She's coming

You guys, do I have a story for you. It's been CRAZY DAYS since I lasted updated you here, and I was all set to come home and write a nice juicy update.

But then this little girl, with her usual left-field, centre-of-attention antics, had other ideas. We met with our fetal medicine doc and our OB today and discovered from today's growth scan that little seedling's development has dramatically curtailed over the last few weeks. She'll now be better out than in, and so it's time.

Let's admit you tonight and do the c-section tomorrow, said Dr B.

H and I stared. (Stupid, I know; this is after all the moment literally everything has been building toward.)

I don't have adequate words. She's small and we're of course worried about how she'll fare with surgery (which will probably happen over the weekend) and NICU, etc. We're also crazy insane exited and overwhelmed at the thought of finally holding her and looking into that beautiful little face, discovering what colour that mop of hair is.

Send good vibes guys. And we'll see you on the other side.

Getting prepared, part II: calling all NICU veterans

As a brief postscript to my last post: we went in this week for one of the many non-stress tests that will lead up to little seedling's arrival, and let's just say, she didn't perform up to standardized expectations...Her heartbeat stayed a steady course and was nice and strong, but she just refused to jump on command. H and I weren't really worried though; our parental intuition has become strong, she had been doing her routine kung fu moves on my bowels only an hour earlier. In those moments at the clinic, as bad luck would have it, she was just more in the mood for a snooze than a triple somersault (which of course she was prepared to do as soon as the monitors were removed).

A moment of maternal pride: my kid is already set to challenge the legitimacy of normative, numerically-based testing, achieving in utero what it's taken me four degrees and an entire career to do. Then again, (having proven herself very blissed out early on), maybe she was still just chill from all the jazz music and brown cafes and one too many Belgian beer of last week...?

Either way, a girl after my own heart.

One chilled out baby. Unlike her mother. Source.

 

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But that's not really why I'm here. Today, I want to ask your thoughts on a topic which looms large in my mind these days.

I think when I said that there was much to prepare before little seedling makes her appearance, a lot of people heard stuff to prepare. Trying as we are to be proponents of a certain level of simplicity parenting, we're working not to get too hung up on stuff just yet, especially as her hospital stay will postpone a lot of those immediate needs, and since each baby is unique in there needs and habits, it seems to make sense to wait and see what's actually useful. We have the basics: enough clothes to start her off, a place for her to sleep, and this carrier which is recommended for babies with low muscle tone, as well as a ring sling. All the rest will come, and we're not fussed about that.

Our preparations, however, aren't really about that anyway. Basically, there is a huge part of me that has been terrified preoccupied with the prospect of a NICU stay since the moment the possibility was raised.

I've slowly learned to adjust; there aren't (as many) moments these days of late night sobbing on H's chest, overcome by fear and heartbreak at the thought of my little girl in such a scary, clinical environment, hurting or feeling alone. I'm trying to embrace what lays ahead as a necessary and helpful stepping stone to getting our daughter healthy and home in our arms, where she belongs.

And I'm grateful that we got all these diagnoses prenatally and were given time to prepare mentally. I don't know how I'd cope having all this sprung on me at birth. It helped a lot that we've been able to tour the ward where she'll be staying and get a sense of the facilities there. We've met with the ward staff and the neonatologist and the pedeatric surgeon, all of whom seem caring and good at what they do.

I think I do continue to worry about how the crucial bonding of those early hours and days will work. I've had all the benefits of skin-to-skin parenting so thoroughly drummed into me that I can't imagine how she'll feel our presence or know how much love and strength we want to convey to her if all we're able to do is hover over a hospital bed. Or maybe I'm worrying needlessly...I know the hospital is keen on supporting these opportunities for intimacy where medically possible, and there is a lot of support and education for breastfeeding as well.

But still, I can't quite picture it, how we'll spend our time, how we'll bond with her, what that atmosphere will be like.

So that's what this is mostly about. Being as mentally and emotionally prepared as we possibly can. I guess there are practicalities in there too, like what to pack and what to arrange beforehand.

And really, here is where I could use some help.

Bloggy friends, I know that many of you have walked this arduous road before me, and I could use your nuggets of NICU wisdom right now. Were there things you wish you'd known or done to ease the experience? Little rituals you found particularly comforting? Essential items that made your stay more homey, or at least less stressful? And what exactly is it like in there? How much time did you spend bedside? All your reflections and insights are so appreciated.

The flood and after

The long, grey winter that is finally, slowly receding from these shores was the wettest since 1766, so they say. No beautiful snow for us this year (though we’re now too far south to have enjoyed it anyway). Temperatures were relatively warm, but for weeks on end, there was nothing more than sheets of downpour seemingly intent on scarring the landscape. Gale force winds. Flooding of biblical proportions. Destructive deluge. Many people lost power and homes and livelihoods. Entire regions of the country were isolated by caved in roads and rail lines.

We were always just on the edge of it. That lovely park just two doors from our flat? It was submerged, cut off, its beautiful lawns becoming a sodden, grey mess of clay, its gates locked against visitors for weeks on end. The pools of water crept ever closer to our door, but we were spared.

We couldn’t take our usual strolls or shortcuts to work through the park (or anywhere). It became an epic task to get to the nearest supermarkets (we don’t own a car, and even those accessible by motor vehicle experienced flooding and periodically had to shut their doors), so we used creative means to clear out the cupboards, and then ate a lot of crap take-away when we had exhausted that supply. We hibernated and instead occupied ourselves with all the simple pleasures one is supposed to enjoy as the rains pummel the windows from the leaden sky, while you watch the drops trickle down the glass, tucked up cosy inside and grateful for your shelter.

We drank cups of tea and hot cocoa and re-visited long abandoned projects of writing and artwork and compiling music playlists. H stuck in and worked like a demon on his thesis, now only weeks from completion. We became avid Olympics watchers and mock rivals as we cheered our respective teams, the apex of which was a face-off between the Austrian and Canadian men’s hockey teams on Valentine’s Day. I made multi-themed red and white, heart-shaped cookies incorporating a kind of amalgam of the Austrian and Canadian flags – the perfect emblem of trans-cultural love rather than rivalry. (H, being a realist, gamely cheered Canada to their 6-0 victory. Naturally.)

