How To Be A Pregnant Lady

I Just Don't Know What To Say

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:18:00 +0000

Let me start by assuring you that everything is fine - or at least it was a couple of weeks ago, when we saw the baby's heartbeat on ultrasound. I have no reason to believe that things are still not fine. My morning sickness has subsided for the most part, but at 11w5d, that's perfectly normal. Other than fatigue and my very tender boobs, I've been pretty much asymptomatic. We never found out where the bleeding came from, but it doesn't really matter anyway.

I want to apologize, sincerely, for my absence. It shames me to say that I haven't written anything because I haven't had anything to say...and I haven't had anything to say because so far I have utterly failed at bonding with this pregnancy.

It's not like it was the first time. The first time I was in love from the day I found out. I was so really ridiculously thrilled to be pregnant. I was walking on sunshine. This time I don't feel much of anything. I'd hoped that it would change once we saw the heartbeat. It didn't. My husband cried when we saw her little heart thumping on the screen, but I didn't have much of an emotional response at all. I was glad, certainly, that things were all right...but only distantly.

I've tried to force myself to feel something. I've been telling more and more people, in hopes that their excitement would help me to make this real. I started buying baby clothes. I started making a baby registry. I've bought a book or two. And it still doesn't feel like anything.

The only explanation I have for my lack of emotion is that some part of me must be trying to protect myself from getting hurt again. Some part of me is staying distant so that if things don't turn out well...maybe it won't be as bad as last time. I don't want to think that way (and consciously, I really don't), but why else would I continue feel like this pregnancy is not a real part of my life yet?

I have no doubt that when the baby comes, I'll be head over heels in love. But I don't want to start feeling that way on the day she is born, I want to feel that way now. I want to trust that things will be all right and that we really will bring home a child this August.

Maybe it will change when I start feeling her kick, or when I start showing. Maybe it will change all at once, with no particular explanation for why, just like the day that I realized that I was ready to start trying for another baby. Maybe when I reach the second trimester, which is so very close now, whatever bit of leftover paranoia that I still have will leave me, and I can start to enjoy the thought of being a mom-to-be again.

I just don't know. But I am very grateful for all of the kindness that you all have shown me. I'll try to be better about writing. It's just very difficult right now.

And Now We Wait

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 13:10:00 +0000

After weeks of being almost completely asymptomatic, I started spotting yesterday afternoon. Just that quickly, my chances of losing this pregnancy ballooned from 5% (that's the probability of having two miscarriages in a row) to 50%, the probability of miscarrying after having spotting or bleeding.

Marcus and I had to haul ass to find someplace to get my blood drawn before they all wrapped up for the weekend, but of course we won't find out what my hCG levels are until Monday. I'm also getting a second draw on Monday before work to see if my levels are rising properly, and I've been prescribed Prometrium (a progesterone supplement) in the meantime.

We should find out before the New Year whether or not this pregnancy is already over. I don't have a good feeling about this, friends. Not at all. I could feel more optimistic if I'd been having any sort of symptoms in the past two weeks, but I haven't. No fatigue, no increased appetite, no morning sickness, no pulling feelings low in my abdomen, no bloody noses, NONE of the stuff I experienced last time except for sore nipples (and they're not even all that sore).

Midwife Me!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:06:00 +0000

I've decided against calling Doctor D. I did like her demeanor, and as receptive as I was to working with her while trying to conceive, I've since of fallen on the side of not wanting to work with an obstetrician for this pregnancy. Fortunately, my insurance covers nurse-midwives, and I've already called and made an appointment for January 14th with a highly recommended local practice.

I have trust issues with doctors as it is, and my last pregnancy sort of reinforced that. My last GYN seemed okay, until it became apparent that I had miscarried, at which point her attitude towards me and my situation became mechanical and almost stand-offish. After waking up from my D&C, one of the nurses became impatient with me and treated me as if I was purposely wasting her time because I was sobbing so hard that my heart rate stayed elevated. Experiences like that made me feel as if I was just a body (a lame body, at that) that had to be dealt with and not a woman in mourning.

This time, I want an experience that is more intimate and less clinical. I want to work with a woman who is empathetic, trustworthy, knowledgable, and LISTENS to me. I also want minimal intervention with this pregnancy.

Has anyone hear had experience with a midwife (or know someone else who has)? I'd like to know how you felt about it and whether you would do it again. If you chose not to use a midwife, I'd like to know why. I'm not entirely decided and I'd love it if you shared your experiences and concerns with me!

Today

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 13:44:00 +0000

So it's been a little over 24 hours since I peed positive. I'm nervous. I'm trying to take things one day at a time - which is a great difference from how I handled my first pregnancy. During my first pregnancy I focused on various points in the future and counted down obsessively; I had countdowns for the ends of every week and month, one countdown to my first ultrasound, one to the beginning of the second trimester, and one to my due date. I had so many days to look forward to, each for different reasons.

