Uhhh...Really?

I'm afraid to type it. I'm afraid if I utter the words, it will end. I didn't expect to be this nervous... According to a cheap chinese mail-order test and a more expensive bought-in-the-usa test - I am pregnant. Okay, I said it. I expected my period last week on Thurs or Friday, but as usual, I tested early on Wednesday. A couple weeks back, I ordered some pregnancy tests (strips) from China. They cost $2.00 for a pack of ten. I did it just for shits and giggles. So I peed in a dixie cup on Wednesday morning while my 2 year old watched Sid the Science Kid. I dropped the stick in the cup and waited to see the lone line that would confirm the absence of pregnancy hormones. But what to my surprise did I see? A faint second line... After picking myself up off the floor, I dug around in my bathroom cabinet and found a "more reputable" home pregnancy test and stuck that one in my cup of pee. Drum roll please - there was a plus sign in one window. Wait - what does that mean? Where are the directions?!?! Yup, it means I've got pregnancy hormones in my pee.

Back in June when I saw the positive pregnancy test after trying month after month, I cried a little. I was so excited and happy and beside myself, that I cried. This time I just sighed real big and then hugged my son. I'm so scared. I'm afraid be excited. I keep praying and begging this little one to stick and be healthy and hang in there. I'm hoping I will be a little bit more at ease once I have that first appointment w/ my OB and I see the heartbeat. The sucky thing is my last miscarriage happened at 9 1/2 weeks which was after my first OB appt, after I saw the heartbeat. I don't want to be weary this entire time - I want to enjoy my pregnancy and be happy. My first pregnancy was marred w/ a lot of stress and I've so looked forward to a pregnancy where I could focus on being pregnant and not dealing w/ a lot of outside problems. Maybe this will be the one. The only thing I can do is take one day at a time.

The Party

I realized today that posting and updating this blog is keeping me a little more sane. This morning I read a few blogs I follow - mostly blogs from women who were dealing w/ issue of infertility and then got pregnant. While I'm really happy these women have gotten pregnant, I still get depressed reading their blogs (then why do I read them you might ask...good question and one I've been asking myself for a while). I suppose I read them b/c it give me hope that I will get pregnant eventually. There's one particular blog I follow consistently and have been reading since April or May. This blogger had been dealing w/ infertility for a few years and after several IVFs, she got pregnant about the same time I did in June. So, each week she reports on how she is doing and how the baby is growing - just like my life would be if I were still pregnant. She's still going strong and I'm so happy for her, but still sad I'm not pregnant and able to report on my pregnancy week to week. Having a baby/child is huge. You cannot feel the emotions of being a mother, of having someone totally dependent on you, unless you have a child. I am so blessed b/c I have my son and even if I am never able to have another child, I got that one chance to be pregnant. I got that one chance to have baby showers and then spend hours touching and organizing all of the gifts in the nursery. I got that one chance to go through labor and deliver a beautiful healthy baby. I got that one chance to go through sleepless nights and breast feed what seemed like every minute of the day. I got that one chance to see my baby do all those "firsts" - smiling; reaching; rolling over; sitting up; saying mama; crawling; walking, etc. I got that one chance to plan and celebrate my son's first birthday (and every birthday thereafter) and do so many other things that mean the world to me. You know, I really don't have any reason to believe I will not get pregnant again and some of this is just momentary pity for myself. I think the moment has passed.

Here's some shots from the big 2nd birthday party.

Pic 1- Eating cake batter b/f the big event.

Pic 2 - The spread.

Pic 3 - Pool party.

Pic 4 - Blowing out the candle.

Happy birthday little man!!!

For The Love of Painkillers

I went back to the dentist last week b/c I was still in pain and thinking I should be feeling better after a week. Yup, I had a dry socket. It must not have been that bad b/c my doc cleaned it and stuffed if full of that horrible garlic/clove tasting stuff and said I didn't need to come back unless things weren't improving. I'm one day shy of two weeks out and I feel much, much better. I can't say I'm pain free, but I'm close. I still have gaping holes in the back of my mouth and I can't eat anything with sharp edges (like chips), but I feel a million times better now.

My dentist gave me a script for loritab right after the surgery. Boy, that stuff really knocked me on my ass. I stopped taking it after a few days b/c I really had a hard time functioning. The motrin, on the other hand, helped a great deal w/ the pain, but didn't get me so high. You would think I would have enjoyed the loritab more, but not so much. I hear street value of these things are pretty high...maybe I could make some easy money w/ the left overs...

