ABD; or, ABB

 My goodness, what a busy few weeks it's been. I spent my days and nights cramming books into my brain as fast as I could in preparation for last Friday's big qualifying exam. It was exhausting and everything else--blogging, baby prep, socializing--went on hold until I finished.

Everything, that it, except my baby shower. Doctor Lady and her mother hosted it at her family's shore house the weekend before the exam. About 25 friends and family attended and it was utterly wonderful. I felt happy and loved and so very content. And, to make matters even lovelier, my dear bloggie friend Stef B. conspired with Doctor Lady to create some absolutely BEAUTIFUL bring-a-book-theme appropriate additions to the shower in my nursery colors of grey and yellow. She made crepe-paper poufs to hang from the lights; grey-and-white drinking straws with yellow flags bearing Lawyer Guy's (and Smudgie's) surname initial; favor bookmarks; and the most incredible library cards and sleeves for guests to fill out and affix to the books that they brought for Smudgie, listing the title, their name, and a little note about their hopes and wishes for him or her. I wish I could share the pictures of her amazing work, but they have LG's rather distinctive surname on them, so you'll just have to use your imaginations.

I kept my emotions together all day until the end, when I opened the gift Stef had sent after most of the guests had left. It's a framed quote from "Just Haven't Met You Yet" that she designed in the grey and yellow motif with which she decorated all the projects. I had to struggle to keep from bawling, remembering listening to that song last spring and summer and forcing myself to be hopeful and happy when all I wanted to do was sink into a hole in the ground and never come out (or rip the heads of small, defenseless creatures). I feel so blessed to be where I am today instead.

Then, five days later I took my exam. And for those who aren't down with the academic lingo, the first part of my post title means "All But Dissertation," which is what I am right now, which means I passed! And not only that, I passed with distinction! I am proud, relieved, and so happy to have time to think about other things. I'm also intellectually ready to put together my dissertation proposal, so the exam process definitely worked. In fact, I could probably bang out a draft this month, but I won't because of the second part of my title: ABB, or All But Baby.

I studied hard to get myself into the best position academically that I could before taking time off. Now I need to get myself and my house ready for Smudgie's arrival. LG and I spent the weekend working on that, stocking up on Saturday on necessary items (like the car seat and changing tray for the dresser) that we didn't receive at the shower. And then yesterday we took an all-day intensive birthing class. We had no time this summer to sign up for the weekly ones, so the 9-5:30 class it was. It was overwhelming but helpful to learn the admissions procedures at our hospitals and to get a sense of where we will be and how it might go. And after that class, meeting with our doula, reading some books, and speaking to our docs, I think the phrase "5-1-1" is tattooed on my brain. Contractions every 5 minutes, lasting 1 minute each, for an hour. Got it.

This morning we had our first biophysical profile and 36-week check-up. No growth scan (that's next week), so we don't know Smudgie's size estimate. But the bebe is still head-down (awesome) and got a perfect 8/8 in no time at all in terms of fetal movement, tone, and all the other things they look for. Everyone said he or she looks great which is beautiful for a still-too anxious mama-to-be to hear.

So, where does that leave us? We have all our weekly appointments scheduled through 40 weeks. I'm tackling a host of organizational projects around the house. I think I'm going to make myself cut the tags off the baby clothes and wash them once we hit 37 weeks on Friday. I'm going to finish knitting my baby's blanket, take a ton of prenatal yoga, walk with my husband, go out to dinner, see a movie (I don't care which one, I want to see something), have lunch with friends, and try to convince my stubborn brain, as much as possible, that this is actually going to happen and we are actually going to bring home a baby sometime in early- to mid-October.

All in all, a pretty wonderful month lies ahead.

San Diego Sunshine; or, California Recap...So Far

My Californian peregrinations continue with a 6-day stay at my BFF Doctor Lady's home down south. I'm once again wireless-enabled and checking in with my beloved blogs and tweeps whenever I can, but I'm also in a serious time-crunch with reading and paper writing prior to my exam in early September, so blogging and twitter are of necessity on the back burner.

The conference was incredible. It was also incredibly exhausting. It's an annual conference that brings together academics, funded graduate student participants (so my conference fees, room & board, and meals were all paid for by my institution), high-school teachers, college students, and members of the public with an interest in the figure whose work is discussed. Over the 9 days I was there, I attended 21 lectures, 12 of them 1-hr long keynote lectures. I participated in a writing workshop every morning at 8:30 and had a seminar with fellow grad students every afternoon. I attended a party with grad students and faculty every night that started at 9 and went to the famed ? of "crazy" birthday party invitations (I usually lasted until about 11:30). I spoke about my "project" more times that I can count and met some incredible fellow-students working in my field whom I hope I can encounter at future conferences and gatherings.

