One in a Million

Six Months a Mama

Clara turned six months old yesterday! I can hardly believe it. She's "halfway to cake," as my dear friend G. said, and it felt like a milestone worth celebrating. Not just for her--and my goodness, what a lot of growing up she's done in just six short months--but also for me. I've been a mother for six months! Amazing.

After Clara's mid-day nap yesterday, I dressed her in a rainbow-striped shirt and pink overalls and strapped her into the carrier across my chest. We took a wonderful long walk around town and I talked to her about all the things we could hear--the birds peeping, the leaves rustling in the breeze, a particularly chatty squirrel. Sometimes I sang to her while we walked. We wound up on campus where we sat on a bench and watched the college students studying or playing frisbee in the warm spring weather. It was the kind of afternoon I used to daydream about before I started trying to have a child. It was the kind of afternoon I couldn't bear to think about when we were in the midst of infertility and miscarriage hell.

She is my miracle. Every day I wake up and know that miracles do happen--they really do happen!--my life has been blessed by one and it will never, ever be the same, because I view the world through the rainbow-tinted prism of a miracle. She is perfection, with all her genes lined up neatly in pairs, with her tiny fingernails, her long eyelashes, her downy hair. The giant grin that overcomes her face in an ecstasy of happiness, the laugh that gurgles out of her because something is funny, just TOO funny! Her eyes light up when she sees me. She buries her head in my neck, in my shoulder. She falls asleep holding my hand.

Motherhood has changed me, and for the better, I think. I make mistakes and I forgive myself. I spend more time looking to the future than dwelling on the past. I am buoyed by a love that is so tremendous and so intense I don't think I'll ever find  words to describe it. I thought I knew how much one could love, and then Clara burst into my life. She elevates everything, everything in my world, to a higher level. Love is limitless now. It grows by the day, by the hour, by the minute.

Some days are trying. Some days I am so tired that my body hurts and I want to weep from exhaustion. There's always laundry, always dishes, always a mess that I should attend to. I could work 24 hours a day and still not be caught up. I'm not a perfect mother, not by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't want to pretend that I am, or that it's always easy. In fact, sometimes it's the hardest work I've ever done.

But it's also the most rewarding. And it's the reason why my days begin and end with a simple, whispered thank you. Because I will never forget that my dream came true, and I will never stop being grateful for my miracle.

The Daily Clara, 1.27.08

Today Clara and D had a hilarious time playing peek-a-boo. Their game went in cycles-- first peek-a-boo: quiet. Second peek-a-boo: smile. Third peek-a-boo: giant grin. Fourth peek-a-boo: laughter!

In addition to peek-a-boo, Clara had a great time playing with her toys today, especially Tiny Tubby, Mr. Green Bean, and Bunny. So much excitement led to some wild leg-kicks. Legs are for kicking, after all!

Sometimes she sits quietly and I smile at her, and she grins back. It completely melts my heart.

Clara has had a fussy evening. She thinks sleep is for sissies and wants no part of it. This has been the pattern lately. My own mother had a bit of experience with this...I guess the sins of my youth are revisited upon me now in motherhood.

Miss me?

I doubt anyone is still reading this blog, but that's okay. I wouldn't be rushing to check it either, since there haven't been any new posts since May. Why not? I don't know. Maybe blogging is a January-inspired activity around here.

The nitty-gritty is that I was pregnant until October 7, 2007, when the most amazing creature to grace the face of this earth burst into the world. We named her Clara Rose. There was blood and sweat and tears; there was agony and fear; there was boundless strength; and there was unparalleled joy. I'd never lived so much in my whole life as I did in that one blessed day.

I wish I'd kept up with blogging throughout my pregnancy, if for no other reason than to have a record all in one place of the daily experience of it. Perhaps over the next few weeks I'll try to recreate a record of it--as well as Clara's newborn days. Sweet little girl will be 16 weeks old tomorrow! She rolled over on Thursday night. D and I exclaimed for joy. What a privilege, to witness these little moments.

Parenthood is better than I'd ever dreamed it could be.

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day. D and I went for a long drive, exploring our third Finger Lake, and stopping along the way at our favorite bakery for cinnamon donuts and blueberry scones. The bakery has a machine called a DonutRobot set up in the front window, so you can watch the donuts appear as if by magic. If you buy a box of them, they disappear as if by magic, too.

