Damn cold. Damn puking.

Got admitted to the hospital Friday for severe dehydration. Woke up Saturday with a fever to match my husbands. Good times.

Thank god my parents came up for the weekend. I don't know what I would have done without them.

Forty-one

Yesterday was my 41st birthday. I spent the day trying to lie down as much as possible as it was a bad nausea day, AND I have another head cold! Urgh. I did cry when Cameron got home from work from relief and exhaustion and hormones, but it wasn't a bad day. Caden and I watched My Neighbor Totoro, he took a long nap, I ate chicken soup and in the end there was cheesecake with candles and my son singing me happy birthday. 

The day before my birthday, this article came across my news feed: Fortyhood: Why You're Too Old to Have a Baby after Forty.  Of course I had to read it, and upon my first reading, the whole thing  pissed me off royally. Her description of motherhood? "think of your worst hangover, multiply it by four, subtract showering, napping, and brunch with friends, and add a baby." She says that in her quest to beat mother nature and achieve having a baby, she never really thought about life after baby. Basically she says she never really thought about being a parent! In general I have empathy for mothers with young children who are struggling, but it is hard for me to find empathy for this woman. She is lamenting the loss of her freedom, marital intimacy, sleep, and energy and blaming it all on the fact that she had her kid after 40. The thing is most moms I know, at some point, struggle with all of those issues. I think when we play the game "if only," we always lose. "If only I didn't have to deal with infertility, if only I'd had my baby younger, if only my baby slept through the night, if only my kid would listen to me, if only, if only, if only " When we play that game, we never learn the art of leaning into what is, and showing up for the life we have. 

Maybe this woman would have had an easier time of it if she'd had her son younger, but as a woman who will give birth at 41, I resent her blaming her issues on age and asserting that all women over 40 share her experience. I have always wanted to be a parent. In the years struggling to bring my son into the world, I would sometimes cry seeing gawky teenagers at the bus stop because I have always wanted to sign up for all of it. And in negotiating with my husband whether or not to grow our family, there was much discussion of "after the baby comes" and whether or not we were up for it. And we made a decision. We said yes.

I wonder what her son will think if he ever reads her article. What will he think if he reads that she found motherhood "slightly tortuous?" I am not saying it is wrong to have these thoughts, or even write them publicly, but once you say yes to bringing a baby into the world, you have to keep saying yes. Every time you internally scream no to waking in the middle of the night, to patiently waiting out a tantrum, to cleaning that poopy bum or making that grilled cheese that may never get eaten, you risk saying no to your life, and no to your kid. We have to always look for the yes.

And what a good lesson for me to remember, as I sit here in my jammies with a pile of used kleenex on one hand and a little cooler bag of snacks on the other. I chose this pregnancy, and I want these babies, so I have to find the ways to say yes to nausea, yes to my changing body, yes to fatigue, and also I have to find the ways to say yes to parenting my boy and being in partnership with my husband while weathering these physical discomforts. I found a little window this morning- Caden woke at 5:00 and since I'd recently snacked out of my little cooler bag, the nausea was at bay, and I could be the one to get out of bed and go to him. I crawled into his bed and he said "Mama let's be snuggle bugs." Which meant an hour of me trying to go back to sleep while he flopped in my arms like a fish and we both coughed and sneezed and blew our noses. So we got up and I ran him a bath with Eucalyptus oil and heated myself up some chicken soup. He played in the water, the steam soothing both of our chests, and I ate sitting on the toilet. When he asked me to get into the bath with him, I said yes. We poured water on each other's backs, and when the water grew cold I wrapped him in a towel and sent him into his dad, who was grateful for the extra sleep. I washed my hair for the first time in days, and then crawled back into bed. 

I have had my moments of doubt during the last couple of months. It is a mad mission, and it has been hard so far, but we said yes, and so I will keep saying yes. In the end I have never had a single regret about bringing Caden into the world, and I trust that I will feel the same about these babies, too. 

Frederick and Mae Mae

This is what Caden has named the babies in utero. He is quite certain that there is a sister and a boy in there. He likes to give them zerberts and to tickle them (this means digging his finger into my belly button as far as he can- ouch).

After the bleeding incident he said "Mama, were you crying because the babies were crying?"
"Well, I can't really hear them cry yet, but I was scared and sad."
"I think they were crying. I will make them laugh."

And he has been on a mission since to keep those babies laughing.

