Torn

On Sunday, due to complete lack of pregnancy symptoms, I decided to take a pregnancy test. You know, just to confirm that I wasn’t pregnant before going out drinking with some girlfriends on Monday.

The test was positive.

And I completely fell apart. Which was something that I wasn’t prepared for. Between sobs, I kept saying, “I am not ready, I am not ready” to the utter confusion of my poor husband who asked, “Isn’t this what we wanted?” And this is where it gets strange. Yes, this is what I wanted, what I wanted so badly for a long time. But as I mentioned last week, achieving pregnancy is not what it’s about anymore. And—at least at that particular moment sitting on the bathroom floor—all I could think about was that this could be my third strike. My third failed pregnancy. And that’s what I was not ready for.

Maybe it was just a glass-half-empty kind of morning. Maybe it was the shock of it. Maybe it was the feeling of too good to be true—again. I have tried to push those thoughts away. I have tried to be excited. And I am getting there. My beta at 15dpo is 675. It’s a solid number. My first miscarriage was a chemical pregnancy—and it was so early in the pregnancy and so long ago (before the Child) that it probably doesn’t affect my chances this time. My chances are good. I am just not naïve enough to be too excited. Instead, I am terrified.

Let me say something here for the record—although I know my two readers probably know this from their own experience. I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful bitch. I am happy that I am pregnant—that somehow, after trying, and trying, and trying, and unexplained diagnosis, and trying, and then getting there, and then losing it, and coming out of it with a fresh, clean, D&C’d uterus, I am able to get pregnant. I know how lucky I am to be pregnant when so many wonderful, amazing, deserving women can’t (and oh my gosh, I could link to so many pages here because there are so many of these women out there). I just can’t shake off this feeling that I can’t possibly be this lucky. That’s just not what I was expecting. Struggles, heartbreaks, more tests, still no diagnosis or a scary diagnosis, failed ART attempts—I was preparing myself for those. I wasn’t prepared to be pregnant. It was too easy, and that’s why I fear that this will be taken away from me. I haven’t paid my dues to the IF Association of Suffering, and that’s just not the kind of place where they give you a free membership.

And oh, how I hope I am wrong about all of this.