When the weather turned nice--almost immediately after the freak blizzard that hit on my birthday last month!--D and I quickly got into the habit of Having Adventures, exploring the back roads and byways of the rural parts of our area. We've been to massive Amish markets managed by dozens of families and quaint nurseries full of tender young plants. We've been to musty antique stores and spendy children's boutiques, and to roaring waterfalls and quiet woods and the very lake responsible for our charming "lake-effect" snow storms.

These are some of the most precious days I've known, the two of us wandering the world together, cherishing this time before the dream of our hearts comes true and everything changes forever. In just about five months, our daughter will be here. I can hardly wait! We are so lucky. We are so blessed.

Being pregnant on Mother's Day is a vastly different experience from being not-pregnant on Mother's Day. I was wished "Happy Mother's Day" and "Happy Almost-Mother's Day" several times by strangers, acquaintances, and relatives. The belly has definitely let me into the club. Other mothers notice me and smile, like we're sharing a secret. And I got presents this year, too. Or rather, the baby got presents, including this flannel comforter made by a friend. It may be intended for the baby, but the cats have voiced their opinion on who really owns it. I suspected that this was how it would be with anything for the baby that came into the house. After all, the cats seem to own just about everything around here, as is right and proper in the world of cats.

Just around the bend from this meadow and lake lies a little town called New Hope. It was cool and quiet as we passed through it; though the spring sun was shining brightly, a chill breeze was blowing. It was very symbolic as to how I feel about Mother's Day this year. The wounds of last year's Mother's Day are not too buried to be forgotten. I was grieving the lost babies, bewildered that I'd miscarried so many times already, counting down the days to the June 6 due date I dreaded. I don't think I'll view Mother's Day as purely and innocently as I once did--not now that I know how painful it is for the mothers who have lost children, the mothers who have miscarried, the mothers who are still waiting, still longing for their babies to come to them. We passed through New Hope and I said a prayer for them all--for the ones I know and love, and for the ones I don't know, but whose suffering I know so well--that their hearts may be made peaceful today and all days, and that their children will make their way home soon.

Hope Springs Eternal

Last September, we moved into our new home. I had plans for this home, the first house--not apartment--my husband and I would live in. I was going to refinish some hand-me-down furniture we have, and I was going to plant a wonderful garden, starting with bulbs that would bloom in the spring. Crocuses, hyacinths, tulips--all of my favorites. And I would know, all winter long, that they were sleeping in the dark, cold soil, waiting to awake with the first light and warmth of spring.

I also had dreams for this home--dreams that included the empty set of adjoining rooms that I quietly, privately, and only in my heart called "the day nursery" and "the night nursery."

Then came October, and slowly and surely, the downward spiral started. A sense of looming dread; a feeling of doom; a deep and terrifying panic that literally took my breath away. There wasn't really a good reason, at the time, for the panic. But it seeped into my whole self, body and soul, paralyzing me and tainting everything around me.

I sanded the furniture, but never painted or stained it. I didn't plant a single bulb. And the day nursery and night nursery became "the empty rooms," the door tightly closed so I wouldn't have to see their gaping emptiness.

In a matter of weeks, we found out the devastating news about my genetic mutation. Our dreams of parenthood seemed to slip farther away. And shortly after that, I marked the one-year anniversary of my 12-week miscarriage with my sixth miscarriage--the blood of which began our first foray into fertility treatments.

Did I know, in October, when the dread crept into my heart, what was coming? Not really; not officially. But I had already mused in my writings about the possibility of a genetic translocation; though I outwardly proclaimed that I didn't think that was our problem, the whispers were all around me. The innermost parts of me, I think, heard them. And through the short days, the thin winter light, the falling leaves, I felt guilty that I hadn't found the strength or the energy to plant those damn bulbs. Soon the ground was frozen. The opportunity was gone. I had missed the chance to bring a little beauty to the world--and to my life.

