One more thing for today

This morning I was thinking about infertility and babies, and I realized this:

When you finally have a baby after fertility treatments (or however- maybe even naturally?),  you might forget for just a minute that you ever had trouble getting pregnant. Or maybe not forget, but you stop worrying about it for a minute. You’re all: EEEE! NEW BABY! MY BABY! WE HAD A BABY! WE DID IT!

And for just a minute- a split second even- you’re in lala land. You’re in paradise.

But having that sweet baby doesn’t really take away the problem you had in the first place. Or, most of the time it doesn’t.

I had a baby. A beautiful, precious gift of a baby.

But I still have PCOS.

I hoped to God that having this baby would fix it. But it didn’t.

I still have PCOS. I still don’t get my period. I feel pregnant a lot, but never am. I am still broken.

Having a baby doesn’t stop the brokenness- physically or emotionally. It helps, but it doesn’t heal.

Just throwing that out there.

It’ll never be me

Last week, on Wednesday, I think, I shot up in bed at 5am overwhelmed with sudden nausea. I sat there for a second evaluating if I really thought I was going to throw up. I decided that, yes, I might actually throw up, so I climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom. My husband woke up and asked me as I was walking if everything was okay.

I didn’t respond, because I was worried that if I spoke, I might throw up. So I just crouched in front of the toilet and lifted the lid. He asked me if it was the pain again (I had a random bout of severe abdominal pain several months ago that kept me up all night and brought me to the ER). Again, I didn’t answer because gah, too much saliva and nausea and those pre-throw up-y burps you get sometimes. But I was answering him in my head: no, no pain AT ALL. Nothing. Other than suddenly incredibly nauseous and not sure if I would throw up, I felt okay.

I also thought the following two things to myself:

“Is this a stomach virus? I hope this isn’t a stomach virus.” (it wasn’t)

“OMG is this what people mean when they’re like: ‘I must be pregnant. I threw up out of nowhere. Obviously I’m pregnant.’ This MUST be the kind of thing they’re talking about. Except, I bet I’m not pregnant. Things like that NEVER happen to me.”

After a few of those weird burps and spitting up a ton of saliva, I decided I wasn’t going to throw up, so I got up and finally explained to C, who had gotten out of bed and was rubbing my back as I crouched on the floor, what was happening.

“Weird,” he said. “Yea,” I thought.

Neither of us mentioned the possibility of pregnancy, even though I was thinking it. Thirty minutes later the sensation was totally gone. I laid in bed and planned to take a pregnancy test when I finally got up for the day. When I finally did, it was negative. It’s. Always. Negative.

So I spent the morning googling, “Morning sickness BEFORE pregnancy test shows positive.” Turns out, that’s an actual thing that can happen. Naturally, as much as I didn’t want to, I clung to a little bit of hope.

Now it’s Saturday, several days later, and the tests are still negative. But the weird thing is that I STILL FEEL NAUSEOUS. Every day. Not ALL day, but every day, several times a day. Never with the same urgency to run to the bathroom, but definitely an “ugh” queasy feeling.

And this is where I get pissed off. This is SECOND month that I’ve felt nauseous like this- not just a little- but fairly regularly for several days, and it has meant NOTHING. Nothing at all. Not pregnant. No period. Just bouts of nausea for a week or so, and then my body goes quiet.

And it’s just not fair. Most women I know? The second they get nauseous over anything they say, “I’m pregnant. I just know it.” Then, they’re absolutely right. Or later, in retrospect after they already have their positive test, they’ll tell the story of when they just knew that they were pregnant: “Oh man. I was eating fried chicken, and I took a bite and immediately wanted to throw up. That’s when I knew. So I went and got a pregnancy test on the way home and sure enough, it was positive!!”

Fuck that. So sorry to cuss. It’s not something I usually, or ever, really do, but it’s what’s in my head right now. I want to sit up in bed at 5am, overwhelmed with nausea and almost throw up, and think: “I’m pregnant. I just know it,” and ACTUALLY BE RIGHT.

But no. That will never be me. I don’t know what’s happening inside my body, or why, for the past two months, I’ve had these weird nausea spells that last for a week and then go away.

