The Rare Sweaty Leopard-Wolf...In Her Own Words

I’ve tried to avoid any super pregnancy-related posts to date.  I don’t know that I’ve done a great job at that.  But, the fact is, I am pregnant and many of you reading this post are pregnant, have been pregnant or are going to be pregnant very soon.  I can’t avoid the topic forever.  So, I am venturing into the land of a purely-about-pregnancy post today, and hoping that I don’t lose my valued bloggy friends along the way.

I like to pride myself on knowing a lot about a lot of things.  I research things to death, long before I need to in most cases.  But, when it came to pregnancy, I think I was a little afraid to delve into the research too much.  My fear and sadness, when I was struggling through infertility, prevented me from really immersing myself into a pursuit of knowledge about what happens to your body during pregnancy.  What if I didn’t get pregnant?  Wouldn’t that knowledge hurt more? 

But now my pregnancy is a reality and I thought it might be helpful (or at least amusing) to share some of my weirder symptoms…the ones you don’t hear a lot about in passing.  My intent is not to complain, but to let others who might have these symptoms now or in the future know that you aren’t abnormal if you get hit with these things. 

• Brown spots on my face – I now look like I had two little brown circles/leopard spots tattooed on my right cheek.  My doctor promised that they are because of hormone levels being funky and that the spots will fade after pregnancy (although they may never completely go away).  I wish they were in the shape of stars or hearts, so I could pretend that they are a cool throwback to glam-rock or something, but alas…I just look like I need a mother to come over and scrub two dirty spots off my face.

• While on the topic of my face…I am beginning to look a bit like the Wolf Man.  First I noticed a few random hairs on my chin (that actually started during my IVF cycles).  I called them Billy Goat Hairs…trying to maintain a sense of humor about them.  I was not pleased when I went to have my eyebrows waxed and the person doing the waxing asked me if I would like my chin done, too.  I was horrified.  But that was not to be the worst of my humiliation.  On Saturday, as we were walking to the car, The Prince offered that perhaps I should start shaving my sideburns, as they were growing down the sides of my face.  It is not like my spreading hairline had escaped my attention, but I was hoping that I was just overly sensitive about it and no one else had noticed.  Apparently not!  The Prince tried the old “I was just kidding” routine, but that doesn’t really work after a 15 minute conversation about how I could potentially combat my morph into Cousin It.  Then, when I was having my eyebrows waxed yesterday, I told the person doing the waxing (who is also my good friend) about what my husband had said.  Instead of saying “What?!?  He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she said “Oh yeah!  You really need to have those waxed off.  I can’t believe how dark they are!  You are so pale…that doesn’t help.”  Gee thanks!!!  I didn’t break down and have them waxed.  I have read that my fuzzy-wuzziness is a hormone response and that the hair will fall out after I stop breastfeeding.  Here’s hoping.

• Back pain – I know that back pain is a common pregnancy symptom, but I’ve only heard about it being an issue in the second and third trimester.  Mine started this week – Week 9.  I thought maybe it was because I am fat, or because I am holding my core differently to adjust to the strange feelings in my belly.  But an endocrinologist that I saw today told me that it is actually from the hormone imbalance that pregnancy causes.  My back pain isn’t back pain at all…it is posterior pelvic pain.  I guess the hormones make the bones in the pelvis soft so they can have more flexibility as the baby grows...and it hurts.  When the pain is around your tailbone...it's most likely pelvic pain.  Usually the bone-softening starts in the second trimester, but if you are getting lots of progesterone and estrogen supplements (like I am) it can happen sooner.  Yeah!  The pains will come and go throughout pregnancy, but should stop after the baby’s birth…only to be replaced by back pain from carrying around a baby, diaper bag, car seat, etc.  The doctor recommended that I start doing pelvic tilts to strengthen my core muslces and, potentially, to lessen the discomfort.