And we continued to indulge in our relish of this miraculous pregnancy, trying to enjoy what one beautiful friend (a fellow babyloss mom) called ‘all the earthy loveliness of being pregnant in the winter’.  We watched my belly expand. I began to strain under the last of my winter coats that still fit around my increasing girth, and was happy to notice when the chill wind was able to make its way up to my gradually more exposed baby bump.  H felt kicks for the first time. We discussed and contemplated the weighty decision of names for this little girl. We continued with our nightly ritual of reading up on little seedling’s development, and added a few more little traditions to the routine. As the storms raged, we cuddled and loved like crazy on our feisty miracle girl.

And we waited for each new monitoring appointment, (after that dreadful MRI) with a strange and tenuous mixture of anxiety and hope. The doctors continued to locate anomalies in her development, so that the list grew longer and the appointments an exercise in parental torture. And she continued to surprise and delight; not only us but her medical team. She grew and thrived. She kicked and wriggled. She faced each and every challenge with a gutsy defiance.

All those things, she did and she does.

And slowly, the clouds began to clear and the spring is upon us, once again.

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Last week, I walked out the door to head to work, and the gate to the park was, astonishingly, cast open. The waters that once threatened to submerge us had receded. And as I strolled past that beautiful but for now scarred scenery, suddenly they caught my eye: daffodils, snowdrops and crocuses. Bright splashes of purple and yellow amid the still mucky soil.

Invincible spring

They survived. How did they survive?  I thought they would cower from the gale force, wither in the face of winter’s ferocity. I thought that they would rot and die beneath the weight of water that submerged them for so long under merciless torrents. 

I was wrong. Spring is invincible.

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When I first left this space to retreat into my own little world it was in a burst of anger and injustice driven by fear and sadness.  But while I was there, in my own little world, something happened: life found me. When I stopped thinking about what others had, and instead looked around at the space I occupied, I realized it’s pretty damned awesome.  Are the challenges ahead still scary and overwhelming? Totally. We are not out of the woods, and little seedling still has a lot to battle against. But she is so strong, this little fighter of ours, and already she is teaching us so much. About the beauty and power of singularity. About miracles. About being in the present.  About the joy of the unexpected. This is our journey and although it may not look as we imagined it to, we are blessed beyond measure to be here, taking it. After all that we lost, after how hardened I became, I never imagined getting here.  Getting her, or the intensity of the feelings that would accompany the experience.  

After meeting H, during those first tentative talks about The Future and family and all that we wanted, I remember having the distinct feeling that what I wanted more than anything was to grow the intensity of love and discovery and goodness that we shared. To physically expand it, to extend it to another human being. I was never one of those ‘all I’ve ever wanted is to be a mother’ people. H made me want that. S made me a mother. And after a period of such darkness it feels...unfathomable, actually; to be reminded of all that goodness, all that wonder, all that belief in the promise of possibility that we once held and can hold again. Perhaps you can understand when I say that in the midst of the fear and the challenges, there is laughter and joy.

Right now, it’s a joy I find difficult to share with a computer screen. Life feels full. And so I may continue to post only sporadically for the time being. Selfishly, I still want and need the incredible waves of support that you all have and continue to offer during these scary, uncertain times. It is wonderful to have a sense of that huge, global cheering section little seedling has backing her. Selflessly, I think I want to keep recording all the twists and turns because I truly believe we will get our positive outcome and I want to be able to share that hope with others who may be facing these realities somewhere down the road, or right now, silently and alone. 

So posting will continue, however irregularly, as and when I find time for it. And I hope you’ll continue following, as I want to continue following and cheering all of you. You are an amazing bunch whose compassion, love and respect continue to dispel my sometimes pessimistic beliefs in human kindness.

In this very moment though, I think I’ll go take this little girl who is so vigorously kicking me in the ribs out for a stroll. Maybe we’ll walk past the crocuses and breathe the spring air.

This much I know

Firstly, I want to thank you all for your patience and love and support. The many comments and emails I received this week, even if it was only to say 'thinking of you' have made me feel so cared for, and more importantly, that little seedling has an awful big cheering section in our corner.

I'm sorry if I left you all hanging after my little cri de coeur; I needed time to breath out the fear, breath in hope again and collect my thoughts. I wish I could come here today with more optimistic or conclusive news to share. I really do.

The good news is, little seedling almost certainly does not have Downs syndrome. The bad news is that the reason we can be 99% sure of that is because the doctor found a brain anomaly which is generally inconsistent with Downs. Brain anomaly: the words alone were enough to send us into a fucking unbearable, terrorized tailspin. Usually when you hear those words, I think of them as associated with  another phrase: incompatible with life. I have supported enough other moms through this awful scenario not to let my brain go there. I know too much.

But this time, we are lucky; the condition is not life threatening. Little seedling has been diagnosed with fetal ventriculomegaly, in which the lateral ventricles of the brain are enlarged. The condition effects approximately 1 in 1000 otherwise healthy pregnancies, and there is no known cause (in our case, let's chalk it up to shitty random universe speak: these people haven't had quite enough drama yet in making a baby, and anyway <disinterested shrug>, we know they can take it. Keep piling!). Depending on its progression throughout pregnancy, ventriculomegaly can be linked to a whole range of developmental complications before and after birth or...it might mean nothing. There is so little to go on right now, and we were told the next eight weeks will be crucial.

We have a new plan of action, as this pregnancy is ratcheted up from high to high high risk. Tomorrow, before the first rays of the new day dawn, we will awake and travel more than three hours to a specialist centre where a fetal MRI can be performed. This will, it is hoped, give a clearer picture of what else is going on in little seedling's brain. So far, everything else looks normal, which is a really good sign: it puts us on the 'mild' end of the spectrum for this amorphous diagnosis. In fact, all the other organs, according to the geneticist, looked 'perfect'. If things stay this way, we very likely have nothing to worry about. The ventricles could even shrink back to a normal size and the situation resolve itself before birth. Or they could get worse, in which case our cause for concern would be that much greater.