I read online that it can happen like this before your first post-partum period, but again, I repeat: nothing. NOTHING HAPPENS TO ME. No period. No pregnancy. No nothing. I think I’d actually even be excited for a period. But no. Nothing. E is almost 13 months and still no post-partum period. I do still breastfeed, but uh… she sleeps 12 hours at night and only nurses before and after naps/bedtime/waketime. That’s it. So technically? It could make it’s return. On September 20 of this year, if I still haven’t gotten a post-partum period? It will be 2 full years without a period.

So I’m just a little pissed off. I wish you could make things happen by wishing for them. I wish that if you wanted to be pregnant badly enough, you could make the test turn positive. I wish that not only for myself, but especially for my friends still struggling hard with infertility. I wish that if you wished for your period to return (who wishes for that? Me. That’s who), it would magically pop up one day.

But no. That’s not apparently how biology works, which is a huge bummer. So instead I’m just going to let myself be pissed off for a little while. And nauseous, because I’m still that, too.

And Dr. Google saayyysss…

Yesterday I mentioned my tendency lately to think I’m pregnant based on all these things my body is doing, but always being wrong. Here are a few of them:

Excess saliva, which is totally a thing.

Increased libido, which is noticeable because for the longest time there has been a distinct LACK of said libido

Cramping. So much of the cramping. Ovary and uterine regions alike.

Super, super emotional/sensitive. Like, a lot.

Acne.

Periodic nausea throughout the day

Nausea when milk lets down while nursing- which I never had when E was a newborn, or EVER, really, until the past week or two.

All of those things are early pregnancy symptoms. Funny story though, because apparently they can also happen when your body is gearing up for it’s first postpartum period. WHO KNEW? Dr. Google did, that’s who.

So after spending a small fortune on pregnancy tests lately, and having them all come up negative despite my best attempts to squint for lines and SEEING THINGS I COULD’VE SWORN WERE LINES, I’m chocking all of my potential pregnancy symptoms up to my body trying to figure out what it’s doing and trying to maybe have a period like a normal female?

Or not. You never know. It could go on like this for months. Either way, I’m not pregnant as far as I can tell (or as far as multiple tests of 4 different brands of pregnancy tests can tell).

Today, we’re calling it the postpartum period lead-up. We’ll see what happens in the following weeks. It’s like a new game.

It’s been a long time…

Hey internet. I know there are crickets out there, but I needed a place to come to get this all out. I kind of like it that no one views this blog anymore, because what I need to say I don’t really want a ton of people knowing.

So much has happened since that very last post here. I’m happy to report that I went on to have a healthy pregnancy and delivered our baby girl at 39 weeks and 5 days. She is the light of our lives, truly. And in 24 days, she will be one year old. Already. Holy cow.

In the past month or two, I have utterly and completely failed at taking birth control. I used to be so good at it, but I don’t know. Something happened to my memory. Anyway. C and I decided that I just would be off of it. Because really, if I did get pregnant it would AMAZING because, you know, YAY! No medical assistance necessary! And we want two bebes ideally anyway, and so, yea. It would be cool. Basically we aren’t in a place to seek out fertility treatment again, but we would be over the moon happy if something happened naturally.

Which is what brings me here.

The problem is that my body doesn’t do ANYTHING it’s supposed to do naturally. I knew this already, but it’s been a gut wrenching reminder lately as I’ve had so many “OMG SO MANY PREGNANCY SYMPTOMS MAYBE I’M PREGNANT!!” moments, only to be letdown by negative test after negative test. So many tears, again. Already. And we’re not even *technically* trying. I forgot how disappointing and painful it is to have a body that doesn’t seem to work. I also forgot that so many symptoms of PCOS, and PCOS coming off of birth control, shockingly mimic pregnancy symptoms in a way. Like acne. And cramping. And some other gross things. And then there are symptoms that aren’t PCOS related, I’m sure, but also don’t seem to mean pregnancy for me either. So it’s a double whammy.

Because of the cruel reminder that my body likes to act pregnant but never actually get pregnant (without injections of medicine and a catheter in my uterus, at least), I’ve been pretty emotional and sad. Which is so, SO stupid because we have this one, beautiful, wonderful gift of a child that I would love to spend more one on one time with before adding another baby to our family. But somehow, feeling pregnant and then not actually being pregnant- despite knowing that ideally C and I would like another year or so with E before another baby- crushes my heart. Because deep down, I do want another baby. I want my body to WORK, DAMMIT. I want to be one of those rare instances. One of those lucky people who are like, “WHOOPS!!”