• Sweating – I have become part leopard, part Wolf Man, and…apparently…part pig (or at least I sweat like one).  My internal thermostat is definitely broken.  I have air conditioning on me constantly and I also keep a fan blowing on me at my desk at work all day.  I drink iced drinks.  I put ice on my neck and back at night, when I am trying to sleep.  And still I sweat…so much that my bed feels like I peed it each morning, and my shirt has wet spots if I walk for more than a couple of minutes outside.  I’m not a petite girl, so I am not new to the idea of sweating more than my more dainty counterparts.  But this is an incredible amount of sweat.  I now sympathize with those poor guys who always have wet circles on the underarms of their dress shirts in court.  And…the added bonus is…with the more sensitive sense of smell I’m sporting…I am acutely aware of any body odor that I emit.  (Luckily this pregnancy sweat doesn’t seem to be too stinky, but if I could shower my whole body in clinical strength deodorant each day, I would).

These are but a sampling of my new, charming qualities.  Each of these symptoms were an unpleasant surprise for me, but they are also a daily reminder of the blessing I have in my belly.  Little Hamish (I’m trying to get back on board with “Hamish,” as The Prince refuses to let the joke go) is giving Mommy a run for her money, but I know that…even if I end up being a sweaty leopard-wolf for the rest of my life…Little Hamish will be worth it (probably will also be embarrassed to be seen in public with me, but still worth it).



Old Demons

Today was the first day, since my pregnancy began, that I thought about the fact that my baby was conceived via use of an egg donor.  I was preparing for next Monday’s OBGYN appointment (my first), writing out questions and important things I don’t want to forget to tell the doctor, and I filling out the “new patient paperwork.”  I was filling out the section of the paperwork that involves my genetic history when it occurred to me…my genetic history doesn’t matter.  We have certain information about the donor’s genetic history, and I think that is what the doctor will want me to put down on our paperwork…not my history.  That got me thinking about Rh compatibility…and how we won’t know the baby’s Rh type without having an amniocentesis, as we don’t know whether the egg donor was Rh positive.  We don’t even know her blood type, just that she has no reported genetic problems in her family history.

Suddenly, my mind was barreling into that negative place it likes to go.  I pictured myself as a house for the baby to develop in…instead of “the mommy.”  I remembered that at our last ultrasound, when the nurse said “Your baby is cute as a button…Look how cute it is,” I had joked that “Of course it is.  It has such an attractive mother.”  I meant me.  It hadn’t even occurred to me at the time that, oh yeah, the baby isn’t going to look like me. 

So then, in addition to feeling marginalized in my role (which is OBVIOUSLY a very active role…but I couldn’t see that today), I started thinking about our donor and feeling guilty again.  I hadn’t mentioned this earlier, because I’ve tried not to think about it.  But, as soon as the donor finished our cycle, she withdrew from the program.  I cried when I found out…even though there is no way for me to know why she withdrew.  All I could think was that our cycle was so hard on her that she couldn’t take anymore punishment.  I mean…she produced 32 eggs!!!  That can’t be comfortable.   Or, if not that, I thought maybe she stopped donating because I said something wrong in our letter to her…or made her uncomfortable with the gift we got her.  (I know…it’s not all about me and it is self-centered for me to project this stuff on the situation.  But I’m being honest about how I felt/feel…no matter how ugly it makes me look).   I try to think of the possible positive explanations for her choice.  Maybe the donor is ready to start a family of her own.  Maybe she wants to limit the number of genetic offspring she has.  Maybe she started dating someone who would rather that she no longer donate.  There are a million possible reasons why she may have withdrawn as a donor, but I can’t help but feel guilty about it... guilty that she blessed us with so many fabulous eggs to start our family with.