After the MRI we will be followed with bi-weekly brain scans and anatomy u/s; more regular appointments with the geneticist as well as Dr B. All this monitoring is a double-edged sword though. On the one hand, it is of course a great reassurance to know that little seedling is getting the best possible care (and our care team really is stellar) and that this is being treated as the sensitive and emergent issue that it is. At the same time, there is no denying that, well, each u/s appointment, aside from the thrill of seeing little seedling thriving away in there, is a slow and tortuous build-up to the next scary thing. Given my history, I have so much ultrasound PTSD that I don't sleep for days beforehand, and on the day of I feel like I'm going to puke until the very moment when they place the probe on my belly and I see that comforting and still unbelievable movement. Continuing to do this every other week for the foreseeable future? Demanding and exhausting, to say the least. Really, just at a time when we were beginning to think that the high risk monitoring, all the feelings of pregnancy being more scary than natural for us would be replaced by some semblance of routine (ha!), we're thrown from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. The painful irony of preparing for one piece of bad news only to be blindsided by a potentially dangerous not-that-but-this scenario is, well...it is what it is. Scary, still confusing, tortuous, vague, fucking frustrating, maybe nothing.

As I was swimming through the sea of information, research, prognoses, opinion, struggling to keep my head above water and trying not to swallow big gulps of fear, I clung to these two things: not life threatening, and not life limiting. We know so little else. I could spout all the odds and statistics and case studies that the doctor barraged us with, but the end game is always the same: wait and see. Little seedling could be perfectly unaffected by the condition in the long run or might need medical intervention even before birth. We could be looking at a child with zero special needs or almost undetectable ones or those that require lifelong therapeutic assessment and intervention. So so many uncertainties. The waiting and wondering is a special, harrowing kind of agony.

But this much I know.

We are so so lucky. We are grateful beyond measure for each and every day with this little seedling, who wriggles and squirms with an astonishing aliveness that both keeps H and I in the blessed present and thwarts all attempts on the part of doctors to monitor progress, as though possessing a well developed sense of mischief along with her mother's inherent mistrust of white-coated authority.

She is a feisty, strong-willed, courageous, opinionated, unique, determined and stubborn seedling, this tiny girl of ours.

So yes, H's fatherly instinct and the kindly Austrian doctor's educated guess were correct. We are having a little girl. She'll be a barricade stormer, this one, said H, jesting at her unorthodox trajectory, her unwillingness to either cooperate with expectations or relinquish her claim as anything but the central role in our consciousness.

We're in for a ride. We're not really prepared for it, for any of it. But we'll take it.

And this much I know: we are having a little girl. S will have a little sister. We are so very fortunate to have the little unorthodox family that we do. Every day matters. Nothing is certain. And we couldn't possibly be more in love. Nothing changes that.

Girls with attitude. Source

 

Not the worst news

Just when you think you're safely out of the danger zone (if such a thing exists). Just when we finally began allowing ourselves to feel really hopeful and let unadulterated happiness in. Just when we were starting to breath again.

We got the bloodwork results from our combined NT screening (after the nuchal fold itself measuring perfectly) and they show an extremely high risk of Down's syndrome; 1:35. Given my age, I suppose we knew there was a heightened risk, but it still broke me to see H, overcome with tears of fear and exhaustion, look at me and say 'I knew we shouldn't have let ourselves hope'.  

They asked us to come in right away to discuss things with the screening midwife. When we were ushered into one of those 'nice' hospital rooms with the sofas and tea making facilities and boxes of tissues, I think both H and I were petrified; those are the kinds of places you go to hear the Very Bad News. The specialist midwife was lovely and patient and answered all of our questions. They are not at this point worried about any other, more dangerous trisomies, which should already have been picked up on u/s. We had an appointment with our Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist booked for Friday anyway, so after this encounter it was good to have the extra time for discussion and to go over any questions we still had. Not that we managed to really be coherent enough to compose any, or focussed enough to really take in the answers that were proffered. We did, however, get a completely unsolicited look at the little seedling again; we weren't expecting this, having just had a scan a week earlier, but Dr B offered and who were we to decline? (Have I mentioned that I'm a little bit in love with our doctor?) And there s/he was, bouncing around without a care in the world, looking pumped up on too much caffeine or sugary cereal for all the vigorous jumping around it was doing. This time we got to hear the heartbeat too. Amazing. This is one strong baby; I just feel that.

It's been a very tumultuous few days. I've gone from devastated and terrified that any heightened risk factors might put this pregnancy in jeopardy, to a sense of 'ok, we can do this', to utter confusion over what I can, should, might be feeling.

Part of that has to do with all the what next? issues we now have to consider. We were offered further screening; we're too late in the pregnancy for a CVS but our options now include an amniocentesis and level two genetic anomaly scan. (And before anyone suggests it, no, the MaterniT21 test is not available here in the UK, even privately. From a bioethical perspective - to do more with the history of scandal surrounding the company that holds the patent rather than the test per se - I am not sure how we'd feel about it anyway.)

Given our history of loss and how hard we've struggled to get here, not to mention how protective we feel of the little seedling, it would feel crazy to undergo any testing that puts us at risk of miscarriage, no matter how small. So I don't think we'll pursue an amnio. We can be booked in for a high level genetic scan carried out by a specialist (rather than just a technician) at 19 weeks. This might detect any 'soft markers' for Down's, but like the combined screening of NT scan and bloodwork, it can give you only a probability; it's not a diagnostic test.

Even if we got a conclusive answer from an amnio, we wouldn't consider a termination because of a diagnosis of Down's syndrome. It couldn't possibly make us love our baby any less, and really, as two highly educated people without any other children to demand our time and attention, we are pretty well placed to cope with such an eventuality and give our little seedling the best possible upbringing regardless of its level of ability. We've fought too hard to get here. So the invasive, risky procedures seem pointless, except insofar as perhaps preparing us for that eventuality.

Of course, there's a big part of me that wants to crumple up on the floor and howl, to indulge in all kinds of I knew it thinking about how we were never going to be allowed the true, simple joys of pregnancy without fear and complication. If this was always going to be true anyway, given our history, it's now that much moreso. No stress-free, happy pregnancy here. But actually, I don't want to come across all Why me?, because really, why not me? I know I'm no one special. Although it can be galling to watch how some people (usually the nasty ones, or so it seems) can breeze through life unscathed and blissfully unaware of the harsher difficulties that some of us face in more than our fair share, the truth is, people get shitty breaks all the time. This is far from the worst among them.

For months, years, I lamented and implored the fertility gods to just allow us one chance at a healthy, happy, living baby, and nothing has fundamentally changed in that. Our little seedling is still that chance. We're still lucky beyond measure, and best of all, we know it.

