One of "Those Posts"; or Bullets Make it Better

I didn't think I'd turn into one of those blogger who, when pregnant, ran out of things to say. The truth is, there's lots to say! But I'm so preoccupied with all the stuff I need to get done in my life (and the stuff I don't need to get done, but that is impinging on my life regardless), that sitting down and organizing my thoughts into a coherent post is low on my list of priorities. That said...um, here's a list of my thoughts:

• There's been a lot of family drama going on in the last few weeks. I don't feel comfortable sharing it here, as it has nothing to do with IF/Loss/Pregnancy and isn't my news to share. It doesn't even really involve me, other than that I've been party to a lot of intense phone calls, confusion, sudden flights out to New York, and people either crashing on my couch or wanting to crash on my couch. I hope it's calming down, because I'm already so emotionally overwhelmed I don't think I can take much more.

• I have an official date for my oral exam: September 9th. I will be 36 weeks pregnant. Yikes. It's nine weeks away. Double Yikes. It's the week after my baby shower. Triple Yikes.

• I leave for California in three weeks. Next weekend, Lawyer Guy leaves for a two-week out-of-town trial. I'm spending three weeks in California (part of the time--thank God--with LG for my sister's wedding). That means that only one or neither of us will be home for the first five weeks of my third trimester. Needless to say, we've had to spend the last several weekends getting a LOT done around the apartment. I've also been sad. He and I are rarely apart, but now we'll be separated for an entire month, with the exception of the day of my 29-week ultrasound (he insisted he return for that). He's going to miss an entire month of my pregnancy with Smudgie. I suddenly have even more respect for military wives, who can spend an entire pregnancy apart from their husbands. So hard.

• We attended our first childbirth education class last weekend, specifically a Yoga for Labor and Delivery class. LG thought it was just a boondoggle to force the husbands to massage their wives' feet. I wasn't complaining.

• We've hired a doula to be present at our (MD-overseen, hospital) birth. We'll be meeting with her for the second time this Friday to start talking about a birth "plan" (I freaking hate that word because I have no plan. I do have some hopes, but I know full-well that hoping and planning are worlds apart). I suppose this means I need to actually read some books about labor now.

• I still feel scared. I hear about a woman who lost her child to a cord accident and my heart clenches up. Or Smudgie has a sleepy day and I poke and poke the poor little thing, trying to get him or her to dance for me. I'm trying hard to enjoy every moment, though, and to not let fears of what might happen destroy my enjoyment of what is happening. Still, I worded my baby shower invitations very carefully so as to avoid any apparent presumption that I'm banking on a baby at the end of this.

• The 3-hour GD test sucked and I'm still waiting for the results (and for the massive, plum-sized bruise on my arm to fade). But it's over and whatever the results are it will be fine and I'd do it 100 times again to keep Smudgie safe.

• Smudgie has really cranked the kicking up to a new level in the past week. Now when I side-lie to go to sleep, he or she starts playing the timpanis on both sides of my ueterus at once. Not very restful, I must admit, but very cool.

• And finally, the latest update on the Smudgie Room progress:

The stack of books in the corner will be going into our space-challenged bedroom once I order this nifty bookshelf. The big bookshelf in the room will be going to charity or craigslist once LG's trial is over. The other stuff is going into one of our many closets once we recover enough from last weekend's reorganizational frenzy to take care of it. The diplomas will be going somewhere sad and out-of-the-way until I have an actual office and an actual reason to display them. Later this week or early next, the closet will be renovated to fit LG's and Smudgie's clothes and the walls will be painted. And then I think we might actually have to order some baby furniture.

*Gulp*

I'll keep you posted.

Rainy Monday Updates; or, Odds and Ends

It's a glum rainy day here in New York and I'm still nursing this frightful cold. I want to curl up in bed under a bunch of blankets with a cup of tea and the blanket I'm knitting for Smudgie (oh, I can't wait to share it with you!) and watch the Cooking Channel all day long. But I have to write tomorrow's final exam and grade my students' presentations. And even if I could avoid those tasks, I'd still have to tackle the acres-high stack of books to be read by September.

