However, the main thing going on with me is the extension of my front side.  This is seriously weird, and I feel like a dope for feeling like it’s weird, I mean, shoot, I’m pregnant.  That’s sort of the most obvious thing about being pregnant – but there it is.  Boobs are back into “take over the world” mode.  I’ve always been, well, modestly endowed.  So it’s weird to suddenly be, OMG, voluptuous.  It’s also a pain in the ass to suddenly not fit into any of my bras (and no, I still haven’t bestirred my lazy ass & gone to buy new ones, mostly because I don’t know where this expansion will stop. C-cup?  D?  EEEEEEE???)  But it’s damned weird to look down and see cleavage, from packing the girls into too-small bras.  Oh my.  Who’d've thought I’d ever have cleavage?

And the belly.  I’ve always been more of a pack-the-pounds-onto-my-hips kind of girl.  No matter how IVF-heavy I’ve gotten, I’ve always had a waist, always had a flat tummy.  But now, it’s poufy.  And it’s poufy out in front, though my waist has pretty much disappeared, too.  I’m feeling fortunate that I’ve never been a ‘wear tight pants’ type, because my work trousers still fit ok, but I can totally imagine a day (a day that’s maybe only a week or three away) when they don’t.  Weird.  Totally, I’m-incubating-an-alien-in-my-intestines weird.

I suppose I should combine the bra-buying expedition with a buy-maternity-pants trip, but I’m having a hard time not feeling like a total impostor when I browse maternity sites online.  And yet my clothes definitely fit differently, and those who know me are starting to direct meaningful glances toward my expando-boobs & ‘you been hitting too many cadbury eggs’ belly.  It’s made my manager from the sane branch give me all sorts of helpful advice from her hometown in Southern China on how to grow a healthy child (though, since she’s about 4’11″ & gave birth to a 10# daughter, I’m thinking I’m going to do the exact opposite of whatever she tells me.  10 pound baby.  Yikes!)  So far, it mostly seems to center around eating nasty things.  Which, I’m not doing so much of these days.  So I guess sprog won’t be giant-sized.  Whew.

But generally, I’m feeling pregnant, I’m scooting back toward zen-mode, and trying very hard to stay there.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go hire a crane to life my boobs off the desk so I can get dressed and head off to work through the foot & a half of snow on the ground.  Fortunately, if I fall over, the rescuers will have something to look for.  Boobs & Belly sticking out of the snow over on Smith street.  Call in the men with ropes…

Weird.

Tums, on the other hand – I can now understand the love.  That stuff might be chalky, but it’s not too nasty, and it actually, um, works.  I am a convert.  Tums is my friend, and has earned a spot in my already-way-too-heavy purse.  I’ll never be without antacids again!

The nausea has gone away for the most part, I think in order to give me more opportunity to focus on heartburn and complete loss of appetite.  I mean, I’m hungry, stomach clenchingly so.  But the thought of actually putting food in my mouth?  Meh.   Not so nice a thought.  On the exciting side of things, however, the spotting has really, almost gone away.  The boobs are enormous, and so undeniably pregnant that I can’t even work myself up to a state of terror (since it has been almost 24 hours since a sonogram).

I did, however, manage to wake myself up at 4:30 this morning with complete Realm of Pain anxiety.  The level of dread I feel for going in to this place is akin to what I used to feel for orthodontist appointments.  (My orthodontist was elderly, and had allergies.  When you are 13, and presented with a giant, 70-year-old nose that’s dripping way too close to your wedged-open mouth, while the owner of the nose is busy with pliers to wrench your teeth into a more socially-acceptable, though agonizing alignment, the situation will figure prominently in your nightmares for the rest of your life.)  No, actually, I don’t think I’ve felt this much dread since 6th grade, which was the first time in my life that my teacher didn’t like me.  She used to taunt me when I tried to answer questions in class, and put such an active dislike of school into me that it took me years to get over it.  Nothing like being ridiculed by a sarcastic teacher for your 11th year to scar you for life.  And to this day I’m not entirely sure why she disliked me so very much.

At least I know why the Romanian Princess hates me.

I certainly know why she’s not my favorite person.

But oh, I really don’t want to be there today.  Or tomorrow.  Or the day after that.  And I bitterly resent having lost sleep over this person.

Yawn.

I might resent that the most of all.

Then I had a heart attack.

