F You, Universe

My milk is coming in.

I am told to bind with two sports bras, use frozen peas or ice in my bra, and take Motrin. Apparently the drug they used to give women to turn off the milk made for no one ended up giving some of those women strokes.

I don't know if I can ever trust anyone or anything again -- can ever accept that there is real beauty, or pleasure, without pain -- knowing that such a betrayal can be allowed to exist in this world.

Fetal Demise

I wanted her to stop scanning. I almost stood up and had her start over. It seemed like if she did, maybe something would change and she wouldn't say the words I knew were about to come out. Maybe we'd stop hurtling toward the cliff we were all about to fall off, together. It didn't look right. The screen was still. She looked too long.

I said, "Is there a heartbeat?"

She said, she gasped, "No."

And even though I expected her to say it, the room turned, slowed. It was a dream, a reel of film. It couldn't be real life.

I said, "Take H. out of here." I begged her to look again. Even though I knew she wouldn't see anything different. She ran and got the doctor. I measured 16 weeks 6 days. It should have been 17 weeks 5 days. It happened sometime late last week, she said. She couldn't tell me why.

I let them scan my poor baby some more. I let them look for clues. And even though my most searing pain was for my boys, the one that was lost and the ones in the waiting room, I knew we were in it together, he and I. Because when he died, a part of me went with him.

Eating for Two

This is what it's like to be pregnant: You are governed by the whims of your body, every minute of every day. You might be sitting there, minding your own business like a normal person, and then you are gripped with the sudden, visceral understanding that you must have a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup right this very minute, or someone is going to pay. Never mind that you just ate your first lunch an hour ago. You will literally knock over loved ones who innocently stand in the path between you and that grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. But then you decide that the husband you almost knocked down on your way to the kitchen makes better grilled cheese sandwiches than you do, so you threaten to cry if he won't make you one. And can I get an amen on this: No husband wants to deal with a crying wife.

So he makes you the sandwich and you inhale your "second lunch" in two seconds flat. And you feel better, but you know that is short lived. Soon enough, you'll be hungry again and you'll have to think really hard about what you want to eat, because there are only approximately five things on the planet that you like to eat right now. Right now, these things for me are: the aforementioned grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup combination, egg salad, chicken salad, Chipotle burrito bowls and the kind of salad you get from a pizza place, with the mix of iceberg and dark lettuces and the light Italian dressing you can somehow only procure from Italian restaurants and pizza joints. I could drink that dressing right now. Oh and, because I love to be a cliche, pickles. Little gherkin pickles mostly, especially the little gherkins called cornichons, whose name makes me feel fancy and French, and slightly less disgusting when I eat the entire jar in one sitting. Okay, that is an exaggeration. Most of the jar.

The other day, I ate two entire boxes of Annie's shells and cheese. I wish I were kidding. I had one box and then I realized it hadn't even made a dent, so I made another. I told myself I would just have a few more bites, but that was a farce: I inhaled the entire box faster than I had the first, I think because it seemed like if I ate the whole box quickly, it would be like it didn't happen. Believe it or not, that actually made sense to me at the time. Anyway I ate these two boxes and I felt exactly as you'd imagine I would feel after inhaling two boxes of pasta with rehydrated cheese. With respect to Annie's, I cannot recommend this on a regular basis.

The good news is, I also crave fruits and vegetables. This is a statement that, were it coming out of the mouth of someone like, say, pregnant Gisele, would fill me with irrational rage. But it's really, truly true. Sometimes the cravings I have are for kale chips or roasted broccoli, or an orange or mango. So at least there's that along with the kid food (I also crave bagel pizzas).