The dentist prescribed me some more 800 mg motrin and started me on antibiotics after the dry socket incident so I started doing a little research on all the drugs I was taking. I wondered if taking all the meds would affect my (dusty) eggs. I couldn't really get a good answer to my questions, but I imagine pumping my body full of these meds isn't helping matters.

From what my body is telling me, I should be ovulating w/in the next 48 hours. After trying to get pregnant for several months, I started using the first response ovulation detectors earlier this year. It helped me figure out my cycle b/c prior to I was assuming I was ovulating when I really wasn't. Even w/ the detectors though, it took me five months to get pregnant. I really hope it doesn't take that long again. While five months really isn't that long in the grand scheme of things...it feels like forever for us. My husband originally said he thought it would take three months after the miscarriage to get pregnant again. I hope he was guessing one month too long.

And This Is Why I Hate Dentists

Did I mention that I was getting my widsom teeth pulled last week? OMFG - I would rather go through child birth than have my wisdom teeth removed again. I went in on Wednesday, had full sedation and the whole procedure took about 1 hour. The top two were cake, but the bottom two had to be cut out. The drugs were pretty good as evidenced by the fact that I don't remember much of that day after the surgery. The next day my sister laughed her ass off as she retold the story of me calling her while I was on my way home after the surgery. She said I was babbling a great deal. Lovely. Now I'm six days out and still in a lot of pain. The pain meds help, but wear off early and I can't eat much more than soup, mashed potatoes and ice cream. You might think this would be a great opportunity to lose weight, but I have to eat in order to take my meds. I was a fool to think I would be back to normal within a few days...I actually thought I would be going to work last week on Friday. I chose to spend most of the day on the couch.

Not much else going on. I'm assuming I should be ovulating sometime late next week which means it's time to start peeing on sticks and marking my calendar. Swim little guys...swim!

Another Crappy Monday

I got my period. Confirmation that I'm not pregnant. Like I really thought it would happen this quickly...well, maybe I did. I keep going over the same things in my head, week after week - if I get pregnant this month, I'll be due this month - If I don't get pregnant this month, but I do the following month, I'll be due this month. If I ovulate this date, I have x number of days before I should expect my period. If I get my period on this day - I should expect to ovulate x number of days later. I'm so sick of counting and estimating and wishing.

Can you believe I've been close to crying all morning. This is just shitty. I should be 15 1/2 weeks along.

It's Wednesday, Not Monday

You ever have those weeks where you have Monday off, but when you go to work on Tuesday, it still feels like a Monday?? That was my day yesterday. I was so bitchy too. Not helpful. I had clients calling all day whining to me about their problems and I just wanted to yell back... "I'm having a shitty day too. Now who's going to listen to me?" I bit my tongue and listened to every one of those phone calls and offered up my sympathy. Today doesn't feel like a Monday so that's good news.

We had the big 2nd birthday party this weekend for J. It was a blast. To be two again. J had his regular backyard toys - his climber w/ a slide and his playhouse - and we added two swimming pools and a sprinkler. The kids went nuts. They were in and out of the pool, running through the sprinkler, flying down the slide, climbing on top of the playhouse. All of us adults got tired just watching the kids run around. I learned three things from the birthday festivities:

1) middle children take getting beat up really well;
2) birthday boys do not like to share their gifts; and
3) sugar and late nights result in some interesting behaviors in toddlers

J got mad at a 3 1/2 year old for playing w/ one of his new toys and nearly pulled out a handful of her hair and then tried to take her down like you see in the ultimate fighting matches. I'm not so good at getting my child to release a handful of hair.

On the pregnancy front...I'm not sure where I am. My miscarriage started five weeks and one day ago. I had beginning signs of being fertile 14 days ago (which usually means my eggs likely dropped a few days after that). In the old days, I would get my period anywhere between 13-15 days after ovulation. That leads me to believe if I'm not pregnant, I'll get my period within the next three days. As usual, I'm a mess thinking there's always that small possibility I did get knocked up and I want to take a pregnancy test every day until I get the ultimate confirmation that I'm not pregnant - my period. At least getting my period should start me on a normal cycle again.

My friend A - who had a miscarriage two weeks before me - is waiting to get on a regular schedule too. That girl is a "fertile" if I've ever met one. She went off the pill in January 2008 and got pregnant in March. She had a miscarriage and then got pregnant again in June. Miscarried that one in July and now she's hoping the third time's a charm. I went off the pill in February of 2007 and it took me until June of 2008 b/f I got pregnant. Jeez, what does she have that I don't?