It was academically enriching, professionally fulfilling, and lots and lots of fun. I'm so glad I didn't let my fears keep me from going. But I also ran myself a bit ragged. I'm not good at saying no to things. About half-way through the week, I woke one morning to see a sudden shower of metallic spots filling my vision. I thought lightning bugs had infested my room until they disappeared after 20-30 seconds or so. After some frightened googling and a self-diagnosis of pre-eclampsia, I called my doctors' emergency number that evening after hours and was told it was most likely morning low-blood pressure and to keep an eye on things but not worry too much. I think my body was sending me a definite signal that it was time to slow down.

I'm resting a lot down at Doctor Lady's: reading on the couch while she and her husband are at the hospital for work and her adorable little boy (who has a total crush on me) is at day care; cooking easy dinners for them all each night to earn my keep; trying to sleep in and nap as I feel like it. It's wonderful to see her for an extended amount of time. But I am also so very happy that on Friday morning, Lawyer Guy and I will be reuniting at the San Francisco airport and heading up to Napa for some much-needed alone time before the wedding.

Wish me luck on the flight--my last solo journey before LG is with me again. They've been hard, but I think I'm coping okay. Smudgie kicks up a storm and I focus on those precious movements and that seems to get me through.

An Unexpected Post; or, Scared of Perfection

Once upon a time, My best friend and I dreamed about the day we would have children. We were married one day apart, we planned to start trying within a few months of each other, so of course we would have babies on the same day! They would grow up to be best friends. Everything would be perfect.

Everything was not perfect.

She got pregnant her first month trying, and I...didn't. I threw her baby shower and then four days later had a miscarriage. She gave birth to her son, and I cried tears that were both in celebration and mourning. But through the next months and years, she was there for me. She even sent flowers on the m&m's due date, the only person in my life who remembered (and yes, this includes Lawyer Guy). She was the first person I told about Smudgie, at 5 weeks, when I was losing my mind with fear. She knew just what to say to comfort me without giving false hope.

She e-mailed me last night. She is 12 weeks pregnant. Her husband wouldn't let her tell anyone before now. She is due three weeks after me, also in October.

This is great news. I've mentioned before that she is a navy doctor and she was in fact scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan this summer. That is now, thankfully, off the table, for which I am beyond glad. Babies are always good news, right? Always a blessing and always a joy. I love her sweet 1-year-old son. I know I will love this little one, too.

And finally, two years later than hoped for, this is it. This is that perfect we wanted. Two best friends, pregnant together. Two babies nearly the same age and destined to be friends.

So why am I crying? And why am I suddenly more scared than I have been since our last ultrasound? Why does something that once seemed inevitable now feel impossible?

Why am I still so broken? Why can't I escape the "What ifs"?

I don't think perfect exists for me anymore or ever will again. And on good days, I don't mind that. I'm even grateful for it.

But right now, I don't know how to end this post. With the excitement I don't feel yet, or the sadness that isn't even close to as cutting as I know sadness can be. With joy in friendship or with loneliness.

I can try to end it with hope. And I can hope to feel hopeful again soon.

Saturday and Sunday; or, Reversals of Fortune

Sometimes there's so much to say, I can't find the heart to sit down and write about it. Last weekend was that kind of weekend. We had dinner with friends on Saturday night in the neighborhood and then met for lunch with my BIL and SIL and nieces on Sunday at their country club.

I was dreading the family visit all weekend. My mother-in-law had called the day before and told me that she had lunch with J (the BIL) that Saturday and that he had asked if "there were any babies yet" for Sloper and LG. My MIL responded by telling him he needs to speak with us to learn about how things are going, and he said, "They didn't have another miscarriage, did they?" in a worried one of voice. Again she told him to talk to us about what's going on, but that we're "struggling."

My MIL brought this story to me like it was some amazing evidence of how deeply my BIL and SIL care about us. "See?" she said. "He's thinking about you. I know they want you to have kids."

Yeah, I kind of figured that already. Obviously they want their kids to have cousins, and LG and I are the only way they're getting any. And they're not evil. I know they don't wish us ill.

But hearing that he made what basically amounted to small-talk chit-chat at lunch about our problems (over a year later!) isn't evidence of some extreme compassion and sympathy. I'm not angry that she told me this, but it also doesn't change that I think their reaction to our situation has royally sucked. It doesn't change the fact that I think they are incapable of having real, human connection with us on this point, or that they don't put their own events, needs, and desires over our incredibly deep sorrow. As I said to my MIL, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this information." Go out of my way to inform them and make them comfortable with this? Um, no.

So I was not feeling super charitable about this lunch visit and was wondering why we were making the effort to head out to Suburblandia and see them. And yet, it was fine. I held the 8-month-old niece, who is very sweet and smiley, and I saw that she has the blue eyes neither of her parents do (eyes like mine) and managed only a twinge of sadness. Our three-year-old niece was sweet and funny and very cuddly once she got over some initial shyness. LG and his brother disappeared to another part of the club for a while (a sports bar, it turned out, where they could watch some football) and I thought that maybe J was going to bring up the last year and ask how things were going. But he didn't. And LG thought that maybe S (my SIL) was asking me how things have been. But she wasn't.

