That Girl; or, This Girl

I've double-checked that my Ob-Gyn records arrived at the RE's. I've booked a (desperately needed) bikini wax. I've reordered my prenatals (possibly for the last time, since I think the prescription officially expires this month). And I've printed out 17 charts--the record of almost two years worth of my body's reproductive efforts. Late and early ovulation. Long and short cycles. Temperatures and fertility readings and spotting and periods. One positive pregnancy test followed 30 days later by a red dot.

I look at that first chart from November 2008 and the age listed at the top (28) and I think: I am not that girl.

That girl who thought if she read the right books and did the right things and planned and predicted and started early and left nothing to chance she could win at having a baby just like she'd won at everything else that mattered.

That girl who was both so smug and so scared, but mostly smug. Who whispered to herself awful things like "I'm not fat, so I won't have any problems" and "I have a regular cycle, so I won't have any problems" and "I'm starting nice and young, so I won't have any problems" and thought that just saying the words would make them true.

That girl who told her friends, "We're going to start trying to get pregnant now!" and thought it meant, "We're going to have a baby." That girl who thought that making the decision to try was the hard part.

That girl who figured out her first potential due date (thinking it would be the only, not thinking it would be the first) months before she even ovulated. That girl who planned for the "perfect" month to give birth in and the "perfect" way to break the news and the "perfect" labor she was sure to have.

That girl who wondered if she was ready to be a mom even as she cried over her very first negative test.

One year to the week later, we found out the m&m was dead. Twenty-two months later, we're visiting the doctor bearing stacks of paper dotted with little eggs and hearts and acronyms and numbers.

In September of 2010 (age: 30) this girl doesn't bother with the books any longer (thanks for nothing, Toni Weschler). This girl doesn't bother with the thermometer and barely bothers with the charts.

This girl doesn't want to know what her potential due date is. This girl assumes due dates are only and always potential.

This girl doesn't call her friends to talk about another failed cycle, another peak reading, another hopeful or hopeless two-week wait. This girl has watched her friends gain so easily what has come so hard and taken so long. More than anything, this girl wants to be left alone.

This girl has realized there's a depth of jealousy and anger and frustration in her heart that she never could have imagined. This girl has watched it poison relationships from the inside out, wondering how to make herself care when everything feels so bleak.

This girl has discovered sources of incredible empathy and support that she never thought she would.

This girl has fought her own heartache and won. This girl has been defeated by grief and sadness over and over and over again.

This girl doesn't know what comes next. This girl is incapable of prognostication, and finally admits it.

This girl knows that one day in the future she'll be "That Girl" again, unknowing of her destiny, ignorant of the choices she'll make, unaware of the happiness in store for her and the steps required to reach it.

This girl is afraid to hope.

But this girl hopes that day comes soon.

L'Shana Tova; or, Happy New Year

I'm not Jewish, but Lawyer Guy and his family are, so we spent the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, at family dinners in the suburbs. In keeping with my generally crappy attitude of the past several weeks, there were a lot of moments in which I felt pretty sorry for myself:

- Driving with Lawyer Guy in almost two hours of traffic (in the car that I side-swiped into a wall in our parking garage yesterday afternoon).
- Watching my in-laws gush and coo and hover over my almost three-year-old niece.
- Watching the fat little baby my 5-month-old niece has turned into.
- Thinking how my baby would have been three months younger than Niece #2 (having a living yardstick by which to measure your never-born child rocks).
- Remembering last year's Rosh Hashanah dinner, when BIL and SIL showed the 12-week ultrasound of Niece #2 and I fought so hard to be friendly and interested and engaged in the conversations about the new baby and to smother the jealousy that even then started to surge.
- Realizing I have neither the desire nor the will to try to control my jealousy any longer.
- Remembering how I told myself last September that "this time next year" things would be different.
- Remembering that last year's Rosh Hashanah was the beginning of the cycle that led to my pregnancy.

And the big one, which always seems to be at the back of my mind these days:
- Realizing it's actually the autumn again, that October is a breath away and November right after, and that I'll soon be remembering the anniversary of the only pregnancy I may ever have.

Shit, it's really enough to break my heart sometimes.

Lawyer Guy came home with some pessimistic work news earlier in the week, and I told him that one of these days our luck has to change. Eventually, things have to start coming right again. I don't know if I actually believe that, but I needed to be supportive of him, and in the moments I said the words they did feel true. Nothing lasts forever, not even runs of crappy luck that are edging ever closer to the multi-year mark. Not even them.

It's a new post-miscarriage year. It's a new academic year. For my Jewish family, it's a new calendar year. And one week from today, we'll meet some REs and finally start a new phase in this process.

I'm not going to wave flags or toot noisemakers or drink champagne. I've gotten to the point in this process where I've realized that new years can look remarkably like old ones and that the simple passage of time is no magical palliative for all life's troubles.

But still. New is good.