We had on Friday our first appointment with the perinatologist, and it was great on a hundred different levels. That is where we had most of our prenatal care with Caden, and just parking in that structure, walking into that office was comforting. It gave me a feeling of, "ok, here we are. We've done this before. Maybe we can do it again." Their ultrasound machines are awesome! And we got a clear view of both babies, their individual sacks, and individual placentas. This makes the pregnancy lower risk than if they were sharing a placenta. We also got to see little arms and legs moving around! They grow so much each time. They are both measuring bigger than my estimated due date, which means they are cruising right along! Also no one could tell that the SCH ever happened. Wonderful news all around!

Then we got to see Dr. Merrel. I just love this man- I really do. He is so positive and affirming, but also knows his stuff. When he saw us, he said "You guys! I didn't expect to see you again!" Whether or not he remembered us, he had taken time to look over our charts and clearly knew our history. He was the first doctor that I felt like really empathized about the bleeding. When we told him the story, he said, "Wow, with your history. That must have been so scary. Of course you thought the worst. Some women freakout over a little spot of blood, and you really bled. I'm so sorry you had to go through that." It felt so good to have my medical provider get it. Having that that sort of connection is gold for me- when I can relax and feel like a provider understands me, I can let go a little and trust their advice more.

I have been off of bed rest for about a week now, and it has mostly been good to get back into some sort of routine with Caden, get out here and there, but the nausea is still very intense and makes it hard to function. I know Caden misses the former more available me, but we are also finding ways to connect, even though that often means he sleeps in our bed and eats his meals in my lap. I don't mind. He's growing fast now, and I enjoy the closeness. I'm very appreciative of his other relationships right now- his dad, Grommy, Tio, and all his sweet friends. I know he's always loved and cared for even though I can't always be the one who's there for him right now.

Mad Mission

"It's a mad mission under difficult conditions. Not everybody makes it to the loving cup. It's a mad mission, but I've got the ambition, mad mad mission. Sign me up."- Patty Griffin

This summer when I was toting around a freezer bag of fertility drugs at Pickathon, shooting myself up multiple times a day, growing follicles, and driving to the fertility doc every other day for ultrasounds, this was my theme song. It is still appropriate for this crazy journey we are on. The babies are ok. They are actually starting to look like babies! There was no new evidence of bleeding or clotting. It was truly best case scenario after the bleeding incident. The fertility doc said it was time to transfer our care to the perinatologists. It felt like a graduation of sorts, such a relief. A few days later though came a phone call from the new doctors urging me to make an appointment as soon as possible because I have "significant risk factors." The reality is that I am about to turn 41, pregnant with twins after over 8 years of unexplained infertility and pregnancy loss, and less than two weeks ago hemorrhaged unexpectedly. It's a mad mission, and this pregnancy will likely be a long haul.

I have been on modified bed rest for eleven days now. It has been a surreal time of reading, eating, sleeping, eating, watching online TV, eating. I have been lonely and scared, confused and sad, but I've also been ok, choosing in moments to be present with all of this, and in others to try and escape it. Friends and family have saved me. They have brought me food, taken care of Caden, sent me words of encouragement, crawled into bed with me, made me laugh, cleaned my house, stroked my hair.

The song that has been resonating the most with me is Shake it out, by Florence and the Machine, although it was brought to the forefront of my musical consciousness by Glee. I have been confused what it is about this song that speaks to me right now, as it is mostly about ending a relationship. Every time I hear it, I cry, and I'm not talking little trickle of tears. I'm talking about a big cry with sobs and a runny nose that gives you a release, leaves you puffy eyed and tired, and for a moment free of that building tension. "And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake him off, whoa."

 

I think the devil on my back is fear. Fear of losing these babies, fear of having them. I will admit, I am scared of this pregnancy. I am scared of how weak my body feels, of how little I am able to care for my son right now, of how hard my husband has to work to take care of both of us. I am scared that this will happen again, that I will spend most of this pregnancy in bed and that I will never regain my strength. I am scared that when these babies arrive I will not be able to care for them properly.
"Shake it out, shake it out. Shake it out, whoa."

I spent the months leading up to this endeavor getting strong. Interval training, zumba, yoga, hikes- I feel so far away from that person doing burpees and box jumps in the park, hamper full of sweaty gym clothes. Maybe I will find her again some day. But now my body is changing and growing, demanding rest and incessant food. At this moment I feel nausea creeping up again. It is 3:40 am and over an hour since I last ate, so time to eat again! My body is not my own right now. Surrender, again and again. It is the theme for me for all of it: parenting, childbirth, pregnancy. I'm resisting softening into it. But as Florence and the Machine keep singing, "It's always darkest before the dawn." And truly, whatever this time is for me, it is not my darkest hour. It's just hard, but I never really expected it to be easy.

