Do I REALLY Feel Sick?

A few years ago, when living in Bolivia, my husband and I went with our host family to watch their children dance in a school festival. They were very excited about it ahead of time, yet strangely, due to circumstances not relevant or explicable here but perfectly logical in Bolivian culture, we didn't make it in time for the show.

But we stayed to watch the rest of it anyway. And about halfway through, I realized I needed to be sick (not an uncommon thing for me in Bolivia). But I didn't know where to do that. So I sat very still, looking green and breathing deeply. I watched the last hour of the show, and I rode home in a small van filled with 20 other people (this is a Bolivian "bus") on a dirt road for half an hour more. And then, the minute we were home, I literally ran to the bathroom and threw up.

All that to say, it seems I can hold it when I need to, and that comes in handy. (Can you see where I'm going with this?)


Even at just six weeks pregnant, I've had some weird nausea, and I'm dead tired. But I was hanging out with some family members recently, and they were suggesting that maybe me feeling sick so early in the pregnancy was just psychosomatic. I almost agreed. But then the other day, I get on a plane to LA in the morning, and there was some wind when we landed, and it was a little bumpy. And I keep thinking to myself, a la Bolivian dance recital, "I have GOT to throw up." But I didn't. I sat there with the same steely resolve for the 15 minutes it took to land and taxi. And then we landed, I ran off that planed and thanked God that for some reason, there was an empty, single stall handicapped restroom in front of me. And I puked my guts out so that little blood vessels around my eyes popped and I have these small red dots on my face.

Psychosomatic, my ass.

Screw "Cautiously Optimistic"

When I had a chemical pregnancy, I was told to be "cautiously optimistic," even though there was no reason to think things would work out.

Now, with my numbers rising normally but still so, so early in the pregnancy, the nurse is again telling me to be "cautiously optimistic."

I say, screw cautiously optimistic.

I say, it took me two and a half years and $30,000 and three rounds of IVF to get here.

I say, I have no control over whether this will be a healthy pregnancy or not.

I say, I might as well enjoy being pregnant while I am.

I say, if it doesn't work out, I'll bawl my head off whether I try to be cautious or not.

So that means that I say, I might as well just enjoy this moment, right now, at a place I've never been, at a place I had to fight so hard to get to. So I'm optimistially optimistic. Done with that caution shit.

The Death Star

Okay, warning: This story is going to be sort of crass and gross. You can't say I didn't warn you.

So like all women who have fought and pushed and shoved their way through infertlity, I find it almost impossible to believe I am actually pregnant, and that I will actually stay that way. So two days ago, when I noticed just a little spotting, I was terrified. It was bright red. I'd heard brown was okay, but not bright red. Bright red is bad.

So I called my nurse. She said, in a serious, this-could-be-bad voice, "It's possible you just have some irritatation from the suppositories." For those of you who don't know, women who go through IVF receive supplemental progesterone. I get it two ways, lucky me: a morning shot in the butt, and an evening suppository.

I have to admit, by the time I put those suppositories in, I'm deleriously tired. Maybe not so careful. But I'd never bled before. My nurse said, "every cycle is different," but I wasn't sure. And then she told me to put the suppositories in the other hole.

Ugh. They were uncomfortable enough in the accommodating hole, but I did as told. I swear, it was like the Death Star. If you don't know what I mean, just recall that there was a tractor beam that sucked unwilling ships in, and then they lodged there uncomfortably.

But there you go--it's what I had to do, and I did it. And it turned out she was right. Because I didn't have any more spotting, and I went in for a "peace of mind" beta, and it's all normal. Hard to believe, right? Me, normal.

Here We Go

I can't help it. I love musicals. They're generally mindless and fun and are great for singing in the shower. I can belt out "Dance: 10, Looks: 3" from a Chorus Line, or listen to my husband mimic Jean Valjean from Les Mis, and I can't help but be in a better mood.

Anyway, there's a few lines from a song in the musical Rent that have been stuck in my head all day.

Who knows where
Who goes there
Who knows
Here goes

There's lots more to the song. But it's about jumping into something new, not knowing where it leads.

Which is how I feel about what happens now. Because we got a call from our clinic like we've never received before. A call to say, "Congratulations. You're pregnant." Not kind of pregnant. Not with borderline numbers. Just normal, legitimate, pregnant.

So I don't know what it means--for everything that's come before, for everything that comes after. But for now, it means I stop talking about trying to get pregnant. Right now, I enjoy where we are.

Here we go.

Damn, This is Familiar

When I am NOT trying to get pregnant, life can be very zen. I can just go to the dog park and watch my Bolivian street mutt run wild, eat a delicious vegetrian Vietnamese dinner, and sack out on the couch around 10:30. (And that's a FRIDAY night.)

When I AM trying to get pregnant, I can do all those things, but then wake up at 2:30 in the morning and obsess. I have my first beta tomorrow. I have made two decisions:

1. I have to stop looking at anything fertility-related on the Internet. I am sure that if I looked hard enough, I could find a study that says I'm .0005% more likely to have a three headed baby because I did IVF. So you can imagine how easy it is to find stuff that tells me that all my treatment is destined to fail.

2. I will not take a home pregnancy test. Why bother? It's like Santa Claus--even when I have proof he doesn't exist, I still believe. Even when I get those BFN (big fat negatives), I think, "oh, maybe I drank too much water," or "this is a bunk test," or "maybe it's just a really FAINT line."

The funny thing is, what I'm really dreading is a call from the nurse on Monday that it didn't work. And the main thing I'm dreading is not that it didn't work, but that she has to TELL me it didn't work. I feel sorry for her. This is totally illogical. First, because I don't know whether it worked or not, so I'm throwing in the towel a little early, mentally speaking. And second, because whether it not it worked, she is going to be glad to get off work early on Monday. It doesn't matter to her, not really. And it shouldn't; I get it. It's a job. It's like when my clients get sued. Not my problem, even though I feel sympathetic. (And ultimately, in this perverse way, keeps me working.)

Maybe it's just a mask for my true emotions. Who the heck knows. But it sure felt good NOT to feel this for awhile. And I'm going to start making a list of all the things about my life, my life right now, that I love JUST THE WAY THEY ARE. So I can remember that I'm not always the crazy girl blogging at 4:00 a.m.

You Have GOT to be Kidding Me

I was feeling pretty good until a couple days ago. Then the true me, the Type-A me, took over again. I started to obsesses about how it's already worked or it's already failed, and I just don't know. So I'm freaking out, and it's amazing and distressing how familiar it is. The funny thing is, my automatic reaction is that I'm not doing THIS again anytime soon! If this doesn't work, I'm ready for long swims and tall glasses of wine and my vacation on the beach! So I'll be calling again for another extension on our contract...

But part of my freak out is also becuase not one, but TWO friends this week called to tell me they're pregnant. I so appreciate that people do this, and I so hate how it feels when they do. The feeling has gone away, but resurged this week. What I feel like is a loser. Like, "Yeah, I wanted that two years ago, and here I am in the exact same situation only $30,000 poorer and 24 eggs shorter. But hey--don't feel bad--it's not your fault."

And it's not their fault, and I don't blame them, and I love them for loving me enough to tell me. And I just have to remind myself--I'm almost done. And the life I get if it doesn't work? I like that life. I spent $30,000 not to have a child, but to try to have a child.

But still. Karma could have been kinder to me this week.