My temp was 97.7 today. It should not go below 98.1 if I'm pregnant. Of course, it's 25 degrees outside and was probably about 60 in the bedroom. Maybe the thermometer cooled down my mouth.
I took it again: 97.9
And again: 97.7
I told hubby and mentioned that I would buy another pregnancy test later. "Is that going to tell you anything?" I offered that the line might be lighter if my body was losing its HCG. I don't really know, but I don't feel like being questioned.
Today I have a dentist appt. and an appt. with my energy worker, who can probably muscle-test and answer whatever question I have.
But if I'm about to go through a loss, I'd like any foreknowledge/assurance I can find.
Showing posts with label miscarriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miscarriage. Show all posts
Friday, December 11, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Silence of omission
My friend came over today with her daughter and new baby. I knew about her pregnancies soon after they happened, and her miscarriages. We talked about her plans for trying to conceive and for waiting while she got acupuncture. Anything less -- if it wasn't just for not having the chance to chat -- wouldn't have felt right.
I didn't tell her.
Maybe it's because we didn't talk much about ourselves. We talked about mothering in general and some of our mutual friends. She shared some about herself via those conversations, and I did a little too, though much less than usual for someone who usually lays it all out there.
You might even say I lied. By saying nothing. "We're going to have to get things together for L's motherblessing this spring," she said. "And before she has her baby, someone else is going to have to get pregnant. So that's you or A."
If I weren't already pregnant -- if I were trying or still in flux about trying -- I don't think I could have taken that comment with the lighthearted tone in which it was intended. I mean, I've been talking for at least a year and a half about my doubts about being able to conceive after so long with no periods, and of course watching so many friends miscarry, it's for sure on my mind that nothing can be taken for granted. It's not as though I live in the land of believing you just oops have sex and wind up pregnant, heehee.
Except that I did. So maybe the reluctance is about making such a big deal over nothing. Isn't that always the case with me? Aren't I always being told by this same friend -- and others -- that I'm too hard on myself? Yes. And does that ever make me feel anything other than bad for being so hard? No.
So maybe I just want to keep the drama close to my chest. I really don't think I could take a round of "See, that wasn't so hard" from my friends. Certainly not during this early period when so much could still change.
And, as I was just writing in a piece I submitted the other day to Hip Mama, I'm not exactly used to feeling like it's safe to tell the truth. I always felt like I had to shield my mom from my sadness, lest I add to hers. My siblings were all so much older, I felt like nothing I experienced really counted. Theirs was the true reality. I was just acting things out, perpetually the preschooler playing grown up. Everything plastic, nothing bearing its real-world weight.
But I did grow up, and this is real. It is a life. And I have more friends - genuine and wonderful women - than I've ever had before, and sisters who are my friends now that nine and twelve years don't mean so much. But I still don't want to let them in. I'm afraid of accepting support, and I can't imagine happily going through a motherblessing like the ones I've helped organize. I don't think I believe I'm worth it.
A lot of people don't tell until later in pregnancy, and I respect that. Some people tell right away, and that makes a lot of sense to me.
I'm noticing that, although I think my physical reality may announce my condition within the next three weeks, I am not looking forward to telling. Anyone. Ever.
I didn't tell her.
Maybe it's because we didn't talk much about ourselves. We talked about mothering in general and some of our mutual friends. She shared some about herself via those conversations, and I did a little too, though much less than usual for someone who usually lays it all out there.
You might even say I lied. By saying nothing. "We're going to have to get things together for L's motherblessing this spring," she said. "And before she has her baby, someone else is going to have to get pregnant. So that's you or A."
If I weren't already pregnant -- if I were trying or still in flux about trying -- I don't think I could have taken that comment with the lighthearted tone in which it was intended. I mean, I've been talking for at least a year and a half about my doubts about being able to conceive after so long with no periods, and of course watching so many friends miscarry, it's for sure on my mind that nothing can be taken for granted. It's not as though I live in the land of believing you just oops have sex and wind up pregnant, heehee.
Except that I did. So maybe the reluctance is about making such a big deal over nothing. Isn't that always the case with me? Aren't I always being told by this same friend -- and others -- that I'm too hard on myself? Yes. And does that ever make me feel anything other than bad for being so hard? No.
