Remembrance Day

Sometimes when I think with excitement about how very much I have to learn about Smudgie over the beautiful decades of our lives together, I remember you and then I realize how much I know about him already.

I never got the chance to discover that you hiccup almost as much on the outside as you did on the inside-- at least four times a day all through the third trimester. I never felt your knees or elbows through the barrier of a tight swaddle and recognized their familiar pointiness from their poking against a very different kind of enclosure. I never compared your ultrasound images to your peacefully sleeping form, marveling at the little hands that extend above your head in your crib, just as they did before you were born.

I knew nothing, but I loved you anyway and missed you like my best friend when you were gone.

Today, two years later, I hold your sleeping little brother on my lap and don't know how to wish for anything more or anything different. When I look at him, I see perfection. But I don't want to say "It all turned out for the best' or "Everything happens for a reason." Because once upon a time you were here and then you weren't, and it broke my heart for me and for you. I wanted you to live and love and be happy. It is still so sad that you never got the chance to.

I wonder sometimes if I would love Smudgie in quite the exact way I do if it weren't for you coming and going first. I think of you when I look at him. I think of you when I hold him to my chest at night and kiss that smooth, precious place where his neck meets his shoulder.

Be at peace little one-- little ones. You are knit into the love that makes our family everyday. So you'll always be with us.

Thoughts on Saturday; or, 11w1d

I'd like to introduce you to a little friend of mine. This is Bella:


She's our almost 5-year old (sniff! Where does the time go?) Havanese pup, and our lives would have been much less bearable over the last two years if it weren't for her. She is such a furry little clown and so full of love. Lawyer Guy calls her the Anxiety Sponge, because whenever we had a particularly bad day or week and were worried about ever having children, we would snuggle with her on the couch and she would lick us and we'd start to feel a little better.

For a few days last week, Bella was acting completely bonkers. She was skittish and anxious and demanded to be on my lap at all times. She would follow me from room to room, hovering around my legs. I accidentally kicked her several times when I turned suddenly to go somewhere else and found her right underneath me. When I sat at the kitchen table and used my computer, she would put her front paws up against my legs and stare at me beseechingly and scratch at me until I lifted her on my lap.

At first we thought she was sick, but her appetite was fine, she enjoyed all her walks, nothing seemed to hurt or ail her, and she wasn't having any tummy issues. Then I realized that she must be sensing the pregnancy and reacting to it. We were amazed that she was so intuitive to what was going on in my body.

For the last 4 days or so, though, she's been back to normal. Either she's gotten used to what's going on, my hormones have changed, or...something bad has happened.

It's really hard for me not to read into literally everything that happens or doesn't happen with this pregnancy as a bad sign, even though I'm trying so hard not to. My previous slight nausea has now gone away, and I can accept that as I approach the end of first tri that sort of thing happens. But more worrying is that my appetite has also subsided, right when I thought it was supposed to be amping up. I'm not sure what to make of it. My skin was great for about a month, but now I'm having little breakouts again. Only my boobs and my chronic gas and my early-onset evening exhaustion are still the same.

Even at 11 weeks, I can't shake the fear of another missed miscarriage. The NT scan is on Thursday, and I'm worried about bad results or unfortunate diagnoses, but I'm more worried about Smudgie's heart just not beating any longer.

I read online that my uterus is now the size of a grapefruit. Then I look down at myself and I just don't see how that's possible. I don't feel different enough. This doesn't seem real. Will it ever?

Despite my fears, I am so glad to be at 11w1d today. I am so glad to have seen Smudgie's healthy heart beating away four separate times. I am glad to have another chance to see him this week. I am glad that last night I dreamed of giving birth to a little boy, and it was all calm and happy and everyone was healthy, and the only problem was that my epidural apparently caused short-term amnesia.

Keep going, Smudgie. We love you and will be the very best parents we can be if you'll just stick around and let us try.

Tell Me Your Symptoms; or, Who Knows?

Six weeks today. I've passed into clinical pregnancy territory. Next appointment with Dr. W. is tomorrow.

