Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Life
James told me a couple days ago I should blog again. I've been keeping quiet and holding something back, but I think I can share my tale now. First off some of it is sad, but thats not how I feel, please if you care about me don't pity me, I'm not down.
To bring you up to speed the quickest I can, if you haven't read my past (real past not from this summer) blogs, I had surgery last March, it was to try and correct a couple problems with my girlie parts. The surgery was successful and I felt incredible afterward, the ultimate goal though was not necessarily to improve how I felt each month. It was because James and I would like to have kids and something in me wasn't allowing that to happen. We've been married a little over 11 years now and we decided about 10 years ago we were ready and wanted to have kids so if you can imagine we are still dedicated to this goal and still trying.
Well I know not only because of the doctors follow up test from my surgery that it worked but because I got pregnant in August. I found this out Sunday September 9th around 5pm EST. I don't usually take those home pregnancy test things unless I'm late, I've taken a few over the years and I got tired of seeing them turn out negative. So I stopped wanting to use them. However I should have been starting, if you know what I mean, that day or the next. Yet I didn't feel that way so without telling anyone I was going to do it I took the test. (I only decided this about 5 minutes before I actually took the test.) It started to show a positive response almost immediately! I spent the next hour waiting for James to come home and see the results.
Well I could go into serious detail and get lost in what happened over the next month or so but I want to try and shorten this up a little. Lets just say we were excited. I wanted to sit on the information for a while though, till I felt it was safe to share, James on the other hand was dying to tell the world. I can understand that and over the course of about a month we did begin slowly sharing this information with our immediate family then some friends and I was working on telling my nieces and nephews. I had not finished making the rounds in that area. There was no reason behind that I was just spreading it out, it was enjoyable to share the news so I guess I just wanted to make that last. Before I could finish spreading the news though, before I honestly felt really safe sharing it completely, there seemed to be a problem arising.
The day of my birthday (a Monday) I began to spot, I've heard before that this can happen and not be problematic. I took my doctors advice hydrate and take it easy, stay off your feet. I spent a week that way, I had an appointment for Friday and each time I would call my doctors office they would ask me a series of questions and leave me with instructions to stay off my feet and stay hydrated, if things worsened I was to go to the emergency room. Well I called off sick from practicing bowling with a friend that Monday night and called off sick from league night that Wednesday night. Finally Friday came around and James and I went to my appointment. What we learned that day was sad, I was miscarrying, this pregnancy was not meant to be. I had done everything I possibly could to make sure this pregnancy would be a healthy one; eat right, stay healthy etc... but it wasn't in my control. It was a sad day, and I did cry over what was beyond my control, but I did not let this grief consume me. James was stoic, he was my rock. I know he was sad too, but he is ever the sensitive husband and does not want to add to my grief. I don't believe he wanted me to feel worse or feel grief or fault over this if he showed his sadness to a large degree. So yes he admitted he was sad but he did not let it consume him.
We turned our sadness around and chose to see this event as a positive. We have never gotten this far before so we choose to see this as proof that the surgery worked and that I can get pregnant now. Currently I am just waiting for a clean bill of health from my doctor, then we will be jumping back in feet first to try again. I liked being pregnant, it was different, it was new, it made me feel different immediately. I changed my behavior and some of my eating habits immediately, I gave up caffeine I did try decaf coffee briefly but I opted to just drop it. I can do that again.
So that in a nutshell is the information. As for the secrecy I did write several blogs, I kept them private except for a very few people on myspace who had been told about the pregnancy. I intended to reveal the information at least by Thanksgiving and at that time open the blogs to my entire list of friends. I will likely go back and read them over again today and possibly open them up at that point.