Still, for all my dread of these situations, I'm very good at getting in and getting out with minimal fuss and distress. And if I wasn't my usual bright and sparkly self, if I was a little more quiet and subdued than usual, I don't think it was extreme enough for anyone but me to notice.

So Sunday was alright, despite my worries. But Saturday...

We had dinner with, among others, our Queens friends and their one-year-old son. These are the friends whose son was born the day we had our first bad ultrasound with the m&m. They are the friends who miscarried their first pregnancy almost exactly two years before we did, then tried to conceive for over a year before finally hitting the jackpot with an IUI. We are very close to them, and while we don't talk about IF and loss frequently, there's a current of understanding that flows through all our interactions and helps make things comfortable.

I noticed at dinner that Queens Wife wasn't drinking, and my radar went up. But Queens Husband was, so I thought that perhaps they designated a "Sober Sister" (as it were) to watch their little boy and drive home.

But as we peeled off from the rest of our party and walked them to their car a few blocks away, they confirmed my suspicions. They were twelve-weeks pregnant, unexpectedly but quite happily. They were due in June, just like her first pregnancy and mine.

I didn't feel that sharp spike of jealousy in the gut the way I usually do. We hugged them both and asked some questions and told them how happy we were. And in that moment, I truly was. Something raw and pointy lay underneath that happiness, but I pushed it far down. Lawyer Guy and I left them at their car and walked home to our apartment, and the night was very crisp and clear, and we both talked of other things and knew we were thinking the same thing, and it felt good to be together, whatever the circumstances.

I didn't let myself think much more about our friends' pregnancy the rest of the weekend. And then Monday morning, Queens Husband texted LG. They just had their NT scan. The results were not good--the baby's skull didn't form right. They had to terminate.

We both cried for them and ordered a basket of food to be delivered to their house and texted and e-mailed and offered to help them with anything they needed. She had the procedure yesterday and tomorrow they leave for Thanksgiving in New England.

As much as I may have felt jealous and a little sad when they told me their pregnancy news, I am devastated that this is the result. It seems so unfair--that they've had to undergo two very different but equally traumatizing losses, and even their beautiful, hard-won son doesn't make up for that. I find myself wondering why this kind of suffering has to be concentrated on the same people over and over again. Why can't it be one miscarriage per customer, no exceptions, and no more than one for everybody? Why can't it be lost pregnancy or IF, never both? I know the world doesn't work that way, and I'm sure people with ordinary, loss-free fertility would be horrified to think I'm "wishing miscarriages" and problems on them. But wouldn't life be easier to navigate if we could all share this burden?

Like losing a parent--it happens at different (more or less tragic) times for different people, but if you live long enough, your parents will die. I think we have tremendous sympathy for those whose parents die because of this sense that it will be us facing the same thing one day. But reproductive troubles aren't like that, so they're easier to dismiss or ignore. It's horrible to wish they were more universal, and yet I do. Hey, I'm surviving them, so Ms. Fertile Franny can too.

I'm rambling now because there's no real ending point to this. Lost pregnancies suck. Infertility sucks. Lack of sympathy sucks. Having to trudge on when you just want to scream sucks.

This all sucks.

Are You Feeling Lucky?; or, Always Something There to Remind Us

My dinner with Clueless Preggo was really kind of swell (I'm on a Mad Men bender now that the new season has begun, so expect lots of "gangbusters" and "donneybrooks" peppered throughout my posts for the next 12 weeks). She loved the gifts, particularly the cotton sweater. We talked about a lot of things other than babies, though I asked a few of the obligatory questions and listened to a few of the obligatory stories. And she asked at the end of the evening how we were doing with our efforts, to which I said something evasive and vague about enjoying the summer. But mostly we talked about work and school, her new apartment, things going on the city, tv shows, and gossip about friends-- the usual New York chit chat. (With more on gossip about friends to come).

Since then, however, I've been thinking about luck: who's got it, how we find it, where we see it, how we define it.

I blog a lot about how lucky I am. It's mostly to remind myself to feel lucky, even though making a baby has not turned out as I thought it would. It's also because I know my life is really good, no matter how depressed I get at times, and I want to treasure all the beautiful blessings that have been given to me.

