My Stork Got Lost

I got my period yesterday, pretty much right after my appointment with my doctor.

This sucks.

I try not to dwell on the what-ifs or the could-have-beens, but every month I get really, really depressed around this time.  Especially right now after that “official” infertile diagnosis with my ob/gyn.  I know it’s silly, but in the back of my mind I was thinking, “What if she’s wrong?  This could be the month!”

And then, boom.  Off to buy tampons again.

I feel like I’ve been living my life two weeks at a time.  I get super depressed every month when my period hits.  It’s not like it’s a surprise, either.  My cycle is pretty much like clockwork, and every month it behaves the exact same way. I should be used to it by now.

Every cycle, I’ll spot for 2 days, and then for the 1-2 days after that, nothing.  Then I’ll get bright red flow on the 3-4^th day, which will last for a day or two.  Then I’ll maybe spot for a day or so after that, and it’s gone. It’s been doing this for as long as I’ve been keeping track.

Which means I really should have known something was up when I had the miscarriage.  Whups.

Every month, even though I should know better, I get my hopes up.  The spotting hits, and then everything vanishes day or two later.  Those “clear” days are brutal.  I’m filled with a ton of hope…maybe the red flow won’t come this time!  Maybe the spotting was implantation again, or just normal early-pregnancy spotting.  And then, every month, my hopes are crushed when I see red, and I’m not a pleasant person to be around for a couple of days.

When the cloud lifts, I’m filled with a renewed hope – waiting for ovulation, using those test strips, monitoring everything and, uh…playing…with my husband.  Wink.

Then I ovulate.  Two dark, solid lines on a test strip, and I’m super excited.  THIS is the month!  Forget the past!  We’ll make a baby this month! I start symptom spotting, checking every pregnancy site out there, thinking up baby names and fun ways to tell Quincy we finally did it, and count down the days in that two week wait.

And then..she arrives again.  Rinse and repeat.  It’s a roller coaster of really exciting highs, and really devastating lows.  Luckily, the lows only last a day or two each month, so I should be better by tomorrow.  It’s just hitting me harder than normal right now because of that stupid diagnosis yesterday.

Turns out, I had my first official infertility appointment yesterday.  I guess I’m writing about it today because my doctor gave me a referral for a procedure, and on the “diagnosis” line she spelled it out, plain as day:

Infertility – 2.5 years.

So…it’s official.  It’s written down somewhere on a medical file, not just bouncing around in my head.  It still punched me in the gut.

I know.  That doesn’t make a lot of sense.  I’m a pretty intelligent person, and I can add one and one and get two.  No condoms or birth control pills for seven years and no pregnancies; no babies during the last two and a half years of actively trying?  Something is clearly wrong, and I know this…intellectually.

But seeing it written down by a medical doctor changes things.  It’s real now.

How did it come to this?

In September 2013 I had a chemical pregnancy, after six months of actively trying.  I’d never even heard of that term until I mentioned a recent wackadoo period to my sister.  I had spotted mid-cycle – a first for me – and then my period was 5 days late.  Also a first; it’s usually spot on. Ha ha. Spot on.

Anyway. When it finally arrived, it was super heavy and lasted longer than normal.

We put two and two together and came up with a chemical pregnancy.  The spotting mid-cycle must have been implantation, and I was late because I was pregnant.  The extra heavy period was the miscarriage.

A chemical pregnancy is just that – a very early miscarriage, after the sperm has successfully fertilized the egg but before anything will show up on a test or ultrasound.  Most women don’t even realize they’ve had one; they just chalk it up to a late, heavy period…which is exactly what I did until I discovered the term “chemical pregnancy.”  Something goes wrong with the splitting of cells or the implantation fails, and you’ve miscarried before you really knew you were pregnant.

I figured then I need to see someone, just to get everything checked out.  It took me until March 2014 – after we’d been trying a full year – to gather the courage and speak to someone about it. I remember thinking that I was just reading too much into stuff, but I went to my primary care doctor and asked his opinion.