I know these feelings will pass.  I’ll stop thinking about our donor and will start feeling like “the mommy” again… probably around the same time as my next ultrasound…hopefully sooner.   It is impossible for me to see the baby growing inside of me and not feel like I am 100% its mother.  It is just frustrating that I am having these feelings at all.  I thought that I had left them behind and that my biggest worry from here on out would be how other people would feel about us having used an egg donor.  I fear that, like everything else infertility-related, my feelings and concerns about having used an egg donor will never really go away completely…even when I think I’ve processed them and rid myself of them.  I hope that I am wrong about that.

The Dangers of Radishes...and Other Important Things To Know About Cravings



Last night, as I was indulging in a 1:00 a.m. snack of potato chips and balsamic vinegar, it occurred to me that I was officially having one of those wacky pregnancy cravings that you always hear about.  I had gone to bed at 9:30, but stayed awake tossing and turning until 12:00 a.m.  At 12:00 a.m. my queasiness offered me a brief reprieve and, as I thought about what I should eat to help stave off low blood sugar in the morning, I became consumed with the idea of vinegar…until the urge to have it became so strong that I got out of bed and figured out a way to ingest the vinegar, short of downing it like a shot.  Potato chips seemed like a logical means to an end.

Up to this point in the pregnancy, I have had more food aversions than food cravings.  I have, for all intents and purposes, become a vegetarian because I’ve yet to find a form of meat that I can stomach.  Sometimes all I want are baked potatoes and saltine crackers, and sometimes the idea of starch makes my stomach turn.  Fruit Punch Gatorade has been my most faithful friend from the food world, but I would certainly not say that I ever crave Gatorade.  My “old faithfuls” that I thought would be the foods I would eat guilt-free in massive quantities during my pregnancy (desserts, steaks, chicken wings, pizza, lobster) have turned into my worst enemies…leaving my picky-eating-self with few options to indulge in.

All of this makes me think of the only fairy tale that I can think of that really involves pregnancy.  In Rapunzel, the poor couple who lived next to an enchantress’s garden wanted a child very badly.  They tried for years to get pregnant without success (Hmmmm….that sounds familiar).  Then, the wife finally got pregnant and the couple was overjoyed (Yep…still with it).  The wife began having terrible pregnancy cravings for…of all things…radishes (Yuck!).  I just so happened that lovely radishes grew in the enchantress’s garden.  In one version of the story, the wife was supposedly so overcome by the cravings that it was killing her.  So, the dutiful husband hopped on over the wall of the garden and stole some radishes for his wife…not once, or twice…but three times.  On the third trip into the garden, the husband got caught and, though he begged for mercy, the only deal he could strike with the enchantress (also infertile) was that he would give his child to the enchantress as soon as the child was born, to be raised as the enchantress’s own child.  The rest of the story has nothing to do with pregnancy…just bad mothering by the enchantress and hair…lots of hair. 

Now, most people read that part of the fairy tale and think that the moral is not to steal, but I beg to differ.  I would argue that the moral of the story is to not indulge the same pregnancy craving three times in a row…and maybe not to crave radishes.  I am not certain how the wife could even have wanted to eat radishes three nights in a row.  So far, when I’ve had a craving, the craving lasted for a matter of hours and, as soon as I satisfied the craving, that food got added to the “makes me throw-up if I look at it” list…at least for a few days.  The idea of craving the same food three times in a row is preposterous to me.  My theory is that the wife craved the radishes the first night and that her husband, trying to be helpful after seeing how happy they made her that first time, just kept getting them for her.  The wife was probably ditching the second night’s radishes in the garbage whenever the husband wasn’t looking.  (Kind of like I do when The Prince brings me home a tuna sandwich or my [pre-pregnancy] favorite kind of soup).

It's So Hard To Say Goodbye

I know I have previously touched on the topic of my “graduation” from the fertility center, but my emotions surrounding that “graduation” have been overtaking me the last couple of days, so I think it is worth delving into further.

