the joyous one it was the first time, or even the second. I actually said to him, "We need to talk soon about whether to try for our next miscarriage this month, or wait another cycle"... without realizing what I'd said wrong. Well, no point putting off the inevitable; we're going to keep trying so we may as well try as soon as possible.
Good things have been happening, too. I mentioned that we'd done a good bit of work on the fence; now the chicken coop is almost done too. Don took that project over, as predicted, but is following my design pretty well. We were supposed to be getting the actual birds this weekend, but that's up in the air now. The weather's been great, lots of rain from the hurricanes, starting to get into my favorite season now. Got a little raise at work. Plane tickets booked for New Mexico in December; finally get a chance to hang out with my family there for a bit. It hasn't been all five of us since Big Bend 2006. So that's something to look forward to.
I didn't want to write much about (or think about) the last miscarriage, because it was awful. So I kind of dealt with it in the most minimal way possible, which worked until a month later when my period came, because that was awful too, and it was like some kind of freaky flashback thing. (Note to self: vocabulary. find some.) I didn't feel like working through that on paper, so to speak. So I just didn't write at all. Then Don and I were confronted with the approach of the Fertile Window and had to decide whether or not we were Trying Again this cycle. After four miscarriages it's become a grim decision, not the joyous one it was the first time, or even the second. I actually said to him, "We need to talk soon about whether to try for our next miscarriage this month, or wait another cycle"... without realizing what I'd said wrong. Well, no point putting off the inevitable; we're going to keep trying so we may as well try as soon as possible.
Good things have been happening, too. I mentioned that we'd done a good bit of work on the fence; now the chicken coop is almost done too. Don took that project over, as predicted, but is following my design pretty well. We were supposed to be getting the actual birds this weekend, but that's up in the air now. The weather's been great, lots of rain from the hurricanes, starting to get into my favorite season now. Got a little raise at work. Plane tickets booked for New Mexico in December; finally get a chance to hang out with my family there for a bit. It hasn't been all five of us since Big Bend 2006. So that's something to look forward to.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Hot Mama
A guest of my next-door neighbor propositioned me this morning, as I was walking Alice. This is wrong on so many levels: from the fact that he seemed fairly inebriated for 7:30 on a Monday morning, to-- hello! married woman from next door, not fellow drunk girl at club--, to the fact that I'd forgotten that it's possible to feel utterly awful inside, and still look normal outside. I'm still physically wrung out from the miscarriage; I'm pretty sure that I've developed both an iron deficiency and a uterine infection. The way I feel about my body right now is crap, it has failed me again and again; the very essence of my feminity is trampled and defeated. My usually-more-than-generous sex drive is MIA. Plus, I'm still depressed as hell and kind of at an emotional loss. Essentially, I'm so far from my usual healthy self-image that the idea of someone else finding me attractive (even in the basest hey-you're-hot! kind of way) just seems incongruous. Everybody should be able to see the mess within, seemingly, and it's startling when they can't.
...
Last autumn, Don and I had a pumpkin on our front porch table; just for decoration (or possibly it was for pie but I just forgot to bring it inside). It sat there until it got kind of soft, and a windstorm blew the table over and sent the pumpkin sailing into the yard, where it burst pumpkiny guts all over. Apparently my clean-up job wasn't perfect, because right now we have a few enormous pumpkin plants taking over the yard-- anyone who's grown pumpkins, squash, or zucchini knows what I'm talking about; these vines could swallow a Volkswagon. We have huge orange blossoms but no pumpkins as yet, and Don has sworn to leave the plants until we get fruit, even though they're close enough to the sidewalk and porch to threaten passersby.
...
Last autumn, Don and I had a pumpkin on our front porch table; just for decoration (or possibly it was for pie but I just forgot to bring it inside). It sat there until it got kind of soft, and a windstorm blew the table over and sent the pumpkin sailing into the yard, where it burst pumpkiny guts all over. Apparently my clean-up job wasn't perfect, because right now we have a few enormous pumpkin plants taking over the yard-- anyone who's grown pumpkins, squash, or zucchini knows what I'm talking about; these vines could swallow a Volkswagon. We have huge orange blossoms but no pumpkins as yet, and Don has sworn to leave the plants until we get fruit, even though they're close enough to the sidewalk and porch to threaten passersby.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Note to self:
The next time (God forbid) the doctors offer you a d&c, for the love of all that is holy, TAKE IT. Remember this.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
If you can't segue, then bullet point
-- My miscarriage is finally starting. One-half relief, one-half crushing disappointment. Plenty of pain and blood to go around. Once I know that a pregnancy isn't viable, then I just want it gone... knowing something that my body hasn't figured out yet is hard. I want it over with so that we can just get started on the next one. (I almost took the doctors up on getting the D&C, but my body is so good at miscarrying naturally that it seems a waste not to.) Except, there's always a tiny part of me that hoped that the doctors and their machines were wrong... that maybe there was a healthy embryo tucked away in there somewhere and we just couldn't see it-- maybe my uterus has a hidden corner or something. (Except that since I had the hsg done I know my uterus is exactly normal-shaped.) But still. I can't help but hold out a tiny bit of hope until my body gives up and the bleeding and cramping begin. Thank you, uterus, for recognizing the concept of weekend and holding out for me, and sparing me the trouble of miscarrying at work. I appreciate it, I do.
-- We've decided to do this just one more time. For anyone new to the game, this is my fourth miscarriage since last March-- what is that, sixteen months? It's hard physically, but mentally, (emotionally? sanity-wise?) I'm afraid it's pushing me over the edge. I'm losing the emotional stability and rational perspective that has always been one of my more advantageous traits. (Be honest-- you thought that stealing-a-baby-from-the-grocery-store thing was a joke, didn't you.) We can not just keep getting pregnant only to lose the pregnancy, ad nauseum, until we're both bitter, sad, shells of human beings. So we'll try to get pregnant again after the mandatory waiting period. We'll each take our amazing collection of supplements, the selenium and vitamin E and folic acid. I'll take my progesterone religiously, again. But if we lose the next pregnancy too, then that's it. That would be five, a nice round number to stop at.
-- At which point we'll start looking into adoption and etc. ("Etc" being fostering, theft, and those Law and Order: SVU episodes that start with a heavily pregnant woman getting kidnapped. Just kidding. Mostly.) But I've got a bone to pick with the general world about adoption. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with the concept in general, but as soon as people find out about what Don and I have been going through re: trying to have a baby, they jump on the adoption train. Why don't we "just" adopt? Did we know there are lots of babies out there that need loving parents? Well you helpful people, did YOU adopt your children? Perhaps a better question is, why do you see adoption as the last resort of people that can't seem to have genetically related offspring? Don't stand there holding your self-birthed child and mouth cliches about adoption, as though we have no right to even try to have our own like you did. Because we are having fertility problems, suddenly those "unwanted" babies are much more our problem than yours. Why do I have to defend my right to want to get pregnant, when you didn't? Because we need help? Because our attempts at conception are so obviously intentional and can't be written off as thoughtless reproduction? As it happens, I have reasons for wanting "my own". Some of them are selfish. All of them are human. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not ruling out adoption. It may become our salvation. And of course we've thought about it. Find me a couple that's been through what we have that hasn't spent hours going over the idea. I just don't like the concept that us wanting to do what everyone else seems to do almost without thinking, is not okay. (Worst sentence ever, I know.)
-- Random reasons for wanting to conceive own offspring: I want to feel what it's like to have a baby move inside me. Want to waddle down the street, hugely pregnant. Want to give birth. Want to breastfeed-- maybe for a long time. I am a mammal, dammit. I want what every hamster, bat, blue whale and grizzly bear--as well as most female humans-- want, on the most instinctual, animalistic level imaginable. It's a primal hunger, a force. I want to send my own genetic material into the future, for unimaginable, untold generations. Every living creature lives to do that, from the E. coli in your colon, to those blind fish that live in caves, to the morning glories climbing over our front porch, who busily make flowers and seedpods every day. I want to see what my children would be like. Would any of them have my green eyes? Would we be able to trace traits to my parents, my grandparents? Perhaps I'd have a child that more closely resembles-- in looks, or personality-- my brother or sister than me. "You are so much like your uncle, did you know that?" Would they have our intelligences? Our stubbornness? Or perhaps they'd be completely different. Sometimes the apple does fall far away; we all know someone that is completely different than either parent. That would be cool, too.