I told him the whole story – we’d been using ovulation kits, calendars and perfectly timed (read: totally not romantic) sex for a year, but had actually stopped contraception 7 years prior. That got a raised eyebrow. Then I told him about the chemical pregnancy. That got another raised eyebrow, and a look of sympathy, which got me crying. I hadn’t told anyone before, other than Quincy and my sister.

Then he gave me some statistics.  The average, healthy couple has a 20% chance of getting pregnant every cycle.  So, most couples trying to conceive usually get pregnant by about the 5th month trying.

For couples who have been trying for a year – or for 6 months if you’re both over the age of 35 – you may have fertility issues.

A year.  Wonderful.

He referred me to my current ob/gyn, and over the past year or so, we’ve done a couple abdominal ultrasounds to check for cysts, a pelvic ultrasound, which is JUST AS FUN AS IT SOUNDS, and Quincy’s even had a semen analysis. He’s got a fleet of navy seals and an ego the size of an aircraft carrier to go with them. He’s very proud of his swimmers.

Bottom line is my ob/gyn has no idea why I can’t conceive.  My OPKs say I’m ovulating, Quincy is fine, we’re timing everything perfectly and she sees nothing wrong in my tests. So, yesterday she slapped an “infertility” diagnosis in my medical file, sent me off for another test, and I think she’s washing her hands of it all.  She says getting pregnant is hard.

No shit.

Quincy should be finding out about his tests this week.

The more I think about it, the more I think I want him to have a low sperm count or something.  I know that sounds bizarre, but hear me out.

He takes hot baths.  Like, really hot baths.  And I read that if a man spends a lot of time in a hot tub, or takes hot baths…he can get a low sperm count.  I dunno, I guess the heat kills off the swimmers. If he has a low sperm count, then boom – all he has to do is stop it with the baths and in 6 months or so, all of our problems will be solved.  It would be so nice to have such an easy solution.

If he *does* have a low count, I hope I don’t start playing the blame game.  I know myself, and I know that I’ll have to work extra hard to not say “I told you so.”  Because I’m a shitty, bitchy person at times.  And we’ve spoken before about his baths and protecting his swimmers from excessive heat.

But if that’s it…man.  I’ll do such a happy dance.  It doesn’t matter what happened in the past or how many times he’s obliterated his naval fleet in super hot bath water, all that would matter is that we’d be parents soon.  I did the whole ovulation kit thing.  I got a spike.  According to my doctor, that means it’s not me.  As long as I’m ovulating, I should be okay.  And I am.  Which, doesn’t that have to mean that the problem is with the guy?  With Quincy?

So, a low sperm count would be a good thing. It’s fixable.  If I’m ovulating, and his sperm analysis comes back great…then where are we?  We’re back to square one.

So I had this weird dream last night.

It was another vague baby dream, and I don’t know what it means.  All of my baby dreams take place back at my childhood home in Texas.  Don’t ask me why, I have no idea.

Anyway, in this one, I was at my house (my parent’s house) and I was carrying a baby around.  I don’t know where it came from, it wasn’t a delivery dream or any of that, it started with me just carrying around the baby.

Someone said, “it’s a boy!” like they’d do in a delivery room, and I laid the baby down to change its diaper.

First weird thing – I was dreaming, but once that person said, “it’s a boy!” my brain actually recognized I was dreaming and I thought, “wow, this will be the first baby dream I have where it’s a boy.”

Anyway. I started to change the baby’s diaper.  It was a cute diaper, made of little green and blue dinosaurs or something, and as I laid the baby down, which was exactly the moment my brain said, “this will be the first boy baby dream,” the diaper changed from green and blue dinosaurs to little purple elephants, and when I took the diaper off, the baby was most definitely a girl.

Which I told everyone.

And then the little girl peed on me, like baby boys do.

So, yeah, weird dream, I have no idea what it was about, but there you have it.

I’m feeling really melancholy today.  It’s almost like PMS, but I don’t think I’ve even ovulated this month, so I don’t know what my problem is.

I got an ovulation kit.  It was one of the digital ones, that you shove the stick into and it gives you (or is supposed to give you) a smiley face readout when you’re ovulating. No guesswork over if the line is dark enough or whatever.  A digital read out, while expensive, seemed idiot proof.

I took that stupid kit back to Target.

