Take 2?

July 2008

This month Mr. Crud and I officially revved our engines and returned to the TTC* path. Last month was more of a dare: let’s see if we can knock me up without trying or me acting like a pregnant woman should. This month, we got serious even though we are both terrified. It was easy enough. I input my menstrual period date into a couple of websites, came up with conflicting answers as to when I’d be ovulating so I decided to cast a wide net. Neither Mr. Crud nor I minded. Sex is pretty darn fun if you can keep yourself from getting too tired to do it.

So we did it. I returned to my cervical fluid scrutinizing ways and we did it. That was 2 weeks ago.

I quit smoking during the doing-it phase. Might as well do it right this time, I reasoned. I finished my (supposed) last glass of wine and puffed my last puff and was a good girl for a whole week. Then the mental gymnastics set in. This might be your very last chance to be able to smoke and drink for over a year! Get going, lady. The timing was too perfect. Last Wednesday Mr. Crud had an early drum practice. We dined a half hour early and he set off for a night’s worth of drumming. Minutes after he slammed the door closed, I was out the door and marching to the Plaid Pantry three blocks away. Cigarettes: check! I was relieved to find that they also had wine and not the terrible Boones Farm-Thunderbird selection that I feared. My quitting quitting would not force me to walk 5 more blocks to the grocery store. It almost seemed meant to be (a phrase that I am especially hostile to at the moment): I am meant to smoke a cigarette and drink wine!

At home I thoroughly enjoyed my vices. I told myself that I probably wasn’t pregnant because I hadn’t been feeling odd like I had the first time around. No sudden moments of weird smells, no cramping, no queasy waves.

I spent my free time at work scouring the internet for early pregnancy symptoms. I know them by heart: tender breasts, mild cramping (which are both also premenstrual symptoms as well—way to go Intelligent Design), fatigue, nausea. I don’t exactly know what I was looking for aside from some super secret way to find out if you’re pregnant a week after having sex.

Let the body scrutiny begin! Were those mild cramps due to a fertilized embryo implanting in my uterus or just an extension of my recent bout of digestive distress.

“Well, I’ve had diarrhea the past few days,” I said to Mr. Crud, “so I’m probably not pregnant.”

“Uh. I don’t think those have anything to do with each other.”

Are my boobs tender because of pregnancy or because I’m poking them all the time?
“Do my boobs look bigger to you?” I asked Mr. Crud after cupping them, staring at them, taking a profile view in the bathroom mirror.

“I don’t know.”

Is my hair falling out less? I watch the comb in the shower and remind myself that the previous month I had also believed my normal hair loss to have halted.

(Aside: Because I have a weird feeling that I am destined for 2 miscarriages, I have decided that I was indeed pregnant last month but that all my drinking, smoking, sauna-ing caused me to miscarry. I really did think I was pregnant last month. I felt a tingling in my lady regions, which ended with the big tingle in the form of cramps and heavy flow. Sound reasonable to you?)

Am I tired because work is tiring or is this a return to the exhaustion level of tired from the pg times?

Last night I awoke three times to pee in the middle of the night. I have not had such heavy midnight bathroom activity since I was pregnant. Or maybe I was just anxious and getting up to pee was a way to release the tension (in the form of urine? Uh maybe.).

Each mention of potential symptoms turns Mr. Crud edgy. During the first go-round my mention of symptoms made us both shriek “Eeeeee!” but this time we hug each other and reassure each other that no matter what happens, we’ll be okay. After learning about the first pregnancy, we grappled with issues of are we ready to be parents? Do we really want to be parents? Now, we know that we want to be parents. We know that we switched into the roles of future parents with relative ease. Now we also know how much there is to lose, which is the root of our anxiety. I try to imagine how it will feel if the pregnancy test that I take in three days—assuming I haven’t gotten my period by that time—is positive. The fear and joy are intertwined. As much as I tell myself that the odds are with me to have a normal, healthy pregnancy and a normal, healthy baby, I can’t shake the memory of the ultrasound room or imagine a new venue for bad news. “I’m not expecting what I’m seeing here. I should get the doctor.” The fear and joy are the creepy twin girls from The Shining. They hold hands and stare at me, mute and impassive, as blood rushes around us.

“I’m sorry I keep putting you on a rollercoaster,” I tell Mr. Crud after he gives me a frightened look at the mention of a brief moment of nausea.

“It’s okay. You should be able to share this with me. I’m just scared,” he says.

We hug. We hold each other and wonder if we are still alone in this thing or if some combination of us bumps around inside my uterus, a mess of dividing cells, which G-d willing, will keep on dividing.

* TTC means "Trying to Conceive" to those of you not schooled in the online pregnancy lingo.