A numbers game

So we are back in the rollercoaster, climbing up the hill...feeling that our throats will close to make room for our stomachs which have decided to jump up...
...Pregnant again.
I have so many mixed feelings about this. To be perfectly honest, this was the one month in the past year that I truly would have been OK to NOT see the plus sign. Our timing was off, I could not tell when I even ovulated, and the week prior to finding out was seriously one of the most stressful in our lives.
We had just listed our house for sale on March 1 and to our utter shock, had it sold on March 4. We had no prospects for a new house lined up, so we went into house-search overdrive. Everything we looked at was just crap. I had visions of putting all of our stuff into storage and moving in with Mom, Rich and Grandma...every night I prayed to God to please, please send us a house. And He did--after just 5 days of looking, we ended up in the perfect house, even priced below market. We jumped to make an offer when the house had only been on the market 2 days, only to be told that the owners were in Vermont on a skiing vacation and wouldn't be able to see the offer for a few days.
Again I prayed. A lot. I also made myself so sick with worry that I actually did become physically ill. I put it in God's hands, and by some miracle, the owner had the offer faxed to him in Vermont and accepted it with no contingencies the same day we made the offer. The following week was a continuation of the stress as we now had inspections to complete and approve. My heart was in my throat all week, but in the back of my mind I knew that an important date was looming, and then passed...my period being due.
I refused to test, vividly remembering last month's experience and the fact that I had a positive pregnancy test as late as the day before my period was due, only to end up with a chemical pregnancy. I argued with my chart, justifying that my period wasn't really due on Tuesday, but probably Wednesday. When Wednesday came and went, I had to face the truth and get the little test out of the box.
Of course it was positive. And the one I took two days later was still positive. And the blood tests that the OB ordered showed very nice doubling. I just can't believe that God would think that THIS was the month for us to get pregnant--He seems to have a very interesting insight...
We are now looking at a higher mortgage payment and TWO daycare tuitions this time next year. How in the heck will this work?! But I put my faith in Him with the whole house thing and He is really coming through for us. How can I not trust that we will be OK?

"It wasn't meant to be..."

I never thought I would be bothered so much by these words that I, myself have uttered so many times. But I found myself getting irritated last night when my sister said this to me after I spent the morning at the ER finding out that I am not, in fact pregnant.

I woke up yesterday with cramping and bleeding, convinced that I was miscarrying. We rushed to the ER and I was put through a battery of tests which all came back saying that I was never really pregnant. I have heard it called a chemical pregnancy, and the ER doc called it a spontaneous miscarriage. Basically there was a fertilized egg, but it never implanted. The egg produced enough hormones to cause a pregnancy test (actually 2) to show a positive result, but it never turned into a pregnancy.

I am relieved in a way that I did not lose another baby. But for that one week, in my heart I was pregnant so I do feel a loss. Now twice within 6 months I have the strange feeling of being pregnant one day and then not pregnant the next. I feel like I can't even trust a stupid home pregnancy test.

I know that lots of people go through this and some don't even ever realize that anything happened--they just think that they are late. But I am really feeling like I can't take for granted things that others do. Other people see the plus sign or "pregnant" on the digital and end up with a baby 9 months later. I don't. Other people go into that first OB appointment and leave hearing a heartbeat. I left with orders for a "viability ultrasound."

I'm really angry right now and I don't know who I have to be angry at.

Here we go again!

So it has been a few days, but I have really had to take some time to come to terms with the latest news in my life.

We are pregnant. Again.

Part of me (a big part) can't believe it, especially since I pretty much have no symptoms, other than a little plus on a HPT. The other part of me is scared, scared, scared. I feel every twinge, every cramp, and dread going to the bathroom. This is totally in my head, since we didn't even learn of my miscarriage until I had an ultrasound.

At the beginning of that pregnancy, I was sick. I just felt like crap from day one. At the time, I was weaning off of a medication and suffering the side effects of withdrawal. I was never sure if my lightheadedness was from that withdrawal or from the pregnancy; it all kind of mushed together.

From the very start of that pregnancy I didn't feel quite right. It was very different than my first pregnancy, which started with nothing and then quickly escalated to heavy cramping. I feel more like I did when I was pregnant with my daughter now. That gives me some sense of reassurance, since my first pregnancy ended successfully.

But it is exhausting, the worrying. I just have this constant fear that any minute it will be over. I dread the doctors appointments, the searching for a heartbeat, the tests, everything. I just wish I could fast forward 9 months and be done with it.

I want to be able to be naiive about this pregnancy; to announce it joyfully, not cautiously. I want to be able to tell my daughter she is going to be a big sister and then not have to take it bak again. I want to be able to pull out my maternity clothes from storage and not have to worry about saving the space to put them back in.

I know that if I really try, I can do these things. I learned last year of creating new pathways in my brain by erasing those negative thoughts. And I should do that.

...and here's how...

So I ended my last post with the mom's story of her brain tumor, and I haven't been able to get back here to finish up.

