Brief Update

Thanks so much for all of the support.  It has meant a lot to read your comments.  And apologies to anyone who found it hard to read my last post.  I really am incredibly grateful to be where we are, despite moments of crankiness.

Here’s a brief update about all (4!) of us:

Sprout:  So far, so good!  We last got to see her/him a week ago Friday and the doctor had no concerns.  We got to hear the heartbeat for the first time (instead of just seeing the little flutter), which was fabulous!  I’d forgotten just how magical that is.  We go back on Monday, for what will probably (knock on wood!) be our last appointment at BSFC.  I’m nervous about it, despite all of the reasons that I have to believe that things are still going well.  I’ll be almost 9 weeks along at that point and feel like I will finally be able to let out the breath I’ve been holding for the last month.  I know there are still no guarantees, but somehow I feel like the risks will be low enough to be in the same category with other kinds of one-in-a-million out-of-the-blue tragedies.  I know that horrible things happen in families every day.  But the only way I can get through life is to not put too much energy into worrying about all of the things that could go wrong (childhood cancers, car accidents, etc.), especially since there’s nothing I could do to prevent them.  I know that an earlier miscarriage would be similarly out of my control, so I’m not sure what the distinction is.  But being released from the RE feels like an important step.

Me: Physically I’m still having a really rough time of things.  The plus (?) is that the nausea has settled into a more predictable pattern.  I have moments of feeling ill throughout the day, but it’s really awful from about 7pm-midnight.  My main solution is to spend that evening time either asleep or trying to be distracted by a book or TV show.  I’m currently a thrilling person to live with…

Emotionally, I’m doing a lot better.  The spotting stopped about two weeks ago, which makes me much less anxious.  Plus I found this, an actual research article which found that spotting didn’t actually increase the risk of miscarriage at all.  So my obsessive Googling actually resulted in some reassurance for once!  I know that we’re not out of the woods yet, but I’m starting to believe that we really might have a baby in December.  I’ve started to do a few of the things that I’d been putting off until I felt more sure of things.  I finally signed up for one of those “your baby is the size of a rutabega/papaya/watermelon” email lists.  And I got out the clothes in larger sizes that I wore post-partum and my old maternity clothes.  (Though that last one was more out of necessity–they number of work pants that I can still fit into is shrinking rapidly!).  I’m starting to tell a few close friends about the pregnancy which helps to make it more real.  And it’s nice to have a few more folks to complain to!

Roo:  I won’t speak for her, but will see if she wants to write a post herself about her own perspective on all of this.  I know it hasn’t been easy for her to live with a whiny pregnant person when she’s grieving the fact that she won’t be pregnant.  But she has been incredibly sweet and supportive these last few weeks. (Note from Roo: She’s been whiny and ravenous but looks SO FINE in her new tummy.)

Tadpole:  We haven’t told Tadpole about the pregnancy yet.  Partly, I wouldn’t want to tell him about a loss so we’re waiting until we feel a bit more secure in the pregnancy.  But the main reason is that once we tell him, I suspect that our little social butterfly will start telling the entire world!  So we can’t tell him until we’re ready for all of our neighbors, random folks in the check-out line at the grocery store and every child, parent and teacher at his school to know.

I think he suspects that something is up, though.  Roo and I have had a few conversations that we thought would go over his head that may not have.  He’s done an awful lot of pretend play recently about having a baby in his belly.  I was trying to blame that on his new baby cousin and a new baby born to one of his classmate’s families.  But then we had a conversation in the car the other day in which he (completely out of the blue) said, “Momma, if you have a baby in your belly, when it comes out and you are tired and don’t want to feed it I will give it a bottle!”  I’m sure that his feelings about an actual little sibling will be more complicated, but I’m so excited to watch him as a big brother!