Then he did an internal ultrasound.

And Sprog’s busy moving around in there, heart beating away, looking more like a big-headed alien baby and less like a fish every day.

Yes, I’m still pregnant.

Whew.  (36.5 hours of relief left before I go into panic mode again!)

I have, however, low thyroid hormone levels (which somehow means that my thryoid is overactive?  He explained it, but I didn’t quite get it, being too excited by the whole ‘live baby’ thing.)  And I’m deficient in B12 & folate.

Yes.  Folic acid.  Despite that giant honkin’ horse pill I’ve been taking like a chump every night for the last two years.

So, the folate news freaked me right the fuck out, but he said as long as I’ve been taking my prenatal, it’ll be fine.  He told me to buy an under-the-tongue B12 supplement, in case my stomach is keeping me from absorbing B12, so I went ahead and bought the stuff with additional folate, too.  Because, really, I’ve been through all this only to have problems because of a folic acid deficiency?

Sheesh.

But all is well, and even better?  Next week’s appointment is on a day that I’m at the Realm of Pain.

Take that, evil Rumanian Princess of Despair!

I managed to give myself a lump in the belly with a Lovenox shot a few nights ago.  I had a bleeder, which I never really do, but it bled up into the syringe, which made an interesting pattern of droplets when I deployed the needle guard toward the sink.  I didn’t think much of it at the time, but tonight I noticed that there’s a distinct lump of a bruise on that side, so I had to change spots, which hurt more than I’m used to it hurting.  But I know it’s working, because the spot where the nurse drew blood – I asked for the back of my hand & she opted instead for the crease of my wrist? – has spread into a bruise the size of my hand.  Really attractive.  But hey – they wanted thin blood?  I got thin blood.

And really?  I’m uncomfortable, I look like I’m 5 months pregnant and I have no complaints.  The terror is easing, what with the take-over-my-life symptoms & all.   I’m starting to think in terms of ‘when’ not ‘if’.  And I’m loving it.

For so long during this early pregnancy, it has felt as if I’ve been pregnant for 6 months.  I mean, enough already, can’t I be in my 3rd trimester by now?  And really, it makes sense.  I’ve been here before.  Done this before.  Can’t I just skip ahead to where the scenery is new, and the view ever-changing?

And I’m here.  10 weeks+.  Shoot.  Never been here before.  It looks different.  It feels different.  Feels like it might end up in a different place.  And that’s a good thing.  An amazing thing.  10 weeks feels about right.  Not out of danger, but out of my realm of personal terror.  I’ve moved away from the cliff edge, and get to enjoy a bit of walking along a mountain meadow for a while.  I like it.  I like it a lot.  Don’t know that my current contentment was worth the agony to get here, all the times I fell off that fucking cliff’s edge, but the view is nice, and I’m going to enjoy it as long as I can.

The giddy might not be back yet, but the quietly happy is making an appearance and I intend to ask if it’ll stick around for a while.  I sure do like its company.

Kumquatkumquatkumquatkumquat.

Still suffering with this headache from hell, still feeling blechy from about noon, on.  Still spotting occasionally, though it does seem less extreme than it has been.  Still cringing away from any contact with the Boobs that took over Brooklyn.  Still achoo-choo-ing.  Still pregnant, in other words.  Though this does not mean that I’m not looking forward to Tuesday’s appointment.  Because I am.  Rather a lot.

In other news, I have a long day of writing laid out ahead of me.  I dreamt that I was going through my desk drawer and kept happening upon manuscripts.  ”Oh yeah, I forgot about that one!”  For some reason, in my dream, finding all these orphaned books was cause for celebration, not depression.  Not quite sure why, but I figure I should at least do my best to accumulate a stack of manuscripts in my desk drawers.  It’s what writers do, after all.  And since the boy made Roast-Beef-for-20 even though there were only 8 of us, we have a few leftovers, so no cooking for me tonight.  And the house is still pretty spotless.  And the dog’s had all the exercise she wants.  Yes, it’s shaping up into a nicely lazy writing day.  Hot chocolate at my elbow, and a dog at my warm feet.  Life’s pretty ok today.

Sad to say that the Crazy has me so far in its grip I don’t even feel crazy (which means, of course, that I’ve slipped over the edge).  I feel almost resigned.  Coming off the PIO also meant a reduction in a fair number of symptoms.  I know this.  I knew this at the beginning of the week when I took my last dose.  But still, it’s hard –  seeing the outward symptoms disappearing – not to believe that the inward reason for them is disappearing as well.