 

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A Big, Bloody Scare

Warning: this post is graphic.

Tuesday morning I sat at the dining room table eating oatmeal with Caden, trying to breathe through my nausea enough to get my breakfast down, when I sneezed and something gushed out of me. I stood up to see blood, lots of it, bright red covering the seat, more gushing out of me. I lost my head. I felt like I moved about a foot and half away from myself and was watching as I covered my mouth, shaking my head and saying, "No, no." I ran to my room trailing blood behind me. Cameron followed me, offering a towel to put between my legs. “Deep breaths, Katie, who do I call?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” But then another gush came roaring out of me and I said, “Call ORM, the number is in my phone.” Cameron called the fertility doc, and I tried to breathe, heard Caden jumping on the couch and realized I needed to find someone to care for him. When I stood up to look for Cameron’s phone, more blood. I managed to get his phone unlocked and made some phone calls, no one answering at 7:00 am, but Lucy called me right back and I could barely get any words out because of the sobbing and she said, “I’m coming right over.” Once I knew Caden would be taken care of I started to make an attempt to clean up a little and get some clothes on, but it was like trying to dry the floor when the bathtub is overflowing. All I managed to do was smear blood all over the floor. Cameron was still on the phone with the clinic, and he asked are you passing clots? I took away the towel between my legs to inspect and just about then I passed an enormous clot, which I assumed was one of the babies. I squatted down on the floor in a fresh wave of sobbing and heard Caden from the other room ask Lucy, “What’s happening to my mama?” They took him to their place. And I tried to clean myself up, with little luck and finally just put clothes and a pad on over the mess. Cameron put towels down in the car and we left. At some point things slowed down for me. I put on the music we listened to just after they put the embryos back in my body, what I think of as their coming home song. I found a place in me that hoped that one of them would be ok. I also just sort of surrendered. I am not in control. Cameron held my hand the whole drive. Many times I thought, “I can’t believe we are doing this again.” By the time we got there I had bled through everything I was wearing and the two towels on the car seat.

When we got there, the waiting room held a few women, showered and hopeful, there for some piece of their journey to try and have a baby. I felt like a gorey harbinger and wanted to shield them from my puffy face and bloody sweats. The receptionist quickly checked me in and said “They’ll call you shortly.” I looked at the chairs in their stripes and prints tastefully chosen to match the walls and artwork. “I can’t sit in those chairs. I’ve bled all through my clothes.” Faces creased with empathy and they led me into a room where I stood awkwardly while a nurse turned on the ultrasound machine and laboriously entered data. I undressed and sat on blue and white crinkly pads, a paper drape over me, and waited. The nurse practitioner came in and in very little time she was poking around to see what she could find in there.

Two babies. Two heartbeats. Going strong. Waves of hope and relief washed over me as she measured them and found them to have grown appropriately and said they looked perfect. “Then what was that?”

I have a subchorionic hematoma. It is basically bleeding and clotting in between the membranes of the uterus and the placenta. The placenta hasn’t completely formed yet, so this confuses me a good bit, but from what I understand this condition at this stage of pregnancy is much less problematic than at later stages. It could heal up and resolve itself, which is what I am hoping for. Right now I am hardly bleeding at all. Reading different pregnancy forums it seems sometimes they just go away quickly, sometimes they stick around for the entire pregnancy. The doctor said that it often resolves itself, but that this causes the pregnancy to be less stable. Not the words a five time survivor of miscarriage wants to hear, but right now they are ok. I am still pregnant. We might get babies out of this after all.

I am on modified bed rest until the next ultrasound, which will be in a week. I need the rest. Nausea, a bad chest cold, a heavy bout of bleeding, and the emotions of a threatened miscarriage have drained me of energy.

Strangely enough, there has been a positive shift in my psyche with this event.  Since I have been pregnant this time, I have been somewhat haunted by my past pregnancies and miscarriages, and have had a deep fear of experiencing the physical act of miscarrying again. Got that out of the way yesterday! Although I did not miscarry, the bleeding I experienced was comparable to some of my harder miscarriages. It has also opened my eyes and heart to the reality that there is no holding back at this point. I already love these babies, and if it doesn’t work out, it will hurt like a mother fucker, but we are already in. They are already a part of our family. There is no pre-emptive protection from grief available. I also have renewed faith in the power of Cameron and mine’s relationship- whatever happens, we will get through it. Driving in the car, holding his hand, I felt our love coursing through us. Cameron even said at one point “I wouldn’t want to go through this with anyone but you.” We have been through so much, and we are still standing Whether the future brings us two new babies, or their loss, we will survive. For now, we just have to surrender to the ride, and hope for the best.

