ChezPerky

Sorry I went AWOL. Everything's fine, as far as I know.

I had my last appointment with Shady Hell Fertility Shmertility Clinic on Friday, 9/8. Everything looked fine. My RE couldn't find a source of the bleeding on the ultrasound, so she's not concerned that it's anything serious and it "just happens to some 'lucky' women." She did say to refrain from sex until it stops (and those of you who know what it means to be an Orthodox Jew know that that is not a problem to comply with), and to try to take it easy, physically, but she doesn't think anything's wrong.

It feels sort of odd to leave the safety net of the clinic. I know their routine. I know how to reach someone if I need to. I know all the doctors. I know how to get appointments at the times I want them. People know my name. The sonographer is funny! What if my OB's office is full of staff with no sense of humor? How will I survive? Besides, at the clinic, I could have an ultrasound anytime I wanted! Now I'm going to be restrained by insurance companies saying that even if I'm going completely insane and don't believe there's a real live fetus inside me I cannot have an ultrasound covered for another 8 weeks. Okay, so I'm not completely psychotic yet, but anymore cramping and bleeding and I swear I'm not going to believe there's anything left in there. What if my OB won't indulge an infertile in a quick peek?

Ack. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Right. So last week I was supposed to be in Phoenix, but I couldn't go because I had severe ear infections in both ears. If any of you parents out there ever wonder why your babies turn into demons when they get ear infections… wonder no more. IT HURTS LIKE HELL, THAT'S WHY! Like, landed me in the ER begging for morphine kind of hurt, not just "ow, maybe I need some tylenol" kind of hurt. Anyway, I didn't get on a plane, and I never recovered enough to even head to Phoenix a little late. I gave my presentation via phone conference, which wasn't as easy as it sounds, but it was better than nothing.

I have my first OB appointment on Wednesday. I'm hoping all is well.

I still don't have a billion normal pregnancy symptoms. I have ridiculously severe exhaustion. I thought I knew from exhaustion before, but I was completely wrong. Pregnancy exhaustion is a completely different beast. I'm not complaining, exactly, since I did ask for this, but boy I wish I'd really understood what I'd be getting myself into. I'm getting awful headaches. But that's normal for me. No migraine medicine = horrible pain regularly, and not much I can do about it. I'm queasy a lot of the time, but I'm not throwing up or anything. Things are starting to taste odd to me. I ate asparagus on Shabbos, and it tasted vile to me. I asked Seth if there was something wrong with it in general (overcooked asparagus is often bitter, so I wondered if maybe I was supersensitive and it was a tad overcooked) and he said it tasted just fine. So I don't know what happened, but it just tasted horrible. And today… I ate some pineapple and it tasted strongly of coconut. I hate coconut, so this is not in any way a positive development. My mango tasted funny too, but that might have been because I was still tasting the icky coconutty flavor of the pineapple. Again with the not complaining.

Other than that… nada. Except, oh yeah, how could I forget. "The girls"… I've gone up probably 2 cup sizes . Already. This is unacceptable. I was already well-endowed in that area and I invite them to cordially stop making my blouses too tight! I've actually LOST 10 pounds, but not one of my shirts fits correctly anymore. I bought a blouse that is two sizes bigger than anything I own and I can't even stretch THAT across the girls. So I'm not complaining about the exhaustion, headaches, queasiness, or odd taste sensations. But I am complaining about the ultra-mega-super boobs I seem to have developed. Though, I'm sure my husband isn't complaining, even if I am.

I've told my mother and my father (my father was shocked and didn't know what to say; my mother, predictably, was thrilled and is already annoying me by asking if she can come to one of my ultrasounds… a request which has been met with a resounding "NO" from me). We have not told any of my husband's family and I'd be happy to keep it that way, if I can get away with it. But um, probably at some point we'll have to spill the beans to them. You know, at the bar mitzvah, for example.

So yeah. Pregnancy… seems stable, if a bit unbelievable and somewhat inconvenient, what with the cramping and the falling asleep at my desk and the utter inability to complete a single task at work. And other than that, life is good. The kid (our foster son) turned three on Shabbos (Saturday), and he's so darned cute. We've had him for 2 years almost, and I can't even remember life without him. Except when I try really hard to remember those words "peace" and "quiet" applying to my life…

That is all.

Sorry I didn't update earlier. I didn't have any power all day until about 5 minutes ago.
Ultrasound 2 went really well. Saw a teeney tiny itty bitty little blip on the screen, which was pretty neat. Heartbeat 127 beats per minute. That rocks.

Then I got home to discover that the bleeding has picked up in intensity, but my doctor wasn't concerned, so I'm not either. I'm just one of the lucky ones. Yay. Or something.

