Trying again

I have mixed emotions about going through with this TTC business again, a "mere" 4.5 months after remission. A "mere" year after the pain of losing my first pregnancy. A year really isn't all that long, it turns out. Even if you spend every single day waiting just for time to pass, waiting and wanting something you have zero control over. Hoping and wishing for health, for a miracle, for AF, for understanding... Keeping a secret this long. Still, as long and painful as The Wait has been, I can't believe that I'm here again. I don't think I ever expected the wait to be over. I can't believe I may well be pulling out the pee sticks in a couple more weeks (barring a huge fight with DH this week or some emergency work trip or anything else that could get in the way of our "efforts").

The emotions, predictably, are twofold. I am excited. That's one of the two. I am reliving how excited I was to get that first positive HPT so early in the TTC process and hoping that my body is still in shape to make things happen that quickly again. Despite the D&C, despite the chemo, despite the long months with no cycles, I am now cycling again regularly and that in itself seems like a miracle to me. Joining this community has shown me just how very lucky I am to have something as basic as a normal cycle. And DH must be pretty normal too if we've been "successful" before. His swimmers got there, after all. So if everything works, shouldn't TTC work this time too? I've pinpointed my O week, I've been healthy - diet and exercise and vitamins and the whole bit. I've got the pre-$eed stocked, I've warned DH about our upcoming "marathon week." Everything is falling into place. So why wouldn't it work out? I know better than to think that just because all the stars align, a baby could result. But the optimist in me thinks it might. The optimist in me is a newcomer, though and has a shy, tiny voice. I'm not used to listening to her and I often dismiss her babblings out of hand. The stronger emotion is certainly fear.

I have done my best to bury my cancer fears. Every time the thought arises that "maybe I should have waited...what if today my HCG starts going back up - I won't know it until I'm really sick and I could be faced with a choice between me and my baby..." I just go to a different place and repeat the mantra that the oncologist told me during this conversation "I'm not worried" "you can start trying again right away" "do what you want, if you get pregnant, tell her I said it was ok." How could he say those things unless it was safe?? I try to remember the good studies and articles I've read and forget the bad. It is SO scary to think about the potential negative outcome that my survival mechanism is kicking in and convincing me, beyond all logic, that nothing bad will happen.

And "bad" is relative these days. I could handle another m/c with a lot more strength and grace than I did last year. As long as it doesn't mean more of this cancer business and persistant HCG. But somehow, despite all that I've been through - and maybe because of all that I've been through - hope springs eternal and I am awash in denial. This has to be a survival mechanism: if women were to give up after one failed pregnancy or a "mere" cancer scare, there wouldn't be many people on the planet now would there be? If I really thought about TTC in terms of risking my life, I probably wouldn't risk it. But denial, paired with the biological clock, is a powerful combination. And in some moments, I've managed to put it all out of my head, almost. As if the last year never happened. As if I am like any other young hopeful newlywed, excited at the prospect of a flowery, uneventful, happy nine months.

I don't think reality will hit unless and until I see that second line. I try to imagine it - how will I handle it, what I will do, how I'll react, how DH will, how my OBG will. But I think it's one of those things that one cannot predict until it happens. Pregnancy after a molar pregnancy. I don't think I will have any faith in that second line initially. I think it will just be one more step in this wait. I will wish for it to eventually turn into more, just as I wished for my HCG to drop, just as I wished for today to turn into tomorrow for so many many hours and days and weeks. I predict it will be just another minor-milestone type of day that I'll mark down on FF - just like the days I mark down an HCG result or AF's arrival. I can just picture it - I log on, enter my temp, check the box marked sore bo0bs, irritability,...and a positive pregnancy test. Then I get back to my work, go in for the ten millionth HCG test of the year later that evening. If it happens, I hope it won't seem any more momentous than that because from where I am now, in reality, it won't be. It will just be one more confusing and mysterious data point which will require more waiting, more tests. Why should that day be any different?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I still have a ways to go before I get there, to that miraculous and confused state. Maybe longer than I think.