Cautiously Optimistic Heartbeat

Both my husband and I went to my appointment with Dr. Baldy on Friday - it was the first time the two men had met and I wonder if my husband thought that this man would be looking at my hoo hoo in about 5 minutes. I should ask him that.

So I'm propped up on the little table with my feet in stirrups, no underwear on and a flimsy paper sheet to cover my private parts. Dr. Baldy squeezes the KY on the ultrasound wand and we're just about ready to go when I say, "Let's see if it's still in there."

He pauses and asks, "Have you had bleeding?"

"No," I reply, "But I've been down this road before. I've been totally sick, no bleeding whatsoever, and I go in and boom - no heartbeat."

Meanwhile Dr. Baldy puts the wand in and I instinctively look away from him, cuz I'm a shy girl and he hasn't even bought me dinner or anything, I can't look him in the face when he's doing THAT to me, and by turning my head from him I also turn it from the computer monitor so I hear the words before I see it myself.

"That's what we want to see. Looks like it's still there."

I look. My husband look. And there is it. A pulsating tiny little gray blog in a sea of blackness. My eyes begin to fill. There it is. Still alive.

"We will remain cautiously optimistic," says Dr. Baldy.

~~~

We go again tomorrow. I'm trying my hardest to be cautiously optimistic. It's a hard line to walk. I'll let you know.

Dr. Appt.

I went to the doctor on Friday. He's a new doctor, in the same practice as my previous doctor. This guy, though, knows his shit. He apparently did his homework - he knew all about me. I can't even tell you how many doctors I have seen who never read my file. I guess the thickness of it intimidates them.

I decided to approach this doctor like I would a psychic - hiding my hands so they can't see if I'm married, being careful to answer only "yes" and "no" to ensure that I was getting an 'accurate' reading. Luckily, Dr. Baldy passed with flying colors.

"When were you told you had methylene-tetra-hydro-folate-reductase?" I was stunned and didn't answer right away. He smiled and said, "Pretty impressive, huh? I was on call last night, too."

I was told I have MTHFR (there ain't no way I'm gonna try to pronounce that mouthful) and Factor V Leiden after my third miscarriage.

"At the University of Washington in Seattle?"

Nice. Knows where I delivered Moses. Impressive. Yep, at UDub.

"And are you homozygous or heterozygous?"

Aha - good one. Hetero, on both.

"You've had one live birth, right? And where was he in the order of pregnancies?"

Yep - one live one - Moses. He was my number 2 pregnancy. Way before I knew I had to worry. We were blissfully unaware and had a complication-free pregnancy and birth.

"And how many pregnancies has it been altogether?"

This makes 7 - no, wait. 8 - this one makes 8 - 1 kid, 6 miscarriages and this one.

"Well I'm going to do all I can to make number 8 fall into the kid category. As you know, there's not a lot we can do. We can get you set up with blood thinners - were you on Lovenox or heparin before?"

Lovenox - one injection a day.

"30 or 40ml?"

40.

"That's what I would recommend. We'll do that again. Let's skip the progesterone suppositories - they really don't do much and they are kind of a pain."

Whoo hooo. Those suppositories are gross.

"We'll see you here every week for the time being, and I will pray that this one makes it.

***

I'm not religious, and I usually get skeeved out when people say they will pray for me. But for some reason, this made me feel better. It really made me feel like he was going to do all he could to help me. I think I found the right doc this time!

Uh, Thanks? I guess?

I called the doctor today. I guess I'm facing the fact that I am indeed pregnant again.

I got bumped from doctor office to insurance company to doctor office, and had to say multiple times, out loud, to complete strangers, "I'm pregnant." Every single one of them responded with a hearty "Congratulations!"

After living through several recurrent miscarriages, my joy is restrained. The plus sign on the pregnancy test isn't a cause for celebration. Not that the plus sign is always a good thing - I had plenty of friends in high school and college who dreaded seeing that particular mathematical sign. For me, though, the plus sign doesn't signal an end of my youth and freedom, or an inevitable trip to a clinic. It represents disappointment.

So Friday I'll go and start the process again, officially. Let's see what they say, huh?

Bad Judgment

First, let's get the suspense out of the way. No bleeding, so for now, it looks like I'm still pregnant. I wasn't even keeping track of my periods, so I really have no idea how long I've been in this state - I'm thinking for some reason my last visit from Auntie Flo was December 5. What's that - 5 weeks? It really doesn't matter, because I am fairly confident this one won't last. Of course, I was really positive a few of the other ones were solid and were going to make it the full 40 weeks. Just goes to show how I know nothing about this baby making thing.

I feel the same way about political scandals. It all started with Clarence Thomas. I was an earnest college junior, living in a run-down blue house with 4 other girls. I guess we didn't have cable, or I didn't know about C-Span, because I vividly remember listening to the Anita Hill hearings on NPR. I was certain that Clarence "pubic hair" Thomas would in no way be appointed to the Supreme Court. I was also under the naive impression that Supreme Court Justices were like uber-humans who never picked their underwear out of their asses, either. It was inconceivable to me that any of those Senators would even consider appointing this fuckwad pervert. You can imagine my reaction when he was confirmed. It was the first time I thought that I just may have something to fear in this country of mine. Then came OJ, the Clinton blowjob, the (S)election of George Bush Part I, Chandra Levy, the Iraq war, the (S)election of George Bush II.