And although I am stuffing my food folder on Pinterest with sinful looking dessert pins with the full and real intention of going on a dessert bender after delivery, for right now I am using every iota of willpower I can muster in my Advanced Maternal Age bones to avoid processed sugar. Literally the only "treats" I have had since we did the transfer are bowls of Honey Bunches of Oats (the only cereal I've ever eaten in quantity without growing tired of it) and banana bread I make with less than half the called-for sugar (Have you ever made banana bread with this recipe? If not, please do it soon.). That's it. No chocolate. No nougat. No fun. I am trying to avoid the carb/hormone cycle of PCOS by cutting down sugar, just as I did with H., which is possibly mostly unnecessary, but I'm doing it anyway, for the same reason that I also switched to natural bath products (another post for another day). It's called taking things to the extreme, and I was born to do it.

So all in all, I'm eating when I'm hungry, and eating some good, some not so good, but I think the sum total of all of this (particularly reducing refined sugar) is that so far, all the weight I've gained in my 16 weeks of pregnancy is right in my little bump. I'm hoping I can keep this up -- I mean in the scheme of things, who cares, but bouncing back more quickly this time might be a nice little bonus.

Second Tri.

Somehow, I made it to the second trimester with my sanity (mostly) intact.

I mean, there were some close calls. Stopping the progesterone at 12 weeks (which, mind you, is two weeks after my clinic's standard protocol, per my insistence) nearly put me over the edge. Multiple friends and doctors had to listen to the word "progesterone" come out of my mouth too many times to recall. I was and am a one-hit wonder when it comes to getting through this pregnancy.

But ah, stopping the progesterone. Now that I'm 14 weeks and that's behind me (so to speak), my own behind and I are so happy not to have that nightly rendez-vous with an intramuscular injection. Should we talk about the horror of having two regular people, totally untrained in any sort of medicine, doing an injection in their bathroom every night? I really do not know for whom this was a bigger ordeal. My poor husband, manly in every way except when it comes to needles, was aghast when I first told him we'd have to do it for at least 10 weeks. But I have to give him credit -- he really stepped up. There were a few times it almost went south. Like the time there actually was blood in there when he pulled back the plunger (which means, dear reader, that he'd stuck it in a vein). And also: the two times when he pulled the needle out and blood literally squirted across the bathroom. When we recovered from the horror show, we almost laughed about it. Almost.

So anyway, here I am. I've had my NT scan with my peri, another positive proof point, after PGD, that this baby is likely healthy. Had my 12 week OB visit too -- a charmingly routine affair during which I peed in their little cup and talked to my OB about birth, of all things.

But before you conclude I've become all breezy rainbows and unicorns about this, think again. I am me, after all. I'm going to worry until I hear that gorgeous cry, hopefully this August. Despite being 14 weeks and  sporting a true bump, I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about it with a broad audience. I'm still trying to figure out how to go about that.

But at 14 weeks, I am, for the second time, in the second tri. And it really feels like a second try for a miracle I've been praying for.

Size of a Grape

Greetings from 9 weeks. Never thought I'd arrive, but the weather is fine!

Seriously, people. How is it that other people's pregnancies are over in a flash? Friends and celebrities seem to have mastered some sort of supersonic gestation technique. But your own pregnancy, when you've worked for it and just really need the first trimester to take about five minutes -- it crawls by at a snail's pace.

Still. Obviously I am grateful to be at this point. I don't want to say it out loud but I have not been here often.

The spotting continues -- all brown, which makes health care providers absolutely yawn in your face, because they are not the one who has to take a deep breath while pulling down their pants. I think it would really help me if someone would come over here with an ultrasound machine, like every single day. Why is this not offered? Luckily, I am still seeing the RE to monitor hormones as I'm weaned off the medications, and have also gotten in with an OB and a perinatologist, who will do my scans. So if a slightly illogical but urgent question pops up, say, what will happen if my son's friend pushes me in the stomach or will I bake the baby with my heated car seats, I can spread the crazy evenly over three medical professionals' offices.