I’ll never have a “whoops.”

I want to be one of those PCOSers who get pregnant via fertility treatments, and then unknowingly and accidentally gets pregnant naturally after that first baby.

I’ll never be one of those.

I’m just not that lucky. Things like that never happen to me.

I told C earlier that this situation is both win-win and lose-lose. If I were pregnant, it would be awesome because YAY! WE DID IT BY OURSELVES! And, YAY! A sibling for E!! I

If I’m not pregnant, then it’s awesome because YAY! MORE PRECIOUS TIME WITH OUR SWEET BABY GIRL WHO ISN’T EVEN A FULL YEAR YET!

Win-win, you see. Win if I am, win if I’m not.

Then again, if I’m pregnant it’s scary because Eeeek! What about E!? We need more time with her! More time as just a family of three!!

And, if I’m not pregnant… heart crushing, spirit destroying disappointment. My body doesn’t do what a woman’s is supposed to do. I can’t get pregnant on my own. And really? I, deep down, want another baby.

Which sounds so greedy to me. So then I shame myself.

Shame on you, L, for not appreciating what you have. You have been gifted a beautiful, precious child. You have friends who are still waiting for that gift. How dare you ask for more? How dare you even THINK about wanting another baby. Cherish the one child you have. Every single minute.

Don’t get me wrong. I do. I adore that sweet girl. ADORE. I am so blessed. So fortunate. So, so lucky to have her. We are beyond grateful.

I don’t want to be greedy. But I also want my body to do what it was designed to do, naturally. I want that joy.

So that’s where I’m at, and I’ve got nowhere to really share these thoughts and feelings with. Mostly because it feels so wrong to feel them and share them when I know so many still struggling just to have one sweet baby.

Baby in my belly!

So this morning was the ever important first ultrasound. We went in assuming I’m around 6 weeks 6 days, so a heartbeat should be visible, and maybe audible, but not necessarily.

Y’all, I’ve been nervous. I was nervous last night that I would be so wretchedly disappointed if there’s not two in there (I’ve been hoping for twins!). I was nervous that there would be NOTHING in there. Or that the something in there wouldn’t have a heartbeat. And I have been completely disturbed by my feelings of… ambivalence. I’ve wanted this for SO LONG, and now that I have it… why haven’t I felt more excited or connected to it?! And why did I used to love helping take care of my neighbor’s kids, and now, I feel no motherly anything towards them whatsoever. Isn’t pregnancy supposed to make you all maternal feeling, not anti-maternal feeling?! So many thoughts and feelings bouncing around my head at once.

All of that- every doubt, every nerve, every feeling washed away this morning. My husband and I were sitting in the ultrasound room, the doctor came in and asked how far along we should be, and the ultrasound commenced.

And there it was. One perfect little almost human looking baby. And I didn’t even care that there was only one. My husband immediately saw the heartbeat flickering. I did not. He and the doctor had to point it out to me. But then… THEN… the doctor turned on the sound. And I heard the heartbeat. I heard it like it was my own. But it wasn’t my own. It was the baby’s. And tears came into my eyeballs. I wasn’t disappointed in just having one. I finally believe that there is a little life growing inside me. I realized why I haven’t been so maternal-ish to my neighbor’s kids too… because suddenly I have this overwhelming feeling that my kid is better than anyone else’s kid (now I get where parent’s get that idea from… but I promise not to parent like it), and I just want mine.

The baby measured at 6 weeks 4 days, which is only 2 days off of our estimate, which is awesome. It also makes sense because that puts conception on Saturday- the IUI was done midday on a Thursday, and you know… we did stuff through the whole weekend. : ) The heartbeat was good and strong for this early on at 129 bpm.

So, without further ado… here are some shots of what my husband and I have come to call “Baby Bunny” **

I was surprised at how clear he/she is. I thought babies were supposed to be hard to see this early on... but apparently not anymore.

You maybe don't so much care about this... but I totally do. It's the heartbeat. The glorious sound waves of the heartbeat.

** Baby Bunny because my husband and I have this extraordinarily odd habit of calling each other random animals as pet names. It’s been hippo, moose, etc. etc. and bunny. Bunny has been the most recent, and generally a pretty long standing, pet name. And now we are growing a baby bunny. Yea, yea… go ahead and roll your eyes.