But a quick blog entry won't totally compromise my Monday To-Do List!

- We're about 10 days out from the follow-up anatomy scan. The fears always creep back in, the terrible fantasies of how the day could go always emerge. But thankfully Smudgie has been thumping a bit harder the last day or two. This morning, he (or she) woke me up with some tentative tap dancing on the left side of my pelvis. I can't imagine a nicer alarm clock.

- Lawyer Guy and I have taken the first tentative steps of our own toward cleaning out our office/second bedroom in preparation for Smudgie's arrival. This consisted of a visit over the weekend to the apple store in Manhattan to pick out a new laptop to replace LG's cumbersome, centuries-old PC that currently resides on a massive desk exactly where we hope Smudgie's crib will soon rest. The PC is still there (as is the desk), but the plans to remove both are in motion. Still, as LG said, he needed a new computer regardless of the outcome of this pregnancy, so it wasn't exactly a massive leap of faith. Baby steps...

- I sometimes catch myself making mental plans of the "We'll get the walls painted by x date and then the crib in by y date and some curtains right around z" variety and have to stop to quell a moment of panic. I still can't fully believe that I will have a real live squirmy, happy, healthy baby at the end of this. I don't deserve this more than any one else. I don't know why we would be lucky when so many people aren't. I don't know why this time would end differently than the other times (even though I get the statistical evidence in our favor). I know that worrying and doubting won't protect me from pain and sadness, but it's an awfully hard habit to break.

- Every spring, a few sparrows try to build a nest on the living room window ledge under our air conditioner unit. Every year LG takes a broom and knocks out their early attempts at nest-building. Last year, he confessed to me that he thinks he saw some broken eggs in the remnants of the nest lying down by our garbage cans below the window. This year, back in March, I let him know in no uncertain terms that those birds and their babies are staying put! I don't care how much noise they make fluttering around in there. I'd feel like a monster hoping and praying to bring my own baby home while dashing those little birdies' efforts to pieces. And yes, I admit, I do feel like by protecting those birds and their nest I can protect my own baby, too.

- Last night, LG pulled a carton of Ben&Jerry's from the freezer. He had surprised me with a favorite flavor that I haven't had in a while, and while I appreciated the gesture, I asked him to put it back in. I think it will be much more appropriate to share with him on Friday.

- I'm 19w3d today.

Waiting; or, X dpIUI

This will be a quick post. Not much to report here. The waiting continues, but fortunately, the writing continues, too. The studying doesn't continue quite as swimmingly, but I aim to change that today.

Lawyer Guy and I kept busy this weekend. On Friday, I had dinner and drinks at Eataly (Mario Batali's awesome new food hall near the Flatiron Building) with a friend. A few too many drinks, if I'm being honest, but we all have our little lapses. On Saturday LG and I saw The King's Speech, which we loved. On Sunday we met the BIL and SIL and their kids for brunch in New Jersey and then came home and cooked dinner together and watched the Golden Globes.

And throughout, I've been peeing on sticks, which is definitely not how I usually spend the two-week-wait. But the four (now two) hpts remaining from the stash I ordered back in March '09 are set to expire next month. I hate wastefulness. I also hate seeing BFNs. Testing the trigger out seemed like the perfect solution to this problem. I've been taking a test every two days and the line is fading steadily. I've got two tests left and I imagine it will have disappeared by the time I take the last one. Conversely, LG might take the last test for us to use as a control in the future.

Perhaps some of my more experienced pee-sticking friends can offer some advice. In the past, I have always PIAC before testing, as that seemed to allow for the highest level of control and accuracy. But now that the results really don't matter, I've just been holding the stick directly in the urine stream for a count of three. And it is getting SOAKED. The entire testing window is suffused with liquid, though when it dries the test looks normal. Am I doing this wrong? Holding it too long? At the wrong angle? I'll go back to P-ing IAC if I ever take another test with a legitimate shot at being a BFP, but I'd still like to know what I'm doing wrong here.

