Notes from the Trenches: End of March Updates

How did it get to the end of the month already?! Oh, I know: chasing a busy toddler around.

For the year's goals:

1. How do I forget about this one? The Infanta has become a smidge less frustrating, though, so it's a little easier to appreciate her. More on that in a bit.

2. With A's help I made myself a nightie a couple of weeks ago! It's super comfy, and we're plotting a day to work on jammies for the girls - with, I hope, someone to watch the girls so we can concentrate on sewing.

3. Not much relaxation on the pregnancy issue here, but I'm at about three weeks on no soda. It's still not easy, and I don't really like that I've taken to coffee in the mornings, but I do feel better. I think. On the other hand, my cycle has been doing weird things for a few months, and I'm still trying to figure out what and why.

4. Not doing so great on the housework, but I have at least gotten to a place where I'll be in the kitchen waiting for something to cook, and will realize that I have a few minutes in which to, say, load the dishwasher. It's not consistent, but it does happen. Also, it's fairly easy to get frustrated and pick up the Infanta's bedroom (more on that below).

5. Again, not doing to great on this... but I at least think about it. Last week we had some truly gorgeous weather, and all three of us got out to enjoy it. I even got out to the garden, which I weeded, and then planted sugar peas and onions. I think I might still be sore from that... This week is promising to be stormy; March going out like a lion this year, so getting out will be problematic. Still, I'm thinking about it, and that's a start!

The Infanta is finally coming out of 18-21 month hell. She's sweet, cheerful, social, mischievous, and turning into a proper little geek. Around the beginning of this month I got tired of watching Thomas the Tank Engine all the time, and instead started watching the new Doctor Who series. As a result, the Infanta will ask to see "Thoma'?" as well as "Doctie?". But the we watched The Goblet of Fire the other night... and during the scene in which Barty Crouch Jr is unmasked, she was pointing at David Tennant on the screen and saying "Doctie? Doctie? Doctie!" One of my worst trials with her right now is that when she's playing with the Quiet One, she's more likely than not to pull hair and shove. So to deal with that and teach the Infanta that that's not acceptable while simultaneously not feeding the Quiet One's incipient dramatic tendencies is... a challenge.

Weaning is actually going surprisingly well, and thank you all for your supportive comments on the subject. It does help to know that you all are out there and caring! At the beginning of Josh's Spring Break we turned my office into the Infanta's bedroom. To all appearances so far, she loves having her own room, and will ask to go play in it (we have it gated off still). With the time change she began sleeping almost all night, and with her own room she's started sleeping all night! So I haven't had to worry about night weaning, the Infanta has done that herself. I had tried to drop our morning nursing session at first, and that wasn't going so well, but after a day on which she napped easily without nursing I decided to drop that session instead. So we're down to only bedtime and morning, which suits me fine. The Infanta does seem to have finally picked up that I deliberately stopped, as she's been asking to "nuss" more in the last couple of days, and is very eager when it is time, but she accepts more or less gracefully when I say no.

That's the highlights from the trenches right now.

Hard Choices

It's funny how writing things out makes them easier to cope with. Since I wrote my last post, I've been doing ok again.

But... I've come to a hard realization about nursing. I'd been saying that if I couldn't get a pregnancy to stick by the time the Infanta turns two, I would wean her... and it seems my subconscious has decided that I should wean her by then, anyway.

I'm pretty sure it's the right decision for myself, but I'm still feeling pretty ambivalent about it. I didn't ever have a time I wanted to wean by, but always said at least two years, because of the WHO's recommendations (which say at least two years, and then as long as mother and child wish to continue). I figured I'd probably go longer than that... but it's looking like I won't now.

You see, I think the reason I'm having trouble staying pregnant is that for me, nursing is disrupting my hormonal balance just enough. Many, even most, women don't have that issue, but I think I do; I think I have low progesterone anyway, and nursing is disrupting that even more. And while I want to breastfeed the Infanta as long as I can, I also need to balance that with my desire for more children. She is certainly old enough that she doesn't *need* breast milk for nutrition, and she is well able to ask for (and receive) other kinds of nurturing.

On the other hand, nursing the one thing I can do for her that no one else can, and I find that that is a very big part of my identity as a mother. I have no doubts that I can shift its place - "I nursed her for two years" instead of "we're still nursing" - but it's not going to be painless. Nursing is a very special relationship, and once it's over, it's over. I don't want to nurse forever, but am I really ready to be done?

If I turn up pregnant, though, we're done, cold turkey.