Then we got inexplicably lucky. The stars aligned for us to suddenly have IVF; my body performed beautifully; I got pregnant--really pregnant, not chemically pregnant--for the first time in 17 months. Despite the worry that the pregnancy was doomed and the tremendous physical strain the IVF, OHSS, and subsequent twin pregnancy put on my body, I was grateful every moment. The three weeks between losing one of the twins and getting the CVS results for the other were, quite possibly, the most agonizing of my life.

The stars that had somehow aligned for our IVF cycle worked their magic once again; we learned that I'm pregnant with our healthy, perfect daughter. Even writing that phrase brings tears to my eyes, and I've been rejoicing at this news for a month now.

And spring came, as spring always does. The knee-high drifts of snow melted; the grass grew again; the daylight lasted long into the evening; the breeze blew soft and warm. In other people's yards, bulbs bloomed with abandon. And in our yard, this happened:

We had crocuses, too, and daffodils, planted long before we moved in. All winter they slept, just under the surface; waiting to bloom. I thought I had lost my hope during those dark, painful days. But it, too, was sleeping, just under the surface, waiting to bloom when the time was right.

 

Goodbye, Sweetest Heart

The bad news has begun. Baby B has died.

I have felt all along that Baby B was a girl, so I will take the liberty of using "she"--it seems wrong to say "it," as if her time was so brief and so insignificant that she was just an inanimate object. She was real, and she lived the most that she could, and she was precious to my husband and me.

She let go of life very recently, within the last few days. I still *feel* her with me. I still feel her spirit and though I know it can't last, I cherish her presence.  I know that she would have lived if she could have. Her little heart fought to beat, and she tried to catch up in growth. It is my own fault, for giving her worthless genes that could never sustain the life she deserved to have.

The other one, who I think is a boy, appears strong and healthy. I would show you his picture, but it also contains the image of dead Baby B, so it feels right to keep it private. And it pains me to look at it. Baby A continues to grow, and his heartbeat is strong--156 bpm. We even got to hear his heartbeat yesterday, a first for my husband and me. D keeps marveling at that, but I think that if we lose this little one, too, the memory of hearing that whoosh-whoosh-whoosh will only make the loss harder to bear. I have decided to delay my next ultrasound until right before we leave for the CVS. Ultrasounds are nothing for me but embryo death-watch, and the lead up to them is stressful and upsetting even when they turn out well. Of course, we don't want to travel all the way for the CVS if our remaining little one has left us, so we'll do a quick heartbeat check before we go.

Nearly everyone wants me to focus on Baby A, but I can't. Why does the drama of death outweigh the miracle of life? I don't know, but I loved Baby B, and in my irrational heart I want the doctor to be wrong, wrong, wrong. I want this to be a terrible mistake and I want to undo time and I want to make it right.

While I slept yesterday afternoon, in an attempt to delay the inevitable grief, my husband investigated local prenatal massage, and when I awoke he made me a mint Oreo milkshake. I couldn't bear to let him see how much his kindness made me cry. Later, my mother knew all the right things to say while I wept on the phone. We have a complicated relationship, as mothers and daughters often do, yet in the darkest times she is always just right. I told her that I couldn't do this anymore, couldn't lose my babies one after another, couldn't bear to claw my way out of the misery of miscarriage one more time. And she said: You can. You can. You are the strongest woman I know, and you can survive this, and whatever happens next.

So now I am moving, slow and coma-like, through the next two weeks. Ten days to ultrasound, 13 days to CVS, 14 days to results. At the end, the waiting and wondering will be over. We will either rejoice, or begin the long, slow process of loss and of grief. Whatever lies in store, I will be grateful that the limbo is over.

March: Not for the Faint of Heart

March is here! March. February slipped away as the exhaustion and nausea of the first tri dominated my days and nights. But now it's March, the month when I will either miscarry, or be More Pregnant Than Ever Before. It's the month when I will undergo CVS, a test I wouldn't have dreamed of having before I learned of the high risk of fatal genetic disorders for my offspring. It's the month when I will find out if the twins are healthy. It's the month when I may have to face some of my greatest fears, and make decisions that will lie heavy on my heart for the rest of my life.

At my 7w3d ultrasound on Monday, we had a bit of a scare. Baby A was measuring wonderfully, with a good heartbeat. Baby B was small--by 4 days--and had no perceptible heartbeat. The mood from the RE and the NP was not optimistic, but they told us to come back in a few days for a re-check. I could barely absorb the good news about Baby A; the fiercest mama instincts awoke in me. I tried to brace myself for any outcome, but I refused to give up on Baby B.