For Clueless Preggo, I think I'm a walking, talking, occasionally-bleeding-out-a-baby reminder of her own luckiness. And this is because I suspect she's been feeling rather unlucky generally in this pregnancy. She didn't belabor this, but in explaining why she decided to find out the gender (girl) of her baby, she said that she "thought it would help her bond" after "being so sick and unhappy at first" and "not wanting to be pregnant." She of course immediately retracted the last statement when she became aware of her audience ("It's not that I wanted the pregnancy to end, of course not, etc. etc.). But I get the impression that with working until midnight many nights a week and being really ill she was feeling pretty sorry for herself for a while. Which, you know, may be valid and understandable, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for it and I won't cluck and hover and give ah-babies to someone who gets to have a baby right as soon as she decided she wanted one.

So yeah. I get to be a great big blinking reminder of "Be Happy That You're Pregnant!" just by sitting down for dinner.

But I'm not immune to the reminders, myself. At the end of dinner, Clueless told me a little about a mutual friend of ours, a former sorority sister of mine who wound up going to business school with Clueless and becoming her very close friend. Sorority Sister was married a year ago to a very kind, smart man (who happens to have gone to high school with my best friend, Doctor Lady. Just another day in the urban Northeast, I suppose).

Clueless told me that Sorority Sister and her husband learned a few weeks ago that he has an incredibly rare type of lymphoma. He's thirty years old. They're going to have to freeze his sperm before he starts treatments so they can hope to have children one day. There's a 70%-80% chance of remission after five years. Which is better than they feared, but still.

Clueless told me not to be prurient and gossipy, but to ask for my thoughts and prayers for this couple. I was completely gobsmacked at this news. I can't believe that this is happening to one of my peers, to someone in the same place in life that I am. Lawyer Guy and I held each other extra hard that night, reminded of how incredibly lucky we are to have each other right now, no matter what comes in the future.

It's not nice to be the indicator of someone else's good luck, so I'm not going to contact Sorority Sister and say anything. She didn't tell me this news, and she and I haven't spoken since Clueless's Christmas party last year, so I just don't think it would be appropriate (though I'm open to hearing otherwise). But I will be praying for them and thinking of them and hoping that they can leave this episode in their lives behind as quickly as possible. They're a wonderful couple who I can tell truly love one another, so I'm sure that even in this they've managed to find the joy and luck in being together. But I hope that they have even more to celebrate soon.

Among the gifts I gave Clueless was an elissa hudson Etsy print that I had framed. AMB linked to these prints at her blog a few weeks ago, and I loved them just as much as she does and quickly picked the one for me. A family of giraffes--Big, Medium, and Little--and right below them the statement "Lucky Little Family."

I didn't get that one for Clueless, lucky though I think she is (I gave her the penguins in pink). I'm saving the giraffes for myself. I'm saving it for the kind of luck you get after misfortune, which is maybe (if you make it there) the luckiest luck of all.

Checking In With the Baby Mamas; or, Confucius Say

Last week, while feeling pretty blue over the conclusive end to yet another cycle, I had two long-put-off conversations with two friends. I spoke with Clueless Preggo for the first time since she told me about her pregnancy on Mother's Day weekend and I spoke with my first Former-Bridesmaid-With-Baby for the first time since her move to Denver in May.

I called Clueless because I needed to tell her that I'm not attending her baby shower in August. I know, I know, I made a big deal after she responded to my card about how I was going to enlist Lou-Ellen and put on a happy face and show up at the shower to spread my empty-uted cheer. But...then our close friends invited us to spend the weekend at their rental house in Shelter Island. And a baby shower at a restaurant in Weehawken, New Jersey is a poor substitute for a beach weekend under the best of circumstances, let alone after six fruitless months of post-miscarriage screwing.

So we're going to the beach!

I did offer to make it up to Clueless by taking her out to dinner one-on-one next week to catch up and give her my gifts (a sweater that I knit a year ago and never got around to finishing, a courderoy jumper, and a sweet print I found on etsy and had framed). I know that I'll be fine. I'll talk about names and nursery decorations. I'll try to be a good friend. I'm sure she'll try to be sensitive to my distress. But no matter how much soft wool and newspaper we pack around these conversations, there's always something that breaks.

In our brief conversation last week, it was Clueless's statement that she and her husband moved from their 1-bedroom on the East Side to a 2-bedroom on the West Side rather than out to New Jersey (as they'd planned prior to TTC) because she "couldn't handle that much change after getting pregnant so fast, which she kind of freaked out about." Yeah, she said she realized it was a good thing to be in her position (the "rather than yours" went unstated). And no, I didn't cry or make a big deal out of it. But still, it stung a little. It stung that she could find overwhelming the very circumstances that from my perspective sound like the luckiest stroke a person could get.

A similar moment occurred in the conversation with Bridesmaid-With-Baby. She asked how the "baby situation" was progressing and was genuinely interested in and supportive of my response. She told me she thought skipping the shower was a great idea and that I was finally putting myself first rather than everyone around me, which she has always encouraged me to do more of. But in her description of the challenges of relocating cross-country to an unfamiliar city with an eight-month-old baby--and in a few comments about how the "timing" of my future assumed pregnancy will be better than the previous miscarried one--I got the weird impression that she envied me for being childless right now. She kept talking about how hard it is to find a home that fits all their criteria and accommodates all Baby's things, how hard it is to adjust to a new environment while caring for him. She said "This would be so much easier if it were just Husband and me. Having a baby makes things so much harder."