As for what now…

I stay with the RE until the end of the first trimester, according to him, unless he changes his mind. We go back for another ultrasound next Wednesday, and generally every 1-2 weeks until the end of the first trimester. He is keeping me on Metformin until he tells me otherwise. And prescribing me vitamin b6 to help out with the attacks of nausea that come every night. And I’m to go buy this specific type of disgusting ginger drink.

At the end he told me, “Congratulations… good job!” To which I wanted to reply, “No, sir: Good job to you and your nurse! You did this!”

I just might tell them this when they graduate me up. I just might.

As for this blog… now that we’ve seen the baby and know that, at least for now, it’s alive and well in there, I will be moving all posts baby related over to my main blog, The Army Doctor’s Wife (linked now, so you don’t have to search it out : ) ). If you’re interested in following along and continuing to read about how this pregnancy goes, please subscribe to that blog and/or add it to your reader. Thank you so much for all the support you’ve offered me over here. You ladies made me feel so much less alone in the world of infertility, and gave me hope on a daily basis. I intend on continuing to read about you guys’ journeys on a regular basis, and offering love and encouragement where I can. I will NOT be shutting down this blog entirely… because I will always have the PCOS, and want to be able to come back and vent about it as needed here.

Thank you all for your continued love, encouragement, and support. It has meant more than I have words to put in a blog.

Eternal Optimist

I’m grateful to several people in my life for always thinking positive when I seem to have lost the ability.

My husband. He’s a doctor, and he knows the risks and statistics and odds that something could go wrong with this, our first pregnancy. Yet he has never once doubted the, um, efficacy or viability of this pregnancy. He has, on more than one occasion (ahem… a daily basis) encouraged me to think positive. And just last night, my husband, who is a Christian, but is shy about praying aloud, prayed out loud for our baby’s safety.

My neighbor. She is not a doctor. She is a mother to three children, and has had only one miscarriage because she fell down the stairs before she even knew she was pregnant. She is a constant rock for me, always telling me that my baby(ies…she’s convinced there’s more than one) are safe in there. She also tells me I should be grounded from reading the internet and what could go wrong. This woman, who is a little less than three years younger than me, has been a daily encouragement and support for me.

Today, she brought me my first set of maternity clothes as a belated birthday present. We haven’t even seen this baby on a screen yet, but she is so happy for me, and so confident in mine and C’s ability to make and keep babies, that she went out and bought me a ridiculously cute outfit. And handmade blocks that spell “baby” to take belly pictures with. It made my day.

They could both be horribly wrong. Things could always go horribly wrong. I am distinctly aware of that. But I’m also grateful to be surrounded by so much positivity, because if this does turn out to be the real thing… I don’t want to look back on this time and feel sad that I didn’t enjoy it more rather than living in fear. I don’t want to live in fear.

And if they are horribly wrong? I will be heartbroken and sad. I will mourn. I will save my super cute maternity outfit and baby blocks for another time. And we will try again.

Wednesday morning, 7:30am. We will find out a lot. Cross your fingers, say some prayers, rub your rabbit’s foot that the baby (or babies) are safe and sound and stuck there for good. Until I know otherwise, I think I’m going to start erring on the side of optimism…. Risky, I know, but I don’t want any regrets later.

In other news…

Last weekend I had to go out and buy 2… TWO… size D bras. Because my regular ones don’t fit. And apparently size 34D does.

W.T.F.

Off the ledge

You people. You people are why I blog. You talk me off the ledge, and encourage me, and make me feel a smidge less crazy. It’s like free therapy on occasion. Not only do you people encourage me and talk me off the ledge, I get the privilege of knowing your stories too, and encouraging when I can, and talking off the ledge when I’m not standing on the edge of it myself. Thank you so much for all your encouraging stories and advice yesterday. I’m feeling much less panicked about it all today, and like maybe it’s all good right now after all. It’s only 5 weeks (as of today! Woo!), so as always, anything can happen, but I feel reassured knowing what’s been happening is not anything but normal.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go tear up at the conclusion Seinfeld Finale rerun (and I definitely totally didn’t remember how to spell Seinfeld just now…umm….)