Goal check-in

It's the end of the month, and I feel like checking in on the goals I made for myself for this year.

1. I'd like to think I'm doing a little better at actively appreciating the lovely people I live with. The Infanta is working very hard on some more of those developmental leaps (she's figuring out counting! at least, the beginning of it... and more words... and just today she's started actively playing with a baby doll...), so her sleep is very irregular, but I'm finding that if I slow down and just *be* with her, I don't get so frustrated. J has been his usual wonderful supportive self through the stresses of the last couple weeks, and I'm trying to show my appreciation; for example, I took Herself with me to knitting Saturday so that he could have an afternoon all by his lonesome for a change.

2. Well, I got a good start on this... I had promised a friend that I would make her a baby carrier, and I got it cut out and half-sewn... and then the friend that was helping me with toddler distraction went and had her baby 6 weeks early. So my momentum on that has yet again been derailed. But it's derailed in such a way that given a couple of hours, I can have the carrier pretty well done.

I've been thinking about further sewing projects, as well. I promised J that I would make him a kimono some time back... and while that's not going yet, it's definitely on my mind. I also decided that I want to make nightgowns for me and the Infanta, and went so far as to buy patterns for the purpose Saturday. Go me!

3. My last couple of cycles have been weirdly short, so I decided to start actively charting again. You could make a case that this isn't doing anything to relax about the pregnancy thing, but for me it is; it's something I can *do*, something that will let me see more of what's actually going on than just enduring the same symptoms every month which are so very much the same as very early pregnancy symptoms and which drive me and the people around me crazy with hope.

4. I'm not running dishes *every* night... but I'm not letting them pile up over my head, either. It feels good. It also feels good that the dining room table is clear enough to eat at whenever we feel like it, which we have been fairly often! Clear it and they will come, I guess. Alongside this refocusing on my domestic space, I've resolved to get back to cloth diapering.

5. There's been a fair amount of sunshine this last week, so the Infanta and I and sometimes other friends have been getting out and walking to nearby parks, playing for a while, and then walking home. I think it's good for both (all) of us.

New Year, Old Frustrations

I don't like how long it's been since I last posted. For the five of you still paying attention, I apologize. It's not at all that I've had nothing to post; rather the issue is that I've had entirely too much I want to write about, and it gets overwhelming. Then there's the part where I don't have time, and on top of all that, I've been incredibly inarticulate of late.

Goals for this year:

1. Love my family, no matter how much hair they make me want to tear out. More than that, enjoy them! J is a really great guy, and I don't pay enough attention to him. The Infanta is in a frustrating stage, but she's a sweet-natured, bright, beautiful little girl, and it's easy to lose sight of that in the day-to-day (or the all-nighters).

2. Sew more.

3. Relax about getting pregnant again. (Much easier said than done!)

4. Get better at household maintenance - by which I mean trying to keep the floor more or less picked up, the table clear (for dining or for sewing, which will help with #2), the dishes done more or less daily, etc. It's so easy to slack a day, and then it's overwhelming. Speaking of which, I should go run dishes once this is posted.

5. Get outside! I spend entirely too much time sitting here, dinking on the lappy. The Infanta needs to get out and run more, and I would do better with more outside air as well.

Now to get on some of those chores, while J has the Infanta off at church with him!

Symptoms and speculations

Skipped a day again. I would give up on the resolution and just say "as often as possible", but that would end up with me posting fortnightly again. And I don't want to do that.

In regard the tender nipple portion of my post on Friday, Karen remarks, "...last time I had that particular symptom, I ended up with a son nine months later." I wish it was that easy. Sadly, that particular symptom is most likely simply what it's always been for me - simply part of my cycle, just more difficult to bear because my nipples are in actual use. On the other hand, just before I started this post, the Infanta was hanging off my lap (as she often does), and I suddenly could. not. bear. to have her touch me. So maybe there's something to speculate about this month, after all. I'm not counting on it, but naturally I would be thrilled.

I spent a week or two this month freaking out about why my body might not be keeping pregnancies. I do still plan to call and get myself checked out, but I would guess that they probably won't want to see me yet (not "enough" losses). So... I've decided to continue trying, but also trying to be more mellow about it. I do still feel the crunch of time, but in the long run, stressing about it won't help anything, and might even make things take longer. I'm attempting to adopt an attitude of "it'll happen when it happens".

Just remind me of this next time I'm freaking out, okay?

Blues

Despite having spent the day with Karinda and Bethany (which visit was wonderful and uplifting, even if we didn't all get to pick blueberries together),I'm really down tonight.

