The Quickening

To me, the quickening was always that cool bit in The Highlander when some fellow gets his head chopped off and the surviving warrior gets to consume all of his life’s force in one, very 80s display of special effects and long, flowing, quite possibly permed hair.

But no, it seems the quickening is yet another thing about pregnancy I did not know.

It’s the moment when you feel the baby move for the first time.

My Up the Duff guide to pregnancy says something along the lines of “You may laugh, you may cry, you may do both at once” when this happens.

I didn’t do either because I couldn’t really tell you when it dawned on me that it was finally happening, only that it was recently. 

The book’s author, Kaz Cooke, says this might be the case; that you’ll probably think it’s just gas for a while, especially if you’re a first time pregnant lady.

It is a bit like a gentle popping against your insides. I’ve been waiting, a little desperately, for this sign that there is indeed something living in there – in between every set of scans I have these horrible dreams, or fully awake moments, where I don’t believe there is.

Last night I dreamt I was hiking with three others in the highlands of Cuba (are there even highlands in Cuba? I do not know). For some reason I was walking without boots, and when I stepped in some mud and realised I had better put them on, I couldn’t find them anywhere. One of my hiking partners lent me some sneakers and I had just got one on my right foot when a girl appeared out for nowhere asking us for photographic IDs. And suddenly, for no reason in particular, we realised that we were on the run. But I didn’t have time to get my left sneaker on before we made a dash for it. Which is when I woke up, looked at my belly, which my hairdresser told me yesterday was very small for five months, and felt sure that there was no baby in there at all.

This seems to fit into the general pattern of anxiety dreams that is common amongst preggos, and, I can attest, IFers.

Anyway, this feeling lasted through the morning, until, as I tapped away on my laptop catching up on yet more work (as I should be doing now), I felt a few light pops inside. And I realised that I hadn’t imagined it all, after all. It was as if Lola (we are trying out this name) was tapping out, in morse code, “Don’t be such a nutter. Here I am”.

No special effects, decapitations or dramatic soundtrack, but thrilling, in its own, quiet way.

 

Magic 8 ball

I can see how a person could be her usual productive self while doing IVF shots, but apparently that’s not me. I fall apart.

Both times now the stimulation cycle has turned me into an obsessive, scatterbrained ball of misery.

I keep cruising Google like it’s a magic 8 ball, I think because I am so used to Google having the answer. I want to plug in “Will I have a baby?” And see the answer spring up magically: “Why yes, you will have a charming healthy baby who sleeps well has your eyes and Rufus’s mouth”.

“When will I have a baby?”

“This very cycle, even now that egg is growing nicely. No need to worry dear.”

“Will my career fall apart while I am trying to have a baby?”

“It already is dear, you really better sign off now and go do some work.”

I don’t know why I’m imagining that Google has a kindly, fatherly voice like that; maybe it’s because I could do with a kindly fatherly presence right now. My own kindly father is far away over the seas, and Rufus has been traveling since I started the injections.

Because I work from home I don’t have to face a crowd of people every day and brazen this thing out. Instead I sit here in my home office never getting anything done because all I can think about is whether this cycle is going to work.

I hate waiting. Always have. I churn through novels at a disturbing pace because I HAVE to know what happened as soon as possible. I am a terrible speeder behind the wheel. I am always always thinking, what’s next? I’m self aware enough to kow this is not a great quality in me, that I should have found a way to join the “live each moment” brigade long before now.

Nothing has challenged this flaw of mine like IVF has. It’s unbearable for me to not know how many follies I have, or how many eggs are in the follies, and so on. I find it hard to stop thinking about the whole thing, even though I am doing all that can be done.

Circle and Bloom’s guided meditations have been helpful in getting me to calm down, but they don’t come easy to me. My mind still flits around, in panic mode.

I’m going to do another one now, and the buckle down and do some work. I swear it. Today is the first day since we started IVF2 that I don’t feel miserable and afraid, and I want to make the most of it.

PS – Went to see Dr E at the crack of dawn for another shot in the belly. You know, I didn’t even look at what it was this time. Cetrotide tonight and tomorrow night, and then trigger shot of pregnyl at 10.30pm Sat night. No salsa for me. And the pregnyl is an intramuscular butt shot. Yikes.

Dr E is v relaxed. This cycle has been so different from my first. New drugs of course, but also much less time shuttling to and from clinics. The first time I had blood tests every second day at least, as well as ultrasounds.

This time I saw Dr E on Day one, Day five, Day seven, and we will do egg retrieval on Day 10. I’ve only had blood drawn once! And three ultrasounds. As of today there are six follies at around 16-18. He is optimistic we will get a better fertilisation rate this time. I hope so.

We have moved!

Hubbub posts can now be found at:  bubhub.wordpress.com #mce_temp_url#

It’s a more logical address – the last one was a typo! Thanks for reading and apologies for any inconvenience

I am a sad puppy

Sad again.

I took a pregnancy test this morning, after my period was late a day, and ….. nothing. Negative. Zip. Nada. Zero.

I digested the news bravely, I thought, and then a tormenting thought crept into my brain – maybe I AM pregnant but not sufficiently hormone charged yet for it to show up. Google told me this had happened before to countless women. But then again, Google will tell you pretty much anything you want to hear.

I got my period tonight, two days late, which is unusual for me.

And now it’s late and I’m at home alone because Rufus is traveling, and I would really like to put my head in that crook of his shoulder and feel his arms around me and just breathe in and out for a little bit.

Yoga

The only time I ever tried yoga it was with a glamorous gay friend who took me to his glamorous mostly gay class – I ended up scrabbling about like an injured frog in a forest of beautiful men doing perfect head stands.

Four years later I’m getting ready to go to another yoga class, because anything is better than having the time to think about whether or not I am pregnant. All the mental games and bargaining with the universe are doing my head in. My period is due today, it’s not here, and I am planning to take a test tomorrow morning, all things going well. In the meantime I’m flickering between telling myself there’s no way I’m pregnant (because if I am won’t that be a lovely surprise, and if I’m not maybe I won’t be so sad if I’ve already accepted it), and silently pleading with the universe to please please please let me be pregnant.

An hour of thinking about breathing and bending myself into awkward positions can’t really hurt. Wish me luck.

A ride on the sad train

Maybe I am not pregnant after all. I got a familiar sensation this morning, kind of like the cramp you feel before you have cramps, and it made me think it’s not going to work this month either.

I really can’t cope with the rhythm of trying to get pregnant – two weeks waiting, trying not to think about it but actually thinking about nothing else. And then a day or two of feeling disconsolate, sad and a little hopeless, before a week or so of enjoying life before it starts up all over again.

The sad train seems to have left the station a little early this month – I don’t know definitively yet that I am not pregnant, but I sad nevertheless.

Pregnant thoughts

I really think I’m pregnant. I feel strangely happy and calm even though I have waaaaay too much work today and I’m late meeting my deadline. Is that a pregnancy symptom? And my breasts are definitely bigger. Do they get bigger straight away?

Tech baby

Three days left. That’s what my nifty Period Tracker! itouch application tells me.

In three more days, if I don’t get my period, I can take a pregnancy test. I look at it several times a day, as if I think somehow it’s going to speed up and say “Oh what they hey, take a test now”. Its cheerful little screen gives me hope. Cruel hope.

While I’m messing about willing it to speed up time, I can fiddle with its other options and record my moods (I was “in love” for 28.3 per cent of last week apparently, and “stressed” and “anxious” for 14.3 per cent of the week apiece.) In my defence I AM in the middle of a big work project, and hope to be more “in love” next week, and possibly “energised”, “flirty” and “refreshed as well. If that magic test says yes, I will probably be able to add “amazed”, “elated”, “joyful” and “spun out” to the list.

I can also record my symptoms – acne (no thankfully), backaches, bloating, constipation, cramps, cravings, headaches, nausea are all there – it’s a Lollapalooza of misery. Except the weird thing about wanting to be pregnant is that any symptom remotely related to pregnancy is welcome – I am actually secretly thrilled these days if my breasts are sore or I feel like throwing up. And to see it all charted out nicely is even better.

Then there is a notes section, which is brilliant for recording all of the mysterious information my doctors imparts to me on my visits – width of uterus lining, radius of ovary, which day I’m allowed to have sex, etc.

It’s a lot better than “Maybe baby” another application which ireally just gives you a very vague generalised window for fertility based on averages.

Ain’t got no discipline

I blame Facebook. And Google. And Greatstufftv. And my itouch. And my smartphone. Over the past few years I have quietly developed a common modern malady that has no name yet as far as I know. It’s a nervous, twitchy, unfocused, technology-related form of attention deficit disorder. I am irritable, overwhelmed by the sea of information out there and the sense that I can never keep pace with it – I am sunk before I even begin.

My nervous twitch – almost involuntary these days – is that flick of a button to check my facebook or email.

It’s harder and harder to just focus on one thing at a time. An article I saw this week said this was partly down to narcissism – my picture is on Facebook, therefore I am. (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20016136-501465.html)

No one likes ot think of themselves as a narcissist, but I do admit to a flush of pleasure when my friends like one of my posts, or send me a picture where I am looking lovely (the bad pictures are quickly de-tagged). But I don’t think that’s it in my case.

You see, I am a journalist. I am a nosy parker by nature and by profession. It’s my JOB to know what’s going on in a certain corner of the world, and every gmail alert with a rival’s take on my patch has the potential to send me into a spiral of self-doubt and self-loathing. Blogs have the same power to unsettle me – a constant churn of information direct from the water fountain to you, dear reader. No lawyers, no filtering, no lengthy delays while a far-off editor decides if your story should run today or tomorrow, or at half the length, or with a whole new angle that actually has very little to do with what’s happening on the ground.

And now I have a new addiction in the virtual world – this blog, where I can indulge my fears and hopes while I try to have a baby. Things I don’t want to share with too many  friends in the real world, because it could get very boring very quickly. So here I am, with six stories to go before tomorrow night’s deadline, and all I can do is stray onto this blog, sneak peek at Facebook, and check the latest news headlines every time I get a little “stuck” with the flow of my writing.

So as of right now I am making a Saturday September 11 2010 pledge: no Facebook, no blog, no Rizzoli & Isles or True Blood or Rookie, until the last story is filed. Lord, give me strength.

Twinges

My body has been working quite nicely for 38 years now and I have one of those relentlessly hardy constitutions that rarely requires any adjustment or tinkering. I never paid much attention to the gurglings, twinges and machinations of my innards before now, when every sensation and symptom is suddenly laden with meaning.

Could that sharp twinge I just felt on the left lower abdomen by implantation? They say sometimes you can feel the little bubble of fertilised cells burrowing into the lining of your womb for the long haul.

Could that headache be related to a surge in pregnancy related hormones? It happens to some women.

I am not sure if my body had so many symptoms to interpret before, when I was merely getting on with life and hoping I wouldn’t have period cramps this time around.

Which actually brings up a good point. Can ABSENCE of symptoms mean pregnancy?! Usually a week out from P-day I have at least one day of feeling generally crappy, super fatigued, and with a strange sort of throbbing pain/cramp situation.

I haven’t had that yet. What does it all mean?!

Only six more days till I found out.

Only