Muted

I'm pregnant.

Seems like there a lot of BLMs making this announcement right now. I know for others who are waiting or wishing it's gotta hurt to hear all these announcements. I also know that some mamas have been hit by the Super Suck Lightning Bolt twice recently, and my heart aches for them.

I know some of you already know my news and it's not that I've been hiding it so much as I've just been unable to write about it.

It doesn't feel real, not at all.

For those wondering the nitty gritty details:

I am 6 weeks and a few days. I found out the day after we returned from Maui. The dates are sketchy (I had like five days of positive ovulation sticks) but it is quite possible/highly probable this little one was "Made on Maui" - just like it said on the onesie we saw in a shop there and were so tempted to buy, purely as an act of wishful thinking at that point. (I told E today that if this baby gets to come home with us, then I will have that onesie mailed here for us to dress him/her in. Note that this was one of the first times in the last two and a half weeks that I've even ventured into statements that are slightly hopeful that we might get to bring a baby home.)

I ate lots of sushi while I was in Maui and I got in a jacuzzi (it wasn't hot-hot, thank goodness). I had taken 2 pregnancy tests while we were there but they were almost invisibly positive and E convinced me I was seeing things, so I decided he was right and stopped testing*, until we returned and I realized I still hadn't gotten my period. (*NOTE: Ovulation predictors DO NOT WORK as pregnancy tests, despite rumors on the internet to the contrary. It worked when I was pregnant with Otis, so I assumed it would again. I didn't want to buy new pregnancy tests so I just peed on the opks, they were negative, I assumed I wasn't pregnant...hence the sushi and the jacuzzi. Big oops.)

But my numbers have been doing what they are supposed to be doing, doubling and tripling in these early days, and today we went in for an ultrasound. We got to see the heartbeat flickering away on the screen.

Yes, I started crying.

But it still doesn't feel real.

We have told a few close friends and some family, with the thought being that we will want them to know if we lose the pregnancy so we want them to know now as well. The doctor today said, "Don't start telling until 8 weeks, that is really a safer time," but, as we all know, there really isn't going to be a "safer" time for us this time around...I mean, yes, sure, I know about statistics and all that...but really...as I've heard so many mamas say, "When you're on the wrong side of the statistics, when you are that 1 in 10,000, the rest of the statistics are no longer very comforting." I agree that getting to 8 weeks may feel like I've gotten to a milestone of sorts. Seeing the heartbeat today felt like a huge milestone. But there are so many of them, my head hurts just thinking about it.

All my emotions lately have felt like they are seriously muted. I can't really be happy about this pregnancy, not yet, as much as I want to be. It's so strange, for as much as I wanted to see a BFP...I guess hearing this from another newly pregnant BLM kind of sums it up: "I hadn't really thought about the space between the BFP and delivery." I also feel like I can't access the depths of grief that I had felt last month or the month before. I haven't been in the fetal position crying on my closet floor for at least a month. (Though I did assume that position once or twice while in Maui.) But everything just feels very muted. Maybe it's the fatigue. I am so damn exhausted, and so damn queasy, it's amazing how quickly I forgot about the first trimester. But being muted like this actually doesn't feel like a relief right now. I miss the technicolor. My therapist reminded me that while I am IN the technicolor of grief there is nothing I want more than to be out of it. But I miss it, I miss feeling that raw, that fragile, that open and vulnerable.

This is not to say that I think I'm "done" with the technicolor. I am sure it will return, and I will be as uncomfortable with it when it returns as I was when it was here before.

In the meantime, I just am trodding along, best I can, while eating saltines and taking frequent naps. I keep telling myself that I have to be 6 weeks pregnant in order to be 7 weeks pregnant. I have to be 7 weeks pregnant in order to be 8 weeks pregnant, and so on, and so on. There is no shortcut on this path.

So now the trick is to figure out a way to continue on a path, a path of healing, of learning, of growing, of LIVING IN THIS MOMENT - without getting ahead of myself. Today I am six and a half weeks pregnant. I cannot continue to spend my time googling and obsessing because that will make for a very, very, very long set of months ahead. I must continue to search out ways to live in this moment, to love the life that is here in front of me now - not a life of "when the baby comes" or even "if the baby comes" - because neither of those options are right here, right now.

My therapist keeps saying, "So the information you have right now says that everything in this pregnancy is going optimally," and I keep trying to remember this. I say it to myself about twelve times an hour, I'm pretty sure. Maybe at some point I'll start believing it.

(Probably goes without saying, but please don't mention anything on facebook.)