arrival

I sat in the wheelchair, leaving the room that had become almost cocoon-like for me in the past 4 days. It was a room I hadn't once left since having entered it. A room that saw both immense highs and dark moments. A room in which I'd gotten to know my husband in a way I'd never known him; gotten to know a new part of myself. It was a room of so many firsts, that small little room. And I wonder now how those 4 plain walls could've contained so much uncertainty, delight, love, terror. Leaving that room, seeing a hallway through which I'd undoubtedly been before but had no recollection of, I couldn't imagine ever having existed in any other room before. And in some ways I hadn't, not the person I was now, because that was the room where I became a mother.

Holding my son in my arms as I was wheeled out of that room was surreal. Passing through that hallway that I felt I'd never seen before. Getting on an elevator, with a nurse standing behind me and my husband beside me, the 3 of us beaming while the fourth slept (deceptively) peacefully in my arms. As people got on and off the elevator as it descended from the 24th floor they smiled, cooed and sometimes asked for the details of how and when we became a family. I never thought I'd describe a ride in a lift as "beautiful" but it was. And I wept.

Four days prior, when I last entered that elevator, I had no idea that I would leave it a changed woman. I expected to be told that my bleeding was the result of my placenta previa and that I was to be on bedrest until my scheduled c-section in 11 days time. When I was hooked up to the monitors and saw that those little cramps I felt periodically were actually contractions, coming in surprisingly regular time, I thought I might be stuck in the hospital until the blessed event. But I didn't expect that event to come in 9 hours - the soonest the doctor on call could come deliver my Memorial Day baby. I didn't know enough to savor the movie we'd seen that night (sadly, Terminator 4) or the car ride to the hospital, during which I was mostly annoyed that I wasn't in bed. And my husband didn't know to pack a hospital bag that contained more than 2 cans of Sprite, 4 bags of chips and a book he'd been reading. But before we knew what was happening I was being wheeled through double doors into the sterile room in which my son would be born, mercifully screaming and pink, 7 lbs 4 oz at 36 weeks.

And four days later, as I was pushed through the automatic doors and out into the rest of the world I was overcome with my good fortune. Overcome with deja vu of sorts, as I heard the nurse (as though speaking long distance through a tube) talking merrily of the excitement yet to come. Because it was nearly 3 years prior when I was last pushed by a nurse out of that very same hospital, those very same doors, having been sedated in another sterile room and having "birthed" my twins. I cried that time, as the nurse told me I could try again soon. And I cried this time, overwhelmed by the journey I had taken in those 3 years, overwhelmed by the poetry of leaving those same doors, perhaps in the same wheelchair, but with my son in my arms instead of just my heart.

Five and a half weeks have passed since I became a mother. Some days it feels easier than that first day and some days so so much harder. Sometimes I can't believe he's been here more than 5 weeks already and sometimes I feel he's always been here. It's been heavier and harder than I could've imagined, but there are moments of lightness when I know we will all make it and be better for having each other. And through it all there's the love, blinding and breathtaking. Love for my son and my husband. Love for *my* family.

and so with pride (and exhaustion) I finally introduce to you my Oliver Robin. Born at 36 weeks exactly, weighing 7 pounds 4 oz and measuring 19 1/2". My big boy. My big, handsome, stubborn, delightful and bewildering boy. A boy named to honor siblings we will never know (siblings who were the size of olives when they left) and the Brazilian soccer player (Robinho) after who he was inexplicably nicknamed just 4 weeks after his conception. A boy who looks like his father and screams like his mother and yet is so completely and uniquely him.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Women have body issues. It's just a fact. Every single one of us has something: that hair that appears on our chin, never noticed until it's 3 inches long, dark and disturbingly pubic in nature; the cellulite that formed on our thighs before we could legally drink; the weight we carry in our asses or our bellies or our thighs or our tits, always wishing we were carrying it in any other spot. Tall, thin, gorgeous women feel gangly and their limbs unwieldy (or so I'm told). Short women feel dumpy, frumpy and often lumpy. And regardless of how much they pay for that perfect, sassy haircut that everyone loves, every woman on earth has issues with their hair. I'm sure of it.