I got nothing.  Not like, “oh, I guess I’m not ovulating right now.”  I mean NOTHING. According to the instructions, there’s supposed to be just a regular face on the little digital readout before your spike, and then as your LH spike approaches, the face turns into a big friggin’ smiley face.  I got nothing.  Zip, zilch, nada.  The idiot test wasn’t working at all.

I was going to get another one right then, but this month is kind of shot anyway, so I have some time before I’m going to need it again.  Not only do you have to start the kit on the exact 5^th day of your cycle (good luck figuring that one out, Brittney…), but it won’t really matter when I ovulate this month, for two reasons.

One, Quincy has his official lab test (specimen retrieval) Wednesday, and he has to abstain for two days prior to get a good sample.  He has to abstain for two days prior to his test to get a good sample, and low and behold, guess which day I’m supposed to ovulate this month?  Yep.  Wednesday.  Which means by the time he can do anything Wednesday afternoon, not only will he be spent, literally, but I will have supposedly ovulated and the window of opportunity will be gone.

And two, if I do my math right, getting pregnant this month would mean a baby right around Halloween, which, and I know this is a teeny bit selfish, but it would make for a very difficult Thanksgiving this year.

It’d be fine, really, just complicated.  We’d have a newborn, and while I’d still be on maternity leave, I don’t think driving a brand new baby halfway across the country is all that great of an idea. Both Quincy’s dad and his grandmother, Bamzi, aren’t doing very well, so I don’t want to mess up what little time he may have left to spend with them.

I go through bouts of feeling completely discouraged by all of this, and I guess today is one of those days.  Everything seems to be hitting me at once. I love Quincy, more than I ever thought I could love anyone, and I love my dogs, but right now, with Quincy working on the weekends, the only time really have to cuddle is spent either alone, or with the pups whining, or hyper, or chewing on stuff they’re not supposed to.

All of this is taking time away from any time that Quincy and I could be spending together, life is kind of hard right now.  I don’t want our entire sex life to be whittled down to the two or so days around ovulation.  And I wish it weren’t so damn important that we HAVE time together on specific days of the month.  I don’t like feeling like we have homework.

This may be why I feel so down today.  I talked to Quincy about it a bit last night, but sometimes I need more than a just wailing wall. I need an actual conversation, and Quincy is a man of very, very few words.  Sometimes I need to bounce ideas and complaints and worries off someone and actually have them tell me it’ll be all right, or offer different ideas, or at least tell me that my worries aren’t warranted. Anything.  Sometimes I think that if I can’t talk to someone about everything that’s on my mind, I’m going to explode. And he listens.  I know he does.  But he doesn’t really say much.  I can spew all I want here, but I need someone to talk to me. A journal doesn’t talk back.

I’m kind of off topic.  I started getting really melancholy last night.  It’s just that Quincy and I never go to bed together.  I’m not talking about the euphemism “going to bed,” I mean literally getting ready and laying down to sleep at the same time.  Which means we never have the opportunity to really fool around sporatically at night.  I usually have a doggie snuggling with me, because Quincy has gone so long not coming to bed when I do, that the dogs think that spot on the bed is theirs.  It’s not their fault.

Quincy just stays later than I do.  He and I have different internal clocks.  He works primarily at night, I work in the morning and during the day.  I went years working the very early shift – 4am-1pm, so I became an early riser.  Quincy is a night owl, and he gets most of his work done them.  And his spot is generally empty when I go to bed, so one or more of the puppies take it. And as much as I love my furbabies, I love and miss my husband.

On top of that, he and I never wake up in the morning together on the weekends.  He has this job at the hotel and he won’t quit it.  He works all the time.  Literally, all the time, and I hate it.  He goes to work at his job at Golden Hippo Monday-Friday, 10-6pm.  Then we get home, I cook, he plays with the dogs, we eat dinner, then we clean up, I go to bed and he gets on his computer doing freelance copywriting until late into the night.

