My Dusty Uterus

Guilt

I feel guilty about my silence, not just for the sake of the blogosphere (my drop in the ocean), but because I haven’t kept a journal for the little one who for all intents and purposes seems to be steadily growing inside me.  I can’t really explain why I’ve been silent, either.

At first it was all about my cat Ollie.  Losing him a month ago was absolutely crushing, and for weeks I cried every single day at the thought or mention of him.  I was so caught up in my grief that this pregnancy, this miracle, seemed like an afterthought or a distraction from the pain I felt.  I wanted time to just grieve the little furry friend I lost.

Slowly I’ve been waking up from that sorrow and allowing myself to become excited for baby.  I told my bosses a couple weeks ago and announced it to the rest of the office on an ice cream cake, saying that our organizational family was growing.  Since then coworkers have given me a co-sleeper and bouncer, birthing books, and plenty of advice.  I’ve told a few more friends and exes about the baby too, and everyone is suitably excited.  It feels like a relief to share this secret, even as much as I still get nervous that things will go terribly wrong.

I find myself stroking my growing belly and wondering what the next weeks and months hold.  But still… I find it so hard to think too far into the future.  I don’t feel ready to make a birth plan, because I don’t know how the pregnancy is going, or how it will go.  I don’t know if my husband will find a new teaching job and we’ll end up moving cities this summer.  I don’t know what it will be like to be as big as a house in our tiny home.  I’m irritated that to create a nursery we have to lose our guest room, just when I want visitors most (and my family is dying to meet the newest member of the family come October).  Can we survive with the baby in our crowded bedroom?

I have so many questions, and so few answers.  Did I really feel the baby when I put my hand on my belly a few nights ago?  Was it, as my husband suggested, just gas?  How big will I get, now that I’ve already outgrown my blouses and jeans?  Will I be able to wear any of my sexy shoes again, or should I just donate them now?

I know this all sounds very dramatic, but I vacillate between wonder and terror, excitement and ambivalence, joy and nervousness.  For so long I’ve cooed at babies and felt the void in my womb when I passed pregnant women.  I wanted a child, and I waited for my husband or my body to get up to speed.  Now that I am pregnant, I feel even more mystified by babies and pregnancy.  I worry about being a good mother, a good wife, a good pregnant woman.  I worry that I am “missing it” by being nervous.  I feel guilty for confessing these jumbled emotions and I don’t want my child to think someday that I wasn’t also thrilled with the chance to bring him or her into the world and share our lives.  Hm.

Loss and Gain

This has been a really hard few weeks.  I should start off by saying that to my knowledge I’m still pregnant — it’s now 8 weeks 6 days and I’ve had no bleeding, and I still have mild pregnancy symptoms.  That is the good news.  Nonetheless, I’m reeling with the news that my favorite kitty is dying of cancer.

This is Ollie during happier times — watching birds at the feeders after our big snow storm last year.

It started a few weeks ago when I returned from my business trip to Oakland and I noticed that Ollie had dropped a few pounds.  I took him to the vet, who performed x-rays and noticed a mass.  A few days later she gave him an enema, but nothing passed.  A few days after that, she recommended that I take him to a specialist.  I had to travel to California again for work, so the Mister took him in on Tuesday.  The specialist did an ultrasound and identified several masses, but was unable to make a diagnosis.  He drew a sample of abdominal fluid and sent it to be tested.  The whole time we’ve waited on pins and needles.  Finally, on Friday I had a long conversation with the vet who said it looked like the options were cancer or cancer.  The first cancer could be treated with surgery and chemo, but the second cancer —if it appeared on multiple organs— would be untreatable, and they would recommend that we never wake him up from surgery.  The doctor seemed to think it was likely to be the second cancer.

It’s just devastating.  And this whole time it’s been this calculus of quality of life vs. length of life vs. cost.  We have spent $2000 just getting to a tentative diagnosis, and the surgery alone (not including any chemotherapy) would be $2500-3000.  This, when we are pregnant, hoping to move to a new city over the summer, and realistically I will be out of work for months when the baby arrives.  Money matters.  Given the lousy prognosis, I told the vet we needed to start preparing end of life procedures.  We have him on steroids and pain medicine, and will likely put him to sleep some time in the next few weeks.  For now, I am taking this opportunity to say goodbye to him and show him love.

I love this cat.  I’ve had him for ten years.  He’s this crazy, lovable big personality.  He makes the wildest meows and vocalizations, and pretty much thinks he’s people.  He’s an escape artist, so we keep him in a harness for easier scooping up.  He is a climber, known to balance on the tops of door frames and ride around on shoulders.  He’s a lover, friendly to absolutely everyone.  He’s a champion cuddler — he knows how to spoon perfectly, and has even been known to jump dog gates to nap with a pit bull.  He gets high off of sauteed olive oil, catnip, and strawberries, and gets crazy eyes and starts running around the house like a mad man.  He drinks from the bath tub when I’m in it.  He’s my baby.

We told our folks a few weeks ago that we are pregnant, and now everyone is very worried about me.  My heart is breaking over my cat and I keep getting told that I need to stop worrying about him and think about my baby.  It’s so hard.  Ollie has been my baby for ten years, while the baby in my womb feels imaginary still.  I don’t want to trade one life for another.  My husband has been an angel through all of this, encouraging and supportive.  He said that this is one of the times in our lives when he can feel us growing up.  That in the face of this one terrible we loss we are being given the gift of a new life.  Somehow when he says it it sounds better, because I know he loves Ollie too.

