I don't mean to sound melodramatic or self-pitying, though I'm sure this is both, but I think I know a little about hard. Not living-in-Bangladesh hard, or suffering-a-painful-and-disfiguring-disease hard. I think people under those circumstances might not have the energy for the kind of hard I've known. Those people might look at my loving, funny husband, my big house, my comfy and adorable car, my more comfy and adorable dog, my working limbs, and 'phht' at me like an old Jewish grandmother. But what I've been through feels like hard to me. Loss of a parent at a young age leading to 27 years of responsibility for other parent's well-being, yes. Eating disorder, yes. Typical self-esteem destroying relationship followed by atypical 6-months of crippling migraines, yes and yes. Depression, yes. And now that I've taken an entire paragraph to justify the pity party (Oh God. Did i just say that?) that will follow, I will move on, but first let me say this: The Great Infertility Drama of 2003, 2004, 2005, and Now Moving to 2006 feels like the hardest.
Saturday I took a home pregnancy test even though I was scheduled to have a blood test on Monday. The pregnancy test was negative. I am sad, but not surprised.
Monday I go to the lab for said blood test. Call the doctor's office Monday afternoon expecting bad news. The lovely nurse tells me that the test is positive. My Hcg is 46, which is a little low, but still positive. My progesterone level receives an A++ for the day coming in at an over-achieving 42.5. The doctor would like for me to come in on Wednesday for another blood test. According to the nurse, he'll will be monitoring my Hcg levels weekly. She tells me I can't leave town, can't drink or smoke, drink caffeine, take any medication besides Tylenol, on and on. We hang up. Cue confused and sheepish smiling between Sonnet and Alex before Alex leaves for D.C.
48 hours pass. There are thoughts and dreams and hopes, little prayers, every cheesy, silly, lovely little thing that you can imagine. I will not write them. I can't. But mostly I just felt relieved. I thought things might actually get a little easier, and if not easier than at least less soul destroying.
I wanted to be at the lab for the blood test as early as I could this morning, but that turned out to be not so early as Alex left me, as he said, "Knocked up, and sick with a terrible head cold." But I got there by ten and waited a couple of hours until I could safely assume that they had received the report before calling the nurse. (That's not true. I called before then, but only once, and was not even remotely snotty to the not-so-lovely-nurse who told me I might have to wait until tomorrow to get the results.) I could tell when the lovely nurse got back on the phone after getting the results. Monday her voice sounded so happy, like she really loved that she got to give me such good news. This time she sounded sad.
It's a chemical pregnancy, called that because the only confirmation of pregnancy is chemical detection, not ultrasound. That's what distinguishes a chemical pregnancy from a miscarriage. If you want to know more, I found Google quite handy. The nurse said I should expect some bleeding, and to call her if I had any questions.
I can't believe how hard this has been. And I cannot tell you what it has felt like. Nothing I say matches the sum of this experience. It has taken away my dignity, hope, privacy. It has been heart-breaking, lonely, humiliating, physically painful, grueling. I have lost friends, yelled at relatives, and felt so - crushed. And it is nothing compared to what I feel now.
I am staunchly and violently pro-choice. I deplore the rhetoric of the far right regarding conception because it is used to negate the rights of women. But I can't help feeling like I lost a baby today. I don't know what else to say.