I am not immune. I definitely have my issues. My mother and (ex)stepfather found it amusing at 14 to talk about how big my ass was. "You could show movies on that thing!" It wasn't cruel - you don't make it in our family without withstanding merciless teasing - but I don't think they realized how formative those years are, how delicate self-esteem is at that age, and so I still, at more than twice that age, feel self conscious about my bottom. Thank god my husband is an ass man.

But all things considered I have a fairly healthy bodily self-image. I gained more than 20 pounds between meeting my husband and marrying him. I didn't love the weight, but I did love eating and laziness and therefore was never driven to do anything about the growing waistline and never resisted the increase in pants size. I have on numerous occasions gone from nipple-obscuring-length hair to a Winonna-esque pixie with one snip of the scissors. Just 2 weeks after losing my twins I walked into a hairdresser I'd never seen and told him to give me a drastic change - whatever he wanted, just something different. Hair grows back, this I know, and I treat it as such. I've watched my boobs go from B-cups to Cs and enjoyed the change, and was equally unfazed when those Cs shriveled to As, simply taking up the banner of small chested women everywhere. My body is simply that: a body. It isn't me and I'm not it.

That is, apparently, until that body no longer belonged to just me. Now that I'm being inhabited by another being (eek!) I'm finding that changes I expected to embrace are sometimes difficult to take. I love my belly. I embrace my belly. Even when the baby was the size of a poppy seed, but my abdomen was so bloated I looked like a stereotypical Ethiopian child, I loved my belly. But the first time I glanced in the mirror and noticed that my pert, perky boobs were suddenly looking sad and forlorn - literally downcast - I felt a surprising sting. I had known that motherhood would bring changes and that the breasts I'd recognized would be lost forever, but I expected those changes to happen while breastfeeding or after weaning. I didn't know that staring at my tits at 12w I would be shocked by how matronly they'd become. And it's an image I still haven't adjusted to.

I'm not an idiot - I knew the numbers on the scale would grow, that my baby wasn't healthy if they didn't. But I didn't expect to flinch when seeing that growth flashing obnoxiously on the scale below me. Had I known this I would've given my OB a fully-clothed, shoe-wearing, post-pasta-eating pre-pregnancy weight by which she could track my gains. Never would I have provided her with my at-home weight, which has always been taken first thing in the morning, after peeing, before eating, butt-ass naked. Because when I hear her say I've gained X pounds I have to restrain myself from pointing out that my shoes must account for at least 3 of those.

And when my mother told me, at 17w, that I was starting to waddle? Well, I don't care how steely your self-esteem, no one gets past the word "waddle" without cringing.

I thought I would be different; I thought I was an earth-mother. I expected to embrace bodily changes like the changing of the season. I thought I'd be proud of pregnancy acne and feel womanly in my spreading hips, but even I can't revel in nipples the size of dinner plates (regardless of the fact that come June they will serve as just that). I love my baby and I genuinely love being pregnant. But I've come to realize that you'd have to be a saint to love your stretch marks.

Oh god...stretch marks. I'd better learn to embrace my new reality or it's going to be a long 5 months...

sins of the father

I've been told my entire life that I look exactly like my mother. (Well, except that one time when I was about 12 and went for an exceptionally bold and very short haircut and was mistaken by one of my dad's oldest friends for my brother. Oh, the scarring, how it is permanent.) I realize that my mom has always been a very attractive woman, even now at 54 keeping in great shape and never without lipstick just a shade too bright. And yet I've always found myself slightly doubting of our physical similarities, regardless of how blatant they are.

However, when looking at baby pictures of the two of us I am happy to acknowledge that we're nearly identical. Full lips, big, smiling eyes, a self confidence that's obvious even from toddler-hood. I see those faces, nearly indistinguishable, and see girls full of promise and joy and I don't deny that we were similar not only in bone structure but in outlook. Obvious innocence. A clear belief that the world was ours to discover. And so I am forced to conclude that my reluctance to accept the undeniable family resemblance has nothing to do with my disbelief or unwillingness to see the similarities, but rather my fear that the similarities run much deeper than our full pink lips.

My mom is a bold woman, determined, outspoken. I've admired her strength through 2 divorces, both of which were abusive (in different ways). I respect her insistence on speaking her mind and I commend her determination to stick it out once she makes up her mind. But sometimes, in speaking of those divorces (one to my father - a terrible husband but a great dad) she appears as a martyr. I can't help but see that when she speaks her mind she does so in a way that often disregards how the listener will receive that message - believing that sharing her opinion is more important than preserving the feelings of those she looks down upon from her pulpit. And her determination is sometimes just thinly veiled stubbornness; a refusal to accept her own faults and mistakes.

