Sea of questions

Thank you for your generous comments, support, suggestions and kindness. You are giving me the strength to believe that I will find a way to cope with this soon.

I am still in overwhelm and still in shock. The more information I get, the more torn and terrified I feel. The options, slim as they are, are not good--not good at all. There are many happy stories of successful triplet pregnancies with perfect outcomes. And there are poignant statistics on the devastating effects of severe prematurity in triplets.

The sensible part of me wants something I still can hardly fathom: that a potential baby in my womb would not make it, would quietly give up. The others would be safer, and I know that would be best. The irrational part, hungry and greedy, wants them all to stay, and damn the consequences.

In the end, the choice will be about the best interests of these tenacious little creatures that have so surprisingly decided to stay with me, at least for now. We will see a specialist, we will ask a hundred questions, and Jeff will be there to help make the decision if I start to lose perspective. For now, though, I'm still wandering in a haze of uncertainty.

Stunned

We saw one heartbeat. Then we saw the other.

And then we saw another. The third sac, the one that was tiny and being reabsorbed, now has a heartbeat.

I am stunned, and I am terrified. This is not good news.

I don't yet know what to do.

Wishing it were otherwise

When JJ persuaded Mare, Jen and me to get off our long-winded arses and start our own blogs, instead of filling up the comments on a trying-to-conceive buddy group we all had joined, the three of us were comparatively fresh-faced and dewey-eyed. We'd each been trying for a fair while --a year, maybe more--and were starting to feel a bit worn down, but injectibles and procedures were still to come. I remember thinking myself a bit of a fraud for even labeling myself "infertile"; I hadn't really paid my dues, at least not by comparison to so many in Blogland. I mean, all three of us were still having sex at that point, and actually holding out hope for a result each cycle. We knew something was not quite right, but the possibilities for diagnosis and repair were endless.

Me, I had a feeling--a maudlin, pessimistic feeling (don't I always)--that I would end up in the deep end. But I kept expecting, hopefully but with a fair lump of envy, that Jen and Mare would get that positive one unmedicated IUI, or on some Mediterranean vacation. But that didn't happen, and it didn't happen, and it didn't happen some more. And while our paths were very different, they ended up in the same place: IVF, Summer 2005.

I know I shouldn't have expected us to go three-for-three, but I was sure that, if it was two-for-three, I would be the one who struck out. So when I got a positive, and then Jen got a positive, I was certain that Mare would make it three. And when I eagerly opened Bloglines to read her post last week, full of optimism for good news, I couldn't really take it in for a few minutes. And then I started to cry.

Mare, I wish to god you didn't have to deal with this pain. It hurts so much, and it lasts so long, and there is no fairness in it. With all my heart, I wanted this to work for you.

No longer repellent

The slithy tove has receded, and I will be doing the same for a few days while visiting my Nam in the Southland.

Though nauseated and feeling generally like poo, I am quite happy as I've been given the go-ahead to stop the PIO injections for good, or until/unless I experience "spotting, cramping or, you know, stuff like that."

Back Sunday.

My Bandersnatch is Frumious

Warning: Nauseating Grossness Ahead.

...

All has been relatively well for the last few days. Feel like I have the flu--queasiness, headache, tiredness, general blechiness. Just what I signed up for.

But yesterday, for no apparent reason, thick, greenish goo with the consistency of slithy tove (or perhaps day-old flan) began to seep out of my cooch. In quantity. Oddly reminiscent of the loogies one hocks during a raging sinus infection, but with a volume that would be the envy of enraged sinuses everywhere.

I have emailed Dr. FYC's office and been told in reply that it's probably caused by "excess progesterone" (test previously scheduled for tomorrow) but I am not really comforted by this opinion, as the eminent Dr. Google, in whom I have enormous trust, says that I should beware the Jubjub bird and shun the frumious Bandersnatch (or, at least, that I should beware some sort of unpleasant but treatable infection). If the progesterone test is normal, I'm planning to insist on an exam, cause they're so much fun. But if it's abnormally high, should I trust the diagnosis and assume Dr. FYC is correct? I'm going back and forth, just gyring and gimbling in the wabe, all mimsy like a borogove.

Familiar

I remember this feeling from those many, many years ago--this desire to withdraw from noise, from concentration, from smells, from food. It hit with surprising force and suddenness a couple of days ago: I feel pregnant. I've said the word "baby" out loud when talking of what's inside of me, and I don't feel like a fraud.

Please stay, little one. Or little two. Please stay.

