12 weeks later

It's been a quiet 12 weeks for me on the blog front.   I've tried several times to make a new post but couldn't figure out how to make sense of all the ways I was feeling enough to put it into coherent sentences.   I'm going to give it my best shot now.

Survivor's Guilt: Once, at the tender age of pre-k, I stood in a crowded movie theater and shouted "quit laughing, you're making my shoulder nervous" because Milo (of Milo and Otis) was stuck in a hole.  It's been ever since then, and several more incidences, that the long running joke in my family revolves around my extreme sensitivity - especially to the plight of others.  It comes as no surprise to me, then, that I have Infertility Survivor's Guilt.
    This means that for the first few weeks of being pregnant I wanted to apologize. It's why I won't ever post pregnant belly pictures. It's the reason I still feel racked with uncertainty about the few instagram posts I have made about my pregnancy.  How do you celebrate when another is mourning?  How do you forget the many, many times you felt left behind and alone?  I don't want, not for a single second, to add to the pain or brokenness of another.

With that said, to whomever my pregnancy might hurt: the rest of this post will be a trigger. I love you and remember you every day. You are important and wonderful and valued. Please look away now.




Celebration: Every morning I wake up I remember that I'm pregnant. Each new day is a wonderful celebration of that singular fact.  It wasn't a dream.  It's really, really, really real.  I cannot, with any words created on this earth, express the unending, abounding, all consuming joy of knowing my daughter rests safe within me and I'll get to meet her in a few short months.
     She started tapping on me at a tiny 14 weeks. Now, at 24 weeks, she gives me such an abundance of hard thumps that often I can't sleep until she settles down.  Sometimes K places his hand on my belly and she kicks at him, too.  Every single time he asks, in disbelief, if I did that. Every time I get to tell him that it's our daughter.
     And 24 weeks, folks, that's a biggie in pregnancy land.  It's viability which means that she's got a 50-50 chance of making it outside of my body should fate decide to bring her too early. It means that there shouldn't be a single doctor or hospital who wouldn't do everything to save her tiny little life. Each day from here only increases her odds.  In two weeks, her chances without me go up to 90%.
     We've started to get semi-serious about baby prepping. Her nursery is nearly half painted in a spectacular shade of aqua teal. The dino decor is half made.  My dreams of the finished product are abundant. I'm anxious that we won't get it all done, won't have everything she needs, and at the same time calm knowing that it will all take care of itself the way this sort of stuff usually does. She has clothes galore.  I would say it's too many clothes except there is no such thing when it comes to pretty little outfits.  I need to wash and sort them at some point. I've not felt the urge yet so I'm waiting on that.   The baby shower dates are booked and the registry is a mess. K had free reign of the scanner which means our list has at least 15 wubba nubs and some candy on it.

The things: When I gave up hope that I'd ever get, let alone stay, pregnant I'd also given up on getting to experience the things that go along with it.  Warning - this will likely be very annoying to all those that dreaded the things I'm about to wax poetically thankful over.
     Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): this isn't just the regular morning sickness.  This is the 'end up in the ER from vomiting your life up' sort of sickness.  I am intimately familiar with the toilets at my house, my work, my in-laws, my neighbors, and establishments spread around DFW. Some foods I fear I'll never be able to eat again and my diet currently revolves around things that I think would hold up in flavor should I need to puke them back up soon. HG, for me, came with a lovely friend called migraine.  Together, they left me a curled up useless mess on the couch.  Thanks to a couple of wonderful medications I've been able to go about life fairly normal but without the medicines I turn right back into a shriveled wreck.   And still, I GET TO SAY I HAVE HG! What! What sort of amazing nonsense is that. I have HG because I'm pregnant. Holy crap! Hallelujah!
     Glucose Test: the horror stories I've heard about having to consume the sickly-sweet punch flavored glucose drink are common fodder for a get together of child-bearing aged women.  It made them shaky, gave them headaches, left them feeling terrible for hours after.  They were hungry and grumpy and uncomfortable. The tech was so bad at blood draws. They passed it no problem or failed it and had to go on to the next dreadful round of testings. And still, I CAN'T FREAKING WAIT.  I have the drink sitting in my fridge door and I get a thrill of excitement each time I see it. I never thought I'd get the privilege of adding my part to the horror story.  Bring it on. Holy crap! Hallelujah!
     Maternity Shorts: They are so ugly and don't fit right.  Everything is somehow too big and too small. Plus, they're very expensive. Unless you go cheap (ahem - my middle name) in which case I think you end up with even uglier, ill fitting garments.  And still, I've been waiting a long time for this. Now that I'm finally showing and uncomfortable in my regular clothes, I hopped on the maternity shorts train even while complaining about it.  Maybe I wasn't listening because I was too busy talking crap but these things are so comfortable. Give me all the ugly maternity gear. Let me be a hot mess. Heck yeah. Hallelujah!

It's hard for me to write this post

I had loooooong ago given up true hope that I would be a mama.  The thought of cuddling, of raising, of loving a little one that looked to K and I for all its needs had become too much of a burden to bear and so I had let it go.  Even as we inched closer to figuring out how to start the adoption process, I was extremely careful to keep myself in check. I had given my heart, with all its hopes and dreams and joy and pain, over to the Lord and I was finally in a place that I could breathe again. Now, to be clear, it would be a stretch to say that I was over it - this whole never being a mama thing - but I was ready (really, really, really ready) to move on to something that didn't hold so much hurt for me.

