Transitioning From Being an Infertility Patient to Being Pregnant
This is a big shift for me. Some of the stuff that's on my mind today:
- Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for my clinic to call with my second beta result, for which I had blood drawn this morning. A good result means I'm pretty solidly pregnant. A bad one means I'm probably miscarrying. There's no reason to think it'll be bad, except that things have gone wrong over and over and over again...it's hard to have faith that everything is going right
- Laying down for an hour or two in the afternoons...lovely. How much am I loving my work-from-home job right now? Haven't been sleeping well, so really need that rest. Plus, who knows what my body's doing/needing at the moment, aside from the insomnia?
- All the restrictions I was hating during the two week wait (no yoga, no hikes, no wine, no tea, no snowboarding, no baths, etc., etc., etc.) are no big deal if there's a reason for them, like it's good for an actual baby/ies
- Feeling all of a sudden like being social again. I've really isolated myself, with this cycle in particular and this past year over all the cycles I've done in general...and really the not wanting to be around people much goes all the way back to when my brother died...it's been hard for me to do things feeling like tragedy has changed me in a way that sets me apart from the world. It's a good sign I want to call and see people...that's not a place I've been for a while
- Speaking of my brother, it's progress in me getting over his death that my first thought after finding out I was pregnant was not about him. It was about my husband and our parents and a few close friends and my brother who is alive who is awesome...it's only when I called my alive brother that I got sad thinking I couldn't call my dead brother. But this is big for me...even my wedding two years ago...it ended up being an incredibly happy day, but I was hesitant to get married because my dead brother couldn't be there (my hesitation had NOTHING to do with my husband...he is wonderful), and the whole day was planned around making it so it would be OK if I lost it (very small, reception at our home, etc.) That feeling of not wanting to do something because my dead brother can't be a part of it--it's not here with this. Which is as is should be. I have to let my dead brother go, or I'm not going to ever have any chance of being happy
- I know a lot about what to do with infertility, almost nothing about being pregnant. Some baby books or some such may be in order
- My husband has already picked out boy and girl names. Too cute
- Overall, there is such a feeling of lightness that's coming along with all this...like I don't have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders anymore
- I promised myself no matter how sick/uncomfortable I am during this pregnancy, I'm not going to complain. Not one word. (Well, I might talk about some things on this blog, but not one negative word to my husband. I'm just so incredibly grateful to be in this position)
- Pretty much all I want to eat right now is bean burritos
- Still waiting, waiting, waiting for that call from the clinic. It's 5:30 PM...geeze. My clinic's great but this is ridiculous...
Photo credit: Conor Keller.