When I think about tomorrow and the fact that we'll KNOW (in capital letters) if there's nothing going on in there, I feel rather terrified. I am distracting myself as much as possible. I taught a pretty good class this morning on close reading and poetics. I've been reading Daniel Deronda for my orals list. I love the sound of running water, so my therapist and I worked out a relaxation visualization involving fountains, and I also downloaded the sounds of a waterfall to my iPod. Now, when I feel my thoughts starting to spiral out of control, I just tell myself "waterfall" and call to mind the sounds and the visualization. It seems to be working. I'm still waking up early with anxiety, but I'm no longer at risk of a panic attack.

I'm avoiding all those "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" websites I was obsessed with when pregnant with the m&m. I used to check them seven times a day, reading ahead to where I would be at the end of the week, reading back to where I'd already passed. I've looked at them once or twice since getting the BFP two weeks ago, but all I can think as I read some description of baby at 6 weeks or whatever is: "You don't know what's happening! That might not be happening at all! In fact, my baby probably stopped developing a long time ago!" It's been surprisingly easy to ignore them ever since.

I can't shake the feeling that I should have more symptoms now than I do. My boobs are the same as they've been the last two weeks: bigger than normal, but not pregnancy huge, a little tender in spots, but not excruciatingly painful. My pukies have pretty much gone away. I have a little nausea here and there, but the past three days have been puke-free. My cramping comes and goes. When it's here, I'm anxious. When it's gone, I'm anxious. I don't have any constipation (rather the reverse, actually). The only really consistent "symptoms" are hunger and the fact that I'm too exhausted to stay up past 9:30 each night.

I'd like to have more to bank on. I certainly felt more pregnant last time, even though it didn't work out. But I try to remind myself that my betas kept rising even when I felt no different at all. There's a chance this could work out. I don't know how much of chance, but I do at least admit there is one.

I'm going to eat another bowl of sausage ziti and then lie down on the couch and listen to the waterfall CD. I don't want to hope or fear anything for tomorrow; I just want to be here now in this day.

Visualizing Whirled Peas; or, Getting By

I haven't felt like blogging much lately. Not because I'm not feeling a lot or thinking a lot or reading what others write, and certainly not because there was more to say before I got pregnant again. But part of my efforts to quiet all the terribly anxious voices in my head involve distancing myself a bit from this space--and, unfortunately, from other people's pregnancies and struggles. So if you are one of my pregnant bloggy friends and I don't comment much in the next few--days? weeks? however long this thing lasts--please don't take it to heart. I'm just busy here doing whatever I can to keep from collapsing in a messy puddle on the floor and reading about other people's worries unfortunately dials mine up to eleven.

I'm about half-way through the 1ww between appointments. Man, is this difficult. I feel for women who don't get a single check-up between the positive pee stick and the end of first tri. Though to be fair, most of those women don't fall into the delightful categories that I and my fellow bloggers do.

I've come up with some relaxation techniques and some visualization exercises with my therapist, and I've been using them frequently the last few days, so I've surprisingly remained relatively calm. I get anxious when I imagine something bad happening to this pregnancy (understandably) and I also feel anxious when I imagine happy future outcomes. So pretty much every time I start to wonder about the upcoming appointment or to envision the future, I stop myself by picturing a mental image my therapist suggested and focus on breathing for a minute or so. It's working okay so far! I managed to hold off a panic attack this morning after I woke up and before I get out of bed.

In other developments, the pukies started for me on Sunday night in the car on the way to a Super Bowl party. Yesterday evening they were even worse, and I went to bed at about 9:30 pm because I was afraid that I'd vomit my dinner all over myself if I sat upright any longer. It's all very similar to last time--I throw up in the evenings, not the mornings, and it's worse when my stomach is empty--except with the m&m it started after I was 6 weeks along, so this is about a week earlier. Part of me takes it as a hopeful sign that this little smudge is busy making hormones and my body is responding to them. Then the other part of me remembers that I puked constantly up until the day we found out the m&m was gone, so I can't read too much into it. Then I start my visualization exercises again. Today I feel fine, though that could change at any moment. I'm trying not to read anything into that, either.