Friday, in addition to having my 8 week ultrasound, I had my last appointment at my fertility center.  I have never been particularly good at saying “goodbye.”  I’m the person who quietly slips out the back at graduations and who says I will keep in touch, but never does.  I usually am not socially awkward.  But I hate “endings,” and so I avoid the emotional upheaval they cause for me by just fading away in silence.

The problem is, when you have to be face-to-face with people who know it is your last appointment with them, there is no way to avoid the inevitable farewells.  On Friday, most of the nurses at the fertility center either came into my room or stopped me on my way through the halls to hug me, say “Good luck,” and fawn over my ultrasound pictures.  I pursed my lips, choked back tears, and tried to squeak out multiple versions of “thank you” over the lump in my throat for the half hour that we were in the center.  Even The Prince got uncomfortable, although he wasn’t able to identify what emotions were bringing on his anxiety.  Everything had gone so well during the ultrasound…but I couldn’t really experience that happiness because I was too busy dissociating from the pain of leaving the care of people that I trust and adore.

The fact is, since switching to this particular fertility center over two years ago, we haven’t gone more than a couple of months without spending some amount of time with these people.  And, for most of the two years, I was in the center on a bi-weekly basis.  I saw the nurses and RE more than my immediate family.  Even when The Prince and I were on “breaks” between IVF cycles, there was frequent testing or, at the very least, I was going to massage, acupuncture and/or yoga in the healing arts center that is in the same building as the fertility center. 

I’m not just saying “goodbye” to the amazing healthcare I’ve received for two years, I’m saying “goodbye” to an extended family that I’ve come to love.  Everyone says to look at this as a “graduation,” but I hate graduations.  I know it is good to move on…it means that we’ve achieved success and are that much closer to fulfilling our dream of being parents.  But I am sad. 

I promised to bring in my baby after it is born (at a time when there are no patients at the center), but I know that will be a struggle for me.  I always thought that women disappeared from the fertility center and cut off all lines of communication with the nurses and RE because they wanted to leave the painful memories of infertility behind them, but now I think that might not be the case.  Perhaps it is the opposite.  Perhaps it is just too painful to stay in touch with those people who represented shelter during the storm of infertility because that shelter is now gone.  The world is still and ocean of fear and uncertainty, even though I am pregnant.  But I lost my life raft…or, more accurately, I had to say “goodbye” to it.

As Real As It Gets

Yesterday, I stepped into reality.  I thought that I had already been realistic about our situation, but I wasn’t.  I had been caught up with pregnancy symptoms, the excitement of finally being pregnant, and the fear of losing the remaining baby.  Somehow those distractions kept the situation from really sinking in before.  But yesterday put an end to that.

At yesterday’s ultrasound – our 8 week and 1 day ultrasound – I saw our little peanut, only it doesn’t look like a peanut.  It has a distinct head and body.  There’s a dark spot in the skull that is the forming brain.   It has arm buds and leg buds and it was wiggling them during the ultrasound.  It is clearly a person…a two centimeter long person…but a person nonetheless.  And it has its own little 178 beats per minute heartbeat.  The Prince quipped, during the ultrasound, that Little Hamish must be a sprinter.   Cute...but I’m not comfortable calling the baby “Little Hamish,” anymore.  I can’t exactly explain why, but I think it is because the baby is no longer theoretical to me and that joke was okay when the baby wasn’t so real.  Now I am fully aware that there is an actual other human being growing inside of me and it is going to have its own identity and thought and needs.   And I’m freaking out a little bit.  Okay…I’m freaking out a lot.  I’m freaking out enough to need a new name for the baby.

Reading this, you may be thinking that I am crazy for not “knowing” this until week 8.  Don’t get me wrong.  I knew that there was a baby growing in my belly before yesterday’s ultrasound and I knew that it would continue to grow and develop.  But I didn’t become fully aware of the situation until yesterday.  Maybe I had been too blissful to think of the pregnancy in anything other than sugar-coated fluffiness.  Or, maybe I hadn’t allowed reality to sink in because I was stuck in my infertility mindset of waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Maybe I was just so in love with the idea of my baby, I didn’t want to make it “real” because real things can go away.  I don’t know why reality is hitting now, but it is an amazing and scary thing.  I have never felt so connected.  I have never felt so much responsibility.   I have never felt so much fear that my body is going to fail me.  It’s failed me so many times in the past, when I was trying to get to this place in my journey.  If it fails me again, with so much at stake, I don’t know if I will ever get over the betrayal.  But for now I will try to push those fears away and learn how to reconcile reality and “over the moon” love, because that is where I want to dwell for the rest of this pregnancy. 

Bad to the Bone

I am a bad blogger.  I haven’t looked into why I am unable to comment on other blogs.  I haven’t kept up on writing my posts.  I haven’t updated my blog or added the new blogs I am following to my blog list.  The posts that I do manage are not creative and are not exactly positive.

But I am not just a bad blogger.  I am bad at everything right now.  I’m a bad employee…putting my head down on my desk every few minutes to try to stop the spinning that starts if I look at the computer screen too long, falling asleep in my chair if I make the mistake of resting my head on my hand for too long, and spending as much time in the bathroom as I do actually working. 

I’m a bad friend…not calling or getting together with all of the amazing women who have been so supportive of me during my infertility journey.  Some of them are going through IVF cycles right now or are in their two week waits…a time when you really need friends who “get it.”  But I’m absent and silent.  I feel like I don’t have the energy to talk or text and I am afraid to get together for a bite to eat because that hasn’t been working out so well for me lately.  I try to keep up on Facebook messages and emails, but lately even that has been slipping.

I’m a bad wife…napping and laying around most of the time that I am home from work, while my husband works two jobs and does chores around the house.  I complain too much about my symptoms.  I know I’m not supposed to complain…but when in the moment, it’s harder than you might think to keep the discomfort to yourself.  Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for this pregnancy, I just wish that I was one of the blessed women who sail through their pregnancy with no more than a couple of vomiting sessions.  I am sure The Prince wishes I was one of those women too…as I think he has about had it with waking up at 5:00 a.m. to the sound of me heaving each morning.  (Please don’t take my comments as a plea for sympathy or a fishing expedition for support…I don’t want any sympathy…I used to get annoyed by infertiles who got pregnant and then wanted sympathy from me regarding their pregnancy symptoms.  I’m not that person and would be really sad if anyone thought that I was.)

I’m a bad Puggy Mommy.  The pugs are overdue for their shots and having their nails clipped.  I keep thinking that “I will do it next week,” and then the next week comes and goes without me so much as picking-up the telephone to call the vet.  I just get exhausted thinking about trying to wrangle both of them into the car, into the vet’s office, onto the examination table, and back into the car again after the appointment.  They also aren’t going for walks after work anymore, which suits them just fine as they are as lazy as their mommy.  But it is causing them to put on more weight than I am comfortable with, and I worry about their health.  They sense the pregnancy and are protective of me and my belly, and they love the new “lay on the couch all evening” routine.  All of that makes me feel even more guilty for being a bad mommy to them.

I don’t want anyone reading this to think that I am depressed or negative about the pregnancy.  These are thoughts that just pop up occasionally and are usually gone as fast as they come.  But I don’t allow myself to acknowledge these thoughts during my daily life, and this blog is my confessional.  By putting these thoughts down here, I can see that they exist, analyze whether there is anything I can do to change the behaviors that are causing the thoughts, and forgive myself for the aspects of my life right now that I really have no control over.  I have great bosses, great friends, great blog followers and a great husband.  I know the wonderful people in my life will forgive me for a temporary period of “suckiness,” and they know that I will make it up to them as soon as I can.  Still…it feels good to own up to my inadequacies right now.  Yep, I feel better already…Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

It's Friday, I'm in Love.

When I went through infertility treatments, I was always waiting.  Waiting for AF or for my medications to arrive.  Waiting to start my stimulation medications or for my ultrasounds and blood work.  Waiting for egg retrieval.  Waiting for the phone call to tell me how many eggs fertilized.  Waiting for transfer.  Waiting for my beta test.  I thought all of the waiting would be behind me when I finally got pregnant.  I thought wrong.

I spend every day waiting for Friday.  Friday is my ultrasound day, and starting four weeks ago, Friday became the most important day of the week to me.  All week long I second guess my symptoms or the twinges (sometimes more than twinges) in my belly.  I have little mini-panic attacks and am overcome with the feeling that something is terribly wrong.  It’s easy to do when, for every week of pregnancy through week 12, I know at least one person who has lost her baby at that stage.  Every week, I need the reassurance of seeing the heartbeat on the screen and so every week I watch the clock slowly tick towards Friday.  It doesn’t tick nearly quickly enough.  Friday is still an eternity away.

To complicate matters further, this Friday will be bittersweet.  Not only will this Friday be my week 8 ultrasound, if everything looks good this Friday, I will be discharged from my fertility center to my OBGYN.  In other words, the doctors and nurses that have become like family to me over the last three years will no longer be involved in my care.  They have put up with my almost daily emails, emotional breakdowns, misdirected anger and generally neurotic behavior.  They have put up with me without ever complaining, telling me to calm down, or making me feel like I was a “problem patient.”  I think that I cannot reasonably expect the same treatment from my OBGYN.  Her office has a reputation for being very friendly and very patient, but how patient can she possibly be?  Surely she will not be as patient as the healthcare providers at my fertility center.  She doesn’t know what I’ve been through.  She won’t understand why I am irrationally fearful of losing this baby.  She won’t understand how hard I’ve worked for this baby.  She won’t give me an ultrasound every Friday so that I can survive the next week without being crushed under the weight of my own fears.

I wish I could tell all of you that the fearful anticipation that haunts many women throughout their infertility journeys ends with pregnancy.  But it doesn’t.  No matter how hard I try to be Positive Polly, I am stuck in the same familiar struggles with my own inner demons.  The one piece of good news that I can give you is that I now have an amazing secret weapon that is more powerful than any negative thoughts that plague me.  My secret weapon is the enormous amount of love that I feel for the tiny little peanut growing in my belly.  Somehow, I already have an emotional bond with the tiny form that I see on the ultrasound screen each Friday.  So, when the negative thoughts seem to be crushing down on me, I put my hands on my belly and thank that baby for giving me the gift of a love that I’ve never experienced before. I’m still impatient and I’m still afraid, but I am also filled with love and gratitude…feelings I had a hard time mustering during my infertility journey.  Maybe that is why I really count the days until each Friday…because I desperately want to be as close to that baby as I can be, even if “getting closer” is simply seeing a flicker on the screen or hearing a whoosh-whoosh-whoosh on the Doppler.  Is it Friday yet?   

*****P.S.  I am so sorry that I haven't been leaving comments.  Blogger and I are having issues...mainly that Blogger won't let me sign into my account when I am trying to comment.  It just keeps shipping me back to the sign-in page over and over.  So, as soon as I have time to look into it, I will...and I will catch-up on comments.

Seven weeks

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write about yesterday’s ultrasound.  It may sound strange, but I haven’t really known what to say.  There were no huge surprises.  We have one very healthy baby, with a healthy heartbeat that was flickering away on the screen.  We have one empty sac that can barely be seen anymore. 