I didn't want to have the ultrasound two days later; I thought it was a bit of a waste since it could easily be inconclusive. But I diligently went back, and to our delight Baby B had grown two days' worth, and there was the faintest flicker of a heartbeat on the screen! It was weak and slow and hard to see, but I figured we could cut that little heart some slack. After all, it had just started beating. And there was Baby A, who had also grown, whose heart was beating more brightly than before. It was a good, good ultrasound--though I know we're not out of the woods; not by a long shot. Other women can cling to that oft-quoted statistic of miscarriage risk dropping to 5% after seeing the heartbeat. But not me. I've had good ultrasounds before, only to face miscarriage weeks later.

So we take tentative, quiet doses of joy and hope these days, in between the worry and the fear and the relentless maladies of a twin pregnancy. The time is coming when the biggest questions will be answered; the secrets that lie within my babies' chromosomes will be revealed; the fate of this pregnancy will become known. Until then, we hope for the best, knowing too well that we may face the worst.

Jinx!

It took three days and the encouragement of some very good friends for me to screw up the courage to schedule my CVS appointment. It just seemed so presumptuous of me to assume I would be pregnant at ten weeks! But the doctor I want to perform the procedure is one of the best and most experienced in NYC, and I know she books up fast. So I gritted my teeth at a mere five weeks, three days and scheduled the appointment. Even though we hadn't officially seen a sac yet. And on some strange burst of intuition, I had them schedule a twin CVS which takes more time than a singleton CVS.

I felt a lot of relief after I booked the appointment. I mean, it's not like I ordered nursery furniture or anything. It's a vital prenatal test for me to have and it has to be scheduled during a small window of time. Booking the appointment was absolutely the right, smart thing to do.

But sometimes I think that I've jinxed myself by booking the test, and by a hundred other tiny moments that should be mine by rights, but have been marred by all my miscarriages. I know how tenuous these early days weeks are (can I say that now? Weeks? I think I can!). A friend with fertility problems once described it as "the tricky first tri," and that phrase is never far from my mind. I'm very ill this time around, and I even worry that experiencing the pregnancy on such a deep physical level will jinx me. Shouldn't I not think about it? Dream about it? Won't it only become real by pretending it doesn't exist?

But then I think: no. After all, Tinkerbell was saved by the applause of children who believed. And the Velveteen Rabbit became real because he was so very loved. Fervent belief and bottomless love are not in short supply around here.

So I continue to embrace my pregnancy and all the potential that each bright day holds. Sometimes there is fear; there is worry; there is the icy edge of anticipated grief gnawing at my heart. But there are also baby names that randomly drift through my mind. There is the package of three new maternity t-shirts that I bought (on clearance), since my usual shirts already fail to cover my belly. There is the peek into the room meant to be the nursery, which was bitterly dubbed the Empty Room for months, and a vision of two cribs! I was bold enough to imagine two cribs!

That's an awful lot of potentially jinxing behavior. Well, at least if things go wrong, I can spread the blame around.

Snippets

• I am six weeks, four days pregnant. Every day feels like a small and special victory. It's hard to believe that my CVS will be in less than a month.
• I have daily bloody noses, but no spotting or bleeding, which is delightful.
• My father now calls me 2-3 times a week, instead of 2-3 times a month. Last night he said, "So you feel nauseous a few times a week?" Ah ha ha ha ha ha! No, Dad, every blessed moment of every blessed day.
• My mother saw a pretty appalling picture of me that was taken recently and told me that I'd never looked more beautiful.
• I always wanted to be so healthy about what I put in my body during pregnancy. Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Cherry Coke is one of the few reliable products that settles my stomach. Other surprising favorite foods: sorbet, grapefruit juice, scrambled eggs, chips and salsa, and sweet potatoes.
• The local market has been out of sourdough bread the last two times D has shopped there. I need my sourdough bread, dammit! I want buttered toast more than anything.
• Constant, non-stop illness has made me more bitchy and needy than I've ever been before. I'm not proud of this, and D has the patience of a saint. I haven't found a way to really explain to him what it's like to need to eat X food IMMEDIATELY, and that anything that interferes will prompt tears or a tantrum. It may be one of those things men just can't understand, and who can blame them? I don't know if I would have been able to understand before.
• My current odds: 25% chance both babies will be healthy; 50% chance that one will be healthy; 25% chance that neither will be healthy. I think it's entirely possible to fall in the first category, and that is what I'm hoping and praying for.
• Each day I wonder, "Is it today? Will their hearts start beating today?"
• Each day I remind myself that this miracle is not so great the higher power can't handle it.