I hope so much that we have good news after our appointment on Friday. We've got a bunch of "milestones" from the last pregnancy coming up in the next few weeks: I started spotting right around 6 weeks, we had our first bad ultrasound at 6 weeks 5 days, and we found out at 7 weeks 4 days that the heart had stopped. I hope so much that I can pass them all with no fear and nothing but confidence and happiness for the little life that is growing inside me.

Mantras; or, Sunday Morning

- Healthy pregnancies begin this way, too (from Adele).

- There's nothing I can do to affect this outcome.

- Less than two weeks until we know for sure.

- The odds are in our favor.

- One of these days, something will work for us, and it might be today.

- I'm strong enough to handle whatever comes.

- One day at a time. Every normal day is a good day.

- Pregnant until proven otherwise.

Please stay strong, little smudge. You've done such a good job so far. Please keep growing strong and healthy for us.

Another Hurdle; or, One

Things are still looking okay. We spotted one gestational sac in the ute, measuring appropriately and right where it belongs. I had convinced myself that I would have and that I wanted twins, but I'll be quite thrilled to be lucky enough to bring home a healthy singleton, no question. No disappointment here, at all. Nothing but relief.

Dr. W said that everything looks good so far, but that it's still early and we just have to wait. Lawyer Guy insisted that I ask her about my boob size/pain concerns and cramping fears, and she responded that I should pay no attention to any of that because "it means nothing." The most important thing is to rest and relax and try to distract myself. There's nothing we can do right now (as I well know) but wait, so I might as well make the waiting as tolerable as possible.

There's also nothing I can do about my cough, though Lawyer Guy asked if it was okay for me to take some old prescription cough syrup with codeine he has lying around. (Dr. W and I looked at him like he had two heads. Um, narcotics are not really on the list of approved medications during pregnancy, sweetie). I might get a humidifier for our bedroom today, because the dry air hurts my throat with every breath.

Our next appointment is in a week. These upcoming two appointments (and these upcoming two weeks) are going to be especially hard, because starting around 6 weeks is where things began to go pear-shaped last time. But I can't go on torturing myself like this. It's not good for me or for Lawyer Guy or for the baby. I've got to do my best to relax and follow my good friend Egg's lead:

Zen zen zen zen zen.

A Short List; or, Facing Up or Wallowing In?

I'm 5 weeks today. My first ultrasound is tomorrow. Here are the things I'm afraid of:

- I'm afraid that the dull ache I've felt today primarily on the left side of my pubic bone down to the top of my thigh means that this pregnancy is ectopic.

- I'm afraid that my lack of hunger today isn't a result of my debilitating head-cold/chest-cough combo, but is a sign that Dr. W. will find nothing in my uterus tomorrow.

- I'm afraid this will turn out to be a twin pregnancy with one in the uterus and one in the tube and both will be lost. (Yes, I have imagined this scenario in great detail).

- I'm afraid of that moment when I'm lying pants- and pantyless on an exam table and I learn that my world has just ended, again.

- I'm afraid that my cold is going to kill this pregnancy (even I realize this is ridiculous).

- I'm worried the two cups of herbal tea (chamomile and peppermint) I drank today as my only cold meds will kill this baby (hey, I drank chamomile tea when pregnant with the m&m, too. Coincidence?)

- I'm afraid that we'll make it through tomorrow's test only to fail the next one or the next one or the next one after that.

- I'm afraid that I will lose this baby.

- I'm afraid that I will lose every baby I manage to conceive.

- I'm afraid I will have nothing left inside of me to carry on if this doesn't work.

- I'm afraid of becoming Broken Miscarriage Girl again when I worked so hard for so long to be better than that.

The pregnancy chapter in Melissa Ford's book (Navigating the Land of IF, as though you didn't already know that) suggested writing down all your fears to try to make them more manageable. I know I should only fear one thing at a time (i.e., worry about tomorrow's scan, not next week's and certainly not my eternal future of childbearing) but they're all so wrapped up in each other. A bad result tomorrow will knock down all the dominoes, bringing me right to the last one.

And I know that statistics favor this pregnancy working out fine. But statistics favored healthy 28-year-old me getting pregnant in four months. Statistics favored my first pregnancy working out okay, too. I hate statistics. The statistics in my head go more like: 90% chance of tomorrow's ultrasound ending in catastrophic disappointment; 10% chance of tomorrow's ultrasound being okay; too soon to call on the whole taking-home-a-baby thing. Yeah, there's probably a reason I study literature and not numbers.