Was she trying to make me feel better that I don't have one? Was she trying to impress upon me the awfulness of her situation? Just venting to a good friend? Because all I could think was: This is just "stuff." This is "extra." These are not major problems. They will sort themselves out. Maybe you have to move while the Baby's in school-- you just do it, plenty of people have. Maybe you have to get rid of some of Baby's things--it's fine, he'll survive. This is all fixable. This doesn't even really need fixing!

I worry that I put my problems ahead of everyone else's. Maybe in her situation (or in Clueless's) I'd be equally worried and stressed, I'd feel equally ill-equipped and equally overwhelmed and equally afraid of everything not working out just the right way. Maybe--when I'm fortunate enough to be in their shoes--I'll go back to that detail-stressing self I've somewhat abandoned and feel just as wrapped up in everything that could fall short as a result of every decision. Maybe it isn't fair of me to compare them to me and find their problems petty.

But today, I don't think so. Today I think I understand more about the kinds of problems you can fix and the kind you can't, of what you can plan and what you can't, of just how much that happens to us is luck or chance or divine plan (take your pick) and how little we can say what will lie in our futures.

I don't know, maybe acting like Confucius makes the whole awful situation a little better. If I can't have a baby, I insist on excellent vacations, skinny jeans, and some righteous moral superiority.

Lou-Ellen Returns; or, Answering E-mails

I got an e-mail from Clueless Preggo today thanking me for the note and book I sent her a few weeks ago. It came at just the right time. I'd been wondering if she received the package, becoming increasingly annoyed, wondering if I should contact her, fantasizing about yelling at her, worrying that she was offended, berating myself for being a bad friend. Dramatizing and staging entire five-act tragedies of revenge and betrayal in my mind, all of which ended very badly. As usual, reading far more into an innocuous silence than existed.

The e-mail was nice. She let me know how sweet she thought it was that I sent the book and card and that she does know I'm going through a hard time and is thinking of me. She also wrote "I have total confidence that you and [Lawyer Guy] will become parents very soon. I can feel it. And you'll be amazing. I can't wait for our kids to play together!" Which is nice (rather than naive), because I want that confidence back: the confidence I had even in the worst days after the miscarriage that this would happen again for us, the confidence that dissipates a little more with each negative cycle.

She said she would love to get dinner or coffee or to hang out on the weekend whenever I want and that it's been too long since we've seen each other. And then she let me know that her mother is throwing a baby shower (which I'll receive the invite for next week) in August. She would love for me to come but understands if I don't feel up for it.

I know it's the right thing to go to the shower, so I will go to the shower. And I expect there to be some very hard moments. But it takes some of the hurt away to have her acknowledge that it might be painful for me.

So, there it is. My third bridesmaid's shower to attend before I get a babe of my own. At least I'm not throwing this one myself like I did the other two.

I need to respond and let her know that I want to see her. And then I need to see her. I think it will sting, though the moment is always less painful than the anticipation of it. Time to call up Lou-Ellen again and survive another round.

Biting the Bullet; or, Sending Out An SOS

After weeks of dithering, I finally decided what to do about Clueless Preggo (aka the Friend Formerly Known as Recently Trying). Every option I'd considered sounded both appealing and dismal. Getting together for dinner would make me feel like a strong, capable person, but would probably lead to days of weeping and self-laceration of emotional wounds. Sending an e-mail would be quick and direct but brusque, impersonal, and too open to interpretation. Calling her on the phone would allow for honest and open communication but could also turn into an all-about-me sob fest. And sending a card would show thoughtfulness but also might seem too much like a goodbye.

I didn't spend too much time thinking my way through any of the options in detail but let them rumble around in my mind, watching to see what seemed to attract the most stress and what attracted the least. The least stressful option was definitely sending a card, so that's what I decided to do.

Today I bought an adorable yellow card. On the cover is a baby clothesline and the word "congratulations", but as it doesn't say "on your new arrival" or "on your little one" or something like that I think it can work for a pregnancy congratulations card as well as a new baby card. I also picked up a mini-book of baby names filled with lovely photographs. And then, when I returned home, I sat down and wrote the following:

Dear "Clueless",

I am so happy for you and Mr. Clueless. You are going to be amazing parents, and this baby will be very loved. Your families must be so thrilled to welcome the new baby. I'm truly glad that it sounds like everything is going so well with your pregnancy.