Who Deserves A Baby?

Last night I dreamed that I was on a reality show called Who Deserves A Baby? Undoubtedly this dream was spurred on by the Starbucks "The Way I See It #208" Cup, which reads:

I wish couples who desperately take every means to conceive a child would realize that adoption is a wonderful alternative. A child who becomes your child through adoption completes a family. Just as when you commit to your spouse or partner there are no biological ties, yet a family was formed. This child enters a family the same way! It is not blood and flesh that form a family, but the heart.

I can't agree more with the majority of that quote. It's the first sentence, so dripping with judgment, that really bakes my potato (as my folksy Southern husband would say). There are many excellent critiques of this cup all over the blogosphere, so all I'll add is, Screw You, Starbucks.

Anyway, I heard about #208 yesterday and it made me pretty sad, as one of those selfish and desperate infertile women who selfishly and desperately pursued assisted reproductive technology instead of skipping down the golden path to adoption, which is paved with marshmallows, by the way. I know it's hard to believe, but for us ART was significantly cheaper and less involved than pursuing adoption right now. Not that I'm defensive. Not that I need to explain myself to strangers on the Internets or coffee-cup pundits.

But! Back to my dream! So there was this brand-new reality show called Who Deserves A Baby? and I was one of several sad, driven women who were forced to compete to prove their maternal worthiness. This was a very complicated dream. For example, in one task I had to remodel and manage a store that sold maternity clothing, and I had the brilliant idea of putting toilets in the dressing room--probably because these days, I spend more time in the bathroom than out of it. Now that I am awake, I'm rather grossed out by toilet/dressing rooms--but again, I digress.

I'm sure you can see where this is going. In one of the rounds, the women were judged in a mocking, scathing way. I lost points for wearing the same outfit three times in one week (true) and for failing to style my hair (also true). I also lost points for being overemotional and gaining weight (again, true and true). The whole element of judgment reduced me to a whimpering puddle of tears. I was so upset I even called a meeting with Amanda Peet, who (in my dream) reprised her role as Jordan from the abominable Studio 60. Even though I tried, tried with all my heart, I couldn't make anyone understand how painful infertility is--and my best efforts were mocked in the final cut of the show.

So where does this leave me? Well, I'm laughing at my crazy dream, and dreading the day that a variation on this "show" becomes an actual part of network programming. But more than that, I'm feeling vulnerable and defensive, and realizing just how deeply infertility has marked my soul. The desire for a child is such a primal one; how can we ever discount its power?

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Well, enough of my dreamscapes. I am six weeks and one day pregnant. With twins! Here they are:

I know it's not much to see yet--but the sacs are the perfect size, and look just right. We're hoping for a heartbeat TWO heartbeats (!) at my next prenatal visit in 9 days. D and I are so excited, even though it's a long, long road ahead of us. But I'll post more about that later.

Took a belly picture yesterday, since I'm feeling all puffed out. No doubt my giant, cyst-studded ovaries are helping with the bulk. Unfortunately I had to crop out my head because I look like death warmed over, what with the dark circles under my eyes and utter exhaustion seeping from every pore. Also I was having a bad hair day. And, oh yeah, Internet privacy and all. But here I am!

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I will try to be better about posting. I've been thinking a lot about where to go with this blog. When I started it, I never dreamed I'd get pregnant so quickly, and most of the time I'm so nervous and exhausted and exhilarated and nauseous that the posts I'd write would bore you to tears. And I'm just feeling so earnest these days. There's not much funny about earnest, you know? I mean, the other thing I could post about is what I eat every day, which is of vast interest to me but probably not the rest of the world. So please bear with me while I figure this out. Mwa!