I'll report back once I get my period b/c I know everyone is dying to know about my cycle. That's a joke...

Finally Over

Who else is happy the Olymics are over??? I am thrilled. Not because I hated watching the Olymics, but because I liked watching the Olympics too much which in turn meant less sleep! I don't remember the last time I saw that much flipping, running, swimming and diving and stayed up past 10 p.m. every night. Seriously though, I really did enjoy the Olympics. It's an incredible event and we get to experience it with millions of other humans all over the globe. Koodos to all the athletes and coaches. What will I do to fill the hours now?

I made it through my appointment last week. I was seething mad when I left the doctor's office. First off, I had to pay a $20 co-pay (more on that later), then it took 45 minutes to get to see my OB and then he spent about 5 minutes with me telling me stuff I couldn have learned through a telephone conversation. Here's how the appointment went...

"Hi Lisa, how are you feeling?"

"Fine, thanks"

(looking at his computer screen) "Well, everything looks fine...we'll take a look at todays bloodwork once it's back and if there is anything to be concerned about, we'll call you...take care..."

What??? Again, why this appointment had to take place is beyond me. Maybe to get that stupid $20 co-pay. $20 is not a lot of money, that's not the point. The point is with my first pregnancy and delivery, I paid $20 on my first visit and then had to pay something like $200 to the hospital and that's it. A grand total of $220 to HAVE a baby. But with my miscarriage, I have had to pay $20 every time I had an appt. to see the doctor, even when it was a follow-up visit and I only spent 5 (non)quality minutes w/ my OB. Figures.

Back To The Drawing Board

It's been a while since I've posted...only three posts and I'm already getting lazy. Not a good start.

I have my "two weeks after the miscarriage, let's make sure everything's okay" doctor's appointment this afternoon. They will draw blood first to see if all the pregnancy hormones are out of my system. Last week I was still at 16.7. Besides being stuck w/ a needle today, I so don't want to have to have another v ultrasound. It's so much easier to do when you're pregnant, but invasive when you're not. Amazing how we get used to showing the world our most intimate body parts. Hopefully everything looks good and I'll get the thumbs up to start trying again. I know they recommend waiting until having one regular cycle, but I'm not going to do anything to prevent getting pregnant right now. If it happens, it happens. I don't expect it to happen, but I would be thrilled if it did. My hubby thinks it will happen in three months. He had the timing right last time so I'm thinking I might want to listen to him.

The summer is rapidly coming to an end. I see school buses now in the morning. Joseph can't get enough of school buses and keeps asking to ride one. Geez, slow down little guy. I don't even want to start thinking about sending him away to school. Last night Joseph was naming different body parts and then pointing to them - like his chin, elbows and knees. I found it funny because we talk about the "basic" body parts, but who ever asks their kid to point to their chin? Maybe I'm out of the loop. He was also running around asking for a helmet since another little boy at daycare has one because he is always running into walls. How do I explain to my son that he really shouldn't want to wear a helmet...only accident prone, crazy kids need helmets. Probably not the best thing to say.

Time to pack it up and get poked and prodded again.

Imbalanced

I spent more time at my least favorite place yesterday...the doctor's office. Gone are the days where I would sit in the waiting room w/ a little smile on my face as I watched the other pregnant women walk by. Now I sit in the waiting room and refuse to look up b/c I don't want to sneer at these women or burst out crying. I had an ultrasound and it looks like I did things naturally on Tuesday, no need for further intervention. That's good. At least my body recognized something was wrong and took care it. Now I have to have blood work done once a week until all the pregnancy hormones are out of my body. Every time I get blood drawn, my arm looks like a battlefield. I usually don't bruise this easily after giving blood, but it's been rough the last few times. No, I don't use intravenous street drugs...

On a lighter note, I am planning my son's second birthday party. He will turn two in a few weeks and while we're not going to go crazy, we will have a backyard bbq. Joseph loves Elmo so we're working on an Elmo theme. I am a big fan of water in the summer - swimming pool, beach, sprinkler, etc. So in addition to Elmo, I want to add some backyard water activities for the kids. It's so refreshing to see little kids playing in a mini pool or running through the sprinkler. I live in the southeast and we are in a drought, but it is a kid's birthday party so we can cheat a little right??? I'll have most of the neighbors over so hopefully no one will call the county on us while we're wasting water with sprinklers and swimming pools.