Wow - that's a digression. Suffice it to say, basically I'm wrong about everything. So I'm probably pregnant with triplets and they will go to full term plus 10 days and I'll be motherfucking all my waistbands 9 months from now.

I don't know why I would even think having another kid would be a good idea at this time, seeing that I seem to be doing irreparable damage to the one I have already. Today as we were pulling into our garage after picking him up at preschool, he told me he wanted to go to 7483. 7483 was our last address. We just moved in October of 2008 because the owners of the house we were renting decided to sell it while we were still living there. I said, "But we moved to this house. 43329 is our new house."

"But I YIKE 7438."

What the right response to that? I don't know, but I know what isn't: "But don't you like 43329?"

"I do not yike 43329," he said softly.

I bought this kid books about moving and read them to him several times a day, several weeks before the move. We did a whole goodbye routine so he wouldn't be traumatized. And yet we still fucked him up somehow.

Add in that the kid will only eat 5 foods and is scared to poop on the potty and I'm doing one helluva job.

This parenting gig is the hardest one I've had yet.

First...

During a moment of raw aching pain, my husband said I needed a centering thought - a vision or phrase that will reach down into the shame spiral, pluck me out, wrap me up in a warm chenille blanket and bask me in its warmth.

My centering thought is "This too shall pass."

I always viewed this mantra as being fairly negative until I realized that I was putting the pessimistic spin on it. Bad things happen, and we must endure until they pass and we move on. But good things happen too - a lot. I don't tend to remember them as much as I should, but they do. And just like the shitty things in life, the good things, too, shall pass. Wait. That sounds even more depressing that just focusing on the bad stuff passing.

Then there are all the things in between, the things that don't fit neatly into the "good" or "bad" columns. Those pass too. It allows me to live in the moment, to really enjoy those shiny moments and gets me through the dark times with a bit more patience.

So many things have happened in the first nine days of this ninth year - some clearly "good," some clearly "bad" and one big one that is under the "N/A" column. And since I can't tell anyone else about these things, I will tell all of you at once, albeit anonymously.

Approximately 2 hours ago I discovered I was pregnant.

For the eighth time.

Before you start calling TLC and pitching my life as a reality show, I should clarify that I have one child, a son who on this blog goes by the name my husband and I almost named him, after balking at the last minute: Moses. So if you do the math, that leaves 6 pregnancies that never came to fruition.

After number 6, I decided it was too hard to go through the loss of another miscarriage. But what I didn't do was get any form of birth control. See, one of the contributing factors to all the losses is this genetic fuckedupness that puts me at risk for blood clots. Once they figured that out, it was no more birth control pills, shots or patches for me. I tried the diaphragm once. I got it in there just fine, but when it came to taking it out - well, have you ever tried something on at a store that is obviously too small for you and so you instantly tell yourself, "Take that hideous thing off" but the thing is so snug that it's stuck and you're contorting yourself like a Cirque du Solei performer, and it's still not coming off, and you start to sweat, and you think you heard a quiet ripping sound, and then there's a knock on the door and a voice that sings, "Is everything all right in there?" and you look up at the hidden camera and you realize there's probably a 19 year old high school dropout watching your every move? Well, my experience was like that, except it was all in my vagina.

So I decided to go rhythm. But I'm not a great dancer and not exactly the best with dates and numbers. Also, sorry about the grossness and the intimacy of this seeing that we've just met, but I never let the, you know, "stuff" hang out a lot. For someone of an advanced age and multiple college degrees, you would think I would know better, but when it comes to sex, I tend to operate with the knowledge I learned from watching After School Specials. I figured if I ran to the toilet immediately upon completion and flush away any man juice, I should be pretty safe. How romantic!

Well now my husband is walking around all proud of his super duper super sperm and I'm in a weird state of... something. Ever since the last miscarriage in May, I have spent considerable time talking myself out of wanting another kid. So when the plus sign emerged in the window of the pee-soaked stick, I wasn't totally stoked. But then I realized that the likelihood that this one would make it past 11 weeks was slim, and I felt a little relieved. Then I felt a little bit sad.

So even though I'm pregnant for the 8th time, and even though I am a mother of an amazing 4 year old, this blog won't be just about mommy stuff. I've got way too much dirt to dish to limit it to just parenting. My sister in on the brink of a legimate nervous breakdown, my parents are into year 4 of their divorce, my widowed, neurotic, Jewish mother-in-law lives only 20 minutes away and is at my house constantly, I work full time at home while taking care of my kid, and my husband works 16 hours a day.

So if this interests you, come back tomorrow and see if I've started bleeding! Something for you to look forward to - I know you won't be able to sleep tonight.