Category Archives: infertility

Nov5

It’s just more complicated this way

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It’s just more complicated this way

Maybe you didn’t hear yet, but Joey and I are going to have a baby sometime between now and the end of the month.  I keep getting asked if I’m excited, if I’m ready to be done being pregnant, all these normal late-stage pregnancy questions.  And, ugh, the answers to those questions is ridiculously complicated.  I never know what to say because I don’t want to LIE!

Am I excited?  Yes…sorta.

And you’re all SORTA?  WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE YOU ANYWAY?

Yeah, I know.  Sounds awful.  Here’s why I’m only sorta excited.

I’ve really enjoyed the whole pregnancy process because I knew that every single day was a gift.  I’ve loved feeling like a normal person, shopping for maternity clothes, looking at the Babies R Us website, all the normal pregnancy pregnancy things.  But over the top of all of it loomed this dark gray raincloud, every so often sprinkling its gloom on my head.  Because as soon as I’m done being pregnant, then I get to go back to Before.  Back to being in the “just a little bit over 0% of getting pregnant again” group.

Ugh.  I don’t want to go back there again.  It’s not a friendly place, y’all.

I don’t want to get the “when are you having the next baby” questions.  I don’t want to put away the baby clothes as she grows out of them, because I know I’ll want to hang on to the them “just in case”, even though I know that’s crazy.  I don’t want to watch my six year old go off to first grade and know it’s the last time I’ll get to do that.  I don’t want our little girl to grow up without a little sister or brother to learn to share with, learn how to forgive, and play with for hours.  I don’t want to go back to feeling guilty that I’m the reason we can’t have a bajillion kids.

Sometimes it’s easier to get bogged down in the gloom of what we are losing than to allow myself to revel in the joy of the gift that we have, which is that WE ACTUALLY GET TO HAVE A BABY!  I have to fight to enjoy the stages instead of being filled with sorrow that once this stage is over, we’ll never have it again.  It’s a very strong temptation.  Like I said, being Gloomy Gus is easier than allowing myself to become more sanctified through this process.

And about twice a week I ask God why he couldn’t have asked someone ELSE to be sanctified like this.  (Isn’t that super ugly of me?!)

So…am I sick of being pregnant yet?  HECK NO.  These are the last few days I  get to feel this uncomfortable.  This may be the last time my right side swells up like the Goodyear Blimp and the left side stays normal.  (Looks hilarious, by the way.   Feels awful.)  This might be the last time I get stuck on the floor and wind up having to do this really strange three-point roll to get up.  I may never get kicked in the ribs like that again.  Or jabbed in the kidneys, for that matter.  I can’t sleep at night, but who knows which night is the last night of being kept awake because of aching joints.

Yes, it’s uncomfortable.  But…it’s an uncomfortable that I’m thankful for.

I’m getting more eager to have the baby, but I’m not ready to let go of the pregnancy stage yet.  I think I may be the world’s weirdest pregnant lady.  Or, me and all the other infertiles are the world’s weirdest pregnant women.

Rather along those lines, but also slightly unrelated, is the fact that I should go take a shower and try to wake up.  I didn’t sleep worth anything last night and I’m a full-on zombie today.  Our 37 week appointment is this afternoon so I should probably try to wake up before I go there and just stare at the doc for the entire time and forget to answer her questions.

Although, frankly, last time I didn’t do such a good job last week so maybe it would be better if I just held my tongue and stared at her.

They had better not send me over to the hospital again.

Aug28

Béaba Babycook!

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Béaba Babycook!

I’ve been drooling over the Béaba Babycook since before the first time I was pregnant, which I think was waaaay back sometime in 2008.  We spotted it at Williams Sonoma once on a NorthPark browsing trip, and I was like, JOEY.  This thing is fabulous!  I NEED THIS WHEN WE HAVE BABIES!  But then shortly after that we discovered weren’t supposed to have babies so I put it out of my mind.

It’s a little four-in-one machine that gently steams fruit or vegetables while maintaining nutrients, and then purees it for you so you can put it into little serving-size containers and throw ‘em into the freezer for your munchkin to eat throughout the week.  It will also defrost and then reheat the same frozen foods back up to a safe temperature for your kiddo to eat.

It’s one of those New to the USA things that I tend to catch way too early on the upswing, so the price tag on this guy, um, a little steepy.  Especially when you consider you could simply steam on the stove and puree in your food processor and use your microwave to defrost/reheat.  But that’s a heck of a lot of dishes and monitoring things to make sure they don’t get too hot or overcooked and lose their nutrients…when you could really just do it all with the press of one button.

