roller coaster

And now I’m happy.  Apparently the blood was from my cervix (what? shoving a hard bit of plastic up there with a pill twice a day can irritate a cervix?).  We’re a little shy of 6 weeks, and we saw the heartbeat flicker.  Thanks so much everyone (Kellad) for sending luck my way.

I have never, in all 4 previous pregnancies had a remotely “good” result.  Sometimes they were neutral, which always meant bad.  Usually they were bad, which meant very bad.

So tonight I’m glad.  My first good experience in the dark little room.

Going into that dark, dreadful room

Well, the betas from yesterday were great.  My progesterone was fine.  So I was on cloud nine last night.  This morning I had some bright red spotting, and I just feel like it’s probably the beginning of the end.   I’m going in for an ultrasound this afternoon in that dark dreadful room where I never get good news.   Wish me luck.

two kinds of days

Lately there have been two kinds of days: “maybe this pregnancy will work” and “this pregnancy is going terribly wrong.”  It’s not even 8am, and it’s the latter sort of day.   There are lots of reasons for me to worry:  I haven’t really had any morning sickness to assure me that I am indeed pregnant, the bb tenderness is not as painful or consistent as to assure me that I am indeed pregnant, and I think I may have had the tiniest trace of spotting this morning.  I hope not, and I know I am scrutinizing things all too much, but I just have a bad feeling.  Tomorrow I go in for another round of hcg and progesterone bloodwork– if those numbers come back strong, then I’ll be feeling somewhat reassured for at least a little while.   I feel like calling the doc just to tell him I’m a nervous wreck, and I am having a hard time getting through the day.   But I don’t think that is exactly what they are there for.

So, that’s today.  I’m having lunch with a friend, and the movers are coming out for an estimate.  Hopefully this will keep me distracted.

packing

I’ve met a few people in my life who actually claim to enjoy this process . . . but most people will agree that it is quite difficult. It’s not so much the actual labor that goes into it, which takes a lot of time and patience, but for me it’s tough to see how much stuff I’ve let myself accumulate. It’s even worse to know that in this move I’m not reducing quite as much as I should be. The number of books in this house is positively alarming.

Since we’re both planning to teach college english, it’s not too hard to imagine why we have so many books horded on our shelves. But why must we have 4 copies of somewhat obscure books, like Melville’s Typee? I have notes in mine, he has notes in his, one has a cool cover, and the other it part of the NorthWest Newberry editions. All must be kept, of course. Multiply this by hundreds and you’ll start to see the scope of our dilemma. Anne Fadiman has a wonderful essay on this in Ex Libris. I can’t be quite so erudite as she, but I can tell you it’s one mell of a hess around here.

Odd that I should like UNpacking so much more… perhaps I can slim down our book collection on the other end of this process.

The movers come tomorrow to give us an estimate. We’re hoping that if we move enough of the little stuff ourselves our final bill will be less upsetting.

pregnancy #5

For those of you who know me in real life, please pretend you don’t know the following:

I’m pregnant.
ACK.

Don’t tell anyone who you’ll have to untell later. Actually, just don’t tell anyone.  Maybe pretend you don’t know if you see me in real life so that if something goes wrong and you ask how it’s going I don’t burst into tears in public.

I had a faintly positive HPT on May 4th, followed by betas on May 5, May 7, and today, May 14.   My numbers are looking very good.  My progesterone has come in at 40, 41, and 26, respectively.  (WHY only 26 today?  I know it’s above the 20 that my RE wants, and he’s not worried, but I can tell you right now that I am.)

Three years ago in May I found out I was pregnant for the first time.  I was at my parent’s house after a road trip out to Indiana to visit my sister.  I immediately told my family, was elated, excited, etc.  On the way home Mr. Sleepingcat and I drew up elaborate lists of names for boys and names for girls and names for either.   Even though I was already spotting at the time, it didn’t even really occur to me that anything bad would actually happen.

Oh wise we become . . .

Things look good this time, but they’ve looked good before.  No spotting, no cramping.  But the symptoms come and go, and that freaks me out.  Little pinches and twinges freak me out.   Sometimes I can’t sleep because my heart is racing so fast.   I start to get choked up if I even let myself imagine holding a baby.  I don’t get choked up thinking about miscarrying again.  In fact, I have a plan for when/if that happens….  I’ll leave that for another post that I will hopefully never have to write.

This post makes me seem a bit more dour than I really am.  I’m happy, but I’m a total wreck.   I have no idea how to calm down.

decision.

Well folks, I think we’ve finally made the decision to move. When we started thinking about this whole thing, we didn’t even consider water testing. But our testing revealed that our water at this little red house (cute little house that I’ll miss) has really dangerously low pH, and a high-ish level of copper in the water. I am not going to jump to the conclusion that this has caused me to miscarry so much, but then again, I don’t think it’s terribly good for our health. Low pH in water corrodes the piping and makes water carry a higher level of potentially toxic metals. Not a risk I’m particularly willing to take. Also– when your water tests at the acidity of vinegar (or lower) how can it be good to drink 8 glasses of it a day?

The water at the big barn where we will move into tested perfectly. I guess this is the “sign” I needed to finally make the choice.