So maybe I just want to keep the drama close to my chest. I really don't think I could take a round of "See, that wasn't so hard" from my friends. Certainly not during this early period when so much could still change.
And, as I was just writing in a piece I submitted the other day to Hip Mama, I'm not exactly used to feeling like it's safe to tell the truth. I always felt like I had to shield my mom from my sadness, lest I add to hers. My siblings were all so much older, I felt like nothing I experienced really counted. Theirs was the true reality. I was just acting things out, perpetually the preschooler playing grown up. Everything plastic, nothing bearing its real-world weight.
But I did grow up, and this is real. It is a life. And I have more friends - genuine and wonderful women - than I've ever had before, and sisters who are my friends now that nine and twelve years don't mean so much. But I still don't want to let them in. I'm afraid of accepting support, and I can't imagine happily going through a motherblessing like the ones I've helped organize. I don't think I believe I'm worth it.
A lot of people don't tell until later in pregnancy, and I respect that. Some people tell right away, and that makes a lot of sense to me.
I'm noticing that, although I think my physical reality may announce my condition within the next three weeks, I am not looking forward to telling. Anyone. Ever.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
On not telling, Part II
I just learned on Facebook that a friend recently had a miscarriage. She wrote a poignant reflection on the culture of not telling until the first trimester is over, concluding that it's pretty dumb not to gather support at the time you need it most.
I agree, and I don't.
Part of me thought it would be silly to keep something so important from the people who are important to me. My friends and I share info about being tired because a child didn't sleep well, about husbands not being what we need on any given day, about our own grumpiness that gets in the way of appreciating our partners, about interactions with family, about sore nipples, the whole nine yards. So why, I thought for a while, would I withhold the truth of what is going on with me?
Because I'm scared. What's not so clear is exactly what I'm scared of. Part of me is, of course, concerned that something will go wrong, and then I'll have to tell everybody. If you never shared the news in the first place, you don't have to share the un-news. You can wait until the pain has passed and then offer some perspective.
But that doesn't fly if what you really want is support. I understand that. So why don't I want support?
Because I don't know what I want support for. I'm ambivalent. That's not very inspiring. No one signs up to be a cheerleader for a team that's not sure whether or not it wants to win.
Yes, of course I want to have a baby in my arms in, gulp, eight months. I wouldn't have had sex three times and waited until the middle of the night to pee if I didn't want it.
But I'm tepid. Timid. Unsure. It happened faster than I expected, and I am not ready to share any kind of excitement until I feel it's relatively safe to have some.
It seems to me that by this time in my first pregnancy, my son had already told me he was here to stay. (And that he was a boy, which freaked the hell out of me). I know it was in the 5th week (which starts today or tomorrow), because I was at a writing conference, and I can picture that Sarah Lawrence College dorm room where I felt like I heard the message (but still took my temperature every morning just in case. And by the way, I was peeing a thousand times a night already. I had to go across a linoleum tiled floor to a flourescent-lit bathroom).
Since I was a writing conference -- about writing the medical experience -- I wrote about my new experience as it was happening. We were tasked to produce a poem the morning after we got there, so I wrote something I'd been composing in my head on the train ride about shoots taking root or being washed away, like the tomatoes in my soggy yard. My pregnancy (and the fact that I wrote long poems) was the first thing people in my workshop learned about me. Other people -- the prose writers -- had no clue, of course. But I was thinking it, living it, feeling it.
I'd also told my mom by this time, because she was to have surgery while I was gone, and I wanted her to know, just in case. I might have told my sister right before I left, but I think I told her shortly after I got back. I couldn't ask my mom to keep it a secret for too long.
After all my health issues, we were all excited that I'd even gotten pregnant. "Oh, (name)," my sister said. "I hope this ends up with a baby in your arms" (hence the language used above), "but even if it doesn't, this is really exciting."
She miscarried at least once, my other sister more times than she cares to count, the last one ectopic and leading her to call for a tubal ligation. My mom, though, doesn't think she had any pregnancy losses, and she had five kids.
Which brings me to the next fear, one I don't even feel like addressing yet: the ability to have natural birth, at home, after having had a c-section.