I'm not tracking how many days post-IUI we are. I haven't tried to calculate an EDD. Sometimes I feel certain that I'm pregnant (that I just have to be pregnant), and most of the time I'm certain that I'm not. I feel content when I consider either possibility until the thought of moving on to injects or IVF intrudes. I'm not sure that I'm ready for next steps yet. I've just gotten used to this one. But I'm also sure that whatever happens this month, I'm equipped to deal with it.

Past and Present; or, How to Handle a MTHFR

Thanks to everyone who commented or e-mailed me with your advice on last Friday's post. Your suggestions were invaluable and have helped clarify some things for me. I'm so grateful to have a community of women who have been in this position to turn to when things become challenging.

Lawyer Guy is going to find out the max allowance for the FSA today, which should help clarify matters. He's also going to confirm that fertility treatments are permissible expenses (I'm sure they are, but we want to be extra-sure). Additionally, a friend of mine from my message-board support group (who is currently pregnant) offered to mail me several unused gonal-f pens of hers, enough it seems to get me through one round of injectibles+IUI. Given all this, we're leaning really heavily to putting $5000 or so in the FSA (or whatever the max is) and trying to do at least one, maybe two IUI cycle with injects. If the meds are free for the first it will be quite reasonable to pay for both, and I agree with all my bloggies who said it's a good way to test out my response to the stims before the high pressure of an IVF cyle commences.

Obviously, this is all contingent on the outcomes of the next few cycles and our conversations with Dr. W. But I feel like I have some perspective on the situation and a plan, and that always helps.

Also giving us some clarity (though not as much as we'd hoped): Dr. W's office called with the results of my RPL testing today. I tested positive for hetero MTHFR mutation, but everything else was normal. The nurse said that Dr. W is not concerned about the hetero mutation and doesn't fall in the camp that associates it with higher risk of pregnancy loss. The only snag is that the lab didn't test my homocysteine levels, so I need to have another draw to test that when I go in for monitoring for my January Clomid+IUI cycle.

While I'm a little nervous about the hetero MTHFR, I'm beyond relieved that I have no translocations or abnormalities on my karyotyping (and that LG is also free of them). Hetero MTHFR seems to be very common, and I've seen many women identified with it who have healthy pregnancies, so I'm going to hope that it won't cause any harm and that my homocysteine levels come back normal-- or, if they don't, that there's an easy fix for that.

Other than some reflection on hypotheticals and a smattering of test results, not much is happening reproductively right now. I should be getting back together with Pissy in a few days. I think she'll be happy to see me again, but you never know with her. I'm still buried under a mountain of student essays to grade, and after I finish that comes the preparations for Christmas, and then our New Year's trip to the Bahamas, and then AF right when we get back. And then it's 2011 and a new year and a new cycle, and this time a new year is going to actually signify something new for us, dammit.

Odds and Ends; or, The End is Nigh

A few thoughts rattling around in my head this morning:

- Thank you for all your comments, tweets, and e-mails these past few days. I feel like you are holding me up right now and it's incredible--I wish I had known all of you and had this level of support last fall. Your encouraging stories and examples really help, and when you tell me that you have hope for me it helps me have hope for myself.

- I rested a lot yesterday, watched some junk tv (the Giuliana and Bill miscarriage episode--such tears! Yet it was cathartic rather than upsetting), read your comments, and took a very long nap. I gave myself permission to not do anything or be anything other than sad and miserable and mopey. By the evening I was feeling good enough to laugh, so I'm glad I gave myself this time off.

