The Countdown Begins

Next Tuesday Ray and I will find out if little Clumpy is a baby boy or a baby girl. I am still thinking the baby is girl. Ray told me yesterday he thinks baby is a boy. But I believe he said that just to be contrary to me.

We have discussed names briefly but we are really waiting to find out what we are having before we go full force into it. Just look at names for either a boy or a girl is easier than looking at both. We both have names we like and I think we'll be okay no matter what we choose. I am not an absolute stickler for the name as long as its something we both like, even if I don't LOVE it.

Other than that not much else going on around here. The wallpaper border came in last week and Mom and Nat will help me put it up this coming weekend. Mom and I went to Boscovs on Saturday (since they are going out of business) and bought new curtains for the guest room but while we were there I managed to pick up to sage green valances for the nursery too. Now I just have to readjust the height of the curtain rod so it all looks nice. We spent 15 dollars on curtains for three rooms. Can't get a better deal than that, if you ask me.

That's life right now. Work is insane and we're still waiting to hear on the job Ray applied for and interviewed for a few weeks ago. The wheels of employment turn slowly at his job so nothing to be concerned with.

Oh and before I forgot

Congratulations to Ann on your Little One!

Whew

According to my "new" pregnancy ticker I am 16w1d today. It's so odd.

We scheduled our BIG u/s for Tuesday September 2. I can't believe it's only two weeks away. I am nervous as hell. I just want Baby to be okay- have all his/her fingers, toes, kidneys etc. I don't want there to be a single problem. Of course I don't-what mother wants that?

I had a complete breakdown yesterday. I've been having them a lot it seems. This past weekend I cried for at least 30 minutes about absolutely nothing (cleaning the bathroom, something I've done in the past-not a difficult job, nothing to be stressed about so explain it to me?) But yesterday I was just feeling down and I didn't know why, it was just a whole mess of stuff.

Ray and I were nicely watching the olympics. He had put away all the food from dinner and we were just hanging out like we usually do after dinner. I was thinking about February and how overwhelming all this stuff is. I started to just feel terrible- my body is changing, I haven't really felt the baby move (and I am over 16 weeks and that scares me a little), we have our big u/s in two weeks, I get my AFP results in three weeks- I am nervous, scared and I feel- well lonely to be honest.

I have no one to talk to who doesn't think all these little fears are "so silly" (as my mom says). What is our life going to be like in February? Will I ever be able to do any of the things I used to do? Will I even be good at this? Am I willing to be less selfish? Am I willing to compromise and give things up?

I feel like I've spent so much of my life coasting on "just enough"- just enough to get by and not get fired from my job, just enough to be a decent wife (but not a great one) to Ray, just enough to be a good sister or daughter to my siblings and parents. I don't want to be "just enough" for this baby. But I don't know how to be great at anything.

And I realized then (as I do right now) that any experience I've had with children has been terrible. I never ask to play with or hold Ray's cousin's children, I hated babysitting as a teen- WHAT WAS I THINKING? We wanted this, we worked for this and now- after 16 weeks of doctor's appointments and morning sickness and general stress I am now RETHINKING this whole thing? I can't go back, I don't really want to go back but---gosh this is so tough and I didn't think I would feel so inadequate or ill-equiped to do this.

None of my real life friends (except Ann and LJ) have been pregnant- none of them. My sister hasn't, my SILs (except the one we don't talk to) haven't. I am alone and I have no one to talk to. I just want someone to tell me that I'll do just fine. That I won't fuck this kid up for life. That even though I worry that the worry is okay and that Ray will be there to help me and I won't be doing this alone.

I could use a reassuring hug every now and again. I could use a real girlfriend to spend time with me so that I don't take all these negative thoughts with me into the world.

I used to have a best friend you know...now, even though Ray and I share everything I just don't think he really understands how overwhelmed and scared I am.

And so here we are

Squarely at the start of Trimester #2. So far, so good.

Yesterday was my second Ob appointment with my Doc (have I mentioned my complete LOVE of her???? I would seriously marry her if a. I were gay and b. she weren't already married and c. if I didn't already love Ray to death-but I digress) . The appointment went quite well. Blood pressure was 123/72, no protien in the urine but there may still be left over GBS (yuck), baby's heart-rate (the sound of which I ABSOLUTELY ADORE) was about 157. According to their scale I've gained 10lbs, according to mine 5- I like mine better LOL.

I did have to do the early GTT yesterday which sucked btw but wasn't nearly as awful as I heard it would be. I am just praying the results are normal so I don't have to do the three hour. The results from the NT scan were "perfect" baby is looking great. She did not give me the numbers (probably so I wouldn't stress about them, although I am sure if I asked she would have). I had the blood draw done for the AFP and my next appointment with her is on Sept 10. The big news though is that baby is measuring about 4 days ahead (which is where he/she would have been had I ovulated on CD14 like a "normal" person) so I am 15w2d today instead of 14w5d-so my due date was changed to 2/2/09- Groundhog's day and my late grandfather's birthday (I never met him).

I get to schedule our big U/S for 4 or 5 weeks from now. I can't believe how fast this is all going. It will be Feb before I know it. I feel like I'll never be prepared but I know that isn't true. Things sure are getting exciting around here. I've finally been asked about my pregnancy and it seems that my moods are getting better although I am still extremely tired in the afternoons.

Life is slowly getting back to "normal"

A Follow-up

Thanks for all the support ladies. I was worried about saying something that might offend the folks that read this blog but I think you all sorta understand where I am coming from.

Meghan, I completely understand your point. I do know what it's like to hear someone complain that it took them "so long" to conceive when it really only took them a few tries. One of Ray's cousin was like that- I just had to learn to ignore it. It's hard but I couldn't let myself be angry about her inconsiderateness (is that a word??). And what she was saying was inconsiderate. But I had to chalk it up to her not completely understand "our world"- the world of infertility, the frustration that we feel daily etc etc. I just had to "let go" of it in a way. I am not saying it was easy to just ignore it (it wasn't) but I had to so that I stayed SANE.

I am not perfect about it by any stretch. I still have my moments. I'll give you an example. This past weekend we saw many of Ray's cousins at his Aunt and Uncle's home in Pittsburgh. Three of the cousins have babies, all under a year old. Not a single one of them had issues getting pregnant. The cousin who got pregnant on accident last year who is unmarried and still lives at home where her parents take care of the kid 80% of the time was there. At one point Ray's aunt picked the baby up and moved her over to the highchair and Ray's cousin (the baby's mom) said "where are you taking her?" and Ray's aunt said "to her highchair it's time for you to feed her"- She had to REMIND her to feed her own daughter. I was throughly disgusted. Here we were having tried for a year, waiting to get the chance to do what she was totally taking for granted. I had to leave the room. But the best was the complaints about L&D. At that point I told them flat out "I'm ignoring whatever it is your are saying so feel free to talk about it but I'm not listening to you." As if a little pain and discomfort of birth is anything compared to the pain and discomfort we suffered through trying to get pregnant in the first place...(I do have to say this though- the wife of the cousin we are close to and who really knew how much crap we'd been through did not participate in the L&D conversation nor did she really complain about pregnancy, child rearing or anything. Both her and her DH are extremely considerate of us).

So you see- just because I can be enlightened most of the time doesn't mean I am all the time. It's still difficult. I still feel like I want to punch some of Ray's cousins who complain but for the most part I just think of them as ignorant to fertility issues and so I can't really blame them.

It takes time, it takes lots of understanding, and for me lots of prayers. We had a great support system with our immediate families and with our close friends and that made this whole last year of trying and coming to terms with infertility easier because there were people out there who did know and who did understand (or try to understand) what was going on.

In a lot of ways my reason for the post was not to try and get IF women to see and feel the way I do but rather to consider the kind of person/people they have become through this journey...

Anyway I appreciate all the comments. I'll be back with "how is Clumpy doing" posts this week. :)

Something To Say

I have a lot on my mind today but first, Megan I wanted to address your question about us finding out the sex. Yes, we are going to but I don't think we are going to tell anyone. What fun is that you ask? We want to know so that we can be prepared and, of course, only have to think of two girl names or two boy names rather than two girl names and two boy names. The other reason we aren't telling anyone is because people have the tendency to buy pink or blue when they know they sex and honestly I would rather they not do that. I prefer neutrals really- yellows, greens, light orange colors etc. Pink and Blue are so gender specific and that's not really my style I guess. :)

Second, I wanted to say a HUGE bloggy thanks to Ann for the blanket. Thanks so much Ann it was really thoughtful of you. It is our first real baby gift and it's so soft and cute Ray and I love it. I can't wait to put it into the baby's crib.

And Last, what's been on my mind...

I don't even know if I know how to start this as I don't want to offend my bloggy buddies who have been nothing but supportive of me over the last few years but I need to get something off my chest.

When Ray and I first started this journey off to babyland I was optimistic about our chances for conception. I knew I had health issues (asthma, overweight) but never did I think those health issues were affecting my fertility in an adverse way. It wasn't until I was told "lose weight" and "you have PCOS" that reality started to set in. In all the time I was dealing with hearing the diagnosis and trying to come to terms with things, Ray's cousins were getting knocked up left and right and yeah I was bitter...

Ok, let's be honest, I was extremely bitter, hateful, resentful and plain out MEAN. I attended no family functions, baby showers, birthday parties, Christenings or anything. I ranted and raved about how unfair it all was- why were we being punished. I even went so far as to say that some of them didn't deserve it or that Ray and I would make better parents because we really wanted it...

In retrospect my attitude was absolutely THE WORST and I was becoming a horrible, mean person because of it. One day I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that if I continued to put out negativity into the world that's exactly what I was going to get back. I don't think me being negative had anything to do with us not conceiving but it certainly didn't help matters much. At some point I resolved to be okay with other women and their fertility, realizing (as hard as it was) that their fertility, their parenting style, their ability to even be a good parent, was not stopping us from having a baby. I had to realize that God (or whomever) just didn't work that way.

Why am I bringing this up now...now that I am pregnant and it's completely irrelevant? It's a strange thing. I belong to a forum (I've mentioned it here before) of women who are TTC/TTA/going through IF or going through losses. Someone put together a post about Michele Duggar (the woman who has 18 children) and how "unfair" it is that she gets to pop out kid after kid while some women can even have one. It was a bitter and nasty post filled with self-congratulations about what a fantastic mother this person would be and how horrible it is that Mrs. Duggar makes her older children raise the younger ones and blah blah blah...

The post angered me. I don't know why but it did. The post was made on the Infertility and Loss section of the forum. A place I rarely, if ever, visit (for many reasons not the least of which is that I like to stay positive and reading about other people's loss makes me very sad and it makes me worry). The post was so negative I felt like someone needed to in there and say "hey listen what does it matter if she has 50 more kids, your hatred for her doesn't make you a better more loving person it makes you bitter and mean." Nothing that I wrote in that post was directed at anyone specifically. It really was just a "hey look at who you are becoming is that the kind of person you want to be?" I got a PM from someone who read my post and asked me to "reconsider" what I wrote. I opted not to.

Maybe that makes me a terrible person or whatever but I really believe that if we are going to grow from tragic experiences (and IF and loss is TRAGIC and don't let anyone tell you differently) then blaming other women's good fortune is not the way to grow. Can I be a little annoyed at the Duggars for making the older kids raise the younger ones- maybe. It isn't something I'd do but heck if I am going to let ANYONE in the universe question how I parent my kid. She's in the public eye so somehow that makes it okay...it doesn't but this is what people believe.

I need to say this people because I've been there...just because we suffered through infertility or loss (or both) does not mean we are going to automatically be better parents, better people or love our children more than those who did not struggle or did not experience loss. These people who have no trouble with conception may not have had to fight as hard but it does not mean they are any less loving, wonderful, compassionate and truly grateful people to have their children in their lives. And if I have to be totally honest with all of you- I would have gladly given up the years of infertility I experienced to already have my baby in my arms (I know most of you would agree). Just because we share this terrible journey of infertility does not give us the right to be judgmental and self-righteous. It does not make us better people if the people we have become are self-absorbed, bitter and angry towards other women!

I am sure I probably offended a bunch of people here. I am sorry for that but it seems to me that there is a sense of entitlement among infertile women, a sense of "I'm better than you are because look what I had to go through" and it saddens me that we are bringing down our sisters by using divisive and judgmental language.

I guess that's all I wanted to say...