I feel so wretchedly sick and I can't take anything for it, so I canceled class today and stayed home and slept. And did some orals reading, but mostly obsessed over dull throb of my pubic bone. Left side. Left side. Left side. Left side. Finally! Right side. Damn. Back to Left side. Do not google "ectopic pregnancy after doubling betas." Do not google at all (and I didn't google it, if you can believe me).

I stirred myself to head to the coffee shop down the block to meet and interview a prospective student of my alma mater for our alumnai admissions team. And the whole time I'm asking this high school senior about her academic ambitions and the books she's read lately and what she wants out of her Ivy League Experience, I'm thinking, "Don't be dead, little bugger, please don't be dead. Please don't be ectopic. Stay strong, little bugger."

When I think about having a baby in October, my heart clenches and I want to slap myself across the wrist. Don't imagine stuff like that! You know what happens when you start imagining! When I think about not having a baby in October I feel...fine. I don't mean when I think about having another miscarriage. That makes me want to slit my wrists. But just not having a baby at some indeterminate point in the future? Yeah, I know how to deal with that. That's familiar. That's almost comfortable.

One day at a time. Every day I'm still pregnant is a good day. Maybe eventually I'll believe it.

One Day At a Time; or, Hanging In There

Things have been mostly okay in the Sloper household the past few days, other than the wicked head cold I'm fighting and the snoring it has unfortunately produced. The worry is always there, of course, but it's been like a little pebble wiggling around in my shoe rather than a massive cinder block crushing my chest. My boobs appear to deflate and grow less sore: pebble of worry. I have a sleepgasm (seriously, what is up with those things?) and wake to intense, if momentary, cramping: pebble of worry. I think about the shower that my best friend said she and her mom will throw for me or decorating the nursery or having a baby nine months from now: pebble of worry.

But at least I am letting myself imagine those things, just a little, even if I always immediately qualify them in my mind with a disclaimer: "WARNING! Idle Daydreams to not constitute a guarantee of success. Fantasize at your own risk."

I don't think I fully realized how traumatic losing the m&m was until this week. I knew that I grieved very hard for that pregnancy-- the months of sobbing in parking lots and at family gatherings and on my couch (not to mention the over-eating) were testament to that. But I thought that over the past, let's say, nine months I'd processed and accepted and put it behind me and moved on.

Ha! Ha?

I said to Lawyer Guy this morning that I feel like we both have PTSD. It reminds me of the months following 9/11, when we would jump at every loud noise and when something as simple as getting on the subway or a city bus felt fraught with danger (I stood several feet away from every subway trash can out of worry that they might contain an IRA-style bomb). LG works downtown only about ten blocks from the Trade Center, so he saw/heard/felt some incredibly disturbing things that day, including the deafening impact of the second plane hitting. And it took him *years* to not automatically panic at certain similar sounds.

Despite the obvious differences in scale and significance and national importance, this feels very similar. I feel like I'm reliving everything terrible that happened 14 months ago, and I'm a little paralyzed by it all.

But I'm trying to get better.

I mentioned my best friend (Doctor Lady, whom I've written about here before). I spoke to her on Sunday night and told her what is going on. She's not only a great listener and extremely sympathetic, she also has a detached, rational response to things and medical expertise that make her really great to talk to in situations like this. She never blows smoke, but she can be reassuring and factual at the same time, and she doesn't get whipped into hysteria even while she feels for me. So I'm really glad I told her.

We have not told any of our parents (or anyone else outside the ALI on-line community, for that matter), for several reasons. For me, the most important is that I desperately want to be happy and excited when I tell my parents this news. I didn't get that last time. I told my mom and dad about the m&m after our first ultrasound with no heartbeat, when things were looking worrisome and my doctor gave us a 50-50 shot. There was a lot of crying and comforting over the phone that night. That's so far from how I dreamed of the experience of telling my parents they're going to be grandparents, and I want the experience of my dreams. I want something to be normal in all this. If that means I have to wait until I'm 12+ weeks to tell them, then that's what it means.

