Today would have been the due date for our little poppyseed. I would like to say that I've spent the last nine months happily anticipating getting pregnant again, or even that I am pregnant again. But that's not the case. It's been nine months since the miscarriage and 19 months since we started trying to conceive. I've had "feelings" like I should have been pregnant during certain cycles, but my cycle keeps chugging along.
Around August, I started doing a LOT of research into things that supposedly helped increase fertility and your chances of getting pregnant. I still have 6 boxes of green tea packets in my cabinet. I ate a gazillion ounces of dried goji berries (which really don't taste that great, by the way) and tried an herb called Vitex for a few months. I started weekly acupuncture. I've been charting my basal body temperature (BBT) every morning before I get out of bed and peeing on ovulation predictor kit (OPK) strips, and I even went so far as to check my cervical mucus daily for a few cycles (not the most fun or least icky thing I've ever done).
I also went to a new OB/GYN, who I loved at first impression!, who had recommended the charting and OPKs. After a visit in November, he said that my charts looked good, like I was ovulating every cycle, and that I shouldn't have a reason to not be pregnant eventually. "Come back to see me in May if you're not pregnant by then," he said.
What do I have to show for all this crazy fertility-increasing hoop-jumping I've done? Well, the acupuncture actually seems to have helped. This is somewhat to my surprise; I wasn't raised with much knowledge about Eastern medicine. My cycle has lengthened from 21 days to approximately 30 days; ovulation seems to occur between cycle days 15-18. I now know that my BBT is on the lower end in general (I've never had a regular temperature above 98 degrees unless I was sick anyway) and that I can see both when I ovulated and when I'll get my period based on what my chart is doing. (For someone with somewhat irregular cycles, it's nice to know when to stock up on feminine products.) In some ways, as my hopefulness has dwindled these past few months, my acupuncturist has become more eager to see me pregnant. He's probably more excited when I tell him that I ovulated and am waiting for the luteal phase to finish than I am!
As I sit here in the old wooden rocking chair given to us by my mother-in-law, in the room that should have been the baby's, with my feet propped on a cat scratching device, surrounded by my four fur-babies, I wonder how things would have been different had I not miscarried last May. In the least, the cats would have had a rude awakening that they were not Numero Uno in the house anymore.
I still mourn our baby. I've mourned it for nine months. People have noticed I haven't been myself. Some of my fellow message board posters on Weight Watchers Online have noticed that I haven't had my head in the weight loss "game" since I miscarried (obviously I had put that on hold when I became pregnant, but I tried to start losing again when some time had passed after the miscarriage). I've tried reading other miscarriage blogs; I've tried getting up the energy to write about how I was feeling on this blog. Nothing helps quell the feelings inside me, not even my weekly teary-eyed visits to church. Instead, I have been trying to picture this baby bouncing on my grandfather's knee up in heaven. When he passed in October, my aunt told me his death meant three babies were to be born. I had told her out loud that I hoped it wasn't three at one time to a single person, but right now I would happily take triplets over this dismal feeling that I won't or can't get pregnant again.
I always said, "Whatever happens, happens," when it comes to having a baby. That doesn't mean I haven't hoped, prayed, begged God about it, though. It's in His hands, this whole baby venture. No matter how resolutely I promise the baby will turn out to be a priest or a nun or a Catholic missionary (which sounds a little humorous right now), we haven't conceived again.
At the moment, I'm in the middle of what is called "The Two Week Wait," the time between ovulation and your next cycle. Let me tell you, for someone who has never been notoriously patient, this is the toughest time each cycle for me. The only thing I can do during this time is hand the decision over to God. I don't let my hopes get too high anymore. I don't take pregnancy tests every day hoping to see two lines. I don't talk about it with my husband. I just wait. It's not peaceful and it's not easy, but I do it. Seven more days to find out which way I'm blessed: a new cycle or a new baby.
In the meantime, Happy Birthday to my little poppyseed.
