Kicking around my head

I think I'm recovering.

In the past two weeks, I've been able to have conversations about potential (and actual) accidental pregnancies with several friends who needed support. For the first time in almost two years, I didn't feel like crying when thinking about someone else getting pregnant without even trying. I was able to be there for my friends, to talk them through their feelings, and to keep in mind that the conversation was about them, not about me.

This is huge. I know I couldn't have done it before getting pregnant myself, and I honestly don't think that I could have even done it during my first trimester. Every day that goes by I feel more like a normal, healthy pregnant woman, and not like someone who is broken inside. I don't feel like a leper anymore. I don't feel out of place in the "normal" crowd. It's something that continues to both puzzle and delight me, but it also has less positive implications for other parts of my life.

Mel has a great post at Stirrup Queens right now about belonging in the infertility community. Her (admirable) opinion is that once a member, always a member. Pregnancy doesn't mean that your membership is revoked, and no matter how you get pregnant, your feelings while going through infertility were real and valid and should always be respected as such. I read her post last night and almost cried because I don't feel like I belong anymore. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm pregnant or the fact that I was ultimately able to get pregnant without ART, but I no longer feel like I'm a "real" member of the community.

On a purely clinical level, my issue has to do with the fact that I was unquestionably infertile before the lap but have no idea whether the surgery fixed everything permanantly or not. Am I considered subfertile? Fertile for awhile? Fertile for good? No one knows, and honestly we probably won't know until Juan and I start trying for #2. That won't be happening for quite awhile, and until then I'm just not sure where I fall. Without a definitive diagnosis (and goodness knows I'm not going to spend much time thinking about the fact that I'm back in the pre-diagnosis phase) I feel like I'm in limbo. I'm caught between the infertile and fertile worlds and not completely sure I belong in either. "Recovering" seems to be the best term for how I think of myself at the moment, but as grateful as I am for everything that's happened to me since Thanksgiving, I'm also grieving for what I've lost. I miss feeling like I belong to a group, and as much as I my head agrees with Mel that once someone has gone through the pain of infertility they should belong to that group forever, my heart isn't so sure.

Being infertile was a huge part of my identity for a long time, and I guess my ultimate question is who am I now? What emotional identity comes between infertilty and motherhood?

Fine, fine

Okay, so I've been really good about not asking everyone to tell me how pregnant I look in spite of my complete lack of a baby belly. Still, as I think the below photo will show, I think I'm actually showing now! So, enjoy. I may be headless, but that's definitely a bump.


17 weeks 0 days

How to freak out my dog

Step 1: Husband gets brilliant idea to use new camcorder to take video of my belly in a vain effort to persuade the world that I am, in fact, pregnant.

Step 2: Have equally brilliant idea to include dog in video since, well, he's cute.

Step 3: Take video that consists entirely of self asking dog where the baby is over and over again until he tries to see if I have a treat in my hand. At this point, make a bizarre snorting/laughing sound that will doubtless be mocked by family and friends who receive said video.

Step 4: Hook camcorder up to computer to view video and completely mess with the dog's head when my voice comes out of somewhere that is clearly not my mouth.

Step 5: Dog totally freaks out about the entire situation and proceeds to race around the room until he is forcibly held down by self and husband to get a calming belly rub.

Step 6: Realize that this scene will be repeated many, MANY times in the future when we actually make home movies and show them on the TV. Groan.

Senseless

I turned on the news this morning to see this story dominating the headlines. It's frightening when an attack so violent and so senseless hits close to home. In this case I mean that literally since I lived right across the street from Trolley Square when I was in college. So many memories happened there-- Juan and I had our rehearsal dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory mentioned in the story above, I went there with my friends and our dates before the senior prom, and it was a hangout for me and my roommates when we could just cross the street to get some authentic saltwater taffy or just to do a little window shopping.

It's hard to believe something like this could happen in a place everyone always thought was so safe, and in a community that prides itself on having such little gun violence. My heart goes out to the victims and their families.

Can someone direct me to that river in Egypt?

If you'd asked me last week if I was having pregnancy-induced mood swings I would have said no. I felt fine, hadn't been this happy in over a year, and everything was hunky dory. I even felt snugly superior about my lack of mood swings. Boy, am I eating some humble pie now!

In short, this was the weekend-o-bitchiness. I bitched at Juan about his hours, bitched at my friends about issues at school, bitched at anyone who would listen about the research paper abstract I'm working on, bitched at Juan again about how crappy this Valentine's Day is going to be because I'm in class until after 9:00 that night, and wrapped it all up today by yelling at two students (which they deserved--it wasn't just my moodiness, I had several other non-pregnant teachers agree with how I handled the situation) and then crying on the phone with the ultrasound department at the hospital because they were giving me grief about when I want to schedule my appointment. I really need to cut this whole crying on the phone thing out. I hate it when I do that.

So, in short, the moodiness has officially set in. This is my way of issuing a pre-emptive apology to anyone I get irritable with over the nxt 6 months or so. I don't mean it, I swear. These hormones seriously have a mind of their own.

boom boom boom boom boom

We had a good doctor's appointment today.

First, we got to hear Button's heartbeat. The doctor had no trouble at all finding it and everything sounds great. Once Juan and I had listened to our hearts' content, we reviewed my blood tests from my last appointment (normal) and I got a little lecture about my weight. Apparently I'm 2 lbs. over where I should be. Nothing to worry about at this point, but I should probably lay off the Rice Krispy treats for awhile.

Then we started talking about my next appointment. The "big" appointment, complete with anatomy ultrasound and (drumroll please) finding out if Button is a boy or a girl. I can schedule it anytime in the next 3-5 weeks, which has me a little freaked out. Three to five weeks? That's no time at all! Heck, spring break isn't even for another month, and here was Dr. M telling me that we could find out our baby's sex before I leave on vacation.

This pregnancy feels like it's just flying by. I'm already in the second trimester, we're starting to look at furniture, and it's slowly sinking in that we're actually going to be parents come August. You'd think that after trying to get pregnant for almost two years, I wouldn't be so...amazed at that fact, but I am. It just seems incredible that our lives are going to change so much so soon.

Super What?

I'm not a football fan. To put it more bluntly, I can't think of many things that are more boring than sitting around watching football, even if I'm with friends and there's alcohol involved. Juan is the same way--I'd be surprised if he even knows which teams are playing today. I only know because my students couldn't talk about anything else last week.

Therefore, it shouldn't suprise anyone that I sort of forgot that the Super Bowl is today. I swear, on some level I knew that it was on this weekend, but the fact that the entire city was planning to be at the grocery store this afternoon to pick up party supplies completely escaped me. Until I got there, that is.

Oh. My. God. I've been to the grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and an hour before Game 7 of the NBA finals back when the Jazz made the playoffs and I still lived in Utah. As such, I thought I knew what the word "crowd" meant. I had no idea. I have never, in my LIFE, seen so many people trying to buy soda and potato chips. It was insane.

So, just in case anyone was wondering, I'm not watching the game today. I am, however, trying to recover from my supermarket-induced emotional scars. I may need therapy.