It's Official...

The blood test was a positive, and for that I am so thankful.  My level was 117, which is way above the 25 my clinic requires to consider it more than a chemical pregnancy.  It was also above the number they look for to indicate a healthy pregnancy – 50.  I feel good about my 117 and am looking forward to Monday (Yeah…I have to wait four days instead of two for my second blood test because my fertility center won’t test on weekends…not crazy about that extra two days of waiting), when I can have the reassurance that the number has doubled and things are going well. 

The nurse who called me with my results and the nurse who set-up my appointment for my second round of intralipids were both squealing and congratulating me over and over.  I felt a little guilty that I wasn’t more excited.  I don’t know if this anti-climactic feeling is because I was pretty sure that I would get a positive, given all the POAS, or if I am unwittingly returning to self-preservation mode.  I thought that I had overcome my doubts and fears.  I thought I would continue to be Positive Polly and would ride the Happy Train all the way through the pregnancy.  I thought wrong.  I feel like something is “off” right now, and I hate it.  I want to be jumping up and down and yelling and celebrating.  I would be happy to even feel some butterflies in my stomach over the good news.  But instead I’m just numb...and maybe sad.

I think that part of the problem is that I have been struggling with “survivor’s guilt.”  It sucks that I am pregnant and my fertility friends are not.  I’m not saying it sucks that I’m pregnant, nor are they saying that.  But it isn’t fair that they aren’t pregnant with me…and I can’t fix it.  So the guilt I’m feeling about this is making me second guess everything I have said in this blog.  Have I been too excited and too happy?  Am I that obnoxious person who is unintentionally rubbing my good fortune in the face of those who are less fortunate?  I think about conversations I have had with my friends, and I groan at some of the statements I’ve made.  For example, I’ve talked about my symptoms…the unpleasant ones…the ones that those struggling with infertility long for.  I’ve talked about them because I’m perplexed by them and it is all so new to me.  But what if it sounds like I’m complaining?  I have a tough time with former infertiles who complain about their pregnancy symptoms to people still on their journey to motherhood.  I think it is just something you don’t do…but what if I am…or sound like I am?  Or what if I am reminding those who have experienced losses of their pregnancies...and their pain?

I thought I would feel like my pregnancy was a victory for us all.  That I would be that inspirational character who struggled for three years and then got pregnant…the one that makes people not want to give up when they hit two years of trying to conceive…or three years of trying to conceive.  But I don’t think I am that person.  I’m just another friend who got pregnant…and I hate being that.  Then, I feel guilty for “hating being that” because I feel like I’m somehow not appreciating my pregnancy enough…and that is equally unacceptable.  I feel like I need to appreciate this pregnancy enough for everyone…like there is an obligation that I suck every drop of happiness out of this situation, or I am not worthy of the gift I’ve been given.  Basically, I feel guilty about feeling guilty.

I knew infertility would be an unwanted companion during this pregnancy.  I knew infertility wasn’t going to just leave me alone because I had gotten a positive HPT.  But I underestimated infertility’s resolve and power over me.  I’m fighting to not allow infertility to steal my joy this pregnancy…but today, of all days, I’m losing the battle.  This should be a happy post and I’m sorry to all of you that it is not.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Dream a Little Dream...

As many of you know (because I’ve been complaining about it in all of my posts), I’ve had a cold for a long time.  I finally went to the doctor yesterday and was given an antibiotic and a cough syrup with codeine.  Normally, codeine doesn’t bother me but last night the medicine made my dreams really weird.  And they all involved the same theme – Babies/Pregnancy.  What a surprise!

In one dream, I was living with a lovely couple, admiring and playing with their baby (who was a few months old).  I desperately loved the baby, even though she wasn’t mine and I wasn’t related to her.  Then, for no particular reason, I gave her a piece of popcorn to eat.  Nothing bad happened, but her father yelled at me, saying “What were you thinking?  Don’t you know babies can choke on popcorn?”  Even after he calmed down, I felt so terrible about putting the baby in jeopardy.  I do know better, and I don’t know why I would do something so dangerous.  I kept saying I was sorry, secretly thinking “how stupid can you be?”

Clearly, this dream was about me struggling with the idea that I am not fit to be a mother, and that is why I am not able to get pregnant.  I know that is not the way it works, as is evidenced by all of the people who aren’t fit to be mothers who do get pregnant.  But no matter how many times I tell myself that I will be a good mother, and my infertility is not punishment for some sin I haven’t yet committed, my subconscious refuses to give this idea up. 

In another dream, I was getting my first ultrasound and I went home to tell my husband that I was pregnant (not sure why he didn’t know already, but whatever…it was a dream).  He said “Great.”  Then, he paced the floor and got sweaty.  He kept trying to pick a fight with me and eventually said “I can’t do this.  I thought it was what I wanted, but it isn’t.  I think you should terminate the pregnancy.”  My heart broke as I walked out the door, suitcase in hand, hoping he would change his mind when he calmed down.

That dream was also pretty easy to analyze, but no so easy to go through.  My husband and I have been getting into lots of little quarrels lately.  I secretly am certain that it is because we are close to heading into a new ART cycle.  My husband pushes me away emotionally whenever we start a cycle.  He is more moody than I am when I’m on the meds, but he is oblivious to the fact that he is behaving so badly, much less conscious of why he is behaving that way.  And although I know the constant bickering is about him steeling himself against the pain of another failure, and not about me…it hurts.  And it also makes me scared.  If his fear of what is to come makes him abandon me emotionally when we are just trying to get pregnant, what is going to happen when I actually get pregnant?  Is he going to freak out? 

There’s another way to analyze that dream, too.  Some psychologists theorize that we are actually every person in each of our dreams – every character is just a reflection of a piece of ourselves.  If that is the case, then this dream could also be about me being afraid that when I finally get pregnant and have a child, I am going to find that it isn’t everything I had hoped for.  I don’t ever say that out loud…as if that doubt’s very existence will keep me from getting pregnant.  But I do worry about changing my mind about what I want in life.  Lots of mothers tell me that they had no idea how hard motherhood would be and that as much as they love their children, they might do it differently if they had to do it over.  What if I become that person?  What if I have a baby only to wish that I didn’t have a baby?  Am I capable of that?  And knowing what women go through, what I’ve gone through, to have a baby…could I survive the guilt I would have if I felt that way?

I wish I could be a real fairy tale princess sometimes and just sleep in a deep sleep, only to wake up and find that all of my good dreams had come true and my bad dreams had been dealt with by someone else.  Real fairy tale princesses don’t get terrorized by their own psyche.  Real fairy tale princesses don’t wake up feeling guilty and afraid.  And real fairy tale princess don't have to fess-up, anonymously to friends they've never met, to having horrible doubts and fears.