--I play with Mendel, trying to figure out statistical likelihoods. My paternal grandfather, a Russian Jew, had blue eyes. (If you don't know, that's fairly unusual.) Because of that, even though my dad has the much more typical dark, dark eyes of his mother, he carries a gene for light eyes, so marrying my green-eyed mother made it possible for me to have her green eyes, and my brother to have (our grandfather's? Or something from our mother's side?) blue, and my sister to get his deep brown. Meanwhile, my dad's sister, who of course also had dark brown eyes but was carrying the recessive gene, married my uncle who has the standard dark eyes, and they had three brown-eyed offspring, my cousins. But any of them could be carrying an unexpressed blue-eyed gene, which has manifested again in my cousin Robin's baby; even though both she and her partner have brown eyes, this dark-eyed, dark haired couple has a baby with blue eyes and (so far) red hair. My long-deceased grandfather's blue eyes have shown up again, two generations later. Because I married someone with beautiful hazel eyes, it's certain that our children would have light eyes-- blue, green, or hazel. That stuff fascinates me, and I always assumed that one day I'd see it carried out into the next generation. Yeah, I know, it's a stupid reason to have kids. But tell me that you didn't spend hours wondering (when you were pregnant, when you were trying, or just whenever) about the same kinds of things. Hoping that some defining trait of a well-loved relative would manifest in your own offspring, wondering if the baby you carried would have your height or your husband's non-height. The first thing a family does upon seeing a new baby, is to start arguing over its features. Mothers will inform anyone who is listening that so-and-so (usually the dad) looked JUST like that as a newborn. It's a cliche, and yet the fact that it's a cliche demonstrates that it's not just me who has this selfish desire to see my own traits, my husbands, and my family's, be re-born.
So before you write me off as selfish for trying so, so hard to get pregnant (and stay that way), you had better have adopted your own children-- and not as a last resort when nothing else worked. Only then can you prove that you didn't have the exact same reasons-- or ones just as silly-- for having your babies the traditional way.
-- We've decided to do this just one more time. For anyone new to the game, this is my fourth miscarriage since last March-- what is that, sixteen months? It's hard physically, but mentally, (emotionally? sanity-wise?) I'm afraid it's pushing me over the edge. I'm losing the emotional stability and rational perspective that has always been one of my more advantageous traits. (Be honest-- you thought that stealing-a-baby-from-the-grocery-store thing was a joke, didn't you.) We can not just keep getting pregnant only to lose the pregnancy, ad nauseum, until we're both bitter, sad, shells of human beings. So we'll try to get pregnant again after the mandatory waiting period. We'll each take our amazing collection of supplements, the selenium and vitamin E and folic acid. I'll take my progesterone religiously, again. But if we lose the next pregnancy too, then that's it. That would be five, a nice round number to stop at.
-- At which point we'll start looking into adoption and etc. ("Etc" being fostering, theft, and those Law and Order: SVU episodes that start with a heavily pregnant woman getting kidnapped. Just kidding. Mostly.) But I've got a bone to pick with the general world about adoption. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with the concept in general, but as soon as people find out about what Don and I have been going through re: trying to have a baby, they jump on the adoption train. Why don't we "just" adopt? Did we know there are lots of babies out there that need loving parents? Well you helpful people, did YOU adopt your children? Perhaps a better question is, why do you see adoption as the last resort of people that can't seem to have genetically related offspring? Don't stand there holding your self-birthed child and mouth cliches about adoption, as though we have no right to even try to have our own like you did. Because we are having fertility problems, suddenly those "unwanted" babies are much more our problem than yours. Why do I have to defend my right to want to get pregnant, when you didn't? Because we need help? Because our attempts at conception are so obviously intentional and can't be written off as thoughtless reproduction? As it happens, I have reasons for wanting "my own". Some of them are selfish. All of them are human. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not ruling out adoption. It may become our salvation. And of course we've thought about it. Find me a couple that's been through what we have that hasn't spent hours going over the idea. I just don't like the concept that us wanting to do what everyone else seems to do almost without thinking, is not okay. (Worst sentence ever, I know.)
-- Random reasons for wanting to conceive own offspring: I want to feel what it's like to have a baby move inside me. Want to waddle down the street, hugely pregnant. Want to give birth. Want to breastfeed-- maybe for a long time. I am a mammal, dammit. I want what every hamster, bat, blue whale and grizzly bear--as well as most female humans-- want, on the most instinctual, animalistic level imaginable. It's a primal hunger, a force. I want to send my own genetic material into the future, for unimaginable, untold generations. Every living creature lives to do that, from the E. coli in your colon, to those blind fish that live in caves, to the morning glories climbing over our front porch, who busily make flowers and seedpods every day. I want to see what my children would be like. Would any of them have my green eyes? Would we be able to trace traits to my parents, my grandparents? Perhaps I'd have a child that more closely resembles-- in looks, or personality-- my brother or sister than me. "You are so much like your uncle, did you know that?" Would they have our intelligences? Our stubbornness? Or perhaps they'd be completely different. Sometimes the apple does fall far away; we all know someone that is completely different than either parent. That would be cool, too.
--I play with Mendel, trying to figure out statistical likelihoods. My paternal grandfather, a Russian Jew, had blue eyes. (If you don't know, that's fairly unusual.) Because of that, even though my dad has the much more typical dark, dark eyes of his mother, he carries a gene for light eyes, so marrying my green-eyed mother made it possible for me to have her green eyes, and my brother to have (our grandfather's? Or something from our mother's side?) blue, and my sister to get his deep brown. Meanwhile, my dad's sister, who of course also had dark brown eyes but was carrying the recessive gene, married my uncle who has the standard dark eyes, and they had three brown-eyed offspring, my cousins. But any of them could be carrying an unexpressed blue-eyed gene, which has manifested again in my cousin Robin's baby; even though both she and her partner have brown eyes, this dark-eyed, dark haired couple has a baby with blue eyes and (so far) red hair. My long-deceased grandfather's blue eyes have shown up again, two generations later. Because I married someone with beautiful hazel eyes, it's certain that our children would have light eyes-- blue, green, or hazel. That stuff fascinates me, and I always assumed that one day I'd see it carried out into the next generation. Yeah, I know, it's a stupid reason to have kids. But tell me that you didn't spend hours wondering (when you were pregnant, when you were trying, or just whenever) about the same kinds of things. Hoping that some defining trait of a well-loved relative would manifest in your own offspring, wondering if the baby you carried would have your height or your husband's non-height. The first thing a family does upon seeing a new baby, is to start arguing over its features. Mothers will inform anyone who is listening that so-and-so (usually the dad) looked JUST like that as a newborn. It's a cliche, and yet the fact that it's a cliche demonstrates that it's not just me who has this selfish desire to see my own traits, my husbands, and my family's, be re-born.
So before you write me off as selfish for trying so, so hard to get pregnant (and stay that way), you had better have adopted your own children-- and not as a last resort when nothing else worked. Only then can you prove that you didn't have the exact same reasons-- or ones just as silly-- for having your babies the traditional way.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Sigh.
OK, well, so I'm back. Yeah. Many things to write about now. I'll start with a confession, because those are always fun. When I announced that I was taking a break from posting, it was because I'd just found out that we were pregnant again. My plan to get knocked up on our first cycle of trying again was fairly successful, making it our second time for a first-try pregnancy. If that makes any sense. I lost the desire to discuss the pregnancy here, though, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, my parents and brother were coming to Virginia to visit us, and I wanted to wait and share the news in person, for once, rather than over the phone; somehow dishing about it here several weeks before telling them didn't seem right. The main issue, though, was just that we've been through this so many times now, that my thoughts and emotional patterns have become repetitive. I couldn't stomach posting daily about how I was scared. Excited. Scared again. Hopeful. Worried. It's the same every time.
My family came to town, we told them our news, and all was joyous. Our ultrasound was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, and I decided that if it looked good, I'd come back here with the sonogram pictures and announce the pregnancy. If it was bad news, I'd come back to sob about another failure. Well, there are no sonogram pictures here today*. I am in that lovely span of time where I get to wonder whether I'll miscarry naturally again, or have to have a D & C. Did I mention that Don was on a business trip when I found out? And that I had to call him and tell him that we weren't having a baby after all? He had wanted me to put the ultrasound off for a week so that we could be together for it, and I demurred... I needed to see in there and see what was happening so badly that waiting another week seemed impossible.
Even though this is our fourth loss in a row, the doctors are adamant that it has nothing to do with the other three. Seriously. This one is random, couldn't have been helped by anything, just plain bad luck. You know how most women that have a miscarriage just have one, and it turns out that there's nothing wrong with them, and they have healthy pregnancies afterwards? This is that kind of miscarriage. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea, that after three other losses, we get the "random bad luck" miscarriage that is an anembryonic pregnancy, more commonly called a blighted ovum. It seems like more than our fair share of bad luck, like the universe is fucking with us. But since when is life fair, right? Things could be worse. They can always be worse. We had a second ultrasound this morning, just to make absolutely sure there isn't anything in there-- no missed twin, nothing like that-- before making the decision to stop the hormone treatment, since doing that would end even a healthy pregnancy. I did ask the doctor about Don's side of the fertility equation**, given the substantial age difference between us and the decades of hard living, but he essentially pointed out that as Don's gotten me pregnant four times in sixteen months, his sperm is not really to be questioned. But he gave me a list of vitamin and mineral supplements for the man, so I just spent a week's pay at Whole Foods for things like selenium and Vitamins C and E. It's interesting what we do when we have no control over a situation, isn't it? Oh, and I'm still infatuated with this RE practice. After the feet-in-stirrups part of a visit, they have me get dressed and come into an office, so that we can talk across a (round) table as fully-dressed adults, rather than continuing to talk at me while I'm still on the table, naked from the waist down and wrapped in a sheet. The added dignity is nice. Plus, I was twenty minutes late for my appointment (remind me to tell you that story some time, it involved our new truck*** getting towed from the parking lot at work, leaving me stranded with no ride, no cash, no debit card) and they were very gracious about it. Then they made a special appointment for today, a Saturday, for the followup since it's so hard for me to get out of work. If we get pregnant again I wonder if I could stay with them the whole time (assuming that is longer than a few weeks) instead of transferring back to the obstetrician.