I'm still processing all this, and don't yet know what I think or feel, but one thing is true: this is not the worst news. Even if it may not look as I expected it to look when I have often repeated that simple, comforting incantation, somehow I still have to believe that everything is going to be alright. Screw it; I'm going to keep hoping.

A spotting update and attitude reboot

Since I posted my frantic report of spotting on Friday, I've become a lot calmer and regained much of my zen about this pregnancy. The spotting has stopped and I'm inclined to believe that it might just have been one of those little blips that are not uncommon to perfectly normal healthy pregnancies...a topic on which I have too little practice.

When I could get away from work on Friday afternoon, I called our clinic, fighting back tears as I talked with the doctor on call. She reiterated what all of you wise women, with your reassuring comments, already knew: that spotting at this stage of pregnancy is not only very normal, but could even be a good sign. That based on what I'd told her it could very well be the little one making itself comfy for a long stay. That as long as the spotting didn't increase in flow or become red blood, I should try not to worry. That the cervix is very 'vascularized' in early pregnancy, and given the fact that my progesterone levels have always been through the roof naturally even before pregnancy (thus precluding any need for supplements), this increases the chances of even mild irritation leading to some bleeding. That my biggest job right now was staying optimistic and looking after myself. She prescribed bed rest for the weekend and said that if things remained the same there was no need to advance the u/s which will happen tomorrow (tomorrow!) anyway. 

Since then, I've had two more episodes of spotting on Saturday morning, slightly heavier at first, but brown in colour, making me think (hopehopehope) she may just have been right that this was leftover implantation bleeding. It dwindled by yesterday afternoon and today there's been nothing.

I'm so relieved and a strange sense of calm has even fallen over me. I still think that those of us who have struggled hard to get and stay pregnant deserve a free pass when it comes to anything hinting at pregnancy complications, but so be it. It's absurd and difficult, but I'm trying as I might to place some distance from my past experience and just exist here and now.

Of all the insights culled from the not-actually-reassuring because I'm deeply neurotic phone consult with Dr. B last week, there was one I've clung to in the last few days. He said that as hard as he can imagine it to be (and I like about this doctor the fact that he doesn't assume he knows, can only imagine), that we have to try and look forward and see this as a new experience, a new pregnancy entirely separate from all our past experiences. Although my history reveals a lot of really crap luck, it may be nothing more than just that: shitty luck. And the one silver lining of having spun our wheels for months on end this year has been the copious amounts of monitoring that have taken place: we now know that there are no identifiable barriers to healthy conception or pregnancy, we're both in great health, and indeed, there is no reason why this shouldn't work. In fact, as we prepared for IVf over the summer, we were both hyper-conscious of being in the best possible shape we've been in ages, so the timing is right.

This is it's own pregnancy, and history doesn't always repeat itself.

At the moments when those scary events are happening, and when I let my mind wander to the worst case scenarios that have been, (as well as the ones I dream up) it can indeed feel as though H and I are somehow marked for bad luck. That it is always and inevitably attracted to us. But really, where we now find ourselves, that attitude won't do. Firstly because it's not a very appealing quality to possess and not one I'd like to be associated with, but also, secondly, because it won't do us any good to think like that and may even steal precious moments of joy from what is becoming. As much bad luck as there might have been, right this very minute, we are lucky indeed for what is.

H has been amazing through all this. This time around, he is both more connected to this pregnancy than I am able to be (which made this spotting episode all the more scary for him), and also more able to tap into his optimism. He continues to dream quite vivid dreams of us with our child (including, amusingly, one last night of teaching the fundamentals of potty training...who dreams of that? All I can say is, if the realist leanings of his paternal yearnings are anything to go by, he's a natural, and I'm going to have it relatively easy). He has been nuzzling my belly and whispering coaxing words of all the delights that await, to tempt this little life to stay put and grace us with its presence in eight odd months. Last night, as we watched old episodes of Parks and Recreation on the computer, in bed, snuggled close together and with the speakers near my belly as the opening credits rolled, he said: How could it not want to stay with us when it can hear fun music like this? We promise we'll have lots of fun baby! We always have lots of fun. (The kid better share our taste in entertainment, I guess...) [He has, despite his own terror, managed to make me laugh in these moments of uncertainty. Having asked for immediate spotting-status-updates after each of my visits to the toilet, he then announced, on his own departure to the bathroom: I have to go to the loo. I wonder what my own pee will reveal? Maybe that we've won the lottery! Yeah, you had to be there... As schmaltzy as it gets, but this is why I love the man.]

Are we getting way ahead of ourselves? Yes. Is it way too early to count our embryos before they've hatched never mind need potty training? For sure. Will any of this have even the slightest impact, for ill or good, on how tomorrow turns out, or all the tomorrows after that? Not a jot. So we might as well enjoy, because we sure as hell deserve it.

Now....Breath held. Fingers crossed. On to tomorrow. 

Thankful

Today I am exactly five weeks pregnant.

(That is according to the handy NHS due date calculator, which, once I overcame my initial horror at the thought of having to acknowledge the reality of that first statement, has become as regular a stop on my internet reading as the many blogs I follow. I check it daily, seeking reassurance not so much in the still scary future tense due date attached to this potential for life that grows in me, as its confirmation that yes, one more day has passed, inching me ever further through these uncertain first days; as though this generic online resource is somehow preternaturally connected directly to my specific pregnancy. It comfortingly leaves out details that are included on other, less reassuring sites, such as: There are 245 days left until your due date! Serves me right, for presenting myself to any congregation bearing the moniker 'Just Mommies'. Oh gods, please never...)

Before I'd gathered the courage to venture into those particular waters myself, H sweetly (but also somewhat nauseatingly) announces:  I couldn't resist looking up what the due date would be, [June 5th, for those like H, precipitously keeping count] and they tell me that right now it's the size of a poppy seed.

Truth: I hate fetus/fruit size comparisons. Am I supposed to be gestating a life or preparing a salad? I don't get it. And I don't really do cutesy. But H's enthusiasm was so genuine, and so disarming, that I couldn't help but indulge it. That, plus he's what's keeping me sane right now. I'm so impressed by this optimism he's chosen to embrace. And I crave it.

Five weeks: a drop in the vast ocean of fear that regularly threatens to engulf me. But also a start. 