And in a cute little machine, to boot.

When you consider the cost of the nasty jarred baby food stuff, and the nutritional benefits of being able steam your own baby food, the Babycook really is much cheaper than that option…it’s just kind of a sucker punch when you look at the price tag the first time.

Anyway.

Yesterday afternoon, Joey disappeared to go buy my birthday present.  When he came back home, he looked all google-eyed and jittery.  ”Do you want your present now?” He asked.  ”Once I got it from the store I just couldn’t wait anymore so if you want it today you can have it.”

Psssh, when have I ever been the kind of person to wait for my birthday presents?  I’m pretty sure that’s a big fat NEVER if I had the option to open them early.

Joey disappeared back out to the car and reappeared…with a huge bag from Williams Sonoma.  Like, it probably have fit at least four newborns inside and had space for their kooshy blankets that newborns tend to carry around with them.

I just looked at it like, What in the world did you get me from Williams Sonoma that could possible be so huge?

“Open it, open it,” Joey said.

And I pulled out…the Béaba Babycook!  ”WOAH!” I squealed. “It’s…the BABYCOOK!”

“Yeah, with some accessories, too,” Joey said, whipping them out of the bag.  He got me the little silicone multi-portion freezer tray, and a set of extra steaming containers for food that doesn’t fit in the freezer tray, if I’m making a big batch someday.  I can easily freeze it right in the steaming container and defrost it on the Babycook and then portion it right back into a freezer tray.

“You….got me a Babycook?” I asked him.  ”Um, isn’t that kind of over budget for birthday presents?”

“It’s 1/4 your birthday present and 3/4 for the baby,” he said, smugly.

Joey always, always gets around the birthday present budget rule.  It drives me crazy, and if I were to try to pull similar shenanigans, I’d be in trouble for about…two weeks.  He never lets me buy him anything nice because he doesn’t “need it”.  (Apparently I do, though?)

I just stood there staring at the Babycook for about a minute, then I said, “This thing is so amazing, can I sleep with it tonight?”

“Um….if you want to,” Joey said.  ”The box looks kind of sharp though.”

He was right, it was sharp.  So I just got up extremely early this morning to look at it again and squish the freezer trays.

It’s weird, because sometimes when you want something (like a Babycook) but it depends entirely on other things you want very badly but the doctor tells you that you aren’t ever going to have (like, for instance, a baby)…and then you DO get pregnant, baby accessories really throw you off.  Because I can still convince myself when she’s not moving around in there than I’m really not pregnant.  But when I see the Babycook, or the little pile of baby clothes we have been compiling, or look at the paint color we chose for her room, it just seems a little more real.

And extremely surreal, because I’ve wanted that crazy Babycook since back before the whole interfility journey began, and I never thought we’d actually wind up needing such a thing.  Which is why Joey got it for me.

Jul13

The First Bradley Class

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The First Bradley Class

Seeing as we used several thousand dollars worth of pharmaceuticals to conceive this girl child, I really want to go all natural for her birth.  Like, as in, I don’t even want an IV.

After a bit of research we (mostly I) settled on using the Bradley method, which is husband-coached childbirth and focuses a lot on relaxation and understanding what my body is doing during the labor stages so we can manage the pain.  Tonight’s class talked about stretching basics, and we got a little bit into nutrition. Which may be why I’m sitting here eating Sour Patch Kids while I type this.  Now THERE are some nutrients, eh?

Right before we walked out the door to go to our first class, I noticed Joey looked like he had just been forced to gnaw on a lemon.  And I was all, dude what is up?

He was like, “What…what if this class is all weird and it makes me uncomfortable and stuff?”

And I sort of looked at him with my face all squished up in a very attractive way and said, “Well…pregnancy isn’t exactly comfortable for me either.  So…maybe you’ll be OK?”

Joey paused and said, “Yeah my excuse was pretty lame.  We probably better just go.”

So we just went.

The class was really fabulous.  I don’t have an OB yet, and I have no clue at which hospital I’ll be delivering; we’re basically flying by the seat of our pants at this point.  It was really good to talk with our instructor and get some of her thoughts and OB recommendations because, while I want to do this all natural…I’ll be doing it in a hospital, thank you very much.

At the end of the class, we practiced beginning relaxation techniques.  (Trust me, I was relieved it was NOT a labor rehearsal yet.  I’m not ready for that yet.)