Rinse and repeat.  Then, come Friday, we go to work in the morning, he naps in the car on the way home in the evening, we eat dinner, then he gets ready and leaves for the hotel, to work from 11pm-730am.  Which means I worry all the time, because he’s awake and working over 24 hours nonstop, from about 7am Friday morning through his drive home Saturday morning.  The only nap he gets on Fridays is the 45 min or so as we drive back to Palmdale.  He’s let it slip that sometimes he’s so tired he has to stop and nap at the Valencia park and ride on his drive home in the mornings.  He goes through bag after bag of sunflower seeds, because chewing the seeds keeps him awake.  This is not something fun to think about.  What would I do if he ever got into a wreck?  I worry for his safety.  I honestly don’t know where I’d be without him in my life.  I can’t imagine being without him.  It’s scary and stressful to think about, and I’m faced with this worry week in and week out.

Then, I don’t have him at all on Saturday, because he’s a) catching up on sleep, having been up for over 24 hrs straight, and then b) we can’t go and do anything once he wakes up Saturday afternoon because he has to start getting ready, and then go back to, work starting at about 8:30pm Saturday evening.  No dinners out.  No movie dates.  He’s missed invites out with friends because he’s either too tired or he has to be at work.  He worked the night of my birthday dinner, so not only could he not really celebrate with me, but I had to have a friend drive me home because he had to be at work.  No fooling around that night.

I can’t remember the last date we went on, either.  It’s been since before we were married, I’m sure.  I also can’t really go anywhere on Saturdays, by myself, either, because there’s no one home to clean the house or take care of the yard or watch the dogs over the weekend.  He does laundry, which is a relief, and he does walk the dogs on weeknights. But I mow the lawn.  I sweep, mop and vacuum.  I feed the kids 90% of the time. I clean the cat box 90% of the time.  I scour sinks and change sheets and clean out the fridge and plan, then cook, all the meals.

Not only that, but if I did want to go see a movie or something with my friends on the weekend, I’d have to have the car back to him in time for him to leave for work, and we live over an hour away from everything.  I used to hang out with my friends until late in the evening, just catching up or watching tv over wine or cocktails.  I can’t do that anymore. Twice in the past two weeks I’ve had to leave from hanging out with my friends super early – around 5pm – because I’ve had to get the car back or I was worried about what he and the kids were up to.  And I had run errands all morning, so I really only go to go grab a late lunch with them and then head back home. So I go back home, he gets ready and heads to work. He comes home Sunday morning, having not slept all night, and he sleeps Sunday.

I don’t have my husband.  I really miss my husband, which is odd because I don’t really feel I’ve had one since the day he got the copywriting job two weeks after we got back from our honeymoon. I think the last time we got ready and went to bed at the same time was on our honeymoon, and the last time we woke up at the same time was…well, never, really.  I’m an early riser, so I’m always up before him.  But it was nice to have the option of rolling over and snuggling with the love of my life. The last time we had the option of sleeping in, together, one morning was New Year’s Day.  It takes a holiday that we’re both off in order to get to spend any time at all with the man I’m supposed to be sharing my life with.  It’s really, really tough.

I can’t remember the last time we didn’t have to “schedule” fooling around.  Unless we absolutely have to fool around for fertility, I’m either in my pajamas with morning breath, or he’s just woken up…but the dogs are hyper, because they’ve been snoozing with their dad all day.  Nothing about the situation is ideal.  Which, come to think about it, explains a lot of about the lack of fertility.

That was a lot to spew out.  I don’t really feel much better, but it was good in a way to get it all off of my chest.

I guess.

Well, I officially have an OBGYN.  I’m not her biggest fan, I’ll tell you that right now.  She’s probably in her forties or fifties, and even though she’s a woman, she lacks all kind of motherly-type vibes that I was kind of hoping for.  It was hard enough explaining all this to Dr Kaplan, and he’s been my primary for years, and I trust him completely.  This lady just seems…off. Too gruff and formal, I guess.  Maybe she’s just too busy. I dunno.

I wish I could switch, but my stupid HMO doesn’t work like that.  She’s in my network, so she’s all I’m going to get right now, unless I want to see a male gynecologist, and that’s 100% completely out of the question.  Dr Kaplan was pushing it.  No way in hell I’m letting some random dude take a look at my girlie parts, even if it’s for fertility issues.