I also read this post by Basic Girl from her post-IUI chemical last February. I was so amazed by her spirit and optimism in that post and by her refusal to submit to hopelessness in a very similar situation to mine--one miscarriage on their own; then nothing; then IUIs. And of course, she's very pregnant now after their first IVF attempt! It made me reevaluate my response to this process, my constant doom and gloom, my overwhelming negativity. I'm going to try to be positive next cycle--not tell myself that I'll get a sticky BFP, but also not tell myself that it won't and can't work. I'll just reassure myself that there's a chance and that we've done all we can.

- This morning, that optimism was sorely tested when I woke up at 5 am with some very dark fears for company. I lay there wondering how many more losses I will be able to handle, and I decided that I can take several more chemical pregnancies but only one more miscarriage of a clinical pregnancy. (I know, this is insanity. Who thinks like this?) I decided that if we have another miscarriage at 7 or 8 weeks I'm putting TTC on hold and pursuing adoption, because I will be tapped out.

Then again, if you had asked me this time last year how many miscarriages or chemical pregnancies I could handle, I would have shouted "None!" and stuck my fingers in my ears and sang to myself to keep from hearing you. This is clearly a moving target.

But those kinds of thoughts are so unproductive and I really don't want to be beset by them any longer. I know I will be in a panic as soon as I get another positive pregnancy test, but I'm going to work on putting that anxiety out of my mind until we get there. And who knows how long that will take.

- I'm heading into Manhattan for my second betas soon. And I finally started spotting this morning. I'm glad, in a strange not-very-glad way. I want this to be over so we can move on and I don't want to take any drugs to end this or have worry about an ectopic or have to wait around for days and days and days hoping my body gets it's act together. Let's just chalk this one up to experience and give the next one a serious shot.

- We have no plans for Halloween this year, but staring at myself in the mirror yesterday I suddenly had a brilliant brainstorm for the BEST Halloween costume ever. Picture this:

A large burlap bag with leg holes cut in the bottom and arm holes cut in the side. I tie the opening around my neck with twine and write the letters S-A-D on the front.

Get it??? A sad sack!!!

Conversely I could always just go out looking like myself.

- And finally, I want to share a picture that Lawyer Guy snapped with his phone on Wednesday after he got home from work. We had cried a bunch and asked ourselves why this was happening and hated this dreadful burden we've been asked to bear. And then around 5:30 he took our pup Bella for a walk and saw this in the sky:


Isn't it incredible? I can't help thinking of Noah and the flood and God's sending a rainbow as his promise to never drown us all again. I know it's just water and sunlight and atmosphere and the right angle, but I can't help but pretend that it's a message from our baby to let us know that he or she is coming if we can just hold on a little longer.

This and That; or, Catching Up

I sometimes wish I was not so in-tune with my body. Since last Friday, I've known with about 98% surety that I'm not pregnant. Since Wednesday, it's gone up to 99.9%. And today I know with 100% confidence that my period is coming tomorrow. Why is my body so freaking predictable? Why can't it trick me once in a while, just to let me lead myself on?

***
So I haven't spent much time this 2ww obsessing about my cycle: no boob mashing, no cramp tracking, no faking of pregnancy hunger pangs (Which, seriously Sloper, it was time to stop doing that. The scale is telling you so). But this does not mean I don't still over-think things. I've spent the time waiting for my period and waiting to schedule my HSG by alternately envisioning myself as the mother to ART-produced twins (in my wilder moments, girl-boy-girl triplets) and envisioning myself undergoing failed treatment after failed treatment and finally giving up in despair. I picture holding my kids in the hospital and I picture us learning that Lawyer Guy's sperm is hopeless and it was a miracle we got pregnant in the first place. And I picture all of these things about 8 times a minute.

But at least the SA is on the schedule for next week. I hope my poor LG can survive the wait: he is dreading this so very much. Does anyone know how long it usually takes them to get the results back to you?

* * *
I hate what an awful mope I've become the last two or three months. I think back to when I first started this blog and how motivated I was to think positively and plan for solutions and fight against self-pity. And I think back to the first 3 or 4 months after the miscarriage and how determined I was to find silver linings and life lessons in what was happening to us. Now I just want to wallow and feel sorry for myself and make everyone around me miserable, even while we're actually doing something for once to address this problem. I suck.