Joey had me all laid out on the floor with my right arm twisted back uncomfortably in the “proper” position.  The instructor walked by and mentioned if it was too unnatural-feeling, I could adjust myself, which I immediately did.  God did not create my arm to go that direction.  No he did not.

I was to lay there with none of my body parts touching (easier said than done) and Joey was supposed to look at my body and determine which parts of it were tense.  Again, easier said than done.  The goal of this is so that when I’m in labor and I’ve locked up a muscle group without realizing it, he’ll be able to notice that I’ve done so and help me relax it.  We are supposed to do this every single day, so he’s going to be a Jenna Tension Expert by the end of it.

First I tensed my foot, then my calf.  Then, when it came time to tense up my thigh, I just absolutely lost it.  I had my thigh muscle as locked up as I could possibly get it, and Joey had firmly gripped it with his hand and was saying to me “This is tension.  We do not want tension in labor.  Relax, relax, relax…” and I busted out laughing.

Hysterically.

Couldn’t stop.

So then, of course my whole body was tense.

This (squeeze the thigh) is tension.  We do not want tension in labor.  Relax, relax, relax.

Internet, it was so funny.  And all the other moms were like 5,000 times more mature than I am or something, because they were all in a state of zen or something.  Nobody but me was laughing.  It was silent like the grave in there except for the other coaches informing their wives that this was tension and we didn’t want it in labor.

Relax, relax, relax.

For the next week, I’m supposed to write down everything I eat.  That’s why I’m eating all the Sour Patch Kids tonight, so they don’t count. (Although, now I think about it maybe that isn’t what she meant?)

Well, I’m off to go some squatting now.  Apparently I need to do this about a bajillion times a day.  It’s super flattering.

Jun20

And now…a belly picture

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And now…a belly picture

About two weeks ago, I began getting texts from Sister that mostly just said, “Belly picture?” and/or “When are you going to post a belly picture?” and more or less urgent-sounding variations on the theme.

Joey and I have been dragging our feet on the whole belly picture thing.  For some reason, the whole thought just made us feel uncomfortable.  I’m not sure why, maybe because we both maintain a fairly detached view of pregnancy.  Yes, we’re getting excited.  But we really have to work at it and, this probably seems weird to most of you, it’s really hard. And I think if we were forcing ourselves to be disingenuously “excited”, just to put on a shiny happy face like everybody else…that wouldn’t be very good for us.

So we’re happy about it in our own, quieter way.

However.

I am now 17 1/2 weeks pregnant.  Baby Girl is wiggling around in there like the wild child she probably will wind up being.  This is happening.  It’s starting to feel safe.  So over the last week, I thinking about The Belly Picture phenomenon.  I remember absolutely loving looking at pictures of Mom when she was pregnant with me, and started thinking about how I wanted our little girl to have that same experience.

So on Thursday, I told Joey I thought we probably better start getting intentional about taking a picture now and then.  And he agreed that yeah, probably would be a good idea.  We may get all squeaked out by it now, but in 15 years we will be glad we did it.

On Saturday, we finally took one.  I was buzzing out the door to my first baby shower/going away party <sob> and since I actually looked fairly decent it seemed like as good a time as any.  Unfortunately, there was nowhere in our poor house that looked fairly decent.  ”Let’s just go outside,” I suggested, as we looked unsuccessfully for a space of bare wall that wasn’t covered in boxes or random odds ‘n ends.

We went outside.

“OK, now, stand and face me,” Joey said.

I was like, seriously?  I look like a fat cow from straight on.

But I obliged.

And this is actually one of my favorite pictures because, honestly, LOOK AT MY FACE.  I look like I just swallowed 1/4 cup of lemon juice.

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

Like I said.  Kind of looking like a cow here, not so much in the way of pregnancy proof, mostly I just look like I have 0% waist..  (And really don’t bother commenting to tell me I don’t look like a cow.  Because I will know you are lying.)

Finally Joey took one of the side.  This looks much better, as you will see.

SEE?!  Much better, yes?  And look at that baby taking up all that space!  Good job, little girl.  Good job.

Also, please observe my new and cool glasses.  Joey thinks the frames are a bit over the top, but I say BRING IT ON.  I like flashy glasses.

So.

Now I have posted a belly picture.

(Sister, I hope you are pleased.  You are basically the only reason we even bothered to decide to take one of these, so kudos to you.)

Jun17

People Like Her

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People Like Her

Last night when Joey came home from the youth group car wash, I told him not to touch the wrapped package on my dresser lest he knock it over and the wrapping come popping off it. “It’s your Father’s Day present,” I told him.