And I know that I too carry each of those strengths and every one of those burdens in my own gut. I can feel them. They're so heavy.

I believe that more often than not women find themselves wanting daughters (and men, sons) either because of or in spite of their own maternal relationships. It's usually clear that the new mom is intent on duplicating her own relationship with her own daughter or on wiping the slate clean and fixing the mistakes she feels she suffered at her own mother's hands. My mom, desperate for a girl when I was in utero, obviously had some perceived wrongs to right - she's told me as much growing up, priding herself on how different she was with me. But I hear her complaints about her mother and I feel as though a mirror is being held just inches from my own nose. But she would never see it. Never admit it.

I too have always wanted a daughter. Always. Always. But in all my soul searching, regardless of how deeply I've dug, I haven't been able to determine whether I hope to correct the mistakes she clearly made or whether I yearn for a similarly passionate and deep relationship with my own child. Simply stated, at 30 years old I still do not know if I love my mother or loathe her. But I've always known that I too, want the opportunity to have my daughter ask herself that same question someday, painful though I'm sure it would be for me to hear. It's a conflict that runs deep in many a woman's soul, I'm certain.

And so the universe has taken pity on me. Removed from the picture any fears of reliving the sins that were thrust upon me. The universe has, it appears, given my baby a penis.

I expected in that moment, when the pointy part was clear and we heard the ultrasound tech say "it's a boy!" to feel disappointment. I prepared myself for the inevitablity that I would need to adjust to the fact that I was looking at soccer balls rather than debutante balls. But I surprised myself when at those words I felt nothing but pride, joy and excitement about the little man growing in my womb. The world wasn't closed on me in that moment, my options weren't limited. I became a mom with a son who I loved.

In that moment I realized that my relationship with my mother isn't perfect. It's not ideal and it won't ever be. But it is full and it is fiery. It is enough.

here it comes...

We knew it would happen someday. My ennui and confusion about this pregnancy couldn't last every single moment of every single day. There was bound to be a day when I would find myself giggling, grinning ear to ear and marvelling at how blessed we are. Feeling as though I'd downed a bottle of Felix Felicis, today is that day.

Waking up this morning to the mental milestone of 12 weeks was a perfect start. One small step for a pregnant woman, one giant leap for *this* pregnant woman! Although I'm now much further than I was with any previous losses, this week seemed like such a foreign threshold to cross and yet here I am, walking through that door and glowing on the other side.

Glowing, with a healthy (and big!) baby kicking me on the inside. I can't feel it yet, of course, but I could certainly see it this morning at our NT scan. Those long spindly legs kicking, those adorable little fingers at the baby's mouth, that heart - THAT HEART! - thumping away, 4 glorious chambers beating perfectly to sound the most beautiful music a mother can hear.

The most beautiful music a mother can hear...in her own home. My doppler also arrived today and with a little fiddling there it was: woosh woosh woosh. My belly soaking with gel, underwear pulled down around my knees, entirely without grace and yet feeling SO full of grace. Just so full.

Full of life, overflowing with love. My heart beats stronger knowing that today another heart still beats below it. Within it.


(Please re-direct me to this post when complaining about cankles, stretchmarks and hemorrhoids.)

human trampoline

There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself The Human Trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying, tumbling in turmoil
I think "whoa, so this is what she means"
She means we're bouncing into Graceland

-Paul Simon, Graceland

Good news: Last Wednesday I woke up officially more pregnant than I'd ever been. My chemical pregnancies ended before the pee dried on the stick and my stickiest pregnancy lasted to just 9w1d. On Wednesday, at 9w2d, I felt relieved that we'd crossed a bridge into unknown pregnancy territory and simultaneously terrified that I didn't know where I'd find myself on the other side of that bridge. Would I reach this milestone, only to soon find myself in grief once again over life lost or would I really be venturing into the true wilderness of parenthood, finally birthing a baby I'd dreamt of for so long? My whole life felt laid out in front of me that morning, as opposed to the previous 9 weeks, when I felt I was tethered to my past.