On the other hand, K hadn't reached the end of his wishful, hopeful thinking.  He asked that, when I was emotionally ready, we give it two more tries.  I agreed to his request because I was sure I had nothing to gain or lose except the couple of months worth of treatment it would take to be in the exact spot we always were when it came to this baby making business. Plus, if all it took to give him peace of mind so that we could move on was just two more cycles then sign me up.

We met with our new fertility specialist (thank you new insurance for offering infertility treatment coverage) and were able to start treatments that day.  I was ready to throw the kitchen sink at the issue but K wanted to ease into things so we opted for oral medication, injections, and a lovely, romantic thing called timed intercourse, where a doctor tells you the exact times you should be getting it on.   It is, actually, more romantic than the alternative I was ready to try where they just inject K's swimmers into my uterus and we call it a day.  

And this is the part of the story where we come full circle.  It's hard for me to write this post because, in perfect honesty, I'd given up the hope that I'd ever have the pleasure.

K and I actually, finally made a baby. We eagerly anticipate the arrival of our sweet, little girl in December.

I'm a writer

I'm not a talker.

I could sit with you for hours, listening to you speak, offering small words here and there if you need them.   I'll joke with you, laughing readily and heartily because I enjoy you and the way it feels when we laugh together.  I'll offer advice when you're confused and need a fresh perspective.  And forever I will encourage you because I think you're great and worthy of all the things you desire.   

There are a hundred thousand things in my life that are cause for celebration.  I have a loyal husband. One of those types that always forgives and always loves, even if I make it a bit more difficult than either of us expected.  There's a tried and true best friend that has taught me it's safe to be vulnerable and honest, even if it's a little messy.  Beyond that, there are a handful of people I call my favorite in all the world.  My group, my net, the upholding hands of love and trust and faith that I've been blessed to call friends. Some live so far away we haven't seen each other in years. Some live so close I see them almost every day.  A few I've never had the pleasure of meeting face to face...pen pals, but blessings nonetheless.   Finally, and a thing I realize is quite rare, our families. Both his and mine.  They are wonderfully diverse and always accepting, a safe place no matter what. 

I am happy.  We have a beautiful home, in a handpicked neighborhood, literally right across the street from some of my worlds favorites. We travel, hand in hand, learning more about each other as we discover the world together. We discuss adoption like it's a sure thing, a desire of our hearts since we were young...a child that is both ours and someone else's, made and grown with a love big enough to fill multiple hearts and families. 

But I'm not a talker.  Sometimes what I'll want to say is that everything is beautiful and I'm excited about all the prospects of what this world and our Lord has to offer. Sometimes what I'll need to say is that I'm hurt, bruised by the realities of a life not gone according to plan.  That's the point of this blog: a place to write down all of the things I don't know how to say. 

Living life in measured time

Days and weeks: I realized I was infertile by the time April 2013 rolled around. I hadn't yet been trying for a year at that point so I couldn't officially get the diagnosis attached to my chart, but I knew it was coming.  It didn't really matter, either, that it hadn't been a year. I was already deeply entrenched in the heartache of infertility. I now lived life slowly counting away cycle days, marking away weekly increments on the calendar to explain my life in terms of before and after ovulation.

Months: On to the next cycle.  That's what we, the inferts, say to ourselves and one another when our period arrives to prove to us what we already know.   Another cycle, another chance, another month (after month, after month, after month).   Each month is its own odd little torture.  It progresses so slowly as I try to fill my time with anything that might keep my mind off of the thing we're working to achieve.   And then it moves on suddenly without me. Boom, another month, another cycle. These things add up before I know it.  Which brings me to my next point....

Years: There have been nearly three of them so far. Oh, folks, those three years. There won't ever be enough time to tell you what they've done to me, to my marriage, to every relationship I have with every person I know.  Things have been good and things have been bad, as life goes, but infertility has been my constant companion.  I either fight against it, to ignore it and live joyously in spite of it, or else it clobbers and overwhelms me, leaving me feeling confused, longing, and irritated.

One week post-op

I had my incision check yesterday. I drove the 23 minutes to the RE's office for a nurse to look at my incision sites and tell me that they have no infection and are healing very well.

   *WE INTERRUPT THIS POST FOR A SMALL DIGRESSION* Here, I want to explain that this, to me, is silly. I've talked to this kind, gentle nurse before. She recently graduated from nursing school...in December or May, I don't remember now. I have been a practicing RN on a surgical unit for over 3 years. My daily job literally involves monitoring for infection at surgical incision sites.  We all could have saved ourselves some time. *DIGRESSION OVER*

Actually, I am very thankful that I am healing so well.  I was able to stop taking pain pills after Tuesday. Wednesday I only needed a couple of ibuprofen in the morning and before bed. Yesterday, the pain was localized to the incision sites themselves and was only slightly bothersome a couple of times. Today, well, it's pretty much just like yesterday and that's good enough for me. 

Next week, I go in for my official post-op appointment with the RE.  From what I understand, we are going to be discussing The Plan Going Forward. The discussion will include which medications I need to be on while we attempt this baby making business - I'm thinking progesterone is in and Femara is out. 

Also, it's one more week until Kris and I can finally enjoy each others, ahem, company again. I miss that guy.