There are moments of terrifying, but so far I'm managing these complicated emotions better than I thought I might. The physically crappy but psychologically euphoric feeling of being overcome by an awful lot of pregnancy symptoms helps, though when they wane for even a few hours it sends me into a minor panic, such as on Tuesday evening, when a momentary sense of feeling energized and without even the tiniest tinge of nausea compelled me to pee on the remaining stick in the bathroom (it was lying there forlornly, the orphan of the double pack we'd purchased in the event of an unclear result). The fact that the second line, much darker than its predecessor, sprang into visibility almost before the pee hit the stick was just what I needed. (H, with his unaccustomed optimism again surfacing: Wow, you're super pregnant.) 

But largely, I'm allowing myself as many moments of hopeful what if... as I can muster.

We have eleven more days to wait until we find out - at least initially, tentatively - whether this hope is well placed. Our first ultrasound is scheduled for October 14th, when I should be 6 weeks, 4 days pregnant. October 14th is also one of my favourite holidays, though not one that's recognized here in Europe. For us Canadians, Thanksgiving takes place on the second Monday in October; in 2013, October 14th, to be exact. It's a holiday that has the distinct feel of home and gentle nostalgia about it, and one I've managed to keep no matter where we find ourselves (sometimes in the most unlikely conditions, including one such on the margins of the Arabian desert, where lamb and rice and pomegranates had to stand in for turkey with all the trimmings). Wary as I am of 'signs' that invariably turn out to be a whole lot of nothing, I won't go so far as to say this coincidence feels like a good omen. But it did put a smile on my face when I looked at the calendar.

I'm still overwhelmed and scared; scared that there won't be anything to see on the 14th, that all this build up, the finally getting there, will only have been a precursor to another heartbreak, one from which I'm not sure we'd manage to return.

But mostly though, right now, there is possibility. And gratitude. Gratitude that we even get to be in this place, where good things (amazing things!) might be on the way. Where we can hope that an ultrasound will bring us something to see and be thankful for, rather than just another look at the shape of my empty womb, the functioning of ovaries that despite their normalcy, never quite seemed to cut it. So much gratitude for the chance to maybe, hopefully, see new life growing. See our future.

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This week on my usual walk to work, I passed a tableau that was breath-taking in its bucolic simplicity. Our flat is adjacent to a lovely park where the vines that trail along the river are beginning to turn burnished shades of yellow and orange. The mellow autumn sun was shining through their filigree and a small boy was feeding the ducks with his mother, squealing with delight as I crossed the footbridge. I stood for the briefest of moments, relishing the scene, feeling all was right with the world; and as much as I admired the outward beauty, I was focused inward too. I thought to myself: today, right now, I'm pregnant.

Today I'm pregnant.

And for now, it's enough. It's more than we dared hope for.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Hopefully my fruitfulness.

There are 245 days left until your due date.

Making room for hope

Or talking myself up. Whichever.

I feel like maybe I gave people the wrong impression with my last post, as though I've given up on ever getting pregnant and am no longer invested in the process at all. Or like maybe I can only find energy now for complaining about all the things I've given up in the course of trying to get that damned elusive baby. (WHERE ARE YOU BABY?!) I'm the first to admit that this whole process has exhausted me; we've been at it for a while now. And yes, distancing my emotions from the expectation of a baby specific outcome is these days generally a safer bet - or at least easier (I think?) - than dealing with more stuff like this should it prove not to have a purpose under our roof. That thought's too painful.

But the truth is, of course, I care a lot. I've invested practically all of myself, and without an ounce of regret I might add: whatever the outcome, I know it'll all be worth it in the end. I really want this. And so, I'm trying to remind myself that it's also ok to want it that badly. To hope. That this one simple yet intense human act doesn't make me naive or foolish.

I'm trying to un-learn fear and re-learn hope.

I'm trying to make my mantra: if so much crazy bad stuff can happen to us, why not crazy good stuff too?

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A lot of women, and bloggers in particular, can recount dreams they have of one day getting a positive pregnancy test or holding their child in their arms. They can relate these dreams, whether waking or asleep, in great detail and with a multicoloured vibrancy. I'm a bit envious of those women really. And also, it sometimes makes me feel like I'm doing a bad job at being an infertile in search of a baby of my own. Maybe I don't want it enough? Maybe my inability to connect with that part of myself is what's preventing me from becoming pregnant? I try to think back to before the time when pregnancy became some esoteric experience filled with fear and danger and which only happened to other people, before trying for a baby became this pot-holed road of disappointment and loneliness and hurt, to when these possibilities were an exciting time. You know, just to try to remember if it was different back then; did I have vivid dreams, specific plans I envisioned for us then? The thing is, I can't remember exactly. But I think it's there; buried deep, but there.

H reports that he has had several dreams in recent days in which we're carrying or playing with our baby. He says they are brief but vivid. It makes me feel good that he can carry the hope torch for a while. (And believe me, this is something of a novelty, since there was a time in recent memory when he was incapable of putting so much of his heart on that particular line.) I'm so grateful to have him there when my hope is flagging, to say with the great conviction that I often can't seem to find, that yes, one way or the other we will have our baby; be sure of it.

So obviously, I can see the benefits of this kind of dreaming, the optimism it can encourage, and the calm that comes with that. And scary as it is, I'm trying to make room for it. I've spent a lot of time meditating recently on the art of letting go. But the spiritual corollary of that, I suppose, is to hold on to the stuff that really matters. To borrow an analogy (granola-y hippy alert!) from yoga practice: when you do mindful breathing in lotus pose, the exhale releases stress and worry, while the inhale invites positive energy inward.

But you know - just as with those complimentary yoga movements that can only occur in tandem - I'm pretty sure that making room for that hopefulness was only possible because I managed to face the worst case scenarios, to confront my fears. I feel like there is so much more to be gained from embracing the what ifs (even the scary ones) than pushing them away, or struggling against them. And I needed to know, for myself, that our life is going to be wonderful dammit, regardless if we become the Horrible Resolution many infertile woman fear most. I think it will. I won't fall apart. I know we'll keep laughing. Of course if the IVF doesn't work out, I'll be devastated. But truthfully? I don't think there is anything anymore, (short of losing H) that could destroy me the way losing S did.