Now onto comments from my ttc world: If I’m on progesterone, which carries the risk of creating blood clots, why does my doctor not also have me on an anti-clotting drug like heparin or lovenex? Especially when blood clots cause miscarriages? True, I don’t test positive for any of the many blood clotting disorders associated with RPL, and he has me on a low-dose of aspirin, which thins the blood, but is that enough? I hope so. Also, for my own health not just the health of any potential pregnancy, I hope so. Last night I had a coughing fit that kept me up for a while, and was convinced it was a blood clot in my lung (okay, so I overreact a bit). True, it was probably a cat hair that was unfortunately positioned in my throat, but I worried & worried & really slept pretty restlessly after that.

Maybe I should get back into therapy for my out-of-control worrying.

Progesterone & Paranoia

Here I am on that funny drug that makes people who want to be pregnant feel pregnant even if they are not.  I don’t really get fooled by it, and as I’ve mentioned earlier, the sleepiness is nice at night.  The waves of nausea and the boobs that hurt when I simply walk down stairs– these I could do without.

My ability to concentrate is compromised seriously.  Remember back a few months ago when I wrote 5 pages of my dissertation one day?  My big little victory?  Those days are so very long gone for me….  my adviser had my chapter back to me with comments in mid-March, and I’ve still not finished round one of revisions.  Ugh.   I can’t really blame the drug though, this has happened to me all too often without any medical intervention, alas.

We still can’t figure out whether to move or not.  Now I’m on a big “health and safety” evaluation of the potential living spaces.  I’m doing water tests & guestimating whether there is lead paint in our current place…   a very paranoid me sometimes thinks that something in this house has been making me miscarry over and over….  and maybe, just maybe if we move, I’ll carry to term.  Not that I’m pregnant now, but you follow the logic?  I did read about private wells contaminated with nitrates causing miscarriage and infant death.  I was sure in the 3 hours between reading that and doing the hardware store test-kit that our well had ended my four pregnancies.  But the test says our well is fine.   I’m sticking to bottled water if ever I do “fall pregnant” again, as the brits say.  My forbearing and understanding friend who lives in the place we might move into has welcomed us to test their water.  I know I’m pretty crazy.

I’ll let you all know when we decide on a living space.  Any advice in the meantime will be appreciated!

Thanks Beagle, Flores, and Kella for birthday wishes! It was a very happy birthday.

happy birthday to me!

Today I’m thirty! Despite the stress and sadnesses of the past two years, I’m feeling happy today. It’s sunny and clear. We’re having lunch with some of our closest friends, and Mr. brought me a huge bouquet of pink roses & made me a chocolate-orange cake. Seems like a pretty good day to me.

To move or not to move… that is the (urgent) question…

We’ve been putting off this decision for a long time, but we must decide… and soon. Our current rental house is going up on the market next spring. It’s no big treat, but it’s in a good location & it will be relatively cheap. A similar house in the neighborhood was sold within a few weeks, even in this tough market. If we stay here we can look forward to the annoyance of “showing” a house that isn’t even ours.

Maybe this would be okay, if this house were in great condition and we loved every aspect of living here. But it’s in bad condition. The pipes are always leaking. The toilet has been mounted on PLYWOOD for years now & the venting is poor, so often the wood is damp, which means mold. I can’t emphasize enough how repulsed I am by this situation. Although we’re renters, we do all the lawn work, most of the repairs, and have to deal with all the basement flooding issues.

But it’s been a sweet house. It’s surrounded by 22 acres of lovely woods. We have flowers, birds, peepers, silence. Other than the bathroom, it’s a cute, retro house. The rent is low, we’re close to campus, and we’ve had a lot of good memories here.

Here’s the interesting part: the place we are thinking of moving into has a lot of good memories and good karma too. It’s the place I lived in during my Master’s program when Mr. and I were dating and engaged. It’s an AMAZING re-done barn. The kitchen is enormous, the bathroom is a dream. It looks like something out of a magazine. Our dear friends live there (my old roommate and her husband), but are leaving this May. It’s perfect of entertaining. The cats would love it. And did I mention the size of the bathroom?

But…. it’s also a bit insecure. Technically, it’s not a “legal” apartment. This means we have to pretend we’re not really renting sometimes, and with that comes the worry that the town will swoop down and boot us out. (But they’ve never yet done this to any of the “tenants” of the place.) It’s a remote fear. And, as if the fates are conspiring against our housing… this place is on the market too! True, it’s been on and off the market for 3 years and only had one showing (I think). It’s ghastly expensive and not really zoned for “apartments,” whiche seems the only reasonable usage of the space. It’s not very quaint new-englandy. In other words, there’s almost no chance this place will sell. The owners are NOT “motivated” sellers, b/c they don’t plan to move for 3 years.

Also: we’ve poked around at other rentals, and NOTHING catches our eye. Everything is either too small, too pricey, too far from campus, too nasty…. etc…

Please advise. Oh pretty, pretty, please! What do we do? Help.

sleep, wonderful sleep

Perhaps the only nice side-effect of taking a progesterone supplement is that it makes me sleepy!  So sleepy!  I’ve been on it for about a week now, and I’ve been sleeping like a cat.  It’s been very nice.  It’s a little less nice when the sleepies hit me in the middle of the work day, but today I caught a little nap in Mr. Sleepingcat’s sudy carrel.

I’m finding myself (knock on wood) a little more relaxed than I have been in the past when ttc.  I am not sure why.  I guess after not having any success even when I do find myself pregnant, I get a lot less caught up in analyzing if I am feeling any “early” pregnancy signs.  I mean, it doesn’t really matter.  I have all those symptoms for PMS anyway, and on this progresterone supplement, it’s all magnified.

Still, I’ve calculated that if we got pregnant this cycle, I think the baby would be due right before Christmas.

Maybe I haven’t changed that much…