Part of it is that I'm still processing the birth I was at earlier this week. Mostly, though, I think it's how that experience is synergizing with the fact that at the same time, I was (I firmly believe) passing my second chemical pregnancy in a row. That would be three pregnancies I've lost since May. We weren't even officially trying this last cycle! (Not that you'd have known it... *whistles innocently*)

I'm planning to contact my reproductive-type care folks and get myself checked out, but the thought is really scary. Like, how do I prove the chemical pregnancies? What if they find something wrong with me? Worse, what if they don't?

I'm going to try my best to set this aside for tomorrow, and enjoy my day at Sock Summit, but I think it's going to be very difficult. Right now I feel like I'm moving through January-chilled molasses; my shoulders ache, my head aches, heck, even my eyes ache, and I'm having a hard time keeping them open.

And of course the Infanta chooses this time to (apparently) start a growth spurt and teethe, so she's extra super-duper fussy and clingy. Ah, the joys of motherhood...

Sunny Sunday?

I took these pictures a few days ago; they seem very representative of the Infanta right now. Asleep, or in denial about waking up, she's all in a (very cute) heap; awake, she's on the verge of running off somewhere, and waiting with bare patience for me to finish whatever puttering in order to accompany her.

Today's a very beautiful day; sunny and warm with a breeze that's cool enough still to keep the heat tolerable. I'm happy that it's so gorgeous out, because it balances how cruddy I'm feeling physically. I'm probably going to call the clinic tomorrow morning about a D&C, because I've been bleeding again since last night, with lots of cramping and feeling sick - not nausea, just ucky in that raging-hormones way. Plus, the longer it hangs on, the more likely it is to cause complications, the which I really don't want. I'm sleepy all the time right now, and I'm convinced it's because of this whole thing, and that it's probably a sign that things aren't going well. I just want this miscarriage over and done with, so I can heal and move on.

Plus, you know, I want to be able to chase the puppy when it comes home to us.

And Baby Makes... Three. (TMI warning)

We spent the day at the Portland Zoo, which was much fun, and I have pictures to post, but I'll probably do that tomorrow. Tonight I need to write about something else.

Last month we got our "babydancing" timing right. I had two glorious weeks of pregnancy symptoms: heartburn, nausea (but not too bad), full breasts, the whole nine yards - even my pelvis went "sproing"! And then I had a period - or what I thought might have been a period. At the time it started, I was hoping it might be implantation bleeding... The flow was very rich, and had a bunch of little clots, and even something that might had been a teeny lump of tissue. Sad, but early miscarriages or "chemical pregnancies" happen all the time; supposedly most women who have them don't even notice anything other than maybe a heavy period. I knew what was happening, and it made me sad not only because I want another baby, but also because I knew what I was going to be missing. But it was done, nothing to do but start trying again.

Fast forward to last Friday. Late morning I was in pretty significant pain which felt like it was probably a UTI (and it was, see my posts the last few days...). Making things more complicated was that I was having bloody discharge - not bloody urine - which confused the heck out of me and the nurse who initially saw me. The nurse decided that my case was beyond her, and referred me to a clinician. Almost the first thing the clinician did was apply a pregnancy test to my urine sample - which came up positive! Yay! But. There was still the issue of my bleeding. So, she decided to run blood tests for a 48-hour comparison of hCG levels. The first draw was Friday, the second Sunday, hence my reason to leave the Mother's Day celebration a bit early. And then I had to wait.

The bleeding resolved by Sunday evening, which I thought was a hopeful sign. Monday the clinician wasn't on duty; she said her partner might call with the results. I was tempted to call the clinic, or simply show up in person... but I didn't. I received no call from them, either, and I chose to interpret that as not negative news, and cautiously told a few friends last night.

And then the clinician called this morning at about three minutes past 9, while I was sitting on my porch waiting for our ride to the zoo, with the news. My hCG levels had dropped markedly between the two samples; I am not successfully pregnant this cycle.

I'm sad. I already mourned this possible pregnancy, then had my hopes raised, and now dashed again. I'm by no means inconsolable - I pretty much forgot the whole thing during the day today! But once again, not only did I want this very much, but I know exactly what I'm missing, that I'll have to wait a while longer to have again. There's not really any way to know at what point I conceived, whether it was in April or since that weird bleed, but I choose to believe that that is the pregnancy I'm not keeping now, and I will probably always now meet that possible due date with a little touch of melancholy.

Now it's time to cry a few tears, mourn this baby-not-to-be, and get myself as healthy as I can manage so that next time this will work.