“OOOOOOOOOOOH,” Joey said, and went in to look at it.

“Don’t touch it,” I said.

It doesn’t really fit in its bag properly because I was being a cheapo and got the smallest bag I thought I could smash it into; it is carefully positioned so as not to fall over and out onto the dresser top. Any slight movement and the jig is up.

“Good thing you have me or you’d get no Father’s Day present at all,” I told him smugly.

Then, we both kind of looked at each other and smirked because of how UNTRUE my statement actually is. Ahh, my poor little insides…making our lives complicated year after year.

“Do you think they have Reproductive Endocrinologists day?” I asked. “Because without people like Dr. Babyplease, then people like me couldn’t give people like you Father’s Day presents EVER.”

Did you follow that? I barely followed that and I wrote it.

I have yet to look on the calendar to see if they make a Reproductive Endocrinologist day. I’m not sure what you would give an RE in the first place. A test tube? An “I Love Follistim Injections” pin? Write a book called IVF for Dummies and dedicate it to her?

So…props to Dr. Babyplease for effectively baking up an embryo that is now a little 17 week along baby girl (who likes Pepsi, I’ve already tested it.) Way to give us the first Woestman Father’s Day Present.

Jun16

Can’t think of a title because I can’t think of the point

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Can’t think of a title because I can’t think of the point

When I got home yesterday, the room that used to be our den was completely empty, painted an ugly shade of white thanks to Joey’s hard work (kudos Joey!), and sounded all echoey whenever anyone talked in it.

“It looks terrible!” I complimented Joey. “Great job.”

I should esplain: I hate white walls. I hate them, hate them. I think they are the saddest, most depressing thing ever, which is why we painted all of ours shortly after we moved down here 3 1/2 years ago. Our den had been a nice shade of green prior to its transformation back to Glidden Antique White, and Joey’s painting job was spot on.

The amount of work Joey accomplished yesterday was kind of astronomical. He hauled all the empty AND packed boxes out of the den, which had been the storage place for both, dismantled his desk on his own, got the futon out onto the front balcony, moved the bikes and the bike rack, and shoved four bookshelves into the living room. After all of this, he painted.

So, while the den was totally empty except for the 5 gallon bucket of paint and a drop cloth…the rest of the house was, well, shall we say…vertically stacked?

It looks like so:

“I’ma put it all back now,” Joey said.

“Um, NO YOU’RE NOT,” I told him. “You worked way too hard today and now you need a break. You sit on that couch and I will get you a piece of chocolate cake and milk while we finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” (We’re watching the movies of the books we listened to on tape en route to Indy and back a few weeks ago.)

Joey agreed to watch twenty minutes of the movie with me. I figured twenty minutes was plenty, because by the time I had him sitting down he’d lose his motivation and then he just would decide not to finish moving everything back into the den, which is going to be our Packed Boxes Staging Area. When we move, we do it right.

While I got the cake dished up onto plates, Joey cleared a place for us to sit on the couch because it had previously been stacked with blankets and pillows from the base of The Futon Which Is Now Sitting In Front Of The Dumpster. Its only redeeming feature had been the storage underneath.

An hour later, Joey had completely run out of steam. “I’m not going to finish tonight,” he mumbled.

“Thank you,” I said.

Then I cried and cried and CRIED when Hagrid came back from Azkaban, and I am not a typical crier at the end of movies (especially not Harry Potter ones, except the first one when Neville gets 10 points). Joey heard me sniffing, looked over to see tears streaming down my cheeks and he started laughing, and laughing, and laughing. Then the movie was over and I cried even harder because THE…MOVIE…IS…OVER…NOW! <sniff sniff>, and Joey was all, now THIS is a problem I can solve!, so he did this kind of monkey-climb thing over a bunch of furniture and blankets to retrieve Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

“Look, we can start the third one now. See, it’s not over,” he told me. And quickly put in the next DVD.  That solved the crying problem; good work Joey.

Today when I get home, my house will still be kind of a disaster area. There are still only two places to sit down in the entire house. But it’s OK because I won’t be there very much. I will be off shopping…for Joey’s Father’s Day present.

Now if that isn’t crazy, I don’t know what is. I really never thought I’d get to buy one of those for Joey.

May25

UNCLE!

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UNCLE!

I had my first (maybe only?) prenatal massage last night, and I was so tight and sore that I had been looking forward to it since I scheduled it last Thursday. My head was throbbing and no matter how often I took Tylenol, stretched the muscles, tried to massage them myself, NOTHING was helping.