The fact that I had been hesitant to share this news early I found that with the changes in how I felt day to day which included; being tired, occasionally nauseous, having a sensitive sense of smell, wicked heartburn and a tendency no matter how small the meals I ate to feel stuffed in the evenings and subsequently gassy which led to belchy (I don't think that's a word but it works for me) I found that I stayed in much more during the month of September and early October. I didn't mean to be anti-social but I wasn't certain I could contain my secret. I would say my staying in during that time was a 50/50 thing half not wanting to expose my secret, half not feeling like facing the world due to the physical changes this made in my life each day. For the record I didn't realize some of those things I described above would begin so early, that came as a bit of a surprise.
I so hope to be back in this condition soon, I know James is anxious for this too, there are a few things we may do differently next time around.
• I plan to not hide out in the house so much.
• I think this next one is the most obvious, together James and I have talked about not sharing the information so early on.
• Skip the salad, pass the cooked veggies.
• If possible more home cooking, less takeout (I didn't feel tip top, I gave in to that too many days and avoided cooking.)
• Grilled cheese sandwiches, mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs and grits will not monopolize my plate.
• Fruit is my friend.
We have so many good sweet friends who've known about our desire to have children for so long who I understand want to know how we are doing on this, some ask frequently, some just wait and hope. We don't want anyone to feel hurt, there is no being left out of the loop, that isn't the idea, I think its just a matter of self preservation. Let me explain that statement in our excitement there is one family we shared this with and included their children. I couldn't have been happier when we told them and I heard them squeal with delight, it took a while for being pregnant to feel real but nothing drove it home like hearing someone else's excitement. On the flip side I can't begin to tell you how bad that made me feel, the thought of explaining how sometimes in life not all the things we want turn out the way we want. It may be a fact of life, maybe they were alright and understood, but the thought of explaining that to children is just too much. So if you sense an air of mystery or have a hunch some day in the future just know that we are honestly doing our best each and every day and if we "slip one past the goalie" again as soon as we are sure that things are progressing in a healthy manner we will scream it from the rooftop we will leave no stone unturned in shouting our news of joy and happiness. For my immediate neighbors please don't bother offering ladders or scaffolding screaming it from the rooftop is figurative not literal. ;)
One more small note on the toll this took, the day I found out the bad news I could not bear the thought of retracting this information, I knew I would speak to my family and let them know personally but more than that seemed more than I could bear. I had a plan in mind though, I did not want to tell my family that weekend. Bad news sucks it can be a real mood killer in my book. I knew that my sisters and one of their families would be together to celebrate a birthday, not to mention that my mothers birthday was 3 days later. Well the next day I learned just how intuitive my sisters could be despite my best efforts to present a happy face/voice (they were in WA I was still in FL.) They gleaned information from a few small clues and called me later in the day for the real deal. In the end it was good to talk to them and I hope they were still able to enjoy their weekend. They assured me they did, but as it is with email sometimes it can be hard to discern what reactions truly are on the phone. Does that mean I'm any less intuitive?
I did however manage to hold this information back from my mother till after her birthday had passed, she understood. James took care of calling his family, I spoke to them later on. I guess aside from how I planned to speak to family I did find it in me to contact several friends on the phone that next day, a few I told by phone, a few I actually emailed. I hope that doesn't seem too tacky, it did seem tacky to me at the time but I hoped for their understanding nature to prevail. I think within the week we passed the update of information along to all who knew the story to begin with. For the record, I heard this sort of news when I was around the age of 12, I have a sister who has gone through this sort of thing before. I also have many friends who have stories of their own, a few who've gone into detail a few who've said much less but shared all the same. Each have dealt in their own way afterward from what I can tell, trust me I have always been rather sympathetic and I understood at a young age how painful this must be emotionally speaking that is. Now though unfortunately this changes from sympathy to empathy.
Time to close this message off, I began hoping to keep it brief and to the point, for those that know me best you may realize in my mind I achieved this... for those that don't see that you obviously haven't really heard me ramble on before, not really. And to reiterate as I said when I began writing todays post please don't pity me, I'm not down. I wish each and everyone of you a good day and an even better week, much love sweeties.
See you later allig8tors.
Currently listening : Real Emotion By Los Lonely Boys
