!

Holy Crapola.

3rd beta = 627. Right on target.

While I know that this is no guarantee of anything, I'm going to get at least a few more days of walking around with a shit-eating grin on my face (what a strange phrase that is!).

For now, I'm pregnant!

Now off for a celebratory lunch with the hubs, before he gets outta dodge for a few days for work.

Wow.

FML

Of course things couldn't stay on the upswing for me.

I'm trying not to freak the fuck out but I started spotting tonight.

I don't have a good feeling about this.

what would you do?

I want to thank you all so much for your wonderful words of support. They make me feel almost like a normal pregnant woman, one who gets to make pregnancy announcements a happy thing.

I have my ultrasound scheduled for 10/5, so I'll know more about the fate of the ocho then.

I'm debating telling my coworkers. My boss knows, since he asked me to help xray a patient Saturday and I had to fess up. I don't know if I should tell the rest of the office. Most of them have limited knowledge of our troubles (some know more than others). My duties will definitely be limited, and it will affect them. I just don't know if I want to lay my heart on the line for all of them to see.

What would you do?

maybe baby?

2nd beta is 207!

Maybe the ocho will be the one to stick.

My doctor said what I need right now is a healthy dose of optimism, so I'm going to try very very hard to stay positive.

Next hurdle is an ultrasound sometime in a week or so. I'm not quite sure how I'll survive the wait but I'll do my best.

Still processing. Head spinning.

is this irony?

or tragedy?



or comedy?



or just plan ridiculous?



or just the story of my life?



Yesterday I went to the pharmacy to pick up my new meds. On a whim, a bought some hpts because they were on sale, and I've had a stomach bug for a week so I figured it couldn't hurt to rule out pregnancy.

I got home, took the test, and nearly passed out.

Positive. My eighth pregnancy. We've decided to knickname this one "The Ocho" (having just watched Dodgeball for the 90th time this weekend).

I almost had a panic attack because, since we weren't trying, I was not behaving like a good fertility patient - eating crappy food, drinking a lot, not taking my aspirin or folic acid, among other things. And, since this pregnancy has started out like so many others for me - I had bleeding and cramping this weekend and assumed it was Aunt Flow - I am trying really really hard to keep my mind open to the possibility that it might actually work out, to walk that tightrope between hope and despair.

First beta was 91 (not great, but not terrible). I go in tomorrow for the second. Fingers are crossed very tightly.


Oh boy. I hope I'm ready for whatever happens.

Panic

Heart racing, chest tightening, holy shit I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t fucking breathe I think I’m going to die panic.

My mornings have not been starting well.

I’m just so afraid that things will never get better, despite the meds and the therapy and the reassurances of my kick-ass therapist.
I’m afraid that when my husband says “I don’t want to live like this anymore” what he really means is “I don’t want you anymore, you miserable, barren bitter shell of the woman I married.”

Yesterday morning, I left the bathroom door open when I showered so the mirror wouldn’t get too foggy. As soon as the water hit my face, the sobs came. I wailed at the unfairness of it all, and because I’m not ready to rewrite the narrative of my life, but I can’t get better unless I do. I opened the door to find Hubby standing there, looking shocked and broken. “Were you crying in there?” he asked. “Yes Sherlock.” I said. I wonder if he’s figured it out now – that I go into the shower to let it all out, like somehow the hot water washing away the tears will wash away all the rest of it too. (Well shit I sure hope he has figured it out because it’s pretty damned obvious that laying on the couch does not make one filthy enough to warrant 4 showers a day.)

He’s made it clear in therapy that he wants the old me back. I’m afraid, though, that she is dead. Back then, I was so sure of myself, of my place in the world. I knew – I just knew – that I could accomplish anything. I could decide in a snap to move to the other side of the country, to a city where I knew no one and had no apartment or car and only a couple of hundred bucks, and the promise of an Americorps stipend, and make my life work. And it did work, even though I spent my first weeks living with an old crazy lady who pulled a gun on a man she thought tracked dirt onto her carpets (umm, it was me, and I found my own apartment two days later.)