The masseuse was a woman in her early 20s, and she was supposed to be “the best” at prenatal massage at this particular spa. I had high hopes.

About ten minutes into the massage she put what felt like her entire body weight on this knot behind my shoulder blade, and she pushed.

I gasped. I couldn’t breathe. “That really hurts,” I tried to say, but it’s really hard to say that when you can’t breathe.

“Push against my hand,” she said.

That made the pain worse. “That hurts much worse,” I wheezed. “It really, really hurts.”

“It’ll release soon,” said the masseuse.

She was right, about thirty minutes of pure agony later, I could actually move my shoulders again. And I thought massages were supposed to be relaxing.

After she completely mashed up my shoulders, she moved down to work on my hips. “There are trigger points here,” she told me.

That’s when she found it.

After a few moments of probing, she zeroed in on the exact location where we had injected the progesterone in oil for all those weeks. The knot has substantially gone down (used to be about the size of a golf ball, and just about as rock solid) but it is still EXTREMELY painful deep down in the tissue. And for some reason I can’t run or jog without it making every nerve in the vicinity scream bloody murder, so I have to do this fancy arms-behind-my-back stance that makes me look like a total moron.   However, that is unrelated.

So yeah, she found The Spot. “Oh wow, you really have a knot here,” she said. “That’s very strange.” AND SHE MASHED HER FINGERS INTO IT.

What I thought had been pain before with the shoulder knots? Child’s play. My eyes started watering and I literally could not draw in a breath. “Stop!” I wheezed. “Stop now.”

“It’ll release soon,” she said.

I was like THE HECK IT WILL, so I started gasping “IVF, IVF, IVF” as if that made everything a lot more clear. But I forgot that about 90% of the population has never and will never have to shoot hormones in oil into their muscles to stay pregnant, so unfortunately it did not help my cause.

She continued to mash, and then started doing this rocking thing and somehow managed to get even MORE nerves involved.

“STOP,” I said, as forcefully as I could, face down and gasping in pain. “When I did IVF it required deep tissue Progesterone in oil injections, so what you are pressing on is a mass of olive oil that has not yet distributed from my muscle tissue. STOP NOW. It is not something that can be worked out.”

Finally, she backed off. “Wow, I’ve never heard of that before,” she said.

I was so relieved that she had let up off my knot that I couldn’t say anything. She moved to my other hip and I was bracing for the same conversation again, but fortunately she asked “did you do them on this side too?” before pressing on anything.

“Yes,” I said. And I was kind of short about it, too. I was pretty mad that she hadn’t listened to me earlier because that was some serious pain she had put me through.

An hour later, I did feel better after having all the knots worked out of my muscles. My right hip, however?

Totally bruised.

May23

Let’s just hope he doesn’t have the gift of dreams and prophecy

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Let’s just hope he doesn’t have the gift of dreams and prophecy

About a month ago Joey woke up in a cold sweat and in the process woke me up as well.

“I just had the weirdest dream ever,” he gasped.

Turns out he dreamed that I was in labor and we were in the hospital with things progressing the way they normally do.  And when the doctor whipped out the baby, he had a bit of a look of shock on his face.  Joey soon realized why, because a Shih-Tzu came scampering up the bed towards us that I had apparently just given birth to.

“Oh!  She’s beautiful!” I squealed.  ”We’ll call her ‘Prison’!”

Ahh, such a beautiful name.

Now, granted, there is SOME concern with IVF that they may have transferred the wrong embryos (trust me, I do stress out about this even so often but I really try not to) but I figure if they had blown it that bad they would have let us know by now.  And as far as I know, the Presby ARTS lab doesn’t do Shih-Tzu IVFs.  Only human.

I don’t even know if they do IVF for Shih-Tzus.  It sounds very expensive.

Sometimes I call Henry “Prison” just for fun, though.

May17

Survival

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Survival

When I woke up this morning, I realized that half my weird freaking out problem most likely stemmed from the fact that today marks the one year anniversary of having surgery last year.  Same hospital, different doctor.  My inpatient room was just two floors above where my new doctor’s office is.  Even after a year of going there, during portions of which we were there nearly every day, I still get a little uncomfortable in the Margot Perot Center for Women & Infants.

ANYWAY.

We had to drive separately to the hospital this morning because Joey’s heading up north for a day or so (lucky), and I kept having to tell myself to SIMMER DOWN WOMAN as I drove in.  Except this year, we got to turn left into the parking lot instead of going straight down to the Labor & Delivery entrance.