Bad news: That same morning, at 9w2d, I went to use the bathroom in the morning and glanced (as I have for the duration of this and every pregnancy) at the toilet paper, looking for but not expecting to see blood. My toilet paper searches while still a constant have become much less determined, much more flippant. 5 trips to the bathroom every day for 5 weeks and not a single spot of blood, it's only normal to lighten up a bit...but not enough, apparently. Because last Wednesday, more pregnant than ever before, I found myself bleeding. Nothing to write home about (nothing to even write on blog about), but present nonetheless: little speckles of dark reddish-brown blood. I laughed out loud and actually said "you've got to be kidding me" as I sat, ass exposed on the cold hard seat, and decided whether to panic.

Good news: I didn't panic. I realized that it was such a small amount, such a minor event that it didn't warrant a full blown terror. I debated whether to tell my husband, whether to explore the issue any further, and considered flushing the toilet, walking away and forgetting I'd ever seen anything. But I couldn't do that. I knew that rather than forget, my unwillingness to acknowledge the scare would lead to a scary week ahead as I waited for my OB appointment. So I decided to come clean with my husband - calmly, rationally - and hoped that he too would decide not to panic.

Bad news: He didn't panic, but I could tell he couldn't brush it off either. We forced ourselves into a lighthearted discussion as to how best to handle it. I'd been released to an OB exactly 3 weeks prior, but was miserable in his care. We'd decided not to return to him and I'd booked an appointment with a new doctor for 10w2d. But since I hadn't seen her yet either, I didn't know where to turn for reassurance.

Good news: I have the greatest RE in the city (and I feel like I can comment, considering I've seen 4 of them over the course of our treatments). A woman who always made me feel cared about and listened to in every respect. And although I hadn't been her "responsibility" for 3 weeks she offered to sneak me in for a quick ultrasound, just to reassure me that everything was ok.

Bad news: Have you ever noticed that even when one is decidedly not panicked, knowing that a definitive answer is forthcoming can deliver fear faster than Dominos delivers pizza? Cool, collected Amber was lost when faced with an ultrasound - hopeful that the spotting was as insignificant as I believed, but fearful that I had again begun the beginning of the end.

Good news: The probe inserted and adjusted to find the sac, a baby appeared on the screen. Still, but with heart beating strong and fast (178bpm). The doctor and I sat, both relieved, and stared at a beating blob, her with pride in her voice and me with tears in my eyes. I would've been happy at that moment to jump off the table, I didn't want to take another moment of her time and I knew now that for now the baby was safe. But my RE wanted me to feel not only safe, but happy. And spent 10 minutes letting me gaze at the precious little one, noticing arms and legs as I'd seen in my twin pregnancy, but for the first time also a spine. My baby has a spine! And soon I realized that s/he knows how to use it. Next thing I knew s/he was twisting and twirling as much as my insides had done in the hours leading up to this ultrasound. And to know that still 2 hearts beat in my body, to see hands I haven't yet held and feet I haven't yet tickled...to see our baby on the screen wiggling as if to assure me that all is well. Well, are there any words?

Bad news: My husband, trapped at work, didn't get to see any of it.

::crickets::

I have noticed, while reading infertility blogs, that oftentimes once the blogger becomes pregnant the blog becomes stagnant. Once overly verbose writers clam up, posting nothing more than the occasional ultrasound update. I often wondered why pregnant infertiles suddenly go quiet and sometimes deduced that they were too blissfully happy to bother updating us who were still miserable, bitchy and barren. And maybe that's true for some of them.

But having officially become The Pregnant Infertile Who Shuts Her Mouth, I can tell you that in my case it's definitely not a matter of being so consumed with the rays of light shooting forth from my womb, but rather an inability to process my own thoughts and feelings within my own head, muchless in a readable way, sanitized enough to share with the public.

As an infertile you have months, years, to adjust to the life you're living. A woman new to the world of IF blogging is still quite experienced in feeling and thinking in the way of an infertile. Even someone newly diagnosed has likely had a year or more to come to grips with the fact that she is not like everybody else. By the time pen is put to paper, fingers to keyboard, she has likely processed countless failed cycles, a diagnosis, endless friends and their "oops" pregnancies and have begun to identify as one of the barren bunch. Pregnancy, it turns out, is the reverse. After spending 2 1/2 years adjusting to the concept that you are not pregnant (and aren't likely to get pregnant without remarkable acts of god or science) suddenly you're thrust into a new identity. Sure, it's an identity that you've strived for over the course of a lifetime, but it's also one you've fought to accept you might never have. Where the hell are you supposed to go with that?