I was happy when we met. I could make major life decisions with the assurance that I should trust my gut, that somehow my instincts would guide me. I could say “Yes, I’ll marry you!” to a man I had barely known for two weeks and not have a single doubt. I could plan my Elvis wedding without caring that my disregard for certain traditions would piss people off. I could trust that we were right for each other because we both wanted the same things – a bunch of babies, a chaotic family life filled with love and family dinners and tight budgets and each other.

But the truth is that I cannot accomplish anything. I cannot force this body of mine to work – just once, for crissakes, just once – like its supposed to. I cannot accept that, nor can I change it. It’s all tied in together now. I cannot make decisions because I’m just not sure about anything. Adoption? IVF? Say goodbye to this whole thing and go child-free? I love my husband to the depths of my soul and I want to stay with him for the rest of my life, but I’m not sure if that’s the right thing for him. I’m afraid to stay with him, afraid of how he’ll change because of my misery. But I’m afraid to go, to live without him, afraid that I am no longer capable of making my life work on my own.
And all of it together causes this panic to consume me. My doctors have adjusted my meds. I’ve started acupuncture again. I have therapy again next week (all of which makes me sound crazy. But if you’ve read this far, it’s pretty clear that I am).

I hope it works, but as I well know, hope is a dirty word. It’s what’s gotten me into this whole mess.

you're in trouble now

I've sort of figured out how to blog from my new phone (although commenting on other blogs is still far too technically advanced for me).

anyway, there just might be a number of typographically challenged posts from me in your future (those of you who still bother to read, that is).

Rock on.

run away

I just want to run away.
I was doing better, feeling - gasp - normal.

I was smiling more. My eyes stayed dry. August was a taste of life for me.

I thought September's downswing would pass quickly. I am, after all, behaving like a good mental patient. I'm taking my meds - antianxiety and antidepressants. ='m going to therapy.

I survived a friend's fb pregnancy announcement - handled it like a champ, actually.

And then my husband's brother called to say that his wife is pregnant again.

I swear to you - all of my dead baby sisters, I think, know this feeling - I felt as if someone shot me in the chest. Right where my heart used to be is a smoking black hole.

Internets, I lost my shit. I've been crying for three days. This is as bad as I've ever felt after a miscarriage. What's the point to therapy, to meds, if I'm right back in the midst of the crapstorm?

All I can think about are my dead babies, and the chances they'll never have. My hubby, and the pain on his face. The fact that I'm still a bitter, sad, selfish shit who cannot manage to summon an ounce of excitement for this soon to be babe. How Christmas is going to be unbearable because I'll be surrounded by the complete happy family. But my family will never be complete.



What if this is as good as it gets for me? What if, no matter what I do, the sucker punches keep knocking me out? I look ahead and see a life of blah punctuated by bouts of deep sadness. I don't see happiness waiting out there for me at all.

And all I want to do is run away.

Alive

I’m still here. I’m sorry if I made anyone worry about me with my long absence!


For the most part, August was a great month for me – I was extremely busy at work, extremely busy at home (5 houseguests! Including a baby!) and had little time to think, breathe or blog.

Now, though, things are slowing down. Life is returning to normal. And for the first time in a while, I feel sadness creeping back into my life.

September 11 always takes my breath away, even now, nine years later and half a country away. A flash of footage on TV and I am right back there, in the midst of the chaos and the panic and the overwhelming, monstrous sadness.
And then there’s this – the knowledge that, had my first pregnancy been normal, I’d have given birth four year ago this week. We’d be celebrating a fourth birthday. I like to think that we’d pull out all of the stops and throw a huge bash – cake, magician, pony rides, the whole nine yards.
We’d be a family.

And instead of a four year old, I have no child – just arms weary from emptiness, and an aching heart.