The OB I painstakingly picked out turned out to be the same one that my RE recommended, but the practice turns out not to be accepting new patients. It's the first time since this whole pregnancy thing seemed to start becoming real-ish that I've really wanted to cry. I don't know what I'm going to do. I hate doctors. I really do. But I thought I'd made a good choice based on some really good recommendations, and I can't just go asking all my friends who they see, because people in this neighborhood talk, and they will ALL decide that I'm pregnant, even if I just say I need a GYN for an annual girlie exam. I don't know how to do this and I HATE it.

Right.

Pregnancy hormones, anyone? Ahem.

So, here I am in perky-land. I did hear back from my nurse yesterday in the early afternoon. She was really funny about it too, because I'd said in my email that I was sorry for pestering her with an email, but I'd forgotten my cell phone and couldn't really discuss gory details about that stuff from my very-open cubicle. So when I answered the phone, she said, "Hi, you don't have to talk, it's Mary, just listen."

Anyway, we chatted for a bit and she's not so concerned about the spotting, even though it's heavier. She said that sometimes as the placenta is burrowing further down into the lining, there can be some spotting, but even sometimes there's still a little bit of shedding of the uterine lining in other parts of the uterus, which can lead to some bleeding. She agreed that either nothing's wrong and G-d is laughing at me, or something's wrong and they can't do anything about it anyway. She did offer to have me come in today for my ultrasound instead of tomorrow, but if I did that, I wouldn't have my doctor at the ultrasound, plus it wouldn't change anything, really. It would still be a matter of nothing being wrong or something being wrong that they couldn't fix.

What she was worried about was the cramping. Tuesday night and last night had I cramping that easily rated an 8 on a pain scale of 1 to 10. I'm pretty good with pain, having had at least a dozen kidney stones in the last decade, so when I say I'm really in pain, I mean it. She told me I should do my best to go home and lay down last night and tonight. She didn't think I needed to take time off of work. And I think she was mostly telling me that for my mental health more than for any physical benefit. At least, that's what I'm hoping, since my husband wasn't home last night and SOMEONE had to feed and bathe the kid (we have an almost-three-year-old foster son, if I haven't mentioned that before) and get him in pajamas, and send him to bed. Actually, he practically sent himself to bed, because I fell asleep while he was watching TV. He woke me up when his program was over and said, "Eema, it's over, it's time for bed." So cute. I yawned all the way through his bedtime stories and singing the bedtime shema (the shema is a prayer we say three times a day, including bedtime, so we sing it with him at night). Once he was in bed, I passed out on the bed again.

Yeah, I'm still THAT kind of exhausted. I don't know what the deal is, but I'm hoping that the second trimester burst of energy isn't a myth. Actually, I'm mostly just hoping I make it to the second trimester. And the third.

I'm not all kinds of pessimistic, but I'm a little tired of G-d messing with me, too. I keep wondering if I should be making plans for an IVF cycle in the near future… is this pregnancy really going to be that short-lived? I wonder if this all works out if I'll re-read these thoughts in a year and think I was far too pessimistic, or if I'll think I was justified in my hand-wringing. Sometimes I wonder what my future self will think about my present self. It's a bit weird to think about, actually.

Anyway, the point is, all is well. Still cramping. Still spotting. Again. I'm sure everything is fine and I'll look at the ultrasound tomorrow and wonder how on earth I could have been even a little worried. For now, though, allow me a tiny bit of hand-wringing.

I'm not sure how I'm feeling. Nervous, I think. I'm spotting very heavily every evening now. By morning, it's gone or so light it doesn't matter anymore. Cramping has gotten worse, too. It has gone from barely noticeable to "ohmygodowowmakeitstop!" I'm not really certain what to make of this, to be honest.

I suspect that either nothing is wrong and I'm just going to have to learn to live with this, because, I mean, why on earth would G-d want me to actually enjoy pregnancy anyway? Or, something's wrong, but there's nothing they could do about it anyway, so I need to let it play out and figure out how it will resolve itself.

I have an ultrasound on Friday. Suddenly, I'm not expecting sunshine and light.

I sent a neurotic email to my nurse asking if she could lend any insight, but I haven't heard back from her yet. I suspect I won't hear back from her for a while, as I think she does clinical work in the morning. When it comes down to it, I doubt she'll have much to say, not because she's not smart but because I'm pretty sure I'm right: Either there's something wrong and they can't do anything about it, or nothing's wrong and G-d is laughing at me. Hah hah.

Also, I'm tired. Tired doesn't even begin to cover it. I've never felt so shattered in my life. I can barely keep my eyes open and it's not even noon. Last night at 8 o'clock I would gladly have hit myself over the head with a hammer just to get some sleep. But G-d really is laughing, because he's also making me an insomniac. I can't stay asleep for long stretches. And no, it's not a bladder thing, because that's not been what's been waking me up. VERY FUNNY, G-D! I get the joke, now cut it out!