What to eat at 2am when you are 6 weeks 6 days pregnant with TWINS

One carnitas taco
An entire avocado
Half a bag of tortilla chips
Lots of cheddar cheese
2 pickles

Ok. Maybe not a recommendation, but it is what worked and finally stopped the roiling nausea for me at this hour. Twins. They take a lot of food, it seems.

People keep asking me how I feel about twins. "Are you excited?" More than anything I have been feeling relief. There is life inside me. Not just one light, but two. Two beating hearts, two spines, two beginnings of babies. "Are you scared?" Always. Pregnancy is scary for me. "Are you freaking out?" Not really.

I am, somehow, thoroughly rooted in the present right now. The physical sensations of this pregnancy are intense, all consuming. It takes much concentration to move through a day, to eat every two hours at minimum, to breathe enough to walk and not hurl, to let myself sink into sleep when possible, to remember all my medications, to care for my son and set aside my needs for a moment here and there. As challenging as this physicality is, it keeps me here, not nine months, not five months, not two months from now. The future is overwhelming. Do we need a minivan? Where will we put two more children? How does one nurse two babies at once? What is this going to do to my body? Will I have a cesarean? What if they come early? What if they come too early? What if they die? Eeeeerk. That is where the needle screeches off the record. I cannot go there.


So I will stay here. Right now there are two little lights with beating hearts inside me, and I am pregnant with Twins. I have been hungry, and tired, and nauseous. I am immensely grateful for this pregnancy. I am immensely grateful for the life inside me. The rest will just have to wait. Next ultrasound, December 10.

Shame and Infertiity

I just read an article in the Fall, 2013 issue of Brain, Child about a woman's experience with IVF vs. adoption. She recounts receiving very little support and quite a bit of judgement when going through IVF, but tons of affirmation and support when pursuing adoption. She has two children, one from each avenue, and admits that her motives for adopting were not altruistic, she simply wanted to build a family. I have watched a few families move from fertility treatments into adoption, and whereas many folks are private and secretive about infertility, adoption often becomes a hugely public event with blogs, fundraisers, and an outpouring of community support.

I am very lucky in that Cameron and I have received tons of support in regards to our decision to pursue IVF. I like to think that in this second round of infertility, I have worked through and let go some of the self loathing and shame that the first round of infertility caused. I do not feel like an inferior or defective woman this time around; this could be because I have surrounded myself with so many sub-fertile compadres this time that it just seems normal to me that people need to go to great lengths and spend tens of thousands of dollars to make babies, but no matter. I have noticed, however, that although I am quick to share and come clean about our history of miscarriage,  I am not so quick to own up to the fact that we have not had a lot of luck conceiving on our own. At this point, it truly is fear of judgement more than shame in my body that causes me to keep this information private. I do not want to care about what people might think of me because I am pursuing IVF at forty. I want to be open about all of this so I can help lessen the shame for those women and couples shrinking alone in the shadows because they are so humiliated that they can't make a baby without help. I want to be part of the group of brave souls that speak openly about infertility so the stigma can be lessened. And yet, the other day I told a bold faced lie to a former client. She told me that a friend of hers had contacted me to see if I would be interested in being her doula, and that her friend had shared with her that I was taking a break from doula work for health reasons. I loved this client. She had spent years trying to conceive the baby I helped her bring into the world, and in those years had suffered a number of miscarriages. She knew my history of miscarriage as well, but not my history of infertility. So, when she asked if I felt comfortable sharing what was going on, instead of saying "Right now it's private," or "I don't want to talk about it, but I'm perfectly fine," I lied and said, "I was pregnant." She looked at me surprised and scanned my body, "it didn't work out," I added. Her face fell, "I'm so sorry."
"But I'm pregnant again!" She looked a little bewildered. I felt my face heating up and my brain smoking in confusion. What was I doing? If I was willing to share this tenuous new pregnancy with her, why not just tell her we had been going through infertility treatments? To make up a pregnancy and miscarriage? Come on. I know better.

Infertility can cause a host of scars, some easy to identify, others more subtle. If I think that I am somehow all healed up and above the shame of infertility,  I better think again. It may be a life long process.