P.S. Oh yeah, and we bought the house. It is ours. Or more accurately, 20% of it is ours, and the other 80% we will slowly buy back from the bank over 20 or 30 years. So at least one definite, constructive thing has happened this year, which is nice. Before, I was joking with Don that in future years, we will look back and remember 2007 as the year we wed, 2008 as the year we became homeowners, and 2009 as the year of the first baby. It is not entirely too late for that, since this one would have been due in February, but I am having a hard time believing that we'll ever successfully sustain a pregnancy.
*Interestingly, they still *take* the pictures for a failed pregnancy, they just don't give you copies for your fridge. I think that's probably a good idea, because otherwise I might go around showing people, "...and here's where there should have been an embryo, and yet look! It's not there! That's called an anembryonic pregnancy! Isn't that an oxymoron? Because you'd think the definition of being pregnant would be that there's an embryo inside you!" Instead, the photos get stapled to something in your file. My file is starting to look impressively thick.
** The only test they've done on Don so far is a chromosomal analysis to make sure that he doesn't have any genetic abnormalities.
*** We bought a new truck a little while ago, I don't think I ever mentioned it here. Although it's half mine (I paid for half of it and my name's on the title too) I think of it as Don's truck because it's replacing his 1993 Ford Ranger. This one is *exactly* the same truck, except that it's a 2006 and a beautiful dark red color instead of silver.
My family came to town, we told them our news, and all was joyous. Our ultrasound was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, and I decided that if it looked good, I'd come back here with the sonogram pictures and announce the pregnancy. If it was bad news, I'd come back to sob about another failure. Well, there are no sonogram pictures here today*. I am in that lovely span of time where I get to wonder whether I'll miscarry naturally again, or have to have a D & C. Did I mention that Don was on a business trip when I found out? And that I had to call him and tell him that we weren't having a baby after all? He had wanted me to put the ultrasound off for a week so that we could be together for it, and I demurred... I needed to see in there and see what was happening so badly that waiting another week seemed impossible.
Even though this is our fourth loss in a row, the doctors are adamant that it has nothing to do with the other three. Seriously. This one is random, couldn't have been helped by anything, just plain bad luck. You know how most women that have a miscarriage just have one, and it turns out that there's nothing wrong with them, and they have healthy pregnancies afterwards? This is that kind of miscarriage. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea, that after three other losses, we get the "random bad luck" miscarriage that is an anembryonic pregnancy, more commonly called a blighted ovum. It seems like more than our fair share of bad luck, like the universe is fucking with us. But since when is life fair, right? Things could be worse. They can always be worse. We had a second ultrasound this morning, just to make absolutely sure there isn't anything in there-- no missed twin, nothing like that-- before making the decision to stop the hormone treatment, since doing that would end even a healthy pregnancy. I did ask the doctor about Don's side of the fertility equation**, given the substantial age difference between us and the decades of hard living, but he essentially pointed out that as Don's gotten me pregnant four times in sixteen months, his sperm is not really to be questioned. But he gave me a list of vitamin and mineral supplements for the man, so I just spent a week's pay at Whole Foods for things like selenium and Vitamins C and E. It's interesting what we do when we have no control over a situation, isn't it? Oh, and I'm still infatuated with this RE practice. After the feet-in-stirrups part of a visit, they have me get dressed and come into an office, so that we can talk across a (round) table as fully-dressed adults, rather than continuing to talk at me while I'm still on the table, naked from the waist down and wrapped in a sheet. The added dignity is nice. Plus, I was twenty minutes late for my appointment (remind me to tell you that story some time, it involved our new truck*** getting towed from the parking lot at work, leaving me stranded with no ride, no cash, no debit card) and they were very gracious about it. Then they made a special appointment for today, a Saturday, for the followup since it's so hard for me to get out of work. If we get pregnant again I wonder if I could stay with them the whole time (assuming that is longer than a few weeks) instead of transferring back to the obstetrician.
P.S. Oh yeah, and we bought the house. It is ours. Or more accurately, 20% of it is ours, and the other 80% we will slowly buy back from the bank over 20 or 30 years. So at least one definite, constructive thing has happened this year, which is nice. Before, I was joking with Don that in future years, we will look back and remember 2007 as the year we wed, 2008 as the year we became homeowners, and 2009 as the year of the first baby. It is not entirely too late for that, since this one would have been due in February, but I am having a hard time believing that we'll ever successfully sustain a pregnancy.
*Interestingly, they still *take* the pictures for a failed pregnancy, they just don't give you copies for your fridge. I think that's probably a good idea, because otherwise I might go around showing people, "...and here's where there should have been an embryo, and yet look! It's not there! That's called an anembryonic pregnancy! Isn't that an oxymoron? Because you'd think the definition of being pregnant would be that there's an embryo inside you!" Instead, the photos get stapled to something in your file. My file is starting to look impressively thick.
** The only test they've done on Don so far is a chromosomal analysis to make sure that he doesn't have any genetic abnormalities.
*** We bought a new truck a little while ago, I don't think I ever mentioned it here. Although it's half mine (I paid for half of it and my name's on the title too) I think of it as Don's truck because it's replacing his 1993 Ford Ranger. This one is *exactly* the same truck, except that it's a 2006 and a beautiful dark red color instead of silver.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Some rage on the side
Other people just get pregnant. They get pregnant, and the little embryo eventually becomes a fetus, which becomes a baby. Then they have their own little baby, a family.
This is seriously boggling my mind right now. Why them and not us? People who aren't even trying, who don't even want to get pregnant, successfully carry their pregnancies to term. People who don't take care of themselves, who are too ignorant or lazy to be educated about nutrition, weight gain, drug use, and all the other factors that can influence their outcomes, do just fine. (What is that expression, that God looks after idiots and children?)
This is the first time that I've had to think: something is wrong with me. There's something about my body, my self, that doesn't work as it should. I've always been able to take for granted that, while not perfect, my body was fully functional: anything I've wanted to do I've been able to. Now, I've been doing what I always do when faced with the unknown: read, research, study. We have an appointment with a specialist next week and I don't want to be unprepared; they won't be able to use any words or put forth any theories that I'm not already familiar with. The possibilities are mind-boggling, though. What is it going to take to bring a next pregnancy to term? In-vitro fertilization? Heparin shots every day? Sewing my cervix shut combined with complete bed rest? And will it be (please oh please) the next one, or will there be more losses first?
This is seriously boggling my mind right now. Why them and not us? People who aren't even trying, who don't even want to get pregnant, successfully carry their pregnancies to term. People who don't take care of themselves, who are too ignorant or lazy to be educated about nutrition, weight gain, drug use, and all the other factors that can influence their outcomes, do just fine. (What is that expression, that God looks after idiots and children?)
This is the first time that I've had to think: something is wrong with me. There's something about my body, my self, that doesn't work as it should. I've always been able to take for granted that, while not perfect, my body was fully functional: anything I've wanted to do I've been able to. Now, I've been doing what I always do when faced with the unknown: read, research, study. We have an appointment with a specialist next week and I don't want to be unprepared; they won't be able to use any words or put forth any theories that I'm not already familiar with. The possibilities are mind-boggling, though. What is it going to take to bring a next pregnancy to term? In-vitro fertilization? Heparin shots every day? Sewing my cervix shut combined with complete bed rest? And will it be (please oh please) the next one, or will there be more losses first?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Aftermath
I keep dreaming that I'm still pregnant and everything is fine. Every time I wake up, I have to realize all over that it has happened again. It makes the early mornings suck. The coffee shop raised its prices on espresso drinks, which is just kind of gilding the lily on my week so far. Don isn't sleeping well, either. I don't know what's happening in his dreamscape, but it seems bad. These miscarriages are hard on him, too; maybe even harder, in a way, than they are on me. For one thing, he doesn't have the kind of support network that I do; even if there are people that would want to help him, he can't open up the way that I can to accept that help. None of his coworkers, his friends, not even his parents know about what he's going through; he's just too private and stoic. I think for some men, it's almost worse to have to see their wives going through something painful, than to experience pain themselves; Don is one of those. And I think he's worried about what this is going to do to us, to our marriage. Worried that maybe it's him, not me, even though all the evidence would suggest otherwise. He understands perfectly how much I want--need--to have a baby, but he doesn't realize how much I need his own self. Afraid maybe I'll trade him in for a more fertile model, I guess. Words are pretty useless against those kinds of fears, but I keep trying.