We walked in, sat down, and I fidgeted like a crazy woman.  Right after we signed in, though, I discovered a CANDY JAR.  I took like fives pieces of candy and sat down to look at a magazine.  Joey handed me a baby magazine and I looked at it like it was covered in mold and smelled like peanut butter (I hate peanut butter right now, it’s so sad) and said, “I don’t look at baby magazines, remember?”

But he put it on my lap and returned to flipping through Time.

I figured, what could it hurt, it might actually be GOOD for me…and I cracked the cover of the magazine.

It was pretty lame, mostly ads.  But I did it.  And you know what?  It did not kill me.

FINALLY the sonographer called us back.  I was terrified, my heart rate was through the roof.  We’re so used to IVF sonograms that we were totally thrown for a loop when she whipped out the regular pregnant-lady wand, THE KIND THAT GOES ON YOUR STOMACH, and I almost cried just from the sheer relief of being far enough along to have a real pregnant-lady sonogram.

And the sonogram?  It was just fine.  It was great, actually.  The little munchkin is really wild, it was flipping around and doing the worm, and kicking and punching all over the place.  We even got a DVD, which I am so excited about.  Joey’s going to edit out the “boring” parts and I’ll be sure to post the wild child’s highlights.

Oh – did I mention we have a thumb sucker?  We do.

I have never been so relieved in my entire life, and I really don’t think that is much of an exaggeration.

After the sonogram, we went over to my OBs office to get my labs drawn before we could go.  Another guy about our age was sitting in the waiting room, and he struck up a conversation with us, which totally weirded Joey and I out.  We’ve spent the last 6 months in the waiting room of an infertility clinic, and TRUST ME, you do not talk to the people in that waiting room.

Your conversation would be something like this.  “So…what’s wrong with you, why can’t you have kids?”

“Oh, well, I have Stage 4 Endometriosis and some other things too.  How’s about you?”

Depressing.  So you learn early on that infertiles don’t speak to one another.  It’s a silent code that everyone just abides by.

Anyway, this guy was like “ARE YOU EXCITED! DID YOU HAVE A SONOGRAM!  WAS IT CUTE?!  MY WIFE IS 10 WEEKS!  IT’S GREAT!”

And we just looked at him with big eyes trying to figure out if HE was abnormal, or if WE were abnormal.  We were also having a hard time politely returning the questions because we are so used to not asking that it was hard to figure out what normal people talk about.

Both Joey and I were kind of relieved when he got called back to go with his wife.  He was making us tired.

We walked out of the hospital today much different than when we walked in today; we survived.  Our baby is still in there and alive.  I think we’re all gonna make it.

May16

8:45 a.m.

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8:45 a.m.

Tomorrow morning at 8:45, we have a doctor’s appointment.  Like, not just any doctor’s appointment, an OB appointment.

I’m still getting used to the idea of Joey and I actually going to see an OB every few weeks instead of our RE.  (For you who are new to this blog and/or infertility lingo, an OB is an obstetrician and an RE is a Reproductive Endocrinologist.  That’s Infertility Specialist in Average Joe speak.)  I never really thought we’d actually get to swap the RE initials for OB.  And now that we’re here, it’s weird.

I still don’t easily spit out the “I’m pregnant” phrase.  I don’t believe in jinxes, but some crazy boogeyman in the back of my mind always yells DON’T SAY IT, DON’T SAY IT, you’re not the pregnant type of person, this is all a hallucination! whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Totally awkward.

I fought the boogeyman all morning today at church.

We tend to have doctor’s appointments every two weeks.  After an appointment, I do great for about a week.  You know, we saw the baby, its heart was beating, my levels were good, all that jazz.

Well, the SECOND week.  The second week is when it gets interesting.

I get jittery.  I stop sleeping well because I have miscarriage nightmares.  I get irritable due to jitters and lack of sleep.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Last night’s miscarriage nightmare was particularly scary.  I woke up and actually thought I had just gotten released from the hospital and was waking up from pain meds.  It took me a second to sort myself out and realize that, as far as I know, I was still pregnant.

Ugh.

Pregnancy after infertility/miscarriage is so much more complicated than I thought it would be.

One week at a time.  Heck, one DAY at a time, really.

Lately, I have been running my airplane verse in my head over and over and over again when I get all freaked out.   For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind…

I need the sound mind part right now much more than usual.