Day Three Of "The Process"

I went to the dentist this morning and had to fill out a bunch of paperwork b/c it was the first time I had ever been to this particular clinic. In the health questionnaire part, I was asked about whether I was under a physicians care and why. Monday morning I was under a physicians care because I was pregnant. By Monday afternoon, I was still under a physicians care, but I was no longer pregnant. When I made my dentist appointment several weeks ago, I told them I was pregnant and asked about x-rays and getting my wisdom teeth removed, wondering whether that would be an issue. This morning, I had to check that little box that said "NO" under the question "Are you pregnant?"

At least I made it through yesterday. It was tough. I spent most of Monday walking around in shock. I was shocked that anything was wrong b/c I felt fine. I was shocked that they couldn't detect the baby's heartbeat. I was shocked that I was no longer going to have a baby due in March. Yesterday was different than Monday. I was in pain and I had symptoms that clearly told me something was wrong. I had "the" miscarriage yesterday. Without going into any details, I went through a process yesterday that confirmed I literally lost my baby and there was nothing I could do about it. So now it's day three of the process and physically I'm feeling better. My heart is still broken, but at least yesterday is behind me.

I've heard at least three stories lately where women had miscarriages and then got pregnant again within two months. That gives me hope that we won't have to struggle another year to get pregnant again, that it will happen quickly. I'm afraid of that hope and what it will do to me if I don't get pregnant fairly soon after this is all over with. Half of the time, I find myself ignoring what is going on here and now, and instead thinking about when I'll be fertile next month and when I should expect my period and what my new due date would be if I got pregnant again real soon. I'm just building up hope that something is going to happen right away and it's going to kill me if it doesn't work out that way.

Did I mention that my dog died a month ago? He was 14 1/2 years old and the best darn maltese you could ever have. Talk about a depressing past few months.

It will get better. I have hope and faith and I shouldn't let that go just because I run the risk of getting hurt again. How cliche, but tomorrow is a new day.

One of the worst and best days of my life.

Over the past few months I've found myself perusing the internet reading other people's blogs. What led me to their blogs? Well, I have been desperate to get pregnant and once the word "infertility" entered my vocabulary, I had to google it. It's comforting to read about other people who are having problems too. Misery loves company. I found a few blogs that I enjoyed reading and kept coming back to get updates. I wanted to comment on those blogs and talk about things that were happening to me. We all love to talk about ourselves. Instead of boring people on their blogs, I figured why start my own blog. Of course no one may ever read this or any other comment I make, but at least it's mine and I can vent and talk about myself as much as I want.

Why did I title this entry as "one of the worst and best days of my life"? Let's get the bad news out first. After my desperate pleas to get pregnant, it happened. But as quickly as it happened, it was taken away from me. We found out in June we were going to have a baby and now a little over a month later, I'm having a miscarriage. The dreaded "M" word. I have a healthy, perfect, adorable little boy who will be two in a month so I'm blessed. Yes, I am one of the lucky ones because I already have a child. But the fact that I already have a baby doesn't make this any less sad and miserable and just plain sucky. We want lots of kids and maybe I shouldn't have waited so late in life to start having a family - I'm 35 - practically OLD. But life has happened the way it's happened and I can't go back and change things. After having our first baby, we wanted more. We were ready to start trying for another as soon as six months after having our first. Crazy, but true. Apparently that wasn't in the cards for us because it took what seemed like forever to get pregnant again (even though the first one only took a few months). And now it's even more clear that we aren't suppose to have another baby for a little bit longer. What started out Friday night as a little spotting with no concern (b/c I went through the same things w/ my first) has turned into what the medical community diagnosed as a "missed abortion."

Now on to the happy news. Today is my 13th Anniversary. My husband and I have been married for 13 years. Wow. That's a really long time. I can't say all of those 13 years were happy cause we went through a pretty rough patch a few years back. But overall, it's been great. I married my best friend and I love him to death.

My mission for the day is every time I start dwelling on the fact that I'm currently having a miscarriage, instead, I will remember back 13 years ago...what was I doing at this exact moment in time 13 years ago? I'm pretty certain that at 9:47 a.m. on Saturday, August 5, 1995, I had just gotten my hair done and I was at the church putting on my dress so that we could start taking pictures. We hadn't opened a beer yet - it was still a little early for that. I do know I was surrounded by people I love and I felt more beautiful that day than I had ever felt in my entire life.

While I'm angry at God for taking away the precious baby that had been growing inside of me, I am also thankful to God for giving me a perfect wedding day 13 years ago, a wonderful husband and a son that makes every day worth getting up for.


Now if I can just get through this day...