Today was the day that I had hoped to deliver that other pregnancy, the good long one from last summer with the heartbeat. (My God, I've gotten to the point where I need to identify which miscarriage I mean.) Technically, the due date would have been last Sunday--because nothing is as fabulous a coincidence as miscarrying exactly on the due date of your last miscarriage!--but I thought that Leap Day would be an awesome birthday to have. I knew a woman who's birthday was February 29th, and she got a real kick out of it. I keep attaching way too much significance to the random dates associated with pregnancy. Our very first pregnancy was conceived on Valentine's Day. (Sorry if that's too much information, and yes, I know that I'm an avowed V-Day Hater, but I was ovulating. Whatever.) I thought it was sweet and romantic and a good omen. The second pregnancy was conceived on our honeymoon; sweet, romantic, good omen, would make for a good how-you-were-made story as long as we left out certain details; and it would have been due right around Leap Day. This last one would have been due just a few days before Halloween, so you know what I was aiming for; it's only our favorite holiday of the year. I need to just stop thinking like that. There are no lucky days to conceive or to deliver. ANY day to give birth would become extra, extra-lucky all by itself. Why is it that I can hardly remember my friends' birthdays but can remember the exact dates of conception, Positive Pregnancy Test, and miscarriage for every pregnancy so far? It's obsessive and possibly unhealthy, but they're burned into my brain now.
Today was the day that I had hoped to deliver that other pregnancy, the good long one from last summer with the heartbeat. (My God, I've gotten to the point where I need to identify which miscarriage I mean.) Technically, the due date would have been last Sunday--because nothing is as fabulous a coincidence as miscarrying exactly on the due date of your last miscarriage!--but I thought that Leap Day would be an awesome birthday to have. I knew a woman who's birthday was February 29th, and she got a real kick out of it. I keep attaching way too much significance to the random dates associated with pregnancy. Our very first pregnancy was conceived on Valentine's Day. (Sorry if that's too much information, and yes, I know that I'm an avowed V-Day Hater, but I was ovulating. Whatever.) I thought it was sweet and romantic and a good omen. The second pregnancy was conceived on our honeymoon; sweet, romantic, good omen, would make for a good how-you-were-made story as long as we left out certain details; and it would have been due right around Leap Day. This last one would have been due just a few days before Halloween, so you know what I was aiming for; it's only our favorite holiday of the year. I need to just stop thinking like that. There are no lucky days to conceive or to deliver. ANY day to give birth would become extra, extra-lucky all by itself. Why is it that I can hardly remember my friends' birthdays but can remember the exact dates of conception, Positive Pregnancy Test, and miscarriage for every pregnancy so far? It's obsessive and possibly unhealthy, but they're burned into my brain now.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Scenes from the ER
The hospital ran the usual barrage of tests that one has done in these situations; blood work*, sonogram, something with a speculum (I really don't know about that one) . Over the past year, I have become all too familiar with these tests, but they're new to Don and he doesn't always know how to interpret the data.
When we were in the ultrasound room, the hCG results came back at 2.9. That, (for anyone like Don out there), is essentially nil but not quite: the chemical's presence at all was just enough to show that I had been pregnant, but low enough to show that the entire miscarriage was basically over. The ultrasound technician** didn't bother to explain the numbers, rightly assuming that I would understand them. Later, Don asked me what a normal amount would be.
**************
"If this were a healthy pregnancy? Should have been in the thousands. It rises exponentially at this stage, and falls the same way at the end. Or did you mean when not pregnant? Then it would always be zero."
"How much is enough to make a positive pregnancy test, then?"
"Depends on the test, 25 to 50 maybe, for an over-the-counter home test. I took one a few days ago, you know, when I was freaking out over not having any symptoms, just to see the test change. But why?"
"Just wondering. Is there anything else that could make it turn besides pregnancy?"
"A few kinds of cancer. Nothing common."
"Oh. I just thought maybe all the vegetables you've been eating lately... beets and things... vitamins... maybe messed with your body chemistry or something and fooled the test."
********************
Don's version of the home pregnancy test: "Warning! Do not take with veggies, as could trigger a false positive! Avoid beets and broccoli particularly!"
Later the doctor confirmed something as being a "product of conception" (lovely term, though, isn't it?), thereby ending Don's dark fear that we'd somehow manifested the entire fantasy.
When we were in the ultrasound room, the hCG results came back at 2.9. That, (for anyone like Don out there), is essentially nil but not quite: the chemical's presence at all was just enough to show that I had been pregnant, but low enough to show that the entire miscarriage was basically over. The ultrasound technician** didn't bother to explain the numbers, rightly assuming that I would understand them. Later, Don asked me what a normal amount would be.
**************
"If this were a healthy pregnancy? Should have been in the thousands. It rises exponentially at this stage, and falls the same way at the end. Or did you mean when not pregnant? Then it would always be zero."
"How much is enough to make a positive pregnancy test, then?"
"Depends on the test, 25 to 50 maybe, for an over-the-counter home test. I took one a few days ago, you know, when I was freaking out over not having any symptoms, just to see the test change. But why?"
"Just wondering. Is there anything else that could make it turn besides pregnancy?"
"A few kinds of cancer. Nothing common."
"Oh. I just thought maybe all the vegetables you've been eating lately... beets and things... vitamins... maybe messed with your body chemistry or something and fooled the test."
********************
Don's version of the home pregnancy test: "Warning! Do not take with veggies, as could trigger a false positive! Avoid beets and broccoli particularly!"
Later the doctor confirmed something as being a "product of conception" (lovely term, though, isn't it?), thereby ending Don's dark fear that we'd somehow manifested the entire fantasy.
*I have excellent veins for giving blood. Just perfect, like I should be a practice dummy for new interns. Nurses always comment on the ease of my veins and it makes me proud, even though it's not exactly a skill.
**The ultrasound technician also commented on the very backward-tilted position of my uterus. Other medical personnel have mentioned this as well, and I wonder whether it could be contributing to our problems. She said she didn't think so, that it might make it harder to conceive but not affect a pregnancy already started-- but she said it in a but-I'm-just-the-ultrasound-tech kind of way.Monday, February 25, 2008
At least...
...it wasn't an ectopic pregnancy; the fear of that drove me to the emergency room in the first place. A simple, uncomplicated early miscarriage is a blessing compared to the mess that could have been.
At least going to the hospital created a medical record of the pregnancy and miscarriage; they won't have to take my word for it that I got pregnant and miscarried for a third time, and we can start the more specialized tests that are saved for us fertility-challenged peoples.
At least it was really early. Speaking from experience now, it is much, much easier (physically) to miscarry at 5-6 weeks along than at 10-12. This is just like a bad period, really-- nothing like the terrifying hemorrhage that was the first miscarriage. Mentally, it's a bit easier because we didn't have two or three months of building-up time, week after week of thinking that everything will be fine-- then realizing that all that time was essentially wasted; that we'd have to start over again.
At least Don could come with me this time. It makes such a difference, having that support. Doctors and nurses don't really understand my dark sense of humor; it's a weird defensive mechanism that helps me deal with the undealwithable. They probably just thought I was nuts, but he understands that, in public at least, I'd rather joke than cry.
At least I have the unwavering support of my friends, my parents, my sister (and brother), even-- to some extent--my manager and coworkers. There are so many women out there struggling with this, or worse, all on their own. I can't imagine how rough that would be.
At least I'm still only 27. Whatever isn't right, there's plenty of time to fix. We decided to start a family when I was 25; imagine if we'd waited another five or even ten years to start trying! Everything would look a lot darker.
At least I have good medical insurance, so that deciding to go to the ER is no big deal, financially. Neither is the prospect of lots more doctor's appointments, or expensive tests. Imagine how much more difficult this journey would be if we had to finance it somehow.
At least we can get pregnant easily. That's huge. Whatever is making me lose my babies, I'm sure it can be fixed; the biggest hurdle is already passed. It took two cycles this time; one the last time, and four the first time-- but half of those we weren't really trying, more just "let's not use birth control and see what happens!" So every time we've tried to get pregnant, it essentially happened within two months. When we figure out what's happening, we should ideally be able to apply it in no time, and be on our way to a houseful of kiddies.
At least going to the hospital created a medical record of the pregnancy and miscarriage; they won't have to take my word for it that I got pregnant and miscarried for a third time, and we can start the more specialized tests that are saved for us fertility-challenged peoples.
At least it was really early. Speaking from experience now, it is much, much easier (physically) to miscarry at 5-6 weeks along than at 10-12. This is just like a bad period, really-- nothing like the terrifying hemorrhage that was the first miscarriage. Mentally, it's a bit easier because we didn't have two or three months of building-up time, week after week of thinking that everything will be fine-- then realizing that all that time was essentially wasted; that we'd have to start over again.
At least Don could come with me this time. It makes such a difference, having that support. Doctors and nurses don't really understand my dark sense of humor; it's a weird defensive mechanism that helps me deal with the undealwithable. They probably just thought I was nuts, but he understands that, in public at least, I'd rather joke than cry.
At least I have the unwavering support of my friends, my parents, my sister (and brother), even-- to some extent--my manager and coworkers. There are so many women out there struggling with this, or worse, all on their own. I can't imagine how rough that would be.