The other issue--and this pertains more to my mother-in-law, despite the fact that I adore her--is that I am not ready to let anyone else into this space Lawyer Guy and I are sharing. I'm not capable of dealing with someone else's worry or excitement or expectations other than ours. I'm trying to take each day as it comes and deal calmly with all my fears. My mother-in-law is wonderful, but she can't keep her mouth shut. I'm partially worried she'd tell people about this before we were ready, but I'm mostly certain that she would call to check in on me and tell me I need to be calm and want to talk to me about this a lot and I JUST CAN'T HANDLE IT RIGHT NOW.

This is a source of some tension between Lawyer Guy and me. He thinks of his mother as his best friend (other than me) and he's been struggling, too, with worry and fear. He really, really wants to tell his mom. I really, really don't want him to. He thinks I'm being selfish, and he's probably right, but I feel like this is something I need to stick to my guns on. I'm just not ready.

This turned into a much longer post than I intended. Thank you so much for reading along with me and e-mailing me or tweeting at me with your encouragement over the last few days. It truly sustains me right now. And to my friends who are struggling and perhaps hurt by my inability to feel the joy that must seem so appropriate to this situation: I am sorry. I need to be honest in this space, always, but I know how hard it is to read things like this when you would give anything to see two lines yourself. I completely understand if people want to stop following along or take a break from commenting, and I won't be hurt.

So Far, So Good; or, Second Betas

So first of all, the most important news: second betas are in at 686 at 18 dpIUI. That's a tripling time of 72 hours. Not bad!

It was a rocky day getting to that point. I woke up around 3 am this morning to pee, tossed and turned for an hour after returning to bed, woke up again at 7 (to pee again), and had to get ready and get Bella to her doggy daycare so I could get to the RE's and spend the day in the city. After the blood draw, I went down to the library and tried to study--and I did manage to work for an hour or so. But I couldn't resist the lure of Dr. Google and he led me straight into the center of a panic attack. The tech who had drawn my blood had said I'd get the beta call between 2 and 6 pm. The closer we got to two o'clock, the tighter the knot in my stomach grew and the less I could breathe. I felt my heart racing when I pressed my hand to my chest and I could barely keep from crying. I was just so sure the PA would give me terrible news when she made the call, and I was losing my mind a bit from worry.

The office still hadn't called by the time I had to get to my therapy appointment (around the corner from my school) at 3:30, so I silenced my phone and went to the session. As soon as I told my therapist I was pregnant, I burst into tears. I then cried pretty constantly throughout the session. I told her all my fears: how this is going to end just like my first pregnancy did; how I'm obsessively imagining every potential future negative moment in this pregnancy and every past one with the m&m; how I can't imagine what the cells inside me are like because every time I try to picture them (as I did with the m&m) I think, "It's probably dead already, so what's the point."

(PS: I just read that last paragraph and realized that, the few times I've talked about this so far, I keep saying "I was pregnant" not "I am pregnant." Like, "On Friday, I found out I was pregnant." Gotta love amateur psychology).

Anyway, my therapist was great, as always. I am so glad I switched to her almost a year ago. I feel like our sessions together have made a profound difference in the way I cope with stress, not that you can tell from the way I've been acting lately. She said it was completely understandable why I would feel this way, but that I am making things emotionally worse for myself with my need to control the situation. I tend to need control to feel confident and not anxious, so in my anxiety about the uncertainty of this pregnancy, I'm seizing onto all my memories of the last one in order to convince myself that I know what's going to happen. And in the process, I'm mentally torturing myself into a bloody stump of a human being (my words, not hers).

Anyway, she proffered the radical idea at the end of the session that I assume for the time being that this is all going to work out. I'm not there yet. But I'm going to try to get there.

I had planned to wait until I got home to listen to the clinic's voice mail with Lawyer Guy, but in my new-found, post-therapy calm, I decided to just do it myself right there. Again, I limited expectations. I told myself that as long as the number didn't go down, I'd be okay with it. And then again it exceeded my wildest dreams! I never thought we'd get to 500, let alone almost 200 points above that!