Last night I cuddled up in bed with Ollie and told him about all the ways I had planned for him to be part of our post-baby lives.  How I imagined him cuddling up with our baby in the crib, and patiently allowing it (her? him?) to pull his tail.  How I imagined him thriving in our future house in the country, meeting chickens for the first time and chewing on fields of grass.  I’m sad, but also so grateful for the love I’ve shared with this silly animal.  I worry about the effects of grief on my baby, but I tell him/her that this grief is a part of love, and that only through being open to the possibility of grief that we can experience sublime love.  And that it’s worth it.

Flat Stanley

For the last few weeks I have been carrying a Flat Stanley around in my purse, taking pictures of him in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, etc etc…  This Stanley was drawn by my cousin’s child, and I’ve been doing this as a favor to my stepmom.  I confess, I’ve had a lot of fun taking him around, and I’m really looking forward to photographing him at Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks next week…  Of course, National Parks have got nothing on the miracle that Flat Stanley witnessed today.

This morning, Flat Stanley got to visit my uterus.

Today was our first ultrasound and prenatal visit — a milestone I’d been alternately praying for and dreading (in case of bad news) since we found out we were pregnant.

So, the very good news is that there was a heartbeat!  Whew!  I don’t think I heard much else after the doctor announced she found the heartbeat.  I had been holding my breath up until that point, and then it was like the world filled with incomprehensible noise.  I was just so relieved that our baby was still alive.  Whew.  When they moved the wand around my vagina, cataloging the baby’s size (1.3 cm), and locating my ovaries.  All systems go.

I guess this means we’re telling our parents now.  We’re going to have dinner with the Mister’s folks tomorrow night, and I need to figure out how to tell my parents from a distance (Flat Stanley’s pic will be part 2 of the announcement).  And then we need to figure out how to convince our folks not to tell anyone else…

Incidentally, I thought this was funny — the little bean measured at 7 weeks 4 days this morning, even though I’m theoretically supposed to be 7 weeks 2 days.  The Mister is 6’6” — I can’t help wondering if the baby is just already exceptionally tall for its age….

I thought this was funny too — did you know they put CONDOMS on the wands before lubing them up and inserting them?!  Kinky!  (But safe!  Good thing, because I know this wand has multiple partners besides me!)

BBT Insanity

It’s time to step away from the thermometer.  This hurts me a little, as my digital thermometer has been my trusty bedside companion for a long time now — it’s the thing I reach for first, before turning off the alarm clock.  Taking my temp each morning has structured my waking time, connected me with my body, encouraged the downloading of new and improved fertility tracking apps.

However…  I notice that tracking my temp is causing me increasing anxiety each day, and this morning I couldn’t remember why exactly I was still doing it.  Today I am 6 weeks 6 days pregnant.  Not out of the danger zone by a long shot, a reality I am faced with every time I hold my breath and wipe in the bathroom.  Still.

I have been changing time zones lately due to work travel, my digital thermometer is hinky (requiring that I keep it in my mouth long after the alarm has chimed), and I’ve been waking at different hours besides.  My temp is sliding around.

98.8

98.8

98.8

98.6

98.6

98.2 (this morning, at 6am)

A quick tour of Google says that a sudden drop in temperature during pregnancy can be useful in alerting me to a miscarriage before it happens.  Somehow, despite my love of data, this isn’t good enough.  If tracking my temperature daily allowed me to prevent a threatened miscarriage, then this would be worth it.  Instead, on days like today when I am taking my temperature earlier than usual, it causes me to panic.  I don’t need any help panicking.  So, I washed off the thermometer and put it away in the first aid drawer again.  I’m flying blind, once again, but I think it’s probably better this way.

Afraid of Outing Myself

At 6 weeks 1 day pregnant, I’m a long way from “showing”, but I find myself already worrying about inadvertently “outing” myself as pregnant.  I’m here staffing a booth at a rural health conference, surreptitiously catching glances at the interesting promotional materials for moms-to-be being distributed by other organizations.  I try to play this off like I’m only looking at them because I work in sexual and reproductive health (ahem!), but I think I am not very good at subtle.  My new (male) coworker also remarked that my stomach has been off a lot lately.  (Really?  Funny that!)  And tonight I’m getting together for dinner with one of my historic drinking and carousing buddies from the CDC.  (I’m screwed)  Never mind that I am falling asleep at the table yet insist on drinking only decaf coffee…

I’ve come out to a few friends already, namely because they either a. are dear friends who know we are TTC, or b. noticed I wasn’t drinking and flat-out asked. (Damn.)  I’m not very good at the lying thing, and it’s a bit awkward to tell people that I’m pregnant right now, but don’t get too excited yet because I’ve been known to miscarry, so play it cool, right?  I’m also realizing how much my adult social life has revolved around drinking, and it’s a little surprising/embarrassing.  Goodbye, craft microbrews and specialty cocktails in speakeasies…  Last weekend we had some friends visiting us from out of town, and we took them to a creative new bar recommended for its cocktails by Washingtonian magazine.  I ordered from the nonalcoholic list, and the table’s assessment of my mocktails were “good, but needs gin.”  To make matters worse (as far as faking people out goes), my medical doctor friend said that I should limit myself to one glass of tonic per day, because the quinine is not good for a fetus in larger doses.  Sigh.

In the meantime, I will have to find better ways of acting subtle, because I feel like everything I’ve been doing so far is more like stage whispers…

I made it to 5 weeks, 4 days! This is officially the most pregnant I have ever been.