Not helped by the fact that I seem to be my mother’s daughter in one thing – she had three months worth of periods while pregnant.  I’m certainly not bleeding, but my glowingly pregnant skin has broken out – just like it did four and a half weeks ago – and there it is – I’m pretty sure it’s normal (for my family, at least) hormonal fluctuations, but 93% of my brain is screaming “It’s because the baby’s dead!”

I’m not as exhausted as I was a few weeks ago.  Nausea is entirely ignorable if I’m busy (though I’m hoping for some really reassuring queasiness if I put my mind to it this weekend!) Boobs are not as dark, nor as veiny, nor as sore / full feeling. (Which I also remember happening 4.5 weeks ago, so there’s another reason for it.  Does it make a difference to the Crazy?  No, damnit.)

I’m honestly starting to wonder if I shouldn’t transfer my care to a high-tech doc.  I could always transfer back after I’m feeling the baby move in a couple of months.  Of course, maybe I’ll find something else to obsess over in the meantime, (Maybe?  Ya think?)  and the one thing I’m still convinced about is that I would really prefer a low-intervention birth if at all possible.  Maybe I just need to learn to deal with my anxiety.  (Maybe.  Ya think?)

Seriously, I wonder if a bit o’ professional help might be a good idea at this point, or if the reassurance of doppler is going to be enough to get my brain on track again?  I guess I’ll know after tomorrow…  Maybe my midwife will be able to recommend someone I could talk to about the overwhelming anxiety and how to get the hell OVER it.

Still, it all comes back to the fact that since I am a habitual miscarry-er, I really wish to hell that I wasn’t a habitual missed miscarry-er.  Not-bleeding after fetal death is, for me, standard operating procedure, so I really can’t take comfort in the fact that I haven’t had so much as a spot of blood show up as a warning sign.  I hate this.

Sincerely hoping that the doppler arrives before I have to go to work.  So sincerely hoping that my tipped uterus has already untipped so that it’s easier to hear a heartbeat.  So very much hoping that I can get off the crazy-ride and start to enjoy some of the other aspects of this amusement park known as Pregnant Land.  I hear the cotton candy is fantastic, and the roller coaster known as Prenatal Testing?  Must be experienced to be believed!

I did learn yesterday that we’ll be able to learn the baby’s gender with the CVS testing in a couple of weeks.  So that’s cool.  Everything else about that test will be horrific, but finding out what flavor?  Assuming (oi!) that everything’s ok, I honestly don’t have a preference as to what we get.  I think the boy would be tickled by a son, since he has three girls, but he adores his girls, and would love another one.  I’ll be delighted with whatever we get.  I honestly have no preference (though baby girl clothes are way cuter than baby boy clothes.  Might have to buy another sewing machine and take up infant fashion design in case of a boy.)

I’m going to spare you all what my brain offered up as soon as I finished typing that happy-go-lucky paragraph.  I’ll bet you can guess most of it.

I’ve been on this merry-go-round of terror for far too long now and I really really really want to get off.  The horsey I’m riding is snarling at me, and the mirrors are creepy, and if I have to listen to the Calliope of Doom any longer, I’m going to vomit.

Seriously, I’m just so very frightened.

Of course, now I get to watch & wait to see if all my remaining symptoms evaporate.  The doppler should be arriving today or tomorrow or Thursday, and I’m really looking forward to that.  (Duh).  Hoping – oh GOD am I hoping – to hear a heartbeat on Friday, or get referred for an ultrasound or something.  Needing a bit of reassurance to bolster this hard-won chipperness.

For I am chipper.  My teeth might be gritted, but chipperness is there.  Can’t you tell? (I know.  It blends in so well with the “Perky” that I strive for, that it can be hard to see the difference.)

Being at work helps keep me distracted.  Keeps me from spending too much time with Dr. Google.  Which doesn’t, of course, mean that I want to be at work.  I’d rather be zoning out in front of my computer, sleeping every 3 hours, when the urge hits.  Walking the dog.  God, I’m exhausted and it’s only Tuesday.  Fortunately, our only social commitments this week revolve around food, so that’s all good.

Yawn.  Chipper.  Perky.  Not-worried-at-all.

Lalalalalalalalalalala!