Oh, and that’s another thing.  I went to her for a pap (I hadn’t had one in ages) and to discuss my possible infertility.  We did the pap, which under my insurance should have been free…but she charged me for a doctor visit because we even MENTIONED fertility.  And my insurance doesn’t cover that.  It’s all a scam.

Anyway, she says I need to use ovulation detection kits, not just relying on the app on my phone.  Okay, I can dig it.  Those suckers are expensive, but if that’s what it takes, count me in.  Apparently women have something called an LH hormone – a lutenizing hormone – that spikes 24-36 hours before the egg is released during ovulation.  If the LH spikes, it shows up on the ovulation kit, and if it shows up on the ovulation kit, it means I’m ovulating.  So we’re going to try for a few months with the kits, just to see what happens.  Who knows, this may fix everything. If I’m not getting a spike on the kits, I’m supposed to go back to see her.

Also, Quincy went to see Dr Kaplan, too.  When I told him (Kaplan) we were having trouble getting pregnant, he told me to not blame myself – half the time, the issue is with the guy.  So he said he wanted to check Quincy, too.  Quincy’s grumbling, but he’s going along with it.  Poor guy has to go a couple weeks from now and get a semen analysis done.  Talk about mortifying doctor visits, right?  But once again, we’re moving forward.  The ovulation kits may shine some light on all this, and the semen analysis may tell us what else is going on. I’m feeling more hopeful.

Happy new year.

So it’s been awhile since I updated this thing.  Between work, and feeling like an ass, and the holidays, I didn’t feel like writing anything down.  But a ton of stuff has happened that has really affected me.

First of all, a good friend I went to high school with announced she was pregnant back in October.  Which was amazing, except she had a really, really rough pregnancy, spent the last few months in the hospital, and delivered her baby January 5.  The baby is super early, and my heart is breaking for her.  I’ve been so concerned about getting pregnant that I haven’t thought of all the things that can go wrong once I get there.

My friend doesn’t even know if her baby will survive.  I can’t imagine going through something like that.  If I can’t handle the thought of a possible miscarriage, there’s no way I’m strong enough to deal with a super complicated pregnancy, a preterm birth, and the weeks (or months) my poor friend has ahead of her, wondering if her teeny tiny baby will ever make it out of NICU.

My friend is a very strong Christian, and I know she’s praying her way through this.  So am I.  That doesn’t negate the fact that this entire situation is so cruel.  The joy of pregnancy and excitement planning a nursery and all the nesting that mommies-to-be must do, all of that taken away.  She found out her pregnancy was going to be tough either 12 or 16 weeks in, I forget exactly when.  But either way, that’s so early.  And she spent the last couple months on complete bed rest, and then in the hospital.  No baby shower.  No getting a nursery ready.  Every day just wondering if her baby was going to make it.  I can’t imagine how much pain she was in. She’s the strongest person I know.

More than anything, this has really changed the way I think about pregnancy and babies.  I’ve been so concerned over just trying to get pregnant that I’ve failed to even consider what would happen once we got there.  Every pregnancy is different, and everyone struggles, but from conception through to birth and beyond, every little step is a miracle, and something that’s not to be taken for granted.

And once the child arrives, what then?  Would I be a good mom?  Would I be able to handle the rough times? Would I be as strong as she is?

I KNOW I want to be a mom. More than ever.  Several friends have had babies recently, and when I visited another friend’s baby late last year, I remember crying while I held him in my arms. Breathing in that fresh baby scent.  Feeling his warmth against my chest.  I started to really wonder if that would ever be my baby. And now my heart is so heavy with Stef and her tiny premie.  It’s hard not to imagine myself in her situation.

But this is a new year, and with life, there is hope.  There is hope for Stef and her baby girl.  And there’s hope for me and Quincy, too.  The only thing we can do is take each day one step at a time, and do whatever we can to get us where we want to be.

On that note, I actually made an appointment with my doctor.  He’s a male doctor, and as much as that bothers me, thinking I’ll have to talk about all this with a dude, I’m tried of sitting around moping that I’m not getting pregnant and not actually DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT.  I don’t have an OBGYN right now, so I’ll go to my primary care (Dr. Kaplan, he’s actually wonderful), and he’ll refer me to someone who can help.

