Holy Moly Hallmark Moment (Maybe...)

Well, this time I am well and truly knocked up. (So says my blood test today, 16 days post ovulation). I am thrilled, but, like anyone with a long history of losses, also so apprehensive to be back walking the cliff's edge once again. The sunset views are supposed to be beautiful from here, but dusk is still hours away and in the meantime I'm afraid to look down.

Once an infertile, always an infertile, in mind if not also in body. I've come to realize that for the "type A" personality (which, let's face it, describes a disproportionate percentage of us older would-be mothers who've been focused on career etc. for years before trying to conceive) the hardest thing about infertility is the total loss of control. We all cope in different ways, but I think at base what we want is some element of influence over our fates. For some it might be prayer or lucky charms, for some it might be medical data and scientific theory. I've dabbled in all of those.

But more than anything, it now hits me, that my own chief coping mechanism is the comforting belief that I'm highly (almost magically) attuned to my body. It feels important to me to be intimately, intuitively aware of my own innards. Last night, lying awake at 3 AM and wondering what that cramp meant and whether my insomnia was stress-related or the sign that my thyroid levels are already out of wack (Thyroid, said today's labs, but you guessed that, didn't you?), I had the absurd thought that I wish I could google my own body, just have a search engine that would allow me to surf the interbodynet and generate data about all the relevant chemical levels and associated activities of my reproductive parts.

You know, I still think I actually did conceive in that March cycle. I didn't come back to write about it here, but I had a *very* heavy period that month (and oddly long at 9 days instead of my usual 4-5). Then, in the April cycle I didn't spend even one hot second thinking I was pregnant. Never so much as contemplated peeing on a stick. I just felt completely different. And I wasn't pregnant. And when my period came, it was moderate and normal.

So when Thalia, who is a lovely and supportive blogfriend from way back, logged in to tell me that I was in fact crazy with all my chimerical theories (or that's how I read it anyway) I retreated away from my newfound pledge to blog. I didn't realize why her well-meaning scientific facts bothered me so much at the time, but I now see that she unintentionally threatened my favorite coping mechanism. In truth, I probably can't divine my own body-status but I'm at least getting better at understanding my psyche, one step at a time!

So, the "scientific data" says that my HCG level is "very good." Dr. Cookie-Pie didn't specify and I didn't ask. We sweated over the early numbers so much last time I feel determined not to fall into that particular trap again. My progesterone was an unassisted 39, so even though I supplemented with Turtle, we're doing nothing in that category for now. Meanwhile, the dang TSH snuck up from 1.5 to 3.2. Should be under 2 and is the suspected culprit in my prior losses, so we've upped my synthroid dosage post-haste. Now I wish I had upped it as soon as I ovulated, but at the time I was afraid that if I didn't conceive this month I'd become hyper-thryroid and interfere with next month's ovulation. At any rate, my recollection is that it was at around 4.5 at the time of the Great Halloween Surprise of 2005, so I'm trying not to panic.

Anyway I'm too tired to panic. But I'm not yet at all nauseous (I never am at the very start). So I am free to just feel sleepily, dreamily, happy. I was pretty sure yesterday, Mother's Day, that I was pregnant. And I realized it was the happiest I've ever felt about a pregnancy. The very first time I became pregnant (FIVE years ago) I was so scared at the thought of becoming a mother that I hardly managed to enjoy the news before the whole pregnancy ended abruptly at seven weeks. The three times after that, I was always happy to conceive but also terrified of miscarriage. Now, though I remain highly aware of all the ways things could go very wrong for me, I have beautiful living proof in Turtle of the way they could go very right. So, for just this little moment, I'm very happy. Almost hallmarky if you must know...