Panic, panic, panic, annnddd, panic some more

This is not a complaining post. This is a crazy, paranoid, scared post. Just to give you a heads up.

Yesterday was my 27th birthday. I wish I could say that it was an awesome day, but several things went wrong, least of which being a Spanish presentation that went horribly. But never mind that.

Through my very brief stint of being pregnant, one of the most consistent symptoms I’ve felt is cramping. At first it was just like period cramping, which I was told is totally normal. However, occasionally I now have times where I’m cramping, but it doesn’t feel like my period cramps. Period cramps are more of a dull pain for me, and these cramps are much more, well, painful. They go by quickly though, never lasting more than a minute or two, and sporadically coming throughout the day, and never accompanied by blood.

Soooo…. let the TMI begin… NOW.

So yesterday morning, I’m preparing for the wretched Spanish presentation, and I suddenly have to go the bathroom… and not just to pee, you know what I’m saying? So I go, and I wipe, and there’s a little bit of pink on the toilet paper. I. freaked. out. I emailed husband, who told me that if it was just one time and just a little bit of pink that it was nothing to be concerned about at this point, but to keep an eye on it. I calmed down a great deal, but then spent the next hour feeling cramps in my belly. The problem is, I couldn’t tell if they were cramps having to do with pregnancy, or GI cramps. I DID spend the next hour also running back and forth between the bathroom to uh… do my business. Way TMI. But whatever.

So after that morning, I felt better for the rest of the day. No more pink. No blood. Barely any, if at all, cramping.

I went to bed, and around 1am heard my dog doing that hacking, pre-puke dog thing. He was under our bed. Because he has a history of doing this, my first, instinctual, gut reaction is to jump out of bed, drag him out from under there and throw him in the bathroom. So that’s what I did. I got out of bed as fast as I could (very akin to “jumping”), got on my hands and knees, dragged him out- which he resisted, and threw (okay, placed gently) him in the bathroom. As soon as I finished, I remembered that I’m pregs and immediately regretted it when my stomach felt ALL kinds of cramped up and uncomfortable- like I jostled my insides a little too much with the jumping out of bed and dragging my dog out from under there. I laid back in bed curled up, waiting for the painful cramping to subside, and said to husband, “I don’t think I should do that anymore.” I wasn’t sure what the cramping was coming from exactly but then I suddenly noticed that I was kind of gassy (so unladylike of me to share, no?), and relieving it kind of made my stomach feel better.

This morning, things are feeling alright and there has been no more pink or anything since the one time yesterday morning.

So the moral of this story is I’m panicking. I’m all kinds of panicking. And at first when the cramps just felt like period cramps and I read that was normal, I was fine, but now that there are times when the cramping is more pronounced and sharp I get worried. And then, I can’t tell the difference between GI cramping and uterine cramping. And I’m just one big hot mess.

I know I’m probably overreacting. I know I likely sound crazy. But it’s so early, and I’m still so worried that something is going to go wrong. And this is the one thing that I’m genuinely concerned about since I don’t know exactly what the newer cramps are (the ones that don’t feel like my period). I just needed to get out my worries, and honestly, I feel a tad better after writing them out.

But I can assure you, I won’t be jumping out of bed to drag my dog to the bathroom when he’s heaving. I won’t be running to my house from next door to catch the FedEx man (yeah, I did this last Friday and some cramping ensued afterwards which sent me into a panic then). I just need to chill out and not do stuff that’s going to send me into a panic if cramping follows it. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

Beta #2

HCG: 512

Progesterone: 27

I’m WAY excited about the HCG, and the progesterone is good, but I’m not sure what it means if the progesterone has gone done a couple units. I’m hoping nothing bad! I was curious about whether the HCG was strong or not, and so I googled… duh… and found this calculator:

Woo! See that green line?! That's me!

Source

So that’s where we’re at. I’m still hesitant to announce it on my other blog, and plan on waiting until after our first ultrasound on Nov. 9 to mention it over there. Please bear with me while I still share things over here.

As for any symptoms, there’s nothing too bad to complain about. I’m super tired a lot. My boobs are HUGE and sore-ish. I’ve had some indigestion, and more than anything I’ve had cramps. They feel exactly like period cramps, and they come and go- never lasting super long.

For now I’m just sitting around waiting, feeling pretty much the same as before, like nothing has changed, but somehow everything has changed.