The Pregnancy Lady

My HPT was positive again yesterday. Same shade as three days ago when my beta was 21. :( I walked into the lab last night and saw the two guys I often see on the evening shift. Guys that I really want to like and respect. They helped me out once when my lab slip went missing by taking my blood anyway. This might not seem like much, but having had to leave work early, I was almost overcome with relief at not being sent away. One of them is the guy who can take blood without me even feeling it. It's unbelievable. They're starting to recognize me which I'm trying to look at as a good thing, like we're all friends and I'm becoming an insider who can get blood taken even if I don't have a lab slip. Like if I really wanted to get my metabolic workup done on the side they'd do it for me without asking a doctor. Or something more clandestine that I haven't thought of yet....like if I needed some clean blood for a drug test. But I don't do any drugs so that probably won't come in handy. So imagine my disappointment when, as I'm walking towards the desk I hear "Oh, hey.....(well, that part was fine)...it's the pregnancy lady!" I could feel my heart sink. One of them knows by now exactly what's going on. I lost my baby. He's not the a-hole that made this incredibly insensitive remark, thankfully. Although he's had his moments. Like when I told him my betas were going down too slow he said, "maybe it was a slow baby." I was in stupefied shock after that one too.

So I corrected them, I said "No, it's the NOT-pregnancy lady." The guy who ended up taking my blood (perfect shot guy) made a point to learn my name finally during the visit so I guess he realized the jokes just weren't funny.

I'm so detached from it all now though that I wasn't really all that offended. Just amazed at the insensitivity of people. I think because I never saw a heartbeat or the shape of a little tiny person, I've been able to keep the grief to a minimum. And when the waterworks do begin, it's usually over fear for the future. Fear that DH won't be enthusiastic when the time comes again, fear that I'll never have a healthy pregnancy. Fear that my parents won't be able to enjoy their grandchildren. I haven't had to grieve much because I think of the pregnancy (ies?) as largely chemical, scientific happenstance. I SO wanted this idea that I had become attached to to become a reality and now I'm bitter and angry at how I'm missing that component of my life while others, seemingly effortlessly, are marching into parenthood like they've really accomplished something and are obviously more deserving. And they are deserving, of course, but not more than me. I am only now realizing how very much people take the ability to have children for granted. Having entered this community of loss and infertility, it's seems to me now to be a great and tragic taboo. Something that so many people go through and yet, young people are conditioned to assume nothing will go wrong because, while things go wrong ALL THE TIME, no one talks about it or treats it as normal. I wonder what my two co-workers (both new moms) that know about this think - that I'm not healthy? That there must be something wrong with me that I somehow deserve and it won't happen to them because they are healthy? That they are better than me? If I'm being honest with myself, I might have thought the same thing if I were them. Having never experienced loss, I'd be so snug and secure in my fertility that I'd have to find something wrong that caused someone else to have trouble to enable me to comfort myself and convince myself "it will never happen to me." It's kinda like passing the bar in California. If you pass but a friend of yours fails, to their face it's all about "oh, the grading is so random, it can happen to anyone, it's totally unfair." But deep down you're thinking - there has to be a reason. It's definitely that person's fault, at least a little. Doesn't mean she's not a good person or smart in many many ways. But she either did something to bring this on herself or through sheer unfortunate chance, she is simply not genetically wired like someone who passes the first time.

One of my friends, who has a 9 month old, said to me recently, "I think everyone has to go through something big like this," like no one can get away with an easy life for long. And maybe she's right. Maybe I was due for a major disappointment. And I have grown from the experience. But maybe it's all up to chance and I've just gotten unlucky this time. Maybe these two 'maybies' are the same. But it's not like I've had a perfectly easy life. Does anyone have this? Maybe a select few, but I suspect that I wasn't due at all. That this is just pure cosmic unfairness.

In any case, my betas are down. To 9! In the way of symptoms, still no bleeding, but more discharge, like stuff is getting expelled. Seems like things are approaching normalcy...although my temp shot up today, which worried me. Something is always worrying me. Maybe it's because, until now, nothing has gone right with this process.