CD14 baby fairy shout out

Any posts about the dream of a second baby are written here in fits and starts, I realize. This is my place to go when I need to work things out, or it used to be. These days I find my highs and lows and hope and pain going more internal. Like a knife, each cut goes deeper. I spend a lot of time feeling as if I've gone into hiding. A little quiet, a little cold, a little tired. Eyes close, but can't fall asleep. Staring at the computer screen, but unable to concentrate. Voicing the emotional words without feeling any of the emotions.

In any case, if we conceive a baby this cycle, today was the magical day. So please, baby fairy, sprinkle your fairy dust on my uterus today, okay?

6DPO and hoping again

When trying to conceive, everything moves in slow motion. I can only be grateful that it continues to move. One day, and then another, toward possibility.

Today I had the smallest bit of spotting, which I think can only be implantation. Hope, which I'd kept in a back room, is front and center whether I want it there or not. In one week, I'll take a test. One day, and another, and another, toward possibility.

13dpo WTF

October 31, 2011

This is an outrageous Twilight-Zone-esque world I've wandered into. Very appropriate for Halloween. I've never seen 13dpo without a positive test before. I hate this. Seriously. I effing hate this.

NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Could something please happen? Please? One way or the other? I won't even be pissed if it's the way of failure, I just need an answer here.

I've consulted this absolutely trustworthy "Are You Pregnant?" test and have concluded that I'm a zombie vampire. So helpful.

10dpo negative

October 28, 2011

Do you know how much I hate myself today?

I'm listening to Enya. That much.

I may now own stock in the pregnancy test company. Not sure how these things work.

9dpo showing

October 27, 2011

This is completely ridiculous. Tests are showing up negative, but my goodness, do I feel pregnant. Strong cramps, low backache, nausea, fatigue. I had to unbutton my pants. Seriously. These were loose pants.

What is going on here? How can I be so big that these pants -- which I wore WELL into my pregnancy with Fletcher -- don't fit at all? If I am pregnant, I'm only considered 3 weeks and 2 days along!

You don't get symptoms like this before a positive test,  you just don't. Is this a seriously horrible case of PMS? Universe, what the heck? How cruel are you?

7DPO signs

October 25, 2011

Since 3DPO, I've had nausea on and off. Since 5DPO, I've had that dull, all over cramping that I've associated with pregnancy. All of this is way too early -- like two weeks too early -- to be real. So what's going on here?

All I know is that tomorrow is only 8DPO, but it's my birthday, so dammit I'm peeing on a stick. It's my party and I'll test if I want to.

Yesterday I got a call from the doctor's office reminding me of my prenatal appointment on my birthday, and I had to tell her, "No... that appointment was cancelled... because of a... loss." I didn't want to use the word "miscarriage" while in hearing distance of others. The nurse sounded flustered then, apologetic, and I just felt sad.

Cue the confetti. What a birthday it will be.

Universe, could I please have a baby for my birthday? That would be very nice, thank you.

1DPO confidence

October 19, 2011

 

This is Earth on the day that my second baby was conceived.

I don't want to think about the disappointment I'll feel otherwise, so... I'll just deny that possibility for now. I NEVER FREAKING CHANGE, DO I?

See you in July, Baby Deuce.

Hello, beautiful temperature jump.

1DPO powerlessness

September 19, 2011

One day post ovulation. This is it. Either conception is happening right now, or my ovum is dying. And absolutely nothing I do now can affect whether a life is created or... nothing.

Each cycle, this is always a strange day. Interesting... yet boring. Exciting in its possibilities... yet frustrating in its powerlessness.

While I'm trying to conceive, time every day is set aside for "managing" fertility – time spent taking my BBT and charting it on a graph, monitoring CM, noting cramps and other symptoms, investigating my LPD and treatment options. It's excessive, and I do it so that I have control.

For the rest of my cycle, having no control over anything is beyond difficult.

I Googled "powerlessness" out of curiosity. What better way to take control of it? I learned that feelings of powerlessness may cause depression, anxiety, outbursts of anger, alienation from others, or physical symptoms. My interpretation of the four steps for dealing with it is: realize that powerlessness does not always equal hopelessness, admit powerlessness, evaluate where you are, and find out where you're going.