* * *
So the bloody hag is set to arrive tomorrow afternoon (while I'm at the opera, how fitting) and then the day after is Niece #2's baby naming at a country club in the suburbs (to which they have invited 150 guests). What a delightful way to spend CD 1! I have zero enthusiasm for this event, and Lawyer Guy told me I could stay home, but I can't. Not with the history the we have with those ILs (plus, my SIL called me three months ago to reserve the date and specifically ask me to be there because it's very important to them).

Shall we take a poll? What's the over-under on me crying in the bathroom? Scowling at small children? Hiding in the car? Leaving early?

I could go on and on and on about how the timing of this event couldn't be more dead-on awful if they had calculated it specifically to give me the most pain and how showy and obnoxious I find it, but I am trying--not succeeding, but at least trying--to be a less hideously resentful and jealous person. I'll let you know how that goes.

* * *
Finally, Leslie at Evolutionary Dead End? tagged me in this poll, which I will answer briefly (for once? I'm not sure I'm capable of brevity) as this post is already insanely long:

1) What is your dream occupation?
Easy: Caberet singer, novelist, or official baby-namer. I would like to have control over the names of everyone's children. I promise I'll pick one you like.

What's the best dish you can cook?
I make really good Lemon-Spiced Chicken and awesome artichoke dip and lasagne. I'm quite partial to the apple-walnut stuffing I make every year on Thanksgiving, too. And I make good cheesecake.

Have you ever been mentioned in the newspaper? What for?

A few times! First, at age four for participating in my preschool's "Crazy Hat Day" (there was a picture of me wearing a--yes--crazy hat.) I was immensely proud. More recently, LG and I had our wedding announced in the NY Times Wedding Section. I was almost as excited as I was about the crazy hat. (Total lie: I screamed with happiness after I got the fact-checker's call the week before the wedding).

What's the worst and/or most memorable job you've ever had?

Without question, my two weeks the summer after high school as a telemarketer shilling specialty business publications over the phone. I made four sales. In two weeks. I felt like an associate of Satan. I quit in despair.

When you were a teenager, at what age did you envision yourself getting married? How old were you in reality when you got married?
I imagined myself marrying at 26, just like my mother did. I got married at 27. This seemed (I shit you not) like a major failing at this time. I also thought I'd have my first kid at 29, again, like my mother did. I'm now hoping for 31.

What's your most hated household chore? What's your favorite?
I hate cleaning the bathroom, dusting, mopping the floor, and walking the dog at night alone. I like vacuuming and washing dishes by hand.

What's your earliest memory?
I was 2 and on a visit with my parents to my mom's sister and her family in Phoenix. I remember looking down at their red Spanish tile floor and staring out the screen door at night hoping their dog would come in so I could play with it. I remember a big bank of indoor potted plants near their stairwell. And I remember that my grandfather was there.

Weddings and Babies; or, Odds and Ends

After Sunday's post, I want to clarify what the concern is with my sister's wedding next August: her wedding is in Napa; I live in New York. I don't care about being fat at a wedding or looking less than great postpartum in wedding pictures. Please, I would take it gladly and wear that extra chub with pride! But I know that if I am 36+ weeks at the time of her wedding, I won't be able to attend. And I have my doubts as to the feasibility of bringing a newborn--say 6 weeks or younger--on a crosscountry plane trip (I'm thinking it would be an infection risk, but if anyone knows otherwise, please let me know).

For these reasons, I think we'll have to hold off on treatments with the RE until January, which will be frustrating considering we'll get our testing done in October and then just stop. But I've pretty much decided that I'm going to continue trying naturally during December and January. I can't start trying to avoid at this point. Everything in my heart speaks against it.

