Monthly Archives: August 2015

A Jessie-Spano-on-pills-style pregnancy.

I’ve been at such a loss for words. (You: But you always have words, way too many words…) I know, I know. The words are in my head… but they won’t move to my fingers and I can’t get them on the page. Blogging feels impossible. Because what do you write about when you just wrote the biggest thing you’ve ever written? Where do you even start?

And, more importantly, what if you have to take it back?

I don’t, thankfully. But I am so scared that I will. And that makes me scared to say anything at all. Lame. My husband is rather fond of saying, “like water off a duck’s back, babes…” He thinks it’s somehow not worth worrying about something you cannot control. Pppsshhh. I am so not a duck.

Yesterday, I came across a lovely description of my weirdness courtesy of Anne Lamott (living proof that The Hard can make you so so Good):

“My six-year-old associate, who sleeps down the hall about thirty feet away with both our doors wide open, wakes up on many mornings and predicts, ‘This might be the best day ever!’

Then, in the dead of night, a tiny voice calls out to me, ‘Nana, will you ever get sick or die?’ Then he cries at the very thought. He terrorizes himself.

I think this says it all.

If you are alive, conscious, and sensitive, which is to say, human, you’re going to have incredible joy and terror this side of eternity. It’s Life 101, life on life’s terms, not on ours, all these things – fear, joy, grace, mess, isolation, communion, all mixed up together.

I hate this more than I can say. I don’t like everything to touch.”

Mmmmm hmmmmm. (Nods enthusiastically.) Joy and terror, always touching. Like the world’s most poorly crafted dinner plate, everything leaking it’s juices all over everything else. Life. Ugh.

The only person who has ever said it better? Why, Bayside High’s own Jessie Spano of course — you know the very special episode. When poor, over-committed Jessie starts taking caffeine pills just to keep up with it all.

  

“I’m so excited! I’m so excited!! I’m so… scared!”

That is exactly it. I’m so dang excited I can barely stand it. But I’m SO SCARED. And as such, I’m trying way too hard to temper my excitement… just in cases (not a typo, watch Love Actually)… it’s no good.

Honestly, it’s no way to live. Yes, the bad, the worst, the unimaginable can happen. It has been happening for over three years. Month after month of disappointment, bad news, procedures and pills and injections without success. But in this moment, the good, the best, the unimaginable in a completely different way has happened. We’re pregnant. Pregnant!! And right now, we have a baby on the way. Incredible joy. Terror can always show up. But it’s not here now and worrying about it, collapsing into my real world Zack Morris, doesn’t help.

Fortunately, I ran back into the house on my way to work last Friday morning to puke up my breakfast. I had chalked everything else up to the progesterone injections (seriously guys, my backside is like swiss cheese — injections every day until 9/23) or elaborate psychosomatic responses to knowing/thinking I was pregnant (my brain can be such a powerful little beast), but you can’t just imagine puking. That’s real! I’d been feeling so good that I’d even peed on another stupid stick (positive!) last Monday. Kind of pathetic.

It’s just… the FEAR. I can’t escape it! I honestly don’t know how and I feel like I’m skipping from rock to rock across a 40 week wide river at the moment, desperately hoping I make it to the other side. Always looking ahead to the next rock, barely believing I made it across the last. Blood HCG to peeing on a stick to puking in a toilet bowl and ultrasound on Thursday. At some point I’ll have to stop, or I really will end up like poor, stressed out Jessie Spano. I’m just no good at being a duck.

It’s funny because I thought that when the IVF was over, we’d have an answer and I’d feel resolved in some way. But I don’t. Not at all. Excited and happy, of course, but definitely not resolved. And what I probably need most of all is to circle back to that lovely prayer of relinquishment — the one that, with both hope and gratitude, accepts what is to be. Or, as Hagrid says, “What’s comin’ will come, an’ we’ll meet it when it does.” (I just finished The Goblet of Fire last week. Oh my goodness. Onto the Order of the Phoenix — no fake book interlude this time, just straight through the magical goodness.)

Because why shouldn’t Harry Potter be part of my spiritual solution? (Which reminds me to say that dang, Hermione’s hair is so much better in the books than in the movies. I mean, lots of love to the brilliant Emma Watson, but her hair really should have been a lot bushier in the movies, don’t you think? Perhaps I’ll spend some time worrying about that instead for a bit.)

It’s a go.

I’ve always been a really good test taker — it’s just a skill I have.

Today, I blew my test out of the water.

Needed to pass: a 50% increase in my HCG levels.

My score? 84% increase!! Woot woot!

On Wednesday, my serum levels were 122 mIU/ml… today 225 mIU/ml. Yes. Yes yes yes.

Definitely, definitely pregnant.

Oh, thank goodness!

 

My niece Emma’s thoughts on the topic: “Yeth!!!!” (With double fist pump.)

  
Me too, baby girl!!!

 

PS: YOU GUYS! Why is everyone SO DANG NICE?! I’m so weepy it’s not even funny… except kind of it is. Thanks so much for the gobs and gobs of love and buckets of support. I can’t thank you enough, really, truly, honestly.

Positive. Positive? Positive!!

I’m sorry for not writing yesterday… I know I said I would and people were waiting… it’s just… this isn’t the post I expected to write.

Remember this little ball of cells?

ball of cells cropped

Well, s/he appears to have decided to stick around.

!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a positive pregnancy test yesterday.

A positive.

So positive that while we still have to test again tomorrow to make sure my HCG levels are increasing, when I asked the nurse what the chances of a false positive were, her reply was, “You’re definitely pregnant.”

She had me re-order the progesterone and gave me all the pregnancy instructions.

(She wouldn’t have done that if it weren’t really truly true, would she?)

Shock. Happy shock. But shock.

And as happy as I am, I still find myself wary. Very wary. Wery wery wary. Seth and I have to decided to believe it fully after Friday morning’s test… but there’s definitely a big fat piece of us that I think believes even now.

We’re so happy. Honestly. Crazy, ridiculously, over-the-moon happy. But then there’s this nagging bit of guilt — how did we get so lucky when our odds were so low? And who have I left behind in the trenches of infertility? And the thought of making someone feel bad because of our pregnancy… because I know that feeling. I know it so so so well. The heartache. And I don’t want that for anyone. Ever.

Also the fear. Because not all pregnancies result in babies. How tenuous is that little ball of cells in there — has it latched on well? Are we due to have the rug torn out from underneath our feet somewhere else down the line? Like maybe even tomorrow when we do the confirmatory test?

Scared and guilty. Worried and wary. But so undeniably, crazy, ecstatically, furiously (shout out to Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess, for that adjective) happy.

So I wasn’t sure what to say, but here was my little page-a-day calendar to the rescue once again:

Happiness is only real when shared. - Jon Krakauer (Artist: Becca Cahan)
Happiness is only real when shared. – Jon Krakauer (Artist: Becca Cahan)

(Also, self-done, Pinterest-inspired, sparkle gradient manicure — like a party on my nails and the color is called “marshmallow” so I’m in love with it.)

 

So there’s the happy news! (Probable) IVF success… can you believe it?

 

The caveat, of course, is the confirmation tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe the HCG won’t have risen 50% and the “definitely positive” we got form the nurse wasn’t actually so definite. It’s ok to continue to be reserved a bit, I think. I’ll let you know for sure… promise.