Things with me have been hard, and I say this not to dump cold water on your happy time, but just to let you know why I haven't been as involved a friend as I would like to be. I'm still sad a lot, still wondering when I'll get to be a mom, and starting to consider seeing a specialist in the next few months.

It's difficult sometimes when I'm so down and disheartened to be excited and cheerful for other people, even when I want to be the same happy kind of friend I used to be. I need to take each day as it comes--sometimes I feel up for more, sometimes I need to protect my heart a bit.

I guess I'm trying to say that I care a lot about you even when it's hard for me to show it. And that I can't promise to be there for you in the same way I once could, but I can promise to do my best. Things could improve for me soon--I hope they do! This could also be a very long road ahead. Either way, I look forward to better times with you and your little family.

Love,
Secret Sloper

Clueless knows about the miscarriage and about how long ago we started trying, so I didn't see the need to spend much time explaining our situation. I also realized in ruminating on the card option that what worried me about it was the fact that I don't really know what I want from Clueless. I don't want to ask her to leave me alone and then feel in a few weeks like I'm capable of handling her pregnancy after all and have to backtrack. I don't want to make a big deal about how hard this is and how sad I am and then call her in two months with a "Guess what?!?!" and force her to pretend like this never happened. I don't really want anything from her other than space to feel what I feel when I feel it--and for her to know and accept this.

So the card is much more about me and my feelings than about her and her actions (or potential actions). It's trying to explain where I am, not asking her to do anything.

I'm going to send it along with the book next week after I get back from my youngest sister's college graduation. I hope she takes it well. I haven't a clue how she'll respond, and for now I'm okay with remaining the Clueless one.

The Course of True Friendship; or, Being There

I had a couple posts in mind for today: one on the two-week wait and how I'm so over it, I feel like I was never under it; one on Suor Angelica, the opera I heard on the radio this afternoon as I was returning home from teaching (an opera about a woman who learns her child has died-- and also the opera I coincidentally went to in the week between learning we had lost the m&m and my d&c). But instead I'm going to write about something happy and something surprising.

I've blogged before about my best friend--let's call her Doctor Lady--and the complicated emotions sparked by her conceiving so quickly and giving birth to her son in January. There's joy, there's sadness, there's even some bitterness, and there's relief that she lives 3,000 miles away and the baby isn't a constant presence in my life.

Doctor Lady and I have been best friends since we were 11 and are truly kindred spirits. In some ways, she's my soul mate: that one person who shares and understands everything. We shared our life experiences, like awkward junior high dances and first crushes and first kisses and first boyfriends all the way up to choosing a career and slogging through grad school and finding men we wanted to marry and deciding we were ready for babies.

We also share a host of intellectual interests, particularly in terms of literature and history (thought she leaves me far in the dust on science and math and I can write imaginative literature, which she cannot). And we have a love of the same movies and music and plays, a fondness for the same kind of joking wordplay and absurdities.

She was already in her third trimester when I miscarried. She was preparing her home and her life for her son, and I was gearing up to start over and trying to make sense of what I'd lost. And while she was always there for me whenever I called, with inexhaustible patience for my sadness, we also discussed her pregnancy and baby plans more than I wanted to then, a fact I sometimes stewed over.

Now, nearly six months after the miscarriage, we talk about the baby, and her and her husband's upcoming move, and how she copes with being back at work so quickly (she's in the Navy and could only take 8 weeks of maternity leave). We talk about my graduate studies, Lawyer Guy's work, our families, my birthday party, my summer travel plans. And sometimes we talk about the miscarriage or trying to conceive or jealousy. But not always. Not even, these days, often.

At times, I've resented this: her--and my--ability to focus on other facts, to pretend that this isn't the single most significant aspect of my life right now, to pretend that everything is normal. "Can't she tell how much I hurt?" I've wondered. "And if she can, why doesn't she ask me about it?"

But today I realized: she calls. She calls me every week. Sometimes twice a week. Even with the time difference, and the work schedule, and the 3-month-old baby, and the fellow doctor husband, she calls me far more frequently than I call her. Far more frequently than any of my other friends do, babies or no babies, jobs or no jobs.

What's that we say we want our friends and family to do for us? To be there. Not to make our problems the center of our lives, not to fix them, not to grieve and mourn like we do, but to be there.

She was there all the time and I didn't even realize.

My Therapist's a Stoner; or, Odds and Ends

I've been contemplating switching therapists recently. Not because I actually think mine's a pothead, though I was a bit taken aback when she suggested that Lawyer Guy and I get in the sexy mood with some weed (that hasn't been our thing since I was in college. Plus, isn't it not so good for the sperm count? Plus, no). But more because I wonder if someone who specifically understands pregnancy loss/IF issues would be better for me. Mine is great for my general anxiety and procrastination, but she applies a pretty hardcore cognitive behavioral approach to all my issues, and sometimes I feel that this just doesn't work with my grief over the miscarriage. She encourages me to not let myself get sad or anxious, to "challenge" my fearful or despairing thoughts, and to try to be grateful for the fact that my body ended a presumably unhealthy pregnancy. I kind of think she doesn't get it sometimes.

But I also have this intense anxiety about hurting or upsetting people, and I always apply it to my relationships with my therapists. I left my last one by moving and never calling him again or giving him my new phone number because I was too scared to let him know I didn't want to continue as his patient. (My anxiety about hurting people's feelings goes way back--I let my mother pick out my clothes until I was 12 years old because I was afraid she'd be hurt and sad if I told her I didn't like the jumpers and little-girl outfits she bought for me). Probably something I should discuss with a therapist, huh?

* * *
I've been avoiding my good friend from high school recently. We had dinner back in early January, at which time she revealed that she and her husband were going to start "trying" that month, and that they were both nervous. I told her that since she's friends with me, she'll get pregnant first shot (I'm a freaking fertility doll or something for my friends and family).

And if you guessed that I'm now too chickenshit to call her and get together because I'm afraid she'll tell me she's pregnant or abstain from wine and I'll just know, you're the big winner!

To be fair, she hasn't called me either, which leads me to believe she's either:

a) really busy (she has a demanding job at a major international corporation and an i-banker husband who travels a lot).

b) pregnant and worried about telling me/keeping it from me.

c) not pregnant and worried that I'm pregnant.

My money's on b). Because why the hell not make it 15 pregnancy announcements in a year? Increments of five are so easy to calculate.

* * *
Here's a little bit of positive news: I got a high reading on the CBE.FM and tons of egg whites today and I'm only on CD 17! If this shakes out like the last couple of monitored cycles, I should ovulate Sunday or Monday, right around my (former) normal ovulation time of CD 21. I might be getting back to normal!

Yup, I've already calculated the due date. And planned the shower. And the "tell the parents" date. And all the rest of it. And we haven't even had sex yet.

I probably should have made time for that bikini wax.

Kindred Spirits

She had her baby today.

We've been best friends since we were twelve years old. We read all of L.M Montgomery's novels together, and then moved in tandem to Austen and Bronte. We watched The Cutting Edge eight times in a row wrapped in sleeping bags in one or the other's basement, a carton of Phish Food between us.

She sent me Swedish fish and funny notes when I was 18 and in England, my heart broken for the first time. And when I was 19, I cried the whole length of a Greyhound bus trip from NYC to Providence until I could see her and tell her what he'd done.

She taught me to knit our junior year of college. I taught her how to scam drinks off older men.

She married her Navy Doc the morning after I married Lawyer Guy. And still, she was the last person to leave my reception. I gave her the flowers from my wedding to decorate hers.

We started trying for babies two months apart. We joked that we'd have two girls born the same day who would become best friends. Or else a boy and girl who would get married.

I threw her baby shower. It was the last weekend I was pregnant.

She had her baby today.

And I cried.

Telling; or, Not Telling

These past few days have been both busy and empty, frantic and calm. I wake up early and lie there in the dawn light and after a few hours the sadness sinks in and I cry for a while and hurt so much. And then it passes, and I get out of bed and try to talk to people and deal with my life with a heavy weight of sadness in my chest that doesn't cut as much as the tears but that never goes away.

Yesterday morning I sent e-mail, just one. I wrote to five of my closest girl friends and let them know what happened. Danny's parents told family. And the phone has rung constantly the last 48 hours. Sometimes I answer it and talk to people. Sometimes I don't feel up to it and let it go to voicemail. I've received so many words of kindness and encouragement, so many thoughts and prayers and good wishes. It means so much to me, even when people don't say the "right" thing or when they talk more than they listen. I know not everyone's good at grief, and I do appreciate the effort.

I've also heard from several women who've gone through this, and not surprisingly, it helps so much to talk to them. One of my husband's cousins called, one of my cousins called, one of our close couple friends, and a friend from graduate school. Just to hear someone say "I know how much you're hurting" makes me feel less alone. All of those women have children now, too, so that helps me to fight back the anxiety and fear that are never far from the surface.

There's someone I haven't told yet, though. One of my closest friends. A bridesmaid in my wedding--I was maid of honor at hers. I threw her baby shower just 1 month ago.

She had her baby yesterday. A boy. She left me a voicemail with the details, telling me she wants to talk and that I can call her today.

I can't call her today. I can't chat and pretend nothing happened to me two days ago. And I can't dump all my sadness and need on her blissful new motherhood. I bought her a baby gift right away, and I sent her a congratulatory text (and mentioned that I'm out of town and will call her next week) and a congratulatory facebook message. But I can't talk to her about this right now.

Which means I can't talk to her.