* * *
Naturally, my mother had some choice words on the subject. I haven't spoken to her about our treatment plans or my feelings since our incredibly awful conversation in April, and I think our relationship was much the better for it. But I wanted to get her take on my sister's wedding and the scheduling conflict it presents. I know my sister will be horribly hurt and incredibly angry if I can't go (even though she skipped my 30th birthday party to spend two weeks in Puerto Rico with her fiance notthatI'mstillbitteroranything). And truthfully, I'd be devastated to miss it, too! Myy mom said I should try to avoid during those months because "Won't you feel awful knowing if you'd just waited eight weeks none of this would be a problem?"

No, Mother. If I get pregnant and am lucky enough to carry the baby to term, I will not feel awful nor will I wish I had waited. I will be incredibly sad to not be in California, but I will thank God for the miracle of my child and have zero regrets.

It's all moot, because it's not November yet (though let's be honest, it's just around the corner) and there's no guarantee I would get pregnant even with treatments in those months, let alone without. But it's still discouraging to know that after all this time, my family would hold something like this against me.

* * *
Also discouraging: the name that Lawyer Guy's cousin gave to her son born yesterday. When he woke me up this morning with the words "Do you want the bad news or the worse news?" my heart leaped into my throat, but the reality was not far off from my frantic imaginings. Of course this 27-year-old, barely employed, multiple-accidental-pregnancy-having couple would give their son the boy's name LG and I hate (HATE HATE HATE) more than any other, the name we have mocked to each other for over a year. OF COURSE!

And no, I'm not going to spell out what the name is here, because it's somewhat popular in certain parts of the country (though not NYC) and I don't want to offend any readers. And I know that taste is subjective.

But still. My taste is better. I've got so many great names in the hopper just waiting for the right babies to wear them. Why do these people get to pollute our society with awful, awful names while... well, you know.

* * *
Despite my reaction to the cousins' new baby (ugh, that name!) I think I'm getting a little better about dealing with unexpected announcements. My mom told me that our former next-door neighbor called her recently with the news that her 24-year-old, unmarried, college-dropout daughter is pregnant. (Ha ha universe! Got me again!) And then my mom said that it made her sad, because she wants to be a grandmother, too.

You might think that this would make me feel guilty or worse, but it didn't. My mom has been so resolutely beating the drum of positivity this past year that for her to acknowledge that this is a horribly painful situation for her too helped me feel less alone. I guess I'm selfish that way. I don't mind if other people suffer as long as we're all suffering together. It's the loneliness I can't take.

Colonial House; or, Daydreams and Visions

Growing up outside Philadelphia, I was always fascinated with the Amish (bear with me, I promise this is going somewhere).

I loved history, especially colonial American history, and being Amish seemed to me like the closest one could get to living in the past. In the summer, I would sit on the back stoop, looking out over our backyard and the creek and acres of woods behind it, shucking corn from one of the local farms for my mother, and I would daydream about being an "oldtimey" girl, a farmer's daughter during the Revolution, or an Amish girl today, helping to prepare dinner and thinking about the sheep she had to shear and the wool she had to card and the herbs she had to collect.

* * *
This evening, I took our puppy Bella to the park around the block for her late afternoon walk. The setting sun lit up the sides of buildings with a summery, buttery glow. The trees were budding green or blooming white. The babies and their mommies and daddies (and some of the big kids too) were climbing all over the jungle gyms and swings, playing catch on the ball fields, lounging on the benches. Summer is on the way, and the entire neighborhood is ready to celebrate.

As Bella sniffed her way to the perfect pee-spot, I thought about the months to come: the amateur Shakespeare productions, abridged and pitched to children, performed on a makeshift stage; the family film festivals projected on a screen on the back of the little colonial house in the park's center. I had a vision: four months from now, late-July heat heavy in the air, a screening of Meet Me In St Louis or The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland's face projected two-stories high, and Lawyer Guy and I pushing a pram between lounging families on picnic blankets, the nebulous, genderless baby blob that is our perpetually 7-weeks gestation m&m sleeping under his or her green and silver canopy.