So here I am, gathering the hope around me. In this strange space of anticipation and yet cautious not to expect too much, I'm doing the simple little things that I can. Filling my body with nourishing stuff (oh ok, and ice cream) has been a good place to start. I'm surprised I don't perpetually smell of avocados, is all I'm sayin'... Today on my way to work, when I saw an adorable mom pushing her adorable child through the park in its adorable stroller, I didn't think: gggrrrr <while-grinding-teeth>... Instead, I allowed myself to think: that could be me next year. Earlier this week, instead of recoiling in horror at the very thought, I allowed myself to sit for an entire hour and look at baby-related posts at Craftgawker, sighing contentedly all the while. In short only actually, not so much: I'm trying to visualise myself into a reality where I might one day have a swelling belly. See a little heart beating on an ultrasound. Deliver a baby. See echos of myself and H (and maybe even S) in an expressive little face, a little face that is ours, to keep. Buy these baby booties:

So cute it hurts. No really, it hurts a little. Source

(...............this all is scary even to type, people............)

I should say here, that very fortuitously, two bloggers have recently encouraged me with their own ways of expressing hope for the future: Jessah at Dreaming of Dimples and Catherine at Twinkle of Light have both shared posts in the last weeks that have touched and inspired me. I love and admire their ideas for connecting to their maternal longings. Thank you ladies; it's stuff like this that gives me the strength to keep going some days.

 

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For the longest time, there was always this: each month while hope was strong, I would get maniacally excited as I misinterpreted lots of twinges and food cravings and basically projected and over-interpreted all my deepest desires onto one single unlikely outcome; and each month, I would later feel humiliated, tricked, foolish. (Like I said, scary.)

But (for anyone else whose thought processes lean towards the self-critical) you know what? It's not foolish. It's resilient. And damned if that isn't a really good - sometimes life saving - quality to possess.

It's like I've always said: hope is a bitch. Turns out though, she can also be a good person to hang out with.  I guess instead of only hanging out with the too-cool-for-school kids, I'm trying to keep better company these days.


Bloggy friends, I am curious to know: are you able to envision your future selves pregnant, or with your living children? Are your dreams vague or vivid? Am I the only one who struggles with thinking and visualising in tangible ways the future I hope to have with my family? How to overcome this mental block?

Learning to let go, part II

Last night, after posting this, I was sorting through some things in the office, and found the following poem: an old favourite which I long ago scrawled on a scrap of paper to fortify me in moments of pointless despair and then tucked into a forgotten book. It felt like the universe, as crappy as it sometimes tends to be, was affirming - supporting even - my ongoing pursuit of letting go of the bad to make room for the amazing.

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I think over again my small adventures
My fears, those small ones that seemed so big
For all the vital things I had to get and reach
And yet there is only one great thing
The only thing
To live to see the great day that dawns
And the little light that fills the world

                       ~  Inuit poem, author unknown

Cocktails, carnival and finding the point again

Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration; it's not really like I ceased to see the point altogether, more that it was momentarily dislodged by a particularly emotional week, culminating in an otherwise innocuous email exchange which tipped me over the edge and set me to raging reflecting on the general obliviousness of people who seem to walk around in their entitled little always-shiny-happy-forward-moving! bubbles of good fortune. I have to keep reminding myself, in my own moments of self-absorption, that while some lives may look pristine, and those living them may seem to be a tad too comfortable in a take-things-for-granted way that is anything but comfortable for some of us, well...we really never know what anyone is facing behind closed doors, or why they feel the need to reject any minute possibility that Bad Things can and do happen. It may not be my coping strategy of choice, (I may not even think it's particularly helpful), but you do what you gotta do to keep going, and far be it from me to offer up judgement on any of it. All the more reason I am particularly grateful for this space, where I can let the ugly out and not feel like a social pariah as a consequence. Once again, thank you.

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But maybe a little background is in order. In recent months, I've stopped the weekly blow-by-blow updates on my cycles (I know, you really miss those) because it has seemed to become so laughably, peremptorily obvious that Nothing Was Ever Happening other than my monthly bloodletting, that, well, it was kinda boring even me. It just seemed safer as well: as soon as I articulate the very desire that we all know full well is the core reason for my rantings here, it seems all the more fragile, tenuous.

Which is why I was particularly angry with myself for the feelings and thoughts I allowed myself to have during this last failed cycle.

I took a pregnancy test last Monday. Yes, my fourth anniversary. A full two days before my period was due to arrive (and did). No sooner had the pee dried and I regretted the moments of insane optimism that had brought me to that point, because now I would associate the day with yet another failure rather than the amazing triumph of love that it should actually represent. 

I lost my composure and peed on the stick last Monday because I thought it would make an amazing, prefect anniversary gift. Because there were just too many good omens for this cycle, and because it just felt different.

I ovulated on the day we left Saint Petersburg, which would have meant that we conceived a child, a little water baby, on the gentle waves of the Baltic Sea, where we had enjoyed so many happy days, as we slowly and gently sailed our way from Russia to Helsinki to catch our departure flight. It would have been the cherry on top of an incredible three weeks. It would have defied all that ttc advice we often chain ourselves to.

We would have found out on our anniversary, and spent the day in the warm, romantic glow of the knowledge that our love has survived some terrible hardship in its fledgling years, but that our luck just might be turning.

My dream-child-water-baby would have been due just weeks before my birthday, an early, unimaginably perfect birthday present. (In fact, my last chance to have a baby before turning 39 has now come and gone.)

It was all too good to be true. Of course it was. Unimaginable, but imagine I did, as though I was your average, garden variety fertile with nothing but excitement and gleeful anticipation of what is to come.

And with all those lovely little omens I managed to convince myself that yes, I felt different. Then the pee stick; it's empty white expanse laughed at me mockingly. It screeched at my foolishness, as if to say Ha! Got you! Sucker!! Did you really think you were in for such a perfect, wonderful surprise? Your life doesn't work like that anymore, and you know it! For my part, I have wavered between being angry with myself for my brazen hopefulness and proud that somewhere in the recesses of my bruised psyche I still can conjure that much hope. That my spirit can still write itself fairy tales.

But by the time Thursday rolled around and I had put myself through the emotional wringer, and this whole cycle had felt like a deeper level of failure and I knew I had nobody but myself to blame for it, it all kind of feel apart.

I wrote that ranting post, and I resolved to drown my sorrows with stiff drinks and fiery chilis.