I'm happy right now. That rush of relief after a good result is so wonderful and addictive. I'm not ready to read any more into this result than being happy that things are okay right now. But that's a lot better than I felt six hours ago.

Some of All Fears; or, Waiting's Never Easy

This weekend has been a combination of great and really rough, and I'm sorry to say that right now the rough is winning. I realize this may sound like hideous whining to someone who would give anything to ever even see a positive pregnancy, and I'm sorry for that. Pregnancy after loss is a tricky beast, but I do know that I am lucky to be having these fears. I do know that.

I've tried to capture moments of zen, and here and there I have. The hours after the nurse called with our beta numbers were wonderful. Lawyer Guy and I had told ourselves over and over that we would be content with 30 or 40, so to hear 225 was way beyond our wildest dreams. I almost started crying in the middle of crossing 47th Street! Things seemed so good and so hopeful.

But now I wake up each morning around 5 or 6 am with a knot in my stomach and a quickly beating heart. I'm obsessively analyzing every sensation of my body. Is this occasional cramping a good thing or a bad thing? Have my hunger pangs subsided? Is it just my imagination, or do my boobs hurt a little less than they did yesterday, and yesterday did they hurt a little less than the day before? Is that terrible? Does that mean my betas are plummeting?

I keep imagining getting that call tomorrow afternoon and hearing the nurse say, "I'm sorry..." As soon as I imagine it once, I can't keep from imagining it continually: "I'm sorry," "I'm sorry," "I'm sorry."

I have to keep it together. I have a meeting to run tomorrow night. I have my first class to teach Tuesday. I have a massive qualifying exam in May to study for. I can't let myself lose my mind, and whatever I happens with this pregnancy, I need to stay grounded and focused.

But I've got doubts and fears lodged deep in my soul. I don't believe I'm going to get a baby out of this. I don't know how to believe that. I would love to be proven wrong! (Please, please, please).

Lawyer Guy and I have tried to seize on the good in this situation, whatever it's ultimate outcome is. We're delighted that two of our three IUIs lead to a conception--that's a way better track record than we've had on our own. Yesterday, I took out the bag of Gonal-f in my fridge and held it, reminding myself that however this turns out, I've got options and hopes and places to go from here. LG and I have taken to pretending I'm not pregnant at all. We say things like, "When you/I eventually get pregnant..." We smile a little as we say it, but something about the words does feel natural and right.

I'm going to church in a few hours. If there are no atheists in foxholes, I guess there are few church delinquents with questionable pregnancies. Nothing like fear of a(nother) miscarriage to get my ass in a pew.

If you've read this far, thanks for bearing with me. I pray so much that I have good news to report here tomorrow, but I know either way I return here to find the incredible support all of you have given, and that will help me get through.

Here We Go Again... [UPDATED]

Those were the words I woke my husband with at 4 am after waking to pee and seeing this (forgive the terrible cell phone pictures):

Yes, I took two tests. The first (up top) is my last remaining test from the March '09 stash; the second is a FRER that a message board friend sent several months ago. As the first test is only days away from expiring in February, I thought I needed some back-up.

I broke every single one of my rules. I didn't wait until my period was late to test (I'm 15 dpiui and last time I started spotting mid-afternoon on day 15); I sat on the bathroom floor and watched the tests change rather than set the timer and leave the room (it was 4 am, what was I going to do?); I woke Lawyer Guy up and told him right then and there rather than planning some elaborate surprise as I did with the first pregnancy.

I'm calling Dr. W's office in a half-hour or so when they open, and then I'm going in for betas. If I had to describe the way I feel right now, it would be "cautious." Not cautiously optimistic or cautiously hopeful. Just cautious. This is like walking across black ice: You measure each step carefully, feeling your way across the slippery surface, because letting yourself think two or three steps further will send you flat on your butt.

I really, really don't want to fall on my butt again. So when LG asked me this morning if we could get a little excited and start daydreaming, I told him I'm not ready. I know how hard it will be, but I'm going to try to focus on the same things that got me through what's already come of this cycle: writing, reading, studying, teaching, friends. Then, if this doesn't work out, I'll at least have something under me to fall onto.

[UPDATE]: First betas are in. 225 at 15 dpiui. I go back Monday.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.