Meanwhile: pedestrian complaints I am not supposed to complain about because I'm an infertile. Like oh, Lord, the nausea. Hungry every. Single. Minute. And yet everything, to me, is exactly like Oliver Twist's porridge: an unappealing, colorless pile of slop. Please, sir, I do not want any more. And yet I must eat or I will throw up, and everyone who knows me understands that throwing up signals the coming end of the world. So I eat exactly five things: pizza, bagels and cream cheese, apples and cheddar cheese, and yogurt with granola. Do not ask me why these things are okay and chicken makes me gag -- all I know is that keeping up with the hunger when you don't want to eat anything is making me so tired.

Finally, a slight obsession with progesterone. My clinic has already weaned me from the estradiol this week, which felt a little early -- but their medical degrees really gave them a leg up in that debate. They typically wean off the progesterone at 10 weeks, and looking back, that's exactly when I stopped it for H. On this they're a little more willing to work with my neurosis. They say no problem if I want to go longer, to 11 or even 12 weeks. Advice welcome.

Sweet Relief

It was a long time, the seconds between the probe going in and the words coming out of her mouth. And you can trust that this is true, because my husband, who had the objectivity of not having a probe swimming around in his own nether region, later told me he thought it seemed like a while too.

And I don't know for sure what she said, even though I'd imagined it in moments of optimism, I don't know what she actually said, because I don't think I was actually in my own body, able to hear things. I was floating somewhere, waiting for someone to say something that made me think it was okay to be in that room.

Whatever she said, it registered that there was a beating heart on the screen, that pulse of light I'd prayed to see. And this time, when everyone in the room sighed their sigh of relief and said things like Congratulations and I'm so happy for you, it felt like they were talking to me and that it was really, truly true.

The heart rate measured at 164. I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears.

Nail Biter

So of course this couldn't have been straightforward, 40 weeks of blissful nesting and pickle flavored ice cream eating. No. I'm going to have to work for this, whether it goes the distance or not.

I started bleeding on Christmas. I'd had a perfect scan two days before -- at 5w3d they saw an appropriately sized gestational sac as well as a yolk sac, which I was told was a bonus for that GA. They warned me I may have spotting from the scan, but I typically do not so I was surprised when later that afternoon I did have some light spotting. They told me not to worry so I didn't. Much. Until Christmas, when it started again, this time red and with some momentum behind it. I thought we were probably looking at bad news. Which really put me in the holiday spirit.

By the evening, though, it really had lightened. The doctor was reassuring when I reached her. The nurse the next morning suggested that I try to wait for my next scheduled scan, since another scan would just create a vicious circle of probing and bleeding. I agreed to try. I put myself on self-imposed bed rest.

Things were going swimmingly with that plan until Saturday, when I stood up after surfing online for info about stopping progesterone supplementation and felt an enormous gush. I went to the bathroom and felt what I was certain was the sac fall out of me. And a lot of blood. There you have it, I thought. That's it. I called the doctor again. My only options were to go to the ER and deal with the drunk Saturday night crowd or wait until Monday morning for a scan with her. Somehow, she did not think this was the end of the road, while I would have bet the house on it.

I made it to Monday -- schlepping H to the ER and sitting there for hours only to hear bad news sounded almost worse than the thing itself. I felt exactly as I did four years ago, waiting for bad news after H's pregnancy bleeding: bracing myself for impact as the truck hurtled toward me. 

Instead, she turned the screen toward me and pointed out the sac and the fetus, measuring 6w4d (I was 6w3d). I don't know how to drive this point home strongly enough: I could not believe it was true. Not like: Wow, that's unbelievable! More like: Literally, I do not believe you.

Questions remained. What came out of me (blood clots from laying down)? What is making me bleed (she saw what is possibly a small subchorionic hematoma, just as with H)? Why was there no heartbeat when I swear we saw one at that point with H (she swore up and down before even doing the scan that it was too early to see one)? Why must everything I do in the reproductive department be such a sh*& show (she could not answer this)?

The big scan is early next week. Until then, you'll find me at home, on the couch, being of no real value to anyone, willing the hours to go by and trying very hard not to freak out.