Not so much this time. I know how far along I am (3w6d today) and I know my due date, but I haven't bothered calculating anything else. I think that my first trimester ends around Valentine's Day, but I don't know for sure. I'm not keeping track. I don't even have an interest in thinking about the future because I can't take for granted that this pregnancy will make it.

The first time I got pregnant, I was terrified that I was going to lose it from the very beginning. I knew what the odds were and I knew that there were a lot of factors that were completely out of my control. Everyone, my husband included, dismissed my anxiety as unfounded paranoia. They would use words like "when" and when I corrected them with words like "if," the reaction was often along the lines of, "Don't be silly, you're not going to miscarry, of course there's going to be a baby."

When I did miscarry, I was too wrapped up in my own head and heart to say, "I told you so." But I did think it. A lot.

And now with this, my second August pregnancy, I'm trying more than ever to just keep myself in the here and now and not take anything for granted. Today I am pregnant, and today I am grateful for being pregnant. If I'm still pregnant tomorrow, I'll be grateful for it then too.

August 23rd

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:50:00 +0000

I was woken up this morning by a very whiny, very needy cat. Rocky was meowing and pawing beneath the door, a habit that drives us up the wall but we haven't corrected much lately as long as he waits until at least 7:30 (which is when I'm SUPPOSED to get up) to start. I turned off my alarm, determined to sleep in, when I remembered that I'm supposed to take a pregnancy test this morning. Today I am 12dpo, and even though the test had come up negative on Wednesday, there was a chance that it was a false negative. I wasn't all that excited, but it was enough to get me out of bed.

I peed on a FRER and then waited for the line(s) to show up. It took less than a minute for a solid pink line to appear on the right side of the window. A single line. Negative. Yet again.

I can't say that I was disappointed, really. At this point I'm just tired. I sat with my head in my hands and wondered, What is wrong with me? Is our timing completely off? Am I not ovulating? Are we fertilizing successfully, but just failing to implant? I thought about the corpus luteum cyst I had on my right ovary during my last pregnancy, and my failure to get a follow-up exam for it after the miscarriage (I couldn't stand the thought of yet ANOTHER ultrasound in another depressing pregnancy-centric room), and I wondered if it was still there and mucking things up. I thought about calling Dr. D and making an appointment for January, after our next inevitably failed cycle, and winced at the thought of the tests and medications that lie ahead.

And then I looked back at the test, and there was a second line. It was faint - so faint that I couldn't be sure that my eyes weren't playing tricks. I woke Marcus up to make sure - and he could see it too. It darkened slowly and by the time ten minutes had passed, I could see the second line at arms' length even without my glasses on. It was absolutely, undeniably, amazingly POSITIVE.

I have a lot on my mind right now and not enough time to get into it all, friends. But you can expect a lot more entries from me, especially now that I have more to write about.

I'm trying not to get too excited. Anything can happen. It's still really, really early, and my chances of a loss are very high. But at least we made it this far. At least I know it's still possible.

My due date is August 23, 2009. May this one stick around long enough to meet us then.

The Battle Begins

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:56:00 +0000

Today I am 10dpo. This time every month, I start to get antsy. This is the point at which a FRER (First Response Early Response) could possibly show a positive. Between today and 13dpo lies the Gulf of False Negatives, a torturous place in which the sticks come up white but hope is still hurtfully alive. As I do every month, I try to hold out for as long as I can. The first month we were ttc I think I tested on 7dpo or something crazy like that. The last month, I somehow managed to make myself wait until 11dpo. Here's a nifty chart to illustrate my relationship with early testing:

Right now I'm trying to focus on Friday. That would be 12dpo and my chances of a false negative are much lower. If I make it that long, I can be proud of myself.

And To Think, I Used To Be The Kid Picked Last For Sports

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 15:06:00 +0000

I subbed for an absentee curler on a team of strangers last night, and while my team ultimately lost, I didn't do too badly and even had my ego stroked quite a bit by a couple of the senior curlers. After delivering one of my stones, a woman who has been curling for over five years remarked, "You have the most beautiful form I've ever seen on a new curler." (I'd heard the sentiment before from other new curlers, but this was the first time a seasoned curler had commented on my form.)

Late in the game, my team's skip (for you non-curlers out there, the skip is the captain and main strategist of the team) pulled me aside and said, "You curl very well. I was wondering if you'd be interested in being on my team in the second half of the season. That way I'll technically have a new curler, [it's mandatory to have players of mixed experience on a team in the casual leagues - August] but we'll have an advantage!"

The fact that I was being recruited to be a sort of newbie ringer on someone's team was pretty damn flattering, especially since I've only been at the sport for about 6 weeks! After we lost, the woman told me, "You're going to be an awesome curler. Let me guess - you've always been a jock?" Taken aback, I laughed and told her that I have always sucked at sports, but I was ever-so-grateful for the compliment.

I've been in a pretty good mood lately because I'm positive that I actually ovulated this cycle. I know, we're supposed to be on a break from ttc - and we are. I haven't touched that thermometer or microscope even once. But my usual post-ov symptoms, which I haven't had in a couple of months, kicked in pretty strongly on cycle day 15. The familiarity of my symptoms is assuring even if we aren't pregnant this cycle; I'm just glad to know that my plumbing still works even occasionally.

If something has made you smile lately, share it here. I'm all about the good news lately!

Not Everyone Gets The Memo

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:41:00 +0000

The day that I found out that I had miscarried, I immediately made a few announcements (mostly online) to people, in order to stop the influx of inquiries about the baby. I also requested that people not flood me with their condolences; I just wanted to be left alone with my grief. Naturally, not everyone got the memo (and I certainly wasn't as thorough as I could have been when updating people), and for weeks and months afterwards I still received comments and queries regarding the pregnancy that no longer was.

In the beginning it was very hard. A friend left a comment on a Facebook picture of me on a unicycle: "Is that safe in your condition??" A neighbor asked me several months later how far along I was, even though I was clearly not visibly pregnant and should have been far into my second trimester. I got a call from my insurance company's maternity department to talk to me about my birthing options. Even as recently as Halloween, an acquaintance at a party blithely asked, "You were pregnant the last time I saw you. How'd that go?" [I just as cheerfully responded, "I miscarried!"]

It happens. All the time, it happens. And for the most part I've gotten used to it. I know that one of these days will be the last time - it has to be. People can't go on asking me about the baby forever, right?

In any case, the most recent faux pas was especially sad. Marcus and I used to model for a friend of his back when we were dating, and since he moved to Maryland to be with me, he's only kept in contact with her through the occasional email. Apparently they must not talk that frequently, because she emailed him the other night asking if we wanted to bring the baby in for family photos.

One of these days it will end, I'm sure of it. It has to.

Truth Hurts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:25:00 +0000

I picked Sega up and held her face close to mine last night before bed. This is the conversation that I had with my little kitten:

Me: Do you love me?
Sega: *blank stare*
Me: Okay, do you like me?
Sega: *blank stare*
Me: Um...do you tolerate me?
Sega: *blank stare*
Me: Are you planning to kill me?
Sega: *eagerly licks my nose as if to say You bet! and then bounces cheerfully away*

I suppose I should appreciate her honesty.

In other news, we currently have four cats living with us right now. We're catsitting for a friend while he's out of town for the week, and the poor girl is inexplicably injured (we didn't do it, my friend came home and found her limping yesterday). She's sad, misses her daddy (she spends her day curled up in one of his shirts), and is going to be furious when I have to stick her in the cat carrier and subject her to the vet's poking and prodding tonight. I really hope that I don't get bit, but I can't be too mad at her if I do; I'm a stranger to her, after all, and she's frightened and in pain.

I'm hoping to befriend the new cat sometime during the next week, though. I'll need all the protection I can get from my devious kitten and her nefarious plots.

Four Months

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:40:00 +0000

I have a deceptively young face, such that when I showed up at my local polling place to cast my ballot, the election judges asked me if I was old enough to vote. Strangers regularly assume that I'm still in college, or even in high school. And I can forget about buying drinks or seeing an R-rated movie without my ID. (The looks and snide comments I get from strangers when buying pregnancy tests is no thrill ride either.) As a result of this, I'm actually really really bad at guessing the age of others. I can't assume that anyone is as young as they look, because others can't make that assumption about me.

Not so with children. I know children. I grew up with a lot of kids, thanks to the daycare my parents ran in our home, and I've helped care for dozens of children of various ages for over a decade. I can accurately estimate the age of an infant, toddler, or young child with a glance, and I'm familiar with the developmental milestones that kids typically reach as they age. I can easily recognize developmental outliers ("Wow, she's TALL for six months!"). I just know kids.

If I'd given birth in August, we would now have a child almost four months old. It may sound odd to have a favorite developmental period, but I do. And it starts at four months. I've found the time between four and eighteen months to be the most fun, the most exciting, and among the most adventerous (for us, the parents; not necessarily for the child). It's not like the fun and excitement of being a parent suddenly stops once a child approaches two; but it does change to a different brand of fun. I simply adore kids at that age and I have always looked forward to sharing that time with my own child.

The holidays are going to be rough on me this year. This time last year, I was pregnant and didn't know it yet. I spent Thanksgiving with my family, gorged on turkey, and joked with my cousins and aunts, completely unaware of what was going on inside me. I'd hoped that this Thanksgiving would be different, that I would have a new baby to introduce to them. And even after the loss, I thought that I would be pregnant again by now, but we don't even have that news to share. I thought that this holiday would be particularly special, in that the family that I only see once a year would finally welcome me as a mother, as my cousins were before me, and that they would welcome my son as one of their own, as I was before him.

I've started to cry, and that's no good since I'm at work right now, so I'm just going to end this entry now. Sorry for the abruptness, friends.

TTC: Cycle 6

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:40:00 +0000

Verdict: Failure.
Future Prospects: SUCK.

As you can see in the chart below, I gave up early on in the cycle. We had sex a couple of times during my fertile phase (if I had a fertile phase), but I didn't bother recording it. My growing sense of futility is not such a great motivator to chart diligently, as it turns out.

This past cycle was particularly unfair, in that my period was a couple of days late, but the tests still came up negative. The last time my period was late (an entire year ago, now), I was pregnant. This time...not so much.

In the meantime, Fertility Friend is throwing a fit because my subscription is about to expire. I don't intend to renew it for now. Doctor D wants to see me if the next couple cycles are a bust, so I'm going to take break from charting for the next two months. It's just such a pain in the ass to deal with the temping and all that, just to see every damn cycle to come to the same disappointing end.

How To Soothe A Crying Infant In 5 Easy Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:10:00 +0000

Doctor Harvey Karp, pediatrician and author of The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer (damn, what an obnoxiously long book title!), claims to have discovered how to activate a calming reflex in infants. My first instinct, as usual, is to think that it's simply too good to be true, but the video is pretty interesting:

Now, the shushing really really doesn't sound like anything I would consider to be "soothing" for a baby, but Doc Karp remarks that the sound of a woman's blood flowing through her veins sounds about as loud as a vacuum cleaner to the growing fetus. I'm not sure if that's true (a cursory Google search didn't turn up anything), but there are a lot of mothers in one of my pregnancy forums who swear by this method - basically, every one who of them who has tried it says that once they figured out the right formula for their kid (some kids were more responsive to one particular step than others), it worked like a charm.

Has anyone out there ever tried this or heard of it? Would any of you with infants be willing to give it a shot and share the results with us? Y' know...for science?

Sometimes It Just Sucks To Be Pregnant

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:31:00 +0000

Health officials in North Dakota are now recommending that pregnant women and children under 6 abstain from eating meat from animals that were killed using lead bullets. This recommendation comes on the heels of a study which found that people who eat wild game killed with lead bullets had higher levels of lead in their blood. So I guess that means we can add venison to the long, long list of things that pregnant ladies can't have. (I wonder what this means for low-income rural families whose primary source of food is what they've hunted themselves?)

Meanwhile, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found that the incidence of employment discrimination against pregnant women is still going strong, even thirty years after the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

Obviously, there are financial reasons why a firm might not want to hire a pregnant woman: her health insurance will be more expensive and she'll have to take some leave in the foreseeable future. Even so, if it can be proved that that's the only reason she wasn't hired, that firm could be facing the EEOC. "You can imagine the slippery slope," says Frye. "First it's, 'Don't hire a pregnant woman.' Then it becomes, 'Don't hire a woman at all, because she could get pregnant and is likely to be the primary caregiver.'"

Then there are the studies that suggest that pregnant women just plain gross some people out. In one, people who viewed videotapes of non-pregnant women and visibly pregnant women doing the same task judged the pregnant women more negatively (and no, the activity was not smoking. Or sit-ups.)

That bias may stem from an urge to give pregnant women lesser duties. "People may feel they're doing the right thing," suggests Frye. "But they're not."

The emphasis above is mine. I'll be looking into these pregnancy gross-out studies later.

I feel like I should apologize for my recent lack of posts. In all honesty, I get sort of bummed out sometimes reading and writing so much about pregnancy, all while we continue to struggle to conceive. It just starts so feel very, very masochistic after a while.

Okay, I Surrender!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:12:00 +0000

I'm giving up on this cycle. My temps don't indicate a thermal shift and my microscope also says that I have not ovulated. I'm really just getting tired of it all.

You see the look on Charlie's face? That is how I feel about this cycle.

In other news, I officially joined the curling league today. Dodgeball season ends in two weeks and I need something to keep myself occupied (and to make sure I leave the house and socialize with others!) until we finally catch an egg.

Now I'm off to tend to my pulled groin! (Note to self, stretch before curling.)

A Good Weekend Makes For A Lazy Cycle

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:19:00 +0000

I'm still floating cheerfully on my natural high from an astounding weekend, which has resulted in my being rather lazy with temping, checking cervical mucus and cervical position, and spitting on my tiny microscope. I know you must be wondering, "What could have happened that was so wonderful that August has managed to relax her neurotic grip on ttc?" Allow me to share!

Thursday was like any other day, except for the fantastic dodgeball match we had that evening. I played better than I have all season: I threw further and more accurately, I dodged more quickly, and I caught more balls. My team lost the match (as per usual) but played competitively and managed to win four of the games - and I ended one of those games. There were three of us and two of them left, and I hit one of them out and caught the last guy's ball (he threw it at me while I was distracted with the other guy) in short order. The other team was friendly, playful, and overall a joy to play with.

Friday was a whirlwind of activity. I went to work, ran around like a madwoman trying to do as much as I could in four hours, before leaving to pick up my bridesmaid's dress from the seamstress at David's Bridal. I had about fifteen minutes to breath before I had to shower and dress for the rehearsal. I met the brides and their families at the hotel where the reception was going to be held, we drove to the church and rehearsed the ceremony, went to the restaurant for dinner (one set of grandparents was accidentally left behind at the hotel - d'oh!), and had a grand ol' time with our friends. After dinner, Marcus and I spent the night in the brides' apartment caring for their dog, while they spent the night in their plush hotel suite.

On Saturday we woke up, let the dog out to pee, went to my mom's house to pick up the wedding gifts that she'd bought, then went home, where I promptly panicked when I realized that I couldn't find the shawl to my gown, tore the house apart for half an hour looking for it, then remembered that I'd left it at my mother's house for safekeeping two weeks ago. I showered, grabbed my gown and my shoes, went BACK to my mother's house to pick up the shawl, then went to the hotel for wedding pictures and more running around like a crazy person. The ceremony was beautiful, the brides were gorgeous, and afterwards I got properly smashed at the reception (oh, the joys of waiting to ovulate) and danced my ass off (but not before being reduced to tears while offering a toast to the lovely newlyweds). My husband, who in our three years together has neither seen me drunk nor seen me dance, was absolutely tickled by the sight.

On Sunday morning, a friend and I took a three hour course called "Learn to Curl," where we learned the ins and outs of sliders, grippers, skips, houses, and stones. I had a certain advantage and learned how to shoot the stone rather quickly, as it requires a honed sense of balance - and as a mountain unicyclist, I can say pretty confidently that I am a well-balanced person. I've got to say that I absolutely love curling, and Marcus and I will be returning on Saturday to participate in their breakfast game.

Today is Tuesday, and my abs and thighs are still incredibly sore from dogding, dancing, and curling. I've got another dodgeball game tomorrow night, so hopefully my muscles will feel a tiny bit better by then. Even after all these months and all the frustration, a part of me is very grateful that I got to experience this weekend with no limitations. If I were pregnant, I would not have drank; and if I hadn't drank, I would not have relaxed enough to dance at my sister's wedding, which felt wonderful, as I haven't really danced in about 8 years! It may be a strange thing to be grateful for, but grateful I am. It was a wonderful, heartwarming, amazing celebration, and I'm glad that I got to fully partake.

Our Child, Our Future

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:28:00 +0000

As the election draws near, and as droves of fearful closet racists have begun to act out, I find myself wondering about the culture in which Marcus and I will be raising our children. How do you raise a child to be sensitive and thoughtful towards other races and cultures in a nation that is so saturated with prejudice? Racism is a part of everyday life here; and I do mean that literally - I enounter it almost every single day.

Not all acts of prejudice are equal. Not every act is violent and not every act is hateful. Some are merely annoying or inconvenient. Some may be frightening while others may provoke a mere eyeroll. It's been years since I've actually been brought to tears over it, which means that I should probably count myself lucky.

This is the culture we live in:

At work: Just yesterday, one of my coworkers called another a "chink" and then quickly dismissed her as being oversensitive when she took offense. The day before, another coworker squinted his eyes at her and then told her that he was part Chinese. Last week yet another coworker (there is no shortage, I tell you!) went on a tirade about how interracial marriage is destroying the country.

Online: Ugh, there is no shortage. I frequently come upon psuedo-scholarly rants about how blacks are naturally inferior and less intelligent than whites in Youtube comments, web forums, comments sections in news articles - basically any medium in which anonymous users have the freedom to rant. It doesn't surprise me to see even the most foul and racially charged comments anywhere online, I suppose because I'm used to it.

Retail: While on vacation, Marcus and I went into a souvenir shop that had several t-shirt designs featuring the confederate flag and wonderful slogans such as "It's called the WHITE house for a reason."

Even our nation's holidays are no exception. The whole nation over, children are being taught that we celebrate Christopher Columbus every October because he "discovered" America. The fact that he was a bit of a murderous psychopath and the father of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade never seems worthy of mention. (Is it really progression to whitewash history and pretend that those things never happened, to celebrate a day that the indigenous people of this country rightfully mourn?)

I think about my childhood and I wonder if our children will endure anything like that. It wasn't awful, it certainly could have been worse...but it certainly could have been better. My brother and I were called nigger sometimes by our classmates. When i was 11, a couple of boys in our school threatened to stab me with a broken hula hoop (they swung it about an inch from my face) and then told my 8-year-old brother that they were going to cut off his penis. He was bullied constantly.

One incident that I don't think I'll ever forget happened to me in 7th grade. A black girl named Lynette joined our class (there were about 40 kids to a grade and 20 to a class - it was a very small school) and she was immensely liked by the popular kids. One of those popular girls, someone who had been my classmate for almost a decade, started talking to me at the start of the school year, which came as a surprise to me. She sought me out at lunchtime and talked to me about boys and makeup or some crap like that, and I just sort of tolerated her for a week or two, until the day she suddenly called me Lynette. Startled, I looked at her and stammered, "I'm not Lynette." This girl, who had known me since pre-K but apparently couldn't tell the difference between me and a complete stranger because of our skin color, just stared at me before saying, "Oh" and walking off, ignoring me ever after.

My brother and I never told anyone about the abuses we suffered in school due to our race, and now that I'm all grown up, I have to wonder why. I remember feeling like it was just the way things were and being certain that if I spoke up, I would not be taken seriously. The people that said these things were usually known as good or okay kids; would any of our teachers even believe us that they could be so hateful in secret? I knew that our parents would believe us, but honestly, I still don't know why I didn't tell them either. I hope that if our children are ever threatened or bullied (because of their skin color or any other reason) that they know that they'll be able talk to us about it.

I hope that my children know that I will always be their advocate.

I don't want to be "that" parent, the one that folks in the PTA hate for not being content with the status quo. Common practices that seem minor and harmless to lots of other people don't seem that way to me (for instance, many people would be horrified if their children brought home an assignment to "color the negro" or dressed up in blackface for a play at school - but it's perfectly acceptable to color a caricature of an Indian or to don a stereotypical costume?), and I'm going to raise my children according to my values. The woman in that link sent her son's assignment back uncompleted, which I think was appropriate. But what if he was punished by his teacher for it? I hate to think that my child could get caught in the middle of an ideological struggle because of me, that she may pay for something that she might not even totally understand.

But at the same time, I can't help my convictions. I can't help feeling that some things are worth fighting for even if it gets ugly, that comfort and approval from others is a small price to pay for doing what is right, that some unsavory truths must be dragged into the light if we're to ever achieve...harmony? I don't know. I don't know what I can realistically expect for our children's futures. I just know that I want my kids to be sensitive, to be aware of their privileges, to be grateful, and to be kind. And I want them to know that doing the right thing will sometimes mean pissing a lot of other people off, but that doesn't make it any less right.

TTC: Cycle 5

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:21:00 +0000

Verdict: Failure.
Future Prospects: Meh.

See that temperature spike just two days before the end of the cycle? Yeah, that's never happened before. My highest temp of every cycle has always been on the sixth day past ovulation (and in one case, the seventh). To see it on 12dpo caught me completely off guard, and I actually spent all of Wednesday thinking that I really just might be pregnant. I really did. I was surprised and disappointed on Wednesday night to see the negative test result, but still hopeful. I decided that if Thursday's temp remained high, I would test again, and if not - well, I knew what that meant.

As you can see, Thursday's temp was almost an entire degree lower than Wednesday's. My hopes were dashed and my day was ruined just 2 minutes after I woke up, and I remained in a bitter, tearful mood for most of it (as yesterday's post can tell you).

My consolation is that we get to approach the next cycle with a brand new tool - my microscope. I don't know if it will work, but it's comforting to have something to try.

Polaroid

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:26:00 +0000

Last year, I broke the rule and did what no spouse is supposed to do: I bought a birthday gift for my husband that was really for me. (Although to be fair, it wasn't nearly as egregious as the bowling ball that Homer Simpson bought for his wife.) I surprised him with a Polaroid camera and 4 packs of film. He was skeptical, but I insisted that it wasn't just a present for him or me, but that it was a gift for the family that we were going to have someday (I would conceive just a week later, but I didn't know that then of course). It was a gift for our children.

When I was a child and teen, I used to pore over our family albums. I loved going through them again and again. I loved looking at pictures of my baby brother (he was so adorable) and my dad with his Afro and my mom in her wedding gown. There was so much that I couldn't remember about the early days, but I had proof of them right in front of me, and that was FASCINATING to me. Looking at pictures depicting moments that I have no memory of just captivated me. It was like looking into an alternate universe.

Some of those pictures were taken by me when I got a little older. I loved to play with my mom's instant Polaroid. I loved blowing on the film in the hopes that it would make the photo develop more quickly. I loved changing the film cartridges and I loved the noise that a Polaroid camera makes as it expells a newly-taken picture. It was all so...tactile. And just real.

I thought when I got pregnant, that we would create an album for our son just like the one my parents made for me (it was for themselves, probably, but I just don't think that way about it). I thought that as he grew up and grew older that he would know what it feels like to grip such a huge, heavy, and clunky camera with tiny fingers and to peek through the viewfinder at someone that you love (and loves you - so much!), to press that button and to pull out the film and to wait in eager anticipation, surrounded by family, for it to reveal itself to you.

But no, I guess it will never be. The Polaroid instant line has been discontinued, and my son is dead. No, wait; he wasn't even born. No, wait! He wasn't even a son. Might not have even been a "he." It was only ever just a stupid pink plus sign and a lot of puking and sleeping and a very still shrimp-shaped blotch on the ultrasound.

I should be on maternal leave right now, I should be spending my days and my nights with my baby. I should be feeding him, bathing him, talking to him, dressing him, burping him, holding him. Smelling him. Seeing him. Hearing him. Touching him. I should know by now that he ever existed. But he didn't, and I don't. This family of mine is still just a daydream.

I should be loving him, and instead here I am in this stupid gray cubicle in this awful windowless room, weeping and alone. It's been months since I last cried over this. I'd hoped that I was finished.

This sucks, my friends. This fucking sucks.

Dr. D And Why I Think I Might Keep Her

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:07:00 +0000

My pre-conception appointment went much as I expected. She told me to relax, take my vitamins, and to call her if I wasn't pregnant by January (which is a mere 3 cycles away), or to call if I do get pregnant before January. I had blood drawn to test my immunity to Rubella and Toxo among other things, and to screen for sickle cell anemia.

The place was small, quiet, and pleasant. Classical music played softly from somewhere behind the receptionists' desk. The waiting room was full of pamplets and 90% of the magazines were child or parenting related, but there was also Time, so that was something. The nurse and receptionist were both very kind and easy to work with. The doctor was soft-spoken (in a gentle way; not in a nervous way like my primary care physician - he always seems like he's on the edge of a nervous breakdown) and took care to fully explain her professional opinion to me rather than just bossing me around.

This may sound kind of sad, but what I liked best about the whole experience was the exam room. There was a poster about BMI on the door, and a poster about eating healthy and another one about menopause on the wall next to the table. There were pamphlets everywhere about safe sex and menopause and all sorts of things relating to women's sexual health. There were no pictures of babies. There were no posters of developing fetuses. It was unlike any other OB/GYN exam room in that there was nothing there to remind me of my loss. It was a relief.

Dr. D invited me into her office before and after my exam, which happens to be where she keeps all of the pregnancy-related pamplets and information. I wondered if it was deliberate and what her reasons were. In any case, it was refreshing to visit an OB/GYN and not walk out of the office depressed, anxious, and let down.

Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful relationship.

My First Pre-Conception Appointment, Or: That Thing I Should Have Done Six Months Ago

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:15:00 +0000

I'm seeing a new doctor today, which makes me nervous, as it always does. I've got a long history of dealing with doctors that do not take my concerns seriously, condescend to me, and just overall are professionals that I have been unable to trust. I've had some rather good doctors, certainly, but they're outnumbered by the ones I hated dealing with.

Sometimes the consequences of being completely dismissed by my doctor were minor. In high school I started getting rashes on my mouth that became increasingly bloodier and difficult to deal with. At one point my mouth was actually sealed almost completely shut by scabs for about a week, leaving me unable to speak. My dermatologist insisted relentlessly that it was the result of dry skin, and kept telling me to apply chapstick or Vaseline. As it got worse, it became his mantra: just keep moisturizing. After a couple months of hell, I realized that the rashes were an allergic reaction to all of the gunk I was putting on my mouth; once I stopped moisturizing, they went away. To this day I can't have ANYTHING on my mouth (not even the natural stuff like Burt's Bees), and I live with chronically chapped lips (sexy!).

Sometimes the consequences were not so minor: I spent almost an entire year in pain and vomiting almost daily because my GI doctor insisted that I'd simply become lactose intolerant, when the truth was I'd been living with an undiagnosed infection in my esophagus that was only getting more severe as time went on. I ended up dropping out of college (I had a full scholarship and everything!) because I was so ill. That was no minor consequence.

So yes, I have trust issues when it comes to doctors. I won't be seeing my last OB/GYN again, as she disappointed me in several respects with the way she dealt with me after my miscarriage. I'm seeing a new OB/GYN today and I found her just like I've found every other doctor I've ever seen: I picked her name randomly out of my insurance directory. I intend to talk to her about our efforts to conceive and to maybe get some bloodwork done, and while I don't expect her to work miracles or be able to answer my every paranoid question, I do hope that she is confident in her knowledge without being cocky, sensitive to my concerns instead of dismissive, and able to communicate her professional opinion without being pushy or condescending.

Wish me luck.

That's IT, We're Switching To Comcast

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:33:00 +0000

Verizon once again took it upon themselves to cancel today's service appointment, because they tested our line remotely (who knows when?!) and found everything to be in good working order. We had no Internet connection for six hours yesterday, and today they said that we should have called them then and complained. Um, WHY would I sit on hold for an hour to tell them that we're having the same problem we've been having for weeks, when we ALREADY had an appointment scheduled with them today?? If I'd known they were going to cancel our service request even after we explained the situation and specifically asked them not to, then yeah, I would have called.

Marcus was none too friendly with them this morning. The problem is that our Internet connection keeps going out and coming back randomly, and their response was essentially, "We can't come out unless the connection is out at the moment you make the complaint, the moment we check the line before your appointment (whenever THAT is), and the moment we arrive at your door." Since the problem is intermittent, can't be predicted, and often happens in the middle of the night (we frequently wake up to find that we have no Internet), what the hell are we supposed to do? Keep paying full price for a service that doesn't work half the time and that they refuse to fix?