At least I'm still only 27. Whatever isn't right, there's plenty of time to fix. We decided to start a family when I was 25; imagine if we'd waited another five or even ten years to start trying! Everything would look a lot darker.
At least I have good medical insurance, so that deciding to go to the ER is no big deal, financially. Neither is the prospect of lots more doctor's appointments, or expensive tests. Imagine how much more difficult this journey would be if we had to finance it somehow.
At least we can get pregnant easily. That's huge. Whatever is making me lose my babies, I'm sure it can be fixed; the biggest hurdle is already passed. It took two cycles this time; one the last time, and four the first time-- but half of those we weren't really trying, more just "let's not use birth control and see what happens!" So every time we've tried to get pregnant, it essentially happened within two months. When we figure out what's happening, we should ideally be able to apply it in no time, and be on our way to a houseful of kiddies.
It's over.
Four hours at the ER, blood tests, a pelvic exam and an ultrasound, just to determine what was already obvious.
What the hell is wrong with me?
What the hell is wrong with me?
Monday, December 17, 2007
Over-disclosure, Much?
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*
*
Seriously, unless reading about the all-powerful uterus appeals to you, I'd skip this post. I mean, *I* wouldn't, because I love uteri, but I'd think that *you* might want to...
*
*
*
I never feel comfortable discussing my Womanly Cycles without a disclaimer, because some people are so weird about stuff like that. Like how some men are fine with picking up an economy pack of tampons for the lady in their life, and others feel faint at the very idea of, you know, that happening. Squeamish. I know a guy like that and he's a doctor, for heavens' sake... Told me that he attended a birth as part of his residency and it really grossed him out, what with the bleeding and all. And yet he wanted to be a brain surgeon-- don't brains bleed too? Or is that not gross because it's not Female Blood? I don't know. I just wouldn't want anyone to read my blog and have to reel away from the computer wailing, "My eyes! MY EYES!"
Anyways, I am on my period today! Sound the trumpets, hang the banners-- the trying-to-conceive begins again this month! I thought it would be last month, but Don wanted to wait one more cycle and I was fine with that; one additional month to heal and recover. My periods have been different since the last miscarriage. They're heavier, last longer, and start more suddenly than before; no spotting, just Bam!-- period. I've read that going through pregnancy and giving birth can change a woman's cycle, but can a miscarriage do the same thing? I mean I guess of course it can as mine have done just that, I just didn't know. I take it as a good sign; maybe my hormones have straightened themselves out a little, maybe the pregnancy and supplemental progesterone jump-started my system. It feels cleansing. Of course, I take things like cloudy weather or a stiff breeze as good signs, too. I'm irrepressibly optimistic and slightly superstitious... it's a fabulous combination.
I'm also PMSing much less than before, but I'm attributing that more to a better diet, as PMS is so strongly correlated with that. It's all the Omega-3s, the salmon dinners, probably, and the B- vitamin complex in my prenatal multi's.
I feel like, logically, there's no real reason for another pregnancy to fail. Statistically, I'm not at much higher odds of losing a third pregnancy than someone who's never lost one, especially since I've been screened for all the major causes. I think we can write the first loss off as a blighted ovum, something that's common and doesn't raise the odds for future miscarriage. The second, I don't know... a genetic default? A fluke? A bad egg? Hard to say in retrospect and we'll never really know. I think that between ensuring adequate nutrition, taking the artificial progesterone, maybe some baby aspirin... There's no reason to think that it won't work.
Emotionally, though, it's like Charlie Brown trying to kick that damn football.
*
*
Seriously, unless reading about the all-powerful uterus appeals to you, I'd skip this post. I mean, *I* wouldn't, because I love uteri, but I'd think that *you* might want to...
*
*
*
I never feel comfortable discussing my Womanly Cycles without a disclaimer, because some people are so weird about stuff like that. Like how some men are fine with picking up an economy pack of tampons for the lady in their life, and others feel faint at the very idea of, you know, that happening. Squeamish. I know a guy like that and he's a doctor, for heavens' sake... Told me that he attended a birth as part of his residency and it really grossed him out, what with the bleeding and all. And yet he wanted to be a brain surgeon-- don't brains bleed too? Or is that not gross because it's not Female Blood? I don't know. I just wouldn't want anyone to read my blog and have to reel away from the computer wailing, "My eyes! MY EYES!"
Anyways, I am on my period today! Sound the trumpets, hang the banners-- the trying-to-conceive begins again this month! I thought it would be last month, but Don wanted to wait one more cycle and I was fine with that; one additional month to heal and recover. My periods have been different since the last miscarriage. They're heavier, last longer, and start more suddenly than before; no spotting, just Bam!-- period. I've read that going through pregnancy and giving birth can change a woman's cycle, but can a miscarriage do the same thing? I mean I guess of course it can as mine have done just that, I just didn't know. I take it as a good sign; maybe my hormones have straightened themselves out a little, maybe the pregnancy and supplemental progesterone jump-started my system. It feels cleansing. Of course, I take things like cloudy weather or a stiff breeze as good signs, too. I'm irrepressibly optimistic and slightly superstitious... it's a fabulous combination.
I'm also PMSing much less than before, but I'm attributing that more to a better diet, as PMS is so strongly correlated with that. It's all the Omega-3s, the salmon dinners, probably, and the B- vitamin complex in my prenatal multi's.
I feel like, logically, there's no real reason for another pregnancy to fail. Statistically, I'm not at much higher odds of losing a third pregnancy than someone who's never lost one, especially since I've been screened for all the major causes. I think we can write the first loss off as a blighted ovum, something that's common and doesn't raise the odds for future miscarriage. The second, I don't know... a genetic default? A fluke? A bad egg? Hard to say in retrospect and we'll never really know. I think that between ensuring adequate nutrition, taking the artificial progesterone, maybe some baby aspirin... There's no reason to think that it won't work.
Emotionally, though, it's like Charlie Brown trying to kick that damn football.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Naval-gazing as always
And you thought I could go a whole month without obsessing about pregnancy... that's what you get for thinking. Isn't it funny how I write as though other people are reading this when in fact that does not seem to be the case any more? Anyways.
Everybody seems to be pregnant (except me) and it's starting to get to me. I'm beginning to have the resentment that seems pretty common among women having trouble getting and/or staying pregnant-- that annoyance with anyone who seems to be happily, effortlessly fertile.
The writer of a blog I read is pregnant again-- not even on purpose. One of my coworkers is pregnant, and while I'm happy for her, it's also frustrating on so many levels. For one, she too is miscarriage-prone and the worry and stress is contagious. It's like vicariously re-living my own fears. The other thing is that, well, I tend to research. I like to read and read and read about things that pertains to me or even anything interesting, whether it's pregnancy, cattle ranching, or Seattle. It kind of drives me crazy when people don't do that; when they don't bother to reach for the relevant information. Don't you want to know what's happening to your body right now? To know what decisions you'll be making in the next year, to form opinions about those things? My coworker really can't be bothered. But because she knows that I'VE done the reading she asks me questions constantly. Can she eat this. Can she do that. Why this, why that. I am not an expert on these things, and I keep trying to explain the concept that every woman, and every pregnancy, is different. Because I've been through two first trimesters this year, she is always asking me about those experiences for point of comparison. Personally I'm not that keen on discussing my failed pregnancies, and I think for her to compare her (most likely healthy) pregnancy to my two that didn't work isn't good. So that's tiring and frustrating.
Don and I are getting ready to start trying again. Back in August, we'd agreed upon December or January as long as everything else went OK. All the blood work has come back negative. No clotting disorders, no thyroid issues. I feel good: healthy, vital. I'm taking my vitamins, although I need to find a Vitamin D supplement. And a DHA supplement. Actually I need to make a list.
Preconception Checklist
* Start eating breakfast every day again-- to get back in the habit, to get more fiber, etc.
* Prenatal vitamins every day. Because folic acid is yummy!
* DHA supplement. Mmmm, fishy oil.
* Vitamin D supplement.
* No more coffee! (Why is this so hard?)
* No milk that isn't organic. Sorry, Starbucks.
Right, this month isn't going to be at all challenging. But really, what wouldn't I do...
Everybody seems to be pregnant (except me) and it's starting to get to me. I'm beginning to have the resentment that seems pretty common among women having trouble getting and/or staying pregnant-- that annoyance with anyone who seems to be happily, effortlessly fertile.
The writer of a blog I read is pregnant again-- not even on purpose. One of my coworkers is pregnant, and while I'm happy for her, it's also frustrating on so many levels. For one, she too is miscarriage-prone and the worry and stress is contagious. It's like vicariously re-living my own fears. The other thing is that, well, I tend to research. I like to read and read and read about things that pertains to me or even anything interesting, whether it's pregnancy, cattle ranching, or Seattle. It kind of drives me crazy when people don't do that; when they don't bother to reach for the relevant information. Don't you want to know what's happening to your body right now? To know what decisions you'll be making in the next year, to form opinions about those things? My coworker really can't be bothered. But because she knows that I'VE done the reading she asks me questions constantly. Can she eat this. Can she do that. Why this, why that. I am not an expert on these things, and I keep trying to explain the concept that every woman, and every pregnancy, is different. Because I've been through two first trimesters this year, she is always asking me about those experiences for point of comparison. Personally I'm not that keen on discussing my failed pregnancies, and I think for her to compare her (most likely healthy) pregnancy to my two that didn't work isn't good. So that's tiring and frustrating.