So, here goes.

Mom's been dealing with recovering from gamma knife surgery and living life with a (benign) tumor. It has not been easy. Less than three days after her surgery, the left side of her body started seizing. She ended up back in the hospital for three days with very little answers. Apparently the effects of gamma knife surgery are not supposed to happen that quickly; it is a procedure that takes several months to even start to work. So lots of doctors were puzzled, to say the least.

She left the hospital on anti-seizure medication (we joked that she could share drugs with my miniature schnauzer, who is also on them...), very depressed. She was not supposed to drive and the medication made her very drousy. She went on a mini vacation and ended up having another seizure 1/2 way through. It has been a frustrating journey.

The journey started, however, with an ear problem that was still unresolved, and completely unrelated to the brain tumor. Mom was slowly losing hearing in one ear, followed by the other. With the tumor (sort of) taken care of, now it was time to see what was happening in her ears.

The news was not good. She visited a renowned ENT in Philadelphia, who ran a battery of tests and fitted her for hearing aids. I knew I was in trouble when mom said she wanted to see us on a Thursday night right after I got home from work. She never does this, and I joked with her on email, "you're welcome to stop by. Unless you have bad news. If it is bad news, you can stay away!"

It was bad news. Mom was diagnosed with Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease (AIED), which had flared up a year ago. The doctor told her that if it had been caught in the first few months, it could have been reversible. Even better, it is an inherited disease. Therefore, my sister and I now have to be tested, and if we have it, so do our children. If we are carriers, every ear infection, stuffed-up head, etc. must be taken very seriously, or else we, too could lose our hearing.

I'm trying not to be too pessimistic, but that's not in my nature. My ears are pretty much already shot from umpteen ear infections as a child. If I even looked at a body of water, I got swimmers ear. I already have constant ringing, and my ears click and crackle all the time, even when I am not swallowing.

But it is three weeks until my testing, so I have to try and put it out of my mind. For now.

And yes, it CAN get worse...

So a quick recap of the last six months makes my family look like we belong in a bubble. Fife months ago, I suffered a missed miscarriage and had to undergo a d & c. I had just gotten to the point of feeling like I was starting to heal, when my mom drops a huge bombshell on me.

I have to set this up, just to show how absurd it all was: Mom has had some hearing issues since last spring, when she got sick (cold-like) on a trip to China. Her ear closed and never reopened. She went back and forth, from one specialist to the next, with no clear answers. One doctor, clearly sensing her frustration, ordered an MRI. They thought, at worst, it was a bulging blood vessel in her hear and she would have to have very delicate surgery to correct it.

So we all got together at a festival/parade at the end of September and sat to watch the parade. It was getting late, and my daughter was getting tired, so we got up to leave. My mom leans over to my husband and says, "I need to talk to your wife before you go." It is then that she drops the bombshell that the MRI showed a brain tumor (unrelated to the hearing loss), and she was scheduled for gamma knife surgery within weeks. So as my brain was trying to process all of this, clowns are galloping by, youth riding by on unicycles, bands playing a marching tune. Unreal.

So fast forward to last week, which will be the subject of tomorrow's blog.

Officially in the 2WW

So I use Fertility Friend, which I always swore I wouldn't, and today I got confirmation of ovulation from Monday. What a mix of feelings.

I hate not knowing if we were successful, and I hate even more the fact that I won't know anything more for a week and a half.

I want to be positive about this, but all I can think of is that I was away on Saturday. Even though our chances are high, all I can focus on is that one missed day. Typical me, focusing on the one, teeny tiny probably insignificant detail.

And what if we ARE successful? Well then, here we go again. I try to convince myself that this pregnancy would be different and that I would not worry so much about the worst thing that could happen. But five months ago it never even occured to me that I would have a miscarriage. That kind of stuff doesn't happen to me. And then it did.

I can't concentrate on much else right now, which is not exactly the best thing for my job! Luckily things are really slowing down and I have no major projects on my desk.

My first blog

OK, I've never done this before, so here goes.
I guess I'll start with the title of my blog...it's a little out there, even for me. I love food, love to cook, and love to eat, so naturally I am a big Paula Deen fan. It's something I can share with my grandma, who spends most of her time watching the Food Channel. Last May, Grandma lent me her copy of Paula's biography, "It Ain't All About the Cooking," which I read in about a day. If you don't know Paula's history, the short story is that when she was a young mom, her dad died and her mom died shortly after. She was in a bad marriage, and started having panic attacks. Agoraphobia followed, and she struggled financially, emotionally, and it took its toll on her and her boys.
One of the things that got her through it was the following thought: (and I don't have the book right here with me, so I am paraphrasing) "If you wake up in the morning and you are on the right side of the dirt, it's going to be a good day."
In all I have gone through in the past year, both good and bad, this thought has resonated with me and kept my head up. If you are alive, still breathing, you have another day to make it better. So I thought it would be a good title to my blog, plus everything else that could have matched me was already taken!