I've been living with such doubt for so long: can I safely have a baby vaginally? Or nevermind that, can I even get my period back and ever get pregnant again? How about, Can my marriage take another child? Can I take it?
I've done some work on these questions with a therapist trained in Emotional Freedom Technique, and it got me away from gripping tears and toward a kind of distance.
I'm embracing that distance now. Like a parent unsure of a child's new boyfriend, I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch until I know he's sticking around. Why bother getting attached to something that might be gone tomorrow?
But I'm also not drinking even decaf coffee or eating any non-nutritious food, (except some coconut milk ice cream, which has good fat). I might be staying up late, but I'm generally trying to be a good maybe-mama.
I'm just doing it quietly for now.
I agree, and I don't.
Part of me thought it would be silly to keep something so important from the people who are important to me. My friends and I share info about being tired because a child didn't sleep well, about husbands not being what we need on any given day, about our own grumpiness that gets in the way of appreciating our partners, about interactions with family, about sore nipples, the whole nine yards. So why, I thought for a while, would I withhold the truth of what is going on with me?
Because I'm scared. What's not so clear is exactly what I'm scared of. Part of me is, of course, concerned that something will go wrong, and then I'll have to tell everybody. If you never shared the news in the first place, you don't have to share the un-news. You can wait until the pain has passed and then offer some perspective.
But that doesn't fly if what you really want is support. I understand that. So why don't I want support?
Because I don't know what I want support for. I'm ambivalent. That's not very inspiring. No one signs up to be a cheerleader for a team that's not sure whether or not it wants to win.
Yes, of course I want to have a baby in my arms in, gulp, eight months. I wouldn't have had sex three times and waited until the middle of the night to pee if I didn't want it.
But I'm tepid. Timid. Unsure. It happened faster than I expected, and I am not ready to share any kind of excitement until I feel it's relatively safe to have some.
It seems to me that by this time in my first pregnancy, my son had already told me he was here to stay. (And that he was a boy, which freaked the hell out of me). I know it was in the 5th week (which starts today or tomorrow), because I was at a writing conference, and I can picture that Sarah Lawrence College dorm room where I felt like I heard the message (but still took my temperature every morning just in case. And by the way, I was peeing a thousand times a night already. I had to go across a linoleum tiled floor to a flourescent-lit bathroom).
Since I was a writing conference -- about writing the medical experience -- I wrote about my new experience as it was happening. We were tasked to produce a poem the morning after we got there, so I wrote something I'd been composing in my head on the train ride about shoots taking root or being washed away, like the tomatoes in my soggy yard. My pregnancy (and the fact that I wrote long poems) was the first thing people in my workshop learned about me. Other people -- the prose writers -- had no clue, of course. But I was thinking it, living it, feeling it.
I'd also told my mom by this time, because she was to have surgery while I was gone, and I wanted her to know, just in case. I might have told my sister right before I left, but I think I told her shortly after I got back. I couldn't ask my mom to keep it a secret for too long.
After all my health issues, we were all excited that I'd even gotten pregnant. "Oh, (name)," my sister said. "I hope this ends up with a baby in your arms" (hence the language used above), "but even if it doesn't, this is really exciting."
She miscarried at least once, my other sister more times than she cares to count, the last one ectopic and leading her to call for a tubal ligation. My mom, though, doesn't think she had any pregnancy losses, and she had five kids.
Which brings me to the next fear, one I don't even feel like addressing yet: the ability to have natural birth, at home, after having had a c-section.
I've been living with such doubt for so long: can I safely have a baby vaginally? Or nevermind that, can I even get my period back and ever get pregnant again? How about, Can my marriage take another child? Can I take it?
I've done some work on these questions with a therapist trained in Emotional Freedom Technique, and it got me away from gripping tears and toward a kind of distance.
I'm embracing that distance now. Like a parent unsure of a child's new boyfriend, I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch until I know he's sticking around. Why bother getting attached to something that might be gone tomorrow?
But I'm also not drinking even decaf coffee or eating any non-nutritious food, (except some coconut milk ice cream, which has good fat). I might be staying up late, but I'm generally trying to be a good maybe-mama.
I'm just doing it quietly for now.
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