Don and I are getting ready to start trying again. Back in August, we'd agreed upon December or January as long as everything else went OK. All the blood work has come back negative. No clotting disorders, no thyroid issues. I feel good: healthy, vital. I'm taking my vitamins, although I need to find a Vitamin D supplement. And a DHA supplement. Actually I need to make a list.
Preconception Checklist
* Start eating breakfast every day again-- to get back in the habit, to get more fiber, etc.
* Prenatal vitamins every day. Because folic acid is yummy!
* DHA supplement. Mmmm, fishy oil.
* Vitamin D supplement.
* No more coffee! (Why is this so hard?)
* No milk that isn't organic. Sorry, Starbucks.
Right, this month isn't going to be at all challenging. But really, what wouldn't I do...
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Privacy
There seems to be rather a fine line between keeping one's private life private, and leading a secret double life.
You start off just not telling people that you're trying to start a family. Nobody's business, after all, but your own. And then when you get pregnant, you keep it to yourself as much as possible, because it's early days yet. You miscarry, and congratulate yourself on everyone you didn't tell-- even though now there's this kind of emotional barrier between you and the un-told: they don't know what's going on with you because you couldn't tell them. You try again, succeed and fail again in rapid succession. More people know this time, because the pregnancy hit harder and lasted longer-- you were starting to come out of the closet, so to speak. But there's still a large contingency that knows nothing about the trying, the pregnancies, and miscarriages. Combine this with the fact that you started trying to get pregnant at the same time that you moved across country, meeting an entirely new group of friends and acquaintances; people to chat with, hang out with, but not necessarily share the more intimate details of life with.
And suddenly it's difficult to chat and hang out, (even more than before, when you didn't explain why suddenly you can't stay up past ten in the evening) because you realize: it's a double life. Someone asks "What's up, how are you?" and your answer is a complete fabrication-- fine, not much new, same ol' same ol'. But you're thinking: the whole time we've been friends, for almost a year now, I've been struggling. I've gotten pregnant twice; spent maybe four months total immobilized on the sofa, having traded nights playing darts for hugging the commode. Went through two miscarriages. I'm trying to deal with the changes and problems that these new stressors add to a relationship-- the guilt, the blame, the worry. And you don't know a thing about any of it, which is nobody's fault but my own. I'm scared and depressed and tired, and I can't talk to you about it without starting from the beginning and changing the nature of our friendship.
And it's my own fault. For being so circumspect right from the start, for keeping new friendships light and airy, based on television-darts-hamburgers-beer-the Red Sox and not on life. Should I have been more open? It is against my nature for the most part. It wouldn't seem so for someone who keeps an Internet journal like this, right? But this writing is a substitution, something that balances the private, quiet, almost closed-off character that I tend to be in person. But where is the line drawn? How do you know which people are which-- which ones that could be close real friends that talk about the future, the past, joy and heartbreak, and which will back away uncomfortably, wishing that the subject of conversation was still last night's game of darts? I have always waited for the other person to make that call and then responded in kind, but now I realize that this is lazy and ungenerous.
And it leaves me with a fake smile on my face, casual lies flowing from my mouth, and a blog as the main place to sort out the truth.
You start off just not telling people that you're trying to start a family. Nobody's business, after all, but your own. And then when you get pregnant, you keep it to yourself as much as possible, because it's early days yet. You miscarry, and congratulate yourself on everyone you didn't tell-- even though now there's this kind of emotional barrier between you and the un-told: they don't know what's going on with you because you couldn't tell them. You try again, succeed and fail again in rapid succession. More people know this time, because the pregnancy hit harder and lasted longer-- you were starting to come out of the closet, so to speak. But there's still a large contingency that knows nothing about the trying, the pregnancies, and miscarriages. Combine this with the fact that you started trying to get pregnant at the same time that you moved across country, meeting an entirely new group of friends and acquaintances; people to chat with, hang out with, but not necessarily share the more intimate details of life with.
And suddenly it's difficult to chat and hang out, (even more than before, when you didn't explain why suddenly you can't stay up past ten in the evening) because you realize: it's a double life. Someone asks "What's up, how are you?" and your answer is a complete fabrication-- fine, not much new, same ol' same ol'. But you're thinking: the whole time we've been friends, for almost a year now, I've been struggling. I've gotten pregnant twice; spent maybe four months total immobilized on the sofa, having traded nights playing darts for hugging the commode. Went through two miscarriages. I'm trying to deal with the changes and problems that these new stressors add to a relationship-- the guilt, the blame, the worry. And you don't know a thing about any of it, which is nobody's fault but my own. I'm scared and depressed and tired, and I can't talk to you about it without starting from the beginning and changing the nature of our friendship.
And it's my own fault. For being so circumspect right from the start, for keeping new friendships light and airy, based on television-darts-hamburgers-beer-the Red Sox and not on life. Should I have been more open? It is against my nature for the most part. It wouldn't seem so for someone who keeps an Internet journal like this, right? But this writing is a substitution, something that balances the private, quiet, almost closed-off character that I tend to be in person. But where is the line drawn? How do you know which people are which-- which ones that could be close real friends that talk about the future, the past, joy and heartbreak, and which will back away uncomfortably, wishing that the subject of conversation was still last night's game of darts? I have always waited for the other person to make that call and then responded in kind, but now I realize that this is lazy and ungenerous.
And it leaves me with a fake smile on my face, casual lies flowing from my mouth, and a blog as the main place to sort out the truth.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Married Life
Sometimes it's hard for Don and me to talk about things. It all comes back to that whole him=man, me=woman thing that I imagine haunts most hetero relationships. I have to remember to ask for what I want instead of assuming that he already knows. He has to talk about how he feels, which is apparently something you lose man-points for. Darn these strong, silent types.
About three weeks ago, our dryer broke. Working fine for one load and then for the next--gone. It was terrible. Unfortunately, my method for breaking the broken-dryer-news to Don was to tell him that I had bad news-- something you shouldn't ever do when pregnant, it seems. I will never forget how he looked: so concerned. Scared, even. How he pulled me closer and put his hand on my belly. I felt so bad then for worrying him, even as I realized how much this pregnancy meant to him.
But when I actually have to tell him that I think something is wrong with the pregnancy, he switches into action-man mode. First, the stop-being-paranoid-everything's-fine stage to correspond with my I'm-sure-something's-wrong-but-have-no-evidence stage. When I switch from that to shit-I-knew-it,-I'm-bleeding, he moves into it-ain't-over-till-it's-over. When I finally get to I'm-sorry-baby,-it's-gone, he goes into automatic it's-OK-sweetie,-we'll-try-again. We'll take tests. We'll have a baby before you know it. Because he is afraid that his pain will make me feel even worse. I have to get him to stop trying to take care of me, to fix it for me-- to stop acting as though he isn't hurt by this as well--to acknowledge how upset and sad he really is. I have to articulate that his pretending that everything is fine is actually hurtful, not helpful, because it makes me feel alone; as though he wasn't invested in this pregnancy when I know he was.
Our conversation starts serious and ends in a tickling match-- as usual.
Don: stop it-- be serious!
Me: I AM serious! (going for behind the knees)
Don: You're goofy is what you are.
Me: NOT goofy-- serious! (totally winning this one)
Don: OK, you're serious-- Sirius BLACK!
About three weeks ago, our dryer broke. Working fine for one load and then for the next--gone. It was terrible. Unfortunately, my method for breaking the broken-dryer-news to Don was to tell him that I had bad news-- something you shouldn't ever do when pregnant, it seems. I will never forget how he looked: so concerned. Scared, even. How he pulled me closer and put his hand on my belly. I felt so bad then for worrying him, even as I realized how much this pregnancy meant to him.
But when I actually have to tell him that I think something is wrong with the pregnancy, he switches into action-man mode. First, the stop-being-paranoid-everything's-fine stage to correspond with my I'm-sure-something's-wrong-but-have-no-evidence stage. When I switch from that to shit-I-knew-it,-I'm-bleeding, he moves into it-ain't-over-till-it's-over. When I finally get to I'm-sorry-baby,-it's-gone, he goes into automatic it's-OK-sweetie,-we'll-try-again. We'll take tests. We'll have a baby before you know it. Because he is afraid that his pain will make me feel even worse. I have to get him to stop trying to take care of me, to fix it for me-- to stop acting as though he isn't hurt by this as well--to acknowledge how upset and sad he really is. I have to articulate that his pretending that everything is fine is actually hurtful, not helpful, because it makes me feel alone; as though he wasn't invested in this pregnancy when I know he was.
Our conversation starts serious and ends in a tickling match-- as usual.
Don: stop it-- be serious!
Me: I AM serious! (going for behind the knees)
Don: You're goofy is what you are.
Me: NOT goofy-- serious! (totally winning this one)
Don: OK, you're serious-- Sirius BLACK!