And then, something happened. Somewhere between me angrily pounding the limes and mint for my Dark and Stormy  - no, I wasn't kidding about the stiff drinks and yes, that particular concoction seemed perfect for my mood, though it was actually prompted by the discovery of an old bottle of gingerbeer in the back of the cupboard - and my dinner preparations, the drinks ceased to be bitter-infertile-raging-at-the-fucking-unfair-fertile-world-around-her-through-inappropriate-consumption-of-booze drinks and instead became bona fide celebration cocktails. It was sunny outside, and all the windows were open. H came home and we danced salsa in the kitchen while preparing fresh mango salsa for our pulled pork nachos (and let me tell ya, those nachos are reason for celebration in themselves).

And he reminded me that regardless of timing or circumstances, when we do finally see that second line, it will be perfect, the stuff that fairy tales are made of.

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And the weekend came and it was uncharacteristically bright and sunny and hot. There was an arts festival at our local park, with live music and spoken word acts and painting and sculpture and everyone lazed on the lawn all afternoon.

But my favourite tent was from an arts group that run workshops in local schools on making carnival costumes. They had all these amazing masks and dress up stuff and it was very hands on.

And who says that stuff's just for kids?

Me as a garden gnome

H as a friendly troll

And so we lay there on the grass and basked in the sun and watched the kids gleefully whirling their homemade suncatchers and listening to the music and just generally thought, Yeah...life's not so bad after all.

Each time I have one of my meltdowns, I know it'll be fleeting, that something else will grab me by the wrist and pull me forward, reminding me what's good regardless. Last week it was cocktails, a kitchen dance party and carnival masks that helped me see the point again.

Three years

Tomorrow, 17 May, marks S's third anniversary. Not the day he died, and not the day he was born one day later, but the day we were first introduced to his beating heart, strong and thumping as though to announce his arrival. So profound and beautiful was that sound, I imagined that it resonated beyond the walls of that dimly lit ultrasound room, down the corridors of the hospital, out into the sunshiny day for all the world to hear. That is the day we chose to remember, to commemorate.

He wriggled and bounced as if to say Hello! I'm here! Get ready! 

And we fell in love, of course. Truly. Madly. Deeply.


He would have been a handful, that boy.  A little gymnast, more athletic than either his father or I. Or so I think. He had such long fingers, when he was finally born. Would those fingers have been good at throwing and climbing, or more inclined towards quiet pursuits? Writing and drawing? Miniature model building, like his dad?

We were ready. So, so ready. Just not for what came, once we finally got to hold him.

His blanket; too little used

It would mean more than you know, if you could spare a thought for him tomorrow. Maybe do something lovely and life affirming to connect with your inner child. Chase a butterfly. Dig in the dirt. Eat a particularly messy piece of cake. We'll spend the day building sand castles.

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We miss you baby boy. We love you so so much, always and forever. To the moon and back.

Everything is going to be alright

When I was a poor student (as opposed to the poor, middle aged unemployed girl I am now), I set down stakes in a particularly cheap part of Hackney in now-trendy east London.

At the time, it was the only moderately affordable part of the city in which a student could find digs. That was before the area's pre-Olympics makeover. It was still a real neighbourhood then. There were no chain stores on the high street. There were still anarchists' and artists' squats in the neighbourhood. The Turkish guys who ran the off licence around the corner where we bought our milk and tomatoes would lend us money for the bus if we were running short. Every Sunday, this big group of Jamaicans who frequented the pub down the street would set up an old steel drum, light a fire, and serve jerk chicken right there on the pavement from their improvised BBQ. It was - at least in my mind's eye - idyllic.

(There were also three times in the two years I lived there that crime scene police tape prevented us from entering our flat four hours on end. The particular stretch of Hackney we occupied became notoriously known as the Murder Mile. It really was 'inner city', with all the connotations that term evokes. Well...I said it was idyllic, not perfect).

Anyway, at the time it was just barely becoming the haven for arts that it is today, and at the end of a derelict old dead end street the artist Martin Creed had chosen to place one of his now famous light installations on the portico of an abandoned building.
 
It read: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT

The building, which has an interesting history in its own right as the 19th century home of the London Orphans Asylum (oh, the historical irony!), was a sight I passed every day on my way from the train station. Sitting at the end of that street I walked past, it's pale blue light would catch my eye at an oblique angle as the twilight was setting in. Located in a forgotten and dingy part of the city surrounded mostly by poor tenement blocks, I was never sure if that neon sign was being ironic. But there was a whimsy to its placement as well, and I have always had a soft spot for the beauty to be found in small, forgotten corners and encounters.

Still, at the time I found something eerie about that work's glowing neon presence. Now I kind of realise, in a whole new, deeper, more grown-up way, that it was true.

Everything is going to be alright.

Infertility schizophrenia: glass half flempty?

You might have noticed, (it was certainly not lost on me, if only in hindsight), that my announcement about moving forward to IVF was unceremoniously deposited at the end of a blathering post touching on innocuous topics like work and the weather. I suppose there is some deeper psychological insight to be had in this observation, about the state of my continued denial or my fear of moving forward, or...whatever. Make of it what you will.

This post is prompted by a post yesterday from Sarah at Fallopian Groove (who it turns out, while I was writing the draft of this post, was having a Very Big Day Indeed - as well as fuelling the fires of what I previously thought were you-could-mistake-implantation-bleeding-for-a-period! pure urban legend - so drop by and give her a little love and encouragement). Anyway, her description of the 'infertility set' (card carrying member here!) - one so apt that I'm tempted to see it as a kind of manifesto - touched on the need for us to embrace being glass-half-empty kind of people.

My trouble is, this whole experience has made me, for one, more than a little glass/liquid-ratio confused. I'm schizophrenic on this topic.

Because I need, on some primeval and self-protective level, to see the glass as half empty as each two week wait hurtles towards its now-inevitable conclusion month after month. This in order to keep my sanity and sense of self-worth intact, to keep from being broken right in half in such a way that no amount of bandaids of chocolate or curling up under a duvet would sooth. I need to embrace the whole this-won't-be-so-bad-your-life-is-great-either-way sense of the inevitable. 

But by the same token, I need, as I am dragged towards another fertile window of super sexy jungle time each month, to see the glass as half-full, to want to keep bothering at all. Not with the sex itself - which obviously we'd have periodically anyway - but with the vitamins and the hurry up I'm ovulating NOW sexiness and the treating my body like a goddess temple that I still believe might be inhabited by a growing baby one day. To keep hoping in such a way that is more than just a painful reminder of what isn't, and allowing for a belief in what could be.   