That’s the plan, anyway.

 

I’m the worst wife in the world.  I’m a horrible person.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my selfishness that I get really insensitive to other people.  Namely, Quincy.

I told him in the car today that I think I lost that baby. In the car. I was just driving home, talking, telling him how I felt, why I was so moody, spewing a bunch of crap all at once, and it just came out.

He looked crushed, which shocked me.  Then I felt like an ass.  It was his baby too. How did I not know it was going to affect him that much?  Honestly, he’s never really seemed that interested in the whole baby thing.  He’s always been, “whatever happens, happens,” and he jokes about how he’d leave me if I ever got pregnant.  We have a weird relationship.  An amazing, indescribable, perfect relationship that many people don’t understand, so his jokes never really bother me, but I do realize they’re coming from a small sliver of truth. Not that he’d leave me. He’d never do that.  I just know that I’m way more interested in having a baby than he is.  He’s a guy, right?

But I never stopped to think about how he’d feel if I actually lost one.  I didn’t even think about his feelings.  I didn’t consider them. How was I to know it would affect him so much?  It still affects me. I let it sit with me for ages, and I was crushed.  I’ve had what, two months to think about it, process it, to try and come to terms with it, and yet I still think about it all the time.  One day I’m fine, the next day I think about it, and all those what ifs start popping up in my head again.

But today, I blindsided him.  Just chatting in the car, driving home, and boom.  That was so cruel.  I didn’t mean for it to be.  I didn’t mean to be so heartless.  I guess I thought that since he always seemed moderately disinterested in the whole baby thing that he wouldn’t be bothered by it.

But he’s human.  He’s Quincy, and he has the biggest heart of any man I know, and I just told him his baby died like someone would ask if he’d like fries with his burger.

Wow, I’m an awful person. God, forgive me.

Allie’s shower was amazing.

All this time the bitchy part of my brain has been comparing it to my shower, but they really were apples and oranges.  I don’t really want to force a “theme” or anything on Allie’s wedding or my wedding, but mine was more fun, romantic, fairy-tale-esque.  The girls did butterflies and daisies and faeries and my Celtic music, and set outside in Lisa’s backyard.

I focused on bright colors, dream-like qualities, and had all my friends there, whereas Allie’s was more…I don’t know…sacramental?

Formal?  Sophisticated.  Yeah.  Sophisticated.

Not saying mine wasn’t, but her colors were more subdued, the attendees were older, it was catered…just a completely different vibe altogether. Chris’ family is doing a lot of the planning, and the shower was mostly her mom’s and Chris’ mom’s friends and family members, which was fine.  I have to admit, it’s nice that our weddings are going to be so different, so no one can compare the two.  Mine was perfect for me, and I know Allie’s is going to be perfect for her, and I’m so happy about that.

I stayed up all night on her stuff, which was fine.  I didn’t get to finish all I wanted to, which was not fine.  I’ve had so much on my mind these last few weeks that I just didn’t feel like doing anything, and her shower (and my responsibilities toward said shower) were put off. I felt so much like a bad friend.

I broke down crying as soon as I got to the shower.  I was late, my stuff wasn’t finished, and I’m still a little emotionally unstable right now.  Try explaining that to people who don’t know what’s going.  I’m a wreck, and I can’t talk about why.

The shower turned out perfect, though.  The games were fun, and I was super proud of my prizes, and I’m glad I over-prepared on the games.  I know I spent too much, but I think I was trying to make up for all the negative thoughts in my head about her shower by kind of over-doing that part of it.  I really hope those girls forget to ask me for my receipts. This was my bed, I made it and I’ll sleep in it.

I don’t know how much sense that makes and I don’t really feel like explaining it… it was like I was trying to prove to myself that I did care about Allie, I did care about her wedding, and I wasn’t jealous or angry or whatever emotion I stuck on it – so I went way over the top.  But I’m so glad I did.

The shower was nice, and I was able to really let go of a lot of what’s been heavy on my heart while there, just hanging out with my friends.  I’ve known those girls forever, and I think I really needed that time with them.  They gave me a chance to emotionally recharge, and I so desperately needed that, more than even I realized.

I sipped champagne, too – which I’m not even worried about.  Nothing is going to happen this month, that’s for sure.  Between Quincy working all night and me preparing for Allie’s shower, we were both too busy to do anything.  It’s kind of funny, actually.  After what happened, it’s good to have a month were I just know nothing is going to happen, and just not worry about it.  So I’ve decided that I’ll allow myself caffeine, and a glass of wine, since I’m keeping such great tabs of my cycle.  The two weeks before ovulating, I’m not worrying about how much caffeine I’m drinking and I won’t beat myself up if I drink a glass of wine or champagne or whatever.

Something’s been bothering me, so since I can’t talk about it with anyone, it’s all coming out here. Last week I had that super heavy period when I thought for sure I was going to be pregnant. I did some reading, talked to Lisa and Genia…I honestly think I miscarried.

I guess it’s actually called a “spontaneous abortion,” but that’s a horrible name for it. That’s really the only explanation. The spotting mid-cycle, the late period, then the super disgustingly heavy period? Oh, which only lasted for two days, by the way. And no additional surprises days later. Also, the moodiness. And nausea. So, what if my drinking at Stacked screwed something up? Is that even possible? Or what if my lupus screwed something up? I dunno.

I’m trying not to dwell on it. It’s weird, one minute I’m totally fine with it and the next minute it completely depresses me. If I was moody before, it’s a ton worse now. I even snapped at Lisa on Monday, and today is her birthday. She’s having a party at her place Saturday, and if I’m still invited, I have to go. See, there’s me being moody again.  She’s my friend.  Of course I would still be invited, I’m just being bitchy.  All these negative thoughts are running through my mind, which isn’t helpful.

I did read that it’s apparently really common – 1 in 3 pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion before the woman even knows she’s pregnant.  The egg can get fertilized, then something goes wrong and it doesn’t survive past zygote stage.  Or blastocyst stage.  A bunch of cells that start to multiply, then just…stop.  That really doesn’t make it any easier to know, when all you’ve wanted is to create life.  Having it taken right when you just start getting a twinkling of hope feels so cruel.

I hate this.

This weekend is also Allie’s shower, which just makes me more grumpy and exhausted. I need to put on my brave face and get through it. Stop being so selfish and worrying about what may or may not have been a personal tragedy and focus on Allie. She’s getting married. My wedding was perfect, and she deserves the same. I’m just in a funk.  I wish all these thoughts would go away.

My mom miscarried a couple times. Pauline miscarried once, I think. I don’t even know if that’s what it was. Maybe I just had a really awful, late period this month. Which, I guess still wouldn’t explain the mid-cycle surprises, but is it better to think of a wackadoo period or a miscarriage?

You know what, though? I think I’m going to be okay with it. If that’s what it was.  Maybe not now, but once all this settles down.  I trust God.  He does know what’s best for me, and I can’t forget that.  What if I’m not ready to be a mother?  I know that everyone says you can’t wait until you’re ready to have a child, because then you’ll never have one, but maybe with all this stuff going on in my life – the move and Allie’s wedding and the Barkery and everything – maybe it’s just a bad time.

And it happens a lot, too.  It’s almost normal.  If one in three pregnancies end like this.. it doesn’t mean that I’ll never get pregnant (and stay that way…), but that all the stars weren’t perfectly aligned or something.

Here’s something else I also didn’t know – they don’t start counting pregnancy at conception – it’s actually counted from the first day of your last period. So, if someone actually successfully conceives and becomes pregnant, as soon as conception occurs, the woman is already like two weeks pregnant. Trippy, right?

They call miscarriages this early on spontaneous abortions. The body will reject the egg, like your body knows it’s a bad egg or something, or it just won’t implant well, or the immune system will kick it out – any number of things could go wrong. The thing I’m worried about is the immune system thing.

What if my awful immune system never lets me get pregnant?  Or – worse – what if all this weirdness with my period is the onset of my menopause, and it’s already too late for me?  I know that women with lupus, for some reason, can go into menopause as early as age 30.  Well, I’m past that.  I pray to God that I’m not out of time.  I guess I need to research that a bit more.  It would either put my mind to rest or give me a whole slew of new things to worry about.