Monday, August 13, 2007
Again.
It's all over, now. Another miscarriage, this one at exactly 12 weeks. Is that why 12 weeks is supposed to be the magic turning point? I don't really know what to write at this point, I feel strangely calm, or maybe kind of numb.
I've felt for a long time, maybe two weeks now, that something wasn't right. That I wasn't really pregnant anymore, that my little bean had "stopped growing" (to use the clinical phraseology) and that I was just carrying dead weight. Nobody wanted to believe me, not even my doctor's office-- it's so much easier, more hopeful to think that it was just because I'd miscarried before. Obviously that would make me worry more, right? But it also gave me the insight into what a pregnancy gone wrong feels like. This miscarriage was surprisingly manageable, nothing like the dramatics of the previous. I had an ultrasound first thing this morning just to make sure that everything is, you know, out. It confirmed what I already thought, which is that I actually lost the baby not long after the eight-week ultrasound but that my body was taking its own time in processing that information.
I keep wondering why. I've never had anything like this happen before. 26 years old, healthy and strong. Built to have babies, or so I thought--I should be the poster child for a healthy, uneventful pregnancy. This is the first time that my body has failed me, and I feel betrayed by it. Right now, we do the hCG tests, to make sure that it's decreasing as it should be. Next week: a "panel" of tests that measure, I don't know, how my blood clots or something. Some causal factor in miscarriages. Because we were already doing the progesterone, you know? That was supposed to fix it? After that, who knows. Genetic testing for me and for Don, to find out if we're likely to create chromosomally un-viable offspring? What would cause a pregnancy to fail that had already hit so many milestones? That got to 8 weeks but not to 10? I really thought that after seeing that little heartbeat, we were out of the woods. So to speak.
Any which way, Don and I are going to wait until the winter to try again. That will give us plenty of time to run whatever tests we can, and to give my poor body a break; I'm not going to put it through three first trimesters in a row. Two within six months has run it ragged already-- if I got pregnant again soon and kept it that would be like being pregnant all year long. And a third miscarriage might drive both of us around the bend. Even though I know it's not a factor, Don is convinced now that we shouldn't have tried again so soon, that I was still taxed from the last. I know that wouldn't have caused a miscarriage, but I can see where he's coming from. I need to pull back and concentrate on nutrition, on losing this ten pounds that have crept onto me (I write this with a pint of Ben&Jerry's in hand), on regaining my vitality and strength before trying again to become a host organism.
My mom sent a tiny little hat and booties that she knitted. I got the package right after the bleeding and cramping started and just lost it. The dogs wondered why I was bawling. But I haven't bought any baby stuff at all, haven't held any eensy onesies or tiny teeshirts. It kind of drove home that I wasn't losing a 12-week pregnancy so much as the baby that I was going to be holding in February. Now I have to call her and let her know that I received the package but lost the baby...
I've felt for a long time, maybe two weeks now, that something wasn't right. That I wasn't really pregnant anymore, that my little bean had "stopped growing" (to use the clinical phraseology) and that I was just carrying dead weight. Nobody wanted to believe me, not even my doctor's office-- it's so much easier, more hopeful to think that it was just because I'd miscarried before. Obviously that would make me worry more, right? But it also gave me the insight into what a pregnancy gone wrong feels like. This miscarriage was surprisingly manageable, nothing like the dramatics of the previous. I had an ultrasound first thing this morning just to make sure that everything is, you know, out. It confirmed what I already thought, which is that I actually lost the baby not long after the eight-week ultrasound but that my body was taking its own time in processing that information.
I keep wondering why. I've never had anything like this happen before. 26 years old, healthy and strong. Built to have babies, or so I thought--I should be the poster child for a healthy, uneventful pregnancy. This is the first time that my body has failed me, and I feel betrayed by it. Right now, we do the hCG tests, to make sure that it's decreasing as it should be. Next week: a "panel" of tests that measure, I don't know, how my blood clots or something. Some causal factor in miscarriages. Because we were already doing the progesterone, you know? That was supposed to fix it? After that, who knows. Genetic testing for me and for Don, to find out if we're likely to create chromosomally un-viable offspring? What would cause a pregnancy to fail that had already hit so many milestones? That got to 8 weeks but not to 10? I really thought that after seeing that little heartbeat, we were out of the woods. So to speak.
Any which way, Don and I are going to wait until the winter to try again. That will give us plenty of time to run whatever tests we can, and to give my poor body a break; I'm not going to put it through three first trimesters in a row. Two within six months has run it ragged already-- if I got pregnant again soon and kept it that would be like being pregnant all year long. And a third miscarriage might drive both of us around the bend. Even though I know it's not a factor, Don is convinced now that we shouldn't have tried again so soon, that I was still taxed from the last. I know that wouldn't have caused a miscarriage, but I can see where he's coming from. I need to pull back and concentrate on nutrition, on losing this ten pounds that have crept onto me (I write this with a pint of Ben&Jerry's in hand), on regaining my vitality and strength before trying again to become a host organism.
My mom sent a tiny little hat and booties that she knitted. I got the package right after the bleeding and cramping started and just lost it. The dogs wondered why I was bawling. But I haven't bought any baby stuff at all, haven't held any eensy onesies or tiny teeshirts. It kind of drove home that I wasn't losing a 12-week pregnancy so much as the baby that I was going to be holding in February. Now I have to call her and let her know that I received the package but lost the baby...
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
(none)
Sometimes there's too much going on, to post in a blog. Sometimes there's nothing going on and nothing to write about. Sometimes it feels like both.
My sister and her boyfriend spent the weekend here, en route from Texas to Europe. Now they're gone, but we have her car and her dog in our possession as a reminder that being a big sister is forever. Don't make that commitment lightly, folks...
Am I a little jealous about a 2-month trip to Europe? Of course. Who wouldn't be? On the other hand, I will never be footloose enough to quit my job, cancel my lease, put all my stuff in storage, drop the dog at my sister's, and take off. I will never be outgoing enough for couch-surfing to be my preferred way of travel, which is what they'll be doing. More than anything I want them to have an amazing trip, something to remember for life.
Although I'm damn worried about Cocomo. This dog is seriously underweight, almost to the point of being starved. I've never seen a dog so thin that was being actively cared for-- she's the kind of skinny that you usually only see in strays or recently rescued shelter-dogs. Her home-life has been very unstable since Don and I moved away. First in one apartment, with three different roommates in succession. Two with dogs. Then in a house populated by three guys, my sister, and a huge unfixed male boxer that intimidated the hell out of her and ate her food. You can see all of her ribs, even from a distance.
I know my sister loves her dog and that she does as well as she can by her. But I kind of wanted to smack her when I saw that puppy... If my dog were losing weight like that I would do whatever I could to fix the situation, you know? Move the dog to a safer location. Keep her, and her food, in a bedroom. Something. Not just let her stress out until her ribs poke out through her fur.
Lately I've been gripped with worry that I'm losing this pregnancy. I don't know why, exactly, but I feel certain that something is wrong even though I feel OK. Maybe because I feel so OK. I don't even remotely feel pregnant anymore. My next doctor's appointment isn't until Wednesday, a week from today. I guess if nothing happens between now and then, I'll just ask them to confirm that everything's still ticking along in there. Right now all I feel is impending doom...
My sister and her boyfriend spent the weekend here, en route from Texas to Europe. Now they're gone, but we have her car and her dog in our possession as a reminder that being a big sister is forever. Don't make that commitment lightly, folks...
Am I a little jealous about a 2-month trip to Europe? Of course. Who wouldn't be? On the other hand, I will never be footloose enough to quit my job, cancel my lease, put all my stuff in storage, drop the dog at my sister's, and take off. I will never be outgoing enough for couch-surfing to be my preferred way of travel, which is what they'll be doing. More than anything I want them to have an amazing trip, something to remember for life.
Although I'm damn worried about Cocomo. This dog is seriously underweight, almost to the point of being starved. I've never seen a dog so thin that was being actively cared for-- she's the kind of skinny that you usually only see in strays or recently rescued shelter-dogs. Her home-life has been very unstable since Don and I moved away. First in one apartment, with three different roommates in succession. Two with dogs. Then in a house populated by three guys, my sister, and a huge unfixed male boxer that intimidated the hell out of her and ate her food. You can see all of her ribs, even from a distance.
I know my sister loves her dog and that she does as well as she can by her. But I kind of wanted to smack her when I saw that puppy... If my dog were losing weight like that I would do whatever I could to fix the situation, you know? Move the dog to a safer location. Keep her, and her food, in a bedroom. Something. Not just let her stress out until her ribs poke out through her fur.
Lately I've been gripped with worry that I'm losing this pregnancy. I don't know why, exactly, but I feel certain that something is wrong even though I feel OK. Maybe because I feel so OK. I don't even remotely feel pregnant anymore. My next doctor's appointment isn't until Wednesday, a week from today. I guess if nothing happens between now and then, I'll just ask them to confirm that everything's still ticking along in there. Right now all I feel is impending doom...
Thursday, June 21, 2007
So Far...
It's good.
The pregnancy.