I have now known about the pregnancy for 5 weeks, but I am no more adjusted to the reality of this reality than I was the day I found out. I am thankful that I haven't come out to most people, because honestly I don't know how to be pregnant. When friends who know ask how I'm feeling I don't know how to respond; I find myself uncomfortable discussing even the most mundane pregnancy details. I've spent so long feeling so raw when hearing the details of others' pregnancies...I just never imagined I would feel the same way myself. And I cannot lose the understanding that my pregnancy details could be excruciating for someone else to hear - someone out there doesn't want to know about my morning sickness the fact that I'm already in maternity pants, worrying instead that they will never have the discussion themselves. And as it turns out, maybe they won't. At least not out loud.

I don't know who this woman is or how she's supposed to feel. I don't know what to say, what life to live. So the days tick by, the counter creeps further towards 40 weeks and I wait. Hoping that someday soon I will know once again who I am...likely just before having to adjust again, this time from pregnant woman to Mother.

the golden thread

On August 28th, 2006 I was standing in front of the dry erase board at work, reading patient charts when suddenly I had this overwhelming rush: "what if I really am pregnant this time?" I felt almost as though my life flashed before my eyes, in that moment I pictured making my grandmother a great-grandmother again, connecting generations of my family's women with another branch of the tree. The intense feeling passed fairly quickly but the imprint of it stayed with me and when 3 days later I learned that yes, I really was pregnant, I wasn't surprised. Foolish though it may seem, I still believe that that moment (at 7dpo) was the moment of implantation. The moment my babies became connected to me.

When I lost them I was devastated. Sadness is pervasive, but almost more than anything I felt lonely. I'd been speaking to my babies since that first day, begging them to stay with me through all the scary bleeding. I'd tell them I loved them, of course, but I also had a simple running dialogue with them. We lived my life together in those 9 weeks and when they were gone, when I could no longer share my every experience with them, I felt like a close companion, a confidant had died. The golden thread connecting them to me had snapped.

I've known I was pregnant for a full month today. I've seen this healthy baby on 3 ultrasounds, watched her (his?) heart beating twice. I feel nauseas much of the time, my breasts are tender and the bloat is immense. (Seriously. It's ridiculous.) But regardless of *knowing* what is going on within my own body, I don't feel it. Not like last time. I talk to this baby on occassion, but it feels forced. I rub my belly often, but mainly due to the water retention, not any maternal feelings. I know there is a baby in there, but I do not know this baby. Not like last time. And I feel sad and guilty about it.

I wonder if my twin pregnancy was a bit of a perfect storm, bringing about the intense connection. I bled from day one (well, 2dpo to be specific) so I spent many hours begging those babies to be strong for me, to hold on while my body did what it could to make them let go. My husband was out of town for a month from 3 days after getting that first positive. Spending so much time alone I'm not surprised I made friends wherever friends could be made: in this case, within my own body. The idea of pregnancy was so new to me, as was the idea of trying. It seemed in some ways magical, mystical rather than a scientific process.

In contrast, with this pregnancy I have, for the first time, had not a single scare. I thank god for the lack of blood, but I'm also without reason to suspect that this little squirt is going anywhere and therefore not likely to beg him (her?) to stick around. My husband is very much present, sometimes leaving me wishing I had some time alone, so I talk out loud to him rather than internally to a person I'm not sure has ears. I've had 3 ultrasounds since learning I was pregnant - but hundreds in the past 2 years while attempting to get pregnant. I've looked at them as a science experiment over the course of many treatments - how can I now expect to switch to a mindset focused on the blissful joys of a newly minted mother-to-be?

Knowing the above, I shouldn't be surprised that I feel distance. But I wonder if it's something more.

I wonder. I wonder if although I feel very few bursts of fear, check my pantyliner for spotting rarely, genuinely believe that this time we will have a baby come June...I wonder if the fear I expected to feel is still there. Still lurking and poisoning my pregnancy. I wonder if my unfelt fear is manifesting itself not in incessant worry and panic, but in a disconnect. Preventing my seemingly hopeful heart from being broken once again when the other shoe drops. I wonder if that golden thread is tied not around the beating heart of my baby, but rather the fear that I may never know this one either. And I wonder when *that* thread will snap.