What could have been.

* * *
Some people start trying to conceive with a tentative we'll-just-see-what-happens toe dipped in the water. Some of them get their we-never-knew-it-would-happen-so-fast BFPs and are borne along a stream of ultrasounds, hormones, and expanding waistlines until the baby arrives: no time to think, to consider, to get scared. Suddenly, a baby, two parents, a family created, and life readjusts and they readjust with it.

Some of them face difficulties they didn't expect or lose the pregnancies that came so easily, and the doubts that might have surrounded their ceremonial tossing of the condom box disappear. "I am ready," they realize. "I do want this. Whatever I thought in the past was wrong. I have changed."

But I was ready before we started trying. For years I waited, ready. I had no doubts, no questions.

With each month that passes, my future parenthood seems to recede in the distance, to become less rather than more possible, less actual, more fantastic. Me pushing a pram seems like a daydream rather than a prophesy, so easily imagined, so impossible to achieve.

* * *
I still love history, and it's still history of the domestic and literary (rather than intellectual, national, or military) variety. I tour historic homes, old forts, recreated settlements. The Brooklyn Museum has a series of eighteenth-century rooms: recreated farmhouse interiors with immaculately laid wood tables and delicately painted wall hangings and period-appropriate china and cherry four-poster beds all behind a plexiglass barrier.

I can look at them for hours, projecting myself into the impossible past of my imagination, envisioning my alternate eighteenth-century life and the feel of the pewter ewer or the cast iron toasting stick or the brass warming pan.

But I can never get past the glass.

Updates; or Odds and Ends

A huge and hearty THANK YOU to everyone who commented on yesterday's post or e-mailed with advice. You have made me feel less alone, less like one half of the freakish couple with sex problems. Taking some of your suggestions to heart, I had a calm, difficult, but loving and productive chat with Lawyer Guy last night before bed, and we have made some decisions about what to do to make this process less stressful on both of us.

Rereading my post, I'm struck by the anger in my tone. Truthfully, I do not usually feel that way about my husband, not even around this issue. I suppose that's why the feeling shocks me so much when it springs up in the aftermath of a difficult moment--I am pretty much the least anger-prone person alive. I'm in a much better headspace today (probably as a result of our good conversation last night) and am back to my usual loving self.

Also, out of respect to my husband, I won't be discussing this issue again. He knows of my blog and has agreed not to read it, but I still feel some guilt about sharing a concern of his that he would NOT like the world to hear about (that was a pretty constant refrain as we talked about our husbands, wasn't it? If only they could all get together and have this chat). So know that I appreciate your advice and support and that he and I are working on this as we move forward.

* * *
I've been through the wringer the last few months with trying to get the tissue test results back on the m&m following our d&c. Unreturned phone calls, misleading information, multiple calls to multiple doctors offices. I thought the situation was FINALLY resolved yesterday when I called my office to get the results (12 weeks after the procedure). And yet another road block has been put in my way: I never signed a release form for the office that performed the d&c to send the results to my regular doctor's office. And I never signed a form because they never told me to or gave me a form to sign! And it took a month and a half for them to let me know this (the results were in after 6 weeks)!

Now I need to fax a letter giving them permission to release the forms, wait for them to send the forms to my doctor, and I'm sure hurdle over another carpenter's horse before I learn what made us lose our baby. At this point, it's not even about the results, which I doubt will be all that informative, surprising, or helpful. It's the principal of the thing--don't make a grieving non-mother wait a FULL TRIMESTER to put her dead baby to rest.

***
Finally, today it has been three months since we learned we lost the m&m. I had a little breakdown yesterday, brought on partly because of the stressful marital situation but mostly because I just miss my baby.

Days get easier and the world seems brighter all the time. I'm committed to my schoolwork, loving my marriage, and finding a peace through yoga that feels enriching and well earned. I'm truly hopeful that I'll be pregnant again sooner rather than later and will have a baby at the end of those nine months.