So far, anyways.
HCG is good, at least.
Progesterone went down between the two tests (which is bad, for you novices), so I'm getting a supplement for that. It's something that can be fixed, ammended. It could explain what went wrong last time, which makes me sad. Sad, because with a miscarriage the odds are that the embryo was fatally flawed and couldn't develop but there's also a chance that it's the mother. I had thought that (statistically speaking) my little grain of rice was too damaged to live, but now I am thinking that perhaps it was perfect but my imperfect body smushed into nothingness.
The results reaffirm my decision to get these tests done ASAP-- ends justifying means etc. It makes me forgive the awful hospital nurse (or possibly someone masquerading in ugly scubs) who attacked my veins this morning and then blamed me for her inablity to find my veins. Peace, bad-nurse lady, I no longer care.
The pregnancy.
So far, anyways.
HCG is good, at least.
Progesterone went down between the two tests (which is bad, for you novices), so I'm getting a supplement for that. It's something that can be fixed, ammended. It could explain what went wrong last time, which makes me sad. Sad, because with a miscarriage the odds are that the embryo was fatally flawed and couldn't develop but there's also a chance that it's the mother. I had thought that (statistically speaking) my little grain of rice was too damaged to live, but now I am thinking that perhaps it was perfect but my imperfect body smushed into nothingness.
The results reaffirm my decision to get these tests done ASAP-- ends justifying means etc. It makes me forgive the awful hospital nurse (or possibly someone masquerading in ugly scubs) who attacked my veins this morning and then blamed me for her inablity to find my veins. Peace, bad-nurse lady, I no longer care.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Brain Leakage
Well, aren't you all my fellow-geek-friends! Except the passage is not from The Two Towers but from Return of the King, when Eomer discovers that his sister is actually still alive, but gravely ill; he thought that she had died in battle. At once, he is full of hope but also the renewed fear that she might yet die.
Which is basically how I feel, being pregnant again: full of hope and fear. I have peed on four home test sticks and three of them agree-- the first was a dud. I want to get a clinical test done, to make sure 100% that it actually *is* pregnancy and not remnant hormones from the last go-round. But leftover hormones wouldn't explain the myriad indicators of pregnancy that I'm experiencing, which seem to be coming on sooner this time than last time. Is it because I know what to look for now, or because every pregnancy is different? I just can't feel the unalloyed joy and excitement that I felt in March; I'm too worried, too scared. Too experienced. I think that what I lost with the miscarriage was not just an embryo so much as it was my innocence and naivete.
Before, I was scared of miscarrying in a kind of vague, abstract way; I never really believed that it could happen to me. Who does? Who can? Now I know what can happen, and a successful pregnancy seems like such a theoretical concept. Not so much I'm pregnant-- there will be a baby in November! as, I'm pregnant again, I wonder if this one will pan out. The timing worked out perfectly in that I got to give Don the news on his birthday (I even bought the special tests with the digital readouts: PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT, because last time he couldn't read the test), but it was a bit of, Honey we're pregnant again, but don't get your hopes up, OK?
One thing I learned afterwards was that everybody and their mama has had miscarriages. Anyone that found out about mine would make a point of telling me how normal it is. Apparently, almost everyone I work with has had one; my friends, even my mom. What seemed like an isolated event suddenly felt like a secret epidemic; I started to feel that miscarriage was at least as common as not. I know the old cliche that misery loves company, and women have told me that after a miscarriage the last thing they wanted to see was a pregnant woman, or a new mother with a tiny baby. For me it was the opposite; I needed to see them, to hear their stories and read their blogs. I didn't and don't want miscarriage stories, I wanted to see, read about, or hear about healthy, normal pregnancy. I want to reassure myself that most of the time, getting pregnant equals having baby. That the system really does work. That women all over the place are staying pregnant without a second thought about it. Tell me that you had a miscarriage, only if you promptly went on to have a baby. Give me hope, not sympathetic company.
Tomorrow I will call the nurse, to find out if there are tests that can be done at this point. I never did get my progesterone levels tested; the honeymoon got in the way. I have no idea if they can still test them in early pregnancy, or if it would even make a difference at that point. Would it be too late? I will leave a long, rambling, panicked voice mail for her, and she will call me back and (I hope) calm me down and straighten me out. She told me that women tend to be especially fertile right after a miscarriage, for the several months or so following. I think I'm proving her right.
Don is telling me, of course, not to worry and panic and obsess over what I can't control. And of course he's right. What am I trying to do with this worrying; prove to the universe how much I want to hang on to this baby? I don't think it works like that. I must borrow a page from AA and steal their Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.
...and adapt it a bit. I can control my diet, my exercise, how much sleep I get, and my state of mind (to a certain extent). I can take my vitamins; talk to my practitioner; eat the veggies that are overflowing the fridge; fill the freezer with nourishing meals; take Alice on a long, long walk; go cold-turkey on the coffee; make my house a clean and comfortable haven. I cannot control what happens with this pregnancy; I cannot control whether I miscarry again or go on to have a baby. I will focus on what I can do, wait and see on the rest, and stop with the worry and panic. (And if anyone that knows me believes that this is possible: hahahahahaha. But I will try.) And on that note, I should go walk the dog and do a load of laundry.
Oh, and speaking of God:
Which is basically how I feel, being pregnant again: full of hope and fear. I have peed on four home test sticks and three of them agree-- the first was a dud. I want to get a clinical test done, to make sure 100% that it actually *is* pregnancy and not remnant hormones from the last go-round. But leftover hormones wouldn't explain the myriad indicators of pregnancy that I'm experiencing, which seem to be coming on sooner this time than last time. Is it because I know what to look for now, or because every pregnancy is different? I just can't feel the unalloyed joy and excitement that I felt in March; I'm too worried, too scared. Too experienced. I think that what I lost with the miscarriage was not just an embryo so much as it was my innocence and naivete.
Before, I was scared of miscarrying in a kind of vague, abstract way; I never really believed that it could happen to me. Who does? Who can? Now I know what can happen, and a successful pregnancy seems like such a theoretical concept. Not so much I'm pregnant-- there will be a baby in November! as, I'm pregnant again, I wonder if this one will pan out. The timing worked out perfectly in that I got to give Don the news on his birthday (I even bought the special tests with the digital readouts: PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT, because last time he couldn't read the test), but it was a bit of, Honey we're pregnant again, but don't get your hopes up, OK?
One thing I learned afterwards was that everybody and their mama has had miscarriages. Anyone that found out about mine would make a point of telling me how normal it is. Apparently, almost everyone I work with has had one; my friends, even my mom. What seemed like an isolated event suddenly felt like a secret epidemic; I started to feel that miscarriage was at least as common as not. I know the old cliche that misery loves company, and women have told me that after a miscarriage the last thing they wanted to see was a pregnant woman, or a new mother with a tiny baby. For me it was the opposite; I needed to see them, to hear their stories and read their blogs. I didn't and don't want miscarriage stories, I wanted to see, read about, or hear about healthy, normal pregnancy. I want to reassure myself that most of the time, getting pregnant equals having baby. That the system really does work. That women all over the place are staying pregnant without a second thought about it. Tell me that you had a miscarriage, only if you promptly went on to have a baby. Give me hope, not sympathetic company.
Tomorrow I will call the nurse, to find out if there are tests that can be done at this point. I never did get my progesterone levels tested; the honeymoon got in the way. I have no idea if they can still test them in early pregnancy, or if it would even make a difference at that point. Would it be too late? I will leave a long, rambling, panicked voice mail for her, and she will call me back and (I hope) calm me down and straighten me out. She told me that women tend to be especially fertile right after a miscarriage, for the several months or so following. I think I'm proving her right.
Don is telling me, of course, not to worry and panic and obsess over what I can't control. And of course he's right. What am I trying to do with this worrying; prove to the universe how much I want to hang on to this baby? I don't think it works like that. I must borrow a page from AA and steal their Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.
...and adapt it a bit. I can control my diet, my exercise, how much sleep I get, and my state of mind (to a certain extent). I can take my vitamins; talk to my practitioner; eat the veggies that are overflowing the fridge; fill the freezer with nourishing meals; take Alice on a long, long walk; go cold-turkey on the coffee; make my house a clean and comfortable haven. I cannot control what happens with this pregnancy; I cannot control whether I miscarry again or go on to have a baby. I will focus on what I can do, wait and see on the rest, and stop with the worry and panic. (And if anyone that knows me believes that this is possible: hahahahahaha. But I will try.) And on that note, I should go walk the dog and do a load of laundry.
Oh, and speaking of God:
 |
Which is the right religion for you? (new version)
created with QuizFarm.com
Haha, you win, Amanda-- I am more pagan than Jewish! What an interesting state of affairs. But I guess that as the product of a Jew-turned-Atheist and a Catholic-turned-Jew it does make sense in a way.
Learned yesterday: If you hike up to a well-known swimming hole in the mountains and discover that you have the place to yourself, it's probably because the water (which is mostly snow run-off) is still icy-cold and will turn you numb in about ten seconds, to the point where even an hour later you are still cold. But it's still a great way to spend someone's birthday.
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