I had requested that the head nurse at the clinic perform my ultrasound.  I didn’t want to take any chances that I would walk away from yesterday’s ultrasound wondering if the nurse who did the scan was just not careful enough or just missed the twin.  Denial is a powerful thing.   The head nurse is incredibly thorough and, I know that if she says something is so, it is.  She saw our big baby immediately, but scooted around it and looked for the other sac for a long time.  It wasn’t easy to find, but when she found it, she was very thorough about making sure there was nothing in it.  Then, probably sensing that my tears were about to start pouring down, she quickly moved on to our healthy baby, and turned on the Doppler.  I thought seeing our baby’s heartbeat last week was awesome.  But I’ve got to tell you…hearing the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of a tiny little heart beating inside of your belly is truly awe inspiring!  The nurse had handled it perfectly.  I couldn’t dwell on my loss and listen to a miracle at the same time.

That feeling, of not being able to deal with both of those things at the same time has carried over, even though I’m not listening to the whoosh right now.  The mind is a funny thing.  It protects us in very creative ways.  My mind, instead of saying “Ha Ha…I was right and you were wrong Heart,” immediately decided that there never was a twin.  My mind capitalized on the fact that we never saw a heartbeat or fetus in the second sac (we only saw the sac itself), and convinced my heart that there was never a baby in that sac.  Sometimes, empty sacs form around an embryo that didn’t fully implant.  That’s what I have convinced myself happened in the case of our “twin.”  It doesn’t hurt as much that way.  We didn’t lose a baby, we just had an embryo that didn’t take.  That’s an easier pill to swallow.  I can move on from that.

Maybe someday I will feel equipped to experience the joy of my pregnancy and the grief of a loss at the same time, but today is not that day.  Right now, I need to go back to my “all-in” attitude and just start being over the moon happy about the baby I have.   If things go well at next week’s ultrasound, and there is no indication that it won’t, I get discharged from my fertility center, to my OBGYN.  The mixed emotions about being “discharged” will have to wait for another post, but for now, I am just settling in to the comfort of being truly, closer to out of the woods, pregnant.

Worry Wart

I don't know where the term "worry wart" came from, but people have used it to describe me at various times throughout my life.  I never took it as a particularly insulting label, but now that I think of it, "wart" isn't exactly a term of endearment. 

Today, I am full of worry.  When my family came this weekend, they brought colds with them.  The Prince got sick on Sunday and I followed suit on Monday.  We both have been getting progressively worse, but have been telling ourselves that it is just a cold and it will pass.  But the last two days I have been struggling to keep my fever under 101 F, and having a high fever in early pregnancy is not a good thing.

Yesterday my mother informed me that they all ended up going to the doctor on Tuesday, and they all have strep throat and sinus infections.  The doctor put all four people who were in my house this weekend on antibiotics.  UGH!  So now, even though it doesn't feel like I have strep throat, I am terrified that I should be going and getting antibiotics.  I'm nervous about what effect, if any, my difficulty breathing is having on the baby.  And there is worse...

I haven't felt any pregnancy symptoms in two days.  Last week at this time I was throwing up so much I had to be put on medications.  I was exhausted all of the time and had serious smell aversions.  Perhaps most telling, my lady lumps were incredibly hard and painful all of the time.  (These are not complaints, just observations).  In the last two days, I haven't needed to take the nausea medicine.  My breasts are not tender and, even though I am sick, I haven't taken any naps.  We are officially at 7 weeks today...I don't think the symptoms should just disappear this early on.

I'm trying to not worry.  I'm trying to tell myself that the cold (or whatever this is) is probably just throwing things out of whack (it's not like you can have smell aversions when you can't breath through your nose).  I'm trying to tell myself that this is probably normal and that I just don't know what "normal" is because I haven't ever been pregnant before.  I'm also trying to tell myself that this could just be a downshift in my hormones because we officially lost the twin.  Horrible that the thought of these symptoms (or actually, lack of symptoms) being caused by losing the twin is now my "comforting thought."  But the other thought is unspeakable.

We have our next ultrasound tomorrow.  So I just have to hold out until then.  I will keep putting my hand on my belly and telling my little one to hang in there.  I will keep praying that there is a solid little heartbeat on the screen tomorrow, and I will be thankful for that heartbeat, even if there is "official" bad news coming along with it.