But I will never have my m&m. I can accept what life has given me and still mourn what might have been.

Ship Shape; or, Pulling Up Anchor

First of all, thank you for your encouragement the other day. It was just what I needed.--to know that I'm not alone and these crappy-ass days come to all of us. I was feeling a lot better yesterday and today. I don't know if I just needed to cry it out or if you all cheered me up. Either way, I appreciate your support.

But maybe my good spirits are due to my second piece of news: I'm leaving tomorrow for a 10-day cruise to the Caribbean! I am so excited for this vacation for a number of reasons, not least of which is the misery-inducing weather we've been having in New York recently (Is it just me or is January the most depressing month of the year?) Lawyer Guy and I really need this time to relax and reconnect away from family and job stresses. We'll even stop worrying about baby making, since I'm in the 2ww and any sex we have is strictly fun times only.

So that's the other thing-- I've mostly given up on this cycle, and I'm mostly okay with that. I never got a Peak reading on my monitor. But my temps continued in the low/mid 98s, the most recent temp being 98.4. That's absolutely a post-o for me, but I can't be positive I ovulated, since I wasn't temping the whole cycle and never got the affirmative from the CBEFM.

So--I'm giving up worrying. I'm going to go on my cruise and eat and drink and swim and read and hang out on the beach (with SPF 70 and a large hat, so don't worry about my Irish skin, chickadees). I will do a bit of schoolwork, but I will mostly just have fun and enjoy this wonderful time away. And I'll get my period on the trip, or I won't. I'll deal with the consequences of either when I get back.

So enjoy the heart of January, my dears. I won't be checking your blogs with my usual dedication, but I promise to check back in when I return on the 24th.

Odds and Ends; or, Collecting Thoughts

I forgot to relate a little event that happened at the d&c. Before anything began, I had a stack of medical and other forms to fill out. Slipped in among them, they had accidentally put the consent form for termination of pregnancy.

I'm Catholic and have huge moral problems with abortion. (Which, I want to clarify, doesn't mean that I think people who have had them are evil or bad or immoral. One of my closest sources of support during this process has been my friend who aborted a first trimester pregnancy with a d&c two years ago, and I understand her reasons for making her choice. (The political aspects of the issue are a whole other kettle of fish. I'll just say that I tend to vote Democrat)).

Anyway, seeing this legal consent form intended for a woman voluntarily ending her pregnancy just made me flip out. I started sobbing. And weirdly, the first thing that popped into my head was that if I ever decided to run for political office people would think I had an abortion if I signed these forms.

I didn't sign them, and they cleared up the mistake and gave me the right ones. But my husband found my reaction a little bizarre--simply because he knows running for political office sounds like hell to me!

* * *
Today we're going down to my parents' house for an engagement brunch in honor of my sister directly below me in age. We're going to meet her fiance's parents, sister, and brother-in-law. I've been really looking forward to this. But I woke up this morning at 4:30 crying. Emotionally this doesn't feel like a stable day. I'm going to have to get past that for my sister's sake.

* * *
Rapidly fading/fluctuating pregnancy hormones don't just mess with your emotions. They also fuck with your skin. The clear, smooth, slightly dry skin of my pregnancy is gone. I've got zits now in places I didn't know they could grow.

* * *
Finally, we're going on a cruise in January! I've never been on one before and usually like more personalized vacations. I pour over travel guides, search online for deals and tips, try to cram in as many sights (and sites) as I can in a short vacation time. But right now, paying someone to take me around to sunny islands while providing me with booze and unlimited food (and a gym) sounds pretty great. My husband is delighted I've come around to his planning-free mode of vacationing.

Anyone been on a cruise before and have any recommendations? We're planning to depart from NYC just to cut down on bother and expense, and the only cruises leaving from their in our time frame are the Queen Mary 2 (ha!), Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean.