I'm pregnant...now what?

I spent a great many years wondering what it would be like to join the Pregnant Girls Club. I imagined the first time I saw a plus sign on that stupid pee stick. I envisioned telling our family and later, making some sort of cute announcement on social media or at least a card sharing our news with close friends. But that was really as far as I ever got. As an infertile, you never want to get too far down the road of a pregnancy fantasy, because you live in reality...a reality where a pregnancy may never happen. I never wanted to imagine what symptoms I'd encounter, or how hard being pregnant would be. I just wanted the pregnancy, and I'd deal with the rest as it came.

Well, the rest has officially arrived. 

(Before I continue, I want to say, I realize this started out as an infertility blog and is now sort of morphing into more of a pregnancy blog. I didn't plan for that to happen, and I want to be cognizant of my Twitter and bloggy friends who are still struggling with getting pregnant. So if I ever come off whiney (as I'm afraid I will in this blog), please feel free to skip reading the post. I won't be offended, I promise.

On the flip side, once you join the Pregnant Girls Club (and I so have never ending hope that you will), you may want to come back and read these posts, because I promise they will be relevant.)

So...here is my list of things I never thought about when I was struggling to get pregnant, but which are front and center now. Oy.

1. Pardon me while I sleep

Oh my heavens, the tiredness. And I thought being an infertile was exhausting. I basically wake up, take a shower, and then fall asleep with a curling iron in my hair. The other day at work, I almost fell asleep mid sentence in a conversation with a co-worker. I'm a lucky ducky in that I work from home a lot and can catch a quick cat nap one or twice during the day. How do 8-5 peeps do it? Good God.

2. Feed Me

At 8 weeks in, I'm starting to wonder just how much weight I'm going to gain because HOLY CRAP I'M HUNGRY. I'm not being vain, I'm seriously concerned here. All I want is crackers and cheese and mozzarella sticks. When does that "healthy intuition" start to kick in?

3. The fear

As an infertile, I lived in a constant state of mind-numbing fear. What if the IVF didn't work? What if it did? How are we going to come to grips with the fact that we can't get pregnant if it comes to that? I spent so much time worrying about not getting pregnant, that it never occurred to me that it might actually happen.

Basically I've traded one set of fears for a whole new set.

Front and center is, am I doing everything right? I mean, yesterday I forgot to take my progesterone insert. Could that cause something really bad? I basically sit awake and night and wait for the other shoe to drop and find out this isn't really happening after all. 

4. Do's and Dont's

Here's one thing I miss about infertility: the certainty of what you could and couldn't do. Caffeine? No. Booze? Forget it. Do you want IVF to work, Kim? Then you darn well better do these things and not do these things. Concrete, solid instructions.

With pregnancy, research is like jello. It moves around constantly depending on who you speak to. Some docs tell you sushi once a month is fine. Others tell you sushi will cause your baby to come out looking like a deranged octopus. My friend's doctor told her she can eat deli meat. My "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book says no way. Some articles say caffeine is awful. Other say it's fine. 

Infertile Kim is used to being told very clearly what she should or shouldn't do. Those days are long gone.

5. We accept credit cards

You all know know full well how much infertility costs. Well, that doesn't go away when you finally get pregnant. Doc visits, more blood work, prescriptions...it still goes on and on. Granted, more of it is covered by insurance (thank sweet baby Jesus), but it's still a constant depletion of funds. Don't get me wrong, we are happy to be paying for the baby to grow healthy rather than continuing to pay for the hope we can get one to grow. But it's still a shock.

6. That support you needed all along? It finally shows up.

Once we got pregnant and told those close family and friends who knew about our infertility struggle, I couldn't believe how supportive everyone suddenly got. People who wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole all of a sudden were so very concerned with how I was doing, how I'm feeling, etc. Those that couldn't sit still for 10 minutes to hear about my uterine biopsy were constantly asking what's going on. WHERE WERE YOU FOR THE LAST 4 YEARS? The reality is, dealing with a pregnant person is much less risky than dealing with an infertile. Infertile's are volatile, moody, and in a constant state of flux. For pregnant women, we're still all those things, but your friend can always just throw out "OMG, you're having a baby!" if things get weird. You can't do that with an infertile. Blurg.

7. What in the holy feck is happening in there?

I'm lucky that I'm still relatively symptom free. Yes, I'm super tired and want to eat anything that begins with ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY or Z, but I don't really feel pregnant. But still, occasionally I feel something and I'm all, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Apparently this will get much worse before it gets better. And there's no way to prepare for it. For example, I'll just be sitting there having lunch with a co-worker, talking about budgets for the year, and BAM, it feels like something lit my vagina on fire for 15 seconds or so. Try smiling through that one.

Or there will be a random cramp in my stomach that makes me go, "Oh damn, ow!" It makes for an interesting conversation with that co-worker since she has no idea I'm pregnant. My go-to excuse lately as been, "Gas. I get a little gas from time to time. Gas." (Yes, that was a Ghost reference.)

8. Can we just TELL already?

Here's the irony. You wait for 4 years to get pregnant, then it finally happens...and you can't tell anyone. It's torture. I want to shout it from the rooftops and write about it in a blog (heh heh). I just want everyone to know so they can stop speculating about why Kim is such a frickin' roller coaster of emotions lately. Does she need a Xanax?

In the meantime, I'm not showing, but I also don't look so amazing. I feel bloated and my boobs hurt (hello, progesterone), but I can't explain that to anyone because they just say, "yeah, that's called PMS. Get over it." 

Fun times.

I totally understand that I sound like the biggest party pooper in the world. My infertiles out there who aren't pregnant yet are like, "Get your shit together, Kim! You're pregnant. I would DIE to be pregnant." 

I totally get it. I was in the same boat a few weeks ago. I swore to any God who was listening that I would never complain about anything if I could just get pregnant. I made all sorts of promises that I basically broke the minute that stick said "pregnant". The truth is, there's just no way of knowing how it feels until it happens.

I am so immensely happy, while at the same time terrified and pissed off and nervous and tired and energized. On any given day, my mood swings are as predictable as a slot machine. 

****

To all my infertiles that are still praying for the day their pee stick shows good news, keep hanging in there. I haven't forgotten what it's like. I'm still there with you, hoping with you, and virtually holding your hand. Don't give up.

XOXO,