These two halves of me are in an eternal manichean struggle:

From this could almost certainly be The Month! I can just feel it somehow!

To there is no possible way that this will ever happen for me! Who am I kidding?! 

My problem is that by nature, pre-utterly hopeless less-than-fruitful baby-making attempts, I have never been by nature either a pessimist or very realistic. (I am the sort of girl who booked a one way flight to Turkey one summer in university with no plan, no language skills, only what I could carry in my backpack, and £200 in my bank account; just because I thought it'd be fun to see where it took me, and I just knew I could rely on the kindness of strangers to help guide me. Turns out on both those counts, and on that occasion, I was right. But I digress.)

I think I probably used to be one of those annoying anything-can-happen-if you-will-good-vibrations-towards-you perky people. And although for the most part I'd like to punch that version of Sadie in the face more often than not nowadays, I guess I still need her reckless, bitterness-free, dreamy hopefulness to hang around on the margins at times.

Take this past cycle for example. I started spotting at about 10 days post-ovulation, right around the time I took my customarily too-early-to-tell pregnancy test intended to desensitize me to the inevitable disappointment but just-early-enough to leave room for hope (welcome, once again, to my neurotic ttc brain). Even though this hormonal weirdness was also a part of last month's unsuccessful cycle (and appears to have become a regular thing), coupled with the, er...negative pregnancy test, the annoying, dreamy glass-half-full Sadie beat down my bitterness for a day and forced me to really question my more jaded self. What if this might was the fabled implantation bleeding? (Hey, just because it's an urban legend doesn't mean I don't fervently believe in it at times; just like say, the Sasquatch, or a new Star Trek: TNG spin-off). I briefly wondered if I might not, in fact, be with child.

And yes, I can understand why you'd want to punch that Sadie in the face, but you know what? I also kind of liked the floaty feeling that carried me through that one delusional day, because even if it was deluded I managed genuine joy for those hours, and that fact did nothing to exacerbate what would in any case have been the same feeling of crushing failure and time-is-running-out anxiety that I feel every month.

So it's a dilemma; one that I know does not end, for those of us who have struggled so to get there - and maybe struggled with staying that way - once a pregnancy finally occurs. I'm interested to to know how other people cope. Or am I the only one who suffers from this particular brand of schizophrenia?

What about you bloggy friends? How do you manage the delicate balance of hope versus realism? Have you changed in your outlook over time?

Never a clear winner. Source.

When you look at it like that

First off, you guys. You guys. I mean seriously, it's these little nuggets of kindness and encouragement that lift me in such times and all your comments and emails were so appreciated. Thank you. 

I'm not going to lie; the last few days have been exhausting. Between tying up all kinds of loose ends as my job winds down, and my grief hangover, I don't have much physical or emotional energy these days. (This is not helped by another round of will-she-won't-she erratic menstruation antics on the part of my disobedient body). Right now, my Spring ain't looking so Invincible people.

Still, I'm putting one foot in front of the other. I'm slowly trying to catch up on all your blog news, and on my commenting. My brain has been intermittently weighing pros and cons, cons and pros in all of this, trying to figure out where I am for the moment...I'm trying to focus on pretty, shiny objects little things that bring me happiness, and just stay with that. Because that's the thing I know how to do, and what else is there, really?

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It's not just my metaphorical spring which seems to have been deferred. We had snow flurries again last night. No kidding. I'm missing the sun and the close-by beaches of Portugal now more than ever. On the other hand, if H's weather divination has any basis, we're still in for some good things in the remaining three seasons of this year. I'm going to go with that.

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 Yesterday was my last real day of work at my current job. I had to accompany a student to an offsite visit where most of the clients are mental health patients recovering from substance misuse. Within 20 minutes of arriving, I'd had encounters with two men in their 70s. One wanted to know if I'd accepted, really accepted, the Gospels into my life. He followed me around the facility until I explained my confused Catholic/Jewish parentage and my personal views (Holy atheist, Batman!) and that finally stumped him. The other guy  - in his 70s, remember - kept eyeing me and my student with a creepy leer, and tried to ahem...shall we say 'win me' without apparently realizing the coffee he was drinking was ending up in a fine spray on our faces. Yeah, he was hot stuff alright. Fun times. Will I miss this part of the job? For the most part, not so much.

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I'm down and out for another cycle. I was neither hopeful nor despairing this time around (in fact I pretty solidly found other things to think about), and so ends another two week wait, less eventful than many that have come before, and for that I am thankful. Still, after two + years of staking my existential status on where I sit in a monthly, merry-go-round cycle, all this uncertainty that my body is dishing out makes it hard for me to relax into the early part of my cycle. I'm Cycle Day...? 2? 3? -1? I have no clue. It's on and off and this is definitely signalling a less-than-reassuring new chapter. Luckily, the lovely Dr. B was entirely true to his word, and we have an appointment to meet with his colleagues in the sub-fertility clinic in just over two weeks. I'm hoping they'll be able to get to the bottom of all this faffing about that my body is doing. By then all my RPL panel results should be back so we can review those as well. I feel like I'm getting good care at last, and people who listen and follow up.

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Crucially, H and I are making big progress on working through our own ideas on the 'what next'. I hinted previously that we'd approached some more concrete plans in this department. Another long, tear-filled, looking-forward (and ultimately very cathartic) heart-to-heart took place over the weekend, and we finally have some sense of where we're ready to go. At our appointment on the 24th we'll ask about possibilities for IVF. We finally fulfil the criteria for 24 months of active ttc without any positive results (technically the year after S died was spent much more actively on grieving than on making a new baby). We still don't know the wheres or hows or whens, exactly (and there's still all the other uncertainty to deal with). But until quite recently, H had trouble with the idea of any kind of major intervention. He admitted himself that it was a kind of protective denial of the reality of our situation. So this is big. Huge.

And just like that, it looks like we might be boarding the IVF train. Holy shit. Honestly though, I'm hoping it'll give us the feeling of moving in a solid direction. Any direction is better, surely, than spinning our wheels as we have been for so many months now.

So good/bad/good/bad/good/bad. All in all, I think I can work with this. I just need to catch my breath first.

A real mixed bag, sweet and sour. Source.