The only step I have a hard time with today is the first. Hope should be the wonderful thing about 1 DPO, but it has let me down many times. I have no power, I am forced into waiting yet again, and the only good thing I have – hope – is going to come back and bite me.

1 DPO. 10 days to go. Tick tock.

8DPO train ride

August 8, 2011

I'm obsessing again, but I hate not knowing. Am I going to be the mother of two? Am I going to change my son into an older brother? What will the answer be when the wait is over?

A few days. A set number of hours. Stretches of time. Minutes, all in a row. Barely, barely ticking forward.

I'm on a slow moving train and each bump of the track is the next second, and the next, and I'm watching out the window, analyzing every tree, every patch of grass, in case it's a sign of where this train is going.

It breaks my heart to exit the train and be right back where I started before the 28-day trip.

I think we did it, this time. I think we're going to be pregnant. I think April 2012 is going to be the month our family grows once again. Magic.

Is it a good sign that I feel so confident? Or is it horrible what I'm doing to myself, holding onto this hope? I vacillate between.

From Backwards by Christina Perri

Take me backwards, turn me around.
Cannot find my balance on the ground,
This world's too heavy
For a feather falling quickly.

And I wrote you a story,
But I'm afraid of how it ends,
And all my friends are doing well,
And I'm still on the mend.

I'm gonna lay back down,
Hope the wind takes me around.
I gotta find some courage in this town,

'Cause nobody's going to save
Somebody who won't change,
I try to be brave.

And nothing's coming easy, and all at once,
I feel a little queasy.
Oh, but if your love's my remedy,
Won't you please come and be with me?

7DPO fear

Even when I'm so busy I can barely breathe, the wait is slow and unchanging. Each new moment is as unanswered as the last.

In four days, I'll test for the first time since the miscarriage. I'm scared through.

There are stretches of time where I forget what it was like. Then I remember. Happiness like I've never known before, powerful, complete, a living dream, as tied to my beating heart as I was.

What will I do if that's gone, and my heart just keeps on beating for me alone? A negative test will kill off another part of me. There won't be much left. I can't go back to the mere frustration I felt in the months of nothing before the pregnancy. It's all or nothing now. A life or a kind of death.

From "Little Earthquakes" by Tori Amos.

I can't reach you
Give me life
Give me pain
Give me myself again

Oh these little earthquakes
Here we go again
These little earthquakes
Doesn't take much to rip us into pieces

3DPO wait

Three days post ovulation, and we're back to waiting. Will it happen this month? Would I rather become pregnant and lose it again, or (option two) have nothing happen at all?

Even after all the pain and depression, I would go with the first. It would be something, progress. A reason to seek help and find success that much faster.

I'm scared to consider option three. Not because it's too frightening, but because it's too wanted. A lasting pregnancy, a healthy baby.

I'm irritated with everyone today. I wish I wasn't. I'm taking it out on Andy when he's the one person I should be holding onto with both hands. Losing him is unthinkable. Why do holidays bring out the worst in me? It's Labor Day; I should be happy I have a day off right now. But I have a million things to do and a headache the size of Montana and no motivation for any of it. I've never been a huge homemaker, but I feel more tired than usual. That's been a running theme here, I know.

Andy says I'm being difficult but he still loves me. I'm grateful for what I have. I'll be better, as better as I can be.

To my friends who have offered support, thank you. It helps more than I can put into words.

From "Wait" by Sarah McLachlan...

Pressed up against the glass
I found myself wanting sympathy
But to be consumed again, oh I know,
Would be the death of me
And there is a love that's inherently given
A kind of blindness offered to appease
And in that light of forbidden joy, oh I know,
I won't receive it

When all we wanted was the dream
To have and to hold that precious little thing
Like every generation yields
The newborn hope unjaded by their years

You know if I leave you now
It doesn't mean that I love you any less
It's just the state I'm in
I can't be good to anyone else like this