Reluctantly Optimistic

I had my 24 week appointment today. Baby M. is on track and fine. Doctor said that she needs to be moving every day and to call if I feel she's moving less or I get panicked about her movement. Two things he said were, "so is this finally feeling real?" and "have you signed up for birth classes?" Answers were "yes" and "no," which led him to deliver a mini-lecture on how I can't procrastinate on the classes and need to get on it, nowish. Okay, okay, sheesh.

In other exciting news (sarcasm very much implied), we attended the Mardi Gras themed charity shindig. I found a nice red satin tent top thingy for ten bucks with the requisite pregnant lady belly bow (removed it), and probably stretched out my muted sequin skirt a fair bit, but the Misfits looked solid. I didn't realize that the party was the equivalent of a cocktail party with light appetizers, and my dinner consisted of chocolate cake. So, a good evening, right?

The charity auction had loads of items up for silent bidding and if it explains my mindset, I was tempted to bid on the basket of booze or date nights, completely ignoring any of the kid bundled crap. As we chomped chocolate (the Mr. drank a nice red wine, too) we passed one set called "sugar and spice" which was a ginormous basket of girl newborn swag. We looked at each other and pretty much agreed that there was no way in hell we'd even consider bidding on that. Talk about bad luck or an omen of doom.

That is until we saw that within ten minutes of the close of the auction that no one had placed a bid on it. Suddenly the Mr. became more practical and wrote down his name, thinking that we'd be quickly outbid with an absurdly low offer. Thus begins the story of how we ended up with an instant amount of baby girl things. Are we insane? Yes. And cheap, evidently. And idiots about seeing something flopping in the name of charity. I called it our instant baby shower, all the gifts, none of the drama.

I've also started to deal with the "trunk" room that the landlords used as their nursery. It's hard wired with poor lighting from Ikea and the walls are two colors of yellow. I wanted to get the Mr. to tell the landlords we are expecting and then paint the room a neutral color like the rest of the house. The room is wee, 8 ft by just under 9 ft and includes two doors a window and a radiator. I expect that we can fit a crib, a chair, and a changing table/dresser before we run out of space. I gave myself until 24 weeks to tackle the logistics of what we need with the idea that we can actually procure shit later. The exception to this get shit later rule might just be me purchasing a crib. It seems that I care a lot about furniture and have champagne taste on a beer budget. I am also too cheap to pay the shipping on said crib, so I will be on the craigslist hunt for a nice one that has not been chewed to death by someone else's mongrel. My little she-wolf will need enough chew toy left to gnash if she takes after me.

One note on sharing the pregnancy news has been that I've found that I can't seem to identify the "pregnancy brain." My only suspect incident was losing my car in the parking lot. Something, I've NEVER done before. But, that was once, and I live in a new strange place, that could happen. The only other non-normal-Misfit episode was a full emotional meltdown in the car coming home from the store a few days back. Somehow, the weight of trading our lives in California for the chance to build our family came crashing down on me in a tidal wave. I think that "happy tears" are bullshit, but there I was, sobbing to "Don't Rock the Boat" and suddenly feeling the gravity of seven losses. There is tremendous joy in being right here, right now. The thought of the "guess how much I love you?" boils down to, "more than California, more than surfing, more than our families, and more than our sanity and health." We love her more than anything at all and always will. The same is true for every one of our pregnancies. And we'd do it again and again. These are the things you do for love.

Last week was complicated emotionally. I have a good friend going through a miscarriage right now. I had mentioned that I had had one (liar that I am) which made me cautious to tell other people about the current pregnancy. She's early and not telling people, but had an impulsive "me too" moment when I told her where I was at.

I tell people that the first few losses were the worst. They were. Only because the idea that it might never work out began to become my increasingly harsh reality. I also say that you don't need to go through more than one to be able to empathize with the experience. In fact, you don't need to even go through it to empathize at all. Once you hit that multi-month with no two lines mark, you hit another universe of loss.

The decision to try to get pregnant after spending most of your fertile years avoiding this state and ruining your life (so to speak from that sex ed class), is a momentous occasion. Ready or not, here we go. That space you carve out to make room for the thought of parenthood is permanent. And it's this void that we share in infertility sisterhood, the place where our babies should be. Our family went from two to three (or three to four) and will not shrink back again in the wash.

You can always try again. There's always adoption. Or perhaps things weren't just meant to be. The things people say when they ought to just say "sorry" and keep their mouths shut.

I was giving my best advice to my friend. Having her demand betas before her ultrasound and promise to take care of herself. And chiding her for thinking in "meant to be" terms. Once your heart opens to the possibility, it becomes an open wound that requires care. The way you deal with it is the way you deal with it. There is no right way to go through a miscarriage. None.

You will either be under-reacting or overreacting, dwelling or in denial, or all of those things in a matter of ten minutes. The kicker is that it's perfectly normal. Going through it is the only way to do it and you use what you've got available in a McGyver attempt to cope.

The Mr. was gone for two nights after my first miscarriage. I had such a low beta and the ultrasound showed I had nothing left in my uterus. I sat one night while he was away bawling with both my glass of wine and the bottle in reach saying "I'm sorry that I failed you...you were really wanted and loved" over and over. In my mind, I thought that I hadn't wanted it enough. That if we had been serious, our critter would be growing and developing normally at that moment. I had failed. My body had failed. The pain in my heart was unbearable. I kept thinking it couldn't get worse. And then it got worse, of course.

And 4 years and eleventy losses later, I'm looking at a 50% chance of a take home baby with my first dose of reluctant optimism. While I feel the pull of joy, my heart remains broken for my friend and for everyone waiting in this limbo, this big in-between. And send my prayer laden with thousands of wishes for a windfall of happy endings that are long overdue.