Off the ledge

I have been reading and absorbing all of your comforting words. I am feeling much less anxious, thanks to your reassurances and information, and was even able to talk coherently to Dr. FYC yesterday evening and get a better idea of how optimistic he is. He said everything looked "as he would have expected" and he feels that #1 is pretty strong, and that #2 might, indeed, make it, too. I can not quite bring myself to think optimistic twin thoughts as it seems strangely greedy to want anything more than the one I had tentatively started to imagine before the ultrasound. But I'm trying to keep hopefulness from outweighing fear, and I think the balance has truly started to shift.

Thank you, kind people. I can't imagine trying to go through this without you.

Uncertain

I don't know what to make of the results. There's good and there's not so good, and I don't know how not good the not good part is.

There were three gestational sacs. The biggest measured five weeks, four days. The second looked to be about a day behind. The third was very small and almost certainly on its way to being reabsorbed. In the largest, Dr. FYC, full of apparent confidence, pointed out a (to my eyes, basically indistinguishable) yolk sac and a (completely invisible) flutter that he said was the heartbeat. He didn't record the BPM but said it looked "good".

My head was filled with wonder and panic and I forgot to ask the dozen questions I should have asked: How important is it that I'm at six weeks today, but the biggest measures three days behind? Why didn't we look for a yolk sac and heartbeat in the middle one? Should I be worried by the fact that my scant symptoms have dissipated in the last few days?

Dr. FYC is hard to read, so I don't know if his assured smiles were real or assumed. I will email or call once it's all sunk in.

Right now, I'm just not sure how to feel. We might have twins, we might have one, and we might, in the end, have nothing. I can't be elated and I can't cry.

Next scan in two weeks.

Limbo

The mind-numbing shock of the positive is wearing off, replaced by the heart-numbing fear of what we'll see on the ultrasound monitor this Wednesday. The unreality of success has been surpassed by the terror of loss. Having something to lose is much more difficult than I would have guessed.

I keep setting the bar at different heights--I'll believe it if this scan is good, I'll believe it when I start to show, I'll believe it after the level-two ultrasound, I'll believe it when she starts to kick--careening drunkenly from elation to depression, an emotional pinball.

Jeff still talks fearlessly of "when" and wants to make plans already, buy things, build things. Talking with him as we lay in the dark and imagine together what will be (for me: what might be, what could be) fills my head with a bittersweet lust.

I'm not sure how to proceed. I know how lucky I am to have gotten here. I am truly thankful. But I'm also afraid.

Transient thoughts

In the past hour, while eating dinner with Jeff and The Parents at our kitchen table, I have had the following thoughts:

...Melted raclette smells worse than feet.

Melted raclette is my favorite food.

Was that a fleeting breast pain?

What's that leaking sensation down under?

Oh, god, I'm miscarrying, aren't I?

You fucking idiot, it's just vaginal discharge.

Boy, I've had so much vaginal discharge lately.

I wonder if that's a sign that I could be pregnant?

You fucking idiot, you are pregnant?

Oh, right, forgot.

How can you forget?

Not sure.

My in-laws are the best.

I love my in-laws.

I wish they lived up the street.

Hmmmm.

I wonder if she thinks we're gluttons with all of this rich food?

She's looking at me with a trace of disappointment.

I hate feeling like I'm disappointing people.

It would be so nice if they'd go away for a while.

I wonder if they'll ever leave.

You fucking idiot, they leave in the morning for four days.

When they're gone, I can be one with my TiVo again!

I haven't seen any TV in ages.

I've read such good books, I don't think I need TV.

I should get rid of TiVo.

What's that wet sensation?

I wonder what changes they'll make to my protocol in October.

Can they give me more stims?

Sure would be nice if it worked.

It already worked.

You fucking idiot, you're pregnant.

God, raclette smells vile, like feet...

Not know

Jeff keeps asking me questions. Pregnancy questions.

Asking me. And all I can say in return is, "Sorry, love, not know."

It's dawning on me that I don't know anything about pregnancy. What's more, it's dawning on me that I actually need to find out.

You see, after the first few cycles of failure, I never let myself think too far ahead. My only goal for two years was to get pregnant, but somehow it never occurred to me to learn anything about what to do if it happened. Oh, sure, I've picked up a few things from the pregnancy-after-infertility blogs, but, I mean, there are basics I don't know. Like, for example, what the doctor will be seeking with his magic wand on the 10th. I've heard words like "yolk sac" bandied about here in blogland, but I have no freaking idea what one is. (Is it a gloppy yellow sphere, like in my free-range breakfast eggs?) And when should he be able to see a heartbeat, if there is one? And can I eat gorgonzola, take a bath, take my allergy medicine? How long will it be before I need pants with a drawstring waist? (Oh. God. I hadn't even imagined maternity clothes before. How can I not have thought of this?)

My level of unpreparedness knows no bounds. Imagine what will happen if an actual baby comes out of this. Yegads. Do you think, somewhere along the line, I'll get my head in the game and learn to breastfeed and change a diaper? Maybe?