So, yeah. Marcus is calling Comcast today to see if we can get the guy to come out on Friday. Verizon has been one long, ugly fail for far too long.

Just One More Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:52:00 +0000

The Verizon guy is due to come by tomorrow. Hopefully we'll get this Internet thing straightened out then and I can get back to blogging regularly (and so I can finally research the answers to my last Pregnant Lady Quiz!). Right now my only dependable online access is at work, which doesn't help much.

In the wonderful world of trying to conceive, I think that I'm going to concede to Fertility Friend; I don't think anymore that this was an anovulatory cycle. Perhaps it was just a less progesterone-y cycle. Despite the lack of post-ov symptoms, my usual luteal temperature pattern (temperature spike at 6 dpo, then a rocky downward trend leading inevitably to the premenstrual plunge) is spot on. I suppose I should be grateful for the fact that I can now recognize what a failed chart looks like a week before my period is due; I haven't tested even once and I don't think that I'm going to. My chart looks exactly like it always does.

On a sadder note (don't I always have one?), one of the women who lost her pregnancy last month managed to get pregnant again immediately, and just as quickly lost the second one. Two miscarriages in two months. The stuff of fucking nightmares.

I cleaned up cat puke three times today. How was everyone else's weekend?

My Baby's First Microscope

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:19:00 +0000

Despite Fertility Friend's insistence to the contrary, my husband and I are rather sure that I did not ovulate at all this cycle. My temps are strange and I've experienced precisely none of my usual pre- or post-ovulatory symptoms. As frustrating and disappointing as it is, the occasional anovulatory cycle is not considered a big deal in the world of young mommy hopefuls. It happens to every normal woman at some point, and can be a result of a range of things, from stress to diet to medication.

In order to clear up some of the confusion I've felt about my last few cycles, I finally broke down and invested in an ovulation predictor: a microscope.

When I first heard about fertility microscopes, I thought that they were a scam. Seriously, I thought it was bunk (of which there is no shortage) designed to target desperate mother-hopefuls. The idea of pinpointing ovulation by looking at your spit through a microscope seemed...well, like something that somebody made up.

But after doing a little bit of reading, I realized that these things are legit. Apparently, as a woman approaches ovulation and her estrogen levels rise, the salinity of her saliva increases as well. The salt actually starts to crystallize as her hormones peak, resulting in the appearance of fern-like structures, which can be viewed under a microscope. Check out the progression below:

Not fertile: Kinda fertile: Fertile!

There are many brands out there, and after perusing some websites and reviews, I chose the Maybe MOM Mini Ovulation Microscope. I chose it primarily because of the microscope's lifetime guarantee and because of their FDA approval. It just looks like a fat little stick of lipstick and is just as portable (not that I need to carry a microscope around with me - I just leave it in my bedstand - but whatever, the option is there, I guess).

Technically, this cycle is not over yet and I'm in the two week wait, but I'm positive that it's a bust. I am eager to see if the microscope lives up to the hype, so I'll just be waiting patiently until my next O day.

Verizon Hates Us

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:33:00 +0000

Forgive my recent absence. Our Internet access has been really iffy and Verizon doesn't seem to be as interested in fixing the problem as they are in charging us for a service that doesn't work. Hopefully we can get this taken care of soon. In the meantime, hang on, friends.

It Was A Dodgeball Massacre

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:42:00 +0000

If I had to describe last night's game using just one word, I would choose: Ow.

Ow, my jammed thumb.

Ow, my pulled shoulder.

Ow, my FACE (I took two ridiculously hard shots directly to the face, hard enough to send my glasses flying both times, within about 5 seconds of each other).

Ow, my pride.

My team didn't stand a chance. In the minutes before the game, while my teammates talked and stretched and bullshat each other, the other team ran around the court with knees high and practiced organized throwing drills with a few footballs. We watched them with interest (all right, more like fascination) and thought, "Hm. This doesn't bode well."

The other team picked us off the court as if they were shooting fish in a barrel. They had several intimidatingly strong throwers (two of which hit me in the face) and they sent the balls flying at us at honestly frightening speeds. It wasn't nearly as fun as last week's game, when we actually stood a competitive chance. We were entirely outranked, and plenty disheartened since our competitors obviously didn't belong in the social league.

It was fun enough, though, and it was better than sitting at home, not playing dodgeball, especially since our Internet connection went kaput (it's back today, obviously).

I'm currently waiting for the love of my life to rouse. Today is the 2nd anniversary of our elopement, but we don't have much planned other than seeing a couple movies and cleaning the house in preparation for tomorrow night's party. We've got the next few days off and I'm looking forward to a long weekend filled with love, friends, and sleeping in.

Here's a link to this month's Pregnant Lady Quiz (the twins edition!) in case you missed it..

Happy Friday, everyone. Any weekend plans?