November Showers; or, Time with Friends and Family

I threw my best friend her baby shower on Saturday. My mother and I did it together, and for a while last week, I was desperately afraid that I'd be hosting this shower while anticipating a miscarriage. I would have done it, because this is my best friend since childhood who I never see, and she deserves it. But it would have been a kind of pain that I'm afraid to even imagine.

As it turned out, I was able to host the shower in a much different state of mind. My parents knew about the pregnancy, so my mom was really sweet to me all weekend, making sure that I ate and rested and took care of myself. And my best friend also knew--and knew about all our fears and worries of last week--so she, too, was a great source of comfort. She reassured me that even though the doctor wants us to have another u/s this week, everything sounds great and normal to her (my bf is a doctor, as well as pregnant herself, so I take her medical advice with more trust that I would most of my friends').

In all, it was a really nice weekend. Nice to see my friend get so many nice presents to welcome her little boy when he comes in January or February. Nice to spend time with my family and people I love. Nice to be away from the city, from job and school stress, and from the worries that have bedeviled us these past few days. And nice to have other people know what we've been going through.

The one not nice thing: I was horribly sick on Friday and Saturday. I puked three times in the car on the drive down to my parents' Friday night, and Saturday I puked about eight or nine times from the afternoon to right before I went to bed. I also made the terrible error in judgment of eating a carton of raspberries and a carton of blueberries at midnight after vomiting so I'd have something in my stomach. They burned like hell on the way back up ten minutes later.

I've noticed that my morning sickness isn't in the morning at all--it starts about mid-afternoon and is at its worst around dinner time. In the mornings I feel fine! As hard as it is to puke so much, I am so grateful this baby is giving me trouble and causing me symptoms.

Please be healthy and strong on Wednesday little baby!

Making Connections; or, That Was Unexpected

It's no secret (and probably no surprise) that I've been feeling rather lonely the last four or five months. My friends who want kids right now are pregnant. My non-pregnant friends don't want to be yet. My husband feels upset when I'm upset, which forces me to temper my disappointment and anguish at each negative test or new cycle. And he doesn't really understand my pain--a baby is something he's willing to wait for, not something he needs with every atom in his body.

So I've been lonely.

And then a close and special friend of mine (one of the married but not ready for kids yet types) called me up. I had previously confided a little in her about my husband and my thus-far thwarted efforts to conceive. And she called to let me know that J, a mutual friend of ours, had recently spilled that she too was having a bit more trouble than she expected getting knocked up.

I've known J a while and like her a lot, but we've never been especially close. But I contacted her anyway and we met up last night for a bottle of wine, some chips and salsa, and a long evening of soul-baring and cervical mucus-centric discussion. What a relief it was to share this with her.

She's on her 6th cycle, I'm on my 7th, we each have best friends who got pregnant the first try, we're each hosting baby showers and struggling with the infuriating, frustrating, startling, frightening, overwhelming, maddening range of emotions that come with this process. We both fight feelings of jealousy, envy, and down-right resentment at the difficulties we're facing--mixed with moments of reflection and glimmers of acceptance.

And we share the same strange mental block-- the inability to imagine ourselves looking at a positive pregnancy test or the belief that it will ever happen...even while we fully know and accept that one we WILL have children, through whatever means possible.

It helps to feel slightly less lonely.

Another relief: the Cle.arblue E.asy monitor detected peak hormone levels today. Day 25. Still, I'll take it.

Let's hope my husband's crap week at work doesn't put him entirely off babymaking tonight.

Kindred Spirits; or a Happy Sort of Sad

Today I got the phone call I've been praying for and dreading at the same time. My best friend in the world is pregnant. First cycle, first try. Her husband came home from Iraq and she was knocked up within two weeks.

We live 3,000 miles away from each other, but we share everything. We even got married 1 day apart. We've talked for the last year about how much we both want to get pregnant and when we would start trying. I'm the first person she's told about the pregnancy. She hasn't even told her mom yet.

I'm thrilled for her. Legitimately, 100% thrilled. I'm happy that it was so easy. She deserves it. She and her husband are both doctors in the Navy. They were apart for 7 months while he was stationed in Iraq. She was up for deployment herself sometime next year if she didn't get pregnant. I am so glad this happened like this. I'm so glad this could be easy for her.

But I'm... I'm sad too. I don't want things to be harder for her, I want them to be easier for me. We've always talked about having kids the same age who would be best friends, just like we are. I'm afraid that now that I know she's pregnant, I'm going to be even crazier about my time-tables and deadlines.

The good thing is 1) she's a doctor and 2) she knows all about my getting-pregnant wackiness. So in the midst of a long, happy phone call all about her symptoms, and how she found out, and the names they like, and who they're telling when, I also asked her if it was normal for it to take longer, like it is with me. And we both finished the phone call saying that I'll be pregnant sometime in the next 6 months.

I just hope I get to join her on the other side, as one of the pregnant ladies soon. And I'm scared I won't.